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    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    Possible copyvio... The Banner talk 19:01, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    • 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    he's already gone, buddy. The Shamming Man has appeared. Sham me / Where I've shammed 20:26, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, saw his comment and responded before I read the rest of the thread. Sergecross73 msg me 20:29, 19 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    • 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)[reply]
    +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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    [[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)[reply]
    @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)[reply]
    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    Off-topic and becoming disruptive, Jip Orlando (talk) 20:52, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
    I also believe that all involved admins should be punished for not even questioning what he was doing at the time. it is very obviouse that not only The Banner was involved. Tdshe/her 19:39, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment as closer of some and Keep !Voter in others. There is already a DRV open and if consensus forms that my close is wrong, that's fine. But I don't see what "punishment" you'd be looking for.
    Star Mississippi 19:54, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I wasn't looking for something harsh just a day ban at most from afd's as the proof of not looking at the articles and following Wikipedia:BEFORE doesn't really help you seem like it was done with Wikipedia:Good faith. Not to attack any of the editors or saying any of you haven't done insanely great things for the site but I see this as a lapse in judgment that led a user to get very upset. Tdshe/her 19:58, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    This seems...rather extreme for an DRV trending towards an "endorse" close currently. Sergecross73 msg me 20:01, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sergecross73 as seen above at least three others have seen The Banner's actions as extreme and not adhering to Wikipedia:BEFORE I think that a one day ban from AFD's is more then fair as he still after several hours hasn't given a good reason as to why he set those afd's up.Tdshe/her 20:06, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I was referring to your comment about "all involved admin". Not entirely sure who all you meant by that, but that part seemed extreme regardless. Sergecross73 msg me 20:10, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I meant the other admins that voted then archived the article within minutes of the afd going through. While i understand why you think its extreme if we are going to punish User:The Banner for Wikipedia:BEFORE both all admins should also be brought into the situation as they also helped him remove these articles without looking or they would have opposed the deletion.Tdshe/her 20:14, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm still confused to who exactly you're referring to in these situations. Who exactly do you feel should be blocked, and for what exactly? Sergecross73 msg me 20:18, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    as per above. "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" Tdshe/her 20:20, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    You want to block an AFD participant for a good faith AFD !vote with no past pattern of disruptive AFD participation? That's insane. This is an awful approach. Sergecross73 msg me 20:30, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I specifically said that he deserves a one day ban from afd because several other user have called him out for Wikipedia:BEFORE. This is not good faith in the least as he still refuses to give a reason despite being called to give one several times. If this is Wikipedia:Good faith I call to him to give a viable reason for why he set those afds up but until then there is absolutely no proof of it. Tdshe/her 20:38, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, I feel like we're not talking about the same thing again. You said you want "all related admin" to be blocked. Please list every name of every admin you feel needs a block in this situation. What admin deserve to be blocked? Sergecross73 msg me 20:43, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think you understand the situation well enough to be proposing sanctions @Thedefender35 and suggest possible advisement from @ARoseWolf and others working with you. That said, while I regularly check in on overdue AfDs, a one day "ban" isn't something I'd argue with if consensus evolved for it. Star Mississippi 20:13, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Unless there's some sort of long-term pattern of bad closes or past warnings about this, the only punishment" that makes sense would be overturning your related deletion/closes. Sergecross73 msg me 20:16, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sergecross73, I feel the same. And while I disagree with how Hugo handled this, I have zero issue with a DRV being raised. I'm not infallible. Star Mississippi 20:34, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Star Mississippi I have been watching the situation for a day at this point and I watched this page waiting for a good reason for why User:The Banner sent those afds in. As of now he still has yet to do so. I don't believe him being an admin should give any reason to why he shouldn't be punished for a very obvious breach of policy. As an admin if a new page reviewer did this it would be a big deal. It very obviously doesn't matter how much experience you have mistakes can be made, the issue isnt that its the fact he seems to be doubling down and refusing to give a viable reason. Tdshe/her 20:19, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    thedefender35, The Banner is not an administrator. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 20:21, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Understood. Tdshe/her 20:24, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Thedefender35 Literally 2 days ago you asked for to a topic ban from answering questions at the teahouse and help desk because you were being disruptive. You were giving out incorrect and poor quality advice due to having essentially no understanding of policy and guidelines and not understanding how this site operates [1]. Why on earth did you think it would be a good idea for you to comment here? Do you honestly think that in 48 hours since you were topic banned would have gained sufficient WP:Competence to be proposing sanctions on another editor? Your proposal for sanctions has no basis in policy, and is utterly ludicrous - what on earth is a 1 day topic ban supposed to achieve? Why on earth should admins be "punished"? Blocks and bans are used to prevent disruption, not as punishment. A load of people have told you to stop with the involvement in administrative areas, myself included, but you just don't seem to listen. 192.76.8.77 (talk) 20:43, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    ok first off if you are gonna Wikipedia:HOUND me go to my talk page Tdshe/her 20:51, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Can someone HAT this up to The Banner's last comment? It's off topic and bordering on disruptive. Jip Orlando (talk) 20:26, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]

    Topic ban proposal re: The Banner

    There is clear consensus to prohibit The Banner from nominating articles at WP:AFD. This restriction may be appealed in two months. Some of the obvious boilerplate; the restriction applies to the person, not the account; it does not cover other edits to AfD; and it does not cover nominations at other deletion venues. The spirit of the restriction does cover asking other editors to nominate at AfD by proxy. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:53, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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

    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)[reply]

    • 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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    • Support as per my comments and concerns above. GiantSnowman 11:48, 22 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    • Support per comments above. Levivich (talk) 13:36, 22 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
    • 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 nominations demonstrate 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)[reply]
      @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)[reply]
      @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)[reply]
      (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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    • Comment We're banning the Banner? Qui censoriam censorem? EEng 19:10, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    • Comment: So ... this has run a week now, with unanimous support. Can we get a close? Ravenswing 18:30, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support - strongly I came here purely by cooincidence. These issues are not new. They started well before his name change from User:Night of the Big Wind in 2012. I have examined all 2000+ and with extremely few exceptions, his AfD participation is nominations. The extraordinary low rate of nominations matching the outcome (around 50%) would seem to demonstrate personal purges rather than specific interest in keeping Wikipedia clean. Even the successful nominations are not for particularly contentious articles. Other targets for batch nominations included a yearly targeting of schools and colleges which I noticed through my many years as coord for WP:WPSCH until I retired a couple of years ago. Clearly this user is not operating in the best interests of Wikipedia in respect to AfD. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:41, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    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)[reply]

    • 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    Thanks for all your hard work Liz. Gusfriend (talk) 07:27, 24 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]

    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[2], 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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    Oh look another AFD where I find sources and !vote accordingly... GiantSnowman 18:14, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    ...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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    @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)[reply]
    @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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    JoelleJay, preach! — Jacona (talk) 13:03, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      • "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)[reply]
    • AFDs themselves may be no more numerous before - but those in the Football area have increased significantly - and many editors can't keep up. A likely cause of this is the elimination of the NFOOTBALL guideline, which kept most of the borderline cases from going to AFD. I believe that one shouldn't vote either way at AFD without a BEFORE. And these borderline cases invariably kick up sources - so instead of a relatively clear cut decision on there not being sources, we end up with an endless and tiring debate about the quality of sources. This doesn't directly effect this article (for which NSEASONS and plain common sense should have stopped the nomination for the top league on the continent, and one of the top leagues in the world), the burnout on the football AFD issue is. If GS's "votes" look a little rushed these days, then this issue plays into the whole thing. GS should be commended for his work earlier this year trying to find alternatives to NFOOTBALL at a truly thankless discussion at WT:Notability (sports)/Association football. Hopefully the lack of such a guideline, and the fallout from that, is discussed at WP:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/AfD at scale. Nfitz (talk) 05:58, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Closure please

    This thread seems to have deviated/degenerated into a general discussion about Afd, and GNG vs SNG, and disussions of other users' use of AfD, all which are topics for another case or venue. The one part of this case is the Topic ban proposal re: The Banner and perhaps it's time for an uninvolved admin to do his thing and close this according to his or her reading of consensus. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:51, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    User Doug Coldwell at Haskelite Building and 801 N. Rowe Street

    In September after some talk page conversations ([3]) 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 [4], reverted the redirect and tagged it for speed deletion (G6) and started a page move discussion [5].

    On 16 October Doug Coldwell expressed support for the move [6] and then made another 8 posts in support of the renaming. The move was closed as supported and actioned about 12 hours ago [7] then less than hour later Doug Coldwell created a new page called 801 N. Rowe Street [8] 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 [9]
    • 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 [10]) 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 [11] 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 [12] 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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    • 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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      Coldwell has a secondary account here, which remains unblocked CiphriusKane (talk) 10:49, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
    • 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 500 550 DYKs, and how he set the record for quickest time from article creation to DYK appearance [13] (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)[reply]
    Blocked secondary account. Apologies for missing your first note @CiphriusKane Star Mississippi 00:52, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    FTR, do you have a diff or link for the "biggest plywood sheet" goof? EEng 09:34, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @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)[reply]

    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 [14]:

    The largest plywood panels ever made were manufactured by the Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation

    This is cited [15] to an article published in 1918 and written by a Haskelite employee [16]. 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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    @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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    • He has requested an unblock, which @Yamla: has declined. I'm obviously going to stay away from it and defer to any admin to take whichever action they deem appropriate, but based on the content, he still does not understand why he was blocked going back to the original discussion that quantity of DYKs etc. is irrelevant. Star Mississippi 10:43, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      After reading his unblock request I will be doing my best to avoid any of the articles that he has had a significant contribution to for the next 4 weeks in order to allow time for things to settle down as I do not want to complicate (or be seen to complicate) matters further. Gusfriend (talk) 11:01, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    What about @Sennecaster's suggestion of the open CCI, or the Talk thereof? Star Mississippi 13:29, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    This is NOT just about copyright problems. Somewhere in VP is probably a better venue. EEng 01:03, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed. Over 90% of my issues with their pages are not CV related and are based on:
    • incorrect information
    • poor use of sources
    • mismatch between information on 2 related pages
    • Some poor prose (which I actually suspect comes from CV issues)
    • incomplete information in GAs
    • DYK statements not supported by information included in articles (sometimes the issue is the DYK and sometimes it is the article)
    • OR and irrelevant information to meet a specific narrative
    Even just somewhere to list the discussions like Talk:SS John Sherman/GA2 and Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations/Archive_26#GAR_for_multiple_interlinked_articles
    would be appreciated. Gusfriend (talk) 06:22, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @EEng: I presume by VP, you meant Village pump, but I'm just not sure where on Village Pump you had in mind? Or were you thinking of a new subpage or something? Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 07:34, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I meant Kamala Harris should handle it. EEng 11:26, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Then it might do to let Joe know that he'll need to find a stand-in VP for a few months. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 23:31, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Also pinging others who've participated above: @Trainsandotherthings, @Fram, @Mackensen, @CiphriusKane, @XtraJovial, @Ravenswing, @Beyond My Ken. Any input would be welcome. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 08:01, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure of the best way to handle this. As others have noted, it's not just copyright issues. Any article to which he was a major contributor needs to go through a thorough reassessment. Mackensen (talk) 11:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    We need a process that has authority to go through his articles with a chainsaw and cut out copyvios and factual errors with extreme prejudice. It's the only way this gets resolved in anything resembling a timely manner. I've brought a handful of his articles to GAR, and one was delisted the other day, but that's a slow process and doing all his articles that way would take a very long time. Not to mention the other issues beyond GA status that EEng mentioned. We need to compile a list of his articles and go through them one by one looking for issues. As much as I'd like to just wave a wand and say delist every GA he did, at least a few are likely ok. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 14:21, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I might start something up myself, a list of every GA will be a start, plus all the DYKs, as there is a greater incentive to misuse sources to get a catchy hook. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 13:03, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Racist comment by User:Sca at WP:ITNC

    Sca (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) recently added a comment [17] 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)[reply]

    It's offensive. Restoring it after it was removed is bad judgement. Schazjmd (talk) 23:02, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    "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)[reply]
    Clearly and certainly. Why didn't they just think about it after Stephen reverted the comment? Sarrail (talk) 23:05, 25 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      Yeah, we wouldn't want to offend Sca by using the wrong word... Levivich (talk) 00:04, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Whereas Levivich wants to burnish his.--Floquenbeam (talk) 00:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Say it loud and say it proud! Levivich (talk) 00:09, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      • 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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      Thank you. -- Sca (talk) 16:30, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
    • For the record, here's how DYK's acknowledged greatest hooker handles erection humor:
      • [18] ... that Edwin Stevens, while in a missionary position, said that erections indicated apprehension and penetration was difficult?
      • [19] ... that erection engineer Mark Barr had a business making rubbers, said bicycles stimulated ball development, and was elected to the screw committee?
    EEng 01:25, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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.)
    • Racism aside; if one accepts the argument that the comment was not racist, it has no place here. It was deliberate vandalism either way, it is NOTHERE behavior. We don't need this editor, editors who behave this way keep good editors away. — Jacona (talk) 13:47, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    • Where can I see the decision in this case? -- Sca (talk) 16:52, 26 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      • 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)[reply]
        I have declined the unblock request, in part because of the comments on this thread. Thryduulf (talk) 11:20, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • 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 [20] [21] and when I closed that discussion with an edit summary of please stop they just kept posting in it anyway [22]. 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)[reply]
    • I noticed that Sca seems to have removed the declined unblock request from their talk page in the name of archiving. I'm not entirely sure if WP:KEEPDECLINEDUNBLOCK applies here given that it is merely a block for editing certain pages rather than wikiwide, so I figured I'd report it here rather than restore it against their wishes if this is indeed permitted. Zapientus (talk) 13:35, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      By the letter of that guideline the notice should remain, however given the language has been unchanged since before partial blocks were enabled on the English Wikipedia it's clear that full blocks are what it is intended to refer to - and indeed that is still by far the most common usage of the unblock request template (Sca's case is the only time I've seen it used for a partial block). Guidelines explicitly note that exceptions may apply, and I think its fair for the appeal of a block from a single page to be one such exception. Ideally though the notice should have been properly archived rather than removed. Thryduulf (talk) 12:13, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    (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)[reply]

    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.[23]... Fram (talk) 09:05, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    And another bizarre edit: Ranseier was redirected to Karl Ranseier, which itself is a redirect to RTL Samstag Nacht. No reasons given. Kire1975 (talk) 08:54, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    And this: why does "Category:Malagasy given names" exist? Even if it had more than one entry, Aarp65 should at least give a reason for it? Every new page gets added to his impressive list of "Written pages" created on his username. Kire1975 (talk) 08:59, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    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 ([24]), 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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    The "again" is the problem, it suggests that it has been removed before. 66.44.22.126 (talk) 12:59, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    It's a colloquialism in some American regional dialects. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 17:15, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I know -- Kire1975 misunderstood Fram, and Fram didn't understand the nature of the misunderstanding, but at this point I'm pretty sure everyone understands everyone else or doesn't care. 128.164.177.55 (talk) 19:48, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]

    Bedivere: Insistence on using spurious sources to brand political party "neoliberal" and "conservative"

    Bedivere insists[25] 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)[reply]

    • 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 [26]. 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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]

    "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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    I fell compelled here to give some cue to those curious on what is happening in the Spanish Wikipedia. Try Google translate on this [27]. 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    This isn't the place to discuss alleged problems with the Spanish Wikipedia but I'd note I did try Google translate, and that article seems fairly useless in demonstrating problems with the Spanish Wikipedia. All it seems to say is a bunch of people complained about alleged problems with the Spanish Wikipedia. It doesn't mention any specific problems that can be considered. You'll find a large number of people complaining about problems with the English Wikipedia too e.g. Trump supporters or frankly many Republicans in the US, some BJP supporters in India, those who support Putin's worldview, those who support the Chinese government's worldview, people who support fringe theories or pseudoscience on vaccines, alternative medicine, climate change, COVID-19, intelligence design; etc etc. Nil Einne (talk) 13:04, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      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..).
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    @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)[reply]
    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.[28]). 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    I blanked them out precisely because you use them to personally attack me. I hope admins take action and have you blocked. I am tired of having to review your contributions only to revert your pointless, POV-ish edits and your relentless, never stopping and unfair attacks. Stop for once and for all. Bedivere (talk) 13:54, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Bediveres lastest edit: [29]. Conclusion: He removes legitimate sourced content making a missuse of WP:NOTNEWS justify this when it comes to the politics he likes, but insists on using spurious sources (eg. opinion pieces) to peyoratively brand (as if it was a fact) politics of other parties "neoliberal" and "conservative" [30]. Dentren | Talk 07:32, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    • Is there any hope, given the bickering above, that the protagonists here will come to an agreement on the article talk page? This seems to be a content dispute at heart, but this thread seems not to be being conducted in good faith. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:37, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I looked at the talk pages of both Bedivere and Dentren and both of them have been blocked and warned multiple times for edit warring. In addition, they have mutally dragged each other to ANI multiple times. Though Dentren has by far the muddier record, I believe both parties are at fault here. Possible IBAN recommended. Minkai (talk-contribs-ANI Hall of Fame) 17:37, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      @JulieMinkai Dentren has consistently dragged me into edit warring several times, and their groundless accusations (including that I am the sockpuppet of a long-banned user) have got me tired. I would not oppose myself a topic ban or better an interaction ban if that helps me continue to edit in peace. My interactions with Dentren, their bad faith against me, I've got enough of them. As noted above by other users, Dentren's problematic behavior (including POV-ish content, dubious sources, and bad-faith accusations) has led to their indefinite block on the Spanish Wikipedia; behavior they also have in this Wikipedia version. It seems obvious to me they are not here to contribute positively. Bedivere (talk) 17:46, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    User:JohnThorne and copyvio again

    Community ban imposed: User talk:JohnThorne#Community ban. El_C 12:32, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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

    See [31] and [32].

    Last night I deleted some straight copyvio[33] 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[34]. Not quite as blatant but still obvious.[35].

    He hasn't edited since. Doug Weller talk 09:02, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    Added CV revdel template to the article. Yup, straight up copyvio. Jip Orlando (talk) 16:05, 27 October 2022 (UTC)a[reply]
    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)[reply]
    See Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/20221029. MER-C 19:52, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    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).[reply]

    • Support as proposer. Bishonen | tålk 15:37, 27 October 2022 (UTC).[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)
    • Support per Bishonen. John (talk) 17:14, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      Given that they were banned before for copyvio issues it seems unlikely this will happen. Doug Weller talk 17:55, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    • Oppose, propose community ban or at least indefinite block to prevent further violations. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 22:14, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support, copyright is serious as per above. Andre🚐 23:40, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support on top of the CBAN below. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:02, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    • 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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      They have, and they may again. See ClemRutter as an example. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 23:59, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    @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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Extraordinary2; battleground behavior and hounding

    Blocked – for a period of one week: User talk:Extraordinary2#Block. El_C 12:55, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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

    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 [36] (in which both issues were resolved mostly in their favor [37]), Extraordinary2 has decided to Wikistalk me to other unrelated articles I've created and insert really obvious grammatical errors ([38][39][40]). After telling the user to not follow me to other articles [41], 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" [42]. 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)[reply]

    [43] 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    Bulldawg thanked me three weeks ago for contributing to a page. Extraordinary2 (talk) 05:44, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Your own words, Curbon7, the issues were resolved in my favor. Thus you were incorrect. Extraordinary2 (talk) 05:47, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    (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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    No discussion at WikiProject insects that I can see. Mccapra (talk) 17:56, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    None at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Beetles either. Bezark is an academic entomologist [44], so I would think he is reliable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:59, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Larry Bezark migrated the entirety of his site to a different URL ([45]), 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    Not according to WP:NSPECIES. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:42, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    @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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    (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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    There is no record of 01:57 at 28 October. Perhaps you meant 01:37? — Nythar (💬-🎃) 20:22, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That's correct, sorry. Spicy (talk) 20:25, 28 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]

    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)[reply]

    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:
    1. Cotyclytus scenicus
    2. Cotyclytus sobrinus
    3. Cotyclytus regularis
    4. Cotyclytus stillatus
    5. Cotyclytus suturalis
    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:
    1. Sphallotrichus spadiceus
    2. Sphallotrichus setosus
    3. Sphallotrichus sericeotomentosus
    4. Sphallotrichus sculpticolle
    5. Sphallotrichus puncticolle
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    It's valuable to the kind of people who would be looking up articles in the topic area. What more justification do we need? XOR'easter (talk) 13:28, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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 redirects
    • Taxonbar - 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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. [46]). 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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, [47]). 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    @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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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 [48], 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)[reply]
    This is an incorrect understanding of that RFC, the intent of which allows Wikidata for authority control, taxon bar, and similar, as well as infoboxes and a few other places (Template:Official as an example). What it bans is the use in article text-proper and I think it's been reasonably interpreted to list articles automatically updated by Wikidata changes (though I recall no direct RFC on that point). --IznoPublic (talk) 23:56, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    This was done during the late 2000s to topics of fictional nature. It was somewhat controversial then but a decade later and consensus is basically that the choice there was correct in the general. It took a particularly determined editor to see those changes through but I think that editor was vindicated by current attitudes.
    Species are not all that dissimilar, and the path taken here was one prompted by actual guidelines on the point.
    Anyway, the general discussion is soon to be had, but don't think species are special. IznoPublic (talk) 00:09, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      • 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)[reply]
        • The information was retained, in a format that is much more convenient for readers. I genuinely thought this wouldn’t be controversial - and looking at the AFD’s, where no one has objected on the grounds that it is not an improvement (except for one editor who has made the bizarre claim that a 6000 byte article is too long) I still don’t understand why it is, although I recognise that it is. BilledMammal (talk) 03:48, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
          You're experienced enough that you should have known that not everybody was going to be happy with 500 articles being turned into redirects. I hope that moving forward you'll start discussions with others in relevant WikiProjects prior to these types of mass changes. We're a collaborative effort and discussions help to bring out alternative points of view that others may not have considered. The longer I'm on Wikipedia the more I'm realizing just how useful starting discussions in the proper places can be in helping to guide what large scale changes I make or don't make. Hey man im josh (talk) 04:11, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      That is very much POINTy given they are involved in this conversation. Masem (t) 00:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      '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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
      The notification posted at TOL was not neutral. BilledMammal (talk) 02:08, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      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."[49] Jahaza (talk) 01:29, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      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)[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
    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)[reply]
    Posh. Your redirects were reverted, then after you saw the concerns laid out here at AN/I, you tempted WP:FAIT by going ahead and nominating some 30 of those stubs for deletion. gobonobo + c 04:11, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't really think there was any risk of WP:FAIT here. Those articles were not going to change by AfD for at least a week, and it would notify lots of different people to its existence. BilledMammal was right in saying elsewhere in the discussion that the post to WT:TOL was not neutral. AfD is probably the most appropriate place for these kind of content discussions.
    Whether BilledMammal should stir the pot while there is an ANI thread open, well, that's a different conversation. EDIT: Not to imply that creating upset was intentional: just that it is a bit escalatory and they could have maybe waited longer. NeverRainsButPours (talk) 10:25, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think we would be well served by finally holding a general RfC that develops WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES into a solid SNG, which may well turn out to be more restrictive than the current interpretation. As long as there is no more than a vague observation of "this is what usually happens with species articles" we will keep getting these issues (which admittedly don't normally extend to such an ...unwise 500-article chainsaw approach.) --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:07, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I'm still very new to Wikipedia and basically only interact with parts related to taxonomy, and I think what Elmidae suggests would be very useful. Certainly there's a lot of "implied knowledge" when it comes to interpreting WP:NSPECIES. It is a very short essay based on observation that is brought into AfD conversations as de-facto policy and it would be a great idea to hash out where everyone stands on the issue. NeverRainsButPours (talk) 10:03, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I'm in agreement with Elmidae. We need more solid footing, even if it changes the scope of allowability. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:23, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      How would this address the current situation. I don't think that BM has actually asserted that lack of notability was the reason of these merges., Codifying long standing consensus, while possibly useful for other reasons, wouldn't do anything to prevent merges on the same basis BM based these on. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:31, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • These merges were legitimate BOLD edits and the use of rollback was inappropriate. AfD is a normal next step after a redirect is challenged. Tree of Life project participants are reminded that there is no requirement to consult Wikiprojects before making changes; disciplinary and anti-vandalism processes should not be misused to challenge edits that one disagrees with; and editors are expected to participate in content discussions in good faith without accusing others of misconduct. –dlthewave ☎ 17:59, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • Where do you draw the line though? What is the upper limit on the number of established notable articles that an editor is free to boldly redirect each day without seeking consensus? – Uanfala (talk) 18:29, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        • Same as the number of articles an editor is free to boldly create each day without seeking consensus. Levivich (talk) 18:32, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
          • Isn't the entire point of the ArbCom discussion going on now about how there should be consensus made in both cases and trying to remove or create a large amount of articles without some form of community approval beforehand is disruptive? SilverserenC 18:35, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
            And notice how that's not getting consensus in the ongoing discussion. The entire point is: anyone can make as many articles as they like as long as the articles are policy-compliant without having to ask permission first. There is no rate limit, nor is there consensus to implement one. Similarly, anyone can merge as many article as they like without having to ask permission first, as long as the merges are policy-compliant. Similarly, anyone can revert BOLD mergers without any rate limit. Similarly, anyone can nominate as many articles as they like for AFD with no rate limit, again, as long as it's all policy-compliant. This is normal editing, and people do it all the time (mass creations, mass moves, mass mergers, mass category changes, mass AFDs, mass this and mass that and mass everything else too), and they've been doing it for decades. We have no rule against it. We should, but there isn't consensus for it. This isn't directed at you, silver, but I notice that WikiProjects cheer and celebrate when someone mass-creates articles in-scope, then those same projects recoils in horror when anyone else mass-nominates them for AFD or mass-merges them, etc. This notion that, once created, a mainspace page is somehow "sacred" or "protected" from being "destroyed" by deletion or merger -- see above and in the WT:TOL discussion, how people are talking about information being "lost," "hidden," or "destroyed," as if content curation isn't a part of encyclopedia building -- has no basis in global consensus. In fact, global consensus is the opposite, per WP:PAGEDECIDE and WP:NOTEVERYTHING. WP:BEBOLD doesn't just apply to content creation, it also applies to content curation. Levivich (talk) 20:02, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Further action needed? I was just alerted to the carnage disrutption through the AfD alerts, and seriously? What sort of WP:HERE editor would even think this kind of behavior is ok on a mass scale?
    The mass redirects without any discussion when such structure is the norm was already bad enough. It's not quite the volume as when we had mass disruption of insect articles by Mishae when I had to go back and fix 10k insect talk pages (something about insects sure attracts this behavior), but this is affecting actual mainspace. Elmidae, as someone who's had to do similar cleanup after mass disruption like that kudos to you. BilledMammal should have known better at that point, but doubling down with the mass AfD is definitely getting in to WP:POINT territory. They were already warned that species articles are inherently notable (not to mention guidance we have like WP:MONOTYPICTAXON), and instead they're trying to wikilawyer about it. It looks like BilledMammal is also harassing editors like Hey man im josh commenting on this ANI too.
    I'm not very familiar with BM, but given that they're causing major disruption in taxonomy articles, is that what a potential topic ban needs to be tailored towards? Based on the attitude and "warnings" they are giving out now, it's like they're just itching for a block they narrowly avoiding when they stopped making mainspace edits. Not sure on what action is best at this very moment, but hopefully this nth whack BilledMammal's noggin that they are on ridiculously thin ice sticks. I'm not up to speed on the ArbCom case, but usually continuing disputes related to the locus of the case are expressly forbidden during a case. Someone more familiar with it would know how/if clerks need to be involved. KoA (talk) 22:09, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    were already warned that species articles are inherently notable There is no guideline that says that, and in any case not every notable topic warrants an article, per WP:PAGEDECIDE.
    It looks like BilledMammal is also harassing editors like Hey man im josh commenting on this ANI too. That was related to them going through my contributions to find all the AfD's I had recently opened to oppose them, including those unrelated to species. I believe the warning about WP:HOUNDING was appropriate. The fact that they ignored the warning and instead used rollback to remove it was less appropriate. BilledMammal (talk) 22:13, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:Don't template the regulars. I did not respond to you because I did not believe it would be a constructive conversation given how you've been combative against others during this process. That was related to them going through my contributions to find all the AfD's I voted in two additional AfDs (this and this). Given the nature of your two species related AfD nominations, it's not inappropriate to question if there were other inappropriate nominations.
    I used rollback as, per WP:ROLLBACKUSE point #2, the edit was in my userspace and the reason for reverting I felt to be clear (point #1). The warning was retaliation and inappropriate. If you feel my behaviour was as well, then I do encourage you to open up an ANI because, while I believe my actions were not inappropriate, I'd adjust and learn from it others believed they were. But that should be its own discussion. To be honest this is why I usually don't participate in ANI, I'd rather be a no drama llama. Hey man im josh (talk) 00:10, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    None of the nominations were inappropriate; you can disagree with them, but that doesn't make them inappropriate. However, if you had stuck to the species nominations I wouldn't have objected; they are sufficiently related that I can see the argument that they are an appropriate use of an editors contribution history. What crossed over into hounding is when you used my contribution history to follow me into unrelated discussions and oppose my position there. BilledMammal (talk) 21:46, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    For those following along on the "none of the nominations were inappropriate" comment , this is part of the major problem with the disruption BM caused despite multiple cautions. They are basically ignoring their own behavior. They made mass nominations without following WP:BEFORE, namely that they didn't try to improve content themselves even though the articles had sourcing to expand the articles when their complaint was that they were too short (not a reason for AfD), nor were they at individual talk pages trying to work details out or going to relevant Wikiprojects that BEFORE advises before even getting to the last step of doing merges/redirects. The mass article disruption only compounds that. To ignore that is clearly showing WP:NOTHERE behavior (extreme lack of self correction in this subject).
    BM, you need to take your behavior seriously here. While it may be a red herring if you are going to make accusations against Hey man im josh, you need diffs. I don't see anything obvious in your interactions that would be to follow me into unrelated discussions and oppose my position there. If there is, you really need a diff at this point that actually shows it. If not, that is a WP:ASPERSION and is just giving the community another reason to block you. That is why I'm saying you need to take this seriously because it really comes across as you trying to escalate things more and more as we try to work with your behavior here. KoA (talk) 00:29, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The section of WP:BEFORE that recommends improving content through normal editing links WP:ATD. One of the recommended ways to improve content is merging; when the redirect aspect of the bold merge was rejected the appropriate action, per WP:ATD-R and WP:CONRED #4, is to open an AfD. You also misrepresent my nomination, which was on the grounds of WP:PAGEDECIDE, WP:CONTENTFORK, and WP:RF.
    Hey man im josh !voted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bothriospila at 03:23, 29 October 2022. Two minutes later, they !voted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Adalbus. I consider both of these votes to be appropriate.
    What was inappropriate and a violation of WP:HOUNDING is that they then went through my contributions to find and oppose other unrelated nominations which they did at 03:38, 29 October 2022 and 03:39, 29 October 2022. BilledMammal (talk) 00:47, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    BM, you're talking past again and ignoring what you're actually doing in your edits, that's becoming disrutpive. You're just ignoring what multiple people have told you should have done in terms of process and that ATD directly points you to and are instead cherrypicking. Not to mention you're edit warring at Bothriospilini to add to your issues. This is not the time to joke around like that.
    For for your actions with Hey man im josh, that's hardly harassment. When you had issues with disruptive use of AfD, of course someone is going to look in on other cases and comment independently if they notice something. In that case though, you aren't mentioned at all, and they are just reflecting what the rest of community is also saying at the AfDs. You on the other hand are adding to the case that you are treating AfD like a battleground the more you link to these interactions. KoA (talk) 04:24, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Can we assume good faith, please? I doubt BilledMammal has bad-faith intentions, and it doesn't appear to be good-faith disruption either. Okay, maybe it wasn't a great idea to unilaterally redirect hundreds of articles without prior consensus and many of you disagreed with the deletion nominations, but I don't see disruption or sanctionable behavior on BilledMammal's part. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 22:23, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree, I don't think their original edits to turn the pages into redirects were in bad faith. I just think they should have known better given their experience. Hey man im josh (talk) 00:12, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    When someone is engaging in patently disruptive behavior, especially given the battleground attitude they are injecting, we call a WP:SPADE a spade, so it's rather oblivious to just reduce it down to name-dropping good-faith. That happens all too often with tendentious editing like this. Either way, it looks like ArbCom doesn't have an active case that would involve BM like I assumed from previous comments. Some have commenting on solidfying some taxonomy standards in guidelines, etc. to avoid wikilawyering that's going on, but that also seems somewhat independent of BM's attitude.
    Given the ongoing pointy attitude I'm seeing on comments from BM though, it is increasingly looking like a sanction will be needed to prevent disruption at some point. Especially given the cluelessness above in their harassing of Hey man im josh above, it's really coming across as a how dare you clean up after my mess mentality while trying to use WP:HOUND as a get of out jail free card as we commonly see with tendentious editors. They've been around long enough to know better. As I linked above, that's the opposite of WP:HERE when someone's behavior issues are brought up, so I'm increasingly convinced sanctions will be needed to curb disruption BM is injecting into the taxonomy subject. KoA (talk) 20:56, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Conduct in deletion-related editing is closed and BilledMammal was not a party. There's currently a related ongoing RfC but creation/deletion tasks are continuing as usual. –dlthewave ☎ 22:32, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for the link. Looks like this would be the appropriate venue then. KoA (talk) 20:58, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm back and have a little time, so I have a number of things to point out, please bear with me. (1) BilledMammal accused me of canvassing. I originally posted to exactly one page - Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Tree of Life. Why? Because all of the merged/altered articles affected were WP:TOL pages, and because WP:TOL has, within it, space EXPRESSLY DEVOTED to such changes as proposed merges, and to which BilledMammal did not submit any such proposals. (2) Given that WP:TOL does, in fact, have space dedicated to approving/rejecting merge proposals, I think it is entirely understandable that I would be under the impression that the WikiProject does, in fact, have an established policy and legitimate claim to authority over such actions, and I acted accordingly, reacting to what I saw as a massive and unprecedented policy breach. Being accused by BilledMammal of acting in a non-neutral manner is predicated on his actions NOT being a breach of policy, and WP:TOL having no authority at all, and all the evidence I had in front of me is that it WAS a breach of policy. Others here and elsewhere have stated that WikiProject policies have no authority or enforceability at all, and I find this surprising, and apologize if I assumed too much. (3) Likewise, BilledMammal accused me of not assuming his actions were in good faith, but breaches of policy such as not getting approval for article merges, especially when they delete unique content do not appear to be good faith actions, unless an editor is acting in complete ignorance of policy. An editor acting in good faith who is bulk-deleting content, especially when all of that content is flagged as belonging to a specific WikiProject, should be consulting with that WikiProject in advance. Just because an edit is bold doesn't mean it isn't genuinely destructive, and I would argue that demonstrably destructive edits should be rolled back until they have been discussed and approved. (4) Policy and rules aside, BilledMammal admitted, directly, that they did not know what content in the articles being merged was or was not valuable, as well as admitting, directly, that they did not look at each such article to assess whether there WAS any unique content that would be lost. That sort of bulk editing, when you don't understand what you're causing to be lost, is not just bold, it's reckless. If there's a fire, you don't adopt a neutral stance and wait to see if it will go out on its own; you call the fire department. (5) When it was pointed out what deleted content was valuable, and what was unique, BilledMammal dismissed the point, saying that once he was made aware of the problem, some of it could be salvaged, and the rest, like taxonbars with Wikidata links, was not worth salvaging. Again, the time to learn what content needs to be maintained is BEFORE one removes that content, not after. Second, despite attempts to dismiss things like Wikidata links as not worth salvaging, I would argue that for many of these articles the Wikidata links are the single most important and unique source of information in the article, and - most importantly - ONLY Wikipedia species-level articles contain and make use of the full cross-referencing capacity of Wikidata. (6) Consider just one of the articles BilledMammal has proposed deleting; Knulliana, containing only a single species. The taxonbar was added by an editor after the article was created, and via Wikidata it links this record to Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies, BioLib, BugGuide, CoL, EoL, EPPO, GBIF, iNaturalist, IRMNG, ITIS, and NCBI. Not a single one of those linked sources crossreferences to the others. For that matter, Wikidata records themselves do not cross-reference to other Wikidata records; you cannot look at a species entry in Wikidata and determine from that how many species are in the same genus, or what family it is in. ONLY Wikipedia species articles serve to provide a reader with all of the information available for a species, and the information available through the Wikidata crossreferences is VAST - it includes not just the taxonomic information, but the geographic distributions, phenologies, host associations, biological notes, photographs, and records of actual physical specimens and their data. Just go to that Knulliana article and click on those Wikidata links to see how much information is contained there - all of it lost if the article is deleted. It is precisely this information that BilledMammal has specifically stated is not worth including in Wikipedia, at the same time complaining about how these stubs contain nothing useful or unique. Wikipedia species articles that contain a Wikidata linked taxonbar do NOT simply "duplicate the content" of a genus-level article (because the genus-level articles do not contain those Wikidata links), and they contain far more than just what is immediately visible in the text of the article. Despite comments I've seen some people post, species-level articles do NOT simply duplicate or mirror what is found in Wikispecies, they do MUCH more, because they contain a Wikidata link, while Wikispecies cross-references to almost nothing, not to Wikidata, and not even to Wikipedia. (7) As others have noted, deleting or merging articles not only does nothing to improve them, but it makes it harder for anyone else to improve them, just like deleting the brackets from a redlink makes it harder for anyone to know that an article needs to be created. All existing redirects pointing to species articles will no longer have a proper target, because you can't target individual entries in a table. (8) Designing a table format that can accommodate for all the possible permutations is not practical; BilledMammal's initial attempt had only three fields - species name, "first described", and range. If you wanted to have an actual table that could accommodate existing species article stub content, it would contain (a) present species name, (b) past names/spelling variants/synonyms (of which there can be be 50 or more), (c) authorships and years for all these names, (d) the geographic distributions, (e) host associations, (f) existence of subspecies, (g) images, (h) descriptive notes, and (i) references, at a bare minimum (i.e., without having to omit existing content of merged/deleted stubs). Even for a small genus, nine columns, and the possible amount of content in some of them (especially considering how many would have to be left blank) would be unwieldy enough, but for groups like beetles, there are some genera with over 3000 valid species! Those genus articles are bad enough as just lists, they will become impossible to use if they are converted into tables, and the unfortunate truth is that all but a literal handful of the species articles for those enormous genera are stubs. We are MUCH better off with 3000 individual articles than a gargantuan table. (9) Something else that is overlooked is HOW DO MOST USERS ARRIVE AT WIKIPEDIA? To continue the example above, if you google "Knulliana" the #1 Google hit is the Wikipedia article - the same article that BilledMammal has just proposed to delete. Call me crazy, but you shouldn't go around deleting the #1 source of information on an organism on the entire internet just because you assert that species stubs are wasteful and inefficient. (10) For me, the bottom line is this: once a species article referring to an actual valid taxonomic entity has been created and crossreferenced, it should not be subject to arbitrary decisions to merge or delete it. If the name is synonymized, then it should immediately be changed into a redirect to the valid taxon name, but that's about the only way a species article should ever be made to disappear. BilledMammal has not engaged with the relevant Wikiproject, and has dismissed the concerns about the effort of editors who have helped to improve a page, as being irrelevant to whether a page should be maintained. Well, Wikipedia is a community effort, for one thing, and the community should have a say in the matter. The other side of this is that an editor who does not understand what the content is that they're removing should not be making such a decision unilaterally, especially when there are editors who DO understand what the content is, and how valuable it is. (11) I will echo the calls by others to establish, once and for all, an explicit AND OBJECTIVE policy regarding species articles, however high up it needs to go in the WP administrative hierarchy to make it enforceable. It is hard enough to keep the existing articles organized and curated without some existential threat that if an article does not have some arbitrary amount of arbitrarily-defined improvement by some arbitrary deadline, it can be wiped away by anyone who feels so inclined, without discussing the matter in advance. That's a recipe for disaster, and I don't regret categorizing it as such. Dyanega (talk) 22:17, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    This is a little difficult to read, but three points:
    1. I accused you of canvassing because you posted a non-neutral message at ToL directing editors to the AfDs.
    2. The only content whose value I missed was that parenthesis around authors' names had a specific meaning, a mistake that was easily corrected.
    3. I did look at every article I redirected to see what content needed to be preserved.
    BilledMammal (talk) 22:37, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    No, you missed images, you missed synonyms, and you missed wikidata links - all were excluded from the genus/tribe articles you merged to. These are all important, you apparently still don't accept that Wikidata links are important. Dyanega (talk) 22:56, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    You admitted that you did not look to see if an article had images, nor did you look for synonyms, until after it was pointed out that these were important. Dyanega (talk)
    Please provide diffs for these admissions. BilledMammal (talk) 23:04, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Your pre-rollback edit of Bothriopsilini is this one: [50] showing that you imported no images, synonyms, or taxonbars, in addition to not importing the properly-formatted authorships, or recognizing that authorship is not at all the same thing as "first described". As for your comment admitting that you didn't pay attention to whether or not there were images, it was here: [51]. If your comment means that you noticed that there were images, but decided not to use them, then that's effectively the same thing, if not worse. You continue to trivialize things that are not at all trivial. You even said that Wikipedia had no responsibility for giving external links a home, which ignores that the crossreferenced sets of links in a taxonbar can't be found anywhere else. Dyanega (talk) 23:39, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Escalation and edit-warring by BilledMammal

    Despite warnings above, we're getting more pointy behavior by BilledMammal at Bothriospilini. Without using the talk page at all until just a few minutes ago, they've tried to insert their preferred version three times now over a few days.[52][53][54] They're basically trying to partially start the merge they're proposing in the AfD ahead of time. One diff is particularly odd where they try to reverse the burden for consensus: Restore content while AfD is ongoing, to prevent disruption and confusion. If the AfD closes as "no consensus" or "keep", then please reinstate your reversion and I will open an RfC on the preferred content.[55] Basically, they're trying to edit war in the new content for the page and trying to justify it because it would complicate their AfD if it wasn't there in some strange circular reasoning. More on that at the talk page.[56]

    This attitude is clearly wasting time at this point, so this is partly a request for admins to monitor for future edit warring, but to also indicate we're still dealing with timesink behavior issues even after the mass redirects stopped above. Too much battleground mentality being projected from this editor. KoA (talk) 05:11, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    try to reverse the burden for consensus - I asked you to delay your edit a few days, in order to avoid disrupting an ongoing AfD whose debate is related to the existence of the content you removed. That isn't an attempt to reverse the burden for consensus.
    I also find it surprising that you're accusing me of edit warring. While I have reverted twice, it was across several days, and the first was to restore content that appeared to have been unintentionally caught up in the rollback. Meanwhile, you've reverted twice in a single hour.
    Finally, while I didn't use the article talk page until after you opened a discussion there, I did try to open a discussion on your talk page; rather than engage with it, you removed it. BilledMammal (talk) 05:23, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    KoA, could you explain how adding species tables to an article is WP:POINTy? Such tables appear to be a standard practice (eg. Ibis). CMD (talk) 07:15, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That's not really an accurate description just saying it's tables. For the article itself, BM has been repeatedly told that the species articles already handle the information they are trying to insert, and that sections like this were not helpful in terms of structure and prose. If they had simply engaged on the talk page and stopped edit warring from the start, that part of the behavior would not have been as pointy.
    I already mentioned it above, but repeatedly restoring disputed content is what is also pointy, especially when they are trying to edit war in the content merge they're trying to accomplish at the AfD before the close. It should be self-apparent when reading their edit summary I quoted or their comment just above this how much they are doubling down on abusing the process they've been blocked for before.[57] It is literally wiki-lawyering to not get consensus on something only to start an AfD and accuse others of disrupting the AfD because those other editors won't let BM edit war in content they actively chose not to get consensus for. The short of it is that BM is just inflaming the topic independent of content that could be worked on and sucking time away from editors trying hold their behavior issues at bay. KoA (talk) 13:11, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    How would you describe it? It appears to be tables, or where the table would be one row, text that covers the same material. On disputed content, until now there has been no indication that the Bothriospilini content was disputed. The version you have chosen is literally a single sentence, I do not understand how that is an improvement. CMD (talk) 14:32, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That is not addressing the behavior issues. KoA (talk) 14:41, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That may be so, it would nonetheless be helpful to get answers to my questions to understand what you feel is pointy (to be specific, disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point). I have asked because in the situation you raise I see one editor expanding an article and one reducing it back to a single sentence. An explanation for how the reduction is helpful to that article remains outstanding. CMD (talk) 15:00, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    You are welcome to read this ANI and the relevant AfDs you're already at for that, but the disruption doesn't change based on what someone thinks of the content question, and that's really a subject for the other venues. BM was already alerted multiple times the content belongs at the species pages, not the tribe, and BM was well are of their approach to trying to merge that content in was disputed. You don't just keep charging ahead with edits then. Avoiding relevant talk pages and their onus to get consensus for the content even when pinged[58] is already disruptive. Trying to do the mass merge through an AfD is one thing (not to mention the many comments on procedural issues with their nomination there), but then insisting they get to start that merge ahead of time at the target articles and act like those trying to deal with BM avoiding getting consensus are somehow disrupting the AfD is just plain escalating and projecting. It's disruptive WP:GAMING no matter how you cut it and why we are here rather than solely dealing with the content in the other venues. If it wasn't for that, we wouldn't see the basic non-responses like at Talk:Bothriospilini when we finally got them to comment at an article talk page only yesterday.
    At this point I'm spending time on this because whenever it looks like there might be a little reprieve, BM has another stunt that comes up, and that's reviewing what I've seen even before I stepped in here too. Given past ANIs and blocks on BM, it's clear that trend is just continuing even in their most recent comments. That's why we now have a section on escalation and starting to queue up preventative measures. We do have to respect the community that shouldn't have to deal with the behavior time-sink at some point. KoA (talk) 16:21, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Having read the ANI and relevant AfDs, it is not explained anywhere how reducing Bothriospilini to a single sentence benefits any particular editor, the relevant Wikiprojects, the reader, or Wikipedia. Given you also do not appear inclined to explain it here after being asked directly, I do not think your AN/I case on pointy editing will get very far. CMD (talk) 02:03, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi CMD, the reason that the Bothriospilini article was a single sentence is that often very little of the literature is written at that taxonomic level (tribe), and this is reflected on WP where we generally have articles at the species, genus, family, order, class (and higher) ranks, but not at any of the many "in between" ranks. Where these articles do exist, they are often placeholders to assist in navigation through very large taxonomic trees.
    KoA did not "reduce" the article to a single sentence, so much as to restore it to its pre-edit warring and pre-AfD launching state. Although BilledMammal failed to follow the prescribed sequence of gaining consensus for obviously contested moves (obvious to them because they had participated/instigated the fish stub "mass" creation discussion and recent RfC on the mass creation), they instead tried to back-door the process by filing two AfDs (one of which would have been enough for a test case) by requesting a merge as an alternative to deletion as a goal of AfD. Rather than wait for the AfD closing result, they then started their intended merge by moving material up to the desired target page and claiming that their AfD goal (ATD-M) was correct based on a supposed WP:CONTENTFORK, a duplication of material that was both their own creation and against consensus. This gaming of WP procedures without engaging other involved WP editors is neither collegial nor helpful to the encyclopedia. Seems POINTy enough to me. Loopy30 (talk) 02:31, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Articles should not exist to serve as categories, that's what categories are for. At any rate, this continues to not explain how having more detail on the members on the tribe page is bad for that article. The pointy edit here appears to be the blocking of the improvement of an article (in a way that reflects many other articles) because of an AfD for other articles. CMD (talk) 03:25, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Tribes are less notable than genera. If low-notability taxonomy stubs are going to being merged, tribes would be better candidates than genera (in this paticular case, the next level up, Cerambycinae, has well over 600 genera, so there are some practical reasons for keeping tribe stubs). Plantdrew (talk) 16:57, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I think this is also a good point for a potential SNG. NeverRainsButPours (talk) 18:49, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    On disputed content, until now there has been no indication that the Bothriospilini content was disputed. KoA, can you explain why you believe the content was disputed before your revert? This question is prompted by your recent revert at Bimiini where your edit summary indicates that you also believe that content was disputed.
    If you are referring to the rollback, the summary was focused on the redirects, and I don't think it is unreasonable to believe that it was not disputing the content at the target articles. BilledMammal (talk) 01:08, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    You've already been made aware you're making false statements. Elmidae reverted the entirety, not just the part you mentioned before I did the same at both articles. You knew it was disputed. Trying to wikilawyer basically saying you're sure they didn't mean to revert it all in order to say you should be able to edit war is just indicating you're trying to be disruptive at this point. You seriously need to step back from taxonomy articles if you intend to double down on tendentious editing like this at ANI of all places. Otherwise the community will be forced to do that for you at the rate you are going. KoA (talk) 01:33, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I have seen species lists routinely included in the article about the genus that contains those species (the next level up the taxonomic hierarchy), and, much less commonly, at higher taxonomic levels (like Ibis). I do not recall ever seeing a species list, certainly not at a higher taxonomic level, that attempted to give more data than the name of individual species; in almost all cases, such a list or table would grow unmanageably large as it was filled out with information. To give an example, if someone created List of communities in New Jersey and started filling it with short entries about individual communities, we would (I hope) recognize that the article was too broadly scoped, and disperse it into sections of articles on individual counties, or narrower standalone lists like List of municipalities in Sussex County, New Jersey. This would be true even if many of the communities were deemed non-notable or at least not worthy of having a separate article.
    My general impression of the situation, from the Village Pump discussion of fish stubs and the subsequent mass article creation RfC, is that BilledMammal favors a fairly aggressive upmerging of taxonomic stubs into larger higher-level articles. This is a defensible position, but has not yet obtained consensus and is a reasonably WP:BOLD action, insofar as it prescribes a different interpretation of policy than has been conventionally accepted in this area, as described by WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES. Again, re-examining these conventions is a legitimate activity (cf. NSPORTS), but I think they've shown increasingly poor judgment in how they approached it. I think we've reached the point where it would be better to see what position can gain consensus by discussing it with people familiar with this content (e.g., at the Tree of Life project) rather than by filing more AfDs and trying to judge the consensus position based on (possibly conflicting) outcomes there. Choess (talk) 17:03, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Restricting notability consensus discussions to wikiprojects is exactly what caused all the problems with NSPORT, trains, GEOLAND, porn, etc. Notability/article creation conventions should reflect global community consensus, not LOCALCON. JoelleJay (talk) 19:55, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    JoelleJay, you had a clear chip on your shoulder attitude the way you came charging into those AfDs, but you need to slow down to avoid mistakes as I've repeatedly told you. No one is talking about restricting discussions to wikiprojects, but avoiding subject-matter experts entirely as has happened results in even more problems. Choess had a very even-handed summary, and launching into hyperbole after that isn't helpful. WP:BEFORE was very clear to do things like fix the articles yourself, use article talk pages, and consult with relevant Wikiprojects to get an understanding of how the nuances of a specific subject works rather than trying to steamroll the community. That didn't happen, which is largely in part due to the behavior issues we're focusing on at this ANI. KoA (talk) 20:20, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    My comment was only in response to the suggestion to gain consensus at, e.g., the Tree of Life project. SCHOOLOUTCOMES, NSPORT, NPORN, NTRAINSTATION, etc. demonstrate the global community should decide consensus on inclusion criteria because subject matter experts/enthusiasts tend to develop walled gardens that contravene our broader P&Gs, in particular WP:NOT and WP:OR. JoelleJay (talk) 20:59, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Choess: Here is one, Panthera, where the table gives images, names, scientific names, synonyms, authority and dating of scientific name, similar info on subspecies, and ranges. The table for extinct taxa even has a notes section. CMD (talk) 03:31, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The genus Panthera is vastly smaller than the majority of insect taxa, and given that the big cats draw much more interest and editorial attention, as well as being more taxonomically stable, the table there is easy. Comparing Panthera to insect taxa is apples and oranges. SilverTiger12 (talk) 15:12, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    In the particular insect taxa case in question, some of the genera were monotypic, so much smaller than Panthera. At any rate, it is merely an example of practice; there are many more. CMD (talk) 16:16, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    While I agree the prior AFD after the ANI thread was started dies fall into pointy behavior, this expansion of the lists to include relevant information pulled from the species articles seems wholly appropriate, regardless if the species pages are kept or not individually. I would expect a hierarchical list article like this to help guide me on going down the list in more than just name. That right now it seems to be repeating everything found on the species pages is a fault of the species pages being only stubs and not full articles. Masem (t) 21:35, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Masem and Chipmunkdavis: My perception of a modal species list is still "simple list in genus article", but paddling around a bit in mammals suggests that more complex lists are more common there (and I assume also in birds and some other charismatic and well-documented taxa), which I hadn't realized until now. I don't think species lists have to be bare lists of names, but I'd point out (from experience dealing with some articles in another content area) that the more material you add to these lists, the more maintenance burden you create to keep them synchronized with standalone articles. If someone cruises by and adds a newly published paper that updates the distribution of a species, they won't necessarily think to update summaries in articles two levels of taxonomy up. That's not to say that we can't have more expansive species lists–we are here to help the reader–but adding more information to the lists is not incontrovertibly a good thing. Plantdrew made a fairly succinct case on Talk:Bothriospilini for why these actions were mildly disruptive, so I'll refrain from belaboring the point here. I do appreciate your bringing the more expansive lists in mammals, etc. to my attention. Choess (talk) 02:57, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    When vertebrate genus articles include tables, existing species pages are kept, not merged - as such, these are much more obvious targets for criticism under anti-forking policies than articles that simply offer lists of species names. I have yet to see a single article anywhere within the WP:TOL sphere that has a genus-level article with a table containing multiple species all of which are only linked via redirects. Also, as noted earlier, much of the species-specific information linked to by the taxonbars is not duplicated in the genus articles with tables. That includes comprehensive geographic distribution data, host associations, phenology data, potentially hundreds of photographs, and up to several thousands of specimen records in museums, all linked to individual species and accessible only on the kinds of species pages BilledMammal has been trying to convert to redirects or calling to delete entirely. The accepted practice is to redirect only when a genus is monotypic (or a synonym), and then the general practice is to redirect to the species. The comments above about certain ranks (species, genus, family, order) being treated preferentially is also true: if a tribe contains only one genus, the redirect is to the genus article. If a subfamily contains one tribe with one genus, the redirect is to the genus. If a superfamily contains one family, the redirect is to the family, unless that family is monotypic (see, e.g. Rhinorhipus) and so forth. In other words, monotypic taxon redirects generally go down, rather than up. In the specific case BilledMammal has put up in the AfD, the tribal article is the one that contains the least information, and would, push comes to shove, be first to get deleted rather than adding genus and species article content to it and then deleting the sources of that content, as BilledMammal was trying to do. It is this behavior - taking articles that had no content forking and turning them into content forks - that BilledMammal has been engaged in, and which is the biggest concern. Take a look at the Knulliana article, in the version immediately prior to his first attempted merge: [59]. Now, take a look at the Bothriospilini article, the version immediately prior to his first attempted merge: [60]. There is almost nothing in those two articles that was duplicated or redundant, and these articles were perfectly fine before he tried to merge them. One other thing that would have come up, had BilledMammal ever sought consensus over at WP:TOL, is that tribal ranks are probably the least stable of the well-known taxonomic ranks; they are the most prone to being created, sunk, or redefined. As a general practice, then, most of us who are taxonomists avoid creating tribal articles entirely, because they will - over time - generally require more maintenance than they are worth, and almost never contain any content other than a simple list of constituent genera, so it makes more sense to let them linger as redlinks in automated taxoboxes, and not even include them in manual taxoboxes at all. Case in point, the subfamily Cerambycinae, to which Bothriospilini belongs, contains over 110 tribes at present. That number is in constant flux, with many of those tribes only having been established as tribes within the past decade or two. You'll note that many of them are redlinks, even though in a few cases one or more of their constituent genera have articles. Despite this, editors who work within WP:TOL will almost never delete or redirect an article once it has been created, until and unless it has been brought up on the project page. Dyanega (talk) 16:36, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that BilledMammal's actions were harmful and not in good faith. He should at the very least get a formal warning, or if enough people agree be taken to ANI. Ortizesp (talk) 20:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ortizesp: This is ANI. 😂 Levivich (talk) 21:48, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    This isANIBurma-shave — rsjaffe 🗣️ 21:55, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I've read through this discussion and I fail to see why taking this matter to ANI was appropriate. The (very) bold merges have been reverted, and the discussions have been started. ANI doesn't need to be involved in this issue. --Spekkios (talk) 01:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    You literally were just at an AfD where more disruption had to be cleaned up. [61]
    • Still continuing. Now BM has taken to edit warring at their AfDs to violate WP:TALK#REVISE related to the edit warring that started this subsection. Editors were already complaining about their links misleading readers.[62] We seem to be in a cycle of someone commenting at ANI that there's nothing to see here while practically each day we have a new issue with BM that just continues WP:TEND behavior. KoA (talk) 13:44, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Revising the comment of someone who you're already in disagreement with seems like something that is only ever going to get a hostile reaction. Not commenting on the appropriateness of the edit, just that is hardly surprising that it wasn't warmly received. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:12, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      For anyone's reference this appears to be BilledMammal original edit that modified the link. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:22, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I think everyone should take some steps back and do something else for a while. Nobody in this dispute looks very good in the above diff. Being right is not worth a WP:BOOMERANG. NeverRainsButPours (talk) 17:44, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      BM already established they're acting tendentious in most interactions, so it's also no surprise they'd act this way regardless. I think we need to be careful about the lashing out at those actual trying to hold BM's disruption at bay though. BM was the first one to modify the comment well after the start, and other editors including myself were simply restoring to the original due to complaints of BM actively misleading editors.
      A few of us editors were alerted to issues with BM through this ANI, so while we're trying, we still need help given the constant doubling down on BM being disruptive. Until that happens, it's going to be the same trend of BM lashing out at whoever tries to deal with their tendentious behavior that day though, so all that us non-admins can do is try to clean up and report. It's a drain on the community when those reports aren't taken seriously and BM still thinks it's perfectly ok to ignore all the warnings they've been getting in the past few days about their behavior. The more editors try to stop disruption, the more BM escalates, which is why we're still at ANI asking for admin help. KoA (talk) 18:21, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      KoA, what exception under WP:TPO do you claim as justification for repeatedly editing my comments? My justification for editing my own comment is to preserve context, by ensuring that the link continued to point at the same content. BilledMammal (talk) 18:24, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Updating a link in one's own post in this fashion is not disruptive. Blowing it out of proportion, edit warring on that basis, and then coming back to ANI in a hyperbolic fashion with statements like actively misleading editors might be, though. Please consider the damage you are doing to your own cause. MrOllie (talk) 18:32, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      While the repeated reversion of Billed Mammals post is not great, I've never seen linking to old versions done in deletion nominations. It goes against what people generally expect to be happening in a deletion discussion, which has to do with the current state of the article, its potential for improvement, and whether it should be deleted. (Which is, I guess, yet another problem with misusing AFD to propose a merge.) This editing is, at best, very strange and unexpected, which is generally not a good way to handle a public process. I don't see what it overtly accomplishes that a comment wouldn't have done better. Jahaza (talk) 19:13, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      This ANI thread, much like that AfD, is a mess that is unlikely to achieve any consensus. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:22, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Move to content discussion?<ec> I was going to suggest that given BM's recent declaration that they had ceased edit-warring on Bothriospilini (here) and their willingness to now engage in discussion on the WP:TOL project page to achieve consensus before continuing with any further merges of taxonomic articles (here), that this is becoming less of a conduct issue and more of a content issue that could possibly be resolved outside of ANI. Or maybe not... Loopy30 (talk)

    Massive bot attack

    A massive bot attack is underway at Talk:Attack on Paul Pelosi with hundreds of identical comments being added by different IPs. AusLondonder (talk) 10:00, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I can concur. It's next to impossible to undo all of the damage that's being done right now because the bots are flooding it all at once. Love of Corey (talk) 10:02, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Also at Talk:Paul Pelosi. Brunton (talk) 10:04, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Been happening for over an hour, now. AusLondonder (talk) 10:07, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Is the main Attack on Paul Pelosi article protected? There's been no IP activity for a bit, but I sense we're going to have to be ahead of the curve here. Love of Corey (talk) 10:08, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Reviewing (saw I edit conflicted on the page protection).. — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 10:11, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Presumably the history pages of these talkpages are now a list of a few hundred open proxies. Any admins with experience blocking open proxies may want to lend a hand. Malcolmxl5 seems to have started, but there are a lot of blocks to do. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 10:40, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Excellent! :D Love of Corey (talk) 10:49, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Malcolmxl5: looks like you started blocking the IP addresses. Need some help? A quick scan of a random selection of the IPs shows they are indeed proxies. There are close to a thousand entries to get through, so an automated process would be helpful here if anyone has suggestions. I'm a bit surprised this attacker showed their hand so soon and so incompetently. --Yamla (talk) 11:00, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I extracted the list of involved IP addresses to User talk:Yamla/Attack on Paul Pelosi botnet. --Yamla (talk) 11:19, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Timotheus Canens/massblock.js might help you there. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 11:33, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Excellent. I plan to block all involved IP addresses for two weeks as proxies. I'm going to wait a while to see if Malcolmxl5 has any comments, though, or if anyone else objects. --Yamla (talk) 11:36, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I've never used Tim's script to block that many users in one go so I don't know if it'll handle such a large batch. If you want to split it down I can start from the bottom and meet you in the middle. A two-week hard block seems reasonable unless any of the IPs have been open for a while. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 11:42, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm going through some of more obvious ones and blocking them for longer. Should be fine to massblock, just make sure you don't override anything. DatGuyTalkContribs 11:44, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll start at the beginning of the next hour (1 PM UTC), unless anyone objects. HJ Mitchell, happy to start at the top if you start at the bottom. I've split the list in (roughly) half, so you can take the bottom half. I plan to leave {{blocked proxy}} as the talk page message, choose the same for "Common reasons", use "2 weeks" as the expiration time, hard block (leave "Block anonymous users only" unchecked, as per default), and UNCHECK the "Override existing blocks". --Yamla (talk) 12:17, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Yamla. Yes, I blocked a few. Out now so I’ll leave to others to you all to carry on. They are certainly proxies, almost certainly p2p proxies. A couple of weeks should do it. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 12:31, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I went through half of User talk:Yamla/Attack on Paul Pelosi botnet and noted all the ones marked by IPQualityScore as proxies at User:DatGuy/sandbox. Am hitting the rate limit so leaving the rest for someone else, can provide code if requested. Will compare with a few with other sources to determine which ones to block and for how long. DatGuyTalkContribs 12:44, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    DatGuy, any objections if we start by blocking all of them for 2 weeks, then you can override with longer blocks as appropriate? I expect you will object; let me know how specifically you think we should proceed instead. :) --Yamla (talk) 12:55, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    No issues, go ahead. DatGuyTalkContribs 12:56, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Following an unholy amount of blocks, rangeblocks, and everything in between (my spur.us account was suspended for 'suspicious activity'), I'd like to think that we're finished with this. Until the next time they somehow pull out five hundred proxies out of their arse, that is. DatGuyTalkContribs 15:54, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Worth noting that in (actual) bot attacks, blocks can be fairly ineffective — we have other higher-level methods of mitigating attacks, which the functionaries/stewards etc. know how to request. (Partly covered in T321971) — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 16:19, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I lack the technical skills to deal with type of attack, but I just want to say how grateful I am to all the administrators who helped out with this. Thanks to all. Cullen328 (talk) 17:25, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The phab task has restricted viewing, but I trust in your ability to handle this kind of stuff . DatGuyTalkContribs 17:33, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    (Non-administrator comment) Sorry I am a little late to the discussion, I just noticed that some of the blocks initially placed were indefinite. Is there really any harm in having IP addresses blocked indefinitely? There are numerous instances of IP addresses being blocked indefinitely, although they are few and far between. Per the WP:NOP policy we can block open proxies, Tor networks, and VPNs for any length of time. An indefinite IP block can still be reversed once it is found that the IP is no longer an open proxy. In my humble opinion the fact that these IP addresses are still open proxies is likely not going to change in two or three weeks. Unless if those IP addresses will be getting 403s when attempting to access Wikipedia I think a much longer block, potentially even indefinite, may be warranted. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 15:46, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The technical nature of the proxies in use, and the mitigation, does not lend itself to indefinitely blocking the IP(s) in question — TheresNoTime (talk • they/them) 16:09, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @TheresNoTime Ahh, I was about to ask why both links were pointing to beans. We want to make sure that any disclosure is done responsibly (ig). I see, I see. :) Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 21:25, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Utterly horrendously written articles from an auto patrolled user

    I have come across this user's articles and they are horrendously written. The English is awful and completely broken. I am unable to even attempt to make corrections to some of these articles. Sure English isn't everyone's native language, but this user for some reason has auto patrolled rights, meaning the articles he's creating are not even being checked or reviewed properly. How Wikipedia can allow this is astounding, there should be a basic level of English required before such articles are published. Two examples of poorly written articles that I cannot even attempt to try and fix: David Mark Hill and Samuel Hartsel. The Hill article did not even correctly name the execution method which I had to correct: [63]. There are many more. Please can an admin review. Inexpiable (talk) 20:04, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I usually find that the non-native English users are better than the native editors whose English is just bad. The former are usually happy to be corrected but the latter often take great offence at anything that could be construed as criticism of their writing. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:25, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Those are indeed practically unreadable and would definitely have benefitted from an NPPer tagging them with the copyedit template. JoelleJay (talk) 20:30, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that their prose is atrocious, and that their autopatrolled status should be revoked. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree - WP:CIR. Very inappropriate for them to be an auto-patroller. DeCausa (talk) 20:57, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Joe Roe gave the user the AP right last year. I'm reluctant to revoke the right without Joe's views.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:52, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Folks, before we discuss removing perms or any sanction, perhaps we could give our colleague the opportunity to respond first? AFAIK, this ANI thread is the first time these problems have been raised? It's kind of rude to jump straight to talk of sanctions without even talking to the user first, particularly when it's someone who has donated thousands of hours here. Before any of the rest of us give our opinion, shouldn't we hear what MATF has to say first? Levivich (talk) 21:27, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Three comments. First, we should definitely allow MATF to respond before any further steps are discussed. Second, please remember that the AP flag isn't really a right; while some stigma likely attaches to its removal, fundamentally it exists to benefit reviewers and readers, and has no benefit to the holder. Third, I would like to hear from MATF whether they have used machine translation to assist them at any point; some of the phraseology strikes me as similar to the meaninglessness that google sometimes produces. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:37, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree that hearing from the editor for clarification is a good idea, but I also agree that revoking their autopatrolled status is called for and shouldn't be dependent on it. First stop the problem, then discuss with the editor. Their status can easily be changed back if it appears to be warranted. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:58, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • MATF has created 1,152 articles. I just spent a half-hour 45 minutes fixing a relatively simple one, John Harllee (admiral). If that's typical, we're talking about volunteers spending something like 500 800 hours cleaning up after their mess. That's a problem that's significant enough to warrant acting first, and listening to explanations later. Please, would some admin remove their autopatrolled flag? Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:30, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      There appear to be some major content issues here. For example, the article Talmadge L. Heflin states

      In 1983, Heflin won the election for the 149th district of the Texas House of Representatives. He was honored by the Alief Independent School District which it was renamed as the Talmadge L. Heflin Elementary School.

      The source [64] however states

      Mr. Heflin served on the Board of Trustees of the Alief Independent School District from 1973 to 1980. In 1982, the district honored his service to the area with the opening of Talmadge L. Heflin Elementary School.

      The article implies that he was honoured for winning the election, rather than because he served on the board of trustees, falsely states that something was "renamed" when it was actually a new school being opened, implies the school naming occurred after the election in 1983 when it actually took place in 1982 and it confusingly suggests that the school district turned into a elementary school somehow. There are other examples of exceptionally poor writing,

      In 1980, Heflin was apart of an election, in which it had involved being unsuccessful against Georgia's United States senator Mack Mattingly.

      Is an extremely convoluted and confused way of saying he lost an election, which somehow avoids actually telling us what the election was. The article is also full of grammatical errors and nonsensical sentences, MOS issues ("politician" and "business" should not be linked), and a plethora of categories that are not verified in the article text - the article contains no information on his involvement in the energy business, his religious beliefs or his non-fiction writing.
      @Beyond My Ken perhaps it would looking into running a bot to unpatrol their article creations after they were granted the right? 192.76.8.88 (talk) 23:33, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm continuing to look to their articles, and indeed you are correct that grammar and construction errors are the least of the problems; the information itself has in many cases been corrupted. I would suggest that all of their articles be moved to draftspace, where they can be worked on without being generally accessible to the public. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:40, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      @Beyond My Ken: Are they actively creating bad articles without responding here? If not, removal isn't urgent, though I agree it's likely to be warranted. AP removal isn't retroactive; any articles they've created would still need to be manually reviewed. Vanamonde (Talk) 23:50, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    They don't seem to have edited since last night. I understand the principal of not acting unless there is a need to stop ongoing activity, but I think the need here is obvious enough (as I continue to review their articles) that lifting the flag is warranted. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:53, 29 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with the editors above that the issues here go beyond spelling and grammar errors. I attempted to copyedit David Mark Hill before giving up in frustration. At the time I found it, the article stated He had his own The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints church. This was sourced to [65], which says The Hills' Mormon church helped pay their mortgage, utilities and groceries - obviously that doesn't mean that he ran a church!
      The next paragraph is extremely convoluted, difficult to understand and leaves out important context: Hill had began to act as a spree killer after receiving a notice from his wife to file a divorce against him. He was involved in some murders which had resulted three people being killed, in which he was suspected that Hill was the murderer since he had visited a department of social office. It was stated that he also assaulted a person which was his daughter. He killed them since it was for taking his children away from him, in which there was a restraining order against Hill. The actual story, from [66], is Hill went on the shooting spree in North Augusta after his wife asked for a divorce and a social worker accused him of molesting a child. He lost custody of his children and blamed state workers. Killed were case worker Jimmy Riddle, 52; Josie Curry, 35; and Michael Gregory, 30.
      I can understand why autopatrolled was granted because many of their articles are brief stubs where these issues with writing coherently aren't as apparent (e.g. Nicolas Becker (sound engineer), Andy Lewis (screenwriter)). However, considering the factual errors and general incomprehensiblity of their longer creations I don't think it is appropriate for them to hold this right. Spicy (talk) 00:21, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Did the admin who granted them this permission actually review any of their work? Every single article I’ve checked so far has been plagued with the above mentioned content issues. Now I’m seeing that they’ve created over 1000 articles? This has the potential to be a massive problem. 2604:2D80:6A8D:E200:FC3F:FA47:1CA0:2CF8 (talk) 00:02, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I thought the same, but then looking at their page creations before they were granted the autopatrolled right, a lot were stubs with short sentences or lists of films/shows obscuring their language deficiencies. So if Joe just looked at a handful of the stubs on Academy Award winners he wouldn't have noticed anything egregious. The typos and sentence construction chaos are only really apparent when MATF attempts to expand beyond a stub. Perhaps in the case of serial (notable, sourced) stub creators AP grantors should look for any larger page creations/expansions by the user to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen. JoelleJay (talk) 00:26, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Remove the user right. There is sufficient evidence presented here. Additionally require that all future articles from this editor are created as a draft. Per Beyond My Ken: First stop the problem, then discuss with the editor. Donating thousands of hours here has never been a hurdle to stripping of special rights if the content quality is a serious problem and creating unnecessary work for others. Furthermore, autopatrolled is the one right that accords absolutely no benefits to the user whatsoever other than giving them another hat to wear. NPP has been acutely aware of the abuse of the auto patrolled right for a very long time. Their best suggestion to date is to deprecate this user right which having become a contentious issue has already been recently removed from the sysop bundle. To suggest that it would increase the workload of the reviewers (the usual contra argument) would be a straw man - articles of the quality expected by auto patrolled users only take a second or two to review. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:25, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with removal of AP as the first step. Per WP:AUTOPAT, "Autopatrolled is a user right given to prolific creators of clean articles". It's quite clear that this editor is not producing "clean articles". I just spot-checked six very quickly and could not identify any major problem without comparing them with the sources. But 5/6 need a copyedit cleanup minimally, with things like Born in Bentonville, Arkansas. (The sixth was a two-line stub). MB 01:14, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    According the autopatrolled right based on a random look at a few stubs (if that's what happened) is not the best way to go. Stubs, however clean they might be, are not sufficient to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the requirements for producing a fully fleshed out article. I do recall that mass creating stubs to obtain the autopatrolled right has been deliberately used in the past by users with a specific agenda. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:34, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    If there's an agenda here, I haven't glommed on to it yet. The articles I've reviewed and fixed so far are about minor politicians and officials, both Democrat and Republican; the encyclopedia would not be affected in any significant way if they were all moved to draft to be worked on.
    The problems I've seen are misrepresentation of what sources say (apparently because of misunderstanding), stilted writing, incorrect use of idiomatic constructions (especially in the use of prepositions), convoluted and awkward phrasings, use of infobox parameters that don't exist, nonsensical facts (such as a legislator being suceeded by three people), categorization not supported by text in the article (almost as if MATF has personal knowledge they're using), inclusion of unnecessary information, failure to update information from more recent sources (a person is reported to have 4 brothers, but a correction in the same newspaper changes it to 3 brothers; both sources are cited, but the article still said 4 brothers until I corrected it), etc., all of which are, I think, neither deliberate nor malign, but nevertheless result in sloppy articles that are well below the expected standard. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:43, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    They're also creating these articles pretty quickly - 7 articles yesterday, 10 articles on the 16th, 11 articles on the 15th. No indication of automation or anything like that, but from the results, they don't seem to be spending any significant amount of time crafting them. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:20, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    So, is everybody waiting for the user and/or Joe Roe to weigh in here..? I've removed the autopatrolled right. Bishonen | tålk 08:14, 30 October 2022 (UTC).[reply]
    Thank you. I hope we'll hear from the editor soon. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:24, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    There are two active ANI discussions right now regarding users granted autopatrol rights by User:Joe Roe making bizarre and disruptive edits. It also appears in his talk page from 18 days ago that he intends to ignore ANI discussions? Looks like he had a spot of trouble regarding a third autopatrolled user here. Kire1975 (talk) 11:58, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I am not "ignoring ANI discussions". I haven't been editing for a few days, and by the time I saw the pings in this thread, it had already run its course and I didn't have anything to add. WP:AGF, please. – Joe (talk) 12:33, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Going to weigh in here briefly on some of the articles; I'm the one that's moved a few articles of MATF from a temp page to mainspace. However, I don't have AP, so all of those pages went through NPP regardless of MATF having AP at the time. The work I've seen from MATF is rewriting bad Billy Hathorn content; crap that's already got a plethora of issues beyond just copyright, and how copyright rewrites are usually done is by simply taking the content and rewriting it, not remaking an article entirely from scratch. We usually only check for copyright issues; we're not NPP 2.0. Regardless, I find the other problems troubling, but I don't think that we should be jumping to sanctions beyond AP revoking just yet. Sennecaster (Chat) 19:49, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Five questions: (1) Is some entity trying to use WP as an AI learning tool? (2) Is this an effort to discredit/disrupt WP? (3) What methods/tools can be used/invented to monitor these events (which will probably increase)? (4) Why did I receive and emailed link to this discussion? I am not an Admin and have no special privileges here (as far as I know). (5) Am I eligible for AP status? FINALLY: why did this page disappear a few minutes ago when I tried to post the above? WEIRD! Shir-El too 13:22, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    If you received an e-mail with a link to this discussion, why don't you ask the editor who e-mailed you why. Your other questions make no sense.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:56, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Bbb23Bbb23: the sender was wiki@wikimedia.org! The other three questions make sense if you view this problem as a possible trend, not just an isolated incident, and make good sense in an era of 'fake news', 'fake images' etc. Wikipedia may be this planet's best source of free, relatively unbiased information, which some minds can't stand: it makes them vulnerable. The 5th question is now moot; I looked it up and don't want it. All the Best! Shir-El too 15:00, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Shir-El too: I can answer that last question: it's because you added your comments to a version of this page from ~6 hours ago, effectively reverting to it. Then Beshogur reverted you. I'm guessing the email you received included a linked DIFF instead of a link to the current discussion, like this: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Utterly horrendously written articles from an auto patrolled user. Woodroar (talk) 14:23, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you! Cheers! Shir-El too 15:01, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Three answers: (1) Is some entity trying to use WP as an AI learning tool? No. It bears very few of the hallmarks of AI article writing; also you'd not teach an AI how to learn by having it do something else. (2) Is this an effort to discredit/disrupt WP? No. There are far better ways of doing both. Writing crappy articles is a function of this being an encyclopedia anyone can edit and goes with the territory. The cock-up theory is always better than the conspiracy theory. (3) What methods/tools can be used/invented to monitor these events (which will probably increase)? Very few, even assuming we could do anything. In this particular case, not granting the Auto-Patrolled right would've made discovering this annoying-but-minor (in the scheme of things) event happen earlier. It wouldn't've prevented it because anything that prevents this type of thing also prevents people from creating good articles too. — Trey Maturin has spoken 16:27, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I know this is late but this is the evidence that I will provide: For Vanamonde's third comment, I write the articles in my own words and I don't use a machine translation unless I have to which I would use it for the articles that's in other different Wikipedia languages that included Àngel Casas. I would say that with my writing, I would change up my words with searching up another word to "insert word here" in a website, where I would use that word instead. With the Talmadge L. Heflin, I didn't mean that the school was renamed after him when he won the election but I don't know since like sometimes I don't notice. I didn't see anything wrong with my writing. The article Talmadge L. Heflin was a rewrite to get rid of Billy Hathorn's copyright version along with Teel Bivins and Flip Mark. You'll notice when I create them rewrites, I put recreated without copyright and what I do is I copy the categories from the archive version of Hathorn's to make it easier. Then I write it with using the cited sources in my own words. If I'm not editing in like a Saturday or for a few days then I'm like away from the computer since like I'm in somewhere else and while I'm away, I write articles in my Google Docs and then when I finally come home, I would copy-paste then fix it and then make some changes but this is how I write and with Hathorn's writing I use them but I avoid its copyright and make it my own words, but I will mention that I am a Spanish speaker but I do better in English.

    With the David Mark Hill edit with the church removal I saw, it had said The Hills Mormon Church which would have meant he had his own church and with the Mormon church link it had redirected to the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints article, in which its also known as Mormon church. With the sentence in the Talmadge F. Heflin article, "In 1980, Heflin was apart of an election, in which it had involved being unsuccessful against Georgia's United States senator Mack Mattingly" (which is already removed), well I didn't know what election it was but I included it since it was sourced but I don't entirely have access to newspapers.com articles but just stuff that's already clipped, like I clip another thing since there is something clipped in the article and so on, I only have the free version of it. That newspaper article came up while I searched up Talmadge Heflin and it had mentioned the surname Heflin and I just took it as a ref. I didn't mean to cause disruption with my writing but if the community says there are issues with my articles then I would like to fix it if the community gives me a chance to improve it and see what they think. I just include info that's already sourced and just add them, which I saw with the Sally Wheeler article.

    With the Neil Haven Klock article, I’m gonna revert some stuff until consensus is made because according to the Louisiana House Members source it says who preceded, served alongside and succeeded him but Beyond My Ken goes along with the obituary, but the Louisiana House Members verifies that he served as a member of the legislative with other info too. It didn't say he left office during 1942 other than the obituary, since it says his term ended in 1944 and the legislative keeps the correct track of the members and years when I see it and it's verifiable. Klock was succeeded by three people according to the Louisiana House Members pdf, even in the archive version of the article, it says that he was succeeded by three people and it was sourced so I added it and just went along with verifiable Louisiana Members pdf, this is an answer to the nonsensical facts thing that has "such as a legislator being suceeded by three people". With T. J. Hooks, I’m gonna revert more stuff too until consensus is made since Hooks served along with E. A. Wilson for which they had both represented Lake. He and Wilson were succeeded by two people, according to the Florida House Membership. The one that Beyond My Ken decided that could stay is William A. Hocker, a politician who has a blue link and was succeeded by Hooker. Also there is this reason that they said was "They're also creating these articles pretty quickly - 7 articles yesterday, 10 articles on the 16th, 11 articles on the 15th. No indication of automation or anything like that.", well those articles were created normally, since it was because I created them in google docs when I didn't edit for a week so I copy-pasted them and made them into Wikipedia articles when I came back and had lots I made in google docs and I still have some leftovers that includes Donald Jonas, Vernon Peeples, Bob Terhune and many others too.

    Well now I see Beyond My Ken states that "I created seven articles yesterday" which was the (27th-28th), well the first two were from Google Docs, the third-fifth were Billy hathorn's rewrites since I was gonna be gone and I took my time into writing them and the Georgia's politicians stubs were created easily since I couldn’t find anything else but I found information in the pdf so I used it since it was SOURCED. Then I left to go somewhere else. The 16th had ten articles they say and most of them were from my Google Docs and some like Barry Oringer and William Wood (screenwriter) were created instantly. The article Taky Marie-Divine Kouamé was created when I woke up, since she won a medal in a notable event and had coverage too. The article Bo Callaway was recreated since it was gonna remove lot of stuff except the beginning so I rewrote it without copyright, that I'm adding more info. The 15th is when I came back, since I started off with Andy Detwiler who I written in my google docs and then the rest I wrote in google docs mostly. This is all I could say if it makes sense. MoviesandTelevisionFan (talk) 19:47, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I really hate to say it, but WP:Competence is required, and MaTF's long comment above speaks volumes about their lack of competence in writing acceptable English (as well as some basic misunderstandings about American electoral procedures); I won't embarrass them by pointing out the many basic errors it contains.
    I believe that it is necessary for the following actions to be taken:
    1. Move all the articles listed here to draft space. Editors who have fixed any of MaTF's creations can move them back into article space, and reviewers can whittle away at the rest of the list over time.
    2. Topic ban MaTF from creating articles more complex than the most basic stub (their stub articles seem to be OK) or extensively re-writing existing articles. I'm not quite sure how such a TB would be phrased, but I do think it's necessary. They can continue to do other non-textual work around Wikipedia - there's plenty of that to be done that doesn't require extensive ability to write acceptable English. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:58, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    But can I try improving my articles like I've seen many copyedits in my articles, but can I get a chance to fix them and then see what the community thinks. MoviesandTelevisionFan (talk) 20:06, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    • MATF, that manner of paraphrasing sources is completely inappropriate. You need to understand what the source has said, and construct your own sentences summarizing that material. If you carry out word-for-word replacements, you're going to alter the meaning of the text and produce incomprehensible content, and you're also not avoiding copyright issues at all. If you're not using machine translation, and English is your native language, I'm sorry to say I don't know what advice to offer you; but you need to be able to understand the sources you're using, and if you lack the ability to do Wikipedia isn't the best hobby for you.
      I don't think a TBAN will achieve anything here: the issue appears to be with any non-trivial content. Either MATF can fix this approach; possibly be reducing the speed at which they work, and by taking the time to understand what they're reading and writing; or they can't, in which case, what are they doing on Wikipedia? I would suggest that MATF be required to work on and fix any five articles of their choosing from among their creations, and if they can address the issues here, we can work out a system of probation. If they're unwilling or unable to do so, we need to consider a site-ban. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:44, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't care about the AP role but I just want to still create articles, but I need to improve the others first. Can someone check how I did with James Sturch. MoviesandTelevisionFan (talk) 20:36, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    @MoviesandTelevisionFan: Your changes to James Sturch were improvements as far as they went, but another user (Larry Hockett) still had to make further changes, correcting some pretty basic errors in English phrasing. It doesn't speak well to your ability to fix the problems with the articles you created. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:22, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @MoviesandTelevisionFan: If you'd like, take a look at the list on my talk page of your articles which I have worked on. While not perfect, they may give you more of an idea where your mistakes lie if you compare their condition now to how they looked when you stepped away from them. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:25, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I will do that, thank you. MoviesandTelevisionFan (talk) 01:32, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I moved Nick Mackey to draft as some content was unintelligible, user has made numerous efforts to improve this with zero success “resigned for which he was probed from a reason" “"he was resigned due to being investigated from some issues” ”he was resigned from his duty due to being investigated from his fabricating hours" now “In 2003, he was resigned.” WP:CIR is appropriate. Theroadislong (talk) 21:05, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That article has been worked on by several editors and is now fine. I've moved it back into mainspace. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:48, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Is this a situation where, rather than a TBAN, having a mandatory AfC draft submission for all their articles would be appropriate instead? SilverserenC 21:56, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    As a reasonably active AFC reviewer, our workload is heavy enough without having more than the few mandatory AFC users we have already. All this would achieve is moving the problem around the various willing horses. Mentorship, assuming that still exists, would be a more immediate feedback and education loop. AFC has a large backlog and our role is to accept drafts that have a better than 50% chance of surviving an immediate deletion process. We are not meant to strive for perfection, though some reviewers do. 🇺🇦 FiddleTimtrent FaddleTalk to me 🇺🇦 22:07, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've indefinitely blocked the user from article space. Frankly, I don't think that's sufficient because they will just create work editing badly in draft space. I would prefer a topic ban from article creation in any space, and if my prediction is valid, I can also add draft space to the pblock.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:35, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Bbb23, I'm not sure there's consensus here for such a drastic action. Also, it does seem both unnecessary (given that the editor has accepted the criticisms here) and counterproductive (given that they've expressed the intention to go back and correct problems with their articles). – Uanfala (talk) 08:47, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Admins can take actions on their own discretion, which I assume was the case here. As for MaTF's intention to fix the problems with their articles, given the nature of their comments here, I do not believe that the editor is capable of correcting the type of mistakes their articles are replete with. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:58, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I want to get the attention of what I'm gonna say. In my opinion, I think that I should create articles in draftspace that way it could be reviewed by AFC reviewers. I will read the guideline correctly and take my time into creating articles in draftspace. I'm just asking for a second chance from the community and this will be all I will say. I will mention that I should get access to edit namespace again but I would mainly just edit a bit and also add refs. I would still like to improve my articles in namespaces so I can fix it, but I didn't mean to cause disruption. I'm gonna stay back and come back for a few days to see what happens. Thank you! Please ping me if necessary. MoviesandTelevisionFan (talk) 23:14, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    @MoviesandTelevisionFan: Is English your first language? If not, how would you rate your proficiency in English? — Trey Maturin has spoken 23:37, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    English is my first language. This is how I write in English. I apologize if I'm not intelligent at it, but this is my English. MoviesandTelevisionFan (talk) 23:46, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Well then that is a very serious problem for us. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:14, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't believe English is MATF's native tongue. Sorry but... Just got through cleaning up some of their articles. I came across Eloise Hardt on my own. The others I sought out. I will clean up/clear up as many as I can. A list of articles MATF created or worked on is here. MurrayGreshler (talk) 19:24, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @MoviesandTelevisionFan (Non-administrator comment) Hi! I wanted to give a few suggestions to you since I was at one point in your boat with regards to newer articles. Firstly, I will not be making any comment about age or grade level but if you are under 18/21, I suggest you read WP:YOUNG, it has a bit of guidance aimed at those under 18/21. Secondly, if you say that there are problems with your English, I'd suggest you find a wikitask that you can do that does not require making your own prose (like typo fixing or anti-vandalism work). If you are not comprehending a source then you should not be adding the content from that source. Some sources use extremely specialist terms that only a handful of people (like doctors, mathematicians, historians, etc.) understand, and no amount of reading those sources will make you suddenly understand them. Lastly, it is important that you understand your limits. From WP:CIR: Everyone has a limited sphere of competence. For example, someone may be competent in nuclear physics but incompetent in ballet dancing or vice versa. Some otherwise competent people may lack the skills necessary to edit Wikipedia. If one specific task you are doing is causing problems to the project, then you should cease such task and select another task that you would be able to help with. If you are unable to do that, I am afraid admins may come in and place sitewide blocks and bans. Aasim - Herrscher of Wikis ❄️ 18:47, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Consensus for mass move to draftspace?

    • Request - We've had numerous editors here examine MaTF's articles, and the consensus seems to be that, other than very basic stubs, their articles are in need of serious attention. Could an admin or page mover who has the ability to do bulk moves please move this list of articles to draft space? I am a page mover but I don't have the automation or semi-automation capability to do such a mass move. After it's done, I will move the 15 or so articles I worked on back to article space, and I hope other editors who fixed MaTF's articles will do the same.
      (If there's another method of accomplishing the same thing, then that's fine too.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:33, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      @Beyond My Ken there are userscripts to do mass moves. Wikipedia:User_scripts/List#Moving_and_merging. – robertsky (talk) 02:59, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Thanks, I'll take a look tomorrow. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I don't see any consensus for a mass move to Draft. Your list has over 1,000 articles going back over a year. MB 14:35, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      So it would be your preferred course to leave 1,000+ badly written and sometimes inaccurate articles (less those fixed by other editors already) in the encyclopedia, in the hope that editors will fix them randomly, as opposed to moving them to draft where editors actively vet possibly problematic articles? That hardly seems helpful to the project. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:58, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Moving the articles to draft space to allow active editors to triage them seems sensible given the level of incompetence demonstrated in the creation of the articles. There are a number of editors currently working on mitigating the damage done and if moving them to draft space helps those editors willing to put in the hard work then I support the move. Not everything has to be complicated and bogged down in process, especially when the ultimate result will be better (comprehensible) articles for our readers. -- Ponyobons mots 22:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      BMK, with respect (I mean that), I don't think you need to be so hot and heavy with MB. A mass move of over 1000 articles needs a clear consensus - it's fine for someone to question whether that consensus is there yet. I looked at one of the articles today myself, and did some copy editing, which essentially involved restructuring every sentence. I agree that draftifying is probably a good idea. Let's just try to avoid snarling at each other while we discuss what the best course of action is. Girth Summit (blether) 22:15, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I think perhaps you read more into my comment than I intended, or I did not express myself well. If MB took offense at it, I apologize. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:22, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I've now hived off this section of the discussion to serve as a formal discussion of whether there is a consensus for a mass move of MaTF's un-fixed articles to draftspace. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:25, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Larry Hockett, Brunton, Teblick, MurrayGreshler, Spicy, and Girth Summit: Please see my previous comment on this thread. Apologies to other editors whose efforts I missed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:59, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for the ping. I removed an article that I rewrote. If possible, it may be a good idea to introduce a length-based cutoff - I haven't seen any evidence that there's anything wrong with all of the basic substubs in the format "[X] was an American [occupation]. He won an Academy Award for [Y]." Spicy (talk) 01:06, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that the sub-stubs I've seen have been fine. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:08, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Urgh - I just looked at Nate Monaster, and it's not just poorly written, but it seems to be full of factual inaccuracies as well. The second sentence runs as follows: He was nominated for an Academy Award for Lover Come Back and That Touch of Mink and a win for Pillow Talk, and Mink won him the Writers Guild of America Award win for Best Written American Comedy, which he shared with his partner Stanley Shapiro. At first, I thought this would just be a copy-editing job, but then I checked the sources - as far as I can make out, he didn't write on Lover Come Back or on Pillow Talk. I can't read all of the sources, but the ones I can see only mention the nomination for That Touch of Mink. In short - put me down as supporting a mass move to draft space. Girth Summit (blether) 09:41, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Abuse of application of Wikipedia policies to delete articles

    First of all, I want to apologise for my English. It's not my mother tongue so I hope I can explain myself here. There is an editor called MrsSnoozyTurtle who nominate for deletion the article of the Paraguayan Football Association. Despite several users had explain to her that the article was relevant (you can see that in the deletion discussion and in the edit history), she started an editing war by deleting almost everything of the article and then suggested that it should be removed from Wikipedia. The reason she states is an extreme interpretation of Wikipedia policies (i.e. that she considers the sources are not good), but with her attitude of deleting instead of improving the article she is also breaching another principle of Wikipedia which is to do positive things, to be helpful and try to do the best for this marvelous encyclopedia. When this happens, I started to see how this user behaves in Wikipedia and what she did in the Paraguayan Football Association article is her modus operandi. Instead of improving articles that need work, she move them to drafts or ask for deletion. She also accuses the editors of those articles of having interests on those articles (as long as I see, most of us edit articles about things we consider interesting) and sees conflicts of interest everywhere. As she's been in Wikipedia for many years and has permissions and a deep knowledge of Wikipedia, she takes advantage of that and instead of being helpful with non experiment users, she destroys everything. It is very difficult to have a deep understanding of Wikipedia and it's a lot of work to write article right, so it is very sad to see how an editor instead of giving help, erases everything. The community should not allow this kind of abuse and I believe that should do something to avoid this kind of behaviour, How can be possible that one editor can take on her own the decision to delete, undo or move to draft an article? In other words, how can one user decide is an article is relevant or not? How can is possible to let her do that even when there are several users that are saying that she is not right? It's like she is more worried about respecting in an extreme way the policies of Wikipedia (because all she does is according to her sustained by a Wikipedia policy) -which are important-, instead of improving the articles and having more contents in Wikipedia. I hope the community can analyze this case and do something, but I believe this kind of behaviour doesn't help to make Wikipedia better. Many thanks.--Lizkin (talk) 16:45, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    The fact that someone has nominated an article for deletion is not a good reason to make a complaint about them on this page, especially when the article you mention is already under discussion and the consensus is to keep it. If you think that this user has done something else wrong, please give clear examples with diffs. Deb (talk) 16:52, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, there has to be a point at which nominating an article for deletion is disruptive. I'll also note that MrsSnoozyTurtle edit-warred rather than post anything at Talk:Paraguayan Football Association. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:17, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    It was a ridiculous AfD nomination and it has been closed as a Keep already. I have no idea what MrsSnoozyTurtle (who is usually a sensible editor) thought they were doing here. Black Kite (talk) 18:43, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    This is not about the Paraguayan Football Association article but her kind of contributions. If you see her contributions Special:Contributions/MrsSnoozyTurtle all you can see are nominations for deletion,moving to drafts, unilateral reversions... There are very few improvements and creation of article. In my opinion, this kind of behavior is disruptive and in some cases very near to what can be considered WikiBullyng.-- --Lizkin (talk)
    Sorry, that's incorrect. I have looked at her previous AfD nominations and the vast majority appear to be completely reasonable, so would take this particular one as being an aberration. Black Kite (talk) 20:19, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I've had some issues with move to draft from MrsSnoozyTurtle in the past. They're fairly deletion-friendly but I wouldn't say more so than the average NPPer who deals with articles on companies. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:40, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed with @Phil Bridger. Furthermore as a relatively inexperienced editor - I'd like to support @Lizkin as have experienced similar with the same user, over the article Explorer (film). She draftified it with no attempt to improve it or clearly articulate reasons on the talk page - even though film clearly achieves WP:GNG via numerous WP:RS. Following successful AFC - she then eviscerated the article reducing a start-class to a stub with this diff: [[67]]. She made no attempt to improve, and then edit warred when I reverted her edits so I could improve the article. Requests for clear clarification on the talk page went unanswered. If this is indeed indicative of wider behaviour, particularly when interacting with newer and relatively inexperienced users, then there is some concern.ResonantDistortion (talk) 19:37, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    It does have a slightly promotional feel but I'm not seeing why it needed moving to draft nor tagging for notability; the film has clearly received independent coverage from respectable national newspapers et al. and much of the plot summary that MrsSnoozyTurtle appears to have objected to is present in the review from The Guardian. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:53, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Also Draft:Joseph S. Coselli, which is not great, but the subject I think is probably notable under WP:PROF as the Cullen Foundation Endowed Chair at the Baylor College of Medicine. And Draft:Elissa Altman, possibly notable author with a book that was a finalist in the 32nd Lambda Literary Awards, and from last month Draft:Javier García Martinez, another one certainly notable under WP:PROF as president of IUPAC and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry & the American Chemical Society. It's hard to deal with undisclosed paid and COI accusations but Martinez is clearly notable under PROF and I think unlikely to be deleted at AfD. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:29, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I do wonder if this is the stuff of ANI? The editors working NPP make a lot of difficult, close calls. Dragging them to ANI over each of those calls seems unreasonable to me. That there Pankaj Choudhry article was indeed created by a blocked sock (although I note the contribution of others blows the G5 rationale) and is indeed promotional/COI stuff. The subject is not notable and I'd AfD it, personally. Joseph S. Coselli and Elissa Altman are both, IMHO, poorly sourced and arguably not WP:GNG or at very best borderline and in need of work - a move to draft is again, IMHO, appropriate. But this is really not "urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems" - this discussion, if it must be had at all (and I do wonder about that), should surely be at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers??? Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 05:07, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not particularly urgent, no, but it may speak to a pattern of behaviour that is at least not optimal in a fairly prolific patroller. Assuming Coselli falls under PROF the lack of GNG is not a problem and for Altman what's needed are book reviews. This would have been pointed out if either of them had been AfD'd. Martinez is notable, and needs cleaning up, but the accusation of COI & paid stultify anyone else doing so and taking responsibility for it. (And it seems a great deal more important than say someone complaining about someone else fixing their lint errors...) Espresso Addict (talk) 05:31, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Espresso Addict, I'm sorry, but who is the patroller that you're referencing in this case? I feel it important to point out that MrsSnoozyTurtle does not have NPP rights.
    As for the articles you're referencing;
    The NPP team marked 3 of the articles as reviewed and 1 was apparently unreviewed. MrsSnoozyTurtle's behaviour in draftifying articles is not associated with any NPP activity. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:28, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for the clarification, Hey man im josh. I tend to use "patroller" generally to apply to anyone who gatekeeps based on the new articles feeds, with or without the NPP right. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:44, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Gotcha, thanks for the explanation, I was a little worried since I was a patroller in one of those action logs haha. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:49, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I stand by my original comments. For an editor (Lizkin) who's made fewer than 20 edits altogether to use a single example of silliness to make a whole list of accusations suggesting a general "abuse" of Wikipedia guidelines is bizarre. By all means look into MrsSnoozyTurtle's record, but the eagerness to "pile" on in support of this report is rather surprising to me. Deb (talk) 08:40, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I started working on Draft:Elissa Altman, and after my initial review to remove BLP issues, promotional sources, apparent original research, and copyvio, the promotional tone still needs work. Beccaynr (talk) 18:39, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have encountered similar problems in the past with MrsSnoozyTurtle draftifying obviously-notable biographies including Gerceida E. Adams-Jones (February 25) and Keiko Devaux (April 2022). In the February case I had to remind MrsSnoozyTurtle not to repeatedly draftify the same article and not to draftify articles that obviously met WP:PROF notability criteria [68]. She claimed to have been unaware of those guidelines [69] but as I wrote at the time "It is difficult to tell what you might be aware of because of your habit of removing past warnings to pay more attention to the draftification guidelines such as the one at [70]". I am disheartened to see that these bad draftifications have continued and that in the recent cases of Joseph S. Coselli and Javier García Martinez, MrsSnoozyTurtle has apparently forgotten what she was told about academic notability. Given that this is a long-term pattern, should MrsSnoozyTurtle perhaps be discouraged more strongly from draftification altogether? —David Eppstein (talk) 01:40, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I would like to hear from MrsSnoozyTurtle and other New Page Patrollers, and in the meantime, I revised and expanded the Elissa Altman article from what it was at the time of draftification [71] and moved it to mainspace. Beccaynr (talk) 03:31, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I'd like to point out that MrsSnoozyTurtle does not have NPP rights. Hey man im josh (talk) 12:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • The core part of the article wasn't sourced and there was no attempt to source it, even though there was numerous updates. Also a lot of references are absolutly routine coverage, copied and pasted, typical of a fan article, they are mostly primary. But they are not all primary. As a national organisation clearly named, I wouldn't have sent it to Afd but I would have probably copyedited it quite heavily. scope_creepTalk 05:12, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      The existence of some references to routine and primary sources in new articles is absolutely not a problem, and not cause for draftifying anything, as long as "they are not all primary". They do not contribute notability but they can and often do contribute verifiability. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:02, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I agree with that, absolutely. scope_creepTalk 16:58, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Sheep8144402 Changing signatures of other editors without their permission

    Sheep8144402 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Has been making changes to my signature without my permission. The editor did it twice HERE and HERE. I left a message at Sheep8144402's talk page asking that editor to not make changes to my comments or signature again. That request was ignored and he again made changes to my signature HERE and HERE.

    Sheep8144402 uses the guideline WP:SIGFONT as justification for these changes. This section clearly states that When support is finally dropped, the tags will be ignored in all signatures; any properties such as color and font family will revert to their default values.. This implies that the support for the signature I am using has not been dropped and I am still allowed to use this signature as I see fit. But nowhere does it state editors have the right to make unilateral changes to other peoples signatures.

    I will also like to point out This WikiMedia "Proposal" which is the genesis of WP:SIGFONT which clearly states under the section titled Impact: Effects of changes: that Any existing signatures that would become invalid under the new rules are still allowed (grandfathered in) and also under the section Font Tags: Specifically, obsolete HTML tags like ‎"tt"...‎"/tt" and ‎"font"...‎"/font" will not be banned at this time.

    There was no justification for User Sheep8144402 to make any changes to my signature whosoever and especially after I asked that user to not change my signature again in the future, which he ignored. JOJ Hutton 20:35, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    • @Jojhutton: There is a very reasonable message at User talk:Jojhutton#Your signature and linter errors which provides the solution. If you want technical advice regarding the change, ask at WP:VPT. This noticeboard aims to reduce disruption and the simple procedure for that would be for you follow the advice given. Johnuniq (talk) 22:39, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      There is also the fact that the signature is not banned. If there was actual harm to Wikipedia then I ask that the evidence be presented. All I see is a guideline that allows me to use this signature and an editor who makes changes to other peoples posts, which is a violation of Wikipedia guidelines.--JOJ Hutton 22:44, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      @Jojhutton, your signature displays the same before and after the change. Your version is not compliant with current standards, Sheep8144402's version of your signature is. Please change the code of your signature as proposed (which will not change your signature's display at all) so it does not cause error messages. If you don't change the code, your signature will continue to be fixed by other users (we even have some approved bots that fix signatures). So to prevent these edits (and to prevent stuff like this page that stopped working after a software change), just use the correct and modern code for your signature. —Kusma (talk) 23:13, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Can you please link the policy that allows other users to make the changes to my signature without my consent. The guideline only says that once the signature format is obsolete, then the signature will revert to its default status. I'll deal with it then. in the meantime I kindly ask that users not change my signature unless there is a rule specifically stating that they can. If there is, then link it here for all to see.JOJ Hutton 23:27, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      See WP:SIGFONT Moreover, refactoring old signatures from you and other users (including in archive pages) by changing <font> tags to <span> tags can help prepare the project for this eventual loss of support.. Note the policy suggests changing the tags in other users’ signatures. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 23:38, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Well good luck with that then. My current signature is well within the current guidelines and is "grandfathered in" according to the Media Wiki proposal and is still allowed.--JOJ Hutton 23:44, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Then random users and bots will change it when they see it. If you don’t have a problem with your sig causing accessibility errors, then you won’t have a problem with this happening, making this entire thread moot. — Trey Maturin has spoken 23:49, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      The guideline that allows this is WP:TPG#Examples of appropriately editing others' comments (and, more and more, WP:DE). Behavior indistinguishable from yours recently contributed to the banning of a much more prolific editor than yourself. Look. The people fixing your sig are trying to help you. The font tag isn't just obsolescent, but actually obsolete. When the last vestiges of support for it are dropped from MediaWiki, your sig will display like this: <font color="#A81933">JOJ</font> <font color="#CC9900">Hutton</font>. Meanwhile, you're making life harder for the people who - for reasons I can't personally fathom - choose to spend their time going through the four million page backlog at Special:LintErrors so that sigs like yours don't look silly when the tag isn't grandfathered anymore. —Cryptic 23:55, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • JOJHutton, could you explain why you don't want to make this change to your sig? I can't figure it out. There would be zero change to the appearance of your signature, and it would take about 45 seconds. While I'm not sure changing other editors' old signatures is the best use of someone's time, I don't understand the reluctance even more. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:52, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Jojhutton, can you please explain why you insist on continuing to create linter errors for other people to fix, when both the problem with your signature has been explained to you, and a simple solution has been handed to you on a platter? This is collaborative project, after all. Cullen328 (talk) 23:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      What guideline am I not following? Nobody asked anyone to fix anything for me--JOJ Hutton 23:59, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I haven't done anything to you. Could you do me the courtesy of answering my question? --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:04, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      @Jojhutton: WP:SIGFONT, a guideline, has already been pointed out to you: <font>...</font> tags were deprecated in HTML4 and are entirely obsolete in HTML5. This means that the popular browsers may drop support for them at some point. [...] When support is finally dropped, the tags will be ignored in all signatures; any properties such as color and font family will revert to their default values. For this reason, it is recommended that you use <span>...</span> tags and CSS properties instead. There is no reason for you not to fix this. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 00:08, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Why? Because according to the proposal, it can't be changed back and undone once it's changed. I'd just rather wait. It's proper under the guidelines.--JOJ Hutton 00:12, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I don't think you're understanding what we, or that proposal, are saying. First of all, I'm not sure where you're getting "can't be changed back or undone", but any language to that effect in the proposal you've linked is talking about a software change, not anything you change in your signature. Any change you make to your signature right now can be undone, and you can go back to your old signature if you notice a difference (you won't, because the signatures are identical in appearance; the only difference is that the new signature doesn't cause HTML errors). Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 00:23, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I know exactly what it means. I also know that I'm allowed to keep my current format and that doing so does not violate any policy or guideline.--JOJ Hutton 00:37, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      If you insist, but then you don't get to complain when it gets fixed. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 01:02, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • You don't have to use HTML5 in your sig if you don't want to, but there's no reason to complain about other people updating the HTML. Literally, no reason has been given. So, let people use old (but still supported) HTML if they want to, and let people update HTML if they want to. It's a free encyclopedia, after all. Levivich (talk) 00:21, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      @Sheep8144402, changing the sig in this discussion is needlessly provocative. Don't be a jerk about it. Levivich (talk) 00:30, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Actually, I don't agree; fixing obsolete HTML tags is a (very minor) net positive. It's pointed, for sure, but not point-y, imo. There's no reason for Jojhutton to take umbrage at this, but if they do, they know how to fix it: fix their signature's HTML. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 00:33, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Proposal WP:Trout slaps all around. There's no purpose to introducing additional lint errors that will just have to be fixed someday. At the same time, there's no point in fixing this user's lint errors against his preference when there's a bazillion other gnome backlog tasks to do. Jahaza (talk) 00:47, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Support trouting. Also if Sheep8144402 is concerned with signatures then he should consider taking into account WP:SIGAPP, in particular note 4 and use one of the colours that can be found in MOS:ONWHITE rather than the current one which does not meet the desired contrast ratio. Gusfriend (talk) 05:17, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I see no reason to trout someone for carrying out a maintenance task so innocuous we literally have bots programmed to do it. Someone running through lint errors should not have to check the individual preferences of each user whose signatures they fix. I doubt the bots do. CMD (talk) 06:14, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Since we don't have any consensus to force User:Jojhutton to change their signature at this time, it's probably best to just allow them to keep using it. However as others have said, if they are going to do so, they need to accept after they've posted with an error in their signature, it will be corrected at any time including right now and they are not allowed to reverse these corrections as that's disruptive and something which may require sanction. Nor can they demand that editors do not correct the errors they make every time they sign, as others have said, that's unreasonable, it's too difficult and frankly just silly for editors or bots to need to work out an editor wants to continue to post with errors before they correct these errors. So unless some editor is going around WP:HOUNDING them fixing their signature and only their signature, there is no problem that needs ANI or trouting, so if Jojhutton wants to continue to use their signature, they need to refrain from opening dumb threads like this. If they do so in the future then again they're getting into an area which may require sanction of them. Nil Einne (talk) 06:50, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The only one deserving a trout here is Jojhutton due to their insistence in using signatures with broken html, leaving pages in error categories wherever they sign. Deliberately using signatures that cause accessibility problems shows their contempt towards other users, especially when they have been provided alternatives and it takes just a minute to replace it in their preferences. Sheep is doing valuable work fixing Lint errors should be commended for it. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 10:02, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Jojhutton: You're bordering on disruptive editing. This is a collaborative project. You've been asked nicely to make a very small change that makes no difference to your editing and been shown how to do it. While Sheep8144402's conduct is possibly slightly discourteous, your refusal makes you look unreasonable. Please just make the change. Otherwise you might be accused of exhausting the community's patience. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:01, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Fixing low-priority linter errors is not really valuable work, or work at all, it doesn't even need to be done. That's why they're low priority. I've long felt that making multiple edits per page to do "fix" low-priority errors is disruptive: it needlessly spams watchlists and the edits database. Just one edit per page for all of these low-priority errors, if we do it at all. It's truly unnecessary for user talk page archives and other obscure places. "Fixing" it multiple times in this thread, like by making an edit after every time that someone posts, is way too close to hounding IMO. But let's not pretend that fixing low priority lint errors is necessary or valuable work. And there is nothing disruptive about using a font tag or a center tag. These low-priority lint errors don't actually cause any problem, and "fixing" then is just busy work. Levivich (talk) 14:47, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The needless watchlist spamming is caused by those adding lint errors that need to be fixed. Directly changing sigs in this discussion is poor decision making, but the general idea of preventing this is valuable. CMD (talk) 02:07, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure, preventing that is valuable, but that is an example of a missing-end-tag error, which isn't the kind of lint error at issue here. That error was fixed by adding the missing end tag, in this edit. The kind of error at issue here, by contrast, is obsolete-tag, and the help page says Since it is unclear to us at this time how far we want to push this goal of HTML5 compliance, this category is marked low priority.
    ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (Malnadach) runs MalnadachBot, which "fixes" these "obsolete tag" errors. The bot made 13 separate edits to that page and you can check for yourself whether any one of those edits actually changed what you see on the screen (not for me, my browser still supports HTML4, as does every other browser AFAIK).
    My point is: these obsolete-tag "fixes" are unnecessary. If people want to make the fixes, they should be able to, because they don't cause any harm, but it's really not accurate to say that these are "broken" html, or that they cause accessibility problems, or to suggest that fixing them is necessary or crucial maintenance work. Certainly, using HTML4 is not disruptive nor does it show contempt towards others.
    This is all a big overreaction about using HTML4 v. HTML5. Trouts all around sounds right to me. Levivich (talk) 02:57, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Well Jojhutton has made it clear they are not going to change it themselves. Everyone else has made it clear its going to get changed regardless. Why not just wait until the bots start hitting every page Jojhutton edits. Then we can have this discussion again. I am sure Jojhutton will enjoy reverting automated bots constantly. Should be interesting to see if they change their mind. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:12, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I have already cleared their old sig using bot 9 months ago. Number 31 in User:MalnadachBot/Task 12/1-50. They can continue using signature with font tags, it's only a matter of time before it gets replaced. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 16:41, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Should just make it required to have a signature using the correct tags if you want a custom signature. Problem solved. Hey look, somebody asked me to fix mine three years ago. I did it in three minutes. nableezy - 15:28, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, signatures in active use should be changed to not cause lint errors. While the problems caused by obsolete font tags are currently tiny, there is no good justification for causing this tiny problem every time you sign a page. —Kusma (talk) 19:17, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    If we are going to be talking about signatures, can we talk about how Sheep8144402's signature is nearly unreadable? Bright and light green on a white background actually hurts my eyes to look at. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 16:39, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Oh god... I didn't even realize my sig was hard to read until this message came up. Hopefully its better now bc green is honestly one of my favorite colours in my life. Sheep (talk) 20:05, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for quickly fixing that! The contrast was 1.37:1 and is now over 15:1, which is great. See https://accessibleweb.com/color-contrast-checker/. The second part of JOJhutton's signature fails accessibility testing, with a contrast of 2.58:1. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 20:30, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sheep8144402 Several signatures, like Sheep's, are nearly invisible on a dark background, but that is something I can live with. I don't expect anyone to change their sig for that reason-- I forget how I got a dark background, but it might be a beta or unsupported option in Android Chrome. Just in case anyone was wondering about other backgrounds... And I can always work out the sig if I need to! David10244 (talk) 08:36, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • While this is a collaborative project, we extend a great deal of deference to participants, such as choosing what to work on and, within reason, how we present ourselves. Fixing linter errors is fine; introducing them is not. @Jojhutton:, you were asked to change the HTML of your signature (not even altering its appearance) and you declined. That's your right, but it makes for an unfortunate impression and you should reconsider. Mackensen (talk) 21:16, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    User:JsjRonnskerAsjn

    JsjRonnskerAsjn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) User repeatedly vandalizes articles, including changing production companies as seen here. CartoonnewsCP (talk) 22:09, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    (Non-admin reply) @CartoonnewsCP: The user has been blocked indefinitely as a sockpuppet. In the future, you can report vandalism and spam to Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism after the user has been appropriately warned. Thanks, echidnaLives - talk - edits 00:34, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Surprised they found out fast. I did not see an investigation but it must be WP:DUCK. I already put them there too. Thanks. CartoonnewsCP (talk) 19:45, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    112.200.9.14 and high-volume editing

    112.200.9.14 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

    The IP made a few hundred edits. Some of them were clearly inappropriate such as edits at users' talk pages (example; those I reverted). I warned them, and, after they made a number of inappropriate edits to categories, I blocked the IP for 48h. However, most of their edits are removal of redlinked categories from articles (example). In principle, we should not have redlinked categories in the articles; on the other hand, most of what the IP removed could have been valid categories which so far nobody cared to create. Opening this topic to see whether mass rollback is needed. (I can help with rollback, but probably currently do not have capacity to create all these red-linked categories). Courtesy ping @John Cline:.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:43, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    One set of categories that the IP deleted were to Category:Harrier jump jet. This category already exists at Category:Harrier Jump Jet, but the links were changed as a result of a move of the parent article. Some of the other deletions may be for the same reason, but I haven't checked those, as I'm heading to bed now. BilCat (talk) 08:01, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I concur with this report as laid out by Ymblanter, his preventive block to stop the disruption, and his decision to seek more opinions regarding the appropriateness of rolling back the IP contributions en mass. While my initial thoughts were in favor of mass rollback, I now agree that more opinions will lead to the best result and yeald to those opinions. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 08:17, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    K.e.coffman userpage MfD

    Law of diminishing returns. If there are socking issues, ask FP@S on their talk page, or file an SPI. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:36, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:K.e.coffman/My allegedly problematic behaviour (2nd nomination) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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

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

    These two aforementioned users seem to be arguing with each other, turning the MfD into a fiasco and repeatedly violating WP:NPA in the process. I can provide diffs, but perhaps the number of diffs on this page will speak more readily for themselves. It looks as though they have stopped, but even besides all of that, SquireJames is clearly WP:NOTHERE and no longer interested in contributing to the encyclopedia in any constructive fashion.

    Self disclosure: It's possible that I might have kicked off some of the argumentation by asking SquireJames to stop bludgeoning the discussion and also suggesting that he was no longer interested in pursuing the MfD because he had retired and blanked his userpage. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 13:47, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    This seems rather spurious? I said my piece and wished Trekker a pleasant evening. It's done? Finished? Over? What purpose does dragging it up again now do? EDIT: Infact, it was nearly 12 hours ago and as I said, I wished Trekker a pleasant evening. Why are you unable to drop it, Walt? I think I've made my position clear, that the entire debacle has soured any desire I have to contribue to this "project". This doesn't mean I am going to go destroying articles or generally being disruptive, if that is what you are trying to imply. In fact the only reason I am here, now, is because you pinged me to alert me to this very thread. Again, for what purpose? I reitterate. It's done. Move on. Get over it. Haven't you lot beat me over the head enough? You've driven me off your platform and I am not going to make any contributions (but nor am I going to vandalise or disrupt) going forwards. What more do you want, Walt? Public flogging? SquireJames (talk) 13:59, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • SquireJames's account is over fifteen years old. Up to 28 October, they had made about sixty edits, mostly on articles about WW2 by the looks of things. Over the course of the last three days, they've more than doubled their edit total, all concerning an obscure user-space page that very few people would have ever looked at, and insulting numerous other editors in the process. I don't pretend to understand what it is at the root of all that, but they can't continue insulting people. If they intend to leave and not to come back, a block is unnecessary; if they change their mind and decide to carry on editing, they have been warned that further insults will result in blocks. If they insult anyone again, they will be blocked. Is that OK by everyone? Girth Summit (blether) 14:25, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Thank you. That seems fair. You will note I haven't brought any such "incident report" up about any of the insults I received. What, indeed, would be the point? The issue is done and dusted. EDIT:. "but they can't continue insulting people". Nor did I. I stopped. Over 12 hours ago, and before being given a 'final warning'. (check the time stamps). I would also add that "Numerous" is doing some very heavy lifting there, but as I said to Trekker, you believe whatever you need to believe. Paint me as the boogey man if it serves your purpose. SquireJames (talk) 14:57, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I don't see anyone insulting you in that thread. You were pretty annoyed that someone said that you acted rashly in nominating the page for deletion, but that's criticising your actions without saying anything about you, so it's not a personal attack of any kind. I don't know what you imagine my purpose to be, but so long as you lay off the insults, all will be well. Girth Summit (blether) 15:20, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      What I was annoyed about, if it's worth bringing up, is the insinuation made that the mere idea that I dare to question Coffman be used to punish me (as indeed, is happening here) I dropped the issue, but Walt decided 12 hours later that this HAD to be dragged up again. Notice dlthewave is saying that unless I completely leave, they want me blocked. I am merely responding to those who feel the need to tell me how I am acting, how I am feeling, the rationale behind my actions ("he's a troll" etc). This was done a day ago. I wished a pleasant evening to Trekker. I understood we were not going to agree and dropped it. Why are others here so unable to do the same and determined to make this into a witch hunt? (other than, of course, it was always going to be because of who I dared to criticise).
      If the peanut gallery could cease feeling the need to comment on what they feel are my rationales, "true colours" etc, then this would go away. I have every right to respond to those who feel the need to do that. Telling me to "shut up, and it will just stop" (as dlthewave has implied) is wrong. SquireJames (talk) 18:01, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      "but so long as you lay off the insults, all will be well."
      I understand this. And I have. Why others feel the need to keep piling on, I do not grasp. Perhaps they are trying to get a rise? SquireJames (talk) 18:03, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've been watching but not participating in the whole debacle. SquireJames' apparent rage-quit tells us all we need to know: At this point they're only here to argue about others' behavior, and not to build an encyclopedia. If they dislike the drama, they can make it go away by simply leaving; if they continue to engage as they have been, a block will help the process along. And a reminder to Trekker and others: Don't feed the trolls! –dlthewave ☎ 16:07, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I am not a troll. Insinuating such is a personal attack. SquireJames (talk) 17:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      "At this point they're only here to argue about others' behavior," - Another assumption. I am here because people keep feeling the need to stick their oar in and make wild assumptions about my character and my reasoning. But that's acceptable behaviour apparently? As is "well if he wants it to stop he should just leave". How about you lot stop piling on me? You've had your fun. Cease. SquireJames (talk) 17:55, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • While doing RCP, I saw and removed a few of SquireJames PAs - (some were already replied to which were not removed)
    and warned SquireJames which were almost immediately blanked and/or replaced with a REDIRECT Special:Random
    I presume a rage-quit on my talk page. Adakiko (talk) 16:55, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    You presume too much. SquireJames (talk) 17:53, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I can also blank my page after reading your warnings if I wish. Or are you attempting to brand my comments at 02:08 and 02:42 as "personal attacks" now as well? SquireJames (talk) 18:05, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    "You are not welcome on my talk page" after I make a perfectly pleasant and polite request to drop this, as it's already been dropped. Fine, their prerogative to determine who can and can't comment. I understand that. I was hoping though that they'd just let this go. They don't seem to want to.
    It's quite apparent, sadly, that whatever you're going to do, you're going to do whether or not I respond. So, do as you wish. I am really, very, very, very tired of this witchhunt. I stopped making "personal attacks" prior to this (check the time stamps), heeding the warnings given. Apparently blanking the warnings hurt someone's feelings?
    Do whatever you like, even call me whatever you like and insinuate whatever you like about me. None of it is true, none of it sticks, or is a stain on my character. It's clear that's how it works here at wikipedia. Sling mud, but do it within some narrowly defined guidelines and make sure you have friends who will back you up. Tyranny of the majority. I am done with it for that very reason. I am not angry. I am not a troll. I am not disruptive or vandalising anything. I am just disappointed and tired of the constant notifications that yet another person has had to put the boot in, again. Please, let this go, leave me alone, and move on with your lives. "Touch grass" as I believe the young folk say. SquireJames (talk) 18:18, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I have suspicion that SquireJames is a sleeper sock of banned user OberRanks / Husnock. I beleive admin Future perfect in Sunrise has dealt with OberRanks before and can weigh in here. 2409:4071:D86:9D44:0:0:4308:8C01 (talk) 18:07, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I am not a sockpuppet. Grief. Is this where we're headed now? Would you like my real name, address, telephone number? I had my real name on my user page prior to this. SquireJames (talk) 18:19, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Edit warring/vandalism

    I would like to raise an issue with user 81.104.95.127.. This user - using a wide variety or user numbers - is repeatedly and deliberately breaching Wikipedia's house style albeit in small ways. For example, in the article on Yell (company) they are repeatedly changing UK to United Kingdom, even though Wikipedia's house style makes it clear that UK is fine and United Kingdom not needed.

    In itself, this is a minor point but when they have been repeatedly asked not do so and keep ignoring those requests, it almost amounts to vandalism. Moreover, their other edits continually damage articles. Among the edits they repeatedly make, they:

    • repeatedly change straight (') apostrophes to curly ones, again in breach of house style and despite numerous editors requesting they stop or pointing out the error
    • insert unnecessary and/or irrelevant detail
    • repeatedly changing numerals above 10 to words, when Wikipedia's house style says both are fine
    • repeatedly putting words, especially but not only company names, into italics and/or bold for no clear reason
    • add redundant or superfluous words ('until' becomes 'up until', 'released becomes 'first released', even when there was no second release)
    • incorrectly change the case of initials
    • inserting completely unnecessary/incorrect/illogical paragraph breaks
    • change good, idiomatic English to unidiomatic wording
    • add multiple references to sentences, that almost always have no relevance to the claim supposedly being referenced
    • insist on adding in the season when something happened, eg "in the spring of" or "in the summer of" when it adds nothing to the article
    • Repeatedly remove hyphens where they are grammatically correct and, indeed, necessary (for example, they turn words like re-ordered into re ordered).

    These are just some examples of their tedious, annoying and disruptive behaviour. It seems that this has been going on daily for at least five years, and several editors have left comments they have ignored. However, they have no Wikipedia account (which, after at least five years, is very suspicious in my view). Instead, they change their user number usually every one-three days, making it hard to take action against them. They can easily be traced, however, by the articles they keep re-editing and the types of changes they make. I can also supply many of their numbers if required.

    I really hope something can be done to prevent them, as correcting their disruptive, if possibly well-meant, editing, is tedious and time-wasting. If I need to post this in a different section, please let me know (I've never reported anyone before so apologies if this is the wrong page).

    I have notified them of this report.Neilinabbey (talk) 18:06, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Neilinabbey, this looks like a mild content dispute that could have been resolved by you first raising your concerns to the IP editor directly and in detail. Please note that their edits (a total of 12 over the course of 3 days, which isn't that many) were not "vandalism" (see WP:NOTVANDALISM). And also, not edit warring (see WP:EW), because the IP did not revert back to their edits even once.
    Now, you've warned this IP editor (diff), though note that it's Manual of Style, not "house style" — however, you then immediately erased that warning 2 minutes later with the notification to this ANI complaint (diff). As a result, they likely didn't even see it to begin with.
    Furthermore, you're expected to at least give two warnings (i.e. {{uw-mos1}} then escalate that to {{uw-mos2}} or {{uw-mos3}}), if not three or four. This noticeboard is for intractable issues, so that falls short communication-wise, if such warnings would even be due, which as mentioned, may well not be so. Generally, please make sure you treat IP editors as you would any named accounts, by explaining yourself with enough detail prior to jumping the gun with enforcement requests here. P.S. I've linked to the IP's contributions in your OP for convenience. HTH. Thank you. El_C 08:00, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Strike that, on closer look, I see that they have used multiple IPs for these pages. I'll re-examine. El_C 08:08, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Neilinabbey, I'm having a difficult time seeing what the problem was, for example, with their edit to Skapocalypse Now! Their addition of initally seems tentatively okay. But regardless if in error or not, you should not be responding with an edit summary that reads: STOP YOUR IDIOTIC ADDITIONS OF TAUTOLOGOUS WORDS (diff). Anyway, that's just a random example I sampled from some earlier edits/IPs (Sept), so hopefully, the rest are not like that. I have to get going now, but hopefully, I'll get a chance to revisit this matter later in the day. El_C 08:22, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    They've literally used dozens of IPs over several years, changing every 1-3 days. I have complained directly to them, as have other editors over the years. This is not a one-off, mild issue, it is ongoing and repeat offending.Neilinabbey (talk) 10:10, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Can you provide a list of the IPs they have used (it doesn't have to be exhaustive, but a representative sample), and some explanation of how you know they are the same person? Girth Summit (blether) 10:15, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Here are just some you can check:
    81.104.95.127
    86.2.120.14
    86.1.31.56
    81.104.95.127
    86.7.38.32
    81.103.30.186
    86.5.23.191
    86.7.38.32
    86.6.237.104
    86.4.156.202
    80.0.138.190
    86.7.38.32
    86.4.167.159
    That's just in the last 10 days! I admit some of my comments to them have been intemperate, but they repeatedly ignore standard messages/polite requests and they have been pursuing this behaviour for at least five years, so patience is wearing thin. Neilinabbey (talk) 10:19, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, this crossed with your last message. I am certain they are the same person because they frequently return to edit the same pages or make the same changes on a page (eg, changing UK to United Kingdom or changing the apostrophes to curly ones). In some cases, they've been editing the same pages for years, and they are often relatively obscure pages/subjects that not many people would visit. Also, the types of changes they make (including an obsession with adding months, sometimes misleadingly) are too similar for this to be different people. Neilinabbey (talk) 10:22, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    P.s., their edit of Skapocalypse Now! is an example of a pointless edit. They added that the recording was released "in the autumn". This is a little vague and adds nothing to the article, and in any case it had already been stated (in what is a very short article) that it was released in October. This is, I agree, a very small thing, but when they repeatedly over several years keep adding tautologous information like this, it it amounts to poor and unhelpful editing. The article already states the information, it does not need stating again. Neilinabbey (talk) 10:27, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    From a few spot-checks, these are all Virgin Media IPs, mostly in Blackburn. I can understand the frustration - if someone is repeatedly making the same small-but-unhelpful edits to the same pages, ignores requests that they stop and refuses to discuss the matter, I can see how that would get exasperating. (Particularly the curly apostrophes - argh, my eyes!) We can't implement a range-block wide enough to prevent them, so it would have to be dealt with via long-term semi protection on the effected articles. El C, do you think that would be warranted, or is it overkill? Girth Summit (blether) 10:30, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for understanding and appreciating the issue. Yes, I feared a block might be impractical. TBH, I'm not sure semi protection would help, as there are just so many articles involved. Perhaps a block on the current IP as a sort of warning that their edits are unhelpful? It might (but probably won't!) encourage them to rethink their editing. Neilinabbey (talk) 10:53, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Briefly, because I'm writing in haste: I did look at WP:SEMI as an option when glancing at the revision history of some of these pages, but the activity seemed way too sparse for that. I then considered applying WP:PC en masse, but wanted to examine at least a few of the edits closely first. But once I encountered the addition of initially by the IP, which again nominally seemed fine, followed by Neilinabbey's IDIOTIC [etc.] edit summary (diff again), I was no longer sure what's what. And I already had reservations after seeing Neilinabbey erase their warning 2 min after posting it, replacing it with the ANI notice for this report (diff again), which seemed a bit sketchy tbh. Then I had to step out, so I had no time to look any further. Anyway, unfortunately, I gotta step out again, so I'll just leave it with you, GS. But to reiterate, I did not see a single candidate for semi (in the usual sense), only pc. Quick correction, though: I didn't actually choose Skapocalypse Now! at random — I chose it because it's a cool title! El_C 11:01, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I erased the initial warning as it one I wrote myself (I'm new to reporting, so wasn't fully aware of the procedure). I then found there is a standard wording, so replaced my wording with that. The activity only seems sparse because that's one IP address. When you add it to 13 others in 10 days, and then multiply that for five years, it's a rather bigger issue!Neilinabbey (talk) 11:14, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I've popped the last dozen articles edited on my watchlist. If there are others, let me know (not all of them, just enough to alert me to their presence). -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 12:14, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    And I've applied some long-term PC protection to a bunch of articles that they've edited recently. If you notice them editing again, let me know and I will try my best to reason with them, and failing that we can do the whack-a-mole blocking game, I suppose. Girth Summit (blether) 12:16, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks very much, and to Malcolmxl5 too. In response to Malcolmxl5, here are a few examples of other pages they repeatedly (mis)edit:
    Cathedral City Cheddar
    Saputo Dairy UK
    Giraffe World Kitchen
    Opel Grandland
    The Mall Blackburn
    Bumper Films
    SP Manweb
    Asda Mobile
    1992 Manchester bombing
    I could go on for ages, but that's probably enough for now!Neilinabbey (talk) 12:23, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    OK. I’ve added those. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 12:46, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, appreciated. Hopefully they'll get the message!Neilinabbey (talk) 12:53, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, they are back again, this time as 86.4.170.56. The usual daily four edits, three of which I've reverted (Irish car of the year, Tiger Tiger (nightclub) and Sin-Jin Smyth.
    Given this almost constant changing of IP addresses and their refusal to engage, I'm not sure we're going to be able to stop them, unless they eventually get fed up with 95% of their edits being reverted within minutes!Neilinabbey (talk) 15:31, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Neilinabbey. Have a look at this: Special:Contributions/86.4.170.0/24. Is this mostly their work? Back to September? -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 15:57, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Malcolmxl5, yep, that's them alright. I'd be happy to explain why I think their edits here are unhelpful, if needed.Neilinabbey (talk) 16:06, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    No, that's OK. In fact, their edits go back to 2017, I think. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 16:08, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, that tallies with what I've found. Looks like I'm far from the only editor who's been reverting their edits! It's an odd one, as for the most part I don't think their edits are malicious, they just have certain very fixed views and obsessions, and won't take no to imposing them even where they contradict Wikipedia's house style. I do find the constant changing of IP addresses and the four-edits-a-day thing a bit curious, too.Neilinabbey (talk) 16:11, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, I’m going to collate some data to get a handle on the picture here. It may take some time so let’s move this conversation to my talk page. Let me know if you see them again. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 16:51, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, will do. Neilinabbey (talk) 16:59, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Glad to see this got sorted while I was away for the day. El_C 09:15, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Is this a violation of wp:soap and wp:PROFRINGE?

    This section on User:Pedant’s page caught my eye a few years ago because it struck me as blatant 9/11 Truther conspiracy theorizing. I’m now wondering if that’s a violation of userspace policy as an off-topic rant and a more general violation of Wikipedia’s stance on not unduly promoting fringe theory. I attempted to discuss this with the user but as you can see I received no straight answers. Dronebogus (talk) 18:16, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    On the one hand, yes it's polemic (and dumb). On the other hand, I'm pretty tired of Dronebogus wandering around hunting for stuff to be outraged about. Any way we can delete the user page section and ban DB from ANI? --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:44, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    “Dronebogus is right, so ban them”? How does that make sense? In fact when was the last time I started a thread here? Dronebogus (talk) 18:55, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    No, "Dronbogus is shit-stirring, so ban them". I would support banning you if you were wrong, too. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:04, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Just going to point out that there IS precedent for banning someone from ANI for chronic shit-stirring. WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive603#concerns about too much of user:Mythdon on AN/I. And yes, it was decided in that discussion that although the user's issues weren't necessarily off-base, the community was served better by removing the shit-stirrer. 184.14.205.143 (talk) 19:28, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I’m somewhat confused why an IP with two edits is both getting involved here and showing intricate knowledge of ANI history. Dronebogus (talk) 20:42, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:IPSPA may help get rid of the confusion 166.198.198.1 (talk) 21:27, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    After I pointed out that IP editors are often experienced, why did you post a new editor template to this temporary IP address? Did you really think I was aware of policy on IP editing, but also needed a new user template? 166.198.198.1 (talk) 21:53, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I couldn’t thank you so it was a courtesy re-welcome Dronebogus (talk) 22:00, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    In that case, I apologize for misinterpreting the templating, and you are welcome 166.198.198.1 (talk) 22:06, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Floquenbeam: I think the section is a violation of WP:BLPTALK and should be removed. RAN1 (talk) 22:17, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd like to report User:Dronebogus for having WP:POLEMIC content on their user page! But jokes aside, it might help resolve situations like this if there was a guideline for what to do when you see WP:UPNOT material. Right now, the way it's set up seems almost to encourage users to take every single instance here. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:10, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed. We don't really have a guideline on things like this, and it leads to these exact situations! — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 02:35, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    We should, just like how we nominate articles for speedy deletion if they violate certain guidelines. Imagine having to go over to ANI every time you saw an unacceptable page. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 02:58, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Maybe there should be a minor incidents noticeboard? Dronebogus (talk) 03:29, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I'd like to see that dumb stuff deleted, but if we start doing that we'll just be enabling a worse behavior which is seeking out dumb stuff on user pages and taking it to ANI, which is also a great way to hound editors. North8000 (talk) 19:39, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Warn Pedant and more quietly tell Dronebogus to not worry so much about other people's user pages. That's my take on this before we get Pedant's input. I don't think we have enough cause here to ban Dronebogus from ANI. Sections like this probably shouldn't be on user pages, but I don't think it's at the level of banning Pedant either. Re: Dronebogus: As far as I can tell, they're not posting here more frequently than 2-3x per year anyway. That's hardly a massive drain on editor resources/time.
    The april thread on this topic for Dronebogus was regarding subpages and simply requested they attempt to discuss it with the user first before bringing it so quickly to ANI and be less-confrontational. As far as I can ascertain, that's exactly what they've done in this case. If we want, we could warn Dronebogus to not bring any user page-based complaints here, at all. But I actually completely disagree with that, since most, if not all, of the claims they've brought here have had some merit! What kind of message are we sending if we punish people for doing the right thing, in the right order? (Edited to add clarity 11:28, 1 November 2022 (UTC)) — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 22:11, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That argument would hold more weight if Dronebogus's actions in the space of user page complaints were not so overtly partisan. The vast majority of his complaints both on ANI and MfD have been against right-wing viewpoints, and he hasn't been shy about his disdain against the political right. That's the issue. I don't see altruism in his approach. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 23:53, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That’s your perception. It’s cherry-picking and seems to deliberately avoid mentioning that I’ve nominated left wing and neutral userboxes as well. Dronebogus (talk) 00:30, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't need to cherry-pick when you come out with stuff like this. 🌈WaltCip-(talk) 00:34, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That doesn’t prove anything. It’s a statement of bias. So yes I’m biased against conservatism but I don’t think I unduly target it at MfD, let alone ANI. In fact you’re the one targeting me over politics here. Dronebogus (talk) 00:36, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd support banning Drone from ANI, or at least from having any opinions on anyone else's user pages. He did ask the user on his talk page about the section, which is a marginal improvement from the last time we talked about his actions... but then he went ahead and removed it anyhow as if there was some ticking clock that this material had to get removed immediately. They could be doing anything more productive with their time on Wikipedia, like actually editing and improving articles. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 00:12, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      A marginal improvement is still an improvement. Topic bans are not punitive, they’re preventative. You’re implying you feel I am incapable of taking advice because I made an error in judgment while being overall right in both assessment and process. Dronebogus (talk) 00:33, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      David Fuchs, 1 month is not "immediate." If something violates WP:SOAPBOX and the warned user doesn't reply, it can be removed. There doesn't have to be a ticking clock, especially because of the content's nature -- a bizarre conspiracy theory about 9/11. Also, Dronebogus doesn't have to "be doing anything more productive with their time on Wikipedia"; we don't ban users because they didn't do what we think they should've done. If only we had the ability to resolve complaints faster... — Nythar (💬-🎃) 00:53, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      @David Fuchs: I know Dronebogus didn't bring it up, but WP:BLPRS and WP:BLPTALK apply here. RAN1 (talk) 04:03, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think the noted subpage is probably a violation of WP:POLEMIC, and I think banning Dronebogus is not warranted at this time. I think I would advise them to not go "hunting for problems", that is to search through trying to find problems to bring to ANI. I am bothered by editors who think it is their job to play detective. HOWEVER, that being said, this is certainly not to the "ban them from ANI" phase. Honest to goodness, I'm ANI daily, and you'd think I'd recognize Dronebogus if they were a major drain on the resources of this page. I had never heard of them before this day. With the amount of time I'm around here, if I'd not heard of them, they probably aren't a problem. If I have been blind to the issue, I invite Floq and the others supporting such a proposal to build a case by showing diffs and establishing this is a pattern of behavior that needs stopping. I'm not comfortable banning someone without at least that courtesy to those of us unfamiliar with them. --Jayron32 18:20, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Most of the incidents involving me are months old at the newest. It would take some digging to find them, which I think discredits any accusations of an “ongoing problem” at ANI. Dronebogus (talk) 18:29, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think Dronebogus should be banned from here. The user page section has been deleted. Hopefully this section can be closed shortly. Thank you, --Malerooster (talk) 00:52, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      It should be closed. I’ve done nothing (significantly) wrong, and the section was rightly removed by an uninvolved, respected editor and consensus is clearly against allowing it. Pedant should consider this an informal warning. No further action should be taken here. If he insists on restoring patently inappropriate content the proper venue is MfD as an abuse of userspace. Dronebogus (talk) 04:56, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I think I need to report this here now, before it escalates further. The article The Other Me (2022 film) has a bit of a troubled history. Now a new user Gigaag1919 has appeared, claiming to be the director of the film in question, and wanting to remove a negative comment from the article. I reverted this deletion as a COI edit and advised them to propose changes via the talk page. I then posted a COI query on Gigaag1919's talk page, to which they responded by saying that either this negative comment is removed, or they will engage their lawyer. Per WP:LEGAL, I'm flagging up the matter here. Thanks, --DoubleGrazing (talk) 19:50, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Yeah that's a good block. Blatant and clear legal threat that I can see. RickinBaltimore (talk) 19:56, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I suspect this might be block evasion by Special:Contributions/Gus1182. Schazjmd (talk) 19:57, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • The user seems to not want the "film had generally negative reviews" in the article and claims it had positive reviews from viewers on VOD services. The line is cited to Rotten Tomatoes, which is standard for films, I think. 331dot (talk) 20:10, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      The irony is that when this was still at AfC, I noticed that a largely negative review had been taken out of context and edited in a way that made it sound positive. That passage was subsequently rewritten, and actually now much better represents the film's critical reception. But that appears not to please the alleged director. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 20:19, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    TPA revocation request

    FreshMorphleMemePedia (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
    This user has been blocked, but I need an admin to revoke their talk page access. Thanks. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 07:18, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    @Materialscientist: I pinged you on their talk page. Could you please? Nythar (💬-🎃) 07:56, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    TPA revoked. DatGuyTalkContribs 07:58, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Aigurland again

    Last topic: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1105#User:Aigurland_:_edit-warring_academic_boosterism_for_Paris_1_Sorbonne

    Aigurland has been doing advertisement for Paris 1 (for example: [72] ), and is doing the same again: [73] The same on the webpage on Collège de droit, which he said he won’t edit again in the last topic, but still removes information and sources this time.

    --Ransouk (talk) 09:39, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I am shocked to see that Ransouk is still on this page, even though he never answers me when I try to talk to him. I implore an administrator who has the time to come and look into Ransouk's case as it is a clear case of POV pushing. I am at your disposal on my talk. I feel very bad about the way Ransouk never replies to me and undo all my changes, trying to pass himself off as the victim... I really wish an administrator would intervene, please. Aigurland (talk) 21:13, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Aigurland, at a glance, your edits appear excessively promotional (WP:PROMO). I suggest you try to gain WP:CONSENSUS for your changes on the article talk page. The WP:ONUS to do so is really on you, and this should be mainly attempted on the article talk page rather than on user talk pages, as the former is more visible to interested editors. If somehow you reach an impasse there, you can then try seeking a 3rd opinion or even go for a Request for comment. Finally, if there is bias elsewhere, then you are encouraged to fix that page or pages directly, but neither WP:FALSEBALANCE nor WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS are a viable approach. Thanks and good luck. El_C 09:31, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Now, Aigurland is making free personal attacks on talk pages: [74]
    [75] --Ransouk (talk) 14:18, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Those are not personal attacks, Ransouk. And now is Nov 2, Nov 1 was the day before. El_C 15:40, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you very much El_C for noticing this. You are the first outsider to come between Ransouk and me and you have no idea how much it relieves me to be less alone. Aigurland (talk) 17:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    About personal attacks: [76]
    El_C: I’m happy to answer anything, but if I have a serious idea to answer. I just have to deal with a user, making obvious promotional edits on one page ( [77] [78]), making long comments about me in several talk pages at the same time, and how other pages where they try to delete sources are supposed to be promotional. I am short in my texts, because the substance of their comment is very short too. You are an admin, so it is your function to tell them how to use wikipedia properly, but I guess you will agree that it is not mine, nor the place in talk pages. It is precisely why I opened this discussion here. For some admin to interact with them. --Ransouk (talk) 18:34, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Ransouk Ransouk (I'm talking to you here since there will at least be witnesses) why don't you ever respond to my requests on the substance? Aigurland (talk) 18:41, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Ransouk, let me get it right, you're saying that the comment on my talk page that I just responded to contains a personal attack? That's... interesting. Maybe quote what you contend is a personal attack rather than simply posting diffs, leaving us to guess...? Also, can you please wrap your bare urls so they don't take up extra space for naught? I keep doing it for you, but it's very easy to do. Anyway, at this point, you two should try to minimize interacting with one another and seek outside input, as suggested above. El_C 18:50, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    El_C: Not at all, I tried to keep it short because I thought it was obvious. I meant that you noticed that some comments of Aigurland about me were improper, and some people could see that as personal attacks. I was NOT saying at all that you made personal attacks against me. ----Ransouk (talk) 18:56, 2 November 2022
    Aigurland, maybe because you keep writing at great length...? Please try to condense better. Brevity is the soul of wit, and so on. El_C 18:50, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Ransouk, it is everybody's (and nobody's) responsibity to tell people how to use Wikipedia properly. We are all, including admins, volunteers. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:57, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok, thank you. --Ransouk (talk) 19:02, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    You are right (I would point out that since Ransouk's last comment on the "College de Droit in France" talk, our relations seem to be more courteous :) Aigurland (talk) 18:55, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Aigurland, what is this indent? Who are you replying to? Which comment? El_C 19:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Ransouk, I understand you didn't say that I attacked you. Above, I said the comment on my talk page that I just responded to — that comment was by Aigurland (that I responded to), imlpying that I missed it in my response. If I did somehow miss it, please point it out with a quote. The point is that you keep citing diffs of what you claim are personal attacks "leaving us to guess" what exactly these are. So, next time you make a claim of a personal attack, you'll need to attach a quote of it alongside the diff. The diff by itself is not enough. El_C 19:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I meant what you mention of of how they write to me in your comments. But whatever, at this point, it is not very important. What I meant is that they should do exactly what you recommend, I happened to call that "personal attacks", that’s it. Ransouk (talk) 19:19, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, I see. Fair enough, but in the future, keep in mind that, on Wikipedia, the term personal attack has well-defined meaning as outlined in its policy page: Wikipedia:No personal attacks. El_C 19:33, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Enduring disruptive editing by IP

    2A00:23C5:980:B601:7DB2:A065:A969:71D (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

    Previously on AN/I: [79]

    Following the end of their one-week block (see above), this IP editor has kept editing in the very same disruptive manner as they used to do before, i.e. changing sourced GDP figures with no explanation whatsoever: [80][81][82][83][84][85] (the last one was done in spite of a level 4 warning). I think a longer block is necessary, as they don't appear to have learned anything from the first one. BilletsMauves€500 10:11, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Blocked for two weeks this time. Acroterion (talk) 12:13, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    IP editor continual vandalism

    IP editor User talk:86.188.161.99 has had more than 30 warnings for vandalism and disruptive editing, yet vandalised the Enigma machine this morning. Can somebody please take a look. scope_creepTalk 12:24, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Back to another 3 year school block. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:34, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    User:Zhomron

    Elizium23 (talk) 23:43, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    It is interesting to see you try and argue WP:CIVIL when you tell me to "fuck off" while attempting to undo your violation of WP:BLANKING Zhomron (talk) 23:47, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Users blanking their own talk pages is not a violation. See WP:NOTWALLOFSHAME. And why did you tell Elizium23 to piss off? Sarrail (talk) 23:53, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Because they have consistently disregarded basic etiquette, excessively tagged ubiquitous information as lacking or needing citations, and even went as far as rashly accusing me of being a sockpuppet master for random IP editors simply because they also reverted their edits. Case-and-point, as soon as things don't immediately fall into line for them, I'm here on the noticeboard. Likewise, WP:REMOVE provides a clear (and bolded) stipulation of what should not be removed from a user's talk page. Zhomron (talk) 23:57, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, and nothing Elizium23 removed from their own talk page is against WP:REMOVE. They can remove templates put on their page if they like, such as the disruptive one you placed, that's perfectly fine. Can you point out what they violated by removing your templating of their talk page? Canterbury Tail talk 00:07, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Additionally there is zero wrong with tagging non-English translations as requiring citations. Canterbury Tail talk 00:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I have opened Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Zhomron as related activity to this dispute has crossed my watchlist. Elizium23 (talk) 00:08, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    CheckUsers cannot link accounts to IPs, per the privacy policy. It is most likely to be declined, as per one archived discussion. Sarrail (talk) 00:11, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yup. However the edit interaction between Zhomron and that IP is blindingly obviously the same person. Canterbury Tail talk 00:13, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Correct, but WP:BADSOCK indicates that users with accounts must not edit whilst logged out to avoid scrutiny or sanctions. CheckUsers can use behavioral evidence to draw the conclusion that is not permitted by their technical tools, and it would be a blockable offense to do this sort of editing while embroiled in an edit-warring, incivil dispute. Elizium23 (talk) 00:15, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Dang, almost certainly looks like it. Looks like a false accusation or WP:DENY. Sarrail (talk) 00:18, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    It also would not be out of reach to identify active sanctions from WP:ARBCOM in various places Zhomron has chosen to dispute WP:V. Elizium23 (talk) 00:23, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I think I can contribute here as an editor familiar with the underlying facts. None of these are "translations", but rather original words or spellings of which the English word exists to function as a direct translation or transliteration. It is genuinely unnecessary and counterproductive to require messy citations in the lede for information available in any Biblical dictionary or edition of the Hebrew Bible, in the same way that every page whose title is an indigenous English word doesn't need to cite a dictionary entry for its spelling. There are thousands of pages about Biblical names and terms, many of which I have written or edited, and I have never seen a citation which specifically sources the spelling. In cases where the spelling is disputed or multiple spellings exist (and Zhomron and I have discussed several examples), detailed information is always noteworthy enough to feature on the page, with citations, but this is extremely rare and does not apply to any of the pages being discussed.
    At the same time, the etymology section of the Shabbat page is a different story and Elizium23 was correct to tag it. And I can't defend Zhomron's attitude toward other editors, about which I have also warned him in the past. GordonGlottal (talk) 00:55, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    For what its worth you (both) might benefit from just taking a deep breath, and try to de-escalate your relationship with each other. Neither of you are being civil to each other, You're chucking WP:DENY around which does anything BUT deny recognition since you're addressing it directly. You've opened at least 3 SPIs involving Zhomron in about the past month's time, and even though it looks like the latest may be true, I don't see much evidence of a particularly WP:BADSOCK. And now you've raised talk of finding ARBCOM sanctions to throw at Zhomron, instead of just doing it. All of this because of a content dispute with 2 diffs with debatably nastygram summaries. Have either of you actually tried discussing this? Talk Page? User Talk? Don't discount the fundamentals of WP conflict resolution. GabberFlasted (talk) 11:52, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I have discussed, yes, I have followed WP:BRD, and it doesn't get traction with someone who will edit-war and then edit-war some more from an IP and then make WP:POINTy edits on my watchlist while logged out to evade scrutiny. I won't be abused and insulted by a condescending editor who can't even grasp WP:V, that is why we're here and not on user talk, and that's why their IP is blocked for a month. Elizium23 (talk) 20:15, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Found this nugget on en.wiktionary: 00:45, 28 November 2020 Chuck Entz talk contribs blocked Zhomron talk contribs with an expiration time of infinite (account creation disabled, autoblock disabled, cannot edit own talk page) (Abusing multiple accounts/block evasion)
    @GabberFlasted: nah, I don't AGF, nor do I attempt to reason, with sockpuppets. Elizium23 (talk) 01:08, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    ahnentafels

    This is a content and sourcing issue, and cannot be resolved at ANI. Advice has been offered and accepted. Closing, since this should be continued at brianne martindale's talkpage and article talkpages. Acroterion (talk) 03:01, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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

    question my ahnentafels are getting removed by multiple editors i don't know what to do i have tried to speak to the people politely but it hasn't worked

    i am new to wiki and wish to bring my knowledge of royalty and nobility to wiki for free since i believe in giving my knowledge for free in accordance to my religious beliefs

    here is several examples of my ahnentafels getting removed Herbert I, Count of Vermandois Pepin, Count of Vermandois while others are getting left alone that were made by other people Charles XV Anton Florian, Prince of Liechtenstein that do not have any sources added

    i do not know what to do please help me

    have a blessed day in the name of Jesus Christ

    thanks brianne martindale Briannemartindale (talk) 00:59, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Keep your God, He wants me dead. This is a content dispute and the only cure is to talk it out with the people reverting you. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v a little blue Bori 01:11, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Jéské Couriano and everyone else at wiki
    i was only trying to be polite to everyone with have a blessed day in the name of Jesus Christ
    i have tried to talk with the people reverting me and they are getting rude and nasty with me and are threatening to ban or block me from wiki
    i don't know what to do
    this is getting out of hand and getting uncivil
    please help me i am new to wiki and wish to give my knowledge for free in accordance to my religious beliefs
    have a blessed day in the name of Jesus Christ
    thanks brianne martindale Briannemartindale (talk) 01:31, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a content dispute. Discuss on the relevant talk pages, after first finding the sources necessary to support the content you have been adding. And please stop using Wikipedia as a platform to impose your off-topic religious beliefs on others. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:34, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @AndyTheGrump
    i do not want to impose my religious beliefs on others
    i say have a blessed day in the name of Jesus Christ as a polite greeting and not an imposition of my beliefs or to be disrespectful of others
    if this is a content dispute then the matter is not resolved
    other editors have threatened me with banning or blocking and have become nasty and rude and i am returning the nasty and rudeness with politeness and requests to be left alone
    i am in need of help
    have a blessed day in the name of Jesus Christ
    thanks brianne martindale Briannemartindale (talk) 01:53, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    If this is a content dispute it does not belong here. Read this page and stop forum shopping. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 01:57, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a global project, open to contributors of all faiths, and none. If you cannot respect that by ceasing to impose your off-topic personal beliefs on others, you may well find yourself blocked from editing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:59, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @AndyTheGrump
    please reread what i have said about the matter thanks brianne martindale Briannemartindale (talk) 02:06, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    You've been here three whole days. Slow down, and remember that you are not here to share your knowledge, you should be here to share the research found in sources that have been agreed to be consistently reliable. Your repeated use of "I" and "my" is of concern. You've been advised by experienced editors that some of your sources are not acceptable, or are at least doubtful, which is a common problem with genealogical research. You've also been overlinking to a remarkable degree. This encyclopedia is not about you. You also need to recognize that your implied proselytizing grates on other editors, and that they may not share your particular brand of faith. Acroterion (talk) 02:06, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Acroterion
    i also use the books that i have including lines of succession by louda and maclagan the royal descant of 900 immigrants among others
    i am also wanting to write a book on royalty and have it published and have it be the book to end all books and be the last book you would every buy because it would be the informative book ever
    i can also back off on linking a little bit
    i am doing this not for me but for everyone else
    thanks brianne martindale Briannemartindale (talk) 02:15, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    You are not here to share your knowledge, your book, but to share research, as per Acroterion stated above. Doing so continously will result in a block. Sarrail (talk) 02:19, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sarrail
    i am stating my intentions for my future but that is not my intentions for wiki
    my future book has nothing to do with wiki i was just stating what i want to do in the future
    thanks brianne martindale Briannemartindale (talk) 02:33, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Regardless, you are sharing your knowledge for the future. Please refrain from doing so. Sarrail (talk) 02:35, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Briannemartindale: You have failed to notify any of the editors who have reverted your edits of this ANI filing, as the red notice both on top of the page and when editing clearly require you to. If you are unable to do this yourself, reply to this with a list of users you believe are involved and I will do so for you. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 02:21, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    On closer inspection the only editor I can see that would reasonably be involved in this report is Felida97, who has successfully been notified. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 02:29, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @TheDragonFire300: I don't think I'm involved in this report at all as I have not reverted any edits related to the ahnentafels issue (there are other editors, who have reverted the user on the mentioned articles or interacted with the user on talk pages, like Kansas Bear or Ealdgyth). But I also believe this to be a content dispute, so it doesn't belong here anyway. Felida97 (talk) 02:41, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    No doubt, this isn't suitable. Other solutions could include the third opinion page. As for the notification, I'm not really sure how to quantify subjects; since you have reverted Brianne's edits, I assumed you may have been hinted at in her saying are getting removed by multiple editors, and may appreciate the notification. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 02:46, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @TheDragonFire300
    i just want peace on wiki again and i just want to help make royalty and nobility articles better for readers especially for readers who live and breathe this stuff
    thanks brianne martindale Briannemartindale (talk) 02:52, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @TheDragonFire300: Though that first part of that sentence is my ahnentafels are getting removed by multiple editors (emphasis added by me) and I have not removed any of "their" ahnentafels. It just seemed weird to me that, out of all people who have reverted them, you find the one person to be involved that hasn't reverted them on this issue. But it doesn't matter, thanks for the notification, and I guess it does say in the ANI notice that one may be involved, so it's all fine :) Felida97 (talk) 02:58, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    It was probably because you were the only one who Brianne specifically reverted your revert, so would show up in her Special:Contributions (well, not actually. She reverted Kansas Bear as well, but I somehow missed that). An unfortunate coincidence, really. I could not find any other reversions in the list. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 02:59, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @TheDragonFire300
    the list is plenty
    you did find one of them thanks
    here are the others @Eric @Kansas Bear@Ealdgyth@Lindsayh@Surtsicna
    i am new to wiki and i don't want to cause a problem
    i just want to help wiki out with peace and harmony and politeness
    on the other end this person SkyWarrior was kind enough to welcome me and i want himher thanked
    thanks brianne martindale Briannemartindale (talk) 02:40, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Briannemartindale: Thanks for that. By the way, if you haven't seen it, then I've left a message on your talk page recommending the Wikipedia Adventure, given what you seem to be struggling with as a first timer. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 02:43, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Nuwordlife0rder: violates BURDEN, adds FICTREFs, restores OR

    I had removed what was unsourced and FICTREFed from the page Philippine Independent Church.

    The user Nuwordlife0rder proceeded to add those information back (some of which are OR), sometimes by sourcing them properly, other times by not sourcing them, most of the time by sourcing them with new FICTREFs. I then rolled back to the version I had made, and the user added the same information with the same problems again.

    I then attempted to Talk:Philippine Independent Church#Violating WP:BURDEN, adding FICTREFs, OR discuss with the user at the talk page, but it was to no avail: the user kept the unsourced and FICTREFed data, and said done. Veverve (talk) 10:26, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I had responded accordingly. The sources that "I added" are not WP:FICTREFs as those are legit. The fict links the user is referring to are previous links by other users in the past which I tried to restore but I already removed them as requested since I fully agree and understand this user's point. I responded "done" as I have complied with his request. This user seems to be violating WP:OWN and I have no intention to disrupt the page. Everything was done in WP:GOODFAITH as a Wikipedia editor. I have no intention of WP:WAR as I believe that Wikipedia is WP:NOTBATTLE and everyone are welcome to edit. Thank you. Nuwordlife0rder (talk) 10:43, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Undiscussed move of "Special member state territories and the European Union", apparent WP:ADVOCACY

    Without any prior discussion, User:Micga moved Special member state territories and the European Union to Special territories of states participating in the European integration. (Just now, I have moved it again temporarily to Special territories of members of the European Economic Area, to at least mitigate the damage.) This user has done extensive edits to this, to European integration and to European Union that at least appear to be wp:advocacy for pan-Europeanism. They do not appear to have taken on board the words of caution on their talk page from User:Tunakanski and User:Subtropical-man. The article as it stood was meaningful in the real world, to change it to drag in the EFTA countries is unhelpful and just looks like POV-pushing.

    I am not at this stage requesting that Micga be subjected to any sanctions, though others may take a different view. This request is only that this move (diff [ 05:26, 2 November 2022‎ Micga talk contribs‎ m 120,882 bytes 0‎ Micga moved page Special member state territories and the European Union to Special territories of states participating in the European integration] (and my subsequent mitigation move) be reverted to the status quo ante. All edits by Micga dated since 04:32 UTC on 2 November (that are based on their reframed scope) should be reverted pending discussion and consensus for change. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:20, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    This seems to be a content matter. 𝕁𝕄𝔽, can you elaborate on why you took it to ANI? Your edits to the article on 2 November between 10:41 and 11:05 have been contested, see Talk:Special territories of members of the European Economic Area#Renaming of the article and change of content. 77.188.28.121 (talk) 21:43, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, I moved the article to Special territories of states participating in the European integration only because the title did not match the contents. Micga (talk) 23:46, 2 November 2022 (UTC) But the massive rollback revert of European integration by user 77.188.28.121 is arbitrary, unexplained and simply rude - I intend to undo it. Micga (talk) 23:50, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @77.188.28.121:, No, my purpose in raising this at ANI is not about the content – that is easily resolved using the WP:BRD process, as is already happening at European integration. I have taken it to ANI because administrator support is needed to undo a page move. Micga is being economical with the truth: the reason that the article title "did not match the contents" is because of their massive undiscussed changes to the article to make that be the case. The request is only to ask that an administrator reinstate the original article title. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 01:02, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Now, this allegation is totally untrue. There were even more unrelated contents there before my edits (e.g. concerning the sovereign microstates). I have doubts whether you even took the time to analyze the changes.Micga (talk) 01:39, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I have not looked over the specific changes, but "Special territories of states participating in the European integration" is a very clunky phrase. The original title is an actual existing phrase, gave a clear idea of the article topic, and is understandable. It would be helpful if an admin could restore that title, and then if there is a desire to move the article, an RM should be used. CMD (talk) 01:47, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, then I‘m expecting retraction of the charge against me of being economical with truth. You can’t just throw such unfounded allegations at people and then pretend that nothing happened. especially if it was done immediately after another unfounded charge of WP:ADVOCACY Thr problem with 𝕁𝕄𝔽 is that they are guided by their impressions and emotions rather than facts. Micga (talk) 01:53, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Adding a comment here due to Micga's consistent non-constructive editing (especially at European integration). For several days, the user has been drastically editing content on these articles, typically with zero explanation, removing sourced content without reason, and adding unsourced material and a plethora of WP:OR information. I have had to remove the user's OR additions several times, only to find the user reinstating their unsourced edits almost immediately. At the very least, the user should have sought consensus before proceeding with such a large overhaul of this article, or at the minimum, provide edit summaries for the dozens upon dozens of rapid edits. Generally speaking, the user has engaged in what I believe to be non-constructive editing tactics against Wikipedia ethos and norms. As 𝕁𝕄𝔽 has pointed out, the user has ignored several warnings and persistently edited these article's as they see fit. My biggest concern here, is the amount of WP:OR information Micga snuck in at European integration. This should not be overlooked by the Admins. Thankfully, the article has since been restored to its last stable version. However, I don't know if Micga fully comprehends these policies. I pointed these concerns out several times (while also linking policies) in my edit summaries- all of which have been ignored with more and more unsourced OR being added. This WP:DISRUPT behavior must stop. Regards, Archives908 (talk) 02:27, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Upon further review, Micga's talk page clearly shows that almost a dozen other editors have left similar warnings regarding the user's disruptive editing. Plus a May 2021 block for disruptive editing. The complete lack of acknowledgment and almost no effort to self-improve this pattern of editing/learn from these multiple warnings is worrisome. Archives908 (talk) 04:04, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Now, could you please elaborate on this alleged plethora of OR? Apart from two-three sentences in the section „extent” at the very end of the Article, I do not see any. Please provide examples instead of general impression, as the latter is not a valid justifcation and it is rather hard to dispute it. The majority of the edits were all about sorting the chaotic layout of the Article and categorisation of integration arrangement types, along with correcting obvious errors like extending the term eurozone on all countries using euro. As for the previous disputes, the one with User:Subtropical-man was for example settled in my favor, but obviously neither you nor 𝕁𝕄𝔽 would bother to check it, would you? It’s pretty clear that you guys feel convinced that you can accuse me of lying and inventing things, without bothering to indicate the lie or the things invented. Pretty humble, honest and insightful of you. Micga (talk) 10:53, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Micga, you wrote: "As for the previous disputes, the one with User:Subtropical-man was for example settled in my favor, but obviously neither you nor 𝕁𝕄𝔽 would bother to check it, would you?" - no, this not settled in your favor. The fact that I have given up further discussion with you has nothing to do with winning your ideas. I just didn't have time to long discussion with you. I started a discussion (in Talk:European_Union#Controversies_and_disputed_changes_made_by_User:Micga) and the discussion showed that another user is also against your changes. Sufficient arguments have been put forward, which you didn't even answer to. Overall, probably not a single user on Wikipedia has endorsed your massive changes to the EU topic. As indicated above, your behavior is already very bothersomeand, previous requests on your talk page by other users did not help to change your actions and I support topic ban for anything about EU for you. Subtropical-man (✉ | en-2) 20:41, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Again, my request is not for sanctions against User:Micga. It is a request to reinstate the name of the article to "Special member state territories and the European Union", which has been its long standing name and its exclusive content before this week. I did not accuse Micga of lying, but only that their assertion that they "only moved the article ... because the title did not match the contents" omits the highly relevant detail that they had just changed the content of the article so that it no longer did so. It was the truth but not the whole truth. European integration is a highly controversial topic and it is best kept in its own firepit. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:15, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I do not see the need for admin intervention at the moment. WP:BRD might also be cited...Micga did literally a bold move, this can be reverted/moved back and then discussed either on talk or via RM, although Wikipedia:Requested moves/Controversial might be probably a good way to go here, as it will (hopefully) get more eyes on the topic as a whole. Lectonar (talk) 14:25, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, but an admin is needed to revert the move, because the redirect cannot be deleted automatically. Probably could have been handled at Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests rather than ANI, though. MrOllie (talk) 14:31, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes...I was kind of brainstorming with myself, the link to Wikipedia:Requested moves/Controversial being the final result :). Lectonar (talk) 14:54, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Probably my error in raising this at ANI, as it is first time in many years of editing that I have felt that I needed to so for any reason, because I consider it the last resort. Cry wolf etc. I believed that Wikipedia:Requested moves/Controversial is what should have been used in the first instance since it was the first move that was controversial – but it wasn't, which is why we are here. Is a move back to the original, long-standing and accurate name somehow controversial? Conversely, I believed that Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests is designed to implement a consensus decision at an article talk page, where there is some trivial obstruction to be cleared up first. I would certainly have done a BRD reversion but for the fact of the midstream move. Is this really the first time a case like this has arisen?
    I am content for this ANI discussion to be closed if there is administrator consensus on a more appropriate place to take it for resolution. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:17, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Ongoing self-promotion on Yakuza franchise pages

    For the last four years, the Yakuza franchise article and the various Yakuza video game articles have dealt with ongoing attempts at self-promotional vandalism by a user looking to promote their YouTube channel. There have been occasionally been other articles affected too, such as The Lost World: Jurassic Park (console game) and Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis, but the Yakuza articles are the main targets. According to the SPI case, they have gone through at least 20 different socks in their attempts to do so, and quite frankly, I'm getting very tired of it. Between the continued bad-faith editing and uncivil behavior, it's irritating to have to deal with this time and time again, especially when it immediately resumes the moment their block is up (if not before, under a new IP) or protection expires. Therefore, I'd like to request indefinite pending changes protection on all Yakuza series articles, if not indefinite semi-protection. The fact this has been going on for four years warrants at least some level of preventative measures, and it would certainly make things a lot easier on those of us who have been doing our best to curtail his activity up to this point. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 13:54, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I think the easiest solution, that doesn't involve protecting articles, is simply to blacklist their YouTube channel URL. Seems like the simplest action for the greatest outcome. Or would that not work with the way YouTube URLs work as they're video not channel URLs? Canterbury Tail talk 13:56, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    We can blacklist the channel landing page, but that doesn't really help because there's no way to blacklist the videos from a particular channel. MrOllie (talk) 14:01, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    You can also blacklist individual videos. That would be tedious, but if the problem is severe enough, at some point it takes a lot more time to create a new video than to block one. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:04, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, each video would have to be blacklisted individually, which is doable, but would probably be a slow process. That said, they do use links to specific website articles as citations to justify the videos' inclusion ([86] and [87]), so blacklisting those specific articles might be helpful. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 14:06, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I gathered up a list of URLs that might need to be blocked, in addition to the aforementioned news articles. While blocking all 50-ish tour videos isn't really viable, here are the three videos that start each tour "series", which have been linked before ([88] [89] [90]). All the playlists on their channel include "list=PL0HKt-kbL9s" as part of the URL, so blocking that string would theoretically prevent any of their playlists from being linked to. And unrelated to the Yakuza stuff, these three videos ([91] [92] [93]) are the only other ones he's attempted to add to any pages. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 14:21, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I wonder if it's possible to have a filter that prevents a non-autocomfirmed account from adding YouTube links. Would save so many headaches across the project, not just in this case. Canterbury Tail talk 16:21, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I like that idea. A more general approach (to be argued out at the Village Pump for years before actually happening) would be to have something like that tied into the WP:RSP list. Gusfriend (talk) 07:01, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    NotOrrio is NOTHERE

    User:NotOrrio has spent much of the past two weeks removing AfD templates from articles, attacking other editors, refactoring other editors' comments, and most recently posting a pretty lame personal attack on their userpage (if you're wondering, the "nerds" in question are myself and User:Whpq).

    Some highlights include responding to an AfD notice with "shut up" [94], recreating an article that was redirected at AfD (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Route 902, Victorian Bus Route, recreated as 902 (PTV Bus)) after falsely claiming to accept the results of the discussion [95], edit warring over said recreated article [96], removing AfD templates from their own articles [97], being given a temp block for persistent disruption of AfD [98], edit warring post-block [99] [100] (note the very creative modification of my username to "Nerdsandotherthings", more sad than anything else), accusing others of bad faith [101], more refactoring of other editors' comments [102], and more attempts to circumvent AfD (including by linking a specific diff in a mainspace article of one of the bus routes before it was redirected) [103]. With the latest userpage edits today, it's abundantly clear this user is not here to build an encyclopedia. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 14:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I won't say all of this isn't unjustified but some of it is unjustified
    1. Why are you looking at my user page in the first place let alone old revisons likely a case of cyber stalking
    2. The removing afd notices is already done and was addressed by an admin doesn't need to be readressed
    3. There was no edit war Dan Ardnt kept on adding unneeded tags even though it was clearly adressed and resolve
    4. The recreated article you mentioned in 103 was clearly reverted as it was changed to a revert without notice
    5. You can't complain I am assuming bad faith while also saying "its abundantly clear this user is not here to build an encyclopedia"
    NotOrrio (talk) 00:11, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I also want to point out 1 more thing
    6. The time it was stated i refracted another users comments when all i did was delete my own comment NotOrrio (talk) 00:15, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    AGF is not a suicide pact, and your actions have demonstrated you are not acting in good faith. Much of the conduct here happened after your block, showing it was insufficient to address the issues with your behavior. "I was right" doesn't change that you were involved in an edit war (and you were wrong on the merits). That you accuse me of "cyber stalking" by looking at your publicly viewable userpage (I was actually checking your contribs to see if you had continued doing what you'd been warned multiple times against, hoping I'd see no issues and we could move on) shows a level of battleground behavior that exemplifies why I am right in calling you NOTHERE. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:20, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think you've shown that the editor is WP:NOTHERE. Au contraire, I think your evidence shows they are here to build an encyclopaedia. AFAICS your evidence shows that NotOrrio doesn't respond too well to their contributions being nominated for deletion or tagged with maintenance tags. It's something they need to work on, and probably they need to accept that if consensus is against an article existing then that has to be honoured as frustrating as it may be. But this is an entirely different problem to being NOTHERE, and this particular problem is pretty common to see (unsurprisingly I suppose, a lot of people don't take too kindly to their contributions being binned). For NotOrrio: you may wish to focus your efforts on things that will pass notability guidelines? Makes them less likely to be subject to deletion discussions. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:30, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Crosswiki and sockpuppets abuser

    Both accounts are now globally locked by a steward. Nothing more to do here. EdJohnston (talk) 20:56, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Mohammedarrhioui (talk · contribs · account creation) and Hafsaelfakir (talk · contribs · account creation) are sockpuppets, crosswiki abusers, both dedicated to (self-)promote an unsignificant artist "Mohammed_Arrhioui" (here too: [104], [105]).

    See RCU on Commons.

    Both are blocked indefinitely on Commons and frwiki (more details on the RCU above).

    Regards. CaféBuzz (talk) 18:48, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    A request to lock the pair was made by Elcobbola on meta. Since they aren't actively disrupting here, I think it's fine to wait for the stewards to lock them. DatGuyTalkContribs 18:54, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I ran CU here and have  Confirmed Mohammedarrhioui (talk · contribs · account creation) and Hafsaelfakir (talk · contribs · account creation) to each other. EdJohnston (talk) 19:18, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Hide this racist redirect

    Hide this racist redirect saying Gypsy scum

    https://rmy.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Romane_manusha&oldid=15796 94.127.215.177 (talk) 10:29, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    This is the English language version of Wikipedia. You are talking about the Vlax Romani version. That's a different project. Please contact them directly, there's nothing we here at en.wiki can do. --Yamla (talk) 10:31, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    In addition, as a last resort, if no one is active at that Wikipedia at all, you can contact a steward to suppress the redirect. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 10:35, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    You have the wrong Wikipedia. This is the English Wikipedia, and we have no jurisdiction over a 14 year old edit on the Vlax Romani Wikipedia, which appears to be moribund in any event. Ravenswing 10:34, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Hide racist insulting edit

    DEALT WITH
    Log entry deleted, perpetrator blocked long time ago, nothing more to do here. a!rado (C✙T) 18:37, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Hide this racist edit saying (Redacted):

    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Mexicans 94.127.215.177 (talk) 10:34, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    They are talking about this edit. a!rado (C✙T) 11:23, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
     Done. --Jayron32 12:45, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Also in future when you are trying to get a racist comment hidden and removed from the archives, don't repeat it as it is defeating the point. Canterbury Tail talk 13:13, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Redacted it here...just do a link-out next time, IP. Nate • (chatter) 17:34, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Editor whose only purpose here seems to be to prove that Jews established the African slave trade

    To quote them, "i am going to add all the information about the exiled Jews moving to Africa, starting settlements, marrying the African women and then started selling the slaves to Euros. This is how the slave trade started (all sources agree in all countries and languages)". There's a discussion at User talk:Freshairbreath about their sources. I thought hard before brining this here but finally decided that this editor needs eyes. [106] Doug Weller talk 16:27, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Someone with more expertise than me should check Lançados for accuracy. The user edited a lot there. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 16:38, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    They have a single source which they appear to be misrepresenting, they are here for one purpose, they are big into WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, they are not assuming good faith (accusing anyone who disagrees with them of censorship, rather than showing any inclination of working with others). I say punt 'em. --Golbez (talk) 16:38, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That's already been done. One of our more obvious cases. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:44, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Well that was fast. @Orangemike:, thanks. Doug Weller talk 16:51, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks folks. Andre🚐 19:02, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    {](non-admin passerby) I am going to delete the statement that Portuguese Jews and forced converts *often* traded in slaves in Africa. I am sure examples of this existed -- and in fact recall one slaver in Brazil that was probably a converso, but yes, it does seem like the editor had some sort of confirmation-bias fixation at work. Yes, there was an exodus of Jews from Spain and Portugal and yes Portugal had colonies in West Africa with a flourishing slave trade, but those two truths as far as I know just barely overlap. I sometimes work with Portuguese and have done some relatively extensive work with (French-speaking) West Africa, as well as a little on the slave trade to Brazil. I do not describe myself as an expert in these topics, but I am pretty certain that most of the slave-capturing was carried out by Africans, and I know that the British and the French also bought these slaves, and they generally wound up on plantations, not in the homes of the Portuguese gentry, so that statement is a red flag also.
    It would be best if someone who reads Portuguese really really well reviewed the source, but I agree that it is probably misrepresented, and would urge that this person also check the article. I will delete the egregious stuff that I can identify but could well miss some nuance, and apparently it's a hot-button topic for some Elinruby (talk) 19:05, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Billyball998 is sealioning

    I think that Billyball998 (talk · contribs) is using WP:Sealioning at Talk:Book of Daniel. They are a case of WP:1AM and WP:SPA. They are pushing a Sangerite interpretation of WP:NPOV against the academic consensus (the consensus claim is verified by no less than four citations). tgeorgescu (talk) 19:09, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Billyball998 is raising a legitimate point Tgeorgescu's approach to excluding the description of the views of religious scholars has been problematic across a number of different articles. Interaction with him tends towards bludgeoning and often involve incivility. The only reason one could disagree with the "scholarly consensus" is because one is either "severally misinformed or a religious bigot".
    It does look like Billyball998 is a SPA, which is bad. Someone with tools should probably look at it to see whether it is a sock puppet and take appropriate action. However, the 1AM issue is a red herring. Tgeorgescu drives contributors with different views away from these articles and then claims that any new ones who show up are 1AM. Jahaza (talk) 19:27, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Ryken, Leland; Longman, Tremper (2010). The Complete Literary Guide to the Bible. Zondervan. ISBN 9780310877424. The consensus of modern biblical scholarship is that the book was composed in the second century B.C., that it is a pseudonymous work, and that it is indeed an example of prophecy after the fact. N.B.: Ryken and Longman have an axe to grind against this mainstream academic consensus, nevertheless they report it for what it is.
    And... I did not revert Billyball998. Two other established editors did that.
    As I stated at WP:DRN, I am not against citing the Medieval Rabbi Rashi. I just oppose citing him as being on a par with modern mainstream historical research.
    They may cite Rashi using WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV, but they should leave the mainstream academic view undisturbed. My verbatim statement was:

    I am not principally opposed to citing Rashi, but there should be no implication that his dating is on a par with the modern, mainstream academic dating. WP:NPOV is not an excuse for maiming mainstream historical information from the article.
    — User:tgeorgescu

    The Bible is the voice of God, not the voice of scientists. If we want the voice of scientists, we ask the scientists. Most of them do advocate the Big Bang, abiogenesis, and evolution as the most visible means of how the world came to be. Whether or not this was God's doing is up to the reader to decide. If the scientists are mistaken, this has to be shown to them on their own grounds, which anti-evolution folks are not really doing, because they are not reading up on the same literature, they are not using the same standards and experiments, and they are not speaking in the same circles nor getting published in the same journals. If it does not walk like a duck, does not talk like a duck, and avoids ducks like the plague, there is little reason to assume its a duck. Or scientist, in this case. I'm not saying the anti-evolution folks are wrong, I'm just saying that they are not mainstream scientists. This is why they're not consulted for the voice of scientists. Now, they can be consulted for what they think if their views are notable.
    — User:Ian.thomson

    Same applies to those "religious scholars": they are often not modern mainstream historians, so they should not be consulted for the voice of modern mainstream historians. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:02, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm going to try to avoid the content dispute per se here, including the problems with academic consensus as a concept.
    You've now replied five times in 30 minutes to this comment, which is part of why I mention bludgeoning. Twice I've tried to reply and had my comment edit conflicted out.
    You say that you're not opposed to including other views, but you don't seem to work towards a mutually agreeable version, or edit the page in a compromise way to include them as historical or minority while restoring information about modern academic consensus. This seems to be its own kind of sea lioning, where you claim that you want to include those views, but oppose their inclusion in practice. Jahaza (talk) 20:08, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Jahaza: Can you mention examples from the past wherein I have opposed including "religious scholars" using WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV? I certainly did oppose citing them in the voice of Wikipedia, or as being on a par with modern historians, but I don't remember that I would have WP:CENSORED "religious scholars" per se. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:12, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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