Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

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For urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems, use Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. If you are new, try the Wikipedia:Teahouse instead. Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead use Wikipedia:Requests for oversight. For administrative backlogs add {{Admin backlog}} to the backlogged page; post here only if urgent. Do not post requests for page protection, deletion requests, or block requests here. When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:AN-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. Sections inactive for over three days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.(archives, search) Start a new discussion

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

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Do not post here to rush the closure. Also, only do so when the discussion has stabilised.

On the other hand, if the discussion has much activity and the outcome isn't very obvious, you should let it play out by itself. We want issues to be discussed well. Do not continue the discussion here.

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

When the discussion is ready to be closed and the outcome is not obvious, you can submit a brief and neutrally worded request for closure.

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Non-admins can close most discussions. Admins may not overturn your non-admin closures just because you are not an admin, and this should not normally be in itself a problem at closure reviews. Still, there are caveats. You may not close discussions as an unregistered user, or where implementing the closure would call to use tools or edit permissions you do not have access to. Articles for deletion and move discussion processes have more rules for non-admins to follow.

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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}}.

If you want to formally challenge and appeal the closure, do not start the discussion here. Instead follow advice at WP:CLOSECHALLENGE.

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Administrative discussions

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

(Initiated 21 days ago on 16 April 2024) - already the oldest thread on the page, and at the time of this comment, there has only been one comment in the past nine days. starship.paint (RUN) 03:15, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Requests for comment

Talk:Indo-Pakistani_war_of_1947–1948#RfC_on_what_result_is_to_be_entered_against_the_result_parameter_of_the_infobox

(Initiated 137 days ago on 22 December 2023) No new comments for over 45 days. Ratnahastin (talk) 07:24, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Awdal#RFC - Habr Awal/Isaaq clan

(Initiated 134 days ago on 24 December 2023) ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 117 days ago on 10 January 2024) RfC template expired on the 10th of February 2024. TarnishedPath^talk 13:15, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Tasnim News Agency

(Initiated 84 days ago on 12 February 2024)

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

Talk: Interstate 90#RFC: Infobox junctions

(Initiated 67 days ago on 29 February 2024) Discussion is about to expire and will need closure. RoadFan294857 (talk) 15:37, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 54 days ago on 14 March 2024) It's been about two weeks, since the RFC tag expired. GoodDay (talk) 14:07, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

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

RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes?

(Initiated 52 days ago on 15 March 2024) Ready to be closed. Charcoal feather (talk) 17:02, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 52 days ago on 16 March 2024) Hello, this RFC was started on 16 March 2024 and as of now was active for more than a month (nearly 1,5 month to be exact). I think a month is enough for every interested user to express their opinion and to vote at RFC and the last vote at this RFC was made by user Mellk on 15 April 2024 (nearly two weeks ago and within a month since the start of this RFC). The question because of which this RFC was started previously resulted in quite strong disagreements between multiple users, but I think there already is a WP:CONS of 12 users who already voted at this RFC. Since the contentious topics procedure applies to page Russo-Ukrainian War, I think this RFC must be closed by uninvolved user/administrator to ensure a valid WP:CONS and to prevent further disputes/edit warring about this question in the future. -- Pofka (talk) 09:50, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

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

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

Talk:SpaceX Starship#RfC on IFT-3

(Initiated 46 days ago on 21 March 2024) This is a contentious issue with accusations of tendentious editing, so the RfC would benefit from a formal closure. Redraiderengineer (talk) 14:48, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

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

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

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

Talk:Libertarian Party (Australia)#Conservatism

(Initiated 38 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 38 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 30 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)

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

(Initiated 28 days ago on 8 April 2024) Clear consensus for change but not what to change to. I've handled this RfC very badly imo. User:Alexanderkowal — Preceding undated comment added 11:50, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Deletion discussions

XFD backlog

V	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Total
CfD	0	0	38	0	38
TfD	0	0	6	0	6
MfD	0	0	24	0	24
FfD	0	0	2	0	2
RfD	0	0	49	0	49
AfD	0	0	0	0	0

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

(Initiated 47 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 46 days ago on 22 March 2024) HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 20:38, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 13 days ago on 24 April 2024) HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 20:38, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Other types of closing requests

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

(Initiated 122 days ago on 5 January 2024) The discussion has been inactive for two weeks, with a preference against the merge proposal. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 19:39, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 122 days ago on 6 January 2024) The discussion wasn't inactive for 7 days. It seems there's no clear consensus on merging those two articles into one. 107.185.128.255 (talk) 18:16, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Talk:Saleh al-Arouri#Merge proposal

(Initiated 116 days ago on 11 January 2024) Discussion has stalled since March with no new comments. It appears that there is no clear consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aviationwikiflight (talk • contribs) 11:06, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Frederik_IX_of_Denmark#Requested_move_15_January_2024

(Initiated 113 days ago on 15 January 2024) – Requested move open for 2 months, needs closure.98.228.137.44 (talk) 18:36, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

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

Talk:Maersk Hangzhou#Second merge proposal

(Initiated 103 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 97 days ago on 30 January 2024) Listing multiple non-unanimous merge discussions from January that have run their course. Noah, AA^Talk 13:50, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:2003_Pacific_hurricane_season#Proposed_merge_of_Hurricane_Nora_(2003)_into_2003_Pacific_hurricane_season

(Initiated 97 days ago on 30 January 2024) Noah, AA^Talk 13:50, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Pharnavaz_I_of_Iberia#Requested_move_6_February_2024

(Initiated 91 days ago on 6 February 2024) Requested move open for nearly 2 months. Natg 19 (talk) 17:46, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

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

(Initiated 84 days ago on 13 February 2024) The discussion has been inactive for over a month, with a clear preference against the merge proposal. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 19:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Genital_modification_and_mutilation#Requested_move_26_February_2024

(Initiated 71 days ago on 26 February 2024) – Requested move open several months, needs closure. Natg 19 (talk) 22:29, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Afrophobia#Requested_move_4_March_2024

(Initiated 63 days ago on 4 March 2024) – Requested move open nearly 2 months, needs closure. Natg 19 (talk) 05:03, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Alexander,_Prince_of_Schaumburg-Lippe#Requested_move_10_March_2024

(Initiated 57 days ago on 10 March 2024) – Requested move open for nearly 2 months, needs closure. Natg 19 (talk) 04:55, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Talk:List of generation VI Pokémon#Greninja Merge Discussion

(Initiated 33 days ago on 3 April 2024) – The discussion has been largely inactive for the past month, and though there are occasional comments, it has largely slowed. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 02:10, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake#Talkpage_"This_article_has_been_mentioned_by_a_media_organization:"_BRD

(Initiated 20 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)

Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection

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Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (77 out of 7718 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Type Summary Admin Obamaism 2024-05-07 07:56 indefinite create request at rfp Lectonar Reactions to the Israel–Hamas war 2024-05-07 06:54 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement Robertsky Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates/Archived/Archive 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Secret pages 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Connormah 2 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac User:Halibutt/Archive 15 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Jvolkblum 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections 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06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Wikilobby campaign 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Vote/Coren 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Vote/Rlevse 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2007/Vote/Alexia Death 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Vote/Privatemusings 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Vote/Shell Kinney 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Vote/Dream Focus 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Vote/Fish and karate 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections January 2006/Vote/Dbiv 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Vote/Hemlock Martinis 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2008/Vote/Kmweber 2024-05-07 06:26 indefinite edit lower protection to allow for WP:LINT fixes Primefac User talk:Leonidlednev 2024-05-07 03:26 2024-10-08 05:50 move Persistent disruptive editing: per RFPP Daniel Case Yusufzai 2024-05-07 02:34 indefinite edit make ECP indef Daniel Case Islamic Resistance in Iraq 2024-05-07 02:15 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Palestinian political violence 2024-05-07 02:12 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: restore previous indef ECP Daniel Case Battle of Beit Hanoun 2024-05-06 22:14 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement ScottishFinnishRadish A-1 Auto Transport 2024-05-06 21:06 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated ToBeFree Killing of Sidra Hassouna 2024-05-06 19:17 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:CT/A-I ToBeFree China 2024-05-06 08:12 indefinite edit Persistent disruptive editing: upgrade to WP:ECP due to long term and sustained disruption from multiple confirmed accounts El C User talk:AgentKaren 2024-05-05 23:52 2024-05-08 23:52 move Editor moving user pages to try to change their username Liz User:AgentKaren 2024-05-05 23:52 2024-05-08 23:52 move Editor moving user pages to try to change their username Liz Module:Chart/Default colors 2024-05-05 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2583 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Module:Chart 2024-05-05 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 2578 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Draft:Cheese 2024-05-05 17:41 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Pppery Revisionist Zionism 2024-05-05 12:54 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:CT/A-I -- requested at WP:RFPP Favonian Timeline of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 2024 2024-05-05 12:22 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement ScottishFinnishRadish Universities and antisemitism 2024-05-05 07:00 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: inextricably tied to WP:PIA, WP:ECR El C User:Zee Saheb 2024-05-05 06:19 2024-06-05 06:19 create Repeatedly moving drafts to User space Liz User talk:Fathia Yusuf 2024-05-05 06:03 indefinite edit,move Foolishly moving a User talk page Liz Battle of Krasnohorivka 2024-05-05 04:30 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: WP:GS/RUSUKR El C Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Adventure 2024-05-05 03:40 indefinite edit,move This does not need to be indefinitely fully-protected Pppery Ruben Vardanyan (politician) 2024-05-04 22:43 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:GS/AA Daniel Case List of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses in 2024 2024-05-04 22:07 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Fertile Crescent 2024-05-04 21:27 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Al-Aqsa 2024-05-04 21:18 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Kundali Bhagya 2024-05-04 21:07 2025-05-04 21:07 edit,move Persistent disruptive editing: per RFPP; will also log as CTOPS action Daniel Case Drake (musician) 2024-05-04 05:55 2024-05-11 05:55 edit Persistent violations of the biographies of living persons policy from (auto)confirmed accounts Moneytrees Uttar Pradesh 2024-05-04 04:45 indefinite edit,move raise to indef ECP per request at RFPP and review of protection history Daniel Case StoneToss 2024-05-04 04:12 2024-08-04 04:12 edit Violations of the biographies of living persons policy: per request at RFPP; going longer this time Daniel Case Palestinian key 2024-05-04 04:08 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case List of national symbols of Palestine 2024-05-04 04:05 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Disinvestment from Israel 2024-05-04 03:59 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case List of characters in Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai 2024-05-03 18:04 2024-05-12 05:38 edit,move raised to ECP as one disruptive user is autoconfirmed Daniel Case Shakespeare authorship question 2024-05-03 14:22 indefinite edit Article name was changed without consensus SouthernNights

Request to lift topic ban

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

---

I was topic banned on May 1,2018 for violating several wikipedia policies while editing a caste article. I was relatively new to wikipedia and was not familiar with the policies. I know that ignorance is not an excuse. I apologize for my rude behavior. Since then, I have been making good contributions in other areas without any complaints so far. I promise I will continue to abide by wiki rules and remain a good editor. I request to consider my appeal to lift the topic ban. I have appealed for a lift in the past but was turned down. I am requesting again. I am ready to address any concerns you have about me. Sharkslayer87 (talk) 21:16, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

• Isn't the standard to wait 6 months? that's November 1 by my calendar.  MPJ-DK  21:19, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

• Sharkslayer87, MPJ-DK is correct, the standard is to wait six months. And especially in your case, you should wait. Did you read these comments on your original ban appeal, which you posted a mere hour after the topic ban had been placed? Several admins + experienced users there stated specifically that a new appeal from you should not be entertained until a minimum of six months had passed. I agree with them. Bishonen | talk 16:15, 11 August 2018 (UTC).
• I, too, would recommend waiting, and using the six month period to demonstrate that you can build content responsibly in other areas. A lot of your activity at present is anti-vandalism, which is good, but does not provide us a basis with which to judge whether the topic ban is still necessary. Vanamonde (talk) 05:08, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
• Hi Sharkslayer87, continue your good work at other areas. getting back to the same topic prematurely may risk you getting back to the similar situation. it will serve you well if you spend 3 more months by getting familiar with rules and policies. There are lot more places where you can contribute as a new editor. see Wikipedia:How to help --DBigXray 19:01, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

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

Request to lift topic ban (Robertinventor)

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

---

I wish to get my indef topic ban in the Buddhism topic area lifted. The main reason given for the original topic banthe original topic ban was that my talk page posts were too long, and I did too many of them. A secondary reason was that I did too many minor edits after posting them. Several other points were mentioned, but those were given most weight in the discussion. All of these are easily addressed.

First note that I'm an editor in good standing, with no other sanctions against me. Also I am frequently involved in extensive conversations in other topic areas. My posts are sometimes technical and detailed, however, they are always to the point, intended to help improve wikipedia, and usually are appreciated by the other editors in the conversation. In the topic areas that interest me, often other participants in the discussion do long posts too, and I appreciate their long posts as much as they appreciate mine; this discussion is an example. I have never been taken to ANI over the length of my posts on any other topic.

However, I agree that my talk page habits did cause a major issue in the Buddhism debates. Occasionally they causes minor issues in other debates. I sometimes have found it hard to adjust to Wikipedia from other platforms because

• If you edit your post after posting it, this sends alerts to editors watching the talk page. and fills talk page histories with diffs for all your edits
• Other editors will see the whole of your long post when browsing a thread (on other platforms they see only the first few lines until they click more).

But I have a solution!

Sandbox solution

The main change since the t-ban is that I have got into the habit of composing replies in my sandbox if they seem likely to need to be edited after posting. I never thought of this way of using my sandbox until @Softlavender: suggested it during the t-ban appeal discussion (apparently someone mentioned it to me before, but I didn't notice).

• This completely solves the issue of minor edits filling talk page histories and sending multiple alerts to other editors. Sometimes I forget to use the sandbox, or don't think it is going to be necessary. When that happened recently, an editor posted: User:Robertinventor#Too many edits for a talk page post. In response, I immediately started using the sandbox for this discussion, which solved the issue raised in that comment.
• I have also been using the sandbox for long talk page posts. This gives me an opportunity to review them and shorten them using my User:Robertinventor/Work arounds for lengthy talk page comments. I can even leave a draft there and take a break and then come back and find a way of making it shorter.
• As for doing too many posts in a short period of time, if this ever arises again, I can deal with that by either taking wikibreaks, or slowing down the pace of conversation, and giving other editors lots of time to respond before returning to the conversation myself.

I have also added messages to my user space to encourage other editors to please draw my attention to the matter if I do any of these things.

• User:Robertinventor#Over lengthy talk page posts or too many posts
• User:Robertinventor#Too many posts
• User:Robertinventor#Too many edits for a talk page post? Just remind me to use the sandbox - thanks!

I have also just now added a reminder text message to my user page and talk page: REMINDER TO SELF - YOU ARE NOW ON WIKIPEDIA - USE SANDBOX TO COMPOSE YOUR COMMENTS IF THEY ARE LIKELY TO NEED EDITING AFTER POSTING

This should help prevent similar issues arising in the future.

Wikignoming and new editing interests

Although I only did wikignoming in this topic area in the past, I have developed new editing interests since the dispute. As a result I wish to edit some of the Buddhist biographies.

I also have a special interest in the modern movement for reintroduction of the full Bhikkhuni ordination for women to Buddhist traditions that have lost this, and may be able to help improve articles in this topic area.

I would also help fix broken links, and add extra cites and so on.

Most of these edits are likely to require little by way of conversation. At most, I expect a few comments back and forth.

This is one of the biographies I'd like to work on:

• Milarepa has multiple issues of sourcing and neutrality.
• Milarepa draft is my new draft of it uploaded to miraheze (a free community wiki). It fixes these issues, see diff.

It is based mainly on the translator's note by Andrew Quintman, a good WP:RS on this topic that is cited in the original article. It won the American Academy of Religion’s 2014 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Textual Studies and the 2015 Heyman Prize for outstanding scholarship from Yale University.

Robert Walker (talk) 13:39, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Looking through your contributions, it appears that you're still posting long comments on article Talk pages over at Talk:Clathrate_gun_hypothesis#Update_needed_on_shallow_Arctic_methane_clathrates so it's not at all clear to me that you'd work with other editors in a concise way in the Buddhism topic area. Moreover, in the ANI where you were topic banned, you'd previously promised to reduce the amount you post and edit your posts and didn't carry out that promise. Unless you have diffs showing that you have actually been taking the steps you outline above, and have done so for at least six months, this reads to me as an empty set of promises.

Also, reading original ANI, it's clear to me that although your posting style was a major part of the reason you were topic banned, it wasn't the only reason: the topic ban came about because you had strong feelings about Buddhism and the way the articles had recently been changed. Your suggestions to fix this posting style do not address the other issues with sourcing, tagging, and accepting consensus that were raised there. Ca2james (talk) 01:58, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Previous editing restrictions and timeline, for context. While Robert is not under any other editing restrictions at this time, it should be noted that he had a previous topic ban in this area.

• From May 2016 to November 2016, Robert was under a six-month topic ban on pages related to the Four Noble Truths (a Buddhism-related subtopic). As far as I can see, once Robert understood how topic bans worked on Wikipedia he respected the ban without problems. This ban was of a set duration rather than indefinite, and lapsed when the time expired on 27 November 2016.
• A very cursory glance at Robert's contribution history suggests that he made a dozen or so edits on Talk:Four Noble Truths in December 2016, then stayed away from Four Noble Truths and other Buddhism-related edits entirely until early April 2017. (Please correct me if I've missed something.)
• Less than a month after resuming edits in the topic area, he was subjected to the current, indefinite, broader-than-the-original topic ban now under appeal, imposed in May 2017. That ban came with the stipulation that no appeal would be considered for at least six months. As far as I am aware, this is the first appeal; fifteen months have elapsed since the ban was imposed.

I don't offer a judgement either way on the appropriate outcome of the appeal. I do think that a previous topic ban in the area is relevant information for people evaluating the current appeal. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:52, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

===Response to Ca2james===

'Response to Ca2james @Ca2james:, I'm not sure of protocol here. I don't want to break the thread by an indented long comment, but you made many points for me to respond to. It seems best to do them as a new section.

First, on sourcing, the concluding statement just says

"A fair part of this thread relates to content and sourcing issues. While interesting, these aren't a matter for ANI."

So, I was not sanctioned on sourcing issues. But - in case it is needed, I expand on sourcing issues below:

Extended content

In any case, I never attempted to add new content of my own to the Buddhism topic area in any of those debates. The remarks about improper sourcing in the appeal debate refer to the methods of sourcing used by the main space editors up to 2014 on the articles I was trying to restore. They had used them for several years at the time of the rewrite to remove material sourced in that way. I was a wikignome (in this topic area) trying to restore material that I thought had been improperly deleted. To be as clear as possible: I recognize that the approach to WP:RS used up to 2014 by the editors of those articles is no longer regarded as acceptable in the Wikipedia Buddhism project today. Unless someone else re-opens the question and requests comments, I don't intend to return to this topic. And if I ever do - it will be with restraint and making sure my comments do not overwhelm the conversation, one per day or per week or some such. But it is unlikely that this topic comes up again in the near future. @Dorje108:, who was the main editor of several of those articles, is no longer active in the project and I think most of those who supported the old sourcing approach have either left or are inactive. The areas I plan to edit, of biographies like the biography of Milarepa, and of bhikkuni ordination, are far removed from any of the topics discussed in the articles that I tried to get restored. The edits are also minor ones. In the example I give of the Milarepa article my edits are to solve issues of neutrality and unsourced content, and I expect my edits to be non controversial. Most of my edits of wikipedia are.

(self collapsed - as optional section - as not what I as sanctioned for)

On long posts: The Clathrates debate you brought up is the only occasion since the topic ban itself when anyone has complained of walls of text. They only did that because one of the editors in the debate read through my talk page and found the topic ban. They assumed I was a problem editor because of this. They soon came to realize that they were not walls of text, as the conversation continued. See the last section Talk:Clathrate gun hypothesis#Some of the main points for attention. I have given a list of 11 points that need attention in the article. I asked the other editor who made the recent changes to discuss them. They did not. I asked them to supply a quote for a cite behind a paywall. They did not. I asked if they were okay with me making the proposed changes. They did not reply.

A third editor who was involved in the debate then said diff "I'll review and edit as there is time and interest, about all I can say. Follow Wiki rules and do as you will." So that is what I plan to do, but haven't had time to get back to the article since then. I think if you review the conversation you will find I behaved in a proper fashion there and complied with the Wikipedia guidelines on talk page activity.

The reason I do a fair bit of talk page activity is because if I encounter a conflict situation like this, I never edit war. It is rare for me to revert an edit apart from vandalism. Where possible I avoid the R of BRD and just do BD. In the clathrate debate after that editor's bold rewrite of the article, most editors would have done a R first then a D. I just went straight to D. It is slower, maybe, but I prefer that approach.

Use of the sandbox The concluding admin @Euryalus: only said this about the sandbox:

"There was discussion of WP:REDACT and the refactoring of talkpage posts, but on balance there was insufficient comment to establish consensus for a sanction. Robertinventor's offer to use the sandbox sounds like a good idea and will hopefully address the issue"

Sometimes long talk page posts are acceptable in wikipedia, as in the example I gave of a detailed discussion of an extremely complex article on microtonal music. It would severely limit our ability to work on such complex articles if comments were always required to be short. Robert Walker (talk) 03:52, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Votes on Request to lift topic ban (Robertinventor)

• Oppose lifting of topic ban The length of this "wall of text" request itself, and its failure to address the full range of issues that led to the topic ban, convince me that lifting the topic ban would not be beneficial to the encyclopedia and would be highly likely to result in additional problems for this editor. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:50, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose (Non-administrator comment). This wall of text request and the walls of text at Talk:Clathrate gun hypothesis show that this editor has not yet learned how to write succinctly, let alone to write succinctly in Buddhist topics. Moreover, this editor has also broken his topic ban several times although he self-reverted each time. The most recent topic ban violation was on August 6, [1] only about 30 mins after violating the ban on another article.[2] With such recent topic ban violations, I don't see how the topic ban could be lifted. Ca2james (talk) 21:42, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose Robert is well-intentioned but unfortunately their style of discussion makes collaborative editing virtually impossible. I had observed this at the talk-pages of Karma four-years back (do take a glance at archives 3, 4, 5, 6) and had offered this advice as a non-participant in that discussion. It is obvious from this AN discussion itself that passage of time + that advice + similar advice from numerous other editors + topic ban, have not made much difference. Given that, I am opposed to easing of any editing restriction, and would sincerely ask Robertinventor to consider if wikipedia with its requirements to collaborate is a suitable venue for them to contribute their time and knowledge. Abecedare (talk) 23:03, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
• Weak Support there certainly isn't a convincing case that Robert has learned to express his views clearly and concisely. On the other hand, I'm not sure how a topic-ban regarding Buddhism solves that problem or helps the encyclopedia. The 2013 version of the Four Noble Truths article is very different from the current one; it's not unreasonable that an editor might prefer the earlier version but struggle to explain why. power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:42, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - the request itself already is WP:TLDR... And the reminder of the four noble truths "debate" alone is enough to make me feel unwell - literally. I really don't even want to imagine to go through that debate again. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:13, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

And he did it again:

I noticed this major rewrite in November 2014. The editor who did the rewrite had never edited the article or its related talk page

The real diff for the edit by Jonesey95 is this; what he is referring to is my series of edits in november 2014, which cleaned-up the contributions from Dorje108. It's not about WP:RS; it's about the way popular publications are being used as sources for presenting personal interpretations and understandings, while neglecting relevant scholarly sources, a point which obviously still has not dawned on Robert. It's totally irrelevant that I'd never edited that page before. What's relevant here is the repetition of Robert's WP:TENDENTIOUS editing. No lifting of the topic-ban for him, period. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 04:31, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

NB: the wholesale inclusion, for example, of Robert and Dorje108's preferred version of Four Noble Truths at Robert & Dorje108's Encyclopedia of Buddhism, which was thoroughly rejected during the extensive "discussions" with Robert, is a tell-tale sign that there is no intention whatsoever by Robert to accept the outcome of talkpage-discussions. On the contrary. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:28, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Here's a reminder of the kind of "discussions" Robert creates: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 225#Sources on Buddhism. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 12:42, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

• Comment Robertinventor is an intelligent and knowledgeable editor. Though the biggest problem might have been with the use of sources and writing wall texts and the problem with the wall of texts has not been carefully addressed by Robertinventor. I think it will help Robertinventor if he trims his appeal and name a couple of very good contributions he has made in these recent months. GenuineArt (talk) 05:27, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• @Robertinventor: Are you willing to answer these concerns? GenuineArt (talk) 15:08, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• While I sympathise with you on your apparent inability to write succinctly, your point and block of texts here further convince me that the topic ban is still necessary and should even be extended to unban requests for your own benefit. There's whole of editing world beyond Buddhism topic, you should explore that as neither your screed address the main problems identified nor your contributions to other areas demonstrate so, including this very request. –Ammarpad (talk) 06:14, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. All this request shows is that the problem has not gone away. Robertinventor is still convinced he is right and determined to change Wikipedia content to reflect that, and to argue ad nauseam until people die of boredom or walk away in frustration. That was the problem in the first place. [3] and [4], both less than a week ago, are unambiguous violations of the ban and would have resulted in a block had he not self-reverted. Guy (Help!) 07:00, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• Thank you for pointing out that. Lack of scrutiny I suppose. GenuineArt (talk) 14:20, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose – Robertinventor / Robert Walker has had two issues in the Buddhism space articles. First, the wall of text issue. Second, his unwillingness to comply with our core content guidelines which emphasize among other things that our articles reflect a neutral summary of peer-reviewed scholarly sources and equivalent RS. This means the editor must set aside her or his own personal feelings, interpretations, wisdoms and prejudices. Robertinventor's editing has been a tedious pattern that disregards peer-reviewed scholarship in favor of questionable sources, personal interpretations, projections and feelings. The combination of the wall of text issue with personal interpretations issue is problematic, seriously problematic. It damages the encyclopedia. It also does not help us build it because such behavior takes valuable time of our productive editors plus admins to figure out what is going on, what is the best thing to do. That has been the history. What about now and future? This submission, as others note above, suggests the wall of text issue is still there. Ok, we can live with walls of text, but what about the second issue. I have reasons to believe that Robertinventor's editing continues to be an issue, most recently in the example Softlavender and JimRenge discuss below. It does not matter whether the edits are accidental or Robertinventor is building a parallel encyclopedia as an alt-wikipedia, it does matter whether Robertinventor shows care in how he treats RS versus his own interpretations of Zen/Buddhism/whatever. For all these reasons, I regretfully oppose this request, regretfully because Robertinventor comes across as a passionate, well meaning individual and I am always wanting to give everyone a second chance. I do hope that we leave the window open for Robertinventor to come back in 12 months or sooner, after his future editing history confirms that he has addressed these two issues. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 03:33, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. Drmies (talk) 00:39, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. This is a competency issue when you get down to it. No matter what value Robert's viewpoints may have, he has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of competency in complying with Wikipedia norms. Softlavender (talk) 00:56, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. per Drmies. -Roxy, the dog. barcus 08:10, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Discussion and request for advice if you vote Oppose, Thanks!

{{ping|Cullen}}@Cullen328: I wish to be a better editor. Please tell me, what have I failed to address? Also, 'what was unnecessary or verbose? Incidentally in case it is unclear - the section on the sourcing is one I collapsed myself - as an optional section because Ca2james raised it - though it was specifically excluded by @Euryalus: as not what I was sanctioned for.

I have done everything within my ability to satisfy those two somewhat conflicting requirements, to give a short reply, yet to answer everything in enough detail for admins to assess it accurately. I spent several days working on the orignal appeal off-wiki (because of the t-ban). From the time stamps in my sandbox I spent 47 minutes working on my reply to @Ca2james:, mainly to shorten it, and copy editing for clarity. I have spent several hours on this response working on it from time to time to try to shorten it. There is no lack of good will and intent to benefit Wikipedia here. What is missing is mainly knowing what it is you require of me. I would appreciate it if any of you who vote Oppose would give a little time to advise me in this section about how to move forward in my talk page editing practices, or anything else, for the next appeal, thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 05:47, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Robertinventor, you need to learn how to be succinct, and you need to abandon your POV pushing on topics related to Buddhism. You have done neither. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:24, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

By the way, I am Cullen328, not Cullen. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:24, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

As a stylistic note, it is unnecessary, distracting, and disruptive to create a new section header for each of your own comments. Trust other Wikipedia editors to be able to follow a threaded discussion. More generally, one of the hardest things to do on Wikipedia is to accept that sometimes someone disagrees with your assessment of a situation. The impulse to think If I just explain it to them longer and harder, they'll come around! is hard to resist, and we all fall prey to it from time to time—but you're not doing a good job of demonstrating you can pick and choose your hills to die on, and you're continuing to hurt your case in the process. You've now broken this appeal up across a sufficient number of subheadings that it's not even entirely obvious where an editor endorsing your appeal should post their comments. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:06, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

@TenOfAllTrades: Oh sorry to hear that. So the issue is that in my response to @Ca2james: I expanded on things I already said in the original t-ban appeal and I should have just let the original statements stand "as is"? That is useful feedback, thanks. Moving forwards I can't fix it now per WP:REDACT. However, I think it is okay to remove the "response to Ca2james" heading to convert it back to a threaded discussion, if I do it with strikeout rather than just edit it away, and add a new "Appeal votes" heading with underline, to make the organization clearer. That may help. As for this new new section, it is because I didn't want to comment directly on a support or oppose vote, and I think a discussion section is normal enough here? Robert Walker (talk) 13:49, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

@Cullen328: - sorry for getting the ping wrong. I have edited it to fix it. It seems I have to answer this to get the t-ban lifted. So, please note that the topics I suggested are as far removed as could be from the topics that lead to the original discussions in the vast topic area of Buddhism. Also, I am an editor in good standing in Wikipedia, for instance I am the main editor of the Planetary protection article, and wrote about half of its content, also the main editor of Interplanetary contamination and this is a controversial area with many WP:POVs. I was not pushing some eccentric view of Buddhism of my own, but trying to restore material based on the previous consensus on how to present articles on Buddhism in the topic area up to 2014. I recognize that this consensus has changed and have moved on. I am involved in editing in a WP:NPOV and WP:RS way in many topic areas in wikipedia and it shouldn't be a problem to do the same in the suggested topic areas too. I can prove this by my actions if you lift the topic ban. Details collapsed again as it is not what I was sanctioned for:

Extended content

The issue of whether or not the current articles on central topics in Buddhism are WP:POV was based on a change in view on what counts as a WP:RS in 2014 in the topic area that came to ahead in this RfC. I got involved as someone who had only done wikignoming in this area who had Karma in Buddhism on my watchlist. I noticed this major rewrite in November 2014. The editor who did the rewrite had never edited the article or its related talk page and this was the status of the talk page when the rewrite began. It was one of the earliest articles on Buddhism, written in 2006 and as you can see from the talk page discussions at the time, it was regarded as stable, NPOV and well sourced by all the editors who commented there up to 2014, and this, and similar material in three other articles is what the discussion was about; never about work of my own that I wished to add. This seems to be the main point you wish to make so I thought I should answer it in full, but do bear in mind that I was not sanctioned for this. I can answer on short comments separately.

Robert Walker (talk) 14:19, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

I am preparing a reply, more soon Robert Walker (talk) 17:53, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

@GenuineArt: I am concerned about trimming the appeal because it seems too much like editing my posts after I've made them. However, I will gladly point to some good contributions I've made:

• Hawking radiation#1976 Page numerical analysis - 28 July 2018 - added a paragraph about the timescale for evaporation for various sizes of black hole
• Perigean spring tide - 23 July 2018 - added statement about how often they occur to lede.
• Megatsunami#Potential future megatsunamis - 29 June 2018 - Recent research disproves possiblity of future La Palma and Hawaii megatsunamis
• Stellar population#Population III stars - 7 June 2018 - The European Southern Observatory's discovery of a pocket of bright stars in a red shift 7 galaxy.

I hope this shows that I can express myself without a wall of text. Robert Walker (talk) 19:21, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Those three edits that @Ca2james: mentions all occurred when I was copying Wikipedia's source material to use on another site--which T-banned editors are allowed to do. Basically, my finger slipped. I self-reverted all three as soon as I could [5][6][7] Robert Walker (talk) 21:12, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

That is entirely implausible. Guy (Help!) 21:20, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

What you never accidentally left a long edit summary by the slip of a finger??  MPJ-DK  21:26, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Robert, your edit summary for the first deletion was "removed - not well sourced and in line with leaving out controversies about living people - para about whether authorized to teach zen". It wasn't a slip of a finger. -- Softlavender (talk) 21:29, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

I believe in Roberts explanation. Robertinventor/Robert Walker forgot where he was. He is the administrator and creator of the "Encyclopedia of Buddhism", a closed wiki (wp licence allows the creation of wp mirrors and modified wp content with attribution), where he is importing large numbers of Buddhism related articles. Compare [8] with [9], it is the same edit on the same day. JimRenge (talk) 23:23, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Then he should have said that. He said "Those three edits ... all occurred when I was copying Wikipedia's source material to use on another site .... Basically, my finger slipped." Softlavender (talk) 23:43, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

@Softlavender: Oh sorry. It is not meant literally. It's an expression meaning 'small accident.' @JimRenge: is right. I was busy working on the Encyclopedia of Buddhism and I lost track of which site I was on because both sites use the same editing screens, based on the MediaWiki software. I edited the text and saved it in the wrong tab of my browser. The editing summary [10] refers to EOB policies rather than Wikipedia policies. I reverted my changes to the Wikipedia articles as soon as I realized my mistake.

My editing interests in EOB mainly center on biographies[11], and other topics such as Bhikkuni ordination Central topics in Buddhism are Dorje108's province in the new encyclopedia. They have never been an encyclopedic editing interest for me, except as a wikignome. They have been of great interest to me as a Buddhist practitioner.

I didn't feel it was appropriate to mention our new encyclopedia in the appeal text, or the discussions. I was not sure it was covered by WP:BANEX, to even hint that it might exist. But now that it has been discovered by others, this is the background. Robert Walker (talk) 05:12, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: Robert, I'm going to suggest that you continue to edit your EoB, which sounds like a great idea and project. The "rules" on Wikipedia are very strict, and the community seems to feel that you are not inclined to follow them in this area, and they feel they are wasting valuable community time dealing with you. It is definitely the case that in many subjects on Wikipedia, there is a community of editors who uphold very stringent policies and do not allow for any fringe-y concepts, sources, or citations, no matter what the popular or public or prevailing view is. I do not see this changing any time in the future, so, based on the inclusions and interpretations and sources you prefer to use, I would suggest using that EoB as your outlet for your encyclopedic interest in Buddhism. Softlavender (talk) 05:27, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

@Softlavender: I hope to make this clearer in my next appeal. It got obscured in this one due to other matters being raised. I have never had any interest in editing articles such as Karma in Buddhism, or Four Noble Truths except as a wikignome. My interest was only ever in restoring content developed by others. I am well aware that I am not a suitable editor to add significant content to these particular articles myself, and in my talk page discussions have told other editors to please not use any of my talk page content in the articles themselves. But the topic of Buddhism is a vast one. There are other areas where I can contribute.

When it comes to biographies, or the topic of Bhikkuni ordination then the sources I would use are exactly the same ones as are currently used in those articles. There is no dispute over what countes as suitable sources for these articles. I have shown that I can use reliable sources and produce good content outside of the topic area of Buddhism for many years now, as with the four examples I gave in response to @GenuineArt: for the months of June and July of this year. I could provide numerous other examples. I can do the same for Buddhist biographies - a topic far removed from the topic at dispute. As an example, I showed with my draft that I can make a major improvement in the Milarepa article which is currently flagged as having multiple issues, compare my new version Milarepa draft diff. The current version just treats the mythology as if it was fact, and it is not surprising it was flagged with multiple issues. The suggested new version, in its lede, covers scholarly attempts to find out more about the real historical Milarepa and how the mythology developed. This topic interests me greatly, of how mythologies in Buddhism developed, and what the historical core was. My edit is based on a summary of research into this figure, by Andrew Quintman that won the American Academy of Religion’s 2014 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Textual Studies and the 2015 Heyman Prize for outstanding scholarship from Yale University.

If you were to lift the topic ban to see what happens I think you would get a big surprise to find it is problem free. And the editors who anticipate problems would be surprised too. @Joshua Jonathan: has never edited this article[12] and nor has @Ms Sarah Welch: [13] - and nor would I expect them to (unless they happen to have an interest in this which is a completely separate topic). Robert Walker (talk) 06:01, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

@Power~enwiki: - you have hit the nail on the head with your:

"it's not unreasonable that an editor might prefer the earlier version but struggle to explain why."

That is exactly what was going on. I prefer them mainly because they match what my teachers taught me. I am academically trained in mathematics and philosophy, but not in Buddhism. As a practitioner. I evaluate the articles according to how they match the teachings I've recieved and my understanding of the Buddhist path. It was basically a wikignome trying to get material restored on a topic of great interest as a practitioner rather than as an editor - not too surprising it failed. Please note I have moved on, all the 2014 articles that the dispute was centered on are now in our new EOB, and I have no interest in trying to restore them here. Robert Walker (talk) 06:01, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

[Apologies - forgot to use the sandbox for my reply to @Softlavender: - could trim it down a lot, but it is too late now, just did a couple of format fixing minor edits]

Robert and Dorje108 writing their own Wiki seems like a great solution. And no, I've never edited Milarepa, but Robert's draft does not seem to solve the issues with the lack of an encyclopedic tone. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 06:19, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

There were three issues identified, neutrality, sourcing and tone. Tone is subjective. For instance I am the main author of Planetary protection and nobody said it lacks encyclopedic tone. Note that @Joshua Jonathan: has just edited[14] the main Milarepa article to remove the banner. He gives only one of the two main sources for Milarepa's biography I mention in the lede. He does not mention the issues with his dates of birth and death or the historical context. Although he removed the banner about issues of sourcing, all the paragraphs are still marked as [citation needed]. He also presents a mythological account as if it was regarded as a historical biography, and so does not fix the issue of neutrality. He has also removed the section on "supernatural running". This breaks the redirect from Lung-gom-pa which is the reason I had for retaining that section in my draft. My proposal on the talk page of my draft is to make this into a separate article and run the redirect the other way. In short, it is a hasty edit of an article on one of the most important historical figures in Tibetan Buddhism, and sloppy work, introducing new issues that need to be fixed. Robert Walker (talk) 11:10, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

You're breaching your topic-ban here. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:39, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Oh yes, that's definitely a topic ban violation, and also shows why the topic ban should stay in effect. The fact that you didn't use your sandbox approach for at least one reply here shows that the "sandbox solution" isn't a viable solution for you. About Planetary protection: you were far from the only editor there, and it existed before you started editing it. Compare that article to Modern Mars habitability, which you wrote completely and which is not at all encyclopaedic in tone (disclosure: I've nominated the latter article for deletion). Ca2james (talk) 15:39, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

First a reminder that I am doing this in the context of a formal appeal process. So, @Joshua Jonathan: and @Ca2james: - according to WP:BANEX, it is not a topic ban violation to talk about the topic during a formal appeal, so long as it is relevant to the appeal.

I've been told that topic bans are about conduct, not content. We let brand-new Wikipedians edit articles like this one all the time. This is about whether my conduct will be disruptive. I'm confident it won't.

I would not suddenly do a bold edit of an article like this. I would copy my draft over to my user space and then post to the talk page, asking other users if they think my draft is an improvement, or has content that is worth merging into the article. And take it from there. This is my normal practice as an editor. Instead of BRD, for mature article edits, I do DB (continues R D, if there's a revert, rare). For recent examples of my use of DB see my edits of the talk pages for: Conformal cyclic cosmology and Cosmic microwave background. All these talk proposals do is to fix minor omissions, but just in case of stepping on anyone's toes, I comment on the talk page first. This is what I would do with Buddhist bios too.

If my edits for Buddhist bios are not accepted, for some reason, I would still like to have the topic ban lifted for wikignoming, since I spot such issues from time to time while importing content into EOB. My main focus is on improving articles in our new EOB. That Milarepa article is one that I worked on in EOB on and off for the last two months, from May 22nd and I felt that I had material in it that was a useful addition to Wikipedia, which is why I mentioned it in this appeal. Whether some or all, or none is useful is for editors here to decide.

By practicing in the sandbox over the past year, I've been able to reduce the number of small edits I need to make to my own posts down to reasonable levels. You'll see I didn't need to make many here in this thread. Robert Walker (talk) 04:59, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ca2james: we can continue discussion of the article you nominated for AfD on its talk page. I am in the process of fixing the issues you identified with it as best I can, as per our discussion there. Robert Walker (talk) 05:00, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: - I have some extra points I wish to make but they will require some more thought. I have to step carefully because of WP:BANEX but I think I may have some useful things to say even so. It is to help with mutual understanding as this goes foward, whether this t-ban is lifted now or for future appeals. You do not have any reason to be concerned about a repeat of what happened before, and one thing I'd like to do is to give a brief explanation of why that is. This is of course directly relevant to the t-ban appeal.

More later, as I have got caught up with many things suddenly in the last few hours, both on and off wiki and am having difficulty keeping track of everything and fulfilling my commitments. Robert Walker (talk) 05:01, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

You accidently pinged me when you were writing in your sandbox, so I've read your comments on Milarepa, and used them to improve that article. Thanks; that's exactly what a talkpage is for. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:06, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

No problem. I decided that this is not particularly what I want to talk about, so I have decided against posting that material anyway. After all that is more for discussion after the t-ban is lifted, if it is. I'm told that t-bans are about conduct and not content. If only I'd had that clearer in my mind at the start of this appeal it could have been a lot simpler. Robert Walker (talk) 07:33, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Wait - if Robert is topic banned from Buddhism, how did he suggest improvements to the article without violating his topic ban? Ca2james (talk) 14:20, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

A brief note on long posts. You may get the impression that comments in the Buddhism topic area are typically short. But that's not the case at all. Here are some examples from @Joshua Jonathan: [15] and in context here: Response by JJ - (1071 words and 6920 characters) and here [16] and in context here: Response by JJ 1726 words and 11,164 characters. That's not including signatures or wiki markup.

Many more examples could be found. By both of us. From this it is clear that >1000 word coments are commonplace in this topic area (as is not unusual for a highly technical subject on Wikipedia). I do not think that long posts by themselves were the reason for the t-ban. It was long posts combined with the issue of many minor edits of these long posts on my part that drove other editors distracted in this topic area, if only I'd noticed at the time. It is important for me to keep comments succint in most situations, but when talking in a context where long comments are expected, then there is no reason why I shouldn't do them also. The closing remarks don't say that my posts all have to be short. Robert Walker (talk) 07:35, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

@Joshua Jonathan: - I have another matter I need to post about, but I'm off to bed now, so will do that later. Robert Walker (talk) 07:37, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

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

Site ban proposal for User:NadirAli

Last month,[17] NadirAli's mass sockpuppetry was discovered. Consequently, Ivanvector blocked NadirAli but only for 3 months contrary to the actual standards for such violations.

After I objected the duration,[18] Ivanvector started an ARCA clarification request.[19] The outcome of the request was that NadirAli should be "treated like we'd treat anyone else with a repeated history of sockpuppetry".[20] I proposed siteban by motion, to which Worm That Turned responded, "you make a strong argument for a site ban... If you still strongly feel that the site ban should be put in place, why not suggest it at AN with your explanation. There's no reason that the community cannot pass a ban based on past behaviour."[21] No arbitrators disagreed with that.

ARCA request has been archived but the outcome is still pending. Some significant points regarding the misconduct are as follow:

• NadirAli was evading his siteban before he was unbanned.[22]
• After getting unblocked he abused IPs and created Boxman88 (talk · contribs)[23] to evade the Arbcom topic ban. The topic ban was later overturned.
• He was blocked indefinitely for copyright violation.[24]
• He was topic banned from uploading any images.[25]
• He was blocked indefinitely for violating that topic ban.[26]
• Violated his ban on image uploading by creating a new sock, Posuydon (talk · contribs).[27]
• Indefinitely topic banned from India-Pakistan conflict.[28]
• Violated topic ban on India-Pakistan conflict last month,[29] however, he denied any topic ban violation,[30] just like he used to deny copyright violations.[31]

It can be safely said that NadirAli is the most disruptive editor in the South Asia topic area. Had the sockpuppetry been discovered early, the damage that his actions have done to the project could have been avoided. In these twelve years, NadirAli has engaged in a very large degree of disruption and displayed clear inability to act collegially, and this was on display even in his last edit. A siteban is probably overdue for someone who is currently topic banned from several areas for an indefinite period and has been socking this rigorously for such a long period. --RaviC (talk) 21:44, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support. When you're engaged in long-term sockpuppetry for the purposes of disruption and ban-evasion, and when you're willing to deny something that can be proven against you, you simply can't be trusted one bit. Apparently I don't understand the new rule, because I would have imagined that he qualified for automatic siteban. Nyttend (talk) 03:17, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

• PS, note that NadirAli has three indefinite blocks in his main account's history. Some of us have gotten multiple non-problematic indefs, due to mistakes or testing or rogue admins (I have one mistake and two testing; Jimbo Wales has one mistake, two rogue admin, and two I-don't-know-what), but all of NadirAli's appear to be deserved. It's rare for an active editor to have more than one, and truly exceptional for an active editor with three indefs to get a deserved definite block for violating an Arbcom injunction. I'm thankful that Ivanvector is willing to be gracious, but I don't think it's the wisest choice. Nyttend (talk) 04:06, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support - Overall net negative. Sdmarathe (talk) 04:51, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support Community ban. His trolling (I have no better word) [32] has been just out of hands. Orientls (talk) 10:42, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Orientls, how about you not call it "trolling" at all? The comment is a bit verbose (" judged by the fact that your opinion is a minority view as per these sources"), but I don't see what else is wrong with it. Drmies (talk) 14:34, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
    • He was misrepresenting the author who said Pakistan is not a regional power to be claiming that he says Pakistan is a regional power. As well as "all" provided sources say Pakistan is a regional power, when they didn't. Orientls (talk) 14:39, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose and reject, the user is already sanctioned and serving out a block as methodically prescribed in this and previous such cases. Sanctions are designed to be preventative, not punitive. The filer has presented no tangible argument why the already-existing sanction needs to be replaced. I have known NadirAli for a few years, and his contributions to Pakistan articles have generally been thoughtful, constructive, and overall positive. Right up until his block (which was both sad, unnecessary, and a serious lack of acumen on his part), his behaviour was cooperative, normal, and not something that would qualify as sabotaging or disrupting the project en masse. The two (the filer and NadirAli) and others here undoubtedly have had past beef, hence the reason why I would read between the lines and take things with a pinch of salt IMO. Also waiting for comments from Ivanvector, who obviously would've had good reasons of his own to extend the block for 3 months rather than the usual line of action; he would be in a better position to explain why that was decided. Thanks, Mar4d (talk) 10:54, 12 August 2018 (UTC)  Administrator note comment struck as violation of user's topic ban Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 00:36, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Have you even read what has been already said above? Arbcom has already clarified to Ivanvector that NadirAli's sock puppetry should be dealt like "anyone else with a repeated history of sockpuppetry", i.e. indef block or a indef ban. Orientls (talk) 11:14, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Like I said, the line of action for such cases is to enforce a block, which I'm already seeing. The user is blocked. The enforcing admin would've had reasons to determine why this length was appropriate. Mar4d (talk) 11:25, 12 August 2018 (UTC)Comment struck as violation of user's topic ban. GenuineArt (talk) 12:59, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Ivanvector certainly had his explanation in ARCA and Arbcom has clarified the misunderstanding. I can just hope that he would agree with what we went over at ARCA. Furthermore Mar4d, you may not know, but NadirAli has edit-warred with you as well [33][34] by evading his ban with IPs. Interestingly, this is the same article where he was caught socking last month.[35] --RaviC (talk) 11:33, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support WP:CBAN. Should have been done a while back. Agree with Nyttend that NadirAli got away with a number of violations for which he deserved an indefinite block. When it comes to disruptive editing, NadirAli has done it all - Sock puppetry , Edit warring , factional editing, misrepresentation of sources, and the list goes on. His presence in the ARBIPA area is what can be defined as long term disruptive editing with having the dubious distinction of being banned in first and only Arbcom case concerning this area. Looking at the most recent edit of NadirAli, we get the idea that his motive is further disruption. I think as a community we have wasted enough time on him and he has been given enough rope, hundreds of chances over a decade. It is time to take a binding decision on this matter. Razer(talk) 11:45, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support - As per Nyttend. NadirAli's editing is mostly shady and the non-shady part is mostly worthless. I don't see why the community needs to keep wasting its time on this editor. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:58, 12 August 2018 (UTC)  Administrator note This comment was struck by the commenter ([36]) Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 00:36, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Will you elaborate what you mean by "worthless". I saw his contributions over the years, and before the block occurred, and they were mostly positive in terms of content creation and expansion. No one is free from mistakes, including you. I disagree with your unnecessary aspersion. Mar4d (talk) 14:30, 12 August 2018 (UTC)Comment struck as violation of user's topic ban. GenuineArt (talk) 12:59, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Additional comments: When a a proposal to "site ban or topic ban" NadirAli was brought to WP:ANI in July 2017, I was one of the people that opposed it. Even though it was hard work to battle NadirAli's POV, I thought his presence was still beneficial for the project. Little did I know that NadirAli had just begun doing proxy edits for a banned editor. I believe his first post as a proxy was this one 3 June 2017. The polished, westernised English of that post is easily distinguishable from NadirAli's broken English a month earlier. The reference to "shady" above was my filing at ARE bringing it to the admin attention. Since there was no admin action, NadirAli and his puppet master were emboldened and, since then, made hundreds of edits across dozens of page. Two other editors were recently blocked/banned by Abecedare for doing exactly this. I really think we need to get rid of the scourge of proxy editing. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:24, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

(responding to the ping) I haven't taken a look at NadirAli's case-history in any depth, and therefore haven't !voted in this discussion. As for proxy editing: on a quick glance the case is not as obvious as it was for the three instances in which I blocked, topic-banned and warned recently. This comment, for example, has some grammatical and punctuation errors, but of the sort that are par for the course for talkpage discussions. If there is a stronger case for proxy-editing to be made, I think it would be best to marshal evidence independent of this immediate discussion; the account is blocked for 2 more month, so there is no real rush. Abecedare (talk) 13:44, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support - The limited blocks and bans had been tried enough number of times. The Arb case should have been the final whistle for Nadir to stop such activity. The Kind admins like Ivan have already given the user enough WP:Rope to improve but by multiple violations as pointed above the user himself has decided to hang himself. The assumption that this editor will improve his behavior to avoid the ban would have been valid for earlier cases, Nadir by choosing to edit in conflict with the bans has already made the good faith assumption void. Proxy editors and the handlers need to be sent a strong message that indulging in such activity will not get any benefits and will only lead to strong administrative actions. --DBigXray 14:50, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support--The length of the rope, provided thus far, was not meant to approach infinity.....Thanks for your services, Good bye.∯WBG^converse 15:09, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

• Wweak oppose'-Per V93.And, this partisan noise......∯WBG^converse 12:26, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support - Long overdue. D4iNa4 (talk) 17:20, 12 August 2018 (UTC)  Administrator note comment struck as violation of user's topic ban Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 00:36, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support this editor has a history of getting indefinitely blocked for many different kinds of disruptive editing, only to be unblocked with a topic ban, editing restriction or "last" chance. People like that should be shown the door. A three month block is very generous for socking by an experienced editor, especially one who has been ordered not to use multiple accounts by ArbCom. Hut 8.5 17:27, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support. It's an unfortunate fact that nationalist disputes in South Asia bring out the worst in many of our otherwise capable editors. Nadir Ali has at various points demonstrated that he has the ability to edit constructively, but has chosen not to make use of it. I recommended a t-ban for him a few months ago, but that was before evidence of further sockpuppetry was brought forward. His edits have been a net negative, and this ban is necessary. Vanamonde (talk) 17:50, 12 August 2018 (UTC) Moving to weak oppose after reading Zzuuzz's comment about when logged out editing took place. I spent some time examining NadirAli's editing history, and their interactions with several other editors. I still think NadirAli's behavior is far from ideal, and they need to take a hard look at how they respond to conflict. However, the fact that much of logged out editing occurred a long while ago, and the substantial probability that some of the logged-out editing was done with the intent of avoiding harassment rather than evading scrutiny, I now feel a siteban would be an over-reach. @Kautilya3 and Winged Blades of Godric: I suspect you may be interested in that comment, though it may or may not change your minds. Vanamonde (talk) 14:14, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

• What CU detected as logged out editing was sure "recent" as CU can only detect what happened in last 3 months. If there was no recent logged out editing then CU would not convict the user of logged out editing. CU won't reveal those new IPs which they discovered per privacy policy. Accesscrawl (talk) 16:30, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support: Nadir Ali definitely was a disruptive editor in both South Asia and science fiction subjects. There was an ANI against him last year,[37] and thus, we can't say that he didn't have enough chances since he actually received far too many. --1990'sguy (talk) 12:57, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - I have reason to believe that this request is not in good faith, but yet another example of the factionalized editing identified in the AE topic ban thread from a few months ago in which many of the previous commenters here were named and (temporarily) topic-banned. I should have noted more clearly at the time, but I have doubts that the accounts named in the most recent of the SPI filings against NadirAli were actually NadirAli's accounts, versus a sophisticated attempt at joejobbing - the checkuser result was inconclusive, and the two accounts are blocked for being sockpuppets of each other, not for being sockpuppets of NadirAli. Of course, NadirAli is hardly an innocent party in this ongoing dispute as evidenced by his long block log, including several indefinite blocks as Nyttend noted, but note also that indef != permanent, and all of those blocks served their purpose and were eventually replaced with appropriate limiting sanctions, which NadirAli has largely abided by since appealing to BASC in 2014. He's slipped up a couple times, but who hasn't in this group? It's a literal disaster, none of these editors don't have notations in their block log and/or their names repeatedly mentioned at AE or the various admin boards. The recent SPI hinged on IP edits from a huge (/11) subnet in Brampton, Ontario, a large Canadian city with a very significant Pakistani population, most of which were more than a year old at the time of the report. NadirAli is only currently blocked because of what appears to have been an oversight that his Arbcom topic ban was rescinded but his parallel no-logged-out-editing restriction was not rescinded at the same time (why I asked about it at ARCA), and had that restriction not been in place, I would not have blocked him but treated the situation as time served with a warning. It's only because that restriction remained in place, and admins do not have latitude to admin in conflict with Arbcom, that he is blocked at all. Sitebanning him for that is an incredible overreach. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:13, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Thank you but that was unnecessary. NadirAli is the only serial sock puppeteer here. In place of righting great wrongs why don't you just try following what Arbcom told you after you specifically asked them. You are acting like an apologist. You are degrading your own credibility by encouraging his disruption. Orientls (talk) 14:31, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
    • Orientls It's one thing to argue that IvanVector is wrong; it's quite another to suggest that by exercising due diligence, he is an apologist for sockpuppetry. This is precisely the sort of us-vs-them nonsense that earned nine others topic-bans along with Nadir Ali, and I suggest you refrain from attacking anyone else's motives. Vanamonde (talk) 17:24, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
      • You are right that I need to use better words. My comments were directed on Ivanvector who is exactly attacking others motives and derailing this thread by making vague claims about others who are nowhere near the disruption of NadirAli. Not to ignore the apparent falsification of the sockpuppetry about NadiAli. Orientls (talk) 11:19, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
        • Doubling down by accusing Ivanvector of lying isn't exactly a great idea either. Black Kite (talk) 11:33, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
          • He claims that NadirAli didn't deserved block for sockpuppetry even after having CU confirmed the intentional logged out editing and also found connection with two socks abused for evading sanctions. "3 months block" for long term socking and putting the blame of someone's disruption onto others is absolutely a bad idea. Orientls (talk) 11:54, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
            • Can you provide evidence for where a CU 'found connection with two socks abused for evading sanctions'. Because Ivanvector seems to be correct that in the case of Boxman88 and Posuydon, the evidence was unclear. "The checkuser data for Boxman88 is extremely limited and doesn't provide a direct connection to NadirAli. However there are some other things to consider. There are some technical similarities which makes it possible". Note that I had no intention to take part in this discussion but happened to notice this diversion. Your comments cause me to look into the case and am I am likely to be !voting oppose unless you can provide evidence for your claims because it's looking to me like IvanVector is correct. Nil Einne (talk)
              • @Nil Einne: CU said "the CU result between the two accounts is somewhere between possible and inconclusive".[38] But Ivanvector misrepresented that as "the checkuser result was inconclusive". Ivanvector was also aware of that discussion. Not to forget WP:DUCK evidence floating in entire SPI. Orientls (talk) 12:59, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
                • Thank you for confirming my thoughts. Ivanvector's summary is far more accurate than your highly misleading claim "found connection with two socks abused for evading sanctions" since no such connection was found. Nil Einne (talk) 14:19, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
                • Do you really see no difference between "possible and inconclusive" and "inconclusive", what about the WP:DUCK evidence? NadirAli was evading CU, but shared same behavior. That is what it is all about. Orientls (talk) 14:39, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
                  • This is probably the last comment I will make on the matter. Read my comments carefully. I never said there was no difference. All I said was that Ivanvector's comment was far closer to being accurate than yours. Your comment was highly misleading and you seem unable or unwilling to accept that instead you're just trying to throw fault elsewhere. I do think it would have been better if Ivanvector had been slightly clearer but it's not something major enough that I'd even bother calling them out on it. As I said below, I don't care to debate the DUCK evidence. I've looked into to it and I'm not convinced enough. And note this is beside my main point which is that your misleading claim combined with your refusal to even acknowledge this leads me to believe there is something off with your !vote. The fact that others have evidently violated their topic ban gives me more reason to think it isn't only you. These aren't reasons to !vote no. But my evaluation of the evidence is that it's too weak to conclude anything other than some probably minor violations by NadirAli with logged out editing and a lot of that is a while ago I am !voting even though I probably would have just ignored this case otherwise without these concerns. As mention by Ivanvector and others, it's quite difficult to conclude how much logged out editing has happened especially when done over a wide range where it's likely there are several people with similar views, and in it's in the distant past. NadirAli is definitely far from perfect, but I don't think a siteban is needed yet. Nil Einne (talk) 00:16, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per the reasons given by Ivanvector. Nadir's past policy violations resulted in sanctions being placed and time served. Those violations can't be held up against him. We should be viewing Nadir's current conduct, which in my opinion is productive and a net positive. Son of Kolachi (talk) 18:46, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

• You didn't even registered your account when NadirAli was editing. Lorstaking (talk) 02:27, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose per IvanVector. He's quite right - a siteban is a massive overreach here, considering the behaviour of other actors in this mess of an editing area. Black Kite (talk) 18:58, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Can you name anyone else who has been sitebanned and indeffed multiple times after coming off from a siteban? Except NadirAli obviously. How can we afford to have an editor who is editing for 12 years and still dont know what is a topic ban violation? Accesscrawl (talk) 03:00, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose I believe he has been an extremely concerned constructive editor who has been working to build a WP:NPOV encyclopedia. His contributions to the platform are such that the encyclopedia would see a great loss in his absence. I see nothing that warrants a site ban. I don't want to see it not do I think it is proportionate.KA$HMIR (talk) 00:13, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• And you logged in after 35 days for making your first edit in this noticeboard.[39] Why? Accesscrawl (talk) 03:00, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose I agree with Ivanvector and other editors opposing this unnecessary site ban. Sanctions are supposed to be preventive and not punitive. NadirAli has served time for his past violations and currently under a ban and according to Ivanvector, no current sockpuppetry allegations were proven. We should not be extending a ban without a solid recent violation. It will be definitely a massive overreach as Ivanvector has rightly put it. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 01:12, 14 August 2018 (UTC)  Administrator note comment struck as violation of user's topic ban Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 00:36, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support Competence is required and NadirAli has none. Agree with Kautilya3 that NadirAli's edits were either shady or simply useless. According to the CheckUser: "The first obvious thing to say is that User:NadirAli has clearly been editing while logged out. This is to an extent you couldn't describe as accidental, and includes subjects such as the Kashmir dispute along with the Star Wars stuff.... There is also extensive logged-out editing from this set, which again includes Pakistan-India along with the Star Wars stuff."[40] This is a clear abuse and deception in addition to socking with two accounts for evading the topic bans after being blocked for violating them. Siteban after handing out multiple topic bans to a previously sitebanned user was itself unbelievable. Siteban looks like a delayed formality now. Accesscrawl (talk) 03:00, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Comment Five of the above users in support were very recently defending a blocked sockpuppet, who caused a lot of disruption. Many are certainly not here for charity. The vast majority of the above have also been involved in content disputes over the past 12 months. In my eyes, the credibility of this proposal and the intentions of the filer can't be taken seriously. NadirAli did some commendable work on content creation, and has been doing so for several years. Sure, he slipped up, but he got sanctioned for it and remained cooperative. I'm seeing nothing which would warrant replacing his existing sanctions with a punitive ban. This is an extremely weak case and not in good faith, as admin Ivanvector pointed out. Mar4d (talk) 10:28, 14 August 2018 (UTC)Comment struck as violation of user's topic ban. GenuineArt (talk) 12:59, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
  • @Mar4d:-Well, I'm one of those five users and you might wish to go through this thread.I defended him precisely because the SPI investigation failed to satisfy me and that has got nothing to do with your snide generalized personal attack, (at your second line).∯WBG^converse 12:45, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support due to abuse of multiple accounts to evade scrutiny and edit in defiance of his restriction, even after a lengthy block. This is someone who does not respect the restriction or our policies. Guy (Help!) 12:13, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per Ivanvector. I may change my mind if Orientls is able to provide evidence for their claim as I mentioned above. Nil Einne (talk) 12:43, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per Nil Einne. Clearer evidence needed. Agathoclea (talk) 13:07, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
  • @Agathoclea and Nil Einne: Do you need evidence of NadirAli's confirmed "extensive logged-out editing"[41] in violation of Arbcom's restriction that he can't "edit from any Wikipedia account other than "Nadirali", nor edit anonymously,"[42] or do you need evidence for Ivanvector's own words that NadirAli "has evidently created sockpuppet accounts"[43]? NadirAli's socks quack loud,(example 1: [44][45], example 2:[46][47][48], example 3:[49][50]) because they were operated by himself. Ivanvector himself tagged the accounts as suspected socks of NadirAli.[51][52] Evidence is already here. Lorstaking (talk) 13:48, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
    • I've looked at the evidence and agree with Ivanvector. The fact that other editors like Orientls make such misleading claims and then provide no explanation when called out for it really tells me all I need to know about this case anyway. Note that my specific point was that Orientls made a highly misleading claim. I don't care to get into a dispute over the evidence for other stuff. Neither Orientls nor you have provided any evidence for the claim "CU confirmed the intentional logged out editing and also found connection with two socks abused for evading sanctions" as that was about the CU finding based on CU evidence not any behavioral evidence. If editor A says I am editor B and editor B says I am editor A and they edit all the same articles with the exact same edits, that doesn't mean it's okay to claim CU found a connection with two socks when they did not. P.S. To be clear, I'm not saying most people supporting the tban are doing it for the wrong reasons simply that there are clear problems with at least one of the supporters which gives me great concern when combined with what I've seen of the evidence. Nil Einne (talk) 14:31, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
      • CU is not a magic pixie dust. NadirAli clearly attempted to evade CU but totally failed at it. Orientls (talk) 14:39, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
        • That sort of thing is possible in principle, but it seems not to have happened here. Above, you are claiming that the editor trolled by misrepresenting something. That is exactly what you're doing here, except that in this case it's plain to see. You seem to turn "between possible and inconclusive" into "confirmed", attacking Ivanvector in the process (as noted by Nil Einne, Black Kite, Vanamonde93), which is silly. "Between possible and inconclusive" is, for SPI and other purposes, basically "inconclusive". No one should block or decide on bans or whatever based on such CU evidence, and I hope no one does; it's not even "possilikely", which already demands admins look for other evidence to help base a decision on. So yeah, CU is not magic pixie dust--and yet you take the CU results as if they are, which is just completely wrong. So whatever may be wrong with the editor's contributions, you simply cannot base anything on those CU results. But hey, what do people like Vanamonde and Ivanvector and me know about CU and adminning, right? Drmies (talk) 15:43, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
          • Thank you Drmies for clarifying that. Orientls (talk) 16:40, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Nyttend sums it up perfectly: When you're engaged in long-term sockpuppetry for the purposes of disruption and ban-evasion, and when you're willing to deny something that can be proven against you, you simply can't be trusted one bit. It should also be noted that issues are not limited to just deceptive sock puppetry and time has shown that this user is unable to reform himself. MBlaze Lightning ^talk 14:14, 14 August 2018 (UTC)  Administrator note comment struck as violation of user's topic ban Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 00:36, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I am not sure where the claim of denial is coming from, I have not seen it. Here are some of the user's last edits [53] [54] [55] where he is acknowledging his sanction before the block and SPI closure. He had no other edits prior to these relating to his block. I certainly haven't seen any denial, unlike this case whom several above defended. This is misleading in my view. Mar4d (talk) 15:25, 14 August 2018 (UTC)Comment struck as violation of user's topic ban. GenuineArt (talk) 12:59, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Mar4d, the claim and its proof come from near the end of the initial statement. In this edit from 2 July 2018, NadirAli edits India-Pakistan relations, including bits about their conflict. And in this edit from 6 July 2018, NadirAli says I have not violated the topic ban and have not edited any India-Pakistan conflict pages. NadirAli was subjected to a ban on "all edits and pages related to conflict between India and Pakistan" on 15 May 2018, and clearly India-Pakistan relations is a page related to conflict between India and Pakistan, so unless the ban were repealed in the month-and-a-half between imposition and edits, we have an easily proven violation of the ban. He edited the page in question just four days before making this statement; it's too soon to give him leeway for possibly forgetting, and since he remembered the ban on 6 July, it's going a bit far to say that he may have forgotten it on 2 July. This is what I meant by you're willing to deny something that can be proven against you. Nyttend (talk) 22:55, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• Lean oppose. As the checkuser who checked the SPI, I think I'm entitled to say that I'm satisfied with Ivanvector's actions and drawing the line there. I think I'll also comment a bit more on the SPI. The SPI is stuffed full of IP addresses - many were added after I commented at the SPI - some are from over 7 or 8 years ago - most are from years ago - some of which are credibly disputed - and none of which were recently (if at all) confirmed by checkuser. Most of it is distinctly historical. What I've seen of recent activity, from my privileged position, in my view does not warrant an indefinite ban. For the record, I am sure about the logged-out editing (which has not been disclosed in detail anywhere), and "somewhere between possible and inconclusive" is not a strong proof. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 14:26, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• Thanks. Though extensive logged out editing is itself enough of the evidence of sock puppetry in addition to further disruption. Orientls (talk) 14:39, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

You've again misrepresented the checkuser's comments: zzuuzz said "I am sure about the logged-out editing" but did not say "extensive", and confirmation (for all intents and purposes) of logged-out editing, a violation of an Arbcom sanction, is the entire rationale for NadirAli's current block, not any "further disruption" as you seem insistent on describing edits nearly a decade old. Your repeated misrepresentation of facts from the sockpuppet investigation is one of the reasons why I don't think you're here in the spirit of what's best for the encyclopedia at all, but rather just trying to pick off your opponents by any means necessary. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:30, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

He said "extensive"[56] on the SPI, to which I was referring. NadirAli was the one picking up fight by filing bogus AREs[57][58] against me by misrepresenting my comments and supporting a suspicious account,[59] which was deemed to be a sock of an indeffed user who's edits have been frequently restored by NadirAli per the SPI.[60] For all that disruption I am supporting the siteban so that we will never have to waste anymore time on him. Is that clearer now? Orientls (talk) 16:40, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

This 'suspicious account' in question is not blocked. Can you be more clear what you mean by "deemed to be a sock"? Thanks, Mar4d (talk) 16:55, 14 August 2018 (UTC)Comment struck as violation of user's topic ban. GenuineArt (talk) 12:59, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Oh, please. This group of editors has no business at all calling out frivolous use of admin noticeboards, not one editor on either side of WP:ARBIPA. On that very page you linked to (twice) we have four incredibly obviously retaliatory enforcement requests, all from seemingly random uninvolved accounts, all accusing some opponent editor of being a sockpuppet of some other editor. The first supposed "bogus ARE" you link to is one filed against NadirAli, in which he makes just as convincing a case for you being a sockpuppet as anyone has made for him, and the second is just making his observation formal. Shall we indefinitely block you based on these flimsy reports?

• When I said in the mass-topic-ban ARE thread from those few months ago that "these editors have turned this subject away from collaboration and have made it their own personal battleground, and at this point the only way we're going to come back from that is to remove them from the topic" this is exactly what I'm referring to. I've become convinced in the months since that the lot of them should just be indefinitely banned for even after all that still continuing to perpetuate this ridiculous feud. They're not here to build an encyclopedia, they're just here to push their point of view and to fight with anyone who isn't on "their side", and to harass their opponents with "bogus" reports like this one and the many ridiculous reports at SPI and ARE this year. That's all that this entire proposal is. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:21, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support It is interesting that NadirAli had two indefinite blocks since vacation of siteban for copyrights issues. That is something an editor who is editing for a decade would better know about but that's completely missing in the case of NadirAli. There is no denial that sock-puppetry for evading scrutiny and editing in defiance of topic bans was continuously carried out. The recent topic ban violations and zero acknowledgement of problems with own conduct makes siteban as the only suitable option. GenuineArt (talk) 15:06, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Per my comment to MBlaze Lightning, the "zero acknowledgement" comment is not accurate. Here are the user's most recent edits, and the only one which relate to his block. He is clearly acknowledging his sanction. [61] [62] [63]. He definitely has not denied it anywhere. Mar4d (talk) 15:30, 14 August 2018 (UTC)Comment struck as violation of user's topic ban. GenuineArt (talk) 12:59, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support - He was sitebanned before for same behavior. In this case the ban is clearly long overdue because he is frequently violating copyrights, attacks on ethnicity[64][65] even after warning,[66] filing spurious reports, breaching topic bans, exhibiting inability to contribute constructively, and engaging in each of these violations using socks for over so many years. Lorstaking (talk) 16:19, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support Because of the long list of sanctions and horrible block log. There seems to be a lack of productive editing and continued engagement in battle ground mentality even after being sitebanned for it earlier. The sock puppetry (including logged out editing) was probably last straw but he had to walk carefully since the ban in place of becoming subject to multiple topic bans. Onkuchia (talk) 17:37, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

And strangely enough, this is your second edit ever on WP:AN after this one. No prizes for guessing what transpired there also! Mar4d (talk) 17:49, 14 August 2018 (UTC)Comment struck as violation of user's topic ban. GenuineArt (talk) 12:59, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - To ALL partisan editors, please chill out. Blocking your opposition from Wikipedia will only reduce the quality of the entire platform. Focus on generating a healthy competition over coming up with reliable sources to support your own POVs which you all clearly hold, and dont turn this into personal disputes. Enough with this constant crying to the moderators over account/topic bans etc. Take the actual issues over content to arbitration, but for the sake of everyone's sanity, leave personal attacks out of it. Code16 (talk) 18:30, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Strong support - Last year, I had started an ANI against NadirAli, and proposed a topic ban because of his recurring CIR issues. [67] That topic ban could've helped NadirAli, but now it seems like only a siteban can help him. Knox490 (talk) 01:35, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support Time and energy get spent into undoing willfull damage to articles in deliberate manner. Said editor is apparently guilty of doing such things for significant period of time, thereby leaving no other option at all. Devopam (talk) 08:56, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose siteban as a) overkill (far too rapid an escalation for what is not an on-going problem) and b) unhelpful (would not address the underlyiing issues at all). I agree with Ivanvextor's (slightly) more nuanced approach. This very discussion proves the old adage, "a plague on both your houses" somewhat. The sheer amount of bad faith—on both sides—not only illustrates plainly that more than one editor is at fault, it also shows, equally plainly, that removing said individual from the theatre will make not a jot of difference to the toxic atmosphere. And on that, winding back on the various insinuations of sock / meatpuppetry would be a start. —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 11:37, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm annoyed that you spelled my name wrong. You might say I'm ... Ivanvexed. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:04, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Ooops! Apologies, Ivanvector  :) That was me (slightly!) more nuancing your name... —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 13:22, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi Serial, you may have made this comment in Good faith, but your rant above, makes me to conclude that your oppose !vote is a "drive by comment" citing "Everyone is fault" and Whataboutery, and I feel it is made without due diligence, just by reading some of the comments here. Well everyone is free to make his opinion in whatever way he feels like, one should understand that these comments of "blaming everyone" not only allows the problem to escape and get away but also encourages him and other similar actors that this is escapable. Knox490 above raised some more valid points. Volunteers are here to improve Wikipedia, not to indefinitely coach a tendentious editor who has no regard or respect for policies of WP:NPOV and Blocks/Bans. Do you really believe that Nadir was not given enough chance ? Countless warnings and even blocks were handed out and yet, he continued doing the exact thing he was sanctioned for. Admins dont want to get into content disputes and understandably so, but then the problems continues and editors working on the articles are left to tolerate the tendentious and WP:BATTLE behavior, and when they raise the problem here, Whataboutery is thrown at them. I feel the topic of the discussion is genuine and needs a serious thought based on its own merit, you may not be affected by it, doesn't mean nobody is affected. Yes "Give the person more rope", sounds good, but this has to have an end somewhere. Nadir, is only to blame for this situation by his own actions. --DBigXray 18:06, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

• • @DBigXray: I wouldn't usually template a regular, but when you accuse editors that are making a good-faith assessment of ranting, that's all ya get. Make sure you archive it as quickly as possible. Good luck. —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 20:00, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Ok, I believe I am well within my rights of personal opinion to consider your "good faith assessment" that accuses the nom and others of "sheer amount of bad faith" as a "rant". Lets agree to disagree. Thank you. --DBigXray 20:30, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

@DBigXray: You are very much mistaken. The fact is that your remarks verge upon being personal attacks, and mine did not. That you cannot understand the difference is—worrying. —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 10:16, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support The editor has clearly been warned of his infractions. The blocking history reflects him to be an incorrigible sock puppet. This creates extremely unhealthy editing atmosphere in the improvement of articles on South Asian subjects. The repeated long term sock puppetry and large block log shows that siteban is necessary. Previous record of contributions can never be an excuse to let off a defaulting experienced editor, especially a repeat offender and one whose contribution history is so tainted. Let us remember that letting off NadirAli would set a precedent which would help future sockpuppeteers to wikilawyer their way from getting appropriate sanctions. AshLin (talk) 13:55, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
• Comment - an interesting phenomenon occurring here is the number of experienced and active accounts commenting in this discussion who have either never edited this page before, or have not done so for very long periods of time. I don't have a hypothesis to suppose, but for example the comment above this one was made by an editor who last contributed at this noticeboard in 2012. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:09, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

My edits are severely reduced due to my being diagnosed with a blood disorder and complications since some years, I spend less time on WP nowadays and generally prefer to edit constructively and argue less on issues and on noticeboards, though they are on watchlists. Once in a while I visit and comment occasionally. Check out my contribs. AshLin (talk) 14:26, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

It is a catching thread. Using "evidence" that actually did not prove the point as an argument, caught my eye. AN and BN is a must read even in periods of "inactivity" or at least latest when returning to duty. Agathoclea (talk) 20:40, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support - this user's sockpuppeteering and other abuses outweigh any positive contributions he's made to the project. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 20:15, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per Ivanvector. -- Begoon 03:44, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose too many partisan editors for this forum to impose a community ban. power~enwiki (π, ν) 03:48, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Yeah, we're seeing the familiar pattern: editors from the Indian faction are joining to vehemently support the proposal, and the ones from the Pakistan side are fiercely opposing it. But it's easy to see who's who, so it shouldn't be too difficult for the closer to filter out the partisan "noise", should it? – Uanfala (talk) 11:34, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
• Comment Ivanvector, funnily enough you had enough time for saying all of this at WP:ARCA but you didn't. Your own actions contradict your current attempts to change goalposts. You had blocked both sock accounts of NadirAli as his suspected socks and now you are saying something that not even NadirAli has said. CU has informed us that NadirAli deliberately engaged in logged out editing in violation of his Arbcom restriction.[68] CU also said that he was doing logged out editing in Kashmir-related subjects. He is currently topic banned from that subject. You can just say that NadirAli tried a little to evade CU but couldn't really evade it or avoid an impression of WP:DUCK.[69][70] The list of IPs and accounts including the ones that I had provided are not joejobbing because no one has time to replicate behavior of NadirAli. Each of those IPs and accounts  have made the same edits as NadirAli. NadirAli was not editing with his main account around that time and he is the only person who has claimed that Tarek Fateh was born in India,[71] and he enforced that outrageous BLP violation with his IPs too.[72] The high multitude of same distinctive POV pushing with those IPs is evident only in the history of NadirAli. Finally, if you really have problems with any other editors then you should consider opening separate threads about them. At this thread we are only discussing NadirAli and not anybody else. -RaviC (talk) 05:01, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

@RaviC: ARCA is a forum for seeking clarifications of existing Arbcom rulings, and nothing more. I had a specific question about NadirAli's sanctions, I asked it, I got an answer, end of. You're the one who showed up with an off topic site ban proposal, clearly forumshopping your disagreement with the result at the NadirAli SPI. In much the same way that your ally My Lord did after Bbb23 told them we don't sanction for alleged violations of topic bans which occurred years in the past. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 12:11, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

I believe, if I am not mistaken, it is not forumshopping when Arbcom themselves recommended RaviC to propose siteban on WP:AN. 3 months block is not much for sockpuppetry; and more so when it is still going on for this long. People keep getting site banned for exactly the same offense. NadirAli seems to display multitude of issues such as sock puppetry, attacks on ethnicity, copyright violations, topic ban violations, edit warring, several topic bans, WP:OR problem like Tarek Fateh etc. Thank you! Sdmarathe (talk) 14:59, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

It was forumshopping for RaviC to have tried to effect a different result from the sockpuppet investigation by hijacking an ARCA thread to which they were not a party. Worm That Turned did suggest they should take it up here instead, which I have no issue with as far as forumshopping is concerned. As I explained in my closing comment on the SPI, I felt that Arbcom had already directed the appropriate sanction for NadirAli's logged-out editing, I merely enacted their sanction. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:28, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Ivanvector. But people get indeffed for first or at least second instance of logged out editing and NadirAli appears to have done it with intent to mislead people and appears to be doing it for years. "Logged out editing" is not the only issue because NadirAli socked as Boxman88 and Posuydon to violate the topic bans. NadirAli appears to have done this even after promising several times that they won't engage in sock puppetry. That to me seems wrong that they are willing to show remorse and continue with same violation in future! That leads me to support that siteban is still necessary given the large amount of disruption and repeat violations. I certainly understand wikipedia should be a constructive, lively forum, but we need to hold users accountable for repeated disruptions. Of course, I do not wish to stretch this any further, but those were my additional 2 cents on this discussion :) Thank you! Sdmarathe (talk) 16:18, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Again, the evidence for Boxman88 and Posuydon being NadirAli's sockpuppets is highly circumstantial. Those two accounts are blocked because the technical data showed that they were socks of each other, not of NadirAli. The tags on the accounts note the suspicion and refer to the page with details, because that's how the tags work - we don't have an {{obviously somebody's sockpuppet}} tag. Since the close of the investigation it came up elsewhere (in an unrelated case) that it's possible to adjust these tags to more accurately reflect the situation, and I will do so at the conclusion of this discussion but not before, for reasons that I hope are obvious. As for other users being indeffed for socking, yes that happens, rarely on a first offence not involving other misconduct (usually a term block in that case, a week or two) but sometimes when a user is socking but also disruptive or spamming or whatever, we indef them on the first go. When a user has been a contributor for as long as NadirAli has, and when there are many other circumstances to consider such as the divisive nature of the topics they often edit and the sometimes combative nature of others they're frequently in disputes with, when they have a more recent history of improved behaviour with respect to actions they were previously sanctioned for, when the supposed offence is unclear and/or isolated, and when (as I've alluded to in this discussion with admittedly less civil discourse) hardly any editor seeking sanctions for conduct in this topic area does so with clean hands, it's not so simple as "sockpuppetry == ban". I felt at the time and still do that indefinitely blocking NadirAli would cause Wikipedia to lose a prolific contributor while doing next to nothing to improve the WP:ARBIPA topic area (and noting that NadirAli is already banned from that topic), and thus on the balance it would be harmful to Wikipedia overall and particularly so to the other niche topics to which NadirAli contributes entirely free of conflict. Free, that is, except for the occasional score-settling revert from some other IPA editor from a past dispute. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:18, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ivanvector: You had blocked NadirAli because he was "editing from alternate accounts and while logged out".[73] Block log entry made by you says "using multiple accounts and editing while logged out".[74]

• Boxman88 added a WP:SPAM link on Hindu on 6 January 2016[75] and 11 months later NadirAli edit warred on 11 December 2016[76][77] to restore that spam link.
• Boxman88 on 20 June 2015 added wikilinks like "*[[Languages of Nepal]]" on Languages of the Indian subcontinent[78] and NadirAli on 23 November 2016 added categories like "[[Category:Languages of Nepal]]" there.[79]
• What about these two 100% same edits[80][81] made on Dari language?
• NadirAli has a history of censoring the article "Partition of India" from Pakistan article. He censored it throughout 2007,[82][83] while Boxman88 censored it in 2015,[84] because NadirAli was topic banned at that time that's why he used Boxman88. Once NadirAli could edit this subject again he censored the article using his main account.[85]
• NadirAli censored the word "India" from Pakistan article in 2007,[86] and Boxman88 censored the same word in 2015,[87] when NadirAli was topic banned.
• Boxman88 censored the word "India" on Vedic period [88] in 2015 as NadirAli was topic banned from this subject, unlike in 2007 when NadirAli account was used to censor the word "India"[89] on this article.

Can you find same edits in the whole history of these articles outside these two accounts or anybody supporting those edits? Either NadirAli could imitate Boxman88 or Boxman88 could imitate NadirAli, but they imitated each other because these accounts are operated by the same person.

NadirAli has edited every single month since his return in May 2014 except entire April 2015 - 28 June 2015.[90] Boxman88 was mostly active from April 2015 - 28 June 2015.[91][92] NadirAli edited on 29 June 2015 and Boxman88 didn't edited that day but Boxman88 edited on 30 June 2015 and NadirAli made no edits that day.[93][94] Lorstaking (talk) 19:11, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

I've already explained my rationale at SPI, and my later concerns with some of the findings of that SPI at least twice in this thread. Other editors reviewing can search for my username further up the page for my response to what Lorstaking has repeated. I am considering making myself a template for responses so that when the next editor in the line pretends to ignore what I wrote and drops the "but he's a sockpuppet!" comment, I can just type out {{NadirAli SPI reply}}, but it's not going to be today. I should note here that RaviC's edition of "but he's a sockpuppet!" appears below, and was written a few days before this comment. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:57, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Apart from making same changes in matter of days or months, these accounts have edit warred in tandem. See this one: Boxman88 makes a very dinstictive edit on History of Pakistan [95] and after 1 day NadirAli edit wars for restoring it.[96] That's complete WP:DUCK. According to your "rationale at SPI", NadirAli "evidently created sockpuppet accounts in violation of an Arbcom-imposed unblock condition".[97] One account (Boxman88) was created for editing Indian subcontinent and other account (Posuydon) was created for Science fiction - the only two subjects of NadirAli. Those two accounts have no overlap with each other,[98] and they can be construed as socks only if NadirAli's editing has been taken into consideration. Lorstaking (talk) 05:13, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Template:NadirAli SPI reply Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 10:49, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I have prepared the following table after reviewing some diffs above as well as some recalled from my own experience for summarizing numerous severe issues with NadirAli, which are more than just sockpuppetry.

Issue	Evidence
Mass copyright violations	Large number of warnings have been posted on his talk page regarding copyvio and apparently he never heard any. He was blocked indefinitely in 2016.[99] after uploading images in violation of copyrights even after this warning. Later topic banned from uploading any images as unblock condition.[100] Violation continued and NadirAli was indeffed again in December 2016.[101] None of the above incidents helped him. He copy pasted most of the 32k bytes in May 2018.[102] He was warned for this mass copyright violation,[103] but he restored the copyright violation again,[104] by falsely claiming that he "trimmed quotes". Upon investigation he rejected any copyright violation[105] and abused proxy IP to support himself.[106][107] Later he blamed the copyright violation on User:Kautilya3 claiming that he learned it from him.[108]
Reports in WP:AE and WP:ANI	July 2017: "Warned not to edit war." July 2017: Closed as no consensus November 2017: "Warned to focus on content, not nationality". May 2018: "Indefinitely banned from edits and pages related to conflict between India and Pakistan... warned that any further disruption or testing of the edges of the topic ban are likely to be met with either an indefinite IPA topic ban or an indefinite block." Even after these reports, NadirAli continued to engage in edit warring and he has never stopped making personal attacks on other editors by speculating their nationalities. He has also violated this topic ban on various occasions.
Edit warring	He has engaged in mass edit warring. He was even blocked in May 2017[109] for that. Since examples of edit warring are too numerous, let us look at the two recent ones:- 31 May 2018: Margot Kidder - 3 reverts in 24 hours.[110][111][112] 12 May 2018: Princely state - 3 reverts in less than 40 minutes.[113][114][115]
Personal attacks on other editors by targeting their race or nationality	His attacks on other editors by referring his opposition as "Indian", "Hindu" for which he was sitebanned by ARBCOM in 2007[116] have continued to this day. I would not count each of them since there are too many. Let us have a look at those that came after numerous recent warnings from November 2017, given to him by multiple admins for attacking editors by speculating their nationality or ethnicity.[117][118] "after the POV pushing Indian editors... usual Indian nationalist occupation of Pakistani articles"[119] "constant disruptive editing by certain Indian users.. fourth by Indian POV pushers"[120] "case here that Indian editors have taken to harass"[121] "am referring to the Indians involved"[122] "whose value Hindu POV pushers want"[123]
General WP:CIR issues	NadirAli's large range of disruption shows that he still doesn't understand the basics of Wikipedia. Assumes bad faith in edit summaries:- "Do not attempt to intimate me by trailing my edits. i'll report you (or anyone else) accordingly if it reoccurs. Team-tag hounding will also be reported if required" [124] "POV my foot. I've cited the edits and you have been trailing me for this kind of purpose"[125] "continuous attempted harassment by same user. You better behave yourself" [126] ^^In all three examples you can only see him edit warring to restore his content but he never joined the talk page[127][128][129] to discuss his edits. Has violated his topic ban on various occasions in last 2 months[130][131] but claims he never did it.[132][133] Tried to WP:GAME the system by edit warring on WP:ARCA to remove his name from the topic ban appeal,[134][135] after adding his username by himself.[136] He has no idea what a vandalism is contrary to WP:NOTVAND.[137][138] Makes a page move by misspelling the "Bangladeshis" as "Bengladeshis"[139] and claims that Bengalis are Bangladeshis, despite large amount of population found in India and elsewhere. Claims "sources agree and are calling Pakistan a regional power",[140] when source exactly contradicts it by saying "Pakistan is not often thought of as a regional power".[141] Makes senseless votes on AfDs, such as "Keep as supported by WP:GNG"[142]. Only person to vote against "Keep" on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2016 Indian Line of Control strike. This shows he has no idea about AfD either.

To make it very simple, NadirAli has many issues like language problems, edit warring, frequent assumption of bad faith, misrepresentation of sources, copyright violations, sock puppetry, topic ban violations, battleground mentality, casting aspersions, ethnic POV pushing, proxy editing and so on.

He is exactly doing what resulted in the ARBCOM siteban in 2007 and his behavior has never improved but only deteriorated and retrogressed. We have enough evidence to establish that he is, in overall, disruptive. RaviC (talk) 06:56, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

That's a good research. Interestingly, just a few months ago, NadirAli was alleging others of "IP socking"[143], "using IP socks",[144][145] and I find that very ironic; since he himself engages in mass "IP socking". Bharatiya29 15:46, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support There are 18 blocks in his main account and many more in his IPs and socks. Even if he had never socked, the continued attacks by speculating nationality of users, several topic bans and complete failure to understand the policies are enough grounds for a siteban. Capankajsmilyo^{(Talk | Infobox assistance)} 09:04, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support. As I had pointed out in this user's topic ban appeal at WP:ARCA; this is someone who has been intentionally and recklessly causing disruption to our project for a very long time now, be it through WP:CIR issues or sockpuppetry or copyright violations. He has been given so many "last chances", yet instead of compensating he has only caused more disruption. I believe the recent topic-ban violations, sockpuppetry, among other violations as noted in the table above are the last straw--and as a community we should not hesitate to show him the door. Bharatiya29 12:29, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support per the very persuasive evidence posted above. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:51, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

• Comment - I got a weird email today asking about NadirAli, followed up on the emailer's talk page], and from there discovered this whole magnificent thread. (I did not see a notice about this discussion at NadirAli's talk page, though I'm happy to drop one in.) Anyway, I'm reluctant to say support because Wikipedia isn't as much my community any more -- unless a wealth of time and energy kick me back into gear, I won't really be affected by this decision, and "the wiki belongs to the living." It also doesn't help when I only recognize ~two user names in this whole mess, both of whom I respect, and there's Black Kite (talk · contribs) saying a site ban too much and JzG (talk · contribs) is for it. All this hemming and hawing aside, though, I will share that when NadirAli and I bumped heads a couple of years ago, his underlying "I don't hear you" reminded me very much of User:A Nobody, nee Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles. Take that as you will. Miss you all. --EEMIV (talk) 01:59, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Nobody thinks Nadir Ali is A Nobody. Collapsing as a digression--regentspark (comment) 22:19, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

43 article overlaps between A Nobody and NadirAli. [146] A lot of Star Wars stuff, but a lot of other things mixed in, making the overlap appear pretty unlikely to be random. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:51, 20 August 2018 (UTC) ...and 47 between me and you - [147], which surprised me somewhat. I'm not saying the theory is right or wrong, just offering a comparison, or "control" test, if you like. -- Begoon 05:03, 20 August 2018 (UTC) True, but one of the things I look for is the combination of a common subject area and unique articles which are not in any way connected to the subject area. Any two Star Wars fans are going to edit a lot of the same articles in the subject area, but if two of them do that and they both edit, say, the article on Anton Solomoukha, a "Ukrainian-born French artist and photographer", then you have a different matter, as it would be an unlikely overlap for two Star Wars fans. I don't see that kind of combination in the overlaps between you and I, whereas I do, to at least some extent, in the overlaps between A Nobody and Nadir Ali. In any case, EEMIV says that they didn't mean their remarks to be taken that way, so... Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:30, 20 August 2018 (UTC) I think it would likely not surprise anyone that Star Wars is a topic of interest to many people. As an SPI clerk, if I were reviewing a case where the evidence presented was that several accounts were all interested in Star Wars, I would consider it no better than noise. I'm generalizing: there's of course more complexity to this case. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:53, 20 August 2018 (UTC) Nononononono. I don't think it's him. The behavior is similar. Similar mindset. That's it. Turn off the klaxons. Stop taking it as you will, and take is I intended for you to take it because you can obviously read my mind. --EEMIV (talk) 17:13, 20 August 2018 (UTC) I would be very surprised if Nadir Ali was A Nobody. Their writing styles are very different. Assuming no one will object, I'll collapse this as a digression. --regentspark (comment) 22:19, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support - Prolonged display of incompetence as adaquately evidenced above. Failure to understand massive violations in defiance of dozens of sanctions including blocks and topic bans shows another siteban is the only option we have. Excelse (talk) 13:50, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support - If an editor shows a constant trend of violating Wikipedia's policies, such as been presented in NadirAli's case, then a ban is necessary I think. I am always for second and third chances, but apparently NadirAli has continued with the pattern presented despite being given another shot. I have personally had only one run-in with NadirAli a few months ago, but on that one occasion he displayed a battleground and POV-pushing attitude and at one point I even suspected he was possibly using sockpuppets to influence a voting regarding the deletion/merging/keeping of an article. I voiced my concern and in that specific case it turned out he wasn't (despite another sockpuppet being discovered) but I now guess my intuition wasn't far off regarding him. EkoGraf (talk) 18:20, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposal: Boomerang for Orientls

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

---

Going through this thread, it does not look like NadirAli is a problem anymore but continuous battleground behavior, misrepresenting the CU results, and attacking admins unnecessarily on Orientls part are a problem so why not turn it around against them. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 16:40, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support, but I would like to note this is a wider problem involving others as noted in my comments regarding this case. The entire premise of this mess is axe-grinding and one-upmanship. Sigh. Mar4d (talk) 17:28, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose, for the same reason I oppose the ban on NadirAli... Please stop involving admins over personal disputes, it wastes their time. Focus on the content and take content disputes to arbitration committees, and/or find more reliable sources. Code16 (talk)
  • The Arbitration Committee does not handle content disputes. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:35, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
    • For disputes where the locus of conflict is a particular content issue, avenues for resolution are available in the guide at WP:DR (there's a thread somewhere up this page about exactly that). The disputes here are all bad blood and entrenchment, and admins should handle them with that in mind. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:44, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose (probably moot given the subthread directly below) - while I'm disappointed and frustrated by yet more deliberate cherrypicking of sockpuppet investigation results to support a conclusion presupposed by the original filer of the ban request, the subsequent bad behaviour in this thread is not on Orientls. At least, it's hardly solely their doing. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:50, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

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

Topic ban violations in this thread

I've just blocked four different editors for violating their topic bans by participating in this thread. If you are topic banned from this topic area, the sniping is over for you. Further topic ban violations will result in further blocks. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:33, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• I suppose the closer can ignore those contributions (both opposing and supporting, ironically) per WP:G5. —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 18:45, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
  • They most certainly can and should. It wouldn't hurt to evaluate whether the topic bans in this area should be expanded as well. I'll leave that to someone else. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 18:48, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
    • BU Rob13, to make things easier for everyone, would you mind striking what these four have said? I don't think the closing admin should have to check everyone's block log when evaluating votes and statements. Nyttend (talk) 22:58, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
      • @BU Rob13 and Nyttend: I went ahead just now and struck the topic-banned users' bolded !votes, but left the other comments intact since other users have already responded, and also noted where Kautilya3 struck their own comment. Feel free to check my work. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 00:37, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
        • Ivanvector, thank you for the help; it's nice and clear and neutral. And yes, thank you for noting that Kautilya's was self-striken, lest someone think that he'd been penalised for something. Nyttend (talk) 02:40, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
• @BU Rob13: speaking of expanding sanctions, I noticed yesterday that you warned Kautilya3 to drop the stick (my paraphrasing) after a comment on Mar4d's talk page. Did you happen to notice that Kautilya3's next edit after your warning was to use the revert button on two year-old wikiproject assessments NadirAli made on an article he created two years ago, outside the India-Pakistan conflict, in a topic which Kautilya3 had never edited before? Maybe it's nothing, or maybe it's reflective of a series of NadirAli's edits that MBlaze Lightning swung by to revert, outside IPA and on topics they'd never edited before, after NadirAli was most recently blocked? Especially these two which were also messing around with NadirAli's WikiProject banners, but also all of these reverts. Given this discussion and everything else going on here, Kautilya3's revert hardly seems in good faith. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:31, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

My apologies. That was completely accidental. I have just reverted it back. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 13:36, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

So, you just happened to be scrolling through NadirAli's edits, went back over a year, accidentally picked out one that was a most recent revision on an extremely niche topic you have no apparent interest in, accidentally clicked on Twinkle's big red vandalism button, accidentally accepted the resulting popup confirming you wanted to revert all of NadirAli's 2 preceding edits, accidentally closed the new tab that opened to NadirAli's talk page, and accidentally didn't undo your "accident" until eleven hours later and only after someone else pointed it out? That's one hell of an accident. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:52, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ivanvector:, that's actually an easy mistake to make. If Kautilya3 was investigating past overlap between MBlazeLightning and NadirAli, it's unsurprising that he ended up there; and clicking rollback or twinkle rollback accidentally is something we've all done. I am however seriously concerned by all of this reverting outside the topic, and I'm wondering if an interaction ban may also be necessary in addition to the t-bans. Vanamonde (talk) 14:33, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I accept that clicking on one of the rollback buttons occurs by accident, we've all done it, I've done it several times I'm sure. But this is not that. Kautilya3 reverted on a page where the last two edits were made by NadirAli, and the edit summary indicates it was done with Twinkle. Unlike WP:ROLLBACK, Twinkle always reverts all contributions by a user back to the revision prior to that user's edits, and when reverting more than one edit it generates a browser message asking you to confirm that you intend to revert all of the user's past # of contributions; you then have to click "ok" to confirm. It would have been at that time, had Kautilya3 clicked the rollback button by mistake, where he could have cancelled the action, but chose not to. That's assuming he clicked the "vandalism" button; had he clicked "rollback" then Twinkle would have prompted him for an edit summary, and he would have realized the error at that time. But the edit was reverted, it's right there in the revision history, meaning Kautilya3 saw the dialog and accepted the action, and was aware that he was doing so. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:47, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I see that my apology and self-revert haven't been accepted. I was indeed researching into NadirAli's edits around June-July 2017 late in the night. I was either half-sleepy or had dozed off in front of the computer. So I have no consciousness of what I did to achieve the result that occurred. All I can say is that it was completely unintentional, and I self-reverted as soon as you pointed it out. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:30, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Add Gadget

Hi, please add gadget "Pod nadpisem článku zobrazit odkaz na položku ve Wikidatech s jejím štítkem a popisem" from Czech Wikipedia. You can find it here (Uživatelské rozhraní). Thanks --Patriccck (talk) 11:47, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

The name is "WikidataInfo".--Patriccck (talk) 12:00, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

@Patriccck: What does it do? —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 20:10, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Convenience link: cs:MediaWiki:Gadget-WikidataInfo.js. Ruslik_Zero 20:29, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

"What does it do" is still a really good question. SQL^{Query me!} 03:34, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Gadget add line under tittle with link to Wikidata Item, description (on Wikidata) and alternative names. --Patriccck (talk) 11:48, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

—SerialNumber54129, can you add it? --Patriccck (talk) 14:53, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure I know what I'm being asked to add  :) but the answer is likely no, as I am technocratically inept and incapable of doing anything like that without a script / a bot holding my hand. Unfortunately what was linked to above is in Czech, which I also can't understand. But—@SQL:—It occurs to me, do you think it could be an equivalent to our short description helper? (A script for editing, adding, and importing short descriptions?) —SerialNumber54129 ^{paranoia /cheap sh*t room} 15:27, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Doubt it. If I'm translating his Czech (I can read snippets of it), and parsing his English correctly. He's asking about a gadget that links from articles to the relevant Wikidata page. Toto je plugin, který přidává pod titulní řádek odkaz na příslušnou stránku na Wikidatech, pokud existuje - This is a plugin, which gives, under the article title, a link to the relevant page on Wikidata, if it exists. The only word there I needed GT for this was "prislusnou" which reads like "prisluskivati" to me and would mean "to eavesdrop". I figured that couldn't be right. I tested the feature on the Czech encyclopaedia, and that is exactly what it does. Link to the Wikidata page under the article you are viewing. Mr rnddude (talk) 16:10, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Close review

So we have this nonadministrative close by User:The Gnome.

This closes a side discussion of an actual RfC that I opened on June 5, about whether to include a list in the page. This side discussion was opened on June 11, and the actual advertised RfC attracted only 2 new people after that date. The side discussion was about how elaborate the list should be.

Only 7 people participated; 4 of them favored an elaborate list; 3 favored a modest list. One of those three nodded a bit toward the "elaborate" stance, but never changed their fundamental 'simple and modest list" stance. (an 8th person placed their RfC !vote in the subsection, as often happens).

The close did a "headcount", counting the 8th person as a !vote in the side discussion, and counting the nodder as "elaborate", so found a 6 to 2 headcount as opposed to 4+ / 3-. Also not regarding the extent to which !votes were based on policy considerations.

The outcome will have a large effect on the page content.

The discussion was not well advertised and it is clear to me that we have no actual consensus; there should be no "close" at all, or if there is, it should be "no consensus". We should have a full RfC to obtain one.

I asked Gnome to withdraw it (the section is (here) and they are standing by their close.

So I am asking that this nonadministrative close of a sparsely attended non-RfC be withdrawn, clearing the way for an in-process actual RfC. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 19:40, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• I suppose I will copy here what I wrote on The Gnome's talk page around the same time Jytdog was opening this thread:

Determining whether to call something an RfC is very much a technical matter. The RfC system is formalized and intended to bring outside participants into the discussion. It's with that basis that a consensus determined by RfC tends to carry more weight than consensus determined more informally. So something needs to be tagged as an RfC to qualify as such. However, it was a subsection of the RfC section, started a few days into it. In my experience, subtopics of an RfC may or may not be considered part of the RfC but when they are, they're typically closed at the same time as the RfC or specifically acknowledged in the close. I would want to ping Winged Blades of Godric about that, since it looks like he closed the top part of the RfC but left the section in question open. It's a hard call, from a procedural standpoint.

That said, an RfC is not required to have a discussion or find consensus. The Gnome felt there was a clear consensus to present the table in a certain way, and it's certainly hard to read that thread as a consensus not to (i.e. no consensus would be the alternative). IMO it is hard to justify removing the content at this point, but I also think it should be uncontroversial for Jytdog to immediately open a second RfC focused on presentation since, at very least, that subsection did not receive the participation of the original RfC thread and was seemingly not included in WBG's close thereof. In other words, I don't think AN is necessary. Default to including based on a weak consensus on the talk page and use RfC, if desired, to find a stronger consensus one way or the other. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:44, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

I would be fine with withdrawing this and doing an actual RfC if that will be perceived as in-process. Jytdog (talk) 19:54, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) For what it's worth, I did explicitly ask for both parts of the RfC to be closed at RfCl, and I did ping Winged Blades of Godric when they only closed the first part, with no response. And I did ping all participants in the main RfC to alert them to the subsequent one.

I'd also like to note that in the case of WP:NOCONSENSUS, the result would be that the table would stay anyway as that was the state of the article prior to these discussions. The list was in the article from its first edit until Jytdog unilaterally removed it without discussion. I did not immediately revert this removal as a courtesy given the heatedness of the discussion, but that does not change what the status quo is if there is a finding of no consensus.

Lastly, when I restored the table after the close, which explicitly said "The consensus is to Keep the draft version", User:Jytdog immediately reverted my edits implementing the close twice [148] [149]. Even if Jytdog was going to appeal the close, they should not have reverted it immediately. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 20:20, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Worth nothing that Antony-22 is literally a paid nanotech advocate on Wikipedia, as has been brought up in talk page discussion on the page in question - David Gerard (talk) 21:05, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

David Gerard's accusations are demonstrably false. I am not paid to advocate for nanotechnology. My Wikipedian-in-Residence position with NIOSH is in fact to contribute information about hazards found in the workplace, including of nanomaterials. My work on the Feynman Prize article is strictly in my volunteer capacity, and I have been editing it since 2011, long before my Wikipedian-in-Residence position started. I have warned him before multiple times about making false accusations, and he is WP:HOUNDING me by casting aspersions for which he has provided no evidence and are easily disproven. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 21:33, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Having seen this accusation and response a couple times now, this should really be addressed. David and Jytdog have both (see below) accused Antony-22 of being a paid advocate, and Jytdog specifically said it was the reason for their edits to the article in question (see below). I see this was also raised at COIN recently, where the only other voice was Doc James, who said it was not a COI issue. Either Antony-22 has a COI with regard to nanotechnology in general and should be aware of that (it seems he is not under that impression) or the accusations of promotional editing due to COI should stop. I'm not sure where the best forum is, as the COIN thread failed to attract much of a response. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:45, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Keep in mind that COI and paid advocacy are different. The latter is a substantive statement that money is being exchanged for edits that are against Wikipedia's policies, and is a bannable offense. Unless I have misunderstood, this is what David Gerard is accusing me of. Users may still contribute with COIs as long as they disclose them and follow Wikipedia's policies. I've disclosed my activity in nanotechnology research literally since I started on Wikipedia, and I believe I've been following the rules, both in my volunteer and WiR capacities. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 21:57, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

User:Rhododendrites what you have written is incorrect. David Gerard and I have different takes on what is going on with Antony. David has said, as they say here, it is paid advocacy; I have said only advocacy (as in "fan"). Please redact your comments. Thanks.

But the purpose of this thread, is the close review, so we can establish a framework the article can exist and grow within. If you want to open a different thread on behavior, please do that separately. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 22:24, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

@Jytdog: Yes, my mistake. Struck part of the comment above. Here is the statement that led me to conflate your comments and David's. On the talk page you said that Antony-22 is "under some intense advocacy pressure that I do not understand", which sounds to me like an accusation of COI (i.e. "under advocacy pressure" does not sound like saying he is a fan). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:58, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Again, the term "advocacy" specifically means that policies are being broken, while COI does not make that assumption. According to WP:Advocacy, "Advocacy is the use of Wikipedia to promote personal beliefs or agendas at the expense of Wikipedia's goals and core content policies", emphasis mine. It's important not to mix up the terms. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 23:16, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Kinda; people with a COI often edit with advocacy which is what leads us to ask about it. Advocacy is the drive itself and man you are driving on this prize article. Editing with that kind of drive often leads to badly sourced, over elaborate content and aggressive behavior, and those are where the policy violations (behavior and content) come in. People do it because of financial COI and because of passion; it looks the same.

I get it that nanotechnology is a big deal to you. But this is not the Nobels. There is not a single place in this whole discussion where you have agreed to treat this proportionally to its relative importance. You haven't listened to what people said in the RfC at all. Anybody reading through that thread, will see your unbending, straight line in the discussion, and it is there in article this, before, is basically the same as this, after. And yes that is a problem, but I have not taken that to the drama boards. The reason why, is that you have followed DR pretty well, at least in letter. Not in spirit. (the unbending line) Jytdog (talk) 00:36, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't know how you can say I haven't listened to the RfC at all, when I'm exactly following what the RfC closes said. Look, honestly, we're both involved and it's not for us to determine what consensus is. That's what the RfC closes are for. I'm happy to wait for the result of this closure review and if we have to do yet another RfC based on that, so be it. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 01:32, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

• Endorse close - I see nothing unusual about the close, and not everything has to be advertised in order for it to be a valid consensus (especially with regard to a single page where the discussion took place on its talk page). Nihlus 19:53, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
• Comment looks like "no consensus" to me, and using nose-counting for an interim result seems fine. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:56, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: Was this an actual WP:RFC? (I don't see the term "RFC" in the title, and I'm not going to try to figure out if it ever had an RfC template.) If not, then there's no stricture about creating an actual official RfC on the matter, which will get site-wide input. Hopefully the wording of the RfC can be clearer (perhaps with options "1, 2, or 3" or some such). Softlavender (talk) 22:30, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• There was an RfC, which is the second-level heading on the talk page. A third-level heading was created under it a few days later to discuss some specifics. When the RfC was closed, only the top section (the originally created RfC section) was closed. The subsection was closed later. The subsection did not have a separate RfC tag as it was opened a few days after the initial RfC. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:01, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

It's not really kosher to add a subsection poll(s) into an existing RfC a week after the RfC was opened and the usertalk-notified uninvolved people have already !voted but won't see the new polls. So if there was any objection to any part of that entire "RfC", I suggest starting an actual WP:RFC with only one subject, not several, to resolve whatever is still disputed or still in question. And repeat with separate RfCs for each disputed matter. Softlavender (talk) 23:28, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

• Comment : I believe that decisions should be self-explanatory, be they about an RfC, an AfD, or anything else in Wikipedia. If a decision must be explained and it only then gets approval, then it was a poor decision in the first place. So, as the closer of that RfC I will only elaborate some more on the technical side of the decision, i.e. whether or not this was a "bona fide" RfC or some other animal. I will stay out of the discussion about the substance of the decision, which in my view stands on its own. That includes issues such as the clarity of the offered choices, and the like, which have been addressed in the decision.

As it happens, the specific discussion came to my attention while checking out the Admin Board where closures of formal discussions are requested, i.e. here. So, there was an open request to close an RfC, called exactly that, by name, a request which was up for weeks, under the "RfC" section of the board. What's even more telling, however, is the fact that we had at the tail end of the very discussion an explicit notice ("Close request") about closing down "this RfC" ("Is it time to request a close of the RfC?" etc). Never a doubt was expressed by anyone about this being a legitimate RfC, not until the decision came in.

A general remark: RfC formats are far from rigid. (I'd prefer them more rigid, myself, actually, but this is how Wikipedia rolls.) The site provides examples in the relevant page where it is stated that there are multiple formats for Requests for comment. Some options are shown here. All of these formats are optional and voluntary. (Emphasis in the original.)

WP:RFC itself states that there are many acceptable ways to format an RfC. In my view, the one chosen for the contested RfC might not have been the best (I would not format it like that, anyway) but it was nevertheless an acceptable format, an RfC for all intents and purposes. So, I'd have no quarrel with anyone who'd prove that the decision in the RfC was wrong, I made mistakes, policy was violated, etc. But I see no objection that can be raised based on the claim that "this was not a proper RfC." Take care, all. -The Gnome (talk) 08:24, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

My objections are specific; editors have taken it to be a definitive expression of community consensus (of an RfC) (which your close leads them to believe) and the close does not reflect what people actually said in the subdiscussion nor in the discussion above, where the topic of how to present the list was mentioned by several people prior to the subdiscussion being opened. So - the close is both overplayed and not accurate. Jytdog (talk) 17:25, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm sure interested contributors will examine what went down and come to their own conclusions. I very much disagree with your point of view, and especially the way you have framed the whole process, including the counting of !votes, but this is now a matter for the community to decide. Take care. -The Gnome (talk) 19:53, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

• A non admin closing anything that is disputed should simply revert his closure and allow a more authoritative closure by an admin, I thought that is the guideline. Govindaharihari (talk) 17:34, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Greetings, Govindaharihari. On which guideline exactly is what you claim based? Perhaps it'd pay to revisit the policy on non-admin closures. Looking up WP:BADNAC, I pay particular attention to the note stating administrators should not revert a closure based solely on the fact that the original closer was not an administrator. Take care. -The Gnome (talk) 19:53, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

I think that's only the policy for WP:AFD (and possibly other deletion discussions). power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:55, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. It comes up pretty regularly. Admin not required for an RfC. Regardless.. This thread should just be closed at this point. Whether an RfC with consensus, an RfC without consensus, etc. there was not consensus to remove a bunch of the detail based on either of the RfC/non-RfC discussions, and a new RfC can address that. The material has been restored (albeit with tags). Other stuff regarding David, Jytdog, and Antony-22 that's apart from this can be dealt with in a separate thread as noted above. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:04, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

• this is classic being a jerk that just creates friction that gets in the way. I keep checking to see if any of the other folks there have answered and keep seeing that trolling. Gr. Jytdog (talk) 01:34, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm missing something, Jytdog, and it would not be the first time, but did you just call me "a jerk"? I hope there's some mistake here. Otherwise - just wow. -The Gnome (talk) 06:42, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

• Jytdog, you don't need anyone's permission to start an RfC on material or discussions that were never part of the originally posted RfC to begin with. If you dispute or dislike the results of anything that was not part of the originally posted RfC set-up, then create an RfC. You would even be within your rights to re-do the original RfC question if you dispute that outcome as well, since the RfC was constantly tinkered with to add new questions, which is not allowed -- those questions should have been outside the scope of the original RfC discussion, and they may have even muddied the overall close of the original RfC. In terms of will people "accept" an actual RfC on the list format: That's what RfCs are for-- to be official consensuses, with outside input, rather than informal non-binding conversations. Softlavender (talk) 02:01, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

I hear that, but given the promotional pressure I am going in small steps and would like to get buy-in. Jytdog (talk) 02:10, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

• Comment. I personally feel like a new RfC would be a lot of work for little benefit. Either a consensus to retain the table as-is or a no consensus finding would have the same result, since the article contained the table before all this began. I suppose it's possible that actually there's a consensus that these types of lists should not have photos, but given that most FLs of this type do contain photos, my take is that that's a remote possibility. The other benefit would be to clear up the technical process questions that have been raised, but I don't see the point of doing this "on principle" in the case that the actual article content doesn't change. Honestly, we've been discussing this article nearly continuously since the beginning of May, and we're now above 100k of discussion on a 25k article. If this forum supports having a new RfC, I will respect that, but I'd really rather spend my time improving other articles at this point. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 05:58, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for stating your perspective on this Antony. Other folks here, this is what I mentioned above, about the usefulness of small steps. Jytdog (talk) 14:27, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

I suppose the smallest step one would expect from you, Jytdog, is to strike off the personal insult above. Calling other editors "jerks" creates the opposite of usefulness. -The Gnome (talk) 15:34, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

I described your behavior. Throwing snark in response to a question that was not asked of you, especially when you are explicitly taking a stance of someone uninvolved in the underlying dispute, is jerk behavior, adding friction where it was both unnecessary and unhelpful. Just bad judgement. Jytdog (talk) 15:44, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

This is a pity, Jytdog. It's obvious you cannot understand when you have crossed the link into boorishness. There was no sarcasm at all from my part, simply an attempt at humor in a situation you were making unnecessarily tense. I thought the 'smiley' would help but we're beyhond that now. From the "jerk" then, only this: Carry on. -The Gnome (talk) 05:58, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

I saw the smiley. You suggested that I will only settle for an outcome that gives me what I want. That is not correct -- anybody reading the actual RfC can see that I saw the trend toward "keep a list" and adapted to that developing consensus, and this is what I do generally. For you to write that particular response to me at the article talk page when I am questioning your close, was bad judgement. I have no more to say about this. Jytdog (talk) 13:35, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

• {{Do not archive until}} added. Please remove the {{Do not archive until}} tag after the review is closed. (I am adding this because RfC closure reviews frequently have been archived prematurely without being resolved.) Cunard (talk) 10:37, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

• Restored removed {{Do not archive until}} notice. Wikipedia:Deletion review and Wikipedia:Move review discussions are all closed. Wikipedia:Close review discussions also should all be closed. A close of this close review would answer whether the RfC close should be endorsed or overturned. It would also answer whether a new RfC is supported. Even though as Softlavender said permission is not required, from Jytdog above, "I hear that, but given the promotional pressure I am going in small steps and would like to get buy-in." Cunard (talk) 07:44, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Request to noinclude deletion tag for protected Template:Japanese episode list

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The deletion notice should be moved inside the noinclude tag or into the documentation, the template is currently transcluded on at least 2300 articles and it's currently causing quite a lot of deletion notices to show up (e.g. The_Mythical_Detective_Loki_Ragnarok#Episode_list and List_of_Fullmetal_Alchemist_episodes#Episodes). The deletion discussion page was vandalized twice already (possibly as a result of it). -Sonicwave ^(talk) 07:56, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

This is obviously not how {{Template for discussion/dated}} was intended to function, and I would support going ahead and apply the quick fix; perhaps invite more comments by leaving a note at WT:JAPAN. Alex Shih (talk) 11:12, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Notice disabled. {{Template for discussion/dated}} is designed to show up in articles, but certainly not as 30 stacked up notices Galobtter (pingó mió) 11:37, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

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AfC request - Create article over salted page

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Moved from WP:ANI

Hey all, Draft:Peter J. Peters (version 2) has been submitted through AFC. The topic looks to easily meet WP:NSCHOLAR but the destination Peter J. Peters has been salted since 2008 (I assume for an unrelated reason, but I can't see the deleted content). Can an admin please de-salt the page (or just move the draft into mainspace). I've got it on my watchlist so I'll clean up after the move is done. Thanks! Happy editing! Ajpolino (talk) 00:32, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

WP:ANI is not the place to put this up. Please go to the main admin noticeboard or another appropriate venue. funplussmart (talk) 00:51, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Ugh. That's a poorly-sourced and promotional draft. I hope it doesn't get moved until it's cleaned up. I'm not going to move it. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 01:16, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

The draft, while definitely needing cleanup, looks promising in my opinion. funplussmart (talk) 01:18, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

It's a promotional BLP with tons of unsourced content. Under no circumstances should it be sent to main space at this time in this shape, even if notable. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:24, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

TonyBallioni, I agree. Ajpolino, you (or someone else) should fix the draft first, and then it can be moved (not the other way around). funplussmart (talk) 01:29, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Alright, I've cleaned up the worst of it. Any chance someone is now interested in making the move happen? Thanks for your help! Ajpolino (talk) 04:32, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

I lowered the protection to semi, but I did not look at the draft and have no opinion on whether it is ready to be moved (a (and looking at the article I would have a COI anyway, the guy was part-time employed at our department for some time).--Ymblanter (talk) 06:14, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

 Done Moved. Thanks all for your help and commentary. Ajpolino (talk) 16:42, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

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Article deleted, talk page not

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Resolved

 – TonyBallioni (talk) 01:30, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Could an admin please nuke Talk:Will Phillips? The article was deleted but somehow the talk page got overlooked. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:25, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

FYI, You can tag this with db-G8. Natureium (talk) 01:28, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

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Post closure note @Natureium:, TenPoundHammer is topic banned from adding CSD tags to pages. Iffy★Chat -- 13:27, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Just a heads up

Resulting from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive301#Block review for Clockback, Peter Hitchings has published a rather critical piece on Wikipedia's handling of the case.I don't know or have an opinion whether it warrants review of the previous discussion, but I suspect this may lead to some off-site activity related to the issues (both on the original matter around Bell, and on this ban). --Masem (t) 15:51, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

The piece is fairly typical of the kind of hyperbole that we hear from banned users. He may have a wider audience than most but I don’t see anything of substance that would merit re-opening the closed discussion. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:24, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Probably not (and I also do not see why, since he pledged to never return), but he is right that there are content areas in Wikipedia where a dissenter can not do anything does not matter what quality sources they bring and what arguments they make.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:30, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) And that audience overlaps quite a bit with Daily Mail readership, who I don't believe have the capacity to accomplish anything meaningful or lasting (otherwise they wouldn't be reading the Daily Mail). There might be a handful of new users or inactive ones crawling out of the woodwork to try to "fix" this (the ban, the topic that got him banned, whatever) with about half of them pretending that they aren't Hitchens-fans (just "concerned about the neutrality of it all") but they won't be aware enough of how anything works to accomplish anything beyond temporary annoyance and disruption. A couple of users blocked in the immediate future could possibly cite Hitchens in their sour grapes complaints disguised as unblock requests. I will (buy a hat and) eat my hat if this gets so bad that Arbcom has to get involved. Five years from now, the site regulars are probably not even going to remember this. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:48, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

• There’s nothing to reconsider here. He was already given special treatment in an attempt to prevent this very article. I specifically closed his community unblock request early so that it wouldn’t unnecessarily escalate into becoming a CBAN. I explained to him clearly and specifically that he had the right to appeal to a new administrator ad infinitum, that an indefinite block is very easily lifted with a WP:GAB-compliant unblock request, and I all but guaranteed him an unblock if he only read and followed the GAB. I also clearly explained to him that the situation would change if he insisted on a community appeal, and that he would likely end up CBANned with no options on the table. Apparently, according to his article, the sticking point was his generational inability to “surrender”, so, I’m spite of my warnings, he insisted that he be given the “due process” of a community appeal. As I forewarned, the discussion resulted in a community ban, and now he wants to act like he was kicked off of Wikipedia with no second thought. He’s omitted the full story in his article, and while I feel bad that his situation ended badly, nobody but himself tried to bring about that result. Swarm ♠ 21:55, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
• There is nothing the admins or the community can do about it unfortunately. He is already CBANned, and the only thing higher than that is a global ban or WMF ban. But I don't think he qualifies for any of those. Afootpluto (talk) 23:21, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Frankly I don’t think there is anything to be gained by even discussing this. He’s banned. He got the due process he asked for, and it didn’t go his way. He says he doesn’t care but he’s clearly very bitter about it.(this isn’t the first blog like this he’s written elsewhere) Sounds like a lot of not my problem. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:31, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Minor point - I wouldn’t call his treatment due process. He immediately received an indefinite block, which then required him to explain why he was innocent. Quite backwards from the real way it is done. It’s no surprise the community failed Hitchens; he had already been judged guilty by a quite powerful admin.Mr Ernie (talk) 00:35, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

One of the dearly departed

No, he did not receive "Due process", since he wasn't blocked foe a long time for his obvious COI/POV editing, and after he was blocked he received a block review that was incredibly more extensive than is normal, by at least an order of magnitude. That's not "due process" that's "extraordinary special treatment". He's got nothing to complain about, since he brought it on himself, and then refused to even attempt to understand what was required by way of a response that might get him unblocked. His current article was to be expected, and there's nothing that could have been done to stop it, except perhaps to have immediately unblocked him, chopped off the head of the blocking admin, apologize profusely, collectively tug at our forelocks and offer Hitchens the keys to the city and a Wiki-knighthood. He's a partisan "reporter", for crying out loud!

Now, would someone please close this? Enough innocent electrons have already died because of this issue. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:29, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Electrons do not die, the lepton number is conserved. They can recombine with positrons, but this typically does not happen at low energies because we do not have any positrons around.--Ymblanter (talk) 08:35, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

You can see for yourself that they do die, since I've provided an image of one just above -- so who are you going to believe, those darned over-qualified government-grant-guzzling sub-atomic physicists or your own eyes? Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:01, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

• Comment : As an uninvolved editor I must say I find some of the comments above quite disturbing. Irrespective of the exact core issue (articles, COI, ban, etc), this strong-arm discouragement of dissent is anything but welcome. An admin above even drew a portrait of any editors that would dare in the future question the course taken by Wikipedia, i.e. by its administrators: Such editors would be ignorant ("they won't be aware enough of how anything works to accomplish anything") Daily Mail readers who seek "annoyance and disruption" motivated of "sour grapes"! And just to pre-empt such "attempts," the prediction is that "five years from now," no regular user will remember the issue!

Another administrator, writing in rather angry prose, wants to see this discussion terminated a.s.a.p. even when the issue has gone beyond a mere ban of a user to become a public matter concerning Wikipedia's inner workings. Don't we at the very least owe to the public at large a stronger response to Hitchens/Clockback's claims? Because I fail to see such unanimity against dissent improving Wikipedia in any sense of the word. Take care, all. -The Gnome (talk) 07:11, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• (1) I am not an admin. Never have been, never will be. (2) No, we don't "owe the public" anything except to build the best encyclopedia we can. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:57, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

I'd suppose part of the process of building the "best encyclopedia" would also be avoiding such incidents. But if everyone feels this has been handled as best as it could've been, then there's little more one can say. -The Gnome (talk) 21:35, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Then you'd suppose wrong. The internal behavioral processes are almost completely irrelevant to whether the articles in the encyclopedia are neutral, well-sourced, well-written, and well-presented. That is what makes up a good encyclopedia, not whether some biased editor is pissed off that he got kicked off the team because he refused to follow the rules. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:57, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Nah, I don't think I'm wrong here. The process of creating something cannot but affect that something. And this applies to everything from edibles to encyclopaedias. I'm actually pretty certain about this! And part of the process, of course, here in Wikipedia, is the regime of interaction among the multiple creators of content, i.e. what you call "internal behavior." For instance, an authoritarian regime in Wikipedia would most probably produce a very different work than what the current, quite open and free regime has produced. But, like I said, if everyone feels this has all been hunky dory, then fine. -The Gnome (talk) 06:39, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

• To sum things up: "Talk shit, get hit." --Tarage (talk) 17:56, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Not the place to air unrelated grievances, thank you. -The Gnome (talk) 21:35, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

• Oh please, this isn't a "public matter concerning Wikipedia's inner workings". This is an editor with a newspaper column who got banned from Wikipedia by the community via a public forum, in spite of our best efforts to afford him special treatment and all the "due process" in the world, even in spite of direct attempts to shield him from a community ban so that he could quietly negotiate an unblock. He insisted on making a big spectacle over his block, insisted the community review it, and then when that tactic backfired spectacularly and the community endorsed the block, he goes running to his audience (either in an attempt to save face or simply garner sympathy) with these bizarre claims that he was shadowbanned by some sort of faceless and soulless bureaucratic establishment or something. I assure you "the public" at large does not actually care about Hitchens' ban and Wikipedia will go on in spite of his whinging. Swarm ♠ 18:19, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, the specific person's "audience" is by definition the people who read his column. And there is no other audience available to him, is there? As to what others will make of the episode, I cannot tell and thus cannot share your confidence that "the public at large does not actually care." After all, The Spectator has a circulation of around seventy thousand print copies. But I agree, of course, that Wikipedia will go on. Take care. -The Gnome (talk) 21:35, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Request permission to improve Gene Hackman bio.

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I would like permission to edit the Gene Hackman article. He's 88, was one of America's leading star actors with close to 100 films to his credit, yet his bio's Career sections are mostly a text filmography with little commentary and few sources. There are paragraphs and some entire Career sections with no citations. There are few facts given besides film names for the Career sections. His article gets up to 5,000 average daily viewers. Consideration would be appreciated. --Light show (talk) 22:59, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) with the Power of Wikipedia conferred to me by his Wikipediness Jimbo Wales, I DBigXray, hereby grant you the power to edit this page and improve it. So go ahead and WP:FIXIT. (Unless you have any WP:COI of course which you should disclose before proceeding.) --DBigXray 23:05, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. --Light show (talk) 23:09, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

You are welcome. The page has no protections so such a request is not needed in future. --DBigXray 23:12, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

What they’ve failed to mention is that they are subject to a topic ban on BLP articles, so actually the answer is NO. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:14, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

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Need a new POTD coordinator

This has turned into a conversation for WP:POTD and/or WP:FPC. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:25, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

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Hi everyone. Given that apparently people are just rescheduling things willy nilly, without any discussion, and that I'm busy with a toddler and PhD work, we need a new POTD coordinator. I'm done. Anyone who wants to handle it, go ahead.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 01:48, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

• Also, while we're at it, please de-sysop me. The only reason I was keeping the mop was to handle POTD.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 01:50, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

  Please see your talk page. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:55, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

  I've gone ahead and notified Amakuru of this topic for you. SQL^{Query me!} 01:56, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

  Just for the record, I did initiate a discussion here, in which I pinged Crisco personally. Obviously he was busy and off-wiki, which is fine, but I could only act on the best information I had, and in truth the text was misleading; sources generally agree that the Indonesian rupiah was launched in 1946, not 1943, (although I think there may have been a short-lived version of the Netherlands Indies gulden that had "roepiah" printed on it in the Indonesian language and "gulden" in Dutch). So with no further discussion eight hours later, and the switchover due imminently, I decided to make the swap and then I worked yesterday to source up the article and make the text match. So I'm sorry for upsetting Crisco in changing the order of the POTDs at the last minute, but I think I did the right thing in the interests of keeping the main page accurate. This matter aside, I thank Crisco for all his hard work at POTD in the past years, and his other contributions to Wikipedia, it is much appreciated, and I hope he will have a change of heart and return.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:27, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

• I had to look into this but it looks like Crisco has been scheduling POTD for several years. I'm not sure how to go about this and I'm not sure who else is even involved with POTD. We currently have pictures lined up until September 2, so assuming Chris doesn't return, someone else is going to have to start taking over fairly soon. @Armbrust: Any thoughts on who could/would/should take over as the POTD coordinator? Surely it doesn't have to be an admin? Swarm ♠ 20:30, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

  Otherwise, there is always a default option to take POTD from Commons. I have never been involved with the selection there (though I transfer POTD to smaller projects every day for ten years already), but usually they do not screw up by selecting pictures.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:33, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

• I thought POTD was simply FIFO from when they were promoted and little else was required. Surely a bot could handle that task? What does need to be addressed is the lacklustre approach to the blurbs that accompany each POTD, around 50% of which usually contain completely unverifiable material. It's the only part of the main page that seems to allow that kind of thing. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:35, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
• Is there a reason why we don’t just don’t use Commons? I have my issues with that project, but their POTD is always superb and going through their archives is my first stop if I want a new desktop or phone background or something of the sort. On the flip side, I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed en’s POTD. This seems like a case of doing extra work for no real benefit. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:12, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Would you trust commons not to have a week of tastefully photographed genitals? (or badly photographed self-submitted...) Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:01, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

The Commons Featured pictures category is separate from the English Wikipedia's WP:Featured pictures, and they both have their own selection procedures. If I recall correctly, the en-wiki one is supposed to have slightly more of a focus on whether the picture is encyclopedic in nature, and would not pass if it wasn't used in any of our articles, but I might be wrong. So it's not automatic that we can just use the same ones they use. I don't mind helping out with the POTD selection a bit if a pair of hands is needed, and queuing up some future ones. As TRM says, the meat of this job is in ensuring the accompanying article is up to scratch and has sufficient verifiable text to produce a decent blurb for the picture.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:14, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Enwiki POTD comes from enwiki FPC. It's one of the few reasons we have our own FPC process. I opened a thread on VPI a couple months ago about enwiki's relatively inactive (and, to some, redundant) FPC process here: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(idea_lab)/Archive_25#Enwiki's_Featured_Pictures_process. There are lots of opinions about whether we should make FPC more permissive, how to attract more participants, changes in how we articulate its criteria, whether it should be a subset of Commons' FPs, how to better emphasize "encyclopedic value" vs. Commons' "educational value" (or the "wow factor" and technical merit that play a larger role in the Commons process), etc. If we defer to Commons for POTD, I think a lot of the arguments for holding onto our FPC process would go out the window. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:32, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

• I think our own community should retain full control of what appears on our own main page, rather than simply let Commons decide, and I would not trust those at Commons to listen to our input if we ever had reason to weigh in there. The workload here is so minute that it's traditionally handled by one person; I see no reason a couple of volunteers can't simply take over when the longstanding POTD coord quits. Swarm ♠ 22:52, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Meh, this is one of the few things that I think Commons does significantly better than us, and where I think punting to them would really improve the encyclopedia. I don’t feel particularly strong about it to the point of starting an RfC or anything, but it just seems like putting in extra work for marginal to no benefit besides saying we control it. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:56, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
  • (ec) It looks like the Commons option does not get much support here, which is fine, just wanted to clarify that using their choice of POTD does not per se mean they have control over our content - the files and the descriptions do not appear at our main page automatically, they need to be copied manually by someone who can edit the corresponding template here (not on Commons).--Ymblanter (talk) 22:59, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
    • We could also default to Commons POTD, but allow for local consensus to override it for certain days. Commons POTD is booked wayyyyyy in advance (as in it would be a few months before finding an open spot and there are various days filled going out a couple years), so there would be plenty of time to take a look at what's coming and address anything that we decide not to work for enwiki's purposes. For reference: commons:User:Rhododendrites/potd. Blue links means there's already a POTD slated for that day. As of today the next red spot is 2019-01-22, and bluelinks are scattered through December 2020. It's worth noting regarding labor, however, that Commons POTD typically has significantly less text with it. A basic description of the subject/photo rather than a blurb about the encyclopedic subject it depicts. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:17, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
    • Technically there is a way to automatically use Commons's POTD without having to manually update anything. Via Wikidata. While adding another project to the mix is probably just going to add more nos to the equation it is technically doable. [[File:{{#property:P18|from=Q14334596}}|border|300px]] will display the current Commons's POTD at 300px. --Majora (talk) 00:21, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
      • We could also have an adminbot do it. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:31, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
        • Yep. I already have User:JJMC89 bot/Commons picture of the day, which includes the caption. — JJMC89 (T·C) 03:20, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
          • I definitely think that we should defer to Commons for deciding what qualifies as a featured picture in the first place (technically and artistically), and maybe even abolish the concept of a separate Wikipedia "featured picture" concept as well... unless anyone can demonstrate a valid use for it outside POTD. However, when it comes to the POTD scheduling, as I said above, the most tricky and arguably the most important part of that (given that we are an encyclopedia and not a repository of images), is (a) determining which pictures are representative of proper encyclopedic topics, and then (b) ensuring that the article for that topic is up to scratch for the main page, and lifting a decent amount of suitable text from that article to accompany the image. Evidently (b) is the main value-add that Crisco has been providing to the process hitherto, while (a) is served by Wikipedia's own featured picture process. Just blindly copying over the Commons FP would not be a substitute for either (a) or (b), though, and I oppose the proposal to do that.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:20, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
            • And what are we to do when there is a Commons POTD that is not used in any English article, has no English article, or has no article in any language? For example, the current Commons POTD has articles only in Italian and French. GMG^talk 12:49, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
              • Well, skip writing blurbs altogether. What's there now is often unverifiable, so no blurb is probably better than an embarrassing one. But if blurbs are important (and I think they are) then using Commons is a complete non-starter. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:48, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
                • It is "picture of the day" and not "article that includes a nice picture of the day", so that seems like a decent approach. I dare say having a picture of the day that does not have an English Wikipedia home may inspire folks to create an article, too (or add it to an article). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:24, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Why is this discussion occurring at WP:AN? It doesn't seem the right venue. Our FP process has different criteria than Commons'; most importantly, the images need to have clear encyclopedic value while at Commons they can just look attractive but not actually show anything properly. Nick-D (talk) 23:03, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

So to that end, what's needed in the role of a POTD co-ordinator? Just following the FIFO approach (main page feature in order of FP promotion) and writing a blurb for each one? The Rambling Man (talk) 10:38, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Not sure how long that would be sustainable. So far this year, from scanning the history of WP:FPC, we've had a little more than 1 month's worth of pictures promoted. By contrast, Commons promotes about 4/day. Surely one in four is a viable encyclopedic subject. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:33, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

It's sustainable enough in the medium term. There is a large backlog of FPs that have never been on the main page, and it will take quite some time to get through all those. I can try to assess the exact numbers later on, but it means we can take the time to think through the process and not have to rush anything. The immediate challenge is to make sure there are entries for enough days going forward, and I'm happy to do that myself for the time being. I've already done one for August 27, and will look at August 29 next. @The Rambling Man: out of interest, when you're evaluating pictures of the day to determine what to put on your errors page, how much do you look at the article itself? Do you flag citation-neededs and unreffed-paragraphs in the article, or only those that pertain to the prose of the POTD itself? Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 16:58, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Amakuru I just check that every claim in the POTD blurb is verifiable in the target article. As that's been a major problem lately, I've hardly had time to worry if the rest of the linked article is junk. This has been mentioned many many many times at (the defunct and happy clappy) ERRORS but wasn't ever responded to, hence your sensible actions in withdrawing the Indonesian currency one before improving it and replacing it. As for the junk target articles, we need to take one step at a time! The Rambling Man (talk) 18:39, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• Using Commons won't work because you'll just end up with images that are linked to articles that are unsuitable for the front page, which is what caused this problem in the first place. Only a few days ago we had the image from Cigaritis_cilissa, which is an article with ONE sentence, during which it manages to make a claim that isn't actually in the source provided. I was seriously considering swapping that one out as well ... Black Kite (talk) 17:41, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

  Indeed, and it's not like POTD errors weren't reported. They were, they were just summarily ignored. Let's refresh the section with some new thinking. A new era which matches the expectations of our readers based on the same quality thresholds as the rest of the main page. Avoid unverifiable crappy blurbs, avoid one-line stubs, focus on featured pictures with some kind of valuable encyclopedic content behind the target link. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:42, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

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Copyvios on main page

The article Atal Bihari Vajpayee is currently posted to WP:ITN. As with a regrettable number of articles on South Asian politics, it is attracting a lot of clueless attention, including the frequent addition of text in violation of copyright. I have, despite being WP:INVOLVED, revdel'd some of the egregious violations per WP:IAR. I would ideally like another administrator to look over my actions, but more urgently, some other admins to keep an eye on the page and delete further revisions/perform blocks as necessary. Some other less egregious copyvios were removed yesterday, too. Regards, Vanamonde (talk) 06:50, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Since it was requested, I have reviewed the revdels and the material being added was unambiguous copyvio and appropriately deleted from the page history. Have the page watchlisted and will keep an eye, but given the length of my watchlist and editing-pace on the page, will appreciate a ping if deletions/blocks are needed. Abecedare (talk) 16:12, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Cheers: I'll let you know if anything is needed. Vanamonde (talk) 05:54, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

I have also watchlisted. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 05:22, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Seeking input about regex for spam blacklist

At meta m:Talk:Spam blacklist#seeking input on two regex I am seeking input on the potential for, and consequences of, a blacklisting of two url strings

• photobucket.com/images
• search.com/search?q

I would appreciate feedback from enWP on the pros and cons of that blacklisting. Thanks. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:16, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

About Toshi12345

I think this account may be used to edit semi-protected pages. If you look at the history of protected pages Category:Environment of Tibet & Battle of the Barrier Forts,we find that the editors(IPs) are highly consistent from the editing history of these pages.

Also I want @Toshi12345: and @Samweithe4: to explain the reason for deleon on Category:Environment of Tibet.--Tr56tr (talk) 23:13, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

I’m not at all sure what it is that you want an admin to do here, but fr the record Toshi12345 has been blocked as a sock, and Samweithe4 hasn’t edited in a month. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:47, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

History of Islam

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Hi, I had removed all the maps from the article History of Islam. Because there is no map in the other articles like Christianity and Shamanism (Shamanism is the religion of the Mongols). I am a Mongol and I feel very much disheartened about this. I feel like that my religion has been undermined in this encyclopedia. So I tried to remove the maps and bring balance in Wikipedia. I have come to you administrators. Please give your neutral decision about this matter.--Genghis khan2846 (talk) 12:47, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

@Genghis khan2846:, you need to start a discussion about this at Talk:History of Islam, and do not try to remove the maps again, this will be perceived as Edit-warring. Here, we can not do anything about this, administrators do not have any privileges as far as content is concerned (in fact, you reverted one and did not even notice this).--Ymblanter (talk) 12:55, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Genghis khan2846 (talk · contribs) is quite evidently forum shopping after not getting the answer they want in WP:NPOV/N they should probably be cautioned about the risk of WP:BOOMERANGSimonm223 (talk) 12:57, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

Also I think wp:nothere come into play, they pretty much seem to be an SPA with a user name that implies the same.Slatersteven (talk) 12:59, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

If I want to include any map in the article Shamanism and Christianity will that be accepted? Please answer this question.--Genghis khan2846 (talk) 13:29, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

This not the correct venue for a content discussion (and yes I have already answered you, as have at least two others).Slatersteven (talk) 13:31, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

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Input requested

Please offer input regarding the current unblock and clean start request at User talk:Pixiemasters. Thank you. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:58, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Cullen328, while I understand the intention is probably to keep the discussion in one place, personally I think it's better if we could have the discussion here so it would be slightly more streamlined, in my opinion. I am immediately reminded of this AN discussion, although the net positive aspect and the maturity level doesn't seem to be on the same level. I would support unblock though. Alex Shih (talk) 14:32, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Inversion of redirect

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Please some administrator can help me for this inversion 2018 European Athletics Championships – Men's Marathon Cup (right) with 2018 European Athletics Championships – Men's Marathon Team (wrong), because The European Marathon Cup stil exist as European Marathon Cup incorporating in European Championships (not dispute in Olympic year) see here and the references of this artcile: European Marathon Cup. --Kasper2006 (talk) 06:01, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

 Done Fish+Karate 12:42, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

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Default sunset periods for community-authorised sanctions

At Wikipedia:General_sanctions#Community-authorised_sanctions are six community-authorised sanctions, of durations noted as "indefinite". There is something unsatisfying about this. The indefinite period of duration of the sanctions was not formally proposed, considered, discussed and decided. If general sanctions are no longer needed in a topic area, they may be revoked through discussion at the administrators' noticeboard. By default, this leaves them active forever, based on one relatively brief discussion.

I propose that for all, in the absence of a community consensus on the duration, that a default duration period should apply in place of indefinite. I propose the period, dating from the close of the discussion authorising the sanction, should be five years. After five years, the sanction will expire. The sanction may be renewed at any time by a fresh proposal agreed by consensus at WP:AN. An alternative period may be applied if formally proposed and agreed. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:20, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

I think it would be less bureaucratic to leave them as indefinite, until revoked by proposal agreed by consensus at AN. Fish+Karate 08:34, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

"When no longer needed", who is going to come here to to propose that? If it is needed, and no one at the time discussed the duration, surely it is worth a review after five years. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:42, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe, is there an example of where the existing setup (indefinite + opportunity to request) has not worked, and where this alternative proposal (5 year + automatic non-renewal) would have likely solved things? —Sladen (talk) 09:38, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

It’s about the trend of these things. A week of AN discussion, and people think they have authorisation for arbitrary deletion, unreviewable. The current setup, it’s written in stone, unrevokable except by a stone mason. Does it require a consensus to uphold the largely unbridled power, or does it require a consensus to overturn it? That one week AN discussion, did the participants really consider the five years plus possibilities? You were almost asking a good question, but “5 year + automatic non-renewal” is not how things work, as continuation motions are very easily put and supported. As a matter of principle, powers should be periodically reviewed, and five-yearly is a pretty generous period. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:14, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Unless you can come up with a specific example where this is a problem and/or what you propose is some sort of solution to an actual problem, this isn't going to go anywhere. The "matter of principle" you mention is mere question-begging: what "principle" is this a matter of? --Calton | Talk 15:59, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

The principle is whether AN is an autonomous regulating board, separate from the community, and specifically whether AN ruling are indefinitely applying even for short term problems where duration of the sanction was not even mentioned. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:16, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

In other words, no, you don't have an actual applicable principle nor a problem you're looking to solve. --Calton | Talk 01:25, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a parliament and does not have a parliament. If you want to repeal any of these, I'm sure we'll figure out how it works then. The only one that might get repealed is the one related to The Zeitgeist Movement. power~enwiki (π, ν) 15:38, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• • On the parliamentary analogy, these are not parliamentary devices, but executive regulations granting police powers. The Adminstrators Noticeboard is granting itself the power to give wider policing powers to admins to take unilateral actions, affecting content. With no sunset or review periods, the arbitrary power is quite a lot. Noting that the discussions didn’t consider duration, a default of consensus applies until overturned by consensus is a bit rich. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:12, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
• If they aren’t needed, they won’t be used. If they are needed, they will be. Either way, a sunset clause doesn’t add much value. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:15, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
  • The value is in clarifying that the role of WP:AN is in administrating, not legislating, and forcing AN to be explicit when they do decide to make rules that are permanent. Is this a community-run project, or an administrator-run project? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:38, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose - "Indefinite does not mean infinite". Any editor can start a discussion on AN to end any of these sanctions if they see good reason to do so, so a "sunset" provision would only have the effect of potentially harming the project by allowing what could be necessary sanctions to lapse at some arbitrary date, instead of being closed out when no longer needed. If they are no longer necessary, start a discussion. If you object to some particular sanction, start a discussion. The same mechanism which brought a sanction into existence can be used to get rid of it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:24, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
  • "Indefinite does not mean infinite" is a WP:BLOCK policy cliche. This is not editors blocked under discretionary sanctions being indefinitely blocked. An indefinitely blocked account must submit an unblock request, even if the discretionary sanction expired. Is that there concern? No, this is about admins being given very broad latitude to block users & protect pages under a specific discretionary sanction. If the discretionary sanction was implemented without discussion of duration, and the trouble was short term, it should not stay on the books indefinitely. --02:13, 21 August 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by SmokeyJoe (talk • contribs)

• Oppose per the above and largely per Beyond My Ken who's said it better than I ever could - In short indef doesn't mean forever and if any of those parties listed wants to end the sanction(s) they know where AN/ANI is, Suggest someone closes this non-starter. –Davey2010^Talk 01:01, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose These are rarely a "one size fits all" situation. Discussion is always an option. While WP:CLEANSTART is usually about blocks any editor who is sanctioned can use it as a way to explain to the community that they understand who they were sanctioned. MarnetteD|Talk 01:12, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose This sounds a lot like a solution looking for a problem. Blackmane (talk) 02:10, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. The suggestion that AN decisions are set in stone is false, as they can always be appealed at AN again later. And no, cliché or not, indefinite doesn't mean permanent. I think the current system of leaving an indefinite sanction in place until someone sees no further need for it and seeks a new consensus (eg below) is working fine and I see no need to change it. (And that's really just saying "per Beyond My Ken", I guess.) Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:54, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose Blackmane said it best. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:15, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. What Blackmane said. Even the so-called principle at stake makes little sense. --Calton | Talk 01:27, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

case by case

RE Wikipedia:General sanctions/Zeitgeist Movement. See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Proposal_to_revoke_General_Sanctions_regarding_the_Zeitgeist_Movement. I guess case-by-case is preferred. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:41, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

User request

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Hi. I would like to request that all revisions on my userpage from [150] to [151] are all suppressed and hidden from the public as a user request as there is information in those revisions that I want hidden. Thanks. Pkbwcgs (talk) 10:15, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Actually, I will request speedy deletion of my userpage. Pkbwcgs (talk) 10:28, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

When I recreate again without the old revisions, I would like my userpage semi-protected again. Pkbwcgs (talk) 10:34, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

 Done, I deleted the user page. Pls request the semi once you are done with recreation.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:35, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

@Ymblanter: Thanks. I requested semi-protection via WP:RfPP. Pkbwcgs (talk) 10:37, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

No problem,  Done as well.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:39, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. This thread can now be closed. Pkbwcgs (talk) 10:40, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

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Proposal to revoke General Sanctions regarding the Zeitgeist Movement

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Wikipedia:General sanctions/Zeitgeist Movement

In 2015, the community authorized General Sanctions on the topic of The Zeitgeist Movement, an organization related to filmmaker Peter Joseph and his films the Zeitgeist (film series). This is not a high-profile organization or topic. No sanctions have been imposed under this sanction since 2016, and the one block issued expired in 2017. A new merge proposal (which was the original impetus for the ANI thread leading to the sanctions) has languished unnoticed since March, and both Earl King Jr. and Sfarney have not edited since 2016.

The authority for admins to impose general sanctions on this topic is no longer necessary, and I move to revoke it. power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:11, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:11, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support per why not and BURO. Mr Ernie (talk) 02:39, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• support. It served its purpose and is no longer needed. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:43, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support unless someone can present a good reason to keep it live. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:12, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

• I agree with Doug Weller - if disruption picks up again, reinstatement should be the immediate result. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:00, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support since it is no longer necessary. –Ammarpad (talk) 05:29, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support, it can always be reinstated if issues re-arise. Fish+Karate 10:09, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support. I can't really add more than has already been said. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:55, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support Don't see the reason to keep it at this point, and if needed it can always be reinstated. RickinBaltimore (talk) 13:03, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Sure no reason to keep it, but I also find voting on these things to not be the most productive use of time since they aren’t actually used. In other words: this really isn’t changing much. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:16, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support with the understanding it can be reinstated if its removal results in disruption. Doug Weller talk 13:15, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Comment Removing the GS looks fine to me but pinging Salvidrim! and Ian.thomson for their input since they have admin-ed in the area and are currently active. (I think it would be good practice to invite concerned admins to any future discussions over lifting of community authorized general sanctions.) Abecedare (talk) 18:40, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• No objections - I closed the original discussion authorizing the GS and have issued a few notifications but I haven't stuck around the topic area and couldn't say whether it's calmed down enough to remove to GS or whether it's only calm because of the existing GS. Ben · Salvidrim! ✉ 19:29, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support per everyone above me, No point in keeping it if it's not been applied to anyone for over 3 years. –Davey2010^Talk 01:32, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

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Accidental addition of rollback flag

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It seems that some admin has added the rollback flag to me since the rollback links [rollback][vandalism] appear when I look at the contributions sub-page of any other user. However there is no log entry specifying which admin has given me the flag. Please remove rollback since I am not experienced/eligible enough to use it. Regards. — fr ⁺ 12:25, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

FR30799386 those links are from twinkle Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:27, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Galobtter You mean nothing will happen if I accidentally press them FR30799386 (talk) 12:36, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

See TW rollback; clicking on them will do a rollback similar to rollback from a rollbacker but slower as it isn't server side Galobtter (pingó mió) 12:39, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I believe Twinkle also asks you before performing the rollback, but I use it so infrequently.... --Izno (talk) 13:51, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

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Temporary Interface Editors Nominated

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Interface_administrators#Stop-gap_users_nominated. This process is completely ad-hoc and I've proposed it as a temporary measure due to the looming software change next week. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:37, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Rangeblock question

I posted the following to WT:SPI a few days ago, and am yet to to get an answer. Maybe someone here as some thoughts on the matter.

I've been looking at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Aggiefan47, and would like a second opinion on whether or not a range block is potentially appropriate here. The range in question is 98.200.12.0/22 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). There is a very prolific editor on this range, interested only in baseball, and who may very well be Aggiefan47. Best I can tell there have been two other editors on the same range in the past three weeks, who have engaged in unrelated, but also problematic editing: Unexplained removal of content at Mile 22 and POV editing at Did Six Million Really Die? and Sudetenland. On one hand, there is clear risk of collateral damage; on the other, preventing the unrelated edits might actually be beneficial. I'm leaning towards saying no, simply because the behaviour of these other editors has not reached blockworthy levels of disruption, but I'm unsure enough that I'd like a second opinion. Sir Sputnik (talk) 03:00, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

I've taken action at the SPI.—Bagumba (talk) 09:58, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

SPA has COI

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Moved to WP:ANI § SPA has COI

So this SPA Balochworld (talk · contribs) from the day first has been trying to write this BLP Nabil Gabol in a promotional and biased manner using unreliable sources. I fixed this BLP earlier this month, but this SPA is back again and for the past couple of days has been trying to revert the BLP back to his own version which is poorly sourced and promotional. For the past couple of hours, SPA has been edit warring using this account and an IP despite several warnings on their talk page from several different editors. --Saqib (talk) 10:35, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Comment the user Balochworld (talk · contribs) appears to be "not very familiar" with the policies. Saqib you being the more experienced one, did you try and engage BW for a discussion on this content dispute on the talk page ? I dont see any thread on the talk page, Please do and inform him that Edit summary is not considered a discussion. --DBigXrayᗙ 12:20, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

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