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Fowler&fowler
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Fowler&fowler (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Disclaimer:- This will be a long post with multiple diff's from past few days so the administrator who will be reviewing it needs to be patient
While, I am generally not from those who posts at ANI (unless someone is a outright vandal); but now it's getting out of a tolerable zone and not only with me, this user is frequently doing it to multiple articles with battleground mentality, random uncivil rants, tangential shift of discussion etc.
1) To begin with - F&f appeared on 2 October 2022 at Talk:Muhammad of Ghor (a article they never contributed to in the past) and posted there in typical of battleground mentality that since the Pakistani editors are away and now this page is turned into a Hindu nationalist one - [1], I asked them in a polite tone about their problem with the page and they replied in typical uncivil tone abusing historian K. S. Lal as a R. S.S. hitman [2] and asked me to remove the quotebox - I did that to avoid getting into a futile argument as can be seen here:- [3], [4]
2) The editor though, showed no pause and used a comment from different article altogether to remove the entire section - [5] While, its nearly impossible to deny the large-scale temple destruction by the Ghurids in Ganges Basin, they started misusing the WP:Tertiary argument to remove a selected section which they aren't comfortable with (see here as I explained the whole argument - [6]
3) Leaving aside it for a moment the editors behaviour of assuming ownership of the page is something which can be seen even today - where they removed sources from still widely cited and respected ABM Habibullah and K.A. Nizami regarding the indentity of Muhammad of Ghor's assassins and labelling them as dated (they are from last 60 years (1970) and (1951) and not from 1770 and 1751 - diff (possibly to remove the bit that Hindus assassinated Md. Ghuri with Ismailis) and again here with "not so civil" edit summary - [[7] (omitting his well known debacle in Mount Abu 1178)
4) Even tolerating all these, the editors thuggish behaviour and branding others as Hindu nationalists, playing dangerous Hindu nationalist game, R.S.S Hitaman [8], [9], [10] and self-bragging about his own contributions with zero-regard for any other are just among many of their uncivil ranting - [11] and [12]. These instances are substantial enough to get them blocked, bar edit waring, assuming ownership of pages, battleground mentality among the others.
5) Their bad faith accussation on me for defaming the Muslim community (in general) and so on. diff, ignoring that they themself has the neck of whitewashing the destructions by the Muslims rulers as attested by पाटलिपुत्र; here - ([13])
For the record - I never edited any articles related to Muslims/Hindus/Buddhists apart from historical pieces and adding reliable content from WP:HISTRS is vilifying according to them, Isn't Wikipedia not supposef to be censored ? Unfortunately they still got a very light warning from the admin for this [14]
6) If anyone thinks that I am the only one who is having issues with this user then don't worry here is another one from a Bollywood actor - Akshay Kumar article where they were agressively pushing for adding about the actor so called Hindu nationalist bending [15]); despite being opposed by regular contributors there (isn't it absurd that adding Hindu nationalist bit on a actor page is due, {WP:BLP flys under the raddar}, but adding a religion part on a medieval ruler biography which is a normal protocol in historical article is not ?)
7) There battleground mentality, uncivil ranting, pov pushing was quite obvious there as well which even annoyed senior contributors there like Shshshsh & Krimuk2.0, see here - [16], [17] and [18]. (they promised to give both Krimuk2.0 and Shshshsh a good run for the money and not even counting it as a threat - [19]
Conclusion:- This is possibly second time F&f is having a trip at ANI in less then a month, leaving multiple instances of his uncivil tone which have flyied under the radar. There has to be some limit and this isn't restricted to a certain kind of pieces either - it's going on multiple fronts. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 09:53, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
- The previous thread from early Oct is at: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1109#Fowler&fowler. The admin mentioned (quoted?) as having given him "a very light warning" is Vanamonde93. Packer&Tracker, I find mobile diffs too visually jarring to easily parse, so I (and I suspect many others) are unlikely to review your complaint closely until these are converted to normal diffs. El_C 12:48, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
Comments of F&f that are repeated in the Statement section, so not so relevant here
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I was going to post at AE to request that Packer&Tracker (talk · contribs) be topic banned from medieval India-related topics broadly construed, but they beat me to it and brought our dispute here while I was asleep. They have been blocked before for tendentious editing on controversial Hinduism-related pages such as Persecution of Hindus. Let me begin with their last bone of contention, the page of Akshay Kumar, a Bollywood superstar, where I have painstakingly collected a total of 15 sources, all highly reliable, 13 from newspapers and news magazines (including BBC, Caravan Magazine, The New Yorker, South China Morning Post, Al Jazeera, Haaretz, and a host of Indian newspapers and one from Nepal, all have very likely passed muster at RS/N) and two journal articles. Together they make a decisive case that the actor has promoted Hindu-majoritarian views in some of his films and in interviews granted to the media. Here are the references: Talk:Akshay_Kumar#F&f's_sources_on_Akshay_Kumar's_political_canvassing_for_the_Hindu_right BLP concerns cannot be employed as a kind of universal trump card to make any living person immune from criticism. To say that I do not know about due weight when I have spent my 16 years on Wikipedia pursuing just that, on a large number of South Asia-related articles (including the flagships the FA India and History of Pakistan) does not add up. At the Muhammad of Ghor too I have collected highly reliable sources: Talk:Muhammad_of_Ghor#F&f's_modern_introductory_broad-scale_history_books_on_South_Asia_and_Islamic_societies I will add diffs of Packer&Tracker's edits promoting original research to promote the Hindutva view later. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:25, 16 October 2022 (UTC) |
- Both of you should explain the problem or problems briefly and present a limited number of diffs (non-mobile) alongside brief summaries. These ought to be prioritized with both the recent and the egregious in mind. Otherwise, the chances of an uninvolved review of either complaint drops considerably. I'd also recommend to limit boldface (P&t) and unnecessary links (F&f), because it just makes each post jarring to look at. El_C 14:42, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
Comments of F&f incidental to this issue, collapsed
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- Fowler&fowler, I'm not gonna do anything. I'm perfectly content in leaving both of you to your own devices. You can take my suggestions at face value or ignore them. It's all the same to me at this point. El_C 15:31, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
- I'm with El_C on this, that briefer, with minimal non-mobile diffs, will make this easier to parse. I'd also add that, Packer&tracker, you rewrite your post without the egregious attacks they include ("thuggish behavior", "whitewashing", etc.) and without throwing the kitchen sink at fowler. Note that Fowler has a long and respected history of editing here and bringing up multiple allegations will, fairly or unfairly, not wash. If you have a beef with fowler, that's one thing, but listing everyone's beef, nope. Fowler, I can only say that El_C's advice, both here and in the earlier ANI report, is well meant and worthwhile heeding. --RegentsPark (comment) 22:58, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
- Looking through some of the diffs above, this appears to be similar to the previous report in having been prompted by Fowler's brusqueness. Unfortunately, the problem they mention regarding topic in question does exist, one of those perennial issues Wikipedia is not good at dealing with. WP:ARBPIA offers some tools for admins, but that doesn't solve the valuable resource of editor (including admin) time. ARBPIA combined with the usual issues around celebrity BLPs is not an appealing prospect for anyone. I am a bit surprised at the request Fowler posts a shorter comment, as their first one here is a reasonably short one. CMD (talk) 02:58, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
- You misread, CMD. It can be 1 sentence. I said:
Both of you should explain the problem or problems briefly and present a limited number of diffs (non-mobile) alongside brief summaries
. - Obviously, Fowler&fowler's 3-paragraph response is relatively brief, but has zero diffs currently (though, he promised to bring some later for some items, which is fine). And obviously Packer&Tracker 10-paragraph OP is not brief, but has diffs (though once I realized they were mobile diffs, I stopped reading).
- I contend that if the two complainants subscribe to my 1-sentence advise, fully, they'll increase
the chances of an uninvolved review of either complaint
. Which I think is sound advise. But they don't have to do it. They're both free to believe that I'm wrong, or to just not bother, whatever it is. Again, it's all the same to me at this point. No good deed, etc. It is what it is. Added: Packer&Tracker's shortened complaint below still uses mobile diffs. Okay. El_C 04:44, 17 October 2022 (UTC) - OK, @Chipmunkdavis and El C: I will post diffs, although I have no heart for this. Wikipedia is impotent in the face of bias. It is the main reason it is not considered reliable. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:02, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
- Well, don't do it for me, Fowler&fowler, since I'm done here. I was just explaining my position, and puzzlement, at your vehemence in response to my rather standard advise. That's it. El_C 13:13, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
- @El C: Beg-pardon for inconvenience on my part - regarding mobile diff. I did it now in my recent post. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 13:30, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
- Good. That's a promising sign, Packer&Tracker. I'm still out, though, obviously through no direct fault of your own. I wish you both success in finding an amicable end to this. El_C 14:02, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
- Wait, no, it didn't work, Packer&Tracker. Here's are simple ways to do it using your first diff as an example: [20] (mobile) → [21] (desktop). Or alternatively: Special:MobileDiff/1116035193 → Special:diff/1116035193. And piped: diff → diff / diff → diff. HTH. El_C 14:12, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
- @El C: Putting it on hold for a moment, the editor's deceptive notice of quiting S.Asian article and last line of it ? Is such behaviour valid ? (saying that male user wrongly disguise themself as female ?) ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 15:04, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
- Packer&Tracker, I agree, that entire thing in the new notice at the top of Fowler&fowler's talk page that reads (in part):
very likely there are also males posing as females for reasons best known to them
(emphasis added) — I have no idea what that's about, but on the face of it, it sounds quite inappropriate the way that's worded ←[[Added: ES] But whatever, in light of him inexplicably taking that action in the first place as a response to my rather standard and neutral advise (and seemingly the mentality that he's owed something from me), I'm gonna leave all that to others. If I could have nothing further to do with all of this, that'd be ideal for me. Ultimately, It's Not My Cross to Bear. That said, you, however, should not continue to edit a user talk page after said user had asked to stop. That, too, is inappropriate. //Out (well, hopefully, this time). El_C 17:00, 17 October 2022 (UTC)- Sure, I would not post at their talk page, but even in their recent reply, their never ending brusqueness is still intact, where they dragged poor User:पाटलिपुत्र and vented out by branding him/her as "inveterate POV-pusher" - special:Diff/1116644991 I won't be surprised that it will be swept under the carpet as well among many other of his random personal attacks (their nescience about Md. Ghuri but still a desire to counter my so called "Hindu right" narrative is apparent from a number of factual error, pov, plethora of verbiage they inserted in lead which I will point out once they will be finished) ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 18:13, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
- Packer&Tracker, I agree, that entire thing in the new notice at the top of Fowler&fowler's talk page that reads (in part):
- @El C: Putting it on hold for a moment, the editor's deceptive notice of quiting S.Asian article and last line of it ? Is such behaviour valid ? (saying that male user wrongly disguise themself as female ?) ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 15:04, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
- Wait, no, it didn't work, Packer&Tracker. Here's are simple ways to do it using your first diff as an example: [20] (mobile) → [21] (desktop). Or alternatively: Special:MobileDiff/1116035193 → Special:diff/1116035193. And piped: diff → diff / diff → diff. HTH. El_C 14:12, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
- Good. That's a promising sign, Packer&Tracker. I'm still out, though, obviously through no direct fault of your own. I wish you both success in finding an amicable end to this. El_C 14:02, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
- @El C:: I have reverted my user page and user talk page to the respective versions of the days before this ANI began, the rationale being expressed in this diff. Although it was not an expression of vehemence but rather of extreme despondency. I apologize deeply to all concerned. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:31, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- @El C: Beg-pardon for inconvenience on my part - regarding mobile diff. I did it now in my recent post. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 13:30, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
- Well, don't do it for me, Fowler&fowler, since I'm done here. I was just explaining my position, and puzzlement, at your vehemence in response to my rather standard advise. That's it. El_C 13:13, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
- You misread, CMD. It can be 1 sentence. I said:
Some diffs →[22], [23] , [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [Please briefly go through, to get a better picture of it]
1.) Firstly regarding Akshay Kumar's article and for pushing Hindutva branded lead, every public figure at one point or other have political leanings but that doesn't mean that their lead will cover that part or a random comment (to teach about native Indian rulers over the Turks in the discourse of school) at film promotion worth a inclusion in article. Unless the actor is very clearly involved with a political party, it would be all but pov-pushing
→ This part is best explained by the involved senior editor there - [29]
→ The main issue with Akshay page as well as the others, I pointed out apart from WP:OWN behaviour is uncivil commentaries, let's assume that I got it wrong [30], don't think the other editors who shares the same view got that wrong either - [31] & [32] (both are veteran editors around for over a decade)
2.) Now coming to Muhammad of Ghor's article - they are indeed right that they posted decent sources, but they didn't mentioned that 70% of them didn't even mentioned the subject on whom the argument was supposed to be (Md. Ghuri and if it does then it was extremely brief to the point of being vague)
3.) It's clear case of misusing the tertiary source policy to remove only a selected chunk of article (religion section) by deviating the main argument. (look at tiresome posting on Talk:Muhammad of Ghor where Muhammad is not even remotely mentioned in most cases); I am open to discuss that part considering F&f bring something explicit to the table about the subject. I actually conceded rather easily on removing K.S. Lal quotebox to avoid a needless bother see - [33] & didn't even reverted blanket removal of religion section [34] untill today where they introduce a pov-factually incorrect lead (entirely different from the body) [35] only to get reverted by पाटलिपुत्र. (see here [36] - I explained their factually incorrect addition in 5th & 6th point)
4.) To sum up my part; I won't be proposing a T-ban as that's never a solution but keeping aside his pov pushing [37], batteground mentality [38] which concerned other much senior contributors as well despite their (F&f's) competence as a editor. Leaving all these points aside, their uncivil conduct and frequent bashing of their colleagues as Hindu nationalists, abusing historians as R.S.S. hitman and then playing innocent card is not acceptable.
5.) Every editor doesn't matter despite the seniority/juniority factor, must need to be civil and accomodating during discussion regarding contentious topics (by staying relevant to the topic and not deviating needlesly) which is apparently my main concern leaving aside all other issues. Yes, as RP said, the user has been around for years but that doesn't mean that they can get so many free passes, infact that's even more unfortunate. I included other's beef (briefly) with F&f only to highlight that off late it's going on at several fronts and I am not the only one who is complaining about it.
→Conclusion:- Please take a look at their recent notice of unwatching S.Asian articles as well on their userpage where they used verbals yet again, apart from their usual brusqueness, they also accused (indirectly me) that some male editors here wrongly disguised themselves as female - that's just baloney and blatant personal attack.∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 04:20, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
Fowler&fowler's statement
Please do not post in this section. Post in the section below.
My comments about the actor Akshay Kumar that at this point are incidental to my case.
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Not relevant to the discussion now (12:05, 21 October 2022 (UTC))
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Muhammad of Ghor
More coming. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:54, 17 October 2022 (UTC) |
Religion section and Hindu majoritarian bias
( Note: I removed the Religion section, citing an administrator's comments about another article with similar issues of bias (diff and diff) and its relation to WP:ONUS; so it is not currently there in the article, but my removal has been disputed by Packer&Tracker.)
- Packer&Tracker's "Religion" subsection gratuitously vilified South Asia's medieval-era Islamic conquerers, engaged in original research, and promoted WP:UNDUE content associated with India's Hindu majoritarianism. This was done without the necessary nuance, irony, modulation or narrative distancing required. Here are some examples from the added Religion section:
- "When the crow-faced Hindus began to sound their white shells on the backs of the elephants, you would have said that a river of pitch was flowing impetuously down the face of the mountain of blue. The army of Islam was completely victorious, and a hundred thousand grovelling Kaffirs swiftly departed to the fire of hell." (This egregious example was in the quote box.)
Other examples, not as egregious
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- When we quote medieval chroniclers matter-of-factly in a serial fashion without modulation or narrative distancing, we are no longer just adding the occasional vignette, we are using them vilify Islam in Wikipedia's voice.
- To aid discussions in Talk:Muhammad of Ghor, I have rewritten the lead on the subpage of my talk page (diff). All sources are modern.(diff) and the rationale for using them is in the: diff (Updated 09:19, 20 October 2022 (UTC) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:28, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
No longer relevant to the discussion
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- Packer&Tracker's previous blocks, warnings, and editing practice
- They were blocked on March 29, 2022 for two months from editing Persecution of Hindus by admin Bishonen. (diff
- They were warned on 11 April 2022 by admin RegentsPark on their edits on Prithviraj Chauhan and its talk page; the warning ended with, "(you're likely to end up with a topic ban on South Asian history because that tone is not productive.") diff)
- The were blocked the following day for 31 hours (diff) for making personal attacks on Talk:Prithviraj Chauhan. (diff)
No longer relevant (12:05, 21 October 2022 (UTC))
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My behavior
- I have sometimes been accused of being brusque. As proof of this diffs are offered, and quite often the same diffs seem to make the rounds, attempting to measure the empty portion of my glass of charity and civility on Wikipedia. What is seldom mentioned or simply taken for granted is how full that glass is. I have an extensive history in South Asia related topics which despite WP:ARBIPA is riven by scores of disputes. There are also scores of examples of my cooperating with other editors to build encyclopedic content. Although I usually make amends in instances of intemperate language, I agree, collegiality is non-negotiable. I apologize and will continue to make an effort to improve. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:25, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
Patliputra
पाटलिपुत्र (talk · contribs), (the Indic script in Sanskrit is transliterated as Patliputra in English) has not only contributed text on temple desecration to the Muhammad of Ghor article along with Packer&Tracker but has a long history of 1. original research, spamming both image and text across hundreds of Wikipedia articles, 2. of attempting to reconstitute pre-Islamic Indian artefacts in Wikipedia illustrations, 3. displaying xenophobia and expressing or implying Hindu majoritarian views, 4. baiting me to edit war, keeping careful tabs and taking me to ANI; they have done so three or four times, and when the decision has not gone their way, they have persistently queried the administrator to the point that the administrator closed the thread; 5 Patliputra has added content antithetical to Islamic conquerors of India, and by implication, to Islam but without nuance or narrative distancing to a number of articles ("spamming")
- Comments of other editors on copying and pasting, and image spamming ( diff)
- I agree with F&F. Frankly, using your methods you add so much content that checking probably takes longer than adding it. It tends to unbalance articles. Detailed stuff like this is better in lower-level articles, but your additions are nearly all to very high level articles. Johnbod (talk) 13:25, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
- पाटलिपुत्र, Johnbod and F&F are absolutely correct. Even if it is allowed, simply copying and pasting is a poor editorial practice and makes for poor readability. Drmies (talk) 15:40, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
- On reconstitution (diff):
- @पाटलिपुत्र: none of your photo-style "reconstitutions" are appropriate for WP, including the one you did of Sanchi. The Sanchi capital has more than enough surviving structure that the reader can infer the size and composition of the crowning wheel, in my opinion. ... And again, to reiterate, any depiction of a restored or original state must clearly look like a drawing/illustration, be labeled as such, and have minimal detail, and should preferably come from an RS or be a copy. SamuelRiv (talk) 15:15, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
- On xenophobia and expression of Hindu majoritarianism(diff):
- "An actual Indian" पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 08:28, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
- "The "Society" paragraph is illustrated by a Muslim in prayer in an old mosque in Srinagar... is this really emblematic of today's Indian society? This is highly WP:Undue and border provocative for a majority Hindu country." पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 08:28, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
- "Why has the unique photograph in the religion paragraph have to be a photograph of a Christian church??... is this really representative of religion in India? Again, this is highly WP:Undue and border provocative for a majority Hindu country..." पाटलिपुत्र Pat (talk) 08:28, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
- (Administrative response): The argument that "society" and "religion" ought not to be illustrated with images of Islam or Christianity is the sort of sectarian nonsense that I would almost recommend sanctions for. The article discusses religious pluralism in India at great length; the images in question are entirely appropriate, and if they're removed, it should not be for the reasons given above. ... Vanamonde (Talk) 16:33, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
- Persistently querying an administrator on an ANI decision (diff)
- This page is not a proxy for ANI.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:20, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
- They have continued to bait me in ways that are sanctioned, appearing on the FA Darjeeling a week ago (a page they had never edited before and on whose FAR user:Dwaipayanc and I had worked for six months). Without a previous discussion on the talk page, Patliputra added a large map in the infobox. This was done a few weeks after the FA passed the review, during which the decision not to have any map in the infobox was made. (diff)
- Upon my reverting their edit, they opened a talk page thread diff. Luckily I was able to find a compact map and added it to the infobox to avoid a long discussion.
- Finally, edits and misinterpretations antithetical to Islamic conquerors of India, and by implication, to Islam, which are simultaneously added without nuance or narrative distancing to a number of articles ("spamming"):
- (Background) On 19 July 2022, I cited a 2020 book in the Excavation section of Lion capital of Ashoka. diff The book was written by the late Frederick Asher, a University of Minnesota historian who specialized in South Asian art history or architecture history.
- On 10 August 2022, 07:17 Patliputra cited the same book (page 74) to extend a sentence in the lead. To the sentence, "The lion capital eventually fell to the ground and was buried." Patliputra added the sentence fragment, "or may have been overthrown by Muslim invaders in the 10-12th century CE." (diff)
- On page 74, Asher had written: "Because the pillar was found in several fragments, writers generally assume that it was damaged willfully. Daya Ram wrote, 'It follows... that the columns was overthrown about the 10th, 11th or 12th century A.D. ...'
The implication is that Muslim invaders were the culprits and that iconoclasm was the motive, even though the pillar and its capital have no clear religious imagery.
" In other words, at the end, Asher distanced himself from a commonplace inference by offering contradictory evidence.
- On page 74, Asher had written: "Because the pillar was found in several fragments, writers generally assume that it was damaged willfully. Daya Ram wrote, 'It follows... that the columns was overthrown about the 10th, 11th or 12th century A.D. ...'
- After I reverted the edit, based on my reading of Asher, Patliputra, (on 10 August, 2022, 15:22) changed his addition to, " following what many authors assume to be willfull destruction of the pillar, possibly related to Muslim invasions in the 10-12th century CE. " but again leaving out the nuance and narrative distancing in Asher. diff "
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Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:24, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Proposal
- Proposed that user:Packer&Tracker:
- Voluntarily stay away from editing the article Muhammad of Ghor and its sub-pages such as Siege of Lahore, until a consensus has been reached in the talk page discussion between TrangaBellam and Packer&Tracker on the text of the lead of Muhammad of Ghor; I am continuing to work on an NPOV version of that lead on a subpage of my user page: User:Fowler&fowler/Muhammad_of_Ghor.
- Or: Voluntarily stay away from editing Muhammad of Ghor and sub-pages until two months have elapsed, whichever period is shorter,
- Or failing both: Be partially blocked from editing Muhammad of Ghor and sub-pages for two months (similar to the manner they were partially blocked from editing Prithviraj Chauhan in April, though the issues then were somewhat different.) As yet, the talk page discussion on religion between user:TrangaBellam and user:Packer&Tracker (mainly) does not seem to be making progress. But, I'm hopeful.
- Proposed that user:Patliputra:
- Be topic banned from South Asian Islamic history broadly construed (1000–1765), for a period of two (2) months, whether or not they have edited other pages of that period besides the ones listed in paragraph five above. ((I had originally proposed that a no fault two-way interaction ban be implemented between user:Patliputra and I, but that does not get to the heart of the matter here, which is the promotion of biased content involving South Asia's Islamic history across a range of articles. In light of the evidence in paragraph five in the sub-section above (which begins with, "Finally, edits and misinterpretations ...," I have amended the proposal.)
- How the closing admin addresses my behavior issues is up to them. Still, I can assure them that I acknowledge my brusque language and will sincerely make a more concerted effort to avoid it in all my interactions on Wikipedia. I offer an unconditional apology not just to Packer&Tracker and Patliputra, but to all. The bottom line for me, though, is that even if I am blocked from all editing on Wikipedia for my lack of civility for two months, six months, a year, or permanently, the actions I have proposed for both user:Packer&Tracker and user:Patliputra are urgently needed, for these editors have violated core Wikipedia values of WP:NPOV and WP:DUE. Promotion of fringe and biased views is no longer blatant as it was in October 2006 when I arrived on Wikipedia; it is done in small doses, in different ways:
- for example by user:Patliputra by spamming the main respondent, user:SamuelRiv, at WP:RS/N—who had agreed that the use of old sources in support of an assertion is undue when little or no modern sources speak to it—with an indiscriminate list of citations in this edit and eliciting in turn this response.
- or by Packer&Tracker by dismissing off-handedly the Wikipedia policy on the use of WP:TERTIARY (in this instance widely used undergraduate or first-year graduate text-books published by scholarly publisher) in the evaluation of undue weight on Talk:Muhammad of Ghor in this edit of this week.
- It is the cumulative effect, across a range of articles as seen in the case of both these editors, who in the wake of their edits have created WP:FALSEBALANCE, that is dangerous (see this reply by a respondent at NPOV noticeboard). For it strikes at the very root of Wikipedia's reliability and trust, and takes years to root out.
Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:53, 18 October 2022 (UTC) Updated (Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:09, 19 October 2022 (UTC))
- PS Patliputra in a counter-proposal below has asked that I strike out instances of my past incivilities. This I will not do even if it means that I am permanently banned from Wikipedia, for not only will examples of incivility not remain but so also examples of the contexts that drive editors such as I to resort to incivility, thereby creating the impression that we can create WP:UNDUE and WP:FALSEBALANCE as long as we do it politely. Patliputra has also suggested that I be thanked for my contributions. What would be the point of that? Wikipedia editors who know my work have already thanked me enough. And if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I have been thanked by the OED which borrowed the definition of the British Raj and by the occasional academic or journalist who has lifted entire paragraphs from my articles in their published works, for example, this. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:37, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Discussion continued
- The warning is old, when I had just started editing Wikipedia and knew nothing about any Wiki policies back then. I had apologized for the mistake.[39] Fowler have thanked me on multiple instances since. [40][41][42][43]. It's only when I differ with him, he brings the warning in discussion. Apart from that, I have reverted Fowler's edits only once. Also, I had been discussing the issues on the talk page, even before the edits. Akshaypatill (talk) 12:06, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
Clarification
→ @Fowler&fowler: Well, you can't accuse others of edit waring when you have been guilty of it yourself just like on blanket removal, regardless this is just another of your ploy to deviate from the topic - the due concerns on my part is already listed in detail at t/p and onus is on you to clear your part (again factal inaccuracy, pov pushing, unrerather then accusing others.
→ So, You are now using my 7-month old block to tilt it your way ? (When I was barely 300 edits old) - It's been 7 months and around 4k edits on my part afterwards that went largely in a collaborative manner
→ If I start dugging in then, your personal attacks, repeated brusqueness might fill up a page with plethora of diff's (the fact that you have already been on ANI for it twice within a short span is another absolute given), though I choosed to be relevant by only highlighting your recent brusqueness, one of you removed from your own user page a hour ago as well, only diff. is that you get away frequently with such behaviour, though others generally don't.
→ Please reply to my concerns at talk page regarding your edits instead of using blocks and warnings issued half a year ago in contrast to it, the one your recived for it is a bit recent as well- diff. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 11:58, 18 October 2022 (UTC) @Fowler&fowler: Just for the record my random act of kindness award to User:Akshaypatill was for providing me with Andre Wink 2020 book's pdf and that's only communication I had with him in a year of editing and got not interset in your past interactions with him/her either.
→ The issues with your lead (factual inaccuracies, pov pushing, unrelated verbiage, omitting military debacles of the ruler are already highlighted by me at Talk:Muhammad of Ghor
→ You will be the last one to complain about blanket removal of other editors, when you yourself do it multiple times.
Please don't deviate from topic, my concern about your sourcing as well is already in detail explained at talk page. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 11:07, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
P&t reply
- Just for my clarity on the recent post by User:Fowler&fowler
- → The user only picked a few of diffs from user:Shshsh to make it appear that they were all but civil throughout the argument and as far as I can see they were blatantly opposed for pushing their pov:-
- → "Who cares? He's an actor, not a political figure. You better keep your enthusiasm with Hindu nationalist movements away from articles on actors. Everyone has opinions (honestly, I didn't know all that until you just said it here but as I said, who cares anyway), Raj Kapoor did, and Dilip Kumar did, and so do the Khans, but they are actors - it's not what they're known for. I think a sentence about someone who's been public about the party they vote or something could do, but other than that, unless it gets significant coverage much to the point where they clearly become known for that, it's hardly notable" →[44]
- → Their uncivil behaviour - "Are you kidding? Is this an ego trip against other editors or actual willingness to contribute and improve this page? I think your history shows more words than actions, and this hostile explosion of ego here is exactly why many reputable WP editors do not wish to collaborate with you and have often complained about your own POV pushing. Please be warned here that your threats will not be tolerated any longer.
- As for sources - it's never only about sourcing - WP:DUE is a huge part of writing articles. Please also note WP:BLP. They will lead this article, as will WP:CON. You should know that already. You do your job and others will do theirs', and we always have WP policy and other routes to achieving consensus and bringing a broaded number of opinions to fore" →[45] - this one came after F&f promised to give them a good run for the money: see [46] -
- → Here is another involved senior editor who opposed their battleground attitude and pov pushing, see "LOL. This isn't Twitter. Kindly take your battleground mentality there" by Krimuk2.0[47] - battleground mentality.. (It's very easy to add a few line to make it appear as you want but on broader picture, there antagonistic behaviour was not a sweet headache for the involved editors)
- 2): Now on Muhammad of Ghor page, their wild allegation that I am using sources from right-wing scholars is anything but another attempt to deviate from the topic sources i added there are from major scholars of medieval India and bar K.S. Lal none of them are even remotely close to it - the sources which donot agree with their pov, they do call them dubious, unreliable and dated.
- → The editor is not knowledgable about the subject (Md Ghuri) which is apparent from insertion of their edit - [48] and instead accused other for being pushing unreliable cruft, for which I explained them on their talk page:- [49] (lead summarizes the body which is quite a basic norm)
- → I did this with their own high quality tertiary ref. and cited the other 3 as well whom they called dated and sub standard - just for the record those 3 "dated sources" were from (Satish Chandra 2007), (Md. Habib 1981 ed Nizami), (David Thomas 2018) the first two are/were major scholars of S.Asia and explicity of medieval period and the last one is from David Thomas who had his life researching about the Ghurians.
- → I didn't even changed the running name in the article (Mu'izz al-Din to Muhammad of Ghor) without consulting all involved editors there and actually improved on factually incorrect inf. there which was there since its creation namely - his only daughter which never got any mention, his forged gravesite, his brother's death year - 1203 not 1202, his C. Asia campaigns (created Battle of Andkhud) and against the Ghaznawids post his rout at Mt Abu - 1178 (created Siege of Lahore (1186), Had I have been only intersted in pushing only a Hindu right version, there was no meaning of creating Battle of Andkhud and Siege of Lahore (1186) which are not related to this movement by any means. (actually removed far fetched Hindu right forged version of Prithviraj killing him in Ghazna)
- Lastly →Please remove the forged and uncivil notice of not editing S.Asian articles as it was nothing but most likely a stunt to get commiseration of others which barely lasted for 24 hours . ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 12:45, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
- I had posted a lengthy review of their "pov", "factually incorrect, "verbiaged", "absurd comparison" lead which doesn't look any distant from a pov blog and is anything lead of a neutral encyclopedic articles with WP:OR (pov) as well like :- easy victory- Tarain (1192), expunging a military debacle which ruined all his plan for conquest of western India; listed them all. (the lead generally is a summary of citations in the body and not a place to introduce pov, factually incorrect, unrelated verbiage either)
- → The core of there edit comes from copy-pasting Richard Eaton (2019) whose basic factual inaccuracies I listed on the article's talk page with multiple contradicting reliable sources from top scholars like Andre Wink, Satish Chandra, C.E Bosworth, K.A. Nizami, Md. Habib, Aniruddha Ray, David Thomas etc, do have a look at it as well. (no issue in citing Eaton's earlier works bar this one - despite my general disaccord with his scholarship regarding religion bit)
- → I have given up on their brusqueness (listed several instances in last few days itself not from me but other editors as well, which they cherrry picked to make it appear that their pov lead was getting upvoted by senior editors)
- → My frequent posts on their talk page was more primarily on their forged and uncivil notice of quitting S. Asia articles particularly with last few lines where they as usually were making uncivil commentaries on some editors and the bona fide of it turned to be a deceptive one. Thanks. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 07:14, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
- Packer&Tracker, could you please write shorter comments? This discussion is difficult to go through because of its length. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 11:13, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
- @Nythar: It's not easy to explain about the issue with proper context in less words. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 11:19, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
- Packer&Tracker, could you please write shorter comments? This discussion is difficult to go through because of its length. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 11:13, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
Closure (likely)
→ Disclaimer:- This will be most likely my last reponse here, it will be a long one addressing all the issues, bear with me
→ While, I don't think that it's very necessary to reopen old wounds here (on warnings and blocks - I recieved half a year ago); although I do agree that my conduct at Persecution of Hindus especially (that time) was deplorable and the two month block was warranted, having said that it's been some time since then (7months) and over 3,500 edits which mostly were in line with WP policies, including appropirate use of Red Warn & Twinkle tools (mostly), F&f is bringing them up here largely to deviate from the premier issue I and some other senior editors had with them - all in recent past (last week or so, including two reports at ANI one of them already ended with a warning)
→ You can't expect a consensus to build over night (on their remark that it's not going anywhere with TB); when you yourself frequently advocate that it took months in some contentious cases, though, early days but I am alright to engage with TrangaBellam (after few days to press upon the argument of including Religion section) given their rational and to the point arguments, though I do not agree with them on their take on historian Andre Wink, but that's content dispute and will be resolved (hopefully) there without much drama (optimistic)
→ I do agree, my post on Talk:Muhammad of Ghor (clarification on typo i.e. 1148 -1173 - not certain about 1173 as well coz Minhaj al-Siraj and Firshta had 1169, another error in Eaton-2019 as Ghazni was not permanently annexed untill 1170 which he claimed in 1148, although this is not the only blatant factual error, see the whole thread for better picture) especially overnight could have been slightly better worded (first few lines) - but this doesn't seems very equitable (overloaded bit) coming from someone who was without anything accusing others of faking their ethnic/ gender identity (male as females/Pakistanis as Indians or vice-versa diff:- (not just overloaded it was degrading enough to warrants them a block there itself)
→ The frequent and tiresome accusation on me for promoting a Hindu right pov doesn't sit very well either with someone who created Battle of Andkhud & Siege of Lahore (1186) - two of his military campaigns which no one from Hindu rights (who are only intersted in his Indian campaigns - namely Kaydhara -1178, Tarain-I & Tarain-II and other naive/hillarious argument of his 17 failed invasions) have any idea about or if they do, it's very shabby one (both of them were rated as B-Class articles immediately on first review, which suggests that I do have a decent knowledge about the subject)
→ Now to brought down the curtain on my part, as they want me to get blocked from Muhammad of Ghor or stay away for two months (an article where I recieved a anti-vandalism barnstar diff and improved on it's gruesome factual inaccuracy with proper WP:HISTRS) & also on Delhi Sultanate (Heck, I barely contributed there apart from reverting vandals or just replacing a blog with proper RS - diff - it's clearly in line with their recent vow to root out the so called "Hindu nationalist bias" or according to them "villification of Muslims" from the lead of these articles - as they couldn't succeed in their ambition at Muhammad of Ghor (reverted by another editor as well against whom they used a year old hounding warning to get away); Anyway, their lead was - factually incorrect, povish with dispensable veribage, asburd comparisons & so on - listed them all here with contrasting RS.
→ There is no reason to support there filmsy argument of using so-called up to date sources, even if there are blatant inaccuracies in them, neither the sources, I added up in counter were from a century or two ago, most of them were from last 50 years and many were from post-1990 period.
→ I am contented to cooperate with anyone given the arguments are rational, to the point (not posting tiresome collection of unrelated sources, like they are doing which mentions about subject brief and vaguely - big no to Eaton 2019 -given the number of basic inaccuracies already highlighted, alright with his previous works) and have consensus among multiple reliable sources. It's a wrap on my part here (hopefully). ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 04:16, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
OR claims
→ For general persecution of the Ismailis:-
However, on his way from the Punjab, Muizzuddin was killed on bank of Indus river by a band of Karamatians, which we have seen were a fanatic sect which had absorbed many features of Hindu Buddhists beliefs and which Muizuddin had persecuted in his life time
(Satish Chandra 2004; pp:-28)
→The suppression of revolot in the Punjab occupied Mu'izz al-Din's closing months, for on the way back to Ghaza he was assasinated, allegedly by emmisaries of the Isma'ils whom he had often persecuted during his life time
(C.E. Bosworth 1968; pp:-168) (Hindu right don't care about hosility of Sunnis over Ismailis either)
→This area of proselytization presumably included Sindh, which had been annexed to the Ghurid territories. However, Muhammad Ghiyath al-Din (d. 599/1202), Al al-Din’s successor, reacted violently to the Ismaili presence. Juzjani records:-In every place wherein the odour of their impure usages was perceived, throughout the territory of Ghur, slaughter of all heretics [Ismailis] was commanded. ... The area of the country of Ghur, which was a mine of religion and orthodoxy, was purified from the infernal impurity of the Qarmatians [i.e., the Ismailis].
It was at about this time that the Ismailis again lost their power in Multan, for in 570/1175, Sultan Mu^izz al-Din Ghuri ‘‘delivered Multan from the hands of the
Qarmatians.
(Shafique Virani; 2007; pp:-100)
→ Destruction of temples in Kashi:-
We do not know much about the first Muslim raid on Benares, by Ahmad Nayaltigin in 1033 AD, which appears merely to have been a plundering expedition. When Muhammad Ghuri marched on the city, we are merely told that after breaking the idols in above 1000 temples, he purified and consecrated the latter to the worship of the true God
(Andre Wink 1991; pp:-333)
Shihabuddin captured the treasure fort of Asni and then proceeded to Benaras, 'where he converted about thousand idol-temples into house for the Musalmans
(Mohammad Habib 1981; pp:-116)
We are told that Jaichandra had almost carried the day when he was killed by an arrow, and his army was totally defcated. Muizzuddin now moved on to Banaras which was ravaged, a large number of temples there being destroyed
(Satish Chandra 2007; pp:-67)
→ Large-scale conversion of Khokhars/Buddhists:-
The frontier tribes were the first difficulty. Sultan Mahmud had established garrisons and forts in their territory but there were still Buddhists and Shihabuddin realised that nothing short of their conversion would solve the problem. So the Tariyah infidels who lived in the hills between Ghazni and Punjab, and considered the slaying of a Muslim as path to paradise were brought in the pale of Islam through kindness and through force. About three or four lakh of the infidels who wore sacred threads were made Musalmans during this campaign
(Mohamad Habib; 1981, pp:-133-134)
The quote box and massacres was already to K.S Lal and I removed it myself before the blanket removal, in any case since the section is already removed this is rather basless accusations, I am not intersted in arguing much either here as my closing comments are already put in earlier. I don't want to stress much over it and isn't intersted in wasting more time but since it's allegation of putting OR, thats why this was posted (hopefully it's last one before admin take a call) No inention of vilifying anyone. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 13:11, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
On appology
→ I am not very much bothered about the appology part (have done it so many times as पाटलिपुत्र pointed out in comments below), but just for the record, their uncivil and forged notice of quitting S. Asian articles (as they appeared on the same article within hours) where they were without anything alleging other editors of faking their Gender/Ethnic identity - (diff) that was good enough to warrants them a block just there, ignoring everything else - pity though that they were not even warned/notified for that.
→ I am amused that how they are still in a position to propose a 2-month block from Md Ghuri's article (for me) & topic ban from Islamic history of S. Asian articles (पाटलिपुत्र) - just for the fact that we added sourced content (which they initially called WP:OR but now branded it as fringe or insulting) which in their opinion is associated with the so-called Hindutva movement and villifying Islam (typical apologetic attitude for Islam) - their frequent bashing and branding of reliable sources from reputed academicians as fringe, non-reliable, dated etc. is another of their behaviour which is quite annoying to say the least.
→ Seeing the latest comments in the section below, I was taken aback that how the editors, branded me as a antagonist here as well, to clear my part here, before F&f arrived on Talk:Muhammad of Ghor with a discourteous tone branding all as Hindu nationalists (quite obssesed with Hindutva movements as well - diff), take a look at my conduct on the article where even for a trivial issues like running name in article - I consulted every involved editor there, see diff.
→ The main reason why I contributed to this page coz, I was surprised to see such a error-ridden article earlier this year for a important historical figure, that's why I improved on number of errors in the article namely - his forged tomb in Dhamiak (which is in Ghazni), his daughter (as previous versions claimed that he didn't had a offspring), his brother death year, their early carrers and military expeditions etc. I am not at all associated with any political movements or have any political leanings (zero interset in politics and beyond my area of prowess) and even if I do have one, I prefer to not reflect that in my professionalism or in my communication at talk pages. I was genuine throughout in my effort on that article.
→ To say, that to take the article back to that old error-ridden version is like a a slap in the face of all my hard-work there and that too without any reason on my part on that article (like a good reason to prevent me from editing that page apart from their absurd accusations of villifying Islam and that all)
→ Even in future, I don't have any issue in collaborating (on two way IBAN) - with any editor on any issue, given they remain rational, to the point and not always be rigid in conceding on an issue where they apparently lost, Thanks. ∆ P&t ♀√ (talk) 12:35, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
sockpuppet indian users
I agree with Fowler&fowler, there is lots of Hindu nationalist editors whom are abusing their editing responsibilities above Afghanistan and Pakistan historical articles, possibly they are one group or sockpuppet users including ∆ P&t ♀√, Utcursch, Akshaypatill. They revert everything with reliable sources and pushing their POV on it. if Wikipedia become a POV information of powerful users then nobody will trust on Wikipedia’s informative articles. Please take some serious legal action on it and don’t let to Wikipedia become a place of POV of powerful users. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.171.112.23 (talk) 18:48, 18 October 2022 (UTC) struck sock comments--RegentsPark (comment) 21:25, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
- Accusing others of sock puppetry without evidence is considered a personal attack. Don't do it again. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 20:25, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
- no one is crazy to accuse others for sock puppetry unless who seen something wrong, you can check their recent contributions and it will tell everything and that’s evidence, such as now also the RegentsPark as a indian user are supporting thier indian editors for vandalism and pov pushing in a proxy way, why you guys can’t see the truth, these things made Wikipedia a false information resource for whom looking for information or reading, every Indian editors are edit articles for their own POV and racism or nationalist beliefs, for example the user ∆ P&t ♀√
- Removed 13,704 additions with reliable sources from article Muhammad of Ghor [50]
- In order to support their indian user Akshaypatill’s POV editing (unexplained removal) and User:Packer&Tracker are tryna always hide her/his disruptive editing and nationalist vandalism with random no related WP codes and that’s not make any sense actually, on the Muhammad of Ghor’s article user Akshaypatill started unexplained removal of 13,704 with reliable sources additions without engagement on talk page with other editor and it turned into a edit war [51] [52] and the edit war continued by User:Packer&Tracker [53] on behalf of Akshaypatill, it’s happens while both of them ignored the bold, revert, discuss cycle term and they violated the three-revert policy, this is a proxy game and I really tired of this much nationalist editors and racism in Wikipedia
Pataliputra's statement
One more dispute, again triggered by Fowler&fowler's inflamatory approach to collaborative editing.... Fowler&fowler is a valuable editor, but unfortunately a recurrently incivil and bad-mannered one, leading to much unnecessary disruption. His expertise in some areas of South Asia is undeniable, although he seems fairly out of his depth in matters related to ancient history and art (one example), and repeatedly resorts to "wild OR" as pointed out by User:Johnbod [54]. His typical battle lines revolve around the Muslim vs Hindu issue, and anyone contradicting him will be immediately branded an "Islamophobic" [55] or an "Hindu nationalist" [56] (for the record, I am related to neither faith, and have no relation whatsoever to India despite my user name). When in disagreement, Fowler&fowler is unfortunately rude, brutal and inflammatory, and content disputes which could be resolved by the usual discussion process inevitably heat up because of the rabidness and the invectives. Fowler&fowler has received numerous administrative warnings already for his systematic un-Wikipedian editorial behaviour, including recently 2 warnings for edit warring [57] (by Admin User:EdJohnston) and [58] (by Admin User:Bishonen), and 1 warning for personnal attacks and incivility [59] (by Admin User:El C, following this), to no avail. I dislike having to post here, and I personally value Fowler&fowler as a Wikipedia content contributor, but the behavioural issues have been going on for too long: some more radical measures have to be taken to make Fowler&fowler finally understand that incivility and personal attacks are unacceptable behaviours on Wikipedia and are extremely disruptive. I will not comment further, and will not respond to the predictable litany of abuse that will be crafted in response to this post. पाटलिपुत्र Pataliputra (talk) 09:23, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
Response to Fowler&fowler's "Patliputra" statement above
A few comments on User:Fowler&fowler's "Patliputra" statement above, which was predictably crafted in reponse to my post:
1) Fowler&fowler writes that I "contributed text on temple desecration to the Muhammad of Ghor article along with Packer&Tracker" [60]. This is basically untrue. As far as I am aware, I did not contribute a single word to Packer&Tracker's paragraph on Religion, about which Fowler&fowler has expressed a full list of issues [61]. Furthermore, I do not have any opinion about this specific paragraph, the details of which are beyond my area of expertise. The only remotely related content I added was derived from the Ghurid dynasty article, related to the military campaigns, using sources such as Asher (2020) [62]. This content essentially remains in Fowler&fowler's last preferred version of the article [63] and has not been challenged. So much for the attempts at depicting some sort of "Indian/Hindu coalition vs Fowler&fowler" (and again I have no relation whatsoever to India despite my user name).
2) All other elements provided by Fowler&fowler (1 to 4 [64]) are besides the point of this ANI thread, and seem to confuse a few Talk Page discussions, over a period of several years, with actual Wikipedia offenses.... Hopefully, we are allowed to have Talk Page discussions on Wikipedia, and sometimes even disagreements. This has to be done factually, in a cool and civil manner without making personal attacks. This is what I have always endeavoured to do, but what Fowler&fowler has repeatedly failed to observe as shown by his multiple Administrative warnings ( [65][66][67].... and these are only the recent ones). Again, I appreciate Fowler&fowler as a contributor, but he has to understand that civility with other users is non-negotiable. In so many instances in the past, Fowler&fowler has made amends and made beautiful promises not to continue personal attacks, only to break his promise as soon as discussions heat up a bit. In order to prevent such recurrent toxicity, a clear message has to be sent by Admins that Fowler&fowler's incivilities and personal attacks are unacceptable.
3) As to paragraph 5, Fowler&fowler seems to overreact everytime he feels that Islam might be slighted (and here accuses me of edits "antithetical to Islamic conquerors of India, and by implication, to Islam" [68], hmmm, no less... hopefully I will not be subjected to a Fatwa....). For the record, I am totally unrelated to either Islam or Hinduism, and have no bias towards any religion whatsoever (I actually appreciate all religions for their cultural and historical aspects). In this instance, I have simply been reporting an aspect of 12th century Muslim exactions in India in a few closely related articles, closely paraphrasing one of the foremost and most recent experts on the question (Asher 2020):
"And then, in 1193, Qutb-ud-din Aibek, the military commander of Muhammad of Ghor's army, marched towards Varanasi, where he is said to have destroyed idols in a thousand temples. Sarnath very likely was among the casualities of this invasion, one all too often seen as a Muslim invasion whose primary purpose was iconoclasm. It was of course, like any premodern military invasion, intended to acquire land and wealth.
"[69]... As far as I know, reporting facts, as described by reliable sources, is simply what we do on Wikipedia, and this has primacy over individual sensitivities...
पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra) (talk) 14:31, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
"Unconditional apology" by Fowler&fowler
@Fowler&fowler: You are offering an "unconditional apology" above, in the sentence: "I acknowledge my brusque language and will sincerely make a more concerted effort to avoid it in all my interactions on Wikipedia. I offer an unconditional apology not just to Packer&Tracker and Patliputra, but to all."
[70]. If your apologies are sincere, why don't you start by striking your past incivilities and personnal attacks? I know the task is rather titanesque, but you could start from some of the latest ones (a sample: [71][72][73][74][75][76][77]), and then go back in time progressively... पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra) (talk) 16:53, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
Proposal
Given User:Fowler&fowler's inability to refrain from personal attacks and incivilities over the years, despite repeated apologies and promises to correct himself, and despite official administrative warnings for "personnal attacks and incivilities" (the most recent one being this one, by Admin User:El C following this administrative admonition: "But, again, out-the-blue attacks, or any attacks for that matter, those needs to stop, like, immediately. The only reason you're not facing sanctions of considerable severity right now is because you've had a good track record in past years. But the good will that has bought you only goes so far, and I submit to you that you've used much of it up at this point." [78]), the Wikipedia community should offer a strong, although symbolic, message that such behaviour is not acceptable anymore:
1) Fowler&fowler should be blocked from editing for a short period of time, either as he himself suggested "blocked from all editing on Wikipedia for my lack of civility for two months or longer"
[79] or, probably more appropriately, for a symbolically short duration, such as a few days or 1 week.
2) More importantly, Fowler&fowler should be requested to clean up his past incivilities and personnal attacks (for example by striking them from Talk Pages, although edit summaries will unfortunately remain...), before returning to normal editing, so that he can demonstrate his true intent to amend, and more importantly, so that South Asian Talk pages can be cleaned up from too many inflammatory statements.
3) Other issues mentioned in this thread essentially revolve around content issues, which can be amicably resolved (or have already been resolved long ago) through civil talk page discussions.
4) Fowler&fowler should nevertheless be thanked again for his productive and knowledgeable contributions to Wikipedia, and greatly encouraged to continue contributing in a civil manner.
पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra) (talk) 11:36, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Comments
- This comment is beneath one of Pataliputra's, but only because this is the bottom of the sprawling and chaotic thread. I address all the participants here and not just Pataliputra.
- As encyclopaedists, our task is precis: we summarize complex matters clearly and succinctly. If you can't write a simple, clear summary that includes clear citations with evidence of all the claims you make, you are in the wrong hobby.
- When dealing with editors from India I feel it would be unreasonable of us to exclude mobile diffs. Those of us in Western Europe where everyone has access to a desktop computer with reliable wi-fi need to consider that not everyone has our advantages. A high proportion of Indians are trying to contribute from mobile phones or tablets because the alternative is not to contribute at all.
- And while I'm talking about cultural relativity, civility standards vary from place to place and in India, they are often relatively high. Personally it has been my experience that editors originating from India tend to display, and expect, higher standards of civility than might prevail elsewhere. What to me might be a relatively mildly uncivil remark is more offensive out there.
- I think Fowler&fowler's unconditional and very handsome apology, above, is very helpful and I wish Pataliputra would (a) accept it with good grace and (b) reciprocate in similar terms for their own behaviour. I can certainly see benefits to a two-way iban between these editors.—S Marshall T/C 22:29, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Even though mobile sucks, mobile diffs should never be excluded as a rule. No one should be forced to convert them to desktop. Here, however, this was only recommended so as to increase
the chances of an uninvolved review
. A recommendation which the OP has chosen to adopt. I think it's fair to tell a user whose complaint has 20 mobile diffs, that these display terrible on desktop. Why should they not know? El_C 03:15, 21 October 2022 (UTC)- Oh, let us not patronise Indians. They are fools if they think they can write an encycopedia using a mobile phone. The use of mobiles is more likely to be a convenience, their convenience. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 06:45, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- I think the point was that some don't have an alternative to mobile, in India more so than the West. But in that instance, if they are diligent enough, it can be done. That includes converting mobile diffs into desktop — which otherwise, is liable to get inconvenient to them, when few if any outside reviewers bother to look through their (mobile) diff evidence. El_C 08:00, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- Kautilya3, I find your words very offensive. I'm an Indian and have used and am currently using a mobile device. But you'd never ever find me using mobile diffs or anything like that even when I edit via mobile, because I personally do not find that easy to parse and expect that it is similar for others. Because someone has chosen to not do that does not give you an opportunity to bring the entire community under a single blanket and call them fools. The problem with Indians editing using mobile is not that "they are fools", it is that the foundation has chosen to ignore the editing needs of what is now a majority demographic of Wikipedia visitors — the mobile users. Your outrage is misplaced. —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 10:35, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- ^That^ 🐻ears repeating —
it is that the foundation has chosen to ignore the editing needs of what is now a majority demographic of Wikipedia visitors — the mobile users.
El_C 12:11, 21 October 2022 (UTC)- Not everyone's technically minded. If you asked me to convert mobile diffs to desktop ones, I would go and look it up because I wouldn't know how, and some editors wouldn't bother to look it up. The risk with implying that mobile diffs won't get looked at, is creating a disincentive to report issues.—S Marshall T/C 17:30, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- AFAIK, if someone lands on a mobile diff and they want to see the non-mobile version, all they need to do is scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the "Desktop" link. Or they could do as I do and load User:Þjarkur/NeverUseMobileVersion in their common.js and they'll always see non-mobile diffs, regardless of whether the person creating the diff made it mobile or not. CodeTalker (talk) 18:58, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- Well, this is reality, S Marshall, not an ideal type. Mobile diffs won't be looked at so much, certainly not +20 of em at once, because mobile overall is poorly optimized. In this case, though, since the OP did express an interest in converting these to desktop diffs, I instructed her on how to go about it. Which appears to have worked out fine. El_C 19:12, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- Btw, 90 percent of the time, I just convert the mobile diffs to desktop myself. But usually, it isn't a set of +20 and/or I'm not that pressed for time at that time. But sometimes, times. El_C 19:48, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- Exactly. One mobile diff is not a big deal, but dealing with a mob of mobile diffs is painful. Disputes on ANI are attended to be volunteers and increasing their parsing overhead is, perhaps, not the best strategy to employ. Make a case and take some time to present it properly is not a lot to ask for. --RegentsPark (comment) 14:54, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- I'd rather ask the WMF to spend some of their $400 million on making it so when you click on a diff, it shows you mobile or desktop based on whether you're currently using mobile or desktop, irrespective of whether the poster was using mobile or desktop. This is trivially easy to accomplish as a technical matter, and many (most?) websites don't have this crossover problem between their mobile and desktop versions. This could be solved with a script or a bot that changes external diff links to internal wikilinks. Levivich (talk) 15:09, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- Exactly. One mobile diff is not a big deal, but dealing with a mob of mobile diffs is painful. Disputes on ANI are attended to be volunteers and increasing their parsing overhead is, perhaps, not the best strategy to employ. Make a case and take some time to present it properly is not a lot to ask for. --RegentsPark (comment) 14:54, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- Btw, 90 percent of the time, I just convert the mobile diffs to desktop myself. But usually, it isn't a set of +20 and/or I'm not that pressed for time at that time. But sometimes, times. El_C 19:48, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- Not everyone's technically minded. If you asked me to convert mobile diffs to desktop ones, I would go and look it up because I wouldn't know how, and some editors wouldn't bother to look it up. The risk with implying that mobile diffs won't get looked at, is creating a disincentive to report issues.—S Marshall T/C 17:30, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- ^That^ 🐻ears repeating —
- Oh, let us not patronise Indians. They are fools if they think they can write an encycopedia using a mobile phone. The use of mobiles is more likely to be a convenience, their convenience. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 06:45, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- Even though mobile sucks, mobile diffs should never be excluded as a rule. No one should be forced to convert them to desktop. Here, however, this was only recommended so as to increase
- This grievance has killed hundreds of thousands of electrons in the making and the only thing clearly evident is that F&f and P&T can't play well togeather. The clear solution (IMHO) in the first instance would appear to be a two-way IBAN. If the actions of either editor is so egregious as alledged by the other, then the WP community will have one or both of them back here soon enough, to deal with separately. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:41, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
- It's a pity Pataliputra won't reciprocate with an apology of his own, but you can't force a heartfelt apology. This looks like a two-way IBAN where one party learns something and the other doesn't, but okay, I agree that's the least bad outcome. What do we do about M of Ghor though?—S Marshall T/C 08:16, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- What to do with about M of Ghor? Underpinning conduct is a content dispute which is really outside the scope of this venue and best left to the cohort of editors that normally edit in this topic area and this article in particular - independent of the antagonists. This would imply a TBAN for the antagonists specific to M of Ghor. I might suggest that we treat the content added by the antagonists as if it were added by a banned editor, in which case, it would be reverted to a stable version status quo ante. This appears to be some time at the start of this year. The article might then be improved iteratively from that point. However, I would be mindful to make restrictions that would prevent a particular version being reinstated en mass rather than as an iterative process and consensus building. My thoughts. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:31, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- I have been concerned by Packer&Tracker's approach to editing. As Talk:Siege of Lahore (1186) or my dissection of his section on religion of MoG attest to, the product of his editorial activities — whatever be the reason — tends to overlap with the Hindu Nationalist scholarship on history which has no subscribers in academia. This is not an one-off blip either. However I do think that he intends for the betterment of the encyclopedia, reasons within rational boundaries, and does not exhibit a recalcitrant attitude. Thus, I remain disinclined to support any sanction as of now.Having had part-productive part-acrimonious relationships with both F&F and Pat, I do not offer any comments on their feud except lodging my opposition to the enactment of a mutual/either-way IBan. Such a sanction will be unworkable given the extensive overlap between their editing interests. TrangaBellam (talk) 14:34, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- Well, for the reasons ElC explains, this is attracting insufficient participation to reach a decision. Kick it upstairs to Arbcom? Seems overkill but it needs resolving and it appears the community can't do that.—S Marshall T/C 09:29, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- There might be room for something custom. I brainstorm some sort of restraint from editing on disputed topics that serves as a pseudo-iban while one or two of these content disputes goes to dispute resolution as test cases? That is of course if dispute resolution is on board. CMD (talk) 13:45, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Arbcom is an excellent idea. I have been saying for years that Patliputra has created vast islands of undue weight on Wikipedia by employing original research (copying and pasting text images, and figures, from PLOS type articles; cutting out portions of images on a large scale and using them in these articles, citing them to dubious sources (mostly old and obscure, with a token modern thrown in here and there); and quite often their edits have shown similarity with what appears in Hindu majoritarian scholarship. In so doing they have caused major damage to some vital Wikipedia articles. They need the kind of look that only Arbcom is capable of giving. I'm happy to have my behavior analyzed as well and be punished for it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fowler&fowler (talk • contribs) 11:49, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Not a good option. You can use WP:ARE and cite diffs there about the recent violations. It will work better than ANI.
- Personally, I don't think any sanctions are needed. All involved parties here should consider the concerns raised here and try getting along. Srijanx22 (talk) 19:42, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Why is not a good option? Everything else, RSN, NPOV noticeboard, have been tried. He is incorrigible, excelling at the gray-zone, flying-just-below-the-radar editing, and getting away until someone such as I notice it. Examine Brahmi script where I insisted on an NPOV lead and eventually had my way, editing it, but pulling teeth and getting blood out of a stone all the way. But look at the rest of the article and see what a monument it is to original research, all Patliputra's handiwork. Who has the time to fix it in the way I fixed the lead? I certainly don't. That page's main body and many others need to be reverted to the stable versions before Patliputra began to edit them several years ago. Incredible damage they have done. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:54, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
The Queens of Mysore....
- And here is a real-time example from just a few hours ago:
- Patliputra found the picture File:Queens of Mysore, Thomas Hickey, 1805.jpg somewhere on the web. A historian has conjectured that it might be a turn-of-the-19th-century picture of the wives of the 12-year old ruler of Mysore state showing the evidence of their vaccination for smallpox. Patliputra then proceeded to spam it on the following pages:
- The FA Kingdom of Mysore (at the beginning of the section "Under British rule" which begins, "This system changed under the subsidiary alliance with the British, when tax payments were made ..." My revert. They've added it to:
- Krishnaraja Wadiyar III, where it is undue; I reverted it, per WP:BRD and WP:ONUS
- Variolation. I reverted it.dif), asking that they take it to the talk page, and demonstrate that this is DUE in light of Arthur Boylston's J of Royal Society of Medicine article to which the text was cited before the image was added.
- Template:South Asia in 1525 CE which is a map of the "main South Asian polities in 1525." Mysore did not become a principality until 1610. (My revert,
- Lakshmi Ammani Devi, the conjectured Dowager (widow) queen in the middle of the painting—born in 1742, and therefore at least 50 years older than the supposedly 12-year-old girls on the left and right—wears the jewellery and the forehead mark of a married woman. My revert (diff)
- Vaccination, where it might be OK
- So, this is the problem. They've pasted the image on six pages of which only one might be WP:DUE. If there weren't someone with my knowledge of modern Indian history watching, they would get away with it, and Wikipedia would look more and more like a solipsistic blog. When I use the expression "solipsistic blog" or something of that ilk of exasperated description, I get hauled to ANI for abusive language. This has happened three times before with Patliputra and once now with Packer&Tracker. When I revert, I am challenged, RfCs are begun, dubious sources are piled on, various Joe Shmos walk off the street and hold forth, many because they think I have an anti-India reputation, and at some point, I begin to wonder what am I doing here on Wikipedia.
- Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:56, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- How will an interaction ban help? It will just allow Patliputra to get away with OR on a grander scale. Hundreds of WP pages are already infected with it. I'm going to bed now, but won't be surprised if all my reverts are in turn reverted when I wake up. Wikipedia has to decide. Is reliable and due content more important or compulsive politeness? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:29, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- And here is a real-time example from just a few hours ago:
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Queens_of_Mysore_%28detail%29%2C_Thomas_Hickey%2C_1805.jpg/330px-Queens_of_Mysore_%28detail%29%2C_Thomas_Hickey%2C_1805.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/Queen_Mary_I_curing_scrofula_Levina_Teerlinc_16th_C.jpg/220px-Queen_Mary_I_curing_scrofula_Levina_Teerlinc_16th_C.jpg)
As anticipated, the litany of retaliatory and frivolous accusations by User:Fowler&fowler goes on and on.... This incredibly beautiful portrait of the Queens/Princesses of the Kingdom of Mysore was painted in 1805 by Thomas Hickey and recently rediscovered (BBC News). It is a remarkable testimony to the nobility of the Kingdom of Mysore in the early 19th century. It is also seemingly, and quite surprisingly, an advertisement for vaccination vs variolation in India, in a context of major smallpox epidemies (BBC News): the princess on the left has a large discoloration around the mouth and the nose due to variolation ("nasal insufflation" of smallpox residues), while the princess on the right only has a small scar on the hip, which she exposes by raising her saree, due to the recently introduced vaccination process (the benign innoculation of cowpox). This painting is extremely relevant to several areas of knowledge, and to several articles on Wikipedia: Vaccination, Variolation, Kingdom of Mysore, king (ruler) Krishnaraja Wadiyar III (who married the two princesses), and possibly Lakshmi Ammani Devi, who might be represented in the middle according to the BBC article. This is not "Spamming" or WP:UNDUE... As usual, Fowler&fowler resorts to his usual brusqueness (the "unconditional apology" above is obviously without effect [80]), by mass-deleting all but one of my contributions in respect to this painting: [81][82][83][84]. Visibly, Fowler&fowler constant incivility and personal attacks is not just an issue with his temper, choice of words, and turns of phrases: I am afraid it rather reflects a fundamental WP:Battleground mentality and disrespect for the contributions of others. Civil Talk Page discussions are the way to go, rather than mass deletions and accusatory misrepresentations in an unrelated ANI thread... Until Fowler&fowler understands that, useless conflicts with other editors will inevitably keep springing up. Only Administrators can send a strong message that collaborative and civil editing is the only way to go... पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra) (talk) 15:59, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- OK, in the continued absence of workable alternatives I think the least unhelpful outcome for this thread would be an escalation to Arbcom. I will do this. I propose to call the case History of India, as this seems to be a neutral title that encompasses most of the disputed articles, and I propose to name Packer, Fowler and Pataliputra as parties. Anyone who hasn't been to Arbcom before might want to familiarise themselves with Arbcom's strict word count limits.—S Marshall T/C 16:00, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- @S Marshall: This is a fairly basic issue related to the incivility of one user User:Fowler&fowler (which he acknowledges). The rest is just content dispute, or made-up content dispute, which is easily resolved with Talk Page discussion. Do what you want, but I will not lose my time and the time of the community by participating to a needless Arbcom process. Administrators can easily deal with the issues presented here. Best पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra) (talk) 16:06, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you very much @S Marshall:. I believe it is high time. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:18, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Well, @पाटलिपुत्र:, if administrators can easily deal with the issues presented here, then we might reasonably ask: why have they not?—S Marshall T/C 17:02, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- @S Marshall: Administrator User:El C was planning to deal with this thread, but was somehow discouraged by Fowler&fowler's agressive posture ("in light of him inexplicably taking that action in the first place as a response to my rather standard and neutral advise (and seemingly the mentality that he's owed something from me), I'm gonna leave all that to others." [85]), but I suspect he might very well come back to bring closure to this thread, as could any of the thick-skinned administrators around. No need for another endless round of drama and misrepresentation... पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra) (talk) 17:41, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- S Marshall I'm late to this party, but from my perspective at least part of the problem has been that AE has not been tried. Admin intervention is very difficult in a lengthy talk-page discussion, and this ANI discussion is almost impossible to follow. I am among those who have expressed concern at the unwillingness of users here to moderate their language (in one case) or to follow BRD and ONUS (in two others); but one cannot evaluate behavioral issues without a concise statement summarizing them. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:43, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- OK, either Arbcom or AE, let's move to one of those. @S Marshall: or @Vanamonde93: please come to some decision among yourselves. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:51, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- My preference is for Arbcom. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:58, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I recommend against ARBCOM, both because that's where everyone who has every held a grudge against any of you will appear, and because procedurally, AE is a necessary precursor to ARBCOM. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:03, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Indeed, ARBCOM is unlikely to accept a case that hasn't previously tried the discretionary sanctions remedy of WP:ARBIPA. So, WP:AE is the right course. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:08, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- OK, so S Marshall or Vanamonde93 Please propose something at AE. Thank you Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:18, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- As I've said repeatedly, I don't mind being permanently banned from Wikipedia for employing intemperate language. But what Patliputra has done over the last five years, and other India-POV editors have, despite their disclaimers, has done incalculable harm to Wikipedia's content. They have hurt Wikipedia's reputation for neutrality. If I am gone, my incivility goes. But if they are gone, their content remains. That is why I have not asked for any blocks for them, only examination and removal of their edits. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:58, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- @Fowler&fowler: The only way this will come to any sort of resolution is if you present evidence of any POV-pushing at AE. And when I say POV-pushing, I mean specifically one or more of: source mis-representation, cherry-picking poor sources, and original research in articles. Other sanctionable conduct includes ignoring behavioral guidelines, such as WP:ONUS. S Marshall and/or myself cannot provide that for you. I can't act as an admin in this instance, but I cannot parse thousands of edits and talk page histories; I can only discuss what I'm aware of. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:33, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oh, I see, you are saying that I need to initiate the AE, @Vanamonde93:? I guess I became confused by S Marshall's "kick it upstairs," thinking someone else was going to do it. Yes, of course, I understand that you cannot find the evidence. If that is the case, then do I need to wait until this thread has closed? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:50, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I think it needs escalating and, when I thought the escalation route would be Arbcom, I was offering to do the paperwork. I don't think I can start the AE?—S Marshall T/C 19:10, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- OK, thanks. I will initiate the AE myself once I know from @Vanamonde93: when I can do it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:25, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- You can do it at any point; and S Marshall, you could do it too, if you were willing to look for and provide evidence of misconduct. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:40, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- OK, thanks. I will initiate the AE myself once I know from @Vanamonde93: when I can do it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:25, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I think it needs escalating and, when I thought the escalation route would be Arbcom, I was offering to do the paperwork. I don't think I can start the AE?—S Marshall T/C 19:10, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oh, I see, you are saying that I need to initiate the AE, @Vanamonde93:? I guess I became confused by S Marshall's "kick it upstairs," thinking someone else was going to do it. Yes, of course, I understand that you cannot find the evidence. If that is the case, then do I need to wait until this thread has closed? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:50, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- @Fowler&fowler: The only way this will come to any sort of resolution is if you present evidence of any POV-pushing at AE. And when I say POV-pushing, I mean specifically one or more of: source mis-representation, cherry-picking poor sources, and original research in articles. Other sanctionable conduct includes ignoring behavioral guidelines, such as WP:ONUS. S Marshall and/or myself cannot provide that for you. I can't act as an admin in this instance, but I cannot parse thousands of edits and talk page histories; I can only discuss what I'm aware of. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:33, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- As I've said repeatedly, I don't mind being permanently banned from Wikipedia for employing intemperate language. But what Patliputra has done over the last five years, and other India-POV editors have, despite their disclaimers, has done incalculable harm to Wikipedia's content. They have hurt Wikipedia's reputation for neutrality. If I am gone, my incivility goes. But if they are gone, their content remains. That is why I have not asked for any blocks for them, only examination and removal of their edits. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:58, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- OK, so S Marshall or Vanamonde93 Please propose something at AE. Thank you Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:18, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- My preference is for Arbcom. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:58, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- OK, either Arbcom or AE, let's move to one of those. @S Marshall: or @Vanamonde93: please come to some decision among yourselves. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:51, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Well, @पाटलिपुत्र:, if administrators can easily deal with the issues presented here, then we might reasonably ask: why have they not?—S Marshall T/C 17:02, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- RE:
but I suspect he might very well come back to bring closure to this thread
— you suspect wrong, Pataliputra. I meant what I said. In the previous ANI thread (earlier in the month), I advanced the following point. It being that for some time now, Fowler has been on a downward spiral as far as NPA and CIVIL lapses go. Now, some might excuse that as him being "baited," but that could only apply to a point, to a limit. And, as evident by his surprisingly harsh response (which, granted, he had partly retracted) to my rather tame advise (not instruction) to both original parties in this thread to try to be concise and to provide evidence, respectively — I understood that as him viewing my attempt to cushion his fall, not as, well, a cushion, but rather, as floor spikes or whatever. Thus, continuing with that analogy, as far as I'm concerned, he may now land where he may. I don't want anything to do with it anymore, simply because my help doesn't imply that I'd automatically side with him in all instances. Fairness has always been paramount to my ethos, regardless of anything, and I make no apologies when it comes to that.
- Furthermore, my help would have also necessitated that the information be made somewhat digestible, in that it would need to be refined — a point which Fowler flat out and adamantly rejected. So, even if I were willing to offer my assistance in this matter (which again, is no longer on the table), there's no way I'm devoting countless, countless hours to reviewing such unrefined info from lengthy talk pages, or for that matter, this ANI thread itself. A thread which has become so inordinately lengthy at this point, it's now virtually impenetrable to outside reviewers (the very thing I cautioned against multiple times in both threads). I doubt a single uninvolved person has read through this entire ANI thread and followed up on its links and diffs.
- Yet, on it goes. But, again, when I try to be upfront by explaining that it's an unrealistic expectation, I get scorn for not coddling this plain truth. As I already noted, it's a straight-up no good deed scenario. So, sure, try WP:AE, and we'll see if the 500-word limit can be observed (I have my doubts). Or, try WP:RFAR, which also has a 500-word limit. As I had already noted multiple times, it's really all the same to me at this point, in the sense that I won't be providing any further assistance. Hopefully, the above details my position more clearly. I wish all parties success in seeing these various disputes resolved amicably, truly. And while that seems rather unlikely atm, I'd very much wish to be proven wrong on that account. El_C 19:47, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- The TLDR (or a TLDR): this thread has over 20 sub/sections and takes up about a third of this noticeboard. That sort of impenetrable excess will not be permitted at WP:AE or WP:RFAR. El_C 01:30, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- It was not a harsh response El_C. It was a despondent response. I am sorry you feel hurt, but it had nothing to do with you, only with the relentless ANI threads, the tiresome knee-jerk RfCs, the long talk page threads that go nowhere, the relentless lying on South Asia, taking their toll, this one being the last straw. It was a deeply despondent response. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:20, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- I should have said lying on India-related topics. The Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalis POV promoters don't lie as much. They prefer to be foolish and get blocked. But as India-POV pushers can't leave any of the South Asia topics alone, I have decided to move away from most South Asia topics. That was mostly the content of my announcement which I have since retracted. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:31, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Anyway, will some admin close this thread? If it is felt that a block is needed, please block me for incivility for as long as you want, two months, six months, a year, or permanently. I have no illusions left about Wikipedia. The kinds that I had in October 2006 when I arrived here that it was going to replace Britannica are only worth a bitter laugh. The conversations that I have from time to time with retired University of Chicago professors who were involved in the last great revision of Britannica, especially South Asia, shows the yawning gap between those faltering, aged, academics and the best of what we have in Wikipedia. If and when I am blocked, I will not for a minute miss Wikipedia. I am active here out of a sense of charity (in the best meaning of the term, not in a sneering paternalistic way). I will simply do more of the other things I really like doing. I'm as clear as that. But I will not scratch my former uncivil remarks, and although I apologize, and will make a good-faith attempt to be civil, I cannot guarantee that I will be invariantly civil in the face of relentless coldly polite POV promotion, the kind that Wikipedia is unable or unwilling to stop. Anyway, again, some admin please close this thread. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:00, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- PS I thank S. Marshall and CMD for some remarks of insight and sympathy. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:18, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- @Fowler&fowler: "The Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalis POV promoters don't lie as much" [86]... So South Asian editors with a point-of-view different from yours are liars, but to various degrees depending on their ethnicity? How isn't this deeply xenophobic, racist and offensive to other contributors (besides being totally derogatory to Indians)? I know quite a few editors who were blocked for much less... Civility is not an option or a decorative attribute, it is at the core of collaborative editing: respect other users, do not insult them, nor their ethnicity, nor their religion. Administrators: Fowler&fowler is a valuable contributor, but this is the exactly kind of **** we have to deal with everyday when encountering him, and he keeps not understanding: can you please (User:El_C?) send a clear message that this is not acceptable behaviour? पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra) (talk) 15:31, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- That comment isn't very civil, but racist it is not. F&F is making no generalization about South Asian editors, but about South Asian nationalist pov-pushers. Are you seriously arguing that we don't have an epidemic of nationalist POV-pushing from every south Asian country? You do realize that we have ARBIPA DS for exactly this reason? Your argument is based on a straw man, and is not remotely conducive to collaboration either. Collaboration also requires engaging in good faith with the substance of what another editor is saying, rather than taking every opportunity to take offense. Vanamonde (Talk) 15:56, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- RE:
I am sorry you feel hurt, but it had nothing to do with you
— Fowler&fowler, at least by withdrawing, I no longer will be made a target for your outbursts, undeservedly. My feelings take comfort in that. See ya. El_C 15:53, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- @Fowler&fowler: "The Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalis POV promoters don't lie as much" [86]... So South Asian editors with a point-of-view different from yours are liars, but to various degrees depending on their ethnicity? How isn't this deeply xenophobic, racist and offensive to other contributors (besides being totally derogatory to Indians)? I know quite a few editors who were blocked for much less... Civility is not an option or a decorative attribute, it is at the core of collaborative editing: respect other users, do not insult them, nor their ethnicity, nor their religion. Administrators: Fowler&fowler is a valuable contributor, but this is the exactly kind of **** we have to deal with everyday when encountering him, and he keeps not understanding: can you please (User:El_C?) send a clear message that this is not acceptable behaviour? पाटलिपुत्र (Pataliputra) (talk) 15:31, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- PS I thank S. Marshall and CMD for some remarks of insight and sympathy. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:18, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- The TLDR (or a TLDR): this thread has over 20 sub/sections and takes up about a third of this noticeboard. That sort of impenetrable excess will not be permitted at WP:AE or WP:RFAR. El_C 01:30, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Over the past few days, this user has acted with incivility regarding the AfD for Liberland in which he was warned. He has edit warred on Vit Jedlicka trying to remove his officeholders infobox with the reason being that the position isn't real - even though all micronationalists have either an officeholder or royalty infobox (e.g. Carolyn Shelby, Travis McHenry, Igor Ashurbeyli etc). — Preceding unsigned comment added by MicroSupporter (talk • contribs) 15:23, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Provide diffs? GabberFlasted (talk) 15:26, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- @GabberFlasted Diffs? I'm not sure what that means, sorry. MicroSupporter (talk) 15:30, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Diffs: Special:Diff/1116096998, Special:Diff/1116097990. But Andy's already been warned for this (Special:Diff/1116097938) by Tyw7, and Andy has calmed down with the sweary namecalling since then. Levivich (talk) 15:37, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- @GabberFlasted Diffs? I'm not sure what that means, sorry. MicroSupporter (talk) 15:30, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- It should be noted that the only source for Vit Jedlicka holding any office in regards to the zero-population 'micronation' of Liberland is Jedlicka himself. It isn't an 'office'. No such office exists, except in the imagination of Liberland supporters. The 'office' comes with no powers. Or even, it would seem likely, a physical office. At least, not one on the uninhabited island. It is an imaginary self-conferred label. And as such, entirely inappropriate self-promotional content ineligible for inclusion in the infobox, per WP:BLP policy. And if WP:BLP policy is indeed being violated elsewhere, that doesn't justify doing it in this case. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:34, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- MicroSupporter asked on my talk page for my advice/intervention regarding this situation; my reading is that in fact MicroSupporter is in violation of both WP:3RR and WP:BLPRESTORE here. I had hoped giving them this advice on my talk page would lead to them taking a step back and addressing the content dispute in the appropriate way, but instead they opened this ANI case before I finished my response. WP:BOOMERANG applies at this point. signed, Rosguill talk 15:42, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- I apologise. I was just acting how I'd seen other micronational WP:BLP's. MicroSupporter (talk) 15:48, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- I made the above comment having only been aware of the situation at Vit Jedlicka, and not the Liberland AfD. I still think that the situation would benefit from editors taking a step back and picking up with the next step of WP:BRD, but want to acknowledge that the case of incivility identified in Levivich's diffs as a reasonable basis for starting an ANI discussion. signed, Rosguill talk 15:48, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- I think your first instinct was correct, Ros, because the diffs I linked were from five days ago. I'm not sure they're a reasonable basis for starting an ANI today. Levivich (talk) 16:02, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- AndyTheGrump behaved inappropriately calling someone names ("halfwit", linked in OP's link to acted with incivility) and told them multiple times to "fuck off" (linked in same discussion). AndyTheGrump was then warned by Tyw7. Since that warning, I can find no further examples of incivility in AndyTheGrump's editing history. Since the warning worked to fix the problem, what else do we need to do here? --Jayron32 15:54, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, I clearly could have chosen my words more wisely back there - but it is difficult to exercise restraint after having ones views repeatedly misrepresented. As should be noted, I didn't actually !vote for deletion at the Liberland AfD. Instead, I left a comment suggesting that the article wasn't following WP:NPOV policy, in that it had been repeatedly misrepresenting self-promotion as objective fact. A subject being Wikipedia-'notable' isn't grounds for the sort of BS we've seen there, with in one case the so-called 'Minister of Justice' of the imaginary 'nation' adding himself to the infobox. [87] Somehow though, I'm the one being accused of 'bias' by MicroSupporter? So yes, I lost my temper. I suspect many people would, under the circumstances... AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:04, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Are we allowed to tell people to fuck off if we calm down after, or not? Sorry, I'm new and trying to learn the rules. Level two wikimancer (talk) 03:26, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Yes. But if it was not appropriate, there may be consequences. Be absolutely sure of no good faith on the other side, and of this being proportionate escalation after earlier messages, by other people. SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:04, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- I see, so WP:NPA is limited in scope to good faith editors. For instance, because I believe you answered in good faith, I'd get in trouble for calling you a half wit. But if I thought you weren't here to build an encyclopedia, then saying that SmokeyJoe is a half wit would be ok? Complex rules! But I'm catching on Level two wikimancer (talk) 06:00, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- You'd think that a new user would be a level one wikimancer, but I suppose we're all learning new things every day. Parabolist (talk) 09:39, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Telling people to fuck off is not a personal attack, it is an uncivil way to tell them to go away. If you tell me to fuck off, you are not insulting me, you are not calling me names, you are just saying rathe forcefully that you don't want to interact with me in this or that discussion. Calling someone a halfwit, on the other hand, is a clear personal attack, it is saying something negative about the other. Nothing complex about it, just make sure that you don't ask about X (in this case, "fuck off"), and then jump to unwarranted conclusions about Y (in this case "halfwit") as if they are the same. Fram (talk) 10:34, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- @Fram In Australia "you half wit" or 'Fork off is probably friendly, the combination forking halfwit might cause you to loose teeth, you half-witted drongo (obs) is fine though . Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 10:49, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- There was indeed actually a request for comment, WP:FUCKOFF, about the general usage of that term. As a result of the RfC, a consensus seems to have developed that just using the term "fuck off" is not considered a personal attack - as Fram said. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 12:23, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- But it is incivil regardless, and not all incivil things are personal attacks. There are lots of ways one can violate WP:CIVILITY policy, and personal attacks are but one of them. --Jayron32 17:54, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- I rarely have seen the civility policy enforced beyond the most egregious violations. The fact we have a page called Wikipedia:Civil POV pushing speaks to some of the contempt that a lot of our long-time users have towards civility. And for the most part, we collectively accept it, whether or not we explicitly do so. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 19:39, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- But it is incivil regardless, and not all incivil things are personal attacks. There are lots of ways one can violate WP:CIVILITY policy, and personal attacks are but one of them. --Jayron32 17:54, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- I see, so WP:NPA is limited in scope to good faith editors. For instance, because I believe you answered in good faith, I'd get in trouble for calling you a half wit. But if I thought you weren't here to build an encyclopedia, then saying that SmokeyJoe is a half wit would be ok? Complex rules! But I'm catching on Level two wikimancer (talk) 06:00, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- To answer Level two wikimancer's initial question, 'Are we allowed to tell people to fuck off if we calm down after, or not?', the answer is most likely 'it depends', so try not to. As for what it depends on, opinions will differ. Some will say it depends on the circumstances (I'd argue that it probably should, but I would, wouldn't I). Others will say it depends on who says it. Which might also be a legitimate consideration on occasion, though it can certainly look like favouritism. And then there is an element of luck. Wikipedia is run by volunteers, not all of whom respond in the same way. WP:ANI, where most such cases get reported (if they get reported at all) is a hit-or-miss sort of place, with unpredictable outcomes depending on how a thread is started, and who responds. Things can often go off at a tangent, with the initial complaint rapidly getting buried under other matters, often for very good reasons. And a little uncertainly about what exactly the consequences will be isn't necessarily a bad thing. If Wikipedia were to ever try to lay down precise rules about exactly how uncivil contributors were permitted to be to each other, it would most likely to encourage people to resort to maximum-permitted-incivility as a matter of routine. Or at least, encourage some of us. And trying to create such rules would be doomed to failure anyway, since it is entirely possible to be excruciatingly uncivil to someone using nothing but the most polite language. Not having hard and fast rules hopefully encourages some people to think about the broader consequences of what they say, rather than merely dragging out the rulebook and applying permitted terms just because they can.
- As for Fram's point above about personal attacks, the same considerations apply to some extent. The general rule (in as much as there are rules, which again aren't always a good idea) seems to be that you can be rude about what people do ("that was halfwitted"), but not what you think they are ("halfwit"). Or at least, if you are going to do the latter, do it in Wikipedia's preferred terms, preferably with Wikilinks (WP:NOTHERE, WP:CIR etc...), and with some evidence to back it up. So yes, I shouldn't have called MicroSupporter a halfwit. Not only was it impolite, it was unnecessary, since I'd got the evidence on my side over the matter concerned.
- Ultimately though, Wikipedia is created and maintained by a disparate bunch of volunteers, with all that entails. Mostly the same stuff that applies to all human endeavours, anywhere. Being rude to each other is something people do, all the time. Possibly it's an inevitable side effect of being such effective communicators. Or maybe its the reason we developed language in the first place. (I wish I'd thought of that when I was studying anthropology at university...) Seriously though, although it might possibly seem a good thing to be perfectly polite to each other, all the time, it isn't going to happen. People have flaws. So the stuff they do will be flawed. This project certainly does, and in my (obviously biased) opinion, contributors' incivility to each other doesn't even come into the top half-dozen things wrong with it. So try not to be ruder to each other than is sometimes necessary (and yes, sometimes it is necessary to tell potential contributors that they lack the competence to do anything remotely useful here...) but don't kid yourself that eliminating incivility is more than an utopian dream. Or that anyone would necessarily want to live in that particular utopia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:34, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- From my point of view, to answer @Level two wikimancer: excellent question, no it is not allowed, WP:CIVILITY is not just policy, it's a core policy and one of the Wikipedia:Five pillars. Telling someone to "fuck off", unless it is said in jest between friends, is never civil. HOWEVER, saying that, Wikipedia also does not punish. See WP:NOTPUNITIVE. Things like blocks or bans are enacted for patterns of behavior, refusal to accept responsibility and modify one's behavior voluntarily, "doubling down" on bad behavior, etc. AndyTheGrump was warned to stop, and has multiple times conceded there were in the wrong for losing their temper, and has also not repeated the behavior. From a Wikipedia policy point of view, that's sufficient. We have no reason to block them, because there's nothing to stop. Blocks stop bad behavior; bad behavior which has stopped on its own doesn't need a block. If AndyTheGrump does this again tomorrow to someone else, and then the day after to a third person, then we can start having a conversation about blocking or banning them. But not after an isolated incident of incivility. --Jayron32 17:54, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Yes. But if it was not appropriate, there may be consequences. Be absolutely sure of no good faith on the other side, and of this being proportionate escalation after earlier messages, by other people. SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:04, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- I have blocked MicroSupporter for edit warring on Vít Jedlička. Their conduct in the micronations topic area is approaching POV pushing. I would suggest a topic ban --Guerillero Parlez Moi 13:49, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Have been unblocked as per review on my talk page. I apologise for any wrongdoings once again. MicroSupporter (talk) 14:23, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, Guerillero seems to have misread the dates or something. Again, my apologies for the incivility. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:48, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oh, I see the 'micro' story is taking a toll not only on article space :) It's starting to become clear that this whole situation is starting to resemble WP:PSCI. Our collective response seems like we're still in the early stages of grief, though. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:15, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- My grief (generally expressed in the phrase 'good grief') is more concerned with the state of 'macronations' these days. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:22, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- I can fully understand Andy's frustration after having edited in that field myself, but deciding to give up on the micronations since it was bad for my blood pressure, in spite of me normally being the calmest person on earth. The Liberland article is about a totally imaginary "micronation", created and kept alive only to make money from selling "passports", "offices" and memorabilia, and thus purely promotional, using Wikipedia as a free advertising platform. So IMHO the article should be deleted and salted ASAP. - Tom | Thomas.W talk 15:34, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, such zero-population putative 'micronations' tend to fall through the cracks in Wikipedia's fringe-topic-treatment policies. They become Wikipedia-'notable' through media coverage that is more often than not filler copy written for entertainment rather than objectivity. 'Man starts imaginary country' is more interesting to readers than 'Man talks nonsense about creating imaginary country so he can sell useless citizenship certificates for Bitcoin' or whatever. Either notability criteria need changing, or NPOV policy needs to be enforced more thoroughly - which mostly comes down to not presenting fantasy as fact. WE could make a good start by removing the thoroughly dishonest 'infoboxes' from such articles, given that they inevitably contain promotional BS rather than verifiable fact. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:46, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- They appear to be using the infobox for recognized countries, which is absolutely a bad approach. A simple box to identify who created the micronation, when, where, and estimated size would be a neutral approach, anything else is going to be claims that can be discussed in the body but not treated as facts due to the purposes of Microstation. Masem (t) 15:56, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Hoax or not (spoiler: it probaly is), Liberland is still notable enough to exist on Wikipedia. Gatekeeping it is inappropriate. MicroSupporter (talk) 15:46, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Could you clarify what you mean by 'gatekeeping'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:48, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- People trying to delete it off of Wikipedia for the sole fact that it could potentially be a hoax (just like many other micronations on Wikipedia). I think Liberland's article definitely needs restructuring so it looks more like a micronation and the controversies of Liberland should also be visible on the article, but I don't think it should be deleted. The problem with micronations is some claim to be fantasy, and some claim to be serious (in reality they're all fantasy though, regardless of what they claim). This causes great difficulty of finding things to write about on the micronations that claim to be serious. I hope that makes sense. MicroSupporter (talk) 15:50, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Thomas.W doesn't seem to be suggesting that the Liberland article should be deleted because it is a 'hoax'. He says it is promotional. Which it is. And the question then comes down to whether it is appropriate to cover the subject on Wikipedia, given that the sources available are either entirely promotional themselves, or lacking the objective coverage necessary to write an encyclopaedic article. Wikipedia isn't obliged to have articles on anything, and whether we do so or not is, quite rightly, mostly dependent of the availability and usefulness of sufficient independent sources. I'm of the opinion that in almost all circumstances, it is better to have no article on a topic than a bad one, if the bad cannot be made good. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:02, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- I can't see how Liberland's article is promotional, it just lacks the information on how its a micronation. Most of the articles about Liberland seem to be making them ick out of Liberland, which means they're definitely not promotional articles if they're not getting the serious coverage that they want. The article needs restructuring, but I don't think it should be deleted. MicroSupporter (talk) 16:34, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- In what sense is Liberland a 'micronation'? The territory claimed is an uninhabited island. It has never had a 'Liberlander' population. It consists of nothing more than a website, and a series of claims to existence. In a sense, all nations are social constructs (even the largest and most powerful ones), but this particular one seems only to consist of a 'claim to existence' that nobody but its promoters take seriously. If indeed they actually do, as more than a means of attracting publicity. Imaginary elephants aren't pachyderms. Imaginary 'micronations' aren't nations, and Wikipedia is under no obligation to pretend that they are. If you want to publish micronation-fanfiction, try Wikia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:19, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- I'm getting Poyais vibes from all of this. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 19:33, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- In what sense is Liberland a 'micronation'? The territory claimed is an uninhabited island. It has never had a 'Liberlander' population. It consists of nothing more than a website, and a series of claims to existence. In a sense, all nations are social constructs (even the largest and most powerful ones), but this particular one seems only to consist of a 'claim to existence' that nobody but its promoters take seriously. If indeed they actually do, as more than a means of attracting publicity. Imaginary elephants aren't pachyderms. Imaginary 'micronations' aren't nations, and Wikipedia is under no obligation to pretend that they are. If you want to publish micronation-fanfiction, try Wikia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:19, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- I can't see how Liberland's article is promotional, it just lacks the information on how its a micronation. Most of the articles about Liberland seem to be making them ick out of Liberland, which means they're definitely not promotional articles if they're not getting the serious coverage that they want. The article needs restructuring, but I don't think it should be deleted. MicroSupporter (talk) 16:34, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Thomas.W doesn't seem to be suggesting that the Liberland article should be deleted because it is a 'hoax'. He says it is promotional. Which it is. And the question then comes down to whether it is appropriate to cover the subject on Wikipedia, given that the sources available are either entirely promotional themselves, or lacking the objective coverage necessary to write an encyclopaedic article. Wikipedia isn't obliged to have articles on anything, and whether we do so or not is, quite rightly, mostly dependent of the availability and usefulness of sufficient independent sources. I'm of the opinion that in almost all circumstances, it is better to have no article on a topic than a bad one, if the bad cannot be made good. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:02, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- People trying to delete it off of Wikipedia for the sole fact that it could potentially be a hoax (just like many other micronations on Wikipedia). I think Liberland's article definitely needs restructuring so it looks more like a micronation and the controversies of Liberland should also be visible on the article, but I don't think it should be deleted. The problem with micronations is some claim to be fantasy, and some claim to be serious (in reality they're all fantasy though, regardless of what they claim). This causes great difficulty of finding things to write about on the micronations that claim to be serious. I hope that makes sense. MicroSupporter (talk) 15:50, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Could you clarify what you mean by 'gatekeeping'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:48, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, such zero-population putative 'micronations' tend to fall through the cracks in Wikipedia's fringe-topic-treatment policies. They become Wikipedia-'notable' through media coverage that is more often than not filler copy written for entertainment rather than objectivity. 'Man starts imaginary country' is more interesting to readers than 'Man talks nonsense about creating imaginary country so he can sell useless citizenship certificates for Bitcoin' or whatever. Either notability criteria need changing, or NPOV policy needs to be enforced more thoroughly - which mostly comes down to not presenting fantasy as fact. WE could make a good start by removing the thoroughly dishonest 'infoboxes' from such articles, given that they inevitably contain promotional BS rather than verifiable fact. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:46, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- User:EEng. I know it's getting a bit too long now, but shouldn't unrecognised micronations be on The List. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:19, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
Done A most appropriate addition to that most important list. EEng 16:00, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- I'm of the mindset that this conversation should not be about AndyTheGrump's conduct, but rather about the purpose of this level of extensive coverage of micronations, and the supposed Wikipedia:WikiProject_Autonomous_Zones more generally. Let's stop with the distraction and I encourage @AndyTheGrump: to open that discussion wherever it fits best. What makes these meet the criteria of notability in any way? If I say my backyard is now a sovereign nation, and the Washington Post then writes a story including my claim, does that then make my backyard worthy of inclusion as a micronation on Wikipedia? What is the goal here exactly? Criticalus (talk) 18:56, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Concerns about articles nominated for deletion
I am a Mexican editor and since three years ago I've been writing and creating around 200 articles on Wikipedia, including the majority of Real Madrid seasons, a good bunch of Juventus, A.C. Milan and Internazionale seasons, even Nottingham Forest seasons, PSV and Sporting Lisboa, and of course I've been helping with uncountable edits to other users articles. Other pages that you probably reviewed or read, those articles include prose, several sources and of course report-links.
The problem is, early October 2022 I started to write articles about my native country Mexico, the 1994-95 season with 19 football teams and plus another cancelled campaign. I followed the same WP:NSEASONS requirements, I properly included several sources, as I routinely do with my european teams articles. I've never had problems with my past 195 articles, but, suddenly after three years, I've received 10 nominations to delete my Mexican football teams articles by The Banner (talk · contribs) . Naïvely I followed the process, it was abhorrent, I've explained one time, two times several times my artciles were properly sourced, but by an incredible deletion score of 1-0 with the same user . GiantSnowman (talk · contribs) voting in my AfD discussions through a two weeks span, they were deleted by Star Mississippi (talk · contribs) through Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2022_October_19#1994–95_season_articles.
This is clearly linked to the undeniable fact that the three persons cannot accept a Mexican editor write popular articles with many views, following a Jim Crow strategy' they even don't read my articles, just nominate and delete them always the same three persons (1 nominates, 1 votes, and 1 deletes the same three always). They acted against my 200 articles only after they've realized I am Mexican. I have 18 articles deleted, they are doing the same for the other 200 Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Football.
This is the first time I am posting here so if I am doing anything wrong, please let me know.HugoAcosta9 (talk) 18:03, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, you are doing something wrong. You've made blatant personal attacks against several editors, accusing them of racism, because they had the gall to nominate some of your articles for deletion based on Wikipedia's guidelines regarding notability. I strongly suggest you refactor your post to remove any insinuation that your were targeted because of your nationality as opposed to a relatively recent consensus-driven shift in notability criteria for sports/athletes. -- Ponyobons mots 18:12, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- I'm going to second this. Calling these editors racists, to be blunt, is a personal attack. I'm also changing the title of this section, as this again is a personal attack. RickinBaltimore (talk) 18:16, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Not surprisingly, Football in Baltimore is not popular, of course you want the 200 football articles deleted. HugoAcosta9 (talk) 18:28, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- I don't care about the articles in question. I care about your continued personal attacks. Stop with the racism calls immediately, or you're going to be blocked. RickinBaltimore (talk) 18:41, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Heaven forbid that Wikipedia editors apply notability policies and guidelines, or that we don't treat association football articles as immune to the same. JPxG is correct that there've been sweeping changes to sports notability guidelines (after years of abuse, with some footy editors being among the worst offenders), and it's entirely possible you were unaware of that. But if you're unable to assume good faith, and you reflexively jump to the conclusion that the only conceivable reason anyone could take one of your articles to AfD is sinister intent, then Wikipedia will just have to soldier on without you. Ravenswing 19:02, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Looks like it was changed back, should I change it to "Personal attack from HugoAcosta9"? @RickinBaltimore The Shamming Man has appeared. Sham me / Where I've shammed 19:43, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Not surprisingly, Football in Baltimore is not popular, of course you want the 200 football articles deleted. HugoAcosta9 (talk) 18:28, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- See everyone, after I wrote 200 articles I showed with exhibitions those three friendos are acting against a Mexican editor and they deflected the truth labeling as personal attacks. HugoAcosta9 (talk) 18:27, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Please read the behavioral guideline WP:AGF before you continue. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 18:40, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- I can write with fear anymore over here. I will never published another article on wikipedia. HugoAcosta9 (talk) 18:42, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- @HugoAcosta9: no one here is being racist, or biased against articles from Mexico. As @JPxG states below, the notability guidelines for sports articles are much stricter now; please take a moment to review the link they provided to understand the changes. (And before I get accused of racism myself, check my user page – I'm actually south of you.) –FlyingAce✈hello 18:53, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Read 1 out of my 200 articles, if you want 1 article unsourced, then I allow you to delete all of them. HugoAcosta9 (talk) 18:59, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- I'm not the one nominating the articles for deletion ;) I'm just saying that the nomination, even if it may have been mistaken, has nothing to do with your nationality or any other personal characteristic. I understand it's distressing, but please avoid attacking other editors because of it. –FlyingAce✈hello 19:19, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Read 1 out of my 200 articles, if you want 1 article unsourced, then I allow you to delete all of them. HugoAcosta9 (talk) 18:59, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Please read the behavioral guideline WP:AGF before you continue. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 18:40, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- I'm going to second this. Calling these editors racists, to be blunt, is a personal attack. I'm also changing the title of this section, as this again is a personal attack. RickinBaltimore (talk) 18:16, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Close as forum shopping and suggest p-block from DRV which he's bludgeoning (again) with bad faith comments and arguments. Star Mississippi 18:45, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- @HugoAcosta9: A few months ago, some rather sweeping changes were made to WP:NSPORTS, so while I think it is unlikely that you are being specifically targeted, you are not wrong in perceiving a sudden increase in sports-related AfD nominations. jp×g 18:49, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- With the difference they are lying about me writing that the 200 articles are unsourced when you red those they are sourced with 6-7 references, and using only 1 vote to delete my 200 articles from the same user. HugoAcosta9 (talk) 18:57, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Strictly spoken, I am not informed about this discussion. I was pointed to WP:AN for a non-existing discussion. But with some searching, I did find the personal attack. The Banner talk 18:56, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- False. I properly noticed you in your talk page. HugoAcosta9 (talk) 19:02, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Just read your own edit on my talk page. The Banner talk 19:21, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- I noticed you based on real claims, on the contrary, you deleted 10 Mexican football articles based on false claims, then you want my other 200 being deleted precisely the 200 european football. HugoAcosta9 (talk) 20:06, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Just read your own edit on my talk page. The Banner talk 19:21, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
The claims of racism and so on are unacceptable, but on the other hand I would be upset as well if someone started AfD´ing articles like 1989–90 Real Madrid CF season. Believing that this isn´t notable and no sources would exist for this club, the champions of the Spanish competition that year and one of the 5 biggest football clubs ever, is not racism but is a staggering display of ignorance, or lack of any WP:BEFORE and common sense. Fram (talk) 18:58, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Possible copyvio... The Banner talk 19:01, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Which is not an Afd reason, and needs perhaps some indication of where the text is copied from? Otherwise you are accusing an editor without any evidence, which isn´t a good look... Fram (talk) 19:08, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Based on what evidence? I carry no water for HugoAcosta9, but your seeming assertion that he committed copyvio with no other ground than a lack of sourcing is dealing in bad faith. If you think this is copyvio, prove it with a link. If you can't (or more likely haven't bothered trying), retract the accusation. Fram is exactly right: Real Madrid is one of the most prominent and popular sports teams in the world, and seeking to delete one of their season articles without the slightest attempt at WP:BEFORE is as egregious as if you sought to delete the 1990 New York Yankees or the 1990 New York Giants seasons. Ravenswing 19:15, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Boomerang per CIR - Hugo is being disruptive at AFD, disruptive at DRV, and is levelling accusations if racism against numerous editors who disagree with him (including me). Totally unacceptable. GiantSnowman 19:21, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Says the one man-one vote over my 200 artciles which unable a deletion. I showed you did not read my 200 articles and you vote to delete them. HugoAcosta9 (talk) 19:57, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
I did some looking around, and this editor is virtually accusing anyone who disagrees with them a racist at virtually ever venue I checked. It's not just here - it's talk pages, AFD, DRV, etc. as much as I'm very sympathetic to people who feel they're receiving racist comments towards them...I haven't witnessed a single person say anything racist. Most didn't comment on race or the editor at all. This editor just appears to default to accusations of racism or "not reading the nomination" to anyone who dares doubt him. Sergecross73 msg me 19:25, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Agree, I wasn't aware that closing an AfD was a "Jim Crow Pattern". I understand he's frustrated, but this is spiraling beyond necessity.
- Star Mississippi 19:31, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, I'm neutral on the AFD nominations (I dont edit in sports enough to know) and I know he must be frustrated, but he can't be bogging down good faith discussion with bad faith aspersions at every venue like this. Sergecross73 msg me 19:38, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- False. You have no evidence that my 200 articles deserved to be deleted, just deflected the real matter, Mississippi delete pages with a 1-0 AfD consensus. 1 vote is not a consensus over two weeks of discussion. HugoAcosta9 (talk) 19:59, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Zero evidence of what? I just told you I was neutral and not taking a stance on the AFDs. This is exactly the problem. You throw accusations around that don't make any sense. Sergecross73 msg me 20:25, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- he's already gone, buddy. The Shamming Man has appeared. Sham me / Where I've shammed 20:26, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Sorry, saw his comment and responded before I read the rest of the thread. Sergecross73 msg me 20:29, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- he's already gone, buddy. The Shamming Man has appeared. Sham me / Where I've shammed 20:26, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Zero evidence of what? I just told you I was neutral and not taking a stance on the AFDs. This is exactly the problem. You throw accusations around that don't make any sense. Sergecross73 msg me 20:25, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- False. You have no evidence that my 200 articles deserved to be deleted, just deflected the real matter, Mississippi delete pages with a 1-0 AfD consensus. 1 vote is not a consensus over two weeks of discussion. HugoAcosta9 (talk) 19:59, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, I'm neutral on the AFD nominations (I dont edit in sports enough to know) and I know he must be frustrated, but he can't be bogging down good faith discussion with bad faith aspersions at every venue like this. Sergecross73 msg me 19:38, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- 200 articles deleted with 1-0 consensus over two weeks based on false claims is acceptable to you, well thats not good faith from you. HugoAcosta9 (talk) 20:02, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Maybe instead of fighting this, maybe you should work with these other fine souls to fix the issues in the articles? The Shamming Man has appeared. Sham me / Where I've shammed 20:19, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- This is going nowhere. I've indefinitely blocked the user.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:20, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- That also works, however what does that mean for the AfD's? The Shamming Man has appeared. Sham me / Where I've shammed 20:22, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oops, just seeing that he was blocked. I won't waste further time responding. But regardless, it doesn't mean anything for the AFDs. They can continue on. The article creators participation aren't essential. Sergecross73 msg me 20:27, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you. Star Mississippi 20:55, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Any chance you or an uninvolved admin might consider revoking TPA? Thanks either way Star Mississippi 21:34, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Sir Sputnik did.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:42, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you both. There was no way that was going to end in any positive manner. Star Mississippi 21:45, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Sir Sputnik did.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:42, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- That also works, however what does that mean for the AfD's? The Shamming Man has appeared. Sham me / Where I've shammed 20:22, 19 October 2022 (UTC)
- Would a CU with an eye on this thread/aware of this issue have an eye at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/HugoAcosta9 and the contribs there. JoTorres22 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is not a new editor, but not sure whether this a is joe job. Star Mississippi 18:24, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
The Banner conduct
Good block. But what about the WP:HOUNDING by User:The Banner? It is acceptable to go through someone's contributions when you notice problems, it is not acceptable though to nominate articles for deletion just to further bait an already distressed editor, and it is very hard to see things like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1989–90 Real Madrid CF season in any other way. Either the editor really believes the topic isn't notable, in which WP:CIR comes to mind, or they just try to rile up Hugo Acosta, in which case it is WP:HOUNDING. Fram (talk) 10:56, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- I was about to say Good Block, with respect to the OP, who threw a boomerang at a non-existent kangaroo. But I see that the subject has changed. Yuck. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:38, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- You know, just because person A does something wrong, doesn't mean that person B didn't. Hugo clearly had gone off the deep end with his spurious and unfounded accusations of racism, and his refusal to back off that accusation. He wanted to die on that hill, and it looks like he was granted that wish. So, he was unequivocally in the wrong for accusing people of racism where none existed. However, the non-racism-accusations part of the complaint appear to have merit. Yes, we have (wisely) tightened up our WP:NSPORTS requirements in recent months, but just as the tightening of those requirements means that people cannot spam entire batches of non-notable sports articles across Wikipedia, that does not mean that people are empowered to spam spurious AFD discussions all over Wikipedia without a modicum of WP:BEFORE and common sense. AFDing season articles of literally the most successful and well-covered sporting franchises in the world is beyond-the-pale irresponsible. It isn't racist, but it's also a really shitty thing to do, and just as care and consideration needs to be undertaken before creating articles, equal care and consideration needs to be undertaken when nominating articles. La Liga is not Billy's Backyard Soccer Jamboree, and I find the "I think they are copyvios" is an unconvincing. Accusations of bad acting without evidence is casting aspersions and unless you can provide the source of the copied text, such claims are baseless. Being falsely called racists doesn't mean what you did is right, and like Fram above, I think we should not sweep these problems under the rug. --Jayron32 16:13, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- +1. I agree that HugoAcosta dug his own grave, but he had cause to be angry. The Banner filed a heap of AfDs that were just this side of spurious, targeting teams that are among the most successful in the world, and often going after championship seasons -- the analogy I've used in some of those AfDs is that even an American who knows nothing about sports might well hesitate long and hard before going after 1990 New York Yankees season. The "suspected copyvio" charge was just icing on the cake, and obviously there was no attempt at complying with WP:BEFORE. We would not tolerate such antics in a newbie editor with 200 edits, and it's appalling to contemplate that the perp here is someone with over a hundred thousand edits and who has filed well over a thousand AfDs. Some consequence needs to happen here beyond "Gosh, what a shame," and The Banner would be well advised to have some serious explanation for this egregious conduct. Ravenswing 16:57, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Fully agree - the petty, POINTy nominations by The Banner of clearly notable topics is incredibly disruptive and I agree this constitutes hounding and needs resolving. GiantSnowman 19:04, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- I think - if possible - @The Banner should be banned from making AfD's for 24-72 hours. Once this period is done, we can go forward with a possible decision for a long-term solution. The Shamming Man has appeared. Sham me / Where I've shammed 19:17, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- [[Wikipedia:Don't shoot the messenger. A big portion of my Afds are honoured, with. the articles removed. The Banner talk 19:38, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- @The Banner not only did you not give a reason for afd'ing the articles but they are extremely notable articles.Tdshe/her 19:40, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Actually, you have quite a mediocre record at AfD. AfD tools report that in the last thousand nominations you've filed, the eventual result matches yours just 57% of the time, which is not much better than random chance.
But we are not talking about AfDs you filed five years ago -- although given your recent behavior, a closer examination of your record is appropriate. We're talking the AfDs you filed against articles on highly notable subjects that HugoAcosta created, where you demonstrably did not perform WP:BEFORE, where you levied unsupported and likely unfounded accusations of copyright violations at him. Do you have an explanation for those? Ravenswing 20:40, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Another vote for temporarily banning User:The Banner from AFDs and further punishment if he continues, the AFDs he's just put up are are at best ridiculous, and at worst incendiary. Ortizesp (talk) 21:15, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- [[Wikipedia:Don't shoot the messenger. A big portion of my Afds are honoured, with. the articles removed. The Banner talk 19:38, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- I think - if possible - @The Banner should be banned from making AfD's for 24-72 hours. Once this period is done, we can go forward with a possible decision for a long-term solution. The Shamming Man has appeared. Sham me / Where I've shammed 19:17, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- Agreed with Jayron and Ravenswing, repeated untenable nominations are bad enough, but AfDing so many that are obviously notable is beyond disruptive. JoelleJay (talk) 05:03, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- Fully agree - the petty, POINTy nominations by The Banner of clearly notable topics is incredibly disruptive and I agree this constitutes hounding and needs resolving. GiantSnowman 19:04, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- COpying my comment from one of the AfDs. I think The Banner's conduct at the ongoing AfDs needs evaluation and handling by an uninvolved admin, which isn't me. While I have no issue with Fram's responses, the AfD isn't the place for the discussion. (Will notify both momentarily. Star Mississippi 14:11, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
Off-topic and becoming disruptive, Jip Orlando (talk) 20:52, 20 October 2022 (UTC) |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
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- I agree with the points made by Fram and others about TheBanner's possible HOUNDING behavior (I was very surprised to learn that this is an experienced editor after going through the batch of Spanish football club season articles AfDs they started yesterday). I'm also concerned from the post above that TheBanner doesn't understand their behavior was very likely inappropriate (asking us not to shoot the messenger?). I'm not recommending any sanction, but I would like TheBanner to consider how to handle themselves better in the future. Jogurney (talk) 20:33, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
- That sums up my thinking as well. Whilst I am note sure about a symbolic 24 hour AfD ban at the moment I would certainly be willing to entertain a sanction if issues recur. Gusfriend (talk) 06:42, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- We don't do that here. "Symbolic bans" are not anything worthwhile. Either we believe that TheBanner will continue to be disruptive, and issue some kind of sanctions, or we believe that they are capable of self-regulating and modifying their own behavior, at which point we let them do that. Symbolic bans are pointless. --Jayron32 14:12, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- That sums up my thinking as well. Whilst I am note sure about a symbolic 24 hour AfD ban at the moment I would certainly be willing to entertain a sanction if issues recur. Gusfriend (talk) 06:42, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1994–95 Club América season, where they nominated the article with patently false claims (and ones that are not really relevant for an AfD anyway, what matters is if sources exist, not if they are in the article), and where they apparently still can't admit their fault or withdraw the nom, even after 8 other AfDs in the series have been closed as "speedy keep" with a comment by the closer that they were a "waste of time". This is not some heat of the moment mistake by The Banner, this is an ongoing refusal to see or admit any issue with their behaviour, which has resulted in the meltdown and subsequent (well-deserved) block of a productive editor. Letting them get away with a silly 24 hour AfD ban or a severe "tsk tsk" is extremely mild for this kind of behaviour. Fram (talk) 14:12, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- On the flipside, that's an older nomination, before TheBanner was made aware such nominations were being disruptive. Digging backwards isn't helpful; we know they have a history of this; I just am not sure that before this discussion they didn't know they had a history of problems. Don't misunderstand me here. What they did was wrong. But giving them the opportunity to self-correct should be done here. Blocking or banning should come only after a person has been given the opportunity to do better. @The Banner: Do you agree to stop making these kinds of nominations? --Jayron32 14:18, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- The discussion at the bottom of the AfD indicates to me that The Banner has learnt nothing from this discussion or is being deliberately obstructive. Star Mississippi 14:25, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- Again, this is not a newbie editor: this is someone with a hundred thousand edits, sixteen years of experience and many hundreds of AfD filings. At this stage in his Wikipedia career, The Banner should not have to be instructed not to disrupt Wikipedia by filing spurious AfDs or levying unfounded and unsupported accusations at other editors. Nor should he be pulling defensiveness or deflection, as above in this ANI or on the AfD Fram links; the stance that would have helped in either venue was humility and abject apology, withdrawing his remaining open noms, and as Drmies says below, to take these concerns seriously.
At this point, especially with him weaponizing AfD to drive out a productive editor, I'm no longer up for a token slap on the wrist. Let's give him a month's ban from AfD, broadly construed, and see if that gets his attention. Ravenswing 15:07, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- Fair enough. Work up a formal ban proposal, put it to discussion, and let's see what the consensus is. --Jayron32 15:50, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- User:The Banner--this is a good time to take those concerns seriously. Being defensive is not likely to help you. I've known you for a long time and I want to keep you on board here. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 14:32, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- My intention was nothing more than protecting the quality of Wikipedia. I am willing to stop looking as football articles, as it is clear that a critical look at (the quality of) them is not appreciated. I am not willing to get a formal ban because others come up with some silly made-up stories over how bad I am and what bad intentions I had. That Hugo now has a block OT, is due to his own behaviour, including accusations of racism and apartheid. I will walk away from football articles and will not care about substandard articles. To put a date on it, the rest of the year, minimum. I hope there will also be a look at the behaviour of "the other side" because to my feeling that is harassment and hounding. The Banner talk 16:58, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- With that as your unrepentant encomium, let's take you at your word. I therefore propose that The Banner receive a two month tban from AfD, broadly construed, with the recommendation that he educate himself better on the purposes of and his obligations under WP:Deletion policy. Ravenswing 19:42, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- Wait, are you just gonna keep raising it? Just make it indef until they demonstrate that they recognize the problem and can commit to correcting it. But if there's already an unwillingness to do so, what's the point of a 2 months hiatus and/or TBAN, if the issues are likely to continue once that time is up? El_C 20:15, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- If you want to propose indef instead, feel free. Since this is the first formal proposal I've made, I'm unsure where you get the idea about "raising" anything. Ravenswing 20:43, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oh, I'm just speaking generally. I only have a vague idea as to what's happening here. But I saw you in passing above being unimpressed with The Banner's responses, thus, seeking to raise the previously-proposed 24-72 hour ban (shortest TBAN I've heard of) to one month. And then, after being further unimpressed, you proposed to raise it to 2 months. That's what I was referring to wrt raising. But I didn't realize that this was your first proposal, so now I feel like a dick. El_C 20:58, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- I'd support the two months, but agree that indef would be better. We don't need The Banner to stop looking at football articles -- the topic area is irrelevant -- we need them to stop disrupting AFD; the TBAN should last until they commit to doing so. Levivich (talk) 22:07, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- If you want to propose indef instead, feel free. Since this is the first formal proposal I've made, I'm unsure where you get the idea about "raising" anything. Ravenswing 20:43, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- Wait, are you just gonna keep raising it? Just make it indef until they demonstrate that they recognize the problem and can commit to correcting it. But if there's already an unwillingness to do so, what's the point of a 2 months hiatus and/or TBAN, if the issues are likely to continue once that time is up? El_C 20:15, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- With that as your unrepentant encomium, let's take you at your word. I therefore propose that The Banner receive a two month tban from AfD, broadly construed, with the recommendation that he educate himself better on the purposes of and his obligations under WP:Deletion policy. Ravenswing 19:42, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- My intention was nothing more than protecting the quality of Wikipedia. I am willing to stop looking as football articles, as it is clear that a critical look at (the quality of) them is not appreciated. I am not willing to get a formal ban because others come up with some silly made-up stories over how bad I am and what bad intentions I had. That Hugo now has a block OT, is due to his own behaviour, including accusations of racism and apartheid. I will walk away from football articles and will not care about substandard articles. To put a date on it, the rest of the year, minimum. I hope there will also be a look at the behaviour of "the other side" because to my feeling that is harassment and hounding. The Banner talk 16:58, 21 October 2022 (UTC)
- Comment:I've been a regular closer at AFD since January and I just wanted to add that it is not uncommon for a nominator to target a variety of article creations from the same page creator. There are times, like with those thousands of GEO stubs with terrible sourcing, when such behavior is warranted. But there are other times where it seems like a veteran editor spots one bad article by a relatively new editor (or at least an editor without a "known" profile) and just nominates all of their articles for deletion. There are rare times where it is part of a feud between editors or payback but it usually seems like we have some very experienced editors who become suspicious of editors when they find a weak article and go through their contributions to find others of similar mediocre quality. While it could very well be that these articles merit deletion I just wonder what it feels like for an editor, whether or new or old, to be going along and doing their editing work day by day and suddenly, BOOM! their talk page has 3 or 5 or 12 AFD notices on it, telling them that their articles are being considered for deletion. Unfortunately, there is no requirement with any deletion tagging to actually talk to a page creator first so they are likely blindsided by the number of their articles simultaneously being considered for deletion. I understand that Hugo Acosta crossed over a line here but I can see why he panicked, vocally defending his articles in all those AFDs and then went off the deep end. I think most content creators would get irate.
- I guess my point now is that what The Banner did is unacceptable for an experienced editor but they are far from the only editor who has targeted a particular editor's page creations and tagged them for some form of deletion. And I guess those of us, both admins and regular editors, who regularly patrol AFD need to speak up more when we see this happening REGARDLESS of what we think should become of these nominated articles. Just my 2 cents. Liz Read! Talk! 08:15, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- Well said. I sometimes see something similar with requested moves, merges and the like on people's talk pages and suspect that they might feel the same. Gusfriend (talk) 08:46, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- There is a huge difference, however, between coming across one (non-notable) article, taking to AFD, checking the creator's contribs, and nominating other (non-notable) articles - and what The Banner did. GiantSnowman 11:50, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- I was talking of seeing user talk pages with a dozen messages within a few weeks mixed between different types which I suspect they find hard and this is a whole different level. Gusfriend (talk) 12:16, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- There is a huge difference, however, between coming across one (non-notable) article, taking to AFD, checking the creator's contribs, and nominating other (non-notable) articles - and what The Banner did. GiantSnowman 11:50, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- Well said. I sometimes see something similar with requested moves, merges and the like on people's talk pages and suspect that they might feel the same. Gusfriend (talk) 08:46, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- Not wholly in relation to this thread, but it (and a good few others I've seen here) inspires me to an idea. The phenomenon of "all of my articles have been AfD'd at once" seems to be a fairly common point of contention -- and it seems to cause a completely disproportionate amount of stress for anyone it happens to. Sure, the articles often have problems, but when there's a bunch of them at the same time, we aren't really leaving creators with much option. Do we really expect someone to call off work for a week to rigorously go through two dozen articles and copyedit them to GA at the same time before the AfDs run to the end? I think it might be worth considering some formal acknowledgement of this; I'm not sure exactly what that would look like. One idea, off the top of my head, is that if an article creator has more than a handful up for deletion at the same time, they could be given more latitude in relisting them, or request a relist under the "barrage clause", or whatever. I don't think that would break the system too badly. Of course, there may be some other solution that makes sense -- but I think it's worth trying to come up with something that satisfies the need to maintain article quality while avoiding the regular and predictable series of meltdowns that occur (even among otherwise productive editors). jp×g 18:59, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Topic ban proposal re: The Banner
The Banner is indefinitely prohibited from nominating articles for deletion. Appealable to the community in two months. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 04:34, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support Either their nominations are purposefully POINTy or they seriously don't understand why the articles in question are blatantly notable on GNG standards alone, without even considering the SNGs. And if the latter is true for such a long-term experienced editor, then serious questions of competence come into play. SilverserenC 04:55, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support: based on my own comments above and Silverseren's. Either way, The Banner is unfit to participate in the AfD process. ("Appealable," by the bye, should have as a prerequisite The Banner admitting to fault, explaining his actions and resolving to do better, things he's resolutely refused to do so far.) Ravenswing 11:19, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support as per my comments and concerns above. GiantSnowman 11:48, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support Was going back and forth on this but the appealable in two months is what swayed me.Gusfriend (talk) 12:17, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support per comments above. Levivich (talk) 13:36, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support what clinches it for me is the lack of accountability. Voluntarily walking away from the problem area is not good enough when it is accompanied by a refusal to recognize the true nature of the problem. No, the problem is not that the community refuses to appreciate a
critical look
at the quality of football articles. The problem is that these were some of the worst AfD nominations in recent memory. How can you call it a critical look when there was no look for sources and the deletion rationales were beneath any reasonable threshold of critical analysis? When you screw up this badly, you need to be able to take the criticism on board. But instead, The Banner's response is to dig in his heels and voluntarily walk away from the topic area because his efforts aren't appreciated. We just saw what happened to the other antagonist in this thread when he railed against everyone who disagreed with him. The Banner appears to headed in the same direction in a slightly milder tone. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 17:44, 22 October 2022 (UTC)- Yeah. I wonder in what other topic areas The Banner has carried this degree of airy contempt for the rules and notability guidelines, hounding editors he doesn't like, and doubling down when he's caught out. With the vast number of article's he's AfDed, I have this sinking feeling that his closets are filled to bursting with skeletons. Ravenswing 19:50, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support per evidence in this thread. My own perfunctory observations over The Banner's long-term behavior on AfDs have been confirmed: nominating a Real Madrid season for deletion,
coupled with whoppingly low 57% success in AfD nominationsdemonstrate an apparent WP:CIR issue, and we'll be better off without The Banner's contributions in this field. No such user (talk) 19:52, 23 October 2022 (UTC)- @No such user: 57% of someone's nominations closing as delete is pretty far from "whopping" -- it's almost exactly the same as the overall rate. Between 2005 and 2020, 53.7% of all AfDs closed "delete"; with 6.3% closing speedy delete, it comes out to about 61% (depending on how you want to count merges and redirects). jp×g 20:32, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
- @JPxG: Thanks for pointing that out, stricken; I sort of mixed it up with AfD voting stats, which should normally be over ~75% for a competent editor. My own AfD nomination record is around 60%, on a much smaller sample than The Banner's though. No such user (talk) 07:45, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- (shrugs) My nomination success rate is 85%, and I'm irked it's that low; articles should not be nominated for deletion unless you're sure it can't possibly past notability muster. I like to think we aspire to better than lowest common denominator AfD voting. Ravenswing 20:50, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- @No such user: 57% of someone's nominations closing as delete is pretty far from "whopping" -- it's almost exactly the same as the overall rate. Between 2005 and 2020, 53.7% of all AfDs closed "delete"; with 6.3% closing speedy delete, it comes out to about 61% (depending on how you want to count merges and redirects). jp×g 20:32, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support - based on comments in the AFDs it's clear that Banner doesn't understand the AFD BEFORE requirements, and that improvement is almost always preferable to deletion. AFDing Real Madrid articles makes that clear. Nfitz (talk) 22:18, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
- Weak support It is unfortunate it came to this; I would prefer the topic ban was more targeted to sports-related AFDs or something like that, I could fully support that, but this is fine. --Jayron32 17:34, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support – The Banner's comment below that ultimately boils down to "I'm the only one that cares about article quality" is so pretentious and eye-roll worthy. Also per everyone above. ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 19:40, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support - some of these were just silly, and The Banner has developed a case of IDONTHEARYOU. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:56, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Comment We're banning the Banner? Qui censoriam censorem? EEng 19:10, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I'm going to need you to restate your comment in the form of a Burma Shave advertisement. --Jayron32 15:45, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support reading from the ANI thread, I don't think The Banner is in AfD for constructive work. --Lenticel (talk) 00:46, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support. Plenty of good reasoning for a ban here, WP:HOUNDING like that just isn't appropriate. AfD actions are one thing, but it's the continued long-term disruptive mentality that's at issue. Four years ago The Banner had to banned from GMOs for similar stuff with the express caution to work on productive conflict free editing in other topics. Looks like instead they've just proxied their battleground behavior over to other topics instead, and that's the time when the threshold for additional topic bans is lower to prevent disruption from spreading even further. KoA (talk) 13:56, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
AFDs for top Mexican football league
I think we've dealt with the user issues here (above). But what remains is that while some of the Mexican AFDs are going Keep, for the initial couple of weeks the other AFDs were very poorly attended, and were closed with very little participation other than the Delete votes from User:GiantSnowman (which I don't understand to be honest, and seem a bit out-of-character]. These AFDs were for seasons of teams in the top league of North America - easily meeting WP:NSEASONS - heck, two of the nominations were for teams whose season's involved participation in the 1995 CONCACAF Champions' Cup! Football AFDs have become very poorly attended in recent months.
Perhaps User:Star Mississippi can revisit and relist these AFDs, given the poor attendance, systemic problems, and likely being notable; I believe they closed all these (correctly looking at the AFDs in themselves). The AFDs in question include: WP:Articles for deletion/1994–95 Club Puebla season, WP:Articles for deletion/1994–95 Cruz Azul season, , WP:Articles for deletion/1994–95 Toros Neza season, WP:Articles for deletion/1994–95 Santos Laguna season, WP:Articles for deletion/1994–95 Tigres UANL season - and also WP:Articles for deletion/1994–95 Correcaminos UAT season and WP:Articles for deletion/1994–95 C.D. Veracruz season that were closed by User:Liz. Nfitz (talk) 22:18, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
- I've just realized that 5 of the 7 AFDs I mention above are already at DRV - WP:Deletion review/Log/2022 October 19#1994–95 season articles. Nfitz (talk) 22:32, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
- Hi! I put a note this morning in the DRV that I have no issue if these are relisted. Factors definitely have changed since I closed the discussions. Given the number of endorses in the DRV before HugoAcosta imploded (and subsequently socked), I don't think I can or should unilaterally relist these. That said, I agree with you re: the systemic issues. As someone who doesn't follow soccer, I'm not sure if these are Real Madrid territory where I was a Keep, or one that needs more research. So I guess consider me neutral and fine with whichever outcome develops. Star Mississippi 22:32, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
- I'm always willing to revisit a closure I did but in the other AFDs, I can't fault the way they were closed. We have a problem with low participation in most AFD discussions and after a gut-wrenching summer of hundreds of athlete/team AFDs, given the changing guidelines surrounding sports notability, many regular participants in discussions on this subject (and closers for that matter) stay away from AFDs on these articles. I think people are just worn out from arguing, on both sides of the debate.
- Repeated relisting is discouraged in the guidelines so these discussions had to be closed with some decision even if that was "No consensus". But I'll take this issue to DRV to discuss it there. I just want editors who don't work with sports articles to realize how grueling things were in AFD over the summer, there were hundreds of AFD discussions, debate got very heated among the dozen or so regular participants in sports deletion discussions. If these articles had been nominated in AFDs in the spring, I think there would have been a more robust and healthy debate on what to do with the articles but what happened, happened and here we are. Liz Read! Talk! 22:55, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
- Well, look. Speaking as one of the editors who was not only in the thick of the arguments this year, but someone who's been a frequent flyer at AfD over the years, I get it: I chalk up the general lack of participation at AfD from where it was just a few years ago partly due to exhaustion. And I wouldn't argue that the closes now at DRV were illegitimate closes.
But I think we can agree now that they were bad decisions, and that the nominations were very likely just as tainted and pointy as the other similar AfD cases The Banner filed, all of which have closed (or will soon do) as overwhelming keeps. We have two choices here: to do the right thing and restore the articles -- not simply relist the AfDs -- or just wash our hands of The Banner's now-obvious bad faith. Ravenswing 02:16, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- While I said relist above and at the DRV, I'm also fine if these are outright restored given the factors that have been identified since my initial closes. Star Mississippi 02:34, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for all your hard work Liz. Gusfriend (talk) 07:27, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- Well, look. Speaking as one of the editors who was not only in the thick of the arguments this year, but someone who's been a frequent flyer at AfD over the years, I get it: I chalk up the general lack of participation at AfD from where it was just a few years ago partly due to exhaustion. And I wouldn't argue that the closes now at DRV were illegitimate closes.
Once again for @Nfitz: - NSEASONS is a presumption of notability - not automatic notability. We need GNG to be met. GiantSnowman 18:26, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- Articles that pass NSEASONS (which is a guideline) should provide reliable sources to meet GNG; but unlike athletes, it's not like they must. As it does pass an SNG it doesn't need to meet GNG explicitly - at least not immediately. But I don't know why anyone would think that seasons articles for teams in the best league in North America in a football-mad country wouldn't meet GNG. Looks like that many rank this league 9th in the world currently, compared to 15th for MLS. There's no doubt that the calibre of teams in this league is higher than MLS. And yet we seasons articles for all but two of the 1996 MLS teams (the first year of MLS). The main sourcing issue is access to media from Mexico in the pre-Internet age over 30 years ago. If this was a lower-ranked league like the 1994-95 First Division with teams like 1994–95 Reading F.C. season and [1994–95 Sheffield United F.C. season]], we wouldn't be having this discussion - there are 22 seasons articles for the First Division that season. Nfitz (talk) 20:41, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- Beyond Nfitz's comments, look, GiantSnowman -- I get it. I've made AfD votes before where I looked at the article, maybe looked up the sources listed, saw nothing valid, made my Delete vote and moved on. The same as you did with "no evidence of notability. If sources are found please ping me" votes. And we both know that any search for qualifying sources we made in such cases was cursory at best. That's the nature of things, and all there'd be at AfD would be tumbleweeds and crickets if every voter was compelled to spend a half hour searching for sources before each vote.
But let's not give ourselves props for that, and let's not imagine that we are truly serving the process well, and for pity's sake let's not dig in our heels defend the result when it blows up on us. The honest truth here is that no one did the legwork to assure themselves these articles could not meet the GNG. And it's not as if we don't know better. C'mon, let's be honest here: you're an active editor in sports topics. Do you really, truly believe that there was not enough media coverage to sustain a season article for a top-flight soccer team in Mexico? Ravenswing 21:02, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oh, I'm sure there is - but it wasn't there when I reviewed, and I have been criticised in the past for saying 'look at the level this player/club plays at, common sense says there must be coverage'. So I can't win can I? GiantSnowman 21:05, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- I wouldn't say it's a matter of whether anyone can -- or should -- claim to have "won" here. HugoAcosta shot his own foot off, but he was a productive editor with tens of thousands of edits. The Banner's about to be tbanned from AfD, and his future edits are likely to be scrutinized, and that's a hundred thousand edits now tainted. AfD's structural problems won't be addressed and likely can't be (barring a radical redesign), and it'll likely remain vulnerable to being hijacked by editors acting in bad faith. There's egg on faces all around. I doubt anyone here's overjoyed at the consequences. Ravenswing 02:22, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Maybe people should look at your edits too. You are clearly on a rampage to get me kicked from AfD by claiming all kinds of bad intent of my side. If you think that caring about quality is a bad intent, then I am guilty as charged. But then Wikipedia and football articles in particular have a problem when scrutinizing the quality of articles becomes illegal and punishable. Lowering the quality of articles is not in the best interest of Wikipedia. The Banner talk 19:07, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Word of advice: claiming that you are fighting for "article quality" while others are not is a bad look. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 19:17, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Have you tried reading the comments in this thread with a genuine desire to understand why almost everyone here has a problem with your actions? Or did you immediately decide that you were the victim the moment that someone started scrutinizing your edits? LEPRICAVARK (talk) 22:40, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- People are welcome to look at my edits, and if they find obvious flaws in them, then I'd better hitch up my trousers and admit to that, instead of repeating "I've done nothing, it's everyone else who's wrong!" in an infinite loop. Neither my longevity, nor my edit count, nor my accomplishments immunize me against Wikipedia policies or guidelines. (Never mind that, in the department of Bad Looks, do you really think it's a good look for you right now to plot to go after yet another editor's contribution history? Really?)
This is where I would ask whether you get the gravity of numerous editors, including several administrators, with a combined Wikipedia experience of over a century, unanimously thinking that your actions are enough to warrant an indefinite topic ban from AfD. Except it's fairly obvious that you don't, and there's not much point to it. Ravenswing 22:48, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Maybe people should look at your edits too. You are clearly on a rampage to get me kicked from AfD by claiming all kinds of bad intent of my side. If you think that caring about quality is a bad intent, then I am guilty as charged. But then Wikipedia and football articles in particular have a problem when scrutinizing the quality of articles becomes illegal and punishable. Lowering the quality of articles is not in the best interest of Wikipedia. The Banner talk 19:07, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- You seriously couldn't find any SIGCOV SIRS for any of the season articles when you searched? JoelleJay (talk) 22:39, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Whether they could or not, and whether they searched or not, is irrelevant to ANI, because there is not and has never been any requirement to do a search for sources before nominating something for deletion. It is suggested, yes. It is not required, and any such requirement would obviously go against WP:BURDEN. The formal burden to perform such searches is entirely and exclusively on people who add or wish to retain material, never on people who wish to remove or delete it. --Aquillion (talk) 05:41, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- That's certainly the common misconception. The actual phrasing at WP:BEFORE runs: "Prior to nominating article(s) for deletion, please be sure to:" "D. Search for additional sources, if the main concern is notability ... The minimum search expected is a normal Google search, a Google Books search, a Google News search, and a Google News archive search; Google Scholar is suggested for academic subjects ... If you find a lack of sources, you've completed basic due diligence before nominating."
This is rather obviously not the sort of phrasing used for mere suggestions. Ravenswing 21:18, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- That's certainly the common misconception. The actual phrasing at WP:BEFORE runs: "Prior to nominating article(s) for deletion, please be sure to:" "D. Search for additional sources, if the main concern is notability ... The minimum search expected is a normal Google search, a Google Books search, a Google News search, and a Google News archive search; Google Scholar is suggested for academic subjects ... If you find a lack of sources, you've completed basic due diligence before nominating."
- Whether they could or not, and whether they searched or not, is irrelevant to ANI, because there is not and has never been any requirement to do a search for sources before nominating something for deletion. It is suggested, yes. It is not required, and any such requirement would obviously go against WP:BURDEN. The formal burden to perform such searches is entirely and exclusively on people who add or wish to retain material, never on people who wish to remove or delete it. --Aquillion (talk) 05:41, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- I wouldn't say it's a matter of whether anyone can -- or should -- claim to have "won" here. HugoAcosta shot his own foot off, but he was a productive editor with tens of thousands of edits. The Banner's about to be tbanned from AfD, and his future edits are likely to be scrutinized, and that's a hundred thousand edits now tainted. AfD's structural problems won't be addressed and likely can't be (barring a radical redesign), and it'll likely remain vulnerable to being hijacked by editors acting in bad faith. There's egg on faces all around. I doubt anyone here's overjoyed at the consequences. Ravenswing 02:22, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oh, I'm sure there is - but it wasn't there when I reviewed, and I have been criticised in the past for saying 'look at the level this player/club plays at, common sense says there must be coverage'. So I can't win can I? GiantSnowman 21:05, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
GiantSnowman's AfD edits
I have for a while now noticed that GiantSnowman's votes at AFD are often identical, but I presumed that they did at least a short search for sources and only then posted their boilerplate "no evidence of notability. If sources are found please ping me.". From the above AfDs and their response in this discussion, it has become clear that in reality, GiantSnowman does no such effort at all, and just relies on the state of the article and the comments by the nom (when they vote delete) or the work by others (in the cases where they vote keep after others have looked for sources). The effect, certainly with the delete votes, is that the nom basically gets an automatic additional "delete" without any effort, leading to articles being deleted without anyone actually bothering to look for sources, as is required.
They seem to have used this boilerplate delete in more than 1,000 AfDs so far[89], sometimes voting very rapidly (e.g. 8 delete votes in 4 minutes, 17:55, 16 October 2022 to 17:58, 16 October 2022. Between 15:20, 3 October 2022 and 15:28, 3 October 2022 When they voted 31 times in 9 minutes. 27 of these were identical boilerplate deletes. When they voted "keep", it's also simply and blindly based on the work of others in the AfD: e.g. here and here.
AfD is not supposed to be a vote, but GiantSnowman treats it like one, in most cases simply reinforcing the nom no matter if they are right or wrong, thereby skewing the outcome. Their AfD stats are probably pretty good this way, but that's more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than any actual merit. Can we give them some restriction that they are from now on only allowed to !vote if they provide some evidence of having done at least a basic WP:BEFORE check if they want to participate at AfD? It's not hard to change votes to "delete, the best I could find was this passing mention (link)" or "keep, sources like X and Y show notability", but it does takes more time than 15 seconds. Fram (talk) 08:53, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- I've three comments. The first is that while WP:BEFORE is nominally a requirement lain upon nominators, it's widely ignored, almost never enforced ... and doesn't apply to AfD voters. The second is that the guidance lain upon contributors to AfD discussions (WP:AFDEQ, WP:AFDFORMAT) is mostly procedural; there's almost nothing in there concerning any duty -- theoretical or otherwise -- on the part of a AfD voter to do his or her own research.
Finally, a large part of the problem here is simply that AfD participation has cratered. Many discussions are relisted multiple times. Many are closed with soft deletes with only one -- or none -- participant. We don't have enough participants to have the luxury of booting knee-jerk voters. I wish there was a better answer. Ravenswing 16:55, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- The comments on boilerplate !votes ignores the reality of the subject matter Snowman is working in, namely association football. Given the breadth of available routine sports coverage, the low amount of effort required to use said coverage to create articles, and the sport's sizeable global fan base, it should come as no surprise that there is a never ending supply of non-notable stub articles in this subject area. Most of these should be PROD's but wind up at AfD one way or the other. For the vast majority of these, there really is nothing more to be said than that there isn't enough coverage to satisfy the notability guidelines, but it does need to be said in order to get these articles through AfD. Look at just about any other editor who regularly !votes to delete football related articles and you'll see similar patterns. It's not some novel behaviour by Snowman, it's just how AfD functions at the scale needed to keep the never ending supply of low effort non-notable football stubs in check. Sir Sputnik (talk) 17:06, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- The 'issue' of my AFD !votes was raised, explained, and resolved at the NSPORTS RFC - in short, just because I 'vote' rapidly does not mean that I am not checking articles in advance of the edit being made; I use more than just a boilerplate, such as this and this (although I do use one in many AFDs, because in many AFDs there is nothing else to say!); I do search for sources, such as this; and if I !vote 'delete', and somebody else finds sources, I always ask to be pinged so I can reconsider.
- I therefore see no issues with my AFD votes, and indeed less than 3 months ago I was complimented by @Liz: (an admin active in closing AFDs) for how I "eavluate [sic] each case individually". I have not changed my AFD habits since. GiantSnowman 17:43, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- What Sir Sputnik said. In 2019 I participated in hundreds of NFOOTY AFDs; these are all processed the same way: either someone drops links to two or more GNG sources, or nobody does. Either way, there is not much more to say other than "keep, meets GNG per above sources," or "delete, no GNG sources". Very rarely is there need for discussion about the sources or other matters -- 90% of the time, it's clear: either there are GNG sources or there aren't. When I was participating in these AFDs, I started out writing longer rationales, but later realized that I was just writing useless filler that others (the closer) had to read, and so I'd just say "keep meets GNG per X" or "delete, no GNG sources". I can also say, as someone who has participated in hundreds of AFDs with GS (though not lately), and very contentious AFDs where I was intentionally nominating players who met the SNG but not GNG, that although the text of GS's !votes can be brief, in substance, they are not cookie-cutter. I could prove this if needed, but I remember GS as being one of the few regular NSPORTS AFD participants who would actually change their vote based on the quality of the sourcing; even if I disagreed with him a lot on the particulars, it's clear that he doesn't always vote the same way, he votes based on an individualized analysis of each topic. Levivich (talk) 17:51, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oh look another AFD where I find sources and !vote accordingly... GiantSnowman 18:14, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oh look an AFD where I change my mind after somebody found a bunch of offline Norwegian newspaper coverage... GiantSnowman 11:41, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- ...which has nothing to do with the above complaint. The issue is not whether you are willing to change your mind if someone else finds sources, the issue is that we have AfDs like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1994–95 Club América season, where despite the article already having sources like this and this you blindly follow the nom and post your empty !delete vote, and even when it becomes clear that the noms by The Banner can't be trusted and the subject is obviously notable, you reply with "I know there were sources - I checked the article - but I was (and remain) of the view they were not enough for GNG. More than happy to be persuaded otherwise, however..." and still can't be bothered to do even the most minor search for additional searches, if the sources already there are for unknown reasons not sufficient for you. Then you would have found, oh, perhaps this or this or this. Fram (talk) 12:41, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- But it does have something to do with the above complaint - you said that I when I !vote keep, it is "simply and blindly based on the work of others". I showed an example where that is clearly not the case.
- However, you're absolutely right - I should be sanctioned because I'm not as good at Googling information about 1990s Mexico as you are. Did you ping me as requested after you had found those sources? No. If you had I would likely have changed my mind. So what's the issue here? GiantSnowman 14:31, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Your example being this, where you changed an effortless "delete" in an effortless "keep" based on the work of others? And that is somehow disproving my point? And no, I am not in the habit of pinging editors who have no interest in doing any effort, but want to influence the outcome of the AfD anyway. Fram (talk) 14:58, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- No, the Craig Skinner AFD I also linked and which you are conveniently ignoring. Another earlier example here. No effort is it? GiantSnowman 15:30, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I replied to an example you provided and which had nothing to do with this section (well, it confirmed that many of your keeps are not any better than your deletes, but it didn't show what you intended to show). But congrats, not all your AfD votes are worthless, well done. Fram (talk) 15:55, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- No, the Craig Skinner AFD I also linked and which you are conveniently ignoring. Another earlier example here. No effort is it? GiantSnowman 15:30, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Your example being this, where you changed an effortless "delete" in an effortless "keep" based on the work of others? And that is somehow disproving my point? And no, I am not in the habit of pinging editors who have no interest in doing any effort, but want to influence the outcome of the AfD anyway. Fram (talk) 14:58, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- ...which has nothing to do with the above complaint. The issue is not whether you are willing to change your mind if someone else finds sources, the issue is that we have AfDs like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1994–95 Club América season, where despite the article already having sources like this and this you blindly follow the nom and post your empty !delete vote, and even when it becomes clear that the noms by The Banner can't be trusted and the subject is obviously notable, you reply with "I know there were sources - I checked the article - but I was (and remain) of the view they were not enough for GNG. More than happy to be persuaded otherwise, however..." and still can't be bothered to do even the most minor search for additional searches, if the sources already there are for unknown reasons not sufficient for you. Then you would have found, oh, perhaps this or this or this. Fram (talk) 12:41, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oh look an AFD where I change my mind after somebody found a bunch of offline Norwegian newspaper coverage... GiantSnowman 11:41, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oh look another AFD where I find sources and !vote accordingly... GiantSnowman 18:14, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- The comments on boilerplate !votes ignores the reality of the subject matter Snowman is working in, namely association football. Given the breadth of available routine sports coverage, the low amount of effort required to use said coverage to create articles, and the sport's sizeable global fan base, it should come as no surprise that there is a never ending supply of non-notable stub articles in this subject area. Most of these should be PROD's but wind up at AfD one way or the other. For the vast majority of these, there really is nothing more to be said than that there isn't enough coverage to satisfy the notability guidelines, but it does need to be said in order to get these articles through AfD. Look at just about any other editor who regularly !votes to delete football related articles and you'll see similar patterns. It's not some novel behaviour by Snowman, it's just how AfD functions at the scale needed to keep the never ending supply of low effort non-notable football stubs in check. Sir Sputnik (talk) 17:06, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- I often do a thorough WP:BEFORE before voting on an AfD. That is very time-consuming, and is a part of why I'm currently burned out and not participating. There are simply far too many nominations to devote that much time, which is why we should demand that a proper WP:BEFORE is done before nominating an article. As far as GiantSnowman goes, he does vote a lot, but he is reasonable, and responds to discussion. Jacona (talk) 18:30, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Meta ish comment. The challenge with the flood of AfDs and lack of participation is that "drive by" votes don't help with an unfamiliar subject and/or where there's a language issue. Folks have raised the lack of quorum issue above. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andi Fadel Muhammad is an example of one where I rebooted it (ultimately closed as soft PROD) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hermes Junior is one where neither !vote helps the closer. An n/c is just kicking the can down the road, which doesn't help with the flood. Is the ArbComm RFC going to address any of this? And by this I mean not @Ortiezsp @GiantSnowman !votes, which are not against procedure, but just the general lack of quorum or is AfD is broken the new RfA is broken?
- Star Mississippi 18:54, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Both of those seem like they're coming to the correct result (under our flawed but nevertheless current consensus about notability) and efficiently? What's broken about it? Levivich (talk) 20:17, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- @Levivich the way that I see it is repeat nominations when it's not a case of consensus/other factors changing are a symptom of a broken process. There's a no consensus close where editors are making a case on both sides and there's no clear answer, and then there's no meaningful input, let's kick the can down the road a few months. It does nothing to help the backlog, but that may just be my POV. @Ravenswing I mostly agree. I also just don't think we have the active editor base to keep up with ~100 discussions/day (factoring in all the XfDs). They require work and not everyone has the time/interest/language skills/research database access to !vote "properly" unfortunately. Star Mississippi 23:56, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- @Star Mississippi After seeing so many of these deletion related ANI's over the years, I've had the thought before that if an article is nominated repeatedly for AfD and the outcome is no consensus each time, there'd be a mandatory moratorium of re-nominating it for a year or more. I don't know what the general appetite is for that idea, but it's an idea . ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 00:36, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- No, I agree with you. It's not that there are substantially more AfDs; AfDs often went over a hundred a day five years ago and ten years ago and fifteen years ago. A lot of people have just fallen away. I've had many thousands of edits at AfD myself, but other than (a) articles I've nominated, and (b) hockey- and Massachusetts-related deletions, which I follow, I haven't regularly participated in random AfDs since 2017. Kicking the can NCs aren't responsible; do repeat nominations really form more than just a fraction of AfDs? No. Ravenswing 01:11, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- @Levivich the way that I see it is repeat nominations when it's not a case of consensus/other factors changing are a symptom of a broken process. There's a no consensus close where editors are making a case on both sides and there's no clear answer, and then there's no meaningful input, let's kick the can down the road a few months. It does nothing to help the backlog, but that may just be my POV. @Ravenswing I mostly agree. I also just don't think we have the active editor base to keep up with ~100 discussions/day (factoring in all the XfDs). They require work and not everyone has the time/interest/language skills/research database access to !vote "properly" unfortunately. Star Mississippi 23:56, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- I'm not sure exactly how an RfC could fix AfD, not without a (highly unlikely) radical revamp of the system. There was less potential for abuse in the days when many AfDs had numerous participants, but even there gaps existed: the couple dozen at the top of a day's listing might have a dozen, the couple dozen at the bottom heard crickets. Now? People just don't bother. Nor is there a feasible way to compel them to do so. (Nor, honestly, is this any sort of subject for ANI.) Ravenswing 22:26, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Both of those seem like they're coming to the correct result (under our flawed but nevertheless current consensus about notability) and efficiently? What's broken about it? Levivich (talk) 20:17, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- NorthAmerica1000 and I brought this up in independent evidence submissions at the ArbCom case, but since it was out of scope it wasn't really addressed there.
- On the one hand, I have argued at length that WP:AFD and WP:N don't require participants to perform a BEFORE search. Editors at the NSPORTS2022 RfC also rejected the proposal for a "special sports PROD" that could be used to handle the tens of thousands of athlete articles that do not demonstrate notability in their sourcing; regular PRODs on athletes are quickly removed based on non-guideline-based "claims" to notability and anyway I can see why one might be reluctant to PROD an article, see it get dePRODded, then nominate it at AfD where it would be ineligible for soft deletion and thus require more participation than can be expected at this juncture for it to be deleted; and it's unlikely my off-the-cuff suggestion at the mass AfD RfC pre-workshop here would be technically feasible (although maybe...). Making BEFORE a requirement that must be demonstrated would help assuage concerns that no one looked for sources, but at the same time it massively shifts the burden of proving notability onto those who challenge it rather than those who wish to retain the material, and since the community is inexplicably adamant that article creators should never have to include any references at creation, let alone references that even halfway show notability, and even under circumstances of mass creation, it would be unfair to make non-compliance with BEFORE sanctionable or grounds for a procedural keep. So pretty much our only option to process these countless microstubs of dubious notability is through AfD, at whatever rate the nominators decide, and that means !voters will have to match that rate.
- On the other hand, what do these contentless !votes contribute to (notability-based) deletion discussions? Especially when they are one of the first !votes in an AfD with just a hyperlink to a DELREASON as the nomination statement--I can definitely see justification for a perfunctory "X, per the above arguments" when there is substantial discussion of sources in prior !votes, or when the nominator provides a good BEFORE analysis. But if the only data you (general "you") are going off of is the nom's unelaborated claim the subject "doesn't meet X", then your !vote should be ignored. And if you actually did look at all the sources in the article, or even better, did a search yourself, then why wouldn't you explain your findings? If you care so little one way or the other whether an AfD comes to an appropriate conclusion, why !vote in the first place? JoelleJay (talk) 00:37, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- JoelleJay, preach! — Jacona (talk) 13:03, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I agree with much of this, but I am pretty sure GS reviews sources before voting or at least uses experience from prior sourcing reviews to guide their voting (e.g., I suspect GS knows what kind of sourcing is generally available for a footballer who played during a particular time period with a particular type of career because we've gone through dozens of AfDs like that in the past - see Levivich's comments above). Using the Hermes Junior example above, I'm not entirely sure what we can do differently. This is an article I started in 2008 (purely from a statistics database, as was customary then). I've been improving or culling a batch of similar articles I started in that time frame. Here, I looked for WP:SIRS - even added the closest things I could find to the article - and realized I cannot get the article into a state where it satisfied WP:GNG. My PROD was reverted without any improvement or suggestion that SIRS exist (as happens probably 80% of the time). I moved it to AfD, where participation is very limited, so honestly GS's input was useful (as they are one of a handful of active editors in footballer AfDs). I suppose I could have included my own search output in the nomination rationale, but I figured the description was sufficient (and the references I added to the article were there for all to see). In short, the no consensus outcome was a bit frustrating, but I'm struggling to think of something that would have led to a better outcome. Jogurney (talk) 16:36, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
leading to articles being deleted without anyone actually bothering to look for sources, as is required
... It is absolutely not required, nor has it ever been required to search for sources before proposing, nominating, or supporting the deletion of an article; per WP:BEFORE, the ultimate responsibility to search for sources is solely and exclusively on those who add it or wish to retain it, never on people who wish to remove it. Trying to invert WP:BEFORE by demanding that other people perform searches for you for things you've added or want to retain is completely inappropriate and would make challenging many additions unworkable given the volume at which new material is added to the wiki. --Aquillion (talk) 05:38, 28 October 2022 (UTC)- "Trying to invert WP:BEFORE by demanding that other people perform searches for you for things you've added or want to retain is completely inappropriate"??? WP:BEFORE is about what the nom should do before nominating an article for deletion. It is not about what the creator or others should do, and nothing is inverted here. WHile "required" is perhaps too strong and "strongly advised" is better, your interpretation is the opposite of what BEFORE actually says. Note also that BEFORE is only about deletions, not about parts of articles which you challenge. Basically, your objection seems to be about current contents, while BEFORE is about the subject, not about the state of the article. Fram (talk) 08:25, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
User Doug Coldwell at Haskelite Building and 801 N. Rowe Street
In September after some talk page conversations ([90]) I boldly split off the page Haskell Manufacturing Company Building from the GA article Haskell Manufacturing Company. On 16 October User:Doug Coldwell made a cut and paste page move to Haskelite Building without attribution and with other issues. I left a note on his talk page [91], reverted the redirect and tagged it for speed deletion (G6) and started a page move discussion [92].
On 16 October Doug Coldwell expressed support for the move [93] and then made another 8 posts in support of the renaming. The move was closed as supported and actioned about 12 hours ago [94] then less than hour later Doug Coldwell created a new page called 801 N. Rowe Street [95] about the same building and added a merge template from the Haskelite Building to the new page.
I would normally have skipped ANI and left a note on his talk page about it being a duplicate page and either merged the new information into the existing page or suggesting that they do it except for the following timeline:
- The page was starting to be worked on by 18 October [96]
- There is a note indicating that he was planning to create a new page with a merge request since at least 18 October (see top of [97]) whilst the recommended move discussion was still underway.
- The page 801 N. Rowe Street is a cut and paste creation from the sandbox of their alternate account [98] and has no attribution for any information. I believe that at least some of the information comes from other Wikipedia pages.
- He is arguing that the current name, Haskelite Building would not be appropriate [99] when he said the opposite during the move discussion which was open until 1 hour previously to him making that statement.
Happy to provide additional context if required. Gusfriend (talk) 06:06, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- True - The section Haskell building of Haskell Manufacturing Company was my work in the first place. Yes, that is correct Gusfriend then started a new article of Haskell Manufacturing Company Building from my work. True, I created new work on October 16 about the Haskelite Building which was an improvement on my previous work Haskell building. As you can see in "History" in the "Page statistics" that I have 56.1% authorship. Gusfriend has 27.6% authorship because that represents what he had taken of my work of Haskell building section of Haskell Manufacturing Company. Since the majority of the work (basically all) of Haskelite Building is my work, then what I am doing is improving on my work with 801 N. Rowe Street. You can see that Haskelite Building is my work from the very start because on 17 May 2016 I added the four pictures of the 3 story brick building. Those pictures I took and uploaded to Commons on May 16, 2016. The article Haskell Manufacturing Company I created on May 15, 2016. So you can see it is ALL my work and all I am doing is improving on my work. Yes, that is true 801 N. Rowe Street I created and is all my work (100% authorship). What I am doing is improving with this article the work I originally did 17 May 2016 from the article I created on May 15, 2016. Any information of 801 N. Rowe Street is only information from Haskelite Building, which is information from Haskell Manufacturing Company, which is the information from my work of Haskell building from the article I created on Haskell Manufacturing Company on May 15, 2016. So all I am doing is improving on my own work. I would think it would be correct to improve on my own work. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 08:45, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
I've redirected the new article to the older one, as its creation was a WP:POINT violation with severe WP:OWN issues, as highlighted in their above comment. Fram (talk) 10:39, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- True, with the creation of Haskell Manufacturing Company Building that Gusfriend did on 22 September 2022 he used all my references I already had in the article 1 May 2020. So all he did is took all my work I did on Haskell building section of Haskell Manufacturing Company including pictures and references. In the process of doing this he made the mistake of saying the building was made for the Mendelson Manufacturing Company was in 1982. If you will notice that in the section I wrote in Haskell building the correct date should be 1892. Notice also he said the company went out of business in 1984 which again is wrong - the company went out of business in 1894. Gusfriend made these mistakes since he did NOT do the research in the first place. He was just taking my research work and attempting to make it look like he had done the work. I corrected the dates when I made improvements the article. So all I am doing is improving on my own work. It would be a major improvement if Haskelite Building were to be merged into 801 N Rowe Street. I would know how to make the merge since I did most of the work in the first place and all of the research on these two articles. There is an ongoing discussion with merging Haskelite Building into 801 N. Rowe Street which User:Fram just redirected into Haskelite Building. That should NOT be done with an ongoing discussion about the merge.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:25, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, he wrote 1984 instead of 1894. That's a clear typo, and not an error in research. Andrew Jameson (talk · contribs) corrected it almost immediately, over a month ago. This is trivial and irrelevant.
- I'm much more concerned about what you write here:
So all he did is took all my work I did on Haskell building section of Haskell Manufacturing Company including pictures and references.
Doug, you were nearly blocked indefinitely a month ago over self-promotion and ownership concerns. The content split is correctly attributed on Talk:Haskelite Building (something you have not done when you do copy/paste moves). Gusfriend is not claiming credit or ownership for the work you did. That's not how any of this works. Mackensen (talk) 11:57, 24 October 2022 (UTC)- Some of Doug’s comments are bordering on personal attacks. Accusing Gusfriend of stealing his work is an outrageous comment, especially considering the amount of time and effort Gus has spent trying to repair Doug’s articles. 2604:2D80:6A8D:E200:7056:59B4:45AA:64BC (talk) 12:34, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- I still remember when you accused me last month of starting an ANI thread about you out of "jealousy" over your articles (as if I could ever be "jealous" over articles full of copyright violations and factual errors). Here you go again throwing out unsubstantiated allegations against other editors. Your remaining time on this website will be very short if you continue down this path. You are demonstrating an inability to work collaboratively with other editors, which is a vital part of editing Wikipedia. This has all happened because you are so upset that another editor tried to fix your copyright violations and nonsensical page creations, you made a fork to try and make the article entirely your own writing again. You seem more concerned with who "owns" content than with building an encyclopedia, which is what we are here to do, not boost our own egos. You are already on a very thin leash, Doug. This could easily escalate to you being blocked indefinitely. If I were you, I'd be changing my tune right now. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:02, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- User:Fram removed the merge to and merge from templates of 801 N. Rowe Street and Haskelite Building. Whatever happened to discussing the merge before anyone does anything. I believe an administrator should look at this.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:54, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- You created a content fork and it was boldly redirected. If you think the article should be at a different name then you should request a move. Creating a copy of the article and then proposing a merge with the original article is disruptive and not how our processes work. I see nothing controversial about how Fram handled this. Mackensen (talk) 12:01, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- INDEFed, which arguably could/should have happened last time. There is no indication Coldwell has learnt from or will change his behavior. Star Mississippi 18:25, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- Coldwell has a secondary account here, which remains unblocked CiphriusKane (talk) 10:49, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Good block. Doug has been given multiple chances and far more leeway than most editors would get and he hasn't shown the slightest indication he is willing to edit collaboratively or address the issues with his conduct. It's a shame he decided to go out this way, but the blame is on nobody but him. You'd think after having a proposal to indefinitely block you narrowly defeated, one would change their behavior. I hope Gusfriend will continue to clean up Doug's articles. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 15:36, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- I was hoping that it wouldn't have to come to this point, especially after the indefinite block proposal last month. It's unfortunate that Doug had to go out this way, but with his unchanged behavior after his hiatus, a block was sure to come at one point or another. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 16:08, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Very good block. There was no indication last month either that DC felt the slightest degree of remorse or resolve to do better, but the apologists were out in droves all the same, making excuses for him all the same. I suppose we should count ourselves fortunate that it only took him several extra weeks to flame out, instead of several more years. Ravenswing 06:44, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Special:Contributions/Douglas_Coldwell needs to be blocked as well. I echo everyone else's sadness. Most of me feels sorry for DC, but his steadfast IDHT leaves no way out. Since the last ANI thread I've had some further encounters with his articles, and things are definitely as bad, and probably worse, than it seemed at ANI: non-RS sources; sources abused for purposes they can't possibly serve; rampant OR; misinterpretation of sources leading to the assertion of ridiculous things; discursions into random miscellany apparently thrown in because they popped up in a keyword search of old newspapers; sources from 100 years ago used to make assertions about the state of the world today; and, of course, blatant copyvios.
- DC shows, and has shown, absolutely zero understanding of any of these problems, much less of how serious they are. He just keeps plowing forward like nothing happened. Even how he's been fiddling with his talk page to brag about how 97% of his articles became DYKs, how he's got
500550 DYKs, and how he set the record for quickest time from article creation to DYK appearance [100] (36 hours). One fucking thing Doug Coldwell should not be bragging about is how fast he's been able to shovel crappy articles onto the main page. It's like when old-time surgeons used to pride themselves on amputating a leg in 45 seconds -- no thanks, Doc. EEng 21:35, 25 October 2022 (UTC)- Blocked secondary account. Apologies for missing your first note @CiphriusKane Star Mississippi 00:52, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I too am sad that it ended up like this as I do not like seeing any long term editor blocked but unfortunately I think that there was no other option. I will be leaving the Haskelite Building page to other editors for a while to avoid any perception of ownership of the page but I will be working on some of his other articles where I see something to be improved upon. For example, GA that says longest and heaviest grain-laden train ever put together which is supported by a reference from 1898. In fact a couple of minutes of searching found an article from 2020 about a 3km grain train called the longest ever. Gusfriend (talk) 05:23, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- FTR, do you have a diff or link for the "biggest plywood sheet" goof? EEng 09:34, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- @EEng It's still in the lead of Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation. In the body of the article it's sourced to a book from 1918. 163.1.15.238 (talk) 12:25, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- FTR, do you have a diff or link for the "biggest plywood sheet" goof? EEng 09:34, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, mysterious IP editor! I feel I should add the following, for the record in case years later someone can't understand why all this happened. Bluntly, it's the only thing you need to know to understand why Doug Coldwell simply cannot be a productive editor here until he allows himself to be tutored in the proper use of sources. On May 31, 2016, he added the following to the article Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation [101]:
The largest plywood panels ever made were manufactured by the Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation
This is cited [102] to an article published in 1918 and written by a Haskelite employee [103]. What's going on here is wrong on so, so many levels:
- Even if the claim was "As of 1918, the largest plywood panels ever made had been manufactured by the Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation", we wouldn't accept that with a source written by the manufacturer itself -- we'd need a reliable and independent source.
- But the statement made in the article, in Wikipedia's voice, is that Haskelite made the largest plywood panels ever made, period. And it's cited to something more from more than 100 years ago. This is so monumentally stupid that even my very substantial powers of invective cannot do it justice.
- And to add the cherry on top, the cited article isn't talking about the largest plywood panels ever made -- it's talking about the largest waterproof plywood panels ever made. That qualifier just got left out.
It's just hopeless, and it's not occasional -- it's typical of DC's work. I'm really beginning to think we need a special process to deal with the stupefying amounts of crap he's woven into the fabric of the English Wikipedia -- a sort of nuke-on-sight authorization for deleting his articles, or reducing them to harmless stubs, without the usual ponderous processes. We did something like this, IIRC, in the Neelix situation. EEng 15:36, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I would absolutely support this. We have to go through over 200 GAs and look for issues like this; doing it the standard way will take years. We need an expedited process where if we find one or two glaring errors like this (or copyvio) the article is summarily delisted from GA status. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:38, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- GA delisting isn't enough. Really, GA-or-not-GA is a relatively minor issue. The real issue is the misinformation and copyvios in the articles themselves. To address that we need a process like you describe, except it ends with the article being stubified (or, in some cases) deleted. Arid Desiccant, thou art wise -- can you suggest a rough outline of how such a process might work? EEng 21:42, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- @EEng; depending on how much copyvio we find and how little interest the community takes in crawling through every single one of DC's major contributions, we could probably apply WP:PDEL; there's a significant amount of pure copyvio mixed in with PD copying that merely needs to be attributed though. CCI uses a nuke-on-sight principle on about ~4-5 cases off the top of my head, and that is after over a decade of having the case open. If we do something like this for DC, the community's most likely going to get pissed at us for the collateral. I think we'd need some kind of community consensus to actually do this; similar to the case that resulted in the mass bot blanking of pages back in 2010. Sennecaster (Chat) 23:08, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- At least for the rail transport related DC articles, I'd be happy with committing to rewriting them from scratch if that will make people happy that we aren't "losing" anything (except for copyvio, of course). Trainsandotherthings (talk) 12:41, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- @EEng; depending on how much copyvio we find and how little interest the community takes in crawling through every single one of DC's major contributions, we could probably apply WP:PDEL; there's a significant amount of pure copyvio mixed in with PD copying that merely needs to be attributed though. CCI uses a nuke-on-sight principle on about ~4-5 cases off the top of my head, and that is after over a decade of having the case open. If we do something like this for DC, the community's most likely going to get pissed at us for the collateral. I think we'd need some kind of community consensus to actually do this; similar to the case that resulted in the mass bot blanking of pages back in 2010. Sennecaster (Chat) 23:08, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- GA delisting isn't enough. Really, GA-or-not-GA is a relatively minor issue. The real issue is the misinformation and copyvios in the articles themselves. To address that we need a process like you describe, except it ends with the article being stubified (or, in some cases) deleted. Arid Desiccant, thou art wise -- can you suggest a rough outline of how such a process might work? EEng 21:42, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I would absolutely support this. We have to go through over 200 GAs and look for issues like this; doing it the standard way will take years. We need an expedited process where if we find one or two glaring errors like this (or copyvio) the article is summarily delisted from GA status. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:38, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Belated comment that this is a good block, and that it really should have happened earlier. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Perhaps, similarly to Neelix, we need a list of articles to deal with, so it can be worked through in a similar manner. Having "good" articles which include total garbage is a serious issue, and needs to be dealt with ASAP (before the next slow news day). Mako001 (C) (T) 🇺🇦 11:30, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Absolutely. If the powers that be would prefer this be discussed somewhere besides ANI, we can start a discussion elsewhere specifically on this question. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 12:42, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- There's a list over at Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20210315 of a mix of his old contributions and some newer ones that MER-C grabbed during the September thread. We could expand that list (and the CCI size), or grab a query of every article DC's sent to DYK or GAN and create a checkpage elsewhere if people want to assess the articles out of what CCI normally does. We end up having to handle neutrality, verification, and copyright issues anyways fwiw. Sennecaster (Chat) 15:26, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Perhaps, similarly to Neelix, we need a list of articles to deal with, so it can be worked through in a similar manner. Having "good" articles which include total garbage is a serious issue, and needs to be dealt with ASAP (before the next slow news day). Mako001 (C) (T) 🇺🇦 11:30, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I would support a specialised process to deal with this. Based on what I have seen so far I believe that the majority of his GAs have enough issues to start a GAR which could easily overload the GA pages. Gusfriend (talk) 08:20, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
Where to now?
So to recap, we now have a giant mess of copyright violations, improperly attributed sourcing, dodgy sources which don't properly verify claims, and outright tripe to clean up, and need to figure out how that will be done. That isn't exactly within the scope of ANI. So, the question now is, where does that discussion happen? Mako001 (C) (T) 🇺🇦 12:00, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- What about @Sennecaster's suggestion of the open CCI, or the Talk thereof? Star Mississippi 13:29, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- I would prefer for discussion to be on the talk page of the CCI, or on WT:CCI or WT:CP even. Putting it on the CCI itself would be cluttering. CCI usually ends up cleaning serious verification and sourcing issues while also checking for copyvio, so if the community wants to look at other things or set up a space to check everything over, there's going to be anywhere from mild to serious redundancy. Sennecaster (Chat) 15:11, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- This is NOT just about copyright problems. Somewhere in VP is probably a better venue. EEng 01:03, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- I would prefer for discussion to be on the talk page of the CCI, or on WT:CCI or WT:CP even. Putting it on the CCI itself would be cluttering. CCI usually ends up cleaning serious verification and sourcing issues while also checking for copyvio, so if the community wants to look at other things or set up a space to check everything over, there's going to be anywhere from mild to serious redundancy. Sennecaster (Chat) 15:11, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
Armeniangigachad
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I first noticed Armeniangigachad doing some edits on the Garegin Nzhdeh article, and was arguing that information in the article is unsourced. I reverted Armeniangigachad's edit after confirming that information is sourced. Apparently Armeniangigachad's did not reviewed sources prior claiming that material is unsourced. However, Armeniangigachad reinstated his edit. Part of edit summary was stating ...Why did you revert the portion on Turkey's collaboration with the Nazis? Are you particularly interested in hiding that?
. Given that Armeniangigachad is new to Wikipedia, I presumed good faith and described what was incorrect with their edit as well as offered them some advice and my help.
Then I decided to look at the other edits Armeniangigachad made, because new users are prone to make good-faith edits that are not improvements. The behavior I noticed when reviewing the Armeniangigachad's contribution prompted me to pass on this case to the administrators review, because the behavior I witnessed demonstrates that this case is about more than just being a newbie. It is about the editor who is not built for Wikipedia editing.
Armeniangigachad stars a talk page discussion called Name of the article/hostility towards Armenian contributors
. In it Armeniangigachad states stuff like
The reason I am asking this is because this is an Armenian instrument and its' more popular name (düdük) is unfortunately of Turkish origin.
Given the fact that Armenian culture - and Armenia itself - is currently under vicious attack by Turkey and Azerbaijan, I believe I represent all Armenians when I put forward the motion of the article's name being changed to "Tsiranapogh"
I can basically see the train of "criticism" from negationist Turks and self-proclaimed "defenders of neutrality" coming, along with the accusations that changing the title into an Armenian one is a nationalistic approach.
,To those who engage in this behavior, here's some friendly advice: restrain yourselves, take a step back and ask yourself why you're so xenophobic. Could it be perhaps that you're squatting on stolen land, and would just totally hate for people to find out?
,This narrative is mainly pushed by the Turks, who constantly feel threatened by any acknowledgement that cultures other than Turkish exist on former Ottoman soil
,if it threatens your identity when people reaffirm their culture, then you need to do some serious soul-searching and dig to find out why exactly you feel like a cornered animal when that happens.
At another talk page discussion Armeniangigachad replies with Dear Turk, reminder to remain civil unless you'd like to get booted off Wikipedia
naming another user by assumed ethnicity. Then Armeniangigachad says The number of Turkophones is irrelevant and does not prove that "düdük" is not a dumbing-down. Let's compare the two, shall we? "Tsiranapogh" in Armenian means "pipe instrument made from apricot wood". "Düdük" means...."thing that makes the du-du sound".
, and then Armeniangigachad continue making personal attacks At this point, I'd like to speak with your English teacher.
, And of course, like the unoriginal person that you are, you stole and failed to rephrase my end statement. I expected nothing more and nothing less!
.
I could go on and on with examples of Armeniangigachad behavior, but I feel the ones above are sufficient. I didn't add much commentary or explanation, because the quotes speak for themselves. I assume that the above instances demonstrate that the user has a general pattern of disruptive conduct, is here to fight rather than develop an encyclopedia, and simply NOTHERE. A b r v a g l (PingMe) 15:51, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Blocked – for a period of one week: User talk:Armeniangigachad#Block and discretionary sanctions alerts. El_C 16:15, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
User:ASTRO Clifford (again)
This user has been making a mess of WP:OR edits across multiple pages, and an ANI case was opened not long ago (please see here) that resulted in them being blocked once and then followed by a number of editors supporting an indefinite ban on the account, but the ANI discussion was archived before any additional action was taken. ASTRO Clifford remained dormant for nearly two weeks, but has now returned by reverting four different editors in one go at List of countries by population in 1950 (see [page history]), without addressing in any way all of the criticism from numerous editors. As has already been said by editors previously, this user appears unable to contribute to Wikipedia constructively, is unable or unwilling to understand feedback, and will evidently continue as they did before. Please block them. R Prazeres (talk) 16:23, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- I've gone ahead and notified the user on their talk page.Kjscotte34 (talk) 16:41, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks. I had done it already, but at an earlier section which is easy to miss now. R Prazeres (talk) 16:46, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- Everything that needed to be said was said in the previous thread. Pick any permutation of WP:ENGAGE, WP:NOR and WP:CIR and block indefinitely. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:55, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- And take away his talk page access, since he only repeatedly doubled down when others tried to discuss everything with him. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 17:10, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- Everything that needed to be said was said in the previous thread. Pick any permutation of WP:ENGAGE, WP:NOR and WP:CIR and block indefinitely. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:55, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Blocked indefinitely: User_talk:ASTRO_Clifford#Indefinite_block. El_C 17:38, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- ASTRO Clifford has continued disruption on their talk page after being blocked (reply to AFD template notice):
Seems like noone actually read the articles or the sources. Just deleted all of the ones with my name on them, many of which used the exact same sources as other articles in that category. Despite this, the article was deleted without at all being looked through, with some guy claiming that it was fictional data despite the fact that it provides sources that give the data used in the article. Smh ASTRO Clifford (talk) 00:52, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Should TPA be revoked? – dudhhr (1 enby in a trenchcoat) talk contribs (he/they) 01:06, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Such a tirade also happened the last time he was blocked, nothing will improve by engaging with him. I support revoking TPA. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 01:31, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Leave him to rant. It's me he's ranting about, and I don't care... AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:48, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- What is so egregious about that? Looks like fairly mild WP:IDHT faire concerning WP:SYNTH. Update if there's an escalation. El_C 02:07, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- ASTRO Clifford is correct about one thing: he'd been citing sources already used for similar lists elsewhere on Wikipedia. If he hadn't been so intent on defending his own personal WP:OR 'interpolations' of the material he was supposedly citing, we could perhaps have had a sensible conversation about what exactly was wrong with the other 'population by year' lists, and why we don't need yet more of the same - every one I've looked at is problematic, for multiple reasons. WP:OR, cherry-picking between sources, sources which aren't remotely WP:RS, data that has been changed without changing the source cited, etc, etc... Essentially demographics-fancruft, created by people more concerned with adding numbers to tables than actually thinking about what the end result is going to be. Personally, I'd apply WP:TNT to the lot, and then not permit any article on similar topics that presented estimates as data (anything prior to the 1970s for global populations is an estimate, since accurate census data isn't available for many countries), or that used data from more than one source in a single table. We can cite reliably-sourced estimates, certainly - as estimates, from a single source per table, with methodology and limitations explained. That's how scholarship does it. That is what we should aspire to, not useless collections of god-knows-what from who-knows-where. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:39, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Hey, leave TNT out of this! What, too soon? El_C 03:03, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- This is part of the reason I closed this, El C. I apologize if it wasn't helpful (it doesn't seem to have been). — Nythar (💬-🎃) 04:17, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- It wasn't, but it's okay. Still, in future, I'd rather you not apply closures to threads I attend to in my capacity as an admin, on the admin noticeboard, mere hours ([104][105]) after I impose an admin action. I prefer leaving these open for any potential follow ups. Which, what is even the harm? What was the harm here? Thank you. El_C 05:08, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- This is the thing, Nythar: there were requests to revoke TPA in advance, which I didn't do. Then, there were requests to do so after the blocked user posted a mild rant, which I also didn't do. But regardless of me doing or not doing it, how was that to be requested it if this thread were to remain closed?
- The answer is likely in two ways: either it'd have been requested on my talk page, which is busy enough and would also split the discussion; or, re-open your closure (or I suppose ping me to their talk page, the worst option). Either way, you've added extra steps for naught. Again, not a big deal, just trying to give you my perspective, because this is a perennial problem I face on this noticeboard. El_C 05:22, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- El C, I got it. Again, I apologize; I didn't mean to interrupt the discussion. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 08:24, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- All good, Nythar. Cheers! El_C 08:26, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Generally, when closing small ANI threads that seem to have a clear-cut resolution (for example, vandals which have received a block and nothing else seems necessary), I also would wait a few hours before closing, though I try to avoid complex cases like this one would be. Would that be a good rule of thumb? Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 10:25, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- This may be a question better-suited to WT:AN, but why exactly is it that people feel the need to close
small ANI threads that seem to have a clear-cut resolution
? To me that seems the exact kind of thread that don't need a formal close, but often I find that when I reply to a thread with "Yep, LTA, indeffed", I come back 2 hours later and someone's wrapped the whole thing in "The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it." -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 01:04, 26 October 2022 (UTC)- I find it makes browsing ANI easier, while still leaving things open to inspection (unlike whisking them away to the archives). 66.44.22.126 (talk) 03:09, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Could be because those are the types of threads which are most easily closed, of course; being that non-admins are advised against complex cases. That would make small threads an attractive target for practicing NACs. And, yes, I do prefer being able to clearly see which threads are truly done and which have more work to be done. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 07:27, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- This may be a question better-suited to WT:AN, but why exactly is it that people feel the need to close
- El C, I got it. Again, I apologize; I didn't mean to interrupt the discussion. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 08:24, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- This is part of the reason I closed this, El C. I apologize if it wasn't helpful (it doesn't seem to have been). — Nythar (💬-🎃) 04:17, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Hey, leave TNT out of this! What, too soon? El_C 03:03, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- ASTRO Clifford is correct about one thing: he'd been citing sources already used for similar lists elsewhere on Wikipedia. If he hadn't been so intent on defending his own personal WP:OR 'interpolations' of the material he was supposedly citing, we could perhaps have had a sensible conversation about what exactly was wrong with the other 'population by year' lists, and why we don't need yet more of the same - every one I've looked at is problematic, for multiple reasons. WP:OR, cherry-picking between sources, sources which aren't remotely WP:RS, data that has been changed without changing the source cited, etc, etc... Essentially demographics-fancruft, created by people more concerned with adding numbers to tables than actually thinking about what the end result is going to be. Personally, I'd apply WP:TNT to the lot, and then not permit any article on similar topics that presented estimates as data (anything prior to the 1970s for global populations is an estimate, since accurate census data isn't available for many countries), or that used data from more than one source in a single table. We can cite reliably-sourced estimates, certainly - as estimates, from a single source per table, with methodology and limitations explained. That's how scholarship does it. That is what we should aspire to, not useless collections of god-knows-what from who-knows-where. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:39, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Such a tirade also happened the last time he was blocked, nothing will improve by engaging with him. I support revoking TPA. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 01:31, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
Persistent addition of original research, edit warring, block evading
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/fb/Yes_check.svg/20px-Yes_check.svg.png)
Lots of issues here. 66.249.122.34 has been repeatedly adding favorable original research to the Halloween Ends lead section (diff, diff, diff, diff, diff). This is likely a continuation of behavior by sockpuppeteer User:VideoGamer123456 (diff, diff) and sockpuppet User:Mr.Creatinator (diff), who've been making virtually the same edits to the page. See the SPI here. Both VideoGamer123456 / Mr.Creatinator (diff), and the IP (diff, diff) have been repeatedly warned about WP:NOR and/or edit-warring violations. Neither have responded to warnings or participated in the relevant talk page discussion. Throast {{ping}} me! (talk | contribs) 20:08, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Update: The IP is still at it, once again removing negative information from the lead section without proper explanation and introducing positive information that is not supported by the source cited. Throast {{ping}} me! (talk | contribs) 19:08, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I have blocked them for a year (they had a previous block for six months for something else) as a suspected IP sock. Daniel Case (talk) 20:16, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
Persistent disruptive editing from IP addresses in Malta
We have a persistent disruptive editor who seems to be switching IP addresses, essentially an IP sock puppet. The disruptive edits from these IP address seem to be focused on women's history mostly with respect to armed combat. The type of disruptive edits include unexplained removal of material, original research, POV editing slanting the historical perspective of the article, & edit warring. This seems to be an attempt at historical revisionism that is actually a chronocentrist approach & historical negationism. It is in effect a form of antifeminism because it negates the actual conditions that women had to overcome.
None of these IP editors has ever responded on their talk pages or explained their edits in the edit summary..
These are the IP addresses in question. Note that the non-185.5.48.* are presently blocked, one for a year & one for two weeks.
- 185.5.48.132 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
- 185.5.48.139 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
- 185.5.48.152 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
- 185.5.48.16 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
- 185.5.48.167 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
- 185.5.48.25 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
- 185.5.48.3 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
- 185.5.48.45 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
- 185.5.48.8 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
- 195.158.74.54 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
- 217.71.190.230 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
Here is a partial list of the articles being disrupted. I have made requests for them at WP:RPP.
- Anne Dieu-le-Veut
- Brita Hagberg
- Eleonore Prochaska
- Fighter pilot
- Jacquotte Delahaye
- Participation of women in the Olympics
- Rayna Kasabova
- Women in piracy
I have also made a report to Wikipedia:WikiProject on open proxies/Requests#From the 185.5.48.* range & a couple of others, although there appears to be a three month back log there. Peaceray (talk) 20:39, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- 185.5.48.0/24 has been blocked for one month. The other IPs are already blocked. There's nothing more to do, I think. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 23:02, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- I think that we still need to complete the investigation as to open proxies in the 185.5.48.0/24 range. ST47ProxyBot has already blocked 185.5.48.142, 185.5.48.153, 185.5.48.155, 185.5.48.158, & 185.5.48.159. Peaceray (talk) 05:13, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- BTW, 217.71.190.230 is off the two week block & is again editing disruptively. Peaceray (talk) 05:16, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Update: 217.71.190.230 is now blocked for six months. Peaceray (talk) 15:12, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- BTW, 217.71.190.230 is off the two week block & is again editing disruptively. Peaceray (talk) 05:16, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- I think that we still need to complete the investigation as to open proxies in the 185.5.48.0/24 range. ST47ProxyBot has already blocked 185.5.48.142, 185.5.48.153, 185.5.48.155, 185.5.48.158, & 185.5.48.159. Peaceray (talk) 05:13, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
DuckBeaks has used several–if not one, edit summaries to troll and/or spam. In one, they wrote: "Outdated link L L L L L L", when they were just changing the link because the article was moved. And in another, they wrote a 45-letter word (supposedly the longest word on Earth), when they were changing the link for the same reason. And that's not all. Sarrail (talk) 03:21, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- I guess we should warn them, and if they keep doing it, block them. PhilKnight (talk) 03:37, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
They even threatened one by deleting an important message and saying: deleting because that ignorant arthropod did not respond to me since his IQ is lower than his "contributions" and is a useless parasite with no life. Noru (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 03:39, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Sure, this is the diff. PhilKnight (talk) 04:05, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
Don’t forget he said death threats. Noru111344 — Preceding undated comment added 06:28, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Can you use colons (:) to indent your posts, please? Also do you have a diff for the death threat. See WP:DIFF for what a diff is, if you are not sure. PhilKnight (talk) 07:57, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- yes, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:DuckBeaks&diff=prev&oldid=1111991862.
- He said if not, that's your problem. do or die, its your choice. Noru111344 (talk) 08:03, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- That's no more a death threat than publish or perish; it means "take it or leave it". No comment on the rest. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:15, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- still it counts as a death threat since he is telling them to die. Sorry for the mispelling, I'm in laptop.
- Noru111344 (talk) 08:17, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Not convinced it is a death threat. I am content to leave them warned and block if they continue. PhilKnight (talk) 08:22, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Alright Noru111344 (talk) 08:26, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- No edits now for several days. PhilKnight's "leave them warned and block if they continue" seems right to me. JBW (talk) 18:56, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Seems to be the right case for now. Sarrail (talk) 19:54, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- No edits now for several days. PhilKnight's "leave them warned and block if they continue" seems right to me. JBW (talk) 18:56, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Alright Noru111344 (talk) 08:26, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Not convinced it is a death threat. I am content to leave them warned and block if they continue. PhilKnight (talk) 08:22, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- That's no more a death threat than publish or perish; it means "take it or leave it". No comment on the rest. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:15, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Can you use colons (:) to indent your posts, please? Also do you have a diff for the death threat. See WP:DIFF for what a diff is, if you are not sure. PhilKnight (talk) 07:57, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
Sca (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) recently added a comment [106] at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates on a thread concerning the Chinese election that I believe used the racist stereotype that East Asians, when speaking English, confuse /l/ and /r/. I removed the comment, he restored it again, I re-removed it and left a note on his talk that I would block him if he restored it again. He is now asking that I apologise as it was a "joke", it wasn't racist and even that he had a friend that was Japanese-American so he can't be racist. Given that I'm one of the admins that regularly patrols the WP:ITN queue, where Sca contributes almost exclusively and often excessively, it's inevitable that I have to read his commentary whenever I'm here. I'd like an opinion on whether I'm being too sensitive. He refuses to discuss the topic on his talk page, and has moved the discussion repeatedly to mine. Stephen 22:52, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- It's offensive. Restoring it after it was removed is bad judgement. Schazjmd (talk) 23:02, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- "I'm not racist, I even have black friends!" Yeah, that's a stereotype and a very bad joke to make. The fact it was restored, I almost would say was worthy of a block. You certainly do not need to apologize. RickinBaltimore (talk) 23:03, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Clearly and certainly. Why didn't they just think about it after Stephen reverted the comment? Sarrail (talk) 23:05, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- "I'm not racist, I even have black friends!" Yeah, that's a stereotype and a very bad joke to make. The fact it was restored, I almost would say was worthy of a block. You certainly do not need to apologize. RickinBaltimore (talk) 23:03, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Seconding the discussion above - It's a blatantly offensive comment, the restoration was bad judgement, and doubling down afterwards is even worse. Worthy of a temp block IMO. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 23:09, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Can I ask Sca to explain further his claim that using
"erection""erected" instead of"election""elected" was a play on words, but one that didn't play into that stereotype? Like, can he rationally explain how else to interpret it? Why the word erection? Or would that just be me disingenuously forcing him to dig a deeper hole when we all know he is lying? I find one of the most inexplicable things about the post-2016 world is that people no longer feel the need to figure out a plausible lie; any non-plausible lie is apparently sufficient. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:43, 25 October 2022 (UTC)- Purely a joke related to a discussion about whether "elected" was a valid verb in describing a totalitarian leader whose third term had been meticulously pre-planned. No thought whatsoever in my part of any "racist stereotype," nor of any prurient innuendo re "erection," which I see now was an unfortunate word choice. -- Sca (talk) 16:08, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- At the risk of tarnishing my bleeding heart credentials - because I think I'm in the minority on this these days - I'm not sure "racist" is the best term to use; I've always felt that term should have a more specific, narrow meaning. "Mocking ethnic stereotypes" is maybe more accurate? Perhaps Sca would be willing to cop to that? Maybe he's just hung up on the word "racist", and being more accurate would give him a chance to think in a less reflexive way about what he said and realize he is in the wrong here? --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:01, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, we wouldn't want to offend Sca by using the wrong word... Levivich (talk) 00:04, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Whereas Levivich wants to burnish his.--Floquenbeam (talk) 00:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Say it loud and say it proud! Levivich (talk) 00:09, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Whereas Levivich wants to burnish his.--Floquenbeam (talk) 00:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, we wouldn't want to offend Sca by using the wrong word... Levivich (talk) 00:04, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- It's certainly true that Sca's contributions at ITN are excessive. He has a scarcely believable 9498 edits to WP:ITN/C, an awful lot of them jokes and asides in small text that don't add much to the discussion. I can't say that I've noticed him say anything that could be called racist before, although like Floq it's hard for me to understand what the joke would be if it was not the pronunciation stereotype. Perhaps a temporary partial block from Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates would give him time to reflect and go do something more productive. Pawnkingthree (talk) 23:57, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- You're not being too sensitive. Sca's explanation that it was intended as a run-of-the-mill boner joke and not a racist joke playing on the stereotype of Asians' pronunciation of l's as r's strains WP:AGF to its limit, but AGFing it's true, now that it's been pointed out, any reasonable person would've apologized for inadvertently making a racist joke. This is block-worthy. Levivich (talk) 23:58, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Whether he meant it as an Asian l/r pronunciation joke or as a boner joke, it's inappropriate either way. In no way does that edit improve the project. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:08, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Purely a joke related to a discussion about whether "elected" was a valid verb in describing a totalitarian leader whose third term had been meticulously pre-planned. No thought whatsoever in my part of any "racist stereotype," nor of any prurient innuendo re "erection," which I see now was an unfortunate word choice. -- Sca (talk) 16:08, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- You've made me realize I typed incorrectly in my comment above. It was "erected", not "erection". "Erected" makes zero sense as a phallic joke of any kind. This is not plausible as a phallic joke. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:15, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you. -- Sca (talk) 16:30, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- So, "erected" can mean "put in power", per Wiktionary, and so if I crank my AGF meter all the way to 11 I can see this as a comment about the lack of democracy in China, as Sca claims it was. That said, making political remarks at ITN/C at all is against Wikipedia's purpose (although Sca's far from the only ITN/C regular to run afoul of that), and restoring the comment after it was challenged shows particularly poor judgment. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 00:40, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I think your AGF meter is miscalibrated; this is at least a 23. Sca is not using the word archaically. I'll stop harping on this now, though. It's just so annoying someone can blatantly tell an impossible lie and we're supposed to grit our teeth and chant AGF, AGF. Although looking ahead a few weeks, and a couple of years, I suppose I should just get used to it. OK, now I'll stop harping on it. Floquenbeam (talk) 00:55, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- No, harp away. I despise that it's become part of our cultural zeitgeist that as long as someone Denies! Denies! Denies! at the top of their lungs -- never wavering -- they can never be called on their bullshit, they're immunized against wrongdoing, and the rest of us are enjoined to bow our heads and mumble apologies for having doubted their inner good nature. AGF is not a suicide pact, and treating it as such only enables the edgelords in their bad faith. Ravenswing 01:19, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I think your AGF meter is miscalibrated; this is at least a 23. Sca is not using the word archaically. I'll stop harping on this now, though. It's just so annoying someone can blatantly tell an impossible lie and we're supposed to grit our teeth and chant AGF, AGF. Although looking ahead a few weeks, and a couple of years, I suppose I should just get used to it. OK, now I'll stop harping on it. Floquenbeam (talk) 00:55, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- For the record, here's how DYK's acknowledged greatest hooker handles erection humor:
- [107] ... that Edwin Stevens, while in a missionary position, said that erections indicated apprehension and penetration was difficult?
- [108] ... that erection engineer Mark Barr had a business making rubbers, said bicycles stimulated ball development, and was elected to the screw committee?
- after reviewing their comment, their ridiculous defense of it, and the fact that they were already p-blocked once before for using ITNC as a venue for idiotic humor, I've partially blocked them from Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates indefinitely. We don't need to decide here whether this meets the textbook definition of racism or is more of an ethnic slur as project pages are not for either of those things. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:36, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Good block. Awful comment. Pathetic defense of it. Vanamonde (Talk) 03:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Good block, per Vanamonde93. The "jokes" and ongoing political commentary have got to be dealt with. Jusdafax (talk) 03:27, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Good block. WP:NOTSUICIDE. ~Swarm~ {sting} 03:36, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I can't say that I'm in a much better position than Sca as I have contributed heavily to ITN as well, at times not with the best decorum, but I agree that this was inevitable. Good block. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 12:32, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Response – Yesterday (10/25) I posted a reply to part of the relevant discussion on Stephen's talk page:
- Your "joke" was based on the racist stereotype that East Asians, when speaking English, confuse /l/ and /r/. Stephen 23:38, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
- Not at all! That was your interpretation of it, not my intention or motivation. It was simply a play on a word to substitute for "elected" – which Xi wasn't, not really. (And BTW, one of my closest friends from junior high through college and beyond was a second-generation Japanese-American whose last name was Ujifusa, and whose parents were interned during WWII.) I never dreamed that anyone would interpret my comment as a racial slur.
I still think you owe me an apology. – Sca (talk) 11:56, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
- Not at all! That was your interpretation of it, not my intention or motivation. It was simply a play on a word to substitute for "elected" – which Xi wasn't, not really. (And BTW, one of my closest friends from junior high through college and beyond was a second-generation Japanese-American whose last name was Ujifusa, and whose parents were interned during WWII.) I never dreamed that anyone would interpret my comment as a racial slur.
- I am absolutely flabbergasted, and offended, that anyone would term me racist or view my purely joking post as a racist comment. Please note that Stephen specifically accused me of employing a "racist stereotype," which wasn't the case at all. In 16 years on Wiki no one has ever accused me of 'racism.' (Please note that my user page has long included a photo – by me – of this statue of Anne Frank at the Idaho Human Rights Memorial. Also, I'm a former employee of the Idaho Human Rights Commission.)
- Never has Stephen offered an apology for his aggressive attack on me over what was a very small and insignificant post, not intended to engender controversy of any kind. Nor has he made any effort toward conciliation and mutual understanding. Instead, he responded with a threat to have me blocked, and has filed this spurious, nonsensical complaint at ANI, where no one ever has filed a complaint against me before.
- Furthermore – and I'm reluctant to raise this point as I don't want to spawn some new proceeding – I've gotten the impression that Stephen may harbor some personal dislike for me, as he has opposed my comments many times over an extended period. Note that he claims I contribute "excessively" at ITN/C. My only motive in contributing there is to offer information, mainly story links, or observations intended to help make ITN blurbs clear, accurate and reasonably concise.
- I view Wikipedia as a tremendously positive player in the realm of information presentation, and I appreciate the opportunity it offers volunteer editors like me to participate in this important work. (I say this as a former [retired] newspaper reporter, editor and copy editor.)
- In view of what has transpired, I hereby withdraw my request for an apology, as none seems likely to be forthcoming. However, I wish to state that I remain open to any effort on Stephen's part toward conciliation. – Sca (talk) 15:54, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- There's a lot of justification here - You're essentially saying "I can't possibly have had the impact you're saying I did, because I am exceptionally well qualified and know better than you." If you were formerly employed by the Idaho Human Rights Commission (an honorable career), then you should know that intent is not necessarily important - As multiple editors have explained above, it's a comment that can clearly be easily interpreted in a racist way. I really encourage you to take Levivich's words above, that
any reasonable person would've apologized for inadvertently making a racist joke
to heart. A simple "I'm sorry that my comment was interpreted that way and I'll try and be more intentional with my language moving forward" would go a long way here. Instead, it seems you're intent on doubling-down. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 16:46, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- There's a lot of justification here - You're essentially saying "I can't possibly have had the impact you're saying I did, because I am exceptionally well qualified and know better than you." If you were formerly employed by the Idaho Human Rights Commission (an honorable career), then you should know that intent is not necessarily important - As multiple editors have explained above, it's a comment that can clearly be easily interpreted in a racist way. I really encourage you to take Levivich's words above, that
- Where can I see the decision in this case? -- Sca (talk) 16:52, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- This isn't a "case," and you can see Beeblebrox's reasoning above in this very thread. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 19:15, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I wish to appeal my block, but can't figure out from the guidance where one files an appeal. – Sca (talk) 16:58, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- It's on your talk page. Just post {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}} at your talk page and someone will review your block. I strongly suggest internalising some of the comments made here before doing so, if you wish it to be successful. FWIW I think the block was reasonable, given the behaviour and your response to it, but good luck anyway. John (talk) 17:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I have declined the unblock request, in part because of the comments on this thread. Thryduulf (talk) 11:20, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- It's on your talk page. Just post {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}} at your talk page and someone will review your block. I strongly suggest internalising some of the comments made here before doing so, if you wish it to be successful. FWIW I think the block was reasonable, given the behaviour and your response to it, but good luck anyway. John (talk) 17:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- The cluelessness and doubling down on poor decisions continues on my talk page. I closed a duplicate discussion there, and Sca kept posting about it anyway [109] [110] and when I closed that discussion with an edit summary of please stop they just kept posting in it anyway [111]. I'm not asking for further action at this time as I've issued a warning to them already about this, just wanted it recorded ion this thread if and when this issue comes back here later. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:22, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
Liberland yet again
Liberland (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Mailballs 9900 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Jasper Tomlins (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
A 'new' Mailballs 9900 account has just been created, with the clear purpose of edit-warring deleted content back into the controversial Liberland article - said content being sourced solely to the promotors of this zero-population 'micronation', promoting their sale of valueless 'citizenships'. Given their behaviour, I asked whether they had been editing the article with a previous account. [112] They confirmed they had, stated they would disclose their previous account, [113] but have not done so. Meanwhile, a self-confessed sock of a banned user has stepped in. [114] Assuming of course that they aren't the same person, which seems entirely plausible. Given that both accounts appear to be editing in violation of policy, they can presumably be blocked either way. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:24, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Please read WP:LEGITSOCK. My old account was constructive and blocked in error. Jasper Tomlins (talk) 00:31, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Please also look into the possibility of collusion between AndyTheGrump and Brownfingers. Many parallels in editing style and attitude. Jasper Tomlins (talk) 00:32, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Jasper Tomlins, did you say you were previously Ishmailer, a blocked sockpupeteer, on your talk page? Diff:1 — Nythar (💬-🎃) 00:37, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- You read me correctly the first time citizen. Jasper Tomlins (talk) 00:41, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
We can add repeated personal attacks to reasons to block Mailballs 9900. [115][116] Nothing further needs to be said regarding Jasper Tomlins/Ishmailer/Evlekis. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:38, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- NAAH. Not one personal attack chum. Not one. Jasper Tomlins (talk) 00:41, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- This article has been a timesink for a while. And all over a tiny spit of land that has less wildlife than my tiny 30x30 ft garden. It's not a recognised state.
- I realise I'm new but shouldn't the article be protected for now? Also, wasn't the AfD tag recently removed by one of the new accounts? (talk) 00:49, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- The AfD closed as keep. As in 'keep article', not 'keep promoting imaginary country', though clearly some people can't tell the difference. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:55, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I beg your pardon, Knitsey; the area is part of the Mura-Drava-Danube biosphere reserve, dubbed "Amazon of Europe". I strongly protest your discriminatory language on behalf of all the deer, wild boars, herons, ducks and other animals. No such user (talk) 12:15, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- The AfD closed as keep on the 18th. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 00:54, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- NAAH. Not one personal attack chum. Not one. Jasper Tomlins (talk) 00:41, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- both blocked as socks, article semi'd for a month. Time to give legit editors on that article a break from the lunacy. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:44, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Sorry, I've just seen your protection message Floquenbeam. Knitsey (talk) 00:50, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
Requesting a long overdue indefinite block
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
For Nalina.E.Nalina (talk · contribs), per discussion here [117]. Quite the history. 2601:19E:4180:6D50:0:0:0:A72E (talk) 02:00, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
Apparent threat
Could an admin take action as needed regarding this edit summary which should probably be removed and the editor held accountable? Thanks. Jusdafax (talk) 03:19, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- It's an LTA. IP blocked. Acroterion (talk) 03:21, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
User:47.149.223.192
47.149.223.192 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
This person has made 47 edits over the past month, most or all of which consist of genre warring on music pages. (S)he has continued to do this in spite of having received a level-4 warning against this behavior a week ago, and has made genre-warring edits under three hours ago as of this post. I believe a temporary block is warranted for this situation. Mungo Kitsch (talk) 06:02, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
User:Aliawalsh22 deceptive edit summaries, suspected paid editing, refusal to engage
Aliawalsh22 (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
This is a newish editor with a specialised interest in horses and equitation, and a particular interest in two specific equestrians. I have encountered their edits because I review drafts at AFC.
They have been blocked for 48 hours by Ged UK (expired). While they may wish to comment on the reason for making the block it is, in part, to encourage thenm to engage. They have not engaged.
Their edit summaries are deceptive, and they have been warned for this yestefday.
They have been asked, formally, about paid editing, and have twice ignored a level 4 warning for this.
Although not directly relevant to the English Language WIkipedia, their behaviour on Commons shows the same cavalier disregard of engagement. See C:User talk:Aliawalsh22. THey are currentky blocked for the second time on Commons for uploading files of (at best) questionable licencing. Obviously they must handle that at Commons, not here.
It appears to me that this could be a useful editor on the basis of their interest. However, at present, they are a negative asset to the project. All this could be solved if they were to choose to engage. The purpose of this filing is to encourage them to engage. Their current refusal to engage means a bigger shot across the bows is required than simple talk page warnings 🇺🇦 FiddleTimtrent FaddleTalk to me 🇺🇦 07:29, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Things have moved on. Indeffed. I imagine this can be closed 🇺🇦 FiddleTimtrent FaddleTalk to me 🇺🇦 09:44, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) I have blocked the editor indefinitely, with a block notice containing an attempt to encourage them to start communicating, and request an unblock. It is unfortunate that this seems necessary, but since neither talk page messages nor a short-term block have produced any response at all, it seems that it is. JBW (talk) 09:50, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
For the record, far from taking up my invitation to request an unblock, she decided to evade the block by using a sockpuppet: see Aliawalsh2. JBW (talk) 20:44, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Unsure were to take this
Or even how to report it, but it seems someone has created mirror accounts (of me) [[118]] including one here (it seems, [[119]]). Slatersteven (talk) 09:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Slatersteven, see WP:IMPERSONATOR and WP:BADNAME (non-admin advice). TSventon (talk) 11:17, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Looks like blatant/disruptive impersonation, so would think WP:UAA is the board to take it to. DeCausa (talk) 11:24, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Their home wiki seems to be Simple Wikipedia. Do you edit simple.wiki? -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 13:37, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- No, I was just told about this and was unsure what it all meant. The user who told me was concerned about the implication, and if (as they suspected) it is a vandalism account and gets a global ban (as they are active on more than one project) I wanted this on record as a "this is not in fact me" statement. And I have (as I said) no idea what to do about this. In a sense, I am getting my unblock request in early.Slatersteven (talk) 14:01, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- By the way they did create an account [[120]] as well, so, as I said, this is more about getting it on record this is not me before I am forced to have to do so. Slatersteven (talk) 14:19, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- That’s fine. They haven’t edited en.wiki at all and haven’t edited simple.wiki since May. Their only interest seems to have been to create an article about Rao Gujarmal Singh on simple.wiki. Coincidentally, we have a draft on this chap created about the same time by a different editor. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 15:23, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I have indefinitely blocked the impersonator. Cullen328 (talk) 17:35, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- That’s fine. They haven’t edited en.wiki at all and haven’t edited simple.wiki since May. Their only interest seems to have been to create an article about Rao Gujarmal Singh on simple.wiki. Coincidentally, we have a draft on this chap created about the same time by a different editor. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 15:23, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
Two blocked socks of Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Evlekis need LTA removed ASAP ...
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
... ,Jasper Tomlins (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Mailballs 9900 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), because Evlekis has totally lost it, as he almost always does after getting blocked, and posts crap and personal attacks at high speed... - Tom | Thomas.W talk 11:30, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
Done TPA removed by Acroterion, I have rev-deleted the talk page posts. Black Kite (talk) 11:35, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- @Black Kite: He's back as DEFECTOR 1985 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (see contributions), posting on my talk page, and edit warring on Liberland... - Tom | Thomas.W talk 11:41, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Blocked by UtherSRG. - Tom | Thomas.W talk 12:10, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- @Black Kite: He's back as DEFECTOR 1985 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (see contributions), posting on my talk page, and edit warring on Liberland... - Tom | Thomas.W talk 11:41, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
There's a new Evlekis sock on Liberland: Ethnotrex (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) See this edit, repeating earlier personal attacks. [121] AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:48, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Rita Ora discography
Edit warring has been going on over the Rita Ora discography article for a long time. User:Helptottt, User:Jakubik.v and a newly created account (User:Swedishbrittisk), by possibly one of them with the clear purpose of edit-warring, are continually removing sourced content, without any plausible reasoning: [122][123][124][125][126][127] Despite various warnings given on their talkpages and attempts to find a solution on the talkpage, they are unable to understand this and unfortunately, they do not seem to like to communicate and help improve the article instead. Their behaviour show that they are intending to continue reverting repeatedly. User:Swedishbrittisk further calls to "keep reverting" me if I "keep on doing these senseless edits" [128]. However, they're endangering the article, which is currently being reviewed to pass the featured list nomination. Thanks in advance. Iaof2017 (talk) 15:01, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Listen, I just want to follow Wikipedia's rules, and believe me that I’m just using one account, none of these two is me, but think whatever you want to think. Swedishbrittisk (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 15:11, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- This is serious accusation. I'm not pathetic, I don't need to hide behind some "other" profile. I only have one profile here and I require you not to accuse me of such of thing. Thank you. Jakubik.v (talk) 16:52, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- The only user who is edit warring is yourself, and several editors pointed out the unnecessary changes with which you have damaged the article. Insinuating that I created a new account to revert your edits is insane. The article, before you started editing it, was already in a very good state, needing minimal changes. Like Black Kite highlighted, it's you who needs to explain all the wild changes you made to the article. You are behaving like you own the article, and use threatening and accusatory language against editors. How is this behavior not against the rules?! Helptottt (talk) 20:55, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
Iaof2017 keeps on vandalizing Rita Ora discography with edits that do not contribute to the page. In addition, they are blaming me of having more than one account, which is completely false. I would like this user to be stopped from doing this. Thank you in advance. Swedishbrittisk (talk) 15:22, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Well, this is a content dispute at its heart, but the edit-warring appears to be between yourself on one side, and at least three other editors (not counting Swedishbrittisk) on the other. I think you'd have to explain why your changes are correct and all of the other editors are wrong if anyone is to take any action on this. Black Kite (talk) 15:28, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Hello Black Kite thanks for your participation. As I initially wrote in the talkpage, I reworked the article on the grounds of the manual of style and discography guidelines. I'm familiar with that topic and have written numerous good articles. Other user would note the article's issues on the talkpage or on the featured list review if my edits weren't correct. Iaof2017 (talk) 16:02, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- You never gave us any reasonable argument. You have messed up already good articles. I gave you countless point where you were wrong and you never gave me one single explanation, only reverting and giving some warning. What you did with Rita Ora's discography is a mess. Most of your edits are sooo useless and itrelevant. I don't know what is the reason why you keep doing that but I don't see any point in it and I'm not being prejudiced vecause there are 3 other users who are seeing it and I think there will be more and more. Also you edit history shows that this is not your first time being reported or even blocked. Jakubik.v (talk) 16:37, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Read the talkpage and try to constructively contribute to the article and the ongoing discussion. You have been very offensive with your zero-convincing statements and absolutely out of place. I do not own the article however, I would appreciate it if we could work together to make this article pass the featured list nomination. Iaof2017 (talk) 16:57, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- The article was already good. It's pointless, you keep ignoring all the things we are pointing at and still editing the same things over and over again. Jakubik.v (talk) 09:43, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Read the talkpage and try to constructively contribute to the article and the ongoing discussion. You have been very offensive with your zero-convincing statements and absolutely out of place. I do not own the article however, I would appreciate it if we could work together to make this article pass the featured list nomination. Iaof2017 (talk) 16:57, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- You never gave us any reasonable argument. You have messed up already good articles. I gave you countless point where you were wrong and you never gave me one single explanation, only reverting and giving some warning. What you did with Rita Ora's discography is a mess. Most of your edits are sooo useless and itrelevant. I don't know what is the reason why you keep doing that but I don't see any point in it and I'm not being prejudiced vecause there are 3 other users who are seeing it and I think there will be more and more. Also you edit history shows that this is not your first time being reported or even blocked. Jakubik.v (talk) 16:37, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Hello Black Kite thanks for your participation. As I initially wrote in the talkpage, I reworked the article on the grounds of the manual of style and discography guidelines. I'm familiar with that topic and have written numerous good articles. Other user would note the article's issues on the talkpage or on the featured list review if my edits weren't correct. Iaof2017 (talk) 16:02, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Well, this is a content dispute at its heart, but the edit-warring appears to be between yourself on one side, and at least three other editors (not counting Swedishbrittisk) on the other. I think you'd have to explain why your changes are correct and all of the other editors are wrong if anyone is to take any action on this. Black Kite (talk) 15:28, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I have no idea whether User:Swedishbrittisk is a returning old user or a sock, but they've been here for two hours, have insulted other editors, called upon people to be blocked, and reverted the article to a broken revision. So I've blocked them indefinitely. If they want to edit here, they can tell us their old username and how they're going to improve their behavour going forward. Meanwhile, I've fully protected the article for a week. Black Kite (talk) 16:20, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- A mix between a somewhat complicated CU connection and behaviour tells me they are the same as MikaelEmanuelsson (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki), who has a history edit warring and conflict with Iaof2017. --Blablubbs (talk) 19:10, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
Aarp65 disruptively creating categories and pages about names
I became aware of User:Aarp65 just a few minutes ago when they added "Category:Surnames of Vanuatuan origin" to Jimmy. I noticed that this category page was also added to David (surname) and John (surname) which are of biblical origin, and George (surname) which states that it has many origins, none of them Vanuatuan.
I then noticed that Aarp65 had put "Category:Surnames of Marshall Islands origin" on Joseph (surname), Peter (surname), Philip and Samuel (name).
The next thing I noticed is that for the past two months, User talk:Aarp65's talkspace is filled with at least 25 mostly successful speedy deletion nominations for creating categories and other pages. More pages have been moved to draftspace as suitable and several disrupted editing warnings posted by User:Uricdivine, User:Leschnei, User:Joy, User:Pppery and especially User: Liz.
As far as I can tell, Aarp65 does not state reasons or cite sources for the creation of so many of these pages. Probably because they are factually incorrect. In my opinion, this user is WP:NOTHERE to create an encyclopedia. Warnings have already been given, so if the consensus agrees, I propose a discussion about the possibility of a WP:TBAN on creating categories and pages having to do with names and surnames, etc. for this user. The exact topic could be decided later. I hope this makes sense. I'm open to suggestions. Thanks. 17:39, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Clearly, Aarp65 knows a lot about this topic and most of their contributions are very productive. I take back my WP:NOTHERE accusation but these categories and 25 warnings in 2 months are genuinely concerning. I'm going to try to talk to them more about it in their talkspace. Nothing urgent needs to be immediately addressed by others here, but I don't think it should be closed until a response can be had. Again, suggestions welcome. Thanks. Kire1975 (talk) 18:27, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- (non-admin comment) Jimmy is a DAB page.
Regardless of the merits or otherwise of adding such a category to surname pages, it should not be added to a DAB page per WP:DBC.Narky Blert (talk) 02:09, 27 October 2022 (UTC) It's either too late or too early. Origin-type categories are fine (indeed, recommended) on DAB pages also categorised as surname or given name pages. Narky Blert (talk) 02:54, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- (non-admin comment) Jimmy is a DAB page.
I have reverted a whole bunch of their recent edits, as they were indeed bizarre and non-constructive. Things like this, this, this, or this are just some samples of the type of edits. If they don't or inadequately reply, a topic ban from categorisation (or name categorisation) may be needed. I mean, on a long disambig where none of the entries are for Samoans, they still proclaiml that the name "Meredith" is of Samoan origin.[129]... Fram (talk) 09:05, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Considering that this is continuing while this section is open, with Raisi (disambiguation) created today and added to e.g. Category:Zimbabwean surnames despite nothing on that page relating to Zimbabwe; can please some action be taken? Letting someone continue to add such fake information to Wikipedia while this iss being discussed at ANI doesn't look good (on us, and even less on them). Fram (talk) 14:03, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I've DABified Raisi (disambiguation) (which was a needed page) and deleted the Zimbabwean category as unsupported. Narky Blert (talk) 15:00, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks. Any suggestions on how to avoid or minimize further such issues? The editor involved seems unwilling to join any discussion about it, giving little hope of improvemeñt. Fram (talk) 15:16, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- For a specific problem like this, the time-honoured solution is digging through contribs, and if necessary following the usual escalation procedures aimed at persuading or forcing nuisances to stop. I have no solution to the more general one of under-, excessive, or over-precise categorisation of DAB-with-surname and surname pages other gnomishly than fix when found. (A moderately common case of over-precision is labelling a Germanic surname as specifically Jewish/Yiddish when it is not specific to that community. Bernstein and Kahn (an unusual case with two distinct etymologies) are models of how it should be done.) Narky Blert (talk) 05:25, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks. Any suggestions on how to avoid or minimize further such issues? The editor involved seems unwilling to join any discussion about it, giving little hope of improvemeñt. Fram (talk) 15:16, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Another strange DAB creation: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wodarz&oldid=1118543166 (current version) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:48, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- That was a weird one; notably in the mismatch between title (Wodarz) and lede (Holetschek). It has already, and correctly, been WP:BLARed into an {{R from surname}} page. Holetschek exists, and is another recent creation by Aarp65; a good one, which I've minorly tweaked. Narky Blert (talk) 05:36, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
I just added a Level 3 warning before I noticed Fram's proposal below. He's definitely been warned. Kire1975 (talk) 11:49, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
Proposal: topic ban (user:Aarp65)
I propose that Aarp65 is topic banned from all name-related pages (articles, categories, templates...) broadly construed. Their recently granted autopatrolled right should also be removed again. They have been warned about their problematic edits in the past. During the above discussion, they created Lipovsky (disambiguation), with 4 completely unsupported categories, created multiple unnecessary name disambiguation pages (with only one bluelink), added name categories unrelated to the contents of the page they were placed on ([130]), and so on. They show no indication of changing their approach or participating in this (or any) discussion. Expecting other editors to check all their edits and revert this many of them is not useful. Fram (talk) 08:14, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Their recently granted autopatrolled right was removed once before? I'm not sure what that is or where to find evidence of that. Can you put that in the discussion please? Thanks. Kire1975 (talk) 11:54, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- No, originally they (like everyone else) didn't have it, it was granted in June or so, and should now be removed again. Fram (talk) 12:11, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- The "again" is the problem, it suggests that it has been removed before. 66.44.22.126 (talk) 12:59, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- No, originally they (like everyone else) didn't have it, it was granted in June or so, and should now be removed again. Fram (talk) 12:11, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support: Aarp65 does seem to have some expertise in the field, or at least a lot of experience working on this topic, but the prominence of the multiple "Veteran Editor" badges in their infobox makes me think they might be just trying to create so many tiny little name pages and DAP's so they can bulk up their numbers to increase their "rank" like this is a video game. Of course, all we can do is speculate on what they're doing because they are ignoring so many warnings and invitations to participate in this ANI discussion. I don't want them to be TBAN'd but what else is there left to do? It's disruptive, not productive and makes a lot of work for other editors to fix. Kire1975 (talk) 14:06, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
Pronoun warring by user GemGemB
User:GemGemB forces his preferred pronouns into the article Celia Rose Gooding. It has been she for a while and GemGemB refuses to get consensus for a change. --FMSky (talk) 18:05, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Regardless of anything else, Template:Pronoun notice is not appropriate to place on the article and has now been removed - other issues may still need to be dealt with. — xaosflux Talk 18:21, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I edit conflicted GiantSnowman in the removal of that, see his note below. — xaosflux Talk 18:23, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- This response from FMSky is concerning. GiantSnowman 18:24, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I edit conflicted GiantSnowman in the removal of that, see his note below. — xaosflux Talk 18:23, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- this is a thing i have noticed here for a while. that user who are just returning to the last clean version and reverting users who are ignoring consensus are somehow considered edit warring - how? --FMSky (talk) 18:34, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- what exception under WP:3RRNO are you citing? GiantSnowman 18:38, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Wow, ok, that i didnt know. That basically means as long as a user isnt a completely obvious vandal you arent allowed to revert them more than twice. and it doesnt seem to matter if what they are inserting is constructive or not. Anyway i wont visit this article anymore as it is not worth the time --FMSky (talk) 18:42, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I know it's difficult not to revert more than once (even I do it as well!), but good practice is to take it to the talk page and discuss, per WP:BRD. GiantSnowman 18:44, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Wow, ok, that i didnt know. That basically means as long as a user isnt a completely obvious vandal you arent allowed to revert them more than twice. and it doesnt seem to matter if what they are inserting is constructive or not. Anyway i wont visit this article anymore as it is not worth the time --FMSky (talk) 18:42, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- what exception under WP:3RRNO are you citing? GiantSnowman 18:38, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- this is a thing i have noticed here for a while. that user who are just returning to the last clean version and reverting users who are ignoring consensus are somehow considered edit warring - how? --FMSky (talk) 18:34, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- You have both been edit warring. I have give you both warnings for the same, and taken the article back to what I feel is the last good version (with no comment on which version is correct). If further changes are made I will block. GiantSnowman 18:22, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- so just returning to the status quo is edit warring? --FMSky (talk) 18:24, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, when it violates 3RR. Do one revert, and immediately open a dialogue on talk. If it needs to escalate from there, it's done in discussions and noticeboards, not in the article. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:16, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Doing so repeatedly is, yes. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 19:34, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- so just returning to the status quo is edit warring? --FMSky (talk) 18:24, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- If she says she uses both she/her and they/them (listing them in that order), saying that we should use the latter because she doesn't identify as a woman seems to be a misunderstanding of how nonbinary identities works (and of how MOS:GENDERID, which by its letter does not currently discuss such identities, has generally been taken to interact with them). GemGemB's comment back in August that
When a person has two sets of pronouns, the general guideline is to vary it in speech and text
does not refer to any guideline I'm aware of. Every article I've ever seen on someone who takes multiple sets of pronouns settles on one set. A lot of this is content-dispute stuff, but I'm concerned by GemGemB's apparent willingness to assert things are Wikipedia guidelines when they aren't. I'm optimistic for an amicable resolution here, since, unlike in most pronoun wars, it does look like everyone genuinely has the BLP subject's best interests in mind. But we should get everyone on the same page about what GENDERID does and doesn't say, and what the standard practices are and aren't. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 22:51, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- The editor didn't say it was a Wikipedia guideline -- just a "general guideline," presumably of good writing as the editor sees it. So I don't see that comment as a behavioral issue. CapitalSasha ~ talk 10:52, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
IP user editing against consensus
- 79.79.252.199 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Consensus in WP:WikiProject Television is that the "name" parameter in Template:Infobox television not be used in situations where the value would match the {{PAGENAMEBASE}} value. There is a maintenance category in the project that targets articles that use it when it is not needed: Category:Pages using infobox television with unnecessary name parameter
User 79.79.252.199 has continually pushed placement of this parameter on the following pages:
- Swashbuckle (TV series): [131][132][133]
- Mister Maker: [134][135][136]
- Something Special (TV series): [137][138][139][140]
These edits result in the page being repeatedly added to the maintenance category. In initial changes, I used an edit summary indicating the parameter is unnecessary. Since they continued and I received no indication they were reading the edit summaries, I tried reversion. I also reached out on their talk page ([141]) explaining that we don't use it, and upon further instances, asked if they had a reason for placing it. Reversion and talk page comments all have been ignored with no response, so I tried implementing notices of disruptive editing when reverting and still no response.
I can ignore future entries in the maintenance cat (although others may not), so my issue isn't so much the infobox itself but rather the fact that this shows a level of WP:NOTHERE in that there is Little or no interest in working collaboratively
. I've tried to reach out to the user and gotten nowhere, which to me indicates this user is going to do whatever they wish to do repeatedly, regardless of consensus. ButlerBlog (talk) 18:10, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- This looks a lot like this block editor. I've blocked 79.79.252.199 for disruption/lack of communication/block evasion.-- Ponyobons mots 18:55, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
Bedivere: Insistence on using spurious sources to brand political party "neoliberal" and "conservative"
Bedivere insists[142] on using sprurious sources to brand Amarillos_por_Chile "neoliberal" and "conservative". For context I can also mention that the issue ocurrs also in the Spanish Wikipedia where I have made a relatively detailed account es:Wikipedia:Tablón de anuncios de los bibliotecarios/Portal/Archivo/Miscelánea/Actual#Sucesos en Amarillos por Chile on how a group of users that includes Bedivere have kidnapped the article. This sort of behaviour needs an end. Dentren | Talk 19:01, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I just want to note that Dentren has engaged in cross-wiki disruptive behavior. They've been recently blocked on the Spanish Wikipedia for edit-warring and POV-pushing on the Gabriel Boric article [143]. Most recently, just today, they've been warned not to continue in disrupting behavior (including personal attacks and fallacies) exactly on the Amarillos por Chile article. Just above they say I have "kidnapped" and "a group of users" have "kidnapped" the article. Under such an unwelcoming environment it is very difficult to work collaboratively. I hope some action is taken against his continuing disruptive behaviour. --Bedivere (talk) 19:05, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I haven't looked into this particular party, but the long list under "ideology" in the infobox tells me nothing as a reader except that the party is not socialist. Wouldn't it be better to write in prose what the party stands for and get rid of this useless infobox content? Phil Bridger (talk) 20:22, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Phil Bridger, one thing is for sure: the party can not be hold to stand for whatever it detractors says it does in opinion pieces. Ideologies are to stem either from self-declerations or quality sources. Dentren | Talk 20:39, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Reliable third party sources are always preferable, rather than opinion pieces or self declarations. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:18, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Its ideology was labeled as
Concertaciónism, Liberalism, Conservatism, Social conservatism, Laguism, Neoliberalism, and Moderate reformism
!!! I'd like to see how all those ideologies coexist. I boldly removed the whole ideology line in the infobox. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 22:02, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Its ideology was labeled as
- Reliable third party sources are always preferable, rather than opinion pieces or self declarations. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 21:18, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- Phil Bridger, one thing is for sure: the party can not be hold to stand for whatever it detractors says it does in opinion pieces. Ideologies are to stem either from self-declerations or quality sources. Dentren | Talk 20:39, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
"Neoliberal" and "conservative" are not slurs. Most EU pragmatical parties are de facto neoliberal, even if they consider themselves left or right. "Conservative" does not necessarily means MAGA Trumpists. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:17, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I don't think that anyone is claiming here that they are slurs, but one or both of them may or may not be inaccurate. I really don't get this edit-warring that we see in many articles over this field in the party infobox. A party's ideology can rarely be summed up in such a way, so it's better described in prose. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:40, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
- I agree. It should be better dealt with in prose. I don't have a strong opinion on the topic, despite Dentren's personal attacks and assumptions. Bedivere (talk) 01:09, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Note: Dentren has been just permabanned from the Spanish Wikipedia for their disruptive behavoiur and wikihounding. Since this user continues those disruptive actions here with the same users (Bedivere, Aroblesm, etc), this user should be permabanned from here too, and be globally blocked. --Amitie 10g (talk) 02:28, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Agreed. Please note Spanish Wikipedia admin Farisori, who indefinitely blocked today Dentren in that wiki (locally dubbed "expulsion"), has also called out Dentren's behavior at talk:Gabriel Boric#Iglesias. I ask admins to block Dentren here indefinitely. They've gotten away with their disruptive behavior for too long. Bedivere (talk) 02:44, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I fell compelled here to give some cue to those curious on what is happening in the Spanish Wikipedia. Try Google translate on this [144]. Spanish Wikipedia is each day resembling more and more the Croatian Wikipedia, except the bias has a different political sign. Dentren | Talk 03:53, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- And you'll presumably say exactly the same thing about this Wikipedia, when you've been blocked from here too. Mako001 (C) (T) 🇺🇦 11:13, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I fell compelled here to give some cue to those curious on what is happening in the Spanish Wikipedia. Try Google translate on this [144]. Spanish Wikipedia is each day resembling more and more the Croatian Wikipedia, except the bias has a different political sign. Dentren | Talk 03:53, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Despite what Spanish Wikipedia users are saying above, that list of terms in the Ideology section were very clearly not applicable or appropriate, as they contained just a ridiculous number of contradictory inclusions. Do any of the editors above want to address the quality of the sources raised for the inclusion, as brought up by Dentren? Were they indeed opinion pieces? SilverserenC 13:03, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- They were just translated verbatim from the Spanish Wikipedia, where there is currently a discussion on the issue. I don't oppose removing them all while describing the party's ideology in its own section (which needs creating). Bedivere (talk) 13:34, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Siren seren, yes I can confirm both are opinion pieces. The write of the first is Bárbara Brito, a former student leader of University of Chile Student Federation. She finishes her rant with "let us not forget that it was the Christian Democratic Party that supported the coup of 1973" (Spanish: no olvidamos que fue la DC la que apoyó el Golpe de Estado del 73’.). Roberto Bruna's opinion piece begins with "There is no dubt that the last nine months have been intense and hard..." (Spanish: No cabe duda que los últimos nueves meses han sido intensos y complejos...). Again, using opinion pieces to peyoratively link a party to "conservatism" and "neoliberalism" is unacceptable, that "They were just translated verbatim" is no escuse for Bediveres behaviour, he is an user who by now can be supposed to know the rules of Wikipedia, and actually there are indications his life here begun long before the creation of the current account (such as using advanced shortcuts from day one..).
- They were just translated verbatim from the Spanish Wikipedia, where there is currently a discussion on the issue. I don't oppose removing them all while describing the party's ideology in its own section (which needs creating). Bedivere (talk) 13:34, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I add also that Amarillos is wrongly portrayed in the infobox as a split of both (!) the Christian Democratic Party and the Party for Democracy. Take note on what is happening in the Spanish Wikipedia, this event is a spillover of the bias there. Dentren | Talk 19:21, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- What happens on the Spanish Wikipedia needs to be addressed there, or in extremis at Meta:. We have no jurisdiction over them and they have none over us. Let's concentrate here on the English Wikipedia, of which this noticeboard is part. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:53, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- @Phil Bridger You're correct, what happens on the Spanish Wikipedia should be addressed there. However, Dentren has been actively engaging in disruptive behavior here for several months now, without receiving warnings, despite their obvious despisal of some contents. Bedivere (talk) 00:37, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- What happens on the Spanish Wikipedia needs to be addressed there, or in extremis at Meta:. We have no jurisdiction over them and they have none over us. Let's concentrate here on the English Wikipedia, of which this noticeboard is part. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:53, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I add also that Amarillos is wrongly portrayed in the infobox as a split of both (!) the Christian Democratic Party and the Party for Democracy. Take note on what is happening in the Spanish Wikipedia, this event is a spillover of the bias there. Dentren | Talk 19:21, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Mako001, what you have written is just an unsubstantiated ad-hominem attack. If you want to crititize me do it with facts (and the proper place, here we are discussing Bedivere's insistence on using sprurious sources to provide a pejoritaive descrption of a party that is critical of the politics Bedivere supports (self-declared Boric "fan" and supporter of Gabriel Boric's party Convergencia Social.[145]). tgeorgescu, neoliberal and conservative can be used as slurs and by the context (opinion pieces criticizing a party that idenfies as grouping centre ans centre-left people) it is pejoriative. I recomend you that you read the article Neoliberalism and the sources therein about how it is used as a negative attribute and its modern origin in Chilean political discourse. Dentren | Talk 09:20, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- You are still continuing on ad hominem fallacies and attacks, reinforcing yet again your false claims that I am a sockpuppet. You should be stopped. Endorse site-ban as requested by Amitie 10g. Bedivere (talk) 17:28, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- If you would not have blanked away your open sympathies for Boric and Convergencia Social from your user page I would not have needed to link your sockpuppet investigation as source for the claim. Dentren | Talk 22:14, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- You are still continuing on ad hominem fallacies and attacks, reinforcing yet again your false claims that I am a sockpuppet. You should be stopped. Endorse site-ban as requested by Amitie 10g. Bedivere (talk) 17:28, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
UMNO controversies page edit Disagreement or Outright Vandalism
I'm here to request for a fair and square judgement onto this matter between me and 115.135.197.182 editing the controversies that had been preceding for days on this link shown: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_Malays_National_Organisation&action=history. A few users had out of the majority editors have claim that the statement that i've made isn't related to party actions despite having it majority of party members involved.I request your fair judgement as many people had contributed to this work and seeing it easily removed is not fair to me or other contributors. If you disagree with my statement then please tell me a valid reason not to do so and I'll will not proceed with the revert of the edit. Francabicon (talk) 04:00, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
User:JohnThorne and copyvio again
Last night I deleted some straight copyvio[148] and asked him why he did it at his talk page. Unfortunately by then he'd also added some more copyvio about the same subject to another article[149]. Not quite as blatant but still obvious.[150].
He hasn't edited since. Doug Weller talk 09:02, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Glancing back through his contribs and spotchecking anything which adds 500 bytes or more, it didn't take me long to find this (c.f. source here) this (not a straight copypaste from here, but not far off) this (at least the originals are out of copyright, but the attribution really ought to be more specific, and the translation seems to be copied from somewhere – I can find it in a bunch of places online, but it's not immediately clear who the translator is). These are just the first three examples I checked, and all are problematic. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 13:54, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Added CV revdel template to the article. Yup, straight up copyvio. Jip Orlando (talk) 16:05, 27 October 2022 (UTC)a
- I've partially indefinitely blocked JohnThorne for copyright violations. The edit Doug Weller reverted was a rather blatant paste; looking past all the public domain bible stuff, there's this recent edit to Job 41, which has significant overlap with this cited 2015 book. They've been warned several times (Note this 2021 warning from Diannaa, which is actually for 8 (!) different pages), these sort of copyright violations from someone with 55,000+ edits is unacceptable. I will open a contributor copyright investigation when I have the time. This is not intended to mess with the below proposal, which I have no opinion on. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 20:19, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Proposal to reinstate topic ban
It's not like JohnThorne hasn't been warned before. In 2019, their community topic ban from all pages relating to the Bible was lifted after they promised among other things to "make sure to respect copyrights" in this discussion which Doug Weller links above. This recent edit, which Doug calls out specifically above, is a straight copypaste of text here; an egregious copyright violation which suggests that they may still not understand the importance of copyright on Wikipedia. And Caeciliusinhorto-public has found more examples. I suggest we reinstate the indefinite topic ban from all pages relating to the Bible, broadly construed, since the user has lapsed from at least one of the promises they made in order to get it lifted. Copyright is important. Bishonen | tålk 15:37, 27 October 2022 (UTC).
- Support as proposer. Bishonen | tålk 15:37, 27 October 2022 (UTC).
- Comment. Okay, as stated already, JohnThorne is not a new user, and at least a token attempt to avoid copyvio is not hard and is certainly expected. But I'm not sure I'd call this an "egregious" case. It's a press release - in other words, the exact kind of thing that the copyright holders *want* to be shared widely. If anything, they'd love it if it is repeated verbatim without attribution. Basically, on the scale of copyvios, this is just about the least bad kind. It is, granted, problematic for a different reason - neutrality & overreliance on primary sources - but I'm sure that if asked, the writer of the press release would be super-happy to release the press release under an extremely permissive license or even public domain it. Now, granted, if someone is sloppy in the "harmless" cases, it's still a warning sign that they may be being sloppy in the harmful cases as well... but... I'm still not super-comfortable with going for such a steep penalty on this particular violation unless a more serious recent copyvio problem can be found. SnowFire (talk) 16:16, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I think you are rather missing an important point. Of course the publishers of press releases "love it if it is repeated verbatim". However, do they love it if it is posted by someone who claims to be granting the universal right to repeat it not verbatim, but modified and rewritten in ways which totally oppose the intention of those publishers, or to use it for any purpose whatsoever, including promoting the products of their competitors? I think not, and I think that is precisely why press releases commonly include copyright notices. You say that you are "sure" that the writer of the press release would be "super-happy" to "release the press release under an extremely permissive license or even public domain it". In that case, why do press release publishers never do that? Precisely because they do not wish to have their work used in ways contrary to their intentions. In any case, whether that is correct or not, it is not for us to make that decision on their behalf: unless they explicitly state that their work may be reused in any form whatsoever, modified or unmodified, for any purpose whatever, then we have no right whatsoever to publish their work accompanied by a declaration that we are releasing it under those terms. JBW (talk) 19:54, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Did you see the old version of the article? It really was not a substantial copyvio, just a summary of the basic idea of the movie, about as bad as people who wrongly copy user-submitted IMDb TV episode summaries into Wikipedia thinking the licenses are compatible. The nature of PR stuff is that there is really no way to twist it into something that the authors wouldn't like that isn't also writing entirely new content (not a copyvio then). We already reserve the right to include sourced criticism that Tim Mahoney is a loon. We're allowed to use common sense here. SnowFire (talk) 20:16, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Please see the examples posted by Moneytrees and Caecilius above if you want more clear cut evidence. This is beyond sourced criticism and summary of the source. I'm afraid that I am unable to understand how you think that this is an unserious issue, and how this isn't really a copyright concern we should be worried about. Sennecaster (Chat) 15:15, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- You'll note that I didn't actually !vote, I was waiting for JohnThorne to say something. If he isn't willing to commit to avoiding copyright issues in the future, then that is a serious issue, and if we want to ban him for other more serious copyright issues per Moneytrees, fine. I am merely saying that this particular edit that JohnThorne got in trouble for, while a copyvio, is just about the least harmful kind of copyvio out there, and I'd really rather be stringing him for something else. (Of course, there's something to be said for "straw that broke the camel's back" type issues where even a seemingly minor violation is enough.) SnowFire (talk)
- Please see the examples posted by Moneytrees and Caecilius above if you want more clear cut evidence. This is beyond sourced criticism and summary of the source. I'm afraid that I am unable to understand how you think that this is an unserious issue, and how this isn't really a copyright concern we should be worried about. Sennecaster (Chat) 15:15, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Did you see the old version of the article? It really was not a substantial copyvio, just a summary of the basic idea of the movie, about as bad as people who wrongly copy user-submitted IMDb TV episode summaries into Wikipedia thinking the licenses are compatible. The nature of PR stuff is that there is really no way to twist it into something that the authors wouldn't like that isn't also writing entirely new content (not a copyvio then). We already reserve the right to include sourced criticism that Tim Mahoney is a loon. We're allowed to use common sense here. SnowFire (talk) 20:16, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I think you are rather missing an important point. Of course the publishers of press releases "love it if it is repeated verbatim". However, do they love it if it is posted by someone who claims to be granting the universal right to repeat it not verbatim, but modified and rewritten in ways which totally oppose the intention of those publishers, or to use it for any purpose whatsoever, including promoting the products of their competitors? I think not, and I think that is precisely why press releases commonly include copyright notices. You say that you are "sure" that the writer of the press release would be "super-happy" to "release the press release under an extremely permissive license or even public domain it". In that case, why do press release publishers never do that? Precisely because they do not wish to have their work used in ways contrary to their intentions. In any case, whether that is correct or not, it is not for us to make that decision on their behalf: unless they explicitly state that their work may be reused in any form whatsoever, modified or unmodified, for any purpose whatever, then we have no right whatsoever to publish their work accompanied by a declaration that we are releasing it under those terms. JBW (talk) 19:54, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support per Bishonen. John (talk) 17:14, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oppose. Wrong sanction. A topic ban is not the correct way of dealing with an editor who has issues with copyright. Copyright issues are not specific to the articles or topic they are editing in, creating copyright violations is a general problem caused by the way they are editing - there is no reason to assume that copyright issues won't reoccur if they start editing somewhere else. A partial block from article space (and maybe draft space) until the user can write an unblock request that convinces an admin that they have read copyright policies and understand how copyright works on wikipedia seems like it would do a better job of addressing the problems here. 192.76.8.80 (talk) 17:51, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Given that they were banned before for copyvio issues it seems unlikely this will happen. Doug Weller talk 17:55, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oppose as mentioned above, the wrong solution. If someone refuses to respect copyright, and has been talked to about it a LOT and is theoretically supposed to be fully aware of all the copyright policies having discussed them before and acknowledged them and still commits copyright violations, there's only one solution. An indefinite block. It can be up to an unblocking admin if they make a case that they'll never do it again, but a topic ban or temp block isn't a solution to this problem. Canterbury Tail talk 18:45, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oppose. The editor has been receiving copyright warnings since 2011, and has not been stopped by a topic ban. Why should it be any different this time? We have really gone beyond that point. A partial block, as suggested by the IP editor, would be a much better approach, but in my opinion Canterbury Tail is right: the appropriate step is an indefinite total block. (I assume Canterbury Tail meant a total, not partial, block.) When an editor has, over a period of eleven years, shown that they either cannot or will not follow such a simple precept as "don't copy stuff and post it into Wikipedia", no matter what anyone says to them, and when a lesser sanction has failed to get them to change, my experience over the years is that providing yet another lesser sanction almost always doesn't work, and the only thing which has any significant chance of success is realising that the alternative to changing their ways is not to be able to edit at all. JBW (talk) 19:54, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oppose, propose community ban or at least indefinite block to prevent further violations. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 22:14, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support, copyright is serious as per above. Andre🚐 23:40, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support on top of the CBAN below. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:02, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Comment I don't oppose reinstating the TBAN, but as I said in the CBAN proposal below JohnThorne does not appear to be a productive editor in any other topic, and if the problem is that they do not properly understand (or care about) wikipedia's copyright and plagiarism rules, then I don't hold out much hope that they would magically become one if they started editing in that topic. So either the TBAN would have the effect of a CBAN, or JohnThorne would need to be carefully monitored in whatever area the decided to start editing. Unless there's some area where JohnThorne is a net positive, and a more narrowly tailored sanction such as a TBAN would allow them to be a productive editor without copyvio issues, a CBAN just seems like a more straightforward solution for the community as a whole. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 08:48, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
Proposal for community ban
The wage for copyright violations is a block until the violator learns and improves their conduct, and the wage for a serial violator who does not improve, cannot improve, or will not improve is a ban. JohnThorne has already unhelpfully created a lot of cleanup work for others to do, and we should thus endeavor to keep this particular Sisyphean boulder as small as possible. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 22:14, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support as proposer. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 22:14, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support Someone who cannot understand copyright should not be allowed to edit anywhere on the project, period. A topic ban is insufficient and will only prolong the problem. Enough is enough. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:36, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oppose. They have already been blocked, a community ban is excessive and doesn't add anything useful at this point. 192.76.8.80 (talk) 23:03, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- What a community ban adds is that it makes it more difficult for the user to return to editing. Any single admin can lift an indef block, but it take a vote by the community to overturn a CBAN. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:11, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I know what a CBAN is, I just don't think it's necessary here, especially now they are already blocked. No admin with an ounce of common sense is going to unilaterally overturn a block for copyright violations applied to an editor with an extensive history of problems without some kind of evidence that there won't be more issues going forward. This editor is going to have a really difficult time overturning this as a normal block, as noted by Doug Weller in response to my initial p-block suggestion. 192.76.8.80 (talk) 23:23, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- They have, and they may again. See ClemRutter as an example. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 23:59, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I don't think that's a good example, Mike Peel's unblock was an appalling misuse of the tools in an involved situation (i.e. unblocking their friend) that got them brought here and censured. 192.76.8.80 (talk) 00:09, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- They have, and they may again. See ClemRutter as an example. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 23:59, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I know what a CBAN is, I just don't think it's necessary here, especially now they are already blocked. No admin with an ounce of common sense is going to unilaterally overturn a block for copyright violations applied to an editor with an extensive history of problems without some kind of evidence that there won't be more issues going forward. This editor is going to have a really difficult time overturning this as a normal block, as noted by Doug Weller in response to my initial p-block suggestion. 192.76.8.80 (talk) 23:23, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- CBans are also a licence to revert any further edits by them without the three-revert rule applying. This includes further copyvio regardless of how clear-cut it is. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v a little blue Bori 23:26, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- @Jéské Couriano There is no requirement to ban someone to gain the edit waring exemption. WP:3RRNO point 3 applies to sock edits from both banned and blocked users. 192.76.8.80 (talk) 23:34, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- In practise that exemption's only really fully applied in controversial areas (i.e. DS/GS). Outside those areas, it applies to banned users far more consistently than it does for blocked users. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v a little blue Bori 23:39, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- One of the standard actions taken when a sock is blocked at WP:SPI is G5'ing all their creations and rolling back their edits. I don't see any evidence or prior behaviour that would indicate sock puppetry is a realistic outcome here, and if they do start socking they'll be banned under WP:3X fairly quickly anyway. At this point a community ban seems to me to be adding sanctions for the sake of adding sanctions, rather than serving a useful purpose. 192.76.8.80 (talk) 23:50, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- In practise that exemption's only really fully applied in controversial areas (i.e. DS/GS). Outside those areas, it applies to banned users far more consistently than it does for blocked users. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v a little blue Bori 23:39, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- @Jéské Couriano There is no requirement to ban someone to gain the edit waring exemption. WP:3RRNO point 3 applies to sock edits from both banned and blocked users. 192.76.8.80 (talk) 23:34, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- That's a partial block and can be overturned by another admin. Thus it is necessary to establish a full community ban to ensure no more copyvio occurs. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:48, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- What a community ban adds is that it makes it more difficult for the user to return to editing. Any single admin can lift an indef block, but it take a vote by the community to overturn a CBAN. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:11, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support unless there is evidence they understand the problem and will commit to stopping doing that. Andre🚐 23:42, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support - Recidivist behavior warrants it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:01, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support ban, unfortunately. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously, even if no one else on the Internet does. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:48, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support - a year-long tban has been tried before. After a successful appeal and reassuring the community that they now understand our rules on copyright and plagiarism, JohnThorne has apparently returned to the same problems. As the vast vast majority of JohnThorne's edits appear to be bible-related, I expect that this will have the same practical effect as the TBAN proposed by Bishonen, but the CBAN is the appropriate sanction here – given the scale of JohnThorne's problems based on my checking, I don't have any reasonable belief that the problem wouldn't just reoccur if he took up editing some other topic. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 08:38, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support per Caeciliusinhorto. ~~ lol1VNIO👻 (I made a mistake? talk to me) 10:02, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Suppport also per Caeciliusinhorto. I see no reason to think his behavior will change. Doug Weller talk 15:26, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Support "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me". Lesser sanctions were tried before, with assurances for improved behavior regarding copyvios. That didn't fix the problem. --Jayron32 15:47, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Suppport per above.-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 01:13, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Smorkach 24: old habits die hard
Smorkach 24 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Despite several warnings and two blocks, the latter of which was lifted by an admin after a discussion with them (see their talk page: [151]), Smorkach 24 haven't improved their behavior (for the previous episodes, see [152] and [153]). They have kept modifying content without proper sources, even though they have been asked not to do so several times ([154], [155]). All of these edits seem to be made with the goal of increasing the listed numbers of equipment of the Azerbaijani armed forces. It is obvious that leniency hasn't worked at all, so I think it is time to take some more decisive action. BilletsMauves€500 13:20, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I have checked the editing history, and while at one time it may have looked like a good-faith editor not understanding about sources, the accumulated evidence makes it abundantly clear that this is not so. It is an editor knowingly and deliberately falsifying information to boost the appearance of the Azerbaijani armed forces. They have been given chances to change, and clearly don't intend to do so. I have blocked indefinitely, and I would require the editor to provide very convincing reasons before I would consider unblocking. JBW (talk) 20:38, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
- I'd also suggest, at a minimum, they accept an indefinite topic-ban from the AA2 topic area as part of any unblock condition, assuming they weren't already under one. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v a little blue Bori 23:28, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
Extraordinary2; battleground behavior and hounding
Extraordinary2 (talk · contribs · logs)
This user seems to only be here to pick fights. Stemming from an extremely minor content dispute at 2022 Florida gubernatorial election and from a reversion of unsourced content in a BLP [156] (in which both issues were resolved mostly in their favor [157]), Extraordinary2 has decided to Wikistalk me to other unrelated articles I've created and insert really obvious grammatical errors ([158][159][160]). After telling the user to not follow me to other articles [161], they state "so long as you refuse to follow precedent, answer questions or reply on your own talk pg, and make incorrect edits I will change them" [162]. They also engage in the same type of battleground behavior here, where Bluerules has displayed exceptional patience. Extraordinary2's my-way-or-the-highway-mentality, to the point they can't even take an ounce of an opposing viewpoint, is fundamentally incompatible with Wikipedia. Curbon7 (talk) 05:14, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- [163] This user just does not seem to get how to work cooperatively, and lashes out over seemingly minor disputes. Curbon7 (talk) 05:37, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Rather the case is I went to Curbon's talk page and tried to resolve the differences. Also asked for a poll to be started. There's not enough interest for the election talk page to be effective.
- Curbon is incorrect. It is revising history to leave out pertinent information about how Charlie Crist was both a governor and ran in another election for Florida governor. There's no basis for leaving it out. It calls into question complete and effective reporting and also bias. Bluerules is similarly wrong about how eligibility rules are described and covered. Extraordinary2 (talk) 05:39, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Bulldawg thanked me three weeks ago for contributing to a page. Extraordinary2 (talk) 05:44, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Your own words, Curbon7, the issues were resolved in my favor. Thus you were incorrect. Extraordinary2 (talk) 05:47, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- (uninvolved editor) @Extraordinary2 This might be a little bit off-topic, but I am just very confused about the discussions that you opened at WP:DRN. The discussion '2022 Florida Gubernatorial Election' have another user stated in the 'Users involved' section although you mentioned Curbon7 in 'Dispute overview'. In addition, the template at the top of the noticeboard states
We cannot accept disputes that are already under discussion at other content or conduct dispute resolution forums or in decision-making processes such as Requests for comments, Articles for deletion, or Requested moves
, which your filing at DRN would have counted as WP:FORUMSHOPPING. Jolly1253 (talk) 07:45, 28 October 2022 (UTC) - Looking through the edit history of the page mentioned here, it seems that @Vizzinifezzikwomanchuck has also reverted Extraordinary2's edit, so I am just going to ping them here. Jolly1253 (talk) 07:50, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- DR or dispute resolution may well be underutilized. Didn't see all of the noticeboards before; I suppose a dr forum or board would be helpful. It's not very common to find resolution with simple techniques. Was trying to brainstorm a little. Extraordinary2 (talk) 08:01, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- It is also not easy to find resolution if one of the parties is mostly telling another party how many ways they are wrong. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:37, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- DR or dispute resolution may well be underutilized. Didn't see all of the noticeboards before; I suppose a dr forum or board would be helpful. It's not very common to find resolution with simple techniques. Was trying to brainstorm a little. Extraordinary2 (talk) 08:01, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- (uninvolved editor) @Extraordinary2 This might be a little bit off-topic, but I am just very confused about the discussions that you opened at WP:DRN. The discussion '2022 Florida Gubernatorial Election' have another user stated in the 'Users involved' section although you mentioned Curbon7 in 'Dispute overview'. In addition, the template at the top of the noticeboard states
- Your own words, Curbon7, the issues were resolved in my favor. Thus you were incorrect. Extraordinary2 (talk) 05:47, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Extraordinary2's contention over how eligibility rules are described and covered derives from an assertion that other media outlets haven't said a college athlete "used" his last year of eligibility at a certain school. I have provided sources to demonstrate "used" is present in this context. Zappe started playing college football at one school and used his last year of eligibility at another. That's what happened. Bluerules (talk) 17:11, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Wow that was a tough read at your talk page. This level of combativeness rises to a level that makes it tough for anybody to work with. They need to learn to actually work with others instead of trying to wear others down and bruteforce their way into their preferred version of an article being the version that stands. Hey man im josh (talk) 03:01, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- Bulldawg thanked me three weeks ago for contributing to a page. Extraordinary2 (talk) 05:44, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Extraordinary2 filed two cases at DRN. I closed both of them as not properly discussed. The Bailey Zappe dispute had not been discussed at Talk:Bailey Zappe, the article talk page, only at User talk:Bluerules. Discussing an article content dispute at the article talk page may seem like an overly precise rule, but it has its purposes, both because a third editor may be watching and may take part in the dispute, either as a mediator or as another party, and in order to document the past dispute in the archive in the event of future disagreements. (Also, the discussion on the user talk page was unnecessarily combative, but that is a separate point.) The Florida election dispute had not been discussed adequately, and Extraordinary did not include and notify Curbon7. User:Extraordinary2 - If you are filing multiple disputes, and having multiple disputes closed, and being reported at ANI, maybe you are being confrontational. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:37, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- I think it's pretty clear there's no "maybe" about them being confrontational. Hey man im josh (talk) 03:02, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
User:Accassidy is WP:NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia
- Accassidy (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Accassidy has been repeatedly warned on their talk page, by five separate users, for disruptive editing over the past year. Diffs for the most disruptive or egregious edits, although there are a number of others:
- Unencyclopedic, OR commentary on governments in article space
- Bizarre commentary on the Atlantic slave trade in article space
- Unencyclopedic commentary on WWII in article space
- Opinionated commentary on British politician in article space
- On British Pakistanis
- Disruption to the lead of a British politician bio
- Bizarre comment in article space about a Nigerian-British footballer having no Irish ancestry
- Opinionated comment on the definition of racism that should apply to humans, in article space
As noted, they have been cautioned several times over the course of a year and have not stopped their disruption, some of which is probably linked to racism. Today, they stated on their talk page that "it would appear that you do wish this website not to be educational but indoctrinational." Clearly, they are WP:NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia and are possibly here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. I will go and add the necessary notice to their talk page now. —Ganesha811 (talk) 15:02, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- I've seen enough, pushing their own personal racial and political opinions and trying to right great wrongs. Completely incompatible. Indeffed. My only outstanding question is how did this not happen months ago. Canterbury Tail talk 15:19, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for your quick action. It's too bad that they appear to have gone incurably off the rails, because it looks like they made substantial and useful contributions to many butterfly-related articles in the past, as well as productive contributions on a few other topics. C'est la vie. —Ganesha811 (talk) 15:23, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Maybe, but I'm not willing to support clear racism and BLP violations on the basis that "they're good in this area that needs attention" like some may argue. If you're not good in all of the project, you're good in none of it, especially when the not good bits are so bad. They can try an argue it in an unblock request if they like, but I can't see any admin unblocking after loads of those edits. Canterbury Tail talk 15:27, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Oh, I agree entirely. I'm just expressing sadness that someone who at one point was clearly a productive contributor either became a racist or felt comfortable enough being a racist that they decided to stop hiding it. —Ganesha811 (talk) 15:30, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Maybe, but I'm not willing to support clear racism and BLP violations on the basis that "they're good in this area that needs attention" like some may argue. If you're not good in all of the project, you're good in none of it, especially when the not good bits are so bad. They can try an argue it in an unblock request if they like, but I can't see any admin unblocking after loads of those edits. Canterbury Tail talk 15:27, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks for your quick action. It's too bad that they appear to have gone incurably off the rails, because it looks like they made substantial and useful contributions to many butterfly-related articles in the past, as well as productive contributions on a few other topics. C'est la vie. —Ganesha811 (talk) 15:23, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Good block. Several WP:HID problems, generally disruptive, clear BLP vios in cases even where racism wasn't clear. This is not someone who has the mission of the 'pedia at heart. --Jayron32 15:42, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- I declined their unblock request. Some of those edits turned my stomach. --Yamla (talk) 18:14, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah they're deeply deeply wrong. Canterbury Tail talk 18:23, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- I declined their unblock request. Some of those edits turned my stomach. --Yamla (talk) 18:14, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
Edit warring, adding original research, persistent disruption, attacking and harassment of another editor
- 184.175.12.75 (talk · contribs). See [164]; [165]; [166]; [167]; [168]; this edit summary [169], and [170]. That a depiction of female genitals is gratuitous in an article on the human back is just the most recent indication of WP:CIR, or some such. 2601:19E:4180:6D50:4D94:1769:7F0B:FB12 (talk) 16:02, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- I've given them a 31 hour block. They can troll elsewhere. RickinBaltimore (talk) 16:05, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
Undiscussed mass article merging and redirection by BilledMammal
BilledMammal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has unilaterally decided to mass merge and redirect hundreds (perhaps thousands) of articles on insect species and genera to higher level ranks (i.e. genera and tribes) without discussion. Admittedly there are a lot of insect species stubs with very little content, but a mass action like this should have been discussed beforehand to gain consensus for it prior to implementation. This has been previously discussed at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Ongoing_disaster:_a_heads-up Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:51, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Note: I have rolled back the lot as a highly disruptive and ill-advised (or rather, non-advised) mass change against established and well-known consensus. Not sure we need any ANI action here as the damage is undone and I assume BilledMammal will agree to discuss this kind of thing henceforward. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:10, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Most or at least a lot of them seem to be sourced (only?) to Bezark, Larry G. A Photographic Catalog of the Cerambycidae of the World, which is now a deadlink. Is it considered unreliable? Mccapra (talk) 17:55, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- No discussion at WikiProject insects that I can see. Mccapra (talk) 17:56, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- None at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Beetles either. Bezark is an academic entomologist [171], so I would think he is reliable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:59, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Larry Bezark migrated the entirety of his site to a different URL ([172]), but it is all still online, and all very authoritative. The dead URL is part of the text of several thousand articles, changing them all will take a very long time. Dyanega (talk) 18:15, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Larry Bezark's site was used for long-horned beetle articles and I updated the refs for many of them when I went through them systematically earlier this year. Loopy30 (talk) 18:30, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- If there's a systematic correspondence between the two sets of urls Wikipedia:Link_rot/URL_change_requests, can probably use a bot to fix all the links. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:33, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Larry Bezark's site was used for long-horned beetle articles and I updated the refs for many of them when I went through them systematically earlier this year. Loopy30 (talk) 18:30, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Larry Bezark migrated the entirety of his site to a different URL ([172]), but it is all still online, and all very authoritative. The dead URL is part of the text of several thousand articles, changing them all will take a very long time. Dyanega (talk) 18:15, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- None at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Beetles either. Bezark is an academic entomologist [171], so I would think he is reliable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:59, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- I will point out that BilledMammal has participated at an Arbcom sanctioned discussion at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale, but that is still open as best I can tell, so any implication of taking mass action from that is not appropriate. I know there was a recent discussion on some page (can't find but was within last 2 months) about the mass creation of fish species articles which was pointing away from mass creation of similar articles (minimal facts, sourced to the same source), but I don't BilledMammal participated in that. --Masem (t) 18:12, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- The discussion Masem refers to was on village pump (linked here). That discussion was instigated by BilledMammal when they had suggested that a user "request permission" to continue their low rate production of stub fish articles (all notable species). Loopy30 (talk) 18:38, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)Two things 1) Someone doesn't need permission to follow guidance we already give in our WP:PAGs. Non-notable topics with closely related notable articles or lists are often merged into those pages or If a page is very short (consisting of perhaps only one or two sentences) and is, in your opinion as editor, unlikely to be expanded within a "reasonable" (unspecified) amount of time, it often makes sense to merge it into a page on a broader topic. but "upmerging a bunch of stubby articles into a list" is quite literally the guidance we give people as part of normal editing practices. 2) The OP is being a bit disingenuous when they say "this has been previously discussed". That thread was started less than 30 minutes before this one. That is not "has been previously discussed". Given that no attempt has been made to reach a consensus on this one way or another, and that the user being dragged here is quite literally doing what guidance tells us to do. So given that A) No real attempt has been made to have a discussion and B) The user is LITERALLY DOING what the rules tell them to do, I am at a loss as to why you want to see them blocked, banned, or whatever. --Jayron32 18:17, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- It was my understanding that an article for a species was, by definition, notable, no matter how short. Species articles include unique features - especially categories they belong to - that are lost if they are merged. Dyanega (talk) 18:23, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Consider just one example of one of the pages this user deleted: Berosus undatus. It contains references, wikidata links, taxonomic synonyms, and categories, all of which should be maintained but would not appear in the genus-rank article. Dyanega (talk) 18:29, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Not according to WP:NSPECIES. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:42, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Today I learnt
Their names and at least a brief description must have been published in a reliable academic publication to be recognized as correct or valid
. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:16, 28 October 2022 (UTC)- Not only does WP:NSPECIES state that species articles are "generally" kept at AfD, in actual practice "all" (yes, 100% in the last 6.5 yrs) of the valid species articles nominated for deletion have been kept (see here). Loopy30 (talk) 19:21, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Is this meant as a reply to me? I don't see the relevance. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:48, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- No, it was a response to Gråbergs Gråa Sångn, whose addition to Dyanega's comment seemed ambiguous, if not the inverse of what they might have intended to convey. Not sure of the connection of your original comment though, unless you are just trying to support the notability of all species articles based on what you have "just learnt today. Loopy30 (talk) 20:02, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- I meant nothing more or less than I said. Best way to avoid confusion is to reply to the right comment. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 22:07, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- No, it was a response to Gråbergs Gråa Sångn, whose addition to Dyanega's comment seemed ambiguous, if not the inverse of what they might have intended to convey. Not sure of the connection of your original comment though, unless you are just trying to support the notability of all species articles based on what you have "just learnt today. Loopy30 (talk) 20:02, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- @Loopy30 ...actually, I know of at least one beetle species article that was deleted 6 years ago (Syagrus atricolor, if you must know), but it was not listed on the Organisms deletion sorting archive but only on the Animal deletion sorting archive. Not sure if this might be an exception to the rule or not though. Monster Iestyn (talk) 19:52, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Interesting. The original description appears to have not been subsequently recognised by any other authority after Pic (self-) published it. As such, it was effectively not a valid species and not covered by NSPECIES. Even if it was kept, it is likely to have been synonymized with another species eventually and them turned into a redirect. (As an aside, this shows the value of sourcing to a taxonomic database that has sorted out what is recognised as valid or not.) Loopy30 (talk) 20:44, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- And in 2019, Zoia finally published his revision of African Eumolpinae which reclassified Syagrus atricolor as Afroeurydemus atricollis, facts that are now reflected in Wikipedia. Loopy30 (talk) 21:04, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Interesting as that may be (I don't want to go on a tangent), my point was that AddWittyNameHere (unless I am mistaken) appeared to have overlooked that the Animal archive has pages not covered by the Organisms archive ...and this may also be true for plants, bacteria and other organisms if they have their own separate deletion sorting archives. That's something to look through to confirm if species articles truly have a ~100% keep rate as per WP:NSPECIES. Monster Iestyn (talk) 21:47, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, accurate stats over a wide range of kingdoms/phyla would be beneficial to inform other editors of the rate at which species articles are kept. (Sorry for going down the Syagrus sp. tangent, I find Wikipedia is full of such hidden rabbit holes.) Loopy30 (talk) 22:41, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- (No worries, I would have loved to talk a bit on it too, but then I remembered this was not the place for it) Monster Iestyn (talk) 00:17, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, accurate stats over a wide range of kingdoms/phyla would be beneficial to inform other editors of the rate at which species articles are kept. (Sorry for going down the Syagrus sp. tangent, I find Wikipedia is full of such hidden rabbit holes.) Loopy30 (talk) 22:41, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Interesting as that may be (I don't want to go on a tangent), my point was that AddWittyNameHere (unless I am mistaken) appeared to have overlooked that the Animal archive has pages not covered by the Organisms archive ...and this may also be true for plants, bacteria and other organisms if they have their own separate deletion sorting archives. That's something to look through to confirm if species articles truly have a ~100% keep rate as per WP:NSPECIES. Monster Iestyn (talk) 21:47, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Is this meant as a reply to me? I don't see the relevance. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:48, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Not only does WP:NSPECIES state that species articles are "generally" kept at AfD, in actual practice "all" (yes, 100% in the last 6.5 yrs) of the valid species articles nominated for deletion have been kept (see here). Loopy30 (talk) 19:21, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- That is an essay, not a guideline. If the various species projects want it to be a guideline, they should make an RfC on it. JoelleJay (talk) 21:03, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Today I learnt
- Given that WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES has been treated as a de facto guideline encouraging the creation of individual articles for all recent species for at least a decade (probably further back) - this was an obviously controversial mass change. I don't advocate any action against BilledMammal but that was a dumb move that had no chance of going unchallenged and shouldn't have been implemented at this scale. For further attempts, get consensus. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:31, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- For the record, when I suggested a block, I meant as a temporary measure to prevent ongoing merges until someone got their attention. Dyanega (talk) 18:41, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- There wasn't ongoing merges at the time that this was discovered by Elmidae. BilledMammal had stopped editing close to 6 hours ago. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:49, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- OUTCOMES is absolutely not an allowance to create article on the belief they will be kept. OUTCOMES allows for existing article to be kept but still allows merges and AFD to be performed. Masem (t) 19:59, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- For the record, when I suggested a block, I meant as a temporary measure to prevent ongoing merges until someone got their attention. Dyanega (talk) 18:41, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- It was my understanding that an article for a species was, by definition, notable, no matter how short. Species articles include unique features - especially categories they belong to - that are lost if they are merged. Dyanega (talk) 18:23, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- The rate at which this was done is impressive - for example, at 01:57 at 28 October 2022 they redirected 25 articles in one minute, or one every ~2.5 seconds. Is this an unauthorized bot run? Spicy (talk) 20:10, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- There is no record of 01:57 at 28 October. Perhaps you meant 01:37? — Nythar (💬-🎃) 20:22, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- That's correct, sorry. Spicy (talk) 20:25, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- What you don't see is the time to set up those redirects before I press "publish changes" in rapid sequence. Entirely manually. BilledMammal (talk) 20:23, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- There is no record of 01:57 at 28 October. Perhaps you meant 01:37? — Nythar (💬-🎃) 20:22, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
OUTCOMES in not a policy or guideline, it's just an observation of happenings at AFD. And such a summary is generally for individually created articles. Mass-creation or mass major modification of articles certainly needs prior discussion as a minimum. North8000 (talk) 20:26, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- These mergers were appropriate per WP:MERGEREASON. Look at the last five articles I redirected (four created between 00:40, 3 May 2014 and 00:43, 3 May 2014, the other created at 22:58, 2 May 2014), for the reason
Duplicates content at Cotyclytus
: - The only information these give is the name, that it was a species of beetle in the family Cerambycidae, and who by and when it was described. The same information that is given at Cotyclytus. How is removing the duplication of information controversial?
- The mergers are similar. The last five articles I merged (created between 23:30, 1 May 2014 and 23:34, 1 May 2014) are:
- These give the name, that it was a species of beetle in the family Cerambycidae, who by and when it was described, the range, and in one case a list of subspecies. The first three were already available at Sphallotrichus, and I created a table to contain the rest. How is replacing boilerplate micro-stubs with a table containing all of the same information controversial?
- BilledMammal (talk) 20:37, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Because the merge destroys unique species-specific information that is not being exported to the genus page. For your last set of species, for example, for Sphallotrichus puncticolle you deleted Taxonbar|from=Q16758751 and Category:Beetles described in 1870; for Sphallotrichus sculpticolle you deleted Taxonbar|from=Q14718823 and Category:Beetles described in 1852; for Sphallotrichus sericeotomentosus you deleted Taxonbar|from=Q14718824 and Category:Beetles described in 1995; for Sphallotrichus setosus you deleted Taxonbar|from=Q14718821 and Category:Beetles described in 1824; for Sphallotrichus spadiceus you deleted Taxonbar|from=Q14718818 and Category:Beetles described in 1892. By merging articles you are removing links to Wikidata, and wiping out members of viable categories. For other articles your bulk edits merged, you deleted lists of synonyms, you deleted categories defined by geographic distributions, and categories linked to authorships. In addition to removing synonyms, you also removed the parentheses around authors' names that indicate that a species was described originally in a different genus. That's a lot of valuable information being lost to your arbitrary merges. Please stop. Dyanega (talk) 20:56, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Other information removed included images of the the article subjects. Examples at Ochraethes viridiventris, Coleoxestia sanguinipes, Ochraethes palmeri, Ochraethes brevicornis Criodion tomentosum, Ochraethes citrinus, Ochraethes obliquus, Ochraethes pollinosus, Ochraethes tulensis, Ochraethes z-littera, Chlorida festiva and Criodion angustatum) Loopy30 (talk) 22:29, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Valuable to species project editors and...who else? Wikipedia is not a directory/database, and even less so a meta-directory. JoelleJay (talk) 21:11, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Working through that list:
parentheses around authors' names that indicate that a species was described originally in a different genus
- I wasn't aware that was deliberate. They can easily be preserved in the merged articles.wiping out members of viable categories
- The categories could be left in the redirectsTaxonbar
- Wikidata is not permitted in article text, and we are writing for the reader, who isn't going to benefit from having to go microstub by microstub to look at all species within a genus just so that we can include a few external links.lists of synonyms
- Can be included in the merged article.
- I've done these for Sphallotrichus; given your concerns can easily be addressed, I believe the correct response would have been to ask me to address them, rather than misusing rollback and dragging me to ANI. BilledMammal (talk) 21:16, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- No, the correct thing would be for you to discuss this sort of bulk editing and achieve consensus from - for example - the Wikiproject Tree of Life people whose hard work you're deleting, BEFORE you go deleting it. Again, all species articles are considered notable, by definition. You'd find little support, as noted above, given several existing policies. Additionally, your tabular format only works when ALL of the species in a genus have limited amounts of information, including limited lists of synonyms. Look at Sternotomis pulchra for an example of just how impractical that sort of "one size fits all" approach is likely to get. Dyanega (talk) 21:27, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- I didn't merge that article? No one is suggesting that every article on a species should be merged into its genus.
- I'm also not deleting anyone's hard work; the information is being kept? BilledMammal (talk) 21:28, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- You don't think it is a lot of work to find and attach the correct Wikidata links to articles? You don't think it's hard work to create redirects for long lists of synonymic names? One of the articles you merged had a pile of species-level redirects that suddenly pointed to a genus article instead of a species article (e.g. [173]). That's not trivial, and you STILL seem to be avoiding taking the responsible step and discussing this approach with the editors who are most directly involved and getting consensus that your approach is an improvement. Dyanega (talk) 22:02, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Given that it took the creator approximately one minute to create each of these articles, no, I don't think
it is a lot of work
. And we don't create articles just so that we can create redirects to them. BilledMammal (talk) 22:05, 28 October 2022 (UTC)- When did I say I was talking about the creator? I'm talking about all the editors who worked to improve these crappy stubs AFTER they were created. A high proportion of the articles you merged were created by a single user, Wilhelmina Wil, who probably shouldn't have done bulk stub creation on that scale. But, instead of merging/deleting those stubs, many editors took the time and energy to do things like adding Wikidata links and lists of synonyms, and adding categories, and fixing spelling, and all sorts of other labor that you're wiping clean (e.g, [174]). If these had been articles created and never improved after their creation, maybe you could claim that no one's work was being lost, but that's simply not true for many of these articles at this stage of the game. Dyanega (talk) 22:24, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- We've already established that we can keep all of that except the Wikidata, due to there being a consensus against including it, so what is your point?
- Also, the amount of effort that went into creating an article, regardless of whether you think it is
a lot of work
or not, is irrelevant to whether it should exist as a stand-alone article. BilledMammal (talk) 22:28, 28 October 2022 (UTC)- No, we haven't, and you haven't - you ignored Loopy30's very valid point about losing species images when you merged pages containing them. I'm sure we can find other editor-added content that is being lost by bulk merges. Dyanega (talk) 22:36, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Please WP:AGF. I missed Loopy30's point because they posted it out of order; I didn't ignore it. And we don't keep standalone articles to give us a place to use images any more than we keep articles to give us a place to include external links.
- In addition, only a small minority of articles I merged include pictures; that argument cannot be used to suggest my up-merger of the rest, such as Cotyclytus scenicus, was inappropriate. BilledMammal (talk) 22:44, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- No, we haven't, and you haven't - you ignored Loopy30's very valid point about losing species images when you merged pages containing them. I'm sure we can find other editor-added content that is being lost by bulk merges. Dyanega (talk) 22:36, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- When did I say I was talking about the creator? I'm talking about all the editors who worked to improve these crappy stubs AFTER they were created. A high proportion of the articles you merged were created by a single user, Wilhelmina Wil, who probably shouldn't have done bulk stub creation on that scale. But, instead of merging/deleting those stubs, many editors took the time and energy to do things like adding Wikidata links and lists of synonyms, and adding categories, and fixing spelling, and all sorts of other labor that you're wiping clean (e.g, [174]). If these had been articles created and never improved after their creation, maybe you could claim that no one's work was being lost, but that's simply not true for many of these articles at this stage of the game. Dyanega (talk) 22:24, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Given that it took the creator approximately one minute to create each of these articles, no, I don't think
- You don't think it is a lot of work to find and attach the correct Wikidata links to articles? You don't think it's hard work to create redirects for long lists of synonymic names? One of the articles you merged had a pile of species-level redirects that suddenly pointed to a genus article instead of a species article (e.g. [173]). That's not trivial, and you STILL seem to be avoiding taking the responsible step and discussing this approach with the editors who are most directly involved and getting consensus that your approach is an improvement. Dyanega (talk) 22:02, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- @BilledMammal I just wanted to add that I think you are underestimating the value of the wikidata in the taxonbar. They provide links to many different good external sites, such as GBIF or iNaturalist (many people, such as myself, use iNaturalist for taking pictures of animals they find). Those sites can provide more detailed range maps, for example, as well. And I guess I just don't understand the problem with having species stub articles. What is the harm? Cougroyalty (talk) 21:34, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
underestimating the value of the wikidata
- that's a separate discussion about the use of wikidata generally.What is the harm?
- Because our goal is to benefit the reader. The reader receives more benefit from data being easily accessible by being up-merged rather than having to look at dozens of micro-stubs to gain the same understanding. This isn't controversial per WP:MERGEREASON, particularly for the articles that currently only duplicate the content of the list. BilledMammal (talk) 21:43, 28 October 2022 (UTC)- Couldn't we just have both? Your "merged" genus-level articles are fine. But can't we keep the species-level stubs as well? Cougroyalty (talk) 21:47, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- When they are stubs I normally do keep them, as they normally contain information that cannot be merged into the genus level article, but for the sub-stubs like the ones I linked above, which duplicate the content either already or after the merge then Wikipedia:Content forking tells us not to do that. BilledMammal (talk) 21:51, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Taking the first in your list, if someone were to do the work of looking in the Biodiversity Heritage Library for the reference Pascoe 1866, maybe they could add a redirect neoclytus scenicus, write the Peter Bouchard article [175], expand Francis Polkinghorne Pascoe and end up with a bit of article prose and a figure. From seeing various Afd's this work looks sometimes pretty difficult and the existence of the species article might help. fiveby(zero) 22:13, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- When they are stubs I normally do keep them, as they normally contain information that cannot be merged into the genus level article, but for the sub-stubs like the ones I linked above, which duplicate the content either already or after the merge then Wikipedia:Content forking tells us not to do that. BilledMammal (talk) 21:51, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Couldn't we just have both? Your "merged" genus-level articles are fine. But can't we keep the species-level stubs as well? Cougroyalty (talk) 21:47, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- No, the correct thing would be for you to discuss this sort of bulk editing and achieve consensus from - for example - the Wikiproject Tree of Life people whose hard work you're deleting, BEFORE you go deleting it. Again, all species articles are considered notable, by definition. You'd find little support, as noted above, given several existing policies. Additionally, your tabular format only works when ALL of the species in a genus have limited amounts of information, including limited lists of synonyms. Look at Sternotomis pulchra for an example of just how impractical that sort of "one size fits all" approach is likely to get. Dyanega (talk) 21:27, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- The relevant list of edits is here. Now, BilledMammal, what you wrote above looks like the sort of proposal you could have put forward to the relevant wikiproject to see if there'd be consensus for it. Personally, I don't think there would be, and such a project would be impractical for a number of reasons (some of which have been listed in the two threads so far). All that is a content matter though, and what gets discussed in this board is instead behaviour. I join those above who have expressed the view that no sanctions are necessary, but it would really help if you could appreciate the reasons why what you did was a misstep. I'll just point out one thing. There's a stark contrast between, on one hand, your stance in the recent fish species discussion, where you demanded that one editor get community approval first before going back to creating 3-4 articles per day, and, on the other hand, your decision here to unilaterally redirect 459 articles in the space of 25 hours. – Uanfala (talk) 22:05, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. The relevant wikiproject has no bearing on whether this is appropriate. Further, the difference between the fish species discussion is the existence of the policy WP:MASSCREATE, which requires consensus to exist for their mass creation. BilledMammal (talk) 22:07, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- So in your view, the bot policy, which you've just linked, prohibits one editor from making 5 article creations a day, but somehow also allows another editor, you, to remove 500 articles in the same period? I don't want to belabour the obvious anymore, but you really need to grasp the (very obvious) thing that you got wrong here. – Uanfala (talk) 22:32, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
the (very obvious) thing that you got wrong here
- Given that no-one took the creator of these articles to ANI when they created 201 sub-stubs in one day, I'm assuming that what I did wrong was to clean up a mess, rather than create one. BilledMammal (talk) 22:38, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- So in your view, the bot policy, which you've just linked, prohibits one editor from making 5 article creations a day, but somehow also allows another editor, you, to remove 500 articles in the same period? I don't want to belabour the obvious anymore, but you really need to grasp the (very obvious) thing that you got wrong here. – Uanfala (talk) 22:32, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. The relevant wikiproject has no bearing on whether this is appropriate. Further, the difference between the fish species discussion is the existence of the policy WP:MASSCREATE, which requires consensus to exist for their mass creation. BilledMammal (talk) 22:07, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Seems like normal editing to me. Hundreds of bold edits were reverted; per WP:BRD they should be discussed before being reinstated. This is not ANI- or sanction-worthy. Also, editors who start ANI threads shouldn't advertise them off-wiki. Levivich (talk) 22:44, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- There's nothing "normal" about this. I've been around WP a long time, and as far as I'm aware the wholesale merging of several hundred articles on valid species has never happened before. Again, there is a vast community of people who work on taxonomic articles in WP, and none of this was ever discussed with any of them before the merges commenced. Dyanega (talk) 23:00, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- Basically, this is not difficult. If you're going to start bot-like editing on large number of articles, it is always a good idea to gain consensus for those edits first. Otherwise, you may end up causing a problem, like we see here. I have no view on whether BM's edits were useful or not, but it is the concept of mass editing that is the issue. Black Kite (talk) 23:23, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
- I agree completely with Black Kite. How can one go ahead and make so many edits that one could realize would not go unchallenged, without even trying to sense whether the community would agree with them? It just goes against the very spirit of everything. Drmies (talk) 03:16, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- It looks like BilledMammal has now gone ahead and nominated all the species articles for deletion at AfD. Cougroyalty (talk) 00:36, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- That is very much POINTy given they are involved in this conversation. Masem (t) 00:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- Ive opened two AFD’s, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bothriospila and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adalbus. Given that this isn’t a content discussion, and editors are saying I should get consensus before repeating those edits, I don’t see opening them as pointy or in any way disruptive? BilledMammal (talk) 00:53, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- Nominating these for deletion looks pointy and, without a link to this discussion where the consensus is running against a merge, a lot like forum shopping. Jahaza (talk) 01:07, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- Ive opened two AFD’s, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bothriospila and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adalbus. Given that this isn’t a content discussion, and editors are saying I should get consensus before repeating those edits, I don’t see opening them as pointy or in any way disruptive? BilledMammal (talk) 00:53, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- That is very much POINTy given they are involved in this conversation. Masem (t) 00:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- WP:POINT applies to "making edits with which they do not actually agree", not edits with which they agree, and sending a page to AfD after a bold redirection was rejected is the regular process at work, not forum shopping. Avilich (talk) 01:18, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- Making an AFD when there is a large number of complains about previous merges (read: keeping the status quo until a discussion can be had) is definitely making such edits. Its clear the proper action is to open a discussion about how to handle these articles. I mean, I agree on the principle of merging, but WP:FAIT is also required. Masem (t) 01:28, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- 'Its clear the proper action is to open a discussion about how to handle these articles'... which is exactly what he did? Avilich (talk) 01:38, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- Except that there were already two ongoing discussions, here and at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life going on about how to handle these articles. Since a merge discussion doesn't require posting to AFD (which is, in fact, not called "articles for discussion"), bypassing those discussions and creating two new ones without, initially, referring to either of them is WP:FORUMSHOP. Jahaza (talk) 01:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- WP Tree of Life can’t come a consensus on this, per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, and ANI only discusses behaviour, not content. BilledMammal (talk) 01:54, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- There's nothing at WP:LOCALCONSENSUS that says that a merger discussion can't take place on a project notice board. The point is that a local consensus after a discussion at a project noticeboard can't overrule a consensus established project wide. In the absence of a project-level consensus on these though, there was no need to create another discussion and if you did want to create one, there were more appropriate venues. And per WP:PROPMERGE, you should have notified interested wikiprojects (rather than accusing them of canvassing when they self-notified!). Jahaza (talk) 02:02, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- The notification posted at TOL was not neutral. BilledMammal (talk) 02:08, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- There's nothing at WP:LOCALCONSENSUS that says that a merger discussion can't take place on a project notice board. The point is that a local consensus after a discussion at a project noticeboard can't overrule a consensus established project wide. In the absence of a project-level consensus on these though, there was no need to create another discussion and if you did want to create one, there were more appropriate venues. And per WP:PROPMERGE, you should have notified interested wikiprojects (rather than accusing them of canvassing when they self-notified!). Jahaza (talk) 02:02, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- WP Tree of Life can’t come a consensus on this, per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, and ANI only discusses behaviour, not content. BilledMammal (talk) 01:54, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- Except that there were already two ongoing discussions, here and at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life going on about how to handle these articles. Since a merge discussion doesn't require posting to AFD (which is, in fact, not called "articles for discussion"), bypassing those discussions and creating two new ones without, initially, referring to either of them is WP:FORUMSHOP. Jahaza (talk) 01:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- 'Its clear the proper action is to open a discussion about how to handle these articles'... which is exactly what he did? Avilich (talk) 01:38, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- It's not the regular process when you don't tell people that there's an extensive conversation about the topic going on somewhere else. And your reading of WP:POINT needs additional subtlety. WP:POINT specifically says that it's edits with which the person does not agree "as a rule," which means "usually, but not always."[176] Jahaza (talk) 01:29, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- Making an AFD when there is a large number of complains about previous merges (read: keeping the status quo until a discussion can be had) is definitely making such edits. Its clear the proper action is to open a discussion about how to handle these articles. I mean, I agree on the principle of merging, but WP:FAIT is also required. Masem (t) 01:28, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- WP:POINT applies to "making edits with which they do not actually agree", not edits with which they agree, and sending a page to AfD after a bold redirection was rejected is the regular process at work, not forum shopping. Avilich (talk) 01:18, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- POINTy actions like the AfD nominations do seem like they can and should have an actionable response at ANI. SilverserenC 01:38, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- I have no dog in this fight but nominating an article for deletion and proposing a merge, after a bold redirection was reverted, is the right and proper course of action. It's not POINTy at all. It's the legitimate next step to gain consensus for a controversial change. Mackensen (talk) 01:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- Not really, because while a merger can be an outcome at AFD, nominating dozens of articles for deletion isn't the right way to propose a merger. Proposing a merger is described at WP:AFD as an alternative to listing at AFD and the instructions say "Use Wikipedia:Proposed mergers for discussion of mergers." Jahaza (talk) 01:57, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- For those who say "this is just normal editing", what would you say if someone did this for all species articles? Or every stub across the project that has a clear parent article? Just "normal editing"? The rate/quantity does matter. BilledMammal is one of the more active participants in the ongoing discussions about the rate of article creation. With so much of that predicated on when permission/discussion needs to happen before taking some sort of mass action, it's ... weird ... to see BM mass redirecting subjects (species) that have among the strongest consensus of any subject for having stand-alone articles. That's not to say that species articles can never be merged up, or even that these shouldn't (I'm not weighing in on that), but the number combined with absence of discussion does matter.
It makes me feel old that I'm starting to feel like there's a relatively small but growing and very active group of people who are primarily here to cleanse Wikipedia of stubs and anything without inline cites. They used to call me a deletionist; maybe being around a while makes you a bit softer (or just me)... — Rhododendrites talk \\ 02:11, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- I see a difference between the two; WP:MASSCREATE doesn’t apply here, and my actions don’t create a WP:FAIT situation as evidenced by the fact they have been reversed.
that have among the strongest consensus of any subject for having stand-alone articles.
I would be interested to see if that was true; I would suggest TOL draft an SNG saying that species should almost always have a standalone article, and see if there is a consensus for it. BilledMammal (talk) 02:19, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
IP user hoaxing (false death claims, etc.)
This IP user in Brazil seems to have a habit of editing in various hoaxes, especially fake deaths (fake death edit example 1, fake death edit example 2). They're active at 187.36.168.0/21 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)) and 2804:D45:9660:EB00:0:0:0:0/64 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)). A block is probably needed. Thanks. wizzito | say hello! 03:10, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- Sure thing. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 03:19, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
- Thanks to Drmies for the block. wizzito | say hello! 03:19, 29 October 2022 (UTC)