Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems. Before posting: Take a look at these tips for dealing with incivility If the issue concerns a specific user, try discussing it with them on their talk page Try dispute resolution Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly. Be brief and include diffs demonstrating the problem Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead go to Requests for oversight. When starting a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page; pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:ANI-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. Closed discussions are usually not archived for at least 24 hours. Routine matters might be archived more quickly; complex or controversial matters should remain longer. Sections inactive for 72 hours are archived automatically by Lowercase sigmabot III. Editors unable to edit here are sent to the /Non-autoconfirmed posts subpage. (archives, search)
Start a new discussion

QuackGuru and disruption over e-cigs and pod mods

Pod mod (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

QuackGuru (talk · contribs)

WP:AN is pushing a backlog drive on AfC. Accordingly RoySmith took pod mod into mainspace [2] (so thanks for that). QuackGuru has now removed it [3] as "Redirect non-notable hoax article. (Please do not restore the mass failed verification content. See WP:CIR."

I was thus prompted to raise the following with them:

Pod mod

I'm concerned about your removal of this article [4].

Firstly, we have an AfD process. I'm sure you're familiar with it. It's fundamental here that we operate by consensus. We do not support single-handed deletion of articles like this.

Secondly, your reason for removing this article was "Redirect non-notable hoax article. (Please do not restore the mass failed verification content. See WP:CIR.)" [5] That's four separate claims as to why it should be removed. Yet these are unrelated claims, and you have shown no reason to support any of them. In particular, alleging a "hoax" article is a strong allegation against the editor who created that article and should not be made without some evidence to back it up. Importantly though, you then went on to add content from this article [6] to a new section Construction of electronic cigarettes#Pod mods. So which is it? If this is a "hoax", why are you propagating it further? If these sources failed verification in one article, why are they now acceptable in another?

I'm also less than happy about you using inlined ELs rather than correctly formatted citations and references. [7] Is there any particular reason for this?

Once again, your editing raises concerns. You are quick to add a warning banner about Discretionary Sanctions to this article, but you don't point out that you were the editor warned when such sanctions were applied Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Editor_conduct_in_e-cigs_articles#QuackGuru_Warned.

This blanking of an article was inappropriate and disruptive. It goes against our accepted practice re AfD, should such an article really be inappropriate. Your allegations against it are unsupported, and also targeted against a specific editor, Sydneystudent123456. Your re-use of some content from the article also rather defeats the claims you made against it originally. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:21, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

QuackGuru blanked that without reply (they habitually blank all items on their talk:, rather than archiving). They similarly blanked a second request to discuss this.

I don't see this as acceptable editing, especially not when it's WP:OWN over a whole topic space, one which QuackGuru has got into trouble over before. We work by consensus here (do we still?) Single-handed deletions are not how we do things! I don't myself know if pod mods are notable (to the level of a distinct article) and had already asked as much on the talk: page. (I'm in the UK, I don't vape, I'm unfamiliar with the subtle variants). It does appear now that pod mods are a topic of some debate and we have coverage of them under the broader e-cig articles and also at Juul, the major commercial brand. But this is primarily a behavioural problem – single editors don't get to blank articles, the reasons given are hand-waving at best, certainly not supported by any evidence or specific claim, and when challenged like this it's incumbent upon WP:BOLD editors to be ready to at least discuss it. I would have un-redirected the article and AfDed it myself, except for the second refusal to discuss. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:14, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Huh. QuackGuru said failed verification, so I was expecting something really ridiculous like the sources didn't actually exist, but that's not the case. Haven't looked into it thoroughly yet but I'd say whatever QG saw that led him to just instantly blank the page is not obvious, at least to me. I think it's possible this is a reasonable action (the redirect only, not the subsequent interactions), but it really needs to be explained. Someguy1221 (talk) 13:39, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

• Agreed. If it had been a "hoax article" then we have WP:CSD#G3 for that and at least an admin and a second pair of eyes would have seen it.

They still haven't communicated, but they have been busy editing and they've added a comment as an edit summary [8] about "Please don't restore content that failed verification or use poor source such as a blog. See https://www.caferacervape.com/blogs/news/a-brief-history-of-pod-mods-and-open-system-low-wattage-devices" However that source wasn't being used in this article, so I fail to see the relevance of mentioning it. Nor is a misleading note in an edit summary an acceptable substitute for discussion via a talk: page.

I half expected QuackGuru to take their usual line that "all sources must meet WP:MEDRS". Except that here [9] at Construction of electronic cigarettes they're happy to reference The Verge [10] and here [11] at Juul they're adding links to the SF Chronicle [12]. Maybe they think that it's OK if these ELs are inlined, rather than presented as citations? Andy Dingley (talk) 14:15, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

I have undone the redirect. If anybody feels this article should not exist, please to take it to WP:AfD for a proper discussion. @QuackGuru: I explicitly draw your attention to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Editor conduct in e-cigs articles#QuackGuru Warned. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:02, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

• And now of course, a personalised warning, and some WP:CANVASSing in another WP:FORUM, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Pod_mod, but still no discussion. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:32, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• QuackGuru is now proceeding [13] to strip sections out of the article, by their usual process of denigrating sources. This is inappropriate: they show no issue with those sources, the claim "commercial source" is not enough to start section blanking, they have shown no error in those sources, they have shown no error in the content and it is against WP:PRESERVE to act in this way to dismantle an article with no effort made to find other sources. We are still awaiting any response from them here at ANI. These edits are disruptive, and they are disruptive in the way for which an explicit DS has been in place on QuackGuru themself for some years. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:02, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• And now pejorative comments like this, "please stop restoring original research". But there was no such restoration. This is just throwing phrases into the edit log and hoping that some mud sticks. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:26, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• I got a failed verification tag from QG for something that I thought to be uncontroversial. Not sure what is going on but it seems QG is holding this article to a higher standard than others. I added a section to the talk page to discuss and hopefully he responds. spryde | talk 18:30, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
  • It's my impression that QuackGuru is very frequently concerned that anything short of plagiarism might not be true enough to the cited source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:06, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

• QuackGuru seems either unable or unwilling to communicate with other editors. They will adopt some particular idea, then defend it to the death and happily edit-war to do so, but simply will not express to others what it is beforehand, thus avoiding a whole lot of argument. I cannot understand why this is, but it does make editing around them particularly difficult. They seem to go out of their way to post half-truths to talk: pages: something which can't be said to be definitively wrong afterwards, but is especially unclear and misleading at the time. So when complaining of a source, they refer to it by a URL that isn't even used in the article, rather than pointing to its use in that article. They complain "don't restore OR" when nothing has been either deleted or restored. They will insist that all sources meet MEDRS, even for simple matters of commercial business (but are happy to use non-MEDRS sources themselves). They remove content as "not relevant" even though it is highly relevant to the broader context of understanding the article, just because it doesn't contain a specific easily-matched word (I've written AI reasoners which suffered much the same problem). And throughout all of this, other editors are simply wrong: there is no room for debate or opinion, it's QuackGuru's version or nothing. That is not how we operate. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:33, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

• Quick example: Tagging the text, "Pod mods come in varying shapes and sizes and some resemble USB devices." as "fails verification " See "The palm-sized device resembles a USB flash drive,,," Obvious FV content." from a source which contains the literal text, "The palm-sized device resembles a USB flash drive".

So, sorry QuackGuru, but that is not an obvious verification failure and you have failed to state what particular arcana is offending you. This is a collaborative project involving other editors and if you are going to oppose other editors over minutiae such as that, it is incumbent upon you to at least explain the issue.

Similarly, "they do not prodcue smoke" when tagging "Pod mods are portable devices that people use to smoke" as OR. Well, sorry QuackGuru but this is smoke; smoke by its technical broad definition includes pretty much any particulate aerosol produced by heat and that includes pyrolysis rather than combustion, and e-cigarettes et al certainly perform pyrolysis. Also modern language has yet to catch up fully with its terminology and possibly "smoking" may not be the best verb to apply here, but in no way is this WP:OR. It is simply another pejorative use of terminology by you to tag it as such, as an inevitable waypoint towards its removal. This is sheer sophistry on your part, to a level where it's deliberate and it's disruptive. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:46, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Andy Dingley: technically the content did fail verification since AFAICT, no where does the source say "pod mods come in varying shapes and sizes", it only suggested one possible shape (and possibly size). But I'm not sure that tagging it FV was the best way to handle it. Nil Einne (talk) 07:00, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• This is not a problem of content, it's a problem of behaviour: that's why it's at ANI.

Far better editing by QuackGuru would be to list any problems on the article talk page, to make specific statements about what is wrong with them, then to put forward intended solutions: a change of wording, a need for a better source, even the need to remove a section. There might not even be much need for discussion: maybe some of these problems and remedies would become so self-evident that all would be in immediate agreement (there seems to be zero evidence of a POV disagreement). But they are doing none of that. Instead we see unexplained changes made directly to the article. We see threats [14] to delete the article again as "unsourced", when this is a clearly untrue and hyperbolic statement to make. QuackGuru's editing style makes collaboration impossible: in a context where reversions are restricted (and they've made that sanction threat clear enough, even though it's not even clear it applies) their technique is to "capture the high ground first". Anyone disagreeing with QuackGuru will be described as edit-warring and instantly reverted. The changes they're making are unexplained and unjustified (even if correct, or at least their underlying reason needing to be addressed) and they're making the change first, then being forced to provide some sort of justification afterwards. This makes it very difficult for another editor to provide a different remedy to the same (agreed) problem.

Consider the case of the physical resemblance to USB sticks: this is a most trivial issue. Yes, there may be some minor inaccuracy in there and it might need to be fixed by some very minor copyediting on non-contentious wording. But instead QuackGuru is attacking the sources, slapping on a "failed verification" tag, advocating deleting the entire article because "100% fails verification". An editor trying to fix the descriptive wording problem then has to fight uphill, justifying their changes in terms of dire actions like "removing an {{OR}} tag from an article subject to MEDRS", "Re-introducing content that failed verification", "Using sources that do not meet MEDRS". This is to skew the entire editing process unfairly in one editor's favour! They might as well start asking, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of Quora?"

This is a behavioural problem (and they still refuse to engage here), it's disruptive, it's a severe form of WP:OWN and it needs to stop or be stopped. Andy Dingley (talk) 08:55, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Andy Dingley, except that you explicitly said

Quick example: Tagging the text, "Pod mods come in varying shapes and sizes and some resemble USB devices." as "fails verification " See "The palm-sized device resembles a USB flash drive,,," Obvious FV content." from a source which contains the literal text, "The palm-sized device resembles a USB flash drive".

You cannot have it both ways. You made a big deal over the fact that the content does not fail verification because the source explicitly mentions it resembles a USB flash drive. But you completely neglected to mention that in fact the source only says that. It does not support the claim "pod mods come in varying shapes and sizes". Therefore as I said, the failed verification tag was technically correct, regardless whether or not it was the best way to handle it. (And I've already said it wasn't.)

I would note that the reason I realised this is because I nearly faulted QuackGuru on my talk page for them adding a failed verification tag when it wasn't justified since I WP:AGF that you were correct. Thankfully this didn't happen since I double checked myself before leaving my comment.

If you want us to focus on the problems with QuackGuru's editing you need to avoid making misleading claims. From my experience a good way to ensure any complaints you have at AN//I get ignored is by ensuring that we are pointlessly arguing over what the person complaining about said because they are careless or misleading in what they say. As I've said, it seems to me QuackGuru's editing does have problems, so I have no idea why you insist on bringing up stuff that detracts from that point.

Nil Einne (talk) 13:30, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• This has never been about the accuracy of the article complaints here, so much as the appropriate remedies for how to fix them. The text in the article was over-specific for what the source literally stated. If an editor sees that as a problem, then there are quick, easy fixes to that such as either rewording to only match what can literally be supported (one observed device resembles such a device) or else (as appears likely to be the case) noting that resembling USB devices seems to be an ongoing theme across the market and finding additional broader sources to support that broader claim. But shouting "FAILS VERIFICATION!!" from the rooftops and demanding the article is deleted as a consequence is an over-reaction. A disruptive over-reaction. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:48, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Here's a straightforward example of disruptive tag-bombing: [15]

"...however the health risks are currently undetermined as they are new productions." {{CN}}

"...the health risks of these are also unknown and not well-studied." {{CN}}

Two tags of those added, where a high school philosophy freshman should be able to spot the fallacy.

If the text read, "the risks have been quantified", then that would be a WP:biomedical claim rightly needing WP:MEDRS. But it isn't, it's the opposite of that. It falls under WP:BLUESKY. They are new (this is unchallenged, and anyway met by RS elsewhere) and there are no known studies. If an especially pedantic editor wanted to qualify the wording of the statement (at the cost of losing clarity as an encyclopedia) then they could reword as "No studies are known at present (2019) to the authors of this WP article", which would be pointless yet justifiable. But to demand citations is ridiculous: "New things are unknown" is not merely uncited, it is unciteable, and that is a matter of classical logic, not medical quackery. To then take that as an excuse for deletion (read the edit summary added) is disruptive above all else. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:04, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• Without wanting to express any strong views about Quack's overall editing, I request that, if any decisions need to be made, you all please kindly limit the number of RFCs involved. A couple of months ago, QuackGuru had ten (10!) separate RFCs about e-cigs underway at one time. As some of you know, I've followed the RFC advice pages for years and years, and I cannot recall a single instance in which another editor had even half that many content RFCs underway at one time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:11, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• Agreed that this is WP:OWN behauvior, and QuackGuru has staggering 2,449 edits in e-cigarette according to Xtools edit count. Not everything related to e-cigs should be vetted by one person. --Pudeo (talk) 19:21, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
• My impression which seems to be supported by WP:AfD, WP:ATD-R and Wikipedia:Merging is that it's not always necessary to AfD something where merging or redirection while keeping the old article is the desired outcome even if these are possible outcomes of an AfD. If it's expected to be uncontentious, no discussion may be needed. It may also be acceptable to rely on other forms of discussion like RfCs. This is in part because merging or redirecting (while keeping the article) are explicitly not a form of deletion as no admin action is needed and the edit history is still there. These actions can be reverted by anyone like with normal editing processes. However it's recognised that many editors will not be aware of this, so care needs to be taken and sometimes AfD may be better. Note that this is explicitly not an endorsement of QuackGuru's actions. If you've found a hoax, it needs to be deleted so you should use some deletion process. It's harmful to simply redirect or merge a hoax as you're running the risk someone will revert to the hoax either intentionally or accidentally. But I agree with others it doesn't seem this is a hoax, based on the sources and the fact the info was merged anyway. QuackGuru's other actions here also seem concerning. Nil Einne (talk) 05:58, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

It's been pointed out to be my QuackGuru they didn't merge content so I've struck that portion of my comment above. Instead I will say "But I agree with others it doesn't seem this is a hoax, based on the sources and the fact that the info or very similar info already existed in another article they redirect to. It possible that some of the content in the original article failed verification and this needed to be dealt with, but it's clear that the article itself and the concept it dealt with was not a hoax. To reiterate what I said, if it was a hoax it needed to be deleted outright not simply redirected." Nil Einne (talk) 06:51, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• " These actions can be reverted by anyone like with normal editing processes. "

No, they can't be "reverted by anyone". It needs a particularly thick-skinned editor to disagree with QuackGuru. Their immediate reaction is to place a dire warning box on the editor's talk: page, threatening sanctions (despite the fact that ArbCom's ruling behind such sanctions was directed at QuackGuru). Then they fire up threads in the walled garden of the medical project, demanding the use of sources to MEDRS, just to say what year a commercial product was launched or whether it's the shape of a USB stick. And they will still not join the debate here at ANI, a thread specifically about their behaviour. This is QuackGuru going out of their way to place barriers in front of other editors, and that's usually an effective strategy to imposing their single viewpoint onto articles. This has nothing about article quality or verifiable standards, it's about refusing to cooperate. Andy Dingley (talk) 08:16, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

So, you're saying that "dire warning box" is too frightening? --Calton | Talk 08:38, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• I've always said that. It's completely unfit for purpose. It threatens other editors, it's unclear as to what it means, it's unclear as to how other editors ought to respond to it or should change their editing. It's used by a handful of established editors in order to intimidate others, and it's often highly effective against blameless new editors (read some of the Teahouse reactions to being hit with it).

Worst of all is its lack of clarity. It doesn't link to any good explanation of what "Discretionary Sanctions" are and what they mean for ongoing editing. The justification for them (i.e. the source ArbCom case) is hidden and mostly irrelevant to the current situation. These DS boxes are mostly used by two editors: one who favours a DS box linking to an ArbCom case that was rescinded or else (in this case) a case where the editor pasting the warning box was one of those being admonished by ArbCom.

So yes, this is just a scary stick to try and frighten other editors with. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:02, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Regardless, that has nothing to do with my point which is that there has never been any policy or guideline requiring that redirects and merges must go through AfD. Nor my point that redirects and merges are explicitly not a form of deletion and can technically be reverted by anyone (given the limits of page protection, edit filters, and editor blocks). Note I also said that QuackGuru's actions were wrong here but that doesn't change the general point I made which you challenged. QuackGuru should be called out for their problematic editing. What you've alleged of their behaviour may be a problem, but failing to use AfDs for merges or redirects it not itself a problem unless the conditions when they did so is a problem. Likewise, if QuackGuru prevents people reverting when they should and can that's a problem, but that doesn't change the way merges and redirects operate. That said, I'm not sure that QuackGuru is even putting barriers in place for reversion. Giving a discretionary sanctions notice to someone who had not been notified seems fair enough. I'd note an editor does not need to be "thick-skinned", they just need to properly understand the notice or the discretionary sanctions process in general to know that such notices are irrelevant to whether or not they can revert if justified and of course that QuackGuru's actions would also be covered under the discretionary sanctions regime if their actions are. Not to mention skin thickness does not matter if the editor has received a notice within the past year meaning they cannot receive another one. Nil Einne (talk) 13:18, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• I've no objection to the use of either AfD or talk: page discussion, or anything similar, but there needs to be opportunity for discussion by some means, and QuackGuru is doing their best to avoid it at all. Their actions are instant, so that WP:FAIT applies, and they're hedging even the smallest issue around with the biggest obstacles of MEDRS etc that they can.

Juul is pretty obviously investing in high quality design to make an attractive product, more than a merely functional one. It does have resemblances to a USB stick, in both size and shaping. The amount of arguing against this and the sources involved, and the implication that the article needs to be deleted as a result, are out of all proportion to the underlying issue. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:38, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Nil Einne, the discretionary sanctions notices are scary for most people – perhaps for almost everyone except the few editors who like to spam them around at every opportunity. We've tried to clarify the wording – I was involved in the effort to specify that this situation exists because of other editors, and doesn't say anything about your own contributions – but they are still perceived by the recipients as direct and immediate threats. I have been wondering whether it would make sense to ban their delivery by people who are in disputes. In the current free-for-all situation, an editor who is edit warring can drop that notice on your talk page. In that situation, it is no wonder that people think the underlying message is "Let me own this article, or I'll get you blocked". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:26, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Have to disagree. For new editors, yes I agree they are often scary and confusing. For anyone familiar with the regime, they are generally not scary. For editors who aren't new but are also less familiar with the discretionary sanctions regime IMO it varies. I have said before that IMO it's best if an editor involved in a dispute with another editor, or who simply often disagrees with the other editor doesn't hand them out. Instead an uninvolved editor or even better someone friendly with the editor should hand them out. But I also feel that any ban on people who may hand them out would carry a reasonable risk of making the regime less effective. I myself have handed them out on a few occasions, mostly when I see someone at one of the ANs who is editing the area and where I feel there is a chance the regime may be useful. I admit this may not be ideal, but I generally avoid simultaneously criticising the editor a lot or getting involved in any dispute. Thinking more of something I said above, I wonder if it may be helpful to add something to the template emphasising they apply to all editors including the one handing out the notice if they are involved in the topic area. But this is perhaps getting too far off topic. I stand by my claim that you do not have to be a thick skinned editor to be largely unaffected by the possibility of notices. For example anyone familiar with the regime or anyone who has already received a notice and some other editors. This is particularly significant here since RoySmith and Andy Dingley themselves seem to be 2 of the major editors involved in the article and I do not believe either of them should be affected by receiving a discretionary sanctions notice. The creator User talk:Sydneystudent123456 doesn't seem to have received a notice either [16] Nil Einne (talk) 16:49, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

It's possible true that "anyone familiar with the regime" will be unaffected. However, that restriction basically excludes 99% of registered editors. In my experience, it's really hard for long-time editors like us to even imagine what our system looks like to people who aren't us. For example: Less than 10% of registered editors (all accounts, ever, specifically at this wiki) are autoconfirmed. The median number of undeleted edits for registered accounts is zero. Think about what that means for our assumptions about what "most" editors do or think or feel. We are not like most editors. I might receive these notices with the realization that another editor is trying to escalate a dispute. The median editor receives them with as little nonchalance as they would receive notice of a dispute from their nation's tax agency. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:14, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Well I never disputed that discussion should be allowed. My point was and remains that we should not conflated merging and redirection with deletion, and also that other processes can be used instead of AfD for that discussion. I felt this was important since the initial comment seem to come close to suggesting the opposite. I don't really see a point to argue content issues like what Juul makes and USB sticks on this page and was never suggesting we do so. My point with that was that the content did fail verification. As I said, I don't think adding a failed verification tag was the right way to handle that but I stand by my view it's very confusing to imply the content did not fail verification when it did fail verification (even if some part of the content was verified by the source). Nil Einne (talk) 16:53, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• So, still no response from @QuackGuru: and the WP:OWN continues on the article(s). Per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Editor_conduct_in_e-cigs_articles#QuackGuru_Warned, is it time to escalate to WP:AE? The edits themselves might be debatable as a content issue, but the refusal to discuss is disruptive. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:28, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
  • My original post a couple of days ago got lost in an edit conflict. It may be time to escalate this to WP:AE if you think that helps resolve this issue.
  • After I read this comment I decided to make a quick post here.
  • I am discussing the issues on the talk page, but this is a new article and there are very few editors watching the article. The edits themselves can be considered a content issue. I made a bold edit to redirect it because the Construction of electronic cigarettes article discusses the different types of devices and there was a lot of misinformation about the pod mods in the new article. There is new content about pod mods in the Construction of electronic cigarettes that is 100% sourced. See Construction of electronic cigarettes#Pod mods. I wrote the content myself and I did not copy content from any other article. Having a splinter article seems more like a WP:REDUNDANTFORK. QuackGuru (talk) 18:21, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

I've had similar problems with Quackguru, and I haven't managed to discuss most of them them productively: see this discussion, and much of my talk page. Aside from my own ignorance and mistakes (advice welcome), there are a few recurrent sources of conflict, which it would be good to have resolved.

On merging, redirection, and deletion, I'd like to raise what I see as obfuscation of article and talk histories (example, original article) and, more trivially, QG's own draft space (for instance, pages titled with totally unrelated word, or an IPA schwa character). QG's manual archiving of talk page discussions, which matches the clear-desk ethos of QG's talk page, can be inconvenient to part-time and intermittent editors.

Draft-replacing content is fast, but it feels a bit like driving a flail tank through a community vinyard to till it.

I really don't like it when QuackGuru privately writes a parallel article in the draftspace, then overwrites the multieditor article. It is especially frustrating when QG has, while writing the draft, been asking other editors to fix problems identified by QG in the article (or delete or redirect the article), without telling them of the any plan to replace their work with the draft. If editor efforts are in competition, anyone who spends less time editing than QG, or edits more slowly, is at a disadvantage.

QG sometimes uses language I find needlessly threatening (prod example). I have, in the past, overreacted to QG's warnings (though not that one). I've learned that the best response to threats of formal complaints is to urge QG to follow through with them. QG often repeatedly raises issues with my editing. When the issues are irrelevant to the discussion at hand, or when I have acknowledged faults, apologized, and fixed, or when the forum is one I only come across by chance, this feels like mudslinging (example).

I strongly support inline tagging, but I often find QG's tags trivial (some phrasing and page number requests) or incomprehensible (many fv tags). Quackguru seems to mostly think that every sentence must have exactly one source at the end of it. It is also difficult to steer between Scylla and Charybdis with closeness to sources; QG opposes both excessively close paraphrases as copyvio and excessively loose ones as failed-verification. This leads to passages in the first style below:

Anon was born in the 19th century[1]. She was born in Nowheretown[2]. Her parents worked as cobblers[3]. Her mother was named named Anan[3]. Her father was named Anen[4]. Anon attended Nowheretown School[4]. She studied basketmaking in her first two years at Nowheretown School[4]. She also studied applied agrostology in her last year at Nowheretown School[5]. In 1882, the Nowheretown Post described her as a "elderly lady".[6] In 1882, the Journal of Applied Agrostology said that she was well-known to for her "application of agrostology to basketmaking"[7]. She died in 1882[8]. Her son gave the Nowheretown Botanic Gardens and Handicrafts Museum her collections[7]. Her collections included herbarium specimens and furniture[7].

Anon was born in Nowheretown[1] in the 1880s[1] to two cobblers[3] named Anan[3] and Anen[4]. At Nowheretown School, she studied first basketmaking[4], then applied agrostology[5]. In later life,[6] she became well-known for her application of agrostology to basketmaking[7][8]. When she died at an advanced age in 1882, the Journal of Applied Agrostology published an obituary praising her work. Her herbarium specimens and furniture were donated to the Nowheretown Botanic Gardens and Handicrafts Museum[7].

Example obviously made up, to avoid using a controversial topic. I'll also give a real style example; readers may also wish to see if they can spot the two paragraphs of QG's style in Nicotine marketing. A few examples of citation disagreements, all from one page:

• Talk:Heat-not-burn product/Archive 2
• Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive 1#Confusion
• Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive 3#Copyright violation
• Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive 9#Bogus_citation

QuackGuru has argued that that all sources must include wording matching the article title. This severely constrains editor judgment in determining the article scope and providing context (example). Likewise constraining is Quackguru's view that an image cannot be included in an article unless a source says that it illustrates the article topic (one "humorous" example).

Because we have a history of conflict, I probably don't see QG's best side; we all tend to give more consideration to those we respect, an exacerbating feedback. The next two paragraphs may therefore be unduly harsh.

I rarely get the sense that QG is intellectually engaged in a content discussion, and discussions with QG tend go nowhere via long strings of characters. I often find QG's posts unclear, and it takes several exchanges to extract a meaning I'd expect to get in two sentences. QG often does not answer direct questions, and reiterates the same points or ones I find logically unconnected, until I've wondered if my own posts are even being read. This communications burden often puts off other editors who would otherwise engage on topics of interest to QuackGuru (example). I think a majority of my talk page posts have been made in response to QG; I never came in contact with QG for the first decade or so of my editing.

Obviously I disagree with some of QuackGuru's interpretations of rules, and formal guidance on these issues might help reduce conflict. However, more generally, I feel that QuackGuru tends to focus overmuch on using rules to control article content, rather than on understanding and improving content. I'm therefore not sure that providing more rules would help much (especially since combativeness tends, even with the best will in the world, to be infectious). I'm not sure what would help, though QuackGuru has some views. HLHJ (talk) 22:02, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Edited in response to User talk:HLHJ#Allegations without supporting evidence. HLHJ (talk) 22:48, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

This very much matches my experience of dealing with QuackGuru. They seem to be more interested in content as a sequence of matching text strings and they have no interest in or understanding of any meaning behind that. They are also persistently either unwilling or incapable of communicating with other editors to any normal level: they see interaction as a series of barriers and obstacles, not as an opprtunity to share information. The "I would have commented to this ANI thread about me days ago, but there was an edit conflict" claim is simply not credible. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:07, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Actually, I do think that QuackGuru is interested in the meaning of content, as QG edits on specific topics of interest, with an identifiable point of view on those topics (which I do not consider unacceptable, or avoidable). I find I can often predict which statements QG will tag and remove, and if and how QG is likely to alter statements, but I find it harder to predict what objections QG will make to the statements. I haven't gotten the impression that QG is very interested in teaching me or learning from me, which I would be OK with if we were not in conflict. I'm not very good at social interactions myself, and I have sympathy with editors who want to minimize the social side of editing; there are unobjectionable ways of doing this. HLHJ (talk) 00:13, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Well I am out. I normally don't edit controversial things and I try to avoid WP:MEDRS sections of articles as I don't feel comfortable judging if sources are reliable enough. I still think this is a valid article separate from e-cigs as there are a few articles on Google Scholar from JAMA and NEJM which focus on Pod Mods in general.There are also a handful of articles in mainstream sources that also focus on the category rather than a specific brand. That makes it pass WP:GNG in my eyes but apparently not in others. spryde | talk 11:46, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

I've stayed away from this discussion for a few days since I felt I'd said enough and it was better to let others comment. Since it still doesn't seem to have achieved a clear resolution and there are suggestions for AE I'll just make a few final comments.

One, I think QuackGuru's refusal to engage in this ANI is concerning. While sometimes when it's without merit it's fair enough to just let others deal with an ANI on your behaviour, and it's easy to harm yourself with poorly considered posts at ANI; IMO there were enough serious concerns here to warrant at least some comment. It's clear QuackGuru was paying attention since they quickly approached editors who had commented when they had concerns (me and from the sounds of it HLJH).

Two, I'm also concerned there has been no real engagement with QuackGuru on Talk:Pod mods over article content issues. Whatever concerns there over QuackGuru's conduct, I do not believe they warrant ignoring their attempts at engagement, especially since one of the concerns was their refusal to discuss their concerns over article content. To be fair (paraphrasing here) 'should I delete half the article content as unsourced' is not something that's easy to engage with. But when QuackGuru raises specific concerns over specific text failing verification (or whatever), I think at least some action should be expected even if it's just a quick comment 'no you're wrong, the source says XYZ' or minor rewording to fix the problem or finding a new source or whatever.

Three, and bear in mind I have basically no experience with AE and I'm not an admin, I feel if an AE case is raised it would be best to concentrate on clear cut examples. For example whatever problems there may be with posting discretionary sanctions notices unless these are clearly inappropriate (user is already away, user never edited the area) I have doubts they'd get much heed. Likewise saying something did not fail verification because it mentions USB-likeness when it didn't mention the other stuff may not be a great example. Either say that even if it technically failed verification blindly tagging it along with a whole load of other content was not the best way to handle it. Or find refs which do support this content add them and if QuackGuru continues to complain because they don't like 2 sources then maybe you have an example. (I think the former already happened but it's still IMO an example of what happened early in this case that would best be avoided at AE.)

Nil Einne (talk) 07:46, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

• Gah the article on pod mod needs work. These are simply a form of electronic cigarette. Does it need its own article? Not convinced... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:37, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

• No-one is disputing that it needs work – except perhaps QuackGuru, who thinks that such work is impossible and the whole lot needs to be deleted.

Are they notable? Well, my first comment on the talk: page was to ask just that. QuackGuru thinks they're distinct, and has created a CFORK on that basis. I'm still unconvinced (I am too busy to do any editing for the next few weeks), but if they are (and I think they are) it's because the Juul is not merely another e-cigarette. Whether there are any pod mods other than Juul is a separate question. But it seems (from what little I've had time to read) that the difference with them is nothing to do with replaceable coils and it's actually about the chemistry of the fluid used. Juul is using nicotine salts, which appear to have significantly different biological effects. If pod mods are really different from other e-cigs, it's this different chemistry which makes it. However QuackGuru has already stripped the redlinks and decided that it's "just not notable".

They are impossible to work with. They do not engage with others, they do not engage with serious efforts to try and answer specific issues, they just keep re-posting "Can I delete all this yet?". They don't need permission to do so in the first place: they need to justify it. But asking over and over again is a way to get this "permission" by attrition and omission. If they simply persist long enough, more and more editors will say "Well I am out." and when it goes quiet, they can delete the article "because no one complained beforehand". That is not acceptable editing: we have to collaborate here, and none of us get to simply ignore the others. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:40, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

As someone who is a domain expert in certain topic areas who, like QuackGuru, has a massive edit count in those articles and been involved in numerous content disputes, I have also had WP:OWN thrown at me in content disputes by other involved editors. It is both really disingenuous and a very clear case of fundamental attribution error (i.e., a cognitive bias) to ascribe another editor's reversion of your edits and those of others who are a party in the dispute as WP:OWN without a clear statement of ownership. An editor is violating WP:OWN if the they make a statement of ownership and/or take action to prevent all others from modifying an article so as to effectively retain an exclusive right to edit an article, decide what content it shows, or otherwise dictate what an article states (that's also what ownership of literally anything entails). If you don't have clear evidence of an editor making such a statement or rolling back everyone's edits to an article, do not cite that policy. It is pointlessly inflammatory and I've personally found it annoying to be on the receiving end of that. Frankly, I don't know what experienced Wikipedian would actually believe that they have, or could possibly retain for any length of time, an exclusive right to anything on Wikipedia (the only exception would be the copyright to any CC-BY-SA-3.0-licensed article text that an editor contributes, as that is an exclusive right). Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 05:52, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• Read the other page discussions. There's little edit-warring in mainspace, because they've already slapped warning dialogs around to threaten some unspecific editing restriction. But on the talk: discussions, we keep looping through the same sequence. "There is a minor wording issue over a very minor topic, where the source does not use those literal words" – 'OK, what change is needed? Just do it' – "This source FAILS VERIFICATION so I've removed it altogether." – 'Don't do that. It means the content doesn't match, not that the source is bad' – "I'm going to delete the whole article again" – 'Why are you ignoring the ANI thread?'.

This is OWN, even if not in mainspace. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:31, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

I have been thinking over my last post, and I have an example of QG responding to new editors. QG reverted the mostly-easily-salvagable edits, but spontaneously posted on the talk page with some explanation of why. This suggests to me that QG is willing to teach newcomers, but is not always using effective methods (in this case, the new editors did not engage). Sometimes QG has spent far longer getting me to fix problems than it would have taken for QG to fix them and post saying "You should have done this" (example); I think this is partly communications difficulties.

QuackGuru often adds very high densities of inline tags to content I've written, and insists that I fix the content. Some of the reasons behind the inline tags are trivial fixes, things you'd think would be easier to fix than to tag, but most of the problems QG points out are not obvious, and I find many debatable. Any fix I attempt is usually swiftly re-tagged, accompanied by talkpage posts that my changes have made the content even worse, and it would be best to delete the lot and start again. When I add templates criticizing content in articles in which QG takes an interest, QG has reverted the addition (invariably, as far as I can recall). QuackGuru occasionally reverts edits of mine that QG requested via inline tags (for instance, the addition of a large number of verifying quotes, accompanied by translations from the French and German, which took me some hours of editing time: 1, 2, 3).

I don't think this behaviour motivated by bad faith. QuackGuru believes that I lack the WP:CIR to edit, so I think the motive is to improve the content by protecting it from me, keeping me busy with makework until I move to another content area. This is logical and effective, in the short term. Taking the long-term consequences into account, though, it also turns editors wanting to work in this area into opponents instead of collaborators.

For me, this discussion is therefore not primarily about the podmod article (I've been uninvolved with it, apart from a point-of-information talkpage post in answer to a question), or any one article.

I'm a bit uncomfortable addressing all this in the third person. QuackGuru, I know you are reading, and I'm not intending to ignore you, slight you, or speak behind your back. I'd be happy to discuss the roots of our editing conflicts with you in another forum, including a more private one. HLHJ (talk) 15:10, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• Without recommending a remedy, I would like to say that QG has severe OWNership issues with regard to e-cigarettes. I mean, he truly believes he owns the subject and no one else should be allowed to edit there. I tried to get involved with the coverage about recent illnesses and deaths from vaping, but was totally stonewalled and eventually gave up. His style includes spinning off multiple sub-articles, so that he can put disputed content into all of them and no one can keep up. His articles are so technical and detailed, and so focused on single individual studies (quite the opposite of how MEDRS is supposed to work), that there is literally no way for a reader to gain an overall understanding of the subject. I tried for several weeks to make a few of the articles more readable; no luck. I tried to get him to tone down his promotion of the theory that the recent illnesses and deaths are caused by Vitamin E acetate; no luck. The investigating agencies are saying over and over that they don’t know the cause and there are many different histories of what the affected people used in vaping, but he is convinced acetate is the issue and his articles convey that. I know he is a very prolific editor, but IMO what he produces is non-neutral and unreadable, and his attitude is the very opposite of the collaboration that Wikipedia is supposed to be about. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:37, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

• • Please provide evidence of spinning off multiple sub-articles, so that I can put disputed content into all of them and no one can keep up. The only recent spin off was "2019 United States outbreak of lung illness linked to vaping products". It is way too long to merge. There is a summary in the safety article. I also started "Vaping-associated pulmonary injury" after discussing it with WikiProject Medicine.
  • You stated "I tried for several weeks to make a few of the articles more readable; no luck." Can you provide diffs where you tried to make them more readable?
  • See "The CDC stated that the cases have not been linked to one product or substance, saying "Most patients have reported a history of using e-cigarette products containing THC. Many patients have reported using THC and nicotine. Some have reported the use of e-cigarette products containing only nicotine."[5] Many of the samples tested by the states or by the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) as part of the 2019 investigation have been identified as vaping products containing tetrahydrocannabinol (or THC, a psychoactive component of the cannabis plant).[8] Most of those samples with THC tested also contained significant amounts of Vitamin E acetate.[8]"
  • The CDC and the US FDA have both reported similar things. I included content from both of them. QuackGuru (talk) 16:03, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
    • I’m not inclined to spend much additional time over this, but if you insist: Here, on September 7, was where I updated the article and put the CDC warning into the lead. This was the “Safety of electronic cigarettes” article (before you spun off the separate article about recent illnesses), so a CDC warning about safety seemed like the single most important thing to have in the lead. But you immediately removed it,[17] falsely citing “failed verification” when in fact it was well cited. Correction: your reason for removing it from the "safety" article was that it was mentioned in two other articles. So that means it can't be in the "safety" article where it is clearly relevant? That's an example of how you use (and misuse) subarticles.

For some reason you strongly objected to putting any warning into the "safety article" lead, leaving the lead full of years-old studies indicating that vaping could be relatively harmless or even beneficial. As recently as September 11 the lead of the safety article still didn’t mention the outbreak of disease and death. In fact it said (based on a 2016 report) that the risk of serious adverse effects was low, while it rambled on about possible battery explosions. I remember arguing with you about the necessity of putting the warning in the lead of that and several related articles; that argument is here. Finally on September 11 I was able to get a sentence about the outbreak (without mentioning the CDC warning) in the Safety article lead.[18]

Now that I have researched this, at your request, I see that this issue wasn’t just with me and it wasn't just one article. Doc James inserted the CDC warning into the lead of the main Electronic cigarette article three times on September 7, and you removed it three times, [19] prompting him to issue a warning on your talk page.[20] In other words, you kept insisting the warning couldn’t be in the lead of any article, even though that was only your own opinion, vs. well supported arguments to include it from two other people. Like I said, you don’t believe in collaboration or consensus; you believe you OWN these articles. That is not how Wikipedia works. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:22, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

You added on September 7, a CDC warning. This was added to the Safety of electronic cigarettes article before I created a spin-off. I removed it, along with rewriting other content, correctly citing "failed verification" for "WDHS2019". Both citations did not verify the same claim for "In 2019 hundreds of cases of severe lung disease were reported among users of e-cigarettes." The US-centric view for "recommending against the use of e-cigarettes because of their association with severe respiratory disease." was not a neutral summary for the lede. It was replaced with neutral content. See Safety of electronic cigarettes: "In 2019, an outbreak of severe lung illness across multiple states in the US has been linked to the use of vaping products.[23]" Also see Electronic cigarettes: In 2019, an outbreak of severe lung illness across multiple states in the US was linked to vaping.[105] Adding a US-centric warning to the lede of "Safety of electronic cigarettes" or "Electronic cigarette" is not neutral. The outbreak is in the US only. More than one editor objected to including a US-centric warning. See Talk:Electronic_cigarette/Archive 31#US-centric. Simply stating the facts in the lede that there is an outbreak is far more neutral than including a US-centric warning. I did add the CDC warning to the Electronic cigarette.[21] It is still in the Electronic cigarette. See Electronic_cigarette#Positions_of_medical_organizations. I did add it to the lede of the Positions of medical organizations on electronic cigarettes article. QuackGuru (talk) 18:11, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Simply stating the facts in the lede that there is an outbreak is far more neutral than including a US-centric warning. And that's what I did, here, although apparently even that wasn't worded to your satisfaction and you reworded it. I'm done here, but my comments stand: you insist that everything at these articles, great or small, has to be done your way. -- MelanieN (talk) 19:09, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

You added "In September 2019 the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported an outbreak of severe lung disease in the US associated with the use of e-cigarette products.[16]" The CDC reported an outbreak in September 2019, but the outbreak started before September 2019. I fixed the inaccurate content. When did the outbreak start? "Cases involved in the outbreak of severe lung illness associated with vaping products were first identified in Illinois and Wisconsin in April 2019.[13]" I wrote accurate content without misleading or biased content. QuackGuru (talk) 19:24, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

See here. QuackGuru (talk) 19:42, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Propose ban

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

---

I've largely stayed out of this, but I've slowly come to the conclusion that QuackGuru is a lost cause. We should just WP:CBAN him and stop this endless time sink.

I made an attempt to work with him. See the Talk:Pod mod#Failed verification content thread. He questioned whether Research reveals potential health risks in aerosolizing nicotine salts and metal toxins that are produced was verified by the cited reference. I decided to investigate.

My first task was to find a copy of the reference, and discovered that it existed on-line, so I updated the reference to include the URL, and some other minor reformatting while I was at it. This earned me a complaint 10 minutes later that, The citation was formatted but that does not solve the FV problem. I continued to read the cited source and concluded that QuackGuru was correct; it did indeed not verify the claim made in the article, which I stated on the talk page. Amazingly enough, his response to my agreeing with him was yet another salvo.

Somewhere in there, he dropped a Template:Ds/alert on my talk page. What purpose this served other than an attempt at intimidation, I can't imagine. I've got a pretty thick skin, but I imagine most new editors would be scared by this and disengage. Which I assume is exactly the intended result.

Irksome habits like continually blanking their talk page, while not forbidden, certainly does make it more difficult to interact with them.

Every interaction between him and other editors that I've observed over the past few days is aggressive and just attempts to bludgeon the enemy into submission rather than engage in a productive discussion with them. It is good that they insist on correctness and verification through reliable sources, but they take it to such an extreme that nobody can work with them. This makes them a net negative to the project.

I count 19 blocks, spanning 12 years, for QuackGuru already. It's hard to imagine that any additional attempts at behavior modification will be any more successful than the past ones. It's time to cut our losses. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:12, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

QuackGuru has been very productive in Wikiproject Medicine articles...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:38, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

QuackGuru has done good work over the years. I agree with a fair number of the concerns they raised at the pod mod article. Their redirect with the claim that it is a "hoax article" however is not accurate and I would advise them to be more careful with their words. Not sure I see the issue with this notice.[22] I had a personalized notice placed upon my talk page about the existence of DS with respect to gun related issues a few days ago.[23] I took it as a useful FYI. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:16, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Agree with Doc James. Clearly some concerns raised here are valid, but just as clearly some are overstated. The volume and quality of QuackGuru's work is impressive. I agree they need to improve their collaboration. But a ban is over the top. Cloudjpk (talk) 20:26, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose ban QuackGuru operates in Wikipedia's most controversial medical spaces. I perceive QuackGuru to be an advocate for the consumer, medical journals, and WP:MEDRS standards. Most commonly QuackGuru is in conflict with editors who advocate for or sympathize with the position in alignment with corporate industries well known for aggressive propaganda in favor of harmful health practices. In this case we are talking about nicotine use where a billion-dollar industry is selling a drug with health effects and which is lobbying globally to control the conversation. Everyone who edits the Wikipedia nicotine articles will be read by a billion people including all journalists, lobbyists, doctors, policy makers, and the lawyers in the related lawsuits. The money tied up here is obscene considering that advocacy for science in this space has no budget, and in large part is defended by QuackGuru with support of others. When Wikipedia is the target of hundreds of paid lobbyists I expect missteps and misunderstandings from any volunteer editor. I do not perceive the problem here to be QuackGuru, but rather, the center of the problem is the topic itself and the infinite funding available to pay people to endlessly argue the minutiae of the topic to the limits of the Wikipedia process. Most people who edit here are not lobbyists but propaganda is in the heads of everyone who thinks about this topic and extreme caution is a useful norm for this space. QuackGuru knows the wiki bureaucracy and runs discussions and editing discussions by wiki process. I expect content in this space to move slowly and be more cautious than in other articles where a billion dollars and national economies are not the stakes of what Wikipedia publishes and which politicians read when they are making laws. If anyone enters such controversial topics then they should expect bureaucracy, be forgiving, move slowly, and feel free to call on mediation processes such as seeking comment from WikiProjects such as WP:MED or any lightweight process such as WP:3O. I understand why anyone would be frustrated in such unusual articles but this is how extreme controversy works on wiki. The environment is crazy and everyone who enters it will have to abandon some humanity and become a bit of a robot and bureaucrat. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:44, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose ban per Bluerasberry. It is regrettable that QG causes frustration but the topics are frustrating with conflicting interests colliding. I have not checked all relevant edits, but I have seen that QG is on the side of reliable sources. Johnuniq (talk) 23:53, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

• And by implication, anyone who disagrees with him isn't? Andy Dingley (talk) 23:59, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
• He is on the side of the reliable sources that support his position, but resorts to all sorts of tricks to ignore or downplay those that don't! Johnbod (talk) 03:29, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose ban after reading the thread, the underlying issue is literally just a content dispute in a contentious topic area which has gotten out of hand. Content disputes in such subjects are not unexpected/infrequent and sometimes editors who are party to one − myself included − make errors in judgment. That is absolutely not a suitable justification for a site ban unless said error is particularly eggregious. Personally, I think everyone involved should just take a step back, take some time to cool off for a day or two, then come back to the table to discuss the issue and sort out the underlying problem. I don't think anyone who is a party to this dispute is currently acting in an appropriate manner for the purpose of dispute resolution; dispute resolution involves identifying underlying issues, correctly interpreting and applying relevant content policy, and trying to find common ground. In other words, take some time to cool off and make the effort to talk it out; do not neglect engaging in a discussion with all involved parties on a talk page or escalate further argument by making baseless inflammatory accusations pertaining to behavioral policies, applying unfaithful interpretations of content policy as justifications, or otherwise undermining the dispute resolution process. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 05:52, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - The basis for this complaint is invalid. There is quite literally nothing wrong with performing a unilateral blank-and-redirect in good faith, per both deletion and redirection policies. If such an act is contested, it can be reverted and discussed and proceed to dispute resolution, just like any other content dispute. As a matter of policy, and contrary to the OP's claims, it is not considered to be either disruptive or an inappropriate circumvention of deletion process. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 23:15, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - No good reason given. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:11, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. As other's have mentioned, the basis of the complaints were invalid, and the doubling down trying to get a site ban after the initial section didn't gain traction looks like battleground behavior that has no place in a DS topic. If RoySmith was actually a regular in the topic I'd suggest a WP:BOOMERANG in the form of either a topic ban or interaction ban for RoySmith to try to settle the topic down, so I'd at least suggest a decent sized WP:TROUT instead.

My understanding based on when I see QuackGuru's editing pop up here is that QuackGuru often acts through WP:STEWARDSHIP in e-cig topics, and those in content disputes with Quack are trying to portray that as WP:OWN here instead. If advocacy is still a problem in this subject that gets stewards acting terse while still engaging in discussion (which seems to be the case when you look at diffs or lack thereof vs. claims made at this ANI about Quack), the DS need to be enforced more stringently to the cut to the source of the disruption. I haven't seen anything presented here that indicates Quack is a true source of disruption in the topic (and I'd change my mind if I did), much less the entire project. This ANI reads as an attempt at a gotcha of a frustrated editor in order to win a content dispute though. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:52, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose: I fail to see a legitimate policy-based reason for this suggested sanction. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 14:45, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

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

Propose small measures applying to all parties

(originally part of ban discussion) QuackGuru is a bit of a Wikidragon, and does write large amounts of content. As BlueRaspberry points out, this is an area in which content is expected to move slowly, so QG's wish to make drastic changes causes more conflict. I do not see QuackGuru as always being on the side of the evidence: short example. However, I do not see this as sufficient reason to ban. I'd suggest the following remedies, all of which should apply to everyone in this topic area, not just QuackGuru:

• the same standards should apply to one's own edits as one applies to the edits of others. Editors should avoid COI by not removing templates criticizing their own content, unless they have a good-faith belief that the problem has been fixed (not the belief that it never existed).
• we should not template things that are easier to fix than to template.
• fv tags may be hard to understand. Inline tags in this topic area should have a informative |reason= parameter, and may be deleted if none is supplied by an editor aware of the need.
• all edits in this controversial area should initially be made incrementally. Only after incremental addition of content fails should an RfC be used to add the content. An RFC should not be started before the matter and the RfC question have been discussed on the talk page.
• any non-minor edits suggested by declared COI editors should seek talk page consensus before inclusion in the article.
• long reverts, especially reverts of several weeks of complex good-faith edits by multiple editors, should be clearly labeled as "reversion to version of [timestamp]". Discussion should not be avoided.
• it is not OK to follow the letter of rules, but circumvent their spirit. Misuses of process, such as getting a consensus for deleting an article in order to replace it with a version one has already written, should not be undertaken.
• in this controversial area, we should avoid doing things that curtail or hide talk discussions, such as needless discussion forking, manual archiving, and using WP:G7 to delete and immediately recreate pages.
• DS notifications, formal or informal, should not be repeated more than once a year, or made in a way that implies personal criticism or threat. Generally, the matter should only be raised with the formal template.
• per Wikipedia:Citation overkill, two or three citations may be used to support a single sentence. Per convention, different citations may be used to support different parts of the same sentence. Where it is simple, these citations should be separated so that it is obvious what section of the sentence they support (for instance, a citation at the end of each clause: Smith said X[1], and Jones said Y[2]). Where this would contort the sentence structure or otherwise impede readability, Template:Refn may be used to insert a note clarifying which fact comes from which source.

Is there anyone who feels that their editing would be seriously hindered by following these guidelines? HLHJ (talk) 15:10, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Proposed editing restrictions short of a ban

I don't think a ban as justified at the moment, but having read this thread its clear that QG's approach to editing in this is not without problems. Accordingly I think restrictions should of a topic ban should be tried first - I'm thinking perhaps in the eCigs topic area:

1. 1 revert restriction.
2. A revert of anything that is not self-evidently vandalism or a personal attack must be explained on the relevant talk page.
3. Prohibition on converting an article to a redirect. They may propose merging and/or redirecting on the talk page, and they may nominate for deletion.
4. Prohibition on moving any page to or from draftspace. They may propose doing so on the talk page.
5. No significant addition or removal of content without first getting consensus on the talk page.
6. No placing tags (including failed verification and citation needed) on an article without first either (a) rewording the content to match the source, and/or (b) attempting to find (alternative) sources that do verify the content. In all cases the actions must come with explanation that allows other editors to understand both what the problem is and the reason for it - including use of the reason= parameter. Thryduulf (talk) 16:00, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• support Andy Dingley (talk) 16:41, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
• oppose per reasons given in previous section by half a dozen editors, to restrict such a capable editor is not beneficial to anyone--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:48, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Being "capable" is not enough - you need to be able to work with others in a collaborative environment. Without restrictions QG is not, presently, able to do that per all the evidence in this and previous discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 23:01, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• Ive worked w/ QG on Vaping-associated pulmonary injury which is all over the news, there have been some 17 deaths(and cases here in the U.S. and Canada) we both worked together to form/create the best article with the current information available on this condition... that is being capable--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:48, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

• Unable to support "No significant addition or removal of content without first getting consensus on the talk page." Not clear what "significant" means. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:49, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @Doc James: instead of throwing out the whole thing over a minor detail, propose either a way to determine what "significant" means or propose an alternative. This isn't dissimilar to the attitude that's causing many of the problems in this topic area. Thryduulf (talk) 23:01, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
    • User:Thryduulf I have received death threats via twitter and requests that my university fire me for my editing of e-cig content. To say it mildly this is a controversial topic area with editors with financial conflicts attempting to suppress concerns (to be clear I am not making this claim about anyone involved in this discussion currently). Well QuackGuru and I do not always agree we are generally able to find something we can both live with. Of your suggestions which I have numbered I would support the 6th (but I would support it for all involved). Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:50, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
      • That is horrible. I'm sorry you are both dealing with death threats and intimidation. It says something that anyone edits in this area voluntarily.

Thryduulf, are you thinking of some limit on the proportion of the article, or number of facts, changed in a given period? I said "incremental" above, which is not much more concrete than "non-significant"; I meant changes submitted to the article as they are written, and not en-masse. Belatedly, I think there might a problem with WP:FIXED here. Reverting excessively large undiscussed edits is an option, but then the article still turns into a series of RfCs about warring versions, rather than a collaboration. I'd prefer RfCs about individual concepts of content, not entire articles; the discussion is apt to be more substantive, and the end article better. It might get us a bit farther from arguing over sourcing rules, and towards assessing balance of evidence. Maybe we could try presenting an argument for both sides in discussion, reciprocally? Sadly, I've found myself spending more time on the less content-concerned discussions, like this one, simply because they are more antagonistic and thus clamour for attention. HLHJ (talk) 03:51, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Why do you "prefer RfCs about individual concepts of content, not entire articles"? Is it because I proposed a draft and I gained consensus to replace the older versions with the expanded version? Read this comment: "there are so many problems with the main article that it is a bit shameful WP allows work like this to remain."[24] Editors were disappointed with the older version. User:Sunrise closed the RfC. See Talk:Heat-not-burn product/Archive_8#Older_versions_or_expanded_version. QuackGuru (talk) 04:46, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

@Doc James: I am not attempting to defend or downplay any of that behaviour from SPAs et al, it is indefensible, but none of that excuses the bad behaviour exhibited by QG. Proposal 6 (thanks for numbering them by the way, that is helpful) could indeed be applied to editors generally - and discretionary sanctions are authorised for the topic area. However I don't think that alone gets to the heart of the issues with QG's editing.
@HLHJ: I don't regard proportion of an article as a useful measure as it categorises rewriting two sentences of a one-paragraph stub is vastly more significant than rewriting two sentences of an article that is multiple pages long, yet the effect of the changes may be more significant on the latter (depending on the detail, obviously). Number of facts changed is a better measure, but again it depends on the detail - if you're updating figures to match the latest released version of statistics everyone agrees are relevant then that is really only one change despite many different facts being changed and in many circumstances wont be controversial. However changing just one fact by switching from one source to a different one could be very significant, especially if one or both are (allegedly) partisan. It really needs to be something like "does this materially change what is being said?" or "is the source used to verify what I'm adding/removing/changing controversial?" and if the answer is yes, then it's a significant change, and if the answer is no then it wont be in most circumstances.
@QuackGuru: RfCs only really work when the question being asked is focused and specific. This is almost always vastly easier to achieve when dealing with individual items of content than dealing with whole articles. The comment you quote is a good example of one that is unfocussed and woolly essentially to the point of being useless. Be specific - explain what the problem is, why its a problem, what would be better and why that would be better. Then do the same for the next problem. Thryduulf (talk) 09:55, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

The HNB article was like a stub by my standard. There was little content in the lede and the writing was incoherent. My proposal was to expand every section of the article. HLHJ was still complaining about the article after I expanded it. The solution was to start specific RfCs to resolve the remaining disputes. There was a previous RfC that was malformed. See Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive_7#RfC on solid tobacco heated using external heat sources. Those issues were unresolved. I eventually started RfCs to address the concerns. I left it up to the community to decide. See Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive_10#IQOS_content and see other RfCs such as Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive_10#Pyrolyse. QuackGuru (talk) 15:09, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

• oppose Agree with Ozzie10aaaa and Doc James. I also agree that QG has problem behavior. But this is not the solution. Cloudjpk (talk) 17:02, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
  • So what is? Thryduulf (talk) 23:01, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
    • I've added proposed editing restrictions for e-cigsCloudjpk (talk) 21:01, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support per nom. I personally don't want to see QG banned, and I think this is a reasonable stopgap measure. — Ched (talk) 10:27, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Doc James. I've had a fair bit of contact with QG. I won't deny QG can be a little stubborn and pedantic, but I've never had cause for a second to think he is biased. He genuinely has neutrality and the interests of the encyclopedia at heart and these proposed sanctions are an over-reaction. -- Begoon 10:37, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I too don't doubt QG's motives, but that doesn't mean his behaviour is not disruptive. Thryduulf (talk) 15:05, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Honestly, I think banning QG from ecigs would be a net positive for him and the project. Of all the editors with whom I agree (and I do agree with almost everything he writes), he is the closest I have come to asking for a siteban. Guy (help!) 11:21, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I am doing a fair amount of editing across multiple e-cig articles. There is bound to be some conflict with the amount of editing I have been doing. The RfCs helped resolve the issues. You closed two of the RfCs. See Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive_10#WHO_claim and see Talk:Electronic_cigarette/Archive_31#Nicotine_and_Passive_vaping_sections. QuackGuru (talk) 15:09, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - As I said above, the complaint is invalid. There is quite literally nothing wrong with this user performing a unilateral blank-and-redirect, per both deletion and redirection policies. As a matter of policy, and contrary to the OP's claims, it is not considered to be either disruptive or an inappropriate circumvention of deletion process. It should be treated like any other content dispute, not dragged to AN/I. Looking at the above section, this was already pointed out, and the OP seems to be ignoring it. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 23:20, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

  I don't think I support this proposal but as I think the first person to point out redirection does not need an AFD and may not even need discussion (05:58, 27 September 2019), can't say I agree QuackGuru did nothing wrong. As me, DocJames and others have said, calling it a hoax was clearly wrong. Firstly while the article had problems, it was not a hoax. Regardless of the merits of the blank and redirect, you can't just go around using misleading summaries when doing so. It confuses the hell out of other editors and provides no understanding of why you did the blank and redirect. Frankly no edit summary would be better than the one they provided. QuackGuru was an experienced editor, so they should have recognised this was not a hoax and they should have not called it one. Second, if QuackGuru genuinely believed the article was a hoax, then simply blanking and deleting was not the solution. Perhaps blanking and deleting was okay as an interim measure, but they should have immediately moved to having the article deleted after that. We cannot allow hoax articles to hang around in main space lest people accidentally or intentionally revert to them, or copy their content. Nil Einne (talk) 22:01, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

  Please see my updated edit summary. QuackGuru (talk) 23:47, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

  Your second edit summary was better but still somewhat unclear. The fact that a blog is used or some of the content failed verification is not itself a reason to blank and redirect. AFAIK at least some of the content did match the citation. You seem to have a decent level of English, so I have no idea why you couldn't have just left an edit summary like "Blanking as most of the content appears to fail verification" if that was your opinion. Frankly though, if you had just left the second edit summary the first time around I think me and at least some others wouldn't care so much. Again, as an experienced editor you should not need someone bugging you on your talk page to tell you how utterly confusing your first edit summary was. Further (other than the updated summary) AFAIK you never provided an comment on your use of such an utterly confusing edit summary or at least you hadn't on the original ANI discussion despite having multiple days to do last I checked. And as I said elsewhere it's not like you were super busy doing something else, you were able to directly respond to people who posted to the ANI when you had issues with what they said. A simple "sorry I was wrong to call it a hoax, don't know what I was thinking" or whatever would have at least provided some clue you recognised the problem. Ultimately though, whatever you did do afterwards, my main point stands which is I disagree that you did nothing wrong since you did initially use that edit summary and it took someone asking on your talk page for any clarification. Nil Einne (talk) 10:50, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per DocJames. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:21, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Swarm, DocJames, and others. Discretionary sanctions are already in effect in the topic, and any restrictions through them should apply to all editors, not just one who actually seems to be following WP:FOC here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:52, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support: But definitely would also strongly support a compromise in specifics with the issues presented by Doc James and those who feel similarly as I feel their concerns have merit. Waggie (talk) 23:02, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose: per the good Doc James. Significance differs from person to person, and there's really nothing wrong with what QuackGuru did, as Swarm rightly notes. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 21:42, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support Thryduulf's proposal, largely with the same feeling as Guy. If "don't place tags without genuinely trying to WP:SOFIXIT first" is too complicated, then a full TBAN is an option. For context, I just had a long and frustrating chat at WT:MED (until I gave up, because life's too short to keep explaining simple facts to people who are very highly motivated to not listen). In this conversation, Quack was apparently able to look at images like this shield-shaped product and this long, skinny one and still desperately trying to convince everyone that "different sizes and shapes" was a hopelessly unverifiable claim that urgently needed to be removed from the article. I don't think that the inability to see what's plainly in front of your nose is either "nothing wrong" (to quote Javert2113's description) or what we need in an editor who gravitates to controversial subjects. I'm thinking about the intersection of WP:COMPETENCE, WP:THERAPY, and WP:BOGO: If you are unable or unwilling to admit that those products aren't all the same size and and shape, then I really don't think that the rest of the community should spend this many hours (for years and years and years – has anyone ever written a complete list of the many previous bans and restrictions?) to you overcome your limitations. I'm perfectly willing to take names for the list of volunteer mentors, though. If others really want to dedicate their wiki-lives to mediating these questions, then that's okay with me. "Y'all should just put up with his rigid thinking and obsessiveness and find ways to work around it. I'm gonna go do something easier and more fun" isn't what the project needs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:15, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per DocJames and BMK. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 11:01, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Swarm. Buffs (talk) 15:24, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
• No point. I assure you on the basis of extensive personal experience that you will never change QG's behaviour. No amount of handwringing or exhortation will have the slightest effect. Tbanning him will work; any other sanction is exactly the same as doing nothing. And Tban proposals relating to this editor never get any traction. QG does genuinely good work fending off advocates and SPAs. This makes him useful to MEDRS, and thus editors active in MEDRS appreciate him and show up to defend him against Tbans (although most of them will acknowledge that he does display some behavioural problems). I personally raised this with Arbcom in 2015 and they couldn't change him. Neither can AN/I. This is why we have QG --- one of Wikipedia's most often-sanctioned editors, and a person with massive control issues and extreme IDHT, running off the leash and hounding away editors who demonstrate considerably better judgement than he does. I still hope that maybe one day QG will do something so egregious that his MEDRS buddies can't save him, but it is not this day.—S Marshall T/C 02:46, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I use quality sources including MEDRS-compliant sources such as reviews.
  • You suggested others were IDHT about sources.[25] What about you? You repeatedly deleted a review and replaced it with popular press sources.[26][27] QuackGuru (talk) 04:13, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
    • The fact that you're answering with whataboutery is telling. If you believe there's a problem with my edits, please do open an AN/I on me. I've always welcomed community scrutiny.

      Listen, QG: you do use good sources, almost always. Specifically, you go through the good sources, you find a statistic, you cite the statistic extremely thoroughly, you attribute it carefully, and you insert it into the article next to other statistics about the same topic. This produces something that looks superficially like a paragraph of text, but isn't. A QG "paragraph" is in fact a bullet-point list of statistics that's been disguised by removing the bullets. And the paragraphs you remove -- the paragraphs other editors want to insert and you edit-war to prevent -- are the paragraphs that move beyond the premises that you love so much and onto thesis and conclusion. When editors want to do this you behave as if they want to violate NPOV, when in fact all they're trying to do is make an article that fucking well goes somewhere. And the IDHT in this is because I've told you all this before, and you ignore whatever I say because it's me saying it.—S Marshall T/C 18:02, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

      • You have not provided a single diff. But I provided diffs.[28][29] You supported this. The proposal made no sense. The entire e-cigarette aerosol article was deleted and replaced with some content from other articles. I started a real RfC. All those edits were undone. See the expanded new article. QuackGuru (talk) 18:38, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
        • It's absolutely true. I've provided no diffs. I said that you're one of Wikipedia's most sanctioned editors. Nobody who's got any business closing AN/I discussions will have got all the way down to here without checking that point, so diffs are needless. I've described your behaviour accurately, and that's easily checkable from the diffs provided by others. And I've given a recommendation to the closer, which is that there's no point giving you sanctions that fall short of a topic ban. Arbcom weren't able to rein you in, discretionary sanctions weren't able to rein you in, and in fact your disciplinary log is clear evidence that nothing short of a topic ban will make the slightest difference to your behaviour. And you're responding with diffs from four years ago that Arbcom have already seen and dealt with by way of a resounding yawn.—S Marshall T/C 13:55, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
          • Arbcom has not seen and dealt with you removing a 2014 review in May 2016. Why did you replace a review with popular press articles?[30][31] A review is a higher quality source than popular press articles.
          • See a random diff from 2017: "Some researchers and anti-tobacco advocates are concerned that irresponsible marketing could make e-cigarettes appeal to young people.[81][57]"[32] You claimed the sources verify "anti-tobacco advocates". Where does the sources verify "young people"? You think authors of e-cig research are "anti-tobacco advocates"? You don't like the word youth? Is it because marketing to youth has a negative connotation for the e-cig industry? Now there is an entire section on marketing to youth in a new article.
          • Citation 81 verifies "E-cigarette marketing may entice adults and children. Citation 52 verifies "E-cigarettes may appeal to youth because of their high-tech design, large assortment of flavors, and easy accessibility online."
          • You previously stated "QG does genuinely good work fending off advocates and SPAs." Do you acknowledge you added content that failed verification? QuackGuru (talk) 14:20, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
            • Lol, I acknowledge that I've often added content that fails your interpretation of verification. You think that anything that isn't directly taken from an academic source is inadmissible. Incidentally, the reason why WP:V explicitly tells you not to violate copyright is because nearly ten years ago, I personally put that in. Nowadays my original phrase has become a whole paragraph, because people citing sources too exactly has been a serious problem.

              As I said, if you think my edits are problematic then you're welcome to open an AN/I on me below: I'll happily respond to them there. But this thread is about your behaviour.—S Marshall T/C 20:23, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Proposed editing restrictions for e-cigs

A key part of the problem is unsourced and failed verification content. Accordingly I suggest these restrictions on policy violations:

1. Prohibition on unsourced content. If there is no citation at the end of the claim it is considered unsourced content
2. Prohibition on failed verification content. If the citation does not completely verify the claim it is considered failed verification content.

Anyone violating these restrictions more than once in a one week period is topic banned. They would have to be warned about the first violation before they would be topic banned for the second violation.

• Support. Cloudjpk (talk) 21:01, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Missing the whole point. No-one is trying to push unverifiable content here. Rather QuackGuru is using that as a dogwhistle complaint against our normal standards for what really constitutes "unreliable" or "failed" sourcing. To implement this would be to also give them a tban-on-request stick against other editors, contrary to all our normal TBAN process. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:50, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
  • For almost all content related to nicotine, it is against our normal standards to add or restore "unreliable" sources and "failed" content. See WP:MEDCITE. QuackGuru (talk) 23:20, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Andy Dingley. There is no need to define unsourced content and/or failed verification any differently to the way it's done everywhere else on the encyclopaedia. Indeed, doing so would likely do more harm than good. Thryduulf (talk) 22:58, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
  • !00% of the content in Electronic cigarette is sourced and it is peppered with hundreds of MEDRS-compliant reviews. Following V policy is very simple, IMO. QuackGuru (talk) 23:20, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support This is already the case everywhere. WP:V: Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed. And it is a blockable offence to restore it without a valid source. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:09, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
  • "Violating" WP:BURDEN is not generally considered a blockable offense, especially, and most relevantly, when we're talking about restoring blanked content that (a) doesn't actually need a source according to any editor except one who wants every single sentence followed by an inline citation to a plagiarized or near-plagiarized reliable source, or (b) the content is already cited elsewhere in the article. Wikipedia:Tendentious editing and Wikipedia:Disruptive editing will both get you blocked, though. Have a look at Quack's very lengthy block log if you want proof of what we actually block editors for. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:29, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support both 1 and 2. There are issues with unverifiable content being added and restored here. Recently sourced content has been replaced with failed verification.[33][34] There was a RfC about the safety content. See Talk:Electronic_cigarette/Archive_31#Safer_than_tobacco_claim. I started RfCs to deal with failed verification content. For example, see Talk:Heat-not-burn_product/Archive_10#Pyrolyse. If anyone feels that their editing would be seriously hindered by following verifiability policy then maybe they should not be editing this topic area. This will help with behavior modification and to cut our losses with repeat offenders. QuackGuru (talk) 23:20, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support - It is not quite correct to say that this is already the case throughout Wikipedia. WP:V doesn't prohibit unsourced content, it can be added to articles, but is subject to removal at any time, and can't then be restored without a source. That's not the same thing as is being proposed here, which is that unsourced content is prohibited from being added in the first place. There are no sanctions specified (which is a problem with the proposal) but I would assume that any editor making multiple infractions of this would be subject to blocks. I do wonder, though, if it would not be better simply to place E-cigs under community general sanctions as a tidier solution. (See WP:General sanctions#Community-authorised sanctions for a list of currently active community-imposed general sanctions.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:19, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @Beyond My Ken: Per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Editor conduct in e-cigs articles#Discretionary sanctions the previous Community-authorised sanctions for this topic area were withdrawn and replaced by arbcom discretionary sanctions. Thryduulf (talk) 13:37, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
    • Ah, thank you, I wasn't aware of that. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:56, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @Beyond My Ken: maybe I've misunderstood what you're saying but this proposal explicitly says (and said [35]) "Anyone violating these restrictions more than once in a one week period is topic banned" if they've been warned. Once an editor is topic banned, the norm is they will be subject to escalating blocks if they edit in violation of their topic ban. Technically this doesn't cover people who violate these restrictions once every week but such gaming of restrictions tends to be dealt with the same as violating them. Nil Einne (talk) 22:24, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support: Clearly QuackGuru is a little too aggressive in this topic area, and hasn't backed down from that stance despite people raising concerns. Waggie (talk) 02:28, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

So you want to give them the power to TBAN opposing editors, just on their say-so? Did you intend your support comment to apply to the proposal it's tagged beneath? Andy Dingley (talk) 14:56, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

DS are already in effect in the topic, so "opposing" editors (or anyone) can be topic banned if their behavior is disruptive, contributing to a battleground mentality, or causing other editors to be terse. For instance, when an editor such as Andy Digley exhibits battleground behavior in their comments at this ANI towards QuackGuru, that can be a good indication to admins that they should be topic or interaction-banned in order to cut down disruption in the topic. I went looking at the talk pages to try to verify some of your claims about Quack, but I'm already seeing some hounding of Quack on the talk pages here and here where you're unable to WP:FOC at article talk pages and more interested in hounding QuackGuru who actually was engaging in content. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:52, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Hi Andy Dingley, not based on someone's say-so. Concern has been raised, and after reviewing the situation QuackGuru is, in my opinion, clearly overly aggressive in this topic area, based on own behavior. I also do believe that you are correct in that I posted my support in the incorrect proposal here. I have struck my support here. I support Thrydulff's proposal, as I believe that will yield sufficient results in this situation. Waggie (talk) 23:00, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support the ideas in theory, but the discertionary sanctions should already be tamping down or removing editors that are causing problems in these two areas, so any admin can enforce this already. Given the battelground behavior I'm seeing at this ANI that appears to be mostly one-sided after not looking at an e-cig page for some years, it's clear the discretionary sanctions need to be enforced in general to cut that behavior out. I'm mostly seeing QuackGuru sticking to content while others are more focused on QuackGuru here, so fixing the latter battlegrounding should alleviate some of the terseness coming from QuackGuru (which isn't sanctionable in the first place). I'd sure stick to focusing on content and not responding to WP:BAITING comments like in this section. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:52, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Battleground? I'd remind you that QuackGuru began this by falsely describing this as "Redirect non-notable hoax article.". It is not acceptable to attack multiple other editors like this and to accuse them of creating hoaxes. This isn't merely a difference of opinion, it's an accusation of fraudulent editing. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:40, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

What did the updated edit summary state? QuackGuru (talk) 22:47, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Funny looking sort of apology. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:02, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose - using a sledgehammer to crack the wrong nut. Will cause more trouble, not less. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 21:07, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Near the start of this thread, WhatamIdoing stated, "It's my impression that QuackGuru is very frequently concerned that anything short of plagiarism might not be true enough to the cited source." I've seen QuackGuru do this various times, and his odd interpretation of verification has gotten him in plagiarism trouble before. As seen here, an editor brought plagiarism to his attention. Also, here in a different ANI thread, Doc James stated, "They closely follows sources which is generally a good thing. Agree with the concerns around them adding FV tags as sometimes it is appropriate to paraphrase more." Needless to state, his faulty "failed verification" tags are a big issue. Somehow QuackGuru got it in his head that we can't summarize a source's words, like we are supposed to do if not quoting the source and if WP:LIMITED doesn't apply. If an editor uses their own words to summarize a source's text, you can expect QuackGuru to add a "failed verification" tag. This has got to stop. It is one of the more problematic aspects of his editing. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:04, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose the requirement that every fact be followed by a citation. The table that User:HLHJ put above is, in my experience, a remarkably accurate illustration of what's Quack wants. We need well-writing articles that contain verifiable contents and present all perspectives in WP:DUE weight. The overall goal is almost unrelated to whether or not there's an inline citation after every piece of terminal punctuation. Nobody wants {{fv}} content. The problem here is what happens when one editor perseverates in declaring a fact to have failed verification after multiple other editors tell him that he's wrong. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:21, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:NOTPERFECT. These restrictions are too onerous. Buffs (talk) 18:19, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. No need when arbcom DS are in effect anyway - this would just add more surface area to wikilawyer about. Alexbrn (talk) 14:00, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Malyasian IP attacks Singaporeans

See archived link at wp:ANI: [36][37][38]

• 2001:D08:2082:72C9:1:0:C89:93B6 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
  
• 2001:D08:1013:B64A:1:2:84C3:E309 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
  

Vandalism by Unintelligible personal attack. Gundam5447 (talk) 15:09, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Blocked these two for 48h--Ymblanter (talk) 15:29, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

@Ymblanter: This is a long-term problem (search AN and ANI for "2001:d08") that I think could benefit from a longer-term rangeblock. At Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1019#Malayasian IP attacks Singaporeans, I've identified the seven (of 256) /40 ranges within 2001:d08::/32 that are the source of the problem. I think this user does more damage by attacking other IPs than any possible inconvenience that may occur to others in that range that would have to create accounts. IIRC, they also perform lots of unsourced, mostly chinese-language edits to Singaporean television shows that I doubt are getting any sort of verification. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 16:45, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

I am familiar with the problem, but I prefer to leave range blocks to administrators who can better estimate the effect of collateral damage from the range block.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:54, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

• 2001:D08:DB:E328:BD96:FAC1:2763:881B (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
  
• 2001:D08:1201:4640:1:0:4662:F7A2 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
  
• 2001:D08:2080:C2E5:1:0:2EED:6164 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
  

Vandalism by Unclear personal attack. Even if I warn, an IP address is changed and repeated. Gundam5447 (talk) 09:33, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

• 2001:D08:1030:BAD4:1:0:955D:8D38 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
  
• 2001:D08:1281:F0E5:1:0:53D5:6348 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
  

Vandalism by Persistent impersonation. Even if I warn, an IP address is changed and repeated. Gundam5447 (talk) 13:44, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Pilose399

WP:SPA and probable WP:COI editor on Judge Rotenberg Educational Center. The user is whitewashing the facility's human rights violations. Most of this user's edits are reverts and he has never discussed on the talk page. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 17:21, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

This is clearly slow-motion edit warring from Pilose399 and, unless there's some compelling answer he gives here, given the lack of effort to discuss I think an indefinite block is in order; indefinite in this case would mean until he agrees to discuss these edits on the talkpage. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:32, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

And he continues to revert. The sooner this guy's banned, the better. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 19:31, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Bump. User continues to revert. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 15:42, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I warned him with You still have not responded or taken action to the inquiry regarding your appearance as an undisclosed paid editor. If you make any additional edits without complying you may be blocked from editing. Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:19, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

WP:NOTHERE by 68.198.161.155

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

I'm not even fully sure what to do with this, but this ip editor does not appear to be here to build an encyclopedia. If they are, they certainly are unable to adopt a WP:NPOV. Looking at the IP editor's block log, edit summaries, and filter log, they have a history of disruptive editing. While I gave them a level-3 warning just now, I think that the editing history strongly suggests this is one individual who, having received multiple warnings and one block, does not need a repeat of escalating warnings before a block. EvergreenFir (talk) 04:45, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Blocked for one week. El_C 04:55, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Appears to be a sock of indefinitely blocked user Jb3842. See this previous discussion (pinging @Tgeorgescu: and @DMacks:) Dorsetonian (talk) 06:55, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@El C: Thanks!

@Dorsetonian: Good catch. I'll keep an eye on the IP. EvergreenFir (talk) 00:00, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Yup. Not even slightly HERE. DMacks (talk) 02:51, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Edit warring in Operation Peace Spring/2019 Rojava offensive

• 2019 Rojava offensive (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• A4516416 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Vanilla Wizard (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Takinginterest01 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Sakura Cartelet (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 86.50.68.196 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This page is currently subject to community sanctions as part of the Syrian Civil War, which I'm informed limits users to 1 revert of logged-in users every 24 hrs.

There appears to be substantial dissent over a variety of topics [especially the page name], resulting in users User_talk:A4516416, User:Takinginterest01, User:Sakura_Cartelet, and IP address User_talk:86.50.68.196 appearing to exceed the 1 revert/day limit.

I don't feel qualified to comment on whether the reverts in question are of clear vandalism [which would not be subject to the sanctions], and so think that an administrator should ideally sort it out. Reyne2 (talk) 05:59, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Neither page had the {{Editnotice SCW 1RR}} editnotice present, I have added it now. I will warn the relevant users as well. However, users may not have been aware of this set of restrictions. ST47 (talk) 07:00, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Naturally, both sides immediately proceed to break 1RR again. I'll full protect the article if this keeps up. ST47 (talk) 07:30, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

No, it's better to issue blocks than fully-protect such a high profile article. Note: I had already semiprotected the article for one week. El_C 16:30, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Requesting different discretionary sanctions on 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria

Hello, the page 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria is under community sanctions of Limit of one revert per 24 hours restriction when reverting logged-in users on all pages related to the Syrian Civil War and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, broadly construed. I would say that such sanctions are detrimental when editors are adding live updates to the article about the ongoing battles. The additions just overwhelm 1RR. For proof of that, Slatersteven discussed that We are not a live news feed on the talk page, to which EkoGraf replied that We have always, for the past seven years, provided live updates as you put it regarding the capture of territory or casualties sustained during an offensive or a battle in the Syrian war. We also did the same thing during the previous two Turkish offensives into Syria. So there is no reason not to do so now as well. I’m thinking we need a different sanction, maybe 3RR plus consensus required for restoration of disputed material. starship.paint (talk) 00:22, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@El C, ST47, and Reyne2: who commented in the above. starship.paint (talk) 05:25, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Not the red text again — my poor eyes! Anyway, under what DS did you envision the new sanction to be applied as, instead? It seems that the most suitable restriction would be under the current SCW General Sanction. I have no objection to removing 1RR and applying consensus required, instead. El_C 05:46, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the text colour change (déjà vu!) El_C 05:55, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, this seems to fall under the Syrian Civil War since Turkey/SDF are participants... starship.paint (talk) 06:00, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Technically, I'm not sure how to even modify {{Editnotice SCW 1RR}}. I suppose it could substituted...(?) El_C 06:33, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

At any case, I would rather hold off until ST47, who applied the GS, weighs in. El_C 06:42, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Consensus required is fine, although I believe it's generally harder to police and allows more "gaming" than 1RR. However, this isn't like AE discretionary sanctions where an admin may place the sanction on a given article. The SCW/ISIL 1RR is automatic, just like the ARBPIA 1RR, consensus would be required in order to change it. And yes, we'd have to update the editnotice and talk notice templates to support this, as I don't believe it's been done before. ST47 (talk) 06:46, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Much as I agree that "consensus is required" can be gamed by obstruction I feel it may be the only way to deal with the tendency for the page to have every announcement by the Turkish media immediately put in no matter how trivial or transitory.Slatersteven (talk) 08:50, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

And the latest series of "but we must update with the latest news, its all out of date" renders 1RR meaningless.Slatersteven (talk) 14:33, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, since there hasn't been any objection, and I do see Slatersteven's point, shall we say For articles related to the 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria, where the standard 1RR restriction is overly detrimental due to live updates to a current event, an administrator may temporarily replace the 1RR restriction with the standard Consensus Required provision. The 1RR provision should be reinstated once the article is no longer receiving frequent updates. @El C:, @Slatersteven:, @Starship.paint:, sound reasonable to everyone? I shall see about updating a template. ST47 (talk) 20:47, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Sounds good. El_C 21:00, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

No objection. starship.paint (talk) 00:12, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• I object. This is exactly the sort of article that needs 1RR under the WP:GS/SCW&ISIL regime. The potential for conflict between editors is high, and live updates, produced amidst an information war between the relevant sides in the conflict, are likely to be unreliable. Wikipedia is not a news website. The priority should be on WP:V, and WP:NPOV, and these things are assisted by a slower editing pace, especially for such a controversial topic. Editors will still be able to update the article under the 1RR regime, provided they attain consensus for their edits. If none of the SCW&ISIL articles have required an exception to 1RR up until now, why should this article? RGloucester — ☎ 21:11, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

  @RGloucester:, it seems that the issue is that some editors are providing live updates using sources that other editors object to as non-neutral or unreliable. 1RR isn't slowing down the editors inserting that information, since each individual edit does use a different source to update a different fact. However, since this happens multiple times a day and to multiple different sections of the article, there isn't any practical way for editors to keep the POV/unreliable information out of the article, as they quickly exhaust their one revert per day. In a nutshell, with 1RR, the default state is inclusion of each new edit (either it is inserted and no one wants to use their 1 revert per day on it, or it is inserted, reverted, and reverted back), with Consensus Required, the default state of a controversial edit is no inclusion without consensus. ST47 (talk) 21:22, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

There are obvious solutions to that problem, available under WP:GS/SCW&ISIL. Semi-protect the article, if the problem is a bunch of new accounts or IPs. If it's established editors, issue topic bans to those repeatedly inserting non-neutral or unreliable content. Don't loosen restrictions when there is a problem with NPOV/reliability, ENFORCE the existing sanctions! RGloucester — ☎ 21:45, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@RGloucester: - you would topic ban editors for using Turkish sources in an article about Turkey? Just asking. starship.paint (talk) 00:12, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I would oppose such an act, what really needs to be done is to enforce wp:notnews. One way is to just say one edit per user per day.Slatersteven (talk) 09:13, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

ST47 said that editors are repeatedly inserting unreliable or non-neutral sources. If this is so, yes, they should be topic banned. If they are not doing this, their edits are no problem, and there is no reason for this discussion at all, and certainly no reason for lifting 1RR. It's up for the administrators enforcing sanctions to make a determination as to whether these edits are problematic or not, and if they are, stop them from being made. They can't just remain aloof and pretend to be neutral while articles are being filled with content not suitable for Wikipedia. RGloucester — ☎ 09:18, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Rogue or mistaken deletion of my sandbox

My sandbox was deleted because I supposedly asked to delete it [39]

In fact, I never asked to delete my sandbox. Why should I?

--Zadrali (talk) 10:26, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Except of course you did ask for the sandbox to be deleted. I have restored it now. In future please be more careful and approach the deleting admin first before coming to ANI. GiantSnowman 10:33, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

77.162.226.226

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

I would strongly recommend that an administrator checks all the edits made by a long term IP vandal 77.162.226.226, many of which I have just reverted as they were either definitely or possibly incorrect. Their edits seem to be nothing short of vandalism or deliberate inclusions of incorrect information. ― C.Syde (talk | contribs) 10:58, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I have blocked for 31 hours and other editors have reverted all their edits. If the problem returns after the block expires, please report to WP:AIV. -- Ed (Edgar181) 14:27, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Idf22341 claiming a Wikipedia Employee ID #

As of this version of User:Idf22341, and this version of User talk:Idf22341, this user has claimed a "Wikipedia Employee ID #." Surely this can't be allowed? (As a side note, the user is already listed a Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Farsi15 and, as of this moment, WP:AIV. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 11:36, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I indef blocked Idf22341 for the obvious block evasion. -- Ed (Edgar181) 11:48, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

On keeping off talk pages

Would someone please have a word with User:Notrium, who is persistently needling me on my talk page? - MrOllie (talk) 12:47, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

• Couple of points:
  1. Removing that link wasn't "vandalism" as Notrium claims. It's just an editing dispute.
  2. Personally I think the link is a little bit spammish but mostly benign.
  3. If you don't want Notrium posting on your talk page, simply remove their posts every time they make one. They'll soon get the hint. Reyk _YO! 13:02, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

In looking at this discussion it looks like User:Notrium has the support of an administrator as well as well. You might want to read what C.Fred's saying to you carefully. (struck for being incorrect) It looks like C. Fred is supporting Mr. Ollie as well, however Notrium's point is well taken, it's not "your talk page" and people can still talk to you under certain circumstances. Necromonger...We keep what we kill 13:05, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

This is a novel interpretation of "So I endorse MrOllie's removal." - MrOllie (talk) 13:06, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

(ec) Eh? It looks to me as though C.Fred is agreeing with Mr. Ollie. Reyk _YO! 13:07, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) I recently learned the hard way that ignoring a "stay away" (under WP:NOBAN) carries at least the appearance of WP:Harassment and even if you have a good reason (or think you have a good reason) to ignore the NOBAN request, doing so invites a lot more trouble than its worth. See also removal of other people's comments per WP:OWNTALK NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:04, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Further, accusing an editor of vandalism due to a disagreement over content is a personal attack. Notrium should be made aware that further such claims could lead to blocks. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:38, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I didn't specifically mention blocks, but I mentioned that it could be interpreted as harassment. I also encouraged them to continue the discussion somewhere other than MrOllie's user talk. —C.Fred (talk) 17:12, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

And they have complied; it's on my user talk now. Bishonen | talk 15:59, 12 October 2019 (UTC).

Death threat by 201.231.232.178

The above IP made an apparent death threat ("shoots the head") in an edit summary ([40]). TomCat4680 (talk) 13:11, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I have blocked this IP address for a period of 1 week for vandalism and inappropriate edit summaries. Mz7 (talk) 13:22, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Nate Speed. If the IP is static, a longer block may be warranted. -- Ed (Edgar181) 14:56, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

That's a different LTA, actually. They're similar in some respects, but Nate Speed doesn't care about Regular Show. This one mostly adds hoaxes to cartoons that have ended their run. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:36, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Is there a better place than this for long complaints?

I'm putting together a notification/complaint which is turning out to be lengthy, not least because it draws on extensive sources. I don't want to post it here if it's not the right place - what should I do? I've tried to edit it down and it's quite difficult. Vashti (talk) 14:38, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

@Vashti: This board is for urgent, or chronic and intractable behavioral problems. If that's what your report is, it should be made here. You could also post it on WP:AN. But regardless, I recommend you keep your post as short as possible. Folks just straight up don't read long WP:WALLs of text. Condense it to the most egregious diffs and let them speak for themselves. While there is no official word limit here, you may find the advice of WP:AE relevant: keep complaints under 500 words and 20 diffs. Captain Eek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 15:53, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

What about if it deals with off-wiki activity? Vashti (talk) 15:59, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

In that case I recommend you to send it to ArbCom by e-mail, arbcom-en@wikimedia.org. It's still worth keeping it as short as possible. Bishonen | talk 16:09, 10 October 2019 (UTC).

I will do that. Thank you. Vashti (talk) 16:15, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

BTW, to be clear, length aside, any complaints which involve off-wiki evidence should not generally be posted anywhere on wikipedia with a small number of exceptions. Nil Einne (talk) 06:09, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Tmayerferg101

This user continues to make unsourced additions to personnel sections in Depeche Mode articles despite receiving a final warning for this at the beginning of October. I didn't bother adding another one today because in all their time here, they have yet to explain or communicate the reasons for (what I believe to be) their disruptive behavior. Examples of their unsourced changes can be seen here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here & here with edits specifically focused on adding vocal or instrumental details to these sections. As someone that owns all the band's albums, I have yet to see these details in the artwork and the editor refuses to cite. Please could an admin remind the editor of the importance of WP:V. Robvanvee 15:00, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

These don't much appear to be unsourced: [41]. Many of the sources add note who was singing/playing the various songs. I would concur it isn't WELL-sourced and could be better, but I'm not seeing the level of disruption you're alleging. WP:NOTPERFECT applies. Buffs (talk) 18:08, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm not alleging anything that isn't the case as far as I can see. They make repeated unsourced changes and additions despite being reverted with explanatory edit summaries, have received a final warning for it and have yet to communicate at all on their talk page or any talk page for that matter regarding these issues. Furthermore, I'm not suggesting anything happen to this user other than a gentle reminder from an admin so please point out at what point exactly I allege any specific "level of disruption" from this editor? Robvanvee 18:19, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

While you are at it, please show me where this editor has ever cited a source? I'll show you where they have added spans of unsourced info to articles. Robvanvee 18:34, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Tmayerferg101's edits are clearly unsourced, and to an extent, disruptive. The sleeve notes of Depeche Mode's albums do not list individual credits/instruments for each band member, and if many of the sources do list such credits, how come Tmayerferg101 never cited these sources? Ever since this user started editing last October, not once did they provide an edit summary or cite a single source. Even when the user is reverted and/or warned, they never make an effort to communicate with others – instead, they simply resume their unsourced additions. snapsnap ^(talk) 19:24, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

When you're adding them to an info box, it's usually assumed it's in the text somewhere and isn't required per WP:LEAD. Buffs (talk) 22:25, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

You're completely missing the point. Did you even bother to check out the diffs Robvanvee provided? Tmayerferg101 doesn't even make changes to the infobox, they're just persistently adding content to the personnel section that is not supported by the album's sleeve notes or any other sources in the article. WP:LEAD does not apply here at all. Like I said, the user never cites sources, never justifies their edits and hasn't once made an effort to communicate with other editors. There's a clear case of disruption on Tmayerferg101's end. snapsnap ^(talk) 02:05, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I was using that as an example; sorry if I wasn't clear. These additions can all be sourced relatively easily and I don't see it as disruption. Buffs (talk) 15:41, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

That's beside the point and does not excuse Tmayerferg101's behavior. As it's been said a gazillion times, the user never cites sources or provides edit summaries – how is any of that constructive editing? WP:V states, "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution", which is something Tmayerferg101 has clearly failed to do. snapsnap ^(talk) 03:16, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

"Can be easily sourced" you say. Are you suggesting we run around after them adding sources to their edits? Do you understand the policy of verifiability as SnaSnap and I have have already pointed out? I feel like we are attempting to explain this to Tmayerferg101 and to you at this point...over and over. Please take the time to read this. It's a big part of Wikipedia. Robvanvee 09:44, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm well aware of WP:V. However, one could make the argument that this is self-evident from the subject of the article. It's like demanding a third-party source for an article about a book that says a book was published by XYZ publishing or that the author was John Smitty or that it's 496 pages or any other material that is literally part of the subject. It's all right there in the cover/credits, just look. The material here seems to fulfill all criteria in WP:SELFPUB (a part of WP:V), don't you agree? Buffs (talk) 16:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

No I don't and I'm tired of going around in circles. I've added 5 more diffs in case you have not had a chance to view their page of contributions and to be honest I'd rather an admin view the diffs and decide. Robvanvee 18:17, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Revoke talk page editing for 71.13.112.146

• 71.13.112.146 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

After a temporary protection by Yamla, the IP has continued to spam more unblock requests several days after. Can an admin either put an extended lock to the page or just revoke their talk page editing privileges for the remainder of the block? Thanks. theinstantmatrix (talk) 20:15, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

 Done Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 22:29, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Disruptive AfD behavior of User:Sk8erPrince at AfD Ryan O'Donohue article

Sk8erPrince was previously indefinitely blocked topic banned for 6 months for behavior at AfDs and then after the topic ban was lifted it was reinstated because Sk8erPrince the behavior. Next, Sk8erPrince was indefinitely blocked for creating a sock account to continue disruptive behavior at AfDs. It is unclear whether the topic ban for Sk8erPrince at AfD was ever lifted. Note: Both topic bans were lifted (the latest on Sept 1, 2019). however the tendentious editing and placing the repeated AfDs on the Ryan O'Donohue article is disruptive.

1. Sk8erPrince nominated the article Ryan O'Donohue in July 2017 for the first time and then received a Indefinite 6 month topic ban from any edits relating to deletion process on English Wikipedia August 5, 2017 The ban lasted 6 months. Here is the discussion and topic ban at WP:ANI The editor had the topic ban lifted and The Topic ban was then reinstated at ANI 18 days later. The editor again appealed and was given one final chance September 1, 2019.
2. While topic banned in (March 2018) Sk8erPrince started a sock account called MizukaS Specifically to nominate this article for AfD a second time. Sock Investigation confirmed at that time March 2018 User:Sk8erPrince was indeffed. Seems to have been unblocked September 2018?
3. Next Sk8erPrince nominated this article for a third time and is now WP:TENDENTIOUS and disruptive on the AfD. It is unclear whether or not the Indefinite topic ban from any edits relating to deletion process on English Wikipedia was ever lifted.

I propose Indefinite topic ban from any edits relating to deletion process on English Wikipedia

• Support as proposer Lightburst (talk) 03:34, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello there. I'm not sure why you thought an ANI report is necessary when you have made no attempts to discuss any issues you have with me on my talkpage. I consider myself to be someone that can be reasoned with, and I am open to other perspectives. Quoting one of the points at the top of this page...

Before posting a grievance about a user on this page:

*Take a look at these tips for dealing with incivility

*Consider first discussing the issue on the user's talk page

*Or try dispute resolution

In any case, since you decided to file the report with no warning, allow me to defend myself.

First of all, I would like to clarify that my Tban *did* get lifted through an AN discussion, which you could view here. That should ease any doubts regarding my AFD permissions. At the moment, I have a total number of zero editing restritions. Personally, I feel like you should have checked whether or not my TBan was actually lifted - after all, participating in deletion processes and discussions with a TBan is a serious offense, and I would be immediately sanctioned. The fact that you did not lowers the merit and credibility of your report.

Speaking of credibility, "Sk8erPrince was previously indefinitely blocked for behavior at AfDs and then was later indefinitely blocked for creating a sock account to continue disruptive behavior at AfDs" is factually incorrect. I was only ever indeffed once on this account. The first time I was blocked, it was for a duration of 6 months, and it was for civility issues rather than AFD (though my TBan was restored following the end of that discussion). Anyway, check my block log if you would like to double check.

Secondly, while I did sock as MizukaS in the past to circumvent AFD restrictions, I had already served my time with an indef block that lasted for 6 months before I successfully got it appealed. I understood that socking is wrong and deceitful and that if I wanted to participate in any deletion processes, I would have to appeal my TBan; which I did.

The only intent I had for the third and final AFD nomination of the Ryan O'Donohue article is to have a thorough discussion regarding the subject's notability. The first nomination was speedy closed because I had a Tban at the time, and the second one was closed because I was socking. They were closed due to procedural reasons; hence, there was never a proper AFD discussion for the subject. As the nominator, I remain unconvinced that the subject is notable; however, I will accept the outcome gracefully and I shall not renominate the subject for a 4th AFD discussion.

It is also important to note that AFD1 was conducted in July 2017, AFD2 was conducted in Februrary 2018, and AFD3 was nommed in September 2019. Individually, the AFDs are about 1 year apart from each other. Given the span of 2 years, there was plenty of time for editors to search for reliable sources and further expand the article. If I had renommed the article for AFD every single month, then there is an actual issue. In any case, given the thorough discussion in AFD3, there is no point in objecting the outcome; hence, there will not be a 4th AFD.

Lastly, I would like to clarify that I did not insult any of the editors that participated in the 3rd AFD; I simply disagreed by linking policy. In AFDs, there are bound to be agreements and disagreements. I have no objection to backing off of this particular discussion and let it run its course, since I had said my piece there already; and to also avoid blugeoning. I trust the closing adminstrator's judgement and I will not object the outcome.

PS: I would like to do a quick analysis of the AFD - basically, I was debating whether or not WP:NACTOR alone is enough to keep an article; I have reasonable doubts regarding that, so I challenged the Keep camp by asking for significant coverage regarding the subject. The only sources I was able to find were trivial mentions, and in my opinion, that does not qualify for WP:SIGCOV. Nowhere did I belittle them; it was simply a disagreement. Since the AFD is nearing its end, the closing adminstrator could determine which side has more merit. Sk8erPrince (talk) 04:38, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

You are correct about the first 6 month topic ban. However I have corrected the record to show that the ban was reinstated so you were twice topic banned. Lightburst (talk) 19:19, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose- Sk8erPrince is not under any current editing restrictions and their behaviour right now doesn't justify imposing a new one. I suspect this is more about removing someone with different opinions from the AfD process, than about any sort of actual disruption. Reyk _YO! 04:52, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• Comment Sk8erPrince has good point here that whatever else, your failure to talk to them over your concerns especially considering the age of most of what you highlighted makes opening an ANI discussing them questionable. Even more so since there seems to be no reason why you didn't talk to them, it's not like they banned you from their talk page or something. They had problems in the past but it's been a while now. If they're falling back into those problems and I'm not saying they are, then talk to them about it first. To illustrate the problem, you say "It is unclear whether or not the Indefinite topic ban from any edits relating to deletion process on English Wikipedia was ever lifted." Then the very next sentence you say "I propose Indefinite topic ban from any edits relating to deletion process on English Wikipedia". So basically your suggesting we hold a discussion over something which may be completely unnecessary. If Sk8erPrince is already topic banned, they can be reminded of their topic ban and unless they successfully appeal it, future violations can be enforced. As it turns out the topic ban was lifted, I'm sure you would know this if you asked Sk8erPrince about it. But you didn't. Nil Einne (talk) 05:54, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

  BTW, the comment number 1 is always also very confusing given your later comment. If Sk8erPrince was topicbanned for 6 months in 2017, then this topic ban will be over unless it was extended in some way but you did not highlight any extension. So there would be not "it is unclear", since it's clear. But the topic ban you highlighted (more direct link [42]) was not a topic ban lasting 6 months. It was a topic ban with a minimum of 6 months required before an appeal. (A very common requirement.) This is an important distinction. Nil Einne (talk) 06:06, 11 October 2019 (UTC) 12:49, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

  P.S. When I wrote the above, I wasn't aware the topic ban had only been lifted less then 2 months ago. This makes any return to past misbehaviour far more concerning. And looking at the AfD, the number of replies Sk8erPrince seems to have made does seem concerning. I still stick by my comment though, it's very difficult to assess an ANI when no attempt at communication has been made. In fact, in some ways, this further illustrates the problem. If you'd opened an ANI and told us 'they were topic banned, the topic ban being lifted on 1 September' this would be far more effective then 'they were topic banned, maybe they're still topic banned but let's hold a discussion over the exact same topic ban anyway'. Nil Einne (talk) 06:25, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Nil Einne, I understand that excessively responding to the opposing side of the debate constitutes as bludgeoning, which is why I clarified that I shall not comment on that AFD any further and let it run its course. In the future, I will make no attempt to refute *every single* Keep vote (or vice versa) in AFDs. I went overboard this time, and I admit that I could have done better. Ultimately, it is up to the closing admin to determine which side has the stronger arguments. --Sk8erPrince (talk) 06:40, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support topic ban, but only on Ryan O'Donohue-related topics I see little to no evidence of abuse beyond topics related to R O'D pbp 04:27, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussion about now corrected opening: Corrected to: Sk8erPrince was twice topic banned and reinstated, also Sk8erPrince was once indeffed for socking

@Nil Einne: I did tell them in the AfD to stop the behavior. And then I found out this has been a pattern with the user and it has resulted in a six month ban with a final warning. Seems the editor is determined to delete this article - even going so far as to create a sock account for that purpose. The editor is WP:BLUDGEONING the debate at AfD and here. To clarify - the editor was indeed ideffed for socking. But was given six month suspension for the type of uncivil behavior at AfD. The past and present behavior is well outside the norms of acceptable WP behavior. The last WP:ANI result, the six month ban from AfDs, and the socking indef along with present behavior, show that the discipline did not have the desired effect. Lightburst (talk) 14:03, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

@Lightburst: If you want to have a serious discussion with someone over their behaviour, you should do so on their talk page. AFD isn't the place to discuss someone's behaviour. It may not be unreasonable to leave a simple comment, 'I think you should cut it out' or similar, but clearly any proper discussion, which should be held before opening an ANI, cannot be held on an AFD. We have very good evidence for this since you told use 'I want to topic ban this person, but actually maybe they already have that exact same topic ban'. It's almost impossible to recover from that since it's very difficult to believe you've actually had a proper discussion with an editor over their behaviour when you didn't even know if they are already subject to the exact same topic ban you were proposing because you never asked if their topic ban had been lifted. Also we do not 'discipline' people on wikipedia. Nil Einne (talk) 14:30, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

@Nil Einne: Good suggestions regarding communicating on talk page, however not required - "suggested". I did not consider this a dispute between me and the editor, so dispute resolution is not appropriate. This is an editor who repeated the same behavior that resulted in a ban for behavior in the WP community. We have established that the editor was topic banned for 6 months and given a final warning. It is clear that I do now know that the ban was lifted with a Final Warning, also clear that the discipline has not had the desired effect. You can decide not to call it discipline, but being banned from Wikipedia is discipline - and it is progressive and corrective - not putative and destructive. I am pointing out an editor who has engaged in a pattern of disruptive behavior. Lightburst (talk) 14:50, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Turns out the editor was AfD topic banned twice after having the 2017 topic ban lifted the editor repeated the behavior and was again topic banned for the same reasons. This is likely why the editor was issued a final warning.. I amended the statement. In addition the most recent topic ban was just lifted September 1, 2019. I made the corrections to the opening statement and provided links Lightburst (talk) 17:36, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

You made an erroneous report on me with no attempt at communication on my talkpage, as well as getting the timeline and several points wrong; on top of that, you did not even try to verify whether or not my TBan was lifted. Sure, you may not be *required* to talk over the issue with me on my talkpage first, but it is still highly recommended. Why else would that point be mentioned at the top of this page?

There are plenty of other things that are not required on Wikipedia, such as writing edit summaries. People still write them anyway because it is a customary practice on the project, and they are helpful to everyone involved. It is a good idea to engage in customary practices, even if you are not required to do so.

And while I admit that I was verbose in the 3rd O'Donohue AFD, accusing me of "attacking" other editors when I present counterarguments is ridiculous. [1]

In the past, I participated in AFDs uncalmly and *actually* belittled the opposing party, instead of quoting policies in my rebuttals. For the sake of comparison, here are some links to older AFDs, when my behavior was truly problematic: [2] [3]

For all intents and purposes, I'd say that I participated in the third O'Donohue AFD in a relatively calm manner. If presenting valid, policy-quoted counterarguments is considered to be "attacking", then I find your understanding of the AFD process as well as your understanding of its established norms to be questionable.

At what point have I "bludgeoned" here? So it's wrong to provide my own defense and point out factual errors in your highly misleading report? You only backpedaled when others pointed out the mistakes in your report; which greatly damages the credibility of your report. Also, to quote the Requesting Blocks section from the blocking policy page: Users requesting blocks should supply credible evidence of the circumstances warranting a block. In this case, it's a TBan that you are trying to impose on me, but the same logic applies. So far, your report has proven to be discredible on the grounds of uncertainty, lack of proper research on my history as well as presenting factually incorrect information, which makes me to believe that you did it with the intent to mislead.

Evidently, a lack of research has been conducted on how many times I've been indefinitely blocked, which you could easily verify by checking my block log. I was only indeffed once, yet you claimed that I was indeffed twice on this account. You also did not verify whether or not my deletion process restrictions were lifted before you filed the report. With such uncertainty and a lack of any attempt to talk over the issues first, I am sure you could see that the validity of your report is highly questionable.

Last but not least, your claim that that I made a sockpuppet to specifically to renominate the O'Donohue article for an AFD is also factually incorrect. Let me quote that part of your report real quick: While topic banned in (March 2018) Sk8erPrince started a sock account called MizukaS Specifically to nominate this article for AfD a second time. While not an excuse, the sockpuppet was made to circumvent my AFD restrictions; the edit count on the sock clearly shows that it was made with more than just renomming the O'Donohue article for AFD. Consequently, I paid the price for such an offense, and I had already served my time.

With that, I have said my piece, and I shall not comment on this report any further. --Sk8erPrince (talk) 22:34, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I was the one who initially closed the first topic ban discussion for Sk8erPrince and registered it at Editing Restrictions. In a review of the case I see nothing wrong here, Sk8erPrince has correctly nominated an article for deletion citing a justifiable reason for his case for which others have agreed (in point I fact I am of the mind that the article should be deleted, I see no major credits to justify having it here). That being said, I do see that Sk8erPrince has replied to each of the Keep !voters to the effect of attempting to explain why exactly their keep votes on NACTOR grounds are incorrect. Accordingly, I would remind Sk8erPrince that such activity - while technically allowed - can be construed as disruptive editing, and accordingly would recommend that the editor refrain from commenting or replying to the other side, we are all of us going to have different opinions and that should be OK. Remember, its about consensus, not about !voting, and accordingly administrators will take the stronger arguments in the debates. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:00, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Vane323

Since 9 October, I began to undo the editions of the user Vane323 in the article Lo que la vida me robó. Since then, it has initiated a long dispute over the content Vane323 is adding. Although I have reverted several times, and I leave messages in his discussion, the user does not respond to the messages and uses the edit summary to talk with me. I already asked him to stop adding irrelevant information about who killed some characters, but he doesn't stop.-- Bradford ✉ 16:04, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: note Special:Diff/920767127 and Special:Diff/920767239 popped up in recent change patrolling (first one handled by Jebcubed, second one handled by myself), so it might be worth keeping an eye on this thread. Thanks, SITH (talk) 18:47, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Persistent addition of unsourced material / BLP after final warning

Gopaljirai (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – On October 11: Continued addition of unsourced personal information about a living person after numerous warnings. Note there is nothing in the linked bio supporting this date of birth either. (This was reported to WP:AIV but redirected here for procedural reasons.)
Toddst1 (talk) 17:18, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Blocked indef, until they begin to respond to other editors' criticism. 2280 edits with zero edits to a talk page (except to delete about 2 dozen warnings). --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:23, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

User talk:Nwafor Andrew

Just read this. Nwafor Andrew has repeatedly uploaded copyvio images. Plus he continues to recreate an autobiography of himself Nwafor Andrew. He has been warned multiple times but has continued to do so without discussing. Again, just read his talk page. From AnUnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 23:35, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• Per User talk:Nwafor Andrew#Contested_deletion, it would appear that the article in question is not an autobiography; rather, the username is simply incorrect. Moaz786 (talk to me or see what I've been doing) 00:17, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Still, wouldn't that be impersonation? From AnUnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 02:39, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Has created new inappropriate page Wikipedia:NattyB and still hasn't communicated. From AnUnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 21:29, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

That page was where he moved his user and user talk pages to the Wikipedia space. I undid that move. —C.Fred (talk) 23:04, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Help with WP:IDHT, WP:NPA, and WP:INCIVIL behavior from IP

Once Bermuda was protected due to edit-warring from 104.218.174.219 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) in response to reverts from myself (I recognize that I made too many reverts as well, I thought that referring to the existing discussion and that the subsequent revert edit summary was completely invalid) and ultimately The Grand Delusion who made the RPP request, the IP editor jumped to the article talk page to make baseless accusations against me.

Despite 2 explicit NPA warnings on the IP's talk page and 3 requests to stop in the article talk page referring to several baseless accusations / personal attacks:

1. Warning 1 and request to stop NPAs 1 for:
   • Personal attack 1
     • revert trolling; user has wilfully ignored numerous authoritative sources over a period of six months in bizarre campaign of misinformation
   • Personal attacks 2-4 in rant 1:
     • You are now removing accurate, sourced statements purely as a wilful campaign of misinformation.
     • instead choosing to ignore such, snipe at other users and revert pages to poorly sourced, blatantly false claims.
     • Your bad faith demands to use the talk page as some sort of attempt to block other users from correcting your edits are disgusting.
2. Warning 2 and request to stop NPAs 2 for:
   • Personal attacks 5-7 in rant 2:
     • Your ongoing refusal to actually engage other editors on this site for the past six months is pathetic.
     • You have made no attempt to refute or even acknowledge the multiple, authoritative sources on population figures provided to you and instead continue to force through your edits
     • It should certainly be ridiculous enough for you.
3. Request to stop NPAs 3 for:
   • Personal attacks 8-11 in rant 3:
     • I see you continue to ignore all sources provided to you.
     • You claim that you are engaging in discussion. Where? (Moreso WP:IDHT than NPA)
     • You do not respond to questions, suggestions or ideas posed to you, instead your responses are little more than simply pasting your claim that we should only use your source across every page.
     • As mentioned...REPEATEDLY...you have had six months on some of these sources and have said nothing; you clearly aren't interested in doing so. That is not building consensus.

These accusations come from a gross mischaracterization of a past civil discussion on my talk page with another editor. The IP's ranting is disruptive, consists of personal attacks (WP:WIAPA #5), and persistent despite requests to stop. The content issue is a genuine topic of discussion, but the IP refuses to actually talk about points I raised in the past and instead make repeated false accusations of "trolling", "misinformation", "ongoing refusal", "pathetic", "force your edits through", etc.

Sorry for the bother. I could have perhaps spent more time elaborating on why those accusations were false and addressing the sources presented in the IP's second rant, but I figured that civility would have been afforded by the first or second warning. The IP hasn't commented on any of its edit-warring warnings, NPA warnings, and requests to stop accusations. — MarkH21 (talk) 03:04, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Kahisaleem

Kahisaleem was blocked a few months ago for creating unsourced articles. He has re-created a drafted/deleted article, Hildan. I recently added the BLP no references tag, but he has deleted it (see this). Meanwhile, he has refused to communicate with anyone and has showed no sign of responding to warnings. From AnUnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 03:22, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I've deleted the article (again) and salted it. If s/he intends to recreate it in the mainspace it'll either have to go through AFC or it'll be a good example of disruptive editing in which case we can block the user. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:48, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Kahisaleem has now created the article again, twice: as Hîldan and using an (arabic?) title that can't be Wikilinked [43]. 86.143.224.244 (talk) 04:53, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Further to this, I see that an article created by Kahisaleem concerning a satellite TV channel (or supposed channel - I can't find obvious evidence that it actually broadcasts, rather than being web-based), NewMax Tv, states that a Kahi Saleem is one of the owners. 86.143.224.244 (talk) 05:08, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Well, he's blocked now harshly:

This user is currently blocked. The latest block log entry is provided below for reference:

05:07, 12 October 2019 TomStar81 talk contribs blocked Kahisaleem talk contribs with an expiration time of indefinite (account creation blocked, email disabled, cannot edit own talk page) (Using Wikipedia for promotion or advertising purposes: Persistent addition of unsourced content)

I suggest a close. From AnUnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 15:59, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Is the solipsism block really justifiable, though? Such blocks are generally reserved for persistent sockpuppeteers or people who've exhausted the patience of admins at the talk page and the admins' email accounts. —v^_^v ^{Make your position clear!} 18:20, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Are you saying that he's clearly meaningfully contribute to an encyclopedia? He would fit cleanly under multiple block rationales such as not here to contribute to an encyclopedia, not communicating, and advertising. From AnUnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 20:06, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

That isn't my implication what-so-ever. Even if they're blocked for being a spammer, they should still have talk page and email access unless and until they abuse those privileges. Generally the only time that a first block also revokes talk page and email access is if the blocked user is a known persistent sockpuppeteer. —v^_^v ^{Make your position clear!} 23:31, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Edit warring using multiple personae

2A02:587:2961:6600::/64

• 2A02:587:2961:6600::/64 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))

Please, block the range. IP socking and edit warring by WhiteStarG7 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki), alongside another their IP sock 94.66.59.149 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log)). Incnis Mrsi (talk) 07:37, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

 Done, for 2 weeks--Ymblanter (talk) 18:21, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Just a note… WhiteStarG7 and IP socks were never blocked here before, hence there was no block evasion. It’s a disgrace for the site that reports like WP:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1017 #IP socking in edit wars are ignored, but it is a fact. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 18:32, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, I blocked for disruptive editing, after checking that most of the edits for the last two weeks were not productive, including blatant vandalism--Ymblanter (talk) 18:36, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Recently discovered that WhiteStarG7 has been socking as Special:Contribs/2a02:587:ac7d:4200:f8bf:94d7:65b7:7f6d within the same /32. Unfortunately that bad edit evaded my eyes. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 13:22, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Iraqi insurgency (2017–present)

Also note that the sockmaster conducts a vicious edit war in Iraqi insurgency (2017–present) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) with many personae available (2A02:587:2961:6600:: is currently knocked down thanks to Ymblanter). Generally, all the user’s contributions consist of edit warring (in various articles) and planting fakes, which coincide in this instance. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 20:14, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Vandalism in Niger State and automatic tools

On 9 October between 18:40 and 19:09, an IP in a series of edits [44] removed the whole content of Niger State leaving only a hatnote. Apparettly, I was the first user to notice this five minutes ago. It is a reasonably high-profile article. The article stayed empty for about 40 hours. Whereas we all know that vandalism happens, and of course nobody is responsible for monitoring all the articles, is it clear why such an blatant and obvious misuse of the edit button was not caught by automatic tools? Should we do something about it?--Ymblanter (talk) 10:56, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Since you've blocked that IP, and there hasn't been any activity for a couple of days, I think wait and see is the best option, for now. (I considered sprotecting, but thought better of it.) El_C 13:03, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I think automatic tools are just, generally, a hit-and-miss proposition. Needless to say, added to my watchlist. If enough ANI readers do so as well, I think the likelihood of this repeating again would greatly decrease. El_C 13:06, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, but I do not think the IP specifically targeted this page. My question is more how we can improve our workflow to avoid this - it certainly should be possible to catch page blanking?--Ymblanter (talk) 14:53, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Maybe so, but I still think it's gonna be a hit and miss thing — though admittedly, this goes (far) beyond my technical expertise. El_C 15:09, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Wave of Vandalism Incoming

• Versions of Justice League
• Justice League (film)

There has been a fan controversy over the 2017 film Justice League and the supposed existence of a version called the Snyder Cut. Apparently the hardcore Snyder Cut fans don't like what Wikipedia has to say about it, because the Snyder Cut twitter is now urging as many people as it can to create single-purpose accounts to change the articles to their preferred viewpoint.

One IP editor 2405:204:5702:ABC2:0:0:130D:18A4 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) has already joined the party. I requested the semi-protection of Versions of Justice League and notified Talk:Justice League (film) of what is going down. I would recommend administrators keeping an eye on both pages. DarkKnight2149 17:11, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

And here's another single-purpose account that just joined in - Bjthegeek (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). Nearly all of their edits are trying to remove the same information they don't like from Versions of Justice League and they claim to be a part of "the movement". They have a history of edit warring with these edits as well. Clearly WP:COI. DarkKnight2149 07:17, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

If it gets out of hand, we can use WP:ECP. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 14:51, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Portal updates reverted

Noticed today a few reverts of portal updates (on my watchlist) by admin BrownHairedGirl with the edit summary "Revert undiscused change of format; unexplained, sneaky addition of dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries, let alone discussed". I took a look at a few to related the revert explanation with what happened prior. In the case of Portal:Ontario admin Northamerica1000 left a note at Portal talk:Ontario#Portal updated about the updates being selected from the old stock and new FA/GA articles and also replied to a post at Portal talk:Ontario#Portal status. At Portal:Latin America agree there was no talk (not that's its needed) but the revert has now left the portal in a state of disrepair as sub pages were deleted. So I look at how many were done and to my surprise many many reverts have been preformed... reverting what I believe most will think are good faith editions of one admin by another admin. I see that Northamerica1000 did leave some message on talks and explains were article selection came from despite the edit summary above as seen at Portal talk:Guyana#Portal updated - Portal talk:Cars#Portal updated.... is no prior announcement a reason for reversal? I fully disclose that me and Brown dont see I eye to eye on their approach of deleting portals one by one and have had heated words over this and the reversal of updates (sure I will be chastised despite the post not being about me or any reverts to my additions this time) . What can be done about these two admis that cant communicate with each-other? What can the normal editor do to preserve edits that are believed to be done in good faith if an admin is fighting with another admin?--Moxy 🍁 18:11, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Umm... to ask at the talk page first? Or are you already at the point when this is not possible anymore?--Ymblanter (talk) 18:16, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I believe my horrible relationship and prior interaction with Brown would lead to a disagreement over any productive talk...despite that I have posted at Portal talk:Ontario#Portal status hoping for more of an explanation...but also see that its on its way to being a mass reversal way beyond my ability to talk on many many talk pages.--Moxy 🍁 18:23, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Moxy has given up any pretence at civil discussion with me, and just responds to me with pure personal abuse. Even when asked to strike the most blatant, Moxy refuses.[45].

Any further discussion on this is unlikely to be fruitful until Moxy retracts their personal attacks, and agrees to follow WP:NPA in future. Since Moxy brought this to WP:ANI, I think that WP:BOOMERANG may be relevant. I have more to add if Moxy wants to go down that path … but it seems to me to most unwise for Moxy to rush to ANI after a barrage of pure personal abuse. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:31, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

• This is called the "Bold, Revert, Discuss" cycle: WP:BRD. NA1K Boldly edited; I Reverted; now we Discuss. Normal editing practice.

NA1K has restructured dozens of portals into a format which displays no visible, linked list of the articles on rotation … and has sneakily added dozens of new articles to these portals with no visible list anywhere of the articles which have been added, no link even in the edit summary. None of the changes I reverted linked to any discussion anywhere.

If Moxy or anyone else disagrees with these reverts, then they are welcome to open a discussion on the relevant portal's talk page.

I no see consensus anywhere that it is appropriate for one editor to wander around portal space, sneakily adding dozens of sneaky articles to many dozens of portals with no evident attempt at discussion or even at leaving informative edit summaries. Portal-space is not one editor's private list-making playground. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:25, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

But as seen above and for example Portal:Latin_America action history they are saying whats going on in many cases. Can you explain how they are being sneaky and how adding GA and FA articles being trasculded is bad? Are you planning on joining ongoing talks he started?--Moxy 🍁 18:40, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@Moxy: that comment is a great example of why you would do better to recuse yourself from discussions such as this, because you have a habit of missing the point and ignoring the facts.

You linked to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Latin_America&action=history Portal:Latin_America

Now see my edit summary: "Revert undiscussed change of format; unexplained, sneaky addition of dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries, let alone discussed"

Note:

1. I said there was no discussion of the change of format. Am I wrong? If so, post the diff of the edit summary which links to that discussion
2. I said "sneaky addition of dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries, let alone discussed". Please post the diff of any edit summary on that page's history in which NA1K linked (or even named) an article they added.

Take your time. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:49, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

You are correct as I already noted above in this case they did not post on the talk page first ...but its clear what they were doing adding FA and GA articles trying to fix up the portal that was tagged as needing updates. Now because of your edit its full of red links with empty boxes and now needs updating again. I know your not a fan of portals and of Northamerica1000 and I....but it looks as if your going out of your way to stop updates so portals are primed for deletion (just looks bad at face value).--Moxy 🍁 19:02, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Moxy, it continues to be very difficult to discuss anything with you when you continue to simply ignore the facts: that NA1K did not disclose which articles were added. There was no link in the edit summaries, and no list that you can identify.

Yes, NA1K did identify in some (tho not all) edits that they were adding articles FA- and GA-class ... but not which FA- and GA-class articles. The problem there has been widely discussed: that selecting articles solely on the basis of top quality means that the selection reflects the choices of editors of which articles to develop, and this often leads to a highly unbalanced set (see WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Donald Trump for an example of the huge POV bias which it caused on that portal).

Anyway, since you have once again reverted to your habitual assumption of bad faith, your welcome short break from simply responding "crap talk is not enough to make this discussion fruitful. I have set out genuine problems which I sought to address within the normal BRD cycle, and since you repeatedly fail to understand the problem and jump to your usual ABF, I will leave this discussion until a more constructive editor comments. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:37, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

It seems your saying an edit summary like this would be ok...but not a generic note about adding FA/GA articles? Still odd one admin feels the need to police the edits of another admin. Are you willing to talk about selection of articles as many talks were open and awaiting input..because as of now it seems we cant move forward on any updates without your ok to do so.--Moxy 🍁 19:51, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

BTW, I had previously raised with NA1K the uncollaborative nature of these "black box edits", which systematically fail to disclose what has been added to the portal. See e.g. this reply to NA1K on 19 Sept[46], in which I wrote Example text

Yet on 12 October, nearly 3 weeks later, NA1K was adding articles to Portal:Latin America without disclosing in the editsum which articles had been added, e.g. [47].

This has been happening on a massive scale. It appears that NA1K is busy trying to single-handedly take ownership of the article listings for a signifiacant chunk of portal-space, which leaving no directly-visible-audit trail of what they have done. Not having visible links to the articles added means that verification is a horrendously slow and difficult task, and NA1K already knows that a) it need not be that way, b) it's easy to avoid. This editing pattern from a very experienced editor like NA1K indicates either an editor choosing to be sneaky and uncollaborative, or an editor with WP:LCIR issues. (Personally, I suspect both, but that may be a separate discussion).

Reversion is just a starting point for discussion. I hope NA1K and any interested editors will now discuss:

1. what general criteria should be applied to the selection of articles for portals
2. How those criteria should be applied to any given topic
3. Whether relevant WikiProjects should be notified of any proposed mass changes to a portal
4. Whether it is ever appropriate for an editor with no demonstrable connection to or expertise in a topic to add masses of articles to a portal without an attempt at prior consultation, and especially whether they should single-handedly do this to dozens of portals

These are of course issues which should have been addressed years ago by the portals project, but this is just one of their many catastrophic failings which left portals in such disastrous shape that over 900 of the 1,500 pre-portalspam portals have been deleted as one or more of broken/abandoned/almost-unread/unsupported-by-a-project/redundant/too-narrow. It is sadly unsurprising that may actions here have been criticised by a vocal portal fan who neglected to actually verify my edit summary against the history which I had reverted, and that the lack of transparency in this stealthy mass-takeover of portals by NA1K is apparently of no concern. It's helpful that Moxy has taken a break at ANI from his stream of personal attacks, but the rest of it is a good illustration of why portal-space is so problematic. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:24, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia would be better off, without portals. GoodDay (talk) 19:24, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Agree 100% better if they are all gone...but the community has repeatedly said no. So what are we to do when we have one admin trying to update portals and another admin reverting updates based on their personal criteria, dislike of portals and dislike of an editors good faith editing habits.--Moxy 🍁 19:33, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Usual ABF from Moxy, ignoring the substance of my concern, and misrepresenting my motives.

ANI isn't a good place to play that game, Moxy. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:39, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Thats way there is a post here...to find out why your reverting additions and leaving some portals all messed up (dont think its done on purpose just going to fast) . I posted here as we have a problem communicating and though it best others get involved and see if your reasoning for mass reverts of another admis's edits are based in logic or not.... because there was zero attempt from what I could see by you to join the chats Northamerica1000 already started about just this. As any one can see Its not like me and you could talk about this in a normal productive manner.--Moxy 🍁 20:09, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Moxy,

1. I am not doing mass reverts. I am individually checking portals, and reverting to what appears to the latest version free of the sneaky additions.
2. the logic of my reverts was explained in the edit summaries. Even when I explained out that logic for you in detail here, you still failed to comprehend the very simple issues which I had noted in the edit summaries.
3. I have been fixing portals as I go. If you identify outstanding problems which I have missed, please leave a note on my talk.
4. Nobody has identified any other discussions.
5. You unwillingness or inability to conduct a civil, coherent discussion has not been resolved by a change of venue. You have just dropped the direct personal abuse, but you have neither gained coherence or desisted from your habitual ABF

... and you still haven't identified any ANI issue. This discussion should just be closed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:24, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

I belive I have outlined the problem well. I personally think your reverts were detrimental to most portals leaving them in a state ready for deletion. Not sure why the edits could not have simply removed any offending articles or why you have not join any chats that were already started. I am wondering if you can't communicate with Northamerica1000 about this perhaps best to leave this so called problem edits to others to review. It's hard for us normal editors to get involved when the conflicting administrators won't even speak to each other. If other think all is OK with your edits we can move on....but the motive looks very questionable in my eyes.--Moxy 🍁 20:47, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Moxy, you continue to refuse or fail to comprehend the simple problem I have set out: that there is no visible list of what articles were added, and even editing he portal produces no linked list. I am astonished that you find this so difficult to grasp.

The only way to view such a list is to edit the portal, and manually copy-paste the links one-by-one into a search box, or process them in my text editor to make a linked list to save in my sandbox. I refuse to go to all that effort simply to review the work of an editor who refuses to use adequate edit summaries.

As your comment why you have not join any chats that were already started … for goodness sake, quit wasting my time until you read what was written. As I noted in my point #4 above Nobody has identified any other discussions.

It really is ridiculous to have ANI disrupted by a timewasting editor who repeatedly ignores what is written.

Over and out. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:09, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Comment - So I just took about fifteen minutes to take a look at a few of the edits. All I can say is: Yikes. The "undiscussed format changes" that NA1000 has been making, is removing non-existent DYKs, which BHG is re-instating. Refer to any of 1, 2, 3, and 4 from the past few hours. The other format change is adding in a section where good/featured articles can be featured, such as at Portal:New Zealand (5 – and read the edit summary, it's clearly explained). Let's just focus on one for this case, Portal:Panama. Compare the portal after NA1000's edits, to the broken state of the portal that BHG is reverting to. If this were any IP or normal editor, no-one would hesitate to call it vandalism. In the past three hours, BHG's made 19 such mass reverts (and they are mass reverts, NA1000 has made dozens of smaller edits to each individual portal, all of which have been reverted). Every page (while it exists) should be left in the best possible state they can be, and not reverted to a junk state. In my opinion, this is sanctionable behaviour. Mr rnddude (talk) 22:02, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

• @Mr rnddude:

1. As you should well know, good faith edits are not vandalism. See WP:NOTVAND
2. 1, 2 did indeed have broken DYK sections. My bad; I had been watching out for that, but evidently missed those, and they are now fixed.
   3, and 4 were already fixed. You just didn't check the latest edit.
3. You wrote the portal after NA1000's edits, to the broken state of the portal that BHG is reverting to … but you sneakily didn't show the version my latest edit [48]. If you want to critique my edits, please don't misrepresent them by omitting my next tidyup edit.

Indeed, NA1K was often adding in a section where good/featured articles can be featured. However, as I noted in every edit summary of my reverts … neither in NA1K's edit summary nor anywhere on the face of the portal is there any link to which articles have been added to those section. So neither readers nor other readers can review what has been done. As I noted above, indiscriminately selecting articles by quality can produce hideously unbalanced portals, and NA1K's approach has created a black box. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:57, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@Mr rnddude: note that all the portals you listed had edits which gave no explanation of what was being added, e.g.

1. Portal:Panama: "Maintenance: Portal updated / further expanded with more new content"[49]
2. Portal:Croatia: "Maintenance: Portal updated / further expanded with more new content"[50]
3. Portal:Somaliland: "Maintenance: Portal updated / further expanded with more new content"[51]
4. Portal:Cuba: Maintenance: Portal updated / further expanded with more new content"[52]

In most cases, there were multiple such edits to each portal.

Note as above, that effects of these additions are not visible on the face of the portal, because NA1K's edit left the portals with no visible lost of articles. NA1K had turned the portals into black boxes of hidden lists, whose content can be seen only by purging the page enough times that you hope all instances have been displayed.

This lack of transparency both in editing and in result creates a serious barrier to scrutiny of the state in which these portals have been left by an editor who seems to be on a personal quest to create lists of the key articles on dozens of topics in which they have no identifiable expertise, and show no sign of consulting with the relevant WikiProjects.

There may be some good in what NA1K has done. But the problem is that we simply don't know what's good and what's bad, and can't tell without a huge amount of work to get past the barriers erected by NA1K's sneaky editing habits. And yes, the previous state of the portals often was junk -- but replacing abandoned junk with the hidden result of one editor's drive-by listmaking is not the solution.

I suggest that NA1K a) discuss the structures they are applying, and try to resolve the issues; b) propose their lists of articles, explaining the criteria by which they have been chosen … and notify the relevant WikiProjects and other interested parties. Portals are supposed to be gateways to whole topic areas, and it is utterly absurd to have a large chunk of those gateways built unilaterally and sneakily by one editor without expertise in the subject area. -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:22, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Again, I'll pick on a single example: Portal:Croatia. The "no explanation of what was being added" articles in your diff are Franjo Tuđman, President of the Presidency of SR Croatia, Socialist Republic of Croatia and Croatian kuna.1 Anyone interested in the topic area would not need an explanation for these. Tuđman was president of Croatia prior to and during the Yugoslav Civil Wars. SR Croatia is one of the six republics (and two autonomous provinces) of the former SFRJ. As to Kuna, that is the official currency of Croatia.
... and can't tell without a huge amount of work to get past the barriers erected by NA1K's sneaky editing habits - You were saying something about good faith?
But the problem is that we simply don't know what's good and what's bad - You mean you don't know.
[B]ut you sneakily didn't show the version my latest edit – You mean this? The one with the poorly formatted banner, that doesn't link to the central article (Panama) in its introduction (doesn't even have an introduction), and that has no image in the "Selected image" section? Versus this where the banner is properly formatted, has an introduction and links to the main article, and that has an actual image for the "selected image". Mr rnddude (talk) 00:12, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@Mr rnddude: if you ever again want to lecture anyone about good faith, here's a top tip: don't do so in a post in which you carefully lift quotes out of context in order to mispresent the person you are lecturing.

The way you snipped up my comment the problem is that we simply don't know what's good and what's bad, and can't tell without a huge amount of work to get past the barriers erected by NA1K's sneaky editing habits in order to misrepresent the whole was artful … but artfully deceitful. Shame on you.

As to NA1K's sneaky editing habits, the issue had been discussed at length with NA1K at two MFDs, one of which I quoted above. So, no I don't AGF when an editor doubles down on an already-identified problem.

And I readily acknowledge that the reverted portals are very poor. The problem was exacerbated in some cases by subsequent removal of sub-pages, and I have restored those sub-pages I have identified as missing (except for DYKs, which are nearly always both stale and fake). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:35, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I didn't "carefully lift" anything, and there's a lacuna there as well. Perhaps you missed it? Oh sorry, let's be more like you: perhaps you are being deceptively ignorant of it? No, I just picked what I wanted to respond to, and ordered it in terms of significance. It doesn't help your non-existent case that you say – and here's the full quote with no lacuna – [s]o, no I don't AGF when an editor doubles down on an already-identified problem. So I'm being deceitful in noting your lack of assuming good faith, but you admit that you aren't assuming good faith? Deceit by accurate representation. That's a new one. By what mechanism have I accomplished this? Mr rnddude (talk) 01:02, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Mr rnddude, you chopped up a sentence to remove the qualifying clause and taken comment on its meaning as if that qualifying clause didn't exist. That's one of the oldest sneaky tricks in the misrepresentation book, and it's a shameful way to behave in what is supposed to be a collegial discussion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:57, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

A lacuna is used to indicate a gap, or missing piece. It implies, by it's very being there, that it is not the whole. Not only am I not pretending it doesn't exist, I have actively indicated that "there is something before this". I left the relevant bit in context, btw, BHG. The relevant bit was the last four words, and I put the entire clause in and left a lacuna to indicate preceding material. It's really damn funny that you took those same words out (Ctrl+F for As to NA1K's sneaky editing habits, ... in your own comments) to reply to separately. Evidently you don't consider those words to misrepresent your feelings about NA1K, so why should I? You'll have to convince someone else of the misrepresentation, the deceit, and the sneakiness of it all. Mr rnddude (talk) 20:43, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Mr rnddude, the fact remains that I wrote basically "A except B". You chose to isolate the A, so that you could attack that as if unqualified a was my position, which isn't. If that's who you wat to be, then your call. Buts it's not collegial conduct. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

• Comment: I am not seeing anything here that requires the invocation of ANI. I recommend closing this discussion and working it out these issues on the relevant talk pages. bd2412 T 23:30, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

How do we move forward when talks are not happening between the two at the portal talk page level? --Moxy 🍁 01:03, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps the better course of action is to address the issue, not the editor. Determine the appropriate policy discussion forum, and propose a change or clarification to policy that will resolve the situation. bd2412 T 01:31, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Sorry not understanding the request ....the issue is one editor mass reverting another while others believe the reverts were not all that good and should be talked about and in some cases reinstated. The point of bringing it here is because it involves two admins and the edit behavior behind it with little communication on going. There is no policy to change that covers one admin reverting what they perceive as sneaky edits by another admin. What can be done to help the situation over telling people to go somewhere non specific.--Moxy 🍁 01:50, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

You could try going to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) and propose a policy to allow admins (or others) to add content to portals without requiring discussion or consensus to do so, or, if you think they already have that right, ask that it be codified so that there is no question of its propriety. bd2412 T 02:33, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Comment – I have recently been adding a summary of changes on talk pages after improving portals, but overlooked doing so for the Latin America portal. I have since corrected this. Please see the discussion at Portal talk:Latin America § Portal updated, which was reverted for the summary. This is essentially a content issue, any and all who are interested are welcome to comment at the talk page discussion. I notice that BHG has eagerly reverted other work I have performed on other portals in instances where I have left a message on the talk page noting that the portal has been updated. I feel that as a significant nominator of portals for deletion at MfD, BHG has a significant conflict of interest, and the reversions are making the portals easier to be deleted in the future. The edits I performed are not "sneaky" whatsoever, and the bad faith assumptions are disappointing; my good faith work to improve portals is being instantly reverted without any discussion on the talk pages from the reverter at all. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:45, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Question, primarily for the OP, User:Moxy - Is this a content dispute or a conduct dispute? If content, what content, and why is the dispute here? If conduct, whose conduct? I have read the complaint and the discussion, and what I know is that portals are contentious, and that edits to portals are usually not discussed. What exactly is the concern? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:20, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Conduct about content removal as outlined above by 3 editors .....that being mass reverts of good faith edits by an admin by another admin with a conflict of interest with no attempt at joining talks about the updates.--Moxy 🍁 04:31, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Where's the no attempt? I see from the first comment these talk page discussions Portal talk:Ontario#Portal status, Portal talk:Guyana#Portal updated, Portal talk:Cars#Portal updated. Indeed there is no reply from BHG there. But the reversions only happened a few hours before this ANI was opened [53] [54] [55]. While BHG is active here and generally editors should join any discussion quickly after a revert, it can get complicated especially when it's a lot of articles involved.

If after a few days there is no comment from BHG then the edits can be reinstated with an edit summary "see talk" or similar. Further as I understand it in a bunch of cases there was no discussion opened before the changes were made. While in many cases there's no need to do so, as I've been telling several (inexperienced) editor's on ANI in the past few days and I hope no one here needs to be reminded of, it's incredibly dumb to argue over who should be the one to initiate discussion once there is a dispute. Someone just needs to do it.

In fact, given the inconsistency between whether a discussion was opened, I'd actually give BHG a further chance here. If the edits are reverted after reinstatement with an edit summary directing her? to the talk page, I'd still give her at least 2 days to join the discussion. If she still fails and reverts a further attempt to reintroduce the content, then only does it seem worth it to bring a case.

BTW, to be clear I'm not saying BHG's behaviour is ideal but ultimately the best way you can make an ANI case is bringing a clear cut case. An editor who continues to revert while failing to join the existing talk page discussion given ample time is generally a good example of someone who needs to be blocked or otherwise sanctioned. This requires sufficient time and clear evidence they should have been aware of the talk page discussion.

As for the wider issues, if the number of affected pages is too large to open a talk page discussion for each one, I see 2 options. Number one open a centralised RFC somewhere appropriate and properly advertised clearly outlining what is proposed including which pages will be affected and achieve consensus. Number two, do this with a bunch of pages first the normal way i.e. talk and achieve consensus (even via WP:silence). If in each case consensus is clearly in favour, you have some evidence that there is no problem and can probably expand the target range to more articles without opening a discussion first. In that case, if BHG mass reverts, she really needs to provide some decent explanation somewhere i.e. not via edit summaries and an actual reason why she feels the changes are unwarranted that isn't simply 'discuss first'.

Nil Einne (talk) 04:58, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@Nil Einne in no case in any of NA1K's edits to the portal did I find any mention of any notification or discussion on the talk page. The portals were massively restructured without any indication of a prior discussion, proposal or notice.

It turns out that what NA1K did in some cases was in some cases to leave a post-facto note on the talk page, of varying degrees of informativeness. I proactively checked one or two talkpages earlier on in my work, but those notes I saw did not list the articles added, did not explain the selection criteria, and they did not mention the conversion to a black box format. So they did not remove my reason to revert. None of those which you have linked address these issues; e.g. at Portal talk:Guyana, NA1K 's commnet[56] is written in oddly passive voice which doesn't say who did the "updates" … and all it says on the selection of articles is that "New article content was added to the portal".

Nil Einne, you chose those 3 examples, and all of them simply reinforce my point about failure to notify by edit summary or on the face of the portal which articles were added: even when NA1k commented on the talk page, they didn't make a list.

The few which I investigated did not indicate any attempt to engage anyone else, and those which you have linked do not involve anyone else. NA1K is a regular participant at WT:WPPORT, but I find no mention there of any of this mass restructuring, let alone links to these incomplete notices which you oddly describe as discussions. (A discussion needs more than one person).

If you believe that the way to proceed is to have a zillion micro-discussions, then I can leave a boilerplate message on each on the relevant talk pages restating my reasons for revert, and recommending a centralised discussion … and hen we can have a zillion micro-discussions on whether to have a centralised discusison. But I don't think that would get us anywhere. Per WP:MULTI, best to proceed directly to the centralised discussion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:41, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

The misleading edit summaries in many cases is what I noticed first ....as its clear as seen at Portal talk:Serbia#Portal expanded and Portal talk:New Zealand#Portal expanded and Portal talk:Thailand#Portal expanded etc.. nothing sneaky here.... even posting articles and from where. But will wait for replies as you have suggested .--Moxy 🍁 06:40, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, I think framing this as a content dispute misses the other interpretation (which I find more likely), which is that this is part of a bullying campaign of User:BrownHairedGirl against User:Northamerica1000 that we have seen come to light several times in the past and that ANI has failed to address properly. —Kusma (t·c) 09:12, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Comment I noticed this as well and I want to revert BrownHairedGirl's edits for Portal:Croatia as in my mind no basis for reverting these edits existed, but I'm not sure what the proper procedure is considering this ANI thread. I think this is primarily a content dispute, albeit with someone with a severe conflict of interest, and while I'm sad to see it on ANI, I'm not sure a better place for this discussion exists. SportingFlyer T·C 04:38, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Should BrownHairedGirl's mass portal reversions be reverted, to restore portal improvements that occurred?

The mass rapid reversions of portal improvements performed by BrownHairedGirl (talk · contribs) has erased many hours of my good faith research and work to improve portals. Per the high number of rapid reversions performed, it is best to discuss the matter here in a centralized area, rather than one-by-one on each portal talk page. Below is a synopsis of the matter, along with a table providing a summary of some of BHG's reversions. I feel that BHG's conduct in performing these mass reversions has been inappropriate and disruptive, as denoted below.

• BHG's reversions were performed in an extremely rapid succession, one-after-another, in a tendentious manner over a very short period of time.
• From what I've checked thus far, BHG has left no notices on any concerned portal talk pages to discuss the matter.
• The reversions have only served to dumb-down many of these portals, placing them back into a significantly inferior state of existence compared to the state they were in after the improvements were performed.
• BHG stated in their copy/pasted edit summaries, "Revert undiscused change of format; unexplained, sneaky addition of dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries, let alone discussed". However, contrary to this:

• This is not the case at all, per my use of talk page notices in the vast majority of instances after improving portals, whereby I directly stated on the talk page that portal work has been performed.
• Note in the table below in the "List of articles added to talk page?" column specific instances where I also took the time to include a list of articles added to the portal in my talk page notices. This was also performed on many talk pages for the portals that are listed below the table.
• In cases where a list of articles was not provided on talk pages, the articles added can be easily viewed by selecting the Edit link on main portal pages and scrolling down.
• BHG apparently didn't bother to even check the talk pages first before their reversion spree, and simply assumed that no notification or list of articles was provided. Again, per the table and article list below, BHG was quite mistaken in many instances.

• BHG's reversion of Portal:Afghanistan has left its selected article section in an entirely broken state (diff).
• As I stated above, I feel that BHG has a significant conflict of interest in performing these reversions, because:

• The user has demonstrated an ongoing strong desire for the deletion of portals, as demonstrated by their numerous nominations of portals for deletion at MfD that have occurred.
• As another example, BHG reverted improvements to Portal:Language. However, at the portal's recent MfD discussion, the user opined for the deletion of the portal, stating in part, "The fact that after 14 years, this portal still has only 12 selected sub-topics is clear evidence of long-term failure". My improvements to the portal concluded at the time with it having 40 Selected language articles and 40 Selected topic articles (diff). BHG reverted it back to an inferior state, back to a similar state that it was in when nominated for deletion (diff).

• Importantly, please note the improved state that of the portals prior to their reversions, to view the improvements that occurred. Some links have been provided in the table below, in the "Portal's state prior to reversion" column.
• In the process of being improved, the portals were overhauled using modernized wiki markup that uses transclusions directly from articles to display content, which provides readers with current, up-to-date information as articles are updated. Furthermore, article content from various portal subpages was moved directly into the portal using transclusions. BHG erased all of this good work.
• New articles were added to all of the portals I worked on listed herein. All of this work was removed by BHG.
• Many of these portals had brand new Featured article, Good article and/or Recognized article sections added, which served to showcase some of Wikipedia's high-quality recognized content. All of the research and work involved in performing this was rapidly removed with one click, one after another.

BHG's mass rapid reversions of portal improvements

Portal name	BHG reversion diff	BHG reversion time	Portal's state prior to reversion	Did NA1K leave a note on the talk page denoting changes prior to the reversion?	NA1K talk page note date	NA1K talk page note diff	List of articles added to talk page?
Portal:Guinea	Reversion diff	18:07, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	05:53, 22 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: No
Portal:Guyana	Reversion diff	15:35, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	07:25, 11 October 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: No
Portal:Chile	Reversion diff	18:42, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	12:08, 21 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Hungary	Reversion diff	19:41, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	13:45, 21 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Serbia	Reversion diff	19:44, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	17:26, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Afghanistan	Reversion diff	19:46, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: No	N/A	N/A	N/A
Portal:South Korea	Reversion diff	19:47, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	14:15, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Finland	Reversion diff	19:47, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	13:12, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Thailand	Reversion diff	19:49, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	11:53, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Sweden	Reversion diff	19:54, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	11:50, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Food	Reversion diff	19:58, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	15:06, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:Philosophy	Reversion diff	20:05, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link state	Talk notice: No	N/A	N/A	N/A
Portal:Australia	Reversion diff	20:09, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	14:27, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes
Portal:New Zealand	Reversion diff	20:11, 12 October 2019	Pre-reversion state: Link	Talk notice: Yes	11:44, 20 September 2019	Talk page diff	Article list: Yes

• BHG's rapid reversions are numerous, and listing the rest in table format would be very time-consuming for me to perform. Below is a listing of more portals that BHG reverted (from my watchlist), all of which occurred in rapid succession on 12 October 2019 (UTC). There may be others that occurred that I do not have watchlisted.

• Portal:Panama (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:1920s (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Libya (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Republic of the Congo (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Somaliland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Cuba (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Switzerland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Croatia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Turkmenistan (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Iceland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Luxembourg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Mali (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Uganda (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Mauritania (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Liberia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Burundi (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Belize (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Kenya (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Sierra Leone (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Senegal (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:The Gambia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Malawi (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Somalia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:São Tomé and Príncipe (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Eritrea (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Zambia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Tanzania (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Cameroon (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:United Arab Emirates (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Lithuania (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Language (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Saudi Arabia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Global warming (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Tanks (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Renewable energy (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Democratic Republic of the Congo (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Trinidad and Tobago (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:England (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Spain (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Cannabis (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Pakistan (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Vietnam (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Hawaii (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Mississippi (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Connecticut (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Maryland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Ohio (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Arizona (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Indiana (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Pennsylvania (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Television (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Kansas (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Northern Ireland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Oman (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Egypt (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Madagascar (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Transport (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:South Africa (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Morocco (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Latvia (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Bahrain (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Ontario (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Lebanon (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:Cars (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:1980s (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Portal:1960s (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Notes on NA1K's table

The vast collection above of links obscures many crucial facts about their extraordinarily huge breach of WP:FAITACCOMPLI:

1. NA1K does not even claim that they sought any broad consensus for:
   • converting portals to a black box format
   • Massively expanding the article list of dozens of portals without prior discussion or notification
2. NAIK inadvertently acknowledges my point about these being black box portals where they write cases where a list of articles was not provided on talk pages, the articles added can be easily viewed by selecting the Edit link on main portal pages and scrolling down. In other words, just as I stated: there is no list on the face of the portal, no list linked from the face of the portal … and the only way to view the articles listed in the edit box is by either pasting them one-at-a-time into a search box, or creating sandbox page and linking each one of them. That is an absurd barrier to scrutiny.
3. NA1K does not even claim any experience or expertise in the topic areas of the dozens of portals which they have now remodelled in their own inexpert image
4. NA1K does not even claim that they made any attempt to even notify related WikiProjects, let alone await responses. Instead, on a range of topics from Vietnam to Tanks to Lithuania to Philosophy to Mali to Cars, NA1K simply made their own list. It is simply implausible either that NA1K had such prior expertise in all these topics that no consultation was needed, or that a few hours scanning WP article would give sufficient knowledge to make those judgements without consultation.
5. In some instances, NA1K did leave a post-facto note on the portal's talk page. In some of those cases, NA1K did include a list of articles added. But in no case has NA1K stated what criteria was used for selecting the articles. In some of the cases where a list was provided, NA1K noted that the articles were all of a particular quality (usually GA or FA) … but in none of those cases that I have seen did did NA1k say whether they had added all available articles of that quality, or selected some of the set.
6. NA1K is aware of previous discussions selecting on selecting articles by quality have noted that using quality as the sole basis for selection produces unbalanced lists. This is because the set of articles developed to a particular quality reflects the enthusiasms of editors who rightly put their efforts into the topics which most interest them. But this creates a well-documented systemic bias, so the set of articles of a particular quality is nearly always unbalanced.
   One of the factors which led to MFD:Portal:Donald Trump being closed as "delete" was the list of GAs was massively biased towards criticism of Trump: it notably included relatively unimportant articles on criticism of Trump: Crippled America, Impeachment March, Insane Clown President. Despite that obvious and extreme partisan bias, NA1K wrote in that MFD[57] Example text That extraordinary remark underlines the observation made by sevral editors in both of NA1K's RFA about their track record of poor judgement. Yet the same editor with a long history of poor judgement has now been restucured dozesn of portals solely on the basis of their own judgement.

This huge exercise should not have been undertaken without consensus, and as an admin NA1K should never have even contemplated set about such a massive exercise without seeking consensus. Now that some of it has been reverted, it's time to have consensus-building discussion on the principles involved. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:26, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Why do you believe this one editor needs permission to make changes? Has there been some sort of past sanctions?-Moxy 🍁 15:10, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Moxy, the answer is in the first line of my post: WP:FAITACCOMPLI.

It's a very short page, so do read it.

And next time, maybe try reading my post before you reply. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:16, 13 October 2019 (UTC).

WE have no policy or guideline mandating a discussion for making productive changes to different pages - that said as listed above NA1K did start many many talks that saw zero objection that you have still not joined. Its clear you have a problem with NA1K believing they have poor judgment etc...- perhaps a self imposed interaction ban would calm things down for all? --Moxy 🍁 15:29, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Moxy, again, please read before replying.

There was no discussion anywhere to join. There were some notes with various degrees of informativeness left on talk pages, but none of them stated clearly what criteria had been used. In no case that I have found did NA1K attempt to alert anyone to the changes even after the fact.

Per WP:MULTI, what this needs is a centralised discussion on the principles involve, not dozens of individual discussion on the application of the principles. Those discussions should have ben initiated by NA1K before they set out to create a WP:FAITACCOMPLI, but since they didn't happen them, we should have them now.

And, no … me recusing myself from involvement would not resolve any of the long-standing problems caused by NA1K's long history of poor judgement. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:39, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Not sure if your pulling my leg ...but its clear that there is many tlak started (as linked all over this page) as you asked NA1K to do previously. In fact my second post right here in this thread mentioned one directly to no avail. Its hard to see any reasoning behind your stalking of this good faith admin. Thus far you have shown one laps in judgment by NA1K in article selection...but weighting that vs the problems we are now left with by your edits...most would conclude the laps in good judgment is on your part here (as outline below by others). --Moxy 🍁 17:12, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Again, Moxy I am unable to decide whether you are unable to read and comprehend, or whether you are just unwilling to do so. See paragraph two of my reply to you, which you completely ignored: There was no discussion anywhere to join. There were some notes with various degrees of informativeness left on talk pages, but none of them stated clearly what criteria had been used. In no case that I have found did NA1K attempt to alert anyone to the changes even after the fact.

This is why I find your contributions so disruptive. For whatever reason, a significant proportion of your contributions to any attempt at dialogue consist of similar failures of comprehension by Moxy. It is timewasting and exasperating, yet you continue as if you are completely oblivious to your servere lapses in comprehension.

And then you follow up with a malicious and unfounded allegation of stalking. Shame on you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:48, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

We simply have a different understanding of how things work here. I can't get my head around the fact you believe NA1K needs anyones permission to edit portals and this is the main bases for reversal - especially when they even went out of there way many many times to post what they did with lists and all. Are fundamental approaches are simply vastly different.--Moxy 🍁 00:11, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Nb. I specialize in geographical topics, the history of geography, world history, the social sciences, several other science topics, cuisine-related topics, and several other topics in addition to these. I am well versed in portal work, having worked on them for years on Wikipedia, and am thoroughly knowledgeable of portal schematics, layout and formatting. I am also educated. I hestiate to cowtow to BHG's interrogation above more, because I view it as inappropriate, intrusive and an assumption of bad faith from the start. Regarding content added to portals, articles covering a vast array of topical areas were added, in a manner to provide comprehensive overviews of various topics while also showcasing Featured-class and GA-class content. It doesn't matter now, since BHG mass reverted all of the hard work I performed. It still seems that only my work was targeted, while the work of others at other portals has not been challenged at all. Go figure. The WP:HOUNDING needs to stop. Hopefully the work I put into the portals won't be lost ad infinitum, since it is essentially being held hostage, whereby utilizing WP:BRD is just about impossible per the high number of rapid, disruptive reversions that occurred. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:00, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

NA1K, your claim to specialise in all of this massive range of topics is simply implausible; it borders on the ridiculous.

Most of your claims of expertise relate to the structure of portals, and while you have a lot of experience in that work, I could point to some major limitations in your expertise.

The fact remains that the core purpose of all that portal structure is to display a list of articles. You have chosen to unilaterally rewrite those lists for dozens of portals, without any evident attempt to seek the involvement of those who specialise in those topics. The community is divided over whether portalspace should exist at all, and how many portals there should be .. but I see no discussion at all of the WP:FAITACCOMPLI which you have been trying to create, by appointing yourself as the unilateral selector of the majority of content for a high proportion of portal-space. Your continued denial that this is what is happening is absurd.

NA1K writes articles covering a vast array of topical areas were added, in a manner to provide comprehensive overviews of various topics. That is simply verbiage: a string of errors which indicates nothing. It provides no indication whatsoever of how you chose between the many articles which fit that definition. And repeats yet again your deceptive and dishonest rhetorical tactic of using the passive voices to describe your own actions, to avoid acknowledging he simply fact that all these choices were by you, on your own, without prior consultation, without notification of other stakeholders. There is a massive disconnect here: you are making huge solo decisions about the shape of portalspace, and yet you use variety of rhetorical devices to obfuscate that fact. I cannot determine whether to what extent you are simply unaware of the way in which you obfuscate key issues, or whether you being wilfully deceptive. But either way, consensus cannot be built when you are unable or unwilling to communicate clearly and openly.

Why did I target only your work? Simple, because the vast majority of portal rebuilding is being done by you. No other editor is engaged in the widespread, drive-by rebuilding and content selection of dozens of diverse portals. That is not WP:HOUNDING; you should read the policy, and desist from glibly throwing out such such false allegations.

Finally, a biggie. You write I hesitate to cowtow to BHG's interrogation above more. You have hurled barrages of false and malicious accusations at me, yet when I ask questions or try to discuss, you repeatedly stonewall, and have done so numerous venues. Those are the two dominant modes of interaction which NA!K adopts when here is disagreement stonewall or throw rocks. Neither is compatible with consensus-building.--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:03, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

• Support reverting all of these edits by BHG, per all of the above, which will restore these portals back to their significantly improved respective states. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:04, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support .- as per all the evidence presented in this thread by different editors.--Moxy 🍁 08:17, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• I suggest to revert the changes by BHG and then to add a link to a subpage transcluding all of the pages used (do we have a template for that? We should), so it is easy to see them all at once, which makes it much easier to see whether any problems occur (as happens sometimes with automated transclusion). BrownHairedGirl, on the other hand, should really know better than to mass revert in order to force a feature she would like to see. That alone is worth a re-revert and a trout. —Kusma (t·c) 08:30, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Strong Support - A truly shocking series of reverts, the scale of which really requires prior discussion, rather than taking refuge behind the non-requirement of WP:BRD for the reverter to initiate discussion. Looking at the common denominator in the histories (numerous edits by NA1k, which each constitute some improvement), the only motivation I can see is BHG's long standing personal animosity towards NA1k. So, BHG mass reverts (yes, that's exactly what that was) and at a stroke converts all those Portals back to an inferior state, with a dubious edit summary ...dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries.... Where is it mandated in either policy (or even guideline) that Portal Articles need to be listed anywhere "visible" (even though they are available if you follow the "more selected XX" links available on most portals)? It's just yet more invention of "Policy" by BHG, now that the crutch of selective quoting of WP:POG, as if it were policy, has been removed. Thanks to Northamerica1000 for the detailed breakdown and bringing this to wider attention. --Cactus.man ✍ 09:39, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@Kusma: I think we need a much larger species than a trout for this one. --Cactus.man ✍ 09:39, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Strong support As noted above, I'm only following the Croatia portal, but now looking at the scale of the reverts, I consider these edits very tendentious. SportingFlyer T·C 09:56, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• See also the essay Wikipedia:Don't revert due solely to "no consensus" SportingFlyer T·C 14:59, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Comment – Upon review, I have found that BHG's reversions have caused additional problems. It appears that BHG may not have checked the result of their reversions after performing them. Regardless, in addition to Portal:Afghanistan's Selected article section now in a broken state, as listed above, several portals are now also broken. I haven't checked all of them listed above yet, but below is what I've found so far. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:03, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Portal:Bahrain – Selected article section is now broken, displaying red links
• Portal:Vietnam – Featured article section is now broken, displays a red link
• Portal:Luxembourg – the Selected article section is now nonexistent on the page.
• Portal:Cameroon and Portal:Liberia – Did you know sections are now broken, with a sea of red links
• Portal:Egypt – News section formatting is now broken
• Portal:Iceland – now posting no content at times in the Selected articles section (when purging)
• @North America1000: I am in the process of restoring them. Some glitches were caused by the deletion of subpages, which I am restoring when I find them. Any other glitches are caused by your edits. For example, the reason that Portal:Iceland is now posting no content at times in the Selected articles section is because of two of NA1K's typical underhand, sneaky edits with deceptive edit summaries: [58] AND [59], both of which blanked the displayed page but used the edit summary "ce", which is conventionally used to indicate "copyedit".

It is sadly typical of NA1Ks poor conduct to criticise me for failing to notice that NA1K had been deceptively blanking pages.

Portal:Egypt is another example. I reverted[60] to a Special:diff/907011465 by NA1K on 9 July, and didn't spot that in this version NA1k had removed the box header and footer from the news section. I selected that version because it seemed to be the latest version before the restructuring … and I didn't spot that it was broken. The page history shows yet again one of the persistent, widely-noted problems with NA1K's editing practices: countless small edits, and no indication that the portal had been broken by their edits.

I do not believe or suggest that NA1k set out to make it as hard as possible to revert their changes, but if that had been their aim then they would have succeeded. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:38, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support as per the detailed analysis above. I also want to note that I do not think this behavior is befitting for an administrator. --Hecato (talk) 12:58, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Shouldn't the D in BRD happen somewhere other than ANI? – Levivich 13:18, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• @Levivich: Are you suggesting we go through all these on their individual talk pages? SportingFlyer T·C 13:31, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

  Oh heck no. Just one D. One D to rule them all. – Levivich 13:38, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:FAITACCOMPLI. NA1K has been engaged in a mass, unilateral restructuring and unilateral expansion of portals with no prior discussion or even disclosure of their plan. Where NA1K's conversion to a black box has been scrutinised, e.g. at WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ghana and WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Chad the consensus has been to delete the portal.

There is not, and never has been, any guideline, policy or consensus to do what NA1K did:

1. Converting portals to a format where the face of the portal includes neither a list of selected articles, nor a link to such a list. The conversion to a black box whose contents cannot be verified with out undue effort is a extraordinary exercise which NA1k should have discussed first, rather than acting unilaterally on such a huge scale.
2. Radically restructuring the contents of dozens of portals, adding dozens of new articles to each of them, without any attempt at prior discussion or notification of WikiProjects.
3. Adding articles to portals which sneaky edit summaries which fail to disclose what has been added. The boilerplate edit summary "Maintenance: Portal updated / further expanded with more new content" is a clear breach of WP:SUMMARYNO, which says "Avoid vagueness. While edit summaries can be terse, they should still be specific. Providing an edit summary similar to "I made some changes" is functionally equivalent to not providing a summary at all." That vague edit summary was used by NA1K dozens of times, even after NA1K had been repeatedly warned that it was inadequate when used to create changes which could be not seen on the face of the portal.

I readily acknowledge that more work may be needed to restore the reverted portals, some of whose subpages have ben deleted. I will get back to that task later today.

However, the core issue remains:

Where is the consensus that one editor should unilaterally convert a large chunk of portalspace to black box portals consisting of a list of articles chosen unilaterally by that one editor with no demonstrable subject expertise, without consultation with relevant WikiProjects?".

Portals have very low pageviews (the median for Q2+Q3 2019 is 22 views per day, and as a result are largely unscrutinsed. MFD examines an endless stream of portals whose contents are years out of date, or even factually wrong. The Rube Goldberg machine structure presents a high barrier to modifying them, because even a skilled wiki-editor needs to learn an opaque and undocumented structure to figure out how to make changes.

Most WikiProjects pay no attention to any portals within their remit. The result is that the portals have rotted. What we are seeing now is that these portals without WikiProject scrutiny have become the private fiefdom of a small set be of portal enthusiasts who have not even sought community consensus for the widespread changes which they are stealthily making. All the supports above come from the usual crew of hard core portal fans under whose watch portals rotted en masse for a decade; most if them have bene vociferous opponents even of deleting abandoned junk portals which have no WikiProject support.

The long-established editing principle here is WP:BRD … but what the portal fans above are clamouring for is to have just the B, not the R and the D.

What we need now is consensus-building to establish community consensus on the remaining portals should be structured, and how their content is chosen. Instead, the portal fans above all are clamouring to endorse an undiscussed WP:FAITACCOMPLI grab of portalspace by one editor.

One possible outcome of those discussion is that there may be support for what NA1K has done, in which case NA1K's edit can be easily restored. But we won't know what the community supports until those discussions have concluded, and in the meantime restoring NA1K's edits would be endorsing NA1K's WP:FAITACCOMPLI.

Undoing my reverts is clearly designed to prevent the community from deciding against NA1K's fait-accompli-creation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:44, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I have read your explanation and it does not hold any water whatsoever. You should stop making edits to portal space as you clearly have nothing constructive to add. —Kusma (t·c) 14:14, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Kumsa, I suggest that you stop participating in discussions until such time as you can learn how make a reasoned response instead of just asserting your unreasoned opinion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:34, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• The nod to WP:FAITACCOMPLI is especially ironic given that's how I felt about the mass portal deletions earlier this year. There were simply far too many to keep track of, and it was the worst experience I have had on the project, given I support the use of portals and outlines as navigation devices. What I personally noticed on my watchlist was NorthAmerica1000 making a number of changes to the Croatia portal, which I supported. The lack of any intermediate edits does not mean a lack of support - in any event, the mass reversion has been exceptionally disruptive. I also think it's terrible to try and hide behind WP:BRD for this, especially since nothing had happened on the Croatia portal for over a month - see WP:BRB. None of these edits made by NorthAmerica1000 were disruptive. They improved the project and were probably intended to save a number of topic-worthy portals from the further nod at MfD. Given your exceptional dislike of portals, again noted here, I think it's exceptional that you're trying to use WP:FAITACCOMPLI for large-scale reverts of productive content after the content has been live for a large period of time, especially since you have a history with the editor in question, you broke a number of portals they fixed when reverting, and are trying to game the discussion to prevent the reversion of the damage you've caused when so far you've been the only user to oppose it. SportingFlyer T·C 14:51, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• @SportingFlyer, are you serious?

The mass deletion of the automated spam portals was discussed in great detail at two of the best-attended MFDs in recent years, (one, and two). In both cases, there was overwhelming consensus of a high turnout to delete. At WP:Miscellany for deletion/Mass-created portals based on a single navbox, about 70 editors discussed a proposal, and nothing was dine until the discussion was closed by an uninvolved editor. Your suggestion that there was some sort of fait accompli about the outcome of such a large community discussion is at best absurd.

If NA1K's edits were simply to one or two portals, then I would probably agree with you. But what has actually happened is that NA1k has made a set of very radical changes to about 15% of all remaining portals, without any attempt whatsoever to seek consensus either in respect of portals as a whole, or with the WikiProjects who have actually expertise in the topic areas where NA1K has wandered in and chosen with no stated criteria about 40 articles which are intended to provide an overview of the topic area.

Doing that to dozens of portals is a fait accompli. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:29, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support. A rank and file editor would have been blocked for mass reverts like that, especially if there was a past history of conflict between the two. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 14:16, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• I have rolled back the edits listed in the table, will be back in a few hours for the others if nobody beats me to it. —Kusma (t·c) 14:18, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @Kusma: That's utterly out-of-order. A discussion is underway; stop trying to pre-empt its outcome. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:31, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support great analysis above. The behavior by BHG is deserving of sanctions. I am sure a non-admin would be sanctioned for this disruption. Lightburst (talk) 14:21, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Comment – All portals-in-question, should be restored to their previous state (before all these changes were implemented) & then a consensus should be acquired for such changes. This would save some headaches. GoodDay (talk) 14:40, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
  • That is precisely what my edits set out to do. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:46, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
    • @GoodDay: To be clear, what exactly do you suggest? You are either advocating setting the portals to what they were a couple months ago and then discussing the change, or reverting the recent damage caused and then discussing whether those edits be reinstated. SportingFlyer T·C 14:53, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
      • I was suggesting that NK1's changes be reverted. But, it appears that a consensus is growing in this ANI report, to approve his changes. GoodDay (talk) 14:58, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support Even glancing over the changes shows a good improvement over the previous versions of these portals. I would argue that this, here, can be counted as consensus if other volunteers believe that the edits made by NA1k should/shouldn't have been performed. -Yeetcetera _{@me bro} 14:55, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose BHGs edits rolled back the portals to the status quo version and that's where the discussion should have occurred (or, indeed, should be occurring now, if Kusma hadn't taken it upon themselves to roll her changes back, I'm not quite sure when we started doing that in the middle of an ANI). Black Kite (talk) 15:42, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

  Black Kite, when I started reverting, the only editor supporting the edits (with mostly arguments about process, very little about the substance of the edits) was BHG. What we need to start to do at ANI is stand up against bullying and hounding instead of debating process. —Kusma (t·c) 17:01, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

  Kusma, seriously, please just revert yourself. When you started reverting, the discussion about whether to revert–in which you !voted–had been open for six hours. You can't close a discussion in which you !voted. Certainly, you also can't actually implement the proposal before the discussion is even closed. Come on, this shouldn't even need to be explained. – Levivich 17:05, 13 October 2019 (UTC) Update: I see your reverts have already been reverted. – Levivich 17:09, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

  Levivich, as I said, the only process I am interested here is our anti-bullying process, which doesn't seem to be working. —Kusma (t·c) 18:02, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support What I see is valid improvements done by North America. There was no reason to be undoing this work. All the links added to portals such as Portal:Renewable energy are valid ones. Dream Focus 15:49, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - I 100% appreciate NA1ks work they've done with these and I thank them for working on them ...however... consensus should've been sought before the changes not after, As much as I hate seeing such hard work like this being removed and or reverted IMHO the community should decide on layouts etc given the constant issues with these. –Davey2010^Talk 16:31, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

  @Davey2010: Does it matter that BHG is campaigning to delete many portals? Look at the many portal MfDs when you get a chance. Lightburst (talk) 16:37, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• I had noticed and I believe I was a delete !voter at the main RFC, I still maintain they should all be deleted tho. –Davey2010^Talk 16:49, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Why do you think this one editor (who is an admin and thus has the trust of the community) needs to ask permission to update pages contrary to our policy on editing? --Moxy 🍁 17:28, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Because portals have been a hot debate for many months and a overhaul such as these IMHO needs a discussion first - It's no different to someone making a huge change to an article - Consensus should be sought first not after and IMHO the same applies here. –Davey2010^Talk 17:51, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support BrownHairedGirl's repeated attempts above to shut down the discussion and asking other editors to stop participating is also blatant. Cards84664 (talk) 16:53, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Wow! {{tq|repeated attempts above to shut down the discussion}??? Where did that come from?

I have merely asked that we have a centralised discussion on the issues involved, rather than asking ANI to decide on a content issue. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:08, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose so much of what's transpired here. It's BRD, not B, R, a third party takes it to ANI, a fourth party Rs again shortly after !voting in the ANI thread about the R... sheesh. If one editor changes 100 pages in one fell swoop without prior discussion, it's really not cricket to then complain that another editor reverted those 100 changes in one fell swoop. I mean, it wouldn't have been such a massive revert if it wasn't such a massive change in the first place. If you make 100 changes, and they get reverted, you're going to have to defend 100 changes; that's the nature of the beast. Asking people at ANI to judge a content dispute is a terrible idea–this is not the right crowd. Honestly, we got into this mess in the first place by having a content RfC at AN about portalspam. If the portalspam portals had been "nuked from orbit" in the first place (X3), we wouldn't have spent months going through them. We would have gotten to the legacy portals sooner, and everyone's patience would not have been exhausted by that time. And, man, we would have gotten that X3 if that proposal wasn't on AN, but rather at the pump (and no, a pointer from the pump to AN, and a CENT listing, was not a sufficient substitute). Also, we wouldn't be here if that X3 proposal had been properly closed. But I digress. NA1K, as I recall, was in favor of going through portals one by one before deleting them. So, what's wrong with going through portals one by one before improving them? OK, that's a touch pedantic. But at the very least, instead of an ANI thread, just address the concerns underlying the reversion (which are valid concerns), try to come to a compromise, and run the edits again. Asking ANI dwellers to repeatedly choose between NA1K and BHG is not a healthy exercise. We have established processes for handling content disputes, let's use them. And for love of God, let's avoid deciding content disputes at the administrator noticeboards. – Levivich 16:59, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
  • This is more than a content dispute; it's a rivalry for the non-existent crown of portalspace, where one wants to plant more than we have seeds and the other wishes to raze the fields. I believe it falls under the scope of ANI. Vermont (talk) 17:25, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
    • Noting that I have no opinion on this proposal other than that both BHG and NA1K should take a step back from portals, as this section alone shows many distressing actions by both sides. Their continued conflict evidently causes more harm than benefit to the project. Vermont (talk) 17:29, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

  @Levivich: WP:NOTCLEANUP Consider that Wikipedia is a work in progress and articles should not be deleted as punishment because no one has felt like cleaning them up yet. Remember, Wikipedia has no deadline. Why the rush to delete or diminish? I see one editor improving portals, and another editor diminishing and then ivoting delete. Lightburst (talk) 17:31, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

  The key word in that quote is "articles". Portals are not articles. Policies and principles that apply to articles about notable topics do not apply to portals, or templates, or modules, or talk pages, and so on. – Levivich 17:43, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

  I normally agree with your very reasoned opinions. I guess the desire to diminish and or delete portals rather than improve is where we are not on the same page. It is counter to our beliefs guidelines and policies to rush to delete. WP:NORUSH Lightburst (talk) 17:50, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose partly per Levivich but also given what I said earlier. Can we put aside the dumb pointless debates about who should have done what when, and focus on the problem? There is clearly a dispute over the changes. Therefore they need to be discussed with the aim to come to some consensus version. This can happen anywhere suitable, which clearly isn't ANI. It's not like the portals themselves are under heavy editing or heavy viewership. So the changes can easily be reintroduced at some stage after discussion, and arguments over what's the best WP:WRONGVERSION in the interim during discussion are even more silly. Reintroducing the changes after a short discussion on ANI unsurprisingly helped nothing. When I first revisited this discussion it was before BHG had replied and I considered opposing but didn't. Maybe if I had we wouldn't have had the silly re-reversion, I don't know, but you shouldn't have needed my oppose. If some people are so sure that BHG is a major problem, I have no idea why it cannot be demonstrated properly. As I said, start a discussion, make sure BHG is aware of it and give BHG ample time to join it. If they keep reverting while persistently not joining the discussion you've proven the point and now have a great ANI case. This, is not..... And as a general comment directed at all involved in whatever mess results in these continuous threads about problems in the portal name space, from what I've seen there is plenty of fault all around. Don't assume that the other side is the big problem and eventually the community is going to realise that and block or cban or topic ban them. Actually there's a good chance that you're going to be the one that happens to first. And if you're so worried about portal space, be it getting rid of it or improving it, remember many of us DGAF either way. If you care, getting yourself blocked or banned, is likely to give the other side a better hand (for lack of better way of saying that) since we're not going to take your place, so you really need to be on your best behaviour. For the avoidance of doubt this general comment is directed equally at those more favourable to BHG's POV include her and those more favourable to NA1000's POV including them. Nil Einne (talk) 17:36, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support. My views on the value of portals generally align much more with BHG than with NA1K (e.g. my essay uses several quotes from BHG) - however, one shouldn't (in general) revert changes just because the change wasn't (in your opinion) explained well enough (in edit summary or talk); only revert if the change itself was bad (and BHG has not argued that NA1Ks changes were bad). DexDor ^(talk) 18:47, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @DexDor: actually, I have argued that the changes were bad, on two counts: a) turning the portals into black boxes whose list of articles can be checked only by editing the page; b) adding huge numbers of articles with no stated inclusion criteria to transform the portal. When no criteria are defined, then it is perverse to asks other editors to examine the whole set in order to try to reverse-engineer what criteria (if any) may have been applied … and the black box structure created by NA1K raises a barrier to such scrutiny. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:04, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. The core problem here is that +95% of portals on Wikipedia are abandoned, most for over a decade, and out-of-date. Readers avoid them, but unlike an abandoned WP article, an abandoned portal is a real problem for us as they are dynamic not static entities – E.g. would we keep the Mainpage if its last edit was a decade ago? They show Wikipedia as a failing project.

BHG has been working to tidy up this situation. NA1K's well-meaning edits only give the illusion that portals are fine. However, when BHG reverted NA1K's edits to have a discussion on each set - as is what is meant to happen in a portal (or article) - the approach collapses, as NA1K is unable to man so many discussions simultaneously (and nobody else cares).

ANI is not the right location for a BRD that has not even started its "D" part - but because the portal system is collapsing, the only way to do this is to "automate" the "D" part and file it as a "batch" via ANI, and get them simultaneously reverted. It is a measure of how abandoned things are in portals and how far they are from what is meant to happen in WP. Britishfinance (talk) 19:17, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Strong support and recommend, at the very least, a public trouting of BHG. This is unacceptable behavior for any editor. Toa Nidhiki05 19:33, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support – The mass reverts were, as far as I can deduce, not in good faith and should thus be undone. I went so far as to say that any IP or normal editor would be called out for vandalism. If I stretch AGF to incredulity, for myself at least, – I got nothing, I did try to find even the most mediocre of justifications to propose, but can't. Here's BHG's: Revert undiscused change of format; unexplained, sneaky addition of dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries, let alone discussed (sic).
  The "black box" that BHG is referring to, I haven't been able to verify (I have not checked all portals). Portal:Croatia didn't even have a selected article before NA1K started editing the portal (last pre-NA1K diff), for example. Checking NA1K's added list is simply a matter of clicking the "edit source" button and scrolling to "selected article" or "recognized content". It's really quite easy to do. If that's the "black box" then it's not much of a box. The only portal I'm familiar-ish with is Portal:Ancient Egypt which has selected articles/DYKs/etc listed on a subpage.
  Disclosure: I am not on speaking terms with NA1K, our last interaction was me telling them to "fuck off" my talk page (ironically I have the same issues with NA1K that BHG does). Some words from Yeetcetera (great name): Even glancing over the changes shows a good improvement over the previous versions of these portals. That was my impression too. I've twice now linked to the changes NA1K made to Portal:Panama, and I found similar improvements to basically every portal I looked at.
  I'll close by noting what ought to be obvious. The fact that NA1K expanded and updated dozens of portals does not preclude further changes being made. If there's things to be cut, or further repaired, then that can be done. It's only a question of whether anyone cares to. Mr rnddude (talk) 21:29, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Out of scope This discussion is a content discussion. We don't do content discussions at ANI. Some of NA1k's argument points to possible behavior issues, as does the section above, but I find this whole section completely out of scope and not something which ANI can form a consensus about. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:42, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Out of scope Content discussion should happen on content pages where interested editors are likely to see them. Dragging the peanut gallery at ANI into a content dispute is a sure-fire way to not de-escalate a situation and build consensus. This is not the first time we've had civility issues in portal space escalate to a noticeboard (August discussion at AN) and it's getting tiresome. Wug·a·po·des​ 22:50, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

(arbitrary break)

• Comment – @Barkeep49 and Wugapodes: It's a conduct matter:

• BHG mass reverts in a rapid fashion, one after another.
• An erroneous, canned copy/paste edit summary is left, which falsely states that no messages or list of articles has been provided anywhere.
• BHG did not bother to even check the talk pages, where I have left notices of improvements in most cases, and in many cases, a list of articles that were added.
• My edits were characterized in the edit summaries as "sneaky". This is wrong. Again, talk page messages were left in the majority of cases, and lists as well many times.
• BHG assumed that no talk page notices were left, which demonstrates an overly eager mindset of having a propensity to quickly and blindly revert, rather than actually look into matters in a functional manner. It's a failure of assumption over research, not even bothering to click on a talk page first to see if anyone has posted anything.
• BHG's rapid reversions also removed other improvements in addition article expansion. The mass reverts removed the transclusion of articles listed on portal subpages directly into the main portal page. At MfD, users, including BHG, routinely complain that the subpage system is outdated, prone to errors, and is generally inferior, using this as a qualification for deletion time and time again. BHG's reversions of the transclusions has placed many portals in an inferior state, a state that they routinely complain about at MfD. Other problems include the restoration of outdated news sections that were commented out, style and layout errors that were restored, and portal pages now displaying red links instead of content.
• As I stated in a comment above, the rapid reverts has left several portals in a broken state, and this is only from what I have had time to check so far. Hopefully there aren't more.
• BHG could potentially be gaming the system, by essentially locking down any portal improvements, under a potential guise of protecting the encyclopedia, when in fact they may very well have a confirmation bias against portal improvements from the start. The user is the top nominator of portals for deletion at MfD, and portal improvements may theoretically prevent them from being deleted.
• This could all set a very poor precedent, whereby BHG can continue to simply blindly revert any and all edits to portals, cite BRD, and then nit pick and take ownership, working to find anything that could possibly be complained about, thus leading to preventing updates and improvements from occurring from the start.
• BHG has a habit of constantly badgering users that work on portals and those who opine for their retention at MfD discussions. At MfD and other discussions, the user is prone to posting long walls of text that include personal attacks, scolding of users that disagree with their opinion, and taking a stubborn stance that they are always right, and anyone countering them is inherently wrong.
• It is concerning that it appears that BHG has only targeted portals that I have worked on, and the user has demonstrated a vendetta against me, in part because my work serves to improve portals, which goes against the grain of the user wanting many of them deleted. See WP:ENDPORTALS2, where BHG states in part, "I have been one of the main drivers of portal deletion over the last six months, and I have repeatedly been astonished to find how many really bad portals there are. Ever time I thought we were nearing the end of deleting the junk, dozens more would be found. I don't know how many more portals there are which clearly fail POG, but beyond them there are hundreds more like Portal:Ireland: not broken, not on a too narrow topic, maybe lightly maintained ... but still not v helpful. So they languish with poor readership and poor design and no editor willing to devote much time to them." and "Some big cutback would be a huge improvement, and I;ll go with whatever we can get." However, when users improve portals, BHG is now blindly reverting those improvements.
• Furthermore, other users in threads above have supported my improvements to portals. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 00:00, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

  Northamerica1000, I stated in my comment that you brought forward behavioral concerns. Those can (and hopefully will be) dealt with here (dealing with doesn't mean sanctions, just that a consensus about behavior is arrived at). That does not mean ANI can decide "Should BrownHairedGirl's mass portal reversions be reverted, to restore portal improvements that occurred?". We have methods of dealing with content disputes, including content disputes across many pages - RfC. Whether you were right or BHG was right in the content, and thus whether we should be keeping your version or her version, is not something ANI can decide. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:15, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• (ec) Barkeep sums up my opinions on the matter. This section of voting is on a content matter. If anything, it is distracting from conduct matters which is why we shouldn't be trying to resolve content disputes at ANI. Wug·a·po·des​ 01:00, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• NA1k has made a lengthy set of allegations of misconduct against me. I strongly dispute nearly all of them, but it's now past my bedtime, so I will reply in full tomorrow.

But for now I will just leave a few quick points. NA1k surprisingly denies that their conduct was sneaky. Yet they made many dozens of edits with the boilerplated edit summary Maintenance: Portal updated / further expanded with more new content. That does not disclose which articles have been added, even though they could easily have added to the edit summary a link to the article being added, because they almost certainly had copy-pasted the title into the portals list. NA1K knew this was issue, because I had specifically raised it with them. Yet now NA1K denies that their choice to withhold the info from the edit summary was sneaky. This stubborn, repeated denial of reality is a consistent feature of NA1K's conduct.

I also have question for NA1K. On how many of the portals which I reverted had NA1K left an edit summary saying "See talk page", or words to that effect? I saw no such edit summaries, but if NA1K thinks I have missed some, I would be happy to be corrected. However, if NA1K's plan was explain everything on the talk page, why did they not draw attention to that in edit summaries?

NA1K's assertions that they explained all on talk pages is simply untrue. One of the early examples I checked was Portal talk:Guyana#Portal_updated, where NA1K's [61] note says only New article content was added to the portal. No list of what which articles were added, no explanation of the criteria by which they were chosen, not even a count of how many were added. After seeing variation on that vagueness, I gave up checking the talk pages, because it was a waste of time. Sadly, it is entirely typical of NA1K's conduct that they have chosen to blame me for their own active refusal to communicate effectively.

Anyway, full reply tomorrow. It id dispiriting to have to waste so much time rebutting the counter-factual barrage from NA1K, but so be it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

• Comment – Portal:Ontario provides another example of the absurdity of these reversions. The portal was tagged as needing updating on 14 August 2019, with an initial note stating, "update=yes|note=No maintenance since 2014" in the Portal maintenance status template atop the page (diff). The edit didn't take as expected, so the user then added the {{Update}} template directly (diff). So, I performed updates to the portal in August and October 2019. All of the work was then erased with one drive-by edit by BHG using their inaccurate, canned copy/paste edit summary (diff). Now, the update template is back on the portal, after it was already carefully, thoughtfully and significantly updated. BHG's reversion has also left the portal with a red-linked Related portals section and a partially broken DYK section that shows blank content from time-to-time when purging. In their haste to eagerly revert portal improvements in this rapid fashion, the user did not even bother to scroll down on the page to check the results of their one-click action. This disruptive behavior does not improve Wikipedia, it deteriorates it. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 00:56, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
  • NA1K, my reasons for the revert were both clearly stated, and accurate: undiscused change of format; unexplained, sneaky addition of dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries, let alone discussed. If you really believe that statement to be inaccurate, let's hear you explain why.

As to the effects of the revert, I restored a version which predated all your tampering, and had been stable for five days until edited again. The glitches which have since appeared are due to the removal of subpages, a process is slow to detect. In this case, when I looked at the portal just now, it was showing a blank DYK, which turned out to be Portal:Ontario/Did you know?/3. On investigation, that page was blanked[62] by another editor. It is not my fault that another editor chose to blank a page without explanation.

Note that a similar arose with Portal:Iceland, where NA1K criticised me for the blankness of some pages, and when I investigated it turned out that two pages had been blanked by NA1K themselves [63][64]with an edit summary which was beyond sneaky, it downright deceitful: "ce", which usually indicates "copyedit". Blanking a page is not a copyedit.

Once again, NA1k is choosing to try to blame me for their own repeated misconduct. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• Curious how nobody else has complained about my improvements to Portal:Ontario except you. Many of the additions have been in place for almost two months, and the portal receives a decent number of daily page views, so people are seeing it, yet only you come along aggressively reverting all of the improvements in a series of rapid, drive-by edits. I feel that you have a conflict of interest, per your strong interest in having portals deleted, and that the portal existing in an improved state goes against the grain of your deletion crusade. After all, an improved portal with ample content is less likely to be deleted at MfD relative to the (now non-guideline, failed proposal) WP:POG page. Also, per your comments at WP:ENDPORTALS2 and elsewhere, it appears that you just don't like portals, and it seems that you may detest them being improved, for whatever reasons. I feel that you should please stop WP:HOUNDING me and my work, and find something more productive to do in place of this. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 01:51, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• NA1K: First, I note you how simply don't respond to my pointing out where you are demonstrably wrong, but instead simply switch tack. More shoddy, uncollegial conduct.

Secondly, it is not all surprising that nobody else has commented. As you very well know, portals are woefully under-scrutinised. That's why most of them rotted for a decade without complaint, and over 60% have been deleted at MFD. So the fact that nobody commented on your sneaky edits is wholly predictable..

Thirdly, you are wrong about COI. It is NA1K who has a conflict of interest. You have been a vocal opponent of deleting even those portals which have been long abandoned, are almost unread, and which have no WikiProject involvement. So ARS-style, you have appointed yourself as the single-handed rescuer-of-portals, and instead of seeking consensus on how to rebuild portals, you have been furiously rushing around making massive changes to a huge set of portals, adding vast numbers of articles on topics with which you have no demonstrable experience, without even disclosing in a transparent form what you have done and why.

(Note: you criticise me for seeking the deletion of some portals. But in every case, I opened a properly-notified consensus-building discussion on whether to delete. If you had tried even a tiny fraction of the consensus-building which I have ben engaged in, we wouldn't be having this discussion here.)

This is clearly an attempt to WP:GAME the system: to try to create a "look! lots of articles" quantity-based defence against deletion, without setting any evident criteria for doing do. You have appointed yourself as the selector of content for over 15% of all portals, and have nowhere had even the integrity to disclose what you are doing other than on unviewed portal talk pages. Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky.

Note that I am aware of only one occasion in which there was systematic scrutiny of your frenetic list-making: at WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ghana, where I analysed your efforts and showed them to be very shoddy. That MFD closed as the portal being deleted. If you were actually sincere in seeking to leave en.wp with portals for which there is consensus, and which genuinely uphold en.wp principles of balance and NPOV and quality, you would have taken that as a wake-up call, and started to seek consensus. Instead you just added a turbo-charger, and continued as before with your mass sneaky edits.

As you know, I have made many, repeated proposals for how portals could be improved. Yes, I would prefer that nearly all of them were deleted, but if we have to have them, then they should be much less crap than they are now. I don't object to their improvement; that is simply your attempt to smear my good faith, because in months of discussions you have persistently refused to understand why anyone would want to delete portals that you like. What I am objecting to here is the nature of what was done to "improve" portals, which introduced two new, severe problems. Once again, you have chosen to disregard my repeated explanation of the problems you have created, and instead to resort to the usual NA1K response to any attempt at reasoned critique: to simply smear and bluster and deny, and make repeated bogus allegations, even to the pint of blaming me for the blankness of pages which you yourself had blanked with dishonest edit summaries.[65][66] No retraction or apology from you for that. Shoddy shoddy conduct.

I feel that you should please stop WP:GAMEing the system, stop trying to turn portalspace into your own private playground for sneakily building black-box portals where you can shout "look! lots of articles", and find something more productive to in place of this. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:40, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Your actions have ultimately served to hold my months of work hostage via your series of mindless, knee-jerk reversions that involved copy/pasting a canned edit summary and pressing a button. You mass reverted all of the work I have performed over months of time in your series of rapid reversions, bllindly obliterating all other improvements in the process. The high number of reversions you have performed makes the WP:BRD process just about impossible to actually carry out, and now you stubbornly and proudly keep holding your stick, while many others above have stated that your actions were wrong.

Now, unless a hopeful consensus ensues herein for your knee-jerk, drive-by reversions to be undone, you get to continue to hold my months of work hostage. Meanwhile, at MfD, you continually complain about portals that are not improved as a reason for their deletion. I may not respond here more, and simply let the community decide for themselves. Your stubborn attitude is unliikely to be changed, and you have nothing to lose. It's unlikely you'll be blocked for this, if I revert your edits it would be edit warring, and if your reversions stay in place, you WP:WIN, but the encyclopedia loses. You figured out a way to bypass the WP:BRD process by making it virtually impossible to carry out, per the volume of your reversions. Then, I can go to each talk page and explain how the improvements improved the portal, you can then follow in a WP:HOUNDing manner, further disapprove for whatever arbitrary reasons you think up, no consensus forms because portal talk pages recieve little input on average, and the portal remains in a highly inferior state. Well done. I may just quit editing portals altogether, because it's a trap as long as BHG can hold users' work hostage in this manner. Hopefully you don't nominate the portals that you reverted for deletion at a later time; that would be truly sickening. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 07:27, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Plenty of the usual, hyperbolic personal abuse from NA1K: blindly, knee-jerk, hold hostage, mindless. All to distract from the simple substance.

This is all vey simple, NA1K: seek consensus before you set out to do a huge series of undiscussed and undisclosed mass changes which leave have left you as the sole arbiter of the content of over 15% of portals, with a hidden content list. This was a blatant, sneaky land-grab on a big scale.

Since you didn't seek consensus beforehand, I have proposed that we do that consensus-building now. Yet you reject that, which only underlines your intent to create a WP:FAITACCOMPLI.

I note too your crucial acknowledgement that portal talk pages recieve little input on average'. That is entirely true, which is why you should have disclosed your plan properly, rather than hiding it away on pages which receive little input. You didn't notify WikiProjects, you didn't notify WT:WPPORT, you didn't notfy the village pump, or anywhere; you didn't even fellow the WP:EDITSUMCITE guidance to use edit summaries to point to the talk pages. Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky.

And now to crown it all, you state `that the likely outcome of talk page discussion would be no consensus. So you evidently knew that would likely be no consensus for your efforts, and sought to avoid consensus-forming processes.

I may nominate some of these portals for deletion; that wasn't my reason for reversion, but in the future I may scrutinise them and make a decision. If so, I will of course disclose in the nomination the history of reversion. You don't need to just take my word on that, because you can see in my track record that's what I consistently do (see my Wikipedia-space page creations, which in the last 6 months are nearly all MFDs). In the last 6 months I have nominated dozens of portals where I had reverted TTH's automation, and I always disclosed that. I also nominated some portals where NA1K had everted the automation, and I always disclose that too. Note the rich irony that NA1K was happy to mass revert another editor's WP:FAITACCOMPLI, but now howls in fury that a much smaller set of NA1K's WP:FAITACCOMPLI has been reverted. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:59, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Watchlisted. Certes (talk) 15:06, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

(arbitrary break)

• Support I know that BRD exists, but it shouldn't be applied to edits that don't need to be reverted. Lepricavark (talk) 02:10, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Black kite and Nil Einne. -- Begoon 02:54, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Thank you to NorthAmerica for making these changes in such a hostile environment. The sample I reviewed show clear improvements and should remain. A major rationale at portal MfDs has been that they are unmaintained. Simultaneously requiring and preventing maintenance might seem unhelpful. Certes (talk) 08:58, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support. I too had a maintenance edit to at least one of the portals (Portal:Language) reverted without notice; I believe the onus should be on the reverter to open the WP:BRD discussion, and better practice to do so after the first revert, not after performing several tens of reverts. UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:08, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
• Comment - Not supporting or opposing because there's more involved in the operation, maintenance, and, realistically, politics of portals than I am familiar with. Just from this discussion in particular, most of the diffs I've seen just show NA1K plainly improving portals. Mass reverting in the name of BRD because of, say, adding articles to them, without actually challenging the articles themselves, isn't really what BRD is for. Reverting because no discussion on a page that almost nobody watches isn't a good enough objection. Furthermore, calling NA1K and/or his actions "sneaky" ad nauseum (and, seemingly, other editors) is a shockingly accusation of bad faith. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:48, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Requests for Clarifications

I have an idea of what the primary issue is, but I am not sure that I understand correctly. It sounds as if User:Northamerica1000 has been quietly performing surgery on portals, and changing their design from using content-forked subpages of selected articles to transclusions of selected articles, sometimes increasing the number of articles in the process. I have sometimes personally observed that this has sometimes been the case when I have been examining portals, and it is my understanding that this has been the case many other times. It sounds as if User:BrownHairedGirl has then been reverting those changes, so as to restore the old content forks. If so, I either don't understand or don't agree. BHG and I agree that the heritage content-fork design is a very inferior design, which she characterizes as a Rube Goldberg machine. I think that its replacement by transclusion is an improvement. The replacement of content forks by transclusion is not, in my opinion, usually enough to upgrade a cruddy portal that wants deletion to a good portal that should be kept, but it is an improvement, and marginal improvements are still improvements. It appears that BHG has been reverting these upgrades (which may, to be sure, be only marginal upgrades) because they have not been discussed and have not had consensus. I think that there is a consensus that content-forked subpages are an inferior design. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:07, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

User:BrownHairedGirl complains that User:Northamerica1000 has been converting large numbers of portals to a black box format, and that she is reverting those conversions. Perhaps I do not understand what is meant by a black box format or why it is problematic, but it appears to be a portal in which the forest of subpages has been replaced by transclusion. If so, why should that conversion be reverted? The portal design using content-forked subpages is prone to rot, and is characterized by BHG as a Rube Goldberg machine. I would think that replacing the content-forked subpages with transclusion is good, or at least that it minimizes risk. The comment is made that the choice of articles can only be seen editing the portal. With the content-forked approach, determining the choice of articles requires two technical steps, first entering Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Geography or whatever, and then clicking on each of the links. With an embedded transclusion list, one step, editing the portal and viewing the names, is required. How does this differ from what BHG calls a "mega-navbox", which she appears to view as superior to content forks? Each design has its disadvantages. If BHG is saying that all design alternatives for portals have disadvantages, and so advocates of any particular portal must prove that its advantages outweigh its disadvantages, I agree. But what is meant by a black box portal, and why is it undesirable? Robert McClenon (talk) 23:53, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

On the other side, I see allegations of a conflict of interest. I do not see any actual evidence, even any unreliable actual evidence, of a conflict of interest. It appears that User:Moxy is accusing User:BrownHairedGirl of a conflict of interest. That is a serious allegation that comes very close to a personal attack. Perhaps they only mean that BHG is an involved administrator. That policy has to do with non-neutral use of administrative tools, Is there any claim that BHG has been using the block button or the delete button to advance an anti-portal agenda? If so, is there any substantiation of that claim? I don't think so, but am asking. Maybe they mean only that BHG is not neutral about portals. So what? Neutrality has to do with the content of articles. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:07, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon, allegations first: my only use in this of any admin tools has been to undelete portal sub-pages which were needed after the reverts. My aim throughout has been to restore pending consensus, without closing off any options. Claims of a "conflict of interest" are simply a misuse of that term.

On the substance of the reverts: as you know, I regard the use of content forks in portals as a design disaster. Their failings are documented every day in MFDs of abandoned portals whose content forks have rotted, often for a decade or more, and I have frequently denounced them.

However, that does not mean that any design without content forks is problem-free, or that it doesn't introduce new problems. One of the flaws of the content forked portals was they didn't offer on the face of the portal a list of the selected articles, so that readers could see up-front what the overall selection is. However, it did offer a wee link which could be used to check the set and spot any problems, whether of bias, quality or scope.

NA1K's changes removed that possibility. Monitoring the set is now a massively more complex task, because there is no longer a set of clickable links. That creates a serious barrier to scrutiny of portals: they have become a black box.

Those same changes also deprived readers who spotted the tiny link of the chance to scan the whole set.

I am happy to believe that NA1K thought he changes were an improvement. But before rolling out a redesign and restructuring across a huge proportion of portalspace, NA1K should have opened a discussion to seek consensus on whether their preferred solution was the right way to go. Instead, NA!K acted both unilaterally and stealthily. They tried to create a WP:FAITACCOMPLI, conduct which ArbCom has specifically deprecated.

There is a second problem with NA1K's edit. They massively expanding the set of articles on each portals without discussion, consultation, or disclosure of criteria Note that at WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ghana, when I challenged NA1K on what criteria had been used, their reply was simply vague and obfuscatory: I assessed these articles relative to their suitability for this portal, for a topic that is negatively affected by systemic bias and whose articles are rated in a highly inaccurate, misleading manner. Again, these entries were assessed before being added to the portal, but not blindly based upon (often incorrect) assessments on talk pages.

So in other words, NA1K made their own undisclosed assessments of quality, and beyond that speaks only of {{tq|their suitability for this portal}] which tells us precisely nothing about how that "suitability" was determined.

(BTW, note that the only occasion on which a discussion examined the suitability of NA1Ks article was at WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ghana … and that closed with he portal being deleted.')

Before I reverted, NA1K had done this to over 15% of the remaining portals. In other words, a significant chunk of portal space consisted of content chosen by just one editor, against unstated criteria, using their own unstated quality assessments, without even transparent disclosure of what the outcome was.

Where did NA1K seek consensus to appoint themself as the solo selector of portal content? Nowhere that I can see.

Where did NA!K post in a wildly-viewed place asking others to review their efforts? Nowhere that I can see. Portal talk pages mostly unused, so a note there are stealthy unless advertised elsewhere.

Did NA1K notify any topic WikiProjects or the portal project or other stakehoLders? Nowhere that I have seen

And look at how NA1K's talkpage posts, such as this recent one from 11 September:[67], at Portal talk:Guyana#Portal_updated. It's completely vague, saying merely New article content was added to the portal. No list of articles, no indication of how they were chosen, and the weird use of the passive voice to deny acknowledgement of who added the articles.

If the future that the community wants for portals is for them all to be rebuilt and restocked by one editor without any transparency, then let's have the RFC to demonstrate that consensus. But unless and until that consensus is reached, this remains one of the biggest attempts I have ever seen at a stealthy WP:FAITACCOMPLI. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:38, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

One caveat I would make to that analysis - I may be wrong, but I don't think that our portal structure is generally the product of consensus in the first place. My impression is that editors have more-or-less randomly and independently developed portals, although often by copying existing portals without giving much thought to whether the structure being copied was ideal. bd2412 T 01:15, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

User:BrownHairedGirl - You are replying to me about the allegation that you either have a conflict of interest or an administrative involvement. I wasn't asking you. I was telling User:Moxy and anyone else to stop that personal attack unless they can back it up. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:33, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Talking it out

@Northamerica1000 and BrownHairedGirl: What remedies do you two think can help resolve this dispute? Barkeep49 has said they believe there are legitimate conduct issues, and it's obvious that there's a clash of personalities which is playing out alongside what I'm assuming is a good faith content dispute. Since I don't believe a discussion on whether to restore content will be productive, I wanted to ask you both how you think we can move forward from this and de-escalate. What is it you both want to see happen? Wug·a·po·des​ 01:16, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• It would be nice for BHG to not instantly revert and and all portal improvements in a rapid succession, one after another, over the course of a day, essentially hiding behind BRD as a rationale while not addresing the content that was removed. That would be a good start. Discuss first, rather than blindly reverting. Not checking talk pages first to see if a note has been placed about portal work is a significant problem. As I have stated, notes were left in the majority of instances, along with lists of articles added in some instances. It also appears that the user has specifically targeted my work, which equates to WP:HOUNDING if this is the case. So, BHG should seriously consider not targeting my work. I feel that BHG has a significant conflict of interest in that they dislike most portals (see their commentary at WP:ENDPORTALS2), and as such, should not be eagerly reverting any and all portal improvemets in such a rapid, eager and reckless manner. Note my comment above regarding Portal:Ontario: it was tagged in August 2019 with the update template by another user, I updated it in August and October 2019, then BHG drives-by and reverts the updates in one fell swoop with a generic, inaccurate canned edit summary, potentially using BRD to game the system (see WP:GAMING), potentially in favor of keeping portals in an inferior state. Now the update template is back on the portal, after it was already updated. Just ridiculous. Also, I disagree with your notion that a discussion about content restoration would be productive, because several users have already opined regarding the matter, with many supporting the reversions to be undone as a conduct issue, while others have stated otherwise. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 01:38, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @BrownHairedGirl: It seems part of NA1k's concern is the way discussions play out after a revert. Do you (both) think that a rearrangement of BRD would be helpful, namely: bold, discuss, revert? There's no reason the revert must occur before the discussion, and maybe opening a dialogue about what is problematic could help build consensus for further improvements rather than reversions. NA1k has other concerns, and you likely have some yourself, but perhaps it's helpful to try and resolve the problem in pieces rather than all at once. Wug·a·po·des​ 01:51, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• (ec*4) @Wugapodes: briefly, because it's way past my bedtime:

1. Per WP:BRD, retain my restoration of the status quo ante pending centralised discussion on the substantive issues, followimg which the principles agreedcan be applied by individual discussion at each portal
2. Open two neutrally-framed RFCs:
   • How should portals be structured (there are a least 5 difft structural methods that I know of, and no guidance on use of any of them)
   • How should the selection of articles be made? E.g. what criteria are required/acceptable/forbidden; what disclosure is required; what consultation and/or notification is expected; how any portals may one editor take control of
3. urgent remedial training for NA1K in the use of informative edit summaries (Sorry, that doesn't sound conciliatory, but it is a long-standing problem, and a major part of this debacle)
4. Reading comprehension lessons for NA1K, whose post above refers to not addressing the content that was removed, despite my stating in every summary and many times since that the problem was that the content was neither disclosed nor explained.
5. Remedial lessons for NA1K in WP:CONSENSUS-building an in not sneakily creating a WP:FAITACCOMPLI.

Yes, the last three are unlikely … but they sure are needed.

Now, my bed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:54, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@Northamerica1000: Do you think having those RfCs would be a good idea? It seems that it would help resolve the issues you both have raised about portal content as it would give clear goals to work towards. BHG also seems to be concerned about your edit summaries, wishing that you would be more clear about what articles are being added and what kind of maintenance is being performed. Would adding this information to your standard edit summaries have a serious impact on your workflow? Having that info in the page history, rather than having to look at a diff, can be of use to many editors in the future. BHG has gone to bed, so feel free to sleep on this as well. Wug·a·po·des​ 02:04, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I would prefer for the matter to be resolved here at this time, per the high volume of blind, knee-jerk reversions that occurred, rather than moved to another page with yet another portal-related RfC.

I'm well familiar with Help:Edit summary and the advice provided therein, as I follow that advice. Edit summaries have been provided for virtually all portal work I have performed on main portal pages. When creating new pages, such as subpages, an automatic edit summary is typically filled-in by the wiki process. My edit summaries provide an accurate overview of changes that occur in portals. Also, I have been adding lists of articles added to portals on talk pages, which I feel is adequate, rather than copying and pasting a link for every single article added to a portal into an edit summary. Only BHG has recommended this, and I suspect it is because 1) they are trying to cover their tracks for their blind reversions, blaming perfectly rational and functional edit summaries I left as somehow confusing to them, and 2) the user may also be trying to put more hoops in the way of portal work being performed, adding more steps to make it more time consuming for portals to be updated, using instruction creep.

BHG is nit picking in a highly overly-critical, busybody manner, because it is my opinion that they have developed a vendetta against me, because the work I perform is contrary to their stances regarding portals. So, as part of their ongoing smear campaign against me, they continuously rely on ad hominem arguments about edit summaries, while apparently not understanding why some disapprove of their rapid-fire, drive-by reversions that has left many portals in a highly inferior state.

BHG states directly above in a biasedly exaggerated and insulting manner about "remedial training" regarding edit summaries, and that they are "a major part of this debacle", but BHG is the only person in these threads who has complained about my edit summaries. BHG is grasping at straws here, repeatedly making excuses for their inappropriate, knee-jerk, rapid reversions that has left these portals in significantly inferior states. They rely upon ad hominem statements, place false weight upon edit summaries in a hyper-exaggerated manner, and continue to ignore the fact that they did not bother to check talk pages prior to the rapid reversions. They are trying to shift the blame for their laziness in not checking talk pages prior to their mass reversions upon me with hyper-exaggerated claims that they did not understand edit summaries, yet others herein have stated that my edit summaries were perfectly fine. Then, BHG provides another unnecessary insult stating nonsense about "reading comprehension lessons". BHG's constant WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior, badgering and WP:HOUNDING here and elsewhere is disruptive to Wikipedia.

As an example, above Mr rnddude stated in part regarding my work, "The other format change is adding in a section where good/featured articles can be featured, such as at Portal:New Zealand (5 – and read the edit summary, it's clearly explained). (underline emphasis mine). I agree, my edit summaries provide clear explanations and overviews of work performed. Conversely, BHG's edit summaries that were used in these reversions has been questioned, by myself and others,

In another comment regarding BHG's edit summaries, Moxy states, "The misleading edit summaries in many cases is what I noticed first ....as its clear as seen at Portal talk:Serbia#Portal expanded and Portal talk:New Zealand#Portal expanded and Portal talk:Thailand#Portal expanded etc.. nothing sneaky here.... even posting articles and from where. But will wait for replies as you have suggested". I agree, as posting a list of articles added directly on a portal talk page is certainly not "sneaky", nor is adding an edit summary directly stating that articles have been added, oftentimes also providing additional information such as denoting that they are GA-class or FA-class articles. Instead, BHG continuously mischaracterizes my good faith work in their commentary herein as "sneaky", like a broken record. I tire of this hounding and I tire of the personal attacks.

In a comment above by Cactus.man, stating in part, "So, BHG mass reverts (yes, that's exactly what that was) and at a stroke converts all those Portals back to an inferior state, with a dubious edit summary". (Underline emphasis mine).

Above, Moxy states, "I see that Northamerica1000 did leave some message on talks and explains were article selection came from despite the edit summary above" (underline emphasis mine), with the "despite the edit summary above" referring to BHG's dubious, copy/pasted edit summaries that were left when performing these reversions.

Regarding BHG's edit summaries, above, Nil Einne states, "if BHG mass reverts, she really needs to provide some decent explanation somewhere i.e. not via edit summaries and an actual reason why she feels the changes are unwarranted that isn't simply 'discuss first'." (Underline emphasis mine).

Perhaps BHG should take their own advice regarding edit summaries.

BHG continuously complains herein about their desire for a visual list of articles to be present, but nobody else appears to have agreed with this notion. It's just BHG's ideation, serving as an excuse to try to cover up their disruptive, unnecessary reversions. BHG is well aware that a list of articles is very easily and readily available simply by selecting the "Edit" link on a main portal page and scrolling down. They're just making excuses for their reckless reversions after the fact, making up their own rules along the way. Also, a visible list was provided in many instances on portal talk pages. See the table above for more information. Perhaps I should include in edit summaries, "See the talk page for a list of articles". North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:29, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to write all that; I'm sure it was neither easy nor pleasant, but it's helpful feedback that I hope BHG takes into account moving forward like she did in August. I appreciate that you would like this resolved here and now, and I understand how the community is probably fatigued from portal RfCs. That said, you've raised issues that go beyond content problems, and I don't believe that winning a content dispute at ANI is going to improve that situation. I appreciate that the both of you have been willing to discuss how to improve your working relationship, both in this and previous discussions, and hopefully by continuing in that spirit we'll resolve both content and conduct issues.

With that in mind, I think it might be helpful to revisit what solutions you think would ease tension. At the beginning of this thread you said "It would be nice for BHG to not instantly revert any and all portal improvements in a rapid succession, one after another, over the course of a day" and I think that is worth considering. No one wants to feel like they're being followed around or that their contributions are not wanted. Quick reverts in rapid succession will definitely bring about those feelings in others regardless of intention, so it is best to try and mitigate that when possible. So, what can be done here and now to help prevent that situation from occurring again? (ec) Wug·a·po·des​ 04:51, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Reply to FUD. Yet more FUD from NA1K, mostly based on simple denial of reality.

1. FACT: NA1K repeatedly used the same edit summaries for a long series of edits, especially Maintenance: Portal updated / further expanded with more new content. NA1K could easily have listed which articles were added, but repeatedly chose to obscure the effect of their edits by omitting that info
2. FACT: Across the whole set of portals which I examined, I found no edit summaries by NA1K which indicated the existence of further info on the talk page
3. FACT: the only edit summaries were listed the content added were to one portal (I forget which one)
4. FACT: I gave up checking the takes pages after finding examples such as Portal_talk:Guyana#Portal_updated, where NA1K left a useless, vague statement which doesn't even stare who made the changes, let alone what articles were added, and on what basis they were chosen
5. FACT: NA1K's claims that I should have checked all talk pages, even when NA1K had hosen not to indicate that there was anything there. This is a classic passive aggressive strategy: blaming me for not going the extra a mile to seek out information which NA1K now claims is relevant, but which they repeatedly chose not to signpost
6. FACT In none of the talk pages which NA1K has mentioned was there both a) full list of the articles which the portal now contained, and b) a clear statement of the criteria used to select articles. None.
   In some cases, there was a statement that the articles were of a particular quality (FA or GA), but in no case was there any statement of a) which set of FA or GA-class articles had ben used; b) whether NA1K had selected all available articles of that quality, or chosen some of the set.
7. FALSEHOOD: NA!K writes Help:Edit summary and the advice provided therein, as I follow that advice. Not true, e.g.
   • WP:SUMMARYNO says "While edit summaries can be terse, they should still be specific. Providing an edit summary similar to "I made some changes" is functionally equivalent to not providing a summary at all". NA1K's use of the generic Maintenance: Portal updated / further expanded with more new content is functionally equivalent to not providing a summary at all
   • WP:EDITSUMCITE says "Expand on important information. Readers who see only the summary might not get the entire picture. Prevent misunderstanding: If an edit requires more explanation than will fit in the summary box, post a comment to the article's talk page to give more information, and include "see talk" or "see discussion page" in the edit summary.". In none of the thousands of edit summaries that I read did NA1K write "see talk" or "see discussion page" or anything

Please remember that of all this was in the course of a massive exercise which NA1K undertook, to restructure many dozens of portals, rebuild and massively expand their article lists, without ever even setting out their plan, let alone seeking for consensus. NA1K's persistent failure to explain their editing is part of their wider strategy to create a WP:FAITACCOMPLI. There was a complete absence of transparency and consensus-building at every level, and NA1K remains in denial about the whole thing.

Sadly, this NA1K strategy of denial and FUD has been used by the many many times before. It is a core part of NA1K's long-term conduct as an editor. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:38, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the nature of the mass reversions has made the WP:BRD process for each portal on their respective talk pages virtually impossible. I feel that this alone is quite disruptive. As I have stated, I've left messages on most talk pages I worked on denothing changes that have occurred, a list of articles added to many, and have watchlisted the pages I worked on. If any concerns were to come in, they would then be addressed on a portal talk page respectively, rather than en masse in a discussion such as this.

It doesn't seem that BHG is really interested in actually utilizing the BRD process, as per 1) the nature of the mass reversions makes it virtually impossible, 2) the example provided at Portal talk:Ontario, where the user just repeated their edit summary, rather than disucssing the actual articles that were removed (diff), and 3) the reversions removed all other edits as well, reverting portals back to transcluding content from subpages that may be outdated, restoring outdated news sections that were commented out, placing portals in a state of visual imbalance, creating red links where content once existed, etc. The knee-jerk reversions reek of an attempt to take ownership of portals, by making it very difficult for them to be improved. Then the user complains at MfD discussions about portals that are not being improved. A stinky vicious circle.

The rapid nature of the reversions confirms that the user did not take the time to consider reverting to other versions of portals that would have retained all of the other improvements sans the articles; the user simply removed any and all edits I performed in a rapid manner. That alone is quite problematic. It's a poor choice to throw out the baby with the bathwater as has occurred with these drive-by reversions, making a farce out of Wikipedia.

It's a poor precedent to require users to gain consensus for each and every edit to Wikipedia before performing them, and would cripple Wikipedia immensely if this notion were to actually be existent. As it stands now, if BHG gets their way, they will then be the WP:OWNER of any and all edits that occur in Portal namespace, whereby the user could simply blindly revert in a rapid fashion, again, in a manner that makes the BRD process impossible, ad infinitum. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:23, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying, I've moved it to the thread it was in response to Wug·a·po·des​ 05:52, 14 October 2019 (UTC) I don't understand what this is in response to? Wug·a·po·des​ 05:29, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

In part, to your question above, stating, "So, what can be done here and now to help prevent that situation from occurring again?". BHG should stop mass reverting work, because it makes individual discussion impossible. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:45, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

For BrownHairedGirl when she logs back on, would you be willing to suggest mass reverts on a centralized page such as WT:POG or WT:PO before you perform them? This would have the advantage of making it easier to refactor the discussion into the project pages. You're right with your RfC suggestions that the community needs to come to a decision on what portal norms should be, and by centralizing discussions which have implications for many pages, consensus can be reached organically without causing RfC fatigue. I understand that you would prefer to revert and then discuss, but that process has shown to not work in this case; portals will always be on The Wrong Version for someone it seems. A number of editors have expressed concern that, in general and in particular, reverting edits for not having been discussed would dissuade editors from making bold improvements to the encyclopedia which would be a net negative. If it's always someone else's responsibility to start the discussion, it will never happen, so would you be willing to play more of a role in starting discussions as a method of consensus building and less of a role in reverting? Wug·a·po·des​ 06:11, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• I won't be participating in this discussion much but I may just make some minor points. @Northamerica1000: BHG has said they did check out a few talk page discussions but found them too vague. They have a point that if you check out a small number of talk pages and see the same thing, it's generally entirely reasonable not to check out each subsequent ones.

  Also we should remember that the only way mass reversion of your edits to many portals could have happened is if you made massive changes to the portals. It looks like in some cases you did give some time for discussion before making your changes although not always since in some cases the talk page comment was only made after you made your changes. I believe there was a longer time frame between your edits, although it still looks (I haven't looked in detail so forgive me if I'm wrong), like it was only about a month which given the activity on portal space is relatively short.

  I think many of us can understand why mass reversion of your changes is distressing but we also understand why mass changes which you don't feel are an improvement are distressing. In other words, if we say maybe BHG shouldn't have made so many reversions, we may also say you shouldn't have made so many changes in relatively quick succession. You opening a talk page discussion either before or after helps but ultimately when you're relying on WP:Silence and the obviousness of your improvements, often going slow is a better bet.

  In other words, maybe edit 10 or so portals and give it 2 weeks or so and see what happens. Then try another 10-20. (The alternative would be a clear RfC.) This is probably not the way to proceed from here, but it would have hopefully avoided this problem.

  Nil Einne (talk) 07:02, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Ni Nil Einne: Per a comment I just made above, I may not be editing portals anymore at all. As long as months of a users work can be held hostage by another user mass reverting using a canned edit summary and pressing a button, in such a volume that it makes the WP:BRD process virtually impossible, there's no reason to continue editing portals, because the user can then just do the same thing at a later time. I may not contribute more to these discussions at this time, and simply wait out any hopeful community consensus that may occur. Watching months of my work potentially go down the drain in this manner sickens me. BHG wins, but Wikipedia loses in a big way. As I stated above, hopefully BHG does not nominate the portals they reverted for deletion at a later time, which would complete the farcical circle and kangaroo court that Wikipedia appears to be becoming. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 07:40, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I reserve the right to nominate for deletion any page on Wikipedia which I believe should be deleted, and I always accept the outcome of the resulting consensus-forking discussion. (If NA1K had set out to build a consensus instead of sneakily and deceptively creating a WP:FAITACCOMPLI, we wouldn't be at ANI).

However, I do of course undertake that if I nominate any of these portals at MFD, then I will disclose in the nomination the history of any reversion I have done. You don't need to just take my word on that, because the record shows that is what I have done for months. Both I and NA1K reverted many dozens of portals which can been converted by TTH into automated navbox clones. I later nominated dozens of those reverted portals at MFD, and I took great care to document those reversions in nominations; anyone who wants to verify that assertion can check my list of Wikipedia-space page creations, which this years are nearly all MFDs. As you can see, my nominations are usually exceptionally detailed, and try document all the relevant points in the portal's history.

It's ironic that NA1K was happy to mass revert well-intended but ultimately unhelpful changes by another editor, but howls in fury when their own edits are reverted. The similarities are striking: in both cases, there was a determined effort to create a WP:FAITACCOMPLI rather than to seek consensus. Sadly for NA1K, the record is very clear that TTH was much more open about what he was doing, publishing regular "updates" noting the progress of his spamming exercise. If NA1K had a fraction of TTH's communication skills, their spree could have been halted for discussion long before there was so much sneaky restructuring to revert. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:32, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• @BrownHairedGirl:, especially since you've been complaining about vague edit summaries I'm concerned with the edit summaries you left. As an outsider, it's very hard for me to parse [68] "Revert undiscused change of format; unexplained, sneaky addition of dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries, let alone discussed" there was a talk page comment, but it's too vague. The talk comment [69] clearly includes some proposed format changes. To be fair, the talk page discussion was only opened after the changes, but again your edit summary was very unclear on the problem.

  If you'd said something like "some of the changes in format have been mentioned on the talk page but not all, and the comment was opened after the changes so there was no discussion" it would be far clearer what you're concerned about.

  Further, I have to ask, since you were aware there was a talk page discussion in some cases, did you actually plan to join the talk page discussions at some stage in the next few days before this blew up? Even if you felt the talk page discussion was too vague, even more so with an existing discussion it's expected you should join it if you're going to revert. Preferably with something more than just a copy of your edit summary.

  For example, if you disagreed with the formatting changes that were mention in the talk page discussion, then say so. If you feel they are okay, but disagree with other formatting changes that weren't mentioned then say so. While it's sometimes acceptable to revert without identifying any specific problems just because you feel the edits need more discussion, this seems problematic here. So I'm hoping you did have specific problems you could outline on the talk page, more than "insufficient discussion".

  Nil Einne (talk) 07:02, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• @Nil Einne: can you point me to any examples of a revert which I did where NA1K's edit summaries had followed WP:EDITSUMCITE's guidance "Prevent misunderstanding: If an edit requires more explanation than will fit in the summary box, post a comment to the article's talk page to give more information, and include "see talk" or "see discussion page" in the edit summary".

I found precisely zero such edit summaries. I respect your evident good intentions, but I find it deeply offensive that I am being criticised for the effects of NA1K's repeated choice to ignore that basic guidance, and then complain that I didn't go hunting for the info which NA1K had chosen not to disclose. NA1K has adopted a passive aggressive strategy, and is trying to blame me for their own failure to communicate effectively.

I also strongly object to your statement Even if you felt the talk page discussion was too vague, even more so with an existing discussion it's expected you should join it if you're going to revert. In precisely none of the cases identified was there any discussion on the talk page. Zero. A "discussion" involves more than one person, and when I followed the links provided at MFD I found no discussion. I hope that your use of that term is a good faith error, and that you will correct it … because it's use falsely implies that there was already an exchange of views underway which I chose to ignore and override.

In some cases, I now see there was an unadvertised statement on the talk page, of varying degrees of informativeness, but in each case falling a long way short of clear and full explanation what had been done. Even if I had been aware of those statements at the time, that would not have altered my decision to revert, because my previous attempt at similar discussions with NA1K had ben fruitless, since NA1K is either unwilling or unable to explain their actions (I suspect a bit both). See WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ghana, where I did a very detailed analysis of the list of articles chosen, and N1K replied with their usual barrage of obfuscation, bluster, false accusation and FUD. In that discussion made it clear that they had made their own quality assessments, ignoring assessments made by WikiProjects … and the only other explanation offered by NA1K of how the had chosen articles I assessed these articles relative to their suitability for this portal. That is pointless verbiage which makes zero attempt to explain what criteria NA1K had adopted to determine "suitability".

Countless similar experiences in the last 8 months have led me to conclude that NA1K combines some combination of low intelligence, very poor communication skills, and repeated bad faith. That sounds harsh, but when asked how a selection is made a response which simply says "suitability" is absurd. So these issue need to be resolved by a wider community discussion, involving editors who are impeded by NA1K's persistent communication failures, and the evidence of previous attempts is that a long series of one-to-one communications with NA1K is likely to be pointless. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:08, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I get that this is a very combative discussion in which strong criticisms have been leveled on both sides, but you are crossing a bright line when you attack NA1K's intelligence. Lepricavark (talk) 15:15, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Lep, if you believe that issues of competence are off-limits, then you should see consensus for that view by nominating WP:CIR deletion. I would be surprised, and deeply saddened, if the community decided that competence was not a relevant attribute in building an encyclopedia, but maybe that's not just your view. But when CIR is deleted, let's talk again. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:08, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I think most would think holding off on nominating portals you messed up giving the community time to evaluate the mass reverts that the majority here think are contentious.--Moxy 🍁 15:22, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Moxy, I didn't mess up any portals. I reverted a many instances of a sneaky attempt at creating a WP:FAITACCOMPLI. If you want to know who messed up portals, look at those who deleted subpages, and at NA1K's sneaky blanking of portal sub-pages[70][71] using a dishonest edit summary, and their attempt to blame me for the consequences of their sneakiness.

If there is an RFC on the issues involved, as I suggested, then I will of course hold off MFDing any of the relevant portals until it has closed. And obviously I won't be MFDing them while this discussion is still open. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:52, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

As stated by multiple editors multiple times giving multiple examples there is clearly some problems. Taking responsibility and recognizing there is some problems over saying the same thing over and over would help us see some good faith on your part. As on now the I am right and all others wrong seems unsustainable at this point.--Moxy 🍁 16:08, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• @Wugapodes: I admire your desire to see if NA1K and BHG can talk it out. I simply don't have time at the moment to really read and think through their walls of text but if you can find a way forward that they both can agree to so we can stop coming back to noticeboards and not end-up at ArbCom the community would be better off for it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:27, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Thanks, that's the goal. Everyone has their blind spots and both editors are reasonable people, so I think we can figure something out. Interpersonal conflict is like a knot in a rope: the only way to remove the knot and keep the rope intact is to get in there and untie it. Some knots are complicated, but if it was tied it can be untied. Hopefully we can remove the knot without cutting it out. Wug·a·po·des​ 05:03, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Not Time for an RFC on Portal Structure

I disagree with the idea of having an RFC on portal structure at this time, while there are still hundreds of low-readership portals, some of which have other problems also. I disagree with an RFC on portal structure because we can see from experience that, when it is closed with a consensus on the best portal structure, the portalistas will use it to argue for keeping all remaining portals that have been converted to that structure. They have been misusing the RFC eighteen months ago not to abolish portals to argue that it provides consensus for portals in general, and they will misuse another RFC as an argument to keep bad portals that have been converted. That is just my opinion. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:45, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

More portals broken from BHG's drive-by reversions – Update #2

The following is a list of more portals that have been broken by BHG's reversions. None of these errors were present when I finished working on these portals.

• Portal:Malawi – DYK section now broken, consisting of a sea of red links.
• Portal:Switzerland – The New articles (stubs) section is broken, displaying no content and existing as a glaring blank box on the page.
• Portal:Uganda – DYK section is now a sea of red links.
• Portal:Liberia – DYK section is now yet another sea of red links.
• Portal:Panama – Header layout messed up, and the page is now imbalanced. Lead section is also now messy, and now provides limited information compared to its previous state.
• Portal:Turkmenistan – Many red links restored by BHG, that were cleaned up before. Now they're back.
• Portal:Somaliland – Minor layout errors remain in place that weren't there before, such as the purge server cache link now existent in the middle of the portal.
• Portal:Belize – Restored a bright red link in the Selected article section.

As I have stated already, it appears that BHG did not bother to check their work afterwards, instead just reverting and then closing the page, just to perform the same problematic edits afterwards, one after another, resulting in yet more errors. I would fix these problems myself, but then I would be edit warring, so these portals remain in a dumbed-down state. Hopefully someone will fix these errors soon, because Wikipedia's WP:READERS deserve better. BHG's edits have not improved Wikipedia's portals, they have broken them. Rather than double-checking their work, they have spent their time here working to discredit the fine work I have performed to improve portals. Meantime, the portals above remain in a broken state, and I spend my time now requesting for someone to fix the problems in lieu of edit warring. What an absurd mess, and I still have not gone through the whole list above yet. This is not how Wikipedia is supposed to function whatsoever. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 10:52, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• Look at what's happened here: NA1K's quest to create a WP:FAITACCOMPLI across scores of portals has involved a scorched earth strategy of making it difficult to revert their changes.

I restored all these portals to versions which had been working. However, it seems that there has been a systematic process underway of deleting sub-pages, which means that in some cases the working versions which I restored are using sub-pages which no longer exist. It was a quick and trivial matter to fix most of those, by simply commenting out the DYK sections, which were usually full of stale and/or fake DYKs.

Some other glitches will need more attention.

But NA1K's post here illustrates again how they have been trying to create a WP:FAITACCOMPLI:

• massively restructuring dozens of portals without ever disclosing their plan, let alone seeking consensus for it
• trying to make reversion as difficult as possible
• converting portals to a black box format where the list of articles is no longer visible without editing the page, and doesn't include a set of clickable
• sneakily adding to dozens of portals large sets of articles chosen by them, without discussion and without full disclosure of the list and criteria. NA1K has unilaterally appointed themself as the sole selector of content for a large chunk of portal-space, using deliberately vague boilerplate edit summaries such Maintenance: Portal updated / further expanded with more new content, which don't disclose what article was added
• blaming me for errors created by NA1K, e.g. on Portal:Iceland where NA1K complained of blank sections. When I investigated, I found that the two pages involved had been blanked by NA1K[72][73] with the edit summary "ce", which is the common shorthand for copyedit. In other words, NA1K had blanked pages (a no-no), with a deceitful edit summary and was now blaming me for the consequences of their own deceitful actions.

NA1K has been WP:Gaming the system on a massive scale, and is now using a classic FUD strategy pf attack and misinformation to try to cover their tracks. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:07, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• A comment: I do not believe I would be calling NA1K's changes as they have done under FAITACCOMPLI. Consider how FAITACCOMPLI came about - it was one editor nominating a mass number of articles in a similar subject area for AFD, thus forcing the editors in that project area to have to rush under the limited time factor of AFD to respond. It has been used with editors making difficult-to-reverse mass actions (eg admin broom needed). Are NA1k's actions of that type? No. For one, using Portal:Guinea as an example, NA1K took thirty minutes to incorporate content on one day, a couple more changes the next, and coming back a few weeks later for the final step. That's definitely not "automatic". Spot checking others on the list above, show a reasonable amount of care to make sure the portal was updated correctly. Checking the reverts by BHG, that was just rollbacking all of NA1k, which is far from the amount of effort that has to be questioned to be considered within FAITACCOMPLI - its easy and requires no admin rights. So no, I do not think at all the FAITACCOMPLI argument holds up here. NA1K appeared to methodolically fixing portals, BHG reverts all those changes rather quickly, and there was no deadline to revert those changes. --Masem (t) 21:52, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

More portals broken from BHG's drive-by reversions - Update #3

More of the same as per the above. There are also additional errors in these and other pages listed above that are more subtle in nature that I spotted, but I tire, so here are some more highlights. None of these errors were present when I finished working on these portals. Hopefully an uninvolved user can fix these problems; if I do it, it would be edit warring. So, here are yet more inferiorized portals. Getting there, only about 20 more entries or so from the list above left to inspect. What a way to build an encyclopedia. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 12:08, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• Portal:United Arab Emirates – Page is now cluttered, sources section removed, purge link in the middle of the portal, sloppy visual layout overall. A mess.
• Portal:Language – Page layout now in a sloppy state.
• Portal:Lithuania – Imbalanced page layout. Sources section now gone.

Personal attacks

The above thread has become hopelessly personalized in general, but I am particularly bothered by BrownHairedGirl's decision to attribute low intelligence to NA1K [74]. As BHG apparently does not intend to respond to my objection to this comment above, I am going to press the issue here because I believe that a bright line has been crossed. A non-admin might very well have been blocked for such a comment. Unless we intend to let this thread devolve into a free-for-all, the personal commentary needs to be stopped. Lepricavark (talk) 16:17, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• @BrownHairedGirl: What do you think about WP:NPA? --qedk (t 桜 c) 16:51, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @Lepricavark and QEDK: sorry; I only just noticed your pings.

Please read my comment[75] in context. I was trying to describe and explain the extreme and recurring difficulties faced in communicating with NA1K about any point of disagreement. There is a large body of evidence I could supply to explain how I reached the conclusion that this seems to be a factor and also how other editors have publicly expressed similar conclusions, but I don't want to pile it on. I made what I felt was the minimum necessary explanation of the problem which I was repeatedly encountering, and while I regret that it was necessary to say, I do believe that it was necessary to mention it in that context.

I have re-read WP:NPA, and it doesn't seem that NPA prevents even the mention of such an issue when it is relevant in context (which his was), and when it is not used with intent to attack (which this wasn't).

I would be very happy for all the personal commentary to stop, but sadly NA1K has used this ANI discussion as venue for repeated attacks on me, and sustained misrepresentations. That's why I have explained my analysis in reply to another editor.

I have repeatedly proposed centralised discussions on the two key issues of how portals should be structured, and how decisions should be made on what articles they should include. I still believe that this would be a far more productive path for the community than the personalisation which is an inevitable consequence of trying to resolve a content dispute at ANI, and urge again that this whole issue be taken back to the realm of policy and guideline where it belongs. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:22, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

As an adminstrator, you're supposed to uphold the five pillars of Wikipedia, making comments (here, personal attacks) like "low intelligence" (regardless of any context) diminishes the integrity of your adminship and the mandate with which you were elected. --qedk (t 桜 c) 18:34, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

QEDK, I mentioned that as one of three possibilities to explain problematic behaviour.

It was not intended as a personal attack.

It seems to me to be perverse to suggest that even when similar problems have been noted before, and a discussion is taking place on how to resolve the issues, it should be verboten to even mention an issue which was discussed in much greater detail at NA1K's two RFAs. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:42, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• Repeatedly accusing NA1k of having made "sneaky edits", which I interpret as accusing NA1k of having deliberately tried to evade scrutiny, are also personal attacks (WP:NPA: "Accusations about personal behaviour without evidence are personal attacks"). - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 17:15, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Thomas W, I have repeatedly posted evidence of the sneaky edits, tho I have not repeated the evidence on every occasion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:24, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
    • I can find the edits myself, but diffs for the edits isn't enough, you need to provide evidence for the edits having been deliberate attempts to evade scrutiny. Your interpretation of when WP:NPA does or doesn't apply also seems a bit odd, because you believing that someone has "low intelligence", and you feeling that something needs to be said, does not automatically mean that WP:NPA doesn't apply to you... - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 17:31, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• Thomas, please re-read what I wrote. I stated that I saw 3 possible factors, of which this is one. It was not intended as personal attack. I do hope that you are not claiming that such CIR issues may not be even mentioned, even when there is a pile of evidence available.

As to the sneaky edits problem, I have posted plenty of evidence already, but unfortunately it is scattered around the unseemly brawl which this discussion has become. The sheer pile of long sets of attack barrages which NA1k and a few others have posted means that discussion is multiply fragmented and multiply repetitive. I do not believe that any useful purpose is served by continuing this free-for-all.

So if someone wants to set up some structure to state a list of complaints which I can address, they I will respond with evidence. But, however well-intentioned your comments, I don't feel that it constructive for me to continue to try to answer variants of the same question many different times. That places an unfair burden on me, and does nothing to resolve the issues. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:56, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I appreciate that BHG does a lot of valuable and thankless maintenance work in this area, but this thread is indeed concerning (the low intelligence comment as well as the many instances of accusing NA1k, and subsequently mr rnddude, of being "sneaky"). There was also this other, related thread started by a different user a few months ago. These seem to me signs that it may be time to take a voluntary break from portals for a couple months? (this is just a suggestion, not a proposal FWIW) — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:41, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• Perhaps BHG has made some unwise comments, but on the other hand it's perhaps not surprising when there are also a significant number of attacks on BHG above by multiple editors; "The mass reverts were not in good faith", "having a conflict of interest", "stalking a good faith admin", " I am sure a non-admin would be sanctioned for this disruption", "This is unacceptable behavior for any editor", "BHG could potentially be gaming the system", "stop hounding", "mindless, knee-jerk reversions". There's a word for that, and it's "bullying". Black Kite (talk) 18:59, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• That goes both ways, so I see no reason to make the excuse only for BHG. And I think that it goes beyond 'unwise' for one admin to suggest that another admin is lacking in intelligence. I'm not satisfied by BHG's explanations above, either. Lepricavark (talk) 21:33, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
• I find this to be one of the most damaging phenomena that happens on ANI: when someone is called out by multiple people for problematic behavior towards another editor, and manages to get cast as the victim. What you are labeling bullying looks an awful lot like many different editors finding problems with BHG's approach/comments here. These are policy/guideline-based objections to behavior, and you have equated them with directly insulting an editor's intelligence (and repeatedly doubling down on it/defending it). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:38, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• So none of those comments above are personal attacks? I call it as I see it, and a large amount of (mostly male) editors attacking a long-term productive female editor is not a good look to me. That's just my opinion, feel free to disagree with it. Black Kite (talk) 22:38, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oh look, there's another one by User:Certes ... It is well past time that something was done to end this blatant misconduct.. Doesn't look good at all. Black Kite (talk) 23:03, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

(ec) Certes, I am not of aware of any instance where NA1K claimed to have given prior notice on its talk page. These were post-facto notices stating a WP:FAITACCOMPLI.

In any case, as NA1K had themselves acknowledged, portal talk pages are little scrutinised, so any notice there is by NA1K's evaluation, clearly inadequate.

As to the rest, I stand by my assertions. If you want to list them as a complaint, them I can respond them one by one. But raising them as side-swipes like this in unhelpful.

As to "warmonger", it was Certes who back in February described the discussions on deletion of portalpsam as a "war on portals". It was Certes own choice to cast himself in such battlefield style, and Certes's battleground response to good faith efforts at consensus-seeking was indeed warmonger behaviour. I hope Certes will take the opportunity to belatedly withdraw that disgraceful remark, and to acknowledge the role tat Certes played in turning poral cleanup into a battlefield.

As to Moxy, there recurrent problem that Moxy fails to demonstrate comprehension of what has been written, and resorts to abuse. Moxy's frequent lapses of comprehension are not my fault. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:13, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

A Suggested Truce

I have a suggestion both to reduce further quarreling and to reduce further damage to portals, most of which are inherently flawed anyway. There are two parts to it, and they are not each dependent on the other part being accepted.

First, I suggest that User:BrownHairedGirl stop reverting the undiscussed changes to portals, whether by User:Northamerica1000 or anyone else, unless BHG is prepared to argue that the original portal was in good shape. Since I think that BHG thinks that most of the portals in question are not in good shape, I certainly don't see that it is worth making an issue about changing from a format that we both agree is unsound, with content-forked subpages that rot, to another format that BHG calls a black box. (I personally think that the black box is less problematic than content forks, but that is only my opinion.) I suggest that BHG just stop reverting the portals, regardless of whether the changes to portals should be discussed. In my opinion, it isn't worth reverting the portal unless one actually thinks that the original design was good.

Second, I suggest that User:Northamerica1000 stop the frantic undiscussed conversion of portals from content-forks to black boxes. It isn't likely to satisfy the portal critics anyway. It isn't that much of an improvement, and rather than saying that the portal hasn't been maintained since 2013, the portal critics will say that it wasn't maintained from 2013 to 2019 and might be abandoned again.

I am not offering this simply as a proposed agreement that requires both parties to agree. I am suggesting that each of the two admins on their own back off from this edit-war. I am more optimistic that maybe BHG will listen than than NA1k will listen. I haven't known NA1k to listen to reason, but I am still hoping. I do know that BHG is reasonable. It isn't worth the edit-wars to revert changes between two types of portal designs if you dislike both of them.

I don't know what is wrong with the black box format anyway. It is true that I can't see what is inside it without going into programmer mode by editing the portal, but I can't see what is inside a content-forked portal without going into programmer mode by querying the prefix index and clicking the links.

That is my suggestion. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:00, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon, I have already stopped reverting the black box portals, since the matter is under discussion. I intend to exercise that restraint until the matter is resolved. However, if I the long-overdue RFCs don't happen, and NA1K resumes their spree without prior consensus-building, then I will reconsider.

User:BrownHairedGirl - Thank you. As I noted above, I don't want those RFCs, because the portal advocates will misuse the result, and will argue that there is consensus for keeping all portals that have the preferred architecture. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:56, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

As to the black box issue, see e.g. Portal:Ireland. It links two ways of viewing the article list:

1. at the bottom of the "selected article" box, there is a link entitled "More selected articles", which links to Portal:Ireland/Selected article archive
2. at bottom of the page there is a link entitled "Sub-pages of Portal:Ireland", which links to Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Ireland

One the black box portals, the first link doesn't exist, and the second one doesn't lead to any indication of what the articles are. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:37, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Okay. I see. All single-page portals are black boxes. I had not been aware of those features. After fifty years of looking inside of code, I still tend to look inside code. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:56, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Not so, @Robert McClenon. Not all single-page portals are black boxes. Some are brilliantly transparent, e.g. Portal:Wind power (tho that one has a few other fixable flaws).

Sadly, NA1K chose to create a WP:FAITACCOMPLI by unilaterally rolling out on a huge scale a type of single-page portal which is a black box. I don't know whether NA1K deliberately chose a black box format, or whether they were unaware of the alternatives, or what their reasoning was. However, I do note that NA1K to failed consult, and that since the problem has been pointed out, NA1K's response has been the standard NA1K response of denial, ignoring the substance, and attack attack attack attack attack.

This is not collegial behaviour. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:09, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Closure?

Can an uninvolved administrator take a look and see if this can be closed? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:03, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• With no action taken, not even a reprimand for repeated personal attacks? Something that seems to be a "chronic , intractable personal behavioural problem" (one of the things this board is for according to the banner at the top) since it has been discussed here before, with no action taken then either... - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 19:15, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• As I posted in the section above, it's hardly a one-way street. Black Kite (talk) 19:18, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• I'm not talking only about what has happened in this discussion, but also about the multiple reverts like this, with accusations about NA1k having made sneaky additions. Edit summaries that can't be excused by having been provoked. And that it isn't a new problem can be seen here. With plenty of diffs. - Tom | Thomas.W ^talk 19:34, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Thomas.W, those edits sumaries are based on the facts of what happened. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:30, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

One option is to close with a statement which summarises only the content issue but records that several editors (myself included) report serious incivility and explicitly leaves open the option of dealing with that matter in a separate discussion now or later. Certes (talk) 19:43, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Certes, if you really want to go down that path, then I will have pile of evidence of severe civility breaches by other editors. It seems that you want some sort of kangaroo court where you and a few other portal fans can hurl much at me without consequence, while nit-picking my words out-of-context.

As to the content issues, ANI is not a venue for resolving content disputes. To resolve content issues, use WP:RFC. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:30, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Despite the forum, this debate has de facto been mainly about content, specifically whether to revert certain edits, so I have refrained from commenting on conduct. If you would prefer it to be about conduct, there is much more to be said. As the top of the page says, ANI is Wikipedia's accepted forum for the sort of chronic, intractable behavioural problem we face here and I hope you do not consider it to be a kangaroo court. Certes (talk) 21:22, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Actually, Certes, this "debate" has been a bizarre mixture of content and conduct, with neither examined clearly. It fails on both counts. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:09, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I have participated in some Portal MfDs and can see how emotive this is getting (e.g. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Finger Lakes (2nd nomination)). It is a pity NA1K and BHG are on opposite sides of this as they are so hugely productive (per the scale of this ANI thread above). In fact, the mess of portals would probably overwhelm lesser editors. Could some kind of a demarcation line be drawn here? Ultimately, we have a large list of portals that are in bad shape and need pruning; quick fixes and a few DYKs etc. getting added by NA1K is not to going resolve them (and only perpetuates the problem). BHG should be allowed to work on these uninterrupted. We have other portals that could/should be saved, and NA1K should be allowed to work on these uninterrupted. The project will benefit - we have hundreds (literally) of portals that need BHG's attention, and we have a good number of portals (I don't have insight on what this number is), that need NA1K's attention. Is there a way that could be facilitated for BHG/NA1K to agree on such a demarcation of the portal space to at least give both a few months of peace/enjoyment on WP? Would this help? Is this practicable? It might only defer future conflict, but hopefully, the scale of the mess that is portals would be reduced in both directions, and a better discussion might emerge? Britishfinance (talk) 19:55, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@Britishfinance, I would very happily leave NA1K's work alone if it was based on a consensus.

However, no consensus has been sought for black box portals … and no consensus has been sought for the process of the article lists for a huge chunk of portalspace being rewritten unilaterally and sneakily by one editor with no demonstrable expertise in the topics, using no clearly stated criteria, and who has a well-documented history of poor judgement. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:22, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@BrownHairedGirl: I can see that things are too far gone between yourself and NA1K to form any kind of stable agreement now. However, in a strange way, the best chance WP has of getting to some kind of lasting improvement on portals is via yourself and NA1K (i.e. you pruning, and NA1K saving, but on a mega-scale because this is a mega-mess). Is there a set of questions that the community could answer that would form the basis of a useful demarcation between pruning and saving around portals? Perhaps we might need a larger DMZ at the outset just to get things going - big problems (and portals are a big problem) gets resolved easier when their sheer scale is reduced. Britishfinance (talk) 20:47, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@Britishfinance: I have already made a clear commitment above to refrain from further revers pending the outcome of RFCs to resolve the issues in dispute, and uphold the outcomes of those RFCs. What do yo feel that a DMZ would add to that? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:59, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@BrownHairedGirl:. Yes, I think that is very helpful, and I think the RfCs could help set out a demarcation/clarification on what the community wants/does not want. My DMZ is only suggested to the extent that it would give NA1K and yourself more clear water for a time, while you both can pursue your work on portals. However, it may not be needed or useful? If a set of clear/targeted RfCs can help clarify issues/reduce/compartmentalise the complexity of the portal problem, than that is even better. Britishfinance (talk) 22:13, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@Britishfinance: What sort of "work" or "attention" do you feel that those portals which NA1K avoids would receive? Deletion, reversion to an ancient set of copy-pasted ledes, or some other type of edit? Certes (talk) 20:34, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@Certes: The normal type of work done at MfD where the community decides (e.g per Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Finger Lakes (2nd nomination)). Currently, NA1K is spread so thin trying to revive portals that nobody is interested in. NA1K should develop categories of portals that people are at least partially interest in maintaining, and build from there. We have two highly productive (bizarrely so) editors here that are massive assets to Wikipedia. Regardless of where anybody sits on portals, there are lots that need pruning and lots that need saving. To deny that is not credible. I do not have the portal experience to be helpful in setting/facilitating such a demarcation, but I am sure there are others that can? Britishfinance (talk) 21:06, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• I strongly prefer for a formal closure to occur, particularly regarding the "Should BrownHairedGirl's mass portal reversions be reverted, to restore portal improvements that occurred?" section above. Many users above have agreed with my notion that the rapid reversions were performed in a disruptive manner, and I'd like for the many hours of work that I have performed over the course of months to have a chance to be restored. If it's not, a very poor precedent will be in place, in which users can continue to rapidly perform mass reversions to many pages by the simple act of pressing a button, making the BRD process just about impossible by the sheer massive volume of drive-by reversions, and if the original contributor reverts, it would then be considered as edit warring. Portal talk pages receive little input on average, so discussion regarding matters is unlikely to gain consensus one way or another, which results in the mass reverter getting their way, all by simply driving-by, clicking a button on a page and copy/pasting a canned edit summary for each page, one after another. Per this formula, the reverter is essentially rewarded by performing a high number of rapid, drive-by reversions, because again, the high volume makes BRD discussion for each page almost impossible and overwhelming. All of this equates to holding the work of others hostage, and it is wrong. Furthermore, the viewpoints of all in the "should the reversions be reverted" section above should be taken into consideration, rather than summarily dismissed, which would also be wrong. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 20:58, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• NA1K, that is demand for ANI to adjudicate on a content dispute, which ANI has consistently refused to do before, for a host of very good reasons.

It also asking ANI to resolve that content dispute without the normal basis for such a discussion, which is a brief statement from each side on the core issues. That is a very bad way to resolve a content dispute.

NA1K's complaint about the BRD process being impossible has merit only there is no centralised discussion to resolve the two issue which are common to all my reverts. Why does NA1K continue to resist or ignore (I'm not sure which applies) my proposal for RFCs to establish a community consensus. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:07, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

As multiple editors have stated that this discussion is, or should be, about conduct rather than content, here are some words I had hoped not to have to write. Improving a page after giving notice on its talk page is not "sneaky". That is just the latest in a long line of personal abuse and ad hominem argument in which anyone who supports portals is described variously as a bully, a serial liar, a warmonger and lacking in judgement – for dozens of examples, see the August AN case. Too many discussions lead to personal conflicts between BHG and Moxy, BHG and NA1K, BHG and myself, BHG and BHG... it is hard not to see a pattern emerging. Being unblockable does not grant exemption from WP:CIVIL; it creates a duty to set a good example. It is well past time that something was done to end this blatant misconduct. Certes (talk) 22:37, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• So because BHG disagrees with a lot of people, she must be wrong? The only pattern I see arising here is not the one you're describing. Oh, and your post is also a personal attack. But that's OK, because it's you and not BHG, am I correct? Black Kite (talk) 23:06, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Proposal: A 30-day break from portal-related work for both parties

This is not the first time these parties have clashed, and both seem excessively drawn out by a single topic area. I propose, for their own good (and to give us a break from this issue recurring) that both User:BrownHairedGirl and User:Northamerica1000 take a break from anything to do with portals for thirty days. There is plenty of other work to be done in the encyclopedia without touching that corner of it, and perhaps some time away from it will give both parties some helpful perspective. Since they are basically on opposite sides of whatever the issue is, both of them stepping back from the area for a time will prevent any imbalance in ongoing discussions. To the extent that either of them is doing work in that area that no one else is doing, 1) no one will die if it has to wait a month, or be worked on by other editors and 2) Wikipedia as a whole cannot allow itself to become dependent on the work of any one (or two) editors. Trust me, the great portal debate will still be ongoing in thirty days. I am suggesting this as a voluntary step for the parties to agree to, although I would not be surprised if the community as a whole would agree to imposing this mandatorily. bd2412 T 21:01, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• This isn't really a debate about the overall concept of portals, though, it's about whether or not BHG's actions were disruptive and whether or not their rapid drive-by reversions that erased many hours of my work that occurred over months of time should be undone. Did you read the discussion above? You characterized it as "whatever the issue is", so it seems possible that you are not aware of the context presented. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:09, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
  • The issue presented to ANI is conduct. My impression from the ongoing conflict is that this is bringing about the most combative instincts in both of you. What happens to the portals in the interim is of minimal relevance to the consumption of resources that the back-and-forth is engendering. bd2412 T 21:25, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
• It's sad to see that even at this stage, NA!K continues to simply deny that there were substantive reasons why I made those reverts. I expected NA1K to disagree with my reasons, but the continued attempt to deny that they exist is just bizarre.

What we now need is RFCs to establish a community consensus on how to build portals, so that the issues in dispute don't recur. In the discussion above, have already pledged to refrain from any further reversions at least until that RFC is closed and such reverts were in keeping with the consensus, so the chance of problems recurring is already resolved. So I don't see how my having no involvement for 30 days would help, unless the intention is somehow to exclude me from RFCs, which seems odd.

I am willing to draft those RFCs, or to work in co-operation with other editors to do so. Again, I don't see how recusal would help.

My main contribution in portalspace is that, I do a lot of ongoing maintenance work on portal links. That work has been almost uncontroversial, and I don't see how it would help anyone to have that work stopped.

So while appreciate BD2412's good faith, I see no gain from this measure, and its effect seems to be purely punitive.

I think it would be very helpful if NA1k were to give a similar undertaking to mine, i.e. to refrain from edits related to the issues raised here until relevant RFCs have concluded. I stress that my commitment is unilateral and unconditional, and does not in any way depend on NA1K's response. However, it would be great to see NA1K commit to using consensus-building processes to resolve this dispute. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:54, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

It's supposed to be a bit punitive. You've been drawn too far into combativeness over the issues this work raises, and that can not come without consequences. The RFCs, like everything else, can wait a month. bd2412 T 22:11, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Given that I have already made an unconditional commitment to await the the outcome of the RFCs, the main effect of this punitive measure seems to be to delay dispute resolution. That seems perverse. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:30, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support. I am surprised that both admins. do not see that this very modest proposal is highly likely to benefit the project over the long term. UnitedStatesian (talk) 22:16, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
• Both involved parties have responded to this proposal by holding that they're in the right and that the other is the problem. As such, I think this is a great proposal that we should definitely implement. Vermont (talk) 22:21, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Actually, Vermont, that's not so. I have repeatedly proposed RFCs to resolve it. NA1K isn't interested in that consensus-building process.

So here's a better suggestion. Why not rig the whole thing in favour of consensus? A 30-day break, but suspended for say 7 days to give me and NA1K time to agree on RFCs to resolve the content issues. If in that time, we haven't both signed off on the RFC drafts, we both get a 30-day break.

That resets everything in favour of consensus-building, and gives us a structural incentive to co-operate. Win-win all round, surely?

@BD2412:, what do you think of that? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:31, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I continually fail to understand why you keep arguing that proposals like these, which are explicitly to gain community consensus over what action to take, is contrary to community consensus. Also, do you not state that you are in the right and that NA1K is the problem? You said my comment was false and then immediately prove my comment is factual. Honestly, this issue is not one of content. It's conduct. Vermont (talk) 22:44, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@BrownHairedGirl: I would consider that a positive step, but several editors in the discussion above have raised concerns about instances of your appearing to question the intelligence or honesty of those with whom you have disagreements. Even if you don't intend it that way, if others are seeing it and you are not, then you need to reflect on what you are doing to cause yourself to be perceived that way. bd2412 T 23:05, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. As I have stated, I feel that BHG's actions in performing these rapid drive-by reversions was highly disruptive to Wikipedia, and that it is a conduct issue that directly pertains to BHG. If a consensus forms that BHG's actions were indeed disruptive and that their drive-by reversions should be undone, which is certainly forming above in the "Should BHG's mass portal reversions be reverted" section, I would like to have an ability to potentially take part in the process, particularly if no one were to step up to perform doing so. As it stands now, the work I have performed over months of time is already now being held hostage, and said proposal could potentially extend this unfortunate inequity over another thirty days. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 23:00, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

  @Northamerica1000: It appears likely to me that the outcome of the discussion above will be consensus to undo BHG's reversions of your edits. If that is the case, any editor can undertake that action. None of us can set ourselves up as indispensable to some aspect of the project. bd2412 T 23:09, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

User Kredsdr

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

---

• Kredsdr (talk · contribs)

Edit-warring across multiple articles, apparently in protest of his sourcing being unreliable. --Ronz (talk) 19:08, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Let us give them a chance to explain themselves here, but if they fail to do so I am afraid we need to block.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:24, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

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

Remove jokes

Resolved

Can anyone remove this user edits [76] I feel like he is trying to make a joke.--SharabSalam (talk) 19:36, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

That's just a vandal. Blocked for 48 hours. Thank you for reporting and for reverting the vandalism, SharabSalam. For another time, though, WP:AIV is better and quicker for vandalism reports than ANI. Bishonen | talk 19:47, 12 October 2019 (UTC).

Persistent reversions, ignoring sources, and refusal to discuss on Talk page by other user

I hope this is the right place to address this and that in doing so here I am not acting inappropriately. I hope very much to avoid an edit war. There currently is an issue with an editor (the user User:Yacoob316) on the Kerma culture page. They continue to edit the Language section of that page to represent certain sources in a way that does not reflect them. I have left explanation in the edit notes (which I believe explain my reasoning) and attempted to discuss this with them on the Talk page (creating a topic where I cite the sources and discuss their claims in detail) as well as leaving a message on their own Talk page, but they have continued to re-enter their own preferred edits with repetitive explanations in the history notes that seem to indicate that they have not read or listened to my explanations. They seem unwilling to listen, engage or discuss, and I am not sure what to do. Thank you for your help in this matter. Here are links to the edit History, my topic of the article's Talk page, and my post ion the User's Talk page below: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kerma_culture#Sources_and_language_affinity_of_Kerma. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kerma_culture&action=history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Yacoob316 And (more recently, below, the talk page topic started by Yacoob316 — where I have also attempted to engage them in discussion): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kerma_culture#both_cushitic_and_nilotic_languages_were_spoken_in_kerma_according_to_julian_riley Skllagyook (talk) 19:50, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

For starters, both of you need to stop reverting the page. If you continue to revert, either of you, you'll be blocked for edit warring. You need to discuss it now. I'll comment on the talk page later about the content of the dispute. Captain Eek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 00:12, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@CaptainEek: Thank you. And what you have said is noted (I will not revert again until some resolution is reached). However it did not seem that discussion was working (I feel that I did what I could to discuss, but that my explanations were persistently ignored and never addressed by the other user). Currently the other user has not reverted or re-made the edit/edits since being warned about edit warring, but I worry that once the 24-hour period ends (or maybe sooner), they may resume their aforementioned edits. Hopefully your comments on the Talk page will help to resolve this issue for all involved. Thank you again. Skllagyook (talk) 00:33, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@CaptainEek: However I will continue to discuss the issue. I have/had also responded somewhat repetitively in places, but only to assure that the other user (Yacoob316) did/does not misunderstand my explanations/points (since they seemed to have more than once misunderstood the sources). I have recently continued the discussion on the both the article's and the other user's Talk pages, in order to to further clarify/express more clearly my explanations (and will continue to do so if needed). Skllagyook (talk) 22:00, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for block review

I have blocked User:OAbot for adding links to references that appear to violate copyright (to CiteSeerX, a web site that scrapes copies of pdfs from other web sites and makes the scraped copies available itself). CiteSeerX does provide provenance of the copies that it links, which in most cases go to web sites of the papers' authors or publishers, but in many cases do not. In the case that triggered the block, CiteSeerX linked to a copy of a paper that had been made available online by two researchers, neither of whom was the author. It may well be the case that those researchers' use of the paper is fair use, but it doesn't make it fair use for us. If these links were outside of the references section, they would certainly violate WP:ELNEVER, and when OAbot went through the bot approval process, this issue was discussed and the addition of CiteSeerX links was taken off of the list of approved bot tasks. Nevertheless, User:Nemo bis (whom I will notify of this thread, and who is one of the bot operators) has added this feature and has been adding these links at a high rate with no evidence of human supervision.

Because I was part of the original discussion of CiteSeerX links on OAbot, Nemo bis has suggested that I should be considered WP:INVOLVED. Therefore, I am asking for review by other administrators of this block. Specifically, of the following three questions:

1. Should it be considered a blockable offense to add full-text non-author and non-publisher links to otherwise-paywalled references, after a warning not to do so?
2. Have Nemo bis and OAbot violated their bot approval?
3. Am I involved, and if so should I lift my block and allow a different admin to take over here, or does a consensus on the earlier two questions make that moot?

Meanwhile, I will have no objection if any admin unilaterally takes action to modify or remove my block. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:27, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) I went ahead and notified Pintoch as well, since they're one of the other bot operators involved in OABot as well. OhKayeSierra (talk) 01:46, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I did already leave a notification on the bot talk page, also. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:49, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: I saw that it's running on the Toolforge. Dumb question, but when you blocked, did you disable autoblock? There'd be a lot of potential for collateral damage otherwise. I'm editing from my phone, and I'm having a hard time seeing the block log myself. OhKayeSierra (talk) 01:55, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I reblocked with autoblock disabled just in case. Not an endorsement of the original block. ST47 (talk) 02:12, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't realize this was an issue. Will take note for future reference. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:26, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I'm not an admin, but I fully concur with Headbomb's assessment of the issue at User talk:OAbot. OABot 3 was about flagging existing identifiers as free, and adding free dois and hdls and the like. CiteSeerX has been deemed too contentious to add automatically in the past and OABot 3 does not overturn that consensus. I also see your actions as acting purely in an administrative capacity to block a bot that's operating out of the scope of its task per WP:BOTBLOCK, so I don't see WP:INVOLVED applying in this instance. OhKayeSierra (talk) 03:37, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment) Looks like a good block per WP:BOTPOL. Looking at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/OAbot 3 a number of editors, including a BAG member, were against the addition of new CiteSeerX links, and it seems there was no consensus for the task to include that functionality. The trial approval was explicit in that it only allowed the conversion of existing URLs to IDs, and the task function which was approved explicitly said "maintenance" of CiteSeerX IDs. There's no indication that the approval covered addition of new CiteSeerX links or IDs, and there is indication that such an interpretation was opposed. This edit clearly adds a new CiteSeerX link. Copyright issues aside, the bot seems to be operating outside the scope of its approval and should be modified or the additional task approved before unblocking. Wug·a·po·des​ 04:52, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• Bot operator here. It's fine to have strong personal preferences on citations: for instance, I strongly dislike links to Academia.Edu (which is not good practice) and if someone added them to a citation added by my I may replace those links, but I wouldn't go around saying that the user has infringed copyright or violated policy, because that's normally not the case per WP:COPYLINKS. Of course CiteSeerX is in a much stronger legal position than such commercial websites, personal websites etc.

  I have offered to develop a blacklist feature allowing users to prevent the addition of certain links, also to avoid the repetition of mistaken links if any. Some users have endorsed the suggestion but so far nobody has expressed an interest in using it. As soon as someone will ask me to be able to use a blacklist, I will implement it; until then, the usual per-page blacklists are possible with {{nobots}} and friends.

  Sorry if I'm less responsive than usual, I'm currently busy at a workshop with WU copyright experts in Warsaw. Nemo 07:27, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Hi all, thanks for the notification. I am not involved in this run. I would agree with the assessment that Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/OAbot 3 made it reasonably clear that CiteSeerX ids should not be added (although it could perhaps have been stated in a clearer way). It looks like Nemo_bis has just misunderstood the scope of the approval. It would be worth listing the parameters that can be touched by the bot in this run (|citeseerx= not being one of them). Cheers − Pintoch (talk) 18:21, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I think it's too strong to say that citeseerx cannot be touched. I would not object to converting urls that point to citeseerx into citeseerx parameters, for instance. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:03, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
    • Ah ok, as you can see I am following this from afar… I am sure you all will be able to define properly what works or not. − Pintoch (talk) 19:12, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Saqiwa and original research on Fijian chieftain lineages

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

Saqiwa is an editor that flew under the radar for a few years, all of his contributions are about the geneology of Fijian chieftains, but it's only recently that someone started to notice that these edits consisted of unsourced original research, original research sourced to drawings of geneology trees (which fail verification), and "sourced" edits that fail verification.

Reliable sourcing has been explained to him several times, here by Marchjuly, here at the Teahouse, and here by me.

Verifying his contributions is very time consuming as the information is disjointed and because he does cite some sources, it just fails verification.

Some examples:

• [77][78] DrKay reverting his addition to Nakorotubu District as it all failed verification.
• The outcome of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Monarchy of Fiji was "Keep, but delete everything Saqiwa has added".
• [79] Failed verification
• [80] Failed verification
• [81] Use of an unreliable thesis, explained multiple times, reinserted multiple times. The same thesis failed verification for the statement it was used for in this next edit:
• [82] Adding large disjointed sections about geneology and intermarriage to the article Roko Malani, but it does not actually start with the article's subject Roko Malani (1754–1833) but instead a namesake who was alive in 1879. Among sources are scanned geneology trees that don't even mention the subjects.

Source check for the above

Source does not mention any of the claims it's attached to in "The two brother's great grandfather, Ratu Meli Salabogi (1) declared Nakorotubu as an independent state in 1860 to protest of Ratu Seru Cakobau declaring himself as a self-styled Tui Viti during the Deed of Cession negotiation with Great Britain" The 1959 installation of Ratu Sir George Cakobau by Ratu Meli Salabogi (3)'s son Ratu Kuliniyasi Roko Malani (2) proceeded without any problems or disputes is sourced to an an image of some people sitting in a circle Page 243 does not verify any of "The care and benefits from the coconut plantation of the Lau Provincial Council and the Vuanirewa clan in Lakeba resulted in the diplomatic shift of Fiji's traditional and political order, as Nakorotubu ensured a smooth and favorable leadership seat for Niumataiwalu's lineage in Bau and Lau post-World War 2 and post-1970 independence during Ratu Sir George Cakobau and Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara leadership time." Multiple family relations "sourced" to this document, but it does not seem to actually verify the statements it's attached to. Unsourced BLP statements about the police & military intervening with someone in 2018. Note, this is in an article about someone who died in 1833.

• [83]. Not in the cited source, the other source is from 1862 and is therefore unlikely to include comments on the marriage of someone born in 1879.
• 10 October 2019, giving two sources, one of which doesn't mention the subject and another that a) mentions a namesake in passing but not the subject and b) is an unreliable opinion piece.
• 13 October 2019, part failed verification, part improper use of primary sources whose existence can't be verified

Source check for the above

1. Roko Malani (2) - (1820-1890) of Lau. Younger brother of Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba (1), the Tui Nayau and grand nephew of Roko Malani (1). He named a newly birthed Ra chief as Ratu Kuliniyasi Roko Malani (1879-1933) during his stop over visit to puakaloa vasu maternal relatives at Nabukadra village in 1879 before attending a Methodist church conference in Vuda. 2. Roko Malani (1879-1933) of Ra. Ratu Kuliniyasi Roko Malani, former Sergeant of the Fiji Armed Constabulary Force in Levuka and late Buli Kavula, son of Ratu Amenatave Dewalarua and Seleima Veinoyaki and grandson of Ra chief, Ratu Meli Salabogi mentioned in the W.J. Smythe Cession Preliminary Report of 1862. Married Adi Asinate Senirewa from the Vuanirewa clan, the daughter of Roko Vilisoni Tuiketei (younger brother of Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba (1) and Roko Malani (2) who named Roko Malani from Ra during birth in 1879). They had two issues, Ratu Meli Salabogi MBE, JP (1911-1989) and Ratu Wilisoni Tuiketei Malani OBE, JP, OSTJ (1920-2005). 3. Roko Malani (1937-2013) of Ra. Ratu Kuliniyasi Roko Malani (2), the elder brother of Adi Laufitu Malani and son of Ratu Meli Salabogi MBE, JP (1911-1989). He traditionally endorsed and spent a night at Vatanitawake in Bau during the Vunivalu of Bau installation in 1959. References

Saqiwa's comments:

• [84] "What I am concerned about is how other wikipedia editors are selective and inconsistent in applying the wikipedia rules to my articles. For the last 4 years, all my articles were not considered important, however recently there seems to have been a sudden increase to the scrutiny of my contributions, specifically when certain information/documents that were considered confidential and question certain status quo have been shared. I have now reached a stage of keeping a personal copy of my contributions in order to compare that with the reasons that a editor will use to delete or amend my articles to prove that there are ulterior motives of amending my articles through the wikipedia rules. Before, wikipedia editors would be very friendly and encouraging by guiding and amending my articles whereas, now, the only thing that I am receiving are threats of being blocked from wikipedia, which makes my conspiracy thoery more relevant."
• [85] "can this be part of an organised watch group to suppress Fijian historical facts? [...] There is definitely something more than this, perhaps the sensitivity of the Fijian historical facts exposed?"
• [86] "This sudden increase in scrutiny [of my edits] happened lately in the last few months when confidential information about Fiji's history were shared"
• [87] "the recent micromanaging and scrutiny to my contributions seems to have started from the recent exposure of suppressed Fiji's history that are well documented but suppressed for reasons well known."

– Thjarkur (talk) 15:01, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Thjarkur This is really an abuse of power in editing privilege. There is really evidence of selective editing in keeping similar sourced materials in Roko Malani compared to my articles including the Roko Malani article 1879-1933. Wikipedia should be aware that this is happening and the reputation of wikipedia is at stake.Saqiwa (talk) 03:19, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Indefinite block. The diffs and quotes provided above by Þjarkur clearly show that Saqiwa is determined to keep adding fringe original research to wikipedia. He has just once again misrepresented a source in this edit. The source he provided did not support the material he added, and he removed the material that opposed his view and that was reliably sourced. There have been numerous warnings and explanations at User talk:Saqiwa and they've just not worked. A block is now the only way to prevent further disruption. DrKay (talk) 16:12, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

142.59.217.7, Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting and me

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

I have tried to be patient here, but the edits are becoming tiring. I've explained on my talk page why simply saying "terrorist" twice in the opening sentence isn't helpful or descriptive enough, but apparently I am a racist and a hypocrite if I don't agree with this user's edits, which are The Truth™ and made without any talk page input.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 15:14, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Now we got a one year break from this IP, unless, of course, they manage to file a successful unblock request.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:21, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Disrutive editing and personal attack by User:Tisquesusa

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

---

Tisquesusa (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been adding links to deleted portals.

These don't display on the face of page, but are categorised in Category:Portal templates with redlinked portals and its subcats. These are cleanup categories, which I and others used to identify and fix errors in links to portals. It's a minor bit of housekeeping, but it's one I attend to in order to ensure that after a portal is deleted the links are replaced with a live portal where appropriate.

I initially dealt with these by simply removing the deleted portal, e,g, [88] to Mata Amarilla Formation, and sometimes pinging Tisquesusa to alert them to a problem which I presumed they were unaware of.

That didn't produce any response, so at 20:57, 12 October 2019 I posted an explanation on their talk page: [89]

Tisquesusa removed[90] that post at 21:38, 12 October 2019 with the uncivil edit summary remove spam.

This afternoon, I found that Category:Portal templates with redlinked portals contained about two dozen new entries which had been caused Tisquesusa adding links to the deleted portals. So at 16:20, 13 October 2019, I left a further note[91], saying that given the hostility I wouldn't now take the time to remove the errors, I'd just revert the edits.

I did so, and Tisquesusa reverted my edits. At 16:22, 13 October 2019 they also removed my second msg from their talk[92] with the edit summary remove spam, do something CONSTRUCTIVE with your time...

My final attempt at communication was at 17:26, 13 October 2019, when I left a message on Tisquesusa's talk,[93] asking What exactly are you trying to achieve by repeatedly adding links to deleted portals?

That too was removed[94] by Tisquesusa, at 17:32, 13 October 2019.

I then found that at 16:32, 13 October 2019 Tisquesusa had followed mr to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals and posted a severe personal attack on me[95]. I am used to extreme rudeness from editors who get angry about when there is consensus to delete of portals, but this is a new low.

Please can someone remove this PA, and try to direct Tisquesusa towards collegial conduct and away from the WP:OWNership displayed in the my portals phrase in that personal attack? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:03, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Personal attack reverted and revdeleted. I also left the user a uw-npa4 (only) warning. I would rather not involve myself further on the portal front, however. El_C 18:27, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks, User:El C. However, the disruption and aggression continues:

I notfied Tisquesusa of this discussion at 18:07[96]. However, Tisquesusa has continued to disruptively add links to the deleted Portal:Prehistory of Europe:

• 18:14 [97]
• 18:14 [98],
• 18:14 [99]
• 18:10 [100]

Having done that, they also removed[101] my ANI notificaion with the edit summary not interested, stop disrupting my work.

User:El C posted an NPA notice[102], but that too was removed by Tisquesusa with an abusive edit summary.[103]. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:38, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I have blocked Tisquesusa for 72 hours for the behavior reported above. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:51, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Cullen]. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:07, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

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

Not sure if this is the right place

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

---

Hi. Idk if this is the right board to report this, but there's a User:Saulamway who is using a really offensive signature. They've been warned about it, looks like, and they ignored the warning. And all they seem to have been doing since creating their account today is spamming welcomes at people? Let me know if this is the wrong board. Daundelin❁ 20:18, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting this Daundelin. Saulamway (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) only edits are adding welcome templates to editors (some of whom don't exist) talk pages. This is a) an attempt to become autoconfirmed and/or b) an attempt top get their offensive signatue on as many pages as possible. Early indicators are a WP:NOTHERE situation. MarnetteD|Talk 20:25, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Could those talk page posts be batch deleted? The user is clearly just trolling, so a dose of WP:DENY seems called for. --bonadea contributions talk 20:29, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I'd be happy to have that nonsense permanently deleted from my talk page, yes. Oh and I did notify them on their talk page. Daundelin❁ 20:31, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

• Bbb23 has indefinitely blocked Saulamway as a sockpuppet. Wug·a·po·des​ 20:46, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

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

Renew rangeblock for genre warring IPs

Swarm blocked Special:Contributions/2A02:C7D:1A3E:5D00:0:0:0:0/64 for three months but the block expired a year ago. The person has resumed genre warring disruption in music articles. Can we get a booster shot on the block? Binksternet (talk) 20:22, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I have reblocked the /64 range for one year. Notified User:Swarm in case they want to comment. EdJohnston (talk) 16:57, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

73.101.168.123

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

---

Blocked IP who keeps posting the same cack he got blocked for on his talk page. Needs TPA revoked. Adam9007 (talk) 00:03, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

 Done —C.Fred (talk) 00:07, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

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

Legal threat/s, BLP issues

Gardenstatelaw keeps changing the lead of the Michael Sorrentino, a reality TV castmember, to emphasise the subject's "felony conviction" as what he is "best known" for -- despite that clearly not being the case (RS don't cite his conviction in their articles, but rather "Jersey Shore castmember XX..."). Considering the subject is a BLP, I've reverted Gardenstatelaw's edits on the grounds that the edits are clearly not WP:NPOV, they're WP:UNDUE, and also factually incorrect. I have no qualms about the content being discussed in the article (his conviction), - as the article currently stands - but how Gardenstatelaw has edited the article is clearly inappropriate.

Gardenstatelaw's has proceeded to make a series of legal threats, as well as falsely accuse myself and another editor of being the subject's agent/paid editing, and refactor talk page comments:

• threat to sue me here and here (and threat to investigate me)
• refactoring my talk page comment
• accused another editor of being subject's publicist and me of being his agent

If another pair of eyes could look into this issue, that would be greatly appreciated. Kind regards, —MelbourneStar☆^talk 02:54, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

lblocked. El_C 02:57, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• Well at least the lead doesn't recite that Sorrentino was offered ten thousand dollars by fashion retailer Abercrombie & Fitch not to wear the company's clothes. A spokesman for the company explained that "Mr Sorrentino's association with our brand could cause significant damage to our image." EEng 06:52, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
• Tread lightly here, or you might get sued in a court of law in Trenton, New Jersey. 207.38.146.86 (talk) 12:27, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't allow legal threats. You're as good as blocked. GoodDay (talk) 12:39, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

What, nobody remembers Mr. Treason and "SUE YOU IN A COURT OF LAW IN TRENTON, NEW JERSEY"? --Calton | Talk 14:29, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Ha ha ha -- I wonder whatever happened to that guy. Antandrus (talk) 14:48, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

User:Birbal_Kumawat

This falls under "chronic, intractable behavioral problems," I hope. Since 2017, user has continually (and destructively) edited Wiki articles in favor of their own fanatical misconceptions about English grammar, often citing nothing and forging ahead based on original 'research', if that. Not to mention their repeated off-topic edits to talk pages in order to discuss or even address the subject of the article rather than the article itself.

Somehow, user hasn't really ever been warned (except informally, having gotten a couple responses in an edit summary or on an article talk page), even though every single one of their destructive article edits has been reverted that I could see. That's why I didn't report this at AIV. — Preceding unsigned comment added by M. I. Wright (talk • contribs) 05:41, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Birbal_Kumawat hasn't edited since August. Hopefully he won't be back, but if he is, at minimum he should receive a warning regarding making legal threats. This [104] is definitely one, and this [105] may possibly be, though I'm not sure exactly who it is aimed at - possibly everyone who writes in English except him... 2A00:23C7:B701:A101:FDF5:5796:4432:4CD5 (talk) 06:39, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

@M. I. Wright: That editor has only made eight edits, thus far, in 2019 and ten in 2018. It's hardly a chronic or intractable problem that needs ANI attention right now, especially as they haven't been demonstrating their rather curious grasp of how to write and communicate in good English since August. I'm sure they're proud of their English skills (far better than my own foreign language abilities, I must say). Nevertheless, they're not as good as they think they are, and are probably rather proud of making self-important but rather foolish edits to talk pages, all full of hollow bluster, as helpfully linked to above. Edits like this get quickly reverted - but they're done in good faith, even when misguided. I'm happy to keep a watch on their future edits and guide them, if needs be. (Please remember to sign your posts on talk pages by typing four keyboard tildes like this: ~~~~. Or, you can use the [ reply ] button, which automatically signs posts.). Regards, Nick Moyes (talk) 09:59, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Quad11, Jack Peterson, COI, and fraudulent sources

Jack Peterson (not his real name) is a guy from Chicago who was associated with the incel movement. He has since distanced himself from that movement. A biography was written about him in 2018 by hijacking a redirect to an unrelated person. Since then, the article has been edited by not only Peterson himself (as Jackdiamond2080) and many Chicago IPs. A couple of days ago Template:Quad11 expended the article and renamed it to "Jack Peterson (filmmaker)". I started a discussion on the COI discussion board, but Quad11 removed the new material, moved the article to "Jack Peterson (spokesperson)" and deleted my report from the noticeboard.

I am bringing this here because the sources used by Quad11 were fraudulent. The reviews of Peterson's movie were contracted and paid for. Reel Romp will publish a review for about $25. Film Courage will publish a Q&A interview for $300. There are about 50 links to filmcourage.com. It is probably worth looking at the articles involved for evidence of COI and notability concerns. Meanwhile, someone might want to look more closely at Jack Peterson (spokesperson) and associated editors. Bitter Oil (talk) 15:30, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this works, I removed the fraudulent (?) sources so the problem should be resolved. It was my understanding that, once a subject reaches notability, new references are less strict when it comes to notability guidelines. However, I reversed the recent edits as suggested because I'm not entirely sure of Wikipedia's rules on that. Regardless, the potentially paid references (and related material in the article) are now removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quad11 (talk • contribs) 18:26, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Sports Hoaxes in Draftspace

• Azurko125 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Azurko125 has created about a dozen articles in draftspace which appear to be hoaxes about non-existent sporting tournaments. He also has created at least one in mainspace about a non-existent basketball tournament, which was turned into a somewhat less questionable redirect in good faith, which is now at RfD. There may be deleted hoax mainspace creations which I cannot see as I am not an admin. I could just G3 them all, but I wanted to get community input first given the circumstances. Smartyllama (talk) 18:01, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• All the Futsal stuff is complete nonsense and I have deleted them. I suspect the basketball tournaments are as well, but I have to go out now - I'll have a look at them when I get back if no-one else has. Black Kite (talk) 19:15, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

  The EuroLeague one in mainspace is legitimate, although the version created by him was nonsense. The U-19 and U-20 ones are hoaxes as is the handball one I believe. Smartyllama (talk) 20:11, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Gabrielkat's WP:OWNERSHIP's problems

Gabrielkat (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has had WP:OWNERSHIP problems for at least four years now (see this issue with another editor, Part 3 and this one from over a year ago). He was blocked for the this behavior in 2015 and was given a "final warning" on his talk page. However, his behavior has persisted throughout the years and seemingly hasn't changed. I don't cross paths with this editor very often, though I remember he would makes similar reverts on a page on my watchlist. He would revert an editor but then make the same exact edit a few minutes later. He said in 2015, "Let me update the weekly episode count" when reverting another user who did it first. I recently just stumbled across a talk page conversation about this same issue and couldn't believe it was still happening; so I am filing a report on behalf other users who have been unjustly reverted by this editor because they have severe ownership issues that date back almost five years. The most recent incident is here, when he reverts an IP but restores the information himself the exact same minute. Something needs to be done about this chronic behavior that is driving away editors from wanting to edit; as the IP wrote on the talk page, "I'll just note this page as another one that's a waste of time to edit." Drovethrughosts (talk) 18:53, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I've often found that he reverts other editors just to readd the same information moments later, such as what he did with the IP editor. He doesn't show a willingness to discuss or even acknowledge his behavior on his talkpage as he will revert anyone that brings it up. Back in April he reverted another editor who had updated The Orville Season 2 page as the season finale had aired, but as the "episode had not finished airing" for him he decided to revert that editor. When I restored the edit, he did the same for me too. I made the effort to discuss on his talkpage but was swiftly reverted. [106] Funny thing is, he added the same information minutes later, which again is bad faith editing on his part. This does seem to be a very long running issue for him. Esuka (talk) 19:38, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

This has gone on long enough. I've indefinitely blocked Gabrielkat pending an unblock request that addresses this years-long behavior. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 20:18, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Good move. I would hope that in their unblock request they will undertake to use edit summaries in future as part of actively improving their communication with other users. Nearly 72% of their major edits have no edit summary, and this needs to change. Reverting without a rationale is both rude and non-constructive. Nick Moyes (talk) 20:27, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Could another admin please take over a paid editor?

I'm trying to explain the realities of paid editing and legal threats to User:Fgbmarketing on their talkpage. The only reply I've had so far is this fairly alarming edit summary. Despite the legal threat, and the paid editing, and the way they call themselves "we" rather than "I" (suggesting a role account), I haven't blocked so far. Obviously the user is simply unaware of our rules, and needs them explained. A positive thing is that they haven't so far reverted me again. Anyway, the thing is, they've fallen silent, and I need to go to bed. I'm in a whole different timezone. Could somebody take over, please? Bishonen | talk 22:14, 14 October 2019 (UTC). PS, by "take over", I merely mean watch their page and watch First Guaranty Bank. Bishonen | talk 22:39, 14 October 2019 (UTC).

I've got an eye on it for a bit. 331dot (talk) 23:06, 14 October 2019 (UTC)