Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Doncram

Over the past few months Doncram (talk · contribs) has developed a one-sided vendetta against me, stemming from a dispute over the proper title of Little Falls and Dakota Depot. The discussion is mostly at Talk:Little Falls and Dakota Depot; there were precursor discussions at User talk:Mackensen#Stop with moves of railway stations.

During this discussion, Doncram challenged the maintenance deletion of Category:Northern Pacific Railway stations in Washington (state). This was a simple maintenance task, but he forced an unnecessary CfD: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2018 August 4#Category:Northern Pacific Railway stations in Washington (state), apparently out of personal spite. At the same time, he challenged the notability of an article I'd just created (Depew station (Lehigh Valley Railroad)), and left a strangely-worded message on the talk page. I left several comments; he never responded.

Anyway, that was months ago and I'd put it out of mind. He randomly turned up on my talk page earlier this month complaining about another move I'd made at the same time as all the others. Today, Doncram created Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad and linked it from Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad (which is why I noticed, I've had it watch-listed for years and headed up the discussion that led to its current location). I determined from reliable sources that the correct name for the new article is actually Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway ("way" vs "road", it's a common issue), documented such on the talk page, and moved the article. I believe Doncram derived the name from the Route 66 Bridge over the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad, which he also created. I made a few other changes:

• Recategorized the new article from Category:Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad to Category:Predecessors of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, as the company merged into the parent in 1948. This is a common practice and how this category scheme works.
• Corrected the name of the company in Route 66 Bridge over the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad, and left an explanatory note that the names didn't match.
• Removed the NRHP banner from Talk:Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway. I didn't see how it was relevant, and assumed Doncram copied it from Route 66 Bridge over the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad and neglected to remove it. I've done that before.

I was surprised when Doncram reacted negatively to all these changes:

• He reverted the recategorization twice, first calling it "wrong" and then saying he was "removing stupidity". This last edit removed the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad categorization tree altogether.
• He reverted the explanatory note and the name change on Route 66 Bridge over the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad, calling it "derogatory".
• He reinstated the NRHP banner on Talk:Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway, while removing the WikiProject Trains banner. His last edit summary explaining this action was simply "disrespect". I do not know what he means by this.

In addition, after all this, he removed the WikiProject Trains project banner from Talk:Crescent Warehouse Historic District. I have never edited this article. Inasmuch as the article is about a property which includes former Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad buildings, the banner seems appropriate. I cannot conceive of a neutral justification for this edit; it feels like retaliation, though for what I don't know.

I reached out to Doncram on his talk page, but his response (which weirdly refers to "the other editor", as though I'm not the same person), showed no indication that he was willing to back down: User talk:Doncram#Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway. This is clear WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior, it's harming the encyclopedia, and I'd like for it to stop. Mackensen (talk) 23:02, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Umm, I created an article on a highway bridge over a railway right-of-way, and another about the railway that was missing from Wikipedia. I put in WikiProject Trains on one or both, because I thought they'd probably be thrilled or whatever, which perhaps caught Mackenson's attention and then they started. I reverted Mackenson where I perceived they were being derogatory in mainspace (my interpretation, but informed by interactions with this editor). I don't think Mackenson should be deleting WikiProject NRHP from Talk pages. If they don't change NRHP banners I won't change Trains banners, if they agree. I don't think there is anything for ANI here, unless to warn Mackenson not to follow closely and contend on new articles. --Doncram (talk) 23:18, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

If they have a content disagreement, like they want to continue to assert that a 1902 new subsidiary of an 1866 railway is in fact a predecessor of the parent, they should discuss at Talk page of the article. --Doncram (talk) 23:20, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

This illustrates perfectly the mentality I'm describing: I don't think Mackenson should be deleting WikiProject NRHP from Talk pages. If they don't change NRHP banners I won't change Trains banners, if they agree. I've added NRHP banners in the past, where appropriate. Did a good deal of NRHP categorization on Commons as well. Note that Doncram ignored almost everything I wrote (including why I noticed the new article). Mackensen (talk) 23:25, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

This kind of quid pro quo proposal by Doncram, if it was serious, is not a replacement for editing based on Wikipedia:Consensus. It's concerning. I continue below. --Bsherr (talk) 00:32, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Also, Doncram retitled this thread to "Historic sites intersection with trains-related stuff". I changed it back, because this is a dispute centered entirely around his battleground behavior. As far as I know there is no broader problem with the intersection between these two subjects, which obviously have a good deal in common. Mackensen (talk) 23:27, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Adding this to the discussion since it's relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Doncram

Frankly the fact that there is another issue with Doncram in this area makes me wonder if the topic ban should have stayed in place. --Tarage (talk) 00:36, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I think a complete topic ban would be the wrong approach. Doncram is one of the most productive editors in the NRHP Project, and the project would be worse if he could not continue to contribute. We need to find a way to curb his (occasional) BATTLEGROUND behavior, while at the same time encouraging his productive involvement. Perhaps a one revert limit? Blueboar (talk) 14:14, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Yikes, yet another incident of Doncram being disruptive for absolutely no reason. The fact that he is a skilled content creator does not excuse his behavior whatsoever. His bizarre obsession with preserving certain names for no apparent reason - including NRHP names, which are widely known to be unofficial and often inaccurate - needs to be curtailed. I think two rules would suffice:

• 0RR for Mackensen's edits, given his demonstrated one-sided antipathy and history of attacking other editors
• No interfering with railroad-related maintenance and cleanup, including moving articles to names that match WP:USSTATION and other relevant guidelines, or perhaps a topic ban from railroad-related articles period. There are plenty of non-railroad-related NRHP articles out there.

Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:57, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Looking at the relevant edits, I see Mackensen's use of the talk pages to try to discuss, but no use by Doncram. @Doncram: why wouldn't you have discussed any of these disputes on the talk page, or joined the discussion Mackensen initiated? An editor with an intransigence about discussing on the talk page to arrive at consensus ought to expect the possibility of XRR-type sanctions.

This cuts both ways, as I think Mackenson should Wikipedia:Assume good faith of Doncram's removal of WikiProject Trains project banner from Talk:Crescent Warehouse Historic District and revert and discuss on the talk page. Though I understand that this may have seemed futile after what had already occurred. --Bsherr (talk) 00:32, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

@Bsherr:, your point is well-taken, but it's difficult to assume good faith in this specific instance given the behavior at the time and past patterns. I didn't want to take further actions which would exacerbate the situation, which is why I brought the matter here for review by external parties. Mackensen (talk) 17:46, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Bsherr, I have in fact opened numerous Talk page discussions, including:

• User talk:Mackensen#disaster with respect to Soo Line Depot disambiguation (2 August)
• User talk:Mackensen#Stop with moves of railway stations (2 August), which involved
• Talk:Little Falls and Dakota Depot#article name/move (3 August), in which Mackensen does not answer but makes an odd statement which in my view miscounts and mischaracterizes previous discussion, as if it justifies dismissing what I had to say.
• Talk:Depew station (Lehigh Valley Railroad) (9 August) I see no justification for Mackensen complaining about that, or any other discussion I opened, in their opening this ANI.
• User talk:Mackensen#Stop with moves of railway stations (2) (27 September), which IMO was quite reasonable and clear, yet Mackensen does not reply at all, instead leaving stand a blithe dismissal by Cuchullain that "Mackensen’s moves have all been perfectly kosher according to consensus and the guidelines", with no engagement at all about the general principle that disputed moves should not be inflicted.
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (US stations)/Archive 4#Status as "guideline" disputed. By what authority is this labelled a "guideline"?, in which I feel I was harassed unfairly, with false accusation and threat by Pi.1415926535: "Domcram, drop the stick. You are acting in an incredibly hostile manner and making wildly baseless accusations. I'm about ready to seek a a topic ban from you and railroad stations because you're taking such a narrow-minded view of naming and creating chaos while you do it." Which they seek to accomplish, more or less, in this ANI.

My experience from repeated attempts to engage about the issues, is that others mostly would just badger, verging on bullying. Upon re-reading the discussions, I think it is possible that later my memory was somewhat blurred and I did not distinguish between Mackensen's direct statements vs. the more incivil statements by others, in informing how I responded to Mackensen's later edits. However Mackensen condoned the more incivil statements, or at least did not disavow them. About the incivil statements, I mostly did not do anything much directly, i just took the hits, like probably an administrator should (i am not an admin; Mackensen and Cuchullain are). And then, when I respond a tad strongly to Mackensen's later edits but acceeded to their request to pause at the articles, I feel they should have just taken a minor hit from my reply to them at my Talk page, and responded to what I said, instead of running here unnecessarily. --Doncram (talk) 04:39, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Chiming in (much to the consternation of the apologists) that this is not the first time that Doncram's actions with respect to National Register of Historic Places related content has landed them in the hot seat to the point of Blocks, NRHP Community bans, and many other sanctions. I posit that Doncram's repeated caustic brushes with other editors does not outweight benefit that they provide, nor should they (WP:VESTED). I therefore vote a '0RR restriction with respect to Wikiproject Trains, and a 4IM warning against caustic editing with immediate block for infractions. Doncram has been reminded previously about disruptively changing other projects banners over the objections of editors who can judge context. Hasteur (talk) 22:16, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support Hasteur's proposal. The contrast between Mackensen's studied courtesy and Doncram's conduct is painful. I daresay a different editor would have brought this here far earlier, and made a bigger scene. In any case, the parallels with Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Doncram are troubling. AGK ■ 22:15, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

• I think Hasteur's memory is faulty about disagreement back in 2012 or so. I think they refer to my objecting, back then, to editors not at all associated with Articles For Creation changing the AFC editors' "Start" ratings on new articles I had created, based on AFC standards. My objecting was justified. There was also disagreement within WikiProject NRHP about how "Start" vs. "Stub" should best be defined, which led to a consensus against my preference, which I have abided with forever. Ever since in fact I always use "Stub" rating on my own articles and I simply avoid ratings. I do object to "outside" editors from changing a WikiProject's banners against its own members' wishes, then and now. It was a mistake, which I apologize for below, for me to temporarily try out a "tit-for-tat" tactic in removing Trains banner after their editor removed NRHP banner, but I lost that anyhow because a Trains editor continued after I stopped.
• About studied courtesy, I frankly think I very much provided that in my interactions with Mackensen, besides in one brief spat, in which I think the worst thing was that i used the words "wrong" and "stupid" to describe the incorrect categorizing of a railway, imposed into a new article I had just created. I am sorry if those words stung too much at the time, for an administrator to simply let that go by, but really a lot worse is said at ANI and Talk pages and in edit summaries every day by a whole lot of editors, including swear words and including phrases directed personally at other editors. --Doncram (talk) 04:39, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. Doncram and I have disagreed many times and he can be persistent, but he shouldn't be subject to zero revert restrictions on undiscussed page moves when the problem here is not one-sided. This is part of a larger clash between train people, who often see names in a cookie cutter fashion and NRHP people, who tend to look at the scope of history for a particular location, including the present name. Both have their places and there needs to be more discussion on talk pages, not just moving articles. Jonathunder (talk) 22:36, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
  • No, the problem is the exact inverse. Doncram is attempting to enforce the NRHP names no matter how incorrect or ridiculous they are, and he completely ignores their actual use as railroad stations when considering naming, while the railroad-related editors seem to better understand the scope of history. It's also clear that most of Doncram's move-reverts are not based on any actual evidence that the NRHP names qualify as the COMMONNAME (and common names are specifically listed in USSTATION), but based on unjustified antipathy to a small number of editors. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 02:09, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
    • I absolutely do not "attempt to enforce the NRHP names" as projected. See Talk:Little Falls and Dakota Depot#article name/move in which I provide balanced discussion about sources, and even lean to support a different-than-the-NRHP name which was supported by sources. --Doncram (talk) 04:59, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
  • @Jonathunder: I'm sad to see this issue reduced to train people...and NRHP people; it's reductionist and inaccurate. I would note that in this instance I was editing an article to add the context that the name of the bridge differed from the name of the company it was supposedly named after, and was reverted by Doncram. I agree with you that there needs to be more discussion on talk pages, and I wish Doncram would use them, instead of attacking people in edit summaries (such as here, also linked in my original statement). It's difficult to work collaboratively when one particular editor is so (in my view) needlessly obstructive. There's his behavior over the Northern Pacific category, which you don't address, unless that's your idea of someone being "persistent". The other CfD participants took a less charitable view. If you think his behavior in these matters is acceptable, then we part ways there. If not, how do you propose we move forward? Best, Mackensen (talk) 02:41, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Right, again, I am sorry i used strong statement "remove stupidity" in that edit summary. At the CFD, I did not even "vote", i just explained why I had concern about a Speedy Deletion request, and expressed that I hoped others more knowledgeable about category naming would consider the situation and do the right thing, content-wise. That is not reason to open an ANI proceeding. --Doncram (talk) 04:59, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• • Noting to @Jonathunder: that 0RR is not the death penalty that they are moaning about. 0RR only requires Doncram to secure a consensus through discussion prior to reverting a Trains related item. It does not restrict their NRHP activities. I would also note that remedies from Doncram's previous brush with arbitration have been suspended or revoked by motion (with one case recently having passed the sunset provision). Hasteur (talk) 00:37, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm neither an "NRHP person" nor a "train person" but I've worked on articles relevant to both. I don't see much issue from the vast majority of people on either side, the current issue is certainly one-sided.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:09, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

That would be perfectly fine by me if there is not in fact a cabal of obsessed editors. I myself have created and improved lots of trains-related articles, including adding Wikiproject Trains banner routinely, including by my (almost completely singlehandedly) taking on a reworking of List of railway roundhouses, with creating of a number of articles and with supporting discussion at wt:NRHP#Railway roundhouses.

I don't know what "the current issue is certainly one-sided" is supposed to mean. The one proper discussion was a requested move where the name used in sources, rather than a made-up name, was supported. --Doncram (talk) 02:16, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support Hasteur's remedy. I've only encountered Doncram recently but the battleground mentality Mackensen describes is fully evident. When he sticks to the talk page rather than edit warring, as here, the issues can be worked around, and his point of view can be discussed and accommodated. However, when it comes to edit warring and obstructing uncontroversial changes, something needs to be done. The 0RR restriction will keep the dispute on the talk pages where it belongs.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:09, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment. Let me explain a bit and apologize somewhat here.

I cumulatively got a bit frustrated and perhaps angry over others' editing, including about unjustified dismissals of National Register documents as sources, and including collective behavior that seemed like unjustifiable attempts to intimidate me for my views, in several discussions with Mackensen and what seems to be a group of other train stations editors at Talk pages. The discussions establish a deep disagreement, between train station editors asserting that their preferred names for stations should be used, based on their having produced a guideline allowing them to do that, vs. myself asserting that sources must be used and defending the use of NRHP documents as sources. It is hard to be completely polite because the content disagreement is so fundamental (in my view it is about whether coverage should be encyclopedic or not encyclopedic at all), and the quality of listening/discussion was in my view horribly poor.

Some time later, unrelatedly, I happened to develop some new articles, and encountered what seemed to me to be obtuse and inappropriate editing consistent with the bullying type behavior, and I edited fast and furiously briefly. Mackensen posted to my Talk page at 22:03, 29 October 2018, suggesting that I pause, and i immediately did, completely. I have not edited at any of those articles since that moment, even though other(s) have, since, including someone again removing the WikiProject NRHP banner, perhaps to goad me. I replied to Mackensen at my Talk page, still a bit irked, challenging them about the use of a category which seemed simply wrong to me, and I expected that there would be some discussion. I was surprised and irked to see Mackensen open this, which is not conducive to discussion of the actual content disagreements, and which seemed consistent with the bullying type behavior, instead. It would be extraordinarily convenient to train station editors to shut me down entirely, as my views directly challenge their own. I have expressed that I think the wp:USSTATION guideline should be cancelled or heavily modified, and that the train station editors should be enjoined against making any further moves, and I (and them too probably) expected to get around to opening a big RFC. I perceive that editors highly invested in the naming issue consider my stance to be a real threat on some fundamental level.

About use of Talk pages, I highly endorse that, and do use Talk pages politely and extensively all the time, and I seek to understand others' views rather than dismiss them. In the brief episode that Mackensen posted about to my Talk page, I was impatient and did not. I apologize for that. I think I had in mind that a little bit of tit-for-tat was justified, about removal of Wikiproject banners, as a matter of responding on same low level as I perceived others' actions to be, which is silly. In general, I don't have any settled view about when and where tit-for-tat treatment is justified or works in Wikipedia processes (although there is considerable academic literature supporting tit-for-tat treatment as often being appropriate/effective). Probably going high is usually better, and I did not try to sort out a better way at the time, during the brief episode. I think now that I miss-perceived Mackensen's willingness to act reasonably, and I apologize for underestimating them.

I'll comment more later. --Doncram (talk) 22:24, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

including collective behavior that seemed like unjustifiable attempts to intimidate me for my views, in several discussions with Mackensen and what seems to be a group of other train stations editors at Talk pages Here abouts, that's called a consensus (especially in light of an invading external brigade). I could be wrong, but aren't almost all of these primarily Train entities first and NRHP entities secondary (i.e. If there was no train, the NRHP nomination wouldn't exist), therefore it would be prudent to yield to the primary specialty's naming convention when there's disagreement. I edited fast and furiously briefly by that you mean WP:FAIT? The way to suggest a guideline be changed or modified is to challenge it at the talk page of the guideline, not to wage a "The guideline does not reflect the practice" campaign. I refer you to WP:NOTTHEM as again you've pointed out others perceived misbehavior as a shield for your own. Having been a significant editor it's expected for you to nearly always take the high road. Hasteur (talk) 00:58, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Not fair. There is apparently a local consensus at Mackensen's Talk page, and at wp:USSTATION, not surprisingly. I don't think there is any general consensus, i.e. I think that general consideration of the issue, based on fundamental principles of Wikipedia, will come down against the recent practice of editors merely invoking wp:USSTATION as justifying moves to names not supported in any sources. (Note the wording of USSTATION in fact allows for sources to be used, but practice has been different). The one relatively neutral forum where the topic was discussed properly is the move discussion, which went in favor of NRHP name rather than the name which i perceive to be simply made up. And it would be very unfair to paint me as knee-jerk in some way about NRHP names or the quality of NRHP documents (which often includes excellent sourcing and justification for names, but do vary in quality). I have been very clear about the limitations of them. On the other hand, there have been completely unjustifiable dismissals of NRHP documents, to the extent of asserting that because the NRHP document justifies a name for a place, that name must be ruled out. There has been extreme "I didn't hear that" and "I don't like it" type voting/assertions.

It is unfair, here, to invoke wp:NOTTHEM "Do not complain about other people" automatically, because I speak of others here. There is no way to win in an ANI section named against one editor, it is automatically a vendetta against the one. And every critic is violating the dictum.

That is unfair also to assert I was trying to subvert the guideline about naming of train stations or any other guideline. I created an article about a road bridge over a railway right-of-way, and I created the missing article about the railway. In the railway article I immediately, up front acknowledged existence of two names for the railway (one using "Railroad" coming from the NRHP document and one using "Railway" coming from a Texas handbook online source which I identified, for what is in fact was a new subsidiary, i believe a 100% owned subsidiary, of a "Railroad"). I objected to the insertion of negativity, in the mainspace article, about the NRHP, i.e. an unnecessary and deprecating statement saying the NRHP is wrong, when the "Railroad" term is in fact a common name that has been used. I also objected to another editor removing the NRHP wikiproject banner that I had put in. And I objected to the addition/modification of a category to assert that the new subsidiary was a parent of its parent.

I did exactly what you ask for, raising a challenge at the Talk page of the wp:USSTATION guideline, in which I pointed out the guideline was drafted by Mackensen and promoted by Cuchullain in 2014. It has been archived at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (US stations)/Archive 4#Status as "guideline" disputed. By what authority is this labelled a "guideline"?. It was not at all resolved and should not have been archived, IMHO, but a bot did the archiving. I also commented at ongoing Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Irish stations) in opposition to extension of the guideline. I am not at all asserting that I and others have achieved a different consensus than the local one. It would/will require bigger discussion involving more editors to rollback the moves already done. However, I do think that the objection stated by me and another editor at User talk:Mackensen, plus the wp:RM which was concluded, should have put them on clear enough notice that they should not make further moves without use of wp:RM, which they proceeded to do anyhow. Mackensen has been an administrator forever, and should know to abide by the imperative to not make disputed moves of long-stable articles. --Doncram (talk) 02:16, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Your refusal to understand consensus is astounding. The discussion was archived because it was explained to you exactly why the guideline is agreed on, and you refused to acknowledge it because it doesn't agree with what you have decided names have to be. Your bizarre conspiracy theory that Mackensen and Cúchullain are somehow in violation of policy for taking normal administrative actions is precisely why 0RR and/or topic ban is necessary to stop your combative disruption. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 04:24, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

What??? A bot archived the discussion. I call for sources to be used, per policy, in naming of articles. I have no conspiracy theory; I don't believe that Mackensen or Cuchullain took any administrative actions at all. I do perceive that you, Pi.1415926535, wish to shut me up, where i disagree in proper discussions about use of names not supported by any sources vs. names supported by sources. --Doncram (talk) 05:11, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

If this were just about talk page disputes, even heated ones, we wouldn't be here. This is about Doncram's battleground mentality and habit of edit warring. There's no excuse for that, and their comments here don't suggest the problem will go away without remedy. Hasteur's suggestion wouldn't do anything to "shut down" Doncram's views, it would only make them to use the talk page to gain consensus before unilaterally reverting.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:59, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I said already I am sorry that, between 21:09, 29 October 2018‎ (when Mackensen arrived at the new article I had created an hour earlier) and 22:01, 29 October 2018‎ (my last edit there) that I twice deleted the category added by Mackensen, which I believe is incorrect and misleading. Note they twice added the category, changing the article from its good correct state, without securing consenus, i.e. unilaterally reverting my work. Note they moved the article from "Railroad" to "Railway" name without any discussion, and I didn't complain, then or later, i.e. they unilaterally reverted my work. I am also sorry that Mackensen opened this ANI proceeding at 23:02, 29 October 2018, instead of noting that I had complied with their request to my Talk page, and not involved others unnecessarily. They stated "This gives me no pleasure" to open this ANI. Does it give pleasure to anyone else? I certainly experience this as hurtful.

To put it politely, there does exist structural/built-in disagreement between two groups of editors. Repetition of the term "one-sided" in this ANI proceeding is, I think, intended to suggest that I am the only editor with the position that use of sources and regular encyclopedic practices matter, as opposed to a group of editors which has obtained privilege to do what it wants in article naming, including interpreting their guideline to mean what it does not say. "One-sidedness" is not borne out in the one proper wp:RM discussion which has happened and was closed by an uninvolved party, Talk:Little Falls and Dakota Depot#Requested move 3 August 2018, where multiple editors settle on a different name than the made-up name. There is not edit warring going on. It is a stretch to say my two removals of a category was edit warring; it was my strong view that the category was completely wrong. One is allowed to remove completely wrong stuff, like it is okay to remove vandalism, and in fact I rather think it would be appropriate now for me or anyone else to remove the category, as being challenged information, not supported by any source calling the new railway a "predecessor" of its parent. It sure would be convenient to one group of editors to be given control, though, so that the other editors cannot edit anything unless they obtain agreement at a Talk page.

Back to the railway new article, neither Mackensen nor I discussed anything at its Talk page until 02:49, 3 November 2018, when Mackensen commented there, about when they re-added the disputed category, without securing any consensus. I replied there yesterday, and no one else has commented. It would be helpful perhaps if editors here could see their way to commenting in the actual content disagreement there, whether to use a category asserting a child is parent of its own parent, or not. It could go either way. --Doncram (talk) 16:28, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Doncram, you've edit warred repeatedly over this stuff. At Bristol station (Virginia), you repeatedly reverted edits by three different editors to restore an objectively poorly supported, ambiguous name. This goes back years, and it needs to stop. And yet you obfuscate the real issue by trying to make it a philosophical content dispute instead of a case of you edit warring and displaying battleground behavior.--Cúchullain ^t/c 17:14, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but that is bullshit. At Talk:Bristol station (Virginia)#Article name and lede text asserting name, I opened discussion and comment about the usage in sources, on 27 September 2018. This is textbook-correct usage of a Talk page. I did and do object to editors putting stuff into the mainspace text (setting aside the article naming) stuff which is not supported in any sources and which is contradicted by sources. And the quality of response is exemplified by another editor participating here, who blithely asserted "USSTATION is a widely accepted and used guideline, and your efforts to undermine it - which have been clearly based in bad faith and poor udnerstanding from the beginning - are not appreciated." That sucks, in terms of quality of discourse about content. Cuchullain, your argument there amounts merely to assertion that you prefer your made-up name, i.e. there are different names used in sources "so it seems like the best bet is to default to the WP:USSTATION version as a descriptive title." I don't agree; the different proper noun names used in sources are candidates for the best name for the article, and all the proper noun names can be stated as alternative names in the lede. At that article, I was outnumbered by a local consensus. It was asserted that my edits in the text were "vandalism", which is bullshit. I don't know exactly what to do now about the incorrect, unsupported text in the article. I expect that a proper wp:RM and/or a proper RFC, which attracts wider attention from editors not invested in the USSTATION's assertion of privilege, will go differently about the naming. This is a content disagreement. This is not a matter for ANI, unless as a case study about a group of editors pressing for advantage in a content disagreement.

Actually I did try moving that article, which Cuchullain reverted. Actually perhaps Cuchullain did use administrative power in a content dispute, in order to do that. Also I corrected article content in this edit: restore lede statement of name of place, as used in sources. It is not acceptable to put factually disputed statements into mainspace, without support. Use Talk page. "Bristol station" is disputed. And that was reverted by this edit with edit summary "standard format per RfC. "Bristol Railroad Station" is not used outside NRHP documents, which are known not to use official names". This is another example of unjustified blithe dismissal of available documents. I dispute that NRHP documents are "known" to be bad. --Doncram (talk) 17:39, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Anyhow, that was back in September 27, and it was part of determining that there is a widespread/bigger problem, involving entrenched position/editors. So on that date I followed Hasteur's recommended approach of opening discussion at the USSTATION talk page, at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (US stations)/Archive 4#Status as "guideline" disputed. By what authority is this labelled a "guideline"?. There is not edit warring going on. This ANI, instead, is about less than one hour on October 29 during which I twice reverted addition of erroneous information to a new article I had created. For which I apologized, at least for the curtness of my dismissal using words "wrong" and "stupid". And the erroneous information was returned to the article, and is still there, to boot. Great. --Doncram (talk) 17:55, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

More excuse-making. You haven't once acknowledged the real problem and tried to correct it.--Cúchullain ^t/c 20:00, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

By erroneous information I believe he means the correct, legal name of the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway. Doncram's responses at Talk:Route 66 Bridge over the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railroad#Explanatory note continue to demonstrate battleground behavior even now and an unwillingness to acknowledge that reliable sources undermine his position. I'm particularly astounded by the idea that stray mentions in a Texas newspaper could establish a common name for a railroad. Mackensen (talk) 18:32, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Nope, I didn't mean that. As I stated clearly at the Talk page of the railway article, I see there are two valid alternate names for the railway, and I point out that in my creation of the article I put in the Texas historic dictionary source which uses the "Railway" name vs. "Railroad" name, and I right away set up redirect from one name to the other. I granted that the "Railway" name might be more official, and I did not dispute or even complain about Mackensen's unilateral move of the article without discussion. At the Talk page of the highway bridge article, I note that I consider it wrong for disparaging comment about the NRHP as a source to be put into mainspace. It has been spewed in multiple discussions now that some editors dismiss the NRHP documents automatically as wrong about anything and everything, which itself is wrong when you don't provide any alternative source. Dismissing sources is useful when you want to impose a private official system of naming, set up by USSTATION, not supported by any official source, into article naming and what is written in the articles. It is inappropriate for mainspace to reflect that private agenda with disparaging comments about the National Register. I explain well enough at the Talk page of the highway bridge article, why not discuss there instead of at ANI? About the railway name, I'm frankly "astounded" by Mackensen's assertion that Texas newspapers' usage could never establish what is common usage for naming of a Texas railway. That is raising an extremely hypothetical content issue at ANI, about what Texas newspapers might say. The disputed information put into mainspace is the assertion, by use of category, that the 1902 Texas subsidiary created by the 1866-founded national railway, is the "predecessor" of its own parent company. I explain my view at the Talk page of the railway article, why not discuss it there instead of at ANI?

I am cumulatively discouraged by repeated misunderstandings and/or willful misrepresentations of what I have said and done. --Doncram (talk) 18:56, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

User:JJMC89

User:JJMC89 is making a lot of unhelpful edits and is annoying a lot of individuals. As petty as this might seem, they are undoing a lot of good work by a lot of individuals. Littlemonday (talk) 13:23, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Can you give me some diffs? Hhkohh (talk) 13:25, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

This appears to purely be around the fact that JJMC89's bot (correctly as far as I can see) removed a non-free image from the page Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (UK) that it didn't have a rationale to be used on, and the OP doesn't understand why. I'll grant the explanation on JMMC89's page wasn't hugely clear. Canterbury Tail talk 15:18, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

• WP:NONFREE enforcement strikes again. It's a hard concept for new and infrequent users to grasp, a hard concept for experienced users to explain. While I don't know JJMC89's work in particular, I've noticed that in general people who tend to enforce this are often not the most patient in explaining things. Which is unfortunate. That may or may not be a problem here. Surely someone has created a semi-decent, Goldilocks-like (not too confusing, not too oversimplified, but just right) explanation we can point to? WP:NONFREE isn't easy to parse. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:26, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
  • I guessing most people focused on this area burned out their ability to explain the issues after the first few hundred people ignoring them or blaming them for something that isn't their fault. Just a guess, but it can wear on you. zchrykng (talk) 15:37, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
    • My explanation works like this: "Unless you took the picture on your own camera, and thus own the copyright yourself, don't try to upload it. It is technically possible to do so, but you'll screw it up and someone will delete it and you'll get mad and it'll be a bad time for all. So only upload pictures you yourself have taken, on your own free time, using your own camera." If anyone wants additional instructions, I direct them to the policy page and say "If you can figure this out on your own, and want to try, feel free to, but be aware that someone will probably try to delete your picture without warning and it won't be clear why that happened." That usually works for me as an explanation. --Jayron32 15:46, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
      • Hi, yes User:JJMC89's response was unhelpful and uninsiteful. If you look at their edits/the edit's of their bot you'll see this is effecting a lot of people. The issue I had was regarding the photo of Jim Griffiths, which is already on Wikipedia, I added it to a second article and it was removed. I fail to see any logical argument (or rule on this site) that prevents that. There are plenty of photos which appear on numourous articles, and the inclusion of that photo on the second page added something to the article. It's also not helpful (or polite) when someone is so dismissive of something you are trying to help with.Littlemonday (talk) 16:54, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
        • Ah, since you've given us a specific example, I can help you understand the problem. The image in the infobox at Jim Griffiths is currently a copyright photograph. Normally, we do not accept copyrighted photographs, unless the copyright own releases the image in a way that is compatible with Wikipedia's licensing. HOWEVER (and this is where people get all turned around), in a LIMITED number of situations, we can republish a copyrighted work under the guise of fair use, which among other things under U.S. copyright law, allows us to do so only when no other alternative exists, and even then we may only use it in highly restricted ways. By a combination of Wikipedia policy, Foundation-level policy, and U.S. law itself, that usually means that we can only use a single copy of such a picture in a single article, where the picture itself is illustrating the subject of the article. There are probably a few other exceptions, but in this case, the picture at Jim Griffiths can only be used to illustrate that one article. You can read more about these restrictions at WP:NFCC. --Jayron32 17:37, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
          • (Non-administrator comment)@Littlemonday: JJMC89 basically gave a shortened version of the same response here that Jayron32 posted directly above. Not every file you see on Wikipedia is licensed the same way, and how a file is licensed largely determines which Wikipedia policies it's subject to and, therefore, essentially how it may be used. All files are subject to Wikipedia:Image use policy, but those uploaded and licensed as non-free content are further subject to Wikipedia's non-free content use policy (or NFCC for short).
            The NFCC is similar to the concept of fair use, but it has been intentionally made to be much more restrictive for Wikipedia's purposes. There are ten non-free content use criteria which need to be satisfied each time a non-free file is used. You added the Griffiths image to an article, but didn't provide the separate specific non-free use rationale required by criterion 10c for that particular use to the file's page; so, it was flagged as a violation and subsequently removed by a bot and this edit sum was left. The bot did what it was supposed to do according to WP:NFCCE, and the edit sum contained links to relevant pages where more information could be found or clarification could be requested.
            You did ask for clarification at User talk:JJMC89#Jim Griffiths photo, where more links to relevant pages were provided for reference, but apparently still don't understand why the file was removed. Relevant policy does allow a non-free image of a deceased person to be uploaded per item 10 of WP:NFCI pretty much only when the image in question is being used for primary identification purposes at the top of or in the main infobox of a stand-alone article about the individual in question; it may be possible to use such a file in other articles, but these additional uses tend to be much harder to justify and require a pretty strong contextual connection between image and relevant sourced content about the image itself in almost all cases. A list article is "Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (UK)" is basically a list of names with some short biographical information about each entry. The use of non-free images in such articles has long been considered to be something not acceptable per WP:NFLISTS. The other images used in the article are all "free images" (public domain or otherwise freely licensed), so they are not subject to the policy on non-free content use. This might partially explain why you see so many similar list articles using pictures, but which also have entries without images. You may have also come across some cases where a non-free image is being used in multiple articles, but that doesn't mean it should be being used in multiple articles or that the circumstances of each use are the same what you're discussing here.
            My suggestion to you for future reference is to first determine how a file is licensed before adding it to any articles; you can do this by clicking on the image itself. If it's an image from Commons or otherwise a "free image", then you can probably add it to any page without any problems; on the other hand, if it's licensed as non-free, then you are going to only be able to add it to articles if the way you want to use it satisfies relevant policy. If you're not sure about this, you can always ask for help at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions or Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:08, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

            My suggestion to you for future reference is to first determine how a file is licensed before adding it to any articles – That's super-practical advice that editors won't have any trouble remembering to follow, even though not one in 100 times would that find a problem, so that the exercise is almost always a waste of time. An even more practical suggestion might be for the small fraction of nonfree files to carry NONFREE (or maybe FAIR_USE_ONLY) in their filenames. EEng 21:52, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

            This or an edit warning feels like a good way to avoid confounding editors with an unusual exception is to normal procedure. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 08:14, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

            Thank you, Barkeep. I'll have another Shirley Temple, please. EEng 17:15, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Someone is removing nonfree images with a bot? Anyone who remembers Betacommand should know that is a bad, bad idea. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 22:48, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

User:FairuseBot managed to remove nonfree images without trouble, at least until bugs in the Wikipedia API made it too much of a pain to keep working. --Carnildo (talk) 23:58, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

• The above discussion distracts from the fact that this is unequivocally a frivolous and inappropriate complaint by Littlemonday. There was literally nothing rude or dismissive about JJMC89's comments to LM at User talk:JJMC89#Jim Griffiths photo. He just straightforwardly stated that the use of the image did not satisfy the NFCC, specifically explained which of the NFCC were not satisfied, and why, specifically, the image was removed. He literally just explained that there were policy violations, with links to the relevant policies. I understand that copyright policies are a nuanced concept that can be difficult to get a grasp of, but you don't immediately drag someone to AN/I because you don't understand the policies that are being cited to you. If LM actually took the time to read the policy pages that were provided to them, then JJMC's comments would have been understandable and reasonable, and if they were still confused about the concepts discussed in those policies, they could have easily asked followup questions. But instead of even making any sort of effort to collaborate reasonably, they went straight to AN/I to report JJMC for "making a lot of unhelpful edits and is annoying a lot of individuals". Unreal. Is it any wonder why these users are short on patience, Floquenbeam?  Swarm  talk  22:38, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

User talk:Swarm Three things, first of all Hello. Secondly I asked JJMC89 to explain in plain English why he/his bot removed removed some improvements I'd made, he was unable to do that in Plain English. Others have explained it to me. I think the rules are silly, and confusing to people but rules are rules. Thirdly and finally, I 'reported' him as there are lots of users who are upset/confused by his work and he was offering no explanation and just deleting people's work. If you look a little closer you'll see plenty more people like me. Littlemonday (talk) 20:57, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

@Littlemonday: JJMC89 did explain things in plain English. If you didn't understand the plain English explanation, you could have sought clarification. You did not do so instead started a pointless ANI. What you did is clearly not blockable, but JJMC89 seems to have done nothing wrong instead they've correctly enforced cornerstone policy which you violated, and then provided a plain English explanation when asked. Having done nothing wrong can't be said for you. And please provide examples of where editors are upset and confused and for which no explanation was offered. In all the examples I see on their current talk page except for a very new one, someone has responded when questions were asked. Some of these may not be JJMC89 themselves, but it's often pointless to respond if someone has already said precisely what you will say or at least offered enough of an answer that what you would have said is redundant. There is a long discussion in the "#Please Discuss Your Citation to a Subjective Policy section" but while it's clear not everyone is happy, it also clear it's way too complicated a dispute to suggest no explanation was offered or that JJMC89 is at fault. If you are unable to provide evidence, IMO you should withdraw the claim or it becomes a personal attack. Nil Einne (talk) 17:10, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I've looked at User talk:JJMC89/Archives/2018/October and it's the same, actually even less of a case for any problems. Nil Einne (talk) 17:18, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Yeah, this is definitely an inappropriate complaint. JJMC89 assumed ignorance of policy rather than assuming bad faith, they clearly explained what was going on, and provided links to further reading. I've seen them interact with several editors over non-free file use issues, and have never known them to be anything but correct in their application of policy and polite in their explanations. cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 15:58, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Leha Ovch adding unsourced material

Leha Ovch added unsourced material to Neon Future III here and here. --Jax 0677 (talk) 18:29, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Ok, but like there's no evidence of any edit warring or article talk page discussion. You threw up a templated warning and then went here pretty much immediately. Let's try not to WP:BITE too hard, OK? Simonm223 (talk) 18:52, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Reply @Simonm223:, Leha Ovch did so after two warnings by Ss112 and one warning by me. --Jax 0677 (talk) 20:20, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

19 months ago? --Bsherr (talk) 20:44, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Reply @Bsherr:, yes, 19 months ago by Ss112, and about 19 hours ago by me ;) --Jax 0677 (talk) 21:16, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Looks like there have been no edits subsequent to the most recent user warning. Why don't we assume that takes care of it for now? It doesn't seem to me to rise to being intractable behavior requiring action here yet. --Bsherr (talk) 21:26, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Reply @Bsherr:, Lena added unsourced "Credits and personnel" on November 2 after my warning on November 1, and still has not added sufficient sources to the article. --Jax 0677 (talk) 21:50, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Very sorry, I didn't notice the change of date. The warning and last edit were so similarly timed. --Bsherr (talk) 21:53, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

• Reply - Bump. --Jax 0677 (talk) 17:55, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

• Reply - Bump. --Jax 0677 (talk) 13:22, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@Jax 0677: bumping doesn't actually do anything except prevent the post from archiving. I've added in a DNAU tag to this post, which will extend this out for another 4 days without the need for bumping. --Blackmane (talk) 03:13, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Reply - @Blackmane:, delaying archive was my goal. I hope to get more feedback on this before this discussion goes away. --Jax 0677 (talk) 15:55, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

@Jax 0677: You can use Template:DNAU for that purpose. Cheers --Blackmane (talk) 23:32, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Reply - @Blackmane:, I know that now. --Jax 0677 (talk) 13:29, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Report of Intractable Behaviour over Article Content

I am writing to detail the hostile and intractable actions of @Ryanoo: against me on my user "talk" page, theirs and the talk page of Wikipedia's English "North Africa" article.

After editing the article, I did my best to include my reasons regarding to why I thought it was appropriate and added what Wikipedia defines as verifiable sources to support my doing so. The introduction to the page was a quote from an academic journal on what formed the Sahara and geographically related Sahel, who contributed in suggesting its boundaries (Arab geographers, European naturalist explorers) and how it all came together. After consistently reverting my edits with no verifiable sourcing to justify them doing so (they cited a governmental website of the United States, an online dictionary) they visited my page to add a sockpuppet warning accusing me of being a banned user "Middayexpress" and 3 block warnings with no proof or justification simply because we had differences on the topic of North Africa. I did try to at least explain why their sources were not verifiable besides Wiki's reasoning, explaining that all the organizations Ryanoo listed were interested in geopolitical lines and not the physical or historical geography of North Africa. I also asked that they provide verifiable ones to provide them a chance but every source did not meet Wiki's standards. A user @Roxy the dog: attempted to arbitrate between us on the article's talk page and both our user pages but they continued to insult, taunt me with blocking and accusations of vandalism. I also emailed Wikipedia on this topic and an admin Ron Jones was kind enough to provide suggested steps to take in a situation like this. I read over them and noticed that I had done most of the steps already as I genuinely wanted to engage in good faith discussion. So, I am escalating the situation to this admin board so someone can step in and do whatever they think is appropriate in this situation.

As I am new to Wikipedia, I'm unsure if I'm able to ask that a user be blocked from engaging with me or reverting my changes to the article with unverifiable sources but it is my opinion that this would solve the issue. I feel uncomfortable personally reverting the page back to my own changes as I do not want to violate the 3 revet policy. Below I will list diffs to the best of my coding ability for the use of the administrators here. I also would like to apologize in advance for any editing errors, like I said, I'm new here!

Thank you, Itaren (talk) 06:30, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Diffs:

1: these were my additions to the article with all my verifiable citations 1a: Ryanoo's edit comment for this is: "Removed totally wrong and misleading information, trimmed the article and returned to the encyclopedic text" 1b:Here I reverted the text back to my edits with the following comment: Reverted page back to my edits that were supported by verifiable secondary sources, all either academic or historical. Edits made to this page should include citations. The version this article was reverted to had little no sourcing. User Ryanoo should provide sources in their explaination of *why* they found this academic information to be "false" and "misleading." Otherwise the article should stay as is. Kept "Arab Spring" addition (it was cited) 1c:Ryanoo then engaged in an edit war without providing sources as can be seen here. Ryanoo also left this corresponding comment: Reverted 2 edits by Itaren: Removed misleading and poorly sourced information and returned to the enclyopedic text. North Africa is a geographical region located in the Northernmost of the African continent, it is not a political or ecenomic organization which needs to be defined. The definition is clear as the name itself, It is simply North Africa. Chad, Niger, ...etc aren't North African countries and they aren't considered by anyone as so . (TW) * this in fact contradicts the article version they formerly reverted back to because the article claimed there was no single definition of "North Africa" and leads one to believe they did not check any of my citations, many of which are viewable online. These would have contextualized my reasoning for the selected map, by which, I didn't list every state highlighted on the map in the 'sovereign states / disputed territory section as North African.

2: Here's one of the things left on my user page almost immediately after one of their reverts, accusation of vandalism, block warning re: editing privileges 2a: Sock puppet accusation 2b: First taunt, block threat 2c: Second block threat, third taunting template on my page 2d: third block threat, another taunting template on my page 2e: @Roxy the dog: attempts to intervene

3: Ryanoo is warned by Roxy and myself but does not change their behaviour

4: Proof I tried to discuss the content dispute on the article at its talk page, the next diff will show how the conversation went 4a: uncivil discussion

5: I warn them on their user page not to be so hostile and tell them not to disturb my page further 5a: User Roxy intervenes again, they do not express any willingness to change, I notify them that I'm bringing their actions to the attention of Wikipedia Administration 5b:Ryanoo suspiciously removes my notice from their user talk page

There is some discussion of this at User talk:Ryanoo including Ryanoo receiving an NPA warning. Ryanoo in turn claims Itaren is a sock of Middayexpress, a banned user who Ryanoo has been battling for a while. I haven't looked into it and don't have a view about it. Itaren's diff templates aren't working properly but Ryanoo's big revert with the hostile edit summary is here. Ryanoo hasn't yet opened an SPI but supposedly intends to do so. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 07:00, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

@173.228.123.166: Thanks for your input. I see someone was kind enough to fix the diffs so they should be working now. Also, you may be able to see what they've done to my user page here and here. As a side note, would I be justified in reverting the page back to my changes now (despite the 3 revert rule, only got to that number because of Ryanoo's disruptions and hostility) or would it be best to wait and see how the admins address the incident? Thanks again. Itaren (talk) 09:55, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I think you and Ryanoo should both not revert or edit the page for now, until your SPI resolves one way or the other, and Ryanoo's other post is examined. He is editing more calmly now on his talk page, which is always a good thing. I haven't looked at the surrounding issues enough to weigh in on them. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 07:12, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Puritans???

-EEng

I'm usually the guy that gets pinged when middayexpress socks are suspected to editing; while i can not confirm anything here I will say that I find no puritans in this disagreement. This came here way too quickly, and I see no attempts be either editor to assume good faith. I say let it ride and we will see where the chips fall down the line. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:37, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Correction: I now find one puritan in this disagreement. A Massachusetts puritan, apparently. And one who takes a strong, firm stand on these matters. I also see what appears to be some sort of rule book being carried firmly into this disagreement, which will hopefully help us resolve this matter quickly :) TomStar81 (Talk) 08:49, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

An alarming tag

-EEng

Hi @TomStar81: and thank you for weighing in. The reason why it may appear that I didn’t assume good faith is because the user had put alarming tags on my user page which you can see under “November 2018” for doing something as harmless as adding sources and clarification on an article that was lacking it. I now understand that the correct term is hounding. They opened an SPI on me using my old edits on pages they never even contributed to in justification. I became blue in the face repeating why I contributed as I did in the context of geography (physical and historical geography to be precise) and that enraged Ryanoo ... to the extent they assumed I was some former nemisis of theirs sockpuppeting from beyond a ban. The whole situation would be amusing if it weren’t so disruptive. When I tried to engage the user on the article talk page, they didn’t criticize my verifiable sources and counter the content they presented with work of the same calibre. Instead, I was met with rants. In the request for investigation they make against Arboleh below, I’m characterized as an Afrocentrist trying to hijack the history of his Egyptian ancestors for some reason? I haven’t the remotest interest in ancient Egypt on Wiki. I’m pretty confused about these accusations.

Itaren (talk) 10:54, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

In a best case scenario you've encountered a wiki-ass, we've had a few and while no one like dealing with them sometimes its just a matter of denying recognition and waiting for these tarzans to find some other vine to swing on. In a worst case scenario you've encountered one the editors (or their affiliates) listed at WP:LTA, in which case this could take an ominous turn, but that's not typically the case. In this case it may be in your best interest to simply strike the colors and sail away, all the more so since doing so will let us better gauge whose having the real issues with the edits here. TomStar81 (Talk) 11:09, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Meat problems on Indian rail station articles

A number of IPs have been adding content which appears to be a complaint about the broad-gauge rail installation causing service problems. Example. Also addition of a number of twitter links. Example. Different IPs seem to be doing different tasks.

• Bahraich railway station (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Bahraich (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Bahraich district (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Kaiserganj (Lok Sabha constituency) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Jarwal (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Would someone please PP the pages? Thank you Jim1138 (talk) 12:17, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Of course, as soon as I leave this post, all activity stops... Jim1138 (talk) 12:29, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

It would be great if we could stop all disruptive activity so easily.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:20, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

TBAN and Block Needed

Andrew Davidson (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This chap, User:Andrew_Davidson, constantly deprods prods without providing a rationale. Policy around this allows this deprodding without explanation, but editors consider this rather rude, as providing the reason for an edit is kinda meat and drink to all of us!

His MO is to find an article that has been prodded, and remove the prod. That's it - nothing more. He clearly does no due diligence checking before deprodding. Normally these articles are slam dunk deletes, the reason for the Prod in the first place is uncontroversial. This is of course the reason for having the PROD process. a simple way of removing uncontroversial rubbish articles.

He has performed this uncollegiate, disruptive trick three times since I complained to him a couple of days ago, and unless stopped will doubtless continue. His response when challenged is to wikilawyer, and never provide a rationale. Please block until this uncooperative fellow agrees to change his ways, or apply a TBAN preventing Davidson editing in any area related to Deletion of articles. (I would also like to see him TBANNED from attending any wikimeetups where he would be able to influence good faith editors to his disruptive behaviour, something that should be strongly discouraged. He appears to do a lot of wikimeetups where the influence of such a bad example should be curbed.)

Rather than provide diffs to his deprods, I have provided links below to entries on his Talk page complaining about this behaviour. At least two of those are since my own complaint a couple of days ago. -

This from January this year.

here from March this year, where the complainant stated "I am well aware that you don't have to explain. I was asking you please to do so instead of being uncollaborative. Your constant resort to lawyering is wearing and disruptive"

topic Two requests here, including my own, and slightly classier wikilawering directed at myself. At least I got his attention, but unfortunately without any positive results.

contains two complaints from the same editor made since my own complaint.

It may also be worth reading this village pump discussion where Davidson was roundly condemned for just this sort of uncollaborativeness.

In summary, stop this editors "IDHT, I know best" behaviour. Thanks. -Roxy, in the middle. wooF 16:59, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

The examples you have come up with are hardly 'slam dunk deletes'. While it would be preferable to explain in an edit summary why deletion via prod was objected to, it's probably safe to assume that the deproder believes the subject may be notable if they don't specify a reason. --Michig (talk) 17:26, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

None of the requested admin actions are going to happen. You're free to WP:AFD nominate any page where a PROD is declined; if Andrew D. doesn't give a rationale there his opinion will be ignored. power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:29, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

I had a similar interaction with Andrew regarding List of Batman storylines. His reason for keeping the article in the subsequent AfD made no sense. Matt14451 (talk) 17:32, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

• The result of that AfD was that there was no consensus to delete the page. This was therefore not an uncontroversial deletion and removal of the prod was appropriate. Andrew D. (talk) 18:28, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

I see you complained here about User:Andrew Davidson's removal here of your PROD here. Was your prod rationale "See Rope" a valid reason for deletion or even any sort of reason at all? Was it unreasonable to remove this prod? Was your reinstatement of the prod here within policy? Why were you reluctant to submit your deletion argument to community scrutiny? What is your view about another editor removing your second prod? Are you satisfied with your editing of this article? Thincat (talk) 17:44, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Roxy the dog, I consider Andrew Davidson to be an extreme inclusionist and sometimes I find him to be a bit irritating. He may feel the same way about me. However, there can be no doubt that he has the best interests of the encyclopedia at heart. He is not obligated to explain why he removes PROD tags. That deletion process is for uncontroversial deletions and if any editor in good standing removes a PROD tag, deletion is by definition controversial. You will not improve your communication with Andrew by dragging him to ANI without good cause. As for your proposal to ban Andrew from attending public Wikimedia events? In a word, absurd. Our deletion processes work best if editors representative of the full range of philosophies from deletionism to inclusionism can participate without being harassed by their opponents. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 20:53, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

You will not improve your communication with Andrew- That would not be worthwhile endeavor. You've misidentified which end the failure of communication is coming from. He talks at people, not to them, because he thinks other people are contemptible, and he's figured out a way to irritate people with mass deprods and refusal to communicate. Nobody who remembers what he used to get up to under his Colonel Warden persona could think he's anything but a pompous, dishonest troll. Reyk _YO! 23:13, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Andrew's recent comments on my talk page are the exact opposite of what you describe, Reyk, and your comments against him are personal attacks, in my judgment. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:00, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment) I have found Andrew's tendency to make counter-policy arguments at AFD to be extremely frustrating, and his tendency to remove PRODs without explanation, apparently so as to prevent the subsequent AFD nomination from preemptively addressing his counter-policy reasoning, is definitely cause for concern. Indeed, when I tried to propose mandating explanations for deprods here, based primarily on my experience with Andrew, I was uniformly opposed with the main argument being essentially "Yeah, that editor's behaviour is problematic, but ANI is the place to deal with individual problem editors; don't change policy just for Andrew" -- in other words, even those who think providing explanations for deprods is not necessary think Andrew specifically should be required to do so. I've also found his tendency to create garbage sub-stubs like the atrocious Water roux troubling; I would have been justified in PRODding that page when I first came across it, as it was complete nonsense with absolutely no basis in the cited "sources", and I have no doubt that he would have deprodded without explanation, forcing me to go through the increasingly bureaucratic mess of AFD, which is made all the more difficult by his wikilawyering and counter-policy arguments (which work well on low-traffic AFDs where it can come down to 2-1 !votes more often than not), so I was left with really no choice but to essentially blank and/or rewrite the whole thing. (I keep a record on my user page of articles other people started but where almost all the content was written by me; I don't want to have to include pages where the article creator -- a problem editor -- left a completely bogus sub-stub in the mainspace without using AFC or the like, and I had to come along and blank/rewrite the whole thing, not to my normal standards but just so it meets the barest standards of inclusion in the encyclopedia. These kinds of messes should take place in Andrew's userspace, not the article space.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:39, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
• Andrew has been doing this for years, but knows that no-one will ever stop him from doing it (search "Colonel Warden" in the ANI history). It's completely disruptive, but we've never had a consensus to stop him doing it, so he'll carry on doing it. Just another Wikipedia failure, as Reyk mentions above. Black Kite (talk) 23:45, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

• for the PROD system to work, we need to people using it, to act in good faith. De-prodding on the principle of inclusionism thwarts the intention of the community in putting the PROD system in place. The principle of PROD is that a) there is a valid reason for deletion and b) nobody is going to care enough to fix it, if that is even possible. Hence, tag, wait, and then delete. This sort of drive-by de-prod is exactly the kind of thing Andrew D does -- that was back in March and per his history there, he never made another edit, and had made none before that. Many of these complaints are like that - Andrew D thwarts the PROD and then community time (our lifeblood) gets wasted, deleting obviously deletable stuff (like the parks, back in January, linked above). The complaints have a hook. User:Cullen328 surely you don't support somebody thwarting the intention of the community? (real question)

In any case I support TBAN from de-prodding. Gaming the system to thwart the intentions of the community is not OK and it is about time we stopped this behavior. Jytdog (talk) 00:34, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

The "intentions of the community" are expressed through policies and guidelines, and through broad community discussions where consensus is achieved and the discussion is closed by an uninvolved editor, Jytdog. Please provide links to policies, guidelines and community consensus that justifies sanctions on this editor. A bunch of people bitching and moaning is not enough. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:24, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Please don't put scare quotes around important things -- the spirit (the intention) of the P&G are what matter. Jytdog (talk) 03:05, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I used quotation marks only because I was quoting you directly, and for no other reason. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:59, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

That is clearly disingenuous. No one writes The "intentions of the community" are expressed through policies and guidelines "only because [they are] quoting [someone] directly"; those are scare-quotes, and were clearly used dismissively. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:53, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Your interpretation of my intention is incorrect. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 20:00, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Jytdog is talking about the World Beer Cup – a substantial page which we have had for many years (285K accumulated by 152 editors over 11+ years). It's easy to find a good independent source for this such as the Oxford Companion to Beer. Peremptory deletion of this page would not be uncontroversial because the topic is far from hopeless. Andrew D. (talk) 00:50, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• It's now 7K, not 285K: I've deleted an unsourced and obscenely long list of "Beer awards" that's clearly promotional and likely added by a COI editor. power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:18, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose topic ban unless convincing evidence of Andrew's failure to comply with policies and guidelines is presented. Andrew's position is clear and is stated quite politely. He believes that detailed discussion of specific deprods is neither appropriate nor wise. He believes that kind of discussion should take place either at the article talk page or at AfD, or both. His stance is entirely in line with our deletion policy. Those who think that rationales for deprodding ought to be mandatory are obligated to gain consensus for that. Once you have that consensus, then Andrew must either comply or be subject to editing restrictions at that time, but not now. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:15, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
  • he should indeed not be TBANed for not supplying a rationale for de-PRODing. He should be TBANed for abusing the PROD process. The whole purpose of PROD is to get rid of deletable articles that no one cares about. Patrolling PRODs to strip them for the sake of inclusionism has nothing to do with why we created PROD or why we created the easy escape hatch, and nothing to do with building a high quality encyclopedia. Andrew D has shown a severe lack of self-restraint around de-PRODing, wasting a bunch of community time. So - enough already. Jytdog (talk) 03:05, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
    • • You are correct that PROD is only for articles that no one cares about. No one. If Andrew (or any editor in good standing) cares enough to remove the PROD tag, then someone clearly cares, and then the next step for the tagger is clear: Either drop the matter or take it to AfD. It could not be more simple. Andrew has said that he is willing to discuss these articles at AfD, as part of a community discussion. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:11, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
        • • actually cares about. That is the spirit of the PROD process. Patrolling PRODs to keep stuff, and stripping the tag from pages you never edited before and never edited again, is gaming the process. I'm trying to articulate why so many people are annoyed with Andrew. This is right down at the core of it - this exploiting every loophole and saying anything and doing anything just to keep stuff. Its not about building a high quality, or even reasonable-quality, encyclopedia. Quality isn't in the picture - it's just about keeping stuff. Which is the wrong aim. Jytdog (talk) 15:34, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
    • I only count 11 deprods in the last 5 weeks. Many if not all of them need to be sent to AfD, IMO, but you could make the argument both ways. I wouldn't TBAN because I still think it's being done in good faith, but issue a warning and request a rationale in the edit summary for each deprod from this user. SportingFlyer talk 03:10, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
      • • He has been requested multiple times, it has not worked and will not work. ∯WBG^converse 03:30, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support Tban from De prodding - - A IDHT behaviour and indulging in mass deprodding runs despite being requested several times to provide some reason behind the deProd.But, on lines of wot BK had sed, this will lead to nothing; people have a liking for invoking extremal process wonkery even if it is directly contrarian to a collaborative environment esp. whilst dealing with long term editors. ∯WBG^converse 03:30, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support tban from deproding as well. I don't have direct experience with his deprodding activity but I do recall very well the nonsense he posts every time we try to improve how we manage Drafts (G13 expansion for example). It appears Andrew D is intent on making clean up as painful amd slow as possible. Legacypac (talk) 04:32, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• I don't often agree with Andrew, but in this case he's frankly 100% correct, and IMO there's absolutely no evidence of disruption here, let alone grounds for a sanction of any kind. This is how PROD is supposed to work. If you don't like it, try to change the process, not ban the people using it. ansh666 04:47, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@Ansh666: See WP:VPP: that already happened, and the (near?) unanimous consensus was "No, Andrew's behaviour in those situations is disruptive, but you don't change policy to deal with one editor; that's what topic bans are for". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:51, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: Unless there are dozens of diffs showing a pattern of deliberately disruptive de-PRODs or deliberately targeting one editor's PRODs (neither of which has anyone provided), there is no reason for a TBan or a block. PRODs are merely one option for deletion and are a deliberately low bar to decline (no explanation needed). If someone disagrees with a de-PROD, even numerous de-PRODS, all they need do is escalate to CSD or AfD, as desired. It's really very simple. Softlavender (talk) 05:10, 5 November 2018 (UTC) Striking this because dozens if not hundreds of diffs over the years are most likely unavailable because the article in question was subsequently deleted. Softlavender (talk) 09:30, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
  • @Softlavender: few things on Wikipedia are truly gone forever. I looked at one full year's worth of de-prods in his deleted contribs. If you're curious:

Article	Result	Notes
Veekshanam	Went to AfD	Deleted
Azia	Went to AfD	Speedy deleted G12, recreated at Azia (town)
Elliot John Crosby	Went to AfD	Deleted
Eisoptrophobia	Was not eligible for PROD	Deleted at AfD
Leonora Summers	Went to AfD	Deleted
Joseph Piggott	Went to AfD	Deleted
William Beardsall	Went to AfD	Deleted
Good Samaritan (comics)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Gruagach (Hellboy)	Went to AfD	Deleted
List of mammalian aliens	Went to AfD	Deleted
Tregunter Road	Went to AfD	Deleted
Bobby Lester	Speedy deleted G5	recreated as a redirect
Spiral galaxy dynamics	Went to AfD	Deleted
List of Dirty Harry cast members	Went to AfD	Deleted
List of Kung Fu cast members	Went to AfD	Deleted
Tanner Park	Went to AfD	Deleted
Lasser Park	Went to AfD	Deleted
Overlook Park (Towson, Maryland)	Went to AfD	Deleted, recreated as a redirect
Overlook Park (Tallapoosa County, Alabama)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Overlook Park (Tallapoosa County, Alabama)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Overlook Park (South Burlington, Vermont)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Overlook Park (Murrieta, California)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Overlook Park (Melbourne, Florida)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Overlook Park (Longboat Key, Florida)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Overlook Park (Linthicum, Maryland)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Overlook Park (Lawrence, Kansas)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Overlook Park (Frederick, Maryland)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Overlook Park (El Dorado Hills, California)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Overlook Park (Burlington, Massachusetts)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Overlook Park (Bethel, Connecticut)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Overlook Memorial Park (Prattville, Alabama)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Overlook Park (Benicia, California)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Diesel Loco Shed, Kalyan	Went to AfD	Deleted
The Loft (Kent)	Went to AfD	Deleted
The Independent (Dominica)	Went to AfD	Deleted
Andrew de Leslie (d. c. 1352)	Went to AfD	Deleted

That's about 36 deleted articles, most of which went to AfD. One was not eligible for PROD but got deleted anyway because it was a copyright violation. This is the span of 19 November 2017 through 5 November 2018. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 10:26, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that work! Nobody but an admin could have done that, so really, thanks. is hours and hours of community time to get rid of things that should have been gotten rid of. Jytdog (talk) 15:41, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, that proves my point. As Jytdog says, no one but an admin can see those redlink de-PRODs, and your list proves my point that the articles more than likely should have been deleted at the PROD stage, so AD's de-PRODs really are disruptive. Softlavender (talk) 22:03, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose per my below reasoning for the PROD process not mandating a rationale and also for the fact the policy specifically permits any editor to remove a PROD tag. And 36 in a year is not a lot. Fish+Karate 11:35, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Extended content

Amber Amundson - at AFD The Alberts, The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, The Temperance Seven Jazz in Africa Synthetic rope Homerton College Music Society - at AFD List of megaprojects in India The Two Ronnies 1987 Christmas Special Oracle Office Cultural consumer Spontaneous glass breakage Engine cooking Aani Rashtra Deepika - went to AFD, result, merge and redirect The Munsif Daily - went to AFD, result - keep Pudhari - went to AFD, result - no consensus Saamana - went to AFD, result - keep The Samaja - went to AFD, result - keep The Samaya - went to AFD, result - no consensus Sambad - went to AFD, result - keep Dharitri (newspaper) - went to AFD, result - keep Imphal Free Press - went to AFD, result - keep List of scholars of African music George Merck - PROD was placed on a redirect Bikaner - Bilaspur Antyodaya express Associative browsing MV Global Mercy - went to AFD, result - keep Geriatric fellowship Cedel - went to AFD, result - redirect D'Isigny - went to AFD, result - keep Afşin-E coal mine - went to AFD, result - redirect Afşin-D coal mine - went to AFD, result - redirect Afşin-C coal mine - went to AFD, result - redirect Hail fellow well met Mathematical practice - went to AFD, result - keep Infomania Nature deficit disorder Conference microphone Public health engineering - went to AFD, result - redirect List of Batman storylines - went to AFD, result, merge and redirect Descriptive knowledge - went to AFD, result - keep Bubble chair List of offshore financial centres - later redirected

The list above is an evaluation of the PRODs that were removed and the articles are still in the encyclopedia. I looked back at all the deprods back to the beginning of September. Andrew made 42 deprops that have not been deleted. Of those 42, 2 are currently at AFD. An additional 19 were sent to AFD and the discussion is now closed. Results of 10 were keep, 7 redirect (with some including merge) and 2 were no consensus. Of those not sent to AFD, 1 was an invalid PROD, 1 was later redirected and 14 have no action taken. This is compared to the last year of 36 deprods that were later deleted at AFD. I oppose taking away his ability to deprod articles. ~ GB fan 12:32, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose topic ban and oppose block, essentially for the reasons explained by User:Cullen328. There's no policy breach here. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 21:35, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

  Again, I find it weird that we're talking about whether Andrew is technically violating policy by engaging in behaviour that, by definition, is not a violation of current policy, but is perceived as being disruptive and so is the subject of a ban discussion. It's a truism that a number (I'd guess at least half) of Andrew's AFD !votes have been policy breaches (or ... "advocating for policy breaches", I guess?), and so if he were required to provide rationales for deproddings we can assume a similar proportion of them would be too; the problem is he never does provide rationales, even when specifically requested to do so on his talk page. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:03, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

  You find it weird that when trying to impose sanctions on someone, some of us require some evidence of actual policy violation? I find that weird. WP:PROD policy says anyone can remove a PROD for any reason and it does not require any explanation or edit summary. If you want to change that policy then seek a change to the policy - but trying to impose restrictions on one editor that do not apply to anyone else when that editor is not in any way in breach of any policy is just plain wrong in my view. Sure, we sanction editors for disruptive behaviour, but there must be some policy basis to it. And nobody has demonstrated that AD's de-prods are disruptive, as far as I can see - all I can see is "I don't agree with him so he must be stopped". Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:50, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

  Re-reading this, I missed "I would also like to see him TBANNED from attending any wikimeetups where he would be able to influence good faith editors to his disruptive behaviour"! I obviously Oppose such a disgraceful suggestion - thoughtcrime anyone? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:18, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose t-ban and oppose block - having faced similar issues working at NPP, I can certainly understand the frustration expressed by the OP and those in agreement but I also agree with Cullen and reasons others have given to oppose. Deprodding is a judgment call, and while some may find it to be annoyance, it is neither a policy violation nor is it behavioral disruption to the project. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 22:25, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

  "Deprodding is a judgment call" = bullseye! PROD is specifically and deliberately a very loose judgment call, which means AD is free to use his judgment when evaluating PRODs just as much as anyone else. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:58, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose t-ban and oppose block - no policies have been violated. It would certainly lend itself towards collaborative editing if A.D. were to leave a reason, but by policy and years of practice he is not required to. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 22:46, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose t-ban and oppose block per everyone above and below (and per my comments below). –Davey2010^Talk 00:29, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose the topic ban and block, of course. I also oppose the suggestion that I should prohibited from attending events such as the London meetup on Sunday, where I shall be happy to discuss the details, especially the World Beer Cup! Here's a recent testimonial, for those who doubt my good faith. Andrew D. (talk) 09:59, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Andrew has remotely supported every event that he hasn't been able to attend in person, and gives such warm welcomes and support to new editors. He takes the time to keep up with events, and to patiently and enthusiastically share his expertise on Wikipedia with others. Many new pages would not exist without his support to help new editors who are from communities that have not previously felt welcome to edit until - his contribution to breaking down those barriers is invaluable, and we Wikimedians in the UK are lucky to have him.

— Positive Wikimedian of the Year

Please explain this?. (When you have explained, I have a follow up question.) -Roxy, in the middle. wooF 16:18, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry for posting inside davidsons post there, but he really should sign them. And his testimony (try using that at FTN) is very unreliably sourced. -Roxy, in the middle. wooF 16:33, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

This here is the problem. Roxy, the Prod. wooF 21:26, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose block and topic ban if people don't like what "prod" and "de-prod" represent and its current implementation, fix that instead. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:36, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I have nommed the page concerned. Let's see if Davidson responds, and how.-Roxy, the Prod. wooF 13:37, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

• FWIW, Andrew's disruption at AFD (as opposed to PROD) has continued while this discussion was ongoing. Here he made a notability argument, listing eight sources apparently found via a quick GBooks search, in an AFD that had nothing to do with deletion, and refusing to retract the claim that WP:PRESERVE applies despite having been notified that the opposite is the case (the article in question is the result of a unilateral, selective, and unattributed merger of several previously existing articles, so PRESERVE would favour cutting it up and restoring the earlier redirect) -- his later comment didn't even acknowledge this. I've found this kind of behaviour to be charactistic of Andrew's AFD activity: he will make whatever bizarre, irrelevant argument he can to !vote "keep", then either refuse to acknowledge when others correct him or double down and get into a long back-and-forth that will probably make a closer's eyes gloss over. I'm not confident anyone will actually do anything about this at this point, since this discussion was opened on the wrong topic: Andrew's behaviour regarding deletion, not just de-prodding, needs correction. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:56, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

• Stats There's some helpful analysis above by NinjaRobotPirate and GB fan but it's not complete because they covered different timeframes. I've done some further analysis to summarise what's been done over the last year. I reckon that there will have been about 10,000 prods during that time – about 27 per day. Here's my contribution, set in proportion.

estimated total prods for year Nov 2017 – Nov 2018	10,000
Number of prods removed by Andrew D.	165	1.65% of total
Number of de-prodded articles deleted	36	22%
Number of de-prodded articles not deleted	129	78%

So we see that, even though I look through the list of all prods, only a small fraction of them are de-prodded. In more than 98% of cases, I pass by on the other side but, in a few cases, I intervene to remove the prod. In about 78% of these controversial cases, the article is not deleted. These numbers seem quite reasonable to me but it would be interesting to compare with some other prod patroller. I'm only aware of one other editor that does this regularly and that's DGG. We don't seem to have heard from him yet so it would be good to get his views. Andrew D. (talk) 13:38, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps you could explain this?-Roxy, the Prod. wooF 16:54, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: Require Andrew Davidson to provide a rationale with each de-PROD

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

A number of very experienced editors, including administrators, have had long-term problems with Andrew Davidson's behavior concerning PRODs and his apparent targeting of them merely to remove the PROD whether or not the removal appears warranted in any way to any reasonable person. Providing rationales for de-PRODs is not mandatory, but an administrator can enact a community-based sanction requiring Andrew Davidson to provide one with each de-PROD, if there is consensus for this sanction. Therefore I am proposing it. Softlavender (talk) 05:37, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support as nominator, since the editor's de-PRODding has, over a very long time, been widely viewed as deliberately disruptive. This sanction will not prevent him from de-PRODding, but it will require him to demonstrate good faith by providing a rationale. Softlavender (talk) 05:37, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support as per nom. I think this is a good final step before a topic ban becomes necessary, though I suspect AD will try to game it somehow. Reyk _YO! 05:42, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support as per nominator. I suspect the rationales will continue to be along the lines of "prods are for uncontroversial deletions, and this is controversial," as per the talk page. I don't necessarily read bad faith into them, as the synthetic rope deprod was correct, but would strongly recommend either further explanations in the edit summary other than "controversial" or improving the articles which are deprodded, as several of the ones I looked at were completely without references. SportingFlyer talk 05:49, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support --Tarage (talk) 06:07, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support per the smug disruption displayed with one foot in the doorway of a topic ban. Nihlus 06:18, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support but he will likely not provide meaningful rationals Legacypac (talk) 06:37, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• NOTE for closing admin: I recommend that the sanction include a requirement to provide a rationale specific to the article in question, and specifically refuting the PRODer's concerns with specific facts, as opposed to a generic, non-specific rationale. Softlavender (talk) 06:54, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• How would this work if the PRODder's concern is not clear? For example, in the case of synthetic rope, their concern was just "See Rope". What specific fact is expected in such a case? Andrew D. (talk) 08:35, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

The question proves the need. Other editors can clearly see that the PROD placer believes this topic duplicates an existing topic. Legacypac (talk) 08:46, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@Andrew Davidson: In my mind, nothing wrong with a (removed prod) (rationale for deletion unclear). That was also the prod removal I'm least concerned about, though. SportingFlyer talk 09:00, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose, there's no policy that mandates a rationale, removing prod tags is not disruptive, just send the article to AFD if the prod is removed. Easy peasy. Fish+Karate 09:13, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Unwarranted, knee-jerk de-PRODs are indeed disruptive, especially if they are willfully done en masse over the years, because they place an enormous burden on the community via clogging AfD with unnecessary AfDs which could have been handled at the PROD stage if warranted. Softlavender (talk) 09:34, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
    • An "enormous burden"? Really? PROD is explicitly for uncontroversial deletions that nobody contests. If even one person contests the PROD tag, the article must go to AFD. I am not saying this is the best way to do things, I'm saying that that's the current policy, per Wikipedia:Proposed_deletion#Objecting - "You are strongly encouraged, but not required to also .. explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion, either in the edit summary or on the talk page". If the policy is not reflective of how you feel the proposed deletion policy should work, then work to get the policy changed. Forcing a user to do something that is not mandated by policy, for no real reason other than "I don't like what he is doing at the moment", is not right. To be clear, I would very much support the idea that this policy should say that the removal of PROD tags without a rationale is potentially disruptive and such removals may be reverted, reinstating the tag. But the policy doesn't say that, it explicitly permits removal without rationale. Fish+Karate 10:33, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
      • It's not an "enormous" burden. It is a burden. Many of these deprodded articles don't have any references, and no one has touched them since they were deprodded. Adding a rationale is incredibly simple. I agree it should not be mandatory, but I don't see a problem with trying to mitigate a small community burden (11 deprods in 5 weeks isn't that disruptive) with a small individual burden where it's justified. SportingFlyer talk 11:27, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
        • 11 in 5 weeks, or 36 in a year; either way you count it, it's a drop in the AFD ocean (a very cursory check shows about 100-130 articles at AFD each day). Exaggerations such as "enormous burden" and "en masse" don't help anyone. Fish+Karate 11:31, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@Fish and karate: You're right, that is not a policy. I tried to propose it as a policy specifically because of the disruption caused by this one editor, and was met with "Yeah, that is pretty disruptive, but that should be dealt with by an individual sanction, not a change of policy". The whole point of individual editing restrictions is that they are meant to restrict more than the existing policies already restrict everyone, so there's no policy that mandates [that] is quite an unusual rationale for opposing a ban proposal. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:48, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

The fact you consider "editing within policy" to be an unusual rationale is more concerning than anything else in this thread. Fish+Karate 11:25, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Umm... all editing restrictions logged at WP:RESTRICT are expansions on policy. If any of them were simply reiterating what policy said, they wouldn't be editing restrictions; they would be policies. Not only is this not an unusual thing for me or any other editor to say, but it's a given; you're not seeming to understand that is far more concerning, let alone your condescending to me as you do above. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:54, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

BTW: I can provide (and have provided elsewhere) lists of Andrew's counter-policy AFD !votes. His forcing other editors to nominate articles for AFD only for him to show up and make such arguments is highly disruptive (hardly "editing within policy"); demanding that he make these arguments up-front so the AFD nom can address them is quite reasonable. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:57, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support Dear. God. Yes. Can we also ping in anyone at the discussion I linked above (namely MelanieN, HighInBC, Barkeep49 and Insertcleverphrasehere) as they were actually, indirectly, the ones to specifically propose this? (I pointed out to Andrew on his talk page that there was a growing consensus, even among those who think "Deprodding should require an explanation" is not a feasible policy, that he specifically should be required to do so anyway, and the OP appears to have noticed that message.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:48, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

BTW, I would also support a TBAN from de-prodding, broadly construed, as well. He should be required to appeal the one before the other. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:50, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Since I was named here I will note that my comments were general and not aimed at Andrew D. Specifically I will (scarily) quote myself that being "considerate" in removing PRODS is the right thing to do. To apply it to this case, 36 dePRODs in the last year, if the correct number, aren't really disruptive to the encyclopedia, but it would be "considerate" if Andrew took the feedback here on board. Even though I agree with Hijiri about deletion discussions more than Andrew, I believe the encyclopedia benefits from us having to live with differing point of views what Wikipedia is and should be. I have to live with Andrew being more of an inclusionist than I think right and he has to live with me being more of a deletionist than he thinks right. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:11, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: FWIW, when Andrew is advocating for the violation of copyright and NOR policy, it goes beyond editors having differing views. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:34, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: But this is a TBAN about PROD and so I confined my thinking and analysis to that. I am guessing I would find a lot to disagree with, and maybe even think over the line, if we started exploring his contributions at AfD. But since that's not the discussion it's not where I went with my thinking. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:57, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, but since a large number of his AFD !votes are counter-policy, we can assume the deprod rationales he refuses to provide even when they are specifically requested are similarly non-compliant. Anyway, I would question whether requiring someone do something each time they engage in a process, but not banning them from engaging in that process, is not really a "TBAN" to begin with: yeah, I advocated for both, but the Softlavender proposal we are discussing here is not really a TBAN. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:07, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose As per above, he does not do a bad job of deprodding articles. Would it help editors to understand why the article was deprodded, yes, but that is across the board. I see no evidence that his deprodding is disruptive or any reason we need to put additional requirements on him that we don't put on the community. ~ GB fan 12:36, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@GB fan: Pointing out that some of his deprods are not all that bad (but neither are they all that good) doesn't actually invalidate the claim that a lot of his deprods are bad. Additionally, requiring him to provide a rationale would not actually affect the not-bad ones (he could just provide the good rationale) -- it would only prevent him from doing so when he doesn't have a valid argument, and would make it possible for either (a) the editor responsible for the prod to reconsider in light of a valid argument or (b) the subsequent AFD nomination to address his arguments. Given that Andrew went to the trouble to type out (multiple) comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dark Lady (character), we can assume he would have deprodded it if ZXCVBNM had prodded the page rather than going straight to AFD; if Andrew had been required to provide a rationale, and his rationale was, like his AFD !vote, "I think we should be allowed WP:NOR in cases like this", then the nominator could have pointed out the absurdity of that argument in advance, and we could have avoided a lot of trouble. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:47, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I can not support forcing a single individual to explain their DEPRODs unless there is clear evidence that their DEPRODS are disruptive. 42 DEPRODS in the last <2.5 months that are still in the encyclopedia compared to 36 that have been deleted in the last year in my mind is not disruptive. Should he reevaluate what he deprods, yes. Would it help if he adjusts his criteria for deprodding a little, yes. Do I see enough to force him to provide an explanation, no. On top of that what explanation would be good enough before his deprod is allowed to stand? Would it be acceptable for him to say, "I think there is enough here that this article needs to be discussed at AFD before being deleted"? ~ GB fan 12:55, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

That depends. Clearly, with any article that I don't think should be deleted, any rationale that aligned with my personal reason for believing as much would be sufficient. I guess some valid reasons were probably presented in those AFDs you referred to that resulted in keeps? My experience with Andrew's detailed AFD arguments is that they are very poor and often show a poor understanding of Wikipedia policy, the topics in question, or both (the above-linked "Dark Lady", Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tanka prose, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Korean influence on Japanese culture and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of General Caste in Sikhism (2nd nomination) are among the worst examples that come to mind; Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/University of the West Indies (Jamaica) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Foodflation were bad for a completely different reason); I think allowing such an editor to unilaterally overrule a valid means of deletion without even providing any explanation is problematic; requiring him to make his argument up-front so an AFD nominator can evaluate it in their nomination, rather than just forcing the nominator to wonder to themselves whether Andrew actually had a valid reason, would be better. Andrew's deprods don't come with a notice "Hey, this guy might have a valid point, or he might just be reverting you because he thinks he can get away with it"; most editors will just assume the former, which is a whole lot of extra work. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:16, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support the proposal that any "Deprodding should require an explanation" even though it is not an existing policy. The table of DePRODs is overwhelming. And appears to me as a blatant misuse of DePROD policies. We are simply adding unnecessary more work for the volunteers with allowing such behavior. I would also support a TBAN from de-prodding, broadly construed --DBigXrayᗙ 13:02, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Yep. If I nominated articles at AfD with that kind of failure rate, and ignored talk page questions except to say "I'm allowed to do this", I'd have been blocked or tbanned ages ago. Reyk _YO! 13:08, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose a pointless exercise. Andrew Davidson will simply add "covered in multiple published sources, including [YOUR BOOK HERE]" which is the usual opener at the myriad AFDs that fall out of these de-prods. Mandating he does the work he would do, just a few minutes or hours sooner, will not stop the de-prodding, and will not stop the frustration. 100% guaranteed. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:25, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

The Rambling Man you have explained why this will possibly fail. May we know what is the proposal you feel might work here ? Obviously if the above measures fail to achieve the intended purpose of reducing the number of frivolous dePRODs, then more stricter actions may be proposed. --DBigXrayᗙ 13:36, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I can't speak for TRM but my proposal would be to either get consensus to change the policy to mandate a reason for de-prodding, or recognise that 36 de-prods in a year is not disruptive, leave it be, and find something better to do. Fish+Karate 13:46, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Oh, there's no "possibly" about it. This is a non-starter. And I'm afraid "frivolous" is in the eye of the beholder. I don't think Andrew believes his actions to be frivolous in any way, and that the small number of additional AFDs generated in the big scheme of things is really minuscule. This, I'm afraid, appears to be a very large waste of community time. The basic principle of "prod" is to blame, that should anyone for any reason decide they disagree with it, it makes it controversial, and hence prod no longer applies. Just changing the rules for one editor who can simply bypass the change by adding the first line of the AFD in his justification for the removal of the prod is going to achieve nothing at all. I think it'd be better to have spent all this time and energy working on articles rather than working on ways to stop a near-trivial number of puportedly frivolous AFDs being created. If de-prodding has saved one or more articles from deletion, then I suspect that somewhat validates Andrew's occasional actions. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:47, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I see so many people saying there is a large number of deprods that shouldn't have been done. What I don't see is people actually supporting that with data. Looking at the information above there were 36 of their deprods that were deleted at AFD or speedy deleted in the last year. There are also 42 of their deprods from the last 2+ months that are still in the encyclopedia, that includes 19 that survived an AFD. If that time frame is typical of a year for Andrew, he would have around 220 deprods that are still in the encyclopedia with around a 100 of those that survived AFD. This tells me there are more frivolous PRODs then there are DEPRODs. ~ GB fan 13:52, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

This, I'm afraid, appears to be a very large waste of community time.

Yep. And it's Andrew D. doing the time wasting. --Calton | Talk 22:09, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

No, it's the usual drama mongers. This whole set of approaches is doomed, yet you're all racking up KB of chat, far more wasteful than anything Andrew Davidson has done, and I'm assuming good faith that he's doing it for reasons he believes in, while this is mainly a witch hunt designed to punish someone's extreme (but still legitimate) viewpoint who still operate within guidelines and policies. Some here should know better. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:59, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

To be fair, if I'm to be included among "the usual drama mongers", the reason is that I've been extremely busy in real life for the last month or so, have only come on to Wikipedia to deal with the affairs of the day that are kind of "limited time events", and have been unable to devote time to building articles. (I posted on WT:WAM before any of this came up that I would hardly even be able to participate this year, let alone judge.) I'm a little angry at the OP for, like the OP of the AN thread in June, picking a really stupid moment to open this discussion, and not consulting with me in advance as to the best way to go about it. If nothing comes of this thread, it'll be as much the fault of careless editors who agree with me that something needs to be done about Andrew but did so in an extremely sloppy manner, and if that happens there'll probably be an informal moratorium on drahma-board threads on Andrew for the next few months. He really needs a TBAN from article deletion, broadly construed, and I believe I've got evidence that would convince the community that this is the case, but it's impossible to present it when something like this keeps happening every few months and undercutting it. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I think you're getting too involved with this. This is really not a big deal. It's a shame that Andrew's editing style doesn't conform to your expectations, or those of many other editors (myself included) but this pitchfork-wielding approach is counter-productive and provides precisely zero end to the drama. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:29, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose (edit conflict × 5) rationale requirement but support broad topic ban from PROD (may not PROD or dePROD any article for any reason, may not request REFUND of a PRODded article, and may not comment on the PROD process anywhere on Wikipedia), per evidence of a problem causing widespread editing grief, and per those who have said that AD would just game a requirement to provide rationales by providing generic rationales to satisfy the requirement and continue the disruptive behaviour. It's fairly obvious that AD is not dePRODding articles because he finds the individual deletion proposals controversial but because he objects to PROD in general (see the third bullet here) and is bringing the controversy to deletions which are otherwise uncontroversial. That's pretty much the definition of disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. As for requiring rationales generally, Roxy linked to where we had that discussion just a bit more than a month ago and it was soundly rejected; I see later in the same discussion it's been proposed again, and is being just as soundly rejected. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:57, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support - I don't think the PROD policy was designed for wholesale DEPRODing without rationale to the point of disruption. We need to be careful not to live or die on what policy says.--WaltCip (talk) 14:05, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose we currently have an open RFC about this at WP:VPP, there's no reason to apply it only to Andrew D. Well, there is one reason, which is that people find him generally annoying. But there are many things he does that are more annoying than dePROD without a reason, and several of the support voters are also generally annoying. power~enwiki (π, ν) 15:18, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Comment -- this is, in my view, a distraction from the key issue, and too easily game-able. We should just TBAN and be done with it. Jytdog (talk) 15:40, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support - this mass deprodding is gaming the system and essentially enforcing a policy consensus of one. It is deliberate provocation of other editors, and It needs to stop. Unfortunately, I agree with Jytdog, that it is possible the editor will just scoff at this and provide a meaningless caption to satisfy these requirements. If so, we'll be back here to discuss a TBAN. Nevertheless, this at least gives the opportunity to show good faith!Jacona (talk) 16:04, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose No policy rationale or such egregious disruption for either sanction. ——SerialNumber54129 16:08, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Topic ban him from PRODing and dePRODing? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:09, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support Clearly, his behavior is bad faith disruption, it seems clear his only goal is to game the system to disrupt the PROD process maximally. That's hardly a useful behavior at Wikipedia. The opposes do note there is no policy forcing him to do so, but at some point we need to look at WP:GAME and look at the clear intent of his actions. --Jayron32 16:13, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

  Based on Andrew D.'s explanation below, I am quite satisfied that my initial assessment was incorrect. He seems to be acting both in good faith and with due diligence. I now oppose any ban. --Jayron32 18:59, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose per opposers. Prodding is easy come, easy go. The rationales provided by many heavy prodders are often nonsense, and this would just get similar vague/standard rationales from AD. The statistics above show his deprods are kept at AFD far too often to justify personal measures. Johnbod (talk) 16:43, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support I guess but a topic ban makes more sense. This needs to say "a rationale backed up by multiple reliable sources" or something like that, in order to be meaningful. Otherwise, a bad rationale or simple rationale like "deprodded, he's notable" is still a rationale. A better answer is to have a complete topic ban rather than to try to invent a rule to solve the problem. --B (talk) 16:47, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose although I have a nearly opposite view to Andrew D about how much should be gotten rid of and how much should be retained. I am in general a deletionist, and I have been rebuked for PRODding unsourced articles without doing a BEFORE search to determine whether sources exist. However, if Andrew D wants to make a deletion controversial (that is, not non-controversial) just because he wants to make it controversial, so be it. Anyone whose PROD is deprodded can always take it to AFD. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:27, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• This editor is not tuned in to the expectations of the community. A scroll through their votes at AfD [1] shows they almost always vote Keep or Speedy Keep (with scores of pages deleted after these votes) and very rarely vote Delete (and a surprising number of those votes are on pages which end up kept). Therefore it is hard to trust their ability to determine a correct or incorrect PROD. Legacypac (talk) 19:04, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• The problem here isn't whether the deproddings are correct. It's that they're perceived as being done in bad faith, with an aim to deliberately damage the deletion process rather than out of any desire to see the articles kept on their own merits. Voluntarily accepting this restriction would go a long ways toward showing that perception is wrong. Having it involuntarily imposed and then getting blocked when some trigger-happy admin inevitably considers a deprodding reason frivolous (complete with unblocking, wheel-warring, 100-kiloword ANI shitstorm, and arbcom case), or escaping that involuntarily imposition when so such a large percentage of the opposition is based in ruleslawyering, is going to prove just the opposite. —Cryptic 19:36, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

  I think that's a discredit to Andrew. I'm hardly his number one superfan but he's an out-and-out inclusionist and never fails to put forward some kind of argument at every AFD he's caused to exist through de-prodding. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:46, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support. Rather than rob the community of its time discussing unnecessary AFDs, I would like to see Andrew take the necessary time to outline a rationale for every de-prod. Hopefully, a positive side effect will be that community time is also reduced in discussing Andrew's behavior. Binksternet (talk) 19:48, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

  It'll just be a touchpaper for more drama when, suddenly, an enthusiastic-yet-useless admin decides that one of Andrew's "rationales" is insufficient, and bang, here we'll be again. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:50, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose per my comments in the section above, and per Fish+Karate, The Rambling Man, GB fan, Johnbod and power~enwiki. Those supporting this restriction have failed to produce evidence of significant disruption, and discussion of various AfD debates has nothing to do with deprodding. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:54, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose an imposition that is not required by Wikipedia policy. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 21:33, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• user:Softlavender would you please withdraw this and close it? It has no chance of gaining consensus, and ideally folks will comment on the tban which is the open question. thx Jytdog (talk) 21:55, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
  • No, because it has wide support (13 Support, 9 Oppose thus far), and enough long-term editors and admins have had problems with AD's behavior that the overall situation is likely to go to ArbCom down the line if a solution isn't reached, and this is the simplest and most supported solution at present. Softlavender (talk) 22:09, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Jytdog whether you agree or disagree with chances of this proposal, enough people have already supported this to merit a closure by an uninvolved admin. --DBigXrayᗙ 21:58, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Withdraw a proposal that is currently passing by several votes? Legacypac (talk) 22:04, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure no admin will enact the proposal without a much stronger consensus. As I post this, there are 15 supports to 15 opposes. I'd hardly count that as solid consensus. --Blackmane (talk) 01:04, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

If you'll forgive the reminder, it's not a vote, and so it can not be "passing" based on a simple head count. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:03, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support topic ban, with Support providing genuine rationales as an alternate. And spare me the "not required by Wikipedia policy" garbage: policy evolves from practice on Wikipedia and always has. --Calton | Talk 22:09, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support - This is a reasonable expectation for anyone de-PRODing, let alone someone doing it on a large scale. We're not mind readers. If someone wants to second guess other editors, they owe at least a minimal explanation. - MrX 🖋 22:24, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose isn't this the whole point of PROD? If the community wants the policy changed, then change the policy Samir 22:31, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@Samir: I already answered you here. The policy change discussion you are referring to took place here. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:44, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - WP:PROD doesn't require a rationale. The policy would have to be changed first, would it not? Perhaps the latter should be a serious consideration so we're all on the same page and not admonishing a productive editor for simply following policy. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 22:34, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• You seem to be missing the point, since the discussion here is not about changing standard practice, it's about whether this editor's behavioor, in particular, may merit a requirement that other editors do not have to follow. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:36, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@Atsme: Do you mean that the policy page doesn't requiring deprodders give a reason? My understanding is that PROD does require a reason but DEPROD does not. However, Andrew's deprodding is disruptive. By definition, editing restrictions are not simple reiterations of what is mandated by policy, but expansions thereof. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:44, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@BMK - I wasn't aware we had the authority to overrule policy here at AN/I. @Hijiri88 - I should have been more specific in that the policy WP:PROD#Objecting, editors are "strongly encouraged, but not required, to also: Explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion, either in the edit summary or on the talk page. (and yada yada)." I'm of the mind that AN/I doesn't truly represent a fair and balanced "community discussion" since there are no notices that go out to the community that such actions are even being discussed. Doing it this way gives a handful of editors far too much authority in the decision making process, and would include editors who were not elected based on the trust factor of the community after enduring an RfA. Does that make sense? ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 23:13, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

If a policy says that editors are "strongly encouraged but not required" to do X, and an editor's behavior is problematic in that regard, then requiring them to do X is not "overruling policy" any more than blocking an IP is "overruling" the policy that IPs are allowed to edit. Further, your objection to this being discussed at AN/I makes little sense, because it (in addition to AN) is the venue in which sanctions such as this are always discussed. No wider community advertisement is necessary, because no fundamental change in policy is being considered, only a behavioral sanction for a single editor. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:19, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

That's cool, and I respect your opinion, but it should also probably be noted that this ANI thread is a spin-off of a "discussion" (really a careful warning being followed by "I don't care I'm not listening lalalalala") that took place on Andrew's talk page, which spun out of a discussion on VPP, where the proposal to amend policy to require a rationale was shot down specifically because, while Andrew's deprodding is disruptive, it needs to be dealt with by means of individual sanctions, not changes to policy; and AN/ANI is the place to discuss individual sanctions. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:13, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose per everyone above but mainly per TRM - I 110% disagree with Andrews deprods especially when there's no reason provided ... however (and no disrespect to Andrew) but it's not hard to make a bullshit reason to deprod .... which if he started doing he's still going to end up back here, I oppose any sort of block, topic ban or sanction. –Davey2010^Talk 00:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man and Davey2010: Yeah, but if Andrew was forced to provide a terrible argument up-front, that would make opening the AFD a lot easier, as noms would not need to consider whether Andrew might have a decent rationale (he sometimes does -- I personally have no problem with this edit). Yeah, they could ask him, and when the answer is "I don't care" they can reasonably assume he doesn't have one and fire ahead with the AFD anyway, but it would be better if he was subject to an individual restriction requiring him to be more open about his lack of a good reason, no? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:13, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

No, it doesn't work that way. And as I've already said, this is just transferring the drama to a time when Andrew either forgets or provides something which a trigger-happy lame admin considers block-worthy. None of this is useful, and as many have said before and since, this isn't exactly one of Wikipedia's big issues. The effort wasted here now by far exceeds that which was required to deal with the last year's worth of AFDs that have come out of the de-prods. And given the fervour to see Andrew punished, this is just the beginning. Tragic misdirection of effort. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:43, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

this isn't exactly one of Wikipedia's big issues Andrew's disruption was basically the only reason Korean influence on Japanese culture survived AFD; the shitstorm that occurred in the fallout therefrom played a key part in (CurtisNaito's ridiculous harassment of me at) the Hijiri88/Catflap08 ArbCom case. An editor "in good standing" who is going around taking every opportunity he can to undermine one of our project's core processes (and all of our core policies while he's at it) is definitely more of a cause for concern that most of the stuff that gets brought up on this page. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:08, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm afraid what you're describing is the classic "drop in the ocean". Wikipedia has more than six million articles. One or two disagreements over a handful of arguments per year is to be expected. If you think Andrew himself is deliberately disrupting Wikipedia then you should be seeking a permanent ban, not some kind of half-arsed ill-thought-out semi-solution which is ineffectual and will result in simply more drama. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose Andrew can be a pain, but are we really having this discussion over 36 deprods? I'm a lot more worried about material that gets deleted via the PROD process without anyone really having done a decent BEFORE check. That material is almost always gone at that point. A bad deprod just results in an AfD. Now, if those numbers went up, I'd have a very different opinion. But it does look like a fair percent of his deprods end up making it through AfD. As long as that's at least 15% (and if I understand, he's well above that) I'd say he's doing us a service. Hobit (talk) 00:31, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

@Hobit: The 36 deprods is the tip of the iceberg. It's his disruptive comments at AFD that are the real problem. However, while dealing with the AFD comments probably also needs to be done, it's particularly problematic when we grant a user with such a low opinion of our content policies (and such a poor ability to cite them correctly when required to) the authority to unilaterally shut down a valid deletion process without even citing a policy. It's incremental: recently (since this AN discussion?) he appears to (forgive me if I'm wrong?) have shifted (relatively speaking) away from direct AFD participation, in favour of deprodding; this allows him to keep a lot more of his terrible keep arguments (see the Dark Lady AFD linked above) to himself, but he really shouldn't be allowed to do that given his record. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:13, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Can you clarify his record? Of the articles he's deprodded in the last X time period (month, 3 months, year, take your pick) how many of them weren't deleted at AfD? 20%? 40%? I don't think there is a way for me to tell as a non-admin, and I'm not clear we know based on the discussion above. Help? Hobit (talk) 04:15, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Me neither. My problem is more with his comments at AFD: they are often ridiculously out of line with policy. If he were required to provide a rationale for deprodding, then he could be cut off at the pass with an AFD nom that points out how ridiculous his rationale was. There's a serious problem with articles he defends not getting deleted at AFD when they should be: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Korean influence on Japanese culture is perhaps the worst single case where, had he not shown up and made a bogus argument that looked educated to anyone who didn't read it carefully enough, the two or three others who !voted keep "per Andrew" may not have done so (yes, ideally they should have actually read his comments carefully enough to realize they were gibberish, but that doesn't make his original posting of gibberish any less disruptive). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:53, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

My last comment to you, Hijiri88, on this thread, as I don't want to be perceived as badgering you, but if you consider the closure of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Korean influence on Japanese culture as "no consensus" to be incorrect - and here I can see your point, I would have closed it as delete - then we have a process to deal with this, which you could have started in much less time and using far fewer bytes then you've expended on complaining about the aforementioned AFD. Fish+Karate 10:44, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose per my comments in the above section. ansh666 00:49, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose The community already decided that no comment is necessary when declining PRODs. That's the policy, like it or not. Drive-by PRODs should not expect much respect. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:59, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

  @Hawkeye7: Could you link to that discussion? I linked to a discussion where (a small portion of) the community decided that, but also decided that requiring individual editors whose deprods are disruptive to provide rationales up-front was valid. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:13, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 92#Require explanation before removing a PROD tag was the one I was thinking of (after Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion/Archive 13#Should a reason be required when removing a PROD tag?) But I'm sure the old hands can remember further back. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:32, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment only . I oppose this proposal, but thank Soft Lavender. We must remember that Davidson is an expert wikilawyer, and would inevitably find wiggle room. He has managed to do a Joe at the community for all this time, I see no reason to think that a behavioural sanction would work. At least TBAN please, though I see no groundswell of feeling supporting a block, and would withdraw that request if asked. -Roxy, in the middle. wooF 02:51, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support required a PROD-removal reason being longer than the PRODer's "reason for proposed deletion". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:21, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose Although a rational might be nice, removal of a PROD implies that the removing editor believes that the PROD is not uncontroversial. --I am One of Many (talk) 04:41, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

@I am One of Many: But what if it's only controversial because Andrew doesn't like article deletion and is working to undermine our deletion processes? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:53, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Please can you provide evidence of this undermining, as this would change my view on the matter. I assume there is evidence, or you would not be making such an accusation. Fish+Karate 10:24, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

@Fish and karate: At Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Foodflation he requested the discussion be speedy-closed because the OP completed the nomination in someone else's stead. At Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Korean influence on Japanese culture, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tanka prose and a bunch of Indian ones whose name escape me at the moment (...castes in Sikhism...? User:Sitush would remember) he feigned a degree of familiarity with highly technical academic fields and argued against editors who had actually read and understand the sources he claimed to have read, with the effect and apparent intent of confusing other outside !voters and closers. His argument at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of giant animals in fiction, despite him repeatedly doubling down on it in the face of correction by more knowledgeable editors, was gibberish. Here he defended a serial plagiarist who was casually questioning other users' (mine at the time, but there were others) sanity, based apparently on the perception of said user being on his "side" in the area of article deletion. Need I go on? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:19, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Please provide evidence, without which this is a violation WP:NPA. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:26, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

It's always been my understandgng that we are not required to provide the same evidence for the same claims multiple times in the same thread. The "Dark Lady", "Foodflation", "Korean influence" and "Tanka prose" AFDs should be evidence enough. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:19, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

It's always been my understanding that if we wish to invoke allegations about other people's motives, we need to get it passed by consensus based on evaluated evidence rather than just on our own personal deductions. Unproven whatiffery about another editor's motives has no part to play in discussions like this, and it merely reflects badly on the person using it. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:04, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose I'm a proposed deletion patroller and it may help to explain the details of what this means. When someone places a prod tag, typically using Twinkle, this places the article in question into the category All articles proposed for deletion. I review the contents of this category every day or two. It usually contains about 1-200 articles. It would be quite time-consuming to look at each of them so I scan the article titles, looking for topics which I recognise or which look promising. I then drill down on those, checking out the content, history, sources and so forth. If the topic seems to have merit then I remove the proposed deletion tag and update the talk page with relevant templates such as {{Friendly search suggestions}} and {{Old prod full}}. My edit summaries are usually brief and focus on what has been done in the edits. I don't get into the reasons for removing the prod because there isn't space and, per WP:REVTALK, we should "Avoid using edit summaries to carry on debates or negotiation over the content ... This creates an atmosphere where the only way to carry on discussion is to revert other editors!". If there's some discussion on the talk page then I might add to it – see Jazz in Africa for a recent example. Note that, in that case, the nominator has replaced the prod template even though the template states emphatically that this should not be done, "If this template is removed, do not replace it." This seems to be the main problem with the prod process -- Twinkle makes it easy for inexperienced editors to place the template without reading it or understanding it. They don't tend to follow the process described at WP:BEFORE because Twinkle doesn't encourage or support this. Twinkle also doesn't provide any support for removal of the prod tag or any of the suggested steps, which all have to be done manually. If people want a better process and outcome, then the tools like Twinkle should be enhanced to facilitate best practice. Until then, I can try doing more to address the concerns above but should be free to explore options without an onerous sanction tying my hands. Per WP:NOTREQUIRED, we should "Focus on improving the encyclopedia itself, rather than demanding more from other Wikipedians." Andrew D. (talk) 09:32, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Neither Andrew Davidson nor Colonel Warden is listed as a member of that project, and indeed hardly anyone has listed themselves in close to a decade, so claiming to be a member of a practically-defunct WikiProject as a defense against sanctions is ... questionable. Additionally, in virtually all of the deprods I've seen you do, the article contains almost no "content" or "history", and no "sources", so it seems like the "and so forth" accounts for virtually your entire process when it comes to deciding whether to deprod; could you elaborate on what it entails? Anyway, you definitely were not "focused on improving the encyclopedia itself" when you left that garbage [[water roux" article in the mainspace for someone else to clean up or delete, and when I asked for an explanation of why you had created more work for me you ignored the question. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:49, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Where did he say he was a member of the project? He said he was a proposed deletion patroller, this is someone who patrols proposed deletions, which clearly he is. Fish+Karate 10:24, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

(ec) I have had the relevant userbox for many years: {{User wikipedia/PROD Patrol}}. This puts its users into the category WikiProject proposed deletion patrollers. The project page should be updated to use the category rather than having a separate list but I suppose that, like many project pages, it has been neglected. Perhaps the project should be revived to review how it's doing and get the patrollers to compare notes. Other people have been doing similar work for projects like the new page patrol but it seems that it's quite a chore to keep these things going. Andrew D. (talk) 10:32, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

(ec×3) I'm afraid that Hijiri88 is now getting a little too badgery for this discussion. Time to let it go, this will close with no action of any kind, and life will go on. I suggest similar tomes of effort are driven towards articles and main page quality instead of this trivia. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:36, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. I don't see how the water roux article can be used against Andrew Davidson in a discussion about prod/deprod. Any article that describes a process such that the dough bakes with a soft, fluffy texture and the bread then keeps for longer is of top most importance in writing an encyclopedia. Even the self anointed Encyclopedists aren't living from eating dust fallen of the stars, but from eating terrestrial foods.

(by the way) Perhaps this article, in its present form, is not as best as possible. "Longer" should be qualified by "how longer", and "added to a mix" should be qualified in order to become reproducible. Don't they say: the proof of the recipe is in the eating. But this is a content's dispute, not the remit of this Incidents noticeboard.

(back to the discussed topic). The "Proposed Deletion Process" is not about atrocious articles, but about atrocious topics (whatever meaning is given to this "atrocious" qualifier). Moreover, "providing a reason for deprod" will not solve anything. How long will be a discussion to decide if "Even encyclopedists are eating, aren't they" is a sufficient rationale ? Pldx1 (talk) 12:15, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose He's not violating policy by removing prods. Period. There's no reason to place unwarranted sanctions just because a few people find his prod removals annoying. Either lobby for polcy changes or AfD the articles. It takes literally 3 seconds to click the xfd button. Jtrainor (talk) 18:40, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Need more eyes at Rent regulation – the topic involving a big money political battle

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The silly season of political fights is upon us, and the article about rent regulation is under fire. California is voting to determine whether local municipalities can enact their own flavor of rent control laws, or whether the whole state must follow the same guideline. A ton of real estate money has been spent to fight something called Proposition 10 which aims to return local control to cities and counties.

• "Big money pours into California’s rent-control initiative"
• "Big money already entering California rent control campaign"

Editor Avatar317 has expanded several articles to bring in text about the housing shortage in California, including California housing shortage, Plan Bay Area, San Francisco tech bus protests, San Francisco Bay Area Renters' Federation, YIMBY, Homelessness in the San Francisco Bay Area and rent regulation. All of the edits are non-neutral, bringing sources and text that promote the anti-regulation position of real estate developers. At no time does Avatar317 describe neutrally the reasons that municipalities and/or voters have historically chosen to limit rents, nor why some city planners have advocated rent control, or why it might be beneficial for a city to limit growth. It appears to me that Avatar317 is here to push a political agenda which is pro-development and anti-regulation. Binksternet (talk) 09:17, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

That's a rather biased description, don't you think? You are assuming that rent control is beneficial. Rent_regulation#Economists'_views shows several high-quality sources that don't agree with you. And the claim that municipalities and/or voters have historically chosen to limit rents is demonstrably untrue. Historically rent control measures have gone both ways - some places adopting them, some rejecting or repealing them. The latest polls in California show that 41 percent of Californians support the rent control ballot measure, 38 percent oppose it, and 21 percent remain undecided, so it could go either way. And the fact that corporations spend big money opposing laws that will hurt them financially tells us nothing about whether the laws are good or bad; they oppose what hurts them either way.

Of course none of the above implies that either Avatar317 or Binksternet are violating NPOV in this area. For ANI to determine that, someone will have to post actual evidence in the form of diffs. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:39, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

This really seems like a simple content dispute. This editor might be pushing an anti-regulation point of view, but that POV is supported by the vast majority of economists [2] and in California by the independent Legislative Analyst's Office [3]. Pushing a particular point of view is fine when expanding that point of view's presentation in the article is supported by its weight as presented in reliable sources.

Additionally, article history shows that this editor has never once edited Plan Bay Area, and last edited San Francisco tech bus protests in June, and Homelessness in the San Francisco Bay Area and San Francisco Bay Area Renters' Federation in July. Your accusations of POV-pushing in those articles either impossible (how can an editor POV-push in an article they've never edited?) or clearly stale. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 14:47, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah the Plan Bay Area accusation is really weird. Are you thinking of another editor or another article? The only thing they seem to have done at all related is create the redirect Plan Bay Area 2040 [4] but they obviously aren't the one who added the 2040 mention in the article itself [5]. (And in any case, the official websites seem to use the 2040 name so a redirect seems fair.) I do hope you didn't just find a bunch of articles in their edit history and not actually at what they actually did to those articles. Nil Einne (talk) 17:34, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

User: Julian mrz1999

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Julian mrz1999 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User has been consistently removing my comments on American Horror Story: Apocalypse talk page. Removal has happened approximately 3 times and only of my comments. I have restored but each time except for the most recent have they been removed.

Diffs of comment removal:

• [6]
• [7]
• [8]

I have warned the editor three separate times using the multi-level template of Editing, correcting, or deleting others' talk page comments. Each time these have been removed by the editor from their talk page and replaced with a response, so one can safely assume the editor has seen these warnings. Most recently, the editor has responded with what could be interpreted as an ad hominem and/or personal attack (diff 6).

Diffs of warnings and editors responses:

• [9]
• [10]
• [11]

Because of the editor's behaviour this may continue to happen in future, possibly to other editors other than myself.

Brocicle (talk) 10:12, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

This will actually not happen in the future at all. You see, i'm a college freshman who just wanted to correct a mistake on the AHS Apocalypse. This user here has been continually harassing me and bothering me for the past couple of weeks. He is beginning to annoy me and i just want him to leave me alone. I know i am never going to do this to other editors. Just please tell this editor in particular to please leave me the hell alone. Sheesh. Julian mrz1999 (talk) 5:17, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Please show me where I have allegedly been harassing you. Brocicle (talk) 10:22, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: This editor is clearly WP:NOTHERE. He has been nothing but deliberately disruptive, despite warnings, and look at his talkpage: [12]. Time for an indef. Softlavender (talk) 10:24, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

User blocked for not being here to work on the encyclopedia. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:24, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

You know, I wish people would be clearer in these kinds of comments. "This editor is clearly NOTHERE ... User blocked" ... Which editor is NOTHERE? Which user was blocked? Use their names, please. EEng 16:05, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Julian mrz1999 was blocked. RickinBaltimore (talk) 17:13, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Mine was a general plea for all threads in the future, and especially closes. EEng 19:05, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• @RickinBaltimore: Wait up, please. Unless I'm going gaga, there's been some biting going on here. Julian mrz1999, with his first edit, proposed a change to the plot section, with references, even. Brocicle objected to the length of the suggested addition, so Julian mrz1999 proposed something much shorter, modifying his own post - but also removed Brocicle's post objecting to the original proposal. Brocicle restored his objection; Julian pointed out he had changed his proposal. Brocicle makes a further comment objecting to Julian's removal of his first comment. The proposal was accepted and meanwhile Julian removes Brocicle's second comment. I haven't looked at when the templating started, and Julian obviously shouldn't have kept removing Brocicle's comments, but nobody welcomed him and Brocicle was being unduly truculent about what may well have started out as a misunderstanding about talk page etiquette. I'd have been a bit miffed myself had I been teh new editor, and his first few edits do demonstrate a desire to contribute to the encyclopedia—and responsiveness to an interruption. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:35, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

At the same time, they continued to remove comments on the talk page, after being told not to, and the responses were rather extreme to say the least. As with any block I give, I'm willing to unblock if they are willing to not do the edits that led to the block in the first place. I of course understand biting the new comers, but responses like on the talk page don't show me a willingness to work with others well. RickinBaltimore (talk) 17:47, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@Yngvadottir: In the first template warning, the welcome page was linked twice along with suggestion of looking at it, along with links to talk page guidelines. While it may not have been a specific welcome template, the links were there. It was up to the editor whether or not to read it, which I can safely assume they did not. May be the block can be reduced, that's not my decision, but if that is their response to warnings which are intended to help editors avoid further mishap then I have to agree with RickinBaltimore with their comment regarding not wanting to work well with others. Brocicle (talk) 19:51, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Yingvy, I submit that not removing other people's posts on an article's talkpage is a pretty basic concept for any internet participation, especially when notified about it three different times. I also suggest you take a look at what sits atop the user's own talkpage:

I don't give a fuck

dude get a life leave me alone

Okay asshole i don't even fucking care. All i wanted was to fix someone's obvious mistake on here. Go find a hobby or something since you're so obsessed with being the wiki police. I mean seriously, do you even fucking take your eyes off this screen? You're such a weirdo.

Leave me the fuck alone you psycho

Does that sound like a good-faith editor who is here to build an encyclopedia? Softlavender (talk) 03:15, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

User:Jan Arkesteijn and the misleading use of false colour versions of old paintings on Wikipedia transcluded from Commons

Jan Arkesteijn (talk · contribs)

I believe sanctions or a topic ban on this project are worth considering for the long term pattern of misleading edits by Jan Arkesteijn on Wikipedia, and in a slightly more complex way via Wikidata as infoboxes and reports may automatically transclude the (P18) image linked on Wikidata relating to the article subject.

The pattern of misleading use of images is under discussion at Commons:ANU, where anyone is free to add an opinion or provide further evidence.

As an example please refer to the multiple cases on the Commons Admin noticeboard, and the specific deletion request at Deletion_requests/File:Richard_Wilson_(1714-1782),_by_Anton_Raphael_Mengs.jpg where this diff shows Jan Arkesteijn replacing an official correct colour image of a painting from the National Museum of Wales with a false colour version on the article Richard Wilson (painter). Further research will show other examples of replacing museum quality images with misleadingly false colour versions, such as on Erasmus Darwin (replacing an official National Portrait Gallery image), these have not been researched for the discussion on Wikimedia Commons as that project's policies do not cover these types of rare inter-project disruption.

Thanks --Fæ (talk) 18:14, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Support. This user's esthetic disruption is extraordinary. See also [13]. Jürgen Eissink (talk) 15:53, 8 November 2018 (UTC).

Nemo bis

• Nemo bis (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Nemo bis is a vocal proponent of Sci-Hub, the academic paper piracy site, see Sci-Hub (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Sci-Hub has a long-running legal wrangle with Elsevier, caused by Sci-Hub's use of university credentials to which it has no legal right, to access, store, and serve, Elsevier's copyright material in open defiance of copyright. Sci-Hub's operator, and many fans, repudiate the right of publishers to hold exclusive rights to academic papers. While this position is undoubtedly morally defensible (and I agree with it), it is the opposite of the current laws across most of the world.

Nemo bis has now stared adding "free to read" links to large numbers of articles, linking to zenodo.org: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com . This site allows anyone to upload papers without checking copyright status. Some of the papers are copyright by Elsevier, Nature and other well known litigious publishers. Another, by OUP, Nemo bis asserts on his talk page to be public domain based on his own reading of (current) US government copyright policy.

I think this violates WP:POINT and WP:RGW. I have blacklisted the site per WP:C while we work out what the copyright status really is for these works. Guy (Help!) 18:45, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

I noticed this taking over my watchlist. It's also a problem of making 2000 revisions faster than a human could. Natureium (talk) 18:48, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

The links were checked and directed manually one by one. Also, I don't agree with the statement above that I'm a "vocal proponent of Sci-Hub". --Nemo 18:55, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Note this came up just over a year ago[14]. This appears to be a continuation/amplification of the problem identified then. Alexbrn (talk) 18:56, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
• yep I asked that Zenodo be removed from OABOT's suggestion lists at WT:OABOT#Zenodo which they argued against. I have reverted many of their zenodo (and other links) over the past few days Jytdog (talk) 22:01, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
  • I've also taken the initiative and ensured that Citation bot stops adding links to Zenodo, with User talk:Citation bot/Archive_12#Emergency blacklist and https://github.com/ms609/citation-bot/pull/1029 (t) Josve05a (c) 22:56, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

@Josve05a: thank you, and apologies for the inevitable inconvenience this is likely to cause you. Guy (Help!) 00:04, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• I don't understand why questionable open access links are being added [15] when the existing DOI will probably lead to this [16] which seems to already be open access. Is there something I'm missing? I'm not accessing from an institution or other subscriber or via any such proxy, just an ordinary NZ ISP connection. I even tried private mode to make sure there wasn't some stray cookie, or a referrer causing it. If the PDF is desired it's here [17]. If it's feared the DOI's target will change or will be different, wouldn't it be better to link to the Nature site directly in the URL field? P.S. Since Nemo checked each addition, I'm assuming they checked what the DOI did before adding. Nil Einne (talk) 22:20, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
  • I got the above by randomly clicking one of Nemo's recent contribs since there's been no examples of the what people were talking about in the earlier comments (well not counting the previous ANI). To see if this was a fluke, I looked at the other 5 most recent contribs. Without commenting on the copyright issues, the first 3 and last one at least seem to serve a purpose in that none of the links (either the DOI or link outs in PubMed) seems to lead to open access versions [18] [19] [20] [21]. But the fourth (fifth if you include the earlier case) [22] is another one where the existing DOI seems to lead to a full text link [23]. The PDF is also available [24]. So this is 2 out of 6. Again I'm using an ordinary NZ home ISP connection and tried in private mode. Have journals started to use region based pay walls and provide open access to only certain areas or is there something else I'm missing about the advantage of Zenodo over the journal site? Otherwise, considering the questions over whether they have sufficient systems in place to stop copyvios, I really don't see a benefit to adding these Zenodo hosted open access links when the journal hosted copy is already open access. If it's feared that the open access links may disappear wouldn't using archive.org or webcitation (if robots.txt allow) be a better solution? Nil Einne (talk) 22:48, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
    • I see Wikipedia:OABOT#I am a publisher. How do I make sure OAbot recognizes my full texts? and Wikipedia:OABOT#What kinds of links won't the bot add? that there is already recognition that OABot should try and recognise existing full text publication links and not add other open access links if there's already one. While it's possible the publishers in these cases haven't properly complied with normal guidelines for making full text, which is unfortunate, since Nemo manually checked all their additions this isn't a problem since if the full text worked for them they would I presume have recognised it. (I mean it's pretty hard for a human not to notice it's full text especially since you don't have to click on anything in these cases.) So I really don't understand what happened here. I tried with a proxy, unfortunately my proxy doesn't offer Italy but both Ireland and Spain also gave the working full text version from the DOI. Has Nemo somehow been blocked from the full text or is Italy or wherever Nemo is accessing from not allowed the full text? Nil Einne (talk) 23:24, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

That "manual check" does not appear to satisfy any of our normal criteria for checking rights. Try uploading an image with a rationale like that, see how far you get. Guy (Help!) 00:02, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I think that when we link to academic papers in journals, WP:ELNEVER demands that we should only link to sites that trace the provenance of each paper and for which that provenance can be unambiguously traced back to an author (e.g. arXiv, many institutional repositories, or direct links to the author's own web site) or to official published versions of the paper (on the publisher site or sites with the explicit permission of the publisher such as jstor). Zenodo doesn't appear to maintain this provenance data, so we should not allow links to it. Blacklisting links to it may be a somewhat drastic step, but given the magnitude of the problem (huge number of links, many of which appear to be either copyright violations or self-published materials) it may be necessary. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:51, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• @JzG: Where does WP:C justify blacklisting a site "while we work out what the copyright status really is"? SmartSE (talk) 13:33, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The alternative was to block Nemo bis, but if these are copyright violating external links (as every one I have checked has been) then blacklisting serves a well established protective purpose preventing good faith users from accidentally invoking potential liability. We've done the same before. Guy (Help!) 15:46, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

For example, sci-hub is globally blacklisted. DMacks (talk) 16:07, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• If anybody doubts that Nemo bis a) doesn't understand WP:COPYLINK and b) has no interest whatsoever in understanding this policy, please see the series of discussions at their talk page which includes things like the following:
  • concerning this edit, which added a link to the final published version of this paper published in Science Signalling which per SHERPA/ROMEO does not allow the final published version to be archived.,... (Not ambiguous, not hard to figure out).... they wrote:
    • diff What reasons do you have to think that <zenodo link redacted> is a copyright violation? The author can have a contract addendum with the publisher, a specific license or other statutory rights.
    • diff Could you clarify what parts of the policies you believe to state that the non-copyvio status of the link targets needs to be verifiable? The very section you linked says something very different.
  • more generally:
    • diff I'm not hosting nor uploading or otherwise providing that copy. The responsible way to proceed, when one has a doubt, is to contact the author so that they can check their contracts and if necessary revise their archived copies. I happen to have already done so for the author of <zenodo link redacted>, but you can easily be helpful in reducing copyright violations even if you are less familiar than me with publisher policies: just point authors to the respective records on https://dissem.in/ . (totally outrageous)
    • diff I assume you just wanted to inform me of the existence of Template:Uw-copyright-link, because the text doesn't apply to any edit of mine. I'm definitely not «Knowingly directing others to a site that violates copyright».
    • diff I'm sympathetic to your concerns, but I'm afraid this is an inaccurate description of the matter (argh)
    • diff There is no reason whatsoever to blindly assume that CERN or the author of the article would be violating copyright. Civil systems exist for rightsholders to have their rights respected, and I don't think your second-guessing here is one of them. Are you sure you're not getting emotional due to personal connections to Blackwell? You may want to sleep over it
  • over at WT:OABOT they wrote this complete nonnsense:
    • diff How do you know the author did not gain authorisation for that upload?. In response to this very good answer from User:David Eppstein, they wrote
    • diff: By this reasoning, we should not use any institutional repository. Your reading of the policy is therefore clearly wrong.

It is very, very clear that to Nemo Bis, if a paper is in a repository we should assume it is there in compliance with the publisher's license agreement. This is exactly the wrong answer per WP:COPYLINK and also ignores question #4 that OABOT asks when it presents a link, namely: Is the new link likely copyright-compliant? nemo bis' answer is "I will assume 'yes'" -- the question appropriately asks for the user him or herself to make the determination before the editor takes responsibility for adding the link to WP. Since Nemo bis will not take responsibility and keeps adding links that violate WP:COPYLINK, we should TBAN them from adding links. Jytdog (talk) 19:16, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

TBAN or indef

In light of Nemo bis' disdain for WP:COPYLINK which is policy this person should be a) TBANed from adding any URLs to citations or b) indefinitely blocked. It is one thing to advocate for OA and another to push policy violations into WP. Jytdog (talk) 22:01, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support TBAN. Since this was first raised here last year the problem edits have continued, culminating in this latest batch of thousands of URL insertions, a significant number of which appear problematic. The user seems completely oblivious to the harm of these (and indeed seems to think themselves judge and jury[25] in matters of copyright), but in other areas their editing looks productive. Alexbrn (talk) 08:24, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support TBAN as chronically willingunwilling to accept that current copyright law is what it is. The discussion Alexbrn linked is really troubling. In it, Nemo_bis appears to assert that a publisher is not allowed to declare restrictive copyright/licensing on their publications. DMacks (talk) 13:39, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Yikes, fixed a fairly critical wrong word in my comment. DMacks (talk) 16:04, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support TBAN whether he is intentionally violating WP:COPYLINK or inserting these links due to carelessness, it is problematic on a large scale and he refuses to acknowledge this. Natureium (talk) 16:07, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment any URLs to citations seems a bit over the top. As zenodo.org is already blacklisted they can't continue to add links to that, so I can't see what purpose a TBAN would serve, unless I am mistaken and there are numerous other sites they have been linking to? SmartSE (talk) 19:08, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes they seem to add whatever link OABOT suggests; they take no responsibility for making reasonably sure that the linked paper is OK to link-to. See diffs above on their approach. Jytdog (talk) 19:17, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

@Jytdog: Thanks for the links. I agree they do show a worrying disregard for copyright and for listening to the concerns of other editors so also support TBAN although I still think that they should be able to add normal citations to articles, otherwise this is just de-facto blocking them from adding any sourced content. SmartSE (talk) 20:19, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I thought about a narrow TBAN on using OABOT but there is nothing then to stop them from just manually doing it. There are parameters like pmid and pmc that they can use instead.... Jytdog (talk) 20:32, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support TBAN. Nemo bis does not appear to respect Wikipedia's requirements for respecting publisher copyright (whatever we may think of the moral value of publishers acting in this way) and protecting the encyclopedia from legal liability takes priority over assisting readers in searching for pirated copies of references. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:33, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support TBAN - Such a sanction appears to be necessitated by the editor's actions. Next step should be an indef block. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:47, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Disruptive editing from User:Vestapol

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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We have had a problem this last week with a number of disruptive edits from User:Vestapol. He keeps on bringing back content that has been reverted by multiple editors. I have attempted to open dialog with him on the talk page, which he has completely ignored, as well as leaving three warnings on his talk page, which he has also completely ignored.

At this point, after being told by another editor to attempt to have a dialog about his edits, and him completely ignoring any request for dialog, I think we are going to have to resort to temporarily blocking them from editing. Defendingaa (talk) 02:12, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the edits made to Alcoholics Anonymous by Vestapol have issues, and I also agree with the edit summaries left by other users when they reverted previous edits. I noticed some edits by Vestapol while patrolling recent changes, and I also felt that they injected commentary and opinionated thoughts as well as ideas and words that were absolutely not in compliance with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, and added information that appeared to me to be based off of original research. I'm going to apply temporary extended confirmed protection to the article so that the user will discuss the matter on the article's talk page as they've been repeatedly asked to do. This will hopefully resolve the issue as well as be helpful to the user and give them an opportunity to receive feedback and learn about some policies and guidelines they may not have been aware of. :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 02:43, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Some of his contributions are positive and I hope this new user can become a productive editor. Defendingaa (talk) 02:49, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

You're welcome. I hope so too. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:25, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Mervyn Emrys/sandbox

Can an administrator please look at this deletion discussion and at the sandbox in question, User:Mervyn Emrys/sandbox? The sandbox is a hodge-podge, consisting largely of notes, which are appropriate in a sandbox, and apparently of soapboxing about what may be a plan by User:Mervyn Emrys to name, blame, and shame those who are causing climate change, “Proposal for a Project on a New Doomsday Book for Global Climate Change” or may just be grandiose chatter. User:Guy Macon has proposed to delete it as inappropriate soapboxing, and has already deleted it from User talk:Jimbo Wales and User talk:Larry Sanger. (Knowing that Jimbo Wales intends his talk page to be a free-for-all zone, I think that Guy Macon was out of line in deleting it from Jimbo’s talk page.) User:Mervyn Emrys has requested, in the MFD, that the deletion discussion be put on hold for a case at WP:ANI, but deletion discussions are not put on hold due to ANI filings, and besides, as Guy Macon notes, he hasn’t actually filed at ANI. So I am filing, to say that some administrative attention is clearly needed.

Robert McClenon (talk) 05:02, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Per WP:SOAPBOX: "Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a battleground, or a vehicle for propaganda, advertising and showcasing. This applies to usernames, articles, categories, files, talk page discussions, templates, and user pages. Therefore, content hosted in Wikipedia is not for: [...] Opinion pieces. Although some topics, particularly those concerning current affairs and politics, may stir passions and tempt people to 'climb soapboxes', Wikipedia is not the medium for this." (emphasis added).

We live in a time when a member of team red sent bombs to a bunch of people on team blue, and a member of team blue tried to murder everyone from team red at a baseball game, and yet Mervyn Emrys proposes that we "compile the names of individuals and their employers who share responsibility for stimulating global climate change... Each named entry will include a brief paragraph describing the role of the individual in stimulating global climate change. This will include individuals managing major energy production industries, such as coal mining and oil production, and major energy utilization industries, such as low miles-per-gallon automobile manufacturers and electric utilities. Most of the information given will be based on the office held by the individual and the role of the employer in the industry." That is a clear case of soapboxing, and if we actually allowed such a list on Wikipedia would be a massive BLP violation.

(Full disclosure: I strongly agree with the current scientific consensus on climate change). --Guy Macon (talk) 05:18, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• The “Proposal for a Project on a New Doomsday Book for Global Climate Change” portion is a misuse of Wikipedia. We are not a webhost. It would be better suited for a private website. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 05:20, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
• I'm not sure exactly what admin action you guys want. What if I leave a talk page message that explains a few key policies? Will that resolve it? NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 09:11, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Looking at it I do not think they want anything, the user threatened to take this to ANI (used that as a reason to try and (in effect) shut down an AFD) and then did not launch the ANI. Thus I suspect they do not want any action beyond this being closed as NO action (and a warning to the ed to not try and use ANI to shut down AFD's).Slatersteven (talk) 14:16, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I didn't post this ANI report, but I personally would most definitely want to see a talk page message that explains a few key policies. Besides the obvious (BLP and soapboxing), Mervyn Emrys has been very aggressively attacking me, usually with totally fabricated accusations (example: I reverted with an edit summary of "WP:SOAPBOXING" and no other comment, yet Mervyn Emrys insists that my edit summary contains the word "VANDAL" in red letters. He also claimed that my revert had accidentally removed an unrelated talk page comment by another user. This also never happened, and indeed could not happen unless the "undo" button is broken.) A warning about personal attacks and about posting accusations without evidence would be most helpful. At this point I would oppose any other sanctions. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:56, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I was hoping to resolve this without sanctions, but Mervyn Emrys keeps escalating the accusations and aggression, finding new places to post them. Clearly he is WP:NOTHERE and needs to be blocked.

Wikipedia being open to all, if you work on building the encyclopedia for any length of time, you have the possibility of attracting your own personal stalker who considers pretty much anything you do a personal affront, and who considers it their sacred duty to "expose" the person they fixate on. It's really quite pathetic, but for some reason they just can't quite seem to figure out why no one else sees their actions as heroic. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:04, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Requested Administrative Action

I did post this ANI thread. I was, most importantly, requesting that administrators take a look at the MFD, which has been done, and provide any warnings. I was requesting judgment calls as to who needed to be warned, User:Mervyn Emrys, User:Guy Macon, or both. My own opinion was that both editors were at fault, but that it was Mervyn who was completely out of line, and Guy had made a mistake (as most of us sometimes do), but I was deferring judgment. I thought that Guy had made a mistake in deleting a rant from two talk pages that were not his own, in particular from User:Jimbo Wales, whose censorship has been the subject of an ArbCom case. I thought that Mervyn, on the other hand, was, first, engaged in what seemed to be a massive soapbox campaign, along with personal attacks, and with a demonstrably false claim to have filed here, and that Mervyn was trying to squelch the MFD with talk of an ANI thread, when we know that an XFD and an ANI thread about an XFD run in parallel. I see that Mervyn has been given a warning that is consistent with what I thought was in order. That answers that; thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:08, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I am puzzled as to why you would think that I did something wrong. Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion is quite clear: "This applies to usernames, articles, categories, files, talk page discussions, templates, and user pages." If you think that "advocacy, propaganda, recruitment, opinion pieces, advertising, marketing or public relations" should be allowed to remain if it is posted to someone's talk page, you should work on getting that policy reworded so that someone like me is not accused of wrongdoing for making a good-faith effort to follow what the policy says. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:03, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Guy Macon – You ask why I think that you made a mistake (although, as I noted, a small mistake compared to that of User:Mervyn Emrys). I re-read talk page guidelines twice, and suggest that you re-read it once. Under “Editing Others’ Comments”, the guideline states: “Cautiously editing or removing another editor's comments is sometimes allowed, but normally you should stop if there is any objection.” You removed another editor’s comments, and I do not think that you exercised proper caution, and there has been objection. In particular, the guideline refers to Removing prohibited material and Removing harmful posts. The posts that you removed do not fall into any of the classes of prohibited material, so I assume that you thought that you were removing a harmful post. The post was not a personal attack, trolling, or vandalism. The rule then says:

Posts that may be considered disruptive in various ways are another borderline case and are usually best left as-is or archived. 

So, what you did was a borderline case, and I think that you made a judgment error, at least with regard to User talk:Jimbo Wales (a chronically controversial page, where a previous effort to remove prohibited material resulted in an ArbCom case). Two wrongs don’t make a right. Just because another editor is out of control doesn’t always require cleaning up after them. (I would say not to follow someone else’s dog onto someone else’s property to clean up the dog poop, but someone might object to that language.) I don’t think that the talk page guidelines need to be revised. I think that you (Guy Macon) did make a mistake, although Mervyn Emrys has made a far bigger mistake. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:10, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Actually, I requested the assistance of an editor per WP:Dispute Resolution, but no action has yet been taken in response to that request, other than perhaps some fact-finding. Apparently some folks are in a big hurry to come after me, for reasons of which I am unaware. What all you folks seem to be ignoring is the indisputable FACT that my original post was a personal message to two other editors requesting advice on a DRAFT proposal that was not yet ready for publication. It was NOT an article edit. And now that I have placed it in my personal sandbox so I can refine it, some of you are attempting to prevent me from doing even that by proposing to delete my sandbox.

There IS a difference between an article edit and a personal communication to another editor for purposes of obtaining advice on a DRAFT proposal. Can you tell the difference? A personal communication requesting advice, provided it is not advertising, is NOT "soapboxing," and one may wonder if communication between editors about ideas is now prohibited on Wikipedia? Jimbo Wales does not appear to think it is prohibited, because he explicitly invites messages be posted on his talk page, which is one of the places my DRAFT proposal was already deleted from. I wonder also if Jimbo is aware that personal messages are being deleted from his talk page without his being allowed to read them?

I think you folks all need to take a deep breath and step back a pace before you get yourselves in deeper than you already are, in terms of WP:Civility. You, and especially User:Guy Macon are missing the mark with all your unwarranted assumptions, suppositions, accusations, insults, and associated incivility. But you are building up an excellent case for WP:Harassment. If you view my communications on talk pages of two other editors as personal messages requesting advice, which they were intended to be, I think you must conclude that there really is no "soapboxing" there. There is nothing there but a request for advice. Or if you prefer, we can ask Jimbo what he thinks. Mervyn Emrys (talk) 06:47, 7 November 2018 (UTC)Mervyn Emrys (talk) 06:49, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Mervyn Emrys: the first issue here is that your draft proposal, as written, seems to be an attempt to "name and shame" evil-doers. This is incompatible with Wikipedia's purpose. If it matters, I think Guy Macon has been more aggressive than I would have been about removing all mention of it. But I think that's why you're facing so much pushback on this. One way to sidestep the whole issue of "this doesn't belong on Wikipedia"/"I'm just trying to discuss this with Jimbo!" is to email Jimbo directly. Then you won't have to deal with Guy Macon at all. Wouldn't that resolve your primary concern? You wouldn't be able to use Wikipedia to host your project, but there are other ways you can incorporate your ideas into valid encyclopedia articles. For example, Climate change denial, List of scientists who disagree with the scientific consensus on global warming, Individual and political action on climate change, etc. You just can't do this whole "name and shame" thing. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 08:33, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I disagree. The first issue here is that of another editor editing Jimbo Wales talk page by deleting my personal message to him there, as invited by Jimbo Wales, without discussion or offer of assistance, or even the courtesy of a question. Your proposal is that the lack of civility, insults on my talk page, being held up to ridicule, bullying, stalking me around Wikipedia, threats and intimidation by one over zealous editor all be ignored and I go elsewhere. Before I was driven off Wikipedia about ten years ago by an administrator who contacted me by uninvited email at my place of employment, Wikipedia policy was that uninvited offsite contacts were prohibited and constituted outing and harassment. Apparently that has changed, unbeknownst to me before I simply attempted to contact two other editors on their talk pages to discuss an idea. Mine was a proper use of a talk page, or else what are talk pages for? So your proposal would basically endorse the behavior of this editor and have me throw in the towel, allowing him to act badly with impunity? How will that improve Wikipedia? I think you need to dream up a more appropriate solution, and you are certainly welcome to try. Meanwhile, please take another look at the trash Guy Macom has posted on my talk page and explain to me why this should be tolerated.

Let's review the facts:When User:Guy Macon discovered my message about a New Doomsday Book, did he assume good faith? No. Quite the contrary, he assumed bad intentions, summarily deleted my message, and aggressively posted insulting reasons for doing so.

Did User:Guy Macon ask if contributions to the New Doomsday Book would be required to abide by WP:BLP or WP:NPOV policies? No. I have assumed edits would have to be consistent with WP:BLP and WP:NPOV ever since I started thinking about this about ten years ago.

Did User:Guy Macon ask me any questions concerning the nature of my message or the proposal? No. He deleted my message without asking me any questions about it.

Did User:Guy Macon make any suggestions that might make the proposal more palatable or acceptable under WP policies? No. He deleted the message without any attempt at communication or discussion with me.

When I found that my message had been deleted, did I assume good faith? Yes. My reason for reverting the deletion suggested someone might have deleted my message along with another one by mistake, “deleting more than was intended.”

When severely provoked by User:Guy Macon such that I made an inappropriate remark to him in frustration, did I return a short time later and redact those comments “with apologies?” Yes, I did.

Has User:Guy Macon made any apologies for the insults and ridicule he has repeatedly placed on my talk page, in apparent violation of several Wikipedia policies? No. He has not, but keeps adding insult to injury by sneaking into my sandbox, starting proceedings against me for acronyms I don't understand, and stalking me all over Wikipedia, leaving disparaging remarks every place I post a message.

Isn't this a bit much to expect one to ignore? Guy Macon should be sanctioned with a block, not me. Mervyn Emrys (talk) 16:35, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

You have been invited to file an ANI case against me several times. I personally doubt that I will be blocked or even warned for doing exactly what WP:SOAPBOXING says to do, but I could be wrong. Re: "acronyms I don't understand", have you tried clicking on them? The page you end up at when you click on WP:SOAPBOXING is very clearly written. (This of course ignores the fact that you seem to have no trouble accessing our policies when you think they are on your side). --Guy Macon (talk) 17:56, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

As stated above, I opted to request the assistance of an editor instead of filing an ANI case, as recommended at WP:Dispute Resolution. Why are you so eager to have me file an ANI case against you? Earlier you also baited me to file an Arb Com case? Why are you so eager to employ the most extreme option available instead of trying to work this out as recommended at WP:Dispute Resolution? Mervyn Emrys (talk) 18:52, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Let's indeed "look at the facts":

• The last time I looked your sandbox was well on its way to being deleted as a violation of a number of policies, with not a single comment in its favor - something you perhaps should take as a hint that your understanding of what's allowed to be posted on Wikipedia user pages isn't what you think;
• You're supposedly the holder of a PhD, and yet you seem not to know that "SOAPBOX" is not an "acronym" of any sort, it's an ordinary, everyday English word which is a shortcut, a quick, easily memorable link for getting to the page it's connected to;
• Despite being a PhD, you were unable to ascertain that to understand what a link is about, one simply has to click on the link and read what's there when you get there.
• Contacting an editor at their place of business was not a cool thing to do, and was an invasion of your privacy, but it never was "outing", because the information that admin had about you wasn't published anywhere on or off Wikipedia;
• You can stop kvetching about Guy Macon now - he's not going to be sanctioned for enforcing (perhaps a little over-zealously) our policies;
• If you don't stop kvetching about Guy Macon, and don't file an ANI complaint against him, you may well be in violation of WP:Casting aspersions.

So, in other words, you are in a hole, which you keep digging deeper. Perhaps you should stop doing that? Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:04, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I object to the snarky comments of the editor immediately above in reference to my having a PhD, which appear to be thinly veiled insults against my intelligence in gross violation of WP:Civility. I request you please retract that statement. My reference to acronyms was to "MfB" which I did attempt to click on as suggested by Guy Macon, and nothing happened. But then, you seem adept at taking things out of context. For example, I am incredulous that you folks continue to try and treat a personal message to another editor as if it was an article edit. It's almost as if you are unable to tell the difference between them. But if your cabal wishes to continue digging a deeper hole for yourselves, by all means go right ahead. Oh, and by the way Guy, that pesky "rollover VANDAL" message in red is back on your little indent diff on my talk page. Is it characterizing your edit as vandalism? I would never do such a thing.Mervyn Emrys (talk) 04:08, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

This is the sixth time that Mervyn Emrys has posted something that is not true. The phrase "MfB" is not found anywhere on this page, anywhere in the WP:MfD, or anywhere on his talk page. Once or twice I could explain away as an error, but six times is clearly trolling. (If I am wrong and posted a typo somewhere that I don't know about, make that five times -- still obvious trolling) --Guy Macon (talk) 05:19, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

"MfB" is not an "acronym", it's an abbreviation. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:11, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Mervyn Emrys response to the above was a classic demonstration of the Law of holes: User talk:Jimbo Wales#Your talk page is being edited. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:23, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Mervyn Emrys, in any case, it appears that your "sandbox" page can be deleted as a copyright violation, as it contains the text that it is "not intended for publication...by others." Wikipedia's CC-BY-SA license, which you must agree to license material under if you post it on Wikipedia, requires that "publication by others" be permitted. Could you please clarify what you mean by that? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:33, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I was not aware that placing text in my sandbox was the same as "publication," but have been under the impression for some years that a sandbox is more like a workshop where one places text one is trying to improve, provided,of course, that one is allowed an opportunity to do so. You folks do seem to come up with some interesting interpretations of policies. But perhaps privacy and improvement are values no longer embraced by Wikipedia? We shall see.Mervyn Emrys (talk) 04:17, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

The above comment (diff) had edit summary "reply to threat of legal action prohibited by WP policies". That raises serious issues because there is no threat of legal action, and the WP:COPYVIO policy is being severely misinterpreted. Johnuniq (talk) 04:45, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Mervyn Emrys, Directly above the "publish changes" button you clicked on your sandbox page was the following notice:

"By publishing changes, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license."

Please remove the "not intended for publication by others" language or the page will be subject to deletion as a clear violation of the terms of the CC BY-SA 3.0 License that you agreed to. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:02, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Never mind. It was deleted at WP:MfD. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:20, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Request block

Clearly Mervyn Emrys is not going to stop this behavior unless he is blocked.

Here is the latest:[26] Previous:[27][28][29]

The post to my talk page said: "I filed an ANI complaint against the arbitrary and uncivil behavior of Guy Macon yesterday". No. User:Mervyn Emrys has stated that they filed an ANI complaint. They made that statement both on my talk page and in the MFD discussion that was the original subject. However, they never filed a complaint here (at WP:ANI). I filed this complaint, after looking for their ANI complaint and verifying that none had been filed. Either they don't know the difference between referring to an ANI complaint and actually posting one, or they are making statements that are not true, either because they are confused or because they are trying to confuse us. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:04, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

[30][31][32][33][34][35]

Please advise whether it would be better for me to file this as a seperate ANI report. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:04, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

There has often been a principle to avoid multiple ANI filings that are closely related or to consolidate them. This report is primarily about the conduct of User:Mervyn Emrys. You, User:Guy Macon, had said above that you thought that a warning would be sufficient. Since the warning has not been sufficient, this thread is still about their conduct. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:35, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support a block of between 48 hours and one week for general disruptive editing. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:06, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
• @Mervyn Emrys: to avoid a block, I suggest you drop this whole "hall of shame" thing. It's not going to work out for you if you try to do this here. We have multiple policies that explicitly prohibit this. I'm also not sure why you're posting complaints about Guy Macon on random user talk pages. If you have a complaint about his behavior, it should be made here. You could argue that Guy Macon has treated you rudely, but what people are trying to tell you is that he is right. What you are trying to do does not belong on Wikipedia. With regard to email, I have no idea what went on years ago, when you say someone contacted you off-site and harassed you. However, using email to contact Jimbo is perfectly fine. Please see User:Jimbo Wales#Contacting me and Wikipedia:Emailing users. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 06:56, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose a block at this time. The offending user space page has been deleted and ME has posted a "semi-retired" banner on their talk page, so a block seems unnecessary. This can be revisited if the editor doesn't show signs of having gained some WP:CLUE. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:22, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: The user page in question hasn't been edited since 2014, so it would seem that like most "retired"/"semi-retired" statements this is not really a basis for not blocking. (At least it wasn't a deliberate attempt to filibuster this ANI thread like what I've seen from some users in the past.) I'm neutral on what should be done here, but I just figured I should point that out as you seemed to have missed it; not sure if knowing that the "semi-retirement" is not a new thing will change your opinion on the matter, mind you, since I can't fault you on the page having been deleted. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:27, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

• Weak oppose. I'll be honest in saying that, based on the basic misconceptions about Wikipedia's purpose and the necessity of neutrality--and the level of IDHT about same--I have significant doubts about the likelihood that Mervyn will adapt to ultimately become a productive editor who is truly WP:HERE in the way we'd need him to be. He does indeed seem to be here primarily to use the project as a platform for his own polemic projects, rather than to build an encyclopedia. That said, I don't see a pattern of established disruption sufficient to warrant a block at this time; skepticism put to the side, it's entirely possible that now that the MfD was unanimously supported and closed on a WP:SNOW rationale, he receives the message and will try a hand at more conventional editing, and I have not seen a compelling argument to not afford him that chance.

But Mervyn Emrys, you're definitely going to want to do some reading if you see yourself staying here to edit conventional arrticles, and I suggest starting with WP:WWIN, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:SYNTHESIS; Wikipedia editing requires that you prioritize objectivity in your approach to content, while the kind of polemics you have tried to pursue here thus far suggest you are embracing an editorial philosophy that is nearly the exact opposite of that. You're going to have to work fast to change the tone of your contributions if you want to volunteer your time here. Snow ^{let's rap} 12:20, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I am OK with waiting longer to see if he stops the behavior on his own if that's the consensus, but prefer a block. I have been around long enough that this sort of thing is only a mild annoyance to me. The downside of waiting is that we will be leaving a ticking time bomb that is likely to blast some other editor, and a disruptive user emboldened by getting away with it this time.

In order to make it more likely that he stops, as of now I will stop interacting with him outside of ANI (and Arbcom, if it comes to that, which I doubt). --Guy Macon (talk) 16:03, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Disruptive IP

• 82.13.82.129 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

Hi, could any admin block this IP? Single-purpose mission, adding unsubstantiated categories to articles, never bothers to respond to warnings on his talk page.[36] Every time he gets reverted, he just reinstates his edits. - LouisAragon (talk) 17:06, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

• OK but this one seems legit. Drmies (talk) 19:01, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I went through some of their recent edits and many do appear to be legit, although a few perhaps could use sources, and there were some edits that were rightfully reverted. I do have a question about this one: One of the categories the IP added seemd correct. Was Quli Qutb Mulk not actually an Indian of Iranian descent? The other categories and the article itself suggest that Quli Qutb Mulk is considered Indian and he is from Iran so this edit seems to be in good faith, at the very least. Runawayangel (talk) 03:50, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Drmies: Please allow me:

• IP in question added Category:Bahraini people of Iranian descent to Nabeel Rajab.[37] Unsourced, no mention of supposed Iranian origin/descent in the article.
• IP in question added place of death to Qutb al-Din Aibak.[38] Unsourced, no mention of supposed place of death in the article.
• IP in question added Category:Pakistani people of Iranian descent and Category:Pakistani Shia Muslims to Fateh Ali Khan (Qawwali singer).[39] Unsourced, no mention of supposed Iranian origin/descent or Shia adherence in the article. He reinstated his edit on no less than two occassions.[40]
• IP in question added Category:Pakistani people of Arab descent to Category:Abbasi family.[41] Unsourced, no mention of supposed Arab origin/descent in any of the articles within the category.
• IP in question added Category:Pakistani people of Arab descent to Category:Qureshi family.[42] Unsourced, no mention of supposed Arab origin/descent in any of the articles within the category.
• IP in question added Category:Turkic dynasties to Shah Mir dynasty.[43] Sources in the article clearly show that the origin of the dynasty is uncertain.
• IP in question added Category:Indian people of Iranian descent to Shah Jalal.[44] Unsourced, no mention of supposed Iranian origin/descent in the article.
• IP in question added Category:Pakistani Shia Muslims to Badar Miandad.[45] Unsourced, no mention of supposed adherence in the article. Reinstated the same edit a few days later.[46]

..And so forth.

Combine that (^^^^) with the fact that he 1) never bothers to respond to warnings[47] 2) never writes edit summaries 3) is willing to edit-war over his edits,[48]-[49] and you've got yourself a disruptive IP methinks. He has made a few good edits here and there, but his overal editorial pattern is very much WP:TENDENTIOUS I'm afraid (and time consuming as others have to clean up his mess). - LouisAragon (talk) 14:06, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

User continually recreating deleted pages

Fwaig This user continually recreates pages which were deleted through AfD. I have told them not to before here. They have recreated Street Profits, Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford so many times they were all WP:SALTed. Now to get around that they have created Street Profits (tag team), Angelo Dawkins (wrestler), and Montez Ford (wrestler). I request a block of this user to stop this disruptive editing, and under WP:GS/PW. Galatz גאליץ^{שיחה Talk} 17:09, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Galatz, you were supposed to notify Fwaig of this conversation. But you didn't so I placed a notice on their user talk pages for you. 209.152.44.201 (talk) 19:02, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

You are correct, I pinged them so I didnt, but I probably should have. They already saw it since they commented on my talk page about it. - Galatz גאליץ^{שיחה Talk} 19:25, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Occassionally, IPs are helpfull. ;-) 209.152.44.201 (talk) 20:39, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

I've applied a G4 speedy to all three pages. Legacypac (talk) 23:29, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

There were AFD tags at the top of the articles. — Moe Epsilon 00:56, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

That matters not. We routinely speedy tag with appropriate tags to save pointless discussions. Legacypac (talk) 04:37, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I've deleted them all as G4. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:06, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

The user Arboleh

This user @Arboleh: is harassing, attacking, threatening me and other users in his edit summaries as well as accusing me and other users of vandalism and racism when we are clearly not, please have a look on his edits summaries here [50], [51] [52] [53] [54]. He is just making fake propaganda in order to divert attention from his edits and confuse people.

Moreover, I and other users have reported this user Arboleh before for sock puppetry and now he is trying to attack me and do the same thing as the suspected sock Itaren which is another unmistakable behavioral evidence that he is sock of Midddayexpress, This Arboleh also had disruptively edited some Wikipedia pages, attacked me, editwarred me, reported me asking for administrator intervention and the he asked for help the same user whom the user Itaren asked for help shortly after Itaren asked him!!! which is an additional unmistakable evidence that both accounts are for the same person who is indeed Middayexpress. The Somali user Middayexpress ( has the Canadian Nationality ) is a very persistent sock puppeteer who has been using many fake accounts in order to promote his racist Afrocentric agenda and vandalize Wikipedia, this user is trying to whitewash Horn Africans and link them to Middle Easterners and North Africans while distancing Horn Africans from their other fellow East Africans brothers which is very racist. At the same time, He is trying to black-wash Middle Easterners and North Africans and linking them to horn Africans:), this guy got really no life, he has been using hundreds of sock puppet accounts in order to vandalize Wikipedia and promote his Afrocentric agenda, for example, he is trying to deattach modern Egyptians from their ancient Egyptians origins and link the Egyptian civilization to Sub Saharan Africans who have nothing at all to do with Egypt or Egyptians which is extremely racist and ridiculous!!!. I have already filed a sock puppeting report against him but It was reverted because some other user before filed a sock puppeting report against the same user and the result was inconclusive because he is using proxy. You can check his IP history and you will find that he uses only proxies and that he never logged in through a legit IP address which means that he is trying to hide something, also this account was created shortly after the block of confirmed sock puppets Middayexpress, Soupforone, Geneticanthro, ....etc and he has been making the same edits on the same pages with almost identical edit summaries. You can also check the behaviors of these accounts and Middayexpress/Soupforone, you will find that the behavioral evidence is very clear and unmistakable. Thank youRyanoo (talk) 04:53, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment)  Investigating.... That first edit summary isn't really at anyone in particular, and I wouldn't classify it as a personal attack. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 05:33, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) A few things for you, @Ryanoo:

1. It looks like you're staring at a boomerang here. You have failed to engage on a talk page with Arboleh, and may break 3RR in the near future.
2. You have failed to notify Arboleh about this discussion. This is evident as a notice both on this page and in the edit window. You can copy and paste this onto Arboleh's page: {{subst:ANI-notice|thread=The user Arboleh}}
3. Some of the edit summaries were on pages you've never even edited before. That could be possible WikiHounding.
4. I do agree however, that Arboleh could assume better faith.

This judgement can't replace admin action. You may want to wait for admin input here. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 05:45, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@User:TheDragonFire300 I didn't fail to engage on the talk page, in fact he is the one who obviously did, I have asked in my edit summary to engage in the talk page and I mentioned him on the talk page [55] in order to discuss the edits. However, he didn't engage in the talk page and reported me for vandalism and continued to attack me personally on other users pages reply!!! Ryanoo (talk) 05:49, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

That in no way excuses your failure to engage Arboleh on their talk page. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 07:47, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@User:TheDragonFire300 Regarding the first edit summary I will consider it as both personal and general attacking, he said he is cleaning biased and racist claims while they are clearly not and by this, he means that the users who did those edits are biased and racist while they are clearly not as their edits are clearly of good faith. Regarding the rest of the edit summaries, he clearly harassed, attacked, threatened me and other users as well as well as accused me and other users of vandalism and racism when we are clearly not.Ryanoo (talk) 06:00, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Wrong. WP:NPA does not cover attacks on content, only contributors. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 09:53, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@User:TheDragonFire300 I didn't know that I have to notify him and I didn't know also how that can be done. It is done now!Ryanoo (talk) 06:04, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I have already reported this user Ryanoo for Vandalisme to Admin @Doug Weller and Roxy and to the proper Vandalism channel. This user is also extremely racist and harbors white nationalist or white supremacist views. I will wait for the vandalism report, until then I have no need to engage this person, all his intentions and views can be seen in the North Africa page where he spews his racist rhetoric. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arboleh (talk • contribs) 06:20, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

*Support topic ban of Ryanoo from Africa topics This editor has a short but storied history about arguing pointless about Africa and even the "definition of Africa", and reporting anyone who disagrees as a vandal. This includes even hilariously suggesting that an editor tried to hack their account [56]. I am uninterested in watching this continue, and suggest a topic ban from Africa related topics as a last straw before blocking indef. --Tarage (talk) 06:23, 7 November 2018 (UTC) Striking my vote for my vote below. Both editors need to stop. --Tarage (talk) 22:04, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Tarage I don't what you are talking about?!!!, my edits are focused on my country Egypt and region ( Middle East and North Africa ) and defending our history from the Afrocentrists who are trying to steal and appropriate it. I have nothing to with Sub-Saharan Africans, apart defending my Egyptian heritage from being stolen and appropriated by the Afrocentic ones of them. Yes, I accused some user of hacking my account in my first days on Wikipedia because I was new to the community and didn't know much information at that time. However, this user whom I accused of hacking my account ( he didn't try to ) got blocked many times because of his bad attitude on Wikipedia, I have been also battling the Afrocentric sock puppeteers and will definitely continue doing this. Those Afro-centrists are 24/7 insulting us Egyptians everywhere and are doing their best to to dattach us from our ancient Egyptian origins and appropriate our heritage and culture and all our mistake is that we are Egyptians!!! which is very racist and offensive, Enough is Enough!!!!! I didn't think that I will encounter such racist people on a main source of knowledge like Wikipedia.Ryanoo (talk) 06:33, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

You started editing in January. This happened in May. You are not new. I've looked through your edit log. Anything of substance has been battleground edits on North Africa. You need to stop. --Tarage (talk) 06:35, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Tarage Yes, I started editing on January, However, I didn't start editing frequently and being little bit familiar until this June. Please read again what I wrote, I didn't say I am new, I said I was new, I was new to editing on Wikipedia until July this year, even now I am still not familiar with rules. Moreover, even the reason for suspecting this user for hacking my account at that time makes so much sense for a new user. At that time, I got two notifications from Wikipedia that there is someone trying to login to my account and I think you have seen that clearly in the report which you mentioned!. Stop What?!, Stop defending my history? leave my history and culture for the racist Afrocentric Black supremacists, If this what you mean, then my answer is "NO". Again in case you didn't read it, I am a patriotic Egyptian archaeogeneticist and academic lecturer and I have along track of strong fighting vandals here on Wikipedia and getting them blocked and admins can check my edit history, I will never ever stop fighting the nonsense of the racist Afrocentrists either here or anywhere else. By the way, what you said is totally irrelevant to the topic of the report.Ryanoo (talk) 06:55, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

You don't have a "track of strong fighting vandals", you have a lot of false reports. It is not at all irrelevant. By posting here, you have opened yourself up to as much scrutiny as the person you reported. I'm not going to continue arguing with you. The fact that you keep calling editors racist proves you do not belong here. You have a conflict of interest and are pushing a very specific POV. You need to either stop editing this topic, or be blocked. --Tarage (talk) 07:00, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Also stop editing comments after people have replied to them. I'm going to start reverting you. --Tarage (talk) 07:03, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Tarage Don't threaten me please, I am not a teenager, I am a respected 35 years old archaeogeneticist and academic lecturer. What are you talking about?!! False reports? Anyway the admins as well as other users are free to check my history. I am replying to you and I have the right to do so, we are all users here and I have the right to reply. Sorry, you are wrong here :), I am actually here for fighting the ones who have clear racist and destructive POV ( a.k.a Afrocentrists ), I am here to construct and I hate scientific dishonest people and I say it in their face and scientific honesty and self respect are my first priority. So, you aren't ok when I call racist people racist, but you are OK, when they call me racist, just for defending my history! By the way, I don't mind leaving Wikipedia at all :), if they don't want good scientific specialist users, I think registration on Wikipedia should be by using Identification card to avoid vandalism and sock puppeting which will save the community here a great deal of time wasted in fighting sock puppeting and vandalism and will also give more credibility. Ryanoo (talk) 07:16, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Ryanoo: On the internet, nobody can prove you're a respected archaeologist. Besides, we wouldn't be able to accept what you say due to Wikipedia's policy against original research, unless you get it published and it is accepted formally. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 07:36, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@TheDragonFire300: I can prove it easily and in fact I am very willing to do so, I can provide you with my passport and identification card or If you have an office or branch in my country or even in another country in the same region (MENA), I have no problem at all to happily visit it so they can make sure of my identity and in fact I very much support that registration on Wikipedia should be by using identification card or passport or whatever way which can prove the identity of the user which will save the community a great deal of time and will give more credibility. What do you mean by accepting what I say, If you mean my edits, well, I always cite published and accepted sources. Thank youRyanoo (talk) 07:47, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

If you can prove it, congratulations, but that is not a get out of jail free card. You still need to follow Wikipedia policy, if you're willing to listen to what Tarage and I say. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 07:49, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@TheDragonFire300: I already follow Wikipedia policy, could you tell me when I didn't?? Listen to what?? could you clarify it? what do you want me to do exactly?? the user Tarage accused me of somethings I never did, the only thing right he said is that I reported someone for hacking my account, and I said that at that time I was still new and wasn't familiar with Wikipedia rules and I did it because I got two notifications from Wikipedia regarding someone user trying to login to my account. I didn't try to define Africa or any of this nonsense. The problem was that another user was trying to add some Sub-Saharan African West African and East African countries to North Africa!!!, he was disruptively editing the page and was refusing to engage in the talk page, and after I refuted this user claims providing tons of sources on the talk page of North Africa he refused to continue the discussion on the talk page, he insulted, attacked me personally and threatened me as expected and at the end he refused to continue the discussion on the talk page and came to attack me personally and threaten me on my page. It was this user who was trying to redefine a very clear geographic location!! North Africa simply means the Mediterranean countries located in the northernmost North Africa, it is actually a straw-man argument!! it is like trying to include Norway in South Europe. Almost all the world organizations such as the World Bank, US Census, African Union itself, FAO, Population Reference Bureau, WTO and I can list tons of other world organizations if you want consider North Africa to be only the Mediterranean countries located in the extreme northernmost of the continent and I have never came across any organization which consider Sahel as part of North Africa!! and If you did, so please provide your sources. Moreover, this user has removed very much info related to the topic and added very irrelevant info, he turned the page from North Africa to African Sahel, It is like to turning the page East Asia to the page of Congo!! I didn't actually want to talk about this as it irrelevant to the topic of the report but as some user have already talked about it, then I have to reply.Ryanoo (talk) 08:15, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Let's start with this very report. You speak of reverts where you yourself had reverted without engaging with the other party. That violates Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. You also missed the edit notice at the top of both this page and the edit window to notify the reported user. Given the strong wording, this is almost certainly a policy. You also accuse Arboleh of vandalism, but that is not so. They were merely boldly removing content to which they thought did not conform with Wikipedia guidelines, to which you then reverted, claimed the summary was a personal attacked, and then accused them of being a vandal with this very report. Most people who disagree with you are not vandals.

Now, the edit summaries linked I believe while may not be assuming bad faith, is also not really an infraction against WP:NPA, and it was never directed at you. The edit summary Cleaned up biased and racist claims. describes the content, not the contributor, which means WP:NPA does not apply here. Once again, they've only made bold edits.

Furthermore, most of the diffs you've provided are of articles you've never even edited before. This seems very much like wikihounding to me, and point pushing behaviour. That is, you've gone and reverted pretty much all their edits over one edit you've disagreed with, and most likely had thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

Given all of the above, this report will most likely end with a WP:BOOMERANG topic ban for you. Tread carefully. I strongly suggest you've read what I've written above, and take Tarage's points in too. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 09:42, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support boomerang topic ban of Ryanoo from Africa topics: per both Tarage and my points above. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 07:32, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@User:TheDragonFire300 First off, I have edited many of these articles as well as many other articles before long time ago before registering on Wikipedia and while wasn't logged in, so your claim of Wikihonding doesn't make any sense!. Also, I didn't fail to engage on the talk page, in fact he is the one who obviously did, I have asked in my edit summary to engage in the talk page and I mentioned him on the talk page [57] in order to discuss the edit. However, he didn't engage in the talk page and reported me for vandalism and continued to attack me personally on other users pages reply!!!, why aren't you trying about him not trying to engage me in the talk page??!! Sorry, but I feel you are clearly trying to confuse the issue by turning the table on me ( for some reason which I don't know, may I know where are you from? ) and totally ignoring what the user did. Secondly, you are talking only about one edit summary of this user in which he clearly described good faith edits as biased and racist!! when they are clearly not, while totally ignoring his other edit summaries which include very clear personal attack and false accusations and his behavior ( he reported me for vandalism when I am clearly not as well as attacking me on other users pages ). Haven't you seen the edits which I provided above in addition his other edits of attacking and harassing me on other user pages as well as reporting for vandalism when I am clearly not[58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64]. Moreover, yes one of his edit summaries isn't directed at me, so should I overlook the ones which target others??. He even has the guts to come and attack me saying some weird Afrocentric nonsense showing his real Afrocentric face, he is blaming me for defending my country's by calling me a Euro-centrist!! LOL. For those Afro-centrists, anyone who is defending his culture and history from being hijacked by them is a Euro-centrist!!. He considers me Euro-centrist because I am defending my history, and by showing the fact that my country is a Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and North African country which it is indeed is [65], [66] [67]. This Afrocentric user wants me to remove my country from its geographic location, deattach our Egyptian people from their origins and go and give it as a present to his Black people in Somalia in East Africa in Sub-Saharan Africa. It seems that this guy didn't open a map or history book in his life and is just like in a world of imagination like the rest of his fellow Afrocentrists who are trying to appropriate our culture and history ( as well as others history such as Phoenicians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Germans, Chinese and almost every ancient culture on this planet and probably other planets! ). Egypt is a Mediterranean, North African and Middle Eastern, so are the Egyptians!. Somalia is an East African country located in Sub-Saharan Africa, so are the Somalis, It is simple as that, he should love himself and stop appropriating and lumping himself with people who he is totally different from in every aspect. And regarding banning from editing Africa topics, that really doesn't make any sense, well, in fact I don't mind that at all, my edits are mainly focused on my country Egypt and my region ( Mediterranean basin, Middle East and North Africa) topics, I didn't edit much in Sub-Saharan Africa topics and I am not much interested in editing articles or topics related to Sub-Saharan Africans, but you can't prevent me from editing my country and my region topics and defend my history from being hijacked by the lunatic and racist Afro-centrists.Ryanoo (talk) 16:27, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Ryanoo: There is no immunity for reporters. At the moment, you are more guilty of what you are reporting Arboleh for. Actually, you did accuse them of being a vandal, repeadedly trying to revert them. Also, your engagement happened only once, they indeed tried to talk with you (and you just dismissed them as a vandal) and you edit warred over North Africa.

Please just read what I've posted above and stop trying to accuse everyone of being a vandal. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 21:21, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

You are wikihounding by the way. You found one of their edits, then decided to revert other edits of theirs, some on articles you've never even edited before (and I'm not about to prove you are those IPs). Even if you do edit with IPs on those pages, that still does not excuse the hounding and point-pushing on your behalf. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 21:30, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I did read all of the edits and the only one that seems to not be a bold edit is the second one. The rest have nothing to do with you, and I don't know why you report them besides wikihounding. Also, assume good faith already!Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 21:33, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Arboleh Again love yourself and stop trying to lump yourself with Egyptians, Middle Easterners and North Africans because you guys are simply not from the MENA area. Also please stop deattaching modern Egyptians from their ancient Egyptian origins like what you did on the Page of DNA history of Egypt because it is very racist and extremely offensive, respect other nations like others are doing with you, as there is no one trying to claim your history, please stop trying to appropriate others history. I am an Egyptian and you know and I know that Somalis are totally different racially, genetically, culturally, linguistically, and in every aspect from Egyptians and other MENAs. Your history is in Somalia which is an East African country in Sub-Saharan Africa, not in North Africa or the Middle EastRyanoo (talk) 16:09, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

References

I'm concerned about Ryanoo's trying to keep in Land of Punt (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) what appears to be a self-published source from a blog.[68] There doesn't appear to be a "Lepoivre Bertrand" or perhaps "Bertrand Lepoivre" and I can't find any evidence of these chapters in the blog[69] outside the blog. I think it was originally added by an IP which I presume was Ryanoo editing logged out and then by another IP. @Ryanoo: were those IPs you and who is this Bertrand? Doug Weller talk 10:17, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

What, you've never heard of Bertie the Pepper? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:47, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

That paragraph seems to be translated from fr:Pays de Pount, the French version of the article (or vice versa). I don't know what to make of the Charmutha series on that nant44 site. Maybe a French editor has an idea. Are there any here? 173.228.123.166 (talk) 18:29, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@ Ryanoo, I love myself thank you, and I don't care about your Middle Eastern or Mediterranean heritage but you should not scrape the term Northeast Africa from Wikipedia when it's a valid region of the Nile Valley that exists and that every scientific paper uses. If you want to claim Egypt is part of your Middle Eastern and Mediterranean heritage that's fine but don't censure valid information, this region exists and is very intertwined, the mere fact Ethiopia announced the Renaissance Dam made Egypt worried for its survival as 95% of the population lives along the Nile, and you want us to believe this region is not connected? you can keep your 18th century racist views of Egypt to yourself without censuring facts. I also would like people here who have the capability to create that Northeast Africa page to do so. Arboleh (talk) 19:04, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Arboleh LOL Which region are you talking about?? What are you talking about?? and which scientific papers are you talking about??! the link you provided totally contradict your claims and it shows that Horn Africans are totally different from Egyptians and other North African and Middle Easterners, check this admixture fractions of clusters of the link you cited !!! [70], It seems that you know nothing at all about genetics that you cited a page which totally contradicts what you said and can be used as an evidence against your claims LOL, I am an archaeogeneticist by the way. This name exists only in your dreams and your edits regarding this topic were reverted two times before by an administrator here [71] [72] for being very poorly sourced. Man, you are from Somalia which is an East African in Sub-Saharan Africa which has nothing at all to do with North African and Middle Eastern countries. Don't you like your area and looking for some ancestry in North Africa and the Middle East or something ???and Why are trying yourself to deattach yourself from your fellow brothers in East Africa brothers in Kenya, Uganda and so on and try linking yourself to North Africans and Middle Easterners?!!! stop this nonsense please, you are just embarrassing yourself and your people who are proud of their country and don't agree with nonsense at all. Again love yourself, your people and your great fellow East African and Sub-Saharan African brothers and stop trying to link yourself to people whom you are totally different from in every aspect!.Ryanoo (talk) 19:31, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Stop calling editors racist. Both of you. Assume some good faith dammit. --Tarage (talk) 19:33, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@ Ryanoo, this is about the term Northeast Africa being used by the scientific community and not about the Horn of Africa genetics which you can find on that page if you were not trolling, and anyways you're not related to the Ancient Egyptians. Learn to love your immigrant heritage and stop the hate. Arboleh (talk) 19:50, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

LOL You don't know even the nature of the link you cited which has nothing to do with what you say and totally contradicts your claims. WOW finally you showed your real Afrocentric face which you have been tying to hide, as other Afro-centrists, you couldn't hide your racism and started insulting an Egyptian for being an Egyptian!!! I won't reply to your insults and I will leave it for the administrators to deal with that. Ryanoo (talk) 19:57, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@ Ryanoo, If you don't behave we're gonna cut your water off :) Arboleh (talk) 20:22, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

BOTH OF YOU STOP. You BOTH don't understand that all you are doing is digging a hole deeper. You are BOTH acting like children right now. Stop posting, let everyone else view the logs and decide what to do. You are doing yourself NO favors by continuing this. --Tarage (talk) 22:01, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Request close

 Request withdrawn

 – Forget the header above please. Discussion is still relevant however. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 22:39, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

This discussion has clearly gone off the rails. Can we close this, maybe? No punishment needed. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 21:21, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@User:TheDragonFire300, with all due respect I disagree with your assessment, If you got offended by my little "Ancient Egyptian" jab at Ryanoo it shows clearly the bias I am talking about within the Wikipedia editors. Ryanoo is a racist editor and the proof is all over Wikipedia and yet a jab becomes an offense that derails the issue to the point where you want to recommend nothing for his racist views and constant vandalism of the Land of Punt by using derogatory and disgusting links? I think he should be banned from Wikipedia out right, he is a racist who spews white supremacist views and considers Africans sub-human. If you keep him, it validates what I have been saying all along, that this place is full of racist editors who dont give a damn about facts as long as it supports their racial preconceived views. Arboleh (talk) 21:49, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Stop. Calling. Editors. Racist. I'm not going to say it again. I WILL grab an admin and see you both blocked if you continue. --Tarage (talk) 22:02, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Why do you constantly accuse others of racism? I've nothing to do with any topics you've edited until now. Besides, that close comment wasn't directed at either you or Ryanoo in particular. Please stop accusing everyone who disagrees with you of being racist. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 22:54, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@TheDragonFire300, my bad I thought you had closed the discussion because of the jab, apologies. Arboleh (talk) 23:29, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Dragon, I'm afraid I disagree. It's clear to me now that both of these editors are problematic, therefor I am recommending a topic ban for both editors from Africa/Egypt topics, broadly construed. This is a supreme waste of time. --Tarage (talk) 22:03, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Very well. Withdrawn my close proposal. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 22:39, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Tarage, Can you please point to a page where I demeaned Wikipedia users for their racial background like Ryanoo does? So please don't equate me to him, if you are offended by my use of the word "racist" that is your personal opinion but Ryanoo comments all over the place prove you wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arboleh (talk • contribs) 22:11, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

You are mistaking me for someone who cares about your squabble. You will stop calling editors racist or you will be blocked. Period. --Tarage (talk) 22:49, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Support topic ban for both editors Judging by this, both editors are using WP:STICKs with a bend against each other. Could an interaction ban be appropriate? ^Semi_Hypercube ✎ 22:21, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Propose bans for Ryanoo and Arboleh

I see a few potential outcomes. Note that all topic bans are broadly construed. topic bans and indefinite unless noted otherwise. You may suport multiple proposals. Feel free to support a proposal outside what I've lined below.

Pinging Tarage and SemiHypercube, since they've advocated bans before.

1. Both Ryanoo and Arboleh are banned from Africa and Egypt topics.
2. Ryanoo only is banned from Africa and Egypt topics.
3. Arboleh only is banned from Africa and Egypt topics.
4. Ryanoo and Arboleh are interaction banned against each other.
5. Ryanoo is one way interaction banned from Arboleh.
6. Arboleh is one way interaction banned from Ryanoo.
7. Oppose any ban (mutually exclusive)

• Support proposal 2 and 4: per my previous posts. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 23:08, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support 1 and 4, but not against 2, 3, 5, or 6: Frankly this is a bit verbose and unlikely to reach consensus but sure. The problem is from both sides and I see a LOT of POV pushing and pointless bickering. I also see racism claims being thrown around. --Tarage (talk) 23:06, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

  To clarify, but not against means you will not oppose 2, 3, 5 and 6? Anyway, I think a formal proposal for bans may be neccesary. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). This message was left at 23:23, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

  It means I am not opposed to any of those passing. I support them, I just support 1 and 4 more. They both need to be banned from that topic, and they both need an interaction ban. But I'll take what I can get. --Tarage (talk) 23:41, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support 1 and 4 per User:Tarage. ^Semi_Hypercube ✎ 23:50, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support 1 and 4 per above. Carl Tristan Orense (talk) 08:12, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support 2 and 4 per User:TheDragonFire300's observations. I see appalling behavior here from Ryanoo, and some less than ideal behavior from Arboleh, but the latter seems to be in exasperated response. Ryanoo seems to lack competence to edit WP, and I suspect a TBAN here will be the beginning of a slow spiral toward an indefinite block of some sort down the line. Grandpallama (talk) 11:14, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support 2 and 4 The reason why things have cooled off between myself and Ryanoo was because I was wise enough to ask for page protection for the North Africa page. If admins hasn’t intervened, I’m positive we would have been at square one. I think Arboleh may be reacting this way because Ryanoo seems to be trying to game the system to ban users he clashes with (tried the above case with Arboleh, opened a random SPI on me) rather than civilly discussing issues. I also agree with @Grandpallama: Itaren (talk) 13:29, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support 2 and 4 per Itaren. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 15:51, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Hilo48 and Timeshift9

I'm requesting Timeshift and Hilo be temporarily blocked for some wanton and blatant Wikipedia:Disruptive editing, chiefly with respect to their continued deletion of material in the Wentworth by-election, 2018 article, specifically their refusal to engage or even offer civil points of difference in the article's talk page.

• The history page shows examples of Timeshift repeatedly editing in ways that make it difficult to directly compare his reversions of my and other editor's edits (which have added information to the infobox). For instance he'll make a minor [73], then the very next one will be the revert.

• At the very least general history page shows how often they are willing to violate the WP:3RR rule.

• Timeshift is guilty of Wikipedia:Tendentious editing, most notably in this instance on the talk page: Oh look, results aren't final/are still changing! I love being proven right...! :) Silly troublemakers proven wrong. Feeling very smug :D Timeshift (talk) 02:24, 7 November 2018 (UTC); an edit that was made two days after the page was finally settling down and is blatantly tenditious and WP:POINTY, much to the frustration of the majority of editors who are seeking to IMPROVE the page and UPDATE figures when appropriate rather than simply DELETE the figures in the infobox

• Both users misrepresent alleged precedent in relation to the infobox (see this section of the talk page and when exposed to this, simply ignore and pursue their deletions

• Neither engage in consensus building with multiple editors, and are now simply taking ownership of the page.

Hilo has form, repeatedly. Global-Cityzen (talk) 06:42, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Can this please be quickly turned into a boomerang for the lies and irrelevancies it contains? And the forum shopping? I really don't want to have to go into detail on every piece of nonsense there. HiLo48 (talk)

These "lies and irrelevancies" accusation is precisely what HiLo has done on the page's talk page, whenever he is asked to justify his and Timeshift's edits to remove information from the box. Yet again he has form in this regard; this time at another page. Global-Cityzen (talk) 06:57, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

And now the latest 3RR violation by Timeshift (here). Global-Cityzen (talk) 07:20, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

There has been a massive amount of discussion re this article. We have reached a point where both Timeshift9 and I are being accused of not having discussed things that we definitely have discussed. I can accept someone not remembering everything I have written, but I cannot abide false accusations that I have never written it at all. That is were discussion has gone. We are both being asked to repeat points we have both made before, as if demanding this is a winning argument. We have both, at times, given up on discussion at that article because of the toxic atmosphere, but it's hard to forever ignore what we see as poor content. I also have a life away from Wikipedia, and get rather sick of and don't really have time for having to repeat myself here. HiLo48 (talk) 07:24, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm accusing Timeshift and HiLo of repeatedly ignoring prompts that directly challenge their reasons for editing. If one reads through the talk page, they will note that both users' objections are responded to in substance, namely that;

• No precedent exists for not including figures in an Australian election infobox, as User:Impru20 pointed out on the talk page: "about the alleged "precedent", I've found that this is bogus at best. Batman by-election, 2018, for instance, didn't abide to such a "precedent", nor did Australian federal election, 2016 or others. Further, it is not that other by-election articles actually did: it is just that most of those did not see their infoboxes added until later." No substantial point was made by either of these users in response to this expose.
• When asked why they would advocate continuously deleting verifiable information by the same user, neither responded.
• We are not asking them repeat points made before, rather asking them to present any argument for the exclusion of verifiable information in an infobox whose central purpose is to convey that information to the reader

And unfortunately, when challenged on these issues of substance, HiLo simply engages in ad hominen attacks on the user, saying they are extolling in inaccuracy WITHOUT demonstrating how. Whilst Timeshift simply waits 2 days for the discussion to settle before launching into the same disruptive editing process. Global-Cityzen (talk) 07:39, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Lies. Yet again. HiLo48 (talk) 09:03, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I recommend that yas open up an Rfc at the article-in-question, in order to settle the content dispute. GoodDay (talk) 07:45, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Thankyou, I've done that (here). Global-Cityzen (talk) 08:33, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Timeshift9: has just reverted the same content for a FOURTH TIME IN 30 MINUTES simply saying he "disagrees". If that's not an example of edit warring I don't know what is! These numbers have been up for at least two days without interruption, it's just some of the most abhorrent behaviour you could imagine. Global-Cityzen (talk) 08:01, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

• Apparently the issue concerns whether an infobox should be included at Wentworth by-election, 2018, and if so, what it should contain. It seems the issue was raised a week ago at the relevant wikiproject and my brief skim of that suggests there is no consensus for inclusion. Enthusiasm is not a good substitute for patience. The OP's statements about "refusal to engage" and suggestions of incivility are blatantly incorrect. Johnuniq (talk) 08:27, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I've applied protection for a few days, that should allow the election results to firm up and we can go from there. TomStar81 (Talk) 08:56, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Awaiting final results is really only a small part of the issues with this article. HiLo48 (talk) 09:06, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

As an uninvolved bystander, this is not a helpful step. Getting aggressive with other editors about an infobox is a needless escalation of a dispute that was already fairly pointless to begin with. Everyone play nice. Global-Cityzen, you've been making some absolutely phenomenal (and very badly needed) contributions on women's sport recently - may I suggest that it might be a better usage of your time than this dispute? The Drover's Wife (talk) 09:03, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

• On Timeshift9, they have been carelessly reverting everything and anyone not complying with their views, even reportedly conducting at least eight reverts from four different users within a 24-hour period (up to ten depending on whether you would consider other minor edits), namely: [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81]. Note that this behaviour continued even after being notified twice on it ([82] [83]). The edit warring has continued up to the current day, with new violations of 3RR (in total, five reverts before the article's lockdown: [84] [85] [86] [87] [88]) and including some mocking/provocation to some of the users involved in the discussion ([89] [90] [91]). To be fair with everybody, though, it should also be noted that the OP (Global-Cityzen) has also violated 3RR today as a result of getting involved in such edit warring, with five reverts, but this should not obscure the fact that there is a serious behavioural issue with these two users.
• The biggest issue here, however, is with HiLo48, who has been openly disruptive from the start, resorting to using arguments from ignorance and proof by assertion once and once again with a clear WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour (note that it was them who started the discussion in the first place and that while starting a discussion is perfectly ok, the ensuing behaviour shown while engaging other people there is not). This includes:
  • Persistent personal attacks and general incivility, continuously resorting on commenting the contributor for opposing reality or "the truth" ([92] [93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98]) while showing a rather patronizing behaviour to those not agreeing with them (specially and most notoriously with Onetwothreeip). HiLo48 even went as far as to enter into vandalism accusations without caring to explain why ([99] [100] [101]), despite repeated warnings to either bring such accusations to the proper venue with actual evidence or just cast them off ([102] [103] [104]). They also threatened to report me for one comment they allegedly saw as "insulting", but curiously, just like the "vandalism", they never did it ([105]).
  • More WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS ([106] [107] [108]).
  • Apparent failure to understand what discussion and talk pages are for. This includes a general refusal to engage in constructive consensus-building and persistent refusal to address/reply to issues raised by others, seemingly failing to understand why they should bother to reply (while concurrently acting as if others had never addressed any issues raised by him) ([109] [110] [111]). Note that this has continued even after this case was opened ([112] [113]). At some point of the discussion they also accused other of misrepresenting them, but never actually explained how nor addressed concerns raised at their accusations of misrepresentation.
  • Disrupting Wikipedia to make a point, by:
    1. Suddenly shifting the discussion focus to issues not even raised at first so as to purposely hinder any consensus-building attempt aimed at preserving the infobox (most notoriously ([114] [115] [116]), raising the issues of Phelps' pic looking "appalling" and a alleged failure to understand what colours do mean in infoboxes, despite party labels being shown just below (this alone would raise some competence concerns, but nonetheless it would be an issue with either the pics or the infobox template as a whole, not for the particular infobox used in Wentworth by-election, 2018. This was pointed to them (and was the main motive behind the discussion being centralized) to no avail).
    2. Mutilating the infobox to make it truly useless and force a point on how "useless" it actually was ([117]), a fact they have not even tried to hide ([118]).
    3. Deliberate withdrawal from the centralized discussion at Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board#Infoboxes in by-election articles without addressing any of the content concerns raised there, then moving the discussion again to Talk:Wentworth by-election, 2018#Still Infoboxing in order to raise the same exact issues that led to the discussion being centralized.
  • I could spent more time putting more examples or explaining this even more in-depth, but I think this is enough for it. Further, after some research it transpires that issues on HiLo48's behaviour are very recurring, for the exact same reasons as depicted above (or even others: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16)
  • Their own block log is troubling, and as far as I have checked, if it is impossible to find any issues between January 2015 and March 2018 is just because they remained inactive for that whole period. Their own userpage is very disturbing, being full of attacks on Wikipedia as a whole, a notorious disregard for civility policies or some other really really disturbing statements against Wikipedia's workings.
  • Foremost of all, Competence is required to communicate with others and present rationales when questioned by others, to collaborate with other editors, defend their editing when asked to do so and, obviously, to not ignoring some of the most basic Wikipedia policies and guidelines. It looks like this has been an issue with HiLo48 for years, and it seems obvious that HiLo48 is not able to learn from their mistakes and adapt. Refusing to engage with civility with other users, or even acknowledging that they cannot be "bothered" to discuss issues or even purposely provoking others for the sake of it, goes against the very essence of WP. But then, acknowledging a complete disregard for WP's workings is just unacceptable, and if they think they should not be here, nor are they here for contributing Wikipedia, then maybe they should not be here. Impru20^talk 16:45, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I have neither the time nor the energy to respond to that hate speech from someone clearly obsessed with me. How many lies and personal attacks can come from the keyboard of someone before they cop a boomerang? HiLo48 (talk) 21:21, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

HiLo48, none of that is "hate speech"; it is neutral, accurate reporting supported by evidence. None of it is "lies", as each statement is supported by several diffs which bear out the statement. None of the statements are "personal attacks", either; they are all neutral observations. It seems to me that your modus operandi when you disagree with someone more than once is to attack them personally and to accuse them of personal attacks, lies, vandalism, etc. Sooner or later this long-term behavioral pattern on your part is going to end up getting you very long-term blocked or site-banned due to an inability to edit collaboratively and due to creating disruption instead. Softlavender (talk) 04:56, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I see it differently. HiLo48 (talk) 05:02, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, of course you would say that. And you haven't refuted the dozens of diffs the editor presented, or offered any proof that what he stated is "hate speech", "lies", and "personal attacks". Attacking others and making baseless comments may seem like the easy way out for you, but it just makes the other editor's case look perfectly accurate. Softlavender (talk) 05:07, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Not to objective, open minded editors. HiLo48 (talk) 05:14, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

In other words, you still can't refute anything the editor wrote and you still can't offer any proof that what he stated is "hate speech", "lies", and "personal attacks"; instead you are continuing to cast aspersions. Softlavender (talk) 05:17, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

It seems to me that's precisely what you're doing. HiLo48 (talk) 06:02, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Yet another personal attack, which seems to be the only way you respond to evidence-based statements about yourself and requests that you actually make your case. The more you post "Nope" (edit summary) along with a personal attack, the worse you look. As Impru20 has noted, your recent disruptive behavior is not isolated, and has been reported many times on ANI, and you have been blocked five times for personal attacks. Softlavender (talk) 06:16, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

This is pointless. I don't have the time to respond to that litany of alleged crimes on my part, nor do I have the time to catalog all the sins of the gang who disagreed with me. I do note that the environment at the article became so toxic that many experienced editors gave up, and let you guys just go for it for a while. That left a short term majority of people from one side of the debate, certainly not representative of the usual editing community for Australian political articles. Being in a majority is never evidence of being right. It's really just a chance to bully those in the minority.

Meanwhile, Admins have shown very little interest in this complaint. They have told people to go back to the article's Talk page for an RfC. This is a content dispute. I suggest you go to that RfC. HiLo48 (talk) 06:24, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I am not involved in the article, so I am not "you guys". What Impru20 posted was not a "litany of alleged crimes", it was a well-evidenced report of your recent disruptive behavior, which you responded to by falsely calling his report "hate speech", "lies", and "personal attacks". This is your pattern, and it will get you into sanctions if it continues. Softlavender (talk) 06:36, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

This discussion does pretty well in summarizing HiLo's behaviour. Bring any argument to them, no matter how well explained or referenced, that if it is against their views it will be met with outright unmotivated opposition, condescendention, incivility and a refusal to "understand" what the problem is, as well as a total disregard of WP:AGF. Impru20^talk 06:58, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

How can I assume good faith of editors who falsely accuse me of having NEVER said things I have definitely said? And who created such a toxic discussion environment that many experienced editors stop discussing at that page? HiLo48 (talk) 07:35, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Please indicate, with diffs, where editors have falsely accused you of having never said things you definitely said. Softlavender (talk) 07:38, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

No. I really can't be bothered. If you are looking at this objectively, you will have seen how much discussion there has been. A massive amount. I wouldn't make an absolute claim about anything anyone had said or not said in that pile of now fairly useless trash. It was rather silly of those who disagreed with me to think they could. HiLo48 (talk) 07:45, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

In other words, yet another refusal to back up your claims about other editors. And this: "It was rather silly of those who disagreed with me to think they could." is borderline block-worthy, as it points up your refusal to edit or discuss collaboratively. Softlavender (talk) 07:56, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't think there is much more that needs to be said here but I find the reverting of many more times than three in a day to be very concerning. The poor discourse on the talk page is a problem, but the constant reverting seriously compromises the editing process. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:25, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I am not condoning Edit warring, but avoiding the appearance of doing so is much easier when you create a toxic editing environment, discouraging the majority of those who disagree with you from even trying. This leaves you and just a couple of others with identical views that any new editor must confront. HiLo48 (talk) 00:12, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Have you ever made more than three reverts of the article in a 24 hour period? Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:02, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I have no idea about timeshitft, but having just commented on the RFC and seeing HiLo48's reactions to anyone who disagrees with him (who appear to be in the majority) I think that there is a problem with him. This is a case of tendentious editing.Slatersteven (talk) 10:06, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

HiLo has indeed been a frequent offender when it comes to civility issues, both on main space and project space; I believe he's even had an RFC/U on his conduct in the past. That said, he's unrelenting and inveterate to those said issues, attributing these to cultural differences, and I doubt that blocks or sanctions of any sort will induce him to change his behavior, if his screeds on his user talk page are anything to go by. Either we accept that he's going to just be uncivil, or we look at the serious possibility of a community ban.--WaltCip (talk) 12:12, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Or we have a series of rolling topic bans, this time form Australasian politics. This edit warring over such a trivial matter is an indicator of a very severe battleground (but not in a POV pushy but rather "I HAVE SPOKEN" kind of way) mentality that is hugely disruptive and wasted a lot of eds time that could have been better employed.Slatersteven (talk) 16:15, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

@Global-Cityzen: Can you clarify whether you meant to suggest HiLo48 was violating 3RR? I thought you did but maybe you were simply using singular they. I had a quick look and didn't see any examples of HiLo48 violating 3RR in Wentworth by-election, 2018 Nil Einne (talk) 16:21, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Editing against policy and guideline

Bsems is being disruptive by editing against policy and guideline. Per consensus here - use only the first three characters of a month when abbreviated and no full stop after the abbreviated month, or in the alternative spell each month out. Same thing it says at MOS:DATESNO, which also links to the consensus. I fixed all seasons of The Voice to be consistent and compliant with the consensus and editor has reverted all changes, at least 14 or 15 reverts. Editor needs to be warned not to edit against policies - WP:CONSENSUS, and guidelines - MOS:DATESNO. I've warned him previously and tried to engage in talk page discussions, but editor refuses to discuss and rarely leaves edit summaries for any edit as can be seen by his contribution history and warnings on his talk page. Editor also seems to own these articles as seen in Season 15 where editor reverts everyone and everything without explaining why. Diffs of selected reverts (but certainly not all) - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 Isaidnoway (talk) 09:30, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Has made two more reverts since this report was filed: here and here. Isaidnoway (talk) 09:47, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Their non-article edits are... interesting. "Do it again and I will suspend you." WP:OWN+WP:CIR? —Wasell^(T) 11:59, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) They have done the same at The Voice (U.S. TV series), sans edit summary, despite the edits being explained upon their original removal. Seems as if they might not be here for the right reasons where their editing patterns are concerned. I agree that WP:OWN might be playing a part here. livelikemusic talk! 13:30, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

• According to their contribution history, so far in the first 7 days of this month alone, they have made 66 reverts with 4 edit summaries - p. 1 Nov, p. 2 Nov, p. 3 Nov. In the month of October they made 148 reverts with only 5 edit summaries. And apparently they use an app for sourcing - app, app 2 - instead of using reliable sources, I recently added 5 sources showing this young lady was only 13 at the time of her performance, but yet they persist they are right, according to their app. I propose an indef block until this user understands they must communicate with fellow editors and use edit summaries and use reliable sources. Isaidnoway (talk) 16:49, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I really need to clean out my watchlist and set Twinkle not to add user pages to my watch list lol. With that aside this is a normal pattern of behavior for Bsems based on my past experience where the user will keep making edits against policy, guidelines and even consensus. Bsems doesn't want to leave edit summaries in most cases or shows signs of WP:OWN and doesn't want to discuss controversial/reversed edits on the talk page. In the past the user has violated the WP:3RR rule which resulted in a 48 hour ban on March 22 2018. Bsems was also blocked for 72 hrs for similar behavior in regards to the article WrestleMania 34 as seen here from April 2018. Bsems was also involved in a dispute with World of Dance (season 2) which in the page being fully protected on September 18 2018. ♪♫Alucard 16♫♪ 00:09, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Also based on their talk page it seems the user has been notified nicely about using the edit summary on September 16, 2016 so really there is no reason for this type of behavior to keep continuing from an account that has been around since 2015. ♪♫Alucard 16♫♪ 00:15, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Six more reverts, with no regard whatsoever to what they were reverting, some of these reverts putting back numerous reference errors (author's names who didn't write the article) and numerous dead links, external links being used as refs, back into the articles, and still no valid reason given in any edit summaries. Still refuses to communicate, still owns these articles. - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Isaidnoway (talk) 07:20, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I blocked Bsems for a week for edit warring and article ownership, but I agree that seems to be a long-term problem. I think we're heading toward an indefinite block. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 09:31, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Mino348 has issues with copyright

Mino348 (talk · contribs) has continued to upload copyrighted images without proper licensing information since I made a report here about the behavior and it was archived. They show no signs of being aware that their actions are a problem, despite a proliferation of bot messages on their talk page. G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 13:25, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Mino348 has made precisely zero edits to the User talk or article Talk namespaces; clearly, the many concerns raised do not seem to have been addressed. I am inclined to block Mino348 until they acknowledge the issue and explain what they are going to do differently, any objections? Fish+Karate 14:26, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

And Ritchie333 has just indefinitely blocked them at the same time I was writing the above, so problem solved. Fish+Karate 14:27, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Although a number of uploads have been kept, this has been entirely down to other editors adding appropriate fair-use rationales. This is very much a "we need to talk" block. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:28, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Disruptive IP 226/228/79

An Australian IP is making disruptive edits on India-genetics related articles:

• IP 212.95.7.228 diff
• User:212.95.7.226; diff; at Peopling of India changed

According to Reich et al. (2009), "the indigenous Andaman Islanders are unique in being ASI-related groups without ANI ancestry."

into

According to Reich et al. (2009), “the indigenous Andaman Islanders are unique in being without any ANI or ASI ancestry."

References

• User:213.225.38.79 diff

Warnings have been given at various talkpages diff diff diff, and @Vanamonde93, Doug Weller, and Bishonen: have been pinged at Talk:Genetics and archaeogenetics of South Asia#Ping. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 14:54, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I have made this edit, yes. Because the statement is not correct. Reich say that the andamanese are closest to other negrito people. He says that ASI are not related to any people outside of India. The andamanese have got some gene flow from ASI and that the onge are relative closer to ASI than other andamanese. He did not say that they are closely related. I am not here to make disruptive edits. Here is the source: "Gene study reveals Indian origins". www.abc.net.au. 2009-09-24. Retrieved 2018-11-07. "Different Indian groups have inherited 40% to 80% of their ancestry from a population that we call the Ancestral North Indians, who are related to western Eurasians, and the rest from the Ancestral South Indians, who are not related to any group outside India," says Harvard Medical School geneticist David Reich. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help) 213.162.68.226 (talk) 15:02, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

213.162.68.226 (talk · contribs) has been CU blocked for 30 days by another Admin. Note that I had to revert an edit by 212.95.7.228 for misrepresenting the source. Might have been incompetence of course. Doug Weller talk 17:27, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

And a steward has blocked a range globally, I think this is over. I've reverted something at Ainu. I guess there might be other IPs (now blocked) who have edited. Doug Weller talk 19:10, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

The Andman Islands, where there is no ANI

-EEng

• the indigenous Andaman Islanders are unique in being without any ANI – Sounds like paradise. EEng 02:38, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: thanks! Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:46, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Maithripala Sirisena & Angajan Ramanathan

Regarding the pages:

• Maithripala Sirisena (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) "current President of Sri Lanka"
• Angajan Ramanathan (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), "A Sri Lankan Tamil politician and Member of Parliament"

With the Sirisena article, MaithriWiki (talk · contribs) added content which seems to be rather controversial. Not sure if it is DUE.

With the Ramanathan article, I got a WoT message on my talk page by Skishok (talk · contribs), stating I am the Media Secretary to the Hon. Deputy Minister Angajan Ramanathan. and wants the article "cleaned"

Would someone please take a look at these? Thank you Jim1138 (talk) 09:42, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I left the secretary a message evoking PAID, COI, and BLP.-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 11:28, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Which was promptly followed by the "Media Secretary" restoring their preferred version of the Ramanathan page. Grandpallama (talk) 12:01, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I have protected the page and left a further message with {{user|MaithriWiki}}Skishok inviting them to discuss here. I do not see anything defamatory in the content removed by MaithriWiki Skishok . Rather his edits introduced peacocky syrupy edits lauding the subject ad nauseum. If someone could have another look to be sure, I'd appreciate it.-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 12:58, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

See also the conduct by Pmdsrilanka (talk · contribs) at the Maithripala Sirisena. In their edits (last diff), not only did they remove the possibly-undue text about an event from the intro, but they scrubbed anything negative from the article. Given the other editors involved, this feels like it could be another COI account. —C.Fred (talk) 13:15, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Also note that there are two similarly-named accounts editing the Sirisena article. MaitrhiWiki has added some text, e.g. this edit with summary "Constitutional Crisis - added citations, data. Someone is trying to roll back mentions of the public and parliamentary reactions to this event." MaithriUpdate has been removing said material and adding content that is heavily pro-Sirisena. It looks like the article is in the crosshairs of two groups of editors. It's unclear whether the situation is that one group is adding full coverage and the other is removing all negative mentions, or that groups are pulling the article back-and-forth from overly positive to overly negative. These article could probably benefit from more neutral eyes monitoring the situation. —C.Fred (talk) 13:26, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Unnecessary block caused by Muse (disambiguation) content dispute and User:Jytdog's harrassment

I object with edit blocking sanction had been imposed to me through this report. First, I did not violate 3RR (there must be four or more reverts within a 24 hour period for the 3RR to apply while the links User:Jytdog have provided do not meet these criteria) since I only reverted between my edits in more than 24-hour period. Second, I used a logic consideration to make an useful contribution to correct the opening definition of Muse (disambiguation) article {between Muse/singular (as page title) and Muses/plural}, with reasonable arguments {see Talk:Muse (disambiguation)} and following the Wikipedia rule concerning page title and the first sentence. (MOS:FIRST) Third, the arguments from other editors in edit summary in article history are unclear (just by saying "revert," "clearly relevant," etc.) and they are unreasonable statements to support their edit version. Furthermore, until this day, I do not see any response which provides good reason to defend their stance by constructive discussion in the Talk page.

Obviously, I very disappointed with User:EdJohnston as Admin who do not understand this content dispute and ignorantly imposed an excessive five days edit block to an editor who tried to improve an article (while the other users who blatantly break 3RR are usually blocked less than 72 hours). I think it is better for an administrator to make the page temporarily protected (Template:Pp-dispute) or filing this dispute to dispute resolution (WP:DRN) or asking Requests for comment assistance (WP:RFC/All) until a consensus reached in the talk page by considering the severity of my action that I hasn't technically violated WP:3RR or blatant vandalism (There is zero reason for being blocked trying to correct an opening sentence of a disambiguation page). Therefore I hope there is a consideration to evaluate admin status of User:EdJohnston who should have followed the Wikipedia rules carefully and the privilege should not be abused to block a user without much understanding about its (blocking) policy.

Administrators must not block users with whom they are engaged in a content dispute; instead, they should report the problem to other administrators (WP:BLOCKNO)

— Wikipedia:Blocking policy

I also cannot accept the action (incivility) (WP:IDENTIFYUNCIVIL) of User:Jytdog who caused this inappropriate sanction by recklessly reported me to ANI/edit-warring without trying to discuss first to seek peaceful solution in talk page (which I suggested in the user talk page) to gain a consensus that would not 'hurt' (block) anybody. Furthermore, he once falsely accused me involved in sockpuppetry case which is unproven. Sock-puppet investigations At last, I hope there would be a proper sanction to User:Jytdog who repeatedly humiliate me (WP:HARASS) (regarding to the hostile report which leads to the edit blocking sanction) in order to make this user becomes more careful to avoid unpleasant way in treating similar dispute case in the future.— Preceding unsigned comment added by MusenInvincible (talk • contribs) date (UTC)

Actually 3RR says "Fourth reverts just outside the 24-hour period may also be taken as evidence of edit-warring, especially if repeated or combined with other edit-warring behavior.".Slatersteven (talk) 10:09, 8 November 2018 (UTC)However I have to add (now having looked, it was 4 edits over 4 days. But do not get too excited "Even without a 3RR violation, an administrator may still act if they believe a user's behavior constitutes edit warring, and any user may report edit warring with or without 3RR being breached." So an admin could well have decided you were edit warring (but had not breached the main definition of 3RR. Now the fact you inserted the same material (without consensus) may not have breach the specific letter of 3RR, but it was disruptive, could be called tendentious editing (see wp:tenditious), and was edit warring, just a very slow one (and this ANI could be ween as WP:LAWYER.Slatersteven (talk) 10:09, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any incivility in looking at the page in question. Edit warring does not require a 3RR violation. If you make allegations you should provide diffs to back it up. I would also advise against making attacks against an admin in an AN/I report. - Nick Thorne ^talk 10:21, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

• None of Jytdog's actions were uncivil; they all comported precisely with policy, including this report an WP:ANEW: WP:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive378#User:MusenInvincible reported by User:Jytdog (Result: Blocked). If you want to have a better experience on Wikipedia, then stop editing disruptively, stop edit-warring, stop making spurious reports at ANI, and take heed of the notices and warnings you get on your talkpage [119]. If not, you'll likely end up blocked again. Softlavender (talk) 10:23, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Wow. It's hard to remember a complaint here with as much misapplication of PAG as this unsigned complaint. Metallicat3627, you are required to notify Jytdog on his talk page when you file a complaint here, and every other editor you've mentioned. There is a very large bright orange box in the edit window to remind you of that. You appear to also be claiming a violation of WP:INVOLVED by EdJohnston, but have provided no evidence of how he is involved other than blocking someone. That's not involved. Filing proper complaints, with diffs for evidence, is neither uncivil or harrassment. However, filing a complaint without any evidence as you have here is considered uncivil. Every policy about edit warring clearly states that although breaking 3rr is usually considered edit warring, it isn't necessary to break 3rr to edit war. So really, exactly what are you looking for here? John from Idegon (talk) 10:26, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Upon further inspection, EdJohnston has never edited the dab page in question, it's talk or other than the block notice, the OP's talk. So exactly how does WP:BLOCKNO apply? Several have endorsed the block here. As civility is not as cut and dried, perhaps we could extend some lattitude on that portion of the OP's report (although IMO that too is nothing but butt hurt poor Wikilawyering, something a perusal of the OP's talk shows he is prone to), but I'd suggest if the complaint regarding Ed isn't withdrawn posthaste, the Australian Aboriginal weapon be deployed. It appears we have some serious WP:CIR issues here, as evidenced by the OP's talk page. John from Idegon (talk) 11:05, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

• @MusenInvincible: Advise withdrawal. Please bear in mind that when one posts here, one's own quirks and foibles and even faults come under consideration and may result in one being blocked. I'm also concerned by the apparent WP:CIR and alphabet soup of problems this thread brings to mind. -- Dlohcierekim (talk) 11:14, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

• @John from Idegon and Dlohcierekim: The user's name is MusenInvincible, not Metallicat3627. Softlavender (talk) 12:24, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

  @MusenInvincible: Thanks, Softlavnder.-- Dlohcierekim (talk) 12:45, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

My block is what MusenInvincible is challenging here, so this is my side of the story. This was a case of long-term warring by MusenInvincible to change Muse (disambiguation) to refer to 'Muse' rather than 'Muses'. (For example this edit). These reverts did not break 3RR, but they appeared to be a case of long-term warring. They began on 26 October and continued through 2 November. The reasoning behind the five-day block is I think adequately explained by the closure of the AN3 report. I was also influenced by what I saw on the editor's talk page at the time of the complaint, including past warnings by User:NeilN and User:Dougweller. MusenInvincible seemed to have no comprehension why they had been previously blocked for 1RR violation by User:NeilN, suggesting to me that there was little chance MusenInvincible was going to start following policy any time soon. EdJohnston (talk) 17:02, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Ishmailer edit-warring across several articles out of spite

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• Ishmailer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Ishmailer has spent most of his short wiki career edit-warring on Liberland, for which he was blocked 24 hours a month ago. When the block expired he went right back to edit-warring, including edit-warring while logged out. When Dlohcierekim full protected the article to stop the edit war just now, Ishmailer went on a spiteful rampage edit-warring on the redirect to the article, and on the last article I had touched (apparently because I had made the last revert on Liberland before it was full protected). Could someone please put an end to this disruption? It is becoming more and more apparent that the editor is here for disruption rather than to collaboratively build an encyclopedia. Softlavender (talk) 12:11, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

When Softlavender and his ignoramus acolyte Thomas.W quit their involvement on Liberland, a subject on which they collectively know zilch, Wikipedia will once more become a positive constructive place. Elsewhere I have self-reverted. --Ishmailer (talk) 12:13, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I've blocked for a week due to the personal attack. 331dot (talk) 12:15, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Good block, I was still filling out the paperwork for AN/I. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 12:16, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

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Block evasion

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Hey guys, I'm pretty sure Vaishak1234 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is actually Vaishakparamb (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who is a sock of Suriyaaa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) evading their indef block, due to the similarity in usernames and the return to editing pages that Vaishakparamb had edited (ex: Sree Narayana College of Management Studies (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), Varsha Bollamma (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), Kanhangad (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), etc). Not too familiar with dealing with block evasion/socks, so if this is better suited for SPI, feel free to trout me and I'll post over there. cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 15:20, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

This does belong at SPI, but I could see why you would think to report it here, I've made the same mistake in the past. Tornado chaser (talk) 15:49, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.