Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems. Before posting: Read these tips for dealing with incivility If the issue concerns a specific user, try discussing it with them on their talk page Try dispute resolution Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly. Be brief and include diffs demonstrating the problem Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead go to Requests for oversight. When starting a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page; pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:ANI-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. Closed discussions are usually not archived for at least 24 hours. Routine matters might be archived more quickly; complex or controversial matters should remain longer. Sections inactive for 72 hours are archived automatically by Lowercase sigmabot III. Editors unable to edit here are sent to the /Non-autoconfirmed posts subpage. (archives, search)
Start a new discussion

VeritasVox

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

---

A couple of years ago, User:VeritasVox narrowly avoided a topic ban for wasting time defending Julius Evola. Evola was a figure on the fringes of Nazism and neo-Nazism, and is of historical interest in the study of fascism and extremism. Evola is now occasionally recommended reading among the alt-right and some racist or apathetic new-agers.

For the past year, VeritasVox has been a true WP:SPA at that article. Just now, this editor violated WP:3RR:[1][2][3][4] by attempting to downplay and whitewash Evola's status as a antisemitic conspiracy theorist. From the article's talkpage, this is apparently based on VeritasVox's personal interpretation of primary material. Note in that same section VeritasVox's comparison of Evola to Hitler, etc. and claims that mentioning antisemitism in the lead would be a "childish slur". Evola wrote a forward to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion where he said "The problem of the authenticity of this document is secondary and has to be replaced by the much more serious and essential problem of its truthfulness".

Considering VeritasVox's past history and the previous discussion, I'm taking this hear instead of AN3, Grayfell (talk) 20:20, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

• What do you think an appropriate sanction would be, a topic ban from Julius Evola, or something more encompassing? Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:55, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
• I note in passing that in 2018 there were 6 comments on the proposed topic ban, 5 of which supported the ban, while the other of was a non-voting comment which cited WP:BITE. It's almost two years later, so BITE doesn't apply. (Also "VeritasVox" means "The Voice of Truth" in Latin, and I think we're all aware that editors who put "Truth" in their usernames turn out with great frequency to be a problem, as they usually carry a POV and are often here to RGW.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:03, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

It's funny you mention that, I was thinking of your past comments about "truth" in usernames when I was filing this.

As for sanctions, this editor is now a SPA who's willing to violate 3RR to whitewash an article about an obscure fascist, and has, as far as I can tell, never introduced a reliable source to to the article. At other articles, they seem to think Twitter is reliable. They are clearly willing to cite academic sources, though, based on whatever this is, using a source from 1920 to stick up for those poor, beleaguered ancient Sumerian slave-owners. To me, all this is WP:NOTHERE. Grayfell (talk) 23:32, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

• I've started with a partial block from the article, that will stop the edit war. I am ope to suggestions re topic bans or even an indef block. Guy (help!) 22:38, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Deeply amusing that User:Grayfell seems to think that the fact that I have studied the code of Ur-Nammu in the original language means that I support sumerian slave-owners. This is another example of this editor's personal grudge against me - an editor who has in the past labelled editors arguing against his views on this talkpage as 'nazi-apologists' and posted screeds about the 'real-life consequences of nazism' as somehow supporting his edits to the detriment of all other opinions on this article.

My objection is that 'anti-semitic conspiracy theorist' is imprecise, and seems to reek of 'childish name-calling,' as I actually said. My edit is as follows;-

'Evola frequently criticised both capitalism and communism as subversive manifestations of the modern world, and is noted for his prologue to the second Italian edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, where he placed this critique within the context of an antisemitic conspiracy theory.'

This is not a statement denying that this was a conspiracy theory or that it was antisemitic - it is stating that Evola in this prologue integrated this view within the wider theoretical framework of his thought. To say he was an 'anti-semitic conspiracy theorist' is a simplistic statement that obscures the fact that his prologue levels the conspiracy therein not simply at 'the jews' but at the fundamental postulates of modernity, integrating this within much wider themes. I aim, as ever, at precision.

If your judgement is that I should be banned from editing this article, so be it. But I humbly request that Grayfell also receives a parallel ban, as his influence has been continuously toxic, rude and unhelpful, visibly tinged with a personal, ideologically rooted bias which I feel has made any dispassionate analysis of this figure impossible. This may allow further development of the article in question outside of what has become largely a personal crusade - I admit, for both of us. VeritasVox (talk) 01:22, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

You can "admit" that it's a "personal crusade" for you, but you are not in any position to make the same claim about Grayfell. Not being him, all you can do is express your (very convenient for you) personal opinion that it's a "crusade" for him, you cannot "admit" that it is. But, in any case, since you do admit to crusading, it seems as if Guy's partial block of you is appropriate. Any other violations of editing propriety you'd like to admit to? Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:04, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I would like to also invite the administrators, in support of the points above, to examine closely how Grayfell has chosen to frame his complaint. Note the tone and language that is being used - the framing, immediately, of me and this article in terms of the 'wasting time defending' and of (presumably) those disagreeing with him as 'the alt-right and some racist or apathetic new-agers.' I can assure you that similar rhetoric can be found in every discussion he has engaged in on the talkpage. VeritasVox (talk) 01:30, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

BTW, you know who else integrated his anti-Semitic conspiracy theories with complaints about modernity and other "wider themes"? The author of Mein Kampf. In fact the distinction you draw is one without a difference, since for the fascists, Nazis and other virulent anti-Semites of that time, the Jews were largely (if not entirely) to blame for the problems of the modern world. For them, it all went back to the Jews. What this means is that your attempt to water-down the claim of anti-Semitism against Evola is merely an attempt to whitewash him, presumably so that he will continue to appeal to modern types who like to think that their anti-Semitism is a little less virulent and a little more nuanced.

I suggest that if no one has a taste for a site ban, a topic ban from Fascism, Nazism, and anti-Semitism, broadly construed, would be in order. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:15, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

• VeritasVox has repeatedly mentioned my passing comment, from over a year ago, that Nazism is ideologically incompatible with Wikipedia's values. This is not a controversial point, and that this is framed as "gotcha" is a pretty good demonstration of why yet more protracted discussion is likely to be futile. Evola had "almost servile admiration for Himmler". This is his legacy, and his uninteresting opinions about communism/capitalism are merely extensions of this. His significance isn't his philosophy or poetry. His legacy is far-right terrorism, like Terza Posizione.

Note also, that VeritasVox still doesn't seem to understand sources, as having studied the code of Ur-Nammu in the original language is not a reliable source. For the record, having read Evola, in any language, is not really a reliable source either. Grayfell (talk) 03:07, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

The reductio ad hitlerum is incredibly simplistic, and neglects fundamental ideological differences in far-right thought. The fact that someone is an anti-semite doesn't mean we pidgeonhole them into imprecise definitions of their thought because we don't like them. This is an encyclopedia. Evola was antisemitic. 'Anti-semitic conspiracy theorist' however is, in my view, wrong because he commented on a work featuring an established antisemitic conspiracy rather than creating his own, leaving aside his obvious departures from various other elements of fascist thought. Grayfell - exactly what acts of terrorism were Evola known for?

On Ur-Nammu - yes, that was more a reaction to you deciding to interpret my edit on sumerian legal terminology as me trying 'to stick up for those poor, beleaguered ancient Sumerian slave-owners' which is an excellent example of your bad faith personal attacks and condescension. VeritasVox (talk) 04:16, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I should also make the rather obvious point that 'VeritasVox has repeatedly mentioned my passing comment, from over a year ago, that Nazism is ideologically incompatible with Wikipedia's values.' is a willful misrepresentation - I'm saying that you invoking Nazism as being incompatible with wikipedia's values to attempt to win an argument over this article on the talkpage is an example of 1. your personal belief that you are waging a war against your 'nazi' opponents who disagree with you 2. essentially a personal attack by proxy and a shining example of your really quite incredible belief in the bad faith of any/all edits you personally disagree with. Which, ironically, is somewhat totalitarian. VeritasVox (talk) 04:26, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

• VeritasVox is essentially a "free rider", someone who utilizes Wikipedia as a place to comment and debate without actually contributing to its improvement. They have only 268 edits in 2 years time, and only 40 of those edits (14.9%) are to articles. The rest are to Wikipedia space, talk pages and their own user pages. They use our facilities without providing the quid pro quo of editing and improving the encyclopedia. [5] And the mainspace edits they've made aren't spread around. Half of those edits -- 21 -- are to the article under examination here, Julius Evola. Then there's 8 to Code of Ur-Nammu, 7 to Rungis International Market, 2 to D. H. Lawrence and 1 each to Ur-Nammu and Eanna. Meanwhile they have 44 edits to Talk:Julius Evola - more than twice as many as their edits to the artlce. And those 39 edits to Wikipedia space, more than any article, and almost as many as their mainspace edits in total.
  In short, VeritasVox is not here to help us build an encyclopedia. They are a net negative to the project. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:31, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

'Without actually contributing to its improvement' is rather subjective, as is 'net negative.' I simply don't edit much. Do you now want to ban anyone who doesn't edit much? Volume/frequency of edits does not make a person more correct or more objective in their views. Your level of hostility towards me seems strange, however, Beyond My Ken. Does this arise from similar assumption to Grayfell about my personal character and attendant ideological purity, or are you actually examining my edit objectively, as an editor should? VeritasVox (talk) 12:34, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Of course they're "subjective", they constitute my personal evaluation of your worth -- or lack of it -- to this project. How could they be anything else? Your contribute little or nothing worthwhile, and we'd be better off without you. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:12, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Nonsense, I've made several decent contributions. Minimally, but still. Thankfully, despite your pretensions to the contrary, you are not the sole arbiter of 'worth' on wikipedia (which appears to suspiciously align with not disagreeing with your opinion) and I await the judgement of the admins, who presumably pay more attention to the matter at hand than this juvenile measuring of the length of one's contribution list. VeritasVox (talk) 17:27, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

I am, however, the sole arbiter of my views on whether you are worthwhile or not, and I find that you are not. (Please reply again, as it will give me yet another chance to repeat that you contribute very little, but nevertheless debate and contest a lot, making you a free rider, something we really don't need.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:25, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, obviously? Really quite a bizarre response - you wish to attack me and my character but me responding to these attacks means you are correct? An odd dialectical method. VeritasVox (talk) 19:20, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I know you delight in debating, that's the crux of the problem. Wikipedia is not a debating site, it's a free online encyclopedia, and we -- or at the the vast majority of us -- are here to improve, expand and protect that encyclopedia. You are clearly here for other reasons, to debate and obfuscate and defend Fascists. We don't need that, and we don't need you. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:27, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Exactly how did my edit 'defend' Evola? Exactly how have I 'defended fascists,' particularly in my other edits on, for example, Sumerian legal codes? Exactly how is that remark not a vulgar ad hominem that deserves immediate censor from the admins? You betray nothing but a belief in your own ideological superiority. Examine seriously your integrity as an editor if you choose to make such accusations. VeritasVox (talk) 21:38, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Just a bit of advice, I wouldn't go too far in attracting admins to this discussion, because it's very unlikely that that's going to end up with the result you want. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:59, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

BTW, I started to make a list of all the edits in which you defended Evola by softening descriptions of him and his philosophy, making him look more reasonable, etc., until I found that pretty much all your edits did that. So here's a list of all of your edits to the article [6]. The interested reader can judge for themselves if you are "defending" Evola or not, but that's sure what it looks like to me. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:16, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

I trust in their dispassionate analysis, which has undoubtedly qualified them for their status. My advice to you would be not to resort to personal attacks, and so easily make the assumption that others are editing in bad faith. Quite embarassing that I have to point this out to someone of your apparent experience. I defend my edits as improvements to the article in question, naturally - your fixation on my 'defence' seems to be hinged on a desired 'offence' on the topic in question. I simply seek a balanced article. VeritasVox (talk) 23:24, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Where have I said that you are editing in bad faith? Nowhere. I've said that you do not edit much, that your contributions to mainspeace are negligible compared to the number of comments posted elsewhere, that this makes you a free rider and a net negative to the projecta, and that your edits to Julius Evola have been in defense of a Fascist's reputation. These are all true, and none of them accuses you of editing in bad faith. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:31, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

' You are clearly here for other reasons, to debate and obfuscate and defend Fascists.' Ie. you judge my raison d'etre to be 'defending fascists' which, once again, I have not done. This editing in bad faith and an accusation of bias - indeed, a borderline accusation of fascism. I deeply resent the fact that you appear to be unable or unwilling to draw the distinction between someone editing an article on the topic of a fascist intellectual who disagrees with another editors views, to someone who is advocating for said fascist. This breed of editorial dogmatism corrupts the development of articles on controversial subjects in particular, and you appear to be unwilling to countenenace any narrative other than the one you have chosen - that I am somehow 'defending' Evola. Once again, look at my most recent edit - an objection to imprecise terminology that seemed more concerned with inaccurate pidgeonholing. At no point do I deny Evola was antisemitic, or that he wrote the prologue for a prominent antisemitic conspiracy theory. You know precisely what you are doing, and are driven by personal animus against someone who you seem determined to brand as some sort of crypto-fascist for disagreeing with your own view of the topic, of which you appear to have no deeper knowledge than a rather rudimentary comparison to Hitler. If the admins feel I have spent too much time on this topic, so be it - but I feel that your uncivil conduct must also now be addressed. VeritasVox (talk) 23:45, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Probably best if we let others weigh in at this point, anyway. This is getting us nowhere. VeritasVox (talk) 19:21, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

• As noted on the SPI I filed against them, about a quarter of all of VeritasVox's edits have been to Julius Evola and Talk:Julius Evola. They've been blocked from editing there for four days now, and, despite having plenty of time to edit Wikipedia, judging from the volume of their edits here, they have not made one single edit to any other article, although they found time to post on the talk page of the probable sockpuppet. This is not only evidence that they're essentially a WP:SPA, it's also pretty good evidence supporting my contention that they're a free rider who uses our resources to debate without giving anything of substance back to the improvement of the encyclopedia. Any normal Wikipedia enthusiast, barred from editing their favorite article, would be editing elsewhere, if only to demonstrate to the community that they are a productive editor. That's not the case here, so I reiterate my conclusion that VeritasVox is a net negative to the project. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:33, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Meh, I'm an occasional editor at best who hasn't edited for quite a while. I'll likely get back into it when this fracas has dissipated. Also frankly I thought it best to wait until this was over and done with, as I don't particularly want this spilling over into whatever other topic I choose - particularly as someone has already absurdly tried to frame my edit on a sumerian legal code as being in defence of slaveowners.VeritasVox (talk) 19:46, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Proposal (VeritasVox)

• Support topic ban from Nazism, Fascism, and anti-Semitism, broadly construed. That would be in addition to the block from editing the Evola article recently imposed. (Disclaimer: I supported a topic ban from Evola in the 2018 discussion). The behaviour has not improved in the intervening two years, so it makes sense to enact the restriction. --K.e.coffman (talk) 18:02, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support broad topic ban per K.e.coffman; this editor appears to be a net negative to those topics, and has continued to be for too long. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:44, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support - Since a lot of text has gone over the dam since, I want to point out that my support for this topic ban can be found here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:24, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

• I also note that today a brand new editor named User:Soupsmarx made their very first Wikipedia edit to Julius Evola, [7] reverting back to a version before VeritasVox's edits were removed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:24, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

• If a checkuser finds them to be the same user, then I think we should just indef (with agreeing to this topic ban being the only condition which we'd consider unblocking). Sockpuppetry at this point would require a mixture of bad-faith and incompetence that shouldn't be allowed to edit any articles. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:38, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

• SPI filed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:46, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

• Serendipitous given the conversation here, but I am not Soupsmarx. Feel free to check IPs, admins. VeritasVox (talk) 22:45, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

• Just as a point of information, CUs don;t need your permission to check. If the evidence presented is sufficient, they will check. They can also block on the basis of behavioal evidence, or the possibility of WP:Meatpuppetry. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:50, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you, well of obvious knowledge. VeritasVox (talk) 22:52, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

• Support topic ban as stated by K.e.coffman Some of the arguments they've on the talk page to try to cover up Evola's antisemitism require either a level of strong ignorance (that should have been repeatedly corrected by now) or else... Well, in either case, he shouldn't be editing articles relating to those topics. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:38, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Exactly how is stating he wrote the prologue to an antisemitic conspiracy 'covering up'? VeritasVox (talk) 22:50, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Please indent your responses, one additional colon each time. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:52, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Admins, any comment on attitude displayed by Beyond My Ken during the course of these discussions, or do we tolerant juvenile behaviour like this? VeritasVox (talk) 23:04, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

I strongly suggest you simply cease responding, as the juvenile comments would be ones like your calling BMK "well of obvious knowledge" and the like. This attitude of needing to get snark in is part of what's going to result in your topic ban. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:47, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm afraid if I'm going to be accused of 'defending' a fascist, I am going to respond as much as I am able. VeritasVox (talk) 19:30, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

At first you wouldn't even admit that much, and merely stated on the talk page that you wanted "antisemitic conspiracy theorist" removed on the grounds that it's not included at Giovanni Gentile (who actually criticized Germany's anti-Jewish laws instead of writing the intro to the Bible of antisemitic conspiracy theories). It was only after this undeniable fact was pointed out that you still tried to tone it down to suggest that it was really just part of a larger and more important discourse on capitalism and communism. Now your response is trying to cover up the cover up. Going through the talk page archives, we have you trying to cover up his views on rape because "this is an attack on Bannon/Trump by proxy," which suggests WP:RGW was the initial reason for involvement with the article. Talk:Julius_Evola/Archive_5 shows this carried on for a while after an RfC finished. As can be seen at archive 4, you very quickly began spouting off WP:OMGWTFBBQ as if they're magical commands that will force other editors to do what you want rather than remind them to follow how they understand those pages. (There's also the interesting comment by you that "minimizing anti-semitism is not" [fine]", as this is an attack on israel/jews by proxy", though it should be noted that the overlap between ethnic Jews, members of Judaism, Israelis, and Zionists is not complete). Ian.thomson (talk) 21:48, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Cherry-picking, I used bad initial examples, fine. Minimizing anti-semitism isn't fine, but that's hardly what I was doing - I was offering a more precise definition that contextualised this theme in his work. You may disagree with that opinion, but there's no reason for ad hominems, beyond a desire to paint your opponent as 'fascist' for disagreeing with you. You don;t want to discuss my edit further, you simply wish to assume bad faith - this has been the constant theme of this article in general - dogmatism on the part of one/two individuals unwilling to seriously discuss the matter at hand objectively, and instead satiating their delusions of 'fighting nazis' by constructing these grandiose narratives. A cursory examination of any of my edits shows they are founded entirely in either a desire for precision, a critique of the supporting source in question, or in the correct terminology. If I am to be banned, so be it - but please don't delude yourself into thinking this is anything other than using admins in the place of discussion. VeritasVox (talk) 22:13, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

And yes, Ian - I changed my opinion after you reasonably objected to it. I considered this, and I offered what I believed to be a reasonable compromise which Grayfell immediately reversed with no explanation apart from 'Hardly' and no engagement on the talk page. Who is acting correctly - I in offering a constructive edit which is a compromise between our positions, or Grayfell in reverting this with a single word? VeritasVox (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:17, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

• Incidentally, if anyone's interest has been piqued on the topic of Evola, this is a very good lecture by a renowned Sufi cleric who mentions/contextualises him in part - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07Ien1qo_qI — Preceding unsigned comment added by VeritasVox (talk • contribs) 22:32, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support - It looks like the last discussion got archived due to apathy. The length of this section, and raw quantity of junk, is only going to drive-away any editors who might be interested in the topic. The article needs reliable sources, not WP:OR. For several years, VeritasVox has been interested in interpreting primary sources, but not in improving the article based on existing scholarship. Nothing good can come from this approach. Grayfell (talk) 23:06, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support. Statements above violate the law of holes quite badly. Guy (help!) 22:06, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support. This editor is clearly here to push a prejudiced agenda. Zakaria1978 (talk) 05:55, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Move to close

• This thread has been open for over 10 days now. The proposed sanction was first mentioned 9 days ago, here. There are 7 "support" !votes and no "oppose" votes aside from the de facto oppose by the subject of the proposed sanction. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:43, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

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

Can this account be blocked without an SPI, just as NOTHERE?

This SPA Ulaş parlak (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) does the following since the creation of the account: 1. Adds flags to food articles against MOS. 2. Changes "Ottoman" to "Turkish". 3. Uses misleading edit-summaries calling his edits as "fixing typos". 4. Eliminates other countries and substitutes "Turkey" as the origin of the food. I think this is a sock of Shingling334 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), but since this is a case of WP:NOTHERE, I would request that it be indeffed on NOTHERE grounds. Thank you. Dr. K. 00:05, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with this sockmaster or the behaviour, but yes, if you are confident that it is them, you can block without an SPI. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:18, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Tony. The thing is I'm not an admin, and I think this account's edits so far merit a NOTHERE block, notwithstanding the SPI. If you agree with NOTHERE, could you possibly indef them? Thank you. Dr. K. 00:32, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Ah. Got you confused with DrKay. Yeah, again, I haven't looked closely at this case (and in the middle of something else), but if you're concerned with socking, take it to SPI. If they're being disruptive enough for a NOTHERE block, I'd suggest AIV. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:36, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks. Dr. K. 00:40, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

I sometimes think someone should create WP:List of users with really, REALLY confusingly similar names (like Dr.K. and DrKay). EEng 04:30, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

@EEng: my nomination. --JBL (talk) 23:05, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Red link now blue: WP:List of users with really, REALLY confusingly similar names (like Dr.K. and DrKay) EEng 02:31, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Ha, that was funny. Can we create yet another list for EEng, EEng1 and EEng CN? Dr. K. 02:51, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

I guess, if those other users actually existed. Is there some hidden meaning there which I'm missing? EEng 18:00, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

It seems like it may be possible to distinguish the drs. kay by presence of a sense of humor, at least. --JBL (talk) 21:33, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

I am the first one to appreciate EEng's humour, in fact so much so that once I posted on AN to have him unblocked, so no unnecessary and misguided digs about my sense of humour, please. EEng, I wrongly capitalised the second "E" on these usernames. They actually exist. Dr. K. 23:19, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

For the record, this is the thread that got EEng indeffed for making one of his irreverent humorous pictorial comments, and for which I defended him and repeatedly demanded his immediate unblock at AN, back in January 2016. Dr. K. 18:14, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

JBL, I appreciate your intent but you've got it wrong. The deletion was a bit weird, process-wise, but it's more of just a misunderstanding than anything else. [8]. All friends here, I assure you. EEng 01:47, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Oh, EEng, don't worry -- I've got lots of friends who lack a sense of humor. --JBL (talk) 12:55, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

EEng, no need for clarifications. There are those who understand and support your sense of humour and have the record to show it, and there are those who just blabber on at drama boards for no good reason. Dr. K. 16:43, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Do I have to turn the hose on you two? — Preceding unsigned comment added by EEng (talk • contribs) 17:13, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

• It's been years since I've looked at Shingling334 but if there wasn't a risk of clutter and confusion, I'd say tag them. I know we've got some "probable sock" category and tag, but an even less certain "maybe?" category and tag could be useful for cases like this. Ian.thomson (talk) 01:02, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you, Ian. I opened the SPI, so the tagging will be done by the attending admins and clerks. Dr. K. 01:08, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

• Dr.K. is well versed in the topic area, and uncanny in spotting socks and meat puppets. Their judgement is usually pretty sound. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 01:15, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
• I can spot Shingling334 a mile away, this is definitely not him, the behavior is very different. This seems to be a new user, I don't see any evidence of sock/meat puppetry. Most of their edits have been minor MOS violations, adding the Turkish flag to infoboxes, which I've warned them twice about. The main problem is unsourced claims of Turkish origin of various things, and removing sourced mentions of other countries, particularly Greece and Armenia, going against WP:NPOV, e.g. in Basbousa. They're currently at a level-2 warning about that, and haven't edited since then. So far they haven't made any positive contributions. It's just crude nationalism and tendentious editing, without regard for sources, rational arguments, or communication. They've only been editing for a couple of days, but it doesn't look like they'll have a bright future here. --IamNotU (talk) 18:41, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

• Mea culpa. I admit I didn't do this with surgical precision. Thanks go to all who commented here and to the crack team at the SPI desk whose time I wasted. Take care all and stay safe. Dr. K. 21:52, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

  Yeah, it's not like we'd expect Dr.K. to operate with surgical precision, right? EEng 03:19, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

  Lol. Touché. Although, I'm not an MD. :) Dr. K. 16:50, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

  So as the Jewish mother said to her daughter's new fiancé, "So you're a PhD doctor, not a doctor doctor?" EEng 00:50, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  Dr.K., another possible solution: U CAN HAZ ADMIN. Guy (help!) 15:47, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Guy, thank you for the compliment. I appreciate it, especially coming from an editor I have respected for a long time. After my thanks, I wish to express my amusement about what is going on with this thread. The main topic has long expired but due to side-topics this thread refuses to expire. :) Dr. K. 02:04, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Horse Eye Jack continued undiscussed mass removal of sources

In the past hour or so, despite discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 293 having not been formally closed (and no RfC or listing at WP:RS/P), [[User:Horse Eye Jack |Horse Eye Jack]] has undertaken mass removal of references to CGTN, even in strictly non-political contexts such as sports, historical writers, or infrastructure / public transport metadata (not pertaining to controversial projects such as OBOR): sports ([9], [10]), infrastructure ([11], [12]), writers ([13]). As HEJ has been subject to a prior report on mass removal of mainland Chinese sources (including CGTN) in contexts not pertaining to BLP, despite the false invocation of BLP, for which they were reverted (sample 2) they are well-aware of the scrutiny that they have incurred. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 17:29, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Are you sure you didn't mean to post this at Talk:COVID-19 pandemic given that COVID-19 pandemic is where this dispute originated[14]? I’m sure we can all agree that CGTN, a source which has been caught red handed by WP:RS spreading misinformation about the pandemic, is not an appropriate source to use for factual statements about the pandemic. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:34, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

This response confounds me: as I linked to above, the mass removal of references (33 (!) from 16:49 UTC to 17:17 UTC) has extended well beyond COVID-19 pandemic or political subjects. As this problem has extended back to February (the last AN/I thread on this matter), this falls under the header's stated purview urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 17:44, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Sports, infrastructure, and literature all have political dimensions, especially when it comes to the Chinese government. The consensus of that discussion is clear to me, is it not clear to you? I’m sure we can do an RfC and formally deprecate CGTN like we’re currently doing for the very similar RT right now if that would clear up any concerns you have about the consensus on their reliability. I find it interesting that you find one unclosed discussion (the ANI) to be gospel while finding the other (RSN) to be irrelevant, one of those discussions had a clear consensus... One did not, you appear to be taking as gospel the one without a clear consensus of any kind. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:50, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

We can do without the condescending treat one unclosed discussion to be gospel while finding the other personal attack. Literally anything can be made the butt of a political joke or subject to partisanship, you will need to come up with an explanation as to how Ding Junhui's snooker performance, the death of of a basketball player, the 2018 title of the well-known Beijing Music Festival, or the start date of a high-speed railway are political. Imbuing party or international politics into apolitical BLPs is itself a BLP violation.

At the RSN discussion, there was a significant cohort of those who had indicated CGTN's quality in non-political contexts: MarioGom, Khu'hamgaba Kitap, MarkH21.CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 17:59, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

In general we can only use WP:RS on BLP pages, CGTN is not currently considered a WP:RS (at best you can argue we have no consensus but that would be a very flimsy argument) so CGTN shouldn't be used on *any* BLP pages outside of some very specific contexts like perhaps the basic biographical details of Chinese government officials. If you have issues with some edits but not others please take it up with me on the respective talk pages as appropriate.

If you want to re-litigate RSN discussions this is not the place to do it. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:07, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Horse Eye Jack: To be fair, I don’t see how the CGTN reference for the dates, name of art director, and name of the theme of the Beijing Music Festival is controversial and requires replacement by a cn tag. — MarkH₂₁^talk 18:09, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

I see your point on the name of the art director and the theme of the festival (you’re also right that tagging that one wasn’t necessary), however dates for infrastructure project completion etc are inherently political numbers with a large amount of wiggle room available for official fudging. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:14, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree about the infrastructure numbers and most of the political removals. For the less controversial cases though, I think it would be better to just tag the instances with {{better source}} instead of deprecation-style mass removal. — MarkH₂₁^talk 18:25, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, that is a much better solution for the edge cases. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:31, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

• I don't have the time to investigate this, but I do have a suggestion for you both: Stop your back-and-forth bickering, and wait for someone to come along and review things. Does that sound sensible? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:11, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

It does, CA has reverted most of the edits and I have no plans to revert back while discussion is ongoing so its basically at status quo and besides for the COVID-19 page there is nothing urgent here. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:14, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

• This discussion is a content dispute, and should take place on the reliable sources noticeboard. There is no requirement to have an RfC, a formal closure, or an entry on the perennial sources list before removing a disputed source from an article. The recent noticeboard discussion on CGTN took place earlier this month, and Horse Eye Jack's removals are in accordance with WP:BURDEN ("Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source"). I recommend starting a new discussion or RfC about CGTN on the reliable sources noticeboard. — Newslinger talk 20:15, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

  I tend to agree with Newslinger except in this case. Horse Eye Jack does demonstrate tendencies to bait users and extend discussions beyond where they should go. I think an admin warning would go a long way in helping to get this editor back on track. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 22:57, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

An admin warning would help, but would it come? Following an earlier discussion around this user, I was advised to open an discussion around his work on Wikipedia on the Administration's noticeboard. After four days of lengthy discussions, no administrator came around to make any sort of judgement, and all the discussion lead to was the archive. Why would that be different this time?Jeff5102 (talk) 07:47, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

That would be meaningful if the user Horse Eye Jack actually focused on the material (he does not, so it is not in accordance), but the edits is focused on mass removal of certain sources (regardless of the content, even the most noncontroversial, or factors such as the presence other RS). See [15][16][17][18][19] for a few examples. --Cold Season (talk) 12:24, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

At least for the last one, I think it's reasonable to at least consider CGTN to be a WP:BIASED source when it comes to WeChat given the controversies surrounding it and the Chinese government, which would make it better to avoid citing it without an inline citation. --Aquillion (talk) 00:35, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

@MarkH21, Atsme, Jeff5102, and Cold Season: HEJ is back to it after acknowledging a suggestion by MarkH21 to use {{better source}}. Enough is enough, at this rate they are well on their way to at least an indefinite topic ban on this matter: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 18:07, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

We agreed that the infrastructure numbers are political, did we not? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:15, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Also those diffs you linked are to BLPs... In general we can only use WP:RS on BLPs, I’m sorry if you didn’t know that. Its actually the obligation of every editor to remove information on BLP pages sourced to unreliable sources. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:17, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Sources which have been described by multiple users to produce quality content in non-political contexts are not "unreliable" simply by your dictat. You ought to stop and move to other areas of the project that do not garner the ire of others. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 18:23, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

As the admin has already told you the current consensus is that CGTN is generally unreliable. Please do not misrepresent consensus, its a rather serious infraction. If you wish to continue your line of thought do as they suggested and open an RfC. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:25, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Newslinger made no such interpretation of CGTN being "generally unreliable". CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 18:34, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

How else are you gonna interpret "There is no requirement to have an RfC, a formal closure, or an entry on the perennial sources list before removing a disputed source from an article. The recent noticeboard discussion on CGTN took place earlier this month, and Horse Eye Jack's removals are in accordance with WP:BURDEN”? The consensus of that noticeboard discussion is generally unreliable, as you can also see you were incorrect before when you said that a discussion had to be formally closed for there to be a consensus. Also smooth pinging everyone but Newslinger even when you name them. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:51, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Horse Eye Jack, since WP:RSNRFC was closed, a reasonable reading of the consensus is that an RfC on the reliable sources noticeboard is needed to authorize large-scale removals of a source if those removals are disputed. I believe your best course of action is to stop removing citations to CGTN, and to start an RfC for CGTN like you did for Sina.com. Whenever an action is disputed, it never hurts to start a discussion to clarify whether there is consensus for the action. — Newslinger talk 03:37, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

General comment: but not even deprecated sources are subject to blanket bans, per WP:DEPRECATE#Acceptable uses of deprecated sources.

Commenting again on this case: I would still at most use {{better source}} for infrastructure numbers, since statements on what the Chinese government publicly projects / announces reported by CGTN are no less reliable than direct government announcements would be under WP:SPS / WP:PRIMARY. — MarkH₂₁^talk 04:36, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

I think out problem with one of the infrastructure numbers is that its not just a statement of when a line opened or that a certain station exists but of how many people rode the line in a given period of time, I still don’t feel that CGTN is a reliable source for that statement of fact. I also have been attributing and tagging where I think appropriate like [20]. First glance removal is only for BLPs. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:56, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

@CaradhrasAiguo: Thanks for asking my input. At the moment, I am a bit disillusioned on the policies of Wikipedia.
In the past, I enjoyed creating articles with the help of a British Newspaper Archive- and Newspapers.com-subscription I got from the Wiki-library. With those, I could browse obscure newspapers like the Cheltenham Chronicle, the Walsall Advertiser; or the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette to find interesting content for the articles.
Under current circumstances, it would be impossible to do so. According to Horse Eye Jack, on wikipedia sources are considered to be unreliable until proven to be reliable, and that before using a source, you have to show that it complies with the standards set out at WP:RS and Wikipedia:Verifiability (see Talk:Gerald_Fredrick_Töben#MEMRI). And as others has stated above, when Horse Eye Jack is not convinced that the source complies with those standards, he blindly deletes them.
I am short of arguments why, for example, the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette of March 1903 could pass any standards; I am unaware of any fact-checking department, and, following HEJ's logic, if "there is no "conclusive answer whether it is reliable or not” then we can't use it." I cannot work that way.
That is why I asked: "is User:Horse Eye Jack's way of editing an acceptable method?" on the administrator's noticeboard last February. Back then, no answer was given by an administrator. I hope this time will be different.
Regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 18:37, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

We have different standards of reliability for use on WP:BLP pages and non-BLP pages, you appear to still not realize that. Also no you should not be using obscure old newspapers as reliable sources unless they meet Wikipedia’s reliability requirements, I doubt you will run into any BLP issues using hundred year old sources though. PS, its “they” not “he” and we’ve discussed that before. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:56, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

It appears you are contradicting yourself. According to you there are different standards for WP:BLP pages and non-BLP pages, but I am not allowed to use the hundred year old sources Wikipedia handed me personally to use here for dead persons? Moreover, some of your discussed edits are concerning the Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-Up, the Turkish Armed Forces, Cinema of Saudi Arabia World Heritage Sites by country, Qatar Airway, Lapis Lazuli corridor, Sheep Without a Shepherd, List of high-speed railway lines in China, Line_1 (Lanzhou Metro), Beijing Music Festival and WeChat. Could you please per article make a case why the WP:BLP-rules apply there?Jeff5102 (talk) 19:49, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

The BLP policy in general applies to all pages and all spaces of wiki including talk pages however there are specific restrictions which apply to BLP pages, read this from the notice about sources which is at the top of the page every time you edit a BLP page: "This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Take extra care to use high-quality sources. Material about living persons should not be added when the only sourcing is tabloid journalism; see more information on sources. Never use self-published sources about a living person unless written or published by the subject; see WP:BLPSPS and WP:BLPSELFPUB. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous.” That removal requirement is unique to BLP issues, there is no removal requirement for non-BLP issues but per WP:BURDEN anyone can remove poorly or unsourced text at any time. Can you perhaps clarify what you think is the contradiction? I’ve never claimed that BLP rules apply in non-BLP circumstances, if you think I have present the diff. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 20:03, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

I do not see any difference between removing contentious material per BLP-rules and removing contentious material per Wikipedia-rules; the result is the same, making the difference rather minimal. How you then come up with a slight personal attack as We have different standards of reliability for use on WP:BLP pages and non-BLP pages, you appear to still not realize that. is beyond me. Why pointing out the different standards if the result is the same? And could you point out where in WP:BLP I can find the phrases on wikipedia sources are considered to be unreliable until proven to be reliable, and that before using a source, you have to show that it complies with the standards set out at WP:RS and Wikipedia:Verifiability? Moreover, I still would like to hear you why I cannot use the more obscure newspapers from the British Newspaper Archive, if Wikipedia gave me access to them to use them, and the issue never came up at Wikipedia_talk:BNA. Why is it then that you make a problem out of it? Or can you direct me to the discussion, where consensus was built on this issue?Jeff5102 (talk) 20:33, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

That quote is about WP:BURDEN not BLP, per BURDEN: "All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution.” You can use those newspapers if that meet wikipedia’s reliability requirements, which are much less stringent for non-BLP things like you would be using old papers for. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 21:31, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

The part you quoted from WP:BURDEN is about content, not about sources. Please show me the quote about sources. Jeff5102 (talk) 07:58, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

"and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution.” Horse Eye Jack (talk) 00:20, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

"And it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source" is not the same as on wikipedia sources are considered to be unreliable until proven to be reliable. Please show me the quote about sources.Jeff5102 (talk) 07:02, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

As you can see from Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources British Newspapers are of varying quality, from the very highest to the very lowest. Facilitating access to an archive which contains almost all British and Irish newspapers is very different from endorsing the general reliability of almost all British and Irish newspapers. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 21:35, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

WP:RSP is an explanatory supplement to the Wikipedia:Reliable sources guideline, not a policy. Back in January , you considered that as a very relevant distinction, discarding arguments coming from "essays" and "guidelines". But now it suits your case, "explanatory supplements" are suddenly good enough for you. This behavior does not benefit for a good cooperation. Jeff5102 (talk) 08:11, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

WP:RSP is a collection of consensuses, all of those individual consensuses are consensuses and as such you should respect them as consensuses. Wild how that works isn't it? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 00:22, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

That is not the point. The point is that you dismiss appeals to WP:RS for it being a guideline (without further arguments needed), yet now I have to take you serious when you appeal to an explanatory supplement to the same Wikipedia:RS guideline? Sorry, but that doesn't work. That said, for the sake of the argument: WP:RSP does not mention the British Newspaper Archive at all. Thus, I do not understand why you brought up this collection of consensuses, all of those individual consensuses are consensuses and as such you should respect them as consensuses at all. @Newslinger: Is there anything you can do about this? It appears to me that HEJ is more discussing for the sake of discussing, while doing damage to the encyclopedia by mass deleting fine sources. I have no idea how his presence is beneficial for this encyclopedia. Best regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 07:02, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Horse Eye Jack, it is generally not in any editor's best interest to turn a content dispute into a conduct dispute. This noticeboard is a venue for examining conduct disputes, and continuing the discussion here is not going to benefit you in any way. As I mentioned in my past two comments, I strongly recommend settling this via RfC on the reliable sources noticeboard instead of debating other editors here. — Newslinger talk 07:12, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

As far as I can tell the issue Jeff5102 has is separate from the issue I have with CA and I don’t think there currently is a content dispute between myself and CA... As far as I can tell we’ve addressed each conflict in context and have arrived at a suitable consensus/compromise. If it comes up again I will certainly open a RfC at RSN but at the moment I don’t think I can because there is no active content dispute. The argument between myself and Jeff5102 was never over China related sources, they wanted to use MEMRI as a source on a BLP... As far as I can tell they *still* do. I will however desist though. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:26, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Actually, HEJ has been doing this kind of mass removal since 20/05/2020 (check here), while there is no consensus of CGTN's reliability on WP:RSN and even the discussion is not closed. Wo.luren (talk) 07:21, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

How did you find this page? You seem to have never commented on a noticeboard ever and all but four of your edits since 24 March have been COVID-19 related. Of those four edits one is at Fang Fang, one is on the RFC I started on Sina.com (not related to COVID=19) [21], and the other two are here. So can I politely ask you why 75% of your non-COVID-19 related edits over the last few months are directly related to me? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 00:19, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

This is another attempt at baiting / derailing this discussion and not at all a sincere question given your own assessment of Wo.luren's 2020 edits as being COVID-19 related and...this inappropriate removal at a COVID-19 page, which does not take much digging of page history (160 intermediate edits) to discover. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 17:38, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

@HEJ I do not have time getting into your argument. So please stop putting your nonsense on me like you did to other editors here. Wo.luren (talk) 06:31, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Bot-like behavior by User:YUMSUKLIB

User YUMSUKLIB is replacing Citation Needed templates with very low quality references [22], [23], [24], [25], [26]. Nonsensical edit summaries, bot-like tempo. Recommend an indefinite vandalism block and a mass revert of the user's entire edit history. Geogene (talk) 15:30, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Warned. A block would be overkill at this time. I've left the user a friendly warning. I have, however, rollback'd their edits. If in the midst of that mass undoing there were reliable sources which were removed, I apologize for that collateral damage. Hopefully, the user will take the time to review the reliable sources guideline I linked for them, and self-correct for any future edits. El_C 18:12, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

We now have Special:Contributions/YUMSUKLIB, Special:Contributions/PaulineNdhlovu, Special:Contributions/Omon Ize-Iyamu, Special:Contributions/Atuha and Special:Contributions/Nikemove. El_C 20:30, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

El C, indeed all acounts are newbies and looks indeed like typical spambot editing. CommanderWaterford (talk) 20:43, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

I have indeffed those accounts (and will continue to do so) pending an explanation as to what is going on. El_C 20:47, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Yesterday I read somewhere (possibly now archived) that these edits are part of an edit-a-thon; I'll see if I can find the link. There are definitely concerns with the edits, even if they can be attributed to an organized event, as I've seen many sources being added that are nowhere close to meeting WP:RS and in some cases they are simply Wikipedia mirrors as citations.-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 20:59, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

meta:The Wikipedia Library/1Lib1Ref is one of the tags. DMacks (talk) 21:04, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, whatever it is, it is not working, as there are many edits which are too low quality to be retained. El_C 21:07, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)This page lists User:FNartey (WMF) as the main contact for the project. He should probably be made aware that Step #2 (i.e."Find a reliable source that can support that article") of "How to Participate: Five Basic Steps" isn't being met in a number of cases and the clean up effort will be a substantial drain on volunteer time if every citation added has to be doubled checked.-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 21:16, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps User:FNartey_(WMF) who seem to be the initiator should be contacted, I am not quite sufre if this idea 1Lib1Ref makes really sense if they only add low quality refs ... CommanderWaterford (talk) 21:10, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Without any Wikipedia training, it seems like a recipe for failure. El_C 21:12, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

This is also creating quite a lot of copyvios. I had to spend nearly an hour yesterday cleaning up after Special:Contributions/Hope Nakapite. Number 57 21:13, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Copyvio issues also with Special:Contributions/Muleta_Mutemwa. El_C 21:18, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Reliability of citations issues also with Special:Contributions/Risper_Chemutai, Special:Contributions/Mmaua. El_C 21:25, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Just wanted to jump in here - the source added to the only page affected by this that I watch - Kimono - just seems to be a Wikipedia mirror of a much earlier version of the same article. If someone's running part of this event through bots, I have no idea where it's getting the sources from, as linking back to a scalped, shittier version of the same article running on another website is obviously self-defeating. Might as well put "source: my common sense in my brain", or something. --Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 22:07, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

MKCheserek (talk · contribs) also seems to belong to this group. They have racked up two blocks in two weeks of editing. Despite multiple warnings and explanations on their Talk page, there has been no communication from them with the exception of an unblock request. Robby.is.on (talk) 21:33, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

@El C: There is also Ngangaesther making edits such as this which most definitely is not a reliable source. I really don't relish the thought of going through 500+ edits to catch what amounts to spam links.-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 22:43, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

I have left FNartey a comment about the issues we've been encountering (User_talk:FNartey_(WMF)#ANI_report). To summarize, while I applaud the sentiment behind this effort, I feel as if it could have been set up and executed better. Our African articles are currently being overwhelmed — at the moment, I get the sense that this is possibly doing more harm than good. An emphasis on better Wikipedia training (copyvio, reliable sources, etc.) must be part of any future such efforts if it is to benefit the project in a concrete and real way. El_C 22:56, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Pinging their other account Flixtey as well, as they appear to be more active there. M Imtiaz (talk · contribs) 00:07, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Weighing in with concerns. I hadn't seen this thread, but I've cleared over 30 CopyPatrol notices in the last hour or so, all of which have that tag. I am well aware that I ought to respond carefully, because while every edit I see with that tag is problematic, I'm working at Copypatrol where most edits listed are problematic, so if I just saw 30 out of a project producing 10,000 good edits, we need minor tweaking and education, but if it is 30 out a few hundred, we have a situation that needs to be stopped.

FWIW, everyone of the edits I reverted was not a close paraphrase by someone who needs some guidance about writing in one's own words, most were simple copy and paste from place like britannica.com. Whoever is in charge needs to do a reboot.S Philbrick(Talk) 01:03, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

C. Odumegwu Ojukwu is a prefect example into how this isn't working. El_C 12:47, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

+ to what Sphilbrick has said. Copypatrol is getting totally swamped with edits relating to this. I've warned about 6-7 different users who are taking part in it. Moneytrees🌴^{Talk🌲Help out at CCI!} 15:02, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Hello all, i find most of the comments very valid as some users may not have completely understood the trainings. In spite of our preparation with the audience through series of webinars we realised some erroneous edits that we tried to correct through posts from their community leaders. These worked as some realised their mistakes and learnt through process. I don't think any of these editors had any malicious intent and I acknowledge that some of the edits may have added to workload of volunteers. 1Lib1Ref has shown significant editor retention as well as editor reactivation in the past and we are optimistic with further training of this cohort we could increase the number of editors on en:wiki in the future. I had discovered, too late last week, that the audience needed other skills besides Wikipedia skills (how to evaluate digital source materials). We want to acknowledge the really strong demonstration of why we need to increase training with this audience and community. This kind of professional development is why our partner AFLIA exists in the African context. We are working with the leadership of AfLIA to provide further training in the next couple of months through this grant proposal to ensure their contribution in subsequent years will be better than that of this years', and we are taking the lessons from this round into our next iteration to ensure that our audience is adequately prepared on issues as these. Pointing out responses to an earlier conversation on the subject --FNartey (WMF) (talk) 14:18, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

FNartey (WMF), Thanks for the response. S Philbrick(Talk) 16:28, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks from me, also, FNartey (WMF). If I could conclude this with a two fold suggestion: better Wikipedia training is key, including perhaps an initial throttling of volume by each participating account. And also, better notification to the English Wikipedia community (i.e. at WP:AN, WP:VP, etc.) that the effort is underway. As you can see from this very thread, most of us could not figure out what was going on for some time, to the point that I had to block several of these accounts from editing (now unblocked), pending an explanation. An explanation which, incidentally, none of the accounts provided themselves (perhaps a template/tag about the programme being placed on the userpages of participants would also be useful). Anyway, thanks for all the good work you do and good luck to all of us with the next iteration! El_C 17:32, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Casperti

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

---

Casperti has been disruptive since the time he started editing Wikipedia. His main interest is his engagement in Pashtun-related POV pushing. To this day, he has made at least 28 reverts on Pashtun alone.[27]

From few hours ago:

• "Aman Kumar wants to threat for its POV push".[28]

"Undid revision 959870650 by Lowercase sigmabot III (talk) should stay for a while since there is an user who still does not want to proof its WP:EXTRAORDINARY out of POV"[29]

"Do not make any accusations on me further like claiming censorship that just a sign of showing WP:NPOV from your side."[30] (no such accusations were made)

First of all not all of them are related to the same issues. I watch the Pashtuns page so if something happens which needs a rv then I rv. Second of all your only edits to this page are reverts of me. So if you claim I have POV then you are as POV as I am if that's what you claim.--Casperti (talk) 05:42, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

The page ownership and WP:IDHT is visible elsewhere too. He went ahead to file a report against an editor on WP:AN3 even when no 3RR violation took place, nor there is a clear case of edit warring, though Casperti is himself the one who has made 5 reverts in 30 hours.[31][32][33][34][35]

He has been reported enough times on WP:AN3,[36][37] but none of it helped him to cease his disruption.

Long term edit warring, together with ethnicity based POV pushing and frequent violation of WP:NPA shows this user is clearly WP:NOTHERE. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 03:51, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

First of all there is clearly a discussion ongoing on 2 issues where you want to silence me. Second of all number 230 is not a revert but was done per User:Anupam's request see here [38] besides it was placed by myself so..... and two revert were made for 2 different issues not the same issues. Shashank5988 and you are ignoring comments by me and other users when reached a consensus here:Talk:Pashtuns#Disputed_source_Solved for almost 9 months. By reading those comments it is known why you do not like it. Anyways threatening does not help anything just help all of us at the talk page where we are active for a while till we solved the matter with (again) non-sided comments so no disrupting anymore by any party till we reach a consensus (again) Casperti (talk) 04:05, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

And now he is edit warring to restore a blatant personal attack against multiple users[39] made by an IP address, and claiming there was "no trolling". Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 04:08, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Are you serious? edit warring on a talk page? you are just deleting its comments. If you think it is a Troll then ignore it. come on just give valid reasons. Especially Shashank5988 and you too are known to threat everyone with noticeboards. Like come on at least provide some serious things except for "IT DIDNT GO MY WAY" Casperti (talk) 05:32, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Casperti has caused long-term disruption to this project through ethnic POV pushing over a wide-range of articles. At this point, only a topic ban from all articles pertaining to Afghanistan-India-Pakistan would be helpful. Eliko007 (talk) 05:17, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Topic Ban for Casperti on Afghanistan-India-Pakistan articles

• Support. Casperti seems to ignore the opinions of all other editors when they try to discuss issues with him. He also has a clear bias against users of different ethnic and religious backgrounds, frequently removing cited material.[40] Eliko007 (talk) 05:17, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

When the person was right I immediately stopped and gave its way so stop accusing. We just provided out sources with each other and the other user was right. then it ended so what is the problem? Did I go on? If someone is right then he/she is right Casperti (talk) 05:22, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Since when are you allowed to setup out here a topic ban section in this noticeboard?Casperti (talk) 05:26, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Anyone is allowed to propose a topic ban here. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:20, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, for clarity ANI and AN are the 2 basic places where community topic bans may be discussed. (Arbcom can also impose topic bans, or they may be imposed by uninvolved administrators in cases where discretionary sanctions apply.) Nil Einne (talk) 12:23, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support Initially I thought that problem is only with Pashtun-related articles but POV pushing concerns entire South Asian subject, and  one can easily observe edit warring by this user for adding poor content on other pages. [41][42][43] Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 05:45, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Why are you putting some already ended discussions here? Where I gave in to/were solved..this is Wikipedia....What do you want to achieve? Casperti (talk) 06:18, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support. Casperti's edits seem to be driven by prejudice against a specific religious group, which is why he finds an excuse to remove them from articles pertaining to Afghanistan [44] Zakaria1978 (talk) 05:51, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Zakaria1978, you have been known to revert everything I do see here [45]. Anyways I think this is just a collection of editors who do not like when I edit. Including WP:SLEEPER. Admin that checks this please take a look at the edit stance of these editors they are people whom I had discussions with and did not like it. But anyways I don't think this is even possible at all so why am I even reacting out here...Casperti (talk) 06:18, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Unless there are objections by anyone else but Casperti, I am ready to forgo the community process (and the 24-hour wait) and enact a discretionary sanctions-backed topic ban immediately. I'll wait a few hours for others to respond, however. El_C 09:47, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Admin @El C:, please let a non-partied decide in this special case. All these 3 people had "conflicts" with me. Please check it individually and check what edits they included. They have included random edits they did not like WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Please let some third party decide. This edit here [46] was quickly solved when the user gave the sources here [47] so nothing disruptive afterwards. [48]&[49] are purposeful chosen but both of them are solved by the respective talk pages here Talk:Nowruz and Talk:Shah. You can check them up, if there is disruptive editing let me know. I always cooperate in talk pages. I will ping the respective users that were involved there too: @Wario-Man: and @Wikaviani: you ask these users for the if I cooperated or just went on editing on these two topics one was for the Solar hijri calendar. When the users gave arguments/sources I just accepted it. Please read them. This edit here pointed by the last user Zakaria1978 [50] is just right. Source given said nothing about Hinduism 12 and [51]. For Zabulistan there is a long discussion going on where I am not part of it solely that one edit which these users are much aware of @HistoryofIran: and @Xerxes931:. So we have at least the people for the respective topics, where I am accused of doing disruptive and not cooperative, to decide. Please wait till someone reacts within 24 hours. Casperti (talk) 11:11, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Allow me to react within 24 hours: @El C: frankly, anyone who believes that "User:Khestwol and User:Anupam should pay visit to psychiatrist" isn't trolling needs their judgement questioned. I think your proposal, therefore, to be a good one; removing warriors from their preferred battlefield can't be a bad strategy. ——Serial

^# 11:39, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

That comment is not placed by me at all. I said if it is trolling try to ignore instead of deleting it and the comment was not made by me it was unsigned by a random IP. Casperti (talk) 11:55, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

• Note: This Noticeboard is made shortly after I setup this noticeboard fill in by me here [52]. This is more to attack me personally as user. Other admins have reacted on that too. Please check it out. Casperti (talk) 11:28, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

  Thanks for letting us know about discussion. That said, AFAICT, even in that discussion while there is some concern over what others have done, your actions seem to have received the most attention. More concerning is that it's not clear to me from your comments you understand that. Also I think you're missing the point of what SN54129 is saying. Yes we know you aren't the one who left that comment. But you specifically said "view is view no matter what. It includes arguments not trolling". So you were claiming that someone who said that wasn't trolling. Personally I'd approach this from a different way. I don't care whether you want to call it trolling or what. Anyone who is making such comments isn't welcome here and you shouldn't be fighting to preserve their comments. Why don't you just ignore such editors instead of fighting to preserve their comments? Nil Einne (talk) 12:37, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I have to admit I could have done it otherwise but the user that openend this discussion was known for deleting discussion at that talk page as you can see here [53]. Including comments of others and User:El_C had reverted it by himself here [54] so you can see why I reverted it. But I should have looked it more carefully and I could have prevented it I admit that. But for the admin that watches the page keep an eye on this noticeboard [55] that provoked this one. Where other admins could see there is problems from both sides. We all care for the quality of the page, they are planning to use some Rfc's. So, to be fair on all sides keep an eye out for that page. Casperti (talk) 13:35, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Comment : Casperti has sometimes been disruptive and i have disagreed with them several times, but i must say that when asked to discuss on talk pages, Casperti often engages in constructive discussions, thus, i sincerely think they can be a net positive for the project if they promise to desist from edit-warring and engage in collegial discussions better than they did untill now.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 12:57, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support because of his disruptive behavior and unwillingness to engage with other editors constructively, I support banning him from all articles related to Pashtuns. Khestwol (talk) 13:51, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Seems a bit unfair. I had you and Anupam on the other noticeboard that provoked this noticeboard. Your view is a bit one-sided. anyway it is better to watch out that other noticeboard to see what the best is other Admins are forming a solution because banning one editor and not the other will not prevent such actions (by other users) further. As for now I do not carry anything out on the page so that claim. This noticeboard and that noticeboard is approximately about the same problem. Casperti (talk) 15:10, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support Commenting here because I have been dragged without any reason for at least two times by Casperti here on this thread. This WP:BATTLE should stop and if Casperti is capable of editing (which I think he is not) then he must prove that he can indeed edit other subjects than continue being a self-admitted SPA ("I don't want to edit other pages"[ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Pashtuns&diff=prev&oldid=884175056]). Shashank5988 (talk) 16:58, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

As expected and mentioned on the other noticeboard. You would react too. Casperti (talk) 18:23, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Length of the sanction

I still intend to apply discretionary sanctions, which does not require community consultation. Still, I'm interested in what length a topic ban participants lean toward. Personally, I'm debating between a 3- and 6-month topic ban from the IPA topic area (I originally weighed a year-long topic ban, but I'm willing to consider a shorter stint per Wikaviani). El_C 17:22, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

You want WP:ARBIPA for the wikilink. Nil Einne (talk) 17:28, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

 Done. El_C 17:34, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

It is unfortunate that the opinion of users who do not like me as an editor. Heavy weighed in this. But please take a look at the other noticeboard as well. Because now I cannot discuss in the talk pages because blocking me does not solve the problem on 2 source issues in Pashtuns. Check other noticeboard here [56]. It looks like I am the only one thats gets punished without having any solution for the problem. Anupam goes free out while edit warring can be clearly seen from two sides.Casperti (talk) 18:23, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

El_C, at this time, I don't see a better remedy than an indefinite tban from IPA articles. Casperti created their account for the sole purpose of removing "Hinduism" from any article related to Pakistan and Afghanistan as can be seen from their very first edits (they are a minority in the area, with many being driven off through the partition and later by the Taliban). After a six month tban, this behavior would most likely continue. I would give them the option to appeal their tban, although that should be done with community approval, especially given the WP:COMPETENCE issues that this user has, with not even realizing what they did wrong and instead trying to fault other editors. Eliko007 (talk) 19:50, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

With all due respect, i find your above comment too harsh. I worked with Casperti several times here, on Wiki, and while we often disagreed, i would say that this user does engage in polite and constructive discussions when they're asked for that. I see nothing in their behavior that would justify an indefinite TB. I did not vote here and to be honest, El_C's proposal of a 3/6 months TB sounds well-balanced enough. Also, if you guys still find Casperti disruptive after the TB, feel free to file another request here, but suppressing indefinitely any chance of this editor to edit topics they like would be irrelevant for now.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 23:51, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

• Please try to consider the views of other admins on the other noticeboard:Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Edit_warring so you can see it is definitely not coming from my side only. I really want to solve both problems and work on it. Again it will be unfair to forget the other noticeboard that actually provoked this one, so please take a look. Casperti (talk) 01:17, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

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

RexxS

I looking for a fellow admin who might say to User talk:RexxS: Look, the guy’s polite, he has a right to talk, certainly on his own talk page.

Most recently, RexxS said “It's time for you to drop the stick and back away.“ After first accusing me of trying to subvert the standards of MEDRS, and after previously threatening to seek sanctions against me if my “disruptive editing” continued. This is at User talk:FriendlyRiverOtter —> MEDRS.

I have followed the rules and have made solid edits on the main Coronavirus pages, and at the same time, I have civilly questioned policy on the talk page. In particular, I’ve pointed out that Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) has a header which states, “It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. . . “

Background includes:

Discretionary sanctions on the use of preprints

Header for WP:MEDRS says “. . best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. . ” (Archive 9)

Any help would be appreciated, and if I’m doing something unacceptable to group norms, please let me know. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 14:04, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't see how any admin intervention is required here. You're having a disagreement with another editor, which can easily be handled by continued discussion either at the article talk page or via your user talk pages. ANI is a board for requesting administrator actions and I can't see any actions that would be appropriate here. Sam Walton (talk) 14:10, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Not just another editor. RexxS is threatening to use admin power to block me as a result of that disagreement. I’m trying to be proactive and get a response before I’m blocked. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 14:31, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

RexxS is threatening to use admin power to block me as a result of that disagreement. Diff of that threat, please? --bonadea contributions talk 14:39, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

From User talk:FriendlyRiverOtter —> MEDRS

• “Consequently, I'm now warning you, in all seriousness, that I will seek sanctions against you for disruptive editing if you persist.” (end of first paragraph) And this for advocacy on talk pages, not for actual live edits on article pages. And,

From Talk:Coronavirus disease 2019/Archive 9 —> Header for WP:MEDRS says “. . best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. . ”

• “As for ‘One study of COVID-19 patients at three hospitals showed ...’, if you finish that sentence with a biomedical claim, I'll block you until you're prepared to abide by our sourcing policies and guidelines. It's as simple as that.“ (RexxS’ first response, May 16) That’s an example of making up policy on the fly. It’s also an example of being both player and referee.

Again, I’m trying to be proactive. And probably should say, that even though I’m a 10+ year Wikipedian, I’m more used to sports sites in which extended debate on something like a talk page is viewed as just fine. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 15:50, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

That's the same thing you said in your initial comment, but it doesn't tally with what you said in a follow up. RexxS said they would seek sanction against you. In other words, let other admins or the community decide if your behaviour warranted action. They never threateened to take admin action against you directly which is what you implied with "RexxS is threatening to use admin power to block me". An editor saying they will ask for you to be sanctioned or blocked if you continue to violate some policy or guideline is perfectly normal, frankly I would expect you to know that with 10+ years of experience. It's not generally worth our time analysing whether your behaviour warrants sanction on ANI unless we're actually considering imposing sanction. So if you feel the threat is without merit, ignore it. If your behaviour is really fine then when they seek sanction they'll just be told to go away, or worse suffer a WP:boomerang, there is no need to be "proactive". Of course if your behaviour is a problem, the fact that you've already been warned means you'll likely get limited sympathy. If you're not sure whether what you're doing is okay, you should continue to engage in discussion with RexxS and others, or seek help elsewhere e.g. WP:Teahouse, not ANI. It's ultimately your responsibility to understand and follow our policies and guidelines. Nil Einne (talk) 15:54, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I mostly wrote the above before you replied based on checking out your talk page, got an EC, skimmed through what you wrote and reworded it slightly. I missed the part in the second example where they did directly threaten a block. I haven't looked at the details and for AC/DS cases it can be complicated whether an admin is acting in a purely administrative capacity. However it is also about 17 days ago and given that in their most recent comment RexxS simply threatened to report you, it may be even RexxS now feels they're WP:involved. Have you at least asked RexxS whether they still feel they can block you directly? Nil Einne (talk) 16:08, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Once again I am seeing someone claim that WP:MEDRS should be diluted on the very page where it currently the most important. The way to counter "bat shit crazy conspiracy theories" is to cite proper science, not preliminary studies. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:42, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I’m all in favor of reliable sources (medicine), including the first header which mentions “common sense” and “occasional exceptions.” And with a new-to-humans disease like Coronavirus, we might well benefit from including the occasional primary source. If so, we (1) have to be really confident we’re summarizing it right and (2) state something like “A study of ___ number of patients showed.” Unless we’re simply going to repeat WHO and CDC, as valuable as these two are, there may not be enough good secondary sources otherwise. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 23:05, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

You seem to be misinterpreting "occasional exceptions" to mean ignoring the policy on the very page where it is most important. For any exception to be occasional it must be stringently justified in the context where it applies, but you seem to be proposing to use this as a get-out clause to avoid confronting "bat shit crazy conspiracy theories" in a proper, scientific way and to promote other unproven theories. You are taking people's time away from providing some of the best, well-sourced, content on the Internet while you continually argue about this point. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:50, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I've been attempting for several weeks now to stem the tide of unreliable sources being used at COVID-19, in an attempt to keep up with news sources that report every novel study regardless of whether they are usable for an encyclopedia. It is very important that WP:RS and WP:MEDRS in particular are observed, as those are the key guidelines that prevent content from being degraded with text sourced from poor quality sources.

The situation was so bad that I even had to impose a specific general sanction to prevent the use of preprints (preliminary studies, not even peer-reviewed) as sources. See sanctions on the use of preprints Discretionary sanctions on the use of preprints. The comments from FriendlyRiverOtter were outright opposition that showed a complete lack of understanding of the reasons for MEDRS: "What we’re up against are bat shit crazy conspiracy theories ... We’re also at risk of irrelevancy due to the 24-hour news cycle and social media. ... And then I’d ask, How often really does a professional journal make substantial changes to a pre-print? I mean, if we’re going to make big sacrifices to piously remain on the sidelines, that’s kind of an important question. Especially when a clear better alternative is to say “According to a preliminary study . . ” or something of this sort, or even add “(pre-print, not yet subject to peer review)” if we feel that’s necessary. Suggesting that we use sources that don't even meet WP:RS by using qualifications like "According to a preliminary study" is thoroughly unhelpful and sets a poor example for other editors at the article. Further comments from FRO in that thread included:

• "If a colleague said “a preprint showed . . ” pertaining to a real live patient under the care of both of you, would you try to pretend you never heard it, or would you cautiously take it into account?" - to an MD who disagreed with them
• "For several weeks from January and February, a preliminary study from China found that approximately 13% of transmission from pre-symptomatic persons." - advocating another preprint
• "To me, the overall issue of whether we remain relevant, or not, is huge. And in that context, a couple of weeks can be a big deal."
• "So, a professional journal is okay with a pre-print, with the qualification of course, but for us, Oh no. We have to outdo them and be more goody two-shoes, more by-the-book, seemingly more everything."
• "I urge you not to decide ahead of time that we’re going to relegate ourselves to the trailing edge."

After receiving support fro other admins, I imposed the general sanction. That provoked a personalisation in FRO's next response:

• "No compelling argument, eh? I’m not sure one should both energetically champion a viewpoint, and neutrally sit as a judge."

My viewpoint was that of upholding MEDRS, not a personal view on the content, but that's lost to FRO, who added:

• "Now, whether we’re really going to go the route of secondary sources only, that’s an entirely separate discussion. I don’t think WP:MEDRS is that hardcore about it. Yes, I have read it before, but it’s been a while."

Then back to challenging MEDRS/RS:

• "On an occasional, sparring basis, with the qualifier “a preliminary study shows . . , ” I don’t think we should immediately dismiss using a pre-print."
• "So, we’re going to have a “higher” standard than JAMA, are we? JAMA makes pre-prints available — with a qualification of course (key point!). And we’re going to do this as if super “high” standards are some kind of unalloyed good thing."

It was at that point on 14 May 2020 that I warned FRO that their continued opposition to our standards for sourcing was becoming disruptive. There the situation remained until 28 May when FRO decided to take up the argument again, this time on their talk page, claiming "All the same, I do not feel I should be penalized for participating on a talk page." Of course, FRO has not been penalised, other than having been prevented from using preprints to support medical content.

For sake of clarity: given the personalisation in their replies to my warnings about their behaviour, I will not take administrative action against FriendlyRiverOtter, but I am now looking for some support to curtail their disruption. The more that our sourcing standards are openly challenged, especially on talk pages, the more difficult it is to maintain quality in the article, which already is recognised as problematic and is under community-imposed general sanctions. --RexxS (talk) 17:19, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

There’s also the part on May 15 and 16th in which I started the discussion: Header for WP:MEDRS says “. . best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. . ” (Archive 9)

Toward the beginning, I said:

• ”Now, that doesn’t mean run hog wild (and it doesn’t mean consensus first for our Coronavirus article).”

I stand with both of these, because if we go at a snail’s pace that’s not going to help anyone. But the editor should be able to present his or her reasons for an exception. So, I’m all in favor of going medium in a thoughtful way.

• ”you’re one of us. You have jumped in and joined your fellow Wiki citizens, and we’re happy you have you!”

Now this is clumsy. And @RexxS: I wish to apologize to you for this clumsiness. All I meant is that if you’re playing a basketball game, you cannot also referee it.

On my talk page, I responded to your post of May 14 two weeks later on May 28. I often respond to posts at my own leisure. I want to eventually respond because I don’t want people months down the road to think I violated MEDRS, which is certainly not how I look at it.

RexxS, you ended your May 28 post by saying, “It's time for you to drop the stick and back away.” Given our previous disagreement and your role as admin, I viewed that as an order not to talk on my own talk page.

Obviously, I think I have a right to my talk page. And more broadly, I don’t agree that speech = crime. A person can follow a policy and at the same time work to improve that policy. And if other Wikipedians don’t understand that, we can and will bring them up to speed. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 01:12, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@FriendlyRiverOtter: please take a look at WP:LISTGAP. It's much kinder to those using screen readers if you don't continually leave gaps between your indented posts.

The thing about "occasional exceptions may apply" is that in all the years I've edited medical articles, I've never seen one of those occasional exceptions applied, have you? I'm always happy to discuss reasons for making exceptions, but you haven't brought any, apart from your desire to keep up with breaking news, and you've been told a dozen times now that it's not what Wikipedia is about.

As for your patronising welcome, it wasn't simply clumsy, it was downright rude. This isn't a game (of basketball or otherwise). You need to understand that on wiki, an admin is not disqualified from action merely because of prior admin actions. If an admin warns you about your behaviour, you don't get a free pass from sanctions simply because you argued about the warnings. Fortunately, I don't have to use any admin functions to seek sanctions and this board would be one of the possible venues.

Let me be clear on this point as well: you haven't violated MEDRS that I'm aware of, but you have challenged it, and repeatedly advocated to see it breached. You won't be allowed to continue down that road. It really is time to stop doing that ("drop the stick") and get on with more productive editing ("back away"). Is that clear enough?

If you feel you want to improve MEDRS, then let us know how you want to improve it, because all I've seen from you so far is how you want to circumvent it.

Finally, on Wikipedia, you have exactly two rights: the right to fork and the right to leave. Everything else is a privilege that is extended to you as long as you respect the established conventions of being here. One of those is MEDRS and if you still don't understand it, you can always have a look at this video from Wikimania 2019: File:MEDRS - bulwark or barrier.webm. It might give you a clue about why I'm so passionate about defending it. --RexxS (talk) 02:35, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@RexxS: since you ask about exceptions, there are a couple of primary studies which found that an uncovered cough can travel further than the social distance of 6 feet. These are on Talk:Coronavirus disease 2019. And if we look, we might be able to find a few more. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 20:50, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@FriendlyRiverOtter: Just mark them up with {{medrs |reason=primary source used to support biomedical claim |date=May 2020}} and they will be removed, or just remove them yourself. --RexxS (talk) 21:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@RexxS: no need to remove, they’re not on our article page. But since you ask and all, the two are clean, easy-to-understand studies, and I think they’re good candidates for making exceptions for. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 21:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@FriendlyRiverOtter: They are not. I'm done with humouring you. --RexxS (talk) 22:24, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

If it would make FriendlyRiverOtter happier, I am prepared to block them rather than RexxS if the energetic pushback against general sanctions continues. Talk pages cannot properly function if they are dominated by campaigns to include preprints. Johnuniq (talk) 23:51, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

• Editors are usually allowed a little latitude on their own talk pages, to be fair.—S Marshall T/C 00:11, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• The requirement for RS/MEDRS and prohibition on using preprints has wide community support, but we have a small number of people who seem to be constantly pushing back against that, and FriendlyRiverOtter is at the forefront. I know policy says "occasional exceptions may apply", but we should expect that to be very occasional, not every time a non-RS is published about Covid-19. That's the way we have tradtionally approached exceptions, and the community has very much reinforced that approach for Covid-19 articles. If RexxS has agreed not to sanction FriendlyRiverOtter personally, I have not. And I am very much prepared to sanction those who tendentiously keep on challenging the MEDRS requirement and agitating for its breach. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:20, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

So, it’s the case that speech itself on our talk pages is the “crime,” even if civil? And whereas, if someone makes a response and someone else hammers it with four responses, okay, that’s repetitive. But if you make a response and I make a response in turn, that’s not repetitive, is it? FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 21:39, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

FriendlyRiverOtter, it comes across as "keep badgering until you get the answer you want".

The restriction on preprints is there for an excellent reason. Papers can fail peer review, the preprint version can be significantly modified, and this is an area where there has been noise about early findings that have turned out to be wrong to the point of likely fraud.

Sure, it means we won't necessarily be at the cutting edge of the latest breaking news. This is a feature, not a bug. Guy (help!) 21:59, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposal

I've now reluctantly reached the conclusion that FriendlyRiverOtter has no intention of abiding by our standards for sourcing, as the debate above shows – indeed they seem determined to undermine MEDRS in order to appear "cutting edge" in our coverage. I see no inclination to back down from their position and feel that their continued presence on those articles is detrimental to establishing quality sources.

I therefore propose that they are topic-banned from COVID-19 related pages for a month.

I understand that any uninvolved admin can impose any reasonable general sanction in the area anyway, but hopefully having some degree of consensus here might bring home to FriendlyRiverOtter the need to observe the community's express requirement for maintaining our standards for quality and behaviour on pages under general sanctions. --RexxS (talk) 22:24, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

1. Support as proposer. --RexxS (talk) 22:24, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
2. Support. FRO was heavily involved in pushing the "cough radius" primary study they cited earlier as evidence that "MEDRS primary exceptions exist", and kept agitating for its inclusion even after at least 3 literal MDs explained why it was important that we not use a (heavily underpowered) primary source. Clearly they are still carrying that stick and don't intend to drop it. JoelleJay (talk) 22:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

   @JoelleJay: this was in the context of an RfC which I myself started. So, yeah, if someone makes a thoughtful response, I’m going to try to make a thoughtful response in return, time permitting and if I feel I have something worthwhile to say.
   I can see two MDs by user name. If you know who the third is, I’d also be interested in knowing. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 05:28, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

3. Iff they persist in this outside their own talk page after this discussion. It's inappropriate and unwise to demand a mea culpa as a precondition of continued editing privileges, but this discussion needs to lead to them getting the message. Editors are allowed to express unconventional views on their own talk pages and this must not be banned.—S Marshall T/C 10:23, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

   @S Marshall: thank you for your measured response, and I hope you appreciate my measured approach as well. Even though I have pointed out that the MEDRS header states “common sense” and “occasional exceptions,” I also said above “Now, that doesn’t mean run hog wild.” That is, I really have attempted to steer a middle course. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 05:54, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

   Yes, and it's been pointed out to you repeatedly that the "common sense" and "occasional exceptions" clauses in practice mean hardly ever and only for something special. There's no "middle course" to steer here. The required course is "no non-MEDRS sources for medical information in Covid-19 articles", as the community has made very very clear. Seeing you continuing to push back against that even here, in a proposal to have you topic banned, confirms my conviction that this topic ban really is needed. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 06:38, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

4. Support per my comments above. This is, at the moment, the most important article on which WP:MEDRS should be upheld, and anyone who continually argues against this is taking editors' time away from providing a proper source of information to counter the disinformation that is prevalent on the Internet. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:55, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
5. Support, unfortunately, as FriendlyRiverOtter is still not getting it, or is refusing to get it. I'll add that I was thinking a 3-month topic ban would be appropriate if FriendlyRiverOtter continued, but hopefully a 1-month ban will prevent the need for anything longer. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 21:25, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

   I’m polite, and for the most part, my responses have been relatively brief.

   Now, besides being a sports site person, I also a nerd. So, if there’s an unstated group norm which I’m not reading, and I get the definite feeling there is, it might be helpful if someone could just matter-of-factly state such. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 06:09, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

   There's nothing unstated here, there's just a very clearly and oft stated "Stop pushing against the sourcing requirements for Covid-19 articles" which have a very clear community consensus, and stop pushing against those who strive to uphold them. Honestly, it's a long time since I've seen anything less unstated than that. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:08, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

   So, if I agree, no tricks, to cool it on Talk:Coronavirus disease 2019 regarding speaking in favor of either preprints or primary sources, other than my own single RfC which is still open? FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 14:13, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

   If you make a commitment to stop promoting the use of primary sources and/or non-MEDRS sources, stop supporting their use, *and* drop your participation in the currently open RfC (in which you persistently show that you still don't understand how not to use primary sources), and if you commit to only using (and discussing) MEDRS compliant sources (without exception) in relation to Covid-19, then I will strike my support for this topic ban proposal. But it will be on the proviso that any breach of these commitments would result in an immediate topic ban under the active community-authorised discretionary sanctions. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

   Oh, and please note the striking of my support won't stop the proposal - I don't have the power to do that. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:07, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

   And one final comment here, having just had a read through that RFC. Firstly, there's clearly no consensus for the use of your proposed source (and I hope someone will close it soon). Secondly, it's been going on for 15 days and it's 3,500 words long! That's 15 days and 3,500 words of timesink. Time that those repeatedly explaining the flaws in your arguments could have (and I'm sure would have loved to have) spent more productively looking for and using acceptable sources to develop the article to the standard required by WP:MEDRS. And *that* is why you need to be stopped from your attempts to get sub-standard sources used in Covid-19 articles. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

   I add my support for closure of that RFC, to go along with the topic ban. It has obviously failed, and, as said above, it only serves as a time sink. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:50, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I have closed and archived the RfC. I agree to cool it regarding promoting primary sources on COVID talk pages for one month (and probably longer!), as such discussions have not at all been well received.
And I plan to continue positive edits on the article pages themselves as I’ve done on Coronavirus disease 2019: Revision history since at least early April, and other COVID-19 pages since March. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 21:39, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

User:1+1=yes and his humorous user page

1+1=yes (talk · contribs · logs) (ignore the percents, they are used to link correctly to the page) 's user page is very messy and definitely does not fit the description of a user page. See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:1%2B1%3Dyes&type=revision&diff=960161036&oldid=959762701&diffmode=source. As you can see in the diff, there are a lot of humorous and/or nonsense parts of the page. You can't even see the history. All, I know, this whole account is only used for humorous purposes. I mean, look at the sandbox of this person. It is definitely made for humorous purposes. Seriously. {{31}}{{25A (talk)}} 14:27, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I am not sure if I should be posting here, but this definitely feels like a good place. {{31}}{{25A (talk)}} 14:29, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure this had to come to ANI either, but I've been bold and "tidied" most of the junk away and left them a note, which they may or may not answer. ——Serial ^# 14:52, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment)^^^ btw ——Serial ^# 14:53, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

The page can be linked from 1+1=yes (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) with a "1=" prefix; encoding the "=" and "+" shows logs for all users (or just use 1+1=yes (talk · contribs) as they are not vandalising). Peter James (talk) 20:19, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

@Peter James: apologies for density, but I don't quite see what you're getting at? ——Serial ^# 10:54, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

The template at the top of the section; the log links show logs for all users and not just User:1=1+1=yes. Also the use of {{vandal}} to link to users who are not vandalising. Peter James (talk) 13:36, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I see, yes my density it was. You're dead right of course, thanks for noticing. I've taken the liberty of switching the tempate to something easier on the eye, and, 3125A, just a heads up, but you shouldn't use the vandal template when you're not actually reporting vandalism  :) ——Serial ^# 13:47, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

COPYVIO by Truthwins018

I was about to warn this user for copyright violations, then I saw he already got away from a pretty solid SPI and has been already warned over copyrights.[57] The user is basically here for WP:RGW who is still engaging in mass copyright violations per his recent edit.[58] See results of his recent edit that how much he has violated COPYVIO. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 17:48, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Aman.kumar.goel, I've revdeled the vio, I'm keeping my eyes on the user. Their edits seem to be strange synthesis's of copy and pastes from POV slanted sources. Moneytrees🌴^{Talk🌲Help out at CCI!} 03:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

The User also made similar copyvios on Grand Mosque seizure, which were reverted. Mztourist (talk) 03:28, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Since the problem is recurring for days, he should be at least blocked until he convinces that he understand what is WP:COPYVIO. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 08:05, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Edit war at Bergen Community College where editor is inserting (and reinserting) COPYVIO material

The article for Bergen Community College has been updated about a dozen times by an IP editor, with sourced material removed and extensive sections of COPYVIO material added (from this official source; it also appears elsewhere on official sites). A series of reverts was undone by the same IP editor, who made clear in this edit that "This is all official College data and information coming directly from the source - the College. Please stop reverting to past versions." I'm sure that the editor believes in good faith that the edits are adding official material, but the WP:COPYVIO issue is not being understood here (as well as a possible WP:COI problem). Alansohn (talk) 18:01, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Which was followed shortly after by another revert, this time with the edit summary "This is all official College data and information coming directly from the source - the College. Please stop reverting to past versions. The content in the presidential brochure is owned by the College copyright, as is the information being posted to Wikipedia. I represent the College and have the express permission to do so." The COPYVIO is clear and now it's obvious that WP:COI is also present, as well as WP:3RR problems. Alansohn (talk) 18:18, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I've reverted and revision-deleted the copyvio, and I (and several others) have put warnings on the IP's talk page, which the IP has seen, since he or she has subsequently posted there. I'll try to explain further there. (If I messed anything up with the revision deletion, any other admin is welcome to fix things up—I'm not as familiar with the process as I should be.) Deor (talk) 18:34, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) The IP has seems to stop. I have told them about Copyright, and COI, and paid editing. Best, Signed,The4lines |||| ^{(You Asked?) (What I have Done.)} 18:42, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Legal threat

IP user 73.49.85.51 is adding the word "alleged" to the article on Tareq Salahi in relation to the 2009 U.S. state dinner security breaches. In their edit summary, they have said this is required by a lawyer in Los Angeles and to contact that lawyer. diff Emk9 (talk) 18:27, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I guess we have to. A lawyer says so. (A lawyer who writes illiterate stuff such as "in accordance to". Allegedly.) EEng 19:10, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

(sigh) What does the source say? --Deep fried okra User talk:Deepfriedokra 19:12, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't quite call this a legal threat, but it's getting distressingly close. Has anybody actually tried, you know, talking to this IP editor beyond edit summaries? creffett (talk) 19:13, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I just gave them my standard WP:42, BLP/help combo. --Deep fried okra User talk:Deepfriedokra 19:31, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Disruption by users: ReliableAssam, Encyclopedia-ein and IP editors.

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

---

In the last couple of days the following users—ReliableAssam (talk · contribs), Encyclopedia-ein (talk · contribs), 2409:4065:e96:261f:4c97:65eb:a420:c75a (talk · contribs), 106.203.144.76 (talk · contribs) have taken to vandalizing articles related to Assam, specifically Assam, People of Assam and Kamarupa and a few others. These are all new users and seem to have proliferated after Logical Man 2000 (talk · contribs) was blocked for sock-puppetry. These new editors seem to be picking up the gauntlet exactly where Logical Man, DinaBasumatary (talk · contribs) and PerfectingNEI (talk · contribs) left off, with exactly the same arguments and view points. It is very difficult to engage with these editors in any discussion and no amount of citations or references seem to get to them.

I wonder whether something can be done to protect these pages from this kind of attack. I shall provide more evidence as required. @JzG:.

Chaipau (talk) 22:56, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Chaipau, I think a CheckUser might be the best person to comment first. Not that I;m averse to blocking if you can show me some substantially similar edits? I am old, tired and lazy... Guy (help!) 23:03, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

False accusation. I have cleaned exeggration and some POV push from Kamakhya , Kamarupa kingdom and Assam. I don't know if it is wrong to use already available citation to counter POV push. ReliableAssam (talk) 23:57, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

For example - Ahom claim to construct a wall Natamandira. But the image is specifically for Kamarupa statue or idol. This is clearly a misleading claim. I can click a photo with Ex-President Obama but I can't use his photo for my use. Here, He claims that Ahom constructed Natamandira using kamarupa statue or idol of kamakhya https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kamakhya_Temple&diff=959545964&oldid=959542008 .ReliableAssam (talk) 00:04, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

His accusation is against establishment of facts. If a page will be edited by single person then it will be biased. ReliableAssam (talk) 00:20, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you—I think the issue has been resolved for now with the sock-puppets identified and blocked. We might see them again, since these are themselves 4th or 5th generation socks. Greatly appreciate all who helped resolve this particular issue. Chaipau (talk) 17:19, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

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

Can someone take a look at this?

Bizarre stuff happening at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rattler (G.I. Joe) - Bunch of new users posting brief statements that an article should be kept, the users are then getting blocked, and the !votes are then being reverted as imposters. Other editors are then coming along and adding back the (still-struck out) !votes and leaving more. Users involved are User:Mubashgu, User:ST47 z, User:61Jump, User:Feelota, and User:FuriousEagleGye. As the first three have been indeffed, I'm only going to notify the latter two. Can someone come in and straighten out what in the world is going on here? A sock check might need to happen. Hog Farm (talk) 23:14, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Update: All five have been indeffed now. Hog Farm (talk) 23:17, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

If any additional accounts are created to edit AfDs with the same M.O., just report them to AIV for immediate blocking with a link to this report. I've semi-protected the AfDs they were targeting today, but they'll probably just move on to others.-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 23:21, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk page confusion, attacks and counter-attacks in split/merge discussion

Can someone with more patience and a better understanding of the subject matter -- which appears to be essentially interracial marriage in China -- please take a look at:

• Talk:Interracial marriage#There are many misinterpreting the source about Chinese intermarrige. [link fixed], and
• Talk:Miscegenation#Split and create new 'History of Multiracial People' article

The problems I see are:

• 1. Several of the participants do not seem to be able to write and format their comments in a way that is understandable;
• 2. A large percentage of the discussion has moved into WP:NOTAFORUM territory;
• 3. Editors are attacking each other as sockpuppets, to the extent that two SPIs have been filed here and here, and perhaps others I'm not aware of;
• 3. Worst, these elements are all mixed up together in individual comments.

The suggested splt/merge is complicated enough that it would be a difficult discussion to begin with, even without these factors confusing things. I'm wondering what, if anything, can be done to keep the discussion focused and under control. The answer is not obvious to me. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:21, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Are there any discretionary sanctions which cover this subject matter, or China? I couldn't find any. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:34, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

User:777 persona 777 and Talk:Christopher Langan#Intelligent design

Can I get some additional eyes on this user and their talk page section please? 777 persona 777 appears to be yet another SPA drawn to that page. In addition to the insults on the page, they have continued to email me despite me repeatedly asking them to keep the discussion to the article talk page. In their latest email they included the following threat: "You are allowing this source against him and justifying it. I've checked your twitter. Full of leftism. You have an agenda. You see yourself as fighting a war against the man with the highest IQ simply because he disagrees with you. I suggest ego checking yourself otherwise it won't end up good for you. This is a warning" GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:33, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I've commented on the talk page, and 777 persona 777 has opened a DR case. here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:47, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

"[O]therwise it won't end up good for you. This is a warning" is one of those crafty non-threat threats. Reading it, it certainly sounds threatening, and appears to be aimed at creating a chilling effect, but the person making it can always say "Oh, no, it wasn't a threat, it really was just a warning." I tend not to believe that, and to fall on the "chilling effect" side of the equation. I would urge admins to consider whether a sanction for User:777 persona 777 against editing Christoper Langan and communicating with GorillaWarfare might be a good idea. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Ah, so they have. Nice of them to let me know... GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Their (and Langan's) argument seems to be that The Baffler shouldn't be considered RS since it's a non-expert criticism of a work they feel requires expertise to critique. They want to treat CTMU as a legitimate scientific/philosophical investigation. I'd generally agree that non-specialist interpretations of specialist academic works should not be included whatsoever; on the other hand, this idea reads more like an amateur continental philosophy blog post than a well-developed academic proposal. It also hasn't gained any traction in actual math/physics/philosophy/linguistics beyond mention as a curiosity. I think Justin Ward's assessment is naïve and reductive, but it's also telling that we have so little engagement by real scholars that we have to cite lay media at all. JoelleJay (talk) 17:22, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Per WP:NEWSORG:

"When taking information from opinion content, the identity of the author may help determine reliability. The opinions of specialists and recognized experts are more likely to be reliable and to reflect a significant viewpoint.[notes 2] If the statement is not authoritative, attribute the opinion to the author in the text of the article and do not represent it as fact."

That's how the opinion is presented in the article:

"Journalist Justin Ward in The Baffler also wrote that it "isn't particularly scientific—or original", saying it was rather a repackaging of intelligent design."

This meets the requirements of NEWSORG precisely. It also meets the sourcing requirements of WP:FRINGE. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:35, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• I believe that GorillaWarfare's purpose in starting this thread was to point out the implicit threat in the e-mail from 777 persona 777. That's an issue for this board. The question of whether The Baffler is a reliable source, or whether Justin Ward has the necessary credentials to criticize Langan's CTMU is better resolved on the article talk page, or at WP:RSN. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:32, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree, I just thought summarizing the sock's complaint (and reasons why it hasn't been considered valid) might give context to the dispute. It highlights how petty the user is to cry libel over a single negative opinion being cited appropriately. JoelleJay (talk) 22:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Beyond My Ken, I mean, yes, but The Baffler is not a RS for this stuff. We have an article on a man who claims to have exceeded Hawking's understanding of the universe, and the sources are men's magazines and cultural commentary. OK, I feel; proprietary towards Hawking, having attended the same school, but even so. Guy (help!) 00:06, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Normally I would agree with you Guy, that we don't go to sources like The Baffler for our scientific insights, but in this case it may well be that Langan's theory is off-the-wall enough that it doesn't take a Hawking, or even a degree in physics or one in evolutionary biology, to see it for what it is. In any case, the opinion isn't -- as is claimed on the article talk page -- "libelous" or "defamatory" or "slanderous", the reasons given why it should be removed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:13, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh no, I seem to have fractured the conversation yet again by posting User talk:JzG#Christopher Langan. Happy to continue that discussion here if that's easier. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:16, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• GW: I see what you mean by the article attracting fans of Langan. Not only 777 persona 777, but now User:Crdvyniu is casting aspersions and making near-personal attacks on the talk page. [59] Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:22, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

inserting 'negative opinions' on an article that is suppose to be objective is improper. i know you fools will respond with your bias and ego but bias and ego should be removed from wikipedia. this is not a tabloid site. would you edit a wikipedia article regarding buddhism or other teachings and place high school tier remarks as a source? 'repackaging of intelligent design' on an article that says he's alex jones with a thesaurus is unproffessional. you all have more power than me so its your dictatorship but if you wish this unproffesionalism to remain then its more so an ego problem on your behalf. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 777 persona 777 (talk • contribs) 03:56, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Latest email from User:777 persona 777, after I did not reply to their threatening email, reads: You should add 'evil' next to 'queer and femininst'. It would fit you nicely! GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:02, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

And another: Incel and Satantic Bible...You are clearly a negative being who abuses their power to defame people who disagree with you. I don't care about 'wikipedia rules' because people like you are the ones in control. evil people always seek power. that's why you are posting these emails. it's just another weapon for you to get power over me. i suggest you read the ctmu... it would actually help you with your power issues. maybe you will stop being a pathetic negative being after a read or two. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:24, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I had been thinking about proposing a partial block for User:777 person 777 from Christopher Langan and Talk:Christopher Langan (where they've actually been the most disruptive), but now I think that a NOTHERE indef would be a better course of action. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:35, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Looking at those emails you are getting GorillaWarfare surely this constitutes WP:NPA? Glen 04:49, 3 June 2020 (UTC) - scratch that they're blocked. Beat me to it. Glen 04:50, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• With 777 persona 777 blocked, I suppose this thread can be closed. One interesting thing I just noticed is the number of editors of Christopher Langan who've been indeffed: 777 persona 777, EarlWhitehall, Snoogal, Mrs Smart Persons 421, NunsMuns12345, Drl, and some incidentals and IPs. Not all blocked because of their editing on the article, but the subject does seem to attract a rather disruptive crowd. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:23, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Well a big problem is that, recently anyway, most of the interest in the article has been SPAs both those supportive of the subject and those opposed. Last time this came to AN there was a proposal to topic ban a bunch of editors Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive318#Christopher Langan which was never formally closed even though it probably had consensus. However it wouldn't have made any difference since most of those editors have already disappeared some from being blocked but quite a few not (or not directly), indeed the steady stream of new editors is a problem I noted. It seems like most of the anti Langan SPAs may have no disappeared leaving only the supportive ones. One earlier proposal was for community sanctions for the article but as noted at the time, the article is covered by BLP and a lot of the stuff pseudoscience DS so there was no real point. I guess long term ECP or requiring 500/30 for editing the article may help. But short of that, maybe just continue to give DS alerts so the DS process can be used if a new problem editor pops up that does't do something requiring a simple block. IIRC, I did notice Crdvyniu back in March but couldn't be bothered giving an alert. I've given one now but it perhaps illustrates why it's better to give alerts earlier. There is a slight chance SPI would pick up something, I don't think one was ever opened. But I sort of figures with the large number of SPAs and the AN thread, someone had already run a check if it was justified. So I suspect we're probably mostly dealing with meat puppets. From the discussion last time this came up, I think it's possible that discussion outside Wikipedia, maybe on a Facebook group or something, is attracting the SPA attention. Nil Einne (talk) 14:23, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, that seems likely. I think that giving early DS alerts is a good idea, which I'll keep in mind for the future. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:54, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

FloridaArmy and AfC woes

The first thing that should be said here is that there is no doubt that FloridaArmy is an net positive for the wiki. No one is questioning that. However, his drafts in the AfC process (which he was previously sanctioned to run all articles through) has become overwhemingly burdensome. There is consensus from the discussion at the AfC project page that something needs to be done (found here). Kylietastic summed it up best in the OP:

For those unaware the reason FloridaArmy spams AfC is due to this ANI issue — offloading the strain on AfD and other areas onto AfC. However their ongoing behaviour does not seem fair to the other submitters or on the reviewers. According to Template:AFC statistics/pending they currently have 68 open submissions (4.6% of all submission), also they just resubmit with little or no changes causing much more load. I just noticed they recently submitted multiple articles with only 1 source such as Draft:James Martin (South Carolina), Draft:Solomon Dill, Draft:Joseph Crews and Draft:Lucius Wimbush which they clearly know is not good enough. Yesterday I rejected Draft:Koninklijke Militaire School with no independent sources, just the single schools own link. In the past they have added non references such just a film name as a ref for the same film and other such things that they clearly know are not valid. They clearly do understand how things work and the guidelines, but persist of submitting the junk with the good and have a more combative than collaborative attitude to editing. They appear to be getting worse (from what I've seen), maybe due to virus lockdown.... is it not time to take some action? They continue to expect others to do work for them, never submitting properly (just with {{submit}} so AFCH does not work until fixed up), rarely formatting references, first submits that have no chance of acceptance without others improving first etc. Their behaviour was not considered good enough for AfD, why should it be OK to continue in AfC? Should this go back to ANI? Should they be restricted to the number of current open submissions, and not allowed to just resubmit? I'm sure if they focused on fewer articles at once, and worked more collaboratively they would be an big positive to the project, but they way they choose to work is not fair on others (submitters and/or reviewers).

TL:DR version, the editor is submitting a myriad of problematic drafts and is not responding or adapting to the countless attempts by reviewers to get them to improve. They expect other's to do their work, which is an unfair burden to put on reviewers, especially if they editor knows how to do it themselves. WP:BUILDER.

The rough consensus seems to be to limit FlordiaArmy's total pending AfC submissions at one time or to limit the rate at which they can submit them. The AfC community desperately needs relief from this situation. I am pinging the AfC reviewers who in the above mentioned discussion showed concern about FlordiaArmy's drafts, most of whom have also said some sort of action needs to be taken. KylieTastic, Chris troutman, Robert McClenon, Nosebagbear, CaptainEek and myself. RoySmith and Scope creep also expressed concern, but did not explicitly state yet whether they believe action should be taken. Sulfurboy (talk) 04:52, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• At AfC I suggested a limit to individual submissions to prevent WP:GAMING. I proposed a three strikes system, where each draft of Florida's gets two declines, and is automatically rejected the third time. Drafts which are not improved between submissions should also be auto-rejected. Florida has been at this for years and should know better. Though let me say, I very much want Florida to stick around, they are a valuable contributor, and in no way do I think we should block them. Just...provide some sanctions that will guide them. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 05:07, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I will clarify what I said, and I think this is consistent with what User:CaptainEek has said. I do not think that the community needs to take any further action beyond the action already taken of sending their submissions through AFC. I think that the reviewers, as a subcommunity, can enforce some common-sense rules such as are being mentioned. If the purpose of this thread has been to solicit community discussion of those rules, we welcome that input. (If the purpose is to impose any further community restrictions, I do not think that is necessary.) Robert McClenon (talk) 05:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• I don't mind extending someone 50 strikes as long as they put in good faith efforts on each submission. This is why I think a limit on the amount of pending submissions might be better as it would actively encourage the editor to spend the time to improve each submission. And yes, I echo the sentiment, that bringing this to ANI should in no way be interpreted as an effort to get the user banned in anyway.

  Instead, I think some sort of formal regulation is needed. I don't share in the optimism of Robert that we (as reviewers) can enforce common-sense rules without the support of ANI, because we've tried that and so far it hasn't worked. Sulfurboy (talk) 06:15, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I have accepted and rejected several of FloridaArmy's drafts at AfC. Some were decent articles and were acceptable immediately, some were marginally notable but got over the line after I found a couple other sources (some of which weren't easily accessible) and I don't remember any being "not notable," but I do remember a few not being ready for draft space. AfC is perfect for this type of thing. Our goal is to improve the encyclopaedia, and the articles FloridaArmy creates are generally notable. I do echo the concern, but I don't see any need to take action - if anything, a restriction that requires an AfC to be submitted with at least two sources would be the most beneficial to the encyclopaedia. I also think the three-strike rule could be problematic if the topic is indeed notable. SportingFlyer T·C 06:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Question Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, can I respectfully explore what the actual problem is here? AfC reviewing is voluntary, and you can choose which drafts from the queue to review, and which to pass over. If a reviewer doesn't like reviewing FloridaArmy's drafts because they require so much work, they're free to pass over them on move onto a submission from someone else. Is there a major problem in having a large, but not ridiculous, number of old drafts from a single editor hanging around for long periods of time in the AfC system - does that break anything? Perhaps the long wait times might encourage FA to put a bit more work into their drafts, in the hopes of getting them reviewed quicker? I'll add that I agree with SportingFlyer that the three-strike-reject option doesn't seem ideal - perhaps a better approach would be to limit the number of AfC submissions that FA could make - either time-dependent (e.g. no more than one submission per week) or backlog-dependent (e.g. can submit no new drafts if they have >10 in the current queue). GirthSummit _(blether) 07:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  The problem isn't so much that there's a large number of drafts. The problem is the continual re-submission with little to no improvements. Sources are regularly improperly formatted. Constant use of unreliable sources. Constant spelling/grammar mistakes. Constant addition of irrelevant statements. I generally don't have a problem with this if the user is inexperienced/new and I in fact love helping to fix up an article by a new user. However this editor isn't new. They know better. They've been asked a countless amount of times by reviewers to do just a basic bit of cleanup. They've also been asked to properly source articles. They are completely non-response to this, and it seems to be just getting worse.

  Yes AfC is voluntary, so is all of Wikipedia. AfD is voluntary and FA's burden on that was dealt with, not sure why the same can't be done here. Eventually someone has to review these drafts. I don't like filtering what I review, I just go down the list. Asking reviewers to cherry pick what they review to skirt the problem instead of just addressing it seems inefficient. Sulfurboy (talk) 14:19, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Pace the obviously triggering effect of backlogs anywhere for us obsessives, I think that creating a couple of badly undersourced drafts every day and having most of them languish indefinitely while a few are fixed up and promoted, is probably a better outcome than creating badly undersourced articles and then bludgeoning AfD, which was what happened previously. This seems to me to be pretty much what Draft space is for. Fromt he popint of view of the admin cabal, the problem at AfD was hectoring. That is a problem wherever it happens - the AfC discussion implies this but is there evidence? Also the number of G13'd drafts that are then REFUNDed and resubmitted with insufficient improvement is a bit of an issue, e.g. Draft:Mbanga soup (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) Guy (help!) 12:13, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• (Coming from ping due to WTAFC involvement) - I do not believe in this three strikes bit. It risks various issues, and also goes against the basis on which "rejection" was bought in as an option. I would, however, suggest a rate limit. I don't mind too much if it's per week (1 or 2) or in total (5-10), but something needs to be done. @Girth Summit:, I can't be 100% sure on other reviewers position, but my reasoning on why it impacts us and the queue (rather than just being ignored), is that we can't just ignore tough calls. Unless it's mention in article comments or declines, an FA non-clear draft looks the same as any other editor's, so I can't just ignore his. We can't just ignore non-clear drafts in general that we'd rather not do because that places more and more work on the few willing to tackle them, risking driving them off. FA's large spike clutters up more than is reasonable, whereas a few would be okay. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:35, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Nosebagbear, hi - can I just ask you to unpack that a bit for me - I don't quite understand what you mean by 'non-clear drafts', or why it's not possible to selectively ignore them. (I'm not sure how other people approach the AfC queue, maybe that makes a difference - I use the New Pages Feed, which present you with the person who created the draft beneath the title.) GirthSummit _(blether) 12:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  @Girth Summit:, a "non-clear" draft is my phrasing for a draft where it's not clear whether an "accept" or a "decline/reject" would be suitable, necessitating more and deeper consideration. I find the NPF a little jittery for me (I think it doesn't play well with some of my scripts), but you're right, that would allow avoiding a specific submitter's drafts - I've usually used this list (with its various filters) Nosebagbear (talk) 13:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Nosebagbear, I suggest simply declining as having insufficient sources to establish notability. Most of them are directory entries, after all. Guy (help!) 14:22, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Commenting only: this may be connected to this thread (permalink) on Jimbo's page, raised in questioning racism in AFC process in the wake of the death of George Floyd. --Masem (t) 12:47, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure what's being implied here. AfCs concerns with FA extend back well before this thread. Also, I along with many other reviewers (I think) agree that coverage is lacking on African Americans and are sympathetic to that problem. There is not as much a problem with the subjects as there is the incredibly poor quality of the articles and the habitual re-submission without improvement. The race card is regularly pulled instead of doing just basic cleanup. Accusations of prejudice from page creators in AfC happens a lot. I've personally been accused of being prejudiced towards basically everything (including but not limited to black people, white people, asians, men, women, bagpipe bands and just recently New Zealand). However, this almost exclusively comes from new users that want to cry foul instead of doing even minimal fixes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sulfurboy (talk • contribs)

I only brought up that convo as the timing of that discussion with this ANI may suggest a possible issue related to POINT, but I don't have enough insight on past behavior with that editor to know. Was just bringing it up with in case it was relevant. --Masem (t) 15:31, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

So you don't have insight on past behavior, yet you felt the need to imply reviewers are bringing this up as a point of retribution? No matter how implicit the implication, this could broadly be construed as a personal attack. AfC reviewers deal with enough abuse from UPEs, SPAs and other angsty new editors. They don't need to also be leveled without merit by experienced editors. Sulfurboy (talk) 17:04, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• I'll summarize what I already wrote at WT:AFC: FloridaArmy creates a high volume of low quality drafts about interesting and encyclopedic subjects, and stubbornly resists all efforts to help him improve. That's unfortunate, but it's better than most of the crap we see on AfC, which is unabashed spam: people promoting their own (or their paid clients') companies, bands, projects, or selves. That's where we need to be tightening up the rules, Not bashing editors who are clearly and unequivocally WP:HERE, even if they are borderline WP:CIR cases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 09:44, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) GirthSummit makes a valid point about the volunteer nature of AfC but those same volunteers are just working a backlog without filtering FloridaArmy's entries from view. I agree with CaptainEek's suggestion about three strikes but I believe AfC can impose that without needing wider community consensus. I commented on an earlier thread that this issue needs to come to ANI because FloridaArmy's skirting notability to turn out two-sentence drafts violates WP:GAME, in my opinion. I suggest that FloridaArmy needs to be disallowed from creating new drafts, entirely. We have good editors that could build meaningful articles but FloridaArmy undercuts the incentives by robbing our other editors of four awards by persisting in this way. Chris Troutman (talk) 13:49, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Chris troutman, We're WP:HERE to write articles, not collect awards. To use my previous example from WT:AFC, Wikipedia existed for 17 years before FloridaArmy started Oberlin Academy. The idea that they somehow robbed somebody of an award by getting there first is hogwash. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I certainly agree that to argue that any negative effects FA is having are due to robbing editors of specific awards, or even of being able to be the first to write on their article, is without merit. I also firmly disagree with FA (a GF actor) from being completely blocked from drafts, especially as it's indicated in the messages here and on the AFC talk page that there are drafts that have gone through AfC without issue. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:27, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• I see FA as a net positive for the project. Many of the articles they create may be marginal in notability but the overall effect is definitely one of a more complete encyclopedia. On the other hand, the process they use does have its drawbacks. Creating a draft that contains one line and one source transfers the onus of figuring out notability on the AfC reviewer, which does make life harder for them. Perhaps something like banning FA from resubmitting rejected articles may work? If FA believes that the article is notable enough, they would need to involve someone else in the process who can work on and then resubmit it. --regentspark (comment) 15:09, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  RegentsPark, how about a restriction based on the criteria necessary to reach DYK? 1,500 characters is scarcely War And Peace, I think. Guy (help!) 15:29, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  My only concern is that that would stop FA from contributing entirely. I don't see them as writing anything more than a few lines in an article. But, AfC is designed for evaluating reasonably coherent articles and not for one or two liners so I'm willing to support if it comes to that. --regentspark (comment) 16:36, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you for bringing this topic up Sulfurboy. This is a frustration that I have felt throughout the time I have been volunteering at AfC. Since Wikipedia is not WP:SRSBSNS, I have tried to address my own frustrations by avoiding FA's low-effort drafts, as Chris troutman has mentioned. Unfortunately, this only continues the backlog of articles at AfC. I think that RoySmith makes an important point. Despite my fustrations, FA is adding entries about notable topics (especially around state-level politicians), but two sentences does not an article make, and the sourcing can be very lacking (that is not solely a FA issue). Additionally, as RoySmith mentioned, after these proto-stubs make it to mainspace, they languish there with no additional work or changes. Should the onus be on AfC to keep these drafts in "development hell" until they are ready for mainspace, on AfD to be more particular about these articles passing the muster, or the original editor to further develop the articles that have already been accepted? Bkissin (talk) 15:26, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Lobbing (baseless) charges of racism is a personal attack on many of our hard working editors but FA's inability or unwillingness to understand sourcing requirements and doubling down on such personal attacks makes me question their competence here. There's an argument to be made that certain subjects, especially about people of color lack the coverage we require but that is not the responsibility of reviewers to fix. Praxidicae (talk) 16:45, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• I think we need to have a broader discussion about FA's problematic and incendiary behavior. Comments like this, YOU ARE RACISTS., are absolutely uncalled for and a blatant personal attack. Perhaps focusing only on his AFC editing isn't the solution here...a clear restriction on commenting on other editors would go far since it seems to be FA's default when things don't go their way. Praxidicae (talk) 17:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Agreed. That type of behavior is not acceptable on a collaborative project. Blanket aspersion casting of that nature should be met with a block. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 18:52, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Praxidicae, A lot of this is getting lost in what's turned into a wall of chaos. It might need a separate header or separate ANI all together. Sulfurboy (talk) 07:13, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  There's two distinct issues here, although it may be difficult to completely disentangle them. One is the quality of FloridaArmy's drafts. I include in this disruptive behavior such as tendentious resubmissions, and their unwillingness to accept any constructive feedback. I've already covered my stance on that adequately.

  The accusations of racism is another thing entirely. It's fine to make statements such as, discriminating against African American subjects and history is wrong (from Jimbo's talk page). I don't think anybody would argue with that. Digging a little deeper, there's an implication that wikipedia does indeed practice such discrimination. I don't have any issue with that either. I'm not sure it's true, but I certainly have no problem with the accusation as a general statement of project-wide bias.

  Statements such as,"YOU ARE RACISTS" cross the line into inappropriate. That's especially true if it's being used as a excuse for why so many of their drafts get declined. Certainly by the time you get to calling specific people liars and/or racists, you're well into WP:NPA territory. If ANI were to censure FloridaArmy in some way for those personal attacks, I'd have no problem with that. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:28, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• As the OP who kicked this off at AfC I wish I had done more due-diligence prior. Yesterday I worked on a FA submission William Beverly Nash to acceptance and FloridaArmy's reply this was friendly, appreciative and encouraging, a side I had previously not noticed and had been overshadowed by the submissions that have generated the friction. Today I did a qualitative check (not 100% accurate as not all reviewers post the notices, or use AFCH) but this shows why from AfC point of view we all know FA... They have had more reviews than most by a factor or two, but still with a positive acceptance rate. So clearly as I think has universally been expressed FloridaArmy is a definite net positive to the project. From looking at everything said I get the feeling the problem is caused by different POVs. FloridaArmy appears to aim to create notable stubs, in the cases causing issues pushing the line of notability, which I guess is the same behaviour that caused the original issues at AfD. From the AfC side we struggle with the daily influx and the backlog that IMHO is still way too long and a disincentive to new editors. From this you can see over the same month we had 166 reviewers to the 6,313 reviews but heavily weighted to a subset of reviewers. Saying that I do still think having 68 open submissions (currently 54) and resubmission with little change or discussion because they disagree is problematic and is not good for either FloridaArmy or reviewers. I actually believe that the issues need to be addressed globally not just against FA. I don't think having so many open submissions is acceptable with the current number of active AfC reviewers; I don't think re-submitting with little change or discussion is acceptable, and certainly not when more than one reviewer has declined; I personally don't think that a single source is ever enough. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 18:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• I think we're here because regular AfC reviewers have a very different conception of what they should be doing than what the community has asked them to do. I don't blame AfC reviewers (exactly) for this. But I think these differing conceptions, especially with the reason FA was restricted to AfC, are where the problems creep in. The community has asked AfC to screen for articles that are, more likely than not, able to survive AfD and to screen against UPE and other forms of COI editing. AfC see itself as screening for articles that meet a certain basic quality standard and against UPE and other forms of COI editing (COI/UPE is clearly not the case with FA so I will be ignoring that for the remainder of my comments). But AfD participants, on the whole, don't care about malformed citations, bad categories, one sentence stubs and the like that bother some AfC reviewers. And it is clear that like AfD participants, FA doesn't care about those things either.
  In my experience, FA does, on the whole, create encyclopedic value. Let me repeat that in another way because I think it's an important point: English Wikipedia is made better by FA's attempts to cover topics that not been previously written about and which are, in quite a few cases, examples of systemic underrepresentation. I would love if FA were to take more care in their references. And their categories. And the other things that they do which (fairly) aggravate many gnomes and reviewers. I would have hoped after the restriction being in place this long we'd in a place where FA could have shown competency in a way that would be letting us remove or ease it rather than add to it or discuss even more drastic sanctions. But one way for FA to cause less trouble at AfC is for AfC reviewers to not expand the scope of what they screen for and instead to do what the community has asked judge whether an article more likely than not able to survive AfD. If the answer is yes approve the article. If the answer is no reject it. If the answer is yes accept it. I will probably be supporting Guy's proposal below because FA does need to step up their game, but I also felt the need, like Roy, to speak in FA's defense. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:08, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Barkeep49, if you are suggesting that AfC reviewers act as a rubber-stamp for drafts that aren't blatant COI/UPE and let AfD and Mainspace deal with the rest, then I will gladly be WP:BOLD and take that on to reduce the ongoing backlog. Just don't template me when issues arise. Bkissin (talk) 12:34, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Bkissin, no I am suggesting if it is likely to survive AfD it be accepted. I intentionally used that phrase because that's what WP:AFCPURPOSE says. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:25, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Just curious...why can't we just create a program for AfC that automatically rejects submissions that are less than (pick a number) in prose size and/or have no citations? That would send the work back to the article creator where it belongs and eliminate quite a bit of the backlog. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Atsme, feel free to propose this. I think the issue will be lack of consensus on the size. Regardless, FA's drafts do have citations. Just not generally good enough ones. Guy (help!) 23:34, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Thx, Guy - I'll start a discussion at NPP and see what happens. In the past, we've managed to get WMF to accommodate some of our needs but not without a good dose of persistence (which is right up my alley 😊). ^Atsme _Talk 📧 00:02, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  Atsme, Ping me if you want help with any of this. I'd likely be on board and help collaborate with any applicable write-ups. Sulfurboy (talk) 07:10, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  Atsme, I've seen (and accepted) plenty of legitimately short and unreferenced drafts. Users create WP:DAB pages as drafts. I recently accepted 1710 in India, which, as a navigation tool, would have been just fine without any references at all. I've even see redirects created as drafts (current example: Draft:Monosuit, which I would have just WP:IAR accepted instead of bothering to kick it back with a template). -- RoySmith (talk) 15:18, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  RoySmith keep up the good work! What I'm proposing would not have any effect on non-article pages, such as dabs, lists, categories, templates, TP, redirects, etc. - only articles such as Ōizumi Observatory which was created in 2005, and never expanded beyond 69 words. See what I proposed at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers#Potential proposal for AfC which involves a bit of coding that tells the editor at the point of submission (save) what more is needed before it can be saved. Of course, that is what we're working on now, and how best to approach it but the goal is to design instructional coding that will inspire the stubee creator to actually submit a better stub. We don't need thousands of ideas coming at us in the form of 50 word unsourced stubs when we've got huge backlogs in AfC and NPP. The submission modification can be something as simple as an error message like you get when filling out a form and you forget to include your address or phone number, or you entered an invalid email address, etc. I'm simplifying here but it's along those lines - maybe a JS or Lua script can handle it. I'm not a programmer, but I have summoned a few to review my proposal. We did manage to get curation tools from WMF, so hopefully, we can inspire them to work with us again to help reduce our backlogs so we can actually focus on expanding and improving the thousands of articles that are calling to us for CE and updates. Happy editing! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:16, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Forgive me if I don't reply to every proposal below, because there is far too much in this thread to know the best place for this comment. It boils down to AfC reviewers exceeding their authority and declining articles that would almost certainly be kept at AfD. This is all part of a larger problem where people who spend all their time marking other people's work rather than doing any themselves seem to be listened to more on our drama pages than the people who actually create the content that is the lifeblood of Wikipedia. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:23, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Phil Bridger if you believe this is because "AfC reviewers exceeding their authority" you are in a position to solve this whole issue and make everyone happy! Just sign up at WT:AFCP and then go to Template:AFC statistics/pending order by User and accept all of FAs articles, as apparently not doing so is "exceeding their authority". You will make FA very happy, and the AFC reviewers very happy. And BTW we don't "spend all their time marking other people's work" most of us spend a lot of time researching and improving drafts so we can accept them, and also work outside AfC. Many of us have spent many hours improving FAs articles before accepting them. New users are forced to use AfC so we need reviewers to accept these articles that "actually create the content that is the lifeblood". Although I would disagree that just creating new content is "the lifeblood of Wikipedia", now we have 6+Million articles, stopping spam, promotion, dross, unsourced content, vandalism is as equally important as new content. But in all seriousness to you and any other of similar minded editor please please join AfC and accept as much as you can. We desperately need as many good editors as possible to accept as much as possible, and the less the backlog gets the more time we all get to work on submissions. KylieTastic (talk) 21:56, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposal

FloridaArmy is advised that new articles submitted via AfC should aim to meet the minimum length criteria at WP:DYK, i.e. 1,500 characters of prose (ignoring infoboxes, categories, references, lists, and tables etc.), and should contain sufficient reliable independent sources to establish notability per the general notability guideline. FloridaArmy is encouraged to work on drafts in his sandbox until they are ready for submission.

• Support as proposer. In short, they should establish the answer to the simple question: why should we care? Guy (help!) 15:39, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support great idea. I'm all for inclusion but I'm an immediatist, first. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:20, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose all sanctions at this juncture, as there is clearly more to this than meets the eye: FloridaArmy's claim that Draft:Lee Myxter was erroneously rejected caught my eye, and, indeed, it was wholly inappropriate for User:Ahecht to decline the submission as not meeting WP:NPOL (Draft:Lee Myxter), when that guideline explicitly states that politicians...who have held...state/province–wide office, or have been members of legislative bodies at those levels are deemed notable. Now, AfC reviewing is a hard, and probably occasionally thankless task, but it literally is not helping itself by refusing notable topics: not only does it foment bad feeling, but it adds to the work of the next reviewer. In short, although clearly FA's articles aren't always 100% up to scratch—whose are at the beginning?—they are not, I suspect, all as poor as it is being suggested. And until we see some pretty black and white data, I feel sanctions would be inappropriate. ——Serial ^# 16:30, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
  In fact, in the spirit of data mining, the history of FA's talk page is revealing: since 10 February this year (the last 1000 edits to the page), they have had 223 articles accepted through AfC and 231 declined. ——Serial ^# 16:48, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  With respect @Serial Number 54129: you looked at the details, however the top of WP:NPOL clearly indicates A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. something which this stub did not meet when you Promoted it to mainspace. I question your judgement with respect to this draft and suggest that you return it back to Draft space for additional work. Hasteur (talk) 17:10, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  The article clearly meets NPOL. And, Serial is autopatrolled, anyone who disagrees should try AFD, instead of asking for redraftification. Usedtobecool ☎️ 17:26, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  So in a completely non-POINTy way, the article is now up for deletion :D ——Serial ^# 17:44, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Maybe I should've have cited WP:NPOL, but a quick search for significant non-routine coverage showed that this person completely failed to meet WP:BASIC, and per the top of the section that includes NPOL: meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included. --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 17:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. If we want a general sitewide restriction on articles not meeting these parameters, let's have one, but we should not require one editor to provide more than is required of others for a draft to be moved to mainspace. BD2412 T 17:05, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support Completely reasonable asks that hits all the marks of concern. Neutral, see second proposal. Sulfurboy (talk) 17:07, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Neutral As written this is a higher bar than we set for other AFC submissions. The ruberic has always been (at least as far as I know) "Excluding policy reasons why, a draft must have at least a 50% chance of surviving a AFD discussion". Hold FA to that standard. in WP:AFC we have an informal practice of "If the same draft is submitted 3 times without correcting the defects, it may be taken to MFD for failure to support the purpose of Draft Space/AFC while pointing out contributing reasons for why this page wouldn't survive if it were in mainspace". Our standards and practices work, we just have to enforce them. Hasteur (talk) 17:15, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose The only purpose given to AFC is to make sure the article demonstrates why it is notable and deserves to be on mainspace before it gets to be included. This is helpful for inexperienced users who might be writing about a notable topic but fail to explicitly establish exactly why the topic is Wikipedia notable such as is convention here. For editors familiar with SNGs and AFDs, the AFC minimum should be no more than one sentence stub establishinng which SNG is met, and one source verifying the claim. Draftspace articles aren't automatically submitted by virtue of residing in that namespace, so the point about the sandbox makes no sense. Usedtobecool ☎️ 17:42, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per my comments above. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose There are no minimum length criteria requirements for any editor to create any content, so imposing an arbitrary length for one editor is overkill. There are plenty of worse articles being saved into the main article space every single hour. Examples include this and this. The latter being created by an editor who has been here for 15 years! Topic ban from AfC might be an option, but a better one would be for someone to mentor FA. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 17:58, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Neutral as I think such a requirement is really only fair if applied to all, and clearly many articles are created in main-space that do not meet this reasonable condition. Make this a requirement for all and I 100% support KylieTastic (talk) 19:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - this would be significantly more onerous than required. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:45, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - Any reviewer who doesn't want to deal with these sub-stubs can decline them or ignore them. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:34, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - someone starting articles is a good thing, perhaps we should suggest that they request articles? I'm sure WiR would welcome any list of suggested articles of women. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 07:41, 4 June 2020 (UTC).
  

Resolution

Here's a small sampling of articles created by User:Lugnuts today.

• Werner von Foerster
• Horacio Monti
• Lars Lundström
• François Chapot
• Martin Sharp (sailor)
• Frank Murdoch
• Franklin Woodroffe

Contrast these with the articles I'm having rejected:

• Draft:Frank Opperman (actor)
• Draft:Fred Hornby
• Draft:Jana Lund
• Draft:Lee Myxter, erroneously rejected today for not meeting Politician inclusion criteria.

There is a problem. Notable artice subjects I start are being blocked by editors not respecting our inclusion criteria in an improper amd abusive fashion.

All of these would survive as Snow Keeps at AfD. The solution is to remove the requirement I use AfC and to restore my ability to participate at AfD. The entries I create are better sourced and more notable than the vast majority of what's being added to Wikipedia. I comply with all of our editing rules. And the abusive obstruction, harassment, and interference with my good editing work needs to stop.

Every single entry discussed in this convo is notable and belongs in mainspace. It's a travesty that several editors want to obstuct the inclusion of additions on underrepresented subjects such as a traditional dish of Cameroonian cuisine or the military school that the long serving president of Suriname went to in the Netherlands, but improperly and unevenly applied rules should no longer be used to create problems for me or the AfC reviewers who should be able to return their focus to the spam and advertising that proliferate in their area of wikispace. FloridaArmy (talk) 16:05, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

FloridaArmy, Some people seem to think that Wikipedia is a directory of Olympians and that competing in the Olympics confers automatic notability. They have chosen not to change WP:NOT to support this but that's what they think. Guy (help!) 16:08, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

"but that's what they think" - Sounds very much like a threat/personal attack. Maybe you'd care to elaborate? Please be WP:CIVIL. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 16:16, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

How does that sound like a threat? A mild personal attack maybe, but there's no threat there at all. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 18:47, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• I'd like to reiterate my comment on the AFC page applauding FloridaArmy's good work on pages on our long list of drafts for missing state supreme court justices. Cheers! BD2412 T 16:21, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• @FloridaArmy: Please refer to "What about...." and WP:NOTTHEM. Your actions and behavior are at discussion here. Hasteur (talk) 17:04, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Although, of course, pointing out inconsistency of application is perfectly accepatble. ——Serial ^# 17:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Purely as an example, I can't see much wrong with the decision to turn down the draft at Frank Opperman (actor). This was a straightforward WP:GNG issue as articles have to be properly sourced.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:07, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

As is noted right at the top of that entry he clearly meets criteria 1 and 3 of WP:NACTOR. FloridaArmy (talk) 18:27, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

If I looked just at the article, how would I know that? NACTOR #1 - significant roles in multiple notable films. The second part, that's covered but the second part? It's not. If he was a co-star on any of those film, adding a text blurb would EASILY have helped demonstrate that. A list of films and roles doesn't help with that first part, a blurb that mentions those significant roles would make that check easy. NACTOR #3 is unique, prolific or innovative contributions - I'm guessing you're saying the length of his career covers prolific. Probably, but without any context on the roles they played, if they had lots of bit parts / background roles, I'd really question if that meets #3. Ravensfire (talk) 18:34, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

You would know because the article states per Motography that he "had a 29 year career on stage and a 7 year film career" as of 1916, lists 54 films he was in including his credited roles in most of them, and links to the existing Wikipedia articles for the vast majority of the films. FloridaArmy (talk)`

You do realize uncredited roles don't count toward notability, right? As an example, more than half of the films you claim make him notable are uncredited. The Unchanging Sea uncredited, The Hero of Little Italy uncredited, Fatty's New Role uncredited, The House of Darknessuncredited and the list goes on. Unless there is some special N criteria for actors pre-1950, I fail to see how this fulfills at least "significant roles" Praxidicae (talk) 18:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I said "including his credited roles". So yes, I understand that credited roles matter. Of coutse we don't yet have article for most early silent films, so having credited roles in at least a couple dozen and uncredited roles in dozens more stil qualifies per our notability guidelines. The article would be a slam dunk keep at AFD. If you disagree try taking it there and prove me wrong. Good luck. You'll need it. FloridaArmy (talk) 19:16, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Good luck. You'll need it. incendiary comments like this are unnecessary. Might I suggest you start actually reflecting on criticism instead of just being combative? Praxidicae (talk) 19:19, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Frank Opperman looks like he would be suitable for an IMDb entry or similar, but the bar is set higher for biographies on Wikipedia. We don't get to know much about him beyond listing the films that he appeared in.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:31, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

If anyone wanted a preview of the hostility that AfC reviewers are regularly met with by FlordiaArmy here you go. This is actually pretty tame compared to some instances. Sulfurboy (talk) 19:34, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

"incendiary", "combative", "hostility"? Sorry, I'm not seeing it in the words that are there on the screen. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 12:47, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Andreas Philopater, according to FloridaArmy, those who do not accept his drafts are "bigots" and those who describe them as less than blindingly obviously notable are "liars". Guy (help!) 14:37, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposal #2

Limit the number of pending drafts by FA in AfC to 20.

Looks like there's some kickback from the suggestion of length requirements which I will be switching my vote to neutral to in light of this alternate proposal I'm going to suggest. To me, the simplest solution is to limit the amount of pending drafts FA can have in the AfC process. Pending defined as actively waiting for review, this would not include declined drafts that haven't been resubmitted.

The purpose is two fold: 1) To help lessen the strain on AfC reviewers. 2) To encourage FA to put additional work into the currently pending drafts. As a note, while the backlog says 5+ weeks, the vast majority of articles are reviewed in a matter of days, so it's not as if those 20 would languish for weeks. The ones that make it to the back are typically ones that would require insight from an SME or native language speaker, neither of which would apply to any FA articles that I've seen.

1. Support As proposer. Sulfurboy (talk) 19:59, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

   While this might help them from overwhelming the queue it won't solve any underlying issues with FA's articles that causes them to get declined in the first place. I am sympathetic to the idea of not overwhelming AfC but I would much rather try to nudge FA towards having a higher success rater than just limiting them. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:32, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

   I would absolutely endorse that approach. I would hope that persuading FlordiaArmy to move in the direction of writing longer, more detailed articles with more comprehensive sourcing would genuinely be positive for them and for us all. FloridaArmy would certainly see their article rejection rate decline dramatically and I would suspect they would also find their articles would be reviewed more quickly and with more enthusiasm by the AFC volunteers. We need to look after not only our content creators like FloridaArmy, but equally, we need to look after our AFC reviewers and frequent AfC users like FloridaArmy have an important role to play in that. Nick (talk) 21:05, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

   Thanks Nick for saying we need to look after our AFC reviewers and frequent AfC users like FloridaArmy have an important role to play in that. That is absolutely true and not a sentiment I adequately have expressed in this thread yet. Best, Barkeep49 (talk)

2. Weak Oppose - The reviewers can deal with a backlog by ignoring it. Too many drafts do not do any harm if ignored. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:37, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

   Sorry Robert McClenon I think there is harm - letting the backlog grow and ignoring issues means new editors can have acceptable articles not get reviewed till they hit the end of the queue in weeks or months. Yes we catch most in the first couple of days, but if missed you wait and it's a huge discouragement too those editors. KylieTastic (talk) 08:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

3. I think this just moves the queue. Each time a draft is rejected or accepted, FA will simply move the next in. Now there's 20 articles in AFC and another 40 or 50 or whatever waiting to be in AFC. It also seems like it would be difficult to track, so you would need to get buyin from FA. --Izno (talk) 19:33, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

   That's the point Izno is every time a slot gets freed up and they have 40 waiting a submitter will pick the most likely to be accepted, not just resubmit one that's been declined with not much change. KylieTastic (talk) 08:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

   That doesn't follow. I expect the user won't care. If he does, it will simply end up the case that he cycles through his whole queue on his side until all he's got in the AFC queue are the "bad" ones. Then AFC still has 20 "bad" articles to deal with. It you want to make this rule and have it be effective, you limit him to one draft in AFC at any time. I'm still skeptical as to the utility. --Izno (talk) 13:11, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

4. Support but only if it applies to all submitters. It stops overwhelming AfC; It encourages submitters to put their best article through first; It encourages submitters to try to improve (better sources; clearer indication of the content that supports notability) before resubmitting a declined article. KylieTastic (talk) 21:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
5. Support as general restriction only. Everything more is just disruptive spam.Lurking shadow (talk) 13:33, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposal #3

Accept that FloridaArmy is what he is and move on.

1. Support as proposer. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:13, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
2. oppose,m because it's pissing people off. Wikipedia is not therapy, and obsessives doing the right thing in the wrong way cause drama. Guy (help!) 23:30, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
3. Oppose because blanket accusations of racism are not okay. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 03:04, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
4. Oppose FloridaArmy needs to accept two things here. Firstly, some of the articles for creation were turned down because of good faith WP:GNG decisions. They just weren't sourced properly and did not establish the subject's notability, which is a key requirement of GNG. Secondly, repeated accusations of racism amount to a failure to assume good faith. The users doing the articles for creation reviews are trying their best, and should not be accused of acting in bad faith without very clear evidence.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 04:48, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
5. Support I would rather have FloridaArmy contributing stubs than not contributing stubs. They are a net positive even if annoying. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:32, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
6. Support They did have a draft incorrectly declined immediately before this occurred, so I'm willing to WP:AGF. SportingFlyer T·C 07:42, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
7. Oppose because the current way of running is clearly causing FA as much stress/negativity as it is to the AfC reviewers. KylieTastic (talk) 08:52, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposal #4

Recognize that User:FloridaArmy presents two overlapping issues that should be dealt with separately. The first is the submission of low-quality stubs, a content issue. The second is civility violations and failures to assume good faith by reviewers, a conduct issue. Accept that sanctions will not deal with the content issue and move on. Issue a formal warning that conduct will require escalating blocks, 1 day, 2 days, 4 days, 1 week.

1. Support as proposer. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:32, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Request Please provide examples of these supposed low quality stubs. FloridaArmy (talk) 16:37, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose This proposal is flawed. Guy has repeatedly lied about my conduct and comments, and I see he recently did so again. I do not create single sentence stubs and I absolutely continue improving LOTS of articles that are in mainspace, mine and others. Lying about my work is a civility violation and he's done so repeatedly. [User:JzG]]'s conduct should result in his being blocked.
• That there is bigotry on Wikipedia is obvious from the resistance to including subjects on African Americans, the African diaspora, and African American history. These are the EXACT article subjects identified as problematic. user:sulfurboy hates these subjects so much is so opposed to including these subjects he dragged one of them to AfD after another editor approved it. Oberlin Seminary was also high drama. What do all these subjects have in common? They involve African Americans. I know it's upsetting to have Wikipedia's bigotry and editor bias pointed out, but we must do better. Sanctioning those trying to address the situation is a step in the wrong direction and only proves to illustrate Wikipedia's hateful intolerance that excludes these subjects. FloridaArmy (talk) 16:44, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  @FloridaArmy: This would be a shame, but I'm going to short circuit this discussion by blocking you indefinitely if you say something along the lines of "user:sulfurboy hates these subjects so much he dragged one of them to AfD after another editor approved it. Oberlin Seminary was also high drama. What do all these subjects have in common? They involve Africam Americans" again. If you're making general comments that Wikipedia has a bigotry and institutional racism problem, I'd probably use different words, but would generally agree. If you're repeatedly singling out specific editors as racists with insufficient evidence (hint: no one is agreeing with you that they are racists) then you're going to be removed from the site. That would be a crazy result, but it's in your hands not mine. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:57, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

You're absolutely right User:Floquenbeam, no one acknowledges racism. They just can't stand including subjects related to African Americans, the African American disapora, and Africa. I am clearly at fault for daring to create articles on these notable subjects and then objecting when they are excluded. I should just go along with excluding anything to do with Black people. My life would be so much easier on Wikipedia. FloridaArmy (talk) 17:08, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

You're putting words in my mouth, and this kind of passive aggressive statement is not going to be helpful. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:18, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Floquenbeam, Again? How many times do we have to be openly accused of racism and bigotry without a single shred of evidence? Everyone seems to be so hesitant about doing something that would discourage FA from editing further that direct personal attacks in an ANI are just getting a stern warning?

  If this was a new user they would have been immediately banned and this comment would have been removed. I shouldn't have my reputation dragged through the mud for zero reason.

  I challenge any person to show any instance that I've ever, in 60k some odd edits, ever, EVER showed even an inkling of prejudice or racism.

  I challenge you to find another editor that even remotely feels this way about me. I completely and 100% open myself up to WP:BOOMERANG, because I'm 100% positive you won't find anyone that agrees with Florida army that I'm a bigot or racist.

  Why does no one seem to be worried about the chilling effect this will have on the AfC process and how much it might turn off people from wanting to participate in it? I shouldn't have to worry about wanton personal attacks at every turn. Sulfurboy (talk) 17:12, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  While you may think that a final warning is too lenient, I don't understand why you think a final warning shows I'm not worried about this. If they've been given a final warning previously, talk to the admin who gave it and ask them to act. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:18, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  Floquenbeam, You're right, and I apologize for letting my frustration get the best of me. My intent wasn't to attack your decision process. Just understand that it's incredibly frustrating to have my reputation sullied without merit. I think I'm just going to take a backseat to this whole thing since it's got me pretty clearly riled up. Cheers Sulfurboy (talk) 18:24, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  and you are 2% short of 60K edits. Eumat114 formerly TLOM (Message) 13:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• Suggestion - I suggest that an uninvolved administrator give User:FloridaArmy a one-week block so that other editors can address serious content and conduct issues without being distracted. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:26, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I would oppose such a block. It would play into the narrative of persecution, and I think we can get where we need to go without it. BD2412 T 19:33, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I would also oppose such a block, along with this proposal. SportingFlyer T·C 07:43, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

A Policy Issue

There is a policy issue that needs to be discussed, possibly at the Village Pump, having to do with people who pass a test for ipso facto notability, but about whom there is not enough information for a good stub. Most of the special notability guidelines for people are weasel-worded to say that people meeting the test are presumed notable. Both the political notability guidelines and the lengthy sports notability guidelines are worded in such a fashion. This ambiguity is sometimes hashed out twice for association football players, once at AFD and then again at Deletion Review. The stubs submitted by User:FloridaArmy are about people who are presumed notable. Some editors, including myself, prefer almost always to have the clarity of saying that a person who passes the threshold is notable. Other editors say that the presumption of notability only means that one should try to find the sources.

So there definitely is a policy reason for declining the stubs in question, some of which are corner cases. The fact that there is a policy issue is yet another reason why it is irresponsible to cast aspersions about racism.

Perhaps there should be a discussion at VPP. That would certainly be more useful than just yelling racism. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:59, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, There's another issue. For somebody alive today, especially somebody with a paid PR agent, there's going to be tons of information available about them. Most of it will be crap, but there will usually be enough to get you past some silly SNG. Somebody who was, say, a struggling two-bit silent actor getting uncredited movie roles, isn't going to have the same collection of blog posts, on-line movie reviews, web sites, and all the other gigbytes of google-indexed ephemera they would have today. So, holding the two of them to the same standard is just absurd. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:31, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, User:RoySmith. I have more thoughts on the policy issue, but this is a conduct forum. (Meaning we can discuss at VPP or a WT page.) Robert McClenon (talk) 01:21, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

There need to be fresh guidelines in this area, although the existing ones are already clear. The guidelines should make clear that sometimes African Americans or important academics may not have enough sourcing to meet WP:GNG, but that does not means that they are non-notable or that Wikipedia does not care about them. The mainstream media has also repeated this myth. Also, anyone who takes part in the AfC process should be told that if a request is turned down, WP:ASPERSIONS are unacceptable.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:31, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

‎Pyxis Solitary's reverts and attacks

This report concerns the editor ‎Pyxis Solitary (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and the article The Haunting of Hill House (TV series) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). I split the article to make the distinct separation between the first and second seasons. As the articles stood, there was only an article for the parent series and the second season, as, yes, Bly Manor is a second season and not a sequel series, as determined by reliable sources and past discussions. The split therefore separated these seasons and made content clearer. The article was split with the correct attribution and thus was acceptable and allowable per Wikipedia policy, and not every split requires a discussion to go ahead.

This split was reverted[60] without reason, prompting me to start a discussion at the article's talk page, after which I was egregiously attacked and sworn at twice [61][62], where they then directly edited my user page[63]. Previous behaviour of this example can be see at Talk:The Haunting of Hill House (TV series). How am I to discuss the content at hand, when the reverting editor will not discuss in a civil manner at all and is fixated on being as egregiously insulting as possible? -- /Alex/₂₁ 05:31, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• This split was reverted without reason. Really? The summary states: "Where in the Talk page is there a discussion to make this change? The display of WP:OWNership entitlement towards this article is appalling."
• User:Alex 21 made a major change to this article in February 2019 when he moved it, which afterwards resulted in the move being reverted after objections to the move.
• He took it upon himself, twice, to appropriate my latest talk page comment by merging it into his topic: 1., 2.. So, yes, "Who the fuck do you think you are to appropriate my comment?" was a gut-reaction to what I consider a violation of my right to decide what I write, when I write it, and where I write it. And the second time I undid his unauthorized grab I wrote: "I did not and do not give you permission to merge my comment. I specifically posted it as a separate comment."
• Btw, this is the comment I posted @ 05:30, 2 June 2020 in his User page by error, warning him about ANI if he appropriated any comment by me again. He then ran here one minute later to create this complaint. I re-posted my ANI warning in his talk page, and he deleted it. I've dealt with 'cheers' editors before. Their affections of politeness contradict their contempt for the contributions of other editors to this project. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 06:35, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  That is not a reason for the revert. You have not given a guideline or policy reason for your revert. In fact, WP:OWNBEHAVIOR actually states An editor reverts a good-faith change without providing an edit summary that refers to relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines, previous reviews and discussions, reliable sources, or specific grammar or prose problems introduced by the edit. Furthermore, it even states An editor reverts a change simply because the editor finds it "unnecessary" without claiming that the change is detrimental. This has the effect of assigning priority, between two equivalent versions, to an owner's version. I see this in your revert of my edits, which now even has editorial support.

  Have I since proposed to continue the discussion of the article move from over a year ago? No. That's a dead topic, please find material relevant to this discussion. It'd be great if you could supply a reason.

  The two talk page sections concern the same topic, and I believe the only reason you have created your own topic instead of replying to me is 1) out of spite, and 2) so that you do not have to directly reply to me, which, again, you have not yet done. It is clear that the editor has no intention to reply, only to edit-war and revert, and to not be civil in the faintest. They have admitted that they were deliberately incivil, a clear violation of the WP:PA policy. Unacceptable.

  I was already in the middle of creation this report when you edited my user page without permission. Do you really think I wrote all of this in a single minute? No. Now, either reply to the discussion at hand, or admit that you have no intention to do so and recind your personal attacks and apologize for them. Refusing to do so will be your admittance that you have no intention to edit collaboratively. -- /Alex/₂₁ 06:41, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Note that the reported editor did respond on the talk page[64], but only to discuss conduct instead of content. This furthers the stance that they have no intention to discuss the article's content, only to revert it, further supporting the creation of this report. -- /Alex/₂₁ 06:50, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• WP:BOLD should not be used as a weapon: 06:55, 2 June 2020.
  The consequence from the previous lack of WP:CONS should have been the clue for what path to follow: 07:03, 2 June 2020. 'nuff said. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 07:27, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  None of this excuses your behaviour. You had zero reason to be so hostile in the face of a bold edit. Revert civilly, discuss civilly, come to a consensus. That is the behaviour of a collaborative editor. The previous discussions discussed the title of the article, not the season articles; they are irrelevant. And this[65]? Further proof that they are only here for a battleground behaviour. How am I meant to gain a consensus and seek discussion, if they refuse to discuss? Administration action is clearly required here. -- /Alex/₂₁ 08:13, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Pyxis' revert of a major BOLD edit and insistence on consensus seems entirely justified. What slight incivility there is has gotten nowhere close to sanctionable from either party, and you have successfully avoided any edit warring, so - keep it to the talk page, ask for a third opinion if you two get stuck, notify related Wikiprojects, open an RfC... any of that before kicking up a storm here over what seems like a reasonable if hotly worded content dispute. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:27, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  I agree that their revert was justified, hence why I have not reverted. What I completely disagree on is the "slight incivility". Let's take a look at the actions from the reported editor that have unfolded:

  • [66]: an unbased OWN accusation.
  • [67]: another unbased OWN accusation, and an accusation of a "one-finger salute", no attempt at assuming good faith.
  • [68]: sworn at.
  • [69]: editing my personal user page without reason.
  • [70]: threatening to take me to ANI over the addition of an indent to a talk page comment.
  • [71]: accusation of "running here" and told that I have nothing but contempt for editors; again, failure to AGF.
  • [72]: my edits are "snake oil"?
  • [73]: Quote - "you're here for a one-track-mind self gratification, not collaboration". Even less AGF.
  • [74]: Repeating herself as if talking to a child. I especially like this last one - they repeated "seek consensus" while doing everything she should to not participate in the consensus-gaining procedure.

  Do you also see what all of these diffs do not include? Any sort of attempt to actually discuss the content. All of these edits, and not a single response that actually concerns the content. How am I meant to gain a consensus and seek discussion, if they refuse to discuss? keep it to the talk page, ask for a third opinion if you two get stuck? I've kept it to the talk page, and how we can we stuck if she refuses to respond? In anyone's next reply, can you please answer that? These three diffs [75][76][77] is what it looks like to actually discuss the content. -- /Alex/₂₁ 23:17, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Wow. What a meltdown. Is there anything I posted that I, myself, have not already linked in my comments here? Do you assume that an editor who's read a comment has not also checked the diffs and linked quotes included in it? And, good lord, you've also diff-linked what has been posted here. By the way, I did not write that your "edits are 'snake oil'." When you indulge in parsing iotas you need to refrain from putting a spin to what was written, because what I wrote is →: "There is nothing 'civil' about appropriating another editor's comment: 1x, 2x. You do not have the right to decide what an editor writes, where, and why. Suffice it to say: I'm not buying your snake oil." I'll translate it for you: after your repeated appropriation of my comment I don't believe anything you have to say about civility. And this latest tinkering with the talk page comments is absurd. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 01:31, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  The entire point of a report at ANI is to provide diffs. We should not be taking other editor's actions here for granted; if diffs are needed, they then are provided. Is there a reason as to why you don't think I should be providing these diffs from you?

  Your actual quote at this edit[78] was Suffice it to say: I'm not buying your snake oil. Pray tell, if you weren't talking about my edits, what were you talking about? My contributions? My discussions? If it was something about me, my point remains.

  All of this, and you still won't actually discuss the topic at hand. Even when a consensus is starting to become clearer with other editors, you point[79] to an outdated RM (which did not have the consensus you thought), as if consensus's cannot be updated. -- /Alex/₂₁ 08:15, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• "Your actual quote at this edit...." Okay. This is all becoming very odd and should concern others who read your comment. I linked and quoted what I said in full, and your response is to re-quote part of it and link the same diff, as if what I quoted and linked was not exactly the same. Bizarre behavior is a red flag for me ... and I'm outta here. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 11:27, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  Okay, and? Explain the meaning behind it. Explain the meaning behind all of the diffs linked above. Or discuss the actual content. If you're "outta here", is that saying that you have no intention of contributing towards the current discussion(s) and forming consensus? Did you ever? -- /Alex/₂₁ 11:53, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  I agree with Elmidae that whatever mistakes were made, there doesn't seem to be anything warranting attention at ANI. Two things that really struck out from the summary were.

  1) the modifying my user page one. But when I check the diff I find it's clearly just a mistaken post to the user page instead of the talk page. It happens people visit a user page and forget or get confused and probably especially when people don't use the new section option to made new threads they post in the wrong place, if you're lazy or whatever, just revert and move on. Or better, revert with a note you're moving it to your talk page and do so and reply as needed. I mean even if it didn't occur to you that's what happened, Pyxis Solitary already noted that's what happened then in their edit summary when they re-posted on your talk page [80] which you should have noticed when reverting them [81] all of which happened before your follow up here [82]. So I'm not sure why on you would choose to continue to highlight an obvious mistaken post to the user page instead of your talk page as "editing my personal user page without reason".

  2) the swearing at you bit. Looking into it, it seems to me that Pyxis Solitary overreacted but it was a bit of a mess. Merging related threads is a well accepted practice. And AFAICT, the only modification of their comments was changing the indentation and remove the heading. [83] Per WP:SECTIONHEADINGOWN section headings don't really belong to anyone so it's generally acceptable to modify them although caution is urged when it's likely to be controversial. But modifying indentation is more problematic. While fixing indentation levels is allowed, the problem is you need to make sure you're actually fixing not modifying. If someone is at 2 levels and there are no other replies and someone else replies at 4 levels, that's likely to be a fair fix. If someone is at 2 levels and someone else replies at 2 levels below them, fixing that is risky since it may be the 2 levels is intentional as they are mostly replying to level 1. In this case, it seems that Pyxis Solitary chose to ignore your existing comment so weren't replying to it, so I can understand some frustration with the way you modified their comment so it appeared to be a reply to your comment. Probably the best solution in this case was instead of a pure merge, you could have kept the separate section heading but made it a subthread i.e. a 3rd level heading which is often the better solution and what our guideline suggests anyway.

  In any case, since Pyxis Solitary is clearly unhappy over it, it's best to just let it stand. I suggest you both keep discussing under one of the sections headings, and use WP:Dispute resolution as necessary. And try to keep the personal stuff over who did what wrong on the article talk page down to a minimum.

  Nil Einne (talk) 13:06, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  Pyxis just seems to have an issue with any sort of modification, even when I merged the sections, didn't touch her reply or her header at all, but kept her reply as a level 1 reply[84], calling it "absurd"[85]. There's no sense to the madness, unfortunately.

  So, cutting a long story short, the demand to gain a consensus and then the refusal to discuss the content is acceptable? I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how to discuss content with an editor who refuses to discuss said content. -- /Alex/₂₁ 13:08, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  And now they have made another comment[86] that an unrelated editor deemed to be racist[87], and I completely agree with them. How long can this behaviour continue? -- /Alex/₂₁ 23:17, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oh. So I'm racist now? Your grasping at straws for anything that can stick is getting old. But ... maybe an admin with time on his/her hands might glance at the 2019 discussions, look into the IP addresses, and see where the crumbs lead. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 08:11, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

  I didn't call you racist initially. That was an unrelated editor. Best to be careful of that boomerang. I thought you were done? Or "outta here"? -- /Alex/₂₁ 09:46, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Elmidae:, @Nil Einne: I'm pinging you because you've responded to this ANI.  Alex 21 is now making accusations of canvassing. My responses: 07:28, 21:04  He has also deleted my replies to being accused of "racism" (one was to another editor's "Now is hardly the best time to start being racist.", the other was to his "Please try to keep your internalized racism to yourself..."). My stance may be cocky, but the wordage I used in the second is Aussie slang and not "abusive, defamatory, or derogatory". "No wuckas" is slang for "no worries" and "Bruce" is slang for "man".
  This behavior by Alex 21 is becoming harassment. Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 22:15, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

  DIscuss the actual content. It's really not that hard. Or did you never have any intention to discuss the content after you reverted my edits? Funny how you refuse to answer this and keep deflecting.

  By the way, you forgot to actually link the diff to your racist comment[88]. -- /Alex/₂₁ 23:29, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

  You don't seem to understand what racism means. Stop calling it racist. "Racist" actually means something important, and using it as a gimmick is deeply uncool. My gut tells me we'd be better off if you were both blocked as being more interested in feuding than collaboratively editing, but my gut is sometimes wrong, and I don't have the stomach to see who "started it", and whether someone is behaving incrementally worse. But after just a cursory 60 second review, I'd be willing to wager that the admin who does eventually wade into this finds that you're both at fault. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

  I've asked the reported editor to discuss the content multiple times, because I'm interested in collaboratively editing after they reverted my major edit and told me to discuss it, but I've yet to see an actual reply by them on the topic at hand. That makes me think that they didn't intend to in the first place. So, as I think I've said for (at least) the third time during this discussion: I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how to discuss content with an editor who refuses to discuss said content? How am I meant to gain a consensus and seek discussion, if they refuse to discuss? -- /Alex/₂₁ 23:56, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Possible IP range block needed

Posting here since the disruption documented below only trickles in a small amount each time. The following IPv6 addresses are listed in descending order beginning with the most recent.

• 2605:A601:ADCB:F300:71A7:C1B3:6354:5DF7 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 2605:A601:ADCB:F300:85E8:778D:3F32:6B00 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 2605:A601:ADCB:F300:EDFD:DC37:4E71:3A95 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 2605:A601:ADCB:F300:8D4A:C03E:FFB4:107D (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 2605:A601:ADCB:F300:54B2:BB90:4871:6FC4 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 2605:A601:ADCB:F300:8D3F:6F4C:8D34:9FA9 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

Warnings here:

• User talk:2605:A601:ADCB:F300:8D4A:C03E:FFB4:107D (Level 1)
• User talk:2605:A601:ADCB:F300:85E8:778D:3F32:6B00 (Levels 1-3)
• User talk:2605:A601:ADCB:F300:71A7:C1B3:6354:5DF7 (Level 4)

Violation after last warning:

• diff1

In some cases, it may appear to be a content dispute, but this editor has a repeatedly inserted incorrect information or messed with wikilinks in ways that usually result in breaking them. Here are some examples of each:

• Incorrect info: diff2
• Broken wikilink: diff3
• Both types of disruption: diff4 (Kingda Ka is the world's tallest)
• Sea of Blue: diff5

I've been patient and waited a while to see if this editor would get the hint, attempt to discuss, or at least respond on their talk page. Unfortunately, none of that has happened. I know JlACEer has been dealing with this a lot as well. Overall, it's not a great amount of disruption, but it's becoming frequent enough to become a disturbance. Might be time to send a stronger message, thanks. --GoneIn60 (talk) 17:42, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Note: IPv6 /64 ranges are generally the same user, and they generally have no control over which one they use. Thus, 2605:A601:ADCB:F300::/64 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)) is the correct range for any blocks. --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 20:57, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

These may seem minor but they are persistent and annoying. This person is clearly not here to improve Wikipedia.—JlACEer (talk) 15:22, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Blocked – for a period of 1 month Anon-blocked. --qedk (t 愛 c) 13:54, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Devbali02 COI editing at Toki Pona

• Devbali02 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Toki Pona (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Devbali02 has self-identified[89] as being the same Dev Bali he mentioned in[90], where he said

"Many attempts have been made to create an emoji script for Toki Pona. Most significantly, in mid 2019, Dev Bali compiled earlier attempts to create one Sitelen Emoji. This script is unique as it is "democratically chosen," with the community making and voting on changes to the emoji set regularly. Bali also made an android keyboard that makes using the script like pinyin for Toki Pona."

(The android app appears to be the one at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ourdhi.sitelenemoji )

In this post,[91] Devbali02 wrote

"The website in question, https://sites.google.com/view/sitelenemoji, is the official website of sitelen Emoji. I will also add a link to github and google play store to add extra validity to there being certain tools for Sitelen Emoji."

https://github.com/holtzermann17/toki-pona-emoji/issues/3 references https://sites.google.com/view/sitelenemoji

https://sites.google.com/view/sitelenemoji says

"Make sure to visit our subreddit https://www.reddit.com/r/sitelenEmoji and join our Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/486127038880577/ for more content in Sitelen Emoji!"

All of these sites have the name "Dev Bali" as the creator, exept the Reddit group which lists Devbali02 as the creator and moderator.

Devbali02 has had our COI policy (including not editing pages where you have a COI) repeatedly.

• User talk:Devbali02#Conflict of interest (COI) regarding Sitelen Emoji
• Talk:Toki Pona#Serious sourcing issues

Yet he continues to edit the Toki Pona page after being warned[92][93] and is edit warring to retain the citations to his sites.google.com page. his app on Google store, his Github page, and a file he uploaded at File:Sitelen Emoji Rendered on Apple.jpg.[94][95][96][97][98][99]

--Guy Macon (talk) 20:29, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• Guy, there's a lot of words there and none of them explain simply what the complaint is here. Can you explain in simple terms which policies any the editor is, in your opinion, violating, and how? Thanks Black Kite (talk) 20:59, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Devbali02 has a serious problem with IDHT regarding COI and sourcing, and is editwarring to retain material he has written and cached on file storage and sharing sites like github and sites.google. I'm actually starting to wonder if CIR may be part of the problem. Heiro 21:06, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I've partially blocked them indefinitely from editing Toki Pona or its talkpage. Black Kite (talk) 21:14, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

I see from his block log that this is the new partial blocking feature I have been hearing about. It is good to see the WMF giving admins more useful tools. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:24, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, yes - this was a feature option I definitely supported during discussions. With luck we can start to use it instead of site blocks for editors who fail to engage, for example. Guy (help!) 23:27, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

User:Black Kite I have declared a COI disclaimer on the Toki Pona Talk Page. COI (with declaration) is not enough of a basis to remove information, as is clearly mentioned in the page you all cite. As far as sourcing is concerned, I have provided you with primary sources for the play store app that people allege COI for since I have made the app. You will only get primary sources for topics like toki pona. I have pointed out on the Toki Pona talk page, as several others have, that in a community this small, you will not get secondary sources or much external coverage of toki pona. Much of that article is supported by primary sources and personal sites. The issue is editors who do not have much context about toki pona or conlangs trying to use their general wikipedia skills. Context matters. I hope you read the Talk:Toki_Pona#Notability, which is from a while ago, when similar wikipedia editors had similar problems. If the information in my edit is not reliable to you people, none of the information on the entirety of the page is, yet it is a page that is there, meaning wikipedia editors more experienced than you disagree with you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Devbali02 (talk • contribs) 06:12, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Adding a COI declaration -- no matter who adds it -- is not a magic wand that forces other editors to retain citations to web pages that you created. The material was removed because it was purely promotional material unsuitable for Wikipedia. It would have been removed even if you didn't have a COI. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:44, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

If you had any knowledge of what you were editing, you would never had said that. Sitelen Emoji is one of the most used Toki Pona writing systems online, and just because you do not have any idea of it, doesn't make it untrue. It is large enough that it deserves a mention on the Toki Pona page. Just look at some of the social media groups that are linked on the sitelen emoji website. There are more than 70 people in the Discord committee, about 50 in the subreddit, and calling this a personal project of mine is laughable at best. I challenge you to show me 5 people writing in sitelen sitelen, another system that has a paragraph on there. All I have done is contributed to this project. I would like to repeat I DO NOT OWN SITELEN EMOJI, and that it is simply a set of emojis chosen by anyone who has an interest. It is obvious that you come from a place of immense ignorance. Bali (talk) 09:27, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Re: "There are more than 70 people in the Discord committee, about 50 in the subreddit, and calling this a personal project of mine is laughable at best", did you not create that subreddit (creator and sole moderator is Reddit user u/devbali02)? Did you not create that discord community (first announced by you on your subreddit, created and administered by discord user "So my name is Dev" jansewi#3483)? Did you not create sites.google.com/view/sitelenemoji (which you call "the official website of sitelen Emoji")?

Again, you edit warred to retain citations to pages that you created -- pages that fail WP:RS. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:54, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Persistent vandalism of Mech people by socks and IP editors.

Sockpuppets of Sairg (talk · contribs) have been consistently trying to vandalize the Mech people page by making it appear that the Mech people are actually another ethnic group. Yesterday, one of the socks, ReliableAssam (talk · contribs) was blocked after an incident was reported here [100], and now it seems that they are trying to edit anonymously.

• Edit by sock Logical Man 2000 (talk · contribs): [101]
• Edit by 2409:4065:49e:7637:7068:f15f:7113:2e69 (talk · contribs): [102]

I wonder whether the remedy for this situation is semi-protection of Mech people.

Chaipau (talk) 22:19, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Chaipau, Semiprotected for a year. This is getting very old. Guy (help!) 23:29, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

JzG Thank you. I am keen for this to end, but I don't know how to end it. I have tried to engage them in the past with WP:GF, but that did not obviously work. Chaipau (talk) 00:11, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Egregious personal attacks by user Henryhe43

Special:Diff/955289709/960432615 This kind of personal attack (Redacted) is absolutely unacceptable. This user has made similar attacks against other editors as well Special:Diff/960432290/960433005. AmbivalentUnequivocality (talk) 23:54, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

• I've blocked Henryge43 indefinitely, which is what I clearly stated I would do if they continued to edit war or personally attacked other editors.-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 23:59, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

User:The Cat 2020

The Cat 2020 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) This editor submitted a draft Draft:Avyar to Articles for Creation. The draft was declined three times, for sourcing and stylistic reasons. The editor has chosen to insult the reviewers rather than either to discuss how to improve the draft or to copy the draft directly into article space (their right as an auto-confirmed user). The reviewers have discussed how to try to reason with this editor, but requesting administrative action seems like the only reasonable alternative at this point.

Insults Sulfurboy: diff

Insults LittlePuppers: diff and diff

Insults LittlePuppers again: diff and diff

Posts an interesting diatribe at AFC HD: diff I had said that the subject probably is notable, but that the draft does not establish notability. I meant to write a draft that establishes notability by focusing on notability criteria, with reliable sources, but the editor apparently thinks that this has some coded meaning.

Insults me (Robert McClenon): diff

Insults Theroadislong: diff

Insults ThatMontrealIP: diff

Robert McClenon (talk) 03:34, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

notified all users. Eumat114 formerly TLOM (Message) 03:55, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Snippy new editors is an unfortunately common occurence in AfC. However, railing on multiple different editors in such quick fashion is a fairly unique kind of awful. Looks like what time they haven't spent on the draft has been spent spamming external links to random Russian videos on established articles. Whatever they're here to do, it's quite clear they're WP:NOTHERE to contribute or at least try to get a handle of our rules. Sulfurboy (talk) 04:14, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I will reply to the Robert McClenon false allegations in order to clear my name. It is true that my article was rejected on several occasions but no real reason was stated. On several occasions, my article was called "an essay" which can be taken for a direct insult considering my level of expertise and the material featured in the article. I properly attributed all the sources but one user started an argument over this even though he knew that I was right. All of these facts can be easily proven simply by looking at article's history. I used many well known sources written by Godfrey Higgins and Frederic Shoberl. I used Sir William Jones' "Asiatic Researches" as well as many other highly respected authorities. This, however, didn't prevent several users from stating that, "This submission is not adequately supported by reliable sources", which is a false and misleading statement. I can go on forever listing the false statements made against either me or the material in the article. User Robert McClenon wrote that, "This topic is not sufficiently notable for inclusion in Wikipedia." This statement is factually incorrect and false which I proved on several occasions as well as in my reply to the same user. The same user wrote an article Bile (Irish legend) which is in reality a very poorly sourced and I raised this point. He referenced Encyclopedia Britannica without providing a link to the material so anyone can verify that information. Moreover he listed the same link twice in a list of references which is unacceptable. Then he listed two modern books with several sentences about the person named Bile (Irish legend). You can compare his article and my article that he had rejected with the false reason stated. When you compare theese two articles you would clearly see which one is well-sourced and which on is poorly sourced, which one is notable and which one isn't. The most important thing is what happened after I posted my reply to that user. Another user named Moonythedwarf wrote to me the following, "I noticed that you made a comment that didn't seem very civil, so it has been removed." So my properly addressed message was simply censored by deletion. I raised the point right away and told both editors that censorship on Wikipedia is not acceptable.The same applies to false allegation and misleading statements that are preventing an informative article from being published. Everyone has the right to raise the opposition against any false allegation and/or misleading statements made in his address. That's a natural and normal reaction. I raised the point again and was threatened by the user Theroadislong who wrote, "Please stop attacking other editors, as you did on User talk:Robert McClenon. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing." Another false allegation was made since I never attacked anyone and was simply expressing my concerns and opinions in return to the false allegations made against me.

The user Robert McClenon is telling you that I insulted several people on 5-6 occasions which a complete lie. You can see this for yourself simply by reading my replies to the massages received. I told you that I can't accept false allegations and factually incorrect statements made against me, my work or the article itself. I raised those concerns patiently, politely and professionally. I asked to focus on my article rather than on attacking me or continue to argue with me. I met with censorship since my message on a talk page was simply deleted with a bogus explanation. Than I was threatened that I can be blocked from editing. Multiple false statements against me were accumulating and each one of them was recorded. I can prove each my word with clear facts that don't lie. You should always look at the whole picture and you must weight the information and facts coming from all sides. If you do that then you would see that the truth is on my side. Thank you very much for allowing me to express my side of the story and my experience on Wikipedia. I certainly believe that the censorship should not be exercised for the opinions one may not like or for critical comments made. We all can benefit from telling the truth on each and every occasion. That's my way of thinking. Wikipedia shouldn't allow biased opinions toward certain topics and material and a group of several people should not be doing all they could in order to prevent a professionally written, properly attributed and sourced article from being published. They should not sensor. They should not make false allegations and misleading statement. They should not threaten people with the blocking. It's highly unprofessional and childish. They should not use the word "insult" when there is no insult, etc. and etc.

Please kindly let me know if you need any additional facts from me. The Cat 2020 (talk) 04:30, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Sulfurboy, Please kindly refrain from making any misleading statement here. You are here to talk about a particular issue. Please tell us whether you are fluent in Russian or not? If not, then how you can make any statement about "spamming external links to random Russian videos on established articles". Maybe there are spammers on Wikipedia but that doesn't apply to me. If you want to make an allegation against me in particular then please start listing facts. Otherwise it is an empty talk. I listed all the sources and my draft for Avyar lists sources where the full texts are featured in both English and Russian. This can be verified by anyone knowing the Russian language. The English version you had a chance to verify personally. Please do not make misleading statements about spamming. That doesn't apply to me in any way whatsoever. I listed all the facts and the facts outnumbered the empty talk about spamming. Thank you for understanding and I wish we could have a more professional conversation in the future. On my side, I can reiterate that I have been always professional and very polite with you. I wish you could return a favor to me. The Cat 2020 (talk) 04:42, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Okay, we can analyse this article at hand:

1. Amkgp initially declined your draft for not having enough sources. When you first submitted this version of the draft, it just had 2 sources. WP:BASIC, the notability criteria to be applied, asks for multiple reliable sources, which generally means at least 3. Besides, in the beginning large chunks of text were not supported by reliable sources. So the very first decline stands.
2. For the second decline by Sulfurboy, the decline was not particularly justified, considering that the source was in the public domain. This is why MER-C removed the {{Copypaste}} template. People often make mistakes and sometimes, you have to assume good faith and discuss the mistake seriously and civilly. Your comment on Sulfurboy's talk page didn't quite follow this guideline through the use of words such as "bogus" and "you need to educate yourself...". These can be seen as personal attacks.
3. The third decline by LittlePuppers said that it was not written neutrally and it read like an essay.
   • it was not neutral because of the use of terms like "Avyar (aka Ayvar) was a great Tamil Female Philosopher", "...the celebrated Avyar...", "Avyar's or Ayvar's writings contain good general ideas which are primarily based in the science of morality" etc. These terms seem to praise the subject, which is not what Wikipedia is for. After all, we didn't say that the COVID-19 pandemic was a "beast that destroys everything".
   • it still reads like an essay through the use of sentences like "Avyar's lineage and birth, as well as the exact epoch in which she flourished, are lost in myths. We can even have a well-grounded opinion about the mythological nature of her life". You can improve it in line with the given guidelines or ask a question about this, instead of saying "it would be great if you would take a minute and read the article first and then write your well-grounded opinion on the matter. It was clearly not the case with my article".

I shall continue my analysis below. The Cat 2020, please read this carefully. Eumat114 formerly TLOM (Message) 05:06, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Writing an article is never easy, especially for writers without much experience with writing encyclopedia entries. But if you have difficulties, it is a better choice for you to reach out to the decliner(s) instead of making insults. Eumat114 formerly TLOM (Message) 05:09, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• 100% a mistake on my part, which I would have happily corrected if it wasn't for the affront and statement of "you need to educate yourself". I'd rather spend my time helping editors who have an interest in being constructive and building something here, not causing dram. We also shouldn't fall into this rabbit hole of discussing the merits of the article. There's more appropriate venues for that. Ultimately, this is a conduct, not a content discussion. Sulfurboy (talk) 07:08, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I had a look at the draft and it is definitely lacking an encyclopedic tone, and its format needs quite a bit of work. This is not unusual in draft articles written by newbies. Once these formatting, sourcing issues and notability are addressed (conduct issues notwithstanding) I'm sure a request to GOCE can help get it up to scratch. On the conduct side @The Cat 2020:, as a neutral observer I would say that your talk page communications come across as highly aggressive. A lot of good faith is given to you as you are a very new user, but that good faith runs out very quickly in the face of continued aggression. Blackmane (talk) 05:53, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi Eumat114, Thank you for your comments and suggestions. I have rewritten two sentences to which you have pointed my attention. I will now add them to the draft. As I understand, from your perspective there are no other issues with the article after the previous corrections. Am I right? Please kindly review my corrections and I am open to hear your other propositions if you have them.

In terms of the "insults", I can't accept this characterization of my well-grounded replies and I insist that everyone must see the whole picture and also read the initial comments made by other users to me. The last user Robert McClenon wrote that, "This topic is not sufficiently notable for inclusion in Wikipedia." I can't agree with this misleading and factually incorrect statement. The references have proved the notability level of this topic. I could have easily listed at least 10 more references but that was not required in accordance to the rules. Because of the factually incorrect marking about notability I am not allowed to resubmit my article even though I have corrected all the information you have mentioned. That's part of the problem which needs to be addressed by someone. The Cat 2020 (talk) 14:51, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

The Cat 2020, the report here is not about your article, it's about your behavior. I've reviewed all of the comments back and forth between you and the other editors and I agree with Robert McClenon that you have made unnecessarily aggressive and personal comments as evidenced by the diffs he posted. As an experienced writer, you are more than capable of speaking to disagreements about the content without personalizing it or characterizing other editors' motivations and qualifications. Please agree to do so in the future. Schazjmd (talk) 15:13, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment - I have two more comments. First, as to content, there were originally two issues with the draft, tone issues and duplication issues. The draft was primarily declined for tone reasons. But there were also duplication reasons. The draft is about Draft:Avyar, but we already have an article on Avvaiyar, and those names are close enough that they may be two transliterations of the same Tamil name. Some of the editors tried to mention this, but it is not easy for reviewers to maintain focus on two issues when the submitter is being contentious about both of them. If the draft had not had tone issues, I would have tagged the draft to be merged into the article. Second, another editor removed one of the editor's hostile posts from my talk page, and the editor then accused me of censorship, citing the policy Wikipedia is not censored. That policy is more often misinterpreted than applied correctly. (I have written an essay, Yelling Censorship, about the misuse of the policy.) The removal of inappropriate material from talk pages is mentioned in the talk page guidelines as sometimes being appropriate, and is not censorship. If you don't understand a policy, you don't need to quote it incorrectly. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:22, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Comment - Original issues with the draft were addressed in a timely manner and you have to discuss the current situation. There are no so-called "tone issues" in the current draft. The other reviewer pointed me into rewriting two sentences which I gladly did today. He didn't see any other issues being present and you must as well take into account his opinion on the matter. You are again misstating the facts and call my informative reply to you as the "hostile post". This is factually incorrect statement which can be proven by reading the post itself and facts listed there. I understand that you might have seen an inconvenient truth there but the comment should have never been censored by deletion. You are once again making false and factually incorrect statements by saying that, "the editor then accused me of censorship". My comment was addressed to Moonythedwarf who informed that he removed my legitimate comment. In that comment I stated that, "The comment was written in a polite and respectful manner which can be proven by looking at the comment itself. In the future please refrain from censoring my comments and the information you might not like. Censorship should not be exercised on Wikipedia, especially on a talk page. Censorship is a poor friend in a fight with facts. Please remember that as well as my polite reply to you." You can read this on my talk page. So I have yet again caught you in a process of making false and factually incorrect statements towards me which suggest of a particular trend being established. I suggest that you should focus more on my draft rather than on making false and factually incorrect statements. Notability has been established and no other issues are seen by another editor who expressed his weighted opinion on the matter. There is absolutely nothing which prevents you or anybody else from green lighting the article that I wrote. Let's focus on the article. I keep asking you to do that but you keep on making factually incorrect statements which is unacceptable. I came here not to argue but to publish some important material which has been overlooked. Looking forward for a productive discussion with you regarding the notability of my article. The Cat 2020 (talk) 17:13, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• If the draft that is up currently is the final product, then I agree it still has numerous issues with tone, grammar, inline citations, and wikivoice. To me, Eumat114's commentary does not at all suggest their only objections were the sentences they quoted: it still reads like an essay through the use of sentences like "Avyar's lineage and birth, as well as the exact epoch in which she flourished, are lost in myths. We can even have a well-grounded opinion about the mythological nature of her life" and it was not neutral because of the use of terms like "Avyar (aka Ayvar) was a great Tamil Female Philosopher", "...the celebrated Avyar...", "Avyar's or Ayvar's writings contain good general ideas which are primarily based in the science of morality" etc. I bolded the words that indicate the quoted lines are just examples of the problems in the draft, not a comprehensive list of them. Regarding conduct, I am also getting a strong WP:IDHT vibe alongside the aggressive, repetitive bludgeoning others have mentioned. Your intent might not be to insult, but it is clear everyone else is interpreting your comments as verging on PA. Unless you can express yourself in a way that does not accuse others of spreading falsehoods or being uneducated, people will continue to feel harassed and be disinclined to engage with you. JoelleJay (talk) 19:40, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

eh, none of those will get fixed until the sourcing is. Surely its possible to get an academic reference that is under what... 180 years old? or at least not from the colonial era? Curdle (talk) 20:15, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

@The Cat 2020: There is a long standing practice on Wikipedia of comment on the content not the contributor. Each reviewer has clearly done so and yet every one of your replies diffed by Robert McClenon are confrontational and directed at the contributor. You may be have experience in writing outside of Wikipedia, but you have little experience on Wikipedia and would do well to seek out the advice of those with more experience here than yourself. Blackmane (talk) 23:28, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Blackmane, I clearly listed the facts pertaining to the misleading and factually incorrect statements made towards me by the user Robert McClenon. Please see above. You might want to write a word or two to Robert and ask him not to exercise such a practice in the future. You can not receive an honest advice from the person who has established a trend of making misleading and factually incorrect statements. I, on the other hand, was happy to read the message from Eumat114 who was the only person who discussed my draft in a respective and truthful manner. I am glad he did it. If you have something to tell me then I would gladly take that into account.The Cat 2020 (talk) 00:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Curdle, One can clearly see from such a comment where the problem really is. You can not tell me that I can't use sources that are 180 years old or even older because these sources are highly informative, professional and academic. You have to show at least some respect to Sir William Jones, Godfrey Higgins and others who made an enormous academic contribution to our science and history. Colonial era? What that has to do with the information featured in my article? I followed the rules and my article is fully eligible for publication. If you wish to set your own rules regarding the use of only modern sources then you are welcome to put this proposition for a discussion but not here. Until your proposition is not accepted, we will continue to follow the rules which are currently in place. The Cat 2020 (talk) 00:14, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• Just to chime in here as a completely neutral voice: The draft article -- which I have just read -- is not in any way, shape or form ready for the encyclopedia. It is undersourced, badly written, is unencyclopedic in tone, and is non-neutral. In fact, the whole thing has the feel of advocacy about it. The quotations sections should be removed entirely. It's just an incredible mess and would require hours of editorial work to whip it into shape if it was moved into mainspace, work that should be done by its creator, not by other Wikipedians.
  Further, The Cat 2020's June 2nd comment (just before the article itself) comparing phrasing in their article to writing in The Bible about Methuselah shows a profound ignorance of the purpose of Wikipedia, and, not incidentally, the purpose of The Bible as well. I'm afraid that the draft will never be ready for mainspace unless The Cat 2020 learns that lesson and starts to understand why Wikipedia exists and how it should be presented to our readers. The Cat 2020 is not reading an essay to their friends, they're engaged in a semi-academic piece of research and writing for a popular encyclopedia. Certainly The Cat 2020 is in no position to be throwing brickbats at the people who are, after all, only trying to help them bring their article into line with our standards, and should stop doing so and show a bit of humility.
  I'll be blunt, so there's no misunderstanding: The Cat 20220 -What you've written is bad. Take the advice given to you and fix it if you can, and stop blaming your failure to write an acceptable article on other people. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:22, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Beyond My Ken, Are we on a one-way street where my opinion is not even considered? Please read the Robert McClenon's comments above and my reply. There are two parts of each story. I have clearly proved in my reply that Robert was continuing to make factually incorrect and misleading statements about certain issues. You can verify this information in my reply. I have clearly pointed out that Robert has established a trend in making those factually incorrect statements. The facts don't lie. Please also have a look at my article personally. All the issues were addressed but some people kept discussing things that were fixed a while ago. By the way, on Robert's talk page I left a comment in which I gave a link and the description for the additional information for his article. I thought that's how the things are supposed to work here on Wikipedia. Some people could have spent months trying to find the information for the article. I knew that information and I helped Robert to improve his article. I keep asking people to discuss the material rather than focusing on insults which never happened since I never insulted anyone on Wikipedia. This can also be verified by accessing the full-range of my comments. The Cat 2020 (talk) 03:28, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

If you cannot moderate your aggressiveness and bad attitude, then, yes, it will soon be a one-way street. And, no, you have proved nothing. I've already read your article and given my evaluation above. It is, as I said before, bad. Beyond My Ken (talk)

• (edit conflict) The Cat 2020, just for a few things in just the first few sentences of the article: Avyar (aka Ayvar) was a Tamil Female Philosopher. ("female Tamil philosopher", Don't Capitalize Random Words.) The reverend Dr. John (and who on Earth is that?), Avyar's or Ayvar's writings contain good general ideas ("good" according to whom?), and the rest of that paragraph is relatively incomprehensible. To start the next: The exact year in which Avyar was born is unknown to us. Since the epoch in which she flourished is lost in myths, we (Wikipedia articles should be written in the third person, no "us" or "we"). To be clear, those are not the only things that would need to be corrected, those are a few examples of how the entire draft is written in a totally unencyclopedic tone. The rejections were correct, and your attitude toward those trying to help you is absolutely unacceptable. If you're not here to build an encyclopedia, in the tone and style expected of one and in collaboration with other editors without the personal attacks you've been engaging in, this is not the right place for you to be. So either mellow out and accept the help and advice of the multiple experienced editors who have offered it to you, or else you may either choose or be helped to leave. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:32, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Seraphimblade, I would like to thank you for your phrase, "or else you may either choose or be helped to leave". You have just threatened me with blocking. Do you consider this as an example of an acceptable behavior here on Wikipedia? Threats can be freely made against me but I can't even express my opinion in return. Very nice indeed! The Cat 2020 (talk) 02:45, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

The Cat 2020, a warning is not a threat. And I, too, am warning you that if you don't start comporting yourself with greater moderation, you will be sanctioned. At some point, patience with your passive-aggressive and tendentious tone is going to be exhausted. Please do better. El_C 02:55, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

El_C, The phrase "or be helped to leave" from a person who on his home page calls himself "a deletionist" is considered a direct threat. You can no threaten a person with blocking for expressing his opinion in return to the accusations made. It was not a warning. My tone is no where to be aggressive which can be verified with the independent experts if the situation requires it. On the other hand, the tone of several commenters here was rather aggressive, on two occasions threatening and I am clearly told to either accept the factually incorrect statements towards my tone and material or "be helped to leave" the Wikipedia. One individual even censored me by deleting my legitimate and highly informative comment on the talk page without providing any good reason for the action taken. Censorship and troll-like behavior are unacceptable here on Free Wikipedia. The Cat 2020 (talk) 03:09, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

The Cat 2020, regarding your mention of troll-like behavior: this will be my final warning to you. Tone it down, or you will be sanctioned without further warning. If you have evidence to submit, about talk page comment removal for example, you may do so using diffs. El_C 03:17, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

El_C, You have requested the evidence and I am providing it to you. Here is the link for the diffs - [103] The Cat 2020 (talk) 03:40, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure I would have removed it necessarily, but your note was aggressive and uncalled for. You cannot interact with editors on Wikipedia in this manner. El_C 03:48, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, the draft is very poorly written, is nowhere near encyclopedic in tone, relies on two century old sources by notable but speculative writers, and is formatted poorly. Those are all content matters, and not really a matter for this noticeboard. The real problem is the stubborn, pushy and confrontational attitude of this editor, and their extreme reluctance to take on board the good advice they are receiving from far more experienced editors. I have no solution to suggest at this time, but this is a genuine problem worthy of discussion. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:37, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Sure, AN/I, behavior, not content, but the behavior appears to be connected to The Cat 2020's response to the criticism of the article, so the one rises from the other. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• 1. Topic Ban
• 2. Deny
• 3. Move on with our lives

—AdamF in MO (talk) 03:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

A topic ban from what? Writing drafts? Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:06, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

They are auto-confirmed. It seems AFC is not the best method for this person to interact with the project. —AdamF in MO (talk) 04:53, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• Following up on @Robert McClenon:'s comment above regarding an article on this topic already existing at Avvaiyar, I looked into the sources and believe this is the same topic (although the draft is more of a hagiography than an objective article). I believe the draft author would agree with this assessment based on their edits here [104].

As for the sources used in the draft, all I will add to the above is WP:AGE MATTERS would seem to advise caution. An article on the Roman Empire would be poorly sourced if it was written entirely based on Edward Gibbon and contemporaries. Other points/issues have been addressed by others and I won't repeat them, except to say the conduct of Cat 2000 towards others should be unacceptable.

I understand ANI is for conduct issues, not content, but I thought given the above discussion this would be the best place to post. If an admin feels my comment should be moved to a more appropriate place, please do so. I hope this finds all well.   // Timothy :: talk  03:36, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Timothy, I am quite shocked to see such a comment about Edward Gibbon whose works are timeless and there are tons of highly valuable information in them. People wrote research papers on his works and many other historians wrote their theses and became PhDs. You mentioned that the age matters. Please allow me to remind you that we are talking about mythology and you study mythology by going as far back in history as you can to the point when mythology becomes indeed history. You can't ask for a modern sources for the Bible, right? Similarly, you can't ask for a requirement for the modern sources for articles that are written about mythology, mythological persons, Gods and antient history. Any contemporary is a much better source than a person who lives 500-1000 or 10000 years later. It's a common sense. Please find some leisure time and read the moral sentences and other works of Avyar that I have listed. They are beneficial for anyone regardless of the time we are living in. The Cat 2020 (talk) 05:03, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

First, I note you did not bother to address the first point I made above about this topic already existing at Avvaiyar.

re: Edward Gibbon - you're ignoring the substance of what I wrote. An article written entirely' based on Gibbon would be poorly sourced.

re: "You can't ask for a modern sources for the Bible, right?" - yes we can ask for modern sources and the article on the Bible is filled with modern sources.

re: "Similarly, you can't ask for a requirement for the modern sources for articles that are written about mythology..." - Yes we can and articles on these topics are filled with modern sources.

re: " read the moral sentences and other works of Avyar" irrelevant to the discussion here.

  // Timothy :: talk  05:25, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Timothy, Let me remind you your own words, "An article on the Roman Empire would be poorly sourced if it was written entirely based on Edward Gibbon and contemporaries." Right now you dropped the contemporaries from your initial phrase. The article based on Edward Gibbon's and his contemporaries' sources is perfectly in line with all the rules. If you have rules in place requiring only modern sources, then I would like to see them. You can't ask for a requirement for ONLY the modern sources for articles that are written about mythology since there are no such rules in place on Wikipedia. I certainly hope that you would follow my humble recommendation and find some leisure time in your busy schedule which will allow you to read the moral sentences and other works by Avyar. Finally, if you would require only modern sources for the article about the Bible then you would have to forget what was written in the past which is unacceptable since history has to me remembered. The same applies to other topics. Something tells me that you perfectly understand the reasoning and common sense behind the issues that I have raised in my two replies to you. The Cat 2020 (talk) 19:28, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment The Cat 2020's only contributions to Wikipedia so far, aside from the voluminous posts here, the draft mentioned above and many complaints about draft on many talk pages, have been three other edits that sought to add external links for a Russian-language video blog. There's this edit to Aleksey PushKov, this edit to Godfrey Higgins and finally the addition of this listing of videos to Geoffrey Higgins, from what is presumably the master blog from whence all the blogs come. Given the time of other editors that s being consumed here, the quality of the contributions (in particular the very crummy draft), the reluctance to take advice and the unwillingness to become less combative, they seem like a net negative to me.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 19:53, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

A small suggestion. It seems like the logical thing to do, since the draft has been rejected with the "STOP' template (and there is therefore nothing left for them to complain about) might be to close this thread with a warning that civility is expected in future, and that if they're back here soon, something in the line of a stronger brew might be expected. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 20:02, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

ThatMontrealIP, Please kindly refrain from using such a strong word as "combative", especially when you are trying to use it as a synonym for a "reasonable reply". I have posted reasonable and well-grounded replies on many of the messages addressed to me. At the end, you keep using the word combative without listing any facts whatsoever supporting such a strong accusation. In terms of the Russian-language news site that you have mentioned, I can just repeat that all the posts and/or additions were made in a strict accordance to the rules of Wikipedia. All the references you mentioned are relevant to the topic to which they were added. There were also English based posts on the same source that you forgot to mention. They feature 3 complete works of Avyar. The author did a great job and translated the same works to the Russian language for the first time in history which is highly notable. The same applies to Godfrey Higgins and his major work. Now it's available in Russian from the same source. Also for the first time in history. The Cat 2020 (talk) 22:00, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Your comment about me here [105] “you made a pathetic comment which is highly unprofessional and unreasonable.” certainly seems combative! Theroadislong (talk) 22:12, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposal

Since The Cat 2020 has three times declined to comment about this topic already existing at Avvaiyar, along with the quality issues raised by Beyond My Ken and others and the draft author's replies to other concerns meeting WP:IDHT with no sign of relenting, I believe someone from NPP should consider tagging the draft with CSD:A10 along with a reference to this discussion and ending the content part of this discussion. Then admins may focus on the conduct issues as they see appropriate. (pinging users involved in content discussion: @Robert McClenon, Eumat114, Sulfurboy, Theroadislong, LittlePuppers, Blackmane, JoelleJay, Curdle, Beyond My Ken, Seraphimblade, Cullen, and ThatMontrealIP:   // Timothy :: talk  21:05, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support - This shouldn't have even gone down the content rabbit hole in the first place. ANI isn't a review board for AfC decisions, there's much better venues for that. This will hopefully clear the air and allow for a focused discussion on conduct. Sulfurboy (talk) 21:31, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support this is a major time waster. User does not show any interest or abitlity to contribute to the encyclopedia constructively.ThatMontrealIP (talk) 22:07, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
•  Done. Guy (help!) 22:39, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Theroadislong, My previous comment was addressed to ThatMontrealIP who used the word "combative" which doesn't apply to the tone and language of my messages and therefore he made another groundless accusation. You can read the definition for the word "pathetic" and then start discussing my comment. You are using the phrase "certainly seems" and trying to educate me about my tone? Funny! The Cat 2020 (talk) 00:15, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

PAs in edit summaries

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

---

Can someone please explain to User:Bosekgn that their edit summaries are unacceptable[106][107][108]? I tried to explain this at their user talk page[109], but they don't seem to be interested in discussion or in changing their approach. Fram (talk) 06:30, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Warned about edit warring and the disruptive PAs. Further edit warring or PAs should result in a block. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:55, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Fram (talk) 06:55, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I left a cheery note as well and will act if necessary, if someone notifies me. Johnuniq (talk) 07:01, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

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

Eyes needed on Floyd-related pages

Some are new and have few watchers. Pending revisions might be a good idea in some cases if problems continue.

• Derek_Chauvin_(police_officer)
• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Derek_Chauvin_(police_officer)
• 8′46″
• Killing of George Floyd
• George Floyd protests
• List of George Floyd protests
• Entertainment industry response to George Floyd protests (bet you didn't see that one coming!)

Or take your pick from [110] EEng 07:31, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

More related articles are listed at Template:George Floyd. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 16:18, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Antifa as well - there's something fishy going on ... can't fully put my finger on it. Nfitz (talk) 21:49, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• You know that an identitarian alt-right group, Identity Evropa, was operating a false antifa Twitter account which fomented violence, and that such groups have been caught on video provoking violence and looting under cover of the Floyd protests? Could this be related? Beyond My Ken (talk) 11:25, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Personal attacks, BLP attack etc. by 46.97.170.78

• 46.97.170.78 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

The IP called a BLP subject a "parasite" and "trumptard" on the article's talkpage. He has responded to others with comments like "Nobody cares about your conspiracy theories", when the user he responded to just posted a New York Times article. Now the IP is energetically commenting at Talk:Antifa (United States), where he called SpanishSnake a "long time wikipedia vandal". When told that aspersions like that are a personal attack, he doubled down and told others to take a look at SpanishSnake's talkpage. There is one vandalism warning on his talkpage from Jan 2019, in which both parties confirmed that it was not vandalism but a mistake.

The user has stated that offering criticism on talkpages is their main activity. Given that these consist of angry rants that are detrimental to people who agree with him, and offensive to people who disagree with him, he should be removed from those discussions.

The IP was made aware of the BLP and American politics discretionary sanctions on 24 May, and this is happening after that. --Pudeo (talk) 08:55, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I must apologize for my behavior these past few days. Looking back it's obvious that I've been acting irrational. I'm not sure if this is the proper way to remedy the situation, but i will go back and remove the offending comments. If there's a better way to remedy the situation, I'm willing to listen, and i will do my best to avoid personal attacks in the future. 46.97.170.78 (talk) 09:10, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Needing to be brought to ANI before you recognise your fault is often not a good sign. Of course it does depend on what attempts were made to discuss this with first so I checked out your talk page and found [111] where you already agreed you got carried away. Which would be great if you hadn't caused major issues since then. But the unsupported wikipedia vandal claim is after that acknowledgement [112] and as Pudeo said you got challenged yet doubled down once [113]. The best solution by far would be if this doesn't happen again. If you keep finding yourself getting carried away or irrational, you need to find some way to deal with it that doesn't involve problem edits and then fixing them when people complain enough. Either take a break before posting, or stop editing in the subject areas where you're finding it difficult to control yourself. Nil Einne (talk) 14:52, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Understood. I believe it is best if I stopped editing wikipedia altogether for the time being. Also, i know this is no excuse, but the vandalism accusation specifically was a stupid misunderstanding on my part. I made a hasty conclusion based on very little evidence, and didn't bother to double check. I should've known better. 46.97.170.78 (talk) 17:53, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Possible chronic and intractable behavioral problem

• KhanQadriRazvi (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)

KhanQadriRazvi is seemingly attempting to impose their point of view on Wikipedia without success. Their behaviour is now resulting in continuous disruptive activity (whether deliberate or through frustration or through a lack of competency I cannot be sure). Their talk page show an almost daily set of problems at present. The disruption to Talk:Grand Mufti of India [114] in a poorly formed edit request disrupting main space. The sheer quality of a newly created article this morning also is very inconsistent with linguistic use on e.g. Old revision of File talk:AkhtarRazaKhan(Image).jpg is also a concern. Djm-leighpark (talk) 09:41, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

@KhanQadriRazvi: Please explain about why the article you created today seemingly met WP:CSD for a copyright violation? This seems yet more disruption and I am minded you are not here to contribute to the encyclopedia. Do you have any response or explanation? Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 16:52, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Respond or Explanation

I,have said repeatedly that the tone of my article may not be neutral. If copyright matter, I will look into it, and I, will try to write in my words, So that Wikipedia does not have any copyright problem. It's your misunderstanding that I'm imposing my point of view on Wikipedia, and came here with different purpose. Whoever comes here, they come here to contribute to the encyclopaedia, I, also came here with the same thought that whatever I, know or read it somewhere, I, will share those things with everyone.Thanks KhanQadriRazvi (talk) 06:23, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• Previous ANI thread about ongoing problems at Grand Mufti of India is here. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 18:32, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I, just don't get it this thing, when newspapers has written about both person, then how can you choose the one person, so I, have suggested of this article, in which both are treated equally.

"Chop off the Snake’s Head" Delete the page, It may be best solution for this problem. Thanks KhanQadriRazvi (talk) 06:23, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@KhanQadriRazvi If by "Chop off the Snake’s Head" you mean censor and delete the article Grand Mufti of India because it claims Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad is the current incumbent then I am very concerned, and could might even taken you intended to slur Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad, though I WP:AGP that was not your intent. Your edit suggestion at [115] "This is 'Y'" has have appeared to remove sources supporting the claim of Grand Mufti as Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad with promotion of a claim for Asjad Raza Khan as Grand Mufti. My reading of the key sources for Asjad Raza Khan are [116] (Sri Lanka newspaper report with unattributed reporter and arguably vaguewave newsflash) and [117] (fails to mention "Grand Mufti" and also indicates "decision" made at the Annual Fiqhi Seminar, not by electoral college as claimed in the table, according to Salman Hasan Khan, vice-president, Jamat Raza-e-Mustafa and only applying to Sunni Barelvi clerics). I may expand this on the article talk page if I have the energy, but given this weakness I am currently opined equal weight of Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad and Asjad Raza Khan in the article gives WP:UNDUE to the latter. I remain possibly open to small section detailing Asjad Raza Khan's claim may however by appropriate, however even that may be WP:UNDUE.Djm-leighpark (talk) 21:06, 4 June 2020 (UTC) I am however re-looking at Grand Mufti of India and talk to see some useful comments having been somewhat distracted by your intervention. Every source and its use needs to be considered on merits .... and these sources are very difficult to use. Thankyou.Djm-leighpark (talk) 23:52, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Proposal

All IP editors, accounts with fewer than 500 edits, and accounts with less than 30 days tenure are prohibited from editing articles related to Islam in the Indian subcontinent. Administrators may apply extended confirmed protection for any length of time or indefinitely to enforce this prohibition on any article they reasonably believe to be related to the topic area.

Support as proposer; this has gone on for far too long. The drama between Barelvis, Deobandis, Salafis, and countless other sects present in the region really doesn't need to be making its way onto Wikipedia. M Imtiaz (talk · contribs) 01:59, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I understand the sentiment, but wonder if the drama would be eased if admins used discretionary sanction powers to issue final warnings to problematic editors insisting on operating in the ipa topic area. Removal of autoconfirmed user permission (if possible) would in my opinion be sensible, but I am unsure if admins can specifically do this. Semi-protection has helped in Grand Mufti but it has moved the problem to the talk page with disruptive edit requests.Djm-leighpark (talk) 04:36, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Comment Admin should understand that editors at Islamic pages are generally belonging to one school or other. Some may be good in editing some may not. Taking strict action should be avoided. Semi-page protection in case of page disruption is suggested. In case of user KhanQadriRazvi it is suggested he may be warned only. I found some of his contributions really helpful though he found it difficult to add reliable sources to Sufi Sunni Barelvi related articles. The reason is very clear most of Sufi Sunni or Barelvi or Deobandi scholars are rarely covered in mainstream media or reliable sources. The scholars who have millions of followers and number of books to their account get little or no space in English sources specially in India and up-to some extent in south Asia. Most of the Urdu/Bengali/Hindi sources are not online. These are some of specific reasons that many times articles are even deleted due to lack of notability and users/editors are at receiving end. ScholarM (talk) 09:25, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

The warning needs to occur. Perhaps early intervention with advice like JBW gave recently: "I see that you have made a number of attempts to create articles, either directly or via drafts, but that again and again you have met with problems, with the pages being deleted or nominated for deletion. I am sure that must be frustrating, so I thought it might be helpful to offer you some advice on how to get established as an editor. ..... My advice to new editors is that it is best to start by making small improvements to existing articles, rather than creating new articles. That way any mistakes you make will be small ones, and you won't have the discouraging experience of repeatedly seeing hours of work deleted. Gradually, you will get to learn how Wikipedia works, and after a while you will know enough about what is acceptable to be able to write whole new articles without fear that they will be deleted. Over the years I have found that editors who start by making small changes to existing articles and work up from there have a far better chance of having a successful time here than those who jump right into creating new articles from the start." might have helped, but KhanQadriRazvi typically seems to adapt advice given and cause pain ... the example I typically think of is the copyvio deleted article which was up for WP:AFD and I said give me precisely your THREE best sources (or WP:RS) to analyse as I was only prepared to look at the top three. They provided eight bare URLs. Maybe one of the first three might have stood WP:RS scrutiny; though a couple of those towards the end of the list looked possible. In the end a copyvio copy/paste blew the whole thing away on a CSD (though because of the knowledge level of licensing/attribution needed to spot/analyze the problem it could be argued reasonably this was a good faith copyvio, but if you copy/paste stuff in you really needs to know this). Some admins have actually been giving advice but it probably has reach the point where an independent admin needs to get an agreement with KhanQadriRazvi to stop attaining WP:XC through problematic editing; possibly via a voluntary WP:TBAN.Djm-leighpark (talk) 21:52, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Netholic and haunting-related disruption

Netoholic (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is behaving disruptively with regards to Talk:List of reportedly haunted locations#Requested move 1 June 2020, both bludgeoning the RM proposal with tendentious, circular argumentation (mostly focused on wikilawyering about Netoholic's idiosyncratic interpretation of WP:FRINGE and MOS:WTW and WP:NDESC), and attempting to censor posts on other talk pages. The gist is that Netoholic is convinced that the article must be moved to "List of haunted places" (or something very close to that), with a claim in Wikipedia's own voice that they are haunted. The RM clearly already WP:SNOWBALLed against that idea before I even arrived to comment there (though exactly what the title should be is still open to some question - "reported", "purported", "alleged", etc.).

• See this firehose of "proof by verbosity" posts to the RM, arguing with everyone Netoholic can (though singling me out in particular even after I raised WP:BLUDGEON and tried to disengage from Netoholic): [118], [119], [120], [121], [122], [123], [124], [125], [126], [127], [128], [129], [130] (minor edits elided).
• Netoholic is not making a consistent, cogent argument throughout, but veers between various policy/guideline principles depending on who N. is arguing with. The goal appears to be shotgunning every argument that comes to mind as long as N. gets what N. wants.
• WP:ICANTHEARYOU: Multiple editors have clearly objected about how off-base the personal reinterpretation of WP:FRINGE and MOS:WTW by Netoholic are (LuckyLouie: [131]; me: [132], [133]). Yet Netoholic keeps citing the loose WTW guideline (sometimes at different shortcuts) [134] as if it is an ironclad policy, e.g.: "Still standing by FRINGE as an argument to violate MOS:WTW#Expressions of doubt?" [135] We all know that WTW is words to watch (i.e., to rarely use, only carefully and sparingly, for good reason), not "words that are banned from Wikipedia". Netoholic posted this after this was explained to them [136]. If it's not what N. wants to hear, it just doesn't sink in.
• I repeatedly warned of WP:BLUDGEON, and attempted explicitly to exit the discussion [137],[138], but Netoholic engaged in WP:WINNING-flavored baiting [139], and then pursued me to my talk page [140], [141], [142], where Netoholic seems unwilling to take no for an answer and has been making repeated demands for the same thing over and over.
• When Netoholic didn't get the demanded action from me (for me to self-revert my proposal [143] at WT:MOSWTW to revise the relevant section of the guideline to be clearer, in direct response to the FUD being sown in this RM), N. decided to just go censor me, and to try to dictate how and where I may post [144]. N.'s rationale for this nonsense is that I "poisoned the well" of the RM or of N.'s notice about it. But the RM was already clearly not going to proceed in the direction N. wants, and I entirely accurately described it in my preamble to the revision proposal: "this discussion is relying on MOS:ALLEGED to suggest that WP cannot cast doubt on WP:FRINGE topics with terms like "reportedly" or "purportedly", and that is obviously not the intent of this guideline." And I explained this all to N. very clearly [145].
• I restored my post [146], and warned Netoholic not censor it again [147] or I would ask ANI for a topic ban. N. did it again anyway (even with a repeated edit summary, as if talking to a child or an idiot) [148]. So here we are. Netoholic did not respond at N.'s talk page or mine, just decided to editwar against WP:TPO in pursuit of whatever weird WP:GREATWRONGS / WP:BATTLEGROUND thing this is for N.
• Before this escalated to this point, I also notified WT:FRINGE and WT:MOS of the RM (in just "please see this relevant discussion" terms), and also raised the BLUDGEON and FRINGE-PoV problem at WP:FTN, in a pre-existing thread (Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#List of reportedly haunted locations) but at this point ANI seems more appropriate, and I'll direct the FTN thread to this one. NB: Another editor there, Roxy the dog, appears to indicate the bludgeoning effect was strong enough for that editor to just abandon the discussion without commenting.

I think a topic ban, from something like "hauntings and ghosts" and from MOS:WTW is appropriate for some meaningful span of time. I have no idea whether this behavior is motivated out of a sincere belief in ghosts and in a "duty" of WP to treat them as real, or some kind of obsessive wikilawyering and argument-for-sport habit, or what. I just know that it's disruptive and that it appears to be confined to this particular topic (that said, I have not gone diff-digging for broader behavior patterns).
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:22, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the removing of the word reportedly when we have WP:RS showing the existance of ghosts at that location, or those locations. -Roxy the elfin dog . wooF 15:39, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

I see healthy debate on a talk page involving an open discussion about page moves. Just because you can't get the last overly verbose word in for once doesn't make his behavior disruptive. You've had your input, now walk away and let a closer determine consensus. oknazevad (talk) 15:44, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

This isn't about the content decision being discussed in the RM, it's about edit-warring to delete other people's posts, and bludgeoning a discussion with WP:IDHT, then pushing the matter to the user-talk page of an "opponent" after that party already did walk away, and badgering them there with three posts of the same demand (two after an answer was already given).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:53, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• The pot is really calling the kettle black here. Calidum 16:23, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

This got very heated and whilst no one should edit war to remove another users comments there were also counter accusations of canvasing. I am not going to judge the rights and wrongs just to say this should be closed and maybe a few quite words had.Slatersteven (talk) 16:34, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Quite a few words, a few quiet words, or quite a few quiet words? Johnbod (talk) 16:40, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Sorry Quiet Words.Slatersteven (talk) 16:45, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Which ones? -Roxy the elfin dog . wooF 16:46, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

That would be up to the admin who utters them.Slatersteven (talk) 16:48, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

The heat is on one side though. I was deliberative, factual, avoidant of escalation or circularity, trusting that neutral notices to relevant pages like WT:MOS and WT:FRINGE will draw any necessary attention to the RM content matter, proposing guideline clarification on the guideline's talk page (the proper venue for that), and drawing WP:FTN noticeboard attention to the disruptive aspects of what's been going on at the RM discussion (without even naming a name, just pointing to a circumstance that needed some intervention). Netoholic, by contrast, has been posting sarky baiting messages after I've made it clear I don't want to continue the discussion, has IDHT-style browbeaten people at the RM who have a different viewpoint, then badgered me in repetitive fashion on my talk page, tried to censor my guideline clarification proposal, and done it again after a warning.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:22, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• "See this firehose of "proof by verbosity" posts to the RM, arguing with everyone Netoholic can" (SMcCandlish, above). Well, I looked at the RM expecting to see an editor arguing with everyone in sight, and it has 18 !votes or comments by other editors - of with Netoholic has replied directly to four, and become involved in a discussion on a fifth. Apart from the nom, Netoholic has made eleven comments in that section. And the filer of this report, SMcCandlish, has made ... eleven as well. So IMO if Netoholic is "bludgeoning the discussion", then so is SMcCandlish. The spat at WTW was just that - a silly spat which wasn't needed. But the majority of this report involving the RM is spurious and can be closed with no action. Black Kite (talk) 17:13, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  Nah. Netoholic has been serially challenging everyone who disagrees with him; that he hadn't yet gotten to all of them by the time we ended up here is a good thing, not evidence in support of his behavior. (And of course N. won't pick arguments with those who agree with him; your counting up of stuff isn't on-point). By contrast, I have mostly been responding to pings to bring me back to the thread, and to direct questions asked of me, and also chatted in a jokey subthread about ghosts of reporters. That's not WP:BLUDGEON or anything like it. You actually have to look at the posts and their context and content.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:08, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  • It's obvious that both this discussion and the RM are haunted and thus outside the scope of Wikipedia, please stop before it spreads to the general text, Commons, and who the hell knows from there. Poking at and playing with the forces of non-nature seldom works out (although Mrs. Muir didn't do too bad). Randy Kryn (talk) 19:23, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

    Aaaiiieee! a wikigeist!  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:40, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• There was no good reason to edit war to remove SMcC's comment. If it was inappropriate, go to the appropriate venue and leave a note in the discussion it concerns. That said, the rest of this is a content dispute. The only thing actually concerning here is the idea that anyone thinks it's ok to use Wikipedia's voice to say that a place is haunted. Seriously? But I'll go and make that case elsewhere. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:30, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• The firehose of "proof by verbosity" are mostly valid points that a reasonable editor would take on board and discuss. Do we really need to assume the readers are so stupid it is necessary to say "reportedly haunted". I don't know the answer but it's worth talking about. The inability of the group wielding the WP:FRINGE hammer to see any other perspective can be trying at times. fiveby(zero) 20:31, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
  • engaging with "the group wielding following the most fundamental aspects of the WP:FRINGE hammer content guideline" can indeed be trying when arguing to use Wikipedia's voice to legitimate fringe theories contrary to that guideline. It's uncontroversial that there are people who believe haunting is Real and True, and countless TV shows, etc. dedicated to promoting that perspective. So we don't need to assume anything to understand that it's WP:FRINGE 101 stuff. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:09, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

    Indeed. At least two cable TV networks that used to mostly produce educational and fact-based material have for about 15 years or so been engaging in almost propagandistic levels of programming devoted to fringe nonsense, especially ghosts and "ancient aliens". And it works. I know an otherwise scientifically minded elementary-school teacher who has become convinced by them that ghosts are real and common. It reminds me of actual belief in the kayfabe roleplay of professional wrestling; of the "alternative facts" echo chambers of far-right media; of anti-vaxers and other conspiracy theorists; and of the self-evident nonsense that people buy in supermarket tabloids like Weekly World News and National Enquirer. The less reasonable it is, the more it appeals to a certain subset of people who kind of revel in wallowing in entertaining falsehoods that allow them to identify with and feel they're part of a special group.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:40, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Like BlackKite, I was expecting to open that page and see the types of walls of text the complainant is renowned for. What I saw in reality was a fairly normal RM where the proposer challenges a few opponents. As a semi-regular RM closer, it wasn't anything out of the ordinary, and I'm pretty sure I've made more challenges than that during RMs. I honestly don't know what action is expected here, so I would suggest this is hatted and we all move on to more important things. Number 57 21:57, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

  That's fine. It's been my experience that virtually every time I raise concerns about an editor's behavior for the first time at ANI, no action is taken (unless it's a recent account that is an obvious troll or PoV-pushing SPA). What happens after that: either the behavior in question quietly changes so that the problem goes away (the best outcome), or the editor in question feels immune to consequences, so doubles-down and escalates the behavior, then community action is later taken when someone else reports the continued behavior pattern to ANI, another noticeboard, AE, or ArbCom, with my earlier ANI used as evidence. Either way, it gets resolved in the long run.

  To be clear, I said nothing about the length of Netoholic's posts; the concern was the "Bible-thumping" and WP:IDHT style of them, browbeating other editors with a personal reinterpretation of WTW, a guideline which does not (and could not possibly) mean what N. thinks it means, treating that personal vision of WTW like an inviolable policy, plus snide baiting to escalate when people try to disengage.
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:40, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• This looks like a content dispute, and it should be kept that way. MiasmaEternal^TALK 23:30, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - I just looked at the block log of User:Netoholic. Sometimes one should learn from fifteen years ago. There may be a longer block log, but I haven't seen it. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:24, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

  Yeah, I wasn't going to raise that, since none of the blocks are within the last year.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:29, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

  The great majority of those were a very long time ago, and a number of the early ones were quickly contested and overturned. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:41, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Backlog at AIV

Some reports there for over 5 hours. Thanks, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:15, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

User:LeoRussoLeo

LeoRussoLeo (talk · contribs) has been involved in a (until now) very civil content dispute at Cavoodle, but on not being happy with the discussion has resorted to vandalising a number of pages I have written:

• Poitevin hound – diff
• Perdigueiro Galego – diff
• Hunting the clean boot – diff
• Leyland Beaver-Eel – diff

I request that an administrator intervene. Cavalryman (talk) 06:41, 4 June 2020 (UTC).

Moved from Ongoing Vandalism Cavalryman

I would like to request assistance with ongoing vandalism to the 'Cavoodle' page by Cavalryman. I have asked the user to stop multiple times and they are yet to do so.

They claim to be fixing things but remove most of the page because it doesn't meet their requirements . They go on to put information from their own sources which I feel hold less weight than what was there.

On the 27th of May, the user removed the page completely by placing a redirect on it.

I understand that this user thinks they are doing a service but those from the Cavoodle community are upset that the Cavoodle page is being ruined.

LeoRussoLeo (talk) 08:17, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@LeoRussoLeo: I suggest you read through Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. After that, you can engage in dispute resolution to resolve whatever content-related issues are bothering you. If the "Cavoodle community" doesn't like how English Wikipedia works, they can use some other website. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 09:21, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

SpaceRoverX

Can someone have a look at this "newbie"? They're on a crusade, removing lots of info with misleading edit-summaries. Especially this edit is striking; but also edits like this, removing info on steppe ancestry in China (also typical that a newbie knows what a TOC is), and this edit, removing info on R1a in the Xiongnu, ancestors of the Mongols/Turks. Thanks, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 08:50, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Joshua's accusation is misleading as he ignores my positive contributions, how I have added links and sources, as well as corrected spelling and punctuation. And as a sidenote, the Xiongnu are not the ancestors of the Mongols. The Xianbei are. It is debated whether the Xiongnu are ancestors of the Turks too. If Joshua mixes up basic facts, then I am not sure how qualified he is to criticize others on these topics. Also it seems haplogroup R's father originally came from East Asia and is very closely related to the haplogroup O of Han Chinese (both descend from K). That seems to make R a descendant of Han Chinese males, which is quite ironic.SpaceRoverX (talk) 09:49, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

MOS DATE violations

McGod1911 keeps changing dates to add commas to dmy dates (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Turnbull&diff=next&oldid=954427917&diffmode=source), in violation of MOS:DATE. Looking at their contribution lists, this is the only things they've done on the encyclopedia. They have 9 warnings for this, asking them to stop and adhere to MOS:DATE, but they continue making these edits, and not responding. Clear WP:NOTLISTENING issue, please could an admin block them- my suggestion would be temporarily, to try and get them to talk. Joseph2302 (talk) 10:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Block. They've been told the same thing, by multiple editors, for the last three months. A block will at least get their attention—note they've never even used their talk page—and I'm not sure I'd even argue against a CIR indef. ——Serial ^# 11:25, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I've given them a final warning - one more incorrect date edit from them and I'll block them (or any other admin can do it). I haven't blocked yet simply because I really think they need to be given fair chance to have their right of reply first. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:31, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: Uh-uh: their 11th right to reply. ——Serial ^# 18:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Looks suspiciously similar to Bowtiebandit's contributions. The same kind of edits with the same edit summaries. – ².O.^Boxing 15:51, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@Squared.Circle.Boxing: I agree. SPI filed, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Bowtiebandit. --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 17:13, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Central line

I made a very simple edit to Central line disambiguation page just to correct a misinformation about the type of a railway from fright to passenger, but user:Britmax reverted my edit on ground of "unexplained change". I reverted him and noted that the original text contradicates the information written in the railway article. Then s/he reverted me again stating "please find the source from the other article as otherwise you are using Wikipedia as its own source". I don't want to engage in 3RR and demand some sort of mediation from a third party. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 12:40, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

They were poor reverts - the information was easily verifiable from a quick Google search.[149] I've reinstate the change. Number 57 12:57, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

If the original changes were that easy to verify the original poster should have done it, and should learn to leave an Edit summary to say what they have done. Otherwise we have an unexplained change that requires me to do someone else's homework. Britmax (talk) 14:15, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Reverting is the least helpful response possible though. I regularly see IPs and editors making unexplained changes, but rather than blindly revert a possibly good edit, I take the time to see whether it's correct or not. Number 57 14:19, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Harassment, on and off Wikipedia, by User:89.159.44.130

Can someone please have a word with User:89.159.44.130? He or she is posting harassing messages on my User Talk page. This morning, I also received a harassing e-mail message - sent to my work account, sent to one of my personal accounts, and copied to others at my employer and Wikimedia staff - presumably from the same person. He or she is also using 37.165.33.241 so a CU may be illuminating although the harassment is not (yet) so widespread and persistent that I suspect a sophisticated operation. This same editor also posted similar harassment on Dawnseeker2000's User Talk page, too. ElKevbo (talk) 13:54, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@ ElKevbo Please stop to lie and stop to abuse your moderator power on Wikipedia. What you are saying is UNTRUE. You are removing content unfairly while keeping similar pages and content. Can you post the email you talk about here so that everyone can read? It is simply a complaint against your autocratic behaviors on Wikipedia, no more no less. You are damaging the popularity of Wikipedia by your autocratic behavior. Wikipedia is popular because it is open and transparent. Do not damage it with your personal ego. If you continue to remove contents, I will stop to use Wikipedia and to promote it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.159.44.130 (talk) 14:06, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@ElKevbo: - this not not "harassment". Do you have any other diffs which show behaviour from the IP what requires administrator intervention? Please also note that CUs will not link IP addresses. GiantSnowman 14:18, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman: Are you seriously saying that multiple messages posted to my User Talk page accusing me of lying and abusing my "moderator power" - posted using multiple IP addresses including one message posted after I deleted the previous one - is not harassment? Are you really telling all of us that an editor looking up another editor's personal and work e-mail addresses - not using Wikipedia's built-in e-mail function - and sending that editor, his employer, and Wikimedia staff the same kind of message as he or she wrote above is not harassment? If that is your stance then you need to resign your admin bit; harassment of Wikipedia editors is a serious problem and if you can't help address the problem then you can at least not dissuade others from trying to address and stop gaslighting editors who are being harassed. ElKevbo (talk) 14:50, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@ElKevbo: The opening remark from the IP was "Why are you removing referenced contents from Wikipedia?" - the dispute then escalated because you did not respond to that reasonable comment, but stuck your fingers in your ears, getting them annoyed. Can you provide me with a diff of the dispute so I can understand what's going on? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:53, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Ritchie333, sorry but I don't see any point here where the IP first made a "reasonable comment" and then ElKevbo failed to respond. I'm also not seeing any "escalation" afterwards. The only thing I'm seeing is the IP – evidently some kind of COI/fringe-pusher – coming to ElKevbo straight away with guns blazing, with a stream of wild, personalizing accusations. And whether or not you find that first message over the top enough to count as harassment, the mails to off-wiki third parties are clearly far beyond the pale. This needs an immediate block. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:34, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know; they haven't provided any specific details and the messages to my User Talk page and the e-mail message was the first time that I heard from him or her. Maybe it's related to this article but I don't know. He or she does appear to be editing solely to promote one specific author/researcher and many of those edits have been removed by multiple editors so I have no idea why he or she has decided to target me with wild, vague accusations. I did specifically ask if he or she is connected to that author/researcher but he or she has not responded to that question. ElKevbo (talk) 15:19, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@ElKevbo: You posted one diff - now you complain about multiple messages. Like Ritchie asks for, we need evidence. GiantSnowman 15:29, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

There are two links in my original message and you also have ready access to the contribution history of both IP addresses which are rather short. And if you don't see the messages I've shared - they're similar in tone and comment to the ridiculous message posted above by this editor - as harassing then you need to reevaluate your standards about what you think is acceptable for Wikipedia editors to write about and accuse one another of doing and being. ElKevbo (talk) 15:34, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Comment, for those with OTRS access, please see ticket:2020060410005699. This appears to be relevant. ~~ Alex Noble/1-2/TRB 15:13, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• I'm disengaging from this thread and removing ANI from my watchlist; please post a message at my User Talk page if you need anything else from me. If the information that has already been shared doesn't convince you that there is a problem here then I can't convince you. It shouldn't be acceptable for editors to make the accusations that have been made, post multiple messages to User Talk pages making these accusations, and e-mail editors and their employer to repeat the same accusations; if administrators can't understand that then I'm afraid that this volunteer-run project is in deep trouble. ElKevbo (talk) 15:39, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
• For Christ's sake, ElKevbo is a long-established and respected editor. If he says emails were sent to his employer, we can believe him, and that's harassment for sure. If he needs to submit evidence to OTRS or whatever, I guess so, but this committed skepticism is uncalled for. EEng 15:51, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

  EEng, yes, we should take claims like that at face value from established editors. The lack of any actual detail of what the dispute might be doesn't obscure that fact. On the face of it, this is a disgruntled refspammer. I am minded to prevent this bullshit wiuth an edit filter for now. What do others think? Guy (help!) 15:57, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

  I'd like to add my little voice to EENg and JzG. astonishing. -Roxy the elfin dog . wooF 15:59, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

  Especially since the IP admitted the emails were sent... Argento Surfer (talk) 16:39, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• (ec) If people want to check on the original editorial dispute, see the last two dozen article edits by 89.159.44.130. The IP keeps on posting mentions of a scholar named Khaled Moustafa to a variety of different articles. He also wants to promote a new Arabic-language preprint server called arabixiv.org, created by Khaled Moustafa. The IP user has protested indignantly against recent admin actions at User talk:89.159.44.130, in threads like 'Stop to abuse of your moderator position'. EdJohnston (talk) 16:32, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• Meanwhile, Future Perfect at Sunrise has blocked the IP in question, and I agree with this action. De728631 (talk) 16:50, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

<hat type="OTRS">

Per Alex Noble's link above, I confirm ElKevbo's story: there was an email sent to info@wikimedia.org, legal@wikimedia.org, business@wikimedia.org, donate@wikimedia.org, email addresses that appear to be ElKevbo's personal and work emails, and an email address that appears to belong to his employer. The email complained about ElKevbo's "autocratic" actions, stated that "a lot of people are complaining about [it]," and threatened to stop donating to Wikipedia, among other statements, and was generally similar in tone and content to the IP's post here and on ElKevbo's talk page. No further confirmation from ElKevbo should be necessary.

</hat> creffett (talk) 17:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Creffett, I think there's a "FOAD" template for that on OTRS. Guy (help!) 22:19, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Khaled Moustafa

The IP in question is essentially a WP:SPA devoted to adding articles and content related to Khaled Moustafa. This appears to have been going on sporadically since 2014, all from IPs allocated to SFR (mainly through its Numericable / Gaoland acquisition).

• 89.159.44.130 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 85.170.247.202 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 93.21.220.79 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 37.165.33.241 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

Not cool. Guy (help!) 16:15, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Not cool indeed. An edit filter like you suggested above would be cool though. De728631 (talk) 16:50, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

In Impact factor the reference removed as "spam"[150] was added as one of two sources for the sentence before it; it was not just added as a reference with no content - both were published in Science and Engineering Ethics. Based on Special:Contributions/Corio, if one of the references is spam it's more likely the one that's still in the article. Peter James (talk) 20:21, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Peter James, that journal rings a bell. It's also where Brian Martin (social scientist) published his diatribe about how biased Wikipedia is because it is less glowing about him than about all the other social scientists who don't have a history of publishing or enabling anti-vaccine conspiracist bullshit.

I am beginning to wonder whether it functions as the axe-grinders' journal of choice? Guy (help!) 21:59, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support sanction. Posting confrontational notices on El Kevbo's talk page is one thing. Reseaching their real-life identity and sending a message to their employer is altogether different and totally, totally unacceptable. The subject user has admitted sending such a message. This kind of conduct is chilling and needs to be met with a strong sanction, preferably a block, IMO. Cbl62 (talk) 22:41, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I think a block would be lenient. Off-wiki harassment that includes emailing an editor's employer (potentially compromising their job) should result in a community ban IMO. Number 57 22:46, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

  Cbl62, sod blocks, that's siteban material. Guy (help!) 22:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• Site ban sounds good. My message was meant to express outrage at the extraordinary off wiki harassment presented here. Cbl62 (talk) 23:06, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

The obvious...

The anonymous SFR user promoting Khaled Moustafa is indefinitely banned for harassment.

1. Support. Guy (help!) 22:49, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
2. Hear, hear –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 23:01, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
3. Support. Cbl62 (talk) 23:03, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Arsi786

I have been watching editing of Arsi786 for sometime and there are issues that should be addressed because warnings have certainly not worked.

Problems include misrepresentation of sources,[151] edit warring,[152][153] removal of sourced content without providing edit summaries,[154] unexplained POV changes,[155] and extraordinarily outrageous edits like this.

Shashank5988 (talk) 16:33, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• I have suppressed the last of those, as it accused the subject of a serious crime without evidence; adding that is almost sanction-worthy in and of itself. I do not have the time to investigate the other issues. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:16, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

The edits warring have been dealt with and the madudi one was not a edit warring as I stopped. Arsi786 (talk) 19:36, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

File:Arunachalamp.jpg

Survived mass deletion of Category:Wikipedia files with unknown copyright status as of 15 May 2020. Deletion bug? please check. Thanks! -- CptViraj (talk) 16:57, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• I have deleted it. No idea why it had been left there for a week. De728631 (talk) 17:03, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Devourcomm

Devourcomm has been making disruptive, unsourced and questionable edits (like changing dates and calorie count without any explanation) in a number of articles, marking all of them as minor. The user ignores all warnings and requests on their talk page, including a final warning. It is not entirely clear whether it's vandalism or just chronic disruptive editing and a strong case of WP:CIR and WP:ICANTHEARYOU, but I think that edits like [156], [157], [158], [159], [160], [161], [162], [163] etc. strongly suggest that this is almost certainly silly vandalism by a user who is just deliberately trolling for fun. But in either case, I think an indefinite block is the only option.—J. M. (talk) 18:42, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support block: this user is either not here to build an encyclopedia and just a troll, or if they are, they're not competent enough to build one. -- Rockstone^{[Send me a message!]} 18:55, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• This is just a garden variety vandalism account. Blocked indef. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:05, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Thank you Floq! -- Rockstone^{[Send me a message!]} 19:58, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

LegacyVisual and a medly of issues

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

I am reporting this here as I am involved; I had hoped to not have to. The gist of the issue: LegacyVisual is an ethnic/religious POV pusher with a healthy dose of WP:IDHT and WP:CIR. I first interacted last week when I answered a help request. The focus of their ire lies with the majority Muslim Tigre people of Eritrea, whom they think are being whitewashed by a concerted conspiracy of Wikipedians, see this rambling NOTFORUM screed. I tried to be helpful, and went out of my way to find some sources and correct info about the Tigre people, and to explain things to LegacyVisual. They either didn't answer my questions, heed what I said, or simply replied with more rambling political screeds, see this whole section. They have taken a very dim view of reliable sources, they may have been initially editing as an IP adding copyright vios [164], and as seen here they don't seem to care about reliable sources, and are incapable of listening. Last night I asked them to discuss issues with me in several different ways, but they have ignored me, and today gone on a spree of unfactual WP:RGW edits: [165], [166], [167], [168]. I tried to be overwhelmingly helpful and get them to edit productively, but alas they seem to be WP:NOTHERE. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:43, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

This narrative isn’t new. I have followed a trail of evidence on the Tigre people and other Muslim inhabitants indigenous to Eritrea, using trusted sources written by academics and scholars of history. This user has struggled to remain open to sources and made several personal attacks. User also exploited their platform by falsifying the origins and history of all Muslim Eritreans even when reliable references were used causing interruptions and rejecting written journals by academics backing our historical findings. User went on to deny Muslim existence and combined all Eritrean Diaspora into one ethnic group when they understand that we are not a monolithic set of people (which they denied at first but then fixed after a huge amount of persistence) Sharing knowledge should not be this difficult.

User only accepted ‘cia sources’ based in Eritrea (which by the checked and they don’t exist and are ‘Not found’) and are testament to the fact that they’re imposing only their political ideology and nothing else.

I tried show casing the diversity that has existed in Eritrea over the centuries because of its very strategic location on the Red Sea which again deleted many times by users denying all non cia materials even when written by trusted sources. Users continued being problematic and replicating their ideology using other accounts and references that simply don’t exist.

Another thing, user seems to have a history of making Islamophobic edits from different accounts, making sweeping opinions on the ‘Tigurat’ page which I fixed. Frequently reducing/changing population of Muslims from all demographics even when appropriate citations are used

Furthermore, included edits that suggested Tigre group were converted forcibly and were formerly Tigruat (another word for Tigrayan) the two groups are not analogous, and it is deeply ignorant to pretend not to mention patronising, to pretend otherwise or to try and impose a tigrai-centric view of history on Muslim majority groups inhabitants in Eritrea and elsewhere in the region not to mention the population number regularly changing with unexplained data, references and citations that don’t exist, while leaving Tigrayan to be untouched, clearly editing with an agenda. Forcibly imposing dishonest and offensive ideology causes more harm than you think, please stop. Seems to me that you want as little as Muslims as possible and your edits are a testament. Why should we subscribe to your opinions and ideology of things, what kind of chose is that? How about you start using reliable sources for your edits? And accept help. Your edits/statements are dangerous and will invoke divisions, doing immeasurable harm to the Muslim communities. All I’ve done is be clear in assertion and fixing any mythology that is being propagated you and your marauding group. LegacyVisual (talk) 21:28, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@LegacyVisual: Please indent your posts using :s. Provide WP:DIFFs for evidence when you make claims about other users. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:39, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

CaptainEek, I've started with a 1 week partial block from mainspace. LegacyVisual is clearly frustrated, but the edits are often are badly sourced, unsourced, WP:OR or some combination. Maybe explaining on Talk first will help the penny to drop. Guy (help!) 22:18, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: No offense, but I highly doubt that. I'm usually the first to WP:AGF, but I just don't believe this is anything but WP:NOTHERE. This and this can give you a hint for what to expect when this user decides to utilize a talk page. LV just simply does not care for what a source actually says in making edits to Wikipedia.^{[169][170][171]} –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 22:32, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

MJL, I feel my block should contain the disclaimer "may contain WP:ROPE"... Guy (help!) 22:42, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: Sounds good with me. I'm always perfectly fine with giving more rope out! –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 22:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Smallpox

Hi, I would appreciate an uninvolved admin to intervene here please. Thanks. Graham Beards (talk) 20:40, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

One confirmed user vandalising minority language page.

Hi, I want to raise a complaint. About this page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylheti_Nagri

Syloti Nagri or Sylheti is a language of minority community in Bangladesh, India and UK. Why only one confirmed user "Username" dominating the page, who hate the language, call it a dialect in several edits and doing whatever he wants. Discouraging all other contributors.

Only handful of community users use this script, known to them as "Syloti Nagri" who is trying to reintroduce the script. But this user who know nothing about the community dominating the page.

Please have a look at the name Syloti Nagri in our small community and resources and correct the spelling in the page name.

Syloti Nagri not Sylheti Nagri.

---

Community: https://sylhetilanguage.com/ https://www.endangeredalphabets.net/alphabets/syloti-nagri/ https://sylotinagri.com/ https://omniglot.com/writing/syloti.htm http://sylotilanguage.com/

International: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.text.unicode.unicoderanges.sylotinagri?view=netcore-3.1 https://www.google.com/get/noto/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Coilsspit (talk • contribs) 23:50, 4 June 2020 (UTC)