Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

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Use the closure requests noticeboard to ask an uninvolved editor to assess, summarize, and formally close a Wikipedia discussion. Do so when consensus appears unclear, it is a contentious issue, or where there are wiki-wide implications (e.g. any change to our policies or guidelines).

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There is no fixed length for a formal request for comment (RfC). Typically 7 days is a minimum, and after 30 days the discussion is ripe for closure. The best way to tell is when there is little or no activity in the discussion, or further activity is unlikely to change its result.

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Administrative discussions

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#RfC closure review request at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 433#Closing (archived) RfC: Mondoweiss

(Initiated 22 days ago on 16 April 2024) - already the oldest thread on the page, and at the time of this comment, there has only been one comment in the past nine days. starship.paint (RUN) 03:15, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Requests for comment

Talk:Indo-Pakistani_war_of_1947–1948#RfC_on_what_result_is_to_be_entered_against_the_result_parameter_of_the_infobox

(Initiated 138 days ago on 22 December 2023) No new comments for over 45 days. Ratnahastin (talk) 07:24, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Awdal#RFC - Habr Awal/Isaaq clan

(Initiated 135 days ago on 24 December 2023) ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Talk:International Churches of Christ#RfC on Singapore court case

(Initiated 119 days ago on 10 January 2024) RfC template expired on the 10th of February 2024. TarnishedPath^talk 13:15, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Tasnim News Agency

(Initiated 86 days ago on 12 February 2024)

Closure request for this WP:RSN RfC initiated on February 12, with the last !vote occurring on March 18. It was bot-archived without closure on March 26 due to lack of recent activity. - Amigao (talk) 02:33, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk: Interstate 90#RFC: Infobox junctions

(Initiated 69 days ago on 29 February 2024) Discussion is about to expire and will need closure. RoadFan294857 (talk) 15:37, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2024 United States presidential election/Archive 7#RFC: What should the criteria of inclusion be for the infobox? (Question 1)

(Initiated 55 days ago on 14 March 2024) It's been about two weeks, since the RFC tag expired. GoodDay (talk) 14:07, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Archived. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 03:43, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes?

(Initiated 54 days ago on 15 March 2024) Ready to be closed. Charcoal feather (talk) 17:02, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Russo-Ukrainian War#RFC on Listing of Belarus

(Initiated 53 days ago on 16 March 2024) Hello, this RFC was started on 16 March 2024 and as of now was active for more than a month (nearly 1,5 month to be exact). I think a month is enough for every interested user to express their opinion and to vote at RFC and the last vote at this RFC was made by user Mellk on 15 April 2024 (nearly two weeks ago and within a month since the start of this RFC). The question because of which this RFC was started previously resulted in quite strong disagreements between multiple users, but I think there already is a WP:CONS of 12 users who already voted at this RFC. Since the contentious topics procedure applies to page Russo-Ukrainian War, I think this RFC must be closed by uninvolved user/administrator to ensure a valid WP:CONS and to prevent further disputes/edit warring about this question in the future. -- Pofka (talk) 09:50, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Will an experienced uninvolved editor please close this RFC. If there is a consensus that Belarus should be listed, but not as to how it should be listed, please close with the least strong choice, Robert McClenon (talk) 17:08, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I think it should not be closed with the "least strong choice", but instead with a choice which received the most votes (the strongest choice). The most users chose C variant (in total 6 users: My very best wishes, Pofka, Gödel2200, ManyAreasExpert, Licks-rocks, CVDX), while the second strongest choice was A variant (in total 5 users). So I think the WP:CONS of this RFC question is C variant. -- Pofka (talk) 18:33, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:SpaceX Starship#RfC on IFT-3

(Initiated 48 days ago on 21 March 2024) This is a contentious issue with accusations of tendentious editing, so the RfC would benefit from a formal closure. Redraiderengineer (talk) 14:48, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

A note for the closing editor... an inexperienced editor attempted to close this discussion and didn't really address the arguments. There's been some edit warring over the close, but it should be resolved by an experienced, uninvolved editor. Nemov (talk) 19:28, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Another note for the closing editor: beware the related discussion at Talk:SpaceX Starship#Do not classify IFT-1, 2 and 3 as success or failure. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 00:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

That discussion has only been going for two weeks and closing the RfC will not preclude editors from coming to a consensus on whether or not to remove the categorization entirely. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:28, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Libertarian Party (Australia)#Conservatism

(Initiated 40 days ago on 29 March 2024) RfC template expired. TarnishedPath^talk 01:22, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk: Elissa Slotkin#Labor Positions and the 2023 UAW Strike

(Initiated 39 days ago on 30 March 2024) RfC expired, no clear consensus. andrew.robbins (talk) 04:05, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

WP:RSN#RFC:_The_Anti-Defamation_League

(Initiated 31 days ago on 7 April 2024) Three related RFCs in a trench coat. I personally think the consensus is fairly clear here, but it should definitely be an admin close. Loki (talk) 14:07, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Enforcing ECR for article creators

(Initiated 30 days ago on 8 April 2024) Discussion appears to have died down almost a month after this RfC opened. Would like to see a formal close of Q1 and Q2. Awesome Aasim 00:11, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Brothers of Italy#RfC on neo-fascism in info box 3 (Effectively option 4 from RfC2)

(Initiated 30 days ago on 8 April 2024) Clear consensus for change but not what to change to. I've handled this RfC very badly imo. User:Alexanderkowal — Preceding undated comment added 11:50, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Deletion discussions

XFD backlog

V	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Total
CfD	0	0	40	0	40
TfD	0	0	1	0	1
MfD	0	0	4	0	4
FfD	0	0	3	0	3
RfD	0	0	52	0	52
AfD	0	0	1	0	1

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 8#Medical schools in the Caribbean

(Initiated 48 days ago on 21 March 2024) HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 20:38, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 8#Category:French forts in the United States

(Initiated 47 days ago on 22 March 2024) HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 20:38, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 24#Category:Asian American billionaires

(Initiated 14 days ago on 24 April 2024) HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 20:38, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Other types of closing requests

Talk:Killing of journalists in the Israel–Hamas war#Merge proposal (5 January 2024)

(Initiated 124 days ago on 5 January 2024) The discussion has been inactive for two weeks, with a preference against the merge proposal. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 19:39, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Eat_Bulaga!#Merger_of_Eat_Bulaga!_and_E.A.T.

(Initiated 123 days ago on 6 January 2024) The discussion wasn't inactive for 7 days. It seems there's no clear consensus on merging those two articles into one. 107.185.128.255 (talk) 18:16, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

It's been over a month. So, it could be a good time to close that discussion. 107.185.128.255 (talk) 17:55, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Saleh al-Arouri#Merge proposal

(Initiated 118 days ago on 11 January 2024) Discussion has stalled since March with no new comments. It appears that there is no clear consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aviationwikiflight (talk • contribs) 11:06, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Frederik_IX_of_Denmark#Requested_move_15_January_2024

(Initiated 114 days ago on 15 January 2024) – Requested move open for 2 months, needs closure.98.228.137.44 (talk) 18:36, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Now has been open for three months. 170.76.231.175 (talk) 15:17, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Maersk Hangzhou#Second merge proposal

(Initiated 105 days ago on 24 January 2024) Merge discussion involving CTOPS that has been open for 2 weeks now. Needs closure. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 04:46, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@WeatherWriter: I would give it a few days as the discussion is now active with new comments. GoldenBootWizard276 (talk) 00:00, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

As nominator, I support a non consensus closure of this discussion so we can create an RFC to discuss how WP:ONEEVENT applies in this situation. GoldenBootWizard276 (talk) 21:56, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:1985_Pacific_hurricane_season#Proposed_merge_of_Hurricane_Ignacio_(1985)_into_1985_Pacific_hurricane_season

(Initiated 99 days ago on 30 January 2024) Listing multiple non-unanimous merge discussions from January that have run their course. Noah, AA^Talk 13:50, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2003_Pacific_hurricane_season#Proposed_merge_of_Hurricane_Nora_(2003)_into_2003_Pacific_hurricane_season

(Initiated 99 days ago on 30 January 2024) Noah, AA^Talk 13:50, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Pharnavaz_I_of_Iberia#Requested_move_6_February_2024

(Initiated 92 days ago on 6 February 2024) Requested move open for nearly 2 months. Natg 19 (talk) 17:46, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:12 February 2024 Rafah strikes#Merge proposal to Rafah offensive

(Initiated 85 days ago on 13 February 2024) The discussion has been inactive for over a month, with a clear preference against the merge proposal. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 19:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Genital_modification_and_mutilation#Requested_move_26_February_2024

(Initiated 72 days ago on 26 February 2024) – Requested move open several months, needs closure. Natg 19 (talk) 22:29, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Afrophobia#Requested_move_4_March_2024

(Initiated 65 days ago on 4 March 2024) – Requested move open nearly 2 months, needs closure. Natg 19 (talk) 05:03, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Alexander,_Prince_of_Schaumburg-Lippe#Requested_move_10_March_2024

(Initiated 59 days ago on 10 March 2024) – Requested move open for nearly 2 months, needs closure. Natg 19 (talk) 04:55, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:List of generation VI Pokémon#Greninja Merge Discussion

(Initiated 34 days ago on 3 April 2024) – The discussion has been largely inactive for the past month, and though there are occasional comments, it has largely slowed. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 02:10, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake#Talkpage_"This_article_has_been_mentioned_by_a_media_organization:"_BRD

(Initiated 22 days ago on 16 April 2024) - Discussion on a talkpage template, Last comment 6 days ago, 10 comments, 4 people in discussion. Not unanimous, but perhaps there is consensus-ish or strength of argument-ish closure possible. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:First contact (science fiction)#Splitting off the list

(Initiated 12 days ago on 26 April 2024) – It's been more than a week since the last comment. The majority of the conversation is between two users, and there's clearly no consensus. Ships & Space_(Edits) 16:22, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

ClueBot NG appears to be down

The anti-vandalism bot, ClueBot NG, currently appears to be down. The bot has not edited in almost 24 hours. As the bot has several maintainers, I assumed this would be the best place to post the notification. If I am incorrect, I apologize. Best, Alpha_Quadrant ^(talk) 04:36, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Alpha, thanks for reporting this. I've had a look at ClueBot's run page and that seems to be looking ok to me. I've emailed Cobi to make him aware of the issue--5 albert square (talk) 23:45, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I just saw that someone has asked about this on Damien's talk page, apparently it was originally down to maintenance work but now the server seems to be offline? Like I've mentioned above, I've emailed Cobi, hopefully he'll be able to give an ETA of when CBNG should be back.--5 albert square (talk) 01:00, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

OK, a response from Damian, this is apparently a server issue which we're waiting on Rich to take a look at. There's currently no ETA of when this will be fixed, so until it is, I've put a notice on CBNG's talk page saying the bot is down.--5 albert square (talk) 01:43, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone have any further information. ClueBot has now been down for about 90 hours. Andrew Kurish (talk) 02:02, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Andrew, I don't think there's any further information yet, there wasn't an ETA when I put together the notice for ClueBot NG's talk page. Hopefully it won't be too long :)--5 albert square (talk) 23:08, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi all, I apologise for CBNG's downtime, this is due to me not being able to pay for the server and hence it being suspended by the host. I can assure you that the server will be back alive on the 9th of December which is when I get paid next. Sorry again for the confusion - Rich(MTCD)^T|C|E-Mail 23:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Rich, thanks for the explanation. I saw Tedders suggestion on your talk page, do you know if that would be possible?--5 albert square (talk) 16:05, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

How much does hosting cost? I may be able to help, if you want. bobrayner (talk) 00:49, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Seconded. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:46, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

(Reset Indent)This may not sound smart but why can't you just get a toolserver account? --Kangaroopowah 02:39, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Its actually a valid thought, however the toolserver has restrictions on how much resources any one user is allowed to consume. Given what Cluebot does it probably uses too much resources. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 00:59, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• The bot may be able to run on Wikimedia Labs at some point. Sven has asked below and I've added a note on the projects's talk page. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 04:33, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Update - The server will now be back on the 8th, however we will be moving it over to a Wikimedia Labs instance ASAP. - Rich(MTCD)^T|C|E-Mail 23:49, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I've been trying to contact Rich on Skype and IRC without luck for the past two days after he suggested I might be able to help pay for it. ClueBot NG contributions indicates it is still down, so I asked on #wikimedia-labs for an update, and petan said the VM instance is created and Rich tried to start it without success. Nobody has heard from him since yesterday when he said he was busy (he's a student and works too.) I commented out the {{resolved}} header above for the time being; please check contribs before replacing it. 67.6.163.68 (talk) 14:43, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Update 2 - Okay, OVH have made me rage! They decided in their wisdom to fully terminate the server... so I've lost EVERYTHING(!). Me and Damian can get it back, albeit not fully taught... but it may take a couple of days. I am extremely sorry that this has happened and hopefully we can get it back up ASAP. When it is back up, we are going to need more and more community members to assist looking though the false postives so the database can be re-filled, anyone wishing to help can send me an e-mail or a talk page message and I will get you set up. Many thanks for your continued patience. - Rich(MTCD)^T|C|E-Mail 19:29, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Per Skype, the installation problem has been resolved on WMF Labs and ClueBot is compiling there presently. This thing apparently uses an artificial neural network (ANN) simulation to judge false positives. Anyway, a lot of help is going to be needed to review logs to get it working well again because the ANN database, which is usually stored in RAM apparently, was lost when the OVH ISP terminated the account. 67.6.163.68 (talk) 21:04, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

admin Fastily overusing their admin bit?

Fastily (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Recently Fastily has deleted a couple of talk pages on my watchlist with CSD G6. They weren't tagged or anything. Fastily restored the first one when I asked on his talk page, but hasn't restored the second one yet.

Based on recent talk page comments, Fastily has been deleting many other pages, restoring on request. Also some possibly improper AFD closures and other admin-bit actions. I don't have the time or energy to babysit Fastily or look through their deletions; can someone else poke around and see if it's just my impression or if there's actually a problem? tedder (talk) 18:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Ouch. Looks like a fairly recent problem (hopefully). Maybe Fastily can just agree to go through all their recent "housekeeping" deletions and make sure they were valid, and to be more careful when applying that reason for deletion in future? Beeblebrox (talk) 19:01, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I had experienced a similar deletion of the redirect at Template:nfur by Fastily as G6 without any reasoning. I didn't notify him about it since he was away when I noticed but I also didn't think it was part of a larger problem. If he really has done such problematic deletions on a larger scale, then I think some broader review of their actions is necessary. Regards SoWhy 19:10, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I have put that talkpage back, and I think I see the problem. He's going through a list of pages in the form Talk:Foo/to do or Talk:Foo/comments and deleting them all. Your deleted edit was Talk:Sepulveda/Expo (Los Angeles Metro station) so probably appeared on his list, assuming he'd used a bot to get pages of the Talk:Foo/whatever format. I'm not sure why all the other deletions are warranted as G6's - but a lot of them do seem to be old pages. --Elen of the Roads (talk) 19:11, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, to explain, it looks like this is the result of having articles with a "/" (forward-slash) in their name. This causes MediaWiki and related tools some issues, ultimately meaning that these pages (incorrectly) appeared in lists of talkpages without content pages -- presumably why Fastily thought they were fair game for summary deletion (as per norms). - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 19:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The list comes from Wikipedia:Database reports/Talk subpages with redirect parent. Most of these pages should be moved, not deleted. — Train2104 (talk • contribs) 20:47, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, that's just sloppy admin work. I wouldn't call it "abuse" as that implies bad intentions whereas this looks more like laziness. An admin is expected to at least look at a page before deleting it. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:16, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, I guess the question is whether one considers the odd false positive acceptable if one handles lots of deletions. I'm guessing people feel not, here. On the other hand, it would be trivial to make sure your mass deletion attempts exclude titles with forward slashes in them from this point on. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 20:16, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I can't see any excuse for deleting a page without looking at it. This is exactly why over-reliance on automated tools is a bad thing. They are no substitute for looking at it yourself and exercising judgement. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:22, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

• Fastily has been fast and loose with the deletion trigger for years now. The last time I approached him about it, he retired; looks like he's back at it again. –xeno^talk 19:26, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Xeno, approximately when was that? tedder (talk) 19:31, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

September 2010 or thereabouts. –xeno^talk 13:55, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Fastily should no longer be a redlink? Seems like the next step if this is a recurring problem. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:39, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Let's slow down for a second. Fastily deletes an exceptional number of pages, and he does so very quickly (he's performed about 1,000 deletions today alone). This will inevitably result in occasional sloppy and/or sub-par deletions. Even if 99% of those deletions were good, we would still find 10 bad deletions from today alone and might be noting the numerous complaints on his talk page. So are we seeing some sloppy work? Sure. Does Fastily need to slow down a bit in his deletions? Yes, I would say so. But, in the grand scheme of things, how large is this "problem", really? Swarm ^X 20:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

As I've said, I consider any deletion where an admin clearly did not even look at the page before deleting it a problem. That is simply not acceptable. As others have indicated that this is a recurrent issue with this user that they seem unwilling to correct it, I don't believe we should just sweep it under the rug. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:39, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

To Swarm's point, I think we have to look at the total number of errors, not just the percentage. Otherwise we'd have to accept 50 giant fuckups a day if the editor making them made 9950 good edits per day. An error rate of 0.5% is nice, but it's only part of the story. That said, Fastily is generally a responsive admin, so let's give them a chance to weigh in before going too far with this. There might be a perfectly reasonable explanation. 28bytes (talk) 20:54, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

The point is that people make mistakes, and someone who does as much deletion work as Fastily is bound to have mistakes under their belt as well. From what I can tell, we're not talking about 'giant fuckups', we're talking about pretty minor stuff coming from a generally reasonable admin. Swarm ^X 21:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

• Fastily recently deleted a photo (File:Nelson Denis.jpg) for which I provided (as both subject and photographer) the copyright permission to OTRS. He left a notice to "get the photographer to release rights via WP:OTRS and the image can be restored." But that is precisely what I already did. I left Fastily two messages to this effect (with the OTRS Permission) and asked for guidance, but he did not respond. I think Fastily is donating his time and doing tremendous amounts of arduous work (1,000 deletions in one day?) but maybe he should have some assistance. That is a staggering workload. Nelsondenis248 (talk) 20:41, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

This was already explained to you at the PUF discussion and by User:ScottyBerg. I recommended that you send an email to OTRS, which you did. When the email you sent is processed, and if the permissions are valid, the file will be restored. Frankly, I've done everything I can for you... -FASTILY ^(TALK) 20:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

That's correct, and I think that it's disingenuous, to say the least, for Nelsondenis248 to pile on Fastily and re-re-re-(etc.) -litigate this tired issue here. The photo was deleted because there was a previous PUF[1] which dealt with a previous OTRS letter that said precisely what his latest one did. To put it bluntly, Nelsondenis248's claim that he took this and other photos was simply not credible. Three photos were deleted, and when one was re-created it was deleted under G4. I suspect that he is going to continue to flail away at this issue until everyone is too tired to object. ScottyBerg (talk) 01:43, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

In response to some of the concerns raised above:

• Only tedder's first 3 diffs ([2], [3], [4]) represent actual mistakes. These I corrected as quickly as possible. Being human, I will inevitably err periodically.
• I don't close AfDs....ever.
• I used a bot to compile and assess a list of pages (e.g. for usefulness, relevance to the encyclopedia, test pages, ect) subpaged under a talk page which was a redirect. At the time, the results appeared to be good so I went ahead and deleted the items on the list. Obviously, my code was not perfect. I'll be conducting a full restoration of those pages shortly.
• Admin abuse and RfCs? Whoa. I don't ever remember being unwilling to talk about my administrative actions. If I messed up, I'll be happy to fix it, no matter what it is. For the record, I'm neither being defensive about my errors, or for that matter, refusing to undo improper actions.

-FASTILY ^(TALK) 20:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for replying, Fastily. Human errors are okay, the number of errors is what makes me nervous. If we have to take an administrator to RFC/U or investigate "admin abuse", we have much larger issues as a community. tedder (talk) 20:56, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

There are a few issues that have been connected to Fastily (not necessarily the same problems as above but part of a larger picture?):

• His bot Fbot recently (this week) had two tasks approved for NFCC work, the tagging of images over a certain size for reduction, and removal of old versions of resized images. While both tasks are part of NFCC work, they are handling the process different than what we normally propose by human measure at WT:NFC. However, the WT:NFC regulars weren't even informed of these proposed bot actions, and only until I saw it act on an image I had (improperly, with regards to resizing) did I bring the issue up there. [5] Again, he was approved for the task but didn't seem to establish what the consensus was to do for these tasks.
• Just this morning I've noticed he mass tagged a large number of images for lacking fair-use rationale, which can prompt for their deletion in 7 days if not fixed. (This using the User:FSII) account. Except that a few of the images have non-template, and possibly weak rationales, but by no means lacking an attempt at one. You can see that a number of users are questioning this action on his talk page ([6]). We are generally more lax on tagging: completely lacking a rationale is one thing, but a broken or poor one is a different matter, and I don't think WT:NFC would have approved of this vigilance in the approach.

Alone, these aren't admin issues alone, but with the above cases noted above, there's some behavior that seems out of place for cooperative editing particularly on contentious areas like NFC. --MASEM (t) 21:02, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

These are not related at all.

• Fbot Task 9 is indefinitely on hold until consensus on what the threshold for tagging should be, what files should be exempt from reduction under WP:NFCC#3b, and if this task should continue. All users are invited to provide input! I posted a notice here about a week ago, but we haven't received as much input as we would have liked to. Please comment! (hmm, maybe I should start offering beer and cookies in exchange for input? :P )
• I'm working on that the no-rationale tags. As I mentioned on my talk page, in the upcoming days, I plan on conducting a full manual review of all my tags. Granted that you participated in that discussion on talk page, did you not see that? ;-)

-FASTILY ^(TALK) 21:16, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Not to add wood to the fire, but Fastly just deleted a photo of mine yesterday, that I was sure was properly tagged.--JOJ ^Hutton 22:36, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

...and now editors are bringing individual disputes here. For an editor who does as much as Fastily, this could go on all day. Perhaps this isn't the best place guys? FWIW Hutton, you never responded to Fastily's request that you clarify. Cheers, Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 22:43, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, I was just going to let it go and re-upload the pick later. It absolutely flabbergasted me, that he does so many deletions, he had no idea what I was talking about. But when I saw this thread, I just had to chime in. Obviously there is a bit of smoke here. Perhaps we should be looking for the fire.

Here is the file: 250px, if anyone cares to look. I was fairly confident that it had all the proper tags and such.--JOJ ^Hutton 22:47, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) ×2 Take at look at the file redirects listed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2011 November 22. All of them were speedily deleted by Fastily while still undergoing discussion at RfD. Indeed some (e.g. File:Hopkins logo.JPG had explicit recommendations to keep and had had speedy deletion explicitly declined previously by another admin. The speedy deletion criterion given was WP:CSD#G7, and while it's true the only person listed in the history of the redirect page requested their deletion (which was declined) in the case of page move redirects G7 does not apply unless the same user was the only significant contributor to the moved page as well - in all the cases I've checked (which isn't all of them), this was not the case (e.g. what is now File:Hopkins Solutions logo.JPG was uploaded by user:Jsmith45 and moved by user:Sfan00 IMG.
While it's possible these would have been deleted anyway, I still think this is wrong:

• Pages shouldn't be speedily deleted while there is an ongoing discussion (unless that discussion is recommending speedy deletion) - doubly so when there are good-faith recommendations to keep (speedy deletion criterion only apply when deletion would be uncontroversial and they would be deleted every time - when there is no consensus this cannot, by definition, be the case)
• Pages shouldn't be speedily deleted after speedy deletion has been declined (except in cases of newly discovered copyvios)
• Pages should not be speedily deleted using criteria that do not apply (the occasional slip-up of selecting the wrong entry in a list is acceptable, but when all of them use the same wrong criterion it doesn't look at all like a slip of the mouse)
• Pages should not normally be speedy deleted when they have not been tagged.

When all four occur for the same page, and on many titles in quick succession, something is wrong.

I wasn't particularly happy about these when I saw them first, but didn't think it was worth mentioning as when I've raised similar concerns with other admins in the past, I've often received responses along the lines of "so what" or "who cares?" (I have a vague feeling that Fastily may have been one such admin to respond like this, but I am not certain and don't remember when this would have been to make searching for diffs productive). It was only after seeing this section that I went back and looked in detail.

Until this is resolved I would like Fastily to voluntarily refrain from deleting any page. We don't want to end up with another situation like we have with user:Δ. What I think we need to avoid that is four things:

• An explicit statement that the community expects very high levels of accuracy in relation to deletions and places a greater value on this than it does on high productivity (measured in terms of the number of actions taken).
• An acknowledgement from Fastily that he understand this statement, and that his recent editing has not been accurate enough
• An agreement from Fastily to take more care in the future, including checking every page before deletion.
• An agreement from Fastily to temporarily refrain from all deletions while discussions about any future concerns raised with him relating to deletion are ongoing. (if, as I hope, there are no future concerns this shouldn't be a problem) Thryduulf (talk) 23:20, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, though I believe these points were already addressed, and agreement to such terms was already tacitly made or implied in my responses above. So, for transparency, agreed to all the above except the issue you have with RfD. Nonetheless, I'm not going to fight over it, because it's a stupid argument and I have better things to do with my time; in other words, I couldn't care less if you restored the redirects. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 23:31, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

• I just wanted to make a general observation. While I'm intimately acquainted with just one of the "problems" complained about, the general sense I get from reading these complaints is that Fastily has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way by using, not abusing, his administrative bit by correctly deleting photos etc. There is a pile-on here and I don't think it's warranted. ScottyBerg (talk) 01:50, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

• Fastily and I have worked together a lot, and he works faster than I would, but he always addresses concerns when they come up, so this dosen't worry me. I think part of the reason Fastily's numbers are so high is that he can't rely on other people doing the work when he's not around. There were things that just didn't get done when he was gone, and it was only after he came back, and found a large list of tasks waiting for him, that he's gone into hyper mode. Before you cosnider escalating this any further, please allow me to talk with him in private, I think that there's a very simple way to handle this so that everyone comes out happy. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:41, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. The percentage of mistakes that actually are a problem are small, it's just he makes so many edits. I've always found Fastily fine about restoring/discussing if there is a problem, so I don't think there needs to be too much made of this.Elen of the Roads (talk) 13:04, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Sven Manguard is correct. I personally observed how literally nothing happened to one problematic photo for a period of two weeks, with no corrective action taken until Fastily returned. ScottyBerg (talk) 22:45, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Stephfo harassment, topic ban, etc

I do not want to run into conflict with anybody, but on the other hand I was just about to issue an ANI report related to Fastily as well as I came to conclusion that his/her approach as enforcing admin is not very fair, strange coincidence I found this report here.

1. Long ago he blocked me ("FASTILY (TALK) 00:37, 19 July 2011 (UTC): You have been blocked from editing for a period of 24 Hours for Edit Warring.") even though I could find that other administrators approach essentially the same cases differently: "Declined. No more reverts after the warning. Sandstein 06:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)" I do not understand if abstaining from article edits after warnings issued is not deemed as appropriate what else a user should do.

2. Now he closed the ANI case (I was told there is something wrong with this page and it might not be displayed correctly) run against me without bothering to address the arguments presented there in in my favour. I respect his opinion, he might not agree with them, but the ignorance is not very high wiki-etiquette and I strongly object such approach. I believe WP-enforcing admin should have higher standards to apply, IMHO.--Stephfo (talk) 22:21, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

3. Pls. also note I'm being harassed that I allegedly cannot defend myself against admin actions that I regard for highly biased. I allegedly cannot use mentor for my defence to find the status of material at WP:RSN pertaining to topic of my topic ban and I'm not allowed to ask Fastily to act in line with WP polices on closures.--Stephfo (talk) 22:32, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

You fail to mention that you've been blocked repeatedly for edit warring (including twice by me). Based on your conduct at the time, I fully endorse Fastily's block. The closure of the ANI discussion also looks appropriate - you were actually very lucky to have not been blocked again for an indefinite period given that you violated the conditions which you agreed to when you were unblocked. Nick-D (talk) 22:45, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

But your 7d blocks happened after his 24h block (thus I could not be blocked "repeatedly for edit warring" by then), and personally I consider your 1st block as well as your overall behaviour in cases related to me the same as those of his - highly ignorant of all arguments presented in my favour, and done in spite of fact that after warning I have not performed any activity at article pages. Please explain why you deem as appropriate to ignore arguments raised if WP:policy on closures states that their strength and quality should be assessed?--Stephfo (talk) 22:58, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Note that Stephfo is sour for having been topic banned on AN/I. Fastily was an uninvolved admin and I asked him to close the thread because other admins on AN/I were involved and s/he is one of a handful of admins I know by name outside of AN/I. I have no comment as to the separate topic of this thread, I'm just pointing out that Fastily did not act incorrectly regarding Stephfo; there was overwhelming support for a topic ban, including by Stephfo's mentor. Stephfo, you either need to appeal your topic ban to arbcom or AN/I. Attempting to use other venues incorrectly like this may be considered disruptive. N^oformation ^Talk 22:51, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I was topic banned by Fastily's closure that was highly ignorant of all opposing votes, IMHO. I do not regard him uninvolved due to reason that he participated in my previous blocks that, IMHO, he was not administering very even-handedly.--Stephfo (talk) 23:04, 3 December 2011 (UTC) And when I look at other admins such, for example Sandstein, how they handle the cases, I'm strongly convinced they would not apply such arrogant approach and the conclusion might very likely be completely different (I might even never be blocked, IMHO--Stephfo (talk) 23:17, 3 December 2011 (UTC)).--Stephfo (talk) 23:08, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Stephfo, any admin would have closed that discussion the way Fastily did - and a good many of them would have closed it with a sterner penalty. THE COMMUNITY topic banned you. The closing admin just confirmed it. Elen of the Roads (talk) 23:27, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with you that it was closed in civil manner, when counter-arguments were just grossly ignored. If possible, I'd like to ask whether I have a right to get another admin assigned who has a clean history record with respect to me and who is able to look into arguments of both sides, not just one.--Stephfo (talk) 23:46, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

You've been topic banned from ANI, and the community feedback is clear that it isn't a Fastily issue, it's a Stephfo issue. Please heed the above editors, and note that coatracking into a discussion isn't the best. tedder (talk) 00:05, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

If you disagree then you need to post at AN/I or appeal to arbcom. There is no other way to appeal. Posting here will not help. N^oformation ^Talk 00:11, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Can we topic ban Stepho from AN too? This is ridiculous. I'm all in favour of people defending themselves, but WP:CONSENSUS ... indeed, the consensus of the community...has placed certain limitations. If I were him, I'd be trying to fix my reputation, not screw myself over further. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 00:23, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I respect your opinion, but I regard this case of mine pertaining the above topic referred to as "Also some possibly improper AFD closures and other admin-bit actions.". "Consensus of the community" is weasels words, as this community includes also people whose voices and opinions has not been assessed. I wanted to spare one more report, but if you deem it as more appropriate, I can make a separate one. Thankx for your opinion. --Stephfo (talk) 00:34, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, make a report on AN/I and be done with this. N^oformation ^Talk 00:36, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Just last technical question: I do not see his/her closure and my latest reactions in AN/I case dedicated to me, is it my local problem or is there something wrong with WP? I have tried various browsers and it is missing in all of them. Thanx.--Stephfo (talk) 00:58, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Look here Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:15, 4 December 2011 (UTC) Exactly the same link that Fastily posted on your talkpage. You do understand how an archive works, don't you? Elen of the Roads (talk) 01:17, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

script-assisted deletions

The real problem here is the script-assisted deletion. We've had admins in the past who have deleted large numbers of pages via scripts and rarely have such endeavours been without issue. No matter the massaging of the inputs, there will always be pages that shouldn't be deleted if they had actually been manually checked. Yes, there are backlogs but this does not give us license to delete pages at such a breakneck pace as to overwhelm any possible manner of responsible review. And this is an ongoing concern; see AN/ANI archives for "Fastily+deletions" [7]. –xeno^talk 13:55, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

We also get a large number of problematic fully manual deletions. I did half a dozen CSDs yesterday and one was deleted when I tried to save the the declined-and-fixed version of the page, much the same ratio as when I did a bigger sample a year or so back. A significant number of AfDs go bad, and prods are possibly the worst, with as little control over nomination and I get the feelign a presumption to delete. Rich Farmbrough, 09:29, 6 December 2011 (UTC).

Whether its Misza13 or MZMcBride or SQL or any one of the many other past administrations using scripts to make many rapid deletions, it has virtually always resulted in massive amounts of controversy and avoidable errors. It seems like script-assisted deletions should fall under a fully separate criteria for deletion, with much stricter controls to reduce the likelihood of large numbers of errors. Nathan ^T 22:51, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

To some extent deletions are inherently controversial, massive amounts of deletions will hence be massively controversial. "Avoidable errors" on the other hand is usually addressable (or they wouldn't be avoidable), and absent any evidence to the contrary, we should assume that Fastily is addressing avoidable errors as he goes. Rich Farmbrough, 13:48, 8 December 2011 (UTC).

Quick question about "email this user"

Sorry, I never get into trouble so I don't know this stuff :) If I click on "email this user" and send them an email, and they later claim that I said something completely different from what I said, does anyone on-wiki have a way to check it? If not, what method do you guys prefer if you're trying to keep something private because you don't want to be publicly pointing a finger at someone, but you want to protect yourself in case they claim you said something different? - Dank (push to talk) 21:43, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Unless you're emailing a mailing list there is no record of the email sent, and no way to verify if someone lies about its content. The best you can do is select the "E-mail me a copy of my message" option on the email user form--Jac16888 ^Talk 21:50, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 21:53, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Being slightly pedantic: that is not entirely true. I ask a CU to comment below.  Chzz  ►  22:05, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Right, checkuser can verify an email was sent but there is still no way to see the content of the email. –xeno^talk 22:06, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Yep, thanks, Xeno, that was my pedantic point.  Chzz  ►  03:18, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I was under the impression that in case of an absolute emergency, the Devs could see the contents of the email. Was this an incorrect impression? Sven Manguard Wha? 06:31, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the correct impression. Sysadmins can view the contents of an email. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 06:44, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Where do you have this information from? I don't know that any emails are being logged, not see it in mail config. Petrb (talk) 15:53, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't mean it's not true, it may be logged but I just don't think that Petrb (talk) 16:01, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I had a quick look at my own little MediaWiki installation, and did a text search in a database dump, and I don't seem to see stored sent mails anywhere in that, but maybe I missed it. More likely any "logging" is somewhere else (in the mail subsystem used by WP servers, for instance... developers could access that, and the mail subsystem could be configured to log outgoing mail). Alternatively, if it is correct, perhaps it's a particular configuration of the MediaWiki version for WMF sites (or just WP). Begoon ^talk 03:05, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

RfD backlogged

There is a sizeable backlog of discussions to be closed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion. I don't have time to do it myself, and anyway I've commented in a sizeable proportion of them. RfDs are normally much easier work to close than AfDs, and almost always acrimony free! Thryduulf (talk) 04:11, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I closed several, how's the backlog look now? ~Alison C. (Crazytales) 07:35, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia's proposed Terms of Use agreement – last call

meta:Talk:Terms_of_use#Closing_of_Discussion:_December_31.3F – Discussions relating to Wikimedia's proposed Terms of Use might end by December 31, 2011. Every Wikimedia user would have to agree to comply with the terms of this document, so if anyone has any concerns, then please let Geoffbrigham and those watching the page know about them. Geoffbrigham responds well to feedback. He and other have made many, many changes due to the feedback they've received. They will politely listen to anything that you have to say, so please don't be afraid to say it. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 14:00, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Update: December 31 will definitely be the final day to comment on the new Terms of use. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 20:27, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Deletion reviews for closure

Resolved

 – Thanks!—S Marshall T/C 13:00, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

No desperate rush but when someone has a moment, there are about three deletion reviews that are overdue for closure. All the best—S Marshall T/C 14:52, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Attempt at coding policy for ArbCom elections

A second attempt has been made at coding the policy. Please review User:Od Mishehu/Arbitration Committee Elections, and express your opinions at User talk:Od Mishehu/Arbitration Committee Elections. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 21:19, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be better to do this in a week or so, when the current election cycle is over? That way many of the active participants, including election administrators, election co-ordinators, and candidates can participate without fear that any comments or recommendations they bring will be accompanied by charges of lack of impartiality or personal self-interest. Risker (talk) 21:50, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Richard Arthur Norton: continued testing the boundaries of his topic ban

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

---

I think that everything is obvious enough here, though there are other diffs that could be provided if necessary. In sum:

• After it was revealed that RAN, a very prolific contributor, was also a prolific contributor of copyvio / plagiarized text, a discussion ensued here on WP:AN.
• As a result of that discussion, he received a topic ban for the period of a month (which could subsequently be made indefinite), preventing him from creating new pages.
• Since that time, Richard has at various times flirted with the boundaries of that ban, for instance by creating redirects or uploading files.
• He has also not been great at interacting with or responding with other editors on his talk page. Though it is worth noting that he has been much better at this in the past few days.
• In response to a request for clarification, I (as the person who closed the original ban discussion) said that the ban meant he shouldn't do any moves, redirects, or anything of the sort. I.e.: no more boundary-testing.
• I left him a warning the last time he did this, saying I would come here if it happened again.
• And today he has uploaded a file. Which is why I am here.

I am frankly loath to get all legalistic and schoolmasterly. I don't want to be endlessly policing Richard's behaviour and edits. But on the other hand, I can completely see that what he does (and what he doesn't do, when he doesn't interact) can be frustrating to other editors. And as I pointed out, meanwhile there are still plenty of copyright issues to be dealt with. It is not as though Richard should be at a loss for things to do. So I bring the matter to the community here. How to proceed? --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 00:42, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

To what degree is he helping out with the CCI? If the answer is "a lot", then I'd be inclined to let the occasional redirect/move/dab page/whatever slide, as a gesture of thanks. If the answer is "not much, really", I think we ought to enforce the letter of the restrictions, with blocks if needed. (Convenience link to the previous AN discussion.) 28bytes (talk) 01:11, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I will ping people who may know. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 01:34, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I am concerned about his attitude of deliberately wanting to test boundaries once a topic ban and extensive ANI had gone through. Also the issue of non engaging with others is an issue. yes it has improved in recent days. Richard should be concentrating on fixing problems with copy violations, not trying to play games with others. suggest indefinite topic ban. would consider some form of short term block, depends how well he admits he is wrong here, rather than the usual "play innocent, others are at fault" attitude. LibStar (talk) 01:21, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

User:Libstar is not a disinterested third party, he has a history of harassment by nominating my articles for deletion. Here is one days batch from October 31, 2011: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William Davis Ticknor (New Jersey) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elbert Adrian Brinckerhoff and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charles William Floyd Coffin and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mayor of Englewood, New Jersey. All were kept. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:38, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Richard the ANI is about you not me. I have not nominated any of your created articles since then. this is simply trying to deflect attention to a number of issues raised about you, like here. LibStar (talk) 03:05, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

It is just to remind people that you have your own agenda here. And thank you for not-nominating every article I start since then. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:10, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I have no agenda, my only objective is to improve Wikipedia free of copy violations. LibStar (talk) 04:28, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I am not "testing boundaries", nor am I "prolific contributor of copyvio / plagiarized text". For the over 120,000 edits and 1,500 entries I created, we have found 15 instances, by my count, where I used text without paraphrasing it well enough or used text from a quasi-governmental organization and treated it as pd-gov. I have gone through all entries in chrono order over the past three weeks and as expected find a need for creating disambiguation pages or uploading a photo to older biographies I have created. Jbmurray doesn't want me to perform those functions, he doesn't see that as part of the review and cleanup process. I see it as an important part of cleanup. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:38, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Richard, first I'll note that I have only looked at a very tiny proportion of your articles in any depth, but only today I came across this one, which turned out to have been repeatedly tagged for copyright violation. You yourself edited it today, but didn't deal with the plagiarism issues that still remained. Here's the original:

"Mr. Greenagel spent five years researching and photographing many of the state's 1,100 churches from the 18th and 19th centuries, and his book includes 225 of them with commentary."

And here's the article text:

"Greenagel spent five years researching and photographing 1,100 churches in New Jersey and his book includes photos and background information on 225 of them."

That paraphrase is far too close for comfort; the first half of the sentence is basically identical to the source. (This is how I fixed it.) If you want to deny that there's a problem, then I suggest that you're on the fast track to a block or an indefinite ban.

Second, then, the real question here is whether (or how much) you are testing the boundaries of your current ban. I accept the principle that creating dab pages or moving pages etc. may at times be part of the review and clean-up. Which is why I have repeatedly suggested that you drop a note on your talk page or on someone else's when you think that this is the case. This is a collaborative effort, and there are plenty of people who are watching your page and happy to help out. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 02:55, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

That is because paraphrasing is subjective, if it were objective we could create a bot to do it. Where you see something sinister, where I am "testing the boundaries of [my] current ban" I see a legitimate paraphrase containing the essential non copyrightable facts. The paraphrase captures the facts without changing the language so much that it distorts the meaning. I am sure you would write it differently as would every other person making the same paraphrase. Almost everything I read here in Wikipedia, I would write differently because writing is subjective. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:04, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

And for what it's worth, plagiarism and deficient paraphrase are not particularly subjective. That's why there are in fact bots and programs that can detect it pretty well, and that would definitely have flagged the instance I give above, which apparently gave you no concern earlier today. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:45, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Nor is it plagiarism, it is properly attributed. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 05:03, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The fact that it is attributed does not necessarily prevent it from being plagiarized, though it does make the plagiarism more obvious. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:31, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Richard, no. If you want to re-open the discussion about the copyright violation / plagiarism, you are on a hiding to nothing. There is manifest consensus that there is a problem. If you are not willing to accept that, then I suspect you're heading towards an indefinite ban or block. The point is that at present you have only a time-limited ban, during which period you can show that you are taking the matter seriously.

The issue about your apparently testing the boundaries of your ban involves the page moves and creation of disambiguation pages etc. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:42, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

jbmurray, you closed the ANI proposal [8] and used the specific wording of "creating new articles and from page moves". That is the sanction, you are the one that said it. Do you wish to vacate your close? Uploading an image is not creating a new article - and you didn't say "new pages: you said "new articles. However, this looks pretty clearly like a page move, in article space no less - so why didn't you just enact a block? Franamax (talk) 02:15, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. As you can see, I am no fan of heavy-handed policing. Which is why I have preferred various modes of warning, encouragement, and observation before (in response to the move that you point out) telling him that the next time that he does such a thing, I'll bring the matter to WP:AN. I didn't enact a block immediately because I want to work with rather than against other editors. But I will block if there is consensus to do so. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 02:37, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest you should become more of a fan of heavy-handed policing. If you're not willing to enforce your own close, who do you expect will be doing it? Ther moment has passed though, presumably RAN is now aware that a restriction from psge moves means he is not allowed to click on the "Move" button and then press "Move page". Since you didn't block at the time, we can only presume you felt there might be some confusion on the concept of moving pages. Presuming that is not going to happen again, there is still an open question here, which puts lipstick on a derivative work of what looks to me like an unambiguous copy-paste/copyvio/plagio [9]of a copyrighted work[10]. When MRG gets here, I hope she'll notice this: what about getting the "contrib-surtveyor" tool to accept a date and show the subject editor's subsequent edits to articles separately so that copypatrollers can also evaluate cleanup efforts? If this was a CCI cleanup, IMO it was sadly lacking. Franamax (talk) 03:09, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I was equally surprised at this edit (as I point out above). He obviously checked the source, but did not note (let alone fix) the plagiarism. (But if this discussion does mean that he now respects the terms of his ban, then it's a victory for light-handed policing...) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 03:15, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

It is not plagiarism, it is properly attributed to the source. It is a paraphrase of that source, that you find "too close for [your] comfort". Calling it plagiarism is not correct. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 05:08, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The fact that it is attributed does not necessarily prevent it from being plagiarized, though it does make the plagiarism more obvious. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:31, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I did make that move and it was a mistake and I apologize. As I was cleaning up the article I made the move without thinking. I did it as part of the cleanup process for an article I had created. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:45, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• I have not had time to work on this much, but Richard has been more responsive than he previously was when we were dealing with image issues at his other CCI. I had recommended to Richard here and in email some ways that he could proactively assist with cleanup, especially locating unattributed article splits and repairing them. Has he been doing this or anything else proactive (instead of reactive) to assist with issues? That would go a long way to demonstrating good faith. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:42, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
  • [11]. Be careful, this is a sample size of one. MER-C 13:56, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• I'm starting to feel there is a tempest in a teapot here. Are there really only 15 cases of copyright issues identified? I'd looked over RAN's contributions, hitting only a small handful, and found a really horrible one (many paragraphs) and assumed the worst at that point based on others comments. If we are really talking about single-sentence (cited) "close paraphrasing" then this is getting silly. Such a close paraphrase, while less than optimal by a long shot, is clearly fair use and causes no legal risk to the encyclopedia as long as it is cited. I do think that RAN doing a page move when he was specifically banned from doing so was a real problem and I think a warning or a short block (12 hours?) would have been an appropriate response at the time and a "final warning" should certainly be handed out now with a more significant block (and likely extension of the ban) if he does a page move again. I'd also like to add that the sniping and (minor) edit warring over RAN using extensive quotes from public domain sources is pretty ridiculous and seems like a case of piling on. Hobit (talk) 13:58, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
  • The figure of 15 is a huge under-estimate and I don't know where RAN got it from. A total of 51 pages have been tagged as copyright violations at the CCI and since many pages haven't been checked there are undoubtedly many more. Hut 8.5 19:35, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

As I noted in a recent note to RAN, I have some out of town commitments through Sunday, with limited internet access. I will make a couple quick observations, which are off the top of my head, not thoroughly researched.

• I have no recollection of any interaction with RAN prior to the recent issues.
• I have looked at a fair number of articles where RAN has edited (in excess of 100)
• There are problems in the history, but, very roughly stated, the most egregious problems are years old, the more recent material reflects an improved understanding of the need for paraphrase.

My initial interaction (or more properly, lack thereof) with RAN was not positive. I reported a number of concerns, and saw no responses. I checked to see if RAN was possibly away, and saw him working on new articles, but making little effort to assist in the review of potential problems. I tried a couple different approaches; whether happenstance, or lucking into a better approach, I have seen marked improvement. In several cases, I reported an issue of concern, and have seen prompt attention and repair. While interaction is not what I would characterize as ideal, it is markedly improved, and I do see substantial evidence that RAN is engaging in the arduous task of addressing issues. In some cases, I have opened an article and its editing history, and seen recent evidence of the fixing of problems, on an article that I had not brought to his attention. I don't have time at the moment to look into the recent allegation, I'm literally heading to a meeting, but I hope his significant improvement in responsiveness is given considerable weight.--SPhilbrickT 14:53, 7 December 2011 (UTC) Examples of responsiveness: I expressed concern with

• Andrew_Downey_Orrick; RAN has addressed my concerns.
• Barnegat_Bay RAN has addressed my concerns.
• William_Sanford_Pennington RAN has addressed my concerns--SPhilbrickT 17:54, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. I believe that RAN is trying. I am just not clear on why he is unable to abide by some clear boundaries for a period of time to demonstrate his goodwill and desire to improve. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:49, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

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

Adminbot BRFA notification

Resolved

 – Request withdrawn, non-admin alternative found. Jclemens (talk) 06:05, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, this is just a quick notification to inform everyone that we have a brfa open, for a bot with administrator rights. The task it's self is fairly simple, it needs the rights to edit a full protected page in it's user space. See also, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Fbot 10 for the original BRFA. Thanks! --Chris 02:40, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

If it only needs to edit that one page in its own userspace, wouldn't it be easier to just make it a .js page?  Chzz  ►  02:45, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

That's been suggested, yes. 28bytes (talk) 04:32, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The request has been withdrawn, in favour of using .css or .js page. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:30, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Abusive mass nominations for deletion and wikistalking of opponents to deletion

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

---

User:Purplebackpack89 Has nominated a ton of articles first all together and after the community rebuked him one by one with the same sophomoric rationale that makes it seem that he has not considered doing any real research on the subjects as many are clearly notable. He also has been wiki stalking those that vote contrary to deletion and is following a one size fits all / cut and paste approach for his reasoning for deletion in all cases and he needs to be warned and the deletion debates suspended since they are bad faith.Luciferwildcat (talk) 07:51, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Original mass nomination[12], Irma Anderson [13], Marina Viramontes [14], Harpreet Sandhu [15], Mindel Penn [16], John Marquez [17] attempted prob too[18], Richard Griffin [19], Rose Mary Corbin [20], Nat Bates [21], Carrite's talk page[22], his own talk page[23], so that is about 19 nominations included all those with in the original all of the noms at once, prodding, and individualizing of the nominations.LuciferWildCat (talk) 13:11, 7 December 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luciferwildcat (talk • contribs) 12:29, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

You need to explain why those nominations are abusive and one post on a talk page does not equal wikistalking so if that's all you have you need to withdraw and apologise for the allegation. Spartaz ^Humbug! 13:26, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Ok I wasted 5 minutes of my life reading the AFDs and I can't help feeling that you need to get some perspective. Purplebackpack batch nominated a bunch of similar articles and then followed advice in the AFD to split up the nominations for individual discussion. So, on the basis that the editor responsed postively to feedback to individually nominate the articles you are dragging their good name through AN and making some ridiculously wildly over the top allegations and claims about their actions. I certainly agree that the delete nominations could be tighter and outdated is not a deletion reason but abusive? Good god no. Carrite's comments on the AFDs are overstrong in my opinion and you need to develop a thicker skin and get some perspective. Unless you have something more you need to withdraw your wild claims and apologise to Purplebackback. Spartaz ^Humbug! 13:38, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Luciferwildcat, you need to provide links to the discussions you are talking about, and the wikistalking you are complaining about. Otherwise nobody can tell what you are talking about except those (like me) who have already been involved in the case. --MelanieN (talk) 10:59, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

His comments are very aggressive and domineering and I don't like them, he seems to be intimidating other editors and trying to bash in every dissenting viewpoint with an avalanche or responses to everything, even old editors to these pages from recent times and long ago apparently. His following Carrite to her talk page seems like the beginning of not being able to let anything go and being disruptive, something that with so many nominations, which were poorly nominated I think already has. This user's nominations are all identical and they should be suspended since they are in bad faith. I have added links.LuciferWildCat (talk) 13:14, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Bad faith? From what I have seen, they've had at least one other delete vote, so bad faith is out the window. We often lump similar AFD's together - they were forced to separate them. Why it Heaven's name Carrite says they need to be procedurally declined due to copy paste (they were identical reasons, after all) is beyond me. (P.S. Why is this not on ANI instead of AN?) (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:23, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes it is bad faith to nominate so many articles with the same rationate even though they are all different, some are very clearly notable and sourced for example. How does there having been a previous vote (that was cut short) make it no long bad faith? They should be procedurally declined because these are nuisance nominations. And I honestly didn't know there was a AN and an ANI or the difference between the two I just followed the help desk steps here as best I could/knew how.LuciferWildCat (talk) 13:29, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I have been very active in those discussions. It was not "a ton" of articles - it was ten articles about city councilmembers from a single city. I was one among others who objected to the mass nomination, but it should be noted that he responded to those objections, by withdrawing the mass nomination and personally closing that discussion. Since then I have criticized him in many of the relisted discussions for repeating his original objections verbatim, without acknowledging the changes and improvements that have been made to some of the articles. For example he is still saying "out of date" for all the articles, even though I had updated several of them and added references. However, he has never wikistalked me, and I believe that charge is unjustified. The only example of "wikistalking" I can find is one note from him on the talkpage of User:Carrite. IMO his behavior does not warrant any administrative action. --MelanieN (talk) 10:59, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I think it does, I believe many editors have actually gotten severely banned for multiple careless bad faith AfD nominations before, regardless of the merit of the articles, you're just not supposed to nominate so much at once, especially items that are clearly getting support in an initial nomination.LuciferWildCat (talk) 13:25, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Luciferwildcat you have made serious unsubstantiated allegations against another user. I suggest you evidence them or withdraw the charges as making unfounded aspersions against other users isn't tolerated. Spartaz ^Humbug! 11:11, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I withdraw nothing, the edit history speaks for itself, not making any of this up.LuciferWildCat (talk) 13:25, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Note that Luciferwildcat has Canvassed this discussion Spartaz ^Humbug! 11:15, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I have not exactly canvassed this, I only informed everyone that voted in the discussions about this, both opponents and proponents, and some are crossover as there are so many articles involved, so we can have an honest talk about this, and I also dutifully notified the editor in question. All for transparency.LuciferWildCat (talk) 13:25, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. I don't know about the other AFDs, but the one for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/María Viramontes seems ok, in so far as the rationale is concerned. That said, we do have this gem where Purplebackpack adds to their rationale, and then (in the same edit) accuses another editor (Carrite) of not bothering to read their additional rationale. I've asked Purplebackpack to retract that. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 13:15, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Also, for the record - I was notified of this discussion by Luciferwildcat, though checking AN is about the third thing I usually do when I log in in the morning. I would've seen this anyway. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 13:18, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Basically this user needs to rollback these AfDs and slow down, as they are all nominated for similar reasons but have different levels of development. If we went one at a time, people interested in the topic(s) would have the ability to get more sourcing on the subjects and expand the articles accordingly. After all many of these politicians were on the city council for over 20 years at a time - non-stop, which is pretty notable itself. So they're has got to be a lot more coverage than meets the eye. So many nominations is premature and precludes due process for the articles, and the editor can't even keep up or is ignoring people's comments which is a problem too.LuciferWildCat (talk) 13:34, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Comment Also pouring into Melanie's talk page, telling her how she should be formatting her votes/comments at AfD here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luciferwildcat (talk • contribs) 13:40, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Looks like sounds advice to me. Spartaz ^Humbug! 13:45, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I think its ridiculous and reactionary.LuciferWildCat (talk) 13:57, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

You appear to be a minority of one which probably puts you in the wrong. Please withdraw the serious unfounded allegations you have made against purplebackpack. Spartaz ^Humbug! 14:16, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

No, his mass editing is inappropriate and other parties need time wake up and to put in their comments here in any case there is clear disagreement on his mass edits as per the deletion discussions themselves and the user should be given an opportunity to defend himself here as well.LuciferWildCat (talk) 14:26, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I have responded to some of these afd's, and while I found some of these articles to be worthy of deletion and others not, I saw nothing to indicate an abuse of the system. Nwlaw63 (talk) 14:36, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
• As the aggrieved party here, I think this a waste of community time. The articles clearly are linked; most were created by the same editor and had shoddy sourcing. How does leaving a couple comments contrary to another person's opinion amount to WikiStalking? How is suggesting an editor bundle their votes amount to WikiStalking? They don't. I only split up the AFDs because the community asked me too. Carrite has erred in making strong procedural keep votes (and ignoring any comments that would refute his argument rather than give valid reasons why his argument still stands); Lucifer has erred in starting this discussion in the first place, and even more by doing it in the wee hours my time, and even further by awarding me a "lump of coal" and canvassing to get his point off. If anyone deserves the lump of coal, or administrative action, it's Lucifer Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 14:52, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

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

Good news: User:CorenSearchBot is back

I don't know if this has been mentioned in any well-read fora, but User:CorenSearchBot is back for now. A few extra eyes on Wikipedia:Suspected copyright violations would be very much appreciated. MER-C 08:20, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Huzzah! We just need ClueBot NG back and we can go back to letting the robots run everything. —Tom Morris (talk) 08:52, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords. ~Alison C. (Crazytales) 18:00, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Template spamming

This doesn't seem to be covered under WP:SPAM, so thought I should post here. Special:Contributions/Yjenith is spamming random editors about his new template. Where is the right place to announce new templates? Thanks, Filing Flunky (talk) 08:36, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Canvassing#Inappropriate notification seems to cover it better; Wikipedia:Canvassing#Appropriate notification explains the proper places/techniques to make such an announcement. Also, when you discuss any user on this board, there is a big orange banner when you edit this page informing you that you must notify them; it appears you have failed to do so. But, it also appears the user is being educated on his talk page by several users and has ceased said behavior, so this appears to be a non-issue now. If the user starts inappropriately canvassing again, WP:ANI is probably a better venue than here. --64.85.220.56 (talk) 10:39, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Urk. You're right, I forgot to notify that editor, sorry. Won't happen again. Filing Flunky (talk) 10:51, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Logging history merges

• It may be useful if the admins could be circulated asking them to log in Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen all history merges done and all rejected history merges. That would stop it from looking like I am getting all the work of the history merging. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:05, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

  Is that the only benefit? Jafeluv (talk) 13:03, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Actually WP:SPI does quite a few history merges on it's own, and I would think that the deletion log would be good enough to log them for me instead of having to log one ever time I do one. If we compiled a list for SPI, well, let's just say it would be one hell of a long list. Cases can be merged easily on a day to day basis and to ask admins to go over and log it when it's already in the deletion log...I think that's a little excessive. -- DQ (t) (e) 13:24, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• When did history merges become a part of the sockpuppet investigation process? Nyttend (talk) 23:22, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• The usual practice is to history merge some of the cases if they relate to the same person but are filed in different places. For example, a case about X was filed at WP:SPI/X and archived to WP:SPI/X/Archive. Then a case is filed about Y at WP:SPI/Y and it turns out that Y == X. Whenever practical (since Y is usually a fresh case, this is very often) we move SPI/Y to SPI/X and merge their histories (instead of merely copying the text over) so that everything archived at SPI/X/Archive can be found in the history of SPI/X rather than scattered around different places. No, we don't do history merges outside SPI case pages. T. Canens (talk) 16:32, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

• • I don't really see the point of logging history merges, either. I always thought of WP:SPLICE as a noticeboard rather than a log. Is there any particular reason we need to keep track of them? T. Canens (talk) 16:35, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Cannot create a redirect?

Hi, I'm trying to create a new page called "Maximal Atlas" that would lead to Manifold#Atlases. However, it keeps telling me that

"The page title or edit you have tried to create has been restricted to administrators at this time. It matches an entry on the local or global blacklists, which is usually used to prevent vandalism."

Can someone please tell me why is this happening? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alesak23 (talk • contribs) 13:06, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

• Done for you. CIreland (talk) 13:08, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

In what way did this cause problems with MediaWiki:Titleblacklist? I can't find anything that should have blocked this title, but I'm not exactly familiar with regex. Nyttend (talk) 23:21, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Pervasive plagiarism issues

A little over a month ago I reviewed Stan Pitt, started by Dan arndt, for DYK, and both myself and another reviewer found instances of plagiarism from the cited sources. The issues were not addressed and the DYK nomination failed. Yesterday I followed up, and using a duplicate detector found that various lines had been plagiarized directly from at least four sources: here, here, here ([24]), and here ([25]). I brought it up at WP:CP. Afterward, I checked out two other articles created or expanded by Dan, and found more of the same: Phil Belbin includes plagiarism from here ([26]) and here ([27]), and Stan Cross contains plagiarism from here ([28]), here ([29]), here ([30]) and here ([31]).
Dan arndt is not a new editor; they've been around since 2006 and have made over 20,000 edits. Glancing through their talk archives shows concerns with copyrighted text and images from the beginning. I don't know how much of this rises to copyvio per se, but this is still a very serious issue that may date back several years, and it requires attention.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:16, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not coming to Dan's defense here, but you've given the editor all of 5 hours to respond to your DYK concern and about 14 minutes to respond to your other copyright concerns. Don't you think it'd be polite to allow the user a day to respond to your concerns. Perhaps you could convince them to review their other articles for copyright problems before dragging them here to humiliate them.--v/r - TP 19:05, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

It's not my intention to "humiliate" anyone. There was well over a month to deal with the concerns brought up at DYK, and it didn't get done. After seeing this and then finding that the problem affects other articles, I thought it best to get additional eyes on it.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:12, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I can't see any reason to criticise the way in which Cuchullain is dealing with this. Just dealing with it at all is a service to the project. Looking at Stan Pitt, from October 2011, I can see the issues. The next step from here is often to consider whether a CCI might be warranted. The usual rule at WP:CCI is that five examples from different articles will cause a CCI to be opened. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:20, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not criticizing the way it's being dealt with. I'm criticizing the time in between elevation. I, myself, was recently brought to AN without an opportunity to address an issue beforehand. I know how it feels when I could've solved an issue quickly and now I'm being put in a dark room with a bright light focused on my forehead. So the guy dropped a DYK nom off at the project and never returned to check on it; if the issue hasn't been brought to their talk page then I say they should be given at least a chance to address it. If they blow it off, then fine, here we are. Excuse me that I don't support coming here prior to a personal discussion. Addition: But yes, I do think it's great that Cuchullain took the effort to look at the sources and check for copyright problems. It's tough.--v/r - TP 19:50, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I've found three more articles that include plagiarism, either in taking entire lines or too-close paraphrasing: Keith Chatto from here ([32]) and here ([33]); Gerald Carr (cartoonist) from here ([34]); and Monty Wedd from here ([35]). The last article doesn't cite to the source and includes uncited quotations. It looks like this may have to go to WP:CCI.--Cúchullain ^t/c 21:08, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

User:Dan arndt contacted me on my talk page and I think he would be agreeable to reacquainting himself with the copyright policy and fixing his errors. I've suggested he say as much here.--v/r - TP 15:33, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

They expressed that to me, too, and they've already started work on some of the instances I pointed out. I think this is definitely in the category of errors that can be corrected with a bit of time and effort.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:53, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Improving AFD debates

I have been concerned for some time that the quality of AFD discussions hasn't kept pace with a clearer enforcement of our inclusion standards and this leads to a lot of unnecessary relists and will result, as participation continues to decline, in the process becoming even more arbitrary and confusing. That's if AFD doesn't end up breaking from a lack of policy based contributions. My view is that we need to improve understanding of what is or is not a policy based vote to improve the quality of debate. This will result in fewer relists, more consistent outcomes and allow the process to continue to work in the future. I'm proposing that AFD regulars who close and relist discussions explain which votes they counted and why and offer direction when they relist to make what's needed clearer. I started (yeah, its awful and needs lots of work) an essay to explain the process as above and would welcome any comments or feedback that anyone has on this. Since I'm going to spam this round the houses WT:AFD or the talk of the essay seem like good locations to hold the discussion. Spartaz ^Humbug! 18:59, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I think we should include a list of inclusion guidelines on WP:AFD in table format and give a general overview of what each one covers and how they are generally interpreted. Then we could also have a list of inclusion essays that are often used. As an AFD admin, I will say that I give a lot of weight to WP:GNG. I also tend to give less weight to AFD regulars that use what appear to be copy/paste rationales on both the keep and delete sides. There are a few users I'll give more weight to if I feel they are voting against what they generally lean. For example, if I see DGG, MichaelQSchmidt, or Warden !vote to delete then I'm more inclined to pay close attention to what they say and will generally give their opinion a little more weight. On the same side, if Stauratyates (sp?) and some others !vote to keep then I will pay closer attention to their rationale. That's how I do it.--v/r - TP 19:11, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

and letting people see which votes count and which were a waste of bytes will obviously spur them to making more focused contributions the next time they step into an AFD. I do think its probably to discuss in general rather then name names though. For the sake of Harmony if nothing else. Spartaz ^Humbug! 19:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Have you seen WP:ATA? That has existed for, oh, years, and hasn't improved much. Essays sure are fun, but are you positive yet another one will help? --Jayron32 19:25, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

No of course another essay isn't going to make any difference unless we can persuade admins to give a clearer steer on what's a valid argument and what's a discard and providing guidance on relists. That's going to be what makes the difference because AFD participants will be able to understand better what sways a discussion and what is just noise and respond accordingly next time they vote. The essay is a vehicle to persuade AFD closing admins to take this on board and get some discussion going. Spartaz ^Humbug! 19:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The difference is that the Arguments to Avoid essay gives general examples and best practices, but does not impact the actual content of debates in any direct way, whereas the idea behind IAFD is that admins should commit to providing feedback in the debate itself. And that's not a bad idea at all. UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 21:12, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I see the same problems. There have been too many AfDs lately where all the comments after (& often including) the nom were for clearly unacceptable reasons. In practice, like Spartaz, I find myself in closing relying upon people I know to be sensible, rather the consensus of whoever might appear. However, trying to summarize the extremely complicated guidelines to a few words will leave out all the qualifiers and e3exceptions; the debate at an AfD is usually not about the basic rules, but over the interpretation or interpretative nuance of one of the rules. The solution is wider participation--if everyone looking here would just comment on 2 or 3 AfDs in the daily list it would help. DGG ( talk ) 00:42, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't always comment at AFD, but my personal rule is that I comment on two other AFDs for every article I nominate myself; that way I can assure that my nomination doesn't make any more work for anyone else. Perhaps if we made the instructions clearer to encourage anyone nominating an article for deletion to comment on a few. I know over at WP:DYK they made it standard for anyone nominating an article at DYK had to review/comment on another nomination, and it has helped reduce the workload considerably. I know that AFD is very different, but if we had a friendly reminder in a few places letting people know that it would be a good idea, when nominating, to also comment on someone elses nomination, it may drastically increase the participation. --Jayron32 04:41, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

That's a good idea but we have to face reality, participation in all of our deletion discussions is going down and that trend will continue. CFD and FFD already have very low participation rates that is affecting their credibility and I have seen numerous comments at DRV that regulars consider CFD so broken its not worth commenting on closes there. AFD is going to struggle in the future if we don't do anything about educating regular participants to make the best possible quality contributions. Am I misinterpreting the commentary here, but isn't it a bit ironic that a project designed around education isn't enthusiastic about a low overhead proposal to educate our own editors on how to best contribute to a key area that is extremely complicated and bedeviled by poor quality contributions? Spartaz ^Humbug! 05:11, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll Be Home for Christmas

Can someone please undelete all revisions of I'll Be Home for Christmas and histmerge them back into the article? The article was around for over 5 years, so I refuse to see how the whole thing was speedied as a copyvio. Not all of it could've been a copyvio. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 04:15, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Have you asked Fastily about it? --Jayron32 04:20, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Over 80% of the article was plagiarized from this source, without acknowledgement. That said, I think the Library of Congress is public domain, so revisions could possibly be undeleted as such. Is it? CharlieEchoTango (contact) 04:24, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, it was still plagiarized. Essentially, if you want to see the deleted article, look no further. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:25, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

The legal/copyright notices/disclaimers for the library don't appear to mention the copyright status of content they appear to have created themselves: [36], [37]. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 04:32, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Federal agencies place everything they do in the public domain --Guerillero | My Talk 04:34, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Just checking, how do we know that they didn't use some of the Wiki article to write theirs? I don't see a date or attribution on theirs.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► 04:35, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

There are a few federal entities that are technically non-US government, like the Smithsonian Institution and the Postal Service, and they happily copyright things. However, the Library of Congress seems to be an agency of Congress; check images such as File:US-LibraryOfCongress-AltLogo.svg and File:US-LibraryOfCongress-Seal.svg, which are marked as PD-USGov-Congress. Seems to me that the only relevant problem with the deleted text is that it didn't cite its source: it was plagiarism but not a copyvio. Nyttend (talk) 05:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

In light of the above, and because I'm pretty sure the LoC is PD, I've reinstated the old revisions. I would advise however against reverting to the any of the old versions of the article, as they are mostly not verifiable or neutral statements (e.g. "it touched a tender place", etc). Just not encyclopedic... but not copyright violations either. CharlieEchoTango (contact) 05:57, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Since LOC is PD, is it fair game to copy text from the linked page above into the article? This is an important song, and lots of that detail is great, but budiling it up from scratch again is going to suck. Gaijin42 (talk) 20:19, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Surely. We'll have to work on the tone somewhat, but we can always solve verifiability issues by prefacing statements with something such as "According to the Library of Congress,..." Nyttend (talk) 20:42, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, copying text straight from another page to build up an article is not a good thing -- we should always try to put information in our own concepts, not plagiarize someone else's. (Anyone want to take a swing at fixing Ron Nelson, come to think of it?) --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:48, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Agreed that plagiarism is uncool, but this can be dealt with appropriately {{PD-notice}}. Not technically necessary, but more ethical. CharlieEchoTango (contact) 20:51, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Don't we have tons of examples of "plagarism" of articles copied from PD encyclopedias etc? In any case, I will try to paraphrase where possible, but initial revisions may be copied. I will be sure to use the "includes text from " templates. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:02, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Copyright and COI issue

After I deleted Jerusalem Prayer Team as a copyvio, Rjmains asked me for help with the copyright issue, and the source webpage now bears an unambiguous CC/GFDL release statement that's valid under our copyright policy. If I remember rightly, there's a bit of a COI issue involved here, which complicates the issue. I'm in the middle of preparation for finals week in grad school, so I can't spare the mental energy to give this situation the attention it deserves; could someone please help Rjmains? You'd do well to read his talk page and the deleted article before advising him or doing anything else. Nyttend (talk) 06:09, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Mike Evans (journalist) was also deleted as a copyvio, but I'd guess (from what I remember of the situation) that the copyright issue is now resolved for it as well. Nyttend (talk) 06:11, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Closers wanted for WP:V RfC

Hi. The RfC regarding the lead section of WP:V ended a little over a month ago. There was an agreement that it would be closed by User:Newyorkbrad, User:Black Kite and User:HJ Mitchell. However, this has not happened because of the low availability of two of those.

Would anyone be interested in joining the process so that it can get back on track?

There is an existing understanding that closers should be three in number, be admins in good standing, not have participated in discussions leading up to this point and not have commented elsewhere in such a way that their impartiality might be questioned.

It's a responsibility to be taken seriously. A minor change is at stake, but it is one about which there are strongly-held views. It's also the RfC with the highest ever level of participation on Wikipedia. So there is a lot to read and it will probably not be an open and shut case.

Any takers? If so, please put yourself forward by making your mark below. --FormerIP (talk) 15:52, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Tempted. Am I wrong, or is that RFC archived twice on that page? UltraExactZZ ^Said ~ Did 16:18, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I guess that will make it twice as much work. --FormerIP (talk) 16:46, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Could be persuaded. Depends how urgent it is, as there's a lot to read and I'm busy this weekend. Worm^TT · (talk) 16:21, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it is urgent is the sense that a decision is needed by 10 am. But I think editors want to know that it is moving in a forward direction. --FormerIP (talk) 16:46, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm willing to step in if the two above me cannot or someone below me has more enthusiasm.--v/r - TP 16:32, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I could do it... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:39, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Maybe SlimVirgin could work with you. Leaky Caldron 16:41, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll have plenty of time starting Monday and am willing to wade through the stuff. --regentspark (comment) 16:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Excellent. I don't have the time to do it justice before Monday anyway so that suits me. If Worm will join us, we'll have the requisite three admins. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:59, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

From my limited knowledge of the three of you, that should be good. But can I suggest making yourselves known on the WP:V talkpage first? There has been a little concern there about the risk of a runaway train of biased and incompetent admins. Yes, its a tautological concept. --FormerIP (talk) 17:03, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

• just checking but are the victims... er I mean volunteers familar with the term hospital pass?? Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:18, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. If no one has mentioned it at the RfC by tomorrow, I'll mention it then. Lots of reading to do... yay! Worm^TT · (talk) 21:50, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Government: "A government can also be agreed to in order to close very contentious RFCs. A notable example of this was the 2011 closure of the RFC on the "not truth" issue in the Verifiability policy text. While in principle any univolved Admin is free to close a RFC, in this case it was decided that a group of 3 editors should have the exclusive right to do this. While no other Admin was formally prohibited from ignoring that decision and close that RFC him/herself, in practice any such closure would have been swiftly reverted." Count Iblis (talk) 19:29, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

That proposal was pretty clearly rejected, Count Iblis -- taking the Rejected tag off is not a good idea. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:04, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I've rewritten it to reflect current practice. Count Iblis (talk) 20:51, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment It is my understanding that the permission class of a user that the Wikipedia community trusts to specifically judge consensus already exists. If we're going to limit this close to a certain class of editor based on permissions held why not entrust it to the people we already trust to make difficult decisions regarding consensus(send it to 'crat chat)?Crazynas ^t 20:42, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

In no way is the above meant to disparage or attack the neutrality or objectiveness or ability to judge consensus of any of the administrators that have volunteered, more of a procedural question. Crazynas ^t 20:50, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you're understanding is correct, actually, Crazynas. Admins/bureaucrats don't have the exclusive privilege of closing RfCs. --FormerIP (talk) 21:13, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

No I do understand that, which is why my second sentence was conditional. This is a question for this particular closure (and others of this nature) why we're limiting the close to a subset of editors that are not selected primarily for their ability to judge consensus when there already exists a usergroup that is scrutinized on their neutrality and ability to gauge consensus. (in other words, allow any editor in good standing to assist the close, or limit it to the well defined group of users that are promoted based on this specific type of trust to judge consensus). Crazynas ^t 21:29, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh I see. Yes, actually, that makes sense, except bureaucrats do not present a very large pool. I think, in this particular case it is just a case of consensus, for better or worse, between involved editors that they wanted admins. --FormerIP (talk) 21:37, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Closure of image compromise at Muhammad

I'd be grateful if an uninvolved admin could try and close the image compromise discussion at Talk:Muhammad/images. The exact section link is Talk:Muhammad/images#Proposed_image_solution, although there is other further discussion elsewhere on the talk page. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:53, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

• I'd certainly hope no one claims that wall of text is a closable discussion. Hold an RfC or something, but that's just an argument that is difficult to parse and too long to follow. Voting is evil, but unorganized walls of text are worse. There is just no way outsiders to that discussion could possibly follow or comment intelligently on it without spending at least 30 minutes. It currently stands (if I counted correctly) at more than 31,000 words. That's a third of a novel. At most I'd hope it would be closed as "hold an RfC". Disclaimer/comment: I personally believe a handful of editors are creating these walls more-or-less on purpose in an attempt to get their way on censorship related issues. WP:NOT's talk page being a good example, with the pregnancy image debate being another one (but it at least was readable). Hobit (talk) 22:06, 8 December 2011 (UTC)