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New AfD tool

I have had an AfD parser available for a while, but due to some toolserver configuration changes it has broke, Since I am unable to fix the issue that caused the break I re-wrote my parser so that scans all active AfDs. A full listing of all parsed AfDs can be found at tools:~betacommand/reports/afd, However in the process of re-writing the tool I have also implemented a summary tool, its WP:RFASUM but for AfDs which can be found at tools:~betacommand/AFD.html if you have any questions,feature requests, or bugs please let me know. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 14:52, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

PS please note that you can sort that table by any column. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 14:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I have already been finding this the best way to scan quickly the thousand or so open AfDs. Thanks! DGG ( talk ) 06:42, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Please note that you can easily tell if an AfD is expired by sorting on the expired column. (the tool uses the relist template to adjust expiration times when its relisted) ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 23:11, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

What a cracking tool. Although I note it is reporting Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Middle_Barton_F.C. as having a start date some time in 2006. Must be something odd in the date formatting for that particular one. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 22:59, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

That's because the AfD in question was erroneously created over the top of an existing AfD. Δ, I bet you could explicitly detect such problems in your tool's report, if you're up for useful feature requests. — Gavia immer (talk) 23:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

That would be because this particular AfD was filed in 2006, see [1] however that AfD was moved and a redirect replaced it pointing to the new AfD. Then it was Sent to AfD this time and the tool checks for the oldest revision to the AfD (when it was filed) and uses that (in this case the first filing not the current one). Not much I can do, this should rarely if ever happen again. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 23:11, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I figure it had to be something bizarre. Elen of the Roads (talk) 18:45, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

• If anyone has feature request or just wants another tool just let me know. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 23:11, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

User:Off2riorob

User has agreed to step away from CC for a few months. I'm hoping that can avoid yet another CC thread. Maybe some others need to voluntarily leave this issue alone for a while. Most of us uninvolved folk are now totally sick of it.--Scott Mac 13:56, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

A few hours ago I blocked [[::User:Off2riorob|Off2riorob]] (talk · contribs) for 24 hours in response to a 3RR violation [2]. Upon further investigation, I found a lengthy series of problematic edits (see below), previous blocks, and at least one attempt at editing restrictions. He was previously placed on a 5 week 1RR sanction, which he stated he might continue of his own volition [3]. The blocks since [4], including the present block, seem to indicate a continued problem. In light of these, I wonder if there is community support for a permanent 1RR restriction for Off2riorob. Some evidence of problematic edits: April 2009: ANI discussion which resulted in a block. archived discussion The block was reduced when he showed remorse and an intent to improve [5]. August 2009: He was again blocked for edit warring [6] and again promised to desist in the future [7]. His block was again reduced[8]. July 2010: Personal attacks [9] (deleted edit), which resulted in a block. October 2010: Petty vandalism [10] when questioned about recent reverts (archived discussion). My block for 3RR on William Connelley. Keeping in mind he is currently blocked, does anyone have thoughts or suggestions on this? --TeaDrinker (talk) 06:15, 24 October 2010 (UTC) User notified --TeaDrinker (talk) 06:20, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Proposal: 1RR restriction Regarding his most recent block, I didn't see a block notice that is customarily given when a block is issued. Did I miss it? Regarding the sanctions, I would support a 1RR sanction. In addition, Rob has been identifying as vandalism content disputes and using Twinkle in an inappropriate manner. I would also support removing his Twinkle access for now. Basket of Puppies 06:29, 24 October 2010 (UTC) See [11] for the block notice (plain text, not a fancy template - I suspect per WP:DNTTR).--Stephan Schulz (talk) 06:35, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Oh there it is! Yeah, I just missed it. My eyes are much too tired. Off to sleep! Basket of Puppies 06:39, 24 October 2010 (UTC) I agree with the proposal above by TeaDrinker and the comment by Basket of Puppies, and support a permanent 1RR sanction. (Note: Off2riorob was previously blocked for engaging in disruption at a GA-quality article that I wrote.) I would also support removing Off2riorob's access to Twinkle. -- Cirt (talk) 06:30, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Support both. doesn't this belong on ANI? Access Denied [FATAL ERROR] 06:44, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Support the proposed permanent 1RR restriction/sanction. Defer to others on Twinkle. I also note that in this November 2009 AN/I, the great bulk of his support was from ChildofMidnight, who has since been banned from Wikipedia for a year.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:47, 24 October 2010 (UTC) … which is both irrelevant and outdated. (We have an article on what the Institute for Propaganda Analysis called transfer explaining why ChildofMidnight's endorsement is not relevant to Off2riorob's actions.) One could equally try to call Off2riorob a single-purpose account based upon what Cirt said in the April 2009 AN/I discussion. That's clearly outdated now, too. If the compelling evidence for action here is discussions from 2009, then I suggest that people take a look at Special:Contributions/Off2riorob. Early 2009, late 2009, and 2010 are not the same animal. We should not institutionalize hanging onto grudges like this. Uncle G (talk) 13:06, 24 October 2010 (UTC) I'm not in principle opposed to a restriction, but what's wrong with the standard method of escalating blocks? If he doesn't comply with 3RR, he's not much more likely to comply with 1RR. If a restriction is to be imposed, somebody would need to spell out what exactly is being proposed here (one revert per page per 24 hours, I suppose?). Also, since the current edit war is in the climate change topic area, discretionary sanctions are also a possibility.  Sandstein  06:53, 24 October 2010 (UTC) One revert per page per 24 hours seems most reasonable. -- Cirt (talk) 06:56, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Agree that 1-revert-per-pg per-24-hours seems appropriate. As to escalating blocks, I note that Off2 was blocked for 24 hours (March 2009), 72 reduced to 48 hours (April 2009), 72 hours (April 2009), 1 week (April 2009), 24 hours reduced to time served (July 2009), 2 weeks (July 2009), 3 weeks (reduced on promise to desist edit warring in the future; August 2009), 31 hours (July 2010). All prior to this 24-hour block. Per our standard method of escalating blocks, which Sandstein refers to, it strikes me that the current 24-hour block is too low — it would have been appropriate for a first-time offender, but this editor has been blocked numerous times in the past year and a half, up to 3 weeks.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:22, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Support I agree with the 1RR restriction. Off2riorob has also got into lengthy arguments and edit wars on the British National Party and other articles about the British far right, which he thought were written from an anti-BNP bias. TFD (talk) 13:32, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Oppose And the BNP argument holds no weight with me. Too much sounds like "let's get even" with a valued editor. Collect (talk) 13:52, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Proposal: Climate change topic ban Overall 1RR may be fine for Off2riorob, but one revert per day is 'too lenient for a CC articles. One revert per week is more in line with the type of editing restriction needed to get CC articles to have stability. Otherwise, the result will be tag team edit warring that would be supported by the editing restrictions. I suggest Off2riorob be put on a stricter restriction for the CC articles. FloNight♥♥♥♥ 10:11, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Completely stepping away from the CC topic (and any other areas where Off2riorob gets heated and loses control) is a better restriction than a blanket 1RR which allow too many problematic edits on controversial topics and perhaps too few where otherwise needed. If there are overall problems beyond reverting then that needs to be determined (maybe with a RFC or ArbCom case) and further editing restrictions or bans can be imposed. So, I support a complete CC topic ban for now. FloNight♥♥♥♥ 13:29, 24 October 2010 (UTC) I think now would be a good time to ask Off2riorob to step away from the climate change topic entirely. For technical reasons it is not possible at this stage to propose a topic ban at WP:AE, but the conclusion seems reasonable. He is by all accounts a very productive editor elsewhere, but as he admits himself he has a bee in his bonnet about William M. Connolley. --TS 12:05, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Oppose A 1r restriction on an editor who mostly works BLP`s and the BLP noticeboard would hamstring him from the productive work he does. Everyone make`s mistakes, he ought not be overly punished for this one. mark (talk) 12:39, 24 October 2010 (UTC)This editor is topic banned from processes related to climate change, broadly construed. --TS 12:51, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Making multiple reverts shouldn't be required in BLPs any more than anywhere else; remember that removing contentious, unsourced information about living persons is one of the exceptions to 3RR and by extension to an imposed 1RR. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 12:42, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Yes but there`s the rub, what if it is sourced but not written in a NPOV manner? Or as an attack piece? We see such on BLP`s all the time, if he is restricted to 1r he will quite simply be unable to work the BLP noticeboard. Why not a simple restriction of 1r on this one article? I think that would be more suitable given the nature of this offence mark (talk) 12:47, 24 October 2010 (UTC)This editor is topic banned from processes related to climate change, broadly construed. --TS 12:51, 24 October 2010 (UTC) I agree with Tony Sidaway, and I suggest that people look away from AN/I to all of the work that Off2riorob does at the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. The slice of history presented here purports to cover a year's worth of editing but is very limited and one-sided, and really isn't the whole picture by any means. It reflects, I suspect, the area where Off2riorob is influenced to err by (a) xyr perception of climate change POV-pushing and (b) the proximity of a subject to Wikipedia itself. Contrast that to xyr work at (to pick just one BLPN example) Ed Miliband where xyr work has been edits like this one and efforts to stop our article from labelling Miliband (who has stated for the record that xe does not believe in God) as "the Jewish leader of the Labour Party" and having religion=Jewish in an infobox. When the biography is not climate-change related or close to Wikipedia, there's a rather different Off2riorob here. There's also a significantly different Off2riorob now to the one that Cirt characterized in April 2009, the discussion of whom is being used as evidence for action here. Uncle G (talk) 13:06, 24 October 2010 (UTC) I agree that in considering Off2riorob's editing history we must look at this work at BLPN - I'd be sorry to lose his help there. Dougweller (talk) 13:38, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Would a community topic ban from Climate Change articles, following the wording of those recently applied to various editors by ArbCom, and a permanent ban from the William Connolley article suffice? LessHeard vanU (talk) 13:23, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Yes, I think a full topic ban for CC is best for now. FloNight♥♥♥♥ 13:31, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Oppose(ec) Off2 was not mentioned in any CC arbcom discussions, and imposing a topicban is absurd over-reaction. He is a valued editor, and all of this is simply going to be a matter of "let's remove anyone we disagree with" type rationale. In other words -- why not openly say "anyone with any position on CC whatever is to be topic-banned ab initio" as the easiest way to deal with the topic? Nope. Draconian solutions generally do not work, and all this will do is make that more abundantly clear than ever. Meanwhile the BNP is so far rremoved from any reasonable argument on this as to be quite nicely irrelevant - we ought not have personal disagreements with anyone dictate banning a good editor who, as I noted, was never even mentioned at the arbcom discussions on CC. Collect (talk) 13:51, 24 October 2010 (UTC) It's not about opinion, it's about behavior. He edit warred on a BLP in a topic area that was under arbcom-imposed sanctions. The only reason he isn't being topic banned at WP:AE is that arbcom sanctions require prior formal notification. The community has the opportunity to say "enough is enough." --TS 13:54, 24 October 2010 (UTC) The entire point of discretionary sanctions is to allow for editing restrictions for users not named in the ArbCom case. So, this editing restriction is perfectly reasonable given his edit warring on a CC related article within days of the case ending. I see no problem with discussing this here since this is where the discussion started. FloNight♥♥♥♥ 13:59, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Questions Can each user please state their level of involvement (if any)? Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:53, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Why can't ArbCom discretionary sanctions deal with the CC related matters? Why does the Community need to relitigate this aspect here at WP:AN rather than WP:AE? Ncmvocalist (talk) 13:53, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Metadiscussion Question Why was the above discussion archived? I understand that Rob has agreed to modify his editing, but the consensus seemed to be in favor of a 1RR restriction and, possibly, revokation of Twinkle. Basket of Puppies 16:16, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Because it seems more urgent to de-escalate the CC fiasco, than to worry too much about the rest of it. Besides, after Rob had agreed to step away from the immediate flashpoint, nothing else needed urgent admin action. If you want to pursue more general complaints, then I suggest a user RFC is the normal way.--Scott Mac 16:24, 24 October 2010 (UTC) It's been closed because the issue was resolved and, as Doc has correctly stated, the community is sick and tired of the subject. Tasty monster (=TS ) 16:21, 24 October 2010 (UTC) I am only confused as to why this discussion was closed, seemingly out of process. Isn't it against consensus to close a discussion where a consensus has nearly been reached? The underlying issue of Rob's behavior isn't much of a concern to me as the issue of prematurely closing a discussion. Basket of Puppies 16:31, 24 October 2010 (UTC) And doesn't this belong on /Incidents anyway? Access Denied [FATAL ERROR] 16:32, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Shrug* Basket of Puppies 17:01, 24 October 2010 (UTC) It is in the interests of this project to allow issues associated with CC to cool. Rob has seen that, and we should thank him for it and drop this. Sanctions are always a piss-poor substitute for getting agreement and peace. The technicalities of which board and broken process are worthy casualties of drama-ending. Now, walk away. This has ended as well (indeed a lot better) than any other possible ending. And I, for one, don't wish to waste any more time on CC and those who can't let it go.--Scott Mac 16:48, 24 October 2010 (UTC) That was unnecessarily dramatic. Basket of Puppies 17:36, 24 October 2010 (UTC) I disagree with the closing of the thread. Way too early. And there is no reason to roll it up, other than to conceal its contents from future searches. I don't believe Scott's action in in line with the sentiment of the community on this page. And I don't think his and editor Tasty (who is "sick and tired of the subject" after under 1,000 edits) are reflecting the sentiment on this page in suggesting that we should sweep it under the rug because of their sense that the community prefers that. Rob has made agreements before, which triggered sanction reductions -- and which he has just violated with his edit warring here. --Epeefleche (talk) 18:16, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Have you discussed your concerns with Rob? If so, unless there's need for urgent admin action, I'd suggest that a user RFC is the place to take ongoing concerns. (For your info Tasy = User:Tony Sidaway, not that the edit count should really matter).--Scott Mac 19:13, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Let's be clear here. This was quid pro quo. Scott Mac did exactly what he promised, shut down discussion, on the basis of Rob's consent. My personal opinion is that's entirely OK and within the scope of administrator discretion to "talk someone down" like that, but I think that Scott should have been a bit more open here about the deal he offered and concluded. Jclemens (talk) 20:45, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Yo dawg, I herd you like hats, so here's a hat for your hat, so you can hat while you hat. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 14:48, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Question Why was this thread again archived when the discussion is ongoing? Basket of Puppies 21:18, 24 October 2010 (UTC) Not sure. However, the user that hatted the thread, noted he did not read it at all: "discussion of whatever it is that they are discussing on AN, and which I am not even going to bother looking at." Most inappropriate to archive and declare something as closed, which one has not even bothered to read. -- Cirt (talk) 21:35, 24 October 2010 (UTC) This constant hatting of discussion without notification or warning is leaving multiple users (myself included, and i'm not even involved in the discussion) with a sense of bad faith toward the hatters. SilverserenC 22:08, 24 October 2010 (UTC) I think it should be closed, Rob learned his lesson, no one wants to ban him or but any restrictions on him. He does an excellent job with BLPs, so I'm against any sactions for him. Secret account 00:18, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Proposal that we all agree to refrain from hatting/archiving/similar action threads when there is ongoing discussion. Additionally, for the hatter/archiver/similar to read and understand what they are doing before the action is undertaken. Agreed? Basket of Puppies 02:20, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Agreed. Access Denied [FATAL ERROR] 02:24, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Agreed.--Epeefleche (talk) 04:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Comment. From what I can read (in what has been rolled up), it appears that the close was a unilateral one done against consensus at the time. In fact, broad comments used by the closer as a basis for the non-consensus closing such as "Most of us uninvolved folk are now totally sick of it" are not supported by the comments of "most of us uninvolved folk" on this page, and I find such comments to be quite curious (as well as contrary to what my own guess would be, reading this thread). I understand that such a non-consensus close is contrary to our core consensus guideline (which, though I agree with the remarks about hatting/archiving, I view as an even graver problem with the goings-on in this string).--Epeefleche (talk) 04:04, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Question Am I correct in assuming it was Tony Sidaway (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) who collapsed the discussion for the second time? Just want to make sure I am seeing it correctly. Basket of Puppies 04:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Regarding the premature hatting/archiving of the above discussions, I've created WP:DAOHATTHOD to hopefully provide some useful advice. Basket of Puppies 06:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Note that the discussion collapsing here has simply driven discussion to other noticeboards. This particular discussion has been continued at /Incidents#Apparent wikihounding by Off2riorob. Interestingly, but regrettably, none of the involved parties are now using Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Andre Geim to discuss the actual BLP content dispute over Andre Geim. Uncle G (talk) 09:08, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

In fairness, the issue of "who is a Jew?" is being talked round in circles on the talk page of the article.--Scott Mac 10:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough's persistent disregard for community norms and (semi-)automated editing guidelines

See also: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/January 2009-September 2010

See also: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/October 2010

Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs · count · logs · block log · lu · rfas · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · socks)

SmackBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights)

Earlier today, I advised Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) that I would request both he and his bot be blocked if he continued making trivial and unnecessary changes that have proved controversial without first obtaining consensus for these changes [12].

Rather than cease making the changes, he simply went on ahead with them on both his bot account ([13] [14] - unnecessary capitalization changes), and his main account ([15] changes spacing around header for no reason; [16] capitalizes template for no reason).

It is perfectly reasonable to hold the view that all templates should be ucfirst, it is perfectly reasonable to hold the view that headers should have no spacing around them. However, it is unreasonable to push these views on the community without first obtaining consensus for them. The edits today display a shocking disregard for the collaborative editing model and indicate that Rich feels that he does not have to operate within the consensus model.

This is unacceptable behaviour for a bot operator and administrator and I request he be blocked pending the decision of the proposed restriction below, which has been copied here from the ANI subpage for greater visibility. –xeno^talk 22:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposed editing restriction: Rich Farmbrough

This is an alternative proposal to more strict proposal here, which generated a fair amount of support for a complete ban on non-manual editing

Regardless of the editing method (i.e. manual, semi-automatic, or automatic; from any account), Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) is indefinitely prohibited from making cosmetic changes to wikicode that have no effect on the rendered page (excepting those changes that are built-in to stock AWB or those that have demonstrable consensus or BAG approval). This includes but is not limited to: changing templates to template redirects, changing template redirects to templates (see here for AWB stock changes on this item, with the understanding that bypassing template redirects will only be done when there is a substantive edit being done), changing the spacing around headers and ordered lists (except to make an aberration consistent with the rest of the page), and changing the capitalization of templates. Furthermore, prior to orphaning/emptying and deleting categories or templates, the appropriate processes (WP:CFD/WP:TFD) should be engaged.

Thoughts? –xeno^talk 15:09, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

What about emptying and deleting categories? This is what happened in the immediate incident. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 15:21, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Added a sentence, though that is expected of any editor already. –xeno^talk 15:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Unless a guideline directs such a change. There's always the potential for future guidelines on the matter. Otherwise, it seems a fine proposal to me. --Bsherr (talk) 15:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

That's covered by 'demonstrable consensus'. –xeno^talk 15:29, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Good enough. --Bsherr (talk) 15:31, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support --Bsherr (talk) 16:48, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I think this has become stale now, but I'll revisit if that seems to change. --Bsherr (talk) 19:55, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
• I think this is agreeable, this has my support. Rich, I hope you will do an effort in checking the diffs before you save, and not save them if they are mere changes of capitalisation, etc. Real mistakes, well, we all make them (as do our bots), I do hope your fellow editors will treat them for what they are. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:38, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
• Now that's a whole lot better, being a lot less disruptive and punitive. But how about discussing with Rich about the categories' name changes and moving, instead of immediately reaching out for punishment? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:40, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Discussion doesn't help if he ignores objections and continues full-steam ahead without stopping to gather consensus for his changes. –xeno^talk 22:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
• Comment. This proposal is more about setting a bot policy rather than addressing or remedying the allegations. Bot policy should be debated elsewhere. Glrx (talk) 17:25, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

  Policy already exists to prohibit these changes (WP:AWB#Rules of use #3/4), this is more of a compliance issue. –xeno^talk 19:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

• We're prohibiting him from something that's already prohibited (using a bot or script to make cosmetic changes) and telling him to use the processes that he's already supposed to be using (CFD/TFD). Is there any substantial difference here from doing nothing and hoping the problem resolves itself? Mr.Z-man 21:24, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I suppose there's also the prohibition of using even manual methods to make those cosmetic changes, and it looks like even if those cosmetic changes are made at the same time as another edit they would still be disallowed (without bot approval, which I suppose is already bot policy). To my mind this is just because it's difficult at times to tell if Rich is making manual, semi-automated or fully automated edits from his account (because, as you know, in violation of the bot policy he appears to make all three from his main account, without using proper edit summaries). Personally I think we should be stopping this problem there. With enforcing the bot policy and stopping him from making any bot like edits from his account, as proposed above. But would also support this alternative proposal after the original one. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 21:34, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
  • The restriction would make it clear that these changes lack consensus and he may be blocked if he continues making them prior to gathering consensus. –xeno^talk 22:10, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense

This is a storm in a teacup. No one cares about the bot capitalising clean-up templates, except that they think I am offending others by doing it. There are no others, except apparently xeno has moved to-day from neutral about it ("I don't care about the actual minor bits themselves") to opposed ("Me for one") and dePiep is saying the same in the next comment (about 20 minutes ago). Hardly anyone cares about any of them. Those that do have an opinion would almost certainly, by the figures, support capitalising of Infoboxes. I have explained that for technical reasons that I made a choice, some four years ago for Ucfirst rather than lcfirst - after much careful thought. the reason is to enable me to write regexes like:

• {{\s*(Cleanup|Attention[ _]+\(on[ _]+talk[ _]+page\)|Clean|Cu|CU|Tidy|Cleanup-quality|Cleanup-date|Attention[ _]+needed[ _]+\(article[ _]+page\)|Attn|Attention[ _]+see[ _]+talk|Attention|Attention[ _]+needed[ _]+\(talk[ _]+page\)|Clean[ _]+up|Cleanup-because|Clean-up|Cleanup-reason|Cleanup-since|Ugly|Cleanup-Pitt|Improve|Quality|Clu) *([\|}\n]) => {{Cleanup$2

and then do the date manipulation on a much simpler regex - a sample of which still runs to maybe 4 or 5 k.

Here's my proposed solutions:

1. Forget it and go and write an enyclopedia.
2. Have an centralized discussion on the case of cleanup templates. Tell me the result. I will implement that.

Rich Farmbrough, 22:38, 24 October 2010 (UTC).

Your dismissive attitude ("No one cares..."; "Forget it and go and write an encyclopedia."; "There is no controversy here. Nothing to see, keep walking.") is a major part of the problem.

I don't know how many people care about this, but I can tell you that I do. When I consult diffs to evaluate the edits, your bot's inconsequential changes waste my time. I've gone to your talk page to raise the issue, only to be reminded by the existing complaints (and your [non-]responses thereto) that you routinely ignore/dismiss such criticisms. So I don't bother to add my voice to the futile chorus (and I assume that others act in kind). —David Levy 23:56, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Well not bothering hardly helps. Nor does the negative characterisation of my talk page. Nor yet quoting out of context.Rich Farmbrough, 00:05, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Well not bothering hardly helps.

Nor does wasting still more of my time by posting yet another comment for you to dismiss/ignore.

Nor does the negative characterisation of my talk page.

You mean my observation that you routinely dismiss/ignore these criticisms (just as you've done above)?

Nor yet quoting out of context.

How have I done so? Two of the quotations are taken from this very section, and I linked directly to the third's diff. —David Levy 00:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The diff is not the context. The context is an extensive conversation over several pages. Rich Farmbrough, 00:43, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Please link to whatever threads/diffs you believe provide essential context. —David Levy 00:57, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally on the substantive point you raise, you can set your w/l to ignore bots. HTH. Rich Farmbrough, 00:07, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

And that would not be a reasonable solution. Sometimes people will still want to see bots. We shouldn't have to stop seeing other bots because yours is behaving badly. I will have to agree with the other people in that these edits cause more trouble than help. -DJSasso (talk) 00:18, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm well aware of that. I don't want to ignore bots (which would cause me to overlook problematic mass changes, including those caused by malfunctions). I want to be able to monitor their edits without having to wade through the utterly pointless ones that your bot performs. —David Levy 00:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd add on that score that ignoring bots seems to cause another issue: if, say, an editor vandalises a page, (edit 1) then a bot goes past and makes a change, (edit 2), nothing turns up in your watchlist. As you are set to ignore bot edits, the watchlist code doesn't notify you of any edits, as it only checks to see if the most recent one warrants notification. Thus you are lead to assume that nothing has happened in the article. I found this to be a particular problem with SineBot, but generally that flag causes too many issues to use it. - Bilby (talk) 02:59, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Well as not a great user of watch-lists, I had seen that comment before, but not got round to investigating it. It seems like a suboptimal way for watch-lists to work. Rich Farmbrough, 18:47, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

"Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent" should bypass that particular concern. –xeno^talk 18:49, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Also vote for bug 9790. Rich Farmbrough, 02:31, 26 October 2010 (UTC).

• Regarding your explanation regex: AWB can do this with the stock engine now without having to change the case (WP:AWB/TR). This is why I asked you to update SmackBot to the latest SVN snapshot. And you're right, I said I don't care about the minor bits themselves - I do care about the unnecessary, disruptive, and distracting changes to the minor bits that lack consensus - I would similarly ask an editor who was going in the other direction to stop. –xeno^talk 15:05, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

  I have uploaded my redirect list, so that should help AWB. There are teething problems here, yet. For example trying to maintain ucfirst/lcfist across redirects has lead to imdb => iMDb name. But there are other problems with template names that are bigger than these minor quibbles. Rich Farmbrough, 02:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC).
  

What actually needs to be done now: Need an uninvolved admin

I think, at this point, we've discussed this to death. What I think we need is an uninvolved admin who has maybe a couple of hours to read up on this, and then close the discussion and editing restriction proposals at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/October 2010. A number of different remedies have been offered there, and I think a closing admin can judge a suitable consensus on how best to proceed. I don't think it's worth our time talking about this all over again at this point. Especially when the previous discussion hasn't yet been closed. At this point I feel that the discussion and editing restriction proposals are ripe for closure, as that thread is no longer constructive (it appears to have degenerated to edit warring, repetition, and personal comments, rather than actually furthering discussion on the actual issue tat hand, despite this I think there is already enough content there to reach a consensus). If the solution provided by a closing administrator does not work after some time, then there are other venues, such as a RfC/U, which would be more appropriate, since it appears ANI is not helping this issue much. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 09:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Fram (talk) 09:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, we need an uninvolved admin to step in here. Subsequent to this thread being posted, Rich made nearly three thousand edits with SmackBot [17] that 1) do not appear to have BAG approval (I found this, but perhaps it should be revisited - approval should not have been granted for spell-checking) and 2) appear to violate the bot policy on spell-checking (based on new information what happened was the operator had set it wrong, as opposed to the bot running amok) and 3) made obviously erroneous edits like this [18]. We have policies and guidelines on automated and assisted editing for a reason, and flagrant disregard for those norms is unacceptable, especially when the result is editors having to manually review thousands of bot edits for errors. –xeno^talk 14:06, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

That's a bit of a rabbit out of a hat. "editors having to manually review thousands of bot edits for errors". Rich Farmbrough, 17:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Should I assume the one edit I picked out at random and found to be in error was 1 in 3000? Are you going to check the rest of the edits yourself? (I see you ran over the pages to fix World Series of Poker back to how it should be - Thanks for that). –xeno^talk 17:59, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes I picked up a bunch of other WSOP errors too. Rich Farmbrough, 19:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

• He also made this edit which does nothing but capitalize a template while tweaking some whitespace. Making disputed edits while they're under discussion at a noticeboard strikes me as inflammatory. –xeno^talk 14:23, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

  Again human error, some small task I started nearly a week ago, and that item was already fixed - by an unassisted human. (I won't say why the task is taking so long - I will mention that it would have just happened in the good old days prior to 29 Spetember.) Rich Farmbrough, 19:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC).
  

  So you had it in auto-save mode? –xeno^talk 19:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

  Uh.. borrow my deerstalker and meerschaum xeno, they are freshly cleaned. One edit on it's own is very unlikely to be automatic. No I just flipped windows, scanned the diff for errors (which is as automatic for me as reading - look at a printed word and try not to read it) clicked "save" and uttered a choice expletive. Considered reverting myself, but that's a bit nutzoid on a practical level - creating an extra edit to show that you aren't deliberately creating extra edits. Rich Farmbrough, 02:31, 26 October 2010 (UTC).
  

Hmm .. indeed, that last one should not be there. I don't think that I saw any spelling-changes. Most decapitalisations seem OK and proper, but there are some decapitalisations in headers which should actually be capitalised (like the example you gave). Xeno, did you point Rich to these edits, and asked for explanations on the errors and .. useless edits? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 14:39, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but because of obfuscation and handwaving, I've just about exhausted my patience for speaking directly with Rich. (Further reading: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Capitalisation of section titles, Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval#Probably erroneous approval for a form of spell-checking (SmackBot)) –xeno^talk 14:44, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Handwaving! I have supplied pretty much the only hard facts , the majority of the argument is fuzzy to an extreme. Rich Farmbrough, 17:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Uninvolved admin would be good. But if they can get through it in a couple of hours I would be amazed. This debate has eaten hundreds of hours of my time, and every time we get close to closing it down there is a change of venue. Rich Farmbrough, 17:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC).

Funny enough, I do think that this edit contains two 'errors' .. one title which is probably correct in the current case was (half) converted to a lower case title, while the next section, which should have been converted, was neglected. Whatever the case, I don't think that this gets over 28 errors (i.e., less than 1%; I still refuse to see the capitalisation/whitespace change as an error, I do define it as 'useless'. And though I also think that of the fuss about it is equally useless: Rich, is there really no way of not doing that, it is certainly not necessary (run regexes on the wikitext with the 'i' parameter and it does not care whether it is upper or lowercase, so why uppercase them all), and it will stop the equally, if not more, unnecessary complaining about it?). I also don't think that this falls under a spelling correction, and I do think that it is important enough to be done by a bot - unfortunately it is too error prone (I would suggest to add the standard ones, and record all the rest with statistics, if there are other common ones which need conversion, add those to the list, but be careful with converting them all).

All these discussions are not worth this fuss, Smackbot makes by design on every task some errors, some inevitable and some avoidable - others should be repaired (and are generally repaired) before continuing. The errors are minimal, diverse, and IMHO Rich either explains that some errors can not be avoided (e.g. the subst problem), most errors don't break things (they annoy people), and for the rest, a lot of complaints are about useless edits. I understand that the regular errors do give a feeling of 'Smackbot makes a lot of errors', but overall I don't believe that there are really thàt many (and then, some are because the bot is fed a broken page to begin with; or other errors which can not be repaired, still get regurgitated over and over). I also think that many errors were resolved, but also still regurgitated. Now, if we take away the annoyances (I suggest that Rich tries to take most annoyances away, and the annoyed to stop complaining about these things that IMHO do not need this much complaining; it is not worth it), and that future errors are met with 'could you do this different, or ignore these terms' (which I then also expect Rich to follow), then it is now time to move on. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I actually don't have a huge problem with honest-to-goodness errors; it's the fixing things that aren't broken that I take issue with. As best as I can tell, the main excuse (other than ILIKEIT) for the template capitalization changes is because it's easier to write a regex that results in capitalization changes. Well, that's not a good excuse, and regex can fairly easily be written to maintain the case (and I know Rich is a wizard when it comes to these things - he helped me with some code for Xenobot Mk V); and in fact, AWB now has built-in redirect bypassing at WP:AWB/TR that won't do the unnecessary capitalization changes. So if Rich just worked within that framework, we can be done with this. –xeno^talk 19:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Conclusion

This Gordian knot clearly needs cutting, and I hereby cut it: the restriction proposed above is enacted. In essence, Rich is injuncted from making cosmetic changes which do not have demonstrable community support; this is recorded at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions#Placed by the Wikipedia community and as usual enforceable by escalating blocks. I will also clarify that there is no currently demonstrated community consensus on capitalising template calls. In addition, I will say to Rich that the community recognises and appreciates the work you do in using and maintaining a range of powerful tools, but that with power comes responsibility, and you do need to ensure that you err on the side of caution in ensuring that these powerful tools, and your use of them, has sufficiently strong community support. That is all. Rd232 ^talk 09:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

"This Gordian knot is quickly scissorable! ...." (You may fill in the next line yourselves.) Thank you for reviewing this ungodly mess. Rich Farmbrough, 10:14, 26 October 2010 (UTC).

Further to this, Rd232 is hereby enjoined from inventing ugly new verbs by back-formation from nouns. --TS 10:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm just richifying the malleable English language. :P Rd232 ^talk 11:39, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

More cite capitalisation, a few minutes ago? 195.27.52.146 (talk) 10:31, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

SmackBot stopped for now, until Rich has a version running which won't do this. Of course, it's hard to tell what's built in AWB and what's not. But until we've got an explicit "SmackBot is okay to go" from Rich, it's stopped. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 10:35, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

AWB does a number of changes to templates, replacing a redirect to a template with the actual template is done for this list: Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects. I have asked whether this, implemented about a month ago, actually has consensus, as it seems to go against regular practice of leaving redirects well alone. But anyway, the change of SmackBot (chanbing cite journal to Cite journal) is not included on the above list if template changes, i.e. "The redirects are first letter case insensitive e.g. and are treated as identical." and "The first-letter case of the redirect is kept in the new template name. The template name is first-letter case insensitive e.g. and are the same." If it is done by AWB regardless of this, then AWB needs to be changed. If it is a Smackbot rule, then Smackbot needs to be changed (also e.g. here, changing "dead link" to "Dead link"). This one changes template capitalisation (unreferenced to Unreferenced, Infobox Album to Infobox album) and adds an unwanted defaultsort. The only result of the defaultsort change here is that Republic of China referendum, 2004 now is sorted before Republic of Austria v. Altmann instead of the correct after in Category:2004 in international relations. Before SmackBots change, this sorting was correct. This problem has now been raised repeatedly, but no justification has been given or correction has been made. Fram (talk) 10:55, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

"AWB does a number of changes to templates, replacing a redirect to a template with the actual template is done for this list: Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects. I have asked whether this, implemented about a month ago, actually has consensus, as it seems to go against regular practice of leaving redirects well alone.". Yes, That currently does have consensus and is allowed via BAG and the related bot policies BUT the edit must also contain other constructive edits as well (You can't just do solo edits for that content to replace the redirects). Peachey88 ^{(T · C)} 07:21, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Like I said there: "Where can I find the discussion that established that these kinds of chanegs have any sort of consensus?" No one has indicated that to me yet. Fram (talk) 08:12, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Infobox Album => Infobox album is not case changing rule it's a redirect removing rule.

Defaultsort fixed. Also fixed (which shows why DEFAULTSORT is used by the community):

• 2004 Australian embassy bombing in Jakarta
• 2004 Iranian seizure of Royal Navy personnel
• 2004 Israel – New Zealand spy scandal
• 2004 Russia–Belarus gas dispute
• 2004 enlargement of the European Union
• 2004 world oil market chronology

to

• 2004 Australian embassy bombing in Jakarta
• 2004 enlargement of the European Union
• 2004 Iranian seizure of Royal Navy personnel
• 2004 Israel – New Zealand spy scandal
• 2004 Russia–Belarus gas dispute
• 2004 world oil market chronology

All the best. Rich Farmbrough, 23:54, 26 October 2010 (UTC).

Songs for the Road now sorts thus:

1. Something to Believe
2. Songs from the Road (Jeff Healey album)
3. Songs Inspired by Mulawin
4. Soul Donkey

Previously it would have been listed out of order. Rich Farmbrough, 00:10, 27 October 2010 (UTC).

(I seem to have inadvertently deleted this section, thanks for restoring it Epeefleche). I have started a discussion regarding the sortkey issue at Wikipedia talk:Categorization#Sortkey. Your section above where you said you fixed five articles to the same five articles is a bit bizarre, I assume you mean that you added five defaultsorts to these articles, so that e.g. 2004 Russia-Belarus gas dispute now sorts correctly before, umm, no other article starts with the same three words, and only the fourth is capitalized, so a totally useless defaultsort is added... As I said on the discussion on the sortkey, in the limited number of cases where a sort for one category would be better with caps, such a sort can easily be added to the article on a case-by-case basis. Adding unnecessary and harmful (in the case of a move) defaultsorts to all articles, just to solve a few problems, is creating loads of collateral damage for little actual benefit. Fram (talk) 08:10, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Revive previous proposal

For some reason, the edit restriction proposal at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Rich Farmbrough/October 2010#Edit restriction proposal for Rich Farmbrough, which generated a fair amount of support, was abandoned for xeno's proposal, which got hardly any comments. As could perhaps be predicted, the problems not adressed by this second proposal, but adressed in the first one, simply continue.

Rich Farmbrough is now testing a new bot on his main account, which again creates a lot of problems. I notified him at 11:36 yesterday that he created a number of redirects from the mainspace to his userspace[19]. This included a group of 10 redirects created at 11:27 (together with ten more edits the same minute). However, at 21:12, 11 more of these redirects were created, from a total of 19 edits that minute. At 21:18 - 21:19 6 more redirects were created (or recreated). Some of them were deleted by Rich, a number were not though and had to be deleted by other admins.

He also created a number of pages in his user space, and edits them incorrectly at a very high speed. Between 01:28 and 01:30 this morning, he edited 28 articles, putting all 28 articles (biographies of long dead people in his user space) in the cats for living people. Apart from the fact that these cats were obviously wrong, they should also not be used on user space articles. Rich Farmbrough made a few edits afterwards, but apparently didn't notice the errors of his unapproved bot, so I cleaned this up this morning.

Any reason why we don't enact the previous proposal, seeing how he clearly is not interested in taking into account voluntary the points adressed in it, despite the many supports for it, and seeing how his current activities, with dozens of incorrect edits in minutes, are clearly a violation of the bot policy? Fram (talk) 07:36, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

And he just added tjose 28 articles to those categories again in two minutes time. Can someone please block this unauthorized bot (and yes, that means a block of Rich Farmbroough, tough luck, he violates the bot policy again and again on his main account...)? I am clearly involved so I can't block it... Fram (talk) 14:41, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Climate Change: enough is enough!

there is broad agreement that it is time to issue harsh blocks, and it is already starting to happen

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. As an uninvolved admin, I thought the end of the arbcom case would draw a line under this, by spelling out to all those obsessed with it that the community had simply had enough. However, it seems that the participants haven't quite got the message. Since the closing of the case, we've had wikilawyering over whether the letter of the topic ban allowed banned users to contribute to the articles by posting comments on their talk pages ("what does topic banned mean?"). We've had two threads on this board regarding disputes.[20] [21] (And probably more I've missed.) And now we've got a dispute on Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Marknutley about whether a banned user can carry on commenting on sanction on another involved user. I am thoroughly sick of this. There's a point where some people are simply refusing to hear the community saying "ENOUGH". I thus propose that uninvolved admins agree the following: Topic banned means "find a different topic", and shall be very broadly construed. It's that simple: take the related articles (and users) off your watchlist and do something else. Given that the problem wasn't content, so much as the unacceptable interactions between the participants, the ban shall be taken to mean the participants should cease all hostile (or conceivably hostile) interactions. They should cease to comment on each other entirely. All other editors, who have been party to the conflict, are strongly urged to consider stepping back from the topic - including commenting on enforcement. Continued hostilities by any user in this area are likely to result in speedy blocks, without too much regard for who started it. All reasonable blocks will be endorsed without lengthy discussion and rule-mongering. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's had it with this.--Scott Mac 14:57, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Leaning to support Put simply, the ruling means that these users are no longer invited to contribute to the shaping of Wikipedia's Climate Change related articles. If other editors act improperly then the topic banned users' contribution is not needed to correct it - uninvolved editors without a history of poor judgment and conduct in the topic area will comment if comment is needed; their comment is not. The ruling is also not intended to swap one major dispute for many small user page disputes. If the topic is raised on a user page the answer is "I am topic banned from responding, please ask [[useful link|here]]". However careless blocking "without too much regard" is not a good response. FT2 (Talk | email) 15:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Support. As another Arb wrote ( Carcharoth, at [22], "My intention, when voting for the topic bans, was that those topic-banned would stay away from the topic area completely (as Beeblebrox has said). If we (ArbCom) had intended to allow limited discussion of sources on user talk pages, we would have made provisions for that. As we didn't, there are no provisions for that to take place." This has gone on long enough. I'm with Scott Mac. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougweller (talk • contribs) 15:27, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Support there is a time for discussion, and a time to knock some heads together. I think the latter has arrived. Jclemens (talk) 15:52, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Note - I've proposed an update to the policy explanation of topic bans to clarify these issues/loopholes, as they affect all topic bans, not just Climate Change related ones. FT2 (Talk | email) 16:09, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Admins should be able to impose sanctions under CC discretionary sanctions if there is a problem, and the only possible reason any CC related issues should pop up here is in the event of a well-timed and well-framed appeal/review request/special notification. If AE has already dealt with an issue (such as by issuing a warning), it's unhelpful to propose a CC specific sanction at AN or ANI ~10 hours later (in circumstances where no other DR has occurred and the editor has made no other edits since the time that AE thread was closed). Certain users and their approaches are the problem - not the drafting. Therefore, I oppose shaping the rest of the project more (or even less) aggressively because of a single topic area - CC - that is out of control. "I am thoroughly sick of this" hits the nail on the head. Ncmvocalist (talk) 16:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC) The ArbCom was quite explicit about the intended scope of the topic bans that they imposed, though there does seem to be some attempt by several editors to rewrite those provisions. The case remedies already allow uninvolved administrators to impose discretionary sanctions in response to conduct which is harmful to the project. It is not clear to me why another thread needed to be started here; poor judgement on Scott Mac's part, I think, to ignite another fire to no useful effect. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:26, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Ignite a fire? Help, can't you see the forest is ablaze already. My intention is to draw a line in the sand by saying that those trying to continue this war by other means need to "get it". The topic bans are not limited restrictions, they are intended to close the whole chapter. Some people obviously haven't got this at all.--Scott Mac 17:06, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Oppose I am very sympathetic to the community reaction to the CC mess. As Ncmvocalist puts it: " 'I am thoroughly sick of this' hits the nail on the head." That said, I don't see how this proposal helps. The numbered list of statements either matches the ArbCom findings or it does not. If it matches, it is redundant, if it does not, it suggests that this group can overturn an ArbCom decision with a simple vote (or !vote). I see deficiencies in the ArbCom decision, but think there are better ways to address it. (FT2's link is a start). I'd also note that hostilities are winding down, and perhaps just letting the AE process get sorted out would be a better approach.--SPhilbrickT 17:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC) There's nothing new in my proposals. They simply are intended as an opportunity for us to say that we will not brook anyone wikilawyering around the spirit of what arbcom has said, and we will have zero tolerance with people simply continuing disputes in some way that arbcom didn't explicitly prohibit. Banned editors should move on entirely, and not pop up in discussions of the userconduct of their old opponents.--Scott Mac 17:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Support: FGS ban the lot of them and delete the subject for ever. It's not that I am unsympathetic to polar bears having to live off bananas and the starving millions having to take skiing holidays (I am recycling my yogurt pots and newpapers to help them) but enough is truly enough. This bickering has gone on far too long - let's talk about sex or something interetsting we can all join in.  Giacomo  18:15, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Support 1: those banned are banned inter alia from participating in any Wikipedia process relating to those articles. End of. Rich Farmbrough, 19:24, 25 October 2010 (UTC). Oppose. This forum seems rather the wrong venue for these suggestions. If the existing ArbCom sanctions/remedies are insufficient, a request for amendment is in order. If the meaning/scope of topic bans is in question, a request for clarification can be filed. However, in the presence of a recent ArbCom ruling, trying to introduce additional restrictions, particularly in relation to the Arbcom topic bans, in another venue, seems to be a recipie for confusion and chaos. Nsk92 (talk) 20:04, 25 October 2010 (UTC) I agree with Scott Mac's sentiment, but more noticeboard handwringing won't help. Instead, just start blocking these people in application of their topic ban (or under discretionary sanctions) if their continued bickering bothers you. Most tend to get it after the third or fourth block.  Sandstein  20:23, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Nobody needs to clarify anything. For all practical purposes arbcom has declared "weapons free" for admins acting in the climate change battlefield. Sanction whoever you want, however you want, for whatever reason you see fit. Don't be shy; the burden of proof is on the person who is being sanctioned. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:01, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Not sure if that's sarcasm or not... GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 21:44, 25 October 2010 (UTC) It certainly wasn't meant as such. I think it is a fair reading of arbcom's intent: enough with the perpetual drama and debate, just get in there and "knock some heads together" as someone put it above. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:01, 25 October 2010 (UTC) I don't believe that the ArbCom decision and subsequent remarks by arbs was intended to create a "free fire zone", but it certainly did empower uninvolved admins to impose sanctions against those people violating both teh word and the spirit of their topic bans. I urge more admins to patrol this area and use the enforcement power you have been given to help bring this subject area under control. I believe that is what the community, as a whole, wants. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:45, 25 October 2010 (UTC) Couldn't agree more with the overall sentiment of being sick to death of this conflict and the push after the decision to find holes in the ban to wriggle through. However I also couldn't agree more that it's time to take a less talky, more blocky approach to the situation. Actions speak louder than words and months of talking still have failed to get through to some of the combatants. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:16, 26 October 2010 (UTC) From my experience with enforcement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan 2 case, there comes a point at which the only thing getting the point across is "Break the rules, you'll get blocked. Push the boundaries, you'll get blocked." The alternative here is to see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Climate Change 2 become a bluelink, and no one in their right mind wants that. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC) Exactly. The goal is to create a change in culture. As Sandstein mentions above, the best way to do that is for a group of admins to mete out some lengthy blocks pour encourager les autres. When people see that arbcom and the admin corps mean business they'll stop pushing. Handwringing over "did the arbs mean this, did they mean that, what about clause (vi) in subpart 2(a) of Finding of Fact 9.2" only prolongs the agony. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:55, 26 October 2010 (UTC) Strongly Oppose Although understandable, this proposal seems to stem from a "I'm so angry I will nuke the world" mentality. That has no place whatsoever on Wikipedia (WP:Tigers and all that). One of the supposed cases of climate-drama spillover was the AN request I began (to be clear, I am quite peripheral to climate editing, but am now planning to take a much more active interest). It was an ordinary and routine case, requiring ordinary and routine attention--edit-warring across the project after various other attempts to encourage the editor failed. However because one or two edit wars were climate-related, the thread was summarily hatted and protestations ignored. The editor went back to a (non-climate) edit war immediately. Angry is no way to edit an encyclopedia, and never has good results. If you're angry, walk away. Certainly don't propose blocking everyone who annoys you. --TeaDrinker (talk) 00:54, 26 October 2010 (UTC) See this Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:40, 26 October 2010 (UTC) Thanks for the link, I appreciate it! My point is not that blocks should be avoided, only that they should be handed with judicious care. Blocks arising out of frustration are not going to work and should be discouraged. I feel much of this proposal falls into that category. While the frustration is understandable, encouraging reckless and emotionally involved blocks is going to cause far more problems. --TeaDrinker (talk) 05:06, 26 October 2010 (UTC) Also see this recently concluded arbitration enforcement request. It's much harsher than I asked for but it's the result of a two-day discussion and I think it's justifiable. It appears that the arbitration committee, the community and the uninvolved admins at WP:AE are finally united in sending a clear and unmistakable message to the topic-banned editors in the climate change arbitration. --TS 09:12, 26 October 2010 (UTC) The community's willingness to enforce this breach, and send out such a strong message, rather renders my motion here moot. The message has been sent. I'd be happy to see this thread archived, if someone wants to do that.--Scott Mac 15:15, 26 October 2010 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Very important: Need an uninvolved admin to help close an RFC

We need an uninvolved admin to formally close an RFC. Just to give you a little bit of background:

• We started an RFC about the Requests for comment/Inclusion criteria for Lists in late August.
• I documented a few broad principles where there appears to be consensus, despite other areas of controversy.
• One week ago, I posted a notice to close the RFC on the talk page at this section

All we need from someone is to undertake a few tasks.

1. Close this thread to close the RFC, with some kind of discussion/summary template.
2. Close this list of principles with some kind of discussion/summary template.

It was a long and difficult discussion. But the issue is an important one and it would be a shame to lose the consensus principles that this RFC produced. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I think what you are seeking is an "offical stamp" for your views on the RFC, but although you believe them to be the "consensus", in reality they are actually disputed. I don't see how the administrators can "sign off" your views as being the basis for changes to any policy guideline. Last time I looked, no policy or guideline had to have an admin's Imprimatur. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:47, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way Gavin, but most editors share those views even though you do not. Consensus is not unanimity. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:24, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Noting that Shooterwalker has not in fact asked anyone to endorse his own views. He has asked for the discussion to be formally closed and a summary written. That's exactly correct and this is a suitable venue for the request. The bad faith of "I think..." isn't needed here. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 19:45, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks FT2. My personal views are actually pretty close to Gavin's. But I'm trying to find a consensus, even where I personally disagree.

Regardless of the outcome, we need someone independent to read the closing thread to see if there is indeed a consensus. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:10, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

• For the record, it is not in fact required that an administrator close an RFC. What is needed is any experienced user who did not participate in the discussion and has not previously indicated strong feelings one way or the other on the subject. At a glance it looks like a bear of a discussion that will require more time than I have open today to close properly, but if nobody steps up soon I may be able to find the time tomorrow or Wednesday. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:49, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Thanks a lot. I know there's a lot to read. Shooterwalker (talk) 07:19, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for use of Betacommand's bot

Hello, all. I've got something of a problem. I'm trying to make Mediation Cabal case pages more streamlined, by taking the creation dates out of the case page names. Problem is, that's how MiszaBot knows which order to list them in. To solve this problem, Betacommand has agreed to have his bot list them properly by date order, without having dates in the name. I know he is under some unique restrictions, so I would like to obtain approval here to allow him to take over MedCab case listings. The Wordsmith^Communicate 03:49, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

This is pretty much the same situation as with the SPI bot - if the editors who regularly use the project page do not object, then I see no reason for editing restrictions to stand in the way. –xeno^talk 14:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this is just a terrible continuation of an awful precedent. The correct message to send is "No one is indispensible, you've worn out your welcome, no bots or bot mods from you will be accepted ever again." The fact that such requests are entertained seriously undermines the moral authority of the community to reprimand anyone, since it's clear that consequences for thumbing one's nose at the community are inversely proportional to the offender's usefulness. Jclemens (talk) 14:42, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I think Special:Contributions/Δbot and its 5,000 edits prove that the community still thinks I have things to offer, see also: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#New_AfD_tool. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 14:54, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

As far as I understand it (just from memory, mind you), the restrictions on BCD are to prevent him from making mass changes that are in dispute, too-strictly enforcing image policies, and so forth - resulting in all kinds of sound and fury. Simply managing a project page, on request from the editors who use that project page, is a low-volume task and I don't see how any controversy could result. The SPI bot seems to be running along nicely, isn't it? –xeno^talk 14:47, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd support the further amendment of Betacommand's restrictions to allow this venue, but it does require a further amendment of his restrictions. However, I think it would be better if the bot ran through the bot request process, and that any edits by Special:Contributions/Δbot outside of the allowed areas or approved functions in those areas be promptly blocked. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:46, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree, but before I can file a BRFA I need an amendment to allow me to run said bot. (its kinda circular and why I requested an amendment the last amendment). ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 15:49, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) iirc, the last bot approval turned upon the community writing in an exception prior to approved. It looks like this thread is just anticipating that - not a bypassing of BRFA, but a precursor. –xeno^talk 15:53, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support - As with the SPI bot, I support creating a specific exception to Beta's restrictions in order to do this task. If the BRFA request is denied, the exception can be closed. I continue to oppose any general relaxation of the restrictions. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:31, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support if necessary; but it seems premature. The previous relaxation required community approval of the specific task and wording of that task, not just community approval to request the bot board to approve the task. I'm not in support of a blank check. Some bot requests from an editor under a community bot ban, after receiving a relaxation, submitted a bot request far beyond the specific task allowed by the community. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:52, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• As with Beyond My Ken, I support a specific exemption in this case, so long as the bot does exactly and only what it is proposed to do, etc. I've heard of not issues with the SPI bot thus far and a similar task function with similar restrictions should not be an issue. Resolute 16:55, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. I can't see how the granting of specific exemptions for a bot operator from community sanctions on AN is somehow a path toward creating a vested contributor. If BC's bot is useful in a specific area, lets not cut off our nose to spite our face. Protonk (talk) 18:26, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. It's not as if Beta is one of Churchill's Ironsides, it's just that the community wants to be sure that he's operating to a clear community-led brief. The guy does good shizz, what he needs is a good line manager (says she who currently manages a bunch of techies) Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:10, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support This seems like a benefit to the project without a downside.   Will Beback  talk  22:04, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. My problem on the larger discussion was how to address the good work the bot does. Clearly here there should be no issues with following the rules. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:17, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support It's time the project be cleaned up and redesigned. Of course I support things that are necessary to redesign projects to make them more useful! Netalarm^talk 23:05, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support Seems like a reasonable exception. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 00:45, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support; the problem with Δ was going against consensus with automated processes. A process that does have consensus is a net gain for everyone. — Coren ^(talk) 00:53, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support; this seems like a thoroughly uncontroversial and straightforward issue. Nyttend (talk) 01:04, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. This single application of Delta/Beta's skills is unlikely to generate the prior drama problems. --Jayron32 06:15, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support - the only reason for sanctioning Beta against automated edits is that he has shown that he can't be trusted in that realm; if he has well-defined tasks which have the clear consensus of the community, then such tasks aren't part of the problem, and should be allowed. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:35, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
• Note. A bunch of opinions here were removed. I have restored them. There is more information to be restored. The diff is here. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:42, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:UAA

Resolved

If a free admin could help out at WP:UAA that'd be great, there is a huge backlog. Thanks ----Addihockey10^e-mail 05:26, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Vandal with a grudge

Recently, I have nominated the pages of the "Vandal with a grudge" for deletion. Now -jkb- (talk · contribs) has contacted me on what to do with the vandal (who had struck once again once after his sockpuppet pages had been deleted). While I agree that there's no point in keeping a list of his accounts, his vandalism is expectionally severe (posting of defamatory content on user's pages and other harassment), and he operates on multiple projects. (I remember seeing him on Czech, Slovak, English and German Wikipedia, and more recently on the Commons as commons:User:Valkýra 333 - where he was spotted too late to make a checkuser request.) For examples of his modus operandi, see the deleted history of User:-jkb-, or the page I used to maintain to keep track of him at User:Mike Rosoft/Vandal with a grudge. Could it be possible to create an abuse filter against him, and coordinate the effort across the targetted projects? - Mike Rosoft (talk) 16:04, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Marknutley

I've moved this thread to the forum designated for such appeals, WP:AE#Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Marknutley.  Sandstein  20:08, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Re-design of BLP noticeboard, comments welcome

Hi all! I've redesigned the biographies of living persons noticeboard to make it easier to understand. All the information required for a user to submit a report is now placed in the top section, with information for those that want to help out hidden. This makes everything easier to understand and should make the process less intimidating. Any comments on how to improve it? Alternatively, if no one objects, I can take this live pretty soon. See User:Netalarm/Lab 3. Feel free to submit reports there. (Note the colors are not final and may be changed later one.) Netalarm^talk 23:01, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I made a few changes, which weren't major enough so I hope you don't mind. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 03:09, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Eulsa Treaty

It seems the move discussion at Talk:Eulsa Treaty#Move? (October 2010) has died down and a neutral admin (or someone) is needed to determine the consensus in the discussion. Thanks! ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 02:43, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Backlog at RPP

Hi, there is getting to be a bit of a list at WP:RPP. I dunno why, but no one seems to be replying to posts on that board at the moment. Thanks. --Diannaa ^(Talk)

Thanks, y'all. Much better. --Diannaa ^(Talk) 04:04, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Huge backlog of tagged unsourced biographies of living persons

• Links from articles to the "BLP unsourced" template

• Estimated transclusion count (from Jarry's tool): 22515 transclusion(s) found (2010-10-27 1340)

From Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff

Principle 4, Summary deletion of BLPs

Any administrator, acting on their own judgment, may delete an article that is substantially a biography of a living person if they believe that it (and every previous version of it) significantly violates any aspect of the relevant policy. This deletion may be contested via the usual means; however, the article must not be restored, whether through undeletion or otherwise, without an actual consensus to do so. The burden of proof is on those who wish to retain the article to demonstrate that it is compliant with every aspect of the policy.

Obviously although we have the support of arbcom we've badly dropped the ball on this and we're badly letting down the living subjects of those biographies. Is there any reason why we should not encourage all admins to grab a whole bunch of these articles, do a revision check, and summarily delete the useless things before they bite somebody? --TS 13:47, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it is time to extend {{BLP prod}} to all unsourced BLPs, and not just those after the Mar/2010 cutoff? –xeno^talk 13:54, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm looking at the tags, and the two or three I checked had been tagged many months ago and had hardly seen a single edit since then, let alone an effort at sourcing. On the other hand one editor jumped in and added a source after I tagged one of them for speedy--which is great. --TS 13:57, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not talking about tagging for unsourced, I'm talking about the BLP prod (aka "sticky" prod) template. A cleanup tag is easily ignored, a tag that says 'this article will be deleted in ten days if not sourced' is a call-to-action. –xeno^talk 14:15, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah, it was you, was it :) I would concur with extending BLP prod, but that's going to be a longer argument. In the meantime.....--Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:59, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

We don't need to extend BLP prod or anything, we've already got arbcom specifying a procedure for unilateral deletion of articles based on the admin's judgement, which can only be reversed by consensus to restore. --TS 14:02, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

And you want yet another replay of the BLP dramafest earlier this year because...? T. Canens (talk) 14:11, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

What I was thinking (and I guess Xeno too) that PROD serves them up in daily chunks that one person feels they can tackle. The problem with these is that they were just all thrown in a box and left there (kind of like what my kids used to do with their summer holiday projects.....) until there are hordes of the things. Since these aren't all the unreferenced BLPs in the project (are they) it would be good not to add more in to the box, but just run new ones old ones that are newly discovered through the PROD process. Ultimately it might attract less dramah llamas than a mass deletion campaign. Elen of the Roads (talk) 14:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, I think a more orderly approach would be preferable to another round of speedy deletions. –xeno^talk 14:15, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't disagree with expanding BLPPROD, Elen. My point is that unilateral deletions under the process TS proposed will only lead to more drama. T. Canens (talk) 14:19, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

There doesn't need to be drama. My idea is just to encourage admins to exercise their right to delete these dodgy BLPs where necessary, and they can be taken through deletion review if required. At this stage--with some 20 000 unsourced BLPs tagged and many of those unimproved in months, mass deletion is the only way we'll ever sort out this real problem. But mass deletion doesn't mean we delete them all in a hurry. We can do it over six months or a year, as long as we do it. --TS 14:16, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Tagging them with BLP prod would still result in mass deletion, but give users a fair warning and time to source it without having to go through DRV or WP:REFUND. –xeno^talk 14:18, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Is anybody monitoring the BLPprod process? Is it reducing the backlog of old unsourced tagged BLPs? --TS 14:20, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I would guess that it's only stemming the tide, as it's (currently) limited to newly created BLPs. Only 119 transclusions as of this writing [23]. –xeno^talk 14:22, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

BLPprid is (currently) only allowed for articles created since the summer. It does not deal with the backlog.--Scott Mac 14:22, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I think the backlog is shrinking personally. I know a project I edit heavily has fixed probably a couple hundred articles in our scope. It just looks like it isn't because there was a very large number to begin with. But I do think we are making progress. -DJSasso (talk) 14:24, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment: Looking at the Arbcom case, [24] it seems to me that the verdict was "speedy deletion endorsed as compliant with the spirit of BLP, but it was a last resort, with community agreement to deal with the matter preferable" (my paraphrase). Having these things hang about indefinitely - sometimes for years- was certainly seen as unacceptable - and did breach the spirit of BLP. When I voluntarily ceased speedy deleting these things (prior to the case), it was also on the understanding that a community way of eliminating the backlog, in a reasonable time-frame, was preferable. I thus urged a moratorium on speedied to give any better means a chance. If it is evident, ten months later, that the other methods have failed to deliver, then regrettably we may need to end that moratorium. (Remember some of these articles have been tagged unreferenced for years, so it is evident that no one is about to fix them)! I'd urge caution though. Anything deleted should be recreated if someone offers to source it - and deleters should check that the article is definitely entirely unsourced and not wrongly tagged as such. We should also start with articles which have been tagged unsourced for longest.--Scott Mac 14:22, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe a promise was made that within one year of the closing of WP:BLPRFC2, all unsourced biographies of living persons would be gone. Is that going to be the case? Probably not. I would hate to see mass deletions be necessary to get things moving again so we can move on to more important but less visible BLP issues, but I fear that might be what is necessary. I agree with all above. NW (Talk) 14:25, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Where? I searched BLPRFC2 for "year" and can't find anywhere it gained consensus. (If you are referring to this, I don't see 52-33 as a consensus of any sort.) T. Canens (talk) 14:35, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

← FYI: Template talk:Prod blp#Proposal to remove the newly created restriction. –xeno^talk 14:29, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

To put it in visual perspective, here is a graph of the backlog since January. It is pretty clear that progress has stalled, and more drastic measures are required. Those who were against deletion pledged that the backlog would be reduced to 20,000 by September 1, and they have not met that milestone. This is a problem that really can't wait any longer. The Wordsmith^Communicate 14:30, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

the top one, has absolutely no sources, would the ones with no sources be deleted under {{db-person}} or is there another reason they are on there, I'd delete the ones with no sources, 10 months is long time to find sources--Lerdthenerd (talk) 14:31, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Looking at that graph I wouldn't say we hit a wall, I would say we fixed the low hanging fruit. The trend is still trending down, just not as fast. I think the current process is working. I would also note it looks like the rate of change is still pretty clos eto the same as it was at the beginning. There is no plateau on that graph. -DJSasso (talk) 14:43, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

(E/C)please, please, delete, nominate for deletion, tag for deletion, whatever, start working on this problem of unsourced BLPs. The idea that a few 100 are being worked on/knocked out at a time is very noble, but would take years to work out. My head explodes trying to follow these discussion about discussions and process about process, ect, that is why I don't get more involved or "help out". What/where is the harm of nuking ALL 20k bios in one mass bomb drop?? If anybody/article is really that important/notable, they surely will "resurface" in the future. Anyways, good luck....--Threeafterthree (talk) 14:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I have to concur...what is the problem with mass deleting all BLP's that have been left unsourced for a certain period of time, say 6 months? That would sure make this much more manageable. The Eskimo (talk) 15:20, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Alternative to speedy deletion There are 30k unreferenced BLPs. Set a hard deadline to eliminate the backlog (10, 15, 30 weeks?). Set a bot to BLPprod tag a number each week (starting with the oldest) 30k/weeks of deadline. That means we eliminate them all on a deadline, no speedy deletions, while allowing people to fix as many as possible. Other than the bot, no one needs tag any old BLPs. Each expired prod shall be manually checked before deletion to prevent the deletion of any BLP that is actually referenced.--Scott Mac 15:01, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support. That'd work. Take the long deadline - 30 weeks - and work out how many per day would need to be tagged. It's because it's such a morass that people feel it's futile to do one or two. Elen of the Roads (talk) 15:17, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

  Indeed, 150 per day seems manageable. –xeno^talk 15:19, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support, though I would prefer just ridding ourselves of them. I would suggest a shorter deadline, maybe 10 or 15 weeks. Otherwise, this is just going to drag on forever. The Wordsmith^Communicate 15:21, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support - if this means something will be done, full speed ahead captain...--Threeafterthree (talk) 15:27, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:36, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Speedy deletion is not an option for articles created before March 18th unless they contain contentious or negative unsourced information (or of course, unless they meet one of the established criteria for speedy deletion). The majority of the "backlog" are entirely uncontentious and should not be summarily deleted, according to policy as currently writtern. Thparkth (talk) 15:36, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, but I think the point is that isn't working for us. So what now?--Scott Mac 15:38, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• I just wanted to raise the point because there has been some invalid speedy tagging of non-contentious grandfathered BLPs (does this count as WikiLawyering yet?) as a result of this thread. In terms of your question, I'm not clear on why it's suddently urgent to delete inoffensive articles. Thparkth (talk) 15:40, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• Ridding ourselves of this problem has been a priority for a while. The community had a chance to resolve it themselves, and they have failed to do so. Now, we seek stronger action to take care of a problem that nobody else is going to. If we don't, they will sit around for another four years. The Wordsmith^Communicate 15:44, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• The community is ridding itself of the problem, remember as people are fixing them others are being found that were never tagged. So at the moment its a bit of a back and forth struggle. But your graph clearly show there has been a steady decline in the number of unsourced BLPs with no plateau. We have not hit a wall as you indicated above, we are steadily declining. -DJSasso (talk) 15:46, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
• Perhaps the community isn't all that concerned, in practice, about inoffensive articles "hanging around for another four years?" I don't have a strong opinion on this myself, but why push BLP policy further than the community wants to go, and further than legal expediency requires? Thparkth (talk) 15:53, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Because like it or not, Wikipedia needs to have an ethical responsibility to its readers and those who are involuntarily covered in it. That responsibility, at the very least, should be able to indicate that we are willing to at least take a step towards being willing to follow our own policies. If we are not, are they worth the server space they are written on? NW (Talk) 16:02, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• It seems to me that an argument on purely ethical grounds is one that really only works if it represents community consensus. Otherwise it's just a motivated minority scolding the majority for not caring enough. Thparkth (talk) 16:08, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Does anyone know how many of the articles in this rather sizable backlog are too old to be BLP-prodded? It seems the most sensible option, first, is to BLP-prod all the articles in the backlog for which it's valid to do so, and see how much that takes out of the backlog. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 15:51, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

The vast majority of them are too old--a lot of those articles have been tagged unsourced since before the creation deadline. You can see the breakdown by month-of-tagging here: [25] in the right column, but the tagging is often much more recent than the article creation, so it's more lopsided than that table would make it first appear. --j⚛e decker^talk 16:06, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs

All articles

299

• Yes the table to the right shows the age distribution
• 23k is not a huge backlog: it's not even where the most problems are likely to be - completely unreferenced articles are generally stubby and non-contentious - the poorly reffed ones are a more likely breeding ground for problems.
• See the list at WP:BLP noticeboard for higher risk articles.

Rich Farmbrough, 15:57, 27 October 2010 (UTC).

Yet another deadline? I forget when we had the Badlydrawnjeff case. 2006, I think. The encyclopedia was five years old and the BLP problem was a tiny fraction of what it was then. Deadlines come and deadlines go, but there is no end in sight.

So, a significant date is coming up in 2011: the tenth anniversary of the founding of Wikipedia. Let's find when exactly in 2001 the encyclopedia was founded, and whatever day that is we say that every single BLP remaining on Wikipedia must be properly sourced, else it shall be summarily deleted without prejudice to the recreation of a properly sourced version.

And this time we have to mean it. The people who say they can clear the backlog in a realistic period must be held to their promise. No more extensions. Five years is a long enough time to sit on our hands and watch the BLP ignored.

And don't start another one of those bloody stupid votes. On more roadblocks, no more stalking, no more demands for special consensus to do what we should be doing anyway. Tasty monster (=TS ) 16:00, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• Question:Why, oh, why, do we have a bunch of recent BLPs that are unreferenced and CAN be prodded with BLPprod? Anyone got a bot?--Scott Mac 16:07, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

What is this argument that we shouldn't delete the tagged articles because there are worse ones that are not tagged? That is the classic "other crap exists" argument. Our policy is clear: the tagged articles should not exist at all. If you know of worse articles, delete those too, don't use them as an excuse not to delete the others. And don't give me that "27k isn't a huge backlog" crap. If it wasn't a huge backlog we would have completely cleared it some time in the summer. But we didn't and it's still huge. Tasty monster (=TS ) 16:10, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Our policy is clear: the tagged articles should not exist at all - that is quite a drastic oversimplification of what the policy actually says. Thparkth (talk) 16:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

We have cleared 40k unsourced BLPs in 7 months. So yes 22k isn't a huge backlog. At the rate we are going it would appear these would be gone in 3.5 months. Which is well under the year it was expected to take to get rid of them all. -DJSasso (talk) 16:15, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• Not again Let me recap some sanity here

  1) Unreferenced BLPs do not, themselves, cause problems.

  Previous surveys of unreferenced BLPs have not found that they have a substantially higher rate of problems than referenced BLPs.

  2) Sources in BLPs do not, themselves, prevent or mitigate problems.

  In order to actually meet V, an additional layer of scrutiny is required in that sources must 1. be reliable, and 2. actually support the statement(s) referenced. It is entirely obvious that that level of scrutiny does not currently exist in the vast majority of currently referenced BLPs, and that those who propose deletion of unreferenced BLPs have put forward no method to encourage, let alone demand, this actual level of harm-preventing and harm-reducing scrutiny.

  Given these two realities, whether we deleted every single unreferenced BLP in one day or in one year, the actual reduction in harm can be no more than minimal, and more probably will be nonexistent. The corresponding damage to the encyclopedic coverage of living individuals will almost certainly be higher than any potential reduction in harm. Thus, any effort to systematically reduce "unreferenced BLPs" without dealing with the additional gap between minimal referencing and actual harm reduction is a net disruption to the project, in that it causes harm to coverage with no corresponding reduction in harm to living people. Jclemens (talk) 16:30, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Exactly how I see it. But a target of sourcing say 100 articles per day is reasonable. If we try to ensure that between us we do so and monitor it on a notice board somewhere then we can do it within a certain period.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)\

And no one is proposing that no progress be undertaken. This entire conversation is predicated on the false assumption that we're not doing enough to solve the problem, when the evidence is clearly that the problem is diminishing at an appropriate rate. If we dismiss that concern, the appropriate reaction is "keep up the good work". Jclemens (talk) 17:59, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Deadline

Arbcom said that summary deletion of unreferenced BLPs were not outwith policy, but that a less chaotic manner was preferred and the community was urged to find one. The limited BLPprod was the solution, but it evidently will not eliminate the backlog as it stands - indeed it doesn't even address older unreferenced BLPs. We can propose a new means, like "prod the lot over an extended period", but it is not unrealistic to think it will result in months of talk and no action. I thus propose the following deadline:

We will work for a community means, with a hard deadline, of eliminating unreferenced BLPs. This effective community process should be agreed by 30th November 2010. If it has not been achieved, then it will not be unreasonable to conclude that the "less chaotic" means has failed, and thus that the only effective means of enforcing policy is the summary deletion of any unreferenced BLP by an administrator. We believe this to be in the spirit of the policy and of arbcom pronouncements, unless arbcom pronounce to the contrary

Administrators willing to join me in this please indicate here:

1. --Scott Mac 16:24, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Comment

• Oppose As has been shown above, the backlog has shrunk, is continuing to shrink, and there is no good reason for proceeding in a more drastic manner. Jclemens (talk) 16:34, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
  • The goals set by those who said "we can sort this?" have NOT been met.[26] and progress slows [27]--Scott Mac 16:39, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Some goals, have not been met. So what? They were randomly choosen numbers. Progress is being made, and the chart you link to does not show progress is slowing, it shows the pace has been pretty much steady and unchanging other than a few minor ups and downs and hasn't slowed at all. -DJSasso (talk) 16:46, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
      • At the current rate of 2010, it would take well into 2013 to eliminate the backlog. There are many other problems besides this one, is it acceptable not to solve for 3-3.5 years. (And that's if the rate is kept up). Indeed the only reason we got this far was because of mass deletions at the beginning of this year.--Scott Mac 17:08, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Hang on, I don;t follow. Around 30,000 articles have been sourced since spring time? Why would sourcing another 23,000 take three years Scott?♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:38, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

If this gets implemented, I propose we throttle article creation for some interval to be determined. DS (talk) 16:35, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

That would be a massive negative impact on the project, it's an ever-growing encyclopaedia, after all. Not to mention technically infeasible without withdrawing the right of ordinary users to create articles... which wouldn't go down well with many, imo. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 16:37, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Oppose mass deletion Unreferenced BLPs were 52,000 when I looked before the drive. Its gradually been reduced to 23,000, less than half. The VAST majority of the backlog are not contentious. Yes the process is slow and arduous and it would be easy to nuke the lot but you seem to be forgetting that a high percentage of our articles are those longer articles which are poorly sourced/lack reliable sources and where flase/potentially libellous claims may not be spotted by editors. Who are we kidding if by January 2011 we nuke all unreferenced BLPs and commend ourselves for a wonderful achieviement when several hundred thousands articles are poorly sourced and at least 90% of the articles on the website lacking? yes we should not have any unreferenced BLPs or unreferenced articles full stop but the fact is we have them. We are forgetting also that many articles withih the log are perfectly well written AND accurate and just need back up. To delete those in one heap with those which really do have issues and should probably be deleted would be criminal, especially when they may be useful to editors wishing to read about them.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:47, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

The intention is not to mass-delete anything. The intention is to focus minds to find a "less chaotic" way. Are there other issues? Oh, yes. But if we can't address one, then what hope have we got?--Scott Mac 16:50, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

The only "less chaotic way" will arrive once the hard work of editors sees that backlog eliminated. Everything on here is down to hard work.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:53, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

And if enough people aren't willing to do the work, or figure that someone else will do it for them eventually? Is it ethically responsible for us to sit back and just ignore our responsibilities to all of our articles, not just the ones we have time to deal with? NW (Talk) 17:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

If you deduct BLPs created since the start of the drive created during the summer you'll find that to date around 32,000 articles have been sourced and deleted if non notable and removed from the backlog, quite an achievement. This was done without any major publicity or scandal in the press outside wikipedia. The remaining 23,500 can be sourced/deleted in due course,as soon as possible preferably. As experience shows the majority which do have serious issues are mainly POV/self-promotional pages or are poorly written as opposed to containing contentious material. Yes it is frustrating how slow the backlog is going down, I guess not everybody is so concerned about them as some people on here. I've done my fair share of reducing the log but like many I can profess to not working anywhere as near hard enough on clearing it as I'd have liked.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:29, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. The more time we spend on these discussions, the less time we have to deal with these in the most constructive manner, which is to source them where they are encyclopedic and sourceable, and get them deleted if not. The backlog is going down and as long as that's the case we should carry on and not set unreachable deadlines just to allow mass-deletion or to put pressure on those editors prepared to work to improve these articles. The reduction in the backlog has been a huge success. Presenting it as a failure is unfair on those editors that have been prepared to put large amounts of their own time into dealing with them in a way that benefits the encyclopedia the most.--Michig (talk) 17:43, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I respect the work that has been done to address this, truly I do. On the other hand, we have to look at the stark reality here—we simply do not have enough active editors who are willing to work on the problem. So long as this is the case, then there is no reason to pretend that our existing methods are sufficient to bring the project to a necessary quality level. NW (Talk) 17:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
• Support Who are us peons to argue with arbcom sanctioned blind vandalism. They made their bed when they handed down that ridiculous pardon for the wanton bit abusing vandalism spree of Coffee/Kevin/Scott et al, so it's all good in the hood now. Go for it. Burn the mother fucking lot down already. Whoo yaahh. MickMacNee (talk) 18:12, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Are these really an issue?

I apologise if this point has been covered above, I haven't read the entire discussion, but the fact that these articles have been tagged seem to suggest that they're not obviously problematic: we can assume that most articles which are tagged with BLP unreferenced were probably done so by someone with a reasonable understanding of BLP policy, and who would have known to remove anything contentious, or G10 it if it's entirely contentious. So is there really such a rush to deal with these, or should we not just draw a bit more attention to the list, encourage others to help out adding references, etc., and just let it happen in its own time? GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 16:35, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

We can reasonably assume no such thing. Tagging those articles is the simplest of bot tasks; parse the entire category of BLPs, tag anything without ref tags present. Done. → ROUX ₪ 16:42, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Except if tagging results in deletion faster than the trash can be sorted from the treasures. Jclemens (talk) 17:01, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Jclemens here; there's no reason to believe a lack of sourcing, marked by someone who knows how to use a BLPunreferenced template (why assume otherwise? WP:AGF should also include assuming that the articles are non-contentious unsourced BLPs unless there's reason to believe otherwise), and thus that mass-deletion is likely to cause more harm than good. What's the point in BLPunreferenced as a cleanup tag if the default position is that every article marked with one should be wiped? And if it's done by a bot, a bot won't understand the difference between a BLP and a non-BLP incorrectly tagged as one. I am in favour of a bot being used to blp-prod the ones for which a BLP prod is appropriate though. I also wonder if a noticable proportion of these are incorrectly tagged as unreferenced? GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 17:36, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I've been actually working at sourcing these, perhaps my own experiences can serve as evidence. I've probably sourced around 1200 articles from the backlog, I need to update my stats.. Of those, a couple included nasty unsourced and unsourcable negative claims, there was also a hoax or two and a few dozen (at least) copyright problems, as a couple dozen (at least) promotional, non-notable self-bios. I was pretty shocked (and I'm sorry I don't have the diffs) by the couple attack pages. --j⚛e decker^talk 16:47, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

1200 articles at least is incredible. If ony we had more editors like you Joe.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:00, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, Dr. B. So Joe, you'd say that of these you've seen, we're running at <0.5% attack, <0.5%hoax, 2-4% copyvios, and 2-3% purely promotional? Doing some quick math, that would mean that 92%, or 11 of 12, articles subject to deletion for being unreferenced would not be subject to the "big three" (G10, 11, 12) speedy deletion criteria. What percentage do you think would have been subject to other speedy criteria (A1, A7, etc.)? Jclemens (talk) 17:07, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec) Yeah, that's about right--I'm working from memory, which is fickle, but certainly that's close to my experience. As to speedies: Very few other speedy flavors last to the "old end" of the unsourced article pool where I tend to work, maybe a few A7s but not many. I'd put the "non-speediable" fraction as higher than those 92%--neither of the hoaxes was obvious without research (quite well done, actually), the attacks were in articles that had other non-attack content, etc. The "new end" of the unsourced BLP pile might be different. --j⚛e decker^talk 17:30, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

That's excellent to hear, Joe. You are to be commended strongly for your work to handle the problem in such a thorough manner: Thank you for your hard work to "get it right". Jclemens (talk) 18:01, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for the kind words. --j⚛e decker^talk 18:11, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Recall that we still have at about 10,000 biographies which we haven't classified them as blp or not blp in Category:Biography articles without living parameter. (We reduced them from 22k to 10k in 5 months). -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:04, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

This is an important point that should not be overlooked. The actual "backlog clearing" is 12,000 articles higher than the starting point and ending point would have indicated. Jclemens (talk) 17:08, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Not quite, the 12000 is all bios without living=yes or no, so includes both referenced ones and dead ones. As stated below, we have 6847 UBLPs on the list now, that weren't there in Feb. If you follow the numbers, there are probably 20-50 new UBLPs each day, unless someone (EPBR123, Rich, Yobot etc) goes on a spree of discovery and either converts a bunch of unref tags to BLPunref or similar. It has jumped by up to 300 on some days.The-Pope (talk) 17:15, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you part of the solution yet?

There seems to be a lot of "why haven't you fixed it yet" type of comment from some in the sections above. Well, some of us have been. There is a project WP:URBLP. I personally (with some help) have almost cleared the WP:AUSTRALIA list out, from over 400 2 months ago to under 20 today. We have a bot updating up to 730 lists every day with UBLPs by topic/project. But we have achieved a lot. We reduced the number of UBLPs not in a wikiproject to virtually zero, from well over 10,000. I've got a list of 45,528 UBLPs from Feb 7, and comparing it to the 23389 today, 16542 are on both lists - with 28,986 cleared! But, the "benefit" to the whole project, but the detriment of the task, almost 7000 new BLPs have been found and added - and that is net value - a lot more would have been identified and dealt with, so I would guess probably 35-40k unreferenced BLPs have been cleared this year.

I've been trying to sort out what is left to do - it's about 5400 sportspeople, 3100 musicians, 3800 other entertainers (actors etc), 2800 politicians, 5000 others specialised projects and 3000 by a regional (country/state/city etc) project only. Unless you get lucky and find a single reference that can do multiple BLPs, you can't really do more than 10-20 in a few hours. Maybe 20-50 if you know the topic and the sources well. So, it will take everyone's involvement. I've tried notifying the wikiprojects... with little return. There is a core of about 20 or so people who have probably done 80% of the 30,000 that have been cleared.

And if you go down the "speedy delete" route, what are you going to delete? All that have been tagged? Only those completely unreferenced? What about IMDB, or NFL, or offline, or incorrectly formatted links?

We have the lists, WP:CATSCAN and WP:URBLP all ready for people to start referencing. Why haven't you done your quota today yet? The-Pope (talk) 17:06, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Another great project to help add sources to unreferenced BLPs is WP:URBLPR. Ever wonder why the list of unreferenced BLPs by tag date has some months missing? That's because we ate them for lunch. This project tends to manage a few hundred a month with just a few editors, more hands are always welcome! --j⚛e decker^talk 17:33, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Is blindly tagging/deleting articles the answer?

I don't think it's the most sensible idea. I think we should expand BLP prod to all uBLPs, and I'm assuming that any tagged uBLP that has not been touched or sourced within, say, 6 months to 1 year of the initial tagging, can be pretty much uncontroversially deleted. However, there will be a lot of easily sourceable articles out there. We need users dedicated to this issue to go through a list of recently edited uBLPs, mark the ones that have some potential, and prod the rest. ("Potential" could be partially based on the number of Google hits, perhaps.) Those with sources that exist somewhere should be NOINDEX'd and moved to some special uBLP incubation process where the article has one additional week or month for users to add sources. Then, they can be deleted, as no one would seem to want to work on them. Does this sound reasonable? It's more work than bot tagging, yes, but we can't simply throw away content that hasn't even been human-checked. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 18:04, 27 October 2010 (UTC)