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User:Johnpacklambert

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

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Johnpacklambert (talk · contribs), who has a history of nominating articles for deletion without considering WP:BEFORE [1] [2] [3], has recently nominated a large number of sport-related articles in the same vein. The vast majority have been closed as Speedy Keep or Keep or on their way to it, due to the appropriate notability guidelines and/or GNG not being considered. Very basic research is able to prove the fallacy of his claims to players playing in non-notable leagues etc. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] Requests for the editor to withdraw clearly improper nominations were ignored [16] [17] and attempts to discuss this with him on his talk page have been reverted as "rubbish" [18] [19]. Clearly the editor intends to continue this sort of disruptive behaviour and I would request some sort of warning be placed upon him to cease and desist. Not directly related to the issue of sports bio AFDs, but unfortunately has a track record of deleting any attempt to discuss his editing on his talk page rather than engaging in discussion which makes it difficult to address this without escalating the issue. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 21:48, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

• The user also has a habit of ignoring questions to him in the AFD discussions he's started (or participated in). Recent examples are [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27] and [28]. Similarrly, questions on his talk page about these nominations are also ignored - [29] and [30] Nfitz (talk) 22:01, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
• I am also concerned about this user's AfD nominations and contributions, which have become increasingly spurious, and at times seems to lack any type of research or basic source searches to qualify deletion. In addition to the examples above, see this AfD discussion (full disclosure: I contributed to the discussion), where another user stated that the nominator and JPL "need remedial lessons in how to run a google search". The manner in which the user has been repeatedly asked to discuss valid concerns about their contributions on their talk page (diffs: [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39]), but simply deletes the posts using edit summaries such as "delete rubbish" (diffs: [40], [41], [42]) does not inspire confidence, and I view it as disrespectful and insulting to refer to valid concerns by multiple users as "rubbish". North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 22:10, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
• Note that present, ongoing discussions regarding this user are occurring at User talk:Magnolia677 § Topic from User talk:Johnpacklambert and User talk:PageantUpdater § JPL, again. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 22:36, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
• It's time some restrictions or sanctions were levied against JPL for his abuse of AfD. There are a number of disturbing things here:
  1. He's a volume editor, nominating articles faster than the community can assess or fix them,
  2. There are a disturbing number of "clear misses". I'm talking articles that almost no one in the community would ever consider deleting. Articles where a quick perusal of sources necessitates a keep vote.
  3. His editing patterns suggest contempt for certain vocations rather than actual adherence to GNG or to specific notability guidelines. Here, he announces disagreement with certain guidelines. If you're going to nominate articles at the clip he does, you need to understand and adhere to GNG and specific notability guidelines.
  4. There's pretty clearly IDHT when he ignores or deletes comments telling him to stand down.
  5. The last round of mass deletions resulted in a gentleman's agreement where he agreeing to not mass-nom in exchange for not being sanctioned. He's violated said agreement.

pbp 22:51, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

• Ctl-Alt-Del. JPL has a habit of doing something like this periodically. It's tedious and timewasting, but the storm usually passes fairly soon, and then all goes quiet again for another 6 months or a year. So please can somebody within reach just reboot him in safe mode? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:55, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
• I don't always agree with JPL, but I don't think he needs to be sanctioned. I think he is a good faith editor who disagrees with some of the notability guidelines or tries to push the limits of them on cases where the community isn't willing to play ball. Let him know that the community asks that he refrain from mass nominations and be done with it. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:00, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

• Hasn't that been done before? Part of the problem, is that the community has been trying to engage him, but he ignored comments/questions on AFD pages, and ignores question on his own talk page. When really pushed on his talk page, instead of engaging he blanks. Nfitz (talk) 23:05, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
• Which achieves precisely nothing. He's already been told that and yet he continues. The issue is not only with the mass deletions - if they were all or almost all spot on there wouldn't be a problem - but with the fact that he is clearly refusing to engage with notability criteria. So if we ignore it as you suggest, this will just happen again in a few months in relation to another topic. It's never ending. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 23:06, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

• Whst everyone is hinting at here and that Drmies has mentioned below if things don't change is a topic ban from AfD. That is a big deal because AfD is a core area of our project. JPL might need to take a break from it for a while, but I would much rather that be his call than a sanction. Based on the actions and some of the comments here I do think he needs to improve, but I don't think a topic ban in necessary yet. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:33, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• But that is exactly where we left things in September with the pageant ANI discussion, and six months later here we are again --- PageantUpdater (talk) 04:40, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• Oh flipping heck. I seem to remember a previous issue where JPL was nominating beauty pageant contestants and was at least having a 50/50 success rate. These footballer AfDs are failing badly; whether one believes they are notable or not, they pass our current requirements. Advice to JPL: just stop it, please. Black Kite (talk) 23:50, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

There is precedent for the community telling even very experienced and large contributors to this project, that if they are not willing to abide by the policies and guidelines, then they can not continue to edit. Debresser (talk) 00:29, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• JPL usually brings a deletionist mindset to AfD, and his contributions (both noms and !votes) often come across as lazy. It's dangerous to the 'pedia when an editor habitually pushes for deletion without giving the article in question sufficient consideration. It's also troubling that JPL has demonstrated an unwillingness to engage with those who are concerned. Lepricavark (talk) 02:29, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
• Comment I will try to respond better to comments in the future. However it is often hard to respond to comments when they are down right rude and combative. I am engaging with notability criteria, despite the false claims otherwise. There are huge long lists of what makes a footballer notable, so long lists that one line articles with one internal team source other survive. It is hard to be willing to engage when some of the posts are so insulting and rude.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:19, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
  • John Pack Lambert, your effort is appreciated, though I note that you take back what you gave immediately by blaming other editors. If that effort fails, however, do not be surprised to see a proposal for a topic ban from AfD participation, which I will support. That area is already contentious enough. Drmies (talk) 03:46, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
    • If you appreciate my efforts then why would you ban me?John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:52, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
      • Please read more carefully: if that effort fails. There comes a time when effort isn't enough and we start talking competence. At the risk of sounding like a jerk, your comment below, where you indicated you looked at the guidelines after these nominations, is indicative of...well, you figure it out. Drmies (talk) 04:20, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
        • It indicates human fraility. I not only read multiple times through the long list of professional leagues to make sure that Farukh Abitov had not played on any, I also read through the long descriptor of what qualified as an international competition to pass the notability guidelines. It does not come out and say "if the person has been on a national team they are notable", and the sourcing and information as I read it did not seem to indicate to me that they had played in any games that met the description given in the notability for football description. I will admit I was wrong in this determination. I am trying to be calm in my consideration of this issue. I am sorry for blanking my talk page with an overly quick caustic remark. However it seemed wiser at the time than getting into a discussion on my talk page that was likely to be even more heated. I would point readers to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rosalie Smith as an example of the very combative arguments sometimes thrown against legitimate and well reasoned attempts to nominate an article for deletion. The general tone of such make it often feel that the best course of action in creating an AfD is to create the AfD and never read it afterword. Especially when they result the way the one on Rosalie Smith did, which was in delete.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:12, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

*PageantUpdater has also engaged in canvassing to try to get more participation in this discussion.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:31, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• CommentI am not the only person who was not fully aware that Kyrkystan's national team was playing at Tier-1 competition level. This caused a lot of discussion on my talk page back and forth. There is an extremely long and complex list of Fully Professional football leagues, and I have consistently tried to review it when making nominations for deletion. I have tried to find the least combative way to respond to comments left on my talk page. Sometimes that is just blanking them out, and letting the discussion on the article in question run its course without saying anything else there. It is very hard to patient and calmly read through multiple attacks on the level of time spent studying a matter. This is even more so the case when PageantUpdater speedy keep voted on some of my hockey nominations with a false assertion that a particular league gave automatic notability for playing, when I had read the explicit guidelines in the notability for hockeyplayers guidelines that explicitly list the leagues that grant such, and do not list that league at all. I will admit I should not have used the term rubbish, but I was frustrated with the harping on me.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:49, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
• Comment I am sorry for my mistakes. I now realize that playing on a national team is generally a sign of notability, although it is sometimes hard to tell if they were at the adult national team or a non-qualifying junior national team. I will seek to fully understand this question before acting in the future. Another issue that has come up relates to players in the Phillipine Basketball League. In those cases it is almost looking like it might be worth considering revising our guidelines since they do not include that league.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:08, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

If your contrition were sincere, would you not withdraw your nominations such as [Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Rodrigue_Akl]? Jacona (talk) 15:37, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

• I hope I am not coming off as a jerk with this comment as Johnpacklambert has a long and distinguished career here on Wikipedia, however if this editor is unfamiliar or feels confused over the rules of WP:NFOOTY or the notability requirements of other projects, then perhaps he shouldn't be nominating articles for deletion. AFD nominations such as these (see here 1, 2, 3,4) while possibly made in good faith aren't helpful to the project. My suggestion is that Johnpacklambert take a break from nominating articles for deletion and resume when he feels refreshed and feels s/he understands the guidelines better. Anyway that is only my opinion, hope it helps thank you. Inter&anthro (talk) 04:15, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
  • I wish when I had first come on Wikipedia I had realized I could put spaces in my name. Even though the way my signature now appears it has spaces, people seem to ignore this. I know this is a minor quibble, but I am part of the group that think all Wikipedia users should have to sign in and use their real names, and the fact that I do not fully comport to this bothers me. I am not sure that saying anything of substance about the issues of the notability guidelines for footballers will be helpful. I have come to better understand the issue with national teams, and have withdrawn a nomination because of this added understanding. On the other hand there is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Curtis Allen (2nd nomination) which shows that there are in fact articles on non-notable footballers that I am catching.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:41, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• Sorry about your name John Pack Lambert, I'll keep it in mind the next time I address you. Inter&anthro (talk) 21:02, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• Comment I'd like to know why, for the second time in less than a year, it's taken an ANI discussion to get John Pack Lambert to come to the table and discuss his AFD editing. It shouldn't have to come to this. The exact same thing happened with the previous lengthy pageant deletion ANI in September, where numerous editors requests on his talk page to discuss the issue were ignored and/or blanked and the matter thus had to be escalated. In my view his claim to now recognises his "human frailty" etc etc is disingenuous given he showed zero desire to consider the matter until I started this report and in fact described our complaints as "rubbish". There were plenty such opportunities, such as Rikster's request here on 23 February for John Pack Lambert to withdraw a nomination of an Olympian which was ignored. The sports notability guidelines are not rocket science either, being new to the subject I all but had them grasped straight away, except for a fail with WP:NHOCKEY where I later recognised and quickly corrected my error. I'm also not happy that I've been accused of once saying "I [he] should stop commenting on the internet and go wash toilets" by John Pack Lambert which is categorically false. I know that my language over the pageant article issue wasn't appropriate on many occasions but not once did I stoop that low. I am also consistently being called a "he" instead of a "she" which I somewhat understand given it's not obvious from my user page - but I have corrected him on this before. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 05:42, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• I thought that perhaps this discussion was coming to a closure. But at the same time, I see that User:Johnpacklambert is continuing to contribute to AFD discussions, and has even started a new one, in the midst of this; not that anything at first blush seems in appropriate, but I'd have thought that at least stopping new AFDs until people can catch up would have been appropriate, recalling WP:NORUSH. I also noticed commentary he made about this ANI [43], [44] referring to it as "an attack" and an "attempt at revenge for my success in getting so many Miss America contestant articles deleted". I can tell you, that if someone else didn't start this ANI, I was about to myself, and it's neither an attack, nor have I ever edited or even read a beauty contest wiki page; I'm concerned that you see this as some kind of vendetta, when there were several people who shared the concern, some of which have not encountered you before. At the same time, you've justified not contributing to AFD discussions you've started because is it "hard to respond to comments when they are down right rude and combative". And yet, I provided a list of explicit request from you for comment, none of which were rude or combative. You haven't indicated why you didn't respond to them. The list was [45], [46], [47], [48], [49], [50], [51], [52] and [53]. Also, questions on your talk page about these nominations are also ignored - [54] and [55]. Nfitz (talk) 05:53, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• I hadn't seen those diffs [56], [57] previously: more than anything I think this proves that he believes his behaviour has been innocent. I'm not quite sure what all the other posters who commented on his AFDs were supposed to be attacking him in vengeance for but I can assure you, other than establishing a pattern of editing the other AFDs were far from my mind, I've long since given that up as a lost cause for all but a few articles. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 06:08, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Oh and I find it amusing that I was accused of WP:CANVASSING (later struck out). All I did was notify some of the editors involved in the AFDs with "Given your comments you may be interested in the discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Johnpacklambert in regards to his sports-related AFDs"... I'm not sure how much more neutral one can get. On the other hand, JPL alerted three editors by calling this disturbing, an act of revenge and an attack. I'd like to ask you which is more disturbing? --- PageantUpdater (talk) 06:13, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

And intimidation as well. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 07:32, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I keep trying to be calm about this, but PageantUpdater is the guy who once said I should get off the inerenet and go wash toilets.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:19, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I never said anything of the sort and I find that accusation utterly disgusting. I challenge you to prove it and if you are unable to I believe you should be banned for making such an egregious accusation. And how many times do I need to tell you that I am a she not a he? Why do you persist in calling me a guy? --- PageantUpdater (talk) 06:24, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Not very far above she denied that she had ever said that, and tried to offer some evidence.[58] Do you have evidence she said that? She also objected to your mischaracterizing her gender. This goes to the root of the problem I think - you are not paying attention (assuming you are not doing it deliberately). Nfitz (talk) 06:27, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

A quick search [59] indicates that you (JPL) were the only one to have ever said this in the history of the project. Nfitz (talk) 06:30, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I never said the comment was a direct quote. I should have been clear it was a paraphrase. That being said, since it was not said by PageantUpdater, it does not really matter. However it was a paraphrase, of a comment that meant the same thing but used other words.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:40, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• I am sorry. I confused this editor with someone else. That was a mistake. However I had done that confusion some time ago, and it colored my perception of the attacks that were being thrown at me. With the notion in the back of my mind that she was the one who made that comment, which I sincerely apologize for suggesting she made, it caused frustration that caused me to know it was best not to respond to a comment from her. I also did not see the statement on the person being a she. I wish I was better at saying things right.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:37, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
• Comment Back in the August nomination also brought by PageantUpdater she said "I will be the first to admit I haven't always handled myself very well in this situation - I've said some things that weren't overly polite". So she herself admits being rude to me. The attempt to characterize nominating a few footballers for deletion because I failed to understand fully what was and was not a Top Tier international participation by the football teams involved as being the same as the issues involved in discussions over the nominations of beauty pageant contestants is just plain inaccurate.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:55, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

  1. Sorry, JPL, but the issue kinda is the same. In both cases, you nominated a whole lot of articles for deletion in a very short amount of time, and many of them were "clear misses", articles that would never have been AfDed if you took a few minutes to read them and a few more to read policy and guidelines. You've essentially admitted that you nominated a bunch of footballers before fully reading and understanding the footballers' notability guideline. That's bad. Very bad.
  2. PageantUpdater (or anybody else) saying something you don't like doesn't excuse your actions. Especially when you often give worse than you get. Witness your struck-through comments above.

pbp 14:27, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• Nothing I have said above is meant to say that I was wise or prudent or acted in the best way in my nomination of the articles of footballers for deletion. I see now that the bar for international play and national team membership is lower than I thought at first. I am not sure there is anything I can do to help this situation. I really hate my inability to show sincerity in typing.John Pack Lambert (talk) 07:01, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• As I have already mentioned above, here. You still clearly fail to understand what the issue is. It's not so narrow as you failing to understand what is and isn't a Tier 1 football competition, it's that you took on a subject matter you were not familiar with and went on a nominating spree without doing appropriate research to see if your nominations were valid. I'm a football fan and even I didn't know what a Tier 1 competition was, but it was pretty easy to find out. Going beyond that one specific AFD though, there are at least ten other examples of you nominating articles which quite clearly meet the notability standards, and that even when numerous editors tried to get you to slow down and reconsider your nominations you refused to withdraw the nominations or address the editors' concerns and continued on regardless. You have a pattern of being quick to judgement, as evidenced by the accusation you made about me which was clearly false, and which I had already told you was false - and I daresay by your bringing up my comment about my behaviour as if it is some sort of new thing to sting me with, when I myself had already admitted it openly here. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 07:06, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

It's not simply the notability of international players that was off. JPL's nomination of Juan Pablo Andrade showed a complete lack of research into the subject as there were two English language sources already listed in the article that showed he had played numerous times in a fully professional league to pass notability guidelines. Kosack (talk) 07:14, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• Comment – I haven't had any knowledge of or interaction with John Pack Lambert prior to the three articles on basketball players that he recently nominated, but after learning of his long history of noncompliance and his overriding unwillingness to adjust his editing behavior – or even to take meaningful responsibility for why he is the subject of an ANI, as seen in these very comments – I agree with several users above that we've reached the point where some sort of sanction that restricts his access to the AfD process is necessary. The repeated recidivism and dismissal of other editors' legitimate complaints about his anti-collaborative editing posture are very troubling. This is far from being merely a recent problem. João Do Rio (talk) 07:46, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
• I have admitted I was wrong in some instances. I have said I will try to do much better in the future. I will point out that nominating an article for AfD is inherently a collaborative process. It brings the most scutiny to the article. There are other avenues to seek deletion that are much less collaborative. This is not to say my acrions in doing so we always fully thought out. It is to say that calling such nominations a non-collaborative effort is higgly questionable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:05, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• I'm not sure it's so much that the nomination isn't collaborative, but your lack of participation in the AFD, even when pinged, that is non-collaborative. Nfitz (talk) 13:43, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• Also non-collaborative is dismissing concerns about AfDs as rubbish. pbp 14:27, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• Hi all, thanks for all of your input in this discussion but I feel the issues have been well addressed enough already. All the issues and concerns of John Pack Lambert's editing have already been voiced and the editor has apologized multiple times already for these instances. Whether or no John Pack Lambert changes his behavior is up to him, that is not something I or anyone else can change. I suggest per WP:DROPTHESTICK that people stop with this complaining of this editor unless it is new information. Many editors with long and dignified histories on Wikipedia are taking part in this discussion and it would be a great shame if any of them had ill feelings or stopped editing because of this discussion. Anyway that is just my opinion thanks. Inter&anthro (talk) 21:01, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Proposal: limit JPL's AFD-rate

AFAICS, there are two problems here: a) JPL not doing enough WP:BEFORE on AFDs, b) JPL opening too many AFDs too fast.

These two problems are inter-related. The speed of operation detracts from JPL's ability to scrutinise the articles, and the lack of scrutiny helps him work fast. So it's chicken-and-egg, and it doesn't matter which is at the root of it.

Slowing down John Pack Lambert's AFD-rate will also help the community better digest whatever he does nominate.

To keep things simple, I suggest starting with a limit of 1 AFD per day. That is, JPL may nominate at AFD a maximum of 1 article in any given calendar day, determined by UTC. If JPL, wants to nominate a group of articles in one discussion, they must refrain from any further AFDs for the same number of days as the count of articles nominated.

The precise number could be reviewed upwards or downwards in future. But one per day means no more days like 26 February, where JPL started about a dozen AFDs, including about 5 or 6 inappropriate footballer AFDs. -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:33, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose This is an unreasonably low participation limit. An extremely indeoth well reasearched and fully vetted fD nomination can be done in an hour or a little more and that involves extremely well researched. I admit I acted too rashly on some of my football related AfDs. I admit I should have studied the issues in more depth. I promise to in the future seek to better understand any and all articles before I make an AfD nomination. I think creating anexplicit participation limit especially one that is so low is just plain unwise. For one tging this nomination ignores the record from my contributions back in November. There were some days that month I made quite a few deletion nominations that were well thought out, made with unquestioned understanding of the issues at hand and resulted in deletes. Formal limits like those proposed here are overly burdensome. I have been responding to each ping put on my account for the last few hours. I have been seeking to better understand our inclusion policies. I know some people look at my actions as pleading for another chance but I have to say I think it is worth giving another chance. For one thing the footb a ll nominations were made with a clear desire to understnd the scope and breadth of the meaning of fully professional leagues. I was trying to engage with the issues at hand. I have been drying to respond to every ping on my comments made over the last several hours. I think it is much better to allow editors to demonstrate a true desire to abide by the rules than to create overly restrictive limits on their activity. I think such a very soecif never ending and overly binding ban is just not reasonable. I am really, really sorry for reacting so defensively at times. I am trying to be a less contentious contributor. However a fixed limit of one AfD per day is just way way too low. I have shown an ability to create more than that that meet or exceed any demands for comprehensiveness in a day. I am the first to admit I should have acted more wisely with the football AfDs and not been so quick to take offense at my nomination being called ridiculous. I do not think a limit of one AfD per day is at all reasonable. I really think I should be given a chance to show that I have internalized a desire to do better before action ro put such stringent limits on my editing is taken.John Pack Lambert (talk) 17:48, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
  • JPL, that all sounds well-and-good, and I am sure that it is sincere ... but the problem is that this is far from being the first time that you have gone on an ill-considered AFD splurge, and far from being the first time that you have eventually given never-happen-again promises at ANI. It is now clear that the community's patience is being exhausted.
    So I proposed this as a more modest restraint than the outright AFD ban which others seek, and as one which would give you the opportunity to come back in a few months and demonstrate that you had been learnt how to use AFD responsibly. So this is giving you another chance. I don't think that unrestrained AFDing is a viable option right now; I don't see the support for it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:33, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
    • Note that there are no restrictions in participating in other AFDs, or even PRODding articles (which might be a better option for some of the sure-fire ones such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Curtis Allen (2nd nomination). You can also always ask another editor to AFD an article - it's easy to see in a particular project which editors frequently AFD articles. I suppose bulk prodding can be a problem, but at least it's a lot easier to undo, and wouldn't create as much work as all the AFDs - and bulk prodding the wrong articles a lot could well up in a trip here. Nfitz (talk) 19:48, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support: Would've suggested the same thing myself if BHG hadn't. Would also consider it JPL's "last chance" to participate productively at AfD. pbp 18:35, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support as I think this is much more reasonable than a full topic ban, which I was afraid was going to be proposed. It will allow JPL to still participate in AfD, but also address the community's concerns. I would suggest that it be stated that JPL is free to appeal to AN at some reasonable time for the lifting of the restrictions. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:39, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
  • I agree that JPL should be free to appeal to AN to have the limit raised or removed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:49, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
    • But it could also go in the other direction. If he's creating AfDs at a lower volume, but continues to have the quality problems demonstrated above and in the beauty pageant fiasco, we could look at completely closing the door. pbp 19:01, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
      • Sure. That is also true, but I think AN would be the preferred venue for any adjustment (stricter or looser) here to save the dramah. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:03, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support - with the ban to be reviewed after 6 months. I think a 1 AFD/day limit is reasonable so that JPL can better concentrate on the required "Before" activity when proposing an AFD; and that he has the time to collaborate and respond to comments, questions and discussion during each AFD. Evidence of prior research and collaboration during AFDs can be provided after six months to request a lifting of the ban. — CactusWriter ^(talk) 19:11, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support as CactusWriter observed, this ban will enable JPL to focus more closely on each of his nominations. JPL should also be admonished to cut out the canvassing and the bogus accusations. Lepricavark (talk) 20:38, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support This sounds reasonable to me. Some sort of restriction needs to be put in place; we've heard the "I won't do it again" back in September and clearly we can't hold him at his word. The fact that he refused to discuss it or show any sign of understanding there was a problem until it came to ANI still needs to be addressed in my opinion, I believe it negates any supposed contrition he has that he is only accepting the problem here and now. Describing this ANI as an "attack", "vengeance" and "intimidation" only reinforces this. I'm not sure how it should be done but some sort of Insistence that he engage with concerns other editors have brought to his talk page, instead of blanking or ignoring it, would be helpful. And I would also appreciate some sort of recognition here (ie not by JPL) that the behaviour towards me - blanking my messages by calling them "rubbish", the false accusation here, the wording in the canvassing etc - is unacceptable. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 21:05, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support: As a completely involved party, on the surface this appears to be someone badly unfamiliar with the procedures of this website. At worse, this might even be some kind of prank. A lot of the protestations, claims of innocence, and pleas to other users to "support their cause" [60] are very reminiscent of other past problems we've had with some big time problem accounts (like this one, for instance). Fully support a ban on AfD activities until the user can show they know how to utilize the feature and perhaps also if the account can be verified as a legitimate editor and not an account specifically created to cause problems in this area. -O.R.^Comms 21:41, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
• Support per the above, though I would suggest that a flat one nomination per day rule would work better than balancing additional nominations with extra days of 0 nominations. Failing that, I would suggest flipping the standard - if JPL wishes to bulk nominate 5 similar articles, then they should do so only after 5 days of no nominations. Front-load the skip days, so to speak. But that all might be overly complex. My suggestion to JPL is to engage with other editors and work on better understanding our inclusion policies by discussing those policies, not by engaging in trial and error with the AFD process. There is no deadline - if no one else is nominating the articles that you would be nominating (but for the restriction), then perhaps waiting a day isn't going to hurt anything. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 21:46, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
• Strong support - Mass-nominating over 60 articles at AfD in once day (on February 26, 2017) is beyond extreme behavior and begs the question whether those actions were part of some strategy to "right great wrongs" on Wikipedia, which is not what we are here to do. This user has also mass-nominated around or above 20-30 articles at AfD in one day several times over the last year or so...so this isn't new behavior at all. Also, it's been said many times that AfD is not cleanup - so that's not a valid defense for this kind of behavior at AfD.

The fact that this user has also basically attempted to canvass several other users about this "attack" (in his words, not mine) AN/I thread indicates to me that just about anything said by this user here in this thread that appears "contrite" is likely an act now that they've been "caught". IMO, it's past time that this user's behavior at AfD be sanctioned in order to stop this kind of disruptive behavior in the future. Guy1890 (talk) 21:59, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose - I feel like Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men. I have interacted with Johnpacklambert on hundreds of AfDs, particularly on biographies of rap musicians, and my impression is that he has an excellent grasp of notability guidelines. User:PageantUpdater left this message on Johnpacklambert's talk page where she flagged what has come to be known as the "inappropriate footballer AFDs". The first link in her comment regarded Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Farukh Abitov. Mr. Abitov's AfD was a speedy keep, though I shake my head to see why it was "speedy", and how Johnpacklambert was in any way negligent or vexatious with his nomination. Have a look at this subsequence discussion about Mr. Abitov's notability, which ended up on my talk page. What I found most disturbing was that PageantUpdater seemed to have voted "speedy keep" only because Johnpacklambert had initiated the nomination (see this discussion). Next, I ran "Johnpacklambert" and "PageantUpdater" through the Editor Interaction Analyser just to get a random and typical example of one of Johnpacklambert's deletion nominations. The second AfD in the list was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kristi Addis, where he wrote 13 lines of text to support his AfD. How is this a sloppy editor? In my opinion, Johnpacklambert has chosen not to write articles about butterflies and sports cars, but has instead chosen to do tons and tons of AfD's, the dirtiest job on Wikipedia. In doing so, he has dashed the dreams of hundreds of aspiring rappers and beauty queens (and angered the authors of their articles), but he has also, in my opinion, very much strengthened the project. Magnolia677 (talk) 22:33, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

@Magnolia677: I think it's inaccurate to paint this just as a feud between PageantUpdater and JPL. JPL's talk page history is riddled with numerous other editors asking him to stop his behavior at AfD. Abitov was closed as speedy keep because a lot of other editors other than PageantUpdater voted "keep" or "speedy keep" with clear, policy-based reason. As for Kristi Addis, despite JPL's nomination being long, the article was still easily kept, because, even though the nomination was long, it still didn't get an adequate grasp of the relevant policies, nor of the article's sourcing. pbp 23:08, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Exactly. These sports-related articles were/have been in large part unanimously voted to be kept, taking me out of the picture the result would be the same. As for Magnolia's accusation that "PageantUpdater seemed to have voted "speedy keep" only because Johnpacklambert had initiated the nomination"... this is a gross misunderstanding and one I have already clarified a number of times. I couldn't sleep (unrelated) and spent half the night researching sports leagues and players so I could be confident in my votes to keep or speedy keep. Certainly not all votes were speedy keep, only those where there was notability clearly established that JPL had plainly overlooked - others where my vote was based on GNG were voted !Keep. I even voted !Delete on one. Yes I looked through his nominations, because once I'd read two or three it became obvious to me that others were likely flawed as well and needed addressing. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 23:23, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Comment – Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Farukh Abitov was closed as a Speedy Keep because it was clear that the article fully passed WP:NFOOTY. The discussion and its closing had nothing to do with the fact that John Pack Lambert nominated it or the editors who took part in the deletion discussion, rather just per WP:SNOW because there was obviously no point in keeping the AFD going when every body felt a speedy keep was the way to go. Inter&anthro (talk) 23:50, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• Support - Looking through his recent edits and comments, I think Johnpacklambert wants to do the right thing, though it appears he can get carried away. I don't think this has to be a particularly long restriction. And there's lots of ways to continue to participate in a similar manner to what he has been doing. He can still comment at AFD. He can ask other editors to AFD articles that he identifies. He could even Prod articles (which might save everyone some time, assuming they are arguably not notable). I'm a bit concerned that this might demoralize him and drive him away from the project, as there is value on much of what he does. But it doesn't have to be that way. Perhaps with less AFDs, he'll have more time to participate in the discussions he's already started, which makes it easier to learn from them (and we all learn from these discussion that we start). Nfitz (talk) 23:53, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose The article Farukh Abitov falls far short of what is expected for a BLP. There doesn't seem to be a good objective reason to give football players a free pass in this regard as compared with other professions. Compare, for example, James McCown – a far better sourced article about someone who is long dead, which is still having to justify its existence. Andrew D. (talk) 00:06, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment That is merely an opinion on the policy. You might disagree with the policy but that is not the issue here, and regardless of your opinion on it, that is what the community has agreed upon and what the AFDs currently should be judged upon. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 00:13, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

• WP:NFOOTY is not a policy. WP:BEFORE is more debatable but deletionists usually contend that it's not a policy and AFD is full of cases where it hasn't been followed. Definite and important policies include WP:V, WP:BLP and WP:NPOV. The idea that football is special and so should be exempted from the general notability guideline is very much a point-of-view. It seems to be fan-based – the same sort of fan enthusiasm that has today given us Viking metal as a featured article even though that has been nominated for deletion too. The issues seem quite debatable and so editors are entitled to discuss them. See also WP:NOTSTATSBOOK and WP:Walled Garden. Andrew D. (talk) 08:46, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment Farukh Abitov is a stub. There's nothing in there that is factually incorrect. It's referenced. It very clearly meets WP:NFOOTBALL. The key issue that Johnpacklambert failed to apply WP:BEFORE, which requires that D. Search for additional sources, if the main concern is notability. The simplest of searches would have confirmed that he had many appearances for the Kyrgyzstan national football team easily passing WP:NFOOTBALL. But if was all about this article, we wouldn't be here. There have been many, many recent AFDs - and this is one of the better ones to tell the truth - and likely why Johnpacklambert raised this particular one in his defence, as it was referenced - unlike several other, where the references to prove notability were already in the article. Any individual AFD wasn't terrible. But the sum total of them, many not being very good, with the consistent lack of research, following WP:BEFORE, and then ignoring any issues raised in the discussion is why we are here - and why he's previously been here at ANI. The comparison to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James McCown doesn't work as McCowan clearly fails WP:SOLDIER, and one has to rely on WP:GNG, which is harder to research and establish. To be comparable, McCowan would have had to have passed WP:SOLDIER but still nominated at AFD because the nominator didn't understand WP:SOLDIER despite having been in previous AFDs where WP:SOLDIER was clearly explained to him. Nfitz (talk)

Farukh Abitov is notable, but to say the article "very clearly meets WP:NFOOTBALL" is disputable. This discussion shows that determining if Abitov's team met the notability standards was not so simple. I'm not convinced this was in any way a bad faith edit by Johnpacklambert. Magnolia677 (talk) 00:51, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

If this was such a great nomination, why did so many people go the other direction so quickly? pbp 01:00, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Magnolia677 the issue isn't whether John Pack Lambert is making edits in bad faith, its whether the editor understands WP:BEFORE and the notability requirements of the articles that are being nominated for deletion. If s/he and/or you disagrees with WP:NFOOTY or the notability of other WikiProjects, then the issue should be raised at the WikiProject's respectful talk pages. Inter&anthro (talk) 01:08, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Magnolia677 - He had 15 caps for his nation. Unless you know nothing about international WP:FOOTBALL, it's very clear that he meets WP:NFOOTBALL. Johnpacklambert has been editing for over a decade, and has contributing AFDs in the football area for months. In particular he AFDed 18 articles on August 15 and 16, 2016. In particular see - it's exactly the same thing. 15 appearances for his nation (the Solomon Islands national football team). (In the other 17, he claimed they didn't meet WP:NFOOTBALL because they hadn't played professionally - but all 17 had and were kept - we've had examples of that as well this week). So not only is he familiar with the project, not only has he encountered this criteria before, but he ALSO was reminded of this on February 21 days before he nominated Farukh Abitov for the exact same thing! The point is, that he doesn't follow WP:BEFORE, he doesn't understand the criteria he is using for nomination, and he doesn't learn from his mistakes (or does he not read the AFD discussion after he nominates?). I don't think it was a bad faith edit. But it's still Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. Nfitz (talk) 01:14, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

• AfD is full of cases where the nominators get it wrong. Farukh Abitov would not be considered adequate for most other types of BLP and I am far from convinced that it is based upon independent and reliable sources as it mainly seems to rely upon a self-published fan site. It is of sufficiently poor quality that any patroller might nominate it. Sanctions are therefore quite inappropriate. Andrew D. (talk) 08:46, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

• The entirety of your reasoning in opposing the proposal has thus far involved the Farukh Abitov article. JPL's nomination of that article is very, very far from being the sole basis for this ANI. João Do Rio (talk) 09:34, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support - I am a little hesitant to support this proposal as John Pack Lambert has a long and distinguished history here on Wikipedia and has been acting in good faith, although the editor also has a track record of nominating articles for deletion in a hasty manner. While this debate has been heated and at times personal it is important to remember that actions such as e.i. topic bans or restrictions are meant to help the project as a whole and not WP:PUNISH. I think BrownHairedGirl and Nfitz have said it best, by limiting John Pack Lambert to one AFD a day the editor will have more time to observe WP:BEFORE and less likely to make hasty AFDs. If in future John Pack Lambert has shown that he will be more careful and responsible with his AFD nominations then by all means the editor should have their full rights restored. Which ever way this is resolved I hope people take it in good faith and not personally. Inter&anthro (talk) 01:19, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
• Comment I never said the leagues were not fully professional. I said they were not top tier leagues. At the time I was under the impression that a player had to have played in a league that was top tier and fully professional. I have since come to realize that is not what thezstandard is, but it is what I mistakenly thought it was at the time and it was what I was arguing. My most recent nominations have all focused on people who did not play in fully professional leagues except one where I clearly made a mistake. I am trying to hold hope that there is a way out of this draconian clamp down. One point, the claim above that finding sources that show a person played in games for a national team is not enough. They have to have played in games that are rated at a certain specific level by FIFA. The very wording of that section inplies that we need evidence of more than having been part of the national team. If being a member of a national team was defaylt enough to be notable that secrion of the description would be a lot better. I read the long desciptor of what games were needed to have been played in bedore nominating Abitov and from what I could tell at that point he had not played in such games. I admit that I was wrong. As I admit that I should have tried to engage in discussions more.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:00, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support (sorry). I really wanted to not add further commentary here, but the amount of spurious nominations is too excessive. Per this AfD discussion, as well as others, such as the one I linked in my comment above (link), it comes across that this user does not have a significant comprehension of WP:N and does not engage in any source searching to determine notability, instead simply basing notability upon the state of sourcing in articles. In the discussion at the first link in my comment here, it has become obvious that the article was nominated for deletion solely based upon the state of sourcing in the article at the time of its nomination. The rationale provided was "One source will never be enough to pass GNG" (link). However, per WP:NEXIST, a part of the main Notability guideline page, topic notability is not based upon the state of sourcing in articles. I tried to explain this at the deletion discussion, but the user does not seem to comprehend this, replying to my comment with, "In general thegeneral notability guidelines trump sport specific guidelines. So the fact that I was aware of the notability guidelines for sports can not overcome the fact that the general notability guidelines are not met with one source." (diff). I can understand this type of error being made by a new or relatively new editor, but an editor with a high rate of AfD nominations and !votes should be aware of these basic parameters of WP:N. Topic notability is not based upon the state of sourcing in articles, it's right there on the main WP:N page. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 04:19, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
• Strong support I would have supported and out-and-out block, though I can see this as a reasonable compromise. Also, I feel that this restriction should not be revisited for at least 1 year, given the long history at play here. John Pack Lambert's AfD antics have cost this community countless precious man hours, and have driven productive editors off of Wikipedia. Some of the stuff going on here is bordering on WP:NOTHERE territory. JPL, if you truly want to improve your working knowledge of the notability guidelines, I'd recommend that you take a step back from AfD nominations altogether, and instead start working from the other end - find articles that are currently sitting at Afd and start trying to source and "rescue" them. You can gain a better grasp of the relevant policies and guidlines, as well as discover how to better evaluate sources when you do this type of actual encyclopedia editing, as opposed to scatter-shotting a whole bunch of serial drive-by AfD nominations. Ejgreen77 (talk) 04:44, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
• I think thos line from the notability guidelines for baseball players needs to be considered "Players and other figures who do not meet the criteria above are not presumed to meet Wikipedia's standards for notability. To establish that one of these is notable, the article must cite published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject. Fan sites and blogs are generally not regarded as reliable sources, and team sites are generally not regarded as independent of the subject. Although statistics sites may be reliable sources, they are not sufficient by themselves to establish notability." I probably should have posted that before things got out of hand. I probably should have posted that instead of calling other statements rubbish. My one other thought is that I have on occasion gone above and beyond to try and keep editors here. That I can demonstate. In rhe specific case the article on the foriegn minister of Mongolia had been nominated for speedy deletion. I overturned it, brought in some sources and thanked the fairly new editor for crearing it. I probably should hunt down the diffs, and it would help if I could remember said foriegn ministers name. However it did happen and would not take too much effort to dig up.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:38, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
  • JPL, that long paragraph might be relevant in the broader discussion above, but it has nothing at all to do with this proposal. You do yourself no favours by posting such verbose irrelevancy. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:19, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support. Lets stop wasting people's time. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:23, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
• Strong support – My thoughts on this matter are essentially the same as those of Ejgreen77. João Do Rio (talk) 10:02, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support Reading this thread and following the diffs, I am beginning to be concerned about JPL's competence to be involved in AfD at all. I suggest at least a six month hiatus before this can be appealed. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:31, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support - I've seen John Pack Lambert's name around, but I don't believe I know him. Nevertheless these statistics, and the list of articles nominated in just the past few days I believe indicate that he's somewhat gone off the rails in regard to deletions. I think a throttle is called for, especially since his rate of the community agreeing with him is only 46%. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:12, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
• Comment on opposes. The opposes above by @Andrew Davidson and @Magnolia677 are thoughtful and worth reading. Thanks to both editors for posting them.
  I have a lot of sympathy with the points they make, particularly that AFD places too much weight on topic-specific guidelines such as NFOOTY. In particular, Andrew Davidson was right to point out that the idea that football is special and so should be exempted from the general notability guideline is very much a point-of-view. However, even that is an understatement. The topic-specific guidelines in WP:NSPORTS are all headed with a bolded sentence that topics inthat field "are presumed notable if". Note that word "presumed", because it's crucial: it does not assert notability; it just creates a disprovable assumption. This is spelled out very clearly in WP:GNG:

"Presumed" means that significant coverage in reliable sources creates an assumption, not a guarantee, that a subject should be included. A more in-depth discussion might conclude that the topic actually should not have a stand-alone article—perhaps because it violates what Wikipedia is not, particularly the rule that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.

Sadly, some editors wrongly treat the subheads such as NFOOTY as a sort of trump card which exempts the article from WP:GNG. And this tends to be endorsed by non-admin closers, so we have a steady flow of AFDs based on a misrepresentation of the guidelines.

JPL is challenging this, and is right to do so: the guidelines support his principle.

But the problem is that the way he does it is wrong, and timewasting.

If JPL wants to challenge the mistaken use of NFOOTY etc as a trump card, the he needs to make sure that his nominations are based on the in-depth analysis required by GNG. He needs to actually disprove the assumption, and that takes a lot more than one line.

If JPL does fewer AFDs and makes a better job of them, he is more likely to succeed in reducing Wikipedia collection of permastubs which will never amount to more than glorified list entries. And other editors will avoid having to waste time on AFDs which are inadequately prepared. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:06, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

If John Pack Lambert or any other editor for that matter want to challenge WP:NFOOTBALL that's well and fine but it should be done on the WikiProject's talk page or other appropriate settings, not on AFDs. I don't believe the editor was intentionally trying to do this but this might possibly fall under WP:POINT. Inter&anthro (talk) 20:22, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

@Inter&anthro: please will you re-read what I posted? It is all about the guidelines as they currently stand. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:25, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

In that case I must partially disagree then, none of John Pack Lambert's recent football AFDs even gathered ONE delete vote. I also do not understand Andrew Davidson's qualm with the result of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Farukh Abitov. Sure the article is a bit lazily written and it is a stub, but it pretty comprehensively passes WP:NFOOTY. A goalkeeper who has played 15 full matches is certainly notable in football standards, and the result of the AFD is a clear indication of that. Also there were other AFDs that were closed by an admin so I don't understand this animosity with this admin-closure business. Either way this is largely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Inter&anthro (talk) 20:44, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose -- Wikipedia is drowning in promotional spam and non-notable BLPs, and penalising an editor for AfD contributions is counter-productive. Separately, I did not find the beauty pageant fiasco to be a correct description of JPL's contributions. Most of these articles were either redirected or deleted, and I believe the AfDs brought this area to the community attention, so many more editors have started nominating such articles; see Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Beauty pageants. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:37, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support – if the afds are valid let others have the enjoyment of listing them. Moreover JPL will be released into more varied activities. Oculi (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose, at least as written. AFDs initiated by editors who do not comply with WP:BEFORE are pestilential, and editors who do this regularly should be sanctioned. But that's a separate issue from the rate at which JPL initiates AFDs. Right now, the AFD tool shows that about 75% of the AFDs he starts are closed with delete outcomes.[61] That's a more than acceptable rate. If the complaint is that JPL is too fast and accurate, that should probably be rejected out of hand. That said, the number of deletion discussions JPL initiated on February 26 is greatly excessive, by any reasonable standard. Any repetition of that spree should be grounds for topic bans of increasing duration. But singling out one user for indefinite penalties merely because they stepped on some overly sensitive toes, while allowing other users with similar patterns of misbehavior to escape scot-free, is not appropriate. We ought to make a commitment to systematically enforce WP:BEFORE, which is incorporated by reference into the WP:AFD page. If we're not willing to do that, we shouldn't be targeting editors for draconian editing limits. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006. (talk) 15:04, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

• @Hullaballoo Wolfowitz:The afdstats are masked, as in some projects, he is doing very good. But as soon as he ventures into, sports, topics for example, he's running a lot closer to 10% than 75%. And it's not 1 AFD, it's many at once. Followed by more a few days later, ignoring all the points that were made earlier. It does though all seem to be in good faith. Is there any way to subset those afd stats by project?Nfitz (talk) 15:10, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

• I don't know of any way to do that without reviewing the AFDs manually. If you could show that his AFDs in one particular field were poorly informed, a carefully tailored editing restriction -- say, requiring him to demonstrate compliance with WP:BEFORE for any AFD in the topic area -- would be a more appropriate action than this blunderbuss proposal. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo). Treated like dirt by many administrators since 2006. (talk) 15:37, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

• @Hullaballoo Wolfowitz: In these three (see 1, 2, 3) AFD nominations John Pack Lambert nominated them with the rational that they failed WP:NFOOTY. If he said they failed WP:GNG as stated above he might have had a point (I'd disagree but that's irrelevant). The problem is that all three of those and many more of the AFD propositions well passed the WP:NSPORTS requirements, and it the mass of nominations that this user makes that are a problem. There is no rush or need for 20 to 50 AFD nominations a day that this user is known to make. If John Pack Lambert where to take more time maybe he could form better AFD proposals and arguments or maybe he wouldn't nominate articles that articles on logic or failing guidelines that they actually passed. Inter&anthro (talk) 17:04, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

• See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Simon Atkins (basketball) closed as Snow Keep by an uninvolved editor today on basis of GNG. Appears no research was done before nominating --- PageantUpdater (talk) 17:09, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose - My experience with this user at AfD is that he is following guidelines. John Pack Lambert recently nominated an article about a footballer for deletion and was quickly accused of not following WP:BEFORE by other participating editors. However, I did several searches and found no signs of "significant coverage" of the subject. I didn't take it as a disruptive nomination, and if anything lead to minor improvements in the article (and potentially the removal of an article about a non-notable subject). Jogurney (talk) 17:54, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• @Jogurney:It's not about the one article though. If it was just one article we wouldn't be here. If it was about one article a day, we wouldn't be here. It's 20 a day (some days at least), with the same reason they won't be deleted that the ones the previous day passed on. This just overloads the project, and ends up using a lot of people's time. If he'd only PROD them, at least we'd spend less time on them. 19:36, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment I'm not sure why people are !Voting without reading the entirety of this ANI. There are !Votes based on one or two specific AFDs without considering the entirety of the problem and the editor's other behaviour, namely refusing to discuss the issue with editors expressing concerns, blanking his talk page instead of discussing (with the description "rubbish"), pretending to show contrition here while describing this ANI as "vengeance", "an attack", "intimidation" etc, and making false accusations against me. I would draw your attention to the following:
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Simon Atkins (basketball) - SNOW keep
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Juan Pablo Andrade - Keep, nom withdrawn
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shahidul Alam (footballer) - Speedy keep
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Simon Lambert (hurler) - Keep, nom withdrawn
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Maksim Agapov - Keep, nom withdrawn
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Farukh Abitov - Speedy keep
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mustafa Abdul-Hamid - Keep (4 votes for speedy keep, 1 for keep)
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Musa Abdul-Aleem - Keep (3 votes for speedy, 2 for keep)
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Drew Miller (quarterback) - Speedy Keep, this was a great example, nomination was "The sourcing is far short of GNG. Playing in the Arena Football league does not grant automatic notability, and I see no other sign of notability. John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:48, 20 February 2017 (UTC)" as per the closer "The result was keep. Per WP:SNOW. The Arena Football League is expressly covered by WP:NGRIDIRON--it is in fact first in the list of leagues named. (non-admin closure) Shawn in Montreal (talk) 21:47, 20 February 2017 (UTC)"
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abdoul Karim Cissé - Keep
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Omneya Abdel Kawy - Keep
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jon Abbate (2nd nomination) - Keep
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gerard Aafjes - Keep
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marko Arapović - Keep, Subject was an Olympian, this was overlooked
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Therry Aquino - Keep
  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Akane Araki - Keep
• Take a look at his history from the 20th & 26th of February - if you don't find that disturbing then I am concerned. Yes a few got deleted but mainly in other topic areas. I don't recall seeing a single !Delete vote in all those AFDs above and there were many concerns raised about him not researching or fully understanding criteria or simply overlooking some really basic stuff. The withdrawn noms only came after the ANI was started, on the 20th User:Rikster2 asked him to withdraw the nom for Maksim Agapov as " He actually does meet the WP:NBASKETBALL standard as he played in Euroleague competition last year. He also meets a second SSG (WP:NOLYMPICS) by playing for the Croatian team in last year's summer games. " ... this was ignored and until 8 days later well after the ANI was started. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 02:49, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose in this case because there's enough to still show the AfDs are being closed as delete, exactly with the past bundles of pageant members AfDs, so there's been the stated willing of change in the current number of nominating, which solves it; otherwise still pursuing as wanting to still nominate at AfD and limit the intake by that alone, is simply wanting to take things too far. While I concur a few of the last ones were questionable, there's still the overall helpful participation overall. SwisterTwister talk 03:23, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
  • I literally can't make sense of your comment. "The stated willing of change int he current number of nominating which solves it"... which solves what? The editor in question is still making a large number of scattershot ill thought out nominations which is exactly what he was encouraged not to do last time, regardless of the no consensus close. Clearly the issue has not been "solved" given his recent history at AFD. The SNOW keep votes are piling up, at least three more since I added that list and it appears more to come given there are a number outstanding with narry a "delete" vote. Of his last 100 nominations], two thirds of the 36 currently closed have been closed as Speedy Keep or Keep. And "helpful participation"? What of his behaviour when others brought to his attention that he was making a number of incorrect nominations, when they asked him to withdraw nominations? Radio silence, and then when the issue was addressed more directly, the posts got blanked. There's clearly no willingness to be helpful and collaborative. This is a pattern of behaviour which stems back long before the last ANI discussion. He clearly is expressing an intention to do what he likes how he likes and will only be curtailed when brought to ANI. If this closes as no consensus (how much longer will this be kept open by the way?) will we have to all go through this a third time when another topic hits his sights? --- PageantUpdater (talk) 13:05, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
  • He has also recently accused an editor who voted to !Keep of "prejudicing the nomination based on alleged behavior of the nominator without considering the nomination itself." This comes after the editor in question wrote "strong keep article over qualifies WP:GNG which is basic yardstick for establishing notability on Wikipedia on second look nominator of article is currently answering a case on "his Behaviour of nominating numerous articles for deletion without taking time to read reference provided" I'm not sure what part of "On second look" JPL is unable to comprehend but this continues the pattern of assuming bad faith against those who disagree with him. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 13:26, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
    • @SwisterTwister:: Several things:

1. Nominating a whole bunch of articles for deletion in the same topic within a very short period of time is generally in and of itself problematic, because it puts undue strain on the small community that specializes in that topic to try and save them (this idea is similar to WP:FAIT)
2. As PageantUpdater notes above, there was a pretty long string of articles that were kept, half of them speedily and many with not a single delete vote. pbp 14:34, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• Here is the post that JPL posted on SwisterTwister's page alerting the user to this discussion, along with additional commentary that has occurred in the thread there: diff, diff, diff. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 04:50, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• I stand by what I said there, I would not have started the ANI discussion had JPL engaged in discussion with editors when the issue was first brought to his talk page. It all could have been sorted out amicably. Two tried even before I got involved, and were ignored. I know we have history but honestly I don't actually enjoy this mess and I'd much rather the previous ANI been the end of all of it. However, when I can see the same behaviour repeating itself, I feel it important to bring it to the table for discussion. It frustrates me when I see him acting the victim in similar talk page messages, because to me it reinforces the idea that he doesn't realise that he has done anything wrong - both the AFDs himself and his behaviour in (not!) discussing them. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 05:02, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support. User cannot possibly be doing WP:BEFORE if he is nominating 60 articles per day. Not doing BEFORE wastes countless hours of editor time and ends up getting notable articles deleted. I support restriction, and support requiring WP:BEFORE, and support also requiring that he post Template:Friendly search suggestions on the talk page of each article so that he can more easily do WP:BEFORE. I also support requiring him to change his Google-search results-per-page to 100 results per page. Softlavender (talk) 14:49, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Just because you are unwilling to commit several hours of time to editing Wikipedia does not mean others are not.

• Support I feel it my duty to participate in community discussions such as XfD, and it is a waste of my time when AfD is being spammed. Just because it is a sub par article, doesn't mean it has to be AfDd NOW.L3X1 My Complaint Desk 15:00, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support per Softlavender's reasoning. If doing even a simple WP:BEFORE assessment takes a few minutes, then someone nominating 60 AfDs in a day would have had to have spent at least 3-5 hours to do the BEFORE assessment (assuming 3-5 minutes per article). This seems highly implausible and the amount of problematic AfDs seems to confirm it. Regards SoWhy 17:07, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
  • I spent more hours than that editing Wikipedia on February 27th.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:49, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support. The proposal is reasonable and appropriate, especially in view of the long-established finding by ArbCom noted at WP:Fait accompli. NewYorkActuary (talk) 07:47, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose I reviewed this AfD list "Very basic research is able to prove the fallacy of his claims to players playing in non-notable leagues etc. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15]". If all these 12 articles were deleted -- Wikipedia would lose nothing. A league might be notable which does not mean that all the league players were automatically notable. Wikipedia is not a directory of all players of all leagues. Notability shall be proven not assumed. To review the articles contents I needed no more than 30 secs to understand their insignificance.--178.221.131.66 (talk) 09:23, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

IP, you've only made one other edit to Wikipedia, and as is very evident in your rationale, you very clearly don't understand Wikipedia's notability or deletion guidelines and policies. Softlavender (talk) 13:14, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Note that [4] to [15] are the links to near unanimous keeps in PageantUpdater's opening statement (this will be less obvious once this is archived). Needless to say, as these were well-attended near-unanimous keeps, the mass nomination of these players is disruptive. If we want to change the way we evaluate notability in this topic area, there has to be discussion and consensus in other forums first. Nfitz (talk) 14:33, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

@Nfitz Bear in mind that some of the listed articles ([4] - [15]) are no more than two lines articles about some local athletes almost unknown to the rest of world. Consensus is a Wikipedia nonsense legalizing opinions of just a few and imposing them to the rest of world.--178.222.144.4 (talk) 16:09, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Even if your points are all valid and arguably true, that's not the issue here. The issue is the disruption of repeatedly bulking AFDs that are clearly not going to pass. If there was one or two AFDs as a test, to have a debate about it, that's fine. But to have a whole bunch clearly fail, and then do another bunch (and bunch and bunch) is not on. To be fair, some of the bunches pass. But the issue is not doing doing WP:BEFORE. There's a completely separate debate about whether and how WP:N is evaluated. But that is not this debate. Nfitz (talk) 17:02, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm not impressed by your "The issue is the disruption of repeatedly bulking AFDs that are clearly not going to pass." You are recycling meaningless phrases my friend. Wikipedia suffers from a very big malady - everybody is qualified to write about everything. It's enough to have five to ten plain ignorants who can write meaninglessly about, say, a drug use and prevent an educated pharmacist to remove such article from Wikipedia by just exploiting the same phrases you are playing with, plus consensus, plus notability plus before .... Pharmacists solved that problem telling us: do not read Wikipedia. In this case Johnpacklambert proposed removal a bunch completely worthless articles which do not misinform rather of no cognitive values at all.--178.222.144.4 (talk) 20:40, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Your personal opinion of the worth of the articles in question could not be more irrelevant. If you're going to dismiss the consensus of multiple editors, you certainly can't expect to place any weight on your remarks. We don't delete articles just because some people find them uninteresting. I agree with Softlavender that you have no idea what you are talking about. Lepricavark (talk) 15:52, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@Softlavender Anonymously I've made hundreds and hundreds edits. My ISP changes my proxy IP randomly, therefore this IP is one of many IPs I used. I'm not impressed by your understanding of the deletion guidelines and policies. Wikipedia is in dire need of people like Johnpacklambert.--178.222.144.4 (talk) 15:55, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Then I'm afraid you have learned little, if anything, about Wikipedia's notability or deletion guidelines and policies. Here is the quotation from the OP you copied, with the AfDs actually linked (which you failed to provide): "Very basic research is able to prove the fallacy of his claims to players playing in non-notable leagues etc. [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71] [72] [73]". — Softlavender (talk) 16:11, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Please, do not waste my time. I cannot learn much from two sentence long articles and from people who voted to keep such article. Neither of the voters ever improved the articles they voted to keep. As I mentioned before, the consensus rule is meaningless per se and in 99% manipulated.--178.222.144.4 (talk) 16:55, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

You are indeed proving that you do not understand anything about Wikipedia's notability or deletion guidelines and policies. Softlavender (talk) 17:04, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support. I initially felt very negatively towards these sanctions, but time has worn on, and while JPL expressed contrition for various things above, including AfD'ing articles of players on national teams and the Phillipine Basketball Association, his contrition seems to be very superficial as he has done nothing to rectify the mistakes he admits he has made. If he believed these were mistakes, if his contrition were sincere, would he not withdraw nominations such as [Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Rodrigue_Akl], who was both on his national team and the PBA? As this discussion has continued, I have come to believe that JPL is not hearing, and is just annoyed that we're slowing down his progress in rashly deleting articles without being bothered by WP:BEFORE or by concensus notability guidelines he doesn't like.Jacona (talk) 15:45, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
  • No where in the Sports notability guidelines does it say that being on a national baskketball team makes someone notable, and the PBA is not on the notability granting teams list. So the claim I should withdraw these nominations to show good faith ignores the guidelines. The guidelines that supposedly my ignoring is such a big problem. However where I have read and understand the guidelines, people seem to think I should defer to some non-binding suggestions of the project talk page, instead of the actual notability guidelines. That is not at all a reasonable demand.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:53, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
    • You said above that you recognized AfD'ing those who played for national teams (never mind PBA for now) was a mistake. You have sat around and left those AfD's simmering though, not doing anything to rectify your mistake in spite of this discussion. If you were editing in good faith, you would review the nominations you say you regret and withdraw them. That would show respect towards the time of your fellow editors. I'm not feeling that respect. Jacona (talk) 11:35, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
      • The statement about national teams only applied to football. I never said that players of national basketball teams were notable, because the Wikipedia:Notability (sports) guidelines on basketball make no references at all to playing on national basketball teams.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:45, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
• Comment The claims that prodding would be less disruptive ignores the fact that there is less notice of Prods and so it is in many ways a way to make an end run around the process of fully discussing the article before deletion.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:41, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
• Comment Several of the articles I nominated on Feb. 26th have been deleted, some of them with other users suggesting they should be speedy deleted. I will admit that the use of the term "rubbish" was a bit much. However I was under the impression I had a right to remove statements from my talk page. I was quite flustered because my attempt to post something on my talk page had been stalled because of edit conflicts. Also, people seem to be ignoring that fact that all 60 articles I nominated were BLPs, and in the case of BLPs we have a duty to have reliably sourced articles. Anything unsourced needs to be removed, so it would stand to reason an article without sources in it to justify its existence should be deleted. I intend to do a much better job at doing before investigations. But punishing someone for applying the BLP principals shows a non-belief in them, and undermines our rules against unsourced statements about living people.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:19, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Your statement regarding a desire to remove unreferenced BLPs doesn't really ring true though. Off the top of my head, Abdoul Karim Cissé, Gerard Aafjes and Juan Pablo Andrade all contained reliable sources that ascertained their notability when they were nominated. I'm guessing there may be more. Kosack (talk) 11:58, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

There were lots of other articles, including one only sourced to a blog sport site that was a fan site, that constituted very clear violations of GNG.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:45, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, BLP is a red herring here, because a) a lot of them were sourced already, and b) you probably should have used PROD initially if unsourced BLP was the issue? pbp 23:22, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

This comment ignores my statement above that I feel Prod deleting is a sneaky way to avoid a full discussion, and so avoid doing it. No one has even tried to respond to that statement, let alone describe a good reason my view on the matter is wrong. AfDs are more openly publicized and the most logical place to look if you expect an article you have created is about to be deleted. I create AfDs because I want to make the discussion of the areticles as open and public as possible.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:48, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

You didn't even mention BLP in most of your athlete nominations! pbp 00:57, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment "wikipedia would lose nothing" is akin to saying "I don't care, they can be recreated" which is POINT or wasting the time of users. If Wikipedia loses nothing by deletion, it loses nothing by keeping. When deletionists run wild, inclusionists must responde code-3.L3X1 My Complaint Desk 02:33, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
  • There is a major problem keeping the articles is they violate biography of living people rules.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:45, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
    • @L3X1 We have to discourage users to waste their time on writing articles of no cognitive value. An encyclopaedia, therefore Wikipedia, is all about knowledge, isn't it? Actually Wikipedia would gain much by the deletions proposed by John Pack Lambert--178.222.144.4 (talk) 06:54, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
      • Who determines what articles are of cognitive value? You? Lepricavark (talk) 16:49, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

So what's happening with this?

This has run for over a week, about 30 people have participated, and roughly 70% of those who did supported JPL being sanctioned. Is it going to get enacted? pbp 23:22, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

• Yet this person is perfectly willing to point out we are note voting and percentages do not matter when they not getting their way at AfD. To impose such an extraordinary sanction against someone with only 70% support and in a case of trying to punish someone for wanting to abide by BLP rules is just unacceptable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:45, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
  • This isn't about me, and this isn't about BLP. For all this supposed crusade about BLP, precious few of your athlete deletion discussions even mention it. I feel bringing up BLP after-the-fact is a poor excuse for justifying questionable edits. pbp 00:51, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
    • An extraordinary sanction? A limit of 1/day, or 365 deletion proposals in a year is "extraordinary"?Jacona (talk) 01:03, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
    • In the last two and a half years, I've only nominated 50. That's, what, two a month? TenPoundHammer has 50 AfDs and MfDs combined since last summer. pbp 01:08, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
• "Crying BLP" at this late date isn't going to accomplish anything. PRODs are a completely valid way to accomplish the same "goal" of an AfD - just through a less controversial process. If you discount the IP(s) & the two obviously canvassed opinions above, there appear to only be 4 (uninvolved?) opposes to the proposed sanction here, which will, in fact, allow this user to generate several hundred more AfDs just this calendar year alone. Maybe it would help if we asked for an uninvolved administrator to close this thread? Guy1890 (talk) 04:15, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

• I would strongly support asking an uninvolved admin for a close. I've been trying to keep my lips zipped in regards to this thread the last couple of days as I feel I've said more than enough already, but I think it is definitely time for a resolution now. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 05:03, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
• Yes, Guy, please request input from an admin. pbp 06:07, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I guess someone's already done that here. Let's all wait & see - unless anyone new to the discussion has something to say above. Guy1890 (talk) 07:05, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I hadn't seen that. Unfortunately it was four days ago & still no progress but hopefully someone sees it soon. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 07:10, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps @Drmies: could pop in and close. He commented above, but I don't think he's involved. And put an end to this drama, one way or another. Nfitz (talk) 07:27, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

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

IP rangeblock for Suicide of Tyler Clementi

• 172.58.184.146 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• 172.58.216.167 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• 172.58.217.16 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• 172.56.3.85 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• 172.56.23.87 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• 172.58.216.164 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• 172.58.217.236 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)

A very persistent IP hopper keeps posting bigoted and offensive material at Suicide of Tyler Clementi and its talk page. Most recent example: [74], which by the way should probably be rev-deled. All the edits are like that one.

A few days ago Joe Decker semi-protected the page, which certainly helps, but as the diff above shows, the IP just moves to the talk page, and seems quite determined to keep this up indefinitely. It's probably a bad idea to semi the talk page too, so I'd like to recommend a rangeblock. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:40, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I've handled the revision deletion, I'll leave the rangeblock to someone who knows more about such things since I don t have access to the rangeblock calculator at the moment. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:59, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Blade. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:01, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Has WP:CRD been met? If I was suicidal, I wouldn't want to be coming across those old edits in the revision summary. Nfitz (talk) 18:05, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, you are quite right. It would really be best to revdel all the edits to the page by the IP. I see that the most recent one was revdeled a few minutes ago, but there are older ones too. There is also this edit to a user page of an editor who reverted one of those edits: [75], and there may be others. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:11, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I've cleaned out a couple more revisions too, including the one right above. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:57, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

IPs have been range blocked for 36 hours. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:54, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for the help. I suspect that this person will be persistent enough that the problem will resume sometime after 36 hours. If so, I'll come back and let you all know. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:02, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

• I was going to close this, but am leaving it open in case the problem recurs before the bot archives the thread. Softlavender (talk) 09:41, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Problem resumes

And it's a good thing that you did. Just as soon as the 36 hours were over, the problem started up again:

• 172.58.233.106 (talk • contribs • deleted contribs • blacklist hits • AbuseLog • what links to user page • COIBot • Spamcheck • count • block log • x-wiki • Edit filter search • WHOIS • RDNS • tracert • robtex.com • StopForumSpam • Google • AboutUs • Project HoneyPot)
• [76], [77], [78].

Those 3 edits have been reverted, but I would recommend that they be rev-deled. And that individual IP has been blocked for 24 hours. But unless this ANI thread is going to become a perennial, I really think that we are going to need a long-term rangeblock. Clearly, this is not going to go away without us making it go away. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:17, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Tryptofish, you're going to have to ping the admins who helped before, to get some action. Otherwise I don't think they are noticing this. Softlavender (talk) 18:51, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, the edits were rev-deled just a few minutes after I made the post (and I certainly hope that some admins are monitoring this noticeboard, whether or not they are the same ones as before). I also see that another admin extended the block of this individual IP to a month, with no talkpage access. They just didn't comment on it here. But, for what it's worth, I'm pinging Oshwah, who did the previous rangeblock, because currently only the single IP is blocked. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:52, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• "Bump" to any admin who knows how to calculate IP rangeblocks. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:49, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Personal attacks against an RFC poster

Talk:Smith & Wesson M&P15#Request for comment: add three instances of criminal use is an RFC posted by an IP editor. The RFC is brief and neutrally worded. Editors who oppose the proposed text have posted personal attacks on the IP editor, claiming on the one hand that he is a an illegitimate sock and on the other hand that he is a single purpose editor. @Springee: has had a long battle with this IP editor. Sockpuppet investigations were closed without conclusion. (Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/HughD/Archive). These comments have no bearing on the issue or the content discussion, so I deleted them. I was reverted by @Niteshift36: and I deleted them a second time, with an explanation.[79] My question here is: Are purely personal comments and SPA tags appropriate in a content RFC? Was I wrong to delete them? Felsic2 (talk) 18:34, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

As a result of another clumsy revert, my comments have been deleted and the RFC has been deactivated.[80] I don't want to edit war on a talk page, but this is unhelpful. Felsic2 (talk) 18:42, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

• There's no personal attack. The RfC was never properly completed any way, so it's not accidentally deactivated. And I've restored the proper discussion to the talk page and warn Felsic to stop removing others comments from a talk page. Niteshift36 (talk) 20:08, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Are purely personal comments and SPA tags appropriate in a content RFC? Generally, if the editors had issues with the IP, or suspected them of being a sock, they should have gone to SPI or somewhere like here, not disparage them on an article talk page. Since the IP was an open proxy, and since AFAIK most people use dynamic IPs anyway, having their first edit being an RfC is...well...actually pretty meaningless either way. Even the IP had a lengthy anon editing history, it just as well may have been different people editing on the same IP in the absence of more compelling behavioral evidence.

Was I wrong to delete them? A lot of times that's an individual judgement call. Even in cases where personal attacks are obvious and even egregious, edit warring over removing them often exacerbates the situation more than the personal attacks themselves. Per guidance at WP:NPA, Often the best way to respond to an isolated personal attack is to simply ignore it.

But at the end of the day, the botched reversion that closed the RfC has been reverted, and I'm not sure there's much needed in this thread other than advice. May want to keep Wikipedia:Help desk in mind in the future, unless you are seeking specific sanctions that require broad community input and/or administrator tools. TimothyJosephWood 20:09, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

• The SPA tag was wholly proper and should never have been removed. The fact was that was the ONLY article the IP had edited. The SPA tag simply states they've made edits in only that or few articles. Again, entirely proper. Niteshift36 (talk) 20:17, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

It was an open proxy. The tag was meaningless. TimothyJosephWood 20:18, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

• It doesn't matter if it's "meaningless" or not. It shows the casual reader that it's an SPA. In addition, the tag was not incorrect or inappropriate. There was zero reason for the removal, let alone the repeated removal. Niteshift36 (talk) 03:33, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Unless there are multiple new accounts or IPs voicing the same opinion (a typical sign of sock puppetry), there is probably no need to use this template; the user should probably be addressed personally instead. TimothyJosephWood 10:50, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• Gee Timothy, that's a great, unnecessarily long piped link. How about if you link me to the policy or guideline that says it is improper to use it and should be removed by an editor, multiple times. Do you have that? Because refactoring other editors on talk pages has a pretty narrow scope. Until you do have something that fits that scope, the placement was proper, the removal was improper and no amount of "probably" and "should" will change that. Niteshift36 (talk) 15:48, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

m:Don't be a jerk ... no piping. Just for you. TimothyJosephWood 17:23, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• I'm sorry if you're "triggered" because someone doesn't buy your smoke and mirror show. I'm sorry that you feel the need to be right, even when you actually aren't right. If you don't want people to treat you like a jerk, don't treat them like a jerk. Long piped link, just for you. Niteshift36 (talk) 18:09, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, the editor did file an SPI and it was closed without reaching a conclusion. Making the same charge repeatedly, and even routinely reverting edits and talk page posts, seems like a case of casting aspersions, which the ArbCom has disciplined for violating. WP:ASPERSIONS.

Adding personal attacks, and repeatedly restoring them, doesn't seem like a good way to conduct an RFC. The talk page guidelines WP:TPG, specifically cover this issue and those guidelines say to avoid talking about other editors. Felsic2 (talk) 01:36, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• It wasn't a personal attack, so your excuse fails. Niteshift36 (talk) 03:33, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Let me put this another way: An editor editing through an open proxy IP address may (in fact almost certainly given the circumstances) have an editing history unrelated to that IP address. As you cannot prove one way or the other if the editor was solely focused on that subject, you cannot label them a single-purpose-account as you have no clue what their editing history is. An open-proxy IP is not an account. And in fact, by indicating they are a sockpuppet of another user, unless that user is demonstratably an SPA, its an unfounded personal attack. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:21, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• Even if they only have that history for a day, it's still their history. I can show that IP has only edited that article. They are, demonstrably, a SPA. You can't show they've edited anywhere else. I didn't post the sockpuppet allegation under discussion, but I did post the SPA tag. You can't show that editor edited anywhere else. (BTW, the tag says this or "few other" topics). This is exactly why registration should be required. Niteshift36 (talk) 18:26, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Admin guidance please

I am really not sure how this situation should be handled, but I am uncomfortable with people striking RFC !votes [81], adding SPA tags [82] (especially when the discussion above shows very little support for that), removing comments [83], and cluttering up an RFC with off-topic accusations of sockpuppetry [84] when there has been no positive SPI and no official determination that the IP is HughD. Is this how we normally do things?

For context, there is some discussion here where The Wordsmith seems to have been convinced that the IP might be HughD, and there was an inconclusive SPI here but nothing "official" as far as I can tell. Can we get an uninvolved admin to take a look and decide whether or not this IP's contributions are a case of WP:DUCK or a case of WP:AGF? Seems like this needs to get settled one way or another. Fyddlestix (talk) 19:23, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• The SPA tag has nothing to do with SPI or a sock allegation. There doesn't have to be a finding of anything. It merely shows that the IP has edited in no or few topics other than this one. That is factually correct. None of you have shown it's not true, so put the whip away. Niteshift36 (talk) 22:07, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, you've already (and repeatedly) stated your opinion on this above. But my question involved more than just an spa tag (ie, striking votes, deleting comments, sock accusations), and I'm asking for someone who is not already involved in this dispute to comment. No "whip" here, whatever that was supposed to mean. Fyddlestix (talk) 22:45, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• Whip means stop beating the dead horse. There's no violation or policy prohibiting the tag. So making it part of your "concerns" looks like trying to stack the complaint to make it seem more than it is. (Much like listing a lot of sources that don't address the topic under discussion.) Since you included it, I'm addressing it. Niteshift36 (talk) 00:19, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Are you always this combative? You're being way more adversarial than the situation warrants, both here and in the RFC. Fyddlestix (talk) 03:09, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• Do you really want to start making this a conversation about personalities? You can ask that, but when I ask if you understand the issue, you lecture me about civility? [85]Would be happy to discuss your hypocrisy if you want to start discussing personalities. Niteshift36 (talk) 04:25, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

That comment was a response to your behaviour in the RFC as a whole, and in this ANI thread, not just your reply to me. Fyddlestix (talk) 06:02, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• So? You act like you're being civil, yet you feel free to comment on the editor and not the issue, acting like it's fine. Niteshift36 (talk) 01:11, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• If it's really an open proxy, the !votes and comments should be struck, whether or not the {{SPA}} tag is appropriate. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:44, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Really? I looked at WP:PROXY and while it does suggest that proxies can/should be blocked, it also says that "while this may affect legitimate users, they are not the intended targets and may freely use proxies until those are blocked." Hence the question (ie, is this is a "legitimate" editor or not). Fyddlestix (talk) 22:17, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• The proxy is blocked. So what is the point of that comment? Niteshift36 (talk) 21:53, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I think I explained that pretty clearly in the post you're replying to: WP:PROXY does not suggest that someone's comments/!votes should be struck because they were editing through a proxy. In fact, it seems to suggest the opposite (that their contributions should be presumed valid, assuming its not vandalism or block evasion). If I have missed some guideline/policy that says otherwise, please point it out to me - if not, and in the absence of an SPI/admin finding that the IP is HughD, then this should be reverted, the IP should be allowed their !vote, and people should not be removing their comments. Fyddlestix (talk) 23:02, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• If the IP is blocked, the vote should be struck. Niteshift36 (talk) 02:38, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Editors here seem to be confusing WP:BLOCK with WP:BAN. They are two different things. The open proxies have been blocked, but there's no confirmation that the editor using the IP has been banned. Comments by banned editors may be removed. Comments from merely blocked editors should not be. Felsic2 (talk) 17:02, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

• So lets see if I can sum up where we seem to be here:

1. The SPA tags probably weren't necessary
2. Removing them probably wasn't either
3. Neither is probably worth this drawn out conversation
4. Either party could and should have dropped the stick, regardless of where it fell
5. The RfC seems to be steaming along nicely, despite the apparently Earth shattering crises of an SPA tag
6. Unlike this conversation which is pretty clearly going nowhere, and should probably be closed before people wind up getting gratuitous links to essays on civility, which will probably only make things worse.

Did I miss anything? TimothyJosephWood 16:59, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Eruditescholar

User:Eruditescholar has a history of adding categories to BLP's without proof. See 2015 and 2016. This bad habit has reappeared here, here, here and here. The editor has been warned about this several times previously and apologized on his talk page while promising to take greater care. Requesting a long block to prevent more damage to BLP's with uncited ethnicity categories.--TM 23:32, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

This User: TM is a disruptive editor especially on Nigerian-Yoruba related articles.

@TM If you know nothing about ethnic groups in Nigeria, you don't have to display your ignorance or attempt to use a system to suppress information for readers. We are all here to make Wikipedia a better source of infomation for readers and you shouldn't hinder it or bear your grudges against another editor.

We've had series of conflicts on this issue over many years and you happen to be the only editor who keeps editing in this manner. Aren't you tired? Eruditescholar (talk) 00:01, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey Namimbia! as EruditeScholar said in the previous ANI's, In the African settings, name actually do mean a lot and it is very very possible to analyse the tribe based on that. And I must add really? Ain't you tired of all this??????? ʍaɦʋɛօtʍ (talk) 00:49, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• It's very obvious and crystal clear that @Namiba: is "gaming the system" he is standing on the polices of Wikipedia and using them as a tool to quell, repress and subdue information. @Eruditescholar: is a Nigerian, and in Nigeria upon announcement of a Name, the tribe / ethnicity of that individual is deduced/known immediately. That is probably the reason Eruditescholar may forget to, at times back up these claims with citations because to be honest In my opinion there really is no need to do so. notwithstanding, I, as well as every other editor on Wikipedia, including Eruditescholar, understands the essence of citations, a review of the works by Eruditescholar shows he does proper referencing and citations, if he occasionally forgets to reference some parts shouldn't he be pardoned? i say simple warning should do and a Block is not the solution and I would suggest that Namiba focuses on things that he is really sure of and let people with in-depth knowledge of Nigeria, like Nigerian Editors focus on Nigerian related articles, as I feel and can observe that there is a form of witch-hunt or grudge from one party to the other. Celestina007 (talk) 05:05, March 2017 (UTC)

The problem is even if, we can accept the occasional mistake, this doesn't explain Eruditescholar reverting without adding references when someone has noticed their mistake. Also there's a difference between an occasional mistake and 4 mistakes in about 4 minutes. And besides reverting, Eruditescholar's response when they make mistakes, as shown here, is to complain about other people not understanding Nigerian ethnic groups rather than to either add sources and apologise for their mistake or demonstrate that they were already in the article. The community has not accepted any proposal to relax our WP:BLPCAT requirements for Nigerian people, or anyone else, based on the ability of random editors to tell their ethnicity from their names. So all that stuff is irrelevant. In BLPs, contentious information whether negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable is supposed to be "quell, repress and subdue"d if it lacks references so it's by definition not "gaming the system" to do so. Nigerian people can focus on Nigerian related articles if they desire, and they do so by finding references and adding referenced information. Not by adding information which they just know to BLPs. Other editors are not required to know a great deal about Nigerian ethnicities to be able to check additions by any party because they can check references if needed (or if the references are not easily accessible, ask for a copy of the reference). The only thing another editor really needs to know when it comes to ethnicities is complete synonyms. Nil Einne (talk) 11:37, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@Nil Einne: you do a make a plausible argument sir, & I very much understand your concerns, in summary what I'm saying is the mistake @Eruditescholar: makes is to a large extent involuntary, as any other Nigerian editor may make the exact mistake, and i am particular to Nigerian editors as this is a peculiar issue to most Nigerian Editors, it may on the surface look easy to resolve, but I assure you it isn't as easy as it seems, as it requires very serious conscious efforts to overcome and I do understand that Wikipedia isn't exempting nor giving Nigeria or Nigerian Editors any special privileges whatsoever, because Wikipedia's policies are flat and as so applies throughout all articles on Wikipedia irrespective of race/color/Nation.

Another reason I worry about this particular case is thus; The Given history of the subject of our discussion and his 'accuser', they seem to have a sour history, and I fear one party may be using this platform to settle scores or "try to get back at the other" so judgement should be carried out carefully and with caution so as to avoid any bad blood or personal feelings getting hurt.

Finally, From my findings sir, there is a "Last chance" policy or perhaps it's called "Final rope" , I do forget what it's called, but I think its a policy used as an alternative to blocking a user, it is said to be a way of giving a user a chance to prove himself/herself worthy, I do believe Eruditescholar deserves this "final rope" I do believe he deserves another chance, rather than be blocked because as stated earlier, any Nigerian editor could have easily made the same mistakes as he.Celestina007 (talk) 13:44, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Given the editors' persistent warnings and their apparent refusal to accept those warnings (except when faced with the threat of a block as seen in the previous instances this has come to ANI) I feel a block is in order. Otherwise, this behavior will continue and hundreds if not thousands of BLP's will be tagged with an ethnicity category for which there is no actual proof.--TM 12:06, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• I propose that a ban on Eruditescholar adding ethnicity and ethnicity categories to Biographies of Living Persons is in order, considering: ongoing behaviour in spite of previous warnings; refusal to listen; the strong policies in place in protecting BLPs from exactly this sort of unreferenced claims. First Light (talk) 12:51, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Hello, @First Light: could you kindly read my comments above so you could understand better ? Celestina007 (talk) 14:05, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

I did, and it confirms my thought that a ban on adding such categories is the answer, rather than a complete block as TM is suggesting. I also don't appreciate your badgering an editor who is only trying to support an important policy on BLPs ( accusing him of "gaming the system," "a form of witch-hunt or grudge," "may be using this platform to settle scores or "try to get back at the other"," ) Better to discuss the BLP policy and why you think Eruditescholar is correct in his behaviour, according to policy—rather than making personal accusations against an editor who is trying to uphold and important policy. First Light (talk) 13:28, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

I did not mention Namiba, I was civil & diplomatic enough to use the word "party" hence, I did not technically refer to him.

@First Light: I respect the actions of @Namiba: towards developing a Better Wikipedia and of course I also respect you as an editor and your contributions, as my superiors what you say and do means a lot and exerts much influence

As regards my comments on Namiba "gaming the system", yes, I really do believe so, it doesn't have to be correct, but based on history I have observed, its a postulation I derived which may be right or wrong, also I do strongly believe actions outside of Wikipedia are strongly affecting both editors involved.

I think your suggestion makes more sense it is preferred to blocking the user. Thank you. Celestina007 (talk) 14:52, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Celestina007, please place your signature at the end of the last line you write, not on a new line. Helpful hint: if you look at a talk page and your posts are different from everyone else's posts, try to figure out why and how to post like everyone else does. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:35, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: okay, thank you so much, Point noted. May i also suggest that you work on your tone as someday you may be addressing an editor who isn't as patient as I am and your current tone may easily be thought as and translated as sarcasm, so henceforth work thoroughly on your tone. And also next time when you are offering an unsolicited "helpful hint" always add a link to the guidelines/ policy page backing up your "helpful hint" because surely every of your "helpful hints" must abide and correlate with a current standing Wikipedia policy or guideline and that way you would really be making a notable and meaningful contribution as providing links would help educate a lot of editors rather than a "helpful" hint. By providing links you would also help in closing up the current and numerous gaps in knowledge.Celestina007 (talk) 17:06, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

You can fix it yourself in addition to nannying the poster. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:03, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@Baseball Bugs: lool oh yes !! he most definitely can help me with that. Celestina007 (talk) 17:06, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Oluwa2Chainz has joined Eruditescholar in the same pattern of editing as well, see here and here. In one edit summary, the editor reverted my removal of the uncited, unmentioned ethnicity categories because "common sense should tell you she's Yoruba".--TM 23:47, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

I have to confess: I am sick and tired of TM's disruption. In a number of instances, he removed categories that have Yoruba Nigerian ethnicity-related information which he is totally ignorant about, especially when the proof is glaring to me! Even if the proof is not glaring and my editing was wrong, other editors would have corrected it. Many of the biographical articles which he removed ethnic categories from have been in that state for years while other editors edit other areas of these articles in question. Why is he always focusing on the ethnic categorizations? Why is his case always different?? TM really needs to check himself seriously because he is only using my ethnic categorizations as an excuse to get back at me regarding the long-term animosity that has developed between us over the years. It is innapropriate to allow external factors or personal experiences to influence one's editing here. If he has problems to resolve, he shouldn't let it interfere with his editing here! There are many other aspects which need more attention on these biographical articles besides ethnicity. If he is genuinely interested in Nigerian or Yoruba-related articles, then he should improve them in other areas. Wikipedia's rules are mostly general guidelines required for editors to comply and use to provide good information for users. It is wrong to use it to exploit others. Eruditescholar (talk) 23:48, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

@TM: You brought another Nigerian editor User:Oluwa2Chainz to this same ANI discussion? Isn't this a sheer exposure of your ignorance? Please, this has to stop. Enough of all these desperations to fulfill your heart's desire! Eruditescholar (talk) 00:00, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I have no idea why any editor feels to impugned my integrity. I simply want to follow the sensible and universal guidelines regarding BLPs and ethnicity categories. It's not personal and I hope the personal attacks will stop.--TM 00:12, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Okay, if there is no source in the article attesting to the subject's ethnicity then a category listing that ethnicity should not be added. Period. Anything else is original research and blockable disruptive editing if done repeatedly. We see similar behavior with Indian editors trying to discern caste by surname and that practice is stomped on and will not spread. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:13, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

User:NeilN, that was established in both 2015 and 2016 when this same pattern of editing occurred. The question here is what are the consequences? It seems pretty clear from both the edits and comments here that Eruditescholar does not care about Wikipedia policies regarding BLPCAT's.--TM 02:50, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

@Namiba: See this. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:16, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Darreg is repeating the exact behavior as well, see here and here.--TM 15:34, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

As a first step, warn these editors about adding unsourced material and make them aware that discretionary sanctions apply to all BLPs. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:56, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• smh. Dear Namiba or whatever, is this page the only article with original research? Why are you focused only on that article? --—Oluwa2Chainz »» (talk to me) 16:12, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• That's like a spammer asking why I deleted his article when there are plenty more spam articles out there. If an editor's attention comes across an article for whatever reason, they are free to focus on resolving the perceived problems with that article. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:41, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I do not want to be dragged into this ANI case, can't even understand why I was pinged. I haven't gone through all the edits of Eruditescholar, but in this case, he was spot on. I saw an article through the watchlist I follow and made edits that I believed were not only appropriate, but also factually correct. The woman in question was born in Yorubaland, had her secondary school in Yorubaland, did her university in Yorubaland, was elected as a legislator in Yorubaland, got married into a royal family in Yorubaland. All these were referenced in the article, yet you continue to remove claims that she's a Yoruba politician, even without having any valid contrary argument. I perceive that as being disrespectful to the Yoruba race. One thing I have discovered about WP is that there is a cabal of editors that once you get into their nest, they will continue to haunt you with your own words till they break you. Namiba, you can edit the article as you deem fit. I do not intend to edit that article anymore. My advice to all editors here is don't allow anything break you!, learn to let go. I will not reply to any comment here anymore. Darreg (talk) 17:28, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

@Darreg: You may not want to reply but I'm pinging you just so you're aware of this response. The problem you face is that Yoruba people defines Yoruba as an ethnic race. This is different from being a citizen of a country or representing a state. Nigerian categories and Mushin politician categories are fine as those can be derived from sources. But ethnicity, as obvious as it seems to you, also needs a source. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:51, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Even before this ANI discussion started about two days ago, I have not been as active on Wikipedia as I used to be because of my busy schedule so I ensure that I check what is going on here at least once a day. I would like to see where this ends. TM likes making false assertions to prove his claim like this:

"It seems pretty clear from both the edits and comments here that Eruditescholar does not care about Wikipedia policies regarding BLPCAT's.--TM"

I care about Wikipedia's policies otherwise, I wouldnt value the importance of citations. Adding reliables sources is important for articles' veracity but when you can't find adequate sources and multiple information from the article can be utilized to reveal further information for readers, what do you do? Is it constructive to suppress the information due to lack of sources or to reveal it because it is valid?

If I never cared about BLP categories, why have other editors not reported me on ANI on my numerous thousands of edits I have made on blps since I joined Wikipedia in 2010? The only reason I have to come to ANI is because of TM. I have edited on several blps of ethnicities outside Nigeria including American and British people and I have not had to deal with an issue like this. I am just amused by the way TM keeps lying on me with ease. He tries to cover up his faults in an attempt to reach his goal of keeping me out of Wikipedia for reasons privy to him.

It would have been better if he keeps editing only on articles he is more knowledgeable about and stay within his comfort zone. He should keep away from editing aspects of articles he is ignorant about. Bringing a third Nigerian editor to this ANI duscussion is even more annoying. In the case of Funmi Tejuosho whose father bears a Yoruba name, has a Yoruba name, was born, raised, educated in Yorubaland and given a leadership role in Yorubaland (one of the few women to be so honoured). What other proof do you need that her ethnicity is Yoruba? Most western editors are probably unaware of the role of names in identifying someone's ethnicity in Nigeria, not mentioning other ethnic determinants. The fact that this ethnic categorization battle has been going on for years means external forces outside of Wikipedia is at play here. Looking at the edit histories of some biographical articles such as Lateef Adegbite, Ilesanmi Adesida, Babatunde Fashola and Mosun Filani some years ago reveals the desperation of the extent he has gone in the past to disrupt Yoruba Nigerian biographical articles. Eruditescholar (talk) 23:13, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

@Eruditescholar: I'm surprised an editor with 25,000+ edits so misses the point of our verifiability policy. Articles are not written for readers familiar with the subject or, in this case, what is a "Yoruba name" and what it implies. As WP:V states, "verifiability means that other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source." Checking does not include hunting down the editor who added the information and quizzing them about Yoruba surnames. It means checking a previously published reliable source. Please answer the question I posed on your talk page. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:50, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Eruditescholar is indefinitely topic banned from adding ethnicity or ethnicity categories to BLP's. This topic ban may be appealed in six months at the administrators' noticeboard. [86] --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:33, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I was going to propose something similar (not restricted to BLPs) actually wrote it around the same time as the above reply but decided to wait and see what else people said first before posting. The discretionary sanctions avoids the need for all that jazz. Hopefully Eruditescholar learns to follow our WP:V requirements even in non BLPs. BTW, Eruditescholar I actually have some sympathy towards the problem, but as you've been told before until and unless you can change our policies, you need to follow them. And despite my sympathies I won't likely support such a change. It's not that I don't understand how obvious certain things may be, but there are reasons we shouldn't do it even if it is the norm in certain places. BTW Celestina007, I think Eruditescholar's responses here proves the point. It's not a simple case of making mistakes but rather that they seem to think they don't have to follow policies because it's better, but WP:IAR most definitely doesn't apply in a case like this and they've been told that time and time again. And yes, they have been given plenty of chances, including a last chance before. Nil Einne (talk) 01:41, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

I support this topic ban. Indiscriminate ethnic/religious categorization based only on guesswork about names rather than reliable sourcing has historically been a big problem here and we need to shut it down. Thanks, NeilN, for handling this. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:35, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Non sense tags

Hollyckuhno, keep putting a tags which is he/she used the word biased and not important article as it refers to notable. However I keep reminding him to look at the reliable sources from the article. But he/she seems to not look at those carefully and just put the tags as it refers to what I said on the top. But however here's the discussion where it taken place. [87] Kazaro (talk) 09:59, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Note: I changed the citation above to a WP:DIFF. -- Softlavender (talk) 10:14, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Then how come it is being considered for deletion? This user would like to remove tags without resolving the issues the tags are referring to. Hollyckuhno (talk) 10:14, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Kazaro has a history of removing maintenance tags/templates on several articles without resolving the issues the tags are referring to.[88][89] I have talked to this user many times to no avail. It seems that this user is immune to suggestions and would rather respond negatively by reverting or talking nonsense. This user has also a history of creating articles written like advertisements with peacock and weasel words, adding unreliable references. This user has also been involved in edit warring in several occasions with the most recent being in last month. Hollyckuhno (talk) 10:07, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

The problem is, he keep putting tags for not reading the reliable sources from the website I provided from the article. He seems to be stalked all of my article I created, click his contributions to see.Kazaro (talk) 10:12, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

And take note's I keep telling him but he's thinking the other way, to just put the articles.Kazaro (talk) 10:12, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

This user does not know the guidelines of Wikipedia. This user insist that a reference from a single source (self-published) is reliable. Hollyckuhno (talk) 10:21, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: These two editors have been edit-warring with each other across several articles since July 2016: [90], including this ANI report: [91]. It also appears that Hollyckuhno is tracking Kazaro's edits. -- Softlavender (talk) 10:25, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

The incident wouldn't have been taken without me, but it seems he keep putting a tags without the administrators. One of the articles I have been created is on discussion, but however he keep putting those tags without reading the article and the realible sources I provided to the article. Kazaro (talk) 10:26, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

This user is making his/her own guidelines. This user insists that the sources he/she provided are reliable. This user does not edit according to the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia. By the way, why would I track this user when obviously my interest is anything under Philippine media and entertainment? Please look at my contributions history. Hollyckuhno (talk) 10:38, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment 2: Given Hollyckuhno's userpage [92], and Kazaro's general contributions [93], it seems that each of them may have a strong association with, and possible conflict-of-interest concerning, two different and competing media conglomerates in the Philippines. I'm wondering if an interaction ban might be in order, or a topic ban for each. Softlavender (talk) 10:35, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I am also wondering if you have checked my contributions because if you are justifying my capacity as a Wikipedia editor according only on my user page then it is obviously unfair considering how much I contributed for the improvement of Wikipedia. Hollyckuhno (talk) 10:52, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

You appear to have a strong association with, and possible conflict-of-interest concerning, a media conglomerate in the Philippines which competes with GMA, which Kazaro seems to have a strong association with, and possible conflict-of-interest concerning. Softlavender (talk) 10:56, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

In my defense, I only edit articles that I am interested in. For example: List of highest-grossing films in the Philippines. Compare the version before my revision and you would know that I am only concern with the improvements of any articles that I am interested. Hollyckuhno (talk) 11:05, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

You appear [94] [95] to have a strong association with, and possible conflict-of-interest concerning, ABS-CBN – a media conglomerate in the Philippines which competes with GMA, which Kazaro [96] seems to have a strong association with, and possible conflict-of-interest concerning. Softlavender (talk) 11:10, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I did not deleted your post. You have actually deleted mine: "This is another proof, this time a show of GMA Network: [97] Hollyckuhno (talk) 11:12, 4 March 2017 (UTC)" Hollyckuhno (talk) 11:22, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

You have so far removed two of my posts from this thread: [98] [99]. Posting random examples of your editing does not refute the fact that you appear to have a strong association with, and possible conflict-of-interest concerning, ABS-CBN: [100] [101]. -- Softlavender (talk) 11:31, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

If you two have a conflict of interest, please declare it publicly. El_C 11:35, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

So just because I am interested in certain articles I will be blocked even though I have not vandalized or disruptive any articles. Furthermore, how about the many articles unrelated to ABS-CBN that I have improved? As I said earlier before and I will proudly reiterate, I only contribute to articles I am interested. I did not do anything wrong, I did not vandalize, I did not disrupted any articles and I even remove a defamatory statement in one of GMA related article.[102] Hollyckuhno (talk) 11:43, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I can assure you I have no conflict of interest. I could even disclose my personal information to administrators right away if they wanted. Hollyckuhno (talk) 11:43, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• I'm not surprised that Hollyckunho is looking at Kazaro's contributions. Let's look at some article creations (only 10 of their 66 articles actually exist as articles, the rest have been deleted, redirected, or were created as redirects in the first place).

• Alissa Violet - BLP sourced to one flaky source. Second attempt - first one was speedy deleted.
• Super Tekla = BLP sourced only to the TV station he appears on
• List of mergers and acquisitions by GMA Network Inc. - almost completely unsourced
• Charlie Macaraeg - unsourced, not notable BLP (deleted)
• Jake Paul - this is probably marginally notable now, but was created as a practically unsourced BLP
• Alex Lange (model) - unsourced BLP, deleted
• D' Originals - TV show sourced, again, only to the channel it appears on
• List of Meant to Be characters - 95% unsourced
• List of Alyas Robin Hood characters - no reliable or independent sources
• List of Regal Entertainment films - unsourced (the one link to YouTube can be ignored)
• Unitel Pictures - no sources about the company itself
• GMA Entertainment TV - unsourced

• I have to say that I would be reviewing their contributions as well if I had noticed them. Black Kite (talk) 11:45, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Most of those should be deleted or redirected. And most of them concern GMA, which further indicates that Kazaro is a single-purpose account, and may have a strong association with, and possible conflict-of-interest concerning, the network. In addition, the competence level of the editor has not improved over time. I'm not sure what the solution should be, but it could include a topic-ban from GMA broadly construed, a restriction on new-article creations unless they go through WP:AFC, a ban on removing tags without addressing issues, etc. Softlavender (talk) 11:57, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I tend to believe Hollyckuhno when s/he says there's no conflict of interest on his or her part—I wonder if the same is true for Kazaro... But regardless, indeed, it is becoming clear that Kazaro has issues of competence that may be untenable. El_C 12:06, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't think either of them have a COI with these companies, frankly. However, I agree with Black Kite and El_C concerning Kazaro's competence issues and the need to check his edits carefully. For example, I just reduced GMA Worldwide (now at AfD) to one sentence. The entire contents had been pasted verbatim from the company's website. The text when he created Jake Paul [103] is basically verbatim from here. It wouldn't surprise me if most, if not all, of his articles show the same problems. Voceditenore (talk) 13:47, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Considering his English skills are very much suboptimal, that would not be surprising. The question is, what sort of sanctions or warnings should be given to the editor, even beyond the cleanup that will have to be done? Softlavender (talk) 14:14, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Kazaro has, over a long time and a number of articles, failed to adhere to Wikipedia policies and guidelines, particularly in respect to verifiability and neutrality. He has already been advised and warned about this many times. Therefore, I think it's time for a WP:CIR block, to prevent further poorly referenced and biased content causing a lot of work for others. 86.20.193.222 (talk) 15:23, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Softlavender, I think Kazaro's GMA stuff is incidental to his interest in Charlie Macaraeg (whose "stage name" is "Charlie Conte"), a teenage "actor and blogger" who was allegedly on one of their shows. Kazaro's first article was Charlie Conte, (a recreation of a deleted article by User:Charlieconte, who was blocked for the username issue). The recreation was speedied, but Kazaro recreated it again. It was finally deleted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charlie Conte (a very interesting read). Kazaro's next article was the school which Charlie Macaraeg/Conte currently attends, Iao Intermediate School (deleted as blatant copyvio). Kazaro later created both Charlie Macaraeg and Charliesite.org (young Charlie's blog). Given the repeated copyvio issues and the incredibly poorly sourced articles on the other dubious BLP internet "celebs", Kazaro should probably be restricted from article creation and required to go through AfC for at least six months. His shenanigans have already used up enormous amounts of editors' and administrators' time. Voceditenore (talk) 16:15, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree that enforced use of WP:AFC for any future article submissions should be a minimum requirement, if an outright WP:CIR block is considered premature. Softlavender (talk) 16:32, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

The other I'm facing about which is GMA Network Inc. as Hollyckuhno, keep putting the tags into the article. This article has no problem but s/he keeps putting the tag into that article. Kazaro (talk) 17:50, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Hollyckuhno, on that particular article, GMA Network Inc., you've been editing it since November 2011 [104], but have done little to improve it, instead edit-warring to keep multiple tags at the top which have been there for five years. I would personally suggest that you take the time to improve the article, and remove the tags once you have finished. Your English is better than Kazaro's, the issues are not that hard to fix, you are familiar with the industry and the country, and the article is an important one. I personally don't see any reason that you should not assist the situation. Softlavender (talk) 18:46, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• Note After I removed the copyvio from GMA Worldwide, I left a warning on Kazaro's talk page [105]. Despite that warning, he has returned to the article and added more copyvio [106], from a different source with spurious references, possibly in a clumsy attempt to disguise what he was doing. I removed it, left another warning and he has proceeded to restore it. He needs a block now. Voceditenore (talk) 19:18, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Voceditenore, You have been reverting the article, did you even read the website?, it's different what I have made to that section of article. So thats not the part of copyrightvio, you were referring to.Kazaro (talk) 19:23, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

See my comment below. Voceditenore (talk) 19:39, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Proposal: Indef block

I propose an indefinite block of Kazaro for DE, CIR, repeated copyvio, IDHT, and edit-warring. Softlavender (talk) 19:25, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support. Editor is clearly unwilling to change and unable to edit productively. Softlavender (talk) 19:25, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Softlavender, The website is different of what s/he have referring to. It's not part of copyvio. You have to read those to understand what Im talking about.Kazaro (talk) 19:28, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

This most recent time, you copied from yet another source http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/361685/cbb/gma-worldwide-inc-showcasing-the-kapuso-brand-to-the-world, changing one or two words. This is completely unacceptable behaviour. Voceditenore (talk) 19:34, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support, if nothing else for repeated copyvio despite repeated warnings, three times today alone. Whether it's simply incompetence or wilful disruption is, at this point, immaterial. Voceditenore (talk) 19:34, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Its not three times and The website what you have referring to is this ^[107], which is not part of copyright violation. I have used my own word to type those word on the section. S/he probably dont read carefully. Kazaro (talk) 19:37, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

See my comment directly above. The first time you copied from here, the second time from here, and the third time from here. Voceditenore (talk) 07:25, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• Note: Kazaro has been indefinitely blocked by El C for copyright violations. Softlavender (talk) 21:11, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, blocked indefinitely for repeated copyrights violations,^[108][109] and issue pertaining to overall competence. El_C 21:16, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• Update: The user has since posted an unblock request, which incidentally, I had to fix (he used the {{unblocked}} template)—I'll let another admin attend to that. El_C 00:54, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• It seems that Huon, Boing! said Zebedee, BethNaught, and NeilN have all had their say, so that makes five admins in a row. Is that enough? Softlavender, how many admins does it take to block a user? Drmies (talk) 04:05, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• At least a few more at UTRS, I'm guessing. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:08, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• Update 2: Editor created a sockpuppet within an hour of being blocked. Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Kazaro. -- Softlavender (talk) 13:26, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

• Lather, rinse, repeat. Apparently NeilN was correct, although he did not foresee the sock. Softlavender (talk) 01:21, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Socks, plural. Jeezus Christ. Softlavender (talk) 12:20, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Disruptive editing by rolling IP editor, most recently 83.213.205.149

An IP editor has been disrupting Lordship of Biscay for months using IPs in the 85.84.118.* and 83.213.*.* ranges, but over the past few days has turned it Up to eleven. Actions include:

3RR violation (disguised by shifting IP) [110] [111] [112] [113]

unfounded accusations of sock puppetry (I am accused of being either User:Maragm or User:Asqueladd, though the editor can't seem to decide which): [114] [115] [116] [117] [118] [119] (Talk page of irrelevant user)

unfounded accusation of editing for pay: [120]

violation of WP:NPA [121] ("scoundrel")

violation of AGF (or NPA if you view it that way) [122] ("playing dirty") [123] (same in Spanish)

and just general incoherent harassment: [124] (and in other diffs already given)

Prior IP used by the same editor (duck) has been subject to a block for behavior on this and another page just three days ago, but they shifted IPs and made another edit (admittedly, a productive one) within the period of the block. [125] (24 hr block) [126] (edit w/in 24 hr)

(I have made a separate request for an Oversight action regarding the same IP that I will not detail here.)

I have tried to get the editor to discuss content rather than editors, to no avail: [127] [128]

The general disruption at Talk:Lordship of Biscay alone is making a shambles out of attempts at discussion, while the knee-jerk reversions at Lordship of Biscay without coherent explanation (or with incoherent/irrelevant edit summaries in a different language) are preventing page improvement. This editor seems to have gone off the rails. 50.37.115.224 (talk) 14:52, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Could you please give examples of the same person editing from 85.84.118.XX ? I'm not finding any such edits. The 83.213.200.0/21 range can be blocked, as all the edits from it in the last few months seem to be from the same individual, or at least they're certainly disruptive, compare [129]. I've blocked the range for 2 weeks. 50.37.117.209, have you considered creating an account? If you did, Lordship of Biscay‎ and perhaps also its talkpage could conveniently be semiprotected, but as it is, I hesitate to shut you out of the article. Bishonen | talk 15:45, 4 March 2017 (UTC).

[130] by 85.84.118.247 on 27 Feb is a reversion (unexplained) of the same content as today's [131] by 83.213.205.149. Indeed, the edit history of 85.84.118.247 solely consists of the same pages and in some cases same edits as as User:83.213.206.197, who is clearly the same as the current IP. (by 85.84.118.247, by 83.213.77.74, by 83.213.206.197; [132][133][134][135][136][137] by 83.213.77.74 & 83.213.206.197, restoring block of edts [138] made by 85.84.118.181 & 85.84.118.247). Looks like a web-footed waterfowl to me, but YMMV.

I realize my preference not to use an account at this time makes it harder to address the situation, but it is my preference nonetheless. 50.37.115.224 (talk) 16:30, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I understand. The 85.84.XX IPs quack, yes, but you've only given me two of them, 85.84.118.247 and 85.84.118.181. That happens to be a tiny range, 85.84.118.128/25. I don't see much point in blocking it, both because it probably actually needs to be larger, and because 85.84.118.247 only edited for a quarter of an hour on 27 February — I'm not kidding, see [139] — and 85.84.118.181 only for a few hours on 14 December 2016. So it's kind of stale; all the recent disruption has come from the now-blocked 83.213.200.0/21 range. At least as far as I can see from your information. Feel free to provide me with more 85.84.XX IPs if you should come across them. Bishonen | talk 17:59, 4 March 2017 (UTC).

• Note to the OP: The standard (and sometimes the only) solution to repeated IP-hopping disruption to a single article is to request temporary semi-protection of the article at WP:RFPP, which would prevent IPs from editing the article. Of course, you would not be able to edit it either, which is an excellent reason for you to register an account, if indeed you are an enthusiastic editor. Softlavender (talk) 10:01, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
• Update: Another IP, 85.84.115.9, has just turned up and vandalized both Lordship of Biscay and its talkpage. I was glad to see it, as it made it much easier to block the second relevant range, 85.84.112.0/21. :-) We can only hope those two rangeblocks will hold the individual. If not, I think I'd better semi despite the disadvantages. Bishonen | talk 17:29, 6 March 2017 (UTC).
• Update II: It has turned out my rangeblocks are still insufficient. I've had to semi both article (one month) and talk (two weeks). Bishonen | talk 14:42, 7 March 2017 (UTC).

Mass creation of mostly empty articles

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure this isn't a thing. User:Xfactor1234 appears to have created over 750 articles of YEAR in COUNTRY television, most of which appear to be almost entirely empty articles, and on the face of it, seem like they should at best be categories. We may need an orbital nuclear solution here. TimothyJosephWood 14:54, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Timothyjosephwood: I agree. Several weeks ago, after a discussion with several administrators on IRC including Oshwah it was decided that Xfactor1234's articles on "<YEAR> in French television" would be deleted. Unfortunately this spate of useless article creation is repeating itself. I suggest deleting the articles and ensuring that they cannot be created again, at least by the user in question. We need to nip this in the bud before it escalates to a Sander.v.Ginkel scale problem. DrStrauss talk 15:14, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I'd be on board with this, but I have a "devil's advocate" question - are we deleting only their creations, or similar ones like 1986 in television which are virtually identical but created by others? Primefac (talk) 15:19, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh god. So that...exists. Personally I think the whole lot should probably be categories, but I may not have a majority opinion on that. They pretty well qualify as indiscriminate lists, and don't seem to serve any purpose other than duplicating a category in mainspace. TimothyJosephWood 15:27, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I am seriously concerned that the user does not engage in the discussions whereas they continue editing. May be they should be blocked.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:31, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

This may be a pretty serious ABF, but I did wonder for a second if it might not be automated. TimothyJosephWood 15:37, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

If not completely automated, relatively easy to make semi-automated. Copy/paste and then change the dates with find/replace. I don't think it's ABF to assume that they're not really paying a lot of attention to what they're doing. Primefac (talk) 15:41, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

[140]--Ymblanter (talk) 15:42, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the user's talk page suggests that they are unwilling to engage in discussions concerning problems with their editing and therefore it is fair to assume that they are uninterested in learning how to improve their contributions. In response to your question Primefac, I would say that because such articles, although light in content, are not country-specific and therefore offer global coverage adding to its value in an encyclopedia. I think a block and a deletion of all relevant page creations by the user in question would be a fair and just measure, particularly considering that they appear to offer little dissent. DrStrauss talk 16:07, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Edit: Primefac also in response to the global question exemplified with the link you put forward I think it would be astute to note that other nation-based year-TV articles rarely go earlier than 1990 as there is little content to provide while Xfactor1234's articles go back quite far and act as mere placeholders. DrStrauss talk 16:13, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi. User talk:Xfactor1234

@Ymblanter: I think that the flippant message immediately above shows how uninterested this editor is in sensible discourse. DrStrauss talk 17:39, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Let us wait a bit. I do not think our primary goal is to block the editor, it is to solve the problem. If they are not interested to be a part of the solution, fine.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:40, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Commenting mainly in response to Primefac's question re: cases like 1986 in television: those should be relatively easy to deal with on a case-by-case basis via PROD, and if it becomes controversial, via an RfC. On the case of these articles, what we are essentially talking about is another CSD X criterion, which I am not sure you could find broad consensus for because in theory, these articles could actually be useful if they weren't created in what appears to be a semi-automated way. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:11, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

If it's determined to be a detriment, the mass deletion of their creations can simple link here. No need to have a new CSD criteria. Primefac (talk) 18:18, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Fair point. I wouldn't oppose that so long as it was clear that the mass deletion was in response to these specific creations of the articles in a mass unsustainable way. I still think that PROD would be the best way to deal with dab pages mainly linking to these articles. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:21, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Ugh. the trivialization continues. The editor just drops stuff in--if a show ran in 1983, that's apparently good enough to count as an "event" in the article of that year. A fascination with the Eurovision Song Contest is always questionable, and that's much of the content of the articles I looked at--I don't even consider that a "television-related" event; it's an event on television. By extension each and every single thing that happened on TV would be worthy of inclusion. Drmies (talk) 18:25, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

@Drmies: I agree, I think lots of these types of article are very flimsy in their interpretations of WP:OUTLINE. DrStrauss talk 18:31, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: PRODs would be unnecessary as the consensus here is akin to a mass AfD. DrStrauss talk 18:32, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

For articles by Xfactor1234, yes. For articles like 1986 in television which have edit histories from significantly before Xfactor, no. You'd need to either PROD them on a case-by-case basis or have an RfC on "Years in television" to deal with them more generally. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:36, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: ah... yep. Read that too quickly. DrStrauss talk 18:40, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• I agree that the other articles should be deleted, but I also agree that this is probably the wrong venue for that discussion. TimothyJosephWood 21:12, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
•  Redflag A quick search of their contribs reveals this user is employing a "fly under the radar" technique which many other have used to continue editing in ways that are not helpful. They just don't respond. The adding of the word "hi" to this page was the first time they have ever edited in project space, and the fist time they have spoken to another user at all in nearly two years. They have never edited their own talk page to reply to the 67 different tissues brought up there over the course of the last ten years. You can't edit in a collaboratie environment if you refuse to speak to anyone or consider that your creations may not be desirable. A block seems overdue, as is often the case witht users who employ this tactic. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:01, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
• Given the above, someone block, we can wait to see if there is dissent on the deletion. TimothyJosephWood 02:25, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

The flippant remark is unhelpful, but they haven't edited since then. I'm going to hold off on the block button in the hopes that their next edits will begin to address some of these legitimate questions. If they return to business as usual without doing so, any admin will have my support for blocking. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 03:58, 5 March 2017 (UTC).

• @Timothyjosephwood, Primefac, and Ymblanter: how is this deletion scheme going to materialise then? DrStrauss talk 11:41, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

  As much as I hate proposals, I think the best way is to get a simple yes/no poll going on whether these edits are helpful or harmful. If we can get some sort of supermajority in the "yes" camp, then we can just go through and mass-delete. If there's serious opposition, then we'll probably have to go through AFD. Primefac (talk) 15:05, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

  I would go for WP:AfD--Ymblanter (talk) 15:57, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

  @Ymblanter: straight away? If so, is this a manual process or is there some whizz-user who can use the API somehow? DrStrauss talk 18:31, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Call for dissent

I'm not asking for support for mass deletion, because I think that seems fairly common sense. Instead I'm asking if anyone, at all, has any argument whatsoever for not deleting these. This is one of the most watched pages on the project, and so surely if someone can formulate a coherent argument, this would be the most favorable place to preserve the articles. If not, then I think we can probably push the big red button and be done here. TimothyJosephWood 00:06, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree, an AfD would be unnecessary in my opinion and considering the magnitude of the situation I think this onus shift is a good idea. DrStrauss talk 08:54, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

@Primefac and Ymblanter: ^thoughts? I was going to ping you in in the first message but because of the limitation of the template a new message was necessary. DrStrauss talk 12:38, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Asking for dissent is a good idea. 1 week deadline? Primefac (talk) 13:02, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Primefac: Monday 13th high noon? DrStrauss talk 13:06, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I posted a notice at WT:AFD in case anyone there wants to weigh in. TimothyJosephWood 13:09, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• No Objection, with the caveat that only the articles created by this editor are subject to mass deletion. Obviously, the other similar articles that predate Xfactor's articles should be evaluated on the merits, individually. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 13:29, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
• If we are only talking about articles created by one user I am fine, but even in this case I would advise users to be reasonable and to not delete articles if they are not supershort stubs.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:46, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
• Objection - Sorry gang, I get the annoyance here, but this absolutely seems like the wrong venue for this. This wasn't a ban evasion. It wasn't vandalism. It wasn't sock puppetry, COI, POV-pushing, etc. Mass creation without discussion is a baaaad idea, but there has to be a really good reason for deleting them all that isn't simply that the same user created a lot of them and that they're or poor quality. This user contributed based on an existing format -- one that's perfectly sensible within the context of the thousands and thousands of years-based and country-based navigational lists. That they are incomplete isn't a reason for deletion, nevermind deletion without discussion at the regular venue(s). Honestly I don't know if I would support deletion if I saw this at AfD or an RfC, but this isn't the place for it (i.e. not a good place to make calls about whether a particular type of page -- one that preexists this user -- should not exist if it's incomplete or if the same user started lots of them. At least not when the behavioral aspect of the scenario doesn't absolutely call for deletion of hundreds of articles). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 03:57, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Actually let me clarify something. If the user was explicitly warned to slow down and/or asked to engage in discussion before continuing, and pushed forward nonetheless, I don't object to the subsequent creations being deleted. That, to me, would place this in the domain of behavior rather than content. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:00, 7 March 2017 (UTC) Upon further review (which, admittedly, I should've done before tacking on this clarification), there wasn't such a warning. Some users gave advice, but he/she wasn't asked to stop/slow down. I also note that it seems like this user is being characterized as having [possibly semi-automatedly] created these 750ish articles in a short span of time. 17 were created on 3/4, 30 on 2/20, 27 on 2/18, 74 between 1/25-1/26, 15 on 1/16, 19 on 1/15, 17 on 1/9, and so on, with the activity starting more than two years ago. That's a lot of page creations and a lot of time that has gone by to now say "too many of them aren't good and should be deleted". — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:10, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

The problem as I see it is two fold:

1. The issue is not that the articles are of poor quality per se; it's that they're basically empty, for the most part are merely duplications of their own empty categories, and for the most part are duplications of each other, empty as they are. They are almost certainly semi-automated in at least as much as copy/pasting is a type of automation. More so, looking back more than a year to 2003 in Turkish television or 2016 in Israeli television the articles are basically being created and abandoned, and languishing in their own walled garden, which is probably exactly how this went on so long without someone finding it.
2. Although the user has edited since this thread was started, and are definitely aware of the discussion, and been asked twice on their talk to contribute here, not only have they said nothing, but they literally have never engaged in an article talk page discussion in ten years, and have never contributed to any discussion ever other than their single one word comment on this thread, and a single post three years ago.

The two of those combined indicate there is likely a larger issue here. The articles are probably the largest walled garden I've personally seen so far, and the user doesn't seem willing to communicate with...anyone...about anything. TimothyJosephWood 13:30, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

If it's empty, it can be CSDed. If it's not empty, and does in fact contain scant encyclopedic or navigational content, then it's, well, not empty but rather a stub, incomplete, poor quality, or whatever we want to call it. It's not automation to copy/paste for the purposes that are relevant here -- it's just an obvious part of creating many similarly formatted articles. If you're going to set about creating such pages, what sense would it make not to copy/paste? Of course, copy/pasting content beyond data, structure, etc. brings with it other procedural issues. Regarding abandonment, as with any other page, there's no policy that says that if you create a low quality article/stub, you must go back to improve it. Agreed that #2 is super problematic, and I'm not weighing in on what measures should be taken based on the behavioral issues here. I'm just saying that the scenario is not one in which mass deletion of all of this user's work is called for. IMO the best course of action would be one that addresses this type of article in general (probably via the Years or Television WikiProject) and establishes criteria for their creation. I would certainly endorse a route that required higher standards to justify this sort of thing, and in that case these could be deleted. I'm very familiar with the woes of sprawling, poorly maintained lists; my point here isn't to say "these are good" -- just that deletion isn't justified by the behavioral issues, so typical deletion criteria/procedure should apply. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:53, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I would be happy to slap a RFC banner on this discussion to try to attract more participants, or start a AFD discussion if the venue is problematic. Would either of these fixes address your concerns adequately? Tazerdadog (talk) 06:51, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

I think mass AFDs would be more productive than a month-long discussion that will invariably end with no consensus except to send everything to AFD. Some of the categories would be straight-forward "delete as empty" (such as the pages in List of years in Israeli television), so if the consensus is largely that they should be deleted, but not here and not now, then I'll start working on the mass-noms. Primefac (talk) 13:44, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

I think it depends. mass AfD nominations often go sideways and wind up wasting a lot of time. As I mentioned above, the best thing to do would be to address the creation of low quality navigational articles in general and to establish guidelines for their creation such that it isn't acceptable in the future to create such a page to house one or two factoids. To me, an RfC (at another venue, since it's not actually about the user that is the subject of this thread) makes the most sense, or at least a non-RfC discussion framed as such (rather than around a problem user, who is a problem user but not such that it should affect deletion [at this point]). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:57, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Rhododendrites, let me double-check this - you think it's better to ask "should we create articles like this?", and only mass-AFD after said discussion comes to a conclusion? I mean, it makes sense, and I know there's no deadline, but it sounds like unnecessary bureaucracy. I don't particularly care either way (I have a funny feeling one way or another the vast majority will be deleted), just want to make sure I don't waste my time (via either route). Primefac (talk) 03:07, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@Primefac: To be clear, I'm not saying that I see AfD as an inappropriate avenue. I'm skeptical that it will yield a useful outcome, but I may well be wrong. I do think it's unlikely AfD will address [what I see as] the most important issue, though, which is how to set minimum standards for this sort of article (and, by implication, the fact that many were created with quite low standards). I think people should proceed exactly as they would if these were problematic articles that weren't created by the same user, because I don't think the user's behavior lends to deletion of all his/her work at this point (and saying "well they're not very good, either" as though multiple not-so-great-but-not-that-bad problems compound to effectively undoing the entirety of a user's contributions. I.e. if the behavioral aspect doesn't demand deletion (and I argue it does not), then there's not much point to consider this user's articles in isolation when there are a whole lot of various year/subject/country sorts of pages that are similarly underdeveloped. There are many ways it could go, of course, but IMO if AfD, it should really be the lot of these sort of pages with this sort of problem (not just created by this user). If I create some year/country combination that this user didn't create, and do so in a similarly lackluster fashion, that should be the subject of what happens next, too, because the problem is having these pages, regardless of how they were created and who created them. That's why I say coming up with some criteria would be useful, such that it not only addresses these articles but potentially this format other year/subject/country format articles and the creation of those articles in the future. But anyway, I appreciate that just deleting them is considerably easier/more straightforward, but there needs to be a really compelling reason. "They kind of suck, and now that we say they suck you're not saying anything" is not a compelling reason. I'm ranting a bit, I know. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:17, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Good points, and I can see where you're coming from. From an AFD perspective, I wasn't going to say "this user created these pages and they're terrible," but something more along the lines of "The pages listed in List of years in Spanish television are empty, and are generic lists, blah blah blah". Having seen plenty of mass-noms, though, I can appreciate the extra "oomph" of saying "<link> discussion said these types of pages aren't practical, hence I'm nominating for deletion." I'll start thinking about the options. Primefac (talk) 12:36, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

• See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of years in Israeli television. TimothyJosephWood 18:45, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Inlinetext

Inlinetext (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Inlinetext has been a disruptive user, in which they have accused me and other editors of being paid editors or sock-puppets, made personal attacks against me, and has edit warred with another user. This isn't the first time they have been on ANI.

Diffs
Edit warring
a long span of diffs
more reverts
more...
COI accusations
long span of diffs again
on someone else's talk page
Personal attacks
on her userpage
on a talkpage
reverts it back
confusion?
—JJBers 15:03, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Still investigating this. See the lengthy Q&A on my talk page for mote detail (part of the original discussion and related AN3 report). El_C 15:27, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks for the lengthy hosting of the investigation, El C. I'm not sure it needs to be carried out over several forums (i.e., here, and on your TP, and on the TPs of the two editors, etc.). In any case, my comments are: (1) Inlinetext needs to stop immediately with the personal attacks and insults (including calling someone a schoolchild), or they may be blocked from editing. (2) Inlinetext, do not edit war over a COI tag; if you suspect that there was COI editing, report the matter to WP:COIN rather than making that unilateral judgment yourself. (3) Thank you also to El_C for full-protecting the main article in question until that content dispute is resolved. Softlavender (talk) 15:41, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• More comments: Inlinetext, please stop accusations of sockpuppetry. Either file a case at WP:SPI if you have evidence, or don't. I'd also like to link the ANI filing against Inlinetext from three weeks ago: [141]. It mentions the massive deletions Inlinetext made from Swami Nithyananda, which are indeed alarming; the article previously looked like this [142] and after Inlinetext's very selective gutting it looked like this: [143] (and still does, with some added attacks), which appears to violate WP:BLP and is a borderline WP:ATTACKPAGE. — Softlavender (talk) 16:09, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• As a corollary, see also my note about Parker Conrad and BLP. El_C 16:22, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, WP:BLPCRIME has bearing in both cases. Softlavender (talk) 16:24, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

BLPCRIME probably does not extend to the regulatory issues in Conrad's case. The only issue here is creation of a highly flattering article by Vipul's pyramid network of paid editors on Parker Conrad at exactly the time he was under attack for regulatory breaches. This is why the regulatory COI notices are necessary to be conspicuously embedded to caution readers, and Vipul has admitted he didn't do them. Inlinetext (talk) 22:12, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

WP:BLPCRIME is a Wikipedia policy, and it applies to all BLPs. Moreover, you need to address the points I made on the talk page of that article, which has been full-protected because of the edit-warring. If desired, I can re-post my comments here. COI notices of declared paid editing are placed on talk-pages, not on the articles themselves, as I mentioned in my pinged notice to you on that article's talkpage. Softlavender (talk) 22:21, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I concur. And note that my questions regarding BLP were left unanswered by Inlinetext. El_C 22:44, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• I told you I am busy in real life. If the community wants to hurriedly sweep this under the carpet, fine. I reiterate that Vipul stood to make at least $600,000 (conservatively) from those out-bound links based on 'value' of those links. Another Indian paid editor 'Wifione' got away for many years under these same processes and by the community not following the ToU. 22:53, 5 March 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Inlinetext (talk • contribs)

• Inlinetext, if you continue to make these hysterical and grossly unfounded accusations, even in the face of evidence to the contrary and requests to stop, you will receive sanctions in the form of a block or topic ban. Please stick to the issues at hand here on this thread and heed what people are saying to you. Softlavender (talk) 22:59, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
• Hey inlinetext, I'm pretty busy in real life too! Still been trying to answer all your questions (at cost to my day job and weekend relaxation). Here's a suggestion to reduce stress for everybody: don't make ridiculous accusations and don't drag third parties unnecessarily into debates.Vipul (talk) 23:11, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Since Parker Conrad is only a symptom of a much larger problem for conflicted editing, I shall see how my editing priorites (and time) lies 'wrt' reporting this episode to WMF. I am greatly upset that this community openly condones / tolerates co-ordinated and abusive editing by packs of paid editors. Volunteer (unpaid) editors correcting errors obviously feel harassed and highly unwelcome here. This of course is a ToU issue. Inlinetext (talk) 22:40, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

My understanding is that BLPCRIME only covers "crimes" which can result in conviction. Regulatory contraventions like licencing may not be directly classified as crimes. There are probably under State regulators (who are not criminal judges). Inlinetext (talk) 22:47, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

"I am greatly upset that this community openly condones / tolerates co-ordinated and abusive editing by packs of paid editors." There is no evidence of anything of the sort happening on that article. Vipul has explained that below. Softlavender (talk) 22:54, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• Many editors have tried to reverse Inlinetext's edits in Swami Nithyananda, to which his response is: re-undo and source long outdated and controversial news articles (which he also used to defiled the current page). Generally un-approachable in talks pages. Seems to be WP:GAME. 172.111.169.84 (talk) 16:36, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• Anybody reading the talk page of Swami Nithyananda will realise this is a gross untruth. Also the content on the article was not inserted by me and I have carefully aligned it to reflect what the sources say. And, I didn't find or insert those souurces either. Inlinetext (talk) 22:03, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I should, however, note being especially curious about inlinetext's Question no.7 regarding the possibility of: "personally stand[ing] to receive between US$600,000 to US$900,000 for out-bound links [Vipul's] team inserted into Wikipedia articles which generated those 6 million+ page views." Following the money may be prudent, too. El_C 16:48, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

In my opinion the WP:COIN regulars need to be made aware of that entire investigation and interrogation. Pinging @Brianhe, Smartse, Doc James, and JzG: (and they can ping whoever I left out). Softlavender (talk) 17:09, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Above my pay grade. I think this needs to go to the foundation. I can't see them being happy with someone operating a pyramid scheme based on paid editing! Guy (Help!) 17:31, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Can't get into it right now but brought the the matter to light at COIN (permlink). - Brianhe (talk) 22:00, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Wow, a pyramid scheme on Wikipedia, that isn't a article. Well, that's nice. —JJBers 18:16, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I concur with 'Guy'. The curious facts of this case need to go to the foundation and only to the foundation. It actually appears a case of a pyramid scheme based on paid editing to deliberately compromise the quality of the encyclopedia for personal profit and which thereby endangers the stability of WMF's computer servers. Inlinetext (talk) 21:57, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

The Parker Conrad content being reverted was not added by me or people I paid -- the main connection with me is that the ~2-year old original version of the page was created by somebody whom I subsequently paid for it. In other words, any connection with my paid editing enterprise is tangential; the people involved in the dispute aren't connected with me, and I don't even know who they are. The fact that the conversation was so easily manipulated away from a discussion of the subject at hand (inlinetext's revert patterns) to my paid editing project is sad. I'm happy to answer questions about my paid editing in an appropriate forum (public or private), but I don't appreciate how a discussion about a very different topic (namely, inlinetext's behavior) has forgotten its original purpose so easily and quickly.Vipul (talk) 22:15, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Vipul, can you identify which of your paid editors made any edits to that article or its talkpage? And also post that information on that article's talkpage (since the issue is brought up there)? That way, we could separate the issues and determine how to proceed. (Right now the article is fully locked because of the edit-warring, and cannot be edited.) Thank you. Softlavender (talk) 22:27, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Simfish (Alex K. Chen) created the original version of the page. His final edit to the page (based on which I paid him for it) is this. My payment to him is recorded here (it's the very bottom row of the table) and here. As you can see, the version as he created at the time was fairly small and just barely more than a stub, and most of the material under contention was added in later edits.Vipul (talk) 23:08, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your assistance, Vipul. Could you please also copy all of this (both paragraphs of explanation) to the article's talk page, adding it to the bottom of the thread about paid editing? Also note the date and year of Simfish's last edit. Softlavender (talk) 23:25, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• Concerning 'JJbers', this ANI was only filed after I pointed out to her that she had insulted me as follows "@Inlinetext: I understand that you may be mad," [link]. The user ought to have used a neutral word like 'upset'. As Sitush has pointed out to the user, with Sitush twice telling him/her in exasperation to fuck off, this user is interjecting themselves into controversies and areas where they are incompetent and unwanted. It strikes me as very curious that this school student is so interested in rape / murder and homosexual assaults of Catholic priests on schoolboys, and edit wars to extraordinary length with me over such topics. I view such behaviour as a ToU issue and not a community issue. Is this an enclyclopedia or a Reddit ? If so, why has 'JJBers' not hauled Sitush to ANI for saying fuck off twice to him/her? I am not up to date on what has happened here in the last few years but standards, civility and basic courtesy seem to have gone down tremendously .Inlinetext (talk) 22:32, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Inlinetext, you are continuing to make personal attacks there. Personal attacks are what you are being reported for, and I have already warned you: You need to stop immediately with the personal attacks and insults, or you may be blocked from editing. Stop calling the editor a schoolchild, stop objecting to their use of American English ("mad", which merely means "angry"), stop casting WP:ASPERSIONS about their interests, stop using cursewords (quoted or your own). Softlavender (talk) 22:48, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I must object here. I wonder how you presume/assume that every English speaking editor here knows that "mad" equates to "angry" or that I speak US English ? Did the filer not that know/consider that "mad" means "mentally ill/ insane" to most (other) English speakers. And imputing instanity to such other editor is definitely a personal attack. I can think of at least 10 other perfectly civil synonyms for "angry" which are probably also used in the US. Inlinetext (talk) 23:07, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

You obviously knew exactly what it meant [144], as does any adult native speaker of English. El C, I think this time-sink has gone on long enough, and the community should not be forced to waste any more time on this editor. Softlavender (talk) 23:14, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

When she says "mad," unless there's some kind of indication to the contrary, you should intuitively assume that it means angry rather than insane. So none of that anymore. And certainly none of these edit summaries. Take, then, this as a first and only warning about personal attacks and insinuations. El_C 01:32, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, Inlinetext. It's all getting to be a bit much. El_C 23:00, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree. I think if the editor does not calm down and start collaborating, there is a strong case to be made for CIR ... as in a CIR block. Softlavender (talk) 23:04, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I am disengaging now. to cool off Inlinetext (talk) 23:11, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

:I would like to clarify a few things, Inlinetext:
1. I'm a male, not a female.
2.The only reason I joined the AFD was because of a ANI started on that page.
3. I joined the Parker Conrad because of your contributions, not some off-wiki thing.
4. Insulting that fact that I'm younger than you, isn't really useful, and uncivil.
—JJBers 02:49, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Anyways, I completely forgot about this diff, which's edit summary is basically cursing, in a quote forum.—JJBers 00:01, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I was unable to respond to anything, I was out taking photos of Norwich, Connecticut, which I will upload sooner or later.—JJBers 00:01, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• I shall henceforth be responding only on the COIN thread or my user talk page. I am staying off "content" until the outstanding issues are not resolved. If I observe any urgent content issues, I will use talk pages or DR to get some other editor to resolve them. I would appreciate JrHeller1 and JJBers not communicating with me unless it is unavoidable. Regarding I am greatly upset that this community openly condones / tolerates co-ordinated and abusive editing by packs of paid editors., this aspect is now very well clarified on the COIN thread in the context of Vipul's group and was not specific to Parker Conrad. Inlinetext (talk) 10:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Closure

I think we should just issue out a final warning to Inlinetext and end this. Any thoughts? —JJBers 17:07, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes. See this example. I have ignored your behaviour but when several senior editors of long standing have commented this and this and this, this on your impatience/behavior, perhaps its time to back away ? "we" ? are you an Admin ? Inlinetext (talk) 19:36, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Editor 'JJBers' ignores BLP / BLPCRIME and shows battleground mentality. When I deleted scandalous material inserted by the user with a clear edit summary, see this, it was restored with a frivolous edit summary. The (unpublished) source cited does not explicitly say that Reverend Charles Carr was a priest of this church's parish (it says he was then a priest in our Lady of Fatima in Wilton), nor does it explicitly say that Carr was "found guilty" in the "case" it only says he was referred to State protection authorities. Neither does the print version. Inlinetext (talk) 20:03, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Request is it possible to get a interaction ban for this filer preventing him from interjecting himself in my edits / discussion threads and from posting on my talk page ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Inlinetext (talk • contribs) 20:26, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• JJBers, Inlinetext was already given a final warning above this WP:POINTy and self-involved new section you opened. If you keep pursuing them and harassing them and talking about them, you will be blocked from editing.

  An interaction ban is not necessary here. What is necessary is for you both to stop tracking and commenting on each other. If evidence of tracking the other editor's edits recurs, either of you may be blocked from editing. Please go forth and edit elsewhere along you own interests. Softlavender (talk) 20:46, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

  • El C, JJBers is clearly continuing to follow Inlinetext around, both with his main account JJBers [145] and his alternate account JJBers Public [146], the latest locus being WP:COIN. Could you please put some meat into this and give him a final warning to desist? Softlavender (talk) 18:13, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

 Done. El_C 18:36, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Odd IP behavior

187.74.246.62 (talk · contribs)

Their last several edits have been adding one to three blank characters and then immediately removing from a handful of articles, within a minute. These are all whitespace edits so not vandalizing anything, but this is really really odd. I dunno if they are trying to game the system or something, or something more malicious. --MASEM (t) 00:27, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Please,check with blocked 200.100.71.70 (talk · contribs). Same modus operandi and same server location. PauloMSimoes (talk) 00:45, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Looking at Tropic Thunder this has been going on with various IP addresses for over a month. Other than burying something in the history, I can't think of any reason, disruptive or not, that someone would want to do this. Monty₈₄₅ 01:14, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

If its a bury attempt, should we slap on a month on SEMI? I think it could be some little kid fooling around.L3X1 My Complaint Desk 01:50, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

It's probably not a kid fooling around, given that they've now used three different IPs and edited at least four different wikis. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 03:54, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• IP 186.220.25.187 was in on it as well. Ajraddatz has blocked the reported IP for cross-wiki vandalism. Drmies (talk) 03:09, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
• Here's another one, 191.248.153.48. Widr, you blocked the 200 IP. Do you have any light to shed on this weirdness? Drmies (talk) 03:13, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
• Globally blocked both of the above-mentioned ones as well. I came across this guy after a report on m:SRG - I assume it's someone who knows a bit about how wikis work, and how we can't rollback such "vandalism". It's probably just designed to be a time-waste for us. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 03:52, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
• It's been going on for months, if not longer. They were reported at WP:AN for a while – for example, this thread. Same behavior, same geolocation. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:06, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
  • OK, so block on sight it is. Tirritating, but a dripping faucet is worse. Drmies (talk) 04:59, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Yep, that white-space testing fellow from Brazil, has been doing this disruption (to mostly the same articles) for several months, with many IPs at his/her fingertips. No doubt getting a cheap thrill out of it. Certaintly a case of WP:NOTHERE. -- GoodDay (talk) 13:09, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Would writing an edit filter rule to stop these sorts of edits be appropriate? -- The Anome (talk) 18:10, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Sure, please! Drmies (talk) 18:55, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Can only admins write edit filters? L3X1 My Complaint Desk 20:27, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

@L3X1: No, you can request the edit filter permission from the Edit Filter Noticeboard, but you'll need to show solid evidence you know how to write filters, such as a track record in programming regular expressions and understanding the MediaWiki API. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:28, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

• I definitely don't want to excuse the IP's behaviour, especially if they're as unwilling to discuss the issue as they appear to be, but I do want to point out that there may be an innocent and non-disruptive rationale behind the edits even if it's wrongheaded. I recall, several years ago, seeing a similar pattern of edits from a different user who's definitely not connected to this (he later registered a real account and he's Canadian) — after asking him about it, I was able to determine that for some reason he had it in his head that Wikipedia articles inherently had to be edited at the top of the next hour before edits made within the previous hour would actually get committed to the page history — so because he had that obviously wrong notion in his head, he was adding blank spaces and then removing them again simply to ensure that his work over the past hour wouldn't simply disappear. So I assured him that what he was worried about wasn't actually a thing, and he stopped. Again, without an explanation of why this user's doing it we can't read his mind, but I just wanted to raise this example as proof that there may be a good faith reason why somebody thinks this is a productive thing to do. Bearcat (talk) 22:20, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

  I would generally agree with assuming good faith as far as possible, but the cross-wiki nature of the edits, as well as the IP hopping, would seem to rule this out. Plus, there are the occasional bits of explicit vandalism involved too - at least a couple of page blanks and content replaces with random characters. All of this, plus the timeframe involved (at least months), leads me away from an assumption of good faith here. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 06:45, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Range block possibility?

The vandal of @2607:fea8:235f:ff8f:c57b:de0a:9b9e:f4d8: look exactly the same as @2607:fea8:2360:724:b102:a156:4e86:50fb: and @2607:fea8:2360:724:6cc2:15b6:c830:b7cb: (removing "Limited" from the Chinese name of the limited company)

• 2607:fea8:235f:ff8f:c57b:de0a:9b9e:f4d8 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• 2607:fea8:2360:724:b102:a156:4e86:50fb (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• 2607:fea8:2360:724:6cc2:15b6:c830:b7cb (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

In turn, the edit of aforementioned 2607:FEA8:2360:724:B102:A156:4E86:50FB (talk · contribs · logs) had exactly the same interest as @2607:fea8:2360:724:25c0:62ab:8fe8:89e4: and @2607:fea8:2360:724:51b:eaef:b71c:16ee: back to December (good faith edit but unnecessary American/British English correction). Would the latest vandal by aforementioned 2607:fea8:235f:ff8f:c57b:de0a:9b9e:f4d8 (talk · contribs · logs) qualified for the range block of the whole?

• 2607:fea8:2360:724:25c0:62ab:8fe8:89e4 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• 2607:fea8:2360:724:51b:eaef:b71c:16ee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) Matthew_hk tc 09:21, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Other involved:

2607:FEA8:3C9F:FE1E:210C:2C21:82B2:4E48 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

2607:FEA8:3C9F:FE1E:5157:966B:2A58:A5D9 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

2607:FEA8:20E0:15F:E4AC:B305:581E:2163 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

2607:FEA8:235F:FF8F:7DF4:3E98:28C3:CF41 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

2607:FEA8:235F:FF8F:19FC:1A17:63E0:7C69 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

2607:FEA8:235F:FF8F:497A:F7A0:ABA7:E00E (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) Good faith only but tagged by others. Seem same interest with other ip in biology

2607:FEA8:235F:FF8F:2524:24AF:7A3E:EC0C (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

2607:FEA8:235F:FF8F:AC62:152E:706A:65E8 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

2607:FEA8:235F:FF8F:AD07:4D25:F2CF:D3A6 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

2607:FEA8:235F:FF8F:E916:D03F:6134:3599 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) had 24 hours block before

2607:FEA8:235F:FF8F:F03F:6E5F:78AD:BD88 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

2607:FEA8:235F:FF8F:F05A:9C30:9EE1:4CD5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

more skipped

most of them either had the same interest in biology and/or airport and most of them involved in unnecessary American/British English correction, and go through the sample suspected ip, 3 of them obviously on Limited Company vandal. Matthew_hk tc 09:38, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

No going to list all the ip in the cat, but recovered few more ips for obvious vandal on removing the word limited

2607:FEA8:2360:724:1DF8:89AB:DE68:CEEA (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

2607:FEA8:2360:724:8D52:B87:49D6:A33 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

2607:FEA8:2360:724:E938:2EC6:4878:4C1B (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) Matthew_hk tc 09:50, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

go through the ip again, those with expired block on single ip and not listed was:

2607:FEA8:2360:632:C57B:DE0A:9B9E:F4D8 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) Matthew_hk tc 10:03, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I thought I remembered something like this showing up here before. It was previously reported here in Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive946#Rogers Toronto Date/EngVar Vandal. I range blocked 2607:fea8:235f:ff8f::/64 for a week last time, so this time I'll make it a month. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 16:50, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Inez Jasper

In December, our article about Inez Jasper — a Canadian musician who clears WP:NMUSIC #8 as a two-time Juno Award nominee — was speedy deleted under criterion G5 because it was determined to have been created by a user who was evading a prior editblock. Accordingly, I reposted a new version earlier today, rewriting the whole thing as substantially as possible — quite literally the only things I left the same as the original version were standard Wikipedia templates (i.e. the infobox and the discography list) and unchangeable facts like her name, her birthdate and her album titles themselves. I rewrote and reorganized every last bit of the substance that could possibly be changed, and added several pieces of new information and new sourcing that weren't present in the original version at all, so that the only similarities left were the unavoidable things like not giving her albums imaginary alternate-timeline titles — yet even that version was speedied within minutes as a "paraphrase" of the original article.

The issue is that the substance of what there is to say about her is going to be the same as the original article regardless of how one does or doesn't phrase those facts — so if even completely rewriting every last word of the article's content (aside from the unavoidable matches on details like her name and the album titles), is still "paraphrasing" the original article, then there's literally no way left that any article about her could be recreated at all. I did write the new article differently enough from the first version that it should not be deleted as a "paraphrase" just because of some unavoidable similarities of structure — I can't make up a whole new set of alternative facts about her career or her notability claim, but rather the only thing I can actually do is write about the same facts in different words than the first version, and I did that.

Accordingly, my question is what recourse do I have to get the article reinstated? How much more different do I have to make it than I already did before it can finally be kept without being perennially redeleted as still not different enough? Bearcat (talk) 19:26, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Bearcat, I've restored it. Nice work. Primefac (talk) 19:33, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Primefac, I was going to, but you beat me to it. I would say that this regarding proxying matters too from WP:PROXYING: "...unless they are able to show that the changes are either verifiable or productive and they have independent reasons for making such edits." I think that's the case here. RickinBaltimore (talk) 19:35, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I say if any experienced editor wants to work on G5 that could credibly be an article, give them a heads up on the backlash they might face, and then restore it. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:18, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Possible rangeblock

Hi. After talking to admin GiantSnowman he suggested that I should go to ANI and request a rangeblock (diff). A dynamic IP starting at 2a02:c7f:5405:1300 has been disruptive on articles related to Tranmere Rovers and reverted multiple times by multiple editors. For example look at history of Ritchie Sutton where the IP has been reverted by multiple editors. The articles involved are about 20, so they are to many for semi-protection if it can be solved with a rangeblock. Regarding to length of a block it would have to b be at least one week so the editor notices the block as he only updates after his team has played a match.Qed237 (talk) 19:55, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

A /64 range block shouldn't hit any other users. However, for me, reverting an edit is not an indication of anything. In this edit they've matched the number of appearances and goals documented by soccerbase. Can you explain this or provide evidenced instances of vandalism? -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:08, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

@Zzuuzz: Bottom of infobox states Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 00:00, 1 May 2016., so it is a factually incorrect statement to add appearances and goals after that. Many editors have been reverting these kind of edits nowadays and in many of the article there are hidden notes that the dates must be updated so readers know when infobox was last updated. Regular editors has been blocked for repeatedly failing to do this, so the IP should to. I have also notified the editor about this on many of their dynamic IP talkpages (like for example here). Qed237 (talk) 20:28, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. 1 May 2016, that's like a year ago, so we are using information that's well out of date? If their only offence is not updating the update date, it's no block from me. I checked a few articles and couldn't see any hidden notes. Perhaps getting the correct information in the article, and then writing a big hidden note near the current stats will help. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:36, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

@Zzuuzz: There has been talks about an editnotice for these kind of articles, as notes unfortunately are often missed. Is that a bit much? Qed237 (talk) 20:50, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Also, the infobox for the Tranmere players are currently correct. The number of appearances and goals matches the dates at the bottom of the infobox. Qed237 (talk) 20:51, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I hope you'll take my point that the information is still out of date. My opinion is that editors are bombarded with so many notices that edit notices rarely have any effect. A hidden note in capital letters - when placed in a relevant spot - is usually the most prominent notice available, IMO. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:55, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

There are a number of editors (and, indeed, admin) who imo overreact when an editor in GF updates the infobox but omits to update the date parameter on footballer articles. Reversions, vandalism warnings, final warnings for unsourced content, threats of blocks, you name it. Personally, I prefer to correct and move on. I wish more people would do the same. Gricehead (talk) 22:07, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Agree with Gricehead - they're clearly trying to help, not being disruptive at all, and this is the worst kind of WP:BITE. If the content is correct but doesn't match the date, why don't you just change the date to match and leave an explanatory note instead of a scary vandalism warning? ansh666 22:21, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

@Gricehead and Ansh666: Trust me people are tired of fixing the same bullshit from editors over and over again, especially when it happens from the same editor who has already been told about it multiple times. After you have given them one, two, three or even four chances (correcting and notifying) and they still continue, there is no other way than to start warning. It is disruptive. Qed237 (talk) 10:05, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

@Qed237: I'm still thinking on this, but whilst I'm thinking I thought I'd mention that I like the comment panels you've included in the infoboxes of the players in question. It would be interesting to see if they work - Tranmere have a game tonight, I believe. I put something much lower key in Matt Derbyshire after a spate of Europa League appearances being added. It wasn't that successful, but also wasn't as obvious as yours. Cheers, Gricehead (talk) 15:04, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

@Zzuuzz: The note seems to have worked on some articles, but far from all of them (diff). Qed237 (talk) 21:52, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

@Zzuuzz: More misses (diff and (diff). Qed237 (talk) 21:54, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

I hear your pain, but I am generally encouraged by the improvements. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:00, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

IP 194.69.15.68: Kicked over from AIV

• 194.69.15.68 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) – repeated posting of advance-fee scam messages on talk pages, including mine. What makes this a weird case is that the IP is registered to the Swedish municipality of Umeå, so I'm guessing there are numerous people behind this IP address (probably all but one being innocent of this). How do we proceed? Let the administrators of that network know? --bender235 (talk) 18:51, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• Note: User is in the category: Wikipedia user talk pages of shared IP addresses from government agencies or facilities. HBC AIV helperbot5 (talk) 18:51, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I suggest we kick this over to ANI. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:38, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead. --bender235 (talk) 23:12, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• Can someone with German language skills confirm that it is a scam? My google translate doesn't really make it clear, though even the bad translation looks suspicious. Assuming its confirmed as a scam, I would actually say we just monitor it... If an IP was actively spreading the scam, we would need to block it, regardless of collateral damage. But one post of the scam, that is already half a day old, makes it a lot less clear that blocking would really be useful. Monty₈₄₅ 23:48, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, I'm a native German speaker, but even I couldn't fully make sense of what he was posting. It seemed to me like a some sort of scam, that's why I reported. --bender235 (talk) 03:32, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

The IP's claim that it's a library in Umeå is credible. The user seems to be posting about Deutsche Bank's forthcoming share issue(?). I can't see the advance-fee scam. Not the most coherent editor though.. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 23:53, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

@User:Monty845: I couldn´t find anything about that offer on the DB website, though I might have just overlooked it. Also the stock price, given at 11€+, is messed up as it gives you a 3-digit cent number ... which would change back the price to 17€+ which is almost identical to the current price on the stock market. The grammar is subpar and several words make, in context and/or sentence structure, no sense. ... GELongstreet (talk) 00:14, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Whatever the country or IP-address they are working from, they're peddling something. Scam or otherwise, that's not what Wikipedia is for. Given edits like this, this, this and this, I conclude WP:NOTHERE. I can't find a single edit by this IP that actually makes sense, in English or German. Kleuske (talk) 12:47, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

• Just an educated guess here, but the grammar has characteristics of something which has been automatically translated multiple times. The word "elfeurosechhochsechsunddreissig" from this edit is an example: I believe it is an attempt to illiterate the phrase "Eleven Euro, six hundred thirty six", the likes of which tends to be concatenated by translation software if translated into German. I suspect that this is something they found which was written in one language, translated into a language the editor can read by software, then the result was translated into German, also by software. That being said, it doesn't look like an advanced-fee scam, but more like one of the typically vague edit requests we tend to get from new and unregistered editors at protected paged, and on admin talk pages. It seems to be making a claim about Deutsche Bank, something to do with a stock offering to existing stockholders that would drastically increase the bank's net worth. It might still be a scam, purporting to be 'insider information' to prompt editors to buy Deutsche Bank stock using a brokerage firm that the IP just happens to know is completely trustworthy... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:45, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

  Well, a stock offering to existing stockholders would not drastically increase Deutsche Bank's net worth, and anyone claiming it would is possibly being dishonest. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:20, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, that's why I said it still could be a scam. But remember, this is the internet. We can't expect every IP editor to actually think things through. It could be a really incompetent edit request. Looking through the other edits on that account makes me lean towards the latter possibility, though the sheer level of incompetence simultaneously makes me think there might be some sort of bot at work (which would both explain the repeatedly-bot-translated grammar and re-imply the possibility of a scam). Either way, the IP address seems to be static, so I think an indef block might be in order. WP:CIR or WP:NOTHERE, take your pick. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:47, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

• This German has all the hallmarks of bot-generated keyword strings. Block it. Yngvadottir (talk) 05:56, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
• I would argue from the content that it indeed is a German writing it, but it's bizarre political rants somewhat akin to "sovereign citizens" in the US. Not here to contribute to the encyclopedia. I'll block for three months based on how long back these rants started. Huon (talk) 21:29, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Vensatry

Although I find the trans_title field useful for non-English references, user Vensatry vehemently opposes it and I don't understand why. I have tried everything to convince him about it's usefulness but he won't listen. Ditto with archiveurl and archivedate. In Vijay filmography (currently a FLC), many sources are in Tamil (a non-universal language), and the trans_title fields in them were removed on his suggestion. Was he right to suggest so? Kailash29792 (talk) 14:48, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Two things: 1) You'll need to notify the other user of this discussion and 2) this is really a content dispute, and not in the scope of this board. Lugnuts ^{Precious bodily fluids} 15:00, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Probably a discussion for elsewhere, but I always feel a bit nervous when I use trans_title (which I do), as it feels a bit like original research. I can see a user being very hesitant to do a translation, if English isn't their first language. Official translators are never supposed to translate except to their first language. Nfitz (talk) 15:30, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

This discussion may be closed as I realised ANI isn't the right place to discuss such matters. But the intention of this was to list his questionable actions and see if they were justified. Kailash29792 (talk) 02:57, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

You need to 'question' the user directly on their talk page before calling their behaviour as 'questionable'. —Vensatry _(talk) 06:24, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Vandalism on the page List of European countries by average wage

Page: List of European countries by average wage (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Italy (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) User being reported: Anioni (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Previous version reverted to: [[147]] check at how he recalls me on vandalism while he deleted the official EUROSTAT source. ?¿

Diffs of the user's reverts:

1. [148]
2. [149]
3. [150]
4. [151]
5. [152]
6. [153]
7. [154]
8. [155]
9. [156]
10. [157]
11. [158]

and much more editions, which can be seen in his page, he just changes with redundant sources or even without sources and with fake data, for example he used a website which talks about the politicians wages in 2013, and he changed as he wanted the wage on Italy using that source? I warned him on his talk page and he fastly deleted that [159]

He also changed the economic data of the page of Italy with fake numbers even referencing the official IMF source which doesn't say and support the numbers he gave. I changed those numbers he edited to the ones from the official IMF source and he reverted here my change [160] although another user has reverted his change and from that day he didn't edit that page further.

Anioni (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – actions evidently indicate a vandalism-only account. This user is suspected to be the same user as Sad9721, a user which was banned from Wikipedia doing the same redundant editions on the same topics/articles. This time is List of European countries by average wage. He accuses me for being "anti-italian" because I revert his non consensual changes with redundant sources (one source he used was referencing this wikipedia article of the list of european countries as the main source, Wikipedia can't be a valid source for a Wikipedia article!) then changed it to a source which talks about the politicians wages (nothing related to the article) and then putting fake numbers which can't be found even in his sources and he also said that it's data from 2013. I reverted his changes by putting the official EUROSTAT (european statistic agency, official EU organism) numbers from 2015 on it and he keeps deleting those numbers and changing the aspect of the page.

Also threatens me on the talk page of that article that he will delete any of my changes because "I make them without consensus" (while he started changing the aspect of the page in 28th of February without any kind of consensus and putting redundant sources) and because I just use the official data he calls me that i'm "anti-italian" and "aggresive" and doesn't change his mood, again today he not only changed the data of Spain and Italy in that page, he also deleted their official data from EUROSTAT and also deleted the source! Here are the proves. [[161]] this is when all started, after this edition he maded 19 editions in a row in the page List of European countries by average wage which every one of it was an redundant edition without trustworthy sources. Then I changed his editions to the official sources and all started.

In his profile can be seen that he just edits the same topics, I warned him on his talk page and he directly deleted it and keeping in the same mood. He went to warn EdJohnston about "my vandalism" and EdJohnston said the same to him, that I tried to change his mood in his talk page and he deleted it. He also maded editions on the page of Italy by faking the official IMF economic numbers of Italy and changing the numbers while the numbers are referenced with the official IMF source, he changed them even if that's not what the page of IMF says and then when I reverted his edition with fake numbers he reverted mine again! [[162]] and here is the proof when today deleted the numbers of Spain and Italy in the article mentioned before just because he wanted, deleting the official numbers from the official source. [[163]] --TechnicianGB (talk) 16:34, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

https://www.imf.org%2Fexternal%2Fpubs%2Fft%2Fweo%2F2016%2F02%2Fweodata%2Findex.aspx&usg=AFQjCNEAA0FG1b9JCMBDDzYk9ilnx3nmAg&sig2=4LDurdaFF5U_ZceXp3AvyA This is IMF outlook october 2016 that provides data that i posted for Italy(nominal GDP,GDP PPP,nominal GDP per capita,GDP PPP per capita) and all the world.And this already shows he is totally wrong.May be he posts better references but he is 0 in statistic. I never posted first the reference for Italy that justified 2029€but other people.I'm totally also against Eurostat reference that reports only 100% net earning and NOT average wages as article correctly and IN CLEAR WAY requires.Reference that isn't correct for the article like the one posted by Technician GB is vandalism.Why didn't he add the same refence to Belgim and others that haven't data from official statal sites or not official tax calculators sites?Better writing nothing for Italy and Spain if they haven't official data published by their statal statistic agencies.TechnicianGB should be banned.Anioni (talk) 18:03, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Seeing the topics he edits, the spelling of English he has, and the arguments he use (vandalising, anti-italian, etc) makes him a potential clone of User:Sad9721, which was a sockpuppet of Mediolanum Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of Mediolanum a well known italian user with 59 potential clones. I will also warn about sockpuppetry on this user as it's probably the same one, the reasons are clear: changing the sources to redundant sources from the same page List of European countries by average wage, then adding fake data and then finally deleting the actual data. That's exactly the same what the user Sad9721 and Ambidibody did, another sockpuppet of Mediolanum. That, added to his English skills, the arguments he use, and that he edits lots of times the same comment it's very suspecious and acts exactly the same as Sad9721 and Ambidibody, both banned from Wikipedia. --TechnicianGB (talk) 18:40, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Now he personally attacks me and tells that "he taught me a lesson" and "i'm a total ignorant and I try the last bullet possible". On this edit [164] any edition is doing this user is more suspect to be a sockpuppet from the users mentioned before. Same manners, same spelling, same arguments. --TechnicianGB (talk) 02:32, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

• Feel free to open a Sock investigation if you have suspicions of abuse of multiple accounts. I've warned the user about personal attacks and incivility El_C 14:18, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

hidden vandalism

User:TechnicianGB added a reference for Italy and Spain a reference that report only 100% net earnings and NOT AVERAGE NET WAGES as the article requires.Read it well.So the article now presents creative numbers posted by him as net and gross wages.He didn't set the the reference aside Belgium and other states that haven't as reference official statl sites.Many states haven't also statal official tax calculators.Bu he didn't care of it showing a strong anti italian behaviouir (check his history in talks).He should be banned because he realizes well his propaganda vandalism.The reference for Italy and Spain must be removed because totally WRONG.Anioni (talk) 10:37, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

References

Hi, Anioni, I moved your post here because it is part of the same discussion. Softlavender (talk) 10:43, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Edited to add: Anyone can remove the subheading if desired, I don't know that this assertion needs its own subsection. Softlavender (talk) 10:46, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you.People must go all the way about this reference used for vandalism and propaganda.Here people look a lot to the form and not at what people writes.And vandals grow accusing others in wrong way to be sockpuppets.My sense of justice looks for a final redde rationem for this vandal that uses hidden references to make propaganda and that to defend himself uses attack and accuses others of phantom things.Anioni (talk) 10:45, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

• Please don't refer to edits by users in good standing as vandalism. And please avoid incivility and personal attacks. If you are having an intractable content dispute, list an RFC, or try the Dispute Resolution Notice Board or the Reliable Sources Noticeboard. El_C 14:18, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Ok,i wrote in RSN to solve the situation.Anioni (talk) 14:27, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

What situation do you want to solve! this is unbelievable.

[[165]] look at this edit, you deleted the official EUROSTAT source to put a newspaper which talks about the politicians wages and clearly invented a number for Italy. Are you trolling us? Do you really accuse me of "vandalism" while you changed the consensus aspect of the page List of European countries by average wage in 28th of February? Here is the proof [[166]] your last edition on the page was deleting all the data, like Sad9721 did, someone which was editing the same articles as you, the same topics, and with the same accusations/spelling as you. It's clear that you're the same user. Now today you vandalised again the page Italy by putting fake data, an user reverted your changes and warned you in your talk page. What you did? As with my warn, you just deleted it! Here is the proof [[167]] anyone can see in your contributions which kind of contributions you make, for God's sake! You accused me to be a vandal, to be "anti-italian", to be an ignorant, anything and you're still here editing anything you want lol i'm really amazed so whatever, do whatever you want i'm tired of this! It's senseless. I proven what all you did and you still keep denying it and trying to charge me. After you changed the aspect of the page and I just reverted your changes! Unbelievable. --TechnicianGB (talk) 23:44, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Spyware link on Middle-earth in film

see Talk:Middle-earth_in_film#Spyware_link

diff https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Middle-earth_in_film&type=revision&diff=769140782&oldid=767015122

The offending link was http://www.2719hyperion.com/2009/02/myth-of-walt-disneys-lord-of-rings.html (DO NOT ATTEMPT TO VISIT WITHOUT TAKING DRIVE BY DOWNLOAD PRECAUTIONS ETC)

I am not a regular visitor to this site. I leave this message here to bring your attention to this malicious link. I assume someone will add the offending website to your blacklist.

Thank you.83.100.174.82 (talk) 20:28, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

The link was present in the article since its inception and was likely inserted in goof faith. Thanks for the report anyway. Kleuske (talk) 08:05, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

The actual content is at http://2719hyperion.blogspot.co.uk/2009/02/myth-of-walt-disneys-lord-of-rings.html - it does not contain a virus or other malware. Google's VirusTotal collates scans of the site by several dozen independent malware scanning services, which uniformly rate the page as "clean" . When people report hits with their own scanner for links like this, on well-managed sites like Blogspot (again a Google service), about 95% of the time it's due to the advertising network (which on this site is surely Google's own) serving a malware ad, which a blackhat has managed to sneak past the ad network's checks. Once someone at Google/Doubleclick notices, the ad is killed. So the site's author, and the person who added to Wikipedia, are blameless - and it's perfectly okay for the site to be linked from the article. In this case I've not restored it, because I'm not convinced that the person on Blogspot constitutes a WP:RS. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 13:38, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Melbourne Sock vandalizing My talk page is wearing me out

Basically since the beginning of my anti-vandal career back in January, a sockpuppet has been vandalising my talk page every week or so with fake blocked messages. This is how I met the sock: I am monitoring RCP, and see something fishy at Betty Logan's talk page; an IP giving a block notice. I go over to her page, and see that this is not the first time an IP has fake blocked her, so I rvv it with the ES "whoop whoop sound of da police". IP tries it again, and mutters buncum about "their rights" and "I have no right to rv their fake block." Standard lies we all have heard. I disabuse them of the notion. Then they try and fake block me 2 or 3 times in a row, and are blocked as a result. I forget about it. Next week, I wake up to another fake block from a different IP. As they had engaged in vandalism before blocking me, I warn them, and report them to ANI. They are blocked. Repeat all the way up today. I want to know if there is anything that can be done that isn't SEMI protecting my page. I don't want to semi my talk page because I need to be able to communicate with IPs per IPSAREHUMANSTOO. I am on AN/I instead of SPI because I heard from Vanamonde93 that you don’t hold a SPI because you can’t CHECKUSER an IP. Can you range block this thug? Or should I just suck it up as part of life in CVU and wish I had followed WP:DENY more strictly? User talk:101.161.174.12

User talk:101.175.20.105

User talk:58.166.91.10

User talk:121.217.215.56

User talk:58.164.3.42

58.164.3.68

101.175.134.41

120.155.57.155

1.144.97.90 Note from 3-7-17 performed WHOIS, all of the above source from Canberra or Melbourne. I saw on of the talk pages some admins saying that they reeked of SlitherioFan2016. I don’t know if this is true or not. The IP asked me once why I had a list of Slitherio’s socks on my user page, but I ignored them. Thanks you your time. L3X1 My Complaint Desk 22:02, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Don't pay any attention, it's only a block notice. It's a somewhat inevitable consequence of dealing with vandals. I don't think a range block is really an option here. I'd personally suggest removing the list of socks from your user page, not writing anything aimed at this user, and not reverting any edit of theirs more than once (and not at all if you can help it). Both WP:RBI and WP:DENY should indeed apply. They'll get bored eventually. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 23:00, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

You can't possibly rangeblock all of them; they're too far apart. A rangeblock requires us to specify a range of addresses that must all be blocked, and the only way we could block all of them is blocking all addresses that begin with numbers from 58 to 121 — that's 64 of the possible 256 numbers in the first group, i.e. literally a quarter of all extant IPv4 addresses. Nyttend (talk) 23:06, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Honestly, I kinda wish an admin would come along, not think that through and just punch in that rangeblock just so I could grab some popcorn and watch the fallout from that. That would deserve a trout so big it has a blowhole and a horizontal tail-fin. But that's beside the point.

I don't think telling a vandal fighter to back off is a good solution. Perhaps temporary semi-protection of their talk page is in order? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:39, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Actually, MjolnirPants, that's not a "we can't do that, because it would be too much of a mess and we'd get in trouble"; it's a "we can't do that, because it's not possible". Again, this range would be about a quarter of all possible IPs. mw:Help:Range blocks says that there are 4,294,967,296 possible IPv4 addresses, so we're talking about blocking more than one billion addresses, while the same page says that it's not generally possible to rangeblock more than 65,536 addresses, and the developers would have to get involved by changing settings. Nyttend (talk) 00:48, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@Nyttend: I was being facetious, but I'm not surprised there's a hard 2^16 limit on rangeblocks. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:43, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Once option would be to slap indefinite semi protection on your main talk page and create a secondary talk page for IP only editors. At least you'd have better control of your primary talk page. Just leave a message at the top of your talk page telling IP editors where to go. Blackmane (talk) 23:50, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Blackmane That is a really good idea! One of the reasons I was against semi'ing was this [168] vandalism edit followed a few hours later by this [169] good IP edit. The more I think about having two talk pages the more I like it. L3X1 My Complaint Desk 00:00, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protecting a user talk page, with an alternative, unprotected page for messages from IP editors is really a last ditch solution. This is particularly so for editors who engage in activity that is likely to result in interactions with new editors, such as anti-vandalism work. And it really doesn't accomplish much, as you are then expected to pay nearly as much attention to the alternative page, so your still running into the harassment, just in a slightly different location. Now I realize this approach isn't for everyone, but when someone vandalizes my talk page, I embrace it is a reminder that I'm being effective at stopping vandalism elsewhere. Again, not for everyone, and doesn't mitigate the fact they are harassing you, we just don't have any really good solutions for infrequent but persistent harassment that evades range blocking. Monty₈₄₅ 00:35, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I semi-protect mine sometimes when I'm getting IP vandalism or harassment, and I have an alternative they can use which is noted in my edit notice. But you know what? They don't use it - they generally just go away. I suspect it's because they know they're not going to get the attention they want if they attack a page that nobody other than me is watching and which I can easily blank or delete without even reading. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:56, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll watchlist your page and I hope others will too. Let's just rv and DENY. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:06, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I have done so too; ping me if you need short term semi-protection for your talkpage. Lectonar (talk) 10:51, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

• Dude maybe you should change your your sig. "My Complaint Desk"? Well, ya got what you asked for, and how! Softlavender (talk) 10:58, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Haaha.  Fixed I'll probably change it again soon to something wittier. Is it bad form to be continously changing your sig?L3X1 Distant Write 13:46, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Very bad form....how about teletypewriter? Lectonar (talk) 13:58, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I think then people might confuse it for being part of my name, and while I know that some sigs are like that, I want it to be more obvious as I communicate with newer user often. L3X1 (distant write) 16:14, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I think you should try "tell me all about it." It has a nice ring. ;) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:50, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

But then I'd have your's and you'd have mine :) L3X1 (distant write) 22:20, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Avaya1

Avaya1 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

The user Avaya1 has continually reverted on the article Ivanka Trump, in an apparent act of article ownership. A discussion took place on the talk page in regards to the infobox photo, and there was no consensus for either keeping the current photo being used on the article, or the proposed photo that several other users have placed into the article in addition to myself. After two weeks, there has been no discussion since February 20, which indicates to me that it is a non-controversial change, and Avaya1 is simply being obstructive and trying to force their version of the article and not allowing others to contribute. After there being no discussion since the 20th of last month, I decided to be bold and re-insert the image, as there was no other significant opposition to the change. Avaya1 is exhibiting edit warring behavior, but I thought ANI would be better to file a report, as there seems to be some apparent and very serious ownership issues. Avaya1 has been blocked twice in the past, including once for edit warring behavior, according to their block log. I'd appreciate administrator input, as I believe Avaya1 to be in the wrong in being obstructive and not allowing several editors to make a change to an article despite there not being consensus per talk page discussions for their position. Calibrador (talk) 04:40, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Are Donald Trump's family members considered to fall under the American politics arbitration case? Nyttend (talk) 04:44, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Ivanka Trump and her husband are two of Donald Trump's informal advisors, who he is said to listen to somewhat more than his actual advisors, so I would say "Yes". Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:40, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Not sure about that, but I would note there are several notices on Avaya1's talk page warning them about edit warring behavior on several related articles as well, that do probably fall under the arbitration case. So this is probably not a lone incident. Calibrador (talk) 04:52, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Discussion trailed off about two weeks ago and now we're at just straight up reverting. Why not try getting a firmer consensus through a RFC? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:58, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, I just now left my opinion on the photo, in the talkpage thread. In this case, I agree with Avaya. We don't just knee-jerk go with the most-recent option. We go with the most representative. Plus are those photos the only two options? Softlavender (talk) 11:07, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, due to her prominence in the Trump Administration, this does falls under ARBAP2, and as such, 1RR applies. I've added {{2016 US Election AE}} to the talk page. El_C 14:07, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

• If you're going to add that then you should probably also note the other restriction: "All editors must obtain consensus on the talk page of this article before reinstating any edits that have been challenged (via reversion)." --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:18, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, good point. El_C 14:22, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Facebook IPs used for vandalism/sockpuppetry

A year or two ago (IIRC) a large range of IPv6 IPs belonging to Facebook in Ireland (easily identifiable by having 'face:b00c' as part of the IP), serving as an open proxy for Facebook users who wanted to hide their real IP, was blocked because of being used for massive vandalism, yet today a Facebook IP, Special:Contributions/2A03:2880:3020:AFC8:FACE:B00C:0:8000, showed up, on an article that has been very frequently hit by socks of Najaf ali bhayo, an edit that showed all signs of being Najaf. So could someone check if it's a new range that is being used by Facebook, in addition to the old one, or if the old range block has expired? - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 14:00, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Definitely registered to Facebook, seems to have been allocated in 2015 (perhaps?). It also appears that any old ranges assigned to them are still validly theirs (given the number assigned to them) -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 14:16, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Copyright violations abound at List of Intervention episodes

Hi, any assistance here would be appreciated. The copyvio issues are pretty well embedded in the edit history, but it appears that much of the episode summary going back years has been cut and pasted from the network's or other websites. Thanks, 2601:188:1:AEA0:D5FA:9AFC:6E2B:8DD (talk) 16:00, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Yawn, not another one of these articles loaded with copyvio. I took out a chunk, plenty remains. I don't know where the "Epilogue" bits come from... could someone watch the show and check against the narration? MER-C 12:48, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Fan4Life on Dangerous Woman Tour

I've given multiple warnings to the user about adding out of date information to the article. I have removed the prose about Grande saying she will tour Australia several times, because she said it in September 2016 and the tour has started yet no dates have been announced or confirmed from her, her label or her tour promoter. Fan4Life keeps adding it back and reverting me. I have given several warnings, official and non-official, asking him to stop reinstating it, and to only add info about Australian dates when actually dates and venues are announced. The info is out of date, and we all know what someone, or a singer, says and what actually happens are two very different things. Henry VIII said he loved Anne Boleyn but he ended up beheading her. My point is that nothing has bene officially announced by someone who is official in charge, like a tour promoter. He is now accusing me of ownership, but it's evidently the other way around. He has already been cautioned about ownership with another matter on the article regardless info in the infobox by another editor.  — Calvin999 17:01, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

This is a content dispute. I don't see anything on the talk page from either of you. --Darth Mike^(talk) 17:15, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Darth Mike ARV told me to come here.  — Calvin999 17:21, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@Calvin999: You have not issued any official warnings, you have issued one caution and several general notes, but not a single official warning. Fan4Life (talk) 17:23, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

This seems like a very silly thing to cause a conflict. The singer announced that she will tour Australia, though no dates have been confirmed yet. So just say that, append "...as of March 2017, no dates have been confirmed yet". People are talking about it out there with leaked sources and such, such as here. So it is going to happen, but the Wikipedia just can't list those dates until they are officially concerned. My suggestion is everyone take a breath, update the passage, and life goes on. ValarianB (talk) 17:36, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I've issued several warnings, but you remove them. 17:44, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@Calvin999: I went through the history of my talk page, not a single official warning pertaining to this. Fan4Life (talk) 20:06, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Regardless of whether or not there was an "official" warning, right now the best course of action is to get a third opinion. Utilize talk pages, this is what they're for. Also, you both should read WP:BRD and WP:EW, this is a slow edit war and is a blockable offence on both of your parts.--Darth Mike^(talk) 20:51, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, really? Here's the official one I posted the day which you removed and here is the unofficial warning which is still a warning from yesterday pertaining to this issue in particular. I can supply you with more from the other issue if you like too?  — Calvin999 23:31, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Job satisfaction

Two SPAs, JImmyjackFunk (talk · contribs) and Corneaterman (talk · contribs) keep reinserting a promotional blurb into "Job satisfaction" about how good manager a Richard Branson is. No answer in article and user talk pages. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:54, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Staszek Lem: Quack quack quack. That being said, JImmyjackFunk hasn't edited for a couple of days and Corneaterman for about an hour. I notice the article has been protected, so personally I'd opt to see what they do next.. Could you also notify both of them about this discussion? -- There'sNoTime ^{(to explain)} 19:01, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Since both accounts are brand-new, semi'd for a week to see if we can solve this without resorting to blocks. If they pop up trying to insert it elsewhere, let me know. ‑ Iridescent 18:59, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

FYI, this is actually an important person (see Richard Branson); it's more of an inappropriate anecdote with potential issues of promotion than it is someone sucking up to his boss. Nyttend (talk) 21:37, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Community Sanction Violation

Users User:Bob989898 and User:ansh666 have violated community sanctions on Iraqi Civil War (2014–present) by reverting more than once in 24 hours. Gamebuster19901 (Talk║Contributions) 19:24, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Bob keeps on replacing or substing the infobox, which was separated out for size and readability (editability?) reasons. It's the kind of revert with which no reasonable editor would disagree. ansh666 19:29, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Agree with the above, ansh666's reverts are commonsense fixes. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:58, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. I want to hear why Bob989898 is replacing the template transclusion. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:00, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

This has now been done by three ostensibly different editors: Bob, IbrahimWeed (talk · contribs), and Shadow4dark (talk · contribs). I won't revert again to maintain my sanity, since 4 of the last 9 edits on that article are me reverting things... ansh666 23:16, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Other than the fact that they're obviously edit warring in a way that makes no sense, I would be interested to know how an editor who's been here all of three weeks knows how templated infoboxes work, because I've definitely had to explain to editors who have been here for months how infoboxes themselves work. TimothyJosephWood 23:29, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Reverting an uncontroversial maintenance edit without explanation falls far below the "expected standards of behaviour" mandated by community sanctions. I've put back the template as an admin action and pinged each of the three editors on the talk page. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:57, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Not here to build an encyclopaedia

An editor I hadn't seen before, Rævhuld (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (a word that doesn't mean anything in Danish, a slight change of the spelling produces "Røvhul", though, the Danish word for "asshole", with a pronounciation that is very similar to "Rævhuld"...) popped up on my watchlist after adding a template they had created, Template:Danish English, to an article, claiming it was written in "Danish English". A look at their contributions then showed that they had also created an article, Danish English (with fake sources, since none of the sources support the existence of such a variety), about that imaginary variety of English (imaginary since there are no native English-speakers in Denmark other than a small number of recent immigrants, and English has no official standing there), plus a whole bunch of nonsense categories, such as Category:Wikipedia articles that use Danish English, Category:European English, Category:English-Danish culture, Category:British Danish, Category:British-Danish culture, Category:European-Danish culture, and so on. In addition to adding every single award there is to their user pages, even including Vanguard Editor, in spite of the account only being two weeks old, with 60 edits; their contributions, with a very good grasp of Wikicode right from the start, also show that it's not a new editor. All of it, IMHO, signs of not being here to build an encyclopaedia, only to "have fun", but at the same time not the most blatant vandalism... - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 22:41, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Danish English should be packed off to CSD as an A11. Blackmane (talk) 23:05, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Might I also suggest nominating all of their articles, categories and templates for deletion? Callmemirela 🍁 {Talk} ♑ 23:10, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Deleted as a blatant A11 (stuff made up one day). Will tidy up the related nonsense categories etc. now. Black Kite (talk) 23:17, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Vjmlhds

A couple of days ago I blocked Vjmlhds (talk · contribs) after an escalating series of belligerent comments directed at other editors [170], [171], [172], [173], with responses to admin concerns like this [174], [175], [176], [177] and culminating in this [178].

I blocked for 24 hours to stop the cycle of escalation. It was late, I was unfamiliar with the editor and I didn't have time to do an exhaustive review of their contributions, but I did note their very extensive block log [179] which included incidents of belligerence and threats, along with pledges to reform. After some unproductive back-and-forth on their talkpage I got a sense of grievance and entitlement to retaliation against perceived slights [180].

The next day I continued to engage Vjmlhds who was only slightly less belligerent. Shortly after Cyphoidbomb left this note [181] discussing the last outburst two months ago, which was ended with a pledge to reform and to accept an indefinite block if it happened again. After some discussion with the original block running out I adjusted the block to indefinite in the literal sense pending further discussion.

Since then a number of editors who have had experience with Vjmlhds have posted either on my talkpage or on Vjmlhds's to note their own concerns about his behavior, and to some extent to express interest in a solution that doesn't involve an indefinite block for an editor of nine years' standing. Vjmlhds posted this unblock request [182] and this follow-up [183] to my comments, which claimed that the real-life issues that had set them off were now resolved and everything would be fine. After my response on my talkpage [184] to a comment by WarMachineWildThing Vjmlhds stated that they would retire [185]. Consensus of other editors and myself was that given the number of editors commenting and the sense that they were looking for a workable resolution that would allow Vjmlhds to return to editing under some circumstances it appears that it should be a community discussion at ANI. My proposal was six months off and return upon satisfactory request with strict probationary terms. Acroterion (talk) 01:31, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan. The combined sum of all those NPA violations is egregious enough to warrant such a serious few-months block to an established user. But giving them a chance to return (contingent on strict conditions) is still worthwhile. El_C 01:45, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

No issue here. Just needs to dial back the knee-jerk aggression on talk pages. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:50, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

After all these years, I'm not sure he can be relied upon to do anything of the sort. --Orange Mike | Talk 01:55, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

And that is my concern, that their fuse is simply too short for good behavior to last for long. Acroterion (talk) 01:59, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I hope I'm OK to post here. I have no issue with the 6 months. I've taken time off myself at times and it does wonders. Vjmlhds can be very good with edits but if you revert him or say he's wrong it's all out war, IE: edit warring, harrassment, threats etc. But after the 6 months I'd like to see some type of stipulation if any of it happens again so none of this has to be repeated. Unfortunately after his responses on his talk and then blanking it saying we all wanted him gone, I'm not sure if he'll ever change. Chris "WarMachineWildThing" ^{Talk to me} 02:01, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I've worked with Vjmlhds for years and we previously had a mostly productive relationship. At first there were rare moments when he was uncivil and edit warred, but over the past few months this became the norm, to the point where he was a total net negative. I started this ANI thread in December after watching him edit war for months; he was warned that if he continued edit warring he would be blocked. In January, he swore up and down to Cyphoidbomb that he was done edit warring for good. You can see from his history that he spent February edit warring on WWE United Kingdom Championship, List of WWE personnel and Template:WWE personnel. This most recent block came about after he edit warred on TNA World Heavyweight Championship, List of TNA World Heavyweight Champions and Alberto Del Rio. He then edit warred on another user's talk page when the issue was discussed there and went after the admins that told him to knock it off!

He talks a good game when he faces a block. You can see it in the thread I linked and you can see it from when Cyphoidbomb unblocked him in January. He promises that he's changed and that we won't have to worry about him ever again. I don't want to see him permanently blocked but I think he should have to prove that he's capable of controlling himself before he's able to fully regain all editing privileges. 1RR restriction and a topic ban on professional wrestling articles should be in place after a 6 months block is up. If he is able to fulfill his promises of editing without conflict then he should be able to appeal those after a few months.LM2000 (talk) 02:35, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I had hoped to avoid getting involved with Vjmlhds' latest series of outbursts, but as the only other editor mentioned by name in his block log, I suppose it was bound to happen one way or another (side note- I was totally uninvolved with the events leading to his last six blocks for edit-warring/personal attacks). I'm also not an administrator, so please weigh my comments accordingly. Like OrangeMike, I remain skeptical that Vjmlhds has the ability to change his ways. However, even if it's likely to result in yet another block/sanction, I think the community should give him one last chance to redeem himself. I support the six-month block, provided that: 1) if Vjmlhds wishes to return to editing, he specifically requests an unblock after six months and demonstrates a thorough understanding of how & why he ended up here; and 2) Vjmlhds is placed on some type a strictly enforced probationary period (1RR or 0RR limit, strict requirement to use the normal dispute resolution processes, etc.). For example, unblock Vjmlhds on the condition that "if you do X, you will be indefinitely blocked", and only unblock if he unambiguously agrees to whatever terms are clearly established beforehand. Levdr1lp / talk 02:38, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Given their tenure, but also taking into account their block log, I would say a 6 month block at a minimum, to be lifted upon successful appeal, followed by Sword of Damocles type restrictions for a further 3 months else, such as 0RR, some sort of civility parole (a bit like TRM's restrictions levied by arbcom) or whatver, violations of which would result in a site ban. Blackmane (talk) 02:47, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I actually may be one of his biggest defenders. I have tried to talk him down repeatedly, but he has continued to draw a line in the sand. The sad thing is that he is a thorough editor when he is on his game and doesn't lose his cool, and I've tried to explain that to him several times. I suggested he take a voluntary break a couple of days ago and return in a few weeks, but I'm willing to go with the consensus. Don't boot him for life yet, but if he follows whatever is decided with the same old, same old, then I can't say anything more. Kjscotte34 (talk) 17:23, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Vipul's paid editing enterprise

Am bringing a mega thread of the same name at COIN here, as this needs community consideration. Thread at COIN is here. This is a bit long but attempts to summarize.

• Vipul (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Riceissa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (Note, Vipul has said that Riceissa has an organizing role, as well being paid by Vipul -- diff)

Note- all off-wiki links below are OK to use per statement by Vipul here.

• 1) Vipul works at an SEO and website optimization company in Silicon Valley funded by VC there. Very data and metrics driven. (company website, LiftIgniter)
• 2) Vipul describes here, a website linked from his userpage, the network of editors he personally pays or as he says "sponsors" to do work at Wikipedia and elsewhere; these editors in turn are encouraged to recruit other editors. Payment to any given editor is in part upfront, in part based on page views, and in part on a "royalty" -- a percentage of what recruited editors are paid (pyramid scheme). Everything he is doing is carefully documented, in almost bewildering very fine detail (down to a copy of his bank statement). All very data-oriented and data driven. That page notes: "Note that workers who have opted to be paid privately are not listed here."
• 3) This has been going on since January 2015, based on the payments recorded there. I can't work out exactly how much he spent on Wikipedia editing, but it appears to be between ~$50K and~$20K (the smaller number based on based on WP-related tasks listed here, but this has been contested at COIN). Vipul provides this list of all the tasks he has paid for, and I generated this spreadsheet based on his data and there are 276 rows - multiple articles have multiple editors so let's call it ~250 articles. Again this doesn't count people he didn't list.
• 4) At that page about this effort, Vipul has written that he has done this inspired by the ideals of effective altruism, and the effort has targeted areas relevant to that movement - a) technology (including technologies themselves, companies, people, and investors); b) philanthropies (tracking in detail how much they give, to whom like this); c) global health; d) governance issues like open borders and immigration, and taxation; e) animal welfare.
• 5) Many of the articles that have been created are in the format "Timeline of X", which range from Timeline of cholera (many of these by disease/condition) to Timeline of healthcare in Egypt (many of those by country) Timeline of Microsoft (many of these, by company). Many are extremely detailed. Around 100 of the ~250 articles are in the "Timeline of X" format.
• 6) There is no clear mission to all this.
  • Some of the articles, especially in the "technology" focus, look like typical paid editing gigs (promotional, only positive, not well sourced, etc), and concerns have been raised about SEO intentions, especially regarding many of the Timeline of X articles, which are full of poor sources. See for example Zenefits, Parker Conrad, Data Collective, and Gusto (software) which are inter-related - Parker was the CEO of the company that created Gusto, which was funded by Data Collective. Another is Adora Cheung which is all positive and lauding, but one of the sources actually used is highly critical of the company that made her somewhat famous, and there is nothing of that in the article. (the ref)
  • Some of the topics seem advocacy-driven. In Vipul's invitation to edit for pay he explained why he wanted to recruit paid editors to work on certain topics, and wrote: Migration liberalization is a top interest for me personally. and wrote I believe that animal suffering, both that inflicted by humans and that inflicted by nature, is an important part of global suffering by sentient creatures.. Are we looking at using paid editors to force multiply WP:ADVOCACY? Hm. I brought this up to Vipul and he said they strive to be NPOV. But this is where the whole COI thing of his editors kicks in, right? And they are not putting articles and edits through peer review. Problematic.
• 7) There have been both behavior and content issues:
  • Behavior - WP:MEAT/WP:TEAM behavior. See for example history of Form 1040. In general the editors have been inconsistent in declaring per the TOU and have not been following the WP:CO guideline and have been editing and creating directly, and aggressively. And again per the note on his project page, there is an unknown number of editors who are apparently not disclosing that they have been paid by Vipul. That part is really troubling.
  • Additionally there appear to be some clear COI issues, and there are possibly SEO activities going on here, despite what Vipul has said about the altruistic motivations.
    • COI: One of Vipul's editors for example created an article about one of the VCs that funded Vipul's company. (see history and you can see that Vipul directly edited it - no COI declaration anywhere. The paid editor also included a wikilink to Vipul's company, diff. See also the inter-related articles mentioned above. Vipul also created the article on Shasta Ventures which also has a seat on the Data Collective (ref).
    • SEO: As mentioned a bunch of the "Timeline of X" articles are pretty badly sourced, and as mentioned Vipul works at an SEO firm. That raises eyebrows. Then there is this page where VIpul lists companies to create Timelines for ... and you find there companies that are not cutting edge tech (which I can kind of see Effective Altruists being excited about) but instead includes old school retail dinosaurs like Forever 21, Saks Fifth Avenue, 7-Eleven and Kmart. I cannot get my head around how this would fit in Vipul's philanthropic mission. It ~looks~ like setting up SEO linkspamming.
  • Content: Much of the content violates WP:NOTHOWTO or gives WP:UNDUE, and there is a great deal of WP:OR in the Timeline articles. And as mentioned there are PROMO issues with the technology-focus articles. As an example of UNDUE see Open_Philanthropy_Project#Grants_made, a very detailed table that Vipul pays editors to keep regularly updated. Vipul says at the bottom of this blog post that he uses this WP page to explain to people what the Open Philanthropy Project is. This is a bit of abusing WP as a webhost, which WP is NOT; the Open Philanthropy Project is an effective altruism project, and so this is kind of advocacy-driven as well.

So - what am I recommending? (Note, some of the following feels like looking a gift horse in the mouth; I am unaware of a paid-editing entity disclosing at anywhere near the level that Vipul has. These recommendations go to what would be ideal, to give the community comfort and to be truly transparent and ... well, clean)

• a) that Vipul put a moratorium on this operation.
• b) that Vipul formulate a clear mission for what he is doing and consider going through the GLAM on-boarding process before re-starting. I suggest that the "technology" focus be eliminated. I reckon the GLAM folks will think through other aspects of the mission with him. (I hope)
• c) that Vipul provide a single list of articles his team has worked on for him, and a list of all the editors he has paid. (we don't need to see how much he has paid them)
• d) That Vipul obligate his editors via the contracts he has with them, to follow the PAID policy and the COI guideline. Posting those contract templates would be great.
• e) That his team
  • 1) puts PAID disclosures on the Talk pages of articles they work on, and
  • 2) follows the COI guideline, putting content through peer review via AfC for new articles, and through Talk page postings for existing articles
• f) the community should agree to have zero tolerance for MEAT/TEAM editing by his team against other editors.

Some folks at COIN have called for more stringent measures like TBANs from technology or INDEFs but i am mostly concerned to prevent future problems. One of the concerns mentioned multiple times at COIN is that this operation will keep growing and growing as editors recruit other editors and so on. The quality of content and behavior is not well-managed by Vipul even at this stage of the project's development and the community has had no input on the effort per se, and there has been no systematic content review, since articles are being edited and created directly.

I am intrigued and troubled by this model of individuals paying editors to work in WP, as a form of philanthropy (to take what Vipul says at face value). This is one of those things where we do encourage people to be WP:BOLD but the community also expects large-scale projects to gain consensus before they are initiated. And if that is not done, well this is what happens.

Thoughts? Jytdog (talk) 03:31, 9 March 2017 (UTC) (struck the single list of paid editors - that was already in existence Jytdog (talk) 18:38, 9 March 2017 (UTC)) (added example of too detailed content Jytdog (talk) 18:44, 9 March 2017 (UTC))

For the sake of completion, see also the beginning of the saga on my talk page (Lengthy Q&A). El_C 03:39, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks El C. I also want to note that Vipul made a statement at COIN, here, about what he is doing. in reaction to the COIN thread. I found it mostly defensive and unresponsive to the concerns of the community, but folks should have a look at it. Jytdog (talk) 03:59, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support Jytdog's recommendations. As he mentions, he is mostly looking into the future (of course, to that end, a more forensic view of past operations of the Vipul Group is also warranted), to be able to set a correct precedence. I hope Vipul understands that this is done in good faith, not to be harsh, but to ensure there is a smooth interplay between volunteer and paid editng. A lot of us give money to the project, but almost all of us do it by donating it directly to the Foundation. As I said before, it is Vipul's money, after all, and he can spend it as he sees fit. But spending it on paid Wikipedia editors, does fall under the strict conditions outlined in the m:ToU. Conditions to be further expanded and refined upon here. Jytdog also mentions that some at COIN have called for more stringent measures—I am still unsure as to that, however. El_C 04:24, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Acting on (a), I have suspended all the portion of contract work operations that involve Wikipedia editing. I have posted this update to my user page (see diff), updated contractwork.vipulnaik.com (see commits here and here). :I've also informed all people currently actively working for me about this. Any edits they make while the project is suspended will be in their personal capacity.

For (c), I've already included a list of all editors I have paid at User:Vipul#List_of_people_I've_paid (this includes the one anonymous editor). The full article list is currently available off-wiki along with a bunch of non-wiki tasks (you have permission to reference and use this list); I will prepare a Wikipedia-only version of this list and post it to my user page some time in the next week.

For (e1), I will add CoI disclosures to talk pages for all the articles in the list over the next two weeks.

If we resume this project, I will work on implementing some variant of (b), (d), and (e2).Vipul (talk) 05:52, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for all that. When I meant in c), is a single list of all the articles you have paid people to work on. (that is different from a list of the people you've paid) I didn't find that anywhere in your documentation; perhaps i missed it. Jytdog (talk) 06:12, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

• Honestly I find what Vipul's doing fascinating and kind of exciting. The idea of funding the improvement of articles comes up from time to time, and in an ideal scenario it seems like a great way to elevate quality -- especially in those areas for which we do not have many interested volunteers. I can imagine a philanthropic organization, for example, paying to improve articles that serve the public good. That said, obviously adding money to editing is fraught to say the least. After being burned so spectacularly so many times, parts of the community are understandably jumpy (case in point, some of the comments in the COIN thread). In general I think that Jytdog's proposal is measured and sensible. As I understand it, there are two primary problems here. One is easy to fix: none of the paid editors should overlap in their editing (i.e. don't edit the same articles). The other is not so easy: whether there's anything beyond Vipul's documentation of the operation that would render it problematic (intentions/mission, whether it's in any way tied to SEO/marketing, etc.). I think that the burden for the latter is, at this point, on those making the allegations rather than on Vipul to prove a negative (that there's not more than meets the eye). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 06:21, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I understand that the act of multiple paid people editing the same article has come for a lot of criticism, but I want to clarify that the intent here was not to deceive. It simply is often the case that the person who originally worked on the article no longer has the time or resources to expand it, and so the task is handed over to a different person -- or in some cases, I might give a task to one person and then notice some improvements I can make myself so I just go ahead and edit the article. This is, basically, the way collaborative editing generally works. I (and probably the others here) hadn't realized this could seem misleading. I continue to think that not allowing multiple paid people to edit the same page would significantly hamper the functioning of any paid editing project. If and when we resume the project, I'll include in the proposal ways to address the concerns here while still preserving the flexibility of allowing input and effort from multiple people to go into the same article.Vipul (talk) 06:20, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't think it would be a deal-breaker for multiple people from the same paid editing enterprise to work on the same article as long as it's very carefully documented on the talk page, as long as they never operate as distinct voices in a dispute, and as long as they aren't operating concurrently (e.g. as you describe, a project handed from one person to another). In general, however, I think the logistics of this and the bigger conversation are better saved for subsequent threads. At this point people are trying to get a handle on your project in general and this is a relatively easy concern to assuage which you can always revisit with, say, an RfC later. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 06:26, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

That is reasonable. I will not derail the current thread further with these details.Vipul (talk) 06:31, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

• This is both interesting and scary. The setup instinctively rubs me the wrong way because of the use of pyramid scheme methods. After all, those were invented to capitalize on the kickback avarice of people at successively lower levels of an organization. There's something troubling about employing them in an idealist cause such as Wikipedia. For one thing, this scheme diverts each participant's focus from creating good articles, to recruiting more people; that can't be good for article quality. For another, the method is made to snowball, making control for quality and COI progressively more difficult. Allowing a financially-driven snowball mechanism into Wikipedia should be eyed with great suspicion.

On the other hand, maybe with proper controls this might work as a more ambitious update of the defunct "bounty" system, and merely provide an efficient way to make targeted donations towards WP development. I empathize with the gift horse comment; but plain assuming good faith seems a little more dangerous than usual in this case. Jytdog's recommendations seem like a reasonable way to put a few safety constraints on the idea if the community wanted to test the waters. In any case, I heartily agree with the suggestion about removal of subject areas that lend themselves to overt promotion (i.e., the technology and company profiles). --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 08:26, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

• People who haven't followed the other threads should understand several things that are not in dispute. 1) This editor is a passionate advocate for certain causes. He was recognized by a well-known national publication back in 2013 as "the face of <advocacy issue> on the Internet". 2) This editor has directed a large team of paid (employees? confederates?) to assist in promoting these same advocacy issues here. 3) At the same time he has directed the team, and personally contributed to, articles about his employer's investors and investments, and national employment policies that stand to benefit his pocketbook directly. For these reasons alone, not considering unexplored SEO issues, they should be indefinitely blocked and the entire enterprise barred from acting here. For people who think his team can create worthwhile content, why not let them do it in their own forum and license it appropriately to be incorporated at a later date?

Okay, what I wrote above is as dispassionate as I can manage. Now for a more personal opinion. This enterprise has damaged Wikipedia tremendously. Consider the impact to the goodwill of editors without the means to hire their own team of advocacy editors when they learn of this. Consider the impact on people who had thought they had narrowly carved out a WP:PAID policy that works for both parties. And now we have a team doing paid advocacy editing under cover of this very same program. The claim that stuff like "Timeline of 7-Eleven" has anything to do with anything altruistic is absurd. It is extremely disappointing, and sad for the PAID advocates as well, that this has become somewhat of a test case, about as far from an "ideal scenario" as you can get.

Bottom line, this editor hasn't got the requisite distance from any of this stuff to be writing about it himself, let alone paying other people to be doing so. Under the NPOV pillar, advocacy editing has always been impermissible and no amount of discussion here about motives, disclosure, bookkeeping, or any other details will change that. We're going to have to reboot a discussion about how a private individual can properly manage a compensated team, but this is not the right case around which to be parsing this out. - Bri (talk) 19:17, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

GiveWell

Deletion of GiveWell. Hi, I haven't fully digested the above discussion yet, but I just wanted to ask the admin(?) who deleted the non-profit charity evaluator GiveWell if - on reflection - the entry could be restored. (I originally wanted to look something up about GiveWell and was instead reduced to using Google cache.) By all means nominate GiveWell in proposed "Articles for deletion" if it felt such a nomination is appropriate - or perhaps add suitable warning tags, or a Comments/Criticisms section (etc) if needed. I realise there are circumstances when an admin needs to act fast and urgently, but GiveWell is a fairly well-known (and IMO valuable) organisation. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidcpearce (talk • contribs) 14:21, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

JzG deleted the article as a CSD "(G11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion (TW))". There are several enquiries about the deletion on his talk page at User talk:JzG I'll notify him of this discussion; it seems like a good candidate for WP:DRV — Charles Stewart (talk) 16:47, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

• I am grateful to Davidcpearce for piping up here. As was pointed out by User:Bri (Brianhe) in the mega-COIN thread here, we have had issues in the past with advocacy in WP by people in the Effective Altruism movement (which includes Davidcpearce). In the past they have coordinated offline to advocate for their issues here in WP.
  • User:David Gerard opened a thread about that here at COIN in October 2016.
  • There had been a prior thread at COIN here in April 2016 which was related to some dramafest AfDs that the EA online community rallied to try to save via various offwiki locations:
    • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abolitionism (bioethics) (result was delete)
    • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wild animal suffering (result was no consensus)
    • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Raising for Effective Giving (oddly closed no consensus)
    • and an SPI case here that found two sets of socks.

Vipul's project adds paid editing to that history of coordinated advocacy in WP. Jytdog (talk) 16:46, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

IP 2405:204:C...

User:2405:204:C005:B703:9DC2:251F:B6FE:2648 / User:2405:204:C280:3B2A:F92D:DBDC:356F:9734 / User:2405:204:C601:2A58:D0AD:97BC:F13D:B2EF has been adding and subtracting spaces. [186][187][188][189][190][191][192][193][194][195][196][197][198][199][200][201] It is annoying seeing these show up on my watchlist, plus I suspect that he is doing the same thing using other IP addresses. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:13, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Office of the President-Elect has a long list of 2405:204:c000::/36 IP addresses that have been disrupting it, including blanking and adding/removing whitespace. Scanning through the range contribs, it seems this has been going on for a while. However, a /36 range block would be huge. Also, I keep getting HTTP timeout errors while trying to access Wikipedia, making this rather difficult to research right now. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 05:47, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

After spending some time going through the range contribs, I'm becoming very pessimistic about the quality of edits coming from the /36. I've reverted a few edits to obscure Indian topics, but it's tough for me to determine which edits are vandalism. I'm also pretty sure that the political edits are made by the same person now, especially the obsessive tweaking of articles having to do with political presidents, such as Presidential system, United States presidential transition, and Office of the President-Elect. I'm tempted to briefly semi-protect all the affected articles, as they seem subject to random blanking and poorly-written changes. What do other people think? NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 16:19, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Deciduous Maple - off-wiki recruiting, edit warring, and other problematic behaviours

• Deciduous Maple (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• White supremacy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

ChiveFungi mentioned on Deciduous Maple's (DM) user talk page a /pol/ thread where it appears DM is recruiting users to change the lead on white supremacy. DM confirmed the post was made by them, as well as one on 8ch ([202]).

DM had been engaging in an edit war on that page regarding the use of "racist ideology" in the lead. The issue has been discussed ad nauseum on the articles talk page, most recently at Talk:White_supremacy#.22Racist_Ideology.22_in_lede. DM indicated intent to continue edit warring/editing against consensus in this most recent edit here.

This user edited similarly back in 2014-2015, but they went silent for ~1.5 years (including involvement from 8ch discussed here) before recently reactivating in February 2017. Reviewing the user's edit history and proclaiming on their user page, their sole purpose on Wikipedia is to tendentiously edit around the language used on race-related pages.

I'm requesting admin review of the situation. Thank you. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:52, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Gave Deciduous_Maple a few options. [203] Gave ChiveFungi a pointer to WP:OUTING. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:51, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree with User:NeilN's warning to Deciduous Maple. If he reverts the article again before getting consensus he should be blocked. EdJohnston (talk) 16:42, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

How rude of you to assume my gender! Deciduous Maple (talk) 17:06, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Help needed with a WP:CIR problem

• ColeB34 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I need some help in dealing with User:ColeB34, a wellmeaning and productive editor who has problems with issues like notability, reliability, and verifiability.

They have created so far 155 articles, of which 21 have been deleted or redirected (after AfDs on them closed as delete, e.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wilfred Schoenfeld). Many of the remainder are about characters of limited notability, actor of very limited notability, and episodes of TV series of no notability which should be redirected.

Multiple people have tried to discuss issues with him on his talk page. User:Diannaa discussed issues with copying text within Wikipedia and the required attribution in September 2016, and had to repeat that message only yesterday. User:Nthep, user:Wikishovel and Diannaa discussed the use of non-free images in October 2016, but since then many such images have been contributed and deleted anyway. See User talk:ColeB34#Please don't upload any more screen shots. Still in October, User:EdJohnston explained that IMDb isn't reliable and that more sources are needed.

In late October 2016, I warned them about creating articles on non notable characters, and repeated Diannaas warning against uploading screenshots: User talk:ColeB34#Character articles. Diannaa finally blocked them for one week on 31 October 2016.

In January 2017, User:DrStrauss had two of their articles deleted and informed the editor again about numerous issues (use of IMDb, notability of episodes, ...).

Yesterday, I took another look at their articles and again noticed the creation of articles on non notable episodes and actors, and worse the inclusion of seriously incorrect information in these articles. A good example is Alastair Mackenzie (actor), which mixed some unverifiable information and a small amount of correct information on a non notable child actor with the information about a different person, Alastair Mackenzie. In response to this ProD, ColeB34 removed the unverifiable personal information, but didn't change the incorrect mixup nor added a reliable source[204]. They then repeated the information on my talk page for some reason, and (much worse) proceeded to add all challenged information to The Adventures of Black Beauty[205].

So we have an editor where too many of his articles are on non notable subjects, who routinely uploads fair use images we don't want, who doesn't use reliable sources, and who spreads incorrect information on BLPs to other articles even when the problems have been explicitly pointed out to them. Advice, complaints, threats, and a block spread over the months they have been editing haven't helped one bit. Perhaps some very thorough mentoring might help, perhaps it's time to just conclude that competence is required and that the loss of this editor does more good than harm. Fram (talk) 08:19, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

• The first article I looked at was wrong, and the second one had the same wrong information in as the first - despite them being about different people. I know Charlie Brooker is a genius, but I suspect even he couldn't persuade a dead actor to take a part in Black Mirror. I have blocked ColeB34 for two weeks, during which time it should be possible to sort out the mess he's created (i.e. PRODs will have time to run through). After that, if he continues with his behaviour, I suspect the next block will be indef. Black Kite (talk) 09:51, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Fram (talk) 10:13, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I know Charlie Brooker is a genius, but I suspect even he couldn't persuade a dead actor to take a part in Black Mirror. So, a Black Mirror episode plot, then. --Calton | Talk 10:22, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Unwarranted aggression to other editors from Digitallymade

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

Can someone uninvolved, with a soft voice and a large stick, please take a look at this before it gets out of hand. Digitallymade (talk · contribs) is a newish editor (2k edits, 4 active months) who is "failing to get it" in some important ways. Nearly every edit seems to be a variation of edit-warring, followed by user talk comments of the form, "you are a fool, your edits are so wrong they are vandalism, I know this".

• User talk:Francis Flinch#You have seriously screwed up 5.56x45mm Nato
• talk:Winged Brick#You have made a mistake, twice.
• User talk:Felsic2#Pump Action Shotguns
• User talk:Thomas.W#Why did you remove the history section on 6.5x55mm Swedish Mauser

Their view on WP:V / WP:RS is also a little unusual, User talk:Digitallymade#Sources, "I have examined many "sources" and have found many of them to be inaccurate. I've been working at this for about 30 yeas now. I typically use sources ONLY because I cannot state that I know something to be true as that's not considered authoritative. So I use sources that I judge to be accurate enough to support certain points. Unfortunately, a HUGE amount of published material is in error. I know enough to be able to tell the difference in the areas that I have studied for the last 6 decades."

Yet this is from an editor who can't even spell the name of their own new articles IMR Lendary Powders, opposed the deletion of the mis-spelled version after it was renamed, then PRODs the original article before their WP:CFORK: Talk:Improved Military Rifle. As to their "merge all firearm articles to one" suggestion [206], that was fortunately rebuffed early and without too much waste of time.

Even without going into the technical aspects and underlying facts, this is very far from good, or even acceptable editing practice. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:41, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

For my aggressive attitude, I am very sorry. I'll endeavor to do better in this regard. I am frustrated because I find changes I make being reverted while I am editing. It takes a few hours to thoroughly update and correct many of these geriatric pages and at some point I get tired and stop. I do make typos, an your mention of that is as improper as my aggressive behavior. When I make suggestions is talk, and then changes based on those suggestions the next day I get my change reverted. How much time has to pass before I can correct some of the inaccurate statements on pages. I added a history section to one page which was removed almost as soon as it was entered. I make extensive changes that take HOURS to research and someone reverts every change because they a problem with one small part of it. Some individuals are constantly interfering with corrections and amplifications as if there is vested interest in maintaining incorrect, incomplete, and outsourced articles. I promise I will be less aggressive, but I also see a need for fair treatment. Why are some of my edits being interfered with while I am making them? Why, for example, is ever change I make on gas operated removed immediately (except for last photos I just added)? I hope you understand that I don't talk to people because things are running smoothly. I talk to them because my work has been altered, because what I do primarily is intended to improve the subject (especially when it's a completely new page) and my goal is to create logical, readable, truthful, and useful content. If this is wrong let me know. I am completely willing to withdraw entirely, as I have before for the same reasons. Digitallymade (talk) 12:21, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

If I may make some suggestions based on observing and interacting with you:

• Please read, and reread until you understand them, the basic rules of Wikipedia. Start with WP:Five pillars. Read the three core content policies, WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOR and a core behaviour policy: WP:NPA.
• Slow down. Major rewrites of mature articles should not be undertaken lightly.
• Listen to what other editors say. If they undo your edits or object then start discussions.
• If an edit might be controversial consider discussing it before investing a lot of time.
• Wikipedia is a collaborative effort. If you approach editing with the view that everyone here is wrong or stupid (even if they are!) then you'll get frustrated.

Wikipedia is an very unusual project. Not everyone can work in this environment. But if you take your time and learn the culture then you should be able to contribute more successfully. Felsic2 (talk) 16:34, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Crissedcrossed

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

In her/his short time here, User:Crissedcrossed has done nothing but disrupt at Gilad Atzmon, the article's talk page, and the talk pages of editors who revert her/his edits. (Sorry, no diffs, but look at any edit in her/his log.) She/He is clearly not interested in learning our rules, which I have tried to explain, only to be told that I don't understand -- calling an editor dishonest and trolling another is not a personal attack. Will somebody please put an end to her/his Wiki career? More than adequate warning and notice has been given. Thank you. — MShabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 15:51, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

• After yet another revert I have blocked them indefinitely per NOTHERE, given that, besides one controversial article edit, they have shown no interest in anything but disruption. Admins, if you think this block was too harsh, and/or that the editor should be given more leeway, go ahead and unblock--but any leash should be very short, given the personal attacks. No need to consult with me: I have faith in you, and I have to finish reading Twelfth Night. They also have a rant/request on the ARCA page which I suggested should simply be removed. Malik, thanks for your patience and for reporting them here. Drmies (talk) 16:05, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
• In their very short time here, this editor has managed to describe me as "butt-hurt", and to accuse me of being a "crypto-Zionist", "in bed with Dershowitz", and a censor. The editor has also been trolling me with repeated unwelcome invitations to a gig, and has made a very disturbing suggestion that only "the chosen people" are being allowed to edit certain articles. And all this in a career of fewer than thirty edits. I whole-heartedly endorse the block, and hope that this disruptive editor is not permitted to return and to continue his campaign of tendentious edits and harassment. RolandR (talk) 16:18, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
  • RolandR, I find it interesting that all those insults start with b and c. (Throw in a d for Dershowitz, if you like.) Don't you? And what do you make of the fact that there's a z in there but not a single a? I mean, where's the Alpha? What are they trying to tell you? Drmies (talk) 17:09, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
• UAA violation also, the username is reminiscent of the swastika, and is backed up by their edits. L3X1 (distant write) 18:46, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Long term WP:SPA and WP:COI by Suranadira (relisted)

As a bot has archived this section before any administrator's answer, I revert the archiving and relist the thread. Please, answer and decide which action has to be taken. D.Lazard (talk) 16:46, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

The owner of this account is clearly Armands Strazds‎, as Suranadira is the first word of the main article of Armands Strazds. All edits of this this account, created ten years ago, are devoted either to the page about himself (Armands Strazds‎), or the pages about his work (Delta numerals and Rational numerals, or, in a few cases, for pushing his work in other pages. I have nominated these three pages for deletion (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Armands Strazds (3rd nomination)‎, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rational numerals‎‎ and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Delta numerals‎‎)

It seems that something must be done against this long term misuse of WP. D.Lazard (talk) 12:26, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

These AfDs promise to be exceptionally entertaining. The subject, a "composer, semiotician and computer scientist", lists the following as "influences" in his infobox, so there will be plenty of raw material to work with: Fuxi, Laozi, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Pingala, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, Fibonacci, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz,[1] Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottfried Herder, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Gottlob Frege,[2] Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Noam Chomsky, Umberto Eco, Modris Tenisons, Friedhelm Döhl, Frieder Nake. EEng 17:59, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't strike me as a misuse of WP at all... there are some reliable sources in there. Sure, they may need to be reminded of WP:COI, WP:YOURSELF, and WP:OR, but I can't find any evidence of bad faith per se. Even if it is an autobiography, it's an article quality problem. They're just following WP:IAR. --Mathnerd314159 (talk) 22:33, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

More details about Suranadira's edits: the account has been created on December 16, 2006. Since then they have produced 478 edits (enwiki: 457; commons : 16; wikidata: 5). The contributions in commons are images for Rational numerals‎‎ and Delta numerals‎‎. Among the contributions to enwiki, there are 317 "top edits" in the main space, which consist of (Data provided by X!'s tools)

• 176 in Rational numerals‎‎
• 67 in Delta numerals‎‎
• 62 in Armands Strazds
• 2 in dab pages for linking to the preceding articles
• 6 for linking to Zime an article deleted on December 24, 2006 (eight days , which was about a project created by Armands Strazds, (see below)
• 4 in quantum computing (Zime was alleged to be a quantum computer)

The page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zime is interesting to consider, as two deleted accounts (user:Strazds and User:Turdus) seem to be two accounts of Armands Strazds. I ignore when these accounts have been deleted, but it seems highly probable that Armands Strazds has created the account User: Suranadira for continuing editing after the closure of User:Turdus. A sockpuppett investigation seems needed.

In summary, User: Suranadira is a probable sockpupett, which is interested in Wikipedia only in promoting Armands Strazds, absolutely nothing else. For these reasons, I suggest a permanent ban. D.Lazard (talk) 18:07, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Since Armands Strazds is the main subject of my studies, I think I can contribute reliable information about him to Wikipedia, and that is what I am trying to do. I am also contributing minor improvements to other articles, where my expertise permits, but I probably not always remember to sign in before doing that. Suranadira (talk) 19:55, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

D.Lazard, you might want to check again the concept of Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry. I have NEVER used multiple Wikipedia user accounts. My old account Turdus was automatically renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. After that my username was Turdus~enwiki (or similar). I couldn't sufficiently identify myself with this new username, so I applied for a new one "Suranadira", and was successful. Since then I continue to use for all my edits only this one single-user account. Suranadira (talk) 23:28, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I acknowledge that there is no sockpuppetry here. IMO, the normal action against a WP:SPA, which is aimed only to unduly push a single living person and his work, should be a topic ban. However, in this case, it could be time consuming to verify that a topic ban is respected. As this account has never been used for other things than promoting a single living person and his work, there is no real difference between a topic ban and a permanent ban. Thus I continue to suggest a permanent ban. D.Lazard (talk) 09:20, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

ISIS welcome in SRO23s name

I saw this scary welcome message [207] which I think may be joke, but it is inappropriate. What should I do? Take the IP 184.97.134.128 to AIV? also, it is being done in Sro23's name. L3X1 (distant write) 18:05, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Looks like the IP is blocked. One of SRO's "admirers" obviously. RickinBaltimore (talk) 18:09, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

It's a sock. The same bozo was using Sandstein's Salvidrim!'s name yesterday. Blocked and about ten pages deleted. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:10, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. What should I do next time? CSD and take the sock to AIV? Should I always ping whoever is having false messages spread in their name? L3X1 (distant write) 18:31, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

@L3X1: Just take it to AIV. The patrolling admin should nuke the pages without needing a prompt. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:46, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Long term, repeated, false allegations by Activist

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

Over the course of 3 years Activist has repeatedly made allegations, across several articles, that I am editing on behalf of the GEO Group. He has been told numerous times that I am not and warned that allegations like this are a form of personal attack. He has tried to play the semantics game, using things like "If we apply the "Duck test," where would that lead us?" in an attempt to claim he didn't actually make the allegation or tries to link me to edits made by the company 4 years ago. As the ARBCOM noted, WP:ASPERSIONS are a form of personal attack: "An editor must not accuse another of misbehavior without evidence, especially when the accusations are repeated or severe. This especially applies to accusations of being paid by a company to promote a point of view (i.e., a shill) or similar associations and using that to attack or cast doubt over the editor in content disputes." Tracking down all the examples would be time-consuming, but a few of them are:

• "...you operating in the interest of those executives, officials or stockholders who deserve no confidence or respect."[208]
• "...essentially and exclusively mounting a corporate reputation defense, whether or not you have a COI." and "If you have some alternate explanation, why it is that rather than contributing useful information, you consistently and exclusively delete massive quantities of data that may in any way be construed to reflect poorly, particularly on GEO, but also upon those others whom you've chosen to champion."[209]
• "You've presented yourself as a neutral editor, in the spirit of Wikipedia, but in fact you seem to be adamantly opposed to balanced presentations of this corporation, and you minimize the corporate whitewashing engaged in by others for GEO"[210]
• "I note, Niteshift36 that you've made 38 of the last 107 or so edits to the GEO page, since Cohen was outed. If we apply the "Duck test," where would that lead us?"[211]
• "I further note that you've made 32 edits to the GEO Group main article, with the last signed edit by Abraham Cohen being made February 20th, 2013, though the GEO IPN was used to make subsequent sock puppet edits not long after but before you started your signed edits." (note: I've always signed my edits and never edited as a IP)[212]
• "I should have noted that since you began editing the GEO Group article, almost four years ago, after GEO employees using their own names or making IPN edits were outed, you've made about 80 edits to the article."[213]
• "You're desperately trying to whitewash and obscure the corporation's sordid history and to lead people away from any solid understanding of GEO's business mode" [214]

Some examples of a clear denial of COI editing:

• "I do not work for GEO or any of their subsidiaries, never have and have NEVER made an edit on behalf of ANY company." [215]
• "I am stating, very clearly, that I have never worked for GEO in any way shape or form."[216]

Aside from denials, warnings and invitations to go to ANI if he had evidence of the allegation, Activist was warned [217] on his talk page. Yet this continues. I hope that Activist doesn't turn this into a wall of text complaining about content issues and actually sticks to the issue: Can an editor repeatedly make an allegation, either directly or by aspersion, over a long period of time and get away with it?Niteshift36 (talk) 18:13, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

• Notified of ANI here [218]. Niteshift36 (talk) 18:14, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Just FYI your link in the title and in the body to Messrs Activist instead redirect to the letter U. The ping template is {{u|username}} . L3X1 (distant write) 18:34, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

• I actually pinged him on purpose. He has a wrong-headed belief that it is necessary to ping someone every time there's a response and that not pinging them is somehow a form of incivility or trying to "hide" something...and then I screwed up the template. Thanks. Niteshift36 (talk) 19:00, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Fixed. Primefac (talk) 18:37, 9 March 2017 (UTC)