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Welcome to the Wikipedia

Here are some links I thought useful:

Feel free to ask me anything the links and talk pages don't answer. You can sign your name by typing 4 tildes, like this: ~~~~.

Be Bold!

Sam [Spade] 01:49, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Outstanding contributions recognition

Outstanding Contributions Recognition

GoldenRing, I've followed your Rfa and subsequently have had a chance to see your contributions across Wikipedia. What I've noticed is a person who is passionately dedicated to Wikipedia and is amongst the most intelligent ones I've come across here. I applaud the absolute honesty you've shown in your Rfa while offering to contribute as an administrator. They may not be necessarily as many as of other prolific editors, but in my opinion, your contributions are exemplary.

And in that spirit, you truly are an outstanding contributor.

Keep up the great work! :)

Lourdes

Reference Desk at AN/I

Thanks for taking the initiative to close. Alex Shih (talk) 17:48, 31 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Notification

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Closure_review_request_for_.22StuRat.27s_behaviour_on_the_Reference_Desks_.28again.29.22 StuRat (talk) 17:57, 31 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

email

Hello, GoldenRing. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Statement_by_Dank

I've decided I want to say something there, but first, I'm in search of clue. One way to get clue is to talk with people who disagree with me (particularly if they're making a statement at WP:RFAR, because people often truncate their statements drastically, and actually know a lot more than they're saying). I was 100% with you as I read your statement ... and then you arrived at the opposite conclusion to mine. I don't think it's fair to say that Arbcom shouldn't take the case because there are options they can't pursue. Arbcom is much more likely not to fix something that they could actually fix than the other way around; there is little chance that they will go all bull-in-a-china-shop. They may go the other direction, and do something minimal and limited to just the two principal parties. But even a minimal ruling can be one important step along the way, as people grapple with this very extensive and tough problem.

So, I'm leaving this note for both you and Hawkeye7, for two reasons: 1. you guys are the only two who disagree with me (although we do have a few noncommital statements from others), so you're the ones in the best position to explain to me why I'm wrong, and 2. Arbcom is hesitating, and I can understand that ... they're not masochists. But I think it would be good to apply peer pressure to get them to step up and do the right thing, the necessary thing, and a unanimous case request would be a suitable form of peer pressure. IMO, Arbcom is a kind of single point of failure for Wikipedia ... if they turn away from disputes that can legitimately be framed as ongoing policy violations and that can't be solved elsewhere, then the whole dispute-resolution system fails. - Dank (push to talk) 18:59, 3 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, Hawkeye just struck (in part). - Dank (push to talk) 23:53, 3 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Dank: thanks for coming by to discuss this. I'm struggling to formulate coherent thought this weekend as I have a heavy cold. So my apologies if I'm a bit muddled.

I hoped that I was clear, but maybe I wasn't, that my opposition was to the committee answering the big policy questions about wikidata, not them dealing with behavioral problems.

The point of my statement was that underlying all the behavioral disputes there are hard policy questions that need to be answered somewhere. Our policy framework at the moment, if applied rigorously, probably doesn't allow us to use wikidata at all on Wikipedia. We require that basically everything in an article be verifiable from reliable sources. Wikidata does not have that requirement. So someone inserting a link to wikidata not only has to check that the information currently in wikidata is verifiable, but needs to worry about whether someone's going to change that information on wikidata to something that's not verifiable, according to our policies, but still ok by wikidata policies.

As far as I can see, this leaves us in a position where we can use wikidata templates on Wikipedia so long as the information on wikidata is reliably sourced. If someone changes some information on wikidata so that is not reliably sourced, our only option is to stop using the template on Wikipedia. If wikidata policy also held to our standard of sourcing, then we would also have the option of going and fixing it at wikidata, but they don't so we don't. If our only option is to switch back and forth between wikidata and non-wikidata versions as the data at wikidata changes, that seems to me obviously untenable. Or at least far too much effort to be worthwhile.

Arbcom have no remit to create policy. They can only enforce our existing policies. I think it follows that if they are asked to answer the policy questions, the only answer they are capable of coming up with is to ban the use of wikidata on Wikipedia. Anything else would be creating policy.

There are certainly some people on the project who would like to see that outcome and maybe aren't too worried about how we reach that outcome. But I think that arbcom imposing that solution would only lead to trouble. I'm not yet convinced that it is the best outcome for the project and there are certainly editors who believe in good faith that it isn't. So I think it's the sort of decision that needs to be taken by the community and have the support of the community. GoldenRing (talk) 10:24, 4 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh, cold season, I hate it. Anyway, this stuff is so good that I pointed people to it in the Arbcom case request; if I overstepped, I'll be happy to strike. - Dank (push to talk) 13:13, 4 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Our policy framework at the moment, if applied rigorously, probably doesn't allow us to use wikidata at all on Wikipedia." - I don't think that's true; for example, Template:Infobox road allows for us to share the maps for each road between different Wikipedias, without our having to manually enter it into the page (useful for languages where the other language article is more developed). There has also been a long-existing RFC from 2013 that has allowed this: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikidata Phase 2.

I was going to write something about the legitimate concerns of people concerned by the lack of sourcing, the bots run amuck on Wikidata, and the battleground behavior on and off the site, but it probably wouldn't be politically correct, especially at 12:45 AM. All I can say is, I would encourage people to get involved on Wikidata more and try to at least present these concerns. My perception has been that after more scrutiny was placed on Commons a few years back, things did improve a bit. --Rs chen 7754 07:45, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Rschen7754: Yes, I'm aware of the 2013 RFC but I don't think it resolved any of the policy questions, just said we're going to start trying it out and see what happens.

I feel, and I suspect a lot of people are in a similar place, that I can see a lot of potential in wikidata but that as things stand its use is not feasible. I just can't see myself adding links to wikidata knowing that tomorrow the data may be edited in a way that is incompatible with enwiki policy but which is considered perfectly acceptable by wikidata standards.

To encourage people to be involved at wikidata is probably the only way that wikidata is going to become usable here. But the call to wikidata often looks, on the one hand, like people who have built a failing project blaming those who don't want to use it for its failure, and on the other hand like a call for lots of enwiki editors to invade wikidata, kick over the furniture and rebuild it all how enwiki wants it. Those are both very course caricatures, of course, and you have been at pains above to avoid that look, I know, but all too often wikidata advocates do appear to be trying to push something on a community that doesn't want it while also blaming that community's lack of interest for wikidata's shortcomings. I don't think you'll find wife support for wikidata here until these problems are sorted out, and those pushing its use here before they are resolved (and all too often denying the existence of a problem at all) are probably not doing themselves any favours or winning people over to their cause. GoldenRing (talk) 08:29, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I, honestly, don't care if Wikidata is used on WP or not - so long as the data sourced from it is reliable. Because there is no guarantee that it is reliable and verifiable at any given point in time (as I write this) perhaps it would be for the best if we stopped using data sourced from WD even in the short term until the necessary policies are both written and rigorously enforced. As a concept, I like the Wikidata idea: to centralize various datapoints on various topics, but surely when the WMF started it up they should have seen this coming.

If WP (and other sister projects) just stopped using WD within themselves, even briefly, perhaps it'll get the attention of the right people (either to sort out the policy mess over there, or shut it down) - because it's only useful while it's being used.

Just my opinion, Dax Bane 06:37, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

On enwiki I've mainly seen folks who believe that Wikidata should be shoved down everyone's throat and no objections are legitimate, and others who want to burn Wikidata (and VisualEditor, and any new WMF software product, really) with fire. That's where all the battleground behavior comes in. There's all sorts of nonsense in the policy discussions on Wikidata lately too. This was our last attempt to institute a BLP policy, which went down in flames because a small group of editors successfully derailed it without making any changes.

What Wikidata really needs is sensible people who are willing to compromise and come to a consensus rather than drawing battle lines. We are in the top 5 of largest wikis with over 38 million items, and yet we only have 52 admins, and many of them are not that active, and those that are are dealing with nonsense like this. I used to try and work on sensible policies years ago, but Wikidata is not even my highest priority on Wikimedia, and I just don't have the time to edit like I used to.

With that being said, people who want to get involved should be willing to get their hands dirty and do some work on the site. It's just a general principle that people don't really want outsiders coming in and telling them what to do. But people who really seem interested in contributing to Wikidata (or Commons, or Meta, or whatever) and who have the edits to prove it generally get listened to more. Maybe I'm rambling at this point, but maybe it will help someone, so I dunno. --Rs chen 7754 07:04, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Rschen7754: It's hard to disagree with much of what you're saying here. I'd love to have enough time to contribute to masses of wikimedia projects; as it is, I don't really have the time to do what I do here, let alone get involved in another project from scratch.

The BLP discussion you linked to is indeed worrying, though I'm not that surprised by the opposes. To pick up one point, the proposal was to say that (with a few exceptions) all information must have at least one reliable source. This actually goes further than our policy on verifiability here; our policy requires that all information be verifiable, not verified. We only require an actual inline citation for "all quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged." In practice, the "likely to be challenged" provision is not much different to "has been challenged" and people who remove large swathes of uncontentious material from articles solely because they are unsourced tend to end up sanctioned for it. Even for material where an inline citation is required, the policy still only says that it may be removed, not that it must. As one editor in that discussion said, it would have been better to draft a detailed guideline that spelled out some of the complexities, rather than a series of (essentially) bullet-point proposals.

The same could be said about the proposals on living persons; the enWP policy on verifiability in BLPs only really differs from WP:V in that information requiring an inline citation must be removed immediately, rather than may be removed in the more general case. The categories of statements which require inline citations are the same. Compare that to the proposal you linked, which required that any unverifiable information must be removed immediately. It's not surprising that editors there opposed a proposal that goes even further than our policies here.

The enWP model of verifiability relies a lot on the concept of material being challenged; insertion of un-sourced but non-controversial information is generally tolerated (though perhaps not encouraged, as such), so long as when material is challenged, either a source is provided or the material is removed. This model works reasonably well here, where the process of content creation and maintenance means there are lots of human eyes on content. I wonder how well it would work at wikidata, where (I gather) much more of the content is created by automated processes; could we rely on there being enough human eyes present to challenge contentious material, or would the human eyes that are there be swamped by the amount of bot-created material? I suppose the theory is that all the eyes on all the wikimedia projects that consume that data are also available to challenge contentious material, but there we get into a chicken-and-egg situation. GoldenRing (talk) 12:20, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me butting in, @Dank and Rschen7754: but the ArbCom link brought me here. I have a different perspective to yours, GoldenRing, and perhaps you'd like to consider it. When people are bemoaning problems with the use of Wikidata, I ask them to consider how we deal with the equivalent problem when the same issue crops up with edits made locally on Wikipedia. Let's take the example of adding unsourced content to Wikidata. I've written the code used in many of the infoboxes to import from Wikidata (Module:WikidataIB) in such a way that a local value always takes priority a Wikidata-supplied one, and that no value is returned from Wikidata by default unless it is sourced. So if somebody changes a Wikidata value which is imported into an infobox here, I ask how does that differ from an editor simply changing a local value? The answer is that possibly fewer people are likely to spot the change, although such a change will be reflected on Wikidata as well as potentially on other wikis, so it's not a simple matter to determine how many people have watchlists that would monitor such changes – I mean that the item will be on Wikidata watchlists and other language watchlists, as well as on some enwiki watchlists. To get an idea of the scale of any problem caused, we'd have to get examples of vandalism from Wikidata causing problems here, and compare that with the rate of vandalism locally on enwiki. So far there's little actual evidence of a problem.

Nevertheless, it is proper to ask the question, how do we protect enwiki from problematical editing on Wikidata? I don't accept that "ban all use of Wikidata" is either an appropriate or sensible response, as there are many measures that we can take to guard against the issue. For example, we can build an infobox that will only show Wikidata values that have a source better than "Imported from Xyz Wikipedia", or make other filtering rules. That paradoxically results in slightly better situation than happens here. Despite the WP:V policy, our articles are riddled with unsupported statements, and it is easy to add a value to an infobox locally that is unsourced, so having at least some assurance that a value is sourced is going to be a bonus. Note that I can't guarantee algorithmically that the source is reliable – or even relevant – but at least we know immediately where to look to check.

If we examine the situation you postulated above: someone changes the Wikidata value, I believe that it does not follow that "If our only option is to switch back and forth between wikidata and non-wikidata versions as the data at wikidata changes, that seems to me obviously untenable." That is clearly what also happens when somebody changes a value locally in an infobox: if it's wrong, we change it back. Why would we not simply do exactly the same thing with a change to Wikidata? If it's wrong, use a local value that is verifiably correct. There's no back-and-forth because the local value always overrides Wikidata: no amount of changes there will affect what our infobox displays. Of course, if somebody eventually fixes the Wikidata by updating it from the verifiable value here – and adds the reference! – then there's no reason why we shouldn't go back to using the Wikidata-imported value, but there's no rush to do that.

The only policy (or behavioural guideline) change we need is to forbid the replacement of a locally-supplied value in an infobox with a Wikidata-supplied one, unless the two are the same. That would put the onus on anyone wishing to alter an article's infobox to one that uses Wikidata to make sure that the information displayed was no less reliable than that already in place. In the case of an infobox presently containing incorrect information supplied locally, the first course of action would be to establish the correct value (if necessary by showing that the previous value was wrong). That would ensure that a baseline of accurate information was present in the infobox before switching to a Wikidata-supplied infobox.

I hope all of that makes sense to you, and I'm happy to discuss further; but I do think you should reconsider your view that "as things stand its use is not feasible". Cheers --RexxS (talk) 18:04, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"The only policy (or behavioural guideline) change we need is to forbid the replacement of a locally-supplied value in an infobox with a Wikidata-supplied one, unless the two are the same." So in effect, you're saying that if some bots mass-remove locally supplied values that are identical, there's no way for anybody to object to it? If so I don't think that's going to go down well with a lot of people. --Rs chen 7754 19:23, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Who's talking about bots? Not me. Behavioural guidelines are for editors (although the bot operators need to be aware of what behaviour is acceptable, of course). What problem do you foresee with an editor replacing a local value with a Wikidata-derived one that is the same? I assume you read the rest of what I wrote above to justify my conclusion. As for bots, even if you think that BAG is going to approve a bot to do that sort of job – which is almost inconceivable – that "lot of people" are going to be insisting that any such bot operator is held responsible for the bot's edits. I'm neither seeing a likelihood nor a problem there. --RexxS (talk) 19:58, 6 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm talking bots, or AWB, or really any very determined editor who has a lot of time on their hands and who decides to remove the parameters from hundreds of articles. --Rs chen 7754 01:23, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't we simply refer them to the 2013 RfC's conclusion: "this modification should be done carefully and deliberately, at least at first"? Nobody should be making any wholescale changes to large numbers of articles without careful consideration beforehand, in any case. For example, I wouldn't support removing parameters wholescale from articles using {{Infobox book}}, as there are far too many transclusions and too many nuances in the fields for the change to be simple. At the opposite extreme, the change of {{Infobox telescope}} to using Wikidata went off with few hitches, because there are relatively few articles, so they were easy to check and manage, and it was planned in advance and well executed. One consequence is that several smaller Wikipedias have now built a complete set of articles on telescopes, starting from an initial Wikidata-aware infobox that held the outline of the article for them to work from. If we ban the use of Wikidata because we're frightened of somebody potentially causing damage with {{infobox book}}, we have to remember we're also throwing out all the good work exemplified by {{Infobox telescope}}. The trick is to find ways of scaling up the curation of articles, so that the more complex cases become realisable. I think that establishing a convention that we don't replace local values with Wikidata ones without being absolutely sure that the transition is completely transparent is key to creating a pool of responsible editors who can modify infoboxes without causing WWIII to break out. --RexxS (talk) 01:58, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(GoldenRing, if you ever want your talkpage back, please let us know...

)

I think you've summarized the crux of the ArbCom case right there. "Nobody should be making any wholescale changes" - but at some point someone behaved badly, and that's what started it all. I'm a Wikidata admin and I have 100,000+ edits on that site, so I sure hope they don't ban Wikidata here. But I fear that it will happen if Wikidata is forced on groups of editors that don't want it. Telescopes and roads (my subject area) aren't BLPs, for example. VisualEditor could have been a great product, but it was rolled out too early and forced on groups of people that didn't want it, and eventually people lost patience and just wanted to burn it with fire. --Rs chen 7754 02:35, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No worries having this discussion here.

I had written a long comment on this, then my phone ate it. Probably the only thing really worth saving out of it is an example of where I see real problems caused by the incompatibility of sourcing policies. Right now, something that causes some fairly protracted disputes on enwiki is the display of ethnicity and religion in infoboxes of living (and sometimes long-dead) people. This seems to be a particular problem for Jews, for whom complicated issues of ancestry, culture and religious belief intersect in the question of whether someone "is Jewish." It is reasonably common to find someone who the world generally regards as "Jewish" - even who reliable secondary sources routinely describe as Jewish - but for whom we will leave that field of the infobox blank because our standard for including it is a positive, reliably-sourced self-identification of Jewishness. Given the difference in policies, it would be very easy to have a statement in wikidata that someone is Jewish, sourced to what would normally be considered a reliable source here but where we would still want no value in the infobox. It is absolutely trivial right now to find people who wikidata describes as "religion: Judaism" where making the same statement here would be, roughly speaking, the end of civilsation as we know it; consider wikidata:Q302.

These types of situation are not resolved by strict application of rules, they are resolved by discussion and consensus. For all the potential I see in wikidata (and I am a fan of the concept) I can't see how this information can be stored at wikidata and questions like this can be resolved without essentially saying that enwiki will defer to consensus at wikidata on questions of sourcing and verifiability and I can't see that happening unless the policies on sourcing, verifiability and living persons are roughly compatible, both in their text and their practice. People here need to trust that problems at wikidata will be sorted out in a way that is broadly acceptable to the community here before there is mass adoption of wikidata here.

I hear what you're saying about local overrides, but it seems very likely to me that the result of such as scheme will be that every value in every infobox will be overridden with local data and then what's the point? Even if someone doesn't immediately write a bot to mass-import all the wikidata values into local overrides here or override them with null values (and there are certainly a few editors who would attempt exactly that), there are numerous situations where editors will have an incentive to override wikidata values with local values and never any situations where editors will have an incentive to change them back (except perhaps that they are wikidata fans - but try building a consensus on that basis!)

I think that trust between the projects needs to be built first, before we start with mass adoption of wikidata-based templates. Various things going on at present are not serving to build that trust but to build scepticism. Resolving that is going to take real humility and willing spirit from both sides, and perhaps some big sacrifices (eg perhaps deleting swathes of bot-imported data from wikidata because the sourcing is awful) and I sort of doubt that either community collectively possesses those qualities in sufficient quantity. GoldenRing (talk) 12:55, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps making it easy to fix any problem with the Wikidata entry is better than using local overrides, at least for simple errors. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:16, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@GoldenRing: We had that scenario over 18 months ago at {{Infobox book/wikidata}}, where SarahSV explained that Night was problematical because there was no academic agreement about its genre, so the 'genre' field needed to be excluded. The section at Template talk:Infobox book/Archive 8 #See if this works explains how the module WikidataIB was coded to allow any field to be blacklisted on a per article basis. If an article using {infobox book/wikidata} contains |suppressfields=genre then the genre is never displayed (even if a drive-by editor adds something locally). The Wikidata-aware infobox can actually make dealing with the exclusion of fields easier, not harder.

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: It would be great to have a pop-up editing window to make the changes without leaving the article, but that's still in the pipeline. In the meantime, I made it so that values fetched from Wikidata will by default have an 'edit pen' icon after each one, which is a direct link to the statement on Wikidata that was used. Anybody who has done any Wikidata editing can click that link (or open it in a new tab) and fix the problem there and then. I know it's not everything that everybody wants, but it's a long way from being as difficult as you seem to imply. A lot of thought and development has gone into meeting the needs of Wikipedia editors and it's rather dispiriting to see no acknowledgement whatsoever that we've come along way in terms of usability over the past four years. --RexxS (talk) 18:10, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I was more saying why I don't like having too many local overrides. Personally I only use Wikidata for Interwiki links. Perhaps there is a case to make that humans tend to work better with prose whereas automated things like bots struggle and thus that Wikipedia is more geared towards human readers and human editors, while automated things deal better with data and humans don't find them so interesting and thus Wikidata should be primarily edited by bots and semiautomatic scripts, with humans being more in an operational role. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:51, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"somehow better than just not filling in those fields"

You see this really is the problem. You choose to disparage my efforts without showing any sign of understanding the problem and any possible solution. The reason why having the ability to have a blacklist – note that doesn't make it a compulsory element – is "somehow better than just not filling in those fields" is that these sort of occurrences are plagued by drive-by editors who come along and add a local value to the Genre field, if you "just don't fill in the field". As you'd understand if you'd bothered to read any of the discussions. You don't have to have blacklists on 99.9% of articles, but they are useful when you need them. What's easier for an editor who curates a music article: to continually revert editors who regularly add |genre=thrash metal despite consensus on the talk page that no genre should be in the infobox; or add |suppressfields=genre to the infobox once?

31 hours or indef?

You only blocked User:Mahir M for 31 hours; I was about to grumble about how it should be longer for that kind of bigoted attack, when I saw that you said at ANI you'd indef'd them. So now I'm thinking this was just a misclick? --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:06, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Floquenbeam: Yes, it was intended to be indef. Someone who's not trying to do something else at the same time take this block button away from me for a bit. Would you mind extending to indef? I've arsed this up enough times. GoldenRing (talk) 17:37, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Done. And I know the feeling... --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:43, 9 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

List of European islands by population arbitration

I don't see how the case here relates to The Troubles as it is an issue of international borders rather than a historical or political point. You can have an opinion either way about Northern Ireland, but the article in this case relates to the current status of the territory of the Island of Ireland, as is recognised internationally, as this is a encyclopedia, not a political debating forum. The Troubles article is obviously a very different case to the one here, as that is an issue which is disputed by historians to this day. While Irish Republicans personally may dispute the status of Northern Ireland, there is no dispute internationally regarding recognition, nor is there a dispute regarding the reality of the physical presence of the United Kingdom there. Moreover, other lists such as the article listing islands by population worldwide on wiki, and the article for Ireland itself (the island not the Republic) both use the Republic of Ireland, United Kingdom (Northern Ireland) format to describe the governance of the territory. I mean there is a case that other options, such as Northern Ireland (United Kingdom) could be considered, but then we'd have a political flag dispute which would not exist if the United Kingdom (Northern Ireland) was used, but claiming that the entire island of Ireland is currently recognised as the territory of the Republic of Ireland is simply false. I respect the fact that many Irish Republican editors may feel that it should be as such, but similarly, the article references the current recognition of the territories listed, and its a geographic article, rather than a historical or political one, so the standard is obviously different to that used in The Troubles arbitration. As you can see on the Ireland article, they have mentioned both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, and as such any other articles on Wikipedia should be consistent with that. PompeyTheGreat (talk) 02:50, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, I would add that I have made attempts at dialogue, but the other editor made changes despite my prior notice on the talk page of the article. PompeyTheGreat (talk) 02:50, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@PompeyTheGreat: If that's how you want to pursue the matter, then you are entitled to make the request. I was only offering advice from my perspective. In particular, I would direct you to Wikipedia:Arbitration#Scope_of_arbitration - you are expected to have exhausted - not just tried - other means of dispute resolution before arbitration. If someone is edit-warring against consensus and won't respond in talk space, a report at WP:ANEW or WP:AN/I will usually find an administrator who is willing to help get their attention. GoldenRing (talk) 07:50, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ANI hat -- "despite what the usual AP2 suspects have to say"

Hello GoldenRing. It's not clear to me why you'd hat the subsequent exchange and not the gratuitous personal disparagement that prompted it. It's possible we'd all be no worse off without my observation, but I do believe we'd all be better off without that editor's disparagement of the several editors who commented there. FYI this view that there's some sort editorial bias or biased editors at American Politics relates directly to the narrative of Thucydides411 whose behavior is being discussed there. And this is not the first time that user Cjhard has injected that kind of partisan talk into a noticeboard thread. I don't think it's helpful. SPECIFICO talk 23:10, 12 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there SPECIFICO. When one group of editors (or perhaps a tag-team) routinely (exclusively) pushes one agenda or point of view in a specific editing area, and then supports sanctions on those whose editing conflicts with that agenda, despite a lack of serious misbehaviour, it's pretty helpful and common to raise that point. This is the case for any issue, whether it be Israel/Palestine, Gamergate, or AP2. Cjhard (talk) 20:02, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) Unsubstantiated accusations of tag teaming are uncivil, see WP:Tag team. See also WP:Wikispeak#T: "tag team n. & v". Bishonen | talk 20:27, 13 November 2017 (UTC).[reply]

I don't really see an accusation there or anything even remotely uncivil. Perhaps is pretty mild - not really worth a civility warning, imo. Seraphim System ^(talk) 20:31, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to hat someone's !vote. Their reasoning is, in my view, transparently inadequate and I wouldn't expect any closer in their right mind is going to give it much weight, but that decision is for the closer to make, not me trying to keep the discussion vaguely in order. We all know the narratives that are constructed around the AP2 subject area. Responding to that kind of comment only leads to endless threads of bickering that make it that much harder to form any sort of consensus at AN/I. Please just let it go. GoldenRing (talk) 11:10, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Daniel Steele

I thought the information shared there was mainly bullets points, which as far as I am aware avoids copyright violation due to the fact that it is mere facts, like a recipe, without further elucidation. That blog got the info from here: https://library.syr.edu/digital/guides_sua/html/sua_steele_d_prt.htm. I'd be happy to rewrite it so that it avoids any possibility of copyright infringement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CrossReach (talk • contribs) 18:30, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Thank you

Thank you for the highly considerate approach you've shown in connection with the unblock request for BS. If the user still persistently resorts to sockpuppetry and CU reveals the same, no one can help! --Muzammil (talk) 18:55, 14 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Question regarding what you said in AE

If for example I have asked the user not to use this term and they refused.Does it sanctionable conduct in your opinion?--Shrike (talk) 15:03, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Shrike: It depends a lot on the discussion, I think. Have you? GoldenRing (talk) 15:46, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No I didn't I already explained my line of thought that such experienced editor should understand those basics.Do you think its would be suitable to do it now or after AE ends?--Shrike (talk) 15:51, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Shrike: IMO your best course is to withdraw the complaint at AE (I've not looked at it in a few hours, but I'd guess there's not a lot of appetite for sanctions anyway) and take this matter up with Huldra elsewhere. After all, what do you care about more, getting the content into NPOV shape or getting sanctions against Huldra?

There are some things that are brought to AE that are cut and dried; violations of 0RR, 1RR, 3RR or whatever applies on a page, personal attacks, violation of a 'consensus required' restriction and so on are all things which I'd usually be in favour of sanctioning straight away (though it still depends on the severity & circumstances). The choice of one term over another on NPOV grounds is not one of those 'bright line' situations and it would have to be pretty egregious for me to support sanctions the first time around. It's not something you can write a hard-and-fast rule on; if an editor is changing a neutral term for a POV one en masse, that probably merits sanctions. If the term has been discussed and there is a clear consensus not to use it, that the editor was clearly aware of, that probably merits sanctions. If an editor is using the term in the course of content creation and no-one's even mentioned to them it might be a problem, I don't think sanctions are the answer. The point of discretionary sanctions is to reduce drama and conflict in the topic area, not to use as a game of 'gotcha' to remove opponents from the topic. These edits were not causing disruption, so the first step should have been to discuss it with them; for all you know, they might have just said, "Oh, yeah, good point, I'll go and change it." No drama there, and this is what we like. GoldenRing (talk) 15:58, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The user:Huldra seems to refusing using neutral terms[1] in ARBPIA area.What should I do?Thanks--Shrike (talk) 20:58, 25 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Appeal

Here you go. Volunteer Marek 16:36, 15 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Your kind intervention is need

Dear GoldenRing,

As I posted above, I am thankful for intervention in connection with BS sockpuppetry discussion/ standard offer discussion.

An unrelated aspect mentioned there (BS offer discussion) had reference to the last section on my talk page.

Some of the comments by one of the users in the BS discussion had disparaging comments on I and I suggest they be taken down even though the discussion is closed.

As an "crat on UrWiki" I would have either removed such unrelated stuff or simultaneously posted a note that this is unrelated personal attack. But I am no admin or EnWiki and hence I leave this to your discretion. Hope you will act positively. Thank you --Muzammil (talk) 09:01, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Hindustanilanguage: I had a quick look at this when it first came up but didn't have the language skills to really figure out what it's all about (and I believe the offending content has now been revdel'd on another wiki). At any rate, it's on your talk page, so you are very free to just remove the discussion - this is what I'd do. GoldenRing (talk) 10:13, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@GoldenRing: To be precise, what I am referring to the following disparaging sentences from BukhariSaeed standard offer by another user about me:

" I do NOT have ANY faith in the c******** User:Hindustanilanguage's..."
"No, you WERE inc******** then and your continued..."

Request you to remove or ~~strike~~ these unneeded text-parts. --Muzammil (talk) 16:56, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Since above comments remain as they existed, I've just removed my explanation - this was totally unneeded. --Muzammil (talk) 18:51, 18 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Appeal

I am appealing the three-month IBAN you imposed on me at AE.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:29, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing to see here. I logged it as lifted as a natural extension of Sandsteins previous action. I'm guessing he just didn't think to articulate it applied to both parties, although it was kind of implied. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:46, 17 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@TheTimesAreAChanging and Dennis Brown: I certainly understood the previous appeal as lifting this in both directions - I would object to it applying in only one direction. So no objections to either of your actions here. GoldenRing (talk) 10:49, 18 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Heated topic and personal attacks

I have two requests:

One of the editors noted [2] that this edit summary[3] might be construed as personal attack so I like if this possible that this edit summary will be redacted.Could you please do it.--Shrike (talk) 10:18, 22 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
user:Malik Shabazz made the following edit [4] its clearly crude personal attack and violation of WP:NPA.When I asked him to strike his edit[5] he deleted my request.To the very least I ask personal attack to be redacted--Shrike (talk) 10:18, 22 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Shrike: Regarding the second point, I have hatted a couple of unhelpful comments on that talk page and warned those involved. Regarding the first, I don't have the technical ability to modify the contents of the edit summary, only to apply revision deletion to it. I don't think this rises to the level of "Grossly insulting, degrading, or offensive material" required by the revision deletion policy. GoldenRing (talk) 11:37, 22 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you.--Shrike (talk) 12:18, 22 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Can I revert?

Onceinawhile (talk · contribs) reverted my edits on Template:Palestinian territory development.^[1] I made these edits before you made me aware that I wasn't allowed to edit subjects regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict yet. My edits were accepted and enforced by Wikimedia admin Hedwig in Washington (talk · contribs).^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5] Since I'm not allowed to revert to my edits, I argued my case on the talk pages of the template^[6] and Oceinawhile^[7] and I still haven't gotten an answer yet. So my question is: am I allowed to revert to my edits on the template?
Dank Chicken (talk) 16:59, 25 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

^ 1
^ 2
^ 3
^ 4
^ 5
^ 6
^ 7

@Dank Chicken: My apologies this has taken me some time to get back to - it has not been as high on my priority list as it ought to have been. No, you should not make edits to that template directly until you are extended-confirmed. My advice is to go find something else to edit until you reach EC status and then come back to it. GoldenRing (talk) 08:44, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I see. If you'd be willing to read trough the discussion and determine my proposed edits, it would be very much appreciated. Dank Chicken (talk) 13:23, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Follow up: Verb Surgical Draft Deletion

Hi GoldenRing,

This is Bgrimsl, new Wikipedia user. I work for Shattles Communications, whose client is Verb Surgical. I am working on a Wikipedia page entry for Verb Surgical. I have been helping CWash, and I noticed that the previous Verb Surgical draft entry from CWash had been deleted in June 2017. I was curious if you could provide me feedback on how the entry could be improved for me to create and submit a new entry? I appreciate your help in advance. Thanks so much! Bgrimsl (talk) 16:40, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Bgrimsl: Could you link to the (deleted) draft, please? I'm having some trouble finding it. Depending on why it was deleted, I may be able to restore it into your userspace.

GoldenRing (talk) 08:45, 30 November 2017(UTC)

RE: Follow up: Verb Surgical Draft Deletion

Thanks GoldenRing for your help! Below is a link and information that may help in finding the deleted Verb Surgical page or why it was deleted.

19:16, 18 June 2017 GoldenRing (talk | contribs) deleted page Draft:Verb Surgical (G13 (TW))

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Verb_Surgical

Let me know if this helps and how I can improve the draft. If you cannot locate it, that is OK. I can always submit a new, revised draft, and you or another editor can provide feedback and suggestions then. I appreciate your help in advance! Thanks! Bgrimsl (talk) 15:38, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Bgrimsl: The draft was deleted as a declined AFC submission that had not been modified for six months. The draft was declined because it did not establish notability. I'd have no problem restoring the draft into your userspace if that would be useful to you. GoldenRing (talk) 10:30, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Topic ban

You recently banned me from "all edits and articles related to Donald Trump." I made this edit which was related to Roy Moore but in justifying my edit on the talk page I absentmindedly quoted sentences from the sources that included the phrase "pro-Trump." These were the only sentences in the sources that established relevance to the article subject (One America News Network.) I have removed the phrase "pro-Trump" from my talk page comment. Questions:

Was my article edit a topic-ban violation?
Was my initial talk page comment a topic-ban violation and if so was removing the phrase sufficient?

James J. Lambden (talk) 22:21, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@James J. Lambden: IMO, the answers are no, yes and yes. The ban from everything Trump-related isn't intended to be a ban from all current US politics, so I wouldn't consider Roy Moore covered by it (so long as the edits aren't Trump-related). Mentioning Trump on a talk page is a violation though I recognise that you weren't making a Trump-related point and the Trumpishness came from quoting a source; removing the Trump phrase as you have done is good, IMO. GoldenRing (talk) 10:05, 1 December

@GoldenRing: JJL's topic ban re: Trump was for a month. Now that he's violated it, and been blocked because of it, should the clock be reset back to 1 month? Beyond My Ken (talk) 12:19, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain why editing the talk page of Patriot Prayer[[6] is a violation of your topic ban but edits to Roy Moore sexual abuse allegations are not? Both articles make reference to Trump and recent allegations mention Trump[7]. I admitted to a 1RR vio but it seems odd to have two completely different outcomes. I would hate to think others are enforcing your topic ban for reasons other than the plain meaning. I'd suggest removing them if it's being abused to punish editors on an ideological basis. --DHeyward (talk) 06:46, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@DHeyward: Basically, Patriot Prayer is an organisation that started to organise pro-Trump rallies. They're trying to broaden their purpose now, but that page is clearly fairly closely related to Trump and his politics. Roy Moore is a politician organising his own senate campaign and with his own political problems; so while Trump is mentioned on that page and some edits to Roy Moore may well be infringements of the ban, the ban doesn't (in my view) extend to every edit on that page. GoldenRing (talk) 10:27, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Interaction ban clarification

An editor you banned me from interacting with made his first edit to the article Gab five minutes after I mentioned I had edited and was interested in the article here. Is that a not violation of our interaction ban? James J. Lambden (talk) 07:23, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@James J. Lambden: No. WP:IBAN spells out in some detail what an IBAN restricts. GoldenRing (talk) 13:54, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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A bit of clarity, please....

Ok - this "broadly construed" designation is confusing. So if someone is TB from Donald Trump, broadly construed, does that include articles about every conservative in Congress, or just the ones who hate him?^[FBDB] Seriously - would that include congressional candidates who support Trump? How about Sean Hannity - would that be included? The NRA? Clint Eastwood? James Woods? How do we know the boundaries? ^{Atsme📞📧} 01:36, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Atsme: The basic message is to go and find something else to do. Skirting the edges of sanctions is not welcome. For a ban from Trump, I don't seem to interpret it as widely as some; I don't think a ban from Trump is effectively a ban from post-2015 American politics. It's worth noting the phrasing of the ban, too - "articles and edits" - which is meant to say that some articles may not themselves be about Trump but individual edits on those articles may still be - so the ban is not from Sean Hannity but any edits made to that article that could be reasonably construed to concern Trump would be violations. GoldenRing (talk) 10:22, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, GoldenRing. So my next question to you regarding "broadly construed" is whether or not the following edits would fall under the TB, and I'm not including all of them, just the ones that show the connection:

Response to this comment?
This revert which I reverted because I was still adding material, but was reverted again by this revert, apparently by those editors who have demonstrated WP:OWN behavior. They can edit and add, and revert all they want, but I have to get consensus? ^{Atsme📞📧} 18:19, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Atsme, I reverted you because your edit appears to be a DS violation. And if you want to accuse me of OWN or anything else, ping me. O3000 (talk) 18:34, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, really? And how was it a violation of DS, pray tell? What you're doing now is casting aspersions. *sigh* ^{Atsme📞📧} 19:49, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

…must not reinstate any challenged (via reversion) edits without obtaining firm consensus on the talk page of this article. And no, I’m not casting aspersions. I politely pointed this out in the edit summary and reverted the apparent violation as opposed to going to article talk or AE or an admin’s talk. An example of casting aspersions would be your OWN comment above about a page which I have rarely edited. I don’t know why you are wasting editor time with these accusations; but I find them unhelpful. O3000 (talk) 20:00, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure "challenged" by anyone other than an editor subject to a TB who shouldn't be editing there in the first place is the intent. I did not revert your edit. I presume a "challenged" edit is one that is believed to violate BLP or other policy, and not just an IDONTLIKEIT revert with a maybe it belongs somewhere else kind of edit summary. That would be gaming the system beyond comprehension. ^{Atsme📞📧} 20:11, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, enough already. GoldenRing (talk) 12:31, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

^{(edit conflict) Adding that I now see on the TP the "obtain consensus" requirement but considering the revert was made by an editor under a TB, it should not be considered a violation of DS on my part. I did not revert/and will not revert a legitimate challenge. Having said that, I think the recent actions demonstrate the flaws in that restriction. When editors who are trying to get as much work done as they can during a session, it is simply not feasible to expect them to read all the TP notices. I look at the notices in Edit View and request that all DS notices be added to the edit view for the sake of GF editors who are simply trying to get their work done. ^{Atsme📞📧} 20:27, 4 December 2017 (UTC)}[reply]

The editor is under a T-ban for violating the same requirement you're insinuating is untenable. I'll echo O300 below: your tendency to discuss people without bringing said discussion to their attention is troubling. I count 4 pages in your recent history where this is the case. 207.222.59.50 (talk) 20:33, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Challenged means challenged. Reverting a serious BLP vio wouldn’t be sanctioned. I believe the above attacks an editor who may not be watching this page and am not comfortable continuing here. O3000 (talk) 20:23, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Um, that's exactly right. I was not aware of this conversation nor was I aware that Atsme was attacking me and engaging in shameless block shopping until I was recently notified. And since this came up before, Atmse knows damn well that I am NOT topic banned from Roy Moore, so the excuses made here are specious. Volunteer Marek 21:14, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Believe what you will, but there was no "attack" - I simply pointed to the offending edits and by doing so, expected to get some backlash, but facts are facts. I'm here to build an encyclopedia which means doing what I can to maintain NPOV and improve the quality of our articles where needed. It is not unusual for any GF editor to grow weary when their edits are constantly reverted and the reasons are rooted in double standards and tendentious editing. The removal of factual material that is RS and widely reported, and that is relevant/important to the article and our readers is what's at issue equally as much as the POV behavior to keep it out. I commend the administrators charged with trying to keep POV warriors in-check and I also believe, for the most part, that their decisions are made after careful consideration. Granted, there is as much ambiguity to the decision-making process as there is to our PAGs, so all we can do is hope common sense prevails. ^{Atsme📞📧} 20:45, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

These were most certainly attacks as they made false accusation. Worse, you didn't even notify me of this conversation but rather chose to talk behind my back. And here you repeat the personal attacks again. Newsflash Atmse - look in the freakin' mirror. Volunteer Marek 21:14, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your comments are not surprising and neither is your behavior which may explain why editors choose to understand a situation prior to involving you. Oh, and don't feel like you're the only one who has been part of a discussion without being pinged - the same has happened to me over the years - but of course, you already know what you did and what you're doing, so trying to convince anyone that you don't follow this TP is...well...bullchit. Put your big girl/boy panties on and stop the whining. I'm weary of your POV reverts and UNDUE weight you defend in various articles. It is what it is, and attempts to deny your tendentious editing is laughable. ^{Atsme📞📧} 21:22, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

" choose to understand a situation prior to involving you" - translation: "I'm gonna talk about you behind your back and try to get you sanctioned on a false pretext". And I see you see it fit to double down on the personal attacks. Volunteer Marek 21:28, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You know, normally I'd let this slide, but since you insist on making personal attacks and false accusations against me, here we go again. Volunteer Marek 21:57, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Follow up on AE

Hi,You didn't seem to notice but I have posted some follow up could you please respond to it [8].Thank you.--Shrike (talk) 10:07, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't intend answering that OK too but at least give a courtesy saying so.--Shrike (talk) 13:18, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies. I am extremely busy at present. If you have a complaint about another editor in areas covered by Arab-Israeli Conflict DS then AE is the appropriate venue to lodge a complaint. GoldenRing (talk) 14:06, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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RE: Follow up: Verb Surgical Draft Deletion

Thanks GoldenRing! Yes, restoring the deleted Verb Surgical draft to my user space would be very helpful! Also, I will review the Notability guidelines for Wikipedia, but I was curious if you could provide any additional feedback pertaining to the deleted Verb Surgical draft on how I could make it more notable? Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help! Bgrimsl (talk) 15:39, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Balfour Declaration

Hi, isn't this page supposed to be under Extended Confirmed? I was just surprised when I saw the edit notice but no padlock. Opencooper (talk) 14:31, 6 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

1RR

Is it possible to exempt a new major ARBPIA article from 1RR while it is heavy development? Not all of the recent edits have been constructive and at this point basic cleanup of things like the LEDE and source checking for opinion pieces etc. is being slowed down. It was protected after RFPP once IPs started editing but a period of 3RR would help with getting the article updated - of course 1RR could be reimposed if it becomes a problem but so far there is no signs of major edit warring. The article is United States Recognition of Jerusalem Seraphim System ^(talk) 06:02, 12 December 2017 (UTC) Seraphim System ^(talk) 06:02, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bazzinga! And another year passed by...

Christmas tree worm, (Spirobranchus gigantic) ^{^{Atsme📞📧} 13:15, 17 December 2017 (UTC)}[reply]
	Time To Spread A Little Happy Holiday Cheer!!
	I decorated a special kind of Christmas tree in the spirit of the season. What's especially nice about this digitized version: it doesn't need water won't catch fire *and batteries aren't required.
	Enjoy the Holidays and have a prosperous New Year!! 🍸🎁 🎉

Aspersions RE: Volunteer Marek

Hello Golden Ring. I'm visiting here because you were the one who closed a case involving various aspersions about @Volunteer Marek:. Shortly afterward, an IP began posting the same stuff on various pages. These have generally been reverted by a number of users -- recently @Geogene: -- and some talk pages have been protected. However in one case recently, a user restored these smears to his talk page after they'd been removed by a third party. Could you have a look at this? The AE thread is here: [9] The recent talk page reinsertion of the smear are here: [10] and (after @NeilN: protected the page), here: [11] SPECIFICO talk 00:06, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

1RR Question

User:Oranjelo100 is making a lot of edits without edit summaries to both United Nations General Assembly resolution ES-10/L.22 and United States recognition of Jerusalem as Israeli capital. I was trying to make some consecutive edits on both pages, but on both pages he started editing when I do. The edits are generally of poor quality, using sources like NYPost, with typos, and adding unsourced information. I have already asked him to use edit summaries. Looking at his talk page shows these problems have been ongoing for a long time, and many editors have complained about his editing style (i.e. dozens of rapid poor quality edits, CIR, etc). It is an even bigger problem on 1RR articles where editors are restricted in cleaning up the edits. On both articles as soon as I started editing, I got an edit conflict. In a case like this when the edits are still continuous (As in one is made at 1:22 and one is made at 1:36) could I fairly consider these one revert, even though there are intervening edits? I will do the edits all at once from now on to avoid it, but the problems with sourcing and not using edit summaries are ongoing. Please advise. Seraphim System ^(talk) 01:45, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't added unsourced information so stop making this false claim. One sentence about Turkey was not fully correct but I fixed it in the resolution ES-10/L.22 article after you deleted everything in the recognition of Jerusalem article. I don't understand your objection to NYPost in particular. Nowhere in Wikipedia's policies does it say NYPost is a banned site but I added other sources, too. Anyway what's you aim? I added cited quotations with reactions of important politicians involved in this issue. Do you want want to remove all this information and if so why? Oranjelo100 (talk) 09:42, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Right now I am hoping an admin will take your full editing history and past interactions with numerous established editors into consideration, and offer me advice on how to proceed. Yes, you did add unsourced information, you falsified a quote from Erdogan. Literally inserted material into a direct quote that is not in the source, and you are still saying you it was "not fully correct but I fixed it." I posted the diff on your talk page. Given the problems have been ongoing for years with not using edit summaries, rapid fire edits, not being responsive to requests from other editors, machine translation, etc. my aim is to seek admin assistance about how to handle an editor who is non-responsive to requests and has had a long history of CIR-type problems with many editors.Seraphim System ^(talk) 10:24, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't falsify any quote (ridiculous accusation) and I'm responsive otherwise I wouldn't discuss with you here. There were multiple sources and another user changed the whole sentence about Erdogan which confused me for a moment but neither version was fully correct at that moment. I fixed that immdiately on the ES-10/L.22 article (actually had to twice) and the current version of that article has fully correct Erdogan's quote now. You're grasping at straws now to demonize me and find any hook to attack me. Seems a bit like wikipedia:GAME.

You mentioned one revert limit as if you want revert it. Anyway, User:Lihaas also edited that page and recently modified my edits so maybe he can tell us what he thinks so we can reach consensus about content. I personally am content with the current state of the article. I don't think anything more needs to be cleaned. Unless of course you prefer to focus on attacking me instead or have some kind of agenda.

BTW, Merry Christmas everyone here.

Yes and so were Jytdog, and EdJohnston, Dsimic who said "the style and language you are providing are unfortunately not good enough for Wikipedia. Here it's all about providing verifiable content in an academic style of writing" and "I've just spent three hours cleaning up the mess you've left behind in many articles" "please don't use bare URLs when adding references" -back in 2013. It is now 2017, I have been running Refill after your edits. An editor asked you in 2013 to be mindful about linking to DAB pages, you responded by adding a dozen more. czar warned you about adding unsourced content, you responded: "All I added is correct sice I played it already." This account should be indeff'd until the response is "I understand why so many other editors are upset and what I need to do to improve my editing." Seraphim System ^(talk) 13:59, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

>Jytdog, and EdJohnston, Dsimic Oh so you belong to this apparently highly influential clique of users. Good to know. That explains hostility towards me and wanting to get me banned. I get now it it wasn't about content but about banning me. I'm not perfect but it's sad that you people hold grudges for years. I generally avoid linking to disambiguation pages now, although not always and I'm careful to not add unsourced material. That Rain World thing was a mistake though all I added was indeed correct and I added citions a few days later when the game came out. After that I was very careful to not add anything unsourced but of course it turns out>Jytdog, and EdJohnston, Dsimic Oh so you belong to this apparently highly influential clique of users. Good to know. That explains hostility towards me and the intent to get me banned. I get now it it wasn't about content but about banning me. I generally avoid linking to disambiguation pages now, although I admit not always and I'm careful to not add unsourced material. That Rain World thing was a mistake though I added citions a few days later when the game came out. After that I was very careful to not add anything unsourced but of course it turned out to not be enough because you are still looking for any reason you can get to get me banned. I'm not perfect but it's sad that you people hold grudges for years permanently. Oranjelo100 (talk) 15:02, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly an account whose early edits received complaints that they were making a large number of edits with very small substantial changes to the articles who is now extended confirmed and editing in the conflict area without edit summaries fits a common pattern in this topic area. did you add these sources: vestnikkavkaza.net, Kashmir Observer, Kashmir Reader, kaumudi.com, nypost, fars news? Even PressTV is likely to be challenged. You reverted the falsified quote only after I posted here, that should not be necessary. The talk page is full of complaints from other editors for things that have not imrpoved, including adding bare links as references for news articles that will eventually need to be archived. You were notified about this issue nearly 5 years ago. Your only response to editors good faith concerns is to deny wrongdoing and blame them. I don't think you will be indeff'd just because I think so, but I am posting here for advice because it looks like a long term pattern to CIR type issues, battleground behavior and not improving based on feedback from many other editors. Not a "clique" but all editors who make high quality contributions.Seraphim System ^(talk) 15:46, 23 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Lovely yar

Lovely yar — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.160.97.207 (talk) 02:39, 25 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

objecting to closure phrasing

January 4 special:diff/818580130 in your summary of discussion you include:

his views on how much detail is appropriate in an article are out of step with community expectations

You taking the roll to summarize the discussion seems wrong to me given that you were involved with it, and seem to be pushing aspects of your own comments in the discussion on January 3 to the forefront:

13:49 special:diff/818426601 paraphrase: "I didn't mention every possible detail so the stupid amount of detail I did mention can't be a problem"
16:47 special:diff/818449038
if you can't see that the sorts of detail you're pushing aren't part of a "summary of accepted knowledge" then you're going to keep on running into trouble, whatever topic you choose to edit.

You should be able to see that, because the sort of detail you're pushing has been rejected repeatedly over a period of months.

You are conflating the rejection by specific editors as if that reflects what policy actually is. Editors wanting to obscure the details of a case and keep them out of articles despite reliable coverage does not mean there is a policy against including those details.

Mentioning car brands / colors is not a "stupid amount of detail". If it were stupid, why would reliable sources mention them?

A "summary of useful information" would naturally include these. Brands are useful for verbal reference, color is useful for video/photo understanding.

Where I can see "summary" discussions happening is:

is it necessary to mention the YEAR model of Dodge Challenger? We have the information it is 2010 but this isn't necessary for disambiguation.
is it necessary to mention that the "red" of the minivan is described as "maroon"? While we have this information, it would probably just confuse people and isn't necessary to tell apart from any other reds.
is it necessary to mention the "Challenger" aspect of the Dodge since there are no other Dodge vehicles discussed?
is it necessary to mention the "Camry" aspect of the Toyota since there are no other Toyota vehicles discussed?

Given the alliterative overlap of Challenger/Camry I am open to the idea that we might simply refer to them as Dodge and Toyota, which is more distinctive. In that case, we can still cite sources which mention the specific models without needing to use them in the case. ScratchMarshall (talk) 06:29, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@ScratchMarshall: You seem to have misunderstood how arbitration enforcement works. All arbitration enforcement actions are unilateral actions by a single administrator and the purpose of any discussion at AE (which is not itself necessary to the process) is to informally gauge the views of others, not to form consensus which has to be judged by someone previously uninvolved in the discussion. This is very different to how things work everywhere else on Wikipedia, but it is how arbitration enforcement works. I am not inclined to change my close of that discussion. If you wish to appeal it, you can do so either by filing an appeal at WP:AE or at WP:AN, or by requesting the committee to review the close at WP:ARCA. My advice is that any such attempt will be seen as time-wasting, since the discussion was closed without any sanction.

Regarding the rest of your points, I am tempted to just tell you to go away but I'll make one more attempt to explain this to you. We do not list all detail given by reliable sources, we aim for a summary of accepted knowledge about a subject. A fact being mentioned by a reliable source (verifiability) is necessary for that fact to be mentioned, but it is not sufficient, otherwise we would have to include every fact ever mentioned by any reliable source anywhere. There is even debate in the community about whether verifiability is any reason at all for inclusion, or merely a requirement for inclusion. Your argument Mentioning car brands / colors is not a "stupid amount of detail". If it were stupid, why would reliable sources mention them? is therefore irrelevant.

Fundamentally, what is and is not included in an article is a matter for debate and consensus-forming. There are boundaries around what may or may not be included (verifiability, BLP etc) but within those boundaries, it is a matter for editorial judgement and consensus. When you have raised at least half a dozen of these similar issues at an article talk page and each time the consensus is (to paraphrase), "That level of detail is not appropriate to the article," then it is time to drop the stick. Continuing to start these discussions becomes disruptive and if you keep doing it then sanctions will follow pretty shortly. GoldenRing (talk) 09:57, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't objecting to the closure, just the summary you used during the closure. It was phrased in a way that favors your viewpoint and ignores the other views expressed that I didn't do anything wrong at all. You seem to be seeding this as something to bite me later the next time I add reliably sourced information to an article and someone wants to sanction me for doing so.

I again object to what amounts to a straw man argument. I was not listing "ALL" detail. I was summarizing it. This is not ALL v SUMMARY but rather, our discussing different degrees of summarizing and what details ought to be left in or out of a summary.

RE necessary v. sufficient / requirement v. reason these are good adjectives and nouns. I would like them to be associated with some kind of impartial criteria so that it's a bit less "I know it when I see it" type input from people who hold different opinions on it.

I do think my point about sources mentioning details as argument against those details being 'stupid' is relevant. I believe it was inappropriate to use a rude word like 'stupid' which insults both me and the reliable reporters who I cited. There is surely a more polite adjective you could find for describing a reliably sourced detail which you agree with me fulfills tier 1 requirement/necessity but upon which we have a difference of viewpoint over it fulfilling tier 2 sufficiency/reason for inclusion.

I understand the value of consensus and editorial judgment, but I also observe the consensus can be misrepresented. Most of the time, these discussions were buried before any sort of large input. The "general agreement" by which we define consensus was sometimes 1 person objecting (in which case 1v1 is neither consensus for or against) or maybe 2 people objecting. A consensus of 2v1 is too narrow a field of input for important issues. If this were something like 19:1 it would be easier to accept.

When wider input beyond 2 or 3 persons total is allowed, I have observed support for inclusion or neutrality. The supporting/impartial parties appear to be ignored in summaries regarding consensus, which only appear to acknowledge objections. The neutral/impartial is also often situational, where it can involve partial support of an idea but wanting to modify it.

I believe you are wrong, and pushing a personal agenda, by prohibiting me from starting discussions regarding adding new details. You are conveying the false impression that I am just bringing up old details over and over again, which is untrue. It is not disruptive to start new discussions on new details.

Furthermore, I do not agree it is disruptive to bring back buried discussions when they had very little input. In articles with high activity, bots often archive talk page sections after a couple weeks to a month, so not enough people get to read it and convey opinions. There is too small a sample.

Perhaps my mistake is the choice to use article talk pages rather than some other approach. Would you suggest 'request for comment' or WikiProjects to reach a wider audience than those who happen upon (or who are following) an article talk page?

I want to know if you would allow those in good faith for my desire to pursue consensus from a broader number (perhaps double-digit?) of Wikipedians, when it comes to important and controversial articles, or if you will simply push to sanction me for bringing it up again, as if one meager and brief harumph from a small few means discussion of a detail's relevance must be buried forever. ScratchMarshall (talk) 19:59, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Anmolbhat breaking ARBIPA sanctions

Regents park placed a good faith sanction on all Kashmir conflict related topics, breaking which results in an immediate block. Unfortunately one editor, who goes by the username of Anmolbhat, has broken it by casting aspersions against other editors on a talkpage which comes under these sanctions.[12] His comment is this ″I also doubt the credibility of your account as well as Dilpa kaur. Registered during 18-25 October 2017 and engaging in same POV pushing on same days.″ Another editor had to strike off part of his bad comment [13] (though not all). He has removed part of his bad comment but not fully.[14] This part (″ I also doubt the credibility of your account as well as Dilpa kaur″) remains.

This user is aware of ARBIPA sanctions [15] and has even been blocked for introducing copyright violations[16] despite being warned several times for their copyright violations.[17][18][19][20]

I don't think this user is willing to learn or abide by our policies and since their editing is generally tendentious and unconstructive[21][22][23] they should be blocked. But final decision belongs to the administrators. JosephusOfJerusalem (talk) 10:52, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@JosephusOfJerusalem: My apologies, but I am not very familiar with sanctions in this area and will not have time to look into this today. I suggest you try another admin or AE. GoldenRing (talk) 15:15, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you!

	The Barnstar of Diplomacy
	I appreciate your contributions regarding my topic ban as well as your thoughts on Arbitration Enforcement. --MONGO 13:21, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@MONGO: Thank you. That is very kind. GoldenRing (talk) 14:34, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What I said at your RFA

Damn, you really know how to make someone want to eat crow. I have to say you've really amazed me with your administrative work here since you got the bit. I was highly suspicious at first, but now I've come to realize that was perhaps the dumbest prejudice I could have had. You've been a great addition to the team, and thank you so much for helping out in the extremely contentious AE arena. Holy hell that area needs people like you. I'm truly glad to call you my colleague now. And I hope you can forgive my early assumptions way back when you requested adminship. I take literally everything I said back. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 12:28, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

		The Admin's Barnstar
		In the short time since you were given the sysop right, you have shown a very steady hand and an incredibly good judgement in matters of the site's administration. I am very, very impressed and I think you more than deserve recognition for your actions. As such I award you this Barnstar as a token of the hopefully grand working relationship we can continue to have in the future. I will definitely be coming to you for advice, in my own actions, because I see that your mind has a great degree of clarity! (or is it the power of Sauron finally pulling me in...??!?!) :P — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 12:47, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Coffee: I'm a bit taken aback by this and don't know what to say. I'll start with: thank you. That's very kind. I wish I had more time to get involved in more aspects of the encyclopaedia. GoldenRing (talk) 09:21, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment at AN/I

I didn't want to extend a closed discussion much, but there's no issue with the flag on a user talk page. (After all, look at mine). RickinBaltimore (talk) 15:04, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I closed it as one of the more ridiculous "incidents." --DHeyward (talk) 15:56, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@RickinBaltimore and DHeyward: Thanks. I'll go and apologise to the editor in question. GoldenRing (talk) 17:33, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, not to prolong this, I do share your concern somewhat with adding graphics that cover up "default" wiki links. My flag goes under, I think, the logo and it doesn't block the hyperlinking. I have seen images and userpages where it's very difficult to navigate to core wiki functions without paging down to move the image out of the way. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 17:59, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The question arose... elsewhere too... >SerialNumber54129^{...speculates} 11:08, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

asking an administrator about IBAN violation or for clarification

User:James J. Lambden returned to editing the Stephen Miller article. My question is, are these two reverts [24] [25] of my edits a violation of his IBAN with me? The first one is a revert of this edit of mine - basically Lambden is resuming an old edit war against me, which had died out in his absence. The second one is a revert of these edits of mine [26], [27], [28]. Again, restarting an old dispute. Since both of these disputes involved myself and Lambden, this looks like a willful violation of the interaction ban rather than just forgetfulness.

Asking here per WP:IBAN instructions rather than heading straight to WP:AE.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:35, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Volunteer Marek: Thanks for bringing this here. Yes, technically those are violations of the IBAN but I'm reluctant to take action since the material was inserted four or five months ago and Lambden made a series of edits that removed this material but also made other changes; I think it's not at all obvious that he was aware that he was violating the IBAN. I've left a warning at his TP. GoldenRing (talk) 10:28, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

ARBCOM

Remove my name once again please: I will not be taking part, and just because one editor with a grudge against me has tried to shoehorn my name into this case does not mean I am in any way involved, particularly given the number of false statements it contained. Re: your note on my talk page: there was absolutely no personal attack in my edit summary. If I accuse an editor of being a liar, that is a personal attack. If I say that a statement contains lies, that is not a personal attack. I would, of course, have to be able to prove that there were lies in there, but that is some ease, given how much untrue information that particular statement contains. - SchroCat (talk) 14:01, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@SchroCat: Saying that someone has lied (or, if you want to be very precious about it, that something they said is a lie) without evidencing it is a personal attack and if you repeat it (without evidence) at this point, it is going to lead to sanctions.

Whether you end up a party to the case (if there is one) is up to the arbs, not you or me. GoldenRing (talk) 14:25, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As I have stated above, the statement contains lies and if one of the Arbs would like further details, I will provide them, complete with a full list of diffs. Only one editor has raised my name, and they have a long-held grudge against me. I will not lower myself to having to interact with him, and (as you can see from the most recent thread on my talk page) I am considering asking for an IBAN with that individual. I have pointed out to them directly where they have spread false information about me, and yet they continue to do so. Just to ensure you undertake no action against me for making unsubstantiated accusations, two of the lies are fairly easily dealt with, just to give you an indication. I can shred the rest of his statement relating to me too, but as I say, if an Arb wants to ask me on my talk page or contact me directly, I'll be happy to provide diffs of the rest.

"SchroCat (also with multiple civility blocks)": lie. One only (and that was seen by two other Admins as being problematic).
"he likes to dare people to do anything about him" lie. HE removed a talk page post. When I reverted him, he threatened "If this is restored again, I will make a noticeboard matter of it." On the basis of his threat, I advised him to go to go ahead if he thought it was a problem. That's not even close to "daring" people to go to ANI.

As you have removed entire posts for not including diffs (quite rightly), I will invite you to read through the posting mcandlish has made and remove one of the lies he has added which include no diffs at all. - SchroCat (talk) 18:48, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@SchroCat: If the Committee accepts the case request, the drafting arbitrator will review the list of parties and remove any that the drafting arbitrator considers outside the scope of the case. In the meantime, please don't remove your name from the list of parties. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 14:27, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

And what steps are going to be taken against the OP for his canvassing ([29], [30], [31], [32])? It seems odd to "invite" comments from people with whom Cassianto has disagreed: the comments from those canvassed should, of course, be struck and disregarded, but I doubt such a step would be taken (although if Cassianto went round asking people to defend him, I guarantee a knee-jerk revert would follow). I also invite you to remove the post by Coffee, containing aspersions and accusations without a single diff as evidence. - SchroCat (talk) 18:52, 24 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Joefromrandb arbitration

Hi GoldenRing. Is there some reason that the Joefromrandb arbitration case has not been opened yet?- Mr X 🖋 16:02, 27 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's waiting for clerking. I've just lost a village quiz night & am suffering the consequent overdose of intoxicants, so am not about to speed it on. GoldenRing (talk) 23:35, 27 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Come on, that the best time to clerk an arbcom case. Be bold!

- Mr X 🖋 23:42, 27 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to be a lot of discomfort with this case. I nearly always agree with MrX. And that would include some sanction in this filing as there is reason for such. But, I’ve also had good interaction with Joe. I think some are hoping for a non-arb solution. But then, in addition to being out of my element – I also had an overdose of intoxicants with my Bolognese tonight. O3000 (talk) 01:40, 28 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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 : Yes, it's waiting for clerking. I've just lost a village quiz night & am suffering the consequent overdose of intoxicants, so am not about to speed it on. [[User:GoldenRing|GoldenRing]] ([[User talk:GoldenRing#top|talk]]) 23:35, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
 ::Come on, that the best time to clerk an arbcom case. Be bold! {{smiley|awesome}} - [[user:MrX|Mr]][[user talk:MrX|X]] 🖋 23:42, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
+:::Seems to be a lot of discomfort with this case. I nearly always agree with MrX. And that would include some sanction in this filing as there is reason for such. But, I’ve also had good interaction with Joe. I think some are hoping for a non-arb solution. But then, in addition to being out of my element – I also had an overdose of intoxicants with my Bolognese tonight. [[User:Objective3000|O3000]] ([[User talk:Objective3000|talk]]) 01:40, 28 January 2018 (UTC)