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    Theresa Greenfield

    This article has had a rough history. It was nominated for deletion and redirected back in May this year, citing notability concerns. The deletion result was challenged at deletion review three times, as noted above. Meanwhile the article was recreated in place (in good faith) by several editors before the redirect was protected by Muboshgu in June. It was then created as a draft in July, which was submitted to AfC and has been declined three times by two reviewers (Robert McClenon and Bkissin). The draft was significantly reworked since the last decline in August and a third reviewer (UnitedStatesian) decided to accept the draft and made a request at RFPP to unprotect the redirect, which is how I came across the situation.

    I declined to unprotect yesterday, suggesting that the draft should pass review first and not realizing that UnitedStatesian's request was an attempt to do so, and because they had already asked Muboshgu and they declined, so I said it should be reviewed one more time. In the midst of that one of the draft's editors pinged Robert McClenon, who again said that he would not accept. While discussing that on the draft's talk page and still not realizing that UnitedStatesian was an AfC reviewer trying to accept, I suggested someone else should review (since Robert McClenon had reviewed twice, or three times if you count the comment today, and was clearly becoming frustrated). Two things happened then more or less simultaneously: UnitedStatesian made a new unprotection request at RFPP explicitly stating they were accepting the draft, and Bkissin chimed in on the talk page that they also would not accept. It's currently marked as "under review".

    So basically I've dug this hole as deep as I'd like it to go, and would like someone who hasn't already been involved in this to go get a ladder. Everyone's actions here have been in good faith, but we're clearly stuck. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 19:29, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I am uninvolved, and I do not see any issue. If the article is significantly different from the deleted version (which I have not checked yet) it must be restored (unprotected and moved from the draft); if there are users who doubt notability they can nominate it for AfD. This is how consensus is supposed to work.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:44, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Ymblanter, it's in the AFC process, and has been declined a few times. It's under review again now. If it's approved, then you are indeed correct. But what if the draft is declined? Should we move it to mainspace regardless of the AFC review? – Muboshgu (talk) 20:42, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I am the reviewer, and I have made the third WP:RPP request, at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection#Theresa Greenfield, precisely so I can accept the draft. UnitedStatesian (talk) 20:44, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    UnitedStatesian, is this a good idea? You've been quite vocal about wanting this to be published. I would hope the AFC review was done by someone uninvolved in this process. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:58, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    My only involvement has been in the review: only edit to the draft was adding {{draft article}} to it, no participation in the AfD or DRVs. Of course, the review has required discussion on lots of different pages, as is occasionally the case, so I guess that makes me vocal. That said, as in all cases, if my review is stopped by community consensus that continued page protection is warranted, there are plenty of other drafts that need reviewing and I will of course move on to them. UnitedStatesian (talk)
    I know that in a situation like this, some editors will say that the answer is clear. I think I see at least two questions where policies and guidelines are not clear, and where perhaps they should be clarified.
    The first question is the role of Deletion Review. The redirect has been salted to enforce a Deletion-like decision. The question is: Should it simply be unsalted in response to a request at Requests for Page Unprotection, or should there be a (fourth) appeal to Deletion Review. The instructions for Deletion Review say that it considers situations where the circumstances have changed since the deletion; but some of the DRV regulars get annoyed at such requests and say just to go through AFC without going to DRV.
    The second question has to do with the interaction between political notability and general notability. It is usually the rule, including at AFD, that political candidates who do not meet political notability are also not considered to meet general notability solely on the basis of their campaign. This is such a case. Greenfield was not generally notable before she began running for the US Senate. So is this an exceptional case where she is generally notable based solely on her campaign? Questions of general notability are decided at AFD. Since this draft is currently in AFC, the instructions for the AFC reviewers are that a draft should be accepted if it is thought that there is a better than 50% chance of surviving AFD.
    A third question, which is not one of unclear policies and guidelines, is whether the reviewer is neutral.
    Those, in my opinion, are three questions that are applicable. I am finished reviewing, but I am not finished expressing an opinion. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:07, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The notability question can be decided only by community discussion, and the only applicable mechanism we currently have is AfD. The article has failed AfD and DRs, and therefore should not be reinstated - unless there are significant changes which can make it notable, or unless it has been significantly changes with new sources added so that notability can be reasonably considered on basis of these sources, which have not been presented to AfD. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, the only relevant question is whether significant enough sources have been added as compared with the AfD. If yes, the article should be accepted, and a new AfD can be opened. If not, AfD should not be accepted (with the understanding that if she makes it to the Senate in a month, the draft immediately gets moved to the main space - but this is irrelevant for the current discussion).--Ymblanter (talk) 21:16, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Since the old version was redirected, not deleted, the history is visible, and any editor, not just an administrator, can see the version at the time the AfD closed: it is here, with 5 references. UnitedStatesian (talk) 21:47, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) Ymblanter, I see what you're saying, but I find it kind of ridiculously bureaucratic to accept the article just to nominate it for deletion again. At the same time I imagine the best we'd get from another deletion review is relisting the original AfD, which isn't much better neither in terms of bureaucracy nor in terms of moving forward. For what it's worth, this is the article prior to the deletion discussion, versus the current draft (diff, probably not terribly useful). You can see that the draft is expanded substantially from the deleted/redirected article, but does any of the added info address the notability concern? There was a strong sense in the AfD that US Senate candidates are not inherently notable, but do the 62 sources in the draft suggest she is an exception to that general rule? If the only way we can answer that is through a second AfD then I guess that's where we go from here. Can we simply create a new deletion discussion or relist the original and refer to the draft, rather than doing all the work of moving it around? Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 21:52, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, indeed, my point is that some community discussion should happen somewhere at some point. It should not be happening here, here at AN at best we can have consensus of random admins whether it is time for that discussion to happen, but we can not seriously be discussing whether Theresa Greenfield is notable. We can only discuss whether enough sources have been added for the article to reasonably stand a chance at AfD. It superficially looks to me that we are ready for this community discussion, though at this point I do not see consensus. But it should not depend on a decision of one person who decides to remove or not to remove protection of a redirect. Administrators do not have any particular say in the content area, and the further process should not depend on whether a user accepting AfC is administrator or not. Concerning the process itself, a new AfD seems to me much better than MfD (for the reasons explained below) and reopening the May AfD (well, if the article is essentially the same, one AfD is enough, and if it is different the old arguments are not relevant anymore), but I am open to better solutions.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:27, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    For consistency, perhaps we should treat this the same as Draft:Rishi Kumar, another "local" candidate for a Federal office whose article name redirects to a similar place as Theresa Greenfield. The deletion discussion, as well as AFC comments, determined that the article should reside in draft space until after the election. The same should be applied here. ~Anachronist (talk) 22:57, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    The current draft for Greenfield's article lists significantly more coverage in both regional and national newspapers than Kumar's draft. To support analysis (because the current draft lists a somewhat daunting number of sources, some of which are fairly minor), I pulled out a list of ten example sources that contribute to notability at Draft talk:Theresa Greenfield#Greenfield draft status, and I added a couple more here: Draft talk:Theresa Greenfield#Two additional sources. To me, this kind of discussion supports Ymblanter and Ivanvector's points that we need to figure the right way to get to an AfD -- I believe that a better venue for a robust and organized discussion about notability thresholds would be AfD. I believe that even though it'd be a bit bureaucratic to create the article just for somebody to nominate it for AfD, it'd at least be a logical process. Dreamyshade (talk) 23:22, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    There's always Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion, which is where Draft:Rishi Kumar was discussed. I have doubts that this candidate was notable before becoming this candidate, and I am concerned that the existing coverage is nothing more than routine for any federal-office candidate. ~Anachronist (talk) 23:41, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see the relevance of MFD. I don't think anyone is suggesting that the draft should be deleted. Draftifying the article until after the election is a possible outcome of an AFD. I don't see the relevance of MFD. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:05, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    FWIW, if I saw this Draft article in mainspace I would AfD it. Lots and lots of sources, but zero coverage of her outside of her political candidacy. Obviously, should she win the election... Black Kite (talk) 23:43, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes, I just took a brief foray into the draft and right off the bat removed some citations that seemed to have no point other than to make the reflist look impressive. Such articles, if they appear in mainspace, tend to get moved immediately to draft space. There it should stay until the reflist is cleaned up. ~Anachronist (talk) 00:09, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I am involved in the sense that my wife and I have donated to Greenfield's Senate campaign (and about a dozen similar campaigns) recently. But I do not support accepting this draft before the election. We have quite a few years of precedent that we do not accept biographies of otherwise non-notable unelected political candidates, but instead cover these people in neutral articles about the election campaign. In this case, the redirect to 2020 United States Senate election in Iowa is correct. I think that the description of Greenfield in that article could be expanded in the interim. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 23:55, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll add, as an administrator, that I am not comfortable unprotecting the main space title so the draft can be moved there. I am not getting the sense that the other three admins in this discussion (User:Ivanvector, User:Muboshgu, and User:Cullen) are comfortable with that either. ~Anachronist (talk) 01:55, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    What about User:Ymblanter? UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:26, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    collapse tangential thread
    @Cullen328: I think you'll find, as I have, that the precedent you cite is beginning to change: certainly Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marquita Bradshaw and Cori Bush (both of whom, editors asserted, essentially, were "notable because they weren't previously notable," which doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it) are signs of that. Both show that, instead, Wikipedia is going more consistently wherever reliable sources' significant coverage takes us. Which is a good thing. UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:08, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Marquita Bradshaw was a mistake to not delete, but thank you for reminding me that the closing admin recommended we discuss a merge. I'll get on that shortly. That article has the same reference puffery as Anachronist was finding here. Winning the primary election in Cori Bush's district is tantamount to election. WP:OTHERSTUFF existing doesn't mean that Theresa Greenfield should exist. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:32, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Just make sure if Marquita Bradshaw is merged, this time you ask a different admin. to protect the resulting redirect. Because you know, WP:INVOLVED. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:20, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    My take on Marquita Blackshaw was that the claim of being the first black woman to win a major party primary in the state of Tennessee was enough to convince enough editors to express keeping the article. Thus, the argument was framed in a way that may pass WP:NPOL as expressed in WP:POLOUTCOMES. --Enos733 (talk) 05:15, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is not nearly as complicated as you are making it out to be. You come across an unprotection request, you check whether you would WP:G4 the draft if it were in mainspace. If you would, you decline to unprotect. If you would not, you unprotect. If you don't know, leave the request alone. If everyone leaves it alone, the filer will start a discussion somewhere to achieve a consensus that admins will be comfortable acting on. It is irrelevant how many admins would AFD it or !vote delete. There is no set>=n, where n is the number of admins that can dictate without a need for community consensus whether or not a topic deserves an article. Best, Usedtobecool ☎️ 03:40, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Let me emphasise: if you would not G4 the draft as soon as it got to mainspace but would require an AFD, you have no authority to stop an editor who has the ability to accept drafts from doing so. G4 is more or less an objective measure. You just have to read the AFD and compare the two articles. Everything else is irrelevant. Usedtobecool ☎️ 03:45, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    This is related to a concern I've expressed earlier in this process: WP:PROTECT describes protection as being appropriate when there is "a specifically identified likelihood of damage resulting if editing is left open". I haven't seen any threat of edit warring or other damage here -- everyone involved in this discussion has been acting in good faith, being civil, and making efforts to interpret WP:GNG and WP:NPOL in constructive ways for an encyclopedia. The draft article can definitely be improved further, but we don't have a requirement for articles to be excellent before they get created. I don't see a policy basis for using full protection in this way. Dreamyshade (talk) 04:02, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The redirect was repeatedly expanded into full article contra AFD consensus between the AFD and the full protection. So, that's the threat. WP:SALT, which is policy, says in its first sentence, that admins can prevent creation of pages. That is what this full protection does. It keeps the redirect (which doesn't have consensus to delete, and also doesn't need to be edited anyway) and stops the full article from being created. Usedtobecool ☎️ 04:47, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't see how one AfC reviewer gets to overrule the numerous prior discussions on this. The consensus in the AfD was that the subject isn't independently notable as an unelected candidate for office and should be covered in the article about the election. This is a very common outcome. The issue was taken to DRV three times, each time by someone who had found more news sources which cover her in the context of the election, and each time the discussion declined to reinstate the article. The draft which we now have still doesn't attempt to address this fundamental problem. Yes, there are plenty of news articles, but that's because competitive senate elections always generate news coverage. Essentially all the sources cited still cover her in the context of the election. I suggest we wait until the election, which is just over a month away. If she wins then she will be unambiguously notable, if she loses then I suspect the fuss will die down. Hut 8.5 07:25, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      This is probably the best outcome we can now come up with.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:02, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      I don't see "competitive senate elections always generate news coverage" as a counter-argument by itself for WP:GNG - a campaign like this generates significant news coverage because it's "worthy of notice" to a lot of people, because it's important and of interest to a lot of people. I believe a person primarily covered in the context of an election can still meet the notability standards, especially if there's a lot of national reporting and in-depth reporting over a couple years or more. The question to me is whether the current draft Greenfield is there, and AN still doesn't seem to be the right venue for that -- there are a lot of comments here that are essentially AfD-style comments, without being at AfD (including mine). Dreamyshade (talk) 22:53, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • One key point I feel that I should note is that AfC reviewers don't (and aren't supposed to) act off a "guaranteed to be notable" standard. Instead, if something is likely to pass, we should accept it, and then let the Community review it. Likewise, unprotection requests should work off that basis. Now whether people think it should wait until after the election, I discourage that, but it's viable as a second choice. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:40, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • I will restate a few policy and procedure issues that I think are touched on by this case:

    Here are three issues that are involved in the question about Theresa Greenfield:

    • Should candidates for politically notable offices be considered to meet general notability on the basis of significant coverage of the campaign, if the candidate was not previously considered notable? It has in general been the practice of Wikipedia that candidates are not considered to satisfy general notability on the basis of election coverage, and therefore do not qualify for articles before the election if they did not have them before the campaign. This question arises frequently, and it would be a good idea either to address it on a general basis or to decide that it is always addressed on a case-by-case basis.
    • When should a single AFC reviewer be allowed to accept a draft if the same title was previously deleted by AFD? When should Deletion Review be required? The instructions for DRV say that DRV can review deletions when the circumstances have changed, such as new sources or new activities. However, the DRV regulars normally tell applicants not to go to DRV but simply to submit the new draft for review.
    • When should a single AFC reviewer be allowed to request that a title be unsalted if the same title was previously create-protected? This question is related to the above, but is not the same.

    Robert McClenon (talk) 23:31, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    • *Gets up on soapbox* I think Wikipedia is grossly irresponsible in our election coverage for the role we play in promoting incumbents over challengers. We should have some level of information about candidates for people seeking information about an election. This doesn't need to be done through a full article but could happen through reasonable coverage in an election article. The incumbent will still get a full article as opposed to say a paragraph (or two, maybe three) but our readers deserve to know more about Greenfield than Theresa Greenfield, businesswoman, candidate for Iowa's 3rd congressional district in 2018 which is what we're saying now.*Gets off soapbox*
      Why do we create protect articles (SALT)? Because repeated discussions are a drain on the community's time and attention. DRV has said three times that this isn't ready for mainspace. Robert is right that DRV also frequently says "don't bother us go to AfC or just recreate it" but that's after substantially new information or reasonable time has passed. Neither is true in this case. I am all for consensus changing but repeating the same discussion regularly is a form of disruption. This salting should hold. I am thankful that I got the chance to levy one of my biggest systemic criticism of our content in a public forum but other than that don't think repeated discussions are helpful. Waiting until after the election is not so cop-out or thwarting of our process. It is being respectful of the time, energy, thought, and collaboration that has already occurred about this topic. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:44, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • The rule should be that challengers who receive significant national or international coverage (that is, non-local coverage, or coverage outside of the area where they are running) are notable enough for a page. Greenfield would meet that test (most general election US Senate candidates would), but not every candidate for every office would. Lev!vich 01:57, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have some thoughts about this. If we were looking at an open seat, with both candidates not previously having held elected office, we would not advantage any incumbent. Furthermore, the idea that we are giving an advantage to the incumbent because they have an article disregards to an extent the possibility that their article itself may prove less-than-flattering (as people with opposing views often try to insert as much negativity as they can, while those with supporting views try to keep that sort of thing out). We have articles for all U.S. Senators because that is a reasonable barometer of notability, given the power and influence they wield. This includes articles for senators who or elected for a single term and did not run for re-election, so incumbency over an opponent was never an issue at all. We can't treat articles on U.S. senators any differently based on their possibly being challenged by somebody who does not fall into any other bucket for notability. That said, I do think there is inherent notability in a major party nominee for a U.S. Senate seat garnering national attention due to their perceived possibility of winning that seat (or, sometimes, due to other behaviour in the course of the campaign). This, of course, raises a question that has not yet been addressed, which is whether we should then create articles generally on historical losing major-party U.S. Senate candidates who garnered such attention during their candidacy. This is a discussion perhaps best left until the current silly season passes. If we do enact such a standard in the future, than Theresa Greenfield will merit an article at that point even if she has lost her Senate bid. BD2412 T 03:23, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    A problem with this suggestion is the phrase "major party candidate," which inserts a bit of political favoritism into which candidates may receive articles, and does not account for the fact that the relative strength of a party (or its nominee) varies from state to State. Even if we defer to the political jurisdictions themselves of who is a major party nominee, the Legal Marijuana Now Party is a major party in the State of Minnesota and I don't think that its nominee is notable. --Enos733 (talk) 04:23, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Major party candidate here is basically shorthand for someone coming from a political party that is able to provide the resources to make a U.S. Senate race competitive, which is what leads to the national press coverage of the subject. BD2412 T 15:57, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Let me throw these two things into the existing discussion. A 2019 Centralized Discussion on candidate notability was closed with No Consensus, so this is an issue that we have been contending with for years now. Additionally, a candidate not having an article is not shutting out that candidate. In the United States context, we have articles for each state's congressional and state elections. Information about the candidate can easily be added there without creating a separate article. In Parliamentary contexts (Canada more specifically), we have created list articles with basic information about a party's candidates. How many of these losing candidates pass the ten year test in terms of their long-term relevance? Bkissin (talk) 17:48, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is trivial. Does the topic meet the GNG? Yes? Have article. We don't expect coverage of baseball players outside of baseball, why does anyone expect coverage of a politician outside of politics? Hobit (talk) 01:11, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • What he said. The existing policy to routinely reject articles on as-yet unelected politicians seems absurd to me. If a person gets coverage, I don't care who they friggin' are, or what the context is, if they get stuff like national coverage, then my God shouldn't we have an article on them? Why do politicians get assigned a different standard than other people? You pass GNG, you get an article. End of discussion. You don't pass GNG but you do pass a subject-specific guideline, boom, you get an article. That's how it works for everything else on Wikipedia. That is exactly how it should work for politicians. Anything else is following a rule because it's a rule. WP:IAR is a POLICY! A loose necktie (talk) 02:45, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • Just to respond to the above comment from an WP:AFC perspective (and not as a response to this particular draft), we tend to view such things like "running for a political office" as akin to WP:BLP1E; i.e. if the only coverage of a person is because they ran/are running for office, then they could have dozens of references but it's all about the same event (and is somewhat reflected in WP:NPOL). A notable example I can think of is from earlier this year, where there was a trans politician who (if they won) would have been the first trans politician from somewhere like Maine (or the USA, can't honestly remember); they didn't even make it past the primaries, so despite the relatively large body of coverage the article was deleted ("they ran for office that one time" isn't something that makes notability). You might think we hold this ridiculous standard for aspiring politicians, but we have tons of special exemptions (going in both directions) to either raise up "hidden" groups like educators or keep the veritable flood of bit-playing actors or potential-politicians who never get elected from having one-paragraph permastubs. Primefac (talk) 09:55, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • I would agree in the case of a candidate who runs once, but after the first time there is a point when they become a perennial candidate, maybe hoping to eventually reach Lyndon LaRouche-level. 2020 is this candidate's second campaign (as is referenced in the draft via significant coverage in reliable sources). Separately, the reference above to the WP:10Y test above is interesting, since there was a Senate election in this same state exactly 10 years ago, and guess what, we have an article on the losing candidate. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:51, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • And how many articles do we have on football players, who all qualify for standalone permastub articles based on subject specific guidelines and whose articles will never, ever be expanded in 10 or even 100 years but also never, ever be deleted, while wringing our hands over allowing people to create articles on as-yet unelected political candidates with ample national coverage and lots of published information, whom we disqualify from having articles because "we just don't do that"? If we cared about permastubs, we'd address it in other contexts. We don't. And we could all stop caring about the politicians if we just followed our own policies regarding what makes a subject notable, and stop applying different rulers to different topics as a means to delete or remove articles on those subjects— I'm all for using them to include, since that is how they were meant to be used. Think of the headaches that wouldn't have to happen! Of the discussions we wouldn't have to waste time on! Like this one! Yay! A loose necktie (talk) 17:34, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
            • And how many articles do we have on football players Usually best not to compare the sphere of interest here to one of the known problem children of the notability guidelines. --Izno (talk) 18:11, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • "We don't expect coverage of baseball players outside of baseball, why does anyone expect coverage of a politician outside of politics?" Unless and until she is elected she hasn't done anything in politics. She's basically stood up and said "please, please, please let me do something in politics, I would really appreciate it, I have such great ideas", but she's done zip. Giving her an article is not the same as giving a baseball player an article for playing baseball, it's the equivalent of giving anybody who ever wanted to be a baseball player an article. --Khajidha (talk) 17:57, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Notified: Draft talk:Theresa Greenfield. I dream of horses (Contribs) Please notify me after replying off my talk page. Thank you. 18:53, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is a good discussion, and I have to get up on my own soapbox here and echo Barkeep49's grand concern above that we're generally irresponsible in our election coverage, but for me it's in the opposite direction of Barkeep's argument. We cover elections in far too much detail. We're supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a newspaper: we're supposed to write basically academic summaries of things that already exist or have already happened, after all the discussion is had (so we're not the ones having it; WP:OR, WP:NOTESSAY) and when things aren't constantly changing, based on reliable sources that review those subjects in retrospect, not as they happen. We're incredibly poor at providing balanced coverage of anything that is ongoing because we're not set up to be objective to current events. We should not write about elections at all until the ballots are counted, in my ideal world, and certainly not while the propaganda machines are in full swing. Maybe this gripe is neither here nor there with respect to this discussion, but since it was brought up now you all get to enjoy my opinion. (/soapbox) There are a lot of quality arguments here on what our guidelines should be, and those are good discussions to have, but there's pretty clearly not a consensus here to restore the article or to do anything with the protection. I think Cullen328's advice to expand her content in the Senate election article is the way forward. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 19:02, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      I agree we cover many ongoing events in more coverage than an encyclopedia strictly would. In an abstract sense the idea of saying "we're not going to cover something until X months/years after it happens" makes sense to me given NOTNEWS/the first pillar. However, that's only in the abstract sense; I can't imagine if we had only begun covering COVID or if we couldn't reference someone's death because not enough time had elapsed. If we're going to start drawing lines about where we need to be careful about covering ongoing events the idea that we're covering elections too much seems like a strange place to start drawing that line. Our articles on elections are poor and serve our readers poorly - they become lists of endorsements and other things that fit nicely in tables rather than prose. But the fact that we do a poor job of it now isn't to say we're over covering it; it's to say we should do a better job of covering them with-in our encyclopedic mission. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:31, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • For most topics, a deletion review is final. On this particular matter, we've had several successive deletion reviews and now we've got an appeal to the administrator's noticeboard. As this is purely a content decision, it's simply not open to administrators to overrule DRV here. I suggest that this is closed without result and referred back to DRV.—S Marshall T/C 01:47, 6 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'll just say it again: there can be no dispute as to if this meets the GNG. And the SNG says: "People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject." We have a huge number of high-quality sources that cover her in massive detail. So from a guideline viewpoint, this is open-and-shut. The problem is that people are trying to create a new SNG and even though they have failed to do so, somehow we still pretend like that SNG exists and has consensus. It's a bit maddening frankly. Hobit (talk) 13:02, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      You missed a bit: "Presumed" means that significant coverage in reliable sources creates an assumption, not a guarantee, that a subject merits its own article. A more in-depth discussion might conclude that the topic actually should not have a stand-alone article --Khajidha (talk) 15:14, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Certainly. And we'd done things like not have articles on things like "Donald Trump's hands" on that basis. But a person with this much coverage? I can't think of any such case. The GNG is a bit more clear "Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time, and are not outside the scope of Wikipedia. We consider evidence from reliable and independent sources to gauge this attention. The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article." This is clearly way over the bar of the GNG. And yes, we can merge articles still for organizational reasons. But AfD doesn't normally address *that*. The simple fact is, this person easily meets every relevant guideline we have for inclusion. Her case is not unusual. If we don't want articles like hers, there should be consensus that can be found for the general case. But no such consensus exists. Hobit (talk) 16:24, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Reading that draft, I don't see anything that I would call "significant". She exists. She has a family. She has run for office. But she hasn't really DONE anything, so there's nothing to say about her. --Khajidha (talk) 16:50, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Erb? First of all, that's not part of our inclusion guidelines. We have articles on people who are only famous for being famous. Secondly, she's done a ton. In the last hour there is reporting on an FEC filing against her [1]. In the last 12 hours there is a story on her leading in the polls against the incumbent [2]. She's been campaigning and the news folks think that is important enough to report on [3]. She was in a debate covered and broadcast by national news [4]. I doubt that 5% of our subjects have done as much. Probably not even done as much as she has in the last 7 days. Hobit (talk) 19:02, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Still nothing there besides "hey, this lady's running for election". --Khajidha (talk) 18:39, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      A) Most soccer players are just "hey, this guy plays soccer". Most academics are "Hey this guy is an academic". And she has tons more coverage, include deep bios etc., than the vast majority of either of those. B) who cares? That isn't even vaguely part of our inclusion guidelines. She meets WP:N with more coverage than 90%+ of our bios. You are far into WP:IAR territory. Hobit (talk) 12:48, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      The difference is the soccer player actually plays and the academic has earned a degree or published a work. Giving her an article is the equivalent of giving an article to anyone who walks into team tryouts or applies to a university for admission.--Khajidha (talk) 03:08, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      I'm guessing you don't understand US senate elections? It takes a lot of work to become a senate candidate in a competitive race. To maintain the sports analogy, it means you've made it to the playoffs, but might not win the championship. We cover even athletes that have never won a championship. Now it *is* tricky because in some non-competitive races for lesser offices it is pretty much someone just applying. But that certainly isn't the case here. Hobit (talk) 16:57, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Oh, I understand them and I'm not saying that running an election campaign is easy. But the entire campaign is still just the equivalent of trying out for a team or applying for admission to a university. It's still just "I wanna do something" and not "I'm doing something". --Khajidha (talk) 18:30, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      And that's not an inclusion criteria in any policy or guideline. Perfectly reasonable WP:IAR viewpoint, but not based in any of our rules. Hobit (talk) 12:07, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      It's the perfectly obvious reading of the policy. 1) No source establishes notability outside of the election and 2) the coverage of her campaign is simply routine coverage of an election, not enough to establish her notability. --Khajidha (talk) 14:26, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • My apologies for what I am sure are going to be some formatting errors, but I have not extensively used my Wikipedia editing permissions over the years. I was recently shocked to discover that Theresa Greenfield does not have a Wikipedia page; and not only that, but "Theresa Greenfield (American Politician)" is an article that's been created and deleted several times, and "Theresa Greenfield" redirects to a section of the article about the Iowan Senate Race (and that section isn't particularly about Greenfield), while her opponent has a very robust article. This back-and-forth appears to have been going on since this spring, and the election is just over two weeks away. I'm honestly surprised that this discussion largely seems to be circling around notability. Nearly all of the highest level legislative change or stability in the United States comes from the governing power of the US Senate. Having been controlled by one major political party for many years; but with numerous Congressional seats up for election, and many polls showing potential political shifts, there is a chance for another political party to take control of the Senate, with the implications of immense changes in US policy, both domestic and abroad. Only a very few number of US States have the chance to alter their representative political party in the Senate, and Greenfield is the incumbent's opponent in the "swing state" of Iowa. As a Greenfield victory could alter the political makeup of the US Senate, the leading legislative body of one of the most internationally-influential countries in the world, her political career is very notable. There are very, very many news sources - on the local, state, and national levels - citing her campaign; which, as an example, just raised a record amount of money for a Iowan running for US Congress. I've always thought of Wikipedia as a place for unbiased information - the Encyclopedia of the internet - and as authors, editors, & admins - it would seem that we have the opportunity to "balance out the objectivity" with her State's incumbent's article. I realize this is adding some real-world context to a platform that should be neutral of current events, but voters in Iowa started receiving their ballots last week, and the election closes in just over two weeks. They are trying to make their most critical political decision right now, and an objective, unbiased article on this candidate is an immensely important resource. If they currently search Wikipedia, and see the incumbent's robust article and no article for Theresa Greenfield, that is a potential strong influence on their decision-making. Please reconsider unlocking ("un-salting?") this article ASAP so that we can populate it with objective, practical, widely-covered information. Charlie918 (talk) 16:30, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      "As a Greenfield victory could alter the political makeup of the US Senate, the leading legislative body of one of the most internationally-influential countries in the world, her political career is very notable. " Nope. Her career will only be notable if she wins. "If they currently search Wikipedia, and see the incumbent's robust article and no article for Theresa Greenfield, that is a potential strong influence on their decision-making. " Why would you go to an encyclopedia for this? This is something that newspapers and voter's organizations and such are much better designed for. --Khajidha (talk) 17:34, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Well I'm afraid there are Wikipedia precedents that are counter to your argument of not being noteworthy until being elected to office. Tommy Tuberville is the nominated Senate seat challenger in Alabama, and has never held public office. He has in fact been the head of several organizations, as has Greenfield. John E. James is the nominated Senate seat challenger in Michigan. He has never held public office, and therefore his only notable accomplishments on his Wikipedia page are that he served in the military and worked for a company. With the nearly daily news articles between city, state, and national news outlets about Theresa Greenfield for the past month, I can't see why these two yet-to-win political candidates are cleanly permitted to have Wikipedia articles, but one of the nominees in one of the most critical "swing states" - a multi-business owner and setting a political fundraising record for the state - would not be notable. This sincerely might just be my misunderstanding of what constitutes 'notability' on Wikipedia. Charlie918 (talk) 20:32, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Charlie918, Tommy Tuberville is notable for his college football career. James' article may not survive an AfD. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a good argument to make. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:37, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Muboshgu, then this is most likely simply a teachable moment for me, and there's probably a well-written explanation somewhere that I just can't seem to locate. For a Wikipedia article about a person, what constitutes "notability?" If I do a Google search for "Theresa Greenfield," there are virtually limitless articles from various print, digital, and televised news outlets about her going back months, nearly daily since her televised debate, with her name in the headline. There are even more articles significantly about her where her name isn't necessarily in the headline (e.g. "SCOTUS battle crashes into decisive Senate race in Iowa," Politico, James Arkin, September 30, 2020). Is the sheer volume of content created specifically about an individual by news outlets not a consideration in determining someone's notability? If not, what is? Honestly thank you for any insights, this is the first time I've been involved in a blocked article discussion. Charlie918 (talk) 03:15, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Charlie918, apologies if I assumed that you are better versed with Wiki policy than you are. The main notability guideline is WP:GNG, and the specific notability guideline for politicians is at WP:NPOL. The presence of citations alone is not enough as the context needs to be considered. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:07, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Muboshgu, many thanks for these links, this is precisely what I had been looking for. My next inquiry may require further source citation. Under the politician-specific guidelines you shared WP:NPOL, it reads, "Major local political figures who have received significant press coverage. Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the general notability guideline" WP:GNG. In that first page, it is my interpretation that as the final one of two candidates to represent the entire state of Iowa in the American senate, Greenfield passes the "Major local political figures," and while I've previously noted she has significant press coverage, "who have received significant press coverage." In looking at the General Guidelines you linked, there appear to be five qualifiers: (1) Significant Coverage - there are virtually countless articles, hours of taped interview footage, social media, and more that cover Greenfield's political campaign, personal life, and career. (2/3) Reliable Sources - there are many, many articles and news TV segments from city, state, and national outlets covering Theresa Greenfield, so my assumption is that these qualify as reliable sources. (4) Independent of the Subject - these news articles were not produced by Theresa Greenfield. (5) Presumed - this of course seems to imply that even if a subject meets all the criteria, a more in depth discussion may need to occur for the subject to receive an article. Reviewing most of the comments in here over the last five months, it would appear that the majority of these comments seem to support having the article. If the question remains about notability, I wonder if this context is appropriate to apply: The United States government is is one of the most internationally-influential governing bodies in modern times. Within that government, the United States Senate - made up of two representatives from each of the 50 States - is arguably the most powerful, able to enact laws, impeach a president, make treaties, and more. In America's two-party system, simple majority of the Senate means that party will be able to enact their agenda for 2-4 years, and block the agenda of the other party, and thus significantly determine the country's global and domestic policies. In America's current election, there is a chance for the Senate to change party power, with many Senate seats up for election. Based on the political affiliation of the various states' populations, most of these elections are insignificant - people will vote for their party, and their Senate representatives will remain of the same political party. However, there are just five state elections that are qualified as a "toss up," which means due to the near-balanced political affiliations of their residents, determined through a combination of the national census and polling, it cannot be confidently forecasted which political party will win the state. Theresa Greenfield is the Democratic candidate in one of those five states. If the American Democratic party does in fact take control of the Senate in this election, the international and domestic policy changes - including enacting impeachment proceedings for the current president if he remains in power - would be significant, affecting - in various ways and degrees - billions of people around the world. Given this context, and the objective criteria thresholds of Wikipedia, it is my belief that Theresa Greenfield is notable, and should be permitted to have her own Wikipedia page now, not after her potential electoral victory. Thank you for your discussion and patience. Charlie918 (talk) 17:40, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      How much of that coverage is about her per se and how much is about the election? Consensus on Wikipedia has always been that people who are otherwise not notable do not gain notability just by running for office. That's why this article has been redirected to the election article and that outcome has been endorsed multiple times. Unless and until that consensus changes (and this is not the place to argue that, per User:Spartaz's post below), there is no point in continuing this argument here. --Khajidha (talk) 18:36, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Khajidha In preparing a draft article on my desktop before learning about the controversial history of this Wikipedia article, I have 21 articles saved in Word with Theresa Greenfield's name in the headline just from the last two weeks. The subject matter is a mixture of reviewing her professional career (as it relates to her qualifications for the role), her efforts and notable events of her campaign, and her personal background (education, family, organizational memberships, etc.). Several lines up, Muboshgu, who made the original redirect and lock - to my understanding - made the case that because Wikipedia articles currently exist about campaigning politicians who are otherwise non-notable is not a considerable precedent in determining if a page about Theresa Greenfield should be permitted; then your reverse argument, that "Wikipedia's consensus is that articles about political candidates who are otherwise not notable should not be published," would seem irrelevant. If a precedent is not to be considered, and only the objective notoriety rules of Wikipedia are to be weighed, then Theresa Greenfield would appear to qualify by those rules. Charlie918 (talk) 20:49, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    First of all, I have to cop to not having read all the links, so if this has been stated already, my apologies. While on the one hand it rankles that she doesn't have a page, on the other, I get the Notability issue, and I'm a believer in the policy. Still, I remember the AOC situation, and in retrospect, that was a blunder on our part. But if we obey N, where is the blunder? Well, either in the fact that "being a candidate doess not ipso facto make you notable" (for which this is not the right venue, WT:N is, so let's set that one aside right now) or else, we're not taking the right approach.

    What about this? We have here, in my opinion, a WP:BIO1E event; Greenfield *is* notable (or rather, the one event is), but not before she was a candidate. Therefore, what? Same thing as for Sandra Bland [noredirect] ⟶ Death of Sandra Bland; so we create Senate candidacy of Theresa Greenfield. Anyone here want to declare that this is definitely not notable? I bet I could drown you in sources for that. Then, Theresa Greenfield gets pointed to that. If she loses, and never does another thing in her life, that will be her obituary. Am I missing something? Mathglot (talk) 02:46, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    2020 United States Senate election in Iowa is the article for the "one event" in question. --Khajidha (talk) 03:04, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    That's a related topic for sure, but not quite the identical topic, and not a BIO1E, but rather a recurring event whose article title could be generated by computer. If that article were entitled, 2020 Ernst-Greenfield Senate election you might have a point, but it still wouldn't be the same topic. Mathglot (talk) 04:44, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    This is an entirely pointless discussion because this is essentially a content dispute where the policy, precedent and weight of several discussions is not to have an article. This whole thread is simply extended special pleading and asking the other parent. If you think the page should exist then your quest starts at WT POLITICIAN and I wish you good luck with that. Spartaz Humbug! 05:14, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I believe this is a quite productive discussion, because it points out that there is no clear and accepted community consensus or clear written guideline for the notability of prominent candidates for high-level office who receive substantial, reliable, independent coverage over time (including significant national coverage). There are a lot of experienced editors here with one interpretation of the guidelines, and a lot of experienced editors with a different interpretation. And this discussion is very diffuse, over several talk pages -- there's also more at Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Changing NPOL to include at least some more nominees. Dreamyshade (talk) 00:28, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • The US election is in a couple weeks? She was deleted because she's only notable for being a candidate, right? Why can't we just keep this deleted, wait to see if she wins, and then have a new discussion after the election? This happens all the time, specifically with US elections, and then once the candidate has officially lost most or all resistance to keeping the article goes away, especially if you give it a couple years. SportingFlyer T·C 12:07, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • If the person passes GNG and there is no WP:BIO1E issue as pointed out above (the article was deleted at AfD before she received in-depth coverage), there is no proper reason to ban this article no matter how close or far an election is. Oakshade (talk) 06:01, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Two points:
      1. Is there an article for every other currently running candidate in every election for US Senate/House seat that is up for grabs this election? (I am assuming we have articles on the incumbents office holders)? If we have them on nearly all of them and hers is an an exception, that's a problem that we should fix. If hers is but many that we do not have, then I fail to see where the problem is. The arguments that show her lack of notability (just running for election is not showing depth of coverage about her directly) have been well presented.
      2. If we move her article to mainspace, it cannot look like a political ad. The draft presently looks like this with the section on her platform. Her platform can be discussed but it needs to be presented far less as a political position and more neutrality along with any criticism of it. Ideally, the platform should be part of the election article, and only her key policies that she has stood being and discussed at length should be on her bio page. --Masem (t) 14:15, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Redirect

    While this article is in limbo can we at least get the redirect pointed to 2020 United States Senate election in Iowa#Democratic primary so users can easily find the three paragraphs on the candidate there? There's no named section for her so at present it represents a navigational challenge. Artw (talk) 02:46, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    IAR

    Allow me to quote from black-letter written Wikipedia policy: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." WP:IAR.

    In this case, we have this long tortured discussion about particular paths around purely procedural matters, which is preventing the movement of a perfectly valid draft (I'm not saying a perfect article by any means - a valid draft) about someone who is clearly notable as evidenced by literally thousands of high quality third party reliable sources. If a particular set of rules which work in ordinary circumstances have brought us to this absurd state of affairs, that's ok: one of the oldest and most important rules of Wikipedia exists to save us.

    If Wikipedia, due to some procedural rules, doesn't have an article on the clear frontrunner in a US Senate race, then it is the rules that are preventing people from improving or maintaining Wikipedia. IAR tells us what to do: ignore those rules. This is policy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:07, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Note that User:Francis Schonken made a NAC closure of this discussion[5] and moved the draft to Theresa Greenfield (politician), while Theresa Greenfield is a fully protected redirect. Apart from other considerations (e.g. that IAR doesn't trump consensus, and a close should judge the consensus here instead of misusing IAR as a supervote), this technical issue, forcing Francis Schonken to create a disambiguated page to circumvent the full protection shows wby this shouldn't have been closed and enacted by a non-admin. Fram (talk) 08:17, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    The "A" in IAR stands for "All" – so I wasn't too selective in which rules I was ignoring and which ones I wasn't (...but there certainly was more than one I was ignoring, although I certainly must have been still very far from ignoring each and every rule this namespace holds). For the record, I was in the midst of filing a WP:RM#Uncontroversial technical requests to get the content to the right place (didn't want to leave the article in a place with an unnecessary disambiguator in its title), but stopped typing that request now. I'd like to invite Fram, or whoever reads this, to do a better proposal for triggering prompt reaction to get this sorted in the shortest delay of time possible. Tx. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:28, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    An "uncontroversial technical request" to get a fully protected page unprotected so you can get a declined AfC submission, the topic of a lengthy discussion at WP:AN, at your preferred result? That would me a rather severe misuse of the term "uncontroversial"... The better way would be to propose a closure here, get a consensus for it, and then let people implement the close. If there is no consensus to be found, then we are stuck with the status quo. Fram (talk) 08:42, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The "A" in the abbreviation of the name of the IAR policy still seems to trip you over. Yes, IAR would usually mean ignoring multiple rules. Anyhow, closure request logged at WP:ANRFC#Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Theresa Greenfield. Thanks for that suggestion. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:14, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh, I'm not claiming that you wouldn't be ignoring all rules when you would post a highly controversial move at the "uncontroversial moves" requests. I'm just pointing out that it would be a doomed effort which would only boomerang against you, as it would be very swiftly rejected and would reflect badly on you in discussions about your actions. WP:IAR doesn't, contrary to what you seem to imply, mean "edits used with this rationale can't be criticized or lead to admin actions against me". Fram (talk) 10:25, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I understand that. Thanks for reminding. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:43, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    While I appreciate Jimbo's concerns, I feel I have to point out the last time an admin "took initiative" and IARed like this, they got desysopped. Specifically, I agree with his talk page comment "I would personally WP:IAR and move the draft into article space, but I believe doing so would simply generate unhelpful press coverage of an unfortunately disappointing failure of the slow grinding wheels of our policies." - or indeed, reams of pages on here and possibly Arbcom from everyone who disagrees. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:01, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm with Jimbo on this one. Let's not make the Donna Strickland and Clarice Phelps mistakes yet again. Lev!vich 14:34, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Towards closure

    Current state of play:

    It seems Draft:Theresa Greenfield should be moved to Theresa Greenfield after unprotecting the latter. Let's come to a quick decision—I don't see any reason the unprotection and move should not happen now. Johnuniq (talk) 08:42, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    "Theresa Greenfield isn't notable, and should not have an article\" - not exactly the most convincing argument in an AfD I've ever seen, is it? That's why I specifically quoted DGG, who is one of the more sensible admins at AfD, even if I don't always agree with him. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:28, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    That's because I'm not making an AfD argument, but instead stating the consensus of the previous AfDs and DRVs. * Pppery * it has begun... 13:30, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support per above. This has gone on long enough. --Brad Patrick (talk) 13:41, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. It seems that JW himself is not really sure of the chances of the challenger to be elected at the beginning of the next month. Moreover, it seems that some contributors think that being the focus of some buzz, here at en:wp, will help her winning the race. But, four years later, the pages buzz (part 1) and buzz (part 2) are rather appearing as a pitiful (and failed) attempt to twist the fate. And that, despite their resp. 778 and 2297 references. But, yes, if she is elected, I would probably try to locate Iowa on a map, at least more precisely than "somewhere between Canada and Mexico". Pldx1 (talk) 13:47, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose Consensus has been built previously in the year using long-standing guidelines around notability. Compromises have been attempted (redirect to the election page, incubate the page in draftspace, etc.) but have been largely ignored by a group of editors who have brought this topic up in a number of fora hoping to get the answer they want. I don't see why people can't wait two weeks before moving forward. Throwing out well-established guidelines because you don't like the outcome is sad. Bkissin (talk) 13:54, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Look at the dates on most of the refs, dude. This is a moving target. "I don't see why people can't wait two weeks before moving forward" - because it will expose WP to complaints about political bias, perhaps? Possibly these will be justified. Johnbod (talk) 14:03, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    It's a moving target that will settle down on 4 Nov. Cabayi (talk) 14:27, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    LOL, Wikipedia is always facing allegations of political bias by people who don't like what they read or don't get their way. Look at the current issues surrounding the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict! To be fair (and insulate ourselves from further claims of bias, we have ruled the same thing in AfD regardless of the candidate or party. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sean Parnell (Pennsylvania politician), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel T. Lewis, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Quinn Nystrom, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Ronchetti and several others from this campaign season alone! But hey, until we determine a new policy on the topic (which given the last attempt, doesn't seem to be able to reach consensus) then I look forward to discussing this with you all in 2024. Bkissin (talk) 15:48, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support I think back in May and June this article was debatable in terms of notability, but in the last month has received far and above sufficient media attention, not just to the race but to the individual to warrant the article. If that somehow changes, opponents can always bring it back to AfD.-- Patrick, oѺ∞ 14:11, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support Yes, there were previous versions of this article that were reasonable to delete a few months ago, but Greenfield's coverage has massively increased and is sufficient to pass WP:GNG, and this draft is sufficient for mainspace. Dreamyshade (talk) 14:21, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose - I agree with Pppery that this isn't the forum for this decision. It's a decision for the community, not for admins.
    That said, on the basis of WP:NPOL and WP:NOHURRY, Theresa Greenfield (& all other unelected candidates whose notability was first noted after nomination) should remain redirected to 2020 United States Senate election in Iowa (& their respective election articles) until after the election. Doing otherwise dips into WP:ADVOCACY & WP:PROMO and there's nothing in WP:POLOUTCOMES to suggest any other action. Let's see if Greenfield is still notable on 4 Nov.
    As Jimbo said, we need to consider how we ended in such an odd place - a rethink of WP:NPOL in respect of candidates would resolve that, but it's probably best to wait til the Supreme Court has decided the election before getting into that. (Note:I fell down this rabbit hole with Kevin Stitt in 2018 with this AFD. It would be good to see some clear resolution to the questions this time round.) Cabayi (talk) 14:23, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I think you are touching on the right thing. In the U.S., a major party candidate for the U.S. Senate is not the same as a non-partisan local dog catcher. Sufficient reliable sources and media coverage of a party candidate (post-primary, at that) is significant. The candidacy within the context of the article on the election itself is one thing; now that WP is considered a relevant source for information about the election by millions, it should not get wrapped up in this on a repeated basis. It is a clear statement of notability, in this context, that a person is a major party candidate running for one of 100 of the most powerful elected positions in the United States. This should, by definition, satisfy notability requirements. The additional sauce in this instance is that she's _very_ competitive. [6] --Brad Patrick (talk) 14:37, 21 October 2020 (UTC)\[reply]
    now that WP is considered a relevant source for information about the election by millions Just because people think they can get election information here does not make it our purpose to do that. It is absolutely the wrong place for WP to be serving as an election hub for any country. We'll happily report the results of an election as encyclopedic topic information, but we're not in any type of position to be able to talk about fair coverage of all political candidates and issues on a global basis to make it appropriate to work coverage of political candidates from that angle. It is extremely appropriate to judge any political candidate's article through the eyes of an advocacy concern and make sure that the article is more than just a soapbox for the candidate, which appears to be part of the problem with how Greenfield's article has been presented through its iterations. --Masem (t) 16:56, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support - it's not throwing out any rules. The topic meets all the policies and the guideline WP:N. In my view the argument that such a candidate should not have her own page is farcical, particularly when compared to the other things we give a page to. This website, this community, has a rule that all schools are notable, all train stations are notable, we have articles about bagel shops and pro wrestlers and porn stars and pizzerias, but not a major US senate candidate? Come on. Don't forget our mission is to share knowledge. Let's not pretend this isn't a topic many people are interested in or that we can't write a policy-compliant article about it. Lev!vich 14:41, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    But we don't generally have articles about PROPOSED schools or train stations. Or PLANNED bagel shops and pizzerias. Or pro-wrestling TRAINEES. Or people who AUDITION for porn movies. Those are the counterparts to election candidates.--Khajidha (talk) 14:48, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    TG, a "proposed" Senator, is still more important/notable/worthy of a standalone page/whatever formulation we want to use, than like any high school ever built, or even the most famous porn star. More humans are interested in, and need, knowledge about TG than about any high school or porn star or Pokémon, and all but the most famous train stations. If we're not writing about topics like TG, then what the hell are we doing here? We have an article about every damn road in England. Lev!vich 14:59, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    "We have an article about every damn road in England" - No we don't, I keep finding new ones to write all the time. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:01, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, sure, and when you run out, you're going to clear new roads and write articles about them! 😂 I look forward to reading about Ritchie Boulevard and Ritchie Lane... I hope you name at least one of them Levivich Way. Lev!vich 15:09, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Things that "are" are more encyclopedic than anything that "may be". In the only sense in which TG could be encyclopedic, she is just a "may be". --Khajidha (talk) 15:30, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Thats where I disagree. Open a newspaper. She's not a maybe. She's already notable, win or lose. We have more secondary source material to summarize about TG than I dare say 90% of the pages we have on Wikipedia. It's only through contortions (here, the contortion of WP:NPOL) that one can claim she is not worth including in the encyclopedia unless she wins. There is no logic or data that leads to that conclusion. Lev!vich 15:34, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    She's a "may be" in the sense that she may be elected. --Khajidha (talk) 15:36, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm saying she is notable even if she may be elected. Her notability does not depend on her getting elected. The secondary source material won't disappear if she loses. If our job is to summarize the world's knowledge, we're not doing our job if we don't summarize the knowledge about TG. It's a hole in our coverage, regardless of the outcome of the election. Lev!vich 15:41, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess we have different ideas about what secondary sources about her means. Because 57 different ways of saying "this lady is running for election" don't impress me as notability. --Khajidha (talk) 15:45, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    If all the secondary sources said was that she was running, I'd agree with you. But of course they say much more than that. Lev!vich 16:35, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I've read the draft. Still looks like 57 ways of saying "she's running" to me. --Khajidha (talk) 16:45, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Well that's a mistake, judging the notability of a topic by the sources that are in the draft. WP:BEFORE and all that. Lev!vich 16:47, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Well then, what sources should I be looking at? What can you show me that is more than just either "she exists, she's been married twice, and she's a mom" and "she's running for office"? --Khajidha (talk) 17:12, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Blocking a paid Wikipedia editor

    I'm a paid Wikipedian and today I got a warning [7]: if I continue editing directly the Wikipedia articles, I will be blocked. I've made over 14,000 edits over ten years, most of them in Finnish and over 2,000 in English. I would estimate that about 95% of my edits have been paid edits so far. And yes, I've disclosed them all. I know that paid editors are not encouraged to edit directly, but it is still not totally forbidden, as long as one discloses. Right?

    So I'd like to know more about this process now. If I edit any English article in the future, will I be blocked for ever? No matter how small the change is? How about the articles in other languages? Could I have a second (or third or fourth) opinion about this judgement or is this the final one? I'm also a Wikipedia trainer so this warning means that I cannot show how the English Wikipedia is edited in practice. Or can I do that by using an IP address? And am I allowed to review the edits made by the students on my Wikipedia workshops? Cheers, Jjanhone (talk) 13:51, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comment: Unfortunately it looks like all of this user's edits and article-creations need to be gone through for possible clean-up; and no, she should not be editing or creating customers' articles directly. Softlavender (talk) 14:10, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Never mind, I can see that those are listed on your page, yet you clearly ignored what WP:PAY says about editing affected articles directly and proposing changes on talk pages. M.Bitton (talk) 14:52, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, that's right. I'm editing about notable subjects that the volunteers have not written about (or have only written a bit). If the article was already up-to-date and contained the most important stuff there would be nothing for me to add. In reality quite a few companies have fans who would like to edit their Wikipedia pages.Jjanhone (talk) 18:21, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The reason I kept editing is that I edit mainly Finnish subjects so that the amount of editors interested about the same subjects is pretty small. I'm afraid there are not enough people checking my talk page requests but this is to be seen now in practise.Jjanhone (talk) 18:09, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Jjanhone, requests take time to respond to, and it has nothing to do with who might be interested in that subject matter. You have to be willing to wait, sometimes for several weeks, for your requests to be responded to. Softlavender (talk) 05:42, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • (edit conflict):When I read the conversation on the talk page, you weren't warned for adding commas. You were warned because you added non-neutral verbiage to the article, favoring the topic you are paid to edit. Even if you find multiple high-quality reliable sources that fawn over your topic, you shouldn't be modifying the article regarding these as a paid editor. You should request edits at the talk page. This is a prime example as to why, because you thought your additions were neutral when others clearly see them as promotional. Disclosing your paid editing indeed does mean you can edit here as a paid editor. However, disclosing your paid editing does not allow you to add what might be considered value judgements, and your COI makes it all the more difficult to discern what is a value judgement. 78.26 (spin me / revolutions) 14:40, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • What exactly can a paid editor do that is related to the reason for which they were hired but isn't inherently problematic or promotional? I feel like the practice should be inherently disallowed.--WaltCip-(talk) 14:51, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • I get that WP:PAID says "strongly discouraged" for direct edits to an article, but that is not the same as forbidden. Assuming the edit was not unduly promotional and made clear it was a paid edit I do not see an issue with them editing an article directly. Is there something I am missing? PackMecEng (talk) 15:19, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment (Non-administrator comment) to reply to I'm also a Wikipedia trainer so this warning means that I cannot show how the English Wikipedia is edited in practice. Or can I do that by using an IP address?: no. You can use the sandbox, or your own sandbox to do that, or even fix a typo in an article you are entirely unaffiliated with. Do not use an IP address. That will land you in very hot water. -- a lad insane (channel two) 15:31, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    So IP is not ok. Thanks. But let's say that I'm training a museum. So when they are paying me, I do have a COI. And if I then correct or typo or show them how to add wiki links I might be blocked. That's not a risk I'm willing to take. :/ Jjanhone (talk) 15:50, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    PS. There's only four Wikipedia trainers included on Wikimedia Finland's page: [16]. Jjanhone (talk) 15:56, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think the community has a contradictory / split decision on this, Generally speaking, you are strongly discouraged from making edits directly to the article you have a COI with rather you are advised to use the article's talk page to suggest the changes you are proposing but no where does it say you mandated to do so. Furthermore, No, making small edits such as typographical error/ tense corrections would definitely not get you in any kind of trouble. Celestina007 (talk) 16:52, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    But are the rules permanently different for me from now on because of the warning? Jjanhone (talk) 18:02, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Jjanhone, Editors here read the same policies and guidelines and have their own unique interpretation of it. When you read WP:PAID it clearly states you are strongly discouraged from editing articles you have a COI with but being strongly discouraged is not the same as being forbidden from undertaking a particular course of action. Moving forward, proposing the changes in the article's talk page first is good practice but no policy makes it compulsory for you to do so. I say this as one who abhors completely the concept of edit for pay be it disclosed or undisclosed but I just have to set the record straight. If any editor warns you about editing directly the article’s you have a COI with you can always remind them that you aren’t necessarily mandated to propose the changes in the article’s talk page. My advise would be this; in future when you have been paid to write an article, just ensure to pass it through the WP:AFC process. Your transparency so far is commendable & I’m quite saddened that this hasn’t been duly appreciated. Celestina007 (talk) 18:54, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Kind of adding to this Smartse what was the policy reason for you will be blocked if you persist in editing articles directly?[17] PackMecEng (talk) 19:22, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not really involved, justdipping in, but I'll say I want a partial block on all paid articles. if it exceeds 10, article block. --67.85.37.186 (talk) 19:28, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @PackMecEng: Per policy, paid editors can directly edit articles but in this case Jjanhone has been warned repeatedly that they are introducing problematic content and that they should use edit requests, but they have carried on regardless. My problem is mainly with the content that they are introducing and using edit requests is an accepted procedure to vet it. If they continue, to not heed warnings, it is disruptive and a block would prevent further problems. SmartSE (talk) 21:23, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Looking through her talk page it seems most of the complains are about her editing the article directly and thinking that it is against policy for her to do so. For instance the warning right above yours mistakenly says the same kind of thing. My take is it looks like a line of incorrect warnings and then using that as a sign of disruption. Something does not sound right here. PackMecEng (talk) 21:31, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @PackMecEng and Celestina007: I think you are both overlooking the context of these prior discussions/warnings. When I raised Jjanhone's edits to Ken Banks with her, she had not been transparent: she didn't disclose that she had been paid for them until I specifically asked her to, despite having being told years ago that this was a requirement. (And unlike "not editing the article directly" that is a hard requirement, per WP:PAID and the ToU). I spotted it because she was making unexplained, promotional edits to an article with a long history of disruptive undisclosed paid editing by multiple editors (see [18][19] and the history), which included repeatedly attempting to remove the {{coi}} cleanup tag.
    Jjanhone is well aware that direct editing is only "strongly discouraged" rather than forbidden, because she keeps doing it. Softlavender's assessment is bang on the money: Jjanhone knows the guidelines well, but quibbles, wikilawyers, and feigns ignorance so she can get around them. There comes a point, when someone repeatedly exploits the leeway given by the "strongly discouraged" wording to insert paid-for promotional material into articles, that we have to also give administrators leeway to deal with it as they would any other disruptive editor. – Joe (talk) 09:20, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    About disclosing Ken Banks - I had a habit of first editing and then adding the disclosure - the disclosing tab asks for a link of changes and it's difficult to give before I've done a thing. And the disclusure was done in few hours after I start editing. So I had not had time to add it yet, you were faster than me. And what I was doing on Banks' article was not adding promotional content but removing the content the UPEs had added on the article before me.Jjanhone (talk) 11:13, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    This week I was removing categories from Banks' article and changing the tag from UPE to COI. Isn't it enough that I've disclosed and Banks has disclosed the two edits he had ordered before I joined the party? [20]Jjanhone (talk) 11:25, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I do not think we are missing anything. The conversation below sums it up better though. So quit trying to require paid edits use the talk page first, that is not supported by policy. If they have a habit of violating NPOV that is different and can be sorted out separately. Though looking at the examples given it is not a very strong case for that. PackMecEng (talk) 15:23, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Echoing PackMecEng, at al., paid editing of articles directly isn't forbidden, just strongly discouraged. If a user persists and do so in a way that is promotional/non-neutral/using bad sources/whatever and continues to do so after warnings, then issue an explicit topic ban. What's problematic is where people try to tell paid editors that editing an article directly isn't allowed. That's not actually backed by policy and will just confuse them to the point that we effectively discourage disclosure. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:32, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: The editor is obviously adding promotional material to articles, and has been repeatedly doing so for years (and even edit-warring over her edits) in spite of warnings, and I think an indefinite block from mainspace is in order. That would not interfere with her making edit requests on talk pages, mocking up requests in her sandbox, and drafting/submitting declared-COI articles through AfC. She can create a declared alternate account for her Wikipedia training, which does not do any COI editing. Softlavender (talk) 05:42, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    About the edit-wars. I don't remember how many there has been, maybe 3? And the reason for them has been that while I've been editing an article someone has started to edit the same article and saved it before I finished. The war was a result of an edit-conflict. And I want to point what this "new way of editing" for me is in practice: [21]. I used over three hours to change this [22] to this [23]. The result? "A reviewer felt that this edit would not improve the article." & "Declined, it's basically a request asking to revert Smartse". Jjanhone (talk) 11:34, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    If I give a Wikipedia training for a museum that are paying me I obviously should teach them how to edit their "own" articles or articles related to them, not hang around a sandbox. But I can't do that, as that would be COI. Jjanhone (talk) 11:41, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    obviously should teach them how to edit their "own" articles or articles related to them Actually no. That's a pretty standard rule of Wikipedia workshops (or "edit-a-thons"): no editing about yourself or your employer. An event that fosters conflict of interest editing is not a good idea. As much as you may or may not have learned about Wikipedia policy, that can't be learned in a single training event, and not everyone will buy into the policies/guidelines. If it's an art museum, suggest that they edit articles about artists on display there, or better yet, donate some images of public domain artworks. Then the museum's name will be on the file page, even. What I think you may be realizing is that while paid editing in articles isn't actually forbidden, nobody actually likes it, and a small number of vigilantes basically impose rules that don't exist and not enough people feel strongly enough about defending paid editing to jump in and say "hey, maybe don't invent rules for them." It's dumb in the long run for us, because unless we have an easy pipeline that ensures thorough review, we're encouraging undisclosed paid editing (as I said above), but that seems to be where we're at. So if you run a training, if for no other reason, strongly discourage them from COI editing because, in practice, the edit might stick or you might wind up dragged off to a noticeboard with people following you around for the rest of your wikicareer... — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:42, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok, thanks for the advice. Usually the participants of the workshops arranged by museums have been "museum's friends". But if the policy is that not even GLAM organizations can edit the content related to them, I'm very sad and confused. We are missing so much potential if all COI edits are forbidden or made so difficult that they don't want to play the game. The loser of this game is Wikipedia itself. Jjanhone (talk) 17:07, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    "if the policy is that not even GLAM organizations can edit the content related to them" It is not. WP:CURATOR is quite clear about that. It may be best if they do not edit the arictles about their institution (especially if they are new here), but we want them to edit in their areas of expertise, about the material in their collections, and the makers of it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:52, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: The conversation here seems to be mixing two separate things: "paid" editing, and "advocacy" editing. The issue in this discussion should be not whether someone is paid or unpaid, but whether they are promoting something (a product, an ideology, a person...) because of an undisclosed relationship. That relationship can be about direct payment, or many other kinds (family/friend, political opinion...). I think it is clear that the editor in question has declared their status as receiving payment, quite overtly - so we're not discussing "undisclosed paid editing". Instead, the focus should be about the NPOV of the edits themselves, and whether there is any consistent/deliberate pattern of edits which contradict that policy - payment or not.
    Additional edit comment: Also to add - if conversations like this focus on the "paid" part and not the "advocacy", then why would paid editors ever actually follow the rules and declare their position. Good faith disclosure of paid editing should be treated on the merits of the content, not more-hastily blocked because they disclosed their payment. [For what it's worth: I know the editor in-person, but have never read, or been involved with, any of their articles]. Wittylama 09:32, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Wittylama, that's not the issue at all. The issue is that this paid editor is editing articles directly, substantively, instead of making talkpage edit requests as she has been repeatedly (8+ times over the past two years) instructed to. Not only has she continue to defy those repeated instructions, she has even edit-warred with an administrator to restore her article edits. Softlavender (talk) 11:40, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Such an instruction ignores that disclosed paid editors are only 'strongly discouraged' to edit articles directly (in a guideline), and not prohibited (in a policy). –xenotalk 13:04, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • In my opinion, it's best to treat the "paid" angle as irrelevant and focus on the edits: if someone repeatedly violates WP:NPOV after warnings, they may be blocked for disruption related to the POV-pushing, without regard to their disclosed paid status. –xenotalk 13:02, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Xeno, this —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 14:54, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Exactly what Xeno said. Not seeing any indication that Jj has violated PAID or COI. The warnings were incorrect: paid editors are allowed to edit articles directly (strongly discouraged means still permitted) and they don't have to use AFC for new creations (there's an ongoing RFC about that, the current wording is "should", not "must"). As long as Jj's edits otherwise comply with all the WP:PAGs and they are making disclosures (the disclosure should be made immediately after making a COI edit; don't wait a few hours, plan to do it at the same time), they're in compliance. Lev!vich 16:56, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      I think Xeno and Levivich are making a lot of sense here. Haukur (talk) 21:14, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is definitely a stigma against paid editors that is counterproductive to both our policies and our goals. Yes, paid editors may absolutely be editing to advance a bias, however, as Xeno says, if they are doing so, their paid status is irrelevant. If they are not, there is no reason to object to their edits if they are otherwise in compliance with policy. If I'm not mistaken, this appears to be about additions made to Solar Foods. SmartSE reverted those additions without any substantive objection whatsoever, other than the notion that the editor is to suggest their changes on the talk page, and is not to actually implement any changes. As is repeatedly explained above, this is not what the policy says is required. I do not see SmartSE articulating any actual content objection to the content they reverted and warned, and when the paid editor asked in good faith what the problem was and how to go forward, SmartSE was unable to provide them with any answer other than threatening to block them. It is not appropriate to revert content without an explanation, and even less appropriate to revert content based on an explanation that is out of line with policy. It seems this was an inappropriate admin intervention. ~Swarm~ {sting} 02:48, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is why we end up with problems like Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Paid editor blocked with 30,000 edits. We make the process painful for editors who follow the rules, and then we're hostile towards them regardless. Why would anyone disclose if this is the result? Unless someone has a magic UPE detector, we simply cannot afford to incentivize non-disclosure. There is no policy-based reason why OP cannot edit articles and unless they are being disruptive, it is in our best interest to let them continue. — Wug·a·po·des​ 04:00, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Come on, now. "Strongly discouraged" means in no uncertain terms that people are going to come to your talk page to strongly discourage you. And it's naïve to expect that is not going to happen, whether you disclose or not. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:06, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      No uncertain terms? An example of saying in no uncertain terms that people are going to come to your talk page to strongly discourage you would be: "people are going to come to your talk page to strongly discourage you". Whereas what WP:COI actually says is "you are strongly discouraged from editing affected articles directly". It doesn't say anything about anyone coming to anyone's talk page. Those are two different thoughts and only one of them is expressed. Also, the talk page warnings in this case were not "strong discouragements" but "absolute prohibitions under threat of sanction", and those are also two different thoughts, only one of which was expressed. Lev!vich 16:23, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      In no uncertain terms, you will be strongly discouraged by other Wikipedians and they will regularly do that on your talk page, in fact the pedians are regularly expected to talk about issues there. And yes, from time to time you will be warned that doing things others are strongly discouraging you from doing can lead to blocks, just like almost every block situation. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:33, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Clearly you're using the words "no uncertain terms" differently than I do. Lev!vich 17:15, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      You're doing mental gymnastics here. There is a difference between "discouraging" and "prohibiting", by definition. Paid editors are not prohibited from making edits, no matter how discouraged they are from doing so. It's not an objective rule, only something that is not a best practice. ~Swarm~ {sting} 23:28, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Comment: I have no idea why we even allow paid editors to exist here. It flies directly in the face of our Neutrality Pillar. It damages the entire project's objectivity if we allow 'for sale' editing. This should be a no-brainer; if you are getting paid to edit, you cannot remain neutral in Wikipedia. Will that stop paid editors from sneaking in? No, but they will know that wiki-defenstration will happen once they are uncovered. Please, explain to me why we are even talking about this... - Jack Sebastian (talk) 23:48, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      We are talking bout this because not all paid editors fit the pattern you describe; and nor should they be "defenestrated". Time for yet another reminder that paid editors include Wikimedians in Residence (I am one) who are welcomed and supported by the community at large. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:59, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      why we are even talking about this. Because I wanted to know if I can still continue editing or am I forced to proposing edits from now on. If I can continue could some of the admins visit my talk page and give me an "official" permission to continue? Now that so many admins have learnt about me there's hardly a change for me to add any kind of content that wouldn't met Wikipedia rules either in the future. This is nothing new to me: during my decade of paid editing the regular Finnish Wikipedians have kept an eye on me and taught me a lot about what kind of content is not appropriate. One learns by doing and by mistakes too and I try not to repeat my mistakes. The cultures differ from project to project but I think I do a pretty decent work on Wikipedia. Otherwise you would have heard about me much earlier, right? I hope people are not expecting even paid editor to be always perfect editors. Jjanhone (talk) 10:22, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • The problem is that paid is not clearcut in every situation. For instance, what if a scholar is paid to fix articles in an academic area, and their editing is generally good? What if a corporate employee updates mundane things? What if an employee edits their employer's article, not at direction and not as part of a public relations campaign, but because they naively come to Wikipedia and see an inaccuracy? My view is that advocacy editing must be prevented, whether or not it is paid. Paid editing usually turns into advocacy editing, but not always. Jehochman Talk 00:03, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    The new discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC on new disclosure requirements for freelance paid_ editors is also relevant. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:23, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I just blocked Lapablo for abuse of multiple accounts and undisclosed paid editing. Their previous account, Ukpong1, had been blocked for "advertising", and this new account picked up where the first left off, but was much more subtle and deceptive about it. Lapablo has managed to acquire several permissions: AFC reviewer, new page reviewer, page mover, and autopatrolled; and they have made over 30,000 edits.

    I'm starting this thread in order to get the cleanup process started. There's going to be a lot of spam in their contributions, and it all needs to be checked for neutrality and proper sourcing. Please help. – bradv🍁 17:49, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Sorry actually Primefac's list includes the AFC accepts here. Praxidicae (talk) 17:55, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it needs to start with a discussion of how to get people to understand that the quality of sources matter so we can weed out the trash that's currently infiltrating Wikipedia, such as the black hat SEO garbage I've been removing. Praxidicae (talk) 19:26, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    One can start by closing Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_314#RFC:_Reliability_of_Entrepreneur_(magazine). If Entrepreneur contributors is marked as unreliable or deprecated this will take out one of go-to sources for spammers. MER-C 19:28, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • NPP is just a step in the ladder to various levels of status that protects one from scrutiny. I have only ever seen one editor claim that they review articles from autopatrolled editors just as they would the rest. And we do encounter autopatrolled editors who start creating UPE articles as soon as they get the flag having only ever created articles on say, biological species, until then. There is a lot of talk about how AFC is a mess because it is the gateway to higher permissions and has a low bar. And so on. But it takes highly experienced editors with some amount of balls to challenge the work of editors who are past the first few rungs of that ladder. That is what's been lacking.
      On another note, we need something akin to AIV or SPI for paid editing, your talk page seems to be one, I don't know of another. COIN is too much like ANI. Usedtobecool ☎️ 20:05, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      MER-C, hmm, throwing out an idea, do we need a task force to spot check random pages from autopatrolled editors to find those abusing the right? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 07:15, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      Do we know which of their rights they were abusing? Autopatrolled has always seemed the most dangerous to me, but I suppose it wouldn't be hard if you're an AfC reviewer to get a confederate IP to create a draft you'd then approve. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 07:17, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem with AFC is not usually getting paid to write and accept articles because at that point, they could just create it in mainspace themselves, people pay handsomely to accept their already written articles. There are people on the typical sites, like Freelancer, Upwork, PeoplePerHour, etc...that advertise their user rights from AFC to autopatrolled and extended confirmed to admin (which to my knowledge at least has never been accurate for at least the latter.) In particular I would say for serious UPE, such as this, autopatrolled is definitely the most dangerous. Praxidicae (talk) 12:18, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Our course of action when we see such listings should always be to reply "hey, I'm interested; can I see some examples of your past work?" Sting operations worked for French Wikipedia, and I wish we'd use them more here. Even if the effect is just to make them unwilling to share past work, that's still a success, since it might cause some of their (actual) potential customers to think twice. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 04:09, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Precisely the kind of situation I was referring to when I wrote the UPE essay on my user-page. Celestina007 (talk) 22:19, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • I have in the past tried to review autopatrolled editors, or at least a portion of them, but I have not done so for many months now because of the pressure of work at AfC. I always patrol/review, but every few months I change my area to keep from getting stale. DGG ( talk ) 06:27, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Perhaps some way to map accepts against deletions (esp G11s)? I mean I keep my own personal list which includes any AfDs raised within 1 month of me accepting them (all 3 of them), but obviously self-generated lists are not wildly helpful here! In terms of AfD issues, you'd be highlighting by % most likely, which does allow UPE reviewers to get round it by handling lots of other reviews normally, but that's unavoidable. However, if a reviewer had 3 G11s get through, even if they did 60 others without issue, that would be sufficient concern for me to take a look at some others. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:30, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The percentage of overturned or overruled work depends to a large extent on what sort of articles or drafts you work on. If it is uncertain whether or not a draft will be approved at AfD, sometimes the only way to deal with it is to approve it --- and even send it to afd oneself, in order to get a community decision. The people at AfC or NPP are only screening, not deciding. I've noticed that the ones that go unreviewed for extended periods are the ones which are difficult to deal with, but someone has to take the responsibity for doing the screening. DGG ( talk ) 20:44, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    DGG, that's a fair point. Leaving things in draft forever is a bit close to WP:WEBHOST for me: in the end there has to ba a shit-or-get-off-the-pot moment. Guy (help! - typo?) 15:03, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    and letting the unreviewed ones get deleted by G13 is admitting our own failure: if we are going to use the AfC process, we have an obligation to our users to employ it properly. G13 is proper for material that is apparently abandoned & not worth rescuing, or clearly unsuitable, though not to the point that it's worth dealing with at MfD. DGG ( talk ) 23:43, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    DGG, agreed. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:41, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Health Psychology and Iss246

    I have been involved in an edit war with editor Iss246 at the Health Psychology page. I have asked them to be involved in a discussion but they refused and instead give me personal abuse and ridicule because they can as I am a new user and this person boasts that they are untouchable and can do what they want on Wikipedia as they are experienced and won't get blocked. However Iss246 looks like they have been blocked for edit warring many times before. Psyballed (talk) 22:10, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    As an uninvolved editor, I was asked by Iss246 to review this matter. I did so, noted that Psyballed was continuing to revert having themself been reverted by three different editors, and left Psyballed a standard 3RR warning template. I have for my pains since been accused by Psyballed on my talk page of being "very biased". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:38, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    No there have not been three different editors reverting me Pigsonthewing. Iss246 used their IP address and the other editor Ophres appeared suddenly and seems to be involved in other edit wars Iss246 has been involved in and 'suddenly appeared' to support Iss246 and only on articles Iss246 is involved in an edit war on. Also Iss246 under their own account has reverted at least 4 times in a 24 hour period. Iss246 has also been blocked many times before it looks like. Not notifying Iss246 of edit warring seems "very biased" indeed. I know I was involved but why have you chosen not to notify Iss246 when it is so bloody obvious they are edit warring and have a long history of edit warring? Are they untouchable here as iss246 boasts because they are experienced? Really? Psyballed (talk) 22:49, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    That's ... one hell of an edit war. Something like 10 reverts each, over whether references should be in the lead (not even changing content!). If you don't both stop immediately, there needs to be full-protection or page-bans. power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:00, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Given you have counted 10 reverts each Power~enwiki it illustrates my point of bias directed squarely at Pigsonthewing not informing Iss246 their friend that they were edit warring too, especially seeing it looks like Iss246 has been blocked many times before for edit warring. Psyballed (talk) 23:08, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I am sorry that this conflict has been happening. This teapot tempest began when a "newcomer" to WP named psyballed started reverting my edits. I have indicated in the health psychology entry and in related entries that occupational health psychology (OHP) is in part related to health psychology (HP). Not a revolutionary statement of fact. Just an ordinary, anodyne statement of fact. I have sourced that fact.
    Psyballed on the HP talk page has contested the view that OHP is related to HP. Psyballed has removed the sources that I used to document that OHP is related to HP. One of the sources he removed was an article published in the journal Health Psychology (Quick, J.C. (1999). Occupational health psychology: Historical roots and future directions, Health Psychology, 18, 82-88. doi:10.1037//0278-6133.18.1.82). That source is still missing from Health psychology entry, having been deleted by psyballed. I didn't restore it because I didn't want the hassle but now that I have repeatedly been hassled, I intend to restore that source. To psyballed, it is as if a source from the premier health psychology journal is not good enough to show a connection between OHP and HP. Even the names of the two disciplines cry to be recognized as related disciplines.
    Psyballed has done almost nothing else on WP but attack me and revert my edits. More than 95% of his edits are aimed at my edits. I don't know why he does almost nothing else on WP but attack my edits. I don't know him. I never met him. I am trying to work on other projects, like improving the grounded theory entry but I keep having to interrupt my work to see what this wrecking ball of a single-minded editor has done to my edits of the health psychology entry. I have more than 13,000 edits. I started 40 WP entries. I have edited many other entries that were started by others. Between September and October, I have completed at least 120 edits of the grounded theory entry--and I am happy to say that between my edits and the September-October edits of other Wikipedians, the grounded theory entry has improved. I love Wikipedia. The research shows that it is as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica. I strive for accuracy. But I don't want to spend my time getting hassled over something as minor as this matter. I would appreciate if the administrators would make psyballed stop undoing my edits. I would appreciate it if the administrator would direct him to work on WP entries that I don't work on. There are millions of them.
    I add that I don't believe that psyballed is a newcomer. When I was a newcomer, I didn't start out like gangbusters the way psyballed started out. I performed a small number of edits until I got comfortable. It took a year to get comfortable with editing. I did not know about a page like this one for many years. Psyballed jumped into WP with almost a vendetta against me. What he has been doing looks to me like a continuation of what another editor who had a vendetta against me used to do until he was banned. They have a very similar MO--like an inquisitor they ask a (rhetorical) question on the talk page and insist that whatever answer I gave was not good enough. I stopped answering those questions. I would like the administrators to protect me from him. Iss246 (talk) 02:18, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Still on-going. I suggest a handy admin step in and protect the wrong version to force a little discussion other than via edit summary.
    Iss246, you say ... I keep having to interrupt my work to see what this wrecking ball of a single-minded editor has done to my edits of the health psychology entry. No, you don't. Let it go, there are scores of editors watching that page and hundreds, maybe even thousands, capable of improving it; WP is not dependent on your efforts to keep any page at a certain quality level. Even though it's incredibly annoying (i know, i've seen the same thing) seeing one editor wreaking what feels like destruction on your hard work. This too, will pass; happy days, LindsayHello 07:12, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Addendum Just to be clear, i'm not taking sides: Psyballed, i would give you exactly the same advice: Move away from this article for a while and find another to improve; perhaps when you come back you'll find it in better shape than now, or perhaps not. If the latter, go to the talk page and work it out with other active editors so we have a better encyclopaedia. Whatever you do, though, stop edit warring, which is what you were doing as of seven hours ago; happy days, LindsayHello 07:29, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Page protection backlog

    Addressed. Thanks to Ohnoitsjamie and Rosguill for help. (non-admin closure) ~ Amkgp 💬 17:29, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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


    Hi. There's a backlog at WP:RFPP, some going back to 13th Oct. Please could someone help and take a look? Thanks. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 19:42, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

     Done Thanks to Ohnoitsjamie and Rosguill for the help. — Wug·a·po·des​ 01:30, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you all. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 06:53, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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    Special:UserRights/Doomsdayer520

    Nothing more to discuss. Primefac (talk) 14:25, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Why last change performer's username is hidden? And I cannot find it's revdel log at Special:Log/delete so I guess it's oversighted. -- CptViraj (talk) 13:48, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Checking... — xaosflux Talk 13:56, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @CptViraj: this log was suppressed, so we are not at liberty to discuss why publicly, however I have raised this to the Oversight team for cross-checking. — xaosflux Talk 14:03, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    For the record, this was not a mistake, it has been oversighted, and that's all we can say. Primefac (talk) 14:25, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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    Backlog at Page protection requests

    No longer has a backlog, only 1 unanswered request at this time --DannyS712 (talk) 05:26, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Hi, there is a backlog at WP:RFPP, dating since 14th Oct. Please have a look? Thank you ~ Amkgp 💬 15:55, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Around 25+ requests are currently in queue ~ Amkgp 💬 17:17, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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    Arbitration motion regarding Portals

    The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

    Remedies 1 & 2 of the Portals case are temporarily lifted, only at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/BrownHairedGirl 2 and related pages, and only until the conclusion of the RfA process.

    For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 19:13, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Arbitration motion regarding Portals

    Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Changxing railway station

    SNOW KEEP
    The AfD was closed by Ymblanter (non-admin closure) ~ Amkgp 💬 17:31, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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


    Hi admins, can an uninvolved admin/editor close the above as a snow keep, IMO not really worth embarrassing the filer any longer. Thanks Nightfury 20:40, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

     Done, a no brainer--Ymblanter (talk) 20:46, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Ta kindly. Nightfury 20:51, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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    Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory

    It appears that Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory was created today for the sole purpose of featuring a dubious story published by the NY Post, an unreliable source. The story has not been corroborated by any reliable source, but reliable sources have punched holes in the story. There is good reason to suspect this story is October Surprise dirty trick disinformation and it is now being legitimized and promulgated in wikivoice. I suggest swift and decisive action be taken to stop it. soibangla (talk) 21:51, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm not sure which criteria would apply, a blatant hoax or attack page, maybe? Or just AfD it. Liz Read! Talk! 22:03, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Look at the discussion that went into the consensus that this article should be created: Talk:Conspiracy_theories_related_to_the_Trump–Ukraine_scandal#Splitting_Proposal. Liz Read! Talk! 23:53, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Regardless of the recent developments, the Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory should have its own separate page not connected to the Trump–Ukraine scandal. soibangla, you have to make distinctions between old, debunked information and new, possibly-true information. Automatically assuming the new information is "debunked" because of the historicity of old claims being "debunked" is misleading.

    As this section is titled, Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory, the user who created that article should be contacted, which he has not as of the timing of this comment. Yet, the focus is now on the article I created.

    The page created, New York Post reporting on Biden–Ukraine allegations was made to centralize on the reporting and suspicions of the reporting itself and contents – suspicions were thoroughly noted within the article when applicable and in process of being added prior to its deletion and redirect. Drmies – it is best if you specify which violations of BLP and "few other things" were present – there was no discussion on whether to redirect the page or not, why? The greatest issue I could see is WP:BLPRS, yet, to the extent that could be corroborated so far, has been corroborated by some media organizations. Vice News – "At the moment, no reporting including our own has turned up evidence to contradict the Post, and The Daily Beast has published an interview with the repair shop owner, which is also bizarre, but lines up with the Post's story."

    Wikipedia cannot help itself if other media organizations, to the extent that they could corroborate, could not corroborate "everything" due to seizure of the original hard drive and refusal by Guiliani and Bannon on the copy. Regardless of outcome, it is likely best to reinstate New York Post reporting on Biden–Ukraine allegations prior to its deletion and redirect as the validity and veracity of the entire conspiracy and new reporting now hinges on the New York Post's reporting.

    Wikipedia editors have thoroughly and intentionally failed thus far in separating past claims regarding the Bidens and Ukraine and new reporting on information not known then. New York Post reporting on Biden–Ukraine allegations and new sections in the Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory would have made this distinction – such distinctions must be made. Forcing the combination of old, debunked information with new, possibly-true information calling the new, possibly-true information already "a hoax", "Russian disinformation", "a conspiracy theory", etc. with an absence of RSs on such opinions/claims, in addition to the WP:POVPUSH and WP:STONEWALLING taking place, is fraudulent and misleading to Wikipedia. Aviartm (talk) 00:54, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    This looks like a content dispute that should be resolved at an article talk page or AFD instead of AN. The split proposal was unopposed after 24 hours [24], which is too soon to close but not sanctionable. It's not a BLP violation to write about a conspiracy theory. We have articles like Pizzagate conspiracy theory and many more at list of conspiracy theories and Category:Conspiracy theories. Whether this particular conspiracy theory should be spun off into its own page is a content question. Lev!vich 01:45, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    • It all depends on how you write it, the sources you use, etc. And this one is about something that can affect the election. I'm surprised no one has given the article's creator or Aviartm a DS alert, but I've done that. I've also placed the article under ECP until after the election. ECP is going to have to be used a lot more in the next few weeks than it normally is, but then nothing's normal about this election. Disinformation is already a big deal and things will get worse. Doug Weller talk 08:34, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory

    The article is semi-protected for a month by Favonian (non-admin closure) ~ Amkgp 💬 17:33, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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


    It's probably worth watchlisting this article as it's being discussed on 4chan and some QAnon forums, with a predictably negative reaction to our preference for mainstream characterisation of the subject. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:12, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    The article is semi-protected for a month but that doesn't mean that some dormant accounts couldn't be revived. It's good to add to your Watchlist. Liz Read! Talk! 23:56, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    2020 CheckUser and Oversight appointments: Candidates appointed

    The Arbitration Committee is pleased to appoint the following users to the functionary team:

    The Committee thanks the community and all of the candidates for helping to bring this process to a successful conclusion.

    For the Arbitration Committee,

    Katietalk 03:15, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § 2020 CheckUser and Oversight appointments: Candidates appointed

    Edit warring IP user.

    BLOCKED
    Doggy54321 blocked for 3 days for edit warring by Wugapodes (non-admin closure) ~ Amkgp 💬 17:38, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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


    I'm making this report on behalf of @Doggy54321:, of the constant edit warring by 71.234.178.78 (talk · contribs) on Life Support (Madison Beer album). Now, Doggy did perform 4 reverts, but they were to revert unsourced changes the IP user added. Doggy was not engaging in an edit war as per WP:EW, which states "Removing contentious material that is libelous, biased, unsourced, or poorly sourced" does not count as edit warring. The IP user also blocked Doggy from editing their talk page; thus, Doggy couldn't resolve in that way either. The IP user removed the "old warnings" template from their talk page, and has violated the 3RR. Please look into this. BawinV (talk) 19:14, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Diff before all the edit warring: [25] Diffs of edit warring: [26], [27], [28], [29] Doggy realized that IP user didn’t ask them not to post on their talk page so she warned them here [30] Diff of talk page resolve attempt [31]. BawinV (talk) 19:18, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    {{rfpp|f|31 hours}} Looks like an edit war to me. The editors should use the talk page, and I've full protected the article to force dispute resolution. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:16, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay I've looked into this more and blocks are the better route since the edit war between these two extended over multiple pages. Doggy54321 just got off a block for edit warring a few hours ago and is back at it so I blocked again for 3 days. I blocked the IP for 36 hours for their part in the edit war. Since those were the only two warring on the page I unprotected it. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:40, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    More eyes needed at Talk:2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

    2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is ECP and progressing reasonably well, but the talk page is drawing a lot of redundant edit requests and NOTFORUM violations. Right now it's been just me and one other editor trying to keep things in line there, and we could use a bit more help, particularly from editors who are awake when it's day time in western Asia. signed, Rosguill talk 20:16, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I am sorry to say this but after this I have zero motivation to take any administrative actions in the Armenia-Azerbaijan area. May be we should just unprotect all the articles, let those guys to continue edit-warring and then just routinely block after three reverts with increasing block duration.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:45, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Marketing network afoot?

    INDEF
    Perogrimadi has been blocked for spamming by MER-C (non-admin closure) ~ Amkgp 💬 17:41, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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


    [32][33] Specifically mentions activity on HN, Reddit, and Medium. I didn't notice Wikipedia in the minute or so that I looked through the threads, but it's an obvious enough target that I thought I'd mention it here. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 05:01, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I had a look and didn't find much. I have blocked Perogrimadi as an obvious spammer (and wouldn't be surprised if it was a stray Japanelemu sock based on the username). MER-C 10:08, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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    An IP editor continuously added empty sections to the COVID-19 articles and missing information on COVID-19 medical cases charts

    This IP editor has been editing since 1 December 2016 (with the first war-related article edit) at the very least and in 24 March 2020 this editor began to actively edit COVID-19 articles and templates, and it's still active today, if not even more active than before. While at the beginning of this pandemic this IP editor isn't considered to be a problem or even making a harm, but as the pandemic goes on and as people began to move away from editing COVID-19 articles (including me), I, and some people have began to notice that this IP editor is becoming a problem for this habit of creating missing data (not bothering to do anything) on COVID-19 templates and adding empty sections to the COVID-19 articles, which led people to either revert their edits (articles, templates), or fill the information left by the IP editor's edits (templates, articles). You can see from these edits that this editor generally target COVID-19 articles or templates that rarely got updated or having low traffic (and because of that, this is much more a large scale problem, not a narrow issue). Also, this editor does not explain their edits and never responded to the warnings or even welcomes. But despite these, this IP keeps on going without a stop. And I want to admit that I'm not sure how to handle this editor as some of their edits might not be considered as disruptive/isn't harmful by some people (that's why I didn't warn them or revert their edits when I have a chance to do so - which is why they are still getting away with it).

    However, as some of these IPs from the IP range this editor uses began to be seen as a problem (which led to these reverts or fill ups above), I think there is going to be a need for them to stop editing - which finally led me to brought this up at AN. Since I'm not sure which action should be taken against them (I don't want to be a biter in any case), what I could do for them? A block (partial block, maybe)? Or a discretionary sanctions against these two IP ranges (to not edit COVID-19 articles)? Or these edits are really harmful in the first place? I'm not an administrator, but any help about these IPs could be appreciated. BTW, I don't want to be dragged further to this problem, I'm just looking for a quick solution. Thanks! SMB99thx my edits 08:57, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    • Neither range has edited in the last few days, so an immediate block is probably not helpful. If a roaming CheckUser could look into possible range blocks, that would be helpful. Many of these pages could/should probably be protected under WP:GS/COVID anyway, so I'll go look through those. In the meantime, SMB99thx, you should feel free to revert the changes you think are unhelpful. — Wug·a·po·des​ 18:18, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • None of the COVID pages looked like they need protection. Looking through the contributions more, I'm not sure a block is needed either. I think the best route forward is to handle page-by-page issues as they happen rather than at the IP range level. — Wug·a·po·des​ 18:51, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Religion in Japan

    My first time here, so I hope I'm posting this correctly: several IPs, apparently the same user, keep posting a pie chart titled "Religion in Japan (2018 NHK research)". This chart implies that 62% of the Japanese are irreligious. Alas, that's utterly wrong: 62% of the Japanese are mushūkyō, a well-known and researched social category, which, while literally meaning "without sect" mostly implies following Shinto. It's all well-sourced and in the intro. Any possibility of warning the IP/protecting the page/something? Sorry for being vague, I'm new to all the wiki-procedure stuff. AddMore-III (talk) 09:29, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    (Non-administrator comment) Hi AddMore-III. It sounds like what's going on is a disagreement over content and such things are best resolved per Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. Have you tried discussing this at Talk:Religion in Japan? If not, you should start a discussion about it and see what the WP:CONSENSUS on the matter might be. In certain cases, a Wikipedia page can be protected per WP:PP and you can request this at WP:RPP; page protection, however, is usually not given unless there's some serious disruption taking place and it's not given to favor one side in a content dispute over another.
    Looking at the page history of the article, it appears that you've been going back and forth with multiple IP accounts which is probably not a good thing at all no matter how right you think you are; looking at the talk page, however, it doesn't appear that either you or the others involved have tried to resolve your disagreement through discussion. If both sides keep going back and forth and reverting each other over this, it will not end well for either side. My suggestion to you would be to avoid reverting anymore and instead start discussing the pie chart on the article's talk page. Invite the other editors to participate and clarify their positions; you can't make them discuss, but they can't ignore any consensus established through discussion among those who do participate. -- Marchjuly (talk) 13:25, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    An Biden conspiracy theory needs to impose 1RR

    Hello, i see that Biden-Ukraine conspiracy theory contains a controversial issues, so please invoking 1RR for the article in order to maintain stability of the article and please move protected the article only for administrators, so any users except administrators cannot move protected the page. I intend to request that in RFPP but i fear it will declined. The reason of it is the article may become a target of requested move by non-admin users, and sometimes page move vandalism happens in the article, such as move "conspiracy theory" to "allegations", which IMO is incorrect. 110.137.170.83 (talk) 09:56, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    It's already tagged on the talk page as under WP:ARBAP2 sanctions, which includes a blanket 1RR restriction. It is also currently under 50/300 protection AND it does not appear there are any recent violations of 1RR that need dealing with. What mare do you need done? --Jayron32 10:04, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    But please Jayron32, i see that one IP user (182.1.237.76) invoking 1RR notice in the talk page, please see that page. It seems that IP invoking 1RR that remainds all users cannot reverting the edit in 24 hours. The reason IP invoke that notice because the IP cannot agree any revert edits that contains controversial page, so this IP invoking 1RR. 110.137.170.83 (talk) 10:14, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Let me re-iterate my question: What recent disruption to the editing of the article do you see that needs addressing? --Jayron32 10:22, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    First, one user changing title of the article from "conspiracy theory" to "allegations", I believe i see that edit in my eyes, second there is a request move for a controversial page, also caught in my eye. Because this article is controversial, i only see that problem and i not initally suggest this to impose 1RR in the article, however my mind is changed, and i needs reassure the admin to impose 1RR as part of ARBAP2. For move the page, i suggests that only administrator can have move rights to the page. Thanks. 110.137.170.83 (talk) 10:29, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I see no recent change of that nature. Can you include some diffs? --Jayron32 10:31, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    No Jayron32, i want to reverting contribution by that IP that invoke 1RR without administrator permissions. Thanks. 110.137.170.83 (talk) 10:40, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    You already did. It doesn't look like you needed anyone else to help. --Jayron32 10:46, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok, thanks. If problem persist, i want to ping you. 110.137.170.83 (talk) 10:49, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    This is a bad look for Wikipedia: there are a bunch of allegations that I'd consider unproven, or at best supported by a deeper rabbit hole of reporting than I've been willing to look into (I just don't care that much about the matter). Claiming they are false (disproven outright) is a leap from that though, as it is notoriously difficult to prove a negative. So that article editorializes way too much. It comes across as biased and non-credible. Whatever interventions are being made around it should result in a neutrally written article, as all articles are supposed to be. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 06:40, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    (technical) why does article have a redirect from the clean "_" version to the unicode "%E2%80%93" version? Seems backward and/or unnecessary as wikilink will always be a redirect. Slywriter (talk) 03:30, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Political endorsements

    Resolved. --TheSandDoctor Talk 20:35, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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

    A now topic-banned user started an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Political endorsements to overturn the substantial consensus for independent sourcing of political endorsements. I think this should probably be closed as it’s nowhere near as widely advertised as the earlier RfC and was started by a user who, I think it’s fair to say, is somewhat misguided on this. It has the potential to sow confusion, with the user already asserting that its going against the earlier consensus [34] despite theirs being the only !vote in that direction. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:01, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I went ahead and made a bold NAC speedy close for multiple reasons. The full reasons are in the close rationale but a 30-day RfC process 18 days before the election that the RfC targets is pointless. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:06, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Eggishorn, thanks, deftly done I would say. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:51, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Jeremy Griffith

    See WP:Fringe theories noticeboard. --TheSandDoctor Talk 20:34, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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

    I suspect this guy is some sort of grifter, the kind who promotes some great pseudo-scientific breakthrough that will supposedly change the world. His website, www.humancondition.com, just screams SCAM to me. He has an L Ron Hubbard vibe going here. Is there a way I can flag the Jeremy Griffith article for closer scrutiny? I think it's a puff piece designed to burnish his image. Kurzon (talk) 15:27, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    @Kurzon: you want WP:Fringe theories noticeboard. Doug Weller talk 18:30, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion#Sack Trick

    Resolved by Deepfriedokra. --TheSandDoctor Talk 20:33, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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

    I posted a request at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion#Sack Trick that should probably be enacted soon. If this is the wrong forum, please let me know where to post. Thanks! --Jax 0677 (talk) 20:12, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Jax 0677, You already had an answer at WP:DRV from SMarshall. WP:REFUND is not the venue to get what you could not at DRV --Deepfriedokra (talk) 07:34, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Mandatory IP masking incoming

    Johan (WMF) has indicated that mandatory masking of the IP addresses of anonymous editors is being implemented for all Wikiprojects in the near-mid term (probably sometime in the next year or so), stating that this is an order from the WikiMedia Foundation's Legal Department. Apparently a statement from the Legal Department is forthcoming. As this is likely to hinder anti-vandalism efforts in the near-term, feedback is being requested to make this cause the least amount of disruption possible. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:40, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Could IPs be put through some cipher or something so they have a persistent identity? Just a thought. (please Reply to icon mention me on reply; thanks!) -- Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:43, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    IP addresses having a persistent identity is one of the things that is being considered. However if a vandal is rapidly going between ipv6 domains on the same range it becomes much more difficult to track them if the IP is masked, even if the identity of the individual IP address is persistent. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:47, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Could someone explain what IP masking actually means? Does that mean, in particular, that we won't be able to look up the contribution history for a particular IP editor? And to tell that two edits were made by the same IP editor? Nsk92 (talk) 22:52, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I think what is being proposed is that the actual IP address itself is not displayed, but the history of edits associated with that IP Address is preserved (at least in the short term). Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:56, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    That is how I read it too, but it could be worth asking Johan or someone to clarify. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:57, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I asked for clarification in the Meta thread, but I am still pretty confused. If what you say above is correct, how would edits by different IPs be visually distinguished in page histories? And also in talk pages, where IP signatures are displayed? Right now we see the actual IP addresses there. What exactly would we see instead? If we see some generic phrase like "Anonymous IP editor", it will not allow to distingish which edits were made by which IP editor and I can't see how individual IP contrib histories can be preserved in this case. Or, is the system going to start assigning the IP ediors its internal identifiers, perhaps enumerating them in order of apperance, something like "Anonymous IP editor 4029", "Anonymous IP editor 4030", etc ? That would at least allow for the history of edits associated with a particular IP to be preserved and displayed. Nsk92 (talk) 23:28, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Amazing. There are security bugs (with legal implications, I would think) that have been sitting unfixed on phabricator for months or years. This is well past any normal responsible disclosure window. It's purely a courtesy that I'm keeping my mouth shut, and the next person who rediscovers the same bugs probably won't be so considerate. But legal instead prioritizes protecting the privacy of those who never asked for it. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:18, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, the 'ol "But it came from Legal! We have to do it now!". There was extreme opposition to this on Meta. SQLQuery me! 23:19, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    How is this going to affect things like looking at all contribs in a range? Natureium (talk) 23:23, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Natureium, I would assume negatively. The only tool I've seen is the new Special:Investigate tool, and it seems to have some severe issues. They really need to spend a LOT more time and energy on tools before they force this thru. That, or maybe force registration if it's that important. SQLQuery me! 23:26, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    But a regular editor can't add /64 to the end of an IP and see whether there's more vandalism across the range? Natureium (talk) 23:29, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Could use something like Crypto-PAn I guess. That would preserve ranges. I don't think that's the plan, though. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:35, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Hemiauchenia, then we need to implement a permanent mainspace ban on IPs. Accounts are free. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:46, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    JzG, Pretty much. Like ptwiki does. SQLQuery me! 23:48, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    A quick experiment at pt:A suggests that they have an edit filter set to prevent edits to articles by IPs (anyone not logged in). That's from a Google translate of the page notice while in incognito mode (not logged in). While welcoming everyone is great, keeping good editors is essential and no sane person can deal with LTAs on shifting IPs unless articles are strongly protected or wide IP ranges blocked. Johnuniq (talk) 00:08, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I need to preface this by saying that I don't know if this is still true, but at the time that discussions on the proposal were taking place last year, I distinctly remember that the foundation intended to obscure IP's from CU's, which effectively makes the role completely useless for investigating LTA's with technical evidence. Assuming that my initial impressions of it are still true, I think that this is going to turn into a hilarious clown fiesta very soon, like anything else that the WMF thinks is a good idea. Frankly, I think that Wikimedia projects should let the WMF handle anti-vandalism and LTA issues moving forward without any volunteer assistance whatsoever and see how well that works out. They bought the ticket, so now they get to take the ride. OhKayeSierra (talk) 03:10, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    OhKayeSierra, obscuring from CUs would be the wet dream of every spammer and LTA. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:42, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • To restate what I've said on meta. I think that this could work. 5-10 years from now, with many carefully developed, mature tools. I think that forcing this thru today, with one half-assed, rushed to production tool is a mistake. SQLQuery me! 03:16, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • There are a lot of details missing (both due to the early stage of development and WP:BEANS), but I don't think this is the end of the world. In a "soft" IP-masking, where admins (and editors with an EFH-like permission) can see IPs, almost nothing will change at a substantial benefit to IP editor privacy. In a "hard" IP-masking, there will be significantly more pages semi-protected, additional need for CheckUser resources, and the potential for blocking sensitive IP addresses. However, as long as IPv6 /64s are still evident, I don't think it will make a major difference to abuse-fighting. Most of the vandals who know how to change their IP address know to register accounts for their vandalism anyhow. power~enwiki (π, ν) 03:47, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • That's wrong. Wikipedia works at all because users are empowered to do stuff. Most days sees someone asking at ANI for a range block because an editor with no special privilege has seen a problem and taken an effort to work out what is needed to resolve it. If an editor sees three masked IPs mucking around in an article, they would have to ask someone with appropriate privilege (if that will be possible) to investigate. That person, presumably, could not see the IPs in any easy way (like viewing article history where all the IPs could be seen and perhaps copied into a range calculator). Instead, the privileged person would need to click buttons and do who knows what. Far easier to semi-protect the affected articles for six months or whatever it takes. Johnuniq (talk) 04:37, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    This is pretty weird. There was one of those pop-up questionnaires a few weeks ago asking people to say whether they edited regularly from IP addresses. People who said yes were asked to participate in a 1-hour phone interview with WMF staff. I did one of those interviews and discussed the topic at length. Some privacy-related questions came up but that of revealing IP addresses being an issue was barely touched on, though I mentioned that showing one's IP made a bigger disclosure than editing under a made-up username. I still need to follow up by email with the person I spoke with, so I'll mention this thread in my followup. Hmm. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 06:46, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I'm somewhat doubtful the legal department cared about that questionnaire or the follow up. They probably haven't even heard of it. It's possible the questionnaire was intended to be used by the team working on the Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation project until legal intervened. (If legal did rely on that questionnaire, probably their main question would have been how well editors understood the privacy implication of IP editing so once it became clear you did, that would be what they wanted to know.) Nil Einne (talk) 07:43, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    For whatever it's worth, in response to my request for more info Johan (WMF) clarified at the Meta page, at least a little bit, what their plans are. He hasid that the do have in mind some sort of a system which will assign (presumably automatically) internal individualized WP aliases to IP editors. As I understood, those aliases will be displayed in page histories and in talk pages, in leiu of signatures of those IPs, and one should be able to view the contrib history for a specific IP alias. But as far as range blocks, that will certainly become much more difficult, at least for anyone who is not an admin. Similarly, if there is persistent sockpuppetry, block evasion, or similar form of disruption that isn't straightforward vandalism (e.g. IPs participating in an AfD and casting similar !votes), it'd be much harder for non-admins to tell if these edits are likely made by the same editor once the IP address is masked. Nsk92 (talk) 14:00, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    *sigh* Rushing this is a *bad* idea. We've seen what happened to Special:Investigate, and they worked months on that one. We are all familiar with first releases coming from WMF, and rushing one of them is definitely not going to have a good outcome. While we seem to have less and less tools to help us fight vandalism - see what happened to IPCheck, a WMF staffer told its developer not to develop it any further, and now it sits unmaintained - they are heading towards something that would need more of it, and not supplying us with those. At this point, even if I disagree with the reasons why ptwiki did it (it is my home wiki), making registration mandatory is the way to go.
    "Oh but it's a hassle and we don't want to drive people away from the projects by doing it" You don't even need an e-mail to register an account here.
    "Oh, I know! Let's use cookies to keep the masking" Really? Really? REALLY?! LTAs are a problem since forever, and IP hopping is not a problem for them. Clearing cookies takes less than a minute, which means that now you're simply wanting to give them freedom to do their thing without even letting us properly fight them.
    Anyway, I do hope this is better thought out by the WMF before rushing it. —Thanks for the fish! talk•contribs 00:46, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Unfortunately, we're just going to find out the hard way. The WMF hasn't unveiled any concrete plans yet, so it's best we save our outrage capital for when this does happen. -FASTILY 04:16, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Or we can require they get an account in order to edit and the problem is solved. In no way does that interfere with our long standing tradition of being the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Getting an account is fast, free and easy. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 16:48, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Enforcing registration for mainspace, while allowing masked IP editors to contribute to talk pages would allow people to participate without registering, while protecting article content. Extensive talkpage vandalism seems unlikely.Dialectric (talk) 19:38, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    This solution is simply not worth the trouble. When the IP editors come here at all, it is overwhelmingly with the goal of editing articles, not talk pages. I never really understood why we don't enforce mandatory registration in order to edit on WP, and it seems to me now that the time has finally come to do that. Nsk92 (talk) 20:26, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    "I never really understood why we don't enforce mandatory registration in order to edit on WP, and it seems to me now that the time has finally come to do that." I have long been against the idea that you should need to register an account for changing "and and" to "and" in an article. However, if a clear change in circumstances means this no longer possible, perhaps we should follow pt-wiki's lead and start the mandatory registration RfC. Can I get a show of hands to see who's interested? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 08:48, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    If the masking makes identifying ranges impossible for any user, I'm going to support mandatory registration. Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 12:27, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    This is because if only admins can block / find ranges to block, then it adds a further burden to admins to find which range block is appropriate. If its not admins and is instead CUs, then there is even more of a burden. Normal users often use what range an IP address is in as evidence for SPI. I certainly don't want more things to do at SPI with the number of open cases that there usually is. Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 12:36, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Just thinking out loud, how does masking IP addresses work with the GNU Free Documentation Licence? The edit window says "you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license." Let's suppose in five years' time, Richard Stallman decides to sue a couple of rip-off publishers making print copies of Wikipedia articles for lack of proper attribution, violating the GFDL. "Aha", says rms, "there is no attribution - the author's identity has been censored! GNU are STRONGLY OPPOSED to CENSORSHIP!". What happens then? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:00, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I guess the hyperlink or URL to the masked IP address would be enough? From what I understand the masked IP address would still have a contributions page and a talk page. Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 13:37, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Has the Foundation confused Covid-precautions with "how to run a website"? DuncanHill (talk) 13:46, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Lower the ban to main space pages

    WP:SNOW close. Unanimous consensus from everyone but Lima Bean Farmer is that the topic ban should not be overturned or modified. Lima Bean Farmer, this is a reminder that your topic ban applies to American Politics post-1932, broadly construed, anywhere on-wiki, including both articles and talk pages. You are encouraged to find a completely unrelated topic to edit in order to show that you can contribute productively. GeneralNotability (talk) 03:38, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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


    Guy agreed to lower the ban to main space pages. Therefore I wouldn’t be able to add any edits that are improperly sourced or do anything other than discuss. I would personally advocate for the ban to be less strict to maybe only presidential politics or 2020 politics but that choice is up to you. Thank you. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 22:49, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Added: I have given up the part about the ban being less strict. I will add that I understand that references must be both reliable and independent. I also understand that before adding a source that may be controversial or has a ton of names (like 5 or more) I should check with others on the talk page if it should be added. Also I would like talk page access so that I could continue at least being part of current political arguments without any chance of me breaking endorsement criteria or violating biographies of living people. When I am allowed to edit again, it would help me have a better understanding and make it less likely that I make any more mistakes like this (if I get feedback for the next 3 months on endorsements and seeing what admins add, this would be more useful than a complete ban) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lima Bean Farmer (talk • contribs) 01:33, October 18, 2020 (UTC)

    Final addition (probably): please just let me edit the talk pages. I apologize for adding so many primary and unreliable sources (medium.com for example), but I know that that was wrong. In addition, I only ask to edit the talk pages again. This would be a good learning experience for me to get an up close look at sourcing without the chance of disrupting any articles. And if it doesn’t work out, I think it’s pretty clear I will get blocked (I understand this). Please just give me this opportunity. Keeping me blocked from talk pages isn’t going to help me or the project out in any way. Please, if it seems like I’m begging, I almost am at this point. I wasn’t really given a warning on the Biden endorsement page and then all of a sudden I get this complete ban. I understand I should have asked before adding all of those edits but I want to continue editing Wikipedia and improve. As I’ve said, I would’ve been happy to just use the talk page if there was no ban. Please, someone be sympathetic and please help — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lima Bean Farmer (talk • contribs) 02:12, October 18, 2020 (UTC)

    No, I did not. I said that if you requested such a change, I would support it, provided you showed that you understood the problem. I think what we see here is that actually you don't understand the problem. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:45, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Guy, what? You said you would support it. Isn’t the problem that I was adding poor sources which led to a violation of biographies of living persons? What I’m saying is unblock me from the talk pages and I can make requests and review sources with other editors so that they don’t get breached. Don’t go back on your word now Guy. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 00:18, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • For the similarly confused, this is an appeal of Lima Bean Farmer's 3-month topic ban from the post-1932 American Politics topic area, imposed yesterday by @Barkeep49:. ST47 (talk) 00:23, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • ST47, are you trying to make me look bad? Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 00:30, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • I don't see how he's trying to make you look bad. You posted an exceedingly vague thread here (saying "lower the ban" without referring to any specific ban). Your hostile attitude is making you look bad, not ST47's edit. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:34, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • power~enwiki, I don’t see how anything I did was hostile. The only thing that ST47 added was my ban and no part where I discuss it or anything else. Therefore, I wanted to ask them if they were trying to make me look bad. I didn’t accuse them of anything, just was wondering what their intentions were based on a previous edit. Want to talk about character, look at Guy who posted one thing on my talk page and is now saying the opposite now that I’m actually trying to appeal my ban. Could someone please take a look at my ban? Or give me suggestions on a better way to appeal it? I don’t know what implications Guy is getting that I don’t understand why I was banned. Especially since they were the one who advocated for the ban then against it, then for it again. Please look. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 00:48, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
            • JzG simply said he would support your appeal, not that he would grant it. You implied he was going back on his word by maintaining this position throughout. Then, you suggested that ST47's clarifying your remarks was trying to make you look bad; your implication is clear even though there is a question mark. I think it's clear that you have a hostile attitude towards anyone not giving you exactly what you want, or else you have a competence problem causing you to misinterpret other's remarks. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:55, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
            • Or give me suggestions on a better way to appeal it? It's barely been a day. Your appeal is unlikely to be successful. The best suggestion I have is to edit topics completely unrelated to American politics for a month. If you can contribute productively for a month without getting blocked or banned, come back and appeal your restriction. — Wug·a·po·des​ 01:02, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
              • power~enwiki, I changed the wording based on what Guy said. I was genuinely not attempting to be hostile towards ST47, but I can see how that’s how it came across and for that I’m sorry ST47, I did not assume the best faith there (contrary to my user page). However please don’t let that affect this very broad ban. I’m only asking for talk page access back. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 01:13, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
                • I restored the original wording. You cannot retroactively change what you posted after others have responded to it. That give the impression that they responded to something other than what they did. If you wish to change something then strike the original wording and make it clear that your new version was added after the fact. I second Yamla 's suggestion that you drop this. Meters (talk) 01:21, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Meters, asked you on my talk page how to strike something out. I’m willing to give up the part about politics (as I deleted but then restored per your suggestion) but i would like y’all page access back. This is not something I would be able to quit editing without. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 01:26, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
                    • Yes, and I replied to you two minutes after you asked. And then you went ahead and added new comments under a time stamp from hours ago. Don't do that. I will correct that. Meters (talk) 02:41, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Snow close and frankly, Lima Bean Farmer should apologise to Guy and ST47 and drop the stick before this gets worse. LBF, you have an opportunity here. Take the next three months and demonstrate you can edit constructively elsewhere. I hope and believe you can, but you are definitely not showing this right now. --Yamla (talk) 01:12, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yamla, yeah, but I can barely edit anything. I tried editing a talk page and made a page on an LGBT advocacy group and was told I would be blocked. I’m agreeing to not make any edits to anything remotely close to politics after 1932 (or was it 1938? Let’s just say 1900 to be safe). However, please keep it at main space only so I can comment on talk pages. I will not add anything and understand what an independent and reliable source is. Or think of it this way: if I am able to edit talk pages and make recommendations and get feedback from admins and trusted editors, I will be more familiar with what is and is not appropriate to add as an endorsement or a source when the ban is eventually lifted. Does that make sense? Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 01:20, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Lima Bean Farmer, you are topic banned from post 1932 U.S. politics, broadly construed. That was the year that Franklin D. Roosevelt was first elected president, so you should be able to remember that. I oppose allowing you to comment on talk pages. You have been involved in too much disruption regarding the current election, and you should work on something else. Try improving our coverage of the fascinating 1912 United States presidential election or another topic that interests you instead. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 01:40, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    • Cullen328, I will probably not remember that based on Roosevelt getting elected, but thank you for the fun fact! However, why do you oppose me adding to talk pages? I have addressed the disruption I have caused previously and agreed not to commit it again. If you don’t believe I have fully addressed it above, please let me know here. Thank you. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 01:46, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • I oppose you editing talk pages because talk pages are for having discussions and with the way you are behaving, I don't want to have to deal with you acting this way in talk page discussions. Natureium (talk) 01:50, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Natureium, acting what way? I generally am very friendly with other editors, even when I disagree. I may have come across as a bit hostile above, which I apologized to that editor for. But using the talk page I would use as both a way to suggest good additions but also to be a learning experience as to why certain additions should not be made. I think putting me on the talk pages would give me a better chance at understanding when I can edit again. Thoughts?Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 02:01, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Lima Bean Farmer, you are a time sink and a net negative regarding the 2020 election. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:58, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    • Cullen328, aside from your bad faith comment and my many useful contributions to this election, wouldn’t letting me edit the talk pages and get feedback help me improve my editing as well as the project as a whole? Honestly if you don’t let me, and I come back in the 2021 elections for governor of New Jersey or wherever, we will have the same problems. I understand I will not be allowed to edit articles from now until the election but at least let me get to add to the talk pages to both contribute and learn from experience without compromising or damaging the project of Wikipedia. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 03:15, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Just a tip, Lima Bean Farmer: the thing to do when you've been told to first demonstrate you can edit productively in topic areas outside of post-1932 American politics is not to start going to random administrators' talk pages ([35], [36], [37]) to pester them into the lifting the ban, after you've been told here it's not going to happen so soon. It's a good way to leave a sour taste in folks' mouths for the next time you do appeal. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:04, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    GorillaWarfare, I just want some help on how I can increase my chances on convincing y’all that I should be allowed to edit the talk pages to this article. Asking me to not edit anything after 1932 which is even remotely related to politics is telling me not to edit. I am asking these admins to help me construct a way to convince the community that this ban is too harsh. Why is everyone so against me editing talk pages? I really don’t get this. I have made so many good contributors and now I’m being completely blocked from even editing a talk page. And now I’m being berated for asking for help. If you want me to resign from Wikipedia, just tell me on my talk page and I will consider it. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 03:11, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    You've been told how to increase your chances: edit productively outside of the topic area. I just gave you a whole list of articles you could edit above, and I assure you there is plenty more where that came from. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:13, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    GorillaWarfare, I don’t know why that affects the fact that I can’t edit talk pages. Plus, same dilemma, I’ll get back and the same problem may occur. If you let me observe and comment from the talk page from now through the election, I will have the knowledge needed to edit pages such as these in the future. Regardless, asking an admin who has not gotten involved in this situation yet for help in my case should not be a problem. I’m not asking them to unban me or anything like that, just to review my case and see what I can do right (from an admin’s perspective) if they would like. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 03:26, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The vast majority of us managed to figure out how to edit without first earning a topic ban. I trust that you can do the same reading of policy and observation of others' edits that the rest of us did to figure it out. Furthermore, the reliable sourcing policy applies everywhere on Wikipedia, not just to political pages, and so you can get plenty of practice in unrelated topic areas. I would strongly recommend following that advice, rather than continuing to argue for almost immediate loosening of a ban that was just placed—your continued insistence that you can't possibly learn to edit outside of the political topic area despite not actually trying it is beginning to really drive home power~enwiki's above remarks about not getting what you want. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:30, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    User name redirects not carried through properly?

    Users League Octopus (talk · contribs) and Apanuugpak (talk · contribs) were previously called User:Finnish Gas and User:Apanuggpak (notice there are two g:s instead of two u:s in the latter). When clicking on old user contribution links with their previous names they're not properly redirected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Finnish_Gas and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Apanuggpak It would be nice if you could fix that. --Mango från yttre rymden (talk) 23:55, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    There isn't a way to "redirect" contributions pages like that. ST47 (talk) 00:02, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I see. Why is it then that the two old user contribution links (the plain links) I posted above give quite different results? The one for Finnish Gas leads somewhere, while the Apanuggpak one says there's nothing. --Mango från yttre rymden (talk) 19:39, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Because there is a user called Finnish Gas but there is not a user called Apanuggpak. ST47 (talk) 20:08, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The user page Finnish Gas properly redirects to the new name League Octopus, while the old user page Apanuggpak is not redirecting, but on one hand says it doesn't exist and on the other gives a message that is has been renamed. However the old talk page does redirect: User talk:Apanuggpak

    Since this is the first time I have come across something that doesn't get redirected I thought it was an error and wanted to report it, especially since the old links behave differently. I tried my best to find the right place. A regular user cannot possibly know all the possibilities and limitations of the technicalities of Wikipedia. I was acting in good faith. I'm not suggesting a new feature. If you aren't in a helpful mood, then leave it to someone else. I was just trying to understand after you said it doesn't work like that. --Mango från yttre rymden (talk) 22:59, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The reason why User:Apanuggpak isn't redirecting to User:Apanuugpak is because the former didn't exist when the account was renamed (so there's nothing to redirect). As far as the contributions for Finnish Gas, someone created and started using that account name after the original user was renamed to League Octopus. It doesn't happen often, but that's also why you'll often see people like AmandaNP creating doppleganger accounts for old usernames (e.g. DeltaQuad), which is to prevent impersonation on the old account. Hope this helps. Primefac (talk) 23:33, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm one example of that. I was originally User:Pharmboy but changed to my real name, and then reregistered the name as an alt, so my real history (including as Pharmboy) is under my current name. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 16:51, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Anti-harassment RfC closed

    In a prior case, the Arbitration Committee mandated that a request for comment be held on how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future. This request for comment has now been closed with the following summary:

    In this RFC the community was asked to weigh in on 8 topics of concern regarding Wikipedia editors ("editors"), the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom), Trust & Safety (T&S), and the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). There were common themes presented across some of the questions, so if a related question contains similar themes that will be indicated in parentheses (e.g. "Q1"). Please note that while there may be proposals listed that arose during this discussion, any significant/policy changes to ArbCom must go through the standard processes as described in the Overview.

    One of the overarching themes of responses to the questions was that ArbCom will always be under some form of scrutiny or displeasure from certain areas of the community. However, since they were elected to be trusted members of the community, they should do their best knowing that a majority of users supported their term when they were elected (Q1). However, that does not mean they should be entirely absent from ArbCom proceedings (Q6) or jump too quickly to conclusions when it comes to the presumption of innocence (Q5).

    Q1, on the matter of private evidence impacting sanctions
    ArbCom, by its very nature, will occasionally have cases that involve private evidence - be it email correspondence or links to off-wiki websites - that cannot be publicly displayed in the public-facing case evidence. This private evidence is of most concern when it is the sole (or majority) reason for a case being opened and/or sanctions being filed; multiple examples were given where the results of a case were given without one being formally opened on-wiki, or where supposedly "private" information was actually present in diffs on-wiki the entire time.
    While many agreed that private evidence should stay private, there were a few main suggestions regarding how ArbCom should deal with private information:
    • ArbCom should disclose if/when private information is being used to inform the case
    • ArbCom should "categorise" any private evidence so interested parties would know the providence of said information
    • ArbCom should open a public case report, even if the evidence is 100% private, so that editors are aware that a discussion is taking place
    • ArbCom should only use private information when absolutely necessary - if sanctions and/or findings of fact can be based on public/on-wiki evidence, then that should be prioritised (Q2)
    Q2, on fear of retaliation
    To summarize multiple editors' opinions in this section, "there is no easy solution" to the issue of retaliation as a result of harassment and subsequent case filing. That being said, many of the editors agreed that if the information is public then the case should be handled publicly and not behind closed doors (Q1). Additionally, admins should be more willing to do what is necessarily “lower down” in places like ANI, and bump cases to ArbCom after these interventions are shown to be ineffective (Q7). While there was a suggestion for some form of intermediate location for cases to be handled between ANI and ArbCom, there was no significant agreement on what that should look like; among the ideas were bringing back RFC/U, having some form of formal mediation process between the users (Q8), or having the functionaries act as some form of private investigators vetting private information before it reaches ArbCom.
    One supported suggestion was to allow third-party filings to ArbCom in an effort to minimize retaliation on the harassed/concerned editor.
    Q3, on responding to allegations
    This question follows on rather heavily from Q2, but focused more on the accused rather than the complainant. Many editors agreed that evidence should not be kept secret from the accused, except when it comes down to the safety of the complainant; if there are specific threats and/or information that could be used in retaliation, T&S should be contacted first (Q8). If there is private information, the complainant should be asked what information they would be willing to release publicly.
    While the idea that "innocent until proven guilty" (Q5) was used a lot, significantly more people indicated that we (Wikipedia or ArbCom) are not a legal system, and so that should not be assumed; principles, not any specific rule or formulae should be used in relation to the accused. However, it was felt that there is an imbalance between accuser and accused, and that mediation (Q2, Q8) may be helpful to level that imbalance.
    Q4, on unsubstantiated claims
    This question had a fairly straight-forward consensus; all editors should be treated with respect and politeness, but there is nothing either the community or ArbCom can do to interrupt the "unpleasant dynamic" of unsubstantiated complaints and filings. A certain amount of "tough skin" is needed to edit Wikipedia, but ArbCom should not be used as therapy.
    Q5, on plausible deniability
    As mentioned in Q3, there is no "right" to a presumption of innocence. That being said, there was expressed a concern that there should not be any sanction unless there is a clear violation of policy; off-wiki links with no verification should be treated carefully. As every case is different, it is difficult if not impossible to write "rules" around this issue; ArbCom should use common sense and deal with limited available evidence on a case-by-case basis
    Q6, on the arbitration environment
    There was a fairly consistent response to this question advocating for more/better patrolling of ArbCom proceedings, in particular by the clerks. This includes word limits, lack of diffs (especially when accusations are made), and civility/arguing concerns; clerks should also be doing a better job of communicating with those who have "broken" the rules to get clarifications and/or indicate that their edits were removed for technical/procedural reasons rather than any sort of "point of view" suppression.
    One supported proposal was to have ArbCom cases written in "c2:DocumentMode", where a case is presented more like an article (with clerks summarizing and updating a single document) and less like a half-threaded discussion between members (which can become heated/unproductive)
    Q7, on unblockables
    Much like Q2, there is no clear definition or easy solution to "unblockables"; everyone is cantankerous at some point, and we should all be treated equally. Opinions were highly variable, including many that felt there are no changes needed or that everything should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, but the following were some of the most prevalent suggestions among the participants:
    • Admonishments and/or final warnings should be much more frequent, and actually enforced
    • Blocks should be handed out more frequently, but only as short-term blocks
    • Users with multiple (but un-sanctioned) cases at ANI, and/or those with lengthy block logs, should be looked at by ArbCom
    • More admin cases should be brought before ArbCom
    Q8, on the relationship with T&S
    Editors strongly feel that en-wiki issues should be handled "in-house", and only matters that affect the real world (Q2, Q3) should be passed to T&S. A better/improved dialogue between ArbCom and the WMF is also desired, with the Foundation and T&S passing along en-wiki-specific information to ArbCom to handle.
    There was a desire from some editors, expressed in this section as well in previous sections, for the WMF to hire/find/create resources and training for mediation and dispute resolution, which would hopefully mitigate some of the most prevalent civility/harassment issues present on Wikipedia.

    To reiterate, this close summarizes the opinions and feelings of those who participated, and are not binding; any proposals or suggestions that change policy will still need to go through the formal procedures as outlined in the Overview.

    Signed,

    Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 02:23, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Anti-harassment RfC closed

    Rescind FA status of Atom

    Not an administrative issue. Primefac (talk) 19:13, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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

    The atom article became FA more than 10 years ago, when Wikipedia's standards were lower. I think it should be re-assessed. I've requested a reassessment several times on the Talk page, but nothing has happened. Could some admin speed things up? I think atom should be stripped of its FA status and someone should review it again under current standards of excellence. Kurzon (talk) 15:52, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    • This has nothing to do with admin. Admin have zero extra say on content. We mop up, we don't dictate content. This is the wrong place to ask this. Maybe ask in one of the projects that it is under or start an RFC on it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 16:41, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @Kurzon: I don't understand what you mean by "nothing happened". If I look at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Atom/archive1 various fixes were made as you have been told. If you still have specific concerns about the article content not meeting FA standards, you will need to explain these concerns so people can try to resolve them or can consider delisting the article if they aren't resolved. FAR isn't a magic process, someone needs to find the problems and since you're the one who seems to think there are problems it's likely that will need to be you. Also, putting aside the issue of finding the problems, it would help if you are doing other parts of the work you can rather than forcing others to do it so they have less time to actually review the article. For example, you were specifically asked to follow all the steps of nomination but didn't, so then someone else had to complete them. In any case, no part of the WP:FAR process involves AN, so there's nothing to be done here. Nil Einne (talk) 16:46, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Deletion of Elizabeth Brodden

    Hi all. I just deleted Elizabeth Brodden per WP:BLPDELETE. The article was created in 2006 (before BLPPROD existed) and the most substantial changes since then have been to various external links and references automatically deleted by bots because they were on a blacklist. This has left us with an unsourced BLP containing personal details, which I think is unacceptable to have on Wikipedia.

    As this deletion is not covered by any of the usual reasons in the deletion policy and is being done for the perceived good of the encyclopedia, I believe it could be controversial, so I am mentioning this here. I have no objections to anybody writing a reliably-sourced BLP compliant stub as a replacement. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:51, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Ritchie333, good call, IMO. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:53, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I do slightly question whether the personal details in the last revision of the article really warranted IAR summary deletion, as it doesn't extend to anything beyond her full name, approximate birth year, and the height she was in 1984. The article would have no chance at AfD as it stands, but equally I'm not sure this was really an example of something that needed to happen right this second. I'm certainly not planning to restore it or anything, but I honestly suspect that IAR + this AN post that two people have responded to has already generated more bureaucracy than just PROD/AFDing it would have! ~ mazca talk 17:27, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I did find this, and this, and mentions in a couple of other books. Personally, I think it would have been better to send to AFD and let the community hash it out. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:14, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I wasn't sure AfD was appropriate; I'm not disputing the notability of this person (I haven't checked myself) so (under normal circumstances) I wouldn't start one. I have asked the good folk at Women in Red to see if somebody's up for rewriting the article - hopefully somebody is and we'll end up with a better article and not have to thrash things through AfD. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 19:39, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Ritchie333, that is a good idea. I'll remember it myself for possible later use. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:53, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The beauty of AFD is that there are a lot of people trying to rescue articles there, and if good sources can be found, that is a good place to get them found. Not saying it is the only, or even best answer, but it at least gives the article a chance at continuing life. Dropping it off at WiR was also a good idea. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:01, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Dennis Brown, the downside is that there are a lot of people who think Wikipedia is a directory of sportspeople. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:16, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think summary deletion is appropriate for this kind of thing. BLPDELETE recommends summary deletion if the page contains unsourced negative material or is written non-neutrally, and when this cannot readily be rewritten or restored to an earlier version of an acceptable standard. There's definitely nothing like that. Although the page did contain personal information, as Mazca noted it isn't anything particularly sensitive and it could easily have been removed without deleting the page. It also isn't correct to say it was unsourced, it did cite this, although that doesn't look reliable at all. I suggest sending it to AfD instead. Hut 8.5 12:07, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    "references automatically deleted by bots because they were on a blacklist." Since when was that acceptable? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:10, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I believe Ritchie misspoke; Cyberbot II tags pages with blacklisted links, per this BRFA. Humans removed all of the offending links in this article. Primefac (talk) 22:20, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    A non-related article in need of a similar solution

    Martin Ingram (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), looking at the history of the article, has for fourteen years contained serious unreferenced or poorly referenced extremely serious allegations relating to named and unnamed third parties. Martin Ingram is a whistleblower has written a book (Stakeknife: Britain's Secret Agents in Ireland. O'Brien Press. ISBN 978-0862788438) and various articles (for example this) about his allegations, which are covered to various extents at Force Research Unit, Stakeknife and Brian Nelson (Northern Irish loyalist) and to a lesser, much more minor extent in some other articles. It is difficult to know whether a neutral article can be written at the title "Martin Ingram", as any biography of him instantly involves extremely serious allegations about third parties. I would love to be proven wrong on this, but I do not have the time or the energy to deal with the article myself at present. FDW777 (talk) 19:58, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Web mining

    Block requested for 78.147.84.35 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). Falsely accusing me of vandalism for trying to clean up the article and demanding that I be banned for doing so. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 19:43, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I've blocked you and the IP from Web mining for 24 hours - I'm doing this because I can't see an appropriate exemption, and edit warring is still edit warring. I've dropped a note on IP's talk page requesting they assume good faith or they'll be blocked more. In your case, hopefully you realise the block is not punitive, but simply that I feel if you're right, another editor will restore your version soon enough. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 19:49, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    TIL that page-specific blocks are a thing. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 19:53, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    How to close an AFD started by a sock operator?

    Hey all, is there a preferred method for closing/deleting an AfD that was started by a sockpuppet? I'm looking at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sundari Neeyum Sundaran Naanum (TV series) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kadaikutty Singam (TV series) and the sockmaster is Daaask. Would appreciate an education. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 20:14, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Cyphoidbomb, I would start by opening an WP:SPI so whether they're actually a sock can be investigated. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @RoySmith: I did open an SPI. It was determined to be Daaask, which I linked to above. And now I need instruction on what admin-ly steps I should take to deal with the remaining AfDs. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 20:32, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I've IAR closed both as procedural closes. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:43, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict)If they're confirmed socks, G5 the nomination (assuming no one else has commented yet). If there have been comments, and they're not delete, then just speedy keep as an improper nomination. Primefac (talk) 20:44, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Primefac, I'd agree with that - though even with !votes you could still G5 it, without prejudice to renomination by an editor in good standing. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:50, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    This is definitely not correct. Once someone has !voted, the page has a substantial edit by another editor, and is not eligible for G5 speedy deletion. WilyD 06:02, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Wily is correct - in the same vein as an article Nosebagbear (talk) 07:56, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Editor with long-term POV push

    I'm here at the advice of Ymblanter, concerning the edits by Kovanja. Kovanja has been making dubious and ideologically driven edits to topics regarding Rus'/Ukrainian/Russian history for years, generally to deny the existence of Ukraine or Belarus before the twentieth century.

    • Most recently he's added material on the "foundation of Russian statehood" to Rurikid dynasty and edit warred about it [38], [39]. The edits were notably supported by two tourism websites and other sources that did not support his edits. In talk he explicitly says Ukraine and Belarus were founded only as Soviet Republic with no historical context [40]. A similar edit was made at Kievan Rus', including mis-transliterating Ῥωσία (Rosia) as Rossija, the transliteration of the Russian name for Russia (Россия) [41].
    • In September he also edit warred over the origin of borscht, saying Ukraine didn't exist, only little Russians: [42], [43], [44], [45]. This is actually something he's been at for years, see [46], [47], [48], [49].
    • If you follow his edits back in time it just goes on and on like this, such as adding completing irrelevant information about Russia and the Rurikids were the same to Ruthenians [50]. He's also tried to add questionable information to Holodomor, arguing it wasn't a genocide [51], [52], [53], saying genocide is a mere presumption and fabrication.
    • He's also tried to claim that Russians invented shashlik [54].

    It strikes me that this user is probably wp:NOTHERE. I'd appreciate an admin looking into it.--Ermenrich (talk) 21:30, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    He's still at it at Rurik dynasty [55]. Also personal attacks [56].--Ermenrich (talk) 23:45, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Probably worth noting he's been repeatedly blocked from Czech Wikipedia for inserting misleading information, including edit warring on their article on Stalin on the Holomor [57], for which he is currently partially blocked there.--Ermenrich (talk) 14:32, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The user indeed does not look competent in editing at least Eastern European topics.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:47, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I would support an indefinite block, after review. A TBAN restricted to those topics is just going to end in one anyway. --Izno (talk) 15:01, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    RFPP backlog

    Backlog cleared Woody (talk) 17:00, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Some more eyes at WP:RFPP would be appreciated. There are a large number of outstanding requests, some over a day old. Woody (talk) 14:17, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Have you consulted The Wise Woman? Apparently her advice is "protect everything in the whole world".... :-D On a more serious note, for some things like Punk subculture I would prefer to hold off doing anything for the minute; that's more like an edit war between a longstanding editor and an IP rather than long-term disruption (though the long-term editor has the upper hand in not adding unsourced original research). Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:31, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I didn't consult the Wise Woman but I was looking for a cunning plan to auto redirect half of them to the EW noticeboard. Woody (talk) 14:50, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I've left them both a note and started a discussion on the talkpage for Punk subculture.
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Temporary checkuser privileges for scrutineers

    The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

    On recommendation of the Electoral Commission, temporary English Wikipedia checkuser privileges are granted to stewards Mardetanha, Martin Urbanec, and Tks4Fish solely for the purpose of their acting as scrutineers in the 2020 Arbitration Committee election.

    For the Arbitration Committee, Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 20:29, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Temporary checkuser privileges for scrutineers

    my userpage

    All set. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:54, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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

    Hello Sirs,My userpage has not been allowed to make? Can someone please make it for me? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 𝐿uke3227 (talk • contribs) 23:09, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    @𝐿uke3227: I created it and your user talk page for you, but I do want to warn you that you will face similar issues creating other pages—for example, user subpages. You might consider having your account renamed so it doesn't begin with an unusual character and so you don't run into this problem. User:Luke3227 appears to be available. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:14, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 𝐿uke3227 (talk • contribs) 23:53, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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

    "The" at start of a school's name

    (Non-administrator comment) Taking a look at WP:THE, convention states that if it meets at least one of two requirements:
    1. Definite article would change the meaning, and
    2. Definite article is capitalised in running prose
    then "The" should (in most cases) appear in the title. #1 definitely isn't the case, and #2 is debatable. At this point I believe we're supposed to fall on WP:COMMONNAME, as this subsection implies:

    When a proper name is almost always used with "The", especially if it is included by unaffiliated sources, the article "The" should be used in the name of the corresponding Wikipedia article as well.

    Emphasis mine. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 11:54, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Note Ohio State University; they're a prominent example of insisting on the definite article and it's in the lead, but not the article title. Mackensen (talk) 12:02, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    This seems like a "case-by-case consensus" issue. Hold a discussion/RFC on whether or not "if it is included by unaffiliated sources" or not, and see where that goes. This doesn't appear like much of an admin issue; admins don't have special power to decide style issues, and this should be decided by a discussion among the interested. --Jayron32 12:05, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    (ec) This makes me think of "The" Ohio State University. I did go to the site of the school itself and the while school does formally call itself The Astley Cooper School, however local news coverage here does not do so. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:05, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Issue with Speedy Deletion criteria G4. Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion

    Hi all

    I'm sorry if this is not the correct place to post this, it includes the work of admins so it seemed a sensible place. I've recently been involved in a speedy deletion discussion as the creator of the article under criteria G4. Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion and I've noticed an issue with the process that seems like it stops people making a decision based on evidence. The criteria states that it includes sufficiently identical copies and excludes pages that are not substantially identical to the deleted version. However people like me who do not have the rights to see deleted articles have no way of making an assessment whether a previously deleted article is identical or not. As an example, in this nomination 50%+ of the references were not available at the time of deletion so I assume that it is not identical but have no way to tell.

    Thanks

    John Cummings (talk) 12:51, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes, there are a lot of G4 requests where the inability to see the page is an issue (though, you can sometimes find the page through mirrors, and could ask, rather than taking the liable to be hostile to new editors act of noming for speedy deletion). However, if some of the references post-date the discussion, and deletion was on notability grounds, it should be obvious G4 doesn't apply. If you think a slight rewording might make it clearer, WT:CSD is the place to suggest it. WilyD 12:55, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    (ec)@John Cummings: I have declined the G4 tag. Much of the old version of the article contained quotes criticising the ABD; this version doesn't. The usual procedure for non-admins who can't see the previous version to cross compare is to contest the speedy on the talk page, which you did. If the article is deleted per G4 regardless, and you're not satisfied with the deleting admin's response, then the matter can be raised at deletion review, at which point the old article will usually be restored for evaluation purposes. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:57, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks very much both, I wonder if something like (apologies for poor grammar) this criteria should only be used if you have access to the previously deleted version of the article and can make it available on the talk page' would help make it clearer? John Cummings (talk) 13:03, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I would say that's a bad idea - only admins can see the deleted versions, and as the folks deleting the page itself that's all that is necessary; preventing someone from even nominating an article because they cannot see the text is just bad idea, because then you'd only have a few hundred active admins capable of nominating pages. Primefac (talk) 15:09, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) In addition, if you want to write an article but find that an article under that title was previously deleted (you will see a deletion log message before you can create the page), many admins will be pleased to send you a copy of the deleted article, as long as it hasn't been deleted because of copyright violations or other reasons we're not allowed to. You can ask the administrator who deleted the page, or anyone listed in Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to provide copies of deleted articles. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:06, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ivanvector: thanks very much. John Cummings (talk) 13:55, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I have to say that the deletion debate was pretty poor, with two !voters saying "Just not notable" and one saying "never heard of them". (By contrast, I have heard of them, because I know that they won't be sending George Monbiot a Christmas card any time soon.) Indeed, I'd almost treat that AfD like a PROD, since no reasonable arguments were made for the old article, which cited The Times, BBC News and the Daily Telegraph even then. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:08, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    As someone who knows an editor who nominates a lot of pages for G4, I would much rather have them nominate a page and decline it for being different than have garbage in the article space (and no, I'm not referring to this article). A speedy deletion nomination isn't some scarlet letter; it just means that someone (likely who didn't participate in the previous discussion) was concerned that it might be a duplicate. Primefac (talk) 15:12, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Error message when trying to click "page views"

    the "page views" button seems to be having problems today. I got an error message "502 bad gateway" when I tried to utilize this. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 14:48, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Applying more than one block at a time

    I've indeffed Crystal3003 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) from editing the Jacqueline Jossa page following a complaint raised at ANI. I was also minded to give a 1 week site block for edit warring, but am concerned that doing so would mean the indef PBAN will be lost when the block expires. Is this the case, or does the block revert to an indef PBAN once the sitewide block expires? Mjroots (talk) 17:03, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    As far as I am aware, there is no "default state" other than "unblocked", so if you partial block and then full block for a shorter length of time, when the full block expires it will revert back to unblocked. I was thinking it might be worth putting a phab ticket in, but I just thought of a case where an indef siteblock is imposed, followed by a shorter "time served" block, which would then default back to an indef siteblock after the expiry of the second block. Primefac (talk) 17:14, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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