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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)

It looks like the AfD is heading for a merge, so it turns out that it wasn't an uncontroversial deletion after all, so the prod was inappropriate. --Michig (talk) 11:25, 9 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)

Yeah, there's also the fact that AFDs are difficult to file to begin with, due to the number of hoops the instructions require noms jump through, and the tendency of editors like Andrew to shoot down AFDs that don't appear to have jumped through those hoops correctly. I must reiterate, Andrew tried to have an AFD speedy closed because an editor with an account finished the nomination for an IP but was himself neutral. Look at any AFD where he cites WP:BEFORE and, unless consensus is unanimous that it was a flimsy nomination (i.e., the facts just happened to align with Andrew's agenda), he's usually just wikilawyering over something that's not at issue (making notability arguments in non-notability-based AFDs, etc.). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:03, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

The speedy keep deletion guideline states If the nominator indicates that the nomination is procedural in nature, then the nomination is ineligible for speedy keep, which certainly applies to Ymblanter's procedural nomination. This was a hopelessly incompetent appeal to WP:SK. Fortunately, nobody listened. Reyk _YO! 08:57, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

• The word "procedural" means that one is following a procedure – some sort of established or formal process. That was not the case here as the nominator had just picked up a vague complaint by an IP editor and then decided to take the matter to AfD. In such a case, the editor taking the action should take full responsibility for it. But, the nominator here said that " I have no opinion on the merits of the nomination". This means that they can't have followed the proper procedure described at WP:BEFORE. Q.E.D. Andrew D. (talk) 15:00, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Looking at the statistics and evidence above, it is clear that one of the main problems here is abuse of proposed deletion and/or lack of judgment of those placing prod tags on articles, because when so many deproded articles go to AfD and don't get deleted, the original prods are clearly not well considered. --Michig (talk) 11:32, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I would dispute that. Most of the "articles" are one or two sentences long, and serve no purpose to the encyclopedia by being left as "standalone articles" when redirects would be more helpful to our readers. Even redlinks would be better since they can be redirected without anyone disputing that "you can't just redirect an existing article, which is tantamount to deletion, without consensus". However, when they come to AFD invariably the discussion becomes about "notability", without regard for whether having a single-sentence article would be better than having a redirect (see the hundred or so AFDs of sub-stubs created by Starzynka (talk · contribs) earlier this year), and the result is either "no consensus, default to keep" or "there is consensus that the topic is notable, so keep"; sometimes an AFD results in an article being expanded so it's no a longer a useless sub-stub, and sometimes it does not, but in all cases the pages getting deleted would be preferable to leaving them in the mainspace in the state in which they were found. There are also cases like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Azia, where Andrew deprods a fairly obvious copyvio article, it gets brought to AFD, it gets speedy-deleted once I point out the problem, and Andrew complains on the deleting admin's talk page, wikilawyering over ADMINACCT that he was in the right to repeatedly badger SpinningSpark over the issue (sorry, but I only just now remembered that this was another example of a deprod by Andrew, which was clearly disruptive to begin with, and became more disruptive after the AFD, although it wasn't technically covered by the above sub-stub issue). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:26, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

It's really very simple - if an article wouldn't get deleted at AfD, whether you feel that's right or wrong, it's not suitable for proposed deletion, which is only for articles which are uncontroversial candidates for deletion. --Michig (talk) 10:18, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Not if the only reason it wouldn't get deleted at AFD is because of Andrew -- and others like him -- making bogus WP:ILI and WP:TDLI arguments. (As an aside, while enjoying the latest episode of RWBY I was reminded of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional currencies (2nd nomination), which is another one where Andrew's behaviour, trying to find any excuse to keep a crap article, was particularly obvious. It just so happened that a few more editors saw the light in that particular discussion.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:46, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose block and topic ban '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)'. Precisely. Simon Adler (talk) 00:45, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

I withdraw my request to topic ban Davidson from wikimeetups such as the beer and cosplay in Holborn tomorrow. I have bought my ticket from Yorvik, and I'll ask him to explain that to my face. Any other points to be made, bedsides the obvious one? -Roxy, the Prod. wooF 08:59, 10 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.

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 [2]. 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[3]. 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 [4] when the existing DOI will probably lead to this [5] 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 [6]. 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 [7] [8] [9] [10]. But the fourth (fifth if you include the earlier case) [11] is another one where the existing DOI seems to lead to a full text link [12]. The PDF is also available [13]. 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[14] 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)
• Support TBAN - linking to copyright violations is something that can have a serious negative impact on the project. Support TBAN and then escalation to indef if the disregard for copyright principles continues. cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 17:56, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
• Comment I know I am coming late to this party, but I am surprised that our long term colleague Nemo bis is challenged considering their years of good work for GLAM content. I have briefly looked at a couple of the example sources and the discussion. In the context of academic papers, which I believe is the primary locus of dispute, it is standard publishing practice to allow pre-publication versions of papers to be released by the author however they wish (like on Academia or Facebook!), without that being a breach of contract. In addition there are publishing contracts that effectively reverse the norm, such as for Wellcome funded projects where attempting to restrict access can lead to financial penalties. There is also a conflation of publishing contracts and copyright, these are legally separate issues and especially in the case of academic works may be contradictory. Where this happens I believe we always fall on the side of doing our best to comply with copyright rather than attempting to enforce contract law. There may be evidence I am missing where Nemo bis is misinterpreting the nature of the sources or the literal meaning of policy. If that may be down to a language gap issue, I would hope that sufficient good faith applies that any TBAN is limited and applied with a solid presumption of good faith on appeal, if Nemo bis commits to asking for better advice for specific sources if they are disputable. Not for one minute do I believe that Nemo bis is guilty of deliberately promoting copyright piracy. Thanks Fæ (talk) 15:51, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

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, that "Rollback VANDAL" message is a function of Wikipedia. It's not something a user has added, it's a function that allows you to "roll back" a user's edit and then warn them about vandalism on their user talk page. This is nothing Guy has done to you, it always displays when you view a diff between two edits. You'll also note there are two other options displayed: "rollback (AGF)" and "rollback." The former lets you roll back the edit while assuming good faith (and leaving a template to that remark), while the latter is a neutral rollback with a neutral message to their talk page.

These functions collectively give you the option to undo a person's edits between the two diffs, and then leave them a message with one of three options: rolling back their changes and leaving them a template that it was done, while assuming good faith on their part; rolling back the edit and leaving a neutrally worded message; or rolling back their changes with a vandalism warning template.

In short, this was nothing to do with an action by Guy. You misinterpreted what is effectively a button that Wikipedia provides you for undoing another person's edits. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:34, 9 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:[15] Previous:[16][17][18]

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)

[19][20][21][22][23][24]

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)

• Warn and wait. If he decides to climb the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man we can then block him per that policy. Kudos to Guy Macon for the comment above: yes, also WP:ROPE. Guy (Help!) 13:08, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support block. This editor has serious problems which add up to DE and CIR. Right now he is on a campaign of WP:CANVASSING: [25]. Also, he claims to be an experienced Wikipedian (has nearly 3,000 edits), but look at this bizarre post to WP:Articles for deletion/Acid Rain Retirement Fund: [26]. He has received dozens of notices, pieces of advice, and warnings on his talkpage, but doesn't seem to have learned from them: [27]. He needs to assure us that he will carefully learn and abide by Wikipedia norms and cease creating disruption. If not, I'm afraid the CIR issues are too great. -- Softlavender (talk) 01:25, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• I just went through a couple of years of edit history. For at least ten years Mervyn Emrys has been getting into fights with other editors, accusing them of stalking, showing a detailed knowledge of Wikipedia policies and guidelines when someone else violates them, then expressing a complete ignorance of the same policies when he violates them -- claiming that they are too complex to understand. If anyone needs diffs proving this, I can compile them. "I will say this: your current approach is not working. You may think the reason it's not working is because Guy is keeping an eye on you, but it's the reverse case: He's keeping an eye on you because your approach isn't working. Take heed."[28] (I have stopped interacting with him except on ANI). --Guy Macon (talk) 10:38, 11 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 [29], [30] [31] [32] [33]. 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 [34] 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 [35]. 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 [36] 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[37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43]. 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 [44], [45] [46]. 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.[47] 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[48] 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 !!! [49], 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 [50] [51] 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)

@SemiHypercube: As I've been asking folks below, what is the justification for this proposal? If we're going to enact an IBAN, that makes sense. But a TBAN suggests we believe an editor cannot edit constructively within a given topic. I think there is some evidence for that in the case of Ryanoo, but all I see in the case of Arboleh is that they are unable to get along with Ryanoo (which may or may not be due to some poking going on with the aggressiveness in Ryanoo's responses). What is the evidence that Arboleh merits a ban from the topic in its entirety, or that they didn't engage in collaborative efforts, or that their editing in this area is tendentious? A TBAN seems inappropriate to counter interaction issues with another editor, and while I've seen a lot of negative response to the language each editor is using to describe the other, I haven't seen any uninvolved editors point out issues in Arboleh's editing in this discussion. Grandpallama (talk) 13:05, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

@Grandpallama: Part of the rationale for a topic ban is that these users seem to be POV pushing (Most edits by Ryanoo "has been battleground edits on North Africa" according to Tarage, Arboleh seems to be calling anyone who disagrees with them on this topic "racist") which is why a double topic ban may be needed as well as an IBAN. On a side note, pings only work if you sign in the same edit, I can tell you tried a ping. ^Semi_Hypercube ✎ 13:30, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

@SemiHypercube: Yeah, I screwed up the ping. But where are the diffs of Arboleh calling anyone who disagrees a racist? I saw Arboleh call Ryanoo racist, and to be fair, Ryanoo has been skewing on the edge of that in his overblown commentaries about his own expertise and his bad-faith allegations about the motivations of anyone who disagrees with him trying to promote an Afrocentrist agenda. But when did Arboleh call other users racist, and where did he call Ryanoo racist without any provocation? We seem to have jumped quickly to that conclusion, but all the really ugly diffs and quotations people are citing are tied only to Ryanoo, and until Arboleh got riled up by Ryanoo's allegations, I didn't see such language, nor have I seen it directed at other editors. I think that's why I'm concerned--Tarage's (understandable) frustration led to an immediate call for a TBAN, but I'm seeing some dangerous false equivalency going on here, and I've seen NO evidence that Arboleh seems to be calling anyone who disagrees with them on this topic "racist"; where are the diffs of that, which is a pretty significant accusation? Again, a read-through of the North Africa talkpage shows a history of battleground behavior from Ryanoo against a number of editors, but I don't see problematic behavior from Arboleh until his motives get questioned in the middle of a condescending tirade and he's on the receiving end of a backhanded accusation of subverting the truth. Grandpallama (talk) 13:58, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I should clarify--Arboleh edit-warring and incorrectly labeling others' edits as vandalism is problematic behavior, but I'm not sure that's worth a TBAN. More in line with block. Grandpallama (talk) 14:08, 9 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)

Just from what I've seen on this thread I'm already sick of both of you-there seems to be a lot of anger and insults and precious little that is constructive here.

Statements such as 'I am actually here for fighting the ones who have clear racist and destructive POV a.k.a Afrocentrists' or 'I am here so as not to leave my history and culture for the racist Afrocentric Black supremacists' hardly give the impression of someone who is here to help cultivate an encyclopaedia.

I would also note whilst we're debating this that Ryanoo has stated 'regarding banning from editing Africa topics...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'. So I would add the caveat that 'Africa-related topics' covers ALL of the African continent and related themes. We don't need another round of North Africa vs Sub-Saharan Africa-which is the real Africa?

So it's

• Support 1 and 4 with that caveat. Lemon martini (talk) 17:34, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

  @Lemon martini:Both of the quotations you included are from Ryanoo, so I'm curious as to why you say you see equally bad behavior from Arboleh. Grandpallama (talk) 17:51, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support 1 and 4 per Tarage. --Kzl55 (talk) 12:08, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

  @Kzl55:, why would interaction issues between these two users necessitate that both of them be topic-banned? Even a cursory glance at the article in question shows only one of these editors having difficulty with collaborative editing and failing to show good faith. I continue to be mystified at what seems to me to be unjustified support for a TBAN of Arboleh. If the expectation is that Arboleh needs to be sanctioned for having suggested Ryanoo's editing is racist (which the interactions show may not be entirely unjustified), that is only grounds for an IBAN. It doesn't demonstrate an inability to edit in the topic area. Grandpallama (talk) 12:59, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

  Is there a reason you are pinging everyone who doesn't respond in the way you'd like them to? You should stop. --Tarage (talk) 20:39, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

  I've asked three people to justify seeking a topic ban for a user on the basis that the user is calling "anyone who disagrees with him a racist" when the diffs don't back this up--saying that I'm pinging "everyone" is just as unfounded as some of the other statements you made earlier. I'm also worried that your own frustration with the preceding conversation led to a premature call for a topic ban for a user based upon declarations about his editing that weren't backed up by any provided diffs. Is there a policy that I've violated by seeking reasoning from some people for their support? No? Then my response is that the next time you prepare to tell me what I should or shouldn't do, you should stop. Grandpallama (talk) 14:31, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

  @Grandpallama: I also agree with Tarage on this. I would suggest you read WP:BLUDGEON. ^Semi_Hypercube ✎ 18:26, 10 November 2018 (UTC)(

  If you think my responses to the two most recent votes constitute bludgeoning, you're free to take it up with an admin. That said, I think I've replied enough to this topic, so the end result is the same, either way. Grandpallama (talk) 22:11, 10 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 [52], 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: [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60]. Note that this behaviour continued even after being notified twice on it ([61] [62]). The edit warring has continued up to the current day, with new violations of 3RR (in total, five reverts before the article's lockdown: [63] [64] [65] [66] [67]) and including some mocking/provocation to some of the users involved in the discussion ([68] [69] [70]). 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" ([71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77]) 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 ([78] [79] [80]), despite repeated warnings to either bring such accusations to the proper venue with actual evidence or just cast them off ([81] [82] [83]). They also threatened to report me for one comment they allegedly saw as "insulting", but curiously, just like the "vandalism", they never did it ([84]).
  • More WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS ([85] [86] [87]).
  • 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) ([88] [89] [90]). Note that this has continued even after this case was opened ([91] [92]). 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 ([93] [94] [95]), 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 ([96]), a fact they have not even tried to hide ([97]).
    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)

Thinking about it, this should apply to both parties, one for edit warring the the other for incivility, both for battleground mentality.Slatersteven (talk) 18:26, 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)

Since there's an Rfc now occurring at said article, these block requests should now be considered moot. GoodDay (talk) 03:43, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

They shouldn't. One thing is the content dispute (which is what is being addressed with the RfC) and another one is the behavioural problem (which is continuing, at least from HiLo48, in the RfC or even in this very same thread). Impru20^talk 06:38, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

This is way too extreme of a form of WP:IDGAF from User:HiLo48. It's really inappropriate for a ANI discussion about your civility. —JJB^ers 15:24, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Trust me, it would be way worse if he was writing real replies. As noted above, this is nothing new for him and it's never going to change. We can follow GoodDay's suggestion and consider the block requests moot, but that would just be kicking the can down the road because the behavioral issues are just as glaring as ever. Lepricavark (talk) 15:35, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Then a block is needed as it is preventative not punative. It is supposed to prevent the kind of behavior we are seeing. If it is accepted that his behavior is wrong, but he is not going to change no matter how much we ask then a block (for now make it a topic ban, maybe that will get through) is the only answer. What we must not do is accept policy beaching actions on the grounds of "well what can we do?", otherwise what the hell is the point of having them. How can it be fair to have rules that only apply to some users?15:54, 9 November 2018 (UTC)Slatersteven (talk)

I just noticed this on their talk page, [98], it seems that they got pretty uncivil to this user. They also accuse them of vandalism in the edit summary as well. —JJB^ers 16:40, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I've only now noticed that talk page. I don't appreciate being accused of conspiring with other editors when they've done that themselves, per User_talk:HiLo48#Wentworth_by-election,_2018. This section has gone long enough, can we get a determination already? Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:14, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed that until now as well... and now I also noticed this after digging out a little further ([99]). So I now understand this reply from HiLo48 where they accused me of having "clones". Disturbing.

Further, looks like they won't stop their incivility elsewhere even with this report ongoing ([100]). Impru20^talk 22:24, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I would recommend a general block then if the incivility isn't even just on the Australian elections pages. They seem to be generally incivil to multiple places (including the one you linked). —JJB^ers 00:40, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

What more needs to be said. It's hi time hi lo is blocked indefinitely. He is here only to disrupt and has a history of incivility and personal attacks and edit warring as long as anyone in the history of Wikipedia. Block him before he does any more damage to the project. No one will miss him and his contributions.Merphee (talk) 09:53, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

An observation. The problem with making such wild and sweeping statements as that is that it rather encourages examination of one's own contributions. For instance, your 400 edits to articles might be mentioned. IMHO of course. ——SerialNumber54129 10:05, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Been through an investigation and came out clean and it was because of Hi lo's incivility and personal attacks. Don't appreciate your comment dude. May need to go looking through your me thinks. It is as plain as day from comments here that HiLo has attacked and caused havoc since he's been here. I'm entitled to my opinion. I'm NOT on trial here SerialNumber so keep your opinion to your self! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Merphee (talk • contribs) 10:14, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Ah, civility, yes; the irony is duly noted. And please remember to sign your posts, Merphee. ——SerialNumber54129 11:13, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Merphee is entirely correct. Here is a prime example from just three months ago:

Merphee removed an uncited, unattributed POV statement from The Australian that had been tagged for three years: [101]. HiLo48 went straight to Merphee's usertalk to harass him: [102]. Merphee added back part of the material he had removed: [103]. HiLo48 inserted an extremely POV quotation into the article: [104]. Merphee opened a neutral discussion on the article's talkpage about the POV quote: [105]. HiLo48's response was "Stop destroying the article" and he continued to deflect, bicker, and ridicule: [106]. Merphee

correctly removed the quote and attempted to summarize it instead: [107]. HiLo48 reverted [108], and failed to neutrally respond to the issues Merphee brought up about it, instead bickering, casting aspersions, and making demands: [109]. Therefore Merphee engaged in WP:DR by opening a thread on WP:RSN: WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 246#The Monthly. HiLo48 falsely accused Merphee of forum-shopping: [110], [111], and then opened an ANI thread falsely accusing Merphee of forum-shopping: [112]. -- Softlavender (talk) 12:11, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Just so. ——SerialNumber54129 20:05, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Topic ban for Hilo48

From Australian politics in the hope they get the message. Slatersteven (talk) 10:17, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: I think this is feasible, but I don't think HiLo48's problematic behavior is limited to Australian politics. I think a very very long block (3 to 6 months or indef) is what is needed, because as is evidenced above, he has no intention of stopping his abuse of other editors. I think ArbCom is going to be the next stop for this editor if this isn't solved/stopped here. Softlavender (talk) 12:17, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

True, but maybe the issue is the attitude of "well we do not know what to do so lets do nothing" had engendered an attitude that he can do as he likes. If he is sent a clear message that enough is enough and there are actions we can (and will) take it may cause him to rethink this attitude.Slatersteven (talk) 14:31, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support something is better than nothing. Lepricavark (talk) 15:02, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support I would also support a full block. —JJB^ers 17:01, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
• Comment – a little better than nothing, but I would see it as ineffective. Overall I'll have to agree with Softlavender: this extends far beyond the topic of Australian politics. A prime example would be the behaviour exhibited in this same thread ([113] [114] or [115] as examples); the recent dispute with Merphee in The Australian pointed out by Softlavender; the activity at Talk:Gasoline (concurrent with this report being ongoing, [116]); a recent breach of WP:3RR at G.I. Generation (also concurrent in time with this report, [117] [118] [119] [120]); describing the "fuck off" expression as a "too useful a tool" to deliberately provoke other editors "and draw community attention" so that those other editors get sanctioned that way; the similar uncivil + BIT behaviour at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football ([121]); a call for not trusting admins for not using their sysop powers on "miscreants among their ranks"; or a possible canvassing attempt to influence the discussion at Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board#Infoboxes in by-election articles ([122]). This aside from the already spotted misconduct or the long-term concerns with their behaviour. At this point, I think that only a long-term or indef block would work. Impru20^talk 17:27, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Topic ban for Timeshift9

Its takes two to tango and this was just pure battleground for no real reason.Slatersteven (talk) 10:17, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose TBAN – just as I see a TBAN alone would be ineffective on HiLo48, I think it may be too excessive for Timeshift9. As per WP:TBAN, The purpose of a topic ban is to forbid editors from making edits related to a certain topic area where their contributions have been disruptive. While edit warring is disruptive, I don't think there is enough evidence of a long-term behaviour on the part of Timeshift that justifies a TBAN (given the preventive, not punitive, nature of editing restrictions), and I'd rather see it as an isolated incident. Further, the 3RR violations (which would also involve Global-Cityzen) would have probably justified a short block at the time, but given that there have been no new discussion/behaviour issues or warring, I would say to just let it go for now. Impru20^talk 18:03, 10 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)

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)

syrupy edits lauding the subject ad nauseum – maybe it was syrupy of ipecac. EEng 19:48, 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)

Pmdsrilanka, we suspect, is the Presidential Media Div. The President has overruled the Constitution (19A), prorogued Parliament and taken control of many of the media institutions of this country. This wiki, and social media, represents one of the few bastions where someone can find cited, unbiased information (and given that Sirisena blocked Facebook in March, 2018, I'm not sure how long social media access might be available to the general public. Please maintain protection and, if you have the time, we would all appreciate an unbiased source vetting content closely. MaithriWiki (talk) 04:41, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

User Blackknight12 has removed references to the 2018 Constitutional Crisis, as well as a carefully deleting cited references to Maithripala's public disavowal of the 100-day program. The user appears to have mass-deleted large snippets and added them again to make the edit look substantia. Please check C.Fred Ymblanter see revision: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maithripala_Sirisena&diff=868036621&oldid=867879637 MaithriWiki (talk) 07:15, 10 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. — MusenInvincible (talk) 09:59, 8 November 2018‎ (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 [123]. 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)

@Slatersteven If so, should someone who defends his contribution which is an improvement to article against unreasonable arguments be blocked? Is there any Wikipedia policy that tendentious editing wp:tenditious should be blocked? Moreover, If the users have provided clear and reasonable arguments in rejecting my contribution, I would be cease to revert my edit version, however, It is unacceptable that my useful contribution are undermined just by lame arguments in edit summary by saying "revert" or "clearly relevant" without any further explanation. — MusenInvincible (talk) 14:45, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

It is not our place to judge the merits of a contribution, only adherence to policy. Now if a user engages in tendentious editing it may well be a case of they should be blocked, but you were not reported for that (and it is your actions under scrutiny). Nor does a users poor behavior warrant edit warring (slowly or quickly, which is what you were blocked for). An appeal to test on "but what about the other guy" is not going to work (and may get you a longer block for wasting admins time with fallacious appeals). I would also point out that under policy it is really down to you to make the case on the articles talk page, an edd is not required to argue his point in the edit summery (that it is best practice).Slatersteven (talk) 15:10, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

@SlaterstevenI don't talk about wp:tenditious, but Wikipedia:Tendentious editing, If you object to involve in this thread, I am sure there's still another editor who want to discuss with me. Sorry if I was wasting your time...(I don't mean to) — MusenInvincible (talk) 15:19, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

So was I, you do not have to link to the policy for people to know what you mean, we have all been here long enough to know what " tendentious editing" means.

Nor does it matter what you want to talk about, you are appealing a block, and you do not do that by trying to prove another user should have been blocked. This is about whether or not your block was justified, based upon your behavior. What the other user did is irreverent, two wrongs do not make a right. Now if youi want to launch an ANI about Jydog go ahead (I would advise against it given the comments here, which seem to be saying you are wrong), but it a separate issue form your block.Slatersteven (talk) 15:27, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

FYI, I am not appealing a block, but I only give several considerations and proofs concerning status of an unaware admin and harassment from another user, would the other administrators consider my review? is up to them. That's my point. — MusenInvincible (talk) 15:38, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

@Softlavender Making a false accusation of sockpuppetry (which is an unpleasant charge) and reporting an editor who trying to make a useful contribution in page (which reverted with some unclear arguments) that resulted in a block sanction while there are many better alternatives to solve content dispute such as constructive discussion in talk page (WP:BRD), placing protected page template (until solution found), dispute resolution assistance, request for comments, etc. So, aren't these two (slandering and punitive report) unpleasant or nice (civil) behaviors when you, in my position, were humiliated and you should be blocked 5-day while trying to improve things? — MusenInvincible (talk) 14:45, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

@John from Idegon If you think I did not notify them in their talk pages about this issue, see this and this. If you said 'without any evidence as you have here' don't you see this. I don't talk about admin who involve in edit war, but I object with his action to impose a block while there are many alternative solutions. Furthermore, WP:BLOCKNO (read it well) apply to several things that prevent administrator to block an user especially in a content dispute, I mean this administrator (EdJohnston) should read and follow this WP:BLOCKNO policy carefully before imposing a sanction, since the blocking is not solving a conflict nor making a good consensus peacefully in a content dispute (or you say an edit war) while other admin can place protected page template in the disputed article to cool down the debate, not block a side in a conflict. — MusenInvincible (talk) 14:45, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

MusenInvincible, Jytdog did not make a "false accusation of sockpuppetry"; he filed a sockpuppet investigation, an action which is always is perfectly within policy and reason. Meanwhile, you were edit-warring against consensus across two articles, and you were blocked for that. Unless you come to understand how consensus works and how the status quo ante of an article is the consensus unless you are able to get a majority of others to agree otherwise, then you are not going to last long on Wikipedia, and you will be blocked again very soon for increasingly long periods of time. Right now you are continuing to waste everyone's time with these spurious accusations of an editor and an admin who were both clearly following policy. Softlavender (talk) 11:51, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

@Softlavender:Let me ask simple questions, Is his (Jytdog) report to WP:SPI a true or false charge (supported with no evidence)? then, Are you sure with your statement (an editor and an admin who were both clearly(?) following policy)? FYI based on Wikipedia policy, a good editor need to start discussion first to seek consensus (WP:BRD), If there is still no consesus, he may report the case to a noticeboard to solve the dispute. Later, according Wikipedia policy, the administrator may not impose a block to a user involved in a content dispute (When blocking may not be used) (read it well, please?) Third, don't you think that I am clearly following Wikipedia rule while making edits in Muse (disambiguation)? Read MOS:LEADSENTENCE If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence... Lastly, the page title of Muse (disambiguation) page is "Muses" or "Muse"?
P.S. if you do not want to involve in this thread, I am sure there's still another editor who wants to discuss with me. Sorry if I was wasting your time...(I don't mean to) — MusenInvincible (talk) 15:19, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

@MusenInvincible: any defence you have "trying to make a useful contribution in page (which reverted with some unclear arguments) that resulted in a block sanction while there are many better alternatives to solve content dispute such as constructive discussion in talk page (WP:BRD)" pretty much flies out the window when someone visits the talk page for Talk:Muse (disambiguation) and finds the first post by you was after someone else brought it up after your 5 edits. Since you participated in the talk page discussion and didn't edit war after it begun (albeit you were blocked soon after), perhaps you could make a resonable argument that it's not enough for a block but there were other articles involved and more to the point, no one is going to care that much when you weren't bothering to discuss. Perhaps the other side was at fault at well, but the problem is you're coming here trying to convince us to care, and we're not going to since a simple check shows you completely failed the 3rd part of BRD and further you comments suggest it wasn't a case of ignorance. You knew all about the ways to try and resolve the dispute, but didn't try to avail of any of them, instead you edit warred. While this doesn't excuse any wrongs that any other party may have committed it means we aren't likely to care especially when there are other articles involved too. As I've said many times before, don't come and complain about something when the talk page is empty. (Or in this case only wasn't empty because someone else started to discuss and you finally also started to discuss.) Nil Einne (talk) 13:34, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

@Nil Einne:You may say it is an edit war (but I prefer content dispute), however, how can you warrant that the discussion (Talk:Muse (disambiguation)) had been moving forward (because, until this day, none of the other editors write something in talk page, except Jytdog after I reminded him first following his report) when the other sides were only questioning about wording problem and uncertain statements in edit summary. if the arguments are reasonable enough to be responded, for sure I would have started a discussion in the talk page. In this case, moreover, Jytdog did not follow WP:BRD (bold, revert, discuss) but BR'R'D (bold, revert, report, discuss). FYI, I did not know anything about the ways to try and resolve the dispute (WP:BRD), protected page, etc.) before I searched about Wikipedia policies following Jytdog's report. OK, maybe I am a human being who is not perfect that I should be punished when I was wrong, but how with these two users (Jytdog & EdJohnston) with their mistakes, would you let them go away unpunished. I just need a justice here. — MusenInvincible (talk) 15:19, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

@MusenInvincible: It is both a content dispute and an edit war. If you had simply discussed rather than continuing to try to get your version through without discussion then it would be solely a content dispute, and there would be no need to us to care about it at ANI but you made it an edit war, by edit warring. And you still don't seem to be getting it. As I already said, it could be true that others have done wrong here. I don't really know and don't really care. The fact that you have clearly done wrong by failing to discuss means that IDGAF and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. If you want people to care, behave properly and start a discussion as soon as it's clear there is a content dispute. Don't edit war to try and keep your changes. And no here should want to punish anyone. All we want is to stop misbehaviour which seems to have been successful here since you stopped edit warring, whether or not it was necessary. Whatever others did or did not do wrong, it's clear you did wrong by edit warring through multiple content disputes with I think no attempt to initiate discussion (I checked another case and it seemed to be the same as Muse). Again this does not excuse whatever else others may or may not have done wrong, but since the problem is over anyway, none of us particularly care about whether or not you were slightly hard done by since whatever else you were edit warring and apparently made no attempt to initiate discussion. Nil Einne (talk) 16:19, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

BTW "if the arguments are reasonable enough to be responded, for sure I would have started a discussion in the talk page" - utter bullshit. You're destroying your case the more you speak. With very very very very very limited exceptions, you do have to discuss. It doesn't matter if you think their "arguments are reasonable enough to be responded". If you argument it so sound, you just have to leave a simple statement on the talk page and probably the editor themselves, and definitely anyone else who gets involved will surely see the vast superiority of your argument and be won over. Frankly I have no idea how you knew the other editors argument anyway since there was no discussion until someone else initiated it. Edit summaries are not a substitute for discussion. Nil Einne (talk) 16:27, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

I think @MusenInvincible: now might be a good time to back away slowly, you are on a losing one here. Losing at ANI is not like losing at Monopoly, it can have real consequences (beyond a family argument over you letting mum off her debt).Slatersteven (talk) 16:35, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

• Could an administrator either close this endless time-waste, or block MusenInvincible for endless BATTLEGROUND, DE, TE, IDHT, and unfounded wiki-lawyering? Softlavender (talk) 00:01, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

From my perspective, all that this person has done in WP is add badly sourced bad content, and bludgeon talk pages (and this board) with bad arguments. Seeing oneself as "invincible" is rarely conducive to what we do here. I had forgotten about the MEAT-aided edit warring this person did at Kafir that led me to file the SPI. Hm. There is no openness with this person to learning what we do, and how we do it. Jytdog (talk) 01:30, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, what to do? They've already received four warnings from Doug Weller this year: [124], [125], [126], [127]. And they've already been blocked twice this year, most recently for 5 days [128]. I'd say the appropriate current sanction for this heedless BATTLEGROUND thread which the editor seems determined to extend into infinity would be a two-week block. Softlavender (talk) 02:26, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Dr Nobody's behaviour at and around Irish Bull Terrier

Dr Nobody (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Irish Bull Terrier (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Well, I wish it hadn't come to this, but I tried just about everything else I can think of to get through to this editor. They have repeatedly demonstrated a ownership mentality about this article, see here, here, here, and here. They have also apparently refuse to learn how to use references and sources correctly on Wikipedia. They have been pointed to various policy pages regarding these policies, but has not bothered to read them or doesn't care as evidenced by their repeated insertion of unreliable and incorrectly referenced sources. I can provide more diffs if required, but since it is pretty contained I didn't think it would be hard to see.

Like I said at the beginning, I wish it hadn't come to this. zchrykng (talk) 17:53, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Additional note, I have no opinion on what is the "correct" version of the article. I ended up there and interacting with this editor solely through recent changes patrolling and have been trying to help since. zchrykng (talk) 17:59, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I've just reverted his latest edit, as the "source", even if reliable, doesn't actually source the text anyway. I'll wait to see if there's a response to this thread. Black Kite (talk) 18:25, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

I sincerely hope they respond, but I doubt they will, at least in a positive way, at this point. zchrykng (talk) 18:27, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Black Kite I feel like I need to add Competence is required, I didn’t hear that, and Right great wrongs to the list of issues. zchrykng (talk) 17:50, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I have no idea what this person is talking about I referenced a change to the article from a reliable source. I started the article several years back as many of this breed were being put down as American Pit Bull Terriers which they are not. DR NOBODY — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr Nobody (talk • contribs) 20:23, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

@Dr Nobody: The text you added was sourced to this page.

Your text: "The main difference between the IBT and the APBT is the head shape." Which text at your source verifies the claim that head shape is the primary differentiating factor between these two breeds of dog? This is particularly confusing because neither "pit" nor "APBT", your abbreviation for American Pit Bull Terrier, appear in your source at all.

Your text: "The APBT head is of medium length with a broad flat skull and a wide deep muzzle" Which text at your source verifies this information?

Your text: "whereas the IBT the head is short and deep throughout with a distinct stop reference" This appears to be referenced to the "Description" section at your source, which says the dog has "a broad head and very strong jaws. The muzzle is short and the cheek muscles distinct. The stop is clearly defined." Could you change your text so it more accurately restates the source's text?

2602:306:BC31:4AA0:905B:33DA:5576:AFE7 (talk) 21:36, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Hopefully this meets WIKIs requirements as I have referenced more clearly. Dr Nobody (talk) 23:14, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

@Dr Nobody: I just undid your most recent edit because copying someone else's words and pasting them, even if you include a citation, is a form of stealing called "plagiarism" and of course, we don't allow it. Thus, the previous concerns about your text still stand. 2602:306:BC31:4AA0:905B:33DA:5576:AFE7 (talk) 02:21, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

We are allowed to quote people.Slatersteven (talk) 11:05, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Have redone again for you but it doesnt show ? Dr Nobody (talk) 07:55, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

All that was done ('redone') was to revert the edit by 2602:306:BC31:4AA0:905B:33DA:5576:AFE7 which meant a continuation of edit warring and seemingly took no notice of the allegations of plagiarism. It has been reverted again. Eagleash (talk) 10:46, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I rewrote the piece there was no plagiarism. I would like to complain about this harassment please Dr Nobody (talk) 12:08, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Agricolae WP:BATTLEFIELD

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

Agricolae is taking an aggressive WP:BATTLEFIELD approach to a content discussion with me at Talk:James Balfour (died 1845)#Claimed_Royal_descent, and being overtly bullying, whilst projecting their aggression into me.

In 12½ years of editing en.wp, I have not been subject to such a bullying, hectoring approach to content discussion since the long-departed User:Vintagekits. Please can someone persuade him that a consensus-forming discussion requires WP:CIVILity. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:04, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I tried persuading Agricolae of that once...at Philip II of Spain. They didn't like an edit I made and undid it. So I took it to the talk page, got other editors to agree with the edit...and Ag still wouldn't take no for an answer, continuing to edit-war over the discussion. Ag is probably due a block for BATTLEfield and edit-warring. pbp 03:37, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

(ec)Indeed, PBP. Before coming to ANI, I looked a little at the history of Agricolae's (unarchived, repeatedly blank) talk page, and found this[129] telling you to grow up, and this[130] accusing you of BATTLEFIELD and urging you to Go #^$%&^($% yourself.

It was those diffs, on the first screenful of Agricolae's talk history which persuaded me that what I encountered was not just someone having a bad day, but part of a pattern.

I was particularly interested to see that amidst all Ag's aggression to you, he also accused you of taking a BATTLEFIELD approach. That projection into others of his own aggression was one of the things which I found most unsettling in my discussion with him. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:55, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

As long as we are sharing particularly interesting observations, 'projection' is precisely the word that occurred to me as you leveled at me accusation after accusation, including BATTLEFIELD (I was not the person who invoked 'retreat'). Even here, in the very same response, you all but call me illiterate while at the same time declaring that I am incivil. Irony much? Agricolae (talk) 04:51, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Agricolae, I will set out the sequence in full below. In that you will see that the BATTLFIELD conduct was initiated by your post of 17:52, 8 November 2018[131], in which you

1. used the phrae ancestor-fawning trivia both in body text and as an edit summary
2. used shouty CAPS

In my reply[132], I asked you to to take a less combative tone

You responded at 20:00 [133] Wow, into the twilight zone we go.

That's the projection which I was referring to, and fits the same pattern as your exchange with PBP in August on your talk page.

Note that in your reply of 20:00 your wrote I am perfectly familiar with NOTGENEALOGY, just not your special reading of it that draws a distinction between 'family history' and 'just a little bit of family history'. I have not retreated from NOTGENEALOGY one iota. This is why i have asked you explicitly below to clarify whether you still hold to your claim that 'just a little bit of family history' is simply my special reading of a policy which says in full "Family histories should be presented only where appropriate to support the reader's understanding of a notable topic".

So I ask again: do you still think that NOTGENEALOGY's wording "only where appropriate" justifies your claim that 'just a little bit of family history' is fordbideen?

You were being bullying and sneering on the basis of a policy which you flat-out misrepresented. I AGFed that that the misrepresentation might not be intentional, so I phrased my challenge gently ... but even now, you deny the misrepresentation and instead complain that I wrote you repeatedly namechecked WP:NOTGENEALOGY, but apparently without scrutinising its text.

This sort of thing is why I came to ANI. You attack, bully and sneer on the basis of a flat-out wrong claim about policy ... and then when you challenged you apologise for nothing, and claim that you are the victim because you were asked to act with civility and desist fro the battlefield behaviour. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:29, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Oh come on. You have been insulting me and dismissing me and completely mischaracterizing my position and actions from the start, while explicitly stating that I have to completely abandon my position in favor of your POV before we can even have a real discussion (in which case there would be nothing left to discuss). It is fully indicative of your approach to this whole sorry scenario that you repeatedly have claimed it to your credit that you only accused me of not reading the policy I was citing, because the only alternatives you can envision for someone disagreeing with your self-evidently correct interpretation is incompetence or bad faith. And I am the one supposedly not interested in consensus. Agricolae (talk) 00:25, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

[e/c] This from the person who accused me of citing policy I had not read, of 'retreating' and mentioned my "horror" at the content in question, but apparently that was all my fault too. I have faced one accusation of bad faith after another. (And now it seems that the text in question they so much want to retain was derived from a Google Books snippet alone. Sigh.) Agricolae (talk) 03:46, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I suggest that uninvolved editors read the discussion, and note Agricolae's rapid resort to shouty caps, hyperbole, and straw men, sarcasm and insult: e.g. ancestor-fawning trivia. The interpretation which Ag placed WP:NOTGENEALOGY is not supported by the text, so I was being charitable in suggesting that they had not read it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:01, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Ah, yes. We disagree about the meaning of a policy so obviously either I can't read or I didn't read it. This is civility? Agricolae (talk) 04:24, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

WP:NOTGENEALOGY says in full "'Family histories should be presented only where appropriate to support the reader's understanding of a notable topic."

So it does not ban the inclusion of family history. On the contrary, the policy explicitly allows it "where appropriate". I suggested that you seem unfamiliar with the policies you cite, but why don't you explain? Did you a) not read "where appropriate", b) not comprehend it, or c) misrepresent it?

I tried to give you a graceful way out from your misunderstanding, but you were already in the battlefield mode which I have since learnt that you have displayed elsewhere.

I invite uninvolved editors to review your comments such as 'It is not family history because it is only a little bit of family history'? That is a non sequitur,, and compare them with the policy you were citing. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:44, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Sigh. Not here too. Please consider, just ever so briefly, that the phrase "where appropriate" is by its very nature imprecise, such that someone might in good faith read the phrase, comprehend the phrase, not misrepresent the phrase, and yet still to not agree with your interpretation. Solely because I don't share your view on what is and is not appropriate, you say I must have misunderstood the words and thus need a graceful way out. That is insulting. Yet again. Agricolae (talk) 05:26, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Let's keep this simple, Agricolae.

Do you agree that:

1. WP:NOTGENEALOGY does not impose a ban on inclusion of family history?
2. That it requires a judgement on what is appropriate? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:00, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

As illuminating as it may be, this is not the place for a discussion of the policy disagreement that gave rise to this report. This discussion is about behavior, mine and yours. Agricolae (talk) 17:29, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

On the contrary, it is central to the conduct issue.

You acted aggressively and sneerily, on the basis that even a little bit of history was a breach of the policy[134] . 'It is not family history because it is only a little bit of family history'? That is a non sequitur.

It is important to clarify whether you stand by that view of policy. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:02, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

With all due respect, you seem not to have even tried to to understand my position if you so mischaracterize it. I have let you get away with a whole lot of what I consider to be totally unfounded accusations, but I am done with that. Here is my perspective on what has happened: months ago I had the temerity to question the propriety of a single sentence from a page you seem to think you WP:OWN, and all of the sudden and inexplicably two days ago it became a crisis that you couldn't allow to stand even while it was discussed. You dismissed my position out of hand as self-evidently wrong, a red herring or worse without making any effort to even understand what my position way was, you insulted my reading skills, questioned my good faith, argued as if it had the weight of fact a bold-faced assumption that the cited source probably has more relevant content just because a lot of books do that, and topped it off with reporting me here just to be sure I got taken out of the discussion completely, and you then would get to implement your position as the only valid one with nobody left to argue otherwise: all to prevent the intolerable proposition of a change to your page. And now, of course, you have restored the challenged text, because nothing says willingness to reach a consensus like acting unilaterally after telling the other person that they have to admit they have been wrong all along for the discussion to move forward. As I am sure is evident, my perception differs markedly from the version where I am the evil nasty incompetent person acting in bad faith to victimize you. Go figure. Agricolae (talk) 23:48, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

So, diffs showing the alleged behavior would be nice.Slatersteven (talk) 11:04, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, here is BHG insisting that I must not have read the policy I cite (which, as BHG states unambiguously above here, is code for me either acting in bad faith or being illiterate), and the characterization of my behavior as expressing horror that the disputed text should be included, and in the next paragraph, characterizing my listing of a second policy that I considered to be relevant as a retreat from your misplaced reliance on WP:NOTGENEALOGY: [135]

Here is BHG is accusing me of acting in bad faith (I don't believe that you genuinely hold to that reading): [136]

And here is BHG, just this morning, telling me that if I want to work toward consensus I must first abandon my entire argument as a red herring (last paragraphs): [137]

BHG considers themself the innocent victim here, but that has not been my perception. This most recent contribution by BHG summarizes their tone throughout: the suggestion that in order to demonstrate my willingness to seek consensus I must accept that I have been acting (in ignorance and/or bad faith) in support of a position that has never been anything but a red herring - that is just dressing up 'my way or the highway' in the language of desire for consensus. Agricolae (talk) 18:27, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

• RfC The problem here seems to be the usual issue of "two cooks in one kitchen" – a disagreement in which neither party is willing to give way. The way to resolve this is to establish a consensus by getting more editors involved using dispute resolution such as WP:THIRD or WP:RfC. This does not seem to have been tried yet at Talk:James Balfour (died 1845)#Claimed_Royal_descent and so escalating to WP:ANI seems premature. Andrew D. (talk) 22:50, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Austin crick and legal threats

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This looks very much like a legal threat mentioning both Courts and lawyers in the same sentence.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   16:54, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, a veiled legal threat. A NLT Template is needed now. nothing more. --DBigXrayᗙ 16:58, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I've left a note too. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:05, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

To be fair, he's explained what he meant, and IMHO it's a credible explanation. He's not threatening legal action against other editors, he's saying if someone wants to sue him for copyvio, they can do so in the courts. Which is still a misunderstanding, but not a legal threat. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:08, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Still probably needs to be blocked for continuing copyright violations on Draft:King_Lear_(1957),_a_painting_by_Werner_Drewes_(Bauhaus_School) (and there's some RD1 revdelling that needs to be done there too) Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:19, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I have caught up the revision deletion. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 21:48, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

• This is an obvious CIR case and I can't imagine why so much time was wasted on this person, nor why the block isn't simply indefinite. Hopeless. EEng 03:12, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

I have given this editor an indefinite block. If any administrator disagrees and thinks that there is any hope that this editor will become a productive contributor, then please feel free to unblock. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:27, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

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NPA violations over at the Pegasus Awards AfD

Could Toddst1 maybe stop attacking me and everyone else who disagrees with him over at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pegasus Award? Thanks. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:13, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Diffs would be good.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:19, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

True. Another good thing would be for Toddst1 and SoV to stop edit warring with each other, and stop removing each other's comments, which would easily lead to a block if done by less well known editors. Probably time for both to disengage for a while; the AFD will last a week.--Floquenbeam (talk) 18:22, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yeah, they would, if editing on this phone wasn't so annoying. trumpy behavior by admin will get us started... SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:24, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

And I walked away from it two days ago. Todd's the one who's not letting it drop, and going after everyone else who posts. It's not just me who's the target. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:32, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

• Based on the message at Sarek's talk page, Toddst was offended by Sarek's initial comment, which classified Toddst's deletion nomination as "IDONTLIKEIT", and the mutual bad faith accusations sprung up from there, with Toddst calling Sarek a 'troll' and a 'bully', deleting/collapsing/tagging his comments, telling him he's projecting his own bad faith motivations, casting aspersions about him having a COI, telling him to 'act with dignity'. Still, Sarek did poke the bear with the 'keep digging' and the 'rvv' comments. I'm not sure whether there is history between these two, or if they both just overreacted and over-escalated the situation, but that aside, Toddst1, come on, you should know better than to modify other people's comments. Bold policing? Really?  Swarm  talk  00:48, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Believe this is an open proxy

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The ref desk vandal was just using 209.152.115.22 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). It has been blocked 60 hours, but I believe this may be a proxy and therefore might need a longer block. [138] says it detects a proxy on that IP, but I'm not an expert on determining that. Thanks. Home Lander (talk) 04:45, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Not notifying the IP of this discussion. Home Lander (talk) 04:46, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Now used 175.139.218.221 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log), which I've also reported at AIV. Home Lander (talk) 04:50, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

He rarely uses the same IP twice, and so it's probably not a big deal. --Jayron32 04:51, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

If we check every IP he uses, he might be doing us an inadvertent service by finding and identifying open proxies for us. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:05, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

While the honeypot nature of this is mildly useful, the scale of this means, no, we're not going to do so in our lifetimes. There are 4 trillion IPv4 addresses and 3.4×10^38 IPv6 addresses. If only 1 in a thousand of those was an open proxy, that would still live us with more addresses to block than it would take till the heat death of the universe to exhaust. Nice idea, though. --Jayron32 05:09, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Actually there are 4 billion (not trillion) IPv4 addresses. A little old lady goes to a lecture on astronomy. Afterwards she asks the speaker, "Did I understand you to say, professor, that the sun will burn out in 4 million years?" "No madam, I said 4 billion years." "Oh thank goodness," says the old lady, "I'm so relieved!" EEng 00:08, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Brute force searching the IPv6 address space for open proxies is obviously not feasible (though IPv4 is, see Censys), but that wasn't being suggested. Also, there are certainly not 3.4×10^35 (1 in 1000) IPv6 open proxies in operation for us to find. TheDragonFire (talk) 06:26, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

ProcseeBot automatically blocks open proxies. So, we're not completely defenseless. It is annoying, though. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 09:09, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

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User:Dimas gilang persistent disruptive editing

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

Dimas gilang has a history of disruptive editing with multiple warnings on his talk page, all of which he has ignored. He has created numerous unreferenced articles and, when they are moved to draft space or deleted, he just moves them back to main space or recreates them. A recent example is Fokus (Indosiar news program) which was moved to draft space by PaleoNeonate back in September. He subsequently has recreated the page at multiple locations, only to have the pages redirected to the draft and/or deleted. Unfortunately, deletion of Fokus (Indosiar news program) has allowed him to move the article back to mainspace. Another of his creations, INews (TV program), is currently at AfD and all three of the delete voters, Gonnym, IJBall and me, have made negative comment about Dimas gilang's work. Of course we all understand that we should be commenting on the content, not on the contributor, but I think the comments demonstrate the level of frustration that we have in dealing with this editor, especially after constructive criticism has been ignored. For example, in September I politely asked him not to use flags in infoboxes and directed him to MOS:INFOBOXFLAG. Despite this, he continues to create articles with infobox flags as his latest poorly sourced article demonstrates. Note the fixes that I've just had to make to that article.[139] In October, only 16 days ago I asked him to format infoxes correctly after this effort. I took the opportunity to mention correct use of infobox fields, date linking (clearly he has ignored that from the Jenny Tan example above), WP:NOTTVGUIDE and correct use of italics but he continues to ignore these. For example, at Seputar iNews I had removed a list of airtimes,[140] but he just restored them.[141] Even after asking him to format infoboxes correctly (and everything else I asked him) he persists in creating articles that contain numerous violations. See Delik (TV program) and the fixes that I had to make. UseeTV (previously mentioned) is an example of a program that was moved to draft space and which Dimas gilang immediately moved back to mainspace. It is now at AfD. Finally, at least for the moment, concerns have been raised about his assertion of ownership of articles by both HitroMilanese[142] and myself.[143] The latest came after he posted yet another banner on my talk page stating please don't moving & editing my article on draft.[144] This was just before he moved Draft:Fokus (Indosiar news program) back to mainspace. This editor seems unable to understand the requirements of WP:GNG, the requirement to source articles or to comply with our other policies and guidelines. There seem to be severe competency issues that need addressing as his efforts are creating a lot of work for other editors. --AussieLegend (✉) 06:33, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Probably the worst example of this editor's blatantly bad behavior is the saga involving Kompas (news program) (which has also been at Kompas (Kompas TV news program) and Draft:Kompas (Kompas TV news program), and which is now at Kompas (TV program) and which is still failing to meet WP:GNG). The latter ruckus even got this editor blocked by Amakuru (see also User talk:Amakuru#Kompas (news program)). At this point, I fully believe this user is WP:NOTHERE to collaborate on this project, and should get an WP:INDEF block. At a minimum, they should be indefinitely banned from creating articles (probably even in Draftspace...). --IJBall (contribs • talk) 06:54, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. Actions included hijacking an existing talk page to avoid scrutiny/patrol when recreating, like this. I remember warning with a standard COI template as well but there was no answer. My impression is that this is typical undisclosed conflict of interest and spamming... —PaleoNeonate – 09:39, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, it may previously have been disclosed. —PaleoNeonate – 09:42, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

A few more examples of Dimas gilang asserting ownership:[145][146][147][148][149] And let's not forget the time he accused PaleoNeonate of being a hacker.[150] --AussieLegend (✉) 10:39, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Along with all of this, in the process of nominating one of Dimas's articles for deletion, they posted these obnoxious "Wikilove" messages all over my talk page. I would support a CIR block because they seem to not understand anything on the encyclopedia, despite being here for almost 2 years.💵Money💵emoji💵^💸 19:57, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Support CIR block per 💵. ^Semi_Hypercube ✎ 20:01, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

I feel like with this editor it's a game of whack-a-mole as nothing seems to stop him. As I look for articles that are not named according to television guidelines I keep on seeing the same articles I've previously tagged over and over again. Just yesterday he moved (again) Fokus (Indosiar news program) from draft to mainspace. He obviously does not care for the correct process, or for writing and other guidelines, and as a result, for other editor time which is spent cleaning after him. Also, from the types of articles he's creating, I'm almost positive it is a CoI situation. --Gonnym (talk) 12:01, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

As if to reinfoce everything that has been said here, he has just created Aiman (TV program), with all of the problems that he has previously been warned about: improper infobox formatting, a flag in the infobox, multiple invalid infobox fields, datelinking, with some incorrect bolding and unnecessary piping thrown in for good measure, all of which somebody else will have to fix. --AussieLegend (✉) 12:23, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Fred Bauder

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I would like to see sanctions against User:Fred Bauder for his deeply hurtful, slanderous, sinister and threatening words on his arb com elect page.[151]. Is this how we enforce CIV; by denigrating and making broad treats against anybody who questions the basis of an arb candidacy and request more transparency as regards intent- He said: I can see that you feel free to act as ugly as you wish here, an assessment which I believe is true. I would change that and enforce Civility. You, should you continue to engage in ugly behavior, would be subject to sanctions, and, if you are unable to control your behavior, which I suspect is true, would not be able to participate on Wikipedia. So, in a way, you are fighting for your life. I have been here since mid 2006, am dedicated, and this is just horrible behavior. I prodded him because he is making noises about digging up old woulds and settling old scores. This is far worse behavior than swearing. Ceoil (talk) 17:42, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Your OP was needlessly antagonistic, he responded in kind. Neither of you has demonstrated conspicuous civility here. I suspect I know were this is headed.Slatersteven (talk) 17:48, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

In fact, I was responding in kind to his earlier and similar statements above. But I take your point. Ceoil (talk) 17:54, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

What is a "caste conscious warrior"? Bus stop (talk) 18:00, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

You might wonder:) I meant viewing buttons as sources of status and power; admins over editors, arbs over admins. Sorry for the drama, but evidently I am "fighting for [my] life", which I suppose I should take seriously. It would seem an indeff is on the way, and that would upset me no end. Ceoil (talk) 18:02, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

What am I missing here?Slatersteven (talk) 18:11, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

I think "caste conscious warrior" is too colorful to serve a constructive purpose. Bus stop (talk) 18:16, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

For colour—of a florid hue—I don't think anyone can beat User:FredBauder's comments at that page. ——SerialNumber54129 19:16, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Exactly. We are getting away from the point here. Ceoil (talk) 19:27, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

• @Ceoil: You are required to notify Fred Bauder of this thread. I've done so.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:12, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I had typed it up, but got distracted by Slatersteven's question (which I though was fair). Thanks anyway. Ceoil (talk) 19:14, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Ceoil, I can't predict what anyone will do, but I think it highly unlikely that Fred will block you. I agree with Slaterseven that your question to Fred was antagonistic (exacerbated by your flair for language), but I also think that Fred's response was inapproriate, more so than your question. Still, I don't think any administrator is going to block Fred based on your conversation with him. My suggestion is to let it go.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:38, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Grand, Bbb23, I agree with this analysis, now that I have time to clam down, properly assess the threat level and conclude it was empty bullshit; you can hat at will. Ceoil (talk) 19:43, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Pot calls the kettle black. This thread smacks a little too much of "don't vote for Fred Bauder" for my liking. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 20:00, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Not exactly nor even close. Fred explicitly said that if he was elected I was toast: "So, in a way, you are fighting for your life". Apparently thats not actionable, so I'm calling it quits in frustration, reading the tea leafs "I don't think any administrator is going to block Fred". I know gathering around and boomerang when I see it. Ceoil (talk) 20:06, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Surely it doesn't need an AN/I thread for editors to know what they would be voting for. ——SerialNumber54129 20:03, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

This 'might be' a first. A call for sanctions against an Arbitrator candidate, while he's seeking the position. GoodDay (talk) 20:29, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Well I think that ship sailed, and worse. "You sank my arbcomship!". The Rambling Man (talk) 20:35, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

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You sank my arbcomship!

-EEng

copyright violations by Chanuka Konara

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Chanuka Konara (talk · contribs) added copyrighted material to Wariyapola Sri Sumangala College [here] and again after being warned on their talk page [here]. Rather than appear to edit war I bring it the issue here. Gab4gab (talk) 19:04, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

I've reverted the copyvio (it is blatant), and given a stronger warning message. I'm inclined towards giving this user a bit more ROPE (1 more strike), as the previous warning feels more like a level 1/2 than a level 3/4. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 19:12, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

• After the two warnings, the same text was inserted by an IP, 2402:4000:2182:e013:2dfe:1121:adf4:46f. The quacking is quite deafening, so I've blocked both Chanuka Konara and the IP for a couple of weeks. Bishonen | talk 20:54, 10 November 2018 (UTC).

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Disruptive IPs on NYC-area railroad articles

For about six months now, a series of IPs geolocating to around Ossining, New York and New York City - almost certainly the same editor at home and work - have been making poor-quality changes to railroad-related articles. Most articles are related to Metro-North Railroad and Long Island Rail Road, though some are farther afield. Although some edits they make are correct, most are incorrect, useless, or outright vandalism. They repeatedly soft-revert when their poor edits are reverted, ignore talk page messages, leave no edit summaries, and refuse to discuss on talk pages. The frequently-changing IPs and refusal to engage with the community makes working with this editor impossible. The currently active IP is 69.117.14.252 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log).

list of IPs and ranges

Sorted 17 IPv4 addresses: 67.85.54.157 67.87.197.84 68.196.140.27 69.113.130.30 69.113.133.238 69.113.135.58 69.117.12.70 69.117.12.248 69.117.14.113 69.117.14.252 69.117.15.126 69.117.15.179 69.118.168.191 74.88.69.251 74.90.22.232 74.90.23.159 166.109.0.236 Total affected Affected addresses Given addresses Range Contribs 2057 1 1 67.85.54.157 contribs 1 1 67.87.197.84 contribs 1 1 68.196.140.27 contribs 1 1 69.113.130.30 contribs 1024 2 69.113.132.0/22 contribs 1024 6 69.117.12.0/22 contribs 1 1 69.118.168.191 contribs 1 1 74.88.69.251 contribs 1 1 74.90.22.232 contribs 1 1 74.90.23.159 contribs 1 1 166.109.0.236 contribs 779 1 1 67.85.54.157 contribs 1 1 67.87.197.84 contribs 1 1 68.196.140.27 contribs 1 1 69.113.130.30 contribs 1 1 69.113.133.238 contribs 1 1 69.113.135.58 contribs 256 2 69.117.12.0/24 contribs 512 4 69.117.14.0/23 contribs 1 1 69.118.168.191 contribs 1 1 74.88.69.251 contribs 1 1 74.90.22.232 contribs 1 1 74.90.23.159 contribs 1 1 166.109.0.236 contribs 17 1 1 67.85.54.157 contribs 1 1 67.87.197.84 contribs 1 1 68.196.140.27 contribs 1 1 69.113.130.30 contribs 1 1 69.113.133.238 contribs 1 1 69.113.135.58 contribs 1 1 69.117.12.70 contribs 1 1 69.117.12.248 contribs 1 1 69.117.14.113 contribs 1 1 69.117.14.252 contribs 1 1 69.117.15.126 contribs 1 1 69.117.15.179 contribs 1 1 69.118.168.191 contribs 1 1 74.88.69.251 contribs 1 1 74.90.22.232 contribs 1 1 74.90.23.159 contribs 1 1 166.109.0.236 contribs

Several of the IPs, including 69.117.12.248 and range 69.113.128.0/21, have been given blocks for vandalism at AIV. However, the nature of the edits (the disruptive nature is not always obvious at first glance) and the frequently shifting IPs which make repeated warnings difficult means that sometimes my AIV reports are turned down. I would like to see ranges 69.113.128.0/21 and 69.117.12.0/22 (where the majority of this disruption is coming from) blocked for a longer period, and for other appearances of this disruptive editor to be blocked on site. Pinging @Epicgenius and Cards84664: who have also been involved in dealing with this disruptive editing. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:03, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Also see the prior SPI reports here. Thank you for compiling this. Cards84664 (talk) 21:06, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

As I mentioned on the SPI, I don't think these IPs are Conrailman4122 socks (despite the same geographic area) due to their lack of edit summaries, talk page usage, and hard reverts. Meatpuppetry is possible, but this is probably just a separate disruptive editor. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:11, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

I think I found a slip-up by the other sock, see this one. They used edit summaries on October 19th and 20th. Both that ip and the latest one above edited Roosevelt Field (shopping mall). Cards84664 (talk) 21:27, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Spamming ELs

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Please block User:Smellyshirt5 who is edit warring to spam ELs to École Polytechnique into multiple pages. Some kind of weird internal WP spam. See Special:Contributions/Smellyshirt5. Jytdog (talk) 23:11, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

This is not a spam. I am a real human bean trying to note the historical importance of one of the first technical schools by adding it to known technical school's "See also" sections...Smellyshirt5 (talk) 23:31, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

That's not what a "See also" section is for. It's for articles that are closely related to the subject at hand. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 23:47, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Even if you were right (you're not), edit warring is still wrong. Experience suggests that someone passionately insisting on links is spamming or inappropriately boosting something. Both are incompatible with Wikipedia. Johnuniq (talk) 23:59, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Your claim	My response
This is not a spam.	Yes, it is. You want to use Wikipedia to promote your favorite university. It's great that your proud of your Grande Ecole, but you'll need to find somewhere else to promote it. See Wikipedia:Avoid academic boosterism and WP:NOTADVERTISING.
I am a real human bean trying to note the historical importance of one of the first technical schools by adding it to known technical school's "See also" sections	Adding an internal link to your favorite university to every college and university offering a remotely technical curriculum just because your favorite is "one of the first" is promoting your favorite. See Wikipedia:Avoid academic boosterism and WP:NOTADVERTISING for why you shouldn't do this.

-- DanielPenfield (talk) 00:05, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

I blocked this editor for edit warring, tendentious editing and spamming external links. Plus stubbornness and refusal to listen to other editors. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:21, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

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Cléééston as a suspected sockpuppet of Guilherme Styles

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I don't know what to do about this, so posting here. There is a thread started by Cléééston at GAC:Open reviews for over two months, regarding lapsed reviews by another user. When I clicked Cléééston's user page, it comes up showing a notice he's a suspected sock. That notice has been on his page since 2015. He had been blocked by DrKay in 2015, and unblocked also by DrKay in September 2018. Is this user a sock or not? If not, why is that notice still on his user page. If he is still a sock, why was he unblocked? Kind of confusing. — Maile (talk) 00:45, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Maile66: I was blocked for suspicion of being a sock, but nothing was ever proven and I was eventually cleared. I'm not a sock puppet, I just forgot to remove the tag. Cléééston (talk) 00:49, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

OK. — Maile (talk) 01:07, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

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User:PrimeBOT

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This bot which is owned and operated by Primefac recently started performing a large number of edits. These edits have resulted in thousands of errors with pages being dumped into Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls because of various issues with the script. My concern here is that as a bot operator I know we are required to file new WP:BRFAs every time we start a new bot. That clearly was not done here and no trial edits or tests were performed. The edit summaries are referencing a WP:BRFA that is vague and from February. It seems to have no relevance to the current bot run. At the very least a WP:TROUT is warranted but it concerns me that the WP:BRFA process was intentionally skipped and that this bot has introduced so many issues. Multiple unanswered messages have been left on Primefac's page. It appears there is simply no oversight on this process. --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 07:22, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

It looks like bad timing where Primefac went offline a few hours ago and missed the problem reports at User talk:Primefac. The bot seems to have stopped at the time of the first report at User talk:PrimeBOT. It would only be worth posting at ANI if the bot had not stopped (so a temporary block might be required) or if Primefac were still editing and had not responded to discussions. Stuff happens. Some examples that uninvolved people can follow would have been helpful but that does not matter now. Johnuniq (talk) 10:10, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: what concerns me is the fact that there was no WP:BRFA. This was a MASSIVE series of untested and unapproved edits by a bot. I've operated numerous bots and so I know that anytime you change anything about a bot, you need a new WP:BRFA. There was no such request. Primefac unleashed a new and untested bot that caused thousands of errors. I'm not necessarily advocating a block here. We absolutely all make mistakes, lord knows I've made tons of them. Were this simply a broken bot I'd say WP:TROUT and move on. My concern is the that I want to understand why the WP:BRFA process was circumvented. That is what concerns me much more than the fact that the bot didn't work. The process is in place to prevent these sorts of mistakes from happening. If you look at the contributions of the bot, nearly every edit in the run is broken. This indicates to me that very little testing (if any) was done. So I would like an admin to investigate why no BRFA was filed and how this bot was able to be unleashed in such a broken state. --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 10:21, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

First, yes, I cocked this one up. I made an assumption (and yes, we all know what that means) based on the number of posts made on my talk regarding the subject that the merger was ready to be implemented. This will not happen again, and I will clean up my mess. second, I'm a bit disappointed that this escalated so quickly to ANI (instead of just stopping my bot, leaving me a note, going to WP:BOTN, and then coming here after I had not responded and/or responded disparagingly). Third, to address the BRFA issue, my bot was given permission to implement the outcomes of TFDs. Primefac (talk) 13:25, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

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IP user spamming help requests

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An IP user is spamming the request to help improve a page about some semi-celebrity (Maureen Wroblewitz) to quite a lot of random editors. A message on his talk page doesn't help. It's not a disaster, but i think rapid intervention is required. This is annoying to the tens of editors who get this random message. PizzaMan ♨♨♨ 09:26, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@PizzaMan: I've reverted all the spam, but I agree an admin should review this situation. --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 09:33, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@Zackmann08: Thanks. It seems to have stopped for now. Still wonder how this editor came to pick me as the first person to spam and how he selected the other editors. I can't think of any way how i'm related to the subject. Anyway, is there a way to automatically keep tabs on future edits from this IP? PizzaMan ♨♨♨ 09:43, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@PizzaMan: Alex Shih has blocked them so I think you are good. :) --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 09:45, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@Zackmann08:, @Alex Shih: thank you both fot the rapid reaction! PizzaMan ♨♨♨ 09:49, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

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SPI vandal at it again

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• Mudospfjod (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Tobnadkcf (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Theinstentmatrix (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• MangoChkUser (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Some quick admin intervention is needed here. Thanks. theinstantmatrix (talk) 10:44, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

 Done -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 11:12, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

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User:Aboubacarkhoraa

• Aboubacarkhoraa (talk · contribs)

Aboubacarkhoraa has been approached a couple of times on their talk page about their contributions in French. Their replies have always been agreeable and co-operative, but again, in French. WP:CIR. Je suis at a loss que faire. Cabayi (talk) 11:53, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Cabayi, please at the very least place the {{user|}} template at the top so that people can click to the user's contributions and talk page. You've offered no proof of anything, no diffs, no link to the user at all, nothing. Softlavender (talk) 11:59, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) done. Cabayi (talk) 12:01, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

I asked for {{user|}}, so people can click to the user's contributions and talk page. Since that wasn't done, I'll do it myself. Softlavender (talk) 12:21, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Incivility, disruptive "dumping" in threads, and activism against notability guidelines by James500

All of us are critical of some ideas from other editors from time to time, and may call something "nonsense" when sense actually cannot be made of it. But there's a major difference between that and habitual use of hostile, hyperbolic, denigrating language in a fallacious argument to emotion and argument to ridicule pattern whenever one is meeting with disagreement. Especially when it's combined with either refusal to address others' points, or a hand-wave and Gish gallop technique of using a firehose of off-topic ranting and rambling that doesn't actually address the substance of the discussion others are trying to have. That's simply disruptive.

Without digging into very far at all into the edits of James500 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – and I am not the first to raise these concerns about his edits [152]:

• In response to a simple copy-editing proposal (mostly about word-order in a guideline sentence): "Utter nonsense. ... "manifestly factually untrue manifest total nonsense from start to finish" [sic] ... "Literally nothing he says is accurate." ... "This is completely misleading" ... "I am confronted by epic exaggeration ... and spectacularly misleading statements", and much more. This is all just from the first 15% or so of James500's enormous 1400+ word rant, all dumped as a single WP:BLUDGEON paragraph, and most of it having nothing to do with the proposed revision or the problem to resolve. (Instead it goes on at length about what kinds of publications do what kinds of reviews, how GNG should (in that editor's consensus-diverged view) be interpreted and applied, his unhappiness with "deletionist mega-trolls", and on and on, concluding with his opposition to the guideline even existing – there "no possible justification" for it, he says. Also, the frequency which other respondents agreed with the proposal for revision clearly disproves James500's claim that it is "nonsense".)
• Responded with nothing but "That is total nonsense" [153] when asked by multiple parties and about multiple posts ([154], [155]) to stay on-topic and either use paragraph breaks or write shorter.
• Did not understand the rationale someone presented, and simply declared it "nonsense from start to finish" [156] (followed by argumentation that missed or intentionally skirted the actual point again; other participants showed no such comprehension problems or faux-problems; it appears to be an act to excuse ranting.)
• Declared arguments for deleting an Australian lawyer bio to be categorically "utter nonsense from start to finish" [157] (an evidently habitual phrase), but did not address any of them. Simply asserted that being a Queen's Counsel automatically translates into "notable", an idea that does not enjoy consensus (there are over 1,000 QCs in Australia alone, probably 10,000+ throughout the Commonwealth; it's an indicator of professional competence, not notability).
• "That is nonsense" again plus more off-topic hand-waving [158], when called out for misunderstanding WP:Systemic bias so badly that he said "I have yet to see any statistical evidence of actual over representation of any kind of topic on this project." [159]
• Another pointless "nonsense" post again [160] that substantively addressed nothing at all but appears to be pure battlegrounding against Hijiri88, with whom James500 is in frequent disagreement in discussions relating to notability.
• Similar ad hominem commentary, declaring other editors' input "completely irrelevant", "no value", "playing pointless semantic games", "nonsense", etc. [161]. (The other editors were simply making the point that small-town newspaper coverage of a local resident doesn't establish notability, a view well-accepted by consensus; so, James500's straw man mischaracterizations of them are demonstrably false.)
• Yet again "that is nonsense", with no substantive commentary of any kind [162].
• "I disagree with everything that you say." [163] (Followed by activism that Wikipedia shouldn't have it's definitions of and rules about primary and secondary sources and should instead use those from another field.)
• Labeled a section (WP:AUD) of the WP:Notability guideline "bizarre nonsense" [164]. (Not a civility problem, but helps establish that "If I disagree, it's okay to call it 'nonsense'" is a habitual pattern, as is unconstructive activism against consensus-accepted policy material and its application, covered in more detail below.)
• Claimed to have implemented [165] a proposed change under discussion ([166], [167]) to resolve the thread's main concern, but actually made a very different change discussed by no one [168], and which is unacceptably redundant wording which to many readers would read like some kind of typo. (It may have been reverted by now; I haven't checked.)

This sort of behavior seems most frequent in James500's "pet peeve" area: he is a consistent agitator against the very existence of Wikipedia notability guidelines (see [169], [170], and [171] as just a few recent examples). This is essentially a WP:1AM and WP:GREATWRONGS exercise in activism against long-standing consensus (an activity that is frequently considered WP:NOTHERE and WP:NOT#ADVOCACY, and grounds for action in and of itself). Given this, it makes the editor's hostile and unresponsive commentary pattern doubly inexcusable.

Disclaimer of sorts: I have no prior interaction of note with James500 that I can recall. I myself was once among the staunchest opposers of WP adopting notability guidelines (at least as they were being drafted early on). I'm sympathetic to James500's viewpoint more than he'd realize. But the guidelines are part of the Wikipedia playbook, and the community has crafted and re-crafted them carefully for over a decade. I'm also not known for brevity; having a lot to say isn't a problem – dumping it in a massive unbroken text wall is, and so is posting piles of stuff that doesn't actually pertain to the discussion just to keep re-injecting one's "Wikipedia should work differently" activism viewpoint.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:30, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Previous ANI: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive300#Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Salami tactics
• On civility, this editor may need to be prohibited from this kind of flippantly insulting and dismissive commentary (making any real counter-argument certainly doesn't require it!). Just a civility warning might be sufficient at this time.

  Regardless, a topic-ban from discussions of notability other than its application to specific cases at AfD (where James500 is a frequent and on-topic albeit extremely inclusionist participant) should separately be considered, given that railing against a guideline's existence is not a constructive activity and is a drain on other editors' time and goodwill – and isn't likely to stop on its own. A compounding factor is the editor's attempt, in this same context, to hijack the phrase "systemic bias" to just mean "we don't write enough about ancient and medieval dead people", even to the point of clearly stated denialism that white male Westerners are overrepresented (see [172] and his comment above it, though there are several other examples even in just the few pages of contribs I looked at, e.g. [173]). Guaranteed to raise the ire of anyone who cares about WP:BIAS issues, this is difficult to distinguish from intentional trolling, and at very least seems a WP:CIR matter.
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:30, 11 November 2018 (UTC); revised: 14:46, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• I'm frankly surprised this editor wasn't site-banned years ago. His tone is unnecessarily aggressive at best, and he's got an extreme battleground mentality when it comes to "the deletionists". This entirely aside from his specifically targeting me for some particularly slimy "enemy-of-my-enemy" harassment. He pretended to rage-quit Wikipedia when I called him out a very small portion of this (specifically his trying to trick the AFD analysis tools by never bolding his !votes, which is why this happens despite his having auto-!voted "keep" in hundreds of AFDs before that point). This is not a healthy presence for the project. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:50, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Note that the above diffs are mostly me summarizing the disruption in response to James, to which he either feigned contrition before quickly reverting back to normal or just ignored me entirely. I find these more useful as evidence than simply providing the original diffs of James's actions, as my comments explain them in context. For the slimy harassment, the primary diffs of James's activities are located in my comment, but with the quotes about "deletionists" I didn't think it necessary as they all appeared on the live version of the same page. SMcC has suggested to me on my talk page that I give all the individual diffs of the quotations, which I might do tomorrow, but Ctrl+Fing the quotes will show them accurate, and even worse in their original context. I doubt, however, that I could be comprehensive in giving all the diffs of this editor's disruptive incivility. Anyway, in the meantime anyone with access to deleted pages might want to check out the page that was userfied as a result of Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Salami tactics and then deleted at James's request: it's more strong evidence of the editor's battleground ideology. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:45, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Abuse of administrator rights

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In a routine request for permissions [174], Swarm incorrectly said I was not recognizing vandalism, after I emphasized that I was recognizing it and reverting vandalism. I pointed out to him that I was taking a softer approach with edits like [175] and [176] by Assuming good faith. I also pointed that I had marked more than 40 edits as vandalism. He retorted to his administrator-ship. Instead of realizing that there is more than one way to do things he just said "an administrator" is saying so and so, without giving any real policy answers. I found that very arrogant, and pointed that out to him, and made clear my intent to walk away from the disagreement. He, without any warning, blocked me. I have no history of disruptive behavior and I find this abuse of administrator rights.

If he took offense to "high horse" then he proved my point by blocking me. If he took offense to questioning his maturity, then not only proved me right, but is also guilty of same behavior. By blocking me, he went against this, as I have not history of any kind of disruptive behavior. The block was totally unwarranted and served no purpose than to gain an advantage in a dispute in which they were involved. IT is my understanding that administrators are expected to have a better understanding of rules than a new editor like myself. I find this refusal to see a different way of doing this and taking care not WP:BITE, and just saying "an administrator" is saying so, and blocking me contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia. So said The Great Wiki Lord. (talk) 13:35, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Seems like more of a WP:AN issue. I've been on a long enough wikibreak I won't comment on whether it was technically a bad block before reviewing WP:ADMIN and WP:BP again in detail. That said, if you were insulting Swarm with immaturity-related labeling, a second admin might well have issued a civility block anyway, so it may really be a moot point.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:40, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: TGWL already went straight to ArbCom with this and is in the process of being kicked back here; it's not clear exactly what he's looking for, but the choice of venues implies he's gunning for a desysop, which, honestly, doesn't look likely. Swarm is one of the few active admins who I think doesn't deserve to have his mop privileges reviewed. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:53, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Endorse block - while I might not have blocked a user with a clean record blowing off steam over a declined permissions request, the comments were unambiguous personal attacks and Swarm was within admin discretion to block. Swarm is not WP:INVOLVED: this is not a content dispute and Swarm has participated only in an administrative capacity, and furthermore there is no "catch-22" that users can't be blocked by the admins they insult. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:09, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

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Uncivil comments and edit summaries from 86.178.176.182

Diffs: [177] [178]. I have requested SBA Airlines to be semi-protected to avoid further disruption from this IP.--Jetstreamer ^Talk 13:56, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Blocked. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:57, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Fred Bauder moving questions

User:Fred Bauder has been edit warring to remove questions from Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2018/Candidates/Fred Bauder/Questions (and copy them to the talk page instead). Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2018/Candidates/Fred Bauder/Questions is the correct page for questions, it is where everyone expects to find them and will look for them - he does not own the page and he does not get to decide that questions should be moved elsewhere. After edit warring by Fred and after his ignoring a warning I gave him, I have blocked him for 24 hours for edit warring. I appreciate that, as some of the questions he moved were mine, I was possibly not the best admin to do this. So there's an element of WP:IAR in this, but I'll hand it over to others for judgment. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:16, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Good block. Edit-warring on his own arbcom candidacy page is such an obvious competence issue, especially in someone with so much experience on Wikipedia, that I can only assume that (along with what appear to be intentionally stupid answers to the questions) this whole candidacy is someone intentionally trying to martyr themselves rather than someone standing as a candidate in good faith. ‑ Iridescent 15:19, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Note: Fred Bauder has unblocked himself. Another obvious competence issue. WP:RFAR next? Bishonen | talk 15:26, 11 November 2018 (UTC).

That's an emergency desysop situation, isn't it? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:27, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

No material has been removed. Lengthy repetitive comments and campaigning by users opposed my candidacy have been moved to the talk page where further comments can be made, and anyone can view them. User:Fred Bauder Talk 15:28, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

The block was made by a participant in an edit war. I have the right to have a page to respond to questions that is not cluttered up by campaigning against me. User:Fred Bauder Talk 15:30, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes; per WP:NEVERUNBLOCK this is straightforward admin abuse. Desysop at minimum and probably a lengthy block (or even siteban) for intentional disruption. ‑ Iridescent 15:31, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• I have emailed Arbcom to request temp desysop. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:32, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• As someone not involved in the edit-war, I've reinstated the 24 hour block. If he unblocks himself again, I'll set the wheels in motion for a full community ban. Fred, do you really want this to be what you're remembered for? ‑ Iridescent 15:36, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

  Iridescent, it looks so. ∯WBG^converse 15:38, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

I need to be able to participate in this discussion, at least. User:Fred Bauder Talk 15:38, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@Fred Bauder: then you post your response on your talk page and ask for it to be copied across, or request an unblock to participate. Like any normal user. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 15:40, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Fred do you understand that an Admin should never unblock themselves unless they imposed the block? ~ GB fan 15:41, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@GB fan: Since he was editing the policy page in question long after the Sysops are technically able to unblock themselves by following this procedure but should absolutely not do so … Self-unblocking is treated extremely seriously by the community and has resulted in several users losing their sysop privileges wording was added to it, yes, he's well aware. ‑ Iridescent 16:03, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

To add another option to Bellezzasolo/s comment above, Or you request an unblock using the normal process. ~ GB fan 15:43, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

For the record, I've re-blocked Fred after his second self-unblock, but made it indef for the time being. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:11, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: Community ban

In light of the above, and User:Fred Bauder now twice violating a core Wikipedia policy, I propose a formal community ban from Wikipedia and revocation of all advanced user rights. He can apply for unblocking in six months per the WP:Standard offer. ‑ Iridescent 15:41, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. ‑ Iridescent 15:41, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support, obviously. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:43, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support Clear and obvious abuse of Admin privileges.Nigel Ish (talk) 15:44, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Note that several people (at least me and Boing) have also asked arbcom for an emergency desysop. Bishonen | talk 15:45, 11 November 2018 (UTC).
• Support desysop, ban. Not sure about having a minimum appeal time per NETPOSITIVE. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 15:46, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support That's just not cricket - TNT ^💖 15:47, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support Just goes to show you what happens when early era admins continue to have rights that they should never have been permitted to keep. Nihlus 15:51, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

While this is a good point, the question is: does this isolated offense merit a community ban, or just a timed block and a detooling? Would not the latter course solve the problem? Carrite (talk) 17:25, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support -- Cluelessness, at it's best and he's past AGF.∯WBG^converse 15:52, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support for the same reason that Iridescent said. LakesideMiners^{My Talk Page} 15:53, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Also noting, after looking over a few recent edits in contentious areas made by this user, that the notion that this person was running for a position where he would be judging other people's adherence to the core values of the project was an absurdity all by itself. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:53, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support - Per mominator; this is behavior unbecoming of an administrator and should not be tolerated. Vermont (talk) 15:58, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support desysop and community ban. The two self unblocks and rollbacks to edit war are clear misuse of admin tools. -★- PlyrStar93 _{→Message me. ←} 15:59, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support per Iri. Nick (talk) 16:01, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. Give the guy a break, there is clearly a concern but Fred is a good contributor to the wiki and is also a human being, let's support him rather than attack him unnecessarily. Govindaharihari (talk) 16:02, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support You don't get a break for wheel warring. Administrator is a position of trust, and wheel warring breaches that trust. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 16:04, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
  • wheel warring is simply a removal of admin position not needed a community ban, Fred is not a danger to the project.Govindaharihari (talk) 16:07, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
    • That would be as clear-cut an example of the Super Mario Problem as one could imagine; what you're effectively saying is that a level of disruption that would get any ordinary editor blocked shouldn't get an admin blocked because admins are somehow more important. Note that Fred Bauder could put a stop to this even now (although he'd probably still lose his legacy sysop bit) just by apologising and agreeing that from now on he's willing to comply with Wikipedia's policies; note also that he hasn't done so. ‑ Iridescent 16:14, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
      • Iridescent, Fred is a candidate at the elections, that is important imo that he is allowed and assisted to contribute. I am sure if you ask him that moving forward he will comply with Wikipedia's policies. Govindaharihari (talk) 16:20, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
        • I think that opportunity has now gone well and truly away. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:22, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
          • there are always opportunities to move on Ramblingman [179] Govindaharihari (talk) 16:30, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
          • I thought the same about Trump at the "Grab her by the pussy" stage ;-( Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:26, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
            • Nope, I never ever abused my tools as an admin. Horrible abuse of position. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:14, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. I don't think the questions asked here were fair, in many cases. Common sense should inform participants that off-base "questions" should be frowned-upon. Bus stop (talk) 16:08, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Not the issue at all, it's the self-unblock which is desysop-worthy. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:30, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support obvious wheel warring is obvious. zchrykng (talk) 16:10, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support very poor behaviour. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:10, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support – Appears interested only in exercising the latent power granted to him by his vestigial administrator flag, whilst doing none of the actual work administrators are supposed to do. His desires should not be indulged, and his disruption halted. RGloucester — ☎ 16:13, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

What the hell? it seems the above ANI was right, he does appear to just want to abuse power. I am not sure a community ban is needed, but it is clear he should lose any special privileges if he is not capable of abusing themSlatersteven (talk) 16:21, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support - oh, good gods. Unblocking yourself TWICE, after being told you can't do that is ... just... I don't have words. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:22, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support - Simply unbelievable lack of clue by a veteran editor and admin. I'm flabbergasted, really. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:24, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose One of "the Hardy Boys" that Admins fought so hard to retain, why desysop this one when you didn't desysop the last one? -Roxy, the Prod. wooF 16:30, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Point respectfully taken, but this probably isn't the place to make that point - one thing at a time? - TNT ^💖 16:35, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Sure, but it stinks that one of the most vociferous supporters of the Hardy Boys is one of the most vociferous desysopers in this thread. Hypocritical much, said Zebedee? -Roxy, the Prod. wooF 16:41, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Ooh, Roxy, just when I thought we were friends :-( Hardy did not abuse admin tools. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:48, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Who the hell are the Hardy Boys?Slatersteven (talk) 16:45, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• I dunno, but the argument makes a lot of sense to me: if one person isn't sanctioned, nobody should be sanctioned. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:57, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: It's (I assume) a reference to this case, in which Boing! said Zebedee also argued that an admin should be desysopped but on that occasion Arbcom declined to do so. (I think Roxy the dog may be misremembering Boing's arguments, given the 'hypocrite' comments above, as Boing argued in favour of desysop in both that case and this.) ‑ Iridescent 16:55, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

A later issue, I think, in which I argued against sanctions for the same person - no idea where it is on AN/ANI right now, or why it is relevant here. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:00, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support per all of the above. Iridescent, does something need to be posted at WP:ARC for a formal desysop? TonyBallioni (talk) 16:33, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• @TonyBallioni: Probably won't hurt, but I think this can just be emailed in (as many have done)? - TNT ^💖 16:36, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• "You are in a queue. You are number 79 in a queue. Please hold. Your message is important to us..." ——SerialNumber54129 16:47, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Desysopping will be under WP:LEVEL2, so Arbcom will have it in hand already from when they received the email notifications mentioned above. (I assume they're discussing it privately via email, hence the lack of visible activity.) Regarding formal banning and/or removal of other permissions, I'd be inclined to go by the book and leaving this the full 24 hours before getting a 'crat to do the necessary. Yes, it will potentially lead to pile-ons, but since this is a very long-term editor and former arb we're talking about here—and there's a non-negligible chance that he'll agree that in future he won't interpret "ignore all rules" as "do whatever the hell I feel like"—we IMO owe him the courtesy of giving him the chance to post an appeal, rather than just summarily ejecting him. ‑ Iridescent 16:44, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Seems fair, it gives him a chance to show he does get it, or the abuse becomes so serious even his supporters will have to admit there is no valid reason for not supporting a community ban. But I think that admins will have to watch what goes on , just in case he does go in for some seriously heavy abusing (such as blocking all access for users he desires to "teach a lesson", AGF went out of the door long before Elvis left).Slatersteven (talk) 16:51, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support - I'm stunned we've even got to this point. Incredible failure of judgement here. stwalkerster (talk) 16:39, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support I'm shocked just like everyone else about this. funplussmart (talk) 16:42, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support - being around for 15 years and being a former arb doesn't it any less disruptive. Although Fred's contributions to the project over the years should be appreciated, this is where to draw the line. They can always be unblocked once they make a serious commitment to disengage from this behavior, but as for adminship, they'll have to go through the proper channels all over again.—Mythdon (talk • contribs) 16:43, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
  • You don't just get unblocked from a community ban. Govindaharihari (talk) 16:45, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
    • Not unless they appeal successfully to the community. I think you meant to say a single admin can't overturn the block without community consensus.—Mythdon (talk • contribs) 16:48, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. Of course he should be de-sysopped, and of course he should be blocked. These would solve the immediate problems. An extended ban is disproportionate. And before anyone mentions Super Mario, we wouldn't ban any other editor for one incident of this behaviour either. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:46, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Except it's not a one-off, it's a three-off; the initial edit-warring that got him blocked, the self-unblock, and the wheel-warring over the self-unblock. Per my comments above, I wouldn't be averse to getting rid of the "after six months" clause and allowing him to appeal immediately, but in the absence of any undertaking not to continue being disruptive I don't see any benefit to unblocking. ‑ Iridescent 16:49, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• It is a single situation a single problem Iridescent, just this arbcom election. Why don't you ask him Iridescent? Govindaharihari (talk) 16:55, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose (multiple ec). I see the rationale for removing advanced permissions - and I am sure ArbCom will have a due consideration of the issue - but I do not see a reason for community ban. A community ban is supposed to prevent very serious, long-standing issues. What issues does the community want to prevent here? Edit-warring? Usually we block users who are edit-warring, not community ban them. Fred Bauder has never been blocked before (except for self-imposed blocks), and I do not yet see any evidence that this is a recurring problem, so once the advanced permissions are gone I do not see any reason for the block or ban. Or just make it 24h block to start with.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:50, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• We generally do not community-ban people for one ill-conceived session of edit-warring. But a day- or week-long block is fine to stop the disruption. Obviously he should be desysoped for the wheel-warring and self-unblocking, as I'm sure he soon will be. 28bytes (talk) 16:54, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• It's not the edit-warring, it's the self-unblock and the wheel warring that followed the edit warring. The lack of clue is so egregious that a CBAN is a legitimate response. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:15, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oh, the lack of clue displayed is certainly egregious, I agree. But if he's managed to edit (relatively) cluefully for over a decade and has one flip-out during what's certainly a stressful ArbCom run in which people are bringing his real-life failings into wider public view, maybe let's not jump straight to a full-on ban, and see if he's able to get himself sorted once this episode has passed. 28bytes (talk) 17:29, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose a community ban; I support a de-sysop and a short block. If the behavior continues after a block expires, I would support this action. This isn't a Super Mario situation; we wouldn't indef a non-admin for edit-warring on their ARBCOM candidacy page. The self-unblocking is stupid and justifies a de-sysop but nothing more. power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:56, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• More power means more responsibility means harsher sanctions. Regular editors haven't been vetted by the community as trusted users. The community ban is a perfectly reasonable response to an admin unblocking themselves twice, the second time after being specifically told that the first self-unblock was in violation of policy. So while these actions all occurred at around roughly the same time, they also occurred under different circumstances, and therefore treating them as a series of violations instead of one big one is a legitimate community response. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:05, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support, though it truly is sad to see an otherwise well-respected admin and former ARBCOM self-destruct in this manner.--WaltCip (talk) 16:59, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that he won't be able to wheel war when he is desysopped. wumbolo ^^^ 17:01, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

  Topic ban from arbcomship. I have no comfort in him being elected. wumbolo ^^^ 17:04, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Probably the only way to do that is to community ban him. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:07, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Why? @Beyond My Ken: ——SerialNumber54129 17:08, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Just a gut feeling that attempting a "topic ban from ArbCom" wouldn't fly, and might not even be in the community's purview to impose. It seems more likely to be ArbCom or WMF territory. I could certainly be wrong, thought, hence "probably" and not a firm statement. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:12, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Admonish Boing for violating Wikipedia:Edit warring#Administrator guidance (WP:INVOLVED). wumbolo ^^^ 17:19, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose any ban. This was clearly a stress situation. Indef for this is way over the top. Unless there is past history of continued problems/disruptions to the project, people should not be banned. Such a Ban is just loss for the project. He should be unblocked upon a successful appeal even if it has been made few minutes later. Support : The Advanced rights can be removed for obvious and blatant misuse. --DBigXrayᗙ 17:03, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• shame it's a shame that this over the top community ban was proposed by user Iridescent and embarrasing that it has pile on support. Govindaharihari (talk) 17:04, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

I'd be more ashamed at your ad hominem arguments towards people voting in support of the community ban.--WaltCip (talk) 17:08, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@WaltCip: FYI, but your link theer is to a comment by BMK (and not an ad hom), and, likewise, looking at Govindaharihari's five posts to this thread, I see no ad hominena at all. Clarify? ——SerialNumber54129 17:15, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

I had meant to link this diff. I saw what I believed to be ad hominem in using an editor's own block log as an argument against said editor proposing a community ban on the admin in question. That is not relevant to the behavior at hand.--WaltCip (talk) 17:17, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@WaltCip: I see what you mean! Funnily enough, I read it the opposite way—as G. trying to show how TRM had moved on from all the trouble. It certainly shows how dangerous it is making links to things without explaining them properly! ——SerialNumber54129 17:23, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

I think the issue is acting like a twat on the "you really should show why you are one of the best of the best" forums. It may have been a one off, asking to become a judge whilst being filmed selling drugs is not a good way to keep your job as a Lawyer. Its about the apparent contempt for us, not just policy. An appearance he has made no real effort to change.Slatersteven (talk) 17:15, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Support desysop; Oppose community ban; Support a shorter block; Support topic ban from Arbcom Election. Clearly the wheel warring is a problem, and Fred shouldn't be allowed to run for ARBCOM. I feel that this should be treated as a single instance of edit warring (it's a pattern) and we don't ban people for that, or we shouldn't.--Jorm (talk) 17:16, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose community ban. This violates the principle that blocks should be moderate and escalating, leaping all the way to the death penalty. He should, however, immediately be de-tooled for unblocking himself and wheel-warring. Carrite (talk) 17:16, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose While behavior unbecoming of an admin and potential arb is evident, this was clearly a very upsetting situation. A sanction/desysop yes, a community ban, why?(Littleolive oil (talk) 17:18, 11 November 2018 (UTC))
• Comment. Removal of sysop access is a prerogative of Arbitration Committee. Ruslik_Zero 17:19, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
  • • And Question: what the heck was information about this person's personal life being dragged out and aired at an ArbCom election? Why is that not being addressed (Littleolive oil (talk) 17:18, 11 November 2018 (UTC))
• Oppose Per WP:OVERREACT. Seriously, desyop will stop the problem and even a long or indefinite block can be good. But site banning is for people who have been causing problems for an extended period of time. Heck, maybe Arbcom is the way to go here but a site ban this fast over what happened doesn't feel right. JC7V-talk 17:19, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose We desysop for wheel-warring. We block for edit warring. We don't (or shouldn't) ban people for one or two incidents of edit warring. He should obviously be desysopped, but there is absolutely no justification for a indefinite ban, and there is no particular necessity for not allowing regular unblock appeals but instead requiring community consensus before unblocking. Galobtter (pingó mió) 17:20, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Support, if it was a new editor they'd have been WP:NOTHEREd. Reduce the block to 2-3 days. Flooded with them hundreds 17:22, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Ah, but, you see, it's not a new editor -- it is a 16-year veteran -- and there is ample evidence that he IS HERE to improve the encyclopedia, missteps of judgment notwithstanding. Carrite (talk) 17:29, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose The self-unblock and wheel warring were offenses in his capacity as an administrator and the desysop takes care of those. This leaves the original edit warring as the sole offense as an editor. An indef is disproportionate for a first-offense edit warring block. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:30, 11 November 2018 (UTC)