User talk:HJ Mitchell

Hello and welcome to my talk page! If you have a question, ask me. If I know the answer, I'll tell you; if I don't, I'll find out (or one of my talk-page stalkers might know!), then we'll both have learnt something!

Admins: If one of my admin actions is clearly a mistake or is actively harming the encyclopaedia, please reverse it. Don't wait for me if I'm not around or the case is obvious.

A list of archives of this talk page is here. Those in Roman numerals come first chronologically

This talk page is archived regularly by a bot so I can focus on the freshest discussions. If your thread was archived but you had more to say, feel free to rescue it from the archive.

2014 Year In Review Awards

		The Original Barnstar
		For your contributions to the Featured Articles Operation Flavius and Death on the Rock you are hereby awarded this Barnstar. Congratulations! For the Military history Wikiproject Coordinators, TomStar81 (Talk) 07:14, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

		The Epic Barnstar
		For your 2014 contributions to multiple history related articles you are hereby award this Epic Barnstar. Congratulations! For the Military history Wikiproject Coordinators, TomStar81 (Talk) 07:14, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Tom! Glad to see we decided to do these in the end. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:12, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

How could we not? I like to think of the project as a Meritocracy, so if you have earned something I will make sure you get it to the best of my ability. More over, there is the joy for the editors of seeing their hard work rewarded. I've been thanked 8-9 times over the last 24 hours by people who got awards, some of them were not even expecting awards and one was surprised that it was milihist who bestowed the first award he's gotten here. Its tedious and time consuming, but moments like that make it all worth while for everyone, wouldn't you say? TomStar81 (Talk) 00:30, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Definitely, it's always nice when we can show a little appreciation. I'm sure most Wikipedians would say they don't do what they do to be recognised, but knowing that somebody somewhere appreciated their hard work certainly helps and probably contributes to editor retention. Well done for being the postman. :) Oh, and apologies for the delay, Tom, I missed your reply at first—this talk page is rather busy at the minute. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:58, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Request to reconsider PC2 level protection to Gamergate controversy

As this protection was added as a "Arbitration enforcement" action (see [1]) and therefore cannot be removed by any other admin acting alone I decided to start by asking for you to reconsider (rather then the usual Wikipedia:Requests for page protection). The protection level PC2 is currently in the status of "No consensus for use on the English Wikipedia." While I suspected what this meant, I asked for confirmation from another admin and Arbitrator GorillaWarfare happened to respond (you can see his response here). I request that you raise the protection level to Full protection or lower it to Semi-protection (although clearly PC1 or no protection would be fine as well if that is what you decide). --Obsidi (talk) 04:27, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

PC2 has been used for multiple things before, despite the series of RfCs. WP:IAR applies. If a perfectly good tool is available for use, and an ArbCom sanctions regime gives an administrator the power to do whatever he needs to do to halt disruption, there is no reason for him not to use it, old RfC be damned. RGloucester — ☎ 04:34, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

"Ignore all rules" does not prevent the enforcement of certain policies. This was a policy decision by the community to not use PC2 as it was "would create/add to stratification among editors." Policy decisions by the community are actually above even ArbCom. Is there any reason why PC2 is really needed more then Semi-protection or full protection? --Obsidi (talk) 04:43, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Is there any reason why it shouldn't be used? That's the better question. Why should this particularly policy be enforced in this particular instance? If it is just for policy's sake, that's bureaucracy hindering the encylopaedia's improvement, and a waste of time. RGloucester — ☎ 04:52, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

It shouldn't be used because it adds to stratification among editors. It says that those with the reviewer right are first class wikipedians who get to decide what the content of the article is and everyone else just makes suggestions. --Obsidi (talk) 04:55, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

That has nothing to do with this particular instance of the use of pending changes. That's a broad schematic question which has no relevance. Think about the narrow view of the Gamergate problem itself, and think of why PC2 might be useful. Be pragmatic. Regardless, I feel that such concerns are a bit absurd, given that only administrators can edit fully protected pages, seemingly raising the same concern. Anyone can apply for the reviewer tool. RGloucester — ☎ 05:36, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Its not that admins can edit the article as they like when it is fully protected (that will lead to an admin getting desysoped if it continues, and an admin that gets desysopped is probably not getting the bit back). Even an admin needs to get consensus for any change in content (other then removing policy violations). Full protection is full protection for everyone. --Obsidi (talk) 05:41, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

It is very easy to strip someone of the reviewer tool if they are abusing it. Much easier, in fact, than desysoping anyone. Regardless, none of that matters here. In this particular situation, this action makes sense. RGloucester — ☎ 05:51, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

• For what it's worth, the slightest look at GW's userpage would tell you that GW is in fact a "she". As to the issue at hand, I'm keeping the situation under review, but I consider this to be a legitimate invocation of IAR—"if a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it". That's policy. There are very few legitimate invocations of IAR (I can count on one hand the number of times I've invoked it to justify an admin action, out of some 40,000 logged actions), but where we have unusual situations, it can be applied to slightly unorthodox solutions. In this case, the intention of PC2 is to keep BLP violations and other crap out of the article, and reviewers are under instructions to let everything through that isn't grossly inappropriate, even if they decide to revert it afterwards. Semi-protection alone would be insufficient given the sheer number of good-faith but inexperienced editors and bad-faith editors with sufficient determination to make ten edits and sit out for four days who are and have been active in the topic area, and I suspect the very application of PC2 will act as a deterrent to the latter. Especially given the high-profile nature of the article, I think concerns for the real lives of real people discussed in the article far outweigh our internal policy wonkery. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:58, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Just pointing out in passing that the biggest problem with PC2 is that it gives a false sense of safety. The edits of anyone with reviewer privileges or higher goes straight through without stopping at pending chnages; however, there are a LOT of people with reviewer right (i.e., almost anyone who was editing at the time PC was first released) who could blithely show up, approve a change in the queue or make a change that doesn't go in the review queue at all without being aware of all the special provisions related to this article. Full protection will prevent that; semi-protection is pretty much useless in this situation (almost everyone is autoconfirmed) and thus so is PC1. Risker (talk) 16:15, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Reviewer permissions have been given out rather liberally, yes, but most are established editors with at least some track record. More importantly, you don't get it automatically by making a handful of edits and waiting a few days—you have to actually convince an admin you're trustworthy, so the bar is much higher for those with nefarious intent. Good-faith or subtle violations getting through is still a worry, but PC2 comes with the smallest risk of that short of full protection, and there are admins and experienced reviewers watching so I'm hopeful that that sort of thing would be caught quickly. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:51, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I've wanted to use PC2 a few times on BLPs, where it was the thing that made most sense. It would be good to have a "BLP editor" protection level for articles likely to be edited poorly that contain material about living persons. Editors could be given the right if they have a reasonable track record of BLP editing or where for other reasons it's safe to assume they'll be policy-compliant. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 17:13, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I am notifying you that I am appealing this to WP:AE. --Obsidi (talk) 21:43, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Question

Is it acceptable to ask you to delete one of my own contributions, so that it is no longer part of the public record? Or is this only done when a violation has occurred?192.249.47.186 (talk) 15:47, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

There would have to be a good reason for it, but without context I can't give you a yes or no. You can email me (hjmitchell at ymail dot com) if you want to discuss it privately. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:50, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Accusations of Ad Hom

Respectfully, I do not believe that my comment on AE was irrelevant. It may be considered ad hom, but was not intended to be absusive and arguments against the accusers character are implicitly allowed by several WP policies, including WP:Boomerang. It is my argument that the high amount of investment by this particular editor in the subject area has been causing an extreme battlefield mentality in the editor in question. He has personally been the reason I left the page, the way he edits is needlessly confrontational and he flaunts the line of civility which makes it hard to assume good faith for his edits. While these may be considered ad hom, and I would not completely disagree with you there, they are very relevant to a discussion when he brings cases for enforcement. Specifically, the two previous cases I cited are important because they show how the editor is not here to build an encyclopedia. He is being confrontational and toeing the line of civility intentionally to frustrate who he views as opponents in order to immediately push for their topic bans if they misstep, instead of trying to find common ground with them.

I respectfully ask that you allow me to unhat my section. I will remove the portions about the banned editor. I apologize, I did not realize these issues had been previously litigated. I do not agree with your conclusion, I believe he is toeing the letter of the rule but violating the spirit with his conduct, but I will respectfully defer. Ries42 (talk) 16:09, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

If you want to gather diffs that show Hipocrite misconducting himself (and yes, creating a hostile atmosphere is misconduct, and I have sanctioned editors for that before, but I don't see evidence of it in your comments) and file an enforcement request, please do. But your comments at AE boil down to the proxying for Ryulong (which has been discussed at length and the conclusion has been that it wasn't against policy; indeed, see my remarks a few sections up), an enforcement request against you which resulted in no action, and an enforcement request at AE which was essentially a request for an interaction ban but was closed as premature. None of that is evidence of misconduct, and I hatted it because none of it had anything to do with the matter at hand. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:37, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

My 0.02. I am concerned that sympathy for a banned editor receiving an "unjust" sanction is driving certain behavior. There should be no quarter given for editors acting in sympathy. The ban is what it is and proxying for that person should be construed as a violation of the ban. --DHeyward (talk) 03:05, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

But it isn't. Acting on behalf of a banned editor is not, in and of itself, in violation of any policy currently written. Besides, there's no way to tell the difference between sympathetic editors who have put a given article on their watchlist while its maintainer serves out his ban and editors who are acting on a direct requests from the banned editor. As I said above, if they're disruptive, follow the normal channels for disruptive editing; if somebody disagrees with them, follow the normal content dispute resolution procedures. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:47, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

It is covered explicitly by policy in WP:MEAT A new user who engages in the same behavior as another user in the same context, and who appears to be editing Wikipedia solely for that purpose, may be subject to the remedies applied to the user whose behavior they are joining. Sanctions have been applied to editors of longer standing who have not, in the opinion of Wikipedia's administrative bodies, consistently exercised independent judgement. A new user isn't new to wikipedia, rather, new to the topic as the policy states. It seems obvious on its face that editors that edit within the findings of fact for the banned or t-banned editor are by definition disruptive. It's the very definition of meat puppetry and sanctions should be equivalent (i.e. behavior of a banned editor is a ban, behavior of a t-ban editor is a t-ban). It's why ArbCom has findings of facts and remedies that go with them. Why do you the the WP:MEAT policy does not apply to editors acting on behalf of banned and t-banned editors when ArbCom has already ruled the behavior is disruptive? --DHeyward (talk) 20:17, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

That bit of policy doesn't really apply to this situation—MEAT is about (usually brand new) editors recruited off-wiki, normally to give the impression that multiple independent voices share the same opinion—but even it doesn't prohibit making an edit on behalf of somebody else (even a banned somebody else). The bit of policy that does apply to the immediate situation is WP:PROXYING, which says Wikipedians in turn are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned editor [...] unless they are able to show that the changes are either verifiable or productive and they have independent reasons for making such edits. Hipocrite has sated that he believes he has independent reasons for the edits and that he has independently verified their content, so there's certainly nothing I, as a single admin, can do. Unless of course the edits are disruptive in their own right, but nobody sees to be arguing that. The other option is to start an RfC and attempt to gain consensus to 'outlaw' (so to speak) this sort of thing in future. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:59, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

False accusations

Please don't accuse me of edit warring when I'm doing no such thing. As per the template documentation, that spot on the infobox is for main cast only, and the reliable source on the article specifically states that those certain actors are only joining in a recurring role. I'm doing absolutely nothing wrong. I'm reverting IPs that are not aware of how things are supposed to be done, as well as other edits that are very obviously not constructive. If you don't want to actually look into the situation by looking at the sources and each edit that's been reverted, then fine, another admin could have and would've seen the right action there was to protect the page. But it's alright, I'll just leave the article alone.. wouldn't want to edit war anymore!! Gloss 20:18, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

It is edit-warring. It's textbook edit-warring. You've made multiple reverts of the same content; the content is not a copyright violation, BLP violation, vandalism, illegal, or added by a sockpuppet. The edits being "wrong" or contrary to template documentation does not exempt you from policy. And really, does it matter in the scheme of things whether a certain actor is listed as being in the main cast? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:32, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Protection

You have fully protected Punjabi people, it had to be semi protected. Bladesmulti (talk) 00:52, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

No, we don't do semi-protection in content disputes between IPs and established editors; that would be taking sides. We fully protect it so that you can work your differences out on the talk page. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:50, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

UFC 183

Could you please add protection to UFC 183? The vandalism is persistent and is very disruptive. Thanks. WWE Batman131 (talk) 01:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I see MelanieN has done just that with her newly minted admin bit. :) I knew I wouldn't regret that co-nom. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:52, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Unblock

FYI, I unblocked User:Isis.is.evil, whom you blocked for having an inappropriate username, as they have agreed to change it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Fine by me. Thanks for the note. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:51, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Another unblock

Unblock request vs. five-year-old VOA block at Niemasd. Good request, and details match personal information given in deleted materials. Objections to rolling the dice? Kuru (talk) 21:52, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

None at all. In fact I've done it myself. If I'm asleep next time you get a request like that, it's safe to assume I don't object. :) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:32, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Si - understood. Kuru (talk) 23:00, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Question

If an article contains misleading or probably false information about a wikipedian, is that a BLP violation? --DSA510 Pls No Pineapple 22:10, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedians are assumed to be alive, yes. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 22:20, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Ban of Mark Bernstein

You're banning Bernstein for him participating in a user talk page which discussed a blog post by him? Andjam (talk) 06:18, 2 February 2015 (UTC)