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Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection

Report

Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (36 out of 7771 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Type Summary Admin Juan Pablo Duarte 2024-05-30 12:34 2025-05-24 16:16 edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry: request at WP:RFPP Ymblanter Operation Golden Hand 2024-05-30 02:48 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Kidnapping of Naama Levy 2024-05-30 02:42 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Alex Dancyg 2024-05-30 02:36 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Al-Mawasi refugee camp attack 2024-05-30 02:19 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Draft:Palani Baba 2024-05-29 21:25 2024-11-29 21:25 edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry Ponyo 2024 Gaza freedom flotilla 2024-05-29 21:17 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:PIA Ymblanter Suraj Mal 2024-05-29 20:46 indefinite edit,move Persistent sock puppetry by WP:LTA; WP:GSCASTE Abecedare History of the chair 2024-05-29 19:57 2024-08-20 04:53 edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry Ymblanter Template:Sources exist 2024-05-29 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2503 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Environmental impact of the Israel–Hamas war 2024-05-29 05:35 indefinite edit Currently on the main page and the article has only just been moved; just avoiding that we'll create a redirect. Schwede66 Rakon 2024-05-29 03:34 2025-05-29 03:34 edit,move Contentious topics enforcement for WP:CT/A-I; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Hamas war crimes 2024-05-28 22:07 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement ScottishFinnishRadish Irene Tracey 2024-05-28 21:23 2024-11-28 21:23 edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:PIA Ymblanter Bill Shields 2024-05-28 19:39 2024-06-28 19:39 edit,move Persistent sock puppetry Rosguill Revolutionary Communist Party (UK, 2024) 2024-05-28 13:40 2025-03-12 13:45 move Persistent disruptive editing; requested at WP:RfPP 2 weeks for RM discussion to run its course Robertsky 25 May 2024 Kharkiv missile strikes 2024-05-28 13:08 indefinite edit,move WP:RUSUKR Robertsky Draft:Palestinian civilian involvement in the October 7th attacks 2024-05-28 12:26 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:PIA, WP:ECR El C Anti-BDS laws 2024-05-28 01:27 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:PIA, WP:ECR El C Ceasefire proposal for Israel–Hamas war (May 5) 2024-05-28 01:12 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:PIA, WP:ECR El C Tel al-Sultan airstikes 2024-05-28 01:11 indefinite edit Move warring: Move requests only from this point on El C Human wave attack 2024-05-27 22:16 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:RUSUKR Daniel Case Tel al-Sultan 2024-05-27 22:10 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Karla Sofía Gascón 2024-05-27 21:36 indefinite edit,move Contentious topics enforcement for WP:CT/GG; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Tel al-Sultan airstrikes 2024-05-27 21:26 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP; will also log as CTOPS action Daniel Case Asian News International 2024-05-27 21:10 indefinite edit,move Contentious topics enforcement for WP:CT/IPA; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Tel al-Sultan massacre 2024-05-27 21:10 indefinite edit Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Rujm el-Hiri 2024-05-27 11:06 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:PIA, WP:ECR El C Far-right politics in Israel 2024-05-27 04:27 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Twitter Files 2024-05-27 04:05 2025-05-27 04:05 edit,move Persistent disruptive editing: per RFPP; will also log as CTOPS action Daniel Case History of the Jews in Gaza City 2024-05-27 02:45 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement Izno Accusations of United States complicity in Israeli war crimes in the Israel–Hamas war 2024-05-27 02:03 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement ScottishFinnishRadish List of equipment of the Pakistan Army 2024-05-26 20:58 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:IPA Ymblanter Wars of the Deccan Sultanates 2024-05-26 14:11 indefinite move Move warring Ivanvector Meritt North 2024-05-26 14:00 2024-06-02 14:00 edit,move persistent removal of AFD template while AFD discussion is open Bearcat User talk:46.35.177.94 2024-05-26 13:51 2026-03-29 00:00 edit,move Persistent block evasion: requested at WP:RFPP Favonian

Topic ban appeal

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

---

I'm here to appeal my topic ban from caste related articles that i recieved on 21 June 2021 :[1] BLP, POV issues along with civility issues were cited as the reason for topic ban. :[2]

In the future, I will only rely on broad perspective scholarly sources for the changes i wish to make and utilise venues such as WP:RSN and WP:DRN incase the dispute arises.

I will avoid making any edits that might be deemed promoting a POV. If I get reverted, I will seek consensus on the talk page and refrain from edit warring . I will not accuse or cast aspersions against any fellow editor. I will maintain civility and take additional time to seek the consensus.

It has been roughly two and a half years since I was topic banned from caste related articles, during this time my contribution has been constructive to Wikipedia, having brought Brajesh Singh to DYK section on Wikipedia's front page aswell as participating in recent NPP and AfC backlog drives. I have also been granted permissions such as new page patroller, rollback and pending changes reviewer. I have stayed out of trouble and I have not been blocked or received any other sanction other than this topic ban. I hope my topic ban will be lifted. Ratnahastin (talk) 11:21, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

• Support Convincing appeal. ArvindPalaskar (talk) 12:52, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
• Support - Ratnahastin deserves a chance to prove themselves. GoodDay (talk) 14:28, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
• Support - I have been watching Ratnahastin edit since he was on a verge on getting topic banned. He has reformed big time as his appeal clearly shows and has been significantly productive for this site. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 16:57, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

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

Dozens upon dozens of questionable redirects created by now-blocked user

• JailBrokenIPODGoneWild (talk · contribs)

Today I've discovered that Special:Contributions/JailBrokenIPODGoneWild, a user now blocked for harassment, had created dozens upon dozens of questionable redirects related to public transportation. The redirects are all from color terms to a specific transportation line or service in systems where lines are depicted with colors on maps but not referred to by color in conversation or in official operations. The problem is that these redirects have qualifiers in front of the color terms like "Dark" and "Light", when nobody speaks like that, at least not in America. Nobody will say "Take the Dark Red Line"; people just say "Take the Red Line". If a given system has multiple lines or services that share a core color with different shades, the core color title should be a disambiguation page. Example of redirects that I just turned into disambiguation pages today are Green Line (Metra) and Orange Line (Metra). Again, very few if anyone would actually use the color qualifiers in conversation and thus I'm led to conclude that these redirects are implausible. The issue is the sheer quantity of them - way too many to list at RFD. How do we proceed from here? Taking Out The Trash (talk) 21:52, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

• Holy crap. This user has created a whopping 12,000 redirects, and that's not including the 500ish additional redirects that have already been deleted. There's no way that all of those are valid. This may be a bigger issue than it seems on the surface. Taking Out The Trash (talk) 22:00, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Some redirects appear valid (e.g. List of countries by calling code) but the majority appear to be nonsense. I think we need community consensus to allow admins to review and delete at their discretion. GiantSnowman 22:03, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
• Looks like a 13k editor that was not blocked for socking, so WP:G5 and WP:NUKE is not an option here. Their activity and the block were both over a year ago. Looks like they were on the redirect autopatrol list at the time of their blocking, so all their stuff got autopatrolled. RAL at the time of their blocking, with them on it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:07, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
• Notified: Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:09, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
• (from RFD): This is, uh, not good...

  The worst part is that many of the redirects look plausible, at least the most recently created ones.

  I think the best way to proceed is to have a formal, community-wide discussion on Are Such Redirects Helpful or Valid, preferably at the Village Pump, and if community consensus is that they are not, and that they would be deleted at RfD, then mass-delete them as a community action. (Non-administrator comment) Cremastra (talk) 22:31, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

• This user has had plenty of redirects come to RfD before and I think they should probably continue to be handled that way; I fear that the mere fact of being blocked for an unrelated reason could place unwarranted scrutiny upon these redirects. While some of these redirects may be undesirable, their problems seem at a glance to generally be in the class of "implausible search term", not very harmful, rather than "targets wrong place", actively harmful. At the least, the most recent redirects are very helpful creations. J947 ‡ ^edits 01:51, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  • I skimmed through a few hundred of these redirects and most seem at first glance to lie somewhere in the space between "probably fine" and "implausible search term"; nothing Neelixual. Is there a way to find the ones that have inbound links? Folly Mox (talk) 03:06, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Was it unrelated? Was it for harassment at all?

It is unclear from Special:Diff/1106477198 what prompted the 2022 block by Daniel Case, or the determination that this was a trolling/harassment-only account. I haven't found any noticeboard or talk page discussion since the 2009 discussion of the creation of redirects at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive579#Redirects for every street in Manhattan. I haven't found a single talk page contribution from this account in 13 years, so it is perplexing what the trolling/harassment was. And the block log entry is no help.

Uncle G (talk) 02:33, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

• Looks like it was in response to this AIV report, which just expressed concerns about the redirects. I'd be curious to hear how people reached the conclusion that this was a vandalism-only account/troll: at a glance most of the redirects appear to be pretty clearly in good faith, whatever one might think of their usefulness. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 02:51, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

I RfD'd a few of JBIGW's creations, and wasn't surprised to see them blocked eventually. (I'm not dismissing Uncle G's concerns about the procedure of the block, but in either case that level of WP:COMMUNICATE was going to lead to a block sooner or later.) My perception of JBIGW's redirects in general, though, is similar to Folly Mox': Most probably weren't worth creating, but at the same time don't need to be deleted. Before we go too far talking about a CSD X3 or whatever, could someone put together a list of, I dunno, 20 redirects they think would almost certainly fail RfD, and say how many redirs they had to go through to compile that list? Right now it's hard to get a feel for the shape of the problem, and if it is such a massive issue, this shouldn't be too hard to put together. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 04:50, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

• It is more that Taking Out The Trash said above that JailBrokenIPODGoneWild was blocked for harassment and J947 commenting that this was unrelated and could result in unwarranted scrutiny. But from what Extraordinary Writ has turned up the block log entry is misleading, the block was actually directly about the redirects, and they were characterized by Sir Joseph as vandalism.

  That report was made on 2022-08-24; the most recently deleted redirects, created on 2022-08-20, were the ones from Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 May 18#MBTA Silver Line line redirects; and the most recently not-deleted redirects were the likes of Postal code (United States) and List of Internet top-level domains (country) which may be useless, but which as Extraordinary Writ says do not really say vandalism-only account let alone trolling/harrassment.

  They also contain KOP, Pennsylvania and 84, PA created that day which seem unlikely but conceivable search terms that are fairly obviously in line with the target articles's contents. And from the previous month Geography of State College, Pennsylvania and its ilk seem uncontroversial and Government of Veracruz actually got used by someone else in an article

  So I think that you are right, and both a case for vandalism and a case for "Holy crap. 12,000 redirects" need to be made with examples.

  Uncle G (talk) 10:47, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  • For the record, I think Postal code (United States) is a great redirect. How am I supposed to remember what they call their postal codes? Zippers? Something like that. Cremastra (talk) 15:15, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
    • In this case, the best solution is to have Postal codes have a list of links to individual countries' pages where they exist (possibly as a navigation box); I believe that parantheticals generally make unneeded redirects, except where either there is the potential for a future article, or where an ENGVAR-alternate article with the parenthetical already exists (e.g Orange (color)). Animal lover |666| 08:58, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
      • I'm generally lenient on redirects – my criterion is, is this potentially useful to a reader?, as they are after all WP:CHEAP and generally harmless (they are usually a small net-positive, even if they seem unusual), but we should probably leave theses specifics to later. (And I'm aware I'm probably not wholly within policy with my views). 🎄Cremastra 🎄 (talk) 13:05, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

(Undid automatic archival) So what exactly should be done here? I haven't had the chance to comb through all 12,000+ redirects, but I can tell you that the ones like "Dark Red Line", "Dark Green Line", "Light Green Line" etc when referring to transit lines are implausible, since nobody talks like that. The problem is that there are simply too many of these alone to send them all to RFD. Taking Out The Trash (talk) 19:13, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

• @Taking Out The Trash: I don't see a problem with them. Take, for example, Light Green Line (Shanghai). The target notes that the line is displayed as "light green" on the system maps (Green Line (Shanghai Metro) correctly redirects to Line 12), and there's no ambiguity. It is 100% plausible to call it the "light green line" because that's what it is. 🎄Cremastra 🎄 (talk) 19:57, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
• We're not quite in Miniscule boobies territory, but the similar situation with Neelix in 2015 is what WP:X1 was created for. With consensus we could just reactivate it, add this user's name to the criterion, and let it be handled naturally until no longer needed. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 22:17, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
• What should be done is make a case with examples, as two of us stated above. Because the rest of us looking through this edit history haven't seen one leaping out at us. Actually make your case. You're leaping to the next step of asking something to be done assuming that a case has been made. It has not been. Uncle G (talk) 14:26, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Appeal of the removal of EC membership for User:DMH43

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

---

I (@User:DMH43) recently obtained EC membership. Since then, I have made several edits to ARBPIA pages (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/DMH43). Today, I had my EC membership revoked by User:ScottishFinnishRadish, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DMH43#Extended-confirmed_revoked. Quoting this user's message:

you rushed to 500 total edits and then immediately switched entirely to editing ARBPIA topics exclusively. That is a clear case of WP:GAMING just to regain access to ARBPIA.

I argue that my edits were not a case of gaming based on the rules described. The Gaming page describes restrictions as being preventative rather than punitive. I would consider the removal of my permission as punitive since no one has brought an issue with the contents of my edits (which I don't think have been controversial in any sense). The Gaming page does describe a case of gaming to gain EC access:

An editor makes many unconstructive edits in a sandbox to become extended confirmed, and then makes controversial changes to extended confirmed protected articles.

This is very different from my case. The example described is a clear manipulation whereas my edits have been valuable phrasing, formatting, citation and content improvements.

User:ScottishFinnishRadish also suggests I edit strictly non-ARBPIA pages for a few months. But this is not mentioned anywhere in the rules. This suggests that the action taken against me is punitive.

User:ScottishFinnishRadish also linked two recent cases (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1144#User:President_Loki and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1144#500/30_gaming_for_ARBPIA_editing) of users Gaming to gain EC access. Both cases are very different from mine. Specifically, the user mentioned in the first link has ~296 edits wikilinking "genus". The user mentioned in the second link has a HUGE number of very tiny, arguably useless edits. In contrast my edits are arguably much more substantial, very few are under 20 characters changed.

Based on the above, I think the action taken against me is unjustified (and strictly punitive, not preventative) by the rules and I should have EC membership restored. DMH43 (talk) 17:11, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

1) This account was open on 15 November.

2) The first actual edit was on 1 December - just over 3 weeks ago.

3) The first 100+ edits were in ARBPIA, in violation of 30/500. The user continued to edit in ARBPIA after being warned by me and other users, and stopped doing so only after I opened a complaint in AE.

4) After the complaint, the user started editing in other topics, many of the edits not very substantial.

5) As soon as the user got to 500 total edits, including many violation edits because they had edited in ARBPIA, they again started editing exclusively in ARBPIA, adding much POV material.

Seems like a clear case of WP:GAMING. Dovidroth (talk) 17:36, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Everyone can feel free to check that discussion which has now been archived without action. And they can check that I messaged you to notify that I would undo your reverts. None of my edits were controversial or malicious. None of my edits have been challenged as POV. DMH43 (talk) 17:43, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

How can the first 100+ edits be in ARBPIA where EC is the standard? Buffs (talk) 21:38, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

@Buffs, There are many, many BLPs which have WP:ARBPIA4 related content. Most are semi-protected but not all and not many are fully protected. I've seen quite a few instances of Non-EC editors editing these articles and have had to warn them a number of times. I've seen instances new accounts making their first 10 edits by adding and removing spaces to article to get past semi-protection and then moving to editing BLPs which are semi-protected in sections which are WP:ARBPIA4 related. I've brought it to WP:AN/I when I've detected it. It's a very live issue and I don't think enough attention is paid to it. I've seen quite a few RfCs which are WP:ARBPIA4 related and where there are a lot of editors who have just over 500 edits who all vote in exactly the same manner. I'm not going to accuse each of those specific editors involved in those RfCs of gaming but it's hard not to draw conclusions when the same phenomena is seen a number of times. TarnishedPath^talk 07:46, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I've also notified Dovidroth of this thread since they seem to have been quite invested in reverting you.

As for my opinion on the merits of the request, I'm not convinced that this was really gaming the system. Did the user rush to 500? Sure, but the edits, in my opinion, seem to be at least fairly reasonable on the surface. I'm also not really convinced the standard generally established in other cases like this was met here. I don't think ScottishFinnishRadish was wrong here, but I also don't think the revocation of extended confirmed was particularly necessary, and I don't see a reason that it shouldn't be returned to them. The links ScottishFinnishRadish gave to the editor on their talk page as examples of gaming don't seem very egregious, and it seems like the editor, while maybe a bit inexperienced, does still know what they're doing, and the page they made in ARBPIA is still up. Based on this, I would support returning extended confirmed to the editor. If they're really becoming that problematic in ARBPIA even with extended confirmed, blocks still exist, and so does a friendly talk page discussion. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 17:42, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I would say that immediately reverting one editor a half-dozen times as one of their first actions after gaining autoconfirmed demonstrate problematic ARBPIA editing already, and also demonstrate the problem with gaming extended-confirmed with minor copyedits with the goal of returning to ARBPIA. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:08, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Those reverts were undos of reverts performed because I didn't have EC. No issue with the content was raised at the time. And I notified said user. DMH43 (talk) 18:10, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I would argue my reverts are the most benign edits I could have made, since no issue was raised regarding the content when i originally made these edits. DMH43 (talk) 18:14, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, I didnt go on a reverting spree of a specific user. DMH43 (talk) 18:14, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

The fact that this user is calling POV-filled edits “benign” shows a lack of sensitivity to ARBPIA and that they are not ready to edit in this area. Dovidroth (talk) 02:56, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Those arent POV-filled edits, and if you had a case for removing them except for them being made by a non-ECP editor you could offer that. You dont though. nableezy - 14:23, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I have to agree with nableezy above. You could have explained that instead of just spamming "reverting editor not 30/500". You could have put a detailed edit summary in there, for what you actually thought was wrong with the edits. The editor was trying to contribute in good faith, which frankly it's a shame we don't just IAR these early ARBPIA edits and actually put a descriptive edit summary instead of spamming the same non-descript "user not allowed in here" garbage. Getting new editors acquainted is a problem, and this is part of it. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 14:34, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I disagreed with the edits, but there was no need to state that as you were non-EC and not allowed to edit in those articles in the first place. And I did not receive any notification that you were reverting me. Where do you think you have notified me? Dovidroth (talk) 18:59, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I had tagged you on the talk pages. For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Scars%20of%20War,%20Wounds%20of%20Peace?title=Scars_of_War,_Wounds_of_Peace&diff=prev&oldid=1191425028 DMH43 (talk) 19:01, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

As a matter of procedure, @Dovidroth: I'm pretty sure your reversions on Scars of War, Wounds of Peace above are actually a violation of ARBPIA4, remedy 6, stating in part, All primary articles will be subject to the ARBPIA General Sanctions. {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli enforcement}} should be added to the talk page of affected pages, and {{ArbCom Arab-Israeli editnotice}} should be added as an editnotice to affected pages. The presence of the templates is required before the General Sanctions can be enforced on primary articles. As that particular article is part of the entire set of articles whose topic relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict, broadly interpreted ("primary articles"), ARBPIA restrictions shouldn't apply unless the editnotice and talk page template have been applied. Regardless, it seems the editor wasn't actually prohibited by 500/30 from making those edits. POV is a different issue, but that can be hashed out separately. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 19:30, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

EggRoll97, while there are separate additional requirements for sanctioning editors for restriction violations, there is no such requirement for the extended-confirmed restriction to exist and apply in the entire topic area. Special:Diff/1188566854 is a fine revert and Special:Diff/1187991384 (2023-12-02), from an account created 2023-11-15, is a clear violation of the extended-confirmed restriction independently of the edit count. This doesn't mean that DMH43 has to be blamed for not knowing about it; it just means that your procedural concern is invalid. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:05, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

You used the automatic edit summary that says that you are reverting me. That is not exactly informing me. Either way, your cannot assume if I reverted you saying that you are a non-EC editor that I otherwise agree with your edits. Dovidroth (talk) 02:59, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

"Rushing to 500" is GAMING, and the policy at WP:PGAME should be updated to reflect modern understanding. This isn't the clearest cut obvious case of gaming ever, but yes if the first 100 edits, three weeks ago, are in violation of ECP, then someone putters around for awhile making edits like this and this and this (all trivial) and these (non-trivial, editor's most-edited article outside ARBIPA space, may be a genuine improvement, lots of references removed), and then immediately abandons the prior topic area to leap back into EC with seven reverts of the same editor and then publishes this (removing balance from Wikivoice, refbombing POV statement including a citation "by" |last=Nast |first=Condé with the balance unformatted, adding contentious material with a built-in {{cn}} tag at time of edit, then reinforcing the POV with an added paragraph at the end of the subsection): this demonstrates both intent to game, and unreadiness for constructive editing in ECP topics. Folly Mox (talk) 04:01, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

The first and third edit are also nontrivial from a conceptual standpoint, which i am happy to explain.

I also don't consider what I've done as abandoning. I am excited to edit pages which I havent had a chance to edit yet, which is why I am engaging more with ARBIPA content recently. DMH43 (talk) 04:09, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

"Trivial" was not the most appropriate description of your edits in the statistics and mathematics space. Your contributions were definitely better than the type that (for example) changes a single punctuation mark or adds a single wikilink. For what it's worth, I do sympathise with your position, and having looked more fully into your post-EC edits in ARBIPA, I definitely picked the most problematic one to link to (it was chosen arbitrarily).

What I was trying to convey was that your editing while waiting for EC wasn't the kind that engaged with any policies that will be necessary to understand for editing non-disruptively in contentious topic areas. I do see you've engaged appropriately at Talk:Oslo Accords, and your ARBIPA edits like this and this seem unproblematic. But both this edit and the one already linked above show that you haven't learned yet how to correct problems with your citations, which is going to be important in a contentious area; this edit and this edit display a propensity for placing quotes that align with your POV in eye-catching blockquote templates in prominent locations, the bit about removing balance to put your POV in Wikivoice I mentioned above, and the removal of all the references that didn't align with your vision for Statistical hypothesis testing concerns me.

Reverting the same editor on seven articles as soon as you were technically able to does give the impression of an antagonistic perspective. It's fine to disagree completely with someone else, but hopping straight to reversion instead of attempting to reach a compromise is how articles get disrupted. Reversion should feel icky, not triumphal. The goal is always productive collaboration, not our own preferred prose.

One major problem with ECP is that it's a purely numeric threshold standing in for what would ideally be a qualitative test of applicable competencies. The assumption behind the idea is that if someone has been editing for a month and made five hundred edits, they'll be sufficiently familiar with the rules for constructive collaborative editing, and sufficiently invested in encyclopaedic improvement, that they should be able to edit whatever articles call their interest. But if someone spends that month (not even, in this case) and those 500 edits making small edits in a space where they're not even interacting with other editors and then leaps directly into the most contentious topic on the project, the process hasn't worked.

I'd like to see an understanding of WP:NPOV, an approach of attempted compromise before resorting to reversion, and closer attention paid to citations. I'm not an admin and I don't usually edit content in contentious topics, so my opinion here shouldn't be taken too seriously, but I wouldn't oppose restoring EC after a brief period demonstrating collaborative editing in a non-ECP CTOP, or even just a personal reflection accurately describing the problems with the edits made before the permission was revoked. Also, WP:PGAME should be updated. When policy lags behind practice, it confuses people. Folly Mox (talk) 14:05, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I characteristically forgot: please don't add unsourced prose with a {{cn}} attached at time of edit. Even if done for the best of reasons it can lead to undesirable results.

Noting also for the crew that (per Zero0000 and nableezy) my understanding of PGAME as practiced may be in the minority, on the "overly strict" side. Folly Mox (talk) 14:50, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Ive brought up several GAMING violations in the past, they were all for doing mindless edits repeatedly with a clear intention to get to the restricted topic. But doing mindful edits with that same intention has never been treated as GAMING before, even when the intent to return to a CTOPIC is plainly evident. This editor, from everything Ive seen of their edits, will be a positive to our goals as an encyclopedia. There were editors previously who very plainly edit from the polar opposite of the POV spectrum that I encouraged to stick around because I also saw their edits would be a positive as an encyclopedia. Eg here. I think it would be healthy if we saw more of that instead of editors attempting to use procedural roadblocks to stop what is plainly a good faith and productive editor who is trying to follow the rules. I dont mean you to be clear, but it seems pretty plain to see that is motivating some of the comments here. nableezy - 22:08, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

The points you brought up are:

• I didn't edit pages which allowed me to engage with other users
• I started editing ARBIPA pages when I was given access
• I have shown some issues formatting citations and possibly other content
• I haven't made edits outside ARBIPA that clearly show an understanding of WP:NPOV.
• I reverted a user's edits who had reverted me for no reason other than I was new and did not have EC permission.

But none of this is close to breaking any rules, as far as I know. I followed the rules in good faith which is clear from my edit history. If the rules aren't sufficient and the "process hasn't worked" isn't that a call to update the guidelines rather than to punish me as a new user?

In response to your other comment, thank you for pointing out that I shouldnt use cn expecting someone else with find a citation. DMH43 (talk) 14:55, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I think this thread provides adequate guidance, and I'm feeling convinced by nableezy above that the string of reverts were reverts of technical reverts of DMH43's own edits (which I didn't realise at first). Levivich makes good points below, as does Zero0000 in their response to my question.

Emotionally I feel bad for taking a stance which I wrongly assumed to be consensus, but turns out to be stricter. That's not the person I want to be. I note also DMH43 engaging productively again in non-ECP space. Switching to Support restoring EC at 30 days since first edit (i.e. 01 January) per Black Kite somewhere in this thread; wouldn't oppose restoring earlier. Folly Mox (talk) 21:44, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

• Endorse SFR's action, close AN thread appeal, user should receive a warning. The user does not understand what they did wrong. They should read Gaming the system and Righting great wrongs, and receive a warning. Andre🚐 05:04, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Can you be more specific? DMH43 (talk) 06:18, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  If this is a case of gaming, someone should be able to show me a case of another user who made similar edits and also had their EC membership revoked. So far, I have only been shown users with a history of very clear bad faith edits. DMH43 (talk) 14:57, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  That is not a reasonable request as there is no way to either contact every Admin who has removed ECP or search every instance. And it shows to me at least you aren’t listening or not understanding what you are being told. Doug Weller talk 21:53, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Yeah, this is bordering on WP:NOTHERE Andre🚐 22:17, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  That is highly uncivil, the editor is clearly here to build an encyclopedia and even the briefest perusal of their edits would demonstrate that. nableezy - 22:18, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Read NOTHERE, it talks about gaming and attitude conflicts similar to what we see here. Andre🚐 22:21, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  There isnt any gaming. Constructive editing is not gaming. nableezy - 22:22, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  There's a clear consensus here of users and admins saying that racing to 500 to revert the same user 7 times along ideological lines is obvious gaming. Let's not go back and forth. You disagree, but there's a consensus here against you. Andre🚐 22:24, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Dont think any of that is true at all. And I expect if people look at it a bit more deeply they will see it is not true. But no, I dont think your description of this is accurate either. nableezy - 22:28, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  I don't believe that they're NOTHERE, I just believe that they rushed edits as quickly as they could to meet EC by the letter of the rules and immediately dive in to conflict, gaming the system so they could revert to their preferred version. That shows a critical lack of understanding of how Wikipedia, and CTOPs in particular, work. If I had seen any editor in the topic area go around to half a dozen articles reverting the same editor I would have taken some action. With the circumstances in this particular situation I figured removing ec was a reasonably light touch. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:51, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  I don’t think that’s really what happened, they were restoring their own edits. Not simply reverting another editor. If they had been following Dovidroth around then sure that’s its own issue, but they returned to articles they had previously edited and had their edits removed for reasons that no longer applied. I don’t think that’s even remotely gaming or evidence of any bad faith at all, those edits were all fine and were only removed for EC reasons. When he was EC then it made sense to return them. nableezy - 23:06, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Proposal: issue warning, endorse permission removal, restore permission at 30 days after first edit and 500 main space edits, notwithstanding any findings of misconduct, which should be treated separately. DMH43's account will be 30 days old on 30 December, and has made 490 main space edits. I agree that gaming against the spirit of 30/500 has clearly occurred, but the edits seem to be themselves in good faith, even if they are trivial or minor. Their request to restore permission has also provided greater scrutiny on their editing. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:40, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  I also note that this is not the designated process for requesting restoring permissions, but we might as well determine this here; the relevant editor brought this here and we are not a bureaucracy. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:13, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Since this was a logged AE action, I told them they could appeal here. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:02, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Deny appeal and use the standard process for restoring in the future. No need for other sanctions. It is a bit of gaming, but they are also a new user (we assume). I would imagine that ScottishFinnishRadish would be willing to restore after a short period of worthwhile contributions. SFR was within their authority to issue the sanction and I see it as a reasonable admin action, but the actions that led to the sanction weren't the most egregious case of gaming, so I have faith a balanced approach will be taken when reinstating EC. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 07:22, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• Deny appeal per Folly Mox and Dennis Brown. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs) 08:00, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• I don't get it. It is true DMH43 did many early edits contrary to ARBECR. No argument there. But I wonder when editing exclusively in ARBPIA after becoming EC became a crime. Many editors edit exclusively or almost exclusively in ARBPIA. I also don't see the "gaming" claim. I've seen lots of gaming of the 500/30 rule and they didn't look like this. Most the edits are substantial, including some of those described above as trivial (such as this and this which correct actual errors; as a mathematician I am qualified to say that). Specifically, I contend that on looking at DMH43's first 500 edits (your prefs might determine how many display at once) they don't look out of the ordinary. They do not consist mainly or even largely of trivial edits. And it took 20 days to reach 500, which is not a particularly fast rate of editing. Zero^talk 13:16, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  "Trivial" was an inapt descriptor. Pretty much everything in that paragraph was inapt to a degree, particularly the structure, and also on reread using "balance" in two different meanings a few words apart. I've attempted to explain myself a bit better above in the cold light of day. Zero0000, are you able to comment on the filer's rewrite here, and whether there's anything concerning about it? Folly Mox (talk) 14:26, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Folly Mox: your question is one that belongs on the article talk page, as there are no obvious behavioral problems. As far as this case is concerned, note that making a lot of changes to an article in a single edit is exactly the opposite of what people do who are making rapid trivial edits to get EC. Zero^talk 01:03, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

• Restore after 100 more edits - I dont see any GAMING at all, there were ECP violations, not gaming ones, earlier. Those edits shouldnt count towards the 500 to become extended confirmed, but this is not gaming, those are constructive edits that took time, not mindless adding whitespace or changing and reverting their own change, or making slight modifications to categories or templates. But the claim of gaming appears to have little to no substantiation, I see no "rushing" to 500, and I think it pretty normal for an editor to revert edits that were made for a reason that no longer applies. Hell, when Dovidroth was unblocked as a sockpuppet he restored his edits that had been reverted for BANREVERT. And why wouldnt he? The cause for the removal wasnt valid, so he was entitled to restore them. nableezy - 14:27, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• In the middle of this appeal, this user complained about me on another user's talk page. This continues into a possible WP:Battleground behavior. Dovidroth (talk) 16:49, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  The battleground page describes behavior which disrupts Wikipedia. Nowhere in my post do I suggest any disruptive behavior, rather I point out a few cases that seem to me to be bad faith edits. This post of yours suggests you are taking my edits personally, whereas none of my posts have been personal in nature; they are all content based. DMH43 (talk) 17:26, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Posting a complaint about a user on another user (not an admin)’s talk page is inappropriate and borderline WP:battleground. And on what basis do you claim my edits are bad faith? Seems like an ordinary edit dispute. Dovidroth (talk) 17:32, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  You haven't engaged with the content of any of my edits, just reverting them despite some of them were correcting obvious factual errors (such as misattributed quotes). DMH43 (talk) 17:43, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  I am glad to engage with EC users. I am allowed to revert anything in ARBPIA from a non-EC user that I disagree with without providing further explanation. “Anyone is free to revertany edits made in violation of a ban or block, without giving any further reason and without regard to the three-revert rule.” WP:Banrevert. A non-EC user in ARBPIA is effectively the same thing as a ban. Dovidroth (talk) 17:56, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  Any reasonable third party would consider your reverts as irresponsible and borderline harassment of a new editor. DMH43 (talk) 19:10, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  I showed you in the policy that what I did is legitimate. Falsely accusing me of acting irresponsible and abusive because you don’t like it will not get you anywhere. I hope the admins reviewing this case will see that this user is interested in pushing his POV without following the rules and that they should not be allowed to edit in ARBPIA. Dovidroth (talk) 19:14, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  That accusation of harassment is incivil. Propose that DMH43 should be warned for incivility Andre🚐 22:12, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  I'd say it's spot on, actually. I'd instead propose that Dovidroth be warned for violating WP:BITE. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 23:19, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  "I am allowed to revert anything in ARBPIA from a non-EC user that I disagree with without providing further explanation." Are you saying that you wouldn't revert a contribution from a non-ECP editor that you did agree with? Black Kite (talk) 22:15, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  WP:Banrevert states that “This does not mean that edits must be reverted just because they were made by a banned editor (changes that are obviously helpful, such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism, can be allowed to stand), but the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert.” There have been cases that I have decided to leave something, but obviously if another EC editor reverts them, I will respect that. Dovidroth (talk) 05:15, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

• Frankly, the most troubling behavior in this thread is being displayed by Andrevan (for misstating the degree of consensus in an apparent attempt to shut down the discussion, as well as the hyperbolic, bolded demand for a warning above in response to a comment that is well within the norms of discussion on AN if not necessarily wise), and to a lesser extent Dovidroth (a new editor asking on a 3rd party's talk page for advice on how to respond to what they perceive to be harassment is completely reasonable behavior, and in general if Dovidroth had followed correct protocol and started with {{alert/first}} like we're supposed to there's a decent chance that this discussion wouldn't be happening at all right now). _signed, Rosguill ^talk 22:51, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

  I didn't say the consensus is that the thread should be shut down, but that gaming is gaming. You can disagree. I stand by the statement that the accusation of harassment is inappropriate and I still feel the user should be warned; nothing hyperbolic about a warning, nor does bolding indicate anything, it is standard to bold opinions in discussions. I was not aware the user was not alerted, however, which is unrelated. Andre🚐 22:55, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Endorse removal, but I would look favourably on restoring the permission when the user has made 500 non-ARBPIA edits (and has reached 30 days, of course). Obviously, if they then behave disruptively in a CTOP area after that, then that's a separate issue. Black Kite (talk) 23:06, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• Keep removed, but restore after 500 mainspace non ARBPIA edits, and take further issues (if any) to arb enforcement.VR _talk 23:28, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
• Support appeal/restore EC now - I don't understand how anyone looks at this editor's mainspace edits and sees them as trivial or gaming or anything other than normal editing: adding sourced content, removing unsourced content, fixing/adjusting content. The edits aren't perfect but they're normal edits.
  More broadly, as someone who strongly supports ECR (and its expansion), I don't understand why some editors refer to a pattern of editing in non-ARBPIA edits until EC, and then editing ARBPIA once EC, as "leaping" or "jumping" into ARBPIA or "abandoning" the other topic area. I don't get how other editors don't get that editing in non-ARBPIA areas before EC and then editing ARBPIA after EC is exactly what we want editors to do, and the whole point of ECR. We want new editors in ARBPIA, and we want editors to get experience elsewhere before editing ARBPIA. This is exactly what this editor has done (thank you for your volunteer work, sorry for this unpleasant experience). (This is also exactly what I did when I first got here in 2018. Nobody took away my EC. I don't see any meaningful difference between this editors first 500 edits and my own first 500 edits. And if someone had yanked my EC, Wikipedia would probably have lost my next 25,000 edits over the next five years. Let's not shoot ourselves in the foot by driving away new volunteers.)
  Folks, whenever there is a major world event, new editors will show up wanting to edit topics about that event. When the event is in ARBPIA, as here, you can expect to see editors editing non-ARBPIA topics and then editing ARBPIA topics after EC. There is nothing wrong with this. This editor's mainspace edits show me they have enough experience and understanding of policies to edit in the ARBPIA topic area. Their edits aren't all perfect, but neither are mine or any other EC editor's.
  "Gaming" is when someone makes 250 edits adding a period and then 250 edits removing a period and then edits ARBPIA. This is plainly not what this editor did.
  If someone reverts an editor's edits because they're not EC that's allowed per ECR, but we shouldn't be surprised when the editor reinstates their edits after hitting EC. Again, this is what we want: new editors volunteering to edit this topic area. Levivich (talk) 18:34, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Many of the 500 edits are very minor and trivial, and were made very rapidly. The first edits also began two weeks after the account was created. This is why I see this as gaming, but it's not particularly egregious. Giving this editor EC permission does not jeopardise Wikipedia. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:33, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Here are DMH's first 50 edits -- none of them are very minor or trivial AFAICS. You can tell just by looking at the size of the edits that they're not trivial. The most trivial edit in the bunch is one edit that adds a wikilink, and that's not trivial. Here are their next 50 edits -- I see one edit that adds a period, the rest are plainly not trivial (I can't see the revdel'd ones). So that's 99 non-trivial edits out of their first 100. I haven't looked at all 500, but here are their first 500 and again, just by looking at the sizes of the edits, we can see that the vast majority, like almost all of them, are non-trivial. It makes me wonder what other editors consider "trivial"? Levivich (talk) 21:46, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  I saw various edits which were adding or removing a word that had little to no effect on the meaning of the sentence, when I was looking at the later edits. However, this is too trivial to necessitate any sanctions or permission removals. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:47, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

• I returned here to write more but I see that Levivich has written more or less exactly what I wanted to write, so I'll just say that I agree completely. Zero^talk 03:53, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
• Restore now per Levivich. Curiously, some participants in this thread are now topic banned from ARBPIA by SFR. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 12:04, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
• After reflecting on the discussion here I think Black Kite's proposal is a good way to split this particular nickel. If I weren't a meathead I would have made that the restoration criteria when I removed the permission. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:10, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
• Procedurally restore permissions. Levivich makes excellent points above. Likewise, the idea that fulfilling bright line requirements (50/300) is somehow indicative that they are attempting to game the system is absurd. Blocking someone from "the club" based on the fact that they met the rules "too quickly" is ridiculous. We have the 30 day requirement and 500 edits for a reason. It's not like he added a space 250 times and deleted a space 250 times to achieve that. He was making substantive contributions. Now, the quality of those edits and other issues notwithstanding, EC should be restored forthwith. Any additional issues should be addressed in a different thread (the user seems remarkably versed in WP terminology for a noob). Buffs (talk) 21:50, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for the thoughtful comments and followups. I believe SFR has come to a decision about my EC status (see my talk page). My question for the group is: is there any kind of behavior not described in the rules that I should avoid? For example some have mentioned that I should spend a few months editing non ARBIPA topics for a while; should I head this advice? Should I make sure to have a daily mix of EC and non-EC edits? It seems my focus on EC specific pages raised a flag for users and I would like to avoid that. I'm open to suggestions and advice. Thank you DMH43 (talk) 22:12, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

And as for the reverts that Dovidroth has done from most of my edits, when can I undo them? Should I open discussions on the associated talk pages for these changes? DMH43 (talk) 00:29, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

For the reverts, I suggest a talk page message and give it a couple days to see if there are any objections. You don't need to have a mix of edits, but it's good to get experience in not one of the worst areas to edit, and the same goes for editing in other topics before diving in. That's my take, other views will likely vary. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:38, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

• Endorse SFR's action, with consideration of restoring after user has shown a pattern of productive editing and an understand of what brought this about, using the normal appeal process. I generally agree with Dennis Brown's comment. SFR has shown abundant evidence to support their action.  // Timothy :: talk  22:06, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
• Endorse SFR's action, close AN thread appeal, user should receive a warning. The fact that there first 100+ edits were in WP:ARBPIA and that they only ceased when warned and that they immediately resumed editing WP:ARBPIA the second they reach 500 speaks for itself. Additionally DMH43's description of their edits "my edits have been valuable phrasing, formatting, citation and content improvements", sounds mostly like minor editing designed to reach EC as fast as possible. In recent similar cases in AN/I, I've seen editors lose their EC rights. TarnishedPath^talk 07:58, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  So you're saying that he was warned, complied with the warning, and so now should be warned again? "Speaks for itself"? What does it say: that the editor follows instructions? "Content improvement" sounds like minor editing to you? Seriously? This is an even worse rationale than the one above it. Levivich (talk) 14:43, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

• Procedural note. I roughly count DMH43's non-IPA mainspace contributions at ≥520, and in about four hours it will have been 31 days since the account's first edit. Folly Mox (talk) 01:31, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

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

Create N-word redirect pls

From bibliography of the slave trade in the United States, link from Nigger Trader White (original language used in primary source article) redirect to John R. White#Negro-Trader White. Please and thank you and also I'm sorry. jengod (talk) 03:51, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

•  Done Dennis Brown - 2¢ 07:57, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Appreciate it. I hope you have a wonderful week. Best, jengod (talk) jengod (talk) 08:01, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

  Wouldn't it be better if whatever filter this is allowed creations by ECP users? Mach61 (talk) 01:19, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

  This is from Mediawiki:Titleblacklist, not a WP:EF. There's an option to allow autoconfirmed editors, but I'm not sure if allowing EC editors is possible. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 02:16, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

  Given that any template editor, page mover, or sysop can bypass the title blacklist when needed, I don't see much reason to move down the prohibition on the title blacklist. Probably best to keep this as a fully-blacklisted part of the TB. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 02:32, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

  I agree. The harm of blacklisting these titles (a small number of legitimate requests to create pages or redirects, although no automatic restrictions on editing them once created) is probably minimal; the risk of removing it from the blacklist (anyone, including sockpuppeteers, as long as their IP address isn't blocked, can create an account and create such pages 10 edits and 4 days later) is much greater. Animal lover |666| 17:31, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

  Or anyone in draftspace or talkspace; some other namespaces can be created by non-autoconfirmed registered users. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 01:29, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  I also agree. It took me less than one minute to verify that this was a valid request. The request was filled about 4 hours after it was made, on the day after Christmas, which I think is very timely. The current system seems to work fine. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:59, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Can an uninvolved admin please step in over toxicity and BATTLEGROUND at darts-related pages?

Affected pages span at least 2024 PDC World Darts Championship, 2023 Grand Slam of Darts, Wikipedia:WikiProject Darts, and their associated talk pages, as well as user talk pages.

Edit summaries should be checked too: (Redacted) (diff) and (Redacted) (diff) and (Redacted) (diff) JoelleJay (talk) 19:23, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm still checking the issue, but I've blocked Penepi for a week for now for their personal attacks. Any uninvolved admin may lengthen the block if they see fit. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 19:30, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I've extended Penepi's block to indefinite due to the sheer extent and cruelty in all the shown diffs. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 19:37, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the very quick response! I think that editor was the main antagonizer in these articles. The atmosphere there is still pretty BATTLEGROUNDy and OWNy, but that can hopefully be remedied with more editors looking into it and isn't so urgent. JoelleJay (talk) 19:43, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I'll note that ItsKesha appears to have been edit warring on some of those articles. Since it's stale now, I don't think a block is needed, but they should consider themselves formally warned not to do so again.

In the future, they should consider seeking administrative assistance when they see another user personally attacking them, instead of allowing it to go on. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 19:52, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

IMO there's been some "goading" from ItsKesha, as a minimum. Does "Nobody cares about the opinion of you logged out losers" [3] get over the civility bar? or "Sad act"? (I've been editing there but trying not to be "involved") Nigej (talk) 20:08, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I'll remove those comments and I profusely apologise to all involved for such embarrassing, insulting and time-wasting behaviour. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 20:14, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

@Nigej: I'm still reading all the linked pages, but yes, I agree with you that ItsKesha didn't facilitate things. I'll also note that their behavior at Talk:2024 PDC World Darts Championship has been poor. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 20:14, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

In my experience, ItsKesha is disruptive and repeatedly engages in personal attacks. In addition to the edits at the darts talk page mentioned above which they have now removed (calling other editors 'sad act', 'losers' etc.), there are also edits elsewhere such as this ("lol @ u") and this (calling another editor an "oddball") which are indicative of a wider attitude problem. Indeed, a quick look at their contribs in general show a clear pattern - multiple reverts to the same article(s) over & over again. They seem to obsess over an article and try and bully other editors into keeping their preferred version through reverts and insults, and once achieved they move onto another article... GiantSnowman 20:29, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Other edits by ItsKesha at the talk page which remain up - "You don't half talk some shite" and "you talked a load of shite". I cannot see Penepi's edits that have been revdeled, but how do they compare to ItsKesha's comments/conduct? GiantSnowman 20:41, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Penepi's were about 2000x worse... JoelleJay (talk) 20:50, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

OK, then what's 1/2000th of an indef block... GiantSnowman 21:35, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman Here's a much milder example of the PAs (this one was at least removed by Penepi). Can you please revdel that span of history? The rest of the comments in that chain are pretty typical for interactions here. JoelleJay (talk) 21:58, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

E.g. their response prior to deleting that comment. JoelleJay (talk) 22:08, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Can you please confirm exactly what edits to revdel? GiantSnowman 10:23, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman Have you looked at those diffs? It should be clear from the content which span of the history should be revdeled. JoelleJay (talk) 20:54, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

You've asked to revdel a span, but provided one diff.... GiantSnowman 11:29, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

@Isabelle Belato JoelleJay (talk) 20:55, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

@JoelleJay: I've revdel'ed the more egregious one from the ones you posted here. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 17:35, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Should this diff also have its edit summary revdeleted? ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 19:43, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. That should be all. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 19:55, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't know why there is so much animosity over darts, but there is. While Penepi has shown the worst behavior, ItsKesha's behavior has been subpar, usually adding more heat than light to the discussions they participate in. I wonder if a formal warning to be more WP:CIVIL and avoid commenting on other editors would suffice for now. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 20:39, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

You mean like the previous warnings for disruption/conduct/civility that litter their talk page going back 3 years? See also Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1054#User:ItsKesha and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive344#ItsKesha's removal of major WP:RS contents claiming then not notable based on personal views and accusing me of lack of sourcing tag when very line of the aricle was complient with WP:PW/RS and this edit warring warning from October 2021. They were also blocked in July 2022 for personal attacks. Clearly all of this has had zero effect on ItsKesha given they continue the behaviour. GiantSnowman 20:49, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes it had zero effect on me when I was accused of violating copyright and plagiarism and nothing was done about it by administrators when I reported it. Remind me why should I have any faith in the process of reporting somebody to the administrators? All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 12:31, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

TBF, ItsKesha has been trying to bring darts articles in line with policy for a while and has been met with quite hostile resistance from what seems like a LOCALCON walled-garden, including from another now-blocked-and-TBANNED editor. Their approach has often been antagonistic, passive-aggressive, and POINTY, but IMO the responses to them by some of the darts editors have been way out of proportion and non-policy-based to boot, so I can at least understand a bit of their frustration. JoelleJay (talk) 21:50, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Thing is, being frustrated isn't a reason to not be civil. I'm equally as frustrated by some of the responses on that page, but you can't make such aggressive comments here. I wouldn't consider myself uninvolved at this stage, so maybe one who is could have a word with all parties. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:38, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I've had run-ins with ItsKesha in the past, so will leave it to others, but suggest a final warning for civility/personal attacks/edit warring for ItsKesha, with an indef block if it happens again. GiantSnowman 10:24, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I will note that since this discussion started, they continue to repeatedly revert/edit war with other editors, see 1, 2, 3. GiantSnowman 12:36, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

And those reverts show yet another example of them not understanding a policy they’re trying to enforce. In this case the difference between the concepts of primary&secondary sources on one hand, and first-, second- and third-party sources on the other hand. Tvx1 12:56, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

How are the Professional Darts Corporation are not a primary source for the Professional Darts Corporation World Darts Championship? ~~~~ All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 13:15, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Because primary≠first party. How can you not understand that??Tvx1 13:42, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I suppose this is the exact tone we should be taking when trying to have a discussion. Right admins? All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 13:57, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, but that’s on oversimplification of the issue. The reality is that they try to force these articles to match their view of what the policies should be. The multiple talk page discussions going on right now on the 2024 PDC World championship article’s talk page show that they have little actual understanding of the policies they quote. And when multiple editors point out the incorrectness of their arguments, they show no intent to accept that.

Therefore, seeing as they already received a topic ban elswhere but changed nothing of their behavior but rather moved to another topic to do just the same, I strongly suggest an indefinite block until such time they can prove they are here to build an encyclopedia. At the very least they should be subjected to a topic ban from darts. Tvx1 12:37, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, given the ongoing reverts this morning (after this discussion started) which I have just noted and linked to above, it is becoming increasingly clear that only an indef or topic ban will stop ongoing issues. I'd obviously prefer a topic ban to an indef, but I'm not convinced that with a topic ban they won't just direct their attention elsewhere. GiantSnowman 12:39, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

However we can't put all the blame with ItsKesha. Comments like your's just now "I still don’t understand why something that was used for years without anyone having a problem with it, has now become all but unacceptable." (and other similar comments by other editors) show a reluctance to listen to comments from "outsiders". Nigej (talk) 12:56, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Nigej I have posted my thoughts at the bottom of the thread, but in line with my view posted there, this has been an ongoing issue for about 12 months, and part of the consequence has been a massive drop in darts articles this year. I think frankly, that people are fed up with ItsKesha and their presence is enough for people to feel backed into a corner and come out fighting. That is not okay of course, and I am guilty of that myself to a degree, but this is something thats been building for twelve months, comes to a head during the worlds when more editors are active, and will no doubt happen again next year if left as is. Dimspace (talk) 23:37, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

How much of the dropoff in darts editing this past year could be attributed to JRRobinson being TBANned from darts and then indeffed? JoelleJay (talk) 00:04, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

That has probably had some impact. But there have also been ongoing arguments over notabilty. The Darts project sadly has not established a structured notability scale for events, so in the absence of one there have been disputes over what is notable, and predictably, from what I saw earlier in the year, ItsKesha was at the centre of that with their "interpretion" of notability criteria. But you are correct, JRRobinsons absence would have had an impact. Equally, people who have watched from the sidelines like myself who could contribute more don't have the inclination to throw their hat in that particular warzone :D Dimspace (talk) 00:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Should add, a lot of have fallen foul of issues of sourcing, and the primary sources issue, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Darts#Better_sources_for_darts_articles which I know is something Itskesha has been hot about (I'm not getting into a right or wrong on that one, but thats been part of the reduction as well). But again as noted elsewhere, the approach from people like ItsKesha has very much been "not sourced properly DELETE IT" "doesnt fill a certain criteria DELETE IT" as opposed to how can we work together to remedy those things Dimspace (talk) 00:25, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

There is a notability guideline for darts: WP:NSPORT, which requires the subject to meet GNG and on top of that requires all athlete articles actively cite at least one IRS SIGCOV source. ItsKesha's interpretation of notability criteria is correct. JoelleJay (talk) 00:20, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Working with others to establish a notability list for Darts and listing the guidelines, being specific, explaining reasoning, however, would be far more productive, than just stamping feet and fighting. People can see a wall in their path and just knock it down, or they can work together to cross it. Dimspace (talk) 00:29, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

What I would add, is WP:NSPORT is largely aimed at notablity of individual sports men, women and teams. When it comes to events, it is very vague, generalised, and extremely open to interpretation, but, any discussions on darts events notability have just been "its not notable" "yes it is" "no it isnt" as opposed to objective. WP:EVENT is possibly more relevant. but. getting sidetracked a bit here. But I think formalising event notability over the course of 2024 could solve some issues. Dimspace (talk) 00:35, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, any notability criteria created for darts events will have to be a very strong predictor of GNG and SUSTAINED independent secondary significant coverage (per NEVENT). Project-level notability criteria are treated as essays and hold zero weight at AfD, so it really wouldn't be productive to pursue this if the hope is to protect certain classes of articles from deletion. Pinging @Nigej who also has experience at NSPORT discussions and might have more background on non-biography stuff. JoelleJay (talk) 00:44, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Personally I would not view it as protecting certain classes from deletion, but, having an established, discussed, agreed, list of notable events, is a lot better than having editors fighting with each other over their perception of notability. (as long as those establishing, discussing and agreeing are objective and able to look at more than one point of view lol) 01:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

What is "ItsKesha was at the centre of that with their "interpretion" of notability criteria" even in reference to? All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 01:54, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, but what is that supposed to mean? I listen very much, I just say that I don’t understand why there is such a big drama about this. I have even offered you a simple solution to your biggest concern with the content. I find this a really low blow from you. Meanwhile the user that this discussion centers on, who doesn’t show any less reluctance to listen to outsiders, has even broken WP:3RR. Tvx1 13:18, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

It seems from comments below that ItsKesha finds some of your comments "low blows" too. Nigej (talk) 14:44, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I don’t see any comment that references me below at all. Your snide remarks are totally uneccesary here. They do nothing but detract from the issue at hand here. Tvx1 15:34, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I mean you've just made a comment here advising @Lee Vilenski to "learn to read". I'd say that's definitely a low blow. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 18:20, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

No, that’s a comment on the point in reaction to someone who clearly misread a comment I made in that discussion. But that doesn’t even matter. It’s my behavior that was reported, it was yours and that is what you should discuss.Tvx1 19:13, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

It is a bizarre comment over six months after the last comment in that thread. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:46, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

• I see that the arguments from the talk page are starting to leak into here. Have any of the involved parties asked for assistance from uninvolved editors at WP:RSN about whether those PDC reports should be considered a primary source? Moving on from that, can someone point me to which topic ItsKesha has been banned from? I see nothing on their talk page or at WP:AEDR. I think a final civility warning to ItsKesha should help reduce the heat in these discussions, and I wouldn't oppose a WP:1RR sanction to prevent slow edit wars. Concerning the overall darts topic, I think a reminder to all participants to remain civil, respect WP:BRD, and seek assistance from third parties when a discussion appears to be going nowhere wouldn't go amiss. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 13:46, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  In future I won't even try and collaborate to improve these articles, I'll just work independently because this is so unbelievably boring. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 14:08, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  I do not think this is the answer you want to give. Saying you will not collaborate is a big no-no and the alarm bells are ringing louder for me. GiantSnowman 14:10, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  See, this is another indication that this user is WP:NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia. Tvx1 15:33, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  I'll edit to improve articles, I just won't bother asking questions to the community. Why should I even try when I am made out to be the villain and targeted simply for asking a question? Look here and read the first four responses I received. Three of them are absolutely pathetic and I won't subject myself to this going forward, and you can't sway my opinion. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 15:48, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

ItsKesha"read the first four responses I received." the first few responses, my response included are not ok. However, bear in mind two things. a) Nobody had a foggiest idea what stats you were claiming were against WP:SYTH, and even after discussion, and head scratching b) it was established very quickly that they were not against WP:SYNTH. And here's the thing, throughout that thread you refuse to actually explain why you felt they were against WP:SYNTH (Or even which stats you thought were against WP:SYNTH. All you did was repeatedly quote "do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source". You wouldn't actually elaborate on what your issue actually was. So a month long argument (Where nobody actually understood what your issue was in relation to WP:SYNTH ends with "ItsKesha was quoting wiki policies that didnt even apply" again. And so the cycle starts again. Dimspace (talk) 23:47, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

• Again, saying you are going to continue editing (without dealing with the attitude and behaviour concerns that have been raised here and elsewhere) AND that you are not going to collaborate indicates you will continue disruption. Comments like "you can't sway my opinion" means there is little point in the community working with you as nothing we do will have a positive effect. In short, the more you post, the more supportive I become of an indef block as the only way to prevent ongoing issues. GiantSnowman 15:54, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  So not raising issues is disruption, but raising issues is disruption. Brilliant. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 18:17, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  There is a whole lot of background to why these were the first four reactions you got from these people. These are the many interactions you had with them during the last year or so, including on the article on the previous edition of the sports’ world championship. "you can't sway my opinion" is the core attitude issue you have been displaying throughout that period and is the reason why were here, yet you show no understanding at all. Tvx1 16:39, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  I think ItsKesha needs an indefinite block for their behavior discussed above. The battlegrounding is just too much. Thanks -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:04, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  Can you explain the "whole lot of background" then, so I can learn from it? All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 18:17, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  The battleground behavior is detailed above, and I believe you have responded earlier. Thanks -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:27, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  I would say some of the darts "regulars" have displayed quite a bit more battlegrounding on the darts pages than ItsKesha. Those pages need a serious overhaul by uninvolved editors. JoelleJay (talk) 20:53, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  See that’s the core issue here. People like the reported user and you unfairly treat the regular editors of these articles like a nuisance. Like an annoying band of rebels that need to be squashed. I’m not even part of that community and I’m still appaled by the treatment they have been given. Maybe what it needs is not for outsiders to barge in with a lecturing attituted trying to enforce their personal views. Tvx1 14:19, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  P&Gs are not really "personal views"... JoelleJay (talk) 17:55, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  Interpretations of them are. Multiple editors on those talk pages have carefully read those guidelines and properly adressed many of the incorrect claims regarding these guidelines and policies in the talk page discussions. Yet instead of reading and accepting these replies and collaborating, you and the reported user keep treating these people, who actually have invested a considerable amount of time in reading and adressing your concerns, as a pest that needs to be eradicated.Tvx1 19:04, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Tvx1: please tone down your rhetoric. No one here is treating the regular darts editors as "a pest that needs to be eradicated." An uninvolved user saw an issue occurring on a certain topic of the Wikipedia and we are discussing to reach a consensus on whether this is a chronic issue and how to best deal with it. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 20:42, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Isabelle Belato, this comment shows clearly what I meant. A call for outside editors to come in an and overhaul the project. Treating the current regulars as if they have no good intentions or at the very least wouldn’t be willing to colleborate constructively. If find that very respectless and I can sympathise in a way with how this people have reacted to such treatment. Tvx1 00:13, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  I said some of the darts regulars, which includes two editors indeffed for NPAs and battleground behavior... And content can need to be overhauled without it impugning the motivations or collegiality of other editors. There are still synth issues1 and misunderstandings of notability, PRIMARY, and independence that need to be addressed. JoelleJay (talk) 02:13, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  I tried to offer my opinion -- that the tournament draws and schedules formulated and released by the tournament itself are primary (and non-independent) as they are original materials ... close to an event ... written by people who are directly involved -- but was told by Tvx1 that my comment didn't make sense and that I was incorrectly conflating secondary sources and independence... JoelleJay (talk) 21:12, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  JoelleJay What I would say, is when the battle is already raging, any opinions are probably going to be shot down because peoples backs are already up. Now probably isn't the time to be saying whats wrong with this years article, emotions are running too high. I think there needs to be a period of calm, and a built towards next year to be honest. Dimspace (talk) 23:51, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  Can we please leave the content discussion out of this? This is not the venue for this.Tvx1 04:14, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I feel like I summarised it in the 2023 Worlds talk page. Basically Kesha seemed to come in from out of the blue, and unilaterally decided that about half the article failed some policy and just slapped a ton of "fix this" templates all over the place; as opposed to... well, fixing it. That same attitude seems to have continued over the year, and is coming to a point again now during the 2024 Worlds. There was little collaboration until I had to call out the 3RR that was ongoing, and even then I don't think any of the discussions really amounted to much. Hence why there's still such an impasse over the whole thing.

The sticking point over notability is going to remain though. Darts is still a relatively niche sport, it doesn't have the same amount of eyeballs on it as other events that Sky and ITV broadcast; and because of that the resulting neutral coverage is also lacking. Snooker — another of matchroom's portfolio — gets a lot from the BBC because they actually broadcast it; but unfortunately they don't offer that same level of effort to darts or pool. 🇮🇪 TheChrisD {💬|✏️} 02:22, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

You accused me of being "biased against most darts articles on the Wiki" for nominating an article for deletion. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 03:28, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I can’t believe we’re letting us be mocked like this. It’s New Year’s Eve for crying out loud, we should be celebrating with our families and friends, not be dealing with this. Granted, maybe for some of you it’s maybe already the morning of New Year’s Day, but still. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tvx1 (talk • contribs)

Ok, throwing my two-pennorth in as I have been watching the talk of all darts pages since late last year after things blew up on the 2023 World Championship talk. Darts articles are not perfect, and there are areas as have been brought up by people like NigelJ etc where things can be improved, but there is a way to work with existing editors, discussion, compromise, and explaining decisions. Itskesha since late in 2022 (as far as I am aware, it could even be earlier) has behaved as a bull in a china shop on darts articles. Filling articles with various banners, sourcing need, 1st party sources, etc etc, kicking up a storm over notability, and in many instances citing Wikipedia policies that when actually looked at have zero relevance to what he is flagging. His general passive-aggressive approach (for example, his constant even when baiting people, well wishes) has got a lot of peoples backs up. The net effect has been in 2023 the number of darts articles has dropped massively, many events no longer have articles for them, and a lot of editors have simply backed off the darts community completely. For much of the year I have just been watching, and yes, over December I have decided to butt heads with him, which I probably shouldn't, but honestly, my impression is very much that while he maybe intends well, his forcible opinions (which very often are based on poor interpretations of policy), and his general passive aggressive, non-compromising approach, is a disruption to the Darts community as a whole. As I say that as someone who does not edit on Darts, but read the articles, and have been paying very close attention to talk. (But yes, I will admit I've been like a dog with a bone over the last month). As I say, Darts pages are not perfect, but there are ways of working with the existing editors to improve and develop the pages, and going in, sticking banners everywhere, misinterpreting wiki policies, and being at the centre of every single argument, are not the way to improve things. His aspproach alsi is very much "This doesn't fit the (poorly interpreted) rules so delete it", as opposed to "how can we rework it to make it fit the policy guidelines better"Dimspace (talk) 23:30, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Just to add, this all started last year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2023_PDC_World_Darts_Championship and has gradually built over the course of 2023. So whats going on on the talk page for this years World Championship is not the full reflection, this has been a 12 month brewing battle. Dimspace (talk) 23:32, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Also, it appears at least two regular editors of darts articles have already ended up indefblocked because of this ongoing situation.Tvx1 19:18, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Not sure who posted this last comment ^^ but yes, this is a side effect, that Darts is losing its most "passionate" editors because of this ongoing conflict. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dimspace (talk • contribs)

• Related, would an admin please look at Draft:Alex Spellman and this change an IP tried to make to sports notability? I blocked the first IP as they were being generally disruptive but there's not enough with the new one desipite my spidey sense that it's blocked editors logging out. I know that JRR is far from the only problematic one in this area, but it's who it reads to me. Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/JRRobinson/Archive exists, but nothing we can do with IPs so I've not bothered filing Star Mississippi 16:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Without sidetracking completely, " Have won an event hosted by either the Professional Darts Corporation or British Darts Organisation." yes, support. " Have participated in the PDC World Darts Championship." as someone who loves the sport of darts, no, not even close. Participating in the worlds is not notable. For me notablity would not start until they reached the last 16, or had multiple appearances in the world championships. A single appearance is not even close to notable. I would say 90% of big darts fans would have to google who Alex Spellman even is :D Dimspace (talk) 16:24, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

This is again a discussion we should not hold here. This is not the venue. So, please focus on the ANI report at hand. This section is already lengthy enough as it is. Tvx1 19:28, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Section break

Okay, I hope this is appreciated but I decided to please a section break here because the above discussion was suffering from a lot of sidetracking and became difficult to follow. So I hope we can refocus on the issue at hand. The reported user has shown no insight into their behavior, has no demonstrated to have headed lessons from a previous topic ban and has not shown any willingness to change their attitude in the right way. Therefore I think it would be best to try to find a consensus on some action. Personally I still feel WP:NOTHERE applies.Tvx1 00:20, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Probably wise, but remember that the raised topic wasn't about a specific user. There has been one block already. I agree there needs to be something done to stop the atmosphere around these types of articles. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:48, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, one other specific user WAS discussed following the block and I think an action considering them should be taken now. Especially considering their contributions here.Tvx1 10:12, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

We should move to discussion about what (if any) action should be taken against ItsKesha given the conduct highlighted above. I think the options are (1) final warning (2) topic ban from darts, widely construed or (3) indef block. GiantSnowman 18:59, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree. My preference lies with option (3) indef block or failing that (2) topic ban. We're well past the warning stage now.Tvx1 12:13, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Same, I am fine with either a topic ban or indef block, leaning more towards the latter. GiantSnowman 19:38, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

CommanderWaterford unban request

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

---

CommanderWaterford (talk · contribs · logs) has requested an unban through the standard offer. (community ban discussion)

Hello Wikipedia Community, I hope this message finds you all well in this festive season. I'm reaching out today, on December 30, 2023, to appeal after two and a half years my ban from English Wikipedia, which has been in place since May 2021. Looking back, I truly wish I could turn back time and undo the mistakes that led to this. I made several stupid mistakes (like copyright violations) but more importantly, I was often kind of rude to other editors, not presuming good faith in their edits or contributions, when I definitely should have. The fact that I made thousands of edits every single day gave me the misconception that I was always in the right, that I was someone more important than others. It made me kind of blatantly arrogant and know-it-all. I didn't realize then how my actions were out of line with what Wikipedia stands for—being obsessed with the edit count. I'm genuinely sorry for any trouble I caused and for not being a positive influence in the community. Since my ban, I've been engaged with ESWiki and WikiData almost daily; but far, far away from the hours I spent years ago - especially in the pandemic - every day on ENWIKI. I've stayed out of trouble and really thrown myself into contributing in a meaningful way. In the aftermath, I can honestly say that I've learned a lot about respecting guidelines and working together with others. I miss being part of the ENWIKI community and want to make amends. My heart's still with ESWiki, but I'd love to bring my perspective back to English Wikipedia. I know about the WP:StandardOffer, and I'm ready to stick to it. I promise to be respectful, helpful, and totally in line with Wikipedia's rules. I totally get that this appeal means asking for your trust again and for many of you it will definitely not be easy, but I'm ready to prove that I can be a responsible and positive member of ENWIKI. Thank you for considering giving me another chance. Happy Holidays to you all, and I'm looking forward to hopefully making a constructive comeback. Regards, CommanderWaterford

— Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 15:15, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

• While this is certainly a better request than some that come here, to me, there are still too many questions and unresolved issues to unhesitatingly say that i would support the SO for CommanderWaterford. I don't want to come across harshly, i mostly fall in the Almost Everyone Should Be Able To Edit camp, so if i phrase them as questions to him perhaps my meaning is clear and it's also clear i hope for good answers:

What “mistakes that led to this” are you referring to?

Do you mean your continued assumption of bad faith, that many actors in the discussion which led to the current indef block were either incompetent or out to get you?

In the category of “kind of rude” would you include this arbitrary, unbelievable process of a single sysop with not even having 1/3 of my edits being unsatisfied with my behaviour because I did not answer properly in their eyes and the only comment I will make on this witch hunt and I already demonstrated it a thousand times so no need to repeat it. If you still think so, I have to accept this but that also would mean that you are free to disable my account immediately or would you say that these (and many other examples) are undeniably fully rude and disrespectful?

How is it that you didn't realize then how my actions were out of line with what Wikipedia stands for then but do now, i.e., what has changed in you and for you?

Would you ~ and what reasoning would you use ~ accept a request from a user whose block log already contains the phrase User has accepted there were issues in the past, and committed to do better regarding their last unblock? How are we to accept essentially the same words from you this time? Happy days, ~ Lindsay^Hello 17:28, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

CW's responses, copied from their talk, are as follows:

Do you mean your continued assumption of bad faith, that many actors in the discussion which led to the current indef block were either incompetent or out to get you?

• I was pretty upset 2 and a half year ago, so at this time I would have answered yes to this question. In retrospect, it was total nonsense. As I said in the appeal - I was in the stupid idea of just being the most active editor at this time my opinion would valued more than others

In the category of “kind of rude” would you include this arbitrary, unbelievable process of a single sysop with not even having 1/3 of my edits being unsatisfied with my behaviour because I did not answer properly in their eyes and the only comment I will make on this witch hunt and I already demonstrated it a thousand times so no need to repeat it. If you still think so, I have to accept this but that also would mean that you are free to disable my account immediately or would you say that these (and many other examples) are undeniably fully rude and disrespectful?

• Without a doubt, fully rude and disrespectful.

How is it that you didn't realize then how my actions were out of line with what Wikipedia stands for then but do now, i.e., what has changed in you and for you?

• In me? 2 Heart Attacks in 2023. I honestly did not care much in 2021 about Wikipedia's collaborative aspects, my Ego and Edit Count were unfortunately much more important to me at that time.

Would you ~ and what reasoning would you use ~ accept a request from a user whose block log already contains the phrase "User has accepted there were issues in the past, and committed to do better" regarding their last unblock? How are we to accept essentially the same words from you this time?

• I would probably not if the request would come soon after the block and if I would not recognize any insight.

— Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 20:19, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose this is not their first indefinite block/ban. They were already indef'd once before they were banned, successfully appealed it, and then went back to doing the exact same things. My standard for unbans has always been To support an unban the editor needs to convince me that the potential benefits to the Encyclopedia outweigh the known risk of disruption. That's true for a first unblock/unban, but even more true for a second.
  In short, this user was given a second chance and said essentially the same thing as they did above and then they went on behaving poorly. I do not support giving a third chance. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:58, 31 December 2023 (UTC)
• I recall this editor well and he's simply too prolific to manage. Monitoring and checking that quantity of edits isn't feasible, and I'm unwilling to support his return without monitoring and checking. So for me this is a non-starter.—S Marshall T/C 00:45, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
• Ick. I had hopes that my asking certain questions would trigger some reflection in CW, and maybe the first couple did. The response to the final, however, makes it impossible to accept this request: He, himself, says he would likely not accept if it came soon after the block (OK, we're two and a half years into it) and "if I would not recognize any insight." I'm afraid there isn't sufficient recognisable insight, so oppose. Happy days, ~ Lindsay^Hello 09:51, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
• Meh. I find this unconvincing. For one, This would be their second unblock. Second, I am concerned about how they would deal with disputes with other editors. They mention that they edited eswiki and Wikidata; hovewer their edits thereat Wikidata appear to be virtually 100% interwiki or description tweaking, and as such don't tell me anything about it. I am less certain about their track record on eswiki given that I don't speak spanish, hovewer, what I found likewise doesn't convince me they would work well with other editors, given that their talkpage edits appear to be mostly translation attributions; and the user talkpage edits are mostly templated (speedy deletion) notices. I am also still trying to wrap my head around what to make of es:Special:Redirect/revision/150296768#Usuario expulsado de la Wikipedia inglesa viene a cometer los mismos errores acá, but it doesn't look great. Victor Schmidt (talk) 11:56, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose My viewpoint only, but I don't think that we need an editor whose username is that of a fictional serial rapist and domestic abuser. (previously discussed about half way down this section). I'm unconvinced that even a name change would be useful; after all, it doesn't address why it was chosen in the first place. Black Kite (talk) 12:08, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. I was involved in the second indef discussion, and I remember what a damned mess that was. Like Tony, I feel we should be cautious when judging a second request to lift an indef block, and I just don't find the unblock request convincing, given CW's documented history of making commitments that he immediately disregards. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 16:03, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose request and answers to LindsayH don't convince me we won't be right back to the old problems. CW lacks the temperament for a collaborative editing environment and per Victor, their edits elsewhere don't show behavior has changed. Time served is not enough to indicate this is no longer a necessary block. Star Mississippi 17:55, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  Can someone find the link to the 2022 request referenced here here and at User_talk:CommanderWaterford/Archive_1#Sorry_to_hear_about_your_troubles. Thanks! Star Mississippi 18:17, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Star Mississippi: it's Special:Redirect/revision/1066660412#Request for lifting of community block of Commander Waterford. Victor Schmidt (talk) 18:43, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks @Victor Schmidt!

  For the sake of history, User_talk:CommanderWaterford/Archive_1#Follow-up doesn't appear to have ever adequately been addressed. If unblocked, should be absolutely limited to one account. Star Mississippi 21:19, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Per WP:ROPE, I'd probably support an unblock. Two & a half years is a long time to (perhaps) recalibrate one's approach to collaboration. It's also a period of maturation (hopefully). And the pandemic was not the best time for anyone; while NOTTHERAPY clearly applies, judging someone's actions in that period as symptomatic of fundamental irreversibility would be looking at them through a glass (darkly). While coming back from a site ban is, all things being equal, more unusual than otherwise, I'm sure CW is under no illusion that there would be a second chance should recidivism raise its ugly head. No. Their feet, as they say, would not touch. At even one single hint of trouble. It would not be the case that there would be an outpouring of anger against the blocking admin; there would be no massive report at AN; and there certainly would not be such a lack of consensus for the block that it was deemed unsafe. On the contrary. The process would be: Hint of trouble → indef block → AN thread → block supported → site ban reinstated. Les jeux sont faits.
  By the way, in case anyone thinks we were friends  :) ——Serial 19:06, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. I saw this request yesterday but decided to think about it before commenting. I'm usually in favour of giving some rope after this length of time, but I see two reasons not to. One is the username, as pointed out above by Black Kite. This did not get much discussion at the time of the block because the user was going to be blocked anyway, but it betrays some boneheadedness to appeal the block without changing it or even mentioning it. The other is that this editor presumed to pass judgement on other people's efforts by taking part in new page patrol. I don't believe that anyone who does that without looking first at whether they have it in themself to be a good editor can change significantly, unless they are a child, of which I see no indication. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:48, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. Given the history, there are too many reasons to conclude that an unban would not be worth the likely downsides. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:50, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose: in their UTRS appeal they mention editing the Spanish Wikipedia and staying out of trouble, and here they mention one of their past issues was assuming bad faith. As it was pointed out above by Victor Schmidt, CW was ibanned at eswiki for assuming bad faith and accusing another user of sockpuppetry with no evidence. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 14:17, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
• Comment - Why was your talkpage re-blocked, a few days ago? GoodDay (talk) 14:23, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  Unless I'm missing something, TPA was restored on the 30th to allow CW to reply to concerns listed here. I don't see anything else at the moment. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:27, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  My boo boo. I misread enabled as disabled. GoodDay (talk) 14:39, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose The fact that they have continued their behavior at another Wiki while banned here, leading to sanctions being placed on them, tells me all I need to know. Lifting the ban will result in being right back where we are now soon after. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:25, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

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

Unblock request of Sbb1413

The following is the unblock request of Sbb1413. I am transferring it here as a courtesy, and make no endorsement in doing so, I will also provide the link to the discussion leading to the block, Special:Permalink/999244891#Soumya-8974,_again. 331dot (talk) 09:58, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

• I have already understood why I was banned in February 2021. I used to create zillions of useless redirects and behaved negatively towards other users (intentionally or unintentionally) under the username Soumya-8974. Now I understand the consequence of disruptive editing and behaving negatively towards other users. I have worked in English Wikivoyage, Wikimedia Commons and Bengali Wikipedia for more than two years, and I have largely avoided anything that could prevent working there. I know that banning is undertaken as a preventative measure and not as a punitiative measure. I hope the English Wikipedia community will unban me with certain terms and conditions, including topic bans on certain topics. I promise that I will avoid any disruptive editing in English Wikipedia and I won't behave negatively towards any users. I want topic bans on China, Pakistan and all redirects, and focus on topics related to India and transport systems instead. So many years have passed and everything has changed. I have already translated many English articles into Bengali. Now I want to translate Bengali articles into English. Thank you for your support and happy new year 2024. I want to copy this post to an appropriate venue by an uninvolved experienced editor.

FYI

 – previous appeal (October 2021). Victor Schmidt (talk) 10:26, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Weak Oppose. One of the reasons for the block was "racism" and this is not addressed, unless "behaved negatively towards other users" is meant to cover this. Which it doesn't, not anywhere near sufficiently. I can imagine changing my vote here, given an excellent response from the user or given strong arguments in support of unblocking. CU data shows no immediately obvious recent block evasion. --Yamla (talk) 19:55, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

No reply on an ANI section

Hello, I made a report at ANI, which has been closed without any reply. Was there an error on my side, or did it just go unnoticed? Should/could I reopen the report? And finally, why is it possible for a section to be archived without any feedback to its opener? Janhrach (talk) 15:30, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

If a section has no activity, it gets archived. The archiving bot doesn't know that there's no activity due to a lack of replies. 331dot (talk) 15:34, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I find it surprising that the bot doesn't have a feature to archive sections with replies only. This means that there are many sections that got archived without any response from admins. Janhrach (talk) 07:55, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

That's on purpose. If no one at all finds the section worth even commenting on, there's unlikely to be any action taken. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:07, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Appeal of the removal of EC permissions for User:FoodForLLMs

I (User:FoodforLLMs) had my EC permissions revoked by User:Ingenuity. (Incident Page)

Quoting the reason:

 Yeah, that's pretty clear WP:PGAMEing. I've revoked their extended- confirmed permission, which they may re-request at WP:PERM/EC after making 500 non-trivial edits

Presumably my permissions were revoked because of a string of short description edits that I have done, mainly on articles relating to railway stations around the world.

First of all, I do not agree that these edits are trivial. They took me relatively little time because in order to be efficient, I created custom search queries (which took me time to figure out) that allow me to find articles with missing templates from specific categories. This helped me quickly process a lot of these, as I handled one category at a time. However, this is still not easy work, you need to read the lead of the article to make sure the description aligns and you need to add 5-6 new words to each article.

If they are regarded as trivial because they are considered unimportant, I'll disagree again, as these show up at the search box, one of the most used UX surfaces. And a lot of wikipedia articles currently miss a short description.

Thirdly, according to WP:NNH, "Focusing on niche topic areas" and "Focusing on particular processes" are encouraged.

Furthermore, I made different contributions that greatly improved the state of low quality articles across many different subjects. I did so before receiving EC and afterwards, I still continued adding short descriptions to missing articles as recent as today.

WP:PGAME does not mention any behavior that is close to any of my edits (it mentions sandbox editing and dummy edits).

When I look at a recent appeal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Appeal_of_the_removal_of_EC_membership_for_User:DMH43), the account was open for a much shorter time, it showed battleground behavior around ARBPIA which I did not, and a fifth of its contributions were around ARBPIA before even receiving EC status.

If you intend to reject my appeal, may I at least ask you to update WP:PGAME and create a clear policy around this? Currently it is very murky and open to interpretations, while the only thing that is clear is the 500/30 rule, which I abided by.

After I made a lot of hard work to improve wikipedia, being the target of a seemingly arbitrary decision is plainly extremely demotivating.

Because of the above, I think my EC permissions should be reinstated FoodforLLMs (talk) 21:43, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

That was a fine removal of EC permission. All this gaming and appeals makes me think we'd be better off if EC was not automated, and instead worked similar to autopatrolled, where you'd need to request it at WP:PERM or be bequeathed upon by an uninvolved admin. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 21:48, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Except for the fact that even in the current state a lot of PIA articles are in an abysmal state because of lack of maintenance, this is a lot of the time because contributors have less access to edit these. You can see that on talk pages with ignored requests for edits.

For example articles I worked on:

• Iran–Israel proxy conflict
• Iran–Israel conflict during the Syrian civil war
• Axis of Resistance

They are usually filled with bad formatting, old and inaccurate information and unreadable amount of text FoodforLLMs (talk) 22:02, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the removal, but I'd be concerned about essentially requiring admin approval for all editors who want to edit in a few topics. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:11, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

• Obvious gaming, and entirely justified removal of EC. -- Euryalus (talk) 23:06, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
• One of the purposes of EC protection/restrictions in contentious editing areas, is that editors need to learn about Wikipedia policies and processes before diving into said areas. The idea of 500 edits is that it provides time to learn said policies, processes and also editing norms before getting involved in contentious topics. There is no way that 500-odd short description changes allows a new editor to achieve this goal, and for that reason I support the removal of EC in this situation with the requirement that they complete 500 non-trivial edits. Daniel (talk) 00:54, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  1. I think that whether I learned about said policies should be judged on the basis of my contributions to WP:ARBPIA and you can see by my diffs that I engaged in constructive behavior and never degrading into WP:BATTLEGROUND. This is not the case among the longtime EC editors in this subject.

  2. In order to do said short description editing, I read about Wikipedia:WikiProject Short descriptions, I made sure not to touch articles that do not have a description but have an autogenerated description from the template and I created search queries to speed up my contributions (which is my biggest crime apparently). I also added clear edit descrptions and read style guides for the rest of my edits.

  All in all I added missing descriptions to hundreds of articles that were missing these, finishing entire categories for a few different geographies, which in my opinion was impactful.

  3. I did want to reach 500/30 to edit WP:ARBPIA because these are subjects that interest me, and I think I have knowledge in. I read the related policies and made sure that my contributions would not be regarded as WP:PGAME, even currently, I cannot tell you what constitutes as a trivial edit as it seems like it's some latent tribal knowledge that changes on case by case basis FoodforLLMs (talk) 06:45, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  Adding short descriptions doesn't give an editor the kind of experience that prepares an editor for ARBPIA editing because, among other things, it doesn't involve having to work with sources at all. This is especially true when it's 100s of the same short description, "railway station in [location]," added to articles about railway stations. These aren't useless contributions, but they don't require thought or research, it's just plugging in a location in a stock phrase, which is why you were able to do so many so quickly. Such edits don't develop content experience in an editor, they don't involve discussing content, they don't involve or demonstrate knowledge of editing policies or guidelines. Endorse removal. Levivich (talk) 14:25, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  I agree. Endorse removal. It won't hurt the editor to make more substantial contributions before getting it restored. Doug Weller talk 17:09, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with @FoodforLLMs that the current policy is murky and does not define engaging in "wikignoming" as an example of gaming. It is clear that a specific interpretation has evolved, but this is not clear to new users who believe they are abiding by the rules, only to discover later that there is an "oral law" not written in the policies. I call for administrators to bring order to the rules.

Regarding the appellant, I would like to recommend that administrators define a specific, clear condition where the editor can regain their EC (for example: an additional X mainspace edits to prove they are a constructive editor), as it seems like a frustrating place to be, and we are likely to lose him/her as a valuable editor, that would be unfortunate. Marokwitz (talk) 19:02, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I think this is a very fair criticism. WP:PGAME does not describe these kinds of edits -- they are not "unconstructive edits" or "dummy edits" or edits to a sandbox. Also, WP:ARBECR doesn't link to PGAME, so a new editor being pointed to ARBECR may not even be aware of PGAME. We are, in fact, holding editors to a standard that is not documented. I join the call for arbs/admins to update the documentation. Levivich (talk) 19:54, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I'll join that call too. Not sure how it can be worded to be unambious, I think there may always be some judgement involved. Doug Weller talk 20:57, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

• WP:ARBECR does link to WP:EXTENDEDCONFIRMED, though, which links to PGAME and which states that Extended confirmed is revoked if a user is in another group with which it is redundant, and in rare cases may be revoked for other reasons, such as if a user games the system by making many trivial edits. That is the core policy defining the extended confirmed permission and is quite clear. It could be made more clear elsewhere, and PGAME should reflect EXTENDEDCONFIRMED and say "trivial" rather than "unconstructive" (since making many unconstructive edits is already against policy), but I don't accept the argument that any editor who has gamed the system was unaware of what they were doing; maybe they thought it wouldn't be noticed or that nobody would care, but rushing to get to 500 through minor edits is extremely obvious when it happens. I'm also concerned that setting too clear of a definition could just encourage editors to game the system - the problem with gaming the system isn't that the edits fall below some hypothetical standard; the problem is with the editor's intent. If an editor is reading EXTENDEDCONFIRMED and PGAME with an eye towards figuring out how they can become extended-confirmed as quickly as possible, they should stop doing that, and the guidelines should be written in a way that makes that clear rather than encouraging it by effectively providing a map to the fastest way to get the desired permission. --Aquillion (talk) 21:52, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  These aren't "trivial" edits, though, either. Gnoming isn't "trivial." "Trivial" means "of little value or importance." Adding a short description, fixing typos, adding wikilinks, fixing citation formatting... these gnoming edits are not trivial because they are not "of little value or importance." Levivich (talk) 22:05, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  The fact that "trivial edits" are linked to WP:PGAME suggests that the content in WP:PGAME is the intended interpretation of "trivial." Based on the way WP:EXTENDEDCONFIRMED looks, I doubt that the policy's author regarded technical edits such as adding 5-6 word descriptions as trivial.

  This same issue recurs on this noticeboard, indicating a significant problem. It is counterproductive to our goals of attracting good new editors to enhance content, rather than alienating them, and we should address it.

  If the consensus has shifted, we should indeed update the terms "trivial" and "unconstructive" to better align with the current understanding, perhaps using a term like "unsubstantial." Marokwitz (talk) 22:35, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  This war is maybe the most significant event in the conflict since ECR was instituted at WP:ARBPIA3#500/30 almost 10 years ago. I don't have the stats but I wouldn't be surprised if these past few months have seen an all-time high for new editors in this topic area. I think that's why there is so much activity around ARBPIA ECR lately?

  PGAME was written with WP:XC in mind, not WP:ECR, and "gaming XC" isn't quite the same thing as (what we call) "gaming ECR". To take FoodforLLMs edits as an example, had FFLLM continued to add short descriptions after reaching XC, I don't think anyone would ever suggest they were "gaming XC."

  PGAME is written with an intent requirement ("to raise your user access level"), and that kind of makes sense in relation to XC, but it doesn't necessarily make as much as sense for ARBPIA ECR. The difference is that PGAME is about preventing bad faith acquisition of XC--"gaming XC"--whereas ARBPIA ECR is intended to prevent bad faith and good faith but inexperienced editing in ARBPIA. So, in my view, for ECR, it doesn't matter if the editor's intent is to raise their user access level to edit ARBPIA. As I said in another XC revocation appeal thread, we want editors to make edits to raise their user access level, but even good faith editors may not make the "right" kind of edits for ARBPIA ECR (even if they are the right kind of edits for XC). That is what I think the documentation is lacking.

  I am not in favor of a system, as SFR mentioned above, where admins gatekeep new editors in a topic area. I'm also not in favor of writing rules for admins to follow when it comes to XC revocation in ECR'd CTOPs--I think that's too restrictive and we're not going to do a good job of it. But I do think we should have an explanation about XC revocation in ECR'd CTOPs that does not suggest that XC is only revoked when there is "unproductive" or "trivial" or bad faith "to raise your user access level." I'm not sure exactly what the answer is, but it should be the answer to the question: if I registered an account today and I want to edit an ECR'd CTOP, what kind of edits should I make for the first month? And then an explanation that admins may revoke EC if the editors' edits aren't those kinds of edits. (I'm not sure if "those kinds" means "substantial" or "non-trivial" or what.) Levivich (talk) 02:11, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not quite buying your argument that WP:PGAME is about WP:XC and not WP:ECR. WP:ECR is a restriction that means only editors who are WP:XC can edit in that area, so PGAME'ing XC implicitly involves ECR. ArbCom wouldn't make decisions to apply ECR to a topic area if XC wasn't a thing. So saying that someone is PGAME'ing ECR is equivalent to saying that they PGAME'd XC with the intent of editing in an WP:ARBPIA or other WP:CTOP area. TarnishedPath^talk 02:57, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  Concerning this quote:

  had FFLLM continued to add short descriptions after reaching XC, I don't think anyone would ever suggest they were "gaming XC."
  — User:Levivich

  I continued adding short descriptions after receiving EC: see here, here, here, here and here among others. FoodforLLMs (talk) 20:54, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• It's chickenshit for us to say that editing certain articles is restricted to users who have 30 days of editing and 500 edits... then when they do that (at a significant investment of time and effort) we say "Nuh uh uh that doesn't count" and become upset and offended and throw a hissy fit and accuse them of some vague malfeasance. How are they supposed to know that the criteria we gave were a lie and there was a secret other set of requirements that we actually have and just don't tell them about for some reason? If we told them to do something stupid, that is our fault, and we should stop telling them that, and we should instead make a rule that says you have to apply for XC and then an administrator grants it. jp×g🗯️ 09:42, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  It's not a secret requirement, it's included in Wikipedia:User access levels. EC is also not meant to be a goal, but a rough benchmark to estimate experience. Perhaps a tweak at WP:30/500 could better reflect these points. CMD (talk) 10:15, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  It'sn't. That page says (emphasis mine):

  A registered editor becomes extendedconfirmed automatically when the account has existed for at least 30 days and has made at least 500 edits. This user access right allows editors to edit and create pages that are under extended confirmed protection. The English Wikipedia also enables editors to use the Content Translation tool to create articles and the INDEX template on user pages. This access is included and bundled in the bot and sysop (administrator) user groups. This group was primarily created to deal with specific arbitration remedies and community issues; the Arbitration Committee has since left community-use decisions up to the community.

  Extended confirmed is revoked if a user is in another group with which it is redundant, and in rare cases may be revoked for other reasons, such as if a user games the system by making many trivial edits. If extended confirmed is revoked, it may be re-granted at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Extended confirmed. That page may also be used to request early grants of the group, but requests are almost never accepted except for legitimate alternate accounts of users who are extended confirmed on other accounts.

  What is "trivial edits" supposed to mean, in a way that is clear to a newly registered user? For example, adding and removing a period to your user page 500 times adds no content to the encyclopedia. But why would adding short descriptions to articles (a maintenance task which requires you to understand how templates work, as well as reading each article to summarize it accurately) be "trivial"? If we mean "hang out on the dramaboards", then we should say "hang out on the dramaboards". If we mean "write a GA", then we should say "write a GA". But what we shouldn't do is waffle around saying "well I dunno they have to be, like, uh, important and whatever" and then decide after the fact whether we think someone's contributions show adequate devotion to the Project.

  I'll say for the record that I have made 109862 edits, and if I was told that an article was "30/110362 protected", you bet your patootie I would be queuing up a few AWB runs. jp×g🗯️ 20:18, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  In the above green text, the words games the system by making many trivial edits link to a policy defining gaming as making "unconstructive edits." Any other interpretation is twisting our policy. And your writing style is very funny; we need more of that on Wikipedia. Marokwitz (talk) 20:41, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  I suppose it may be a cultural difference then, as I would not be queuing AWB runs to hit something, especially when being asked not to treat something as a game. The issue is not "devotion", but as I mentioned a rough benchmark of experience. CMD (talk) 07:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  Creating a search function to locate 500 articles without short descriptions and then editing those article's short descriptions only is not my idea of significant time and effort in order to reach WP:XC. TarnishedPath^talk 10:34, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  Okay, do you want to open an RfC to change WP:30/500 to WP:30/500/TarnishedPath's idea of significant time and effort? jp×g🗯️ 20:12, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  I tend to disagree as this wasn't an easy work, if you'd like to benchmark whether this is significant time and effort, I think you should try adding 100 such descriptions. In my opinion you will find this a non-trivial effort FoodforLLMs (talk) 21:02, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  Which of our colleagues became upset and offended and threw a hissy fit and accused someone of some vague malfeasance? If the answer is "no one," seems like your argument is a straw man, and straw man arguments are bullshit, which is worse than chickenshit. Saying it's chickenshit to accuse others of vague malfeasance while simultaneously accusing others of vague malfeasance is not only chickenshit bullshit, but also hypocritical, and hippo shit is worse than chickenshit or bullshit: hippos spray their shit around indiscriminately, and indiscriminate shit spraying does make people upset and offended and throw a hissy fit, which is not as bad as a hippo shit. Levivich (talk) 18:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Closure request for "Inside Voices / Outside Voices"

I posted this before, but it got archived. Per my inquiry at WP:HD, I am requesting a procedural close or snowball close for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Inside Voices / Outside Voices (2nd nomination). --Jax 0677 (talk) 22:56, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

@Jax 0677 I have SNOW closed it, if anybody has problems with my close feel free to revert and we can discuss. Thanks, Seawolf35 ^T--C 07:37, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed gained largely through ECR violations

Chavmen (talk · contribs) recently gained extended-confirmed permissions, but looking through their history it appears that a large portion of their earlier edits were ECR violations. I don't have the time right now to handle this, so I'm leaving a note here. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:06, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi @ScottishFinnishRadish, what's an ECR violation? And which earlier edits? I'm not really sure what this is about so if anyone can explain that would be great. Chavmen (talk) 14:44, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) I'm surprised you're asking what an WP:ECR violation is because you seem to have understood it on Nov 30 and also on Dec 26? Also a question for admins: why didn't this creation trigger edit filter 1276? Levivich (talk) 15:47, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

It looks like the filter was using the "page_id" variable to check if the article was just created, which according to the documentation is unreliable. I've switched it so it uses the "page_age" variable instead, which should hopefully fix it. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 15:54, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

More likely that the page was created in userspace and then moved to mainspace, while the filter only checks for new creations in the mainspace. DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 17:05, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh yeah, that would make sense. I've edited the filter so it should match pages moved into mainspace as well. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 17:30, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately there's no way to access the wikitext during a page move. I've modified the filter to check the new title, which is the best we can do. (Also, there's nothing wrong with page_id anymore; WP:EFD is just really out of date.) Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:11, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with all the Wiki lingo, so you mean EC protected?

When I knew the page was EC protected I always put in edit requests? Isn't that how things are done? I didn't think this was unreasonable or against any rules.

The edits mentioned above, I was involved in prior to any EC protection on the page and when I noticed the protection was placed on the page I left the page and didn't edit it further. You can see that looking back at when the tag was placed.

I also created a page about an organisation to do with Israel which I didn't think controversial. I've edited several other organisations in the same area that weren't EC protected - NGOs etc.

I also requested EC protection on several pages (Bassem Eid, UN Women for example) that were previously vandalised and then I did not edit them.

This feels like a technicality that isn't very clear and I can't see how my edits were negative in anyway or controversial. Chavmen (talk) 23:03, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorting this, stand by. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 22:51, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi Tamzin,

Just to clarify, if a page doesn't have the EC protection tag but still falls under an Israel/Arab/Palestinian topic I shouldn't have edited it?

For instance, pages like LGBT rights in Israel, notable people pages Israeli Arab etc, NGOs, history pages.

Because majority of my edits were in non-EC protected pages.

The claim is that the majority of my edits were in EC pages which I don't see how that's possible since I had stayed away from them or put in edit requests.

Shall I count them manually to demonstrate? Chavmen (talk) 23:27, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, not all pages that fall under the ARBECR are extended-confirmed protected on a technical level. Non-extendedconfirmed editors are expected to abide by the ARBECR on all pages. As I've written in your user rights log, when you hit 1,000 edits you may re-apply for extendedconfirmed to me or at WP:PERM/EC. It seems you're interested in LGBTQ topics, so if you're looking for things to edit not about the Arab-Israeli conflict, there's no shortage of LGBTQ articles to work on. I started a vague outline of Draft:Judaism and LGBT topics a while ago, if you're interested.

Also, since Indigenous Coalition for Israel has been PRODded and de-PRODded, but hasn't been substantively edited by EC editors, I won't ECR-delete it, but I'll split the difference by draftifying and EC-move-protecting it. Any EC editor willing to take responsibility for its contents can move it back. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 23:48, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi Tamzin,

I do feel like this is an unfair sanction placed on me for editing in good faith, with constructive edits and with as much neutrality as possible - given everyone has their own opinions (which I openly admit) and try to keep them out of Wikipedia and use sources correctly and justly.

I have had a long think about this and took the time to go through my 555 edits and make some pertinent notes in order to appeal the sanction, or at the very least have it reduced to a fair number seeing as over 400 edits were on non-EC protected pages and I received no warning from any editors regarding my edits on these pages.

I know time is precious so I will try to keep this simple and to the point.

1) There are a minimum of 100 edits which are all newcomer tasks and me getting used to the platform. I created my account on 18 October and started editing on 1 November after taking time to read WP:MOS and standards.

2) I also initially edited articles on Thermobaric Weapon and Bearing Witness (film). On the page Thermobaric Weapon, I took various issues to the Talk page with another non-EC editor and one EC editor, and was not told that this was not allowed due to restrictions. Both pages were NOT EC protected when I was editing it - hence my understanding that if the page is NOT tagged with EC protection, any editor can edit it (including IP users which I have seen done).

3) After this I made edits on civil marriage in Israel, Maghrebi Jews, Toshavim, Austerity in Israel, The Jerusalem Post, Negev Bedouin, LGBT rights in Israel, Pride House Beersheba and made translations for pages on Israel (I am working on Haya Shenhav) and was never told specifically that I needed to be EC for any of these edits. Further, no edit was controversial or flagged for any reason. I also expanded this non-EC protected stub [4] with no comment from any EC editors that I couldn't.

4) I edited pages on Bassem Eid, Yoseph Hadadd, Sima Sami Bahous, Sara Jama and UN Women and improved the pages by adding neutrality and sources as they were coming up in the news a lot. In fact, I recall making 20-30 edits on one page purely based on an editor misquoting and misrepresenting sources, and I then asked to have the page EC protected and didn't edit it anymore [5]. This demonstrates my understanding that if the EC protection is NOT on the page, I am free to edit.

The UN Women page was particularly vulnerable to a POV IP user which I spent several days correcting the poor sources used and making the criticism section more neutral than it was to start, see here [6] [7]. The user also accused me of being a "sockpuppet" even when I am obviously not and the user was making the page heavily POV.

5) I also expanded this article [8] with again no editor commenting that I couldn't. I also think the article is better for it as are the various articles I edited in the area. I also asked for EC protection on this page and then didn't edit it.

6) Whenever I did encounter a page that was EC protected and needed an edit that I thought valid, I followed procedure and did a non-EC edit request. When the conversation was going in circles I followed WP:LETITGO and left the page and actually didn't return when I hit the 501 edits.

7) Even here, another example of a non-EC protected page where I queried an edit in the Talk page and was not told I shouldn't. I also think it shows an example of taking things to talk first, before editing because I know these areas can be sensitive.

8) Final point, I created an article and several editors questioned the notability but none mentioned anything about an EC violation (re the ICFI article).

TLDR: My edits are constructive, thoughtful, and non-combative. I was unaware of what is referred to as an ECR violation and was not warned as such over the last three months in any of my edits. Hence, why I find it a shame now that I am being reprimanded for this without a warning first.

I wanted to keep my opinions to myself, but I am allowing myself one, I am not here to break rules but if these technical rules were not mentioned to me at any point by more senior editors - then shouldn't a warning be issued first? I do feel like this process will drive away good editors (which I consider myself to be, in my free time, between work and kids). So I appeal to your good faith and of the other admins here.

Best, Chavmen.

P.S. I would love to work on the page you drafted. Thanks for the invite. Chavmen (talk) 03:29, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• I must admit that until relatively recently, I didn't understand that editing a page that isn't formally locked is still a violation. This is not at all obvious.
• The sanction of resetting the counter to 0 and imposing a 1000-edit goal, as if the user has done nothing and needs to start from scratch, despite the significant constructive work demonstrated by Chavmen, appears punitive, excessive, and demotivating. @Tamzin, I urge you to reconsider this. The rationale for EC protection is to deter edit-warriors and sockpuppets, which Chavmen does not seem to be, based on their edit history.
• I would like also to point to different treatment of @IOHANNVSVERVS, who continues to edit with no sanction, and @DMH43, who had EC rights revoked (for gaming) but then restored after 576 mainspace edits, without resetting the counter to 0. Marokwitz (talk) 07:11, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  My rough count, based on a read through contribs and XTools, was 40ish non-ECR-violating comments, which I rounded up to 53 to allow for an even 1,000 edit count as a target. Looking again at XTools, I think I undercounted non-mainspace. Let's call 900 the target. Still rounding up a bit on the number of non-violations, I think, but I like round numbers. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 07:41, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  • I think this is inaccurate, I looked at XTools now and personally counted 151 non-violating edits in the article space alone, not including talk and other spaces. The number of EC-related edits broadly construed was 261, so I propse that Chavmen should do another 261 edits to regain EC, for a total of 761 - for your consideration. Marokwitz (talk) 12:42, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

    Okay, let's see. Pride House, sure. Some aspects of Negev Bedouin don't fall under PIA, but these all do. Ditto these edits to Maghrebi Jews. Jay Ruderman is a mixed bag; I guess one could count the 4 edits on the 7th and 8th as non-PIA but at this point we're really nitpicking. Shenhav, sure. Alfred Ngaro, 7 out of 9 are fine. LGBT rights in Israel are heavily politicized within the Arab–Israeli conflict, as I'm sure you know, and Chavmen's edits largely concern that politicization. And I'm going to stop here because there's no way the remaining pages are going to get us to 139, and non-mainspace edits aren't going to bridge the gap either. I stand by 900 as a target. And look, that's not a binding admin determination. That's my recommendation as removing admin. This isn't an AE action; any other admin is welcome to restore EC before 900 edits if they feel Chavmen has done the necessary work. (And, conversely, an admin could decline restoring at 900 if they feel she hasn't.) But for me at least, consider this a final answer. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 18:39, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Violating mainspace edits, broadly construed - total 261

Edit Count	Page Title
39	Indigenous Coalition for Israel
27	Bassem Eid
20	UN Women
18	Yoseph Haddad
16	Nili (unit)
15	2023 Israel–Hamas war
11	Bearing Witness (2023 film)
10	Within Our Lifetime
10	Thermobaric weapon
9	Sima Sami Bahous
8	Nuclear program of Iran
8	Road to Recovery (charity) - borderline
7	Sarah Jama
6	Battles of Latrun (1948)
4	Use of human shields by Hamas
3	Ma'na an-Nakba
3	Haim Hanegbi - borderline
2	2023 Israel–Hamas war hostage crisis

Non-Violating Edits

Edit Count	Page Title
14	The Pride House in Beersheba
11	Negev Bedouin
10	Maghrebi Jews
10	Jay Ruderman
9	Haya Shenhav
9	Alfred Ngaro
7	LGBT rights in Israel
7	Ozzy Zoltak
6	Tamasi
5	Toshavim
5	Austerity in Israel
5	Bandli Wildlife Sanctuary
5	Bauhinia Party
4	Rashi School
4	Recognition of civil marriage in Israel
4	Udi Ashash
3	Hubbard Foods
3	Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies, Rangsit University
3	Warren Mundine
3	Radio Dum Dum
2	Kenmore State High School
2	Visy
2	Qatawi family
2	CrowdJustice
2	Israelites
2	Yehuda Karni
2	Ipswich, Queensland
2	Trinità dei Monti (think tank)
2	Jumping position
2	The Jerusalem Post
2	Mater Group
2	NRMA

Consistent response to gaining ECP through ECR violations

It seems how to respond to this various considerably; some editors, like IOHANNVSVERVS and Osps7 (who I raised a few years ago), are allowed to keep ECP, while others like DMH43 and Chavmen have it removed.

I think it would both be possible and beneficial to determine a consistent response to this; when an editor is otherwise believed to be acting in good faith should ECP be revoked or allowed to stand?

This would both ensure equity in a case where equity is possible, and it would let editors know whether they should or should not bring these incidents to admins attention - I note that I've seen several other examples, on both sides, that I haven't raised because I assumed it was seen as a non-issue and fait accompli. BilledMammal (talk) 07:48, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Related to this, I went through editors who have edited 2023 Israel-Hamas war and have less than 1000 edits, and found the following:

1. FoodforLLMs - Possibly gaming. 653 edits, first 500 are primarily rapid-fire adding short descriptions.
2. Onesgje9g334 - Gaming. 663 edits, first 500 are primarily adding and removing one letter from sentences in an article in the draft space. I think the purpose was to be able to edit articles related to the Russian-Ukrainian war rather than the Israel-Hamas war, but the result is the same.
3. Ghsuturi - Possibly gaming. 664 edits, first 500 are primarily rapid-fire adding categories.
4. M3ATH - 256 edits. Hasn't earned ECP yet, but well on their way with edits to articles that should be under ECR.

I didn't find any that were both not banned and had earned ECP through editing ECR pages, but I felt these still warranted mentioning somewhere. BilledMammal (talk) 09:04, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Reviewing other pages, I found:

1. President Loki - Possibly gaming. 599 edits, first 500 edits are primarily rapid-fire adding wikilinks, as well as a few edits to pages that should be under ECR.
2. Ronash - Possibly gaming. 599 edits, first 500 edits are primarily rapid-fire adding short descriptions, as well as a few edits to pages that should be under ECR.

BilledMammal (talk) 09:11, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

User:Bishonen removed ECP from President Loki on the 21st, no edits since. Ronash stopped editing in October, I've removed ECP just in case. Both were obvious. I'm wondering if both just abandoned their accounts and, who knows? Doug Weller talk 13:32, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, there should be a consistent response. Remove it and have them do 500 normal edits. That will hopefully learn how to edit and it is no big deal to have to do 500 more edits elsewhere. Doug Weller talk 13:34, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The goal of ECP is to limit articles to users who have reasonably familiarized themselves with Wikipedia's norms, and who have put in enough effort on the current account that it's much less likely for a sock to have done so. My standard for removing EC is

1. where the user's course of edits does not show that level of effort and familiarization and
2. where it appears that this is due to a deliberate pursuit of EC status

The latter can be inferred by speed and by whether they dive right into ECP'd/ECR'd areas. There might be a new user who just loves copy-editing or updating box office figures, and hits 30/500 without learning much of how to edit. But they typically won't have done that in one rapid series of edits, and typically won't start arguing about body counts in Gaza on edit #501. Conversely, if a user's intent is clearly to edit about ECP/ECR areas, but they put in their time and make 500 meaningful edits (or, well, 500 edits of which a reasonable proportion are meaningful; everyone makes some number of typo fixes and vandal reverts), they should not have ECP revoked. They may be at risk of being declared tendentious, but they haven't gamed anything.

As to restoration, we should probably settle on what I've done above (crediting a rough estimate of the number of non-violating edits, subtracting that from 500, and saying "talk to me/PERM after that many edits"), or just making it a flat 500. I have a slight preference for the former, but only a slight one. Although there should be leeway for some discretion in either direction, e.g. someone who hits the magic number but has also been blocked for an ECRvio in that time might still be denied, and someone might get an early grant if they showed exemplary behavior and did some really high-quality content work. (In a non-ECR context, we had one editor recently get a GA before hitting EC, so anything is possible.) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 18:57, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Just a comment regarding @Levivich's comments above RE: not knowing about EC violations. The two examples brought up here [9] and here [10] actually show that I didn't know I was doing anything wrong:

In 1) I asked for a non-EC edit request on a protected page and in 2) I had started my comments before the page was actually placed under protection and then noticed several comments later and left. These examples prove my point that I didn't know I was doing anything wrong in editing pages with non-EC protection because as soon as they became EC protected, I closed the talk and left or asked for an edit request (this also occurred on the Thermobaric Weapon page BTW).

I also want to point out here, on a talk page with several (I counted 6 so far) non-EC editors, none are told that they can't comment when the page is protected and related to ARBPIA. In fact, @Levivich didn't mention it then and is involved in this talk.

So the rules are not being made clear and this is a shame, because it seems that this is only placed on me now because I hit EC but other editors such as in this talk page are not warned.

As I worked hard and in good faith, it is disappointing seeing as it just seems like different rules apply at different times.

Thanks @Tamzin for collating that list - beyond my tech skills - some of those edits were made after 500 - Battle of Latrun, Use of human shields by Hamas, 2023 Israel-Hamas War hostage crisis totaling 12 edits which I would have had no idea violated anything seeing as I was EC at the time. I also didn't "jump" to these articles and believe I edited the Road to Recovery page (8 edits) first which you have placed as borderline. Anyway, that would be a total of 20 edits after EC status in this area reducing the 261 so-called "violating" edits to 241.

Again though, it's not the number I care about to be perfectly honest, it's the fact these rules seem to apply now that I have made EC, with no warning, and still as per my example, in countless other articles and talk pages non-EC editors are not warned or reprimanded. Chavmen (talk) 00:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

P.S. Thanks for everyone's input, it has been fun to learn about these things nevertheless :) Chavmen (talk) 00:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Just to clarify - The tables are not signed , but I posted them, not Tamzin... Sorry for being unclear Marokwitz (talk) 06:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• The consistent response should be a topic ban from whatever protected topic they tried to game the system to edit. Such a topic ban should of course be open to negotiation in the future when the editor becomes genuinely established. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:26, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  Hi @Horse Eye's Back, is this comment pertaining to me? Or to other user comments?

  As I stated, there was no "gaming" on my part. As far as I was aware I wasn't violating any rules with my edits and no editor nor admin told me otherwise for a full two months of editing. There were no EC restriction tags on pages I edited when I was under 500 edits. I made two non-EC edit requests in total before this time as per the rules.

  I still don't see how this qualifies for violating any rules when this page here has several non-EC editors not being reprimanded for being involved in discussions on ARBPIA topics (several senior editors are involved in these discussions - User:Levivich and User:Dimadick).

  Also here, this user made changes to an ARBPIA related section (which was not EC protected at the time) with no warning or reprimand after. I had been watching this page previously and commented on the Talk at 11:10, 18 December 2023 (UTC) that several users shouldn't edit-war here and to discuss instead. This then brought the eyes of other senior editors who then EC protected the page at 20:27, 18 December 2023 (UTC) and I subsequently left the discussion when I noticed.

  Even when I created an article on an Israel related organization, no editor warned or reprimanded me, see talk, and as far as I was aware the articles that were EC protected were the only ones out of bounds. Hence if you look at this table by Markowitz (thanks) you can see that only 3 of the articles are EC protected and I edited them after I reached 500 edits as per the rules.

  To illustrate the double standard a little more, just see this section above. User:DMH43 edited ARBPIA related articles that were not EC protected for the majority of their edits pre EC status, then when they hit their 500 edits solely edited ARBPIA topics. DMH43 appealed, regained their EC status, and continues to edit, yet I am reprimanded far harsher and have not made controversial edits nor been in edit wars.

  To me, it seems that the rules pertain sometimes but not all the time and not to everyone.

  I can't say that I am not disappointed. The rules are either blanket rules for everyone and are told to everyone all the time, or there are no rules. Chavmen (talk) 10:51, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Question about ARBPIA sanctions

Can somebody clarify this for me? Honestly I still do not understand it. The ARBPIA policy this page states:

The following set of sanctions will be considered the "ARBPIA General Sanctions"... Extended confirmed restriction: The extended confirmed restriction is imposed on the area of conflict.

and:

The presence of the templates is required before the General Sanctions can be enforced on primary articles.

and:

If there is confusion about which content is considered related, the content in question may be marked in the wiki source with an invisible comment. The presence of the templates is required before the General Sanctions can be enforced on related content.

and:

Editors should apply the ARBPIA General Sanctions templates to related content only when disruption creates a need for additional administrative tools.

What is the basis for enforcing EC sanctions on pages lacking a template?Marokwitz (talk) 06:19, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

The instructions say ask at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Clerks if you aren't clear. Doug Weller talk 15:33, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, done. Marokwitz (talk) 20:11, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Rangeblock request

Hello! Could someone please rangeblock 2604:3D08:2F84:2000::/64? Two IPs from this range, along with accounts Israelisascourge and Blooperman12345 (since blocked), have been repeatedly adding the same unconstructive and possibly defamatory content to Perpetrators, victims, and bystanders. IP disruption seems limited to this /64 (and I think it's likely that the accounts are on the same range), so I believe a rangeblock would be helpful. (Also, is this the right venue? I don't know if AN/I would be more appropriate — the stated scope in its header seems to have been limited to only "chronic and unmanageable behavioral problems" sometime since I last looked.) Thanks. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 01:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Blocked by Ingenuity. WP:AIV is the venue for reporting active, obvious, and persistent vandals. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 03:04, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you both. I thought this might be a bit more complex than AIV's scope, so I took it here — I'll take similar cases there in the future. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 03:13, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Administrators are generally familiar with /64 IPv6 ranges being handled similarly to single IPv4 blocks. See also WP:/64. DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 13:32, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Koavf unblocked

It will probably be of interest to a number of admins that I have recently unblocked Koavf (talk · contribs), and as a condition of this, they have agreed to an indefinite one revert restriction. As Koavf is a long-standing editor with an extensive block log for edit-warring, including several indefinite blocks, I think this unblock is worth reviewing to see if there is a solid consensus for it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:01, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

If looking at that CVS receipt of a block log is correct this is the FIFTH time they were indef'd. At what point do we say as a community "it's not worth our time"? I should add I do not approve of the unblock at all. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:33, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

As I've mentioned to Koavf on his talk page, if the 1RR doesn't work, the next thing that I will probably propose is a site ban. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:10, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I was wondering about that myself, and also why the unblock was with a one revert restriction when Koavf's proposal and the entire discussion of their unblock was around a zero revert restriction. Also, by my count this is the ninth time they've been unblocked from an edit-warring block after promising not to do it again. How many times do we have to keep doing this? As far as I can tell the edit warring policy does not say "unless you are Koavf" anywhere. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:15, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I guess to keep it on topic: bad unblock. There's no way that an editor with this long of a block log with so many blocks, many of them indefinite, for the same thing that they are currently blocked for, should have been unblocked without a clear consensus at a community discussion board. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:17, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Just would like to note that I blocked Koavf indefinitely and yet Ritchie did not consult with me before unblocking. Not surprising, at least not to me.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:25, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

My reading of that discussion is that they agreed to a WP:0RR sanction. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 14:22, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

To be clear to you and to others (e.g. User:Number 57), I am restricting myself to no reverts/undos/etc. for at least a year, no matter the editing restrictions that Ritchie or the community place upon me that are less restrictive. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:36, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment) Personally, I would be tempted to propose a site ban today. Indeed, it's odd that it hasn't happened yet. But this unblock is bizarre. Ritchie333 tells Koavf that they're in the "last-chance saloon"; I'd like clarification on where this saloon is located—on the 31st or 32nd block? Also, the lack of discussion with the blocking admin is disturbing and pretty clearly against the spirit of WP:UNBLOCK (where ...the agreement of the blocking admin is something of a mantra). Bad unblock. ——Serial 14:42, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

A few points:

• Koavf's unblock request talks about 1RR. As it was not obvious whether 0RR or 1RR was being agreed to, I deferred to the least restrictive option given.
• A number of longstanding editors, including Boing! said Zebedee, Thinker78 and Valereee, suggested an editing restriction would be a suitable way forward.

• I took Bbb23's silence on the talk page as an indication they had no strong opinions on what happened next.
• In general, I find unblock requests tend to stagnate and take weeks to get any action - bringing them here for review gets a faster result.
• If there is no consensus to unblock Koavf, then I have no objection to them being reblocked indefinitely. Or, if there is a consensus to site ban Koavf, I won't object to that either. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:34, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

As Koavf has agreed to a voluntary 0RR, I think a formal 1RR is a wise choice. It gives him a little leeway (but only a little) for an occasional 1RR mistake without being instantly blocked. He should, of course, endeavour to stick to 0RR. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:57, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

My view is that the overriding thing that matters is whether unblocking an editor will be a net positive to the project, and in this case I think that's a big yes. In fact, as I suggested at Koavf's talk page, I think we'd still have a significant net positive if we just blocked him for a fixed period (1 month?) every time he gets into an edit war (providing it's not too frequently). In the past, I've favoured "wasting community time" as a reason to keep someone blocked. But these days I realise that if I think someone is wasting my time, they can't be - because I'm the only one who can do that. So if anyone thinks Koavf is wasting their time, they can surely just ignore him - and if enough people don't think so, we're fine, aren't we? (TLDR: Good unblock, thanks Ritchie.) Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Why even bother with a one month block? There's always someone around who will unblock Koavf: nine times now he's been unblocked, and many of those blocks were timed blocks that were undone before they expired. If not wasting time is our goal, we should just add # You are [[User:Koavf]]. to the bottom of the WP:3RRNO list. As for being a net positive: I'd also like to know how one achieves this designation, so that I too can repeatedly disregard policies that I find inconvenient or difficult to follow. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:26, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, you have my thoughts on how I think we should look at unblocks - more holistically rather than by strict rule-following. But if you don't like my opinion, others are available :-) Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:30, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ay, per IV, and it's been repeatedly established in the past at both ANI and Arbcom that neither the number nor the quality of one's edits exempts an editor from the rules everyone else has to follow. And frankly, if we're to effectively guarantee that they'll never receive a block longer than, e.g. a month, then that's hardly a deterrent, more of an encouragement. ——Serial 15:35, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

{ec}:Yes. Koavf has had almost 30 blocks in his editing career. Do we really just say "Well, he's a good editor" (I'm not sure what the criteria people using is who say this). So can he have an unlimited number of one month blocks? I don't see in the unblock any suggestion that he should be at any point indefinitely blocked. I think this was a bad unblock. Doug Weller talk 15:44, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

So we are to "just ignore him" if he continues to edit war? How in the world is that a "net positive"? The project is better off without him editing. RickinBaltimore (talk) 15:52, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't feel strongly about this, but I saw the dispute that triggered the current round, and I have been wondering whether it would be possible to set a bot or Special:AbuseFilter to auto-block him if he makes edits that earn relevant Special:Tags (e.g., Undo or Manual revert, or more than one on the same page per day). This would trigger even for blatant vandalism, so he wouldn't be able to do that, but he won't be able to do that if we siteban him, either.

There is a theory of punishment that says that the best approach to changing someone's behavior is a punishment that is prompt, expected, and small enough that an appeal isn't especially pointful. An instant block for a few days upon infraction might be more effective than ongoing discussions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:15, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I like this idea as a technical solution, and I generally agree with the underlying principle, but I recoil at the thought of writing a piece of software just to deal with one editor. We already have an effective tool for dealing with people who refuse to follow policies and conventions – we apparently just lack the will to use it consistently. – bradv 16:35, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This isn't a productive approach either: most of the blocks in Koavf's very long block log are for 48 hours or less, including one that was successfully appealed after just 42 minutes. Koavf always says they've learned their lesson and won't do it again, somebody always unblocks him, and he always does it again. Occasionally there's a long interlude but he always ends up blocked again. We've tried short blocks, we've tried long blocks, Arbcom even tried 1RR parole which he was blocked for violating five times within a year. He doesn't improve - we've repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn't need to, and some of us are saying that in plain English in this thread. Our choices here are to implement a technical restriction that prevents him from reverting for any reason (if an edit filter can do that), or siteban him; anything else is a formal acknowledgement that Koavf is functionally exempt from the edit warring policy. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

This also seems like a good place to note that Koavf has had rollback rights since 2010. I realize that removing it is kind of pointless (since we have many tools that can perform the same function without needing userrights) but I struggle to think of a better example of justification for its removal. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:53, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The edit filter can't AFAIK filter based on tags, but it can filter based on edit summary which is probably good enough. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:46, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Building abusefilter entries to sanction single users is bad use of resources, individual users being disruptive should be managed with blocks. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:58, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I suspect there's a number of indeffed editors out there (if they're looking in), who aren't going to be too happy. GoodDay (talk) 16:17, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• +1 to this being a bad unblock. At the very least, I would have expected a 0RR restriction being imposed. Number 57 16:51, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• (Non-administrator comment) One word – pathetic. If Koavf can get away with it (despite making promises not to edit war in the past) then every other blocked editor/IP/sockpuppet/etc should also be unblocked. There must be no room for "special treatment" like with this particular editor. – sbaio 17:29, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• I don't approve of this decision and I hope it's promptly reversed.—S Marshall T/C 18:54, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Agree - bad unblock, this should have been discussed with the community before. GiantSnowman 19:48, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  Actually, that's a good point; in the past I have gone to AN to get an unblock request reviewed (IIRC I did this with Winkelvi at least twice) and I'm actually puzzled I didn't do it this time. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:36, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Just a minor point of order, I didn't consider the unblock "unilateral"; rather I took it as the consensus of those who had commented at Koavf's talk page. If the wider consensus is Koavf shouldn't be editing Wikipedia at all, then that's fine. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:27, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• The unspoken issue here is that Koavf is borderline WP:UNBLOCKABLE due to them being the fifth most prolific editor of all time. Of course, the second most prolific editor of all time is BrownHairedGirl, and we all know how that ended (though ArbCom had to be the one to ultimately ban her, because of the UNBLOCKABLE issue). But we still keep coming back here because edit warring is mild on the spectrum of misbehavior, and editors keep weighing Koavfs 2.2 million edits against that. Really, this whole thing is just tragic. I think we've all been hoping that Koavf would see sense after so many blocks. Like, how could you continue to not get it after making 2.2 million edits? But maybe that's exactly the point. Koavf has repeatedly proved that he is set in his ways and unwilling or unable to change. Still, Koavf's positive contributions to Wikipedia weight very heavily on the side of an unblock, so its hard to say that Ritchie's unblock was inherently bad. It is up to individual admins to decide unblocks, and Ritchie extended a ROPE. Now, one could argue Koavf has been given enough rope to open a macrame business, but given Koavf's unusual situation, I'm not sure that was inherently a bad thing. I think we're sometimes too quick to chase away our best editors. Plus, Koavf came up with a rather good unblock plan: ORR for a year, followed by indefinite 1RR. If anything, I think Ritchie's failing here was not accepting Koavf's 0RR plan. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:40, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  To the extent that anyone's motivated to, please codify an indefinite 0RR. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:44, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  Yep, I think the Captain sums up the dilemma well. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:26, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: I would like some clarification on the process leading to this decision because it seems to have been reached on the narrowest forum possible, without a strong consensus, and without consulting the blocking administrator. Unblocking someone with a history of 28 blocks (give or take), including 18 for edit warring, shouldn't have been done with such casual ease. The debate between 1RR and 0RR is a distraction and it completely ignores that they have a history of repeatedly violating 1RR parole conditions. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 22:53, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Bad unblock. I'm unimpressed by Ritchie's argument here that several longstanding editors (giving three examples) suggested an editing restriction, as Ritchie of course knows that a not-on-the-face-of-it-very-well-watched user talkpage is an obscure place to come to a pretty momentous consensus. I should think there may be plenty of longstanding editors who deliberately avoid watching such an unpleasant place as Koavf's page, for the improvement of their Wikipedia experience. I'm an example myself, having unwatched the page after Doug Weller and I were comprehensively attacked by Koavf in the Antifa section in November 2023 (if you're interested at all, don't miss the tucked-away subsection "Weird aside" at the end, collapsed and marked "Resolved" [sic] by Koavf). As for Ritchie taking Bbb23's silence as giving consent, that's unusual, not in a good way. Bbb23 should at a minimum have been asked to comment. I will support either reblocking or replacing the block with Ivan Vector's "Proposal: No reverts restriction" below. Bishonen | tålk 10:36, 4 January 2024 (UTC).

Proposal: 0RR with no unilateral unblocks

There seems to be pretty broad consensus above that unblocking with a 1RR was an insufficient remedy, but it's not clear to me that a motion to siteban would pass either. Since Koavf has indicated that he will hold himself to a 0RR regardless of the 1RR's leeway, and since a key concern raised above is the tendency of admins to unblock Koavf, I would like to propose the following community sanction:

Koavf is subject to an indefinite zero-revert restriction. If an administrator blocks Koavf for violating this restriction, he may not be unblocked without a consensus at the administrators' noticeboard. This restriction may appealed after one year, and every six months after an unsuccessful appeal.

I'll be honest, I'm not hugely opposed to a siteban either, but I'd like to see how this would go (and any block under the restriction would have the same effect as a siteban regardless). -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 19:50, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Support, although this feels somewhat like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. GiantSnowman 19:51, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Comment - I believe the better question to ask the community would be - Should Koavf be site-banned. GoodDay (talk) 19:54, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to !vote that here, if that's your preference. Just change the heading to "Proposed sanctions" or something. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 19:58, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Inappropriate. Tamzin, as you know, this thread is not about redefining Koavf's remedy but whether Ritchie333's unilateral unblock had consensus. The above thread clearly shows that there is a consensus it was an inappropriate block. The result is, therefore, that Koavf should be reblocked; that is, the previous blocking administrator's judgment stands. The siteban was only mentioned in passing by a couple of us: it's pretty much a strawman to suggest that that was the main issue under discussion. The overall consensus to the question that Ritchie brought to the table—"was my unblock a good one?"—has received a resounding answer: No. So it gets overturned. There was also a pretty strong consensus that unblocking would just be kicking the can down road; this proposal enables the behavior further. ——Serial 20:01, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  There is not a meaningful difference between restoring the indef and sitebanning. An admin who unilaterally unblocked after a reblock would be going against consensus at best and wheel-warring at worst, so in either case an unblock request would have to come through AN. But like I said, I don't have a strong preference here. I just thought I'd give a middle-ground option. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 20:14, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Tamzin: I fully accept your reasonable and considered proposal and subsequent response. My issue is rather that, so much middle ground has been covered in the past, that it's now a no man's land; and unfortunately, it's no longer Christmas day. ——Serial 20:50, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support This seems to be a reasonable solution to the issue I identify above; i.e. that Ritchie's failing here was not accepting Koavf's 0RR suggestion. Plus, Koavf himself has requested it in this discussion, so that's all the more reason to formalize it. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:46, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support as a second choice; I'm going to write in a slightly different proposal below. I don't think that Koavf should be reblocked at this point: I agree with Ritchie that there was consensus to unblock in the talk page discussion that did occur. I still think Ritchie took liberties in the imposed restriction that were beyond reasonable license, but there's no preventive purpose to reblocking Koavf because of that, and I don't see the value in pursuing anything else in that regard - admins make mistakes. This restriction puts into writing that future unblocks must be with the broad consensus of the community, not just short discussions among Koavf's supporters. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• I think 1RR is sufficient, but I can support this too. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:30, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• I too think that 1RR is sufficient, but if the others think that 0RR is necessary, then I will support their choice. M.Bitton (talk) 23:36, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support per Tamzin's comments above and below. Ajpolino (talk) 02:28, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support. I think 0RR might be easier to understand than 1RR. Espresso Addict (talk) 10:08, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support This seems a reasonable solution. ORR should have been the minimum when Koavf was unblocked but better late never.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:01, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support as a last chance. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:27, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: site ban, second choice restore indefinite block

Per a number of statements above this should be put forward as an alternative to an editing restriction. Doug Weller talk 20:05, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support The advantage of a site ban—which, of course, needn't be of any fixed duration—is that it prevents any unblocks without community input, unlike what caused the above shenanigans. And the second choice indef block is not so much a second choice as, well, a pretty clear reading of the consensus above. FTR, I do not consider 2.2 million edits to weigh anything against repeatedly pissing off the community for years and being enabled to do so. Mileage may, of course vary, as ever. ——Serial 20:10, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support To me all the 0RR restriction about is kicking the can down the road. It's not if it happens again but when. The message this sends is, at least to me, "You can do what you want if you edit enough". If this was an editor with a fraction of the edits, and specifically this block log, we aren't having this discussion right now. RickinBaltimore (talk) 20:54, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose - this is definitely trying to shut the stable door! GiantSnowman 21:15, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• It's ridiculous that we have to do this to get a block to stick, but it looks like this is what we have to do to get a block to stick.—S Marshall T/C 21:22, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support: Checking his shopping list of a block log is enough to me oppose once again unblocking him, which would give him the status as an WP:UNBLOCKABLE. Some people have suggested giving him 1RR or 0RR as a countermeasure, but he seems to been known to violate these 'restrictions'. For example:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&logid=9287453

ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 22:57, 3 January 2024 (UTC)— ASmallMapleLeaf (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. .--Bbb23 (talk) 02:29, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

That so-called shopping list is a by-product of using a single account to make over 2 million edits. M.Bitton (talk) 23:36, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Koavf is #5 on WP:MOSTEDITS. The #1 editor on that list has never been blocked intentionally. #3 spent 92 minutes blocked for edit-warring in 2007. #4 was blocked for 1 minute in 2009 to get their attention. Then there's #2 on that list, BrownHairedGirl, who is now ArbComBanned, but even her block log is much shorter than Koavf's, and only goes back to 2019. So I don't buy a long block log as an occupational hazard of making lots of edits. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 00:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Several of these prolific editors are/were admins, which does affect block probability. Espresso Addict (talk) 10:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@Bbb23 I am also a newer user (hence the low edit count) but I have spectated ANI for a long time as a pastime (sometimes when flying and wheb there is no internet) ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 09:35, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

^thats not to say I like editting ANI more than other articles, though. ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 11:30, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose because it would be a net negative for the encyclopedia. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:29, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• I am not opposed to this but slightly prefer my proposal above. Koavf has been given very ample notice about the existence of the edit-warring policy, so I couldn't really feel bad for him if he's run out of the community's patience here, and can't justify opposing this. But I guess I take a WP:ROPE attitude toward his offer of 0RR, made enforceable by my proposal; if he can't keep that 0RR, we'll know soon enough. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 00:14, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose - it would be a significant loss to Wikipedia if we can't find a way for Koavf to be able to continue editing, and we ought to keep trying to find a solution that works. But a thought occurred to me in this: have you noticed that we only use terms like "net positive" and "net loss" when discussing editors who have behaved so badly that they're facing expulsion from the site? Maybe those terms don't mean what we think they do in Wikipedia jargon. If you have to be defended as a "net positive", maybe you just aren't. I'm not directing that at anyone in particular, just food for thought. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:54, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support siteban - I can image what currently site-banned editors are thinking right now. Jeepers, I was site-banned for a whole year (2012–13) for arguably less disruptive behavior. We shouldn't be seen as giving preferential treatment to any editor. PS - I did look over their block-log & WP:UNBLOCKABLES did cross my mind. GoodDay (talk) 15:01, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support (non-admin comment) - We shouldn't have any WP:UNBLOCKABLES, and having such a prolific edit history is not an excuse for this amount of behavior issues. Edit count alone doesn't make someone a "net positive", and I agree with Ivanvector's thoughts above. ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 15:20, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• I somewhat reluctantly support this. Reluctantly, because Justin has been here for a long time and is indeed prolific--but from that record we need to subtract the amount of disruption and busy-ness caused by edit warring and blocks and discussions. The "no reverts" promise is something, but this--they didn't even take it back. Drmies (talk) 15:51, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  Maybe I'm missing something, but that actually seems like a reasonable question. It wasn't immediately clear what Doug Weller was trying to accomplish by posting that comment. Without context, it did rather smack of gravedancing. Perhaps I'm bending over too far backwards trying to be gracious to Justin, but I think we need to be especially careful to be fair to an editor when we are talking about banning him. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:18, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support (Non-administrator comment) per what others already said. Having some kind of "celebrity" status does not make it acceptable to keep breaking the rules and getting away with it. Every editor must be treated equally and "2 million edits" is not a justification (along with extensive block log, which just shows that this is a problematic editor). – sbaio 18:56, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose he's offered us 0RR. Let's give it one last shot. If he fails to adhere to this promise, I will support a ban. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:15, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support. According to his block log, he's been blocked in the past for violating a 1RR restriction. I see no reason - and certainly not his contribution numbers - to do this again. It feels like a broken record.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:02, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: No reverts restriction

Making this separate from Tamzin's very similar restriction because of what I expect to be a controversial caveat.

Koavf is subject to an indefinite "no reverts" restriction: Koavf may not revert any edit for any reason, including the usual exemptions in the edit warring policy. For clarity: any edit that is flagged with the mw-undo, mw-rollback, or mw-manual-revert tags is a violation of this restriction, excepting only self-reverts. Additionally, Koavf's rollback permission is revoked, and he may not hold the permission while this restriction remains in force. If an administrator blocks Koavf for violating this restriction, he may not be unblocked without a consensus at the administrators' noticeboard. This restriction may appealed at the same noticeboard after one year, and every six months after an unsuccessful appeal.

• Support as proposer. Many of Koavf's past blocks have been over good-faith misinterpretations of what is considered an exempt revert. This restriction removes the confusion: no reverts, period. Yes it's a bit draconian but nothing else has worked, and admins still have discretion to warn instead of rushing for the block button. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 21:09, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• I will support this if you can incorporate Tamzin's 'no unilateral unblock' wording. GiantSnowman 21:15, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  The part starting with "If an administrator blocks..." is copied directly from Tamzin's proposal, except I added that appeals must be at this noticeboard as well. Did you mean something else? That was certainly my intent. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 22:23, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for clarifying. GiantSnowman 19:19, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• I'd like to support this, but slightly hesitate over the inclusion of mw-manual-revert. According to Special:Tags, that covers "Edits that manually restore the page source to an exact previous state". Per mw:Manual:Reverts § Manual revert, MediaWiki by default looks at the last 15 revisions to determine that. I can't find what it's set to on enwiki, but my recollection it's either the default 15 or 10. I'm not sure that, in all cases, leaving the page look like it did 10 or 15 edits ago will lead to something that a human would perceive as a revert. Like, suppose User A makes 7 edits adding incoherent nonsense to a page. On edit 8, User B, a newbie who doesn't know how to restore old edits, manually reverts most of that, but makes a small spelling error in the process. Six months later, Koavf stumbles upon the article, notices the spelling error, and fixes it, thereby returning the page to its state before User A touched it (edit 0). No reasonable admin would call that a revert, but MediaWiki would, as I understand it. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 22:35, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• Same as Tamzin, I don't think this should be based on MediaWiki tags, but on human judgment of whether an edit is a revert. Still, saying that, I'd prefer this option to a site ban or indef block. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:41, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• (Without studying the merits of the case), shouldn't the admin who blocks Koavf be able to rescind the block? Suggest "he may not be unblocked" becomes "he may not be unblocked by another administrator". Zero^talk 02:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• No, I don't think so. If this passes, and I hope it doesn't, we want to give the unblocking decision to the community, not to the first sysop to get to the block button.—S Marshall T/C 14:47, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  But being able to undo your own actions is SOP for admin actions, so we should be aware this is a pretty big departure from standard procedure. Courcelles (talk) 15:56, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• That seems like a lot of pressure to put on the blocking admin, also a measure of power inordinate to their office (it would essentially give Admins individual ownership of blocked users). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:51, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• This is just proposal #2 with a delay on it. If Koavf was capable of changing his behaviour, he would long since have changed it.—S Marshall T/C 14:47, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Responding to the points above, I've struck the "clarity" part about relying on software tags. I was looking for a very black-and-white solution to avoid misjudgements and disagreements, but the tags themselves are also subject to error, and I can't say I disagree with any of the other points made. As for unblocking by the blocking administrator: I don't agree, with the possible exception of obviously erroneous blocks, but even in that case I think it would be preferable to review at AN (such a review ought to be pretty quick anyway). Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support as (I think) strictest potential restriction short of another block or ban. GiantSnowman 19:23, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: As a purely technical issue, I sometimes make edits (often to templates or stylesheets) that end up with the mw-manual-revert tag because there happens to be an old revision somewhere in the history of the page with the same source code, despite these not actually being reverts (i.e. having the same code as a revision from several years ago where there's been dozens of subsequent modifications). jp×g🗯️ 00:43, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Request for batch revert

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

I'd like to request that the edits done by permanently blocked editor Daxtonlab with "created references section" in the summary (1639 edits) be reverted. These edits create empty References sections in all those articles. Note, these edits can also be selected by a date range.

If the tools can't do this, all of this editor's edits (4107 edits) should be reverted. His other (all well intentioned) edits aren't as bad, but none of them are improvements. They mostly make meaningless changes to "website=" parameters or add incorrect "journal=" parameters to citations, or introduce WP:OL in text. Dan Bloch (talk) 00:47, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• Bbb23, thank you for blocking that editor. User:Danbloch, the incompetence was quite overwhelming. Drmies (talk) 02:53, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@Danbloch. All done, I think, (the revert of "created references section") except for those where there had been a subsequent edit, I spied the use of WPCleaner on some and a redirect. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 02:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Dan Bloch (talk) 03:26, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• No comment on the reversion, just a note that I've seen several editors advocating adding blank references sections to unsourced articles in VP, the idea being that it encourages the addition of sources. Espresso Addict (talk) 10:00, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
  • I've been giving that tip since 2005 in User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage#Requesting sources. Are we blocking people for adding

    == References ==
    <references/>
    

    to {{unreferenced}}-tagged articles and mass-reverting that, now? (Example mass-reverted random edit Special:Diff/1190018596 seems to do exactly that.) You've lost the plot, people. The overlinking and citation parameter twiddlings are one thing, but adding a references section is quite another. It is a positive edit and is a step in the right direction for the article. Whereas taking it out is a step backwards. This request was wrong to make and wrong to fulfil. Uncle G (talk) 14:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

    (Non-administrator comment) I think that it would have been better to have waited for a consensus to emerge before the edits were rolled back (no opinion on the block). In general, I think my opinion is: the larger the number of edits to make and/or reverse at once, the more important to gain consensus beforehand. All the best, ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 17:13, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

    Yeah, what?? I do that all the time -- every time I make a draft article I start with a empty ref section and I'd think formatting one for an unreferenced article would be a constructive change (at the very least it reduces the amount of work for a later editor who adds refs). jp×g🗯️ 21:38, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  • Uncle G, between you and me, I don't see the point of removing that empty section--my note on the editor's incompetence was related to the edits of theirs that I objected to. Drmies (talk) 17:19, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• (Non-administrator comment) Indefinite block plus reverting every single edit of a well-intentioned user for this (creating references sections and not following MOS:OVERLINK) is a bit overkill, especially compared to the discussion above where a user with 30 blocks is still given a "second chance". There's absolutely a double standard between regular editors and WP:UNBLOCKABLES and it should honestly be addressed before it becomes too entrenched as a standard. I don't think removing all of these edits was a "net positive" for the encyclopedia. ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 21:49, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Like Drmies and Uncle G, I don't quite get the point of removing the blank References sections. I also don't see the point of adding them in bulk like that, but it would seem to do slightly more good than bad to do so to individual articles that need references. I agree it might spur someone to add something. A very minor thing, and this seems like an overreaction to the situation. I can't support keeping someone blocked if the primary reason is they added Reference sections. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:12, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• Looking into this in a little more detail, it looks like Daxtonlab's main problem was with overlinking, with the edits that I examined being tagged as a newcomer task. We might need to make sure that the newcomer task instructions are better, as the instructions on meta suggest linking "planet" (which I would consider on the boundary with useless) under good examples. There also seems to be a dispute over whether it is necessary/acceptable to relink in the infobox; some of the edits Drmies is objecting to appear to fall mainly into that category. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:40, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jeffrey Epstein's associates list

This discussion is heading for a SNOW delete, if someone wants to look in at some point. BLP/crime issues too, possibly amounting to G10. ——Serial 20:47, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• Speedy deleted as a potential WP:BLP violation. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 20:51, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• I get the feeling that the haste of this deletion process, even if the article really was a turd, is not going to go over so well among the general public. It's always a timesink hassle to have AfDs for breaking-news articles, and it's also a timesink hassle to have to see all kinds of breaking-news articles -- but I guess it is a chicken-and-egg issue. Oh well. I wish there were some way to just make everything hold off for a week. jp×g🗯️ 06:16, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
  • If news of the AFD "gets out" to people who don't understand Wikipedia processes, yeah it probably wouldn't look good. At the same time, the article was a massive BLP violation in its entirety, WP:BLPDEL unquestionably applied, and the speedy was the correct decision by our own policies. If I had seen it before the AFD opened, I would have resorted to summary deletion right off the bat. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 06:44, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• Several people in the AFD discussion seem to be unaware of Ghislaine Maxwell#2024 release of court documents. Uncle G (talk) 10:47, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding reliable source consensus-required restrictions

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

Clerks are instructed to add a new section, entitled "Reliable source consensus-required restriction" to the Enforcement section of the Arbitration Procedures with the following text:

The Committee may apply the "Reliable source consensus-required restriction" to specified topic areas. For topic areas with this restriction, when a source that is not an article in a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, an academically focused book by a reputable publisher, and/or an article published by a reputable institution is removed from an article, no editor may reinstate the source without first obtaining consensus on the talk page of the article in question or consensus about the reliability of the source in a discussion at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. Administrators may enforce this restriction with page protections, topic bans, or blocks; enforcement decisions should consider not merely the severity of the violation but the general disciplinary record of the editor in violation.

Remedy 5 of Antisemitism in Poland is superseded by the following restriction:

All articles and edits in the topic area of Polish history during World War II (1933-1945) and the history of Jews in Poland are subject to a "reliable source consensus-required restriction".

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Eastern Europe is amended to include the following restriction:

All articles and edits in the topic area of Lithuania history during World War II (1933-1945) and the history of Jews in Lithuania are subject to a "reliable source consensus-required restriction."

Clerks are instructed to link to the Arbitration Procedures in the two restrictions above and are empowered to make other changes necessary to implement this new enforcement procedure.

For the Arbitration Committee,
–MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 21:43, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Arbitration motion regarding reliable source consensus-required restrictions

Proposed motions on email canvassing

The Arbitration Committee is considering a series of proposed motions related to allegations of inappropriate email canvassing within the Israel-Palestine topic area in violation of Wikipedia policy. Community statements and evidence submissions are welcome at the above link, or by email to arbcom-enwikimedia.org if information cannot be posted publicly. For the Arbitration Committee, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 21:56, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Proposed motions on email canvassing

English Wikipedia block and ban jurisdiction

Hello administrators. I have one question before I give the wrong advice. If an editor is blocked or banned in the English Wikipedia, are they also supposed not to edit in Simple English Wikipedia? Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 04:44, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

No, English wikipedia bans/blocks only cover English Wikipedia. In fact editors often edit Simple English wikipedia to help their case at an unblock/unban request. Galobtter (talk) 04:47, 5 January 2024 (UTC)