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Close review requested in AP / BLP article

I am requesting a close review of a recent RfC at Hunter Biden laptop controversy. The RfC is here.

The closer refers to having counted !votes and does not indicate that they fully considered the participants’ supporting arguments and concerns or whether there is a valid consensus in the poll. The close does not appear to have fully addressed the significant BLP and sourcing issues, the level of consensus required to change the status quo text, and the discussion of the content of the sources cited in the discussion. Several such issues were raised by the participants who posted more than brief “yes” or “no” responses to support their !votes with reasoning that went beyond merely counting the number of source citations.

The closing text is brief in light of the complexity and controversy raised by the RfC question. After the close, some editors interpreted the result as having decided only the RfC question as stated -- whether to use the word “alleged”. Others cited the close of the RfC as a basis to oppose broader wording that was consistent with the close and not synonymous with “alleged”. Such an interpretation was beyond the scope of the RfC statement discussion, and the !vote arguments and policy issues that might support such an alternative interpretation were not addressed in the closing statement. SPECIFICO talk 13:47, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Comments from uninvolved editors (Laptop controversy)

• This needs to be re-closed by an uninvolved admin/editor experienced in closure, I think. The fact that it was closed by someone who on their talk page describes themselves as a fundamentalist evangelist Christian is one thing, but the fact that poor rationales do not appear to have been discounted (GoodDay's is meaningless and Madame Necker's is simply an opinion about the whole affair; we'll ignore the fact that MN is a new account who has already racked up five different DS notices on their talk page). Black Kite (talk) 14:05, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  Your comment about the closer's stated religious beliefs does not seem appropriate or relevant. I think it is possible to evaluate the close without making it personal. Mr Ernie (talk) 14:22, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah that's pretty messed up BK. The quote on the userpage is "I am a very fundamentalist (in the historic sense of the term) Christian evangelical." What does that have to do with Hunter Biden's laptop? I assume you're suggesting that because many (most?) Christian evangelical voters vote Republican, therefore a Christian evangelical has some kind of bias or COI that should prevent them from closing an RfC about some AP2 political issue? Does your logic apply to closers who have the atheist userbox on their userpage? Because atheists tend to vote Democrat, does that also disqualify them? By this logic, nobody would be able to close anything in AP2. I'm quite shocked to see the suggestion that a closer's religious beliefs are a reason to revert their close, especially when it's a non-religious topic. I think you should strike that. Levivich (talk) 18:17, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  If somebody described themselves as a fundamentalist Muslim I dont think they would be wise to close RFCs in the ARBPIA topic area. nableezy - 18:28, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  fundamentalist (in the historic sense of the term) is not the same as fundamentalist in the modern sense of the term (our article Fundamentalism explains the difference), and we welcome Muslim and Jewish editors in ARBPIA without question, as we should. It doesn't matter if they're Orthodox Jews or reform Jews, just as it doesn't matter what branch of Islam. Same with Hindus and Muslims in IPA, etc. etc. Levivich (talk) 18:36, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  I dont really see what your complaint is with what I wrote, I didnt say somebody who identifies as a fundamentalist Muslim shouldnt edit in the topic area, they should of course be welcomed like any other editor, but rather they wouldnt be wise to close RFCs in the topic area, given that people may question their objectivity. And that would be totally reasonably to do imo. nableezy - 19:01, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  At my RfA, some editors expressed concerns that if we legitimized a categorical criticism of editors' fitness to do a particular thing based on their political affiliations, we would effectively be saying the same about religious affiliations. I disagreed with that concern because, well, political and religious affiliations are different things. For one thing, the former is much more a choice than the latter (although ultimately both are choices to a degree). For another, perhaps more importatly, the former is much more directly tied to events "of this world". One cannot infer how someone votes from their religion. One cannot infer what they think of gay people, or abortion, or drinking alcohol, or whether Hunter Biden owned that laptop. Maybe one could reasonably infer some of these from a more detailed exposition of someone's religious views or their membership in a very niche religious group, but not just from I am a very fundamentalist (in the historic sense of the term) Christian evangelical and some references to core Christian doctrine. I know that in my case, there are many ways my lifestyle and politics differ from what might expect if one knew only my religious views (some of which are quite traditional). One can no more infer my political views from my religious affiliation than from my gender or sexual orientation (and talk about a slippery slope there).

  Point being, if Compassionate indicated a political affiliation on his userpage, this criticism would be fair game (not necessarily correct, but fair game); but saying that religious views disqualify someone from closing a political RfC is a bridge too far, in my opinion.

  To be clear, none of this is a comment on whether the close was correct, just a rebuttal of this particular objection. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 20:26, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  I dont think it is disqualifying, I just dont think it is wise. Im not saying perception is reality, but I dont find it that off base to raise an eyebrow at that declaration. Especially given the close actually does align with the views that one might infer, and that the RFC is already tight on the numbers. And btw, BK didnt actually disqualify the user, faulting the close itself for not weighting certain positions less than they feel appropriate, that being the more important thing in the "is one thing" comparison. nableezy - 21:03, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  I think the implication was clear. The raising of the eyebrow apparently required it being referenced in a statement regarding the judgement of the closer. As someone incredibly skeptical of any religion, it was a shit take. Arkon (talk) 21:12, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  No, sorry, I don't apologise for that at all. This is clearly a very hot-button topic and it should be closed by someone who very obviously doesn't have any baggage over the situation. The closer may be a Biden supporter for all I know but it's the optics that matter, not the actuality. And then there's the closer's comment in the section above, which may lead you in one direction or another. Black Kite (talk) 21:54, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  So Wikipedia should have religious tests for certain actions? And are you implying that leftists can't be religious? Besides being "not appropriate or relevant" as Mr Ernie said, I think it's more a violation of WP:NPA. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 22:11, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  People can keep pretending its a religious test, as though it isnt the fundamentalist part and not the Christian part of it that raises eyebrows, but Sir Joseph would you feel comfortable with a self-identified fundamentalist Muslim closing RFCs in the ARBPIA topic area? Be honest. nableezy - 22:22, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  SJ can speak for himself, but if the closes are policy compliant, the religion of the closer is irrelevant. If some bias affects the close, it can then be handled in review and if a pattern emerges, a ban. But to put the ban before any problems simply based on religious views is obscene and certainly not the Wiki way. Mr Ernie (talk) 22:27, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  Someone who edits in a biased manner, should not be closing things in that area. Religion is really irrelevant. If you have an issue with the close, then cite policy reason, as Black Kite did in the second half, but merely being religious, or fundamental isn't really a valid reason.

  I have an American flag in my profile, does that mean I shouldn't close US related discussions? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 01:13, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Ill restate the question as you appear to have avoided answering it. Would you feel comfortable with a self-identified fundamentalist Muslim closing RFCs in the ARBPIA topic area? Be honest. nableezy - 02:00, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Yes I have no issues with Muslims editing Wikipedia and closing discussions. Mr Ernie (talk) 02:17, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Im not sure why you are either answering for Sir Joseph or why you are answering a different question. nableezy - 02:19, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I want to put to bed this viewpoint that religious beliefs preclude participation in a volunteer encyclopedia project. I wholeheartedly reject that notion. Previously I was certain you were on the same tack. Mr Ernie (talk) 02:25, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Maybe put to bed the ignoring of fundamentalist in that sentence too tho? nableezy - 02:28, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I already answered the question. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 02:34, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  That has no bearing on the RFC close, which is point I’ve been trying to make. If they didn’t have that tag on their user page you wouldn’t have known. Mr Ernie (talk) 02:38, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, thats why you, and SJ for that matter, wont actually answer the question asked. At least El C did, though I very much disagree with him. nableezy - 03:04, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

  What question? Maybe it got lost with the threaded replies, but I have no issue with fundamentalist editors doing anything if compliant with policy. Mr Ernie (talk) 03:20, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

• RE: Would you feel comfortable with a self-identified fundamentalist Muslim closing RFCs in the ARBPIA topic area? — I at least would, though I don't think I've ever encountered one. And I don't really expect to. It seems unlikely that a hardcore religious fundamentalist (which I don't think the closer truly is) would even get to the point of being able to make sound, policy-based closes, though I suppose it's possible, even if not probable. In that sense, it's a bit of a red herring. But in principle, it'd be okay so long as said close conformed to policy and would be well-articulated. Just like it would be okay for a secular Israeli or Palestinian who is an atheist, or an agnostic, a moderate religious Jew or Muslim, and so on. This approach, which is not expressly grounded in policy (quite the contrary) risks users becoming fearful from disclosing their biases or otherwise expressing themselves (appropriately). Which, why should they? El_C 02:47, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah... I voted for Biden; does that mean I should move my !vote to the involved section? :-P Levivich (talk) 01:44, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I didn’t expect you to dig in on this, but since you did, could you give a list of the topics where Christians can’t close discussions? Also, what does being a Christian have to do with Hunter Biden’s laptop? Could a Jew close that discussion? You are now casting aspersions at the closer. Please substantiate your aspersions that they have “baggage” in this topic area. Mr Ernie (talk) 22:16, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  As Nableezy said above, you're concentrating on the religion part, rather than the "fundamentalist" part. If I identified as part of a group that overwhelmingly votes for a particular party in the US, I wouldn't be closing contentious USPOL debates. As also mentioned above, I wouldn't be closing ARBPIA debates if I was Jewish or Muslim either, but that's irrelevant here. Black Kite (talk) 22:37, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  Jews overwhelmingly vote for a particular party in the U.S. As do Black people. As do LGBTQ people. This would be a terrifying precedent to set, barring most minorities from closing AMPOL discussions. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 23:58, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  That's comparing apples and oranges, though, as fundamentalism and politics in the US are inextricably linked. Having said that, I am not saying that declaring a political affiliation, or even just a POV, disbars you from anything, I am simply saying (and this doesn't seem to be getting through, despite the fact I've said it three times now) that when you have a very contentious issue which needs a decision and there may be the possibility that you may be seen as having an interest, it's almost always better to leave it to someone else. Also, to be honest, that discussion really needed an admin, or there was always going to be an issue ... as you can see. Black Kite (talk) 07:05, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  fundamentalism and politics in the US are inextricably linked, and they're not in other countries? Race and politics are inextricably linked in the US, too. Black people in the US overwhelmingly vote Democrat; could a Black person close this RFC or would they also have too much, in your words, "baggage"? when you have a very contentious issue this is not a very contentious issue, it's a run of the mill political squabble. you may be seen as having an interest no, that's so weasel-y. What interest does a Christian evangelical, even a fundamentalist (in the historic sense), have in Hunter Biden's laptop? You're the only person who is claiming a connection between Hunter Biden's laptop and Christian fundamentalism. I have yet to understand the connection between the two. Unless the connection is "they vote Republican" -- if that's what you're talking about, please come out and say it plainly, and then explain why the same logic wouldn't apply to Black people, LGBTQ, and other groups like Tamzin pointed out above. By the way, I'm not even sure if the closer is an American at all. If they're a non-American Christian fundamentalist, do they still have "baggage"? that discussion really needed an admin, or there was always going to be an issue ... as you can see An admin of what religion? and this doesn't seem to be getting through Indeed, because you're arguing that religious affiliation creates a political bias or the appearance of one -- that's offensive, and inaccurate. You're advocating for discriminating against closers based on their religious beliefs -- offensive, morally wrong, and a dangerous precedent. It's really, really bad to suggest that the closer's religion (or race, gender, etc.) be taken into account in a close review. Like really bad. I genuinely hope you take the time to really think about what others have written here, and what you've written here, and the implications of it, and that you come to the conclusion that you were wrong to bring up the closer's religion. Levivich (talk) 13:22, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I am wondering if there was any point writing my previous comment, or the one before that, since it appears that no-one is actually reading them. I'll give up there, I think. Black Kite (talk) 15:19, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  We've read it, but it doesn't actually address any of the problems with your statement. Your comment's disparaging someone's faith (in any way) is an unreasonable and highly inappropriate remark. That it came from an Admin is not encouraging and exhibits a pretty severe bias. The fact that you stand by your remarks...even more concerning. But I suppose that's par for the course... Buffs (talk) 05:28, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

  This really isn’t that contentious anymore. It was 2 years ago, but now, per one of the RS quoted in the RFC, “almost no one” disputes the laptop’s authenticity. Apparently those who do are the editors in that RFC. Mr Ernie (talk) 16:03, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Black Kite, that is awful behaviour. You should retract your borderline personal attack against the closer immediately, not double down, triple down, and quadruple down. Politrukki (talk) 12:34, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• I was actually about to start a closing draft when I saw on my watchlist that it had been closed. My initial reading was that it was too close a call to find any sort of consensus for either option, specially due to the raised NPOV and BLP issues. Isabelle ^{🏴‍☠️} 15:08, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  While I lean on overturning to no consensus due to my own reading of the discussion, I think it's important to note some of the comments on the closer's personal bias here are way out of line. Overturning a close because the editor is from a certain group or minority, without any proof that it affected their close, would set a terrible precedent in precluding editors from closing RfCs in certain areas, as Tamzin mentions above. Isabelle ^🏳‍🌈 01:23, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse. Though numerically the vote was close, with the "No's" being in the majority by only a few votes, I agree the closer properly weighted the votes based on the quality of arguments and application of policy, in particular WP:NPOV. Some editors thought we should use "alleged", other thought not, but then everyone started compiling sources, and as the "no" voters pointed out, the sources were almost unanimous in not using "alleged". WP:NPOV means we summarize those sources--i.e., we don't say alleged because they don't say alleged. The "Yes" voters did not rebut this in any way (e.g., by showing sources predominantly using "alleged"; not just one or two sources; and not from 2 years ago, but current). So, if most editors agree that most sources do not use alleged, then that's consensus to not use alleged. I don't see any error here, it's the proper application of WP:NOTAVOTE. Levivich (talk) 16:04, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
• It doesn't seem like a great close. I'm particularly looking at Some editors asserted that the ownership is still unclear but largely failed to support this with reliable sources, while editors opposing the adjective produced a plethora of recent RS that did not doubt the connection, which simply doesn't line up with the quotes from sources produced in the RfC. There were a few more "no"s than "yes"s, but there were also more inexperienced/new editors saying "no" and more poor arguments on the "no" side (although not by much). The later comment by the closer extending the RfC about "alleged" to apply to qualifying the belonging in any way is an overreach. I'm not saying there was consensus for the "yes" side, either, though. We have sources that appear pretty split on this, in terms of the language they use, and both sides have arguments backed by policy. I suppose I'd be inclined to err on the side of BLP, but that's my own $0.02. Although I don't think anyone would love the idea of a repeat RfC, it might be more effective to provide a set of options for wording and/or do a more thorough analysis of the sourcing apart from the RfC, along with weighting by how recent the sources are. i.e. what is the consensus of sources published since June (arbitrarily)? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:44, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  Are we looking at the same sources? That sounds sarcastic, but I am genuinely seeking clarification, as among the sources cited in the RfC, I count three sources that consistently use language like "alleged" and "purportedly" (all from April or earlier), eleven that pointedly omit such language, and a couple that use "alleged" when describing what earlier sources said about the laptop but omit that language when speaking about it themselves (as well as a couple whose constructions are too ambiguous to confidently parse). Where is the disconnect in what we are perceiving? —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 17:17, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  There is a section, "sources" which lists several bulletpoints. In order of whether they use/describe some qualification of ownership: no, yes [here and elsewhere, there is ownership/verification attributed to the emails, but not the laptop], yes, yes, yes, no, yes, sorta [for the first part, but again regarding emails], no, no, [quote from someone who funded the effort, not the publication], yes [again separating laptop from emails], no, yes [sorta], no [but the sentence isn't about this], yes, yes, [someone "yelling about Hunter Biden's laptop" isn't a statement about authenticity], yes, [doesn't address it], mostly no [attempts to rely on inference from the title]. While it's entirely possible to come to different conclusions about the consensus among those sources, it's hardly one side failing to support their argument and the other producing a plethora of sources. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:52, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  Adding: my evaluation of the close has nothing to do with the closer's userboxes/religion. Yikes, that doesn't seem like good practice. Those arguing that we should overturn on that basis are providing an easy target so people can endorse without addressing the substance of the close (as two of the last three endorsements have). i.e. this "the closer is a fundamentalist Christian and fundamentalist Christians vote a certain way that probably gives them an opinion about this topic ... so optics" line of argumentation isn't just lousy in its own right, but people seem to be focusing on that rather than the problems with the substance of the close (see above). It's weird to me that I'm the only one to flag that the closer declared their closing statement to extend far beyond the actual RfC, for example. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:13, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• Vacate for a more experienced closer to re-close. With US politics, it's not enough that the close is right; it has to be seen to be right, so we leave closes that touch on US politics to the wizened and elderly who enjoy the fullest confidence of the community.—S Marshall T/C 17:22, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
• Probably a WP:BADNAC, but the close is correct anyway. Nearly every comment saying yes is a WP:TRUTH vote, that we dont really know if it is or it isnt. Those votes should be given less weight when there are users providing numerous reliable sources that state as a fact what those users dispute to be a fact without any sources that likewise dispute it. The numbers may say no consensus, but as ever this isnt a vote and the strength of the arguments for "no" were much stronger than those for "yes". Id have closed it as a consensus for no as well. nableezy - 17:42, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  If the only issue is WP:BADNAC, what do you think we should do in light of WP:NACRFC? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:29, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Its a BADNAC because it was a close call, and we leave that to people we've said we trust to make those close calls. nableezy - 03:00, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse close Well thought out and justified through and through. These objections regarding experience or the users religion (really?) are incredibly superficial. Arkon (talk) 17:59, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
• Endorse close. It's a reasonable decision, and it reflects the median point of mainstream news coverage at this time. And if you read the lede of this article as a whole, it contains plenty of indications of how murky this whole saga is and how not every claim about it is credible, so readers will not be misled. And the religion of the closer is irrelevant. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:35, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
• Overturn close, and re-close by uninvolved admin or experienced non-admin closer - per Black Kite and S Marshall. It's the optics that matter here, and a good close by a partisan closer is not acceptable in controversial subjects. Also, the rigamarole over "give me a list of what Christians can't close" is hyperbolic and absurd, a very good indication of why a pristine close is necessary. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:43, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  Are you saying the closer was partisan or was that a hypothetical unrelated to this case? If the former, I would ask you to substantiate the claim. Mr Ernie (talk) 23:25, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  That is not an appropriate line of argument, BMK. What proof do you have of topic area partisanship in the editing history of this closer? If you have no such evidence, then I submit that the close should be judged on its merits. Which is to say, there would need to be some record of problems involving the topic area by the closer — ones that go beyond a declaration of adjacent (?) bias on their user page. And while I agree that optics matter, without evidence of such problems, they only matter with respect to the appearance of the close as being of substance.

  To that: though I haven't read the discussion and I don't know if I'll get a chance to, it does seem a bit insubstantial, though it may well be a correct assessment (or not, I have no idea). Personally, for a subject of this import, I probably would have written twice to four times more if I were to close that RfC myself. So, again, even if correct — optics. That said, I have been criticized on this board in the recent past that my standards for closures of weight are too high. Still, to me, at a glance, the close seems too brief. El_C 00:48, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• Overturn - Many of the sources in the "source" section seem to support "alleged" being included, and many don't. There is sourcing that was presented in the article that supported both sides. So I'm not really seeing the "no" side having such stronger arguments that the discussion should have been closed in the "no" favor despite a near even split among participants. This close was not flat out terrible and I wouldn't say it even arises to the level of unreasonable, but nonetheless, it's best for the close to be done right, and I think the right close would have been no consensus. I don't believe the closer was trying to make a WP:SUPERVOTE, but it can sometimes be hard to balance the line between super vote and strength of arguments. Iamreallygoodatcheckers^t@lk 00:29, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Endorse close per Levivich and Wasted Time R. As I see it, the close was correct based on the sources. Those seeking an overturn, as Levivich and others have noted, are using reasoning I will collegially term dubious. Jusdafax (talk) 00:50, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Vacate Having read the RfC, I agree with those above who point out that this closure does not appear to have accurately weighed the !votes which do not have significantly different strengths of argument. C727's response to inquiries about the close also point to that being the case. Should be reclosed by an administrator. ––FormalDude (talk) 05:24, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  @FormalDude This is the section for uninvolved editors. Since you were active in talk page discussion and made 1 of the 4 controversial post-RFC edits, please move your response to the "involved editors" section. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 13:34, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I've moved this comment to the involved section from the uninvolved per our guidance on fixing format errors. Formal appears to be away from Wikipedia at the moment. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 21:44, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks Red-tailed hawk. I didn't think to do that myself, in case Formal wanted to challenge their "involved" status; it didn't seem like a 100% cut-and-dry formatting error. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 22:05, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Given the objection by FormalDude below, I've moved it back. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:57, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

  @Red-tailed hawk: I'm uninvolved with respect to this RfC as I did not participate in it in any form. Please move my comment back. ––FormalDude (talk) 03:54, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

   Done— Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:56, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse Regardless of the closer and possible COI, at the end of the day, it seems that sourcing wins out here, but as a broader comment and reading through what's there, I think that that was a poor RFC and/or the issue wasn't fully explored first. In context of the laptop story, it is important to recognize the media's treatment of the story and how that changed, and there may be points where "alleged" ownership should be used to describe the broader media's stance on the matter when discussing the history of when the story first broke. It's now at the time that the media seemingly all agrees about the ownership, so we would no longer need alledged. I would recommend editors on that page to revisit this idea, knowing when "alleged" is actually appropriate in terms of the historical facets, and when it can be dropped. --Masem (t) 02:03, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Dunno — stumbled on this from following up on WP:AN3. It's a harder one because the closer needs to be confident in weighing policy against (and potentially overriding) arguments given. Given BLP, specifically, unless there are RSes with clear assertions stating it was definitely his (i.e., the sources themselves are putting their asses on the line from a legal standpoint), the inference should be reworded to disclaim/avoid it so as to avoid using Wikipedia's voice to assert factual-ness (at least, that's my interpretation of policy and my superficial skimming of the discussion). If I were closing it (I've done many of these via ANRFC), I would not say there's clear consensus based on policy; it's not a good argument to say "but there aren't (m)any sources saying it wasn't his" as it's still SYNTHy/OR to imply fact in Wikipedia's voice unless the positive sources, themselves, are 100% confident in stating ownership as a fact. I would, however, also suggest options combining the arguments involved to discuss for a subsequent RFC. For example, even though nobody mentioned it, "involves a laptop computer , its contents, and whether it was owned by Hunter Biden" is possibly a more neutral, factual representation of the topic at hand, because it unquestionably gets to the meat of what the article is about (and ironically the RFC) without making any risky statements of fact. This could help steer a subsequent RFC into a more productive direction focusing on examining sources and reporting facts as cut and dried as possible to avoid Wikipedia making determinations. Long story short, BLP sets a significantly higher standard for factually assertive statements to begin with, and that's the more important question; a new RFC to discuss these issues and/or rewording options would be warranted. --slakr^\ talk / 10:49, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Comment and Questions - How are we to tell new editors that they MUST follow and include reliable sources but then turn around and tell them not to follow reliable sources in this case? I have no political affiliations. I don't care anything about a laptop and who owns it. I just want to make sure I understand how to tell new editors when to use and when not to use reliable independent sources. How do we determine that a reliable source is being lazy? Don't they have an editing process? We very curtly inform editors all the time that Wikipedia isn't trying to present the truth, we only share what reliable sources say about notable subjects. If the sources are wrong then Wikipedia will be wrong. That is mantra used across the encyclopedia all the time. Is that just lip service or do we apply our policies and guidelines equally across the board? --ARoseWolf 14:02, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Endorse. With respect to The fact that it was closed by someone who on their talk page describes themselves as a fundamentalist evangelist Christian is one thing, merely being religious does not make one WP:INVOLVED with respect to Hunter Biden's laptop. The fact of the matter is that we should not be deprecating people's ability to participate on Wikipedia simply because they express religious belief. I really can't get behind the notion that, in an analogous situation, all religious Jewish people be prohibited from closing articles within the scope of WP:ARBPIA if the sole basis for trying to exclude them is that they are religious Jews; doing so would be almost textbook antisemitism. The closer also appears to have properly weighed the arguments in that discussion, so I don't see any reason to re-close. WP:BADNAC, if you actually scroll down the veru same page to the WP:NACRFC section, notes that any non-admin close of an RfC should not be overturned if the only reason is that the closer was not an admin, so the claim of BADNAC here is self-defeating if that's the only remaining issue. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:25, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Endorse BK's highly inappropriate response notwithstanding, the logic of the closer is sound. While some (politically) want to draw doubt about the laptop, the fact is that reliable sources indeed show it was. "Alleged" is not needed. Buffs (talk) 05:31, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
• Concerns: Having read the discussion and the close, I would second Rhododendrites's concerns about the quality of the close, though I suspect a new close could very well come to a similar conclusion. That said, I do have serious concerns about Compassionate727's addendum to the close here where he uses his position as closer to prohibit any qualification that weakens the claim of ownership based on how he "imagines" the RfC participants would vote on the issue if asked. I don't see any consensus in the RfC that should prohibit someone from writing that the laptop is "widely believed to belong to Hunter Biden" as User:Korny O'Near suggested. (I'm not sure if that's the most accurate representation of the sources, as I haven't looked at them myself.) @Compassionate727: if you're reading this, would you consider striking or modifying your addendum to reflect what RfC participants actually wrote? ~Awilley (talk) 05:22, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  @Awilley: It seems we disagree about what … participants actually wrote. Opponents of using "allegedly" wrote that RS express no doubt that Hunter Biden owned the laptop and that it would be inappropriate for Wikipedia to do so. While the impetus for the discussion may have been the word "allegedly," the result logically and intuitively applies to any other construction that does the same thing. The question, then, becomes simply whether or not a given construction is casting doubt on the ownership in our voice; I opined that "believed to be" does, at least as SPECIFICO used it, and I am far from the only person who has said that. That does not mean that we can never say anything except simply that Biden owned the laptop: Masem rightly notes that there are contexts where that is appropriate (notably indirect discourse) and this discussion was about the first sentence of the article, so it's about the use of such qualifiers in summaries (and extremely short ones, at that). So I'm definitely not imagining this as a blunt prohibition on any qualification in all contexts, and I'm currently mulling over how I might best clarify that, but I don't believe the rational core of the addendum was off-base—though I'm open to being persuaded otherwise. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 16:17, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse close. There was a consensus to omit "alleged", based on the strength of arguments. The close is perhaps not as nuanced as it should be – it doesn't mention that the "yes" opinions largely weren't grounded in policy and guidelines – but closers don't have to be perfect. There's no evidence that the closer tried influence the outcome by "super voting" or such.
  The filer refers to "significant BLP and sourcing issues", but it's not clear what the alleged issues are. In the RFC they were asked about potential BLP issues, but they evaded the question. Yes, the material is covered by the BLP policy, but BLP per se is not a trump card; if the material is properly sourced (NOR and V), it still must strictly adhere to NPOV policy.
  For what it's worth, I think the RFC question was too unspecific. Questions like that tend to lead to unclear situations that may require too much interpretation in edge cases. Which is what happened after the close. Politrukki (talk) 12:21, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  The BLP and NPOV issues relating to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden have been extensively discussed on talk on this article's page and before this page was created on the AfD and related page. They have been clearly specified and identified and "evasion" is not at play here, thanks. SPECIFICO talk 12:37, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  Another evasion noted. What do you mean by "significant BLP and sourcing issues"? And to my knowledge, nobody has suggested that the laptop belongs to Joe Biden. Why would you mention Joe? How are "the AfD and related page" relevant to this discussion? Please be specific. Maybe I missed something. Thanks, Politrukki (talk) 14:39, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  Whether or not the actual BLP issues were previously discussed is no reason not to bring them up in the RfC. RfCs by their nature are designed to attract editors who have no participated in previous discussions. The reason why you never explained the BLP issues is that there are none

  I phrased the question that way following the recommendations at Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Example. They are supposed to be concise. While SPECIFCO claimed that because the RfC was about alleged, it did not preclude "believed to be," there will always be editors who wikilawyer. I posted the RfC after near unanimous support for keeping the term and notice that the first six votes after mine were to keep. SPECIFICO immediately posted "An irksome revert is no reason to call for an immediate RfC. Ordinary discussion is the next step. Please withdraw this RfC. Or write an essay "BR-RfC"". [14:43, 28 August 2022] Obviously there is a hard core of editors who cannot accept anything that remotely reflects on their political leaders. So support for following policy in the RfC was never going to be overwhelming. TFD (talk) 15:41, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

• Overturn to no consensus Seems just blatantly like a supervote to me. And when people in the discussion even here have to get into numerical specifics of whom discussed the sources or not, then that even more indicates a no consensus result because consensus was split. Add to that the non-NPOV closing description and the close itself seems way out of line. Silverseren^C 01:10, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Comments from involved editors (Laptop controversy)

• Overturn to no consensus. To put this in WP:CLOSECHALLENGE language: "the closure was not a reasonable summation of the discussion". C727's closure depends heavily on his assessment that "Some editors asserted that the ownership is still unclear but largely failed to support this with reliable sources, while editors opposing the adjective produced a plethora of recent RS that did not doubt the connection." This is untrue, as participants on both sides were equally likely to make no explicit reference to sources, and it's safe to assume everyone was responding either to the sources already in the article or in the list posted in the RfC.
  I inquired about this issue at C727's user talk page (here), and C727 said "I found that many of the earliest sources provided in that list used some kind of qualification, but that by the end of April, most sources were consistently describing the laptop as Biden's, without qualification" and then "Given how pronounced the trend was and how recent sources exert a controlling influence, I considered that sufficient."
  I see this as clear evidence of a WP:SUPERVOTE. The trend analysis C727 is using as the basis of his closure was not presented by the RfC participants, nor did anyone reference WP:AGEMATTERS, the policy C727 linked in that last quote. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:34, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
• I would welcome a review from an experienced closer in order to solidify the consensus. There have already been attempts to circumvent the close by messing with the descriptor. What sticks out to me in the RFC is that the sourcing presented came overwhelmingly from the "No" !voters, which the closer noted. Mr Ernie (talk) 14:37, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  Talk:Hunter Biden laptop controversy#Sources Here is a link to the section in the RFC listing the sourcing that many of the No votes seem to base their vote on. Mr Ernie (talk) 14:43, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  And Yes votes. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:44, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

• To be more honest than I feel comfortable being, it feels to me like SPECIFICO is forum-shopping because he didn't like the result. Shortly after I closed the RfC saying there was a consensus against stating that the laptop is "alleged to have belonged" to Biden, SPECIFICO added that it is "believed to have belonged" to him, which Mr Ernie reverted; at that point, SPECIFICO reached out to me via email thanking me for my closure and asking me to weigh in on the issue (there was no indication that SPECIFICO felt anything about my closure was incorrect); I did, explaining why I felt the arguments against using "alleged" also covered "believed" or any similar weasle-ish words, at which point he attempted to downplay it as "an after-the-fact personal opinion" rather than the clarification of the closure that he had requested. Now that several other editors have agreed that SPECIFICO's new wording contradicts the consensus I found, he's here seeking to overturn it.

Between my various comments, I believe I have adequately explained why I found the consensus I did and don't intend to engage extensively with this unless people have questions. But to summarize one last time, for the benefit of uninvolved persons: pretty much every source cited in the discussion was provided in a list mid-discussion; many of them, including pretty much all of the most recent sources, described the laptop as Biden's without qualification. A majority of editors agreed that there is no longer any dispute in the RS that the laptop is Biden's; whether they explicitly mentioned Adoring nanny and his list or not is immaterial, I think it is clear from reading the comments that they are aware of it, and it would be foolish to say that they need to say exactly the right things for their intent to be relevant in shaping the consensus. Likewise, WP:AGEMATTERS was clearly on at least some participants' minds (see e.g. Thriley's reference to "current" sources), even if nobody explicitly linked to it (and it is relevant regardless). I likewise took into account the way the discussion unfolded; while in total, 11 people supported using "alleged" and 14 opposed, the ratio of support to oppose votes swung heavily in favor of the opposers as more and more sources were added to the list. For example, after Guest2625's large addition on September 1, three people voted for using alleged and six against; nobody would question that a two-thirds majority is a solid consensus without a compelling policy reason. And given the large number of RS produced in favor of directly stating the laptop is Biden's, I don't think BLP is a highly salient issue (BLP is not a license to ignore sources), especially when it only indirectly implicates Biden, given the ongoing controversy over the authenticity of the documents.

I'm willing to admit when I screw closes up (I have done that here before), but I don't see any compelling reason to believe this is one of them. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 16:06, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

• This misrepresents my email to the closer, in which I followed what I believe to be best practices to first approach the closer with a concern before formally requesting a close review. Compassionate, as I think is now clear, thanking you for your effort was not an endorsement of your conclusion. SPECIFICO talk 16:27, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  Thing is, Specifico, your edit on Sep 28 at 12:46 adding "believed to have", with the edit summary more direct representation of status, consistent with RfC, shows that at that time, you were fine with the close of the RfC, and were even making an edit consistent with that close. No close challenge from you at that time. It was only after the discussions at the article talk page and ANEW (last post: 2:40 Sep 29) (both of which you participated in) resulted in the reversion of "believed to have" on the basis that it was against the RfC closure, that you then filed this close review (at 13:47 on Sep 29). It looks to me like you didn't have a problem with the close if you could change "alleged" to "believed to have" (i.e., if you could ignore the result with crafty wordsmithing)... only after that was shut down did you seem to raise issues with the close itself. In my view, this seriously undermines your argument. Levivich (talk) 16:37, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  Evidently, and even if it were, it would be reasonable for you to change your mind about my closure after discovering that it was broader than you had thought. I mention the email because 1) it seems to fit within what a pattern of back-peddling here and, more importantly, 2) I had wondered even when I first saw the email why you had reached out to me privately concerning such a public matter as on-wiki consensus, instead of using my talk page. Given everything that has happened since, I wonder if it was so that it wouldn't be obvious to everyone else that you had asked for my input (and implicitly assented that I held a bit of authority on that issue) in case that turned against you, which seems like an oddly underhanded way of seeking clarification of consensus, but a rather natural one if you had been planning to challenge an unfavorable finding the entire time. I find myself struggling to articulate that there was anything truly improper about it, yet the level of cynicism I see there discomforts me. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 16:59, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  I don't think you were forum shopping. Thanking the closer doesn't mean endorsing. But your article edit surely (see Levivich's comment above) looks like a smoking gun.

  Moreover, you can't make an unsubstantiated allegation that Compassionate727 mispresented you. Would you kindly publish the email – as Compassionate727 is likely unable to do so for copyright reasons – so that the community can be the judge or retract your allegation? Why would you even use email if the message didn't contain any so-called harmful content (private data, defamatory content, etc.)? Politrukki (talk) 14:00, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• One admin already reviewed this RFC case and determined that the closer was correct in their assessment of consensus on the WP:ANE case, and also opined on the article's talk page that the subsequent edits were out of line based on the RFC. I guess you're looking for a second admin's opinion, then? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 16:14, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  @EvergreenFir: just letting you know that two comments you've made have been referenced in this discussion. Iamreallygoodatcheckers^t@lk 23:59, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  Merci, @Iamreallygoodatcheckers. EvergreenFir (talk) 02:25, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

• I'd like to see a challenge or a review of this close and whether it was a WP:SUPERVOTE. Andre🚐 16:19, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
• Endorse closure- I promised to accept the RFC result (no matter what it was) & I'm keeping that promise. GoodDay (talk) 22:29, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

  As your entry was cited specifically one of the reasons to challenge this close, re: "meaningless", your endorsement carries virtually no weight. ValarianB (talk) 14:09, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  That's a matter for the closer or the re-closer of that RFC, to decide. I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it. GoodDay (talk) 21:27, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Indeed. If you noticed, understood and worried about things like that then I doubt you'd ever sleep. Begoon 14:07, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

  Okay, while it's not clear to me why they participated in either the RfC or this review, that was uncalled for. It's not like they're hurting anything. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:07, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

• Endorse close. I commented already welcoming any review because I think it should be clear, but here are my thoughts. Of the 10 "yes" !votes, only 3 refer to sources, and none refer to any policy. Consequently, of the "no" !votes, 10 explicitly refer to the sources provided, with the remainder hinting at them and referring to evidence. On this basis, the close is firmly on solid ground. The OP here challenging the close uses their !vote to attack the RFC as premature and suggest the opener of the RFC made a mistake. One RFC participant suggested NPOV wording which avoided this issue altogether (also suggested by Slakr above), which I believe should be pursued as a much better way to handle this. Mr Ernie (talk) 12:50, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Overturn Apparent supervote by an inexperienced editor unfamiliar with measuring consensus. ValarianB (talk) 14:09, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
  • 7 years, 27k edits = "inexperienced editor" 😂 Levivich (talk) 14:15, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
    • Perhaps ValarianB meant "inexperienced closer"? Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:38, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
      • That wouldn't be accurate, either. Levivich (talk) 01:38, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
• Endorse As the closer correctly pointed out, editors who thought the ownership was unclear failed to provide sources. Nor did they present any policy based reasons why facts reported in mainstream news media should be reported as allegations in this article. I note also that SPECIFICO did not inform RfC participants of this discussion. TFD (talk) 14:50, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• I don't think participants in the discussion should be notified, since they'd just come here and re-do their same votes (ie exactly what you're doing). Uninvolved people are the ones who should be in this discussion. This weird section splitting in that regard is a new one on me. Silverseren^C 01:10, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

  I disagree, because "review should not be used as an opportunity to re-argue the underlying dispute, and is only intended for use when there is a problem with the close itself." (See Wikipedia:Closing discussions.) Before posting my endorsement of the close I carefully read through this discussion and reviewed the close.

  On re-reading the RfC, I was surprised that SPECIFICO's side was unable to provide any evidence that ownership of the laptop is currently questioned in reliable sources or any reasons based on policy or guidelines to question it in the article. So whatever the vote was, the closer was correct because only one side provided valid evidence or arguments.

  It was therefore important for participants in this discussion to be aware of this situation, since it was not expressed at the beginning of the discussion thread. TFD (talk) 22:28, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

  The substantive content question of the RFC was whether the older sources which described the laptop as alleged, were superceded by the newer sources that just referred to it as "Hunter Biden's laptop," That was not a clear-cut question and the opinions were varied as to whether there was sufficient sourcing to say that in fact, Hunter Biden's so-called laptop was in fact his since some amount of the provenance and the authenticity of the laptop was unclear at best, and there was evidence of tampering. So should it be called his "alleged" laptop since it is still unclear how the laptop was "lost" or "left" and that it appears to have evidence of being tampered with and/or part of an oppositional plot involving Rudy Giuliani, etc.. Not to rehash the dispute, but you shouldn't hand-wave the existence of a dispute as simply being a 1-sided matter. An allegation of possible crimes being proven by the existence of incriminating information on a laptop being used to accuse people of wrongdoing or malfeasance is a BLP issue. The content question of whether it was in fact truly all his in entirety, remains relatively vague even though RS refer to it as his laptop without elaborating on its vague backstory. Andre🚐 22:34, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

  None of those arguments were made in the RfC, probably because they are weak. Early news reports tend to be guarded. For example, on 9/11, ABC reported, "There has been some sort of explosion. We don't fully know the details. There is one report as of yet unconfirmed that a plane has hit the World Trade Center."[1] Do you think the 9/11 article should therefore say a plane allegedly hit the tower?

  Expressing doubt where none exists is often a polemical tactic used by the tobacco industry, climate change deniers and conspiracy theorists and has no place in serious articles. There's even a Wikipedia article about one example: Teach the Controversy.

  Whether or not the laptop was tampered with is irrelevant to whether Biden owned it. If you sued in court for the return of your property, the defendant could not argue that he had tampered with it, therefore it no longer belonged to you. And of course the article mentions this possibility and it was never an issue. TFD (talk) 10:21, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

  Both points are straw man. The WTC bit is especially egregious -- the claim that we should evaluate sources and BLP content based on a false equivalence comparing the chaotic early moments after the WTC calamity to the blind-man laptop tale published in an unreliable tabloid via Trump political operative and sanctioned liar Giuliani. SPECIFICO talk 14:34, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  No, it's a good point. Things that are reported as unconfirmed at first later become confirmed. Once they're confirmed, we should not and do not state that they're unconfirmed. Allegations, once accepted by the RS as true, are no longer allegations. Whether the 2020 election was "stolen" is another example; having been disproven, we no longer say "allegedly stolen" or talk about "alleged irregularities". We don't say Nixon's men "allegedly" broke into Watergate. Also, truth doesn't become less true because "sanctioned liars" say it's true. There are many examples, of which WTC and Hunter Biden's laptop are two. Giuliani says Al Qaeda did 9/11, that doesn't make it any less true. We don't say Bill Clinton "allegedly" had inappropriate sexual relations with an intern, even though that story was broken by Matt Drudge. There are so many examples of this. It's not a straw man, it's how the world works. The laptop belonged to Biden, according to RS. Not allegedly belonged to Biden, but did belong to Biden. RS says it directly and no RS says otherwise. We're not going to use "allegedly" or "believed to be". Time to drop this stick and move on. Levivich (talk) 14:51, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  This is the crux of the dispute. RS never said the allegations were confirmed, they just stopped referring to them as allegations. Our assumption that they are confirmed is original research and synthetic. Andre🚐 14:55, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  Another straw man: "Once they're confirmed...". This really is not complicated. SPECIFICO talk 15:03, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

RS never said the allegations were confirmed, they just stopped referring to them as allegations. Hmm, I wonder what would make them do that? 🤔 Anyway, that sentence is the best explanation I've seen as to why Wikipedia should also stop referring to them as allegations. Levivich (talk) 15:13, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

But WP:BURDEN. Let's just await the close. SPECIFICO talk 16:59, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

WP:BURDEN is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution. Many such citations were provided in the discussion, but only one is needed to satisfy WP:BURDEN, and the best one in the discussion was probably the Feb 2022 The Guardian article, which said Now, however, almost no one disputes its authenticity.

Specifico, this is what irks me about your everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to arguing content disputes. You know very well that BURDEN, part of WP:V, isn't an issue here, at all, because there were over a dozen sources in the RFC that did not use the word "alleged" and referred to the thing in their own voice as "Hunter Biden's laptop" or similar language. This isn't a WP:V issue. It's an WP:NPOV issue, because there are some sources that still used "alleged" or similar. The issue here -- the only issue -- is how to neutrally summarize the sources. That's what editors discussed, and the closer closed, and while there are multiple valid viewpoints on the NPOV issue and on whether the close should be overturned, WP:BURDEN is not among them, nor is (as you said above) anyone making a claim that we should evaluate sources and BLP content based on a false equivalence. You waste editor time by making these specious, irrelevant arguments, and refusing to concede any quarter, such as by suggesting WP:BURDEN or WP:V hasn't been met here. (It's ironic, because "deny everything, argue everything" are classic Trump tactics.)

But I agree, let's just await the close. Levivich (talk) 18:12, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

At this point, I think WP:BOOMERANG should apply here. SPECIFICO, you made your point, but WP:CONSENSUS is clearly against you and "the horse" is nothing but a smear on the street. Let it go and let's have a closer end this pointless drama. Buffs (talk) 22:35, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I really don't see that the consensus was so clear. I'm not sure how this discussion will be closed if at all or what will happen, but I find that @Levivich's allusion to "Trump tactics" is a personal attack or adjacent. Specifico's argument hinges on the idea that was never given an RS that the "Hunter Biden laptop was confirmed authentic," quite the contrary in fact: it was confirmed, at least in part, to be inauthentic, but other parts were confirmed authentic: but this does not confirm it as authentic and there is a burden to satisfy as to its authenticity. RS stopped referring to "Hunter Biden's alleged laptop" and mostly began referring to it just as his laptop: the substantive question of the RFC was whether this is sufficient for Wikipedia to follow suit. I do not believe there was a consensus that it should since doubts remained. Instead, it would be reasonable to refer to the laptop as a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden. Anyway, I am not litigating the close here but pointing out that there was a substantive issue at dispute that is not clear-cut. Andre🚐 23:16, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Per Vox (cited at the article), nothing has been confirmed as inauthentic / misinformation yet. If you have a source claiming something has been verified as inauthentic, please link us to it (although it would have been better to do that during the RFC). Side note: can someone please close this? Mr Ernie (talk) 23:48, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Among the reasons for the inconclusive findings was sloppy handling of the data, which damaged some records. The experts found the data had been repeatedly accessed and copied by people other than Hunter Biden over nearly three years....The Washington Post’s forensic findings are unlikely to resolve that debate, offering instead only the limited revelation that some of the data on the portable drive appears to be authentic. The security experts who examined the data for The Post struggled to reach definitive conclusions about the contents as a whole, including whether all of it originated from a single computer or could have been assembled from files from multiple computers and put on the portable drive.[2] Andre🚐 23:54, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Your previous post said some things were confirmed to be inauthentic but this source you quote here says some of the data is confirmed to be authentic. Are you mixing that up? Mr Ernie (talk) 00:08, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

What I should have said was, it was confirmed at least in part that the laptop was unable to be authenticated. By which I mean the "other files" on the drive. people other than Hunter Biden had accessed the drive and written files to it, both before and after the initial stories in the New York Post and long after the laptop itself had been turned over to the FBI. Maxey had alerted The Washington Post to this issue in advance, saying that others had accessed the data to examine its contents and make copies of files. But the lack of what experts call a “clean chain of custody” undermined Green’s and Williams’s ability to determine the authenticity of most of the drive’s contents. Andre🚐 00:20, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Without going into the merits of any of these arguments, I will note that they are all about the underlying content dispute rather than the closure itself, which is exactly why Silver seren said that participants of the RfC should not be participating in the close review. Lay it to rest, please. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 00:58, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

No sources say people other than Hunter Biden had "written files to it." They say it is possible and therefore each email has to be individually authenticated. So far the Washington post has authenticated 22,000 emails and not found any that were tampered with. But again, the question in the RfC was not whether the emails were authentic, but "Should the article use the term "alleged" in reference to the ownership of the laptop computer?"

Suppose someone steals your laptop and hacks into and misuses your email accounts. Do you think a judge would buy the argument that it wasn't your laptop because the alleged thief had added fake emails?

I suspect this is filibustering. Some editors try to slow down the improvement of articles about Democrats by challenging anything that could possibly reflect poorly on them. No reasonable editor would present any of your arguments in an article that had no political significance. TFD (talk) 16:28, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Actually the Washington Post does say that, which I just quoted, TFD. Andre🚐 18:53, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Is another RFC gonna be necessary or not? It's been 3 weeks, since this challenge was opened. GoodDay (talk) 18:58, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Buffs (talk) 15:10, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Please close this

The last opinion voiced (excluding follow-on discussion) was 9 Oct. The last comment of any substance (excluding "are we going to end this?") was 2 days ago. This discussion has run its course. Buffs (talk) 15:00, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

now 5 days... Buffs (talk) 15:00, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

I requested closure at WP:ANRFC. I agree this is ripe for a wrap-up Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:09, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. Buffs (talk) 15:55, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Closure review of Jerusalem infobox RFC

Hi! I'm requesting a review of my closure of Talk:Jerusalem#Should the infobox contain this flag and emblem?. It was somewhat of a tricky close and GrammarDamner was kind enough to raise some concerns in my talk page. Concerns included:

• The possibility I closed based on what I agree with rather than the content of the discussion
• My judgement of the status quo being incorrect (i.e. was the status quo to keep the flag and emblem in the infobox or was it, as I believe, to not give more weight to one side of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute over Jerusalem per WP:RFC/Jerusalem)

Thus, as both a non-admin closure and the opinion of those that refused to close it at ANRFC being that it would be a tough closure, I think it is in the interests of our coverage of the topic that my closure is reviewed here. I am more than happy to revert or amend my closure in line with consensus here. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 10:26, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

The close seems substantially fine. I think the crux of that RfC is that adding the flag/emblem turns the lead/infobox from its current neutral stance into something that could be seen as a less neutral stance, which contradicts the precedent in an awfully contentious topic. This concern wasn't really addressed by proponents. Most of them just argued that (in their view) doing this would reflect the reality on the ground, but failed to argue how a) it would improve the content of the article; or b) even if it would, if the content improvements offset the can of worms you'd open. Any attempt at an argument was opinionated or refuted. e.g. OSE is a perfectly valid argument, but the examples of OSE in that discussion were poor, some of which have been nominated for deletion and others (e.g. those relating the Russian annexation) are not stable or have no solid consensus behind their choice.

I don't see the point of close review by closer though. If you feel confident in closing it then do that and stick by it unless you're convinced you made a mistake, which you don't seem to be. If others have concerns with the close, they can raise them on this board in their own words. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:04, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, I just thought it would be good caution to ask for review due to me being a non-admin and the complexity of the topic. I've been confidently incorrect in the past :) — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 10:08, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Without comment on the rest of the close, the wording "The "de facto" situation on the ground has no bearing on our neutrality policies" doesn't feel right. It reminds me of the persistent issues surrounding BBC coverage of climate change. Neutrality does not mean a disconnect from reality. Of course, the analysis of a particular reality should be guided by reliable sources, which is what I think was the point that came through in succeeding sentences. CMD (talk) 14:07, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

• Eh, whenever you weigh arguments while closing a controversial discussion, someone will accuse you of supervoting. I wouldn't pay that any mind, at least on its own. As for the actual finding: I think saying that the arguments against inclusion were significantly superior is an overstatement. Both sides made arguments deriving from NPOV. To be honest, after reading the RfC, the NPOV argument seems like a wash to me. On the one hand, there is a considerable dispute over the status of Jerusalem, and it is safe to assume that if the Palestinians ever take control of it, they will replace the icons with ones that don't use Hebrew script, among other things; on the other hand, the natural choice for iconography is the set actually employed by the city's functioning government, and refusing to include them could be construed in the opposite direction, as a denial that the government that established the icons is actually the government of Jerusalem (which it clearly is, regardless of whether it should be). So while you were correct to dismiss the WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS-type arguments, I think the NPOV arguments are actually a wash, and given the numbers, I would have found no consensus. If somebody else expresses a desire to press this issue, I will probably vote to overturn, but this is clearly a small detail and I'd rather this not become a whole dramaboard thing. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 03:04, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
• Just in case it wasn't clear, the main reason I brought this up was that the RfC clearly did not indicate consensus to remove images from the infobox that had been in the infobox for over ten years. It should also be noted that having the images in the infobox does not mean Wikipedia is endorsing the symbols or taking a side in the dispute. GrammarDamner how are things? 04:31, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
• I think that it would be better, to avoid what would, in effect, be re-litigating the RFC, if only admins comment here, or, at the very least, for commenters to indicate whether they are admins or not. As far as I can tell, though I may not have read the List of Administrators closely enough, nobody who has commented above is actually one. I am not an admin either. I took part in the RFC.

  Some observations:

  Above, a comment states: "The "de facto" situation on the ground has no bearing on our neutrality policies" doesn't feel right. The Neutrality policy says: "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." So, the "de facto situation" is only significant as far as the neutrality policy is concerned according to what reliable sources have said about it (the same is true of the de jure situation, which as far as international law goes is: neither West or East Jerusalem is Israeli; East Jerusalem is under occupation; any Israeli move to change the status of Jerusalem - including, perhaps, extending the Jerusalem Municipality to include East Jerusalem - is null and void). What happened in the RFC is that, rather than discussing what sources say and how that affects neutrality, editors were using their own, subjective, opinion about what the de facto situation is to argue for retaining the symbols. If anything, that's a bypassing of the neutrality policy.

  It was stated above: Both sides made arguments deriving from NPOV. I doubt that's true.

  GrammarDamner, who commented above, took part in the RFC. After it was closed, he or she questioned the result at the closer, Ixtal's, talkpage, which led to the current request on this noticeboard being opened. In my opinion, GrammarDamner has poor judgement, making a lot of dubious claims without offering any justification. That includes the claims made in the comment above. That includes the claims made at Ixtal's, talkpage after the RFC closure. At the RFC on the Jerusalem article talkpage, GrammarDamner buttressed his opinion with a claim that the situation in Taiwan is "almost identical" to the situation in Jerusalem: "one country claims a certain area, while another country controls it." That is a pretty inaccurate summary of the situation in both China and Palestine (in China, two regimes claim to be the proper government for the whole {Taiwan isn't an independent country}; in Palestine, the Arab state envisaged by the Partition Plan was never created) and ignores the significant differences between them historically, legally and ethnically/nationally. No situation really bears a close similarity with the one in Jerusalem. Perhaps pre-1967 the situation in Nicosia could have been seen as similar, but we're not dealing with the pre-1967 situation. Perhaps the situation during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait might be similar. But the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait only lasted for months. After I'd attempted a rebuttal of GrammarDamner's argument, he or she responded with "WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:IDNHT" accusations. Those are more dubious claims for which no justification was offered, showing, in that case, a poor understanding of what those behaviours are supposed to consist of. I wrote a comment on GrammarDamner's talkpage asking him on her not to make any more unjustifiable comments about my behaviour. In my opinion, GrammarDamner's response is irrational and shows a poor understanding of the WP:NPA rule. Overall, in my opinion: not much judgement, not much understanding, not much in the way of reason.

      ←   ZScarpia   00:17, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  Regarding the response to my comment, I was not involved in the RfC so do not know the full scope of what was said there, but is the assertion given above that reliable sources disagree about what the de facto situation is? Generally we rely on reliable sources to lay out what that situation is. If editors subjective opinions disagree with what the sources say the situation is, I'm sure that will be appropriately weighted. CMD (talk) 03:55, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

  With respect to I think that it would be better, to avoid what would, in effect, be re-litigating the RFC, if only admins comment here, WP:CLOSECHALLENGE wisely makes no such restriction. It's more than appropriate to have two sections: one for WP:INVOLVED and WP:UNINVOLVED editors. But, in general, any editor in good standing should feel free to comment on reviews of closures of RfCs. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 13:45, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for providing the link to WP:CLOSECHALLENGE. This is the first time I've observed an RFC result being challenged. I didn't even think that I'd ever participated in any discussion on this noticeboard before, though the archives show that I did, once, some years ago. My expectations of what would happen were based on reading the purpose of this board ("This page is for posting information and issues of interest to administrators.") and the closer's statement that a reason for reviewing the closure here in particular is because that closure was a non-admin one. Having expected that the discussion would be carried out among admins I refrained from commenting myself. I was surprised when GrammarDamner commented and then to realise that none of the other participants are admins either. What will happen next? Will it just be a case of Ixtal, the closer, weighing up the comments?     ←   ZScarpia   03:24, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

  It's probably better to focus on the remove images from the infobox that had been in the infobox for over ten years part. I assumed it was a relatively recent addition. Apparently those images have been in the infobox even after the conclusion of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jerusalem, permalink on 31 December 2013, which significantly weakens the arguments that appeal to the principles behind that RfC closure IMO (including my own analysis above). So it seems having the flags included is the established stable version. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:24, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

  The 2013 RfC, in which I was a participant, was narrowly focussed on how the capital status of Jerusalem should be described in the article's Introduction. Afterwards, there was some rippling out of the effect of the result of that RfC on other parts of that article and on other articles. It's perhaps surprising that it's taken so long to address the symbols part of the infobox, particularly given the one-sided and, for the flag in particular, poor nature of the sourcing. This is, though, the first time I can remember it being discussed. The objection to the result of the closure of the current RfC was based on a claim that the symbols had been in the infobox so long that particularly strong arguments were required in order to remove them. It would be good, if there are any, to see WP policies being quoted in support of that argument. Note that my own position was that removal of the symbols wasn't necessary, but that they should be labelled in some way, either to state that they are Israeli or to explain their usage more exactly. The emblem is that of the pre-1967 Jerusalem Municipality of the western part of the city which was latterly extended to control East Jerusalem also. We have no reliable secondary sources stating that "the Jerusalem flag" has any official status (the website of the Jerusalem Municipality not being a reliable source for anything other than what the Jerusalem Municipality says and, in any case, not stating explicitly that "the Jerusalem flag" has any official status).     ←   ZScarpia   03:24, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

  Here is yet another source, from Can Stock Photo. GrammarDamner how are things? 22:28, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

You think thats a source? nableezy - 23:08, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

It was never discussed, it was added without discussion and never had anything besides implicit consensus for. Once that implicit consensus is gone it doesnt really matter how "stable" it was. nableezy - 22:33, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

The RfC clearly did not indicate any sort of loss of consensus. GrammarDamner how are things? 18:04, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

It never had consensus to begin with is the point. nableezy - 19:17, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

At the very least, it had WP:IMPLICIT consensus for a very long time. Then there was an RfC which, at the very least, clearly did not indicate consensus to remove the images. GrammarDamner how are things? 19:34, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I !voted for exclusion. A valid challenge per ONUS may override QUO regardless the length of time, particularly if QUO only had silent or implicit consensus. Closer decided that the Jerusalem RFC was a strong argument against inclusion (in the infobox) and from where I sit, it is hard to disagree with that conclusion. Selfstudier (talk) 10:47, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

• Can an admin please review the closure? This has been sitting here for over two weeks. I apologize for using caps in the edit summary, but I'm not sure how else to get an admin's attention at this point. GrammarDamner how are things? 19:34, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
• Again, can an admin please review the closure? It's been over three weeks now, and not a single admin has looked at this. I guess it's almost funny at this point. Is the administrators' noticeboard not a place where administrators typically notice things? GrammarDamner how are things? 15:13, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

  @GrammarDamner: (Non-administrator comment) Although RFC closes are reviewed at the Administrators' noticeboard, admins don't review closures, that's just the place where it happens. Any editor can opine on a close review. You haven't yet posted a request for a close review. See WP:CLOSECHALLENGE for further info on close reviews. If you think consensus would overturn the close, and you want editors to opine on that, I'd suggest posting here an explanation (like a WP:!Vote to overturn the close) that tells us why you think the close should be overturned, and then you'll see if other editors agree with that or not. (Although there are editors opining on it above, so you'll want to take into consideration what they've already written here.) If you don't think the close should be overturned, then there is no point to discussing this further here. Levivich (talk) 15:25, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you, but I thought we did that. Per WP:CLOSECHALLENGE, I discussed the issue with the closer on their talk page. Ixtal then brought it here. I'll restate my main point about the closure. Ixtal closed the RfC, saying that there was consensus to remove the images, but the RfC clearly did not indicate consensus to remove the images. GrammarDamner how are things? 15:35, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

  Ok, and so far, I don't see any other editor agreeing with you about that. So, I'd suggest either (1) accepting the outcome and moving on, or (2) writing something that might be more persuasive than "clearly did not indicate consensus to remove". For example you might try explaining why the RfC did not indicate consensus to remove. There are at least two editors (PR and C727 above) who have explained why they think the close should not be overturned, so you might want to address their reasoning if you decide to explain your reasoning. The idea isn't to just repeat what you've already said, since that hasn't persuaded others, but instead to build upon what others have already said in response to you and explain why you still feel the closure should be overturned, if you still feel that way. Levivich (talk) 16:46, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

  @Levivich: I was worried that doing so would be taking an opportunity to re-argue the underlying dispute, but I guess I was wrong. I was hoping that simply requesting a review would lead to uninvolved editors reviewing the RfC and deciding how they would have closed it. Also, if you don't see any other editor agreeing with me, perhaps you should take a closer look. I don't know if you read ProcrastinatingReader's second comment, but they actually agree with me. C727 also said they would probably vote to overturn, and CMD seems to agree with me too. The only editors who disagree with me already participated in the RfC. GrammarDamner how are things? 17:41, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

• Okay, this RfC closure should be overturned because there was no consensus to remove the images in question. For starters, the majority of editors who participated in the RfC !voted to keep the images in the infobox (where they had been for over ten years). Yes, I am aware that establishing consensus is more than a simple tallying of !votes, but the numbers do matter. When the majority of editors agree with one option, the arguments against it must be profound (or their arguments must be very flawed) in order to go against them. That was clearly not the case here. Most of the arguments against including the images in the infobox made the false argument that doing so would give legitimacy to one claim above another. That is not true, this is an encyclopedia article simply presenting the facts as they are, not advocating for anything. I kindly ask that someone else please take a look at the RfC. Thank you. GrammarDamner how are things? 17:41, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Just saying that the people opposed were saying something false is as meaningless as my saying your argument is false. The arguments in favor were extremely weak, making claims not backed by sources and at odds with our previous consensus on Jerusalem, as well as the manual of style regarding infoboxes not supplanting article information. I think the close was well founded and supported by the quality of arguments in the discussion. nableezy - 23:30, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Massive off-wiki campaign aimed at disrupting Wikipedia

I noticed this Turkish-language Reddit link.[3]. It seems a massive off-wiki campaign has been initiated by Turkish-language speakers to create more disruption in the cesspool known as WP:AA2 and WP:KURDS. As the posts/comments were in Turkish, they were translated using Google tranlate:

• "The first spark was ignited in order to correct and organize the unfounded claims we have seen on Wikipedia recently. r/turkviki was established. Let's get organized from there."[4]
• "Friends, this subreddit was founded on the termination of unfounded claims made on Wikipedia. Our aim is to put an end to the unfounded allegations made on Wikipedia, the propaganda activities targeting our country and nation, to express the truth and correct the mistakes."[5]
• "we need a larger audience, salaried employees of wikipedia, and I don't know how effective we can be against the current Turkish hatred"[6]
• "Turkish Wikipedia Community Discord server. Friends, I left the link below if you would like to join the works that started before us."[7]
• "Friends, let's start with the liberation war first and let there be a spark of salvation for us from the lies in Wikipedia."[8]
• "First of all, we must explain why this claim [Armenian genocide] is not true. For example, instead of the 1.5 million people they said, there were actually 1.1 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. There is no article about genocide against Armenians in the Treaty of Mudros Sevres or Lausanne. Until 1948, the United Nations and the League of Nations before it never defined a crime called genocide, and if you eat pizza and eat pizza in the future is a war crime, they cannot hold you guilty for what you did in the past. You can write that the deportation was carried out by the Union and Terraki and that the remaining Unionists completely severed their ties with the party at the Sivas congress, and the Parliament was against what the Committee of Union and Terraki did. In addition, we must reveal the evils committed by Armenians in the public opinion, instead of the crimes they have committed, the terrorist attacks of ASALA in Europe will be the best examples."[9]
• "Ottoman archives of the period are available on this site: Devletarsivleri.gov.tr (<cant post the entire link due to blockquote error>) It is enough for someone to translate it into Turkish for us to understand. then we edit the page on the wiki."[10]
• "The first thing that needs to be changed is the name. Then we will add the villages and towns burned by the Armenians. The number of people killed by Armenians is not specified. We should add them too. Let's diversify the missing parts as comments. Good luck with."[11]
• "A patrol is here! hello, i am zemxer from turkish wikipedia. As I'm on patrol on Turkish Wikipedia, I try to help new users as much as possible. You know, there is an approval system for the contributions made in Turkish Wikipedia, and I am one of the patrol friends who approve these contributions. I can help users and groups who want to contribute to Wikipedia and who want to make these contributions in an impartial framework. good wikis"[12]

So this group of people 1) clearly state their intention to spread Turkish government propaganda at Eng.Wikipedia disproven by the rest of the world 2) They receive support from users at the Turkish Wikipedia. Posting it here at AN as suggested by several administrators. You might be interested in this: @Rosguill: @Buidhe: @Bbb23: @Seraphimblade: @Black Kite: @Deepfriedokra: @Johnuniq: @HistoryofIran: @Dennis Brown: @Drmies: @El C: @Khirurg: @Kansas Bear: @Cplakidas: ‎- LouisAragon (talk) 12:03, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

The discord server

When looking at the members of their discord, I noticed a person named "Berk". He has a portrait of Ulugh Beg as his discord profile picture, the very same added by one of our own Wikipedians, BerkBerk68, here [13]. In other words, they must be the same person. BerkBerk seems to have a prominent role there, as he has published the rules of the discord. This is not the first time user:BerkBerk has participated in off-wiki canvassing through Discord, see for example these two posts back in July 2021, where user:BerkBerk tried to recruit an admin to his "14 people" discord, which was apparently focused on editing the Syrian Civil War and 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War. [14]-[15]- LouisAragon (talk) 12:03, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Note the date 27-06-2022 at Discord:[16] Seems there's a triad involving editors at the Turkish wiki, off-wiki people, and editors at Eng.Wiki. - LouisAragon (talk) 12:03, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

@LouisAragon, this report may have all kinds of merit, but doesn't the "The discord server" bit inch into WP:OUTING? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:15, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Berk#2835 is me, and that community has permission from authorities of Turkish Wikipedia, and it is not interested in English Wikipedia editing. Many experienced/authorized Turkish-language editors are in that group, furthermore I am not the owner of that server. I undertake all the mistakes done by me at "discord" one year ago. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 13:18, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Why am I not surprised to see you engaging in this kind of stuff again. Not interested in English Wikipedia editing? What is this you have written under Planlama ("Planning") then? Google Translate "Users will be divided into 2 main sectors as English and Turkish Writers. It is obligatory to make a total of 100 edits, 60 from one sector and 40 from another sector, on behalf of users who want to participate in both. When the new week is started, the number of edits between sectors (60-40) may change." I did write a similar report about BerkBerk to ArbCom sometime ago, though I am still awaiting an update. --HistoryofIran (talk) 13:26, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I invite administrators to the discord server to prove that there is not any single edit provoked by me in english wikipedia, everything asked will be translated by me, and for any kind of distrust, access to server logs (+ProBot for deleted messages) will be given. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 13:35, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

The discord link here just got deleted [17] (including the user who posted it) and the discord is now gone. Something you and co. trying to hide? Fortunately I took pictures of BerkBerk's "Planning" list before hand. Would it violate WP:OUTING to post it here? --HistoryofIran (talk) 13:39, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

that text is not written by me, the person who writed it wanted me to post it (I understand the reason now), the planning list is already posted and I have opposed the things going on reddit on that server aswell. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 13:42, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Kutlug Şad — 13.10.2022 O zaman r/Turkviki başlı başına canlı kuklacılık ("Then r/Turkviki is completely meatpuppet") Berk (me) — 13.10.2022 Öyle zaten ("it is, already") Kutlug Şad also posts a screenshot showing him posting a nationalistic comment, calling reddit users to the discord and asks me about it, I told him "don't". BerkBerk⁶⁸ 13:44, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

again, all logs and messages will be opened for Administrators. I have never motivated anyone to make any edits on English Wikipedia on that server. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 13:45, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

So.. you wrote for the sake of someone else? Honestly, your excuses bore me. Prepare to make more, as this is not even scrapping the barrel. As I said, I also have that huge ArbCom report of you. Not to mention you have been called out for nationalistic editing or similiar by other users than me. Let's not forget my previous ANI report of you either. --HistoryofIran (talk) 13:45, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I have found messages of the owner sending me the text in order to publish it on server at 27.06.2022. since "discord screenshots" can't be used here, I will post it when its necessary. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 16:39, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

I strongly urge you (both) to only send any personal data like that to ArbCom — posting screenshots/text or anything that someone could argue is personal data will, at the very least, cause drama. The back and forth here is unlikely to resolve the issue, given that it appears to depend on this private evidence. — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 17:49, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

its not just me, but also another experienced editor pings 2 other editors including me, asking if that would be "meatpuppet". and I respond: "it would absolutely be called that because it is". messages at 13.10.2022 proves that I am blaming that subreddit. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 13:50, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

@HistoryofIran Per Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 169#Discord logs Posting discord logs on wiki is oversightable. Email them to arbcom. 192.76.8.81 (talk) 13:46, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I see. The issue is that it (respectfully) takes too long if I message ArbCom. They still haven't updated me regarding the ArbCom report of Berkberk, which I sent two months ago. --HistoryofIran (talk) 13:49, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

@HistoryofIran: If you believe there's action that ArbCom can take, I'd suggest starting a case request — just ensure you keep the right side of WP:OUTING etc, and (re-)email the committee the private evidence — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 18:02, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

• Based on the evidence already provided in this thread regarding how this Discord group has been advertised and coordinated on Reddit, specifically taking issue with content on en.wiki, I don't buy the claim that this is unrelated to en.wiki editing. Frankly, the rhetoric surrounding this group online is WP:RGW and vitriolic enough that I would have serious concerns about them even operating as a group on tr.wiki; there may be a case for starting a discussion on Metawiki. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:39, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

  You are openly invited to the aforementioned group to see the proofs of my opposition on the subreddit. messages there are clearly showing that individuals wanted to support the subreddit and to invite reddit users while experienced editors including me opposed that. it would also prove the fact that I have never encouraged/supported anyone to edit on english wikipedia. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 18:01, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

  Could you more clearly explain what the purpose of this Discord group is? Setting aside your specific participation, what is the purpose of the group, and why has it been promoted on reddit forums in the highly combative manner detailed by LouisAragon in the first part of this discussion? _signed, Rosguill ^talk 22:07, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

  The fact that both the Discord and Reddit sub-forum are now private makes BerkBerk's claim even less believable. I also still have that screenshot of his "Planning" message if an admin is interested. --HistoryofIran (talk) 17:52, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

  Actually, according to this post from 9 days ago, the privating the subreddit was something planned in advance, so. That's on me. ~Styyx^Talk? 23:24, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

  Ah, glad to see. Some users think that I am managing a whole reddit group despite I have opposed that group days ago. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 15:29, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  promotions were made by different users and multiple experienced users including me thought that it would be meatpuppetry and opposed that (as it could be seen on the server messages including the meatpuppet expression). The general thought of the community is that Turkish community on Wikipedia have been regressed a lot due to the disgusting decision of Turkish government on blocking Wikipedia, and therefore source interpretation has changed a lot, which I totally agree with that. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 15:27, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  Turkish community on Wikipedia have been regressed a lot due to the disgusting decision of Turkish government on blocking Wikipedia, and therefore source interpretation has changed a lot, which I totally agree with that, this does not allay concerns that the discord is operating as a POV-pushing platform. Additionally, your position in this thread is that there is a subset of people involved with the discord that have been publicizing it improperly, against your advice and against the intent of the server in the first place, would be a lot more convincing if you identified the black-hat editors misusing the discord so that we could investigate and address their malfeasance. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:39, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  ofcourse, the user that I have warned about this situation is Kutlug Şad as I explained above. BerkBerk⁶⁸ 16:23, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

There's some POV editing happening right now at Karapapakhs, who were renamed to "Karapapakhs Turks" by some IPs and a new account. Drmies (talk) 21:05, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Have seen a large increase in dubious editing on Turkic history-related articles recently. I asked for a sockpuppet investigation into one because I thought edits were too similar. However, accounts coordinating off-wiki could very possibly be another solution. ~~ AirshipJ29 (talk) 00:17, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Two brand new users are currently engaging in POV editing at Seljuk Empire, attempting to remove 7k sourced information through edit warring. This is not good. --HistoryofIran (talk) 15:44, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

• Aaand r/Turkviki has been made private by its moderators. ~Styyx^Talk? 17:07, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

WP:NOTHERE

I can't figure out what User:MasterQuestionable is doing here--or what they're doing with these talk page posts. You'll need to click through their contributions and the history of the talk page, and the 24 subpages of their talk page; they pinged me back with this, apparently expecting me to check user talk subpage 9 as a matter of course. Drmies (talk) 20:43, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

With 221 edits adding and subtracting single characters from their sandbox I might have thought they were trying to game the system, but if they are I can't see why. Their replies and innovative formatting make me wonder if this isn't someone's AI project. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:26, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

ActivelyDisinterested, they actually had their autoconfirmed added and removed so they wouldn't gain it automatically. It's on one of their random sub pages. This is their word salad reply. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:30, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

So they were testing how many changes had to be undone in one edit to ensure that the revert tag was not added to the reverted changes?![18] I would say they need to explain exactly why they need to know that, but let's not. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:42, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I looked through a pile of their edits, and it pretty much comes down to non-standard views on formatting and organization, favoring their own, objectively worse, style for both. Not much in the way of actually contributing. Even their article talk edits are like this. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:27, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I've tried to interact constructively with this user but have not been successful. MasterQuestionable stashed my communication on a subpage and changed the formatting. They've taken up a lot of other people's time by posting unclear questions/suggestions. I'm not sure what's going on, but I see no sign that the user is here to make Wikipedia better. SchreiberBike | ⌨  21:50, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

They seem to think everything should adhere to some XML schema they are in the process of designing but frankly I don't see anything improving. Nthep (talk) 21:56, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

It's just our tiny Earth brains are too puny to appreciate advanced stuff like [19]. EEng 23:20, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Just block this editor. This is an encyclopedia, not a playground for someone wanting to test their pet theories about what should be changed in the way that we work. If they were really interested in changing things then they would have communicated clearly by now. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:02, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I have indefinitely blocked this editor as not here to build the encyclopedia. Cullen328 (talk) 22:16, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Cullen. FYI, we've had quite a few editors who've shown a crazy interest in coding and creating labyrinths in user space. CU revealed no socks or previous accounts, but I remember editors like that going years back, so that's not saying that much. Drmies (talk) 22:21, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

For the record, I think CIR is more to the point than NOTHERE. EEng 00:27, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

In the end, it amounts to the same thing. Cullen328 (talk) 16:46, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

If you mean that a block by any other name would still smell sweet, yes. However, since AGF is a core principle, NOTHERE should be a last resort. I actually think he believed he was working up to some revolutionary talkpage organization that would make things better, but his arrival on a transporter beam from 18th-century France has left him socially and linguistically incapable of operating here successfully. Thus CIR. EEng 17:00, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

• And now he's block-evading to make goofy formatting changes to his talk page. EEng 14:57, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

hashtag #CfACP, associated with Meta initiative -- worth making an edit filter?

Check this and this out. It seems that it is associated with meta:Code for Africa Climate Change Project. I recall that with the #WPWP thing from a while ago, an edit filter was created so that we could look for low-quality edits -- might that be prudent in this case as well? I have been seeing a few of these edits in RecentChanges, but I don't see it mentioned anywhere on the site. Pinging @Femke:, who I found discussing this elsewhere. jp×g 17:32, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

@JPxG Special:AbuseFilter/1073 is the filter that is set up for tracking these, it just needs the hashtag adding to the first line. There's also Toolforge:Hashtags which can be used to find tagged edits. 192.76.8.77 (talk) 17:43, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Added, watch for it in the log here. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:53, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Good stuff. I am looking through some of these now and it looks somewhat dire. this edit adds a formatted reference to a cn-tagged statement ("There is also a renewed emphasis on the importance of client-side JavaScript used to create dynamic web pages"): said reference mentions JavaScript only four times (none in conjunction with this claim), "client" zero times, and "dynamic" once in reference to bitmap rendering. This seems like it has the potential to be extremely disruptive, since checking references is a laborious (and often impossible) task... jp×g 18:16, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

This edit adds this reference to "In the fall another round of floods hit the African Sahel". Said ref is a paper talking about floods in eastern Africa in 2020, but does not mention any specific instances of floods -- indeed, the latest flooding mentioned by date is in May 2020. The next edit adds a second ref. This is supposed to be supporting the claim that there were floods in August and September -- the paper is titled "Extreme rainfall in East Africa, October 2019–January 2020 and context under future climate change", published in late August 2020. jp×g 18:24, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

It should be noted that I am not specifically pointing out bad ones: these are literally the first two results from that edit filter log. Both of them are completely invalid citations that required about ten minutes of close-reading papers to determine were invalid. This may be a significant issue. jp×g 18:26, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Disruptive editing like that should result in blocks (following sufficient warning, of course). I don't have the time to go digging right now, but if you come across any that fit the bill feel free to drop me a note and I'll block. Primefac (talk) 08:13, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Project set up by the foundation where you have to apply to volunteer and they guide you what to do? Eew. Secretlondon (talk) 09:12, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I reviewed the last 5 edits with this tag. Two were helpful (good wikilink, resolved update needed tag), and two were unhelpful. External links in bodies, citations in activist headings. I'm leaving a note to the organisers asking them to participate in this conversation. Femke (talk) 19:02, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

There is an Outreach Dashboard to track the edits made through this initiative. I checked the article history of one of the articles on the dashboard and all edits to that page were copyright violations.[20] To the organizers: I'd really like to see this outreach effort succeed. We do need more help with climate change articles. Something needs to change though, because it is a lot of work to find and clean up bad edits. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:24, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Pinging Cmwaura (the Kenyan WiR) and Jwale2 (who set up the meta page). I really hope this project can succeed, but most edits now need to be reverted, which is a time-consuming process.. It seems like these volunteers need more support to contribute effectively. Femke (talk) 16:18, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the alert @Femke. @Jwale2 and i will discuss as soon as we can on how best support the volunteers. I will seek support where needed. I do believe too that this project will succeed by supporting the volunteers. Cmwaura (talk) 17:05, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi Femke and other Wikimedians administrators, I have seen your shared concerns and messages , I have spoken to the team on the project and would provide feedback as soon as possible in other to resolve this issue.I will get in touch. Thank you. Jwale2 (talk) 17:14, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

@Jwale2 and @Cmwaura, any updates? Resolving these mistakes is taking up a lot of our volunteer time, and the disruption is continuing to this day. Only today I've spotted the introduction of multiple weird spelling errors in correct sentences, inappropriate wikilinks, external links and sources that do not verify the preceding information. The latter especially is very time-consuming to fix. Femke (talk) 16:17, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm still deleting copyright violations and external links in article bodies almost daily @Cmwaura and @Jwale2, please urgently get in touch with your volunteers.

Are there better ways of dealing with this? —Femke 🐦 (talk) 14:53, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Paid editing at CfACP

I just noticed this: "The community of volunteers will be supported with monthly stipend while certificates will be handed out to all participants at the end of the campaign. The fellows will also be added to CfA’s Slack channel for future opportunities after the campaign period elapses."[21] (emphasis mine) What the...? People are being paid for these edits! How much is this monthly stipend and who decides who gets a stipend? Which editors have or will be receiving it? Have these individuals disclosed as required by WP:PAID? Note that the "partners" of this project include the WMF.[22] The WMF is among the groups paying for this?? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:00, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

I wonder if they mean the WiRs when they say volunteers.. I cannot imagine they'd pay everybody.. Clarification is certainly needed. Femke (talk) 17:08, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Hi Femke and Clayoquot, this campaign is being organized by Code For Africa in partnership with Wikimedia Foundation, International Fact-Checking Network, Institute for Strategic Dialogue & PesaCheck. This campaign seeks to fight mis/disinformation in the climate space.

I know that Wikipedian's are not to be paid but this is a campaign that we are running and I believe you know what goes into running one the wiki-way.

If you are talking about payment, the WIR position as we all know is a professional position and so, therefore, there is a need for them to receive some stipend for their efforts.

Also, the volunteers recruited by the WIR's would receive support, which will be in the form of providing them with data/internet scholarships respectively. This campaign is 10 months long and we do not to experience complaints or burnouts whiles they are engaging in the project. Jwale2 (talk) 19:10, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Jwale2. I am dismayed that nobody from the Wikimedia Foundation seems to have told you about the paid editing policy, which is at WP:PAID. Is there a particular WMF staff member who has been working with you on this project? Your impression that "Wikipedian's are not to be paid" is not really correct. The Wikipedia community accepts that some people are compensated for their Wikipedia work. However, it also requires that anyone receiving compensation has to follow certain requirements - that's the point of WP:PAID. The project page on Meta names four WiRs for this project and when I checked their English Wikipedia userpages yesterday, none of them were complying with the requirement for disclosure. I will notify them.

If a volunteer is receiving a data/Internet scholarship, it's a bit of a grey area as to whether this is a form of compensation that requires disclosure. I'd like to hear what the other watchers of this noticeboard think. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:48, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Of the four WiRs, I only see one with a declaration on their user page, which needs to happen per WP:PAID. I'm not quite sure, but I don't think the data scholarship need declaring. The biggest problem is that this project now requires half an hour per day of checking edits, with most requiring improvements or reverts. There urgently needs to be a QA process / training.

I've been fighting climate misinformation on Wikipedia for nine years, feel free to drop me a line on my talk page for what forms it takes on Wikipedia (no obvious denial fortunately) Femke (talk) 19:50, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Sure I'll do so,I will also communicate with the rest of the WiR to make the declaration on their user-page Femke Jwale2 (talk) 09:53, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Help needed: replying to closed discussion

I recently reverted another editor's reply to a closed AfD discussion (on the basis of Template:Archive top). The editor pointed out, however, that the reply button was inviting him to reply. Should this tool be removed in closed discussions? Is that even possible? Was I right in reverting? Sorry if this is the wrong location to ask this question - I couldn't think of anywhere else. StAnselm (talk) 02:30, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

You were entirely correct to revert. The AfD in question was clearly marked as closed. This wasn't a case where someone had been writing a comment before the close and jammed it in two minutes over the line. Furthermore, just because a button exists does not mean one ought to use it - after all, the edit button persists on closed discussions, and we trust people not to make use of that, either. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 05:22, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

OK, thanks. StAnselm (talk) 15:59, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

• There seems to be a fairly big difference between the "edit button existing" (which it does for literally all pages on the project) and a big blue "REPLY" button existing on a controversially closed AFD. But YMMV, I guess. I'll leave you all to it. Kevin ^{Hallward's Ghost (Let's talk)} 20:09, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

  Kevin, the reply button (which isn't that big, not that size matters here) exists on literally all discussion pages these days as a tool of convenience. The technical ability to edit a page, whether via the edit button or the reply button, does not override the longstanding community convention of not editing closed AfD discussions, coupled with the obvious closed/archived formatting and explicit warning not to edit the closed discussion. I understand making the error in the first place, but doubling down and acting like the presence of a reply button forced you to use it seems silly to me. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:24, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

  Never once did I write that "the presence of a reply button forced [me] to use it." Not one thing about this situation surprises me at all. Not your snarky remark about "the presence of a reply button forced you to use it." Not the awful close, where an admin substituted their own policy interpretation for the overwhelming community consensus. Not the wikilawyering to keep a simple reply to the awful close from appearing below it. Nothing. Admins are super-users on the project, whose view of policy can be substituted for overwhelming community consensus. It's as simple as that. It's always been like this, and probably always will be. And at this point, pushing back against it is pretty futile. Please don't ping me again in this pointless "discussion." Kevin ^{Hallward's Ghost (Let's talk)} 01:26, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Request for the creation of the page "Battle for Dream Island"

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=edit&create=Create+new+article+draft&editintro=Template%3AAfC+draft+editintro&preload=Template%3AAfc+preload%2Fdraft&summary=--+Draft+creation+using+the+%5B%5BWP%3AArticle+wizard%5D%5D+--&title=Draft%3ABattle+for+Dream+Island Slaythe (talk) 13:00, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I am a new member of Wikipedia so please excuse me. Slaythe (talk) 13:01, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

@Slaythe, you should review Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle for Dream Island and determine whether you can find sufficient reliable sources to overcome the lack of notability identified in the discussion. Schazjmd (talk) 13:42, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Also at Deletion Review

• There is a case currently at Deletion Review concerning this title, brought by the same editor. User:Slaythe – Please read the guideline against forum shopping. It appears that there have been a very large number of titles deleted in both article space and draft space, due to the gaming of names. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:29, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

• Comment - User:Cryptic - Case-sensitive titles strike again. See also Battle For Dream Island. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:50, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
• Comment See also Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Battle for Dream Island. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:53, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Also Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Battle For Dream Island (BFDI), Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Battle for BFB, Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Battle for BFDI, and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Battle for Dream Island: The Power of Two, plus an rfd or two, in draftspace. It's also made plenty of appearances at WP:AN and WP:ANI - Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive328#Battle For Dream Island, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive329#Battle For Dream Island, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1084#Hello, I’d like to make an article but it is black listed (notify me if this isn’t the correct noticeboard, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive340#Timwi (related arbitration request) which led directly to the February 2022 AFD, and the current Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Request for the creation of the page "Battle for Dream Island". The only other deletion discussion for the mainspace version that I can find, though, is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/BFDI (Franchise).
    Besides the salting at this title, it's also blacklisted (even in draft!); there's deleted versions at at least 18 different titles in draft and at least 9 more in mainspace. —Cryptic 20:39, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
    • Let me add some more: User:Ericallums2007/sandbox, User:Heptasepta/sandbox, User:Samuel Adam Walter/sandbox, User:Ericallu1115/sandbox, User:EricAllums11/sandbox, User:Juvenz123456/sandbox, User:Emanresuruoy/sandbox, User:Bfdiguypersonguy/sandbox/BFDI, User:Ericallums15tetert/sandbox, User:ImJustThere/sandbox, User:KirbyGUY11/sandbox/Battle for Dream Island, User:Slaxflax, User:Inanimateinsanityfan27/sandbox, User:HEHE20/sandbox, Draft:Jacknjellify, Draft:Some Stoopid Voting. MER-C 11:43, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Proposal 1: Community Sanctions

Attempts to create an article on this subject are a Contentious Topic. I propose that the community impose Community General Sanctions on editors seeking to create a page (in article space, draft space, or elsewhere) on the topic of Dream Island, broadly defined. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:29, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:29, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
• I don't think it's that serious. It's going to continue to be promoted by fans and is a mostly low-level issue. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 15:38, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
• Yeah. Let's wait to see how the DRV turns out, and just adjust the blacklist accordingly. —Cryptic 20:45, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
• From what I remember, this was walled garden, Fandom-like content that has been wasting AFC reviewer time for a few years - i.e. not a serious attempt at writing an encyclopedia article. Looking at Draft:Battle for BFB, things have not changed. There are a few more instances in now-deleted user sandboxes that won't show up in the undelete fuzzy search. A general page creation prohibition for non-extended confirmed editors is the way to go on this. MER-C 11:37, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Support , and concur with MER-C. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:29, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

I have DS questions

My understanding is that an administrator has authority to independently sanction an editor only in an article/talk page that is subject to discretionary sanctions (DS). If the page is not DS, the matter must be taken to a "wikicourt."

My further understanding is that the DS status of an article/talk page must be prominently displayed on the page.

Also, is it correct that, at least by custom if not policy, and assuming the article/talk page actually is subject to DS, a user should or must receive a DS alert on their Talk page before a sanction is imposed?

For reference, please see:

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Awareness and alerts

"No editor may be sanctioned unless they are aware that discretionary sanctions are in force for the area of conflict." [let's assume none of the six "awareness" criteria listed here are applicable in a given case, such that an editor could not be aware]

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions#Page restrictions

"Editors who ignore or breach page restrictions may be sanctioned by any uninvolved administrator provided that, at the time the editor ignored or breached a page restriction:

• The editor was aware of discretionary sanctions in the area of conflict, and

• There was an editnotice (ds/editnotice) on the restricted page which specified the page restriction."

If I have this wrong I'd appreciate if adminstrators would correct me. Thank you. soibangla (talk) 17:20, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

You can be sanctioned for editing in any area covered by discretionary sanctions provided you are aware of the specific discretionary sanctions topic area you are being sanctioned for. That includes talk pages and noticeboards and not just articles. There is no need for there to be page restrictions or any notice that the page is affected since it's your responsibility to take care when editing in any area affected by discretionary sanctions once you're aware that topic area is covered. Page restrictions are specific measures covering a certain page that is covered under some discretionary sanctions, and impose specific limitations on editing some page. You can be sanctioned for violating page restrictions without needing to further demonstrate the harm of your edits provided they aren't covered by WP:BANEX. So if a page is covered under 1RR as an example, you could be sanctioned for violating that. However on other pages in the topic area, simply going beyond 1RR is not by itself enough for sanctions but you may still find yourself in trouble if you keep doing it. Note that in some cases it is unlikely page restrictions would be justified under DS e.g. Offham Hill isn't likely to be sufficiently covered by any DS I'm aware of to be to justify page restrictions. Still if you make edits concerning some living person or about a fringe theory, your edits would still fall under the BLP and pseudoscience discretionary sanctions respectively. Nil Einne (talk) 18:28, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Just a nitpick, the relevant exceptions to a page-level DS revert restriction are those at WP:3RRNO, not BANEX. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 22:46, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Nil Einne does a good job of answering a lot of what you ask. You also can be sanctioned under regular behavioral procedures without a "wikicourt" (to use your phrase). So if you are edit warring you can be blocked (or partially blocked) without the DS bureaucracy. What makes DS special is admin have extra authority to impose kinds of sanctions they normally couldn't (i.e. topic bans) and/or at a lower threshold of misbehavior or with less overall warning. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:24, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Nil Einne wrote it's your responsibility to take care when editing in any area affected by discretionary sanctions once you're aware that topic area is covered (italics mine). But the scenario I describe is an editor has not been made aware of it, either by notice or alert. So how can an editor plausibly know the DS status of every space in the encyclopedia so they can avoid a violation? soibangla (talk) 20:43, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

What do you mean by "a violation"? If an editor has not been made aware via one of the methods listed at WP:AC/DS#aware.aware they cannot be sanctioned under the discretionary sanctions regime. 192.76.8.77 (talk) 20:54, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

So I'd like to translate what you said: if an editor has not been made aware that DS is in effect, with a notice on the page or alert to their Talk page, DS sanctions cannot be applied. Is that correct? soibangla (talk) 21:02, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

@Soibangla Not quite. If an editor has not been personally made aware that discretionary sanctions are in effect via a {{DS/alert}} on their talk page (or by satisfying any of the other conditions at WP:AC/DS#aware.aware) they cannot be sanctioned under any part of discretionary sanctions.

If a page is under specific restrictions (e.g. 1RR) then the editor must both have been made aware personally via a {{DS/alert}} or equivalent, and an appropriate edit notice must be present on the page in order for that restriction to be enforced.

Apart from those used to enforce specific remedies like 1RR the notices on article talk pages and in edit notices the like are purely a courtesy and have no effect on anything. The existence of a talk notice cannot be used as evidence to sanction an editor who has not been made aware of sanctions, and there is no requirement to add a notice to a talk page to "include" an article in the discretionary sanctions regime. 192.76.8.77 (talk) 21:18, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Barkeep49 and Nil Einne, do you concur with this by 192.76.8.77?

If an editor has not been personally made aware that discretionary sanctions are in effect via a {{DS/alert}} on their talk page (or by satisfying any of the other conditions at WP:AC/DS#aware.aware) they cannot be sanctioned under any part of discretionary sanctions.

soibangla (talk) 21:32, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Seems about right. If an uninvolved admin uses discretionary sanctions to sanction a user who truly wasn't aware (through any enumerated method) in the area of conflict, the sanction was made out-of-process and there's a basis for an appeal to a "wikicourt" – either AE or AN, and if that fails, ARCA. Expired sanctions cannot be appealed. An administrator who places sanctions out-of-process could perhaps be admonished at ARCA (it has happened before). If there's no further evidence of misbehaviour by the admin, an admonishment is the most likely outcome.

There are some cases where AE or other forum has accepted an appeal because the enforcing admin interpreted the area of conflict too broadly.

If you're not literally "asking for a friend", I'd suggest reading awareness criterion #4 very, very closely. Politrukki (talk) 10:55, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't think this is even an criterion #4. It's criterion #3 since as pointed out by the sanctioning admin, the OP was considered aware of the American politics DS (also BLP) due to this alert [23]. I guess the OP forgot about that alert, but for good reason we do expect editors to remember for 12 months any discretionary sanctions topics they're alerted to (or made aware by some other manner). I would say it's especially important for the OP to do so, since going by their talk page, they seem to be heavily involved in both areas. Nil Einne (talk) 19:48, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Good catch. I trusted that if Soibangla was talking about themselves, they would have double-checked and quadruple-checked that. I'm not too familiar with the background of Soibangla's sanction, but I remembered seeing this. They should now remind themselves that a sanctioned user will remain aware in the area of conflict forever unless all sanctions are successfully appealed. Politrukki (talk) 14:50, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Politrukki, I saw that Feb 2022 alert and I maintain that it was not applicable because "No editor may be sanctioned unless they are aware that discretionary sanctions are in force for the area of conflict." The area of conflict was in an economics article, not an AP2 article, and I don't see that science article falling under AP2. Nil Einne raises interesting points, but try as I might, I cannot find it codified in policy. Just intuitively I find it implausible that editors could be expected to know if any edit they make in a non-DS article might tangentially touch a DS article and expose them to sanction. I'd like to see PAG that articulates that. It seems far more intuitive from my observations that if a topic area is tagged as DS, then all "child" records hanging off that "parent" record inherit that DS property (unless it is explicitly overridden). And because the Economics topic area is not a child of AP2, economics articles don't inherit that DS tag. Consequently an AP2 DS alert is not applicable to the Recession article. soibangla (talk) 16:40, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

As I said, the American politics discretionary sanctions apply to edits, as well as pages. Whether an edit to an economics article falls under discretionary sanctions depends upon what you are editing in that article, not just what the article is. If you pick an economics article at random some of the stuff in it will not fall under discretionary sanctions, but anything related to the intersections between the topic and American politics will. Per WP:AC/DS#broadly.construed the area of conflict is broadly constructed, as determined by the topic ban policy - WP:Broadly construed states if there is any plausible dispute over whether DS applies in a specific case (for example, definitional disputes: whether a particular issue counts as a type of American political issue, whether a particular practice counts as a type of alternative medicine, etc), that is normally taken to mean that it does.

You cannot classify articles into "stuff that is related to American politics" and "stuff that isn't", the world isn't that simple. Evolution is a science for example, but it's massively ingrained into American politics and spin-off topics like Inteligent design are extremely political. 192.76.8.77 (talk) 17:18, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

I submit that "any plausible dispute" would be better handled by standard BRD on an exceptional basis, rather than subject an editor to possible sanction for unwittingly touching an electric fence on the border of DS. As I see it, there is a clear demarcation between DS and non-DS (otherwise, why even have DS topic areas, just make everything DS) and exceptions are just that, exceptions, and should be handled accordingly without the need for administrator intervention. If a DS alert actually means "this topic area and any other topic area it might conceivably touch," then it should say that rather than state a clear delineation of one specific topic area. soibangla (talk) 17:44, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

@Soibangla: you clearly knew this was an American politics dispute. You said as much in your comments on the talk page. It's utter nonsense to claim it was "unwittingly", you absolutely knew what you were getting in to, and to suggest otherwise is not only disingenuous but suggests even without having to look at your behaviour in the matter that your sanction was likely justified, and it wouldn't be surprising if further sanction is justified in the future. Nil Einne (talk) 10:05, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

@Soibangla: by talking about "unwittingly touching" a DS area, you make it sound like you were editing and modified or removed text that related to a DS area but you had no idea it did because you were just editing a broad article. But it's clear this is not the case. While you might have had pre-existing involved in the article predating the recent dispute, you clearly knew the recent dispute related to post-1992 American politics, your 3rd comment on the talk page [24] and plenty of others (e.g. [25] [26] [27] [28]) show that. Indeed your comments illustrate that you felt the need to protect the article against "political activism" relating to a current US politics dispute. So please cut it out with the disingenuous suggestion you unwittingly touched this, you knew what it was when you chose to get involved in it. While it can be commendable to oppose political activism and prevent recent political disputes from overtaking broad articles, post-1992 American politics is one area where problems arise very easily so we need everyone involved in editing anything related to post-1992 American politics anywhere on the English wikipedia to be on their best behaviour, whatever their motivation. If editors are unable to do so, then they will need to stay away from the topic anywhere on the English wikipedia, preferably voluntarily but by topic ban if needed. Nil Einne (talk) 14:17, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I forgot to mention my final thought which is that if we turn it back around, we can see the harm that comes when editors are not on their best behaviour. Even if their motivations are good and what they propose is ultimately borne out by community consensus, editors who behave poorly can make it much harder to get to that consensus with a lot more needless ill feeling, arguments and in the worst case edit-warring, all around. In other words, they become a barrier rather than part of the solution. Nil Einne (talk) 18:13, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

What was OP's misbehavior and what was the harm that was prevented by sanctioning him? SPECIFICO talk 20:11, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I have no idea, as I already told the OP on the admin's talk page, I'm not interested in revisiting the specifics of their behaviour. I'm just trying to correct their woefully misinformed understanding of how DS works, and why it works that way. If the OP wants to claim their behaviour was fine because although it was a DS area, they behaved perfectly fine or at least not bad enough to warrant sanction, that's one thing. But they've barely done that at least here; instead most of their comments here have been them trying to claim it was not a DS even though it clearly was, and whether or not they understood DS applied, they knew it was a DS area. It wasn't something they unwittingly went into, it's something they intentionally went in to with an apparent desire to protect an article from what they regarded as harm coming from editing being made due to current American politics dispute. Anyway I've probably said enough on this so I'll leave it on a final comment. I've emphasised we need to treat all sides equally whatever their motivations, for many reasons it's the only way things will work. If you're trying to say you don't see AP2 should apply, then from my PoV this means you're also saying that if an editor was on the recession talk page insisting that the lead needs to say a certain thing and the only reason it says something else is because everyone is trying to protect Biden, this editor cannot be sanctioned under AP2. If that's really how you feel so be it I guess, but I can tell you if an editor has a topic ban on American politics and insists those edits did not violate it, well they'll be given short shrift by the community. Nil Einne (talk) 06:30, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

If you're trying to say you don't see AP2 should apply... Wow! that was out of left field. Read my question. I was just asking for a clarification as to what you see having occurred so that I, and perhaps others, could make sense of your lengthy discourse on this matter. SPECIFICO talk 23:30, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Soibangla, the thing with discretionary sanctions is that... they are discretionary. Sometimes administrators don't use their discretion wisely (for example in this appeal there was consensus that Order of the Arrow didn't fall under AP2), but, I believe, most of the time they do. Sometimes things are murky. I believe that many indef page protections made under DS are rather questionable.

I don't think this forum should specifically be used to debate the merits of your sanction because you already lost your change to appeal. Politrukki (talk) 16:23, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

@Soibangla:, yes sorry I neglected to mention an editor needs to be aware for any discretionary sanction including for any that relate to page restrictions. Nil Einne (talk) 19:16, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) No, your understanding is not correct. You appear to have mixed several things together and gotten them confused.

First of all, discretionary sanctions do not apply to articles. The vast majority of discretionary sanctions apply to pages, and many of them apply to edits. This means an editor can be sanctioned under discretionary sanctions for their behaviour in project space, on templates, the stuff they make in their userspace, their interactions with other editors regarding the topic and so forth.

Under discretionary sanctions administrators can place restrictions on individual editors (called "sanctions") or they can place restrictions on pages (called "page restrictions"). A "sanction" on an editor might be something like a block or a topic ban, a "page restriction" might be something like a WP:1RR restriction or a requirement to get consensus for changes.

If an administrator wishes to sanction an editor, the editor must have been made aware of the existence of the discretionary sanctions, this can only be done by meeting one of the criteria at WP:AC/DS#aware.aware. Per WP:AC/DS#broadly.construed the topics under discretionary sanctions are broadly constructed, and the topic ban policy is used to determine their scope. There is no requirement to indicate the DS status of the page, though this may be done as a courtesy. If an editor has not been made aware of the existence of DS sanctions, they cannot be sanctioned. {{DS/alert}}s are valid for 1 year, and there is no requirement for further alerts prior to imposing a sanction.

If an administrator wishes to place a restriction on a page they must follow the instructions at WP:AC/DS#sanctions.page. If an administrator decides to implement a 1RR restriction on a page, for example, then they must set up an appropriate edit notice using {{ds/editnotice}} and should add a notice to the talk page. If an admin wants to block an editor for violating that 1RR restriction the editor must both have been made aware of existence of discretionary sanctions, and an appropriate edit notice informing the editor of the page restriction must have been set up.

Individual administrators can place sanctions on editors for conduct in the topic area, there is no requirement to use WP:AE. As it says at WP:AC/DS Administrators do not need explicit consensus to enforce arbitration decisions and can always act unilaterally. 192.76.8.77 (talk) 20:28, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Mass changes being made to thousands of U.S. county pages

Re: User talk:Costco nostra

Concerns were properly and recently raised regarding User:DemocraticLuntz's updating of 2020 census numbers. Even more concerning, it seems, is User talk:Costco nostra, who is now individually revising demographic data on every county page in the United States, and the reference the user is providing for revision of this data does not include the ethnic percentages the user is adding. So what is the source? I asked that question of User talk:Costco nostra. Answer: Well, the user is doing the math individually. So far, the user also has inserted the inaccurate state on a vast number of county pages, which had to be retroactively corrected. In the case of User:DemocraticLuntz, I think the concerns were that the user's automated process had not been previously reviewed/approved combined with the insertion of an inaccurate link that had to be reverted and corrected on a few hundred pages. But, at least in that case, I don't believe there was any questioning that the population numbers (then and largely still at 2010 levels) were in need of being updated and that the user was doing his/her best to insert accurate data supported in the reference provided. In this case, however, we are relying on one user's individual math to update core demographic data to (just looked this up) 3,143 counties across the nation without, to my knowledge, any broader assessment of the accuracy (or even need for) these percentages. This warrants assessment as it relates to process and format for literally thousands of data revisions to pages based on the sole determination of one user that these percentages must be included and that, if so, his/her individual calculations of them is sufficient in place of any primary reference for them. On the format alone, if the census is not providing the data, I do not see any reason that we should be. But if they should be included, the process of one user's mathematical interpretation of the primary reference warrants consideration. I'll alert the user I've raised the issue here and appreciate assessment of the process for mass changes of this magnitude that are being made based on individual calculations. I suspect there is a relevant policy for them and doubt it includes one user doing 3,143 individual mathematical calculations. And if there is no policy for changes this vast and fundamental, perhaps there should be. Keystone18 (talk) 18:09, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Yeah like I said some of this stuff is 20 years out of date, and I'm just adding a template that's already present for countless other counties in other states some of which are already updated. I didn't come up with it I'm just adding it to pages that our woefully out of date.

Answer: Well, the user is doing the math individually.

And? What approved way am I supposed to be using then if not doing it manually? Routine calculations are not banned on wikipedia. Wikipedia:No original research#Routine calculations

user also has inserted the inaccurate state on a vast number of county pages, which had to be retroactively corrected

Which I caught and fixed myself. As I already explained to you that was a mistake I made because I forgot to update the template for the new state I was updating. Once I saw that I went back and fixed it.

accuracy (or even need for) these percentages

Well they're on other county pages as I already pointed out but you keep ignoring for whatever reason. If you or anyone else finds a math error feel free to fix it.

3,143 counties across the nation without, to my knowledge, any broader assessment of the accuracy

Except as I already stated other states do have up-to-date info using the same template, same source, etc. I take it you didn't even bother to look at the link I already showed you. All of Alabama, for example, is up to date right now. I didn't add those some other dedicated individual put in the time and effort to do the calculations.

if the census is not providing the data

The census is providing the data, the most routine of calculations are not synthesis or "original research" so I don't get the objection. Looking back on the information from 20 years ago all they did was provide the calculation of percentages without any raw numbers so by using these tables (which I stress I didn't come up with) we're actually giving more information than Wikipedia used to provide. If anything, it's an improvement.

one user's mathematical interpretation

When did basic division become an "interpretation"?

one user's individual math

As I already pointed out plenty of counties have already added these numbers using basic math. 3,143 counties don't need updating. However some of these states are in fact 20 years out of date. I'm just trying to fill in the gaps.

I suspect there is a relevant policy for them and doubt it includes one user doing 3,143 individual mathematical calculations.

You really think there needs to be a new policy based on what is effectively copy pasting US Census data combined with elementary tier math? Look up any county in Alabama or Georgia, all data is up to date and I had nothing to do with it. List of counties in Alabama List of counties in Georgia. Why anyone would have a problem updating US Census info I have no idea. Costco nostra (talk) 19:06, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Good news there are plenty of other states with counties that are already updated with 2020 US Census numbers List of counties in Florida, List of counties in North Carolina, List of counties in Texas, List of counties in Arkansas, List of counties in Tennessee List of cities and counties in Virginia. It looks like California is only partially updated. List of counties in California. They're all using the same source I'm using which doesn't provide percentages you have to manually calculate them yourself. Costco nostra (talk) 19:42, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Inconsistent comparison is one problem, which I agree might not be major. If state x is updated to 2021 and state y is updated to 2022, then it's apples and oranges for population ranking, ratio of voters to congressional representations, other stats. Martindo (talk) 01:34, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Keystone18 it might be a good idea to provide some examples of controversial edits and notes about what's wrong with them. -- Mikeblas (talk) 23:13, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

• This is unacceptable. Costco nostra, you must know that you cannot calculate a percentage unless you have the number divider user right (which requires 3 years tenure, 25,000 edits, and a proven track record of successfully dividing numbers as difficult as 11 and 4) and get prior consensus at the Multiplication Noticeboard. I propose an immediate site ban. – Joe (talk) 06:25, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Examples of problems to date

Even if these edits were performed with impeccable accuracy and the best of intentions, it presumes: a.) that every county page should have the county's ethnic groups divided from raw sources and broken down into 100th decimal percentages on each of over 3,000 county pages when even the U.S. census is not reporting them in that fashion; and b.) that, if such data is perceived to be of necessary encyclopedic value, that any singular individual user alone should then be entrusted and empowered to use their own arithmetic to calculate such percentages when the underlying reference the user is relying upon does not provide such percentages.

Those are two big picture questions. Then we face the issue of the user we apparently are entrusting to perform all these calculations individually who, in short order, has:

• Inserted the wrong state on 66 separate county pages. Example (times 66): Adams County, Pennsylvania, which the user's reference lists as Adams County, Minnesota. Edit link: [29]

Questions: 1.) Does a county's population need to be broken down into ethnic percentages to the 100th decimal on each of over 3,000 county pages? Why exactly? Is that not a question deserving of some broader consideration in the relevant Wikipedia Project pages (even if this was done at least partly 12 years ago, in 2010 updates); and 2.) If the conclusion is: Yes, there is an undeniable encyclopedic need to list each county's ethnic representation to the 100th decimal on these thousands of pages, should the user charged with performing these sensitive calculations and updates be one who, to date, has proven unable to even transfer the appropriate state from the primary reference to the page reference updates correctly in over 60 consecutive edits? Whether this data warrants a presence on every county page at all seems deserving of broader consideration, and (if, yes, it is of vital significance), why did the census itself not see the case for it? Finally, if the view is that, yes, there is an undeniable case for including this data, is relying on one editor with a significant error-ridden record on even more basic components of this project the best of all options in going about it? Keystone18 (talk) 00:58, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

You're just restating the complaints you already made, which I've already addressed. Yes I screwed up by not updating the state name on the template I was using. When I realized that it was the wrong state I updated it. As for everything else as I've pointed out the county pages already have this data, the problem is in some places the data is 10-20 years old. Costco nostra (talk) 02:11, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Keystone18, what are you asking administrators to do here? Administrators do not adjudicate content disputes. Are you complaining that another editor is voluntarily doing a lot of useful work? That seems strange. Are you complaining that the editor made some mistakes, admitted their mistakes and promptly corrected their mistakes? We all make mistakes and I have voluntarily corrected two of my own errors in recent days. A significant percentage of my edits are correcting my own typographical errors. Are you insisting that there needs to be a team of six or eight editors working on this instead of the one or two editors who are actually willing to do the work? Are you willing to recruit these other editors to this project? Are you claiming that straightforward mathematical calculations are forbidden? If so, which policy or guideline are you relying on? I do agree that excessive precision is not a good idea in the social sciences, and that in most cases, 24.3% is preferred to 24.3482%. I am an adminstrator who has spent a fair amount of time looking at your report, and I cannot figure out what you want administrators like me to do. Cullen328 (talk) 06:15, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Also, I assume the editor is not actually listing things to the 100th decimal place? Nosebagbear (talk) 22:16, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

It's a confusing statement for sure, not helped by the lack of WP:DIFFS. Looking at some actual edits[30] [31] [32] [33] [34], I wonder if User:Keystone18 is confused by what 100th decimal actually means. For clarity 11.11 is not a 100th decimal. It is 2. 100th decimal would be 11.1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111. Anyway while this is not a place to deal with content disputes I will quickly mention that IMO the use of decimal points in most of those examples seem fine. The one example I'd quibble with is it's probably not necessary to say 68.42%, I'd say at most 3 significant figures is enough and also probably no more than 2 decimal places. Nil Einne (talk) 09:22, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

@Keystone18: "100th decimal" could be taken to mean the 100th decimal place, which would be the number place Nil Einne stated above. What you're thinking of is the hundredths place of the decimal (so 6 in 15.46) as opposed to the 100th decimal. It's a subtle but important difference. - Aoidh (talk) 23:23, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

• I'm going to cosign everything Cullen328 said above. Cosco nostra is doing necessary work. They are updating out-of-date information with new sources. Yes, they made a mistake in doing so a couple of times; but they also admitted their mistake, and went back and fixed it when they were made aware. There's literally nothing for us to do here except commend Costco nostra from doing the thankless work of updating outdated statistics, thank them for fixing their mistakes, and then going about our day. --Jayron32 18:21, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Hello. Happy weekend to all. Catching up on the comments here, and I hope this ends up being a useful discussion, leading to some creative/new ideas and improvements on these county pages. Or--on the other hand--maybe it leaves us all reassured that, of all options available, that the current course (having one user perform thousands of individual divisional math equations-- because even the U.S. Census itself does not report this data as a percentage--and then deeming this calculated percentage essential (and other Census data, including the numbers on which the percentage is calculated, not essential) is the best of all options. And since we're not all sitting in a room trying to work through this issue over a beverage of choice, I want to emphasize my appreciation for all input and for the varied views and my full comfort with however we proceed. This struck me as a process worthy of discussion, which is why, Cullen328, I consciously did not offer my own thoughts on a remedy to the issue I'm identifying. I'm simply suggesting that the current approach includes a lot of assumptions and presumptions among all the options available for the use of U.S. Census data on these pages.

Let me just walk through some facts as part of this consideration:

1. First, this process struck me as deserving of discussion and deliberation because we are not discussing a change on half a dozen pages or so. We are talking about substantive changes to over 3,000 important pages that users will turn to expecting that these pages include: a.) the most important/encyclopedic data on these counties; and b.) that this data is as reliable as possible--which, if it's Census data--must be 100 percent;

2. Second, in fairness to the editor who set about individually calculating and then making these 2020 percentage updates to U.S. county pages, there was precedent for doing what he or she set about doing. In 2010, it seems, this percentage data was inserted on U.S. county pages in a similar format. Is that data outdated? Yes, I would almost guarantee it, as someone correctly observed above. Was the data even accurate in the first place? I don't know. And unless anyone has gone back and done the divisional arithmetic on over 3,000 pages on which this 2010 data appears, or identified some other more reliable format that precluded human error was used then, I'm guessing none of us knows. I do know, from looking at the 2010 and 2020 references, that both then and now these percentages did not appear in the reference provided and were someone's presumption that the data must be included on every county page and that it must be reported as a divisional percentage as opposed to the format reported by the U.S. Census. Lots of assumptions there was my initial thinking;

3.) That raises the issue, as someone raised above, that this is "necessary work." If it is so necessary, then why didn't the U.S. Census do it? With all their resources and the broad use of all this data, they instead decided it wasn't needed at all and reported the number of residents in total and the number by ethnic classification. Or, perhaps in fairness to the "necessary work" comment, maybe you more likely mean that letting the (almost certainly) dated 2010 data stand as it is currently is not an option, which makes the updates "necessary." If that's the point, yes, I agree on that, provided this data--presented in these percentage formats--is necessary at all. Was that issue decided somewhere? There are only three options now, as I see it: It either must be updated as it exists currently by percentages (process to be determined), or presented in the format the U.S. Census presents it, or removed entirely;

4.) It's worth considering that the county data provided by the Census is pretty extensive. Yet, almost none of it is used on these county pages. I just looked it up and a few examples of what is not included on the county pages here include: Breakdown of the county population by age, median age of the county, percentage of the county population over 65 (no division required; they provide the percentage), gender percentages in the county, labor force data (number employed/not employed, etc.), housing statistics, crime statistics, per capita income statistics, education statistics, poverty statistics, etc. Yet (in addition to a county's population), it appears that the only mandated/must have/universally included data on the county pages is this ethnic representation data--and it cannot, someone determined, be as the Census itself reports it, but must instead be reported by percentage for some reason. It is not raw data; it is derived by an editor's individual divisional math.

Some of these questions may be more appropriate for the Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. counties or other WikiProject, but I think these are the questions:

1.) Along with the county's population, a county's ethnic representation by percentage appears to be the only universally included data from the Census that is included on county pages. Has there been some assessment that the ethnic percentage is somehow of greater value than, say, age, gender, employment, or health data? What census data, in addition to county population, belongs on these pages? On what basis are we including this mathematically developed data and excluding other Census data?

2.) If the answer is that this ethnic representation is essential and the U.S. Census itself does not break it down by percentages, why are we?

3.) If there is some overwhelmingly persuasive reason ethnic representation must be presented and cannot be presented in the format the U.S. Census reports it (thus requiring divisional calculations), is relying on one user's individual divisional math skills X over 3,000 calculations as the final word on that percentage the best of all options available?

4.) Finally, and this is not at all central to the issue here but was raised above, by 100th decimal, I meant 100th decimal as it is classically defined: "the second digit to the right of the decimal point indicates the number of hundredths.": [35]

I hope these are useful questions and considerations. I certainly respect everyone's input on them. And if you really seek how I would present them, Cullen328, I will go over the Census data available and offer a proposal or some options that I think are preferable. I'm not at all looking to shrink from the work at hand. My initial (and remaining) concern is simply that these questions have been considered before all these 2020 updates were made. Otherwise, I trust you guys to consider the questions raised and do the right thing--and if they are foolish questions, let me know. Maybe I'm missing something. Have a great weekend, all. Keystone18 (talk) 17:30, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Keystone18, you have been told several times that this noticeboard does not adjudicate content disputes. And what do you then do? You post a massive wall of text about a content dispute. What do you hope to accomplish? Cullen328 (talk) 17:39, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Feel free to close this out if it doesn't belong here, and I'll raise the question in the county/other geographic work groups/or talk pages. Thanks. Keystone18 (talk) 06:11, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Since I've responded I don't feel comfortable closing it but note that most of the time, there's no need to close discussions like this where there's no need to assess consensus. Just stop responding or posting new comments. Nil Einne (talk) 13:39, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Organizational article merged into Biographical article

On 28 June 2021, User:Skyerise opened a new section at Talk:Arica_School "Suggest merge and redirect" with Oscar Ichazo biographical page because he founded the Arica school. Less than 3 hours later, after a flurry of edits, she followed the WP:BOLD preference (noted also at WP:Move and WP:Move Review) and merged the page without any discussion.

Point 1 (policy): Should Boldness be encouraged, even tacitly, in regard to a Merge? In this case, no formal Request was opened. Consequently, I cannot follow WP:Move Review because the June 2021 archives do not show any Request discussion.

Having been a member of the Arica School during the last 1/4 of the 20th century, I retain some interest in the page and contributed to discussions on Talk during 2009. I had the page in my Watchlist since at least that time, but somehow the actual Merge event did not show up last year as a change. I only saw a change appear when Skyerise tweaked the spelling of Ichazo's given name by inserting an accent mark (despite the fact that he never used it during 50 years of publications in the English language).

Point 2 (technical): How is it that a Watchlist does not alert a user to a major change such as merge/deletion?

Looking around at similar human development articles, I noticed that Diamond Approach was merged into A._H._Almaas by User:Ruslik on 18 July 2008 Talk:A._H._Almaas#Merge while Insight Meditation Society is still distinct from Jack Kornfield. The latter's Teachings section is rather impoverished, as I noted yesterday in Talk, so I suppose another eager editor might soon decide to merge those two pages. However, I doubt any would be BOLD enough to merge Fourth Way into George Gurdjieff.

Point 3 (philosophical): If an organization has persisted for 50 years or so (Arica, IMS), is it notable as something more than the "work" (writings, teachings) of the founder(s)? If yes, then what is the justification for a merge? IMO, a merge simply reinforces the popular misunderstanding that an organization of this type is merely the product of an individual guru. NB: even if you feel that these human potential groups are all pseudoscience, an encyclopedia might still find them notable in a historical sense (e.g., mesmerism, phrenology, and similar notions).

I posted a section User_talk:Skyerise#Founder_vs_Organization:_I_think_you_merged_the_wrong_way yesterday, initially suggesting that the merger should have gone in the other direction (subsuming Ichazo under Arica). However, after reviewing Almaas, Kornfield, and Gurdjieff, I now feel that the Organization and the founder Biography should be kept distinct as a general policy.

FYI, there are still two distinct Talk pages, more than a year after the Arica/Ichazo merge:

Talk:Oscar_Ichazo

Talk:Arica_School

Point 4 (content): Some editors seem rather zealous about third-party sources despite WP:ABOUTSELF indicating acceptance of first person (interviews, etc.) as minor sources for a biographical page. Unfortunately, what tends to happen is that the page for an organization like Arica School or Diamond Approach becomes pigeonholed into a discussion about theory (with academics often cited as third-party WP:RS) which IMO is a subtle WP:Undue Weight because organizations of this type generally include social interaction and other applications of teachings, similar to traditional sangha.

In this light, an organization's page could generally be improved by seeking third-party observations of the school itself not merely academic pro/con sources about its theories (most of which are not falsifiable). Otherwise, it tends to devolve into a mere listing of teachings, which can suggest to a zealous editor that the organization is nothing more than a "work" of its founder(s), therefore a merge is warranted (boldly or otherwise).

I hope any or all of these points are deemed worthy of discussion in this noticeboard. I don't know what else to do. Martindo (talk) 01:23, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

If someone was WP:BOLD then you can always follow WP:BRD so I don't see why the inability to follow WP:MOVEREVIEW matters. Indeed the whole point would seem to be that there is no discussion to revisit, hence why you're free to simply revert without needing to overturn any consensus or establish the consensus was misread. Nil Einne (talk) 08:30, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

This isn't the place to contest an editorial decision. You can discuss the issue with the editor or a WikiProject, or if that doesn't work, use dispute resolution. It sounds like you have a conflict of interest, so you should probably be posting to the article's talk page instead of editing the articles directly, anyway. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 15:10, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your two comments.

@Nil Einne: Over a year has elapsed. As you've probably seen in your own editing, there is a flag/message indicating that automatic revert is not possible due to intervening edits. My Point 2 is relevant in that the Arica School article was moved section by section, which is probably why there was never a Merge discussion and maybe why I didn't see an alert during my sporadic checking of Watchlist last year.

@NinjaRobotPirate: I recommend that you read my 2009 post on the aforementioned Talk page before assuming "it sounds like you have a conflict of interest". Past experience or paid membership is in itself not proof of POV. Viewpoints of editors change, which is sometimes a factor in consensus building. Martindo (talk) 06:03, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

I concur with Martindo: it seems inappropriate to conflate individuals with movements. Einstein's theories of relativity have their own pages (Special Relativity, General Relativity) separate from his biography; the Declaration of Independence is not a subsection under Thomas Jefferson; B.F. Skinner's bio is distinct from the Wikipedia article on behaviorism. Further, in this particular case, Ichazo had a rich life with many accomplishments, achievements, publications and recognitions separate from the Arica School, while the school has welcomed many other teachers (e.g., Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche, Sheikhs Adnan and Yakzan, Professor Cheng Man-ch'ing, Swami Muktananda, etc.), and continues to grow and develop following Ichazo's death. One wonders if Skyerise has an agenda to minimize the Arica movement or erroneously equate it with its founder. Patrickwooldridge (talk) 17:04, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Einstein's theories of relativity have their own pages Oh good -- I was worried you guys might be cranks but this is very reassuring. JBL (talk) 00:17, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

If the specific choice of analogies here bothers you, I will note that the general point is true in less savory cases as well: Enver Hoxha is separate from Hoxhaism, L. Ron Hubbard is separate from Scientology, et cetera. jp×g 13:18, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes indeed, if you choose extremely notable people who had major and lasting impact on the world you will discover that they and their ideas are covered in separate articles. --JBL (talk) 17:07, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Apples and oranges. The reason why two very closely related topics may be covered in separate Wikipedia articles are two fold 1) One article would be far too long if it contain the entire combined set of information (see WP:SUMMARYSTYLE and WP:LENGTH). 2) Each topic has enough source text about it alone to stand alone as its own topic (See WP:GNG, or WP:42). If neither of those conditions are true, then it is better to cover the two topics in one article. Saying "Because these two topics have been split up, every possible way anyone wants to split up two topics is fair game" is bad thinking. That's not how any of this works. You don't get to claim that because you found one example (or even two or three) of something happening, that Wikipedia is a free-for all and anyone gets to do whatever they want. We have policies and guidelines that clearly describe when to split up an article, and when to cover everything in one article, and your examples mean absolutely nothing at all. All that matters is adherence to policies and guidelines. --Jayron32 18:14, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

@Jayron32: I have no idea who the person mentioned above is, and accordingly, no opinion on whether these specific articles should be merged. jp×g 05:54, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Me neither. But the point is that examples mean nothing in a discussion not about those exact articles. Every situation is unique, and needs to be approached for it's own sake. --Jayron32 10:44, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

"Every situation is unique" is a typical gatekeeper argument when consistency is brought up and rules don't seem to be applied equitably. Please (re)read the part in bold if the rest of my post is too long. Several issues are raised herein. Martindo (talk) 12:21, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

The rules are being applied consistently. The rules says, and I quote, "There are two situations where spinoff subarticles become necessary, and, when done properly, they create the opportunity to go into much more detail than otherwise permissible: 1) Articles where the expanding volume of an individual section creates an undue weight problem 2) Large summary style overview meta-articles which are composed of many summary sections. And also If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate article, but should instead be merged into an article about a larger topic. It doesn't matter that some other article has been split up, because those situations followed the rules. This doesn't seem to apply. Rules matter. Examples do not because the other examples are not identical to this one, so the outcomes cannot be expected to be identical. --Jayron32 14:37, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

@User:Jayron32: Thanks for reminding us of WP:PAG which clearly states as paragraph 2:

Although Wikipedia generally does not employ hard-and-fast rules, Wikipedia's policy and guideline pages describe its principles and agreed-upon best practices. Policies are standards all users should normally follow, and guidelines are generally meant to be best practices for following those standards in specific contexts. Policies and guidelines should always be applied using reason and common sense.

See also WP:BURO. It should be quite clear to anyone who has read a celebrity's Article, that first-person accounts are a type of "common sense" source, because interviews or talk show appearances that probe the notable person's background are full of it (you can take that as a pun, but I'll try to avoid snarking further). Even a skeptical or muckraking interviewer is likely only to challenge some of the claims related to biographical background -- IMO nobody would grant an interview to a person intent on challenging anywhere close to 1/2 of the interviewee's personal history.

So what we have in a Biographical page is inevitably going to include info from the subject, even if reported in a WP:RS like Psychology Today which interviewed Ichazo back in 1973: countries he was raised in, religious background, traditional schooling, quest, none of which appear on his page, which has basically been reduced to nothing more personal than birth and death dates. In related Talk discussions, I mentioned that Sharon Stone claimed to have an IQ of 154, repeated in a CBS fluff piece (perhaps not really WP:RS except to the most literal-minded defenders of strict WP:PAG) that gave no source. And a contradiction appears in her Article regarding year starting college, based on that 2011 fluff piece vs a 1999 interview cited.

As I noted in Point 4, WP:ABOUTSELF accepts first-person, provided no ads, no unverifiable claims about other people, and a majority of third-party sources in the biographical article. I suppose some zealous editors who do not look carefully at both policy "letter" and flexibility might be inclined to gut a biographical page, which apparently happened to Ichazo, suggesting a kind of POV that begrudgingly acknowledges notability but nothing else.

However, the person is notable, so how can reversion to a Stub be prevented? Aha, merge their teachings/works, which almost surely have some WP:RS criticism, thereby beefing up the third-person content, thus the merged bio. Hurrah, the package is now tied up neatly to fit a fussy view of rules.

What I'm suggesting is that we have a kind of meta-bias here, where people who have spent decades developing some kinds of organization appear to be more likely have their Bio page merged/gutted than those developing other kinds of organizations. But even with good faith, there is a subtle bias that organizations claiming to be spiritual should be described only in terms of Teachings or other claims (often unfalsifiable, which is typically the argument of a fair NPOV criticism). In fact, the organization has other facets, some of which have actually been observed by WP:RS such as styles of clothing, layout/access of headquarters, types of in-group interactions (salutes, hugs, whatever), impact on community (e.g., soup kitchens), etc. but somehow these are omitted due to the focus on refutation of ideas.

It's inevitable that some aspects of a biography will rely fundamentally on (published or unpublished verbal) accounts in the first person. Notable enough to be included in WP doesn't mean notable enough to have multiple biographies written by scholars (e.g., Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, or some people currently alive). So the content of "minor notables" is not going to be easily verifiable now matter how reputable the sources.

In this light, the May 2006 statement made by Wales that is quoted in footnote 1 at WP:BLP probably should be revisited because its historical context is outdated. When he made that generic statement ("It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced") about BLP information, WP had a very different reputation. In particular, a large number of college and high school teachers were explicitly telling their students NOT to quote WP in their essays or reports. Stephen Colbert's mock hee-haw coinage wikiality a mere two months later was a direct response to the echoing that prevailed at that time. Now the reverse is true because some respectability has been achieved, so we can look more clearly at what "can be sourced" really means in practice for BLP. Martindo (talk) 07:03, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, what? --Jayron32 10:44, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Standalone articles must meet WP:N, and it appears the school barely met that, while Ichazo clearly has established notability. Seems like a no-brainer merge, as long as redirects were left behind to point to the appropriate section on their page. --Masem (t) 14:44, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

What exactly is the evidence that the bio is "more" notable of the two? I keep seeing responses here that fall back on inconsistently applied rules, or subjective opinions expressed as justifications. Nobody wants to address the inevitable reliance of WP:BLP on first-person information recounted in talk shows, interviews, or fluff pieces in otherwise RS. In the case of Oscar Ichazo, editors appear to have applied the May 2006 diktat from Wales indiscriminately, so that by July 2018, his bio had been gutted and included nothing more than his birth date and a half-sentence about founding the Arica School [[36]]. If his bio since that point (or earlier) consisted almost entirely of a "Work" section filled with info about the Arica School, how exactly do you conclude that he is more Notable than that organization? Part 2 of the explanation by User:Jayron32 above actually supports my initial suggestion to User:Skyerise that the merger went the wrong way:

If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate article means that the Ichazo article does not qualify as separate while the Arica school does. Martindo (talk) 09:45, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

This isn't the place to contest an editorial decision. JBL (talk) 19:46, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

See the OP: there was no "move discussion" ever opened, ergo none closed, ergo cannot use that channel to Undo.

I guess there's nothing further to discuss here. A.H. Almaas absorbed Diamond Approach but somehow Integral_theory_(Ken_Wilber) was never merged into Ken Wilber even though that theory's Talk page is full of condemnations about KW's platitudes, lack of expertise, etc. Probably should be merged, because he only offers theory.

However, Diamond Approach and Arica School are organizations, with members and styles of social interaction. Reducing them to theory that is then presumed to constitute the sole Work of the founder(s) is a disservice, because it ignores third-party reports about other aspects of those organizations, thereby limiting possible content to what is usually not WP:RS. Martindo (talk) 06:10, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Create redirect at protected title

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Could someone create Chase Oliver as a redirect to 2022 United States Senate election in Georgia#Libertarian primary? User:Sal2100 asked for this redirect to be created at WP:AFC/R, saying The title is currently protected due to multiple deletions and repeated recreation attempts from over a decade ago. While the subject does not appear to meet the notability guidelines for a standalone article at the present time, a redirect to the targeted section is plausible and warranted. Since most of the AFC reviewers aren't administrators, I figured it would be better to ask here. 123.51.107.94 (talk) 01:35, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Done. —Cryptic 01:46, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

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Used staff account to set protection by accident

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Wanting to note that I accidentally protected a page using my staff account and want to be clear this wasn't an office an action of any kind. I have a tool that prevents me from editting without a manual acknowledgement on my staff account, but naturally not for other actions. Whilst the protection was intentional, to do it with my staff account was not. Apologies for that. Seddon ^talk 12:55, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Immediate desysop of volunteer account and blocking of staff account for this underhanded attempt at superprotect, of course. /s Nosebagbear (talk) 13:26, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Whack! You've been whacked with a wet trout. Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know you did something silly.

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WP:SNOW

I have closed an WP:MFD on WP:HATESPEECH per WP:SNOW. I realize that I now may have been too hasty. An administrator told me to come here to ask for a closure review. Thanks. Scorpions13256 (talk) 22:24, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

It looks more like a disruptive nomination than a bad close. I don't see any issue with the close. Reaper Eternal (talk) 22:30, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

There's a related thread regarding the nom at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Jtrainor and XfD.-- Ponyo^{bons mots} 22:34, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

• Support the close. It's an essay and the deletion nomination is unnecessary. Nythar (💬-🎃) 22:29, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
• Good close per WP:SK#1. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:32, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

  I was going to type that. I'm not sure why I didn't do that. Scorpions13256 (talk) 22:37, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

• Support Not at all a bad close. Magnatyrannus (talk | contribs) 22:34, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
• Comment - Has anyone ever considered merging such related essays? GoodDay (talk) 22:40, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

  That has nothing at all to do with this thread. Pawnkingthree (talk) 22:48, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

• Looks like a valid speedy keep to me, as there was no valid deletion rationale. Pawnkingthree (talk) 22:48, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
• Endorse the close. There was only going to be one outcome. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 23:47, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
• Snow closure was appropriate. Speedy keep probably wouldn't have been. And this sort of review belongs at WP:DRV, not here. —Cryptic 00:01, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

• There is no way that 5 keeps in less than 24 hours reaches the level of WP:SNOW. I have no opinion on the speedy keep part --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 10:52, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
• I wouldn't have closed this early, but it's not a big deal. Stifle (talk) 12:09, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
• Endorse the snow close. Snow closes don't depend on the number of votes nor the time period left open. It's a form of IAR, where it is obvious to anyone paying attention it isn't going to go any other way. It would have been a snow close with zero votes and left open only 1 second. Clearly wasn't going to go anywhere. --Jayron32 14:02, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
• Agree with Cryptic that this is a Deletion Review issue. Robert McClenon (talk) 12:21, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Jason Gastrich Has Returned

Jason Gastrich, currently known as User:Former_user_20, has returned under a new name: User:Jasonagastrich. He is permanently banned as per Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jason_Gastrich and also for deliberately revealing an editors name, address, and phone number for the purpose of inciting harassment. He has even resumed the practice of self-promotion with Talk:2003_California_gubernatorial_recall_election#Link_to_Wikipedia_User_Page?. Jason Harvestdancer | Talk to me 01:30, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

My reading of the 2006 ArbCom decision is that the ban was for a year, not permanent. However, the ArbCom log also records an extensive history of post-ban socking, as well as the following by Stifle, regrettably without a link to the AN discussion: "I have blocked Jason Gastrich indefinitely as a community-imposed ban, which was endorsed by multiple users at WP:AN." The log also links to several discussions up until 2007 in which the user's reinstatement was declined. So from what I can tell, Jasonagastrich should be blocked for ban evasion, but I'll leave this to people more familiar with the user's history. Sandstein 07:42, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

WP:3X is still part of policy; Jason has evaded their block on more than 2 occasions. Per policy Editors who are confirmed by a CheckUser to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block that is active, for any reason, are effectively site banned by the Wikipedia community.[6] CheckUser findings[7] must be documented on Wikipedia before a user is considered banned. Users who have been banned in this way are subject to the same unban conditions as users banned by community discussion. Jason has had in excess of 20 CU-confirmed blocks, so the proforma blocking of any and all new accounts they create is well within policy. Now, I will note that many/most/perhaps all of these CU-confirmed sock accounts were from 15 years ago or more, so perhaps a community discussion should be held if WP:SO or WP:ROPE applies here, but that discussion needs to happen before the ban is considered lifted. Unless and until the community decides Jason can edit freely, they cannot per policy. --Jayron32 14:29, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

• Well that's not a name I expected to see today or at all.
  Here's the AN discussion; we didn't stand on quite as much ceremony 16½ years ago. At this time the new account falls to be reblocked for ban evasion, so I have done this. He has two edits outside his own userspace in the last two years. Stifle (talk) 08:30, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

  Definitely did a double-take on seeing that name. Mackensen (talk) 15:58, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

  At first I thought this was gonna be a thread from that one LTA who pops up once or twice a year with the purported goal of mediating some long-banned user's return. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 06:09, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Request to CheckUser for User:Naka.chernqka26

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Attempted to repeatedly to sign-in and sign-out. User:Naka.chernqka26 made vandalism hurnful of Grigor Dolapchiev. D2W59E (talk) 14:21, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

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Chatime and 99 Ranch Market

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MrOllie has repeatedly vandalize Chatime receiving the 2014 World Branding Awards noting that it is not notable. MrOllie has mislabel 99 Ranch Market as an American supermarket instead of a Taiwanese supermarket and vandalize 99 Ranch Market one of 2022 best managed companies. Fiextqbe (talk) 16:24, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Didetaexe. Spicy (talk) 16:58, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

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I would like to delete my account, please.

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I would like to delete my account, please. Dont need it anymore. Lars Smth (talk) 00:05, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Accounts cannot be deleted. If you don't need it, don't use it.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:08, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Even beyond that, what would be the point? As of writing this, this was their first and only edit... Sergecross73 msg me 01:33, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

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