Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard: Difference between revisions
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::[[User:Dennis Brown|Dennis]], I can entirely understand his failure to disclose back then (I see you've adopted the same mountain out of a molehill phrase as me). But now in 2024, we're bound by current rules. What concerns me, a lot, is that when Sagflaps asked, he didn't say "You know, now that I think about it, you have a point" and fix the omission at that point. Issue defused—consensus and procedures change—and we might even have been able to keep the article. But it's more than wasting the community's time (hell, all noticeboard discussions waste some time). I'm weighing in here because of the accountability issue (under 2024 rules). He's fallen well below my expectations on that. [[User:Yngvadottir|Yngvadottir]] ([[User talk:Yngvadottir|talk]]) 09:16, 23 February 2024 (UTC) |
::[[User:Dennis Brown|Dennis]], I can entirely understand his failure to disclose back then (I see you've adopted the same mountain out of a molehill phrase as me). But now in 2024, we're bound by current rules. What concerns me, a lot, is that when Sagflaps asked, he didn't say "You know, now that I think about it, you have a point" and fix the omission at that point. Issue defused—consensus and procedures change—and we might even have been able to keep the article. But it's more than wasting the community's time (hell, all noticeboard discussions waste some time). I'm weighing in here because of the accountability issue (under 2024 rules). He's fallen well below my expectations on that. [[User:Yngvadottir|Yngvadottir]] ([[User talk:Yngvadottir|talk]]) 09:16, 23 February 2024 (UTC) |
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*[[User:Yngvadottir|Yngvadottir]] mentioned double standards. Well let us '''not''' apply them as a couple of people are doing, then.<p>How would we treat use of the ordinary editing tool in this manner if it were a person that did not have any extra tools? I know what I would do, because it is what I have done for ''years'', which is point to [[User:Uncle G/On notability#Writing about subjects close to you]] and observe that [[Special:Diff/828998968]] is completely contrary to that, citing ''the company's own wiki'' as a source. (Even if one grants that in practical terms {{plainlink|1=https://www.xmswiki.com/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&limit=500|2=only company employees can edit the wiki}}, citing a wiki that is "user-supported" and {{plainlink|1=https://www.xmswiki.com/index.php?title=Special:CreateAccount|2=apparently open to all}} is ''by itself'' a well-settled poor choice for sourcing, let alone combining that with what I talk about which is citing a company's own WWW site, which of course that wiki is. And whatever the back-and-forth over conflict of interest standards as of 2017 may be, citing wikis and autobiographical sources where companies write about themselves has been regarded as poor practice since ''years before'' I wrote [[Special:Diff/66348491]] in 2006.)<p>I would definitely ask Nihonjoe what on Earth xe thought that xe was doing removing the ''Journal of Hydrology'' (peer-reviewed, Elsevier), the ''Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics'' (peer-reviewed, CUP/SAEA), and ''Sedimentary Geology'' (peer-reviewed, Elsevier) and replacing them with the company's wiki. But I certainly have never called for the Arbitration Committee to remedy such a situation, in the ''many'' times that I have encountered people writing articles using the subject's own WWW sites. I'm not in favour of applying a double standard in that respect here.<p>As I said above, there is no evidence here of mis-use of any tool other than the tool that ''everyone'' has, or any indication of, or even logical scenario for, there being so. About the only scenario that I could dream up is the utterly outlandish one of a bureaucrat getting all of those company employees administrator accounts on this wiki, which has many practical difficulties on the English Wikiepdia (in contrast to the recent ''very different'' [[m:Requests for comment/Global ban for Kubura|situation on the Croatian Wikipedia with a bureaucrat]]). The trust issue is about the edit tool.<p>And when it comes to trust, certainly ''my'' trust has diminished slightly in editors who just parroted off-wiki accusations of sock-puppetry without looking into them, and who even went as far as to rail against going through things edit by edit. Someone who is unwilling to look conscientiously and diligently at an edit history in detail to work out the facts of a matter is someone who I think is the person whom we should be wary of entrusting advanced tools to. Let's avoid ''that'' double standard, too. How many times does the world have to be burned by bad World Wide Web Detectives before the caution to be wary sinks in?<p>I know that I for one (and I suspect many other administrators) have seen enough sock-puppeteers to know that a claim that account B ''waits 3 years'' and ''entirely undoes'' the edits of account A is a foundation for a claim of sock-puppetry that wouldn't pass muster at SPI. The person who adds content and cites peer-reviewed journals I for one would not conclude to be the same person as the person who removes that content and cites the company's wiki. (The only conclusions I might draw is that [[User:Edit42|Edit42]] was editing logged out at one point, and from deleted edits [[User:42of8|42of8]] definitely has some conflict of interest concerns and from talk page contributions such as [[Special:Diff/572217141]] has a ''far stronger'' behavioural connection to [[User:Edit42|Edit42]].) I'll let [[User:Beeblebrox|Beeblebrox]] and [[User:JzG|JzG]] (who even [[Special:Diff/754770853|edited the same article to remove predatory journals]] just like Nihonjoe) speak to the asinine idea that putting ''HHGTTG'' references in a username is grounds for drawing any conclusion at all.<p>[[User:Uncle G|Uncle G]] ([[User talk:Uncle G|talk]]) 09:21, 23 February 2024 (UTC) |
*[[User:Yngvadottir|Yngvadottir]] mentioned double standards. Well let us '''not''' apply them as a couple of people are doing, then.<p>How would we treat use of the ordinary editing tool in this manner if it were a person that did not have any extra tools? I know what I would do, because it is what I have done for ''years'', which is point to [[User:Uncle G/On notability#Writing about subjects close to you]] and observe that [[Special:Diff/828998968]] is completely contrary to that, citing ''the company's own wiki'' as a source. (Even if one grants that in practical terms {{plainlink|1=https://www.xmswiki.com/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&limit=500|2=only company employees can edit the wiki}}, citing a wiki that is "user-supported" and {{plainlink|1=https://www.xmswiki.com/index.php?title=Special:CreateAccount|2=apparently open to all}} is ''by itself'' a well-settled poor choice for sourcing, let alone combining that with what I talk about which is citing a company's own WWW site, which of course that wiki is. And whatever the back-and-forth over conflict of interest standards as of 2017 may be, citing wikis and autobiographical sources where companies write about themselves has been regarded as poor practice since ''years before'' I wrote [[Special:Diff/66348491]] in 2006.)<p>I would definitely ask Nihonjoe what on Earth xe thought that xe was doing removing the ''Journal of Hydrology'' (peer-reviewed, Elsevier), the ''Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics'' (peer-reviewed, CUP/SAEA), and ''Sedimentary Geology'' (peer-reviewed, Elsevier) and replacing them with the company's wiki. But I certainly have never called for the Arbitration Committee to remedy such a situation, in the ''many'' times that I have encountered people writing articles using the subject's own WWW sites. I'm not in favour of applying a double standard in that respect here.<p>As I said above, there is no evidence here of mis-use of any tool other than the tool that ''everyone'' has, or any indication of, or even logical scenario for, there being so. About the only scenario that I could dream up is the utterly outlandish one of a bureaucrat getting all of those company employees administrator accounts on this wiki, which has many practical difficulties on the English Wikiepdia (in contrast to the recent ''very different'' [[m:Requests for comment/Global ban for Kubura|situation on the Croatian Wikipedia with a bureaucrat]]). The trust issue is about the edit tool.<p>And when it comes to trust, certainly ''my'' trust has diminished slightly in editors who just parroted off-wiki accusations of sock-puppetry without looking into them, and who even went as far as to rail against going through things edit by edit. Someone who is unwilling to look conscientiously and diligently at an edit history in detail to work out the facts of a matter is someone who I think is the person whom we should be wary of entrusting advanced tools to. Let's avoid ''that'' double standard, too. How many times does the world have to be burned by bad World Wide Web Detectives before the caution to be wary sinks in?<p>I know that I for one (and I suspect many other administrators) have seen enough sock-puppeteers to know that a claim that account B ''waits 3 years'' and ''entirely undoes'' the edits of account A is a foundation for a claim of sock-puppetry that wouldn't pass muster at SPI. The person who adds content and cites peer-reviewed journals I for one would not conclude to be the same person as the person who removes that content and cites the company's wiki. (The only conclusions I might draw is that [[User:Edit42|Edit42]] was editing logged out at one point, and from deleted edits [[User:42of8|42of8]] definitely has some conflict of interest concerns and from talk page contributions such as [[Special:Diff/572217141]] has a ''far stronger'' behavioural connection to [[User:Edit42|Edit42]].) I'll let [[User:Beeblebrox|Beeblebrox]] and [[User:JzG|JzG]] (who even [[Special:Diff/754770853|edited the same article to remove predatory journals]] just like Nihonjoe) speak to the asinine idea that putting ''HHGTTG'' references in a username is grounds for drawing any conclusion at all.<p>[[User:Uncle G|Uncle G]] ([[User talk:Uncle G|talk]]) 09:21, 23 February 2024 (UTC) |
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* Nihonjoe did a stupid thing. The usual cabal of malignant griefers of course want him tarred and feathered, but a slap with the Wikitrout seems more appropriate. And Kashmiri does not come off well here, for obviously frivolous and vindictive AfD nominations. '''[[user:JzG|Guy]]''' <small>([[user talk:JzG|help!]] - [[User:JzG/Typos|typo?]])</small> 10:38, 23 February 2024 (UTC) |
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== Paid/COI editor consistent vandalism, needs to be blocked fast == |
== Paid/COI editor consistent vandalism, needs to be blocked fast == |
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Revision as of 10:38, 23 February 2024
Welcome — post issues of interest to administrators. |
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To start, this has been one of many attempts by a set of users to get the title "Draft" lowercase, going back to at least 2013. The most recent RM on the subject "National Football League Draft" occurred a few months ago and closed against lowercase being the title. A month ago, User:Dicklyon decided that "the large number of football-fan editors compared to the editors who want to respect our style guidelines" at RM was too great – something demonstrably false as a number of football editors supported lowercase – and so he decided to open up this village pump RFC in violation of WP:RFCNOT and prior consensus (not that he can't try again after a time, but it feels like its been happening over and over again – feels like a WP:STICK). The discussion was plainly a disaster; one of the worst and most disorderly proposals I've ever seen. First, not nearly enough notifications were sent out – e.g. NO relevant pages had a notice at the top as required by RM; the NFL project page received a notice but not the also-very active college football project; after the close, one of the most prominent football editors asked "When and where did that consensus happen?" and later noted that it seems "pretty sneaky."
At the discussion, a number of users pointed out that it was an inappropriate RFC and WP:FORUMSHOPPING, which was split out into its own section; by my count 11/15 out of the users commenting there said it was an inappropriate discussion. As demonstrated by the later WT:NFL discussion, a number of interested editors were discouraged from commenting due to the belief that it was going to be rejected as inappropriate. Furthermore, others were discouraged by the EXTREME AMOUNT of WP:BLUDGEONING from several lowercase supporters; User:Hey man im josh noted that three users combined had 192 comments. There is simply no way to come about a consensus when such extreme bludgeoning occurs. The amount of the discussion which was actually editors !voting was about 1/6, a number of which of those were "procedural close" comments. Hey man im josh gave an accurate description of the chaos in this comment; among other points, he noted that:
The validity of the discussion wasn’t established early on. There were a number of users who thought it was an inappropriate forum ... I think as a result some people didn’t participate or comment as much ...
Wikilawyering and bludgeoning the conversation to death was a significant reason why the discussion ended the way it did and I wish MOS discussions were better moderated to avoid these types of outcomes. “These type” being ones that are won by sheer number of comments and wearing people down ...
NFL Draft is absolutely (and clearly) a proper name of an event (in relevant sports sources, aside from ESPN, who is looking into their style guide based on an email I sent) but bludgeoning and wikilawyering has prevailed ...
There are inconsistencies in sources because most sources don't have a style guide they must adhere to, but that doesn't mean that downcasing is actually the proper result ...
It’s sometimes downcased in sources because sources themselves, which often consist of dozens of different writers, are not necessarily aware that it’s a proper name. This is a common problem for events, drafts particularly, that have self descriptive names which are also nouns ...
Inconsistency in sources doesn't mean that something’s not actually a proper name, despite what some are screaming from the rooftops ...
Some people refused to even consider the possibility of a proper name once the ngrams, which are notorious for lacking meaningful context, came out and showed an inconsistency (again, context is key) ...
Several people reached out to me privately to say that the discussion was such a trainwreck and drama filled that they weren’t participating ...
TL;DR: This discussion was an absolute disaster of a discussion – one of the worst I've ever seen. A large number of the participants didn't understand the terms of the proposal, many didn't comment because they thought it was inappropriate and going to be declined, not even close to enough notifications, zero notices on affected pages as required, SO MUCH BLUDGEONING, etc. etc. I could go on and on. But this really was a disastrous discussion to the point that no consensus could possibly be found in my opinion – even one of the supporters (User:Amakuru) later commented that they realized "This was a rare case ... where the raw numbers from ngrams didn't tell the whole story, there was decent evidence that capping could have been appropriate which was amply presented in last year's discussion, and without casting any bad faith ... this decision to go behind the back of the RM participants is a poor one." Whichever way this goes, we are willing to abide by the result (Hey man im josh has actually implemented some of the changes), but in my opinion, this really should be Overturned to no consensus. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:55, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
BTW - Am I seeing double? Why are some individuals commenting in both the uninvolved & involved subsections? Ya can't be both uninvolved & involved. GoodDay (talk) 20:00, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- GoodDay, if one is "involved", is one only allowed to respond to comments by others who are involved? And the same for "uninvolved"? I get that endorsements and overturns are to be segregated, but all responding comments too? It should also be noted that when this discussion was first created on Feb 16, and when I first commented the same day, the sections had more generic titles: "involved" and "involved". These have been refactored into "RFC non-participant" and "RFC participant", which has had the effect of placing my initial comments in the "RFC participant" section even though I was quite clear about the nature of my participation on this issue:
I'm not quite sure if I'm considered "involved" or not since I did not participate in this RFC, but I did participate in the 2023 RM and I am quoted above! I'll go with involved.
Given that, AirshipJungleman29's admonishment toward me and several other editors (I think the WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour should be taken seriously as a separate issue; it's no wonder this topic is so heated if five vastly experienced editors (Hey man im josh, BeanieFan11, Jweiss11, Bagumba, and SMcCandlish), with almost 1.2 million edits between them, can't even respect a basic involved/uninvolved division.
) comes off as rather Kafkaesque. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:44, 21 February 2024 (UTC)- When I made the sectioning I was more thinking to divide the overturn/endorse votes by those who were participants and those who were not; I didn't really see an issue in responding to comments in the other section. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:43, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
RFC Non-participant comments
- Endorse close the various bad-faith and/or factually-inaccurate complaints about the forum should be discounted completely. An RFC can change policy, and the sheer volume of complaints about the forum prove that there was sufficient notification. Once the "how dare you propose this" complaints are discounted, there is consensus for the move. 217.180.228.138 (talk) 01:59, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse close. This has been a contentious point for years. The RfC sought to resolve the debate and was well attended with spirited discussion on both sides. Having read through the debate, I conclude (a) a community-wide RfC (with input from both American football and MoS editors) was a good way to resolve the issue one way or the other, and (b) the closure by User:The Wordsmith was reasonable.As for the concern with "bludgeoning", both sides were quite active in their comments. Compare User:Randy Kryn from the "upper case" camp (31 edits) with User:SMcCandlish from the "lower case" camp (42 edits). I don't see that as a basis for overturning the close. Cbl62 (talk) 02:25, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
Bunch of extremely involved editors who should know better than to ignore sectioning ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:09, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
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- Endorse close. It is reasonable to bring discussions that have not reached consensus on the pages involved to a wider audience, especially when they concern application of a global guideline. The evidence and policy-backing was overwhelmingly for lowercase, so even if every gridiron editor was properly notified it shouldn't have made a difference (unless they all invoked IAR, with impeccable reasoning). And as Bagumba noted, it doesn't seem like football editors were all that concerned about "proper procedure" back when the RM for the 2016 NFL draft page resulted in all the draft pages being moved to uppercase without notification or RM notices being placed. JoelleJay (talk) 04:55, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- To be clear, JoelleJay is referring to my comments at the RfC, not here. For convenience, here are links to said 2016 RM and its move review.—Bagumba (talk) 05:31, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn close A bizarre end run around the RM process, that used a separate, poorly advertised RFC instead of a move review, or a new RM. The stated idea for why we needed this novel approach was because this was meant to set some sort of precedent, and yet the ending we get only applies to the NFL. RFCNOT is clear, and this was not the way to go about it. The amount of bludgeoning in that discussion, and every single discussion related to it cannot be overstated: the statistic page for the RfC is unlike anything I've ever seen before. Already, one user (who posted ten times more text than anyone else at the RFC) has posted more text in the "Uninvolved users" section than any one uninvolved user. This is absurd, and something needs to be addressed if this is how MOS regulars are treating pages. Parabolist (talk) 01:13, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse per JoelleJay. Mach61 (talk) 00:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse close I don't see any convincing argument for why application of policy couldn't be discussed at an RfC, and the policy-based reasoning in the close was pretty impeccable. As an aside, I think the WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour should be taken seriously as a separate issue; it's no wonder this topic is so heated if five vastly experienced editors (Hey man im josh, BeanieFan11, Jweiss11, Bagumba, and SMcCandlish), with almost 1.2 million edits between them, can't even respect a basic involved/uninvolved division. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:27, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- Hey man im josh, you could have commented in the involved section with a ping to Cbl62. I have no doubt that you have behaved with decorum in general in the aftermath of this RfC, but in this case I do not feel that you did. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- Hey man im josh, dividing a close review into involved and uninvolved sections is intended to prevent threaded replies rehashing the previous discussion from taking over the close review. I simply ask that you keep this in mind in the future. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:52, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- Hey man im josh, you could have commented in the involved section with a ping to Cbl62. I have no doubt that you have behaved with decorum in general in the aftermath of this RfC, but in this case I do not feel that you did. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- Vacate RFC discussion, list at RM per WP:RFCNOT, which specifically includes
Renaming pages
. Carson Wentz (talk) 18:51, 19 February 2024 (UTC) - Endorse close. According to a excellent essay I recently had the pleasure of reading, its hard to argue with the fact that lots of people knew about the discussion, lots of people contributed and the right people knew it was going on. The venue / namespace itself may have been contrary to community norms, but WP:CONLEVEL is also policy and I can't see a reason to delegitimise the discussion purely for being in an atypical location. Scribolt (talk) 17:24, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse close—per SMcCandlish. Tony (talk) 03:27, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse The idea that a discussion of this size can be void due to insufficient participation is ridiculous. * Pppery * it has begun... 03:39, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- If the majority of comments were from unique commenters, the majority of commenters opined regarding the content question, and the majority of the commenters expressed valid opinions then you would be correct. The first two unarguably did not happen, the last one arguably did not. Thryduulf (talk) 04:19, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
RFC participant comments
- Overturn page moves per WP:RFCNOT. My view hasn't changed, concerning the matter. An RM should've been opened at the page-in-question, including related pages. IMHO, an RFC shouldn't be used as a substitute for an RM. GoodDay (talk) 01:14, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not quite sure if I'm considered "involved" or not since I did not participate in this RFC, but I did participate in the 2023 RM and I am quoted above! I'll go with involved. I concur with GoodDay that this change should be conducted via an RM. I'll also note that the "notice" of this RFC to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League was underwhelming: [1]. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:24, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- What exactly are you're expecting for an RfC notification...? That's neutral and includes a link with a self-descriptive title, with further context provided earlier; nothing more should be said in such a notice. JoelleJay (talk) 05:00, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- There was a repeat notification later at 18:31, 6 January, seen now at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League/Archive 23 § NFL Draft RFC at Village Pump.—Bagumba (talk) 05:27, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse close. I don't understand why GoodDay and Jweiss11 and Randy Kryn and BeanieFan11 and a few others want to see this discussed again at an RM. The same evidence and same guideline-based arguments would prevail. You can see an example of a "related" RM (that is, similar issue, different football league) at Talk:USFL Draft. BeanieFan11 is again there posting ridiculously wrong info and then complaining when editors point out the mistakes. His "evidence" make the opposite case of what he's arguing for. Ultimately, probably much more quickly in that case, we'll follow the guideline, as we've done with the NFL Draft RFC. Lawyering about the process slows it down, and wastes a lot of editor argument time, as here; I'd call it disruptive, but we have a long tradition of letting everyone have their "day in court", so that's where we are. I commend the closer of this long mess of an RFC for all did he, other than making us wait a full 30 days when the result was clear weeks earlier. Dicklyon (talk) 05:38, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse close. The purpose of a close review is to examine whether the closer erred, not to relitigate why people would have preferred one outcome or another. The closer did not err here, and despite the length of the discussion, the only actual questions to resolve were quite simple: does the sourcing show enough capitalization in indy RS to meet the MOS:CAPS standard? Clearly no. Is there some means by which the community can be prevented from addressing the question in an RfC (at VPPOL and later stand-alone)? Clearly no. Randy Kryn has been beating a drum that WP:RFCNOT somehow invalidates the RfC or makes it inoperable and just "an opinion poll", but this is a bad misunderstanding of policy. WP:Consensus can form anywhere by any means. RFCNOT (an "information page" essay) suggests, of course, that RfCs are not the usual process for effectuating page moves, which is true. However, this was not an RfC standing in for an RM, it was an RfC to resolve the problem that that a previous RM and a WP:MR after it failed to come to a consensus. That's a perfectly valid reason for an RfC, though it could also have been done via a followup RM. The RfC route netted broader input, so was the better choice, despite all the patently disruptive "shut it down!" handwaving by people unhappy with the predictable outcome (predictable because the WP:P&G on the original question are clear, as is the sourcing). In short, the closer did not err, the process was not broken (despite various parties trying hard to break it, and extensive pro-capitalization canvassing). The closer has stated in user talk that their intent was that the RfC result could just be used as a rationale to move the page in question, consensus already having been established. This is correct per WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY and WP:CONSENSUS. However, it's ultimately immaterial. It's clear that the pro-capitalization camp are going to insist on opening yet another RM about this anyway, so the pointless discussion is guaranteed to continue and waste more editorial community time. But that has no implication of any kind for whether the reasoning in the close is faulty, which it is not. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:09, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse close yeah I thought it was the wrong avenue, but I trust the judgment done on the forum. Plus it evolved into its own page, so I accept the outcome. Plus, I'm not overly bitter about it and I guess I know when the bludgeoning gets really toxic, I just ignore it. Conyo14 (talk) 07:56, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn page moves per WP:RFCNOT, the RfC itself was a good opinion poll but then the next step would not be moving pages but opening a Requested Move. Anything else is WP:IAR without the necessary reasoning of why unilaterally moving pages improves Wikipedia. Reversing the page moves is another topic and not related to this review, and should be addressed separately. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:51, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
Weak endorse. I voted to keep "draft" capitalized and I stand by my opinion, but there did appear to be weak policy-based consensus to change it to a small "d." Sound, policy-based arguments were made on both sides but the closing admin got it right in the small "d" side having better support. While RM would have been the preferred way to handle this move, this RFC received significant participation from a wide range of users including consistent contributors to NFL-related articles and those who do not typically edit in this area; this RFC can be considered valid grounds for a page move. Frank Anchor 14:12, 16 February 2024 (UTC)- Changed to overturn after a more thorough reading of RFCNOT. It specifically mentions RM, and not RFC, as the correct venue for a page move. I maintain that the RFC received a large base of opinions from both NFL-regular contributors and people who rarely or never contribute in the area, but when the RFC process page says RFC can not be used for a page move, then RFC can not be used for a page move. Frank Anchor 14:21, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn the discussion on both sides devolved into an absolute mess. As I previously noted, I generally avoided the discussion after a few comments due to the tone. I will also note that the whole "wrong venue" discussion was a distraction for both sides. The original intent of going to RFC was to gather a larger audience. That was achieved but at the expense of a huge distracting discussion. I feel like both sides would be better served by having a cleaner discussion in the right venue (notifications can occur left and right to everyone) to mitigate any ancillary concerns. Seems bureaucratic, but it would seem that both sides would probably prefer to have a cleaner consensus to point to moving forward. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:29, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn. I'm not thrilled with the closer hand waving away the RFCNOT concerns raised in the RFC. I would also like to dispute the idea that the "Pro Caps Crowd" was somehow canvassing when the "lowercase crew" has an entire section of WT:MOS dedicated to canvassing. And of course the bludgeoning issue needs to be addressed. There is no need for any editor to make dozens of comments at an RFC, regardless of which side they are on. Jessintime (talk) 18:05, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- That section at the top of WT:MOS, of current and past style-related discussions, is kept neutral, central, and open to anyone interested, much like automatic and other notifications to Wikiprojects. Canvasing is something else entirely. Dicklyon (talk) 10:55, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse close The review rationale does not identify anything in the close that was unreasonable or against policies or guidelines. The close is detailed and accounted for the major counterarguments, even if it differs from those cherry-picked quotes or what some !voters like. The claim of a "disaster" or bludgeoning mandating a do-over are unconvincing, if not also insulting. Veteran admins are capable of separating the wheat from the chaff, perhaps moreso than some non-admin closers, who might "safely" close with an otherwise unexplained “obvious no consensus”, instead of investing time to filter and assess the valid points. The OP argues WP:RFCNOT, which is from an information page, while WP:NOTBURO and WP:CONSENSUS#Consensus-building are policies. The close gave more weight to policies:
Circling back to the the review rationale, it has factual errors. The most recent RM was closed as "no consensus" not "closed against lowercase being the title" (see WP:THREEOUTCOMES). The RfC was closed in line with P&Gs. The info page WP:CLOSECHALLENGE states:Analyzing the relative strength of the arguments, those who sided with RfC being a valid venue for this issue have significantly stronger policy-based arguments. ..there is no consensus that the RfC is invalid or inappropriate.
WP:POINTY also has some applicable guidance:Closures will rarely be changed by either the closing editor or a closure review…if the poll was close or even favored an outcome opposite the closure, if the closure was made on the basis of policy. Policies and guidelines are usually followed in the absence of a compelling reason otherwise, or an overwhelming consensus otherwise, and can only be changed by amending the policy itself.
For all the fuss about appropriate venue, nobody has explained how the MOS was applied incorrectly (MOS:CAPS:Practically speaking, it is impossible for Wikipedia to be 100 percent consistent, and its rules will therefore never be perfect. If consensus strongly disagrees with you even after you have made proper efforts, then respect the consensus…
Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.
), or explained how a new RM would present any new arguments. NOTBURO indeed.—Bagumba (talk) 19:23, 16 February 2024 (UTC) - Time to move on The RFC was a disaster from start to finish and I suspect there's zero chance that it is actually overturned because who has time to read through all of that debate about proper nouns? The lesson here is bludgeoning and badgering can work in certain situations. The endless wall of text comments certainly obfuscated the issue enough that a consensus was somehow pulled out of the wreckage. Congrats, I guess. It seems like there's more important matters to the project that interpretations of proper nouns. The English language isn't a math equation and treating it like one seems like a waste of time, but YMMV. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 19:50, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn while I generally agree with everything Nemov said, I'm loathe to reward the badgering and bludgeoning by tacitly agree with the close. I've no interest in wasting further energy on a mostly-pointless debate, but for the record I dislike the pompous and contemptuous tone that the MOS crowd takes toward content area specialists. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 19:36, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn per RFCNOT. As others have stated, a clever end-around when RMs weren't going their way, wrought with bludgeoning and simply overwhelming their opponents. The Kip 05:08, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- Comment: @AirshipJungleman29, I've stayed out of the conversation except to clarify something and now to reply to a comment directed at me, not to make an argument for either outcome. The page was split off at one point and the "top editors" of the split version does not include pre-split comments and some users replied to multiple comments in the same edit. Not sure it's fair to call that "disrespecting" an involved / uninvolved section or implying that contributes to a battleground mentality. I've spent a lot of time since this close trying to calm tensions and I don't appreciate the implication that I'm fanning the flames and making things worse. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:28, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- @AirshipJungleman29: I had zero expectation of it being an issue for me replying to Cbl62 the way that I did and, frankly, I still don't believe my reply was an issue. I also had no expectation that people would want to communicate as if this were a discussion at arb, where threaded discussions are discouraged between parties. There was no arguing on my behalf or any efforts to influence anybody, I didn't reply again after Cbl62 replied to me. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:46, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- @AirshipJungleman29: My intention was not to rehash the old argument, but I get your point. I also do not believe this is a productive way to communicate between sections and that a person closing a close review should be able to separate the chaff from the wheat if discussions got off topic in spots. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:57, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- @Scribolt: No comment on your endorsement of the close, but uh...
According to a excellent essay I recently had the pleasure of reading...
– That's a link to an essay you yourself wrote in your own user space that you edited just before replying to this discussion. Kind of strange to imply and link it as though it's another person's essay. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:16, 20 February 2024 (UTC)- I find this revelation quite humorous. Maybe there's a good explanation? Nemov (talk) 18:41, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- It sounds like someone loves to toot their own horn. Conyo14 (talk) 19:51, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- So... you thought my masterplan was to try and mislead people into thinking that was someone else's essay, when it quite obviously wasn't, for the reasons you noted, and my edit summary included the phrase "shameless plug"? I can see I'm going to have to work harder at this subterfuge thing. I wrote it a while back and it expresses my thoughts on consensus, which is relevant to this situation and it expands on my vote here (which is why people link to essays). Scribolt (talk) 20:53, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- @Scribolt: Well you did reply with "I read" instead of "I wrote". Read has a clear implication of not being something you wrote, which is why I found it comical. I didn't think of some master plan, I just thought it was odd. Keep in mind most people reading through a threaded discussion are not doing so while also looking at the edit history. It's fine to share your essay, but the phrasing really makes it sound like you're linking someone else's essay. Hey man im josh (talk) 23:18, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- So... you thought my masterplan was to try and mislead people into thinking that was someone else's essay, when it quite obviously wasn't, for the reasons you noted, and my edit summary included the phrase "shameless plug"? I can see I'm going to have to work harder at this subterfuge thing. I wrote it a while back and it expresses my thoughts on consensus, which is relevant to this situation and it expands on my vote here (which is why people link to essays). Scribolt (talk) 20:53, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- @AirshipJungleman29: I had zero expectation of it being an issue for me replying to Cbl62 the way that I did and, frankly, I still don't believe my reply was an issue. I also had no expectation that people would want to communicate as if this were a discussion at arb, where threaded discussions are discouraged between parties. There was no arguing on my behalf or any efforts to influence anybody, I didn't reply again after Cbl62 replied to me. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:46, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- Closing Admin Comment Obviously I endorse my own closure, so I'm not going to make a bolded !vote here. I also hesitated to weigh in, since there isn't much to say that wasn't already explained in the close itself or at User talk:The Wordsmith#NFL Draft. I did expect it to end up here no matter which way I closed it, so I made sure to explain how I arrived at my assessment so that people at AN could understand clearly without my needing to re-summarize the same 4 deciEEng-long discussion here. Firstly, the Xtools page statistics are misleading especially for the amount of text contributed by each editor. The RfC began at the Village Pump and was copied into the separate page by SMcCandlish, skewing the ratios to the point they aren't very useful. Number of edits is a better proxy, but isn't perfectly accurate because some editors have a habit of copyediting their posts which results in multiple edits showing for one actual post. What I did see as clear WP:BLUDGEONING was where the same editor repeats their argument multiple times, with no indication that they took any of the counter-arguments into consideration. For example, the phrases "opinion poll" and "opinion survey" were used a combined 16 times in the RfC page, 14 of them by Randy Kryn to frame the RfC as illegitimate (the remaining two were SMcCandlish quoting Randy to rebut that idea). Randy has continued this framing[2], as well as making other false claims like the close "ignored" WP:RFCNOT when it was specifically mentioned in the close and explained further on my talkpage. I do think Hey man im josh's conduct has been exemplary; it isn't easy to enact a consensus that you disagree with, but he's taken steps to do that as well as tried to de-escalate the issue. Also noting that the practice of dividing comments in a close review into Involved and Uninvolved (I thought we recently settled on "RFC Participants" and "Non-Participants?) is a fairly new one, so it seems reasonable that there would be some confusion on that point.I welcome the review from uninvolved editors. Honestly, when I started the closure I expected to to be a complete lack of consensus. As I began filtering out the bludgeoning, writing down the editors and the arguments they made, I was surprised to see a clear consensus emerge based on the strength of the arguments. It took 4+ hours to sort through everything on the RfC and write up a close; I don't think any policy-based criticism reasoning have been raised. The idea that the information page WP:RFCNOT can be "violated" or "ignored" when it is weighted against the policies WP:CONSENSUS and WP:NOT is wildly incorrect and continuing to push it is rapidly veering into WP:IDHT. The WordsmithTalk to me 17:40, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
re-summarize the same 4 deciEEng-long discussion here.
I approve of EEng's talk page becoming the unit for page length, though maybe a link to the pre-archiving version would be better. JoelleJay (talk) 18:18, 19 February 2024 (UTC)- I actually just put together a draft of User:The Wordsmith/EEngs. It takes a raw page size and compares it against the current length of EEng's talk, so the RfC length can be cited with the template as 0.35 EEngs. I'll update it to be called with a page name directly in the future. The WordsmithTalk to me 18:26, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- "a link to the pre-archiving version would be better" – Sure, if you want to crash people's browsers. LOL. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 19:24, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- It's laughable to single out RK for bludgeoning while ignoring users on the other side who commented much more in the discussion RK did. Their whole MO is to bludgeon every discussion to the point where people who disagree with them no longer feel like contributing to the discussions. Jessintime (talk) 19:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- That was just one clear example of repeating an identical argument over and over, which is why I wrote
For example
. Other users have already been mentioned here by other comments, including Dicklyon and SMcCandlish and I agree with that. Bagumba also made a lot of comments/replies, but they were fairly short and addressed several different points/asked different questions so I wouldn't characterize their contributions that way. The WordsmithTalk to me 20:02, 19 February 2024 (UTC)- Singling me out is fine, and I wish more editors here would read WP:RFCNOT and its use by the Dispute Resolution page as a defining description of what an RfC can and cannot do. It cannot, per RFCNOT, change the title of any page. That duty is assigned to WP:RM. I was convinced from the start that editors would use this RfC to change the casing of titles if a close went in their favor, so pointed out repeatedly, and do so again here, that the RfC was an opinion poll. According to RFCNOT it could not have been anything else. The results, of course, could be reported in a new RM, and the editors who commented at the RfC could be pinged to participate in the RM. But that route seems to have been closed off by editors using WP:IAR to move page titles to lowercase. My question is "How does moving the NFL Draft pages to lowercase improve or maintain the encyclopedia", the criteria for an IAR. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:59, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- As has already been pointed out, WP:RFCNOT is an information page and does not overrule policy. The WordsmithTalk to me 01:12, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- The policy Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#Requested move defines the parameters and process of how a page title is changed. The policy Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#Requests for comment refers to article content, and links to WP:RFC for definition and direction. That page contains WP:RFCNOT, which instructs that RfCs cannot change page titles, and refers editors to Requested moves for that task. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:32, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- This cherry-picking of line-items from policy that seem like they support RK's extremist bureaucratic viewpoint (that consensus formation is invalid if it doesn't follow an exact procedural course that he prefers) really needs to come to an end. As was already pointed out multiple times in the RfC itself (and I won't re-quote it all here), other elements of the exact same policy, and WP:CONSENSUS, and various others, specifically recommend VPPOL and RfC for resolving failures to reach consensus. The undeniable facts of the situation are that RM (and MR after it) were tried already, and just produced a "no consensus", so the obvious and policy-recommended solution is RfCing the matter, including at VPPOL in particular. There is no form of WP:IDHT and WP:WIKILAWYER (verging on WP:GAMING) handwaving in furtherance of his extremist pro-bureaucracy position that RK can engage in that is ever going to change this fact.
An important side point is that RK's non-stop habit of re-re-re-repeating the same arguments endlessly no matter how many times they have been demonstrated to be wrong is why the RfC got mired in circular, repetitive argument (and why this AN thread is heading the same direction, as have so many RMs in which RK has been involved to tirelessly promote capitalization that doesn't fit the sourcing or the guidelines). Every time RK repeats the same nonsense, it needs to be dispelled again, which necessitates another post from me or Dicklyon or whoever. RK would not be the first to use this "drown it in noise" tactic to try to trainwreck MoS/AT-related discussions that aren't likely to go their way because of the sourcing and the P&G at issue. The other habitual abuser of this strategy was topic-banned from capitalization and eventually from all of MoS a long time ago. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:46, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
An important side point is that RK's non-stop habit of re-re-re-repeating the same arguments endlessly no matter how many times they have been demonstrated to be wrong
pot, please meet kettle. Thryduulf (talk) 12:57, 21 February 2024 (UTC)- Another kettle, and another name calling rant against me by Mr. McCandlish, but where in it does he dispel with examples that titles per WP:RFCNOT means something other than titles are decided by an WP:RM process and not by an RFC? If consensus is not reached with an RM then another RM is called for, not an RfC. And I "drown it in noise?". After so many insults let me at least point out once, please, that walls-of-text are okay to write and preserve for a good record of topic analysis, but consider learning how to say things in just a few less words. Thanks. As for wanting to ban me from discussions to, I guess, make it easier to get your way, that should not be how Wikipedia works, and if someone tried to ban SMcCandlish for repetitive wall-of-texts I'd be the first to oppose it. Better to have a discussion about WP:RFCNOT though, which is the sticking point to where this RfC likely bit off too much and went in a direction of allowing massive title changes without going through the RM process. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:09, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- A bunch of argument to emotion hand-waving about "insults" is never, ever going to dispel the proven fact that you canvassed like mad in furtherance of both capitalization against the source evidence and guidelines and against the ability of the community to RfC the matter (I've diffed it from start to finish, as best I could track it, over the course of weeks). You should have been blocked shortly after that started, and topic-banned. But as usual, as long as style or titles are involved, the admin corps for whatever reason will tolerate unbelievable amounts of disruptive, battlegrounding, advocacy-pushing behavior that would result in action if any other topic of any kind were involved. I have no idea why there's this blind spot, but it's there, and so I'm sure you'll skate without even a administrative warning to never do that again. [sigh] — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:29, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- Another kettle, and another name calling rant against me by Mr. McCandlish, but where in it does he dispel with examples that titles per WP:RFCNOT means something other than titles are decided by an WP:RM process and not by an RFC? If consensus is not reached with an RM then another RM is called for, not an RfC. And I "drown it in noise?". After so many insults let me at least point out once, please, that walls-of-text are okay to write and preserve for a good record of topic analysis, but consider learning how to say things in just a few less words. Thanks. As for wanting to ban me from discussions to, I guess, make it easier to get your way, that should not be how Wikipedia works, and if someone tried to ban SMcCandlish for repetitive wall-of-texts I'd be the first to oppose it. Better to have a discussion about WP:RFCNOT though, which is the sticking point to where this RfC likely bit off too much and went in a direction of allowing massive title changes without going through the RM process. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:09, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- This cherry-picking of line-items from policy that seem like they support RK's extremist bureaucratic viewpoint (that consensus formation is invalid if it doesn't follow an exact procedural course that he prefers) really needs to come to an end. As was already pointed out multiple times in the RfC itself (and I won't re-quote it all here), other elements of the exact same policy, and WP:CONSENSUS, and various others, specifically recommend VPPOL and RfC for resolving failures to reach consensus. The undeniable facts of the situation are that RM (and MR after it) were tried already, and just produced a "no consensus", so the obvious and policy-recommended solution is RfCing the matter, including at VPPOL in particular. There is no form of WP:IDHT and WP:WIKILAWYER (verging on WP:GAMING) handwaving in furtherance of his extremist pro-bureaucracy position that RK can engage in that is ever going to change this fact.
- The policy Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#Requested move defines the parameters and process of how a page title is changed. The policy Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#Requests for comment refers to article content, and links to WP:RFC for definition and direction. That page contains WP:RFCNOT, which instructs that RfCs cannot change page titles, and refers editors to Requested moves for that task. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:32, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- As has already been pointed out, WP:RFCNOT is an information page and does not overrule policy. The WordsmithTalk to me 01:12, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- Singling me out is fine, and I wish more editors here would read WP:RFCNOT and its use by the Dispute Resolution page as a defining description of what an RfC can and cannot do. It cannot, per RFCNOT, change the title of any page. That duty is assigned to WP:RM. I was convinced from the start that editors would use this RfC to change the casing of titles if a close went in their favor, so pointed out repeatedly, and do so again here, that the RfC was an opinion poll. According to RFCNOT it could not have been anything else. The results, of course, could be reported in a new RM, and the editors who commented at the RfC could be pinged to participate in the RM. But that route seems to have been closed off by editors using WP:IAR to move page titles to lowercase. My question is "How does moving the NFL Draft pages to lowercase improve or maintain the encyclopedia", the criteria for an IAR. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:59, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- That was just one clear example of repeating an identical argument over and over, which is why I wrote
- Overturn based on the considerations discussed in my comments here. The search for perfect capitalization consistency is simply not worth the amount of dispute and demoralization that it has been creating for more than a decade. No criticism of the closer is intended. (I'm not sure whether I'm considered "involved" where I don't edit the underlying articles but I did participate in the discussion, but I've posted in the "involved" section to avoid any dispute.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:48, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- I've updated the section headers per recent practice, "Involved" is intended to mean RFC participants rather than WP:INVOLVED The WordsmithTalk to me 20:06, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- Comments
- The OP, referring to Talk:2024 NFL draft#Requested move 27 April 2023 states:
...closed against lowercase being the title
. The RfC closed with "no consensus". The statement in the OP is inaccurate. BeanieFan11, please amend this to accurately the close of the RM. - My observation of how messy a discussion (eg RfC or RM) becomes is directly proportional to the degree of participation. If the subject is contentious, this it is exponential. However, more participation, despite this down side, must be a good thing. The 2016 RM compared with the 2016 MR shows the pitfalls of poor participation.
- Kudos to The Wordsmith for wading through this and making sense of it.
- Appropriate notifications gather participation. Notification at each year article is unlikely to garner appreciably greater participation than a notification at the parent article, National Football League draft. My mother would say that one has no right to complain unless one is prepared to do something about it and come to the table with a solution. To those making such a complaint, the solution should have been self-evident - fix it. If complainants in the RfC chose to do nothing to remedy their cause for complaint, IMO they have no cause for complaint now.
- If editors are going to complain about notifications, was this discussion notified at the RfC page? No. Yet there was a notification at Talk:National Football League draft by BeanieFan11 with pings to selected editors. Perhaps an oversight by still evidence of WP:POTish behaviour.
- The 2016 RM resulted in the move of multiple pages without notification to those pages. One editor that specifically advocated this is perhaps the most vocal of those asserting the RfC is flawed for lack of notification. This strikes me as particularly WP:POTish.
- In the course of the RfC, WP:RFCNOT was cited once by a participant. WP:NOTBURO was cited among other reasons for conducting the discussion as an RfC. WP:NOTBURO is expressly linked to WP:IAR. The closer has assessed the arguments for RM v RFC including WP:RFCNOT. It has not been ignored. Citing WP:RFCNOT herein is not of itself a substantive reason for overturning the close. The prevailing P&G tells us it is not a trump card that beats all others.
- The purpose of a discussion is to elicit different views on a question and to debate those views. Both WP:RMCI and WP:CLOSE explicitly refer to discussions as a debate. A robust debate of an issue tests the validity of evidence and conclusions and, exposes the strengths or weaknesses in arguments. A metric such as number of edits or number of signatures to assert bludgeoning does not consider context: whether the edits reasonably contributed to the debate, whether they were replies to questions or other reasonable contributions. On the otherhand, The Wordsmith observes
What I did see as clear WP:BLUDGEONING was where the same editor repeats their argument multiple times, with no indication that they took any of the counter-arguments into consideration
, Given Randt Kryn's edits as a specific example (38 signatures in the RfC not including collapsed text). The responses to this edit by UCO2009bluejay really do prove their point. - At their TP The Wordsmith would also refer to:
aspersions and assumptions of bad faith
,[3] which evidence WP:BATTLEGROUNDy behaviour, which is totally unproductive and should be of greater concern. - Notwithstanding my observation
immediatelytwo above, if we are going to consider bludgeoning, then, apart from those already mentioned, we also need to consider GoodDay and (50 sigatures), Thryduulf (43 signatures) [in uncollapsed text]. - We have heard enough claims of "opinion poll" and "opinion survey" at the RfC. Repeating it again and again here doesn't make it so.
- Cinderella157 (talk) 02:50, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- No time to read all this, but in response to the ping, I was going by admin @Amakuru: stating that "the difference between 'no consensus' and 'consensus not to move' is largely cosmetic". BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:53, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- BeanieFan11, the distinction may be cosmetic in respect to the effect it has on an article but in a discussion such as this, there is a very distict difference between asserting "no consensus" (there is no clear result to favour either) and "consensus against" (there is consensus not to). Amakuru continues to say:
... our guidelines say that such cases default to the status quo, which is functionally the same as if there's a consensus not to move.
The OP could be seen as a misrepresentation of fact, which, if intentional is unethical and inappropriate conduct. Having been made aware of this, the appropriate course is to amend an unintended misrepresentation else it would reasonably be seen as deliberate. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:34, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- BeanieFan11, the distinction may be cosmetic in respect to the effect it has on an article but in a discussion such as this, there is a very distict difference between asserting "no consensus" (there is no clear result to favour either) and "consensus against" (there is consensus not to). Amakuru continues to say:
- Commenting only on the point where I was pinged, bludgeoning cannot be determined by signature count alone. One editor making 20 identical comments is more likely to be bludgeoning than another editor making 40 different comments. In this RFC I was not advocating for or against lowercasing, but arguing the RFC was an improper attempt to overturn the RM consensus, pointing out flaws in some commenters' arguments and/or methodology. Thryduulf (talk) 03:13, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Thryduulf, where I pinged you, the sentence commences:
Notwithstanding my observation immediately above ...
[I will amend this] I am referring to point 8. Therein I make a point very similar to what you are saying. While number of comments is indicative of bludgeoning, context does matter. Concerns are being raised in this discussion regarding bludgeoning by certain editors based on their number of comments. I have observed that you should not be excluded from that group based on that metric and consequently, your edits should be subject to the same scrutiny to determine if bludeoning has occurred. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:58, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Thryduulf, where I pinged you, the sentence commences:
- No time to read all this, but in response to the ping, I was going by admin @Amakuru: stating that "the difference between 'no consensus' and 'consensus not to move' is largely cosmetic". BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:53, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- The OP, referring to Talk:2024 NFL draft#Requested move 27 April 2023 states:
- Overturn. The disregard for all the valid concerns about venue, notices, canvassing, RFCNOT¸ etc. mean this was not an accurate summary of the discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 03:18, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- As I already demonstrated with a large diff pile, the only canvassing (and a whole hell of a lot of it, by Randy Kryn) was was on the pro-capitalization and concern-about-the-venue side (which are the same side, i.e. trying to use bogus venue/process bureaucracy to evade the fact that the sourcing and P&G on the matter were entirely clear and could only have one outcome). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:49, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- I asked you, multiple times, in the discussion to provide evidence for your aspersions against content editors. You did not do so then and you have not done so now. Thryduulf (talk) 12:56, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- As I already demonstrated with a large diff pile, the only canvassing (and a whole hell of a lot of it, by Randy Kryn) was was on the pro-capitalization and concern-about-the-venue side (which are the same side, i.e. trying to use bogus venue/process bureaucracy to evade the fact that the sourcing and P&G on the matter were entirely clear and could only have one outcome). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:49, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Overturn. Fundamentally, RFC is not the venue for deciding move discussions, and that's particularly the case when a fairly recent RM discussion which attracted lots of participation was closed without a consensus for making the moves that have now been made. Whether RFCNOT is an essay / information page / whatever else isn't the point here. The point is that we have years and years of precedence for using RM as the venue for making these sorts of decision, and that's the way it's done on Wikipedia. For the closer to assert otherwise and decide they have the right to make the close anyway, and then even accuse experienced editors of WP:IDHT when they point this out, is baffling. The reasons for using RM rather than RFC for moves are several - firstly, it ensures a central listing at WP:RM for all discussions, meaning that they're almost always frequented by those with genuine expertise in article titling policy. Secondly, the bots that run the RM process make sure that the talk page of every article that might be affected is notified, something that didn't happen here. The process can also be used for more broad decisions affecting numerous articles, as we saw at Talk:1872 FA Cup final#Requested move 5 January 2023. So that's the procedural reason for overturning this. Now looking at the RFC more specifically, the discussion was hugely dominated by the procedural aspect of it. More than half the discussion was about whether it was legitimate rather than the question itself and many, including myself, did not really take the RFC to seriously or even cast a !vote because we didn't expect it to ever be binding. Hey man im josh, another RM-experienced admin who also questioned the venue of this discussion, actually introduced some of the most relevant information into the discussion, in the form of evidence that a very wide body of sources capitalise NFL Draft consistently. This evidence may or may not have been compelling, but it was lost amid the confusion around the decision to host the discussion in the wrong venue. Certainly I was forced to shift my view somewhat in response to that and it would have been very interesting to pursue it. In short, the RFC should be voided, and if people want to genuinely discuss this issue, a fresh RM discussion at NFL Draft or similar should be crafted, where we can focus solely on the evidence at hand and come to a hopefully final and correct decision. — Amakuru (talk) 13:38, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Endorse: Closer used accurate policy and accurately took into account the sides of the debate which was well publicized in the appropriate channels. We don't need forum shopping here when time is better spent improving the project elsewhere. Let'srun (talk) 20:34, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- How is this forum shopping? BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:45, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- How was this "well publicized in the appropriate channels" when it wasn't notified to all the articles affected (as is required for move discussions)? Thryduulf (talk) 21:06, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- @Let'srun: I won't argue against your endorsement of the close, but c'mon, forum shopping? Close reviews, and especially not this one, are not forum shopping. You need to do some reading on the definition before accusing others of such. Hey man im josh (talk) 00:08, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Behavior of editor User:MrOllie
Repeated deletions involving several pages, and in particular the redirection of page Sampling (computational modeling)
Evidence
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This is my second dispute opened in relation to the operate of User:MrOllie, see Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_241#sensitivity_analysis for a record of the first. In this second I would like to look at what happened to other pages supervised by the same editor, as, in my opinion, a troubling pattern emerges. As previously noted User:MrOllie has removed my citations from several pages, in a rather 'deletionist' style,[1] but the action of this person has been particularly inconsiderate in two specific pages, sensitivity analysis (see Talk:Sensitivity_analysis and sensitivity auditing, see Talk:Sensitivity_auditing. I hope that the adjective inconsiderate referred to the action of a person is not censored and is accepted as a criticism moved by an author to the operate of an editor. Plenty of material is available in Talk:Sensitivity_analysis to motivate the adjective inconsiderate - in brief, the works removed are the most cited in the discipline as attested by several authors. In the case of sensitivity auditing the issue is that the reference removed by User:MrOllie is the first reference introducing the method, quoted by all remaining references of the page, see Talk:Sensitivity_auditing. After the systematic deletions I made a public confession (see Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_241#sensitivity_analysis) of my sins - not notifying a conflict of interest while citing my own work. Having learned the lesson, I declared a possible conflict of interest in three talk pages: the two mentioned plus Quantitative storytelling, see Talk:Quantitative storytelling. I then opened three requests for edit under the edit COI template in Talk:Sensitivity_analysis, Talk:Sensitivity_auditing and in the page Talk:Post-normal science. These requests are in the pipeline. During all discussions so far, users User:MrOllie maintained a confrontational tone, although I always addressed this person with courtesy. Another clear inconsiderate deletion - that gives the occasion for this second dispute - took place once user (User_talk:Kozlova_Mariia - a person I know belonging to the community of sensitivity analysis practitioners) created a new page on sampling for numerical simulation Sampling (computational modeling). User:MrOllie eliminates the page with a redirect to the page Sampling (statistics). The talk page associated to this now redirected page explains while the adjective inconsiderate applies here. I copy the page in full below in blue as I find it self-explaining. Listening to reason: the talk page of Sampling (computational modeling) User:MrOllie I just undid your redirect of this page, (you eliminated the page created by User_talk:Kozlova_Mariia with a redirect to the page Sampling (statistics)). My motivation is the following: If one cares to read the two pages one will see that Sampling (statistics) is devoted to empirical experiments, either involving physical objects or individuals (humans) to be polled. This is about extracting entities from a population e.g. to set up an experiment in the laboratory or in a society as to ensure that several characteristics of the population are explored. Sampling in numerical experiments has to do with the exploration of multi-dimensional spaces to the effect of e.g. testing the output of a model, numerically integrating a function and so on. If anything, Sampling (computational modeling) is closer to Design of experiments (DOI) than it is to Sampling (statistics), though very few mathematical modellers use pure DOI but preferentially the methods in the newly created page. There is no conflict of interest in this page, neither mine not of the user creating it, and I consider that noticeably is ensured for this page. An incise, just to be clear: I know and appreciate the work of the user who created the page but the page does not contain self promotional material for either of us. A litmus test of the argument for the difference between Sampling (statistics) and Sampling (computational modeling) is that neither Sampling (statistics) nor Design of experiments contains Low-discrepancy sequences, also known as quasirandom sequences or quasi random numbers that are a best practice in computer simulation. Note the existence of a more specific and technical page on Quasi-Monte Carlo method. The newly created page is a useful bridge for users interested in numerical experiments. I suggest that before deleting this page again the opinion of other editors is polled. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 11:35, 12 February 2024 (UTC).
It is quite interesting how my arguments have been dismissed - User:MrOllie is categorical in his judgment, and a second pair of eyes is not needed. I did not continue the conversation seen its futility, but for whomever is reading this I would like to note that not one of the references of the removed page Sampling (computational modeling) appears in the page Sampling (statistics). Of the four methods described in suppressed Sampling (computational modeling):
Only the first, random sample, is mentioned in Sampling (statistics) - no LHS, QRS or FFD. Why did I not write this as a continuation of the exchange with User:MrOllie? In one looks at the text in blue above User:MrOllie is not receptive to the reasons put forwards and continues repeating rather mechanically that the two pages are repeating the same material about statistical methods. Is this about reason or about power? I hope I have demonstrated that the page cannot be redirected, and especially cannot be redirected to Sampling (statistics): I add that the decision should not be left to User:MrOllie alone. Behaviors such as those described here have been registered by other unhappy authors, even outside Wikipedia, as I move to discuss next. Outside Wikipedia Looking outside Wikipedia, one discovers that several authors - like me - have been unfavorably impressed by the deletionist style of User:MrOllie. One user[2] asks if this entity is a bot or an extremely busy human. Another[3] asks Who is MrOllie and points to the critique of Wikipedia by Tom Simonite.[4] I agree with this author[3] that Simonite's piece[4] -- although old -- is still very much to the point. The loose collective running the site today, estimated to be 90 percent male, operates a crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere that deters newcomers who might increase participation in Wikipedia and broaden its coverage. Author[3] laments these high-edit Wikipedia editors who can "undo" the work of those who do actually contribute. Another author[5] repeats the message that this incessant deletion has the effect of scaring people off, possibly scaring off people who could give a good contribution. These people might find themselves in a rabbit hole trying to comply with the rules and grammar of Wikipedia in a possibly vain attempt to get redress against behaviors such as those flagged here in relation to User:MrOllie. Another wounded author[6] writes: I just want to say: Mr.Ollie is a serious piece of work...Put in serious creditable sources from real authority sites, not some fake ass wannabes, and everything and he just...never mind leaving this thread before I start getting nightmares from him haunting me again.(Signed xReminisce) One more author,[7] apparently a physicist, gives what seem valid reasons why the deletion of User:MrOllie were inconsiderate. Maybe all these authors - who have brought their complaints outside Wikipedia, were wrong or deluded, while User:MrOllie was consistently right. My direct experience of this editor is that in my specific case User:MrOllie was plainly wrong, and consistently aggressive and confrontational. The theme of impoliteness emerges very vividly in one looks inside Wikipedia. Inside Wikipedia User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_5#dealerbid An excerpt: Wikipedia is not here for you to help build your reputation as a writer, I'm afraid User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_18#Shawarma_Page Here a dispute with an author who calls MrOllie lazy for deleting things instead on engaging with the content. just say you're lazy and unwilling to fix a simple error. you only just noticed the link from the previous contributor on this topic, and used it as an excuse to delete the whole thing. I fixed it now, let's see what new reason you come up with to delete it. Plainonlycheese (talk) 18:43, 4 September 2023 (UTC) MrOllie responds that personal attacks are forbidden We also don't allow personal attacks. If you keep on like this you won't be successful on this site. MrOllie (talk) 19:05, 4 September 2023 (UTC) Was this a personal attack? So if an author complains of the behavior of an editor as I am doing in the present note this is a personal attack. While receiving complaints from academicians for his intervention in the Talk:Sensitivity_analysis page MrOllie accused me of 'canvassing'. In other words, MrOllie is always right. Elsewhere [[4]] one Author complains after a series of exchanges But you are not a cooperative person. Not kind either. Neotesla (talk) 02:45, 23 October 2022 (UTC) To which MrOllie replies No personal attacks is a policy here, too. Do not post on my talk page again, I've read enough insults. MrOllie (talk) 02:49, 23 October 2022 (UTC) Is being 'not kind' and 'non cooperative' an attack or a criticism? Interestingly, MrOllie wrote on my own talk page User_talk:Saltean#Managing_a_conflict_of_interest, in reply to a polite expression of my reasons, You've been writing about yourself and your work all over the encyclopaedia. That is obviously a conflict of interest as we define it here. MrOllie (talk) 16:50, 9 September 2023 (UTC) I would typify this characterization of my 17 y in Wikipedia as aggressive, but I would not make an issue of it, were not for the pattern that emerges from the present analysis. User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_18#False_statement_in_Epoch_Times_article Here an author is asked to apologize to User:MrOllie: Don't post on my talk page again unless you're showing up because you've finally read the whole article and are coming to apologize. MrOllie (talk) 23:04, 8 September 2023 (UTC) User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_17#Your_message_to_me_about_removals Too long to be cited but here an author appears as complying with a request of MrOllie and eventually giving up after MrOllie refuses to take notice Here one author has inserted a group of references including on of her/his own, and MrOllie removed all of them. ... Do you want to prohibit experts who have worked in the thematic field of an article from citing one or other of their own publications in addition to other sources, provided that it fits the facts? The publication in question deals in detail with the complexity of the task being worked on with an EA. In other words, exactly what was described in the article and for which evidence was sought. I am looking forward to your answer. Wilfried Jakob (talk) 10:47, 29 September 2022 (UTC) The reply of MrOllie Yes, I do want to prohibit that. Citing a few other sources is not tax you pay in exchange for putting your own name on Wikipedia. MrOllie (talk) 12:47, 29 September 2022 (UTC) In my opinion here MrOllie should not have removed the extra references but only that object of a COI, inviting the author to use the COI template if to cite her/his own. Conclusions Like the user in[5] I think that 'rabbit hole' well captures the syndrome that might befall an author (academic or otherwise) that after mastering the grammar of Wikipedia and its (evolving) set of norms finds herself or himself confronted with actions such as those discussed here. Once upon a time I spent some energy to convince my fellow academic authors from all disciplines to work in Wikipedia. I was a Wikipedia enthusiast of (almost) the first hours. I wasn't extremely successful in this proselytizing, I must say. I am more cautious now. I have met editors that have helped me and in a sense nurtured my work in Wikipedia. Maybe Wikipedia after the infamous 2005 case involving journalist John Seigenthaler[4] has evolved with time to become more and more intensely policed, so that today, in 2024, the Wikipedia ecosystem needs the deletions of MrOllie more than my entries. Yes policing should not come with a sense of omnipotence. Erring authors needs to be corrected, not humiliated, their work encouraged, not deleted; a moralizing tone should be banned; editors' abrasiveness[4] should be kept in check. Pace MrOllie, Wikipedia should not be an over here, that User:MrOllie defends from an over there of erring authors whose content is cleared acritically. Sentences such as Wikipedia is not here for you to help build your reputation as a writer, I'm afraid are inappropriate and come to a price in terms of deterred contributors. References References
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Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 07:39, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- Holy WP:MWOT. Shouldn't reports like this be over at WP:ANI? And about 95% shorter? And (preferably) about 100% more comprehensible? Bon courage (talk) 07:46, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- I've collapsed it for now. Primefac (talk) 08:20, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- User:Primefac Seen the dimension of this discussion could you now kindly un-collapse my text? Thanks. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 17:56, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- No. It's huge and there are only benefits to keeping it collapsed. People can still read it (i.e. it hasn't been removed). Primefac (talk) 18:01, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- User:Primefac Seen the dimension of this discussion could you now kindly un-collapse my text? Thanks. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 17:56, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- I've collapsed it for now. Primefac (talk) 08:20, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- No one is going to read all this, here or at ANI. It is an essay, not a report. Dennis Brown 2¢ 08:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- I actually went through it, because I was eating a sandwich and couldn't type or do anything else productive at the same time. The gist is that Saltean has a conflict of interest in the subject area and was citing their own publications in at least one of the related articles; does not have a legitimate behavioral complaint to pursue againt MrOllie; is trying to tar him as being part of some alleged "cabal" problem that some off-site writers were venting about; but is probably correct that Sampling (computational modeling) could be a stand-alone article (just using material beyond what Saltean has published). In short, this is a typical content dispute. I would recommend using WP:AFC to create the article, since various reviewers will check it for self-promotion, for WP:GNG passage, for not being a WP:CONTENTFORK, for having WP:Neutral point of view, for lacking WP:Original research, for citing WP:Reliable sources, and so on. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:07, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- I owe you a sandwich. Just glancing through, I kind of got that same feeling, but I lacked the patience that the sandwich gave to you, enough to read the whole thing. COIs are are such a tricky thing, and this seems to be an example why we recommend that people with COIs don't directly edit. I did read enough that your suggestion would be the best course of action, and for Saltean to be patient, as the average article reviewer may not be experienced enough to reviewing the article. I certainly wouldn't be. They can always ask for others here with the technical experience to review it after it is more or less complete, not just the regular article reviewers. Saltean, you need to understand that the default around here is to keep the status quo, unless it is clear that a change is needed or obviously beneficial, so when you try to do something large, it typically gets pushback until you develop a consensus for it. Developing the article outside of mainspace (per SMcCandlish's idea) is probably the best way to approach this. Writing walls of text isn't. Dennis Brown 2¢ 10:26, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- It's not just about self-citations. The reverts were factually wrong too. We have been trying to raise that over and over now. If you go look at the pages' discussions, many researchers have been trying to make this clear. And if you look at who these researchers are (because you can as we all publicly give our real names-my second name if you doubt that part as most do), you will see that we are the top researchers in the field. And sure you can argue that we know each other and have a conflict of interest, yes sorry the field is small and we go to the same conferences and are friends. My bad.
- I guess my question is the following: are you then saying that, we, the most knowledgeable people on a topic should abstain to write about our own scientific contributions and methods? And then leave that up to people who are making mistakes? Because this is what is happening, people making mistake and we are trying to fix things. Tupui (talk) 19:21, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
- I am saying that people that have a conflict of interest need to edit carefully and still must get consensus for their changes, no matter how expert or brilliant they are. The policies at Wikipedia are the same for everyone. This is also why I agreed that a separate article should probably be started over to the side, so they can find tune it before submitting it. That is for their own benefit. Not so much to benefit everyone else. What you don't understand is we are flooded with people who are self-proclaimed experts, some real, some imagined. They still have to follow the same policies. Farmer Brown - 2¢ 00:15, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- I actually went through it, because I was eating a sandwich and couldn't type or do anything else productive at the same time. The gist is that Saltean has a conflict of interest in the subject area and was citing their own publications in at least one of the related articles; does not have a legitimate behavioral complaint to pursue againt MrOllie; is trying to tar him as being part of some alleged "cabal" problem that some off-site writers were venting about; but is probably correct that Sampling (computational modeling) could be a stand-alone article (just using material beyond what Saltean has published). In short, this is a typical content dispute. I would recommend using WP:AFC to create the article, since various reviewers will check it for self-promotion, for WP:GNG passage, for not being a WP:CONTENTFORK, for having WP:Neutral point of view, for lacking WP:Original research, for citing WP:Reliable sources, and so on. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:07, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
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- @Saltean and Tupui: I'll answer the original really excessive length with a bit of length of my own, in the interests of being clear and advisory instead of dismissive. The advice in this thread is sound. Use the WP:AFC procedure to create a new article, and this may be quite slow-going, and potentially rather frustrating. The central problem here is that Wikipedia is not a journal and does not publish cutting-edge primary research. A novel sub-field with few practitioners, who all know each other and are themselves defining the subject (which is a very important factor – see AEIS discussion below), does not generally make for an encyclopedia article, because it is too new, too much of a walled garden, and lacks in-depth coverage in reliable but independent and secondary sources. The onus is on you (collectively – everyone with an interest in creating such an article) to demonstrate that this field-specific meaning of "sampling" passes the general notability criterion with such secondary coverage, and to base the bulk of the draft on that coverage, not self-promotionally on your own primary-reserach publications. It is distinctly possible that Wikipedia cannot have an article on this subject for some time, even if it conceptually merits one, due to insufficient secondary material.
Actually provable outright error with regard to this subtopic that might be found in broader-topic articles should be corrected, of course. But that doesn't necessarily means you are the ones to do it. It again depends largely on citation to secondary-source material, not assertions from your own primary publications. For researchers whose careers are deeply involved in something this narrow, conflict of interest is likely, so such correction requests should be done with
{{edit COI}}
on the talk page of the relevant article; people are apt to revert your own changes based on your own material (or that of your friends) as improperly sourced and potentially self-promotional of a particular researcher-cum-Wikipedian's own work.This not an invalid concern. While Saltean has a long history here, the bulk of their editing is within a topical sphere that seems to correlate strongly with their work life (and some of it is questionably encyclopedically constructive, including a lot of writing about rather random-looking academic edited volumes that clearly do not pass WP:GNG, or WP:NBOOK more narrowly, and are tagged as non-notable, so are probably going to WP:AFD at some point. Tupui does not have a long history here at all, with a very low input level, 100% of it focused on their professional interests.
Many if not most long-term and producive WP editors here learn to steer away from writing about their work subject(s), because it is very difficult to avoid conflicts of interest. E.g., professionally, I have been a civil-liberties activist, policy analyst, webmaster, and systems and network administrator, among other things, and I virtually never edit in topics that pertain to areas of my professional focus, because I am too close to them (and often to prominent individuals within those fields) and have strong opinions about virtually everything in those subject areas, which are difficult to discard; this general problem impairs the ability to treat the subjects with encyclopedic neutrality. Conflicts of interest in the broad sense can be subtle, including: selection bias with regard to sourcing; subtle viewpoint-pushing out of a conviction that one professional/academic faction has the facts more on their side even if a real-world consensus has not come to that conclusion; over-reliance on primary-research papers that have stood no test of time and are not subject to any academic secondary-source scrutiny (systematic and other literature reviews); even attempting to rely on such materials for analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis (AEIS), which is not allowed; and so on – instead of relying upon an as-neutral-as-possible due weight analysis across all the available modern reliable source material, with overwhelming dependence on secondary not primary sources. The AEIS issue in particular appears to be pertinent to this topic; it looks like AEIS of these individuals' primary work is the basis of the material that has been attempted at WP on the subject so far.
Finally, fixing errors (outright or of omission, especially omission of what one might feel is deserved attention/credit) can sometimes be frustrating and lengthy. In my case, our article on a topic of some public importance in Internet history in which I was deeply, formatively involved was for a long time miscrediting some obscure organization (who did exist and did have some minor involvement) as being originators of the topic in question, which was completely wrong. (Whether fair to me or not isn't the issue; it was grossly misleading to the reader, and acting as unabashed promotion of the other partty). I used edit-requests on the talk page to resolve this, and it actually took several years. And I still am not mentioned by name in the article content (due to lack of secondary sourcing that makes me an important part of the story), but the other group is no longer falsely credited with work they did not do. That result is actually okay. If secondary sources do not consider it a matter of keen public interest to name-drop me in that connection, then Wikipedia is not in a position to second-guess that "real-world consensus" on what is important about the subject. If you are here to ensure that your name and work are tied by name to this sampling subject, then you are here for the wrong reason. Note that's an if; I'm not saying that is the case (not being a mind-reader). But self-citation and an editorial focus on only that which pertains to your career focus can easily give that impression and raise red flags in the minds of other editors. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 09:16, 17 February 2024 (UTC)- Thanks to all who kindly contributed to this exchange. A few thoughts:
- I am happy that with the complicity of a sandwich some of my text (pardon, my WP:MWOT) has been read. No, by all means, I do not fault User:MrOllie for belonging to a ‘cabal’, the opposite, I fault User:MrOllie for going alone on a page where User:MrOllie is clearly not at the top of his/her expertise. I also dislike his/her manners but I understand this issue has little currency here. It is only human that you close ranks around your fellow editor, but I hope that among yourselves you have at least a doubt that not all is well with this person – how many of you managed so many complaints as User:MrOllie? What if abusing authors the way User:MrOllie seems to do exceeds the specifications of his/her job?
- Thanks User:SMcCandlish for your kind and considerate advice. At present I am still testing what the Wikipedia own rules permit by way of COI. As I learned my lesson, I will no longer talk about my published work. Yet, since I am an author and not an editor, I prefer to write about things where I have an interest, as you can see at User:Saltean. I believe our roles are different. The present situation is a transient one, where we need to remedy some factual damage done by User:MrOllie. Of course, we could ask others to do reinsert the missing references – and this would be gaming the system, or wait patiently that someone does, but if you do not mind, I would like this to be done following Wikipedia own rules; for me, an interesting experiment.
- Going back to the page Sampling (computational modeling) (no COI) that is the main object of the dispute: I am still unsure of how to proceed: can I undo again User:MrOllie and simply add at the top of the page the WP:AFC label? Will he not redirect it again? Apologies for my ignorance of the mechanics of it. Your editors’ home may be an author’s rabbit hole. Thanks for your help and patience.
- Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 11:26, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks to all who kindly contributed to this exchange. A few thoughts:
- Replying to this in user-talk, since we're getting far afield of what WP:AN is for. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:40, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Further discussion: Talk:Sensitivity analysis. Softlavender (talk) 09:18, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Tupui, you would do good to lighten up a bit. Many of us have devoted a great deal of time to Wikipedia (For me, it's 69,000 edits over 17 years, and I'm not unusual or "special"), and take the principles of Wikipedia serious, but not ourselves. Humor is how we deal with issues like someone leaving a tomb for a report, which is very difficult to comb through. SMcCandlish has just provided you with a gold mine of information that should clear up some things for you, much better than I could have said it. We write articles, we don't save lives here, so best if we don't take ourselves too serious. Like it or not, we are all just equal drones here, none of us is special. Dennis Brown 2¢ 10:51, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
69,000 edits
— nice. El_C 11:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)- I have been deeply involved in a few open source communities for years and what you are doing right now would have been flagged as a Code of Conduct breach. Humour only works if everyone is indeed laughing.On the matter at hand, I do not understand your position. Now we are being told that our field might be too niche though Andrea is pointing out that the EU now has regulatory requirements with regards to sensitivity analysis. The field is also almost as old as the variance.My take away from all of that is that we experts are not welcomed to contribute our knowledge. Instead random folks, which clearly have no clue about a subject, are more welcomed to share their non existing knowledge. Tupui (talk) 11:29, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Those EU regulations might be a usable source. Bon courage (talk) 11:32, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Yes but then it’s again a citation for Andrea… That’s the thing which folks are missing here. The field is not small, there is an extensive literature around it and massive usage. Yet the researchers and professionals making new methods and driving the field are just a few individuals. And I would argue that it’s a chance for Wikipedia that we would be willing to spend time to share our knowledge. Tupui (talk) 11:37, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is not the place for "making new methods and driving the field", rather it's for a summary of accepted knowledge based on secondary, independent sources. Bon courage (talk) 12:42, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- As I tried to explain, these are not new methods, nor is the field. I am only saying that we are the researchers driving the field, not that we are trying to add our latest stuff to Wikipedia. Tupui (talk) 12:44, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Well if there are secondary independent sources there should be no problem. Anyway, there is no user behaviour case to answer here. The conflicted editors should declare themselves per WP:COI and the content issue(s) sorted out on article Talk pages. I suggest this is closed. Bon courage (talk) 12:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- And what if there are no secondary independent sources? Does that mean we could not write anything on a topic? Not saying that's necessarily the case here, just trying to understand the policy here. Tupui (talk) 12:50, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Still to me there is a behavioural issue. It should not be normal that an editor with a lack of expertise just remove hard work by the press of a button based on nothing but: "too much self citation", completely disregarding the actual edits and not trying to find a compromise with the citation issues. Tupui (talk) 12:52, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- If there are no independent secondary sources, then we don't publish it. It's that simple. Verification is more important than completeness, it's one of our core principles. We are a tertiary source, we only publish what is available in multiple, reliable secondary sources, and only allow primary sources under certain circumstances. An editor that reverts because some facts rely too much on primary sources is not a behavior issue, they are likely enforcing our policies on verification. See WP:BRD to understand how reverting works and what is expected from editors. Dennis Brown 2¢ 13:23, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Well if there are secondary independent sources there should be no problem. Anyway, there is no user behaviour case to answer here. The conflicted editors should declare themselves per WP:COI and the content issue(s) sorted out on article Talk pages. I suggest this is closed. Bon courage (talk) 12:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- As I tried to explain, these are not new methods, nor is the field. I am only saying that we are the researchers driving the field, not that we are trying to add our latest stuff to Wikipedia. Tupui (talk) 12:44, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is not the place for "making new methods and driving the field", rather it's for a summary of accepted knowledge based on secondary, independent sources. Bon courage (talk) 12:42, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Yes but then it’s again a citation for Andrea… That’s the thing which folks are missing here. The field is not small, there is an extensive literature around it and massive usage. Yet the researchers and professionals making new methods and driving the field are just a few individuals. And I would argue that it’s a chance for Wikipedia that we would be willing to spend time to share our knowledge. Tupui (talk) 11:37, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Tupui, I have a detailed response to what you've said, which I hope will be helpful, but it's better put in user-talk, since I think the AN crowd is tiring of this thread entirely, and the material is rather detailed and analytical about process, sourcing, WP actual needs for and from experts, etc., none of which is really a WP:AN matter. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:40, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Your take-away is incorrect. A couple of times a year or so someone running afoul of our self-cite norms complains that Wikipedia is unwelcoming to experts. There are plenty of credentialed experts and published authors contributing to Wikipedia. But we don't cite ourselves (or not as much). Wikipedia is not for promoting your own work. Levivich (talk) 16:51, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Those EU regulations might be a usable source. Bon courage (talk) 11:32, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- I don't see anything to respond to here that has not already been covered by others. But I do want to note something: Saltean says above that they have no COI with regards to Sampling (computational modeling). Technically true, but it needs to be stated: that article (which just lists a few common statistical methods - it duplicates our existing article) was written by Kozlova Mariia (talk · contribs), who is a coauthor of Saltean's, and has been working on a draft about a book of Saltean's at Draft:Book on the politics of modelling. Between this and the several single purpose editors who appeared at Talk:Sensitivity_analysis to add testimonial type comments, I suspect there is some off-wiki coordination going on here. My question on that talk page was ignored, so I will put to Saltean again here: Did you contact people outside of Wikipedia and inform them about these discussions? - MrOllie (talk) 13:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Please don’t be insulted but here’s the challenge the rest of us face:
- In other words, we’re all just screen names to each other; we don’t really know for sure if the other person is who they claim to be. We’re flying blind which is why we have to give claimed expertise zero weight.
- Since we have to assume nobody here is a legitimate expert, we require reliable sources. With a few narrow exceptions, these reliable sources also have to be secondary sources.
- Even with reliable sources, we have to avoid overweighting certain points of view. Someone editing with a conflict of interest potentially hijacks that point of view, even if they’re very knowledgeable.
- You’ve gotten advice to avoid topics in which you are knowledgeable because of COI concerns. I disagree with this; I suggest editing areas immediately adjacent to but just outside your narrow area of COI. You can help us a lot.
- Thanks for caring and coming here to build out Wikipedia. Just stick within our rules. I know they sometimes seem gratuitously odd and even counterproductive. Nevertheless they represent 20 years of collective experience dealing with hundreds of thousands of anonymous editors including some cranks, self-promoters and imposters. —A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 15:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- I entirely endorse that, BTW. Editing topics just outside your CoI but still within your expertise area is a fine way to contribute, perhaps the best for many editors, and something we need a lot more of. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:46, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks a lot User:A. B.. I accept this and please note that I am not an expert myself in the exploration of multi-dimensional spaces - I have papers that use methods (one out this week, coincidence, in a good journal) but I am not the one developing them. I would really like not to follow on User:MrOllie provocation to reach out to the wider community. This dispute must be solved here in Wikipedia possibly following Wikipedia existing rules. Authors and Editors can cooperate to do precisely this and do it now.
- As I said before, User:MrOllie should stop deleting the page Sampling (computational modeling) because User:MrOllie is patently wrong on the subject matter and continues to repeat mechanically that it duplicate an existing page when (a) none of the references of Sampling (computational modeling) appears in Sampling (statistics) and (b) three of the the four methods in the new page are not covered in other one. Even for a non-expert, this should be a telling sign that User:MrOllie insists in neglecting. In my opinion the person with a conflict of interest is now User:MrOllie.
- Why don't you User:MrOllie do the decent thing to let the page live and let other authors decide its fate? Incidentally, with time we can improve this page, and work is also needed in Sampling (statistics), Editors please check if what I say is true. Can some of the editors who kindly contributed to this discussion with their experience and histories volunteer to help with this simple process, so that we can all move on? Please don't make me open another procedure (third opinion?) on this matter when we have, I believe, all already extensively discussed it. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 15:49, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
- Saltean, MrOllie explained his redirecting of the article at Talk:Sampling (computational modeling). That is where discussions of that matter belong, not at AN. If you strongly feel that the article should be restored and stand alone, then create an WP:RFC on the subject by following the precise instructions at that link, keeping your question neutral and brief. You can add your extended arguments to that RFC via your vote (Support or Oppose) and rationale. Softlavender (talk) 01:51, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
- User:Softlavender Thanks for your reply and for the suggestion of opening a separate WP:RFC but the exchange in the present page is sufficient. One of my fellow researchers has merged the page discussed here into Computer experiment and changed the redirection of User:MrOllie to this page. I discussed at length why User:MrOllie’s redirect was incorrect so I do not repeat it here. One last comment for User:MrOllie and his question about discussing outside Wikipedia. I consider this a question an attempt to distract from the subject matter, i.e. the operate of User:MrOllie. People discuss with friends and colleagues adventure and misadventures. The point I believe is if I set out to canvass in order to ‘win’ this dispute and the answer is a firm no. The administrators can check my social accounts – where I appear with my full name – for hints of canvassing. By way of canvassing I could do better than the FOUR faithful colleagues who have intervened in the page Talk:Sensitivity_analysis against the intervention of User:MrOllie. If User:MrOllie does not like these criticisms maybe he/she could try to be more considerate in intervening. Thanks to those who reached out to my talk page. You are all welcome to meet me there. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 17:54, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Saltean, MrOllie explained his redirecting of the article at Talk:Sampling (computational modeling). That is where discussions of that matter belong, not at AN. If you strongly feel that the article should be restored and stand alone, then create an WP:RFC on the subject by following the precise instructions at that link, keeping your question neutral and brief. You can add your extended arguments to that RFC via your vote (Support or Oppose) and rationale. Softlavender (talk) 01:51, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks for caring and coming here to build out Wikipedia. Just stick within our rules. I know they sometimes seem gratuitously odd and even counterproductive. Nevertheless they represent 20 years of collective experience dealing with hundreds of thousands of anonymous editors including some cranks, self-promoters and imposters. —A. B. (talk • contribs • global count) 15:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
By way of canvassing I could do better than the FOUR faithful colleagues who have intervened in the page Talk:Sensitivity_analysis against the intervention of User:MrOllie. If User:MrOllie does not like these criticisms maybe he/she could try to be more considerate in intervening.
So, yes, there was canvassing. And there is an ongoing refusal to drop the stick about supposed misbehavior from an editor whose actions have now been repeatedly explained as entirely appropriate. I am all for making a concerted extra effort to be sure we keep academics and qualified experts engaged with WP (which I've seen numerous editors already do in this thread), and I completely understand how the policies and the byzantine rules of Wikipedia can frustrate and drive them away, but there is increasingly a behavioral issue here, and it's not with MrOllie. Grandpallama (talk) 03:51, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
2024 requests for adminship review
A discussion is taking place at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review. You are invited to discuss, contribute to, and propose ways to improve the requests for adminship process. Thank you :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 08:30, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
Close request
We could use some volunteers to help close a few discussions at close request noticeboard. There's currently 10 requests past 50 day initiation date. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 13:36, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
Unblock/unban request from Mhdsuhail111 (2)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Mhdsuhail111 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
- Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mhdsuhail111/Archive
- LINK TO FIRST UNBAN REQUEST
- WP:3X
- Cleared by checkuser
Carried over from most recent unblock request. --
) 7:54 am, 16 February 2024, last Friday (4 days ago) (UTC−5)I have appealed to remove my ban before 2 years and half years. The one who reviewed my appeal has told me to wait for more time and reapply. Kindly give me an apology for what I did and was not familiar with the Wikipedia rules. Now I have waited as much time as I can. From now onwards I will not focus on any movie sections directly but will give suggestions on the respective talk page. Now I have done my studies in finance and doing research in Fintech firms. For that, I need access to my Wikipedia account. So I can help my contributions to Wikipedia with what I have found with the relevant references. Kindly reconsider my appeal and please give me a proper resolution. Because of this ban, I am not able to create any other accounts also. Please help me out, guys. Mhdsuhail111 (talk)
Carried over from unblock discussion--
"You will still need to request unblocking/unbanning at WP:AN. Are you still an employee of a marketing team? Please explain, "have waited as much time as I can." What's the hurry? Please explain why you need to edit Wikipedia, for "studies in finance and doing research in Fintech firms". Are you and your colleagues still editing Wikipedia for pay? Please describe concisely and clearly how your edits merited a block, what you would do differently, and what constructive edits you would make. Please read Wikipedia's Guide to appealing blocks for more information. Link to unban discussion. Courtesy ping @Jpgordon: -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 15:47, 16 February 2024 (UTC)}}
- Checkuser finds no recent socking or other abuse on the IPs this account is using. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 15:49, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
Hi Deepfriedokra, currently I am a social media marketer in a company handling social media platforms. So if I can become an editor I can add the company page and also I will mention on my user page that the edits as paid. No more edits will be there from this account. But I go through the template to be added to my user age. But for an employee of the company a template is not available. Did I need to use the paid template itself in my userpage.Mhdsuhail111 (talk) 12:28, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is absolutely not a social media platform. Wikipedia isn't a place for companies to tell about themselves. 331dot (talk) 12:33, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- I can't see you being unblocked to conduct marketing on Wikipedia, regardless of any PAID declaration. Wikipedia is an [[encyclopedia[[ and not a marketing venue. .What 331dot said. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:27, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- I am not using the Wikipedia for any promotion of the company. As its a encyclopedia we can provide information about a valid thing to the public. Its known that we can't do any paid promotion in the Wikipedia. My main objective is to give an idea to the public what does the company do and what all are the useful features that offers. As far as I know Wikipedia helps the public to know about different topics that they wish to refer. As I am just creating an article about the company only. With an article what it means about marketing. Many company articles are there and is that articles where for marketing. I am just providing an article about the company and it is not for any marketing. Also, kindly note that I won't directly create an article. I will create an article and will send for a approval from the respective user/admin. From now on wards, no direct edits will be there from my side. Kindly give me a last chance and if I do any random edits without any source you can directly block me from the Wikipedia and I won't come again for a unblock request, if its a valid reason.Mhdsuhail111 (talk) 07:37, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- I will ask Materialscientist,. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:01, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- Oh. This must go to the admin notice board. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- @331dot: Do you think this is sufficient to carry to WP:AN? I foresee carrying the Unblock discussion as a WP:BLOCKQUOTE perhaps. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:06, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- Did I need to do anything from my side. Kindly mention.Mhdsuhail111 (talk) 10:31, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- I really don't know. I want to hear from 331dot first -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:43, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- It's probably enough to bring to AN but I think it might just waste time there; this won't be successful. They still want to promote their company("My main objective is to give an idea to the public what does the company do and what all are the useful features that offers"; " As its a encyclopedia we can provide information about a valid thing to the public", etc.) Might be worth getting a community decision here, though. 331dot (talk) 11:56, 20 February 2024 (UTC)""
- I really don't know. I want to hear from 331dot first -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:43, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- Did I need to do anything from my side. Kindly mention.Mhdsuhail111 (talk) 10:31, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- @331dot: Do you think this is sufficient to carry to WP:AN? I foresee carrying the Unblock discussion as a WP:BLOCKQUOTE perhaps. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:06, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- Oh. This must go to the admin notice board. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- I will ask Materialscientist,. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:01, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- I am not using the Wikipedia for any promotion of the company. As its a encyclopedia we can provide information about a valid thing to the public. Its known that we can't do any paid promotion in the Wikipedia. My main objective is to give an idea to the public what does the company do and what all are the useful features that offers. As far as I know Wikipedia helps the public to know about different topics that they wish to refer. As I am just creating an article about the company only. With an article what it means about marketing. Many company articles are there and is that articles where for marketing. I am just providing an article about the company and it is not for any marketing. Also, kindly note that I won't directly create an article. I will create an article and will send for a approval from the respective user/admin. From now on wards, no direct edits will be there from my side. Kindly give me a last chance and if I do any random edits without any source you can directly block me from the Wikipedia and I won't come again for a unblock request, if its a valid reason.Mhdsuhail111 (talk) 07:37, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- I can't see you being unblocked to conduct marketing on Wikipedia, regardless of any PAID declaration. Wikipedia is an [[encyclopedia[[ and not a marketing venue. .What 331dot said. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:27, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
Discussion of request for Mhdsuhail111 (2)
- If participants could check for responses that need to be carried over here, it would be grand-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 19:45, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
Speedy decline That's as clear as day to me they want to resume promotional editing for their company. Nip this in the bud and move on, and let's not waste any more time than needed. RickinBaltimore (talk) 21:24, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose unblock:
"My main objective is to give an idea to the public what does the company do and what all are the useful features that offers."
Or what RickinBaltimore said. Schazjmd (talk) 21:33, 20 February 2024 (UTC)- After reviewing the further comments by Mhdsuhail111 on their talk page, they finally accept that they can't write about their company and offer
Anyway I am not going to create article on my company. I will create articles of new movies that announced. Will not include box office reports, only submit articles of new movies and also suggest in the talk pages of the movies and list regarding box office collection. I won't directly edit any box office reports directly from my side. I will provide the suggestion with reliable source in the respective talk page. I will give my 100% that I won't do any vandalism in Wikipedia like I did before. At that time I was not aware about the rules. Sorry for that. Kindly unblock me please.
. I then reviewed the history of their talk page and saw that movie articles were where they'd also had issues. I'm affirming my oppose unblock as I don't see a benefit to the project. Schazjmd (talk) 17:44, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- After reviewing the further comments by Mhdsuhail111 on their talk page, they finally accept that they can't write about their company and offer
- Decline All indications point to this user having reasons for editing Wikipedia that are fundamentally incompatible with our policies. No need to create another timesink for ourselves. The WordsmithTalk to me 21:59, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- Speedy Decline no case made in the unblock for why they'd be a positive editor here. Star Mississippi 02:51, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- There is further discussion further down on appellant's talk that may or not be germane.-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 15:47, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Decline I see no indication that this person has the potential to be a positive contributor. They are a marketer who cannot write in English with even the minimum level of fluency. Cullen328 (talk) 18:36, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose
It's probably enough to bring to AN but I think it might just waste time there; this won't be successful.
Yep. Grandpallama (talk) 18:53, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
Any admins know Spanish?
There's an edit war at House of Romay that requires the attention of subject matter experts and admins. One side claims the whole article is a hoax and needs to be deleted and the other side claims that it is defamation to change the article to say that it is a hoax. No regulars on either side, just oodles of socks. No response from WT:SPAIN. — Usedtobecool ☎️ 14:14, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- I looked through the sources and left a !vote. At the risk of self-aggrandizement, I think that the discussion is heading towards a clear outcome. signed, Rosguill talk 14:37, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you, Rosguill. I would have agreed after the !votes from you and Serial. Now, I don't know what to make of it. Most of the delete !voters having been blocked, it's more or less you and Serial against everyone else. Usedtobecool ☎️ 02:20, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- I've created Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Elene13 listing the rabid deleters.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:01, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you Bbb23! Apparently, it is UPE, according to new evidence added by Russ Woodroofe. So, I guess the nobles and/or pretend nobles are still fighting their little wars, now online. This new user, Benzeneshamus, that's showed back up after all opponents were cleared, I would have thought was a sock of or proxy for Diego de Romay. But the 2021 SPI at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Alibarzanjilo/Archive reached damn odd conclusions, blocking Diego de Romay and Kennet Zim as confirmed to each other, when the two were edit-warring against each other over at House of Romay. — Usedtobecool ☎️ 02:10, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
*sigh* I'll restore the semi-protection on the article. This has been going on now for at least three years. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 17:52, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
User keeps on making cosmetic, meatbot-style edits after having been asked to stop many, many times
Joe Vitale 5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been discussed before at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive358#User_insists_on_making_hundreds_(thousands?)_of_cosmetic_edits,_refuses_to_stop_or_discuss and that conversation was cut short because he was engaging on his talk page. The behavior there that was disruptive or otherwise inappropriate per WP:MEATBOT has continued and his response to the most recent complaint was mainly about tone and he just kept on doing it, including on pages experiencing increased traffic, which would be particularly disruptive (e.g. Carl Weathers at his recent death). In spite of writing "I will from this point on only do those sort of edits if I’m focused on actually improving an article instead of purely cosmetic edits as you say" a month ago, here are some illustrative example edits out off dozens since then:
- capitalizing the first letter of a template
- capitalizing the first letter of a template
- shuffling around whitespace
- shuffling around whitespace
- adding line breaks that make no difference
- adding a DEFAULTSORT that is identical to the page title
- shuffling around whitespace
- shuffling around whitespace
- capitalizing the first letter of a template
- adding line breaks that make no difference
And lest you think that some of these spates of edits are just part of some larger meaningful changes to an article, this is the outcome of 11 edits and this is the outcome of 19 edits. Etc., etc. He has been asked by many users to stop on many occasions, said he would, and hasn't. As far as disruption goes, it's hardly the worst, but it is annoying to look at your watchlist (or, as I do, my email inbox and RSS feeds) and see what I think are actual edits and then have someone doing three dozen cosmetic edits to move around whitespace. If I'm wrong here, I'll just drop it, but I think this is actively unhelpful and disruptive editing, so I would like an admin to intervene, as nothing so far has been effective. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:58, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, rather a large proportion of editors these days seem to do nothing much but this sort of stuff. They are manageable on mobile, where bigger edits perhaps are not. Johnbod (talk) 16:05, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Have they explained at all the why behind their edits? Is it an expression of obsessive-compulsive disorder, for instance? It does look like that this is the primary (maybe only) edit type that the editor is engaged in. -- User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:07, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- This is the rationale and this was some elaboration (note that I don't want to explicitly state anything and encouraged the user to ask for revdel in case he decided that he didn't want this publicly disclosed). ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:10, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- There is a known overlap between autism, and OCD. They can even be misdiagnosed for one another due to their similarities. It hurts me when things don’t look perfect to me (I especially love even numbers). Which makes my hairline deeply depressing, but perhaps the former is something I should look into.
- Incidentally, I did improve the Poppy article which makes this scrutiny feel harsh, but don’t trust myself to make big edits as I often make mistakes. I even misspelt critical on it which is ironic, given things. But that would happen a heck of a lot more if I did large or even moderate edits. I fork up too much.
- Thanks, Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 17:42, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- @Joe Vitale 5: My suggestion to you would be to add a spoonful of sugar to your editing. Something similarly menial, like filling out and fixing broken citations (there are a lot of 'em!), might be a better outlet for your energies than edits that other people might find irritating. (The more otherwise productive your editing is, the more people will let you get away with invisible standardization edits.) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 18:30, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Well, I am an autist myself, and there is no shortage of useful things to sperg about on here. Give Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss or WP:LINT a spin if you want. I'm also trying to fix a bunch of really old Signpost crap -- Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Technical/Index validation#2015 shows 85 articles that need to be tagged (using User:JPxG/SignpostTagger.js) which would be a huge help if somebody did. jp×g🗯️ 22:30, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- And 143 in 2016! jp×g🗯️ 22:30, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style extended FAQ
I would like to bring to the attention of the community Wikipedia:Manual of Style extended FAQ and in particular a recent edit to the page made by SMcCandlish (talk · contribs). The edit in question [5] which is incredibly verbose basically boils down "we're right and you're wrong and you can't change it." I find this highly inappropriate for a Wikipedia page and attempted to remove it, only to be told "Go write your own essay if you disagree" a response that to me illustrates SMcCandlish realizes his addition is at best an essay purporting to be a guideline (or a supplement to one, I'm not sure of the exact terminology). I'm posting to AN because I can't help but feel this addition was an attempt to game the system in light of the threads like the close review above (he specifically said it was in response to "RM disputes" in the initial edit summary). Jessintime (talk) 19:19, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- I'd just like to add that upon reading some of the other sections of this "FAQ" (all of which were apparently written by the same user) they seem problematic, just like the addition I initially flagged. For instance, it calls "Most proposed changes to MoS...poor ideas" and blames the "vast majority of style-related strife on Wikipedia" to "misguided individual or factional desires," accusing those who disagree with particular aspects of the MOS of gaming the system and tendentious editing (lol). Jessintime (talk) 19:31, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Overall I don't like the tone of that page... It does read as more essay than FAQ for the MoS. I don't have much to say about the gaming allegations as I am not familiar with the background, I think that independent of that there is an issue here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:04, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Shouldn't that be marked as an essay or something? It doesn't appear to be either policy, or an established guideline. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:08, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Per WP:BOLD, or thereabouts, I've added a WikiProject style advice essay template: hopefully that should resolve the issue. If anyone wishes to make it policy/guideline, they are of course free to propose it as such. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:52, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- On reconsideration, that's the wrong template - I'll add the more general 'essay' one instead. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:55, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- It already had
{{FAQ page}}
(a type of essay, by definition, being neither policy nor guideline) and essay categorization, but whatever. Adding another essay template to it isn't going to break anything. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:37, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- It already had
- On reconsideration, that's the wrong template - I'll add the more general 'essay' one instead. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:55, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Per WP:BOLD, or thereabouts, I've added a WikiProject style advice essay template: hopefully that should resolve the issue. If anyone wishes to make it policy/guideline, they are of course free to propose it as such. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:52, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- What I said in edit summary applies: If you disagree with it, go write your own essay. I wrote 99% of that one, and will just move it back to userspace if Jessintime wants to editwar over its content. Everything in it is demonstrably sound reasoning and factual observation, and advice based thereon. If Jessintime (or whoever) wants to quibble with some wording, it has a talk page for a reason. Jessintime's GAMING accusation is false aspersion-casting (GAMING being defined as a form of bad-faith editing) without any evidence. And how could there be any? An essay, with any kind of essay-class template on it, is just an essay and cannot be used to system-game anything. It's a nonsensical proposition. This kind of "style warrior" behavior of weaponizing bureaucracy, ad hominem, and argument to emotion against anyone who cares to actually follow our style and title guidelines and who is tired of ranty opposition to them from lone wolves who are not getting some style pecadillo that they want, really needs to stop. The entire point of that essay is that this kind of behavior is disruptive and corrosive to community good will, and this is a good proof of the point. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:37, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- This can be handled thru our normal BRD processes. SMcC made a bold edit; Jess reverted; SMcC re-added it (but, oddly, accuses Jess of edit warring?). Since it is disputed, If SMcC wants to add that section, he can propose it on the talk page, and they can both abide by consensus. However, if SMcCandish is unwilling to allow others to participate in deciding the content of the page, then he should userfy the essay now. As a general rule, something purported to be a "FAQ" in main project space should rarely be 99% written by one person. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:14, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- I did not acuse anyone of editwarring. I posed an "if" hypothetical; please get your facts about other editors right, especially in this venue. Jessintime had every opportunity to raise a talk-page discussion (BRD's "D" part), but instead has abused AN process to try to WP:WIN in a content dispute, engaging in a great example of the disruptive behavior that the essay is about. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- If this is just an essay where one editor has a certain amount of WP:OWNership over the content, it should not be linked from talk page templates like at WT:MOS or Talk:MF Doom. That gives the appearance of it having more "official" standing than it actually does. Probably should be userfied as well, or alternatively converted into an essay or information page that has wider community input. The WordsmithTalk to me 22:45, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- I agree; I've removed them. [6][7] Some1 (talk) 00:43, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- While looking over the disputed text, I was a bit bemused by the following excerpt:
If you are going around looking for potential exceptions to push against any MoS rule, please find something more productive to do.
That seems needlessly adversarial for an FAQ page. Further examination of other sections of that page showed that the combative 'We're right, you're wrong' tone is pervasive throughout. This definitely needs to be userfied due to the undisguised OWN issues or rewritten. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:11, 21 February 2024 (UTC)- This isn't WP:MFD. There is no WP:AN matter at issue here. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:57, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- You do bring up a good point, maybe it should be at MfD even if userfied. Hey man im josh (talk) 01:58, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Good luck with that; there is literally a 0% chance MfD would delete this. But thanks for making it clear that your goal is to try to abuse process to censor someone who disagreed with you on some trivial style matter. It further demonstrates the spot-on correctness of the material in the essay. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- I think 0% chance is underselling it given the misleading nature of the essay, but that's not really a debate I want to get into at the moment since there's clearly some bad faith assumptions from your end going on. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:06, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- I'm also not convinced that the essay would survive MfD. It certainly isn't serving any useful purpose in its present state as a polemic. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 19:42, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- I think 0% chance is underselling it given the misleading nature of the essay, but that's not really a debate I want to get into at the moment since there's clearly some bad faith assumptions from your end going on. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:06, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Good luck with that; there is literally a 0% chance MfD would delete this. But thanks for making it clear that your goal is to try to abuse process to censor someone who disagreed with you on some trivial style matter. It further demonstrates the spot-on correctness of the material in the essay. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Even if there wasn't something there given the persistent personal attacks and bludgeoning on this page there's something there now. Characterizing people who disagree with you as censoring you and mocking them is a bit much given the context. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:42, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- You do bring up a good point, maybe it should be at MfD even if userfied. Hey man im josh (talk) 01:58, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- This isn't WP:MFD. There is no WP:AN matter at issue here. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:57, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
- Why does the note at the top say
Please feel free to change this material in light of new discussion.
if the response to changes is "go write your own essay?" This reeks of WP:OWN RudolfRed (talk) 00:36, 22 February 2024 (UTC)- Yeah, except I was the one trying to expand it in light of newer discussions, and Jessintime simply tried to reflexively censor every word of that, with no substantive input about why even a single clause in it was incorrect (or badly worded, or anything). There is no evidence of any kind that the editor has an interest in making the material in the essay more accurate, better worded, or otherwise improved with regard to its subject and intent, which is what is expected of editing topical essays; there are zero posts by that editor to the essay talk page, to my talk page (other than an AN notice), or to the essay itself, other that reverting material with an edit summary meaninglessly claiming "inappropriateness" (which verges on another bad-faith aspersion) and striking some strange "be all and end all" pose that has nothing at all to do with any of the content (in the essay at all, not just that particular content). Jessintime has done nothing but attempt to suppress, only abused WP:AN process to make false accusations and try to get an admin corps to help them "win" a content dispute they refuse to substantively engage in resolving. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Userfy: The title of the page implies it's more official than it is, and SMC displaying ownership over it is not appropriate given the implication of the page title. If SMC wants to claim it as "their" page which no one else can edit then it shouldn't be in the namespace that it's in. It has issues, but this is the most apparent one. Hey man im josh (talk) 01:23, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Repeat: This is not WP:MFD. If you want to forcibly userspace something, that would be the venue for it. For someone joining RK on his "process must be followed at all costs no matter what" crusade in trying to invalidate a community RfC in another thread here, you sure display a complete disregard for process when it suits your partisan preferences (which on this subject boil down to defying clear guidelines and unmistakable sourcing facts to try to get a desired style pecadillo – the exact sort of unconstructive and style-related behavior that is the subject of the essay). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- @SMcCandlish:
For someone joining RK on his "process must be followed at all costs no matter what" crusade in trying to invalidate a community RfC in another thread here...
– What in the hell are you talking about? I haven't even voted in that discussion and I've been the one implementing most of the changes to downcase "Draft" to "draft". I've in no way tried to get that RfC overturned and it's ridiculous that you're dragging that conversation into this just because we're interacted. I'm noticing a pattern the more we interact, one where you create your own enemy to argue against and point to, cast aspersions, then act as if you're some kind of victim and we're silly for even discussing this. Focus on THIS discussion and drop the battleground mentality. - You also said I'm joining in on some process must be followed thing and then you state this isn't WP:MFD. If I'm arguing for userfication, and this isn't the proper venue for such a suggestion, how can I really be joining in on this supposed crusade of forcing process to be followed?
- My main problem with this essay is that it's masquerading as if it's an official FAQ when it has misleading information, tone issues, and discourages users from questioning the MOS. FAQ pages should be community sourced and neutral in their wording, which this is not. Someone tried to revert changes that were made and YOU reverted it telling them to write their own essay. If that's not ownership, then I'm really not sure what is. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:27, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Nah. It's had an essay-class tag on it the entire time, and essay catetgories (and no longer is linked from various places it was, so your "is" is meaningless). More to the point, it specifically advises, in great detail, the exact proper way to "question the MoS"; it's a short-form manual on how to do it. That said, "questioning the MoS" is tellingly battlegroundy wording. No one would write "questioning the canvassing guideline" or "questioning the MEDRS guideline". This is not AnarchyPedia. We don't "question guidelines". We read, understand, and follow them as long-accepted community consensus. Iff we run into an interpretation or applicability question, a wording clarity problem, a concern that something has become out-of-step with current practice, an observation that something important is missing, a belief that something included should not be, or some other issue, then we take it to the guideline's talk page.
Deciding to ignore that normal process and instead foment an anti-guideline micro-topical rebellion is the cause of virtually all style-related drama, and it needs to stop. This behavior would never be tolerated with regard to any other guideline (except maybe naming-conventions ones, which are largely just MoS as applied to titles). Imagine people engaging in these sorts of defy-until-I-die antics, complete with blatant canvassing at firehose levels, sourcing denial and falsification, a putsch to try to prevent the community being able to examine the underlying question via RfC, etc., etc., with regard to whether any other guidelines, such as WP:Notability, WP:Categorization, WP:Subpages, WP:Be bold, WP:Plagiarism, WP:Citing sources, WP:Non-free content, WP:Spam, WP:Conflict of interest, WP:Rollback, WP:Linking to external harassment, etc., etc., somehow should not apply to their pet topic. It would not be tolerated for a moment. WP just has a problem of addiction to style-related drama as a form of "debate for sport" or something, and it's a drag on community productivity and collegiality. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:33, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- Nah. It's had an essay-class tag on it the entire time, and essay catetgories (and no longer is linked from various places it was, so your "is" is meaningless). More to the point, it specifically advises, in great detail, the exact proper way to "question the MoS"; it's a short-form manual on how to do it. That said, "questioning the MoS" is tellingly battlegroundy wording. No one would write "questioning the canvassing guideline" or "questioning the MEDRS guideline". This is not AnarchyPedia. We don't "question guidelines". We read, understand, and follow them as long-accepted community consensus. Iff we run into an interpretation or applicability question, a wording clarity problem, a concern that something has become out-of-step with current practice, an observation that something important is missing, a belief that something included should not be, or some other issue, then we take it to the guideline's talk page.
- @SMcCandlish:
- Repeat: This is not WP:MFD. If you want to forcibly userspace something, that would be the venue for it. For someone joining RK on his "process must be followed at all costs no matter what" crusade in trying to invalidate a community RfC in another thread here, you sure display a complete disregard for process when it suits your partisan preferences (which on this subject boil down to defying clear guidelines and unmistakable sourcing facts to try to get a desired style pecadillo – the exact sort of unconstructive and style-related behavior that is the subject of the essay). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Userfy, no prejudice against MfD. It suggests it's got more community backing than it has just by being in mainspace (in this case, very much a
minority viewpoint
). And ifThe questions addressed in this page are not in MOS:FAQ, or vice versa
, then they are literally just personal opinions. Undoubtedly based on a good-faith application of experience, but still the equivalent of original research. ——Serial 12:50, 22 February 2024 (UTC)- It is not AN's role to decide to userspace things in response to content disputes. The material in the essay is not a minority viewpoint at all, or we would not have a style guideline and title policy (at least nothing like the ones we have), and they would not be followed by everyone except the tiny handful of editors who keep trying to defy them in particular topics. The central theme of the essay is that the latter behavior is generally counterproductive and often disruptive, and the community is tired of it (which is certainly true; these flare-ups are often labeled "battlegrounds", "disheartening", "demoralizing", etc.). WP:OR applies to factual claims in article content, and has nothing of any kind to do with editors recording their views about internal community processes in essays. Finally, if you think something in the content of the essay is wrong, it has a talk page. If you think something in the content of MoS is wrong, it also has a talk page. This is not the venue for grandstanding about having a bone to pick with MoS. Everyone has a bone to pick with MoS (and would with any other style guide) because it is the nature of style guides to advise a particular answer for the sake of consistency and dispute-avoidance, in a sphere in which actual usage varies wildly, which guarantees that any given person will disagree with at least one line-item in it, and no line-item in it will have agreement from everyone. As with all our other P&G and internal process, it is not possible for everyone to be 100% happy with everything in it; this is the nature of consensus compromise. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- RFCs are also not the standard place for move discussions, but sometimes the validity and content of a discussion outweighs the venue it's at. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:31, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Go say that in the RFC related discussion above, then. Hipocrisy doesn't suit you. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:54, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- @SMcCandlish: I'm not interested in participating in the close review above. Perhaps it would behoove you to focus on the current discussion instead of deflecting and focusing on whether this is the appropriate place for such a discussion. Frankly I can't understand why you've dug in so hard on making your personal essay the FAQ. Editors have expressed some very valid concerns and most reasonable folk would at least try to meet in the middle. Hey man im josh (talk) 22:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- The current discussion should simply close. There is no AN issue to address here. If someone wants to (instead of abusing AN) engage in what the normal process is, which is use the essay's talk page to suggest revisions, then they're welcome to do that. If someone's determined to mess with the central message of the essay (that engaging in anti-guideline battlegrounding is a disruptive waste of time and editorial goodwill and that the thing to do if you want to effectuate change in a guideline is propose that change on its talk page – all of which is obviously true), I'll happily userspace the essay, and they can go write their own counter-essay. If someone's determined on forcibly userspacing this just because they disagree with it or they have a bone to pick with me personally, but aren't going to mess with the message of it, they know where MfD is. This is the wrong venue for any of this. If this were any other subject, in the entire history of Wikipedia, this thread would have been closed immediately as wrong-venue and a misguided attempt to get the upper hand in a (brand new) content dispute, instead of engaging in normal discussion. But various people love to drag out any argument if style, titles, MoS, AT, or RM are involved in any way, for some damned reason. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:10, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- @SMcCandlish: Once again, I urge you to focus on the topic of discussion instead of focusing on the venue and deflecting based on that. Do you not see an issue with the fact you reverted someone and told them to write their own essay? Do you really believe this doesn't come across as ownership of a page that's implied to be official?
- You're acting like talk page was an option when you told them to write their own essay. That's not working well with others and it was clearly implied that you weren't open to changes.
- Why didn't YOU propose the change on the ,tas you're saying they should have done, alk page instead of reverting someone to re-add wording that you were trying to inuce? The Hey man im josh (talk) 03:23, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, I should have just taken it to the talk page (WP:BRD does suggest that the one making the change should do so), and my temper was a little short in that moment for whatever reason. It's also completely normal for essays to have contra essays (WP:BLUE and WP:NOTBLUE and a bunch of other examples), but I didn't need to word it so dismissively, I'll confess. But that is hardly cause for an AN thread. We all get reverted (and counter-reverted) from time to time, but we do not manufacture a noticeboard drama about it, we just go open a talk page thread. WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY matters; there is no policy requirement that the one making the edit some else doesn't like must open the discussion. BRD is an essay, remember, not a policy or guideline, and following it is not mandatory, even if it's conventional. (It is actually rather at odds with both WP:Editing policy (especially WP:PRESERVE) and the WP:Be bold guideline. But also, when it comes to actual article content, more consistent with WP:BURDEN. The community isn't entirely of one mind on this.) Imagine if you will what would happen if everyone opened an AN thread every time someone counter-reverted after a vaguely justified and grandstanding revert? This page would consist of nothing but pointless brand new content-dispute kvetching that belongs somewhere else. AN[I] is a late-stage DR process, not the first step.
I'm always open to changes; much of what I do outside of content improvement is brokering compromise on guideline changes, to a set of guidelines everyone and their dog wants to change (in completely conflicting ways and mostly to invent new rules we should not have). What I don't take kindly to is a finger-pointing mass-revert of well-thought-out content by someone angry about some style pecadillo (at an essay the theme of which is avoidance of pecadillo activism), which had no substantive justification. It came off as a bad-faith accusation (made more explicit here at AN, without evidence) and an attempt to control the content and thwart the intent of the essay. OWN feelings can run both ways; in this case, it had the feel somewhere between gatekeeping and a partisan takeover in furtherance of the viewpoint of those trying to overturn an RfC closure. PS: The content in question wasn't even about this damned NFL stuff (which was always just going to be a matter of whether "a substantial majority of independent reliable sources" capitalize "draft" in that context; cut and dry). It was mostly about a bad habit of assuming that something "should" be an exception by default instead of defaulting to being consistent absent strong evidence that an exception applies, especially with titles of published works. I mean, just go read the material. Anyway, I'm sorry that being momentarily testy had me come off as uncivil. I argue forcefully sometimes, but try not to be flippant/dismissive. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:08, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, I should have just taken it to the talk page (WP:BRD does suggest that the one making the change should do so), and my temper was a little short in that moment for whatever reason. It's also completely normal for essays to have contra essays (WP:BLUE and WP:NOTBLUE and a bunch of other examples), but I didn't need to word it so dismissively, I'll confess. But that is hardly cause for an AN thread. We all get reverted (and counter-reverted) from time to time, but we do not manufacture a noticeboard drama about it, we just go open a talk page thread. WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY matters; there is no policy requirement that the one making the edit some else doesn't like must open the discussion. BRD is an essay, remember, not a policy or guideline, and following it is not mandatory, even if it's conventional. (It is actually rather at odds with both WP:Editing policy (especially WP:PRESERVE) and the WP:Be bold guideline. But also, when it comes to actual article content, more consistent with WP:BURDEN. The community isn't entirely of one mind on this.) Imagine if you will what would happen if everyone opened an AN thread every time someone counter-reverted after a vaguely justified and grandstanding revert? This page would consist of nothing but pointless brand new content-dispute kvetching that belongs somewhere else. AN[I] is a late-stage DR process, not the first step.
- The current discussion should simply close. There is no AN issue to address here. If someone wants to (instead of abusing AN) engage in what the normal process is, which is use the essay's talk page to suggest revisions, then they're welcome to do that. If someone's determined to mess with the central message of the essay (that engaging in anti-guideline battlegrounding is a disruptive waste of time and editorial goodwill and that the thing to do if you want to effectuate change in a guideline is propose that change on its talk page – all of which is obviously true), I'll happily userspace the essay, and they can go write their own counter-essay. If someone's determined on forcibly userspacing this just because they disagree with it or they have a bone to pick with me personally, but aren't going to mess with the message of it, they know where MfD is. This is the wrong venue for any of this. If this were any other subject, in the entire history of Wikipedia, this thread would have been closed immediately as wrong-venue and a misguided attempt to get the upper hand in a (brand new) content dispute, instead of engaging in normal discussion. But various people love to drag out any argument if style, titles, MoS, AT, or RM are involved in any way, for some damned reason. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:10, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- @SMcCandlish: I'm not interested in participating in the close review above. Perhaps it would behoove you to focus on the current discussion instead of deflecting and focusing on whether this is the appropriate place for such a discussion. Frankly I can't understand why you've dug in so hard on making your personal essay the FAQ. Editors have expressed some very valid concerns and most reasonable folk would at least try to meet in the middle. Hey man im josh (talk) 22:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Go say that in the RFC related discussion above, then. Hipocrisy doesn't suit you. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:54, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- RFCs are also not the standard place for move discussions, but sometimes the validity and content of a discussion outweighs the venue it's at. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:31, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- It is not AN's role to decide to userspace things in response to content disputes. The material in the essay is not a minority viewpoint at all, or we would not have a style guideline and title policy (at least nothing like the ones we have), and they would not be followed by everyone except the tiny handful of editors who keep trying to defy them in particular topics. The central theme of the essay is that the latter behavior is generally counterproductive and often disruptive, and the community is tired of it (which is certainly true; these flare-ups are often labeled "battlegrounds", "disheartening", "demoralizing", etc.). WP:OR applies to factual claims in article content, and has nothing of any kind to do with editors recording their views about internal community processes in essays. Finally, if you think something in the content of the essay is wrong, it has a talk page. If you think something in the content of MoS is wrong, it also has a talk page. This is not the venue for grandstanding about having a bone to pick with MoS. Everyone has a bone to pick with MoS (and would with any other style guide) because it is the nature of style guides to advise a particular answer for the sake of consistency and dispute-avoidance, in a sphere in which actual usage varies wildly, which guarantees that any given person will disagree with at least one line-item in it, and no line-item in it will have agreement from everyone. As with all our other P&G and internal process, it is not possible for everyone to be 100% happy with everything in it; this is the nature of consensus compromise. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Out of curiosity, is there a minimum number of times SMcCandlish has been instructed to post, or is it just good old WP:BLUDGEONing? I mean, this post... in nearly 5K bytes responded to 5 different editors simultaneously! ——Serial 16:58, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Replying to every point with a wall of text reiterating the same thing in several locations couldn't possibly be bludgeoning! Hey man im josh (talk) 19:34, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- We should remove the rest of the trappings and wording that make it to appear to have more status than just an essay. (and yes, it still has some of that) Then just leave it alone as an essay. There is no strict criteria for existence as an essay. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:13, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- According to WP:POLICIES,
Essays the author does not want others to edit, or that contradict widespread consensus, belong in the user namespace.
The WordsmithTalk to me 18:11, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- According to WP:POLICIES,
- I don't really think we need to user-fy it, but if it's in mainspace, it's not SMC's essay no matter how much they contributed to it. Other than the WP:OWN issue, this appears to be a pretty normal dispute about the contents of an essay that should ultimately be resolved at its talk page. Loki (talk) 17:23, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Sporting CP versus Sporting Lisbon
This [8] short explanation was reverted without a valid reason by a SL Benfica advocate. I would ask the administrators to pay attention to the multiple abuses by this user, who has absurd prejudices towards Portuguese football and is against anything that is not in the interests of his SL Benfica. A. Landmesser (talk) 08:18, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- So you made a bold edit, that was already contentious years ago (Talk:Sporting CP#Sporting Lisbon), they reverted it and instead of discussing it, or any other form of Dispute resolution. You take them to the Administrators' noticeboard without notifying them? Nobody (talk) 12:59, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- No, we are not talking about the same thing. The issue with Sporting Lisbon they were taking about is in the top of the article at the very beginning of the text not in the section Crests and motto. My recent contribution was placed in the proper section and has a bunch of references about the topic. A. Landmesser (talk) 23:51, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Nihonjoe and COI
It was recently brought to the community's attention – through an external online publication which I won't link to here but which can be easily Googled up – that Nihonjoe has been editing articles in which he has a significant conflict of interest. These are articles about his employer, which Nihonjoe has significantly expanded mostly with promotional material, and three articles about his employer's products.
- Auqaveo – Nihonjoe's employer. Nihonjoe adds promotional stuff, mostly a high-profile customer listing[9]
- GMS (software) – product by Aquveo; Nihonjoe adds version history and a Reception section with customer testimonials[10]
- WMS (hydrology software) – product by Aquveo; Nihonjoe adds customer use cases[11]
- SMS (hydrology software) – product by Aquveo; Nihonjoe makes minor amendments[12]
It may be worth noting that Aquaveo is a small privately-held company that occupies just one office suite on a multi-office floor of 14,000 sq feet.
Nihonjoe has been anything but forthcoming about his COI:
- First, Sagflaps politely asked Nihonjoe about his COI[13]. Nihonjoe replied evasively, stating that he was never "paid to edit the article" [14], repeating it twice. An admin of 18+ years will surely know the difference between COI and PAID.
- Nihonjoe did not acknowledge his links with Aquaveo until later, initially claiming that the company is
just found within one of many topics I find interesting
because he'sedited a fair number of river and lake articles over the years, and Aquaveo's software is used by a lot of people writing academic papers analyzing rivers and lakes
[15][16] It needed a direct question from Sojourner in the earth for Nihonjoe to confirm that he had indeed been employed by Aquaveo. - At first, Nihonjoe claimed that he had edited these articles before he started working for Aquaveo.[17] Then he refused to say whether he had a COI when editing them,[18] and only
after a further challenge by Sojournerlater conceded that he had edited them while being employed.[19] - Nihonjoe claimed that all his edits had been
to improve the article by adding references, removing marketing speak, and expanding it based on references
.[20] It is unclear whether "removing marketing" also included pushing the article about Aquaveo to the front page of Wikipedia.[21] - Other than Nihonjoe, the four articles were created and edited mostly by two other accounts: Edit42 and 42of8. While Nihonjoe asserted that he doesn't know these accounts, a long-time Wikipedia editor and admin unaware who else in a small team could have worked on the company's Wikipedia presence, additionally with a shared interest in Brandon Sanderson as the case is, feels highly unusual.
- I have not scrutinised Nihonjoe's alleged edits to competitors' products as mentioned by Levivich.[22]. Also, I did not go into other allegations mentioned in the external analysis (e.g., allegations of posting promo reviews for a book allegedly edited by his wife, etc.), as they are unrelated to Wikipedia.
It was a week ago that Sagflaps asked Nihonjoe about COI. Yesterday I politely suggested to Nihonjoe to come clean on it before the community starts its own investigation. He responded that he doesn't have time and anyway wasn't inclined to share "personal information".[23]
The Aquaveo article is now on its way to deletion due a forming consensus that his employer lacks notability.
I wouldn't like for this COI problem to overshadow Nihonjoe's 120,000+ positive contributions to Wikipedia over 18+ years, and countless hours of unpaid (?) work he has put into this project. However, if the editor community is to trust him – an admin and bureaucrat – to enforce Wikipedia policies fairly and transparently, it becomes necessary to address the evidence of the alleged policy violations.
With this, I'd like to open the floor for discussion. — kashmīrī TALK 12:03, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Excellent summary, Kashmiri, thanks. Yes, it would seem, to an uninvolved eye, that Nihonjoe has, through evasive and occasionally outright misleading statements, been gaslighting the community since the issue came to light elsewhere. This is a clear breach of both his conditions of conduct (undeclared COI, for example) and accountability (failure to adequately communicate). ——Serial 12:59, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- My first immediate thought was: "This all could easily have been avoided if he simply followed the disclosure policy." Then I next began to wonder as to whether an employee of a company could escape needing to disclose COI if the company were particularly large and there was no immediate bright-line connection between them and the business ownership, i.e. they were too far down the totem pole to have a legitimate interest in making the company articles look "nice". As WP:EXTERNALREL says,
how close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Wikipedia is governed by common sense.
However, in this case as Kashmiri has said, Aquaveo is a very small company that develops specialized scientific software, so this seems far more concerning. In particular, the response regarding the other two accounts editing the article also sets off alarm bells in my mind immediately. - I am taken aback that we are having this discussion about a bureaucrat. In the interests of WP:AGF, I cannot immediately assume paid editing; I hope maybe this could be a case of misinterpreting or misunderstanding the policy. But the only way to be sure of that is through Nihonjoe holding himself accountable, and I feel only the Arbitration Committee has the capacity to deal with private evidence in this manner, particularly if it is potentially revealing of personal information as Nihonjoe says. Duly signed, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 13:28, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Diff #1 is eight years old. The rest (which are mostly formatting) are five years old. The community's attitude to COI/paid editing has changed significantly in that time (largely as a result of professional marketing firms using significant resources to covertly influence our content). Is there anything more recent or that was explicitly against the rules as they stood at the time the edits were made? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:38, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Not quite that though. They have known for many years that they have had an undisclosed conflict of interest with each of these companies/products, and have edited their articles up until relatively recently (for Aquaveo, Nohinjoe's most recent edit, while a couple of years ago, was only seven edits ago). In some cases, as recently as last year. Community attitudes towards PAID and COI have indeed changed (they've got tighter). But admins are expected to keep themselves fully informed of changes to, and stay up to date with, policy. So either they did that and ignored them or did not and did not realise.None of this addresses possibly the greater issue, of course, which is vague communication and repeated attempts at swerving questions. ——Serial 13:57, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- @HJ Mitchell I recall COI policy was fairly strict in 2015 when Nihonjoe first edited about his employer: [24]. It has remained that strict until today, and Nihonjoe's last COI edits were as recently as last summer.[25]
- Already at their 2007 RfB, Nihonjoe proclaimed:
I think it's very important to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.
[26] - In view of this, I find it challenging to try to justify his editing by a "changing community attitude" as you seem to suggest. — kashmīrī TALK 14:56, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- I have sent the private evidence to the arbcom email, so they should be aware of it. Sagflaps (talk) 15:36, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Diff #1 is eight years old. The rest (which are mostly formatting) are five years old. The community's attitude to COI/paid editing has changed significantly in that time (largely as a result of professional marketing firms using significant resources to covertly influence our content). Is there anything more recent or that was explicitly against the rules as they stood at the time the edits were made? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:38, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Who is BurroWrangler? They appear to be a very old account, which has only edited things related to WMS. Now, they have made an edit out of nowhere. See Special:Diff/1209231706 Sagflaps (talk) 14:13, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- They were likely notified by email after their article was nominated for deletion. Their commented in the wrong place, too (shouldn't be Talk). — kashmīrī TALK 14:38, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Ok, I've reviewed some information, and it generally seems like the editor BurroWrangler is not a sockpuppet. For privacy, I won't discuss here. Sagflaps (talk) 16:17, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- They were likely notified by email after their article was nominated for deletion. Their commented in the wrong place, too (shouldn't be Talk). — kashmīrī TALK 14:38, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- It's no surprise that the environmental modeling software company with four Wikipedia articles is the one that has a Wikipedia admin on its payroll. Levivich (talk) 15:41, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- This is all deeply unfortunate. It brings to mind the oft-repeated truism that the cover-up can be as bad as the crime. With the way this has played out so far, the community's level of trust in Nihonjoe at the moment does not seem to be at the level needed for him to effectively serve as a bureaucrat. Given the off-wiki evidence, this seems like a matter where there is a role for ArbCom, who I trust to take appropriate action. Sdkb talk 16:24, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- The thought that I've been mulling over is that there's no indication of administrator tools or bureaucrat tools being abused here, or that they would be. The lack of trust is squarely the lack of trust to write article content properly, with a tool that even people without accounts have. Although Nihonjoe removing praise published in a predatory journal in Special:Diff/829120321 and in Special:Diff/828998968 in 2017 removing much of the content that had earlier been added in 2015 by Edit42 and a Utah IP address in Special:Diff/608274825/650181752 does indicate that the diff above that covers 21 edits and several users is perhaps blurring some details here. Uncle G (talk) 17:29, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Trust unfortunately isn't something that can be segmented out that narrowly. The lost trust here applies not just to whether or not he will COI edit in the future, but more broadly to whether he will abide by the rules, show accountability, and overall behave responsibly. And even if we're looking more narrowly at only COI, that's still something that could intersect with 'crat work (e.g. judging consensus on whether to promote/demote an editor with COI issues).
- I'm not yet at the point where I see no path for him to retain his 'crat bit, but to do so he will need to show accountability rather than defensiveness to begin to restore the lost trust. Sdkb talk 17:57, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Generally, sysops in the past have lost their permissions for things that are not related to their actions as administrators. As you said, it's more about community trust. Sagflaps (talk) 18:00, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Yep. Blatant COI is often blockable at sight. Not using admin tools when COI editing makes no difference. — kashmīrī TALK 18:10, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Bureaucrat in particular is fundamentally a position of community trust more than it is a technical position. The technical right to add administrators and bureaucrats isn't really necessary, because a steward could do it. Bureaucrats are trusted for their good decision making. Sagflaps (talk) 18:34, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Yep. Blatant COI is often blockable at sight. Not using admin tools when COI editing makes no difference. — kashmīrī TALK 18:10, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Generally, sysops in the past have lost their permissions for things that are not related to their actions as administrators. As you said, it's more about community trust. Sagflaps (talk) 18:00, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Well, that wasn't the entirety of your edits on that day, right? Actually, in that edit series you replaced some of the content (including a single predatory reference) with much longer content of similarly promotional character.[27] Anyway, I'm not sure what benefit you see in going edit by edit and trying to defend them when the problem is not really in the quality of your editing. — kashmīrī TALK 18:02, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Striking the entire comment – I regret I was quicker to respond than to read. Thanks, Primefac! — kashmīrī TALK 18:07, 22 February 2024 (UTC)- Kashmiri, you are replying to Uncle G, who did not add the text to which you refer. Primefac (talk) 18:03, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- The thought that I've been mulling over is that there's no indication of administrator tools or bureaucrat tools being abused here, or that they would be. The lack of trust is squarely the lack of trust to write article content properly, with a tool that even people without accounts have. Although Nihonjoe removing praise published in a predatory journal in Special:Diff/829120321 and in Special:Diff/828998968 in 2017 removing much of the content that had earlier been added in 2015 by Edit42 and a Utah IP address in Special:Diff/608274825/650181752 does indicate that the diff above that covers 21 edits and several users is perhaps blurring some details here. Uncle G (talk) 17:29, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- To address various things brought up here:
- It's already obvious I didn't create any of the articles in question. Just making sure that's stated.
- Yes, I should have declared a COI when I first edited Aquaveo. That was a mistake on my part. As for why, that was going on a decade ago (around 9 years, I think), so I don't know exactly what might have been going through my mind at that time. I suspect I did not because I wasn't editing while on the clock, I was not ever directed by anyone there to make edits or told how to edit, and all of my edits were attempting to improve the articles to better meet the neutrality and sourcing requirements because they were not very good before I worked to improve them. So, my brain likely interpreted it as not being a COI because Aquaveo wasn't involved in any way in the decisions I was making, and I wasn't trying to promote them. And, as I mentioned, I have edited many river and lake articles over the years, and often run across Aquaveo-related references and such when doing so, even before I worked for them. Within that small niche of river, lake, and related water science, they are well known. I nominated the article for DYK because I do that for many of the articles I improve significantly or create. Even with the work I did, however, I don't think the Aquaveo article currently meets the requirements to be kept (and I've said as much in that discussion). I haven't participated in the WMS discussion, but I suspect it's also not quite meeting the requirements to be kept after a quick glance at its current refs.
- I don't have any way to prove the other accounts mentioned here (Edit42, 42of8, and BurroWrangler) are not mine (it's really impossible to prove a negative like that). I can only say that I didn't create those accounts, I don't know who did, I've never used any of them, and I don't know who did/does use them. Given the somewhat geeky/nerdy nature of Aquaveo's products and how many geeky/nerdy people use them, and given how popular Brandon Sanderson is around the world, it's not a stretch to imagine that others who use or work on Aquaveo products might also be fans of Sanderson.
- Kashmiri's representation of my comment as
He responded that he doesn't have time and anyway wasn't inclined to share "personal information".
is rather disingenuous. I said thatI have a life outside of Wikipedia, and I can't spend every waking moment here.
in response to him posting a section on my talk page claiming that I was being silent and not responding to things. He posted this around 24 hours after I had last responded to something from him. He may have had a point if it had been a week or even a few days, but he needs to be a little more patient in waiting for someone to reply or make a comment.
- I should have indicated my COI. That was a mistake on my part. I take following the policies and guidelines here very seriously, and I didn't do that here when I should have. It was never my intention to be evasive, but rather to protect my privacy. I apologize for any appearance of evasiveness and for not indicating my COI as I should have done. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 18:37, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Personally, I'm willing to accept this. My intent when I posted the original message on your talk page was that you would realize it's not worth fighting over and declare the COI to avoid further scrutiny into your personal life, and to placate the issues mentioned in the external site where this was originally brought up. Are there any other COI concerns that might come up? If so, I think it's better to just declare them now, since people on the internet can be ruthless. Sagflaps (talk) 18:52, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Not disclosing a COI is a big mistake, but the impact has been pretty trivial and they've owned up to it now. To me, a bigger concern is that participants here don't seem to care about the effort to dig into Nihonjoe's personal details off-wiki, outing and doxing him on a site known for harassment of Wikipedians, and publishing all of those allegations (even the thin speculation about sockpuppetry) here on-wiki. Is outing and doxing really tolerated by this community as long as you actually find a speck of dirt in their past? Could this really not have been settled in a completely private manner? I suppose it does send a clear message: watch those COIs or you lose all rights to privacy and discretion. The cat's out of the bag at this point, so fair to have a conversation about what to do, but it's not Joe who's primarily lost my trust here. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:43, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- What can be done, though, about a place "known for harassment of Wikipedians"? A description, incidentally, that could perhaps as easily describe One Montgomery Tower, San Francisco :) ——Serial 19:57, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Doxxing that occurs on another site - even if it's triggered by WP editing - is something that's essentially impossible to deal with. People suck. I imagine most of us think COI editing is bad, and doxxing is bad, and different people assign different levels of outrage to each. The change I feel I've seen in recent years is that people seem almost unconcerned about doxxing if it's in the service of sniffing out a COI. I know others disagree, but this feels like if I got 5 years in jail for shoplifting a Snickers, and when I complained, I'm told "well you shouldn't have broken the law". I suspect there are those here who don't understand the point I'm trying to make because they would agree with the 5-year sentence. I can simultaneously be disappointed in NihonJoe, but even more disappointed in "Eddie Lands-something", who I'm sure has no WP account and no history of disagreement with NihonJoe on-wiki. The moral of the story is threefold, kids: (1) Don't edit with a COI, (2) Don't link your WP username with a username anywhere else in the world, and (3) Always remember that there are a lot of smart and mean-spirited people out there, who think they're on the side of angels. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:14, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- We don't have to prevent bad behavior off-wiki in order to decide it should stay off-wiki. To deal with it, all it takes is an admin to decide WP:OUTING, WP:PROBLEMLINKS, the rest of WP:HA, etc. still exist and that it doesn't matter if a few influential editors try to add an "unless I think they deserve it" clause to the policy. It's disappointing, along the lines of your Snickers example, that even in such a frankly pretty trivial case of wrongdoing that nobody has any reservations about outing a fellow editor. I might expect to see the erosion of our harassment enforcement in the case of, say, the uncovering of a large UPE sockfarm, or an admin showing a pattern of blocking users to win disputes or something more egregious, but this is just some mild COI editing-while-crat. We can have all the proposals we want at WP:RFA2024, but if our admins are specifically targeted for harassment because they're an admin and nobody will go to bat for their basic humanity and dignity, it's pointless. Speaking of unfair things asked of admins: you're drawing a moral here, but you're an admin; by choosing what rules to enforce or ignore, you are creating the conditions from which we can extract a moral. Adding for the record, in case I need to be clearer: My point is not that there's "no there there". COI editing bad. Yes. But if outing is required to prove it, though, keep it private. Go to the editor, go to arbcom, and let them do what needs to be done. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:43, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not aware - beyond obvious hints about what external site this doxxing is on - of any personal info disclosed on-wiki that NJ hasn't admitted to. If it exists, please tell Oversight. If there is more adminning (rather than OSing) to be done (policy-based, which an admin can act on, not morals-based, which we can complain about) then point it out here. Do you mean redacting references to that external site? Do you mean any mention of the COI editing, based on a "fruit of the poisonous tree" philosophy? I think at this point that would be pointless. If you have concrete suggestions of what admin action could be taken, I'm open to hearing them. Floquenbeam (talk) 20:58, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- regarding the part you added after I started typing: I agree, private arbcom or private discussion would have been more appropriate. Floquenbeam (talk) 21:00, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not aware - beyond obvious hints about what external site this doxxing is on - of any personal info disclosed on-wiki that NJ hasn't admitted to. If it exists, please tell Oversight. If there is more adminning (rather than OSing) to be done (policy-based, which an admin can act on, not morals-based, which we can complain about) then point it out here. Do you mean redacting references to that external site? Do you mean any mention of the COI editing, based on a "fruit of the poisonous tree" philosophy? I think at this point that would be pointless. If you have concrete suggestions of what admin action could be taken, I'm open to hearing them. Floquenbeam (talk) 20:58, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- We don't have to prevent bad behavior off-wiki in order to decide it should stay off-wiki. To deal with it, all it takes is an admin to decide WP:OUTING, WP:PROBLEMLINKS, the rest of WP:HA, etc. still exist and that it doesn't matter if a few influential editors try to add an "unless I think they deserve it" clause to the policy. It's disappointing, along the lines of your Snickers example, that even in such a frankly pretty trivial case of wrongdoing that nobody has any reservations about outing a fellow editor. I might expect to see the erosion of our harassment enforcement in the case of, say, the uncovering of a large UPE sockfarm, or an admin showing a pattern of blocking users to win disputes or something more egregious, but this is just some mild COI editing-while-crat. We can have all the proposals we want at WP:RFA2024, but if our admins are specifically targeted for harassment because they're an admin and nobody will go to bat for their basic humanity and dignity, it's pointless. Speaking of unfair things asked of admins: you're drawing a moral here, but you're an admin; by choosing what rules to enforce or ignore, you are creating the conditions from which we can extract a moral. Adding for the record, in case I need to be clearer: My point is not that there's "no there there". COI editing bad. Yes. But if outing is required to prove it, though, keep it private. Go to the editor, go to arbcom, and let them do what needs to be done. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:43, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- (Putting this here as a response to Rhododendrites, never sure where to go in these long threaded discussions.) Yes, this is unpleasant. But COI editing is a breach of trust and the community has a very high expectation of bureaucrats, higher than for admins and I believe higher than for arbitrators. People differ. But for me personally, the argument in the off-wiki article was a bit mountain out of a molehill-ish, but Nihonjoe's responses to the issue being raised on his talk page fell short of WP:ADMINACCT. I expect any admin, when someone queried whether they had edited articles about their employer, to check the timeline to see whether they had indeed fallen afoul of the (current) standard. I expect that all the more of a bureaucrat. Yngvadottir (talk) 23:40, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- I don't disagree about COI and initial responses. I'm not trying to absolve Joe. My question is, why are you ok with people talking about, linking to, and repeating the outing/doxing publicly on-wiki? If it were handled privately, Joe would get his trouting (or worse), own up to COIs, etc. As soon as it's on-wiki, however, it's a violation of our behavioral policies on harassment. Both can be true: Joe should've addressed this/fixed this after contacted about it, and Kashmiri, et al. have violated our harassment policy. It's extremely disappointing that the former is treated as a cardinal sin and the latter as, basically, worth it. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 23:50, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- The community as a whole has become very concerned about COI, particularly when it's about one's employer. It's important to avoid the appearance of a double standard for admins, since we are coming down like a ton of bricks on ordinary editors. On private handling, I don't know that it wasn't raised privately (via e-mail or at ArbCom). So far as I can see (I obviously can't see the suppressed IP edit in the same location that preceded it), the first on-wiki mention was Sagflaps' hypothetical at Nihonjoe's talk page. That looks to me like an attempt to have a quiet word. The response was less than forthcoming. So while as I say I think the exposé was overblown, my disappointment in Nihonjoe remains greater. (This later misstatement, which I assume was based on faulty memory, doesn't help my impression of Nihonjoe's responsiveness to concerns; as I said, as part of accountability I expect an admin, when the serious issue of COI is raised, to immediately check the timeline to see whether they had in fact contravened current standards.) Yngvadottir (talk) 02:03, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- I don't disagree about COI and initial responses. I'm not trying to absolve Joe. My question is, why are you ok with people talking about, linking to, and repeating the outing/doxing publicly on-wiki? If it were handled privately, Joe would get his trouting (or worse), own up to COIs, etc. As soon as it's on-wiki, however, it's a violation of our behavioral policies on harassment. Both can be true: Joe should've addressed this/fixed this after contacted about it, and Kashmiri, et al. have violated our harassment policy. It's extremely disappointing that the former is treated as a cardinal sin and the latter as, basically, worth it. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 23:50, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- A major red flag for me was when Nihonjoe told the OP at the AfD to
Please stop harassing me
(diff), seemingly for no apparent reason... El_C 22:10, 22 February 2024 (UTC)- OP effectively outs him, opens an ANI thread, nominates an article at AfD based on that outing, publicizes a link to external harassment (all of which is a flagrant disregard of WP:HA and WP:PROBLEMLINKS), and in your judgment not only is none of that actually harassment ("no apparent reason"), but it's a red flag that Nihonjoe called it harassment? This place sometimes... — Rhododendrites talk \\ 23:44, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- That is an incredibly distorted view, but I see that you've decided to defend Nihonjoe at all cost, which is a position I suppose. El_C 23:49, 22 February 2024 (UTC) — My edit summary was meant to read no to entrenched defense of wrongdoing — that at was a typo. El_C 23:55, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- Flummoxing response. Haven't defended Nihonjoe at all. Just wishing someone would defend our harassment policy. With that, I think I'll part ways with this thread. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:05, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- From my perspective, you've done little but that. You taking a break from this thread is a good idea, though, I'd grant you that. El_C 00:10, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- Flummoxing response. Haven't defended Nihonjoe at all. Just wishing someone would defend our harassment policy. With that, I think I'll part ways with this thread. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:05, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- That is an incredibly distorted view, but I see that you've decided to defend Nihonjoe at all cost, which is a position I suppose. El_C 23:49, 22 February 2024 (UTC) — My edit summary was meant to read no to entrenched defense of wrongdoing — that at was a typo. El_C 23:55, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- I read through the discussion and it definitely comes across as strange to ask them to "stop harassing" them. I thought that was a perfectly acceptable conversation that was moving forward productively. Hey man im josh (talk) 00:14, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- As I've mentioned off-wiki, this is a misdemeanor rather than a felony. I liked the earlier TROUT close and think that's still an appropriate way to end the dramahz. Carrite (talk) 00:40, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed. This conversation, which was disproportionate from the outset, has outlived its usefulness. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 00:49, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- When an advanced permission holder is credibly accused of violating core policies and admits it (after first being evasive and then giving an untrue answer), shutting down the discussion within hours just seems like an effort to sweep it under the rug. This is especially true when the discussion is still very active, and when "loss of trust" has been raised. Personally I don't think this will go very far unless there are more violations, but trying to stifle discussion of a serious issue before it has run its course just doesn't look good. "I don't think this is serious enough for sanctions" would be a legitimate opinion, but "Stop discussing this confirmed violation" isn't. I'm sure there are functionaries keeping an eye on this thread for actual outing that we really can't discuss on-wiki. The WordsmithTalk to me 02:28, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- Then maybe someone should move the discussion forward in a constructive direction. Because the biggest thing that's happened since the thread was reopened is that the admin who reopened it belittled Rhododendrites into leaving the discussion and then took a parting shot for good measure. Did that look good? LEPRICAVARK (talk) 03:49, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- When an advanced permission holder is credibly accused of violating core policies and admits it (after first being evasive and then giving an untrue answer), shutting down the discussion within hours just seems like an effort to sweep it under the rug. This is especially true when the discussion is still very active, and when "loss of trust" has been raised. Personally I don't think this will go very far unless there are more violations, but trying to stifle discussion of a serious issue before it has run its course just doesn't look good. "I don't think this is serious enough for sanctions" would be a legitimate opinion, but "Stop discussing this confirmed violation" isn't. I'm sure there are functionaries keeping an eye on this thread for actual outing that we really can't discuss on-wiki. The WordsmithTalk to me 02:28, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed. This conversation, which was disproportionate from the outset, has outlived its usefulness. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 00:49, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- So says the person who chronically diminishes civility. Looks like they moved on to diminishing COI now. Not an improvement. El_C 04:40, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- As for the
the biggest
[biggest?]thing that's happened since the thread was reopened
-diminishing: Yngvadottir made an insightful comment since (diff), as did Hey man im josh (diff), as did Usedtobecool (diff). The diminishing runs deep. El_C 04:51, 23 February 2024 (UTC)- I'll admit I communicated rather clumsily in that thread from a month-and-a-half ago, but I don't think that gives you the right to cast aspersions against me. Your treatment of Rhododendrites and myself is verging on conduct unbecoming of an admin. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 05:38, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- Not that you seem concerned with fairness towards me, but the Usedtobecool comment came 40 minutes after my comment. Evidently you were too focused on discrediting me to pay careful attention. The other comments are certainly insightful, but I believe the negative impact of your behavior outweighs them (a belief that is not consistent with your claim that I chronically diminish civility; perhaps you should set aside your disdain for me and revisit that assertion). Frankly, I don't believe I've done anything to deserve this level of contempt from you. I don't expect you to like me, but I do expect an admin to refrain from grandstanding against a fellow editor. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 05:54, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- I am unmoved by your accusing me of "grandstanding." I speak plainly and directly, also about you diminishing others, which I maintain the facts bear. You attempting to turn what you called a parting shot, or my criticism of you ("contempt"), into some kind of egregious conduct — well, I obviously disagree. But the timeline, okay sure. El_C 06:11, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- If you want plain and direct speech, that suits me just fine. Broadly speaking, I support our civility policy; at times I have criticized the manner in which others sought to enforce it. If you intend to persist in publicly labeling me as someone who diminishes incivility despite my protestations to the contrary, it would appear that I will just have to put up with having my name dragged through the mud by an admin.
- At any rate, your decision to personalize our interaction has clearly added more heat than light. Likewise, your snippy replies to Rhododendrites added more heat than light, even after Rhododendrites announced he was withdrawing from the discussion. In short, regardless of how much insight one derives from the comments that were made by other editors since you re-opened this thread, you have been raising the temperature and pushing the discussion in directions that are not constructive. I don't appreciate being mocked by an admin for my suggestion that this thread should be either pushed forward constructively or closed. You aren't above criticism, and you certainly shouldn't respond to criticism with aspersions. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 06:37, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- I didn't mock you, I criticized you. If you're unable to distinguish the two, then I'm sorry to say, but that's on you. Everyone is subject to criticism, which I'm obviously not exempt of, but neither are you. I've nothing further to add at this time. El_C 06:44, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- I am unmoved by your accusing me of "grandstanding." I speak plainly and directly, also about you diminishing others, which I maintain the facts bear. You attempting to turn what you called a parting shot, or my criticism of you ("contempt"), into some kind of egregious conduct — well, I obviously disagree. But the timeline, okay sure. El_C 06:11, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- Basic facts do not seem to be in dispute. And there is no consensus so far on how bad it was. The community has been moving heavily in the direction of giving crats more responsibility. The level of trust required for that position has increased if it's moved.If this were the case of a regular non-admin, with a comparable amount of contributions, I do not think we would immediately move to ban. But a topic ban seems like an obvious outcome. Said non-admin would not pass RFA for the next 5-6 years, maybe ever. Now, do we want admins who clearly wouldn't pass RFA, not because they've made enemies doing their job but the opposite? The answer has not always been a no, in the past. The bigger question yet is, do we want someone who would not pass an RFA, clerking RFAs, closing RFAs, partaking in cratchats and closing cratchats?To concerns of outing, they are not without merit. OP could/should have said, offwiki evidence exists and functionaries/arbs have been made aware of it. It was a ways too far to say the evidence was easily googled. OP has previously been oversighted recently, and presumably made adequately aware of OS policy, so it is truly unfortunate that more than was necessary was revealed yet again. It is also worth pointing out that ARBCOM as a institution is partly responsible for these kinds of incidents. They take a millennium to do anything, and routinely fail to assure the community that they are even doing something, making people impatient. When matters become public that should really be handled by arbcom, and it is obvious that arbs know of it, it should not require three days of ten people calling on them to say something for them to give a "yeah, we know."tldr; Nihonjoe should not be editing those topics anymore however that is achieved, and we need to find out Nihonjoe still retains the trust of the community to act as a crat in RFAs, however that is achieved. Usedtobecool ☎️ 04:39, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- Given the edits and the timeframe, this does seem to be a mountain out of a molehill. Nihonjoe did screw up by not owning up more aggressively, but I disagree that the policies on COI was that strong in 2015. They were still be developed and there was a very strong anti-paid attitude at the time, much stronger than now (many, including Jimbo, said paid shouldn't edit AT ALL), so anyone with a mild COI was incentivized to not mention it if they really were not paid and not spamming their COI articles. I think Nihonjoe now need to either choose to avoid all COI editing completely, or declare their COI on the talk page. I did the same before I semi-retired. I think a lot of people are rightfully pissed at Nihonjoe, but mainly for wasting their time by not being more forthcoming from the start. Most of us have some kind of COI, most of us have some kind of job, after all. It's how you manage the COI, and disclose it that matters. I don't see any reason for a larger case, or continuing this. Dennis Brown 2¢ 06:26, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- So when they write in their RfB that:
I think it's very important to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest
(diff) — that is immaterial to you? El_C 06:39, 23 February 2024 (UTC)- The question was about how they would use the Crat bit. Not the admin bit, not the editor buttons. ":4. Do you pledge never to promote a person you are affiliated with or to discuss their RfA with them in a bureaucratic sense?", so it doesn't apply here, as there isn't any claim he misused any Crat tools or supposed authority as a Crat. Dennis Brown 2¢ 06:43, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- I'd say that conflict of interest (even the appearance of) is still the thing that it is (i.e. WP:COI), but I concede your point. El_C 06:47, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- Had he simply put a statement saying he had a COI on his user page back in '15, there wouldn't have been a problem with the actual editing (even if others reverted him), so the real problem is disclosure, not editing. Was not disclosing the COI stupid? Probably. Was it so egregious that I have lost faith in his ability to properly use the admin and crat tools? No. My guess is the majority of people have some COI and edit without disclosing, but try to be reasonable and fair, including a lot of admin. I would bet money on it. For me, it's about having a response that is proportional to the actual "crime". Arb can look closer if they feel they need, but dragging him in the mud, publicly, seems overkill. We have our pound of flesh, I think we can quit whipping this horse. Dennis Brown 2¢ 07:10, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- RE:
My guess is the majority of people have some COI and edit without disclosing
— I wouldn't have thought that to be so. I certainly do not have one, nor have I ever (though you'd have to take my word for it). RE:Was it so egregious that I have lost faith in his ability to properly use the admin and crat tools?
— I don't know. Like Usedtobecool above, I have reservations. Finally, I personally will not undo another closure of this thread (once is enough for me). El_C 07:25, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- RE:
- Had he simply put a statement saying he had a COI on his user page back in '15, there wouldn't have been a problem with the actual editing (even if others reverted him), so the real problem is disclosure, not editing. Was not disclosing the COI stupid? Probably. Was it so egregious that I have lost faith in his ability to properly use the admin and crat tools? No. My guess is the majority of people have some COI and edit without disclosing, but try to be reasonable and fair, including a lot of admin. I would bet money on it. For me, it's about having a response that is proportional to the actual "crime". Arb can look closer if they feel they need, but dragging him in the mud, publicly, seems overkill. We have our pound of flesh, I think we can quit whipping this horse. Dennis Brown 2¢ 07:10, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- I'd say that conflict of interest (even the appearance of) is still the thing that it is (i.e. WP:COI), but I concede your point. El_C 06:47, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- The question was about how they would use the Crat bit. Not the admin bit, not the editor buttons. ":4. Do you pledge never to promote a person you are affiliated with or to discuss their RfA with them in a bureaucratic sense?", so it doesn't apply here, as there isn't any claim he misused any Crat tools or supposed authority as a Crat. Dennis Brown 2¢ 06:43, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- Dennis, I can entirely understand his failure to disclose back then (I see you've adopted the same mountain out of a molehill phrase as me). But now in 2024, we're bound by current rules. What concerns me, a lot, is that when Sagflaps asked, he didn't say "You know, now that I think about it, you have a point" and fix the omission at that point. Issue defused—consensus and procedures change—and we might even have been able to keep the article. But it's more than wasting the community's time (hell, all noticeboard discussions waste some time). I'm weighing in here because of the accountability issue (under 2024 rules). He's fallen well below my expectations on that. Yngvadottir (talk) 09:16, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- So when they write in their RfB that:
- Yngvadottir mentioned double standards. Well let us not apply them as a couple of people are doing, then.
How would we treat use of the ordinary editing tool in this manner if it were a person that did not have any extra tools? I know what I would do, because it is what I have done for years, which is point to User:Uncle G/On notability#Writing about subjects close to you and observe that Special:Diff/828998968 is completely contrary to that, citing the company's own wiki as a source. (Even if one grants that in practical terms only company employees can edit the wiki, citing a wiki that is "user-supported" and apparently open to all is by itself a well-settled poor choice for sourcing, let alone combining that with what I talk about which is citing a company's own WWW site, which of course that wiki is. And whatever the back-and-forth over conflict of interest standards as of 2017 may be, citing wikis and autobiographical sources where companies write about themselves has been regarded as poor practice since years before I wrote Special:Diff/66348491 in 2006.)
I would definitely ask Nihonjoe what on Earth xe thought that xe was doing removing the Journal of Hydrology (peer-reviewed, Elsevier), the Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics (peer-reviewed, CUP/SAEA), and Sedimentary Geology (peer-reviewed, Elsevier) and replacing them with the company's wiki. But I certainly have never called for the Arbitration Committee to remedy such a situation, in the many times that I have encountered people writing articles using the subject's own WWW sites. I'm not in favour of applying a double standard in that respect here.
As I said above, there is no evidence here of mis-use of any tool other than the tool that everyone has, or any indication of, or even logical scenario for, there being so. About the only scenario that I could dream up is the utterly outlandish one of a bureaucrat getting all of those company employees administrator accounts on this wiki, which has many practical difficulties on the English Wikiepdia (in contrast to the recent very different situation on the Croatian Wikipedia with a bureaucrat). The trust issue is about the edit tool.
And when it comes to trust, certainly my trust has diminished slightly in editors who just parroted off-wiki accusations of sock-puppetry without looking into them, and who even went as far as to rail against going through things edit by edit. Someone who is unwilling to look conscientiously and diligently at an edit history in detail to work out the facts of a matter is someone who I think is the person whom we should be wary of entrusting advanced tools to. Let's avoid that double standard, too. How many times does the world have to be burned by bad World Wide Web Detectives before the caution to be wary sinks in?
I know that I for one (and I suspect many other administrators) have seen enough sock-puppeteers to know that a claim that account B waits 3 years and entirely undoes the edits of account A is a foundation for a claim of sock-puppetry that wouldn't pass muster at SPI. The person who adds content and cites peer-reviewed journals I for one would not conclude to be the same person as the person who removes that content and cites the company's wiki. (The only conclusions I might draw is that Edit42 was editing logged out at one point, and from deleted edits 42of8 definitely has some conflict of interest concerns and from talk page contributions such as Special:Diff/572217141 has a far stronger behavioural connection to Edit42.) I'll let Beeblebrox and JzG (who even edited the same article to remove predatory journals just like Nihonjoe) speak to the asinine idea that putting HHGTTG references in a username is grounds for drawing any conclusion at all.
- Nihonjoe did a stupid thing. The usual cabal of malignant griefers of course want him tarred and feathered, but a slap with the Wikitrout seems more appropriate. And Kashmiri does not come off well here, for obviously frivolous and vindictive AfD nominations. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:38, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
Paid/COI editor consistent vandalism, needs to be blocked fast
- Mamun Al Mahtab (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
- Sunan 213 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
I've posted this on the COI noticeboard, but it's been quite some time and I feel like this should be addressed here as well as the matter needs a faster response. This editor created this article in 2019, and clearly, they were either paid for it or are closely associated with the subject. They even uploaded various certificates' photos as references (unsure of the proper copyright management of those), indicating they have first-person access to the subject's personal belongings, they also added multiple pictures of the subject on commons, some of which were deleted. The article also has an overly promotional tone. Their account is one purpose, and they hibernated from 2019. Recently the subject of the article came under criticism, and the editor soon came back, and promptly removed those criticisms, including an Unpaid contribution template imposed by me early on. There are existing COI notices on their talk page. They should not be allowed to edit the page (or any pages, as it's a one-purpose promo account with some serious COI violations) any further as their intention is clear here.
Note: Since I posted in the COI noticeboard, the editor has reverted edits on that page multiple times despite multiple warnings, even from 2019. They continued to edit, and need to face consequences. X (talk) 19:51, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
- You seem to be pretty keen on restoring material that is wholly negative to the subject, and which is based in part at least on some pretty dubious sources (deshrupantor.com, New Age (tagline, 'The Most Popular Outspoken English Daily in Bangladesh' (!!!))), material incidentally which you added yourself ([28],[29]). It may well be getting whitewashed by a COI editor who doesn't understand our processes, but they are also removing potential BLP violations. Policy dictates that
contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion. This applies whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable
, and more broadly, the WP:ONUS is on those who want the material to remain in the article to achieve a talk page consensus. The bottom line is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary sourcing. The latter, I don't see. I'm not saying your conclusions are wrong either; but the approach is. ——Serial 20:10, 22 February 2024 (UTC)- @Serial Number 54129, I understand what you meant. And I'll make some more edits to that page trying to fix those. Btw New Age is a reliable source and I won't call it a dubious source. Also, I did not intentionally create a "wholly negative" seeming coverage of controversy on the subject. I added what the subject said about the allegations, and the sources did not mention much, they were filled with allegation details, with ending sentences such as "Dr. Mahtab denied the allegations". I added those, such as "he claimed, "there is no evidence of negligence on his part." I further added what the hospital authority had to say. I tried to cover all grounds and mention everyone's statements. However, that user should not be able to edit any further as there are some serious COI violations. I hope someone also takes a deeper look into the photos as well they uploaded. Thanks.Update: I rewrote the controversy section and introduced many proper sources but the user has yet come again and reverted my edits. I'm not going to edit war with them as it's meaningless. They just ought to be blocked. I'm not sure why it's taking so long for them to be blocked despite vehement violations and vandalism, and multiple noticeboard entries. They have also been overlooked since 2019 despite apparent COI violations. It's unfortunate to think that if I hadn't brought it up they'd probably get away with such violations for a much longer period. X (talk) 20:35, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
Seeking feedback on my own behavior and ensuring compliance with an editing restriction
Similarly to this thread, I am seeking some guidance on a series of edits I made to Drive-Away Dolls. I am under an editing restriction that does not allow me to revert anyone (i.e. 0-RR). When this was discussed there was clear consensus against standard rollbacks, undos, etc. and a clear consensus that I could in no way engage in edit-warring and must always seek consensus. Since then, I have not used these tools to undo anything, including clear vandalism and have instead reported it elsewhere and posted to talk pages to have it removed. I don't want to potentially accidentally break 0-RR, even including its explicit allowances.
At that prior thread, there was some ambiguity discussed about what exactly is edit-warring and removal (e.g. see the section on how my edits could via sheer happenstance trigger the "Undo" tag). I am trying to ensure compliance so in an abundance of caution, I posted to a relevant user's talk page, the article talk page, and here to see if my edits are acceptable to admins per the requirements of how I am obliged to edit. No one prompted this other than a review of my own edits and I hope that this is a good use of others' time to ensure compliance and that I can be a productive member of the community.
Another example of a kind of edit I have done is just removing some kind of content that I come across organically in the encyclopedia. There will be times that I see (e.g.) unsourced information on a biography of a living person, so I remove it per WP:BLP, WP:V, WP:OR, etc. but I am not directly engaged in removing anyone in particular's edits and under no circumstances have I edit-warred to take material back out, etc., if it's put back in. If I just happen across information that someone has added at some point, but I am not directly engaging to edit war with someone, I am allowed to remove that, correct? Or if I substantially rewrite existing content that effectively removes something that someone added along the way, that's not inappropriate, correct?
If anything I've done above violates the spirit or letter of the restriction, please let me know, so I can ensure that I'm a productive editor who is not blocked. Thanks again for reading all this. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:52, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- For convenience: Koavf (talk · message · contribs · global contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · user creation · block user · block log · count · total · logs · summary · email | lu · rfas · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · checkuser · spi · socks | rfar · rfc · rfcu · ssp | current rights · rights log (local) · rights log (global/meta) | rights · renames · blocks · protects · deletions · rollback · admin · logs | UHx · AfD · UtHx · UtE) and Koavf (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:53, 23 February 2024 (UTC)