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An update on and a request for involvement at the Medicine MOS

A month ago I closed an ANI thread which was a mixture of behavioral concerns and content concerns. That thread reached no consensus of sanctions against any editor but did arrive at a strong consensus for how to handle the content dispute - by conducting a formal Request for Comment (RFC). Basically by default I have found myself as an uninvolved sysop attempting to see through the ANI consensus and mediate a way towards an RfC. We are at a moment where additional editor attention would be helpful and in some cases essential to this process. Barkeep49 (talk) 03:32, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

MOS RfC

• The discussion has been voluminous despite only a half dozen or so editors, including myself, participating. (Fun fact, with a hat tip to EdJohnston, but the discussion is longer than AN and ANI combined). I should have worked harder to limit this output from all participants (including myself).
• Most editors who have been participating in the process have gravitated towards this RfC question (option 1) and format with the belief that only minor changes are necessary before launching. Tryptofish feels that the other RfC format will not be successful and has offered an alternative (option 2) which so far has not garnered any support from participating editors. If you wish to comment about either RfC and/or the potential launch of Option 1 here is probably the best place to go.
• Note there is an ongoing RfC

According to the ANI close this should be done by an uninvolved sysop. While I remain uninvolved someone with fresh eyes agreeing that the RfC is neutral would be for the best, in my opinion and so I am looking for that uninvolved sysop. Additionally, I would love to line-up an experienced and capable editor (or panel of 3) and who would be willing to act as closer(s) at the RfC. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:32, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I can act as a closer (or be a member of the panel). I am totally uninvolved.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:55, 7 January 2020 (UTC) Sorry, got unexpected real-life emergency issues.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:02, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Is there no chance the differences between Tryptofish and others can be resolved without a lot more participation? Might an approach where Tryptofish highlights one part of the proposal and explains how they would change it and why, and the participants discuss this and try to come to an understanding work? Or has this been tried and didn't work or is not possible since Tryptofish feels the nature of their concerns mean they can only be understood by changing the whole RfC? In any case, Doc James seems to be one of the biggest proponents of one "side" and Colin and to some extent SandyGeorgia the other. Are they at least all on board with the current proposed RfC? This doesn't guarantee the RfC will work or product a clear outcome and I'm no means suggesting other's views aren't also very important, but it would I think reduce concerns that the RfC may have ended up one-sided. P.S. Other participants highlighting a part of Tryptofish's RfC proposal and how they will change it an why is another possibility but since it sounds like there is significantly more support for option 1, it makes more sense in the other direction IMO. Nil Einne (talk) 07:52, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the differing proposals, I understand why what I suggested probably isn't going to work as it is indeed a difference in how the RfC should be approached that affects the whole RfC so I've struck that suggestion. IMO "option 1" doesn't preclude something like Tryptofish's proposal in the future. I already sort of said this yesterday but IMO if most editors feel a more open ended approach is preferred, it may be better to let them try provided they understand that sometimes it just means limited participation and also no clear outcome, and there is probably no way to word an RfC to prevent that. And so it's possible this RfC will provide little help in drafting the 2nd RfC and in addition, the 2nd RfC may also have depressed participation. And in the mean time, the issues will be unresolved and likewise any concern they have over articles, as the moratorium/embargo may remain if there's no clear direction of the community. Of course it is also possible there will be a clear result from the first RfC maybe not even requiring a second 2nd RfC or at least convincing everyone of the right course of action for articles before it. Nil Einne (talk) 08:21, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

The first RFC is laughably POV. I find very little chance that it will be NPOV before it is launched. Trypto was only being fair when they explained that it will probably end in failure due to this POV, for which they were threatened with interventions. When Barkeep talks of most editors they are mostly talking about the ones who have not been bludgeoned out of the discussion, which are two on one of side of the argument and another paid to be on Wikipedia.AlmostFrancis (talk) 04:11, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't share your view that the first RfC is biased towards a specific point of view. In fact, I think it may be trying too hard to just present examples without going through the pros and cons of how the data is presented. I suspect most people who aren't highly familiar with the competing concerns will just take a cursory look at the text and give a gut-feel reaction, which won't help move the discussion forward.

On a more general note regarding multi-phase discussions: the sticking point for many Wikipedia decision-making discussions is maintaining engagement from a broad set of editors in order to establish a true broad consensus view. There are a few issues that have addressed through multiple phases of discussion, such as pending changes (for example, Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012) and the request for administrative privileges process (for example, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2013 RfC and Wikipedia:2015 administrator election reform). Even with these highly popular topics, the degree of involvement by the community diminished as the phases went by. For topics with fewer interested parties, it can be a challenge to ensure there is enough input at the end to determine an unassailable result. The benefits of expediency need to be weighed against the advantages of gaining more information to better shape discussion.

That being said, sometimes it is necessary to have a workshop phase to collect data and work through ideas, refining them further. Establishing a consensus view requires patience. isaacl (talk) 05:49, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

User:Isaacl, you're correct that I'm going a bit out of my way to make the question feel neutral, even though the two sides aren't really equal in the type or strength of their arguments. Also, on some points, there just aren't two sides. For example, the price given in the first example is mathematically incorrect. Despite the recent request from User:AlmostFrancis to hear the other side, ${\textstyle 5\times 30\times 0.01845}$ does not equal the price in the first example. There is no other side here: everyone already agrees that it's impossible to multiply three numbers together and end up with a prime number. That said, I don't really want people to go into the RFC looking at trivial points like the occasional typo in a price, or with nothing but vague enthusiasm for Doing Something, without helping us figure out what can and should be done. I want editors to think about the important points: What claims do we think this database can support? We need to re-check all of this anyway (see: typos), and we might as well make any other recommended changes at the same time. I'm thinking that we need to invite the data geeks and stats folks to this phase, so we can talk about what is realistically possible with this database.

But to do that, we need to actually get the RFC open, and ANI said that we need an uninvolved admin to opine that it's neutral enough before we can start an RFC. If any admin would please look at it and express an opinion (either way!), that would be really helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:44, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Note I didn't use "neutral", as that is tangential to my view. I think it would be helpful to actually go through a list of the advantages and concerns for each example, so potential commenters can be made aware of them up front. I strongly suspect that all key issues have already been identified and so as I see it, the goal is to gather viewpoints on how to best manage these considerations. I believe there will be more engagement with an explicit list of items to consider. isaacl (talk) 18:12, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Isaacl, and you aren't an admin, which ANI required for this bureaucratic step. We've been talking about it. The identified problems in those lists (not all of which apply to any given statement, of course) is lengthy, policy-focused, overwhelming, and damaging. And, yes, the group has identified valid problems, and everyone's already agreed that some of these truly are problems, but I think that the overall effect of listing all the problems at the top would be running down one side unfairly, because the "pro" side is pretty much left with little to say beyond apologizing for not magically having done a perfect job on the first try at an unexpectedly complex task. I don't think that will *feel* neutral, even if it technically is.

The problem with your suggestion in terms of what I want to learn is that if I post a list of identified problems, I won't find out what's right, or what could be done right, or which categories of problems seem most salient to editors. I'll just get a bunch of editors dumping drive-by vote on the page that say little more than "Me, too, because All True Editors are always opposed to all problems". What I need is editors saying, "Okay, maybe that first effort wasn't perfect, but this is complicated, and let's see how we can build on it. Do we need WP:INTEXT attribution for that database? I think you should try..." WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

I disagree that the pro side is just apologizing for flaws; there are reasons why people support certain ways of presenting the data, such as conciseness and use of (I know, hotly disputed behind the scenes) standard dosages. Just because they're not perfect doesn't mean they don't have advantages. I just think it's asking too much for commenters to replicate the analyses that have already been done to isolate key issues, rather than just getting them to grapple with the issues and work on ideas to deal with them. I agree that this is better discussed elsewhere. isaacl (talk) 20:26, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

There are good arguments for including information about money. (I've made them for years and years now.) There are no good arguments for reading a source that gives you the average unit price for a single country and writing on Wikipedia that the one country's price is the price throughout the entire developing world. Although that has happened in some articles, it did not happen because someone sat down one day and said, "You know what? The best thing for Wikipedia would be for me to take this single data point about 1% of the world's population, and claim that it's how things are for 80% of the world's population, because concision matters more than accuracy". These were not intentional choices. Nobody was trying to do that. Editors were just trying to do their best, with the limited resources they had at that particular moment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Adding one sides original research to the background section isn't neutral. Using one example as a basis for judging the entire group isn't neutral. The tone of the background is that something "serious must be done" which is not neutral. Of course you can multiply three numbers and get a prime number in fact every prime number has an infinite number of inverse pairs they can be multiplied by to make a prime number AlmostFrancis (talk) 18:32, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Noticing that ${\textstyle 5\times 30\times 0.01845}$ does not equal 27.77 is not "one sides original research". Everyone else has already agreed that is just plain incorrect. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:20, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

And do the links you added only say ${\textstyle 5\times 30\times 0.01845}$ does not equal 27.77 or do they have more text and research at them? Are you claiming the research wasn't done by one side of the debate? Are you claiming you are not using this research to implie the prices are broadly incorrect in the background text? Are you ever going to explain what prime numbers have to do with anything?AlmostFrancis (talk) 21:24, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

2,777 is the 404th prime number. If you multiply three numbers and end up with a prime, you should check your work. I cannot imagine why you would even bother trying to defend this error. Anyone with a calculator can discover that ${\textstyle 5\times 30\times 0.01845=27.675}$. That's what should have been in the article, not $27.77, assuming you're going to use that database record with that method.

I don't know which links you're talking about, but I can tell you that multiple people, on at least three different pages, over the space of two months, have been begging for examples of high-quality, well-sourced drug prices in our articles, and nobody has been able to find a single example in any article about a small-molecule generic drug that held up under even a moderate amount of scrutiny. I wrote originally that many (N.B.: "many", not "all" or "most") of the examples in a specific list were "outdated or otherwise incorrect". Doc James changed the statement later, but I'm still comfortable with what I wrote. Feel free to prove me wrong by showing that all (or almost all) of the examples in that specific list are both up to date and also entirely accurate. Even providing a single really solid example of the ideal way to source and describe this type of content would be helpful. Nobody else has been able to do it yet, but you seem to be really confident that it can be done.

BTW, when you're talking about "sides", you really ought to count me on the pro-inclusion side. I've been encouraging the inclusion of a wide variety of financial content in medical articles for many years. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:22, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Actually anyone with a calculator would know that ${\textstyle 5\times 30\times 0.01845=2.7675}$ not 27.675. Also if you could tell me how ${\textstyle 5\times 10\times .1=5}$ is wrong I would appreciate it. Or are you saying that 5 is not a prime number? AlmostFrancis (talk) 05:39, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: If you're still looking to line up some help closing, I'd be willing to be part of a panel if you need me. I haven't participated in the previous RfC and don't have plans to participate in the upcoming one. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:34, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Wugapodes, so far no one has raised their hand and I appreciate you doing so. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:49, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

A problem of logic: the ANI concluded that a) we needed an RFC on pricing, and b) we needed an admin to concur it was neutral before launch. In the course of looking for an example of an article with policy-compliant drug pricing (excluding NOTPRICE) that could be used in that RFC, separate problems were uncovered, such that no example was found, leading to this different RFC, to be followed by that RFC on pricing in general. We posted to the No Original Research noticeboard, and got not a single response about the concerns raised, hence we need to go to the community for feedback. We have a problem that has to be sorted by the community regardless of what we eventually do with that RFC on pricing. This RFC is not that RFC, and interpreting the ANI to read that we can not now or ever independently address a separate issue without meeting the "neutral admin" requirement is overly strict. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:36, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Conduct concerns around MOS:MED and WP:MED

In the last month I have witnessed sincere efforts by all involved to put the past aside and work together. Despite these efforts, what had been a fragile peace immediately following the ANI discussion has not held. Over the last 10 days or so there have been a steady number of behavioral concerns brought forward by a number of editors about any number of other editors. We're at a point where some sanctions are probably required and I have directed the two most recent people towards WP:Arbitration Enforcement. However, not all the misconduct is of the type that fits with the strengths of AE which is why an Arbitration Case has been mooted by multiple people. I write here in the hopes that can be avoided either through additional uninvolved sysops taking interest in the topic or through community discussion and consensus to resolve the conduct concerns. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:32, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• I wish for Wikipedia discussions to be friendly and objective. All sorts of editors, including newcomers, should feel welcome and invited at Wikipedia. There is a negative and antagonistic environment at WikiProject Medicine right now which I wish to reduce to eliminate. I want people to express themselves in a positive way and avoid expressing themselves in a negative way. There is no particular Wikipedia protocol for determining what is a good versus bad environment, but I wish we had one, and I wish that we could apply it. As a human I can identify words which are negative and hostile, and I can see when certain user accounts use those words more frequently, and it might be the case that some user accounts use hostile negative word choices very frequently in many conversations. I wish that such accounts could get guidance to be more objective and less emotional, because Wikipedia discussions ought to be on the basis of merit of the arguments and not on emotional rhetoric. I appreciate Barkeep49's mediation here, but the situation is growing. If we were all together in a physical workplace then the human resource department would bring in a social worker to provide emotional mediation at this point. We have no such equivalent in place in Wikipedia and I wish that we did. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:38, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Huh, I have almost the opposite view. There's been a certain amount of bickering. That should have been expected, since this is a family fight. But I've found good information and good views, and I'd say that on average, the more "emotional" the editor, the more useful feedback they gave me.
    Also, my advice for improving Wikipedia's culture wouldn't involve telling people that the best way to communicate with humans is to be objective and unemotional (wow, what a culture-specific notion) or to think about individual words. If you are afraid that that there may be some significant math-and-statistics-type errors in a few hundred high-traffic articles, then "being positive" doesn't sound appropriate. Sure, there's no need for profanity (and there has been basically none of that), but good Wikipedia editors should ring the alarm bells when they think that hundreds of articles might have serious errors. "Word choice" isn't where the tension comes from here. Recognizing that a respected, experienced Wikipedian really does fundamentally disagree with you about what Wikipedia ought to be is where the tension comes from. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:45, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree with WAID that the tension is probably healthy all things considered. Has the conflict that's resulted from that tension always been healthy? I think the answer to that is no. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:02, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Yep, WAID right again. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:12, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Indeed she is. As is so often the case, she is a breath of fresh air and sunshine around this place. Gandydancer (talk) 15:28, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Help us, uninvolved admin, you're our only hope!

Carrie Fisher would've been proud of that subsection heading. GoodDay (talk) 02:23, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Wanted: uninvolved administrators to assist with the MOS RfC discussed above in this thread. The lucky administrators who volunteer for this task will be rewarded in the following ways:

• Fame, fortune, and glory, beyond all human comprehension
• Your name whispered reverently for generations to come
• Temples built in your honor

Actually, you'll get none of these things. But, this is a content dispute that has the potential to affect many, many articles, and they're medical articles, which for obvious reasons are particularly important to get right for our readers, and it's a situation where the pressure resulting from the content dispute gridlock is generating conduct disputes between highly experienced veteran editors. One has already resigned (which everyone is hoping will be just a wikibreak). The foolish brave admin who closed the ANI thread that preceded this has been doing a stand-up job, but it's really unfair to put all this on one person's shoulders. Barkeep49's talk page is quite active, and in my opinion, they could use help from additional administrators, both for Barkeep's sake (so that they're not held singularly responsible for the outcome of this RfC, nor for "policing" it), and also for the sake of ensuring that the outcome is credible, broadly accepted, and not subject to future claims of an unfair process. This could really use a panel of admin if possible, but at least one more to help take some of the load off of Barkeep's shoulders. So if any admin could swing by Barkeep's talk page and ask how they can help, you'd be doing a huge service not just for your colleagues but also for our readers. Thanks in advance. – Levivich 05:13, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

We asked for help 11 days ago, and we've still had zero responses from admins. Levivich is correct that the budget doesn't run to temples built in your honor, but the following barnstar is offered to any admin who resists the bystander effect, spends five minutes reading Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles/RFC on pharmaceutical drug prices, and tells us whether it sounds neutral to you. That's all you need to do: click it, read it, and post here.

		The Barnstar of Diplomacy
		For responding when we needed an uninvolved admin to read an RFC before launching it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:44, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't know what we'll do if no admin chooses to look at this. ANI said to find an admin before starting the RFC, but we can't make you volunteer to do it. Maybe just invoke WP:IAR, on the grounds that we've made multiple requests for review, and no admin has (yet) told us that it's not neutral? I'd really rather have someone look at it, though. Please be that person. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:44, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, we could launch an RfC: "Is this RfC question neutral?" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ – Levivich 02:20, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, My watchlist notice is showing that we have three admin candidates going through RfA right now with >90% support. How about asking each of them to be the panel? One almost-admin should be good enough to meet the spirit of the requirement; two or three would be even better. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:26, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Clayoquot, we need two things:

1. Any single admin to spend five minutes reading the question and deciding whether it's a "neutral" question (i.e., not an obviously biased question; RFC standards for neutrality are lower than NPOV standards for Featured Articles). Biased questions are fairly rare in RFCs, but a couple of times a year, someone who is worried that his side is "losing" makes a big stink about the question. It usually amounts to "It must be biased, because otherwise everyone would agree with me!" I don't think that's a likely response from any of the experienced editors in this case, but I can respect the request as a gesture to ward off drama.
2. Some poor sucker(s) to read everything sometime during February, and to write a closing summary. This is a much bigger request. It is also not a request that I'm making, and unless the result is very simple and obvious, I'm not sure that I'd want to inflict on a new admin. I don't want them to quit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:31, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

• As an uninvolved admin that has read the discussion in this section, both RfC proposals and skimmed the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Medicine-related_articles#Ready,_steady,_go, I think that some minor revisions to RfC 1 should make it unimpeachably neutral. I think that the "In the real world" and "What we've got on wiki" sections should be removed, and can be raised as actual arguments in the discussion. I don't think that the question statement at the beginning has any neutrality issues. I think that the listed examples of drug pricing are both useful and neutrally presented, but I could see how editors could object to potential cherrypicking of examples. Thus, I think that if editors object to the current selection of examples, we could use a random number generator to choose three new example drugs. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 02:35, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Rosguill thanks for looking. I think that before any fact-based sections are removed, we need to consider if there is content in them that is contentious, biased or leading in a way that isn't neutral. I think the fact have had had a dispute over drug prices since October (and documented issues of prices being removed and restored for may years) that "Editors have raised concerns about prices being outdated or having other problems" is undeniably a fact, and why we are here. It would be wrong to suggest this RFC sprang out of nowhere or suppress that faults with prices have been found, or hide that nearly all prices are now five years old. I think the link to User:Colin/ExistingPrices hugely important (I have offered to move it to another namespace). It quickly helps editors see 530 drug prices in article text, without having to try to lookup some random drug and find the relevant text. It also helps avoid accusations of cherry picking examples, because editors are welcome to pick from others for discussion. A good reason for moving those sections into "argument in the discussion" might be that the text was biased or rationally disputed. A bad reason would be simply that one editor wants facts removed, because they don't help their case. We have at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#Polishing the draft a request for editors involved to argue for adding or removing text from the draft and those who have in the past raised an issue have not responded. Perhaps someone could ping Doc James to request his involvement in arguing for final changes to the draft.

Wrt any objection over the examples chosen, I'm not aware any objection has been made, and they were carefully chosen to represent different issues that editors may want to discuss. I think randomly picking ones would be a bad idea and less likely to lead to three useful examples. For example, diazepam has many indications and doses and formulations from tablets to injections, whereas ethosuximide has one indication and usually taken by tablet. The unit of each three examples are different (per day, per month, per dose). One example gives a price range and the others do not (and they do not for different reasons). -- Colin°^Talk 09:16, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Colin, I don't dispute that it is a fact that editors have raised concerns with the drug prices, but I think it could be considered a leading question to highlight that for readers in the opening prompt. In my experience, RfCs rarely open with a nuanced background of the conflict, but rather cut straight to the chase (e.g. "Do you prefer A or B in section Q", "Should the following paragraph X be added to the lead"). As for User:Colin/ExistingPrices I agree that it is a very useful resource, but am concerned that due to your involvement in the debate, editors who disagree with your position in general may cry foul if the page is given what is essentially an endorsement from the RfC framing (as at least one already has). Finally, regarding the examples, if no one has objected then we don't need to do a random draw, I just wanted to leave that option out there in case I missed something from a relevant side-discussion.

As a side note regarding a comment made by WAID above, I'm not sure that RfC neutrality standards are comparable to NPOV in articles (featured or otherwise). An article needs to report the consensus of reliable sources with attention to due weight, whereas I think it's reasonable to expect an RfC to stake out a totally neutral ground between the disputing positions, regardless of the level of support a priori. Moreover, the prime concern in RfC framing is to avoid leading questions, which aren't really a thing that exists in an article. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:14, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

@Rosguill: thanks for pitching in (and congrats on the tools). On the idea of needing other samples, some background might help. I have been asking for examples for six weeks, and none where drug price text appears to comply with policies other than NOT (meaning V, NOR, WEIGHT) have surfaced. Discussions are long, but you can see here and here (where one sample is off by at least a factor of two, and the next random sample thrown out was off by a factor of 100). So, I suggest we have good enough samples, and after six weeks, nothing else is likely to surface.

Another factor to be aware of is that about a dozen editors worked for a month through the holidays to put together an RFC, with a couple more editors appearing only in January.

I'd like to suggest, though, another area where Barkeep49 deserves more help. He has been the only admin trying to corral this mess, and has taken unnecessary heat and criticism, even after being a very fair moderator. He has had to ask several editors to walk back some comments here and there, and almost everyone has complied, yet having taken no extreme admin actions, he is nonetheless criticized unfairly, IMO. It would be most helpful if you, and other admins, would follow the discussions closely to pitch in as needed. I specifically suggest looking at this very moderate suggestion in relation to what is going on here, and whether there is any "poisoning of the well" occurring. Also, this section. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:46, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

@Rosguill: thanks for your reply. I think the only objection possible to User:Colin/ExistingPrices is that it is in my userspace and hence I have some privilege over editing rights, and I'm happy to move it if that helps. One editor objected to it on the grounds that I created it, which imo is the very definition of a personal attack (contributor vs content). The actual content was not created by me and is simply an automated extraction of article text written, mostly by one other editor. I really do protect most strongly to censorship of existing drug prices on such objectional grounds. Let's agree whether the content of that page is a fair extraction of 500+ drug prices on articles, and leave aside who's name is on the history contrib list. Appeasing those who make personal attacks is not neutrality. I don't think we should place weight on attacks on the RFC have no content-based or rational justification.

Wrt whether the RFC should up-front note that some editors have raised concerns, there are pros and cons to both inclusion and suppression of this incontestable fact. To "cut to the chase" as it were, and hide the fact that there are problems with the text and sources, is biased towards mainly considering whether Wikipedia should (ideally) include drug prices, rather than whether Wikipedia can (practically) include drug prices. We've compromised an awful lot. Anyway, that's my 2p and it's WAID's RFC so I'm leaving it to them to agree to cuts or not. I think the current very very tame note that "some editors have raised concerns" is extremely watered down from what could be said. Like "Wikipedia's drug prices are essentially random numbers and the original research that invented them would make any high school statistics teacher faint with mortification". -- Colin°^Talk 22:20, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion of the formulation of the RfC is per ANI consensus really best done at WT:MEDMOS and so I will be posting my reply there. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:58, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

• Not an admin. Gave my two cents. Hope it helps. Buffs (talk) 04:11, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

• Um, Buffs, you entered a statement on an RFC that has not been launched. Perhaps you can remove it, and wait for the RFC to open? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:34, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Ok...Here's what I wrote. Feel free to put it where it needs to go:

Well, you asked for an opinion, so here it goes...

The problem I see with this is WP:NOTPRICES. Neutral view or not, it cannot override policy.

"An article should not include product pricing or availability information unless there is an independent source and a justified reason for the mention. Encyclopedic significance may be indicated if mainstream media sources (not just product reviews) provide commentary on these details instead of just passing mention. Prices and product availability can vary widely from place to place and over time. Wikipedia is not a price comparison service to compare the prices of competing products, or the prices and availability of a single product from different vendors or retailers."

Accordingly, I don't see a reason to override policy here. If we're going to include prices (which is an inherently political issue when it comes to medicine), it's just plain too unclear to be accurate. I can't see a single instance where such a quote wouldn't have to have an in-depth explanation. The only instance I can see its inclusion would be where the price was in the news for some reason (very high or very low). Moreover, per policy, it doesn't belong here. Without addressing this issue at Wikipedia Talk:What Wikipedia is not, neutrally phrased or not, such a change to this guideline cannot override a policy. Anyway, you asked for an opinion.

(adding here) Moreover, the breadth of this RFC is immense and I don't think you'll be able to clearly establish a consensus based on discussion anyway. This level of bureaucracy is what's driving away editors. People want to add prices to articles on medicine. Fine. After LOTS of discussion, an admin simply needs to say yes or no and end this. An RfC for 2-3 more months is insane levels of bureaucracy. Buffs (talk) 18:20, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

The normal course of action (a post to the NOR noticeboard) received zero feedback. Admins are not empowered to determine content disputes any more than regular editors, so the only course left is an RFC on the text--> source integrity concerns. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:55, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Administrators have no special powers over content decisions. Consensus is at the heart of our project. I'm not willing to dispute your overall assessment of our bureaucracy though I've been puzzled how we pare it back down given that each additional piece of bureucracy had some reason for which it had broad community support before it was enacted. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:29, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Ok, my emergency so far is over, I can start looking at the ongoing RfC starting from Friday evening. Judging from the activity here, I will likely be the only closer.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:57, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

The RfC has been launched. --Ronz (talk) 23:57, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Standard Offer unblock request for User:Magherbin

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

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Magherbin was blocked in April 2019 as a checkuser block as a result of this SPI report. They have made several unblock requests at their talk page, which has been largely ignored. At their request via the IRC unblock channel, I am copying their request here. They have admitted on their talk page to operating the following accounts:

• Magherbin (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Betamhara (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Kikolio (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• Lokiszm7 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

Do not let the size of that SPI archive fool you. This user was only checkuser-confirmed to the list of accounts above, and was found to be  Unlikely to the rest of that SPI archive. In fact, there appear to be at least six separate sockmasters who had SPI cases filed under that name. Again, there is no technical reason to believe that this user is Middayexpress. I have done a CheckUser just now, and there is no evidence of recent sockpuppetry either. I asked them to explain why they created sockpupped before, and why we can now trust them not to do so again, here is their response:

My intention was to improve the encyclopedia by garnering opinions from the wider community ex; using RFC's, third opinion etc; see [1], [2]. Many of the articles related to the Horn of Africa either have misleading information or sometimes just made up facts hence I felt that I needed to correct them without harassment from editors by opening another account. After a dispute was resolved with an editor, [3] he/she immediately requested checkuser against me and I believe i'm probably the only user that is actively attempting to improve articles in this field hence why the user suspected I was abusing multiple accounts. I have realized that my block was due to abusing multiple accounts therefore I will keep all Wikipedia edits under this account moving forward to avoid any sock incidents, since the incident I caused would have been avoided altogether if I had kept one account. The reviewers must understand that I have no reason to use multiple accounts ever again. I am not here to vandalize any pages on the encyclopedia except to sincerely improve the articles, the contributions I have made so far is proof of that. I will give permission to have my account reviewed by admins regulalry to show my commitment.
— User:Magherbin

There are some earlier unblock requests on their talk page as well, which may have some more information. Since it has been more than six months since their block, should they be unblocked under the Standard Offer? For what it's worth, I would support an unblock, as they do not seem to have been continuing to sock, they seem to have reasonable intentions to improve the wiki if they are unblocked, and as per WP:ROPE. Pinging @Bbb23:, as the original blocking CU. ST47 (talk) 01:47, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support unblock under WP:SO. It's good that they have plans for areas where they want to contribute. Schazjmd (talk) 01:56, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support unblock based off ST47's words and WP:ROPE. Though I'm not sure we'd want to create a parole system where users requesting unblocks had to allow unlimited CUs on their account, so best to turn that offer by the applicant down, I think, even if it were permitted. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:56, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support unblock with an indefinite one-account restriction. --qedk (t 桜 c) 09:34, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support unblock per the others. Foxnpichu (talk) 16:42, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
• Strongly support unblock. Hopefully, common sense will prevail, and the community will realise that there is no reason for the user to engage in sockpuppetry moving forward. As they had explained, they only made use of sockpuppetry to avoid being targeted based on username alone. Of course, if they do that again, or if there is any suspicion, they'll simply be reported and blocked indefinitely. I doubt anyone would willingly want to get indef-blocked after months of dedication to upholding this very block. They're not a sock spammer, and they are not an agenda pusher. As per Wikipedia:NOPUNISH, users may be blocked or unblocked only for the benefit of the community and not to simply punish the user for past deeds. In this case, there is little benefit gained by keeping the user blocked. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 18:08, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

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

AfD discussions that are fully protected from the get-go

Last month, there was an AfD on the Kyle Kulinski page.[4] The AfD saw insane amounts of canvassed votes, as the subject of the article and some fringe-left forums directed people to the AfD discussion. The closer concluded that there was "no consensus" and suggested that we might re-do the AfD and have it protected from the get-go to avoid interference from outside actors. Would it be possible for an admin to start such an AfD or to immediately protect it after I myself start one? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:31, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Concur with a new AfD being fully protected. GoodDay (talk) 22:45, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

You want an AFD only admins can participate in? Nil Einne (talk) 00:29, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Protected from IPs. GoodDay (talk) 00:33, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

That's semi protection not full protection. (Well close to it. There's no such thing as only protecting from IPs.) It may be helpful to check out Wikipedia:Protection policy#Types of protection especially if you are going to comment at AN. Nil Einne (talk) 00:37, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Oops, that's correct. Concerning registered editors, how do we determine who's been canvassed off Wikipedia? GoodDay (talk) 00:45, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Maybe I'm not using the correct language here: the amount of protection needed to prevent IP numbers and very recent accounts with few edits from participating?. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 00:33, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Your comment is fine as you didn't ask for full protection. It was not possible to clearly indicate I was replying to GoodDay since they failed to follow normal WP:Indenting rules. Nil Einne (talk) 00:37, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Please let me know when this happens. KidAd (talk) 02:21, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Apologies for being grumpy above, it mostly came about because I made a significant mistake myself. I conflated Kyle Kulinski with the similarly named Kyle Kashuv. Given what I've read before, I felt an AfD on Kashuv would either be keep or at most no consensus. Therefore it seemed a waste of time to open yet another AfD. Still if the previous one was tainted by canvassing and an editor genuinely felt there was chance of reaching a consensus to delete, I also couldn't object to the suggestion. I see now my error and can understand the desire to open another AfD. Nil Einne (talk) 07:28, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Having reviewed the situation, I agree that a fresh AfD is appropriate and it should be semi-protected from the beginning, because of the history of canvassing. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 21:58, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Getting older, waiting for AFD-in-question to be opened. GoodDay (talk) 16:24, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I have started a new AfD.[5] Can an admin please semi-protect it? Or protect it in whatever way is necessary to make sure that IP numbers and new accounts can't participate. Pinging Cullen328 and Nil Einne. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 02:05, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

ECP in place. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:24, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Twinkle and speedies

Looking at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/RHaworth, it seems to me that perhaps we should ask the Twinkle devs to change the default for TW/CSD to "tag only" unless there's an existing CSD template. We should probably not summarily delete by default - there's no reason not to invite a second admin to review before an article is nuked, especially since we could simply uncheck the delete box for egregious cases such as attack pages. Guy (help!) 01:28, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

We just had a discussion about this topic at WT:CSD, for which there was no consensus for such a thing (if not consensus against the idea). --Izno (talk) 02:58, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Izno, consensus there is that an admin is allowed to delete without tagging. That doesn't answer the question: is it a good idea, and certainly not the question: should it be the default. Best practice should be that no article is nuked without two sets of eyes, unless it's blindingly obvious, abuse cleanup or whatever. Guy (help!) 11:18, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Changing the Twinkle default on this is an excellent idea. While tagging should not be required (as I also said at WT:CSD), our standard tool should encourage it. —Kusma (t·c) 22:19, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Sometimes an admin does need to delete immediately, but for most of what almost all admins do, two people should deal with a deletion. So this change is a very good idea.-- DGG ( talk ) 01:27, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I often tag untagged CSD candidates rather than deleting myself. (depends) This is not a bad idea.-- Deepfriedokra 01:45, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Agree. It's not like an extra click to insta-delete is that much of a hardship. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 02:54, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I am a firm believer in the 4 eyes principle in most cases, but as both DDG and Guy have noted, there can be exceptions, notably attack pages which should be removed as quickly as possible. I actually adopt a standard a little stronger than "blindingly obvious". I do a lot of copyright work, and I think I could argue that a brand-new article which is a 100% match to the "about us" section of a corporation's page constitutes blindingly obvious, but I still tag that, rather than delete that. (If somebody else has already tagged it, I will delete.) I think it's worth that to have another admin take a look. However, attack pages ought to be removed as soon as possible, and I vaguely recall I deleted something that was millions of bytes on the assumption that it would clog up the works to have it sitting around very long. The problem with removing the delete button may make it difficult to deal with those exceptions. I'll offer an alternative — if the article doesn't already have a CSD template, clicking on delete pops up a message saying something like "it is generally considered a best practice to allow two admins to take a look at an article before deleting. Does this constitute an acceptable exception?". I trust admins to make that assessment, and the purpose of the pop-up is to make sure someone working quickly doesn't accidentally delete something when they intended to tag it.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:32, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

No one (that I've seen) is suggesting we remove the ability for a sysop to delete in Twinkle. Only that the default behavior would be for tag when a sysop goes into Twinkle (except if there is an existing tag). Which I would definitely support. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:53, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Oldstone James creationism topic ban appeal

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

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Appeal by user

As simple as that, I should not really have been banned in the first place. This is a comment I posted to the closing administrator in reaction to getting my topic ban 9 months ago:

1. I hadn't even been warned that I might be topic-banned, and so I wasn't even given a chance to prove that a ban might not be necessary. Once the topic ban proposal was posted on ANI, I immediately made it clear that I had changed my behaviour (see 3.) and won't be disruptive from then on.
2. The topic ban was proposed straight after my block had expired, and I had barely done any editing in the meantime. I had not violated any policy which warrants a block, such as WP:3RR, and the only edit-warring (2 non-BRD reverts) that did take place was a result of my misunderstanding of what a self-revert is: I had immediately admitted that I was wrong. Furthermore, while of course not a justification, these only reverted an edit that had absolutely no consensus at the time. Other than that, I showed signs that I had learnt from my block and had taken on advice given to me by other users (such as taking to the talk page before reinstating my edit and not assuming consensus even if I believe it is there ([6] – note how this is a reversion to WP:STATUSQUO and not to my preferred version).
3. I had demonstrated on numerous occasions that I was willing to listen to what others editors had to say, and I also demonstrated my desire to become a better editor. I accepted almost every advice that I was given since the ANI post. Here are some examples:

• "The advice here to you is, in essence, to disengage" by user:Guettarda on WP:ANI, referring to the edits I made on Answers in Genesis. Since that comment, the only two edits I made on the page were adding a comma and a hyphen. I have also now gotten myself voluntarily blocked in order to disengage from edits on all pages.
• [7] Related, this advice by user:jps is to "take a breather from Wikipedia". This was the main reason for my self-requested block: I realised I was spending too much time on Wikipedia, while I had lots of real-life work to do.
• "...my point is about general approach, that making a clear statement on what you are willing to commit to is more effective than debating what you have said previously or how earlier comments should have been taken" by user:EdChem on my Talk Page, referring in part to this comment by Guy Macon. My reply was "I will try this approach as well" to EdChem, and my reply to Guy Macon included "I will not claim consensus ever again", but I have also adopted this approach in other comments.
• "ANI sees the Tu quoque fallacy a lot -- most recently by Oldstone James -- and will not allow anyone else's behavior to excuse bad behavior" and "And anyway, Yeah, but they're just as bad! is just about as weak an argument you can make... so don't make it" by Guy Macon and jps, respectively on WP:ANI. My reply to the latter's comment included "I've already stomached the fact that tu quoque isn't going to help my case" and "That's just my position - not an argument. Never said stating this position is a good idea" (admitting my tu-quoque-based position was never a good idea). I hadn't resorted to tu quoque since.

I can provide numerous other examples (feel free to demand them from me) of me taking on the advice of others and acting on said advice, admitting my mistakes, and showing my intention to become a better editor, but I think that would render this already long comment Tl;DR. My argument here is not even that I wasn't even given a chance to redeem myself – it's that I wasn't given a chance to redeem myself, then dug that chance out for myself, and did my best to take it, and yet all my efforts were still ignored. Note how even if I was simply promising that I would stop without any evidence to back that up, the best approach would sometimes be to give me the benefit of the doubt as per WP:ROPE – let alone when there is also a fair amount of evidence for that promise being genuine. Please recall that bans and blocks "serve to protect the project from harm and reduce likely future problems" – NOT to punish users (WP:NOPUNISH).

1. (4.) Why topic-ban me? Every single one of the edits brought up at ANI was in relation to my edits on one single page, and these edits did not display any obvious POV relating to creationism. Wouldn't a WP:PBAN hence be more appropriate? Why creationism? This decision seems very arbitrary to me.

So most of my evidence that I had changed as an editor is just a continuation of the evidence that I provided 9 months ago.

For example, I haven't engaged in a single act of edit-warring since the topic ban (i.e. violated the BRD cycle, for example). One example of where I chose to give up my editing in an area where I was confident that I was correct because of a lack of consensus is the article scientific racism. Here is the discussion of my proposed edits, where it can be seen that I remained firm in my position. Nevertheless, after a few proposed compromises (1 and 2), I gave up and moved on to other topics. It's important to note also, before anyone else points out, that in this instance I was NOT arguing in favour of scientific racism (as the ungrounded belief that genetics are responsible for the difference in IQ across different ethnic groups would constitute), which is indeed WP:FRINGE; instead, I was arguing in favour of content that already exists and is well-sourced on other Wikipedia articles (for example, Race and intelligence), so WP:FRINGE shouldn't be relevant to the discussion, especially given that I am an opponent of the very topic that I was topic-banned on (creationism).

Also, despite the ban, I remained relatively active on Wikipedia and managed to edit successfully on other articles. Some examples are this edit and [8], which prove my dedication to improving Wikipedia as a whole and not just fixating on one topic (surprising that I even need to prove this, given the edits that led to my topic ban were some of the first creationism-related topics that I had ever made). Other edits can be seen through my contributions page; note that I did violate the topic ban regulation on a few occasions, but after I was reminded of that by jps, I thanked him and immediately stopped editing in inappropriate areas.

Hopefully, the community can evaluate my behaviour and eventually get the topic ban lifted. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 14:22, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

!Voting

• Oppose. -Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 15:34, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

This is genius. Concise and to the point. I love this. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 16:09, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

• Weak Support - Thank you for providing the links, JBL. Having looked into this, I feel that both sides have good points. However, I think James deserves a second chance, and has potential to provide a lot of effective contributions. Foxnpichu (talk) 17:44, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per I should not really have been banned in the first place, which suggests that nothing has been learned and the issues that led to the topic ban have not been accepted, let alone addressed. Guy (help!) 17:27, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support. See my reasoning in the "comments and questions" section below. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:02, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
• Neutral. Part of me wants to give him some WP:ROPE, but another part of me is concerned with the aggressive tone of his responses here. If this is how he acts at ANI, where he is supposedly on his best behavior and trying to convince everybody that the problems that led up to the topic ban will not recur, how will he act when he runs into another aggressive editor (there are plenty on both sides) on a creationism-related talk page? --Guy Macon (talk) 00:58, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• Actually, I'm on my "worst" behaviour here, because that's where I hear the highest number of stupid arguments and baseless accusations. And behaving "aggressively" on talk pages without making personal attacks doesn't seem to be a problem - ask Roxy (I'm not being sarcastic here - I genuinely don't think that's a problem if it turns out a net positive for Wikipedia as a project, which it counterintuitively is in at least Roxy's case). Additionally, you should know how I would react from the example I gave, which is that I would make my point and move on if it doesn't gain consensus. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 01:16, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• What you call "baseless accusations" aren't baseless at all. Stop and think. How many people have told you that your behavior is unacceptable so far? There once was a drunk driver who was driving the wrong way on the freeway. Upon hearing on the radio (over the honking horns) that there was a drunk driver who was driving the wrong way on the freeway, he peered through his windshield, noticed all of the headlights heading toward him, and exclaimed "My God! There are DOZENS of them!!" --Guy Macon (talk) 05:49, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• Well, by "baseless accusations" I meant remarks akin to "I can't let you edit on creationism-related articles yet because creationism is prone to a facile misreading". I might have interpreted that wrongly, but I think the implication is that I am not intelligent enough to understand the context of what is being said. I love your anecdote about the drunk driver (I think I'll save that one for future use), but remarks such as the one above have only been made my one editor. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 15:02, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose because nothing has genuinely been learned here, and there are some disturbing claims being made even in the course of making this appeal. Grandpallama (talk) 19:50, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support for reasons described in the proposal, and because 'oppose' !votes are once again vague and unsubstantiated. Even if WP:AGF is not followed, and it is assumed that I wasn't genuine in any of the examples that I've provided, it is still clear that I wasn't problematic since the ban, so topic ban shouldn't be a solution as per WP:NOPUNISH. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 20:18, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose, propose site ban People on here really don't seem to like my "AgGreSsIoN", but none of them seem to have any problems with my editing on creationism-related topics in particular (actually, any editing at all, but that doesn't really matter, because my politeness on AN/I is infinitely more important than my contribution to Wikipedia). Perhaps a site ban would be more appropriate? Perhaps this will protect Wikipedia from this deadly monster that is myself? This should surely put an end to all hostility that there is on Wikipedia, because no other editors are ever defensive over personal attacks on them. That is, all unsanctioned editors, because editors whose editing pattern involves edit-warring blended together with hostility, regardless of their contribution to Wikipedia, always get topic-banned or indef-blocked, as is perfectly demonstrated by the example of Roxy the dog. To conclude, I don't see why my ban should be restricted to creationism. With all above considered, I should be site-banned asap. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 03:08, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose In this very conversation, this editor continues to display the same tendentious and argumentative behavior that led to the topic ban. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 21:36, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose – Protip: when appealing sanctions, do not troll oppose !voters. – Levivich 02:15, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip, marriage specialist ;) (Get it? Because Tolstoy's marriage was horrible? And your name starts with Lev? Okay, this was pretty bad. I tried.) ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 03:16, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - As others have noted, the editor doesn't seem to get why they were topic-banned and that their behavior has to change. Intractible polemics in this thread make this an easy call. Jusdafax (talk) 04:28, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. The behavior here alone justifies why the topic ban should stay. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:44, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
• Not !Voting, but I doubt this appeal will succeed. I have posted some advice for OJ on a future appeal, which I hope he will consider. I can see the logic in his position that he changed before the ban was imposed so that it wasn't necessary, but believe that pointing to recent actions proving it isn't needed now is more persuasive an approach. In the present appeal, his discussion with jps below is much more concerning that the unwise structure of the appeal. Jps was trying to help and raising a legitimate point and the defensive response does not portray an ability to work cooperatively and productively in a contentious topic area. The site ban proposal above raises questions of maturity and judgement. OJ, please, consider withdrawing this appeal and also please act on Mandruss' point below about your signature and the accessibility issue. EdChem (talk) 05:47, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose the appeal amounts to saying that the topic ban should never have been imposed in the first place and rehashing arguments made against the topic ban when it was imposed. This does not come across well. In order to have the ban lifted the OP needs to convince people that (a) s/he understands why the ban was imposed in the first place, and (b) that it won't happen again. Dealing with disruptive editors is a massive negative for people who are not disruptive, and those are the people we want to stick around here. This is particularly true with articles on fringe theories. Hut 8.5 13:42, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• Wow, someone who actually bothered to evaluate the situation! I cannot believe my eyes. Well, I think this alone warrants a reply. I understand why the topic ban was proposed, even though I disagree that it should have been imposed. The topic ban was proposed because of 1) my failure to understand what a self-revert is and 2) my recent history of blocks, tendentiousness, and edit-warring. However, I understood these issues soon after the topic ban was proposed and have managed to act upon the issues while the discussion was still ongoing. I was not, however, given the benefit of the doubt, even if evidence was on my side, and was subsequently topic-banned. Needless to say, large amounts of evidence that my disruptive behaviour would not repeat existed even before the topic ban was formally imposed. These included me taking on the advice of others and systematically stopping at 1RR. However, evidence became even more extensive after the topic ban, whereby I had not engaged in a single act of edit-warring for 9 months. I gave examples where I moved on immediately after my ideas did not gain consensus, even if I was still convinced that my ideas were right. I understand that this comment won't actually change anything, as the opposing consensus here is overwhelming, but I just thought your !vote warranted a reply. Using the opportunity, do you think it will be appropriate to appeal again after this appeal is denied, except I will do it properly this time? ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 15:19, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Comments and questions

Question: When was your topic ban implemented? Foxnpichu (talk) 16:38, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

It looks to me like the relevant discussions are here and here. --JBL (talk) 16:46, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! Foxnpichu (talk) 17:35, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Correct. Thanks for supplying this information. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 17:37, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Question:

1. Why do you want to edit creationism-related pages?
2. I get that you are convinced you were railroaded in the sanction processes. You aren't the first and will not be the last person to feel so victimized (I myself have felt this way and sympathize with the feeling). On the other hand, using this as a basis for an appeal essentially never works. Can you identify the aspects of your own behaviors that led to the topic ban, and can you show any progress you have made on wiki in changing those behaviors or can you explain how you will conduct yourself differently to avoid this kind of problem in the future?

jps (talk) 17:03, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment, but it is my opinion that I have already described in the original post both the behaviourial patterns which I believe led to my block and the improvements that have since taken place. For the most part, I believe it was 1) me not being careful enough with the policies, like 3RR, and 2) me not being careful enough while the idea of a topic ban was being discussed. Another important lesson that I learnt from the topic ban is "when in doubt, just refrain". For example, most of the arguments for a topic ban (and the original proposal) were made as a result of two of my edits which I believed to be self-reverts; however, they weren't, and I had to pay the price for that. Therefore, since the topic ban was implemented, I didn't engage in any activity that wasn't unanimously uncontroversial, an example of which I provided in the op. Additionally, I provided numerous examples of me taking on advice from other editors (which I still follow to this day), which clearly shows the progress that I have made since the topic ban proposal.

As to why I want to edit creationism-related pages, there is not really a big reason why I want to edit creationism-related pages specifically, but it's just that I tend to edit articles across all subjects, and sometimes articles on the topic of creationism or religion randomly pop up within my editing sphere. For example, I recently experienced a spike of interest in Jewish tradition, culture, and history, given that I myself am Jewish (only ethnically and perhaps culturally; religion-wise, I'm an atheist). Naturally, my research involved reading Wikipedia articles, some of which contained grammatical or factual mistakes, for example. I always strive to make Wikipedia as good and accurate as it can possibly, and the thought that other people might visit an article and get incorrect information out of it really worries me, as when they realise that it's incorrect, they are likely to then distrust Wikipedia completely, which is a huge loss (I actually describe this concern on my user page). Therefore, I really want to be able to edit all articles, without silly restrictions that are of no benefit to really anyone in particular - neither Wikipedia, nor Wikipedia readers, nor me (okay, maybe Roxy may benefit). As I have already demonstrated, I have generated minimal trouble since my ban, so I don't see what the harm will be in lifting my ban on creationism. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 17:37, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Your motivations for wanting to edit creationism are the same as editing Wikipedia, which seems reasonable to me, but I worry that you may be a bit too attached to your own predilections for what constitutes "incorrect information". For example, one of the things you insisted upon was the idea that a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis was an encyclopedic perspective. You are also insisting that a description very similar to that of a race realist position on intelligence tests and race is one that is mainstream. These sorts of positions smack a bit more of WP:ADVOCACY as opposed to the ideal which is following WP:RS even when you disagree with the sources (as you seem to in the two instances I outline). Your rejoinder seems to be that you are willing to accept a consensus that is opposed to your understanding of what is correct and, even, your interpretation of WP:PAG. My concern is that this kind of attitude can lend itself to a kind of tiresome tendentiousness even when it doesn't result in edit warring. This is especially concerning to me since you describe your own attitude toward editing as being intense and peripatetic. One thing I didn't like about our encounter was what a time sink it was. I think the direction of "when in doubt, just refrain" is a good one to point towards, but I think there is even more WP:DROPTHESTICK you can do in this regard. I speak from experience here as someone who sometimes has a hard time doing this (we, none of us, are perfect!), but I would like to see a little more introspection in this regard before I would be comfortable seeing you very active on creationism pages. I guess the question is, will we regret giving you WP:ROPE? Will we end up back at WP:ANI, WP:AE, or worse in short order? jps (talk) 18:10, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, "incorrect information" to me is something that is refuted by WP:RS. You see, you have your own opinions; I have mine. You may think that the statement that race and intelligence are connected constitutes scientific racism; I believe that it is the WP:RS consensus, a consensus which is in fact thoroughly described in another Wikipedia article, and is supported by at least 7 independent reliable sources which I had previously linked. You may believe that the Bible was written entirely metaphorically; I believe that at least of its contents were based on ancient Babylonian science (again a statement supported by numerous reliable sources) and were indeed intended to be taken literally, although of course within a larger metaphorical, story-telling context. None of these opinions by themselves make either me or you a problematic editor. Or, if they do, you have just as much of a potential for tendentiousness as me, or any other editor for that matter, as we all have our opinions and interpretations of reliable sources, all of which differ. Except my "tendentiousness" will probably harm Wikipedia less than other editors, because I already made it the basis of my approach not to edit-war. And I certainly think that this approach is more efficient than just "dropping the stick" and refraining from even discussion; in the vast majority of cases where I actually had the time to make the arguments, I eventually had my way (my contributions to the AiG page included). Once again, you are absolutely free to !vote in whichever way you find the most appropriate, but, if I were to weigh in, I'd say that simply having different opinions or approaches to editing by itself isn't a strong enough justification to !vote negatively. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 18:33, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

So, here is the problem. I think in your defensiveness you have completely missed my critique of your approaches which is not whether you believe (a) or (b) but whether you can evaluate what the WP:MAINSTREAM academic position is about (a) or (b). My concern is that you cannot write for the enemy when you become convinced something is true, and this is reflected in your mischaracterization of my argument. The larger problem for me is that in a topic as controversial as creationism, there are some things which are surprisingly not apparent to a facile reading. Even using a term like "ancient Babylonian science" needs to be couched since the sources do not indicate there is such a thing as "ancient Babylonian science". This is a problem of rhetoric and, as such, sometimes does not matter on the article page itself. But if it does come down to it, I think that you are too tied to having your way in these regards and do not see that your scholarship itself is suspect. There are people at Wikipedia who hold to peculiar positions similar to yours, but they are okay with the fact that Wikipedia is skewed against their approach. I'm not getting the impression that this is you from our current conversation. jps (talk) 18:54, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

As I said, you are free to believe whatever you want to believe. If you want to believe that all views which oppose yours are by default necessarily not WP:MAINSTREAM, you are free to do that. If you want to believe that I'm someone who holds WP:FRINGE opinions because I'm too narrow-minded or too firm in my opinion that I'm not open to other options, and too dumb to evaluate these issues in a manner that is not "facile", you're free to believe that, too. However, bear in mind that the very topic ban that we are discussing is one that I earned by writing for the enemy, regarding a topic that I have probably the firmest opinion on out of all topics (I am a strongly convinced atheist). Bear in mind also that I have provided several examples in op where I admitted to being wrong even in cases where it might have seemed that I was being firm and inflexible. In truth, I will tell you that I know my weaknesses very well (anyone who knows me irl will confirm this), and being too inflexible is far, far from being one of my weaknesses. Defensiveness? Perhaps, but only if I'm being defensive over something that I have good evidence of being right about, as in this case. And I will also tell you that barely hold any "peculiar positions" whatsoever. If you're hinting at my position on race and intelligence, that's an opinion that I had formed soon after reading the sources provided in the article; I did not have a position on the topic prior. And I am more than willing to change my opinion if someone can provide any reliable sources whatsoever that definitively rule out any correlation between intelligence and various ethnic groups; in this case, though, almost all articles on intelligence will have to be completely rewritten. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 19:20, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Again, you have failed to understand my point and instead are seeing an attack on your person where instead I am trying to offer a critique of your approach. Defensiveness is exactly the problem, and as it seems to be your go-to in discussions like this and ones that are bound to occur in the talkpages of creationism, I really wish you would try to address this. I was not "hinting" at any position you have taken. I am simply saying that your scholarship is peculiar, but that is not a problem at Wikipedia unless the person who does that cannot take this kind of critique. It is not a problem for you to disagree with such an assessment, but if you cannot try to understand why someone might see this in your approach and if you cannot formulate a response that is not knee-jerk, I don't see this going well. jps (talk) 21:23, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Unless I'm totally in the blue as to what you're saying, I think I understood your point the first time. As per your previous comment, it seems like your point was that I couldn't evaluate what is mainstream and what is not; to which I replied "we all have our opinions as to what constitutes as mainstream; my valuation, in this instance, differs from yours, but, in my opinion, that isn't reason enough for you to !vote 'oppose', although you are free to !vote whichever way you please". You have also criticised my scholarship as peculiar, by which I think you mean not mainstream. However, this links directly to the point that I just made. Of course I understand why you would think that - because not all people have the same opinions, as I have explained - but, in my opinion, this by itself does not necessarily render my scholarship peculiar. For my scholarship to really be "peculiar" - or, in more rigorous terms, fringe - it needs to lack evidence from reliable sources, which it doesn't almost by definition, as my opinion on almost all topics defaults to the opinion which is best supported by available evidence. Once again, my valuation of "what is supported by available evidence" may not always be correct, but my approach - "scholarship" is pretty standard and mainstream.

And, as to defensiveness, consider this: not only have I already conceded that I am pretty defensive by myself, and a Wikipedia ban will not change this, but I don't even think it's a bad quality for a Wikipedia editor to have. On the contrary, there have been many occasions where, through stubbornness and "defensiveness", I have been able to get my way and actually improve the article (the AiG page is one example). Now, it seems like you disagree, but that's fine: as I said, our opinions will differ, but I don't think that really warrants a topic ban. Additionally, you need to understand my position as well. From my position, the situation looks something like this:

• You are accusing me of holding fringe views and not willing to change my mind about them, which is already pretty offensive to me, because I my approach is pretty much the opposite: align my position with that of the scholarly community, but always be able to change it if it is shown that I have misinterpreted this position.
• You are then accusing me of not being able to edit on behalf of the other party's point of view in a discussion of a topic ban that I earned by doing exactly that.
• You are additionally subtly implying that all of the above is partly the result of a lack of competence to read in a "non-facile" manner.
• And you are using all of this to support a topic ban which should not in a million years have been imposed.

Tell me you would not get at least a little bit defensive in this situation. Okay, I doubt you will be convinced by any of this, but that's fine. It doesn't seem like consensus is going my way, anyway. I am just genuinely confused as to why you'd want me to stay away from creationism-related articles specifically, or from any articles for that matter. Even if you believe that I'm an incompetent, narrow-minded, insufferable fringe-pov pusher, how would that be a problem if I stop at the first revert of my edits? And why does it have to be creationism-related articles of all topics? ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 23:54, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

By the way, I think we should migrate everything past the od down to my talk page (or yours). I doubt anyone apart from us will actually read it, and it's already starting to look like a wall of text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oldstone James (talk • contribs) 23:57, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment:
For context, I am going to copy what I wrote at 22:55, 14 April 2019 (UTC) at ANI:

Oldstone James has been told -- repeatedly -- what he should do when he knows that the change he wants to make is opposed by multiple editors (stop edit warring, post a specific proposal on the article talk page, make his arguments, and try to get consensus for the proposed change). He has been told this by a wide variety of editors. He has been told this gently and respectfully. He has been told this aggressively and forcefully. He has been told this in the form of a block by an administrator. He has been told this by an uninvolved administrator who reviewed the block and denied his appeal. I question whether any mentoring will be acceptable to him. I think that the moment the mentor tells him to stop edit warring and seek consensus he will instantly add the mentor to the list of inferior beings who he will not listen to because it is all their fault. I also question whether, given his present attitude, he has the ability to contribute constructively on any page related to creationism. I have not yet concluded that he cannot contribute constructively on other topics, which is why I am asking for a topic ban and not for another block. This may be one of those cases where someone is topic banned, learns how to get along with other editors on articles where his feelings are not quite so strong, gets the topic ban lifted after six months, and goes on to make real improvements to the article that he formerly edit warred over.

I now see what appears to be a completely different attitude from what I described last April. Based upon this, Unless Oldstone James indicates that he disagrees with my advice (when he knows that the change he wants to make is opposed by multiple editors he should refrain from edit warring, post a specific proposal on the article talk page, make his arguments, and try to get consensus for the proposed change) I am strongly inclined to lift the topic ban per WP:ROPE. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:00, 18 January 2020 (UTC) Changed my mind. I am seeing exactly the same attitude from what I described last April. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:53, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I apologise for the unwarranted dig that I threw at you in the previous comment. Thanks for having some objectivity and common sense. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 18:33, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment: In response to Guy's !vote: not quite. I understand exactly what led to the proposal of a topic ban. However, I had acted upon these issues as the proposal was being discussed and, in my opinion, had more than enough evidence of that by the end of the discussion for a topic ban not to be warranted. However, even that's not really relevant. If you believe that my comment proves that I had not learnt anything, you should be able to find a reflection of that in my actions. However, if you look at my actions, you'll find that I had not been problematic since the imposal of the ban. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 18:42, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Notifying editors who were involved in the original topic ban proposal: Nil Einne Bishonen Dumuzid Guettarda Johnuniq Epiphyllumlover Samsara Nick Thorne EdChem The Duke 1990'sguy The Anome — Preceding unsigned comment added by Oldstone James (talk • contribs) 00:10, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment:
Hello. Would this be a good time to mention that your signature is extremely difficult to read, violating the WP:SIGAPP policy? The contrast values for your white-on-green and grey-on-green are 1.65 and 2.392 respectively, both well below the recommended minimum of 4.5. This is an accessibility issue. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:19, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment:
So, I was involved in a minor way back when this happened. The user and I had a fair few interactions, generally from differing positions, but, I thought, mostly civil and positive. I expected to come here and be fully supportive of this appeal. However, as others have said, the pugilism on display here gives me pause. I originally thought that the topic ban was a bit heavy-handed, but I certainly understood (and understand) it. I would urge Oldstone James (as I ever do) that reasonable minds can differ, and to proceed from that premise. A happy weekend to all. Dumuzid (talk) 02:58, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• Question - Isn't this edit (and this comment) a violation of the current topic ban? I was looking at the discussion here and OJ's contribs. EvergreenFir (talk) 05:59, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• It seems they plain forgot, which brought about this very appeal. El_C 06:03, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I'm skeptical that someone who adhered to a topic ban for 8 months suddenly forgot. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:16, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

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

Suggest expanding topic ban to all Fringe content

It seems that this user has now taken it upon himself to start inserting fringe content while claiming consensus for his wording in spite of considerable disagreement on the talkpage of Talk:Race and intelligence. This comes after selectively and aggressively pinging myself and another user on the talkpage acting like a disciplinarian about Wikipedia rules: [9].

This comes in spite of me trying to reason with him about the problems with his approach on his talkpage. The message is not getting through.

Given the problems above and now that he seems to be branching out, I think he should be removed from controversial content on Wikipedia, at least as it pertains to that covered by WP:FRINGE.

Other diffs of interest: claiming that the entire R&I article is pseudoscientific, playing the victim in reference to another dispute over Fringe material, deleting my comments from the talkpage, resurrecting months-old threads to try to claim consensus and attacking other users at the same time

What say ye?

jps (talk) 20:50, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Just a heads-up: my pings were not intended to be aggressive and were instead simply notifying the users trying to get their attention. I don't know how it can appear otherwise. Also, note that I did not claim consensus, but simply that it appears this way to me, and the implication was that it was free to be reverted. If you look at my editing history throughout the past year, you will find that I haven't violated WP:BRD even once, so I don't think there was really any danger. Finally, take a note of the proposing user; this is the same user that has starting edit-warring without consensus on the same page (1, 2). And feel free to take a look at the linked discussion, where it's clear that I was looking to improve and understand, but my criticisms of the user seem to have put him off. I think jps is just being resentful over these comments, and in my opinion we should both understand that either opinions differ and move on without any spite, as I have pointed out in this comment. Honestly, jps, I understand your frustration, but proposing an extension to the topic ban is just a childish way to react to it. I've been guilty of this childish behaviour before myself, but we should both drop it. Let's just move on from this conflict as if nothing happened and keep improving Wikipedia together. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 21:45, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Update: in the first diff, I was being sarcastic. What I implied was that the article on race and intelligence was correct, and that the interlocutor was essentially arguing with the article instead of myself. Feel free to interpret the second diff however you want; I am still of the opinion that I expressed in that diff. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 21:50, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

"Sarcastic"... Okay, let's take a look at that diff, which was a response to my repeated request that Oldstone James stop pinging me. Nothing in this user's behavior here or elsewhere that I have seen suggests a willingness to admit anything of substance. Just as disconcertingly, I don't see any awareness that his interpretation of complicated issues could be validly disputed. In this comment he's presenting his approach, and his sarcasm, as perfectly appropriate, while anyone else's attempt to challenge him is "childish", while "silly" is a personal attack when it's convenient. Grayfell (talk) 22:25, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not presenting my behaviour as appropriate. I'm just correcting jps' interpretation of my edits. Also, I never ever considered sarcasm a personal attack; don't know where you got that from. For your information, jps has been challenging me throughout the entire conversation that he linked, and I civilly accepted it. What I call "childish" is not his attempt to challenge me but his reaction to my attempts to challenge me, which he called "nauseous", and after which he wrote up this proposal here. If you think that I'm willing to admit anything of substance, you might want to take a look at the convo linked by jps in the proposal. I admit to being unnecessarily defensive, to having made errors in evaluation of consensus, among other things. Even here, I admit to being guilty of childish behaviour myself. But you are entitled to your own opinions of myself. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 22:43, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

A further heads-up, editing your comment after someone else has seen it is not considered appropriate. But, to respond to the added diffs: the first one is simply an edit conflict. In the second, I do not actually attack anyone. Come on, jps, that's just plain dishonesty. There are other ways of resolving the issue than by flat-out lying. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 22:23, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Pretty ballsy to admonish another editor about following talkpage protocol when one of the diffs he presented is of you deleting his talkpage comments. Grandpallama (talk) 22:32, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

I already explained, it was a conflict of edits. How could I have possibly prevented this? Also, speaking of "pretty ballsy", how do you find the fact that jps is accusing me of claiming consensus right after starting an edit-war on exactly the same article without any consensus? ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 22:37, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

If it was a conflict of edits, I have to admit to being appalled that you resolved it by deleting my contribution. If there is an edit conflict, you get the chance to resolve it, and the idea is to resolve it by not removing other's work. If you don't know how to do that, you really shouldn't be editing, especially not in areas where getting this kind of thing right can mean the difference between conflict resolution and conflict escalation. As for your indignation over being called out for promoting fringe theories that support racism, I guess I should thank you for bringing to my attention some problems that I had to post to FTN about. We'll get things sorted eventually. But you aren't helping as a matter of your contributions. I am afraid you simply think of yourself as unimpeachable when it comes to these matters and I fear this is just going to end up with you banned either sooner or later. You simply are not yet mature enough to take on board the criticism that you need to take on to be a good editor in fringe pages. jps (talk) 23:21, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

No, I didn't resolve it in this way. I literally clicked "publish changes" and the page didn't even notify me that there was any conflict. I think this happens sometimes when the internet is really slow. I don't know, what can I say. All I can I do right now is apologise, but, really, I surely didn't intend to revert your comment. I didn't even know that this comment existed. Anyway... once again, you are invoking the fallacy of assuming that, if our opinions differ, that necessarily means that my opinion is wrong. The idea that "I'm not helping" with my contributions is your opinion, and it's not clear whether it's right or not. That shouldn't be a reason to justify an extension to my topic ban. And, as to the latter sentences, I don't even know what to say... I can't even recall how many times I have told you that I believe that my valuation of a situation, even if I believe to be objective, is always prone to error. Furthermore, I even gave you examples of where I admitted that my valuation of a situation was incorrect. I also proposed that you give me concrete examples of where you think I believe my analysis is unimpeachable so that I can correct my views and my approach. However, it seems like you just refuse to listen. Either that, or you, ironically, are not able to admit that your assessment of myself was wrong. You know, I really don't want to argue about this anymore. I'm literally repeating myself over and over and over again, but nothing is getting through to you. This is futile. Also, the comment about maturity... a very mature "no u" response (forgive my sarcasm) to my comments about childish behaviour on your part... ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 23:44, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Folks, there is a bug in the software that's been there for a long time, and it leads to an occasional edit conflict not being flagged, with one edit being overwritten by a newer one and lost. It's not the fault of the second editor when this happens. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:28, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. This is exactly what happened. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 13:00, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

@Boing! said Zebedee: It also doesn't require an edit conflict. The bug sometimes reverses an edit that occurred hours earlier. Not exactly conducive to peace in already-heated situations, but apparently the developers are helpless because they can't reproduce it at will. While entirely theoretical, the bug could also provide plausible-deniability cover for intentional reversals, and I've no doubt there are editors who are not above that – we've all seen worse. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:25, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Ooh, it's nastier than I thought then. And yes, I used to do software dev, and the bugs that only happen rarely, can't be reproduced, and give no clue as to the specific circumstances can be real pigs to track down. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:00, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of that either, maybe it explains what happened here [10]. But anyway yes, especially with more run of the mill stuff where an editor makes a change and it reverses the most recent edit/s, it's best to just assume it's a hidden edit conflict. As Mandruss said, I'm sure there are some people who abuse this, but since it's impossible to prove and many of us know with experience it can happen you can't assume malice.

As for the dispute itself, the only thing I have to say is I'm not sure it was wise for OldStone James to change their mind and return to the subject area after they'd just given it as "One example of where I chose to give up my editing in an area where I was confident that I was correct because of a lack of consensus". Maybe they're trying to prove they can edit successfully in contentious areas and I appreciate jps engaged them in discussion about their editing in the area and OldStone James seems to have started off discussing someone else's proposal. But frankly it risks coming across as a case of an editor being on their best behaviour before an appeal but once the failed, not bothering.

Nil Einne (talk) 11:15, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I see why it might come across this way, but the only thing that caused me to come back to the subject area was the fact that a local consensus had formed around an idea similar to the one that I was proposing. I gave this idea as an example of where it failed to gain consensus and I consequently moved on. However, once consensus was growing, I don't see why it wouldn't be wise for me to strengthen this consensus. Tell me if my reasoning is flawed.

Also, I do appreciate that jps initially tried to discuss our collaboration efforts so that we could edit more efficiently. However, his aggressive and condescending approach was a bit hard to cope with even initially, and eventually after the first bit of constructive criticism that I laid out for him, he called me "nauseous" and incompetent and headed here, as well as to the race and intelligence article, where he stating edit-waring without consensus. Actually, you can see his self-righteousness right here on this proposal, where he blames me for calling him out (i.e. "aggressively pinging and acting like a disciplinarian") and not himself for edit-warring on a contentious topic. I think I'm not the only with behaviourial issues here; jps's own behaviour might be something to look into. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 13:38, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Well jps's patience was obviously strained a bit here (that also sounds like a teacher who's had it, I think he actually is a teacher). —PaleoNeonate – 20:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

And here, and [11], and also here. And all of this why? Because of my constructive criticism (which wasn't even meant to be a criticism so much as an attempt to understand the root of our common problems). I think it's a persistent problem, which I actually identified last year as well, although it wasn't so obvious at that time. But all of this would be fine if it wasn't followed by edit wars and baseless ban extension proposals. Banning him or blocking him is not a solution, but someone needs to step in and clear the situation up for him. I'm guilty of unacceptable behaviour, undoubtedly, but I'm not the only one, and someone needs to make this clear to him. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅} 00:17, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• Ambivalent - While reading all of Oldstone's text here I'm often confused about what is sarcasm, joke, remorse, resentment or whatnot. I've checked his recent editing history and there may be lack of judgment at the race and intelligence article, but also some constructive editing elsewhere. I'm not sure when/if any friction occurs at any of other non-fringe articles, if similar drama will result (in which case topic bans will not help but maybe something like 1RR, or ultimately a block could). Is the problem needing to be contrarian? Why was the push for fringe creationist sources persisting despite knowing that policies called for independent scholarly sources instead? It's possible that I stretch WP:AGF a bit, but am personally inclined to only support such a wide topic ban "next time", hoping that maybe it won't be necessary... But I'd also like to encourage Oldstone James to try to be more attentive to what others are saying, in general. If someone eventually offers to mentor, would their advice really serve (I see that some doubt that)? —PaleoNeonate – 20:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

It seems to me like you're a bit confused about my motives and the situation in general. I'll address some of your points:

• Sarcasm/joke/remorse/resentment - I think everything (or almost everything) that I've written after my appeal case was closed was none of these, unless otherwise stated.
• Lack of judgement - would you care to explain exactly what this lack of judgement manifests as, ideally providing some examples? I've tried to stick to what reliable sources are saying and stay on topic. But please do tell me if I got it wrong somewhere. In my personal opinion, there are other editors on the same article who fail to adhere to this procedure, but perhaps we all think that about each other because the topic is contentious.
• 1RR and contrarianness - 9 months ago, I have voluntarily imposed a 1RR restriction on my edits and haven't violated it since, so I think this restriction would be superfluous. Conflict that wasn't immediately resolved has only really arisen on one occasion, but was with the same user that I had problems with in the past, and even that eventually got resolved; my interactions with everyone else, even if we didn't initially agree, were conflict-free.
• Fringe POV pushing - here is the big misunderstanding, I believe. Recall that I'm not a creationist at all - on the contrary, I'm a convinced atheist. I didn't push any dubious sources - as a matter of fact, I didn't push any sources at all. I simply wasn't happy with the tone of the article, which felt to me at the time like an angry rant more than an accurate and representative description of AiG's core beliefs. I actually lay out, somewhat bitterly, the exact motives for my editing on my user page. However, recall that it was eventually a variation of my proposal that eventually managed to gain consensus (or, if I'm not advised to say that, my version stuck and is still there in the article). Similarly, on the topic of race and intelligence, in my opinion, I am not pushing any fringe views, and more editors than not seem to agree with me on this (it is also the scholarly consensus as per a recent comprehensive survey of psychologists, but I'll leave this discussion for the R&I talk page). If you want to know exactly what I am arguing for there, you may ask me here or on my talk page.
• Finally, I am super-attentive of what others are saying. I am all ears when anyone wants to give me a genuine piece of advice, as I assumed was the case with jps' discussion. I listened to their arguments carefully, agreeing with some of them (e.g. admitting to being guilty of WP:JURY and not making myself clear enough in this diff) and, in cases where I didn't understand their argument, asking to provide some concrete examples so that I could understand the issue better (as in this diff). However, jps refused to give me the examples that I asked him for, so I still don't understand what his issue with me is. I'm not saying that he is wrong that this issue exists (in fact, I openly admitted that it's likely that I have this issue in this last diff) - I just didn't understand the issue. Or are you referring to something else? If so, could please provide an example of where I was not being attentive to others' opinions? ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅} 23:55, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

The above tome reads like a massive WP:IDHT monologue. Oldstone seems unable to accept that there might be any validity in criticism of their behaviour. Despite being super-attentive of what others are saying they manage to nevertheless completely fail to grasp what others are saying to them. For my money an expansion of the topic ban is the minimum appropriate action, consequently I spoort the expansion.. - Nick Thorne ^talk 00:52, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I'll quote part of my comment again, which you seem to have missed: "I listened to their arguments carefully, agreeing with some of them (e.g. admitting to being guilty of WP:JURY and not making myself clear enough in this diff) and, in cases where I didn't understand their argument, asking to provide some concrete examples so that I could understand the issue better (as in this diff). However, jps refused to give me the examples that I asked him for, so I still don't understand what his issue with me is. I'm not saying that he is wrong that this issue exists (in fact, I openly admitted that it's likely that I have this issue in this last diff) - I just didn't understand the issue".

Also, fyi, WP:IDHT refers to situations where editors continue to push a proposal despite that proposal failing to gain consensus. To give you an example, over the course of my editing of the AiG article, there was a period of time between EdChem's comment and a rejection of the previous variation of my proposal where I had insisted on getting my proposal through despite the consensus being against it. That would qualify as a case of WP:IDHT. Actually, you know that, because it was you who first introduced me to this policy... and, guess what, I listened to you, admitted my mistake (at least I do now), and never repeated the same mistake again since (see example given in my original appeal where I move on after my ideas failed to gain consensus)... which, coincidentally, happens to disprove your point that "Oldstone seems unable to accept that there might be any validity in criticism of their behaviour". ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅} 01:19, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment - I'm not familiar with Oldstone James' actions in any of the other areas mentioned here, but his involvement in the "race and intelligence" article has not been disruptive, certainly not morese than that of numerous other people involved in the current dispute there. Oldstone James and JPS are on opposite sides of that dispute, and there are approximately equal numbers of editors on each side, so this is not a case where one side is clearly right or wrong. This report looks a lot like an attempt by JPS to gain the upper hand in a content dispute by eliminating one of his opponents via an administrative process, and that sort of approach ought to be discouraged. I oppose the expansion of Oldstone James' topic ban. 2600:1004:B11B:501F:D8D1:DACB:FE9C:8C9 (talk) 01:30, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for this comment, and hopefully it will shed light on the true nature of my contributions on the R&I talk page: that is, they are not obviously disruptive or obviously demonstrative of a lack of judgement, as at least half (in reality, quite a bit more than half) the editors agree with my position. For this same reason, they can't categorically and definitively be classified as "fringe POV pushing". As for jps's intentions of proposing an extension to my ban, I would like to assume good faith and suggest that the likely motive was simply his frustration with me, as I think is comprehensively demonstrated by this diff. But, in my opinion, this type of behaviour is simply a bit immature, and it's not very nice seeing him react in this way to my genuine attempts to understand my weaknesses and improve myself as an editor. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅} 01:49, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

iVoting quickly

No calling names

Fringe ban for our friend,

Oldstone James.

Burma Shave

Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 01:35, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment Reacting angrily, often in the form of edit-warring, and baselessly accusing other editors of incompetence on grounds of personal self-righteousness actually seems to be a pattern for jps. Have a look at this ANI discussion from a previous conflict - [12] - which concluded in a 1RR restriction for jps due to edit-warring on his part, and especially these edits, where he likewise accuses editors with whom he doesn't agree of being incompetent: [13], [14]. Also take a look at this edit from an unrelated conflict with a totally different user, where his high-handedness really shines through: [15]; for context, the user was being accused for not having much desire... to gather third-party sources, while demonstrably adding third-party sources to the article in question; when this was pointed out by the editor, jps' reply was, I have not really seen you look for the kind of independent sources I think are of the highest quality, which I've now learnt is his go-to 'I don't agree with them, so they must be incompetent/doing things wrong' approach. This is another unrelated example of jps making a mistake, then falsely accusing other editors of making that very same mistake, then lying about the evidence (sounds familiar?). And now yet another example of jps baselessly accusing editors of not being able to accept criticism as a response to the other party disagreeing with them: [16]. Not surprisingly, jps also accuses this editor of incompetence in this same diff and also accuses them of being aggressive here (while demonstrably starting the fight first): [17]. In almost all of the above cases, there was at least some edit-warring to go with the condescending and self-righteous attitude as well. There is more evidence of exactly the same behaviour available, too, but I think what I've provided already is already suggestive enough.

Can someone please look into this issue objectively and assess the situation? Certainly, this is an issue that exists, and it's certainly disruptive. Not only does the user accuse anyone with whom he doesn't agree of being incompetent and unable to accept criticism, but he also systematically follows up this already disruptive pattern of behaviour with edit-warring. I have previously said that jps is valuable contributor to Wikipedia and that he is a net positive for the project. That may still be true, but how much benefit do you think a user whose only response to any disagreement with his ideas is to accuse the opposing party of incompetence and start edit-warring will bring to contentious articles, where each edit with any amount of controversy needs to be discussed with great care on the talk page before being implemented and where a rational consensus needs to constantly be developed? I am not sure how standard of a procedure this is, but I conditionally propose a boomerang topic ban on fringe content for jps. "Conditional" meaning that, if he shows clear signs that this pattern won't persist in the future, then a simple warning will be enough. Note that this proposal is not an attempt on my part to avoid an extension to my topic ban; instead, I call for editors to evaluate both cases independently and make the appropriate conclusions.^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅} 05:09, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not getting involved in this discussion other than to say that the IP above clearly has strong views on R&I and this comment may reflect their position on the issue, and that you, User:Oldstone James would probably benefit from being more succinct. Doug Weller talk 10:36, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

A similar argument may be made for PaleoNeonate, I think. Also, "succinct" meaning "less verbose"? If so, notes taken. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅} 15:17, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Topic ban appeal

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

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

Hi,

I would like to appeal my topic ban [18] that was sanctioned by @Bishonen:. It has almost been a year since I was banned from editing pages related to caste and social groups. Therefore I request that this ban be lifted so that I can once again edit such pages. Thanks Nittawinoda (talk) 21:42, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

• How is your approach to editing such pages going to change, so that the issues which led to your topic ban will no longer happen? Black Kite (talk) 21:44, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

The primary reason for my ban has been mentioned as my disregard for sources. So I will abide by Wikipedia policy regarding WP:VERIFY while editing such pages in the future. Also, I will be more careful while leaving edit comments so that it is as per WP:CIVIL. Thanks, Nittawinoda (talk) 22:07, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

• I'm on the fence here. To their credit, Nittawinoda has both kept to their topic ban (unless I've missed something) and has also been editing diligently about other things since I placed it. However, looking at Nittawinoda's aggressiveness just before I placed the topic ban a year ago gives me pause; for instance this extremely bad-faith-assuming post in reply to a warning from me, and this typical caste-warrior comment. Nittawinoda, do you now understand that a) British Raj sources are not acceptable, b) tendentious caste promotion will not be tolerated on Wikipedia and c) you need to assume good faith of experienced and knowledgeable editors who try to advise you, such as User:Sitush? Unfortunately, Sitush hasn't edited since October; I'm pinging him in case he gets e-mail alerts for pings. I'll also ping a few admins who are knowledgeable in these subjects: @RegentsPark, Vanamonde93, Abecedare, and SpacemanSpiff: Unfortunately Spiffy isn't around much either. :-( Bishonen | talk 23:24, 18 January 2020 (UTC).

@Bishonen: Yes, I understand that Colonial era sources are not reliable. Just to clear the air, I am not here to glorify or promote any caste. Also, I have been assuming good faith while interacting with other editors. To cite a few examples, since my ban, I have single handedly expanded the article Kulottunga I and helped promote it to GA status - check [19]. I have also engaged in meaningful discussions with other editors like @Kautilya3: to hash out differences and attain consensus when there is a conflict like for example the content regarding Pallava article check [20]. So I've been doing my best to abide by wiki policies since my ban. Thanks, Nittawinoda (talk) 06:38, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• I'm inclined to offer this user WP:ROPE, as I cannot find anything egregiously problematic in their recent history, but they still appear to have an antagonistic approach in some cases, so I would suggest that if the TBAN is lifted, a 1RR restriction is imposed with the same scope. Vanamonde (Talk) 00:30, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
• Responding to ping. Indeed, upon Abecedare's suggestion, I was involved with helping resolve a dispute between Nittawinoda and another editor at the Pallava dynasty page. It was quite a challenging dispute. Nittawinoda's conduct was cooperative and entirely above board. His use of sources still left a lot to be desired. But, as long as he engages with other editors and works collaboratively, there should be no problems. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:39, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
• Note: We're sadly short-handed wrt Indian admins; I just realised Abecedare isn't around either. Nittawinoda, I'm inclined to extend WP:ROPE as recommended above. Vanamonde, if Nittawinoda should happen to be overly antagonistic going forward, and especially if they relapse into caste promotion, a 1RR restriction, or indeed the original topic ban, can be imposed as needed by any uninvolved admin. Castes and social groups are under community discretionary sanctions per WP:CASTE, so it's not like another AN hassle would be needed. But let's wait a bit for other opinions first.Bishonen | talk 12:02, 19 January 2020 (UTC).
• I say we should give them WP:ROPE, as long as they continue to improve I suspect we will not need to be back here. --qedk (t 桜 c) 12:41, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support per ROPE. ∯WBG^converse 12:50, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
• Suppot with the caveat offered by Vanamonde (the 1RR restriction). Unfortunately, Sitush is not around and is the only one who really knows their way around the caste articles (I'm clueless) but if Vanamonde promises to keep an eye on them ... we should be good.--regentspark (comment) 17:36, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

  Fwiw, I believe @Winged Blades of Godric: (and me, to a limited extent) is aware of how to navigate through them, although personally I do not take much of an interest in the subject. --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:12, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

  Well, don't look at me, I have no idea. We have pretty much all relied on Sitush, I guess. Did Vanamonde promise that, regentspark..? If they do, I will support their suggestion for 1RR. Not as a bribe, but simply because anybody who admins caste articles deserves all the help we can supply. Bishonen | talk 21:57, 19 January 2020 (UTC).

  Oh dear. @Bishonen and RegentsPark: I'm comfortable with the source material to a limited extent, but I don't want to make promises because of some very substantial RL commitments in the next few months. I cannot promise I can watch over each of their contributions. Vanamonde (Talk) 02:47, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

  No, of course not, Vanamonde; I, at least, didn't mean that. You still seem to be in better shape than any other currently active admin. So. We can't very well keep the user under a topic ban merely because we're short of admins competent in the area; that situation is not Nittawinoda's fault. Are we agreed on lifting the topic ban with a 1RR restriction for castes and social groups? Note, that would mean 1RR for the same area that the topic ban covered: caste and social group-related matters anywhere, not just caste articles, as per WP:TBAN. I could presumably decide this on my own, since I set the original T-ban on my own discretion, but I'd very much like to have consensus for whatever I do here. Bishonen | talk 10:28, 20 January 2020 (UTC).

Yes, let's go ahead with this. I've been reviewing Nittawinoda's edits and I think this will work out. --regentspark (comment) 15:40, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. I will do my best to check in on them from time to time. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:53, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

And we're talking about an indefinite 1RR restriction for edits related to caste and social groups, right? Or not? I'm for indefinite myself; it's not really onerous to be forbidden from edit warring. Bishonen | talk 16:11, 20 January 2020 (UTC).

Looks like it. OK, doing it. Bishonen | talk 09:51, 21 January 2020 (UTC).

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

Dark Emu

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

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On 18 January I made edits to the article on Australian author Bruce Pascoe, who has been the subject of controversy following the publication of his book Dark Emu, and which the press has covered for months. (e.g. two articles of recent days: [21]; [22])

Conscious of WP:BLP, I was therefore cautious in my edits. The existing first sentence stated "Bruce Pascoe (born 1947) is an Aboriginal Australian writer". However, this is not proven, and according to press reports two leading koori organisations dispute his claim. What Pascoe himself states is that he *self-identifies* as part aboriginal. So I amended the text to read: "Bruce Pascoe (born 1947) is a writer of literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays and children's literature who identifies as being Aboriginal Australian." Given one of the organisations has a database, and the other holds family records, until he agrees to a DNA test the claim must remain questioned. So I believe the wording, which mirrors his own language on the issue is fair and reasonable.

The 'Identity' section (currently reverted back as to how it appeared prior to my edits) covered no less than six paragraphs, with much repetitive and redundant material. The only reference it makes to the controversy is to the objections of a single aboriginal lawyer. I was able to edit the material down without losing its impact to three paragraphs, and also to add for balance: "However, the Boonwurrung Land and Sea Council (which manages a database of people of Boonwurrung descent), and the Chairman of the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania question Pascoe's ancestry claim." As an authoritative reference for this statement, I used the Sydney Morning Herald article linked above. In the section of the article on his book Dark Emu, which read like a publisher's release, and included no information that its claims have been questioned, I added: "The book's claims have been the subject of controversy, and have been challenged, including by scholar Peter O'Brien in Bitter Harvest: The illusion of Aboriginal agriculture in Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu (Quadrant Press, 2019, ISBN 9780995368316); by the conservative magazine Quadrant;[18] and a multi-author website Dark Emu Exposed [www.dark-emu-exposed.org].

These cautious edits were made in good faith, and fall well-within WP:BLP published guidelines. They were quickly reverted by another editor with the statement "You need to gain consensus for these edits on the talk page." Since when did a carefully measured statement, that is supported by a source which is the leading newspaper of the largest city in a nation, even for BLPs, require prior approval? If so, Wikipedia editing would grind to a halt.

The Wikipedia article on the book Dark Emu also read like a media release, similarly containing almost no information that the book was the subject of controversy. I therefore added the same sentence to it. I also edited an existing sentence in the article which read: "The main criticism of the book by academics has been of Pascoe's claim that since 1880 there has been an academic suppression of alternative historical accounts about Aboriginal peoples' housing, farming and cultivation practices." This is certainly not correct, as a reading of the months of press reports of the controversy would inform. Academics have also expressed reservations about the book's interpretation of primary sources, and there has been wider dispute that the thesis itself is flawed. Leaving this for others, I simply excised the inaccurate phrase "The main criticism of the book", so the revised sentence stated "Academics have disputed Pascoe's claim that since 1880 there has been an academic suppression of alternative historical accounts about Aboriginal peoples' housing, farming and cultivation practices."

My contribution was promptly reverted by Admin Nick-D (talk · contribs) with the edit statement:

"Quadrant is a WP:FRINGE publication. Not correct to imply that academics disapprove of the book. Both problematical per WP:BLP".

Firstly, Quadrant is the leading conservative publication of Australia, and respected academically as such. Secondly I was not even using it as a source, but merely informing that it was one of the media channels for the controversy. Thirdly, the statement "Not correct to imply that academics disapprove of the book" is false: some approve, some hold reservations, and some object. As an example, I had listed the scholarly work 'Bitter Harvest' that has been published by Quadrant, and also referenced a multi-author website that seeks to fact-check Pascoe's claims by quoting the original source material he used for the book. Again, all I sought to do was inform of the EXISTENCE of the controversy (which was not indicated by the existing text): doing so judiciously is certainly not (and I quote) "problematical per WP:BLP".

I therefore reverted it again, but also added The Australian newspaper for good measure in addition to Quadrant (for better or for worse the Murdoch press has particularly covered the issue). Nick-D then reverted again and posted on my Talk page:

"Please stop adding unreferenced or poorly referenced biographical content, especially if controversial, to articles or any other Wikipedia page. They further added "Warning: Adding unreferenced controversial information about living persons."

Quite simply: false, deflective, and insulting. I requested on my Talk page Nick-D justify his revert in detail or apologise, but there has been silence. Very disappointing. Setting up a discussion on an article's Talk page for the usual exhausting, greased eel line of argumentation we all know and love is all fine and dandy, but when even an Admin in the first instance engages as I've outlined above, the thought is: why bother. ClearBreeze (talk) 12:25, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: Issues around Bruce Pascoe have been brought to the BLP Noticeboard recently here (briefy) and here (longer thread). There has also been posting from the advocate behind the above-linked Dark Emu Exposed website, across different identities. The OP is not a new editor – there are two threads at user talk:ClearBreeze about edits relating to Pascoe, and the OP has also argued at RSN for rescinding the ban on the Daily Mail, which makes me wonder about the OP's judgement in relation to sourcing. Edited to add last sentence EdChem (talk) 13:53, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Heartening to see any assumption of goodwill dismissed. For the record: I have no association with the Dark Emu Exposed website, or with sockpuppetry, but thanks for the juvenile conspiracist fingerpointing. Whether the DM should be a Wiki source is irrelevant to the incident at hand. The last post of the second prior ANI case suggests the page should include "mentioning the dispute if properly framed and attributed". That's precisely what I did. And for the record: someone on that thread calling Quadrant "yellow journalism" is an hilarious opinion of Dave Spart proportions. Presumably The Sydney Morning Herald now is as well! ClearBreeze (talk) 14:26, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

WTF is this at AN? Frankly unless you're asking us to block you, it doesn't really matter who you are or why you're on wikipedia. Your WP:BOLD edit was objected to. And it doesn't matter whether you think people should have objected to your edit. They did. So you do need to discuss on the article talk page. People object to edits where some editor felt there would be no objection all the time, it's part and parcel of editing here. Various related issues have been extensively discussed on the article talk page and BLPN, so there should really be no surprise about the objection anyway. Discussion on the article talk page (and other appropriate places) is also a key part of editing here, and if you aren't willing to do so, opening a pointless long thread at AN is going to achieve nothing. If you have objections about the characterisation of Quadrant at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources "Most editors consider Quadrant generally unreliable for factual reporting. The publication is a biased and opinionated source", then open a discussion at WP:RSN. Incidentally I disagree that your views on the Daily Mail are irrelevant. If yours views on what makes a source reliable seem to be far divorced from the communities, then we have greater reason to be concerned about your use of questionable/generally unreliable sources like Quadrant. Nil Einne (talk) 17:39, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

@Nil Einne: Nice trolling. (You only needed to do it once: not on my Talk page as well.) 1. Quadrant is Australia's leading conservative opinion journal, to which leading conservative figures, including former Prime Ministers and academic luminaries have written for. To paint it as an 'unreliable source', rather than respectable is just juvenile nonsense peddled by those for whom any alternate opinion is something to be suppressed. Given your choice of puerile student language – ("WTF is this at AN? Frankly unless you're asking us to block you") – I appreciate your preferred mode of argument may reflect that of the religious-fascist state of Malaysia, where you appear to originally hail from, and that text which embraces differing opinions may be a confronting foreign concept for you. However, it is a cultural tradition here in the West. I warmly encourage you to acquaint yourself with it.

2. As I was at pains to point out, I did not even bother to use Quadrant as a source, although I could have. If you'd read what I'd written, you would have seen I simply stated that Quadrant, the book 'Bitter Harvest' published by Quadrant Press, and The Australian, were three of the channels where the controversy had been raised. The specific source I used was The Sydney Morning Herald. Got it now? Hopefully.

3. If a statement in an article is baldly factual and supported by an authoritative source, it is not good manners to revert it simply because you personally disagree with it. And certainly not for an Admin to do so! And for an Admin to support such a revert with IMHO what are – well I've already stated what I think of what they wrote – is particularly regrettable. An approach of mutual respect involves, like any civilised debate, either contributing an edit with an equally opposing fact that is supported by an authoritative source, and thereby provide a balancing view, or seek to discuss the edit with the individual who put the work into it.

4. The edits I made were fully within Wikipedia guidelines, and, as previously stated, reflected the suggestion made in the previous noticeboard case incident, which had either not been followed through on, or reverted as mine was! ClearBreeze (talk) 19:17, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

This editor seems to have an axe to grind against this author and their book. Point 1 in the post above indicates that they're some kind of obnoxious jerk. I reverted their edit to Dark Emu as it used a notoriously bad source to criticise the author's work and added a false claim that academics disapproved of the work: both are problematic per WP:BLP given the author is a living person and this forms part of an agenda of editing. I'd note that there's currently a campaign targeting this author and their book being waged by the far-right in Australia, of which this editing seems part. Nick-D (talk) 07:44, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree with all of that. Extreme right racists in Australia are working hard to discredit Dark Emu and its author. (The book seemingly terrifies them.) They are using many nasty tools and tactics. And the word "many" is critical here. There really is a flood of offensive, immoral and offensive material being hurled at the book and author. That makes it difficult to refute each individual attack. There are just so many. But quantity doesn't make the attacks correct. This complaint at AN by pretty much a single issue editor is just another part of the campaign. It should be quickly dismissed. HiLo48 (talk) 09:02, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

@Nick-D: "This editor seems to have an axe to grind against this author and their book." No, but I do have an axe to grind elsewhere, viz: you write – "I reverted their edit to Dark Emu as it used a notoriously bad source to criticise the author's work and added a false claim that academics disapproved of the work". Firstly, the existing article text itself refers to academic criticism, including from Gammage. The passage "The main criticism of the book by academics" was there before I began. Secondly, as I outlined above, Quadrant is only considered "a notoriously bad source" by the 'Progressive Left'. Bringing in Social Justice Warrior 'Cancel Culture' to Wikipedia to ban sources you personally object to is utterly offensive to editorial balance and truth, and brings into question your own fitness to be an Administrator. (The egregious ban on the Daily Mail as a Wikipedia source is part and parcel of this mentality. How damaging it is to fact can be gauged by a single example: a landmark speech by Cecil Rhodes on imperialism was only covered by a journalist from the Mail – there because Lord Northcliffe could afford the resources. By way of contrast, The Guardian, both as excellent and as biased as it can be, wasn't nicknamed The Graunaid for its accuracy.) Thirdly, you write: "I'd note that there's currently a campaign targeting this author and their book being waged by the far-right in Australia". Another distortion. It's far from just the "far right". There are also reservations about the book way beyond that sector. Indeed, Gammage who makes some of the same claims as Pascoe, has been the subject of criticism by botanists, to name but one. ClearBreeze (talk) 11:49, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

We have an article on Quadrant, and one on Keith Windschuttle, it's current editor, and editor for eight years earlier this century. A look at both will give other editors a feel for the long term political position and attitude to Aboriginal people of both entities. To expect impartial comment there would a nonsensical position. Both are at the extremes of positions on such matters. HiLo48 (talk) 22:22, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

And your point is? No one is denying Quadrant is right wing, just as no one would deny, for example that The Guardian or New Statesman are left wing. Regrettably, public discussion of the book and its author has become politicised as part of the ongoing 'History Wars' over the interpretation of colonial and aboriginal history. (One line of argument is that since the 'aborigines as agriculturalists and careful land management custodians' theory came into recent being, even existing as a proud nomadic hunter-gather people who may have been existential opportunists like any such others, has devolved into being an historical thing of shame which must not be propounded at any cost.) Nevertheless, and unfortunately for the leftists here, including apparently an Administrator, editorial balance demands that BOTH sides be represented. ClearBreeze (talk) 03:33, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Quadrant has already been ruled out here as a reliable source for factual reporting. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 269#RfC: Quadrant Magazine. HiLo48 (talk) 04:43, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

That RfC is risible, AND untenable. It has a mere handful of contributors, and as one editor states: "This RfC violates our verifiability policy. It amounts to little more than a popularity contest and is inconsistent with WP:CONTEXTMATTERS." Will there be ANY conservative publication that Wikipedia permits to be used as a source in a few years? The way things are going with its adoption of intolerant liberalism and deplatforming, I doubt it. So further eroding its own credibility as a reliable source. More to the point, as I stated upthread, I did not use Quadrant, or the book it published, as a quoted source in the edit. I used them to flag the existence of the controversy. But comprehension skills here are bedrock poor. ClearBreeze (talk) 06:04, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

That final sentence is a perfect example of personal attacks on every other editor in the thread. HiLo48 (talk) 07:17, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

It's an observational analysis. I've frustratingly needed to repeat basic points, either because of an inability of respondents to focus on the points made, or a wilful refusal to do so, and instead engage in deflection tactics. It's a common problem on Wikipedia, and why threads like this balloon out, and go round in circles with no effective resolution. Symptomatic of the greater world, every day Wikipedia becomes more intolerant of differing opinion, facts, and editorial balance. So perhaps we should close this now, because it's certainly going nowhere, and wasting everyone's time. I won't bother with the Dark Emu article and let it remain the half-truth it currently is. Perhaps others will seek to address it. ClearBreeze (talk) 08:49, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

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

(EC) I have not read most of the follow ups, but I want to point out that the idea a source was not being used as an RS is clear nonsense. If there is no RS to establish a controversy, then there is no controversy. Otherwise I could point to Reddit, 4chan or my own personal website and say there was a controversy. So either the Quadrant is being used as an RS to establish there is a controversy. Or the content was being added without sources and should be removed. This is why I ignored that silly argument, and probably also why others ignored. Also I still don't understand why this is at AN. Either open a discussion in the appropriate places, or don't. AN is not intended for random complaints on the evils of the world, or wikipedia. It's intended for discussion of specific issues with require administrative attention. If you aren't willing to engage in discussion over your content dispute, then the only issue that may require administative attention is whether to block you. Nil Einne (talk) 09:14, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

"I have not read most of the follow ups....It's intended for discussion of specific issues with require administrative attention." Yes, and clearly you didn't even bother to properly read my first post: if you had you might have grasped that it outlined that I believed, and still believe, that an Administrator had engaged in biased editing. That's the bloody incident. Got it? But I now most humbly understand that what he did is all hunky dory but means of a farcical RfC which casts, believe it or not, Quadrant as a suspect source! And even if that disgraceful RfC hadn't existed, the system for sanctioning him is broken anyway, as we can see here: [23] So we're done. But feel free to reopen any other closed discussion here without following procedure. Why not open all of them?! Because you're precious and magical. No, truly. ClearBreeze (talk) 10:25, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Abuse of powers

• Goodarz Irani (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• GaruyZerh (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Dear Managers, this lady or Mr. manager and her team. Here. They intend to annoy certain users and block them by creating a file. Does not allow user to delete created pages in less than 24 hours then delete it quickly. like this GaruyZerh. Goodarz Irani (talk) 15:51, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Setting aside that this is the wrong venue for this sort of complaint (WP:ANI would be the correct one), as long as it's here I wanted to note that the extent of my interaction with this editor consists of proposing a single article for deletion for reasons that I expressed, followed by a note I left on their Talk page conveying concerns I have with articles they've been creating. Largoplazo (talk) 16:08, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

There seem to be some issues with User:Goodarz Irani's article creation. Kasa-Roud fails to meet GNG with only one source that is not available online, the article is largely incoherent, and only after digging in to some of the linked articles do I discover that it seems to be a fictional place. Jawira (Shahnameh) is also incoherent and also appears to be a fictional person written as fact. The user appears to be creating a large number of articles about characters or plot elements without establishing notability. It may require some more coordinated cleanup. ST47 (talk) 17:19, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

I think User:Goodarz Irani is complaining that User:Largoplazo applied a PROD tag to the newly created article on GaruyZerh. Unclear why this thread is called 'Abuse of powers' since Largoplazo is not an admin and anyone may apply a PROD tag to an article EdJohnston (talk) 01:38, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Canadian open proxies

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

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During the last week an anonymous user has been using open proxies from Canada to remove content from the page Maltese (dog) and to pretend to be another user in Talk:Maltese (dog). The IPs are the following:

• 142.167.63.11 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 74.15.115.86 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 108.172.129.1 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 104.159.54.102 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

Luckily, an administrator has already blocked 2 of them, so just 2 more miss. I suggest to keep an eye on those pages because the anonymous is probably going to use more open proxies. --151.21.70.193 (talk) 11:44, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

The main article is semi-protected and the proxies are blocked.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 13:26, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

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

Google search linking to older versions of WP pages

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I have been noticing over the past few days that, when logged out, google search links to older versions of articles, by several hours. For example, at 13.06 UTC now, google search is linking to the Emily Hale article (and edit history), from 5.53 UTC, over 7 hours ago. However, if I log in, google search links to the most recent version (and edit history) of the article. Is that a fault on our side – E.g. have we stopped giving google the update data in real-time? Britishfinance (talk) 13:11, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Britishfinance This seems more suited for WP:VPT. –xeno^talk 13:40, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Xeno – will move it to there. Britishfinance (talk) 14:03, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

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

99.228.212.200

• 99.228.212.200 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

User:Mwiner emailed my university. Their main goal has been to list the main action of venlafaxine as an opioid.

I have thus blocked this IP as a sock of Mwiner. Let me know if anyone has concerns. Best Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:39, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

You need to find them a new hobby.-- Deepfriedokra 17:24, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

2607:fea8:3ca0:3cd:247f:54cf:d553:4d05 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) May need a range block. Or simple protection of the page in question. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:54, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Unblock appeal from Doncram

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

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Doncram (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) was blocked for 72 hours by the BrownHairedGirl for disruption. They have posted voluminously about the block and surrounding issues. As they allege admin abuse, I asked BHG about posting here. She agrees. I'm not going to even try to post it here or to even summarize. If someone can have a look, please do. Thanks.-- Deepfriedokra 11:31, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Note: The block expires 2020-01-23 @ 09:22:28-- Deepfriedokra 02:19, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

• The "good thing" about admin abuse is that it's easily identifiable. One sentence can provide what the admin did wrong, how they did it wrong and probably even why they did it wrong. If it can't be said in a sentence, don't bother saying it.
  Although as an object lesson in TL;DR, it's the platonic ideal. ——SN54129 11:50, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

So come out of your cave walking on your hands//And see the world hanging upside down --Plato/Mumford and Sons-- Deepfriedokra 12:03, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Welcome to Marcus Mumford's Administrators' Noticeboard and Philosophical Steakhouse  :) ——SN54129 15:00, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support block This appears to be this user's 12th block. 13th, but one of the blocks was in error. I see nothing wrong with the block except for its unexpectedly short duration given the history shown in the block log. WP:BOOMERANG applies here, but I suggest Doncram's misbehaviour doesn't rise to the level of an extended block at this time. --Yamla (talk) 11:59, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Note, though, that before the current block, the previous one was for 31 h in 2018 (for the same reason) and the one before that was in 2014. That likely explains the choice of block length. EdChem (talk) 12:08, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment) Good block (ow, my eyes...) Looks like a good block to me, the wall of text doesn't convince me that BHG is abusing the mop. ^creffpublic _{a creffett franchise} (talk to the boss) 13:47, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment) Good block. Perhaps extend the length to a week or so to give Doncram a chance to see what others think and take on board what they have said. As an uninvolved editor who commented on his talk page before he created the second unblock request. It appears even clearer to me now that he is displaying WP:IDHT behaviour; his second unblock rquest straight up ignores what everyone else is saying and going after BHG and denying that he is making up allegations (then in rhe next paragraph continuing to make more allegations), It is sad that an editor who has been productive elsewhere has to be blocked for refusal to follow one rule. Tknifton (talk) 14:11, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• Good block. The editor's attitude would suggest that this will become an indef. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 14:20, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment) Another admin should have decided whether to block: BHG and Doncram have a longstanding disagreement on WP:REDNOT which has been going on for months, making BHG WP:INVOLVED. BHG should have brought it to this board and an uninvolved admin should have made the call. Schazjmd (talk) 15:07, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
  • An admin explaining a policy or guideline to a user (even at length) doesn't make that admin involved, but is what admins should do before blocking: if an editor makes mistakes, check whether the problem has been explained and warnings been given, and if the problems persist, block. Whether these explanations and warnings were given by the same or by another admin has no importance. (Good block, by the way). Fram (talk) 15:19, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
• Good block. This appears to be a pattern of behavior; I disagree that BHG was involved; it appears that her prior involvement was in an administrative capacity in terms of warning and explaining policy and the like. The IDHT nature of the unblock requests only further adds to the notion that it was a proper block. --Jayron32 16:05, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
• No admin abuse and no involvement violation, block is within admin discretion. Doncram can get unblocked by making a commitment to cease the behaviour that led to the block. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:31, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
• Good block All Doncram needs to do is make a firm commitment to never add non-existent categories. How can that be controversial? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 17:36, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
• Thanks for all the feedback, folks. It's all a bit sad. Doncram has been a prolific and dedicated creator of NRHP articles for over a decade, mostly at the start-class grade (WikiScan shows 13,490 article creations). His individulal creations are not stellar, but it seems to be broadly sold and uncontroversial, and that that sort of diligent in-depth coverage is very valuable even if none of it goes beyond start-class.
  Unfortunately, Doncram is less skilled at all the collaborative aspects of en.wp, and often has strained relations with WikiProject National Register of Historic Places.
  I have encountered editors like this several times elsewhere: valuable diligence, which never comes near FA quality, but genuinely adds value to en.wp ... but the poor collaborative skills can lead to side-effects of disruption which need to be restrained but are hard to resolve. In this case, the block log shows that the community hasn't had much success in helping Doncram avoid conflict, and my own efforts haven't had a higher success rate. It seems to me that the community as a whole could use some insight onto how best to help editors like this get to a place where their dilegence can be valued without big "but"s which lead to blocks and dramas. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:58, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

  That seems like a fair summary, but possibly a tricky task. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:23, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

  I think that's a fair summary, but there's really no need for people to pile on the "good block" comments. This is pretty obviously an editor who has the best interests of Wikipedia at heart, but seems unable to concede that consensus goes the other way sometimes. If someone could persuade Doncram to make a far less verbose appeal for unblocking then that might be successful. I find BrownHairedGirl's comments in this case a bit too wordy for my liking, but Doncram's are completely over the top. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:56, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• WP:ROUGE applies. Sound block, Doncram needs to wind his neck in. Guy (help!) 23:41, 21 January 2020 (UTC)
• (Non-administrator comment) In their most recent edit Doncram has continued to display WP:IDHT and has even gone so far as suggested that we are trying to cover for BHGs "Abuse" (he also claims he should be allowed to continue to violate WP:REDNOT. Tknifton (talk) 19:19, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

  I'm not particularly bothered by those comments; blocked users often feel the need to vent, insofar as they don't devolve into base personal attacks, I'm always inclined to let them scream into the void for a while. I wouldn't do anything further do Doncram unless and until there is further disruption to the article space. He has ample evidence for what is going to be done if he persists in adding redlinked categories to articles, and so long as he doesn't actually do that again, he can advocate for changing Wikipedia policy on the matter all he wants. No one should be blocked for having a contrarian view on any Wikipedia policy, so long as their view does not spill into violations of said policy in the article space itself, let him rail against it. --Jayron32 19:58, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

• @Doncram::, you should be aware that if your disruptive behavior continues, you may face a longer block or a partial block, or an extension of the current block. You are advised to rethink your repose bearing in mind WP:ASPERSIONS and WP:AGF.-- Deepfriedokra 19:50, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

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

There, I fixed it

Apparently, my infobox generator was allowing "Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals architecture in the United States" to be listed as a category, even though it doesn't exist. I've always cautioned editors to be careful and to proofread the output of the infobox generator, but sometimes people don't do that. So, I made a code fix.

In common.php around line 424:

       // HACK of a fix so people don't keep stuffing bogus categories into infoboxes
       if (strcmp($row[0], "Category:Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals architecture in the United States" == 0) ) {
           $row[0] = "THIS CATEGORY DOES NOT EXIST";
           continue;
       }

I need to get back to my day job now, but suffice it to say that I think this should alleviate the problem. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 16:07, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

User refuses to abide by community consensus on style issues and unsourced material

If you see User talk:Donteatpigs, you will find a long list of users complaining that he keeps on adding unsourced material and makes arbitrary changes to style issues (like the formatting of album article track listings). He's continuing to do this despite repeated warnings and the last time he responded to such a warning makes me think he doesn't actually care or comprehend how his edits are disruptive and wasteful. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:19, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• Blocked for 31 hours.-- Deepfriedokra 19:59, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Unblock request from User:Ear-phone

Hi all,

We have received this unblock request from user Ear-phone via UTRS. I'm going to copy and paste the unblock request from UTRS below so those without access can see it.

"Why do you believe you should be unblocked?

I was blocked for being a socket puppet, more than a year ago. I was asked to apply for an unblock after six months. I did this and I was unsuccessful. I tried again after one year and I was again unsuccessful because I could not re-word substantially (English is not my first language). As I have said before, I reflected on my actions and understood it was wrong to be a socket puppet. I pledged and pledge to use only one account to edit and contribute positively.

If you are unblocked, what articles do you intend to edit?

Articles related to my interests, mainly science-related including biographies of scientists.

Why do you think there is a block currently affecting you? If you believe it's in error, tell us how.

In my view, the block was warranted but unfairly long. I have openly admitted to using socks in the past. I have mentioned that I will not use them again and will contribute constructively as I have now read the guidelines. The block has the effect of denying me voluntary participation in a worthwhile global movement.

Is there anything else you would like us to consider when reviewing your block?

Justice and fairness. English not being a primary language - therefore a limited ability to convey and re-word sentences."

I emailed Bbb23 regarding this as they're the blocking administrator. A CU check was ran and Bbb23 found some obvious logged out edits by the user and some less obvious ones. Bbb23 has said as far as they're concerned that would preclude an unblock. However, if we overlook the logged out edits they would permit an unblock after a community discussion. Bbb23 found another possible sock of User:Lucas-O'D but was reluctant to confirm the account as there's only 2 edits, the medical stuff Ear-phone is more interested in is African related and they don't think it's the same style.

Would the community be willing to accept an unblock?

I'm going to give them TPA again to allow them to respond to any questions here if someone would like to add that to their watchlist so any answers can be copied and pasted.-- 5 albert square (talk) 02:12, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose unblocking I'm glad to see that they want to turn over a new leaf and edit constructively, but part of being a constructive editor is in respecting the policies and practices of the editing community, including the sockpuppetry policy and blocking policy, which prohibit IP editing while blocked. If this user can stay away from Wikipedia without socking or IP editing for 6 months, I think that they would be a perfect candidate for the standard offer. (Non-administrator comment) OhKayeSierra (talk) 05:09, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose unblocking I am usually well disposed towards unblock requests for editors blocked long ago who promise not to do again what led to their being blocked. Over the years I have far more often found myself to be in a minority (not infrequently a minority of one) in supporting an unblock in this kind of situation, while others oppose, than the other way round. However, this time there are several things which give me pause. In connection with previous unblock requests, the editor lied about what sockpuppet accounts they had used. (That was clear from reading the editing history, and also confirmed by a CheckUser.) The editor is now denying any further block-evasion, but Bbb23 has "found some obvious logged out edits by the user". Why should we unblock an editor who is known to have been lying about their block-evasion for over a year, and is known to be still lying? At the very least I would want the editor to come clean now about their dishonesty in the past and recently before considering an unblock. Unless they can produce a pretty convincing explanation I am inclined to agree with OhKayeSierra, who suggests a standard offer if the editor can keep off block-evasion for 6 months. I also agree with Bbb23, who has said that as far as they're concerned the IP block-evasion would preclude an unblock. (I can see no reason why a community discussion might "overlook the logged out edits".) As for Lucas-O'D, I'm not sure. Bbb23 rightly points out that there are differences, but there are similarities too. With only two edits there is not much to go on to judge either way, so probably we should not attach much weight to that account, in view of the doubt. JBW (talk) 10:13, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

• (Incidentally, the comments above about an unblock request being unsuccessful "because I could not re-word substantially (English is not my first language)" and "English not being a primary language - therefore a limited ability to convey and re-word sentences" are missing the point. The rquested change of the unblock request was about substantially rewriting it because it did not address the reasons for the block, not, as Ear-phone apparently thinks, about rewording sentences so as to improve the English. JBW (talk) 10:25, 22 January 2020 (UTC))
• If these logged out edits were made in the last 90 days (from the tracked IP logs) then I'd be an oppose. If they were determined by the current IP against IP-edits made more than six months ago, then I might be a weak support. Are CUs only run off the last 90 days, or can account/IP checking be done on a longer timescale? Nosebagbear (talk) 11:10, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

CheckUser data is kept for only 3 months. I suppose it would be possible for a CheckUser to check an account's current IP address for edits from longer ago, but even if a CheckUser did so, it would provide no technical evidence of its being the same editor beyond being the same IP address, and I wouldn't have expected Bbb23's reference to "obvious logged out edits by the user" to be based on no more than just the IP address. However, Bbb23 may like to clarify that issue in response to Nosebagbear's query. JBW (talk) 11:26, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I suspect you're right, @JBW:, not least because the CU tool is apparently particularly clunky, even by wiki standards, and I've not heard a mention of its ability to compare current IP data in the logs and IP data that's only associated with non-account edits (but has left the stored logs as too old). Nosebagbear (talk) 13:38, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

• I am copying the following message from User talk:Ear-phone. Bbb23, would you care to comment on it? JBW (talk) 12:58, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

If you say obvious logged out edits. I give my consent for the IP addresses to be released in public so that the community can see for themselves and verify. I categorically did not edit Wikipedia. I did not lie and I addressed that previously. Ear-phone (talk) 11:42, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ear-phone: - I, and pretty much the entire community, are happy to accept a CU's statement on these matters - I can't see any benefit in you releasing private information onto the site, it was just a request for clarification. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:38, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

CheckUser policy permits me to disclose IPs "With the permission of the affected user". I have never done so and find myself strongly rebelling against doing it now. I believe the community should exclude the obvious logged out edits. The only thing that gives me pause is Ear-phone's categorical denial, but it's possible Ear-phone has forgotten or thinks I'm referring to something else. As for the non-obvious edits, the IP edited a non-medical, science article. Finally, another thing that makes this tough from a technical perspective is Ear-phone's very common user agent.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:29, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Ear-phone has qualified their denial of editing logged out on their Talk page: "I did not edit Wikipedia when logged out or logged in (besides my talk page)." I tend to be very skeptical about what socks say, but in this instance, without endorsing an unblock, I urge the community to treat Ear-phone's unblock request based only on their reasons and history, and assume that they have not socked in the 90 days before my check.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:26, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

My understanding since the orientation is that we're not allowed to disclose an account's IP address, even with permission from the accountholder, because the local policy differs from the global policy and overrides it in this aspect. I was told that by someone (don't recall who) but I don't see that wording in the policy as of right now. Personally I also would not reveal it from the user's private data even by their request, but also it's very obvious to anyone who looks at Ear-phone's talk page history (I did not run a check). I wouldn't consider those edits to be a violation of the policy. I don't have an opinion on what else you might have seen, though. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:11, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support unblocking - I feel that we should take the user's word for it. CheckUser has been proven to be inaccurate before, and this could easily be one of those instances. Foxnpichu (talk) 15:15, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

It's not. The results require interpretation, but they're not wrong. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:16, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support unblocking the editor said that they are not going to use sockpuppets again and has appealed twice but got denied. I think the time this editor has spinned blocked is enough "punishment" for the sockpuppetery they did. Indefinite block is really too much.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 20:05, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Request to lift topic ban

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

---

• SS49 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)-- Deepfriedokra 12:26, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Per this ANI discussion, I was banned from sorting, relisting or closing discussions at AfD. Please lift the ban. ~SS49~ {talk} 12:11, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Note: see previous failed request to lift topic ban, from July. --Calton | Talk 14:35, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you explained why the ban should be lifted. --Yamla (talk) 12:20, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

• (ec) On what grounds? You'd need to demonstrate understanding of why you were tbanned in the first place and provide a convicing case that you won't repeat it. Reyk _YO! 12:21, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
• Indeed. It would be helpful to know what advice you have taken in and how things will be different.-- Deepfriedokra 12:29, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
• I would also ask why you need the unban? Why do you want to return to AfD? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:39, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
• I would be cautiously in favour of allowing sorting, as a first step, but we've had drama around NACs and relisting so those feel more contentious. Sorting is thankless gnoming. Guy (help!) 09:46, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
• Why initiate discussion at AN and make no effort at further participation for over 24 hours? If the OP can not be bothered to answer inquiries why should we have any interest in going forward? Tiderolls 13:56, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

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

Owen Shroyer

• Owen Shroyer (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Owen Shroyer

This article is back, thanks to a relatively new user. It actually has fewer sources than at deletion, no new sources that I can see, and much of (but not all) the same text. This looks a bit off to me. Guy (help!) 09:45, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

User:BOZ

There are some problems with many of the edits and actions by User:BOZ. They mainly belong to three categories:

• Creation of articles on non notable subjects. This has been going on for more than 10 years now, and the number of AfDs and Prods that already ended in a delete or redirect is quite impressive (with many, many more articles to be checked yet). I don't know of a tool to check how many creations by an editor have been redirected afterwards, they are not included here[24]: at the moment, of his 3600 creations (about 750 in 2019 alone), 180 have been deleted, and many others redirected. Many more are at AfD now, and new ones are started almost daily. This includes not only his oldest creations, but also a lot from late in 2019, things like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dankendismal, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Crisis: A Twisted Laugh at Life, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Crossroads (role-playing game)...
• AfD votes stating "Keep or merge to X" without any reason for the "keep" given, or without addressing the arguments from the nominator or other delete votes. See e.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nanny (comics) (where they then created a redirect which was discussed and deleted immediately afterwards as well, see here), but also all his other recent AfD comments: [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]
• Restoring articles which were deleted after AfD, and where they were involved either as part of the editing history, or by having voted "keep or merge" in the AfD. E.g. they voted in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fathom Five (comics) as the lone "keep or merge" vote, so when that article and its redirects get deleted, BOZ restores the deleted redirects[39][40]. BOZ has extensively edited Lathander, which gets deleted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lathander (2nd nomination). BOZ restores it. Karsus was deleted in 2008 a a copyvio, then recreated, and deleted in 2019 after AfD. BOZ restores the page, with inclusion of the pre-2008 copyvio parts[41]. The same happens with Angharradh, repeatedly deleted including for copyvio, restored completely with the copyvio. This was a page (re)-created by BOZ in 2008, so not only restoring copyvio but also a clearly involved action to restore the history of a page, deleted at AfD, which they had created in the past.

All the above is from his very recent history (last month or thereabouts), but the pattern continues through the years. I first contacted BOZ about this last year, in User talk:BOZ/Archive 2019#Notability of your creations, which had only some temporary result, as can be seen from the AfDs for recent creations. So I started User_talk:BOZ#Notability of your article creations two weeks ago. This improved for now the creation of the articles, but seeing the problematic behaviour at AfD, the problematic use of his admin tools as described above, and the thinly veiled canvassing by listing all the AfDs for his articles at the user talk pages of others[42][43][44][45], ... I would like some uninvolved admins to step in and make it clear what is acceptable and what isn't for all these areas. Fram (talk) 11:35, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

One can sort this list by the size of the page at creation and thus distinguish a redirect that was a redirect from the get-go from a redirect that started out as an article. It doesn't seem like many of the articles were redirected, though. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:08, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• (ec) Unless I'm misreading something, content was merged out of Bloodtide into something else. That would make restoring the history appropriate for attribution purposes. I completely agree that reversing the other AfD results by fiat was completely inappropriate since there's no attribution history to preserve for those. The Ctrl-C Ctrl-V "keep or merge" nonsense is annoying but benign since nobody pays attention anymore and AfD is not a vote. As for the canvassing, yeah, I agree that it is. Reyk _YO! 12:12, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
• Asking for help to find sources and edit an article that is at AfD is not the same as asking for votes. While canvasing is always a concern, getting help to improve an article that is at AfD isn;t a problem in itself. - Bilby (talk) 12:18, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

If I have restored content inappropriately as outlined above, then I apologize for my error; let me know what needs to be done and I will fix that and try to avoid making the same mistakes in the future. I do not believe I have violated WP:CANVASS after reviewing the policy, as I have never, and will never, ask or expect another user to participate in such AFDs, and I have only ever asked people for assistance in finding sources who have proven skilled and interested in doing so on similar topics. Note that under "Appropriate notification" it mentions that a user can place a message on the user talk page of "concerned editors" and gives examples such as editors who have made substantial edits to the topic or article, who have participated in previous discussions on the same topic (or closely related topics), and editors known for expertise in the field, and I believe that both User:Guinness323 and User:Sariel Xilo qualify for some or all of that. If I am incorrect in my reading of the policy, then I will cease asking for help in finding sources.

As for the rest, well I am and always have been a prolific content creator. I am not as attached to articles I created as seems to be suggested by Fram, in fact I do not always !vote in AFDs on them (see the second two of the three mentioned in the first paragraph). I also edit many other articles that I did not create, and I do not personally consider those any more or less "mine" as the ones I started. I have had a feeling in the last few weeks of a growing hostility towards me from Fram, and I have mostly tried to ignore his comments, but it seems hard to avoid him escalating what could be a non-situation resolved simply through discussion or by avoiding unnecessary conflict. I have had a growing dread that I was being set up to be the next victim of a WP:FRAMming (that's not a verb, is it? Maybe it should be?) and I hope that I am wrong about that. I would like to think that my contributions have been a net positive to the encyclopedia, but if you listen to Fram that would seem not to be the case. For the past two weeks or so he seems to have been aggressively focusing on me, possibly to the point of WP:HOUNDing, but again I am hoping that is not the case. BOZ (talk) 12:43, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• And then you went and voted the same "keep or merge" here, here and here. Your actions are not a "non-situation", you have created hundreds of articles on non-notable topics over the course of a dozen years, and don't seem to know or care about major aspects of the notability guidelines, admin policy, AfD expectations, ... I am not hounding you as in involving me with everything you do, I have only started AfDs (or redirected similar articles), made a few comments on your talk page, and now started this (I have !voted in 1 other AfD about an article you created IIRC). But when I notice a persistent problem, spread over many articles, then I will usually not ignore it and leave it to others to clean it up. WP:SOFIXIT and all that. That you have made many good contributions is not disputed: but this doesn't mean that a blind eye should be turned to the many problematic edits. Fram (talk) 14:44, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I create articles based on the sources I have on hand. I go back and add more sources later after I find them. Maybe someone else will add sources to the articles I created. I add sources to articles that other people created. Sometimes those articles I find have only 1 source, sometimes 0, so I improve them to the best of my ability. If articles created by me or someone else do not get improved, they may deleted. I understand that well, and that is how notability works on Wikipedia. I am not upset by you wanting to delete articles that I created, but if I have another suggestion such as merging then I will make a recommendation. If you feel that going through all of my contributions by yourself is a monumental task that makes you upset or angry at me, then that is a matter of your perspective. I do not do anything on Wikipedia with the intention of upsetting Fram (or anyone else). Badgering me will not change my perspective, nor will trying to publicly shame me. I work on what I like, and what makes me happy, and I would like to think that everyone does the same thing, but I see negative attitudes from time to time that leads me to think otherwise. BOZ (talk) 16:07, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
    • "That is how notability works on Wikipedia". Uh, no. You, as the article creator, are responsible for the articles you create wrt notability. Creating articles about subjects where you don't know if they are notable or not is irresponsible (at least for experienced editors, we all have a learning curve). Your pages are autopatrolled, since you are an admin, which means that they get less scrutiny than most other new pages. But creating pages which are not suitable for enwiki gives a bad example and creates additional work (AfDs, DRVs, deletion, ...) and sends the wrong signal to other editors as well. Continuing to add material which you know (or should know) not to be suited for enwiki is disruptive editing. Restoring thousands of pages without caring whether you are "involved" and/or going against consensus, and without taking care to only restore appropriate revisions, is disruptive as well. Fram (talk) 17:22, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
• Fram You mentioned above that BOZ left me a list of AfD articles. I'm a relatively new editor but if you go back to June/July 2019 on my talk page you'll see that BOZ doesn't just leave me AfD article suggestions. Since Summer 2019, they've been suggesting all sorts of RPG/game articles that need help (mostly with sources) that they thought I might be interested in. I'm fairly decent with research if a topic has an internet presence or at the very least finding the names of obscure out of print titles that I can direct an editor towards if they want to take the time to find them offline. You'l also notice that I don't follow up on everything they suggest. I pick and choose based on interest, time and what I find when I do a basic research sweep. If I think I can contribute to an AfD or another article, then I do. I'm not a short order cook for BOZ blindly voting in AfDs nor do I think BOZ is canvassing my vote. Sariel Xilo (talk) 22:34, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I would also like to say that I think this is my first AN or AN/I thread, thank you, thank you very much, happy to be here. ;) If I have erred in my judgement in any areas it could be that I have not been called out on it enough yet? I am open to addressing legitimate concerns, so thank you to anyone willing to discuss. BOZ (talk) 12:48, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) If nothing else. WP:INVOLVED is a pretty bright line, occasionally even ArbCom material. And although much of the other stuff (canvassing, ATADD, etc) is merely behavioral, it all adds up to being BIZARRE. ——SN54129 13:12, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I see what happened with Lathander, and some of the others. The List of Forgotten Realms deities was deleted after AFD, and many articles has been previously merged into that list, so their edit histories were deleted along with the list. I restored the edit histories of those deleted articles and merged them into Forgotten Realms, and I will admit that I probably did not check to see if any of them had been deleted for legitimate reasons, and therefore I created an appearance of impropriety through carelessness. I went ahead and deleted the edit histories of the ones mentioned in the initial post, and I again apologize for that.

As for the two articles that were previously merged into Fathom Five, that was a similar situation when I restored those histories, and I do not see a problem with those unless I am missing something. BOZ (talk) 15:30, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

The problem is that you seem to do this all the time. Zann: it was created in 2005, and deleted (correctly) as patent nonsense then (full text: "No lo conosco... "). You created it again in 2013 as a redirect (no problem there). The redirect target was deleted in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Forgotten Realms deities though, in which you voted "Keep or selectively merge" (of course), and the redirect was deleted at the same time (as is usual). So you restored the page (which violates WP:INVOLVED since you created it in the first place), including the three revisions speedy deleted as nonsense. You restored dozens of pages which you had created or expanded. You restored Akadi, including the copyvio first edits. Fram (talk) 15:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Zann and Akadi would have been part of the same set of articles I mentioned above, so I deleted the edit histories of them as well. Again, I am sorry about that. If there are others, I will do the same with them. BOZ (talk) 16:10, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Then please go through your contributions and correct them. It shouldn't be up to others to fix (or even find) your mistakes once you are made aware that they happened repeatedly. Fram (talk) 17:22, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. I am making my way through all the articles I restored, and deleting the edit histories of any articles that were previously legitimately deleted prior to that AFD; so far, I have found that most had never been deleted prior to that point. BOZ (talk) 18:34, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I had to delete the edit histories of several more. I am pretty embarrassed there were that many. BOZ (talk) 19:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I hope you continue this effort, as there are still more of the same, like here where you restored an article where all revisions were deleted as copyvio. Or this one, right before that, where you restored seven revisions which were an A1 deletion, a G11 deletion, and again a G12 copyvio deletion. Other ones are less problematic but still completely pointless, like this one, restoring an A3 deleted page (full text: "lol"). These three are consecutive entries in your restoration log, so it seems like there is still a lot to be rectified and that this carelessness has been a constant factor for months or years. Fram (talk) 07:31, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I redeleted the bad edits from those. BOZ (talk) 12:27, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I will find time today to continue in my log and see if there are more problematic restorations like those, and eliminate the bad diffs. BOZ (talk) 12:52, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

FWIW just talking about the particular content created (the first point) - I think BOZ makes lots of good content - BOZ has created 11,588 pages, with 520 since deleted. 3,597 of which are articles, with a 5.1% deletion record of 185. From my experience working with BOZ, they look through a particular entry of an old magazine, and then see which games or other items don't yet exist on wikipedia, and create a stub. Would this be better if it was a fully fledged article? Yes. Would it be just better with a couple more sources? Absolutely. There are definitely some very notable items on the list, so I don't think this is cut-and-dry. I certainly wouldn't want to deminish an editor because they have a poor hit percentage.

The second point is a little bit less serious in my eyes. AfD isn't a vote, and if they don't provide any rationale, then it can be simply be overlooked. Is it great from an administrator to not supply reasons for voting in a AfD? Not at all. But, realistically, the issues would hopefully be overlooked by a competent closer.

The third point is the most serious. I suspect BOZ just doesn't really check the status of an articles history when creating, but it's very unlikely that these subjects will suddenly become more notable. INVOLVED is clear here, but I would suggest to BOZ to be a bit more careful when creating new content in the future that they aren't involved, and that the act of creating the article doesn't overstate a previous AfD. (non-admin comment) Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:46, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you kindly, Lee. I appreciate your comments here greatly, and will take all of that into consideration. I will definitely do my best in the future to avoid using my tools on articles where I have been involved in anything more than a cursory way. BOZ (talk) 19:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• Having worked on some of these RPG articles, I think there is a problem with WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. The community's views on this kind of cruft are clear and patience wore thin a long time ago, but the "locals" keep going anyway, either because they don't know, or don't care.

As one example, look at Talk:List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition monsters. Boz mentions that this level of mind-boggling detail (a 300k list article for a specific aspect of a commercial product-line) lacks widespread support, referring to "the PROD treatment" and dismissively saying "and you will never satisfy those who only want deletion".

List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition monsters cites this obscure book over thirty times, mainly because it's the only secondary source anyone could find for most of the hundreds of entries in the list. I think most people on that talk page, including Boz, are sincere in trying to share useful information, but it's also hard not to see this as gaming the system.

These are commercial products which are being promoted by Wikipedia. This is not good scholarship, it's native advertising, and that's a serious problem. We have hundreds or thousands of examples of crufty articles for RPG books, or just RPG... concepts, like fictional places, fictional gods, fictional species of monsters... These keep getting created, and recreated, and AFD'd, and so on, and many never see a single usable source. Anyone who is sincerely paying attention will realize what the pattern is. It's not that "we only want deletion", we want reliable sources. Grayfell (talk) 01:39, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Ehhhhh I'd hardly call it advertising. 2nd Ed became obsolete in 2000 with the release of 3rd, and we're up to 5E now. Nobody's making money off of obscure monsters and out-of-print splatbooks. This kind of content is more of a holdover from WP's early days, when we were largely populated by enthusiastic nerds who wanted to write about everything they loved (dragging myself here too) and didn't have anything like the sourcing-based notability standards that we have today. Not saying we should keep these, mind - just pointing out that calling it native advertising is not quite fair. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 14:27, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Maybe "native advertising" is an exaggeration, but it's still functionally a form of promotion. It's not the individual products that are being marketed, it's lifestyle branding. Hasbro bought this property for a reason, and that reason includes decades of cruft like this. Grayfell (talk) 21:00, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• As a frequent AfD closer, I can confirm at least the problem with BOZ's argument-less AfD "Keep or merge to X" votes. I now routinely disregard them when closing, but they are disruptive. (There are, to be fair, also some editors I recognize as regular "delete" advocates, but they normally give reasons, if only a reference to WP:GNG.) Maybe we should think about whether BOZ should continue to contribute to AfDs. Sandstein 14:52, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • For what it's worth, if it helps, I will try to always include at least one policy in my response to AFD going forward. I don't mean to be disruptive, and honestly did not think I was being disruptive, but I certainly do not want to leave that impression if I can help it. BOZ (talk) 15:01, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
    • I'd like to second Sandstein's comments. Perhaps you may also want to explain why that policy/guideline justifies the course of action you propose. I used to routinely ignore AFDs with the "Keep or merge to X" !votes as they are unhelpfully vague. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:52, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
      • I don't know, at this point I am going to give up on trying to make excuses for myself as I feel like I am only making myself look worse every time I say something, and so I will surrender to whatever decision the community wants to make regarding me. I have come to realize that I have a pretty sub-par record as an editor, stuck mentally in the better days of Wikipedia where people were not so concerned with deleting so-called "non-notable" content. There is nothing I can do to turn the tide on how the community has changed, and it only gets worse every day, and probably one day almost everything I ever created or helped create will be deleted. I will try to limit my editing until this thread is closed, so as not to dig my own hole any deeper than I already have. I doubt I will respond further to this thread, so whatever needs to happen to me is probably whatever needs to happen to me. This is stressing me out to no end, so further participation is not going to be good for my mental well-being. I do have some things I promised to clean up, so I better get to that while I am still allowed to do so. I will accept whatever decision the community makes regarding me here. BOZ (talk) 16:54, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think changing "keep or merge" to "keep or merge per WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD" shows that BOZ has really gotten the message, as this still doesn't address the AfD nominations or gives any actual reasons to keep the articles at all. Doing this simply every time[46][47][48][49] shows, well, I don't know if it is a lack of understanding of the problem, or simply disdain for the concerns raised here, but it sure doesn't look good. Fram (talk) 17:11, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

@Fram, Sariel Xilo, Serial Number 54129, Lee Vilenski, Grayfell, Premeditated Chaos, Sandstein, and Jo-Jo Eumerus: Shall we start discussion on whether or not to topic ban BOZ (who is an admin) for the greater good of the world, and whether or not BOZ should be desysopped? ミラP 17:23, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

• Given the above, I'd support a topic ban of BOZ from AfDs. Just adding "per WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD" to a pure vote at AfD does not make it any less of a vote, because all it says is "don't delete because we shouldn't delete content". AfDs are not votes, but discussions based on Wikipedia policies and guidelines. To contribute to such a discussion it is necessary to address why the specific article at issue fails or meets any of our accepted standards for inclusion such as WP:N or WP:NOT. BOZ is an administrator, and as such is expected to understand how AfDs work. Mechanically copy-pasting the same statement in all AfDs they participate in reflects either a serious lack of compentence or disruptive intent. Sandstein 17:32, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
• Thanks for the ping Miraclepine; I support a Tban XfDs for BOZ per Sandstein, whose reasoning is complete. ——SN54129 17:51, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
  • You're welcome Serial Number 54129. Should we start now? The sooner the better. ミラP 17:54, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
• Thanks for the notification Miraclepine; If a ban is necessary, I would suggest a time limit. I've never been part of discussion like this so I don't know what is standard (6 months, a year, etc). I would also suggest limiting the ban to voting. If BOZ can contribute (finding/adding sources, etc) to the article under AfD, that seems fine and then they just won't be part of the AfD discussion itself for the duration of the ban. I also wouldn't want BOZ to be banned from discussing the existence of AfDs elsewhere. For example, back in November I asked for BOZ's help in running down some sources on a AfD and we kept that discussion on my talk page rather than the AfD because it was a bit off topic. Sariel Xilo (talk) 18:37, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

• As the context here is that BOZ is having an awful lot of his articles nominated for deletion, a flat tban on XfD at this time seems pretty harsh. That's not to say these !votes are up to snuff, but taken on their own they're not much different from what we see from a bunch of other users whom we've repeatedly declined to tban (and whose !votes are simply routinely ignored -- or should be). BOZ, arguing that something meets GNG is based on significant coverage in reliable sources. Perhaps if you simply commit to making a serious case for GNG when you argue as such, we can avoid this tban business. e.g. a minimum of something like "Keep - passes WP:GNG as seen by [source 1] [source 2]". — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:19, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

• I have considered Boz's AFD behavior (blanket "Keep or merge" without rationale for (almost?) every single AFD nomination they partake in) and high output of stubs/substubs with 1-2 sources cited (forever thinking about that Mage: The Ascension or w/e RPG supplement article that said nothing beyond that the supplement "adds options for players") to be very problematic for an admin for a while now - the AFD behavior in particular comes across as disruptive or lacking in understanding of how the process works - but did not have the energy to start a thread like this on my own. I want to reiterate that this is not about me wanting to PROD everything, or that I will only be happy when all of Boz's work is removed from WP, or that I have a vendetta against them, or whatever - it's that I care about notability and sourcing, and about our administrators' understanding of the processes they partake in, and think something needs to change.--Alexandra^IDV 01:45, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• Creating articles is not a crime. Arguing to keep those articles at AfD is not a crime either; it is to be expected. If the articles or arguments seem weak then that's not unusual either; the nominations and other votes at AfD are often weak too because WP:BEFORE is not followed and editors fail to research the topics in exhaustive detail due to constraints of time, access, understanding, &c. All these issues are the routine stuff of AfD and the inclusionist/deletionist divide. If mistakes are made, this to be expected too because our work is not perfect nor is it required to be.

Myself, I've seen BOZ in various AfDs and he's always seemed to be remarkably soft-spoken and well-behaved. Given the extent to which his work has been threatened with deletion, his good-natured behaviour seems quite commendable. Other editors create a lot more drama in such circumstances...

The issues in question seem mainly to be a matter of notability but WP:N is a guideline not a policy and its vagaries and inconsistencies are well-known. Resolving these is a work-in-progress, far from complete and is never likely to be an exact science. Punishing editors for work written 10 years ago seems outrageous in such circumstances – see ex post facto, nulla poena sine lege, &c.

So, while BOZ doesn't seem to be doing anything especially unusual or wrong, Fram's behaviour seems more serious. They were lately sanctioned and desysopped by Arbcom. Findings included issues of "harassment" and "following another editor's contributions". Fram had commented that "I obviously need to dial things back a few notches and rethink some of my approaches" but here we see them going back up to eleven again by intensely focussing on the work of another good-faith editor, tracking their contributions for years and attacking them. How is this behaviour any different from what has gone before? Perhaps Fram still has something to learn too.

Andrew🐉(talk) 23:01, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• This entire discussion is unnecessary. User:BOZ has created articles on details relating to topic areas that are, at their higher levels, clearly notable and of substantial interest to many people. Role-playing games and the entire fantasy genre, while easily dismissable by those whose interests are more focused on other topics, are important topics for coverage in an encyclopedia. How much influence has Dungeons & Dragons had specifically on popular conceptions of the mythical hero's journey, and on the idea of what various kinds of "monsters" look like and act like? I don't know if that can be quantified, but it remains the case that these are not purely frivolous topics, and some really are sufficiently notable and well-referenced. Many others really are suitable for merging into articles giving broader general coverage of the topic area. In my view, BOZ has done nothing actionable. BD2412 T 23:12, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
• Completely agree with Andrew and BD2412. Attempting to punish an editor for good faith actions, some of which are a decade old, in a total gang-up is exactly why this project bleeds editors. The totally needless hostility and hounding deserves to be ignored completely At the least, even possibly result in a WP:BOOMERANG as this is along the lines of uncivil behavior we've seen before that has lead to so much drama. All because BOZ doesn't toe the line of some individuals' vision of the project. No action should be taken. None. oknazevad (talk) 23:36, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
• I want to add onto what I said in m y previous post and make it clear that 1) I do not have a vendetta against RPGs - I am personally interested in the topic, and play Vampire: The Masquerade on the regular, and am currently preparing for a Dusk City Outlaws campaign. I often hold back on creating articles on topics I would have liked to cover just because there is not enough RS coverage to justify it or to even support the content. 2) D&D being obviously notable does not mean that every RPG topic is. No one has any problems with the D&D article existing, and it is irrelevant to the minor RPG classes, creatures and supplements that are discussed 3) the AfD issue I have has nothing to do with whether Boz is well-mannered and soft-spoken, and all with how an admin copy-pastes the same non-argument to every AfD - which is not the same as making a weak argument) 5) This is not something that just happened 10 years ago, it still happens in every AfD Boz partakes in 6) I have absolutely no interest in "punishment", I just care about solutions to continuous problems. If "Boz, an admin, should explain why something is notable and not just copy-and-paste 'Keep' in every AfD" is the outcome of this, that's not a punishment by any means.--Alexandra^IDV 23:50, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• Alexandra IDV seems to have participated in few AfD – just six, acccording to this tool. The only one in the last year was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Axis Mundi: The Book of Spirits. BOZ's !vote in that case doesn't seem to be a cut/paste as it addressed the state of sourcing for the bundle of articles in question. Nobody agreed with Alexandra's proposal to delete them all and so BOZ's position was the consensus. Andrew🐉(talk) 00:29, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• Alexandra is very knowledgeable in policy, and very active in the content area, so please do not attempt to gloss over her points due to low AFD numbers. I 100% support her stances in her last two comments. I too have been long troubled by BOZ’s sloppy article creation and !votes at AFD. Sergecross73 msg me 00:43, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Watch out y'all

That jerk from Kentucky is back. Expect hits with obscene material in celebrity articles, between +100 and 300 bytes, from various IPs. I don't know if there's been efforts at rangeblocking; they were doing the same thing yesterday (see Jennifer Love Hewitt and follow the various IPs). Thanks, Drmies (talk) 18:25, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

•  Checking... and so far I think I can do something here. With respect to Kingboyk, 1 week is not anywhere near long enough with this IP's history of abuse. I will be reblocking and measuring in years. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:31, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• The following IPs are  Confirmed to each other, one person or two very closely connected people are performing the same vandalism from the same devices on these addresses, interspersed with WP:GHBH edits as obfuscation; no comment on possible connections to accounts:
  • 74.142.15.238 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
  • 74.142.30.166 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
  • 74.142.106.186 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
  • 74.142.114.202 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
  • 74.142.117.82 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
  • 162.155.21.146 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
  • 162.155.80.26 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
  • 162.155.165.198 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
  • 162.155.237.67 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))

Most have discrete blocks in their history already. There are a small number of unrelated contribs on both ranges, but they are also non-constructive. Partly due to the persistence and partly due to the severity of the vandalism I'm putting anonblocks on both ranges. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:51, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

sitelogo

We were not hacked, see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#6,000,000th_article. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:32, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I wish it wasn't red. I feel like I'm constantly getting notices :/ 💴Money💶💵emoji💷^{Talk💸Help out at CCI!} 02:40, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

It will only be up for 2-3 days. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:50, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

So right about when most regulars will likely have grown accustomed to the vibrancy. Leave the workers wanting more, they'll proudly belt out the next billion that much sooner, eh? It's diabolical and simple, but I like it, in theory. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:00, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

@Money emoji: You won't have to worry. Once we hit lucky seven mill, we'll do green. ミラP 17:24, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Chicago

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Ok, I have no idea how I managed to do this, but while attempting a simple copy-edit to this article I somehow appear to have blanked the entire page. As if that weren't bizarre enough, when I attempted to undo my edit, I was repeatedly denied, with a banner explaining that restoring the previous version would introduce a blacklisted link. I am at a total loss as to how I managed to do this, but it would seem to require administrative attention. Thanks. Joefromrandb (talk) 08:51, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

city-data.com is the offending site. I replaced its use with a {{cn}}, so here's the net diff: [50]. DMacks (talk) 09:00, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Much obliged! Joefromrandb (talk) 09:05, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

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Please review my block

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For context, please see this thread. I blocked for 72 hours for disruption.-- Deepfriedokra 12:40, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• 72 hours is a good start, and if they continue with the same editing after 72 hours, they are looking at an indef. Honestly, I respect your restraint in not giving them an indef right away. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:47, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

  Thanks. TBH, the ANI thread is a little shrill, and it's pushing me toward no action. If someone could review that thread, there's a number of assertions that may need action.-- Deepfriedokra 12:53, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• Good block. I was considering doing the same (but maybe for longer). 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 13:14, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• I'll just copy my query from ANI, I suppose: if the user was disruptive in just that one article, why not either: partial block or pull the EC user right. Both would have worked. I see you've done the latter but then reversed yourself (?). El_C 13:20, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• If it's endorsed and if I'm around. If someone less het up than I am could act? I'm het up and I don't like to act when I'm het up.-- Deepfriedokra 13:26, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• Endorse the block, noting that I had supported a block at WP:ANI. User:El_C - Why not a partial block or removing the EC right? The user was engaging in personal attacks, accusing other editors of vandalism, and of being a paid cabal, and was including the vandalism attacks in edit summaries, which are more disruptive than on talk pages because they are difficult to redact. The block was necessary. If the user resumes the disruption when they come off block, a longer block may be needed. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:34, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• Hello, split discussion! I won't copy my response to this this time, though. El_C 15:48, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

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Standard offer - Joseph2302

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Joseph2302 (talk · contribs) was blocked last June by Ponyo (talk · contribs) for vandalism. Normally this would be a "don't let the door hit you on the way out" block except Joseph has done a lot of good work for the project, and just occasionally goes completely off the rails. Six months later, he has decided to take the standard offer. The unblock request reads as follows:

I know that I had an unblock declined about a month ago, but I have also seen that requests for unblock under the standard offer are often debated at AN. Would it be possible to start a discussion there to gain community consensus on whether I can be unblocked? If rejected, I promise not to make any more unblock requests for 6 months.

I understand the reasons why I was blocked: I have had a repeated history of making occasional spurious edits, and this is completely unacceptable. At the time when I was last blocked, I was dealing with off-wiki issues which were affecting my ability to edit constructively on-wiki. I would be happy to discuss the details in private, but don't want my personal life on view for the whole world to see. This off-wiki issue is no longer an issue for me, and so I fully believe that if unblocked, I would be a positive editor on Wikipedia again. I completely understand that thousands of positive edits do not justify a number of bad edits, and if unblocked, I would expect it to me on a tight leach. As mentioned before, if I were unblocked, I would recommence editing in the areas that I have been doing before: sports, Women in Red, as well as some London historical articles. And I will not engage with vandalism activities. I would ask you to consider my appeal, as I believe that I can be a positive contributor to this encyclopedia again. My edit contributions show that I can be a positive impact, I have multiple GAs and FLs, which shows my commitment to the encyclopedia. In the last 5 years, I have greatly enjoyed contributing to this fantastic encyclopedia, and I just hope that I will be given that opportunity once again. Joseph2302 (talk) 11:37, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Although I have never considered vandalising Wikipedia, I have been had similar off-wiki issues as Joseph, so I understand where he's coming from, though I don't consider it an excuse for his actions. I trust that Joseph feels the same, and therefore I am inclined to consider his standard offer request, with the strict stipulation that any further vandalism really will mean he has run out of rope. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:22, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• Just as kind of a placeholder, I'd like to ask that this not be dismissed out of hand by block counting in the block log. I'm hoping to discuss a couple of things with Joseph, either on his talk page or by email, after which I might suggest some unblock conditions. I don't think he should just simply be unblocked, but I do think it would be possible to work on some conditions that might help. In general, I echo Ritchie's thoughts that (a) Joseph has done good work, and (b) the 7 previous blocks are a pattern that can't continue. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:36, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Unblock. While the block log is long, the actual disruption associated with each instance is actually pretty minimal. After a brief offline discussion, I believe his assurances that the real life situation has changed, and his other significant content work shows that he is not here for the wrong reasons. I was going to suggest an alternative to "this is the very last chance", but reading below, I doubt that would gain consensus, so I'll stick to the "unblock, very last chance" consensus that seems to be forming. Self-requested blocks would be a good idea in the future, because WP can be a pretty unforgiving place, and I very much doubt another actual block would be undone. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:42, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
• Well, obviously ^^^these discussions are important. But, yeah: it has been clear for some time that Joseph2302 has had occasional issues that come out of no-where and disappear as quickly. Of course, by then the damage has been done and the block-log lengthens. But for example, one minute he's trolling The Rambling Man, next they're working together on content. And these occurrences were sufficiently rare that—assuming that the cause(s) of these aberrations are now off the table, as J2302 says—his return should be a case of sliding into the water as opposed to a dive bomb that soaks everybody. Cheers, ——SN54129 15:53, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• Question Joseph2302 has repeatedly promised to cease disruptive editing, and has repeatedly broken that promise. I asked back in December 2019 what was different this time. I don't need to know the specifics. If they were mental health issues, those can be challenging. If they were personal life issues, those can be challenging. My point is, Joseph has repeatedly promised this was it, he's done with disruptive edits, only to break the promise. What's different this time? This user has been given numerous previous opportunities and thrown them away. What's different this time? I can imagine a number of good reasons why this time is different, but really, Joseph needs to tell us what's different. He's an editor who makes constructive contributions and would be valuable for the project, but not at the cost of the punctuated significant disruption. I hope to see him back, I hope to see a good answer here. --Yamla (talk) 16:06, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Essentially, it's my interpretation of WP:BLOCKDETERRENT - to prevent imminent damage to the project and stop continuous and regular damage. Joseph is an unusual case in that he is only disruptive for very short periods of time, and (AFAIK) has always demonstrated remorse afterwards. Therefore, I would look for a sanction that allows Joseph continue his content contributions while minimising any damage caused by whatever trigger points get thrown up - short, time limited blocks. I've seen this happen on a forum elsewhere on the internet, where one guy actually asks to be blocked for 48 hours to rescue himself from doing something he'd regret. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:29, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd be far, far more comfortable if Joseph could ask to be blocked, rather than disrupting. I can imagine this may not be possible. I'd be quite happy endorsing an unblock if this was a viable path forward; self-requested blocks don't really cost anything. But, I weakly oppose unblocking if we are going to have to clean up multiple further instances of disruption. --Yamla (talk) 16:42, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

In the case of the last block, the "clean up" amounted to a revert 37 minutes' later. While that shouldn't have been necessary, full stop, calling it "multiple further instances of disruption" is a little misleading. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 16:47, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• I think he says all the right things in his unblock request, his prior work has been a net positive, and I'm willing to extend a length of WP:ROPE to him. I endorse unblocking him at this time. We can always block him again later. --Jayron32 16:40, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support unblock I remember when Joseph was indef'd, and it came as quite a surprise (in that it was needed). He's done a lot of great work on cricket-related articles, a subject area I'm very passionate about myself, and would like to see him return. He's def. a net positive, and the threat of WP:ROPE is always there if it all goes wrong. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 17:28, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support unblock I think Joseph knows this will be his very last chance and while I have indeed been on the receiving end of some of his more erratic edits in the past, I'm keen to allow one best and final offer – no more chances. Don't let us down. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 17:48, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support unblock + block requests are fine - the sheer list is a massive concern, but I feel the risk/reward set-up is such that I'm tempted to go with more rope. Quite a few admins are happy to grant requests for self-blocking, if he's concerned he might cause problems, requesting a 48hr block from a couple of online admins seems a possible step. Nosebagbear (talk) 18:42, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

We could sqaure the circle with this and just make him an admin, that way he could block himself. Save bothering other people. ——SN54129 19:11, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. Look at that block log. Personal attacks and harassment, violations of the BLP policy, and they've even had their talk page access revoked on multiple occasions. ST47 (talk) 20:29, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - he has already violated conditions of past unblocks so many times that it's hard to see this as anything but trying to play us for fools. His block log and examples of past incidents give the impression he can't help himself, and so it's only a matter of time before he disrupts again, on purpose and with intent, because he thinks it's funny. It's not. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:51, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose- based on that block history it'll be about a month or two before he starts acting like a vandalous jerk again. I don't think unblocking would be a good idea. Reyk _YO! 23:37, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Changing to support- although I still think it won't be long before he starts acting up again I've been persuaded there'll be no actual lasting harm. And on the off chance I'm wrong, we get a productive editor back. Reyk _YO! 21:46, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support unblock with conditions (including block requests). Miniapolis 23:49, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support unblock User has a lot of beneficial contributions, give him another chance, it is not like he will do massive damage or be hard to reblock if he steps out of line again. Govindaharihari (talk) 17:27, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose unblock. An editor with that many blocks for serious misconduct is unlikely to change their ways. Sandstein 18:54, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose unblock. An editor Wikipedia can do without. Seems like madness to have him back. Nigej (talk) 20:20, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support unblock. This is actually a no-lose situation. Joseph2302 has done good work on the encyclopedia in the past, and this time there won't need to be any waste-of-time discussions if he even steps slightly out of line - he'll just be indeffed again. Black Kite (talk) 20:51, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support unblock - I've been to-ing and fro-ing over this for some time, In short as mentioned above (and not to speculate) but mental health could very well play a part here and although not a reason to Support it sort of plays a part in my support, Their block log is atrocious however given they've made excellent contributions in the past I sort of feel they should be given another shot but it should go without saying this would obviously be their only and final chance regardless of any cause, Support as a final chance and any repeats would lead to an immediate indef. –Davey2010^Talk 21:24, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support unblocking to give them the benefit of the doubt. If the previous behavior resumes (which I don't hope) they'd surely be reblocked in no time and likely for the last time. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:37, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

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Twinkle now supports partial blocks

You should now be able to apply partial blocks using Twinkle! There's a simple checkbox, off by default, that toggles the "partial" status for blocks and templates. It has some fancy menus to let you select namespaces and/or enter specific titles to block users from. There is, as of now, only one template for partial blocks, {{uw-pblock}} (made by QEDK). Any and all feedback welcome — this is obviously in flux given the rapid deployment, lack of policy, etc. — feel free to ping me and/or post at WT:TW, I'll do what I can over the next few days. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:13, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

All of you (and me) owe Amory some baklava. --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:21, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

• User:Doug Weller, FYI. You might need another excuse if you still want to avoid pblocks. :) --DBigXrayᗙ 18:29, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • @DBigXray: lol. I'm not really avoiding them as I've made one and most of my recent blocks were for issues where a partial block wouldn't help, but it's nice to know there's something in Twinkle now!. Doug Weller talk 19:11, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
    • I'm avoiding them. Yet another pain to add to my butt. We add things that are not needed (in my view) and don't add things that are (CU-related stuff).--Bbb23 (talk) 19:21, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
      • {{User:Ivanvector/Nopartial}} Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 21:07, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• I didn't really follow the progress of the development of partial blocks(though I was aware it was coming). They way I see it, they seem more useful after an initial general block as a way to get someone unblocked who might have had issues in a particular area. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't see a great many circumstances where one would start out with a partial block. 331dot (talk) 21:13, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• I can understand (though don't necessarily agree) opposition to partial blocks on a specific user. But one use I hope we can all get behind - including starting out with them - is to block a range of IPs from particular articles, when that range would have an unacceptably high level of collateral damage if simple sitewide range blocks were used. It's still theoretically collatreal damage, but it's much less damaging to prevent innocent users sharing an IP from editing 2 articles, than to prevent them editing 6 million. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:39, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

That does make sense to me. Thanks for the insight. 331dot (talk) 21:43, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

User:Rmharman redirecting his user and talk page to User:Auros

I noticed a weird case while on my usual new page patrol beat. User:Rmharman has completely taken over another account and redirects his user and talk page to that account. He even links User:Auros in his signature. I removed the redirect and tried to message him on talkpage but he reverted the edits with the edit summary "Changed username, associated with a legal name change". Razer(talk) 23:12, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

They're both the same person, me. Rmharman is older, I had switched to using Auros as the nickname took over my life (and eventually became my legal name), and recently I started making some contributions again but forgot I had converted the account, and the old user/pass was what I'd had stored in 1Password so it auto logged that in. Ideally what I'd like to do is entirely purge the old Rmharman identity and redirect any references / contribs to the new name. This is me. The nickname originated in college, gradually became what everyone calls me in real life, and I legally changed my name in 2017. --Auros (talk) 23:15, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Auros, I understand you point but using two accounts simultaneously is against wiki policies, Please see WP:MULTIPLE. Your editing patterns are frankly too confusing to follow. Just a example - I posted a edit notice on Rmharman talk page. You cut and pasted it to User talk:Auros and then you replied using the User:Rmharman account but signed it with "User:Auros" 2. Then you made another reply this time with the "Auros" account. Razer(talk) 15:56, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Also, You participated in the AFD discussion of "Josh Becker (politician)" and made a comment using your Rmharman account but signed it with "Auros" [51] at the same time you have been editing the article with both Rmharman and Auros account 2 .I would also like to point out that I dont appreciate you editing the content of my replies . Razer(talk) 16:02, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

User:Rmharman could ask for a self-requested block of their account. This would remove the chance of making accidental edits using the old account but would carry no stigma. They would employ the User:Auros account for any future edits. Links from the old user pages to the new ones could stay in place. Unless this is done, continuing to edit with two accounts is against policy and will probably lead to indignant responses. EdJohnston (talk) 16:10, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, I've fixed the settings in 1Pass, to avoid accidentally logging in the old account again, and edited the old User and User_talk pages to just be text indications of where to look, rather than redirects -- though honestly, I don't see what the harm would be in using the redirect. Suggestion: it would be useful if there were a link right next to the username, in Special:Preferences, that would take a user to WP:CHU (which EdJohnston kindly directed me to). Razer2115, regarding editing your replies, the version of your comment that I replied to is what you originally posted. It looks to me like most likely what happened is that I began composing my reply to that, then you edited your comment, then I posted my reply, and that inadvertently reverted your comment to its previous version. Perhaps you could consider the spirit of WP:AGF. I actually appreciated your original shift of my article on a local politician into the Draft space, which I had not been previously aware of (although now other users seem to be pushing the article back in the other direction). My understanding of Wikipedia as a project is that it should be possible for a user to dip in and out of contributing over time, without becoming an expert on administrative processes. The important thing is to provide factual information that meets basic principles (NPOV, good citations, and so on). The "long tail" of contributions from a very large number of infrequent users is valuable. Acting hostile toward folks, just because they haven't mastered intricacies of procedure, is harmful to the enterprise as a whole. --Auros (talk) 06:01, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Backlog at WP:RFPP

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I counted 17 unanswered requests. An advance thank you to whoever helps out with it! Clovermoss (talk) 00:10, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Dealt with a few (feedback is welcome!) --qedk (t 桜 c) 15:54, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

 Done Cleaned out now, thanks @Ritchie333 and Ymblanter:! --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:05, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

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Revdel Required

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I believe a revdel is required at WP:ITNC, specifically for this edit. A formal warning may be in order as well. I am involved. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:12, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

No revdel required. Warning may be in order. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 00:30, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

I deleted my comment and apologize for letting my temper get the better of me. Feel free to revdel.--WaltCip (talk) 00:33, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for doing that. I would consider that "ordinary" incivility or PA, not rising to the level allowing use of WP:CRD#2. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 00:37, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @SarekOfVulcan: Seriously? Gross violations of BLP and grossly offensive comments and personal attacks are almost always subject to revdel. And if this is not a gross violation of BLP then I've never seen one. @WaltCip: Thank you. Given your apology I don't believe a warning is required. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:38, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

NM at this point trying to revdel it would require doing so to other comments and I think the disruption would be excessive. Under the circumstances I am content to let it go. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:52, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ad Orientem: noting that the diff from your initial post remains revdeled by you. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 06:20, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: Yeah. When I took a look at the editing history in the thread after my initial revdel failed, I realized that due to intervening edits I was going to have to revdel more than just Walt's comment and mine. I concluded that the level of disruption was more than it was worth and decided to just leave it alone. Thanks for the note. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:48, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

I'll unredact, as it'll only create more confusion otherwise. Agree with the above, and I think WaltCip gets it; no need for further action. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:48, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

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RfC was unneutral, struckened and rewrittened after editors have already voted, then struckened and rewrittened: El_C

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Hi, I am having some troubles with this admin El_C. I will try to create a timeline for the events.

• Wikaviani wrote an unneutral RfC in Talk:Qasem Soleimani
• I complained about it Wikaviani did not respond
• After three or more editors have voted El_C tried to fix the issue, here is what the RfC looked on the section on the talk page of Qasem Soleimani

As multiple reliable sources have been found supporting Iran's propaganda, i suggest to include a section about it. Please see the above thread---Wikaviani (talk) (contribs) 11:04 pm, 22 January 2020, last Wednesday (3 days ago) (UTC+3)

Administrator note: this RfC editorializes, but it is about whether to include the paragraph that begins with the sentence: After his death, the Iranian propaganda campaign intensified disinformation efforts in creating fake news outlets, fabricating journalist personas, and systematically coordinating the international public opinion toward idolization of Soleimani. (permanent link) El_C 1:41 am, 24 January 2020, last Friday (2 days ago) (UTC+3)

• Note how the editor Wikviani's comment was at the top while the "clarification" was down. AND, if you looked at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Diff/937430210%7Conly Wikviani's comment was shown there, this was brought to my attention later thanks to Redrose64.
• Now even that paragraph that El_C made didnt actually address the issue and I again had to explain to El_C that his paraphrasing is not helpful either so he struckened his comment and this is how it [[looked like

As multiple reliable sources have been found supporting Iran's propaganda, i suggest to include a section about it. Please see the above thread---Wikaviani (talk) (contribs) 11:04 pm, 22 January 2020, last Wednesday (3 days ago) (UTC+3)

Administrator note: this RfC editorializes, but it is about whether to include the paragraph that begins with the sentence: After his death, the Iranian propaganda campaign intensified disinformation efforts in creating fake news outlets, fabricating journalist personas, and systematically coordinating the international public opinion toward idolization of Soleimani. El_C 1:41 am, 24 January 2020, last Friday (2 days ago) (UTC+3) The RfC questions is: should the dedicated section on Iranian propaganda (diff) be included in the article? El_C 1:59 am, 24 January 2020, last Friday (2 days ago) (UTC+3)

• Note the mess. Note that the Wikavini comment is still at the top and that it is the only comment that was shown here and other relative RfCs.
• I agreed with what El_C did. I thought that those who are going to participate will see El_C's comment.
• Today, I understood that all this time, Wikiavini's was the only comment shown in RfC-related pages. This happened after Wikiavini stroke his comment and then Redrose64 removed the RfC tag and said rfc statement has been struck: there is no longer a case to answer
• I then decided to close that RfC and start a new RfC and I was going to ping other editors.
• El_C reverted me and again attempted to solve the problem by again Special:Diff/937586361 starting a new discussion but with influenced votes in the RfC and with Wikiavini POV RfC comment at the top.
• Which one is right? Me or El_C? El_C didnt recognize the problem that there are potentially influenced votes in that RfC and that Wikiavini comment is still a problem at the top. If you need any diff please tell me, I might have missed some.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 00:33, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

As the uninvolved admin, I queried the talk page about whether the RfC should close, with the comments submitted thus far discounted, and start anew. There was no consensus to do so. I fixed the problem with the RfC ID. If SharabSalam wishes to argue for the RfC to start anew, he is welcome to do so and if he gets the consensus to do so, all power to him. But he does not get to unilaterally decide to do it at this time. El_C 00:40, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

The RfC is here, by the way. El_C 00:43, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

El_C, yea thats how it looks like after days of Wikiavini comment at the top and in RfC-related pages.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 00:49, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

El_C, That was a unneutral RfC, all editors agreed with that. A new RfC was the only solution but YOU unilaterally added a statement below that unneutral RfC as if thats how we wanted it to be. An unneutral RfC should be removed when there there are already potentially influenced votes and on top of your unilateral attempt, you didnt do it right and that POV statement was still in RfC-related pages.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 00:48, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

There were some birthing pains, but I think we're fine now. I'm not inclined to discount the current comments submitted to the RfC, even if the question suffered from issues of neutrality. Again, the reason for this is that there was no consensus to undertake this when I queried the talk page. El_C 00:52, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

El_C, There are already influenced votes and as Wikaviani's comment was vague, many editors there might have misunderstood the RfC, tell me how you are going to fix that?.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 01:07, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Again, undertaking that is a matter of local consensus. El_C 01:13, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment I am the one who was mistaken when i unintentionally wrote a non neutral RfC sentence (i wanted to summarize what was said in an above thread), El_C just fixed my mistake and i thank him for his help. Therefore, if someone should be sanctioned here, it's me and me alone. Best regards.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 00:51, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Wikaviani, unintentionally wrote a non neutral. You can't write such a POV RfC unintentionally, hard to believe.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 01:02, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Now, now. That's uncalled for. El_C 01:11, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

huh? "Green!"--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 01:17, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I can't make sense of that reply. Who are you quoting and what don't you understand? Anyway, don't cast aspersions about someone's error being intentional is what I meant, in case there was any confusion. El_C 01:27, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't care about what you believe or not. You should read my RfC sentence more carefully, as i said, i wanted to summarize an above thread. Again, if someone has to be sanctioned here, it's me and nobody else, thus, i would suggest you to stop accusing El_C who tried to fix my mistake.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 01:15, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Wikaviani, how you not intentionally wrote a RfC that only support your argument. Did you not know that the "RfC question should not include arguments supporting or opposing any particular outcome"? Your vote was "Support as the nomination" and didnt you see my immediate replies to you?. Also, FYI, El_C didnt fix your mistake which is why I am here.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 01:27, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Since you refuse to get the point, i won't waste my time repeating again and again what i said twice already. Good night.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 01:33, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• So there you have it guys, the unilateral attempt to solve the problem was made by El_C and it was a complete failure as it didnt solve the problem which that editors who have voted there might have been influenced by the RfC comment and misunderstood the question. My solution was from the beginning to start a new RfC and close the current one. El_C refused that and only went without consensus and attempted to fix the problem and then the attempt failed and the RfC wording was still there in RfC-related subjects. El_C didnt allow me to create a new RfC although all editors were saying that it is an unneutral RfC.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 01:17, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

That is a misrepresentation. The matter of whether to launch a new RfC is, once again, governed by local consensus. Consensus to do so is absent at this time. El_C 01:22, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

El_C, is there a consensus for your new RfC?--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 01:29, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

It's not new. All the comments are retained. Just the RfC ID is new. The question of whether to launch a new RfC was put to discussion, by me. One editor wanted to do so (SharabSalam) and one user did not (Ms96). This is where we're at. El_C 01:34, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

El_C, the pervious RfC was deleted and struckened and the wording "Wikaviniai comment" was different. You need consensus for a new RfC wording.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 01:37, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Our RfC questions are basically identical so I really don't know what you're talking about. El_C 01:39, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

El_C No, the pervious RfC was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Diff/937573389 As multiple reliable sources have been found supporting Iran's propaganda, i suggest to include a section about it. Please see the above thread your new RfC here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Diff/937588982 "The RfC question is should the dedicated section on Iranian propaganda (diff) be included in the article?"

Those are completely different RfCs, so you not just seek consensus first before unilaterally creating a RfC? Or this rule not apply to you?--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 01:47, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

I am referring to my RfC question, which I added as an uninvolved administrator (I am not involved in the dispute), which I continue to be on that page, and your own anew RfC question. SharabSalam, stop messing with the RfC while this remains unresolved or I will partially block you from the talk page. El_C 01:54, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

El_C, so there are two editors who wrote two different RfCs with different IDs and different wording, that's not a new RfC? Please don't threats of blocks like that as you are involved and this will be an abuse of power.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 02:12, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

I am not involved in the dispute. And if you continue to edit disruptively, you will be partially blocked to prevent that disruption from continuing. Also, as per your question: "Why do you need the adminship?", the answer can be partially found here. El_C 02:17, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

P.S. 2nd to last barnstar! El_C 02:21, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

PP.S. 5th to last barnstar, too! Everyone here is represented! El_C 02:23, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

El_C, You are an involved editor, you are always in Iran-related articles which is why we are always having issues in there just like this issue. I am sure that you know your solution was wrong and that you should have started a new RfC and closed the previous one and also pinged those who were involved. Just don't do it again. I shouldn't have asked you for help, I am sorry. Next time I will just another admin.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 02:34, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

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

I am requesting to say something on the talk page of an article

Lovely plumage-- Deepfriedokra

Sock-it-to-me-- Deepfriedokra

Dear Wikipedia administrators, Please visit the Talk:Ahmed Rajib Haider, whether the article Ahmed Rajib Haider should be redirected to Attacks by Islamic extremists in Bangladesh or not, please consider; I have added some important excerpts from that article to Attacks by Islamic extremists in Bangladesh, you can see. Thanks - Walter Saphron (talk) 05:06, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

1. This does not belong on AN
2. The user is misinterpreting the close of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ahmed Rajib Haider. He attempted to speedy Ahmed Rajib Haider and now is attempting to redirect the entire without a talk page discussion.
3. The user was created today, after the AFD was closed as keep. Meters (talk) 05:31, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

And now the OP has opened Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ahmed Rajib Haider (2nd nomination) just hourt after the first AFD closed as Keep, but is arguing to Keep the article. Meters (talk) 05:59, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• I closed the AfD and left the user a note about discussing on the article talk page.-- Deepfriedokra 06:08, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

I am requesting all other administrators to see the talk page (Talk:Ahmed Rajib Haider), Deepfriedokra please participate in the discussion of the talk page. Thanks - Walter Saphron (talk) 06:15, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Do you really want all the admins weighing in on this? This looks a lot like an example of WP:SPIDER. Nick-D (talk) 06:49, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

@Nick-D:, I am sorry, not all admins but some. Walter Saphron (talk) 07:36, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Walter Saphron is a sock.  Blocked and tagged. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 08:50, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

racistic deletion in Blond

as for me as for an Asian, these changes https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blond&type=revision&diff=925821361&oldid=925815623 seems to be racistic (Idot (talk) 09:59, 26 January 2020 (UTC))

How can you tell there were racist facets to the removal? El_C 10:03, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

this racist deleted and illustrated referenced information that proves the fact that some Asian ethnic groups could have blond hair at child hood. I'm a Kazakh, and my my mother when she was a little girl use to have blond hair, that become black when she grow up, the same I have some seen for my cousin who is Kazakh too. so this deletion vandalism is really offensive and leads of racial stereotypes (Idot (talk) 10:11, 26 January 2020 (UTC))

Idot, you repeated a conclusory allegation without providing evidence. This is a content dispute, not an admin matter - unless you continue calling people racists without credible evidence, in which case you'll likely be shown the door. Guy (help!) 10:31, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

what evidence I have to show? (Idot (talk) 19:10, 26 January 2020 (UTC))

Howdy hello Idot! In terms of evidence, we usually request several edits that show a pattern, or a convincing explanation of a single edit (which has not been provided). It seems that the editor in question (who I note you did not notify of this discussion despite the big red box at the top of the page) had a legit reason to undo the change. Was it based on racist sentiments? Or was it merely lack of sources? I would suggest discussing it with an editor before making an accusation of racism. A quick note here: on Wikipedia we assume good faith. If you assume that the edits were made with the best interests of the encyclopedia in mind, you might realize why the edits were made. What I see here is a dispute over content, that needs discussion. Also, making a claim based on personal experience, while perhaps enlightening, can't be used as a source as that is original research. In this dispute, please find some reliable sources that backup whatever claim you're making. TLDR: AN is not the first place to run when there is trouble (unless its very serious). Smooth sailing, CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:45, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

how about vandalism? it was written:
Today, higher frequencies of light hair in Asia are prevalent among Pamiris, Kalash, Nuristani and Uyghur ethnic groups.< ref >{ { cite book
Hunan201p has changed it to
It has been said that blond hair is observed in approximately 10% of Iranian Pamiris.< ref >{ { cite book
do you see the difference?
Hunan201p - removed ethnic groups (Idot (talk) 01:57, 27 January 2020 (UTC))

Outage of wikipedia.org 26 Jan 2020

Wikipedia has announced in this tweet that there are been service outages across the xx.wikipedia.org domain, affecting multiple language versions. See also this informal reporting website, suggesting the problem has been ongoing since c.14:00 UTC today. Nick Moyes (talk) 20:56, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Nick Moyes, the tweet doesn't mention North America but I can confirm there have been problems, as well as some reported to OTRS. S Philbrick(Talk) 22:26, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

@Nick Moyes and Sphilbrick: I think the reason of the outage was because so many people were visiting Kobe Bryant, a high-profile figure, after his death. Any similar incidents before? ミラP 01:55, 27 January 2020 (UTC)