User talk:Awilley

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Picture of the day

The sword-billed hummingbird (Ensifera ensifera) is a neotropical species of hummingbird from the Andean regions of South America. Among the largest species of hummingbird, it is characterized by its unusually long beak, being the only bird to have a beak longer than the rest of its body, excluding the tail. It uses this to drink nectar from flowers with long corollas and has coevolved with the plant Passiflora mixta. While most hummingbirds preen using their beaks, the sword-billed hummingbird uses its feet to scratch and preen due to its beak being so long.Photograph credit: Andy Morffew

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2018).

Administrator changes

Galobtter

Orangemike

BorgQueen • Davidruben • Ocee • Revolving Bugbear • Theda • There'sNoTime • Timc • Tijuana Brass • Tristessa de St Ange

Bureaucrat changes

Addshore

CheckUser changes

Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

AGK • Joe Roe • SilkTork

Euryalus • Newyorkbrad • There'sNoTime

Guideline and policy news

• There are a number of new or changed speedy deletion criteria, each previously part of WP:CSD#G6:

1. G14 (new): Disambiguation pages that disambiguate only zero or one existing pages are now covered under the new G14 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-disambig}}; the text is unchanged and candidates may be found in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as unnecessary disambiguation pages.
2. R4 (new): Redirects in the file namespace (and no file links) that have the same name as a file or redirect at Commons are now covered under the new R4 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-redircom}}; the text is unchanged.
3. G13 (expanded): Userspace drafts containing only the default Article Wizard text are now covered under G13 along with other drafts (discussion). Such blank drafts are now eligible after six months rather than one year, and taggers continue to use {{db-blankdraft}}.

• The Wikimedia Foundation now requires all interface administrators to enable two-factor authentication.
• Members of the Bot Approvals Group (BAG) are now subject to an activity requirement. After two years without any bot-related activity (e.g. operating a bot, posting on a bot-related talk page), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice.

Technical news

• Starting on December 13, the Wikimedia Foundation security team implemented new password policy and requirements. Privileged accounts (administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, interface administrators, bots, edit filter managers/helpers, template editors, et al.) must have a password at least 10 characters in length. All accounts must have a password:

1. At least 8 characters in length
2. Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the Password Blacklist library)
3. Different from their username

User accounts not meeting these requirements will be prompted to update their password accordingly. More information is available on MediaWiki.org.

• Blocked administrators may now block the administrator that blocked them. This was done to mitigate the possibility that a compromised administrator account would block all other active administrators, complementing the removal of the ability to unblock oneself outside of self-imposed blocks. A request for comment is currently in progress to determine whether the blocking policy should be updated regarding this change.
• {{Copyvio-revdel}} now has a link to open the history with the RevDel checkboxes already filled in.

Arbitration

• Following the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections, the following editors have been appointed to the Arbitration Committee: AGK, Courcelles, GorillaWarfare, Joe Roe, Mkdw, SilkTork.

Miscellaneous

• Accounts continue to be compromised on a regular basis. Evidence shows this is entirely due to the accounts having the same password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately.
• Around 22% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 20% in June 2018. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless of whether you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:38, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

My talk page: CharlesShirley

Material copy-pasted from User talk:CharlesShirley

"This material is positive and we should be adding negative material about how this person said racist things" [my paraphrase] is not a good rationale for removing reliably sourced material from the biography of a living person. ~Awilley (talk) 22:20, 4 January 2019 (UTC) Thank you for your opinion. It is your opinion. It is not necessarily correct and it is not necessarily incorrect. It is just your opinion. However, there are tons of reasons that her high cheekbones comment should be in the article. The most important reason is that it was her rationale for her beliefs that she was: (1) Indian, and (2) Cherokee. The rationale was mildly racist and ignorant and readers of Wikipedia should be informed of these facts. -- CharlesShirley (talk) 14:21, 5 January 2019 (UTC) Well make sure that you don't mistake your own opinion for a reliable source because it isn't one, and pushing unsupported opinions into the biography of a living person will likely get you sanctioned. ~Awilley (talk) 14:47, 5 January 2019 (UTC) Well make sure you know what you are talking about. There are reliable sources that call her comment racist. Now, you might not like it, but whether you like it or not is completely irrelevant. On the talk page I quote a reliable source who makes the point, that you personally don't like, that her comment about the high cheekbones is based upon racist stereotypes. Now, this is fact and you really should have known this already. But clearly you did not. You should do more research into the topic of the article before you provide your unsolicited advise. You can to my page with personal opinions and that's all. If you had done any research you would have known that tons of people find her initial comments to be the worst in racial stereotypes. Do more research next time. You really need to learn about your subjects before you spout your unsolicited opinions. - CharlesShirley (talk) 19:39, 5 January 2019 (UTC) You seem to be under the impression that I came to your talkpage to opine and argue with you about high cheekbones and racism. I did not. My comments above are a warning about engaging in specific behaviors that are not in harmony with the purpose of Wikipedia. Feel free to ignore my warning as "opinion" but be aware that if you continue down the path you seem to be on now you will receive a WP:Topic ban from Elizabeth Warren. ~Awilley (talk) 01:18, 6 January 2019 (UTC) P.S. I did read this opinion piece assuming that's the one you are talking about, and personally I'm very sympathetic to what the author is saying, but I didn't come here to discuss that. ~Awilley (talk) 01:22, 6 January 2019 (UTC) Let me help you once again. You did not need to come to my talk page and warn me about anything. I have not said anything that would warrant a warning of any type. I am have not said anything that reliable sources have not stated in the past. You comments were and are unnecessary and unwarranted. You simply do not like the opinion that have of EW's initial comments about her dubious claims of: (1) being "Indian", and (2) being "Cherokee". As an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma I can tell you that I hold those same beliefs and I will not apologize for them and I will not be punished for having those beliefs. It is not your world and you are not in charge of it. Now, please stop immediately from coming to my talk page unsolicited and giving me your incorrect opinion. There is nothing that I have said which would support a "topic ban" from the EW article. Your personal opinion is incorrect and only designed to intimidate me and frustrate me from expressing my personal opinion that EW's comments were racist, an opinion that shared by many reliable sources. Now, please stop coming here. I have not reached out to you. You reached out to my talk page unsolicited. Please stop. - CharlesShirley (talk) 03:18, 6 January 2019 (UTC) It’s a good article. It talks to the complexity of the specific issue and the issue of bigotry in general. Let us not try to simplify the problem or use it to make a narrow point. Just my opinion. O3000 (talk) 02:04, 6 January 2019 (UTC) Objective3000: Yes, it is just your opinion and you have a right to that opinion, just as I have a right to my opinion. You clearly don't like it but that's too bad. I'm not going to change my opinion and I will not be intimidated into not expressing my opinion as Awilley is attempting to do. - CharlesShirley (talk) 03:18, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Awilley: Based upon the back and forth above from my talk page I would like to hear the opinion of another administrator. Basically you have told me that I have expressed an opinion on the EW talk page and I have provided a reliable source which has the exact same opinion and you have threatened have me ban from the EW topic. I find your comments to be attempt by an administrator to intimidate and censor a fellow editor. My opinion that EW's initial justification for her claims was based upon a racial stereotype is the same opinion of many members of my tribe and it seems you are attempting to stop me from even bringing up this fact and attempt to work it into the article. It seems to me that you are letting your own personal opinion get in the way of being a fair and objective administrator. - CharlesShirley (talk) 03:43, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

If you feel the need to get a second opinion about a warning you are free to do so. ~Awilley (talk) 04:39, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Awilley: That is a good sign that you are encouraging a second opinion. It is one good step toward backing off your attempts to intimidate and threaten me into keeping my opinion about EW's use of a racist stereotype to myself. You have expressed your opinion that I have done something wrong, but yet you have not indicated what that something exactly is. The only thing that you have focused on is that you do not like me saying that EW's use of a false belief about all "Indians" is racist. I have pointed out over and over again that it is an opinion held by other reliable sources AND that it is based upon the words that have come directly out of EW's mouth. She quoted her Aunt that "all Indians" have "high cheekbones". It is false that "all Indians" have "high cheekbones". It is as false as saying that "all Indians" are "drink too much". These are called racist stereotypes. You have flat out told me that if I continue to talk to other editors on the talk page about this comment (a comment that was in the article for literally over a year) then I will topic banned from the EW article. This is a blatant misuse of your administrative powers. You have a different opinion about what I and other reliable sources have stated about EW's use of racist stereotypes and that is your right. However, you have gone far beyond that and told me that you will, as an administrator, have me topic banned if I continue to talk on the EW talk page about EW's use of a racist stereotype. I will not be intimidated or threaten in my attempts to have a quote re-inserted into the article that was in the article for over a year. A quote that is important and substantive and has been reported in a significant number of reliable sources. You have a right to your opinion, just like I do. But you don't have a right to purse a topic ban on me just because you don't like my opinion and the opinion of hundreds of thousands of reliable sources. Don't use your administrative status to intimidate other editors into keeping their mouth shut. You were wrong to threaten me with a topic ban of EW's article, regardless of your unwillingness to admit it. - CharlesShirley (talk) 12:20, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

CharlesShirley, you would be wise to listen to other editors, and Awilley who is one of our most even-keeled administrators. The advice that he gave you is on point. If you continue along the road you're on, you will probably end up sanctioned and prevented from editing the article at all. That's not a threat—it's a pretty reliable prediction. By the way, your membership in the Cherokee tribe (assuming that's factual) has absolutely no bearing on how we write articles. If anything, it may be a WP:COI issue if you are not able find distance between your personal feelings from the content in dispute. - MrX 🖋 12:48, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

MrX: I agree that my membership in the Cherokee Nation does not have any bearing on how we write articles for Wikipedia. But then again I have never claimed that it did. (BTW, I can flat out prove it if I had to.) But more importantly I have not said that EW is a out and out racist and everyone should see that as Awilley outlines below. I have pointed out in a pretty even keel manner over and over again that EW did use a racist stereotype when she said that "all Indians" have "high cheekbones". That's is. It is a fairly limited statement and it does not support or justify a topic ban. There are many editors who do not agree with my comment and they are very, very aggressive in their disagreement but that does not mean that I have said or done anything to support a topic ban. They just don't like me saying what I said about EW. - CharlesShirley (talk) 02:58, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

I have left a polite note on CharlesShirley's talk page. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 12:50, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

@CharlesShirley, Actually I never expressed an opinion on whether Warren's allusion to high cheekbones was racist, and as much as you seem to want to discuss that with me (and it seems everyone else you come in contact with) I'm not interested in discussing it with you.

Let me clarify what I warned you about, since that seems to be a source of confusion.

The first warning was about using something's "positivity" or "negativity" as a criteria for inclusion in a BLP article. That's not how Wikipedia works. The argument "We should include this in the article because it's about racism" doesn't work, nor does the argument "we should exclude this from the article because it's not about racism and the article needs to talk more about racism". That's warning number 1.

The second warning is about what we call MPOV which is basically you assuming that your point of view is the correct and neutral point of view. An example of something that would violate this warning would be if you went around saying something along the lines of "Elizabeth Warren is a racist and everybody should be able to see that" without providing multiple high quality secondary sources that explicitly support your assertion. I'm not saying you have done this (if you had you'd probably already be topic banned), but I have noticed that the only source you seem to have provided is an opinion piece, which is not sufficient for the types of negative claims you're trying to make. You can learn more at WP:NEWSORG.~Awilley (talk) 13:10, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Warning #1 is unnecessary because I did not say that was a criteria that I use to include or exclude information from an article. You flat out either misquoted me intentionally or did not understand my point of view. I was making the exact same argument that you are: that using "positive" or "negative" aspects about a subject is NOT a valid standard. That's why I did not understand your warning in the first place, simply because I never said what you are claiming that I said. That's why it was unnecessary, but at least now I understand what you were attempting to get at. You yourself admitted that you thought from my response that I thought you came to my talk page to talk about EW's use of a racial stereotype. I am sorry that you did not make yourself clear or that your misunderstood my point about "positive" and "negative". Once again, I agree that it is not an accurate standard for inclusion. - CharlesShirley (talk) 02:45, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Let's review what you are so-called "warning" me about. I did not say what you just claimed that I said. I never said anything like it. What I have said is very limited: I have pointed out correctly that saying "all Indians" have "high cheekbones" is a racist stereotype. Also, I have provided a source for the comment outside of myself. Also, your second warning misses the point. I have not assumed that my POV is neutral. You do not have a crystal ball into my intentions or assumptions. You also created a strawman and attacked it. I have not stated that EW is racist and everyone should see that. You put words in my mouth and then you attacked that and earlier you threatened a topic ban for merely pointing that a huge number of members of my tribe find EW's claim that "all Indians" have "high cheekbones" to be a racist stereotype. I never made the type of claim that you are stating above. This is a classic red herring attempt to deflect from what I have been saying all along. There is no prove that "all Indians" have "high cheekbones" and therefore saying such a thing is a mildly racist stereotype. I said nothing that supports a topic ban. You just don't like the point that I have been making about EW's original defense of her claims of being "Indian" and "Cherokee". You have not given any real reasoning except for: Warning #1 twisting what I said to be the opposite of what I said (I agree that + and - is no standard to define what should be in an article) and Warning #2 attacking a statement that I never made and would never make instead of focusing on what I actually said, which is quite narrow in its focus (EW used a racist stereotype when he claimed that "all Indians" have "high cheekbones"). I have said absolutely nothing to justify a topic ban. The claim that I have is ludicrous. - CharlesShirley (talk) 02:45, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

FYI there is nothing "so-called" about the warning you were given. Lot's of people are unhappy about suggestions their actions are inappropriate and that particularly applies when an administrator is involved. Accordingly, people are given lots of room to rant. However, sooner or later someone will assess whether continuation helps the encyclopedia—a conclusion of no would lead to sanctions. It would be best to focus on policy-compliant and actionable proposals to improve an article, and that should happen on the article talk page. Johnuniq (talk) 03:00, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

CharlesShirley, you clearly have a conflict of interest. There exist a rather huge number of editors without such that can weigh in on your stated objections. Leave it to them as repetition rarely works. Friendly advice: You are now running into the Law of Holes. As several editors have informed you, this will not end well for you. Admins here can be remarkably patient. But, patience has its limits. There is only so much WP:ROPE. O3000 (talk) 03:02, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Clarification sought about your AP editing restrictions

Greetings Awilley. Could you please clarify your intent with regard to the BRD aspect of this? {{American politics AE/Edit notice}}

The way I interpret it is that, if my edit is reverted, both of the following conditions must be met before the edit can be reinstated

1. Wait 24 hours
2. Discuss on the talk page

I want to clarify that your intent is not that the editor must wait 24 hours after discussing on the talk page. I hope I'm correct, otherwise I may have to frogmarch myself AE for a proper thrashing.

Thank you. - MrX 🖋 22:04, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Your interpretation is correct. The 24 hours is from the time of your revert. That bit is spelled out more clearly in the talkpage version of the sanction template. The edit notice is very much abbreviated, which I think is common practice though I could be wrong. ~Awilley (talk) 04:05, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

ANI help

See: WP:ANI#Persistent NOTBROKEN vios, no communication

Apparently no admin will do anything about that situation unless some number of ANI regulars (a) understand WP:NOTBROKEN and (b) care about it—the community consensus behind the guideline means little in the end. Apparently even three (3) experienced editors complaining independently on the user's talk page are not enough—or perhaps the issue lacks sufficient drama to get any attention.

The project sorely needs "cops" who don't need support from ANI regulars to enforce long-standing PAGs.

This IP's history starts on 5 December and includes dozens, maybe hundreds of NOTBROKEN vios. Who knows how many occurred on former IP addresses (this is just one of the many AmAzInGlY Excellent Reasons to require registration, but that's a separate issue). In the long term the failure to communicate is even more serious than the NOTBROKEN vios; Wikipedia simply cannot function without two-way editor communication.

The IP has now been quiet for 3 days, leaving us to guess what that means. Has the address changed? In any case I'm required to continue monitoring the contribs for that address. I really have better things to do.

I use ANI very rarely anymore, and this is why—it's usually a waste of my limited Wikipedia time. I guess my time expenditure has already exceeded two solid hours. Are you perchance willing to expend ~15 minutes to take action on this? ―Mandruss ☎ 18:57, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

[1] I'll try to remember to check in again in the next couple of days. ~Awilley (talk) 19:32, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

New DS

I restored two edits in this article with your new BRD rule [2]. I read "If an edit you make is challenged" as not applying because I didn't make the initial edits. Is that right? D.Creish (talk) 06:41, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

That is correct. ~Awilley (talk) 18:31, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2019).

Administrator changes

Enterprisey • JJMC89

BorgQueen

Harro5 • Jenks24 • Graft • R. Baley

Interface administrator changes

Enterprisey

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment is currently open to reevaluate the activity requirements for administrators.
• Administrators who are blocked have the technical ability to block the administrator who blocked their own account. A recent request for comment has amended the blocking policy to clarify that this ability should only be used in exceptional circumstances, such as account compromises, where there is a clear and immediate need.
• A request for comment closed with a consensus in favor of deprecating The Sun as a permissible reference, and creating an edit filter to warn users who attempt to cite it.

Technical news

• A discussion regarding an overhaul of the format and appearance of Wikipedia:Requests for page protection is in progress (permalink). The proposed changes will make it easier to create requests for those who are not using Twinkle. The workflow for administrators at this venue will largely be unchanged. Additionally, there are plans to archive requests similar to how it is done at WP:PERM, where historical records are kept so that prior requests can more easily be searched for.

Miscellaneous

• Voting in the 2019 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2019, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2019, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
• A new IRC bot is available that allows you to subscribe to notifications when specific filters are tripped. This requires that your IRC handle be identified.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:15, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

ONUS : CR

I removed some content based on the last sentence at WP:ONUS, which is part of WP:V. It then occurred to me that that sounds a lot like "consensus required", and it applies to all articles, not just a subset under restrictions. How do you resolve this? ―Mandruss ☎ 03:41, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

It's true. The onus should be on the party trying to change the status quo, and that should apply everywhere. I'm not sure how to resolve the current dispute at the Elizabeth Warren article. Looking at things on the talk page and the way the content has evolved as it pops in and out of the article I suspect things will settle with a brief mention of the registration card as part of another sentence. Unfortunately for the next while I suspect it will be a battle against bloat about the Native American stuff in that article. I wonder if any of the folks trying to keep breaking news bloat out of the Trump article with 48 hour waiting periods and such will weigh in. ~Awilley (talk) 07:50, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

What is the difference between ONUS, which you say is good, and consensus required, which was removed apparently because it was bad? Simply the relative likelihood of a sanction, which was more theoretical than real anyway? ―Mandruss ☎ 08:07, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

I don't think CR was necessarily bad. Consensus is a core value here, and it is always required. But there are multiple ways of reaching consensus, and the rule "Consensus Required" was limiting editors to just one way: discussion on the talk page. Relaxing that rule allows people to, for example, explore compromise solutions through partial reverts/reinstatements, that often allow consensus to be reached more quickly than voting on talk pages. The ONUS is still on the people trying to add new material...they are still expected to start the talk page discussion, support their edits, and try to take into account the objections of the people opposing the change. ~Awilley (talk) 19:16, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Devin Nunes

Devin Nunes (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Hello. Since you took responsibility of page restrictions at Devin Nunes and replaced "consensus required" provision with "entrenched BRD", I have a question for you.

This discussion has been stalled since July. Nobody can explain why the article says "Nonetheless, deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe resigned due in part to the Nunes memo". There is perhaps consensus for removing that specific part, but leaving only the latter fragment without mentioning Nunes memo would make zero sense.

I'm unable to come up with any compromise edit because I don't even understand what the dispute is about. Would it be okay to just reinstate my July edit or should I seek further input from a specialised noticeboard/RFC/another venue? Thanks. Politrukki (talk) 23:08, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

I don't see anything preventing you from reinstating that. ~Awilley (talk) 01:50, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Okay, thank you again. I have been away this whole time, but I have now finally corrected the error. What have your talk page stalkers been doing meanwhile? It is beyond my comprehension how it can take more than a year to remove trivial nonsense like this. What is even weirder that the relevant part was edited on 20 February 2019, yet the error remained.

Separately, I am concerned about edits like this that use self-published and other poor sources:

• 21:07, 21 March 2019
• 20:57, 22 March 2019

There was a talk page discussion about this on March, but nobody bothered to remove the offending material until I did it today. Would you kindly educate the editors on the importance of using only reliable sources in BLPs? Politrukki (talk) 18:43, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2019).

Administrator changes

Evad37

There'sNoTime

Alex Shih • Brian • Mushroom • Nakon • Oscarthecat • PeruvianLlama • Ragib • Reaper Eternal • Rossami • Tom

Interface administrator changes

Evad37 • Galobtter

Ritchie333

CheckUser changes

There'sNoTime

Keegan • Ks0stm

Oversight changes

There'sNoTime

Ks0stm • Sphilbrick

Guideline and policy news

• The RfC on administrator activity requirements failed to reach consensus for any proposal.
• Following discussions at the Bureaucrats' noticeboard and Wikipedia talk:Administrators, an earlier change to the restoration of adminship policy was reverted. If requested, bureaucrats will not restore administrator permissions removed due to inactivity if there have been five years without a logged administrator action; this "five year rule" does not apply to permissions removed voluntarily.

Technical news

• A new tool is available to help determine if a given IP is an open proxy/VPN/webhost/compromised host.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee announced two new OTRS queues. Both are meant solely for cases involving private information; other cases will continue to be handled at the appropriate venues (e.g., WP:COIN or WP:SPI).
  • paid-en-wpwikipedia.org has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive paid editing.
  • checkuser-en-wpwikipedia.org has been set up to receive private requests for CheckUser. For instance, requests for IP block exemption for anonymous proxy editing should now be sent to this address instead of the functionaries-en list.

Miscellaneous

• Following the 2019 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Base, Einsbor, Jon Kolbert, Schniggendiller, and Wim b.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:12, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

V violation at Presidency article

I believe the Presidency of Donald Trump lead has inserted a line which has not followed V and LEAD. Where would it be best to ask for a policy clarification about “the cites and content are elsewhere” question ? RSVP

This was proposed by Starship.paint in the TALK, to dupe a lead line from another Donald Trump article re false and misleading statements, add a wikilink, and insert in the other article lead without the body or cites that other article had. Well stated by Starship with pings, opposed by me, supported by Volunteer Marek, then by Dimadick, then implicitly by MrX who put it into article. (Did not observe a 48 hour waiting period.). After implementation a 4th supporter Neutrality showed up. No further editors in the last week or so.

This direct-to-lead edit was not supported by the body or cites of the article it was placed. The question is whether V and LEAD are met when such supports are in another article.

Again, please suggest a venue to resolve the stance of V and Lead regarding support is in a different article. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 00:15, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

The best noticeboard for resolving issues of WP:V would probably be WP:RS/N. (WP:LEAD would probably be more relevant at WP:NPOV/N.) But I can't recommend that you run off and start some new noticeboard thread, as that goes against the whole WP:BLUDGEON thing I'm talking about. And I really have to question whether you understand WP:V. WP:V says that, Readers must be able to check that any of the information within Wikipedia articles is not just made up. This means all material must be attributable to reliable, published sources. Additionally, quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by inline citations. I seem to remember Starship.paint providing you with something along the lines of 15 reliable sources to support the material, including peer-reviewed academic sources. So I'm confused as to why you would think that WP:V isn't satisfied. Are you saying that those sources don't support the material, or that they are not reliable sources? Or is your concern that the sentence didn't have citations when it was copied over? (If that's the case a {{citation needed}} template is a good first step to resolving the dispute.) I don't think I understand what your concern is. ~Awilley (talk) 07:10, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

User:Awilley The V question is whether support for a line must be in the article of the line. With just dubbing lead from a different article, the cites the line is based on will not be present in the article the text is, because they are not part of a lead, so the reader is not given the basis of the line. Similarly the LEAD question is that the inserted line is not summarising material of the article, it is copying from elsewhere. Starship offering potential cites in TALK (not for article) or adding a hyperlink (in article) to a third article seem not to answer the issue V of showing the reader the basis in the article. (Also because the line simply was not built based on those.) ‘Copying from another article lead’ seems about explicitly *skipping* V or LEAD. However, that brings up a technicality that needs a venue ... V says it must be verifiable, but does not literally say the verifiability shall be presented in the article. So I’m looking for a venue that discusses what V means. RSN ? Well lack of RS might not be the typical topic there, but it’s a candidate. Got any other thoughts for venue ? Hoping for something small focused to policy. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 12:06, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

So the problem is a lack of inline citations? ~Awilley (talk) 20:49, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

User:Awilley - usually cites are not in the lead because it’s summarizing content of the article per MOS:LEAD and summarizing article content that has cites. Adding in-line citations at the duped lines would be an approach to address having V for the insert in the article, though still not a match to LEAD of summarizing the article it’s at. Starship.paint offered about 10 cites I think, though it looked rather a herd of unprominent items so cites would be another debate - and usually I regard the goal being to have text reflect the body of pubs, and hunting pubs to support predetermined prose as inappropriate. I am still dubious about just editing straight in lead generally, here by copy-pasting from another lead is a twist on it and I’d like a venue to ask V and LEAD question about ‘just copy from one lead to another’. Still think RSN best ? Markbassett (talk) 12:25, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

So the problem is that the new Lead sentences aren't representative of what's in the body of the article?

RS/N is the most appropriate venue I can think of for verifiability questions. WT:LEAD is another possible option for Lead questions. I can't recommend starting a new thread though unless you are able to clearly articulate the problem. It would be helpful if you would write in simple English, using complete sentences, and avoid shorthand/slang like "dubbing" and "pubs". And you definitely want to avoid wasting other editors' time with "bludgeoning" since that is what led to the sanction in the first place. ~Awilley (talk) 18:05, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Awilley OK, I put the topic out at RSN here, with pointers from WT:V here and WT:LEAD here pointing to it. Current thoughts seem to be either to backfill with some cites in the lead, and/or to have the body wikilink to a third article. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 06:11, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Sorry to bother

This might be a bit odd but i have seen that you were the one who closed a recent AE appeal by Atsme, I lurk around many areas so did actually see that discussion at the time. But did not care because i never actually interacted with anyone involved. That changed the other day and so i come here to ask if could you perhaps have a word with them in regards to their edits to the fascism talk page and related dicussions(i am the IP so certainly disagree with them on content but... i feel there are serious issues)? I am not asking for saction but to perhaps give a warning that the battleground behaviour they show, the bogus and time wasting arguments(for example saying that calling fascim right wing equates to calling everyone a fascist and using it as a serious argument), twisting, misreading and misrepresenting sources and so on. In the end i don't care about them having differing views, but i do care about the way they waste time with nonsensical points to win some ideological battle or whatever the reason is someone stoops to such lows in discussion. I, quite honestly, actually expect this request to totally backfire on me but whatever, the atmosphere they create by their behaviour is toxic and time wasting so i rather speak up and try to remedy it. And if no one cares about it, i will just stop editing because there is no point dealing with that kind of nonsense. I understand it is contentious, obviously people disagree, argue, etc. ... But they are just wasting everyones time with the way they behave. They probably are a brilliant person away from anything politics... but close to politics? Sheesh... So again, sorry to bother. Feel free to do nothing, feel free to SPI or CU me, nothing to hide. I am not new in the end but just never made an account. Anyway, have a good day. 91.96.118.79 (talk) 12:28, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Awilley - these false allegations are retaliation over User_talk:Berean_Hunter#SPA_IPs and obvious harassment by this non-static IP user. The fact they know about my appeal and have conducted such research in a show of ill-will toward me speaks volumes to their being a "new" user. ^Atsme 📣 📧 15:28, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

I am not sure how many more times i have to say this but i NEVER claimed to be a new user. I just never made an account. I have been mostly lurking (and it is not like AN/I or arbitation/AE are hidden secrets, all of them are 3 clicks away from the main page at most)but also editing things rarely (random example of a talk page comment from about a year ago i could remember of off the top of my head), for years now. I said that numerous times now. I have no ill will to you personaly, i just disagree with the points you made and the way you made them. And you do realise that people can edit for years and years without ever making an account, right? And there is nothing nefarious about it. And i really do not want to claim i actually edited for years, i have very few contributions in total, i do read a lot on AN, ANI and the arb pages. I guess it is like my kind of soap opera or something, i don't know lol. But whatever, make of this what you will. If you care enough just read the couple of comments by Atsme and me in the RfC and Berean Hunters talk and make your own picture. Have a good day anyway and sorry for having brought this on you. 91.96.118.79 (talk) 17:07, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

WP:IPs are people too and I understand there are legitimate reasons for not creating an account, but as a matter of principle in a topic area where socking is rampant I can't give the same weight to someone whose IP changes daily as I do to editors who have taken on a layer of extra accountability by creating an account. Atsme's argument that "to incorrectly state as fact that nearly half the US population are fascists in WikiVoice is not good for the project." is called a "attacking a straw man". I don't know the best way of responding to strawman arguments, and my approach is typically to call it out as such. ~Awilley (talk) 19:04, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Fair enough and i can respect that. But calling what i did harassment is a little over the top, no? I mean, that is a serious aspersion. In the end i don't care if people take my comments serious, some do and many don't. One learns to live with that as an IP editor. I try my best to bring my point across but this time i failed in the way i did it, it seems. I can even understand suspicion, especially in a topic like that, which is the reason why i still bear no ill will against Atsme. Raising what they felt was an issue on Berean Hunters talk, where there actually was some comminucation, even if minimal and... it's done? I would still like any mention of harassment struck but... i will just let it go, not much anyone can do about it anyway. And in regards to the content of the RfC, other comments by Atsme further below where they cherry pick parts of a source that just did not say what they claimed it did . Those two things combined with the overwhelming consensus among sources were the reason why i even brought it here. But whatever in the end, nothing will be done. I can accept that for the reason you layed out and i can only say i will try to make my points better next time. And i really have to say again, i am sorry to have dragged you into this. Have a good day anyway 91.96.118.79 (talk) 19:36, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

You made your point just fine, and I didn't see it as being harassment. I think letting it go is often the best approach to personal attacks or perceived personal attacks. (See WP:IPAT and the Meatball essay linked in the last paragraph.) ~Awilley (talk) 19:54, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Oh, one last thing. While i can completely see myself how it may look like retaliation, i have not actually seen their comment until after i finished writing you here. Now again, i can completely see how that looks for myself so i will not even complain about it further. But i brought this here completely independent of Atsmes complaint about me. I realise that is asking for trust i have not earned but that is all i can say about it. But yeah, it does not look flattering for me lol. Anyway, i will give that a read. And thank you for being a stand up person here and actually treating me... human lol. 91.96.118.79 (talk) 20:10, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Meprhee

Why should it be the NEXT personal attack that gets him into trouble. He has been attacking me for nine months now. He routinely insults others who disagree with him. This editor is of no use to Wikipedia that I can see, and is doing an awful lot of damage. What he did on my Talk page should be enough on its own. He has no manners, or common sense, and is purely pushing a right wing POV. HiLo48 (talk) 18:17, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

For the same reason I didn't block you for continuing to comment on his talk page after he asked you multiple times to stop. I try to use sanctions to get people to change their behavior in the future, not punish them for behavior in the past. If I didn't adhere to this you would both now be blocked. ~Awilley (talk) 18:49, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi Awilley, what HiLo48 just said is absolute and utter rubbish. This is just a further personal attack. HiLo48 dishes out abuse and intimidation to any editor who disagree with his extreme points of view and has a long history of doing so and was almost banned from Wikipedia indefinitely for this reason. He is currently angry that he didn't get his way at The Australian. There also is growing hostility over at the article talk page where there is a deadlock and no consensus has been developed, however a circular debate continues causing disruption. HiLo48 has not wanted to use dispute resolution or drop the stick. i think the article needs protection please. Merphee (talk) 21:13, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Merphee continued to comment on MY talk page after he stuffed it up with an irrelevant notice in the wrong place, AND I asked him multiple times to stop. I doubt you have had the time to see the full picture here. (It would be hard to do so.) Please don't jump to conclusions based on a quick look. I won't comment on his diatribe above, apart from noting that it contains more personal attacks on me. Going to stick to your word and block him? Or will you be like all those Admins here who just make hollow threats? HiLo48 (talk) 23:12, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I've seen enough, including the discussion on Talk:The Australian, and the history on your talk page. And I think I'm familiar enough with the history to have a pretty good idea what's going on. Merphee pushes your buttons, you completely lose it and lash back at him, things escalate until somebody takes it to AN/I, the bickering continues there, you're both warned, and things cool down for a while. According to you he's pushing a fringe POV. What are your thoughts on WP:IBANs? ~Awilley (talk) 01:52, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Yep. Typical Admin. I DON'T completely lose it, and surely that type of allegation should never come from a responsible Admin. I stick to facts. Sometimes I frame them quite firmly, but only with POV pushers and bigots. HiLo48 (talk) 02:12, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

You don't need to continue abusing asdmins either HiLo48. Awilley has summed it up pretty well. I totally support and would welcome an interaction ban between myself and HiLo48. It seems the only way to stop him attacking me and focusing on me personally on article talk pages instead of on content. Merphee (talk) 06:41, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Awilley - Prove that your threat to Merphee was more than just bluff. Since you requested better behaviour, I have done so, and then we get this from him - "And for the last frigging time HiLo48 would you please stop the bickering and personal attacks on this talk page and stick purely to content!" That is surely in defiance of your demand. (PS: He is still pushing his POV on the page in question, and misrepresenting others' comments and the situation. Hasn't changed a bit. I am standing back waiting for some real control on his behaviour. Can you do it?) HiLo48 (talk) 02:36, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

That's more of a personal comment than a personal attack, and it's certainly no worse than what you said in your first comment above. See #10. ~Awilley (talk) 03:56, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

My comment above was here on your Talk page. Merphee's was on the Talk page of an article, where I had said nothing to lead him to make that comment. In fact, I'm staying away from that article for now. But Merphee isn't. It's pretty clear you have no idea of the full history here, and you aren't watching what's going on. As I already said, it would be hard to do so. But you have chosen to get involved. If you don't study the full history, I'd suggest you're not doing your Admin job properly. But that's no surprise. My experience of Admins here has been mostly negative. There's only a handful I respect. Now, you're probably upset by my comments, but that should NOT affect how you do your Admin job. Watch Merphee closely please. HiLo48 (talk) 07:00, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

It looks like while I was sleeping last night Merphee was blocked for edit warring on that article by an admin less weak than me. I'm not upset. ~Awilley (talk) 14:17, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

^{( Buttinsky)} Less weak? Awilley, I am uninvolved and had hoped to stay that way but I had to speak up over the criticism launched against you - it was not deserved. I've seen this kind of attack against admins before, and have wondered if some form of preventative measure is warranted, perhaps by the community. Before I decided to comment here, I looked at the subject article's history, and there is clear evidence of some disruptive behavior - apparently for the same reasons we see it in AP2 - but the Merphee block came about following this unsourced edit and the edits that followed, which do appear to be a case of tag-teaming, albeit hard to prove. Perhaps it's coincidence that the editor who was blocked is the one who appears to lean right while little to no attention was paid to the instigating behavior that led to the reverts. I say the latter with few reservations based on the interactions that took place here on your TP, on Merphee's TP by some of the same editors, and at the January ANI attempt to get Merphee t-banned. I have seen how quickly an editor can find themselves with a one-way ticket on the WP:POV railroad for what appears to be the result of their personal views. It's a fine line we must walk to maintain NPOV. I have no intention of taking my concerns any further than our discussion here - I just want to better understand your position. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:21, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

"Less weak" was in response to this edit summary and it was partly in jest, trying to convey that I don't think that an admin's threshold for pressing the "block" button is a good indicator of "strength" or "weakness". And I'm certainly not going to be goaded into blocking someone. As for sanctioning people based on personal views, I consciously try not to make "right" vs. "left" a consideration, and instead try to focus on whether editors are using sound logic, trying to collaborate, and following reliable sources. ~Awilley (talk) 21:03, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

And the above is what I've come to learn about you. Thank you. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:45, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

I had to speak up over the criticism launched against you - it was not deserved. I had similar thoughts reading that, Atsme, but I decided (1) Awilley is capable of taking care of Awilley, and (2) Awilley asked for that when they took the mop. En-wiki leaves admins too exposed in the name of ADMINACCT, which is a large part of why I would never consider being one. I'd have a far lower tolerance for manipulative crap directed at my competence in an effort to coerce me into doing one's bidding. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:55, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2019).

Administrator changes

Reaper Eternal • ThaddeusB

Bogdangiusca • Christopher Parham • Necrothesp • Schneelocke • Siroxo • Sarah

Mentifisto → Lofty abyss

Interface administrator changes

Mr. Stradivarius

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad

Kingturtle

Technical news

• In Special:Preferences under "Appearance" → "Advanced options", there is now an option to show a confirmation prompt when clicking on a rollback link.
• The Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative plans to design and build a new user reporting system to make it easier for people experiencing harassment and other forms of abuse to provide accurate information to the appropriate channel for action to be taken. Please see meta:Community health initiative/User reporting system consultation 2019 to provide your input on this idea.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee clarified that the General 1RR prohibition for Palestine-Israel articles may only be enforced on pages with the {{ARBPIA 1RR editnotice}} edit notice.

Miscellaneous

• Two more administrator accounts were compromised. Evidence has shown that these attacks, like previous incidents, were due to reusing a password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. All admins are strongly encouraged to enable two-factor authentication, please consider doing so. Please always practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
• As a reminder, according to WP:NOQUORUM, administrators looking to close or relist an AfD should evaluate a nomination that has received few or no comments as if it were a proposed deletion (PROD) prior to determining whether it should be relisted.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:56, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Had any impact on Trumps life

I have a policy question, but since you also have some close dealings with Markbassett including AE warnings, I'd like to discuss this with both of you. He often (at least when dealing with Trump) asserts that some content is not usable because it hasn't "had any impact on Trump's life." (That's an extremely subjective editorial call.) I don't know of any policy which uses this as an inclusion criterion for articles, and I don't recall anyone but Mark saying this. AFAIK, RS and Due weight are more determinative, even if something had zero "impact" on the subject's life. What's at stake here? Is this a legitimate argument to use when seeking to block/delay the inclusion of properly-sourced negative information about Trump? (That happens to always be the context.) -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 21:26, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

User:BullRangifer This seems about a general description multiple editors have voiced in many instances for a biographical page, to highlight when something non-biographical is up for insertion, to better communicate that a biography topic is the major events and life choices of a person. I think the policy WP:OFFTOPIC would be relevant, and in some cases for the Donald Trump page WP:BLPGOSSIP, WP:SOAPBOX, and essay WP:Coatrack seem relevant, though I have also seen lack of impact in the life written as “undue for a biography”. Of many breakout or related articles in the case of Donald Trump, there often is a better venue it should be covered at rather than in the BLP or duplicated in both locations.

Alternatively, this “hasn’t had any impact” may be expressing that the item in question is trivial, at least in comparison to all the topics in the Donald Trump article, and just not worth having. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:48, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree that not everything should be in the main article, but a "biography" at Wikipedia is not like a biography elsewhere. We are far more inclusive, with basically everything that is written in RS being potential fair game. To resolve the space problems created by this practice, we have WP:SPINOFF. We still mention the subject, but spin most of the content off into a sub-article. We do not block mention of the subject.

In the future, to avoid creating suspicions that you are a POV warrior who is intent on protecting Trump from criticism (your track record, with occasional exceptions, really does raise such suspicions), instead of writing "has no impact on Trump's life", try suggesting a sub-article where the content would be more suited. "Has no impact on Trump's life" is not a legitimate argument in any sense, because our biographies are based on whatever RS write that is "related" (not "impacts") to Trump's life. If it mentions Trump, it is likely on-topic, with due weight determining how much mention we give it.

Obvious trivia (such as only found in tabloids like the National Enquirer) gets ignored, but if several major RS mention a subject, it ceases to be trivia, even though we might normally consider it so. RS take that judgment call out of our hands. Trump is such a huge self-promoter that you can bet that he would be offended if anything he does is seen as trivia. He makes sure that many of his actions and thoughts are seen and publicized, and he wants them to be considered the most notable, greatest, and biggest. His own self-aggrandizing personality and habits are geared toward making sure nothing about him is trivial, and this works to such a degree that he will indeed end up getting mentioned in every article here, IF he gets his will. When the most notable man on earth does something, it has consequences. It automatically becomes notable and gets mentioned here. It's a curse. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 01:28, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Worth the time to read User:Atsme/sandbox. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:48, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

1. Whether something has impact on someone's life is fairly WP:OR, and by itself is probably not a great criteria for judging whether something gets included in a biography.

2. Yes, the positions Markbassett takes on subjects related to American Politics are very predictable (something that could be said about a majority of editors in the topic area). My biggest annoyance is they way they carelessly throw around wikilinks to WP policies and essays that don't actually support their position. It's clumsy wiki-lawyering.

3. No, Wikipedia biographies are not some special type of biographies that have no limits on the amount of material we can include. We're still an encyclopedia, and our biographical articles need to read like encyclopedia articles, not books. And with regards to Trump, no, not everything he does is notable, and the existence of reliable sources mentioning something is not the only criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia.

4. @Atsme, I read the sandbox. You say, "It is unacceptable to include value laden labels in the lede of a WP:BLP without in-text attribution" but you don't define what a "value laden label" is. To use an extreme example, would the Lead sentence "[So and so] was an American serial killer, kidnapper, rapist, burglar, and necrophile who assaulted and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s" run afoul of the guideline you are proposing? I'm not familiar with the BLP/N discussions you are referencing, but I gather you are arguing that "conspiracy theorist" is a value-laden label. Would you argue the same about "serial killer"? ~Awilley (talk) 17:46, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Awilley, the bulk of what's in my sandbox is information I've collected (and paraphrased and/or quoted Masem) either at NPOV/N or BLP/N (or possibly both) with intentions of creating an informative essay, so it is not authored entirely by me. All of the information is supported by WP:PAGs and what I've gleaned from various noticeboard discussions. Regarding WP:LABEL, the guideline is quite clear: "Value-laden labels—such as calling an organization a cult, an individual a racist, terrorist, or freedom fighter, or a sexual practice a perversion—may express contentious opinion and are best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution. You might also take a look at the leads for Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler, Michael Jace, Ted Bundy and William S. Burroughs which may help put some of the things in that draft in perspective. Also see the top of my user page: To say it in WikiVoice, or not??, To include it in a BLP, or not?? and Politics, presidents and NPOV which includes quotes by Jimbo in discussions from either NPOVN, BLPN, or his TP. I will add that if being a serial killer is the only thing a person is known for, then that is the information that drives the lead. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:17, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Not sure why you're asking me to examine the Lead of Ted Bundy. ;-) What I was hoping you would see is that the quote from WP:LABEL doesn't apply to "labels" like calling Ted Bundy a "serial killer". I was hoping you'd be able to see the difference between "serial killer" and "freedom fighter". If you can see it, great. If not, I'm afraid I don't have time right now to discuss it further. (Super busy IRL at the moment) ~Awilley (talk) 23:34, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

RL should always be your first priority, Awilley. I simply provided comparisons from a pragmatist's POV - a dispassionate tone, supported facts without embellishment - all in an effort to clearly demonstrate how the leads of BLP's who are notable only for their inhumane acts should be presented in the lead vs the leads of people who are notable for a lifetime of other things. In fact, the draft in my sandbox explains it quite well as do all the other quotes I alluded to above. Few people know who Ted Bundy was before he gained notoriety as a serial killer - his lead presents the facts as they should be presented. It is unfortunate that you failed to understand the reasons for the comparisons. WP:BLP policy and our PAGs were written to reflect NPOV which is paramount to the future of this project. That said, I was not placing any demands on you or anyone else to discuss this issue any further - and of course, your RL issues are far more important - but you need to be unmistakably aware that I do know the difference between a serial killer, a freedom fighter and a terrorist, and I found your snarky comment offensive and unbecoming an admin. I will not comment here any further. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:08, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Huh? No snark intended. A serial killer is obviously a different thing than a freedom fighter. I was talking about the difference in terms of them being "value-laden labels" that need attribution. "So and so is a serial killer" vs. "So and so was regarded by his followers as a freedom fighter." ~Awilley (talk) 03:54, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

User:Awilley re ‘1’ Um speaking of carelessly throwing inappropriate wiki links to Wikipedia policy... ‘had no impact to their life’ cannot be OR, that is about article edits. The ‘had no impact on his life’ is a fairly common point in TALK discussions for what belongs in an article about a person, whether something is OFFTOPIC for an article about the person. OFFTOPIC discussions are of course presenting reasons or evidence for a position, and voicing that in TALK is kind of eliciting such concerns. We all voice positions and hopefully reasons, and see what is convincing. If you’ve got other good ways to identify proper content for an article about a person, please add to the mix — all measures needed, the question recurs frequently. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:25, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

You are the first person I've ever seen use that "no impact" argument, and I've been here since 2003. If you see that argument in use, dowse it with bleach. It shouldn't be a consideration. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 02:30, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

User:BullRangifer I suggest you try search on a few archives and you can see a goodly number of instances of people using it and agreeing with it or countering to it, so it has been valued in discussions and exists beyond what you remember. You might try search on “effect” or “significant” or “life” to get various ways it was discussed. If this continues to bother you, I suggest taking the topic of ways to determine what belongs to the Donald Trump TALK, with notice at the Biography project, and see what involved editors feel are good ways. Cheers. Markbassett (talk) 04:10, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

p.s. On second thought, it seems something worth doing myself if no one else wants to. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:58, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Involvement

Hi Awilley. Could you please explain to me how it is possible that you "don't see that as evidence of Masem's involvement" in spite of my posting seven diffs of his involvement. Also, where does it say go ahead and violate WP:INVOLVED and WP:AC/P if Awilley thinks your position is reasonable.

I would also like to know why admins have so thoroughly failed to protect the integrity of the encyclopedia from marauders who place a single character on their user talk pages to avoid scrutiny, and who descend on an article with the sole objective of promoting fringe viewpoints and discrediting the mainstream media. - MrX 🖋 19:59, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

You posted one link showing that Masem had made seven edits to the talk page. That's not proof of involvement, and one could post similar links about any number of admins editing any number of talk pages. I looked at the diffs, and they were all related to Masem saying that the page needed to be moved to avoid unnecessary disambiguation and other issues. I presume Bullrangifer and Rusf10 also participated in the move discussion, but I didn't notice any evidence that Masem was involved in a dispute with one of them. (Not saying it didn't happen, just that I didn't see you provide any evidence that it did.) So at this point it kind of boils down to trust. The community, for whatever reason, has decided that it trusts Masem enough to give them the admin tools. For that reason I will trust in Masem's integrity and ability to keep their personal feelings or bias in check until I see credible evidence that that ability has been compromised. I didn't see evidence of that in the link you provided.

As a side note, I personally find it somewhat disheartening when you call for more administrative intervention and in the same breath criticize an admin who did intervene but not in the way you wanted. ~Awilley (talk) 22:36, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

I posted a link to all seven links, each of which is evidence of involvement. Then I posted this: "This page must be moved back to "Spygate (conspiracy theory)" to avoid the immediate BLP problem, as well as to meet the conciseness needed for disambiguation terms, and in case anyone that gets here thinking this is the NFL one, a hatnote is sufficient to point them to the right direction."[3]. Your response was more than three hours later. Masem unambiguously initiated a dispute over the title. It's clear from their responses in that discussion that Phmoreno, BullRangifer, Kgrr, Muboshgu, Wookian, Artoodeetoo, Starship.paint, Markbassett, and Miserlou believed they were debating content. In none of his seven comments did Masem correct anyone by telling them that he was only there for admin purposes. Two weeks later, Rusf10 started a move request which addresses the very issue raised by Masem.[4]

I think we both know that if an editor had posted in the uninvolved admin section on AE it would have been swept away in minutes by another admin. That should have happened in this case, but instead I find myself pointing out the obvious and asking that the policy be followed. The trust instilled on in RfA is not special permission for admins to ignore rules even when they don't improve Wikipedia, and I believe you believe that as well. I can assure you, instances like this diminish trust in admins.

My comment about admins failing to protect the integrity of the encyclopedia was directed at the institution, not at any individual, and certainly not at you who have unquestionably done more than their share of the dirty mopping. I apologize if it appeared to be a swipe at you.- MrX 🖋 12:08, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I didn't feel the swipe was at me, but at Masem. And to be fair most of the other admins do more heavy lifting than I do. Most of my time is spent lurking around and occasionally poking at people. Pretty sure Gallobtter has done more mopping in their first 6 months than I've done in my whole career.

Let me see if I can come at this from a different angle. Does taking a content position like this disqualify me from arbitrating disputes between any of the other editors who voted in that RM? (Disclaimer: I wasn't aware that Spygate was a thing until two days ago when I discovered it through the thread at WP:AE.) ~Awilley (talk) 14:29, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Commenting in a move requests means that you are involved with the subject, and should not take admin action that could be perceived as biased with respect to that subject. According to Arbcom, that includes commenting in the results section of a AE complaint about disputants in that subject. It doesn't mean that you can't arbitrate disputes between the same two people involved on an unrelated subject. Do you interpret policy differently? - MrX 🖋 14:51, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

So you're saying that if I had made that !vote yesterday then I would have been disqualified from making this comment at AE? ~Awilley (talk) 15:02, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

No, I think Arbcom is saying that. We can certainly ask them for clarification as I suggested yesterday.- MrX 🖋 15:26, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Could you help me out with a link to the relevant Arbcom page and a quote from the relevant paragraph? ~Awilley (talk) 15:39, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

WP:AC/P#Expectations of administrators:

Enforcing administrators are accountable and must explain their enforcement actions; and they must not be involved. Prior routine enforcement interactions, prior administrator participation in enforcement discussions, or when an otherwise uninvolved administrator refers a matter to AE to elicit the opinion of other administrators or refers a matter to the committee at ARCA, do not constitute or create involvement

- MrX 🖋 16:17, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Of course enforcing admins should not be involved. That was never in dispute. I was looking for the part of policy that says that editing a talk page or taking a position on content automatically makes an admin involved with the other editors in that talk page or content discussion. As far as I can tell no such policy exists and "involvement" is not the bright line you're making it out to be. Look closely at WP:INVOLVED. It's full of caveats. There are other factors. Did I have strong feelings about the topic or the editors involved? Was I arguing with other editors or part of a prolonged dispute? Was my comment made in an administrative role (eg. citing an applicable policy or suggesting a wording)? Did I display bias? Was my participation calm and reasonable? Did I take part in an edit war? These are all important factors for determining involvement, I think, and there's more nuance than simply displaying diffs showing somebody edited a page. ~Awilley (talk) 17:42, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

The Results section is for enforcement, which is probably why there is text in the template that says "This section is to be edited only by uninvolved administrators." I find it convenient that admins often like to carve out these vast gray areas when it seems to suit them. "Involved" seems to be a pretty straightforward concept that doesn't need a whole lot of wiggle room since we have plenty of admins, and plenty of areas in need of admining. How would it be if I adopted your stance and closed the RfC and RM on the article talk page? I've only made a couple of comments on the talk page, neither of which relate to content. Do you think anyone might complain about my being being involved if I closed those discussions? - MrX 🖋 18:07, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The way I see it you are taking a nuanced issue and trying to make it black and white when it suits you. My vote in that RM made me involved in that RM, and now it would be inappropriate for me to close the RM or move the page. It did not disqualify me from addressing behavioral issues of users who happened to also participate in that RM. Not by itself anyway. If I were regularly weighing in on AP subjects that would be different. Involvement isn't a binary switch that gets permanently flipped the first time somebody comments on a particular talk page. ~Awilley (talk) 18:39, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm absolutely not trying to make it black and white; I realize that these things are nuanced, but I'm trying to point out that the gray area is limited, which I believe mirrors the intent of policy and Arbcom's procedures. You didn't answer my question about whether it would appropriate for me to close the discussions on the article talk page? I can earnestly make the same argument as you that my participation was calm and reasonable and that I have not displayed an opinion, let alone bias, with respect to the proposals.- MrX 🖋 18:49, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it would be inappropriate for you to close an RfC or RM that you participated in, the same as it would be for me. No, it would would not be inappropriate for you to close other discussions on the same talk page if you met conditions for being uninvolved in those (you did not participate in those discussions, you had not previously taken strong positions on matters similar to the issues under discussion, you weren't in conflict with the participants, etc.) and if you made a reasonable uncontroversial close that reflected consensus. ~Awilley (talk) 19:11, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Point of clarification: I never commented in the RfC or the RM.- MrX 🖋 19:24, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

My mistake. I hadn't read the rationales or really even looked at the names of the other participants. If you were to make a reasonable uncontroversial close that reflected consensus after the discussion dies down I wouldn't see any problem. I'm assuming that your participation elsewhere was indeed calm and reasonable etc. ~Awilley (talk) 19:41, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

The problem that I really see with the case that MrX is presenting is that it is same that whether an admin is broad or not should be read similarly to the "broadly construed" that topic bans come in play for. That is, for the Spygate article, MrX is argued that because I've commented on Trump-related elements elsehwere on other pages before this event, I'm involved, for example. That is effectively BS, because it would likely prevent any admin (and in particularl an AE regular like Sandstein) from participating in an "uninvolved" manner. I strongly believe that "uninvolved" should be a factor of specific direct confrontations with persons involved in the AE disputer (including filer as well as those that actions are sought against), and that they have not significantly participated in the specific content under dispute that the provided diffs are pointing to, though if they have been participating in a previous version of that content dispute, even if years ago, they should still be considered involved. That is, the admin should not have interacted in the dispute outside or have a history with specific content at play to be involved. Which I will say, no I wasn't nor would Awilley's contribution (post participation) would either (the proper disambiguation of the page is nowhere close to the content disputes of the page that were at AE). "Uninvolved" does not mean "unattached", just that the admin is not trying to put themselves above their own actions in the specific dispute. This also points to the fact that a "Content dispute" does not necessarily "taint" the entire article in question so that any other discussion related to the topic but outside the part that is dispute becomes an involved discussion. Some content disputes do affect the entire article, but even then, we also have to consider talk page versus mainspace, titles/mos versus content, etc. --Masem (t) 18:30, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

My goodness, your meandering interpretation is kind of self-serving, is it not? Basically, you seem to be saying that if an admin doesn't think they are involved, they're not. Why even have such a policy if it can be ignored out of hand? - MrX 🖋 18:55, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Basically, you seem to be saying that if an admin doesn't think they are involved, they're not Yes, actually. The problem is what is the definition of "involved"? WP:INVOLVED only defines the specific case of admin actions being uninvolved, but does not spell out any other aspects. You are suggesting a much more inclusive definition, which seems to be that even if one has touched anything in the topic area of the current conflict, one should consider themselves involved; whereas I am suggesting one that is more practical and restrictive, in that if one actually is a clear participant in the specific conflict. I'm not saying either is right or wrong, but there's clearly a vast gap between those points, and policy is absent of anything more specific. If this means we need a more specific definition for "involved" then we need to do that. --Masem (t) 20:00, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

When I saw that edit pop up on my watchlist, I immediately (as in "Wow!") saw it as a very "involved" content decision. I don't think that excludes the possibility or necessity of you taking certain actions unrelated to content. Behavioral and curatorial issues might still be legitimate areas. It just means you need to be more careful than before you took sides on that issue. It does exclude anything to do with moving the article that might be controversial. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 17:03, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Awilley - Masem was discussing an admin action, re:BLP vio & dab issue. Perhaps he should have performed the actions to avoid potential disruption/criticism instead of commenting, but the latter should not change anything. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:03, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

• @MrX: is correct. Masem is involoved and now you yourself have become involved as per[5]. Please, remove your comments from the admin section and rescind the sanctions you gave to both me and BullRangifer. By taking an opinion in the content dispute, you can no longer be considered neutral. The Key to WP:INVOLVED is it is "generally construed very broadly by the community, to include current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors), and disputes on topics, regardless of the nature, age, or outcome of the dispute."--Rusf10 (talk) 18:03, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

  (talk page stalker) While we're on the subject of ethical propriety, I would submit that the last person who should be claiming a sanction was improper is the person on the receiving end of it. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:39, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

• Awilley's sanctions were made BEFORE this "involvment", so it has no bearing on their decision to enforce any sanctions. Their decision was also on a behavioral matter, not a content matter, so unrelated. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 18:18, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

• I do not see either Awilley or Masem as involved in this matter...least not according to my interpretation of policies and guidelines.--MONGO (talk) 12:44, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

CR quagmire, redux

There is an ongoing content dispute and slow-moving edit war at Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. I noticed that the article is still under the old "consensus required" restriction, so I have a dual request for you:

1. Could you take a look at the discussion and editor behaviour thus far?
2. Would you consider switching to the new "Enforced BRD" restriction?

A lot of the usual contributors are arguing over how to portray recent developments, and it sounds reminiscent of many similar quagmires on Trumpian subjects. I'd rather see some constructive intervention now than a couple of AE cases down the road. Thanks for your consideration. — JFG ^talk 13:11, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I can do that later today after I get to a desktop. It looks like I missed that one in the original BRD sweep because it wasn't clear to me that it was UserCoffee who had originally placed the BRD sanction. ~Awilley (talk) 15:12, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I dropped the ball and had some stuff come up over the weekend that kept me too busy to follow up on this. I've removed the sanction but haven't had time to review discussion and behavior yet. ~Awilley (talk) 17:19, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you very much indeed. — JFG ^talk 18:03, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)FYI the disputed fragment was first inserted on 18 April,[6], and then several editors expanded and reduced it back and forth. There is now an open RfC. — JFG ^talk 18:03, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've looked at the discussion (not the reverts yet) and I can't say I'm surprised. It looks to me like a tug-of-war between two poorly-written versions with a SYNTH issue that could probably be sidestepped with some creative rewriting. Like is it really necessary to write, "In a subsequent sentence Trump also said to Sessions" instead of "Trump later added" and to use long quotations instead of paraphrasing? I looked at the Reuters article so I can see what Thucydides411 means about the two statements being in the course of the same conversation (therefore not SYNTH) but in the RfC it's written in an argumentative SYNTH-y way. Also I did a little "OR" of my own and looked at the primary source (page 78 or page 290 in the full PDF). Turns out there's a summary on the previous page (under the heading "Overview") that leaves out both the expletive and the "years and years" bit. I haven't even looked at the article yet, but if you're looking at ways to boil things down to a level of detail appropriate for an encyclopedia, that might be a good place to start. ~Awilley (talk) 18:06, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Take your time. The RfC at least frames the issue and gives a formal cadre to editors' discussions, even if the snapshot proposed would certainly not be the best text. Meanwhile I have removed the whole trivial sensationalist quote pending RfC outcome. — JFG ^talk 18:13, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Rusf10 fallout

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

There is admitted, disruptive block evasion going on at User talk:Rusf10. R2 (bleep) 20:10, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Why Rusf10 is putting up with that on their talk page I don't know. I suppose the IP is telling them what they want to hear. ~Awilley (talk) 20:19, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Of course, they're riling each other up. Are we going to let that continue? R2 (bleep) 21:32, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Or you could ignore it. I see no issues with the venting but the IP should be told to remove the named parties at a minimum.--MONGO (talk) 22:56, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

I've asked Rusf10 to hat that thread.--MONGO (talk) 23:11, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, MONGO. It's not always easy to WP:DENY recognition without creating additional drama, and Rusf10 hatting it would be a good solution. At some point I hope they'll realize that defending and enabling sock puppets or meat puppets when it's convenient politically isn't going to score any points with the majority of Wikipedia editors. ~Awilley (talk) 00:09, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Can I just point out one thing to all of you? It may be my talk page, but I haven't been engaging the IP, all of you have. And accusing me of "defending and enabling sock puppets or meat puppets when it's convenient politically", really is a WP:Casting aspersions AWilley, not that someone who is "as ethical as any human administrator could be" would ever engage in that type of thing.--Rusf10 (talk) 02:10, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

If the editor there is indeed a ban evader then it's best to not host their comments at all. There are a lot of pretty damming incriminations in those discussions so no reason to allow them to vent endlessly.--MONGO (talk) 03:51, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

They admit to having lost their editing privileges, IOW they are a blocked user. -- BullRangifer (talk) 17:04, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

additional drama R2 (bleep) 22:25, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

@Ahrtoodeetoo: I think you're playing into the IP's hands (how do we know the IP is Hidden Tempo?) giving them the attention and drama they seem to be wanting.

@Rusf10: When you restore edits by banned editors you yourself are taking ownership and responsibility for the contents of those edits. Are you sure that's what you want to be doing right now? ~Awilley (talk) 00:46, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

That's quite some WP:WIKILAWYERING and sounds like a threat. Haven't you harassed me enough? From the start of this, you've wanted to hold me responsible for the IP's comments. Accusing me of "defending and enabling sock puppets or meat puppets when it's convenient politically". I have done no such thing. The thread got hatted and I though that would be the end of this, but no you and R2 want to continue to drag this out. It seems like you on a mission to place sanctions on me.--Rusf10 (talk) 01:12, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Ok, since you asked. We know because he posted this on my UTP yesterday. I've done what he described only once in my career, for Hidden Tempo, and the writing style is the same. The noticeboard discussion he refers to is here. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:21, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

As his UTRS access ban has expired, this should probably be logged somewhere in the case he asks for a standard offer. O3000 (talk) 01:42, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm totally on board with denial of recognition through quiet reversion. That's why I filed the ANI. It would be a simple matter to delete the offending comments, warn Rusf10, and close the ANI. That's WP:DENY. Allowing comments like that to remain and embolden Rusf10, that's not WP:DENY. R2 (bleep) 01:49, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Please give it a rest. Johnuniq (talk) 02:06, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Whatever. R2 (bleep) 03:35, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

@Mandruss, Thank you for indulging my curiosity.

@Objective3000, I can see if there's a place at SPI for logging, though I doubt HT will choose to return as an editor.

@Rusf10, No, I'm not on a "mission" to sanction you. If I wanted to sanction you you'd be topic-banned already. What I want is for you to pause for a moment, evaluate your position, realize you're on the wrong track, make a course correction, and then begin working more collaboratively with your fellow editors to improve the encyclopedia. I think you are capable of doing that, but if you prove me wrong then yes, you can expect another sanction. If you don't trust advice from me that's fine. At least listen to MONGO. ~Awilley (talk) 18:08, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Another CR page

Please consider changing the restriction on Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Editors including me are in the middle of slow-motion edit-warring with some stonewalling, wikilawyering, and talking past each other. — JFG ^talk 06:36, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Done. I missed that one because it wasn't using the standard templates. Let me know if you run across any more and I'll zap them too. ~Awilley (talk) 18:26, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

66.141.235.58

Hi Awilley, would you mind looking at 66.141.235.58 or referring to another admin? Thanks in advance. R2 (bleep) 15:48, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

 Done ~Awilley (talk) 17:03, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Your draft article, User:Awilley/Ayurveda

Hello, Awilley. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Ayurveda".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Laosilika (talk) 17:27, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

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Violation of BRD on a DS article after warnings

We (My very best wishes and I) are having trouble with an editor who insists that only additions, not deletions, can count as the B in BRD. (We're talking about multiple huge deletions as large as 100,000 bytes in one fell swoop.) His arguments morph over time, sometimes into the absurd.

At first, we couldn't figure out what he meant because of the absurd largeness of his deletions. Then we thought he was implying that each one of his large deletions was of content that had been contributed as one large addition each time, so we asked him to produce the diff for that single large addition of the content he was deleting in one deletion.

Then we discovered he is claiming that all the individual edits over the years which have been added to the article and become part of the consensus/status quo version, are the Bold edits (true enough at the time), and that his deletions of them all at once in huge chunks as large as 100,000 bytes in a single deletion are the Revert in BRD. Then, while discussion is occurring, he goes back to deleting huge chunks.

The discussion is going in circles, with one of the worst cases of IDHT behavior I've seen in a long time, and he is declaring he won't stop, which is edit warring behavior regardless of number of edits involved. While it's tempting to start getting personal and ending up with incivility, I have tried to argue calmly, but that's not working, so I'm going to back off.

We need the article to be calm so that a discussion can result in a decision as to whether the content should be deleted or modified. With the repeated deletions without consensus, it's just a case of protecting the article. He won't stop making disputed edits during the discussion phase of BRD.

Maybe protecting the status quo version of the article would be a good idea to force the discussion to proceed unimpeded by edit warring. Please take a look at Onetwothreeip (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Talk:Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections (edit | [[Talk:Talk:Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections|talk]] | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (See also 123.2.85.195 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)) He has received DS warnings and deleted them, and been warned about edit warring numerous times on the talk page and then on his own talk page, all to no avail. His talk page history shows he has a history of edit warring, but oddly no blocks. (Maybe they weren't as serious as this.) -- BullRangifer (talk) 14:26, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• Onetwothreeip edit war on the page against consensus for a week [7],[8],[9],[10],[11],[12] and does not understand any policy-based arguments, for example [13]. Their contributions on other pages appear to be mostly constructive, although I noticed a couple of DS alerts on their talk page. My very best wishes (talk) 15:12, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
  • @Onetwothreeip: When you delete something that has been in the article for months and that has been edited by multiple people that's a bold edit, not a revert. But the distinction is less important now because now every revert is just that, a revert, that is governed by 1RR and the BRD rule (requiring discussion). But this is way off base.
  • @MVBW, This doesn't seem to be so much a misunderstanding of policy as it is a misunderstanding of the argument you were making. If it hadn't missed the caveat about Reliable Sources saying something is relevant it would have been a valid reductio ad absurdum argument. ~Awilley (talk) 18:20, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Actually those additions were indeed bold edits that were never approved by a consensus. The talk page and the edit summaries show several people objecting but have been disregarded by the two main contributors who insist on including the content they want to include. Much of what they are saying about me and my conduct, to little surprise, are basically lies. ...an editor who insists that only additions, not deletions, can count as the B in BRD. Completely untrue, I have said that removing content counts as bold if the content has been approved by a consensus. ...arguments morph over time, sometimes into the absurd. Apart from being very uncivil, this is very baffling. They allude to the removal I made which was indeed 100,000 bytes, but this is an article that would otherwise have been 500,000 bytes. It's very disappointing to see BullRangifer pretend that they have tried to discuss the content, since I have repeatedly prompted them and My very best wishes on certain elements and suggestions that can be discussed, and so have others. All that I'm left with is the same back-and-forth where they insist I'm the one being bold.

is declaring he won't stop, which is edit warring behavior I've never declared such a thing, that is ridiculous. They go on to say He has received DS warnings and deleted them but most editors should know that these warnings are given broadly to participants, and deleting them as a form of archiving is a way to acknowledge the warning. and been warned about edit warring numerous times on the talk page and then on his own talk page, all to no avail. His talk page history shows he has a history of edit warring, but oddly no blocks. (Maybe they weren't as serious as this.) I've been frivolously warned for edit warring before, and I've warned others of edit warring with the same template as well. The dispute here is clearly that they think my actions are bold, not that my edits constitute warring. The idea that I'm just some malcontent that doesn't understand what they're saying is simply untrue and it's very disappointing to see that kind of talk page conduct.

More important than all this self-interested drama is the article itself, which is in a dire state and terribly overpopulated with content that does not pertain to the topic, but is only related to the topic. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:28, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

There is a problem with Onetwothreeip's behavior of canvassing in an attempt to form a GANG at Wikipedia; sometimes with Slatersteven [14], and sometimes with The Four Deuces [15][16]; but always with JFG. This may be of particular interest to you, as JFG called you (and MelanieN) by name[17] to the Timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections topic. My very best wishes has specifically pointed-out this problem to 123IP [18], BullRangifer has specifically warned 123IP of how this violates the spirit of BRD, Websurfer2 has shown great patience in discussing the violations of process, while Volunteer Marek as pointed to related problems in 123IP's behavior.[19] (additional info here, here, and here) X1\ (talk) 23:50, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Indeed. They try to delete large amounts of long-standing content and have ideas about article scope which are not in harmony with the historic scope of the list. The "deep state conspiracy against Trump" seems to affect their thinking, so they see Trump as vindicated, and therefore he and his campaign should no longer be mentioned, or something like that. It's a bit hard to figure out all the intricacies of this, but the main problem is mass deletion of long-standing content in spite of the objections of other editors.

They seem to think that if the content does not mention Russians, it doesn't belong, when the scope has always been anything related to the Russia investigation, Crossfire Hurricane investigation, Mueller probe, and any related history. This obviously involves Trump and his campaign even more than the Russians, but 123IP seems to want to delete any Trump-related content without a consensus to do so. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:01, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Okay well this is really scraping the barrel now. In this talk page message I hardly see how it can be considered canvassing to notify two editors who had already contributed to that same talk page section. I responded to X1\ primarily, and then directed further remarks to Slatersteven and JFG. Then there's this which is incredible since it's my own user talk page, so I'm canvassing users onto my own talk page? That makes no difference to the article talk page or the article itself. MVBW was referring to them, and I thought it would be appropriate to notify them that they were being talked about. Not sure what linking to the history pages are about. There is an affirmative consensus at Talk:Timeline_of_Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections#Butina_and_Torshin for example to remove certain entries from the article. This is getting beyond absurd now. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:06, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

First of all BullRangifer, who has said anything about a "deep state conspiracy against Trump"? Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:52, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

No one directly, but some of the things you've said seem to come from that mindset. That's all. -- BullRangifer (talk) 01:55, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

It certainly seems that some people here are seeking to include extreme amounts of unnecessary content into the article in order to obscure the actual Russian government involvement in the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. Anything actually important is completely minimised by all this nonsense like when Ivanka Trump "sat in Putin's chair" and when someone was introduced to their future wife or an entry about the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:06, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

"in order to obscure the actual Russian government involvement..."??? That's a rather strange assumption. Including the full gamut of things which were involved, or suspected to be involved, in that interference does not "obscure" anything. It just means we document the full scope of the article, which is anything related to the Russia investigation, Crossfire Hurricane investigation, Mueller probe, and any related history. That very much involves the Trump campaign, as much of the interference was designed to help Trump win, and his associates were crawling all over the Russians in secret meetings to get all the help they could. Oh, BTW, they also lied about it. That's called "consciousness of guilt." -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:57, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I can't claim to know the motivations of people, but the strong inclination of editors to make this article the second-largest article in the entire encyclopaedia and include all kinds of things which have been challenged as irrelevant on the talk page is in line with obscuring the relevant events of the interference. My initial impression indeed was that editors sympathetic to Donald Trump had included extraneous details, particularly suspected activities that haven't been further confirmed, since obviously nobody is reading the entire article or anything close to that. It's also very unfortunate that editors have indicated on talk pages that they want the article to indicate things like guilt and possible motives, and to show that statements by certain people are unlikely or untrue. This makes it easier for readers to dismiss the article as having an agenda to "right great wrongs" and "uncover the truth", rather than present neutral and objective facts. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:50, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Please AGF. The history of this article shows a clear tendency of Trump supporters trying to delete content that reflects poorly on Trump, which is the opposite of what you're implying.

Another thing is that this is not an "article" but a "list". They serve different functions here. It can be seen as a source dump which is used for content and sources for other articles, and it is indeed used in that manner. Only real students and researchers are likely to read the whole list, but it's an interesting experience to do it. One gains a much better understanding of how seemingly unrelated events in time and space are connected.

Currently we don't even have one mother article for the Russia investigation. That's pretty astounding. The information is spread out over a couple articles and several long lists, including this one. Therefore all information in it must be guarded. We don't want to lose content or sources.

As to the length, it's a simple statistical fact that one article has to be the longest and another the shortest. It can't be any other way. It's not an intention, it just happens, and attacking the list for being long makes no sense in this case, especially since it's a list, where length is far less important than with prose articles. Lists aren't normally read in the same way as regular articles. They are used for research. Instead of looking at this as one article, look at it as the file cabinet in the library with all those little drawers. Losing a drawer or any of the file cards in it would be disastrous. That's one reason we have the WP:PRESERVE policy. The hard work of myriad editors should be respected. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:31, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

The history of this article shows a clear tendency of Trump supporters trying to delete content that reflects poorly on Trump. This is very counter-intuitive. As we have seen, it's the massive amount of tendentious information that is actually obscuring the main criticisms of Donald Trump's campaign. Whatever you may think of the article (and list articles are indeed articles, whether or not this should be a list article), please do not obstruct attempts at clearing out the entries in the article that are unnecessary and outside the scope of the article. Redefining the scope of an article to whatever you want it to be does not actually change the inherent scope of the article, and I do not need to be condescended about it. I encourage you to read WP:DON'T PRESERVE, since you are very eager to quote WP:PRESERVE. Also WP:SCOPE, WP:RELEVANCE, WP:TOOMUCH. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:22, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

And this is why I only partially agreed with you, your point about the article is too big and full of unnecessary crap is valid, but there has been a large number of efforts to sanitize the page to be less critical of Donnie. This is why concrete examples of what users want removed, rather then vague declarations that stuff should be removed are better. We then know you are not just one of those editors.Slatersteven (talk) 13:38, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Slatersteven I don't agree with editors expressing or acknowledging their political views on talk pages, but I can assure you that is not my motivation. I am not from the United States or Russia and I don't have a record of biased editing elsewhere. Anything that I have removed from the article or that I support being removed could be things that are described, including in further detail, elsewhere on Wikipedia. It's impossible to detail every single entry that should be removed however. Please check my editing statistics if you have any further concerns. Again I think what the article is suffering are people who are sympathetic to Trump who wish to obscure the events of the Russian government's involvement with irrelevant trivia and fancruft, in order to render the article unreadable. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:08, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

I have said it to others, if you want to remove stuff you have to get the OK for it, and I will never give (and I would hope no one would) blanket permission to remove stuff. If I give it to you I have to give it to everyone, and there are those who would exploit it. So I give it to no one. Yes you can (and should) tell us what you want removed, there is no time limit that says this article will self destruct in five posts if we do not remove excess material. Nor is there some page limit to the number of posts you can make.Slatersteven (talk) 08:26, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

I have no idea about the central complaint, but would point out that being invited is not the same as being part of a gang (for a start I would have to accept). I do not recall the incident in which I was mentioned, but I would point out it was a page on my watch list that I am active on. Thus I am not sure it is canvassing. Indeed I had already agreed with part of what they had said without promoting.Slatersteven (talk) 08:04, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Awilley - it appears you have developed the patience of Job...👏👏👏

I commend the editors participating in this discussion for their civility and informative exchanges, and I commend you for allowing them to discuss these very trying issues on your TP. As you know, brevity is not one of my strong points, but neither is it for BullRangifer, who I consider a WikiFriend - as for our brevity issues I'll just quote Blaise Pascal: I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short.

I was a tad disappointed in Slatersteven's use of "Donnie" because it made me think of the Osmonds rather than POTUS, and it does come across as bias (intentional or otherwise) which does tend to act as a trigger. Political divides are an issue worldwide (or it could be/should be viewed as a benefit) but it is pretty obvious that our Trump-related articles are weighted heavily in a negative direction due for the most part to WP:RECENTISM and WP:NEWSORG. It doesn't appear to me that the articles are being properly updated as more factual information is published in RS, and it's that omission that draws attention to what appears to be ongoing resistance and articles being overweighted with opinions and trivia rather than sticking primarily to fact-based material. The latter will surely cause some shrinkage of article size, but that's a good thing. It is also an area I agree with the work of Onetwothreeip and JFG, both of whom have attempted to correct the issues. I have previously expressed my concern over the attempts to maintain the status quo which can be viewed as WP:SQS or WP:OWN or both - based on some of the lengthy discussions that lead nowhere fast, and weak arguments to exclude updated material which is actually what causes some editors to apply BRD.

Many of the Trump articles suffer WP:RECENTISM and were originally created based on newsy speculation and 2 years of misinformation, some of which has been retracted but not all RS have been following their own retraction guidelines as we have recently come to learn. Investigations are still ongoing with AG Barr and IG Horowitz per published RS, not to mention any of the ongoing congressional oversight, and as I've consistently advised editors in the past, we should exercise caution with regards to how we use news sources (either with or without intext attribution). It's not our place to dismiss FOXNews as unreliable, or a NYTimes published statement as patently false, unless of course a claim of falsity can be cited to another RS. Editors make decisions of whether or not to include material but it should not be based on their own analysis of the actual material - that's what RS do. We certainly should verify the information and corroborate it for factual accuracy but it pretty much ends there. We publish what RS say and decide the type of attribution that will accompany the claim/allegation. That's where I see problems arise at AP2 and they almost always create conflicts/disruption. At the same time, we cannot ignore that we have a handy measure of bias involved as we've seen on some of the participating users' TPs, etc. It is a natural tendency for editors to use only those RS that agree with their own POV rather than edit as suggested by the essay WP:OPPONENT. Just wanted to share my take on some of the common sense dictates of the issues at hand. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:11, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, there is indeed an inherent conflict between our duty to document the narrative found in RS and the dismay that WP:CRYSTALBALL, WP:ADVOCACY, and WP:FRINGE prevent the use of unreliable sources which push fringe and counterfactual narratives aligned with certain biases, rather than using those RS which don't. Patience is called for. When the narrative found in RS changes, we will update our articles accordingly, and editors who think skeptically will also change their minds. In the meantime, complaints about the proper use of RS are counterproductive. -- BullRangifer (talk) 17:12, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Just as a very general comment, no, we do not have "2 years of misinformation" [by media]. Yes, if something has been retracted (I am not sure what is that, exactly), that needs to be corrected. However, if something published was not retracted, this remains a valid publication/an RS, subject to comparison with other RS per WP:NPOV. And I think BullRangifer does very good and careful work with sources on this subject. Thank you, BullRangifer, for doing this! My very best wishes (talk) 18:45, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I can only afford a short reply here at the moment (super busy IRL). I do want to push back against the idea of using an article as a "filing cabinet" of information. That's not what Wikipedia is about, and the information in any article needs to be digestible for readers. That's the whole point of encyclopedia articles. I also want to push back on 123's approach (based off my memory of old diffs) of blanking entire sections of information. Also it seems a bit odd to criticize someone for using triggering & biased language like "Donnie" and then in the same post throw around terms like "2 years of misinformation". ~Awilley (talk) 18:52, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Awilley, I'll have to admit that my analogies describing the list as a "source dump" in a library "file cabinet" was a bit sloppy, but, unlike a prose article, the list article in question contains items listed by date, where there is usually no discernible connection between adjacent items but the general topic, just like cards in a cardfile. The only thing those cards have in common is that the Dewey Decimal System has declared them to be on the same general topic, and that they thus belong in the same drawer (our list). That's all I meant. When we find RS information on the topic, we "file" that information in the list by date, and only by date.

I haven't had much to do with this list, but that's generally how it works. (I use it a lot for research. It's a valuable treasure trove.) In lists, we don't attempt to create a logically flowing narrative so that as one reads down the page each item builds on the previous one, and it gradually makes total sense. No, it's lots of disconnected bits of information. It takes a prose article to put it together into a logical flow of information.

That's where this list, and several others, serve a very valuable purpose. We have NO MOTHER ARTICLE FOR THE TRUMP-RUSSIA INVESTIGATION. That's a pretty terrible state of affairs, but the needed information is in these lists. They should not be pillaged. Condensed by better and more concise wording? Sure, but not mass deletion, especially when it's targeted at removing mention of Trump and Co. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:19, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Just looking at the list it looks like you could do a lot of things to condense it without actually removing information. For example the list currently has this entry:

December 14 2012: President Barack Obama signs the Magnitsky Act into law to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax accountant Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009.

That could easily be condensed into a parenthetical clause "(signed by Obama in 2012)" and inserted into the next mention of the Magnitsky act in 2016. ~Awilley (talk) 19:02, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

It's not odd that I perceived the nickname as bias, Awilley, and I certainly wasn't "throwing around" a very significant occurance like "2 years of misinformation". My comment is supported by RS so it's neither OR nor my personal opinion - it's documented fact as evidenced by academic sources which you can find quite readily via a Google search, and the few RS I've included below - not to mention the Mueller report which resulted in a finding of NO COLLUSION. I will include the comment made by Jimbo on his TP back in January 2019 - I totally agree with his take on it per the 3rd paragraph: I'd like to add that I don't mind a little bit of personal chit-chat here about politics, I'd like to always seek to tie it back to Wikipedia. We have chosen a very tough job: NPOV. Dislike for the President, fear about things that are happening in the world, may make it emotionally harder to remain neutral, but remain neutral we must. I happen to personally think that given the decline in quality of the media across the board (there are still fantastic journalists out there, but overall the landscape isn't great) the best way for us to help the world heal is neutrality.

The RS dilemma

Criticisms that were recently launched against me unjustly here and on my TP regarding my concerns over news sources and the steadfast position I've held when it comes to exercising caution when citing them (some of which was actually used as evidence against me), particularly my advice to closely adhere to WP:RECENTISM, WP:NOTNEWS, and WP:NEWSORG remains unchanged. In fact, I have been vindicated as the following evidence will demonstrate:

• Ohio State University

https://origins.osu.edu/article/media-and-politics-age-trump

• The Intercept

https://theintercept.com/2019/01/20/beyond-buzzfeed-the-10-worst-most-embarrassing-u-s-media-failures-on-the-trumprussia-story/

• Salon

https://www.salon.com/2019/05/09/bad-week-for-truth-in-the-media-bannons-delusions-venezuelas-coup-and-bidens-electability/ “Tom Friedman's laughable prescription for Democrats, NYT and CNN spin Venezuela fables, Bannon goes full Orwell”

• Poynter

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2017/not-fake-news-just-plain-wrong-top-media-corrections-of-2017/

• PBS

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/study-election-coverage-skewed-by-journalistic-bias/

• Investor’s Business Daily

https://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/social-media-bias-john-stossel/ - talks about Wikipedia article being very one-sided

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/media-trump-hatred-coverage/

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/social-media-trump-conservative-bias/

• Real Clear Politics

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/10/15/the_game_of_the_name_media_bias_and_presidents_138351.html

• Washington Times

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/mar/6/trump-coverage-still-90-negative-says-new-study/ - hostile coverage

• AP Report

https://www.apnews.com/55900fb31de842288ee7f75f2ae75bf4

• Sharyl Attkisson

https://sharylattkisson.com/2019/01/50-media-mistakes-in-the-trump-era-the-definitive-list/

I certainly hope that lays your concerns to rest and that it won't be brought up again in that manner. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:16, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

I read through the links you provided from the more reasonable sources, and don’t agree at all with your statement that we have seen “2 years of misinformation” from RS. We have most certainly seen it from the crazy sites, and continue to see it. What studies have shown is that the press tends to concentrate on unusual characters, and that the networks are generally negative, toward politicians of all stripes. Basically, very little has changed. The Russians engaged in massive interference in our election (still denied by our Executive branch), and there is detailed evidence of obstruction of justice. And, there are still nonsensical claims. For example, today Trump accused the FBI of treason. O3000 (talk) 21:38, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

And what are you calling "crazy sites"? I didn't expect you to agree with my perspective of "2 years of misinformation" - you don't have to agree - your only obligation on WP is to say what RS say, and we don't do that by picking only those sources that agree with our POV. I'm not denying there was Russian interference but to what degree it influenced the election is another story all together. It's quite obvious that after 2 years of MSM steadily building a case of Trump collusion, they fell flat on their faces. Anything beyond Mueller's Report of NO COLLUSION is speculation or flat-out fake news at this time. What we have now are news reports that point to the ongoing investigations by AG Barr and IG Horowitz, but to see how it actually applies requires going beyond the sources that simply support your POV, especially if those sources have lost the public's confidence after repeatedly publishing misinformation, and I believe the sources I listed above explain that well. Just curious...have you factored in the many firings of DOJ officials or why they were fired? Some of them are now under investigation, so that alone should wave a tiny red flag, but if that doesn't do it, I doubt anything will, so there's no sense in us discussing this topic any further. There's a lot I may not know, but what I do know is that I don't like the taste of crow, hats or having egg on my face, so I'm quite happy to wait patiently and let the chips fall where they may. Scholars like Victor Davis Hanson will eventually get all the facts sorted out, and history will be written as it should be. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:08, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

"Anything beyond Mueller's Report of NO COLLUSION is speculation or flat-out fake news at this time." What? The report by Mueller is just one of many published RS on the subject, although an important RS. It does not prove or disprove anything, scientifically speaking. This is just a primary RS, from the WP standpoint, nothing else. Speaking about its content and claims, there are many secondary sources which interpret it in various, frequently opposite ways, and we can use them per WP:RS. My very best wishes (talk) 01:32, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

My very best wishes, in your comment above you mentioned: ...many "secondary" sources which interpret it in various, frequently opposite ways, - true, opposite is good. We just need to make sure the individual sources aren't simply mirroring info from a news wire or their parent news org, and presenting the same information in their own words. When that happens, we look to WP:NEWSORG: Multiple sources should not be asserted for any wire service article. Such sources are essentially a single source. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:37, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Awilley I also want to push back on 123's approach (based off my memory of old diffs) of blanking entire sections of information. This was something I did a while ago for events before 2015. What I have done most recently is apply what a consensus decided on the talk page per this discussion and removed entries about Maria Butina and Aleksandr Torshin. This was removed by the only person who dissented in the discussion, saying there was "no agreement". I hadn't removed any sections here. Onetwothreeip (talk) 04:27, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Here is section of discussion in question, and it is typical for this discussion. I cited sources that support inclusion, including that one. Does that source (and others on talk and on the page) support that Butina should be included to this list, and this must be obvious for any reasonable participant? ( It tells: "And July’s indictment of Mariia Butina, a Russian national who sought to infiltrate both the Trump campaign and the NRA before the election, also raised questions about the group’s status as a potential intermediary between Trump and the Russians. Butina was charged with acting as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the Justice Department. Butina was the first person to ask Trump in public about his position on Russian sanctions — during a 2015 event in Las Vegas — and tried to broker a meeting between Trump and her Russian handler, Alexander Torshin, at an NRA convention in May 2016.) The fact that "123" still insists he was right shows that he should not edit this page, in my opinion. I can't say anything about other pages they edited. My very best wishes (talk) 05:42, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Nobody has said it can't be on Wikipedia at all, it just doesn't belong on that page due to its tenuous connection to the 2016 election. Nobody is suggesting the content is incorrect either. The sources don't support inclusion in this article, they just support that these things did happen. It's not as if the reliable source is going to say what Wikipedia article that information belongs on. That's something for us to decide and you were the only person on the talk page to disagree that it should be excluded, and on other issues as well. Onetwothreeip (talk) 05:49, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

So, you still think that quotation above does not support inclusion of Butina to the page about the Russian "interference" to the elections? My very best wishes (talk) 14:15, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

That is content which obviously belongs. She was even convicted and will serve time in jail for her role as a Russian agent in the election interference. How much more "on-topic" can it get? That's hardly a "tenuous connection". It's about as direct as one can get, and a federal judge said so. But you seem to think you're qualified to be contrary and just delete that huge amount of material. I call BS.

So with this example, you're deleting 23,722‎ bytes of a clear example of Russian interference from the "Timeline of Russian interference....", and not only just mentions of Trump. You have some strange ideas about what should be deleted and I'm suspecting you're not qualified to make such decisions. The fact that you're getting push back should cause you to stop doing it and stay off that page and the whole subject, completely.

Awilley, maybe an AP2 topic ban for 123IP would be best for everyone's sake, because 123IP has made no positive contributions, done nothing but create a lot of controversy, spark extremely long and hot talk page discussions, and displayed a serious case of IDHT. If I said this on an article talk page I'd get sanctioned, but it needs to be said and here is the place to say it. The time for discussion is over and action needs to be taken to stop them from pillaging the article and creating disruption on the whole topic. This has been a huge time sink for everyone and we shouldn't have to watch 123IP's every move.

I've been here since 2003 and I've never encountered an editor who constantly pushes for deleting so much material, especially against the objections of other editors. Vandals try it, but that's different. We just revert and block them. Maybe they should be placed in that category because the effect of their actions is the same, but I think a topic ban would be better. Maybe they can do some good in a less controversial area (their IP liked cartoon characters), but a ban on deletions would also be good. They'd get to add, edit, and improve content, but not delete any content, and no discussions about deleting as such discussions would quickly get long. They'd just have to stay away from the topic of deletions, as that seems to be the kernel in this. I'd like to see them actually build, rather than destroy. -- BullRangifer (talk) 14:34, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

@BullRangifer: Aren't you supposed to refrain from commenting on your fellow editors' motives? Suggesting topic bans when you just happen to disagree on an editorial dispute? That's beneath you. Disappointing. — JFG ^talk 17:44, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

The sanction applies to article talk pages. ~Awilley (talk) 17:57, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm certainly sorry if I strayed into motives. Not sure where. The discussion was about editor behavior, and I tried to focus on what was the obvious behavior and the effects of their editing and comments. I didn't say anything that would even warrant a civility warning for anyone else in a discussion of editor behavior. If it had been a content discussion, that would be a very different matter.

We need to have peace in this area, and as long as 123IP is allowed to disrupt, this will continue to be a time sink. You share some of their concerns, but you understand how to discuss, avoid controversial edits, seek consensus, and not delete huge swaths of content in one single edit without any consensus. You can discuss and explain why a single edit, or single piece of information, should be modified, moved, or deleted. 123IP doesn't seem to get that. There is no collaboration at all. They just suddenly swooped in from left field and blew up land mines all over the list, with one being 100,000 bytes. That's just crazy. It must stop. -- BullRangifer (talk) 19:29, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

I will say this. Trump has proved that boldness works. He can violate all the rules, break laws openly and with impunity, obstruct justice openly, and get away with it. Anyone else would get jailed or booted from office. That's what we're seeing here. Any other editor who does what 123IP has been doing on a DS article would have been blocked and then banned a long time ago. Instead, they are allowed to get away with all this disruption, even after warnings. Whatever happened to the DS sanctions? No one is enforcing them here. -- BullRangifer (talk) 19:34, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Stop. Comparing. Everybody. To. Trump. This is not a battle between good and evil. Chill, dude! — JFG ^talk 19:53, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes stop, JFG. Again JFG, not WP:NOTBATTLEGROUND. X1\ (talk) 20:21, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

It's not my job to pick winners and losers in a content dispute by topic banning somebody. ~Awilley (talk) 23:33, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

This isn't a content dispute. In principle it matters not what "side" of the issues is getting deleted. This is about a behavioral issue. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:17, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Wrong venue

This seemed to start as a discussion of potential DS violations, but it has morphed into a massive discussion of article content. I won't comment here because it is definitely the wrong venue. Please @all move back to the relevant talk page. — JFG ^talk 17:39, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you ~Awilley (talk) 17:57, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)

ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.

Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.

We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.

For the Arbitration Committee, -Cameron11598 21:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC) Template:Z83

Administrators' newsletter – May 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2019).

Administrator changes

HickoryOughtShirt?4 • RexxS

Necrothesp

Bratsche • Kyle Barbour • Kzollman • Madman

Interface administrator changes

Pharos

Bureaucrat changes

Primefac

CheckUser changes

Reaper Eternal

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment concluded that creating pages in the portal namespace should be restricted to autoconfirmed users.
• Following a request for comment, the subject-specific notability guideline for pornographic actors and models (WP:PORNBIO) was removed; in its place, editors should consult WP:ENT and WP:GNG.

Technical news

• XTools Admin Stats, a tool to list admins by administrative actions, has been revamped to support more types of log entries such as AbuseFilter changes. Two additional tools have been integrated into it as well: Steward Stats and Patroller Stats.

Arbitration

• In response to the continuing compromise of administrator accounts, the Arbitration Committee passed a motion amending the procedures for return of permissions (diff). In such cases, the committee will review all available information to determine whether the administrator followed "appropriate personal security practices" before restoring permissions; administrators found failing to have adequately done so will not be resysopped automatically. All current administrators have been notified of this change.
• Following a formal ratification process, the arbitration policy has been amended (diff). Specifically, the two-thirds majority required to remove or suspend an arbitrator now excludes (1) the arbitrator facing suspension or removal, and (2) any inactive arbitrator who does not respond within 30 days to attempts to solicit their feedback on the resolution through all known methods of communication.

Miscellaneous

• A request for comment is currently open to amend the community sanctions procedure to exclude non XfD or CSD deletions.
• A proposal to remove pre-2009 indefinite IP blocks is currently open for discussion.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:37, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Recent article that may need Enforced BRD

Would you consider placing Crossfire Hurricane (FBI investigation) under Enforced BRD restrictions? An Inspector General report about the origins of this investigation is due soon, and I fear that press coverage may go into overdrive, which often begets battleground editing. Thanks! — JFG ^talk 00:26, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

I think that would double the number of articles I've independently placed new sanctions on from 1 to 2 :-) In this case I'd rather not be blindly pre-emptive on sanctions and I've got a big project in my plate right now and don't have the time to sort through the edit and talk history as much as I would normally do before placing a sanction. (I'd also hesitate since it's still a relatively new article and is lower profile...I think.) Perhaps one of the other admins watching the article or my talk page would be willing to do this? I'd also be willing to shoot blind if one of our resident "involved" admins (User:MelanieN or User:Galobtter) thought the article needed sanctions. ~Awilley (talk) 01:18, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I'll watchlist it. It does not look like it needs restrictions at this time. If the IG report makes it become a target we can look at it then. -- MelanieN (talk) 04:25, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

OK — JFG ^talk 07:05, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think pre-emptive sanctions are a good idea (in general and here); often times there's less disruption/edit warring than you'd think there would be.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:18, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Hidden Tempo

They're back and edit warring and disrupting Talk:Spygate (conspiracy theory). R2 (bleep) 19:01, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Wcmcdade

Would you mind taking a look at recent edits by Wcmcdade (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and 173.54.120.246 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? R2 (bleep) 18:32, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Pretty clearly the same person. Albeit, may have been mistakenly editing signed off. Either way, disruptive, and this edit[20] is pure vandalism. O3000 (talk) 18:39, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

same person. Wcmcdade (talk) 18:47, 21 May 2019 (UTC) and not vandalism. I was undoing what someone else had done through direct edit. As you can see, I was a “yes” previously. But please...go ahead and ban me for my hugely disruptive behavior of requesting comments about an Are ticker title that is clearly out of sync with current events. Wcmcdade (talk) 18:47, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

We don't erase historical events when we update articles. What happened happened. Anything really relevant to the article then gets added, but it doesn't change the history of what originally happened.

Trump made comments and tweets in which he reframed Halper's interactions with three campaign members in a false light. Those false statements created a conspiracy theory, and RS described his statements as false and a conspiracy theory. Nothing that has happened since then changes that this happened. There was indeed surveillance. That's the one true element in the conspiracy theory, but Trump's false statements about that surveillance are still false to this day. -- BullRangifer (talk) 19:48, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

@R2, yes, I'll look into it. @BR, could you please tone it down a few notches? Who said anything about Trump tweets, false statements, conspiracy theories, and erasing history? (Rhetorical question, please don't answer.) ~Awilley (talk) 19:56, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

Awilley, to help you out, there are two issues here. The first is that Wcmcdade re-opened an RfC twice ([21], [22]). This came after similar behavior in December, after which he was warned ([23]) and directed by multiple experienced editors not to re-open RfCs. ([24]). The second issue is some isolated but pretty bad incivility. ([25], [26]). All of this is in the AP2 space, and Wcmcdade was given a DS warning in March. ([27]) R2 (bleep) 21:20, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. You probably would have gotten a faster response at WP:AE. ~Awilley (talk) 02:45, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, next time. I didn’t notice you’ve been on again off again lately. R2 (bleep) 02:56, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

You haircut my edits at race and Iq

At the Race and Intelligence talk page you haircut my comments saying I was sitebanned. Yes I made both the edits on the talk page in question, but I have never been sitebanned, nor have I made many edits at all. In fact in the last year I believe the only articles I have touched are Linda Gottfredson, Diablo Cody, Mark DeCarlo and Race and IQ. That’s literally it. I know you are one of the foremen here (and I respect that), but before sanctioning me, please do some investigation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1012:B029:62D0:E472:BAA2:A26F:3842 (talk) 07:22, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Enforced BRD requested

Please consider applying the Enforced BRD ruleset at China–United States trade war. Latest incident is documented at Talk:China–United States trade war#United States or Trump administration? — JFG ^talk 00:04, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

I'll look at it. ~Awilley (talk) 18:50, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, this is going to take me some time to get to... a lot on my plate right now. ~Awilley (talk) 02:22, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

At Talk:Julian Assange, there is a filibuster on the RFC jouralist thread. Needs help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:387:5:803:0:0:0:18 (talk) 23:53, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Snoox, again

Awilley, I understood that you were going to instruct SashiRolls to stop referring to Snooganssnoogans and me as "Snoox". This is a clear violation of WP:CIV.

Also, I see my AE request was closed with the weakest possible sanction that puts the burden on other users to "first politely notify the offending editor on their talk page". Is there a reason why SashiRoll's is allowed to attack from non-article talk pages? I'm also not encouraged that the two 1RR violations were ignored, but I guess that restriction is meaningless. - MrX 🖋 11:40, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I'll warn about Snoox. I didn't mean for the thread to get closed immediately after I placed the restriction...I placed that on my own, the same as I did with BullRangifer (whose thread stayed open for further discussion after I sanctioned him). The reason the sanction is limited to article talk pages is that talk pages are the wrong forum to talk about the motivations of other editors, but there are other forums (administrative noticeboards, sometimes user talk pages) where addressing personal issues is appropriate. Personal attacks are inappropriate everywhere, and are covered by our policy on personal attacks, not my sanction. ~Awilley (talk) 13:30, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

MrX, you have now been referred to as snoo+X. Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:06, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

The suggestion is of course that I and MrX are the one and the same or somehow working together illicitly. Here SR recognizes in July 2019 that he was banned for using the term[28], but proceeded to use it later that same day[29]. And of course now again on Wiki as KB points out. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 03:35, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Rounding back around

So as not to disturb El C anymore, but I pretty strongly disagree with your comment here. By creating new sanctions you are taking the path of most drama for minor things that do not require administrator intervention. You're adding extra layers that basically make dealing with low level disruption impossible, while also giving people the "mark" of being sanctioned for things that really don't need sanctions. Anyway, I think your page of custom sanctions is pretty far outside the norm of administrator discretion and I think anyone who is under one of them would have a very strong case on appeal regardless of their behaviour: the DS regime was not created to have us make up policy and confine the ways other administrators can act. It was created to be used in serious situations to quickly resolve behavioural disputes, and I think it runs counter to that goal. Those are my 2¢. Take it for what it's worth. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:21, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I won't argue the point further. ~Awilley (talk) 01:18, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Enforcement request

Hi Awilley. Since you imposed this editing restriction, would you please enforce it? SashiRolls has again violated 1RR, which makes it three time in recent days (two of which you already know about). Revert 1 and Revert 2 are unambiguous reverts.

For background, Here is the relevant talk page discussion: talk:Tulsi Gabbard#Fact check: smear campaign which documents why the material violates WP:V. Thank you.- MrX 🖋 12:26, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

I have self-reverted as I didn't realize that MrX was playing childish games again. Feel free to do the project a favor and indefinitely block him for being dishonest. (Even Kolya agrees with me on this one (!!))🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 17:42, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

SashiRolls, I'm giving you one last chance to reconsider the personal attacks you just made against MrX. You may withdraw them now or have your account blocked when I get off the flight I'm leaving to catch at the moment. ~Awilley (talk) 18:26, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

You have not shown me where you think I have made an attack on MrX on an article talk page. You made clear that I have the right to call a spade a spade in User space. I will wait for you to make a direct link to a claim that I have made (following the rules you yourself wrote: by notifying me on my talk page of the exact location on an article talk page where you believe that I have made a personal attack. Was it when I said that he was wrong? Is it a personal attack to say someone is wrong when they are?) Please be sure to ping me if you write to me here (despite my request for transparency), I do not have your TP watchlisted. You may also want to block google. 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 18:47, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Don't know what point you are trying to make pointing to that Slate article, or why you would use those Google search terms. Aaron Mak asked a bunch of us to be interviewed. I declined to participate. It's just opinions. O3000 (talk) 20:54, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

SashiRolls is continuing to make personal attacks. They called me a "nut".[30] Should I take this to AN/I, or do you think this is actionable now considering their history? Kolya Butternut (talk) 01:58, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2019).

Administrator changes

Andonic • Consumed Crustacean • Enigmaman • Euryalus • EWS23 • HereToHelp • Nv8200pa • Peripitus • StringTheory11 • Vejvančický

CheckUser changes

Ivanvector

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC seeks to clarify whether WP:OUTING should include information on just the English Wikipedia or any Wikimedia project.
• An RfC on WT:RfA concluded that Requests for adminship and bureaucratship are discussions seeking to build consensus.
• An RfC proposal to make the templates for discussion (TfD) process more like the requested moves (RM) process, i.e. "as a clearinghouse of template discussions", was closed as successful.

Technical news

• The CSD feature of Twinkle now allows admins to notify page creators of deletion if the page had not been tagged. The default behavior matches that of tagging notifications, and replaces the ability to open the user talk page upon deletion. You can customize which criteria receive notifications in your Twinkle preferences: look for Notify page creator when deleting under these criteria.
• Twinkle's d-batch (batch delete) feature now supports deleting subpages (and related redirects and talk pages) of each page. The pages will be listed first but use with caution! The und-batch (batch undelete) option can now also restore talk pages.

Miscellaneous

• The previously discussed unblocking of IP addresses indefinitely-blocked before 2009 was approved and has taken place.
• The 2019 talk pages consultation produced a report for Phase 1 and has entered Phase 2.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:48, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2019).

Administrator changes

28bytes • Ad Orientem • Ansh666 • Beeblebrox • Boing! said Zebedee • BU Rob13 • Dennis Brown • Deor • DoRD • Floquenbeam¹ • Flyguy649 • Fram² • Gadfium • GB fan • Jonathunder • Kusma • Lectonar • Moink • MSGJ • Nick • Od Mishehu • Rama • Spartaz • Syrthiss • TheDJ • WJBscribe

¹Floquenbeam's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.

²Fram's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.

Bureaucrat changes

28bytes • WJBscribe • Wizardman

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ • TheDJ

CheckUser changes

Beeblebrox • BU Rob13 • DoRD

Oversight changes

Beeblebrox • BU Rob13 • DoRD • GB fan

Guideline and policy news

• A request for comment seeking to alleviate pressures on the request an account (ACC) process proposes either raising the account creation limit for extended confirmed editors or granting the account creator permission on request to new ACC tool users.

• In a related matter, the account throttle has been restored to six creations per day as the mitigation activity completed.

• The scope of CSD criterion G8 has been tightened such that the only redirects that it now applies to are those which target non-existent pages.
• The scope of CSD criterion G14 has been expanded slightly to include orphan "Foo (disambiguation)" redirects that target pages that are not disambiguation pages or pages that perform a disambiguation-like function (such as set index articles or lists).
• A request for comment seeks to determine whether Wikipedia:Office actions should be a policy page or an information page.

Technical news

• The Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative plans to design and build a new user reporting system to make it easier for people experiencing harassment and other forms of abuse to provide accurate information to the appropriate channel for action to be taken. Community feedback is invited.

Miscellaneous

• In February 2019, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) changed its office actions policy to include temporary and project-specific bans. The WMF exercised this new ability for the first time on the English Wikipedia on 10 June 2019 to temporarily ban and desysop Fram. This action has resulted in significant community discussion, a request for arbitration (permalink), and, either directly or indirectly, the resignations of numerous administrators and functionaries. The WMF Board of Trustees is aware of the situation, and discussions continue on a statement and a way forward. The Arbitration Committee has sent an open letter to the WMF Board.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:19, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Enforced BRD with multiple editors

CONTEXT: Talk:Deep state in the United States#Conspiracy theory. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:06, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi Awilley. A question for you about how Enforced BRD is intended to work. Consider the following (very common) scenario:

1. Editor A makes a bold edit.
2. Editor B reverts.
3. Editor C re-reverts (restores Editor A's edit).
4. Editor B re-reverts again.

Who violated Enforced BRD? Multiple choice:

(a) Editor B

(b) Editor C

(c) both Editor B and Editor C

(d) no one

Please, please assume that everyone was acting in good fath no one was coordinating or intending to tag-team edit war. Also, please do not sanction anyone over this. I'm merely trying to understand how Enforced BRD is supposed to work. (Pinging Beyond My Ken.) R2 (bleep) 20:38, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

@Ahrtoodeetoo: {a) Editor B would have violated BRD if they hadn't first waited 24 hours (1RR) and participated in talk page discussion. ~Awilley (talk) 22:06, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

"B" for the re-revert? Why is it not '"C"?--MONGO (talk) 22:49, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

@MONGO: Right. Editor B would have violated 1RR and BRD while Editor C wouldn't have violated either. Editor C can't violate 1RR with their first revert, and B-R-D doesn't require editor C to discuss before their first revert. (It's not B-D-R.) You may be conflating "Enforced BRD" with the "Consensus Required" rule, which Editor C would have violated if that rule were in place. ~Awilley (talk) 05:11, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

• R2 is correct that my second restoration (#1,#2) of the removal of the category "Conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump" from the article Deep state in the United States (removed first by Wumbolo, and re-removed by R2 after my restoration) was a violation of DS, in that I made the edit within 24 hours of my first. (In all other respects the edit was correct, Wumbolo's and R2's claim that it is not a conspiracy theory is counter-factual.)
  I have self-reverted once this was brought to my attention. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:01, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

To be clear, I didn't claim that anything was not a conspiracy theory. Thanks Awilley and BMK both. R2 (bleep) 23:10, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, but if you are not claiming that it's not a conspiracy theory, why did you restore Wumbolo's removal of not only Category:Conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump, but also Category:Conspiracy theories in the United States? Wumbolo's removal of the former was on the (wrong) basis of BLP, but what possible reason can there have been to remove the latter In any case, if I misinterpreted your comments, I apologize. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:29, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

I'll explain at article talk. R2 (bleep) 16:29, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

BRD works between two editors, not more. When more get involved it can end up as an all out edit war. Editor C will have their own issues and reckoning with Editor B, but Editor B still has a responsibility and reckoning with Editor A and must follow BRD. It would be best for them to quickly start a discussion, even though that is the responsibility of Editor A. (If you're confused now, don't feel bad. Those of us who have developed BRD over the years are too! That was just the original and least confusing formula.) How all this works with "enforced" BRD is beyond me. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:02, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

A conundrum. The challenge isn't just in coming up with an coherent rule, but then communicating it in such a way so that all competent editors can understand it and comply. R2 (bleep) 00:19, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Awilley. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.Doug Weller talk 07:54, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you ...

Hi, AWilley:

Thank you so much for your email. :) The info you provided me was great. I'll be sure to mark reasons for changes, especially on major edits. I wasn't sure how critical it was to mark reasons for changes, so thank you. I'll make sure I do that going forward.

I'm big on sources also and strive to select the very best that I can find, try always to be very accurate -- even meticulous -- in all information provided, and to ensure that I select the most reputable out there. And so if there's any question at all, I'm happy to re-verify and relook at any statement made, to recheck sources, whatever.

Please call my attention to anything that smacks of analysis, certainly, as I try to avoid broaching speculation at all costs -- to make factual statements always, or to clarify, if it's an entity's peculiar belief system, that I transparently so state. All of the content that I've given thus far, I believe, is verifiable from reputable sources, so please let me know if there is any question at all, and I can respond in a timely manner to it.

Neutrality is important to me also, and I do strive with my edits to weed out bias (except in those cases where it is simply an institution's belief structure or dogma, yet nevertheless well documented). Also, especially in areas of religion, I double-check reputable source-references about what this or that sectarian entity "believes," making sure that the ideas are valid, accurate, clearly stated, and sourced reputably, understanding also that any sect's particular dogmas or beliefs cannot be denied them.

When dealing with any non-biblical area, for example, or with areas which are not necessarily tied to any religion or sect, but where the focus is on, for example, ancient world culture and/or myth, in order to allow for concepts that are, frankly, 'textually' based, and not tied necessarily to any specific religion -- but which have not as yet been given explanation in that non-religious 'context', I endeavor always, in all venues to which I contribute, to ensure that they are well- and reputably documented. This is clearly for articles where, though the subject exists in other categories -- but which, because of context, nomenclature, etc., or because of a subject's labeling, categorization, or consignment, makes it inextricably bound to a specific religion, belief system, or religious movement -- that it becomes, by that world-view, a wholly different idea which deserves a non-sectarian treatment and context, and where others who have similar research interests can add to it their knowledge and research-findings, while avoiding also what are perhaps non-intentional biases, religious or otherwise, that may 'come with' certain articles.

Please let me know if there's any question at all, as I certainly am eager and want to provide any additional sourcing or verification, if such is needed.

Thank you again so much for reaching out to me and for the resources you gave me. I had not been clear, either, on how to respond to messages sent to me. :) But I believe this will get to you. Still, let me know if I need to respond by a different link or something that I'm not seeing.

Thanks again,

Chauvelin2000 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chauvelin2000 (talk • contribs)

Hi again

I'd like to ask you to stop pushing other admins to undo sanctions that they think work. You're presenting a one-sided view and failing to note that other admins who are active at AE disagree with you. It's making AE much more difficult to figure out, and I'll come out an say that you are the reason I do my best to avoid AP2 whenever I can now. It is okay to have an opinion, but letting other's use their discretion, even when it is different than yours, is the whole point of the DS system. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:01, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

I actually just started a straw poll on it at AN (see here). I think you and I are in good faith disagreement on this, and it's unlikely to be resolved by us talking I'm happy to go with whatever the community consensus is, but I also don't think one admin should be able to write the sanctions for the entire area, and AN seems to be the way to figure it out. The proposal is actually not about you at all, and I don't want you trouted or anything. I just want to figure out what our "best practice" should be. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:28, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. A RfC or something was probably going to be needed at some point. I'm 100% ok with people having different views/opinions than mine, but I do want to make sure those are informed opinions and that we're not just doing what we've always done because that's how we've always done things. When I see that somebody has understood my position and then rejected it I drop it. (It takes me longer to drop it when people reject it without understanding it.) I also suspect I'm in a minority among admins because I'm (intentionally) approaching the problem from the perspective of how does this affect the editing environment for the people trying to write articles instead of the law and order approach I suspect some admins unconsciously adopt. ~Awilley (talk) 23:59, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

No problem. I think my concern is that when most people have someone come and point out that all the other sanctions have been removed, they're likely to do it if they weren't familiar with the process of how that was done, especially if they don't know there are others who disagree. The end result is that you effectively have the same thing that Coffee was doing: one person determining sanctions for an entire area mainly because they were the person who was active. I agree with the CR sanction, but I don't think Coffee making it the de facto policy all on his own was ideal, and that's basically my concern with your approach here. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:34, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't like the one-person approach either, and I don't like being that person. But I will say this, and I apologize because it is going to sound elitist: I would rather have policy written by one person who has spent a month thinking about it, than one hundred people who have each spent 5-10 minutes thinking about it. I have spent months thinking about this, gathering ideas, brainstorming scenarios, soliciting feedback, and trying to understand and account for the objections of others. This is one of the things that keeps me awake at 4AM. I'll bet that, without looking, I could list 2/3 of the objections you voiced to BRD in December 2018. Again, apologies for sounding arrogant, but look at some of the feedback in the current AN thread. While it's obvious that some people (eg. you, me, Sandstein, Mandruss, El_C) have thought about and understand the problem, it's also clear that others haven't given it much thought as all. I suspect some people didn't even bother to read the wording of the rules that were being discussed, just going with the cop-out answer of "discretion is good". Some of the rationales don't even make sense, like "Option 1 could create stagnant articles...[because one time] another editor reverted me and cited BRD"; or "I prefer Option 3 [because consensus required] presents the rules the most clearly to the users who may be involved in the edit war." (WTF, did they mean option 2?) So I guess put me down as a supporter of representative democracy over direct democracy. Also, standing offer, at any point I would be happy to sit down with you and a few other interested editors and brainstorm for a better rule/solution that will work better for everybody. ~Awilley (talk) 12:17, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Ping me if you ever schedule such a sit-down. — JFG ^talk 21:18, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

You'd be first on the list. ~Awilley (talk) 21:25, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

I guess put me down as a supporter of representative democracy over direct democracy. With me, that makes two. It's a start. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:45, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: there are a couple things I intend to do based on the AN thread and side-discussions. First, I think people are getting confused by the name "enforced BRD". I'll be thinking of and seeking input on alternate names that better represent what the sanction does. "Slow BRD cycle" or "24hr BRD cycle" are examples. Second, I'll be doing another review of the articles currently under the BRD, looking for more candidates to remove all sanctions from. I can't guarantee a timeline on that...I've got some stuff going on through Mid-August. ~Awilley (talk) 15:10, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

DS Alert Notice at ARCA

	Notice of Your Notice
	Awilley, thank you for participating in my DS Alert proposal at ARCA, and for volunteering your help. It did not go unnoticed. The resulting motion has been carried and enacted. 😊 Atsme Talk 📧 14:19, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

@Atsme: Thanks, and sorry for dropping out there at the end. Are you going to put the notice on your TP so I can test it out by trying to template you? :-) ~Awilley (talk) 14:38, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

I have a customized DS NOTICE at the top of my UTP - you are welcome to experiment with it. I'm hoping all that needs to be added is the (invisible?) code that triggers an "opt-out" or "already permanently notified of all DS topic areas" notice. Fae's description: flag themselves as being aware of DS on given topics, and then be considered opted out of alerts. However that is then technically implemented is downstream, whether by self-added templates, self alerting, a request page/list or something else. AW, I'm not tech-savvy enough to go much further than that but I'm thinking it may require a few more lines to the filter or maybe a single "per the notice at the top of this UTP, this user is aware of [insert t-area acknowledgment] and has opted out of DS Alerts". In my case it's all alerts per my link to the DS log page in my custom user DS Notice. Perhaps you can make it a user customizable template notice so it triggers whatever the user wishes to acknowledge? JFG may be able to explain it better than I. I just want to be able to opt out of all DS alerts per my link to the DS log, and I'd like to be able to keep my custom alert notice. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:38, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

@Atsme: I think this is a solution, if I correctly understood your question. I basically just added the awareness template inside a hidden comment which still triggered the extra note in the edit notice because it's simply looking for the text {{Ds/aware...}} on your talk page. You can add as many topic codes to the commented template as you like. ~Awilley (talk) 16:02, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Question - Can this template be modified to blanket ALL topic areas under DS instead of having to list them individually? For example "DS/aware|all topics under DS" or something along that line? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:12, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Probably, but I don't know if you'll find anybody willing to modify a widely-used template to account for the special case for the one user on all of Wikipedia who wants to be counted aware of all sanctions everywhere, when a little extra code on your talk page already gives the same functionality. Besides I think people will get a kick out of scrolling down through the huge list of sanctions that are currently showing up on your edit notice/warning. ~Awilley (talk) 18:01, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

😂😂😂 JFG just pointed that out to me. That'll show 'em. 😂😂😂 ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:05, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Where ?....?

You’ve left a message on my talk page saying I am being bludgeons “again”.

Did not specify the nature or location further.... Where do you think this is verging into bludgeon ?

If you’re referring to Talk:Donald Trump, in particular a current RFC, then I respectfully submit any questioning to or of my input as a concern be discounted. RFC asks for concerns, and if Mandruss pings me and wants confirmation/clarification of my voiced concern, then that repetition seems entirely appropriate.

I’m not looking to debate the concept, but seriously not seeing where it’s appropriate for the situation. I don’t think Mandruss is offensive, he seems just not understanding my concern. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:11, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

p.s. if notification tells me what’s up, it might be helpful — possibly I could see it and self revert whatever crossed a line or at least what part to not revisit again. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 16:13, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Restructured my RfC

Please look at this. He had no business changing the way I set-up that RfC. I'm not going to change it back the way I had it - I prefer an admin do it. Thank you. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 05:33, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

It looks like somebody else changed it back. Nobody owns an RfC. ~Awilley (talk) 14:52, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, nobody owns an RfC, and that applies both ways. WP:RFC does say - The normal talk page guidelines apply to these discussions. There was no valid reason to change the formatting - there were no errors - it was WP:OWN behavior but irrelevant now. Keeping the layout clear is important, but you already know that. I anticipated a rather involved (potentially messy) discussion so I formatted the RfC to, as you put it, "bring a little structure" in an effort to "keep the layout clear". Thx for looking into it - it is much appreciated. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:30, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

DS

I am preparing my appeal and ask that you please show me the link to the DS that covers the topic of your recent action. I reviewed the DS log and can't find it. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 11:02, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Are you talking about Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/American_politics_2#Final_decision? ~Awilley (talk) 12:03, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

How do you define "gaslighting"? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:41, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't. I type it into Google to see how people more experienced than I define it. ~Awilley (talk) 03:52, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

So, from your perspective it basically means: intentional psychological manipulation/brainwashing to describe simple disagreement? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:27, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Me just now: "Hey Google, define gaslighting."

My phone: "Gaslight: manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity."

I don't think "gaslighting" is an appropriate word to describe most garden variety disputes that pop up on Wikipedia's talk pages, if that's what you're trying to get at. ~Awilley (talk) 15:23, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

No, actually I believe you should have referred to WP:GASLIGHTING instead - then you would have recognized what the others were doing to me. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:29, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I just sent you an email because it appears you've forgotten what you told me originally. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:38, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Ah, I think I see where the confusion is coming from. For context, here's the full quote.

"Before you use the word gaslight again could you please look up its definition? Do you really believe that BMK, Objective, Simon, and Aquillion are gaslighting you? From my perspective you're using a word that means intentional psychological manipulation/brainwashing to describe simple disagreement."

I've added italics to clarify the meaning. ~Awilley (talk) 15:55, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I never would have shared a private exchange. I am surprised that you did, but it is your prerogative to do so. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:16, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

To be fair, you did share half of the last sentence above. I added the rest to provide missing context. I hope that answers your question fully. ~Awilley (talk) 16:54, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Only you knew that. I simply asked you a question, and did not present it as a quote by you. Google brought up Psychology Today which states: "Gaslighting is a form of persistent manipulation and brainwashing..." Oh well, it's done. Happy editing! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:32, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

BTW, we have an article on gaslighting, which provides the etymology and is the def I've always gone by. But then, I've always liked Ingrid Bergman. O3000 (talk) 17:50, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

We also have WP:GASLIGHTING which is under Gaming the consensus-building process & and that is what I believed it to mean. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:31, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps you can help this editor before they get blocked

See [31] - frankly I think they are NOTHERE. Doug Weller talk 10:21, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

They ignored my warnings, so... If you want to offer to mentor them and they accept, go ahead and unblock. I doubt that they will. Doug Weller talk 11:47, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Definitely NOTHERE, and even the username implies SPA. If they appeal I could try to help them understand NPOV but if it were me I probably wouldn't unblock without significant concessions like a voluntary topic ban. I won't be the one doing the unblock though, since during my RfA I recused myself from using the admin tools in this area. ~Awilley (talk) 13:09, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks

I have no idea if my email got through, so I hope you don't mind if I (also?) thank you here for your AE comments. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 13:53, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

I got it. You're welcome. ~Awilley (talk) 02:44, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Sanction request

I think you're aware I rarely go to individual admins with behavior complaints. I don't like to put admins on the spot, and it feels a little out of process.

User:MONGO's repeated flaunting of fundamental talk page behavior principles has become more than I can continue to tolerate. I don't think I need to assemble a bunch of diffs to show the history, you've been around AP2 enough to know what I'm talking about: frequent hostility, AGF failure, and making things personal, the latest example here. Is there any doubt that an editor with MONGO's experience is aware of these expectations?

If this is not a case for unilateral admin action under DS, I'm not sure what is. The "Remedy instructions and exemptions" at Talk:Donald Trump include the following sentence (my emphasis):

Discretionary sanctions can be used against any editor who repeatedly or seriously fails to adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, any expected standards of behaviour, or any normal editorial process.

―Mandruss ☎ 18:31, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Someone needs to also address Mandruss's "flaunting of talk page behavior" "MONGO, you're certainly entitled to your lonely opinion". "That has zero basis in Wikipedia content policy, and you're just wrong..."...and just insulted a "newbie" calling them not an "experienced regular", etc. [32] and states that "regular editors" input carry more weight, which is dead wrong.[33]. Mandruss has also been asked to be collaborative [34]. After he asks an editor to revert rthe editor asks him to explain why and his response is characteristically flippant "I don't need to. This is process, not content. I've had my fill for the time being and I'm done here. Last week he accused an editor of "strawmanning" [35]--MONGO (talk) 19:13, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't think my history warrants a sanction, but I would accept one from Awilley or any admin who disagrees with me. But that wouldn't absolve you, MONGO, and you're engaging in the tired old diversionary tactic of pointing fingers at others. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:28, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

If you think your bullying tactics such as telling other editors they are not "experienced regulars" or that their voices should have less weight than those that have been around longer, should go unaddressed, then that is shame. You have argued and tried to bully everyone that opposes your opinions, even Melanie at times who has opposed your ideals of what should go in that article. You could make it easier for everyone if you could be less undermining of others good faith efforts, then it highly unlikely you'd ever get a terse reply from me.--MONGO (talk) 19:36, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

See my previous. I'm not here to argue with you. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:38, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Same here my friend. I DO respect the fact that you have put a lot of time into the Trump BLP and I can appreciate the idea that time=effort and should carry some weight to a degree, but sadly, it really doesn't. I have to constantly check myself when someone comes along and wants to make a large alteration to an FA article I labored on...inside my guts say no, but sometimes they are right and I have to not blow folks off just because they have a different vision than I do.--MONGO (talk) 19:43, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I pinged you so you could defend your behavior, not so you could launch a diversionary counter-complaint about mine. The two issues are not connected, so I suggest you start a new section about me if you want to pursue that. If you don't want to pursue that, then don't, but please let this section remain on topic. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:40, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

My terse response was due to your repeated use of the terms "regular editor" and/or "regular experienced editor" which struck me as a form of bullying and undercutting others good faith efforts...had you not gone down that path, you'd not have gotten my terse response. I also did not appreciate your comment that that I was entitled to my "lonely opinion". Its seems rather uncharitable of you to poke at folks that have not made as many contributions to that page yet be offended when I point out these issues. Its also ridiculous to assume I'm going to sit by and just take what you dish out. The two are definitely connected as my exchange was entirely in regards to your bullying tactics about others contributions levels. For future reference, just say "other editors"...there is no reason to undercut newer contributors to that page by reminding them they are not "regular" or "regular experienced". If you do that, as I already said, you'll never get a terse response from me.--MONGO (talk) 20:59, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

The relevant behavior PAGs have no exemption for "justified" violations, even if yours were "justified". I shudder to imagine what this project would be like if everybody thought like you about behavior PAGs. We certainly wouldn't get much done as to developing content, with everybody violating the PAGs whenever they felt they had an excuse to do so. I guarantee you I wouldn't be here in that case. I can assure you, the reason that people on that talk page don't regularly let loose on you with both barrels blazing is not because you haven't earned it; it's because we don't allow ourselves that exemption. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:35, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I shutter to think what you would say if you did, considering that your comments about others not being "regular" or "regular experienced" or saying they are "strawmanning" (is that a word) are deemed okay talkpage banter. But the standard is different for you I suppose cause you're an experienced regular. Look...why the hell would you not welcome people who step into that sordid mess and try to clean it up? Outside intervention is badly needed there...why try and run them off? The editor may be a bit overbold...perhaps I can give you that, but seriously? You wonder why I think you have ownership issues?--MONGO (talk) 22:05, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• I agree that MONGO deserves and will eventually be sanctioned per WP:BATTLEFIELD. But, probably should be an AE/ANI action. Patience will out. Of course MONGO could take this as a sign that eventuality can be deterred by behavioral change. O3000 (talk) 22:01, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

  I have and I will. People often confuse me with Satan or worse. I keep forgetting my place as a mere peon, armed only with lonely opinions, unworthy and not of the ruling class here and its important that I avoid being yelled at by folks with both barrels loaded. That would hurt.--MONGO (talk) 22:53, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• Sorry everybody for the slow response, both here, and to emails. I'm in the middle of a 2000 mile move and have been traveling this week. (Actually spent a couple of nights camping.) I don't have the time right now to give this the attention it deserves, but I tend to agree that something needs to change. ~Awilley (talk) 04:47, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2019).

Administrator changes

Johnuniq • Kosack • Valereee

Ad Orientem • Ched • Gadfium • Jonathunder • Nick • Yelyos

Bald Zebra • Beetstra • Doug Bell • Journalist • Ruud Koot • Splash • Voice of Clam

Interface administrator changes

Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes

RickinBaltimore

Oversight changes

Beeblebrox

RickinBaltimore

Guideline and policy news

• Following a request for comment, the page Wikipedia:Office actions has been changed from a policy page to an information page.
• A request for comment (permalink) is in progress regarding the administrator inactivity policy.

Arbitration

• Editors may now use the template {{Ds/aware}} to indicate that they are aware that discretionary sanctions are in force for a topic area, so it is unnecessary to alert them.

Miscellaneous

• Following a research project on masking IP addresses, the Foundation is starting a new project to improve the privacy of IP editors. The result of this project may significantly change administrative and counter-vandalism workflows. The project is in the very early stages of discussions and there is no concrete plan yet. Admins and the broader community are encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page.
• The new page reviewer right is bundled with the admin tool set. Many admins regularly help out at Special:NewPagesFeed, but they may not be aware of improvements, changes, and new tools for the Curation system. Stay up to date by subscribing here to the NPP newsletter that appears every two months, and/or putting the reviewers' talk page on your watchlist.

  Since the introduction of temporary user rights, it is becoming more usual to accord the New Page Reviewer right on a probationary period of 3 to 6 months in the first instance. This avoids rights removal for inactivity at a later stage and enables a review of their work before according the right on a permanent basis.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:23, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Forthcoming article

The elements on this page (in particular this diff) will be part of forthcoming publication about the uneven civility measures taken in the American Politics area. I thought I should give you a chance to react first, though you are free to do nothing as usual (cf. your page on meta and your previous inaction in other cases). I will give you a few days after your next edit before making a more general request at AN. Best wishes, 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 21:54, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not sure what you're talking about. Article? ~Awilley (talk) 00:56, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

SashiRolls regularly vaguely alludes to some kind of reckoning being imposed on all the people he's brushed up against in the form of a website article (?), presumably to give people a chance to ask for mercy. If I recall correctly, the editor has made this veiled threat for as long as I've been aware of him (since 2016 when the editor was ultimately blocked from editing the Jill Stein page). Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:22, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

IIRC, such off-wiki actions can result in an indefinite ban here. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:11, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

1) Do you realize your pseudonym appears 76 times on this page? 2) If you have diffs of journalists being banned for writing about en.wp matters, please do feel free to send them my way either by email or below. 🌿 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 02:23, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

1) I have no idea what that has to do with anything. 2) If you, as an editor (I have no idea whether you're a journalist or not, but you're still an editor here.), take the type of actions intimated above by Snoogs, then editors who have previously taken such actions have been banned before. We keep our Wikipedia work and our outside-of-Wikipedia work separate, otherwise such threats create a chilling atmosphere that causes editors to modify their behavior because of external threats, possible doxing, outing, etc. Do you see what I'm talking about? (And I am not threatening anything. I'm not an admin. Just reporting what I've seen go down here since 2003.) Now I don't know if that intimation is correct. I'm only speaking to the hypothetical possibility it is. If not, then no problemo. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:08, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Enforced BRD case

Please look at Talk:Racial views of Donald Trump#Minority outreach section and the article history since this diff. Several people are edit-warring without participating on the talk page. — JFG ^talk 07:39, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

JFG you get a short block for edit warring - but try to discuss on TP, and you get t-banned for being disruptive. The world has turned upside down. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:11, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

JFG can now be SATAN Jr. as I am the top SATAN on the website.--MONGO (talk) 18:15, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Your special sanctions on SPECIFICO

Courtesy ping @SPECIFICO:

The special discretionary sanctions imposed by you on 13 August 2018 for 1 year are still in force. They include an anti-filibuster sanction, which was flagrantly violated at Talk:Donald Trump on July 20: 01:00[36], 02:17[37], 02:49[38], 18:47[39], 20:43[40], 21:33[41], 21:37[42], and the next day 17:09[43], 17:42[44], 17:52[45].

Me and JFG pointed this out on SPECIFICO's talkpage, but there was no response. I pinged you as well.

It is again being violated at Talk:Racial views of Donald Trump#Removal of "racist": August 5 16:12[46] August 6 20:10[47], August 7 13:42[48], 22:20[49], August 8 00:45[50] (violation of 24hr rule), 00:54 [51]

Additionally, there was WP:Thicker skin sanction violation with this edit [52]: Unfortunately the edit summary also included a rather preposterous personal attack on yours truly.

So are the sanctions still going to be enforced is that going to be let slip by because the 1 year period has almost ended? I'm sorry, but these special sanctions seem complex and arbitrary. -Pudeo (talk) 19:05, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the note. I've followed up on Specico's tp. I'm going to depreciate the anti-filibuster sanction because I agree it is too complex. ~Awilley (talk) 19:45, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

He told her to take a week off unlike what he did to me. It just keeps adding up. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:52, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Markbassett

Hi,

After I added this edit to your edit, Markbassett opted to "clean up" the whole thing, immediately after I reminded him about the consequences of his Talk behavior here. Please would you reconsider your decision to "to get rid of the sanction entirely?" soibangla (talk) 21:59, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

The sanction was useless. It had zero effect. I don't think Markbassett even understood it. If they did, it didn't have a noticeable effect on their behavior. ~Awilley (talk) 22:47, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Your ANI close

Hi, Awilley. I notice that in your close of the proposal to ban Bus stop from the admin noticeboards for three months, you make an exception for not only threads that are specifically about Bus stop (of course; if somebody takes them to AN/ANI, they must be entitled to respond), but also for threads started by Bus stop. Really? I don't see anybody mention such an exception in the discussion, and I rather doubt the people who supported a ban foresaw that Bus stop would still be allowed to start AN/ANI discussions, seemingly ad libitum, and then take part in them in his characteristic manner. I was one supporter, and I certainly didn't foresee it. Well, hopefully it's not a big deal; I'm sure Bus stop realizes that if they take advantage of the exception to start a lot of threads, or to bludgeon those threads, they'll be in hot water again. Bishonen | talk 15:19, 5 September 2019 (UTC).

Right. That bit wasn't per a support vote, but per the strong oppose vote on the basis that a topic ban shouldn't prevent people from engaging in our administrative processes for dispute resolution. (Paraphrasing by memory...comment by Mendelsomebody...replying here from phone) ~Awilley (talk) 16:19, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Formal proposal 3 modification

Hi. I wanted to let you know the proposal has been modified and Mandruss notified me I should do this. The proposal, similar to the old one is:

Anthony 22 is limited to making 1 edit per article per 24 hours in the main space. Self-reverts and edits that have been self-reverted do not count toward this limit. Talk page discussions do not count toward this limit.'

You might want to see the latest in the discussion to see what led to this (or not) (it's not a big deal or contentious or anything like that). :>)

Regards,

---Steve Quinn (talk) 22:34, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

@Steve Quinn: I can't support that. That's too heavy handed for me. If it's to the point where we don't want him editing at all, we just site-ban him. I haven't seen that we're to that point. ~Awilley (talk) 22:41, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for your input. Just to let you know, regarding the other proposal, Mandruss pointed out: "Since this is one edit per day per article, he could still feed his compulsion by simply hitting many more articles. It wouldn't address the issue to change the shape of his activity from deep to broad. Remove the 'per article' and we might have something worth considering." Well, I see I didn't comprehend your explanation well enough. That's on me. That was an effective way to control the editing of the "subject" of that thread. Well, I don't know what to do now. I probably should have stayed out of proposing anything, in the first place. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 22:56, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Honestly I think the cleanest solution is to change it back to the original proposal 3, since 7 people have already weighted in on it. The new proposal could be added as a proposal 4, or you could add a note at the top with Option B so people can specify their preference. Maybe I'll do that. ~Awilley (talk) 23:02, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Awilley - thanks for taking care of that - thanks for your help. It is a load off for me. I didn't see clearly what I was doing when I modified that proposal. I'm chalking it up to experience and a lesson learned. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 23:40, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

No worries! ~Awilley (talk) 23:43, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2019).

Administrator changes

Bradv • Chetsford • Izno

Floquenbeam • Lectonar

DESiegel • Jake Wartenberg • Rjanag • Topbanana

CheckUser changes

Callanecc • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Oversight changes

Callanecc • Fox • HJ Mitchell • LFaraone • There'sNoTime

Technical news

• Editors using the mobile website on Wikipedia can opt-in to new advanced features via your settings page. This will give access to more interface links, special pages, and tools.
• The advanced version of the edit review pages (recent changes, watchlist, and related changes) now includes two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces.

Arbitration

• A request for comment is open to provide an opportunity to amend the structure, rules, and procedures of the 2019 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee election and to resolve any issues not covered by existing rules.

Miscellaneous

• A global request for comment is in progress regarding whether a user group should be created that could modify edit filters across all public Wikimedia wikis.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:36, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for evaluating my candidacy during my RfA. Let me also further thank you for your time in writing a support which addressed concerns raised by other edits. It is all very much appreciated. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:49, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2019).

Administrator changes

Barkeep49

Beetstra • KillerChihuahua • Kusma

Arcadian • Extraordinary Machine • Xeno

JamesBWatson → JBW

Interface administrator changes

Evad37

CheckUser changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Oversight changes

Courcelles • SilkTork • Timotheus Canens

Guideline and policy news

• Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories.

Technical news

• As previously noted, tighter password requirements for Administrators were put in place last year. Wikipedia should now alert you if your password is less than 10 characters long and thus too short.

Arbitration

• The 2019 CheckUser and Oversight appointment process has begun. The community consultation period will take place October 4th to 10th.
• The arbitration case regarding Fram was closed. While there will be a local RfC focus[ing] on how harassment and private complaints should be handled in the future, there is currently a global community consultation on partial and temporary office actions in response to the incident. It will be open until October 30th.

Miscellaneous

• The Community Tech team has been working on a system for temporarily watching pages, and welcomes feedback.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:54, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Donald Trump bio

As you have been the foremost admin as of late enforcing editor issues especially in regards to the Donald Trump bio, I want to caution you about getting very much involved in the editorial discussions and editing. Of course this doesn't mean anything that you are doing could be construed as partisan but I do think you should either step back or admin it. We wouldn't want anyone coming along and accusing you of admin abuse if you take action against an editor that may have some odd way of connecting you to being opposed to their efforts and using blocks or bans to silence them.--MONGO (talk) 00:50, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, you're probably right. I started stepping in a bit because things seemed particularly chaotic and it's annoying to sit on the sidelines and watch problems go unresolved. And in the instances where I've suggested actual wordings, it's not been that I personally supported the position, but because it seemed to me like something that the opposing "sides" could maybe agree to as a compromise. But I think you're right unfortunately. ~Awilley (talk) 01:29, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm hardly there myself. Until passions become more muted about the subject, I see little chance for improvements. I think your input would be beneficial actually but my previous adminship is a cautionary tale for anyone who wades into the fracus AND admins that same fracus.--MONGO (talk) 14:38, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @MONGO: You must tell me how you lost adminship. I thought you were part of the "I don't want the bit" crowd. — JFG ^talk 18:44, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

It should come as no surprise to some that I lost it due to being a stubborn fool. I was an admin for a year from 2005-2006...long before most here started editing. A prior arbcom case named me and resulted in a borderline admonishment for "excessive zeal". The filer of that case was sitebanned after it was demonstrated they had posted some pretty awful offsite attacks against me. The issues of not linking to offsite attacks, or WP:BADSITES originated at that case, though it has never been passed as policy. About a month later I filed an arbcom case resulting in myself and the person I filed against both losing our bits. [53]...there was a pretty loud outcry against my desysopping....most outside arbcom were strongly opposed and myself and the other admin were among the earliest admins desysopped for fault. The vast majority of the issues surrounded my "excessive zeal" keeping 9/11 conspiracy theorists at bay. And now you know...the rest of the story (or at least my rendition of it).--MONGO (talk) 19:49, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

And here I thought that on wiki, fringe-theory debunkers got barnstars galore! — JFG ^talk 20:39, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Its funny looking over the evidence page at that case. While the charges against me were valid, some of the evidence providers were absolute trolls and 9/11 conspiracy theorists. One here was so bad he was site banned later by Jimbo Wales himself. Apologies to Awilley for reliving a not so splendid history here. I'll shut up now!--MONGO (talk) 20:01, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

From the case findings: MONGO was seriously harassed in the past, and has been harassed to some extent recently, both with respect to the off-wiki drama site, ED, and with respect to his efforts to fight against inclusion of unsourced and poorly sourced information regarding 9/11. Perhaps you should have complained to T&S! Fascinating stuff, thanks for sharing. — JFG ^talk 20:39, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Some things never change...I'm still overzealous at times. That's why adminship and I are incompatible in all likelihood. Also, in 2005 they handed out admin tools willy nilly...and the Rfa process was generally pretty straight forward and lacking much scrutiny or drama. I did want to mention also to show what a huge saga all that was for the time, the proposed decision talkpage was 250K bites and the various pages were well north of a million bites...really big back in that era. One commentator there was soon banned after it was shown they were the socking as a banned editor, the same banned editor that was banned in the earlier case I mentioned [54] and [55]. Anyway, I deserved the desysopping.--MONGO (talk) 20:56, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Re: Anyway, I deserved the desysopping. You've earned a barnstar of self-awareness. Keep up the good work. — JFG ^talk 21:13, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Agree, and I get a more favorable view here than I did from this on MONGO's user page: "I was once an administrator...but was desysopped by the Arbitration Committee in 2006 cause they felt I was naughty." MONGO might consider the effect of that on editors who know nothing else of the issue, and haven't the time or inclination to learn more. It signals the opposite of self-awareness. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:12, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Back when I was a young impressionable newbie there were two admins who frequently edited in the same same area as me. They were what I suspect was an older generation of "content editor admins" who edited prolifically and occasionally used the tools, when needed, on the same articles they edited. At one point I had gotten myself stuck in the middle of a big content dispute. I was really stressed out and it was bleeding into my personal life, keeping me up at night and stuff. I decided I was going to retire, and I emailed one of the admins apologizing for the conflict I had stirred up and letting him know of my intention to quit. He responded with kind words, a lot of empathy, and some really good advice. (Go ahead and take some time off...on Wikipedia nothing is permanent so there's no urgency...be patient, it will get easier when things settle down.) Back then I didn't understand WP:INVOLVED, though in hindsight I do remember frustration when they declined to block a disruptive and obvious POV pusher who, when finally taken to Arbcom, was basically indeffed on sight by a clerk. Anyway the point is, I've always looked up to them as good examples, and I think they were a big influence on how I approach adminning. I've never been a huge "content creator", especially now with limited time, but I don't want to lose touch with things like how it feels to be an editor in a prolonged content dispute. Anyway, I'll stop rambling. ~Awilley (talk) 06:13, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Hey

As i know you do some work in the realm of politics i would like to ask if you could give this discussion a quick read (really not long, because the other editor will not answer my questions), or rather a glance at the edit leading up to me objecting on this article and at least one other (note the edit summary and their complete lack of justification policy wise). They claim that sources like the Guardian or WaPo should not be used to describe political parties, on the right at least, due to the sources being too biased. They remove sourced statements basically by OR by saying for example "...don’t think they constitute enough of the AfD for it to be mentioned in the ideology section." even though it was sourced to WaPo and the Sunday Times. Two very different outlets, one left leaning, one right leaning. Edit summary for that edit was also a bit deceptive as they just talked about the bias of the Washingtong Post and completely glancing over the fact that it was also sourced to a second outlet, the Times, when removing the statement.

I am not even sure what i am asking of you here, certainly no sanction or whatever. If you could just make a comment on the page and say what you think about the situation, or even keep an eye on the article longer term (it always gets trolls but on a low level, and i certainly don't want to equate the content dispute here with the trolls)... And please note, if i am in any way wrong with how i went about this, my comments, the substance of anything i said or if i was simply not patient enough to wait for more input(the last point i can see myself pretty well lol) please don't hesitate to tell me. Right now it is me talking and getting ignored, totally fine of course. But more voices are never bad. Anyway, sorry for bothering you and no worries if you are in no mood to look into it, i would not blame you haha. Have a good one anyway 2003:D6:2729:FF5A:5D0A:674C:2DC7:60DE (talk) 21:31, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure what "ultranationalism" is, but if I were going to ascribe an ideology to an organization I would want more than a passing mention in two news sources. I would prefer something like a secondary source about ultranationalism that lists AfD as an example, a tertiary source about AfD that describes it as ultranaionalist, or a secondary source explaining why/how AfD is ultranationalist. The arguments that Washington Post is unreliable for AfD or that paywall sources should not be used on Wikipedia don't hold water.
By the way, I wasn't able to read the Washington Post story because the link didn't work. ~Awilley (talk) 22:09, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Cheers for the opinion. I will look into it more tomorrow. It is just always the same on articles like that. Statements are sourced, even if it could be improved a lot, and one argues against opinion,evasion etc. Devoid of any sources. I do not even care if they are called "ultranationalist" to be honest. What i do care about is using misleading edit summaries or plain out inventing things to keep out sources. Had they just said what you said and none of the other stuff, no issue for me then. Anyway, thank you. 2003:D6:2729:FF5A:381F:DA85:BB95:46D1 (talk) 00:01, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Five years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:08, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

SashiRolls latest AE

Hi. Are you still operating under the principle that battleground and no personal comments restrictions on SashiRolls are to be enforced? El_C 16:55, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

@El C: The "No Personal Comments" sanction is in effect until it expires in May 2020. But that sanction is fairly limited in scope...it only applies to article Talk pages related to American Politics. If this is in reference to the current GMO thread at AE, I wasn't planning to comment there, as I'm trying to avoid interactions with SR at the moment. ~Awilley (talk) 17:15, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Understood. El_C 17:17, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – November 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2019).

Administrator changes

GermanJoe • Girth Summit • Kees08 • Nosebagbear

DESiegel • GB fan • MSGJ • Voice of Clam • WilyD

DeltaQuad • Fang Aili • Pakaran

Bureaucrat changes

DeltaQuad • Pakaran

Interface administrator changes

MSGJ

CheckUser changes

L235 • Mz7 • SQL • ST47

Ivanvector

DeltaQuad

Oversight changes

L235 • Mz7 • ST47 • Stwalkerster • The Blade of the Northern Lights • Xaosflux

DeltaQuad • DGG • Julia W

Guideline and policy news

• An RfC was closed with the consensus that the resysop criteria should be made stricter.

• The follow-up RfC to develop that change is now open at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2).

• A related RfC is seeking the community's sentiment for a binding desysop procedure.

Arbitration

• Eligible editors may now nominate themselves as candidates for the 2019 Arbitration Committee Elections. The self-nomination period will close November 12, with voting running from November 19 through December 2.

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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:15, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Talk: Andrew McCabe

FYI: Template:Editnotices/Page/Talk:Andrew McCabe. Politrukki (talk) 14:33, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Deleted, thank you. Looks like it was created by accident for the talk page instead of the article. ~Awilley (talk) 15:21, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Your advice

Awilley, considering all that's going on at your DS page, what should I do re: t-ban appeal? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:46, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Atsme, the appeal is the same for any AE/DS. It can be to me directly, or to the community of administrators, probably at WP:AE. I think there are more specific instructions in the sanctions template. My criteria for lifting sanctions are that people understand what they did wrong and convincingly commit to fixing the problem. The best appeals are specific. For example if the problem were for an edit warring block, you might say, "I will keep myself to a voluntary 1RR for X months, and after that if I find myself needing to revert something more than once I'll make sure to use the talk page in conjunction with that." That is more convincing than "I won't edit war anymore." I'm also considering, per a proposal that DGG made, allowing all my sanctions to be appealed to any admin, like a regular block. But I'm not sure if that's kosher under the current DS rules, and I haven't yet figured out the details of how that might work. ~Awilley (talk) 16:04, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

@Atsme: I'm not quite sure where to put this...the ARCA page is a bit too public/formal, and I didn't want you to feel "hounded" on your own talk page, so just putting it here. You keep accusing me of engaging in some sort of deceitful cover-up, trying to redirect WP:GASLIGHTING to the article Gaslighting. I think there's been a misunderstanding. I don't want to invalidate your feelings on the matter, but I also want to be clear that that was not my intention. I can kind of see where you're coming from...everybody sees the world through different glasses, and in our world of diffs and timestamps it's easy for different people to look at things and see different pictures. I can accept that looking at it from a certain angle it can look like I tried to retroactively change the definition of a word to support a sanction that I placed. In any case, let me present the following arguments for your consideration:

1. When you posted the redirect on my talk page it was pointing to the wrong section. It should have been pointing a section lower. This is pretty obvious in hindsight, but I didn't see the lower section when you gave me the link.
2. I did a search to see if I could find the correct target, if one existed. Something that actually mentioned gaslighting. I thought somebody might have written an essay or something. I didn't find a better target. Not able to resolve it on my own, I put it up for discussion.
3. I never said that the redirect should be deleted or redirected to gaslighting. Period.
4. I never would have said that it should be redirected to gaslighting on the principle of avoiding WP:Cross-namespace redirects
5. If I were trying to cover something up, why would I do that by starting an open discussion?
6. You still haven't addressed the point that you had never linked to WP:GASLIGHTING until 3 days after the sanction had been placed. Why would it even matter where the redirect linked when you had never used it?
7. RfD means Redirects for Discussion (not Deletion). I think the two are easily conflated because of AfD.
8. I have stated multiple times what my intention was when I started the RfD. You can call me a liar if you want, but keep in mind that assuming bad faith tends to turn back on you eventually.

I guess I'm a bit confused why this is all such a big deal. Anti-Fascism is an extremely small and relatively ugly part of the encyclopedia. Why is it so important that you want to spend time there? You said yourself that you'd only made 30 or so edits there. I also don't understand why you wouldn't want to just appeal the topic ban normally. The same "backroom deals" you criticized me for making with Snoogans are available to you. I was surprised by the the full broadside at ARCA because you usually seem to be such a nice person. I clearly remember being on your good side at one point, and I'm wondering when that changed. (I'll forward you an email you sent me in August of last year to illustrate my confusion if you don't mind.)

Anyway I'm sorry that my actions at the WP:GASLIGHTING redirect have bugged you so much, and I'm bringing it up again not to be argumentative, but to try to resolve at least this part of the dispute. I remember you saying somewhere that WP:Writing for the enemy was important to you. Doing that requires an open mind and critical thinking. I'm hoping you will employ those skills here and try to see this from a perspective other than your own. ~Awilley (talk) 23:05, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Notice of ANI discussion

A thread regarding your sanction of User:Snooganssnoogans has been opened at ANI. Toa Nidhiki05 00:24, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Comment about snoogansnooogan

Awilley, I largely don't want to get involved in your discussions with snoog and they have asked that I not post on their talk page. I would like to add a request to the list of requirements discussed here.[[56]] I would ask that snoog strictly follow WP:FOC and wp:CIVIL. The edit warring was part of the issue I and others had with snoog but so was the dismissive tone. Consider that an editor makes what they feel is a reasonable edit. Then an editor reverts that with a claim of POV-push or "nonsense" etc. From the very start that sours discussions because it implies the other editor is unreasonable before material is even discussed. I think this is especially true for newer editors. A new editor might add what appears to be a relevant fact from say The Daily Caller. They did this in good faith and without realizing the RS concerns that would come up. This is especially true if the fact isn't overly controversial. If that edit gets dismissed with a edit comment like "we don't use that sort of trash here" (hypothetical example, edit: here are actual examples, the comment may be "correct" but the tone is still not helpful [[57]],[[58]], [[59]],[[60]],[[61]],[[62]],[[63]]) how is a new editor likely to react? They might leave. They also might react indignantly and edit war because they are offended by the dismissive attitude. Conversely, if the same reversion was done with a soft touch, "Daily Caller doesn't meet WP:RS standards, content may be acceptable if a better source can be found", then the situation is diffused before it starts. A new editor could then use the talk page to ask snoog for help rather than be treated as yet another SPA POV-pusher. Springee (talk) 13:52, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to add that true or not, comments like this [[64]] ("That you feel the need to be dishonest about this...") are also not helpful. These are exactly the sort of things that push editors who would be willing to compromise toward battleground and edit warring behavior. Springee (talk) 14:39, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

ARCA Notice

You are involved in a recently-filed request for clarification or amendment from the Arbitration Committee. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Amendment request: American politics_2 and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the Wikipedia:Arbitration guide may be of use.

Thanks, ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:57, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

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For your tireless holding of the guard

		The Admin's Barnstar
		For your tireless holding of the guard and helpful enforcement of the ArbCom DS system in the AP2 topic area (a task and area that very few admins are willing to put up with the stress for, yet a task that is highly necessary for our readers), I award you this Illustrious Admin's Barnstar. Thank you so much for your effort and clear professionalism in an area I was quite worried about falling apart in my absence. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 05:55, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, that's very kind, although I'm not sure deserve that kind of praise. I'm lucky if I can get in 3 edits per day these days. Also, sorry about the hundred-or-so notifications I must have sent you while modifying sanctions or edit notices. You'll probably notice that I've killed off a lot of the "Consensus Required" sanctions you created, replacing many of them with a lighter sanction that forces talkpage discussion but doesn't completely stop reverts. (Sorry not sorry?) If you decide to edit in the area you'll probably encounter the new sanction on some higher profile BLPs, and in a month or two, after you've been in a few content disputes, I'll want to pick your brain if you don't mind. In any case, welcome back. ~Awilley (talk) 16:01, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Google Code-In 2019 is coming - please mentor some documentation tasks!

Hello,

Google Code-In, Google-organized contest in which the Wikimedia Foundation participates, starts in a few weeks. This contest is about taking high school students into the world of opensource. I'm sending you this message because you recently edited a documentation page at the English Wikipedia.

I would like to ask you to take part in Google Code-In as a mentor. That would mean to prepare at least one task (it can be documentation related, or something else - the other categories are Code, Design, Quality Assurance and Outreach) for the participants, and help the student to complete it. Please sign up at the contest page and send us your Google account address to google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org, so we can invite you in!

From my own experience, Google Code-In can be fun, you can make several new friends, attract new people to your wiki and make them part of your community.

If you have any questions, please let us know at google-code-in-admins@lists.wikimedia.org.

Thank you!

--User:Martin Urbanec (talk) 21:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)