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Aspersions at ARS

• 7&6=thirteen (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron – Rescue list (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

User is continuing to re-insert personal attacks at WP:RSL#Lessons learnt after they were reverted by me. Another editor reverted my removal and advised me to simply redact the offending portion, which I did, but 7&6 once again undid my redaction to reinsert the personal attack. In this case, the attack was the casting of aspersions on "the usual suspects" who showed up to "stealth delete" an article. This was an assumption of bad faith on all the participants of the various AFDs (three in total I think; the actual situation was a bit complicated).

This further goes against the general principle of focusing on content (or even process) rather than contributors. And it's not in line with the ostensible purpose of the project page it was posted on, which is for improving articles at AFD to the point where they can be kept, not for kvetching about an outcome you missed and didn't like.

I'm requesting that the attack (and yes, it's an attack) be removed, and for this to be kept in mind in case there are any similar problems in the future. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 17:54, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Simple statement of facts with appropriate links. This should not be a secret, and should not be kept that way. That they were able to accomplish this is a defect in the deletion process. No one is mentioned by name.

If the shoe fits, you must be Cinderella. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 18:05, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Or it could be argued it is a good thing about the process as it allows fresh views/consensus to emerge. - Sitush (talk) 18:12, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Don't make WP:POINTy comments and not own up to it when challenged. I don't even care about the underlying issue but all this pointless inflammatory comments you make like "agenda fulfilled" and "stealth deletion" is what gives ARS a bad rap. --qedk (t 愛 c) 19:35, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

@Sitush: It only works one way - for deletion. You can put an article up for deletion often- I have seen 12 AfDs on one article. However one recreation of an article brings a G4. Lightburst (talk) 18:52, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

But 7&6=13 was talking of deletion, so recreation isn't the issue here. On the other hand, G4 won't apply if the article is significantly different. The bar for deletion is pretty high usually, and that "no consensus" defaults to "keep" increases the sense of that and is contrasts weirdly with the spirit of BURDEN etc. - Sitush (talk) 19:19, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Calling people the usual suspects to push an agenda in secret is a personal attack. You have now added yet another with these edits, alleging that people are trying to act in secret. As I attempted to do with the redaction, a simple notification of the events is one thing, but assigning nefarious motives to the "usual suspects" is not. Please revert your personal attacks. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 18:18, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• I don't understand what happened. The article Yoast was nearly a SNOW keep with lots of participation. Then someone moved the page to Moz (marketing software). Followed by a new AfD just months later with a unanimous delete result by a small number of participants (no Keep voters from the original AfD were there). It is strange. How did this happen? It's not like consensus would change that radically in a few months, or so many Keep voters would suddenly all loose interest in participating. -- GreenC 18:27, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

  @GreenC: Trying to figure out what happened is fine. We also have WP:DRV for reviewing in case something went wrong. The personal attacks are not fine, and this is why I brought this up, not the odd sequence of deletion/move events. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 18:50, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: This is a big nothingburger, in that there is not a PA to be seen. It does seem like Deacon Vorbis has been edit warring over the comment in question so perhaps a boomerang is warranted. DV made 4 refactoring edits regarding the comment (here are the four: One, two, three, four). Additionally, GreenC is correct about the article's somewhat-stealthy deletion. If it walks like a duck... Lightburst (talk) 18:39, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

  For the record, I made 2 full reverts and one redaction; I undid a third revert of my own to err on the safe side of 3RR (which frankly should be granted a little leeway for personal attacks anyway, but that's another story). Accusing people of behaving stealthily and to promote an agenda is a personal attack. Canvassing for like-minded editors at WP:RSL for a purely behavioral issue as 7&6 did is problematic as well. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 18:50, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

  Not accurate, I listed four times you refactored. Your fifth edit was a refactor of your fourth refactor of the comment, after you were warned for edit warring. Lightburst (talk) 18:55, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

  You don't get to count a fourth when someone immediately reverts himself. I reverted the fourth one of those immediately, before any warning was made (check the timestamps, I reverted myself 13 minutes before any warning was left, and even if it were after, that's still usually good enough). That leaves me at 2 or 3 (depending on how you count the {{rpa}}, which was even advised in place of a full revert). –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 19:06, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• Meh. I don't see much different from something like I'm still baffled at your obdurate refusal to acknowledge policy and the present state of the article....I WP:AGF and your befuddlement (or deliberate blindness) is irrelevant, or No thanks to you and this wasted exercise, Keep your mask on and your head down (while at the same time reprimanding another editor for an ad hominem). All in a days work. ——Serial 18:41, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

  Not sure why you'd "meh" after finding more examples of similar problems. Maybe some sort of (partial) topic ban? Just spitballing, maybe something like "no personal comments at ARS/AFD/other deletion-related venues"? This would allow 7&6 to still list articles at RSL and participate in AFDs as long as they don't get personal about anything. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 18:58, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

I talked about process only.

There was no WP:PA.

Unlike User:Deacon Vorbis who has been blocked three times for them, and know what he is talking about.

He just wants to stifle any dissent from his choochoo's progress. Bad policy; slippery slope. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 19:38, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Statements like He just wants to stifle any dissent from his choochoo's progress are uncivil. That you don't understand that is mind-boggling. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 19:40, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Levivich That you don't understand Prior restraint seems to befit you. So my mind is not boggled. But I am bothered by the policy implications. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 19:44, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

IMO the "worst" part is that you make your uncivil comments, which are sometimes outright personal attacks, in separate edits, and you just keep on compounding them. These are nine of your most-recent fifteen edits:

1. "Stealth deletion is for real. "
2. "The usual suspects voted delete."
3. "An agenda fulfilled."
4. Restoring the above, twice (with an assist)
5. Describing the above as "Simple statement of facts" and asserting "This should not be a secret, and should not be kept that way. That they were able to accomplish this is a defect in the deletion process.", while excusing it because "No one is mentioned by name.", and then ending with "If the shoe fits, you must be Cinderella." - You're contradicting yourself: are you exposing a secret, or was no one mentioned by name, or does the shoe fit?
6. "There are those who want this series of transactions kept secret. The Star Chamber will brook no contempt."
7. "He just wants to stifle any dissent from his choochoo's progress."
8. "That you don't understand Prior restraint seems to befit you." - That doesn't even make sense. I'm complaining about things you've already said; that's not prior restraint (which is stopping someone from saying something before they say it). It would be good if you exercised some restraint though, prior or otherwise. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 19:53, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• Just another example of the ARS types being allowed to say what they like about other people, while everyone else has to walk on eggshells. Let's be clear: when you badmouth someone and everyone knows who you're talking about, it's still a personal attack even if you don't mention their name directly. Reyk _YO! 20:22, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Do you have any examples of this? For years you have insulted the ARS everywhere you get a chance to. And no one knows who he was talking about, no one went there to look at all the names and try to figure out who these people were. Dream Focus 22:31, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
    • Right...^ like that time Reyk called me a pathetic loser. you have been quite insulting. Why not post an article on the ARS page and lets work together? This animosity is quite uncomfortable. Lightburst (talk) 23:04, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
    • Here are four recent examples of AFDs in which (1) 7&6, LB, and DF all !vote keep (twice joined by AD), and (2) at least one or more of them accuse the nom and/or delete !voters of violating policy in one way or another: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beer hall, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joseph Henderson (pilot), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hamilton McWhorter III, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tolulope Arotile (2nd nomination). There are many, many more like this. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 23:51, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

  (edit conflict)The first one has ten keeps and no deletes but the nominator. The second one has 9 people voted keep, not just us. The third had six keeps and no deletes and the nominator withdrew their nomination. A lot of people voted in the fourth one. What's your point? Where exactly did someone accuse someone of something that wasn't true? Post some links. I certainly don't do that. Dream Focus 23:57, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

OK, let's just talk about one behavior: accusing noms/delete !voters of, e.g., not understanding policy, failing to perform a WP:BEFORE search, etc.:

1. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beer hall
   • 7&6: "No compliance with WP:Before."
   • DF: "Please remember to do a brief check for sources WP:BEFORE nominating something for deletion."
   • LB: "obviously a WP:BEFORE fail. WP:TROUT to nominator"
   • 7&6 again: "Get involved with the WP:TAFI (Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement) project ... This would be a much more fitting way to resolve this outcome, rather than this misbegotten nomination to delete a clearly notable subject. That's my gentle suggestion, FWIW. Cheers"
2. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joseph Henderson (pilot)
   • AD: "The nomination seems to misrepresent the content of the article." and "The fact that this is not understood, further demonstrates the invalidity of the nomination." which aren't uncivil or personal attacks, but are still comments directed at the nominator.
   • 7&6: "And there is an obvious and obdurate refusal to read the sources and the article and references, so that WP:Before is being flaunted."
3. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hamilton McWhorter III (I'm thinking of changing my username to this)
   • 7&6: "Proving WP:Before ignored."
   • LB: "Strong Keep WP:SNOW WP:PILEON Ouch! WP:BEFORE yields a notable WWII Ace." (If a pile on is "ouch" then why are you piling on?)
4. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tolulope Arotile (2nd nomination)
   • 7&6 (emphasis in the original): "WP:SNOW Wikipedia:Speedy keep broke a 55 year old record of the Nigerian Airforce to become THE FIRST NIGERIAN FEMALE COMBAT HELICOPTER PILOT ... Given the present sourcing, this AFD is a travesty. Clearly no compliance (pretended or otherwise) with WP:Before."
   • 7&6 again: "But it won't satisfy the die hards. We will have to agree to disagree, and let the process play out. She should be in WP:ITN as a recent death, but we have this wasteful sideshow going on."
   • AD: "So, [delete !voter's] case rests on a complete misunderstanding and misrepresentation of WP:1E. Essentially it's WP:IDONTLIKEIT with a veneer of flawed Wikilawyering."
5. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul R. Gregory
   • 7&6: "Rather than doing the AFD wrecking bar/crowbar — AfD is not cleanup, and this subject rather clearly meets GNG — you might try a different tool I suggest that this would be a good candidate for this week's article for improvement. Get involved with the WP:TAFI (Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement) project ... This would be a much more fitting way to resolve this outcome, rather than this misbegotten nomination to delete a clearly notable subject. That's my gentle suggestion, FWIW. Cheers."
   • 7&6 again: "Proving there was no compliance with WP:Before. The article creator's WP:SPA status is now an irrelevancy. Argumentum ad hominen fallacy."
6. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Recreation room
   • 7&6: Same stock line about TAFI, "misbegotten nomination", etc.
   • 7&6 again: "Q.E.D., no compliance with WP:Before."
   • 7&6 again: "And not even pretended compliance with WP:Before."
7. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suparatana Bencharongkul (2nd nomination)
   • 7&6: "Not the article it was when we started this AFD. See WP:Before. Further, the alleged WP:COI of the article's creator is an irrelevant fallacy; Argumentum ad hominem."
8. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Meadowbrook Country Club (Chesterfield County, Virginia)
   • 7&6: "Not the article it was when we started this AFD. See WP:Before. Further, the alleged WP:COI of the article's creator is an irrelevant fallacy; Argumentum ad hominem."
9. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Life Mel Honey
   • LB: "[delete !voter] was canvassed to this AfD." - this is an amazing statement, given that in every one of the AFDs on this list (and many more), LB, 7&6 and DF voted !keep, often joined by other ARS members.
   • DF: "you deliberately canvassed someone you knew would agree with you on this" <-- that's what ARS does!
10. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Freimann Hotel Building
    • LB: "I always find it to be bad form for a nominator to constantly diminish the article during an AfD. Please stop. and allow the AfD process to complete. It is clear that you favor deletion so diminishing the article to favor your desired outcome is not good form."
11. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cary S. Cox
    • The closer, Spartaz wrote, "I see this was listed for rescue by a COI editor and a bunch of rescue regulars voted to keep with assertive arguments. I'm not going to give those votes much weight."
    • Followed by User talk:Spartaz#Cary S. Cox:
      • LB: "You had a disturbing statement in your close. ... I am not going to leave a slap like that unchallenged. ... I did not just turn up and reflexively !vote. the other ARS members did the same, ... If you have a problem with the ARS and feel like publicly dismissing their participation perhaps you should recuse yourself from the AfD. I ask that you relist or back out the closing and allow an uninvolved admin to deal with the AfD."
      • 7&6: "Oh yes. You've admitted your bias. WP:ARS takes articles and improves them. ... You need to rethink your bias. ... I've been the subject of personal attacks, which claimed I "always" voted Keep. I know that isn't true. ... But if you are thinking about discounting my votes in the future, you might bear that in mind. You ought to choose your jockeys, not just your horses. ... And there are those who habitually start WP:AFDs without an effective WP:Before; half-assed observance (I WP:AGF) is often found. You need a list? In short, it is easier to delete articles than it is to create and improve them. There are those who actually brag about their body count of deleted articles."

These are just some examples, and I'll note they have much in common. What's my point? My point is this ANI report has merit. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 01:35, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

You should write some articles. You have only written a few and from what I see you spend all of your time doing this ^ and casting aspersions against the ARS. You should look closer at the McWhorter article. I WP:HEYd that article. After that I wrote about three articles for other aces - and other notable articles about organizations related. What have you done? Following and poking people and gathering diffs of nothing - sending up walls of text. I wrote these articles after McWhorter was improved... Cecil G. Foster, Clayton Kelly Gross, Dean S. Laird, Distinguished Flying Cross Society, American Fighter Aces Association, and an article about an acrobat Andrii Bondarenko. Also after my talk page discussion with Spartaz, they had this to say about me. You really should edit the encyclopedia instead of following and lurking around the drama boards. You have also AfDd some articles that I started out of spite. Honestly...edit the encyclopedia...look at my edits from the last two days, I was on vacation last week so my productivity fell off, but since then I have been an editing fool. One might say....as was discussed in this ANI about you...that you are tendentious. Now lets get to work on the encyclopedia Lev. And quit following and harassing, and typing walls of texts. This is going nowhere. Lightburst (talk) 02:32, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

and from what I see you spend all of your time doing this ^ and casting aspersions against the ARS. Considering how frequently I see Levivich's edits on my watchlist on a variety of topics (which often disheartens me, because their arguments are typically civil and well-written and in complete disagreement with my stance politically), I am very puzzled how one can claim they go on wikipedia solely to harass ARS editors. The rest of this comment is a pretty unambiguous PA. JoelleJay (talk) 04:05, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Probably thinking of the many times he's done this in the past such as at Template:Did_you_know_nominations/S.W._Randall_Toyes_and_Giftes in the hatted section. Dream Focus 04:13, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

That AFD follows the same pattern as the previous 11:

12. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/S.W. Randall Toyes and Giftes (2nd nomination)

• LB: "... misleading characterizations of the RS by the nominator. The nomination is vexatious ..."
• 7&6: "Snow keep for reasons already decided at the first AFD. YGBSM! This is just serial disruption, akin to WP:Vandalism. Indeed, this nominator User:Levivich chose not to participate in the last AFD. He slept in the weeds and now uses an ambush. Instead he wants a do-over. The alleged sock made one edit amounting to a short paragraph. Essentially, this is an argumentum ad hominem and is irrelevant. There is no "guilt by association" recognized in Wikipedia. And there is nothing other than coincidental editing of the same article; and no proof of anything beyond that. Moreover, he ignores the WP:RSsourcing of this article, including the books" - I discussed every source in the nom statement.
• 7&6 again: "Hopefully this nominator will internalize this lesson for future use and stop wasting our time on pointless exercises." Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 04:22, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• You did nominate an article for deletion the same day the previous AFD closed as KEEP. Most people in the AFD who said KEEP this second time around weren't from the ARS. That should be taken into context with their statements there. Dream Focus 04:27, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

  13. The first AFD followed the same ARS pattern: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/S.W Randall Toyes & Gifts, with 7&6 writing, "Q.E.D., no compliance with WP:Before". Here's another more recent one:

  14. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ratonero Murciano de Huerta - Stuff 7&6 said:

  • "WP:Speedy Keep WP:Snow Keep Keep Lots of sources here and there. Meets WP:GNG. This is an example of language-based systemic bias in Wikipedia. No compliance with WP:Before. WP:Not paper and WP:Preserve."
  • This exchange is great:
    • Cavalryman (the nom): "As opposed to casting aspersions can you indicate any of these sources? ..."
    • 7&6: "These dogs have similar make up, disposition and mission. ..."
    • Cavalryman: "That sounds a lot like WP:Original research, do you have any source indicating these dogs are in any way related beyond your statement that they have similar make up, disposition and mission?"
    • 7&6: "Do you have anything that says they aren't?" <-- I mean, seriously? It's notable because you don't have any sources that says it's not notable? What do you call that kind of an argument? "Ninedentious"? "Elevendentious"? I don't remember. Back to stuff 7&6 said:
  • To a delete !voter: "I assume you read the article, but maybe not."
  • To Cavalryman, another statement that shows incredible lack of self-awareness: "You are attempting to pollute and dictate a result by purging legitimate sources. Let the article stand or fall at AFD on its merits, not your wrong-headed analysis. Your response also appears to be a breach of WP:Civil. It is a curious blend of stereotyping WP:Personal attacks and Ad hominem fallacy. It appears you are unfamiliar with WP:Civil; can I suggest you take the time to correct that."
  • "That "the AfD nominator eviscerates the article to favor deletion" is a fact. It is happening here. You make it your practice. If you are right that the article as it stands should be deleted, then your point is made. But if not, what you are doing is poisoning the well and skewing this process up."
  • "As I predicted earlier, you don't like Spanish sources, and can't read them. Wikipedia systemic bias. I know you won't withdraw this misbegotten nomination; and I know there is no pleasing you. We will have to let the process play out. Walls of text and nattering won't make this clearer."
  • "Glad that the nominator has withdrawn this. His serial edits are self explanatory, and deserve scrutiny. Res ipsa loquitur"
  • To another delete !voter: "Here's a novel suggestion. Fix the articles yourself. You have time to delete them, but not time to improve them. Or get involved with the WP:TAFI (Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement) project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations This would be a much more fitting way to resolve this outcome, rather than this misbegotten nomination to delete a clearly notable subject. That's my gentle suggestion, FWIW. We are supposed to be building an encyclopedia; not tearing up the tracks. It's on you; it's your moral choice"
  • "CM, Your opinion is duly noted. For what it is worth. My opinion stands. No thanks to you and this wasted exercise"

  That's all from just one AFD in July. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 04:49, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

  One take-home message is that if a delete voter participated in a previous AfD that's bad and wrong. If they didn't, that's also bad and wrong. Reyk _YO! 07:54, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• • (edit conflict) Out of context. What I said was: "KEEP Reliable sources have been found proving it passes the general notability guidelines, and the article has been massively expanded since the time it was nominated for deletion. Also click Google news at the top of the AFD, and the first page of results has a New York Times article discussing first a single Beer Hall, then the Beer Hall in general. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/06/world/europe/germany-beer-halls.html Please remember to do a brief check for sources WP:BEFORE nominating something for deletion." That was not rude in any way, just pointing out how easy it was to find sources for that particular one, and politely asking them by saying the word "please". Dream Focus 02:35, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

"Easy" is relative. Eg: despite what some people in the US seem to think, not everyone in the world can access the NYT in quite the same way and it is this sort of arrogance that can really piss people off. - Sitush (talk) 05:01, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Many US newspapers are inaccessible online in Europe because of US concerns about the effect of the EU General Data Protection Regulation - link. Searching is not as easy as you might think. Narky Blert (talk) 11:40, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

@Sitush and Narky Blert: I have just written Wikipedia:How to access US news websites for this. As the title is impossible to remember I also created the shortcut WP:EVADEGDPR. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 13:13, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Alexis Jazz, and I will take a look. However, my point still stands: the arrogance of assuming everyone has access to everything is bloody annoying. There are loads of sources and repositories that are not universally accessible. - Sitush (talk) 13:46, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz: Thanks. Your #1 is my standard trick; it's especially good if you have a headline. I'll have a look at the others. Narky Blert (talk) 14:53, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• I have been pinged so I will give my 2c, the above mentioned AFD was a particularly robust discussion, but I wasn’t particularly concerned by any insults thrown at me. What I have observed is during an AfD (or Merger) discussion, Thirteen bombs articles with clearly self-published and unreliable rubbish sources as well as clearly irrelevant or erroneous information cited to reliable sources. If another editor raises this issue or removes these sources, Thirteen reverts then either refuses to respond to any discussion meaningfully or denies what is clearly articulated to them, this can clearly be seen by their interactions with me during Talk:Livestock guardian dog#Livestock guardian dog and Mountain dog, the above linked AFD and Talk:Ratonero Murciano#Quality of the sources as well as Thirteen’s interactions with Peacemaker67 at Talk:Hamilton McWhorter III#Unreliable sources which they chose to take to User talk:Peacemaker67#Fix it Hamilton McWhorter III. I am unsure what the solution is, but this kind of behaviour is clearly not constructive. Cavalryman (talk) 11:52, 3 August 2020 (UTC).

As a touch point, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yoast SEO has been relisted. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:25, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• People have been raising issues about ARS for literally more than a decade. The page has been MfDed over and over again, there have been RfCs, there have been noticeboard threads. Sometimes it's about one member that inevitably turns into a discussion of ARS; sometimes it's about ARS and then focuses on one or two members. There's always evidence of battleground behavior, assumptions of bad faith, and canvassing, and there's always evidence of articles improved and sources found. There are fingers pointed back at the "deletionists" and the discussion always sprawls to be about deletion process, notability, behavioral issues of several different people, and eventually the purpose of Wikipedia. The most common outcome goes something like this: "The fundamental ARS idea is good, there are good outcomes, and there are also problems. Knock off the battleground stuff and be more careful about how you use the project or someday something might happen." Then we're here again. At this point I'm doubtful any of these threads will result in any sort of action. It'll probably require an arbcom case to do a full accounting of evidence. That's where complicated, sprawling behavioral issues can be separated from good projects. The problem (problem?) is, I don't know if it never quite gets bad enough to merit an arbcom case, so I'm torn. An arb case could probably help this years-long constant low-level issue, but does arbcom want to be involved with relatively low level issues? I don't know (and to be clear, I'm not actually suggesting anyone open a case at this time). For historical context, there was actually a case request in 2013 which was declined. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:05, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I participate in a lot of AfDs, and only vote when I think an article should be kept, so I'm sympathetic with the goals of ARS, although I'm not part of that group myself. That being said, the quotes listed above are pretty shocking. There really isn't a good reason to talk that way in an AfD — it's nasty, it promotes an unhealthy environment, and most importantly, it doesn't actually make you any more successful at achieving your goal.

I don't always live up to that myself; I've had moments of frustration and posted snarky personal things that I wish I hadn't. If someone were to go through my AfD contributions and pick out my worst moments (note: please do not do this), then I would have to look at them and say, yeah, that was unhelpful and unproductive — and most of the time, it didn't work and I lost the argument anyway. I would apologize, and I would say that I'm going to try to be better than that. That's the kind of mature self-reflection that I would expect to see from someone confronted with a big list of borderline-mean things that they'd said. I'm surprised to see people looking at those examples, and saying that it's someone else's fault. — Toughpigs (talk) 17:28, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: Topic ban

Given the overall WP:BATTLEGROUND-mentality of the original comments that prompted this thread, as well as the subsequent ones listed by Serial and Levivich, along with the general WP:IDHT response to a behavioral complaint with not only a refusal to admit that something might be wrong, but also making more of the same kinds of comment, I propose:

7&6=thirteen is banned from commenting on anyone's behavior (explicitly or implicitly, broadly construed, including, but not limited to, speculating on motives) in any discussion or edit summary involving article deletion. They may still contribute to deletion discussions, WP:ARS, etc., as long as comments are focused on articles, sourcing, and so on.

• Support as proposer. Tweaks to the language are certainly welcome. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 20:12, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support- this user's snide and erroneous aspersions are becoming habit. Reyk _YO! 20:22, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:POT and WP:SAUCE. It is easy to find cases of DV getting into slanging matches with other editors such as this. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:43, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose There was nothing uncivil and there was no PA. This is Deacon Vorbis getting all worked up and engaging in an edit war. DV is upset that there was a warning for their edit war. Lightburst (talk) 21:51, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose No basis for any sanction. No personal attacks. Simple statement of fact. Indeed, the emperor has no clothes.

Indeed, that they are characterizing some of my defenses at this very proceeding as 'misconduct' shows the paucity of their argument and their desperation. There ought to be an evidentiary privilege against use of such arguments.

If such a rule does not exist, and the statements are used, the compilation of such an accusatory list should itself justify a WP:Boomerang. WP:SAUCE.

The proposers of this are simply carrying on AFD discussions (which they generally lost) in a new and different forum. That they did not like those results is no reason to let them rule here. And they have been hostile to me for years. I could cite to these, but Ad hominem arguments are irrelevant on both side of this proposal.

No reason for a Prior restraint. Bad policy. We ought to be able to comment on AFDs, and artificial, ambiguous and evanescent lines won't help. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 22:16, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• OPPOSE Someone was upset that an article they worked to save got deleted without anyone noticing. This happens all too often. This time none of the people who voted to delete it voted in the previous AFD for it, so it is not the same people gaming the system, as does happen quite a lot. Was the AFD mentioned on a wikiproject discussion for company articles? Anyway, no reason to blow things out of proportion here. No one should edit war to erase someone's comment though. If you have a problem with it then enter a discussion about it. Dream Focus 22:20, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose: Per Lightburst and Dream Focus. Darkknight2149 04:36, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - all the !votes above seem to be very tribal. If you don't like ARS, support; if you're part of ARS, oppose. Not sure they have anything much to do with the person or proposal terms. - Sitush (talk) 04:59, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
• When this type of sanction was tried with other editors, it caused more trouble than it cured. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 05:06, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• To clarify, are you suggesting that we get rid of topic bans? Darkknight2149 05:13, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

  No. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 05:17, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support per my diffs above. I also support the closing admin dismissing out of hand the comments and/or !votes here of ARS regulars (they have self-identified through the WP:BLUDGEONing of this discussion which is microcosmic of many of the AfD discussions they pile in to). ——Serial 13:21, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - I agree with Lightburst. And please...the t-ban proposal is ridiculous. A behavioral issue (and in this case, one that doesn't exist) cannot be a topic ban. Topic banning is for topics. Our admins can make much better use of their time than wasting it here. See WP:Thicker skin sanction. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:57, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

−

• Am I the only one amused that in an discussion accusing ARS members of voting en bloc that a group of ARS members vote en bloc to oppose a sanction? More seriously, its not entirely the case that the ARS is a canvassing page for keep votes but there was a serious attempt many years ago (IIRC correctly and I can't be bothered to do any research to back up my assertion with evidence) to close it down because of that concern and as a response ARS members adjusted their approach and made a real effort to make more detailed & policy based arguments that defused the concern to a large degree. I have a sense that recently some votes from ARS members responding to rescue requests have drifted away from this. While I had some thoughts about this after the discussion cited above it hadn't felt like we were anywhere near the point where we needed to look at this. I do agree that some of the personalised comments need to stop and I would ask ARS members and those opposing their mission to step back a bit. It would be a good thingb if there was a bit less righteous indignation on both sides and a bit more remembering that everyone here is a volunteer with the aim of making the encyclopaedia better. Maybe its time that AFD closers simply discarded votes from users ascribing motivations to other users instead of discussing the merits of the article? Spartaz ^Humbug! 05:16, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• If we did that, then there would be a tonne of comments that are just repeats of each other. Sometimes other people either beat you to the punch, or say what you were going to say in better or more concise terms. It's not just one "type" of user that does this, it's basically everyone in any discussion - people who want it kept, people who want it deleted, people who want chocolate, people who want vanilla, people who want pink, people who want yellow, etc. Selectively discarding votes just makes it easier to game discussions and I don't think that's a precedent anyone wants to set. (For the record, I have absolutely nothing to do with ARS. Most of my time on Wikipedia is spent helping out with comic-related topics, getting horror articles to GA or FA quality, monitoring articles and removing chunks of original research/uncited material, and occasionally dealing with disruption or vandalism). Darkknight2149 05:35, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• The bloc/tribal voting is kind of helping prove Deacon Vorbis's case for him. I don't think that qualifies as "irony", but it's still pretty amusing. --Calton | Talk 12:09, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• There is nothing nefarious here. I follow those I respect - and I respect those who work on content...7&6 is just such an editor. My interests are in content creation and improvement and the ARS and 7&6 have the same interests. If we take those who are snarly to ANI there may be quite a few among you here in the soup. I could jam up this ani of diffs of Levivich casting aspersions, following, pooping on DYKs, AfDing articles of mine, and !voting to delete articles out of spite...and serial# often cosigning. Reyk - I do not understand the extreme dislike of those who improve articles. Reyk had an editor friend who was recently indeffed and I think that they blame the ARS. I think Reyk is a fine editor - unfortunately Reyk thinks I am a pathetic loser. These discussions are brutal and they can be cathartic - yet they are also time wasters. We have articles to write and improve. Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass. Cheers. Lightburst (talk) 14:02, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• There is nothing nefarious here. Nothing, other than the standard bloc voting that has always been ARS's stock in trade since it has existed.
• Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass Coming from you and the other ARS tribalists, that's pretty hilarious. Thanks for helping me make up my mind here on how to vote. --Calton | Talk 03:08, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

• I believe we all noticed the edit warring Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron – Rescue list and came here. Dream Focus 16:04, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Which, as you well know, is one of the reasons why ARS gets so much bad press: you work as a team through that list. Perhaps not co-ordinated as such but nonetheless it is like a honeypot. It is why all the accusations of gaming canvassing restrictions have flown around for years and it is showing again in this thread. - Sitush (talk) 16:54, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

It was already shown previously that some things on that list get no one to go there and vote keep. Someone even did a comparison chart for everything listed and how many people from the ARS showed up each time and what the result was, and how many made improvements to the article or found sources to mention in the AFD. There is no canvassing, it nothing different than all the other Wikiprojects who list things in them. Dream Focus 17:52, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

It is very different. No other project is centred on AfD participation. As an example, again from my experience, the delsorting that goes on for the India project only rarely seems to attract experienced contributors from the project. - Sitush (talk) 18:07, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose I wouldn't exactly call this a topic ban. WP: TOPIC BAN states that topic bans relate to pages on a certain subject, so they have nothing to do with making comments about other Wikipedia users. That would be an IBAN. In this case, I could support a warning to both sides for mutual personal attacks, but this strange, fake "topic ban" is quite unnecessary. Naomi.piquette (talk) 18:57, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
• Reply I stand by what I said. WP:Before is something that can and should be implemented before making an AFD and before deleting an article. The various quotations are taken out of context; and what I said was fair appropriate comment and argument at an AFD, as verified by the results and the comments of the closers.
  

1. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/S.W Randall Toyes & Gifts Per the closer: "The result was speedy keep."
2. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ratonero Murciano de Huerta Per the closer: " The result was keep; withdrawn by nominator."
3. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Meadowbrook Country Club (Chesterfield County, Virginia) Per the closer: " The result was no consensus. No further comments after the article was improved"
4. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul R. Gregory Per the closer: " The result was Speedy Keep. Nominator has withdrawn, unanimous consent to Keep, helpful advice has been given, no reason to keep this up any longer."
5. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tolulope Arotile (2nd nomination) Per the closer: " The result was no consensus. I'm not seeing obvious evidence of mass canvassing here to discount opinions from experienced and long standing editors."
6. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beer hall Per the closer: "The result was speedy keep. The German Wikipedia also has a couple useful sources."
7. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joseph Henderson (pilot) Per the closer: "The result was keep."
8. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hamilton McWhorter III Per the closer: "The result was keep. Nomination withdrawn."
9. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Recreation room Per the closer: " The result was keep per WP:NOTCLEANUP and WP:SNOW. (non-admin closure)"
10. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suparatana Bencharongkul (2nd nomination) Per the closer: " The result was keep."
11. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Life Mel Honey Per the closer: " The result was delete."
12. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Freimann Hotel Building Per the closer: " The result was keep."
    

They don't like the comments because they were true and effective.
This is all about sour grapes by persons who were on the losing side in these discussions. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:14, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support based on the above "what I said was fair appropriate comment and argument at an AFD" and "They don't like the comments because they were true and effective. This is all about sour grapes by persons who were on the losing side in these discussions." I'm still not sure this sanction will be effective though. ^Lev!v^ich 15:07, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support. Gosh, @Lightburst:, maybe someone should drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass, don't you think? --Calton | Talk 03:08, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. It is bed time for me. Zzzzz. Apologies I find it difficult to have so much animosity directed at the ARS, and 7&6 does as well. Constant accusations, and even an admin calling us ARSHOLES... it is not your fault and you have never been WP:UNCIVIL so apologies to you if I offended. Have a good night, I am going to unfollow this sh&t show and edit articles. Makes me happier than this thread. lol. Lightburst (talk) 03:17, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Constant accusations? This thread has dozen of quotes of accusations by 7&6 and their response -- just above -- was that because the articles were a keep, "what I said was fair appropriate comment and argument at an AFD, as verified by the results and the comments of the closers ... They don't like the comments because they were true and effective. This is all about sour grapes by persons who were on the losing side in these discussions." And you're saying it's ARS that is the target of the accusations? Where in those 14 AFDs in which 7&6 makes accusations against the various noms does anyone make any accusation against ARS? Nowhere. ^Lev!v^ich 03:23, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I am sure 7&6 is defensive just like I am tonight. Remember when you thought I gave you a PA and I struck it? But you will not...says a lot about you Lev. You rub your hands with glee when drama starts. Maybe 7&6 is spoiling from a bunch of "jerks" or "a&sholes" not doing their due diligence before AfDing. 7&6 is a net positive to the project. I have been a part of many saves and dyks with him. He may be a acerbic but he makes policy and guideline arguments and he is an expert at improving the articles. If you want an article whipped into shape, ask him to help. check out Bertha Boronda I did this a while ago and asked him t help. It is a winner now from his editing. Anyway...you guys talk amongst yourselves....I am out. I will go write some more articles. The project needs 7&6 - not sure it needs...? Lightburst (talk) 03:43, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Go to bed Lightburst, you're not helping anyone or anything, even with your coy .... ——Serial 03:49, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Gracias (Personal attack removed) Lightburst (talk) 03:51, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

(ec) You mean this one from January? I'd forgotten all about it. Must've been distracted by the recent ones: ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ ^Lev!v^ich 03:59, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Lightburst, I am finding your claims that your being here is distracting you from building the encyclopedia hard to swallow. You and Thirteen teamed up in the above mentioned AfD to fill the article with completely unreliable sources, as well as utterly irrelevant information and equivocation intertwined with a little original research to blatantly WP:REFBOMB. And you did it together, working as a team. Most charitably it could be described as attempted WP:GAMING, I would argue it was WP:NOTHERE. Neither of you did a single thing to establish the subject’s notability, when called out both of you refused to discuss the issues, instead you chose to cast aspersions.

You wonder why there is so much animosity directed at the ARS? It’s because some of you deliberately disrupt legitimate attempts to improve the encyclopedia, and you do so as a team. As Thirteen’s comments in this thread attest, you see some AfDs as contests to win. Such an approach detracts time from those that ARE HERE to build an encyclopedia. Cavalryman (talk) 09:46, 5 August 2020 (UTC).

Very strange claim @Cavalryman:. You are a difficult person. I see you turned the article in question Ratonero Murciano back into a stub when your AfD failed. Nice. You generated no consensus do so...and thanks to you unilateral move, the article sucks again, just like when we found it. A clearly notable subject that you nominated without a before... and after the article was referenced, and built, up you withdrew. Next you waited a short, while and stripped out everything - going against talk page discussion. You removed: origin of the breed, appearance section, health, the See also section, the further reading, and 12 of the 14 references. Such a shame... and again, it does not serve the readers. So is there animosity directed at ARS? yes - and quite a bit comes from you. The article was a keep in that form - the talk page generated consensus not to make those changes, and you destroyed the article anyway. Congrats. Oh, and I see you changed the name of the page - also unilaterally. We saved the article because it was notable, you made a mistake..yet now you are still grinding over it, even after you have ruined it. congrats. Lightburst (talk) 21:19, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

As to the Ratanero article, it was "The result was keep; withdrawn by nominator. BD2412" and the nominator was User:Cavalryman. And after he does that he maligns the sources, and removed them. Doing that by indirection he could not do by direction. And y'all thinks this is fine behavior? 7&6=thirteen (☎) 21:55, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I made this comment when Cavalryman was deleting things during the AfD: Comment every once in a while I came to an AfD. I improve the article, and then the AfD nominator eviscerates the article to favor deletion. I did quite a bit of work to the article, and the work of editors should stand until this AfD completes. If anyone disagrees lets discuss on the talk page. Lightburst. And it looks like I was being prophetic... the evisceration happened after the AfD concluded and the article was name changed. I am sure none of this makes those who refer to me as some sort of problem and or (Arshole) will think better of me, however it should raise your eyebrows. I mean, what are we doing here? Are we building an encyclopedia-or diminishing it. Lightburst (talk) 21:42, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Can either of you point to a single thing you added to the article that does not fit the above description? I note Thirteen is continuing their belligerent attempts to introduce clearly unreliable or irrelevant "sources" [1] whilst they still have not responded to any of my very clear attempts to discuss their & Lightburst's unreliable and irrelevant contributions, both during the AfD [2][3] and afterwards [4].

Further, as I clearly stated multiple times during the AfD, if reliable sources could be presented I would gladly withdraw the nomination, Neodop did so [5] and I immediatly withdrew the nomination [6]. Cavalryman (talk) 23:11, 5 August 2020 (UTC).

And now Lightburst is continuing the BATTLEGROUND behaviour [7] after again being called out above, I await the arrival of Thirteen's !vote. Neither have given any response in the preceding TP section about their "sources". Cavalryman (talk) 23:50, 5 August 2020 (UTC).

Getting consensus is the opposite of battleground, - here is an idea, which I do not think is my own. Lets not display WP:OWN behavior. We do things by consensus, like we do during AfD. You are acting alone in opposition to consensus. Consensus is a policy. It may be messy and not as quick as doing as you please, but it is policy. Lightburst (talk) 23:53, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose, with a caveat If there are repeated personal attacks, they can be dealt with via normal sanctions. I do not see much rising to that level here (although I do see evidence of BATTLEGROUND behaviour, even in this discussion - "The proposers of this are simply carrying on AFD discussions (which they generally lost)" If you're seeing AfD as winning and losing, you're not treating it for what it is - a method of improving Wikipedia by both saving articles which are worthwhile, and deleting those that aren't). Any admin who is experienced in closing AfDs will know that there are certain users whose comments at AfD can generally be taken with less weight; without mentioning names, there is one long term user whose entire AfD modus operandi is to find any Google reference to the subject and say "Keep - it's been written about", but then equally there's another one whose votes are inevitably "Delete - not notable". AfD is not a head-counting operation, and any admin who treats it as one should not be closing them. Black Kite (talk) 03:30, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support The examples provided by Levivich and Reyk illustrate a pattern of assume-bad-faith accusations that are not positive contributions to the consensus-building process. There are occasionally AFDs that should not have been nominated in the first place, but "SNOW KEEP" and "should not have been nominated" !votes should not be showing up in discussions that have already received a range of responses. Likewise, "No WP:BEFORE Compliance" is thrown around way too much; perhaps the nom didn't have access to all sources, wasn't impressed by the sources they found or maybe they just overlooked something. It's also concerning that 7&6 uses "Keep" outcomes to justify this behavior "They don't like the comments because they were true and effective" (they're not) as if that makes it all OK. Regardless of the good work done by ARS, we need to address the battleground-style personal attacks, conspiracy theorizing and refbombing. Articles that have been improved should speak for themselves with no need for these aggressive tactics at AfD. –dlthewave ☎ 15:22, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

These were keep votes because the articles should be kept. And the unwillingness of editors to do their homework before trotting out an AFD is problematical. Additionally, most if not all of those articles I helped build and source; and if the sources were available to me, and resulted in keep, the ends and means are coextensive. We were building a better encyclopedia. And as debates go on, it becomes apparent that they are a WP:Snow candidate, which I might note. Indeed, the AFD nominators withdrew several of the articles complained about above.

As to the perception that this is a battleground mentality, I only used the word "losers" to make plain the conflict of those who appear here, and acted in an outwardly hostile and unbending manner at the AFDs. Indeed, there are those editors who boast on their talk page about the number of article the helped delete.

The primary goal at WP:ARS for me was and is always article improvement. If I didn't think that the article should be a keep: I would have said so, or I would not have participated in the discussion.

That you can blink away an Admin telling an editor that he is an "ARShole", with the support of others, says a lot. We are all volunteers here.

The confluence between my votes and the outcomes is because the articles deserved to be kept, and should not have been nominated in the first instance. I choose my articles to improve carefully. I have been told that I had an 87% rate where I was with the majority and the outcome. I do not personally know if that was (or is) true, as I do not scoreboard.

Finally, I have managed to take many articles from AFD to DYK and appearances on the main page.

Thank you for you consideration. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 18:44, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. I recommend all parties involved get away from the keyboard for a while & clear their heads. Wikipedia will still be here while you're gone. It's Summer in the Northern Hemisphere, a good time to do something else for a while. -- llywrch (talk) 18:44, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

This was the beginning of this brouhaha.

Yoast

It may be kept; it may be deleted later.

Kept. Per the closer, "the outcome was is now inevitable."

Think about it. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 19:20, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Don't take my words out of context to justify your battlefield approach and to purport a view to myself that I do not ascribe to. Dial it down. It's rude and childish and should really stop right now. Spartaz ^Humbug! 23:58, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I accurately quoted you and put in the context. Spartaz I was not trying to make you take sides here. You ought to consider carefully the use of your attack adjectives, as I don't think I gave you cause for that reaction; but I have broad enough shoulders that I can bear the weight. Sorry for any offense given; it was not intended as such. Cheers. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:07, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I accurately quoted you. Except you didn't. Spartaz said "the outcome is now inevitable". You transformed that update into something that was always the case, "the outcome was inevitable". BTW, though I'm sure this will just be filed under "sour grapes from losers", perhaps a promotional article about a search engine optimization product kept on the basis of a download count and coverage in how-to books is not a stellar example of ARS's benefit to Wikipedia. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:51, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I have corrected the quote. Sorry for my error, as you are right about the timing. It should have read the Keep "outcome is now inevitable" File this under good faith errors and apology tendered. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:04, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose, there’s a lot of blame to be shared and little to gain by blocking everyone who’s stepped over the personally abusive line. ARS would be wise to caution its members about staying cool and not focusing on other editors, BUT the deck does seem stacked against them for dealing with tendentious editors and accusers who constantly poke at their efforts to identify and “rescue” articles on notable subjects. If anything ARS seems to hone in on problematic patterns of deletion that do need further attention. And BTW, it’s all largely thankless work done with a deadline. Gleeanon409 (talk) 02:03, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. You hit the nail on the head, there is a lot of muddy water stirred up in this discussion but this is clarity. -- GreenC 02:34, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: Watching this circus play out, I am strongly considering changing my vote to support sanctions on both sides of the fence. There is plenty of WP:BATTLEGROUND to go around here (some of which is bleeding into other sections), and the deletion/re-creation topic area in general seems to breed a lot of toxicity. Here we have the works - battleground/tag-teamy bickering, uncivil back-and-forths, personal attacks, WP:LAME edit warring over someone quoting a personal attack in a civil context, people using alleged tribalism to try and get certain votes dismissed, etc etc. There are a few individuals here that have replied persistently (and forcefully) enough that they would be better off leaving the conflict and doing something more constructive. Darkknight2149 00:14, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support topic ban and sanctions. While I think that the "inclusionists" or ARS people sometimes save articles that probably shouldn't have been nominated, most if not all of the time they (including 7&6=thirteen) treat AfDs as a WP:BATTLEGROUND and unfairly attack nominators. Whatever their percentages are, it doesn't justify the constant personal attacks. Which they have been repeatedly asked to desist in. I don't see any of them, including 7&6=thirteen, taking responsibility for their bad behavior or doing anything to curb it. Maybe 7&6=thirteen apologized in this ANI, but I don't think it means the behavior will stop. Especially since he has mainly blown the whole thing off at the same time. Although I think we could look through anyone's AfDs edits and find instances of them attacking someone, the problem with 7&6=thirteen and other "inclusionist"/ARS people is that it's a specific, targeted, and tactical way of doing things, like Darkknight2149 points out in the comment above this one, and needs to be dealt with as such. So, I think a topic ban/sanctions is appropriate. Since I don't really see it changing otherwise. --Adamant1 (talk) 11:54, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

To clarify, my "tag-team" comment was referring to people on both sides of the aisle. I have seen a lot of deletionists that are equally guilty of this sort of thing and there is even an entire essay on it. I have seen radical deletionist use tag-teamy tactics, intimidation, dishonesty, and accuse anyone who opposes them of being on the "other side," just to delete as much stuff as possible for deletion's sake (telltale signs - these users will have a history and are generally aggressive, one-note, always assume bad faith, and never oppose a deletion for anything). And yes, there are also people who are vehemently against anything being deleted for any reason, and I think we're seeing some of that here. I wish there was an easy way to weed out people with battleground tendencies, because the deletion/article creation area in general attracts a lot of this. Darkknight2149 05:12, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support- The sanction is actually quite mild and is tailored to specifically address the problem (and not be punitive), so I don't really see why anyone would oppose it. This has gone on far too long. While I'm of the position that the ARS needs to be disbanded since it is nothing more than a canvassing club, I find at least some of its members to be civil. This not the case with 7&6=thirteen, who is clearly the worst offender. I have been subject to his personal attacks in the past (see Canvassing and other disruptive behavior by 7&6=thirteen). One of my first interactions with the user is when he staunchly defended keeping an article that everyone else agreed was pure plagiarism (see William Foster Nye). When you are start an ANI discussion over a plagiarized article being speedy deleted, that shows a pure lack of judgement. Its this keep at all costs, no matter how bad an article is attitude that is harmful.--Rusf10 (talk) 23:38, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support an extremely mild sanction that is well-tailored to address genuinely problematic behavior. --JBL (talk) 00:18, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose These don't really rise to the level of direct personal attacks requiring sanctions per Black Kite. Most of his comments do cite policy and even if some of the insinuations were wrong, they don't really interfere with editing and can just be ignored. Patiodweller (talk) 03:09, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
• Proposal: Maybe 7&6 and Deacon need to step away from ARS for a little while (say, a couple of months?). They both seem to have gotten over-invested it and overheated. A little rest and editing elsewhere could restore perspective. Softlavender (talk) 09:43, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - Tempest in a teapot. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:22, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: Boomerang

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

---

User:Deacon Vorbis made 4 refactoring edits regarding the comment on the ARS page: (here are the four: One, two, three, four). Then DV reverted their fourth edit with a fifth edit. DV was warned about their edit warring and then came to ANI, to complain about this comment that does not rise to this level. We have now all spent valuable editing time about this nothingburger. Lightburst (talk) 21:58, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support as proposer Lightburst (talk) 21:58, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose- silly retaliatory nonsense. Reyk _YO! 22:01, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

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

Some suggestions

ARS seems to be a reasonably fertile breeding ground for battleground behaviour, and a current nexus for the perennial inclusionist / deletionist wars. I think ARS could materially improve their image if they were to refine the process for selection of articles. Am I alone in that view? Specifically, if there was some kind of gate that excludes articles with promotional and likely paid contributions, prioritises under-represented subjects (in the style of Women In Red), and includes a rationale for rescue, which some of the better nominations do (e.g. Roger Treat: "American sportswriter, mainly in newspapers. Wrote a monumental history of American football and was an advocate for racial integration in sports").

I'm concerned that right now anyone who has a pet article that's at AfD can just list it, and have a reasonable hope of attracting a group of editors who will only vote one way. A refinement to the selection criteria would make this less like an end-run around WP:CANVASS, which is how ARS is often perceived right now.

The constant lameness obscures the fact that parties on both sides of these perennial disputes are sincere and committed Wikipedians who are trying to improve the project. I see little evidence that the partisans are spending much time trying to understand each other's perspectives, which is a shame. Guy (help!) 09:52, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

AFD is a "reasonably fertile breeding ground for battleground behaviour, and a current nexus for the perennial inclusionist / deletionist wars." :FWIW, your concerns about WP:ARS is not supported by the facts. Thousands of articles come up for repeated deletion. Few get listed at ARS, and even fewer still get a response from members. And when I participate, it is to improve the article. And the correlation of any success I have at AFDs is related almost totally to those efforts.

You are quick to stereotype ARS members. If criticism is warranted, you need facts. And if such generalizations are to be indulged, you ought to consider looking at both sides. WP:AGF is sometimes suspended or unevenly applied. Just look at the above discussions.

Serial AFDs are a real and overlooked problem. It is hard to create an article; and it is far easier to delete it, especially when it is a rigged game. In fact, the AFD proponents only have to succeed once. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:50, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, as I intimated somewhere above, if "no consensus" didn't bizarrely mean "keep", there would probably be far fewer serial AfDs. If ARS are involved and something scrapes by because of a "no consensus" then it would probably be worthwhile for those involved in the project to bolster that article there and then but in my limited experience what tends to happen is the thing gets left more or less as it was. - Sitush (talk) 13:04, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

As a touch point, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yoast SEO has been relisted. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:15, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

And in connection with that AFD, we now have an article about the company's founder, Joost de Valk. Almost all of the sources are completely unreliable, it's pure advertising. ^Lev!v^ich 05:13, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Levivich, A subject with which I am familiar - and I agree. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:55, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

7&6=thirteen, your reply is a perfect exemplar of the problem.

I am minded to move a topic ban from deletions based on this obvious paranoid behaviour. It is bringing out the absolute worst in you, when normally you are a decent person to be around. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:50, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

"No consensus" just means "no consensus for change." If you are trying get an article deleted and there is no consensus, then it would stay deleted as well. I don't really see an alternative other than not closing the discussion. It's not like we can send articles to purgatory and keep them there indefinitely until a consensus arrises. Darkknight2149 23:02, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Darkknight, your comment makes no sense to me. I'm guessing you mean that if someone goes to DRV for an undelete and there is no consensus then it stays deleted. But it would not have been deleted in the first place unless there was a clear consensus to do so, so the situations are not comparable. My point has always been that we have things such as WP:BURDEN but the spirit of these does not apply at AfD in a no consensus situation and, in many cases, the article does in fact end up in a state something like purgatory because it is neither one thing nor the other. That is why I suggested above that if the ARS people are particularly frustrated with serial AfDs then surely a reasonable course for them to take would be to actually make substantive post-AfD edits to "no consensus" keeps in order to minimise the chance of re-submission to AfD. I've lost count of the number of articles where I have revisited the AfD to locate the alleged sources that satisfied GNG etc but which were never actually inserted into the article itself even years later: sometimes they were valid, sometimes not, but in either case it really doesn't help matters and does increase the risk of a further AfD. - Sitush (talk) 05:42, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Yep, that's been my finding over the years: that ARS is far less about bringing articles to a viable standard than to Thwart The Nasty Deletionists By Any Means Possible. Quite aside from those who obviously don't believe that notability standards should exist, it's too often a matter of throwing up obstacles, or complaining about more prods/XfDs than their numbers can oppose. What I see far less often is the surest way to shut the deletionists up: source the damn articles. Ravenswing 00:24, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I am puzzled by your aspersions. Collaborating to improve the encyclopedia is the mission of the project. And your efforts are decidedly in the other direction. Your statement is an aspersion ...apparently aspersions only matter if they are not leveled against the ARS. This whole wall of unrelated text should be hatted. The ARS have saved a few articles that you have wrongly tagged, and you should thank us. Here is another notable subject that you failed to investigate before tagging. Getting mad that ARS improves the encyclopedia and saves content with RS is outrageous, indefensible and ridiculous. Lightburst (talk) 00:54, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

You accuse Raven of casting aspersions and {{rpa}}'d Iri's "ARSholes" comment below, but you have yet to say anything about 7&6's aspersions and personal attacks, which are the subject of this thread. ^Lev!v^ich 01:25, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I am puzzled by your aspersions You misspelled "accurate and concise history". --Calton | Talk 03:12, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

It's a very simple rule. Criticism of inclusionists = personal attacks. Criticism by inclusionists = devastating truth bombs. Reyk _YO! 11:27, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I have no love at all for the ARS—I believe I was the first person to use the term "ARSholes" to describe their tag-team—but I'd strongly oppose any attempt to deem particular classes of articles more worthy of saving than others. (The most important article is the article on whatever topic you happen to be looking up; it's not for us to condemn readers for not reading more or writers for not writing more about topics we happen to consider under-represented.) FWIW I think their impact is minimal and at most a slight nuisance; every admin who works the deletion backlogs knows to disregard all comments from the ARS regulars unless they're making an actual valid point rather than the more typical variations on "keep, it exists", in the same way we all know to disregard the usual "delete, I haven't heard of it" regulars like TPH. ‑ Iridescent 15:25, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Iridescent, I think the problem is that it's open to gaming. Any spammer can list their article for ARS to "rescue" and have a squad of obsessive inclusionists mob an AfD to protect what is in the end often advertorial. I am also extremely disappointed in the quality of sources that are sometimes being added: the result of ARS efforts are often to provide superficial referenciness that doesn't stand up to any kind of scrutiny when you're familiar with WP:RSN.

As currently constituted, ARS gives an extremely strong impression of believing that nomination for deletion is prima facie evidence that the article should be kept. And that contributes to the drama. If they want the drama to stop, they could show signs of being less inclined to go to bat for obvious spam. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:02, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

• Hundreds of articles are nominated for deletion every day by multiple processes including speedy deletion, prods and AfD. The ARS gets involved in very few of these -- only about 1 article per day, I reckon. It would be good if the articles nominated for rescue were those with the most promise but there's a chicken-and-egg problem with this – you often can't tell how promising a topic is until you've done a fair bit of work on it. Consider a topic like Burry's, for example – my most recent nomination. I had a quick browse for sources and my intuition was that the topic had promise. But it's an American topic, while I'm British, so I listed it for rescue in the hope that American editors would pick it up. This seems to be working out reasonably well. In other cases, a comparatively no-hope topic will be listed in desperation, hoping that the ARS can perform some magic to save it. I usually ignore these myself as I have better things to do. But you really can't tell till you try and I am often surprised what a thorough search for sources will turn up.

Anyway, if Guy or others think they can do better then they are welcome to try. The ARS has hundreds of nominal members but few of them show up up to do anything at all. The real problem with AfD and related activity such as AfC is that they are dying for lack of attention and effort. The bickering doesn't help. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:18, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Andrew Davidson, I am happy for AfD to run its course, I don't see a need for a flying squad of militant inclusionists to rescue articles based on zero selectivity. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:18, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi, I spend a lot of time in AfDs and in article rescue, Here is my record. Lightburst (talk) 17:20, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

• That's been my observation as well, Guy. What I would love to do is be able to trust the work of ARS regulars, but I can't: just in the last week, I've seen a myriad of "Hah! You lazy bastard, you didn't follow BEFORE, here are several sources!" that turn out to all be namedrops and casual mentions ... when they reference the subject at all. See enough of them, and you just can't help but feel that the editors who resort to that are acting in deliberate bad faith, hoping that no one actually examines the evidence. Beyond that, a couple have made clear their belief that the entire deletion process is illegitimate and that notability guidelines are optional at best. As may be, but sorry, this is the encyclopedia you've got. Ravenswing 22:00, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

• Ravenswing is the editor who proposed that Burry's be deleted without any discussion or examination of the evidence. That's not working out well for them ... Andrew🐉(talk) 22:39, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

• (scratches his head) That's not working out well for me? Since when was this a competition? I did my research, I found no sigcov (using Burry's as a search term instead of "Burry," which other editors seem to have done), and other editors made the save. This is a win all around. But if you insist on keeping score, according to AfDstats, a full forty percent of your votes at AfD go against the consensus result. (I've got a 93% match rate, by contrast.) Sounds like you could stand to better familiarize yourself with Wikipedia standards, and not view AfD/prod as a war zone. Ravenswing 14:59, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

User: Ravenswing Apparently you do not accept that whether (or not) there was sigcov is a judgment call. Indeed, going back into the history of 137 year company (well before the internet) has its own unique set of problems. The subject matter an intrinsic relationship with the ability to find WP:RS. To be sure, these can lead to WP:AGF disputes on that issue. And Your mileage may vary. That you think that a statement that you got it wrong WP:Before is a "personal attack" — and not a defense to an AFD — suggests you need to reevaluate your perspective. To be sure, this is about improving the encyclopedia, and we ought to recognize that goal in everything we do. But silencing those who have a different analysis and conclusion is, IMO, bad policy. See you next time, I am sure. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 17:36, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

That "I think a statement that I got it wrong is a personal attack" is entirely in your own head, not in mine: obviously I did, in that AfD. That I'm somehow "silencing" those who disagree with me is also entirely in your own head: if I somehow have supernatural control over what you and your cronies type, I'm sure mucking that up. I've nominated several hundred articles for deletion at AfD, and even with a match rate around 94% on that, 6% failure means I've gotten some of those wrong, or that I'm simply outvoted. This has happened before, and it'll happen again. The nature of a consensus-based encyclopedia is that sometimes you're going to be on the wrong side of consensus. I'm comfortable with that. Perhaps you're not. (Sorry that the argument you were wanting me to make wasn't the actual one I was making, but eh.) Ravenswing 19:34, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

• A suggestion that would forestall any claims of not following instructions to perform searches for sources before nominating articles for deletion would be to link to such searches and comment on the results in deletion nominations. I don't see what would be so difficult about that, as it only involves copying and pasting a few URLs that the nominator would have to hand anyway. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:29, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

That would become ridiculous and time prohibitive with anything that has more then a few search results. AfDs aren't about Google hits anyway. It's also worth mentioning that doing a search for a term in the Google search bar will sometimes give complete different results then if you search for something by clicking on the search links in AfDs. I've had it happen a few times myself with Google Scholar. I think search results can be different depending on the users location and their prior search history also. It's not the job of the nominator to provide sources showing why the article should be kept anyway. That's on the "voters." It's not like the same personal attacks wouldn't occur if nominators did what your suggesting anyway though, because it's just a tactic that isn't based on anything already anyway. --Adamant1 (talk) 07:57, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Needless to say, asking people to prove a negative is unreasonable. Reyk _YO! 14:49, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I didn't propose that anyone should prove anything, just that they should say what they have done so the discussion can be a consensus-seeking exercise rather than a battleground. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:30, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

How is it time prohibitive when it just needs the nominator to say what they have done, which we are asked to believe is to follow the instructions for nominating an article for deletion? The time-consuming bit is following the instructions, which I am sure every deletion nominator already does, not saying how they have been followed. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:30, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

It’s AfD that is the fertile battlefield not just ARS, and this idea is worth implementing in some way. It would help confirm that the Nom did indeed follow Before, then if a pattern of bad noms surfaced maybe they would get coached in more successfully adhering to Before. Gleeanon409 (talk) 16:55, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Saying what was done in general terms might not be too time-consuming, but logging every step can be tedious. I've searched archives via my local library web site and while of course I can write all of the details down regarding archive names and search criteria, it is definitely additional overhead. isaacl (talk) 19:52, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Whoa, there, cowboy. You lost me with “fertile battleground”. We have policies for that. Kleuske (talk) 21:33, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

This section’s first sentence tries to lay the battlefield mentality at ARS’ door when AfD itself is a contentious area filled with strong opinions. Anything that might make the process more smooth is likely worth consideration. Gleeanon409 (talk) 22:17, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Like Isaacl said it would be time consuming because saying what steps the nominator took is tedious and nothing is good enough for the ARS people anyway. Even if you say you did a before they attack you for not doing a before. You say you did a before that involved a Google search and a Google scholar search, and you point out specific sources that you found and they still attack you. That's what they do. The nominators shouldn't have to bend over backwards by saying what they did just to be treated with a little decency. There should always be a presumption of good faith that the nominator did their due diligence. If someone isn't willing to grant them it, then that's on them. Just like it's on the people who call nominators sexist for doing an AfD about a women or a racist for doing about a person of color, etc etc. We shouldn't do anything to bend over backwards to accommodate the ARS people's cynicism anymore then we should do it for those people. It wouldn't matter if we did anyway though. We'll still be accused of things. So screw that. --Adamant1 (talk) 02:46, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

You ask for their good faith while simultaneously accusing all members of the group of acting in bad faith.

I think a simple step somewhere in the process confirming Before was done is needed, especially with some editors who seem to struggle with identifying sources that others point out. Then the issue becomes helping serial misusers of the process in finding sourcing rather than being frustrated by process. Gleeanon409 (talk) 04:15, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm not accusing all members of the group of acting in bad faith. I'm accusing the ones that have acted in bad faith of doing so. Which is who this discussion is about. This discussion is not and never has been about every person that has ever had anything to do with the group, no matter how minor their role in it is. Everyone here knows who the bad actors are. I'm not going to list all of them every time I want to say "ARS." so some random member, who isn't a part of this discussion or at fault, won't feel like I'm talking about them. Thanks though.

Anyway, more importantly there's zero way to "confirm" a nominator has done a BEFORE. Except for the nominator to say they did one. Which, as I've said before, they are already doing and no one from ARS is ever satisfied with. So, making it obligatory for us to say we did a BEFORE isn't going to deal with this. having consequences for badgering users like Andrew will resolve it though. Things have calmed down quit a lot already since this incident report was opened. Whereas, there's tons of AfDs where Andrew and his cohorts (obviously I'm not talking about every damn member of ARS)have accused nominators of not doing a BEFORE when they explicitly said that they did one. BTW, their the only ones that ever bring up a BEFORE or accuse nominators of not doing one. It's a non-starter IMO to make a policy about something just because three users have a chronic personal problem with it. Instead we should deal with the three users who have the personal problem. Seriously. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:24, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

+1. It's not about AFD and it's not about ARS, it's just about a few editors. ^Lev!v^ich 16:42, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

+1. Yeah, there's a bad actor or two whose accusations of bad faith are chronic, who are plainly operating off from an agenda that the whole deletion process is illegitimate, and for whom it seems that any tactic, stunt or reversal of tack in its service is justified. (Except, of course, gaining general consensus for their extremist philosophy.) Ravenswing 06:19, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

+1, particularly per Levivich. This is not a systemic issue with either AfD or ARS, in my view. It's a specific issue with a few AfD regulars. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 15:02, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• Update As an update, note that Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Burry's, which was highlighted as an example above, has now been closed as Keep. The subject is a maker of biscuits, especially Girl Scout Cookies. The topic was listed for rescue and got good attention. For an independent view of the topic, I suggest consulting Eddie891 who contributed good comments and article updates during the AfD. As it happens, this is the same Eddie891 that is currently to be found at RfA.

My own view is that this example demonstrates the value of prod patrol and article rescue. If I had not intervened, this topic would probably have been deleted without discussion. Andrew🐉(talk) 19:53, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

And yet that is completely irrelevant and doesn't excuse any of the problems raised in this thread. That you think the AFD's outcome is relevant is the problem itself. Lev!vich 03:44, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Burry's was cited as an example because it was my most recent nomination and, at the time, unsettled. It was relevant then and it is relevant now that the AfD has now been closed and we can see the outcome. It is also topical in that one of the main participants is now at RfA. The claim that Burry's is "completely irrelevant" seems to be completely false.

My most recent nomination for rescue is now Hasdeo Arand. This topic is the second in an attempt to innovate. It occurred to me that topics in the news often need timely improvement because they are getting lots of attention by our readers but often need citations to help them through the formalities at WP:ITN/C. This hasn't achieved much because the real problem with the ARS is that few members do anything. While Eating Out to Help Out recently I saw a sign. It's an old chestnut but seems relevant still:

That's Not My Job!
This is story about four people named: Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.
There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.
Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did.
Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job.
Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realised that Everybody wouldn't do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

Andrew🐉(talk) 07:16, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Somebody might be angry, but Everybody couldn't care less, because while Anybody could have done it, Nobody had to do it, and now it's done. Lev!vich 05:29, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

I think it’s fair that the issue is the longstanding tension between deletionists and inclusionists, and that AfD is a relatively easy system to game.

ARS looks to be the only real watchdog that looks for systematic corruption of the process. And it’s truly thankless work.

Unfortunately the burden is to prove someone is abusing the deletion process which seems at best to be an uphill battle. Maybe someone can think of a way to help ensure that AfD isn’t abused, I’m not so sure. Gleeanon409 (talk) 07:41, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

No. There are no deletionist. There are no inclusionists. Nobody needs a watchdog. We need people to work on articles and we need people to evaluate notability at AFD, but that is not "work" (thankless, necessary, or otherwise), it is a hobby, and no articles require "saving" because nobody is attacking articles. This whole viewpoint is just in the heads of a few ARS members who perceive themselves as fighting a war. Well, WP:Don't be a hero. Lev!vich 14:52, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I sharply disagree with that assertion. An easy look at the list of AfDs at ARS suggest there are articles on notable subjects that editors have been attempting to delete, for whatever reasons. If there are serial deletions I have no idea. But it’s hard to argue that no watchdog is needed when it’s obvious ARS is doing at least some good work on article building. Gleeanon409 (talk) 19:02, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Levivich, that is patently untrue. There are clear deletionists on Wikipedia. It is also a fact (particularly in recent years with AfDs being automated via Twinkle) that most articles get AfDed without the nominator having done any WP:BEFORE; they generally have only glanced at the existing citations in the article's current iteration. It is also a fact that cogent and thoughtful participation (checking carefully and thoroughly and at length for coverage) at AfD has lagged way behind the speed and ease with which the glut of articles are AfDed. Articles are not rescued from "attack" (your word); they are rescued from deletion. Cullen328 for instance, is a world-class article rescuer. Softlavender (talk) 06:09, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I am not sure that I am a "world-class article rescuer", Softlavender, although I take some pride in improving and thereby saving articles listed at AfD. If I had more time and stronger motivation, I am sure I could have saved many more. Thanks anyway for mentioning my work in that area. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:17, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@Gleeanon409: I'd love to know how 7&6=thirteen saying I was thin skinned because I asked him not to write personal messages in his votes, or ToughPigs calling me incompetent multiple times is just you guys being "watchdogs that are looking for systematic corruption." I'm just some random volunteer that does this shit in my spare time as a way to deal with insomnia and I started doing AfDs because I felt like some articles weren't notable. There wasn't anything more to it. I've been attacked by you guys since I started doing AfDs though. You guys can't claim your just being "watchdogs against corruption" when your indiscriminately attacking anyone who does AfDs. Even if the user hardly does them and they aren't using Sparkle. I'm not personally using it and most of the people you attack aren't either. So, putting things on Sparkle is kind of a straw man.

Also great that you guys save a few articles sometimes, but that doesn't make you some kind of noble crusaders against a corrupt system as your acting like it does or justify how you behave in AfDs. It's not like there aren't processes for saving articles that shouldn't be deleted (closing admins reading the votes, REFUND, article recreation, etc etc) that your completely unnecessary to either. You all must have zero faith in the system. Otherwise, you'd put your collective energy into improving the notability guidelines so less articles get deleted. If you really think to many articles are being deleted, changing them would be the way to solve it. Personally, I think they could be a little more moderate sometimes. Especially for companies. --Adamant1 (talk) 11:21, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I feel this is more we vs. them mentality which seems unconstructive. We are all volunteers but if things are getting heated or personal then disengagement might be helpful.

It’s also worth repeating that the ARS folk still have the deck stacked against their efforts, they have to prove notability in a system designed to remove articles.

Hopefully everyone will take some of the constructive comments on and apply them. Gleeanon409 (talk) 08:20, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Issue at China–United States trade war

I'd appreciate help or advice on an issue at China–United States trade war (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). The main problem is that a few times now, Flaughtin (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has disappeared from the article and the talk page discussion for 1–4 weeks, and then has come back and reverted most or all of the updates and corrections that have been made in the meantime [8][9][10]. I've asked the user to discuss these reverts on the talk page, but they refuse. On the talk page you'll find discussion of several other disputes, but when I asked the user to discuss these reverts, they said "I have my reasons for reverting your content, but the explanation will have to wait until after we have addressed and resolved your second round of mass purges of edits"[11], "You'll just have to wait for me to tell you why"[12], and "You'll have to wait for my explanation"[13]. I first asked for an explanation for the reverts on 18 June, and Flaughtin still hasn't provided one. This seems to be a case of WP:Status quo stonewalling.

It's impossible to keep developing this article when all the additions and corrections will just get reverted in a couple of weeks by an editor who refuses to discuss the reasons for the reverts. I'm not sure whether ANI is the best venue for this issue, but I'd appreciate help or guidance on how to deal with this situation. —Granger (talk · contribs) 19:12, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

The admins should shut this request down with prejudice. I can't be refusing to provide explanation for my edits when I have already said I would provide an explanation for them - it's just they will have to wait given the preceeding and proceeding mass purges/battleground edits the other user has made. It really isn't my problem that he/she wants to (or feels entitled to) jump the line and it really isn't my problem either that he/she doesn't read either carefully or at all - that isn't meant to be an insult, it is just meant to be a statement of fact as the debates on the talk page demonstrates. The rounds of debates has to be resolved sequentially, partly because of, again, the problematic edits the other user has made (the mass purges as I have already pointed out), partly for reasons of clarity (there are too many points of contentions to be resolved), and partly for reasons of fairness (this is self explanatory); to do it any other way would make it impossible to keep track of the sheer number of disputes which have to be resolved. The issue of my editing pattern is something that I have already addressed; that said, I will going forward do my best to be more punctual in my response given the escalation of this matter, but again i cannot make guarantees on this because my life just doesn't revolve around Wikipedia.

For the record admins should note the irony of this request and how it's (or seems to be anyway) a classic example of an aggressor playing the victim card - this whole debate all started with this mass purge of my edits by the opposing editor here. I could have disregarded his/her edit summary (just like how he/she has disregarded my explanations for the reversion of his/her edits) and taken the issue straight to this noticeboard but I didn't given the confidence I had in my edits and suppporting arguments. The debates on the talk page were and still are moving in the right direction, most of the points of contention have been or are being resolved and majority of them are being resolved on my terms - i suspect that that is real reason why this ANI was brought up in the first place. At this point, the best solution would be if an admin could directly intervene in the debates on the talk page (mainly to prevent a request like this from happening again by expediting the dispute resolution process) or barring that, then do nothing and just let the debate run its natural course. Flaughtin (talk) 00:14, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

I do make an effort to read carefully, and that's why, for example, I object to claims like these ones about GDP that don't match the sources they cite. But back to the issue at hand—I note that Flaughtin still has not offered any justification or explanation for the reverts linked above. Flaughtin's insistence on discussing disputes "sequentially" with weeks of delays (and periodically reverting any new changes to the article) has the effect of making it impossible to make progress on the article. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:53, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Without having looked at the actual material - if you revert, you need to be prepared to explain your reasons. If you don't have the time to do that, don't revert. No one can hold another editor hostage to their whims because explaining their actions doesn't fit their schedule right now. If that's what is going on here, it should stop. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 02:05, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Elmidae, that's a good summary of what's going on. The editor is discussing other disputes on the talk page, but refuses to discuss the reverts linked above. —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:45, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Elmidae: As I have made clear in my comments above and many times to the other editor elsewhere I am prepared to explain my reverts - the real problem is that editor's sense of entitlement; specifically, the arrogance on his/her part to not just demand that I respond on his/her terms while he/she mass reverts my edits, but to be completely ignorant of the hypocrisy of the demand. He/she demands my immediate and unceasing attention to my reversion of his/her edits; meanwhile I'm supposed to just pretend that his/her mass reversions of my edits never happened. I can understand if an animal accepted those kind of demands, but what kind of self-respecting person would do that? As I've said, going forward, I will do my best to be more punctual in my response given the escalation of this matter, but again i cannot make guarantees on this because my life just doesn't revolve around Wikipedia.

Granger: Well no no you don't read the things I write carefully (or at all) and your arguments on the talk page demonstrates this. For every example that you can find where I haven't carefully read your edits, I can find ten examples where you haven't carefully read my edits. If you want to talk about problematic conduct, then of course it's best if we began with your mass purge of my edits which is what started this whole debate. I've been more than patient with you and assuming of good faith given your initial mass reverts of my contributions to that article and for you to try to play the victim-card here on this noticeboard and rehash your demand that I respond on your terms when you took the initiative to mass revert my edits rests on a kind of arrogance (i.e. arrogance of ignorance) that really, really just scrapes the bottom of the gutter. If you did that with any other editor, your (multiple) mass reverts would have been reverted mercilessly already and you would have ended up at WP:3RR ages ago. I have already said that I will do my best to respond in a more punctual manner and if you are not going/refuse to take my word for it, then that is your problem, not mine. Flaughtin (talk) 08:51, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Your life may not revolve around Wikipedia, but likewise Wikipedia doesn't wait on you. As Elmidae said, if you revert, you need to be prepared to explain your reasons. If you don't have the time to do that, don't revert. Your edit doesn't need to stay up; you can take the time to discuss this on the talk page. — Czello 10:03, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Flaughtin is acting as though I wronged them somehow by reverting some of their edits in June. But I followed WP:BRD, and when Flaughtin raised 26 separate points on the talk page, I took the time to respond to each and every one. In contrast, Flaughtin still has not explained the reverts linked above, even though it has been a month and a half since I first asked for an explanation. —Granger (talk · contribs) 14:06, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Czello Taking the disputes to the talk page is what I have been doing all along. As for the time issue, as I've said (4 times now), going forward, I will do my best to be more punctual in my response given the escalation of this matter, but again i cannot make guarantees on this because my life just doesn't revolve around Wikipedia. This is the most reasonable response that I can give and I really don't know how many more times I need to say this.

Granger You didn't just make "some reverts", you made a mass revert. Please don't act like there isn't a difference between the two. Flaughtin (talk) 20:51, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Flaughtin is discussing some other disputes on the talk page, which is good. It would be better if they could be more civil and stop accusing me of not reading their comments. Now they're also trying to derail a 3O request that I opened at their suggestion about these earlier disputes.

Regardless, they still haven't explained the reverts linked above. Given that, I think I would be justified in undoing the reverts, but given that the user hasn't acknowledged or resolved this conduct issue, I worry they might just revert again. —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:05, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Once again, the user has responded regarding other disputes, but still refuses to discuss these reverts, so I've restored the updates and corrections. If Flaughtin objects, I hope they will discuss the issue on the talk page the way they have with earlier disputes. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:39, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I have reverted the above user's revert and explained my action on the talk page accordingly. Flaughtin (talk) 00:47, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Flaughtin still refuses to discuss these reverts, saying I will address my revert of your edits until after we have addressed and resolved your second round of mass purges of my edits that you did here. We are going to (as a matter of chronological fact) do this sequentially and I will not let you jump the line just because you feel you are entitled to do so. As I am the author of the second round of edits which you purged, the responsibility per BRD falls on me to initiate the second round of debate, which I will start at the conclusion of this first round of debate (this includes the resolution of the corresponding 3O request for the first round of debate).[14] They are insisting we resolve all the other disputes about this article before they will discuss their reverts of most of the updates made during their weeks of absence. Also, after I pointed out their goalpost-shifting regarding one of the other disputes, they said this really is a total waste of fucking time.[15] Could someone please help deal with this stonewalling and incivility? —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:22, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Well this is a new one. Usually you get people refusing to enter a debate because it is clearly always the other person's responsibility to start discussing on the talkpage, never them. Here we have someone refusing to talk because they feel it is their prerogative to start discussion on their terms, and they feel justified in reverting without explanation until it pleases them to do so. Flaughtin, in my estimation you are getting onto very thin ice here. Stop reverting unless you are willing to fully explain why you do so. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 03:10, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

It's clear you haven't been reading what I have been saying; if you have then you haven't been reading it carefully. Why do you keep saying that I am refusing to answer what the other user is saying? I have already told you I am going to reply to him/her. It's not about starting a debate on my terms, it's about starting it on the ideal terms. Notwithstanding other reasons, the debate as I have already told you has to proceed sequentially for logistical reasons: there are too many points of contentions to be resolved and many points of contentions to be resolved between the second and third mass reverts overlap. The upshot of this means that resolving the issues in the second mass revert (the other user's revert of my edits) is going to resolve a lot of the issues in the third mass revert (my revert of the other user's edits) anyway. To do it non-sequentially would make it impossible to keep track of the sheer number of disputes which have to be resolved. At massive disruption to my real life situation, I am doing my best to expedite the debate as fast as I can - as we speak, I am in the process of writing up the list of contentions for the second round of debate (which corresponds to the other user's second mass revert of my edits) so that we can move on to the third round of debate as quickly as possible (my revert of the other user's edit which started this ANI request). I said I would respond in a more punctual manner and this is proof that I am following through with it. If this still isn't good enough, then that just isn't my problem because I am already doing everything that I can. If my revert of the other user's edits has to be reverted without prior debate on the talk page, then that user's prior revert of my edits (for which no full explanation was given by the other user) will also have to be reverted without prior debate on the talk page. All or nothing. Flaughtin (talk) 07:06, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I just tried again to make sense of the sequence of events in that article's history. You two have been re-re-re-reverting each other for so long that it's become quite opaque to anyone uninvolved. If I were to take a stab at a clean start position, I would say it is whatever Mx. Granger reverted to in this this edit. That appears to be a revert of a substantial change to a previous stable state, and thus the status quo that a discussion should be based on before any further changes are made. It's a long way back, but after that you two start bitchslapping each other and it becomes very muddled. Can't suggest more than that. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:49, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Elmidae: We can revert to that version if you think it would help. Unfortunately, it also contains serious errors introduced by Flaughtin (the incorrect statements about GDP) which I didn't notice at the time, but I'm okay with reverting to that version and then using the talk page to move forward from there. The stable version from before the original dispute started is this one. Maybe the best option would be to revert to that version and then use the talk page to discuss the updates and changes that Flaughtin, other users, and I want to make. —Granger (talk · contribs) 16:56, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Part of the reason the history is so muddled is that three times, Flaughtin disappeared for an extended period and then reverted all or most of the edits made by multiple users in the meantime. Another reason is that on the talk page, all of the points of disagreement have been put together in one huge discussion. In the future it might help to use a separate section for each point of disagreement (on the other hand, with so many points of disagreement that might lead to a large number of sections). —Granger (talk · contribs) 16:59, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Another option: I am also okay with using the current version, as edited by Flaughtin, as the basis on which to discuss changes. I'm not that concerned about which of these versions is in place while we discuss. My main concern is that discussion actually needs to happen, about all of the issues under dispute. Right now Flaughtin is still refusing to discuss one of the areas of dispute. —Granger (talk · contribs) 17:19, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Mx. Granger and Flaughtin: I was going to say, if you want to try a structured do-over, then you're probably right that the 3 June version [16] is best - before either of you started on the current sequence. It's a lot of work to throw out, but I'm getting the impression that the situation right now is too tangled to resolve gracefully, and a Gordian Knot solution may be cleanest. - But if you are happy with the current version as a basis, then I'd say it comes down to "reasonable time frames". On the one hand, WP:NODEADLINE - it's not an issue if a discussion doens't happen immediately; the article will keep, and the only problem would be if the current version is so misleading that it can't stand for some days. Apparently not the case. On the other hand, no editor can unilaterally freeze an article for an unreasonable time while they play by their preferred schedule. How about you two try to agree on a timeframe within which Flaughtin should make his comments, and if this blows by, the excuse of "I will justify myself in due time" is officially void? That kind of agreement could also get admin enforcement, I would think. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 17:45, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I think that's a workable idea. I'm not exactly happy with the current version, but I think the major problems with it are limited enough that they can be resolved through discussion fairly efficiently.

I would suggest that in general Flaughtin should respond within 24 hours. (This is the standard I usually hold myself to, in discussions where someone is waiting for my response.) And now and then, if Flaughtin is unusually busy once in a while, I don't mind for them to say so on the talk page and then take an extra day or two. What I find difficult to deal with is getting no response for days and days and then seeing all the edits made in the meantime get reverted. [stricken as I misunderstood the suggestion]

Importantly, it's not enough to respond regarding some issues but not others. One of the main problems here is that Flaughtin has been responding regarding earlier disputes but isn't discussing the more recent dispute. —Granger (talk · contribs) 18:07, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Elmidae: Rereading your comment, I realize I may have misunderstood. Did you mean to agree on a timeframe to respond to new comments on the talk page going forward, or a timeframe for when Flaughtin will start discussing the recent dispute? —Granger (talk · contribs) 18:12, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Mx. Granger: I was thinking of the latter, as I understood that was the main issue (reverting but saying "I have good reasons but no time to explain them, will happen in the indeterminate future"). Regarding responding to fresh comments, I think one can't hold people to firm timelines there; if life keeps you away from WP, then that's it. I don't believe you could reasonably hold someone to a once-per-day log-in requirement. The usual way this is handled, e.g. here at AN/I, is that if there is an outstanding issue that requires response, an editor is expected to deal with it when and if they do log into WP. Meaning that if they log in and then spend all their time on other wikitasks while ignoring the request for comment (but still expect others to wait on them), that constitutes active stonewalling and is disruptive. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:26, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, that's fair enough. I suppose if there's another long absence with unresolved discussions I'll seek input on what to do.

As for a timeline—it's now been seven weeks since I first asked Flaughtin to explain their revert, and they have edited many times in the meantime, so I think a response is long overdue. I would suggest that they respond by the end of 8 August UTC (i.e., a little over two days from now). Is that feasible? —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:16, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I also want to suggest that we start a new section on the talk page to discuss the reverts. I've been trying to discuss them in the same section as the other disputes, but I now think that's likely to make the discussion more confusing, as the reverts don't seem to involve any of the same text as the other remaining disputes. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:29, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a lot of delay - more than one could reasonably expect others to put up with. If you want to be part of the development of an article, there's a certain expectation that you cooperate within time limits that do not leave everyone else hanging for months; it's not codified but I don't believe anyone can be expected to put up with recurrent multi-week gaps in an ongoing issue. If you don't have the time to work with others at a reasonable pace, you shouldn't stick your oar in to such an extent. Let's see what they say when they next tune in. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:46, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Elmidae: User:Flaughtin has responded regarding other disputes but still refuses to discuss the reverts or to give their opinion on the way forward suggested above. See their most recent comment (third paragraph). —Granger (talk · contribs) 02:11, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

And again. Meanwhile, the lead still has two incorrect statements about manufacturing, the timeline has no updates from this May or June, and Flaughtin has given no explanation of why they keep reverting the fixes and updates. Are these unexplained reverts and stonewalling enough merit a block? If not, what can be done about this pattern of repeatedly reverting and refusing to explain or discuss the issue? —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:22, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

I have requested a third opinion as a way to wrap up the (outstanding issues from the) first round of debate so that the second (and by extension third) round of debate can proceed. I had initially said that I would initiate the second round of debate until after the corresponding 3O request for the first round of debate was resolved; I am now modifying my position so that I will initiate the second round of debate by the end of tomorrow regardless of whether that 3O request has been resolved. As I have said I am expediting the debate to the best of my ability and this is proof of it. As for the recycled complaints about my problematic conduct, editors should note the deliberate provocation by the opposing editor as well as my befitting response. Flaughtin (talk) 05:38, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Not having read anything about this displute beyond the two last diffs posted by Flaughtin: that is not a provocation. It was inappropriate of you to strike comments that were not yours without permission, and Mx. Granger's response was totally appropriate. Your response in edit summary, on the other hand, strikes me as inappropriate and provocative. I suggest that you apologize for tampering with other people's comments (something Mx. Granger carefully avoided, leaving your comments in exactly the same state before and after their edit). --JBL (talk) 13:08, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Gah, this is really not getting any easier. If this third opinion request doesn't lead to a breakthrough, I would really suggest setting the article back to a point prior to the disputed edits altogether (as discussed above) - that appears to be something that both editors could agree on, although not happily. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:51, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

There are some very serious behavioral issues at work here. I recently began editing this article, and had never interacted with Flaughtin before. I asked on the talk page if there was a source for a particular claim made in the article. Flaughtin resonded that it was being addressed in one of their "rounds of debate" above, which are massive walls of text with dozens of itemized arguments (take a look here). I responded that these "rounds of debate" are completely opaque to me, and that absent a source, I was removing the unsourced claim. Flaughtin then reverted me and accused me of refusing to read. Instead of just citing a source, Flaughtin is demanding that I wade through massive walls of text, the "rounds of debate." The whole thread is here.

The problem here is that Flaughtin is holding the article hostage. Anyone who wants to edit it has to engage with Flaughtin in their "rounds of debate." Anyone who wants to know what the source for a particular claim is is directed to these massive "rounds of debate." Anyone who wants to restructure a subsection is informed that they must first take part in the "rounds of debate." I've never seen anything like this on Wikipedia. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:55, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

I've responded to the editor here. For the record that editor is welcomed to participate in the above debates and if it is a procedural misunderstanding on my part that reversions can't be made by uninvolved third parties when the debate is taking place between the original interlocutors (this is my reading of WP:BRDD) then corrective input would also be welcomed. Barring any clear up of my procedural misunderstanding, then I stand by my assertion that that editor should not be allowed to jump the line after the hours of input that I have put into the article/talk page debates. Flaughtin (talk) 12:07, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Flaughtin's demand that I not be "allowed to jump the line" is precisely the ownership issue I'm talking about. Flaughtin is engaged in wide-ranging "rounds of debate," each round covering dozens of different issues, and believes that anyone who wants to edit the article must first participate in these "rounds of debate." Anyone who doesn't first come to Flaughtin for permission to edit is "jump[ing] the line". Even if I just want a simple answer to a simple question ("What's the source for X?"), I'm directed by Flaughtin to the "rounds of debate." I don't think this user understands how talk pages are normally used, or that they don't have the right to demand that every edit be submitted for their prior approval. -Thucydides411 (talk) 12:33, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Well no no that is a total misrepresentation of what's going on, aided in no small part by your I don't like it attitude here. I'm saying you can't jump the line on things which are already being debated and an important reason is logistical: it's going to be impossible to keep track of the developments, particularly in a situation like this where there is a sheer number of other and in many cases overlapping points of contention which have to be resolved. I don't care about the other things which are outside of that - those can be adjudicated on its own merits. Now as I said, if this is a procedural misunderstanding on my part that reversions can't be made by uninvolved third parties when the debate is taking place between the original interlocutors (this is my reading of WP:BRDD) then corrective input would also be welcomed. But of course, that is not a job for you as you aren't an administrator. Flaughtin (talk) 13:07, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Editors should note that I have provided the sources per that user's unreasonable demands. (unreasonable because I had told that user where to look twice. But as above, if there is a procedural misunderstanding or any misconduct on my part, then then corrective input would be welcomed.) Flaughtin (talk) 13:25, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Administrators should note per this edit that User:Thucydides411 is now edit warring over the material even though we are engaged in a concurrent debate over that exact section on the talk page. I recommend that sanctions be imposed against the opposing user in question. Flaughtin (talk) 13:32, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

I've reverted once, after discussing my position on the talk page. You've carried out numerous reverts in the same time period (just a small sample of your recent reverts: [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]). Pot, meet kettle. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:04, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Sigh. What a mess. I'm happy to try User:Elmidae's suggestion of going back to the pre-dispute stable version[23], though I'm not sure that will resolve User:Flaughtin's behavioral issues. To borrow User:Thucydides411's description, "holding the article hostage" is a fairly apt description of what Flaughtin has been doing with unexplained reverts for the past several weeks.

Either way, I suggest that we abandon the great big section covering dozens of topics that Flaughtin divided into "rounds of debate". Let's have a separate section for each unresolved issue. Hopefully that will keep discussion organized enough for other editors to follow what's going on and weigh in. (I think most of the issues in the huge section have already been resolved, though I haven't yet had time to read Flaughtin's latest post in that section—I'll do that in a few minutes.) —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:43, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

In the absence of administrative action, I have in line with BRD reverted the edit warring revert in question so that material is back to its original version. (this is the opposing user's version of the material while this is my version of the material) To recapitulate: the opposing user unilaterally decided to reinstate his/her disputed version of the material while we were in the middle of a concurrent debate over that same section on the talk page. This is in total violation of all sorts of editing policies and guidelines (e.g. BRD and AGF) I have informed that user on the talk page of my revert and also warned him or her that I will be filing an request for administrative action if the user does something like that again. If there is a procedural misunderstanding or any misconduct on my part, then corrective input would be welcomed, but I am confident given the circumstances that my revert and warning is the right thing to do. Flaughtin (talk) 19:05, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

I have reinstated some of the content in my version of the material per my explanation on the talk page [24]. If there is a procedural misunderstanding or any misconduct on my part, then corrective input would be welcomed. Flaughtin (talk) 06:33, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

No part of BRD endorses reverting a revert. It is not possible for "you were edit-warring so I reverted you" to be true without "I was edit-warring" being true. You should change your approach. --JBL (talk) 11:53, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

User_talk:Joel_B._Lewis Well I have a different view with regards to your characterization of what I did - I didn't see it as a revert as I was per the corresponding explanation on the talk page reinstating material which wasn't explicitly in dispute there; my edit would only have been a revert if it had included the disputed material. And to be clear I don't see a contradiction between those two statements as they are undrstood in the objective. Reverting disruptive edits don't count as edit-warring so I wouldn't agree, by way of example, that a reversion of the unilateral revert by the opposing user so that the material went back to its original version would be considered edit warring as I did here (The key here being that the material is reverted back to the original - and not my - version. Of course you can say thgat the original version is itself disputed but that technicality is practically meaningless - at the end of the day you need a version of the material to actually be in the article while the disputes are being resolved on the talk). But having said, I will going forward refrain from adding anything from my version of material without prior consensus on the talk page. Flaughtin (talk) 15:48, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Here is what you wrote: I have in line with BRD reverted the edit warring revert. So maybe you want to rethink this response? Then you can give apologies all around for edit-warring, for asking for corrective input and then Wikilawyering in response, etc. --JBL (talk) 18:18, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

No really I don't know what there is to rethink because I am genuinely confused. This isn't me trying to get cute and be a wiseass. As I understand it, reverts of disruptive edits don't count as edit warring - and what I reverted was clearly a case of disruptive editing (the opposing user unilaterally decided to reinstate his/her disputed version of the material while we were in the middle of a concurrent debate over that same section on the talk page.) I made the mistake of reintroducing material from my version of material which the opposing editor disputed - this is a kind of mistake that that won't happen again. If there is something wrong in the way I'm thinking about this, then I am open to the comments. As I said I've been saying all along if there is a procedural misunderstanding or any misconduct on my part, then corrective input would be welcomed. I'm not out here to prove a point and it's not like I have one to prove anyway. Flaughtin (talk) 18:59, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Flaughtin, please read WP:3RRNO. That section lists the only exempted reverts. "Disruptive editing" is not one of those exemptions. Schazjmd (talk) 19:09, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for that piece of information as I didn't know about it. That said, there's still something I need clarification on. Was the unilateral revert by that editor vandalism? To me that's what it definitely looked like. But whichever the way the response goes, I will make a note of this exchange for future reference.Flaughtin (talk) 19:39, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome. I think it's safe to say it was not vandalism. It's a content dispute. A unilateral revert during discussion is poor form and uncollegial and not recommended, but it is not vandalism. Schazjmd (talk) 19:41, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

User talk:Schazjmd So...what am I supposed to do if something like that (the unilateral revert) happens again? Am I supposed to bring the complaint here, the edit warring noticeboard or how is the response supposed to work? Because it doesn't make much sense to me if the solution is going to be just sit back, pretend like the revert never happeened and do nothing - that would just disruptive editors a free hand to do whatever the hell they want to do. Flaughtin (talk) 06:06, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Flaughtin, the steps you can take are at explained at Dispute resolution. Also, take a look at WP:BRD. I was only pointing out your misunderstanding of the types of reverts that are exempt from edit warring. Schazjmd (talk) 06:49, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

You are supposed to act like a grown-up and continue appropriate discussions on the talk-page, or appropriate DR. If you are correct about what the eventual outcome should be, that will be borne out by discussion. Acting disruptively yourself is not part of that process. —JBL (talk) 10:43, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I want to add- while all of this was going on, being discussed- Flaughtin also opened a case at WP:DRN which to me, seems to reek of WP:Forum Shopping. Once I realized this was open, I closed the DRN, but it is still on the page- as you can see - behavior there matches the behavior here and on the talk page. Lots of not listening, blaming others, and making excuses for why he doesn't need to follow the same rules and behavior guidelines as everyone else. I find it ironic how many times this user accuses others of entitlement and not reading considering he appears to have those problems in spades himself. Just wanted to let the admins know in case it matters. Nightenbelle (talk) 19:11, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't forum shopping. I brought up the case at DRN because that's where disputes related to content get resolved; I had thought that bringing up a content dispute here would've been inappropriate as this dealt with a conduct issue and this conversation had at any rate grew stale. It was my first time filing a DRN request and I didn't know i wasn't allowed to open a case at DRN while this case had yet to be closed. Going forward, I'll try to resolve even more of what I can on the talk page (I have not made a single edit warring revert after this comment of mine) and will ensure that I do not have outstanding cases directly involving me open before I file a case at the DRN next time. As I said I've been saying all along if there is a procedural misunderstanding or any misconduct on my part, then corrective input is welcome. Flaughtin (talk) 20:35, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Proposal

Flaughtin is to be partially-blocked from the article (Talk page access retained), until they can demonstrate a better understanding of when to use (and not use) reversions. The above WP:WIKILAWYERing either indicates a lack of understanding, or a desire to game the rules. Whichever it is, this needs to stop. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:20, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

As I have said I will going forward refrain from adding anything from my version of material without prior consensus on the talk page and as I have also already been saying (many times already), if there is a procedural misunderstanding or any misconduct on my part, then corrective input would be welcomed. I have no interest in gaming the system and have no idea how you came to that conclusion. Flaughtin (talk) 17:25, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Hounding

• Editor interaction: [25]
• Grufo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Vice regent (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

-Guy Macon (talk) 18:35, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

In late July, I had a content dispute with Grufo at Islam and blasphemy. During that dispute the user repeatedly edit-warred, employed a negative tone, accused those disgreeing of vandalizing the article and also accusing me of sockpuppetry ("@IP address (possibly a.k.a. Vice regent)"). Grufo insisted on interpreting the Qur'an for their self to insert "The Quran prescribes either prison or mutilation or death for those guilty of blasphemy". Grufo defended this by insisting things like "a primary source in a philological context is way more valuable than secondary sources". Ultimately, the user was convinced by three others (including Eperoton) that interpreting the Qur'an themselves was WP:OR and the dispute mainly ended, or so I thought.

Since then Grufo has gone around undoing my edits at 11 different articles (Grufo's contribs), articles that Grufo seems to have never edited before. This includes restoring unreliable sources[26],[27],[28],[29],[30],[31]. It also includes making reverts from past content disputes at Rape in Islamic law without engaging in the discussion about that content (Grufo's only comment on the talk page doesn't come close to discussing the magnitude of content reverted). Grufo's revert on History of Slavery duplicated some content in the lead.

Grufo's editing is very tenditious, taking a sharply anti-Muslim tone. The user insists on using Raymond Ibrahim,[32] Nonie Darwish,[33] and The Legacy of Jihad[34] as reliable sources. Others agree with me that Raymond Ibrahim is not a reliable source. Grufo admitted that Darwish was "anti-Islamic" but insisted such sources were reliable and restored "Khomeini, in his subsequent writings, also approved of adults satisfying their sexual lusts with children provided such activities stopped short of any penetration". Grufo repeatedly accuses me and others of trying to "hide" and "silence" content.VR _talk 14:18, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@Vice regent:

“During that dispute the user repeatedly edit-warred”

As it has been explained to you, despite you keep projecting after a first private message, I am not the one who started an edit war, nor I consider myself at war with anyone.

“Grufo insisted on interpreting the Qur'an for their self to insert”

On the contrary, among other things I have tried to avoid that a subjective minority interpretation of the Quran be used as representative of the article, and I have tried to rely as much as possible only on the secondary sources that are supported by tertiary sources.

“Ultimately, the user was convinced by three others (including Eperoton) that interpreting the Qur'an themselves was WP:OR”

I think you lived in a parallel discussion. I did not interpret the Quran (nor I intend to). I did the exact opposite.

“Since then Grufo has gone around undoing my edits at 11 different articles”

As it has been explained to you, your edits tend to be destructive (in the literal sense of the adjective, meaning that they tend to consist in the removal of sources or entire paragraphs, or in their replacement with apologetic content) and counterproductive, reaching the point of replacing influential interpretations with your personal opinion. For example you have removed the Hanafi school of jurisprudence's position from the page Rape in Islamic law, despite it is a largely influential school, maybe the largest.

“Grufo's editing is very tenditious, taking a sharply anti-Muslim tone”

How can that be? Either I reverted your edits or I added anti-Muslim content. Please do explain it or give an example.

“Grufo admitted that Darwish was "anti-Islamic" but insisted such sources were reliable”

I insisted (and I still do) that being critical of Islam or religion in general has nothing to do with being reliable or not as a source as you seem to imply – no more and no less than being Islamic or not caring at all about Islam does. On the other hand, since the only sources you have removed are the openly anti-Islamic ones, I must deduce that you consider being anti-Islamic as a valid motivation for being labeled as unreliable source.

“The user insists on using Raymond Ibrahim, Nonie Darwish, and The Legacy of Jihad as reliable sources”

I only restored the sources that have been removed without a valid motivation by you.

“Grufo repeatedly accuses me and others of trying to "hide" and "silence" content”

It is literally what you have been trying to do so far, or at least as far as I could check. It looks like you feel invested of some sort of mission on Wikipedia. But whatever mission you feel you have, it does not matter as long as your edits are acceptable and not destructive.

--Grufo (talk) 16:46, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

This is the IP who first confronted Grufo. Don't have much to add about the hounding accusation but, as can be seen above this user is rather quick to attack other users' motivations and rather slow in presenting reliable secondary sources that support his stance. In my initial interactions with him on Islam and Blasphemy, he refused to forward any source at all and relied on unsourced interpretations of the Quran (a primary source) ([35] and onwards) while removing secondary sources (in previous edits [[36]]) and continues to do so with some of his recent edits regarding the Quran. 39.37.163.88 (talk) 08:46, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

• Grufo continues to make personal attacks.VR _talk 15:34, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Agree with this assessment, Grufo is a civil pov pusher who seems to have issues finding concensus with other users and OR, see Talk:Planck_units#Named_Planck_units. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:11, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia: I am among the ones who contributed substantially to the current version of the Planck units article, and the discussion you mentioned (where I made an argument against the removal of the Planck charge from the units) ended in my favor – this does not say anything about the other editors who participated keeping a different position, who are also good Wikipedia editors. Thanks to that discussion the Planck charge is now the unit with the highest number of references in the article. But how has that discussion anything to do with what we are talking here about? It's curious that a discussion about me “hounding” other users consists mostly of me being hounded. --Grufo (talk) 13:06, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• Accusing Grufo of being a "civil pov pusher" seems hypocritical since there appears to be a number of those going around some of these articles. Grufo has tried solving disagreements with discussions, but VR has been quick to report him here and at 3RR. This seems a case of reporting someone for having a different POV. Barca (talk) 13:09, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

What else do you do when someone makes more than 3 reverts in 24 hours? Note that Grufo was warned by an admin for that episode of edit-warring.

Grufo has tried solving disagreements with discussions Grufo has followed me around on more than 10 articles, and every instance of following around starts with a revert. In almost all cases, it is me who starts the discussion. Once the discussion has started, Grufo sometimes doesn't even both responding in the discussion (see Talk:History_of_slavery#Recent_edit.) During discussions Grufo makes WP:PERSONALATTACKS and casts WP:ASPERSIONS. Grufo repeatedly makes it clear that they have a problem with me.VR _talk 18:01, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

“Note that Grufo was warned for that episode of edit-warring.”

Sure. I have been warned by you (#1, #2) and by another user only after a misleading attempt of yours to present him your own warning as “this article has attracted edit warring before”

“Grufo sometimes doesn't even both responding in the discussion (see Talk:History_of_slavery#Recent_edit.)”

If you don't ping me I won't even know that you want to discuss with me (I did not even know that talk paragraph existed). But to be fairly honest I have been quite involved in discussing with you recently.

“Grufo repeatedly makes it clear that they have a problem with me”

I have absolutely no problems with you. Although, as I already stated above, I do think that – as far as I can see – your edits tend to be destructive, biased, and full of POV-pushing.

--Grufo (talk) 18:55, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• In response to Hemiauchenia's earlier comment, @Quondum: warned Grufo against "disruptive editing" and that Grufo "refuse to acknowledge" others' points. Also @XOR'easter: was part of that conversation. I'll let them comment on Talk:Planck_units#Named_Planck_units.VR _talk 17:48, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I would like to remind that we have a rule against WP:CANVASS. --Grufo (talk) 03:17, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks for pinging me. The discussion at Talk:Planck_units#Named_Planck_units never reached a consensus; I got tired of trying to make the same points repeatedly while dealing with dismissive remarks, like being told Search better ;) in response to a request for references. I continue to believe that the table of "Base Planck units" is pretty much WP:OR, and since I was the only other active participant in the discussion, the disagreement is technically stuck in the same place it was all along. References show that a quantity called the "Planck charge" can and has been calculated, but not that it should be listed among the "Base Planck units", or even really that a uniquely defined set of such units has been established. Regarding the statement above that Thanks to that discussion the Planck charge is now the unit with the highest number of references in the article: The citation coatrack for "Planck charge" is much less impressive than it appears at first glance. For example, the three sources in the table of "Base Planck units" don't actually mention it [37][38][39]. One of the footnotes used in the text is to a website that says, basically, "Yes you can calculate this, but it's not clear what good that will do for you" [40]. Another is to Progress in Physics, an unreliable journal run by and for the fringe science community. Yet another is a brief mention in a 2016 "encyclopedia of distances" that is a compilation of miscellany made by non-physicists. For all we know, they got their list of "base Planck units" from the Wikipedia article, which introduced the distinction between "base" and "derived" in 2004. Yet another merely includes the "Planck charge" in a table with a page of other quantities without saying anything about it being the capstone in an established, coherent set of units, which is the whole point in contention. Still another is to a non-peer-reviewed manuscript that claims to present a novel unified theory of physics. I regard these "references" as degrading the quality of the article, but prior experience suggests that trying to have a discussion on the matter would be an exercise in protracted futility. XOR'easter (talk) 19:00, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
    • XOR'easter, I hope you are well. I do not have the energy to start that discussion again. I know that for some reason you oppose the presence of the Planck charge among Planck units, but that discussion has led to me adding many words under History to explain the situation of the Planck charge to meet your point (a little help would have been useful). As for Progress in Physics, you never raised a point, as far as I recall. You complain about my Search better ;), but what should I say about the tone of both your and Quondum's comments (including the one cited by Vice regent, where after presenting several sources in favor of the Planck charge to meet Quondum's request I have been accused by him of “arguing around the point without addressing it”)? I never filled a complaint or answered with the same tone, but it does not mean I was OK with them. By the way, have you understood what we are talking about here and why Vice regent has decided to ping exactly you and Quondum? --Grufo (talk) 19:35, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
      • I know that for some reason you oppose the presence of the Planck charge among Planck units — I explained my reason repeatedly, and did so again in my comment just above. (For example, my reply to your reply to Quondum's comment explained why those sources did not address the key point in contention.) As to why Vice regent notified Quondum and me, I presume it was because they believed that comments from the others involved in a pertinent past discussion would be helpful. XOR'easter (talk) 20:29, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
        • @XOR'easter: “I explained my reason repeatedly, and did so again in my comment just above”: If I had the energy to go back to that discussion I would say that your arguments had rather shifted while discussing (which is not necessarily a bad sign), but one thing had never changed: your opposition against the Planck charge. But I do not have the energy, so I will just say that I believe I had done my best to thoroughly show the opposite perspective, and at the end of the day I tried to include your point of view in the article – important note of civility: all that long discussion happened before any of us even started to intervene on the page, let alone reverting each other's edits. “I presume it was because they believed that comments from the others involved in a pertinent past discussion would be helpful”: There is no pertinent discussion here. A user (Vice regent) has opened a case of WP:HOUNDING against me, but this has nothing to do with physics. Vice regent's activity deals mostly with Islam. We have different points of view, and while he thinks I am “hounding” him (unfortunately there is not a WP:PROJECTIONISM rule on Wikipedia, because this might be a good candidate for it), I simply think that his edits tend to be apologetic for some interpretation of Islam and suppress other points of view, sometimes even majority positions. As atheist, I wish instead that no particular interpretation obtains more space than WP:DUE would suggest, and I am definitely against suppressing majority views. But as why he has decided to ping exactly you and Quondum, it sounds like a mistery to me. You might try to get a better answer directly from him. --Grufo (talk) 20:52, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
          • That's an awful lot of vague pondering about the motivations of others. It's a good thing we have the policy WP:AGF, so that going forward you can stop such comments entirely and focus on the substance of what people say, instead. --JBL (talk) 21:28, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
          • This thread is about your behavior and that of users you've interacted with. Hemiauchenia pointed to the physics discussion as relevant, because in their view, you were exhibiting the same type of behavior in both cases. Vice regent then asked for input from the others involved in the physics discussion. I see no mystery here. XOR'easter (talk) 21:30, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
            • @XOR'easter: “you were exhibiting the same type of behavior in both cases”: I did have a strange feeling while discussing with you and Quondum, like a sort of hostility from both of you (or your last comment seems to suggest that at least you found my behavior criticizable). That discussion is publicly visible. Admins are more than welcome to dig deep into it. --Grufo (talk) 21:41, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
        • Since I have been pinged, I'll respond to a point above. Grufo claims "... and the discussion you mentioned (where I made an argument against the removal of the Planck charge from the units) ended in my favor ...". I don't see any agreement or concession to that effect, and this was probably typical of our differences of interpretation, whereas I concur with XOR'easter's perception expressed above. I understand that Grufo has been acting in good faith, but in our past interactions it felt as though the rules of discourse that we function by are completely different. —Quondum 21:35, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
          • @Quondum: I like to think that we both conceded something to each other after that discussion, and both our edits of the article afterwards converged towards an inclusive point of view – although I cannot say the same about the discussion, which has been quite polarized indeed, and where I think there have also been some wrongs from your side (not much from XOR'easter's side, except a general antipathy and stubbornness, all of which are not crimes – and probably I am not much better at those). That dispute though, which was completely focused on the content and where no incidents happened, has hardly anything to do with what we are talking about here, or with your ping in this discussion, which looks still mysterious to me – unless Vice regent explains at last why he felt the need of pinging you both. --Grufo (talk) 03:17, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Another used already explained above.VR _talk 03:37, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

This thread is unfortunately unclearly framed from the start, including its heading. If behavioural issues of an editor and their impacts are the focus (and this thread suggests that they may be), I would suggest that if any admin is to make sense of it, this thread should be closed and restarted, with care to the heading and to list exactly what is seen to be the problem, with direct behaviours pointed out with diffs. Making insinuations without being clear, for example the link "some wrongs" above, is unhelpful to an admin. This is ANI: make specific statements backed clearly by diffs, and keep it brief. —Quondum 10:59, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@Quondum: All I want is not “not being clear”. This comment of yours has been cited by Vice regent as one of the reasons why you have been pinged (or at least so it seems – Vice regent, please do correct me if I am wrong). And exactly that comment in my opinion is rather an argument in my favor than the other way around, since there you were answering to this comment of mine, where I dealt with all the points raised exhaustively and with great patience, and yet your answer was Grufo, if you persist in arguing around the point without addressing it, I may formally warn you on your talk page against Wikipedia:Disruptive editing (with specific reference to the section Wikipedia:Disruptive editing § Failure or refusal to "get the point"). Further, please read Wikipedia:Competence is required. – which left me stunned (and, by the way, you even cite Wikipedia:Disruptive editing, but I never edited the page concerning the Planck charge while we were still discussing about it, and my point was exactly about leaving the page as it was – while the Planck charge has been in the page since 2004). I am sorry you have been involved in this discussion, Quondum, but if a wrong is used against me, without the author acknowledging it and taking distance from it, as I believe it is here the case, I will have to show it on my own. --Grufo (talk) 11:27, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@Quondum: I started this thread when Grufo started following me around on different articles, reverting my work and responded to attempts to discuss with personal attacks. I mentioned the first two in the first post and the personal attacks in the second post I made here. A couple of other users later said they observed problematic behavior from Grufo at other articles.VR _talk 12:27, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

“other users later said they observed problematic behavior from Grufo at other articles”: Don't lie, Vice regent. The only other person who mentioned a previous discussion of mine (i.e., the discussion about the Planck charge) has been Hemiauchenia, who after happily naming me “a civil pov pusher” argued that “[Grufo] seems to have issues finding concensus with other users” – which, even if it was true, would hardly be a sin of any kind. Rather, the only persons who are making an explicit argument about my behavior have been you and an anonymous IP address so far – for as crazy as you accusing me of behavioral problems can sound. Quondum did that too in the past in a comment in another discussion, and I believe that comment was barely OK for him to make, or it was not OK at all. --Grufo (talk) 12:55, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

You have missed the very first comment from an IP; that makes "people", plural. My comment and that of XOR'easter are also critical of your behavior. So I assume you will strike the first sentence of your comment and apologize. --JBL (talk) 14:23, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@Joel B. Lewis: “So I assume you will strike the first sentence of your comment and apologize”: Sure, if that's the case. I might have missed it, but where exactly have you made an “explicit argument about my behavior” concerning my activity on Wikipedia? And if you intend to do it now, please do come forward. As for XOR'easter, although it is you who mentions him, if he feels he is making an “explicit argument about my behavior” as well (and not just making a point about why he thinks that the Planck charge is not a Planck unit), if he agrees I can change the sentence “the only persons who are making an explicit argument about my behavior have been you and an anonymous IP address so far” to “the only persons who are making an explicit argument about my behavior have been XOR'easter, you and an anonymous IP address so far”. --Grufo (talk) 14:52, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

OMG. Yes, you may have missed it. Also the comment from the IP. The statement you have called a lie (!!!) is in fact plainly true. Your entire approach to discussion is seriously problematic, and you should spend more time reflecting on the criticisms in order to change your behavior going forward. --JBL (talk) 15:19, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I am sorry, I must be lacking research skills, but all I found from you is this comment, where you seem very happy to be able to “focus on the substance of what people say”, but you do not express judgements about it. But please do integrate my research with what you consider your “explicit argument about my behavior” (I would like to know it also to be able to defend myself in case you have raised concerns about my past behavior anywhere and I have missed it). As for the IP address, since you are insisting I changed “editor” to “persons” in the sentence to include the IP address as well. As for the lie, please, do show me how it is a truth. --Grufo (talk) 15:40, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

and not just making a point about why he thinks that the Planck charge is not a Planck unit — a base Planck unit. Please, I made my position clear. I want to be charitable, but this is either a careless error, a failure to understand the point I made repeatedly, or an inability/unwillingness on your part to summarize another editor's opinion accurately. (And in the direction of making that opinion sound absurd.) The latter two out of those three possibilities would mean that, even in a discussion about your behavior, you're exhibiting problematic editing habits. I didn't want to weigh in on anything other than the physics discussion because I hadn't yet had time to read it all. (I have limited time for Wikipedia stuff this week, and ANI drama is low on the list of things I'd like to spend it on.) I will concur that claiming another editor is making a desperate search of approval from others [41] is not OK. As for the supposed "lie", Civil POV pushing is problematic behavior. XOR'easter (talk) 16:49, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter::

“a base Planck unit. Please, I made my position clear”

I wanted to remain out of that discussion for a reason, but since you insist (but please, let's make this short)… As we have widely discussed, there are two possibilities: either 1. we remove completely all electromagnetic units from the Planck units or 2. we replace the Planck charge with another electromagnetic unit in the base units (I remember you made the example of the Planck current). You said you would like to have the Planck charge among the derived units, but still keep it in the system, am I right? In this scenario we have to exclude case 1. Case 2. would require instead that you find references in support of another electromagnetic unit among the base units (let's say the Planck current). Last time I checked you didn't have any references, have you found any in the meanwhile?

“I want to be charitable, but this is either a careless error, a failure to understand the point I made repeatedly”

There is no careless error, I wanted to save you from the burden of facing the fact the your position shifted between several positions and ended with the most indefensible position: keeping the Planck charge in the system and inserting another electromagnetic unit among the base units (Quondum's position of removing the Planck charge completely was way more defensible) – to cite part of the vagueness of your initial position: #1: (no mention of base vs. derived yet) “It shows up in this formula or that, but without solid references spelling out its importance, we shouldn't be hyping it. In decades of being a physics person talking with other physics people, I haven't had one conversation that referred to it.” (the latter would also classify as POV to be strict); #2 the fact that according to you the Planck charge shouldn't be taken as a base unit because the sources simply “calculate it, but that's it” – to which I answered that all units are calculated, but whether you need a fundamental constant or not in the calculation is what make the unit base or derived.

Without doing this for all your comments, I think the comment of mine I cited before shows quite clearly that I have always answered to your actual position, and not to a personal interpretation of mine about it.

“or an inability/unwillingness on your part to summarize another editor's opinion accurately”

For as few as it matters, I was thinking something similar about you in that discussion, since I needed several comments to explain to you that with the Coulomb constant in the system the base units cannot be less than five. But I believe anyone can read that discussion and see with their own eyes who failed to miss the most about the opponent's point of view – if they believe this is something really important to do.

“Civil POV pushing is problematic behavior”

Civil POV pushing (Hemiauchenia's accusation towards me) would require a careful analysis of my edits. When I tell a user they are POV-pushing something I usually explain exactly what POV they have inserted into an article and how. So far, besides this dispute with some editors that defend certain interpretations of Islam where we both accused each other of POV, I never had any particular problems with POV as far as I recall. I have been accused by you and Quondum of being OR in my defense of the Planck charge, sure, and I believe I have reacted to that by giving references.

I believe POV-pushing would be required to be definable in the first place. If I see a user adding a particular interpretation of Islam, or watering down the former article “Sexual slavery in Islam” as “Concubinage in Islam”, I am perfectly able to define what POV is being pushed in that particular moment.

--Grufo (talk) 18:30, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

My position was consistent from the start of that discussion until it faded into silence without consensus. I never advocated inserting another electromagnetic unit among the base units; as an incidental point, I raised the possibility that a different electromagnetic unit could be defined, as part of an attempt on my part to explain why you were making an unwarranted leap of logic. I explained this back in May. Now you are accusing me of "POV" problems because I brought literal decades of experience studying and working in physics to the Talk page of a physics article. To be clear, I did not advance my experience as definitive proof of anything, and the quote of mine that you terminated with a full stop actually continued, ending with, "and hunting through the literature strongly suggests that my sample is not too biased."

I was thinking something similar about you in that discussion, since I needed several comments to explain to you that with the Coulomb constant in the system the base units cannot be less than five. I understood your point, and it is as irrelevant now as it was months ago. The question is not and was never "how many base units must there be", but rather, "Has the physics community actually bothered to make a formalized system of 'Planck units' with a solid distinction between which ones are 'base' and which are 'derived'?"

I have been accused by you and Quondum of being OR in my defense of the Planck charge, sure, and I believe I have reacted to that by giving references. You provided references without regard to whether they were reliable or whether they actually supported your point. Some weren't, and none did. XOR'easter (talk) 19:47, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter:

“My position was consistent from the start of that discussion until it faded into silence without consensus. I never advocated inserting another electromagnetic unit among the base units; as an incidental point, I raised the possibility that a different electromagnetic unit could be defined, as part of an attempt on my part to explain why you were making an unwarranted leap of logic”

To avoid any possibility of interpretations, I would like to ask you two simple questions (forgive me if you feel you have already answered): 1. How many Planck base units do you think the Wikipedia article should have? 2. Where should the Planck charge be placed?

“Now you are accusing me of "POV" problems because I brought literal decades of experience studying and working in physics to the Talk page of a physics article”

I am usually way to gentle and never strict enough, but since here we are in a context where strictness seems to be enforced, I need to remind you that your personal experience is not verifiable (or paradigmatic), and therefore is not suitable for Wikipedia. This is not a trial against you, XOR'easter, this is a trial against me allegedly WP:HOUNDING Vice regent.

“Some weren't, and none did”

I believe some among the current references in the article about the Planck charge have definitely more authority than others, but to state that any of them is unreliable requires a precise mention of which one (if you want to check they should be all under § History). And since my points simply were that 1. the Planck charge is surely used “as such” in literature (Quondum's initial point about “Named Planck units”) and (secondarily) 2. when it is listed (not just mentioned) it tends to be listed exactly like Wikipedia does (together with length, mass, time and temperature), I believe the sources did support both my points enough.

--Grufo (talk) 20:42, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Your questions appear to be content issues not suitable for ANI, which is a forum for conduct-related disputes, and I have already dissected the reliability of your sources above. (If anyone else thinks it would actually help for me to go down that path, I will, but I'd rather not try the community's patience. I suspect that my attempts to explain why the physics discussion is relevant have already brought more content into the conduct dispute than is preferred, but I saw no other way.) There's no rule against mentioning one's background on Talk pages, and you seem to be ignoring that in the comment where I did so, I also described the results of a literature search. I did not advance my own experience as definitive or say that I should be cited in the article text (that would be weird); I was just being honest about where I was coming from, which is generally a good idea. XOR'easter (talk) 21:06, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

D.Lazard and Differential geometry of surfaces

• Differential geometry of surfaces (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• D.Lazard (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Russ Woodroofe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Blanking: [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47]

The article Differential geometry of surfaces (DGS) is one that I helped prepares twelve years ago in February 2008. For some time I have known that DGS has not been in am imperfect state. While writing the article, I added further content which became a separate article Riemannian connection on a surface (geared to graduate students). The original paper has many imperfections largely because, like other parts of wikipedia, it still remains unwritten. There were many gaps in the article, particular at the beginning and the lede, because it had broken off as a fork. However I decided recently to make the long overdue improvements to the article, knowing bits that were glaringly missing: first to symmetry of second derivatives and then to inverse function theorem. I just summarised very briefly a page or two out of Lars Hörmander and Henri Cartan (world experts).

Then User:D.Lazard decided he did not like some of the new introductory material which he blanked five times. I believe that this kind of blanking is extremely uncommon on wikipedia. D.Lazard did not seem to have give any coherent explanation of his blanking. He wikilwawyered and criticized the title "Differential geometry of surface."

D.Lazard has been told that the brief preparatory section is needed for the new section "Regular surfaces in Euclidean space". At the moment the paragraph of requisites is just a brief summary without proofs. The new content on "regular surface" is in the course of being written. The sources are the lecture noteds of Nigel Hitchin and Eugenio Calabi, as well as text boos by Pelham Wilson, Andrew Pressley, Manfredo do Carmo, Barrett O'Neill and Dirk Struik. D.Lazard's repeated blanking is unhelpful. In addition he has not made any attempt to discuss the proposed new material, which seems to me straightorward. He has accused me of WP:OWN, but he knows that there are certain prerequistes are needed for telling the story of Gauss and his remarkable discoveries. Most of contributions in mathematics have been to harmonic analysis, symmetric spaces, representation theory, etc. Differential geometry of surfaces is an undergraduate article: in the UK that is the case (e.g. in Oxford and Cambridge) and also for honors undergraduates in the US. D..Lazard's blanking is incredible. He has no authority to prevent standard content being created. As far as I am aware, he does not produce any such content himself. Other blanking by Russ Woodruffe has also happened (using WP:BRD as a pretext).

I have created an even shorter summary, now placed only in the "Regular surface" section. D.Lazard's blanking has been disruptive. It seems to be a combination of WP:POINT and WP:NOTHERE. Very little to do with content creation, which requires calm and careful thought. Mathsci (talk) 15:31, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

• Boomerang This is a content issue and it seems that only Mathsci refuses to cooperate with the consensus of other editors on that talk page. The so-called blanking is explained by edit summaries and talk page comments, so I'm not sure why Matshci thinks this drama board will support their ownership claim. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:42, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) I have removed the section Differential geometry of surfaces#Calculus in 2 variables that mathsci added recently, because it was out of the scope of this article. When I saw that mathsci started edit warring, I stopped reverting after my second revert, opened a discussion on this section on the talk page, and asked WT:WPM for help. Three established mathematical editors posted to Talk:Differential geometry of surfaces#Calculus in 2 variables with comments agreeing that this section should be removed. Mathsci participation to this discussion did not addressed the question of the relevance of this section for this article. I have considered that four against one (mathsci) is a clear WP:CONSENSUS. So, I reverted again this section (three times), and each time I was reverted, with personal attacks in the edit summary ("rvv - WP:BATTLEGROUND by edit-warrior - WP:NOTHERE - there has no been attempt to discuss the relevant mathematics and certainly no attempts to find "consensus" - OP seems not to actually seem ti have write very much content editing on wiipedidia recently" [48]). Finally (for the moment?) Russ Woodroofe reverted this section again. The fact that Russ Woodroofe was not among the editors that have commented on the talk page enforces the consensus.

About the accusation of WP:OWN, it suffices to read above mathsci's post to be convinced that it is a problem for mathsci.

IMO, WP:BOOMERANG should be applied here. D.Lazard (talk) 16:27, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

• This edit appears as a tentative of mathsci for escaping from WP:3RR by restoring the disputed material in another section. D.Lazard (talk) 16:45, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

(ec) In principle this involved updating and improving the article, I looked at it in 2008. During that updating period, I noticed that the article was incoherent, because of missing sections. The first task was then to add a few preliminary sentences, needed for surfaces: content on diffeomorphisms; and content on Taylor series expansion, needed for the first fundamental form and second fundamental form of a surface. A few minutes ago I added content related to the "first fundamental form". I wrote about the matrices ${\begin{pmatrix}E&F\\F&G\end{pmatrix}}$. It was blanked.[49] At the moment material that should have been in the article along while back is being added. That was my initiative. The material is standard, but requires care. I think in my experience editing, I have never before seen blanking like this. At the moment this anodyne neutral topic is hardly race and intelligence when legendary folks like Mikemikev were trying to remove all references to Jensenism. This is just undergraduate mathematics. I have some vague memories of D.Lazard being difficult about Euclidean Jordan algebras in the past, when I was editing material on hermitian symmetric spaces. I cannot see where WP:OWN comes into here. Mathsci (talk) 18:04, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@Mathsci: You need to respect editorial consensus. At the moment, the consensus of editorial opinion seems against you. Paul August ☎ 18:25, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@Paul August: I have noticed that you have been one of the very few editors to actively edit this particular article: many thanks for that! Originally this week I added a proof of the the inverse function theorem in this article; it only gradually became clear that it could be transplanted to another wikipedia article, where it belonged. Then step by step, I have tried to reduce the sentences about derivatives and diffeomorphisms to the very minimum, both to clarify what's going on with regular surfaces, while making it accessible to a general readership. From my own edits, I hope you can see that is what has been happening. In the article, there are still problems in defining principal curvature, Monge patches, etc. I am trying my best. Mathsci (talk) 19:31, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm sure you are trying your best. But this is not the place to discuss article content. This board is for discussing editorial conduct. Paul August ☎ 21:50, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

• I reverted Mathsci because I saw them (following a post on the Math wikiproject) ignoring talk page consensus about the article -- WP:BRD seems relevant, but the pattern appeared to be more BRRRR. I also tend to agree that their additions are of WP:UNDUE length, although I don't believe that they are intending to be disruptive, and I actually do think there is room for including some small connection with lower-level material. I am concerned that they are continuing to edit the article in a way that is out-of-line with talk page consensus, while other involved editors are waiting for this ANI situation to play itself out. I agree that there may be cause for concern regarding WP:OWNERSHIP issues. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 08:46, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
• One of ANI's more esoteric reports to date, to be sure. EEng 10:09, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
• Comment: Here are the main points for which, in my opinion, WP:BOOMERANG must apply.
  • Edit warring after a consensus was reach on the talk page: the three first edits that are linked above are reversions of the same Mathsci's contribution from August 3. The last three are reversion from August 5 of the same contribution, after that a consensus was reach on the talk page.
  • Tentative to escape from WP:3RR by adding the same material in another section [50]
  • Personal attacks in edit summaries, for example [51]
  • Removal of a heading in the talk page, which makes nonsensical other's post [52]
  • Systematic and still continuing use of article's page as a sandbox for preparing their contributions; see [53] as a typical example. This is disruptive by making very difficult to others to review these fast changes, and fixing/improving/reverting them.
  • Contributions on the talk page that consist mainly in attacks on user conduct and summaries of sources that they think the most relevant ones; see Talk:Differential geometry of surfaces#Recent edits by mathsci, and more recently Talk:Differential geometry of surfaces#Theorema Egregium

Although, IMO, none of these items is sufficient by itself for opening a thread here, all together, they form a highly disruptive behavior that must be stopped. D.Lazard (talk) 10:25, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

• Comment I hadn’t realized that this content dispute had escalated so far. The consensus at Talk:Differential geometry of surfaces#Recent edits by mathsci was very clearly against the inclusion of the disputed section. Mathsci has good intentions here, but should recognize that they have been edit warring against multiple editors and that they have made inappropriate and often tangential accusations against D.Lazard. — MarkH₂₁^talk 09:34, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
• Comment I stopped following the page because it was stressful, but I came back today and was shocked further. Every editor outside of MathSci has been unanimous that his edits are not appropriate for Wikipedia, reading more like a textbook and using a level detail not appropriate for a high level article. There have been 300 edits since he started editing the page in late July, with 250 edits since Aug 3, and as far as I can tell there have been reverts back and forth every day for the past week. I don't know if its a thing you guys do, but I suggest the page be reverted back to the state it was in July 9 before any of the edits and locked for a time.Brirush (talk) 20:05, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• Postscript to the above comment: I think MathSci is intelligent and eloquent, and I think the material has use somewhere, but not in this article in this fashion. Others have suggested moving the new material to a new page and summarizing it on the main page, and I think that's a great solution. I post here not to condemn MathSci, but to admit that I'm not sure how to proceed; outside observers could see clearer, IMO.Brirush (talk) 20:39, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

I am biased as an editor who has made some major changes in the last week, but I believe there have been vast improvements to the article since July 9, and I think it'd be a very bad idea to revert it. I know there is at least one other editor (D.Lazard) who thinks my edits have made a positive impact. In my opinion, mathsci's edits to the page have been highly confusing and in need of clarification, which in part explains the number of edits - in my own opinion, he's also made it rather difficult for me to improve the page. In essence, I think the article needed an almost complete rewrite for it to be clear. The (current) end result of the major edits, in section 3, is in its majority written by me and not by mathsci. It may look long and over-detailed, but it is very much not written as a textbook, it is just a summary of the main points. (There is one section on isometries, written by mathsci, which I think is unclear, as well as two paragraphs, also written by him, which are in discussion on the talk page.) Gumshoe2 (talk) 21:02, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

It is not a good idea to restore an old version such as the one of mid July. At this time, the first technical section of the article was not as usual the definition of th object of study or the needed background. It started directly by the sentence "Informally Gauss defined the curvature of a surface in terms of the curvatures of certain plane curves connected with the surface." In other words the article could be understood only by people who already know its content. After Gumshoe2's major edits, the article is much better and useful for a much wider audience. It would be a pity to destroy this good job. My contribution to this improvement is minor, because, while I know enough of the subject for understand and reviewing edits, I do not know enough for writing sections and chosing the material that deserve to be added (or kept). D.Lazard (talk) 22:09, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

In summary, the problem here is that although Mathsci edits of the article and his contributions to the talk page are clearly done in good faith, they are very disruptive, and this would help to improve the article if they are stopped. D.Lazard (talk) 22:22, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Holy WP:TLDR! This is ripe for a cool down and RfC to get more uninvolved eyes. Gleeanon409 (talk) 22:39, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

I would really like to have some extra observers. What is an RfC? Gumshoe2 (talk) 02:44, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@Gumshoe2:, See WP:RfC, they need to be written neutrally. Gleeanon409 (talk) 02:59, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. Unfortunately I'm not very familiar with the wikipedia bureaucracy... it says there "The use of requests for comment on user conduct has been discontinued," are you sure it's the appropriate way? It is also a little unfortunate that an observer might have to be somewhat knowledgeable in math to understand the situation Gumshoe2 (talk) 03:11, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@Gumshoe2:, don’t focus on user(s), make it on how best to treat the contested content. Gleeanon409 (talk) 07:33, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

To editor Gleeanon409: This page is not about article content, it is about user conduct. It is also clear in WP:BOOMERANG, that the behavior of the opener of the thread has also to be considered. D.Lazard (talk) 16:54, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• Further comment. The discussion at Talk:Differential geometry of surfaces#Section on orthogonal coordinates is a newer example that is rather surrealistic. It seems that Mathsci discusses from another spacetime Universe. To administrators: It is time to stop Mathsci's disruptive editing, even if they are disruptive with good faith. D.Lazard (talk) 16:54, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I fully agree. Mathsci makes it extremely difficult to improve the page. Gumshoe2 (talk) 17:18, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

If the section has been repeatedly removed by blanking against consensus then simply take the issue to WP:3rr for edit warring. If they are doing this across content on the article then make the case for a topic ban on the article itself. Gleeanon409 (talk) 19:05, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Remark. I have no idea what D.Lazard means by "rather surrealistic"? Here I had to check WP:V and WP:RS in a specific source, a book of Eisenhart written in 1909. There were two formulas that needed to be checked. I also performed WP:V using a second source (a book of Dirk Struik written in 1961). So this was the standard process of WP:V and WP:RS that happens in all wikipedia articles (or should do). The verification is here in the diff and it is rather tedious.[54] I am stil editing articles on Bach organ music, where the same rules apply. Similarly articles on France where the same rules apply. Even very infrequently updating the early history parts of History of the race and intelligence controversy where the same rules apply. Mathsci (talk) 19:28, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Remark. I would like to be very clear. I think Mathsci is trying to be helpful and understands part of the material, but does not understand all of it, and is not himself able to draw the line between what he understands and what he doesn't understand. He is highly combative about presenting the material as he sees fit, mostly by drawing directly upon textbooks and authors he respects. This would of course be ok (and even in many cases very good) if he understood the material well enough. The discussion on the talk page about the Theorema Egregium, and newly, about a "derivative formula" of Gauss, shows that he does not. He is not able to respond to technical questions about what he is claiming, always just deferring to "standard sources" which he often misinterprets. Surely there is a wiki procedure that could directly deal with this, without locking the whole page? Gumshoe2 (talk) 19:49, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• I agree with several users above (Chris Troutman, Paul August, Russ Woodroofe, MarkH21, Brirush) that there is already a clear consensus on the article talk-page, and that MathSci's behavior in ignoring it is disruptive. There is no point in holding an RfC when discussion has already included a significant fraction of editors who might be expected to weigh in on a mathematics article, with unanimity except from MathSci. If MathSci will not voluntarily agree to recognize and abide by the consensus on the page, it might (regrettably) be necessary for them to be blocked from editing that article -- but I hope they will acknowledge that their approach is not an acceptable mode of collaboration. --JBL (talk) 19:28, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

(WP:tl;dr) What is disruptive? RfC's on user conduct no longer occur. I am not aware of a mathematical expert ever being topic-banned on wikipedia. There have been arbcom cases involving mathematicians (e.g. Michael Hardy and Arthur Rubin), but never remotely concerning elementary undergraduate material. At the moment there has been very little activity on the article page. The article was created by me in November 2007 and has been very stable since July 2020. In the 13 years of writing the article, everything I have edited so far has been accurate. I have been careful with WP:V and WP:RS. Content has been carefully paraphrased and summarised. In July 2020 I noticed that very easy material had been missing from the article: looking at how it was treated in real life, I tried to add it on wikipedia. Definitions of regular surfaces, Monge patches, examples, etc. Perhaps part of that change—a crash course in 2 variable calculus—was against consensus, not sufficiently user-friendly; that material was quickly suppressed, completely reasonably.

Gumshoe2 has made a number of changes to the article. Apart from checking some sections, I have encouraged him to improve the sections on geodesic polar coordinates. I have also made it quite clear that others, including Gumshoe2, can make any improvements that they want. That has always been the case. Why would it be otherwise?

On the article talk page, some content has been checked using WP:RS. That is normal. There was one painful but ultimately correct calculation: I had to refer to a Princeton treatise by Eisenhart from 1909 and then double check with a 1940 text also by Eisenhart. So far none of the mathematics has been problematic. Perhaps some editors have been impatient that checking for WP:V and WP:RS have taken longer than anticipated. It has been exhausting. Salix alba is a mathematical wikipedian and an administrator who has edited the article: he has not recommended that any action be taken now. Paul August also comes into the same category of mathematical wikipedian and administrator. He advised that I should adhere to consensus. I don't think he ever told me that content shouldn't be checked: that's part of the five pillars. In the humanities, it is a rule that articles are checked quite carefully for WP:RS and WP:V. As far as I'm aware the same rules apply in mathematics articles. Mathsci (talk) 21:16, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

In response to "In the 13 years of writing the article, everything I have edited so far has been accurate," here is a list of some of Mathsci's edits which contain parts that are either wrong or incoherent, from small mistakes to fundamental misunderstandings: ex 1, ex 2, ex 3, ex 4, ex 5, ex 6. There was a discussion of example 4 on the talk page, where Mathsci showed his failure to understand the relevant result. I encourage anyone, even those who are not familiar with the technical material, to read the thread to see the nature of Mathsci's non-responses and superficial use of "reliable sources" and "verifiability". I'll try to avoid any further comments here until admins respond. Gumshoe2 (talk) 22:43, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

User Mathsci on the page "Differential geometry of surfaces"

This has been partially discussed in a previous ANI thread D.Lazard and Differential geometry of surfaces, where Mathsci (talk · contribs) accused D.Lazard (talk · contribs) of inappropriate edits to the page Differential geometry of surfaces. It seems to have been ignored by admins since the conversation shifted to accusations against Mathsci, who has been (in at least some of our opinions) a corrosive presence on the page. I am not aware of anyone who has defended his comments or edits.

I'll copy my comment from there: "I would like to be very clear. I think Mathsci is trying to be helpful and understands part of the material, but does not understand all of it, and is not himself able to draw the line between what he understands and what he doesn't understand. He is highly combative about presenting the material as he sees fit, mostly by drawing directly upon textbooks and authors he respects. This would of course be ok (and even in many cases very good) if he understood the material well enough. The discussion on the talk page about the Theorema Egregium, and newly, about a "derivative formula" of Gauss, shows that he does not. He is not able to respond to technical questions about what he is claiming, always just deferring to "standard sources" which he often misinterprets. Surely there is a wiki procedure that could directly deal with this, without locking the whole page?"

This recent talk thread on the subsection "orthogonal coordinates" is particularly conspicuous. It was in reference to this section of this version of the page. As I showed by links to edits in the talk page, this entire section was written by Mathsci. To briefly summarize the talk thread: I found a precise reference to the material in Eisenhart's book, in section 88; Mathsci insisted that the material was a trivial consequence of section 63 of Eisenhart's book; I showed him that the formulas in section 63 were, in context, trivial, and logically could not possibly be the source; Mathsci now seems to be claiming that the material he wrote into the wiki page is in error, despite the fact that it is explicitly present in Eisenhart's book and I identified where it came from. In response to D.Lazard, in the previous ANI thread, calling the exchange "surrealistic", Mathsci wrote (at the time that he was claiming that it all followed from section 63):

I have no idea what D.Lazard means by "rather surrealistic"? Here I had to check WP:V and WP:RS in a specific source, a book of Eisenhart written in 1909. There were two formulas that needed to be checked. I also performed WP:V using a second source (a book of Dirk Struik written in 1961). So this was the standard process of WP:V and WP:RS that happens in all wikipedia articles (or should do). The verification is here in the diff and it is rather tedious. [Link to then-current version of talk thread] I am stil editing articles on Bach organ music, where the same rules apply. Similarly articles on France where the same rules apply. Even very infrequently updating the early history parts of History of the race and intelligence controversy where the same rules apply.

This is highly emblematic for the following reason. Mathsci routinely insists on closely following the presentation of certain references, without being willing to spread material out over different wiki pages, as is common (especially, I believe, on math pages). In response to various disagreements, he routinely says that he's just following the sources, and suggests that others are being impudent for disagreeing with widely acknowledged standard sources; he almost never engages with the actual claims made. As the "orthogonal coordinates" talk thread exchange makes clear, Mathsci is not competent to correctly interpret what is in these standard sources. Another example is in the section on the Theorema Egregium, where Mathsci routinely misunderstood the meaning of the theorem, and was only able to respond to technical criticism by listing various references and standard facts about tangentially related material.

This is a major problem since (as can already be seen from some of his comments on the prior ANI thread) Mathsci seems to feel some ownership over the page Differential geometry of surfaces, and is highly active in controlling edits to the page. This can be seen, for one example, in this edit where the reason given for reversion was "too many changes." He makes it quite difficult to make improvements to the page.

I would like to also note that the accusations I'm making here are distinct from the accusations made against him in the prior ANI thread. They are also based on different (and more recent) material. Gumshoe2 (talk) 11:19, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Things are still at the level of a content dispute and not bad enough for administrator intervention. Some other form of Wikipedia:Dispute resolution would be a first step. Maybe at WT:WPM, I've been following the discussion but I'm not quite sure what the locus of the dispute is interms of concrete changes to the article. --Salix alba (talk): 12:44, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't know very much about wikipedia policies and procedures. But I agree with D.Lazard when he said in the previous ANI thread that this "is not about article content, it is about user conduct. It is also clear in WP:BOOMERANG, that the behavior of the opener of the thread has also to be considered." I would describe it as a problem on user conduct which has been initiated by article content. Personally, my real problem is not about specific matters in the article; it is summarized by my sentence "He makes it quite difficult to make improvements to the page."

(Also, I have used WT:WPM for some specific article content matters, but it didn't seem to draw any new commentators) Gumshoe2 (talk) 13:08, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Gumshoe2 (ec) I don't want to be accused of WP:tl;dr, walls of text ... Gumshoe2 has written on this page that he would like to find a "wiki process that stops an article being locked up."[55] At the moment no editing is happening like that—no locking up. There has been a discussion on the article talk page about "orthogonal coordinates", Orthogonal coordinates. It needed clearing up, using WP:V and WP:RS. I used an old-fashioned Princeton treatise from 1909. The first half of the material was fine but in the article there was an error in two statements (due to me), [56] Modern content on "geodesic polar coordinates" also occurs in the article, used for the so-called Gauss lemma. As mentioned to Gumshoe2 (in the above diff), a few more details could be provided for the section "exponential map", using a modern source. All of this is standard undergraduate material.

My 2006 user page self-identified me as a professional mathematician. Gumshoe2's account started in April 2020. He has not made many edits. He started by improving BLPs of eminent mathematicians listed on his user page. He has expertise in non-linear PDEs, geometry and physics, sometimes stringy. To my knowledge, so far nobody has suggested that there is a problem editing this article. It happens in the normal way. Mathsci (talk) 13:11, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

My comment on locking the page was due to Gleeanon409's comment on the previous ANI thread suggesting "a topic ban on the article itself." Maybe I misunderstood the meaning. Also, you are still failing to understand that there is no "error in two statements" on the wiki page. The material explicitly appears in section 88 of Eisenhart. It is your current statements on the talk page which are in error, not your edits from 2007 (the only problem with those being the vague sourcing) Gumshoe2 (talk) 13:21, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Gumshoe2: I made an error in the two last lines of the section. The edits in 2007 for the sentences ("If in addition E = 1, so that H = G^1⁄2, then the angle φ at the intersection between geodesic (x(t),y(t)) and the line y = constant is given by the equation...") were just garbage. Mathsci (talk) 13:37, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I can't believe I keep having to say this: check section 88, page 210, formula (57) here. The derivative formula you wrote in 2007 is completely correct. The link I just gave is open-access, anyone can see for themselves. It is the claims you've been making now, on the talk page, which are completely incorrect. Gumshoe2 (talk) 13:42, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Gumshoe2, did I make these edits in 2007 or did you? My edit history shows that it was me. On 13 November 2007, I followed through my mangled reasoning on time derivatives of x and y. The conditions F = 0 and E = 1 were not realistic. Geodesic polar coordinates are a different matter. Please could you stay on the article talk page? This kind of discussion on ANI is clearly off-topic. Mathsci (talk) 13:58, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I tried to get more eyes on the article talk page, by posting on Wikiproject:Math, without success. Trying to directly discuss the matters with you took up (and continues to take up) inordinate amounts of time with no progress whatsoever. Anyhow, geodesic polar coordinates are very well-known to have F = 0 and E = 1. That is established, for instance, in the last full paragraph on page 207 (in section 87) in the same open-access link I just posted. Gumshoe2 (talk) 14:13, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

• It's already recorded in the article that geodesic polar coordinates have the form $ds^{2}=dr^{2}+G(r,theta)d\theta ^{2}$. Its a corollary of the Gauss theorem. The more general result on orthogonal coordinates can be found, not so easily, in a 1909 Princeton treatise and a 1940 Princeton book by Eisenhart. They can be found in (32.14) of Eisenhart (1940) $d\theta /ds=-{\sqrt {g}}/g_{11}\Gamma _{12}^{2}dv/ds$ and (25.7), $\tan \theta =dv/du$. Similarly the same method works for Eisenhart (1909), page 76, (24) and then page 204, (42). The proof (due to Gauss) follows from the formula for differentiating arctan and the Euler equations for geodesics. A lot of the editing of this article happened in Aix-en-Provence in November 2007. Mathsci (talk) 21:34, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
• I am afraid the real problem is that our articles on math are written in such a way (for example, good luck anybody without a degree in math trying to understand what Leavitt path algebra says) that it is not really possible to apply WP:V to them, since only a few users are capable of verifying the article text with a source. When the number of these users is down to two and they disagree, we have a situation as described above.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:15, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes, that's probably true. You mentioned today's freshly-minted article above on Leavitt path algebras: Cuntz-Krieger algebras are not even defined on wikipedia (Cuntz algebras are). On the other hand, even at a graduate level, I have usually tried to write mathematical content directly using sources, e.g. commutation theorem, Butcher group, Hermitian symmetric space, Littlewood subordination theorem. Carathéodory kernel theorem, Grunsky's theorem, Hartogs–Rosenthal theorem, Grunsky matrix, etc, etc. Mathsci (talk) 09:26, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
  • As Mathsci himself has said several times, this is material from standard undergraduate coursework, and not a specialized (graduate-level) topic such as any of those listed. Of course, I understand that this still blocks out anyone who hasn't taken the class or prerequisites. But there must be a number of people on wikipedia who can verify, for instance, that my summary

"two days of continuous conversation to get to the point where Mathsci will recognize the phrase "classical derivative formula of Gauss" out of three sentences in the section he wrote, to not recognizing that it is proved in section 88 of Eisenhart, to insisting on a false verification of it based on other material, to then saying that the statement is wrong and should be removed, finally to then doing the very simple calculation by himself and recognizing that it is correct."

of this thread is completely accurate. Again, it is undergraduate material, not advanced mathematics; at the end I show how the problem is (after the setup) one that even students of multivariable calculus could carry out.

I think, also, that even those who have never taken a math class can see the structure of this conversation. In the third message, I allege "The link between these [certain two textbook topics] is the Gauss formula, which was not part of your presentation," i.e. that there is something missing from Mathsci's presentation. In the response, Mathsci just lists various textbooks that have proofs. In the next message, I look up one of the specific books and point out specifically that the fundamental point of the work done in the book had no counterpart in Mathsci's edit in question. Mathsci responds by saying that these books are legitimate sources and recommends a different book, a total non sequitur. Then Mathsci says "You are editing too rapidly at the moment and are making errors," and points out another book I should read. My editing error was apparently this deletion, which was clearly explained in the edit summary. I believe it doesn't take any understanding of the math involved to see that I was making specific claims about Mathsci's edits which Mathsci was absolutely nonresponsive to. Gumshoe2 (talk) 12:42, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Today Gumshoe2 wrote, "And, as I said before, I believe you are editing in good faith but do not have a very good understanding of some of the material. I believe this whole section is proof of that."[57] Gumshoe2 has given some form of apology for this.[58] Eisenhart's 1940 book has a good treatment of orthogonal nets; I used it for checking one of the main formulas. Not really a "total non sequitur."[59] Mathsci (talk) 17:38, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

To clarify for other readers. I was at most apologizing for using the talk page for expressing personal opinion about another user; the place for such comments is here, perhaps not there. Mathsci's talk about Eisenhart's other book is unrelated to the thread I outlined above, and in particular was not mentioned in the post I described as a "total non sequitur". He is confusing two different threads with each other. Gumshoe2 (talk) 17:51, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

• To Ymblanter and other non-mathematicians. This is true that too many mathematical articles are written in a way that they can be understood only by specialists on the subjects, although MOS:MATH says Articles should be as accessible as possible to readers not already familiar with the subject matter. (This probably results from the fact that many mathematical editors have not the competence needed for making their article accessible). But it is wrong that the technicalities here and in the article's talk page are related to WP:V, as all the content of this article appears in many textbooks (probably hundreds), some being listed as reference. So any reader that is able to read one of these sources should be able to verify the content of the article. So, is is completely useless, as does Mathsci, to comment with long technical details on the way that some authors present a material that is well known by mathematicians for two centuries.

The impression that two editors only can discuss the subject results from Mathsci's behavior: for proving that his interpretation of sources is wrong, one has not only to know the subject, but also to have a deep knowledge of the literature.

This Mathsci's way of discussing, and his aggressive behavior make almost impossible to discuss the main issues of this article, that are the accessibility to an audience that is as large as possible, the lack of contextual comments for explaining why each result is important, and for what it is used, and the whole structure of all our articles about surfaces. Personally, I have started to discuss some of these points. I do not continue because Mathsci's disruption makes impossible to have a constructive discussion. D.Lazard (talk) 17:10, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

I am not aware of any evidence of disruption at the moment, despite D.Lazard's views. References have been checked—sometimes time-consuming. D.Lazard's statements about numbers of sources are misleading. For the article Surface (topology), which D.Lazard page-watches, only a small but relevant references were added by me in 2016. As far as content-editing is concerned, all editors can make improvements, which are normally discussed on the article talk page. At ANI in the previous section, editing has explicitly been encouraged by me. There has sometimes been duplication of content, but that's part of the nature of the material: the Theorema Eqregium has several different proofs. Mathsci (talk) 19:40, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Dispute about Pashtun tribes involving User:Kkhan0818

• Original title was: PashtunTribal548, Kkhan0818 and various IPs (Seem to be one person) are claiming that Rahimuddin Khan belong to Afridi and Kheshgi tribe using unverifiable sources and claiming to be Rahimuddin Khan's "associate"

PashtunTribal548, Kkhan0818 and various IPs (Seem to be one person) are claiming that Rahimuddin Khan belong to Afridi and Kheshgi tribe using unverifiable sources (Please see this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange/Resource_Request#It_has_been_claimed_by_an_editor_that_the_following_sources_mention_that_Rahimuddin_Khan_belonged_to_an_ethnic_Pathan_family_whose_lineage_traces_them_to_the_Afridi_and_Kheshgi_tribes) as well as claiming to be Rahimuddin Khan's "associate".

Previously, the very same strategy was used at Zakir Husain (politician) (There it was claimed that the editor is a "relative" or descendant of Zakir Husain (politician)) and now it is being used at Rahimuddin Khan. The same tactic is also being used at Iftikhar Hussain Khan Mamdot with another twist.

The sole purpose of the editor(s) seems to "prove" and push the POV that they are all Pashtuns: Rahimuddin Khan (using unverifiable sources) and Zakir Husain (politician) (There are some verifiable sources) belonged to Afridi and Kheshgi tribes while Iftikhar Hussain Khan Mamdot is also a Pashtun (using unverifiable sources again: first using a slideshare document which was prepared by a "big shot" and now using another unverifiable source).

Please see here, here, here, here and big shot here for diffs. Please look into that. Thank you.  McKhan  ^(talk) 00:08, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Kkhan0818 is canvassing for support. Please see here and here. Thank you. McKhan  ^(talk)

You are tagging/mentioning me in various pages accusing me of sock-puppetry and are threatening to block my account and then some.

Firstly, I have no relations with this user PashtunTribal548.

Secondly, I can see you have vandalized more articles related to Pashtuns by constantly pushing your POV and claiming that they are not sourced or verifiable, which is entirely the contrary as your assertions are subsequently disproved.

The user PashtunTribal548 is not the first. You have always come to this predicament to threaten to block users (some examples are Störm and Azmarai76) in order to pursue your own agenda, before you even want to reach a consensus with them on talk pages. This is against Wikipedia's Guidelines. I can vouch for this based on my own experience with you and of many others as well. But you insist.

I will talk to a couple senior representatives on Wikipedia and will apprise them of the situation regarding your vandalism and disruptive editing. I will file a full report on you soon. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kkhan0818 (talk • contribs) 16:31, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• Why isn't PashtunTribal548 responding who made the recent edits to Rahimuddin Khan?
• Why is Kkhan0818 responding on the behalf of PashtunTribal548?
• The connection between Kkhan0818 and PashtunTribal548 is based upon this (i.e. "As I have stated before I am an associate of Mr. Khan...."), this and this. As per this and the edit history, I don't recall PashtunTribal548 ever stated before that PashtunTribal548 is an associate of Mr. Khan but Kkhan0818 definitely stated being an associate and relative or descendant. Finally, it is quite obvious that both ids, Kkhan0818 and PashtunTribal548, along with IPv6 addresses, are pushing a specific POV (i.e. agenda) of Zakir Husain (politician) (two verifiable sources were provided eventually) and Rahimuddin Khan being Afridi and Kheshgi. A CU request can reveal more.
• A consensus was never sought. A "leverage" of being an associate and relative or descendant of Zakir Husain (politician) and Rahimuddin Khan has been attempted to use a couple of times. When that didn't work then unverifiable sources were used with such frivolous justifications:

• "I'm a fellow Pashtun and Wikipedia user and just want to ask you for assistance in a matter. You are aware that this user McKhan has been involved in vandalising Pashtun articles." and
• "As you and I know both know it's very difficult to find "Open Sources" to fullfill our ancestral history but we still manage to get sources and have the hard copies with ourselves."

on the trail of canvassing for support.

• Following is a detailed response about the sources used by from the pertinent team:

"@McKhan: As to the first, if someone claims that this work supports a given statement on Wikipedia, they should be able to pinpoint to the relevant entry/page.' Since Rahimuddin Khan does not start with a letter between B and H and since (alphabetically-arranged) encyclopedias typically do not have an index, I don't see how I would ever find what they rely on. As to the second, since you seem to know that it is a collection of Wikipedia articles and since the publisher specifically says so (see here: "composed entirely of articles from Wikipedia that we have edited and redesigned into a book format"),''' I would respectfully submit that there is no need for any volunteer to waste their time trying to get ahold of this resource. Besides, no library knowingly acquires such books, and to the extent that a national library holds a deposit copy, these are generally more difficult to obtain than "ordinary" books. Again, I see no point in pursuing this request. Best, — Pajz (talk) 12:45 pm, Today (UTC−7)"

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange/Resource_Request#It_has_been_claimed_by_an_editor_that_the_following_sources_mention_that_Rahimuddin_Khan_belonged_to_an_ethnic_Pathan_family_whose_lineage_traces_them_to_the_Afridi_and_Kheshgi_tribes.

 McKhan  ^(talk) 17:22, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello Administrator,

Before anything else, I would like to start off by pointing out that what this User McKhan has told you is absolutely flawed. The edits made to the following articles are of very trivial importance. The main issue is about how this User keeps Pushing his POV and agenda across by deleting sourced material and mainly having a biased opinion of subjects that are Pashtun related. I don't understand how Wikipedia allows this User to stay active as what he is doing is completely against Wikipedia's Guidelines.

I want to start off by addressing McKhan's accusation of an issue regarding my use of sock-puppetry.

PashtunTribal548, Kkhan0818 and various IPs (Seem to be one person) are claiming that Rahimuddin Khan belong to Afridi and Kheshgi tribe using unverifiable sources (Please see this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange/Resource_Request#It_has_been_claimed_by_an_editor_that_the_following_sources_mention_that_Rahimuddin_Khan_belonged_to_an_ethnic_Pathan_family_whose_lineage_traces_them_to_the_Afridi_and_Kheshgi_tribes) as well as claiming to be Rahimuddin Khan's "associate". 

I want to attest that the IPv6 Address that was used in editing [60] was definitely me. I didn't log in to my account during the edit. However, from that one edit, the User accuses me of sock-puppetry in relation to this User Kkhan0818 by basing it on an allegation you can see below:

 The connection between Kkhan0818 and PashtunTribal548 is based upon this (i.e. "As I have stated before I am an associate of Mr. Khan...."), this and this. As per this and the edit history, I don't recall PashtunTribal548 ever stated before that PashtunTribal548 is an associate of Mr. Khan but Kkhan0818 definitely stated being an associate and relative or descendant. Finally, it is quite obvious that both ids, Kkhan0818 and PashtunTribal548, along with IPv6 addresses, are pushing a specific POV (i.e. agenda) of Zakir Husain (politician) (two verifiable sources were provided eventually) and Rahimuddin Khan being Afridi and Kheshgi. A CU request can reveal more
 

In response to this claim where the User says he doesn't recall me stating I'm an associate is utterly false. If you see in the talk page I had clearly stated Not sure who you're referring to. Maybe he was someone in our cabinet because I myself was an advisor to Rahimuddin Khan during his political career. I assume he took the onus to add material but with no sources whatsoever. PashtunTribal548 (talk) 16:29, 11 August 2020 (UTC).

McKhan himself had deleted the statement which evidently contradicts his claim "I don't recall PashtunTribal548 ever stated before that PashtunTribal548 is an associate of Mr. Khan." He has used that tactic as a basis to declare me a sock-puppet of a fellow user Kkhan0818 and by filing requests concerning subjects of no consequence.

As you can see here, one of his requests were disregarded:

 ::"@McKhan: As to the first, if someone claims that this work supports a given statement on Wikipedia, they should be able to pinpoint to the relevant entry/page.' Since Rahimuddin Khan does not start with a letter between B and H and since (alphabetically-arranged) encyclopedias typically do not have an index, I don't see how I would ever find what they rely on. As to the second, since you seem to know that it is a collection of Wikipedia articles and since the publisher specifically says so (see here: "composed entirely of articles from Wikipedia that we have edited and redesigned into a book format"),''' I would respectfully submit that there is no need for any volunteer to waste their time trying to get ahold of this resource. Besides, no library knowingly acquires such books, and to the extent that a national library holds a deposit copy, these are generally more difficult to obtain than "ordinary" books. Again, I see no point in pursuing this request. Best, — Pajz (talk) 12:45 pm, Today (UTC−7)" :: Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange/Resource_Request#It_has_been_claimed_by_an_editor_that_the_following_sources_mention_that_Rahimuddin_Khan_belonged_to_an_ethnic_Pathan_family_whose_lineage_traces_them_to_the_Afridi_and_Kheshgi_tribes.
 

If you go to the Iftikhar Hussain Khan Mamdot article, you can clearly see the User uses the exact same reason for reversion like he did in the Rahimuddin Khan article by saying "That source is NOT an open source. Nobody knows what is inside or what page number is that. Feel welcome to add back in once you have got a verifiable source. Reverted." The edit cites the correct sources that support the previous assertions and once again the User has been disproved as he previously was in the Zakir Husain (politician) article.

If you check this User's history of contributions, you can see he's always entering an article to start an edit war, trying to put his point across by vandalizing the article with disruptive editing, making it some kind of a game.

Furthermore, the points I've specified clearly deduces that the user has a personal agenda here, evidently either he's biased against Pashtuns or is doing it for the fun of it by continuously trying to push his POV via disruptive editing. I still can't fathom how Wikipedia can allow such behavior to carry on without being unnoticed. When even disproved on such minor issues, the User is so desperate to push his POV across by going so far as to request blocks inimical to fellow users. I strongly urge the Administrators of Wikipedia to take serious action against this user, in order to refrain him from vandalizing any additional articles. Thank you.

• "Za hum Pakhtun yum. Taso ta Pashto darzi?" Translation: "I am also a Pakhtun. Do you speak Pashto?" A question which I have asked Kkhan0818 here and here on his trail for canvassing. As a Pashtun, how can I have an agenda against the Pashtuns? That's just an absurd assumption.

• Under the light of edit histories of Kkhan0818, PashtunTribal548 and other IPv6 addresses, this statement, "The edits made to the following articles are of very trivial importance", is categorically incorrect as all of them have been pushing a specific POV (i.e. agenda) of Zakir Husain (politician) (two verifiable sources were provided eventually) and Rahimuddin Khan being Afridi and Kheshgi.

• My request about verifying the unverified sources wasn't "disregarded". To the contrary, Pajz made it clear that As to the first, if someone claims that this work supports a given statement on Wikipedia, they should be able to pinpoint to the relevant entry/page.' Since Rahimuddin Khan does not start with a letter between B and H and since (alphabetically-arranged) encyclopedias typically do not have an index, I don't see how I would ever find what they rely on. As to the second, since you seem to know that it is a collection of Wikipedia articles and since the publisher specifically says so (see here: "composed entirely of articles from Wikipedia that we have edited and redesigned into a book format"),'''. If those unverified sources (Please see here, here, here, here and big shot here for sources and diffs. Please also have a look at the recent "sources" added by PashtunTribal548 on Iftikhar Hussain Khan Mamdot page.) were that verifiable then why did Kkhan0818 use such frivolous justifications:

• "I'm a fellow Pashtun and Wikipedia user and just want to ask you for assistance in a matter. You are aware that this user McKhan has been involved in vandalising Pashtun articles." and
• "As you and I know both know it's very difficult to find "Open Sources" to fullfill our ancestral history but we still manage to get sources and have the hard copies with ourselves."

on the trail of canvassing for support.

• I have already provided everything from my side in the above comments as well as the diffs. I will let the admins look into it and decide.

 McKhan  ^(talk) 08:40, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• (Non admin comment) Kkhan0818, PashtunTribal548, McKhan, I suggest you all make your points more concise. The wall of text that you have created is not going to help any of you. Please put your diffs in the form of [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/link] instead of copy-pasting sections and please also quote things in the form 'First few words... last few words' instead of the whole phrase. This thread is one of the longest on the page currently and there haven't even been any responses. Also, in future, please use the notice listed at the top of the page to notify users of a thread involving them.

Secondly, stop using the word vandalism against each other and start assuming good faith. Vandalism is used to describe edits that are intentionally meant to harm the encyclopedia, which none of these seem to be. Thirdly, just because two people are pushing the same POV does not imply they are socks, but if you have solid evidence then take it to WP:SPI. Also please don't add level 4 unsourced warnings without warning someone at least once before.

Finally, PashtunTribal548 and McKhan, stop edit warring immediately on Rahimuddin Khan, Iftikhar Hussain Khan Mamdot and Zakir Husain (politician) or else I will take you to AN3 for violation of WP:3RR. Kkhan0818, stop forum-shopping. Thank you. Giraffer (munch) 12:02, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Edit: This is a content dispute, not a behavioral one, so I would take this to WP:DRN instead, but my points above still stand. Giraffer (munch) 12:06, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestions. (y)  McKhan  ^(talk) 14:30, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@EdJohnston: Are the following sources (which includes but not limited to a slideshare document, a book which is consisted upon / derived from the articles published in Wikipedia, Wikipedia's own articles, a supposed encyclopedia entry not matching the name or surname of the subject, material which isn't openly available and without page number or the author's name and "Punjab Patwari Recruitment Exam 2020 | 10 Full-length Mock Test For Complete Preparation") acceptable by the Wikipedia along with the edit histories' statements claiming to be an associate and relative or descendant of the subject and with the following justifications

• "I'm a fellow Pashtun and Wikipedia user and just want to ask you for assistance in a matter. You are aware that this user McKhan has been involved in vandalising Pashtun articles." and
• "As you and I know both know it's very difficult to find "Open Sources" to fullfill our ancestral history but we still manage to get sources and have the hard copies with ourselves."

on the trail of canvassing for support by Kkhan0818 here and here?

---

Added by PashtunTribal548 here, here, here and here in Rahimuddin Khan

• He belonged to an ethnic Pathan family whose lineage traces them to the Afridi and Kheshgi tribes.

---

Added by Kkhan0818 here in Rahimuddin Khan

• Khan was born in Qaimganj, United Provinces, India, to an ethnic Pashtun family whose lineage traces them to the Afridi and Kheshgi tribe,

---

Added by PashtunTribal548 here and here in Iftikhar Hussain Khan Mamdot

• He was a Kheshgi Afghan and a member of the ruling family of Mamdot.

---

Added by Kkhan0818 here in Iftikhar Hussain Khan Mamdot

• He was the son Shahnawaz Khan, was a Kasuri Pathan of the Kheshgi tribe and a member of the ruling family of Mamdot.

---

Following is a detailed response about the sources used by from the pertinent team:

"@McKhan: As to the first, if someone claims that this work supports a given statement on Wikipedia, they should be able to pinpoint to the relevant entry/page.' Since Rahimuddin Khan does not start with a letter between B and H and since (alphabetically-arranged) encyclopedias typically do not have an index, I don't see how I would ever find what they rely on. As to the second, since you seem to know that it is a collection of Wikipedia articles and since the publisher specifically says so (see here: "composed entirely of articles from Wikipedia that we have edited and redesigned into a book format"),''' I would respectfully submit that there is no need for any volunteer to waste their time trying to get ahold of this resource. Besides, no library knowingly acquires such books, and to the extent that a national library holds a deposit copy, these are generally more difficult to obtain than "ordinary" books. Again, I see no point in pursuing this request. Best, — Pajz (talk) 12:45 pm, Today (UTC−7)"

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange/Resource_Request#It_has_been_claimed_by_an_editor_that_the_following_sources_mention_that_Rahimuddin_Khan_belonged_to_an_ethnic_Pathan_family_whose_lineage_traces_them_to_the_Afridi_and_Kheshgi_tribes.

---

Doesn't' it seem like that someone is pushing his/her POV (i.e. agenda) by exploiting a "loophole" of not using open and verifiable sources to corroborate with his edits to Wikipedia articles?

---

 McKhan  ^(talk) 20:36, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

---

MinhNhat2K3 and lack of competence

• MinhNhat2K3 (talk · contribs)
• 123.20.104.153 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 113.172.189.190 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)
• 123.20.107.34 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

MinhNhat2K3 is an editor that specalises in adding lengthy lists of unreferenced, and quite often completely incorrect, people to articles, for example these edits to 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference. Due to this edit to the talk page of 113.172.189.190 straight after they were blocked, they are obviously editing as that IP as well, and given the same Vietnam ISP and editing style they are are also the first one.

Right before they made a complete mess of First World War centenary, it looked like this. No big list of attendees (the France section does contain a small list), but after many edits by both IPs we have this disaster. Clicking on the List of officials and dignitaries at the 2018 First World War centenary event brings up a huge unreferenced list with many, many errors. For example

• Paolo Artini, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees is incorrect, he's a representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The actual "Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees" is Kelly T. Clements.
• Fatih Birol, Secretary General of the International Energy Agency is incorrect, he's Executive Director of the International Energy Agency.
• Francisco Ribeiro Telles, Secretary General of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries is incorrect, the person who held the post at the time was Maria do Carmo Silveira.
• Tigran Sargsyan, President of the Eurasian Economic Union is incorrect, he was Chairman of the Board.
• Sergei Lebedev, Secretary General of CIS is incorrect, he's Executive Secretary.
• Stanislav Zas, Secretary General of CSTO is incorrect, according to his article he didn't even become a candidate for the job until after the centenary, and wasn't in the position until 2020.
• Thorbjorn Jagland, President of Council of Europe is incorrect, he was Secretary General of the Council of Europe.
• Federica Mogherini, Foreign Affairs Chief of the European Union is incorrect, she was High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
• Klaus Schwab, Executive Secretary of the World Economic Forum is incorrect, he's executive chairman.
• Yukiya Amano, Secretary General of the International Atomic Energy Agency is incorrect, he was Director General.
• Epeli Nailatikau, President of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association doesn't appear to be correct, the head of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association doesn't appear to be a "president" and there's nothing in the Epeli Nailatikau article about him holding the post, or any other post at the time of the centenary.
• Lamberto Zannier, Secretary General of OSCE is incorrect, he's High Commissioner on National Minorities at the OSCE.
• Coly Seck, Vice President of the United Nations Human Rights Council appears to be incorrect. United Nations Human Rights Council says he was president in 2019, but I can find no evidence he was ever "Vice President" of the same organisation.
• Guy Ryder, President of ILO is incorrect, he's Director-General.
• Abed Ali Abed, President of the World Peace Council appears to be someone completely made up (or spelled completely wrong, but I can find nobody with a similar name at the World Peace Council. According to the WPC themselves the president is Socorro Gomes, since at least 2014.
• Mukhisa Kituyi, President of UNCTAD is incorrect, he's Secretary-General.
• Jose Graziano da Silva, President of FAO is incorrect, he was Director General.
• George Mavrikos, Secretary General of WFTU may only have his job title of General Secretary reversed, but you have to wonder why the General Secretary of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) in Athens, Greece has the flag of the Isle of Man, a British Crown dependency. (there may be more incorrect flags, it was the only one I noticed and the other errors are bad enough without having to keep digging)
• Yuri Fedotov, Chairman of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime is incorrect, he was Executive Director.
• David Beasley, President of World Food Programme is incorrect, he's Executive Director.
• Lennart Bage, President of IFAD is incorrect, he was president in 2002, but Gilbert Houngbo has been president since 1 April 2017.
• William Lacy Swing, Secretary General of International Organization for Migration is incorrect, according to William L. Swing his term ended in September 2018.
• Moussa Faki, President of the African Union Commission is incorrect, he's Chairperson of the African Union Commission.
• Samir Hosny, President of the Arab League is incorrect. You'd think if he was president Google would have noticed, instead he was some kind of regional official but I can't even show he held a post of that nature in 2018.
• Mishaal bin Fahm Al-Salami, President of Arab Parliament is incorrect, according to Arab Parliament he's speaker.
• Mohammad Reza Majidi, President of Asian Parliamentary Assembly is incorrect, he's Secretary General.

Those are just from the first sub-section of the guest list, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS GUESTS, I couldn't face doing WORLD LEADERS AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS and Other guests since I know they are probably riddled with errors as well. This has been recently remarked on by a helpful IP editor, who said So many things wrong in the 2018 dignitaries list (fixing them based on references found online as well as general corresponding articles, while also fixing entries placed in wrong continent lists. Other things of course too

You only have to look at the unreferenced, error-riddled monstrosity they are creating at User:MinhNhat2K3/Sandbox (we have an article on the subject at List of dignitaries at the state funeral of Nelson Mandela already) to get an idea of the lack of competence they have. I believe their error-ridden, unreferenced lengthy lists of people are generally unencyclopedic and they are a net negative to the encyclopedia. FDW777 (talk) 07:19, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

That is a high error rate, and the inclusion of the list itself is questionable.--Bob not snob (talk) 07:37, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

I regard lengthy lists as unencyclopedic, but that's probably a side-issue to the error rate, but if that's all they are here to contribute it does demonstrate why I believe they are a net negative, there are no positive contributions to mitigate the errors. Looking at the history of 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), 123.20.107.34 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) is clearly the current IP being used by MinhNhat2K3, and their response to the ANI notification is to attempt to get MinhNhat2K3's talk page deleted. FDW777 (talk) 11:59, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

So we have an editor who, while logged in and logged out, constantly adds unreferenced content with an unacceptably high error rate, and who apparently has no intention of replying here about this. I'd like to think something needs to be done about this? FDW777 (talk) 09:37, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

While I agree that these errors are problematic and that the edits by Special:Contribs/123.20.107.34 are probably the same user, has anyone...I dunno...talked to this editor about the issues? There's plenty here for a CIR block, but it's a bit hasty to file an AN/I report or block when there has been no attempt to engage with the editor (who is presumably acting in good, if misguided, faith). GeneralNotability (talk) 21:49, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Given their less than appropriate response to a warning and "retirement" when their IP was blocked for NFCC violations as well as an attempt to get their IP's talk page deleted, I figured it would probably be a waste of time to try and engage with them. This was probably proven to be correct given the response to this report was to try and get their talk page deleted and carrying on with the same problematic behaviour that I've identified. Look at the mainspace edits by the IP since this report

• Trying to get MinhNhat2K3's talk page deleted
• Unreferenced, and adding a flag with {{Who|date=August 2020}} next to it is bizarre, a delegate without a name?!
• Incorrect change, the reference says They came from 128 nations in every part of the world. This makes the change of figures on the second diff problematic
• Unreferenced
• Unreferenced and similar to the second diff, adding s South Korean flag with {{Who|date=August 2020Ll (sic) next to it is bizarre
• Fixing previous diff
• Unreferenced
• Unreferenced
• Unreferenced
• Unreferenced, and Guy Verhofstadt didn't become Prime Minister of Belgium until 12 July 1999, the funeral was on 8 February 1999. As for Carl Bildt being Swedish State minister, according to his article he didn't hold any ministerial position at the time. The only position he held at the time was leader of the opposition party, which isn't ministerial obviously
• Unreferenced, and unclear that Arnold Rüütel was a leader in 1999
• Unreferenced, and in fact absurd. It's adding the non-attendance of the president (and head of state) of France, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, then later on adding that the US was the only G7 country not to send their top leader when France is a member of the G7.

I don't care what action is taken, providing something is done. As it stands I'm simply going to take the most sensible option and remove any and all content they've added, since there's no guarantee any of it is correct. FDW777 (talk) 10:41, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

User getting out of control

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

---

This user went out of control and started doing mass changes by citing an irrelevant talk page argument on his talk page, and now he is edit warring to reinstate errors he is introducing through his mass edits instead of engaging on discussion on his talk page.

A block is clearly needed in order to stop disruption from this loose cannon. Wareon (talk) 05:35, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

@RegentsPark: @Fowler&fowler: @Kmzayeem: As per consensus reached in my talk page and expert guidance from RegentsPark I have edited infobox regarding citizenship and nationality status. Before notifying what issue he has with those edits Wareon has been doing mass reverting. Without even willing to participate in the discussion on my talk page.--Amrita62 (talk) 05:44, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Your talk page discussion which only concerned only 1 or 2 articles isn't enough for making mass changes. You will need consensus of community if you want to make mass changes. Use a proper noticeboard for it and not your personal talk page. Wareon (talk) 05:46, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I see you are still doing mass reverts for reinstating your problematic edits[61][62] without gaining consensus. Wareon (talk) 05:57, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Calm down brother admin and other shall intervene what problem you have with citizenship and nationality issue we'll address. Instead doing mass rv you could have told me on my talk page what problem you have with citizenship or nationality issue. Since I just followed what admin and other experience editors advised. Chill brother. All your concerns shall be address. Admin if I have involved in wp:3RR then I'm sorry.--Amrita62 (talk) 06:27, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• For anyone interested, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/FreeatlastChitchat. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 06:34, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I blocked for 72h for massive edit warring, hopefully the SPI results would be ready before the block has expired.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:51, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

And now blocked indef as a sock.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:52, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Phew!--RegentsPark (comment) 11:50, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Can somebody please roll back their edits? GiantSnowman 11:56, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Looks like it's already been done. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:06, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I have rolled back all edits starting from yesterday evening; older edits do not look so problemati to me, and need to be looked at case by case.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:07, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

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

User:122.109.12.199

122.109.12.199 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has made several non-constructive edits to the page Tevita Pangai Junior (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), altering the rugby league player's last name to instead read an Australian English racial slur (diffs [63], [64] and, most recently, [65]). A previous user warning for vandalism has seemingly gone unnoticed, and none of this user's edits contain any other changes aside from the insertion of said slur. Requesting a block per WP:NORACISTS. Heyitsstevo (talk) 09:35, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Heyitsstevo - This editor is definitely adding vandalism to articles, but I can't block the user as of right now since it's currently stale. If the user adds more disruption to articles, let me know and I'll be happy to take care of it. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 02:19, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Legal threats by Branstarx3

• Branstarx3 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Branstarx2 has made legal threats, stating Article should be reported to higher Indian authorities at Talk:Violence against Muslims in India [66]. She doubled down on her talk page, asserting author of article has blindly ignored Official Notice and judgement of Supreme Court of India[67] — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 13:25, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

It seems to be that the user is stating what they think should happen(with the first comment) and their opinion about what the Supreme Court in India has said(the second comment). Are they threatening to perform legal actions themselves? Though perhaps the chilling effect is enough. 331dot (talk) 13:36, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Not nice, but not a threat per se.--Astral Leap (talk) 12:44, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Billhpike 331dot Sorry! I am reverting my edits to Talk:Violence against Muslims in India which as by u could give Wikipedia contributors the impression that i may consider legal or other "off-wiki" action against them, or against Wikipedia itself. Which is not the fact actually, wrong allegations that i am giving legal-threat has been made upon me. Still, following wiki policy i am reverting my edits on talk page of article mentioned above, i am stepping back from issue Branstarx3 (talk) 14:02, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

User editing behaviour

I appreciate that political beliefs are often a motivator for contributions and that's natural and unavoidable but I recently noticed a new editor exclusively adding POV content in favour of the Chinese government (e.g. [68], [69], [70]), including synth/OR/undue material and citing deprecated state-media outlets such as the Global Times, CGTN (itself recently reorganised by the user), or even the Chinese government directly. I just wanted to see if anyone else thinks it's enough of a cause for concern (i.e. not being here to build an encyclopedia) to be worth trying to address (and possibly if there's any way to check if this is a paid account). Thanks, ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 14:24, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• We can't check if something is a paid account. We can check if something is a sock; in this case there is no evidence of it. I do not, however, believe even for a moment this is truly a new editor, and I agree that their edits warrant scrutiny. You could file an SPI, and maybe ask a CU to look at the entire range, but I am not sure it is really warranted without some further suggestion that there is socking. Drmies (talk) 14:53, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Gotta admit - Wikipedia sure has a way of making new editors feel welcome. ;-)

Do you guys really believe that editing Wikipedia is THAT difficult? That new editors have to spend a few days and days learning the ropes and acclimatizing themselves before they jump in? That if a new editor is more active than you expected, there can be no other explanation other than that he is an old editor editing under a different name? lol...

Apart from the baseless accusations (I have NEVER edited Wikipedia before creating this account, except a small copy edit I once made as an unregistered user), there are also factual inaccuracies. I dare you to point out a single edit I have made on any page that is uncited and unsourced and NOT backed up by sources. So much for "POV" content. Not to mention that most of my changes wouldn't even be required if existing editors would've done better jobs of creating and editing the pages themselves. So much for "building an encyclopedia" :P

Moreover, if my edits were POV, wouldn't all of them be reverted by other editors by now?

And as for being "pro-China", well, when hundreds of editors are prancing about making edits unfavorable to China citing RSes, that's absolutely fine. But how dare someone come along and add PRO-CHINA content citing RSes? Hmmm must be a sockpuppet or a paid account you guys...

Honoredebalzac345 (talk) 21:16, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Having the initiative to self-revert, as the reported user has done here (1 2) is hardly WP:NOTHERE conduct. And claiming "deprecated state outlets" without a link to WP:RS/P or mentioning the fact both CGTN and Global Times are under discussion at the moment at WP:RS/N is potentially misleading / deceptive. Next thread? CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 21:38, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Yeah I slipped up, the two sources I mentioned are currently being agreed to be deprecated, pretty much unanimously, but haven't been formally deprecated yet, despite obviously deserving it. It's disingenuous to suggest that heavy reliance on Chinese state propaganda isn't a massive red flag. ─ ReconditeRodent « talk · contribs » 11:37, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Actually you're being disingenuous. My reliance on Chinese media as sources so far is actually very light, and always attributed, and mostly for factual assertions (e.g. how many countries support China at the UN).

Look, I get it - many people get triggered when they see Chinese state media being cited, but I suggest you stick to the facts before casting aspersions on other editors.

Honoredebalzac345 (talk) 13:53, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm actually most amused by the linking of my "re-organization" of the CGTN page to some nefarious design. As you can see from the link above, I have not removed a single criticism of CGTN from the page. Here's my edit summary: "Moved criticism in lead section to the (renamed) section 'Criticisms and controversies' (and only included a summary of criticisms in lead section). Added subsection about US foreign agent designation. Added quotes by Xi Jinping and Liu Yunshan in lead section. Didn't remove anything"

In fact, that applies to all pages I've edited. I never, ever remove sourced criticisms of China, unless there's a good reason for it (e.g. it's repetitive) Honoredebalzac345 (talk) 11:12, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Persistent long term defamatory edits to Wade Robson

I've requested indefinite full protection, and am asking here that someone have a look at the edit history. This really could use a lot of rev/deletion. Thanks, 2601:188:180:B8E0:1D7D:1249:C1A7:F612 (talk) 02:55, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected for one week. This article definitely does not need full protection, and we almost never add indefinite full protection to an article. Every time I see someone request indefinite full protection of an article on the requests for page protection noticeboard, it screams "I have not read the page protection policy", and I get a chuckle. :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:03, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Long-term pending revision protection may be appropriate. Gleeanon409 (talk) 03:05, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Gleeanon409 - That would work, too. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:13, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

As a pending changes reviewer with some passing familiarity with the subject of the article, I am happy to help if there are changes to the article lingering in the backlog thereafter: anyone may merely ping me if the wait has grown intolerable (though usually the backlog is addressed fairly reasonably/swiftly these days, it seems to me). Snow ^{let's rap} 03:45, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Although looking through the recent history, I can now see there would be very little likelihood of validating many edits, as nearly all of the new users there are fairly blatant vandals. Some of those accounts could still benefit from a block, incidentally, but I presume that Oshwah is just working his way forward through them and will get to them in due time. Snow ^{let's rap} 05:10, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Oshwah, it's Bob. Chuckle away, but wait until after you've sorted through the edit history. As stated, there's a ton of WP:BLP violations that merit permanent concealment. People love their MJ, and they don't like this guy. 2601:188:180:B8E0:1D7D:1249:C1A7:F612 (talk) 03:12, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi Bob! I hope you're doing well! Okay, I'll parse through the edit history of the article and get those taken care of. Thanks for the heads up. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:14, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Sdg100

Sdg100 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) History of uploading copyvio images and placing wrong license tags on them (15+ notices on their talk), 4 notices for vandal edits. Somehow skirted any block. A history of not providing edit summaries. Has a penchant for messing around with images on BLP's without understanding if they have issues. I reverted their edit with an explanation here and they reinstated it back here. The image they put up is unreviewed on commons, uploaded by a banned sock User:Jaishink. Same behavior and pattern of hit and run image changes without explanation here, here...too many to list. - hako9 (talk) 10:47, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• The fact that after 1000 edits to Wikipedia, they have made precisely 1 edit to any Talk namespace, is very concerning. Were I not involved on some of these pages, I would likely give them a final warning for non-communicativeness, and follow up with a block if needed. Vanamonde (Talk) 14:47, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

TPA revocation

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

---

Hello,

Abhijitsilindia created a userpage which was quickly CSD tagged and deleted on April 21, then recreated yesterday. [71]. Jimfbleak blocked for vandalism [72] but allowed TPA. The user in question, Abhijitsilindia, then posted the promotional content on his talk page instead, which I reverted [73]. The editor has made no edits except adding their promotional content and vandalizing another user's page. I am requesting TPA revocation or possibly a WP:NOTHERE block extension.

Note: I have notified the subject appropriately but I am not sure how useful that is considering they are blocked. I have left a message instead of the template on Jimfbleak's page as he is not the subject of the report but may have something to add. Regards, Giraffer (munch) 10:52, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Giraffer, TPA revoked and indeffed Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:44, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Giraffer (munch) 12:58, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

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

Possible legal threat

While this individual ins't outright saying he wants to sue or will sue, the language he's using looks to be very close to this, by implication:

Likewise, saying I was terminated from two institutions is false - I was never terminated for cause, yet Luke and Wikipedia insist on promoting that libelous and defamatory falsehood made up by Dittrich. If you must insist on continuing to support the libelous and defamatory Esquire article, please just inform Wikipedia readers that it has also been very much disputed, and debunked, and include the reference to Robert Mays' work. Also, the link above for "WMF legal team" failed - please give me an actual link so I can talk with your attorneys. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ealexander3 (talk • contribs)

It's not like he wasn't ever warned about not making legal threats. He seems to be playing close to the edge here. I haven't said anything to him, and I will notify him about this posting ina moment. Just wanted to bring it to your attention! W.K.W.W.K...^{Toss a coin to the witcher, ye valley of plenty} 14:35, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

That is definitely not a legal threat. --JBL (talk) 15:49, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I couldn't disagree more - accusing Wikipedia of promoting libel and defamation then asking to talk to our attorneys creates a chilling effect and, especially considering his past behavior, gives every indication that he wants to take legal action. W.K.W.W.K...^{Toss a coin to the witcher, ye valley of plenty} 16:17, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@Wekeepwhatwekill:, from the first para of WP:NLT: A legal threat, in this context, is a threat to engage in an external (real life) legal or other governmental process that would target other editors. emphasis added I directed Alexander to the legal team because it is the correct potential legal redress a living person has when they feel they are being defamed. It is their job, in fact (or, at least, one of them). Ealexander3 should speak to them but he has not threatened other editors in any of their BLPN postings. I hope that helps clarify. Side note: since when are necromongers "chilled" by legal threats, anyway? Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:32, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

It is not their job. Any potential defamation, or anything else legally dubious, in a Wikipedia article is the legal responsibility of the editor making that edit, not the Foundation. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:36, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger:, please see the actual complaints. Alexander's complaint is not that the article defames him but that the article quotes some-one else who defames him. If Alexander wants a legal opinion on the inclusion of a properly-quoted rs, then he does indeed need to speak to WMF legal. He certainly won't get a definitive response from BLPN. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 20:46, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

And he certainly won't get a definitive response from the Foundation's legal team. Their job does not include handing out free legal advice to any Tom, Dick or Harry who asks them. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:11, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

That is not a legal threat. Those with a clue can read the request and see that the person makes several valid points, none of which included a legal threat. The discussion is here at BLPN, not at the link in the OP. Johnuniq (talk) 02:01, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think that technically qualifies as a sanctionable legal threat under WP:NLT, but the repeated use of "libelous and defamatory" certainly seems to be imputing the possibility of legal action, particularly in the manner it is invoked. At a minimum a firm warning should be given here, opening up the door for a block down the line for disruption if the user cannot find their way to making their (otherwise reasonably framed, from what I have seen here) requests without it. If nothing else, it is needless extraneous commentary (of a potentially intimidatory nature) if it is not presented in a fashion which assimilates a valid policy argument. Snow ^{let's rap} 01:53, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't know why "libelous" causes people to stop thinking. The editor is (apparently) the real-life subject of an article where (apparently) a real-life opponent has made certain remarks which can certainly be described as "libelous" in at least a colloquial sense. The editor very reasonably requests that if the attack is retained, could there be a note with an (apparent) contrary claim from a named source. The editor also wants a working link for the WMF legal team so (per AGF) they can explain the issue to them and possibly get a more clueful response. At no point does the editor suggest they are going to take legal action against anyone. Johnuniq (talk) 03:37, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Please moderate your tone towards the more civil and pragmatic: suggesting that others disagreeing with your policy read is evidence that they are "not thinking" is both needlessly inflammatory and not in any way productive--and in fact just undermines your argument with rationalists by making it look like you feel the need to bootstrap it with ad hominems. Returning to the topic matter at hand, without getting into the weeds of that particular request and whether it is warranted as a matter of WP:WEIGHT (a topic that is best reserved for the talk page of the article itself), the request itself is probably perfectly reasonable, if the editors working on that TP agree that the sourcing for his position is acceptable in terms of WP:RS and weight.

However, his request is in no way augmented or improved by his peppering in those litigious buzzwords and meanwhile WKWWK's argument (that the repeated invocation of the phrase "libelous and defamatory" triggers the same concerns that underlay the existence of our NLT policy in the first place--namely that the editorial determinations of our volunteers should not be unduly influenced by the implication that they, or the project, are going to face legal fallout for their activities) would seem to have legs to me. Certainly the party in question did not pull those particular words out of thin air and their use in the quote above is pretty pointed--so using some formalistic argument to try to suggest these implications are fine so long as the person employing them does not use some particular syntactic construction not only defies the spirit of that important policy, if taken to extremes it would become the exception that swallows the rule. Which is precisely why WP:NLT includes the following provision which seems pretty on-point as to our scenario here:

It is important to refrain from making comments that others may reasonably understand as a legal threat. For example, if you repeatedly assert that another editor's comments are "defamatory" or "libelous", that editor might interpret this as a threat to sue, even if that is not your intention. To avoid misunderstandings, use less charged wording, such as "that statement about me is false and damaging, and I ask that it be corrected."

And no one is suggesting (well that I have seen anyway), that Ealexander3 has committed a violation that rises to the level of mandating an immediate block. Only that we should, in consistency with the policy wording above, advise them to use words that less imply that they are coming at this from the standpoint of potential litigation. Which I would argue their current wording of their displeasure absolutely does, whether they have types a specific statement in which a lawsuit is the grammatical subject and another user the grammatical object. Snow ^{let's rap} 04:35, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

And don't think about the issue? Johnuniq (talk) 05:19, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Tanmoy Roy and TumTum Cab

Multiple pages and editors have been created/opened with a variation of Tanmoy Roy Ty and TumTum Cab. Most of these have been speedy deleted for being purely promotional. The webpage tumtumcab.com has already been added to the our blacklist. The following is the list of related editors I could find.

• User:Tanmoy Roy Ty
• User:Tanmoy Roy T
• User:Tanmoy Roy Tan
• User:Tanmoy Roy Tanmoy
• User:TumTumCabb
• User:TumTum Cab
• User:TumTum Cabb
• User:TumTum Cabb @Ponyo: here's one that was SPAMU blocked if you are interested. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 17:27, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised if there are more that I have not been able to find. I am requesting administrator's and others' help to clean this disruptive editor up. Thank you. VViking_TalkEdits 15:21, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• I had already SPAMU blocked Cab TumTum and TumTum Cab for this very thing. The proliferation of socks is amazing. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 15:56, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
• Ima sock block Tanmoy Roy Ty. Tagged user page CSD. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 15:59, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Just found another one User:Tanmoy Roy tmVViking_TalkEdits 16:31, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

They're all  Confirmed and blocked. Just nuke the creations and duck block on sight if any additional accounts pop up.-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 16:50, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Dav.tay427 reported by User:TheLionHasSeen

Hello Wikipedia Administration! Recently, the Greater Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, and List of Texas metropolitan areas articles have been subject to a series of seemingly unconstructive contributions by User:Dav.tay427. This fellow Wikipedian collaborator has constantly added onto the official names of the metropolitan statistical areas for Greater Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth, which are contrary to the names designated by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. Their initial contribution for Greater Houston's article appears to have begun on the first of August; they determined the name of the metropolitan area was: "Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land-Galveston". On the sixth day, they also furthermore determined the name of Greater Houston by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget as: "Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land-Galveston-Texas City-Brazoria". In addition, text to the lead infobox's caption was added with no relevant imagery. On August 2, the same person has expanded upon the name for the DFW metroplex, insisting that it's name was "Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington-Plano-Irving". They also changed the Greater Houston name in the List of Texas metropolitan areas to Houston-Galveston, which it is not. I reverted those contributions and left a disclaimer on their talk page. Today, I reverted their contributions again as they seem to continue allegedly insisting that they are more notable than the governmental agency which provides the name for such metropolitan regions within the United States. I allege edit warring and a disregard for notability, and I desire for the team to look into this issue as soon as humanly possible. Thank you. - TheLionHasSeen (talk) 15:33, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@Dav.tay427: has begun their actions again. I reverted their edits. - TheLionHasSeen (talk) 23:33, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

(non-admin comment) Dav.tay427 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has also been making changes with no WP:ESses in articles about roads in Texas. This is a subject in which I have little verging on zero interest, but am slightly familiar with in general because {{TXint}} and {{jct}} and the like are fruitful sources of DABlink errors which are tricky to fix the first few times you come across them, and US road articles seem rarely to be watched. Narky Blert (talk) 02:03, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I surely hope for intervention soon. - TheLionHasSeen (talk) 02:08, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

I left the user a note. Please start a section at Talk:Greater Houston with a brief explanation of why the proposed edits are not correct. Ping me if problems continue. Johnuniq (talk) 07:00, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. @Johnuniq: it does seem however that they desire to continue their actions again. They forgo any notion of conversation. - TheLionHasSeen (talk) 14:42, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

@TheLionHasSeen: I blocked for 48 hours. Let me know if problems persist after that. However, when I asked for an explanation on article talk, I was thinking of something much more inviting than Talk:Greater Houston#Reverting Dav.tay427's contributions. We must assume good faith and focus article talk page discussions on content, not contributors. Next time, please say nothing about other editors and restrict the brief comment to why you made your edit. That section is not a place to release frustration—apart from anything else, the explanation is important for third parties trying to assess the situation. Johnuniq (talk) 00:01, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Persistent accusations of bad faith/personal attacks

Meethamonkey replaced a significant amount of content from Bharatpur State, stating in their edit summary to not "post hear-say purposely to propogate higher castes narratives", that it was a "completely a racist attitude" and to do so is to "vandalise".[74] I reverted their edit and posted a general note regarding censorship on their talk page.[75][76] Meethamonkey gave a response in which they stated "that the changes you are making are malicious in nature".[77]

I gave another general note, this time regarding the assumption of good faith,[78] and then clarified this guideline when it became clear they misunderstood it.[79] However, Meethamonkey once more became aggressive in tone, stating that "your repeated attempts to edit this page, despite various people telling you of the false nature of your edits, clearly suggest malice , Also hypocrisy since by removing my and other edits that are factually accurate or remedial in nature , you are showing bad faith to everyone".[80] (Note that the mentioned "various people" were sockpuppets which have since been blocked.

I finally gave a warning regarding their persistent assumption of bad faith,[81] following which they ordered me to "stop you intimidation" and that I was "not fooling anyone".[82]

Meethamonkey clearly has some very strong feelings regarding the content in question, but I do not know how I can be expected to have any meaningful discussion with them about it when they make such serious accusations and insults against me.
Alivardi (talk) 20:07, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• Alivardi, I would suggest that you respond to the thread that Meethamonkey started on the talkpage of the article, and ping him so that he will know that you are replying to him. You have not made a single edit to Talk:Bharatpur State. Keep all discussion of content on articletalk, and don't get into matters of behavior. This is a new editor, and your posts on their usertalk are probably not doing any good. Please return to the articletalk and hash out your differences using reliable-source citations rather than personal beliefs or preferences. Softlavender (talk) 03:19, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

@Softlavender: I do not believe it is possible to have any meaningful discussion with this user at present. For reasons unknown to me, they were certain from their very first response that I had some personal belief or poor intentions which motivated my edits, for which they have hectored me ever since. This has continued even with their reply to my noticeboard discussion notice.[83] With such certainty in my bad faith, I do not think this user will take anything I say seriously.

I want to make clear that I am not here with the intention of having them blocked indefinitely. I was hoping that having an uninvolved figure make them aware of the unacceptability of treating another editor in such a demeaning and derisive manner would lead to some improvement in their behaviour and allow for progress in the discussion. That making unsubstantiated claims of "racist" and "malice" is not the way to achieve consensus.
Alivardi (talk) 10:48, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what you personally believe about the editor; you are required to AGF and to seek consensus, and use reliable independent citations to back up your assertions, on the talkpage of the article. You have yet to do that, so as the more experienced editor you are in the wrong. Please ignore behavior and focus on content and citations. Reacting to behavior rather than content, and going to usertalk instead of articletalk, is what has gotten you into this mess. I have shown you how to get out of it. Stay off of usertalk, and stick only to articletalk. Do not mention other editors. Mention only facts and citations. Softlavender (talk) 11:12, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

@Softlavender: I will do as you suggest, but I believe you are mistaken in your assessment of me and of the situation. I believe that turning the other cheek in such bullying behaviour serves only to enable it. I will try my utmost to achieve an agreeable consensus, but I have strong concerns that it will not result in the amicable conclusion you are envisaging.
Alivardi (talk) 12:02, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Meethamonkey's concern is partially correct as the details contested by them are based on cherry-picking from the source. But at the same time, they are heading toward a block due to their disruptive behaviour. I now have a copy of the relevant pages of the source (of Dr. Ram Pande) and will add the relevant content tomorrow after leaving a note on the article's talk page. So, hopefully, they will stop edit warring over it.

Alivardi actually tried to fix the content, but I guess they don't have access to the source. So they were able to fix it only partially. - NitinMlk (talk) 18:28, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Not sure why this is an ANI-discussion, to be honest. We're talking about a rather typical vandal here. Just block and move on. Jeppiz (talk) 17:59, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jeppiz: Tbf, I did actually make a report here first, but it didn't get any traction.
Alivardi (talk) 18:45, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Disruptive edit summaries

Folks, let's just not, alright? It's the weekend. Ride a bike. Read a book. Prod twenty articles. De-prod twenty articles. Have a nice cup of tea. Mackensen (talk) 00:57, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

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

---

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

So, this stinks, but someone's gotta do it. For the past year or so, Yngvadottir has included some variation of "this edit is not an endorsement of the WMF" in just about every edit summary she leaves. I recently brought this up on her talk page, explaining that I found it annoying (cluttering page history, etc), and that it's generally disruptive. And apparently I'm not the first to do so (two older threads: here and here). Despite multiple people independently bringing this up (including one explicitly pointing at WP:SUMMARYNO), Yngvadottir apparently refuses to cease this. As I said to her, "If you can't swallow the minimal amount of pride it takes to stop doing so, then you shouldn't be editing here at all." To add to that, if your disdain for the WMF is interfering with your day-to-day editing here, then you should step away until you can sufficiently compartmentalize the two.

So yeah, this stinks. Yngavadottir has been a great contributor to Wikipedia, but let's be honest: if a new editor came along and pulled a stunt like this (whether or not it had anything to do with the WMF), there'd be no hesitation about what to do. There are times and places to air grievances about the WMF (a lot of us, me included, have plenty of them), but not like this. There needs to be an indefinite (not infinite) block in place, at least from the Article and Talk: namespaces, until Yngvadottir is willing to stop spamming edit summaries in this way. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 20:11, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

If I might ask a clarifying question: you are suggesting blocking an admittedly great contributor, whose edit summaries are otherwise useful and appropriate, for making you read an extra sentence that is neutrally worded and hints at grievances with the WMF? Dumuzid (talk) 20:21, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

That's not a clarifying question; it's a question meant to oversimplify the matter and frame it in a negative light. If you read what I wrote, the answer is pretty obvious. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 20:29, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I was hoping it might clarify your thinking on the subject. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:31, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

As I have said on my user talk, I disagree that someone had to report this, and I have just reviewed WP:SUMMARYNO and still do not see any violation in my appended disclaimer. I have severely cut back my contributions here for reasons of personal concience; I will state here for clarity that neither my edit summaries nor my responses to those who have raised the issue with me have been intended to impose my view on the matter on others and whether and how they continue to contribute. As such, in my view, if my addition of a disclaimer to most of my edit summaries (sometimes I forget, or use "new section" and it isn't possible) are causing any disruption to watchlists or increase in reading for recent-change patrollers, I consider it acceptably small and worth it for my being able to continue contributing here. (It should perhaps be noted that my edit summaries have always tended to be long, since I usually find myself editing relatively holistically and have a lot to sum up, so I'm glad of the unintended side-effect of the WMF increasing the size of the summary field to help out editors in languages with a lot of diacritics ... and that often means someone has to read a few lines of meat and potatoes summary before they come to my disclaimer, which I often have to truncate to fit in. I think the length of the meat and potatoes bit is a more legitimate complaint, since there are better reasons for reading that bit.) Yngvadottir (talk) 20:33, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't see how this is disruptive; it's a far cry from anything one would consider polemical. You would have a better case if it were the only thing she left in her edit summary, but that's not what's happening. These are beneficial edits with beneficial edit summaries, neither of which are violating policy. Nihlus 20:46, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Deacon Vorbis, this is in the best and finest traditions of Cato the Censor. While it may not meet with your approval it seems to be that Yngvadottir is indulging in a quiet protest using free speech.

This has been an unusually fast escalation. What is your motivation? Fiddle Faddle 21:12, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@Timtrent: I know next to nothing about Roman history (I had to click that link to even know this was a Roman history reference), and I don't really know what in there is supposed to apply to this situation. In any case, the initial complaint was ~9 months ago, the second was ~3 months ago, and mine was was met with yet another similar response to the first two. That's a pretty generous timeframe. What good would waiting do? What else could I have done to get it to stop? My motivation is getting the clutter out of article histories and off of watchlists (mine in particular). It's not a quiet protest though, it's shouting it at everyone whose watchlist is crossed. WP:NOTSOAPBOX says:

Non-disruptive statements of opinion on internal Wikipedia policies and guidelines may be made on user pages and within the Wikipedia: namespace, as they are relevant to the current and future operation of the project. However, article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views on a subject (see Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines).

While this doesn't mention edit summaries explicitly, the intent seems clear. We have project and user space to talk about this stuff. Doing so in every single edit summary is not the place for it. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 21:29, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

In case there is room for doubt, which I mistyped as 'donut', I do not endorse what you have decided to do here. I had read your reasons with full attention. I shall not get those moments of my life back. Nor these. Fiddle Faddle 21:44, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@Deacon Vorbis: During the Second Punic War, Cato the Elder would end most of his speeches with "Carthago delenda est" (lit. Carthage must be destroyed) regardless of how well it fit the rhetorical flow. It's a bit of a meme among Latinists. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:45, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Comes off as a little silly or childish and outside the actual purpose of edit summaries but I am not seeing an direct violation of policy. I would suggest though if multiple people have brought it up as something of concern to maybe take that to heart. PackMecEng (talk) 20:49, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Yngvadottir, would you not find it less taxing to have this disclaimer on your user page instead of in every edit summary? Making an edit isn't showing support for the WMF, it's a neutral act. There's plenty of opportunity for us to tackle issues presented by the WMF, by getting involved in relevant discussions at the Village Pump and so on. I can understand anger at the WMF; i've taken out that anger myself in a way that got me indeffed. On an encyclopedia that's also a community it's not worth frustrating your fellow editors in order to get a point across about something out of their control. I can't see you getting blocked for your edit summary appendages, but please consider an alternative less disruptive way of protesting. Kindest regards, Zindor (talk) 21:06, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion, but my reason for adding the statement to my edit summaries is that the WMF does use activity metrics to bolster its claims, and thus takes credit for our work. It is a personal statement that enables me to square my continuing contributions with my conscience. No blanket statement except a retirement banner would work for me, personally. Yngvadottir (talk) 21:19, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I find the statement irritating (because I have to read it each time in order to identify that I don't need to read it) but not disruptive. I think Yngvadottir's extensive contributions to the encyclopedia outweigh the irritation factor. Schazjmd (talk) 21:29, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Yngvadottir, thanks for responding. I understand how that would aggrieve a dedicated editor such as yourself. Is it not enough however just to feel the joy of contributing to Wikipedia? It can sometimes help to just go back to basics, and focus on the reasons why we as editors enjoy making edits. The WMF is simply a tool for doing the administrative work that many of us would rather not do. Let them take the credit, our joy comes from the shared knowledge that we are building an encyclopedia together. As you can see in this discussion, many editors recognise your extensive contributions, please don't let the WMF jade your experience here. I feel you might find it freeing to write a standard length edit summary. Zindor (talk) 21:47, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• So DV says "If you can't swallow the minimal amount of pride it takes to stop doing so, then you shouldn't be editing here at all", but thinks the problem is with Yd? I'm constantly stunned by the lack of self-awareness some people have. I guess the word "disruption" has finally lost its last little tiny shred of meaning. --(this edit is not an endorsement of the dismal swamp ANI has become) Floquenbeam (talk) 21:31, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

  You know, if you want to disagree with me, fine, but do it without the snide fucking remark about how little self awareness you think I have. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 21:41, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

  But it's integral to the disruption you're causing. I thought you'd want to know. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:44, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

  I do not think they are causing any disruption. This is a perfectly legitimate request, even if the community does not agree at this point.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:48, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

  That is an interesting use of the universal word in the snide fucking remark. Not cool. Fiddle Faddle 21:47, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• Good grief... are we having to go into censorship and thought police action now? Per Floq. Does this use of free speech in an edit summary reach the level of disruption? No. Not even close. This thread is even more of a time sink than the waste of space I had to discuss matters with further up the page. - SchroCat (talk) 21:50, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
• It's not censorship. It's just the wrong place for the comments. If someone were selling a car in their edit summaries, I don't think that would be against policy either, but I think we'd block if they kept doing it. Basically yeah, it's a WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS and WP:POINT issue. Obviously, a polite request hasn't done the job. I think it would be best if wiki-friends counselled that it would be best to stop using edit summaries in this way. All Empires must fall, but this isn't the way to wage the war. Hobit (talk) 21:56, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
  • It's not censorship, it's just telling someone they can't say something because of the content of their speech. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:04, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
    • Eh "off topic" is the only issue I'm worried about. One shouldn't add a rant in the middle of an article or in an edit summary. Doesn't matter what the rant is about. WMF or WWF. Hobit (talk) 00:37, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
• I agree with the above editors, including the one that called me a waste of space, that these edit summaries are not a matter for ANI. They may seem mildly annoying, but they are not actually harmful or disruptive. I think any experienced editor who knows something of the behind-the-scenes politics of the WMF can sympathize with Yngvadottir's sentiments. I don't think OP did anything wrong by asking Yngvadottir to stop, but Yngvadottir was likewise within her rights to politely decline. And that is where the matter should have ended. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 22:24, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
• Have we nothing better to do? Guy (help! - typo?) 23:01, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree, Guy, and I know I'm making the thread even longer. The problem - and it happens a lot here - is that once someone has proposed indef blocking a long-term, good faith, productive, thoughtful editor for ... 8 harmless extra words in an edit summary disrupting the watchlist experience, if I understand correctly ... and one or two others agree that this is an excellent idea, then if I don't participate to say that's crazy, and only those who agree that this is a pressing issue continue to comment, they might actually get blocked. I'd suggest an admin with more self control than me, who resisted the urge to comment, close the thread. That would be a more efficient way to prevent something crazy from happening. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:11, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
• I've reopened the discussion. It was there for 4 hours I believe. I realize the first folks get here think this is trivial. I think that having off-topic comments in all one's edit summaries is not a good idea and that there is room and time to see if others agree. There has been a lot of heat and not much light, but I'm hopeful we get to a real discussion. Hobit (talk) 00:40, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

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Vandalism

Vandalism at Talk:Marriage. Can't restore due to OTRS warning. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:24, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Investigating... ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 05:26, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I've just reached out to this user and asked them to provide an explanation. I'm not sure what is going on here, but those edits were disruptive. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 05:37, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

My apologies. I am not a frequent wikipedia editor. I just wanted to remove a comment I had written previously. I did not realize this would be problematic. The comment I had written was poorly worded and can be misunderstood to mean something I did not intend and do not agree with. That is all. a.w (talk) 05:45, 15 August 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Androuwaheeb (talk • contribs) 05:45, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Androuwaheeb - No worries! Thank you for taking the time to come here and explain your edits to the page. Have you considered going through Wikipedia's new user tutorial? It will provide you with many important walkthroughs, guides, interactive lessons, and other information that will familiarize you with our policies and guidelines, how Wikipedia works, how to navigate around the site, and how to find important locations and pages. Most users who take this advice and complete the tutorial tell me later that it was significantly helpful to them. Just a recommendation. :-) Cheers - ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 05:48, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

In case anyone is wondering, it looks like this is what happened: User:Androuwaheeb made this edit in July 2011 and was reverted. They went to Talk to explain their edit and then dropped it for 5 years. Now they've come back to remove point #3 from their 2011 message because it might be misconstrued, but they've ended up repeatedly reverting back to the July 2011 version of the Talk page. Woodroar (talk) 05:48, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your recommendation. I will go through the tutorial prior to making other edits. Cheers. a.w (talk) 05:53, 15 August 2020 (UTC)a.w (talk) 05:54, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Androuwaheeb - Please do not hesitate to message me if you have questions or need help with anything. I'll be more than happy to help you with anything that you need. :-) Thanks again - ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 05:55, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

User:TCGKemalReis trolling at Greek frigate Limnos

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WP:SPA (as is evident from the username) targeting the Greek frigate Limnos article, trying to insert the thoroughly refuted rumour put about by Turkish media on its fate, removing neutral language in the article ("southeast of the Greek island of Kastellorizo") to one explicitly adopting a Turkish POV ("in Turkish EEZ"), and engaging in deliberate falsification of text against what is shown in the cited sources ("On the following day, the Hellenic Ministry of National Defence released a date stamped photograph" -> "photographies of the heavily bow damaged HS Limnos were released. However, undated and unconfirmed images"; if you follow the link in the reference, you can see how 'damaged' the ship was and how 'unconfirmed' images these are). Constantine ✍ 10:10, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

As evident from his greek origins (See: Nationality - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cplakidas), despite several amicable requests to stop censoring contents (Within minutes) in accordance with the Terms of Use of Wikipedia, the above user (ie Cplakidas) Severally deleted and added false content; both harassing me (Article 4 of the ToU, constant threat and spams Trying to impose his own assumptions) but also clearly breached and abused Neutrality rules vandalizing any neutral tries to add Sourced content on an article on Wikipedia. Denying any content as “not true if not in line with his own personal view” is far from being acceptable and either far from being ethical. Considering his point of view as the sole and only possible truth, planting greek Social media unfounded information and even more propaganda is not in line with Wikipedia’s rules. Considering himself as the sole preacher and using Wikipedia as his one tribune to provide disinformation and unconfirmed datas (Such as I quote “According to unnamed “Greek Defense source”) which are not sources and references per se, lead to modeling of unilateral and false information; Which is not The purpose of the Wikipedia Project.

For the sake of clarification user Cplakidas considers that in the article the mention of ("southeast of the Greek island of Kastellorizo") is not adopting the Greek POV (where international Maritime Laws considers the same region as Turkish EEZ; and accuses me of non neutrality...)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by TCGKemalReis (talk • contribs) 10:59, 15 August 2020 (UTC) 

I have blocked TCGKemalReis from editing the Greek frigate Limnos page for a week. That should allow enough time for things to cool down. Mjroots (talk) 19:20, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

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User:Cplakidas Targeted Censorship, Abuse, Harassement. False Reporting. Attempt to push and impose POV

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WP:DR under the article “Greek frigate Limnos” as a Wikipedia User I tried to add neutral content to show both perspectives of a same incident. However, the User Cplakidas without any proper and acceptable reason choose to moderate and censor any attempt.

As evident from his greek origins (the choice of my username being a free will unless Cplakidas considerate it as a mistake by his ill-minded self attributed functions on Wikipedia), despite several amicable requests to stop censoring contents (Within minutes) in accordance with the Terms of Use of Wikipedia, the above user (ie Cplakidas) Severally deleted and added false content; both harassing me (Article 4 of the ToU, constant threat and spams Trying to impose his own assumptions) but also clearly breached and abused Neutrality rules vandalizing any neutral tries to add Sourced content on an article on Wikipedia. Denying any content as “not true if not in line with his own personal view” is far from being acceptable and either far from being ethical. Considering his point of view as the sole and only possible truth, planting greek Social media unfounded information and even more propaganda is not in line with Wikipedia’s rules. Considering himself as the sole preacher and using Wikipedia as his one tribune to provide disinformation and unconfirmed datas (Such as I quote “According to unnamed “Greek Defense source”) which are not sources and references per se and moreover refuting any source and/or content in convenience for his view, lead to the modeling of an unilateral and false information dictée article; which is not The purpose of the Wikipedia Project.

Reference is made to The main source I quoted but Yet refuted by Cplakidas is a Greek press coupure where I quote “ Erdogan’s statements were interpreted by local analysts as a bid to fan unconfirmed allegations in Turkish media that the Hellenic Navy frigate Limnos suffered damage after colliding with a Turkish vessel.”. (See: https://www.ekathimerini.com/255834/article/ekathimerini/news/erdogan-says-greece-attacked-oruc-reis-got-their-first-answer-today) — Preceding unsigned comment added by TCGKemalReis (talk • contribs) 11:13, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

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Sockpuppetry at President of Azerbaijan

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On the 10th of August, new user The Editor331 (talk · contribs · count · logs · block log · lu · rfa · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · socks) added the following to the President of Azerbaijan article under its own subheading diff

Azerbaijan is very corrupt country with a score on the Corruption Perceptions Index of 30/100 failing to at least become less corrupt than the average country with a score of 43/100. This is how corrupt Azerbaijan is. Azerbaijan does not respect human rights as it arrests journalists and freedom of speech does not exist. Azerbaijan also oppresses Armenians in Artsakh.

This was subsequently reverted by veteran editor IamNotU diff. However this was then reverted diff by Lebanese1235 (talk · contribs · count · logs · block log · lu · rfa · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · socks) in their only edit with the edit summary being "Reverted edit by IamNotU" The content was then removed twice over the following days by 109.93.13.102 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) diff diff, each time with the content being restored by new accounts NewGreenFish (talk · contribs · count · logs · block log · lu · rfa · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · socks) diff and MonkeyPeaceMan (talk · contribs · count · logs · block log · lu · rfa · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · socks) diff in their only edits, with both of their respective edit summaries being the identical "Reverted edit by IP adress [sic] 109.93.13.102". It's very clear from this that the three 1 edit accounts are socks that are used to avoid the appearance of edit warring, and are likely operated by The Editor331. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:03, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Fyi, I already made a sockpuppetry report: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/The Editor331. I've added MonkeyPeaceMan to it now. I also requested that the page be temporarily protected from non-confirmed user edits, but it was declined: [84]. I had warned The Editor331 about NPOV on their talk page, and again, with a warning about sockpuppetry, here: User talk:IamNotU#President of Azerbaijan. They didn't respond, but subsequently left this message on GorillaWarfare's talk page: User talk:GorillaWarfare#Edit War on Wikipedia page President of Azerbaijan. --IamNotU (talk) 14:37, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I've handled the sockpuppetry case. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:53, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

References

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Editor repeatedly doing pointless edits

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

This editor keeps pointlessly adding unnecessary spaces to the same articles. Look at this article's history for example. Every few days he cycles around and adds new ones, clogging up watchlists. He's been warned on his talk page multiple times, but he keeps doing it and won't communicate. Very odd and he may be trying to get extended-confirmed. It's disruptuve in any case. Crossroads ^-talk- 17:24, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Blocked – for a period of 1 month ~ ToBeFree (talk) 17:51, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

• I've gotta say, the pages he's interested in are kind of weird, too. And they're the same one each time. -- Rockstone^{[Send me a message!]} 18:15, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

And is notably single-minded. (I never got to the end of Lolita, I found Humbert Humbert repellent.) Also, some other of their recent edits, like this one, might be described as "unnecessary". Narky Blert (talk) 21:07, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

NinjaRobotPirate indefinitely blocked him for sockpuppetry. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 01:11, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

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Persistent Disruptive Editing

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

Recently, @JurassicGodzilla: has been adding content that is unsourced and in violation of WP:BALL, (1, 2). I have left three warnings at their talk page so far, even offering links to WP:OR, WP:FAN, and WP:RS for them to study but the user has remained unresponsive and continues to restore the same disruptive content, (1, 2, 3). The user has even been blocked for 31 hours due to these disruptive edits, (1). I've also taken the issue to SPI (1) due to JurassicGodzilla's recent edits being strikingly similar to the recent edits of User talk:84.203.70.13 (1, 2, 3), and User talk:84.203.69.48 (1, 2, 3, 4). However, the clerk I was assigned declined to user-check the IP's and closed the case without determining if the suspected users were related or not. The pattern with the IP's were similar with JurassicGodzilla: they were warned on their talk pages (without responding), continued restoring the same disruptive content despite warnings, and blocked repeatedly. They've also been adding images without licenses recently (1, 2). Armegon (talk) 19:14, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Cross-wiki censorship of referenced information, edit-warring, and potential sock-puppetry by User:Ibrahim.ID

User:Ibrahim.ID has been edit-warring and repeatedly removing sourced content from the Arabic Wikipedia article. The content contains criticism of the Arabic Wikipedia for deleting the article of Sarah Hegazi, an LGBT rights activist. Two sources are cited for the content: one of them a BBC article.

Ibrahim.ID was the main Arabic Wikipedia admin who proposed and campaigned to get the article deleted. Now he wants to censor the criticism of that deletion. See this comment of User:Boredintheevening on the talk page of Sarah Hegazi article, where Ibrahim.ID attempted to censor the content too.--69.202.137.27 (talk) 23:39, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

To me, this does seem to have the hallmarks of a classic WP:CENSOR case. Despite removing the sourced content and creating the disruption, Ibrahim.ID tried to request protection for Arabic Wikipedia ([85]) and Sarah Hegazi ([86]). Both of these were declined because they were obviously content disputes ([87], [88]). But, to me, the most telling parts of this are:

• On Talk:Sarah Hegazi, he says that the content he's tried to remove would "lead to discredit our project", and
• In the RFPP for the Arabic Wikipedia article, he stated that the content being added was "libel".

I'm concerned that he seems to worry more about the optics of the Arabic Wikipedia rather than what the sources say, because he's the one who opened pandora's box there in the first place. Given that, and his status at arwiki, I would almost interpret the libel insinuation as a legal threat.

You didn't provide evidence of sockpuppetry, but I did find that 197.34.173.209 and 129.12.115.110 had tried to make the same edits as him. However I'm not sure if this would be sufficient evidence to start an SPI (2 total edits, 2 months apart). —{CrypticCanadian} 08:42, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Potential Legal threat by User:Andrii Gladii

User:Andrii Gladii made a comment which sounded like a potential threat of legal action of some sorts concerning the article COVID-19 pandemic in the Donetsk People's Republic claiming that the article violated Ukrainian Law. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ACOVID-19_pandemic_in_the_Donetsk_People%27s_Republic&type=revision&diff=972900441&oldid=972601469 Serafart (talk) (contributions) 02:03, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

That isn't a legal threat. No harm, no foul...carry on.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 02:07, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Though I must say trying to supercede Wikipedia NPOV policy, especially English Wikipedia NPOV policy, with that of some (possibly propagandistic) government edict is too much. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 06:39, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Unresponsive, incorrigible editor Examplar and Michigan IPs

We have an editor who has been using Michigan IPs and the username Examplar for ten years, with thousands of edits in total. The person has been warned dozens of times for problematic editing, and has never once responded. The style of this person is to add unreferenced detail to articles, very often irrelevant, often poorly written, sometimes non-neutral.

• Examplar (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)
• 2601:404:CF00:9B70:0:0:0:0/64 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial))

It's always difficult discussing an editor who crosses over into WP:CIR areas, and this case is no different. Sometimes this person makes decent edits, but many times they are reverted as irrelevant, or unreferenced, or poorly written. I'm sure we all can agree that communication with others is one way to help an editor grow into their proper niche on Wikipedia. Examplar has never responded to a comment from another person on Wikipedia. Examplar has edited their talk page twice, merely to make tiny changes to code.[89] The Michigan range Special:Contributions/2601:404:CF00:5750:0:0:0:0/64 has not made a talk page at all. The Michigan range Special:Contributions/2601:404:CF00:9B70:0:0:0:0/64 has not made a talk page edit unless you count this outlier edit request which was denied.[90] There was one time that Examplar reached out to me in 2014, with a baffling note,[91] but there was no follow up.

One persistent problem article is Pope John Paul II (miniseries) which has been the target of Examplar and Michigan IPs since 2010 when Michigan IP 68.62.5.67 added some details. The main problem in that article is that there are no references at all, and no description of the making of the miniseries, or its reception, which makes the large plot section overbalance the article. I have reverted our Michigan/Examplar friend about 40 times at that article. In 2012, Michigan IPs 68.62.104.173 and 69.87.144.216 added tons of plot detail to the article, effectively making it a WP:POVFORK of the actual biography of Pope John Paul II. The accumulation of detail continued through 2013. In December 2013, the Examplar user account was registered, but the IPs continued to add detail through 2014 despite multiple warnings from me. (Sometimes these IPs made a talk page entry, for instance this and this, both of which may be other people using a dynamic IP.) In May 2014, I had been reverting the Michigan IPs pretty regularly, and then Examplar came in to make the same edits.[92][93]

Examplar created the article Survival_of_Dana (no sources), A Friendship in Vienna (one source added by someone else), The Littlest Victims (a few refs added by someone else), Of Pure Blood (unreferenced) and Final Jeopardy (1985 film) (a few references added by others.) Examplar has been asked to cite sources but never responds or improves.

Recently, JNW and Larry Hockett have been reverting Examplar's very poor additions to Los Angeles political history, including the articles about Mayor Sam Yorty, Mayor Tom Bradley (American politician), and Los Angeles. New York Mayor Ed Koch got the same treatment from Michigan IPs and Examplar, which was the addition of irrelevant details unconnected or peripherally connected to the topic – alway unreferenced. Examplar was reverted in every case. I could go on and on with this editor, adding more diffs of poor contributions combined with a virtually complete lack of communication. Instead, I invite comments from others about what can and should be done here. Binksternet (talk) 07:35, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

• Give him time to respond to this thread but if he resumes editing without response then a short block per WP:ENGAGE would be appropriate. I'm imaging that he just ignores that purple notice indicating that he has messages.
   — Berean Hunter (talk) 12:13, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

• • The ambient hum of persistent incompetence that degrades the project. Binksternet beat me to the punch; I was going to report this today, but my entry would have been far more terse, having just come across this editor and some of their IPs. An ocean of unsourced and off topic original research, often poorly written. Recent history as an IP at Richard Riordan is standard: edit warring to include banal and irrelevant content, much the same as I reverted at Sam Yorty, Tom Bradley (American politician), Los Angeles, Abraham Beame and Ed Koch. The registered account could have been indeffed years ago, with consideration given to rangeblocks of Grand Rapids IPs. JNW (talk) 13:03, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

WP:PERSONAL by Alexbrn

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Alexbrn violated WP:PERSONAL by this edit [94] --Александр Мотин (talk) 11:33, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

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Repeated vandalized edits

Rf4fr4WE3412 (talk · contribs) repeatedly change the image using hyundai car photo on infobox of Incheon International Airport Terminal 1 station at Incheon International Airport Terminal 2 station.

This users Rf4fr4WE3412 (talk · contribs), Sd0049734 (talk · contribs), 175.118.193.119 (talk · contribs), Rfefr4r4f (talk · contribs) are the same guy! Remember that he also did on the ITX-Saemaeul as Sd0049734 (talk · contribs). AJP426 (talk) 15:04, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Edits reverted and user blocked. RickinBaltimore (talk) 15:17, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

User:ClueBot NG is malfunctioning

This bot removed my edit on Dr. Steven Gundry's article referring to him as a pseudoscientist and entrepreneur, both of which are easily verifiable, well founded assertions. It did so on the grounds that such assertions are defamatory, however, this is false; such assertions are in line with widespread reasonable opinion about him shared amongst informed individuals lacking personal conflicts of interest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stardig (talk • contribs) 15:30, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Is there a page somewhere that tells people to start these threads here with that title? If so, we should consider removing it. As far as I know, the bot has never actually gone haywire, and every revert the bot makes includes a link for reporting false positives. Anyway, the problem here is obviously your choice of words – anything with the prefix of "pseudo-" is likely to trigger Cluebot. Also, I don't know why you're adding that. The whole pseudoscience thing is already addressed in the lead, and "pseudoscientist" is not a career. If someone has had their professional accreditation revoked, we can document that. See, for example, Andrew Wakefield. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 16:02, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

NinjaRobotPirate, on User:ClueBot NG, right under the shut-off button: Non-administrators can report a malfunctioning bot to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. It includes a link to start a new thread here. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 16:07, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Ah, it's ultimately coming from {{Emergency-bot-shutoff}}, which preloads this header. Funny how these threads only appear about Cluebot. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 16:23, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Believe it or not, he has absolutely made a career out of being a pseudoscientist. He is constantly engaging the public and promoting his pseudoscientific theories in order to scare and manipulate people who don't know any better into buying his special magic pills despite condemnation from the scientific community. What is sad is that he was once a perfectly legitimate, well respected physician, but somewhere along the way he went haywire and turned into a con artist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stardig (talk • contribs) 18:06, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Prior to ClueBot reverting your edit, Materialscientist had also reverted your addition of the same material. So rather than complain that a bot is malfunctioning perhaps it would be better to consider why a human editor disagreed with your edit and discuss it rather than simply re-entering the content. Nthep (talk) 19:26, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Riku maina and WP:NOTHERE (again)

I reported this user less than a couple of weeks ago for editing with no obvious intent of collaborating with other editors. They refuse to engage in a dialogue about their edits, simply returning every so often to restore various articles related to Manchester United F.C. players to their preferred version. Attempts have been made to communicate with them, but their limited responses have been tantamount to accusations against other editors and questioning our motives. In the absence of any legitimate attempt to collaborate on this project, surely it's about time this user was blocked from editing? – PeeJay 15:31, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Disruptive and entirely non-communicative user

Hello, I've been recently needing to fix plenty of quotations over at All That (season 11) because user Robert Moore continues to entirely disregard MOS:CURLY, even after multiple warnings on the user's talk page. However, as of their latest editing to the page, they continue to do the exact same thing and go against MOS.

However, as the header of this suggests, this user is entirely non-communicative as well. They've been editing since 2005, and since they've begun editing, it seems they have never decided to user edit summaries a single time, even 15 years later. Even after a previous ANI report in 2010 and 2 week block for this exact behavior, it seems like nothing has been learned from that block 10 years later. They've even stated then that they know their editing was disruptive there, and yet continues it to this day. It seems like the only time they use an edit summary is from when they create a new page (Ex: "Created page with '{{Infobox television | name = Kung Fu | image = | caption = | genre = {{Plainlist| * Action (genre...'")- and yet, it's even noted that they are automatic. The only times they've ever actually edited their talk page was removing old discussions in August 2015, and replying to the previous ANI notice on their talk in late October/early November 2010- everything else has not been responded to or acknowledged whatsoever.

Even just taking a look at the current state of the talk page, you can just search "edit summary" and you'll see multiple things over the years asking to use edit summaries, which has obviously not been heeded. (I'd honestly love to see what this bot would say now in regards to the percentages...) Hope this can be resolved, thanks in advance. Magitroopa (talk) 16:08, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Magitroopa, for numbers like the bot would give you, see the xtools page. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 16:54, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. Sadly, even more telling about how non-communicative they really are... Magitroopa (talk) 17:12, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

The user has not written a message in the Talk or Wikipedia namespaces since 2016,^{[95] [96]} and has not edited any User Talk page since 2015.^[97] Their response to the last block was "error in judgement", "unfairly blocked", "uncalled for". The ANI thread that led to the 2-week block by MuZemike can be found at WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive645#User:Robert_Moore.
I have now added a stern request to join the discussion or at least to listen to other users' complaints to their talk page. Let's see what happens in the next 48 hours or so. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:02, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

(non-admin comment) MOS:CURLY and MOS:' are there for a reason. As anyone who has come across a failed WP:ITALICS link like ’'Game of Thrones and all possible variants knows. (Italicisation error deliberate.) Narky Blert (talk) 20:07, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

2020 Delhi riots

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• Alpha2211 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has (over at Talk:2020 Delhi riots ) made a number of allegations of misconduct (their latest being [[98]] accusing users of being paid editors, refusing to accept sources they disagree with, of conspiring to hide "the truth", violations of wp:blp and wp:crime, All (pretty much) in the one post. They even seem to acknowledge ("Block me if you want") they they know they are beaching policy (they have been warned already [[99]]. They appear to be a wp:spa who is here to right great wrongs and push a POV.Slatersteven (talk) 20:53, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

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

User:Daveout

Sorry if this is a long one, a lot has happened here. About two weeks ago I visited the Richard Stallman article and was disturbed to find the page in an incredibly biased state that actively took the side of the subject of the article, argued in his support, and used unreliable sources to do so (e.g. random YouTube videos and bloggers). I searched through the history of the page and found that over the course of a couple months a few editors had dismantled a previously neutral article and reframed it in support of their preferred narrative. I found what I thought was the last "good" version prior to this act and restored it, at which point Daveout (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) began reverting my edits and demanding I "reach consensus" before reverting the page. Frankly I think anyone who views the first diff linked above will understand the gravity of the situation and why I was unwilling to do that - among other things, the article included a lengthy parenthetical supporting Stallman's argument that the phrase "sexual assault" is misleading, and a thankfully hidden section asserting that the accusations were the result of a takedown orchestrated by Bill Gates. I wish I were joking. More importantly, though, I have found examples of the editor in question expressing their personal opinion on the topic in a way that makes it quite clear what their motivations are for editing this page in this way. For instance, in the NPOV discussion here Daveout expresses his belief that Stallman was a victim of so-called cancel culture and that the sources quoted in the unbiased version of the page were simply "cancellers" trying to make Stallman look like "Satan." Again, I wish I were joking.

After it became clear that Daveout was only going to continue reverting my edits I opened a discussion on the NPOV noticeboard, where Masem (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)] quickly agreed and rewrote the section from a much more neutral perspective. After Daveout continued to revert the page, it was locked for a week by El C (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). After that lock expired Daveout instantly resumed reverting the page. I tried to discuss this with him on the article's talk page but he was insistent in his refusal to do so and argued that he has consensus to revert to his version of the page because he had somehow counted three editors in support and two against, even though consensus is not simple majority rule. Daveout was then banned from editing the article for a month, while continuing to demand on the talk page that I revert the page to his preferred version. After those demands failed he then opened a DRN discussion, which was initially fine, but after I commented explaining the above context he commented adding the irrelevant detail that I had previously been blocked for edit warring, which was the second time he had needlessly referenced that incident (for the record the sockpuppet account/attack he mentions was not me, but was someone impersonating me, but I digress).

Personally I think enough has happened here to request that Daveout receive a topic ban from editing the Richard Stallman article and a one-way IBAN from interacting with me. Lazer-kitty (talk) 21:15, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Your framing of this situation is unbelievably misleading (but not unlikely of you, unfortunately). I reverted your revision because of BLP concerns. That version categorically stated that Stallman tried to “rationalize” “sexual assault”, a claim that wasn’t supported by any source. Only afterwards, another editor called my attention to problems in the version that I had restored, I promptly agreed with them after investigating it further, I responded: You are correct: those sources are unacceptable for BLP and they have been removed. and That's an obviously improper hidden note. After fixing all the problems that I had encountered, one uninvolved editor said that both my version and Masem's seem[ed] to report the events without taking a stance on Stallman's behaviour. And Lazer-kitty agreed, saying the most recent version Daveout is pushing is a significant improvement over where this page was a week or so ago. I was just trying to be cautious bc your reversion involved a BLP. A perceived bias isn't as grave and urgent as potentially slanderous and unsourced content. If anything, you should be the one topic-banned for carelessly including unsourced claims in BLP's. \\ Now, it wasn't me who tagged User:Zestkick as your block-evasion puppet, It was an adm called User:Ymblanter, so you should resolve it with them or at WP:CheckUser. \\ I agree with a TWO-WAY IBAN and please refrain from involving me in your senseless customary drama. -- Daveout ^(talk) 22:24, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Dave, I agree that the use of the word 'rationalization' in Wikipedia's voice makes for less than perfect encyclopedic tone in that one sentence, but looking at the over-all differences in the article between the two versions presented in the diff Lazer-kitty has provided above makes it abundantly and immediately clear which is more problematic under our policies, and it isn't the one LK restored. Without having looked at the exact timetable of reverts as yet, I am hesitant to rule out the possibility that both of you were less prudent than you should have been with raw reverts instead of making more tailored corrections, but the version you restored is pretty heavy with an editorializing tone that frankly veers deep into WP:original research regarding the exact definitions of sexual abuse in away that was never going to stand and with regard to which LK did not err in moving to immediately rectify.

Likewise, the considerations of BLP do not just apply as to the subject of a given article, and the edit which you restored also includes invocation of a wall-eyed conspiracy theory regarding the implication that the subject of the article was only coming in for criticism over their controversial statements on child sexual abuse because Bill Gates was orchestrating some sort of covert social media campaign against them...again, something that needed immediate remedy and which is a vastly more problematic BLP concern than the less-than-ideal wording of that one sentence pertaining to Stallman himself, to which you objected. Comparing the issues between these two versions, there's no question which reversion was more problematic. Now you say that you didn't realize that the reversion you made restoring that much greater volume of much more problematic content contained said issues, but (putting aside that I'm not certain from your wording just which parts of the content you recognize for being problematic), there's also the fact that you should have reviewed the edit in full before reverting it.

I'm not going to get deeper into commenting on who is more at fault in the manner in which tensions seem to have escalated between you and LK from the point of that reversion until I have had a chance to dig into the details of the continuity of edits and other conduct, but I will say that you don't seem to have fully internalized our WP:WEIGHT and WP:OR principles yet in some regards. Which is understandable--you are apparently quite new to the project. But until you do get a sense of what constitutes a neutral approach to contentious issues, you are going to want to be a little less liberal with the revert button--especially if you are going to be participating in areas as innately controversial as that particular section of that particular article. Snow ^{let's rap} 00:43, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• Leaning towards support for a longer-term PAGEBAN for Daveout as regards Richard Stallman. Having now had a chance to give a cursory review of four separate relevant discussions (NPOV/N thread, user TP after administrative block, article talk page thread, and DRN discussion), I am seeing a lot of WP:IDHT from this user, despite the fact that two separate admins have approached them with what might be fairly described as a kids' gloves approach regarding their application of NPOV in regard to the article in question, attempting to walk Daveout through the policy considerations that make some of their edits/editorial positions problematic. El Cid has already imposed such a ban as a temporary measure, but considering Dave's comments since, I am not hopeful their approach will be suitably restrained when they return to work on that article, and I think a longer term solution is probably in order.

If others feel the relatively short length of the disruption to date means we should mitigate the length of the pageban down to six months or so (as opposed to the more typical 'indefinite until repealed') so as to give Daveout a chance to better assimilate our NPOV standards before returning to this topic, I may be able to support that as well. Though if I am blunt, some of the behaviour and IDHT to date make me wonder if things might go in the other direction and ultimately militate a CIR ban--but hopefully Dave will prove me wrong if given a little WP:ROPE and some community guidance.

As to Lazer-kitty's conduct, there's a place or two where they probably could have responded in a less bombastic way--I certainly wouldn't describe their involvement as dispassionate or de-escalatory--but I do not think it really raises to the level of requiring scrutiny (not that anyone has suggested a WP:BOOMERANG here to begin with, but Dave did make counter-accusations above and I thought it would not hurt to cover the conduct of both parties). Snow ^{let's rap} 01:23, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Don't even bother blocking me, I wasn't intending to edit that page anymore. And specially now, after such a negative judgement. Apparently there's no #AGF for me. Now I am accused of disruptive editing and "Failure or refusal to get the point", I acknowledge that I didn't handle things the best possible way, but have you seen what I was dealing with? I repeatedly asked LK what was wrong with the article and they responded with "you know what you are doing!" and edit warring. WP:IDHT says we should respect consensuses, but there's NO CONSENSUS about that page yet, so I thought that a version that better resembles the status quo version (with all of it's grave flaws removed, of course) should be in place in the meantime, that's what I tried to do, and that's why I'm partially block. I misunderstood El_C's instructions, I didn't know I could open a #DRN when there was an ongoing discussion at #NPOVN. #DRN forbids simultaneous discussions in different forums regarding the same topic. But ok... Apparently I am supposed to know everything. I'll never try to remove slanderous and unsourced claims from BLPs again, dont worry -- Daveout ^(talk) 02:37, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Dave, to clarify a few things:

• I do AGF as to your intentions here, as I believe your response was motivated to make changes that you view as an improvement to the article;
• No one in the discussion thus far is contemplating a block at tt this time (a block is an action that would remove your editing privileges in their entirety for a time)--what has been suggested as a WP:PBAN which would forbid you to edit that one article, and it would require more people than just myself to put into effect as it is a type of community sanction. And for that matter, not even I am 100% irreversibly set on my endorsement of it;
• I do not think this contest of wills between you two was entirely a one-way street--in fact, I think it's fair to say you both missed opportunities de-escalate here, instead choosing to trade barbs.

But all of that said, I do think it is a good idea if you take a break from the article, whether required to by any ultimate result of this discussion or as a voluntary matter. It appears you have very strong feelings about the topic of "cancel culture" and it is often the subjects that we feel most passionate about that we have to be most careful about getting involved with. Sometimes this paradoxically means limiting our engagement with topics which we are knowledgeable about or heavily motivated to contribute to, at least at first until one has so internalized the project's standards that we can intuitively apply them even when they in some ways run counter to our intuitive impressions on a topic. It may even be the case that the edit you are presently endorsing would be an improvement to the article. But at the point where an admin has had to step in and restrict your activity, you are not headed in the right direction (either in terms of improving the article or your standing in your new community here) and it's better to just focus your energies elsewhere for a time. It's a wide project and I see you have other interests, so I would encourage you to embrace the impulse you voiced immediately above and avoid the article for the present time, if only for your own peace of mind and so we do not lose you to frustration burn-out almost as soon as you have joined the project. Snow ^{let's rap} 03:56, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Sources

Personal attacks at MediaWiki talk:Common.css

In a discussion at MediaWiki talk:Common.css #CSS to left align the text in the first column of a table, Timeshifter (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is tendentiously arguing to add multiple new classes to MediaWiki:Common.css. As that page provides global styling everywhere on Wikipedia, it is delivered by the server on every page request. It is a particularly sensitive page and therefore it may only be edited by interface-admins, and changes are logged at Wikipedia:Catalogue of CSS classes. Adding new classes requires a strong consensus, and efforts have been made in recent times to reduce the size of the page delivered by transferring many of the older classes to local template styles.

In that thread, Timeshifter has had this explained to him by TheDJ [100], Jackmcbarn [101] and myself [102][103], but insists on repeating their demands for a new global style, without any support from any other editor, and any other solutions suggested are rejected with spurious reasoning. I have offered to show him how to use TemplateStyles to achieve his goals, and I've even written a modified version of Magnus Manske's tab2wiki that adds the necessary scopes [104], after he complained that he had no automated tools that added column and row scopes.

None of this has been enough for him and he has now become so frustrated that he has resorted to personal attacks:

• "RexsS. You obviously are clueless about tables ... You'll catch on once you start paying attention instead of pounding your chest ... Obviously because you are all talk." (I had actually already given him an example where I demonstrated how to right-align all numbers in a table.)
• "You and Justin show your unbelievable cluelessness about the visually impaired in the discussion on his talk page. (his emphasis)

After I asked him on his talk page to remove his personal attacks , his response was to change "unbelievable cluelessness" to "ignorance", which I find just as offensive.

After Johnuniq asked him to "drop the emotion"[105], he doubled down buy accusing Johnuniq of "gender-normative bias"[106]. Writ Keeper has objected to that [107], without any response.

I do not think that Timeshifter's behaviour is acceptable on Wikipedia and I would like to see administrative action taken to prevent further problems. --RexxS (talk) 22:17, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

• Looks like a content dispute. From what I can tell they struck and apologized for the clueless comment as well.[108] While not ideal changing it to ignorance, certainly less of a personal attack at that point. This seems to have jumped the gun. PackMecEng (talk) 22:25, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

  Actually, I think this is more than a content dispute. I see three very problematic edits and so far Timeshifter has made a half-hearted attempt to improve one of them. The worst diff came after Timeshifter was asked to please "drop the emotion" and responding by accusing the other editor of "railing against emotion" and undercutting the WMF's efforts to recruit more female editors. That's just ridiculous. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 02:14, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  I have to say I do not take it well when someone claims I am just being emotional. In this day and age it is probably wise to not make that claim. PackMecEng (talk) 02:38, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  I wouldn't like it either, but I really don't think it's reasonable or appropriate to bring up sexist stereotypes, especially in this context. One male editor mildly rebuked another male editor for being emotional. It had nothing to do with gender. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 03:19, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• The content dispute is one thing, but Timeshifter has personalized this dispute way more (and more quickly) than was necessary. I would've said that bringing this to ANI is a bit--a bit--premature, but now that it's here, I think it's worth addressing, even if it's just issuing a warning. The "unbelievable cluelessness" is not great and only slightly mitigated by his later change to "ignorance". I have to reiterate that the talking about gender-normative bias with regards to Johniunq completely correctly telling him to leave emotion at the door--I guess referring to an emotional-woman gender stereotype--is gross. I don't think a block or anything like that is necessary yet, but this does need to stop. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 02:49, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• I have warned Timeshifter. Bishonen | tålk 08:06, 17 August 2020 (UTC).

WP:BATTLE and WP:CANVASS by Aditya Kabir even after warnings

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

Aditya Kabir is not stopping with his violations of WP:BATTLE and WP:ASPERSIONS per these edits since 8 August:-

• "are you afraid of uninvolved (and non-Indian) editors" [109]
• "By the way, the Indian editors here seem to lose interest in discussion" [110]
• "Two Indian editors pushing for a certain version" [111]
• "Our Indian friends are having a hard time" [112]
• "don't think our Indian friends cared to take a look" [113]
• "Please, help. This discussion needs military historians, not nationalistic POVs" [114]
• "POV combatants are not really good for a consensus. I guess the combative POV pushers are trying very hard to resist such editors from coming here."[115]

He is frequently engaging in mass WP:CANVASSING by selectively sending notifications to editors through pings,[116][117][118] even after he was already warned.[119]

Though, he acts really sensitive ("you post here is very aggressive, abusive on the verge of threatening, and looks verry comabtive") when someone leaves him a warning for his disruption.

While there are obvious WP:CIR issues with this editor, it is getting harder to tolerate his disruption because of his clear pattern of an unrepentant uncollaborative approach. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 04:40, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

• This selective group ping is bad, as is the user's uncomprehending and aggressive response to a warning about it. This attempt to value editors' input according to their nationality goes against everything Wikipedia stands for, and certainly implies WP:CIR problems as well as a battleground mentality. Here's another similar post, about "our Indian friends". This childish insult is just depressing. I have blocked for 48 hours for disruptive editing. Bishonen | tålk 10:24, 17 August 2020 (UTC).

User:FarryZly100

• FarryZly100 (talk · contribs)

This editor is a self-described "clerical fascist" who is trying to whitewash a bigoted far-right meme video, adding original research to Dark Enlightenment, and adding lengthy, completely unsourced and potentially WP:COPYVIO lyrics to articles about far-right propaganda songs:

• Maréchal, nous voilà !
• Roei no Uta
• Cara al Sol, which looks like it had a revdel once already for exactly this copyright violation
• Battotai, which isn't even an article about a song.

The editor is also trying to spin Third Position as non-fascist and change the article on the defunct terrorist group Terza Posizione as not far-right. None of this behavior is appropriate.

An admin will need to make a call on the lyrics, also. Grayfell (talk) 04:44, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

I've reverted the lyrics additions, but an admin will need to indef him as per WP:NONAZIS. — Czello 09:20, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Dana Jacobson

Please consider rev/deletion of defamatory edits. Thanks, 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 05:12, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Please stop asking for revision deletion at ANI. From the banner that appears whenever you post here: "If the issue or concern involves a privacy-related matter, or involves any potential libel or defamation, do not post it here." NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 07:06, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

IP editors breaking links in Indian film-related lists (Part 2)

Part 1 was Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1041#IP editors breaking links in Indian film-related lists.

The rangeblock applied by El C on 10 July 2020 has expired, and the IP is back doing the same old thing - link. I suggest another short block to repeat the message. Narky Blert (talk) 09:26, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Seconded. The edits may be in good faith, and it is unfortunate that we have no way to communicate more politely with IPv6 hoppers, but these edits are a wholesale reversion of the tedious work of everyone who has meticulously disambiguated the wikilinks. Certes (talk) 10:07, 17 August 2020 (UTC)