User talk:Grayfell

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Thanks. Grayfell (talk)

Welcome

Welcome!

Hello, Grayfell, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 04:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

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AAFMAA

Hi Grayfell, I made some edits to AAFMAA and I think I reached a point where its possible to remove the Advert tag you placed there. Please let me know your thoughts and if you agree with my edits and actions. Best, Pratat (talk) 13:41, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Hello. Thank you for letting me know. I have restored the template with an explanation on the article's talk page. This is probably the best place to discuss things further. Thanks. Grayfell (talk) 02:56, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

In refrence to your recent edit on mobikwik page.

Hey Thanks for making the correction. I am very new to wikipedia and still learning. I added a recent partnership they had with a company called buyucoin. The new of the partnership is on many news and third party blogs sites. I first added the news from bitcoin.com, which is a pioneer in crypto space. But it was edited by some one who said crypto sites are not wprs. Then i saw some refrences in the current mobikwik page which has medianama , money control etc. These are same as like inc42 which you deleted. Can i know what kind of news sites are eligible to be a refrence on wikipedia. Furthermore the new of their partnership was on money control too. The same site which has been used as a refremce on current mobikwik page. So can it be used. Thank a lot in advance. Tinder007 (talk) 20:50, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

There are multiple issues here but the simplest way to explain it is that the source appears to be churnalism. A "partnership" is not significant merely because a bad source can be found. Using vague language to promote a service is not neutral or encyclopedic. How many users have the option to do something with some service is trivia. Wikipedia isn't a platform for promotion. Discuss this on the article's talk page, if necessary. Grayfell (talk) 03:06, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

What is your idea of a reliable source?

Genuine question, and yes this is about the dissident right page. I want to know because that movement is a legitimate movement at this point. And I'm new to Wikipedia btw. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dissidentrightindian (talk • contribs) 03:00, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

I've already explained that, but will comment further on your talk page, to keep this in one place. Grayfell (talk) 03:01, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Groypers

Please stop using biased and loaded language on the Groyper page. Page was edited to reflect terminology which is professed by Groypers as opposed to inaccurate language which is designed to assign labels which do not reflect the Groyper movement The Swamp Creature (talk) 20:10, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses reliable sources, which also means independent sources. This means that it's up to sources to decide how the "Groypers" are described. Since your comments suggests that you are a member of the groypers, you have a conflict of interest and should propose edits on the article's talk page. Your first-hand knowledge is not relevant to Wikipedia, we need sources, and your personal dislike of those sources is also not particularly relevant. Any further comments here will be reverted. Further discussion should be held on the article's talk page. Grayfell (talk) 20:17, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Removal Of External Links

Hello. I received your note re: removal of external links "...because they seem to be inappropriate for an encylopedia." Not fully understanding your reasoning ("seemed"?), I read the guidelines. Thanks for providing the link as this is my first edit and I have much to learn. In reviewing the guidelines, the only issue that stood out was that links "...should not normally be placed in the body of an article." Is it just a matter of formatting and these should be footnoted instead?

Or...in reading "Links normally to be avoided" I see a few references to avoid links that are "intended to promote" and "...primarily exist to sell products or services." Might this be your reason for removing the links?

I have no affiliation with Joel Hunter in any way and my updates are intended to be just that...bring the information up to date.

Can you help me understand how better to do that? Thanks so much!

Seattle98121-3881 (talk) 21:36, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@Seattle98121-3881: Hello.

Sorry, but there were several problems with your edit.

The language you added was not neutral, and read like it was intended to promote specific groups. It is important to write from a neutral point of view, not one of advocacy. Advocacy can also take the form of excessive levels of detail, or of details which lack context.

Another problem was that your edits were not properly sourced. You linked to many non-profits, but these links were neither reliable sources, nor did they support that Hunter's role was encyclopedically significant. As just one example (from past experience I need to emphasize that this is just an example, not the only problem here) this link to CFCH.org doesn't mention Hunter at all. In fact, CFCH.org's "leadership" page also doesn't mention Hunter. I don't know how you, personally, knew that Hunter is involved with this group, but you need to cite reliable sources for content like this.

One additional problem is that this was not encyclopedic, because it failed to provide important information according to due weight. The main goal of an encyclopedia like Wikipedia is to summarize secondary sources. One important way Wikipedia maintains neutrality is by relying on independent sources (meaning independent of the topic being covered). If independent sources do not mention Hunter's role in these various non-profits, it is unlikely to be significant to readers. Do readers have a path to understanding what the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness is, based on reliable and independent source ? If not, we cannot just take their own word for it and use an unreliable primary source, because this becomes a form of (hopefully inadvertent) promotion. If reliable, independent sources mention this information, we use those sources to provide context for why this is important. We do not use sources about a group to promote that group, even with the best intentions.

I hope that explains some of the problems. Grayfell (talk) 21:58, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks so much. Most all of the updates were sourced from a single source, "A Community Resource Network," (https://www.communityresourcenetwork.com/team) which appears to be where he is currently employed, albeit as a volunteer according to the site. I simply cut and pasted much from this single page. Your example concerning CFCH.org and his past leadership was not known to me. It came from the single source mentioned above (https://www.communityresourcenetwork.com/team). I get this a secondary source...clearly makes sense to not use secondary sources. Is this a logical conclusion I am drawing?

Second question: how would I go about updating the article to reflect his current position at "A Community Resource Network?" Seems like all the other "stuff" I first wrote is not appropriate...thanks for pointing it out and to the various links within Wiki to help me understand it better.

Final question: The Orlando Sentinel reports Hunter resigned, referring to a letter posted on the church's website, which has since been removed. It is archived here: https://www.pressreader.com/usa/orlando-sentinel/20170803/281865823555699. I do not have a subscription to the Orlando Sentinel and thus cannot confirm the original article. How might, if at all, I handle this?

I appreciate your time. Thanks.

Seattle98121-3881 (talk) 20:06, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

@Seattle98121-3881: Hello.

First, do not copy-paste from sources without clear attribution. This is a copyright violation. See WP:COPYVIO.

Second, you are correct that WP:SECONDARY sources are almost always preferable, but communityresourcenetwork is neither secondary, not inherently reliable. Setting that aside, most or all sources should also be WP:INDY of the topic, meaning that promotional blurbs which can be presumed to be provided by Hunter himself, are not generally useful. Very basic details can be supported by primary sources, but nothing beyond that. Since there is no obvious way for readers to understand what Community Resource Network is, the significance of this position will need reliable, independent sources. Start with sources and go from there, do not presume significance because a title sounds impressive.

Again, do not copy/paste from sources until you understand Wikipedia's stance on copyright. Grayfell (talk) 20:15, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks...for clarification, where did you find evidence of "copy-paste without clear attribution?" I am confused. Everything I originally wrote was attributed. Again, I'm picking up on the need for reliable, and independent and should lack "promotion."

As to communityresourcenetwork...so first establish the entity (using reliable, independent sources)...from there, go to Hunter and his role again using reliable independent sources. Am I close?

Seattle98121-3881 (talk) 20:27, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

@Seattle98121-3881:I did not see where it was attributed, and because it was a copyright violation, it has been removed from the page history. Again, review Wikipedia:Copyright violations but to keep things simple for everybody, don't copy/paste from any sources. Summarize reliable, independent sources in your own words, and cite those sources as references (Help:Referencing for beginners might help). This is almost always a better approach anyway, for multiple reasons.

If you have a reliable, independent source which mentions that Hunter is on the board of Community Resource Network, neutrally summarize what that source says. If you don't have such a source, it's probably not worth mentioning, since Wikipedia doesn't really care about details that aren't included in reliable sources.

If you think this organization is encyclopedically significant enough to have its own article, see Help:Your first article. I hope it's clear that everything I said about sources will also apply to that new article, as well. I'm just now noticing that Community Resource Network used to have an article, but it was deleted back in 2008 for lack of notability. One helpful guideline is WP:NORG, as this explains what the community expects regarding notability. Grayfell (talk) 20:40, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Got it. I indeed cut and paste most of what I edited and I should have put it quotes and then footnoted it, correct? (I think I footnoted one item in my original edit.) Last question: the opening statement "Joel Carl Hunter is the retired senior pastor of..." is not accurate as he resigned. How do I locate the source of this statement and/or have it updated? Seattle98121-3881 (talk) 20:50, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

@Seattle98121-3881: No, I think you're missing a key part of how Wikipedia works. You should summarize and paraphrase sources, neutrally, for almost everything you add to articles. Unfortunately there are a lot of articles which lack sources, but this is a problem which needs to be solved, not a precedent to follow.

Since that content was not neutral and the source was not necessarily reliable, you should not have copy/pasted it at all. If there is some specific reason to include direct quotes, there are ways to do this, but your copy/paste addition was not appropriate for multiple reasons. Discussing how to hypothetically add content like that is a distraction.

As for your second question, the difference between "resigning" and "retiring" seems trivial to me unless there is some specific importance provided by reliable sources. The church's website merely says he "stepped down"[1] but I don't think that's reliable for anything more than extremely basic information. I've changed the lead to say "former senior pastor" until a better source can be found. The long-term solution is to use reliable, independent sources to explain his career in the body of the article, and then summarize those sources in the lead.

Any information which is not supported by a reliable source can be removed at any time. This is standard for all articles, but especially for content about living people. Grayfell (talk) 22:09, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Alex Jones

Thanks for catching the Forbes thing. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:21, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Grayfell (talk) 06:22, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Skyisdeep

I see in the Zalgo SPI archive, you filed against one of his socks Iikigaii in the past. I strongly suspect Skyisdeep is the same sock-puppet. See what I recently filed [2] for details. Psychologist Guy (talk) 21:51, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Oh dang, yeah, that's very likely. Good catch. Grayfell (talk) 23:29, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Regarding your reversal of my additions

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Hello,

Where is exactly the difference that requires you to revert my changes? We are both saying the same thing - there are far-right individuals on the platform. The thing is that I am pointing out that the website allows also far-left individuals to express themselves, whereas presently the article focuses on how it is all "far-right" people and seems to ignore the diversity of people on Bitchute.org. --Itzhak Rosenberg (talk) 16:44, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Reliable sources go into great detail around how far-right individuals use BitChute. The same is not true with far-left individuals. GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:51, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

The article itself mentions 2010s some anti-fascist groups, which are far-left, being banned from youtube. The Bitchute.org page is a reliable source, which states that it is politically neutral and open to extremist groups on all sides. --Itzhak Rosenberg (talk) 19:34, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Bitchute is not a reliable source. Further discussion should be based on reliable sources, and should be held on the article's talk page, not here. Grayfell (talk) 19:50, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

David Cole/Stein

If we're going to call him a Holocaust denier, we should at least present his specific views. Remember that we have to be strongly biased in his favor because it's a BLP.

Moreover his views are relevant since a reliable source (The Guardian) talked about them. I'm not making this up, it's in the body of the article. CozyandDozy (talk) 00:34, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

You are deeply confused about Wikipedia's policies. We are not strongly biased in his favor, we are "biased" towards reliable sources. If you are advocating for being biased in favor of a holocaust denier, I have no desire to discuss anything with you on my talk page. Discuss on the article's talk page, and do not post on my talk page again unless required by policy. Grayfell (talk) 00:42, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

OSCE and Massimo Introvigne

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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When you have time, would you mind explaining to me why Introvigne’s work at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe is irrelevant for the entry about him. It would seem to me OSCE is an important international organization, while the entry mentions such obscure groups as the Society of Dracula or the little-known Catholic Alliance. Introvigne’s OSCE work was quoted as relevant in several media and in two mainstream academic surveys about OSCE and religious liberty (that strangely another user called “press releases”). Thanks. Accidental Sociologist (talk) 21:24, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Revert of several edits on Fat fetishism

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I honestly don't understand your complaint. Why do you think the sources are unreliable? I used several different academic papers. I'd like to discuss this. Throwawiki (talk) 20:29, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

The article's talk page is the place to discuss this. Grayfell (talk) 20:29, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Ok, please see my comment over there. Throwawiki (talk) 20:36, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Apology

Hey. Alex here. I would just like to say sorry for reverting edits without consensus on Benjamin's page, as well as snarky edit replies. I was wondering why the arbitration committee seemed to have been ignored there but, looking back on it, there was a lot of disagreement so I really want to apologise.

My snarkiness did come from a place of anger, not at you but rather:

• People who have made me feel stupid for not reading up on increasingly esoteric pieces of Wikipedia policy and advice (fine if people want to pull that sort of thing up, they just don't have to make me feel bad for having less time than them).
• People who have assumed my political opinions (used to identify as a feminist and atheist in my teens but am now pretty agnostic on both) or opinions about Benjamin (for the record him saying he is a "giant dick" is one of the few things I think he's right about).
• People questioning my neutrality as an editor while not demonstrating their own (including one who referred to Benjamin's "so-called humour"), even though I go out of my way to be neutral and have to try not to smear people. And if they look at my edit count, people will see I edit the pages of folk from all persuasions, in all of which I aim for total neutrality.

I am proud of my work on here and I feel like that's just being questioned by people who don't know me or what I'm about. I think I say it best in my bio when I say "I don't find abstract political systems in themselves interesting, but more so the personalities, struggles and achievements of politicians and people in public life" (this is especially true when it comes to Benjamin since I wonder what drives a man to act in the bizarre way he does in the public spotlight). I'm naturally prone to solipsism as I am neuro-atypical (to be on here seriously, people kinda have to be) so empathising with people across the political and moral spectrum is pretty therapeutic for me.

I might go on that London Zoom call but I think we should have some alternative for our corner of the site so we can have good discussions about ways forward when it comes to maintaining neutrality around controversial topics. I become disheartened when I see comments like, "this reminds me of why I don't come to Wikipedia for controversial topics" because that should be where Wikipedia strives I think. Sorry for the ramble. Many thanks. Alex (talk) 05:32, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Asking for help

Dear Sir, I am a new user and am very worried about the current vandlization on Owen Benjamins page. I am new and not sure how to request this page return to a protected state. Any help? Thank you, TruthBuster21223 (talk) 14:59, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@TruthBuster21223: Hello. Wikipedia:Requests for page protection is the page you are looking for. Grayfell (talk) 20:16, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the help.

TruthBuster21223 (talk) 02:01, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

"Discuss on talk page"

Hello, regarding your edit on InfoWars: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=InfoWars&oldid=prev&diff=962838782&diffmode=source Please read mit edit summary instead of just reverting; i restored deleted info from the previous edit, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=InfoWars&diff=960155460&oldid=960031104&diffmode=source Urgal (talk) 09:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Sockpuppet investigation

Hi, I started a sockpuppet investigation into various accounts related to one account you've dealt with in the past. If you have additional input, here's the investigation page: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Henrymancini333#Suspected_sockpuppets Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:53, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Sock?

Who's sock is he? I would like to know a bit about this user. Mohanabhil (talk) 18:02, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Racialism

Re: "Revert. Overt editorializing. He used in "briefly"? Then explain why it matters without ? Use these independent sources to provide context for why the opinions of The Negro Family: The Case For National Action are encyclopedically significant. Who is Robert Johnson, and why is this cherry-picked quote significant?"

Hi Grayfell, after two fully stymied attempts to contribute, edit or expand the current Racialism article please advise what kind of edits you would accept here. The current Definitions and differences Section already contains quotes that under your standard may be editorialized or cherry picked. Racialism is a relatively seldom used term but Du Bois, Moynihan, Johnson and others used them or referenced them in a historically varied and sometimes conflicting way. Why should diversity of use be cancelled out? Over time, the term's has been more diverse than reflected in the current Wikipedia content. This diversity is what I'm trying to convey in the edits. Please advise what expansion in the Definition and differences Section you could find tolerable. Shoefly (talk) 00:16, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

As you already know, the place to discuss this is the article's talk page. To emphasize what I said there, summarize what sources are actually saying about the term "racialism". Do not use sources for a connected point to imply something about the term, as this is WP:SYNTH, which is a form of WP:OR. Again, the place to discuss this is there, not here. Grayfell (talk) 01:41, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

DUCK sock

Bethesda=Terrible is a pretty obvious DUCK sock of Brockhold, same edits as previous sock, Citadel2811. I don't know whqt the hell the admin wants by way of data. Can you take a look at the SPI? Thanks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:45, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

That is indeed some very loud quacking. Thanks for the heads up, I'll keep an eye on it. To be honest, I never know what is expected from SPIs. As I'm sure you've noticed, it's a gamble based on whichever admin ends up looking at it. In the past I've gone way overboard on diffs, but at least a few times, that's dragged it out so long that it became stale by the time any admin bothered to look at it, defeating the purpose. In practice SPIs expect editors to become lawyers just to report abuse. That's a broken system, but I don't know how to fix it. Grayfell (talk) 23:02, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

sock puppet of Smile Lee

Smile Lee, you know who he is, has made articles for advertising not only in English Wikipedia, but in Wikipedia of many languages, including Japanese. I want to delete his articles from Japanese Wikipedia, however, I can't judge whether it passes notability test or not. Would you kindly give some advice for me?(Help desk)--おいしい豚肉 (talk) 05:07, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

@おいしい豚肉: Hello.

Smile Lee again? Dang.

Heaven Sent Gaming is not notable enough for Wikipedia. I do not know Japanese Wikipedia's notability guidelines, but this article is spam. Ja:マリオ・J・ルセロ and ja:イザベル・ルイズ・ルセロ are also spam. The sources are all VERY poor. Most of them are other Wikis or worse, and fail ja:Wikipedia:信頼できる情報源#自己公表された情報源/WP:SPS. You are safe in assuming that this is conflict of interest editing. カナダカナダ is not acting ethically. The best source is weak, and the rest are garbage.

Let me know if I can help with a sock puppet investigation for カナダカナダ. I will do what I can. There are many reasons to think this account is a sock puppet.

For example: カナダカナダ claims to speak French fluently, but that account has not edited French Wikipedia (from グローバルアカウント情報). There are other things, as well. Grayfell (talk) 06:19, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Rebel News address

How is the Yellow Pages not a valid source? 75.119.247.192 (talk) 21:28, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

See WP:RS. It may or may not be valid in some cases, but trivia needs better sources. The place to discuss this is the article's talk page, not here. Grayfell (talk) 21:30, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Recent removal

Hi, could you explain why you removed the templates on the Conspiracy theories page? Conspiracy theories are all about topics such as "propaganda" and "media manipulation". It's directly relevant. Altanner1991 (talk) 07:53, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

See WP:BIDIRECTIONAL as a start. I will also add that readers will not benefit from a large number of nav-boxes. Hundreds of links, some of which are redundant, some of which are only very loosely connected, are more overwhelming than helpful. While these things are all broadly related, so are lots of topics. Including these connections in this way is a form of editorializing. As I said, discuss on the article's talk page, if necessary. Thanks. Grayfell (talk) 07:59, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Edit in Gail Tredwell

Thank you for removing "my" changes in Gail Tredwell but there seems to be a little misunderstanding.

I'm not used to WP:BLP at all. I added 2 small paragraphs, sourced by Pinterest and Amazon Reviews. Sorry, they are not reliable sources but maybe reading my text would help you understand why I did this. But you seem to blindly apply the rules so I won't try to argue.

I also fixed the messed up links in a big paragraph which is not from me. It was added in 2017 by special users 107.77.205.124 and 75.106.60.97. They used external links instead of internal references so that it was impossible to see that their only source was a blog. This slandering contribution was not sourced, yet it has remained published for 3 years.

I have already tried to removed this big unsourced paragraph in October 2018 but my changes have been reverted by special user 2601:8c3:8080:9780:605b:1863:2ed3:e5a6 in November 2019. You have removed it today? Don't worry it will come back online again. This could involve you in an edit war. Unless you just remove things and move forward, leaving me alone to deal with 107.77.205.124, 75.106.60.97 and 2601:8c3:8080:9780:605b:1863:2ed3:e5a6.

Look at the history and maybe you'll understand diff=972043056&oldid=953631283

Liviscobal (talk) 23:16, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

@Liviscobal: I'm not sure what you're getting at, but insulting me won't work. I saw your edit on my watchlist. This was automatically tagged as having potential BLP issues, so I looked closer. I read your changes, but they were not appropriate, because they were in response to inappropriate content. You were correct to remove it in 2018.

I understand and appreciate that you fixed the formatting, but the content should not have been there at all. It is unfortunate that this content lasted as long as it did. It is also unfortunate that this behavior is nothing new. This content has discussed before on Wikipedia, such such as back in 2014 at Talk:Mata Amritanandamayi.

Wikipedia works on consensus, so you should be willing to work with other editors. Because of the seriousness of this content, please consider posting to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard if this happens again. I will try to keep a closer eye on the article. Grayfell (talk) 07:13, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Image removal

Hello! I posted two images on pages that I am interested in and they both got removed. The images are both taken by me and show only myself on them and relate to items of clothing I regularly use and wear as daily choice. Can you please let me know why they were taken down? Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nopk1231 (talk • contribs) 22:01, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@Nopk1231: Hello. In both cases, The images were added twice to each article, and one of the images was unnecessarily large. Having redundant images is not helpful for readers trying to understand these topics. Also, this is hard to distinguish from spamming, especially since they are self-portraits. Further, galleries should not be used in this way (see WP:IG). I would suggest proposing the images on the articles' talk pages: Talk:Pantyhose for men and Talk:Pantyhose. This will allow other, impartial editors to evaluate the appropriateness and neutrality of these images. Thanks. Grayfell (talk) 22:11, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I have noted and replied on both pages. Please excuse the use of copy and paste, but my reply seems accurate to both instances. Curved Space (talk) 09:48, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Rude tone on talk page and arbitrary policies

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The talk page on that article contains numerous, lengthy quotations, so to cite "muh copyright" is pretty offensive. I also think that it's incredibly rude and shows poor interpersonal skills to come on to someone's talk page and begin a sentence with "Do not", and is a good way to antagonize someone. Please be more polite next time you interact with people.Shemakesmynosebleed (talk) 22:32, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm not interested in playing this game. Your talk page blanking already makes it very, very clear you do not like people posting there, but your behavior was not appropriate. You've also already violated WP:1RR for that article. I am not interested in attempting to meet your nebulous, personal definition of "polite". Based on the content of your posts, you goal is to combine random and shoddy sources to demonize undocumented immigrants to score political points. Wikipedia isn't the place for this kind of behavior, nor, for that matter, is this polite by any definition worth following. Don't bother responding. Grayfell (talk) 22:56, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Removing advert

Hello. I was working on Sierra Nevada Corporation and hoping to make contributions to improve the article in a way that would make the advert message that you posted in September 2017 unnecessary. Can you take a look at the article to see if its ready? If not, I will keep working on it, just wanted to ask for your review first. Bubble567gum (talk) 23:40, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I will post a comment on the article's talk page. Grayfell (talk) 00:10, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up re Forbes - Subject Matter Expert?

I’m sure it’ll be useful inthe future. However... checking some links wiki says the Forbes source may be acceptable if the writer is an expert in the field. In this case she is a lecturing professor at the Uni of Nevada, Las Vegas, has at least one published book in the field of sex toys and many years experience including New York Times etc. See https://www.forbes.com/sites/lynncomella/#6348853c272f for her blurb so I’d call her a subject matter expert. What do you think? I don’t want to use this article only to have it reverted again. Dakinijones (talk) 08:00, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

@Dakinijones: Hello.

I apologize if I caused any edit conflicts. I noticed that you were still working on the article and decided to hold off on any more edits for now.

Hmm. Well...

Contributor content is basically the same as a blog post. Generally, as WP:UGC/WP:SPS, blog posts are only usable with attribution. So, for example, "According to communications expert Lynn Comella..." Ideally, this would include a wikilink to Lynn Comella for context. At a glance it appears she might meet Wikipedia:Notability (academics) as a tenured professor, which means a red link would be appropriate.

I sincerely do not mean this to be insulting to Professor Comella, but this story was not published in the NYT, it was published in Forbes. Forbes is very lax with editorial standards, fact-checking, corrections, retractions, etc. I've read some great stuff from Forbes contributors, but I still don't cite it in articles. If there is content from this article which is important, and is not supportable with a better source, that might be good approach. I hope that's helpful.

Grayfell (talk) 09:23, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Very helpful. I’ll use the Forbes Comella article as a pointer to search for alt refs (some seem to be in her book) if poss and only redline if no other option. I did notice and appreciate your care around editing conflicts so thanks for that too. Dakinijones (talk) 18:24, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Doug TenNapel

Would you have time/inclination to weigh in with BoiledAlaska and this latest round of... trans-critical euphemisms? (I'm trying to find a polite phrasing.) I'm going to try to put up some contributive edits over the weekend and address their concerns about sourcing and TenNapel's responses, but these arguments are exhausting and I feel like you have a better grasp of Wikipedia policies and overall community positions on these matters than I do. Thanks! Mockingbus (talk) 01:26, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello. Yeah, I also find them exhausting, but I have posted a response at the article's talk page. Oh, one thing I didn't mention there is MOS:GENDERID. That might be worth explaining as well. Grayfell (talk) 19:57, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Well met! Thanks for joining in; I suspect that this is going to go on for a while (and likely in circles). Mockingbus (talk) 02:01, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, probably. I admit I don't have as much patience for these kinds of discussions as I would like. TenNapel's gimmick is not new, and I've seen this kind of thing come up on Wikipedia more often than I can count. The temptation is for Wikipedia to refocused on how we cover TenNapel's point of view, but this is false balance. If it gets to this point, we've already lost. Giving these self-described "cancel culture" victims the benefit of the doubt long enough to explain their position isn't credible. As Cody Johnston said, "Cancel Culture Isn't A Thing, You Snowflakes".

There's an obvious reason sources are discussing TenNapel's comments, but this gets lost. It's obvious to most reasonable people why these comments are unacceptable in polite society, so sources don't even bother to explain it. His bigotry, his zealotry, his astonishingly bad comparison of BLM to Hitler... these somehow manage to slip through the cracks and become "out of context". As a courtesy to him, or to cover their ass legally, sources let him paint himself as the victim. And therefore every comment section mentioning his name now becomes some Bizarro-world version of a gender studies classroom... The worst part is it doesn't matter if his defenders on these talk pages even realize any of this. They are either fooled in good faith, or they're not. The end result is the same. Grayfell (talk) 08:00, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Oh, I agree, the whole thing is at best a whitewash and at worst a bad-faith semantic game of "I'm not touching you!". I've had variations of the argument outside of Wikipedia enough times to recognize them, but here I try to find a temporary "less bad" stopping point to build from, just to prevent edit wars from cluttering up the version history (a la AnimeFan). You're probably right, though; it's probably an over-conciliatory approach sometimes. Thank you again for stepping up. Mockingbus (talk) 06:49, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

WP:BRD

Please review WP:BRD, in particular: "Don't restore your changes..." which you did here before beginning a discussion as an apparent afterthought. Thank you. Magic9Ball (talk) 04:52, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

BRD is an essay, not a policy. Wikipedia:Don't template the regulars is another essay, not a policy. Your perfunctory comment is not a template, but it's just as silly. WP:OWN, on the other hand, actually is a policy. You have less than 500 edits, and over a hundred of which are Comicsgate or affiliated personalities, such as the alt-right blogger Vox Day. If you want to discuss policies and essays further, perhaps try the teahouse. Otherwise, the place to discuss the article is the article's talk page. Grayfell (talk) 06:09, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Thakur Anukulchandra

Hello Grayfell,

I wanted to let you know that I just tagged Thakur Anukulchandra for deletion, because it seems to be copied from another source, probably infringing copyright.

If you feel that the article shouldn't be deleted and want more time to rewrite it in your own words, you can contest this deletion, but don't remove the speedy deletion tag from the top.

You can leave a note on my talk page if you have questions. Thanks!

Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.

John B123 (talk) 20:58, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Andy Ngo

Hi there. In general, mass reverts are not helpful, and it is a violation of policy to unilaterally remove an NPOV tag. Please explain what you believe the unattributed opinions were, because the lead is to serve as a concise summary of the article (You simultaneously removed the same content from the lead and body—where it included a citation—and then called that content in the lead, where citations are not required, "unattributed.). Wikieditor19920 (talk) 22:39, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Whitewashing and tag bombing are also not helpful. Follow BRD and gain consensus on the article's talk page. Grayfell (talk) 22:40, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Blackstone Group

Hello. I am reaching out about your comment on my talk page.

1. I posted a warning to another user after going through to edit history of Blackstone Group, and found that the change I made was also made/suggested by another user (see the last talk edit on Blackstone pages). That would count for 2 out of 3 edits. My edit was reverted without any discussion, and an accusatory attack on my conflict of interest in editing the post (and being accused of being part of PR). In an effort to reach out to wikipedia about how to proceed when two editors are disagreeing, I found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution#For_urgent_situations. I felt warring best described the situation, and followed the instructions to warn the user. 2. You accuse me of both sockpuppetry and having a conflict of interest. Neither of these are true. I am an avid user of wiki, was looking up what year Blackstone started investing in single family rentals, and landed on the wiki article thats first sentence was not up to wikipedias standard. A bunch of inflammatory, non definition links that belonged in a different section. I decided to join wikipedia and edit the article, and now plan to become involved as I enjoyed that process. Please do not accuse me of being a part of a "PR campaign" or sock-puppetry without any evidence. It discourages new members like myself to get involved. 3. I am happy to encourage the user to move these links to a different section with a more neutral tone. That is not a significant ask and well within wikipedias content guidelines --Theoracle102 (talk) 03:27, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Hello.

It's pretty strange for a brand new account to be talking about being "well within wikipedias content guidelines". Whether you are right or wrong about that, it's still pretty strange. Per the article's talk page, Blackstone Group has a specific documented history of paid editing. Undisclosed paid editing harms Wikipedia. By policy, Wikipedia is not a platform for public relations or advocacy, so this is a legitimate concern and I hope it's obvious why your sudden appearance and precocious behavior would be noteworthy.

It's also pretty strange that you copy/pasted a template warning from somewhere else. The template is specifically for WP:3RR violations, which means three edits within a 24-hour period. This doesn't apply, so your template was inappropriate. Please be more careful about this.

Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#For urgent situations specifically advises you to go to a noticeboard if things get urgent. It doesn't advise you to post the wrong template. Regardless, Wikipedia:Edit warring has a specific meaning, this doesn't seem urgent yet, and the article's talk page is the place to discuss this further.

If you're keen to become more involved, perhaps the WP:TEAHOUSE might be useful. Grayfell (talk) 03:44, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I will do that. I read the guidelines in detail and thought they were pretty clear. I also don't like comments on my page such as "Pretty clearly a member Blackstone's PR team. How embarrassing for them. Colinmcdermott (talk) 09:06, 7 September 2020 (UTC)". This are ad hominem attacks that don't address the content of my edits at all.

I will check out the tea house — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theoracle102 (talk • contribs) 17:00, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Andy Ngo

I saw the revert, but no sourcing. Where is the sourcing? --Deepfriedokra (talk) 21:30, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Inline citations are not the same as sources. The lead is a summary of the body of the article, which has many sources. The place to discuss this further is the article's talk page. Grayfell (talk) 22:14, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:26, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Mass reverts

Please stop mass reverting Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence. Other editors have already asked you to stop mass reverting articles like Andy Ngo. Iroh (talk) 20:13, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Are we looking at edit histories now? Aren't you the editor who wanted to downplay Jared Taylor's antisemitism? I'm writing out a comment for WP:FRN WP:FTN so that other editors can evaluate this content. Grayfell (talk) 20:18, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Jared Taylor is not antisemitic, I just wanted the section header to be consistent with its body (and I appear to have garnered a consensus on that point). I must admit I am not familiar with WP:FRN. Iroh (talk) 20:22, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Link: Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence Grayfell (talk) 20:30, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Phi Rho Sigma

Hello Grayfell. You've had a rather sharp red pen on a few of my contributions lately. For example, I have been cleaning up the article Phi Rho Sigma which had not been formatted anywhere close to the standard that my fraternities and sororities project adheres to, and I had frankly made it much cleaner. Our standard syntax allows statements of an organization's creed or operating goals, found in their constitution or separately on their website. Yet you've removed them, calling this WP:SOAP and "unnecessary detail.". I think this is an unfair, unwarranted and arbitrary characterization. Such items of content are the foundational motivations of these many groups. If your intent is to remove all such language from perhaps a thousand fraternity or sorority pages it will be distressing to the many volunteer editors who seek to maintain these thousands of fraternity and sorority pages. It seems unreasonable that you would do so, almost an attack on this particular page. Your edit comment suggests these should rather come from other verifiable sources. --But new groups don't have the luxury of inclusion in the reference standard for the fraternity world, Baird's Manual. Nor are the creeds or goals of these groups clarified in well-established news sources, as would be necessary for more controversial articles. Editors (like me) are forced to go to the group's constitution or bylaws themselves for this information. While not an independent, published source, a practiced eye can see that it is reasonable to assume they are accurate. Often they are accepted by host institutions as the documents whereby a chapter was accepted for student group status. You see?

Finally, while I am a participant in the fraternities and sororities project, I have simply zero connection with this particular group. (You marked the page with a third-party tag.) I am merely a volunteer editor with an Aspie streak, looking to improve all these pages. I've worked on hundreds of them. Honestly, I feel as if you are picking on these groups a bit. It's easy to do with tools like Twinkle, but I remind you that people adopt pages as a labor of love, as volunteers. Much of my work has been to trim bad, or biased content. What you removed was neither bad or biased.

I do appreciate the edit you made to the page which you labled MOS:DATED Jax MN (talk) 01:00, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Note: this particular organization is quite old, enough to have been listed in Baird's, but unfortunately, unlike many of the fraternities listed there, Baird's did not include a mission (purpose, creed) statement in the 20th edition, to which I would normally refer. Jax MN (talk) 01:13, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a platform for promotion or advocacy. This means that reliable, independent sources are necessary for almost everything of substance. Your obvious passion for promoting these organizations is at odds with Wikipedia's mission as a neutral encyclopedia. Regardless of any particular WP:COI, advocacy of this kind is not appropriate, and fails WP:NPOV.

As for Baird's, it is a single tertiary source which is heinously over-used on these articles. Wikipedia is also a tertiary source, and over-reliance on any single source is inappropriate. If an article is entirely dependent on Baird's (and the group's own promotional material) then the group is likely non-notable. Wikipedia has established guidelines for notability, such as (but not limited to) WP:NORG. We do not presume that an organization is notable, this must be demonstrated by multiple significant, independent sources. All sources need to be evaluated in context, and again, Wikipedia strongly favors WP:IS. This means that any article on a fraternity or sorority will reflect that group in proportion to reliable sources. This is not a new or extraordinary standard.

I intend to improve these articles as I find them. It seems that this usually means trimming promotional language. In my experience, almost all of those "thousands of volunteers" have a COI themselves, and I suspect you are also aware of this problem, or you wouldn't have mentioned it. WP:EFFORT is not a valid justification for preserving poor content. We have to evaluate articles on their own merits, not based on some arbitrary or flawed precedent. Further, Wikipedia is for everyone, including people who reject the legitimacy of the "Greek" system. An article which tacitly endorses the Greek model is inherently non-neutral. Far too many of these article use non-neutral language to inflate the significance and value of the organizations. This is a problem which needs to be solved, it is not an excuse to add more promotional material. Again, your obvious passion for this model is clear, but this is not the platform for sharing that passion.

I am not interested in a protracted discussion of this. Please make any response succinct. Grayfell (talk) 02:29, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Potential idea

It's an idea, inspired by the constant fringe and COI promotion in the medicine area and the recent village-pump thread, that reminded me of the importance of MEDRS. Considering that the same problem persists, maybe something similar would be useful in relation to claims about the intelligence of groups, genetic correlates, etc... —PaleoNeonate – 08:23, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: This is an intriguing idea. I don't know how this would work, but I am curious to hear more about it. I think the recent FRINGE RFC shows support for better tools to deal with this. I've pointed to MEDRS in some cases, since psychology can be medical, but usually that's a stretch.

Also, I can't tell for certain, but it does seem like there is a surge in racialist pseudoscience activity on Wikipedia these last few days. Maybe I'm just reverting more of it than usual. Grayfell (talk) 03:07, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Are you aware of the MEDRS-level sourcing requirement that Barkeep49 implemented as a discretionary sanction on the R&I article? Using DS to target problem articles could be a faster/easier option. –dlthewave ☎ 03:59, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

I had forgotten about that one. Easy to lose track on that page. In that thread we see some very poor-quality sources being proposed because they are in peer-reviewed journals, so I'm not sure how much that actually helps to prevent fringe issues. Grayfell (talk) 04:23, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Conversion therapy section on Restored Hope Network Page

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The website of the organization specifically indicates it does not support conversion therapy, however, I left the section and the initial comments in their original form. However, I think it is worth citing that the organization itself denies these claims. I think it would be akin to new sources claiming such and such an organization was a "white-power organization" and the group claiming otherwise. Neither makes the true nature of the organization definitive, but I think it is worth mentioning when an organization accused of being one thing specifically refutes that claim. Otherwise, are we not biasing our understanding of what the organization is on what external sources ay alone, and not letting the public see both sides of the argument, and allowing them to make their own decision? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TexasHoosier (talk • contribs) 04:18, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Since I have already mentioned some of these issues, the appropriate place to continue this discussion is Talk:Restored Hope Network. Thank you. Grayfell (talk) 04:23, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Jews

Hello, Greyfell,

Editing on this article is veering into edit-warring territory. You are a very experienced editor and so I know you already know this but I'm just giving you some encouragement to try to involve other editors on the article talk page to resolve the dispute over this content. I've posted a notice on Maxim's talk page but I try to avoid templating long-term editors if I can avoid it. Thanks. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:59, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Yesterday, after three days of discussion on the talk page, I made an edit, and then promptly explained that edit. How many days would I have had to wait for a response before this wouldn't be edit warring? This is a rhetorical question.

I assume you're commenting based on behavior, not content, but it's silly to pretend that they are completely separable.

An article as important as Jews should not be left with issues this bad. This content seriously misrepresents sources, and also happens to align with a talking point from the fringe theory of Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence, which is based on white nationalist pseudoscience. I've explained this on the talk page, and other talk pages, and at WP:FRINGEN, and nobody, including "the other editor" seems to disagree that this theory is fringe garbage. So why is this theory's paper still cited in the article without any context at all? That's not a rhetorical question, but the article's talk page would be a better place to answer it. Grayfell (talk) 03:40, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

nanosolar

Hello, Greyfell totally new to Wiki but found some nice information that I thought worth sharing. I tried to up load my source document under file but they are pdfs which I found wiki does not like. I have the original investor deck, a print out of a dodsbir.net article, and First meeting of incorporation. Oh and a print our of an email chain from the two founders "Nanodigm is simply being renamed to Nanosolar to reflect our current product focus" — Preceding unsigned comment added by FindingPaperwork (talk • contribs) 00:00, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

@FindingPaperwork: Hello.

To recap the issue: Information on Wikipedia should be verifiable via reliable sources. Although sources do not have to be online, there does need to be a way for editors to confirm these details. Without sources, this is original research, which is not allowed.

A printout of an email chain is almost certainly not appropriate as a reliable source. See WP:PRIMARY. If this email involves specific people, WP:BLPPRIMARY also applies.

For other, public sources, I would take a look at Help:Referencing for beginners.

If you found this information online, you should include a link if you can. If this is behind a paywall, see WP:SOURCEACCESS.

If the information is not online, is unambiguously public information, and also is not copyrighted (or you own the copyright and are willing to donate it), you might be able to uploaded it to Wikimedia Commons. This is a sister project to Wikipedia, and has it's own set of rules and guidelines. Wikipedia:Wikimedia Commons explains this further.

One other thing to keep in mind is that Wikipedia strongly favors independent sources, although they are not always required.

I hope that helps. Grayfell (talk) 01:06, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

@ greyfell The Wikimedia commons page is where I attempted to upload the documents but it stated something about the documents were not media. I have file box on everything related to nanosolar's early days. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G4UMlW7DxYfKcJ9tDHsvVKqP5IrR3fjh/view?usp=sharing FindingPaperwork (talk) 01:47, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

@FindingPaperwork: I'm confused. If you got these from dodsbir.net, why are you trying to upload them? If you found this information online, it would usually be much better to direct readers to that source.

Like I said, Commons is a sister project. It has its own set of rules and guidelines. Perhaps Commons:Help:Contents would be helpful, but beyond that I cannot offer you any more assistance. Grayfell (talk) 04:36, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Soldier's Memorial, Santa Fe

Hello fellow Black Rock citizen! I wanted to let you know that I modified some edits you made to Soldiers' Monument (Santa Fe, New Mexico). I don't think that these protests that toppled the obelisk had anything to do with the George Floyd protests, but rather they had to do with Indigenous People's Day, a.k.a. Columbus Day. Please let me know if you would like to discuss in more detail. Thanks and good meeting you here in the default world. Netherzone (talk) 23:12, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

@Netherzone: Hello, nice to meet you!

For my own future reference, these are the edits we are talking about. The article is still kind of a mess, so my edits were just to make the lead meaningful to people trying to understand why this monument is/was important, and why it was toppled.

So first thing first, I think that regardless of the details, the lead should definitely mention that the obelisk has been toppled. Right now it doesn't mention this, it just says the plaque has been damaged. This is misleading. One of the four commemorative plaques was already damaged. What is new is that the obelisk has been removed from the plinth.[3] Most of the monument (by height, at least) is currently gone.

I didn't actually say in the article that the toppling was part of the George Floyd protests. My addition said that it was toppled during Indigenous Peoples' Day protests.

The timeline, as I understand it:

• It was erected in 1868
• One of the the four plaques was chiseled in 1974
• That same plague was severely damaged in mid-June 2020, at or around the same time the tip was removed for safety reasons. [4] ← this is the part that was around the time of the George Floyd protests
• The obelisk on the plinth was toppled on 12 October on Indigenous People's Day.

Since these all seemed import to the history of the monument, this was what I tried to summarize in the lead.

Hopefully that explains what I was trying to do with the article. Grayfell (talk) 00:11, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi Grayfell, dusty greetings and thanks for your quick response. I agree the article is still in the messy formative stages, and that the article is an important contribution to the encyclopedia. It was mainly the mention of the Floyd protests that I felt could be confusing to readers who might conflate those protests with Oct. 12 indigenous peoples protests. I was tired when making my edits earlier and introduced some errors which I hopefully self-reverted. Yes you are right, it is critically important that the lede mention the toppling of the obelisk (as well as the plaque damage) because the toppling is the most demonstrable statement/result of the recent protest. As more news of the event and the aftermath unfold, there will be more content to work with. In the meantime it's on my watchlist. Have a good evening. Netherzone (talk) 00:31, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Thoughts on this

Kia ora Grayfell, came across this editor who I thought sounded very similar to recently banned IP but dates don't match as account made before IP. However, I see there is more history to it all from Admin noticeboard and Trolling so wanted to get your thoughts. NZFC^(talk)(cont) 23:27, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Howdy.

Yeah, I noticed that editor as well. I don't think there is enough to behaviorally link that editor to the Tennessee Verizon troll mentioned in the two ANI links, and the style seems very different. It's possible, but connecting any one editor to another here is difficult. The username being a possible reference to LeafyIsHere is also a bad sign, but it might be a coincidence and it's better to wait and see. If their goal is disruption, forcing us to spend our time playing Whac-A-Mole means they still win.

Still, there is something weird going of for this topic. As I said above at #Potential idea, I've noticed a sudden surge in racialist pseudoscience edits. It might be a sock farm, but I think it's more likely coming from some offline site or twitter account or similar. I just checked, and as I expected, Emil Kierkegaard (who is banned from editing) tweeted about the recent AfD several times. He blamed it on "communists". The IP claimed a private slack channel was being used to coordinate trolling. This was a failed ploy to cause drama and paranoia, but it's also probably semi-accurate. I would be very surprised if there weren't private "human biodiversity movement" Slacks, Discords, etc. floating around spreading this nonsense. There aren't actually that many of them, but the "HDB movement" is very online, and most of online world is bored and anxious. Grayfell (talk) 01:12, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Human genetic clustering article

Hi Grayfell. I'm considering listing the article on human genetic clustering for deletion as a case of WP:TNT. The tl;dr argument is it's original synthesis as an unreadable hodgepodge of quotes and arbitrarily-selected studies with virtually none of the text dedicated to actual clustering methods or their interpretations. Do you have any thoughts?Citing (talk) 21:05, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

@Citing: Hello. That's an interesting idea. I've reverted some WP:BE at that article in the past, but I have to admit that much of the technical details of that article go over my head. I suspect they go over the heads of a lot of other readers, too, whether they admit it to themselves or not. Based on the Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence discussion, that won't stop them from commenting "Keep - topic is notable".

As you may already know, "clustering" is very often used as a euphemism for "race" by the Human Biodiversity Movement and other scientific racists. Something similar is going on at nations and intelligence quotient, where "nations" is merely another proxy for race, creating a WP:COATRACK of race and intelligence.

Sorry, now I'm rambling. I dunno. I'll look at the article closer when I have a chance to dive into the sources more. Grayfell (talk) 22:29, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Right, I've seen a lot of abuse of "clusters" in that sphere. It caught my attention since the topic is very close to my area of research. The scientific sources cited are not bad per se, but the problem is basically every genetics study involves some sort of cluster analysis so citing specific studies is cherry-picking and totally uninformative. As presented, the article implies that researchers are duelling and looking for "true" clusters and arguing about race when in reality what they're doing is using cluster analysis as one of several tools among many data sets to find signals of things like shared demographic histories. The article does a terrible job of explaining what the topic actually is and it's become a giant WP:COATRACK. It also doesn't help that the article was created (and thus shaped) by a now-banned editor who had a habit of edit warring in various race sciencey ways. I think an AfD would be appropriate (and I anticipate the same types of contributions as there were with the Ashkenazi intelligence article), but since I saw your activity there I figured I'd give you a heads up.Citing (talk) 23:05, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

FYI, discussion is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human genetic clustering.Citing (talk) 16:51, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Rod Dreher

@Grayfell and Donner60: Is this a case where we should be reporting a violation of the three-revert rule? I don't think I've ever made such a report before. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 03:53, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

@Grayfell and 207.161.86.162: I have puzzled about this because it may be that everyone is in good faith, even if some mistakes of approach or errors in applying policies could be involved. Off the top of my head, I tend to think a request for some level of temporary page protection might be appropriate. Another thought is that it might help to have a neutral, uninvolved third party give an opinion about anything that should be included or omitted after reviewing the stream of edits as a whole. There is a page to request such opinions but I am not sure that anyone would necessarily want to get involved as this may be more controversial than I supposed as I looked at a small piece of it. On the other hand, some administrators might be willing to take a look at it from that view rather than straight out blocking the user. I must admit that my one revert of an edit which removed text without explanation was done with a Huggle edit and I did not notice all of the ongoing edits so Greyfell, who apparently looked at this more closely, might have a definite view on making a report. I have been editing for a while and do not recall that I have ever made such a report - which really doesn't mean much because that does not mean they are not appropriate in some instances. Donner60 (talk) 04:34, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Hydroentanglement

Hi! I noticed that you were there on the subject. I am trying to improve the article. Kindly see and advice. Your suggestions will help me. Thanks and regardsRAJIVVASUDEV (talk) 08:54, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

@RAJIVVASUDEV: Hello. I last edited that article on March 2016, and I don't remember much about this topic. Looking at your changes, my only concern is that patents are WP:PRIMARY sources and should be used with caution. It is almost always better to cite a secondary source when possible. I hope that helps. Grayfell (talk) 00:09, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Well noted, all. I am sincerely thankful for your time and guidance. Is it possible to add another source (secondary) along with the existing ones? Best regards RAJIVVASUDEV (talk) 04:23, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Consensus on Talk:2020 United States racial unrest

Hi, I believe this proposal is what User:Lmomjian is referring to. I think it has support from all of the editors who have been involved (on both sides) in the discussion. Stonkaments (talk) 01:06, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

That proposal doesn't remove the word "education". There are other problems I could raise, but the place to discuss this further would be the talk page, not here. Grayfell (talk) 03:32, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi Grayfell, keeping/removing word "education" is not important to me, I'm fine with leaving that in, if we can agree to the proposal that would be great as we consider that a pretty good compromise between the various edits that people have been warring over in the past week or two. This has been very controversial. Thanks, Lmomjian (talk) 04:58, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

As I said, the place to discuss this further would be the talk page, not here. Grayfell (talk) 05:05, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

• Yeah... the place to discuss this is on the article talk page, but I think everyone here knows that. Not only did most of the editors involved in that thread not even respond to the linked comment and hence I think it has support from all of the editors who have been involved (on both sides) in the discussion is presuming to speak for a great many people, Aquillion saying I would oppose any weakening of the wording right before they reverted Stonkaments's fourth deletion in a row of the same material definitely does not mean "I think it would be a great idea if Lmomjian deleted this instead." --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 12:25, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

November 2020

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. You appear to be repeatedly reverting or undoing other editors' contributions. Although this may seem necessary to protect your preferred version of a page, on Wikipedia this is known as "edit warring" and is usually seen as obstructing the normal editing process, as it often creates animosity between editors. Instead of reverting, please discuss the situation with the editor(s) involved and try to reach a consensus on the talk page.

If editors continue to revert to their preferred version they are likely to lose their editing privileges on that page. This isn't done to punish an editor, but to prevent the disruption caused by edit warring. In particular, editors should be aware of the three-revert rule, which says that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Edit warring on Wikipedia is not acceptable in any amount, and violating the three-revert rule is very likely to result in loss of your editing privileges.

Please don't edit war, even to revert disruptive edits. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:14, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

@Liz: Holocaust denial is vandalism. Grayfell (talk) 03:16, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

ArbCom 2020 Elections voter message

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Unity edit

Hey there, you recently reverted a change I made to the Unity engine page asking for a source why the Golden Axed game was made with Unity. I have it installed and it has the Unity dlls and telltale APPNAME_Data folder. As for as citable sources it's hard to find anything as there's really no posts by the authors about it but the Moby Games page entry for this lists is as belonging to the Unity engine group. Unfortunately I can't find any source that mentions Unity. I'm not a seasoned veteran like you on Wikipedia so help me out here. I know this is a Unity game (based on looking at the assets) but other than the post mentioned, there's no online source to verify it. Even the author Tim Dawson doesn't mention it in his thread on Twitter. A search through the Steam forums has several mentions of it by users [5] but again, these are not really reliable sources as far as Wikipeia goes. So how can one verify something like this? Thanks. bsimser (talk) 06:11, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@Bsimser: Hello. Good points and thanks for bringing this up. This is a tough one. Generally, Wikipedia doesn't publish original research. Usually I would say we shouldn't bother to mention this if a reliable source cannot be found, but there are a couple of complications. The game's development was specifically more significant than the game itself, and the game was developed before Unity became ubiquitous. I have restored the entry with a 'citation needed' tag, and will also explain this on Talk:List of Unity games so there is an obvious place to continue this if necessary. Thanks. Grayfell (talk) 09:01, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@Grayfell: Thanks for the clarification and update. I agree some things are hard to verify and would normally be excluded, but I thought this entry was somewhat noteworthy because of the history of the game and the development of the prototype and it's release. Hopefully they'll be some kind of citation published and I'll update the entry. Appreciate the help. bsimser (talk) 13:31, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Canuck the Crow

Hello, Grayfell. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Canuck the Crow".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:02, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Changes to Hoskinson page

Hello Grayfell, I see you removed the 'Category:People associated with cryptocurrency' on the Charles Hoskinson page when you added 'Category:People associated with Ethereum'. This seems inconsistent, in that the two main Ethereum founders are listed as both, and Hoskinson has been a founder of more than one crypto. What are the rules on this? Thanks. IOHKwriter (talk) 12:45, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

@IOHKwriter: Hello. The guidelines are at Wikipedia:Categorization, and specifically at Wikipedia:DIFFUSE. Unfortunately categories are not very consistently applied on Wikipedia, so it is easy to find more examples of where this should be fixed. Grayfell (talk) 19:49, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Schenck

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I have discussed in the talk page. Since no one has given a response in the last few days. I decided to make the change if you disagree please say something there. 3Kingdoms (talk) 02:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I already did, which you should've checked before posting this. Don't bother to respond here. Grayfell (talk) 04:38, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Happy holidays

Luminarias	Happy Holidays!
	Hi Grayfell, May your holidays be merry and bright, and hope you have a happy and healthy 2021 Netherzone (talk) 14:48, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I hope you had a happy holidays as well. Grayfell (talk) 09:46, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

James Charles

I left a replied to your message on my talk page so go and have a look. Flash Lloyd (talk) 12:31, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Happy New Year

Happy New Year 2021 I hope your New Year holiday is enjoyable and the coming year is much better than the one we are leaving behind. Best wishes from Los Angeles.   // Timothy :: talk

Thanks! Happy new year to you, too. Grayfell (talk) 09:46, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

It looks like the user FinishedCycle trying to push the Jewish Bolshevism conspiracy theory and that the Nazis are left wing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Miscellany_for_deletion/Draft:List_of_Jewish_Communists

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1935_Free_City_of_Danzig_parliamentary_election&diff=1001735366&oldid=997587367

And what somebody else said about this user,

(Confusing Israel's cause with American Jewry in general is a common mistake among antisemites) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Military_history_of_Jewish_Americans&diff=989293926&oldid=989242367

They also did this edit https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Georgy_Arbatov&diff=1001684192&oldid=1001017733.78.97.16.58 (talk) 04:26, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I've added some other information on my talk page in response to this IP's post there, and have pointed DougWeller and Liz to it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:45, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Emil Kirkegaard

I noticed this article was just created, although there was a consensus to delete the artice a few years ago. I find it likely the article creator might be a sock-puppet. Do you have any idea how to manage this? Should I file an SPI or take the article to afd? Psychologist Guy (talk) 17:42, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

@Psychologist Guy: Hello. Good catch. I wish I could offer more help.

Before AFD, it might be helpful to have an admin check to see if this is similar to the deleted version. Qualifying for WP:G4 would be a time-saver. Perhaps User:Doug Weller can help, as I believe he is familiar with the Kirkegaard situation, and also this cluster of accounts.

I agree that sock puppetry is likely. The article is too superficially well written to be from a completely new editor, and the jump from simplistic sandbox edits to an almost fully-formed article with different cite templates within a few minutes is extremely precocious. There are so many possibilities to choose from, and several of Kierkegaard's colleagues and detractors have a history of this kind of behavior. As OpenPsych was created by Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Anglo Pyramidologist in a similar precocious fashion, this would be my guess, but I'm sure we can both think of other likely candidates. Grayfell (talk) 23:08, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I was thinking it might be AngloPyramidologist but there was also some other drama reported about this newly created article [6] at the conflict of interest noticeboard, it is alleged that the same user who created the article has been commenting about this on another website (RationalWiki) and he claims to be involved with Kirkegaard. Of course [7] could be a sock as well. It's all a bit of a mess. I think there are socks involved but I don't know who they belong to. Kirkegaard was banned on Wikipedia so its possible it might be someone involved with him or it could be someone associated with AngloPyramidologist. I think the article should be deleted because I read over the old afd and there was a broad consensus to remove it. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:16, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

[8] account has admitted to owning "accounts" in the past. This is an obvious sock-puppet. Perhaps an admin should look at this. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:31, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

This was also mentioned at COIN, where a Wikipedia user pointed out that someone on Rational wiki (apparently not Kierkegaard) owned up to creating this article as a promotional effort. Possibly (talk) 00:11, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Just so we're all on the same page, Emil Kirkegaard has been banned from editing Wikipedia by ArbCom. A large amount of accounts have been created various places which claimed to be Kirkegaard, but which were almost certainly impersonation for trolling.

So, if BerlinburgerTor is editing on behalf of Kirkegaard, this is WP:BE via WP:MEAT and that account should be blocked. Based on past history, the likelyhood of a joe-job is relatively high, however. I think Throwaway314 is correct to say this looks like whitewashing, which means the account which created the article is less likely to be AngloPyramidologist... However, considering the long history of tedious games, nothing should be taken for granted. Grayfell (talk) 00:24, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@Greyfell:then it sounds likeWP:MEAT, based on the rational wiki post, which I sent you via email. @Psychologist Guy:, Throwawayaccount314 strikes me as a user with a conscience...of course I could be wrong. Possibly (talk) 01:07, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

(You cannot fix ping, it must be added at the same time as a signature) @Psychologist Guy:.

Yes, thanks for the email, I saw that post. We should WP:AGF for Throwaway314 for now. There are a lot of serious issues here, and honestly it's hard to know which one takes precedent. Grayfell (talk) 01:22, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

This is just my own speculation but I believe BerlinburgerTor is Kirkegaard or a working colleague of his and Throwawayaccount314 is AP or someone associated with him. Both appear to have been in an online dispute that has spilled out onto multiple websites going back to 2019. The Kirkegaard article was written in a positive way so I strongly suspect conflict of interest that it was created by someone who knows Kirkegaard. If that is WP:Meat then its a problem and the article should be flushed. I now see its not worth filing an SPI because both Kirkegaard and AP have been stale since 2019. The BerlinburgerTor is quite suspect because Tor is in the last name. They may be using a TOR browser. I understand we must assume good faith on here but I strongly suspect both of these are not new users and they have been blocked in the past but I cannot prove this. Is it worth filing an afd? I might raise this at the admin board. I think an admin needs to weigh in about this. Psychologist Guy (talk) 01:45, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@Psychologist Guy: if you saw the rationalwiki thing,it seems likely it is a colleague. I leave it to you two to figure out... (PS: BerlinbergerTor is a bit of a pun on the Berliner Tor station and/or Brandenburger Tor) Possibly (talk) 02:58, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I have seen it now thanks. This is definitely a case of meat-puppet/sock-puppetry. An IP has raised this issue at WP:ANI [9]. Thanks for the heads up about Berliner Tor station, I didn't know that. Psychologist Guy (talk) 03:20, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@Psychologist Guy: the two are pretty different - the deleted one in fact is more damning. Doug Weller talk 10:50, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@Grayfell:, @Doug Weller:, @Possibly: not sure if it is a case of meat-puppetry/and or socking but a new account has tried to create the Emil Kirkegaard article again. Psychologist Guy (talk) 15:58, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

"Weasel Words"

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Can I question how my edits to "Make America Great Again" were in any way weasel words? all I did was rewrite the sentences so they didn't present the views of a few individuals as unquestionable fact? surely presenting opinions as facts more accurately fits the discription of "Weasel words"? 999ThingsToFix (talk) 05:32, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

"some now consider it" is textbook WP:WEASEL. If reliable sources "consider" it something, then so does Wikipedia. Discuss on the article's talk page, if necessary. Grayfell (talk) 05:34, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

opinion sources from reliable sources are still opinion sources the article currently states that "maga" is a racist phrase, that is an opinion whether you like it or not. 999ThingsToFix (talk) 05:46, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I am not interested in debating you about this on my talk page. As I said, the place to discuss this is the article's talk page. Grayfell (talk) 06:30, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Thanks !

Thank you for give me the welcome, and explain me the main reason why the popular culture sections should have a significance. I appreciate this kind of amiability very much. Regards. --Xillegas (talk) 06:51, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh, sure, you're welcome. Glad I could help! Grayfell (talk) 07:17, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Edit war on "Steve Sailer" should move to talk page

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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There has been a sequence of edits & reverts on the Steve Sailer article over whether to include a note about the journal Intelligence ranking his blog alongside other news sources. In your edit https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steve_Sailer&oldid=1007664169 you noted "Do not edit war. Discuss on the article's talk page". The most recent section on that article's talk page discusses just that issue, but you continued a cycle of reverts rather than responding. I agree with your quoted recommendation and hope all editors (including you) hash out the issue on the talk page. TGGP (talk) 22:53, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

At this point, any further discussion should be held at a noticeboard, such as WP:RSN. Due to extensive past history of sock puppetry, WP:ANI may also be appropriate. Grayfell (talk) 00:48, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Writing Black History of the Pacific Northwest into Wikipedia - Editathon 2021

Writing Black History of the Pacific Northwest into Wikipedia - Editathon 2021 Friday, February 26, 2021, 1:00-5:00 PM PST with Oregon State University, Education Opportunities Program, and AfroCROWD Guest Speaker: Spelman College's Alexandria Lockett "Click here to register directly on OSU's site".

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Block evasion by IP?

Hey, I just discovered the fracas over at Talk:Steve Sailer and your observation about a possible block evasion by IP range Special:Contributions/2600:1004:B100:0:0:0:0:0/40. This same range has reverted and opened a talk page discussion at Flynn effect. I'm not entirely sure how to deal with this type of issue. Do you have any advice? Generalrelative (talk) 18:45, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Yup, that looks like more of the same. This IP has a long, well-established pattern of acting in bad faith. It's silly to pretend that an edit to the Flynn effect isn't a topic ban violation. My approach would be to revert the talk page post as a topic ban violation and leave a comment on the talk page explaining this. HATting it is another option. Any more topic bans from this IP should be reported, to ANI I guess. I wouldn't bother humoring them directly, since their actions have shown them to be a WP:SEALION.

Incidentally, the Rindermann "survey" being cited in that discussion was printed while Richard Lynn was still on the editorial board. The editor-in-chief was Philip A. Vernon who is yet another Pioneer Fund recipient. There are also so, so many other problems with this junk science. You probably already know all this, but I think attrition is part of the IP's tool-kit, so it's worth emphasizing just how garbage these sources really are.

Some good-faith editors (and admins, unfortunately) apparently seem to think that these traits cannot be used to discredit a source, giving the benefit if doubt to Elsevier that it successfully imposes editorial standards on its journals. Based on shenanigans from this walled-garden, I reject this. Personality and Individual Differences is no more credible for race (or, ahem, "nationality") content than Mankind Quarterly. A bad journal that occasionally publishes valid science is still a bad journal, and we should stop being afraid to call this out. Grayfell (talk) 23:16, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your advice and perspective. I'll HAT the discussion, and if they persist I suppose I'll have to take it to ANI. Best regards, Generalrelative (talk) 23:43, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Image of D'Angelo Wallace

Dear Grayfell,

Yes, I do know of these facts about Wikipedia; it is in fact due to them that I had not taken much interest in uploading images to Wikimedia Commons, I just feared that I would put an image that I did not have the rights for. However, when I saw that D'Angelo Wallace's page did not have an image, I searched for one of his videos, took a screenshot and edited it slightly; I thought that this would not violate any copyright rules that Wikipedia has, and that it would be acceptable for me to consider the image my own work. I did not simply search for images of Wallace and upload one of them, or anything of the sort. From what I have understood (yes indeed, as you know, I am quite a new Wikipedian!), I see no reason for this image to be a copyright violation. Besides, I had seen it done in other articles, such as Danny Gonzalez's. Could you pray explain, more precisely, how I am in the wrong?

But thank you for the warm welcome, I quite appreciate it! Editing Wikipedia articles is a great pleasure for me, not only for the obvious reason of me enjoying it, but also because I am thus ultimately, in a way, helping Wikipedia continue to thrive as it has for two decades now.

Sincerely, Meduer (talk) 22:31, 9 March 2021 (UTC).

@Meduer: Hello, thank you, and sorry!

Unfortunately, copyright on the internet is a huge pain.

That said, screenshots are one area where it's a bit more simple. This is explained at Commons:Commons:Screenshots. As that page explains:

Screenshots are derivative works and as such subject to the copyright of the displayed content, may it be a video, television program, or a computer program.

This means that since the video is owned by D'Angelo Wallace, so are any screenshots of that video. When something is uploaded to commons, not only can it be used on Wikipedia, but it can be used by anyone for a broad number of purposes, including commercial. Ultimately, it is up to Wallace to decide if he wants to share his work in that way. There are a few ways he can decide to do that, but it's up to him to make that call. We cannot decide for him.

One way he could do that is by uploading his videos under a compatible Creative Commons license. YouTube does allow creators to use such a license, but it's up to them. The Jake Paul video (which is a good video) is not released under such a license, so screenshots from that video still belong to Wallace.

The image for Danny Gonzalez was published under such a license, which is mentioned at Commons:File:Danny Gonzalez.png#Licensing.

There are a few other ways for him to share an image, but it gets complicated pretty quickly.

To make things even more complicated, Wikipedia and and Wikimedia both have different approaches to this. In some cases screenshots can be uploaded to Wikipedia instead of Wikimedia, but I don't think this is a such a case. Wikipedia:Non-free content explains this. Since a free photo of D'Angelo Wallace might exist, or could be created, a screenshot probably doesn't qualify. I still often make mistakes around this area even after many years editing, but if you have any more questions, I'll do my best to answer them. Grayfell (talk) 23:28, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Civility Barnstar
	Noticed your talk page and your contributions, appreciate the work you do. Qx.est (Suufi) (talk • contribs) 04:39, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Grayfell (talk) 23:04, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

,😉😉 Peach6972 (talk) 22:25, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

DLive

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Why do you have such a weak source and no legit proof of your claim that this conspiracy that the site is for white nationals? Its not, the site is clearly for gamers.. my fact is actually a fact, and your bias is obvious... keep using weak sources and keep being redone, because you have no solid proof, while I can easily take a screenshot of the site RIGHT NOW AS YOU READ THIS and completely own any comeback you have on this biased opinion and conspiracy from your own fragile bias.... grow up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.40.141.252 (talk) 20:49, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Resorting to personal attacks proves nothing, and is a good way to get blocked. As I have already explained on both your talk page and the article's talk page, Wikipedia goes by reliable sources, not original research. Grayfell (talk) 22:23, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Pradeep Adatrow

Hello Grayfell! Upon review of the page for Pradeep Adatrow, I have edited the subjective phrases and words from the article, as you requested. If this meets with your approval, I will remove the Peacock tag. Thank you so much for your valued feedback. Puppylove64 (talk) 20:31, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

No, you have not removed the peacock words at all. It seems very likely that we now have two accounts with plausible WP:COI concerns editing this obscure biography article. Please review Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry and Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure. Grayfell (talk) 20:36, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Hello again! I received your message and I assure you that I am not a major contributor to the article for Pradeep Adatrow and am not a paid contributor in any way. I am knowledgeable of him and his contributions to dentistry. I simply provided the information that was requested by you and another editor. I apologize for any confusion. Thank you again. Puppylove64 (talk) 20:44, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

I specifically said that you had not removed the peacock words, but you removed the tag anyway. Therefore I am not convinced that you do not have a conflict of interest. Wikipedia is not a platform for promotion or advertising. Grayfell (talk) 23:14, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Unilog Content Solutions - Remedy Issues

I am an employed contractor with Unilog Content Solutions and was tasked with updating the company's Wikipedia page. However, I continually receive "error" messages concerning the content. Since I am new to Wikipedia, please help me remedy the issues so that the warning messages do not appear on the Unilog page.

Christine Jordan (Wikipedia user name: UnilogJordan) christine.jordan@unilogcorp.com UnilogJordan (talk) 14:35, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

@UnilogJordan: Hello. The first thing you should do is create a page at User:UnilogJordan. On that page clearly explain that you are compensated for editing, who is compensating you, and all pages you have been compensated for editing. Do not include your email address. You may review Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure and WP:Conflict of interest#Paid editors if you need help with this. This information is already linked on your talk page.

I do not see any indication of "error" messages. These messages were added by editors who recognized a problem. It looks like what is happening is that you are being manually reverted by more experienced editors. This is because Wikipedia is not a platform for advertising or promotion. In the future, please propose any changes on the article's talk page at Talk:Unilog Content Solutions. I have created a blank page to make this easier for you. Template:Request edit is designed to facilitate these requests. You should not directly edit the article itself in most cases. You will also have to include reliable sources. It is better if these are also independent sources. These terms are explained at Wikipedia:Reliable sources and Wikipedia:Independent sources. Without such sources, it is unlikely your proposals will be implemented. You will also have to be patient. Thank you. Grayfell (talk) 17:57, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

RfC on racial hereditarianism at the R&I talk-page

An RfC at Talk:Race and intelligence revisits the question, considered last year at WP:FTN, of whether or not the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is a fringe theory. This RfC supercedes the recent RfC on this topic at WP:RSN that was closed as improperly formulated.

Your participation is welcome. Thank you. NightHeron (talk) 22:23, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Help with Laureate Education article

Hello Grayfell! I'm Patrice, from Laureate Education. Last year, you helped me see that I wasn't using Wikipedia correctly as an editor with a conflict of interest and cleaned up the mistakes I'd made on the Laureate Education article. Since then, I've been learning about appropriate behavior for COI editors, and have been working with volunteer editors to review and implement changes I propose at Talk:Laureate Education. I had a couple of people regularly responding, but they haven't been on Wikipedia for a while. I wrote an overhauled draft of the Corporate history section, and am looking for someone to review it and give feedback. The current section, I think, has issues with WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, and WP:RECENTISM. In my rewrite, I've tried to present an improved version that can persist long term on the encyclopedia without needing much maintenance. I thought I'd reach out to you because of the work you did on the article last year. If you are interested and have time to take a look, you can see my post and a link to the draft here. Thank you! PMV1111 (talk) 22:10, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Block evasion

It appears the sock will not stop disrupting the article Latin Catholics of Malabar with his original research and a bunch of fake sources. Can we opt for a PP request?? R.C^{Outlander07@talk} 17:04, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Hello. Yup, that makes sense. I've requested temporary semi-protection: Wikipedia:Requests for page protection#Latin Catholics of Malabar. Thanks. Grayfell (talk) 20:38, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Physical features in articles about ethnic groups

Hi Grayfell! Maybe you can help me out here. I think to remember that there has been an RfC (or even a policy?) which concluded that articles about ethnic groups should only make very restricted use of descriptions of physical features (like "X people are overwhelmingly light-skinned" etc., and if added at all, only using sources that pass WP:MEDRS). Or is this just wishful delusional memory? –Austronesier (talk) 11:41, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

@Austronesier: good question. I don't remember a specific RFC for that, although it would make sense. It wouldn't surprise me if this has been discussed a few times, but I'm not sure where that would be. There are lots of likely noticeboards. MEDRS is a good comparison, especially since so many of the existing sources are very WP:OLDSOURCES that never seem to die a natural death.

To refresh my memory, I browsed some likely talk pages for anthropology articles, but nothing pops up. I'm surprised at how inactive some of these articles are, so maybe it hasn't come up before after all. If you find anything, or start something, please let me know. Grayfell (talk) 22:33, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Your edit summary on Fish for finance

Re this:

• I was unaware that the text of the France24 article was "plagiarized from a tabloid". I have attempted to find which one by plugging large blocks of text into Google, but it repeatedly gives me "no direct result". Could you give me a link? (It seems you've been a search and destroy mission against FR24 lately. I see that you raised the issue at RS/N, and they have indeed taken steps to avoid Google detection. All the right moves, but I think it would have been better to reach a consensus there first, then put FR24News on RSP, so that editors who keep articles on their watchlist after investing a great deal of time and effort into creating them weren't blindsided. There are people out there who would not do the investigations I just did and go marching off to AN/I about another editor off on some damn fool idealistic crusade. You don't need that and neither does the project).

• I won't put the italics back, but I think you're unnecessarily presuming the intent was to editorialize. My intent in using the italics was to make the contrast harder to miss. MOS:ITALIC does not bar the use of italics outside of obvious things like titles of works; while it does recommend that sometimes the writer recast the sentence, it does not suggest it looks too much like editorializing to discourage it.

• "It appears this bad source may be a symptom of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH issues." And it appears to me that writing that may be a symptom of WP:AGF issues. I don't see why you needed to say that ... you should have just stuck to the RS/N mandate. This was really something you needed to discuss on the talk page, and didn't. Daniel Case (talk) 23:17, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

"FR24" is not part of France 24, it's a doppelganger site. That outlet plagiarized with just enough word replacement to obfuscate detection. Bad sources slip through the cracks all the time, but there were red flags in this case. It happens. The issues with domain are currently discussed at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Fr24 News, which is how I found that article. There is a lot of cleanup needed for these kinds of spam farms, so sorry for being blunt. As I recall, that one was plagiarized from the Daily Mail or similar, so I cannot link to the original article, but you should be able to find it yourself by looking for very close paraphrasing.

I'm not interested in guessing about your motives. The use of italics for emphasis is a form of editorializing, which I assume (in good faith) that experienced editors already know. This issue is made more clear then the sources are tabloids and worse. Again, it happens, but it's a red flag in this case. Articles should not use separate sources to imply a conclusion not supported by any one source alone, which, again, I assume you already know. Grayfell (talk) 23:36, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

For future reference, I have posted a comment about this on the article's talk page: Talk:Fish for finance#Scope and sources. Grayfell (talk) 22:23, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

"The use of italics for emphasis is a form of editorializing, which I assume (in good faith) that experienced editors already know." That assumption is at odds with MOS:EMPHASIS, itself part of MOS:ITALICS. If it were true, I don't think that section would read as it presently does: "Emphasis may be used to draw attention to an important word or phrase within a sentence, when the point or thrust of the sentence may otherwise not be apparent to readers, or to stress a contrast ..." I would concede that maybe in an article about a controversial topic (such as the one that started this discussion) one should try more to avoid it than usual (a "usual" which I also agree is pretty sparing), but there's still a long way to go towards saying all use of italics is necessarily editorializing. I searched but could not find any MOS talk page discussions that considered this possibility even in passing.

I'm fully aware of how WP:SYNTH works; I just don't see how you invoke it where only one source was at issue. I had no idea (and apparently I wasn't alone) that fr24news.com was not (oops, don't wanna "editorialize" there) not France 24, much less that the article represented as original to the site was in fact lifted from another source without attribution in a way that made it difficult to trace. It was an honest mistake that I am happy the article has been purged of. There was no ulterior motive on my part and I do not like one being imputed to me by the invocation of policies. If you genuinely aren't interested in guessing my motives, don't use language that strongly suggests that you are. Daniel Case (talk) 02:59, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Italics are conversational, but they are rarely formal. If sources emphasize a point, it follows that it's possible to explain why they emphasize that point, and we can then avoid typography tricks. To put it another way, we use sources to decide which words are important. The use of italics I saw in that article was editorializing, because it used typography to indicate something was important without explaining why it was important, nor did it explain who believed it to be important. Before I removed it, I did not pay particular attention to who added it, so I was not speculating on your motives. The end result, intentional or not, looked to be a form of editorializing. Perhaps not always, but this did not appear to be one of the rare exceptions to me, and I have not changed my mind on this yet.

As for your snarky comment about italics on a talk a page, we both fully know that we're allowed to have opinions and to express those opinions on talk and in edit summaries. You don't have to like my edit summary, and you don't have to pretend to like my comments here, but the initial point is about the content in an article.

Out of hundreds of sources for the article, one was found to be especially bad. These sources are not only plagiarized, they are mechanically altered in ways that makes them fundamentally untrustworthy for even the most basic facts. For your benefit, I tracked down the original. I was mistaken about it being Daily Mail, it's Daily Express (which has a similar standing per RSP but has not been blacklisted yet.) In this particular case, the original article is not radically different, but it's different enough to subtly change the meaning and introduce some (more) factual errors. But that doesn't matter that much does it? As the acronym goes, GIGO so it needed to go, and the point it supported should not be presumed important without a better source.

Adding bad sources happens. I've done that before, we've all done that, but this one was indisputably bad. Like I said, it happens, and I've inadvertently included sources as bad as that, and sometimes it takes too long for someone else to notice. The problem is that we don't just slap on sources to support our own prior understanding of the topic. I know you must agree with this, because the article is very heavily and meticulously cited. The alternative is that we have to look at what those garbage sources were supporting and adjust the article accordingly.

This was more complicated than the other uses of that source I cleaned up, and addressing the source required me to make a call on the content it supported.

Your comment here and on the RSN post seems to suggest that you were not yet aware of just how common and how disruptive these spam sites are. You also mistakenly state I'm the one who first raised the issue. That is not correct. I was one of several editors who made a few edits to help fix a serious problem someone else identified. There were dozens of source that needed cleaning up, and during this cleanup effort, another spam/copyvio farm has been identified with hundreds more citations. This ongoing issue is discussed on the RSN and Spam noticeboards, but it is unfortunately a very routine occurrence. This isn't the first such farm I've identified, and I'm not even particularly active in this area.

One part of the complication for this specific article, as I've partly indicated on the article's talk page, is that it was used in combination with a footnote, and that footnote was placed in support of a larger point that was not directly made by text of those footnotes. This format is not always synth, but there is a high potential for it. I view this as synth because it looks to me like it was using sources to form conclusion A, and then placing that conclusion A to indirectly support conclusion B. When at least one of those sources is as awful as the fr24 one, like I said, it's a pretty big red flag.

I think any further discussion of this specific issue should be on the article's talk page. Grayfell (talk) 06:49, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

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Meme coin (removal of link)

Hi Grayfell and thank you for improving the wiki. However I reject the removal. The link removed is relevant due to its original content and referrals in source (comments from Swedish bus-travelers and photos). It is worth highlighting that the advertising happened in more than just one country for the afterworld as this probably will be discussed in coming months/years, and will happen in other countries as well. Sources within certain areas (such as cryptocurrencies) are often new and does not have a lot of authority (you could check any crypto-related wiki). Tamegame33 (talk) 23:09, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Tamegame33: Hi there.

This is a pretty common issue in general, and specifically with crypto stuff. A core principle of Wikipedia is that info in articles must be supported by reliable sources. Further, there is a strong preference for independent sources. To put it another way, editors find reliable sources and use those to explain to readers why info is encyclopedically significant.

For a source to be reliable on Wikipedia, it should have a reputation for accuracy and fact-checking, which is demonstrated by clear editorial oversight, a track-record of being cited by other reliable sources, and a demonstrated willingness to issue retractions and corrections when necessary. I noticed that you have edited three articles since your account was created in August, and each time you used Cryptoholics.com as a citation. That website doesn't seem to have any of these things that would make it reliable. It also potentially suggests that you may have a conflict of interest. If so, please carefully review Wikipedia:Conflict of interest.

Further, that particular source is pretty vague and appears to be based on someone else's tweets. It basically just says at least one ad was shown on at least one bus stop in Stockholm. Everything else is either unrelated or speculative.

As you mentioned, this is part of a larger trend. There is a serious lack of reliable sources for information about cryptocurrencies and related things like blockchain, NFTs etc. Wikipedia is a volunteer project, so editors will differ on which sources are reliable and which are not, but over the last few years, consensus has been pretty consistent that that crypto outlets should be handled cautiously. This isn't necessarily a condemnation of every single crypto story in every crypto outlet. I often find sources which are useful for crypto, but which still should not be used on Wikipedia for various reasons. For Wikipedia, this should be a prompt to keep looking for better sources. Grayfell (talk) 01:30, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The No Spam Barnstar
	Your edits in the crypto topic area are greatly appreciated. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 20:24, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Grayfell (talk) 21:30, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Decentraland (Event relevance)

Hi! Regarding this edition, and the comment "Why, exactly, does this one event matter to the history of this project?". The relevance of the event is expressed in the section "attracted 40,000 people". The source doesn't put that number in perspective. But other sources cited through the article do: "number of concurrent users of around 1,600 in 2021", "the experience as mostly empty". Should the relevance be self contained in the same source? Or can it determined by linking the information given by other sources? Thanks! Eibriel (talk) 04:52, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Hello. That's a good question.

For future reference, this discussion is about this edit. To repeat the full edit summary for convenience: While the source does support this detail, it is a passing mention. Why, exactly, does this one event matter to the history of this project?

The source is this article from Voguebusiness.com, which is about twenty paragraphs long, give-or-take. Most of the article is about a completely separate set of events, scheduled to be held near the end of next month to coincide with fashion week (which is typically held later *this month*, but whatever).

The specific quote from that source is the first half of a longer paragraph: This is not Decentraland's first big event. In October, a four-day music festival with acts including Deadmaus and Autograf, among 80 other artists, attracted 40,000 people. Since then, there are up to 12 Decentraland events daily, with daily attendance records regardless of events, Hamilton says... (Hamilton is referring to Sam Hamilton, creative director at Decentraland Foundation).

So to answer your question, Wikipedia's guidelines advise against combining sources to imply anything which isn't supported by any source in isolation. This is known in Wikipedia jargon as WP:SYNTH, meaning synthesis of sources.

Using this source to imply that this number is important looks like synth to me. Vogue Business isn't talking about Decentraland because of the music festival, so we have to weigh this in that context. Further, attracted 40,000 people implies it was total over the full four days, and not a peak number at one time. If we're implying something about how popular Decentraland is, that's a very important distinction, but it's not the main problem with this approach. We shouldn't be implying anything at all. We should summarize what sources are actually saying. So why, exactly, is this specific concert significant?

The mention of Autograf also tells me that this blurb is coming from Hamilton, which casts it in a promotional light. To be blunt, Autograf are too obscure for this to make sense in this context. The readers of Vogue Business might reasonably know who Deadmaus is. I don't think many of them know who Autograf are, unless there is some fashion industry connection I'm not aware of. So why mention information that will only confuse readers like that? Grayfell (talk) 06:53, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to explain it in detail. Eibriel (talk) 13:47, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

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Mathsci (talk) 14:50, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Usurp

Not sure ping went through, you were mentioned Wikipedia:Link_rot/URL_change_requests#malaysiandigest.com_usurped. -- GreenC 17:19, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. (The ping didn't go through because User:Greyfell, with an "e", is a WP:DOPP account.) Grayfell (talk) 23:00, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Edit summary

Grayfell, this edit summary may be read as attacking the motives of another editor [10]. The problem is that it implies my edit was based on trying to spread/legitimize false information vs my actual intent which is to adhere to IMPARTIAL. It's perfectly reasonable to dispute my edit but that could reasonably be read as an implied accusation. I don't believe that was your intent but the next editor to read it may not realize that. Thanks Springee (talk) 20:25, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

The summary was directly about your edits, which restored euphemistic language and weasel wording in a way which granted credence to a fringe perspective by casting doubt on the scientific mainstream. I have no patience for false balance or false civility. I have no interest in discussing this issue further on my talk page. Grayfell (talk) 22:21, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

If you have no time for civility you shouldn't edit Wikipedia. Civil is one of the pillars. Springee (talk) 22:31, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

I said false civility. Don't bother responding here. Grayfell (talk) 22:37, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Request input on sockpuppet investigation

You appear to have dealt with the Saint Thomas Christian sockpuppeter before. I ask for comment on another suspected set of accounts for cross-reference: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Qaumrambista ~ Pbritti (talk) 07:18, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Okay, I will take a look and comment if needed, but probably not until tomorrow. Thanks for letting me know. Grayfell (talk) 08:04, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Can't imagine any reason why you'd need to rush. Thanks. ~ Pbritti 13:27, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

TRHmTivl

What do you think we should do about this editor? I’ve reported their five copyright-violating photos and they’ve been removed, but they continue to add copyrighted materiel to a draft page, as well as edit war—all while adding no comments. ~ Pbritti (talk) 14:18, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

I think posting to the edit-war noticeboard was the next step. It looks like there is a language barrier, and I'm sympathetic to that, but this person needs to communicate more. I'll comment at AN/3, as well. Grayfell (talk) 20:29, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

True North Centre for Public Policy

Hi Grayfell, I noticed you had put a note on the Peter Brimelow talk page so I thought you might be able to help with a different article. I ran across True North Centre for Public Policy today, and in the edit history, saw that there's a user named Bigbluenet whose edits are almost exclusively to that article, and they appear to be designed to remove any unflattering information about the group, even if it's sourced. I reverted their edits to what I saw as the "last good version", and was almost immediately reverted back by the same user. As I'm not familiar with the group or the article (yet), I was hoping you could offer some input? Thank you. Fred Zepelin (talk) 23:17, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

@Fred Zepelin: Hello. I have posted some links about WP:COI to that editor's talk page, and have asked for clarification. (The next step would probably be WP:COIN, eventually.)

I am not very familiar with that organization. If reliable sources are comparing them to Brimelow and Rebel Media, it makes sense to explain that in the article, but the article doesn't really do that, at least not yet.

I reject the other editor's implication that the CBC source cannot be used because it is "very biased", but WP:WEASEL wording should be avoided regardless. Without context, saying it "describes itself" as so-and-so is a form of editorializing which casts doubt on the statement. It looks like these descriptions are disputed, but we cannot just imply that via vague wording in the lead. We need to directly explain why they are disputed, and indicate why this is encyclopedically significant. The article sort-of does this, so the lead needs to follow the article.

I hope that helps. Grayfell (talk) 00:42, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

It does, thank you. I reverted the removals again. I don't see any problems with the material that Bigbluenet removed - it's sourced to reliable sources and I'm certain his removals were entirely POV-related. Fred Zepelin (talk) 22:46, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

How we measure quality

I reviewed the articles I cited. These articles have been republished on 30+ websites. Would it make you more comfortable if I choose a Yahoo version of the article in the future, even though they're also a republisher yet they serve ads (and video ads!) throughout the page? I fail to see "spam" in the links I cited. Those pages don't even have AdSense. I fail to see what they have to gain by my minor citations.

I don't mind you changing the links. But labelling a website as spam just because they're not popular/commercialized by ads, even if the republished content is the same as commercial websites and written by leaders in their respective fields, seems disingenuous. Articles are republished all the time. The author is what makes them credible.

I appreciate your contributions to Wiki. I am also trying to help improve the page with more updated content. You don't seem to have an issue with the substance of my updates. But I also don't want the sources I find labelled as spam just because you haven't heard of them, when they're republishing quality content without annoying ads. This should be encouraged not discouraged. 104.158.121.12 (talk) 05:36, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

No, this is spam. The two links you added were both copied verbatim from theconversation.com, which is a non-profit organization which doesn't include advertising. Both links you added were to Canadian websites which do include advertising. Neither of those sites published any significant original content at all, meaning both exist to monetize other people's work.

Citing theconversation.com, which doesn't include advertising, is obviously the less "annoying" option. There is no legitimate reason not to cite the original source here. The complete lack of information on two commercial website those sites about who they are is also pretty damning, since reliability of a site is determined by its reputation for accuracy and fact checking. Your preferred websites lack this reputation, so they are inherently less reliable.

Comparing these to to Yahoo is misleading, but for what it's worth, I frequently remove or refactor Yahoo News links as well. Any use of Yahoo links should also be clearly attributed to the original outlet (the "via=Yahoo News" field or similar works well). Grayfell (talk) 22:30, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I worked at a major news outlet for a long time. 99% of our content was from other sources such as Canadian Press or CBC. Yet there is legitimacy in our articles solely because of who we are. A smaller website can have the same rights to republish Canadian Press articles yet according to you, it would be labelled as "spam". You can remove it on the basis that there is a better source to cite. However, that does not make a smaller website "spam". Do you also label Yahoo, AOL and MarketWatch links as "spam" since they (like most websites) also monetize their content? If you're merely indicating that there's a better source to cite, but not also labelling them as "spam", then in this case, you are showing your own prejudice towards a name you don't recognize, not because they do anything differently than other, better known websites. 104.158.121.12 (talk) 22:47, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I am following WP:RS. Neither of those websites provides the usual indications of reliability that Wikipedia editors typically use.

However, it now sounds to me like you have a conflict of interest. Please carefully review Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. You may also find Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide helpful.

The two edits you made were both spammy. Other, hypothetical edits you might make in the future would have to be evaluated on their own merits. But yes, when someone is deliberately favoring a commercial website over a non-commercial one which publishes exactly the same content, I do also label that as spamming. Yahoo, AOL, etc. are both notorious publishers of churnalism and similar, and I aoivd them for that and other reasons.

Worse, it looks like your websites also publish undisclosed native advertising, such as this gem attributed to "Community Partners" which is obviously promotion for convexstudio.ca. This is yet another sign that the these websites are unreliable and should almost never be cited on Wikipedia, because Wikipedia is not a platform for promotion or advertising.

You're not likely to convince me otherwise at this point, but feel free to take it to WP:RSN or WP:COIN if want a second opinion. I don't think you'll find a lot of sympathy for your cause there either, though. Grayfell (talk) 23:07, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I am not disputing that The Conversation is the better citation. I am disputing your reasoning. You and I clearly both use Wikipedia. We both have a vested interest in ensuring that it is top quality. However, just like I don't respond by saying you must be on the board of directors of The Conversation, you making unfounded accusations of conflict towards me is unnecessary. What have I gained from adding a Canadian perspective? This only deepens my concerns about your own personal biases when editing.

Would it surprise you to hear that Yahoo and AOL also have plenty of sponsored content on their websites? In fact, it must shock you to know that they each pay for content from other sources that will get clicks and ad revenue. However, does that mean everything from Yahoo and AOL should be labelled spam, sketchy and made for advertising? Or would you still assess each piece of content on its merits and authorship? How many Wikipedia citations point to pages that may have display ads? Are they all automatically marked as spam? You could have easily made the edit on the basis that there is a better citation. That is the role of an impartial editor. Instead, you feel the need to keep defending yourself while making baseless accusations at others.

As for "the need to convince you" or to get a "second opinion," if you've read anything I've said to date, you will know I am not disputing changing the citation to The Conversation. My problem is with you running around making baseless accusations, such as accusing others of spamming or being in a conflict, instead of remaining impartial in your reasoning. You had no basis of accusing me as such, and you know it. 104.158.121.12 (talk) 05:28, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

As I said, I am unconvinced, and trying to sell me on the supposed legitimacy of "sponsored content" when I specifically mentioned undisclosed native advertising does nothing to change my position here.

As I said I generally avoid citing Yahoo and AOL for multiple reasons. Wikipedia should not cite sponsored content for factual info, and any site which fails to clearly differentiate sponsored content from legitimate journalism should not be trusted. But even that is misleading, because this isn't just about "sponsored content" in the abstract, this is about a pseudonymous group of website that publishes undisclosed promotional mixed-in with random news stories taken from other, more legitimate, websites.

That said... In addition to spam and press releases, Yahoo! News does also publish some legitimate news content under their own name. Sometimes (not often) it is appropriate to cite Yahoo News, and context always matters with sources. I do not see any indication that it is ever appropriate to cite "e-radio.ca" or "earnwithsocial.ca". If there is a context when that is appropriate, I haven't seen it yet. Therefore, your behavior is indistinguishable from spamming. If you want to make a case for either of those two websites, you should do it elsewhere, such as at WP:RSN, but as I said, I think you'll be disappointed. Grayfell (talk) 05:55, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I've already said from the beginning that The Conversation is the better citation. You keep coming back to the argument that somehow I want to "make a case" for the two sites instead. I don't know how to make it clearer to you that I do not.

I have said, and your response confirms, that you are making unfounded accusations under the guise of impartial editing. Your comments show bias. This is my concern. That being said, upon reading some of the other posts on your talk page, I understand now I am not the first person to raise these points. 104.158.121.12 (talk) 01:57, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

On your talk page, I said you were adding inappropriate links to pages, and I used a routine template to explain the problem and ask you to stop. I am "circling back to this" because that is literally the only interaction we have had, and as far as I am concerned, describing those links as inappropriate is not unfounded, and is barely even an "accusation". The foundation is that these websites repost content taken from other more legitimate news outlets and mix-and-match it with pseudonymous promotional content, and present both in the exact same way.

I described both of those links as sketchy in edit summaries, and I stand by that description. The undisclosed promotional content is sufficient reason to call them sketchy. If you agree that these links are inappropriate, then this isn't an accusation either, it's just a description. Calling this "a Canadian perspective" doesn't really make much sense and doesn't make them any less sketchy.

If you think my behavior is inappropriate, feel free to discuss it at WP:ANI. Understand that those admins are probably going to look closely at both those two links, and your comments here, when evaluating your complaints. Grayfell (talk) 06:49, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Just saying thanks

Hello. I am a random wikipedia fan who does not contribute. I just wanted to say thank you for fighting the good fight w/r/t racialists and pseudoscientific enablers of White Supremacy. I saw many of your talk page posts and admire your candor and persistence.

71.175.33.102 (talk) 18:58, 11 August 2022 (UTC) mitch

Lindsay Shepherd

It's only tangentially related to True North Centre for Public Policy, but I made a few additions (sourced) to the Lindsay Shepherd article. I was quickly reverted by someone named Springee. I took a quick look at Springee's contributions page and I saw they are very experienced and often weigh in on right-wing figures' articles, usually to remove things that might be considered negative, whether sourced or unsourced. I though I might ask you to take a look at my additions and offer an opinion. Thank you! Fred Zepelin (talk) 21:18, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

@Fred Zepelin: Hello. I sympathize with your frustration (see #Edit summary above).

As for the content itself, I would avoid using quotes in the first paragraph. Adding new citations to the lead is not wrong, but it is a red flag for experienced editors. Sources really should be top-quality for BLP articles, also. Is Canadian Dimension a reliable enough source to be included? I don't really know, but it's obscure enough that any subjective quotes from it should be contextualized with attribution. The lead is usually not the place for that kind of thing. So for contested content like this, changes to the body should precede changes to the lead. Not everything in the lead absolutely must be in the body, but it will almost always belongs there too.

That is not a defense of the article's lead as it is, though. It's not a good summary of the body at all. I think that's a separate issue, however.

My advice is to wait a bit and make incremental changes with descriptive edit summaries. That way improvements can be preserved while deeper changes are discussed. Springee has started a discussion on the talk page. Sometimes those discussions are actually productive, so it's worth a shot.

I also should mention WP:CANVASS. There is really no way for anyone to know if you are coming to me because I am an experienced editor who's tried to be helpful in the past, or because you think I am ideologically sympathetic. I trust you are acting in good faith, and I certainly don't want to chill discussion, but it is something to be aware of and it's best to be totally transparent about this kind of thing to avoid the appearance of "tag-team" editing. Grayfell (talk) 02:20, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Affiliate marketing uncited-content removal

• Affiliate marketing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Good call there. But should the {{cn}} tag also be removed too? DMacks (talk) 14:08, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, that make senses. I dug through the history, and my modification is closer to how it original was, but it never had a source. I've added some sources that seem reliable which explain the overlap more, but the entire article obviously needs more sources, so there's no longer any reason to focus on that one paragraph. Grayfell (talk) 01:27, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. DMacks (talk) 02:20, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Affiliate marketing

Heads up, I removed the multi-level section of Affiliate marketing after I noticed that 2 of the original paragraphs were borderline copyvio from a self-published source, and that of the two sources you added, one doesn't back up that they're truly related (merely that they have similar scopes), and one (Ze Zook) was later updated to remove the claim that MLM and AM are equivalent. Since I no longer see any source tying the two subjects together, and given the context that MLMers have been trying to claim the (better) reputation of affiliate marketing for themselves for years, I've removed it. I'm absolutely inclined to discuss this (I promise I'll be concise!) on that talk page. Cheers DFlhb (talk) 17:25, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

I am restoring the content. The book that this was supposedly a copyvio of was published in 2020, meaning the author likely cribbed it from Wikipedia, not the other way around. Wikipedia isn't a platform for reputation management in either direction. We are a tertiary source so we are mainly looking to summarize reliable, secondary sources. The article's talk page is the place to discuss this further, but based on your comments on the Andrew Tate talk page, I think you should review WP:OR, WP:SYNTH, and WP:RS more closely, first. Grayfell (talk) 20:36, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Nomination of List of Unity games for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of Unity games is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of CryEngine games until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

Respiciens (talk) 12:44, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

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In reference to removing the SOL symbol from the Solana (blockchain) page

Regarding: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Solana_(blockchain_platform)&oldid=1114696668

Cryptocurrency do not have a formal ISO 4217 alpha-3 code (See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/BTC#Translingual for more context.)

“SOL” like other cryptocurrency tickers BTC, ETH etc. are informal only, though used widely across all platforms that track cryptocurrency, like https://coinmarketcap.com/ as well as products like https://coinbase.com/.

It seems important to include this basic detail on Wikipedia, so people know which ticker is the correct one (so they don’t buy the wrong cryptocurrency).

Thanks,

Aarongillett (talk) 00:10, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

@Aarongillett: Well, neither Coinmarketcap nor Coinbase are reliable.

But that edit wasn't about the ticker "SOL". Please look at the diff for the edit. That edit (back in October) did not remove the ticker SOL, it removed the symbol ◎. Crypto websites don't typically include this symbol. I think it's likely that was the wrong symbol anyway. ◎ redirects to Bullseye (target), but the symbol is visually similar to ☉ which is used in astrology to indicate the Sun, which makes more sense. But either of those symbols would still need a reliable source. Including either of these symbols in an article for an unrelated cryptocurrency is potentially confusing, at best. If you have a reliable source for the use of either symbol feel free to discuss this at the article's talk page. Grayfell (talk) 05:50, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification 🙂 Aarongillett (talk) 06:55, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Question about revert on StepMania page

Hi Greyfell, (I'm pretty new to making edits to Wikipedia)

I have a question regarding the following revert: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=StepMania&oldid=prev&diff=1127284429

Stapmania hasn't seen any recent updates, but the fork known as Project OutFox is in active development. (And therefor this may be relevant information for new players)

Since the Project OutFox page does not exit yet, I figured changing that internal link to an external link, may have been better.

If that's not desirable, then it's probably better to make sure the Project Outfox page *does* exist. What are your thoughts about this? Thanks in advance! Frankkie12345 (talk) 15:06, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

@Frankkie12345: Hello! Those are good points. I removed the links because (with few exceptions) external links don't belong in the body of an article, per WP:EL.

As for being a 'redlink', I have a question: does Project OutFox meet notability guidelines? Specifically, does it meet Wikipedia:Notability (software)? If the project is independently notable, meaning it is covered in multiple reliable, independent sources, then a redlink is appropriate per WP:REDYES. If it's not 'notable' in the Wikipedia sense, then a link doesn't belong either way.

The related issue is that the article's current sources are not great for this. Generally Wikipedia shouldn't rely on projects as WP:PRIMARY sources without support from a reliable independent source. While Project OutFox looks interesting and relevant, this should all be explained by reliable sources first and then summarized by editors later. If that cannot be done, it should be kept as brief as possible to explain this project's relationship to StepMania without unduly promoting it.

I hope that helps. Grayfell (talk) 04:38, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your clarification! I'll go have a look at all the articles you've linked. Frankkie12345 (talk) 20:01, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

"Boutique definition"

I like it. Bishonen | tålk 22:47, 15 December 2022 (UTC).

Happy New Year, Grayfell!

Happy New Year!

Grayfell,
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NPOV on Solana

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Thanks for removing primary references. However it seems very odd to remove, say, information on the Shaq and Brave partnerships but keep references to Melania Trump using Solana, or a reference to an security on a specific Solana wallet application to be the much more vague 'the Solana ecosystem had been targeted by hackers', as you did in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Solana_(blockchain_platform)&diff=1131876867&oldid=1131876267. Before 2023 the Solana Wikipedia page is mainly edits by people that wish to discredit the chain - hence 'Melania Trump' being the most notable item on the page. I have recently added items that more more positive, but kept the referenced negative information. Removing only the positive information is against NPOV.

Mikemaccana (talk) 10:30, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I have responded on the article's talk page. Wikipedia isn't a platform for promotion or advocacy, and my talk page isn't the place to discuss this specific issue. Grayfell (talk) 10:31, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm glad you agree Wikipedia isn't a place for promotion or advocacy, however the issue in this case is that wikipedia is not a platform for discredit. Mikemaccana (talk) 10:36, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

As I've already explained on the article's talk page, good articles will reflect reliable, independent sources. If those sources are "positive" or "negative", the article will reflect that accordingly. To intentionally add poorly-sourced positive content to balance out negative content is false balance. It's promotional and violated WP:NPOV. Grayfell (talk) 10:43, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

WP:NOCONFED

Please don't get me wrong here, I didn't want to amplify anything. My intention was to simply notify you about that comment, which I recognized as a personal attack as well, and give you the opportunity to respond to it. Nothing more, nothing less than that. — Sundostund mppria ^{(talk / contribs)} 15:30, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I understand that and appreciate that your intentions were good. In that particular case, I don't think anything productive can come from pinging that editor to my talk page. Since that comment was a personal attack disguised by pseudo-civil language, I don't think there's a whole lot I could even add if I wanted to. On the other hand, better editors than me are a lot more willing to assume good faith in situations like that. If it's even worth continuing that discussion, pinging me at that talk page seems like a better approach, rather moving the low-key harassment to my own talk page. Grayfell (talk) 23:57, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

The information was complete and credible.

The information provided in the page https://dasfinance.info/frontrunning-laws-and-penalty/ has been properly sourced and contains no factual errors. Dhirendra Chandra Das (talk) 06:44, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

The name of the author of that page matches your username. It appears to be your blog. It doesn't appear to be a reliable source per Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Wikipedia is not a platform for promotion, so that link is spam, which is inappropriate. Grayfell (talk) 19:53, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

On deletion of limits to growth mention in Golden billion article

Here is how Limits to growth got into article - first it was added without source (just because no good English source), but the flow of events is easy to comprehend - first there was a Limits to growth report, which caused discussions in Russia too, then someone (Tsikunov aka A.Kuzmich) decided to turn discussions into conspiracy theory. In his writings he does not mention specifically Limits to growth, rather some vague UN documents which were produced after Limits to growth caused widespread discussions. Then someone correctly added rather limited mention of theory in English language book, that theory become very popular. So you wrote - it's unclear why it was there. Hope now, after deleting something about which you have very vague idea, you understand, why the mention was in the article. SergeyKurdakov (talk) 15:38, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

as for references - some variation of justification with references for removed wording is in Russian wikipedia article, something is in https://www.nkj.ru/archive/articles/7328/ . In other words - the article in English on Golden Billion is far from being good. But it's better to make it better, adding references, rather than making it worse by removing relevant information, taking into account - that the term itself is not much discussed and just assumed as conspiracy theory, but it's importance is due to use by Russian state as an information weapon. So the better people against which the weapon is employed, understand nuances, it's for the better SergeyKurdakov (talk) 20:16, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Hello.

I think you misunderstood my comment slightly. I did review the history of the article before making that edit. Context would be needed for that sentence to be placed there, in that paragraph, and that context would also need sources.

Importantly, the information predates the citation. To include a citation which doesn't support this information is not acceptable. This misrepresents sources and makes further research more difficult. Since it doesn't belong in the paragraph and isn't supported by the source, adding a 'citation needed' template would just be making it someone else's problem. There is also a related WP:EGG issue.

If you have sources, and those sources are reliable per the English Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, then add those sources or discuss on the article's talk page. (Each language has its own guidelines for sources). We use reliable source to determine how relevant this information is. Especially for conspiracy theories, we need to use sources to explain details to readers, and we should be especially careful not to include original research. Grayfell (talk) 23:49, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

let me describe a problem which you do not see. That the author of the term is A Kuzmitch is wrong. I mistakenly written this information in the article many years ago, then somehow that slipped into book which is now used as a reference. Apparently author of the book used Wikipedia article without attribution. Now using this source you back delete some clarification to the term - and originally 'golden billion' appeared in discussions in Russian after excerpts from Limits to growth appeared in the press. Now regarding source https://www.nkj.ru/archive/articles/7328/ - this is an archive of the most popular Russian scientific magazine in the past (which is offline due to being out of business now).

So I'm not against - let it be as is. Just be sure - it's a funny caricature.SergeyKurdakov (talk) 08:55, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Bitcoin

Regarding blockchain.com... I get why blockchair.com has gotta go.. but why is blockchain.com not a reliable source? Who in the industry would be reliable, if not blockchain.com. Thanks!

Haxwell (talk) 16:22, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Also, good call removing a quote I added regarding "no intention" to ban bitcoin. (for posterity, it was: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2021/09/30/fed-chair-powell-says-he-has-no-intention-of-banning-crypto/) As I looked into the transcript for the meeting, he seems to be talking more about CBDCs and stablecoins than anything else, and certainly didn't mention Bitcoin. Some irrational exuberance there, for sure. https://www.congress.gov/event/117th-congress/house-event/LC67940/text

Haxwell (talk) 16:29, 9 March 2023 (UTC)