Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

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Please append {{Doing}} to the discussion's entry you are closing so that no one duplicates your effort. When finished, replace it with {{Close}} or {{Done}} and an optional note, and consider sending a {{Ping}} to the editor who placed the request. Where a formal closure is not needed, reply with {{Not done}}. After addressing a request, please mark the {{Initiated}} template with |done=yes. ClueBot III will automatically archive requests marked with {{Already done}}, {{Close}}, {{Done}} {{Not done}}, and {{Resolved}}.

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Requests for comment

Talk:Awdal#RFC - Habr Awal/Isaaq clan

(Initiated 143 days ago on 24 December 2023) ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Tasnim News Agency

(Initiated 93 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)

RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes?

(Initiated 61 days ago on 15 March 2024) Ready to be closed. Charcoal feather (talk) 17:02, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Before I try to close this I wanted to see if any editors believed I am WP:INVOLVED. I have no opinions on the broader topic, but I have previously participated in a single RfC on whether a specific article should include an infobox. I don't believe this makes me involved, as my participation was limited and on a very specific question, which is usually insufficient to establish an editor as involved on the broader topic, but given the strength of opinion on various sides I expect that any result will be controversial, so I wanted to raise the question here first.

If editors present reasonable objections within the next few days I won't close; otherwise, unless another editor gets to it first, I will do so. BilledMammal (talk) 04:43, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 60 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)

 Doing... —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 01:22, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Libertarian Party (Australia)#Conservatism

(Initiated 47 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 46 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 39 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 37 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 37 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)

Talk:International Churches of Christ#Request for Comment on About Self sourcing on beliefs section of a religious organization’s article

(Initiated 30 days ago on 15 April 2024) No new comments in eight days. TarnishedPath^talk 01:33, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Havana syndrome#RfC on the presentation of the Havana Syndrome investigative report content

(Initiated 20 days ago on 25 April 2024) No new comments in 12 days. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 08:52, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2024 United States presidential election#RfC: Define the threshold in national polls to include candidates in the infobox - new proposal

(Initiated 0 days' time on 16 May 2024) An RfC on exactly the same matter was literally closed a few days ago. Prcc27 (talk) 15:44, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Deletion discussions

XFD backlog

V	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Total
CfD	0	0	19	15	34
TfD	0	0	0	1	1
MfD	0	0	1	3	4
FfD	0	0	2	4	6
RfD	0	0	22	50	72
AfD	0	0	0	9	9

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

(Initiated 55 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 54 days ago on 22 March 2024) HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 20:38, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 10#Category:19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Réunion

(Initiated 53 days ago on 23 March 2024) HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 13:39, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 22 days ago on 24 April 2024) HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 20:38, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Other types of closing requests

Talk:Maersk Hangzhou#Second merge proposal

(Initiated 112 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 106 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:Pharnavaz_I_of_Iberia#Requested_move_6_February_2024

(Initiated 99 days ago on 6 February 2024) Requested move open for nearly 2 months. Natg 19 (talk) 17:46, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Has now been open for three months. 66.99.15.163 (talk) 19:23, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 93 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:Rupert_Sheldrake#Talkpage_"This_article_has_been_mentioned_by_a_media_organization:"_BRD

(Initiated 29 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)

It doesn't seem to me that there is a consensus here to do anything, with most editors couching their statements as why it might (or might not) be done rather than why it should (or should not). I will opine that I'm not aware there's any precedent to exclude {{Press}} for any reason and that it would be very unusual, but I don't think that's good enough reason to just overrule Hipal. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 01:01, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Forest_management#Merge_proposal

(Initiated 17 days ago on 28 April 2024) As the proposer I presume I cannot close this. It was started more than a week ago and opinions differed somewhat. Chidgk1 (talk) 13:46, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Press_Your_Luck_scandal#Separate_articles

(Initiated 13 days ago on 2 May 2024) Please review this discussion. --Jax 0677 (talk) 01:42, 11 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Agroforestry#Merge_proposal

(Initiated 12 days ago on 3 May 2024) As the proposer I presume I cannot close this. It was started more than a week ago and opinions differed somewhat. Chidgk1 (talk) 13:46, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection

Report

Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (29 out of 7752 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Type Summary Admin Neil Hartigan 2024-05-15 17:16 2025-05-15 17:16 edit WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Buzzards-Watch Me Work RoySmith Tad Jude 2024-05-15 17:16 2025-05-15 17:16 edit WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Buzzards-Watch Me Work RoySmith Minneapolis 2024-05-15 17:15 2025-05-15 17:15 edit WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Buzzards-Watch Me Work RoySmith Draft:CaseOh 2024-05-15 02:40 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Dennis Brown Poot 2024-05-15 00:14 2025-05-15 00:14 edit,move Persistent sock puppetry; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Spore (2008 video game) 2024-05-14 23:39 2024-11-14 23:39 edit,move Persistent vandalism from (auto)confirmed accounts; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Jewish Institute for National Security of America 2024-05-14 06:51 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement Doug Weller Nava Mau 2024-05-14 03:45 indefinite edit,move Persistent disruptive editing: per RFPP; will also log as CTOPS action Daniel Case Andrey Belousov 2024-05-14 03:31 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:RUSUKR Daniel Case Category:Hamas 2024-05-13 23:01 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement Izno Sde Teiman detention camp 2024-05-13 20:49 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:ARBPIA Ymblanter Çankaya Mansion 2024-05-13 14:18 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement, WP:GS/AA Rosguill Second Battle of Latakia 2024-05-13 13:39 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement ScottishFinnishRadish Alien 2024-05-13 13:23 indefinite move lower to semi, time heals; requested at WP:RfPP The Night Watch Shays' Rebellion 2024-05-13 08:08 2025-05-13 08:08 move dang it. Not used to move protection, I guess.... Dennis Brown Chuck Buchanan Jr. 2024-05-13 02:01 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Animal stereotypes of Jews in Palestinian discourse 2024-05-13 01:24 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per ARBPIA Daniel Case Michael Ealy 2024-05-13 01:22 2025-05-13 01:22 edit,move Persistent vandalism: racist swinery Drmies Template:Nelson, New Zealand 2024-05-13 00:51 indefinite move Highly visible template that is vulnerable to macron vandalism Schwede66 Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2024-05-12 21:47 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per ARBPIA Daniel Case Interracial marriage 2024-05-12 19:14 2024-11-12 19:14 edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry RoySmith Template:FAQ/FAQ 2024-05-12 10:48 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Justlettersandnumbers User:Arjayay/Rang HD 2024-05-12 10:46 indefinite edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry: WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Rang HD -- requested at WP:RFPP Favonian Rangiya 2024-05-12 09:27 2024-10-16 06:56 edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry: confirmed socks edit the article Ymblanter Vaush 2024-05-12 07:35 indefinite edit,move per WP:CT/BLP Primefac Timeline of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in January–June 2015 2024-05-12 04:52 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement Johnuniq Later-no-harm criterion 2024-05-12 03:07 2024-06-12 03:07 edit,move Edit warring / content dispute: Protected per a complaint at WP:AN3 EdJohnston Draft:Lewis Raymond Taylor 2024-05-11 20:41 2024-08-11 20:41 edit,move Persistent sock puppetry; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Lewis Raymond Taylor 2024-05-11 20:35 indefinite create Persistent sockpuppetry JJMC89

WP:AN/CXT

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is consensus to move forward with Mathglot's proposal (see #Proposal), which will cause a mass deletion of the pages on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review, with the option to save certain pages from deletion within a two-week window. As part of the proposal, there is also a consensus to amend WP:X2 in the manner S Marshall specifies in this edit.

Opposition to this change revolved around the argument that the articles which would qualify for mass deletion should be improved instead of deleted. Elinruby proposed alternatively that we should focus on recruiting editors fluent in foreign languages, Mathglot initially proposed to mass-draftify the articles instead of deleting, and Sam Walton argued that the articles contained valid content that didn't deserve mass deletion.

A majority of other editors, however, argued that many of the articles involved are poorly sourced BLPs that have the potential to harm their subjects if left unimproved. Given the large number of articles and low number of editors involved, it will likely be months before these articles are improved. Additionally, a user who is not fluent in both of the languages involved in a translation will not be able to adequately evaluate the validity of the machine-translated content; the article may appear unproblematic to such a user, but the content translation tool could have subtly altered the meaning of statements to something false.

In short, the consensus is that in the long run, the encyclopedia would be better off if these articles were mass deleted. Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 23:22, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Addendum: The process for working out how to cause the mass deletion has been established. To mark an article for retention, please strike it out. To unambiguously identify an article for deletion, include the word "kill" in the same line as the article. The articles will be deleted on or after June 6, 2017. Thank you for your patience. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:16, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

---

Hi, Wikipedians. I wanted to give you an update on WP:AN/CXT. Since that discussion was closed about eight months or so ago, we've cleared out about 10% of the articles involved, which were the easiest 10%. The work is now slowing down as more careful examination is needed and as the number of editors drops off, and I'm sad to report that we're still finding BLP issues. The temporary speedy deletion criterion, X2, is of little use because it's phrased as a special case of WP:SNOW and I'm not being allowed to improve it. The "it's notable/AFD is not for cleanup" culture at AFD is making it hard for me to remove these articles as well, so I'm spending hours trying to get rid of material generated by a script in seconds. I'm sorry but I'm discouraged and I give up. Recommend the remainder are nuked to protect the encyclopaedia.—S Marshall T/C 23:15, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

For more context on this issue, please see Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#X2 revision. Cheers, Tazerdadog (talk) 23:33, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Update: This link is now located at .../Archive_61#X2 revision. Mathglot (talk) 01:10, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on this, S Marshall, and I don't fault you for your choice. - Dank (push to talk) 19:49, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

• Isn't there some way to use the sortware to delete all of these in bulk, if only as a one-time thing? Seems like a huge waste of time if it's being done manually by hand. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 00:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

• Easily doable as a batch-deletion. I could have it wrapped up in 15 minutes. Unfortunately community consensus did not lean towards approving that option. In fact, most CXT creations which have been reviewed needed cleanup but turned out to be acceptable articles. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 21:00, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

I would support a nuke, a mass draftification, or some loosening of X2. The current situation is not really tenable due to the density of BLP violations. However, ultimately, the broader community needs to discuss what the appropriate action is under the assumption that we are not going to get much more volunteer time to manually check these articles. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:54, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

• No, the broader community doesn't need to discuss that. It's completely needless and the community has had a huge discussion already. All that needs to happen is for WT:CSD to let me make one bold edit to a CSD that was badly-worded from the get-go, and we'll all be back on track. That's it. The only problem we have is that there are so many editors who want to tell me how to do it, and so few editors willing to get off their butts and do it.—S Marshall T/C 19:34, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

• Restored from archive, as it's unhelpful for this to remain unresolved.—S Marshall T/C 17:30, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support systematic nuke/ revision of X2 to enable this mess to be cleared up. It's not fair that @S Marshall: is being prevented from improving the encyclopedia like this. Amisom (talk) 15:21, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support @S Marshall:'s revision or a nuke from orbit. I wasn't active when this situation was being discussed originally, but having now read over the discourse on the matter, it is clear that our current approach isn't working. No one else is stepping up to help S Marshall do this absurd amount of reviewing, leaving us stuck with thousands of machine-translated BLP violations. It's all well and good to say that AfD isn't cleanup and deletion solves nothing and we should let articles flower patiently into beautiful gardens, but if no one's pulling the weeds and watering the sprouts, the garden isn't a garden, it's a weed-riddled disaster. Give the gardener a weed whacker already. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 09:17, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support the bold edit required to X2; it's true, of course, that AfD is not clean up- but neither should it be a barrier to clean up. In any case, moving a backlog from one place to another is hardly helpful. — O Fortuna! ^{Imperatrix mundi.} 09:39, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• Question @Elinruby and Yngvadottir: As users who (from a quick glance) seem to have been active looking through these articles, do you think the quality is on average worse than a typical random encyclopedia article, and if so, bad enough that speedy deletion would be preferable to allowing them to be improved over time as with any other article? I don't mean to imply that this is necessarily the case, but I think it should be the bar for concluding whether mass speedy deletion is the correct answer. Sam Walton (talk) 11:22, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• (I wish I'd seen this earlier; thanks for the ping. I feel I have totally let down S Marshall; I just couldn't stand it any more.) On the whole ... yes. Support deletion of those remaining that have not been marked as ok/fixed. As I tried to explain in the initial discussion, the basic premise here is incorrect: as it states somewhere at Pages needing translation into English, a machine translation is worse than no article. It will almost always be either almost impossible to read, incorrect (for example, mistranslating names as ordinary nouns, or omitting negatives ...) or both. Some of these translations have been ok; many have been woefully incomplete (just the start of the lede), and they all require extremely careful checking. Yes, what lies in wait may include BLP violations. I sympathize with the article creators, and I am usually an inclusionist; I put hours of work into checking and improving some of these, and I'm not the only one. But please, enough. We'd wind up with decent articles faster if these were deleted, and the majority that are bad do a disservice to their topics. Yngvadottir (talk) 12:52, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

• You haven't let me down. You've given me a truckload of support with this.—S Marshall T/C 13:47, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

• Still oppose mass deletion -- @Sam Walton: What she said: Thank you the ping; this discussion was seeming a bit reiterative and I had mentally checked out. Like @Yngvadottir: I have put considerable effort into some of these articles. In fact, two or three of them are my own translations, which I would not have attempted without the translation tool, btw. Some are from my translations on French law, and I think 1) they cover important and previously missing topics and 2) they are high-quality technical translations. In most cases they speak for themselves. A couple are not perfect, reflecting the state of the French article, yes, and need work. But while these articles -- I am speaking here specifically of my own translations that appear on this list -- may be imperfect they are still reasonable stubs that can be built upon, and they also support more important articles by helping to prevent redlinks in some of the top-level articles on French law and also the French colonial legacy in Rwanda and the Congos etc. See Biens mal acquis for example. That was painful but I am proud of that translation. I have also encountered other people's translations on that list that made me proud of Wikipedia; the one on a cryptology algorithm for example comes to mind, or Essai sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations. I am an inclusionist, I have to admit, and yes yes, great wrongs and all, but I do think it is important that (for example) articles on Congolese history mention that there have been civil wars (beyond "unrest", and no, I am not kidding). The worst BLP problems I am aware of are in the articles on Dilma Rousseff and I don't believe they are on this list or were created with the tool. Some of the worst PNT pages I have seen predate the translation tool, for instance Notre-Dame de la Garde, which took me years to finish, and Annees folles which is as we speak an incredible mess requiring research in addition to copy-editing and translation. Yngvadottir is correct in saying that inappropriately translated proper nouns is a frequent problem. I recall a Hubert de Garde de Vins who became "wine", and yes, this did reduce the sentence to gibberish. It's annoying enough to make me wanna regex. But. Not mass deletion. I suggest case-by-case intervention in the case of egregious problems with particular users. It's not as though more that a very few users even try to translate. Or perhaps we should revise the criteria for translation user privileges. But even there -- one of the people tagged as delete on sight has created a number of skeleton articles about Quebec. These articles should be be fleshed out not deleted; we should have articles about Quebec. Some of the authors are unquestionably notable, the equivalent in my small culture of Simone de Beauvoir or Colette or Andre Gide. It seems to me that an article that says: this author was born, drank coffee, won the Governor-General's award and wrote these books, is better than having nothing at all. The placeholder takes the topic from unknown unknown to known unknown, or little-known in this context, I guess. We do know a little more about the folk dances of Honduras because there is a very bad article, for which I have done what I could. There are many different problems with the articles on this list. Someone has created multiple articles about, apparently every madrassa in central Tunis. Who am I? Some of the articles I have rescued at PNT were about the medieval wines of Provence, which might seem equally trivial to some. Some of the important but very flawed articles I have noted maybe should not be in the article mainspace -- I am thinking of the ones about the Virgin of Guadeloupe, pretty much everything flagged Mexican historical documents, the Spanish procession of the flowers, etc)--but an interested Spanish speaker could build these out. These topics are unquestionably notable. We should have an article about the Virgin of Guadeloupe, really, people, we should. My suggestion would be recruiting. We desperately need a Portuguese speaker and additional help with Spanish. Some of the unreferenced BLPs sitting around appear to be very fine even though they are unreferenced, and may in fact veer into fluff. But they don't approach liability for libel if that's the concern. I avoid them, personally, because I have in the past deciphered Abidjan l33t about a beloved soccer player, only to be told that we don't as a matter of policy consider these leagues notable. Fine then, they should not be on the PNT to-do list. I'd love to see the translation workflow improved but we should be encouraging the people expanding our horizons is what I think. I am sorry for the very long answer but I appear to be a voice wailing in the desert on this topic and I have now said pretty much the above many times now. Nobody seems to care so oh well, it's not like I don't have other work I can do on the history of the Congo and figuring out what Dilma Rousseff had to say about her impeachment. Reliable sources say she was railroaded (NPR for one) and that is not included in the article at all right now. The articles on Congolese history airily write off genocide and slaughter as "some unrest". In a world where these things are true I really don't care whether on not we find a reference for that Eurovision winner. Someone who cares can do that and I think ethnocentrism is a bigger issue on Wikipedia that these translation attempts. Move the ones that don't meet a minimum standard to some draft space or something. Educate the people who are creating this articles instead of shaking your finger at them. The article creation process is daunting enough and I myself have had to explain to new page patrollers that this punk band is in fact seminal whether you have heard of them or not and whether or not they sing in a language that you can understand. But I have been here enough to do that and I assure you, most people will not. Wikipedia wants to know why its editors grow fewer cough cough wikipedia, lookee here. I will shortly wikilink some of the examples I mention above for easier show-and-tell, for the benefit of anyone who has read this far. Thanks. Elinruby (talk) 20:38, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

• Support removal of these attempted articles (especially to avoid BLP problems laying around). Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:00, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• Support [1] I'd say "do a disservice to their topics" is a mild way of putting it. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:08, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose blanket deletion. Having just checked a bunch of the remaining articles I found plenty of perfectly reasonable, non-BLP articles here, and any bad articles I did find were certainly not in greater number than you would find by hitting Random Article, nor were they particularly awful; the worst offenses I found were poor but understandable English. There's a lot of valid content here, especially on non-English topics which we need to do a better job of writing about. FWIW I'll happily put some time into going through this list. Sam Walton (talk) 14:12, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Please take a look at the 20 articles I just reviewed here; none had any issues greater than needing a quick copyedit. Sam Walton (talk) 14:38, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
    • @Samwalton9: Thanks. It's been a long, hard slog. I appreciate it if any of these can be saved. However, did you check for accuracy? It's possible for a machine translation to be misleadingly wrong. And the miserable translation tool the WMF provides usually doesn't even attempt filmographies: look at that specific section of Asier Etxeandia. This is not acceptable in a BLP. Somebody who reads the original language (Spanish? Catalan?) needs to go through that article sentence by sentence and film by film. Unfortunately it's not a matter of notability (that's almost always attested to by the original article), it's a matter of whether we have time to save this article. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:27, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
      • That names of works likely don't get automatically translated properly is a good point that I hadn't considered, thanks for pointing that out. If that's one of the primary issues then I'd favour a semi-automated removal of "filmography" or similar sections, if possible. It just seems that there's a lot of perfectly good content in here. Sam Walton (talk) 15:47, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
        • I looked at the first one you listed, it is a mass of non-BLP compliant (non-neutral, no-inline source) material. Letting stuff like that hang around is not just bad for that BLP but as an example for other BLPs to be created and remain non-compliant. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:08, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
          • Sam Walton, you didn't answer Yngvadottir's question. Can you speak the source languages? Remember that because of the defective way that software feature was implemented, you cannot assume that the translator speaks English and in many cases they obviously couldn't. (In practice the source language matters a lot because the software accuracy varies by the language pair. Indo-European languages are often but not always okay, and Spanish-English translations have particularly high accuracy, approaching 80%. Japanese-English, for example, has much, much lower accuracy.) So the correctness of the translation must be, and can only be, checked by someone with dual fluency in the source language and English.

            In the real world you can establish some rules-of-thumb. For example, you can quite safely assume that everything translated by Rosiestep is appropriate and can be retained. The editorial skills of the different translators varied very widely.

            All in all the best solution is for a human who's fluent in the source language and English to look at each of these articles and form an intelligent judgment. The thing that's preventing this solution is that, having looked at the content and formed the judgment, I can't then remove a defective article, because the defective wording in WP:CSD#X2 encourage sysops to decline the deletion unless it's a WP:SNOW case... so I've got to start a full AfD. Every. Single. Time. The effort for me to clean up is out of all proportion to the effort editors put into creating the damn things with a script.

            If you don't want the articles nuked (and that's a reasonable position), then please support the X2 revision I have proposed.—S Marshall T/C 17:37, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

When you say "the first one you listed" are you talking about Tomokazu Matsuyama? Yes, if so. it is indeed an unreferenced BLP but... I suspect five minutes of quality time with Google would take it out of that category, and it's essentially a resume, something like the placeholder articles I mentioned above. I think that perhaps we are better off knowing that this Japanese contemporary artist exists. Why not do a wikiproject to improve these like the one we just had on Africa top-level articles? It does seem to me that you could use a break from this wikitask and a little gamification might well get er done. I share your sentiment that in some ways we have our fingers in the dyke here, but the dyke does serve a purpose I think...In short I respectfully disagree with the current approach to these articles. Elinruby (talk) 21:05, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Break

@Alanscottwalker: I found a reference for his influences in less time than it took to add the ref code....Elinruby (talk) 19:43, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Elinruby: Did you mean to ping me back here, many days after I commented, to tell me you found a pretty crappy commercial source? When I looked at it awhile ago, the article was filled with non-npov/non-referenced/BLP violating text. It is, thus, no comfort that since I commented, awhile ago, someone has according to their edit 'removed the worst of the puffery', and you added that crappy commercial source - its still not policy compliant (even if it is marginally better, since I flagged it) Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:03, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

@Alanscottwalker: I brought you back here to tell you that while it may be have been unsourced, fixing this is extremely trivial. I don't give a hoot about this particular article, but his gallery is not a "crappy commercial source" imho and if you want people to fix then article then you should enunciate your problem with it. Sorry if that doesn't fit your preconceptions Elinruby (talk) 00:51, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Adding a non-independent crappy commercial source is not fixing. It is selling. We are not in the business of selling. What you call "trivial" sourcing does nothing to fix just makes it worse - "trivial" should have tipped you off. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 08:25, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@AlanscottWalker: Um no.... I was using the term in its software development meaning. I apologize for picking the wrong dialect to make my point. I thought, since you were critiquing the software tool, you might know something about software even though you don't seem to be familiar with the features of this instance of it, or for that matter with a representative sample of its users. Commericial, hmm. The same could be said of my article about the thousand-year-old Papal vintages, you know. That vineyard is selling wine today. Is that article also commercial crap? Since it is a direct translation from French Wikipedia, are you saying that French Wikipedia is commercial crap? You really don't want to make me argue this point, seriously. Incidentally what is with the arbitrary insertion of a break in the discussion? Consider, for just a moment, that I might actually have a point. Entertain the notion for a minute. Why are you belittling my statement? Elinruby (talk) 21:57, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Critiquing software tool? No, I was clearly critiquing an article in English on the English Wikipedia. And I was referring to the crappy commercial source - you pinged me, remember, so that I would know you added it to the article. That was not done in French, it was done in English. As for break, that is your doing, why should I have any idea why you added the crappy source, and then wanted to tell me about it in this break. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:54, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@Alanscottwalker: Let me use small words. CTX is software. Bad translation can happen with or without software. Lack of sources can happen without software. In software development "trivial" means "easy". Do you see now? Be careful who you patronize next time. 01:07, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

@S Marshall:I'd consider supporting your proposal, perhaps, once I have read it, but could you provide a link for we mere mortals who don't normally follow these proposals? I also disagree that all of these articles require a bilingual editor; some just need a few references and/or a copy edit. But you know I disagree at this point. And if you do, god help us, nuke all of these articles as opposed to one of the other courses of action I have (again) suggested above, please move mine to my draft space if you find them that objectionable. Some sort of clue as to what your issue is would also be nice. Elinruby (talk) 19:43, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

• The revision I want to make is this one. The intended effect is so that a human editor, who has reviewed the script-generated content and given it due consideration and exercise of judgment, can recommend the content for deletion and receive assistance rather than bureaucracy from our admin corps.

  The basic problem with these articles is that they are script generated and the scripts are unreliable. Exactly how unreliable they are varies according to the language pair, so for example Spanish-English translations are relatively good, while for example Japanese-English translations are relatively poor; and whether the articles contain specific grammatical constructions that the scripts have trouble with.

  You can test its accuracy, and I recommend you do. The script it used, during the problem period, was Google translate. I've just picked some sample text and run it through Google translate in various language pairs, first into a different language and then the translated text back into English, to see how it did. These were the results:-

Source text	Korean	Punjabi	Farsi
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition	Fourth and seventh years ago, our ancestors left the continent, a new country born in Liberty.	Four score and seven years on this continent, first our father a new nation, brought freedom and dedicated to the proposition	Four score and seven years ago our fathers on this continent, a new nation, the freedom brought, and dedicated to the proposition
And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.	And when he saw the multitude, he went up to the mountain, and his disciples came, and opened his mouth, and taught him, saying, Blessed are the souls of the poor: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.	Jesus saw the crowds up on the mountain, and when he sat, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth, and the poor in spirit was teaching, that theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Yes: interestingly the algorithm interpolated "Jesus" into the text.)	And seeing the multitudes, he went to the mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit: for the kingdom of heaven.
Editors agree not to publish biographical material concerning living people unless it is accurate	The editors agree not to post electrical materials about living people unless they are the correct person.	To publish the biographical material about the editor, it is right to disagree,	Editors agree to publish biographies of living people, unless it is accurate.

I encourage you to try these and other examples with different language pairs. Can you see why you need to speak the original language in order to copyedit accurately?—S Marshall T/C 22:00, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

But that is not a fair test since it magnifies any word choice errors. There *will* be errors, yes. We clean them up at WP:PNT --- ALL THE TIME. And no, it is not necessary to speak the language always, though it certainly help. I really suggest that maybe you just need a wikibreak from this task. Bad english can mostly be fixed. There are the occasional mysteries, yes. There are colloquialisms, yes. This does not justify wholesale destruction of good content. I was just here to get the link as I mentioned your proposal to one of my PNT colleagues; I need to go but I'll look at your proposal the next time I log in Elinruby (talk) 00:46, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

The liquor was strong but the meat was rotten.

Translation wonks will recognize the (apocryphal) story behind the sentence above, concerning literal mistranslations exacerbated from there-and-back translation. (The story perhaps originated after the NY World's Fair of 1964, which had a computer translation exhibit in the Russian Pavilion.) In any case, I'm just getting up to speed on this topic and will comment in more detail later.

Briefly: yes, you definitely have to speak the language to copyedit accurately. I'm actually in favor of a modification to WP:MACHINETRANSLATION to make it stronger. I fully agree with the worse than nothing statement in the policy now, but I'd go one step further: the only thing worse than a machine translation in an encyclopedia, is a machine translation that has been copyedited by a capable and talented monolingual (even worse: by someone who knows a bit of the language and doesn't know what s/he doesn't know) so that the result is beautiful, grammatical, smooth, stylish, wonderful English prose. As a translator, puh-LEEZ leave the crappy, horrible, machine-gobbledygook so that a translator can spot it easily, and fix it accurately. Copyediting it into proper English makes our job much harder.

If it's too painful to leave it exposed in main space, perhaps moving to Draft space could be an alternative. In fact, rather than a mass-delete, why not a mass-Draft-ify? (Apologies if someone has already said this, I'm still reading the thread.) More later. Mathglot (talk) 01:31, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

mass-Draftify would work for me. And yeah I disagree with you too a little, but I knew that. My point is, we all agree that an issue exists so what do we do? I also have some more reading to do before I comment on what S Marshall (talk · contribs) is proposing. I have a story about the policy but I want to make sure it pertains to this discussion. Elinruby (talk) 22:03, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

• Elinruby is certainly correct to say this "wasn't a fair test", because going through the algorithm twice doubles the error rate. But a lot of people reading this discussion will speak only English so this is the only way I can show them what the problem is ---- without that context, they may well find this, and the original discussion at WP:AN/CXT, rather impenetrable because they won't understand the gravity of the concerns.

  It was even more unfair because it was me who selected the examples and I don't like machine translations. In order to illustrate my point I went with non-European languages and convoluted sentence structures. If you tried the same exercise with a verse from "Green Eggs and Ham" then you'd get perfect translations 99% of the time. (It tripped me up with the Sermon on the Mount because quite clearly, the algorithm recognised that it was dealing with a Bible verse, which I found fascinating.)

  The script is particularly likely to do badly with double-negatives, not-unless constructions, adverbs of time ("since", "during", "for a hundred years"), and the present progressive tense, in some language pairs.

  It would certainly be possible to construct a fairer text using more random samples of language.—S Marshall T/C 10:27, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

@S Marshall: alright, I grant you that there aren't many bilinguals here. This *is* the problem in my view. I'll also specify that I don't claim expertise outside the Romance languages, and very little for some of those. But allow me please, since I know you speak or at least read French, to propose a better example. There are common translation errors that can occur, depending on which tool exactly was used. The improperly-translated name (nom propre) problem was real but is now mostly fixed. The fact that a writer whose novels were written in French gave them titles in French should come as a shock to nobody. The correct format for a bibliography in such cases *is* title in the actual language of the words in the book, webpage or whatever. Translated title, if the title is not in English, goes in the optional trans-title (or is it trans_title?) field of the cite template. Language switch to be set if at all possible. If it is not, let me know, and I can reduce the number of foreign words that English wikipedia needs to look at. So. In all languages, pretty much, words like fire and sky and take tend to be both native to the original people and likely to carry additional meanings, as in take an oath, take a bus, take a break etc. On the other hand what the software tool does do extremely well is know the correct translation for arcane or specialized terms, often loanwords, like caravel or apse or stronghold. These words are in my recognition vocabulary not my working vocabulary and using the tool in certain instances saves many lookups. When there is a strong degree of ambiguity or divergence in meaning (like the example on my user page) then THEN yes a fluent or very advanced user is needed. There are known divergences that a bilingual would spot that an English speaker would not. Sure. "Je l'aime beaucoup, mon mari" is a good example. But the fact that this is true does not prove that every line of every one of these articles still needs to be checked before they can be permitted to continue to sully Wikipedia, or that each of these lines needs to be checked by you personally. If you feel overwhelmed, take a break. Elinruby (talk) 21:57, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

• I speak English, French, German, Gibberish and Filth.  :) Joking aside -- I'm not concerned about noms propres. I'm concerned when the script perverts or even inverts the meaning of the source text. It's quite hard to give you an example because the examples I've discovered have all been deleted, and there's only the one non-English language we share, but perhaps an administrator will confirm for you the sorry history of Daphné Bürki. It was created as a machine translation of fr:Daphné Bürki and the en.wiki version said she was married to Sylvain Quimène, citing this source. Check it out; the source doesn't say that. In fact she was married to Travis Bürki, at least at one time (can't say whether she's still married to him). We had a biographical article where the subject was married to the wrong bloke. It's not okay to keep these around.

  Draftification is exactly the same as deleting them. Nobody is going to fix these up in draft space. The number of editors who're competent to fix them is small, and the amount of other translation work those editors have on their hands is very large, and it includes a lot of mainspace work that's more urgent than fixing raw machine translations in draft space, and it always will; we can get back to fixing draft space articles about individual artworks when every Leibniz-prizewinning scientist and every European politician with a seat on their national parliament has a biography. (We're on target never to achieve that. The democratic process means new politicians get elected and replaced faster than their biographies get translated from foreign-language wikipedias.)

  I don't object to draftifying these articles if that's the face-saving solution that lets us pretend we're being all inclusionist about it, but it would be more honest to nuke them all from orbit.—S Marshall T/C 00:51, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

• I am just coming back to this. I agree about the relatively few translators and the large amount of work, and yet, we so fundamentally disagree. Some of the designated articles do are, in my opinion, within the top percentiles in article quality. Others have in fact been fixed up. You and I consulted about one once. Others, yes, need work, and I at least do get to articles that I say I will get to. Slowly, at times, sure. I have no problem with articles that don't meet a certain standard not going to mainspace, but I don't see why you singly out the translation tool as your criterion. I mention noms propres because I have mentioned one above from Notre-Dame de la Garde where Commander de Vins came across as wine, and this did make the sentence gibberish. But that article did not come out of the CTX tool. Ihave no idea what the Leibniz prize is, but I am not sure it's more notable, in the abstract, than Marcel Proust, but fine. Work on that all you like, sure. But don't tell me it's more important that some mention in Congolese history that there have been civil wars, or I will just laugh at you. The sort of error you mention above with Daphné Büki -- I'll look at it myself shortly, if it's from French I don't need an admin -- can be made by anyone who knows less than they think they do. Automated translation not needed. Now, I propose that since we are talking about this we work out some sort of saner translation process. For instance, if African football leagues are by policy not notable, as someone once told me, fine then, the article should not be in the translation queue. Put something in there about a minimum number of references, require the use of trans-title in the references, whatever is agreed upon is ok with me. Your proposed change would preserve most of by not all of the articles that have been worked on, which is a slight improvement I guess, except you'll also nuke the 3-4 articles that needed nothing and a whole lot of biography that I've avoid because people tend to write me snooty messages to inform me that the person isn't notable, and why waste work when articles like History of Nicaragua are so lacking? Elinruby (talk) 01:01, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Proposal

Okay, I've gone through this and thought about it, and I'm conditionally a Yes on change to X2 and nuking the list, with an option to save certain files.

S Marshall, I take your point about draftification being pointless, as they'll just sit there with most of them never being edited ever.

I believe you've also persuaded me that the nuke is appropriate, given some conditions below. In order to keep Elinruby and Sam Walton (and me, and others) happy about not deleting certain files we are working on or wish to work on, I had an idea: what if we agree to allow a delay of two weeks to allow interested parties to go through and mark files in the list we want to keep so when the nuke-a-bot comes through, it can pass over the files thus marked. (I don't know if we can gin this up for two weeks from yesterday, but that would be auspicious.)

More specifically, to Elinruby's (22:03, 1 April) "So what do we do?" question, I think here's what we do:

• Those of us who want to retain files, mark them with {{bots|deny=X2-nukebot}} to vaccinate them against nuking.
• Change X2 accordingly
• Somebody develops the nuke script
• Nuke script should nuke "without prejudice" so that if someone changes their mind later and wants to recreate a file, it shouldn't be "salted" or require admin action to "undelete"; you just recreate it in the normal way you create any new file.
• If needed, we run a pre-nuke test against sandbox files, or can we just trust the vaccination will be respected?
• Start the script up and let 'er rip

Elinruby, if this proposal were accepted, would you change your no to X2 modif to a yes? Sam Walton, would you?

Naturally for this to have any value, we'd have to agree to not vaccinate the whole list, but just the ones we reasonably expect to work on, or judge worthy of keeping. If desired, I can envisage a way to greatly speed up the first step (vaccination) for all of us. Personally, I won't mark any file translated from a language I don't know well enough to evaluate the translation. But, going through all 3500 files is a burden, since there's no point my even clicking on the ones in languages I don't know. If I knew in advance which ones are from Spanish, French, etc., that would be a huge help. If you look at 1300-1350, you'll see that I've marked them with a language code (and a byte count; but that was for something else). I could commit to marking another 200 or 300 with the lang code, maybe more. If we could break up the work that way and everybody just mark the files for lang code, then once that's done, we could all go through the whole list much more quickly, to see which ones we wanted to evaluate for vaccination.

I really think this could be wrapped up in a couple of weeks, if we get agreement. Mathglot (talk) 18:17, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

• Entirely happy with this idea.—S Marshall T/C 19:33, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
• Agree. Amisom (talk) 11:31, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
• This is fine with me. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:03, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Are there any objections to moving forward with this? Tazerdadog (talk) 01:48, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Almost two weeks of SILENCE sounds like "go for it". Primefac (talk) 02:28, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm still good with this as proposer, of course, but just to reiterate: we'd still need a two-week moratorium *after acceptance* of the proposal before nuking, to allow interested parties to vaccinate such articles as they chose to. I assumed that was clear, but that "go for it" got me a little scared, so thought I'd better raise it again.

On Tazerdadog's point, what is the procedure for deciding when to go forward with a proposal? Are we there now? Whatever the procedure is, and whenever we deem "acceptance" to happen, can someone close it at that point and box it up like I see on Rfcs, so we can then start the two-week, innoculation period timer ticking without having more opinions straggle in after it's already been decided? Or what's the right way to do this? Mathglot (talk) 07:00, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• Request formal close, per Mathglot. Do I need to post on ANRFC?—S Marshall T/C 18:40, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

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

X2-nuke interim period

Wow, cool! Glad we made some progress, and just trying to nail down the next steps to keep things moving smoothly. To recap my understanding:

• we are now in the "inoculation period" with a fortnight-timer which expires 23:22, 6 May 2017 (UTC) an interim period where we figure out how to implement this.
• during this period, anyone may tag articles in the list at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review with the proper tag to prevent nuking two weeks hence

A couple of questions:

• do we have to recruit someone to write a script to do the actual nuking?
• what form should the actual "vaccination" tag have? In the proposal above, I just kind of threw out that expression: {{bots|deny=X2-nukebot}} but I have no idea how we really need to tag the articles, and maybe that's a question for the script writer?
• will the bot also observe strikeout type as an indicator not to nuke? A possible issue is inconsistent usage among editors: for example, some editors have not used strikeout for articles they have reviewed and clearly wish to save (e.g. see #1601-1622)

As for me, I will continue to tag a couple hundred more articles with language-tags as I did previously in the 1301-1600 range, to make it easier for everyone to find articles translated from languages they are comfortable working with, and that they therefore might wish to tag. Mathglot (talk) 02:28, 23 April 2017 (UTC) Updated by Mathglot (talk) 09:02, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

• Let's make two lists, one of articles to delete and the other of articles to retain for the moment. I don't think that it will be necessary to formally request a bot. We have quite a few sysops who could clean them all out with or without scripted assistance.—S Marshall T/C 15:55, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

  I would implement it as a giant sortable wikitable - Something that looks like this:

Name	Language	Vaccinated	Notes
Jimbo Wales	es	Tazerdadog (talk)	Translation checked
Earth	ar	--	Probably Notable
My mother's garage band	fr	--	X2'd, not notable

Tazerdadog (talk) 17:17, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Isn't the current list easier to deal with than creating a new table, or two new ones? Can we just go based on strikeout type, or add some unambiguous token like, nuke=yes in the content of the items in the enumerated list that need to be deleted? I'm just trying to think what would be the least work to set up, and easiest to mark for those interested in vaccinating articles.

If we decide to go with a table, I might be able to use a fancy regex to create a table from the current bullet list. Although I definitely see why a table is easier to view and interpret once it's set up, I'm not (yet) persuaded that there's an advantage to setting one up in the first place. For one thing, it's harder to edit a table than a bullet list, because of the risk of screwing up cells or rows. Mathglot (talk) 18:59, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

The real advantage of the table is the ability to sort by language. This way, if we have a volunteer who speaks (for example) only English and Spanish, they can just sort the table by language, and all of the Spanish articles will be shown together. It's harder to edit, but in my opinion, the ease of viewing and extracting the information far outweighs this.

I have created a list that removes all struck items at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review/Tazerdadog cleanup list. I'm currently working on getting rid of the redlinks as well. Once that is done, we can move to a vaccination model on the articles that have not been cleaned up in the articles thus far. The vaccination can take virtually any form as long as everyone agrees on what it is - I'd recommend that we vaccinate at the central list/table rather than on the article however. Once the two weeks expire, it's trivial to extract the unvaccinated articles and poke a sysop for deletion. Tazerdadog (talk) 00:07, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: This was posted over at Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review as well but wanted to mention it here. Timotheus Canens has created a language-sortable table in their sandbox at User:Timotheus Canens/sandbox that I think is similar to what you were thinking. Mz7 (talk) 04:06, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

And we may have to recreate the table, as I didn't notice it and have been continuing to mark language codes on the main list (and shall continue to do so, unless someone yells "Stop!"). Also, not sure how trivial it is: given a full set of instructions what to do, then, yes, it's trivial, but this is not formatted data (yet) and there are all sorts of questions a sysop might have, such as, what to do with ones marked "moved", or "redirected", and other situations I've come across while going through the list that don't spring to mind. We don't want to burden the sysop with an illy-defined task, so all of those situations should be spelled out before we ask them to take their time to do it, as if there are too many questions, they'll either give up, or they'll do whatever they feel like. Mathglot (talk) 06:20, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

@Timotheus Canens: Tazerdadog (talk) 05:55, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

And am still doing so on the main page, and so have at least six others since the message just above this one was written. Mathglot (talk) 11:53, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

X2 countdown and vaccinate indicators

Floating a proposal to get the clock started on the two weeks. Any user can write "Vaccinated" (or anything equivalent , as long as the meaning is understood) on the list on the same line as the Strike out any article they want to vaccinate. I can then go through and use regex to remove the vaccinated articles line-by-line from the delete list. I will then separate out the articles with no substantive commentary attached (anything beyond a language or a byte count is substantive) for an admin to delete or draftify. Any article which has been individually substantively discussed will be evaluated independently. If this is OK, we can start the clock. Tazerdadog (talk) 22:23, 6 May 2017 (UTC) Updated Tazerdadog (talk) 06:07, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

People are already using strikeout type as the "vaccinate" flag so no additional method is needed though I see nothing wrong with using both, if someone has already started with the the other method. Mathglot (talk) 22:51, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Also, I have been placing substantive commentary on plenty of articles, with the intention of facilitating the work of the group as a whole, in order to aid people in deciding whether that article is worth their time to look at and evaluate. In my case at least, substantive commentary does not indicate a desire to save, and if you intend to use it that way in the general case, then you need to suggest another indication I can use as a "poison pill" indicator to ensure it is nuked despite the substantive commentary. Mathglot (talk) 23:31, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Strikeout works even better than my idea, as it is easier to write the regex for. I was figuring that substantive commentary at least deserved to be read before we nuked them, although unless a comment was actively positive on the article I would have sorted it as a delete. If you want every article you commented on to be deleted, I can use your signature as the poison pill. Otherwise, use what you want, just make sure it is clear what it is. Ideally, place it at the start of a line, so I don't have to think when writing the regex. Tazerdadog (talk) 06:07, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: If you need a tester, feel free to shoot me a pattern; I'm a bit of a regex wonk myself, plus I have a nice test app for it. Can't use my sig as poison pill, cuz often my commentary is unsigned cuz I did them 20 or 50 at a time, with the edit summary carefully explaining what was done, but no sig on the individual line items. Beyond that, quite a few have commentary by multiple people, so even if I did comment (and even sign) others may have, too. The only clear way to do this, afaics, is to have an unequivocal keep (or nuke) indicator (or more than one is okay, if you want to OR them) but anything judg-y like "substantive commentary" seems risky to me. In the latter case, we should just get everyone to review all their edits they forgot to strike, and strike them now, or forever hold their peace. In my own case, no matter how positive my comment, or how long, if there's no strike on the article title, it's a "nuke". It occurs to me we should poll everyone and get positive buy-in from all concerned that they understand the indicator system, to make sure everyone knows "strike" equals "keep" and anything else is nuke (or whatever we decide). It won't do to have 2,000 articles nuked, and then the day after, "Oh, but I thought..." Know what I mean?Mathglot (talk) 06:50, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: I think the solution is to draftify until everyone agrees that no mistakes have been made, then delete. I'm happy to do the grunt work of the manual checking of longer entries, and I don't think it is particularly risky to do so. However, the vast majority are short, and can and should be handed with a little regex script. We do need to make sure that the expectation of strikeout = delete instead of strikeout = resolved was clear to all parties. As for a deleteword, literally anything will do if it is unique and impossible to misinterpret. I would recommend "kill" as this deleteword, as it is clear what the meaning is, possible to write the regex for, and currently has only a couple of false hits in the page that can be worked around easily. Does this work for you?

The reasoning for checking longer entries is to try to catch entries like this:

|Battle_of_Urica -seems fine, at least not a translation issueElinruby (talk) 19:14, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Tazerdadog (talk) 08:02, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: If by "draftify" you mean quarantine, i.e., staging/moving all the to-be-deleted files someplace prior to the hard delete, I totally agree. (Whether that should actually be the current Draft namespace is debatable, but might be the right solution.) As far as regexes, I count 738 <s> tags, 732 </s> tags, 587 keepers, and 2785 nukers as of May 7 ver. 779254187. Mathglot (talk) 22:40, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Ok, sounds good. By draftify, i meant "Move out of mainspace to a different namespace where the content is accessible for translators, but unlikely to be stumbled upon accidentally by someone who thins they are reading an actual encyclopedia article." it also should be noted that when any of these pages are deleted, it should be a WP:SOFTDELETE, i.e. if someone asks for a small number to be restored after they have been deleted so that they can work on them they can just ask any admin to do so. I think that's all that needs to be resolved for now, so I'm going to go ahead and start the two week countdown until someone yells at me to stop. Pinging some participants: @S Marshall:@Elinruby:@Yngvadottir: Tazerdadog (talk) 23:12, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

For clarity, the process is: At the deadline, June 6, 2017 all struck articles listed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review will be retained, and all unstruck articles will be deleted. Articles with significant commentary attached will have the commentary read before the deletion, but the default is the struck/unstruck status unless the commentary indicates clearly the opposite result is better. The work "kill" may be added to unambiguously mark an article for deletion. On or after June 6th, the regex nerds will compile a list of articles to delete and retain. The delete list will be moved to draft space (or subpages of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT/Pages to review), where it will be audited briefly just to make sure nobody made a systematic error, then deleted. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:12, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Per #deadline it's June 6. Your clarifications on "draftify" and the process all sound good, otherwise.
P.S. Note that one article matches /kill/i but none matches /\bkill\b/i. Mathglot (talk) 23:28, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Fixed, I was unaware of that discussion, thank you. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:34, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot and Tazerdog: so for purposes of making life easier I will strike what I think should be struck. At one point people were checking my work so I was rather tentative initially. I am following the regex discussion but haven't used it in a while so save me the trouble of looking this up -- did you conclude that "kill" would be useful, or not? Elinruby (talk) 00:58, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

@Elinruby: If the title is strikeout type, it will be kept; if it isn't, it won't. Placing "Kill" on an article has no effect at nuke time, but it does have a beneficial effect now:, i.e., it saves time for others. It lets others know that you have looked at this one and found it wanting, so they should save their breath and not even bother looking at it. For example: You marked #18 Stevia_cultivation_in_Paraguay "really, really bad". That was enough for me not to bother looking at it, so you saved me time, there. If you want to place "kill" on the non-deserving items you pass by, that will help everybody else. I may do the same. But in the end, on Nuke day, the "kill" markings won't have any effect. Make sense? Mathglot (talk) 01:20, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: yeah it does, thanks. And indeed I seem to be the most inclusionist in the discussion so if I think it's more work than it's worth I doubt that anyone else in the discussion would disagree. Elinruby (talk) 01:31, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Re-pinging@Tazerdadog: on Elinruby's behalf for confirmation. Due to the ping typo above, he may not have seen this, and it's really his call, not mine. Mathglot (talk) 01:35, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Mathglot's interpretation above is basically correct. Please do not duplicate work you've already done just to add the kill flag, but please strike entities that could be ambiguous (I will manually evaluate your intention based on comments that you left, but the default is the struck/unstruck status unless you are clear in your comments otherwise). Please do use these flags from now on, or on any where your intention is unclear. Tazerdadog (talk) 02:15, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Tazerdadog I'm looking at formation of the strikeout tags enclosing the linked titles, and found 43 anomalies that might trip up the nuke pattern. I'll probably starting fixing these tomorrow. Mathglot (talk) 09:44, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

assumption for User space items

@Tazerdadog: I notice that various contributors are strikeout-tagging Userspace items: see #14, 15, 691, and 695 for example. I have not been tagging any of them, my assumption being that all User space items will be kept automatically regardless of presence/absence of strikeout title (and ignoring any "kill"), and since it's trivial to skip over them with the regex it's not necessary to tag them. If you agree, please make a note at WT:CXT/PTR, or let me know and I will, so everyone can save their breath marking these. Mathglot (talk) 01:25, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

That was my assumption as well, all entries outside of mainspace should be fine. Tazerdadog (talk) 01:39, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

rescuing clobbers by CXT

@Tazerdadog: I just rescued #2611 Garbacz. This was a good stub created in 2008, then clobbered in 2016 by ContentTranslation tool, leaving a rubbish translation deserving of deletion. I just rescued it by reverting it back to the last good version before the clobber, and struck it as a keeper.

I'm concerned that there may be an unknown number of formerly good articles of long standing in the list that we don't want to delete, simply because they got clobbered by CXT at some point and thus ended up in the list, and time ran out before anybody got a chance to look at them. If I can get a list of potential clobbers in the next week, I will check them all out. (Am betting it's less than a couple hundred, total; but maybe S Marshall would help out, if it turns out to be more than that.) Shouldn't be too hard to create such a list:

pseudocode to generate a list of possible CXT clobbers

# Print out names of Titles in CXT/PTR that may be clobbers of good, older articles. # (Doesn't handle the case where oldest version is CXT, followed by user edits to make it good, # followed by 2nd cxt later which clobbers the good version; but that's probably rare.) # For each item in WP:CXT/PTR list do: $line = text from next <ol> item in list If the bracketed article title near the beginning of $line is within s-tags, next loop Extract $title from the $line If $title is not in article space, next loop Read Rev History of $title into array @RevHist Get $oldest_es = edit summary string of oldest version (last index in @RevHist) If 'ContentTranslation' is a substring of $oldest_es, next loop Pop @RevHist: drop oldest summary from @RevHist so it now contains all versions except the oldest one If 'ContentTranslation' is a substring of @RevHist viewed as a single string, do: Print "$title possibly clobbered by CXT" End For

Are you able to create a list like this, or do you know someone who could? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 21:56, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• Why not just ask the deleting administrators to check the translation is the first revision before they push the button?—S Marshall T/C 23:32, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

That would be a shitton of work for the deleting admin. Tazerdadog (talk) 00:57, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

3.6 metric shit tonnes, to be exact. ;-) And thanks for the ping, Taz. Mathglot (talk) 01:56, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: I think I've maybe got your query: I see from Samtar's query that you use MySQL. If that's the case, then to do this, I think you can take Samtar's query 11275 exactly as it is, with one more WHERE clause, to exclude the oldest revision:

AND WHERE rev.date > @MIN_REV_DATE

where @MIN_REV_DATE is either separately selected and assigned to a variable [as there would be one min value per title, it would have to either be an array variable or more likely a 2-col temp table with title and MIN date, which could be joined to rev.] Edited by Mathglot (talk) 18:50, 19 May 2017 (UTC), or probably more efficiently, a subquery getting the oldest rev date for that page using standard "minimum value of a column" techniques. So the result will be a subset of Samtar's original query, limited to cases where ct_tag was equal to 'ContentTranslation' somewhere other than in the oldest revision for that page. (By the way, I don't have access to your file structure, so I have no idea if 'rev.date' really exists, but what I mean by that, is the TIMESTAMP of that particular revision, whatever the field is really called. Also, again depending on the file structure, you might need to use techqniques for groupwise minimum of a column to get the min rev date for each page.) Mathglot (talk) 03:09, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Mathglot: Unfortunately, I've never used MySQL before. I was hoping I could muddle through with some luck and googling, but I had no such luck. Tazerdadog (talk) 03:53, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog: And I could totally do it if I had the file structure but I don't; but my strong hunch is that this is very easy, and needs one additional "WHERE" plus another query (probably the groupwise MIN thing) to grab the min value to exclude in the new WHERE. OTOH, if you have access to Quarry, shoot me your query by email if you want, and I'll fix it up, and you can take that and try again, and with several back-and-forths I bet we can get it. Or if you've got zip, I can try a few establishing queries for you to try, and then we can try to build the real one depending on the results you get from those. (Or, we can just wait for someone else to do it, if they will; it really should only take minutes.) Mathglot (talk) 05:11, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Tazerdadog and S Marshall: I don't think this is getting enough attention, and your previous request appears to have stalled at V Pump. This is not good. We need to get this list. Is there someone you can lean on, or request help from, to kick-start this? Alternatively, if someone will give me access to Quarry, a MySQL account permitting SELECT and CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE (or even better, MEMORY table) and a pointer to the file structure descriptions, I can do this myself and create a list to protect these articles. Mathglot (talk) 06:32, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

*Bump* Mathglot (talk) 18:19, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Cryptic for db report 19060. We now have the list of clobbers, and can attend to it. Please see WP:CXT/PTR/Clobbers. Mathglot (talk) 05:18, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Re-requesting closure of Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest#Investigating COI policy

Someone already requested a closure of Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest#Investigating COI policy, which concerns outing/paid editor/harassment/COI... whatever. However, Casliber says that more than one closer, preferably three-person, may be needed. I wonder whether more than one closer is necessary. If so, this indicates that the discussion would be another one of more difficult discussions we've seen lately. Thoughts? --George Ho (talk) 13:44, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

It's not obvious from the discussion and the number of editors participating and the number of proposals made that it's a difficult and controversial topic? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:59, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

To me, closing the whole discussion is very difficult because of the controversy of the topic. However, I concentrated more on milieus and proposals. To be honest, I saw two milieus and one concrete proposal receiving support from the majority. I concentrated on the straw polls and arguments. How about this: close separate milieus and proposals separately? They aren't that difficult to separately close due to other milieus and proposals not likely to pass. --George Ho (talk) 20:17, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Closing each one separately probably makes more sense from a numbers perspective. However, it should still be one group of editors that does it, since there is the possibility (mentioned on the discussion) that some of the milieus could contradict each other depending on what gets passed. Primefac (talk) 01:57, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Milieus 1, 2, and 5 are easy to close as the majority opposes them individually. Milieu 3 and concrete proposal 1 received majority support, so those would be also easy to close. But you're right; one same group of editors should do the individual closures. However, I won't be part of the closing group, so I'll await the uninvolved closers then. --George Ho (talk) 04:44, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I would be willing to be involved in a group closure on this. Tazerdadog (talk) 19:02, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I cast a !vote in the discussion which I had forgotten about - it would therefore be grossly inappropriate for me to participate in this closure Tazerdadog (talk) 01:04, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

I guess this means we're putting the band back together ;) Primefac (talk) 19:04, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

We still need one more volunteer for this. Tazerdadog (talk) 10:01, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll step up, if you like.—S Marshall T/C 17:34, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

And... we're back down to 2. Primefac (talk) 02:30, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Needed: Another closer please!—S Marshall T/C 15:35, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

I suggest you just go ahead with however many closers you have now. I further suggest that the "milieux" were intended to get a "general view of the community" and were very vaguely worded, so that if all you can say is "there was no apparent consensus", then so be it. As far as concrete proposal 1, which I proposed, the 28-6 result seems to make the close obvious. You might as well just go ahead and close it. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:53, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

• @Primefac: thoughts? Nobody else is stepping up.—S Marshall T/C 19:36, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Meh, let's just go for it. I think I've still got your email kicking about. I'll send you my thoughts hopefully in the next 24 hours. Primefac (talk) 20:46, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll write mine independently over the same period, and we can see if we agree.  :)—S Marshall T/C 21:39, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

• Sorry, I've re-opened the RFC. Re-opening interest for other editors willing to work on a close. Primefac (talk) 22:31, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Take your time. ;) Meanwhile, what happened to closing separate, individual milieux and proposals? George Ho (talk) 10:35, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll go back to what I said 4 comment above. The milieux can be very difficult to close because of the wording. I thought the reverted close was a very good attempt to make sense out of M.3 in that it focused on what the consensus there actually agreed on, but that aroused a storm and nobody seems to be able to agree on what was actually agreed on. Concrete proposal 1, which I proposed, is very much the opposite and I think can be easily closed. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:27, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll help close it, but I think the section below the actual RFC should be considered as well, since they're actively discussing the RFC and how to proceed. Maybe we should wait just a little while longer to see how that develops. Katie^talk 23:23, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm fine with that. No point in cutting off productive discourse. Primefac (talk) 11:48, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

@Primefac, KrakatoaKatie, and S Marshall: I'm going to close a couple separate milieus that receive huge opposition. Casliber, the proposer, is fine with it. However, may I summarize the tally votes as just short rationales? I'll leave the others open. --George Ho (talk) 22:18, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Fine by me, George Ho. It'll make the overall close a bit cleaner. Primefac (talk) 23:08, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Closed milieu 1 and milieu 5. I closed milieu 2 as "no consensus", but I commented that another closer can summarize that better than me. --George Ho (talk) 00:51, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

I changed my mind and briefly summarized milieu 2. --George Ho (talk) 01:18, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Milieu 3, Concrete proposal 1, and Concrete proposal 2 are closed by Winged Blades of Godric. Give Godric thanks for the closures. George Ho (talk) 19:08, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I've been thinking. After closing all the milieus and concrete proposals, I wonder whether closing the remainder of the whole discussion as a whole is possible. If not, how about separately closing "RfC discussion" (including Break 1), Break 2, and Break 3? George Ho (talk) 02:53, 25 April 2017 (UTC); rescinding this consideration. 18:22, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Milieu 4 and Concrete proposal 3 still remain. --George Ho (talk) 04:00, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I would like to thank Gamebuster19901 for closing Milieu 4 (closed as "there is consensus") and Proposal 3 (closed as "no consensus"). Now I shall ping Primefac, KrakatoaKatie, and S Marshall about this, so they can do the teamwork closure more efficiently. --George Ho (talk) 03:07, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

While I think three closers should suffice, I welcome and don't object to one or more additional closers if necessary. --George Ho (talk) 04:52, 8 June 2017 (UTC); edited, 18:11, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Needing more than one to close RfC discussion at WT:V

The discussion "Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Recent changes to policy about verifiability as a reason for inclusion" started in April. Then the discussion got larger and larger, making the discussion very complex. I discussed it with the proposer S Marshall, who says that several closers are needed. I welcome at least two volunteers. --George Ho (talk) 14:33, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho:--I am willing to serve as a closer.Winged Blades ^Godric 09:06, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Godric, and I welcome that. I also need another or more closers for teamwork closure. --George Ho (talk) 15:07, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Also, I created the subsection Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#How to best close this discussion? for team closers to discuss preparing the closure. --George Ho (talk) 02:51, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho: I am willing to serve as a closer as well, but I will defer to almost anyone else who wants to do it. Tazerdadog (talk) 02:28, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Tazerdadog. I notified the participants about this. --George Ho (talk) 02:35, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

@Godric: Tazerdadog will team with you on the closure. George Ho (talk) 03:01, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

If necessary, time for one or two more. George Ho (talk) 07:41, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Reverting closure without discussion

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

---

Moved from WP:ANI § Reverting closure without discussion

I had closed an RFC at Talk:Catalan Countries (edit | article | history | links | watch | logs) based on a request at WP:AN/RFC (Request). The user Asilah1981 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) reverted my closure (diff) with a note calling it personal opinion. I reverted his edit (diff) and took the matter to the talk page asking him to present his reason for overturning my closure (diff). I asked him to show me any points I missed. Before I could reply to his assertions (here), he again removed the RFC closing statement (diff) and left a note asking any other editor to close the discussion.
My reply to his assertions (here) were actually written before he reverted my edits. I asked other editors to comment on my closure. I was working as per WP:closure review where I would have reviewed my own closure and changed the statement had anything meaningful been brought before me or if most of the participants were unhappy with my closure.
Please correct me if my closure was wrong or take action against him if I was in the correct place. Also, I only wanted to resolve the issue with proper discussion but this reverting of closures isn't really helpful. Thanks, Yashovardhan (talk) 14:55, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

I believe WP:AN is better place for this. Capitals00 (talk) 15:01, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks @Capitals00:. Yashovardhan (talk) 15:06, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

[2] I don't know if this is the place but I've already grown tired of these jibes and personal attacks every time our orbits come into contact. I avoid the guy because he is always creating conflict but I feel he is trying to intimidate me into not commenting with these constant comments. WCM_email 09:20, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that. That's kind of like WP:Battleground behaviour that he's showing. I've notified him of this discussion but he seems to ignore it. Yashovardhan (talk) 09:55, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Asilah has displayed battleground behaviour throughout this RfC. He edit-warred continually to add his disputed content back into the first sentence while the RfC was ongoing, even when it was crystal clear that consensus in the RfC was against that content (the choice in the end was between two neutral alternatives to Asilah's version). Then he changed tack and edit-warred to add a "failed verification" tag to the second sentence on the spurious grounds that three citations in the second sentence failed to verify the first sentence. He even admitted that this was what he was doing. Note also the tendentious edit summaries like this and this. Asilah made it clear that he didn't like how the RfC was going, and that if he didn't get the result he wanted, "of course he would take it further". He followed this up by posting "Invalid RfC", though he did strike this when he thought he was going to get the result he wanted. Reverting the close without a policy-based reason is just his latest attempt to disrupt the process.

Asilah has a history. He was indef blocked after this discussion at ANI at the end of last year (you can find the sequel to that – the offer of mentorship and the failure of same – between here and the end of the page, and in this section and this); and although his behaviour has been not quite as egregious since then, he continues to show a battleground mentality on multiple pages. In my opinion he needs to be sent a message. Scolaire (talk) 13:00, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

We're running short of messages we can send that don't involve blocks and bans. He's been ticked off by admins before and just ignored it or insisted that he was in the right. We offered him mentorship and he agreed terms - but then reneged on them as soon as they involved actually changing his behaviour in any way.

I have not interacted with Asilah recently because he's mostly stayed away from my areas of interest. The problem back then was that Asilah appeared to believe that anyone who did not unconditionally support his position on any matter was acting in bad faith. He'd claim to AGF but then in the same message insist that you were trying to torment him by asking for evidence to back his position. When I read things like this, along with the other behaviour described here, it is clear to me that this may have moderated but not fundamentally changed. Kahastok talk 17:11, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

I really don't know about his long term behaviour but I did check that he had been blocked earlier. I just think he needs some good mentoring and a lesson about how to discuss at talk pages. For instance, I had notified him of this discussion but he didn't respond here (yet). Instead, he chose to continue discussion about (attacking?) other editors at the article talk page. He is showing childish behaviour which needs to stop (unless he's actually a child). In any case, I again left a note at that article talk page where he was discussing. Yashovardhan (talk) 18:02, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Is this really worth an ANI, Yashovardhan? I reverted once or twice then moved to talk page. I disagree with your closure but I have long working hours and I'm not willing to waste more time on this. Asilah1981 (talk) 05:18, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Something I have noticed, which is tantamount to gaming the system, every time this escalates to a point where it reaches here or ANI, then they back right off. It appears like the need for admin action has disappeared and so nothing happens. Then its back to the same battlefield behavior again. WCM_email 07:47, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

So devious of me....Asilah1981 (talk) 09:16, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

After reading the concerns raised by others here, I'll say it needs to be discussed. It's high time you stop this behaviour. I suggest he requires good mentoring. This was the reason I first raised it at ANI but it was redirected here. An admin action is required now. Yashovardhan (talk) 04:15, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

There is no point. He had a good mentor, who asked him to agree some conditions. He did so. He then ignored them. He didn't try and fail to make the standard. He made no attempt whatsoever to follow the conditions. The mentoring ended because the mentor decided that it could not succeed without Asilah's cooperation.

Unless there is a reason to assume that the same won't happen again, mentoring is a non-starter. Kahastok talk 21:17, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

[3] His latest comment on a talk page, this is words of encouragement to an editor trying to make sense of an awful article. I agree with the comments about mentoring, it would appear that mentoring was agreed to when a permanent block was being considered for disruptive editing. As soon as the focus was removed, they quickly reverted to the same behaviour elsewhere. WCM_email 23:26, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Is a ban or block being suggested here? I think a temp block will have no gain as he has a history of being block. If he is particularly disruptive in one field, a Topic ban may be a better alternative to an indef block. If so, we have to identify the particular field in which he is disruptive. Yashovardhan (talk) 13:58, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

I would endorse a topic ban from topics related to the Iberian peninsula, broadly construed, until he demonstrates some vague understanding of WP:AGF. Calling people psychopaths is not on. Kahastok talk 17:34, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

As a note, this post by Asilah1981 on WCM's talk page would have to rank among the worst types of personal abuse. Calling other editors a 'dick' and a 'psychopath' is totally unacceptable. Nick-D (talk) 06:54, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Nick-D. I was going to warn him for this but I think it won't do much good. Instead, its better to discuss this ban proposal here. I now think an indef block woulld have been a better proposal. Maybe WP:DNR is a good policy for him as well but now its too late for that. Yashovardhan (talk) 07:08, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Topic Ban proposal for Asilah1981

As suggested by Kahastok just above, I propose an indef topic ban for Asilah1981 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) for pages related to the Iberian Peninsula (interpreted broadly) (or until he stops his disruptive behaviour). To recap: The user has a history of disruptive editing and previous blocks have led to no good. The user has failed to assume good faith even when he has been told to do so on multiple occassions. Previous mentoring for the user has bought no good either. I propose that the ban may be lifted only when the community agrees that the user has stopped his disruptive behaviour. Pinging @Wee Curry Monster, Scolaire, and Kahastok: who have participated in this discussion here. Yashovardhan (talk) 17:58, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

• I support the ban as proposer. Yashovardhan (talk) 17:58, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

• As suggested by some others, I'd extend my support to all political subjects including the Syrian war. Yashovardhan (talk) 03:56, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support. I thought for a while before making this suggestion above because it's a tough action and I want to be fair to Asilah. But this has been going on, to my knowledge, for close to a year. How long should we have to tolerate an editor disrupting every attempt to improve a set of articles with such a resolute and unbending insistence that anyone who doesn't agree with him is acting in bad faith? I wouldn't bring this up but it is entirely typical of Asilah's behaviour for close on twelve months.

He's been indeffed once already. Mentoring has been tried and failed almost immediately. Something has to give, and I think this ban is proportionate. Kahastok talk 18:57, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Sorry on what basis?

1) I have NOT made any edits to this article od my own. WCM began promptly edit warring with another editor (Anes pur sang) who was just trying to improve the articles, with what seemed like considerable effort and research in a completely non-political way.

2) I noticed the disruptive pattern and supported him.

3) I have requested (with strong words, he has done this too many times) WCM not to harass me on my talk page.

4) I have not broken the 3RR.

Two nationalistic editors disliking me is not grounds for a topic ban. Danke schon.Asilah1981 (talk) 06:25, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

• Comment I think an indef block will be better if this kind of behaviour (as pointed above by Nick and Kahastok) continues. A topic ban is a slightly lighter proposal if this personal attack is considered. Yashovardhan (talk) 07:08, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Yashovardhan Indefinite block? Q? Mazaak band karo yaar... Asilah1981 (talk) 16:51, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Translation in English : Why? Stop this joke... --Yashovardhan (talk) 17:29, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

@Asilah1981: Bro, we are not joking here. Not meaning to insult you but you should have been more careful about these interactions. You already know that Personal attacks are strictly not tolerated here. Here's my suggestion, just read it once if you will, its for your own good :-

• Accept this topic ban
• Move away from all editors you have had major issues with and try moving into a field where they are not regular. (I know its hard but its not impossible, you can create a self imposed interaction ban if you want).
• Show that you understand what this ban is being proposed for
• Stop personal attacks altogether
• Make a good fresh record for yourself and come back in a few months to get this ban lifted.

I hope you understand that I have never interacted with you earlier so my opinion is as unbiased as it could get. I have the deepest respect for you and know that you can prove that you dont need an indef. Oh, and please do provide diffs for personal attacks that you alleged others have done against you, it will make your case stronger.

I wish you all the best of luck for your future endavours! Now if you could excuse me, its my birthday in a few minutes. Regards, Yashovardhan (talk) 17:29, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Well happy birthday Yashovardhan but do not claim you have "never interacted with me and are unbiased" when only recently we have had a dispute over a questionable RfC closure as can be seen above, I believe. Its best to remain honest on these matters. Chalo, soja raha hoon. Mazaa karo.Asilah1981 (talk) 19:15, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

@Asilah1981: Thank you. What I meant was that I've not interacted with you before this issue. If you look again, i used the word 'earlier'. Sorry if I sent any wrong impression. Yashovardhan (talk) 19:29, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

• CommentYashovardhan Excuse me?? Do you know how many times WCM has called me a Dick in discussions? He even has edit summaries calling me a dick and I'm pretty sure he has called me a dick a number of times on my talk page. Do you want me to post the diffs here? I'm getting tired of this cry baby attitude, the same two guys coming to this board over and over again after baiting and insulting me, hoping for a topic ban or block of some kind. All I ask from them is to be left alone, to not post on my talk page and to not track my edits in other articles. (They can call me a dick, Im fine with that). And please stop wasting the community's time with more Gibraltar-related moaning. I do not even edit those articles.Asilah1981 (talk) 10:05, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

If you have been personally attacked, I dont see any reason for not sharing those diffs here. Yashovardhan (talk) 13:51, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Yashovardhan I don't need to trawl through diffs looking for the number of times WCM has told me to stop being a WP:DICK, he knows it is true and he won't deny it, unless he feels wasting my time is worth him looking bad. I am not that thin skinned to consider it a personal attack though. If you think I'm problematic, have a look at my edits on the clusterfuck in Syria-related articles which is an outright warzone (no pun intended) and ask yourself if I'm really a conflictive editor. This entire thread is about editors having personal issues with me, not an edit conflict. It is over one fricking word I used in anger "psycopath" which wasn't even about an edit conflict but about posting on my wall. And yes I have been trying to stay away from WCM. Asilah1981 (talk) 19:29, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

• For the record: I was briefly permanently blocked for accidentally revealing one of your names, under your past aliases while bringing up in a discussion that both of you have been topic banned on Gibraltar-related articles (not knowing your past aliases were your real names). So using this confusion against me is unwarranted. Also this happened over a year ago.Asilah1981 (talk) 10:05, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support It seems that no matter where this editor edits, he appears to engender conflict and often for either really silly reasons or for POV reasons. Just for information mentoring was previously considered at ANI as an alternative to an indeff block for this editor. I was happy for Irondome to try and mentor this user, especially if it stopped the personal abuse directed at me. However, it seems clear that they never had any intention of sticking to a mentoring agreement, it seems that it was used as an escape route to escape sanctions and once the focus on his editing behaviour was lost he returned to form. I see a topic ban as a last step before an indef block. WCM_email 13:37, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support: I have not interacted with this user. I noticed that he insulted WCM here, so I reverted him. Then I checked a bit more on the background dispute: he reverted the article Disputed status of Gibraltar three times in less than 24 hours, and then stopped. Right in the razor's edge of a 3RR breach, but as he did not revert a 4º time, he could not be reported. But, as I saw here, he has been using this method for a long time. Cambalachero (talk) 14:08, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
  • 'Interesting logic "Since he didn't break the rules we can't accuse him of breaking the rules, but since he nearly did, lets topic ban him anyways." By the way, the term DICK I used it paraphrasing WCM since he has been telling me "not to be a WP:DICK" repeatedly for months now, which is offensive yet not enough for me to consider wasting anyone's time over. Asilah1981 (talk) 14:27, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
    • See WP:GAME Cambalachero (talk) 15:26, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
    • Given that you so strenuously objected to being warned of WP:3RR, it is surprising that you seem unaware of the part of the warning:

Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly.

These warnings are designed to help you. I suggest you read them and heed them. Kahastok talk 17:00, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Kahastok and these rules don't apply to you? Because if we look through these articles you and WCM seem to be the most active reverters I have seen on Wikipedia.Asilah1981 (talk) 19:32, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support. The user has a lengthy history of combative, POV, disruptive, gaming editing in the area. I'm sure Iñaki LL would agree. He's been blocked 8 times in 2.5 years [4], and is probably headed for an indef if he continues on his destructive course. Softlavender (talk) 15:39, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
• Softlavender Ask the editors who blocked me, but 4 of the times I was blocked were due to a single kafkian situation whereby the admins were forbidden by policy to tell me what I was doing wrong and why they were blocking me. It was a strange event. Eventually, they left me enough hints for me to work it out by myself.Asilah1981 (talk) 20:02, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
• Softlavender Pinging every single editor I have ever had a conflict with as is being done here is not really a correct way to go about these discussions. Yes, most of the active Wikipedia community knows Inaki hates me to death and has falsely accused me of sockpuppetry 4 or 5 times, so I steer clear of him. We already know his opinion. I understand it is fun to gang up on individual editors. This entire ANI discussion is the result of me responding negatively to unrelenting harassment on my talk page as user Valenciano succinctly summarizes here https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Wee_Curry_Monster&diff=783372115&oldid=783304313 and here https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Wee_Curry_Monster&diff=783384450&oldid=783382841. It should not serve as an excuse for "payback" for past feuds. Sure maybe I should have not called WCM a psychopath - But when someone claims to be "required to harass you by policy" (wtf?) and does it again within 3 hours of you asking him to stop is certainly not reasonable. WP:DICK does apply I believe, the first time I have used this expression and I responded in kind to the same accusation launched by this very same user. For the record, I don't like this concept of WP:DICK and have suffered it too many times. I use it once and somehow it becomes a shit storm. Talk about "gaming the system"....Asilah1981 (talk) 16:34, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Please provide a diff for your quote "required to harass you by policy". When doing so, bear in mind that editors are required to post certain notices by policy, that this is not considered harassment (a very serious accusation that itself requires evidence), and that you are not allowed to avoid admin scrutiny by banning people from posting those required warnings. Kahastok talk 17:00, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Kahastok The diffs are on my talk page. Harrassment involves repeatedly posting warnings on an experienced editors talk page when involved in an edit conflict when they have asked you repeatedly to stop doing so. And this is not the first time or the second.Asilah1981 (talk) 19:35, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

I can't find that quote on your talk page. It should be trivial to post the link to the diff you are quoting?

Note that I find nothing in WP:HARASS that would endorse your contention that it is harassment to post warnings on user talk pages in circumstances in which they are required or strongly recommended by policy or common practice. Kahastok talk 09:54, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support. Thanks for calling me to this unsurprising new incident. I have been largely inactive lately in the EN WP: like many editors of Spanish topics who prefer to dedicate to more productive things than permanent litigation with ubiquitous editors, I am less and less active. I quitted the article Basque conflict for Asilah1981's conspicuous battleground approach defying all patience, the editor in question seems to thrive in litigation and all red hot topics of present-day and long-running Spanish politics, e.g. historical memory, historiography, terrorism/politics related violence, national (Spanish, Basque, Catalan) and territorial (Gibraltar) issues, Spanish race or no race,… POV pushing that puts all patience to test. For what I read above, the editor in question continues set in his ways with an ad hominem, judgemental, divisive approach, parroting the same old generic partial truths… Four months ago, he conspicuously breached a constructive, well-meant sanction (cited above, cf. Irondome), and nothing happened whatsoever, total impunity. Gaming the system is one phrase that suits well his behaviour, for what I can see he has not learnt anything, only more sophisticated ways to circumvent the system. Iñaki LL (talk) 21:07, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

So I think that's it. That's all of you who have either falsely accused me of things I haven't done (Inaki's favourite method is accusing half a dozen of unrelated editors of sockpuppetry) or who have a long standing grudge against me. Shall I now ping the dozens of editors with which I have edited constructively and thanked me for my work over the last 5 years and turn this into a battle of meatpuppets or shall we just forget about this ridiculous incident?Asilah1981 (talk) 04:46, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

O actually, I read Asilah1981's latest personal attack as pointed by Yashovardhan above. It just confirms there is no learning whatsoever. I was subject to serious personal attacks addressed to me in Spanish some time ago in his own talk page and MLNV prisoners page, and veiled threats in an ANI one-two years ago, although he has refined his ways of addressing to me in the course of time. Due to his inability to refrain, I should rather support a complete ban, with topic ban as second option. As I have said other times, there is the edit record for everyone to check. Regards Iñaki LL (talk) 09:25, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support. I outlined Asilah's tendentious editing at Catalan Countries in my post in the previous section. I have seen similar behaviour at articles with which I have not been involved, e.g. this at Disputed status of Gibraltar, this at Basque conflict, and this at ETA. He was also involved in this discussion at ANI over edit-warring to replace a copyrighted image in several Iberian-related articles without a proper fair use rationale. Asilah has a problem with objectivity, and a problem with unemotional, rational discussion. He does game the system by withdrawing at strategic moments so that right now, for instance, he could not be blocked because he's not doing anything blockable (his last revert at Disputed status of Gibraltar was two days ago). A topic ban seems the only answer. Scolaire (talk) 12:21, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Scolaire why on earth would anyone block me Scolaire? Because you don't like me? Nothing in policy allows a group of editors to come together on the basis of their opposition to one editor's views on a range of different topics to "topic ban" him. On what topics? "Asilah is banned from editing on anything that WCM, Scolaire, Inaki and Kahastok feel VERY strongly about". The basis of this decision was that Asilah was rude when asking WCM for the nth time to stop posting on his talk page. Really? That is the expected outcome? You think that is how wikipedia works? And you accuse me of gaming the system? This IS gaming the system. Asilah1981 (talk) 13:11, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Read your response again, Asilah. It sums up exactly what the problem is. There was a number of ways you might have responded, but the only way you know is to go on the attack with shouty bolded sentences. Scolaire (talk) 13:49, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support No basis in policy, Asilah1981? On the contrary, the actual policy states: The purpose of a topic ban is to forbid an editor from making edits related to a certain topic area where their contributions have been disruptive.emphasis added. In the areas cited above, there is evidence of tendentious editing, failure to engage in consensus, and attempts to drive other editors away from an area of editing. This is behavior that falls within the definition of disruptive editing. Rather than address these complaints, you have chosen instead to attack the other editors as your personal enemies. I am posting this here in the (possibly vain) hope that input from an editor who has not previously interacted with you may have some positive effect. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 14:43, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Eggishorn Ok fine. I'm done with this issue. Just make sure this guy doesn't harass me on my talk page again and I'm happy. Its ironic that two editors who had to open new accounts to circumvent long-term bans on these very articles, are trying to get me topic-banned. I barely edit them anyways, technically I didn't edit them at all. I just briefly supported the latest of the dozens who has been hounded out by these editors over the past decade. Have a nice week. Asilah1981 (talk) 15:17, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

I think WP:SPI is pretty good in dealing with these situations. Did you consider filing a case there with the evidence you might have to make such accusations? Yashovardhan (talk) 17:36, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Yashovardhan Its not an accusation, its a known fact by all admins. The reason I was blocked was for outing their former accounts, not knowing that they were their true names. I cannot discuss this topic as per Wikipedia policy, would get me blocked - this time permanently.Asilah1981 (talk) 11:10, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Asilah1981 I think you should know WP:CLEANSTART then. Yashovardhan (talk) 14:04, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

I do know WP:CLEANSTART, Yashovardhan simply see little change in behavior between then and now... anyways, I have other issues to worry about these days.Asilah1981 (talk) 15:10, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support Asilah has long been a disruptive influence in these articles and his responses here are classic examples of a WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality. Rather than acknowledging there may be a problem, he launches into attacks on other editors, suggesting that they are just bad faith editors, sockpuppets, " Two nationalistic editors" who dislike him etc. One of the latest controversies involves him edit warring against consensus, during an RFC which disagreed with his view and adding pointy tags then responding with refusal to get the point when editors took the time to explain why the tags were inappropriate. Now we have WP:GAME examples, making 3 reverts then stopping short of a fourth. Since this part of a long pattern rather than an isolated incident, an enforced break from these articles would be best. Valenciano (talk) 18:08, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support indefinite topic-ban from all topics related to the Iberian peninsula, broadly construed. The disruption has been repeated over a very long period of time and consistently involves personalizing disputes with editors that Asilah1981 disagrees with. Asilah1981 states above that he 'barely' edits articles in this topic area anyway. If true, then the topic ban will have little to no impact on his editing. But based on the editing history I think this claim is more a case of another example of the tendentious approach to editing that this editor has. MPS1992 (talk) 18:55, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
• I would support a wider topic ban related to any political subjects Here is their latest edit. He tells that members of "fact checking organizations" "celebrate public executions with militants". What? This is not supported by any reliable sources, to tell this politely. My very best wishes (talk) 15:28, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
• I don't know if I support this--I do know that the "dick" comment came after a. Asilah asked WCM to stay away from their talk page and b. WCM didn't honor that request--so it seems pretty clear who was in the wrong here. Drmies (talk) 15:42, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

I only saw their edits in the area of Syrian war, such as this ("fat unemployed blogger" in edit summary; being "fat and unemployed" is not a reason for removing anything), or that doubtful usage of Amnesty statement [5]. In the last diff he (mis)represents views by Amnesty International and EU as something opposite to the views by US and UK governments. In fact, they are not opposite. But whatever. I have no strong opinion about it.My very best wishes (talk) 21:31, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Next comment by Asilah: [6]. He refers to this propaganda "source" by David Icke to connect to a video of public execution by Islamic militants. I do not think this is anything appropriate. My very best wishes (talk) 02:41, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

And now he violated 1RR restriction on the page to insert a poorly referenced statement by Assad Here his edit was reverted by another contributor. And what he does? revert (note the reinserted phrase about Assad), and reinserts it again. Note that his sources are questionable. And he does it while his editing is under discussion on WP:AN! I think he is simply WP:NOTHERE. My very best wishes (talk) 13:32, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Just for clarity, first revert 17:59, 5 June 2017 (UTC); second revert 05:24, 6 June 2017 (UTC); diff of prior notification of 1RR 22 May 2017. I don't know whether 1RR violations are supposed to be reported to EWN (or AE) while there is an ongoing discussion of general behaviour at AN. Scolaire (talk) 16:08, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I would like this clarified as well? Yashovardhan (talk) 17:56, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Yashovardhan, I asked Drmies, who is an admin, and he answered, "It's up to you. It's possible that AE gains more immediate attention from an admin, but it's more paperwork." The thing is, I wouldn't be comfortable going to Arbitration Enforcement over a page and a topic where I'm not involved. Probably My very best wishes should do it if he still wants to pursue the matter. Scolaire (talk) 07:38, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

However, I see he has now self-reverted so it's probably best to leave it. Scolaire (talk) 07:49, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

@Scolaire: Ya, It's best to leave all this. His latest drama - propose a topic ban on me. Yashovardhan (talk) 12:15, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

So, having reverted him exactly once you're now a "bad faith edit warrior", banned from his talk page as well? I increasingly think these talk page bans are aimed at preventing admin scrutiny by banning people from posting warnings.

Regardless, this insistence that anything short of unqualified support for his position is evidence of bad faith is the precise behaviour that this topic ban is intended to remove. So, in the circumstances, I would support including Syrian Civil War or other political subjects as described by My very best wishes in the topic ban. Kahastok talk 19:52, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support - persistent disruptive editing cannot be tolerated. Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:24, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
• Since the user whose conduct is being discussed here continues to edit (or rather, edit war) in the specified field, when can this topic ban proposal's consensus be decided and it be implemented? Yashovardhan (talk) 17:56, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I would list at WP:ANRFC after it's been open 7 days (i.e. after 17:58 UTC, 8 June 2017)? Obviously if an admin closes before then, then that works too of course. Kahastok talk 20:33, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

That's good enough. I didn't realize ANRFC could close AN discussions as well. On another note, I've extended my support to all political subjects and propose this as an alternative proposal to supplement this. Yashovardhan (talk) 03:56, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support Clearly disruptive in this topic area. Stikkyy t/c 04:26, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose Wikipedia has a history, especially in the topic of politics, of civil incivility whereby editors will civilly gaslight their opponents until they can build up enough frustration to cause someone to crack, then run to AN or AE for a topic ban and gain full control of a topic. I'm opposing topic bans based on "incivility" on principal until this problem is fixed with a policy change.--v/r - TP 13:48, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
  • See WP:POINT. If you don't like the current policies, propose the appropiate changes at the policy talk page, the village pump, etc; but elsewhere. Here, we are discussing about this specific user, and we are doing so with the policies that are in force right now. Cambalachero (talk) 12:37, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
  • It isn't just civility though. It's also edit warring and WP:BATTLEGROUND. And come on, this incivility is not "provoked", he pretty much comes right out and makes comments which poison the discussion right at the start and preclude a meaningful dialogue.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:25, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Supplementary proposal: Extend topic ban to all political subjects

• Support topic ban on all political subjects as proposer Yashovardhan (talk) 03:56, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support Much as I dislike overly prescriptive topic bans [7],[8] posted here, whilst under consideration for a topic ban, shows the blatant disregard for WP:CIVIL that has resulted in numerous confrontations on wiki. Clearly does not appreciate the problem is his editing, I can't think of a more obvious case of WP:NOTTHEM. WCM_email 06:50, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support, given the evidence of his attitude and behaviour on Syria-related pages, not to mention his "Second Supplementary proposal" below. He just doesn't seem to be capable of any kind of dialogue that is not confrontational. Scolaire (talk) 08:01, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Question: should you ping everybody who contributed to the previous discussion? Scolaire (talk) 08:01, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Not a bad idea, Scolaire; you could do that yourself. Softlavender (talk) 08:59, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Okay then, pinging Kahastok, Nick-D, Cambalachero, Iñaki LL, Eggishorn, Valenciano, MPS1992, Drmies, Midnightblueowl and Stikkyy. --Scolaire (talk) 13:11, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support. User is clearly rapidly approaching WP:NOTHERE. -- Softlavender (talk) 08:59, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support per comments in previous section. In addition, based on their comments so far, this user completely ignores good faith attempts by others on explaining WP policies and does not see any problems in their own editing, even though the problems are significant and obvious. My very best wishes (talk) 12:14, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support - the editor is overtly combative and clearly WP:NOTHERE. Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:18, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support: The "Secomd (sic) Supplementary proposal" below clearly shows that he's the type of user who reacts to sanctions by further escalating the conflict. If forced to stay out only of the Iberian peninsula, he would cause problems elsewhere as retaliation, so let's just skip that phase and leave him out of political topics altoguether. I suppose he won't cause much harm editing the articles about the Looney Tunes. That's all folks! Cambalachero (talk) 13:36, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support: i.e. ban on Iberian Peninsula + all political matters, per WP:NOTTHEM, WP:CIVIL and notably WP:DISRUPT. Iñaki LL (talk) 13:57, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support per other editors. Stikkyy t/c 14:45, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support. Unfortunately, I think we've exhausted all the options short of this.

To lift this topic ban - assuming it is adjudged to have achieved consensus - Asilah will have to demonstrate his understanding of why his edits in these areas have been problematic, and what he needs to do to change that problem. I hope that at some stage he can achieve this. But I think it's clear from the below comments both that he doesn't understand the problem with his personal attacks and persistent refusal to pay anything more than lip service to WP:AGF, and that he doesn't want to understand it. Until this changes, a topic ban is the right course to prevent further disruption to Wikipedia. Kahastok talk 18:05, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support - seems to be long overdue.Volunteer Marek (talk) 15:21, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Hatting silliness. Drmies (talk)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Secomd Supplementary proposal I suggest a topic ban for Yashovardhan for all topics related to India, Sushi and Loony Tunes characters.Asilah1981 (talk) 04:06, 7 June 2017 (UTC) Now seriously, as an example of how farcical this whole process is, I happen to be one of the most restrained editors on Syria related articles. One of the few who is not locked in the massive edit war between both sides and is trying to aid consensus, between warring sides. I thing if you guys don´t stop picking on the little guy as soon as you smell blood WP:BOOMERANG should apply. This whole issue was about me being rude over someone harassing me on my talk page, NOT ABOUT MY EDITING!. @Asilah1981: You spelled 'second' wrong and forgot to sign the previous comment. Yashovardhan (talk) 12:15, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

I think I should not participate in this silliness any further. I am certainly not perfect, but this is a ragtag mob of activist editors and a couple of others who are taking their slander at face-value. I would request an admin to carefully go through my editing history - and perhaps the editing history of some of those most keen on getting me banned. I trust Wikipedia works well enough that such blatant gaming of the system will not work. Thank you.Asilah1981 (talk) 10:06, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose per my comment above.--v/r - TP 13:49, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

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

Re-requesting closure on RfC discussion about WP:NSPORTS

Resolved

 – Close posted 19:26, 6 June 2017 Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:55, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

I previously requested closure of Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#The criteria of WP:NSPORT here are too inclusive at WP:ANRFC because someone said one closer is enough. However, another person said that more than one closer, i.e. two closers, may be needed. Therefore, I'm re-requesting a closure here but for two-person teamwork. --George Ho (talk) 18:23, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

@George Ho: I'd be happy to work on this one wit one or two partners. Tazerdadog (talk) 02:46, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you again. I notified those about this, and I'm awaiting more if necessary. --George Ho (talk) 02:53, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Eggishorn is going to be another team closer. Two should suffice unless third closer is proven necessary, which I would also welcome. --George Ho (talk) 05:06, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Closure is already performed. Thanks to both for the joint closure. --George Ho (talk) 19:41, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

User:Carolus

(previous discussion: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive953#Editor "translating" person's names and other problems from early May 2017)

Multiple users have contacted User:Carolus about issues with his article creations and additions, including (but not limited to) sourcing problems. One such problem is that sources like "RD 8.4.1932" or "RD 21.7.1924" (only source on Hubert Krains) are not understandable to our readers at all. This has been noted during the past few days by User:Reb1981, User:Andreas Philopater and myself, while User:Boleyn has tagged similar articles for sourcing issues as well (see e.g. Werner van den Steen de Jehay). User:TonyBallioni has also suggested that Carolus should change his approach to article creation and perhaps develop them in draft space first. Carolus' response to this polite and patient editor was "If you want it back, then stop crying, i have other things to do. sorry, but do not delete and come back crying" which was completely missing the point.

Now, his latest reply to the requests to change his "RD date" sources to something readable and understandable is "No, i will do as i like, evreryone understands the meaning of an RD in Belgium."[9] Never mind that we don't write for people in Belgium but for people around the world, and that both I and (I think) Andreas Philopater are Belgians and still had trouble understanding what was meant...

Considering this reply, his approach to editing, his manner in other discussions (see the previous ANI discussion, and see User talk:Carolus#Belgian monarchs and related pages for another recent good example), I think it is time that some sanction is implemented. I don't know which sanction, apart from a block, would prevent all these problems though, as they are not all limited to e.g. article creation. A topic ban from the main space (forcing him to use either draft space or article talk pages) may be a solution. A good mentor, assuming that Carolus is willing to be mentored, is also a possibility. But seeing that his userpage states "This user has been on Wikipedia for 11 years, 9 months and 22 days." I fear that no swift and easy change should be expected. Fram (talk) 11:57, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

You choose Fram, 1/ i leave EN wiki, or you leave me in peace, no other options; you decide. Do not wast my time, and say what you want. I have a problem with you as well, but i do not cry like a child. So let me know your decision. --Carolus (talk) 12:07, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

@Fram: The most cursory of checks would have verified that this user has been on Wikipedia for about 2 years. --Izno (talk) 12:09, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

And a somewhat more indepth check would have verified that this user has been on Wikipedia for 11 years, with the first 6 or so on nlwiki (where they got indef blocked), then a hiatus, and now 2 years on enwiki. Fram (talk) 12:11, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Izno, don't you understand Fram?? He is very clear? But i don't get the point if someone is blocked elsewere? If Fram does not see that a Knight Grand Cross in the Order of Leopold II is enough notability, then he has a serious issue about the facts of wiki. --Carolus (talk) 12:13, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

As I can see the situation: A user gets blocked on Dutch Wikipedia for sock puppetry (the block reason includes a URL to their equivilent of our WP:SPI), joins us a couple of years later, and creates pages with cryptic source data, and he says that No, i will do as i like, evreryone understands the meaning of an RD in Belgium [sic]. We need sources to be understood by English-language readers, not by Belgians; amd sockpuppetry elsewhere is clearly a red flag, IMO. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:22, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

I am not a sockpuppet? I am Carolus? what is your point?--Carolus (talk) 12:30, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

OK, forget other solutions, time to indef block them for WP:CIR. His latest claim is that he doesn't write full biographies because "people will change them anyway because of 1/ their oppinion, and 2/ the spelling errors. The last one is discriminating people who do not speak fully english"[10]. Yep, you read that right, correcting spelling errors in encyclopedia articles is now a form of discrimination... Fram (talk) 12:39, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

• Not sure if "mentor" is the word, since Carolus has been active longer than I have, but I would be willing to partner with him – for example if he's willing to create new articles in draft space I'd be happy to check them through and move them to main space. His interests to some extent overlap with mine, and I've effectively been revising his work as and when it shows up on User:AlexNewArtBot/BelgiumSearchResult anyway. (I'm not actually a Belgian, but I did spend a year in Belgium as a student, and have been working in Belgium for the past couple of years.) --Andreas Philopater (talk) 13:14, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
• I've left Carolus a final warning. If they carry on editing like this, I'll simply block them. Black Kite (talk) 13:17, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
• This was the response to the final warning. I think we're quickly approaching a CIR block for not wanting to work with the community on the issues presented. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:08, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
  • i don't get the point? being blocked for a sockpuppet of 5 years ago? Ok, then block me please.--Carolus (talk) 14:10, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

As for the Belgian monarchs situation, I agreed to compromise on that topic (even though we don't chronologically number monarchs), in order to stop the edit warring. PS - Again, Philippe's title is "King of the Belgians", not "seventh King of the Belgians".

GoodDay (talk) 14:15, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Carolus You really might want to tone it down, you're not going to win any allies by issuing ultimatums. Also, the RD (Royal Decree - which you explained on your talk page ) isn't referenced anywhere online, nor is it referenced as a printed item (no ISBN numbers or anything ) so I'm not sure it can be used.

Regarding R.D's, if this was the Dutch Wikipedia you could possibly get away with "everybody knows what RD's are, however on the American English Wikipedia, none of us really knows what that is, you would need to explain that, otherwise someone could, potentially remove it as "unreferenced".  Ҝ Ø Ƽ Ħ  14:19, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

@KoshVorlon: I didn't realise that wall had been built already  ;) I think it's still the English Wikipedia though :D  !!! — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 14:24, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Wall? Fortuna_Imperatrix_Mundi , BLP violation removed  !  Ҝ Ø Ƽ Ħ  14:43, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

• In online discussions it's often helpful to sleep on things before reaching a decision. Carolus isn't a vandal, and a tetchy response in not unusual online even from the calmest of characters. As to the American Wikipedia – I'll bite my tongue. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 14:28, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
  • OK guys? what is "tetchy", me no speak uk?? and who is Carlous?--Carolus (talk) 14:31, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
    • @Carolus: "Tetchy" is not "uk", tetchy is English. I'd like to see a clear response from you regarding the sourcing concerns others have brought up, please. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:41, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
      • If you expect me to change my sourcing, sorry, no can do. There are no other sources. But that is not my problem. If you realy think you can do better, yourself, please be me guest. If you don't like it, please delete them, no problem. Better it it is not getting, but your choice. Some people like to make a point by deleting articles, i like to create articles to make my point. that is all. So, perhaps you should only allow UK people to write, then the world would be happy. So, now my question, again, what has an old sockpuppet here to do? What is that point?--Carolus (talk) 14:55, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Creating articles to make a point, could be seen as a violation of WP:POINT, however. GoodDay (talk) 15:00, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, indead, so please block me, naughty me. :D--Carolus (talk) 15:11, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

• • • • • @Carolus: I expect you to provide enough info about a source so that a competent English reader can discern what the source actually is so they can find it if they should choose. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:16, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Carolus as you've shown on Augustine Kasujja, you do in fact know how to create articles with better sourcing. Like I've said to you on your talk page: the articles you create are almost always notable, but also almost always not fully in line with what we expect for an article in the main space. I'd really suggest working in the draft space to develop the articles first, or even send it through AfC. We want your contributions here, but when they involve living people in particular, and biographies in general, we tend to prefer clear sourcing upon creation. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:18, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Carolus, the editors here want you to use a standard format for citing a Royal Decree. I don't personally know what that is, maybe someone else could link to a guide? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:20, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Carolus has in fact been improving these references over the course of the day, e.g. this diff. It's an improvement, although it still isn't optimal. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 16:02, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Right, they're referring to specific source material although not in a standardized citation format. I imagine there is one for this type of source, probably similar to citing a legal statute? But I don't know what to suggest. {{cite act}} maybe? It would also be helpful if Carolus could provide a link to where they're finding these sources, if they are online. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:13, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

The standard format in Dutch would be "KB 1923-7-21", in French "AR 1923-7-21" (with KB/AR standing for "royal decree" in the respective languages). Carolus's attempt to translate this into English as "RD 21-7-1923" is what triggered this round of scrutiny of his editing. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 16:24, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

tetchy = irritable --Andreas Philopater (talk) 14:35, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

• • I will just add, as I've already mentioned on my talkpage, I once put a new article on nlwiki. Within minutes it was at AfD with people mocking my poor Dutch rather than discussing the substantive merits. My response was, I have to admit, not dignified. Hitting the right tone in a foreign language in an online forum is very tricky, especially when people seem to be knocking your good-faith efforts. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 14:33, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
• On Belgian Royal Orders as sources: these are published in the Moniteur belge (or Belgisch staatsblad - basically the Belgian Gazette), which is only online from 2003 onwards (barring some scans of 19th-century copies that crop up unsystematically on Google Books or Internet Archive). Going by deeds rather than by words, Carolus has in fact made an effort to improve these references, and as they are to paper-only sources it is true not much more can be done to improve them, but they should ideally include a reference to the issue number and/or date of the Moniteur belge in which they appear. If "RD 21.7.1923" in fact means "Royal order as published in the Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge of 21 July 1923" then something like that would be best as a reference. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 16:17, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Dear Andreas, you are almost Correct, the date is when the King has signed the koninklijk Besluit, but this can be put in the Staatsblad on a different date. You should ask concrete someone who knows the procedure of the procedures of a Koninklijk Besluit. I am not a Legal specialist, but i know that only after they appear in the Staatsblad, the royal decision is legal. I realy am suprised nobody never heard of this basic rules of Belgian law.--Carolus (talk) 19:20, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Not having the paper publication myself, I cannot know whether you are giving the date of the decree or of its publication (this is why references are important: so those of us who don't have the publication in front of us know where to look!). So the ideal reference would be: "Royal order of 21 July 1923, published in the Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge of xx [month] xxxx"--Andreas Philopater (talk) 19:34, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Ok then i wil stop writing those articles, because that is realy impossible, i do not have time for that. --Carolus (talk) 19:58, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

That's your call. But you could keep the format handy as <ref>"[[Royal order (Belgium)|Royal order]] of [date], published in the ''[[Belgian official journal|Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur belge]]'' of [date]"</ref> (on your user page, say) and just copy/paste it and fill in the dates when editing. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 20:24, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Carolus, you have been offered some really excellent advice, and I ask that you please please please consider carefully following it, or adapt in some other equivalent way. As a reader, I would have had no idea what a reference reading "RD 21-07-1923" or something like it actually meant. I would find it useless for either trying to find or verify, or to use to obtain further information (wording, for example). I would be stuck, and I doubt that you would want every reader who is trying to understand it to come and ask you, potentially years after you have made the edit. By contrast, if you follow the advice from Andreas Philopater, you would leave a reference that tells me that the source is a Royal order from the Belgian monarch, and I could follow a wikilink to find out more about what that is. It would be clear that 21-07-1923 was a date and not some sort of file reference. I would know that it would be published in the Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur Belge and the wiki article or a google search would tell me that it is only available offline for that date. I would have a concrete date to start searching. If you happened to have the title of the royal order, providing that would be helpful too, but even if you don't, the reference would give me an excellent starting point. If you don't know the date of publication, you could at least note "and published shortly afterwards" as something like:

• <ref>"[[Royal order (Belgium)|Royal order]] of [date], published in the ''[[Belgian official journal|Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur Belge]]'' shortly afterwards"</ref>
• <ref>"[[Royal order (Belgium)|Royal order]] of [date], titled [title], published in the ''[[Belgian official journal|Belgisch Staatsblad/Moniteur Belge]]'' on [date]"</ref>

For the ones available online, using a {{cite web}} template would provide a link and all the bibliographic information. It is great that you are adding sources to Wikipedia, and I thank you for that, but it would be much more helpful to add them in a way that what they are is clear to a reader... it is really not fair to expect others to change your "RD XX-XX-XXXX" references to something like that shown above, especially as you only need copy and paste the code and insert your XX-XX-XXXX where it says [date] in my first dot point. Please, this is not difficult for you and would be helpful to others. I understand that you may feel stressed / targeted for adding references, but now that it is clear what the references are, might I say that we are all working towards a common goal – high quality and source encyclopaedic content? Please, you are only being asked to make a format change that is for the benefit of readers now and in the future readers. EdChem (talk) 00:31, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

• Entirely off-topic. In my time here I have got on with contributing with a minimum of interaction. After finding myself pinged in this discussion I also found myself involved in an editing dispute that I have taken to Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard (hopefully the correct forum). Since this has so far been my only experience of dispute resolution, I have put notifications of that other discussion on the talk pages of a number of the people who took part in this one, in hopes of generating a speedy response (it is somewhat time sensitive). I am not sure where else to ask (and should perhaps have asked first), but I hope this will not be regarded as spam or as undue canvassing? I'm not asking people to agree with me, just to take a look. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 00:36, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

• Question - Why are we bending over backwards to keep an editor who is carrying a chip on their shoulder, won't listen to good advice, is combative and issues ultimata at the drop of a hat, and clearly wants to be blocked? Especially since they have been indeffed for socking on another language Wikipedia, and don't appear to have an especially good grasp of English? What is it we're getting from this editor that makes all this effort worthwhile? Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:11, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Considering that his latest edit was this, where "replying" to a question about a 1432-1508 person, he insists that his pre-move name for the article was right, pointing to a source about someone with that name in 1632[11], I second this question. He wants to contribute, but only on his terms and even then with many competence issues. See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charles-Joseph de Hénin-Liétard d'Alsace, where his "contribution" to the AfD is "This has been nominated way too fast.", ignoring completely the many errors he made which resulted in the AfD (I have nothing to do with this article and AfD, so it seems that others are observing the same issues independently). Fram (talk) 07:22, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
    • I just took a quick look at their edits/the chats on their talk page, and the first three 'positions' of theirs I saw that I can myself competently assess (the Belgian monarchs, plus the Swedish dowagers and orgs with Thai royal patronage) are frankly very weird, to the point of being dispositive as far as WP:Competence is concerned, especially once you take into account their penchant for fossicking about with actual (alleged) letters patent and other (allegedly) promulgated primary sources. Having a mediocre command of English doesn't account in the least for all the idiosyncratic and (seemingly) arbitrary takes on perfectly straightforward things. Advocata (talk) 12:12, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

FWIW: I'm considering removing the numberings from the intros of the Belgian monarchs articles. As again, it goes against our practice on monarchial bio articles. GoodDay (talk) 12:18, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I noticed that and was curious: did you mean the lower-case ordinal prefixes, or the regnal numbers, or both? I above was only referring to the bizarreness of suggesting that ('upper-case') ordinal prefixes were actually part of the sovereign title, as opposed to a (lower-case) description. Advocata (talk) 12:46, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Examples: In the intros - "..third King.." at Albert I of Belgium, "fourth King..." at Leopold III of Belgium, etc. These won't make much sense, when a female ascends the throne. GoodDay (talk) 12:50, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I thought, but wanted to make sure you didn't mean the I and III, etc. You can of course rescue the wiki-convention by describing that future Elisabeth as the 8th monarch + first queen regnant, but there doesn't seem much point to it. It only seems to be a thing on the Belgian monarchs' articles because of the comparative newness of the Belgian throne. Advocata (talk) 12:58, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Carolus' combative nature, didn't help either. GoodDay (talk) 13:00, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm trying to verify information he is now adding to articles. [12] This Romanian violinist supposedly became a member of the Belgian Royal Academy aged 19, which seems extremely young for someone without a link to Belgium (Romanian-born, studied in Germany, played in Russia). The source, "Index biographique des membres et associés de l'Académie royale de Belgique (1769-2005)" doesn't seem to exist with that name. It presumably refers to the "l’Index biographique des membres, correspondants et associés (1769-2005) de l’Académie". Older versions of this source exist as well, none are easily accessible sadly. Fram (talk) 15:16, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Noticing disturbing trend

I have been doing new page patrolling for a while now. Recently on a hunch, I started digging around new pages and I have noticed a pattern. A lot of questionable pages are created by the new handles, if I check their contributions, they are limited to just one page they created. Some of the pages were created in March, April and those users have been silent since then. When I PROD a page, after being silent for 2-3 months, they just surface to delete the PROD without giving a reason or improving the article. These users are clever enough to not keep names related to the article in order to avoid potential WP:COI or WP:SPA, but their behaviour clearly makes it evident. I have no option but to go AfD route and in my experience, due to lack of participation, a lot of AfD close in no consensus. I am not sure how to deal with this. I have not linked pages or users because I do not have clear evidence that these are indeed paid editors. Coderzombie (talk) 12:48, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

@Coderzombie: Can you giive one or two examples of these pages? It sounds like paid editing to me; they (the ones that know what they're doing, anyway) tend to load a new page 'ready made' into user / article space as their only edit under a disposable account name, and then disappear. Staying below the r radar, see. — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 13:19, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Some examples I have noticed recently. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Coderzombie (talk) 13:27, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Well, 1, 2, and 4 are probably just fans- they're not written well enough to be paid for. But #3- compare the history to what I said above- an account created a new article about a Pharma in one big, clean edit. Paid editor. Although, ironcally, what you were saying in your OP doesn't seem to apply- the PROD is still there! But the others, meh. They want their favourite songstress to have an article- their 'work here is now done'- it gets PROD'd- they get an email telling them so, they come back, you go to AfD instead. The songstress loses articlespace. — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 13:38, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Could we add a log-onlytag edit filter for PROD template removal by new users anyone? —Guanaco 13:33, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

We have tags for CSD removal and AfD removal, so I don't see why not one for PROD removal. Ask at WT:EFM or on the mailing list. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 15:28, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

The problem with it is that removing CSD and AfD tags are not legitimate ways, in those cases, to object to deletion, whereas removing a PROD template is a legitimate way to object to deletion. An edit filter that shows the removal of PROD templates by non-autoconfirmed users who have at least one warning on their talk page might be useful, though. RileyBugz^会話_投稿記録 16:45, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

My thought on this is that if one person objects to the deletion, consensus on AFD might still be to delete. Whether the removal is in good faith or not, the tag would identify these so we can decide whether to list them at AFD. —Guanaco 16:54, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

• This is an old pattern. Typically paid editor/socks. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:37, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

The solution we won't gain consensus on (it's probably perennially proposed/rejected)is to allow only auto-confirmed editors to deProD. The policy of allowing anyone to do so is based on AGF and assuming members of the community that understand/share our goals are the only ones doing the detagging. This (obviously) allows SPA's and PAID's to game the system.Dlohcierekim (talk) 12:31, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Yup. One reason I wrote WP:IP addresses are not people. Some want to extend the phrase "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit" to doing things that IPs do not need to be doing since there is no accountability, and pulling CSD and PROD tags means it has to go to AFD, an inconvenience for an article that should be deleted. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:31, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

I thought there was already a filter for deCSDs. dePRODs do not justify a filter in my opinion as PRODs can be removed by anyone. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:25, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

I support keeping track of PROD's somehow, in a way that's completely transparent to the remover (after all, anyone is allowed to do it). Either an edit filter, or a bot similar to User:FastilyBot/Recently Untagged Dated Deletion Files. – Train2104 (t • c) 12:43, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Page moves

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

Howdy. Would an administrator please restore the article Ministry of Sir Robert Borden to 10th Canadian Ministry? The article was moved (originally to 2nd Ministry of Sir Robert Borden), without discussion. GoodDay (talk) 22:53, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

• Fixed and I dropped a note, in a rather ironic discussion. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:20, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

• Holy hell, he has done a TON of these. EdJohnston please take a look at his user page, where I linked the SPI on him. I'm about to be busy, but we need an admin to revert a bunch of moves. I blocked him for WP:DE with the moves and concern over this] but I need a clean up on isle 4 via his contribs and the moves. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:29, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
• Any admin is free to unblock or whatever, btw, as I'm about to be away for a bit. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:31, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

User:Charles lindberg has been a problem for some time now. As seen by their talk page competence concerns have been raised multiple times. Their involved in slow edit wars all over......not a new editor. --Moxy (talk) 00:25, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

To add on to this, they've uploaded a bunch of copyvio images screenshotted from Youtube videos using clearly incorrect CC tags, which have all been deleted at Commons. [13] ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 00:45, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Leaving aside the SPI concerns, I agree that an indefinite duration block is justified here on the grounds of disruptive editing (barging into contentious infoboxes and making major changes, etc) and general competence. Nick-D (talk) 02:08, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

It appears that he might be dabbling in editing signed out, as well. GoodDay (talk) 01:05, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

I think this is |Light2Shadow......the War of 1812 infobox edits gives it away.--Moxy (talk) 01:19, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

For other background, see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/96.54.184.11 and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive340#User:Charles lindberg reported by User:Simplexity22 (Result: 72 hours). Based on the huge number of non-consensual page moves from the last few days I support Dennis's indefinite block. I don't know if this is the same person as was operating the Alberta IPs in the SPI case, but there is overlap in behavior.The IP was systematically changing the numbering of Canadian prime ministers, and Charles lindberg was altering the numbering of federal cabinets. EdJohnston (talk) 01:56, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

• The more I look, the more confident I am in the block but the circumstances are unusual enough I did want it reviewed here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 09:50, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
• Good block. Bishonen | talk 21:55, 3 June 2017 (UTC).

London security incident ongoing

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

---

Where is the article for this? I can't see anything in "In The News".

People need info about this ongoing incident, which is headline news around the world.

I assume there is already a page, right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.20.193.222 (talk) 23:26, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Edit, June 2017 London attacks.

Please, get this on ITN as quickly as possible; I know this isn't the correct procedure, but it's an exceptional circumstance.

Lots of people need information, and are looking to Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.20.193.222 (talk) 23:28, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

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

Permission request for certain types of edit.

Resolved

 – This isn't an AN issue. Primefac (talk) 13:09, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Over on quarry there is a report :https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/19295 which lists redirects which eclipse commons.

As updating these to use the relevant Commons file directly might be thought controversial, I'd like the opinion of the admins first. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:45, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

ShakespeareFan00, maybe I'm missing something, but those look like redirects on both Commons and Wikipedia. So what's the issue? Primefac (talk) 12:50, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

If there are redirects on both sites, there is no issues, it's determining which are in fact "local" redirects and thus are "eclipsing" otherwise useful files at Commons. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 12:52, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Well, you need to update your search params, because out of 100 pages I found exactly 1 redirect on-wiki that was an actual image on Commons. Primefac (talk) 13:04, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm marking this as "resolved" (not quite hatting) because this isn't really an admin issue. If there's a redirect on Wikipedia that shouldn't be there, then it should be nominated for deletion. Primefac (talk) 13:09, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding discretionary sanctions

Resolved by motion at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment:

In the interest of clarity, the discretionary sanctions procedures described at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions are modified as follows:

• In the section Appeals by sanctioned editors: Appeals may be made only by the editor under sanction and only for a currently active sanction. Requests for modification of page restrictions may be made by any editor. The process has three possible stages...
• In the section Modifications by administrators: No administrator may modify or remove a sanction placed by another administrator without...

For the Arbitration Committee, Miniapolis 14:00, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Arbitration motion regarding discretionary sanctions

Block review

Third Second time this week for me to ask for review. This is a block of an alternative account that I did, Franzboas, who was using this alternative account for WP:Advocacy and likely breaking the policy on good hand, bad hand accounts. His input at Talk:Zionist Occupation Government conspiracy theory, Talk:Jewish Bolshevism and User talk:Newyorkbrad were not the only factors, but they do frame the situation well. This block wouldn't extend to his primary account, just to the alternate account, which I do not have dots connected on anyway. It isn't often I block an alt account only, so wanted a review by my peers. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:04, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Unusual indeed, and a novel situation. I'm not sure but I believe the subject are is also under discretionary sanctions, in which case I believe a block would apply to the account owner and hence to all their accounts. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:36, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the intersection of race/ethnicity and human abilities and behaviour, broadly construed, is under discretionary sanctions,[14] and Franzboas was alerted to that fact on 17 May.[15] However, Dennis hasn't framed this block as a discretionary sanctions remedy. I don't think discretionary sanctions blocks are supposed to be indefinite, so an ordinary oldfashioned indef as placed by Dennis may be preferable. The option of blocking the main account as well is something that can be discussed here. (The main account isn't known, but a CU can presumably find it if they want.) Bishonen | talk 14:57, 4 June 2017 (UTC).

Oh, and I support this block, did I forget to mention that? Bishonen | talk 15:10, 4 June 2017 (UTC).

You are correct, that often it is better to push the boundaries of admin discretion and put it to community review than to deal with the limitations of Arb restrictions. My actions may not extend to the parent account, but that doesn't stop anyone else from acting on that account, ie: a CU, who might have a better view. My goal was only to stop the immediate disruption as it wasn't likely he would make the same edits with his main account. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:21, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict):::A CU could run a check and issue a Check user block without necessarily disclosing the main account. I contend that PoV/Advocacy is related to the owner of an account, in which case such an attitude exists in the person, not just in one of the accounts they use.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:28, 4 June 2017 (UTC).

• Good block. Saves ArbCom some trouble. There seems to be no inappropriate overlap right now so let's put that to rest for the time being. Drmies (talk) 15:50, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support block. See User talk:Rockypedia#Jews in cultural anthropology and ethnography, where the editor falsely asserted that I "supported" her or his antisemitic vandalism. — MShabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 15:54, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
• Good block. This was a classic example of tendentious editing at its worst. GAB^gab 16:11, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
• I thought about proposing an indef topic ban for Judaism for the unknown parent account (either as Community or WP:AE), but this would drag us pretty deep in the weeds as far as enforcement is concerned. They should understand that they may not create a new account and do the same thing. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 16:15, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
• Good block. Thanks for taking it upon yourself to do what needs to be done. El_C 16:49, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
• Obviously a good block. Neutrality^talk 17:09, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
• Good block - this user got my radar over on Race and intelligence, a page known for sockpuppeting by Mikemikev. Given that Mikemikev likes to rail against Boasian anthropology, I thought this account was a sock of theirs but apparently​ there's a legit main account. Anyway, the block is needed given the comments on Newyorkbrad's page. EvergreenFir (talk) 17:35, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
• Good block - I knew it would come to this after the arbitration request. My only question is why this wouldn't extend to the primary account, since it is the person who made the edits, not the account. {Which I've just seen is a point that Kudpung makde above. Obviously, I agree with that.) It concerns me that the editor involved is still free to edit with their main account, and even to make another so-called "legitimate sock" to continue their advocacy. In my experience, it's rare that people with hardline POVs such as shown by Franzboas are able to edit in other areas without being influenced by those strongly-held opinions. Of course, we don't know if that's the case, because we can't check their editing because we don't know who they are a sock of. This penalizes the community, and potentially the encyclopedia, in order to provide putative "protection" for an editor who has now been blocked for illegitimate editing destructive to the neutrality of the encyclopedia. That doesn't seem right to me. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:14, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
• Commment No need for a CU as the main account is known. I won't comment on the issues as who knows, it might come to the committee. Doug Weller talk 18:28, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

• Fair enough. Perhaps someone who does know can spot check their contributions? Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:31, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

• Beyond My Ken, I presume checking the contributions of the two accounts was what Drmies, who is a CU, was indicating above that he'd done: "There seems to be no inappropriate overlap right now".[16] Bishonen | talk 18:54, 4 June 2017 (UTC).

• Thank you, Bishonen, I missed that part of Drmies comment. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:59, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

• Beyond My Ken, it was one of those situations that I decided to deal with this as a non-Arb sanction because that actually freed me up to do an indef block instead of limited blocks and because the behavior (while perhaps violating Arb restrictions) was already covered under standard policy, so I wasn't forced to act under Arb authority. To do this, I felt I needed to limit it to the account that was being misused. Since I don't know the master account, that was the strongest sanction, and method, I had at my disposal. Obviously, I knew that Arb or CUs would review and take other actions if they deemed it necessary, but that is beyond my control. My actions were limited to stopping the disruption. In short, there is a dash of WP:IAR thrown in but given this is an unusual circumstance, it is warranted. And that is why I put it up for review myself. The net of my actions is to remove their ability to use a second account to do this. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:50, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

• Thank you, Dennis. My apology if it appeared that my comment was a criticism of your action, as that was not my intention. I fully understand what your options were, and I think you acted in the best interests of the encyclopedia with the tools that were available to you.
  I have just posted a suggested addition to WP:LEGITSOCK which would void the privacy provision of that policy if the sock is shown to have violated basic policies and been blocked for it. I don't know if it will fly or not, but this instance is certainly a good illustration of the need for such a change. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:57, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

• No offense taken, I know you better than that. I agree that was a limiting factor, since I couldn't compel them to expose their primary account and I thought taking it to Arb was just overkill. If he starts a new account and does the same, he's been warned that it would be truly socking since this alt was blocked, which would mean his real account WOULD be exposed. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:23, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

• If the "other" account is a POV pusher, they'll run into problems on their own merit. I saw no need for further investigation by others, though of course it's possible that if someone digs deeper they find trouble. It is also no secret that I have plenty of problems with Franzboas's editing, but, I repeat, I did not see such problems in the other account and thus saw no need for anything else--and that's all that needs to be said about it. Let the other account do whatever it was doing; as far as I could tell it was contributing positively. I know it's an odd situation, and it's the first time I see something like this, but hey, the world is a big place. Dennis, thanks again; I am so happy to see you back. Drmies (talk) 22:11, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

He says he isn't going to fight this now, but adds: "@Dennis Brown: I think this is an abomination, but I'm not going to fight it. Not for now, at least. The depth of the bias here genuinely confuses me. Are you aware that one of the people opposing my edits, an administrator, identifies themselves as a "third-gendered sex worker" on their user page and recently defended using euphemisms like "revolutionary action" for ambushing and assaulting unarmed peaceful conservative speakers? (To ice the cake, that admin can and did look at my log information to identify my main account.) Did you know that much of the Frankfurt School conspiracy theory article was written by a user who identifies as an "androgynous British Marxist"? (Amusingly, this image gets passed around on right-wing social media.) Why are these people judged by their individual edits while I am harassed and deemed entirely malicious and unwelcome? Why is an androgynous British Marxist allowed to edit a contentious article about LGBTQ-friendly British Marxists? Are these people not fringe? Or are they just on a fringe that better fits most Wikipedians' tastes? Franzboas (talk) 9:08 pm, Today (UTC+1)" Doug Weller talk 20:39, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

• I replied there, as I should since I did the block. It is my opinion that now that the review has taken place at WP:AN, any appeal should be conducted by Arb (or any subset) itself. This is the only way to guarantee his privacy in an unusual case like this. I'm happy to live with whatever conclusions they draw. I would in fact, encourage Arb to review this case before it is requested, and act if they feel it serves the interest of Wikipedia. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:42, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Ok, the quote Doug Weller have is too far. Attacking people's identities, suggesting they should not edit Wikipedia because of it... That's some bullshit. This editor should be blocked, not just the alt account. The issue is with their behavior and comments now, not the purpose of the alt account. EvergreenFir (talk) 23:21, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

The issue has always been with 'their behaviour and comments' EvergreenFir. The ZOG filth was my straw, so I have been watching since. A comprehensive block is overdue. Irondome (talk) 23:44, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

• I have removed his talk page access for reasons that are obvious. I again would encourage Arb to review this case and consider blocking the parent account. This is not something we can do at WP:AN or as an individual admin as we don't have access to the data needed to do this, so this should fall squarely in the realm of what Arb is here for. Drmies, Newyorkbrad, GorillaWarfare, Doug Weller or another Arb, perhaps you can do this without a formal filing in public, which would defeat the whole purpose of privacy in that account? Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:29, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
  • User:Dennis Brown, Doug knows the other account, and I'll be happy to confirm this to the other arbs (I might change to "active" soon), or they can run their own check. I repeat that I didn't see problems, certainly not these kinds of strange, strange problems, with the other account. Drmies (talk) 22:13, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
    • Drmies, my block was never meant to prevent blocking the master, and given what he has said since, I think Arb should consider it. We are still policy bound to protect his privacy, so Arb is the only mechanism available to do review and take action, if they deem it necessary. Personally, I think we have crossed the threshold where the parent account needs to be blocked, but the community lacks the tools to effectively do this. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:20, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
• Because they were made for purposes of WP:ADVOCACY, I have rolled back a number of Franzboas' edits. Any uninvolved editor with no bone to pick who believes that an edit I rolled back improved the article it appeared in is welcome to restore it without protest from me. I would suggest, though, that admins might want to look closely at the motivations of any editor who restores all (or very many) of the edits I reverted. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:40, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
• Endorse block and thanks to Dennis Brown for decisive action. I saw some of the advocacy and it was corrosive. Johnuniq (talk) 23:32, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
• The main account should be blocked as well. Not sure why it hasn't been. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:58, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Main problem is that we can't link the master and this "legit" sock publicly. This is why I'm trying to get Arb to look at it. Even blocked editors get the same right of anonymity. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:02, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
    • @Dennis Brown: It's not a "legit" sock per WP:SCRUTINY. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:06, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
      • He declared it for a editing in a sensitive area, something we allow. Had he made good edits, there would be no issue with the second account. I didn't block him for creating the account, just for what he did and what the account became. He's been warned if he creates another account to bypass this block, they will all be linked. And yes, I agree blocking the master is a good idea, but my opinion is that Arb should do the dirty work here, given the totality of the circumstances and his expectation of privacy with the account. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:12, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
        • I agree that if he had made good edits then there would be no issue. But he didn't, so the legitimate part goes away. We're not going to have editors creating attack accounts and claiming an expectation of privacy and having the main account remain in good standing, their reputation untouched. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 00:22, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
          • • When I blocked him, and now, I just felt that was a decision best not made by a single person. Particularly since Drmies check the "real" users other contribs and they weren't problematic. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:49, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
              • I understand Dennis's actions and reason for not blocking the main account. And I agree that the arbs would be the best folks to deal with this. But NeilN is correct: abusing a legit alt account voids the protections that come with it. The issue is the user, not the account, and so the user must be dealt with. Trying to game an alt account to shield yourself from repercussions of what the user clearly knows is unacceptable behavior is not okay. EvergreenFir (talk) 04:19, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Whomsoever the ultimate jurisdiction should fall to, I am increasingly inclined to expect a siteban. There is no place for (fairly open) antisemitic fascists on WP, who are now openly attacking other vulnerable minority groups. No place. Zero tolerance. Irondome (talk) 00:28, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

• Question: It seems to me that the block of Franzboas is well supported by policy (based on the account's actions) and the increasingly robust consensus of uninvolved editors here. However, I am wondering if the two apparent views of the main account – privacy prevents action so long as that account edits unproblematically and it is the editor who took the actions so the main account should also be blocked – are truly the only available options. Could not an AN consensus impose a topic ban on the main account, to be informed to the editor off-wiki? Presumably the accounts are notified to ArbCom, so the ban could also be noted on the Arb wiki. Notification by an arbitrator who knows the identity of the main account could be accompanied by a strict warning that (for example) the topic ban will be noted on the main account on wiki and an AN thread to consider a block / ban started if problematic edits are found (in other words, privacy can't be used to protect an editor from prior advocacy problems on an alternative account being considered if the same problems appear on the main account). Or, that a violation will see the main account blocked for violations of the sock policy? Or, whatever other policy-compliant conditions that an AN consensus might support? I recognise that monitoring the account is an extra burden for arbitrators / functionaries who know the identity of the main account, but practically, any editor causing serious problems within the topic will ultimately be called out at a noticeboard at which point someone in the know will see it and a quick check would allow the imposed conditions to be triggered. To me, this approach would formally register to the editor the community's disapproval of their actions and keep whoever is behind the Franzboas account away from the topic. It would also reaffirm to everyone that the community does not approve of using alternative accounts for advocacy (ie. this is not a legitimate SOCK under the policy) and that advocacy and POV editing reflect the views of the editor. Is something along these lines possible / viable / desirable? EdChem (talk) 00:48, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I thought of that and even typed it out and reviews a few times, but in the end, felt Arb was best to deal with this, and they can do it in private, then decide (based on what policy and community expectations are) what to do. I don't want the bad deeds of one person push us to violate our own rules on privacy. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:52, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
    • (e/c) Just on Neil's T/P. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Daniel_Craig&diff=prev&oldid=783834101. Who the hell is this? Irondome (talk)
  • A topic ban probably wouldn't do anything as this alt-account was specifically created to edit on this topic, shielding the main account. Also, we are talking about behavioral problems here, not only advocacy. It is well understood that behavioral problems in the past usually result in a (sometimes much) shorter leash in the future, even in unrelated areas. A private topic ban does not address this, unless the Arbs are willing to monitor future behavior in all areas. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:00, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
• As I mentioned above, I posted a comment on WP:Sockpuppetry suggesting a change to the privacy provision in which a violation of policies by the "legitimate sock" would void the privacy. (The thread can be found here.) An editor expressed the opinion that "This is all already covered, albeit less specifically than in your proposal." So at least one editor believes that violating Wikipedia policies voids the privacy provision. I'm not sure what, exactly, the editor feels covers this (I've asked them to comment here) but it's worth looking into. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:05, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
• Although there was no privacy issue, Til Eulenspiegel's alternative and harmless account was also blocked[17] , by User:The Bushranger. Doug Weller talk 05:55, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
• Restrictions are against the editor, not the account. The current situation is that the editor is unrestricted from editing in the same area, as their main account has not been restricted in any way. If there is a genuine privacy need to keep the accounts separate, then someone with CU access needs to email the main account and let them know formally any restrictions to the Alt-account also apply to their main. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:13, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
• Personally, I would be looking at blocking the main account as well. It is utterly ludicrous that the misuse of a sock implies some sort of privacy. Failing that, what I would certainly be doing is informing the two editors attacked by Franzboas on his talkpage of his description and attack on them, and if I was them I would have every expectation of being told the master account name as well, given that they appear to also be engaging in off-wiki harrassment ("Did you know that much of the Frankfurt School conspiracy theory article was written by a user who identifies as an "androgynous British Marxist"? Amusingly, this image gets passed around on right-wing social media.") The editor lost any claims they might have to privacy when they posted that - regardless of the fact that the sock was not SOCK#LEGIT compliant anyway, as it was only revealed when another editor forced them into it. I have no idea why we're tiptoeing round this elephant in the room. Black Kite (talk) 18:20, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
• @Black Kite: I agree with you. I have in fact contacted RGloucester about that photoshopped image. Of course it's a lie that he wrote much of it, see his edits here. Doug Weller talk 19:44, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Doug Weller I've pinged some Arbs but no reply. Do I need to file a formal case here, or will Arb simply look into this privately? As the blocking admin, who is limited on what he can do, I can't help but think this is a reasonable request, for an answer. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:46, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
    • ArbCom are discussing this. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:48, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
      • Yes, although I have no objection to this being handled by the community. Doug Weller talk 20:09, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
        • Hiding behind an alternate account for veiled antisemitism - coupled with the personal attacks - really does render privacy a moot point. Sanctions on the master are the only real path from this point. GAB^gab 20:36, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
        • It's rather hard for the community to handle it, since we don't know who the master is. I take Drmies' word that the editing of the master doesn't show signs of the advocacy of Franzboas, but I think the issue has now gone beyond that to: do we want the editor who spews personal attacks and antisemitic editing under a mask to be allowed to edit here at all? We could, in essence, try the master in absentia, and call for a block, which could then be implemented by an Arb without public announcement, but that rather flies in the face of the culture of transparency that WP generally runs under. In any case, I would think that many people would be uneasy about passing judgment on another editor based on less then the totality of their contributions, which would, again, make it difficult for the community to reach a decision and "handle it". Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:32, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
          • • Bingo. Thus my harping about Arb reviewing it. They review stuff in private all the time, I would trust them in this. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:47, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
              • It's not a question of trust; it's a question of need. Incidents should be reviewed in private only when there's an overriding need to. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:41, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
      • Thank you Newyorkbrad. I had a feeling, but no one told me as blocking admin. This is one of those times that really does require Arb. If you decide to link them publicly, not to, block, don't, whatever, that is fine but only you guys can really review it properly. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:33, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

I have a naive question. Since nobody saw fit to raise it, I'll do it myself. Why wasn't a topic ban first considered, instead of an indef block? That way, one can topic ban the other account as well, if required. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 18:22, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Admins cannot hand out topic bans on their own for subjects not covered by discretionary sanctions. The editor was warned of the "intersection of race/ethnicity and human abilities and behaviour" DS but what they were blocked for does not fall under that (in my opinion). --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:41, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Ok. So admins can indef block someone for some reason, removing their ability to edit at all; but not topic ban someone for the same reason, removing their ability to edit in a certain area? Sound rather weird. In any case, bans can be handed out through consensus here. Why not start with a topic ban first? Is there evidence of disruption outside the area? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 19:29, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

A block is just a block. When someone is banned in any way, other editors are expected to remove their edits and other admins to block them under circumstances. Blocks don't obligate others in such ways. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:36, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Admin are not allowed to unilaterally issue topic bans unless it falls under GS or DS sanctions. What you need to remember is this is a (questionably legit) SOCK that was created solely to make these kinds of edits, he has a main account. The only effective way of dealing with it was to block the sock and bump up to Arb to let them make the final call, in order to protect his privacy. They could lift the block and chastise me, although I wouldn't expect that. And remember, Kingsindian, my block did not prevent the real primary account in any way to edit any article. What I really blocked was his use of that sock. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:39, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Let's stipulate that the block was fine. After the block, it was brought here for review. I am saying: why not just topic ban them instead of indef blocking them? WP:AN has the power to do whatever it wants. Why go straight to an indef block, instead of a narrower ban? Is there evidence of disruption outside the area in question? One recalls the Noleander case, where they were given a topic ban by ArbCom. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 20:00, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Have you actually read through the above discussion? [18] --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:06, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

So, can we just clarify where we are at this time? I am under the assumption that this issue is now firmly in the hands of Arbcom, as Newyorkbrad has intimated by referring to ongoing Arbcom discussion, and that Dennis's block is a holding action. Or is the community to decide on whether it goes to ANI or Arbcom? I get the point about two accounts being in play here, which obviously makes things less straightforward. How are we going forward from here? Irondome (talk) 20:22, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

NeilN I have indeed read it. I wrote a response addressing your argument; but in the middle I realized that this discussion is likely to go nowhere. So I decided that it's better to just let ArbCom deal with the weird rules of Wikipedia. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 20:29, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

@Irondome: We are not discussing going to undo the block of Franzboas, if that's what you are asking. And it is my opinion that it is up to the community to decide if it wants to handle this at ANI. Although we may take some action in regard to the main account I personally don't see why the community can't handle it and would prefer to see that happen. The issue for me is whether we treat both accounts the same way or say that if the main account has not been editing problematically it can continue to edit. I'd argue for the former. Doug Weller talk 20:39, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: I don't see how the community can decide on what sanctions to impose (or if) when only Arbcom knows what is the main account. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:45, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

No Doug, I was aware this is not about unblocking this individual. My question was who is handling this issue now, Arbcom or the community. Basically would Arbcom prefer the community to handle this, and is that the majority feeling there? In which case we can take this to ANI and propose a topic ban on all Jewish related subjects, broadly construed. (Although wording may be harder as this individual has edited the ZOG Conspiracy theory and that old chestnut, The over representation of Jews in Communist organisations. I would argue further that this use of two accounts has been a cynical gaming and the community treats both the same. The arguments for privacy have been well critiqued above as being undeserving of further GF by the community. Irondome (talk)

Just one caveat, Irondome, AN is the proper venue for a topic ban discussion. Generally those only get handled at AN/I when they're connected to a discussion about an incident which has been reported there, and keeping the discussion in one place is valuable. Since this was brought here in the first place, any discussion about a topic ban for the master account should take place here... and since Arbitrators are open to letting the community handle this, I think I'll do just that. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:37, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Proposals

Proposal 1: Topic ban for master account of Franzboas

The account "Franzboas" was created by an editor currently unknown to the community at large (but known to ArbCom) as a supposedly "legitimate alternative account" under the privacy provision of WP:LEGITSOCK. However, it appears that the master actually created the account to avoid WP:SCRUTINY, as the edits made by Franzboas were almost entirely to identify article subjects as being Jewish, whether or not that identification had any relevance. After the sock account was indef-blocked for WP:ADVOCACY, Franzboas made a number of personal attacks against other editors on their talk page, until talk page access was removed. At the very least, the editing of Franzboas indicates that the editor behind that account has an unhealthy fascination, damaging to the encyclopedia, with labeling people as Jewish, whether or not doing so is relevant or not; at the worst, their editing shows them to be an antisemite who gamed the system and used the privacy provision to avoid any ramifications of their POV editing on their main account. On the grounds that there is a legitimate need to protect the encyclopedia from the bias of this editor, this proposal is for a topic ban on the main account from editing all things, anywhere on the encyclopedia, having to do with Judaism and Jewishness, broadly construed. The topic ban would be indefinite, but can be appealed to the community on AN after one year. Should the editor be blocked, this topic ban would remain in effect if and when that block is lifted.

• Support as proposer, in conjunction with the indef block in Proposal 2. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:37, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
• Strong Support. Irondome (talk) 21:48, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support as obvious—if a person makes an account that is indeffed for advocacy, a minimal outcome is that the person is indefinitely topic banned. Johnuniq (talk) 05:13, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• I can Support this, but I don't know if it's necessary. Since the master is known to ArbCom and has no previous edits in this area, topic banning them doesn't do much. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 05:56, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support At a minimum. Its clear from Dennis above that the block was to prevent problematic editing - which as an (allegedly) legit sock is generally limited to this topic area. I do not see any real dissention above that people are disagreeing their edits in this topic are problematic. So there is no privacy issue in extending a topic ban to the editor and getting someone with the relevant advanced permissions to notify the editor on his main account in private. It would need to be logged at WP:RESTRICT (suitably anonymised) though for future reference. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:51, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose as not sufficent. Their comments on their talk page show that their bigotry goes a lot further than anti-semitism, and their interest further than articles about Judaism. Black Kite (talk) 18:03, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• Siteban? Frankly I would support that, as I indicated way upthread. Irondome (talk) 18:11, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support, mainly as per Only in death. I understand Kingsindian's point here, although I think this is a necessary prophylactic and precautionary measure. GAB^gab 22:41, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support in addition to proposal 2. BMK's views on this subject throughout the thread sum my views up well. This is neccessary in case proposal 2 doesn't get consensus or if it does and it is appealed. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:15, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Proposal 2: Indef block for master account of Franzboas

(Please see the description of the situation under Proposal 1 above.) Given the attitudes and bias of the editor behind the Franzboas account, as expressed in their editing and their personal attacks, the Wikipedia community has decided that the editor is not one that we wish to have as a contributor to the encyclopedia, and for that reason, we have decided to extend the indef block for ADVOCACY given to Franzboas to the master account. Should this indef block be lifted, and should the topic ban in Proposal 1 be affirmed, that topic ban would remain in effect until such time as it is lifted by community consensus.

• Support as proposer, in conjunction with the topic ban in Proposal 1. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:37, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
• Strong Support. Let us deal with this in a decisive way. Irondome (talk) 21:40, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support Without knowing anything else about this user (master account and alt), except what is here and the editing history of the alt account, comments on their talk page, this just seems like it was a mis-cue to allow the alt account in the first place. Given the subject matter the alt account was set up to engage in, and the whole Arb Com discretionary sanctions within that subject matter, it seems right to indef block of the master account. — Maile (talk) 22:40, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support - If current policy is interpreted to mean that users can create scrutiny-evading socks to make racist/anti-Semitic comments on the encyclopedia and level despicable personal attacks at other editors without penalty to their primary account, our current policy *is fatally broken and must be changed. The limited license for users to create alternative accounts must not be allowed to provide an anonymous platform for behavior that is corrosive to the very fabric of a collaborative encyclopedia. We do not need editors so badly that we must be forced to accept the presence of someone who openly treats other editors in such a manner. That they have done so under the cover of an "alternative account" is of no account — this user must no longer be welcome on the project in any way, shape or form. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:07, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support for the abuse of WP:VALIDALT in order to violate WP:NOTADVOCACY in a sustained way. That alone is enough, without even mentioning the nature of what they were promoting. The thing that is puzzling is that as ugly as the editing was, there was this shred of honor in disclosing that it actually was an alt account. So odd. Jytdog (talk) 04:39, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support Editor X cannot evade sanctions by making alternate account Y for a particular purpose, and later repeat with account Z (or X) after Y is indeffed. It would be a mistake for anyone to think they could evade scrutiny by making an alternate account for an activity that is likely to lead to that account being indeffed. Johnuniq (talk) 05:13, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose: The master is known to ArbCom, and there is no chance of repeating this behaviour with another account, for obvious reasons. One should start with a topic ban and see how it goes. It would be in line with the Noleander case. Bad behaviour in one area is in no way necessitates bad behaviour in another; otherwise topic bans would be meaningless in general.

  In my opinion, WP:VALIDALT was not violated. See the inappropriate uses here. None of them apply. It was claimed that "Good Hand, Bad Hand" was violated, but I don't see it. There was no intention to evade scrutiny or deliberately try to vandalize or disrupt articles. The behaviour was judged as disruptive after the fact, that is fine. But there is no evidence that the alt was set up to disrupt. The editor said that they set up the alt because they wanted to edit in a sensitive area, and didn't want to disclose their main alt for privacy reasons. This is explicitly covered in WP:VALIDALT.

  In any case, if there are problems with alts, one can simply restrict them to one account instead of indef blocking them. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 06:14, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• Undecided. Not comfortable discussing an indef block of a user without at least some details of the user's editing patterns seen as a whole. Do they perform significant amount of good/productive edits on their main account? Is their main account hardly used and their legitsock make up the bulk of their edits? If the former - many editors can be productive once restricted from areas that get them in trouble. If the latter - there is no real benefit in allowing them to continue editing. Is this something someone with the ability to see both accounts can answer? Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:56, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support I understand this is under view by ArbCom, however let me just try to clear something up here. We have an editor, who has a legitimate alt account, that was making anti-Semitic comments. How is this not gaming the system? And if we are going to use the idea of "privacy" to protect the master from a block, then haven't we just given carte blanche for ANY user to do this? This is completely uncalled for. Both the sock and master need to go, this behavior has no place here. RickinBaltimore (talk) 13:55, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support - see my 2 comments at the beginning of this issue. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:03, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Comment this may in effect OUT the master. Is this something the community can do? Mr Ernie (talk) 15:36, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• OUTing requires the attempt to identify an editor's personal information, but there is no possibility of this being OUTing, since any personal information about the master (if there is any) would already be on the master's user page. It would only potentially link the master to a misbehaving sock, and possibly not even that if ArbCom chose to make the application of any community sanction private. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:40, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support Anti-semitism, homophobia, and anti LGBTQ slurs. No reason why the master should be allowed to continue editing here. I'm not entirely sure why we're having this conversation; if the master for this sock was known, it would have been indeffed on the spot. Black Kite (talk) 18:01, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Undecided Before going off the deep end, all I see here are a lot of comments on talk pages. I was involved in some of those discussions, and I wasn't impressed by the logic of his arguments or what seemed to me like inaccurate use of sources. But that, by itself, is not unusual. Neither are intensely offensive comments from editors on talk pages, there are many such comments daily on contentious topics. A lot of editors seem to be deeply morally offended by the comments on Newyorkbrad's talk page. Is it because he noted a lot of academics are Jewish? Seriously? When did noting the background of academics become weird? Even Newyorkbrad doesn't think it rises to the level of antisemitism. And Jewish Bolshevism — well, this much is for sure, it was an important part of Nazi propaganda. Far more concerning then anything on Newyorkbrad's talk page, there were some truly offensive comments, about race and iq —which is around the time I checked out of the discussion. Generally, I agree generally with Jytdog's comment above that this was an obvious abuse of policy and Franzboas should have known better.. Black Kite mentions slurs, and if slurs were in fact used, on talk or in edits, that would be different from what I read on Newyorkbrad's talk page. I will note that while most of the support for this proposal is from editors who believe this was abuse of an alt-account, the way the proposal is worded suggests that the issue is attitudes and bias of the editor—to echo what Jytdog says above, it is enough that Franzboas made statements to the effect that the purpose of the account was to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS—it isn't necessary to mention the nature or content of the advocacy. Seraphim System ^(talk) 19:56, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose users without the right to know the identity of a master account are unable to block him even if these is some users in support of doing it. Govindaharihari (talk) 20:36, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support per BMK and other below. Socking to hide views that one is ashamed of and are reprehensible is not okay. If the accounts had been one, a topic ban would have been fine, but since socking was used the appropriate response is an indefinite block/ site ban given the actions of Franzboa both before and after they were blocked. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:15, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
• Comment I would again repeat that it would be preferable to see that Arb and the editing community in general is able to make decisions like this in content-neutral terms. Jewish Bolshevism is a toxic article for many reasons. The best thing to do is probably stay away from it. I don't know if it's true but our article on Menachem Begin says he accused Mapai of "Bolshevism" and this has been repeated and discussed by other Israeli scholars. Long story short, there are numerous long-standing issues with this article. Probably, Menachem Begin was not an anti-semite. Hmm. There is something deeply disturbing and toxic about the entire topic, and while I did not find Franzboas' editing style to be especially productive or constructive, I find that uncritical hypersensitivity to the topic is equally unproductive. I have not seen any posts that rise to the level of racial slurs (there may have been such posts but I have not seen them) and editors should really post such evidence if they are going to continue to use the term "antisemitism"—I would generally agree that this [19] is pretty clear evidence that the direction Franzboas was heading in would not have been an improvement for the article, as far as his intentions seem to have been to legitimize the canard. But this is one edit out of many, and it is a talk page comment, so I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think blocking the alt account was the right call, but extending it to indeff the master account may be too heavy-handed, at this point. Seraphim System ^(talk) 08:32, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

While he has made a lot of posts adding Judaism to biographical backgrounds, many of his edits weren't negative. This seems to be mostly about statements that he has made that he added this material to prove that Jews were "overrepresented" in certain fields [20]. As for the actual content of the edits - what is anti-semitic about this [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] is this anti-semitic [29] [30] is it anti-semitic to mention that someone's mother admired Emma Goldman [31] is it hateful to mention that someone is gay [32] ... is the concern here the content of the edits or what motivated the content of the edits? The edits themselves don't seem like WP:ADVOCACY, they seem on the whole neutral in tone, some are even positive, like a mention of Jewish values being a factor in personal success —but there are statements he has made about his motivations that could show his editing pattern as a whole is motivated by WP:ADVOCACY, though I think that reasoning is borderline at best. But regarding anti-semitism, I don't think the content of (most) of the edits rises to the level of what most people would think of as "anti-semitic fascist" pattern of editing, and I don't think indeff-ing the master account would be preventative. These articles are very closely watched, and if problems arise in the future, we can deal with that when it happens. Seraphim System ^(talk) 09:41, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

As with many other things, context is what matters. An editor who adds that the subject of an article is Jewish, when that is relevant to their history or work, can hardly be considered to be an antisemite, but an editor who does so in practically every edit they make, with a number of reasons given for why it is relevant, some of which are stretches at best, is doing nothing but spreading around the stigma of being a Jew. You don't have to pay attention to what this person says, because he's a Jew. This person writes about antisemitism, but that's to be expected, because she's a Jew. This one over here is a physicist, but that's not unusual because they're a Jew and many physicists are Jews. The net effect is that Franzboas was handing out scarlet letters to people with Jewish backgrounds in order to smear them. There was nothing innocent about their editing, their user page made that clear. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:08, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I understand that you feel this was an attempt to delegitimize individuals based on their religious background, but I am having a hard time applying that reasoning to a post that, for instance, notes that someone is Jewish because they are critical of Israel and support Palestinian rights [33] Seraphim System ^(talk) 08:15, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

That a Jewish person supports Palestinian rights and criticizes Israel is only relevant if one is of the opinion the normally all Jews support Israel and are opposed to Palestinian rights. That is an antisemitic prejudice, pure and simple, presupposing that all Jews think alike, are incapable of independent thought, and walk in lockstep with Israel, something I know from personal experience is not true, and something that any intelligent person editing this encyclopedia should know is not true. Franzboas didn't seem to know that, which means that the master doesn't know that, which makes them a ticking time bomb in our midst. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:57, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

"As with many other things, context is what matters." Johnuniq (talk) 11:26, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Proposal 3: No community action is warranted, ArbCom can act if it sees fit

Adding this for the sake of completeness.

• Oppose - I have no objection at all to ArbCom acting if it chooses to, but I don't consider the possibility of an ArbCom sanction (or no sanction) as precluding community action. It's hardly unusual for ArbCom and the community to deal with problems in parallel, and while the community does not have access to the full data, the proposals as written are based on what is available to the community. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:48, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose Yeah I would agree with that. This is actually a serious business and I would expect it to be given due weight. An ideal solution is to allow the community to continue giving it's opinions under the above proposals, and see whether they chime with ArbComs' considered view. As BMK says, the community and ArbCom should be dealing with issues in tandem, and I suspect that the considered final community consensus and ArbCom sentiments will chime. Irondome (talk) 02:57, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose ArbCom can of course act if it sees fit, but that is not a reason for inaction from the community. Johnuniq (talk) 05:13, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose - see my 2 comments at the beginning of this issue. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:01, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support - This was a block given by an admin (me), who did so without any community input as it wasn't required, but I volunteered for community review after the fact. I asked Arb to review it, which of course means they review my actions as well. I could have just blocked and made a request to Arb via email but chose not to because I put my actions up for review. Because it involves privacy issues, I think Arb should review first. They may bump it down and link the accounts, or just take action, so the penalty may ultimately be up to the community, but linking privacy accounts is only something CUs (and Arbs) have the tools and authority to do. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:15, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

  It now looks like Arb may have already been on the case before or just as I blocked him. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:51, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• Support - no community action is possible without Arbcoms say so, all of these community suggestions are pointless without elevated authority in this case. No one will name the master apart from Arbcom. If Arbcom quietly ban him as he is clearly high profile all users will know his identity, if he edits under his real name that would create additional privacy concerns. I also see that even Newyorkbrad doesn't think it rises to the level of antisemitism. Govindaharihari (talk) 20:03, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Support with qualification that the dichotomy between community action and ArbCom action that is the underlying assumption is a false and misleading dichotomy. ArbCom is not somehow separate from the community, it is the tool of the community (Jimbo created the "Wikiquette Committee" after several requests and community suggestions). In contrast to the, what, 1-200 or so editors that might see an AN/ANI discussion, ~2000 editors vote in ArbCom elections. That is a whole order of magnitude more participation. My point is, however, that the community has placed its trust in ArbCom. That trust was freely debated and extensively discussed. ArbCom acts only as long as it keeps that trust. That suggest to me, for what its worth, that the community can wait for its designated tool to take the actions that may be needed. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:55, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose that ArbCom is looking into it does not preclude community action. The community should be able to voice its opinion and form consensus on this, and ArbCom should implement if a consensus is formed. This of course is not being opposed to ArbCom acting on its own. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:15, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose with qualifications I think ArbCom will have to enforce any community decision related to the master account, unless they decide to publicly link the accounts (which does not seem likely)—they've raised the possibility of privacy concerns if they indeff the master account, but at the same time community input is something they should consider during their deliberations. But the final the requirements of the privacy policy is something we don't get a say in. Seraphim System ^(talk) 10:43, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Discussion of proposals

Please note that Arb is discussing this case as we speak, so it may or may not be out of the hands of WP:AN. Because of the potential privacy issues, it was my preference that Arb handle it. I have no authority to require how it is now handled, I already know that. Not everyone is as concerned about privacy concerns in this case, which is fine, and Arb may yet bump this back to us. Even if someone is a jackass here, I'm not inclined to unmask their master account without some careful deliberation about those consequences, and we can't do that here because we don't have the information. I don't expect everyone to agree, but that doesn't change my concerns about privacy. Since ArbCom members are reviewing, unless they tell us the master account's real identity, all this is kind of moot. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:13, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• Well Dennis, you did an excellent admin action right off the bat, and brought it here for perusal. I also note that there were strong concerns about this individual and their editing patterns from Newyorkbrad (on his talkpage) which was strongly echoed by Drmies, so there is deffo an issue. The main problem to my mind has been a lack of communication by Arbcom to the community about what was happening, and how to proceed. This has led to this community driven initiative, which I am sure Arbcom can understand the reasoning behind. With regard to the privacy question, from this individual's talkpage jibes, it would seem that respected Wikpedians are being ridiculed on 'right wing' sites, very probably initiated by this individual. I do not know how this links to the complex WP guidance on user privacy, but it would seem that would be damaging to the priviledge of privacy that this individual may claim or invoke. Irondome (talk) 00:35, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Dennis: I initiated the two proposals because I took the two comments by Arbitrator Doug Weller, saying that he had no objection to the community dealing with this issue, as a sub rosa indication that perhaps there wasn't a developing consensus within ArbCom as to what should be done, so if we wanted something to happen, we shouldn't hesitate to start the ball rolling. Admittedly, I could be misreading that, but that was my take-away.
  Because of the situation, I framed the proposals as not being dependent on the quality of the master account's editing for the simple fact that we don't know who it is and cannot determine that for ourselves; however, my feeling is that the editing of his or her sock is sufficiently egregious that it alone can be used to justify sanctions against the master without knowing anything about the editing of the master. Of course, we also cannot apply any possible mitigating factors, such as the high quality of that editing (if such is the case), but that's entirely the result of their gaming the system, and we should not be hamstrung by that manipulation.
  I would be as pleased as punch if ArbCom were to rule on this, but, frankly, my reading of the tea leaves does not indicate to me that they're heading towards a sanction, or even to a consensus ruling short of a sanction -- hence my proposals. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:16, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Question What in the hell provision of SOCKLEGIT is being used here to even protect the master? They gave that up by posting a bunch of malicious, discriminatory and basically awful shit. What if someone took this to SPI? What would the response be? We have to protect the "privacy" of the master's anonymous account? If this was any other sock they'd be blocked and all their other accounts would be logged. I can't believe this many words, and this much time, has been spent on someone who should just be blocked. All of their accounts obviously. Capeo (talk) 01:25, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• BMK, ArbCom drinks coffee, not tea. Irondome, ArbCom doesn't frequently post updates of things they're discussing, but I can tell you that this is a thing they're discussing. Capeo, I'll chime in with some of your words, and if I may speak ex officio, can I just say that hey y'all, this is really not worth all this time and attention. We had a problematic account; it is blocked (thanks Dennis). Drmies (talk) 02:18, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• I think one can prognosticate from reading the eggshells in the coffee grounds as well.
  Of course I don't expect ArbCom to issue press releases on privacy matters they're considering in camera, I'm just explaining why I thought what I thought and therefore why I did what I did. I should also say (to be obvious) that I disagree with you -- as apparently do other editors who have commented here -- that blocking the sock is sufficient, as we are dealing not with a "problematic account", but, in my opinion, with a problematic editor, someone I, for one, do not want wandering around Wikipedia with complete freedom to do as they will. Unless ArbCom is going to take the responsibility of monitoring the editing of the master account in perpetuity, there's no way that the community can be assured that this editor isn't going to get down and dirty again, since we don't know who it is and can't keep eyeballs on them. So, considering that, I'd say that it is worth the time and attention, in spite of your assurance (which I absolutely believe) that you found no hint of bias in the master account's editing -- it's not their past I'm concerned about, it's our future. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:40, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• I have to agree with BMK and Capeo. The issue is the account and their forfeited their right to privacy when they abused a legitsock and tried to game the system. The issue is the user, not the account. We block otherwise productive or unproblematic accounts all the time as socks for past abuses by a sockmaster (parent/master account misbehaves, all future child/alt/sock accounts are blocked when found). I don't see why we shouldn't address it same way when the time order is flipped (parent/master account behaves well but child/alt account doesn't). I'm withholding a vote on the proposals until ArbCom makes a decision. EvergreenFir (talk) 04:39, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• I think that it would be necessary to ask us, the committee, to implement this, and of course even if we did, it would be because of the specific circumstances and not a precedent suggesting that we'd always agree. I'm not sure I was suggesting anything " sub rosa". Doug Weller talk 05:18, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• I quite see that ArCom would have to be the agency to implement any community-based sanction, just as an administrator would have to implement a community block or ban in a normal case. I trust that if the discussion is closed with the authorization of a sanction, ArbCom would not impose its own will and override the community decision if it disagreed with it, but would faithfully act as the executor of the community's will. Further, if a sanction is agreed to by the community, ArbCom would have to be the conduit for any future appeal of the sanction, either deciding on it themselves in its role as a venue to appeal community sanctions, or by bringing the appeal to the community in such a way as to preserve the account's privacy. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:29, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• Neutral pointers to the proposals above have been placed on the user talk pages of every editor who contributed to the original discussion but has yet to comment on the proposals. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:07, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• This is an unusual circumstance. Normally, admin can just deal with it and ask for review if needed. All things considered, I think it is being handled. The community isn't barred from imposing a ban/block but only Arb could enforce it, so it made sense for Arb to just take the case. That said. Arb DID come up short when it comes to notification. Brad did tell me, but I get the feeling you were discussing it sooner, and had you just posted "ArbCom is currently reviewing and will take action" then all this additional "stuff" could have been avoided. You have to keep deliberations secret, we get that, but you do NOT have to the keep the fact that you are reviewing a secret when the block itself was this public. Throw up a banner or something, for goodness sakes. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 11:51, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• Can Arbcom at least tell us how the master was identified? Was it via private email from the master or some other way? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:40, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
• @Dennis Brown: We should have. We had been discussing him before, partially because of the case and partially because of sockpuppet accusations. I'm sorry about that. @NeilN: the main account was identified via CU. Doug Weller talk 18:32, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

I am not going to vote on the proposals, but I will comment here. I do so as an individual editor/admin, not in my ArbCom capacity, although it's true that my role on ArbCom gives me access to the name of the primary account. To begin with the obvious, I was not happy about the editing of the Franzboas account, for reasons discussed in the thread on my talkpage, which Franzboas started after I criticized his editing in voting on his (subsequently withdrawn) request for arbitration. That account was properly blocked (technically it could have been topic-banned instead, but since it was a single-purpose alternate account, it makes little difference). The comments on User talk:Franzboas in the immediate aftermath of the block, which led to talkpage access being revoked, were especially uncollegial and reprehensible.

However, I have also spent some time reviewing the editing of the main account and studied the contributions, although I have not read each and every edit. There is no sign in the edits from that account of the types of edits that led to the block of Franzboas. The account focuses primarily on subjects having nothing to do with Judaism, anthropology, or related fields. The account has been editing for a significant amount of time. It has never been blocked and the talkpage history reflects no user-conduct warnings. My expectation is that if all the edits of the two accounts had been made by a single account, the resulting sanction would have been a topic-ban along the lines adopted in the Noleander arbitration case, rather than a site-ban.

I pass this information along for what it may be worth in the decision-making on this issue. I would also like to urge great caution before a decision is made that the two accounts must be publicly linked, since we do not know to what extent, if any, the identity of the main account is linked to a real-world identity. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:14, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks for the input. I wish Arb would have announced earlier that it was already looking at the case, which might have removed some of the stress involved. People do forget that ArbCom looking at this IS the community looking this, just with tools that the rest of us do not have. We voted you in. This is also why I have said I'm willing to live with the result, regardless of what it is. I understand that I don't have all the info, and again, this is why I only blocked the alternate account without referencing the master, which is an unusual use of admin discretion. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 22:09, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Brad, I understand your point that banning the alternate account is, in effect, a topic ban, and that Wikipedia has handled other cases in such a fashion. But I disagree with the implication that there should be no further repercussions to the main account holder here. To me, it's not a question of which articles or topic areas the main account edits. It's a question of community standards. This is an individual who has—in the most charitable possible interpretation—a creepy fixation on Jewishness and Jewish "over-representation" in certain fields. An equally valid interpretation, in my view, would be that he's a straight-up anti-Semite.

    So the question becomes: to what extent is such a person welcome here? If they manage to segregate all of their odious contributions under an alternate account, are they welcome to continue to edit using a "clean", unlinked account, immune from the opprobrium that would normally attach? What message does that send about our community values? Is it OK for me to create an alternate account, to go around spewing racist bigotry until I get blocked, and then come back to my main account as if nothing had happened? Because despite the best of intentions, that's the message that I see being sent here, and it bothers me.

    Of course, I have no idea who the main account is, nor the privacy issues involved, so I'm voicing an opinion without access to all of the facts, but I feel pretty strongly that the main account should be blocked—quietly, if necessary—by someone in the know. MastCell ^Talk 23:34, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

  • Well said MastCell! It perfectly encapsulates my concerns, and I suspect many other colleagues who have commented here. Irondome (talk) 23:46, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
    • MastCell says it well. But to add, Newyorkbrad seems to be saying that "well it's basically a tban which we'd normally do anyway" but that ignore the fact that this user tried to game the system and avoid scrutiny by employing a sock for the illegitimate purpose of spewing anti-Semitism. This is not qualitatively the same as done user who is unconstructive in a particular area and thus a tban is warranted. Rather this user intentionally abused the privacy afforded to users per LEGITSOCK​ to abuse individual wikipedians and malign an entire group of people. Again, if the order of events were reversed, we'd have no problem outing a sock as belonging to a master account and blocking them. Why do we now? EvergreenFir (talk) 00:06, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
• Comment - I have a comment at this time. If what I have inferred from the posting at User talk:Franzboas is a correct inference, then, on the one hand, it makes perfect sense for the person behind the sock account to use a sock account. On the other hand, their reason for using a sock account is reprehensible, and Wikipedia should not facilitate it. I am inferring that the identity of the person behind the master account either is known or can easily be determined. That is, the person is editing in true name, or has provided their true name. Franzboas cites fear as a reason for using an alternate account. In other words, the editor is ashamed of their anti-Jewish views, and does not want their neighbors to know that they are posting anti-Jewish calumnies. (I don’t like the term anti-Semitic. Jews are not the only Semitic people who can either be prejudiced or be targets of prejudice.) Hiding one’s shameful bigotry from one’s neighbors is not, in my opinion, a legitimate reason for using an alternate account. I don’t see a topic-ban as an appropriate response to bigotry. The only question is whether the community should site-ban the editor, or whether the community should defer to ArbCom. If ArbCom is indeed looking into the case, I am satisfied to let ArbCom deal with this editor. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:53, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
• I don't know if the following is useful, but I'll say it anyway. The main account did not make any objectionable edits, and thus should not be indef blocked. As Dennis Brown said in making the block, and Drmies repeated, the account was blocked for the edits they made, not the views they hold. The aim of the indef block was to end the disruption in the area; and it has succeeded. Furthermore, it is not true that there are no repercussions for the editor's behaviour just because they used a sock: they are now under a topic ban, and any such behaviour in the future (in another area) will likely lead to a total ban.

  Even independently of that, common sense suggests that one should start with a topic ban and see how it goes, before going straight to an indef block. Like it or not, there are plenty of people in the world whose views on certain issues are loathsome. I find some loathsome views among my own friends and relatives, as well as among a fair part of the editing population here (perhaps they think likewise about me, who knows). The aim of a topic ban is to allow such people to focus on an area where their editing isn't disruptive.

  I can add the following: given how useless the CU tools are to detect anyone who knows what they're doing, they could simply have created a random sock to edit; the way they went about using a (privately) declared sock counts in their favour, not against. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 03:13, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

  @Kingsindian: CU worked fine in this case. He said he was a sock, he never declared to anyone whose sock he was. Doug Weller talk 06:30, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: We do not employ that model for regular sock puppets; if a sock is discovered of a previously blocked editor, we block that sock (WP:EVADE) even if the sock is being generally constructive. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:05, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

@EvergreenFir: I'm not sure what you're saying. The editor declared that they were a sock of another account. There is no evidence that they tried to avoid detection. WP:EVADE applies for socks which try to evade sanctions. There are no sanctions on the master account. @Doug Weller: Presumably you had your reasons to run a CU (why?) instead of simply asking the editor, but that simply means that the editor did not try to hide it in any way. If they wanted to do so, it's rather easy to do it. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 06:58, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: I don't understand why the time order of account creation changes this. Is not the master account in this case effectively evading sanctions given to the sock? The only question is legitsock, but I agree with others that privacy protects and other benefits afforded to to legit alt are null and void when that account is used for hate speech, disrupting the project, and making egregious personal attacks. The editor is the same and by editing on the master account they are in effect evading their block. If I used an original undeclared alt account to edit war, malign Muslims, and accuse a few editors of being isil members, if expect to be blocked on both accounts and be outed. Entertaining the claim upon questioning that your sock is protected per legitsock sets a dangerous precedent. This is not just a user who edited warred to RIGHTGREATWRONGS or got angry and cussed at editors. This is hate speech. EvergreenFir (talk) 17:25, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

@EvergreenFir: No, the master is not evading sanctions given to the sock, because after this matter, the master would be either implicitly or explicitly (ArbCom can tell them explicitly) under a topic ban from this area. We can, if required, also add other sanctions, like restricting them to one account. Now, I see some people arguing that the master is not editing in this area at all, so effectively it is no sanction. Well, if the master is not editing in this area at all, and their other edits over a long period are fine, then what's the problem? I am not interested in whatever personal views this editor holds, as long as they don't disrupt Wikipedia. It is up to the people arguing for indef block to make the case that this editor is so bad that even their contributions in other areas are intolerable, so they should be blocked. I do not go along with this argument, I'm afraid.

As for starting a precedent, this account only lasted a few months and achieved less than nothing, while getting a topic ban on their main account for their troubles. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 23:44, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

• I'd like to point out that the blocking of Franzboas is not in any way the equivalent of a topic ban for the master account, since the master account is totally free to edit in the areas of Judaism and Jewishness, since there is no sanction to stop them. That makes me extremely uneasy, that an editor with the views and attitudes expressed by Franzboas is free to edit in the same area from which their sock has been blocked for ADVOCACY. That really makes entirely no sense at all. We can maintain the legal fiction that Franzboas and the master account are totally separate from each other, in order to protect the privacy of the master account, but we cannot forget that in reality they are the same person. It's not like we're making an unwarranted assumption about the views of the person behind the master account, since the person behind Franzboas is the same person.
  In any case, I am confused about why there would be a problem with sanctioning the master account with a topic ban, given that both Drmies and Newyorkbrad have said that their editing hasn't strayed into the areas of Judaism and Jewishness. If that's the case, a topic ban from those subjects wouldn't hamstring the master editor at all, and would -- if the editor maintained that editing posture -- essentially be a null sanction. However, it would provide the community with some assurance that the master account will not give in to the temptation to edit those subjects. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:39, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

• Just to be clear about what I'm saying, if Editor X makes problematic and disruptive edits in subject area Z, to the extent that it is decided a topic ban is required, then Editor X is sanctioned with a topic ban and can no longer edit in subject Z. In this current case, Editor X has, by their own choice split themselves into two entities, X and Y. X does not make any disruptive edits in subject area Z, but entity Y does. Entity Y is then blocked for their disruptive and problematic edits, and it is claimed that this is the equivalent of topic banning X from subject Z, but editor X is, in fact, not sanctioned in any way, and is free to make edits in subject area Z should they choose to. The only equivalent to topic banning editor X from subject Z is to topic ban editor X from subject Z, and any claim that the indef blocking of Y is an equivalent is logically and practically untrue. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:51, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

• I understand the points you are making. If there's a consensus for an arbitrator to privately notify this user that he is topic-banned (on his main account), or even that he must stop editing altogether, that can presumably be done. However, I would oppose publicly announcing a sanction against the main account based on this conversation, because I would perceive it as problematic under the privacy policy. Newyorkbrad (talk) 07:28, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

• Question for arbs - is there evidence that Franz's claim here that he didn't know about the legitsock policy plausible given knowledge of the master account? From what I gather, the master account is no noob, so this claim of ignorance seems dubious to me. But, perhaps, the user edits infrequently or is still "green" this is plausible. I ask because if the former is the case, the claim of legitsock seems baseless as this is more likely a case of malicious socking and thus the quandaries being mulled over are moot. But if the latter, this whole discuss makes more sense. I'm not trying to fish for info, but would like to ask if this has been considered. Pinging Newyorkbrad, Drmies, and Doug Weller as they've participated already. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:29, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
  • It's always difficult to try to read another person's mind, but my answer is that it looks like the editor was relying on the portion of the alt-account policy that recognizes segregating edits on a particular topic from other edits as a legitimate reason to have a second account. He did segregate the edits, and to that extent, he followed the policy. Also, please note that the WP:SOCK policy recognizes (under the heading "Privacy") that alt-accounts created for this reason will typically not be linked to the main account. Of course what is implicit in the policy's authorization is that the user must make proper edits on the second topic. Here, the widely shared opinion of almost everyone commenting here, including you and me, is that the edits were highly inappropriate—but I'm sure Franzboas still disagrees with that. So I think it's likely the user sincerely believed he was following the policy, for whatever that might be worth. Newyorkbrad (talk) 07:13, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
    • Thanks for saying that Newyorkbrad. This is exactly why I handled it the way I did and pushed for Arb to review. I don't think we should publicly link to the master account if the master sincerely thought his edits were acceptable. Instead, we stop the disruption using the least force and ask for review for the block, and a separate review of the master in private. We aren't mind readers, but we need a deliberative process for deciding this, which is what we elected ArbCom for. Linking just to punish him would be punitive. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 11:25, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
• Question - Can the master account be privately restricted to editing from one account, the master account, only, with the knowledge of that restriction known to the ArbCom and to CU? If so, shame will protect from any more offensive edits by this account, since they are publicly ashamed to make their anti-Jewish edits. Robert McClenon (talk) 10:25, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
  • That seems difficult, though it is one of the things Arbs are discussing--it would make Arbs and CUs the enforcers of something that any regular admin should be able to decide on. "Private" violations are ... well, contrary to many things most of us believe in, unless there are seriously mitigating circumstances. My position and Newyorkbrad's (with whose comments just above I agree almost completely) differ only to the extent that I no longer think the editor is owed much privacy consideration anymore. Drmies (talk) 13:07, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
    • Drmies, most of the time, an admin could make the call. Lord knows, I'm not afraid to go out on a limb. When privacy is a consideration, however, I don't have the tools to review their other edits and make the call. To ask me or the community to make the call blind is unreasonable, or choosing to would be unwise. Besides, this is why you ArbCom types make the big bucks and get the free health and dental plan. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:00, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

I'll ask again what policy is protecting the master right now? Is this being considered a legit sock because the master hasn't edited in these areas prior to this? So any of us could just make another account and be complete assholes so long as we're not touching on any areas we've been previously involved in? So all this just disappears and the master never gets this connected to them? If a conflict arises concerning the master that has anything to do with the nastily discriminatory POV this sock has exhibited it'll be treated as outlier rather than a history. Unless ArbCom wants to perpetually monitor the master's editing which is obviously not feasible. Capeo (talk) 02:52, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

• about these speculations that the person operating these accounts may have thought that using the alt account in this way, was somehow truly legitimate and done in some kind of good faith.... please do consider what Franboaz said in this diff: ...but remember that I created this legitimate sock to lessen systemic bias on Wikipedia that I didn't feel comfortable addressing with my main account.... Like many other editors, I quietly took a long hiatus from Wikipedia because I was so frustrated with the systemic bias and how most editors were blind to abstract levels of that bias (e.g. how articles' topics are defined)..

Some editors go off the rails trying to correct perceived "systemic bias" and fighting the secret cabal that controls WP. That is what happened here. We indef those people.

This person's argument that it is OK to do that under ALT is in my view pure wikilawyering and should not be respected. I don't care that they did it believing WP is controlled by Jews; it would be just as much a violation of SOAPBOX if they did it to fight the skeptics, or big pharma, or the liberals. And likewise if they did it not out of passion but rather for pay, to promote or attack some politician for example. The person harmed Wikipedia and wasted community time dealing with their promotional campaign. This is not a legitimate use of editing privileges, period.Jytdog (talk) 04:39, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I think Jytdog puts the case extremely well, and, while I respect Newyorkbrad immensely and am glad that he is giving due weight to the privacy issue, I agree with Drmies that the editor is due very little, if any, consideration of his or her privacy. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:51, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Well put Jytdog. EvergreenFir (talk) 06:25, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Once again, let me say that I am not defending Franzboas's editing; as I noted before, I was one of the main people who confronted him about the troubling editing pattern, leading directly to the block and to this conversation. But the relevant policy here is that we do not knowingly damage editors' or even ex-editors' off-wiki lives. Let's assume, without my saying too much, that the real-world identity of the user in question can likely be discerned from his main account. And let's agree, without trying to decide whether the Franzboas account's edits were borne of bad judgment and bad philosophy or something much worse, that the edits reflect badly on the person who made them, and that at least some here regard them as overtly anti-Semitic. If we announce a public sanction against the main account based on this discussion, we are effectively lobbing the brand of irredeemable bigotry not against a username, but ultimately against the human being who is behind the username. We would be doing so on one of the most visible websites in the world, in a way that could affect his life in severe and unpredictable ways. I am all for stopping the bad editing that happened here, which we have, and making sure it doesn't start up again, but not at all for taking a step that risks permanently harming the editor's life because he said some very stupid things on a website. Newyorkbrad (talk) 07:41, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I see no problem with "effectively lobbing the brand of irredeemable bigotry not against a username, but ultimately against the human being who is behind the username." This was not an innocent mistake, editing under the influence, or some other mild form of disruption. They chose to use this high profile site, with the knowledge that their edits could be connected to their identity, and chose to do so regardless. If they are a bigot, let them live with the consequences of spewing hate speech, attacking specific editors, and disrupting this project. Again, this isn't a typical goblin just acting a fool. If they wanted to engage in this behavior they should go to /pol/. EvergreenFir (talk) 08:24, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

If there is a possibility of real world harm stemming from revealing someone's identity, and it sounds like there is in this case, then there is no choice but proceeding with caution. I think any individuals who are ultimately found to have violated the privacy policy are personally responsible for it under WMF's policies, so that is something to look into and confirm, as well—but if there is a risk of actual harm, then for sure, mull it over. Even if consensus decided it was necessary, if I were in your positions, I would run it through WMF before taking any action. Seraphim System ^(talk) 08:31, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Newyorkbrad, how is this any different than if any editor who uses their real name as a username says the same bigoted crap, attacks editors and then gets indeffed for it? That's what I'm not understanding here. That's their problem if it has real world consequences. The master, for all intents and purposes, did that but used an illegitimate sock to do so. I recall an Arb case I participated in during which an editor, also actively commenting on the case, socked as an IP, also commenting on the case, claiming the same type of privacy concerns. They were CU blocked and their IP was publicly connected to their account, and they didn't do/say anything nearly as horrible as Franzboa. Now, because the master apparently has real world identifying info on WP, they have impunity to get away with illegitimate socking? This just seems all backwards to me. It's the person who did this, not a username. There's probably thousands of editors who have used some variation of their real names or have identifying info on their user page. You're saying any of them could do this and our hands are tied to do anything about it? Capeo (talk) 20:55, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

How many socks? I think there were more. He told Newyorkbrad " I quietly took a long hiatus from Wikipedia because I was so frustrated with the systemic bias and how most editors were blind to abstract levels of that bias (e.g. how articles' topics are defined).". On his talk page he wrote " Regardless, I have not been substantially active on any other accounts since starting this one, nor have I participated in topics or discussions I've participated in with previous accounts," - accounts plural. It is clear to me that there have been other socks. I don't know who these were but it wouldn't surprise me to find at least one was blocked or banned. Doug Weller talk 12:44, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I haven't weighed in on the privacy issue here. On the face of it nothing in the WP:VALIDALT "Privacy" section itself explicitly says that the intra-WP privacy protection may be removed if the alt account is used illegitimately. What it does say, is Although privacy-based alternative accounts are not, by nature, publicly connected to your main account, they should not be used in ways outlined in the inappropriate uses section of this page.. (That language was added here in May 2016, which arose out of this talk page discussion about improving that section, but this bit wasn't discussed explicitly).

I could see someone reading that as an assurance that the accounts will never be linked; the account is by nature private. That is really .. unfortunate. I could see Arbcom being cautious and not linking them in light of that lack of explicit "fair warning" especially in light of the high value the community places on privacy. That said, the rest of the policy is very clear that inappropriate use of a sock can lead to sanctions including linking the accounts and under any common sense application of policy, there is plenty of reason to link them publicly.

But I will not be surprised either way the linking issue goes; like Dennis and others have said, this is why Arbcom gets the big bucks. I do expect that the main account will be indeffed, however.

I have boldly made an edit to SOCK to clarify the "private" provision for everybody (people who want to use it, the community, and people who handle privacy issues for us) for the future (who knows if that will stick). It still leaves discretion as to whether to link them, but makes it clear that they ~may~ be linked if the private account is used abusively - nobody should be able to read that policy and be able to make an argument that they believed the accounts would never be linked. There has been a discussion ongoing on the Talk page.Jytdog (talk) 17:14, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: is that something a CU on the master account could determine and, if so, if the justification for using it? The apparent admission to having other accounts and the abuse by one account would seem to warrant a private CU by the ArbCom to me. EvergreenFir (talk) 17:48, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Unquestionably, some Arbs have done their own CU tool usage here. I would disappointed if not. They aren't saying much, but I trust that several people are eyeing this closely. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:05, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

The way the other accounts are described they seem to have been used certainly more than three months ago, so CU won't and indeed didn't help. Doug Weller talk 18:16, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

That's a shame. EvergreenFir (talk) 18:20, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I'd just like to say, in response to NYB's latest comment, that if a sanction is determined to be appropriate, either a community-based one, or an ArbCom sanction, because ArbCom is the only entity that knows the identity of the master account, it would obviously have to be put into effect by ArbCom. That being the case, I have no problem whatsoever in ArbCom doing that in whatever manner they see fit. If the Arbs think that a publicly-announced sanction is akin to outing, and want to do it privately (or even via a trusted third party), well that's OK with me, although it raises the concern discussed above of how, for instance, a topic ban can be policed if only ArbCom knows it's in place. That puts an onus on ArbCom to monitor the master's editing, as well as one on the master account itself to be self-policing. If that situation comes about, I don't quite see how disruptive editing in that subject area by the master which is noticed by a non-Arbitrator can be easily handled, since only the current Arbs would be aware of the prior sanction. The whole thing is a conundrum which is created by the master's misuse of the sock account, and by the lack of anything specific in policy which allows the privacy provision to be stripped away. That's what I was attempting to fix with my suggested change to WP:LEGITSOCK, a version of which Jytdog has now WP:BOLDly added to the policy page. Clearly, this case shows the necessity of such a provision, so that the next time this happens we're not tying ourselves into knots once again. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:48, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Let me just add one more thing, and then I'll try to stop commenting, as I've already said an awful lot: what happens if the master account is hit with a secret sanction applied by ArbCom, and in the future files an RfA, or, if they are already an admin, runs for 'crat or Arb or is up for CU? Do we expect that they would willingly reveal themselves as the master behind Franzboas? If any of the current Arbitrators privy to the sanction see that they haven't identified themselves as editing with Franzboas, is that sufficient for that Arbitrator to "out" the account as the master of Franzboas, or does nobody say anything and the community, not knowing the full story of the master's editing history, potentially rewards the master with a functionary position? Just another possible conundrum. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:32, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Incidentally, I trust that it is not the case, but if the account is an admin, then ArbCom really ought to reveal their name immediately, regardless of the privacy concerns, or at the very least proceed with an in camera desysopping. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:32, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Confirmed that the editor is not an admin. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:53, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

July 15 new page push

Hello! I discussed a proposal involving a push to eliminate the backlog of unpatrolled new pages, and it seems that those on IRC are ok with it. So, I am posting it here. There should be a push on July 15 for people to spend as much time as possibly cleaning up and reviewing (if they have the permissions and knowledge to do so) new pages. Hopefully we can get the backlog down significantly. RileyBugz^会話_投稿記録 16:52, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Requested move of Template:2016 US Election AE

Hey y'all! I've started a requested move to rename Template:2016 US Election AE. Just thought I should leave a notice here since it's a discretionary sanctions page restriction template. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 23:06, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Adminship granted without passing RfA

DFTT. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 18:39, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Resolved  – Attention given. Even if he had been misusing the tools, which he clearly hasn't, there is nothing that we could do about it at this noticeboard. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 12:42, 5 June 2017 (UTC) This is to bring to everyone's attention that User:BradPatrick was granted admin privileges without passing any Wikipedia:Requests for adminship and without the English Wikipedia's community approval. Brad Patrick was granted admin bit in April 2006 because he was the interim Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. He resigned on March 22, 2007 and it was effective from March 31, 2007 but the admin bit was not removed. Even executive directors like Sue Gardner, Lila Tretikov and Katherine Maher were not granted admin bit just because they held the post of an executive director, then why is Brad Patrick allowed to hold and retain the admin rights. This is totally unfair to those people who go through a very tough community process in getting elected. No one can imagine that userights like Bureaucrat, CheckUser, Oversight and Steward are granted without approval from the Wikipedia community and the Arbitration Committee. I would request the community to open a Request for Comment on this matter and either make Brad Patrick to resign the admin bit or it be removed from his account if he does not resign on his own. If Brad Patrick wants the admin privileges, he must go through an RfA and pass it. No one can be allowed to have admin privileges without passing an RfA. Username person (talk) 11:18, 5 June 2017 (UTC) @Username person: Brad probably just forgot. Have you tried asking him directly before coming here? Regards SoWhy 11:36, 5 June 2017 (UTC) Many people already did that before User_talk:BradPatrick#Your_admin_bit. Username person (talk) 11:41, 5 June 2017 (UTC) Re "I would request the community to open a Request for Comment on this matter" - You *are* the community, so go do it yourself. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:44, 5 June 2017 (UTC) @Username person: Is this your first account? Marvellous Spider-Man 11:47, 5 June 2017 (UTC) Yes it is. How is it related to the question? Username person (talk) 11:53, 5 June 2017 (UTC) That may have been the wrong question as it's certainly not a new user. Only account? It looks a little unusual, that's all. -- zzuuzz (talk) 11:57, 5 June 2017 (UTC) Is there any evidence of misuse of admin tools, or conduct which would be considered inappropriate for an admin? Has his general conduct as a Wikipedian been reasonable? If there's no evidence of problems, I don't believe solutions are needed to something which has existed for over 10 years. Murph9000 (talk) 11:51, 5 June 2017 (UTC) Is it necessary for abuse to occur and then only admin privileges can be removed? Why should anyone be granted admin rights without community's approval on RfA? Username person (talk) 11:55, 5 June 2017 (UTC) Also just because something has existed for 10 years doesn't mean it is correct, it is wrong. Username person (talk) 11:56, 5 June 2017 (UTC) (edit conflict) There were 'discussions' here and here. Less input anywhere on the matter from the editor himself, it must be said! — O Fortuna semper crescis, aut decrescis 11:59, 5 June 2017 (UTC) If Username person wants to start an RFC to try to get the admin bit removed they should do it. Otherwise there is nothing to do here. ~ GB fan 12:09, 5 June 2017 (UTC) As far as I can see, BradPatrick is a benevolent editor who has done nothing to bring into question his administrator status. Let's not forget, this granting was 11 years ago, when the project was in reletive infancy, and I'm damned sure that if he were to have misused the tools, he'd have done so by now. As we all know, the RfA process is a flawed and completely corrupt time sink which is infested by sycophantic admin-wannabes who flock to the stage, without doing very little or no research, to support the nominee by leaving a kiss-arse comment in the hope that they can call on them in the future to have little favours be bestowed upon them. Time and time again we see the wrong people being given the tools as a result of this misguided premise. What makes you, Username person, think that it would be in any way beneficial to the project to make this long established administrator of otherwise good standing, have to sit through the humiliation of bowing to the crowds and justifying themselves to a load of strangers? CassiantoTalk 12:24, 5 June 2017 (UTC) @Cassianto: I rather fancy a 'tumbril rolling towards the guillotine' analogy  ;) — O Fortuna semper crescis, aut decrescis 12:49, 5 June 2017 (UTC) It was granted in 2006 so 10-11 years later it's hardly worth caring over now .... As noted above by all means start an RFC however that will probably be closed as "Support leaving the admin bit" so all in all it's probably best you forget this and concentrate on constructively editing the encyclopedia. –Davey2010Talk 12:41, 5 June 2017 (UTC) Rather it would be closed as "There is no community-based desysopping policy, so we literally can't do anything." ~ Rob13Talk 13:00, 5 June 2017 (UTC) You are right, this would need to be raised with ARBCOM or Brad would need to voluntarily resign. ~ GB fan 13:05, 5 June 2017 (UTC) By why should he have to? And why should those at ARBCOM even be bothered with something like this? This smacks of someone bitter trying ton mete out some kind of revenge. If I could be bothered, I'd investigate why they've brought it here in the first place. CassiantoTalk 13:13, 5 June 2017 (UTC) He could always volunteer to a confirmation RFA and he would very likely pass. I would support. I can understand why people would be uneasy with an unvetted Admin that isn't working for the Foundation. I question the person who filed all this, but that doesn't mean the concern is without merit. Technically, the Foundation *requires* that all persons with access to delete material be vetted through a process like RFA, so he is actually out of compliance for that. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:14, 5 June 2017 (UTC) Oh look, an account that was created today. I wonder who the sock master is? CassiantoTalk 13:18, 5 June 2017 (UTC) Created in 2006 as noted above. Started editing today. --NeilN talk to me 13:23, 5 June 2017 (UTC) That'd be one helluva sleeper! — O Fortuna semper crescis, aut decrescis 13:39, 5 June 2017 (UTC) Brad has been an admin for 10 years without problems. I became an admin in 2006, when RfA was a lot easier to pass than it is now. Letting Brad (who is well known to the community and known to the Foundation in person) keep his bit doesn't seem like a much bigger problem that letting me (some pseudonymous dude who has only met a handful of Wikipedians in person) keep my bit. —Kusma (t·c) 13:30, 5 June 2017 (UTC) Looks like someone is not here to build an encyclopedia -- John Reaves 13:53, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Dispute over philoSOPHIA article

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

---

I don't quite fucking know how to react to this, but this is textbook WP:INVOLVED. For context, the dispute involves SlimVirgin and a handful of others who steadfastly argue that the editorial board of philoSOPHIA must be included in the article, despite having no reliable sources discussing the role of the editorial board, which runs against our convention on academic journals. This has been explained to them many times on Talk:philoSOPHIA, by myself and other regulars from WP:JOURNALS, but she just doesn't get it. Having lost the consensus debate, she now slaps both me, Randykitty, and the article with horseshit discretionary sanctions, saying this is somehow a gender-related dispute.

This is utter fucking horseshit, and appalling behaviour from an admin. Remove the DS template from the article, and desysop them please. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:38, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb has misunderstood the DS. Anyone can add an alert, and it's a requirement to do that if sanctions might be pursued at a later date. If you read the template, it explains. The dispute is indeed gender-related. I was in the process of writing this up for another noticeboard, so I'll continue doing that rather than responding in this thread. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:52, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

The dispute has nothing to do with gender, and no one in the discussion ever brought gender up. You're the only one that ever mentioned treating this article differently because it was a feminist journal. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:55, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Going to ping DGG (talk · contribs) and Randykitty (talk · contribs) here, since they too are admins involved in the dispute. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:57, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

• The magazine's tagline is "A Journal of Continental Feminism" and it's named after a goddess of feminity. The subject is gender-related. The dispute about the inclusion or exclusion of a list of the advisory board. The dipute is not gender-related. The DS applies to "any gender-related dispute or controversy", not any dispute involving a gender-related article. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:00, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

That being said, Headbomb, SlimVirgin, Randykitty and Hypatiagal should all be trouted for engaging in edit warring during a discussion. Folks, with the amount of years of experience amongst you, you should not need your debates to spill over to AN before taking a step back and remembering WP:BRD -- edit warring is never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever appropriate, and especially not as a form of dispute resolution. Just because you avoided 3RR doesn't mean you aren't all actively edit warring and reverting each others multiple times (I count about a dozen over 3 days)!! ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:07, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

(ec) @Headbomb: You're reverting two women who are trying to write an article about a feminist journal, and you keep removing the names of the women who run it. It doesn't get more gender-related than that.

I don't want to keep discussing this here, except to say that the aggression—"I don't quite fucking know" and "utterly fucking horseshit"—is a huge part of the problem. I don't know you. You're an anonymous man on the internet who has been inexplicably aggressive for several days at an article in which you have no interest. It's actually frightening. I'm not exaggerating when I say that. It frightens me.

My options are to abandon the article so that I can stay out of your way, or try to use dispute resolution to resolve it. I've initiated the latter, even though what I really want to do at this point is retire. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:06, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

(1) Your options are dispute resolution, not edit warring. (2) How do you "know" Headbomb is "a man"? (nvm I thought this was an assumption becaue of the lack of explicit userpage mention but I remembered this has been disclosed on-wiki) (3) Equating the use of expletives with aggression is a fallacy. "I don't fucking know" is not an aggression (at best, exasperation perhaps). ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:10, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

For what it's worth, popups and one of my user scripts tell me Headbomb identifies to the wiki software as male. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 01:17, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Yea, yea, sorry, up to recently he had an infobox detailing everything, and he lists he published works under his real name, and we even share a last name. Apologies for forgetting this and assuming SV was assuming. :( ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:24, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't want my intention to be misconstrued. Sarah, I respect you greatly and have nothing but admiration for your decade of dedication to the project and the monumental body of work you've contributed, often on crucial and underrepresented topics. I just wish you'd take a step back and realize that you're all currently edit warring. It's not "against you", or "against women". Just seek outside opinions. WP:DR exists for a reason. Edit warring is never the answer and is a total disservice to readers. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:13, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Great, now any dispute involving women editors is considered a gender-related dispute unless it's only women that are involved in the dispute? And I'm supposed to check an editors' gender before reverting them? I'm pretty sure ARBCOM would have said "Discretionary sanctions apply whenever editors who happen to be women and men disagree about something on Wikipedia" if that's what they meant. Get off your high horse, and stop claiming you know my mind and I have no interest in the article. I have plenty of interest in academic journals, as you'd see in User:Headbomb/My work#Academic serials or Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Feminism/Archive 4#WP:JCW needs help. If that somehow scares you... I have no words. You started this agression by abusing your admins powers by putting me, Randykitty, and the article under discretionary sanctions when you are yourself involved in the dispute. And somehow I'm the bad guy here? If there ever was toxic feminism, this is it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:17, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Clarification: adding a DS banner to a talk page is not an "admin action", so a claim of "abuse of admin powers" does not appear justified. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:20, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Adding a DS banner is (which for the record states, "This article is subject to discretionary sanctions"), according to WP:AC/DS something only an admin should do, and something only admins may remove. I fail to see how this is not an admin action. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:25, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

WP:AC/DS says: Any editor may advise any other editor that discretionary sanctions are in force for an area of conflict. However, these only count as the formal notifications required by this procedure if the standard template message – currently {{Ds/alert}} – is placed unmodified on the talk page of the editor being alerted.. How is that and admin action? It explicitly says "any editor"? Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 01:32, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

So is philoSOPHIA under discretionary sanction or not? Because if it is not, then Talk:philoSOPHIA should have the template removed as grossly misleading. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:36, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)My reading of WP:AC/DS is that only admins can impose discretionary sanctions on topic areas placed under DS by ArbCom (or a community decision), and this is not what SV has done. She has not imposed any discretionary sanctions. She has placed a talk page banner alerting contributors that this article falls under a topic for which the use of discretionary sanctions has been authorized. This is usually not a controversial thing -- topic areas are generally well-defined enough to leave articles unambiguously included or not under the DS umbrella. Whether an article is included under a DS topic or not is treated similarly to WP:TBANs. The DS page doesn't specify which venue should host discussion of whether a specific article does fall under a certain DS or not (I'd recommend asking ArbCom clerks for clarification of policy), but I supposed an AN consensus would work just fine. The problem is that you didn't come here to discuss whether the article fell under DS or not, you flew in here demanding blood for what you perceived as admin abuse and "toxic feminism", which just cannot possibly lead to anything constructive. Please... just take a breath, okay? SV isn't out to get you or men or anything so sinister. Please stop showing her that you're out to get her either. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:38, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

• It makes me to sad to see 10+ years veteran editors reduced to duking out insults over AN.... ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:38, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I got mentioned here, so I thought I'd respond. I've never been involved in a dispute like this. I did keep making edits, all to the aim of coming up with reliable secondary sources. But when I'd add one, somone would respond that "well, being on a list means nothing" or something to that effect. No matter what I tried to do to add reliable sources, they were dismissed. I didn't say anything about gender, but it damed sure started feeling like the wikiboys against the women. I didn't see anyone rushing over to the other journals with similar issues to fix them. I just saw people saying this journal probably didn't merit inclusion at all. Classic bad terrible logic. Just keep switching the complaint. So today I did more to add more 2d sources to substantiate that the journal merits inclusion in WP at all, which is absolutely a ridiculous thing to have to prove. Hypatiagal (talk) 01:43, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

(ec) Yes, it is under discretionary sanctions. Initiating DS has nothing to do with being an admin.

Does it not bother you that that behaviour is frightening? The aggression, the sudden intense focus. I don't think I've ever acknowledged that on Wikipedia. Women talk behind the scenes about being scared on this website, but we usually don't mention it onwiki.

All we were trying to do was fill a small space about a really interesting feminist philosophy journal, and look at the utterly pointless timesink it has turned into. No reasonable person would choose to work in this environment. Pinging @Montanabw, Hypatiagal, FreeKnowledgeCreator, Flyer22 Reborn, Jorm, Gamaliel, and Kaldari: to make them aware of this thread. Hypatiagal, by the way, is a newish editor with a PhD who is exactly the kind of editor we want to retain, and you're doing your best to make her miserable.

I would appreciate it if someone would remove my name from the heading. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:41, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

If you don't want "a sudden intense focus", then don't bully people you disagree with into submission by shoehorning disputes into things they are not so you can use your position to "win". And I would appreciate it if you stopped speaking on behalf of others when you do not know their minds, or try to make this a gender issue somehow. I have said nothing, nor done anything "unwelcoming" towards anyone save for disagreeing with whether or not we should have a section on the editorial board. This was explained to you at User talk:Randykitty#A request, which you've resoundingly ignored and rather than discuss, escalated by putting us and the article under discretionary sanctions despite being involved yourself. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:50, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "yes it is under discretionary sanctions" -- this statement is obviously contested thus it is not unambiguous and no single editor can "decide" how to interpret policy by themselves. The DS talks about "gender-related disputes", not "disputes unrelated to gender on gender-related articles"; it may sound tedious but when it comes to arbitration the devil is in the details. In this case I can certainly see the other perspective -- the inclusion of the board was argued purely upon precedent and how journal articles are usually covered and not on the gender of the board or editors... all I'm saying is, it would merit further discussion because there is obvious disagreement that isn't easily resolved. SV, mass-pinging to canvass doesn't reflect brightly on your intentions to engage in discussion but what is done is done anyways and I suppose on a public venue like AN most interested people would see the thread anyways. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:54, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

As for the name in the heading, I've removed it at your request because it does not substantially change the meaning of Headbomb's words (especially since the paragraph just under it mentions it all anyways) so hopefully this proves to be agreeable to all parties. (Done by someone else while I EC'ed.) ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉

And I agree with you, it is highly regrettable that new, valued editors like Hypatiagal are exposed to this nasty fight between veteran editors. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 01:54, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for changing the heading. SarahSV ^(talk) 01:56, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

It appears that Headbomb has yet to substantiate that any of SlimVirgin's actions are actual admin actions. The one policy that they linked to, placing DS notice, actually says it is an "any editor" action. If Headbomb is going to continue to criticize SlimVirgin for having "use{d} {her} position" then there should be diffs of actual usage of her admin bit, shouldn't there? Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 02:03, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Please stop encouraging SV and Headbomb to point fingers at each other. Shit got heated, it happens, let's find a calmer and less confrontational way forward. It probably goes by an ARCA request to clarify the scope of the "gender-related disputes" DS with regard to "disputes unrelated to gender on gender-related articles". ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 02:13, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm asking a genuine question, not trying to increase shit-throwing. As you point out below, the statement of admin bit usage in this case is missing something. I was asking for clarification of what admin misusage is being referred to. I might have missed something. I am not aware that only admins can ask for clarification here. I have no intent to inflame anyone. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 02:19, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, it's okay. As you can see, the accusation of "admin abuse" rests not with usage of special admin functions but by posing an action (adding a DS template) that Headbomb believed could only be performed by admins. See my explanation lower. Not "only admins can ask for clarification here", and sorry if I've led you to think that. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 02:32, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I have provided the diffs. Slim Virgin said right above she placed the article under discretionary sanctions. WP:AC/DS says "Discretionary sanctions may be placed by administrators within specified topics after the Arbitration Committee has authorised their use." Slim Virgin is WP:INVOLVED. I don't see what's ambiguous about this. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:09, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I'll repeat -- SV did not place a discretionary sanction. If she did, you're be able to point out what the discretionary sanction is (1RR, block, tban, iban, etc.) All SV did was warn editor that the topic falls under a topic area for which the application of discretionary sanctions has been authorized. Whether the article does indeed fall under the umbrella of said DS or not is currently what y'all are disagreeing upon, and a quick ARCA to clarify the scope is probably the best resolution. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 02:13, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

So why then is there a notice in bold letters on Talk:philoSOPHIA that the article is under discretionary sanction? And that SV says Black-on-White that the article is under discretionary sanctions? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:16, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

The article is not under active discretionary sanctions. The article is subject to discretionary sanctions, meaning that an uninvolved admin could apply discretionary sanctions because the article falls under a topic area for which the use of discretionary sanctions has been authorized. Whether that is the case or not is something you disagree with, hence my nudging towards ARCA to clarify scope. You may be able to build an argument that you believe SV's addition of the DS warning template while involved in a dispute is poor dispute resolution behaviour, but it would be so regardless of her status as an admin. You could've been the one to add that warning and she might've reacted the same way you're reacting now. You're both at each others' throats over a (relatively) small dispute and y'all have been escalating for the better part of the weekend. You've both been around for over a decade. You both know nothing gets resolved this way and that nothing constructive can come out of pissing in each others' coffee. Please, just take a breath and take it easy, mkay? ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 02:24, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

If Headbomb would read the alert, it explains. The article falls under DS. He has been alerted to that. That an alert be given is required before an admin (someone else, not me) can take action under the DS. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:26, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

• Thank you both for accepting to refocus the discussion on the actual content dispute underneath. I'm hoping y'all end up with something productive in the end. I'm bowing out. :) ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 02:32, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

So what next? User:Salvidrim!? How do you get that god-awful bullying notice off the article's talk page? Can anyone remove it or must it be done via a formal WP:ARCA thing? What happens if SV refuses to remove it, since WP:AC/DS states those can only be removed with the consent of the admin that place them? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:34, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

If you continue to disrupt the article, including by removing the tag, I will take this to arbitration enforcement. The point of dispute resolution, which I'm trying to follow, is to resolve the dispute, not to manufacture another dispute about the dispute. SarahSV ^(talk) 02:38, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

OMG, please stop threatening arbitration enforcement, we're trying to de-escalate and focus on the content dispute here!!☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 02:40, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) ARCA to clarify the scope of the DS since there is disagreement (or perhaps ask the clerks at WT:AC/N for guidance). Perhaps SlimVirgin would even be amenable to temporarily removing the notice until the clarification is ascertained, in the spirit of BRD? Hopefully de-escalation is helpful for everyone. Please, SV? ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 02:40, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I'll even be happy to file a neutrally-worded ARCA myself for your benefit so this can be clarified, if you prefer. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 02:44, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

That would be very appreciated, yes. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:49, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

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

• In case anybody is interested, there is a recently-filed request for clarification from the Arbitration Committee over the applicability of the DS tag. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Clarification request: GamerGate and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the Wikipedia:Arbitration guide may be of use. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 04:01, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Content dispute, not for AN, see Talk:PhiloSOPHIA#RfC regarding inclusion of advisory board instead. Fram (talk) 07:59, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Content dispute: Philosophia This is what I was writing up for AN/I when Headbomb opened this thread. I re-created an article recently about philoSOPHIA, a small peer-reviewed journal that explores continental philosophy from a feminist perspective. It's a good journal—created by the Society for Continental Feminism, which was founded in 2008 by Kelly Oliver of Vanderbilt University—but it's a minority interest, so there are few sources. Lightbreather created the article in 2014. It was prodded and deleted. I recreated it on 25 May; it was taken to AfD and kept. Other editors active at the article are Hypatiagal and FreeKnowledgeCreator. Headbomb and Randykitty have repeatedly removed from the article the names of the advisory board; e.g. see this version. These are prominent philosophers who are involved in writing and steering the journal. They're not simply names added for PR purposes, as is sometimes the case with these boards. Headbomb removed the names five times in a few days, reverting against three editors. [34][35][36][37][38] Randykitty then arrived, reverting Hypatiagirl three times in under eight hours. [39][40][41] Things briefly seemed to settle down, then Headbomb removed the names again. [42]. There has also been tagging and referring to the journal as a "special snowflake". They're basing the removal on WP:JWG, an essay they wrote themselves for WikProject Journals. The essay insists that editorial board names be based on independent sources. It was Randykitty who added that requirement. It has no consensus, and it makes no sense, because editorial boards are almost never written about by independent sources. I'm basing inclusion on WP:PRIMARY, which allows the use of primary sources and is policy. The WikiProject Council guidelines (see WP:ADVICEPAGE) say: [I]n a few cases, projects have wrongly used these pages [advice pages] as a means of asserting ownership over articles within their scope, such as insisting that all articles that interest the project must contain a criticism section or must not contain an infobox ... and that other editors of the article get no say in this because of a "consensus" within the project. An advice page written by several participants of a project is a "local consensus" that is no more binding on editors than material written by any single individual editor. SarahSV (talk) 02:21, 6 June 2017 (UTC) Succinctly if " They're not simply names added for PR purposes, as is sometimes the case with these boards." then you should be able to find WP:IS attesting this is so. And for clarify, the only one that has claimed this journal was a special snowflake and needs to be treated differently was you.Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:26, 6 June 2017 (UTC) Specifically what I'm requesting here is input from admins and experienced editors so that (a) the editorial board names are not repeatedly removed without gaining consensus to remove them; and (b) that the policies are affirmed as applying here and not an essay written by Headbomb and Randykitty. The article doesn't belong to WikiProject Journals. One of the things I intended to do was develop the article by writing about the articles these women have produced for the journal. A constant theme is the future of philosophy and the exclusion of women; the existence of the journal and the work of the board is all about that. But as things stand, I'm not "allowed" to say that the women I'm writing about are on the editorial board, unless I find an independent source that lists their names, which I'm pretty sure doesn't exist. SarahSV (talk) 02:35, 6 June 2017 (UTC) We write Wikipedia based on sources. If you do not have them, then we should not write these things. We do not tolerate WP:OR/WP:SYNTH. WP:JWG is quite in line with community expectations, and represents the collective experience of project members, as has been repeatedly explained to you before at User talk:Randykitty#A request and elsewhere. It is not simply 3 guys writing in a corner own their own, but a continuously updated documentation of Wikipedia's best practices when it comes to writing about journal articles, reflecting the experiences of hundreds of editors across thousands of articles.Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:37, 6 June 2017 (UTC) There are sources, but they are from the publisher, which you won't "allow". SarahSV (talk) 02:39, 6 June 2017 (UTC) Indeed, because they are not independent of the subject. WP:NPOV and WP:DUE matters. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:43, 6 June 2017 (UTC) There is no policy that says we need independent sources for something as basic as that. The journal is an RS and there are lots of articles in it by the editorial board in which they discuss their interests. So that can be mined, and it can be done carefully. But it's a nonsense to do it if I'm never allowed to tell the reader that these women run the journal, just because you and Randy wrote an essay to that effect. SarahSV (talk) 02:49, 6 June 2017 (UTC) No, but there is consensus that editorial boards are best left out unless there are sources discussing their involvement. Otherwise is it WP:PROMO/WP:SYNTH/WP:OR, and that is policy.Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:50, 6 June 2017 (UTC) Headbomb, what I hope from this thread is that other people will offer an opinion on whether we can use the journal and the publisher as RS for the names of the editorial board members. SarahSV (talk) 03:01, 6 June 2017 (UTC) Their names are not in dispute. This is about WP:PROMO. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:04, 6 June 2017 (UTC) Closing the gender content gap is a key aim of the movement. But regardless, the point of this discussion is request other views. SarahSV (talk) 03:11, 6 June 2017 (UTC) Since SlimVirgin mentions me as an editor active at the article, I may as well note that I've made very few edits there, a grand total of two, in fact. I have read through all of this rather wearying discussion, but I've decided that I've nothing to contribute here, especially considering that much of the discussion would be more appropriate to Talk:philoSOPHIA. I'd hope that consensus for or against including the Advisory board can be established there, as with any normal dispute. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:29, 6 June 2017 (UTC) Ack! Two of Wikipedia's most esteemed editors are about to rip each other heads off. I've created an RfC on the talk page so that hopefully we can get some 3rd party opinions. In the meantime, I hope everyone involved can take a breather and have a cup of tea. Kaldari (talk) 04:18, 6 June 2017 (UTC) Editorial boards of prominent people are essentially there for advertisement, unless there is so actual evidence they take an active role, which is exceedingly rare (In some early 20th century journals, they acting as panels of reviewers, but that is not particularly notable either) . The more important the people, the leas likely they are to be anything but advertisements. Their names are essentially saying, we support this journal's purpose. If it's a relatively new journal, they are saying, Look at this! using the star power of their names, as if they were famous performers in a clothing advertisement. There is a fundamental non-paid COI inevitable here, because almost everyone write about what they care about; it easily leads to lack of objectivity. The very last people qualified to decide what belongs in an article are the people who write it. Probably a few people can be utterly objective about what's important to them, but in general I doubt it. I make no claims for myself--I avoid every political or social issue that I support. Possible some editors here are really AIs, and can be coldly objective, the rest of us need to recognize human limitations. Sometimes projects tend to be over-reaching, but the are usually right--especially projects based on form. That one is interested in novels doesn't mean one likes all novels regardless, but rather that one is likely to know the relevant conventions; that one is interested in academic journals doesn't mean one supports every cause an academic journal supports, but that one is likely to understand the conventions of the field. But the argument above is essentially an argument in favor of POV and bias. A good working assumption is that this is usually the case with anyone who makes arguements of how the rules don't apply to them. DGG ( talk ) 03:45, 6 June 2017 (UTC) I've reverted Beyond My Ken's closure -- no hard feelings, yes this is a content dispute, yes, AN may not be the usual venue, but discussion of the content dispute is an absolute improvement over the previous "drama" so let's try to help it along and not shut it down (IAR!); what this needs is more input from a neutral venue (i.e. not the talkpage or a Wikiproject/essay/policy page), not less discussion. If leaving it on AN really irks you so much, at least kindly let it be moved to DRN with the usual "discussion moved to" left behind and all that. :) ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 04:46, 6 June 2017 (UTC) *Obviously, I disagree, but I won't revert you. I fail to see why this level of discourse -- which I agree is preferable to what went on before -- can't take place in a venue that's intended to deal with content disputes, rather than here, where we routinely shut down content disputes as not proper subject matter for AN and AN/I. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:53, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Fake reference problem

Resolved

 – What looked like behavior actually seems to be a question of WP:RS. Filer moving to WP:RSN Dennis Brown - 2¢ 13:04, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

• Pinkfloyd11 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• First Teahouse link
• WP:REX link

I recently came across several Wikipedia articles containing this particular sentence "Chatahurdi compilation of the Mahabharat". I am not familiar with this version of Mahabharat and I cant find any supporting documents to this version in internet. I suspected these contents are fake because it's simply POV contents. Suspected these reference as fakes and pointed out. But my edits were reverted.

I pointed out these issues in Teahouse, see Link 1 and also requested WP:RS, see Link 2. Both reply I got from Teahouse and WP:RS is that it's a very sneaky case of vandalism. The WP:RS guys can't find "any resources " on this particular reference. They found out all these edits were made by editor @Pinkfloyd11. This is also the user who keeps on reverting any edits by anyone on certain articles "maintained" by he/she. I looked into the edit history of this particular user and found many cases of adding fake references. I talked about this problem in the Teahouse page Link 1. I am also adding another case of fake reference by this particular user another example. I can also point out many cases of suspected fake references from the edit history of this user. This user is simply adding a book name with no chapter number or page number. But 99% of the case it's a fake reference. Verifying this without a chapter number or page number is an impossible task. The problem is removing these " fake contents" added into Wikipedia pages. Its enormous. The issue here is I simply feel that anyone can add any amount of ridiculous content if we provide a shadowy reference for an offline source.Vijays1127 01:15, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

The point made by User:Vijays1127 seems to be that there is no 'Chatahurdi compilation of the Mahabharat' that can be cited like a book. I'm leaving a ping for User:Pinkfloyd11 to see if he can clarify what he intends by these mentions of the Chatahurdi edition. If there is no actual book that can be consulted, then it's unclear how it can be a reference. The claims of 'vandalism' are not yet confirmed, so far as I can tell. One dispute between these two editors has happened at this diff where Pinkfloyd11 wants to reference the 'Chatahurdi compilation', and his actual link is to a web site at http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m13/m13b115.htm. (This page describes itself as an 'Internet Sacred Texts Archive' though I can't tell what particular book is intended by Pinkfloyd11's quote.). At a minimum we have an incomplete reference, and possibly we may have a website that does not qualify under our WP:Reliable source policy. EdJohnston (talk) 02:21, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I will include what I typed in the Teahouse: In India, no name is spelled the same way. Wikipedia has his name as Neelakantha Chaturdhana. Here is the Wikipedia article on him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neelakantha_Chaturdhara. Here is the analysis/compilation he is known for:https://books.google.com/books/about/Bh%C4%81ratabh%C4%81vad%C4%ABpa.html?id=52trGwAACAAJ where he traveled India and compiled different versions of the Mahabharat into a single version, adding his own flourishes and analysis around the way. The Ganguli translation of the Mahabharat is heavily influenced by this analysis according to the introduction of the translation itself (http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m01/m01001.htm). Sacred Texts has an online version of the Ganguli "translation" of the Mahabharat, a translation that is heavily influenced by the Chaturdhana analysis/compilation as well as a Bengali version of the Mahabharata IIRC. This reference is a popular reference for many of the Mahabharat articles on Wikipedia due to being online and in the public domain, so if it isn't a reliable source, there would be a lot of work to do (I don't necessarily disagree...the Ganguli translation has many errors and translational problems, and to an extent, Ganguli himself has modified the interpretations of Chaturdhana by picking certain interpretations as well.) You could replace the statement "Chatahurdi compilation" with "Ganguli translation", but I felt that the source of the "translation" would make more sense to include than the translator. The Critical Edition of the Mahabharat, or the Poone edition, is the edition probably most referenced by scholars (and is a synthesis of over a 1,000 different versions of the story), but only an incomplete translation is available.Pinkfloyd11 (talk) 03:32, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

You added everywhere "Chatahurdi compilation of the Mahabharat" not Neelakantha Chaturdhara edition of Mahabharat. Both are different for a layman and most of the Wikipedia readers. They are not experts on this matter.

We can't say Ganguli's work as Chaturdhanas. Ganguly didn't " translated" Chaturdhanas work. He wrote a new book but admitted " influenced by" Chaturdhanas work, Bengal and Bombay versions of Mahabharat.

So in Wikipedia how can we say " As per Chatahurdi compilation of the Mahabharat". If it's used, then reference to Chatahurdis version (with chapter and page number) should be given. Anyone can write any nonsense by quoting " As per Chatahurdis version". I feel all edits done by saying "As per Chatahurdi compilation of the Mahabharat "should be removed. If As per Chatahurdi compilation of the Mahabharat is changed to Ganguly better provide reference to Ganguli's version with page and chapter name. That's fair I think. If no such references is available then removing the contents would be better. I read somewhere verifiability is one of the core principle of Wikipedia.Vijays1127 04:20, 6 June 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vijays1127 (talk • contribs)

I'll admit that I've frequently used logic to come to that conclusion. The Poone Edition is based off the Bengali and Bombay editions as well as other sources. The KM Ganguli translation is based off of the Bengali/Bombay editions as well as Chaturdhara's commentary. If we take Ganguli at his word that he didn't outright add any new information (why it is called a translation), if a story doesn't appear in the Poone Edition, it must be based on Chaturdhara's analysis. For example, the Ashwatthama story about him invading the camp with the help of Shiva only appears in Ganguli's translation, and not the Poone edition. If we say that is Ganguli's version, you could point to the fact that Ganguli's said he didn't add anything and just translated. It is very messy since the source of the Mahabharat is very messy. I'd be fine with deleting any content based off of Ganguli's work.

That brings me to another point. Frequently, you have deleted contributions saying that they come from TV shows/drama/pop culture. I'm seriously asking, how does that make them less valid? You are correct, for example, that the story of Draupadi humiliating Duryodhana is not in the Ganguli version or the critical edition (from what I can find). But it appeared in the incredibly popular BR Chopra TV show. It appeared in the Amar Chita Comic. It appeared in the Gautam comics. It appears in the CJ Rajagopachari's version of the Mahabharat. It appeared in Dharmashektra TV shows. There are scholarly analyses of the supposed event. At what point does it become "part" of the story? This works the other way too. The Poona edition completely dismisses one of the oldest versions of the Mahabharata, an incomplete version where Arjuna is a master sword warrior, the Panchals and the Kurus hate each other, and Shantanu's father is a murderous lunatic. They dismiss it because that version of the story has disappeared from the zeitgeist. Similarly, they take almost no influence from the Kannada version of the Mahabharata because of the strong oral tradition. There's supposedly a version from worshipers of Duryodhana where Duryodhana is a heroic figure to the conniving Pandavas (I've never read it) and that get's dismissed since so few people believe in at. What should we at Wikipedia do? Include all the different versions? Pick the best? Combine them like some have? My inclination has always been to include everything, but then I get pushback from editors (not you) that the article is getting bloated and wordy, and that that's not the version that "they" know. Maybe it would be best to scrub all the articles of any primary sources (backstory of any character) and just include analyses, which of course would mean 95% of the Indian mythology pages would be stubs. Pinkfloyd11 (talk) 06:04, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

As I said above , provide reference according to WP:Reliable. You can add anything but provide with a reliable reference. The usage of term "Chatahurdi compilation of the Mahabharat" is simply not enough. Provide page, chapter numbers when adding contents. If it's not then anyone can add anything saying "Chatahurdi compilation" says so. About other issue regarding versions of Mahabharat, I only say stick with WP:Reliable contents. Do add anything, I don't care but better provide reference, reliable reference as per WP:Reliable. You can't add any nonsense and tell " x or y said so". Vijays1127 07:42, 6 June 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vijays1127 (talk • contribs)

This discussion is in the wrong place. That said, perhaps it will end here if all parties bear in mind that substantive claims in articles need to be directly sourced (meaning that the claim is in the source cited, and that the editor including it knows that this is the case) - and that a lack of rigor in sourcing is not prima facie proof (or even evidence) of perniciously subtle vandalism, but also more ill-advised than usual on topics like the one in question (a central epic of a major extant religious tradition, with no single canonical version). Advocata (talk) 09:32, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

• It was fine to bring here at first since it seemed to be a behavioral issue. Now WP:RSN would be the right place since there are very valid questions regarding the reliability of the sources. Until then, in my capacity as an editor, I would recommend not using that source. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 10:36, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

That's what I meant - to restate the last part of my last sentence above more forthrightly, in a scenario where a contentious claim about the contents of a major faith's scripture cites a nonexistent compilation that probably-but-not-necessarily is actually a mistransliteration of an idiosyncratic quasi-mystical secondary commentary from the 1600s, and in Sanskrit, while the source linked turns out to be yet another distinct work (Ganguly's), and with no editor here and now actually directly attesting to any of these sources saying anything in particular, it's probably best to just kill it with fire and be excruciatingly precise in reconstructing the claim (or, frankly, if this is widespread, the article(s)). Advocata (talk) 11:02, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Wanted to clarify that it isn't a nonexistent compilation, just a misspelled one. The Teahouse guys agreed it wasn't vandalism once I clarified the source (Vijays posted their conclusions prior to that input, ironically in a very sneaky way). The source linked to, Ganguli's work, is the "mistranslation of the idiosyncratic quasi-mystical secondary commentary from the 1600s".Pinkfloyd11 (talk) 17:37, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Ok. That's fine with me. I am very much concerned about the reliability of the source. I won't recommend that reference in any article anywhere until reliability is proven. I hope other editors involved in this issue too don't use that source until reliability is proven. The issue will be discussed in WP:RSN. I believe the issue is closed for me here in this page. Vijays1127 11:09, 6 June 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vijays1127 (talk • contribs)

Italy at the World Championships in Athletics

Resolved

What about this deletion and not this and these others five? or France at the FIFA World Cup? --Kasper2006 (talk) 10:47, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

The deletion log states it was deleted as a result of this AfD, but it's not listed as one of the articles bundled by the original nom (as these were all linked to speed-skating). I see it is mentioned in the body of the AfD by someone else, making a comment about it, but it looks like this was deleted in error. I suggest this is restored and if anyone wishes to make a case for deletion, it gets its own AfD. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 12:07, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I have restored it. Can be listed at AfD now, if someone is so inclined. Lectonar (talk) 12:19, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree with the undeletion. I think it might have been swept up in either a d-batch or other similar "let's-grab-every-bluelink" script. Mistakes happen, glad this was easily resolved. Primefac (talk) 13:00, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Lectonar. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 13:54, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

@Primefac:...and that is why I do things slowly ;) see WP:AN#WP:BADAFD. Cheers. Lectonar (talk) 13:58, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

many thanks :) --Kasper2006 (talk) 08:49, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Re-requesting closure on RfC discussion regarding "joke" categories

Resolved

 – Case closed. Primefac (talk) 15:46, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

The closure on "Wikipedia talk:User categories#Request for Comment on the guidelines regarding "joke" categories." was requested earlier in late March. More than two months passed, and the discussion is still open. I had a discussion with the one who started the discussion. Therefore, I'm re-requesting a closure on the RfC discussion. However, I'm unsure whether a solo or teamwork closure should suffice. Though I don't mind solo closure, I can welcome two-editor closure if necessary. --George Ho (talk) 16:54, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Already closed by Dennis Brown. --George Ho (talk) 04:43, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Testing search in deleted pages archive

Hello Admins,

During Wikimedia Hackathon 2016, the Discovery team worked on one of the items on the 2015 community wishlist, namely enabling searching the archive of deleted pages. Now we are ready to deploy this capability in production, and are asking admins of select wikis to test-drive this feature. After accommodating any feedback from this trial, we plan to deploy it on all wikis and enable it by default.

To test it on your wiki, please go to the Special:Undelete page, and add &fuzzy=1 to the URL, like this: https://test.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AUndelete&fuzzy=1. Then search for the pages you're interested in. The results should show more results than before, due to using ElasticSearch indexing (via the CirrusSearch extension). If you find anything that is not right with the results, or that you want to be changed, please comment.

Please note that since Special:Undelete is an admin-only feature, this search capability is also only accessible to admins. Thanks, CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 19:03, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Looks good on testwiki @CKoerner (WMF): - as far as "anything .. want changed" - change it from a STARTS WITH search to a CONTAINS search (or enable a wild card option to toggle). — xaosflux ^Talk 00:42, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Oh looks like it is already working like that, perhaps change the default prompt at MediaWiki:Undelete-search-prefix to match? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:44, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

I think it's improperly truncating the results. I went to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AUndelete&fuzzy=1 and searched for fuzzy, and it gave me precisely 100 results, from "All Fuzzy" to Fuzzy rule. Aside from the low likelihood of there being exactly 100 pages with deleted revisions associated with a title containing fuzzy, I find it suspicious that the final item begins with "f". Probably there are pages beginning with "fuzzy" that would come after "rule", and I can't imagine that there aren't some deleted pages beginning with "g" through "z" that contain the word "fuzzy". It would help if we had an ordinary navigation link, one of those things where you can go to the next 20 or 50 or 100 or whatever-you-want links. Less important, but perhaps also useful: could we get a little check box to toggle whether it gives us only pages that are redlinks or pages that are red-or-bluelinks? Maybe one day I'm looking for all pages with deleted revisions of fuzzy, whether redlinks like American fuzzy lops or existing pages like Fuzzy Zoeller, but another day I might only be looking for pages that are redlinks, since after all I can already find the bluelinks with an ordinary Special:Search. Nyttend (talk) 05:10, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Good catch @Xaosflux: "contains" makes much more sense. Task filed for the team to look at. CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 19:55, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

@Nyttend: Yes it does only return 100 results. This limit existed in the previous implementation, and we kept it the same with the inclusion of fuzzy results. Doing unlimited search would be difficult for both performance and UI reasons, and pagination is not implemented for Special:Undelete yet. There's an old task for it, and I've just updated the task with your request. CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 21:28, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Since it's intentional, that's fine. Just please add a notice "First 100 results..." or something of the sort. Nyttend (talk) 21:55, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Obnoxious talk page

Hi B, Talk:Iron Fist (TV series) has been a hotbed of sock accounts (NokSuk, Oscar22, Listen45) as well as IP editors demonstrating poor talk page etiquette. My guess is that the sock accounts may be continuing, and potentially while logged out. This SPA lobs a personal attack against an editor, this IP restores it. The same IP editor creates a brand new section here to (ironically) lob a condescending attack against Alex. I've participated in the dispute !vote, so I'll abstain from adminning, but any CU checking and/or adminning you find warranted would be helpful, even if it's just closing the discussions. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 03:39, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• Sock of Oscar22; block applied, paperwork not filed. I've semi-protected that talk page. Fascinating discussion, BTW--with the sock gone, it might improve, if that Alex person can start talking like a grownup. Drmies (talk) 12:09, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

That Alex person thanks you for your suggestion. -- Alex^TW 12:15, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Sure thing: I mean it in all seriousness and with the best of intentions. Cyphoidbomb, can you maybe tag those socks? Thanks, Drmies (talk) 14:44, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Page restrictions at Carter Page

Following recent changes to WP:AC/DS#Appeals and modifications, there is an ongoing discussion at WP:AE#Carter Page about whether to lift DS page restrictions at Carter Page. Admins and other editors here are invited to participate. (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.) --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 16:30, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

It would be great to get some more admin input on this. Four so far have chimed in and I think it's generally leaning one way, but it'd be good to have a strong(er) consensus for whatever we decide to do. GoldenRing (talk) 15:53, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

WordGirl S10

Resolved

 – Tagged 'n' deleted. Primefac (talk) 15:45, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Hey all, might someone be able to look into this? I don't presently have time to commit, but my BS detector has gone off. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 05:47, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

@Cyphoidbomb: I've tagged this for speedy deletion as a blatant hoax. —Guanaco 06:01, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I've handled the rest. User is not here to be constructive. Also reminds me of Rodolfootoya socks. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 11:50, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Proposed revival on Wikipedia:Administrator review

Hi y'all (my first time saying that ;) ). Wikipedia:Administrator review was tagged "historical" back in April due to inactivity. Someone is proposing a revival of the feedback process at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), where you are invited to discuss. --George Ho (talk) 14:09, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Howdie George Ho :) I think an AN/I thread should be started on why you've never said 'y'all' before. It is, in fact, completely disgraceful. — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 11:35, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Did you know Queue

The Queue to be put up tomorrow is empty .Some admin please assemble the queues or the DYK section will be blank tommorowFORCE RADICAL (talk) 06:43, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Admin action review

The vandalism by this editor popped up on my watchlist about half an hour ago. Since highly visible pages were targeted, I performed moves, deletions, revdels, and a block myself. Since I am involved on one of those pages, I am asking for a quick review here, though in my view the edits were blatant vandalism. Regards, Vanamonde (talk) 10:34, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm calling for an immediate emergency de-sysop, with a public flogging and reparations to be made. In all seriousness that was more than needed and that was blatant vandalism as you said. Kudos though for asking for a second sets of eyes, nothing wrong here in my book. RickinBaltimore (talk) 11:23, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

It's completely okay. As I mentioned elsewhere, regardless of the high profile of some of the pages, some / most of them were egregious BLP violations, and they don't need no satisfaction self-justification. Let alone the blatent trolling / racism, etc. On the other hand, if RickinBaltimore's proposal is adopted, then can I have Vanamonde93's shoes before he leaves  :) — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 11:29, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

3000+ pages now have a link to an unrelated commercial website as "reference"

(This didn't seem to really belong on any other noticeboard, so here goes). Databaseolympics.com used to be a good 'or certainly useful) source for information about olympic athletes, and is thus used as reference / external link on more than 3,000 pages[43]. The site is no longer functioning though, and brings you to rotowire.com, a commercial site for fantasy sports. I guess all the links have to be removed, unless there is some migration that can be done. Tagging them as "dead link" would be wrong (the link isn't dead, it just is being misused by another site), and just leave them in the articles would provide free hits for the site.

Removing the links may change a number of BLPs into unreferenced BLPs though. To make things slightly more complicated, many articles using this site also link to sports-reference.com (e.g. Paolo Milanoli or Tommaso Costantino), but sports-reference.com will also shut down in "early 2017"[44].

As this is not a complaint about whoever added these links originally (as these were valid at the time, and probably added by dozens of editors), I haven't notified anyone. I'm just looking for what the best solution may be for this problem. Fram (talk) 11:37, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Cut the non-reference links, because they're not being used to support content. But for the reference links, couldn't we just do a bot request? Bot goes to the Internet Archive and finds the most recent result that predates the citation and then replaces the old URL with the archived one. If it's a citation template with no accessdate, or if it's a written-out citation with nothing of "Accessed on" or "Retrieved on", the bot can use the page history to find when the citation was added, or if that's too hard, it logs the item for a human. And since the Olympic stats haven't yet gone down, couldn't a bot-run help there as well? Nyttend (talk) 11:51, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

There's something specific that needs to be done to IABot to make it archive live links, but I don't remember what it is exactly. Pinging Cyberpower678, who does. Primefac (talk) 12:16, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

This is certainly something for IABot to do, but I'll have to contact the Wayback Devs to archive the massive amount of links still working into their servers so we can save them in time.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 12:22, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Sports-reference.com is used on more than 40,000 pages[45] so yes, starting this in time would be wise. Can anything still be done for the databaseolympics ones, where the site is already down? Fram (talk) 12:32, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

The process would be the same. Find and use the relevant Internet Archive link. bd2412 T 13:12, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

I would blacklist the entire domain so IABot considers the URLs dead and the best to hope for is that an archive exists.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 13:14, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

• I have blacklisted the domains for databaseolympics, and summoned the bot to those pages containing it. The progress can be tracked at https://tools.wmflabs.org/iabot/index.php?page=viewjob&id=369 —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 13:45, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

• By the way, Cyberpower and Fram, are you sure that the sports-reference Olympics links are dead? Go to [46] and click random links; it looks like they've not yet taken it down. For example, [47] gives stats for Paavo Nurmi, and [48] for Athletics at the 1924 Summer Olympics – Men's 5000 metres. Do I remember rightly that at any time the IA can be instructed to archive a page at that moment? As far as I can see, there's no reason that these links can't be archived right now. Nyttend (talk) 13:51, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

• Sports-reference.com still works, but may shut down any moment now (per the linked announcement, which is linked from every page on that site). Archiving them right now ensures that they are well and truly archived, which is less certain with databaseolympics. Fram (talk) 14:01, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

  I put in a request to the ArchiveTeam, and they'll work to archive as many, if not all, links as possible for sorts-reference before it goes down. They know they have a time limit.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 14:35, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

• While this is here, it's worth noting that Databaseolympics.com was one of a family of sports statistics websites that were similar to Sports-Reference. There was Databasefootball, Databasebasketball, Databasehockey, and Databasebaseball. The football site in particular looks like it is used frequently as a source here. It might be worthwhile to check a few of these links to see if they also redirect to rotowire.com. If so, attempts should be made to archive links from those sites as well as the Olympics site. Giants2008 (Talk) 17:36, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

   Done They all redirect and I have blacklisted the domain in the bot now, and summoned the bot to the pages containing them. Here are the relevant bot jobs.

  1. https://tools.wmflabs.org/iabot/index.php?page=viewjob&id=369
  2. https://tools.wmflabs.org/iabot/index.php?page=viewjob&id=371
  3. https://tools.wmflabs.org/iabot/index.php?page=viewjob&id=372
  4. https://tools.wmflabs.org/iabot/index.php?page=viewjob&id=373
  5. https://tools.wmflabs.org/iabot/index.php?page=viewjob&id=374

  —CYBERPOWER (Around) 19:40, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Dealing with a content dispute

(A lot of my WP work involves dealing with geographic coordinates, which is how I was led to this problem in the first place.) There has been edit warring at Labyrinth of Buda Castle—apparently a partial translation of a hu.wp article, and not a particularly good article in any event—with regard to the coordinates in the article. It's apparently related to a dispute over the ownership and location of a particular exhibition named "Labyrinth of Buda Castle", but the exact details are unclear to me because I'm unable to fully understand the talk-page posts. I semi-protected the article for a month to allow users to hash the matter out on the talk page; but after the protection expired the warring resumed, so I've semied the article for another month. Now an aggrieved editor is claiming multi-WP admin abuse (one of the involved users is a hu.wp admin who has apparently blocked some of the warriors there) on the talk page. For my own peace of mind I usually try to stay out of disputes, and I consider the article protection nothing more than a stopgap measure, so I'm asking you more experienced admins, What's the best way to deal with a situation like this? Nothing that's likely to be effective is coming to my mind at the moment. Deor (talk) 18:30, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

At a glance: I don't think we can do anything about admin actions on other projects. Besides, the complaints on that talk page come off like a) it involves a real world legal dispute that we should probably not join in and b) I find the accusations of "admin abuse" in this context to be rather suspect. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:37, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

The disputed contents were hopelessly unreferenced. At this edit I have removed it all. I hope that keeps things quiet. I'd further suggest that the article should be a redirect to a (currently nonexistent) section of the Buda Castle article. Also, the present article is interesting only for its picture gallery, and the article probably needs deleting, with the pictures being moved to Wikimedia. Richard Keatinge (talk) 19:44, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. That works, I guess. I was reluctant to take an axe to an article translated from another WP, and I've perhaps grown overcautious about nominating such stuff for deletion or merger. I've become less bold as I've aged—not entirely a good thing. Deor (talk) 20:42, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Admin needed

Please see above, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Reverting_closure_without_discussion, and scroll down to where you see a ton of editors mostly going "support": either of the two proposals is ready for close. Note also that the editor, Asilah1981, is currently throwing around ancient accusations on Talk:White Helmets (Syrian Civil War) which, as far as I'm concerned, are way out of line. Drmies (talk) 20:41, 9 June 2017 (UTC)