Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Utterly horrendously written articles from an auto patrolled user

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

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: [1]. There are many more. Please can an admin review. Inexpiable (talk) 20:04, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

• FYI, you need to post a notice on a user's talk page when starting a discussion about them at ANI. I've posted the notice on MATF's talk page. Levivich (talk) 20:15, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

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)

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)

I agree that their prose is atrocious, and that their autopatrolled status should be revoked. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree - WP:CIR. Very inappropriate for them to be an auto-patroller. DeCausa (talk) 20:57, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

• 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)
• 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)
• 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)

• 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)

• 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)

  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 [2] 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)

• 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)

  @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)

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)

• 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 [3], 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 [4], 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)

• 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)

  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)

• 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)

• 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)

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)

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)

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)

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).

Thank you. I hope we'll hear from the editor soon. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:24, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

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)

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)

• 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)

Side discussion. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:24, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

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) 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) @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) @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) Thank you! Cheers! Shir-El too 15:01, 30 October 2022 (UTC) 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)

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)

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)

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)

• 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)

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)

@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)

@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)

I will do that, thank you. MoviesandTelevisionFan (talk) 01:32, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

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)

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)

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

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. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 22:07, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

• 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)

  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)

  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)

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)

@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)

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)

Well then that is a very serious problem for us. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:14, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

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)

@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)

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)

  @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)

  Thanks, I'll take a look tomorrow. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

  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)

  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)

  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. -- Ponyo^{bons mots} 22:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

  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)

  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)

  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)

• To help coordinate efforts to improve MaTF's articles, I've created User:Beyond My Ken/MaTF-created articles. Editors are encouraged to delete from the list any articles they have worked on which are of sufficient quality that they do not need to be moved to Draftspace. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:56, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

@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)

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)

I agree that the sub-stubs I've seen have been fine. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:08, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

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)

• Oppose strongly moving these articles to draft. NPP is the first port of call for every new article. The fact that this has been subverted by a holder of the AP right means that they should first be marked 'unreviewed' and put back in the NewPagesFeed where they will receive the appropriate first attention by vetted New Page Reviewers. Their triage will ensure their future destiny be it Draft, or any one of our deletion processes. Contrary to what is often misunderstood (including by the WMF to whom I had to explain this yesterday in a planning meeting with them), moving to draft does not automatically increase the workload at AfC; that only happens when the creator submits the draft. Beyond My Ken's work on this delicate issue - where the creator should never have been accoderd AP - has been excellent, but mass moving to draft is not the immediate solution. With their backlock at an astounding low of around 500, the NPPers have more than enough time to process a 1,000 stubs and other inappropriate articles. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:53, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

• @Kudpung: Thanks for that information. Can articles be mass-marked "un-reviewed" or does it have to be done one by one? Beyond My Ken (talk)

@Beyond My Ken: unless a bot or a script could do it, it would need to be done one-by-one. I know this means seeing the pages twice but it's the proper way to go and would avoid inviting any new precedents that we might regret later. So proper in fact, that I don't mind doing some of it myself. The NPPers could take care of the reviewing or I could even do that on the fly too while marking them ureviewed but the New Pages Feed has to the the first logical stop in the correct workflow. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:15, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

@Beyond My Ken: It's worth noting that Moving to draft will not give MTF the benefit of any doubt because he is blocked anyway. There is the possibility of a little known system at NPPNE. If nothing comes of that, the articles can then be PRODed along with any other unsuitable ones. That would give them 7 days exposure to the wider community which they wouldn't get as drafts, and after that they would be deleted. That would also ward off any accusations that NPPers are using draft as a backdoor route to deletion. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:28, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Does the article space block extend to drafts? If not, or if there was a way to make it so that it doesn’t, then moving the articles to draft would enable MTF to carry on working on them. Brunton (talk) 09:38, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Unless Bbb23 has extended the block, it's just for editing mainspace at this time. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:04, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

In that case, I suggest that a move to draft is the ideal solution. It allows them to be checked before being moved back, and it will also give MTF a chance to work on them and demonstrate that the mainspace block is no longer necessary. Brunton (talk) 13:10, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support I mean it's just embarrassing how poorly written these articles are, not just that but the information also seems to be incorrect in most of them as if he didn't even bother to read the sources. Good job I found this user before he did even more damage. The admin who gave him auto patrolled rights really messed up here I'm afraid and should be called out for this serious error. I'll help go over some of his articles but it will take up a lot of time to go over all of them, a lot of unnecessary damage here that could have been avoided if his articles had been thoroughly checked before he was granted this right. Inexpiable (talk) 19:20, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

• As pointed out above, at the time MaTF received the autopatrol flag, he had xreated primiarily sub-stubs, which -- as far as I've seen -- are acceptable. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:45, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

  AP is supposed to be granted based on a reliable history of creating "clean" articles. Wikipedia:Autopatrolled says an editor should have written at least 25 "articles" and specifically says redirects and dab pages don't count. It shouldn't be necessary, but that could be changed to also say the articles should at least be Start-class. MB 05:38, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• Given the attitude of New Page Reviewers expressed in the section below, I do not believe that Kudpung's suggestion to not move MaTF's articles to draftspace, but instead to mark them as needing review would be an adequate solution, as the problems with them won't be fixed, they'll just be rubber-stamped back into mainspace, because the subjects are notable. Therefore, I request that an admin assess this discussion -- which has been ongoing for 10 days now -- to see if there is a consensus to move MaTF's articles (the ones that remain on the list here) to draftspace. My assessment is that there is a consensus (4-1) to do so, but I think an admin should make the call. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:15, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Just to note, despite about a dozen or so editors working on MaTF's articles for almost 2 weeks now, there are still about 800 on the list which haven't been fixed or checked and passed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:45, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Request withdrawn. Admins seem to have more important tasks to do in any event. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:00, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support. Sometimes, no article is better than a bad one and that appears to be the case here, particularly NPP doesn't believe they are able to address the issue through their processes. BilledMammal (talk) 11:06, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support I picked two random articles from the list BMK developed and found similar factual issues as others have. There's just no reason not to go with the more proactive approach here in the face of the scale of the problem. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 16:25, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support I have also previously had issues with this user's articles and have even used AWB to correct basic but widepread grammatical problems. The sentence structure in them is often so poor it is simply too much work to rewrite. Reywas92^Talk 16:00, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Another aspect of the problem

Another aspect of the problem with MaTF's articles is that they appear to be being approved at Articles for Creation in a state which is not actually up to Wikipedia standards. User:Ingenuity just passed Paul Bolster, J. E. Jumonville Sr. and Paul Taliaferro despite all three of them required editing to fix basic errors of grammar and style - and this despite Ingenuity being aware of this thread. Is there a problem with AfC's standards? Why are articles that are not up to Wikipedia's basic standards being approved? Or is the problem with this particular reviewer? Who is responsible for seeing that AfC's standards are sufficient to protect the encyclopedia from mistakes such as these? Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:31, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

You can take a look at the AFC reviewing instructions, specifically WP:AFCPURPOSE. From the guidelines: Article submissions that are likely to survive an AfD nomination should be accepted and published to mainspace. All of the above articles pass WP:NPOL and would easily pass AfD. The purpose of AfC isn't to decline every article that has grammar mistakes. Wikipedia is a work-in-progress; not every article in mainspace has to be perfect. If you feel that the requirements to pass AfC should be more strict, feel free to open a discussion at the AfC talk page, which is probably a more appropriate venue for a discussion like this. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 02:54, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

What's missing is the content of the box in the workflow diagram before the article even gets to review: "Correct and submit for review", which is to be informed by (green box) "Communication: reviewer comments / in-line message / AFC discussion / User talk page / Tea House / IRC". Did any sort of communication take place between you, the reviewer, and MaTF? If not, why not, when there were basic problems of grammar and style in the article? If there was discussion, why weren't the errors pointed out to MaTF?

Perhaps I'm naive. I thought that AfC reviewers were actually doing something to protect Wikipedia from badly written articles, and not simply checking off boxes on a checklist by rote. You seem to believe that your job as a reviewer to to approve anything that doesn't fail preset criteria. I see your job as being to make sure that badly written articles stay in draftspace until they're fixed. Your way lead to our having to re-check over 1,000 articles written by MaTF, so I don't see it as a very successful methodology. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:18, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

We accept articles that would survive an AfD discussion. Articles with spelling errors don't get deleted. The queue is too big for us to be holding drafts over every issue. —VersaceSpace 🌃 03:34, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

These were not "spelling errors", the articles had bad grammar and basic style mistakes. We are a reference work used by millions of people. We cannot afford our articles to have sentences in them such as

"In 1991, Taliaferro was pleaded guilty of bank fraud by a federal jury. It had resulted him from being suspended of the Oklahoma Senate."

We sound like something written for little children when our articles say things like

"He attended Eastern Baptist College, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1966. Bolster also attended the University of Mississippi, where he earned his master’s degree in 1967. He attended the University of Georgia, where he earned his doctorate degree in 1972. He also attended the Georgia State University, where he earned his law degree."

We are better than that, and we should demand that new articles meet our standards of quality.

You say your queue is too long, and I'm sympathetic. But when articles like that are thrown into Articlespace they're no longer in any queue at all. There's no additional process to check over articles for basic problems except blind random chance - AfC is the process. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:43, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I thought we as a community already held the view that the bar of "mainspace acceptable" was far below "well-written". This is the quality you get when you entrust the general public to write an encyclopedia. —VersaceSpace 🌃 03:51, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Can you point me to a policy which advocates that Wikipedia articles should not be written to a basic standard of quality? What the heck is Draftspace for if not a holding place for articles that aren't ready for prime time? If we're not going to check the articles out properly before they move into the encyclopedia, we may as well get rid of it altogether. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:56, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

One of the most important parts of Wikipedia is that it's a work in progress. This is said pretty much everywhere. I don't know, "bad grammar" is not a decline rationale on the AfC script. There isn't even a consensus for what should be incubated in draft (page movers draftifying is usually an arbitrary decision or based on unspoken precedent), so what are meant to act on? —VersaceSpace 🌃 04:04, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

The policy is WP:IMPERFECT. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:17, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

@VersaceSpace: Don't you think that "This is the quality you get when you entrust the general public to write an encyclopedia" is a rather inappropriate attitude for a New Page Reviewer to have? Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:00, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

No. there's a difference between me having an opinion and it affecting my work, and my attitude at NPP vastly differs from that at AfC. I'm also not accepting any imperfect articles through AfC, since I'm autopatrolled and the articles I accept don't enter the NPP queue. Users without AP can more freely accept drafts because they still get manually reviewed. —VersaceSpace 🌃 04:14, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

You make good points. But, the community has simply been reluctant to empower one editor, NPP or AFC, to gatekeep articles on notable topics from mainspace. Most of the large-scale issues such as this are taken care of at AN/ANI. A reviewer could get into trouble for doing the exact same thing an AFD or ANI consensus might do about these problem articles/editors. Because individual editors don't have that mandate. Some power users good at argumentation maybe could get away with doing what you suggest, but you can't fault an average AFC/NPP editor for not going that route. Usedtobecool ☎️ 04:22, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

So I gather that the attitude is that if the subject is notable, any old piece of garbage article is better than none at all. That's ... sad. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:41, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

It's not an attitude, it's the state of the community consensus today. You know as well as I (maybe better) that we have a spectrum of editors on the project from include everything to delete everything. The balance currently is to not allow an individual reviewer to keep articles from mainspace using other excuses not to do with notability of the article (I assume, for fear that deletionists will overrun AFC/NPP). I don't know why this surprises you since this is the state with AFD as well where if an article passes notability, other issues rarely if ever result in deletion or draftification. Usedtobecool ☎️ 05:20, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

This issue is fundamental as the essential feature of Wikipedia is that it's quick and dirty. This was the big breakthrough after it was found that the perfectionist model of Nupedia was an utter failure. This approach of making a weak start and then refining the content has long been enshrined in the policy WP:IMPERFECT which explicitly says that " Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome. ... the article may become disorganized or contain substandard writing." That's why we have the article grading system in which the Start level says "Providing references to reliable sources should come first; the article also needs substantial improvement in content and organisation. Also improve the grammar, spelling, writing style and improve the jargon use." So, if there are grammar issues of this sort, the article should be graded as Start class and left where the relevant projects and copy-editors will find it. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:40, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

• I wasn't going to comment as I figured I was just missing something, but this sub-section kinda reinforces my feelings... Are these articles really that bad? I checked over a random ~15 from xtools, all had some grammatical issues and some had some trivia in them, but overwhelmingly seemed fine. I see an example of actual error above, but not many of them, though that's not to say they don't exist; much of the focus in this section has been on the grammatical quality. It doesn't seem much worse than the avg article I stumble across when I use Wikipedia as a reader. The examples BMK cites above, like In 1991, Taliaferro was pleaded guilty of bank fraud by a federal jury. It had resulted him from being suspended of the Oklahoma Senate I don't this are that bad. a) it conveys the information clearly, even if the grammar is broken; b) it's an easy copyedit job, including for an interested reader who stumbles across it, giving them an easy in into the world of editing. I think WP:IMPERFECT is aptly cited: Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome. ... At any point during this process, the article may become disorganized or contain substandard writing. Unless there's a pattern of greater errors (i.e. of matters of fact and sourcing), IMO remove autopatrolled from the user and let them continue; NPP can deal with articles, or tag them as required. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:48, 9 November 2022 (UTC)
• In the face of such determined resistance to a minimum basic standard of quality, I'm dropping the entire matter, at least as far as I'm concerned. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:59, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

  Welcome to the club, meetings are Thursdays at 6 in the WMF office basement; please bring a snack to share. Levivich (talk) 17:17, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

• I suppose as an inclusionist and someone who's expressed horror several times at particular AfC rejections, I should welcome the revelation above, that AfC reviewers are applying only the standard of notability sufficient that the article would probably clear AfD. But there are several areas of concern with MoviesandTelevisionFan's articles (those that are not stubs) beyond grammar and spelling errors that can be cleaned up in the ordinary course of copyediting.

• For one, the standard of English is so low, it's hard to understand and requires emergency fixing by some other editor(s) at the cost of whatever else they may have planned on working on. Samuel Hartsel in the version by MoviesandTelevisionFan flagged in Inexpiable's original post, containing the headscratcher He had a brother who was Joseph Hartsel, in which he had died in 1901 for which there was consensus that he was murdered and was considered deceased but there was proof to show that he was strucked by lightning while his body was found in 1903. The article has now been fixed, but I made a note to myself to try to sort out from the sources what on earth happened to Hartsel's brother, what people thought when, including whether there were doubts about his being dead, and how in any case this was relevant to Hartsel. It goes far beyond "in which he" when the editor should have written "who", or "strucked" for "struck" into CIR territory.
• Beyond that, as noted by Spicy with examples from Inexpiable's other example, David Mark Hill (again, I've linked to MoviesandTelevisionFan's version of an article that others have now fixed), the editor has misrepresented the sources, based presumably on imperfect understanding, but nonetheless that means the articles have to be checked for accuracy, too. This is similar to the concern with machine translation: the work is so poor that it may mislead the reader. Regardless of good intentions, we have to fix such articles or remove them. This is the other reason competence is required. Wikipedia is writing for publication, and real people with real descendants and real historical achievements are potentially being misrepresented in inaccurate articles.
• I don't doubt anyone's good faith here, including anyone not appreciating why these articles were draftified and re-mainspacing them, I dream of horses for nominating MoviesandTelevisionFan for autopatrolled and Onel5969 for seconding a year ago. MoviesandTelevisionFan has shown willingness to fix the problems with the articles and has responded frankly to questions here. Unfortunately their responses demonstrate that they aren't up to extended writing in English, and also that there may be an issue with self-assessment: they've said here both I will mention that I am a Spanish speaker but I do better in English. and, in response to a question, English is my first language. Maybe a definition issue with first vs. native? Maybe it really is a writing problem? But we operate in writing here.
• There are also copyright issues. As Vanamonde93 noted above, MoviesandTelevisionFan doesn't have a good grasp of how to rewrite text that is copyvio or overly close paraphrasing. But according to Sennecaster, they've been recreating articles by Billy Hathorn. Billy Hathorn was indeffed for copyvio in 2011, unblocked in 2013, and community banned as a serial copyright violator (and sockpuppeteer) in 2015. MoviesandTelevisionFan's initial statement above refers to using the archive version of Hathorn's as a starting point for categories and text, then rewriting to eliminate copyvio. Other than that there has been a massive copyright investigation for Billy Hathorn's articles, I didn't know what happened to them, but following the trail from a thanks message on MoviesandTelevisionFan's user talk, I see that they created Noreen Corcoran after it had been deleted as a Billy Hathorn article that had not been cleaned up by April 2021. By "archive version", does MoviesandTelevisionFan mean versions of deleted articles at the Wayback Machine? In addition to accuracy, any articles they've recreated based on Hathorn's work also need to be investigated for copyvio of the less obvious lexical substitution type. Any of those that haven't been thoroughly rewritten by other editors should be at CCI until they're pronounced clean, and there may be need for revision deletions. (Sennecaster thanked them for working on Hathorn articles, but from what has emerged here, we can't assume they fixed the copyvios adequately.)
• As I recall and as alluded to by Sennecaster, there were other problems with Hathorn's articles, including IIRC notability concerns and poor sourcing. If MoviesandTelevisionFan has been working based on Hathorn's articles, we shouldn't be so sanguine that their article topics are notable.

Since CCI is horribly backed up and in any case just looks at that; both NPP and AfC don't check for accuracy and can't be expected to do either the extensive copyediting needed or the deeper check for copyvio of the rewording type; and since some editors have already thoroughly redone some of the articles, I recommend they be segregated as a special project list in either draft space with a big notice at the top or some poor blighter's userspace. And in drafting future articles, MoviesandTelevisionFan should not work on any more Billy Hathorn articles, or create any biographies requested by someone else. Yngvadottir (talk) 11:39, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I would assume that MTAF's been taking them off of archives or mirrors, or rewriting them before they get deleted. When I checked the rewrites for copyvio, nothing read as a copyvio or close paraphrase. I couldn't reword the sentences another way, so they were able to pass under the threshold of originality. I went back and rechecked Flip Mark, Talmadge L. Heflin (both fine), Clarence Addison Brimmer Jr., and Bo Callaway which had some suspect text I should have rewritten before moving but was subsequently CEd down. There's not really an efficient way to track down anything else I approved without manually searching individual pages. I apologize for not catching this sooner, or telling MTAF about the full extent and problem of Hathorn articles. I would suspect though that only longer rewrites and more complex sentences need attention on the copyright end, as much of what is written in those articles still falls below the threshold of originality that would push it into close paraphrasing. Sennecaster (Chat) 15:04, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. I am not remotely blaming you here, or even MTAF. But what we have here is someone with poor English skills (in the written dimension) who has recreated articles that were deleted for good reasons, and in doing so has used paraphrase techniques that both introduced inaccuracy and made checking for copyvio more complicated. It's not a matter of notability—although Billy Hathorn was not a good judge of that in politicians, outside politics he may have been perfectly capable of judging notability, and in any case actors, for example, have since had several years to accrue further roles and further press—if these articles cannot be segregated and stubbed/checked (with revision deletion likely needed), the Billy Hathorn aspect is a good argument for mass deletion of those nobody has rewritten and taken responsibility for. They should definitely not be re-mainspaced on the basis of apparent notability if they derive from Billy Hathorn. Anyone who recreates a deleted article from an archived version (and MTAF says above that he started with an archived version and reworked it ina document file) should realize it's a dangerous proposition; it's probably spelled out as a no-no somewhere in our voluminous PAGS. This is why reconstructions exist on places like Deletionpedia, Everybodywiki, and Wikia/Fandom, because Wikipedia deletes things and doesn't allow simple re-creation. @Ingenuity and VersaceSpace: Please note this dimension of the issue. Yngvadottir (talk) 01:13, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• Just to note that the vast majority of MaTF's created articles have not been draftified. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:45, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

The Billy Hathorn aspect

I'm making a new subsection because the fact MoviesandTelevisionFan has been creating articles previously written by Billy Hathorn deserves consideration by itself. Billy Hathorn is a banned editor, and is banned not for his communication style or something like that, but because of his article work. If all MATF's article creations these days are recreations of Billy Hathorn articles, it comes awfully close to proxying for a banned editor even if the copyvio has been fixed. For example, Kenneth Osterberger, created via AfC from a draft that MATF started on November 9, was deleted on October 25 as an unfixed Billy Hathorn article; Google cache shows me a blanked version (and since only admins can now see the old version, here's what it looked like on June 26; also the basis of the Military History article at Wikia/Fandom). MATF should have been working to fix such articles through the CCI, and instead is backdooring them into the encyclopedia again via a route that makes it a crapshoot whether they're examined for remaining copyvio; but of course MATF can't currently work on the published articles, because they're p-blocked from article space. I remain concerned about accuracy, too. I recall problems with Billy Hathorn's sourcing, and when I worked on the Kenneth Osterberger article today, I was unable to find anything that doesn't go back to Wikipedia that gives his date of birth. MATF's article sources that to a newspapers.com page that I can't see, and also gives the guy a father with a different last name; the article based on Billy Hathorn's work has "Kenneth Osterberger, Sr. (died 1946)", which I can't verify either. I was able to find an independent obituary in the same newspaper as the family-submitted one MTAF cited; and it has him dying a week later than the earlier versions of the article. I think this article is substantiating that there were more than copyvio concerns with Billy Hathorn articles. I've asked MATF on their talk page how they came to work on Billy Hathorn articles. But despite their evident good faith and commendable readiness to work on their English prose, I don't believe we should be allowing wholesale re-creations of Billy Hathorn articles. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:04, 13 November 2022 (UTC) Edit to the foregoing: I'm bad at numbers, but the family obituary and the archived version of the old article both have the death date that I corrected to; unless the error was introduced between June and the article's deletion last month, MATF appears to have miscopied it. Can someone with newspapers.com access please check whether this reference is about the same person and supports the birth date and his father's name being George Breazeale? Yngvadottir (talk) 09:31, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

On the one hand, I take your point, but it's also arguable that the editor's fixing the situation left behind after a banned editor ruined a bunch of articles. Obviously, we shouldn't encourage banned editors, but we also don't want a situation where a bad editor having worked on something ruins its chance of having an article, so there is at least some merit in fixing things behind them.

That said, this feels like a very bad way to do it, and if it's using the deleted articles' text and not just its sources, that's an attribution nightmare. Like, shouldn't we technically be crediting Billy in the page history? Probably better to delete them than to just create a different sort of copyvio. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 09:40, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

MATF, for a small amount of the articles, did the rewrites before the article was deleted. I haven't seen other rewrite movers like MER-C credit Hathorn or really anyone who wrote the original text for rewrites, but those are a very small subset. The ones written after deletion need to either be below the TOO, aka basic sentences, rewritten/cleaned of any close paraphrasing, or deleted again. I'd suspect that some could be AFD'd or "merged" elsewhere for sheer notability reasons. I've myself plans to rewrite some and it's literally a pinwheel game of "notable or not" with it being rigged towards the latter. Sennecaster (Chat) 23:26, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

@Adam Cuerden: Oh, I hear you. That's the trouble with deletion of banned editors' articles; there's damage to our encyclopedic coverage. However, one of the things that made Billy Hathorn problematic—including when he socked—was that he had an eccentric view of notability. His articles on Republican politicians tended not to meet notability standards. It's been a long time and I was just an observer, but I have the impression that that's how he came to notice and his close paraphrasing was discovered later. Sennecaster, that's also my impression, that several of MATF's recreated articles are on people of borderline notability, if that—Kenneth Osterberger, for one (longtime state senator, chief claims to fame as the successful opponent in David Duke's first run for public office and as founder of the prayer breakfast in his state senate, which is not in the new version of the article and the former wasn't till I found independent coverage and added it). There must have been run-of-the-mill elections coverage, but even MATF, who apparently has newspapers.com access, didn't find and add any, and I struck out, barely finding an obituary. If I were choosing a banned editor to recreate their articles as a suggestion for what to work on, Billy Hathorn would be low on my list. MATF has now responded to my query about how they came to start doing this, saying it started with Noreen Corcoran, but I'm still puzzled as to how they found the name Billy Hathorn and decided his articles were good candidates for recreation. Thanks for noting that some were pre-deletion clean-ups, Sennecaster. I also see that Casey Toof, which MATF created as a draft on November 11, cannot have been a Billy Hathorn article, because Toof was only elected in 2019, and (unless I'm being misled by the deprecation of deletion logs last month, what on earth is that about) has not previously been deleted. However, Toof is another state, not national, Republican legislator, and the depth of the cited sources is unimpressive. Something smells here. I think MATF may have been taken advantage of. I think they should stop writing biographies and I still think the best solution to the convoluted problem of underlying copyright violation / poor writing with inaccuracies / notability problems / effective proxying for a banned editor is mass deletion of those of their biographies created since they started working on Billy Hathorn articles that other editors have not carefully looked over and improved and thereby vouched for. Yngvadottir (talk) 00:33, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Aye. I think you could probably just about make a case for most state senators if you wanted to - they're going to meet WP:GNG somehow, if only in the election reporting - but it's a pretty narrow notability, and not exactly a primary focus, is it? Now, I've not reviewed MATF's work intensively, but somewhat thinking this is a simple "Competence is required" issue. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 01:33, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

If the subjects of these articles aren't Wiki-notable, then why are they being passed through AfC? I've learned from the above discussion -- to my surprise and deep concern -- that AfC doesn't check for quality, but checking for notability is something they're supposedly doing, is it not? Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:21, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Election to a state-level legislature is considered an automatic NPOL pass regardless of GNG. We have numerous one-line stubs about minor American politicians who served in the whatever state senate for 10 minutes in the 1800s. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 03:47, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate the information. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:43, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, state senators probably pass GNG if you actually check the right newspaper archives and publications of the state bodies. But they probably aren't worth much more than a stub in most cases. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 17:59, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Adam Cuerden: there are WP:Copying within Wikipedia#Reusing deleted material (guideline, shortcut WP:RUD) problems here. A possible fix is to restore the deleted revisions (which includes usernames) and revision delete (RD1 criterion) their text. Flatscan (talk) 05:31, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I would like to throw in my two cents. I have stubbed about 50 previously deleted Billy Hathorn articles, generally retrieving from the deleted edit history infobox content, templates and categories, and some text and citations, particulary where such content was entirely added by later editors. I have done this particularly with respect to articles that I felt needed to be restored to fill real coverage gaps. I see no problem whatsoever with creating these articles, as the rationale for their deletion was never about the subjects being unsuitable for coverage, and only ever about copyvio matters. BD2412 T 13:55, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that! As an admin, you can see the deleted edits; MATF hasn't had that option so presumably (usually) works from single versions preserved off-wiki. I had the impression, though, that there were other concerns, too, including notability (and I wonder whether that's the source of the less than impressive sourcing). Who would we ask who's still active and familiar with the Billy Hathorn case? The community ban case was mostly about his socking. Yngvadottir (talk) 22:01, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Yngvadottir, I am (or was) moderately familiar with Hathorn and his MO. Participants in this discussion in 2015, which it seems I started, include most of the "copyright admins" active at that time, most of whom are still around, and most or all of whom know more about him than I do. As I recall, the concerns were indeed not only about the copyvios and how the socking made them harder to trace, but also about notability; I also recall sourcing problems such as extensive use of those pay-to-publish 'obituaries' written by family or friends. Note to Adam Cuerden: the articles aren't exactly a bunch of articles he ruined – the pages that are being laboriously worked through at WP:CP a handful at a time are pages that he created. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:14, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

There may be some notability issues, but the ones I have restored have specifically been to fill redlinked gaps—one was a federal judge, another an attorney general of the state, some others were state supreme court justices. BD2412 T 22:05, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

That sounds great, and you've clearly been carefully choosing which ones to recreate. You've even been prioritizing material other editors added. But MATF can't see who added what for the articles that have already been deleted, and doesn't appear to be so discerning. It's possible that I'm misremembering the discussions about Billy Hathorn, or that consensus has shifted, since Premeditated Chaos says that state legislators pass notability. But if I'm not, indiscriminate recreation of Billy Hathorn articles is a problem beyond the copyvio problems and the problems of English and accuracy highlighted above, and an additional reason to set these articles aside for specific scrutiny. (A couple of us just worked on Kenneth Nix. Even though this is another Republican, he was chief justice of the state superior court as well as having served in the state senate for 10 years. Undoubtedly notable, and I found no evidence of a deleted article. However, despite MATF having access to newspapers.com, I found the article similarly shallowly referenced, with no news coverage of any of the elections and missing not only all obituaries other than legacy.com (there are at least 2), but quite a big story of how his career ended. Which unfortunately was the only stage of that career that newspaper archives I was able to see have preserved. Anyone who's going to work on these state pols, especially if Billy Hathorn originally cranked out an article, which will be heavily dependent on a couple of sources, really needs to be able to beat the bushes and willing to take the time to do so.) Yngvadottir (talk) 11:06, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Justlettersandnumbers, thanks for weighing in on the history. That's the one discussion I turned up. I've seen the reliance on family-provided obituaries at Legacy.com plus state database entries in MusicandTelevisionFan's articles, and at both Kenneth Osterberger (resuscitated article) and Kenneth Nix (no evidence I can find of a previous Wikipedia article), the same newspaper had an obituary of its own. That's part of what I mean about MATF working too fast (as Billy Hathorn did, IIRC) or not being very skilled at digging out and using newspaper archive sources for marginally notable figures where there is not likely to be another extended biography sitting there at the top of the internet search results. Even if consensus has changed about state politicians, it looks as if MATF is just following Hathorn's shallow process. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:07, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

It's not clear to me what the final outcome of this discussion will be, but one thing I'm sure of: MATF should not work on copyvio matters, much less CCI rewrites, without showing a much better understanding of the problem of close paraphrasing. The active partial block from mainspace doesn't prevent this, as rewrites are (curiously) done in talk-space. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:06, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Joe Roe and autopatrol

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

---

So far, we've had two of Joe Roe's autopatroller grants revoked. Should there be a review of other autopatroller grants by Joe to check for further problematic autopatrollers? The very nature of the permission allows bad autopatrolled edits to slip away more easily unless direct investigations are done. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 01:35, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't think Joe Roe can be faulted in this case; as noted above by others, MTAF was writing a very different kind of articles before getting autopatrol, which didn't reveal the writing problem. Also they were recommended for the right by two very experienced Wikipedians. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:04, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree that blaming Joe Roe is inappropriate. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:00, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

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

more than 1,000 possibly bad edits

The last 1,000 and more edits by experienced editor User:Dicklyon used an automated editor to impose their view of comma treatment, which in at least some cases is completely wrong grammatically, and which also changes bluelinks to existing articles into redlinks, disconnecting them. I noted one such bad edit at their Talk page, but now I see they have made more than 1,000 edits in their campaign, and there may be a huge number of errors implemented by them. I don't happen to have "rollback" feature so it would not be convenient for me to roll back all of their edits, and it is a bigger cleanup problem than I can tackle right now myself. Could others please speak to this situation and how it can be fixed, please? --Doncram (talk,contribs) 06:19, 8 November 2022 (UTC) P.S. Please see this diff at their Talk page, in which I notified them of this ANI section at their Talk page, and where I see they had quickly replied to my first posting, and I requested they to continue here. There, they stated that they would fix all the problems, but I pointed out that without some further discussion showing understanding of the multiple types of problems caused and/or willingness to roll back ALL of the edits, that offhand I would rather expect they might fix some but not all of the errors introduced. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 06:29, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Some of us have fixed a good number of articles in this series of edits where they showed up in a maintenance tracking category. I'm sure we can get through the rest without a mass rollback. Dawnseeker2000 06:32, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Okay, now I see (but did not just read in detail) a discussion section on their page. I'm not clear if Dicklyon is making fixes, as their edits all show the same type of edit summary as the bad edit I noticed. Are they using the same edit summary??? Why would they not change the edit summary to indicate they are fixing their previous mistaken edits???

But, anyhow, which kind of errors are you "fixing"; would you be catching all the situations where disconnections were made? I understand that two-comma treatment "Bob Smith, Jr., House" or zero-comma treatment "Bob Smith Jr. House" is grammatically okay, though currently many editors prefer the latter. And I understand that "one-comma" treatment "Bob Smith Jr., House" (which is what Dicklyon was implementing instead of two-comma treatment) is completely wrong. But simply changing the bad treatment into zero-comma treatment does not address the disconnection issue. This applies to numerous NRHP list-articles which were set up with "two-comma" treatment, linking to both bluelink articles and to redlink articles. The linked pages would have to be moved to zero-comma names, first, before perhaps changing two-comma links to zero-comma ones. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 06:43, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

There were some articles in this situation that were listed at Category:Articles with missing files and myself and at least one other editor took care of it. I did not roll back any (just fixed manually) but I see that Sumanuil rolled back about 10 to 15 articles. Dawnseeker2000 06:47, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

That category would not identify any of the problems I am talking about. So their editing spree must be causing even more kinds of problems than either of us know about. I scrolled back by 1,000's in their edit history 12 times and did not reach the end yet... they have made more than 12,000 edits with a faulty process! --Doncram (talk,contribs) 07:08, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Don, the faulty process (not reviewing the semi-automated edits closely enough to catch these errors) was limited to 1200 rapid edits on Nov. 8 as far as I know. On the previous rounds of case cleanup and comma cleanup edits, there were some transient issues that were discovered, discussed, and fixed. If you have reason to believe there were any significant number of unaddressed errors before that, please point out one or two so we'll know what you're talking about. Dicklyon (talk) 15:39, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

This is the problem with automated or semi-automated edits. When it works, it's great. When it doesn't, it can introduce hundreds of new errors in minutes. Is speed really worth it?Sumanuil. _{(talk to me)} 06:56, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't think I introduced "hundreds" or errors, and it took hours, not minutes. But yes that's a risk of not careful enough use of semi-automated edits, and it's a slower process to fix. Sorry. I'm on it. Dicklyon (talk) 15:44, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Another problem is that they change the name of the linked-to article in one place (e.g. a NRHP county-level list-article, but not at other places (at disambiguation pages showing the place as either a bluelink or as a redlink with a supporting bluelink as required by wp:DABRL) and at other list-articles such as a list of rectories or Elks buildings or other building-type-specific lists.

And, now I recall, this editor's doing something very similar to NRHP pages has caused problems before, which were discussed out, and they promised NOT to do it any more without following a procedure to list all the pages changed at a work page set up specifically so that the second-level problems introduced by their zeal could be monitored and fixed. That work page is Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Hyphens vs. dashes issues, created specifically because Dicklyon had been charging ahead changing hyphens to dashes. Now, their charging ahead with changing two-commas to zero-commas creates the same problems. (Because existing bluelink target pages need to be moved, leaving redirects behind. And where target pages are redlinks, a redirect would need to be created, too, but those would be deleted automatically, so the workaround was to create that worklist which would allow for one to go back later and create the necessary redirects.) I doubt this is easy for others to immediately understand. But Dicklyon once did understand, and agreed to cooperate in a workaround process, which they are not doing here.

This is irritating. Could they be enjoined not to do any edits of these types? Or any mass-editing campaigns, or what? --Doncram (talk,contribs) 06:57, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Don, I've continued to list redlinked articles with dashes there in case you or someone creates the articles with hyphens. Did I miss something? Dicklyon (talk) 15:44, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, let's not draw & quarter him. Yes, there were some errors introduced, but these can be taken care of. As an AWB user, I create similar situations, and that is why I monitor the various tracking categories. If you're an editor with a goal (commas) then speed can become paramount, and I see he was saving pages at a rate of around 20 per minute on at least one occasion tonight. If you're an editor with a goal (typo-fixing, for example) and you also are focused on not populating those categories, the edit rate drops dramatically. Based on the article about him, he's 18 or 19 years older than I am, and I know my eyes fail me here and there. Dawnseeker2000 07:09, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

"these can be taken care of"??? by whom, how? Some/many/most of the errors introduced do not show up in a tracking category which could be addressed. You probably don't see all the types of problems caused, and I probably don't see them all either, because the edits are hitting completely different kinds of articles and situations (e.g. inside redlinks vs. inside bluelinks vs. outside links) --Doncram (talk,contribs) 07:35, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

"Speed can become paramount". For heaven's sake, why? Are the Internet Comma Police hovering over our website, threatening to swoop down and send Wikipedia to Comma Prison if the "errors" weren't changed immediately? These kinds of mass changes can most certainly wait for a consensus before they're made, and if errors are introduced they should certainly be corrected before moving on with the grand project. Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:58, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

• I'm sympathetic to what Dick is trying to achieve - the Jr. comma debate was settled many years ago, and most article titles now match that. But it does look like this mass edit was done without due care and attention, and most likely with the myriad different combinations of offsetting commas and other constructs, it isn't really possible to do a mass edit of this nature without verifying each and every one for breakages. Dick, you need to commit to slowing down and doing this task carefully, or else a topic ban on mass edits may be incoming.  — Amakuru (talk) 07:05, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Amakuru, it's not just that they would need to look for breakages where a bluelink was changed to a redlink. There also needs to be redirects set up from valid two-comma versions to also valid zero-comma versions, and that is different than a breakage. And they were doing neither, they were introducing completely bad one-comma errors!!! (This is not entirely easy to explain, sorry. But basically their approach (if they were actually making two-comma to zero-comma changes) is also setting up future disconnects/breakages which you can't see yet, so further action like the work page workaround is needed.) Their edits are not being part of any solution; they are the problem now, and IMHO they should not be allowed to be involved in addressing the Jr., and Sr. business at all (which would gradually be "fixed" naturally without them). --Doncram (talk,contribs) 07:19, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I see they have made more than 12,000 edits with a faulty process, causing multiple types of problems. Their very latest few edits included one more of the type I identified, too, it is not as if they have changed over to being a fixer. Can 12,000 or however many of their edits 20,000? 50,000? be rolled back, ASAP, before other edits are made to those articles and then rollback cannot be used? This is on the scale of a pretty big bot run, and they have been running an unapproved bot in effect. If one does that, wouldn't one get blocked??? --Doncram (talk,contribs) 07:08, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Kill-It-With-Fire (mass undo) is a thing now, so it doesn't matter so much if edits happen after theirs. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 12:33, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

By the way, is it appropriate to remove commas before Jr. or Sr.? (e.g. this edit) Nythar (💬-🎃) 07:14, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Nythar, it is not completely simple. In that edit, they made one change which is okay (in shifting to a now-somewhat-preferred form, but not really a necessary change), in a case where there was no comma following the "Joe Smith, Jr." But also they made one change that introduced grammatical error, where there was a comma following it. In the second change, in effect, they changed from "two-comma" to "one-comma" type, which is just absolutely wrong. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 07:29, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Not "absolutely wrong", but I agree I should have removed another comma there. I further fixed that article just now; it had quite a few missing and extra commas that nobody had cared about so far. Dicklyon (talk) 15:30, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

See MOS:JRSR: Do not put a comma before Jr. or Sr. (or variations such as Jnr). Ljleppan (talk) 07:30, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I was just interested to know the MOS for these. Nythar (💬-🎃) 07:33, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

But, User:Ljleppan, it does not follow that removing a comma before a Jr. or Sr. always constitutes an improvement. Instead it can be introducing a gross error. Changing "Joe Smith, Jr., House" to "Joe Smith Jr., House" is making an absolute error. (While changing "Joe Smith, Jr., House" to "Joe Smith Jr. House" would be okay grammatically and is, i guess, now somewhat preferred.) And there are the immediate breakage problems which can be caused if the phrase is part of a bluelink, and the implied problem that the bluelinked page needs to be moved and a redirect set up. And there is delayed/hidden/future breakage-type problem caused too, when the phrase is part of a redlink, esp. where that redlink is used in other articles too. So one partial fix to their type of campaign would be to prohibit them from making any change to a redlink, but rather allow us all to wait until the redlink is turned into a bluelink by article creation. --07:41, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Also they shouldn't be changing citations. This edit[5] introduced 2 citation errors (cites need to match sources, not WP usage) and also broke a link in V-12 Navy College Training Program. Given the quantity of edits, even a small error rate is going to throw up a lot of errors. Semi-automated tools should automate the data entry, not the editors judgement. This is very annoying. Jahaza (talk) 08:51, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Yet more damage to citations[6]. This comma is in the title of the cited Senate resolution. There's also damage to sports articles.

• 2016–17 Pac-12 Conference men's basketball season
• 2020 Atlantic Coast Conference men's soccer season
• 2016 Mountain West Conference football season
• 2016 Atlantic Coast Conference men's soccer season
• 2016 North Carolina A&T Aggies football team
• 2017 Mountain West Conference football season
• 2019 Colonial Athletic Association men's soccer season

Here Jr. and Sr. are in reference to college player year and have nothing to do with postnominals. With thousands (tens of thousands?) Of edits, how many of these are there! Jahaza (talk) 09:02, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Given that Dick seems to have paid almost no attention to whether the commas in question were part of an offsetting pair, as well as removing them in renditions of titles of external sources, which I don't think should be edited that way, I'm starting to think a mass rollback may be necessary, unless Dick or anyone else is prepared to examine them one by one. I have to say I'm disappointed by this, as I consider Dick a good editor and while his zeal and determination to see through certain style issues is well-known, his heart is in the right place. What's happened here isn't good though, unless we really are dealing with only a handful of cases.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:49, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

• This seems to be something of a repeat of an earlier automated mass edit campaign by Dicklyon a few months ago. (See [7].) Perhaps Dicklyon shouldn't be using automation to make edits? Beyond My Ken (talk) 10:10, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

More than 30,000 uninformed/faulty edits with edit summary including "(via WP:JWB)", and many more thousands with a different mass editing error: I paged back 30 times 1,000 edits per page of their contributions, and am still amongst their automated edits.

And then I am seeing a bunch more different edits which I also disagree with, where they are willy-nilly changing titles of pages about proper noun things into mixed upper and lower case titles. Which seems completely wrong. E.g. this diff about a disambiguation page on the Sun Belt Basketball Tournament with edit summary indicating they are applying their view of what's proper for upper vs. lower case "norm" ("(Dicklyon moved page Sun Belt Basketball Tournament to Sun Belt basketball tournament: case norm)"). In this specific case it seems they did move the constituent pages (incorrectly, IMHO) already. I have seen them blithely making case changes to articles on proper noun places listed on, and formally named by, the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) program of the U.S. government. (E.g. they would change "Bob Smith House", listed on the NRHP as "Bob Smith House" rather than "4125 E. 4100 Rd." to "Bob Smith house", which is just wrong: the formal name of the place in all usage by national, state, and local historic governing bodies, and in local tourist and information pages, and in pages of the local historic house museum etc., is the proper name "Bob Smith House"). I had noticed a few of those and regret now that I did not raise a general problem about those edits, which now I think number in the thousands, or many many thousands, as well.

Dicklyon has been notified of this discussion and directed here, and has not commented. Offhand I do not believe they understand the facts of the multiple types of errors they have been introducing, and I do not believe they could fix them all, even if they plausibly claimed they would revisit all 30,000 or more (60,000?) edits in the last few days, plus many thousands more of at least the case-change edits over a longer period. Their claim in immediate response to my first talk message to them was "OK, yes, I messed up and will review and fix that and other recent edits." I note they did not make any fixes since then, and it is certainly not just "recent edits", and this is a big mess. --Doncram (talk,contribs) 16:17, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I also noticed these case edits as well to basketball tournament names (when I was fixing comma errors introduced in some), but wasn't sure if there was a consensus about capitalizing the tournament names. --Jahaza (talk) 17:03, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

• I find these mass automated edits to be problematic. It is putting the burden on the rest of us to try to catch and fix the mistakes. See, e.g., here, [8], here. Cbl62 (talk) 16:29, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Have to say that I noticed issues with some of Dick's edits related to the basketball tournament case moves mentioned above, most of which were done in September IIRC. When moving titles in various articles, he made case changes to reference titles that happened to be similar to the event titles. Examples can be found at [9], [10], [11], [12], and [13] among others, and I'm sure there are many similar instances I'm not aware of. As someone who cares about upholding MoS standards when possible, I can't tell you how annoying it is to have clear errors mixed in with legitimate changes and have to spend time looking at each individual piece of an edit for problems. My hope is that Dick takes this and the above feedback to heart and exhibits a little more caution with his editing, as he says he will do going forward. Giants2008 (Talk) 21:14, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
    • Giants2008, it would be polite to let me know if you see mistakes I've made, rather than save them up for ANI. Dicklyon (talk) 05:11, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Re the consensus on baseball and basketball tournaments and such, a good place to check for discussions is WT:MOSCAPS#Concluded. These all had clear consensus, enough to get a bot to do the hundreds of moves. I was pretty careful in the cleanup edits, but of course a few errors may have slipped through. Dicklyon (talk) 05:07, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes I screwed up

By going too fast and not reviewing each edit carefully enough, I did let quite a few errors through (that is, removed some commas that should have been left, and left some that should have been removed), so now I have to either revert all or review and fix all. I appreciate those who have already reverted or fixed errors that that they noticed. I'll get started today (but my editting availability comes in blocks, so I beg your patience). Dicklyon (talk) 16:45, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I believe we're talking about approximately 1200 edits on 08 November, which is when I was hurrying through. If anyone sees errors in any older edits, I'd like to hear about that, too, but that's not what any of the ones mentioned above are about, in spite of one user's comment that this problem goes back many thousands of edits. There were a few accidental edits of file names earlier, and I did several times thank Sumanil for noticing and fixing those; it's great that they are automatically flagged. Dicklyon (talk) 16:52, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I just noticed I also got about 40 thanks for these comma fixes. It's good to know that some of these at least are recognized as worthwhile improvements. Again, I apologize for the ones that were not, and I'll be working on finding and fixing more of those. Dicklyon (talk) 16:57, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: Just out of curiosity, are you saying above that you were thanked about 40 times – via the "Thanks" notification – for the various comma-related edits that you performed on 8 November, or am I misunderstanding? DanCherek (talk) 22:39, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

That is what I was saying, but checking again I see many fewer thanks than 40. Not sure what confused my count there. Maybe counted over a longer time span; looks like about 40 over the last month. Dicklyon (talk) 05:34, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Checking again, I see most of my last 50 thanks were in early October, with edit summaries comma rm per MOS:JR (via WP:JWB) and fix Jr/Sr as last name (via WP:JWB). So, it Jr Sr comma related, but not the recently problematic batch, which only got 5 thanks. Dicklyon (talk) 17:49, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Going through the reverts first, to see how I messed up, I find three main categories: First, in names of historic houses I broke some links by taking out one comma instead of the two it would take to avoid the redirects. So I've got a JWB pattern that will help me find and fix all those; and I'll check them carefully. Second, I changed a few file names; glad to see those get fixed almost automatically by Sumanuil. Third, I was surprised to find that in sports articles, ", Jr.," or ", Sr.," after a name actually are non-restrictive, and need those commas since they are college years; probably would be better as ", junior," and ", senior,". I don't know whether those have all been reverted; I'll be checking for more. Again, sorry, I got in an inappropriate rush last night. Dicklyon (talk) 18:45, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

By the way, several of the complaining editors above have complained in the past about my quantities of edits, but are generally unable to point out any errors, since my error rate is generally well below 1% (unlike last night's 1200 edits, where it may be closer to 10%). So let's focus on what I got wrong, and just acknowledge that I did about 100,000 other edits this year, with relatively few errors. I'm not doing this just for fun, but to improve WP, OK? Dicklyon (talk) 18:50, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I advised you in the past, to slow down. A speeding train, always runs the risk of causing destruction. GoodDay (talk) 19:04, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your advice, on commas. Dicklyon (talk) 05:03, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I guess I'm doing something right. Three different users thanked me for the above comment. Dicklyon (talk) 23:30, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I suppose lots, of people just appreciate good, comma usage? A humorous retort, always has the chance of inspiring thanks. Begoon 11:49, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Working through these is slow. What I rushed through at about 4 seconds each is taking about a minute per review and fix. So it will keep me busy for a lot of editing hours. Dicklyon (talk) 05:20, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Given how much time it's taking, it's a wonder that you have time to repeatedly revert the use of the comma in Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park, when that's what the official city sources use. See: Talk: Joseph P. Riley Jr. Park § Silly comma in name --Jahaza (talk) 20:31, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

No worries, I take time to fix errors. We don't ape the style of official sources, especially when they're agrammatical and most sources don't copy their errors. Dicklyon (talk) 21:55, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I think I've got these three identified categories of errors all fixed (sports player years, houses, and file names). The rest are slow because there's no clear patttern to look for and because they typically have more comma errors to fix than the ones I created. So it will take a while. Plus, I have work and some other RL things (including a death in the family and the death of a friend) limiting my time on task. I've also got a big backlog of cleanup edits on the hundreds of page moves done after Talk:Mid-American Conference baseball tournament#Requested move 23 October 2022. I'd be happy to have help there, especially from someone good with AWB or JWB. Dicklyon (talk) 21:55, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Actually, the "House" fixes are still in progress, not finished. I found the JWB tab working on that and did a bit more. And did some more of the random ones. Anyone feel like helping? Dicklyon (talk) 03:42, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Finished those, I think. If I missed any, I'll come across them as I continue to work through the whole list looking for errors to fix. I've been fixing lots of other comma errors in historic house/farm/etc. articles as I go, too. I think Don was saying that if I fix something in one place I should fix it in other places, too; but I don't see how that's possible, nor has it ever been an expectation laid on editors. I do try to move things in that direction, but there's really no good support for global consistency. Dicklyon (talk) 22:38, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

This editor can't hear us

Dicklyon has been asked MANY TIMES on their talk page to review their edits as they make them, not to depend on other people to find and point out their mistakes. Many of these edits resulted in clear, obvious red links, missing images, broken footnotes and other error messages, but Dicklyon is going too fast and editing without enough care. Continued advice and remonstrances, including the discussion above, have not worked. I recommend some sort of sanction at this point. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:46, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

AWB/JWB enabling comes with acknowledgement that you are responsible for every edit made (WP:AWBRULES). Yes, mistakes happen, and Dicklyon has owned up to the mistakes and worked to correct them. I do not doubt their sincerity in that regard. But it is my opinion that they have (1) not considered the full impact of some of the regexes they were running while at the same time (2) operating too fast (when I ran across previous issues, they were running 30-40 edits per minute, which is considered bot-like editing). AWB & JWB come with significant responsibility because misuse can cause widespread damage very quickly. Simply slowing down would solve the problem, and that has been advised numerous times([14], [15], [16]) over the past six weeks; yet here we are. One possibility would be that if Dicklyon is going to continue to use JWB in this manner, they need to submit for a bot approval (see WP:MEATBOT). A more severe sanction would be removal from the AWB check page (as the aforementioned AWB rules indicate: Repeated abuse of these rules could result, without warning, in your software being disabled). ButlerBlog (talk) 19:34, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for you perspective. Let me summarize what I've been up to. First, I sought and obtained clear consensus, about 4 or 5 times this year, to get large batches of pages moved (mostly in sports, for case correction); and some in previous years (like a lot of these Jr. and Sr name articles). Then, to follow up, I took on the complete task of cleanup edits to use the same case in the text as we had decided for titles. Sometimes I'd take weeks to develop good enough regex patterns, going relatively slowly and trying to figure out what kinds of errors might happen. Sometimes others spotted errors that I missed. Eventually I got to where I could edit real fast, as you noticed, and sometimes a new type of problem would be discovered (like when I case corrected links that turned out to be redirects and so hadn't been moved, resulting in redlinks). I fixed a ton of those manually, while working with Tol on getting a bot to help (which he's about to finish up real soon). A few editors were annoyed by the shear volume of edits showing up on their watchlists, and complained about that more than about actual errors. That's mostly in the past, but a bunch of baseball tournaments and such are still awaiting case cleanups. When I get to it, I'll have had the redirects taken care of in advance, and I'll develop regex patterns carefully, and probably go real fast again; I'll seek bot approval for that, now that I see such a process exists. But what happened this week (1200 edits on Nov. 8 at a rate of about 10 per minute) was a big mistake on my part. I watched, checking previews, developing what I thought to be a low-error-rate regex pattern, before I started going faster, watching the diffs but not the previews. In retrospect, it's clear that no amount of Jr/Sr comma hacking is going to be low error rate, and I should have seen that at the time. The file redlinks were automatically found and kindly and quickly fixed. The "House" article redlinks took me a while longer, using JWB and careful checking; its hard when so many of the redlinks were already redlinks before my edits (that is, I edited redlinks more than I created redlinks). Got those all fixed. And the ones that looked right because I didn't see enough context to notice that were college player years, not postnominals, all got fixed (some by me, some by the editor who pointed them out to me). I've been going through what's left, now with the help of JWB, with a regex that can remove the commas I left after Jr. and Sr. For each such edit, I have to OK it or edit it back, or skip the file; and in the process I tend to notice and fix other commas and such. I need JWB for this. The alternative, since I have a good list now of which articles have not been fixed or checked or reverted by me or anyone else yet, would be to just revert all those; if someone has a bot that can take my list of titles and just revert my current edits, I'd go for that as an OK alternative to completing the fixes. Then I intend to pretty much give up on Jr./Sr. fixes except in new article titles, since I've decided there's no way to make it easy enough to make much headway. Anyway, I like your ideas of asking for meatbot approval when I think I'm ready to go fast on a big batch. Dicklyon (talk) 22:20, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

As someone who uses AWB/JWB, I would point out a couple of things. First: developing what I thought to be a low-error-rate regex pattern, before I started going faster. The end result has to be a zero error rate. You're running a semi-automated process, so ultimately you have the option to click "skip" (or manually adjust). I have worked on similar situations where there are simply too many variables to cover every possible instance. And to be frank, that's why those maintenance items are better suited to AWB than a bot - because you can't get to a zero error rate without oversight. Mass errors simply should not happen because you're running a semi-automated process that has direct oversight - like a bot that asks permission before every save. I don't doubt the sincerity of everything you've said along the way; but the fact remains that you were given a tool that is very powerful and can easily cause widespread destruction, so regardless of the contrition (which is certainly appreciated), you have to understand that the community has to ask itself if letting you keep a chainsaw is advisable. Since that's not up to me, I would simply offer this further suggestion: maybe you should use AWB instead for a while. It will automatically slow you down (JWB loads at a much faster rate - at least IMO). Second, it gives you some more advanced regex options. With the advanced settings, you can apply multiple regexes so that later patterns can pick up on changes previous regexes have made. That way you can build in some error checking of your result, or make additional changes based on previous patterns. ButlerBlog (talk) 14:22, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

The Sri Lanka and unsourced WP:RGW

The Sri Lanka (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Whilst this user has made some good contributions, they seem to be out to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS when it comes to the topics of Sri Lanka, Buddhism and Hinduism. They don't seem to think that they need to provide sources (see their talkpage), and just edit war their additions in (see their contribs, clear patten of revert, revert revert going on), with summaries along the lines of "stop spreading prejudice" and "Erroneous" (yet hadn't provided any sources). They have continued past a final warning, and don't seem interested in discussing anything except for telling everyone that they are spreading prejudice and racism. A shorter block may bring them to their senses, and give them some time to read up on Wikipedia:Verifiability, as they seem to be (mostly, I think) WP:HERE. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 07:48, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

• Mako's concerns (and several others') are justified - notably that after responding to an initial reminder to use RS, when they then started receiving warnings, they give such comments as Why are you so interested in inciting racism and religious prejudice? Wikipedia is not a platform for spreading prejudice.. A reasonable case could be made for a personal attack, but even AGFing that, the non-sourcing issues are legion. I'm not sure a temporary block is likely to work. Instead, I'd go for an indef block (not a ban), liftable by any admin who is satisfied when Sri Lanka engages suitably. Underlying that, I'd also impose a community 1RR restriction. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:31, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

  Here, they just revert me to re-add their unsourced content, whilst claiming that my edit was somehow "Erroneous".

  Here they remove content, mostly to a single source (Lehr, 2019) claiming it "incites racism". Oddly, they make no challenge of the reliability of the source though, as they don't attempt to remove other content sourced to "Lehr (2019)". This suggests that the issue is more IDONTLIKEIT than believing the source to be unreliable. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 13:12, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

My last edit to Buddhism in Sri Lanka filled in a citation. The "prejudicial" content edit by The Sri Lanka is still in place. (edit - restored the sourced content Adakiko (talk) 00:43, 9 November 2022 (UTC)) Adakiko (talk) 19:45, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

@The Sri Lanka: Can you please comment here? I see you have edited since the notice was added, but haven't commented here yet. I would like to hear your side of this, as I note that your edits in other topic areas seem to be better than those in the topics of Sri Lanka, Hinduism and Buddhism. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 11:29, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Dear Friends,

Buddhism is the Dharma preached by the Lord Buddha. Dharma is the way of life. Buddhism teaches what is right and wrong, just like other religions, and especially gives the freedom to question and accept the teachings by volition. Hence, it is free for everyone to accept the Buddhist teachings and take part in Buddhist religious activities, regardless of their ethnic or religious denominations. Buddhism values peace and harmony and advocates non-violence. No where does Buddhism justify violence in any circumstances.

Buddhism was introduced to Sri Lanka in the 3rd Century BCE, and the people of Sri Lanka embraced Buddhism at their own will. Since then, Buddhism has enriched Sri Lankan society and culture in many ways, becoming an integral part of the Sri Lankan identity. People belonging to different ethnicities and religions had lived peacefully and harmoniously in Sri Lanka. It is highly appreciated, if you would read the unaltered history of Sri Lanka, which will give you a clear picture of inter-faith and inter-communal harmony in Sri Lanka. The ethnic and religious diversity in Sri Lanka was exploited by the British colonial rulers, who concocted to create tension, following their policy of "divide and rule". So, sources from the colonial era, thus create a distorted picture regarding ethnic and religious diversity in Sri Lanka, which can be attributed to misunderstandings and also to fabrications.

However, the Buddhist culture and heritage was threatened under more than four centuries of colonial rule. As a result, Buddhist leaders like Anagarika Dharmapala, who intended to preserve the Sri Lankan Buddhist culture and heritage, educated the Buddhist community about their culture and heritage which was waning due to colonialism, and elaborated on the Sri Lankan Buddhist identity as distinguished from the the culture of the colonialists who attacked not only Buddhism but also Hinduism which was followed by the Sri Lankan Tamils. Unity in diversity was always the norm and racism was never encouraged, for it does not take violence to preserve the heritage.

The excerpts from a certain book, which were removed and subsequently created controversy, claim that the Buddhist culture in Sri Lanka is a driving force behind the ethnic conflicts. In reality, a great majority of Sri Lankan Buddhists disapprove of such racist ideology, and live in harmony with all other communities and protect victims of such racial violence. Since there is no ecclesiastical authority over Buddhism in Sri Lanka, there is no official standpoint of the Buddhist community. The author clearly explains this in his book the existent reality. But to understand that one must read the complete version. By providing a few excerpts that describes only the violence, it conveys a wrong message to the reader that Buddhism is behind the racial violence. It is a clear distortion of what the book says. Such misleading content can incite racism. Since Wikipedia adheres to the truth and values peace and also avoids taking a political stance, such content do not comply with the policies of Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Sri Lanka (talk • contribs) 04:53, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm discussing on their talkpage to work out a summary of this, I'll add it when it is available. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 11:59, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Ok, they haven't commented on my proposed TLDR version so here it is:

Some people will find that too long to comfortably read, so I will attempt to summarise the points you are making here. Please let me know if you think that my summary isn't an accurate representation of what you were trying to say:

• Buddhism is a peaceful religion, and encourages non-violence and tolerance.
• Before becoming a British colony, Sri Lanka was a peaceful and harmonious land, with people of various religions amd ethnicities cooexisting peacefully.
• When it became a British colony, the divide and rule approach used in the British Empire caused divisions between these people.
• As a result, scholarship based on the colonial period doesn't accurately portray the relationship between these peoples in Sri Lanka.
• A revival of Buddhist culture in Sri Lanka took place, and part of its aim was to reunite these various groups, and to end racism and ethnic/religious violence.
• The excerpt cited to say that Buddhist culture was a driving force behind ethnic violence in Sri Lanka had been used out of context.
• The violence is the result of a small minority of Buddhists who ignore the teachings of Buddhism, and most Buddhists in Sri Lanka do not agree with these people, their views, or their methods.
• When the proper context was used, the book actually supported the point immediately above.
• Using the claim out of context could encourage racism and does not adhere to Wikipedia policy (WP:DUE and WP:NPOV).

Is this an accurate summary of what you are saying above? I've done my best, but, again, if I've misrepresented anything, please let me know. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 14:37, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Stale revert war and refusal to discuss at List of warez groups

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

---

Back on October 27, I removed a Non-free screenshot from List of warez groups and marked the image for deletion as unused non-free. I was reverted in both cases by Beyond My Ken (talk · contribs), who also left an edit summary falsely accusing me of malice [17]. So, I began a discussion on the talk page and notified him on his own talk page of the discussion. He ignored this entirely, and over the following 6 days made many other edits to other articles and was quite active elsewhere. Since he was refusing to discuss, I again removed the image from the article. At this point, he reverted me again saying there was "no consensus to remove" and added a similar comment to the article talkpage discussion [18]. The comment did not respond to my questions/concerns about the image whatsoever, so is still not a good faith attempt to participate in the discussion. Instead he is seemingly weaponizing WP:CONSENSUS passive-aggressively by saying consensus is required but refusing to participate in my attempts to gain consensus. This is bad faith, disruptive editing and not helpful to the project. EnPassant♟♙ (talk) 16:58, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

This is a content dispute. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:38, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it's a content dispute and probably not appropriate for this board. That said, the "D" is missing from the WP:BRD cycle here: ...using reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense; they can also suggest alternative solutions or compromises that may satisfy all concerns. It should be possible to justify the status quo beyond "it's been that way and I like it", especially when reasons have been given as to why the status quo should change. Maintaining a non-free image of a defunct website mentioned in a long list doesn't speak for itself. Mackensen (talk) 23:22, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

How long have you been getting away with this? You insist that someone follow a process (making a personal attack in the process), they attempt to follow that process and then you refuse to take part in it? The content dispute is beside the point. Now you've also templated a regular. Your behavior is reprehensible, frankly. EnPassant♟♙ (talk) 02:30, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I am following the process. I've taken part in the discussion - you just don't like what I'm saying, which is that you need a consensus to remove the image - so go get one. If you get a consensus, there will be no beef from me. But, of course, you choose instead to WP:FORUMSHOP here. First you attempt to remove an image, and insure it stay removed by deleting the FUR from the image's page, then you bring a content dispute to ANI when you don't get a consensus to remove, now you're going around the back by attempting to have the image deleted. Why haven't you gone to WP:3O instead of sneaking around? Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:01, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

It would help an eventual third opinion process if you respond affirmatively on the talk page of the article explaining why you disagree with EnPassant's edit. Stare decesis isn't a helpful reason on its own given the absence of any previous discussion on the question. Mackensen (talk) 03:31, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Your response was obstructive. You didn't respond to my question regarding the value of the image to the article, you engaged in a circular argument demanding I obtain consensus... which is what I was attempting to do by starting the discussion. So clearly that avenue of consensus building was closed to me. I decided to gain consensus at a deletion discussion, and now that discussion isn't going your way so you're accusing me of forum shopping... when you were the one reverting me and demanding I reach consensus. If you can't see the problem with that I don't know what to tell you. EnPassant♟♙ (talk) 15:59, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

And templating a regular is "reprehensible"? Do you actually know what that means? Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:02, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

I mean, they list a whole bunch of things (personal attack, etc.), then they say "reprehensible." I would guess that that last sentence was for the entire paragraph, not just the sentence right before. El_C 08:52, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Demanding someone follow a process and then obstructing it is cynical and dishonest. EnPassant♟♙ (talk) 15:55, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

• BMK, as Mackensen notes, you can't argue for something to be there because it's been there. The essay Wikipedia:Don't revert due solely to "no consensus" speaks to that directly, while WP:SILENCE does more generally. Likewise, at the FDD discussion, you don't even provide a rational beyond declaratively stating that the fair use "isn't faulty," and that's it. You also speak of a ploy ("another ploy," even), also without explaining any context. And then WP:FORUMSHOP, which, I suppose possibly, if you really squint at it. Anyhow, the OP states in the opening that you've been stonewalling their requests to WP:ENGAGE — which would be conduct, even if at the heart of it is content (as are most conduct matters). As well, couple of days ago, you stated: You made a change to the status quo of the article, and it was contensted. This means that you need a consensus to make that change. You do not have one. Lack of discussion is not consensus (diff). Were you saying you intended on stonewalling them indefinitely?

Now, beyond that, even with substantive argument, that is not how it works. If it were, a contending version would always be at the mercy of a longstanding one. If that was so, everything would be Wikipedia:Consensus required. So, while WP:ONUS and WP:BRD are, indeed, generally recommended, one can't expect to gain major advantage from invoking either (again, even with a substantive argument). So, you need to take a step back and reassess. Reassess how you conduct yourself; how that conduct is being perceived by others. If you can will yourself towards that kind of meaningful reflection, well, then I'd be impressed, and the dispute may resolve okay in the end. But if not, then it'll obviously become more likely for it to end up... not so okay. So, now there's two concurrent discussions: (1) at WP:FDD, please discuss the merits for the fair use rational, etc. (2) Here, the rest. Thank you. El_C 08:52, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yeah, there's really no defending BMK in a situation where the other person specifically started a discussion on the talk page, specifically notified BMK of the discussion, and waited for 6 days with no reply before reinstating their edit. BMK basically reverted just saying "I disagree", and then because he said "I disagree" claimed he could start saying "consensus required". Obviously that is not the case and it is a very serious detriment to the collaborative spirit of the project. BMK has a bad habit of occasional petty edit warring and he overwhelmingly gets let off the hook for it because he's a reasonable person, a highly respected pillar of the community, and someone who usually has an understandable rationale behind his actions on a human level, even when he is in the wrong. Both for all he contributes to the project and for his reasonable temperament, he is generally trusted to self-regulate. I respect and have defended BMK. But this type of stonewalling behavior is really bad. I was literally just castigating someone for this exact behavior, telling them "You are lucky not to be fully blocked for a lengthy period for your ownership behavior." I have issued lengthy blocks over such behavior against established editors which have withstood community scrutiny. I don't wish to see BMK dragged over this, but OP did everything right in this situation and BMK crossed firmly into what I consider to be routine block territory.

BMK, it appears to me that EnPassant was attempting routine copyright compliance, which you mistook as a malicious attempt at backdoor deletion of an image that you have previously saved from deletion. I think all of us can understand that becoming defensive is human nature, but you definitely crossed the line here and you should never think that you're entitled to revert someone if you're refusing to engage in their attempts at discussion. It may not seem like a big deal, but I have seen situations like this deteriorate into editors being gaslighted and having their experience here turned into a living hell, and when they reported it and I intervened as an uninvolved admin, that same living hell was unleashed upon me.

"Reprehensible" is not an exaggeration, and BMK should apologize for his failure to engage in communication and dispute resolution to deescalate the situation, at a minimum. Regarding the content dispute, it is at FFD so it is being handled appropriately. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 09:52, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

• Why is this even a discussion? The image clearly fails WP:NFCC criteria 8 (because a blurry screenshot of a website doesn't increase the understanding of anything about that fairly obscure group which are mentioned in a single line of prose) and so "consensus" is irrelevant anyway. Black Kite (talk) 11:43, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

  Even if it wasn't covered by NFCC, The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. Disputed content defaults to being left out. If BMK doesn't have consensus to include the image, it needs to be left out until they do. --Jayron32 15:27, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

  The NFCC also echos this and specifies that in dispute situations, the burden is 100% on the person who wants to include the content, and the person who wants to remove it has no obligation to defend their position. The NFCC can be subjective, but whether they actually apply is irrelevant…OP did nothing wrong and BMK was obligated in that situation to actively defend his content. When he failed to do so, there was no dispute, so OP moving forward should have been routine. When BMK continued stonewalling, OP was completely justified in both reporting him and starting an FFD. Apart from this being stonewalling behavior, which as I’ve said is blockable on its own, it’s stonewalling to include non-free content which only makes it that much worse. Administrators and the community take copyright issues very seriously, even too seriously at times. It is an area where there is very little tolerance for ineptitude or misbehavior. I commend @EnPassant for their exemplary conduct in a difficult situation. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 23:13, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Sure seems like we should at least get an acknowledgment that this could have been handled more appropriately by BMK. Everyone makes mistakes or has the occasional lapse in judgment, acknowledging them is usually the best way to move forward. 2604:2D80:6A8D:E200:6D5E:81E8:39B0:B329 (talk) 16:01, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

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

Disruptive editing, SYNTH and IDHT issues

• Simulaun (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• User failing to acknowledge/heed discussions and warnings about their editing, particularly WP:SYNTH, and refusal to engage other editors and gain WP:CONSENSUS for their changes.

Inspired by today's improper removal of content on the Melbourne article ([19], [20], [21]), I've decided to put up.

Since April 2022, Simulaun has been engaged in what can only be described as a narrow-focused campaign to either remove or muddy the waters re the Indigenous Australian names of cities in Australia, particularly Melbourne. I don't know their motivations, but it's pretty clear to anyone that they are removing content that they just don't like and replacing it with poorly sourced -- or outright synthesis of published material. Ironically, a section on Talk:Melbourne entitled "wikipedia:Activist attempts to rename Australian towns and cities" might offer a little bit of an explanation behind Simulaun's editing (seeing as they do not seem keen on expanding when challenged), particularly their comment: "The same cultural appropriation is taking place for the city of Perth, which is now being referred to by some groups as "Big Swamp" in Noongar language." (diff).

A current favourite of Simulaun's has been to add SYNTH material to Melbourne re its Indigenous name, ignoring the need for consensus. The user will replace an existing passage with a synthesis of a LonelyPlanet source and others, making the misleading claim that the source is speaking for Melbourne (it's not). The editor has been warned about this, as will be expanded upon later. Examples:

• Sept. 20 (reverted) – SYNTH, WP:COPYVIO, ignores consensus
• Sept. 26 (reverted) – SYNTH, COPYVIO, ignores consensus
• Oct. 15 (reverted) – SYNTH, unreliable source per WP:RSP, ignores consensus
• Oct. 17 (reverted) – SYNTH, ignores consensus
• Oct. 18 (reverted) – SYNTH, ignores consensus
• Nov. 2 (reverted) – SYNTH, ignores consensus
• Nov. 5 (reverted) – SYNTH, ignores consensus
• Nov. 9 (reverted) – SYNTH, ignores consensus
• Nov. 10 (reverted) – removal of sourced content

Simulaun, when challenged about their editing, has repeatedly chosen to outright ignore or defend their edits (and then proceed to do the exact same thing they've been accused of doing). Examples:

• Apr. 24: The Logical Positivist asked Simlaun to stop adding original research to the Rottnest Island article. No response. On the article's talk page, Mitch Ames had even previously asked Simulaun to stop adding factual errors/OR to article [22]. No response.
• Apr. 25: I cautioned Simulaun for removal of content on Melbourne and to gain consensus for their edits. No response.
• Jul. 7: Padgriffin warned Simulaun for adding original research to Sydney. Simulaun defended adding original research and has continued to add OR.
• Sept. 20: I asked Simulaun to provide diffs of where on Talk:Melbourne consensus exists for their content change as they incorrectly claimed. They did not provide those diffs as can be seen.
• Sept. 25: Poketama too, told Simulaun that their content changes to Melbourne contained SYNTH.
• Oct. 15: I cautioned Simulaun to stop adding original research to Melbourne, and gain consensus on talk page for their content changes. No response.
• Oct. 19: I warned Simulaun to stop adding original research to Melbourne, and gain consensus on talk page for their content changes. No response.
• Nov. 2: I gave a final warning to Simulaun to stop adding original research to Melbourne, and gain consensus on talk page for their content changes. No response. Since then, they've continuously added the same SYNTH bypassing the need for consensus here and here, having been reverted by Gracchus250 and Meters, respectively, citing the same issues in their edit summaries.

Judging from the frequency of their edits, I think they will just keep edit warring, not listening, bypassing the need for consensus, and of course, adding SYNTH to articles. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 01:49, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I have repeatedly addressed your concerns on WP:Talk regarding WP:Melbourne. Posted NPOV, NOR, sourced sentences with the addition that anyone should feel free to alter the wording if it was not to their liking (=consensus by default, unless LonelyPlanet/TourismAustralia are censored sources). Simulaun (talk) 02:51, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

This user's IDHT behavior has gone on for long enough. I would personally propose, at minimum, a TBAN from Australian-geography related articles for them, considering that they've persistently engaged in this type of behavior and seemingly refuse to follow WP:CON. I would support harsher sanctions but it's a start. Padgriffin ^{Griffin's Nest} 02:21, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I asked you for input regarding contributions to WP in July of 2022. Still no reply. Simulaun (talk) 02:45, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Support for a TBAN here. Gusfriend (talk) 10:43, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I was notified to comment on here. This user has been mostly a nuisance but I have looked at their contributions page a few times and contemplated what value they were bringing. I remember reading a Wiki policy which I dont have on hand that says essentially a users contributions should not entirely be negative and deletionist. Besides their edits on Rottnest, theyve never actually added anything to Wikipedia and they dont listen to argument, policy or consensus. Due to their relatively infrequent edits theyve not been a huge problem to revert, but its pretty clear to me their edits are solely bad faith vandalism that wastes users time and may be harder to catch on smaller articles. Poketama (talk) 11:25, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

How is adding information from LonelyPlanet/TourismAustralia 'deletionist'? Also, you appear to be saying that adding quotes from Aboriginal Elders is 'entirely negative' and/or 'bad faith vandalism'? When you say 'a nuissance' do you perhaps mean 'inconvenient truth'? Simulaun (talk) 02:43, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I note that on Oct. 17 that the same unfounded claims that had to be previously removed from the Rottnest Island page in April were re-added by Simulaun and had to be removed yet again. Their contributions do seem disruptive and they have not been willing to engage on the matters for that page at least when they have been raised with them. The Logical Positivist (talk) 14:01, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I was asked to add a legal reference, which I did. Simulaun (talk) 02:54, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Pinged here. I agree that something needs to be done about the continuing IDHT and SYNTH. A topic ban would work, but perhaps since the editor has never been blocked, perhaps a temporary block would get their attention. Meters (talk) 20:29, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

I would agree. This editors contributions seem to almost exclusively focus on the use of SYNTH (or completely unsourced) material to further the goal of reducing Wikipedia's inclusion of Indigenous names. As seen with the edit I reverted on Hobart (diff) on the 24th of September. JTdale 🗩 04:12, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

How is deletion of an apparent error SYNTH or unsourced? Also, as you pointed out, multiple editors have sought to correct this apparent nipaluna error, so why are you deleting willy-nilly without discussion or consent? Simulaun (talk) 07:07, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• So it's been a couple days, Simulaun has not responded to this nor edited. I'd be keen to hear their thoughts, just as much as I would support a TBAN on Australian-geography related articles as has been suggested by a few editors already. —MelbourneStar☆^talk 07:59, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
• @Simulaun: I reverted the massive amount of text you posted to this page. You are welcome to respond to the complaint, but you must make it shorter and readable. In addition, don't refer to yourself in the third person.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:29, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

  Noted (response has been shortened and use of 'username:simulaun' (meant for clarity) is no longer used). Simulaun (talk) 03:10, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• Racism against Indigenous Australians, IDHT, and deficient responses at ANI; sounds familiar. Support TBAN from anything related to Australia and indigenous people. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 02:33, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  I wanna point out that Simulaun has attempted to remove the Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung text from mellohi!'s signature just now. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contribs)} 03:22, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  The fact that Simulaun has escalated to vandalising my signature due to it having non-English text is 100% unacceptable. Thanks for whoever reverted that. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 03:26, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  Apologies. I assumed it was a (additional) criticism or insult aimed at me in a foreign language. On a side note, if mellohi! is your signature, what are the text before and the symbol(s) after your signature? Simulaun (talk) 07:00, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  Wanna? Simulaun (talk) 09:24, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

As outlined below, edits were consistently and/or extensively adjusted to take into account WP:talk feedback to reach consensus: 1) Referring to Rottnest Island and no inhabitation for 7000 years, added: “By the time of European exploration in the 1600s the island is thought to have been unoccupied for thousands of years, thus constituting a bona fide Terra Nullius by being uninhabited (terra nullius = unoccupied or uninhabited)”

This resulted in Undid revision 1082603292 “Terra Nullius was a legal principle and not purely a descriptor. A citation that says Rottnest is recognised as being such under law would be necessary to justify its inclusion in this article.”

To address the above objection, reposted: “Such unoccupied land meets the definition of Terra Nullius (as defined by Emerich de Vattel)”.

This resulted in Undid revision 1116596894 “This edit contravenes the WP:NOR policy.”

2) In regard to the word ‘Nipaluna’ for Hobart: Deleted its use as an alternative name for Hobart as “Not supported by official government dual-name records.”

This was reverted because “Persistent vandalism of this page to remove nipaluna by multiple editors. If you have any further debate about this, go to the talk page. It will not be removed without a consensus of editors.”

In light of this objection, started WP:Talk on 28 September: “It has come to my attention that the word 'nipaluna' refers to a location/region that differs greatly from the location of present-day Hobart. These two names (nipaluna and Hobart) should, therefore, not be used interchangeably. This error warrants being corrected. The WP:Hobart page states that "The city lies on country which (sic) was known by (sic) the local Mouheneener people as nipaluna, a name which (sic) includes surrounding features such as kunanyi/Mt. Wellington and timtumili minanya (River Derwent)". Nuennonne/Palawa kani: nipaluna is, therefore, not the same as the city Hobart and should hence not be presented as such (as is presently the case in the first sentence of the WP:Hobart page).

3) Referring to the etymology of the word ‘Narrm’ for Melbourne: (letters/words identical between the WP entry and the source have been capitalized. “Melbourne is sometimes called ‘NAaRM’ (or similar), which is a Boonwurrung word for an area comprising part of the GEOGRAPHICAL FOOTPRINT of present-day Melbourne. The process of introducing an indigenous NAMe for a CITy or urban area that DID NOT EXIST PRIOR TO BRITISH COLONIZATION MEANS that An indigenous NAME HAs TO BE CHOSEN. TOURISM AUSTRALIA has selected the Boonwurrung name NARRM”. Source (LonelyPlanet, referring to Tourism Australia): “NAMing entire CITies, such as Sydney, which (sic) DID NOT EXIST PRIOR TO BRITISH COLONIZATION as a single entity prior to BRITISH COLONIZATION, MEANS THAT A NAME HAd TO BE CHOSEN that doesn’t always represent the whole GEOGRAPHICAL FOOTPRINT.” (accompanied by a map generated by TOURISM AUSTRALIA and reproduced by the LonelyPlanet source indicating the dual name chosen is ‘Melbourne/NARRM’)

This does not appear to be WP:Synthesis (“combination of material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source”).

and “The assignment of Aboriginal names to cities such as Melbourne has been questioned, however. For example, Wurundjeri elder Ian Hunter, who has been involved with Indigenous culture for 30 years, says he’s “never heard of it. It’s something some young people have come up with, I think. How do you have a name for something that doesn’t exist?” Source (3AW693Newstalk): “Under the plan, Melbourne would be given the dual name Naarm. But Wurundjeri elder Ian Hunter, who has been involved with Indigenous culture for 30 years, says he’s “never heard of it”. “It’s something some young people have come up with, I think. How do you have a name for something that doesn’t exist?”

This nearly copy and paste entry led to the following WP:TALK: @Simulaun: is adding content that has been disputed in this talk page, skipping the part about gaining consensus. I've undone their edits and returned the article to its status-quo. Feel free to explain your edits here. Also, a side note, your content made use of content from here -- almost word for word. —MelbourneStar☆talk 09:20, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

The content in question has been discussed and there appears to be ample support (consensus?) on WP:Talk for its inclusion in the article. Furthermore, before reposting, I addressed the concerns raised by providing a broader perspective (from 'Lonelyplanet.com') and additional documentation of Ian Hunter's track record of involvement in Aboriginal culture (see below for more detail). So I am not sure why this information is being censored. Please specify/clarify what concerns remain unaddressed. Previous concerns aired on WP:Talk: Concern 1: The initial edit was considered on WP:Talk to 'probably be a good addition to the article, but it needs a source'. As stated in WP:Talk, the source is 3AW. Additional sources pertaining to the issue more generally, and the quoted individual, have now also been provided. Concern 2: By quoting someone, it was alleged on WP:Talk that the initial entry amounted to a single point of view. As pointed out on WP:Talk, this is not a particularly valid criticism. Moreover, this has now been addressed by presenting the topic more broadly ("The introduction of indigenous names...", as stated in reference by lonelyplanet.com) Concern 3; It was claimed that the quoted individual (Ian Hunter) is non-notable. Although this does not appear to be a valid or relevant criticism (e.g., not all quotes on WP need to be from well-known individuals), this concern has now been addressed by the addition of four additional references documenting significant exposure of this individual's views and activities on public news outlets. Concern 4: It was claimed that the quoted individual cannot have been an 'elder' for 30 years. Although this criticism also appears to lack validity or relevance (e.g., there can be a degree of variation in how one interprets 'being an elder for 30 years'), this concern has also been addressed as the four additional references attest to broad-based recognition of the quoted individual's involvement in Aboriginal culture and their apparent credentials as an Aboriginal 'elder' Simulaun (talk) 11:16, 28 September 2022 (UTC) Concern 1: an editor made that observation, we're all editors of equal standing. I'm just one editor who disagrees. (Problem with this criticism: disagrees about what?) Concern 2: it's still quoting one person's view (3AW article), you've just conflated it (see original research) to be about every city, even though this Wikipedia article is about one city - Melbourne. The lonelyplanet source is discussing Sydney -- not Melbourne. In fact, the source even clarifies that a name change "doesn’t always represent the whole geographical footprint". "Doesn't always" = suggests that not all cities encounter this issue, and Melbourne could be one of them, but we don't know that seeing as the source does not reference Melbourne. Also, your copy-and-paste of content from the loneyplanet source, without proper attribution, is a copyright violation. (Problems with this criticism: 1) most sources/citation are from a single person, 2) the source does reference Melbourne/Narrm) Concern 3: "Although this does not appear to be a valid or relevant criticism (e.g., not all quotes on WP need to be from well-known individuals)" - your opinion is not policy. Wikipedia policy can speak for itself, see WP:NOTWHOSWHO. I've brought up weight issues (specifically giving a false balance) that still stand (ie. if this person is so notable, why doesn't he have an article on Wikipedia?). Moreover, Wikipedia doesn't give undue weight to insignificant views; perhaps in passing, but a viewpoint and a quote? I don't think so. (Problem with this criticism: the source is an Aboriginal Elder who has been featured in numerous news productions) Concern 4: I don't disagree nor agree. I would reiterate that if this person's decades of knowledge are notable, then perhaps it's time he had an article on Wikipedia. —MelbourneStar☆talk 02:47, 29 September 2022 (UTC) (Problem with this criticism: Ian Stuart’s decades of knowledge are notable, as evidenced by the additional sources provided)

After about a month of no further comments/input for this discussion, reposted the above NPOV, NOR, and properly sourced from the LonelyPlanet source while fully omitting any reference to the contested quote(s) from Aboriginal Elder Ian Stuart. Also specified that other editors should feel free to change any words they objected to (=seeking consensus). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Simulaun (talk • contribs) 01:22, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

User:FF toho

Request concerning FF toho

User who is submitting this request for enforcement

Red-tailed hawk (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

User against whom enforcement is requested

FF toho (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Sanction or remedy to be enforced

Uyghur genocide discretionary sanctions

Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it

1. 15:16, 10 November 2022 characterizing researcher Adrian Zenz as "far-right" in Wikivoice. An attributed characterization of the researcher as "far-right" was previously removed from the article.
2. 16:40, 10 November 2022 reverting to enforce the Wikivoice characterization of the researcher as "far-right". The edit summary accuses the filer of seeking "to obscure this with your own personal bias".

Diffs of any previous sanctions, if any

None that I can find, though the user has previously been warned for conduct in a Chinese Communist Party name-related move dispute.

If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts)

16:32, 10 November 2022

Additional comments by the editor filing complaint

FF toho has also expressed their dislike for Adrian Zenz's work on other pages, such as at Talk:Uyghur genocide where they first imply that they do not believe him to be a reliable researcher and later make this view quite explicit.

The Adrian Zenz article is under an indefinite BLP 1RR and an editnotice exists for the article that communicates this. I asked the editor to self-revert on the talkpage, but they did not do so. Instead, the content was removed as a BLP issue by Firefangledfeathers. Repeatedly re-inserting the "far-right" descriptor into the page, despite that descriptor having been removed from the page previously, is edit warring in violation of the 1RR restriction previously imposed by HighInBC. When these edits combined with the obvious expressed dislike for Zenz's work, this appears to be an attempt to use Wikipedia to unduly mar the page of a BLP for that BLP's involvement in research relating to Uyghur genocide. Along those lines, I am requesting the use of community-authorized discretionary sanctions to place a WP:TBAN on FF toho barring them from making edits about people related to the topic of Uyghur genocide, on any page, broadly construed.

Notification of the user against whom enforcement is requested

18:30, 10 November 2022‎

Discussion concerning FF toho

I have to say that it's normally not a good sign when a single editor appears across several contentious articles on my watchlist all at once. After seeing this I scouted through more of their contributions, and aside from having (reverted) after most of their edits all I'll say is, we shouldn't be able to figure out your opinions, yet I can guess FF toho's. — Czello 19:07, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Most this editors edits seem to be related to communism and all of those show some bias. While most communism related topics will fall under one active sanction or another a TBAN for communism broadly construed should be considered rather a narrower one under as specific active sanction—blindlynx 02:04, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Eeesh, the initial edit that Red-tailed hawk took issue with is pretty egregious: the source says, in a discussion of how Zenz has been targeted by CCP propoganda, that he "has been portrayed on numerous occasions as a far-right pseudo researcher"; it strains belief that anyone attempting to portray Zenz fairly could use this to support a description of "far right" in wikivoice.

That said, as far as I can see FF toho only reverted once on that page; it's not a clearcut 1RR violation. Arguing that re-instating the words "far right" is technically a partial revert of this edit from July 2020 seems pretty much like fishing for a reason to sanction to me – that was 18 months before FF toho even created their account and I can't see that anybody suggested that counted as a revert when initially discussing this with them. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 11:03, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

@Caeciliusinhorto: Though I did not mention this in the initial filing, the second edit to the page re-inserted material that new accounts have previously tried to edit war into the article, such as in May of this year (1 2 3 4) that led to the new user being indeffed. That, of course, was not the first time somebody tried to insert similar material into the page, but re-inserting content that's been repeatedly contested throughout the page history is a revert. The proper thing to do is to ask the user to self-revert, which I did, and had they done so I would not have brought this here at this juncture. But they didn't sel-revert, haven't participated whatsoever in the talk page discussion on Talk:Adrian Zenz despite being pinged (though they did participate on another talk page before this report was filed.

On top of that, the reason for the sanction is more plainly that, as I stated in the filing above, this appears to be an attempt to use Wikipedia to unduly mar the page of a BLP for that BLP's involvement in research relating to Uyghur genocide. Even if you believe the 1RR violation is marginal, it's without question that FF toho's stated intent was to portray Zenz in a negative light. And, in seeking to portray Zenz negatively, the editor first made an egregious BLP violation and subsequently re-instated it after it was reverted against policy while accusing other editors of "personal bias" (which, by the way, is the same sort of rationale the new editor who was later indeffed stated in their edit summaries in May). — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 14:29, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Some of the edit summaries provided by FF toho are so invective, that they ought to be revision deleted, like this one, in which they blithely called Mr. Zenz an antisemite (!) I support a topic ban from communism-, China- and Xinjiang-related articles on NOTHERE and GREATWRONGS grounds. Nutez (talk) 14:54, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

" The proper thing to do is to ask the user to self-revert, which I did, and had they done so I would not have brought this here at this juncture."

Someone else reverted my changes before I even saw your talk page message. FF toho (talk) 15:01, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

You gave me the message to self revert at 16:59, and I was infact going to do so, but at 17:00 someone else did it instead. You are leaving out crucial context and I don't find this nice. FF toho (talk) 18:25, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Oof, here's a diff where they tried to claim Stalin shouldn't be referred to as a dictator based on a single primary source from the 50s: [23]. POV stuff aside, that's a pretty blatant misunderstanding of how sourcing works. I would support a topic ban as well, but that and the misuse of Wikivoice described above make me wonder if they'd need extra scrutiny on non-communism related edits as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Darth Coracle (talk • contribs) 03:09, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

That's why I first brought it up on the talk page which exists for exactly that purpose. FF toho (talk) 18:31, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

@Red-tailed hawk: Is this an AE discussion? If no, may I ask what type of discussion is it? Thanks, NotReallySoroka (talk) 03:16, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

This is an ANI discussion in which I am requesting the imposition of discretionary sanctions under the uyghur genocide general sanctions. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:46, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/TheCurrencyGuy

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

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 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/TheCurrencyGuy. NotReallySoroka (talk) 19:15, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

@Bbb23: Please note that, in accordance with a discussion that resulted in TCG being sanctioned, editors encountering potential TCG socks are required to log their suspicions both here and at SPI. Therefore, I am leaving this comment here to alert ANI to that discussion. Thanks, NotReallySoroka (talk) 19:15, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

 Clerk note: I have inquired with the sanctioning admin at SPI as to whether this was his intention. It does seem correct from a plain reading of the sanction, but also seems beyond the scope of what a sanction can impose, and thus I would tend to see it as unenforceable. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 19:20, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Comment - I agree that any sanction saying that editors encountering an issue are required to report it is unreasonable. We can't require editors to do anything. We can forbid editors from doing things that shouldn't be done. We can request and encourage editors to report suspected sockpuppetry, or any other offense. That particular instruction is too strongly written. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:55, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

There's probably a lot of history here that I'm not up to speed on, but two things are obvious. First, I don't understand the "You are invited to join the discussion" statement. SPI is not a general discussion forum, and let's not try to turn it into one. Second, you can't require people to report suspicions. If they don't, then what? They're guilty of heresy by omission? TomStar81 I assume you had good intentions with your close, but I think you might want to publish an amendment deleting the "requirement to report" clause. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:24, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: I'd imagine the intention is to ask that editors report socks to the SPI page in addition to reporting them here if they so choose. i.e. A dual-listing of sorts. The grammar of the restriction isn't very clear. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 21:23, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

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

Propose topic ban for User:Beyond My Ken on article Irvington, New York

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

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Please review Talk:Irvington, New York as well as the revert history of User:Beyond My Ken on this article. This user has been creating a WP:BATTLEGROUND over this article for years. I propose this user be topic-banned from the article for a period of a year so other editors can make needed improvements. Skyerise (talk) 00:50, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• I think you are trying to win an argument over the word "affluent". Drmies (talk) 01:01, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• Apparently starting an RfC over a disputed word is now a cause for being topic banned. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:04, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
• You think wrong, that's somebody else's battle which I am using as an second example of unnecessarily obstructive editing. This first involves the discussion of applying MoS formatting to the unsightly list section, also thoroughly discussed on the talk page by multiple editors, all of whom were reverted by the user. I suggest responders really read through the talk page and really count the reverts by the user. The evidence in quite clear if you take the time to look at it, so I don't feel any need to further argue this case. Skyerise (talk) 01:08, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• Note ANI report filed by Skyerise in January 2022, closed by Black Kite with "Well, that was a waste of everyone's time." Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:03, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• Logical fallacy 1: smear the messenger.
• Logical fallacy 2: this case is the same as a previous case. Skyerise (talk) 01:18, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose - Having read the article talk page, I don't see a case either for a topic-ban or an interaction ban, but the next time the OP throws the boomerang, an I-ban might be worth considering, but not a T-ban. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:10, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose - The OP is the one engaging in WP:BATTLEGROUND and Wikipedia:Wikilawyering. MarnetteD|Talk 01:26, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• Strong oppose - making regular edits is no reason for a topic ban. MiasmaEternal☎ 02:46, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose - All I see happening is an extremely low-level dispute over a single word, that is in the slow but decisive process of being settled via an RfC that BMK started. It seems disingenuous to assert that deleting sources for the word is unrelated to the RfC and uncontentious, and your doing so (prompting a revert and this report) gives the appearance of provocation or baiting. There is nothing wrong with an editor having an ongoing interest in an article they wrote, and BMK appears to be willing to engage in discussion and dispute resolution. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 04:39, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Can't think of a policy based reason to sanction BMK. -Roxy the dog 17:20, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose As MiasmaEternal noted: making regular edits is no reason for a topic ban. The OP request is far to broad, expecting everyone else to do the work. If you're going to claim WP:BATTLEGROUND, then show actual examples of a pattern (in other words, a little more effort than "go look at the edit history yourself"). ButlerBlog (talk) 22:43, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. The editor appears to be strongly opinionated on a particular content matter, but they're acting in good faith through ordinary dispute resolution processes. I don't see any recent evidence of edit warring presented here and I don't think a TBAN is warranted for a user who is communicating on the talk page in good faith to explain the rationales for their edits and to attempt to build consensus around it. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:47, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose all I'm seeing is a passionate content disagreement that does not merit sanctions of any kind. As a side note to the OP, please don't ask us to make your case for you. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 05:30, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

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

Lack of competence from SpyridisioAnnis

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

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Based on User:SpyridisioAnnis's talk page and contributions, they have not understood attempts to communicate with them, not have they shown particular proficiency in English. They have repeatedly tried to respond to WP:AFCRC requests incorrectly, and I can see this has happened at WP:AFC as well. Competence is required.

I'm not familiar with this area, nor with what kind of response this warrants. I'm posting here because it seems likely this user will continue this pattern of editing. — Qwerfjkltalk 01:31, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

That's a sign that I need to fix something... SpyridisioAnnis (talk) 04:01, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: Please post WP:DIFFs (which are required) per the edit notice. You may also wish to be more considerate of others requiring assistance with Wikipedia processes if you yourself are having trouble following the rules for ANI. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 21:30, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

@Chess, sorry, I seem to have a case of banner blindness.
On reflection, I think it would be better to discuss any issues on the user's talkpage. — Qwerfjkltalk 07:05, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

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

I hadn't seen this thread at the time, but for the record I've just blocked the user in question for their disruption at European World Cup champions' curse (four days after this thread was closed, so the warning clearly didn't sink in). I've intentionally only blocked for a short time, to allow them to participate in the associated AfD should they choose to do so. ‑ Iridescent 08:11, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Persistent unsourced changes by Rayane 77

Rayane 77 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Despite the two warnings I have issued, this editor has kept changing or adding content, and never provides any sources to back up their changes. Examples: [24], [25], [26], [27], etc. All of their edits, basically. Even though this is the English-language Wikipedia, sometimes they edit in French for some reason: [28]. Since they have never communicated with other editors, nor tried to change their behaviour, I think it's time to block them in order to prevent more disruption, and maybe get them to finally communicate. BilletsMauves^€500 10:22, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Commenting so it doesn't get archived. BilletsMauves^€500 10:06, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Persistent disruption at Cumulonimbus and well beyond

Please see edit history by Unar64P (talk · contribs). Discussion and warnings have thus far been fruitless. 2601:19E:4180:6D50:0:0:0:CC3A (talk) 15:10, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• Add trolling of other editors. 2601:19E:4180:6D50:0:0:0:CC3A (talk) 15:29, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
  • See also El Cubano 153 (talk · contribs) for similar interwoven edits. 2601:19E:4180:6D50:0:0:0:CC3A (talk) 15:31, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
  • ? See the Spanish Wikipedia, in the forms, El Cubano 153 (talk · contribs) 13. Nov 2022
    • El Cubano 153, what is your connection to Unar64P (talk · contribs), as at [29] as well as Cumulonimbus? 2601:19E:4180:6D50:0:0:0:CC3A (talk) 15:37, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
    • What we see on Spanish Wikipedia is that es:Cumulonimbus does not include the malformatted images which you added to the English article at Cumulonimbus#Cloud types. We also see that the users Unar64P and El Cubano 153 are both indefinitely blocked there. I'm not sure, therefore, why you wish us to look there. - David Biddulph (talk • contribs) 15:51, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Drmies, I'm pinging you because you gave the user a level 3 warning ten days ago, and a cascade of final warnings have gone unheeded since. 2601:19E:4180:6D50:0:0:0:CC3A (talk) 15:48, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

That warning was from 2022–23 European windstorm season article where both of them keeps reverting a track map that did not meet Wikipedia Standards. Layah50♪ ( 話して～! ) 15:56, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• • It a large history, i'am me no blocked, all ocurred on Spanish Wikipedia El Cubano 153 (talk · contribs) 13 Nov. 2022 10:50 Ch
    • Don't know what's going on here [30]. Please block both. 2601:19E:4180:6D50:0:0:0:CC3A (talk) 15:59, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• I started looking at this but have run out of time today. Looking into their edits, I think the IP is correct: these two accounts are both blocked on es.wiki, both have such bad english skills that they are mostly unintelligible in english, both have edit-warred, and I'd bet $50 they're sock or meat puppets. An admin with more time can determine whether this is already enough disruption for indef blocks, or if an SPI needs to be opened to attack it from that direction. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:45, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Good idea: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/El Cubano 153.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:58, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
    • Noting that Drmies has CU-blocked them indefinitely per the above SPI, which confirmed a connection. Thank you, Good Doctor. Heads up: this person's disruption has spread to Commons as well, uploading fictitious track maps to support the user's fictitious writings in their userpsace. I'll try to file a bulk deletion request over there, but I'm crunched for time and may not have enough to finish, so I wanted to make sure more editors here were aware of the uploads. --Dylan620 (he/him · talk · edits) 22:14, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
      • Dylan620, I'm not well-versed in Commons lore, so good luck with it. Imaginary weather? I'm marking myself safe from Sharpiegate. Drmies (talk) 22:18, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• Just posted: commons:Commons:Deletion requests/El Cubano 153 uploads --Dylan620 (he/him · talk · edits) 22:54, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Blocked – for a period of 60 hours by way of RfPP (permalink). Sorry, have not reviewed the above at that time, so anyone should feel free to adjust the block as they see fit. Thanks. El_C 18:20, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you all for tracking down these threads. 2601:19E:4180:6D50:0:0:0:CC3A (talk) 01:31, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

If this user is indeffed on both en and es, and is being disruptive on the Commons, are global locks warranted? TornadoLGS (talk) 20:44, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Attacks on my talk page.

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• • (I can't notify the IP users noted below because they don't have talk pages.)

IP users 106.69.121.63 and 110.174.9.234 have posted the same snide, mean-spirited message on my talk page, 106.69.121.63 on 11-12-22 and 110.174.9.234 on 11-22-22. Their posts said: 'Hi, have you seen all the comments about everyone who misses you at ITN? Yeah, me neither." It seems obvious that some user is trying to harass me, and possibly vandalize my pages, due to the partial block imposed on me on 10-26-22, blocking me from ITN/C – which I appealed twice, to no avail.
Furthermore, on 11-13-22 I received an Alert stating: "There have been multiple failed attempts to log in to your account from a new device. Please make sure your account has a strong password." – Sca (talk) 17:13, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• They do have talk pages, but there's no need. I've semi-protected your talk page for 2 weeks. Don't worry about the failed login attempts; as long as you have a good password, it's nothing to worry about. It's another way of pestering people that we can't really do anything about. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:24, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks. -- Sca (talk) 14:04, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

  Also, if you do have a good passwrod, you can turn off those noticiations by going to preferences --> notifications --> failed login attempts. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:26, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

  Tell us your password and we'll let you know whether it's strong enough. EEng 04:32, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

  It's "PASSWORD1". Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:38, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

  I thought "PASSWORD2" is more secure? To the others that are reading this, please do not use this as your password as it'll likely be cracked within 5 mins haha. Dulcetia  ^🗩  12:01, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

  Everybody knows that "hunter2" is the most secure password, as it always shows up as "*******" to everybody else. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:23, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

  not having a password is the ultimate password--85.98.18.193 (talk) 15:39, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  I don't think that's possible since every website that has any sort of login requires a password. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:42, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  The joke is that they are an IP editor, and thus don't log in. GabberFlasted (talk) 15:49, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  Oh. Well that joke went right over my head lol ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 15:51, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  On the Internet, no one knows if you are being sarcastic. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:59, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  I prefer "Matlock" [31] [32] — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:08, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

• I'm not comfortable with revealing my new password here. – Sca (talk) 14:02, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

  To clarify, EEng is joking. You should never share your password. You've passed the first test of cybersecurity I suppose. DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 19:17, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

  Très amusant. -- Sca (talk) 14:21, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  I keep typing in my password you guys, but it's not working! Why can't you see it? It's just coming up as ********** — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:03, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

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

Violent user pages in violation of previous ANI

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

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Years ago, a pro-Hezbollah userbox was repeatedly deleted as WP:POLEMIC content that endorsed violence, and admin User:Sandstein confirmed that its removal would be enforced. In the resulting ANI dispute, User:eleland created a WP:POINT variant of the userbox. It seems that this has slid under the radar after the discussion was closed as stale. There are several pages that continue to use this box or variants of it despite consensus being against it. I would nominate it for deletion as a clear violation of Wikipedia policies and guidelines, but it seems that these users are substituting the wikitext directly onto their userpages in an attempt to evade detection. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:12, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Aren't you supposed to notify all those editors about that discussion? a!rado🦈 (C✙T) 18:46, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

The subliminal yellow/green Hezbollah colour scheme in many of the user boxes is certainly concerning. Per WP:NONAZIS, we don't generally tolerate support for organizations that engage in Holocaust denial. Ideology of Hezbollah#Jews and Judaism shows plenty of antisemitic remarks. Even setting aside this, we're talking about an organization that's been recognized by many countries and the vast majority of academics as a terrorist group.

I've seen this userbox before and I'm disheartened to learn the organization that it really represents. A fair compromise that would reduce the drama levels significantly would be a neutral colour scheme, especially one without images labelled as "Homeland security". Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 21:58, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

One point - the discussion linked above was in 2008, but in 2015 the page User:Nableezy (which contained the same single userbox as it does now) was nominated for deletion (Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Nableezy) and overwhelmingly kept. Unless I'm missing something, this appears to be the latest discussion on the issue. Black Kite (talk) 22:37, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

After reading through that, the existence of this userbox is significantly worse. It appears that the nominator in 2015, User:Sir Joseph, was unaware or did not make explicit that this userbox was part of a past issue and associated with Hezbollah specifically. It also seems that the subject of the deletion discussion, User:Nableezy, was deceptive about the nature of the userbox, denying its associations with Hezbollah and insisting innocence because it didn't explicitly say the word "Hezbollah". This is a textbook example of a dog whistle. The level of effort to insert extremist dogwhistles like this on Wikipedia is deeply concerning, and I worry it may be indicative of a larger problem on how Wikipedia addresses these issues. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 23:23, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, a strong consensus to keep makes it significantly worse that it was kept. That makes perfect sense. The userbox is criticizing Wikipedia for allowing statements of support for one party to conflict and disallowing statements of support for another party. Your view on the validity of one of those parties is a personal problem. Your calling me being deceptive however is a straightforward violation of WP:NPA, and Id welcome an admin doing something about it. I havent exactly hidden my views, and calling me deceptive because you fail to understand the meaning of a userbox is so far the one thing worthy of ANI in this section. nableezy - 23:28, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

The very discussion linked from 2008 found no such consensus against a box that named no parties. It did not slide under the radar, and that is a misleading statement. It is discussed at the section Note. Thanks again for proving the point of the userbox, that Wikipedia's systemic bias is alive and well. nableezy - 23:12, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

• No beating around the bush. Just like blue is Crips, yellow and green is Hezbollah. The box is 100% obvious Hezbollah with its green and yellow. Hezbollah is a designated terrorist organization, implicit support for a terrorist organization is probably against Wikipedia's terms of use. Policy has moved on since 2008, WP:NONAZIS was written in 2018. A few months ago I was harassed (like including rape threats) by Lebanese IP addresses and accounts named after Hezbollah torture expert Aziz al-Abub and commander Khalid Bazzi. Editors shouldn't be allowed to fly banners suggesting support of Hezbollah. PrisonerB (talk) 12:11, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

• Nobody is beating around anything, the box is criticizing Wikipedia for allowing statements of support for Israel and disallowing statements of support for Hezbollah, when the two were engaged in armed conflict. As eleland said at the time, the day it is against Wikipedia's policy to make a statement of support for basic tenants of international law, eg the right to resist aggression and foreign occupation by racist and colonial regimes, is the day this user walks. nableezy - 16:02, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

• As I mentioned above, given that the previous discussion was massively in favour of keeping the userbox displayed at User:Nableezy, I would suggest that your only option should you want it removed would be to send the page to MfD again, to see if consensus has changed. Black Kite (talk) 12:42, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

It is pretty disappointing that outright supporters of extremist anti-Semitic organisations are allowed to exist on Wikipedia. If they had a userbox that implied support of a far-right anti-Semitic party, they'd be banned without much afterthought. Hezbollah shouldn't get a pass, and Holocaust deniers shouldn't have a place here. — Czello 13:12, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia should institute a Zionists only policy forthwith. Jfc, do you guys hear yourselves? Are you seriously claiming I have ever once denied the Holocaust? Diffs plz. nableezy - 16:09, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Surprisingly, the only two options aren't "support Zionism" or "support Hezbollah". Just to clarify, though, can you confirm/deny whether you support Hezbollah, an organisation that engages in Holocaust denial? — Czello 16:41, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

@Czello, I guess, this diff will answer your question. a!rado🦈 (C✙T) 17:05, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

I support the right of all parties, including Hezbollah, including Israel, including Ukraine, including any individual or group of individuals, to violently resist aggression (a war crime) and foreign occupation by racist and colonial regimes. Sort of like most of the world does. And that diff above remains accurate as to my views on Hezbollah. nableezy - 17:06, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Just noting that WP:NONAZIS is an essay, not policy. DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 18:20, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Just noting that WP:DISRUPTION is a policy, and if you espouse hateful views, you can be blocked for disruption. But, you would have already known that if you read WP:NONAZIS. Which explains exactly that. --Jayron32 18:55, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Then maybe cite the actual policy, not the essay? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 19:14, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

I say leave the user page as-is, per "If someone tells you who they are, believe them". You have a user who plainly supports terrorism, so at least you know their character before you engage in a debate. I'd rather have it confirmed than have to surmise. ValarianB (talk) 16:13, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

I actually like the box as an indicator of the reading comprehension of others tbh. nableezy - 16:15, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

)

Selfstudier (talk) 16:30, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

I am glad that two editors have stepped forward to tell us who they are. ValarianB (talk) 18:27, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Oh ffs, if you are unable to distinguish between This user supports the right of all individuals and groups to violently resist military aggression and occupation by other parties and this user supports terrorism then you have problems with the English language, not the userbox. And if you think the terrorism of the party you support (eg the listing here) is somehow superior to others then you also have a problem with moral relativism. nableezy - 18:51, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

When the United States starts sending men wearing bomb vests into community centers to get their 72 virgins, you'll find that leg to stand on. ValarianB (talk) 18:56, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, because killing civilians is only bad when Muslims do it? Thanks for making your view clear though, nice to know your character. nableezy - 19:01, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

The obvious way to resolve this ongoing issue is to compile an exhaustive list of opinions that Wikipedia contributors are permitted to hold. In addition, all contributors will be required to submit a signed declaration as to whether or not they have stopped beating their husbands/wives/significant others... AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:50, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Yup, about the size of it. Selfstudier (talk) 17:02, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Actually, another solution is to delete every single userbox out there. I've always found them pretty pointless. Nigej (talk) 17:08, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Or at the very least prohibit those organizations that are prescribed as a terrorist entity:

"Either the entire organization or only its military wing has been designated a terrorist organization by several countries, including by the European Union and, since 2017, also by most member states of the Arab League, with two exceptions – Lebanon, where Hezbollah is the most powerful political party, and Iraq. Russia does not view Hezbollah as a "terrorist organization" but as a "legitimate socio-political force"." Sir Joseph ^(talk) 18:14, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

It's really just best to let them fly their flags proudly, like Confederate flag-bearers who claim to be American patriots. We get to see them for what they are. ValarianB (talk) 18:27, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Smugness and moral superiority all in one. Definitely get to see you for what you are. nableezy - 18:54, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

And allowing it to persist means waving that flag in the face of people who are threatened by it. Not a great look for Wikipedia. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:20, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Proposal: Close this and move to MfD

The OP did not open this up as a request for sanctions against specific editors, but as a problem with the user box. MfD can handle that discussion. If editors respond to an MfD closed as delete by claiming their copy-pasted versions are exempt from the consensus, I'd gladly support sanctions for disruptive consensus-dodging. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:08, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

• Support this isn't a matter for ANI. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 19:14, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
• Support as OP. I opened this assuming that it was just an oversight that an admin could quickly correct. It's clear that it's become a WP:BATTLEGROUND with questionable behavior from multiple users, and I don't see anything to be gained by keeping this ANI open. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:20, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

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

Legal threat at Talk:The World Tomorrow (radio and television)

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

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• DRUnfiltered (talk · contribs)
• The World Tomorrow (radio and television) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

"Criminal harassment and civil filings are being contemplated if your behavior continues, but we believe that is exactly what you want - attention drawn to yourself."

For anyone who wants context, the "behavior" at question is me undoing this user's (and some IPs who pass the "this user" duck test) refactoring of other people's talk page messages in order to remove internal Wikipedia links. I've even tried giving the user advice about where he can go to address problems with the content being linked to. For some reason, this user is equating these restorations to me harassing.... someone, I'm not even sure who it is I'm supposed to be harassing (he has been described variously in edit summaries as a major celebrity and a non-noteworthy individual.) But restoring refactored talk page comments is well within my long history as an editor here, and is being done for no reason beyond that that is what one is supposed to do. --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:27, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

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

• Related, I've reverted this edit (which reverted back to a 2017 version) done by what seems to be a connected IP (as they also harassed Nat on the talk page and @Barek: before semi-protection was added) from a month back. Nate • (chatter) 00:31, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
• Hasn't this World of Tomorrow nonsense been a chronic problem for years -- something about copyrights on the title cards (whatever a title card is)? EEng 04:27, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

• Involving the image in the infobox (an intertitle is the term here), which is some kind of memorial image to the original hosts it seems. This seems to be a subject that's attracted towards me; completely defunct things ending up as "zombie trademarks" being exhumed by people with nothing to do with the original thing to push something (usually some kind of weird Roku channel revival or pump and dump stock scheme), which is here a church schism. Nate • (chatter) 20:16, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Compromised account?

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See [33]. If the password is genuine (I've not tried it, obviously), the account is irretrievably compromised, and will need blocking. I thought about asking for a rev-del, but realised that doing so would be pointless, since the password has already been disclosed. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:23, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

The account has been globally locked by a Steward for account compromise. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 06:10, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

The edit posting the account's password has been oversighted. – dudhhr ^talk _contribs (he/they) 17:14, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

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

Persistent disruption at Hanfu

• 175.213.48.82 (talk · contribs)
• 175.123.117.133 (talk · contribs)

Edit warring to add copyright violation content that has little to do with the subject. Requesting user or range block, page protection and rev/deletion. 2601:19E:4180:6D50:0:0:0:CC3A (talk) 06:38, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

The article has been protected by Materialscientist. I've performed revision deletion of the infringing content. DanCherek (talk) 23:46, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:RW abuse

I discovered that a subsection of Question Hour was sourced to a blog, which by the way isn't live anymore, so it can't be seen to be written by a competent authority. WP:ELNO prohibits blogs even as external links, and they're clearly not reliable sources, so I removed the subsection with an edit summary, The whole subsection is sourced to a blog, and yet I was WP:RW reverted on the grounds of Unexplained content removal. I removed the content again, warned the editor, and was promptly reverted by a second editor. Would an administrator please remove these users' WP:RW rights and ensure that this article comply with WP:ELNO? WP:RW says But if you do not use an appropriate edit summary in your rollback reason, you risk losing your rollback permissions. Clearly these users are using this tool recklessly, because anyone who's paying attention will see that I'm explaining myself with a policy-based reason, and the rollbackers are violating policy. 175.39.61.121 (talk) 10:24, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

This seems to be a content dispute, admins do not settle content disputes. Perhaps you should wait to hear from the other users on their talk pages before hauling them here and demanding their tools be stripped for one instance. 331dot (talk) 10:32, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

It’s not a content dispute: 175 was reverted, twice, with blatantly inaccurate edit summaries. That’s extremely obnoxious. The two editors who reverted should certainly apologize, and should commit to doing a less bad job in the future. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 11:36, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

I've already replied to you in my talk page but I also need to bring this matter up. You said and I quote, "Let's try that once more. The whole subsection is sourced to a blog, which isn't even permitted in external links, WP:ELNO. The first two rollbackers are now the subject of an ANI thread, and if you revert this edit, you will join them". Why do you feel the need to blatantly threaten to add another user to the ANI instead of just discussing it on the talk page? You're assuming that we're doing this in bad faith when it could've just been an honest mistake. Dulcetia  ^🗩  11:01, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Instead of defensive whining you should apologize for screwing up, and make sure to do better going forward. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 11:38, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I admit that I've made a mistake in reverting the edit and I'm not denying it or trying to hide it but they also could've found a better source for it instead of threatening to report anyone that disagreed with them to ANI. Wikipedia is a wiki after all, if you can improve it by adding better source instead of deleting a passage, you definitely should do the former instead of the latter. Dulcetia  ^🗩  11:56, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

• FYI: I replaced the Question Hour content removed by the anon, replacing the blog with two mainstream sources, one being the NYT here Cheers Adakiko (talk) 11:17, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks! Dulcetia  ^🗩  11:21, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

• @Dulcetia: In the future, if someone removes content that could have easily been sourced, the correct procedure is to revert them with that easily-findable source and then, if you feel like it, point out to them how easy it was to find that source. A time-honored tradition on Wikipedia, really, but the order of events is important. You don't get to restore challenged not-reliably-sourced content without fixing the issue (as Adakiko has helpfully done now). Furthermore, when you revert someone for unexplained removal, and their removal in fact had an explanation, your response should be to apologize, not to lecture them on why you were right anyways. Looking at Fragrant Peony's response, same goes to you. You reverted inappropriately, restoring unreliably sourced, politically contentious material in the process. Everyone makes mistakes, but the correct thing to do is apologize, not blame the other editor (whose edit summary was perfectly adequate, if a bit testy). And on that note, IP175, please ease up a bit. People make mistakes. Also, you failed to notify Fragrant Peony; I'll do so for you, but please remember that rule in the future. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 20:24, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  Admin, with all due respect I refused to take part in the conversation here from the start due to the threatening tone that was shown. I didn't engage in any edit war, I only reverted it once from the Recent Changes page after this[34] content removal was highlighted there as disruptive editing. As for the apology, I do apologize to you and to all the other decent humans here and to this respectful Encyclopedia, but kindly please I don't want to engage in a discussion based on threats even if that would mean reducing my rights, and I am really fully accepting it and will continue learning. Thank you so much. Fragrant Peony (talk) 09:23, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  While you seem to understand how you messed up, PLEASE do not fully rely on Recent Changes evaluation of edits. If that were acceptable, we'd have a bot do it (and we do for the most obvious ones). Dialmayo (talk) (Contribs) she/her 15:48, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, I understand, and I fully agree with you. Apologies again. Fragrant Peony (talk) 08:25, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

  He did notify them, they just archived the post before you saw it. OmniusM (talk) 23:02, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, I do admit that I've made an error by not apologising to the anon user and could've easily replaced the citation that was needed. Dulcetia  ^🗩  07:12, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Ali banu sistani

Ali banu sistani (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

For too long have I hestitated to report this disruptive user. The last straw came today when I discovered they been bad-mouthing me a few days ago, when I haven't even been in contact with him since June 2022 (!). You'll see the diff for it down below. Back in 7 February 2021, an admin warned him to refrain from harrassing me [35]. I have also warned them on multiple occasions (eg [36] [37]). Looks like they haven't learned.

18 January 2021 why don't the Iranians call the legal right? This was the first time they communicated with me, referring to me as an "Iranian" rather by my username.

7 February 2021 [38] Created a section at WP:AN titled "Iranian provocateur on wikipedia", with the following message; " I don't understand why Iranian contributors roll back legal edits concerning Balochi? Chasing Balochi Articles and rolling back legal edits while making fake edits is complete vandalism by the Iranians!"

7 February 2021 why don't the Parrsi call the legal right? This time referring to me as "Parsi" (Persian).

7 February 2021 "There are alternative explanations for this: you get paid and you just do your job, guarding articles day and night that are in the interests of Persian nationalists. Do what you want, but do not break the rules of Wikipedia, do not spread such false information. your actions suggest that you just want to destroy Baloch history! don't do it please..."

7 February 2021 "pay attention to my answer Historyofiran I just ask them not to spread false information, please do not pass by."

2 April 2021 [39] Randomly reverted me in an area they never edit. In other words; more harrassment.

9 November 2022 "but basically it is the history of the Baloch people, who are not very respectful of the right on Wikipedia from Iran, sort of like a member of Historyofiran."

I think it's high time they learn the consequences of such bad behaviour. Don't even let me get started on their pov-pushing, such as recently here [40], when they tried to make the ludicrous claim that the "Baloch are the heirs of the Parthians." using a unverifiable obscure source (which is their usual go to). Or here, where they removed sourced info with no edit summary [41].

This user has (surprisingly) been here for four years, yet still don't know how to act even half decently. If I may so boldly say the only reason they haven't indeffed yet is because they edit in very obscure articles which are barely seen (let alone edited) by others. Anyhow, if they keep bothering me I will also include a list of their pov edits. --HistoryofIran (talk) 12:35, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Writing so it doesn't archived. --HistoryofIran (talk) 13:57, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Ab.esmailzadeh (competence issues)

Ab.esmailzadeh (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This user needs a block. Despite multiple warnings, they are making some extremely bizarre edits, all reverted, which:

• Add big chunks of unsourced content:[42][43]

• Duplicate existing content: [44]

• Or seem to be just oddly-toned phrases which don't belong in an encyclopedia, and were probably copied directly from somewhere else: [45][46]

In any case, this user doesn't seem to have the necessary competence to edit here. I'll do some checks on their edits to see if any RD1 is needed. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 12:50, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

The [last] one is a copyvio from here. Neiltonks (talk) 12:56, 14 November 2022 (UTC) Moved from within report to below it. Also adjusted wording to retain meaning Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 13:14, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Some RD1 will be needed. All edits have now been checked for copyvio. Mako001 (C)  (T)  🇺🇦 13:17, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

• Six-month block applied, which of course they can appeal against. Deb (talk) 16:36, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

4me689 disrupting Year pages

Unfortunately I can't deal with this myself because I am involved, so I am requesting advice from other admins. User:4me689 arrived here early in 2022 and since September, along with User:The ganymedian (who has not edited for the past couple of weeks), has added many images and "collages" to the already over-long Year pages. Many of these are of poor quality and requests to improve them have mostly met with either no response or with backdoor attempts to restore images that have been commented out - mostly because of US-centricity (note that this is part of a recent pattern of IP address editing that has caused me to have to protect both the Year page and some Talk pages, and I'm not accusing either of the named users of keeping socks). After being asked repeatedly not to alter the standard format for Year pages until this RFC is resolved, as well as warned repeatedly for canvassing and for anticipating the result of discussions, s/he has now taken to adding images of Nobel recipients to the Year articles (despite a recent discussion as to whether this whole section should be kept). This refusal to listen to advice is creating disruption on the Year (and decade) pages, and I've come to the conclusion that the only option is a temporary block on User:4me689, at least from editing Year and Decade pages. Note: I am not saying that User:4me689 is wrong to create collages - the RFC will decide that - but s/he has already agreed in principle several times not to continue to do it and is simply going ahead and repeating the conduct for which they were warned. Deb (talk) 09:15, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

I am very very very very sorry, I will stop trying to canvas, I'll try to get help from Wikipedia:Teahouse and see how the canvassing rule works, I promise not to restore any collages that have been removed so far. I'll stop getting people to the RFC, and I won't add images to the Nobel Peace Prize section, I want to take this warning as a note so I can better improve as an editor, I'm sorry to you all for what I have done that made people mad. I don't want to be blocked from Year and Decade pages, I know I'll be a awesome contributor, it just takes some guidance. and I know if you can guide me, I'll be an awesome contributor. 4me689 (talk) 23:13, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

You've apologised in the past, but continued to canvass anyway. GoodDay (talk) 20:31, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree that this is also an issue of concern. I have no doubt that 4me689 has good faith to contribute to this encyclopedia and is clearly WP:HERE, but being pinged by 4me689 to discussions was something that that I felt was overdone both to me and other editors; only after I addressed it directly on 4me's talk page did 4me refrain from @-ing me. 4me also has asked editors in all of his replies during a recent period of time to reply to a certain discussion, which certainly seems like canvassing even though it has the possibility to backfire and rule against 4me. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 00:02, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm a tad concerned, that 4me689 has (so far) chosen not to respond to this ANI report. I hope he's not ignoring it. GoodDay (talk) 22:53, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

I know this exists don't worry 4me689 (talk) 22:54, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

4me689 - You've said all this before, but you've just carried on in the same vein, so this report will remain in progress until other administrators give their view on whether a topic ban is appropriate. Deb (talk) 05:32, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Letter from a law firm posted to a talk page

Over at Talk:Elastic_therapeutic_tape#Improper_Use_of_KINESIO_Trademark, a user apparently representing a law firm has posted a lengthy message asking that an article use trademark symbols when the word 'Kinesio' is used. The article mostly uses this in reflecting specific wording of sources, including source quotations and titles of cited articles. This isn't precisely a legal threat, and I'm not sure anything really needs to be done, but in the spirit of Wikipedia:Don't overlook legal threats I thought I should run it up the flagpole. - MrOllie (talk) 17:36, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

If nothing else, the username User:FHFGD violates the username policy section WP:ISU. Jahaza (talk) 18:07, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, it's pretty obvious what's going on here, presuming this is on the up-and-up: it's a firm seeking to justify its billable hours. Ravenswing 18:40, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

The account should be blocked purely on promotional/role policy basis. The law firm is Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner and the account name is FHFGD. ValarianB (talk) 18:52, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

I've implemented a username block. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:56, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi. I've converted the soft block to a hard {{uw-lblock}}. That account doesn't appear to be directly promoting that law firm, but rather, was created in order to possibly pursue legal remedies, which is prohibited to do on Wikipedia proper. Consequently, I've directed them to Foundation's legal contact page. See User talk:FHFGD#Indefinite block (hard block). Thanks. El_C 20:03, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

This all seems like a violation of WP:NLT. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 06:05, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

How is it a legal threat? EEng 06:09, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

EEng, if you're confused about the particulars here, or in general, about WP:NLT and its boundaries, feel free to be... less terse. El_C 07:07, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Or the person asserting the existence of a legal threat should be less terse. The "role account" block was valid, but I don't see the threat. What I see is someone unfamiliar with our style guidelines who's saying they think the article "should" do something, and that they are "prepared to provide a specific list of edits" they would like to see. How's that a threat? And, as Deb notes below, there may (may) very well be a problem with the article loosely referring to the generic product by a brand name. EEng 17:57, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

This is hilarious, I know people at Finnegan. BD2412 T 18:08, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

I can't tell what you're saying. EEng 18:45, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

They're referencing the law firm cited in the purported letter (I might know a person or two there myself!). Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 18:49, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

@EEng: they don't need to outright make a "threat" of seeking legal remedies. As WP:NLT states: A legal threat, in this context, is a threat to engage in an external (real life) legal or other governmental process that would target Wikipedia or other editors. I assert their cease and desist-adjacent note qualifies, even if it's only implied. I don't think it's appropriate for Wikipedia editors to enage with lawyers representing a client on talk pages in regards to legal matters. That role is the exclusive domain of the Foundation, and as such, those correspondences should be forwarded to legal@wikimedia.org, as I have done. Now, this doesn't exclude any named account or IP then asking: what is the policy of this website with regards to this or that [trademark, whatever]. I considered going the WP:NLT#Copyright, route, but it just didn't seem like a DMCA matter. But even if were that, legal@wikimedia could take it from here, if/when needed. Thanks. El_C 19:29, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

I see nothing about "cease and desist". I see them saying that (to quote again) they think the article "should" do something, and that they are "prepared to provide a specific list of edits" they would like to see. If they hadn't been blocked for other reasons, we should be simply explaining that our MOS calls for X, Y, and Z, sorry. We way, way overreact to stuff like this. EEng 19:59, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Implied. But my greater point, again, is that I don't think editors should be engaging with lawyers representing clients in regards to legal matters. That has a chilling effect on editing and is not appropriate as a form of editorial collaboration. That doesn't mean that their comments should be disregarded, or the changes not be made as part of WP:V, WP:COPYVIO, or whatever. Just not like that, with a legal matter looming.

Because no matter how softly it's formulated, there's an inherent legal issue (and potential legal dispute) underpinning their comment, phrased as legal notice with all the (expressed) legalese. Which is inappropriate, but which I'm also not holding against them in anyway. Time is money (a lot of money for lawyers) for someone advocating for a paying client, so I wouldn't expect them to take hours to research the myriad of policies and guideline on the project. It just is what it is. El_C 20:23, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Not buying it. It's not "phrased as a legal notice". We go through this every time someone quite innocently says, "We have to be careful to avoid anything libelous" and everyone responds like this: [47]. The point of NLT is to prevent anything that might have a chilling effect. I don't see anything chilling about this, and please don't say that just because it's a lawyer writing that's automatically scary. I think at this point we should just agree to disagree, and if you're not willing to do that I'll have my attorneys get in touch with you. EEng 20:44, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

I mean, you obviously don't have to agree with my take here—though, in my view, it's clearly phrased as legal note by a lawyer representing a paying client—I'm just expanding on my position and on my understanding on this. If you want to leave it at that, I'm okay with that. If you'd like me to respond further, I'm fine with that, too. I'm good with whatever. El_C 20:52, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Looks like my comment had a definite chilling effect on you. EEng 20:58, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Not at all. El_C 21:06, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

It's just you've become so... compliant. EEng 21:25, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, I'm not a compliance lawyer, but you ask, I answer. Anyway, there's seems to be a divide, with my correlation of WP:NOLEGAL to WP:NLT. Which, again, if you wish to explore further, it's whatever. El_C 21:49, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

---

And for the record, as per WP:MOSTM, Wikipedia is not required to, and does not, use ™ or similar symbols in articles. Stifle (talk) 09:15, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Comment - There does appear to be a potential issue here, though. If I understand correctly, they are saying that the product name is being used incorrectly and that should be investigated. I don't know enough about it to be able to judge whether Kinesio tape is in use as an alternative name for any old Elastic therapeutic tape. Anyone familiar with the product? Deb (talk) 14:56, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

It's as much a generic used trademark as Band-Aid or Elastoplast (depending on which part of the English speaking world one lives in). Would it be inappropriate to use it as such in Wikipedia's voice? Yes, because doing such constitutes a POV endorsement of one company's product over another, and any such use should be replaced with the generic term you already used. But quotes that do use the name as a genericized trademark should not be altered. Wikipedia is not here to help enforce trademark claims, nor should we engage in scrubbing real-world usage on the company's behalf. We don't mark things with trademark symbols as Stfle noted above, nor write them as all-caps unless that's the common usage, and any demands that we must or else they'll call in the lawyers (as they've done here) is a total non-starter. Yes, the validity of a trademark rests on defending it. No, quoting people using the name generically in an online encyclopedia doesn't contribute to trademark dilution. The block is good, and the company is being overbearing. oknazevad (talk) 18:18, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes. IANAL but there is a clue in the name; using someone else's trademark when trading (within the scope of the registration) is actionable, general use not so much. If only UK trade mark law applied; that makes unjustified threats actionable.[48] NebY (talk) 19:54, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

(non-admin comment) This type of area is a minefield, best avoided unless you're a trademark lawyer and being paid. As other examples, cellophane is a registered trademark in UK but generic in US; hoover is the usual British word for vacuum cleaner, a registered trademark which nearly became generic until the company of the same name took frantic steps to preserve it; and Budweiser is a registered trademark of Anheuser-Busch in one half of the world and of Budejovicky Budvar in the other, and is in at least one country a PDO. The possible tricks and traps are too many to enumerate. We need to take care to tread a line between people claiming rights beyond which they are entitled and people claiming rights to which they are not entitled at all. Full disclosure - I'm a retired IP lawyer. Narky Blert (talk) 22:33, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

A minefield best avoides, I completely agree. I'm just so surprised by the idea that trademark protection extends so far beyond actual trading! NebY (talk) 22:46, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Full disclosure - I'm a retired IP lawyer — that's okay, bwo. We all have our vi©es. El_C 23:12, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

At least give me credit for "®eti®ed". Narky Blert (talk) 07:19, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Narky Blert now indef-blocked for making legal threats. No such user (talk) 09:16, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Question - and I know this is really content, but if Kinesio tape is commonly used generally as a standing name for elastic therapeutic tape then we should be able to find a reliable source for that. The current reference doesn't support that. If we can't find a reliable reference for it, then it should be removed as a generic word for it. Canterbury Tail talk 19:25, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

I will shed no tears if that were to happen, so will require no Kleenex. ;) El_C 19:35, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

In the UK, there are seven registered trademarks KINESIO. It is most certainly not generic. (And I'd never heard of the mark or company until just now.) Narky Blert (talk) 22:43, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Comment - Similar issue with Hook-and-loop fastener, which in my neck-of-the-woods we call Velcro whether it is or not. Seem to remember something vaguely similar happened there, see talk page, relating to "a misuse of the VELCRO (R) Brand Trademark." Nigej (talk) 19:44, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Do we know if the message is legit or if it is someone impersonating someone else? Levivich (talk) 02:00, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

This from Primefac suggests that it's most likely real. DanCherek (talk) 02:31, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

...I see: VTRS directed a lawyer to the article talk page to discuss a trademark infringement concern; after posting on the article talk page, the lawyer is blocked. 👍 Carry on, everyone. Levivich (talk) 04:47, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Uncommunicative IP editor

Would an uninvolved admin be able to look at the contributions of 2A02:C7C:5012:8B00:D53C:FF55:2116:C235/64? Someone has been editing on that range since 10 May, always making the exact same type of edits (fiddling about with flags, the names of belligerents in battles, adding unsourced casualty figures) at a great many articles about British and Irish battles and wars. Many of their contributions get reverts, and they just come along and reinstate them a few days or weeks later. A typical example is at Battle of Ardnaree:

• they make an unexplained and unsourced edit,
• they get reverted,
• they make another unexplained and unsourced edit,
• get reverted by someone else,
• reinstate their changes a few months later,
• that gets reverted,
• so they and come back in a few weeks to reinstate their changes again.

There are many, many such examples. They never add sources or explain their changes with edit summaries, and they have never once edited a talk page (at least on this range). It's a wearing drip-drip-drip of reverts for the editors who maintain these pages. If I were uninvolved, I would probably apply a long-term block on the range, but I have done quite a bit of work on a number of the articles they seem to be interested in. I will attempt to inform them of this thread on their most recently used IP's talk page. Girth Summit _(blether) 19:41, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Looks like they stopped using this IP range, 2A02:C7F:ECE1:BC00:3D66:82F7:FC7A:A726/64, around 20 February. Exact same pattern of edits and changes including this edit where they just swapped the sides in the infobox. Mesidast (talk) (contribs) 20:28, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

That last especially irritated me in that the article was/is an FA. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:10, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

• Update: another five unsourced and unexplained edits today, at three different articles, reverted by three different editors (including myself). Still no edits to talk pages... Girth Summit _(blether) 16:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• Update 2: Widr has blocked the /64 for a week. I'll come back if they start up again in seven days (or switch range). Girth Summit _(blether) 18:52, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Legal threat by Wankanda69 (talk · contribs) on Talk:Karan_(caste)

Diff: [49] MadGuy7023 (talk) 22:54, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

It's just some sock causing trouble. I blocked both Wankanda69 and Wargod699, who are confirmed to each other and are both probably AuthenticSources2546. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 23:26, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Ron Karlos L. Castillo

Ron Karlos L. Castillo has a long history of disruptive editing, persistent vandalism, blanking his own talk page (WP:BLANKING), adding red links, and "never ending trolling" by violating the MOS:CIRCULAR rule, even after numerous warnings. (For evidence, see user talk page and its revision history.) -112.210.224.225 (talk) 03:37, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

112.210.224.225, the only diff you've provided is them blanking their own talk page, which is permitted. In the future, when you report someone to ANI, please explain more and present more diffs. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 05:19, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Wave of transphobic edits by IP vandals.

Posting this here at the recommendation of User:AndytheGrump I've noticed a severe spike in transphobic edits in the recent changes on wikipedia tonight targeting articles about trans and non-binary people, changing pronouns, making bizarre accusations. I think there might be a coordinated effort going on and there could be a valid reason to protect these articles in some way so that IP vandals aren't able to vandalize these articles so easily - even a level 1 pending changes change would be beneficial. Some examples of those I reverted - there were many that were reverted before I got to them so I don't have that list.

• Blu del Barrio
• Laverne Cox (already protected)
• Ian Alexander (actor)

I know my list is short but again - wasn't able to get them all on my contributions list in time to save the names. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marleeashton (talk • contribs) 05:03, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

The edits to Blu del Barrio and Ian Alexander came from a single IP, so not really evidence of coordination. If there is more to it though, we should probably try to figure out why it is happening. Is it maybe due to something in the news? As for pre-emptive pending changes, I don't think it would really be appropriate to single out a specific subset of biographies in such a manner. Many types of BLPs suffer from ongoing vandalism issues, and often in ways that are more troublesome, in that they don't get watched as much (take a look at bios of Indian politicians for example - riddled with all sorts of unsourced and badly sourced nonsense, up to and including accusations of murder...). Personally, I'd like to see all BLPs subject to pending changes, but that would require a change of policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:40, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

We have WP:NEWBLPBAN to address users and pages with persistent problems. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 00:36, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

IP hopping climate color vandal

Someone who has nothing better to do then mess with color coding.They seem preoccupied with adding or removing green. Obsessions come in many colors.

• 207.35.210.51 (talk · contribs).
• 129.100.107.85 (talk · contribs)
• 129.100.255.32 (talk · contribs)

Perhaps there are many more. Requesting mass reversion. 2601:19E:4180:6D50:0:0:0:CC3A (talk) 05:07, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

This has been going on for more than four years with multiple block evasions of long-term IP blocks. See Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/24.68.2.110 and User:CrazyBoy826/Target pages of recent IPs. Meters (talk) 05:12, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

2601:19E:4180:6D50:0:0:0:CC3A, I have reverted some of the edits by the first listed IP. I think they've been socking for some time now, see here. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 05:14, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you both. Why am I not surprised? 2601:19E:4180:6D50:0:0:0:CC3A (talk) 05:18, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Re: 24.196.8.129's bizarre music-related article vandalism

Re: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1105#24.196.8.129%27s_bizarre_music-related_article_vandalism

Edit summaries and area of activity leads me to believe that Special:Contributions/71.86.75.107 is the same user.

--Frogging101 (talk) 05:10, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Threat/Personal Attack for reverting a edit because it was unsourced.

Ths user accusing me of working for a terrorist group all because he refused to add a source for the article Ardi Musa. Additionally, this user wrote a personal attack in Arabic. Please block this user for WP:NOPA and WP:NLT.

• Mealth (talk · contribs)

Layah50♪ ( 話して～! ) 06:24, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

The edit in question: [50] One edit to the article, [51] which wouldn't really belong there even if sourced, and then this. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:35, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

It is Persian, and they are accusing you of being Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps which is part of the Iranian government. I agree this is block worthy. --Mvqr (talk) 13:16, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

And blocked for NOTHERE and making threats. RickinBaltimore (talk) 13:20, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you all. Layah50♪ ( 話して～! ) 14:30, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Abidmardan

Could someone please look into Abidmardan, they're moving user pages etc. around, and it's all getting rather confusing (so much so that I can't even notify them of this ANI discussion because their user talk page now has a redir on it!). It looks to me like they want to publish something like Draft:Abid Hussain A Living Librarian; I rejected this earlier at AfC, and they may be trying to find some other way of doing it, but they're just making a mess. --DoubleGrazing (talk) 08:41, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

They also moved Trevor Howard to Abid Hussain (LIS Scholar). Clarityfiend (talk) 08:48, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

DoubleGrazing, I've notified them and the speedy deletion nominations and reverts have taken care of everything, I think. — Nythar (💬-🎃) 08:51, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Nythar, and thanks for sorting out their talk page (can't think why it didn't occur for me to do that... I'll blame lack of coffee!). DoubleGrazing (talk) 09:12, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

• I tagged Abid Hussain (LIS Scholar) as G11, being a first person CV with language such as "praiseworthy". It is also a G12 of this short bio, in which the third person was replaced with first person writing, but otherwise being the same. --Mvqr (talk) 12:22, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks. I'm starting to think this user is perhaps !HERE... -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 12:31, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  It looks like they are mostly here to promote the librarian, not the encyclopedia. --Mvqr (talk) 13:10, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

• I sent a talk page message that all types of vandalism from this user will be reverted, or the user will be blocked from editing. SpyridisioAnnis (talk) 03:17, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Djbolkas

This user seems to have nothing constructive to offer, judging by their edits at 2021 Men's Rugby League World Cup, 2021 Men's Rugby League World Cup knockout stage and 2021 Men's Rugby League World Cup Final. I have tried to improve those articles by bringing them more in line with the Manual of Style, as well as better reflecting the sources used in the articles. However, this user simply reverts with barely an edit summary (and when they do use edit summaries, they either mischaracterise my edits as vandalism or they use an incredibly unwarranted patronising tone). In six years editing Wikipedia, they have never contributed to an article talk page. Unless they start doing so, is it not fair to say they deserve a block for being unwilling to work collaboratively? – PeeJay 12:21, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

They also seem to be using an anonymous account (User:175.39.211.71) to avoid their reverts being picked up by 3RR. – PeeJay 12:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Note:PeeJay has not notified both editors of this discussion. It has been done. Sarrail (talk) 13:20, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I lost my internet connection where I was editing from, so I wasn’t able to do it immediately. – PeeJay 14:15, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the shoutout PeeJay, love your work — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djbolkas (talk • contribs) 03:17, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• Comment - Edit summaries like this are obviously indicative of a very adversarial attitude when it comes to editing here. Users like this are clearly not welcome. – PeeJay 12:21, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• Comment - The user in question has now set up another account just to leave antagonistic messages on my talk page (see here). Although the diff has been hidden by User:C.Fred, I’m sure they could corroborate what was said, and I have a copy of the email notification if necessary. Furthermore, the user seems to be revelling in the inaction of the admins in this situation, as exemplified by a message they left on their own talk page last night (see here). – PeeJay 05:18, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Unrepentent vandal

Dear sirs,

204.100.235.136 has been vandalizing the Scary Movie page and responded very rudely to my request for them to cease and desist their vandalism on User talk:204.100.235.136 by saying "did I ask". This is an official report to the Wikipedia moderators, as the vandal is clearly here in bad faith.

Ghost of Kiev (talk) 22:18, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:AIV in future please - and we have an ANI notification template to use... GiantSnowman 22:20, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Ok. Thank you good sir. Ghost of Kiev (talk) 22:29, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

User:Cross38

The user Cross38 does not appear to be here to build an encyclopedia, but rather to soapbox and harass me. Three separate posts [1] [2] [3] (the user's entire edit history) have been made about me specifically on discussion pages which I believe qualify as hounding and making personal attacks (using my supposed political beliefs as an excuse to request that I be blocked from editing). Bailmoney27 ^talk 00:12, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Note that I reported a sock puppet investigation against Cross38 due to suspicious behaviour. Styx & Stones (talk) 00:48, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

 Courtesy link: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Pktlaurence Sarrail (talk) 01:22, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Seems like Cross38 was hit with a block by Bbb23. However, the sockpuppet investigation is still ongoing. Sarrail (talk) 03:38, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

KSSully12

KSSully12 is vandalizing Wikipedia page on Noa Tishby to Whitewash Israeli Apartheid Robtin.Goodfellow (talk) 05:16, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protected indefinitely. Logged AE action. Neither one of you are permitted to edit material pertaining to this subject matter, per WP:ARBPIA4#General sanctions upon related content, so it's moot, anyway. I've restored the last stable version (06:25, 28 September 2022‎, by Onceinawhile) due to WP:BLP vios. El_C 07:20, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

See also my note at WP:RFPP/I#Noa Tishby (permalink). El_C 07:30, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Subsection move/edit. Sorry, that was my fault. It wasn't obvious from the title and content. Inomyabcs (talk) 15:29, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Okay, but please be more careful when clerking the admins noticeboard, and make sure to read beyond the headers. Thanks. El_C 15:49, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Robtin.Goodfellow (talk · contribs) and allegations of a personal attack

I have been charged with a personal attack by Ymblanter (talk · contribs) for asking another editor a question, if they were a zionist that supported apartheid to El C (talk · contribs). It would seem that when questions become personal attacks objective reasoning has been influenced by a bias. Cheers Robtin.Goodfellow (talk) 08:39, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, I'm not a a Zionist... that supports Apartheid, I'm not sure how you've arrived at that conclusion from anything I said. Maybe tone down the polemics, though...? El_C 08:44, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

A cursory glance at your edits implies to me that you have an axe to grind. You seem focussed on labelling Israel an apartheid state, including egregious BLP violations, and when other editors explain to you why this is problematic you accuse them of supporting apartheid. First I'd advise you to read WP:NPOV, and secondly I'd advise you to read WP:BOOMERANG. It's probably best to stop this while you're ahead. — Czello 08:45, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

I want to know how a question can be construed as a personal attack? The axe I have to grind is the truth/reality of the current Human Rights Crisis and War Crimes (as defined by the International Criminal Court) in Palestine... Cheers Robtin.Goodfellow (talk) 08:48, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Your question is clearly worded as an accusation. El C gave their view on why your edits had an issue, and your response was to question their personal opinions including whether or not they're a supporter of apartheid. Your second sentence also implies to me you're not editing neutrally. — Czello 08:51, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

I mean, they said that The only sources that dispute Apartheid are funded by Israel (diff), so regardless what one's position is on the matter, that novel view sort of speaks for itself. El_C 08:56, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Can you cite a human rights organization, not directly funded by Israel, that disputes Israel as an Apartheid State, if you can I'll take it and move on. B'tselem, literally an ISRAELI HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP has labelled Israel an Apartheid State (www.btselem.org), which is a pretty big deal. All I want is the truth to be published, I thought that is what Wikipedia is about?! Cheers Robtin.Goodfellow (talk) 09:04, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, not interested. El_C 09:19, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Because you can't... Cheers Robtin.Goodfellow (talk) 11:28, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

No, because you started getting All caps-excited. Actually, before you've edited your original comment (diff), as you seem to do nearly every time, I was going to say that, on Wikipedia, sources refers to Wikipedia:Reliable sources, which could mean anything from books, studies, film documentaries, news stories, etc. This is not an invitation to engage with me again btw, with proving a negative, asking me inane and offensive questions, or anything else. El_C 15:09, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

To make it clear, we are talking about this diff--Ymblanter (talk) 08:48, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, a query... as an attack? That seems to be a huge over reaction, that has ulterior motives. Cheer Robtin.Goodfellow (talk) 08:50, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• The query itself is highly improper, and was certainly meant not as an innocent inquiry into another editor's politics (bad enough as it is), but as an attack on that editor disguised as a question. This is made entirely clear by the editor's repeatedly expressed views about Israel. A block for a personal attack is called for. Beyond My Ken (talk) 11:02, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
• I blocked Robtin.Goodfellow for this diff for 31h, but it make sense to discuss whether they are here to build an encyclopedia and whether the block needs to be extended.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:33, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Oh, blocked, okay. To me it seems doubtful they'd ever get a grasp and live up to the ethos of WP:RGW. El_C 15:14, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

So, El C - when did you stop beating your wife? More seriously - yes, of course a question can be worded so that it is an attack. If I ask someone "Are you actually stupid, or are you just acting that way?", it is phrased as a question but obviously heavily implies that I think the other person is stupid. No more questions like that please. Girth Summit _(blether) 15:52, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, I felt they were trying to get a rise out of me at multiple junctures throughout our exchanges with those non sequitur loaded questions. I'm just not that easily provoked, I suppose. El_C 16:02, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

If I said, "Are you a crazy axe murderer monster that killed your son?!", you'd certainly take that as a personal attack. Dialmayo (talk) (Contribs) she/her 16:09, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Is this a legal threat?

[52] Looking at the other talk page comments this editor has an agenda. Doug Weller talk 08:55, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, deformation would be pretty bad for the project. ;) El_C 08:57, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, people might get all bent out of shape. EEng 18:47, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Panelbeaters love him! X750. Spin a yarn? _{Articles I've screwed over?} 21:52, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Looks less like a threat and more like soapboxing. The user isn't threatening to take legal action or saying it will happen, just that someone else should. That said, might be a WP:NOTHERE case. — Czello 08:58, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

To the contrary @Czello, I am attempting to re-gain the integrity of this site by weeding out the articles which I happen to find on here which are blatantly and obviously biased POV, or just political hit jobs full of loose sources and words like "far-right" which is an opinion. and "Fake News" ? well, then take todays articles and prove it! -Jf (talk) 04:35, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

We go with what sources say, and they support these labels. — Czello 08:40, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't think this currently warrants ant action, and it's the user's only edit in the last 9 months. I don't see any action needed at this time; the user's upcoming actions will provide evidence as to why they're here. Stifle (talk) 09:12, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Makes sense. Thanks all. Doug Weller talk 13:58, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

This is the third legal threat on this page. We better take this one seriously though, he's gonna call us out for deformation!! Dialmayo (talk) (Contribs) she/her 16:14, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm all for inclusivity. Deb (talk) 16:18, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

But against deforestation, I presume (sorry, I'm really into trees, lately). El_C 16:44, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

I feel the same way about defenestration. --Kinu ^t/_c 17:16, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Looks like someone read Wikipedia:Yes legal threats lol. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 05:49, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I can assure you that it's not a legal threat, I'm merely pointing out that an article has been overrun by the "far-Left" admins with an agenda, and that the page is nothing but what any truly neutral party can plainly see is just biased opinion, slander and libel .Further, I am not associated with WND in any way, so I cannot sue you on their behalf. What happened is that I searched google for WND, and found the top 2 results were the site itself and the #2 was this page, which appears to be hostile towards a particular website based on the left-wing opinion that it's a right-wing site. It's actually more of a libertarian site that posts news and opinion which is properly labeled as such . Anyways, I've been on here for decades, and wikipedia was originally intended to be a factual site which didn't allow anyones political opinions to be used as facts in articles. We used to require that sources were real, but now the "far left" has taken it over and it's no longer a reliable source for information at all, as I predicted. -Jf (talk) 04:22, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

@Jmurphy914 I would strongly urge you to reconsider being a firebrand in this topic area. The last thing we need are people coming on with an intent to correct a perceived bias and characterising users who do not adhere to their own weltanschauung as "far-left...with an agenda". That's more an indictment of you than you realise, and if you have already been warned comments like that are playing with fire. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 05:31, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

WP:WARRING, WP:CONSENSUS, misinformation in Edit Summaries

• Imam Shamil (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Reiner Gavriel (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• HamzatCan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1112#User:Reiner Gavriel

User:Reiner Gavriel tries to remove sources from the article Imam_Shamil, in the edits: edit, edit, edit. In the description of edits editor refers to a consensus reached more than 1.5 years ago, but when scrutinized, it turned out the editor breaks this consensus himself (edit), by wiping out the sources entirely. Also, instead of providing proofs the editor just throws bold claims and untrue statements in edit summaries. After detailed analysis of his claims and checking sources, I gave the editor arguments on discussion page, this edit and the two following, including quotes of his own words contradicting his current behavior. The editor ignored questions, continued WP:WAR, breaking consensus version again [53], and throwing misinformation in edit summaries about some other non-existing "consensus". And only after breaking consensus once more in this edit, the editor answerd on discussion page, again not addressing the questions raised, but just throwing accusations at me this time, the edit. Also, looking at the history of the editor, it seems he only appear on Wikipedia for Edit wars in topics related to the North Caucasus, for the last few years at least, always throwing accusations of nationalism to any opponent. Kindly asking to analyze the matter and address the strange behavior of the party.--HamzatCan (talk) 09:57, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Update: Also, just noticed, there is a suspicios IP editor, vandalising the article in the exact same way and days, and leaving summary with the same accussations, edit.--HamzatCan (talk) 10:07, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• So, basically, on 25 October the article was semi-protected because a number of IPs were edit-warring. Now the article is protected, a number of confirmed accounts are edit-warring. Guess what? I've fully protected the article. Get thee to the talk page, everyone. Black Kite (talk) 12:06, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• The prior ANI link may be consulted to view the relevant SPIs. Nationalist disputes in the Caucasus often lead to sockpuppetry. Imam Shamil was a famous man who was 'leader of Caucasian resistance to Imperial Russia in the 1800s'. Various national groups such as the Kumyks like to claim him as one of their own, and the evidence for him being Kumyk is often hard to understand or in non-English sources. EdJohnston (talk) 17:45, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

COI editor on Dani Matos

It's a bit messy. Frogging101 (talk) 23:25, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure where to place the ANI notice because there are multiple IPs involved. Frogging101 (talk) 23:33, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Who? What? When? Where? Your report is missing a few things. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 01:48, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

In a number[54][55][56] of recent edits to Dani Matos and on the talk page[57], an IP editor identifies himself as the child of the article's subject. Jahaza (talk) 02:49, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Edits are on at least two IPs:

• User:85.94.241.239
• User:2a02:678:54a:1b00:54a7:1a74:44f9:d50a

Jahaza (talk) 02:53, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I have templated those IPs. (OK, I'll stop responding to myself now.) Jahaza (talk) 03:01, 17 November 2022 (UTC)