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→Closure review- Order of paragraphs in lead of MEK article: moved cmt by User:Mhhossein to "further comments" section for continuity.
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::Can we use the banner to modify some style on the page, say enclose the edit box in a thick red line that will indicate something important is happening? [[User:Graeme Bartlett|Graeme Bartlett]] ([[User talk:Graeme Bartlett|talk]]) 09:18, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
::Can we use the banner to modify some style on the page, say enclose the edit box in a thick red line that will indicate something important is happening? [[User:Graeme Bartlett|Graeme Bartlett]] ([[User talk:Graeme Bartlett|talk]]) 09:18, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
:{{re|Beyond My Ken}} That would normally be framed as an appeal at AE (or ARCA if you wish). I'd use the appeal template, fill it out as best you can, and explain why the sanction is invalid or no longer necessary. [[User:GoldenRing|GoldenRing]] ([[User talk:GoldenRing|talk]]) 10:40, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
:{{re|Beyond My Ken}} That would normally be framed as an appeal at AE (or ARCA if you wish). I'd use the appeal template, fill it out as best you can, and explain why the sanction is invalid or no longer necessary. [[User:GoldenRing|GoldenRing]] ([[User talk:GoldenRing|talk]]) 10:40, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

== Notification of: Resysop criteria: RfC on principles ==

There is a request for comment at [[Wikipedia_talk:Administrators#Resysop_criteria:_RfC_on_principles]]. All are invited to participate [[User:TonyBallioni|TonyBallioni]] ([[User talk:TonyBallioni|talk]]) 03:28, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

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    Close review - Village Pump discussion on spelling of category names

    I have not been involved in this issue, other than responding to the RFC. I rarely touch categories, and I don't much care what the final outcome is here. However I strongly object to canvassing, and I very much dislike bad closures.

    Grounds for overturn:

    • A closer's job is to assess community consensus and apply policies and guidelines. The closer acknowledges that they did not even attempt to do so in their closing statement and in the post closure discussion. The simply disregarded WP:Canvassing, and they blindly assessed consensus of the canvassed participants in front of them. I believe a reasonable closer could have accounted for the canvassing. If a closer finds that canvassing has irredeemably corrupted the process, they can void the discussion. They can direct that the RFC restart from scratch. It is within reasonable discretion for a closer to be unable to resolve a case of gross canvassing, however it is not within discretion to willfully ignore gross canvassing.
    • I fully agree that a closer can disregard votecount and close on the basis of policy, or close on the basis of weight of argument. I have personally closed a 20 vs 10 RFC in favor of the 10. However a policy based close needs to cite a solid policy basis, and a "weight of argument" close needs to cite a solid and respectable explanation. One of my main goals when closing is to ensure that the "losing side" receives a rationale which they can (unhappily) respect. We do not have that here. The closer declared an overriding "weight of argument" for "The most compelling arguments are to embrace our differences". Huh? I don't recall ever seeing such a strange or hollow basis for closure. I am also puzzled how that has clear overriding weight against concerns of disruption-of-work.
    • (edit: This is a supporting/explanatory factor, not a fundamental basis for overturn:) The closer has an unusually strong personal minority-bias on the language issue. A causal inspection of their usertalk reveals an exceptional personal inclination towards 's' over 'z'. In fact Google reports that "winterised" (with an s) is a borderline-fringe usage by 6.8% of the world. This evident personal bias, combined with a disregard for the blatant canvassing issue, combined with the fluffy-puffy "embrace our differences" rationale, creates an overriding impression of a Supervote.

    I'm fine with however this ends up. But this close erodes confidence in our system of closures. Can we please get something respectable? A respectable outcome if possible, or a costly repeat-RFC if necessary. Alsee (talk) 17:58, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Supplementary information: This is the state of the RFC at the time of canvassing. It had been closed as The proposal has gained consensus to pass. The RFC was reopened and hit with a surge of opposes after the canvassing. Alsee (talk) 08:05, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't want to get into the merits of the debate itself (fwiw, I supported standardisation) but I am really uncomfortable with the last objection here. When the question is a binary "do A or do B", everyone is going to look like a partisan if you approach it with this mindset. If you're going to challenge the closer for their use of a language variant, when they've expressed no opinion on the matter, who would be allowed to close the next one? Andrew Gray (talk) 19:09, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Andrew Gray I wouldn't have looked at their personal inclination, if not for the first two points. The first two points establish the problem with the close. I said that the third point combined with the first two create an overriding impression of a supervote. I consider it a supportive/explanatory factor. Alsee (talk) 07:49, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    It's a rather strange closing statement but from a brief look I'm not seeing a consensus for much in that discussion. The discussion did establish that the relevant policies/guidelines can be read as supporting either option, and that opinion on the subject is pretty divided. That largely takes care of the main reasons for closing either way. Given that all English speakers use one of the two variants exclusively, every single possible closer would have the "bias" that's being claimed here. Hut 8.5 21:17, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The close needs to be re-done--it was an atrocious, wandering, closing statement that didn't actually summarize the discussion. --Izno (talk) 21:30, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have rarely seen a clearer case of no consensus than that discussion. Opinions are hopelessly split, everyone is talking across each other, no solid arguments made to persuade anyone. Seems like a solid close to me,and one that needed to be made because it looks like the whole thing was a huge time drain. Wikipedia's ENGVAR split is always going to be a somewhat tricky issue, but by and large we get through it without dispute. Suggest people drop the stick and move on.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:56, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Amakuru, 3-to-1 support isn't usually considered a clear case of no consensus. Especially when opposes give no rationale that their position is in any way superior.
        (For those who missed my point, my reference to 3-to-1 support is before the RFC was re-opened and one disruptive individual selectively canvassed 11 wikiprojects 13 national wikiprojects and noticeboards to manufacture a surge of opposes.) Alsee (talk) 07:27, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • If you're going to make accusations of disruption, at least have the decency to notify me. As for the accusation of "selective canvassing", this was a proposal to mandate that an English word had to be spelt in a way different to that used in several countries or regions. Therefore it seems eminently reasonable that editors from those countries or regions should be alerted to a discussion that would specifically affect them with a neutral notification (there was little or no point in posting it to American/Canadian etc WikiProjects as the proposal would not affect their categories. I really don't understand why anyone has a problem with this, unless they have a case of sour grapes over the fact that a large numebr of editors from said countries were opposed to the change. Number 57 13:35, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    I have responded in part to Alsee (the OP of this thread) in the post-close discussion here.

    • I have not "ignored" the matter of VOTESTACKING.
    • I have found "no consensus" (as distinct from "consensus against"). I am happy to amend if this needs to be made clearer. It is similar to the outcome of directing that the RfC start from scratch - an outcome acceptable to Alsee? If this represents the substantive reason for contesting the close, then I suggest there is "no reason".
    • The most compelling arguments are to embrace our differences ≠ The closer declared an overriding "weight of argument" for ... - particularly in the context of a "no consensus" close. WP:5P5 identifies "principles and spirit matter more than literal wording". I am not invoking WP:IAR. The principle of ENGVAR etc is to "embrace our differences", rather than argue about them when they are if little consequence (to understanding). COMMONALITY applies where understanding may be compromised. The former is therefore more compelling, since this here, is not a matter of "understanding". This is a matter of identifying the underpinning principles of policy and guidelines (as I believe the OP has implored me to do) since the guidelines cited do not specifically address the issue. However, in the circumstances, this was an observation of the discussion and not a finding of "consensus".
    • If I was brief in my close, and subsequently unclear, I apologise to the extent that the close template is a restriction. I believe it is reasonable to seek clarification of a close. I have responded to clarify. However, it is not appropriate to assume "bad faith", to misrepresent matters or to be uncivil in the process (see post close comments).
    • I think that Amakuru's comments are particularly pertinent.

    Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 12:27, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    • I wouldn't recommend starting the RFC from scratch, at least not now. No consensus is a valid close of any discussion, and it means that at this time there is no agreement, and often a fair bit of dispute too. The result of such a discussion is to retain the status quo, whatever that is, and move on. Restarting is likely to just see the same participants come back and make the same points. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 14:20, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment - the views of the proposer @BrownHairedGirl: would be of interest. Oculi (talk) 00:22, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Overturn. The close was exceptionally poor and fluffy, and gives no appearance of even attempting to actually weight the discussion in light of the votestacking.
    It is utterly disgraceful that Number 57 continues to deny that they engaged in votestacking. After numerous expalanations by numerous editors at several venues, Number 57 still has the gall to say I really don't understand why anyone has a problem with this, unless they have a case of sour grapes over the fact that a large numebr of editors from said countries were opposed to the change.
    It's very simple:
    1. Number 57 engaged in blatant votestacking by notifying only sets of editors who he considered most likely to agree with his view. Categories relating to nearly all countries may be renamed by this proposal, and editors from all countries may have views on this ... but Number 57 chose to notify only those who he believed would support his view.
    2. This was done stealthily, without any notification to the RFC that the notifications have been made.
    Number 57 has been admin for nearly 12 years, and a prolific contributor (over 190K edits). He has participated in enough discussions over the years to know exactly what he was doing here, so the despicable manipulativeness of his conduct has no defence of ignorance or error. Any remaining shred of good faith I might assume in N57's conduct has been destroyed by his vile attempt to claim that objections are a case of sour grapes. This doubling-down on his highly disruptive misconduct makes Number 57 completely unfit to be an editor, let alone an admin. If I have the time and energy to pursue the case for a desysopping of Number 57, I will do so ... and I will do it with great sadness, because I previously had high regard for Number 57's work.
    The whole process of consensus-formation breaks if an editor (and esp a highly-experienced admin) betrays the community's trust in this way. Regardless of whether the community proceeds to give Number 57 a well-deserved desysopping and/or CBAN, the result of that duplicity should not stand. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:56, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I won't be endorsing the close, but I came here after BrownHairedGirl pinged me in a separate but related discussion mentioning Number 57, which confused me, so I followed the breadcrumbs back up the trail and came here. I have no idea how I stumbled upon that RfC, whether I was "canvassed" there, but I think it's an assumption of bad faith to assume Number 57 votestacked. I don't see any problem with notifying users of non-American English about this RfC, since it would disproportionately impact them. Those voting from non-zed using countries were not persuaded to vote in any way by Number 57, and the suggestion Number 57 changed the outcome of the discussion by notifying users tells me there wasn't going to be consensus for this anyways. SportingFlyer T·C 16:39, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      SportingFlyer, and I'll ping User:Number 57 - the reason this is blatant ing is because of selective and targeted notification. 57 selectively notified only those who were predictably more inclined to view the proposal unfavorably, while deliberately not notifying others who would also be impacted by the proposal, and who would clearly be more likely to view the proposal as beneficial to their work. If 57 is unwilling or unable to understand that many people would benefit from the proposal, if they are unwilling or unable to understand that it is Canvassing to selectively notify likely-allies, then I am concerned that it may be necessary to look for any past or future pattern of canvassing. We generally let individual instances of canvassing off with a warning, but I believe 57 is experienced enough to know better. I believe any pattern of canvassing would be grounds for a topic ban against publicizing any RFC anywhere, to prevent future disruption caused by similar problems understanding or applying appropriate notification vs inappropriate notification. Alsee (talk) 21:04, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I still disagree, and I think you proved your point here - you're assuming "many people would benefit from the proposal," but there's clearly a large group of people who oppose, and they are the very people who are disproportionately impacted by the change. I think this is the one which I was shocked to see it was closed in favour of standardisation, since it's a big change and one that goes against our current rules. Plus, we're both biased. The three users who have chimed in who weren't involved have either said there's no consensus anyways, or the close should be overturned on purely procedural grounds, but King O'Malley lived a long time ago and I would be shocked if you got support even if arguendo all projects had been notified "equally". SportingFlyer T·C 00:40, 6 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Overturn - given that Australia/New Zealand seem to be particularly and vehemently opposed to 'ize' (all from Aus/NZ opposed, mostly post-canvas), I expected that an Australian would rule themselves out as a potential closer (User:Cinderella157 claims to be from Queensland). There was a glut of 'opposes' immediately after Number 57 votestacked, several listed under the members list for Wikproject Aus. Either one notifies all Wikiprojects, or none. Oculi (talk) 18:07, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Note: the closer, Cinderella157, has now been blocked for violating an ArbCom topic ban from World War II. See Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Cinderella157. Sandstein 21:20, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Overturn and restore Lourdes's original close per Oculi and BHG's reasoning above. Lourdes's first close was a correct assessment of consensus. The subsequent unclose-plus-canvassing/votestacking was disappointing. The second close was more or less a punt. Not sure what the best way forward is; perhaps just restore Lourdes's original close. (non-admin, voted z in RfC) – Levivich 18:45, 7 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse per Amakuru. Sure, the closing statement could have been worded better, but I can't see how this could have been closed as anything other than no consensus. Iffy★Chat -- 16:12, 8 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse as per Amakuru and Iffy. I came from the Village Pump to see what the outcome of the discussion was. I think the topic is so divisive that there is no option but to state that there is 'no consensus'. I note the accusations of vote stacking, but if this is the case, the accusations should be brought to a formal process. A further point is that if there was "vote stacking" to people opposed to the proposal, could it not be argued that the original discussion was perhaps also "selectively canvassed" to people who were biased towards the proposal? This suggests that any request for discussion was not properly signposted to the people / teams / communities that would be affected: I am not sure that I can support the original close on this basis. I also don't think it's a wise idea to set precedent as someone had suggested on the original page to ignore the objections. I again state that I think going with "no consensus" is the best idea with this topic where it will be difficult to get agreement. Master Of Ninja (talk) 05:51, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • "could it not be argued that the original discussion was perhaps also "selectively canvassed" to people who were biased towards the proposal?" No, you can't. Policy No personal attacks defines personal attacks to include Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence. The RFC was run at Village Pump and advertised on Central Notice. This is normally the highest and most unbiased level of advertisement we give for RFCs. If you are going to make accusations that one-or-more person(s) canvassed on the support side then you are required to present evidence of canvassing. Alsee (talk) 15:29, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Do note I am note making a personal attack at all - I am making a comment on policy. I note that it was "advertised" - however I feel the topic was not promoted widely enough, especially for something that does not seem to respect WP:ENGVAR. To close such a debate without offering a wider discussion seems against WP:ENGVAR. And the whole point of WP:ENGVAR is to make sure we stop these kinds of unnecessary debates, especially in a topic that has been re-opened twice. Could it be that this topic is not a "normal" topic and needs to be discussed more widely? On another note for the whole community, I do see Cavalryman V31's comment that no-one wanted to close the topic, and someone had to have the courage to do it - I will not get involved in the allegations of WP:CANVASSING as this needs investigative skills beyond me and is best addressed by someone else. However if we do re-open or re-close the debate who as a community should close this - it just seems from reading the comments that potentially anyone could be accused of bias on some of the criteria discussed? I do not know the answers to these questions, I just mulling them over. We should try and get some closure to this as the the original debate looks like it was started in April. - Master Of Ninja (talk) 17:39, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Overturn. I voted in that RfC in support of the change, but a few things in the process really don't sit well with me. First, I agree that there was a very one-sided notification post original closure. Not understanding why that can stack votes to one side is pretty astonishing. Since this isn't a "lets decide for Australia what goes in an Australia article", but a "How does en.wiki handle a category style", either you notify everyone, or no one. The other 75% of the community has the same rights and same vote weight as do the other 25%. Another issue I have it with the actual close. What the hell did all those words even say? Perhaps this might be done in a more formal way and make this explicit to categories (CREEP to avoid CREEP - irony) - a more formal way than an RfC? Can this even get any more evasive? Also, if you don't care to investigate allegations of vote stacking, then maybe closing RfCs isn't for you. I expect someone that closes any discussions to check any allegation brought up, understand guidelines and not cite an essay in their close, which itself has no place even in the discussion. --Gonnym (talk) 10:47, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse no consensus per Amakuru. The truth is no one wanted to close this RfC and it effectively sat dormant for a month (after another had started a close but decided against exposing themselves by doing so) before Cinderella had the courage to do the job. On a side note, I find Alsee’s third argument above particularly galling, their bias against anyone who does not use American spelling is clear, declaring Cinderella incapable of making an impartial decision for spelling a word (that is completely unrelated to this RFC) in a way that they do not consider correct. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 09:01, 11 July 2019 (UTC).[reply]
    • Overturn, with no prejudice against either Cinderella157 or Number 57. Cinderella claims not to have considered canvassing at all, and despite this being an important part of a closer's responsibilities, they appear to suggest that doing so effectively is not possible (bullet point #2). Their responses are also hostile to the idea of a challenge, which suggests a lack of neutrality - as seen in bullet point #3 from the same diff, which appears to claim that either Alsee's challenge or those who supported the proposal are involved in "vilifying groups of editors" for following different spelling conventions. I'm not sure that Number 57 was necessarily wrong given their stated reasoning, but the allegations still need to be accounted for. As always, reclosing could very well produce the same outcome, but the existing close does not meet the expected standards. Sunrise (talk) 05:42, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Overturn, though I agree that there is no consensus, the RFC should have lasted longer and be closed by someone more neutral. -- Rockstonetalk to me! 03:31, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • {{Do not archive until}} added. Please remove the {{Do not archive until}} tag after the review is closed. (I am adding this because RfC closure reviews frequently have been archived prematurely without being resolved.) Cunard (talk) 09:41, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • More evidence of biased notification canvassing by Number 57: This edit selectively pinged several allies to the RFC. However Number57 did not include a ping to Jayron32, who also participated in the discussion[3] and who had defended the original consensus close. It looks like Number57 felt that only people who agree with them deserved to participate in the RFC. Alsee (talk) 14:40, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • I assume that was probably an oversight on my part, as I also failed to ping Bermicourt (who was clearly opposed to the original close). Also, it's odd to describe Euryalus as an ally, given that their interjection did not reveal their leaning in the matter. Number 57 15:04, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Alsee, if this had been done another way and all of the affected categories had been presented at CfD for renaming, and all of those categories’ associated WikiProjects been notified of the proposal (standard procedure), then largely the same WikiProjects as notified by Number 57 would have been notified. I am not leveling accusations of vote stacking against the BHG for not notifying the affected WikiProjects, but I do believe it was remiss not to have, as it was largely categories overseen by them that were affected. Cavalryman V31 (talk) 02:21, 15 July 2019 (UTC).[reply]
    • Absolutely not true, @Cavalryman V31. That's most kindly described as a highly creative and imaginative account of my actions, but more accurately as a severe misrepresentation.
    The fact is that the range of affected categories is global. It includes all non-English-speaking-countries, so the idea that this proposal is somehow targeted at one particular set of countries is simply false. On the contrary, one of my main reasons for making the nomination in the first place is the number of sterile CFD discussions about which format to use for some country X which isn't even English-speaking. (If I recall correctly, the two discussions which prompted me yo finally open an RFC which I had been considering for years were discussions relating to the Netherlands, and to Qatar).
    If, as Cavalryman posits, all of the affected categories had been presented at CfD for renaming, and all related Wikiprojects had been notified, the result would have been that probably every single Wikiproject would have been notified, regardless of its topics or location. That's because the range of categories involved is so vast, and most national WikiProjects have interests in topics beyond their own boundaries.
    So the claim that it was somehow remiss not to notify a particular set of countries is utterly false. A global proposal needs global notification ... so instead of spamming a message to 1000 WikiProjects, I placed the proposal at most central location, and notified it on WP:CENT. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:32, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    BrownHairedGirl, I apologise that you feel my comments are a severe misrepresentation, that was far from my intent when making them and I believe your intentions are very much well meaning. The fact is it is known some countries do use “ise”, yet your RfC was to standardise to “ize” for all (“ise” was not offered as an option). I acknowledge the inconsistencies with non-English speaking countries, but this RfC was always going to be controversial for a number of Commonwealth countries and that is why I believe their WikiProjects should have been notified. It is my opinion that the only really compelling argument I have seen for standardisation is Assessing it [the quantity of CfDs] would require a lot of editor time, but editor time is increasingly scarce, this places back of house editor actions over page appearance for readers. Kind regards, Cavalryman V31 (talk) 08:15, 17 July 2019 (UTC).[reply]
    If, by 'page appearance for readers', you are referring to categories at the bottom of the page, there is no chance of any sort of uniformity. Tim Cahill's categories are a complete mix, as he plied his trade globally, and the global Category:Sports organizations established in 1911 contains Australian entities amongst others. Oculi (talk) 09:58, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Cavalryman V31, you continue to miss the two core simple points:
    1. this proposal could be be controversial or acclaimed or whatever in nearly every country.
    2. per WP:CANVASS Notifications should be non-partisan both in content and in selected audience
    So notifying only WikiProjects of countries likely to oppose the change is every bit as partisan as notifying those likely to support it.
    The solution is simple: notify all, or notify none. I didn't think this was a sufficiently controversial issue to justify cross-posting to ~220 country-specific WikiProjects, and that doing so would look like spamming; so I used WP:CENT.
    In hindsight, it was more controversial that I initially thought. But while that might arguably justify notifying all countries, it doesn't justify votestacking by notifying only people expected to be on one side of the argument.
    As your closing comment about the substance, I have yet to see any trace of any evidence that readers actual object to the spelling. And its not simply a matter of editor time: one of the persistent problems of the current inconsistency is that it leads to miscategorisaton. Articles and categories categorised are repeatedly categorised in redlinked categories because editors have no way of knowing in advance which spelling is used for which type of org category, and no way of knowing whether the redlink indicates a mis-spelling or a non-existent category. Those miscategorised articles and categories don't appear in parent categories, and that missing categorisation is what really hurts readers, not one letter which they may consider unfamiliar.
    I also strongly urge you to reconsider the notion that the burden on editors is not a priority. The ratio of articles to active editors has nearly quadrupled in the last decade, from 430:1 in 2007 to 1650:1 in December 2018. Policies designed around assumptions of infinite editor time should have been ruthlessly discarded when the number of active editors began to fall off a decade ago. Clinging to those notions is a very effective way of reducing Wikipedia's chances of surviving the 2020s, because they divert so much editor time into inconsequentials that they leave less time for the stuff which actually matters, namely keeping article updated, and monitoring those articles for vandalism, POV-pushing etc.
    The objections to this sort of simplification miss that big picture. The demand for idealistic perfection in something that doesn't actually matter isn't a free option: it comes at the hidden price of scarce editorial time diverted. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:31, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Response by closer: the following is a response by the closer (specifically and generally) since the previous response.
    • Sunrise, it is inaccurate to state [I did not] considered canvassing at all, when I did, but not in the way some would prefer. Per your diff, I stated: I did not attempt to make a determination about the "substance" of the allegations. To paraphrase, I did not attempt to make a determination as to whether the notifications by Number 57 constituted misconduct.
    • To whether the allegations (if substantiated) could be effectively addressed (per Sunrise):
    • It is quite correct to make notifications to projects regarding a discussion of interest to the project. The allegation goes to the "selectivity" with which these notifications were made.
    • The comments made here on how to address the allegation are quite arbitrary - they either wind-back to the earlier close or would discount opposing comments. In part, there appears the assumption that any opposing editor has come to the RfC as a result of the notifications. This is a generalisation and an assumption that falls to Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
    • Neutral notifications made to any project are intrinsically correct. Disenfranchising a comment from editors that received such a notification assumes "bad faith" on the part of that editor. Discounting comments in such a way would (in my conclusion) severely compromise a close and would give reasonable and valid reason for it to be overturned. Consequently, I considered such a course inappropriate.
    • To the comments by Alsee (and those that follow in this vein) that I am biased by my spelling preference:
    • It is a red herring fallacy to assert that a person with a spelling preference for "ise" cannot close an RfC advocating "ize". The counter-arguement (equally fellatious) is that an "ize" speller is also inherently biased. Such logic would leave the close to someone who has never written English or knows nothing of spelling? There is no way for any closer to be immune from the suggestion of bias where the basis for such an allegation is that they do actually spell such words consistently.
    • As well as being a red-herring arguement, it is also an Ad hominem arguement, which is inherently a personal attack, rarely an appropriate arguement to make and low in the heirarchy of disagreement,[4] since it does not address the central or most pertinent points.
    • Implicit to Alsee's clam of bias is that any editor using "ise" is inherently biased (and those that use "ize" are not). I observed: The comments made have the appearance to me of polemic ad hominem. "Vilifying groups of editors" for following different spelling conventions does not foster collaboration and respect.[5] The quote is taken from and linked to WP:POLEMIC.
    • Alsee has claimed that my use of "ise" in "winteris[z]ed" is borderline-fringe and far out of sync ... with the rest of the planet. There are many misuses of statistics of which, I believe, this falls to overgeneralisation, possibly data dredging or simply a case of apples and oranges. It ignores the frequency of usage of the particular word in the two main English domains and how this can skew an observation such as that made by Alsee. All this statistic proves is that I am fairly consistent in my spelling.
    • My response to Alsee (though in not so many words) was to indicate that their comments did not (IMO) represent a particularly good arguement. It is inaccurate to construe from this that I am hostile to the idea of a challenge, which suggests a lack of neutrality. It is another ad hominem arguement with a conclusion based on an inaccurate premise.
    I apologise for the length of this response but it appears necessary to provide this level of detail. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 04:30, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Overturn I am Australian; I opposed standardisation. I was not canvassed: I think I found the discussion on CENT, although that was after it had been reopened. While I think the close was "correct" – there was clearly no consensus reached – I think it needs to be closed by someone with more neutrality, given that Australians became the locus of the discussion. Triptothecottage (talk) 04:53, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Overturn The point that particularly concerns me is that the close is not an accurate summarization of the discussion at all. I also do not understand why CANVASSING guidelines can be misconstrued and then essentially annulled in an RfC close, something that is bound to follow Wikipedia policies. Even, if I were to assume good faith, it would only take me as far as misunderstanding guidelines as they stand and not that, no canvassing actually occurred. I'm even more worried that if a new editor were to canvass in this manner, it would reflect horribly upon them but in this particular case, we will beat around the bush via "it only impacted this subset of editors, so I informed them", if that isn't canvassing, I don't know what is. I am not aware of Lourdes' close so I cannot comment on it, but this close should definitely be overturned, for lack of any support through the ensuing discussion. --qedk (t 桜 c) 06:53, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse no consensus per Amakuru, it could have been better explained, but there is no clear consensus and a lot of the above is sour grapes. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 08:01, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Hey, if you really want to apply pejorative terms such as sour grapes to those who object to blatant votestacking, then please make haste to change your username from the highly inappropriate Peacemaker67 to something more apt, such as User:Gaslighter. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:43, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think it's alright, BHG, if Peacemaker67 decides that invalidating other people's viewpoints with "sour grapes" (similar to N57) is the best way to prove their point, so be it. Amakuru atleast made their point as someone is supposed to, without feeling the need to invalidate their opinions as well, so kudos to them for doing so. --qedk (t 桜 c) 17:04, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse cloze - I'm going out on an IAR limb here, but I don't think there's any way that a discussion which boiled down to "let's prefer [North] American spelling over all other varieties throughout this enormously important and visible function of the project" could possibly have reached an acceptable consensus. I understand the rationale but I think it was a bad idea from the start, because no matter what it ends up being exclusionary to some significant portion of editors. I see the original close as flawed: this is a monumental change, and should have had much more support than it did to have been declared "passed" at that point. I also don't think Number57's posting of what appeared to be a neutral discussion notice at only WikiProjects for nations which would be expected to oppose the proposal was at all in good faith. But in the end, consensus is likely impossible to obtain here. Might I suggest that if standardiçation is an urgent concern, why not make an effort to be inclusive and agree on a word other than organiɂation? I don't know what that would be and maybe that would require rethinking category trees somewhat, but here's a list to get started.
    If on the other hand some editors insist that this must be decided in favour of Team Ess or Team Zed, then I suggest a panel of multinational uninvolved experienced closers be convened to reevaluate all of the discussions up to this point, being sure to select at minimum one editor from Britain, one from the United States, one from Canada, one from Australia and/or New Zealand (I'm not sure how distinct the language variants are there), and one from India/Pakistan, so as to avoid inherent bias. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:36, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reopen My personal position would be to support the results of the close (don't standardize). However, I also understand the problem with selective notification. In this case the problem is you have obviously interested projects that would presumably voice opinions in one direction. You don't have obvious projects in the other camp. This is a case of the obviously interested focused group vs the nebulous masses. I personally think it would be best to agree to a few more notification locations, reopen and see where things go. I don't believe it will change the final result but BHG's concerns have merit. Let's not discount them. Springee (talk) 16:18, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Closing this close review

    @Alsee, Cinderella157, Number 57, BrownHairedGirl, and Lourdes: Pinging the initiator of this thread, the closer under review, an interested editor, the proposal's author, and the previous closer; respectively I would like to review the above discussion. Is there any objection among you five for me closing this AN thread as a NAC? –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 05:05, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    MJL, no objection. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 05:35, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @MJL, I would prefer that it was closed by an editor with a lot more experience, ideally by an admin. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:55, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @MJL: This is really not an appropriate discussion to be closed by a non-admin. It’s contentious, complex, and in need of experience. Triptothecottage (talk) 11:16, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @BrownHairedGirl and Triptothecottage: I figured as much. Glad I asked ahead of time! –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 15:50, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Unblock request by RussianDewey

    RussianDewey is asking to be unblocked:

    I wanna thank Mr.Just Chilling for unblocking my talk page, this is a huge privilege and opportunity to bring my case to the community on why I should be unblocked.

    I have been exiled and indefinitely banned for two years, I have taken serious time to think about my actions very deeply, because number 1, I love Wikipedia and what it stands for in terms of being a platform that provides a wealth knowledge and I consider myself a Wikipedian at heart who loves to contribute and build on that knowledge and make sure Wikipedia grows even BIGGER. Secondly my past actions are out in display, I have probably committed every Wikipedia sin possible, I will do anything in order to gain the trust of the community back and uphold Wikipedia standards and rulings to the highest degree. I hope I have the full fledge trust of the community, I know I did Sockpuppet activity and let me tell you whats in the mind of sockpuppet like me "I can get away with it", in reality I can never get away with it, maybe if I start editing other articles but still,I want to do this the right way and I HAVE A PASSION A STRONG PASSION in certain areas of Wikipedia like Medieval History and Ottoman History, and Wikipedians will always catch a sockpuppet.

    I want to be unblocked so I can I contribute to Wikipedia professionally and with the utmost respect to my fellow Wikipedians, I realize my behavior before was not a good way to represent my self and I realize that my sock puppet behavior was very counter productive. I am not saying welcome me with a clean slate but instead let me keep my history (good and bad) so I can be a better example,and I don't expect to be FULLY UNBLOCKED, I would love to have a mentor, and not edit until I receive a permission from him. I can be under such system for whatever length time of time you guys desire.RussianDewey (talk) 07:10, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

    I've already run a check and found nothing. After this request sat in the unblock queue for around three weeks, taking it to the community was suggested. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 18:34, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Still trying to fight your unrelated personal content dispute by all means. I feel somehow disgusted by that.--TMCk (talk) 22:36, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Struck off-topic borderline personal attack. Take it out side or get a room. Or ANI  Dlohcierekim (talk) 22:40, 5 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Administrators are as a group cautious, which means that usually a new block after any unblock requires double the disruption for it to stick. My standard for unblocks is similar to what BrownHairedGirl below is saying: does the potential for benefits to the encyclopedia outweigh the known risk for disruption. Once someone gets to their second justified indef, the answer will almost always be No.
      Unblocking at that point means they'll just keep being disruptive and we'll ignore them for 6 months to a year before trying a bunch of sanctions that don't work until they eventually lose interest in the project or get blocked after years of frustration. I'm not going to name any names, but it's something I've noticed over time. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:42, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    So I'm seeing a pile of negatives here on the conduct front.
    But what positive things does this person bring to the project of building an encyclopedia? I see a poor command of the English language, which doesn't bode well for work on articles. Even if the new claims of good intent are sincere, they come without one of the pre-requisite skills.
    Sorry, but I think this person has already wasted enough of the community's time. I don't see any point in trying again. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:18, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think the editor is young. Now that they are a bit older they want to come back and contribute. QuackGuru (talk) 01:29, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Unblock. I'd rather give them a try with a known account than throw away the key and have them sneak back with an undisclosed account. Jehochman Talk 01:37, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose unblock somewhat strongly, per [6] (Alexis Ivanov being RussianDewey's confirmed sock). After pulling a one-month block for personal attacks, they spent the next month and a bit harassing the blocking administrator, and after being told to knock it off ([7], especially [8]), didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with prominently listing that administrator's name as a vague "future project" on their user page. That earned them a six-month block before being discovered to be a sockpuppet. They have not addressed that incident at all in their unblock request, and I see no reason to believe they've learned anything from it. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:49, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Replies from RussianDewey--

    Closure review- Order of paragraphs in lead of MEK article

    I'm writing to request a review at the closure of the RFC I started on the order of the paragraphs in the lead of People's Mujahedin of Iran. The RFC was closed by Cinderella157. Before coming here, I discussed the issue with Cinderella157, where I asked how he had found the 'chronological order' arguments to be "compelling". Some users, including me, believed that guidelines MOS:LEADORDER, which says the lead should "make readers want to learn more" and WP:BETTER, which says the lead should summarize "the primary reasons the subject matter is interesting or notable," had to be applied. This is while, others believed that 'chronological order' of the paragraph had to be kept since they thought the lead could get misleading if the orders were changed.

    The closing user believes that the users in favor of having the paragraph on the terrorist cult designation of the group in the second place, were not specific enough, while I told him (with modification) his evaluation of the comments were not accurate since comments [9], [10] and [11] specifically describe the paragraph in questions as having a vital info which can be interesting for the readers. So, I believe in the closure of that RFC by Cinderella157 the arguments made based on guidelines were discredited. Can an experienced admin address my request please? --Mhhossein talk 07:03, 7 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Response by closer,

    • It is not sufficient for a comment citing a guideline or like to have weight simply because a guideline or like is cited. It must be relevant in some way to deciding the issue at hand.
    • The issue to be determined was the ordering of paragraphs in the lead.
    • The guidance cited does not go to deciding the issue at hand.
      • MOS:LEADORDER considers where the lead prose falls within other elements of the lead. It does not give guidance on selecting the ordering of "ideas" within the lead prose - the question to be resolved. It does link to MOS:INTRO.
      • MOS:INTRO gives guidance on the first para and first sentence. While it touches on the lead prose in total more fully, it does not give guidance to resolve ordering of "ideas" within the lead prose.
      • WP:BETTER and the subsection WP:BETTER/GRAF1 touches on the lead specifically. The advice is much as MOS:INTRO and does not give guidance to resolve ordering of "ideas" within the lead prose.
      • In WP:BETTER, the Layout section does not give guidance to resolve ordering of "ideas" but links to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout (see below).
      • Neither of the two links cited are relevant to resolving the question of the RfC. This was pointed out to Mhhossein in the response I gave at my TP: [The] links made in support of the move actually made broad observations about the structure of the lead, and were not specific, save the first paragraph or referred to the order of the many other elements (eg infobox etc) other than the running text. They did not lend weight to the proposal.[12]
    • The existing lead is based on a chronological organisational structure. The proposal was to simply reorder the last paragraph to second position (without other adjustment) - thereby breaking the organisational (chronological) structure being used. For this reason, maintaining the chronological structure was seen as a compelling arguement.
      • It was explained to Mhhossein at my TP that I was not mandating that the lead must follow a chronological structure: ... not because any lead should be written in a chronological order but because this particular lead has used chronological order. Having done so, moving the paragraph per the proposal then places it out of sequence.
      • Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout in the section MOS:BODY. There, it states ... articles should still follow good organizational and writing principles regarding sections and paragraphs. However, one does not need to burrow through layers of Wiki guidance to acknowledge such principles.
    This is a longer answer as, apparently, the shorter version at my TP was not sufficiently clear. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 03:00, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Further comments

    • Thanks for the "longer" response, but I still believe you're just ignoring the arguments by labeling them as being broad and not specific. I agree that none of the mentioned guidelines comment on the 'order' of the paragraph, but they're say the lead should "make readers want to learn more". That MEK was once designated as a terrorist group by UN, UK and US and thta it's a Cult (as many experts believe), is something at least three users said were interesting and vital. So, why should such a vital info be sent down the lead?
    As a user closing the discussion you had to assess the consensus by addressing all the guideline-based arguments, which I think you failed to do. --Mhhossein talk 11:44, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Netoholic

    Prior recent/relevant discussions

    Background

    Netoholic (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

    Netoholic has (in several words) challenged my close of Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Men as out of process,[13][14][15] WP:INVOLVED,[16][17][18][19][20] WP:BADNAC,[21] a form of WP:GAMING,[22][23] edit warring,[24][25] and the like. I have disputed all of those claims at my talk page. Despite actively discussing this matter with me, decided to revert my close again (more background on my talk page and ANEW report). They have since been blocked for edit warring.[26] As Bilorv so succinctly put it: The person who was edit warring is the one who made six reverts, deliberately trying to game 3RR, not the people who made two reverts each, with encouragements to discuss the matter in their edit summaries.

    I am submitting this closure for self-review since Neto is blocked. It's not that I don't stand by my close at this point. It's that Netoholic has flat out stated that nothing less than this proposal being up for several years would be sufficient to them.[27] I feel that is an absurd request to make from an editor who seems to be demonstrating clear WP:IDHT.

    Should I be reverted and what is to be said of the actions concerning Netoholic? –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 14:52, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Survey

    • Endorse per the deletion of Wikipedia:WikiProject Men after an AfD in which the closer wrote (in part) Consensus appears to be that this project violates WP:POINT and/or WP:NPOV, plus concerns about the clarity of the scope, the redundancy to existing projects (chiefly WP:MEN) ... Netoholic violated WP:FORUMSHOP by making a council proposal page, and there were no (other) supporters of the project despite widespread discussion about it so it's clearly not a productive area to keep discussing over and over again. — Bilorv (he/him) (talk) 15:01, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don’t really see much of anything to close. It had three participants. Wikiprojects on the whole are dead (with a few notable exceptions such as MILHIST) and I honestly had no clue that the “WikiProject Council” even existed beyond a weird logo on talk pages that we’d never bothered to get rid of. Pointless close because a three person discussion about a loosely/not at all regulated part of Wikipedia doesn’t consensus make. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:07, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse - project was clearly a duplicate or fork of WP:MEN, or else so broad in scope (things of interest to men? as in, basically everything?) as to be useless. Netoholic should focus this energy on rejuvenating WP:MEN if that's their interest. Maybe they didn't intend their project proposal to be pointy, but it became pointy anyway. Might I also suggest marking the WikiProject Council proposals process historic if it's so poorly attended? Expecting things to wait years for approval indicates a process that has outlived its usefulness. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:11, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yeah, I’d agree with this. I’m not exactly thrilled with Netoholic’s behaviour here and don’t really think the close should be “overturned” but I also don’t really see much of a point to it since that can hardly be called a discussion. If people want to create a WikiProject, let them and then sort it out at MfD if it causes issues. Most of them no one will even notice. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:15, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • ... sort it out at MfD if it causes issues. At the MfD of the proposal page, three editors !voted close and the closer wrote "Closing/archiving the proposal should not require MfD intervention." [28] Looks to me like consensus to close. Endorse. – Levivich 15:47, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reclose with an uninvolved closer This is a mess all around. I don't quite see how RL0919 gets keep from this discussion. So I would say that is a bad close that should be overturned and if this weren't already here and I was made aware of it I would take it to DRV. The fact that there was something to nominate (again) is POINTY behavior, which is only shown further by the edit warring that went on around that so good block there. However, MJL was clearly not an uninvolved editor in all this and as such should clearly not have been the person closing this. I don't think his close was wrong, but the reason WP:RFC calls for an uninvolved editor is precisely so that accusations of bad faith on the closer's part are harder to level. And while this isn't the forum for it I would support efforts to mark the WikiProject Council as historical. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:56, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Endorse This is typical IDHT territory and Netoholic needs to be probably TBanned from these spheres, because because his arguments seem to be approaching MRA-esque stuff very rapidly. But, MJL, you were not the best-placed editor to close this. ∯WBGconverse 16:00, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Barkeep49 and Winged Blades of Godric: I would agree that I may not have been the best person to close this, but that is why I made my offer to discuss this out first with Neto.[29] I was rather shocked that they chose to edit war over it rather than actually just be cordial and polite. I'm not unreasonable, and I generally revert when asked for the right reasons.[30] I'd like to additionally discuss the topic ban that WBG mentioned. It might be overdue here. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 16:48, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Since I was pinged: I have no opinion about whether or not this proposal should be closed, but I hope that I was clear that the result at the Miscellany for deletion (writing that out in full as a reminder that "deletion" is part of the name) discussion about the proposal was only that the proposal page should not be deleted, not that it shouldn't be closed. Closing or not closing proposals isn't the focus of MfD as a forum. If the participants on the page can't resolve it there (which it seems they can't), then a dispute resolution venue such as this one is the right place for that to be decided. --RL0919 (talk) 16:13, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      As the person who pinged you, I think your close was clear. I just don't see how you reached a consensus of keep from that discussion especially as only a couple months before a different MfD came to a delete decision. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:58, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      One MfD was about an actual WikiProject and the other MfD was about a proposal for a possible WikiProject, so I don't see different results as that surprising. In the discussion I closed, out of eight participants only the nominator and one other flatly favored deletion, with a third being open to deletion as an option. Most of the rest wanted the page kept but the proposal closed. I think it is very reasonable to ask why the author of the proposal would look at that MfD and think it was appropriate to revert the subsequent closure of the project proposal, but in the MfD close itself I was trying to stick to only addressing the normal remit of MfD. --RL0919 (talk) 18:21, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well given the pretty strong consensus against the project's existence at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Men, and the lack of any support other than the OP for creating the project in the discussion in question, we clearly don't have consensus for creating the project. Anybody who does want to create it needs to define it in such a way that it has a meaningful scope which isn't just that of WP:MEN and similar projects on gender issues. A projects focusing on the men's rights movement and related topics would clearly duplicate WP:MEN and there wasn't any articulated benefit for having a project to improve biographies of men. Hut 8.5 20:24, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm looking at Netoholic's block log. A lot of it is irrelevant ancient history, but two 24-hour blocks in the last three months suggest there is still a problem with unnecessary edit warring. The entries in the block log suggest that Netoholic was under a 1RR restriction at some point. Is now a good time to re-impose it? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:15, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • IMO the problematic recent history extends beyond just the edit warring blocks:
    • Reclose with an uninvolved closer. This may have been the correct outcome of the discussion (given Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Men). However, the close does not reflect the actual discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Men (3 comments - Netholic + 2 others) - there's certainly no consensus for opening the WikiProject (or, given 3 participants, for much of anything) - however the only talk of a redirect is by the closer. Furthermore, MJL is clearly involved given their numerous comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Men. Icewhiz (talk) 09:43, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      @Icewhiz: It's pretty established I was involved despite my initial protest and grumblings to such. The redirect portion of the close was brought by Jo-Jo Eumerus's initial close of MFD:WP:MEN and then UnitedStatesian's first close of WP:COUNCIL/P/Men (the latter who've I pinged before regarding this issue but doesn't seem to want to get involved further). Either way, if whoever closes this thread wants to reclose mine, then that's fine with me.
      I'd just prefer to see this matter conclusively resolved, though. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 18:17, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reverse close. Netoholic and I do not always see eye to eye (to put it mildly), but I don't see the harm in this proposal being left open. (Disclosure: I was, briefly, a member of Netoholic's original WikiProject Men.) WanderingWanda (talk) 06:20, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why did the proposal get closed at all? Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals do not normally get "closed". It's usually pointless to start a WikiProject page when you only have three possible participants (I ran the numbers years ago; you need a lot more than three people to keep the group going for even one year), but there's no bureaucracy over there. I've wondered, in fact, whether the proposal process ought to be shut down, or replaced by hard requirements that are designed to minimize the risk of creating a soon-to-be-inactive WikiProject (e.g., "Get six active participants to sign up, not counting any newbies, or we'll delete your WikiProject page"). But pages like Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Men don't need to be closed, and since nobody is required to make a proposal to create a WikiProject page, it seems particularly strange to have a formal closure. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:52, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      @WhatamIdoing: In this case, the relevant WikiProject page was deleted. Neto needs consensus to bring it back, but that hasn't happened here. idk if this is the best place to discuss the WikiProject Council system or not. I just know that this discussion, like all discussion pages there, need to come to a close eventually. That's just at least according to the page itself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 05:35, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      It's perfectly normal for Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Men to get closed; it's closing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Men that's unusual. If you meant "He created it, and then we deleted it at MFD", then the message should probably say that, with a link to the MFD discussion, rather than saying that it was "not created", which (it sounds like) isn't actually true. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:33, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    IP block issue

    Tracked in Phabricator
    Task T189362

    I have 'account creation' and 'IP block exempt' status, but have just been blocked from creating an account at Coventry University, where I recently started work as Wikimedian in Residence, and am using an IP address in the range 194.66.32.0/19.

    Can anyone explain why this has happened, given my user rights, and help me to overcome it? Is there a better venue to ask in? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:03, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    194.66.32.0/19 is blocked with “account creation blocked”. Amending the block to allow account creation ought resolve this. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 10:13, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    IP Block Exemption does not allow account creation. (and discussion here) ST47 (talk) 10:31, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you; I've commented on the Phabricator ticket. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:07, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Could somebody do that, please? Maybe user:JamesBWatson, who applied the original block? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:07, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not inclined to unblock an IP with edits like these. However, I don't see any evidence of abuse from accounts created via this IP, so I would agree with dropping the block to "anon only". Could a checkuser such as TonyBallioni or Berean Hunter confirm if there is a problem with turning off ACB, and if there isn't, recommend this course of action? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:06, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Wasn't something done to make account-requests super fast for a desired blocked range? Someguy1221 (talk) 12:13, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that such edits are troubling; and clearly some action (hopefully including a prompt report to the University) was needed. But it was well over a year ago; the block is for two years and affects over 30K students and staff. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:53, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Andy, try to create an account now and let us know if it works. It should.
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 12:26, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Berean Hunter: As far as I can see, the only change you have made to the block is to remove the "anon. only" flag, which will mean that Andy won't be able to edit from the IP address at all, and still won't be able to create accounts. I guess this was a mistake, but I am pinging you rather than trying to correct it just in case there is some rational explanation that I don't know about. JamesBWatson (talk) 13:40, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Hanging on per James' comment. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:53, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    JamesBWatson, I think you are looking at one that I converted into a hardblock (the troublemaker) but that isn't it. :) Andy, go ahead and try to make an account.
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 13:56, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Berean Hunter: Thank you; I'm not in Coventry until Monday; I'll try then. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:13, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Andy, have you tried this yet?
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 16:35, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Alas no, I didn't get chance today. I'll try on Wednesday. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:41, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Berean Hunter: Yes, that worked. Thank you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:43, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    General solutions for event coordinators

    Thank you Ritchie333 for pinging me. In general, when an event coordinator finds themselves behind a standing rangeblock there are a couple of potential solutions.

    • If they don't know which IPs may be in use, or there are many, then they may email a checkuser ahead of time and if there are no problems, the checkuser can quietly turn the block off for an event. The coordinator may email the CU when it is over and they will restore the block.
    • If they know particular IPs that they will be using, perhaps long term, then the better solution is to give that info to a checkuser so that they may create a pinhole block which should allow those specific IPs account creation ability. That is, a block on a specific IP overrides a rangeblock and account creation should be allowed.

    Bluerasberry has had problems like this before so pinging him as an FYI.
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 12:46, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    • The override sounds interesting. Just to confirm: assuming I am an admin hit by a range-ACB, can I simply additionally block my own IP non-ACB to override the account creation limitation? [I am unable to try this at the moment, but it sounds like a useful trick]. —Kusma (t·c) 14:03, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • It should technically, yes, but admins should be careful about unblocking their own IPs. If you allowed yourself anon editing privileges on a hardblocked range, that might get you in trouble depending on the circumstances. You wouldn't want to leave an impression of IP socking AND you unblocked the IP yourself. For ACB, you probably wouldn't have any trouble. The best practice would be to contact the blocking admin or a checkuser to ask if it is alright. That way someone would know about it.
         — Berean Hunter (talk) 14:13, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not sure I have had this discussion lots of times. When it happens to me I do workarounds like getting people to register on their phone's cell connection which will have another IP address. The solution that I want is that people with event coordinator rights should be able to make accounts which can immediately do live editing. I forget why this does not happen but confirm that I experience it.
    If anyone makes a proposal to address the issue then I would jump into that. Probably the best place for this is the event coordinator talk page. I have faith that talking through the issues will bring a solution. The problem seems recurrent and long term but actually I think that every iteration of the discussion fixes some aspect of it and makes progress. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:16, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • For admins making rangeblocks, you can detect pinhole blocks on discrete IP addresses as described above by using Stalk toy thanks to Pathoschild. This tool also allows you to see overlapping rangeblocks and blocks on other wikis including proxy blocks...useful for detecting crosswiki abuse. In this example, you can see overlapping rangeblocks by JamesBWatson and a discrete IP block by Yamaguchi in the same range. If James had set a hardblock then Yamaguchi's anonblock could be exploited so James could remove that one to prevent it from happening.
    • This example shows crosswiki proxy blocks where the proxies are dynamic and shifting IP addresses regularly, making that a good candidate for a rangeblock. Chuck Entz's rangeblock on Wiktionary is set to expire in about two weeks but he can feel assured that it is still an active proxy range by seeing the blocks on other projects. Of course, he can use SQL and Musikanimal's Proxy API Checker to confirm that. I did on July 2. For admins that find that tool useful, please endorse SQL's proposal on meta to keep his project going. Nevermind the last bit as they have approved it today.
       — Berean Hunter (talk) 18:40, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Workaround

    If you create accounts for your event using the Program & Events Dashboard you should avoid this issue (as the creations will be routed through the dashboard server, which is not on a blocked ip address). This is self-service, but you would want to set it up in advance of your event. — xaosflux Talk 13:13, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you, but this isn't about stand alone events, but all my work as a Wikimedian in Residence - for instance, today I helped an individual set up an account and start editing; and advised a second, separately. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:49, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Pigsonthewing: again this is a workaround - but what you could do is create a very long independent event in PED - let it run all year for example. You don't have to use it for article tracking, assignment, etc - you could use it just for signup and account creation. Getting ipblock-exempt to not freeze up on account creation is certainly ideal, just trying to help you do something while you wait! — xaosflux Talk 14:10, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Apologies if I'm missing something, but can't the block be lifted, the account be created, and then the block re-enforced straight after? Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 15:59, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Lugnuts: This is not about the creation of a single account, but that I'll be running a number of internal and public events at the university, over the next two years. The wider question of whether a 30K-strong organisation should be blocked for (coincidentaly) two years as a result of the actions of one vandal would be worthy of discussion, though. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:53, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Ahh, thanks for clarifying. Thought it wasn't as simple as that! Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 16:56, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Enforced BRD vs. Consensus required

    Hi all, I've been in a disagreement with Awilley for this for months, and I think this should be resolved by community consensus. As many people know, Coffee templated most of the American politics articles with consensus required, and basically made it the standard in the topic area. Awilley has basically undone this and replaced it with Enforced BRD, which he is encouraging any admin who has used consensus required to replace it with, even if it is a new sanction

    All that said, this has been going on long enough, that I think having a poll of the community on this question is needed so admins can see what the general view of the community is here on the sanctions process. I'm proposing three options:

    • Option 1: administrators are encouraged to use the Enforced BRD sanction to the exclusion of the consensus required sanction
    • Option 2 administrators are encouraged to used consensus required to the exclusion of Enforced BRD
    • Options 3 administrators are encouraged to use their individual discretion on each article they put under page-level sanctions and there is no preferred remedy in any given topic area.

    TonyBallioni (talk) 18:26, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    • Option 3 I prefer consensus required, and think it makes more sense than "Enforced BRD", but I also get that some don't like it. That's okay: the whole point of the discretionary sanctions system is that individual administrators are allowed to judge articles on their merits. As I said elsewhere today, I'm much less likely to sanction someone if they are on a consensus required article because all they have to do is agree to use the talk page to come to agreement. In my view, Enforced BRD encourages disruption and edit warring, and personally as an admin, I find it difficult to to figure out what is going on so I just ignore any page with it as a sanction, which is fine. I'm also more likely to just not put a page under page-level sanctions at all than I am to put EBRD on it, or even use standard 1RR.
      I think administrators should be trusted to use their judgement as to what the situation entails, and that there really shouldn't be a preferred sanction. During the "Coffee-era" admins didn't use CR if they didn't want to, and that's fine, but they should be allowed to use it or any sanction they think works (including Enforced BRD or no page-level sanction at all.) Having one sanction be the standard didn't serve us well when one admin did it, and I don't think it serves us well if another is doing it. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:26, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @TonyBallioni: Can you link to the pages that describe "Enforced BRD" and "Consensus required"? Sandstein 18:29, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Hi Sandstein, here is Awilley's description of the differences User:Awilley/Consensus Required vs Enforced BRD, which is written very pro-Enforced BRD. My view of it is that it encourages people to ignore talk page discussions once 24 hours are up, while CR focuses on consensus, which is what we should be going for. At the same time, I do get that in the Coffee-era it was controversial, so I don't think it should be the standard. I just think that it should be an option and that administrators should feel free to use it if they think it is the best option. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:33, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 4: Do not systematically use page-level sanctions. In my experience, they generate more enforcement overhead than they are worth for most articles. Most issues can be solved with user-level sanctions or full protection / semiprotection. There are some rare cases where page-level sanctions work, but I don't think we should use them across hundreds of pages. Sandstein 18:37, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 3 WP:ACDS refers multiple times to administrator flexibility. Option 3 seems to be the option most in line with the intent of WP:ACDS. Schazjmd (talk) 18:42, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 3 Each system has its own merits and drawbacks. Administrator discretion is I think the best way to go. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 18:46, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Coffee originally formulated the Consensus Required rule to eliminate the following scenario common in articles with just vanilla 1RR: Editor A adds contentious material to an article; Editor B reverts (using thier 1RR); Editor A reverts (using their 1RR), leaving the article in a non-consensus state. Please read the diff. Coffee's motivation was to "reduce the unnecessary workload faced by [content] editors actually working to make these political articles neutral, reliably sourced, properly weighted, [etc.]" Ironically the sanction has had the opposite effect, increasing the workload for content editors by forcing them to gain explicit talkpage consensus for any modification they want to make that might be objectionable to any partisan POV-pushing editor on either "side" of the aisle. It has enabled a generation of peanut-gallery POV pushers who consistently show up on the talk page to vote, argue, and stonewall for their side, but who never take the time to do any actual editing of the article other than the occasional "challenge" revert. Nor did Coffee (I suspect) anticipate the ambiguities (see point #7 in my essay) or the extra mental load (point #5) that would be added by Consensus Required.
      In framing the BRD rule I found myself having to make a compromise: I needed to
      1. Help return a degree of normalcy to the topic area while still blocking the 1RR loophole that Coffee was trying to eliminate
      2. Still have a sanction strict enough to be palatable to admins accustomed to Consensus Required. (At that the time the only way to remove CR was by obtaining a consensus of admins, since Coffee retired after placing the sanctions.)
    Enough history. Of the above options, my first choice would be Option 4 (Sandstein). A page-level sanction adversely affects all users editing the page. I think a better approach is to place sanctions only on the "problem editors" whose edit warring led to the page being sanctioned in the first place. I actually think the CR sanction would be a fabulous sanction for individual editors who routinely revert against consensus. My second choice would probably be Option 1 since BRD is slightly better than CR, and uniformity throughout the topic area would take a mental load off the brave editors who still work there. ~Awilley (talk) 19:56, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Also agree with Sandstein. I, as well, had come to realize that it's best to use these sparingly. Certainly, less systemically than topic|1RR, per se. I do, however, disagree with Awilley that enforced BRD is "slightly better" than CR — that line of argument has never been established to my satisfaction. Anyway, I think it's best to leave this up to admin discretion (Option 3). El_C 20:11, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 3 - other options have benefits and drawbacks. Each option might work better on a specific article. Option 3 gives admins flexibility to apply the best approach. Option 1 could create stagnant articles. QuackGuru (talk) 20:15, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • @QuackGuru: Curious: how would Option 1 create stagnant articles? (I could see that argument being made for option 2 perhaps.) ~Awilley (talk) 20:30, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • New edits can easily be reverted if BRD is strictly enforced. But it depends on the situation. I reverted back to consensus and then another editor reverted me and cited BRD. I stated there was misleading content and I was largely ignored. I may start a RfC to fix the original research and other problematic content. I never seen an admin enforce V policy. If that happened editors would be blocked and banned very rapidly. QuackGuru (talk) 20:41, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 3 and Option 4 - In other words, admins should not systematically apply page-level sanctions in the first place, but when they do, they should look closely at the previous editorial behavior on the page, and apply the sanction which makes the most sense. It would be best, in general, if an admin applying a sanction would restore the page to the status quo ante before doing so, whichever version of DS sanction tey are about to apply. In my experience, the vast majority of disruption on AP pages comes from editors attempting to change a long-standing consensus version, so reverting to that version would roll back the clock while DS sanctions have the opportunity to work. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:07, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 5 Copy this whole discussion (proposals, votes, and responses to votes) to the village pump for proposals, since this kind of discussion doesn't belong at WP:AN. Nyttend (talk) 22:47, 11 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Inclined to agree. The non-admin perspective is going to be under-represented on this page. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:29, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I chose here, because this is normally the place other than AE that discretionary sanctions are discussed and it is also an appropriate venue for dispute resolution, which at this point this is. I don't think VPP or VPR would be appropriate as there is no policy that's trying to be set, but rather the community view on a specific type of sanctions. Additionally, this issue has been discussed here before (pre-Awilley changing all of Coffee's sanctions), so it seemed like it has precedent. This board and ANI both have plenty of non-admin comments, so I don't think that's a good argument, and since it's already here, I would oppose moving it: it'd be an exercise in bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake and would likely receive less attention and not be resolved as quickly. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:42, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I have placed a neutral pointer to this discussion on VPP, here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:46, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Thank you BMK. I think that is a good idea while keeping this discussion visible here. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:48, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 5, option 4, or option 3, in that order, for the reasons given by others above. Thanks to BMK for the pointer, it helps, but I thought the portal thread and other recent threads showed consensus for holding policy-level discussions elsewhere (and "should we have CR or EBRD on all pages in a topic area" is a policy-level discussion even if it's not about making a change to a WP:PAG). Substantively, I very much agree with Sandstein about sanctioning just the problematic editors, rather than creating unusual rules that all editors must abide by. It's what I think of when I think of WP:NOTBURO. – Levivich 00:54, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • A non-admin perspective. Feel free to ignore if I'm too far out of scope, I don't wish to distract from the core discussion; but I'm otherwise agnostic.
      A legitimate question is, "Why do we need different process rules for different highly contentious articles?" The only justifiable division is between highly contentious articles and everything else; the considerations at all contentious articles are the same, or close enough. It seems to me the current "flexibility" exists only because we don't want to require admins to use a single common system whether it's what they would prefer or not, and it seems to me that's a bug, not a feature. All of us are required to adapt, and freedom from adaptation should not be a perk for inducing more editors to take up the mop. We can entertain ongoing discussions about what's the optimum system indefinitely as far as I'm concerned, but there should never be more than one system in force at a given time. The whole ACDS thing needs to be overhauled, maybe even eliminated. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:09, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Extended discussion
    • I think the general answer to the question "Why do we need different process rules for different highly contentious articles?" is that the nature of the behavior can differ from article to article. Not all content disputes are equal, and admins should be able to select the DS which best fits the circumstance of the editing history of each article, without having "one size fits all". Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:20, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yeah, I know that's the general answer, which is why I said , or close enough. Any such benefit should be weighed fairly against its costs; at this juncture I'll assume that the costs don't need enumeration. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:56, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Absent any indication that the community is interested in such a discussion, I don't think this is the place or time for that. I've seen too many discussions derailed because editors are unwilling or unable to limit scope. It was worth a feeler, but no more at this point. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:06, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    How is it "derailing" a discussion if you say that using specific sanctions for specific situations has a cost, and then aren't willing to discuss what those costs are? It seems relevant to me, but if you now don't think it is, would you please strike through your previous comments concerning "costs"? Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:33, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    No. I've explained myself adequately. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:52, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    It's quite clear that you don't want to discuss this any more, but... no, you have not "explained yourself adequately", which is why I asked for an explanation in the first place. Perhaps the next time you bring up something in a notice board discussion, you might think about whether you're prepared to follow through with it. In any event, I'm collapsing this non-discussion. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:43, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Beyond My Ken: Since this is collapsed already I'll add my 5 cents. Every page-level sanction has costs and benefits. Semi-protection reduces vandalism but also blocks constructive editing from IPs. 1RR reduces the complexity and intensity of edit wars, but also makes editing more difficult, forcing all editors to track their reverts, and can make it more difficult to revert somebody who adds a lot of new, poor quality material to an article in multiple edit sessions. Consensus Required eliminates 1RR gaming, but it adds another layer of complexity to editing, forces unwieldy talk page discussions, and it can be a turnoff for editors less invested in the topic area. BRD encourages people to use the talk page, but it also adds more complexity for users who already have rule fatigue. Full protection stops edit wars cold, but also freezes article development. ~Awilley (talk) 21:21, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The overall discussion is about which sanction -- if any -- is preferable, so my question to Mandruss was: what costs does he see in each course of action? His original comment seemed to be saying that multiple choices weren't necessary because of the costs involved, which begs the question of which sanction he saw as the least costly - a question he refused to respond to. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:31, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I prefer Option 3 from a non-admin point of view, as I think it presents the rules the most clearly to the users who may be involved in the edit war. This isn't just about admin actions, this should be focused on presenting users who may not be familiar with the encyclopaedia the norms by which they can be sanctioned, and I think the consensus required does that best. SportingFlyer T·C 01:21, 12 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 6. @TonyBallioni:, you say above that in your opinion an admin should be able to use Consensus Required or any sanction they think works, including Enforced BRD or no page-level sanction at all. I agree. But there's no option above that lets me decide to use no sanction at all. If I should look at a page and decide it shouldn't have a page-level sanction, then that's only something that happens in my head. It does not in any way prevent another admin from applying CR or whatever an hour later. They'd probably want to respect the decision taken by another admin, but they can't, because they don't know about it. IMO we should institute "no page-level sanction" as a formal alternative, and have a template for it. If A puts this on a talkpage, and B wants to have an actual page sanction, B would presumably go to A's talkpage and they can discuss it. (PS, speaking more personally, I hate all page-level sanctions except possibly 1RR. I think they're only good for gotcha AE reports.) Bishonen | talk 11:10, 13 July 2019 (UTC).[reply]
    That is a problem with the DS system...it only allows for the escalation of sanctions. Even if I just wanted to have 1RR on a page I couldn't prevent another admin from adding consensus required or something on top of that. And since we're on the subject, there are a lot of things that I don't like about 1RR as a page-level sanction. ~Awilley (talk) 21:03, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • A slight aside, but regarding the Coffee scenario mentioned above, I actually raised this point many moons ago, here, but the thread passed by without further comment. When taken literally, 3RR (and indeed 1RR) are the opposite of BRD because if two parties both use up all of their available reverts, then it's the bold edit that remains rather than the previous status quo. I think it might be useful to refashion 3RR and 1RR so that an initial bold action is also included in the "revert" tallies. That would I suppose bring it more in line with the "consensus required" paradigm.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:00, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Amakuru: Wow, 2015. Incidentally that's the same problem I discuss at User:Awilley/Consensus_Required_vs_Enforced_BRD#A_common_scenario and half the function of the "Enforced BRD" sanction is to remedy that. ~Awilley (talk) 03:54, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 3 - The fact that one admin basically made up an extremely meager "alternative" to "consensus required" (i.e. actual enforced BRD), had the audacity to term it "BRD enforced", then apparently made it a personal crusade to systematically implement it is astounding. Shocking, truly. I'm extremely against this utterly-broken and ineffective sanction. I raised the fact that this sanction seemed asinine after witnessing a flow-blown edit war play out, allowable under this sanction. And the admin responsible actually said that this was intended under this sanction. Bizarre. We, as a system, should absolutely not stand behind this dreadful restriction. ~Swarm~ {sting} 02:54, 14 July 2019 (UTC
    • Option 3 IMO the most reasonable solution. By and large admins can be trusted to use their discretion, but any admin can make a GF error sometimes. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:53, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 4 - page-level sanctions should only be infrequently used, not a standard tool. Within that strict sub-set, it should be decided on a case-by-case basis. Admins always using the same method could be reasonably viewed as doing so poorly. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:30, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 3, and really not Option 1. I think the D in BRD is a key part of what makes WP different from other platforms. Surely the longer the D, the better the outcome? D also wears down the drive-by POVs and it helps gather information for revealing SOCKS; ultimately, when the D does not work and an Admin (or other ANI/ArbCom process) is called for, having a long D helps them understand the situation? Option 1, doesn't fee like "Enforced BRD", it feels like "BRD-lite" or "Temp-BRD"; surely Option 1 is an incentive to stop having the D (or just give a minor explanation), and just watch the clock for the 24-hours to pass; feels like a great tool for a sock-farm (who could even automate their reverts)? Britishfinance (talk) 17:09, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Britishfinance: a couple points:
    1. I think there's a misunderstanding about how WP:BRD is supposed to work, probably because we always abbreviate it as "BRD". In reality it's supposed to be a relatively fast repetitive process as demonstrated by the title of the page Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, as well as the last paragraph of the introduction (beginning "Cycle: To avoid bogging down in discussion...", and throughout the page (see WP:NOTSTUCK). It's supposed to be B-R-D-B-R-D not B-R-.
    2. Regarding long D being helpful for admins: From this admin's point of view, having a long (usually convoluted) D is not paricularly helpful. I usually find the article history to be much more informative and actionable if somebody's pushing a POV.
    3. Re "watch the clock for the 24-hours to pass": Again, from an administrative perspective, 1RR gaming is one of the easiest behaviors to identify and sanction. By contrast, talkpage stonewalling and WP:IDHT behaviors are notoriously hard to sanction. I sanction people for ignoring consensus or disrupting an article, not for expressing their views on a talk page.
    4. Responding to your point about long discussions wearing down drive-by POV pushers: the requirement to post to the talk page at all is usually sufficient for that. The problem I am concerned with is having the emotionally invested and tenacious POV pushers wearing down the neutral editors who have better things to do with their time than to engage in circular discussions with people who are immune to logical argument.
    5. Re "the longer the D the better the outcome": That has not been my experience. I think a more efficient path to "consensus" is through a combination of editing and discussion, and I think the outcome is better when content has gone through several iterations of editing, tweaking, and refining from both "sides" as opposed to a proposal and !vote on the talk page.
    Apologies if this was TLDR ~Awilley (talk) 01:06, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    In my experience, more bold edits made during discussion before a consensus has been reached can lead to hard feelings about the editor ignoring the consensus-building process. It also takes advantage of editors who don't want to edit the article until a consensus is reached should a new bold change be made and a no-consensus result ensue. Although it would be appropriate to restore the previous status quo, this would continue the edit warring cycle if done by an editor who disagrees with the change. I think the approaches described at Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle § Bold (again) are more fruitful. isaacl (talk) 01:15, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    This is absolutely true, and BRD is explicit that edits made during discussion should be taking into account the objections voiced by the other party. I wish more editors would follow the advice in the "Bold (again)" section you linked. ~Awilley (talk) 00:56, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 4, although it does not exclude option 3. The problem is usually not with the content (i.e. specific pages), but with people. Not using page-level sanctions also makes life of admins much easier. Also, that was really a bad idea by Coffee. My very best wishes (talk) 17:59, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Please consider blocking cross-wiki socks

    علاء, were you going to lock these accounts?
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 16:32, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Berean Hunter: I think it's zhwiki issue (local), but if these account will blocked in enwiki, then I'll lock it globally --Alaa :)..! 17:02, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    علاء yes, see this and this. It may be best to lock them. Cheers,
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 18:05, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    It's my bad not making it clear. Actually, the only account needs block is Peli_qazwsxedc (as what I posted originally). Checkuser result says Morris Hu 12333 and Ronray7799 are  Possible but they are clearly not the same user based on their behavior. @Berean Hunter: so please block Peli_qazwsxedc and that's it, no more blocks/locks needed. I will closely monitor these users and inform other wikis if more blocks apply. --Techyan（Talk） 01:34, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

     Done
     — Berean Hunter (talk) 01:40, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    علاء, these accounts are now also locally blocked on en.wiki, and might qualify for a lock now. Pinging you as an FYI. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:55, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Peli qazwsxedc  locked --Alaa :)..! 14:00, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Request to remove Topic ban

    Per this ANI discussion, I was banned from sorting, relisting or closing discussions at AfD. That was my big mistake not to follow the instructions. I must apologize for that. Now I am a completely changed person. I won't do anything which may harm the community. Please accept my apology and remove the Topic ban. Thanks! ~SS49~ {talk} 16:07, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    • @SS49: Will you return to clerking at XfD? That is the question and one which you...slightly skirt around? in your request. ——SerialNumber54129 16:16, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support: It's "only" been four months as opposed to my preferred six, but the unequivocal renunciation of the behaviour that led to the ban leaves no room for envelope pushing or other games. Although, arguably, if one is effectively topic banning oneself from a theatre of activity, some might argue that there's no point in lifting it; however, I can't disagree with someone wanting to remove a stain from their character if we allow them to, which we do. Also noting that my previous concern was that the penny had not dropped—it seems now to have—and that WP:ROPE applied—it still does. @SS49: I think you should probably realise—not a threat, but a fact—that should there be any further troublesome clerking anywhere, this is likely to be revisited and not with a topic ban. How do you feel about that? ——SerialNumber54129 16:31, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Are you hoping to have this TBAN lifted because you don't want it on your record or because it's stopping you from doing work you'd like to do? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:08, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Strongly oppose for all the reasons from the previous discussion but also because I see no benefit to the community if this is lifted. Praxidicae (talk) 20:10, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd support, on the basis that anything other than !voting in an AfD will result in an indefinite block. That would be no non-admin closures, no re-listings, no sorting, nothing other than a regular comment. Nick (talk) 20:21, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I can support this, we take the ban off the books with the explicit understanding that we will hold SS49 to their word that they will not return to clerking. Sounds reasonable. ~Swarm~ {sting} 20:42, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    So what purpose is there in lifting the topic ban? I still see absolutely no reason why they should be trusted with this or what value it adds if they are still giving us "their word" (which ftr, was absolutely meaningless last time) if their only intent is to continue to abide by the existing ban anyway. Praxidicae (talk) 23:50, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose Given that one of the first things the editor did after being topic banned from "sorting, relisting and closing discussions at AfD" was...more delsorts [33], and that they've delsorted AfDs multiple times since then [34] [35] [36], I find the promises not to do those things a bit odd. Like Praxidicae, I see no benefit to the encyclopedia from lifting the ban early (or, in my opinion, at all). Bakazaka (talk) 20:45, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • That was in the AfDs nominated by me. While nominating articles for deletion we have to fill the box. From now I won't sort even AfDs created by me. ~SS49~ {talk} 20:55, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • [37] was not, and it happened right after the topic ban was placed. Simply put, on multiple occasions where you could have adhered to the topic ban rather than doing what you wanted in Twinkle, you repeatedly chose the latter. Bakazaka (talk) 21:16, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • I didn't know the difference between ban and block so I did that just to find out the difference. Apologies . ~SS49~ {talk} 22:20, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • Was SS49 warned, blocked, or otherwise sanctioned for that, and did he violate it again despite such action? —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 21:22, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • Did SS49 keep the promises they made in the previous ANI discussion? Bakazaka (talk) 21:39, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
              • Answered above. ~SS49~ {talk} 22:24, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
                • User:Bakazaka there was that single transgression hours afterwards - but they also self reported it, apologized, and did not, as far as I can see, repeat the transgression. Nfitz (talk) 22:26, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
                  • You linked to SS49 saying I recently nominated an article for deletion and sorted the deletion discussion. Sorry for the mistake. Thought sorting is not an issue. Note that they subsequently did the same thing multiple times (linked above), including only 3 hours after the apologystriking because I got a timestamp wrong, there are still two subsequent incidents, despite TonyBallioni clarifying that anything other than !voting in AfD was prohibited, and despite apologizing for it as a "mistake". Not sure which part of this is unclear. Bakazaka (talk) 23:55, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
                    • I don't see two subsequent transgressions - unless you (User:Bakazaka) are referring to them creating an AFD in June, and another in July (that were both uncontroversial). Nor do I see a prohibition on creating AFDs. I see no behaviour issues related to the topic ban since the day of the topic ban. Nfitz (talk) 01:10, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
                • (edit conflict)@Bakazaka: My question was serious. I wanted to know, since you've done the legwork, whether there was discipline for that specific violation and whether there were subsequent violations. While I believe that SS49's topic ban should be lifted at this point, I'm also open to having my mind changed.
                  At this time, I'm thinking that a single violation so close in time to the topic ban itself—which is generally a time of confusion and frustration for an editor—just as easily indicates a mistake as it does deliberately and knowingly flaunting the topic ban. People often screw up just after they're topic banned, and people often lash out just after they're topic banned. In neither case is it out of malice or a willingness to break the rules for rulebreaking's sake.
                  I also credit the absence of harm from this one infraction—it being delsorting rather than the relist/NAC actions that originally got him in trouble—in addition to the fact that nobody seems to have noticed it until now as mitigating factors in my mind.
                  I take your attempted inference to be that the violation indicates malice, or perhaps incompetence and inability to follow rules—you don't say exactly what you're inferring, so it's left somewhat up to me to guess. Neither inference rings true to me based on what you've pointed out. If there were a pattern of misconduct after the ban—whether repeated violations after warnings, or causing disruption in other areas not covered by the ban, that was sustained for a sufficient period after the ban was enacted—I could be convinced to oppose lifting the ban. But I'm not seeing a pattern, I'm seeing a single incident. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 00:02, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
                  • So, for example, if SS49 clarified with an admin that delsorting was not permitted under the ban, even for their own nominations, apologized for that "mistake", then did it again anyway, would that be convincing? Bakazaka (talk) 00:12, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
                • Bakazaka, That was done just to complete the process. While AFDing a box appears which is required to be filled. If you say it is better not to complete, I won't do it again. I thought the box should be filled completely. ~SS49~ {talk} 01:23, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • There was no prohibition from creating AFDs - and including sorting is listed as a step in AFD creation at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#How to nominate multiple related pages for deletion. I'm not sure why we'd want to encourage people not to make the normal notications. And I only see that they've only created two AFDs since March (which were both uncontroversially upheld as delete). I can understand the desire to have the user avoid closing and relisting. But what's the concern with sorting User:Bakazaka - it's rarely controversial. Nfitz (talk) 21:10, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • The concerns about sorting were discussed in detail in the previous ANI discussion, which is why sorting was explicitly included in the topic ban under discussion here. Bakazaka (talk) 21:13, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • There was a bit in the ANI (a couple of complaints over a month before the ANI discussion) - unless I missed something. One was just about formatting (some extra spaces), and the other was a request to only use sub-categories rather than the super-category, which was immediately agreed to, and not repeated. This didn't seem to be a lingering problem, even at the time of the ANI discussion. Nfitz (talk) 21:23, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support as a reasonable request, articulated reasonably. (see below) I do not support the “don’t do delsorting after this or you’ll get blocked” condition since it’s just another way of saying “topic ban.” Either we lift the restriction or we don’t. There’s no middle ground. That said, if SS49 were to immediately go and start clerking at AfD after this is lifted, contrary to his assurances here that he has no such interest, then we could reasonably infer that he had lied to get out of his TBAN, and reimposing it or blocking him would be appropriate. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 21:05, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Oppose per discussion with Bakazaka above. The original ban had no exceptions for delsorting when starting an AfD. Delsorting is optional when starting an AfD, and as far as I can tell Twinkle won't throw an error if you don't put anything in the delsort box (and it says "delsort" so there's no confusion there). And SS49's ban explicitly says that delsorting is covered. So, frankly, I'm not impressed with SS49's "oops", "if you say so", and "I won't do it again" responses to these issues. And let's be realistic: Even if Twinkle did require you to fill the delsort box when starting an AfD, this is not a new problem. The limitations of automated and semi-automated tools are never an excuse for violating policy or sanction. If SS49 thought it was required to fill the delsort box to make Twinkle work, he should have been starting the AfDs manually, like we all used to do years ago. All the instructions are still there at WP:AFD. And so, "Twinkle made me do it" is no excuse.
        With that in mind, all four of the diffs Bakazaka points out are relevant, and all four are delsorts after the ban was in force. The first was mere hours after the ban, and the most recent was less than a month ago. Earlier I defended SS49 on the basis of "no pattern" and that the one diff that was a clear, obvious violation was no pattern. Having realized my presumption that "own AfD" delsorts weren't covered by the ban was incorrect, it is now clear that there is a pattern that has continued without a clear end. Two would have made a pattern. Four makes a clear pattern.
        On the other hand, those were uncaught (presumably because they weren't disruptive). Moreover, the main way SS49 was originally disrupting was through relists and NACs. A reading of the thread that enacted the ban makes it feel like delsorting was just "lumped in" as part of "AfD clerking" tasks rather than a particular area of disruption. As such, this feels somewhat de minimis.
        But then we have all the clear statements to SS49 that delsorting was not allowed. There's the discussion at TonyBallioni's user talk and GoldenRing's statement in closing the ban discussion. And yet in spite of that, SS49 didn't understand or appreciate that doing any delsorting was a violation? It might be one thing if there was a policy-based argument coupled with a mea culpa, but what SS49 has done here has essentially been to plead ignorance. I'm sorry but in light of the issue raised in the original ban discussion—that there was a clear competence problem—I think this action needs to be tabled at least until the six month mark.
        I don't think there's a need to impose further sanctions as a result of the discovered violations, however. This is based on my observation that they are essentially de minimis. Let's just close this and get back to our normal activities. While I don't think SS49 would go and immediately break his promise not to violate the conditions of lifting the ban, that's not the problem we need to be careful of: It's little disruptions that go unnoticed for a long time. That, and my objection to "unbanning with conditions matching the original ban scope" (which is tantamount to making this an undocumented editing restriction) means I must oppose this request. Sorry, SS49. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 04:08, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Meh. The intent of the ban was pretty clearly to prohibit AfD clerking. I really don't see it as being intended to prevent them from properly submitting AfDs. It seems like this should be common sense. We don't engage in mindless bureaucratic nitpicking, we care about the spirit of the law. I find Bakazaka's strenuous objections to be a bit bizarre, tbh. I mean, there was one violation, which was self-reported with assurances that it wouldn't happen again, and it hasn't. Trying to frame correctly-filed nominations as violations is dubious. I'm not particularly convinced that SS49 is the best editor, or that they're deserving of the advanced permissions they hold, or that they're competent. But I can not hold the AfD noms against them. ~Swarm~ {sting} 04:45, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    You don't need to delsort to properly submit an AfD though. We're not talking about the AfD category code that's part of the whole thing, we're talking about doing delsorts. It's not mandatory, as far as I can tell Twinkle doesn't require it, and even if it did the rules about automated tools makes that no excuse. There are four violations, not just one. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 04:56, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Fair enough. It's listed as an inherent procedural aspect of making an AfD though. It does not say "mandatory" or "optional" either way, but it is an inherent part of deletion process as written. It's not convincing that self-deletion sorting is the problem that the TBAN was intended to address, which was pretty obviously self-appointed clerking, to which sorting was an aside, not the primary issue. I get where you're coming from, and I don't think you're being unreasonable. I'm just meh about it, which admittedly reflects my view on this user's presence overall. I can't decide whether they're headed towards an RfA or towards an indef block. ~Swarm~ {sting} 05:41, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with Swarm that deletion sorting was not the sort of behavior that caused the ban, however can understand those who say that its breaking argues against lifting this ban. If the consensus is to keep the ban I would hope that the closer would do so allowing an exception deletion sorting for SS49's AfD nominations going forward. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:37, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support The request seems reasonable. There was one clear transgression about sorting, within hours of the topic ban, which was self-reported with an apology. The debate seems to be about three AFD listings (I'd only seen the June and July ones previously, but there was a third in March that I'd missed). As there was no prohibition of AFD submissions, and the delsorting that occurs automatically as part of that seems a bit grey, I don't see any need to use this to keep the ban - which starts to appear to be punitive to me, rather than preventive. The primary issues in the original discussion were closing and relisting AFDs - the sorting issues raised were very very minor (one was a formatting issue, and the other was related to subcategories), that were sorted out weeks earlier. There's a very clear commitment to avoid closing or relisting AFDs. It won't harm the project to give some rope here. Nfitz (talk) 04:36, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support I don't see what will change from four to six months in this case, and we've always got WP:ROPE if it goes pear-shaped. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 13:22, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose There's zero benefit to lifting a ban when the user who is subject to the ban says they will respect it even if it is lifted. * Pppery * it has begun... 14:45, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Your username in the list of editing restrictions never encourages you. ~SS49~ {talk} 15:05, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • I get the motivation to go for a withdrawal of the ban, but when the conditions are identical to the ban itself, we just have the equivalent of someone saying “I don’t like my name on the list, can we just do this off the books?” That’s not how Wikipedia works, and the call for that sort of underscores a concerning lack of clue, which I believe is a symptom of what triggered the original ban discussion. Like as SN54129 pointed out, it has only been four months. The standard offer (which pretty well forms the core of our relief from sanctions practices) calls for six months. To me, you need to make the case for an exception. In light of the violations revealed above—even if they’re technical, even if they’re uncaught, even if they’re not disruptive—I don’t think you can make the case for an exception anymore. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 17:51, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support - Everybody deserves a second chance, and this user has agreed to reform. Foxnpichu (talk) 10:31, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support: Agreed, improving editors is what Wikipedia is all about! - Ret.Prof (talk) 13:46, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support user !voting only; not doing the other stuff.   Dlohcierekim (talk) 21:38, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Dlohcierekim Unless I'm mistaken, they're not prohibited from that. Praxidicae (talk) 18:54, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support I am not sure if I'm allowed to !vote here, or even edit. But, I just wanted to say-- I came to know the user only after the ban had come into effect, and didn't know of it until I saw this discussion. The user has never struck me as someone out to do anything other than contribute to the encyclopedia, and they haven't shown any behaviour that looked even marginally questionable to me. I am frankly shocked at how they seem to have approached communication and action, in the run up to the ban. I don't think there's anything that harmful in what they've done against the conditions of the ban, more than mere technicality; which I am willing to accept were due to ignorance rather than malice. As such, I want to see this ban lifted, if only to see how they behave afterwards. I think it ought to be enough to put some condition akin to "one admin can take such and such action against you at their personal discretion if you repeat your disruptive behaviour after this ban is lifted", to lift the ban, to show that the community has the user's best interests at heart as well as the Project's. Agree that it's more punitive than preventative at this point. Usedtobecool ✉️ ✨ 18:21, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    ds alert silly question

    Can one be issued by a non admin? Asking for a friend.  Dlohcierekim (talk) 23:22, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    @Swarm and Mendaliv: had a memory lapse.   Dlohcierekim (talk) 19:08, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    What I've been wondering is that, would such DE fall under the DS itself or an unilateral administrative sanction? --qedk (t 桜 c) 06:58, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    QEDK, I think that it should be interpreted as falling under the discretionary sanctions because if broadly construed discretionary sanctions do not apply to the sanctions themselves, I'm not sure what they would apply to, except explicitly named articles. StudiesWorld (talk) 13:41, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it would depend on context. If a participant in a dispute for one of the areas in question were to start sending out unnecessary awareness messages, this could reasonably be construed as an extension of the dispute and so within the scope of discretionary sanctions. If some newbie just learns about discretionary sanctions and thinks it would be a good idea to go through articles related to a given area and blanket warn editors of those articles, I feel this lies more under the general category of disruptive editing, and so the usual methods of handling disruption apply. isaacl (talk) 17:21, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Might have posted a small dilemma, guess we can see it unravel on-wiki, if that ever happens. --qedk (t 桜 c) 07:07, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Wikimedia Strategy Survey

    I stumbled across this on a project talk page and thought it warranted wider publicity. As part of the Wikimedia Movement Strategy process, nine distinct working groups are running surveys of the broader Wikimedia communities on areas that are likely of interest to all of us on enwiki.

    The surveys are located here. The working groups, and topic areas being surveyed, are: Advocacy, Capacity Building, Community Health, Diversity, Partnerships, Product & Technology, Resource Allocation, Revenue Stream, Roles & Responsibilities.

    I know the dates here make it sound like this is over already, but a working group member indicated that at least the Community Health one, and it sounds like all of them, will be open till next Friday.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:35, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Update: per this post on meta, the surveys are all open till the end of July. Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:58, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Motion: Discretionary Sanctions: Awareness and alerts

    The following change to discretionary sanctions awareness requirements has been passed and enacted by motion:

    The Awareness section of the discretionary sanctions procedure is modified to the following: No editor may be sanctioned unless they are aware that discretionary sanctions are in force for the area of conflict. An editor is aware if:

    1. They were mentioned by name in the applicable Final Decision; or
    2. They have ever been sanctioned within the area of conflict (and at least one of such sanctions has not been successfully appealed); or
    3. In the last twelve months, the editor has given and/or received an alert for the area of conflict; or
    4. In the last twelve months, the editor has participated in any process about the area of conflict at arbitration requests or arbitration enforcement; or
    5. In the last twelve months, the editor has successfully appealed all their own sanctions relating to the area of conflict; or
    6. They have placed a {{DS/Aware}} template for the area(s) of conflict on their own talk page.
    For the arbitration committee, GoldenRing (talk) 12:25, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Motion: Discretionary Sanctions: Awareness and alerts

    Buffs, Indigenous Girl and CorbieVreccan

    Buffs (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was recently blocked for 24 hours and banned from Order of the Arrow as an arbitration enforcement action. This was overturned on appeal. However, there does seem to be a problem here between Buffs, Indigenous girl (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and CorbieVreccan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log).

    The problem seems to have started over the use of a blog source in Order of the Arrow (see this discussion and following). This escalated to this RSN discussion, in which Buffs first labelled these sources "a WP:FRINGE opinion of 2-3 people" (diff). This was repeated in this discussion, in which Buffs used the Black Panthers, white supremacists and flat-earthers as examples. Indigenous girl took fairly strong exception to that, seeing it as equating indigenous Americans with flat-earthers and white supremacists.

    There has been extensive bickering since then. Indigenous girl appears to have taken to following Buffs around. The articles that they have both edited this year are:

    For these last two, it should be noted that they are part of a very long string of similar edits by Buffs to state-level scouting articles (diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff, diff) and Indigenous girl has stated that she was "following his lead" editing Scouting in Massachusetts (diff).

    On this basis, Indigenous girl came to El_C to report "The guy is still following me". Buffs was blocked for 24 hours over the Scouting in Massachusetts edit. Buffs then hatted a section of OR on Talk:Order of the Arrow (diff) and, as far as I understand it, it was on this basis that El_C banned him from the page (the ban that was later overturned).

    All along the way here, CorbieVreccan has been dipping his oar in and pouring petrol on troubled waters. If you read around everything presented above, you'll find plenty, but most recently followed Buffs to my TP (diff).

    I am therefore proposing a community-imposed IBAN between Buffs on the one hand and Indigenous girl and CorbieVreccan on the other. GoldenRing (talk) 14:47, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment I first thank GoldenRing for his synopsis; it is concise, yet comprehensive. Given that scope, it's clear he took a fair amount of time compiling everything. Thank you so much for the effort.
    Second, I didn't realize IG was following me so much, but it explains a lot.
    Third, my comparison to such absurd groups (Flat Earthers, et al) was to point out that even a large group doesn't necessarily make an opinion notable enough for inclusion per WP:NPOV. I stand by my assessment that there has been no evidence presented to the contrary. The opinion of Corbie is that the existence of any Native American objections warrant inclusion and WP:FRINGE doesn't apply to them because of past oppression.
    Lastly, I am not interested in suppression of differing opinions. I've encouraged them, but ONLY if they meet the criteria of WP:NPOV and WP:OR/WP:SYN criteria. Right now, we aren't there. We HAVE made progress (especially recently) on several issues at hand. Other topics are stalled despite multiple attempts at WP:DR; I believe we will eventually resolve those as well, but it will take time. I do not believe an IBAN is in the best interests of WP or progress. Accordingly, I oppose solely on those grounds at this time as restricting the ability to talk through problems/issues will not help matters. I think that walking through a structured discussion with an agreed-upon, neutral third party mediating discussion would be significantly more effective at resolving these issues.
    If my facts are in error, I welcome corrections and I will happily strike accordingly. Likewise, I've given my 2 cents. Unless specifically requested by uninvolved editors, I'm going to refrain from further replies. I expected people to read the evidence above and comment on it, not present new material. I'm not going to sit idly by while lies and half-truths are spouted about me. Buffs (talk) 19:22, 16 July 2019 (UTC) (remarks updated 15:54, 18 July 2019 (UTC))[reply]
    • Query - Thank you @GoldenRing: for some extremely good detective work and 3rd party assistance. I'm afraid @Buffs: I'm going to immediately ask you for an additional reply - could you highlight a specific area or two (page etc) where you've made progress with the named users. Normally I'm reticent to support an IBAN where the users in question are against them, but there are circumstances where that doesn't hold up. That said, I'd like to see more before judging. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:20, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Absolutely: [38] [39] [40] (diffs #1 & 3 verbatim as proposed by me on the talk page: [41] [42] after discussion). These are three of the four major points discussed on the article's (admittedly messy) talk page. While the third one isn't perfect, the only primary objection I have is the addition of quotes. It's certainly VERY close. To date, I have no reply after asking for clarification, but I can wait. Buffs (talk) 20:30, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Those changes made by Indigenous girl were both opposed by Buffs on talk.[43],[44] She was only able to make them because he was banned or blocked at the time. I do not wish to interact with Buffs anymore, and have not wanted to since his first incivility issues back in March. However, I don't feel it is correct or fair to characterize Indigenous girl's edits to shared topics of interest such as Warbonnet or Scouting articles that incorporate Indigenous materials as "following" simply because Buffs, having been on Wikipedia longer, edited some of those articles first. The articles may have come up on her watch list due to being edited; that doesn't mean she was following him. His recent behavior for which he was blocked clearly shows he was following her after a series of conflicts. He was warned to leave her alone by multiple admins and he would not stop. Now he's asking that he not be given a ban from interacting with her, which is also telling. I think he should, once again, leave her alone. But she should not be the one banned from articles on which he has been disruptive. - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 21:08, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Comment Yes, I do take exception of equating indigenous people to fringe, white supremacists and flat earthers. He can deny he did this intentionally but it is very apparent he did as he did it more than once. It was not necessary to use those examples to illustrate a point. Buffs was spoken to about this:
    I am not sure how I could have possibly followed Buffs to the first diff because I had never interacted with him previously.
    With regard to the above and following four edits, I do in fact have Corbie on my watchlist. I contributed because I had something to contribute after Corbie edited. Corbie is on my watchlist because I'm fairly certain they have nearly all indigenous articles on their watchlist and this is my topic of knowledge. I am not attempting to further any sort of agenda as Buffs has repeatedly proposed aside from having fair, balanced and well sourced articles.
    With regard to the BSA article I admittedly looked at Buffs contribs. I do not recall what precipitated it. I saw that I could add content. I in no way conflicted with Buffs with my edit.
    Buffs followed me the Scouting in Vermont article and his initial edits had nothing to do with his claim that I intentionally violated BLP in order to push an agenda. He did replace two words, that I fully admit changed the context but this was a an accident on my part. With regard to Buffs extensive topic edits, they began after I edited the Scouting in Vermont page. I also edited additional Scouting articles prior to him editing the long string of articles. I edited the Massachusetts article specifically to correct a language issue. I also had Scouting in Minnesota on my list as there were issues with links (these were later corrected by another editor). Buffs neglects to mention that he said, "I come across something in my editing that Corbie or IG have done, I'll just bring it up here first" https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Buffs&diff=904522939&oldid=904517899 I am aware of this statement because I was paying attention to an admin's content regarding Buffs due to the entire situation. Buffs did not bring it up anywhere.
    There is no mention that I was previously hounded by SolarStorm1859(lostpwd). SS participated in edit warring on Buffs behalf and Buffs thanked him.
    While being hounded by SS Corbie and I were also followed to the point of ridiculousness by Citation Bot which led to the Bot being blocked for repair. It was assumed that Citation Bot was being driven by SS https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard&diff=prev&oldid=901736143 however the first follow utilizing Citation Bot was made by Buffs. This is incredibly important and should be taken seriously.
    There is also the issue of Buffs refactoring the talk page of OA to hide my comments and closing the conversation while being an involved editor. Buffs was previously warned about refactoring. I added the content because he has asked for proof regarding a language issue. I was simply trying to comply with his request. I stated clearly that I was aware it was OR and that I had no intention to post it in the article and that it should probably be added to the individual's article.
    Buffs asking for more information:
    "Corbie (or anyone else), feel free to prove me wrong and just put the source here. If it's so obvious, it should be easy to find it by Monday. I'll wait." :*https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Order_of_the_Arrow&diff=next&oldid=903913927
    An admin warned Buffs not to refactor contribs:
    I add content Buffs asked for, he refactors my contribs and closed the conversation as an involved editor after having been warned about doing exactly this previously. This was also done shortly after coming off of the 24 hour block for following me.
    What I posted was on the talk page according to Wikipedia policy, "This policy of no original research does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research
    There is far more to this issue that meets the eye. While I find it unfair that a IBAN would prevent me from working on articles I have put a considerable amount of time into, if that's what is necessary to prevent further conflict in the future I'm begrudgingly okay with it.Indigenous girl (talk) 21:35, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Noting I just stated I was begrudgingly in support of the IBAN and Buffs just posted to my talk page. Is it possible to self-impose an IBAN? Because I am really quite done with any interaction. Indigenous girl (talk) 21:58, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    If you ask Buffs not to post on your talk page again, most admins agree that a failure to follow that request is grounds for a block, or at the very least a stern warning, leading to a block if it happens again. Of course, if you do that, you should not post to their talk page either. But a full-blown IBAN? - no, community consensus is needed for that. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:02, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I would appreciate it if he would not post to my talk page while on-going issues are being dealt with. I asked him back in March to please leave me alone https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Order_of_the_Arrow&diff=889908093&oldid=889893187 his response was https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Order_of_the_Arrow&diff=next&oldid=889908093 My request back in March was not due to edit conflicts but by the way he interacted with me which is addressed by point by an admin https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ABuffs&diff=890164118&oldid=889923361#March_2019 Also I went to another admin https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AMark_Ironie&diff=prev&oldid=889936995#Buffs_and_incivility In order to work on certain articles I had no choice but to continue to interact. I don't want or expect to have a congenial working relationship with Buffs but I do expect to not have to deal with unnecessary condescension (noted in the warning from the admin above) I choose not to deal with the insults. I shouldn't be expected to. I should have simply walked away from the handful of articles we were both invested in improving months ago. He did thank me for two recent edits and I do feel that it is important to note that on his behalf. Indigenous girl (talk) 22:48, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I think "Please do not tag or address me any further. I am uncomfortable interacting with you" (19:11, 28 March 2019), followed by a refusal to abide by that request, is pretty clear. She may have been forced to interact to a limited degree on article talk if she didn't want to abandon the articles they both edit, but the other following and now posting on her talk is a violation. - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 23:04, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I want to fill in a bit more on the Citation bot and SolarStorm issue here.
    I'm adding the permalink on the closed ANI case on the harassment by SolarStorm:[45]. We really should have done a full sock investigation at the time. SolarStorm1859 admitted making the edits WP:FOLLOWING Indigenous girl and myself,[46] and was indef-blocked for it. but...
    I don't know how I missed it at the time, probably because of all the dense bot contribs. But now we have the diff that shows Buffs started the following of my edits with the bot:[47][48]. Two edits fiddling with parameters, then the bot driver's name is removed from the bot (as was possible then, which is why it was blocked for retooling:[49]).
    The hounding bot edits then continued to follow the same list of of my recent edits, but now, after those two edits adjusting different parameter settings, the name of the bot operator is missing, but the follow pattern is consistent:[50],[51],[52],[53],[54]
    Then the (now nameless) bot driver starts following Indigenous girl:
    • 15:55, June 8, Talk: Indigenous intellectual property (where SolarStorm first appeared to support Buffs)[55]
    • 17:54, June 8: Order of the Arrow (The main article Buffs is focused on) [56]
    • 22:19, June 8: An edit to Indigenous girl's sandbox: [57]
    This was rightfully considered a violation of WP:FOLLOWING. But we didn't look far enough back to see who first drove the bot. We all assumed it was just SolarStorm. There is also a strong possibility that SolarStorm and Buffs are the same user. I should have asked for a more thorough SPI at the time. SolarStorm1859 and his various accounts are indeffed. - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 22:14, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Buffs and SolarStorm1859 (lostpwd) are Red X Unrelated technically, having gone through this data during a joe-job in UTRS. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:31, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Whenever I asked if any checkusers could check the IPs on the bot, I was told it was not possible. Is this correct? - CorbieV ☊ ☼ 22:38, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it runs on its own IP, so it wouldn't be helpful. I know for a fact that it didn't show up on any of Buffs IPs, but that isn't saying much since it probably uses its own. SolarStorm1859 (lostpwd) was pretending to be Buffs in UTRS, fwiw, I'm highly confident of that. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:45, 16 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support That this immediately devolved into a wall of garbage is exactly the problem. GMGtalk 00:14, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      That is an unhelpful reply, GreenMeansGo. If you don't want to follow through the details of this argument, you can refrain from weighing in with an ill-informed opinion. This is a meaningful dispute to the participants who are trying to resolve it. It's certainly not "garbage" to them. Liz Read! Talk! 02:55, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      @Liz: While the reply's tone was a bit flippant, I'm not sure that's quite fair. GMG has been fairly involved throughout the situation (his name turned up a lot in the material I reviewed to put this together) as far as I can tell in a capacity as helpful as it was possible to be. The above wall of text is indeed one of the symptoms of the problems here. GoldenRing (talk) 09:38, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, I've been involved round about this dispute I believe since March. I have repeatedly asked the participants to refrain from walls of text and bad faith accusations. In response to a request for an IBAN for a problem caused by walls of text and bad faith accusations, we have more walls of text and bad faith accusations. These users are terminally incapable of working together and appear to have managed to drive off anyone who has attempted to intervene. Intervening here means committing 100% of your on-wiki time just trying to make sense of things, and the participants then only assume you are on "a side", and accuse you of making threats and hounding. If ArbCom is interested (though I doubt they are) I have told Buffs via email in no uncertain terms that he is part of the problem here as well. GMGtalk 10:51, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      To be clear, the problem here is that Corbie and IG follow one another around reliably agreeing with each other. Corbie is want to enforce a two person consensus based on their reliably following one another and reliably agreeing. Corbie is also want to call anyone who disagrees with them a racist, and call anyone who is persistent a harasser. Buffs can't seem to make a point in less than a page's worth of text, and Corbie and IG can't make a rebuttal in less than that either. IG wants to say "leave me alone" but yet wants to continue the content dispute, which means "buzz off and leave us to our two person consensus". Buffs is frustrated that no matter how much of a detailed argument he makes, he runs up against the two person consensus, and IG and Corbie are frustrated because he won't buzz off and leave them alone with the consensus they've formed. Neither Buffs nor Corbie really want a neutral third party to intervene. What they really want is for someone to enter the ring in their corner and tell the other side to shut the hell up so they can "win". GMGtalk 01:07, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I concur with Liz that your original comment wasn't helpful. I endeavored to keep my remarks short When GoldenRing brought 3 months worth of edits and 100+ diffs, it's a lot to cover and nuances are missed. That said, your further explanation was immeasureably helpful. I concur that the party-of-two consensus allows for a lot of material that wouldn't stand the light of day on higher-trafficked articles. I disagree that I don't really want a neutral third party. A random person is likely to side with me or CV; I'd prefer a mediator who can handle things even-handedly. Overall, thanks for the input! Buffs (talk) 16:04, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, I apologize, GreenMeansGo for what I mistook as a glib and unhelpful response. I didn't know that you were so aware of the ins and outs of this complex dispute. I'm grateful for anyone who wants to wade through these deep waters and I'm sorry if my response to you was seen as a put-down. I know I have little patience for it myself, so I probably shouldn't have been the one to judge others. Liz Read! Talk! 02:53, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    In the course of this months-long interaction between the three editors, I've observed a timeline pertinent to this discussion. I'll try to keep this presentation neutral but it does focus on Buffs' actions.
    1. As far back as 28 March 2019, Indigenous girl (IG) asked Buffs to stop interacting with IG. IG came specifically to my talk page to ask for help. In the course of looking into it, I placed a civility warning on Buffs talk page. It was deleted along with the conversation 19 hours later with an edit summary "I've read it".
    2. On 30 March 2019, Bishonen left a detailed and itemized warning on Buffs' talk page. After a significant amount of back and forth between two over it, the day after the conversation was over, Buffs deleted it from his talk page.
    3. El C engaged with Buffs starting on 28 June 2019. El C attempted mediating between all three editors for several days. (I'm not diffing that; it's too extensive.) On 2 July 2019, El C blocked Buffs for 24 hours for personal attacks and harassment. Much more convo on Buffs' talk page during the block while Buffs requested unblock and review. After the block expired, a procedural decline was added by User:TonyBallioni
    Four admins, including myself, attempted to intervene during these months with warnings and a block. All them found fault with Buffs' behaviour. I know Wikipedians sometimes have a short memory on editor behaviour beyond a few months. If it isn't causing an immediate problem, then past actions are not pertinent. AGF, y'all. Buffs is a longtime editor but his past contribs are riff with exactly this behavior and attitude. While deleting warnings and unflattering discussion from his user page is perfectly within his rights, I know my instinct is to wonder why, particularly if it happens multiple times over the same issue. That's obfuscating editor and/or admin interactions to anyone looking at it. Mostly I've seen this from problem editors, not editors in good standing.
    I would have blocked Buffs for continuing harassment of IG near the beginning of all this but I had commented in an RfC on the reliability of a source and at the Reliable sources Noticeboard on the matter. I was thus involved near the beginning although I've mostly kept my distance since then.
    Note that the July 2 block is different than the later article ban that was overturned. Cheers, Mark Ironie (talk) 02:08, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    What Mark Ironie also leaves out is that he, CV, and IG are also active contributors together at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Indigenous_peoples_of_North_America#Indigenous_intellectual_property: [58] with nearly unanimous agreement on every issue, so there is significant COI concerns, IMNSHO. Buffs (talk) 16:47, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Mark Ironie: please refactor your comments to reflect what I was actually blocked for; I was not blocked for personal attacks of any kind. Likewise, it should be noted that this was the same block that IG set me up on and that GoldenRing so eloquently illustrated. It was an edit done solely to trap me and was the wiki equivalent of jumping in front of a truck and complaining that the truck hit them. Buffs (talk) 20:52, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Support the IBAN as proposed. It seems apparent that this is a straightforward two-way issue. I have a hard time buying the harassment narrative when there are so many examples of IG apparently following Buffs over the course of months. Obviously there are issues with Buffs' behavior, but IG's claim that she's being harassed seems dubious. It's concerning that Buffs' claim that he was being followed was dismissed, when it was apparently true. This seems like a good cautionary lesson to be objective and fair when a claim of harassment is made, and not jump straight into crucifying the alleged perpetrator. I recently reviewed this case at AE, and I was under the impression that it was not being well-handled by El C and needed to be additionally investigated by the community. I applaud GoldenRing taking the initiative here. ~Swarm~ {sting} 04:43, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Conditional Oppose I stopped virtually all edits on the articles in question (see submission) to seek consensus on the relevant talk pages. As such, virtually all the pages have problems that need to be addressed. On the Order of the Arrow article, there are disparaging remarks in the notes based on WP:OR/WP:SYN/assumptions in contradiction to what WP:RS say about its founder. Indigenous Intellectual Property is a collection of claims and neglects to mention it's Cultural Appropriation's basic definition doesn't even match the dictionary. I could go on, but that leaves the underlying issues at status-quo. If an IBAN is enacted, it leaves the articles in the condition they are in...the way CV and IG want them. Of course they support IBAN. They are just going get exactly what they want and I will be unable to change anything because they will immediately claim "IBAN VIOLATION! He edited something I did 3 weeks/months/years ago!"
    Now, if CV and IG are going to leave these articles alone and want nothing to do with me/discussion, then there's no need for a community-imposed IBAN. I'll agree here and now not to intentionally talk to them on any talk page (including their user talk pages). I'll make the necessary changes to the aforementioned pages [60] [61] and we'll go on our merry way. Buffs (talk) 19:26, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Request I ask that those who have made remarks about SolarStorm and I being the same person/Citation Bot acting at my behest please strike them. I'm not either of them and there is no evidence to back such baseless aspersions. Likewise, "harassment" is a crime. I request that those who have used this phrasing please change it. Buffs (talk) 19:26, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps I was unclear. WP:IUC (specifically 2d & 2e) have been violated. I request they be struck per Wikipedia:Civility#Dealing_with_incivility step #5. This doesn't seem to be an unreasonable request. I've offered to do the same. Buffs (talk) 20:31, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment Much of what has been said by IG, CV, and MI (Mark Ironie) has been half-truths, wrong, or in some other way misleading. I think you can see the pattern pretty easily based up on what was brought up by GoldenRing, Mr rnddude, et al. I started to put together a comprehensive list, but quickly realized it would be too long (some of the bigger highlights below). Likewise, I think that most of you can look at these and see it.
    Highlights a few of the bigger points of contention from this page. If you want more, it can be easily provided. Buffs (talk) 19:26, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
    • Those changes made by Indigenous girl were opposed by Buffs on talk. [46],[47] No they weren't. Please feel free to check: My edit vs her edit
    • However, I don't feel it is correct or fair to characterize Indigenous girl's edits...as "following" simply because Buffs, having been on Wikipedia longer, edited some of those articles first. If you look at the timeline set up by GoldenRing, you’ll note the edit is in relatively quick succession after mine. It has nothing to do we being on WP longer.
    • Yes, I do take exception of equating indigenous people to fringe, white supremacists and flat earthers. Please read my remarks. I did not indigenous people to white supremacists, etc. I’ve attempted to clarify multiple times, but IG and Corbie are highly insistent that their initial gut reaction is more accurate the words I chose and any clarification later made is to be ignored. If you say “You using a spatula for a plate is as effective as Germany attacking Russia in WWII!”, you're comparing two bad decisions, not equating someone to Hitler.
    • I am not attempting to further any sort of agenda as Buffs has repeatedly proposed aside from having fair, balanced and well sourced articles. No, you’ve repeatedly stated that First Nation people have an exclusive right to control their culture and language as justification for inclusion/exclusion of material. "The Lenape are the ones who control their language.)" and other reliable sources should be discounted. This opinion runs contrary to WP's policy on reliable sources.
    • With regard to the BSA article I admittedly looked at Buffs contribs. Well, there you go. In addition to the GoldenRing's layout, an additional admission of WP:FOLLOWING (On the edit she set me up to get blocked, she admitted the same.)
    • SS participated in edit warring on Buffs behalf and Buffs thanked him [62] Now we're introducing WP:SYN into the talk page. I only thanked him for removing a troll’s comments and advised him not to generally engage the trolls. I did not thank him for edit warring. Please read the diffs. You won't find evidence to back up her claim.
    • I stated clearly that I was aware it was OR and that I had no intention to post it in the article...

    Thereby making it pointless to add it in the first place. Your point’s been made. You don’t think it’s a “real” word in the Lenape language. Published sources say otherwise. All you have to back your opinion is WP:OR which is inconclusive at best and WP:syn by assuming connections and malfeasance that are not in reliable sources. I mentioned earlier that there is one unresolved issue on the page: this is it.

    • ...and that it should probably be added to the individual's article. No, you didn’t. I did.
    • An admin warned Buffs not to refactor contribs He warned me not to do "that"[vague]. When I hatted the discussion, I did so partially because the same admin had advised me to do exactly that...then he blocked me for it and initiated a 6-month ban. When an admin advises you to do something and then blocks you for doing what they recommended, their advice doesn't appear to be in good faith.
    • I'll try to keep this presentation neutral but it does focus on Buffs' actions. There's absolutely nothing neutral about this assessment. It implies malfeasance without evidence/by pointing to what policy states is acceptable. There is zero note made about the OR, POV pushing, baseless accusations, entrapment, etc.
    • I placed a civility warning on Buffs talk page. It was deleted along with the conversation 19 hours later with an edit summary "I've read it”...After a significant amount of back and forth between two over it, the day after the conversation was over. Buffs deleted it from his talk page... Yep...that’s explicitly allowed per WP:USERTALK. I’m under no obligation to keep POV-inspired threats from highly biased editors on my talk page.
    • On 2 July 2019, <an admin> blocked Buffs for 24 hours for personal attacks and harassment. I've never been blocked for personal attacks. I was blocked for WP:FOLLOWING based on the actions of someone who set me up. Harassment is a crime; please strike/retract immediately unless you’re accusing me of a crime (I’ve literally been accused of murder on WP), so it wouldn't be the first time.
    • Four admins, including myself, attempted to intervene during these months with warnings and a block. Well, this is a little redundant. Of these 4, 2 were involved editors, one was exceptionally vague and later blocked me for something he advised I do. I took Bishonen's advice and tried to be more concise, collegial.
    • All them found fault with Buffs' behaviour. And of them, two are distorting the facts/presenting a one-sided case.
    • Buffs is a longtime editor but his past contribs are riff with exactly this behavior and attitude. Objection, your honor. Assumes facts not in evidence. This is guilt by accusation. There’s no evidence to support such a conclusion.
    • While deleting warnings and unflattering discussion from his user page is perfectly within his rights, I know my instinct is to wonder why, particularly if it happens multiple times over the same issue. That's obfuscating editor and/or admin interactions to anyone looking at it. Let me paraphrase how I'm reading these remarks: “He’s within his rights to delete it and we explicitly say there’s nothing wrong it, but it’s definitely something he’s doing wrong and he shouldn’t delete it. You should look at this actions with a LOT of suspicion!” This is just more guilt by accusation. This isn’t evidence of any malfeasance, just standard talk page maintenance. CV has done the exact same thing, but you aren’t chastising him.
    • {{tq|I would have blocked Buffs for continuing harassment of IG...” You have stated that “If the clear opportunity had presented itself, I would have personally taken him to an appropriate noticeboard...Buffs is astonishingly good at skirting the brink of clear violations of policy…” I haven’t actually broken any rules...but now you’re saying you’d block me anyway?
    • Mostly I've seen this from problem editors, not editors in good standing. “Innocent people don’t do this” is a terrible argument…it’s a “no true Scotsman” logical fallacy

    Will a subhead help focus attention?

    This was put into this thread above but let me see how simple I can make it. Indigenous girl (talk · contribs · count) has repeatedly asked Buffs (talk · contribs · count) since March to leave her alone, to not interact with her and stay off her talk page. She said clearly for Buffs to stop and consented to an IBAN here. Buffs said he did not support an IBAN then twice edited IG's talk page, here and here. This clearly falls under harassment policy and is a blocking offense. What more can IG do if Buffs will not accept boundaries on interaction with her? This is an example of Buffs behaviour right here, right now. This has been ongoing for months. No Cheers, Mark Ironie (talk) 01:17, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    What you conveniently ignore to mention is that the second edit is Buffs removing their comment from IG's talk page and vowing to never post on your talk page again. Mr rnddude (talk) 01:30, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem is that I can't tell you to leave me alone, and then use that as a basis to win a content dispute, or then continue to follow your edits and say that anything you do is harassment. If someone is harassing you then that should be brought before the community and adjudicated as such, or it should be brought privately to ArbCom, or it should go to T&S. GMGtalk 01:43, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    EIA often leaves stuff out, but it finds that IG is following Buffs edits to articles significantly more than Buffs is to IG.[63] Even in the rare case that IG has edited an article first, it is apparent that IG follows Buffs' edits. Look at, for example, Talk:Cultural appropriation. Within an hour of Buffs starting a thread about the article, IG shows up to engage. Oh, and that's in April, supposedly a month after she asked Buffs to leave her alone. I don't buy this "harassment" narrative. ... or it should go to T&S - Oh god no, please not again. Mr rnddude (talk) 01:57, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Thought occurred to me to look at the overlap between CorbieVreccan and IG, since GMG mentions that they witnessed tag-teaming behaviour. 580[64]/853[65] (~68% of total) of IG's 853 edits overlap with CV in some fashion. Focusing on just mainspace, 205/382[66] (~54%) of IG's edits overlap with CV in some fashion. Talk space as well 171/184[67] (~93%) of IG's edits overlap with CV in some fashion. In all three cases, most of those overlaps are recorded on articles where the "min time between edits" is less than 24 hours. Now this doesn't prove tag-teaming/meat puppetry in itself, but it is telling that the first random edit I pick to look at, I find this. IG's first ever edit to the DAP page is to support CV's proposal 12 minutes after they posted it. Coincidentally, also her first edit made in five months.[68] Mr rnddude (talk) 03:30, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    ... or it should go to T&S - I second the motion that we should dismiss THAT idea (unless there's something going on I don't know about). Buffs (talk) 16:47, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Contrary to popular belief, T&S has a broader job description than blocking a particular popular/unpopular enwiki admin. The last interaction I had with them involved a pedophile on Commons, and the one before that had to deal with a user several of us suspected was being paid to manipulate Wikimedia projects on behalf of a national government. GMGtalk 00:31, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Mark Ironie: While it may be true that IG has repeatedly asked Buffs since March to leave her alone it is also true, as documented above, that IG has repeatedly followed Buffs to articles he is editing since March. What do you expect, that asking someone to stay away from you means you can drive onto their front lawn and force them to leave home? It's clear that IG has tried to frame this as Buffs hounding her; the reality is that IG follows Buffs around, gets into arguments where neither of them behave well, then complains about it. When IG said to El_C, "The guy is still following me" that was in fact the first time Buffs had ever followed her anywhere; in every other case, IG had followed Buffs. GoldenRing (talk) 13:40, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    What is IBAN

    I've read what I've seen. @GoldenRing: can you further explain what that entails? We might not need any more input if I've been misreading what you're advocating. I think I agree with at least 90% of it. Given that IG and CV already voiced support, we might be in agreement and we can stop this. Additionally, thank you for pointing out the hounding problems from IG. Buffs (talk) 15:21, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    @Buffs: I believe the IBAN policy explains things clearly. Cheers, Mark Ironie (talk) 16:33, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Buffs: I agree. WP:IBAN sets out the terms of an interaction ban quite clearly. GoldenRing (talk) 20:39, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I disagree. I tried to WP:AGF and announce edits in advance only to have IG jump in front of me in order to get me blocked (the effects of which are IG, CV, and MI bringing it up ad nauseum and mischaracterizing it despite evidence to the contrary), so with IG's persistent bugging, please bear with me if I'm not about to just AGF so readily
    "undo each other's edits to any page, whether by use of the revert function or by other means" is exceptionally vague. Am I expected to analyze every edit on every page just to see if 2 other editors have ever edited it and, if so, if my edit will change something they wrote some time in the past 12 years? If that's the case, what we're looking at here is a de facto topic ban from ANYTHING related to Native Americans (even remotely) and a plethora of other articles/random articles. I've already been blocked for the "dastardly" act of reverting a WP:BLP violation, making innocuous edits, or doing what an admin suggested only to get blocked/banned. I'm a little wary of such an ill-defined application.
    Likewise, I'd like at least a warning of some kind for CV and IG; hell, I'd support a 1 minute block just so it's on their record. I'm not looking to get them blocked for anything other than an insignificant amount of time. I generally don't do warnings; they are no more than an opinion. In hindsight, that was a mistake and I should have been giving warnings and asking others to warn them as well (since, apparently, that's allowed as evidence of wrongdoing). I won't make that mistake again. Buffs (talk) 21:07, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @GoldenRing:A clearer definition would be "Don't touch any new edits since the IBAN went in place". If that's the case, we're fine and we're in agreement. An IBAN is not even necessary. I'll agree to all the terms listed under IBAN effective immediately right now and we can end this.
    If I start working on something, it wouldn't be impossible for IG to jump in to make ANOTHER edit. Obviously there are inattentive admins who are only looking at the evidence presented to them rather than the whole picture. Then we start this whole drama again. WP:AGF is out the window on this one. I want terms to be crystal clear if I'm going to be facing people who are out to smear me using underhanded tactics. Buffs (talk) 21:14, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Buffs: Changing things the other editor subject to an IBAN wrote a long time ago is something of a grey area; the rule is, if in doubt, don't do it. It's necessarily subjective and rather ill-defined, as it's perfectly possible to do a simple revert on someone else's edits from years ago if a page is not much edited, while it's also possible to cross another editor's path only a few days apart yet not be considered to be "interacting" if there have been many intervening edits. Generally speaking, yes, you need to be careful once you're subject to an IBAN to check if you're reverting something the other subject of the ban wrote, and if you're not sure, don't make the edit. Wikipedia doesn't depend on you alone. There are exceptions to most bans, but you'd better be very sure they obviously apply before you use them; in general, it's better to leave it to another editor (contact me or another admin by email if you think it's urgent). Regarding your statement that an IBAN is not even necessary: I disagree. An IBAN has two differences from what you suggest: Firstly, it is unquestionably enforceable and that seems important in this situation right now. Secondly, it affects all the parties in a way that is not up to them to interpret; you are not the only one who would be affected by this ban, and I think this is a situation where we (or at least I) want the restriction to be not subject to your (or the other parties') agreement. People who attempt to game IBANs are generally given short shrift and it's important to remember that this ban would cut both ways. It's good to know that you agree to the terms of the ban, though. GoldenRing (talk) 21:41, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Subject requests changes

    Can someone neutral take a look at Talk:Mohamed Sheikh, Baron Sheikh#Request for edits and the letter submitted by the subject and take any necessary action? The subject is a member of the upper house of the British Parliament. (Declaration: I am a member of the same party as the subject.) Timrollpickering (Talk) 14:12, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    @Timrollpickering: Dibs! –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 16:30, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Standard offer request - Elisa Rolle

    Consensus seems pretty clearly against unblocking here, largely due to the copyright concerns. Since this discussion constitutes "due consideration by the community", Elisa.rolle is now community banned from Wikipedia. Yunshui 雲水 13:40, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    In case anyone is confused by the discussion about the close, it's worth noting that Yunshui closed the discussion at 10:34 UTC but forgot to sign. He returned at 13:40 to sign his post. SarahSV (talk) 01:20, 20 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Elisa.rolle (talk · contribs), who was blocked indefinitely last year, has appealed to take the standard offer on the grounds they do not wish to create new articles (which is how they originally got blocked over copyright concerns) but update existing ones with sources. She gave an example of Eda Lord Dixon as an article to work on, which she started in September 2017‎ and does not appear to have any blatant problems with close paraphrasing.

    If you support or oppose an unblock, please say so and clarify why. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:58, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes, to clarify I think Fram acted within the bounds of administrator discretion. I think there is a discussion on Elisa's talk page about six months ago where I politely discussed an unblock with Fram, but Elisa was not interested so we agreed to drop the issue and leave the block in place. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:11, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Fram has taken 28,107 administrator actions. If Fram were taking 1 action per day, that would be 76 years' worth of administrator actions. Can I suggest that we, as a rule, assume discussions outside of WP:FRAMGATE/WT:FRAMGATE/an ArbCom page are not being instigated by the Fram Ban events unless somebody actually says otherwise? AGK ■ 17:33, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @AGK: Well, quite; except that no-one has suggested that it is. ——SerialNumber54129 17:40, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Serial Number 54129: you were the one who introduced FramGate into the conversation 😉  — Amakuru (talk) 18:08, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Amakuru: I know. But AGK "suggested" that we don't assume everything is connected to framgate; I merely pointed out that no-one had. Yes, I mentioned it: but that's not the same "assuming all discussions outside of" etc etc as AGK says. R333 knew wot I meant. Bizarre that the arbcommie didn't  :) ——SerialNumber54129 08:46, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Serial Number 54129: My interpretation was that, in response to your comment "you might accidentally give people the impression that this is somehow connected to WP:FRAMGATE, and that there might be some behavioural issue on behalf of the blocing admin to be considered? Perhaps you could catagorically state that that is not the case", AGK replied "Can I suggest that we, as a rule, assume discussions outside of WP:FRAMGATE/WT:FRAMGATE/an ArbCom page are not being instigated by the Fram Ban events unless somebody actually says otherwise". i.e. AGK was saying that in their opinion there's no need for Ritchie to make any comment about Fram at all on a thread of this nature, and that it isn't necessary for him or any other editor commenting on Fram's past blocks to state anything in regard to FRAMGATE. AGK can correct me if I'm mistaken, but it looks like they're not just suggesting we don't assume things are connected to Framgate, they're also suggesting that we don't need to mention it at all, since nobody would reasonably assume it was connected. I don't think this is a very important issue, but since we're discussing it we might as well establish what the actual situation is! Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 09:16, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Exactly right. I'm not sure how we got crossed wires here. AGK ■ 21:12, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse unblock. Second chance. I don't think the problems will repeat, and we will gain a constructive editor. (Had a discussion with GMG via email that changed my mind.) (Fram not a factor in my choice)  Dlohcierekim (talk) 17:10, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Almost forgot-- must adhere to 1RR and not manually archive.  Dlohcierekim (talk) 17:13, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    For the sake of thoroughness, we should document "no more copyvio's" I know it's a given, but we should be clear.  Dlohcierekim (talk) 18:13, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    In response to SchroCat and WBG's opposes, she was blocked for those issues, and if unblocked must adhere to 1) no copyvio's, 2) 1RR, 3) no manual archives of talk page contents. These problems have hopefully been dealt with and the user know understands that such behavior is unacceptable. While caution is understandable and necessary, this is what 2nd chances are for.  Dlohcierekim (talk) 21:26, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Neutral on the unblock, but the no manual archive and 1RR are a must. Elisa’s history on this project is one of only talking to people who sing her praises, and ignoring criticism, even constructive. Communication is required, and these restrictions will force it. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:23, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Also, Ritchie333 did the right thing in bringing this here for review. While the talk page is the normal process for unblocks, a reviewing admin may bring it to AN if they feel uncomfortable making the call unilaterally. The split reaction to this request shows why an admin unilaterally handling the request either way would have been a bad idea. Elisa is a polarizing figure, and any action on this either way would have caused a fuss. This is a situation where community review is helpful and not added bureaucracy. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:42, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have no clue as to why this is being dealt over here. The last time we tried this, an unilateral admin block got converted into a CBan. Still, to copy my comments from her t/p:- I am opposing any unblock request unless Elissa elucidates about (1) whether she finds anything wrong with her prior behavior, when in disagreement with other users, (2) if yes, how does she plan to rectify it and (3) her understandings of WP:CANVASS. Also, any unblock shall include an indefinite 1RR restriction. Nothing in her unblock requests (so far) cover her edit-warring tendencies and/or battleground behaviour, when subject to scrutiny for legitimate reasons. 17:29, 17 July 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Winged Blades of Godric (talk • contribs)
    It's being "dealt over here" because that is the procedure documented in Wikipedia:Standard offer#How does it work?. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 18:06, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Notwithstanding that it is documented over an essay, do you even read what you cite? The standard offer applies to community-based indefinite blocks and bans .... ~ Winged BladesGodric 18:23, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Well I'll be.  Dlohcierekim (talk) 18:09, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, not to make a big deal out of it, but I have always understood that single admin blocks have to be 'community based' because the community grants the block button permission, which is used to effectuate consensus. And bans are generally community based. And Standard Offer discussions occur, here or AN/I (almost always here) when an admin does not want to unblock on appeal on their own, and have to occur here if there is there is a ban. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    We actually make the Standard Offer in non-community based blocks. First time I've seen one brought here, but the alternative is for admins to achieve consensus and grant/decline SO blocks on the appealant's talk page. I think this is better here than the other way.  Dlohcierekim (talk) 21:32, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The downside is that if a discussion fails to achieve consensus to unblock, that gets turned to a community-enforced site-ban pending which the editor needs to mandatorily take the community into confidence (rather than a single admin), before any return. ~ Winged BladesGodric 06:21, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Not sure that's a bad thing.  Dlohcierekim (talk) 16:56, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse unblock. A commitment to work in different areas gives a good indication they they wish for a clean start and to work in different topic areas. Apply the conditions Tony mentions, of course.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:40, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse Unblock conditional on the above proposed editing restrictions. There have been some issues in the past, but I think that they can be overcome. As always, it's on the editor what they do with the rope. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:17, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • The problems are well documented and it should be easy to see if they recur, so I'd support an unblock. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:37, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Copyright guru Diannaa opposes unblock, and her judgment is way better than mine on the subject, so I'm switching to Oppose. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:41, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I asked Winged Blades of Godric to be specific about their concerns and they were unable or unwilling to provide the information they are concerned about. See here. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:03, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I guessed that she was competent enough to maneuver through t/p history (which I pointed to her) but the inability is not much surprising, either. See this thread over here t/p, wherein I had provided the relevant diffs of Elisa's battleground behavior and an affinity for inappropriate canvassing. ~ Winged BladesGodric 19:26, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      (Non-administrator comment)Winged Blades of Godric, that first passive-aggressive sentence was rather uncivil and inappropriate to the discussion. creffett (talk)
      Winged Blades of Godric the burden is on you to show an issue. Was it so hard to dig up what you thought was the problem? Obviously, you were able to provide examples quite quickly, but you want the rest of us to do the work for you and assume what you might find offensive or problematic. Thank you for finally responding. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:33, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Meh. You might try going after the other editors who have supported sanctions w/o any diffs, too. When her entire t/p history is a fine exhibit of non-collaborative battleground behavior, providing diffs is an unnecessary luxury. ~ Winged BladesGodric 19:46, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Winged Blades of Godric I'm not worried about other editors right now. I'm trying to have a discussion with you to understand what your issues were. So why did this edit, for example, bother you so much? Why is this one considered snarky? These two are very low level expressions of frustration, IMO. I wouldn't be bothered by these, for example. Please ping me if you respond. Thanks! Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:55, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      The second diff is relatively benign but adds to the scenario, esp. the assumption in the edit-sum that the editor knew she is retired but yet, is indulging in such stuff. ~ Winged BladesGodric 20:10, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      One of the last people who was systematic in engaging with the sub-standard work Elisa.rolle has pedalled on the project was Fram. Thanks to T&S we are now in a situation where editors are now afraid to deal with serial copyright violators in any focussed or systematic manner, as they too will disappear into the night. T&S have initiated a climate of fear for anyone who wants to try and track editors who should not be on the project at all. - SchroCat (talk) 09:14, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse unblock, per Dlohcierekim, specifically: "Second chance. I don't think the problems will repeat, and we will gain a constructive editor... must adhere to 1RR and not manually archive... we should document "no more copyvio's". --Rosiestep (talk) 19:45, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse Unblock - I believe in second chances, They've identified where they went wrong and have stated they'll steer clear from article creations for now so I see no reason why they should remain blocked. –Davey2010Talk 19:46, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse unblock with 1RR restriction and mentoring on copyvio concerns. Elisa needs to understand that our copyvio policies are not up for debate, they are the law, and WP has to follow the law. Montanabw(talk) 20:27, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse unblock. Before this block, Elisa.rolle was a useful contributor to the project, if occasionally a little too sloppy with copyright. The indefinite block was excessive and the unblock request indicates that she intends to be more careful. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:28, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse unblock. She seems willing to learn from past mistakes and be a constructive editor. SarahSV (talk) 20:32, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose unblock. It looks like I'll be in a minority of one two, but this was a disruptive editor with no grasp of copyright, too free-and-easy with the revert button, and a bad case of ICANTHEARYOU. This piece of polemicis just an extended personal attack. This and this are enough for me to oppose. - SchroCat (talk) 20:39, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support I’m seeing a lot of voices I respect in the support column (though I also have respect for the folks in the oppose column). The worries I’d normally have are assuaged by their support. I agree with the conditions on an unblock, provided they will expire after a reasonable time (I have often voiced my frustration with undocumented and permanent editing restrictions). I think we should plan on these ad hoc unblock conditions expiring in six months, or permit them to be revisited in six months with a presumption that they’ll be lifted unless there is consensus to maintain them. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 21:47, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      In light of the new opposes, I am now going to condition my support on someone, or a few someones, stepping up as a sort of surety for Elisa—basically someone that’s going to take responsibility for her edits and will directly support her remedying the CCI problems. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 18:50, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      A point of policy: WP:CBAN states that if this request fails the indef converts to a community ban. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 22:04, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Endorse Unblock, On the condition that she helps out with her massive CCI. She doesn't need to help out that much, but offering guidance on it would be helpful.💵Money💵emoji💵💸 22:17, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Jesus christ, my jaw dropped when I saw that list Nosebagbear (talk)
    You think that's bad? Look at this. Keep in mind, aside from about 5 other people or so, I'm the only person who really works on CCIs on the entire site.💵Money💵emoji💵💸 22:43, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not familiar with how CCI works, but is she even allowed to participate? Also, what's the criteria for inclusion on that list? Is it just every page she's ever edited, or is that a list of stuff that's likely/confirmed problematic? —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 22:45, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    CCIs can only be investigated by people who have a good understanding of copyvio policies, so I don't think Elisa should go near that. AFAIK it is simply a log of every article she has edited, how many times, and how much text was added. I've done a quick sweep and found a couple of G12s, but most of it was okay. If a bunch of us here dive in and deal with it, we should make light work of it. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 22:54, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry if I was unclear. I wasn't suggesting that she edit the CCi directly, but that she help with resolving the problem. I'm just not comfortable with unblocking someone -- even with the stipulations listed above -- who has caused such a large problem in the past, without requiring that she help with the clean up before going about general editing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:03, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • How about this - what if Elisa Rolle is unblocked specifically so that she can clear up that CCI mess, and once she has done so to the satisfaction of the community, then she can be unblocked in general, subject to the stipulations mentioned above? I'm really not in favor of editors making a large number of copyright problems and being given a second chance without doing something about them. This is also in light of her having copyright issues on Commons as well. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:23, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose unblock - Given that the suggestion that any unblock be tied to clearing up the copyright mess hasn't really been taken up, and therefore has no chance of being passed, I think that opposing the unblock is the only reasonable option, especially given the comments below, particularly Diannaa's. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:51, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Conditional but non-draconian support - that is a staggering CCI file. I think the idea that she has to resolve it to community satisfaction before doing anything else would be an impossibly stringent condition, even if it would be nice. The normal conditions (1RR et al), plus at least a good-faith effort to look over pages 1-40 (the undone ones) would show effort and awareness without going OTT Nosebagbear (talk) 22:33, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm seeing many people ask about CCI here. For info on what to do at CCI, please read User:Money emoji/Money's guide to CCI 💵Money💵emoji💵💸 23:41, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment - I've never interacted with Elise.Rolle but she showed up on on my watchlist, turning an article into an overly long list complete with linked pages. I glanced at some of the articles she started and found issues that needed addressing but never said anything. I also have CCI on watch and was aware of the extensive CCI file, so was a little surprised to see such overwhelming support here. I won't support or oppose (though I'm leaning oppose). Generally it does show good faith and helps enormously for the article creator to help tackle a file of that size. There aren't enough people working at CCI, and cleaning files takes years, decades. Each sentence has to be checked against each source - it's intensive and thankless work. Often it's easier to stub down or delete articles, but there were issue when some of Elise's articles were sent to AfD, something else to take into consideration. At the least someone who is familiar with CCI, how to avoid close paraphrasing, etc. should be willing to work closely with her. The unblock request indicates the desire to use specific sources for specific articles, but in my view there should be some sort of probation period where any articles created are checked closely. Fwiw. Victoria (tk) 00:05, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      I've been wondering about the point Mendaliv made above, that the indef will convert to a community ban if this succeeds (I wasn't sure). Does anyone know whether Elisa.rolle has been made aware of the arcane differences between indef & community ban? In the least, I think someone should explain it to her. For some reason this situation is leaving a bit of a bad taste for me. On the one hand it's best to have the person who creates articles to be involved in the clean up (for a variety of reasons) which is a strong incentive to allow her to continue editing; on the other hand tackling such a large CCI file really does need someone willing to pitch in and help her. And that requires someone with time & experience in copyvio cleanup. Victoria (tk) 01:00, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Victoria, the only practical difference is that a CBAN requires a discussion like this to unblock, and Elisa was already controversial enough that no admin was going to unblock without an AN discussion, so there is zero practical change in her situation if this isn't accepted. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:06, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Truth has not been told. It is patently obvious that Elisa.rolle's text in the appeal is of two entirely different standards. The editor appears incapable of writing anything but seriously flawed English, then the text switches gears to something flawless. The editor plainly has a fundamental lack of English competence driving the irresistibility of copying others' text. That this is a feature of the appeal process itself is astonishing, to put it mildly. If it counts, I strongly oppose the appeal and, in doing so, believe there is certainly no loss to the encyclopaedia. sirlanz 23:14, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • It is hard for editors who do not have a mastery or a source's language to take information from that source and word it properly in an article so that no copyright violations are made. However, the tides of the project are changing. Editor interactions, and not project accuracy, seem to be the priority now, so sure why not unblock? If Elisa fills the project again with copyright violations or errors, who cares? Just as long as nobody is rude to her when they clean up the mess. Mr Ernie (talk) 07:47, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Also to clarify - I do not actually support an unblock. Mr Ernie (talk) 18:16, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yeah, why not unblock. The new normal is to protect people who have poor writing skills, have a long-ish pattern of not wanting to understand our policies, have had some sort of interaction with Fram, and are keen on reducing the alleged gender gap. It's a new form of unblockable, and who gives a crap about policies or competence. I note the rapid influx above of a group of WiR members within 90 minutes - presumably all watchers of the appellant's talk page. I'm tempted to make a visit to a branch of William Hill because there are two likely scenarios here: a reblock before long or a block of someone deemed to be a harasser simply for keeping an eye on things. Blocks are cheap, as people have said, and the integrity of the project (including CCI stuff) is no longer of much significance. Incompetence is highly rewarded, as evidence by WMUK last week, so let's reinforce the trend and demonstrate to the WMF that we are capable of being nice, even if daft. - Sitush (talk) 08:19, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just to clarify, I was being rather sarcastic above. I don't want to see the block overturned but am rapidly coming to the conclusion that tolerating such people and being kind etc trumps any number of problematic behaviours and that attaching oneself to the WiR Project pretty much guarantees some vocal support for such daft actions. If that is indeed the new normal then, yes, unblock and I'll watch from the sidelines as the project goes to hell in a handcart. - Sitush (talk) 15:51, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose I rarely oppose an unblock and only do so with reluctance but having had a limited interaction with this editor I don't think they have the WP:COMPETENCE to edit. [69] The article in question that she is ranting about was appalling. It contained quotes from works of fiction as citations, contained numerous factual errors that weren't supported by the citation and a number of unreliable sources that were blogs or SPS. Whilst attempting to clean it up, Elisa embarked on the edit war that resulted in her block, refused to discuss, presumed that material was being removed for bad faith reasons and elicited other members of WiR to support her in edit warring to preserve an article that was frankly crap and should have been deleted. The final straw was abusing her talk page with a mass ping as a rallying call whilst blocked. Some members of WiR have encouraged this bad behaviour and I see they are once again acting en masse to ask for her unblock. They would be better served encouraging her to stop the behaviour that lead to her block and stop telling her she is a brilliant editor. I am minded to oppose because from the responses I've seen so far I really doubt she gets it. WCMemail 10:22, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Dear God, no per WCM. I'm seeing massive issues in their editing history and an unblock request that doesn't even begin to acknowledge the damage done. GoldenRing (talk) 10:52, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I want to clarify something, because above people are saying things like "well the WMF's Trust and Safety's new rule is you can be incompetent as you like as long as you play nice". If I had to pick an editor I have previously managed that has similar parallels to Elisa, it would be Winkelvi, who is definitely nowhere near the same demographic. I spent numerous occasions trying to unravel Winkelvi's disruption, assume good faith at their end, see a way forward, and try and trade off an indefinite block against some sort of other restrictions. Ultimately it didn't work out, and Winkelvi got the boot, but I don't think we're at that stage with Elisa yet. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:30, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Uh, that's not how I remember it. You blocked Winkelvi for a relatively minor infraction (and for an edit that undoubtedly improved the encyclopedia), and immediately came to the noticeboard, where Winkelvi was community banned in short order. You realize if this unblock approval fails, Elisa.Rolle will also be community banned? Shame on you for misrepresenting that situation. Mr Ernie (talk) 12:49, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Mr Ernie: I'm referring to things much earlier than that, such as this attempt to replace a 3 month block with a 1RR restriction in March 2017, and before that this review and unblock in January 2016. I reviewed the late 2018 block at AN because I felt it would be controversial and might be reduced to "time served". As for "You realize if this unblock approval fails, Elisa.Rolle will also be community banned?" - indeed I do. Haven't we just had a couple of weeks of people getting absolutely hysterical because the WMF imposed a ban when the community should have been doing it? So here is the community deciding whether or not to ban someone, making the Wikipedia consensus system work as it is designed. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:32, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose unblock I don't see a net benefit to the encyclopedia in unblocking. The user lacks competence to edit and they have shown no real understanding of how serious their copyvios have been.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 12:54, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose unblock: Anyone who calls this a second chance is mistaken; this would be a fourth chance, as the user has been blocked three times in the past for violations of the copyright policy. What's going to be different this time? And so far I don't see anybody volunteering to monitor her contribs (this would be an absolute necessity, given the scope of the problem). I am not volunteering to do it; I don't have time. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 15:04, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose per Diannaa. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:10, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose. Noting that the polemic SchroCat highlighits led to two further indefinite blocks, and, rather than seemingly having learned anything from the experience (and of the community's expectations, for that matter), it was shortly followed with this business: there will be always someone saying 3,4,5 indef blocks (even if 1 or 2 of them are questionable?) Then block her again fir whatever reason they coukd think, which I think illustrates the depth of their WP:BATTLEGROUND approach, the lack of WP:AGF towards community norms and those promoting them, and the WP:IDHT regarding their breach of those policies and guidelines. They literally do not appear to understand that what they did was wrong and that it was they that were at fault for not conforming to Wikipedia, not Wikipedia's fault for not conforming to them. Furthermore, not understanding this after five indefinte blocks is verging even further into the WP:CIR territory which has been mentioned already. I fear that, fundamentally, they became a time sink: yes they were prolific, but it seems to have been a matter of quantity over quality, and required the time and effort of many editors to "tidy up" after them. Indeed, I imagine that had they been slightly less prolofic they may have reduced the copyright violations to the extent that they would not now be in this position.
      The bottom line must be that—per WP:GAB—to successfully appeal a block, one must understand what you did and why you have been blocked; I see neither, unfortunately, in this request. ——SerialNumber54129 16:12, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose per Diannaa. - Dank (push to talk) 16:17, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose per Diannaa and Serial Number 54129. The editor was blocked for copyvio in July 2017, which was conditionally lifted 4 days later, then blocked again for copyvio in January 2018. With an extensive discussion getting the editor to acknowledge the problem and agree not to do it again, the block was lifted. Those were the opportunities to show that they understood the problem with their editing and to stop doing it. In March 2018 discussion, Elisa.rolle stated I understand than this is the last chance unblock. That "last chance unblock" was followed by a block for disruptive editing and a block for "extensive copyvio". I don't see any new comprehension in the latest block appeal to justify another opportunity. Schazjmd (talk) 16:46, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose unblock per Sitush and Diannaa. Bishonen | talk 16:50, 18 July 2019 (UTC).[reply]
    • Oppose unblock per opposers, especially Sitush, User:Serial Number 54129 and Diannaa. Johnbod (talk) 16:54, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose unblock- (edit conflict) I usually am inclined to AGF with editors when they have problems. But copyvio concerns are difficult to clean up (my latest editing is primarily removing copyvio). Diannaa is one of -if not the- best when it comes to copyvio cleanup. If she is against unblocking, I must be too. Jip Orlando (talk) 16:58, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose unblock - given the degree of disruption that she caused in the past - copyvios particularly, but the other behaviour as well as pointed by other editors above - to the point that per User:Schazjmd she acknowledged the last unblock as "the last chance unblock", I think I would have high expectations of an unblock request here. They're not close to being met. Kahastok talk 18:48, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose Unblock How many last chances do disruptive editors get? Why does this person get so much leeway when the documented issues are so pervasive and damaging to Wikipedia that they have 4 separate indefinite blocks? In my opinion the benefits do not outweigh the risks in letting this editor return. Nobody's work is that indispensable. Valeince (talk) 19:45, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose Unblock per Valeince. "Last chance" has to mean something. Buffs (talk) 19:53, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose unblock. Long history of copyright violations and combative behavior, and having looked at Eda Lord Dixon, future productivity seems marginal when offset by the copyediting necessary to deal with her inability to write grammatical English. I think she would be better off contributing to her native-language Wikipedia. Choess (talk) 20:40, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose unblock per Diannaa. Hut 8.5 21:25, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose unblock I don't know anything about this editor and I'm a huge believer in second chances. I usually support giving anyone an opportunity to come back and redeem themselves. But I admire the work of Diannaa even more and I trust her opinion more on copyright violations than my own sympathies towards a blocked editor. Cleaning up copyright violations is a thankless job and I would advocate denying anyone who causes more work for our limited pool of editors and admins a chance to create more work for them. Liz Read! Talk! 03:03, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Response(s) from Elisa.rolle

    I want to set up a seperate section for ER's response(s) so they can be separated from the discussion and more visible with better flow-through.

    copyvio: I think I read a comment of an opposer saying that if the block was lifted, I was probably to edit few more time, few things and then abandoon the project. If I read correctly that was a negative thing according to the commenter. Sorry I do not see the comment anymore, but I'm sure I read it today. I do not think the "abandoning the project" part would happen, but yes, the first part is correct, but I do not see it as a negative thing. I also read someone else saying that the fast pace I was contributing was part of the issue, and that if I was slower the output of my experience would have been different. With this last comment I completely agree. I do not want to engage in from the scratch article because, as Mr Ernie said, it's difficult for a non-native English speaker to grasp the concept of paraphrasing and it's more likely to incur in copyvio for close paraphrasing. Moreover I do not want to contribute much, at a fast pace, because I want to be careful with what I'm contributing. Limiting the number of edits, and their extension, seems to be a good approach. Moreover, as I said, I would be comforable in using source in Public Domain, again in a limited way, i.e. source tagged as Public Domain clearly published before 1923, but not other sources (if not maybe consulting with an expert user). Therefore also this is limiting my range of action, after all, public domain source before 1923 on my field of expertize (women and LGBTQ history) are not so many.

    edit warring: I did not state it since this was not part of the current block, but of the previous one and I had already agreed with Tony Ballioni to a 1RR for six months. Indeed it is my intention to not use the revert at all. If I see a vandalism (and it has to be a vandalism and not a contribution I do not agree with), it was my intention to ask to some other expert user to have a look and decide what to do. I know this is moving the effort to someone else, but I hope vandalism on the articles I'm monitoring will not happen often. Moreover it's my intention to not contest anymore the RfD on my articles. If an RfD will happen, I will let other users decide if it's worth to contest it or no. Again this will prevent further more the chance of edit warring.

    battling: I think I answered above, but maybe I can add that Tony Ballioni put in place a bot that is archiving my talk page every 7 days. Again it's my intention to let the bot active and to not manually archive my talk page. moreover, it's my intention to use my talk page just to communicate for above point, asking for help on specific topic (or maybe for that I will use the specific user talk page). I should specify that when I said I'm a completely different user, I was true: in January of this year something happened in my life that was at the same time devastating but it also relieved me of a lot of stress, so, yes, I'm sort of subdued now, but maybe that is a good thing linked to this point. Elisa.rolle (talk) 17:21, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

      Dlohcierekim (talk) 18:19, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Further discussion

    • I realize this has been closed and that by posting here I'm probably breaking every rule in the book - I'll take the consequences. To be clear: I don't disagree with the result given the large CCI file, but had I been in Elisa.rolle's shoes I would have wanted to someone to explain very clearly that moving the unblock request most likely would result in a community ban with page tagging etc. I would have wanted the choice to rescind the request and keep the status quo. I very much hope this wasn't sold to her as a slam-dunk, easily done now that the blocking admin is not with us - sorry, sensitive wiki-politics but the elephant in the room. I also would have wished the person/s assisting with the unblock to find willing helper/s to assist with clean up. In my view this was poorly done and could have been avoided. At the least, as a gesture of goodwill can we place {{no index}} tags on her talk page, find the archives and have those no indexed as well? Happy to have this comment blanked if it's too out of line. Victoria (tk) 14:12, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Victoriaearle, I'm very concerned about the way this unfolded, and I've asked that it be reopened. I'll write up more shortly. SarahSV (talk) 14:20, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Speaking as what appears to have been the only person never to have encountered this editor before, and as someone who neither supported nor opposed, I agree with User:Victoriaearle. The comments here which led to the request being filed give the clear impression that unblocking is sure to happen and the review would just be a formal rubber-stamping, whereas it's obvious just looking at the list of previous warnings in Elisa.rolle's talk history that without a very detailed addressing of previous concerns this was very unlikely to succeed, and there doesn't appear to have been any explanation that in these circumstances unblock requests are a one-shot deal and a failed appeal would make further appeals much more difficult. I have no issue with the close itself—this was a crystal-clear "no consensus to unblock"—but I do feel Ritchie333 needs to be far more careful when it comes to giving blocked editors false hopes. ‑ Iridescent 15:03, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Tony wrote above that no admin would have unblocked Elisa without a community discussion, but that's not correct. I was considering unblocking in August 2018 after Tony's one-month block, but Elisa decided to sit it out rather than appeal. See this discussion, where I explained my concerns about that block, which I think should not have happened. While sitting it out, Elisa posted on her talk page suggestions for articles about women. Fram found that one of these posts, dated 18 August 2018 and addressed to SusunW, had copied text from this museum webpage, which is why it's revdeleted; admins see here. The post contained suggestions about articles about women, e.g. "Martha Symons Boies: "She arrived in laramie, Wyoming in a horse drawn cart with her children in 1868. She became the first woman in the world appointed as a balliff. ..." The mistake Elisa made was that she didn't include quotation marks. Fram then blocked her indefinitely.
      When I saw Elissa's current unblock request, I began reviewing her edits with a view to unblocking, but then Ritchie brought it here. Ritchie did so after asking Elisa whether she wanted him to do that, and she agreed, but she agreed without realizing that an AN discussion might lead to a community ban, which no single admin could undo. That should have been explained to her. The question now is whether Elisa has added copyvios to articles after last being warned not to, or whether she is being banned now for something she had already stopped doing, apart from that one post on her talk page in August 2018. SarahSV (talk) 15:24, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, she hasn't added copyvios to articles since she was blocked, but has managed to add one to her talk page, which is just as bad or even worse. She was blocked by Fram for continuing to add copyvios to WP. Given the long list of violations, the polemical talk page, the edit warring and IDONTHEARYOU approach, I'm not sure anything should be done about the close. - SchroCat (talk) 15:32, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi, Sarah. Thanks for the ping. Sorry for being overly broad: a better way of phrasing it would have been, taking an appeal of this sort to AN would be the norm for someone with as many blocks and as many other issues as Elisa, especially given how controversial past blocks were. As I mentioned above, the only practical difference between a ban and an indef is that a ban formalizes the requirement for review at AN, which given the level of opposition here, makes sense going forward, even if it could have been explained better to Elisa. An individual admin unblocking over this consensus without seeking a new one. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:45, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Tony, the problem is that, as a matter of fact, I was going to unblock her, unless I found something in her edits that clearly spoke against it. Had Ritchie not said anything, she would now almost certainly be unblocked. I was considering accompanying the unblock with an offer to keep an eye on her for the next year or so, and help her to rewrite anything she had difficulty summarizing. So we have moved from a likely unblock and informal mentorship to a community ban in less than 48 hours, because Ritchie did not explain to Elisa what she was agreeing to when he offered to post here. That doesn't seem fair. SarahSV (talk) 15:54, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • To be honest, if you had unblocked her I suspect someone would have taken it here for review and she would have been banned under a different heading. That talk page is watched so closely by people on both “sides” that pretty much any action taken was going to end up here. That’s my reading of the situation at least. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:03, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Exactly this. As I said on Elisa's talk page, I was happy to unblock but I suspect had I done so I would have had a lynch mob on my talk page. The only sane and fair option seemed to take it to here and see what the community said. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 18:14, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi TonyBallioni, I didn't get chance to reply to you last night - I'd already logged out and this morning the ban had been enacted. Sarah and I are probably coming at this from different perspectives: but my concern last night and now, is essentially what Iridescent said. Elisa should have been given the option not to follow through with this action. She should have had the consequences explained to her very clearly. I'm not an admin, a ten year veteran, and I don't quite understand the arcane rules. We can do better and I think we should do better. Anyway, in the least in case she edits under her real name she's entitled to privacy. I can't remember whether talk pages are now automatically no indexed, but to be sure I've tagged her pages. Not wanting to relitigate here, but we must keep in mind that behind each computer screen sits a person with real feelings and these discussions are brutal and frankly this could have been avoided. Victoria (tk) 16:08, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Victoriaearle: User talkpages are "automatically noindexed via a software setting" on enwiki. I agree with the rest of your comment, fwiw. Abecedare (talk) 16:16, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for the ping SlimVirgin I have been following the situation even if I did not comment. As a non-admin, I do not even know if I am allowed to comment here, but it seemed to me, that any invite to have the community provide input would result in the foregone conclusion that unfolded. I understand the reluctance of many for her continued involvement in the project, but also am aware of circumstances that have changed for her and the enormous resource she could be for the project. Difficult as it is, and personally believing that her circumstances and attitude have changed, the bright line is that there is no way to assure the community that copyvios would not be reintroduced, which is a legitimate concern; that might only have been mitigated by a mentorship such as you proposed. SusunW (talk) 16:05, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • The mistake Elisa made was that she didn't include quotation marks. I don't believe that is accurate. The edit copied the whole "The Thirteen Honored Women" list and text from this webpage and pasted it onto wikipedia. I'll yield to subject experts like Diannaa or Moonriddengirl but IMO that is as clear-cut a copyvio as it gets, and even including quotation marks wouldn't let it qualify as fair use. Abecedare (talk) 16:06, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • (+1) ~ Winged BladesGodric 16:27, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Re: quotation marks, I didn't mean it quite as flippantly as that. I do take your point. But had she added attribution and quotation marks, it would have made a big difference. Bear in mind that the museum website wanted to promote those women. I suspect the original author would be upset to learn that Elisa was indefinitely blocked for reproducing those words on her own talk page in the hope they would lead to Wikipedia articles. SarahSV (talk) 16:54, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • Sarah, I believe we do editors and the project a disservice when we minimize the problems with their edits or try to come up with speculative reasons on why clear-cut violations of our policies may have been ok. Better to be be polite but clear with them on how the edits are problematic and how those problems can and cannot be resolved. I am not familiar with Elisa.rolle's editing and have not participated in any related discussion but if before her blocks experienced users had been telling her that copyright violations could be resolved by adding quotation marks then, as Victoriaearle said in relation to the unlock request, the problem perhaps lies as much with our processes as with the editor, who would have been justifiable confused by the misinformation. Perhaps we all need to think about how polite honesty can be preferable to paternalistic coddling/enabling of problematic editing. Abecedare (talk) 17:28, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I made the first oppose! vote (up above) and raised this very line of reasoning over the first two lines of my statement:- that if the discussion ended in a No-Consensus, she ends up CBanned. This review-by-community is a gamble that can easily backfire and I found it ethically unfair for her to end up in such a state, w/o being explicitly warned of the consequences. Ritchie instead cited me an essay (that did not say what he thought it to have said) and later attacked me over other venues. I expect that Elisa viewed my comments and she did not raise any issue, either. So, nothing more to look over here. ~ Winged BladesGodric 16:27, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • In reviewing Elisa's talk page, I see not a single mention of WP:CBAN in the discussion prior to this thread being opened at AN. It's obvious the editor wasn't aware of this risk. While WBG raised it (kudos for that), at the time he made that comment, it seemed like this was going to consensus to unblock. So if I were Elisa, at that point, I wouldn't have pulled back. (Also, she may not have fully understood what WBG was saying.) Then–boom–the wind shifts and it's a CBAN. I was stupefied when I saw this almost happen to Lpac, and it's my personal feeling that of all the arcane, byzantine rules on Wikipedia, the unsuccessful-unblock-request-turns-into-CBAN rule is the most Kafkaesque, bizarre, unfair, "gotcha" rule of them all. In no other aspect of the world is there a rule that if you appeal, and your appeal is denied, your punishment gets worse. That's crazy! The whole rule should be repealed. And barring that, there should be a DS-like "awareness" requirement where, before you can be subject to the "unsuccessful-appeal-CBAN", you get a template on your talk page that clearly spells out the risks you are taking by requesting the appeal. – Levivich 16:49, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not true re: "no other aspect of the world", eg: at least some bits of the UK. - Sitush (talk) 16:56, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • (edit conflict) @Levivich, it's not going to be repealed. It actually does make sense when one thinks about it; the alternative is that if someone appeals and one admin supports the appeal and a hundred people oppose it, the blocked editor returns to the status quo ante of "any admin can unblock" and can ask that one admin to do so, disregarding the hundred opposers, and still be within policy. My issue is that unless one really stops to think about it this isn't at all intuitive, and people lodging appeals don't have it made clear to them that they run this risk. (FWIW, I have no idea where you live, but certainly where I live In no other aspect of the world is there a rule that if you appeal, and your appeal is denied, your punishment gets worse isn't at all the case; appeals courts will fairly regularly increase sentences if they feel either that the appeal was vexatious or that the original judge was too lenient.) In this case the problem was exacerbated, in my opinion, by someone in good faith egging Elisa.rolle on to request an unblock in such a way as to give the impression that the unblock was certain to be granted and that the appeal was just a formality, which is understandably likely to have caused her unnecessary distress—at an absolute minimum, she should have been warned "people are going to raise the issues that got you blocked and you need to be prepared to explain why it won't happen again". ‑ Iridescent 17:03, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Thx Si and Iri. I live in the US, where appeals courts generally can't increase a sentence; I should have said, no where else is the increase an automatic consequence of an unsuccessful appeal. If an editor were to post a block review to challenge a block, and the review results in an increase of the block length, that's a whole world away from an editor requesting a WP:Standard offer and the denial of that request turning into an automatic "life sentence" (community ban). I understand the rationale–that a single admin cannot unilaterally unblock when the community has decided not to unblock–and I also understand that even if we didn't have such a rule, that would be what would happen in practice anyway, because few admin would overrule consensus by performing a unilateral unblock when community consensus was against it (right?). So, Iri's right, the rule won't be repealed, it's actually a natural outcome of the interaction of individual admin actions and community-based actions in these situations. Iri-gardless, I think we make it a requirement that in order to appeal a block to the community, the appealing editor must post on their talk page something like, "I am requesting a community appeal and I understand that if my request is not granted, my block will become a WP:CBAN." If we see an editor post that themselves, then we know they understand the risks. If they don't make that post, then we close the appeal request as malformed. This will prevent well-meaning third-parties from unintentionally walking editors into a bear trap. – Levivich 18:59, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • @Levivich: I think you're looking at this the wrong way. The penalty has not been increased; she was indefinitely unable to edit and she is still indefinitely unable to edit. Neither restriction is infinite, and I would have supported a request that actually acknowledged the problems and set out why they would not recur. I think the community is generally supportive of such requests. The difference between an indefinite block and a CBAN is that an indef can be appealed to any admin while a CBAN can only be appealed to the community. That's perfectly normal in every jurisdiction I'm aware of; once you've appealed to the supreme court, you can't then appeal to a magistrate; once you've appealed to the community, you can't appeal to an individual admin. GoldenRing (talk) 20:18, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            GoldenRing, when the Supreme Court denies an appeal, the lower courts still retain jurisdiction–then can still, for example, reduce the sentence. I think the penalty has been increased, from a situation where any admin could have unblocked, to a situation where no admin can unblock. There was at least one admin who was considering unblocking; now there are zero admin who can take that action. Thus, the editor is in a significantly worse position now than they were before the unblock request: instead of convincing one person, they now have to convince dozens. If blocked editors are going to take this risk, they should do it with eyes wide open. Otherwise, like I said, it's a "gotcha". – Levivich 20:34, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            Opposing an unblock doesn't have to mean supporting a CBAN; had I !voted, I would have !voted oppose unblock based on this request but not opposed to an admin granting a future unblock request or something like that. Is that an option? Does everyone !voting know that's an option? – Levivich 20:42, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • There seems to be some confusion about the copyvios. At Ritchie333's request, Jimfbleak deleted Isabel Pell yesterday (created by Elisa in August 2017) as copied from andrejkoymasky.com. But that page states "Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". SarahSV (talk) 18:06, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • I wasn't sure about this one, which is why I tagged it rather than just deleted it. It looked like a copy of the WP article but I couldn't prove it. I plan to copyedit the article offline and restore it when I get an opportunity. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 18:12, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Ritchie333, the page says at the bottom "Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". SarahSV (talk) 18:14, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • I would say "don't know why I missed that the first time" but I do know why because in response to MoneyEmoji's comment above, I had a look at Elisa's CCI and went through about 50 or so articles, and probably just missed it. The vast majority had no copyvio concerns at all. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 18:34, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • Ritchie333, first, sorry that I keep fixing the indenting, but I've been trying to follow RexxS's advice about accessibility, and switching from asterisks to colons apparently causes problems for screenreaders. Anyway, thank you for looking at those articles. One of my concerns is that there actually isn't as much of a problem as people assume just because that copyvio page was created. If your findings are confirming that, what can we do to fix this situation? In my view, the ban should be undone and the discussion reopened. Would you support that? SarahSV (talk) 18:42, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    So, there are a lot of issues here, but I’ll try to address them as best I can:

    1. Anyone who has ever met Ritchie knows that he wanted to unblock here: it’s a content editor in WiR. He’s naturally biased to unblock. The odds of him trying to get a “pocket ban” here are pretty low.
    2. Elisa was de facto banned anyway: a sympathetic admin who wanted to unblock thought that AN review was needed. All a ban does is require another AN review. Yes, Sarah was willing to unblock but any look at that talk page and the fallout here shows it would have ended up at AN one way it another. Ritchie chose the one that was most respectful of the status quo, which is typically what admins try to do.
    3. Iri’s point that Ritchie didn’t do a good job explaining it is fair, but it’s also complicated. Despite having blocked her, I was honestly neutral here. I thought the pro-Elisa crowd would swarm AN and she’d be unblocked within 24 hours, so I can see why Ritchie may have viewed it that way. Additionally, if you explain to someone a declined AN appeal equals a ban, you open yourself up to accusations of bullying people into not appealing by saying “Think twice, you may be banned.”
    4. Regardless of any missteps, the community consensus on this is clear: Elisa should remain blocked. Anyone reopening this now or unblocking now over procedural concerns are missing the forest for the trees, imo. The fact that there was this strong opposition to an unblock also proves Ritchie right is seeking wider review.
    Yes, this was a difficult situation, and the thing you do when there’s a difficult situation is seek community consensus. We have that now, and while there may have been mistakes along the way, the outcome still remains fairly clear. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:16, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    This. I would have done the same; an unblock request where I thought there might be merit but where I thought there might be significant opposition, I would bring it to the community for review. @SlimVirgin: If you thought the outcome of review here was obvious but you were prepared to unblock anyway, aren't you saying that you were prepared to override community consensus and unblock with an (effective) supervote? If you know what the outcome of review would be, deliberately avoiding that review doesn't relieve you of the obligation to seek consensus. GoldenRing (talk) 20:29, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Tony, you say you're neutral but then use the word "swarm" to describe support for Elisa, and add that typically admins don't do what I was about to do, which implies criticism of me. But in fact, admins do typically unblock in response to talk-page requests, and in this case I had witnessed how the 2018 block unfolded: first yours, then removal of talk-page access, then the IRR deal, then Fram's indefinite. I thought how it happened was unfair, which is why I noticed this unblock request and wanted to respond positively. GoldenRing, I'm sorry, I don't understand your question; would you mind rephrasing? I didn't think the outcome was obvious, and I don't believe I've said that anywhere. In fact, I'm surprised by this outcome. SarahSV (talk) 20:36, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @SlimVirgin: Apologies, I read the discussion above and remembered you saying that the outcome was a "forgone conclusion" when actually it was someone else. Nonetheless, the community's view on this is very clear; aren't you saying that you'd have preferred a quiet unblock that the community would have opposed if asked? Why is seeking consensus wrong just because you don't like the outcome? GoldenRing (talk) 20:47, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    GoldenRing, thank you for the apology. I appreciate that. What I had hoped to do was unblock and offer to help Elisa with summarizing and paraphrasing. I wanted first to investigate her editing so that I knew what I was offering, but before I had a chance to do it, this AN had opened. The speed with which these things are decided is often a problem. Not everyone can be instantly available, so lots of voices are lost when dispute resolution moves too fast. I didn't realize there would be this opposition, and I still wonder how much of it is based on fact. Are there really lots of copyvios, or has the opening of the CCI at Fram's request given the impression that there are lots? I don't know the answer to that. Ritchie has indicated that he hasn't found anything so far, but looking through the whole thing is a massive job. What I do think is that less than 48 hours is not long enough to hear from enough people who might have supported a different way forward. SarahSV (talk) 21:00, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Did not !vote in the above, but I wonder, if she got a 'copyvio overseer' from one of the supportive editors, as was proposed, would we go ahead and unban? I guess I would like to believe that if a renewed appeal could address concerns we would, but our current system leaves that all really fuzzy, perhaps unknowable (or, unintentionally, perhaps, the close does). Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:45, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      That's right on point. A lot of oppose !votes were per Diannaa, and Diannaa wrote And so far I don't see anybody volunteering to monitor her contribs ..., so if somebody in fact did volunteer to monitor her contribs, that might have changed other editors' opinions. Echoing recent concerns about threads being closed too fast: 24 or 48 hrs is too fast (esp. for a CBAN). – Levivich 21:09, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Wikipedia:Standard offer says: "Discussion usually takes a few days." That would allow people to see that the consensus had moved to a ban, and an offer could then be made to help her. Perhaps several editors would have offered to do that, and consensus might have shifted. Instead, the discussion was closed. I asked Yunshui to reopen, and I'm very surprised that he didn't. Usually if another admin asks for a discussion like this to be reopened, it happens. SarahSV (talk) 21:26, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      @SlimVirgin: Point of clarification: There was no consensus to ban, there was a consensus that she shouldn't be unblocked. In fact, the policy is that when there is no consensus for an unblock, the block converts to a ban. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 21:31, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • SV: Another 'defect' of our system, if you will, is when to close -- do you spare feelings when all these people keep saying bad things about the person, or do you close off cooler reflection, discussion, and mercy? Perhaps unanswerable. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:36, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Alan, I agree that it's difficult. I favour not keeping hurtful threads open longer than necessary. In this case, there was support for an unblock, but the tide turned partly because of Diannaa's post, which was negative but suggested a way forward: "... I don't see anybody volunteering to monitor her contribs (this would be an absolute necessity, given the scope of the problem)." In my view, the discussion should have been left open long enough to allow the initial supporters to see what was happening and comment again, and perhaps offer to help, but several are in North America, and the thread was closed during the very early morning their time (10:34 UTC). SarahSV (talk) 00:48, 20 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • (edit conflict) Endorse ban: We duly considered this case and the community did not reach a consensus that the block should be lifted. There is nothing irregular about this. This is how the CBAN policy works. At no point did Elisa Rolle request that this be withdrawn. It's not our place in this walled garden to exempt discussions about unblocking a blocked editor from this well-settled policy. Yes, I would've been fine with an unblock with conditions, but I'm not fine with the AN/ANI brigade dictating changes to the banning policy because they don't like it all of a sudden. Open an unban discussion if you want one. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 21:29, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • In fairness, and not directed at anyone in particular, I opened this thread because I'm not at all an AN regular <cough> <cough> and I'm clueless. I wanted to post a follow up question this morning and it had been closed. That surprised me. Now I regret my actions. <hangs head in shame, walks away from AN for another decade>. Victoria (tk) 21:34, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Victoriaearle, I think what you did is reasonable. I'm not an AN regular either, but I can't see how we have reached community consensus after only 2 days. We give articles 7 days at AfD. An actual human person behind the keyboard should get at least the same consideration. I think that SlimVirgin was right to ask that this be reopened by Yunshui. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 23:57, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree, 2 days is a whiplash for people to be informed and make informed replies. Also, I don’t think elisa.rollle really understands what is being asked of her. I think the discussion needs to be either reopened, or restarted after someone needs to work up a clear set of guidelines and ask if she will agree to follow them and to be mentored. Copyvio is obviously a problem, but it’s a very common problem from middle schools that the boardroom, and so the solution is education and the ability, not condemnation. If elisa.rolle wants to try, then we should assist. If she does not cooperate, then we have necessary data. Either way, there was a rush to judgement here. Montanabw(talk) 01:11, 20 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment I cannot believe I just read a comment downplaying the importance of not exposing the Project via copyvio's. While I believe this will not be a problem moving forward, other members of the community realize the importance of not exposing the Project via copyvio's and do not share my optimism. While I wish the block appeal had not been closed so soon, I doubt the outcome would have become favorable.  Dlohcierekim (talk) 01:36, 20 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • (edit conflict) And until Feb. 2018 that 24 hour minimum was just advisory. My take on this discussion is that things went very, very south such that the outcome was all but guaranteed to be "no consensus", which would've defaulted to a ban. Like, I would have no objection to reopening if it looked like there was a realistic chance of a consensus being reached. But with 22 opposes, many of which included quite reasoned arguments, I really don't see any hope of a consensus to unblock being reached. And I don't see claims such as "I would've opposed an unblock but also opposed a CBAN" as being valid: The whole point of the policy is that, if someone remains blocked after the community takes up whether he or she should be unblocked, then no admin should be able to unilaterally unblock. That's a CBAN. Period. —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 01:38, 20 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm auto-confirmed, but don't seem to have access to edit a semi-locked page

    Hello, user Nizolan recommended that I place my request here; happy to move it elsewhere if appropriate—though Nizolan also recommended that I specify that WP:PERM/C is inappropriate because I'm already a member of the group.

    I want to edit the Keanu_Reeves page to reflect the actual name of is character in a particular movie. I am auto-confirmed and should be able to edit this semi-locked page, but it appears locked to me. Would appreciate help. Thank you, 12XU12XU (talk) 20:26, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    What exactly are you seeing? I don't see any problem with that article's protection settings, despite some weirdness of it having been moved to the MediaWiki Talk namespace at one point. The protection settings appear to be correct, and using one of my bot accounts, it looks like I should be able to edit it. Can you provide a screenshot? Are you using a proxy to edit? (Tor has higher autoconfirmed requirements, but I doubt you're using it, since you don't have IP Block Exemption...) ST47 (talk) 20:50, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Can you try again? I've added a temporary manual confirmation to your account (which should not be necessary). — xaosflux Talk 17:42, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Violation of rollback rules?

    (non-admin closure) Simple mistake. Nothing to do. Although I would advise I'm not perfect but I'm almost to use the user's talk page first next time rather than coming straight to ANI, assuming bad faith. Also, any time a discussion is started, it is required that the reported party is informed. Amaury • 23:05, 17 July 2019 (UTC) Add: I did not realize this was posted at AN instead of ANI. The same thing applies; however, something like this would belong over at ANI, not here. Amaury • 23:13, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Per WP:Rollback, "editors who misuse standard rollback (for example, by using it to reverse good-faith edits in situations where an explanatory edit summary would normally be expected) may have their rollback rights removed". This is an example of that, by User:Champion. I guess they may not be a champion at rollback... since I was just making minor edits. I'm not perfect but I'm almost (talk) 22:57, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    That was a mistake on my part, actually, I apoloigize, totally forgotten about it. - CHAMPION (talk) (contributions) (logs) 22:59, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Haha. Okay. Thank you. I'm not perfect but I'm almost (talk) 23:00, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Could somebody please remove the protection of Lisk

    Hi guys, would you please be able to remove the protection of Lisk ? I want to create a disambiguation page there, which clearly belongs there and is completely unrelated to the articles that got deleted over the years. Thanks! Dr. Vogel (talk) 23:08, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Dr. Vogel, would you mind drafting the disambiguation page in your userspace? Once you do that, an admin can just move it to mainspace and remove the protection in the process. Nyttend (talk) 23:23, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Surely you can trust me more than that? :) Done: Draft:Lisk. Would you please be able to move it? Thanks! Dr. Vogel (talk) 23:37, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Done. Aside from that being normal procedure (sorry), this ensures that nobody come in and write a cryptocurrency article in the mean time. I didn't have any idea how long it would be until you saw this message; if you hadn't checked back in for a day or two, there would have been plenty of time for a new spam article to appear. If you use a watchlist, please watch this page in case someone replaces it with a cryptocurrency article. Nyttend (talk) 00:05, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    I was only joking, I know the procedure :)
    Thanks for your help!
    Yes, I maintain an unhealthily massive watchlist... Dr. Vogel (talk) 00:08, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    You're quite welcome! I thought I'd ask, but I don't maintain one myself; I have tendencies toward edit-warring (it was the reason for the one for-cause block I've gotten), so I have to restrict myself to avoid it, and I find that it's a lot more tempting to war when I'm looking at the watchlist and seeing lots of edits I might disagree with. Easier to be oblivious than to fight the urge to revert. Nyttend (talk) 00:14, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    fb90 range

    This range should NOT be blocked for one year, as it could cause collateral damage. 114.124.234.199 (talk) 05:55, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Which range should not be blocked? fb90 is nowhere near enough detail, please provide a full IPv6 address or CIDR range. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:28, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Educated guess: 2607:FB90::/32 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)). It doesn't have a great reputation. -- zzuuzz (talk) 13:38, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, check the block log there. It just came off what was basically a 2.25 year block. 1 year was conservative in this particular case. I just matched the previous block settings and set for a year knowing. If it expires July 2020, it’ll be reblocked then as well by someone. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:50, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @TonyBallioni: but 1 year's too long 36.69.145.7 (talk)
    In April 2017 Graham87 blocked it for a year, to expire in April 2018. In September 2017, he extended it until April 2019. The block expired on 12 April 2019 and within less than 24 hours, Drmies had already reblocked it for three months. It then expired 4 days ago, and, as expected, the disruption immediately reoccurred. This is quite possibly the single most disruptive IPv6 range on en.wiki. Blocking it for a year was conservative given the history here. We're talking less than 5 days unblocked within 2.25 years. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:29, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Seeking five editors/admins to be interviewed about moderation of harmful content on Wikipedia

    The Berkman Klein Center, with support from the Wikimedia Foundation, is studying content moderation practices by the Wikipedia community by interviewing Wikipedia content editors and administrators.

    https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Understanding_content_moderation_on_English_Wikipedia

    We posted a similar message on the Administrators Noticeboard in May, and since then we’ve spoken with 10 editors. Thank you to those who have volunteered to participate thus far.

    We’re searching for five more editors and admins with a range of experience to be interviewed about the processes and guidelines for content revision, content deletion, and quality control of English Wikipedia.

    The interviews will particularly focus on gaining an understanding of the community’s overall approach and decision making about handling harmful content both on articles and talk pages. We are interested in understanding how this works from your direct experience and your knowledge of the experiences of other editors and admins.

    The ultimate goal of the interviews is to help the Wikimedia Foundation identify the strengths and gaps in the community’s efforts to moderate harmful content and to improve the quality of content and positivity of conduct on the platform.

    Our preference is to conduct the conversations through video chat or over the phone. However, we can accommodate the preferences of those who would feel more comfortable answering questions through email; we’d much rather communicate with editors over their preferred medium than not at all! Our preference is to record the conversations for those who are willing. However, all the answers we receive from the interviews will be aggregated; no answers will be associated with specific editors’ names or pseudonyms in communications with the Wikimedia Foundation or public reporting. Any specific examples or anecdotes mentioned in interviews will only be included in the report with prior permission of the interviewee. You will also be free to skip any questions and to end the interview at any time.

    If you are willing to participate in a 20-25 minute conversation to help the Berkman Klein Center and Wikimedia Foundation understand more about harmful content on Wikipedia, contact Casey Tilton at ctilton@cyber.harvard.edu or leave a note on his user talk page. Catilton (talk) 16:59, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    What is "harmful content"? -Roxy, the dog. wooF 17:23, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    It's specified on the linked page: illegal speech, harmful speech, vandalism, and other types of speech detrimental to Wikipedia and its community. ‑ Iridescent 17:28, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    All of which is perfectly acceptable of course...with the exception of other types of speech detrimental to Wikipedia and its community which is somewhat disconcertingly vague. ——SerialNumber54129 18:23, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    As I read it, this is a legitimate piece of research aiming to establish what we think other types of speech detrimental to Wikipedia and its community should mean, not a typical WMF "verdict first, trial later" exercise aimed at inventing a "consensus" for the WMF's preferred position by cherry-picking participants they guess will support them. The Berkman Klein Center is a legitimate research institution at Harvard; this appears to be genuine research, not yet another attempt by Jan Eissfeldt to find a pretext to grant himself superpowers. ‑ Iridescent 19:17, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've just participated in this - I didn't pick out any sign it was too ordained. I did get the feeling that they'd had some early pickups from the WMF but were listening to some conflicting viewpoints from editors and taking them on well. I also had some sympathy as Casey had the misfortune to start the interviews about the time FRAMBAN kicked off. If a DS Admin could do it that would fill in something I wanted to, but couldn't, talk about effectively. I'd say there might be an issue with the WMF mis-using results, but that the actual research looks interesting and worthwhile. Nosebagbear (talk) 07:59, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Ayurveda

    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Editnotices/Page/Ayurveda&action=history

    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Editnotices/Page/Talk:Ayurveda&action=history

    • You must not make more than one revert per 24 hours to this article.
    • You must not reinstate any challenged (via reversion) edits without obtaining consensus on the talk page of this article.

    There is a notice for editing the article. The admin who created it has since left Wikipedia. Should the notices be expunged or removed? QuackGuru (talk) 20:22, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    That brings up a more general question: what is the proper venue to request that discretionary sanctions for a particular article be removed or changed? Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:34, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Also, it seems to me that discretionary sanction editnotices should be rethought to deal with the problem of Banner blindness. Rather than all that text when one goes to edit (which is easily ignored because of its volume} a huge "1RR" (for instance), with a link to the page with all the explanatory text, would be much more effective, IMO. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:01, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Can we use the banner to modify some style on the page, say enclose the edit box in a thick red line that will indicate something important is happening? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:18, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Beyond My Ken: That would normally be framed as an appeal at AE (or ARCA if you wish). I'd use the appeal template, fill it out as best you can, and explain why the sanction is invalid or no longer necessary. GoldenRing (talk) 10:40, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

    Notification of: Resysop criteria: RfC on principles

    There is a request for comment at Wikipedia_talk:Administrators#Resysop_criteria:_RfC_on_principles. All are invited to participate TonyBallioni (talk) 03:28, 20 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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