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Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (30 out of 7739 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Type Summary Admin Drake (musician) 2024-05-11 09:32 indefinite edit,move Contentious topics enforcement for WP:CT/BLP; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Slovenia 2024-05-11 09:29 2024-05-18 09:29 edit edit wars on the page Tone Timeline of the Israel–Hamas war (7 May 2024 – present) 2024-05-11 03:48 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Czech Republic 2024-05-11 02:43 indefinite edit Persistent disruptive editing: per RFPP and WP:ARBEE Daniel Case Ben Shapiro 2024-05-11 02:24 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBAP2 Daniel Case Eden Golan 2024-05-11 02:03 2025-05-11 02:03 edit,move Persistent disruptive editing from (auto)confirmed accounts ScottishFinnishRadish Nguyễn Văn Hùng (martial artist) 2024-05-10 20:21 2027-05-10 20:21 edit Persistent sockpuppetry: User:Nipponese Dog Calvero Favonian Nguyen Van Hung 2024-05-10 20:21 indefinite edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry: User:Nipponese Dog Calvero Favonian Phan Bội Châu 2024-05-10 20:21 2027-05-10 20:21 edit Persistent sockpuppetry: User:Nipponese Dog Calvero Favonian Nguyễn Kim Hồng 2024-05-10 20:21 2027-05-10 20:21 edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry: User:Nipponese Dog Calvero Favonian Vietnamese people in Taiwan 2024-05-10 20:21 2027-05-10 20:21 edit,move Persistent sockpuppetry: User:Nipponese Dog Calvero Favonian McGill University pro-Palestinian encampment 2024-05-10 19:18 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case England 2024-05-10 13:52 indefinite edit Persistent sockpuppetry: request at WP:RFPP Ymblanter Nemo (rapper) 2024-05-10 01:56 indefinite edit,move Persistent disruptive editing: per RFPP; will also log as CTOPS action Daniel Case The Eras Tour 2024-05-10 01:48 2025-01-29 23:36 edit,move Addition of unsourced or poorly sourced content: raise protection to ECP for duration to cut back on fan edits Daniel Case Kim Jae-joong 2024-05-09 23:16 2024-08-09 23:16 edit,move Persistent sock puppetry ToBeFree Draft:Blue Dream Group 2 2024-05-09 18:54 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated: see Draft:Blue Dream Group Ymblanter Draft:Blue Dream Group 2024-05-09 18:53 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated Ymblanter Template:CGNDB URL 2024-05-09 18:00 indefinite edit,move High-risk template or module: 3512 transclusions (more info) MusikBot II Hind's Hall 2024-05-09 11:46 indefinite edit,move oops Ymblanter Assembly theory 2024-05-09 01:47 indefinite edit,move Persistent disruptive editing from (auto)confirmed accounts; previous protection level has not been sufficient; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Dumraon Raj 2024-05-09 00:34 indefinite edit,move Contentious topics enforcement for WP:CT/IPA Daniel Quinlan On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians 2024-05-08 19:28 indefinite edit,move Community sanctions enforcement: per RFPP and WP:RUSUKR Daniel Case Jaffa riots 2024-05-08 04:31 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction Johnuniq Russia–Ukraine relations 2024-05-08 03:05 indefinite edit,move Enforcement for WP:GS/RUSUKR; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Rapunzel's Lantern Festival 2024-05-08 02:35 2024-05-15 02:35 create Repeatedly recreated Liz Dhadhor 2024-05-07 19:28 2024-06-07 19:28 edit,move Addition of unsourced or poorly sourced content Ponyo Background of the Rafah offensive 2024-05-07 18:39 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement ScottishFinnishRadish Sophie Anderson (actress) 2024-05-07 13:21 2024-11-07 13:21 edit,move Persistent violations of the biographies of living persons policy from (auto)confirmed accounts; requested at WP:RfPP Daniel Quinlan Draft:Karintak operation 2024-05-07 12:48 indefinite edit,move WP:GS/AA enforcement Firefangledfeathers

Dozens upon dozens of questionable redirects created by now-blocked user

• JailBrokenIPODGoneWild (talk · contribs)

Today I've discovered that Special:Contributions/JailBrokenIPODGoneWild, a user now blocked for harassment, had created dozens upon dozens of questionable redirects related to public transportation. The redirects are all from color terms to a specific transportation line or service in systems where lines are depicted with colors on maps but not referred to by color in conversation or in official operations. The problem is that these redirects have qualifiers in front of the color terms like "Dark" and "Light", when nobody speaks like that, at least not in America. Nobody will say "Take the Dark Red Line"; people just say "Take the Red Line". If a given system has multiple lines or services that share a core color with different shades, the core color title should be a disambiguation page. Example of redirects that I just turned into disambiguation pages today are Green Line (Metra) and Orange Line (Metra). Again, very few if anyone would actually use the color qualifiers in conversation and thus I'm led to conclude that these redirects are implausible. The issue is the sheer quantity of them - way too many to list at RFD. How do we proceed from here? Taking Out The Trash (talk) 21:52, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

• Holy crap. This user has created a whopping 12,000 redirects, and that's not including the 500ish additional redirects that have already been deleted. There's no way that all of those are valid. This may be a bigger issue than it seems on the surface. Taking Out The Trash (talk) 22:00, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Some redirects appear valid (e.g. List of countries by calling code) but the majority appear to be nonsense. I think we need community consensus to allow admins to review and delete at their discretion. GiantSnowman 22:03, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
• Looks like a 13k editor that was not blocked for socking, so WP:G5 and WP:NUKE is not an option here. Their activity and the block were both over a year ago. Looks like they were on the redirect autopatrol list at the time of their blocking, so all their stuff got autopatrolled. RAL at the time of their blocking, with them on it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:07, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
• Notified: Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:09, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
• (from RFD): This is, uh, not good...

  The worst part is that many of the redirects look plausible, at least the most recently created ones.

  I think the best way to proceed is to have a formal, community-wide discussion on Are Such Redirects Helpful or Valid, preferably at the Village Pump, and if community consensus is that they are not, and that they would be deleted at RfD, then mass-delete them as a community action. (Non-administrator comment) Cremastra (talk) 22:31, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

• This user has had plenty of redirects come to RfD before and I think they should probably continue to be handled that way; I fear that the mere fact of being blocked for an unrelated reason could place unwarranted scrutiny upon these redirects. While some of these redirects may be undesirable, their problems seem at a glance to generally be in the class of "implausible search term", not very harmful, rather than "targets wrong place", actively harmful. At the least, the most recent redirects are very helpful creations. J947 ‡ ^edits 01:51, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  • I skimmed through a few hundred of these redirects and most seem at first glance to lie somewhere in the space between "probably fine" and "implausible search term"; nothing Neelixual. Is there a way to find the ones that have inbound links? Folly Mox (talk) 03:06, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Was it unrelated? Was it for harassment at all?

It is unclear from Special:Diff/1106477198 what prompted the 2022 block by Daniel Case, or the determination that this was a trolling/harassment-only account. I haven't found any noticeboard or talk page discussion since the 2009 discussion of the creation of redirects at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive579#Redirects for every street in Manhattan. I haven't found a single talk page contribution from this account in 13 years, so it is perplexing what the trolling/harassment was. And the block log entry is no help.

Uncle G (talk) 02:33, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

• Looks like it was in response to this AIV report, which just expressed concerns about the redirects. I'd be curious to hear how people reached the conclusion that this was a vandalism-only account/troll: at a glance most of the redirects appear to be pretty clearly in good faith, whatever one might think of their usefulness. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 02:51, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

I RfD'd a few of JBIGW's creations, and wasn't surprised to see them blocked eventually. (I'm not dismissing Uncle G's concerns about the procedure of the block, but in either case that level of WP:COMMUNICATE was going to lead to a block sooner or later.) My perception of JBIGW's redirects in general, though, is similar to Folly Mox': Most probably weren't worth creating, but at the same time don't need to be deleted. Before we go too far talking about a CSD X3 or whatever, could someone put together a list of, I dunno, 20 redirects they think would almost certainly fail RfD, and say how many redirs they had to go through to compile that list? Right now it's hard to get a feel for the shape of the problem, and if it is such a massive issue, this shouldn't be too hard to put together. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 04:50, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

• It is more that Taking Out The Trash said above that JailBrokenIPODGoneWild was blocked for harassment and J947 commenting that this was unrelated and could result in unwarranted scrutiny. But from what Extraordinary Writ has turned up the block log entry is misleading, the block was actually directly about the redirects, and they were characterized by Sir Joseph as vandalism.

  That report was made on 2022-08-24; the most recently deleted redirects, created on 2022-08-20, were the ones from Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 May 18#MBTA Silver Line line redirects; and the most recently not-deleted redirects were the likes of Postal code (United States) and List of Internet top-level domains (country) which may be useless, but which as Extraordinary Writ says do not really say vandalism-only account let alone trolling/harrassment.

  They also contain KOP, Pennsylvania and 84, PA created that day which seem unlikely but conceivable search terms that are fairly obviously in line with the target articles's contents. And from the previous month Geography of State College, Pennsylvania and its ilk seem uncontroversial and Government of Veracruz actually got used by someone else in an article

  So I think that you are right, and both a case for vandalism and a case for "Holy crap. 12,000 redirects" need to be made with examples.

  Uncle G (talk) 10:47, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

  • For the record, I think Postal code (United States) is a great redirect. How am I supposed to remember what they call their postal codes? Zippers? Something like that. Cremastra (talk) 15:15, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
    • In this case, the best solution is to have Postal codes have a list of links to individual countries' pages where they exist (possibly as a navigation box); I believe that parantheticals generally make unneeded redirects, except where either there is the potential for a future article, or where an ENGVAR-alternate article with the parenthetical already exists (e.g Orange (color)). Animal lover |666| 08:58, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
      • I'm generally lenient on redirects – my criterion is, is this potentially useful to a reader?, as they are after all WP:CHEAP and generally harmless (they are usually a small net-positive, even if they seem unusual), but we should probably leave theses specifics to later. (And I'm aware I'm probably not wholly within policy with my views). 🎄Cremastra 🎄 (talk) 13:05, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

(Undid automatic archival) So what exactly should be done here? I haven't had the chance to comb through all 12,000+ redirects, but I can tell you that the ones like "Dark Red Line", "Dark Green Line", "Light Green Line" etc when referring to transit lines are implausible, since nobody talks like that. The problem is that there are simply too many of these alone to send them all to RFD. Taking Out The Trash (talk) 19:13, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

• @Taking Out The Trash: I don't see a problem with them. Take, for example, Light Green Line (Shanghai). The target notes that the line is displayed as "light green" on the system maps (Green Line (Shanghai Metro) correctly redirects to Line 12), and there's no ambiguity. It is 100% plausible to call it the "light green line" because that's what it is. 🎄Cremastra 🎄 (talk) 19:57, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
• We're not quite in Miniscule boobies territory, but the similar situation with Neelix in 2015 is what WP:X1 was created for. With consensus we could just reactivate it, add this user's name to the criterion, and let it be handled naturally until no longer needed. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 22:17, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
• What should be done is make a case with examples, as two of us stated above. Because the rest of us looking through this edit history haven't seen one leaping out at us. Actually make your case. You're leaping to the next step of asking something to be done assuming that a case has been made. It has not been. Uncle G (talk) 14:26, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Can an uninvolved admin please step in over toxicity and BATTLEGROUND at darts-related pages?

Affected pages span at least 2024 PDC World Darts Championship, 2023 Grand Slam of Darts, Wikipedia:WikiProject Darts, and their associated talk pages, as well as user talk pages.

Edit summaries should be checked too: (Redacted) (diff) and (Redacted) (diff) and (Redacted) (diff) JoelleJay (talk) 19:23, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm still checking the issue, but I've blocked Penepi for a week for now for their personal attacks. Any uninvolved admin may lengthen the block if they see fit. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 19:30, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I've extended Penepi's block to indefinite due to the sheer extent and cruelty in all the shown diffs. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 19:37, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the very quick response! I think that editor was the main antagonizer in these articles. The atmosphere there is still pretty BATTLEGROUNDy and OWNy, but that can hopefully be remedied with more editors looking into it and isn't so urgent. JoelleJay (talk) 19:43, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I'll note that ItsKesha appears to have been edit warring on some of those articles. Since it's stale now, I don't think a block is needed, but they should consider themselves formally warned not to do so again.

In the future, they should consider seeking administrative assistance when they see another user personally attacking them, instead of allowing it to go on. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 19:52, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

IMO there's been some "goading" from ItsKesha, as a minimum. Does "Nobody cares about the opinion of you logged out losers" [1] get over the civility bar? or "Sad act"? (I've been editing there but trying not to be "involved") Nigej (talk) 20:08, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I'll remove those comments and I profusely apologise to all involved for such embarrassing, insulting and time-wasting behaviour. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 20:14, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

@Nigej: I'm still reading all the linked pages, but yes, I agree with you that ItsKesha didn't facilitate things. I'll also note that their behavior at Talk:2024 PDC World Darts Championship has been poor. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 20:14, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

In my experience, ItsKesha is disruptive and repeatedly engages in personal attacks. In addition to the edits at the darts talk page mentioned above which they have now removed (calling other editors 'sad act', 'losers' etc.), there are also edits elsewhere such as this ("lol @ u") and this (calling another editor an "oddball") which are indicative of a wider attitude problem. Indeed, a quick look at their contribs in general show a clear pattern - multiple reverts to the same article(s) over & over again. They seem to obsess over an article and try and bully other editors into keeping their preferred version through reverts and insults, and once achieved they move onto another article... GiantSnowman 20:29, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Other edits by ItsKesha at the talk page which remain up - "You don't half talk some shite" and "you talked a load of shite". I cannot see Penepi's edits that have been revdeled, but how do they compare to ItsKesha's comments/conduct? GiantSnowman 20:41, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Penepi's were about 2000x worse... JoelleJay (talk) 20:50, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

OK, then what's 1/2000th of an indef block... GiantSnowman 21:35, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman Here's a much milder example of the PAs (this one was at least removed by Penepi). Can you please revdel that span of history? The rest of the comments in that chain are pretty typical for interactions here. JoelleJay (talk) 21:58, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

E.g. their response prior to deleting that comment. JoelleJay (talk) 22:08, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Can you please confirm exactly what edits to revdel? GiantSnowman 10:23, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman Have you looked at those diffs? It should be clear from the content which span of the history should be revdeled. JoelleJay (talk) 20:54, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

You've asked to revdel a span, but provided one diff.... GiantSnowman 11:29, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

@Isabelle Belato JoelleJay (talk) 20:55, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

@JoelleJay: I've revdel'ed the more egregious one from the ones you posted here. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 17:35, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Should this diff also have its edit summary revdeleted? ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 19:43, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. That should be all. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 19:55, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't know why there is so much animosity over darts, but there is. While Penepi has shown the worst behavior, ItsKesha's behavior has been subpar, usually adding more heat than light to the discussions they participate in. I wonder if a formal warning to be more WP:CIVIL and avoid commenting on other editors would suffice for now. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 20:39, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

You mean like the previous warnings for disruption/conduct/civility that litter their talk page going back 3 years? See also Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1054#User:ItsKesha and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive344#ItsKesha's removal of major WP:RS contents claiming then not notable based on personal views and accusing me of lack of sourcing tag when very line of the aricle was complient with WP:PW/RS and this edit warring warning from October 2021. They were also blocked in July 2022 for personal attacks. Clearly all of this has had zero effect on ItsKesha given they continue the behaviour. GiantSnowman 20:49, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes it had zero effect on me when I was accused of violating copyright and plagiarism and nothing was done about it by administrators when I reported it. Remind me why should I have any faith in the process of reporting somebody to the administrators? All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 12:31, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

TBF, ItsKesha has been trying to bring darts articles in line with policy for a while and has been met with quite hostile resistance from what seems like a LOCALCON walled-garden, including from another now-blocked-and-TBANNED editor. Their approach has often been antagonistic, passive-aggressive, and POINTY, but IMO the responses to them by some of the darts editors have been way out of proportion and non-policy-based to boot, so I can at least understand a bit of their frustration. JoelleJay (talk) 21:50, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Thing is, being frustrated isn't a reason to not be civil. I'm equally as frustrated by some of the responses on that page, but you can't make such aggressive comments here. I wouldn't consider myself uninvolved at this stage, so maybe one who is could have a word with all parties. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:38, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

I've had run-ins with ItsKesha in the past, so will leave it to others, but suggest a final warning for civility/personal attacks/edit warring for ItsKesha, with an indef block if it happens again. GiantSnowman 10:24, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I will note that since this discussion started, they continue to repeatedly revert/edit war with other editors, see 1, 2, 3. GiantSnowman 12:36, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

And those reverts show yet another example of them not understanding a policy they’re trying to enforce. In this case the difference between the concepts of primary&secondary sources on one hand, and first-, second- and third-party sources on the other hand. Tvx1 12:56, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

How are the Professional Darts Corporation are not a primary source for the Professional Darts Corporation World Darts Championship? ~~~~ All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 13:15, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Because primary≠first party. How can you not understand that??Tvx1 13:42, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I suppose this is the exact tone we should be taking when trying to have a discussion. Right admins? All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 13:57, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, but that’s on oversimplification of the issue. The reality is that they try to force these articles to match their view of what the policies should be. The multiple talk page discussions going on right now on the 2024 PDC World championship article’s talk page show that they have little actual understanding of the policies they quote. And when multiple editors point out the incorrectness of their arguments, they show no intent to accept that.

Therefore, seeing as they already received a topic ban elswhere but changed nothing of their behavior but rather moved to another topic to do just the same, I strongly suggest an indefinite block until such time they can prove they are here to build an encyclopedia. At the very least they should be subjected to a topic ban from darts. Tvx1 12:37, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, given the ongoing reverts this morning (after this discussion started) which I have just noted and linked to above, it is becoming increasingly clear that only an indef or topic ban will stop ongoing issues. I'd obviously prefer a topic ban to an indef, but I'm not convinced that with a topic ban they won't just direct their attention elsewhere. GiantSnowman 12:39, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

However we can't put all the blame with ItsKesha. Comments like your's just now "I still don’t understand why something that was used for years without anyone having a problem with it, has now become all but unacceptable." (and other similar comments by other editors) show a reluctance to listen to comments from "outsiders". Nigej (talk) 12:56, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Nigej I have posted my thoughts at the bottom of the thread, but in line with my view posted there, this has been an ongoing issue for about 12 months, and part of the consequence has been a massive drop in darts articles this year. I think frankly, that people are fed up with ItsKesha and their presence is enough for people to feel backed into a corner and come out fighting. That is not okay of course, and I am guilty of that myself to a degree, but this is something thats been building for twelve months, comes to a head during the worlds when more editors are active, and will no doubt happen again next year if left as is. Dimspace (talk) 23:37, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

How much of the dropoff in darts editing this past year could be attributed to JRRobinson being TBANned from darts and then indeffed? JoelleJay (talk) 00:04, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

That has probably had some impact. But there have also been ongoing arguments over notabilty. The Darts project sadly has not established a structured notability scale for events, so in the absence of one there have been disputes over what is notable, and predictably, from what I saw earlier in the year, ItsKesha was at the centre of that with their "interpretion" of notability criteria. But you are correct, JRRobinsons absence would have had an impact. Equally, people who have watched from the sidelines like myself who could contribute more don't have the inclination to throw their hat in that particular warzone :D Dimspace (talk) 00:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Should add, a lot of have fallen foul of issues of sourcing, and the primary sources issue, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Darts#Better_sources_for_darts_articles which I know is something Itskesha has been hot about (I'm not getting into a right or wrong on that one, but thats been part of the reduction as well). But again as noted elsewhere, the approach from people like ItsKesha has very much been "not sourced properly DELETE IT" "doesnt fill a certain criteria DELETE IT" as opposed to how can we work together to remedy those things Dimspace (talk) 00:25, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

There is a notability guideline for darts: WP:NSPORT, which requires the subject to meet GNG and on top of that requires all athlete articles actively cite at least one IRS SIGCOV source. ItsKesha's interpretation of notability criteria is correct. JoelleJay (talk) 00:20, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Working with others to establish a notability list for Darts and listing the guidelines, being specific, explaining reasoning, however, would be far more productive, than just stamping feet and fighting. People can see a wall in their path and just knock it down, or they can work together to cross it. Dimspace (talk) 00:29, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

What I would add, is WP:NSPORT is largely aimed at notablity of individual sports men, women and teams. When it comes to events, it is very vague, generalised, and extremely open to interpretation, but, any discussions on darts events notability have just been "its not notable" "yes it is" "no it isnt" as opposed to objective. WP:EVENT is possibly more relevant. but. getting sidetracked a bit here. But I think formalising event notability over the course of 2024 could solve some issues. Dimspace (talk) 00:35, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, any notability criteria created for darts events will have to be a very strong predictor of GNG and SUSTAINED independent secondary significant coverage (per NEVENT). Project-level notability criteria are treated as essays and hold zero weight at AfD, so it really wouldn't be productive to pursue this if the hope is to protect certain classes of articles from deletion. Pinging @Nigej who also has experience at NSPORT discussions and might have more background on non-biography stuff. JoelleJay (talk) 00:44, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Personally I would not view it as protecting certain classes from deletion, but, having an established, discussed, agreed, list of notable events, is a lot better than having editors fighting with each other over their perception of notability. (as long as those establishing, discussing and agreeing are objective and able to look at more than one point of view lol) 01:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

What is "ItsKesha was at the centre of that with their "interpretion" of notability criteria" even in reference to? All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 01:54, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, but what is that supposed to mean? I listen very much, I just say that I don’t understand why there is such a big drama about this. I have even offered you a simple solution to your biggest concern with the content. I find this a really low blow from you. Meanwhile the user that this discussion centers on, who doesn’t show any less reluctance to listen to outsiders, has even broken WP:3RR. Tvx1 13:18, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

It seems from comments below that ItsKesha finds some of your comments "low blows" too. Nigej (talk) 14:44, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I don’t see any comment that references me below at all. Your snide remarks are totally uneccesary here. They do nothing but detract from the issue at hand here. Tvx1 15:34, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I mean you've just made a comment here advising @Lee Vilenski to "learn to read". I'd say that's definitely a low blow. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 18:20, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

No, that’s a comment on the point in reaction to someone who clearly misread a comment I made in that discussion. But that doesn’t even matter. It’s my behavior that was reported, it was yours and that is what you should discuss.Tvx1 19:13, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

It is a bizarre comment over six months after the last comment in that thread. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:46, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

• I see that the arguments from the talk page are starting to leak into here. Have any of the involved parties asked for assistance from uninvolved editors at WP:RSN about whether those PDC reports should be considered a primary source? Moving on from that, can someone point me to which topic ItsKesha has been banned from? I see nothing on their talk page or at WP:AEDR. I think a final civility warning to ItsKesha should help reduce the heat in these discussions, and I wouldn't oppose a WP:1RR sanction to prevent slow edit wars. Concerning the overall darts topic, I think a reminder to all participants to remain civil, respect WP:BRD, and seek assistance from third parties when a discussion appears to be going nowhere wouldn't go amiss. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 13:46, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  In future I won't even try and collaborate to improve these articles, I'll just work independently because this is so unbelievably boring. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 14:08, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  I do not think this is the answer you want to give. Saying you will not collaborate is a big no-no and the alarm bells are ringing louder for me. GiantSnowman 14:10, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  See, this is another indication that this user is WP:NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia. Tvx1 15:33, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  I'll edit to improve articles, I just won't bother asking questions to the community. Why should I even try when I am made out to be the villain and targeted simply for asking a question? Look here and read the first four responses I received. Three of them are absolutely pathetic and I won't subject myself to this going forward, and you can't sway my opinion. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 15:48, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

ItsKesha"read the first four responses I received." the first few responses, my response included are not ok. However, bear in mind two things. a) Nobody had a foggiest idea what stats you were claiming were against WP:SYTH, and even after discussion, and head scratching b) it was established very quickly that they were not against WP:SYNTH. And here's the thing, throughout that thread you refuse to actually explain why you felt they were against WP:SYNTH (Or even which stats you thought were against WP:SYNTH. All you did was repeatedly quote "do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source". You wouldn't actually elaborate on what your issue actually was. So a month long argument (Where nobody actually understood what your issue was in relation to WP:SYNTH ends with "ItsKesha was quoting wiki policies that didnt even apply" again. And so the cycle starts again. Dimspace (talk) 23:47, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

• Again, saying you are going to continue editing (without dealing with the attitude and behaviour concerns that have been raised here and elsewhere) AND that you are not going to collaborate indicates you will continue disruption. Comments like "you can't sway my opinion" means there is little point in the community working with you as nothing we do will have a positive effect. In short, the more you post, the more supportive I become of an indef block as the only way to prevent ongoing issues. GiantSnowman 15:54, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  So not raising issues is disruption, but raising issues is disruption. Brilliant. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 18:17, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  There is a whole lot of background to why these were the first four reactions you got from these people. These are the many interactions you had with them during the last year or so, including on the article on the previous edition of the sports’ world championship. "you can't sway my opinion" is the core attitude issue you have been displaying throughout that period and is the reason why were here, yet you show no understanding at all. Tvx1 16:39, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  I think ItsKesha needs an indefinite block for their behavior discussed above. The battlegrounding is just too much. Thanks -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:04, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  Can you explain the "whole lot of background" then, so I can learn from it? All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 18:17, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  The battleground behavior is detailed above, and I believe you have responded earlier. Thanks -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:27, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  I would say some of the darts "regulars" have displayed quite a bit more battlegrounding on the darts pages than ItsKesha. Those pages need a serious overhaul by uninvolved editors. JoelleJay (talk) 20:53, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  See that’s the core issue here. People like the reported user and you unfairly treat the regular editors of these articles like a nuisance. Like an annoying band of rebels that need to be squashed. I’m not even part of that community and I’m still appaled by the treatment they have been given. Maybe what it needs is not for outsiders to barge in with a lecturing attituted trying to enforce their personal views. Tvx1 14:19, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  P&Gs are not really "personal views"... JoelleJay (talk) 17:55, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  Interpretations of them are. Multiple editors on those talk pages have carefully read those guidelines and properly adressed many of the incorrect claims regarding these guidelines and policies in the talk page discussions. Yet instead of reading and accepting these replies and collaborating, you and the reported user keep treating these people, who actually have invested a considerable amount of time in reading and adressing your concerns, as a pest that needs to be eradicated.Tvx1 19:04, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Tvx1: please tone down your rhetoric. No one here is treating the regular darts editors as "a pest that needs to be eradicated." An uninvolved user saw an issue occurring on a certain topic of the Wikipedia and we are discussing to reach a consensus on whether this is a chronic issue and how to best deal with it. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 20:42, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Isabelle Belato, this comment shows clearly what I meant. A call for outside editors to come in an and overhaul the project. Treating the current regulars as if they have no good intentions or at the very least wouldn’t be willing to colleborate constructively. If find that very respectless and I can sympathise in a way with how this people have reacted to such treatment. Tvx1 00:13, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  I said some of the darts regulars, which includes two editors indeffed for NPAs and battleground behavior... And content can need to be overhauled without it impugning the motivations or collegiality of other editors. There are still synth issues1 and misunderstandings of notability, PRIMARY, and independence that need to be addressed. JoelleJay (talk) 02:13, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  I tried to offer my opinion -- that the tournament draws and schedules formulated and released by the tournament itself are primary (and non-independent) as they are original materials ... close to an event ... written by people who are directly involved -- but was told by Tvx1 that my comment didn't make sense and that I was incorrectly conflating secondary sources and independence... JoelleJay (talk) 21:12, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  JoelleJay What I would say, is when the battle is already raging, any opinions are probably going to be shot down because peoples backs are already up. Now probably isn't the time to be saying whats wrong with this years article, emotions are running too high. I think there needs to be a period of calm, and a built towards next year to be honest. Dimspace (talk) 23:51, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

  Can we please leave the content discussion out of this? This is not the venue for this.Tvx1 04:14, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I feel like I summarised it in the 2023 Worlds talk page. Basically Kesha seemed to come in from out of the blue, and unilaterally decided that about half the article failed some policy and just slapped a ton of "fix this" templates all over the place; as opposed to... well, fixing it. That same attitude seems to have continued over the year, and is coming to a point again now during the 2024 Worlds. There was little collaboration until I had to call out the 3RR that was ongoing, and even then I don't think any of the discussions really amounted to much. Hence why there's still such an impasse over the whole thing.

The sticking point over notability is going to remain though. Darts is still a relatively niche sport, it doesn't have the same amount of eyeballs on it as other events that Sky and ITV broadcast; and because of that the resulting neutral coverage is also lacking. Snooker — another of matchroom's portfolio — gets a lot from the BBC because they actually broadcast it; but unfortunately they don't offer that same level of effort to darts or pool. 🇮🇪 TheChrisD {💬|✏️} 02:22, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

You accused me of being "biased against most darts articles on the Wiki" for nominating an article for deletion. All my warmest wishes, ItsKesha (talk) 03:28, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I can’t believe we’re letting us be mocked like this. It’s New Year’s Eve for crying out loud, we should be celebrating with our families and friends, not be dealing with this. Granted, maybe for some of you it’s maybe already the morning of New Year’s Day, but still. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tvx1 (talk • contribs)

Ok, throwing my two-pennorth in as I have been watching the talk of all darts pages since late last year after things blew up on the 2023 World Championship talk. Darts articles are not perfect, and there are areas as have been brought up by people like NigelJ etc where things can be improved, but there is a way to work with existing editors, discussion, compromise, and explaining decisions. Itskesha since late in 2022 (as far as I am aware, it could even be earlier) has behaved as a bull in a china shop on darts articles. Filling articles with various banners, sourcing need, 1st party sources, etc etc, kicking up a storm over notability, and in many instances citing Wikipedia policies that when actually looked at have zero relevance to what he is flagging. His general passive-aggressive approach (for example, his constant even when baiting people, well wishes) has got a lot of peoples backs up. The net effect has been in 2023 the number of darts articles has dropped massively, many events no longer have articles for them, and a lot of editors have simply backed off the darts community completely. For much of the year I have just been watching, and yes, over December I have decided to butt heads with him, which I probably shouldn't, but honestly, my impression is very much that while he maybe intends well, his forcible opinions (which very often are based on poor interpretations of policy), and his general passive aggressive, non-compromising approach, is a disruption to the Darts community as a whole. As I say that as someone who does not edit on Darts, but read the articles, and have been paying very close attention to talk. (But yes, I will admit I've been like a dog with a bone over the last month). As I say, Darts pages are not perfect, but there are ways of working with the existing editors to improve and develop the pages, and going in, sticking banners everywhere, misinterpreting wiki policies, and being at the centre of every single argument, are not the way to improve things. His aspproach alsi is very much "This doesn't fit the (poorly interpreted) rules so delete it", as opposed to "how can we rework it to make it fit the policy guidelines better"Dimspace (talk) 23:30, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Just to add, this all started last year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2023_PDC_World_Darts_Championship and has gradually built over the course of 2023. So whats going on on the talk page for this years World Championship is not the full reflection, this has been a 12 month brewing battle. Dimspace (talk) 23:32, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Also, it appears at least two regular editors of darts articles have already ended up indefblocked because of this ongoing situation.Tvx1 19:18, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Not sure who posted this last comment ^^ but yes, this is a side effect, that Darts is losing its most "passionate" editors because of this ongoing conflict. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dimspace (talk • contribs)

• Related, would an admin please look at Draft:Alex Spellman and this change an IP tried to make to sports notability? I blocked the first IP as they were being generally disruptive but there's not enough with the new one desipite my spidey sense that it's blocked editors logging out. I know that JRR is far from the only problematic one in this area, but it's who it reads to me. Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/JRRobinson/Archive exists, but nothing we can do with IPs so I've not bothered filing Star Mississippi 16:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Without sidetracking completely, " Have won an event hosted by either the Professional Darts Corporation or British Darts Organisation." yes, support. " Have participated in the PDC World Darts Championship." as someone who loves the sport of darts, no, not even close. Participating in the worlds is not notable. For me notablity would not start until they reached the last 16, or had multiple appearances in the world championships. A single appearance is not even close to notable. I would say 90% of big darts fans would have to google who Alex Spellman even is :D Dimspace (talk) 16:24, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

This is again a discussion we should not hold here. This is not the venue. So, please focus on the ANI report at hand. This section is already lengthy enough as it is. Tvx1 19:28, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Section break

Okay, I hope this is appreciated but I decided to please a section break here because the above discussion was suffering from a lot of sidetracking and became difficult to follow. So I hope we can refocus on the issue at hand. The reported user has shown no insight into their behavior, has no demonstrated to have headed lessons from a previous topic ban and has not shown any willingness to change their attitude in the right way. Therefore I think it would be best to try to find a consensus on some action. Personally I still feel WP:NOTHERE applies.Tvx1 00:20, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Probably wise, but remember that the raised topic wasn't about a specific user. There has been one block already. I agree there needs to be something done to stop the atmosphere around these types of articles. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:48, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, one other specific user WAS discussed following the block and I think an action considering them should be taken now. Especially considering their contributions here.Tvx1 10:12, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

We should move to discussion about what (if any) action should be taken against ItsKesha given the conduct highlighted above. I think the options are (1) final warning (2) topic ban from darts, widely construed or (3) indef block. GiantSnowman 18:59, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree. My preference lies with option (3) indef block or failing that (2) topic ban. We're well past the warning stage now.Tvx1 12:13, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Same, I am fine with either a topic ban or indef block, leaning more towards the latter. GiantSnowman 19:38, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Any other views on ItsKesha here? GiantSnowman 12:12, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

ItsKesha has a long history of uncivil behaviour and while I’m definitely no saint their behaviour has gone on too frequently and too long in my opinion. I’ve personally never once seen them cordial with another editor. RossButsy (talk) 14:50, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

My general opinion is that jumping straight to an indef with no prior sanctions is nuts unless the behavior in question is really overwhelmingly egregious, which this definitely isn't. Loki (talk) 22:18, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

So you'd prefer a topic ban? GiantSnowman 12:31, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I would prefer a warning, frankly. Loki (talk) 17:34, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I would prefer a firm warning and short leash. JoelleJay (talk) 19:29, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

We’re way past that stage. Warnings have proven useless in the point. We need to impose a strict sanction by now.Tvx1 15:24, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

There have been previous sanctions against this user. Blocks and even a topic ban in an other area. Yet, they have declared an intent not to change at all. There is a point where we have to put a strict halt to it. Tvx1 15:34, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I could only find a single block, not blocks, of 31 hours. Nigej (talk) 17:17, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

A darts topic ban seems reasonable to me. I'd be against an indef, which seems excessive to me. Having felt the wave of negativity that comes from many of the established darts editors, I've got a little sympathy for him (despite my initial comment on him, somewhere above). However it does seem to me that he didn't come to this topic with any genuine attempt to have discussions that might come to some consensus. Nigej (talk) 12:44, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm fine with a topic ban. GiantSnowman 14:15, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

My problem with a topic ban is that this has been applied before to them and they just moved to another topic to continue their problematic behavior here. Given their posts here, I’m very concerned that pattern might be repeated again. That’s why I believe we’ve reached the point of a block being warranted.Tvx1 15:37, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

There's the wave of negativity, and then there's the stark misunderstanding of PAGs that appears to be commonly held on these pages, given this comment by Penepi (which quotes arguments used by another darts editor) in an AfD:

Thanks for making me laugh. Really. I don't know if you're just trolling, but, dear lady, please stick to your molecular biology and don't comment on things you have literally no clue about. Let me tell you a huge secret - darts is not a science; "passing mention in routine tournament recap". And what would you expect? A website dedicated to his one match analyzing it in a scientific manner? Also mentioning PDC source as non-independent. Extremely bizarre. This is sports and this is how sports news work. In this context I dare to borrow the rational argumentation of my fellow colleague: this is not a scientific article where unbiased, third party sources are extremely important especially when it comes to things that could be deemed as "opinion". These are sporting events, where all that is important to the page is statistical data, and accurate data. There are no POV elements to tournament articles or issues with Bias etc etc, all that is needed are qualification methods, and results, and for those sort of data points, first party is totally acceptable, in fact, it could be argued preferable. Hugo won his WC debut 3–2 against GVV. That is fact, and it does not matter if the source is the PDC, Sky Sports, Darts News, or The New York Times, that fact is not going to change. There are countless instances of sporting results page where the main source is the sport organisers, because they are the body that provides the official (and accurate) results. What elements of this article do you think would be improved by a third party source? There is nothing opinion based that needs it. With this brilliant and absolutely not rigid approach, you would have to delete not only 95% of articles about darts players but about athletes in general.

Which gives me a bit more sympathy towards ItsKesha's desire to align darts articles with PAGs/MOS. JoelleJay (talk) 19:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

All well and good, but completely fails to deal with the edit warring, the disruption, the incivility and personal attacks, all of which has been ongoing long before their recent run-in with Penepi. GiantSnowman 20:03, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Appeal of the removal of EC permissions for User:FoodForLLMs

I (User:FoodforLLMs) had my EC permissions revoked by User:Ingenuity. (Incident Page)

Quoting the reason:

 Yeah, that's pretty clear WP:PGAMEing. I've revoked their extended- confirmed permission, which they may re-request at WP:PERM/EC after making 500 non-trivial edits

Presumably my permissions were revoked because of a string of short description edits that I have done, mainly on articles relating to railway stations around the world.

First of all, I do not agree that these edits are trivial. They took me relatively little time because in order to be efficient, I created custom search queries (which took me time to figure out) that allow me to find articles with missing templates from specific categories. This helped me quickly process a lot of these, as I handled one category at a time. However, this is still not easy work, you need to read the lead of the article to make sure the description aligns and you need to add 5-6 new words to each article.

If they are regarded as trivial because they are considered unimportant, I'll disagree again, as these show up at the search box, one of the most used UX surfaces. And a lot of wikipedia articles currently miss a short description.

Thirdly, according to WP:NNH, "Focusing on niche topic areas" and "Focusing on particular processes" are encouraged.

Furthermore, I made different contributions that greatly improved the state of low quality articles across many different subjects. I did so before receiving EC and afterwards, I still continued adding short descriptions to missing articles as recent as today.

WP:PGAME does not mention any behavior that is close to any of my edits (it mentions sandbox editing and dummy edits).

When I look at a recent appeal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Appeal_of_the_removal_of_EC_membership_for_User:DMH43), the account was open for a much shorter time, it showed battleground behavior around ARBPIA which I did not, and a fifth of its contributions were around ARBPIA before even receiving EC status.

If you intend to reject my appeal, may I at least ask you to update WP:PGAME and create a clear policy around this? Currently it is very murky and open to interpretations, while the only thing that is clear is the 500/30 rule, which I abided by.

After I made a lot of hard work to improve wikipedia, being the target of a seemingly arbitrary decision is plainly extremely demotivating.

Because of the above, I think my EC permissions should be reinstated FoodforLLMs (talk) 21:43, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

That was a fine removal of EC permission. All this gaming and appeals makes me think we'd be better off if EC was not automated, and instead worked similar to autopatrolled, where you'd need to request it at WP:PERM or be bequeathed upon by an uninvolved admin. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 21:48, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Except for the fact that even in the current state a lot of PIA articles are in an abysmal state because of lack of maintenance, this is a lot of the time because contributors have less access to edit these. You can see that on talk pages with ignored requests for edits.

For example articles I worked on:

• Iran–Israel proxy conflict
• Iran–Israel conflict during the Syrian civil war
• Axis of Resistance

They are usually filled with bad formatting, old and inaccurate information and unreadable amount of text FoodforLLMs (talk) 22:02, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the removal, but I'd be concerned about essentially requiring admin approval for all editors who want to edit in a few topics. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:11, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

• Obvious gaming, and entirely justified removal of EC. -- Euryalus (talk) 23:06, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
• One of the purposes of EC protection/restrictions in contentious editing areas, is that editors need to learn about Wikipedia policies and processes before diving into said areas. The idea of 500 edits is that it provides time to learn said policies, processes and also editing norms before getting involved in contentious topics. There is no way that 500-odd short description changes allows a new editor to achieve this goal, and for that reason I support the removal of EC in this situation with the requirement that they complete 500 non-trivial edits. Daniel (talk) 00:54, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  1. I think that whether I learned about said policies should be judged on the basis of my contributions to WP:ARBPIA and you can see by my diffs that I engaged in constructive behavior and never degrading into WP:BATTLEGROUND. This is not the case among the longtime EC editors in this subject.

  2. In order to do said short description editing, I read about Wikipedia:WikiProject Short descriptions, I made sure not to touch articles that do not have a description but have an autogenerated description from the template and I created search queries to speed up my contributions (which is my biggest crime apparently). I also added clear edit descrptions and read style guides for the rest of my edits.

  All in all I added missing descriptions to hundreds of articles that were missing these, finishing entire categories for a few different geographies, which in my opinion was impactful.

  3. I did want to reach 500/30 to edit WP:ARBPIA because these are subjects that interest me, and I think I have knowledge in. I read the related policies and made sure that my contributions would not be regarded as WP:PGAME, even currently, I cannot tell you what constitutes as a trivial edit as it seems like it's some latent tribal knowledge that changes on case by case basis FoodforLLMs (talk) 06:45, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  Adding short descriptions doesn't give an editor the kind of experience that prepares an editor for ARBPIA editing because, among other things, it doesn't involve having to work with sources at all. This is especially true when it's 100s of the same short description, "railway station in [location]," added to articles about railway stations. These aren't useless contributions, but they don't require thought or research, it's just plugging in a location in a stock phrase, which is why you were able to do so many so quickly. Such edits don't develop content experience in an editor, they don't involve discussing content, they don't involve or demonstrate knowledge of editing policies or guidelines. Endorse removal. Levivich (talk) 14:25, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  I agree. Endorse removal. It won't hurt the editor to make more substantial contributions before getting it restored. Doug Weller talk 17:09, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with @FoodforLLMs that the current policy is murky and does not define engaging in "wikignoming" as an example of gaming. It is clear that a specific interpretation has evolved, but this is not clear to new users who believe they are abiding by the rules, only to discover later that there is an "oral law" not written in the policies. I call for administrators to bring order to the rules.

Regarding the appellant, I would like to recommend that administrators define a specific, clear condition where the editor can regain their EC (for example: an additional X mainspace edits to prove they are a constructive editor), as it seems like a frustrating place to be, and we are likely to lose him/her as a valuable editor, that would be unfortunate. Marokwitz (talk) 19:02, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I think this is a very fair criticism. WP:PGAME does not describe these kinds of edits -- they are not "unconstructive edits" or "dummy edits" or edits to a sandbox. Also, WP:ARBECR doesn't link to PGAME, so a new editor being pointed to ARBECR may not even be aware of PGAME. We are, in fact, holding editors to a standard that is not documented. I join the call for arbs/admins to update the documentation. Levivich (talk) 19:54, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I'll join that call too. Not sure how it can be worded to be unambious, I think there may always be some judgement involved. Doug Weller talk 20:57, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

• WP:ARBECR does link to WP:EXTENDEDCONFIRMED, though, which links to PGAME and which states that Extended confirmed is revoked if a user is in another group with which it is redundant, and in rare cases may be revoked for other reasons, such as if a user games the system by making many trivial edits. That is the core policy defining the extended confirmed permission and is quite clear. It could be made more clear elsewhere, and PGAME should reflect EXTENDEDCONFIRMED and say "trivial" rather than "unconstructive" (since making many unconstructive edits is already against policy), but I don't accept the argument that any editor who has gamed the system was unaware of what they were doing; maybe they thought it wouldn't be noticed or that nobody would care, but rushing to get to 500 through minor edits is extremely obvious when it happens. I'm also concerned that setting too clear of a definition could just encourage editors to game the system - the problem with gaming the system isn't that the edits fall below some hypothetical standard; the problem is with the editor's intent. If an editor is reading EXTENDEDCONFIRMED and PGAME with an eye towards figuring out how they can become extended-confirmed as quickly as possible, they should stop doing that, and the guidelines should be written in a way that makes that clear rather than encouraging it by effectively providing a map to the fastest way to get the desired permission. --Aquillion (talk) 21:52, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  These aren't "trivial" edits, though, either. Gnoming isn't "trivial." "Trivial" means "of little value or importance." Adding a short description, fixing typos, adding wikilinks, fixing citation formatting... these gnoming edits are not trivial because they are not "of little value or importance." Levivich (talk) 22:05, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  The fact that "trivial edits" are linked to WP:PGAME suggests that the content in WP:PGAME is the intended interpretation of "trivial." Based on the way WP:EXTENDEDCONFIRMED looks, I doubt that the policy's author regarded technical edits such as adding 5-6 word descriptions as trivial.

  This same issue recurs on this noticeboard, indicating a significant problem. It is counterproductive to our goals of attracting good new editors to enhance content, rather than alienating them, and we should address it.

  If the consensus has shifted, we should indeed update the terms "trivial" and "unconstructive" to better align with the current understanding, perhaps using a term like "unsubstantial." Marokwitz (talk) 22:35, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

  This war is maybe the most significant event in the conflict since ECR was instituted at WP:ARBPIA3#500/30 almost 10 years ago. I don't have the stats but I wouldn't be surprised if these past few months have seen an all-time high for new editors in this topic area. I think that's why there is so much activity around ARBPIA ECR lately?

  PGAME was written with WP:XC in mind, not WP:ECR, and "gaming XC" isn't quite the same thing as (what we call) "gaming ECR". To take FoodforLLMs edits as an example, had FFLLM continued to add short descriptions after reaching XC, I don't think anyone would ever suggest they were "gaming XC."

  PGAME is written with an intent requirement ("to raise your user access level"), and that kind of makes sense in relation to XC, but it doesn't necessarily make as much as sense for ARBPIA ECR. The difference is that PGAME is about preventing bad faith acquisition of XC--"gaming XC"--whereas ARBPIA ECR is intended to prevent bad faith and good faith but inexperienced editing in ARBPIA. So, in my view, for ECR, it doesn't matter if the editor's intent is to raise their user access level to edit ARBPIA. As I said in another XC revocation appeal thread, we want editors to make edits to raise their user access level, but even good faith editors may not make the "right" kind of edits for ARBPIA ECR (even if they are the right kind of edits for XC). That is what I think the documentation is lacking.

  I am not in favor of a system, as SFR mentioned above, where admins gatekeep new editors in a topic area. I'm also not in favor of writing rules for admins to follow when it comes to XC revocation in ECR'd CTOPs--I think that's too restrictive and we're not going to do a good job of it. But I do think we should have an explanation about XC revocation in ECR'd CTOPs that does not suggest that XC is only revoked when there is "unproductive" or "trivial" or bad faith "to raise your user access level." I'm not sure exactly what the answer is, but it should be the answer to the question: if I registered an account today and I want to edit an ECR'd CTOP, what kind of edits should I make for the first month? And then an explanation that admins may revoke EC if the editors' edits aren't those kinds of edits. (I'm not sure if "those kinds" means "substantial" or "non-trivial" or what.) Levivich (talk) 02:11, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not quite buying your argument that WP:PGAME is about WP:XC and not WP:ECR. WP:ECR is a restriction that means only editors who are WP:XC can edit in that area, so PGAME'ing XC implicitly involves ECR. ArbCom wouldn't make decisions to apply ECR to a topic area if XC wasn't a thing. So saying that someone is PGAME'ing ECR is equivalent to saying that they PGAME'd XC with the intent of editing in an WP:ARBPIA or other WP:CTOP area. TarnishedPath^talk 02:57, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  Concerning this quote:

  had FFLLM continued to add short descriptions after reaching XC, I don't think anyone would ever suggest they were "gaming XC."
  — User:Levivich

  I continued adding short descriptions after receiving EC: see here, here, here, here and here among others. FoodforLLMs (talk) 20:54, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• It's chickenshit for us to say that editing certain articles is restricted to users who have 30 days of editing and 500 edits... then when they do that (at a significant investment of time and effort) we say "Nuh uh uh that doesn't count" and become upset and offended and throw a hissy fit and accuse them of some vague malfeasance. How are they supposed to know that the criteria we gave were a lie and there was a secret other set of requirements that we actually have and just don't tell them about for some reason? If we told them to do something stupid, that is our fault, and we should stop telling them that, and we should instead make a rule that says you have to apply for XC and then an administrator grants it. jp×g🗯️ 09:42, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  It's not a secret requirement, it's included in Wikipedia:User access levels. EC is also not meant to be a goal, but a rough benchmark to estimate experience. Perhaps a tweak at WP:30/500 could better reflect these points. CMD (talk) 10:15, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  It'sn't. That page says (emphasis mine):

  A registered editor becomes extendedconfirmed automatically when the account has existed for at least 30 days and has made at least 500 edits. This user access right allows editors to edit and create pages that are under extended confirmed protection. The English Wikipedia also enables editors to use the Content Translation tool to create articles and the INDEX template on user pages. This access is included and bundled in the bot and sysop (administrator) user groups. This group was primarily created to deal with specific arbitration remedies and community issues; the Arbitration Committee has since left community-use decisions up to the community.

  Extended confirmed is revoked if a user is in another group with which it is redundant, and in rare cases may be revoked for other reasons, such as if a user games the system by making many trivial edits. If extended confirmed is revoked, it may be re-granted at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Extended confirmed. That page may also be used to request early grants of the group, but requests are almost never accepted except for legitimate alternate accounts of users who are extended confirmed on other accounts.

  What is "trivial edits" supposed to mean, in a way that is clear to a newly registered user? For example, adding and removing a period to your user page 500 times adds no content to the encyclopedia. But why would adding short descriptions to articles (a maintenance task which requires you to understand how templates work, as well as reading each article to summarize it accurately) be "trivial"? If we mean "hang out on the dramaboards", then we should say "hang out on the dramaboards". If we mean "write a GA", then we should say "write a GA". But what we shouldn't do is waffle around saying "well I dunno they have to be, like, uh, important and whatever" and then decide after the fact whether we think someone's contributions show adequate devotion to the Project.

  I'll say for the record that I have made 109862 edits, and if I was told that an article was "30/110362 protected", you bet your patootie I would be queuing up a few AWB runs. jp×g🗯️ 20:18, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  In the above green text, the words games the system by making many trivial edits link to a policy defining gaming as making "unconstructive edits." Any other interpretation is twisting our policy. And your writing style is very funny; we need more of that on Wikipedia. Marokwitz (talk) 20:41, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  I suppose it may be a cultural difference then, as I would not be queuing AWB runs to hit something, especially when being asked not to treat something as a game. The issue is not "devotion", but as I mentioned a rough benchmark of experience. CMD (talk) 07:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  Creating a search function to locate 500 articles without short descriptions and then editing those article's short descriptions only is not my idea of significant time and effort in order to reach WP:XC. TarnishedPath^talk 10:34, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  Okay, do you want to open an RfC to change WP:30/500 to WP:30/500/TarnishedPath's idea of significant time and effort? jp×g🗯️ 20:12, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  I tend to disagree as this wasn't an easy work, if you'd like to benchmark whether this is significant time and effort, I think you should try adding 100 such descriptions. In my opinion you will find this a non-trivial effort FoodforLLMs (talk) 21:02, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  Which of our colleagues became upset and offended and threw a hissy fit and accused someone of some vague malfeasance? If the answer is "no one," seems like your argument is a straw man, and straw man arguments are bullshit, which is worse than chickenshit. Saying it's chickenshit to accuse others of vague malfeasance while simultaneously accusing others of vague malfeasance is not only chickenshit bullshit, but also hypocritical, and hippo shit is worse than chickenshit or bullshit: hippos spray their shit around indiscriminately, and indiscriminate shit spraying does make people upset and offended and throw a hissy fit, which is not as bad as a hippo shit. Levivich (talk) 18:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  Well, here we have a big AN thread about someone's user permissions being sua sponte removed by administrators for "gaming the system". I realize that Wikipedia uses its own strange patois in which insults are officially supposed to not be insulting (i.e. calling someone "unimportant" is a PA but calling them "non-notable" isn't; "incompetent" is but "lacks COMPETENCE", with the hyperlink, isn't). However, to normal human beings, calling their work "trivial" and accusing them of "gaming the system" is generally seen as a rather direct insult. jp×g🗯️ 19:47, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  Which of our colleagues became upset and offended and threw a hissy fit and accused someone of some vague malfeasance? Because "direct insult" doesn't mean the same as any of the words you used, although "direct insult" does describe the words you used. Levivich (talk) 19:50, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  We, the English Wikipedia, the collaborative project on whose behalf administrators speak when they take actions against users, acted, as a collective entity, in a manner commensurate with the manner that an individual person who was assmad could be expected to act. If a person acted the way that our policies acted, regardless of the fact that indeed it may have been the case that no individual person in the course of enacting such policies was assmad, we would say that this person was having a conniption, or pissing and moaning, et cetera. As the old image macro goes: "none of us is as dumb as all of us". jp×g🗯️ 20:37, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  There's an argument somewhere in here that XC is granted when someone has demonstrated they're a genuine value-add, which 500 gnomings would indicate in a way that 500 whitespace twiddles would indicate in the opposite direction.

  The problem is that when people rush to meet the technical minima, sure they've developed competencies in some templates or style guidelines or something, but there's no actual experience with the core content policies editors working in CTOPS need to be familiar with in order not to edit disruptively, like due weight, balance, what constitutes a reliable source, and in this case, what WP:OR means.

  I'm definitely on team "update PGAME", although after the last thread I'm significantly less certain where consensus is on what constitutes gaming permission levels, so I'd prefer a discussion to a bold edit. Folly Mox (talk) 13:19, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  Somewhere in this long thread someone should mention Goodhart's law and the ultimate futility of any explicit restriction on editing in WP:PIA while Israel is waging war on Gaza. (No I don't have anything constructive to add, why do you ask?) --JBL (talk) 19:28, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• This was not an appropriate removal and the permission should be restored. This was a long way off from permission gaming: FoodforLLMs' account was old enough and made enough clearly constructive edits to be granted the permission. The invented qualification that these edits were "trivial" is irrelevant: the guideline uses the word "unconstructive" deliberately, meaning edits which do not improve the project in any way. Adding a short description may be trivial but it is not unconstructive: the relevant guideline advises three times in plain language that all articles should include them: "All mainspace articles should have a short description", "Ideally, each page should have its own purpose-written short description", and "All articles should have a short description", all direct quotes from the guideline. If FoodforLLMs added close to 500 of them, that's more than most of us ever will. And people seem to keep needing reminding that assume good faith is a policy. EC is granted automatically because it is not intended for gatekeeping; the founding principle is "anyone can edit", not "anyone can edit upon successful passing of a secret examination of their competence by a self-appointed preemptive review committee". Permissions should only ever be removed for clear misconduct, not because a handful of editors don't like the kinds of edits that were made. If FoodforLLMs' editing in an ARBECR-covered topic are problematic, file an enforcement request. If you have evidence that they're a sock, file an investigation. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:02, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• This is getting, frankly, a little ridiculous. Short descriptions are pretty useful, in my view at least, and people should not have to rewrite an entire article in every edit for fear of being accused of violating WP:GAMING. I don't think the permission removal was correct, at all, and really now, has something happened to assuming good faith? This is not an editor adding and then removing a period from an article 500 times. This is not an editor adding nowiki comments to articles 500 times. Etcetera and so forth, but the edits made were legitimate, constructive, and helped the encyclopedia, no matter how small or large they might have been. If they cannot contribute constructively to CTOPS areas, then block them, but the revocation of extended confirmed seems to be happening for broader and broader cases lately, and it sets a dangerous precedent. On a different note, though, it might be best to update PGAME with a better, and much clearer definition of what is actually gaming, and what isn't. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 16:08, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• I have to agree with JPxG, EggRoll97 and others here. It would be one thing if FoodforLLMs was adding and then deleting short descriptions and then reverting and re-reverting those edits until reaching 500 edits. But it seems like FoodforLLMs added genuine short descriptions, which we presumably want added to our articles. If we want short descriptions included in our articles, then adding them is not gaming the system. If we want the 500 article threshold to exclude additions of short descriptions then we should amend the requirements to say so. Rlendog (talk) 17:25, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I wonder if the above three editors have actually looked at the short descriptions that were added? When I reviewed them they all looked the same, hundreds of "rail station in [location]" that were added very quickly. These could have been added by a bot. Did my review miss hundreds of edits that did not fit this cookie cutter pattern? I agree they're not "trivial" or "unconstructive," but what is the functional difference between an editor with 0 edits and an editor with 500 of basically-the-same, bot-like edits? Levivich (talk) 17:35, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Sure, it maybe could've been done by a bot (in a narrow way? Bots don't identify context or parse text, so it wouldn't work in all cases), but just because something could have been done by a bot, does not mean the edit itself wasn't helpful, and you even agree with this. The difference, though, is that the user with 500 edits, even if the edits could have been done by a bot, is still interacting with the encyclopedia, improving it, and gaining experience. Revoke extended confirmed from an editor who adds and removes a bunch of periods, or commas, or whatever else, to get to 500 edits, and I don't think anyone is really objecting. But this editor is not doing that, which is why myself and others are objecting to this removal, because the removal did not prevent harm to the encyclopedia, and because the editor made 500 edits in good faith, and should therefore be given the benefit of the doubt as to the intent of their contributions, not accused of gaming for extended confirmed. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 18:12, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with everything you've written here, but what is the point of WP:ARBECR if a new editor can make 500 edits like these (adding "rail station in [location]"), and then edit ARBPIA articles? Like what is the functional difference--for purposes of ARBECR--between an editor who has 0 edits and an editor who has 500 edits like these? (I'm not sure how to characterize "like these": not necessarily trivial or unconstructive, but rapid, repeated, "cookie-cutter", "bot-like", etc.). Edits "like these" don't build experience, and they would be trivially-easy for an actual sock to make. It seems like if we're going to "count" edits "like these," then we should just repeal ARBECR. Levivich (talk) 19:46, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Maybe the ARBECR remedy should be a TBAN instead of XC revocation, though that idea that strikes me as even more hostile than "good faith" XC revocation. Levivich (talk) 19:52, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

The difference is that they did a thing that improved Wikipedia, and then improved it again 499 times. The guidelines do refer to "trivial" (Wiktionary: of little significance or value) or "unconstructive" (Wiktionary: not serving a useful purpose); they do not refer to edits of some arbitrary thresholds of substance or diversity, nor to "plainly constructive edits that Levivich does not personally approve of". There is a very narrow range of possible short descriptions for most topics - if they had written much different from "rail station in [location]" in those descriptions they likely would have been reverted, and 500 times would easily see them appealing a vandalism block instead. There are thousands of mundane but desired tasks like this that need a human to take the time to do, and I applaud the effort. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:03, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

"plainly constructive edits that Levivich does not personally approve of" is unfair; there is absolutely no basis in anything I've written here for suggesting I personally don't approve of FFLLM's or anyone else's edits. In fact, to the contrary, I have, multiple times in this very discussion, defended these edits as not unconstructive (which means I think they're constructive), and not trivial (which means I think they're substantial). So a fairer characterization would be "edits that Levivich approves of." Levivich (talk) 19:49, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Well then apologies for mischaracterizing, but I'm struggling to make sense of your argument. If you agree that the edits were neither trivial nor unconstructive, which you also seem to agree are the definitions in the guidelines for gaming the system and revocation of the userright, then how is the revocation justified? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:58, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Not for nuthin' but in this thread, here is where I explained why I endorsed the removal, here is where I suggested a solution to the problem of PGAME-v-ARBECR, here is a mini-essay expanding on it, here is where I asked a clarifying question to editors who didn't address the ARBECR angle of it, and here is where I (just now) expanded on that. I think I've really thoroughly explained why I think revocation in these situations is justified, what I think the fundamental problem is, and how I think it can be solved. Now I feel like aside from one shitty joke I'm just bludgeoning. Levivich (talk) 20:03, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

The purposes of extended-confirmation and EC-protection are twofold: primarily abuse mitigation (significantly increasing the effort required to create sockpuppet accounts in areas plagued by frequent sockpuppetry), and secondarily editor retention (to avoid the problem of interested new editors jumping into highly contentious topics and being driven away from the project). These have never been intended as a probationary period, nor to force editors to build any specific experience nor demonstrate any particular competence before we grant them access, and I think you will find that suggesting to create such a process would be soundly rejected by the community. At any rate that is a separate discussion: we're discussing whether Ingenuity's removal of FoodforLLMs' extendedconfirmed userright was appropriate given the processes and guidelines which currently exist, not ones we would like to invent. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:26, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

IMO if you already agree they're not trivial or unconstructive edits, that completely undermines your argument. The intent of WP:PGAME is to prevent people from adding and removing a period to get XC permission. WikiGnoming is a perfectly valid way to get XC permission, which is not supposed to be a high bar. Loki (talk) 19:45, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't undermine my argument because my argument is about nontrivial and constructive edits, specifically. My argument is that this editor did not violate PGAME. (Christ does nobody read anything I write? I wrote a frickin' essay about the inconsistency between PGAME v. ARBECR above. Why are multiple editors ascribing to me that I think PGAME was violated by FFLLM when I've said the opposite a bunch of times??) Levivich (talk) 19:55, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

If this editor didn't violate PGAME, then they have achieved the criteria for XC and therefore can edit ARBECR. There's no inconsistency in the text of any of these policies.

It's very possible that ARBECR doesn't accomplish the goal it's supposed to, but that's not this editor's fault. That's ArbCom's fault. What it actually is is very clear, aligns perfectly well with the other related policies, and unambiguously this editor was not gaming that restriction and should qualify for it. Loki (talk) 22:23, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I wonder if the above three editors have actually looked at the short descriptions that were added? When I reviewed them they all looked the same, hundreds of "rail station in [location]" that were added very quickly. These could have been added by a bot.
— User:Levivich

I went over infobox station templates, which also included stations which are not railway stations such as bus stations, metro stations, monorail stations and former stations.

This meant there was enough variance that reading the article was required.

Also, for the location itself, there were variations as in some articles it was more logical to mention a major city, other times a state, and at times only the country. FoodforLLMs (talk) 22:02, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

• Agreed with JPxG. It's only gaming to make unconstructive edits. These were not unconstructive edits, just small ones. WikiGnoming is a perfectly valid way to get XC permission. Loki (talk) 19:40, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• FWIW I find the removal of permissions to be a little concerning and possibly unjustified A good portion of this user's edits are tagged with "Newcomer Tasks. They literally performed edits that are suggested by our Mediawiki software to new users. How are we justifying punishing someone for doing what the system asks them to do? Zaathras (talk) 00:13, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  What portion? Levivich (talk) 00:27, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  Well, shot in the dark here, but probably the portion of User contributions for FoodforLLMs where one does a find-in-page for the words "Newcomer task". Zaathras (talk) 02:16, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  I was thinking the admin probably didn't pull XC for the ~80 newcomer tasks edits, but probably because of the 400-500 other edits. Levivich (talk) 02:30, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  There's a misconception here that FoodforLLMs' entire contribution history up to their 500th edit is nothing but running their script to fill in short descriptions, but that's stretching the truth. Of their first 500 edits, 432 added short descriptions (going by edit summaries), and I'd say there are about a dozen that were manual and/or included other edits (like this one) before they started finding them by script. And there is one deleted edit which was also a short description. So there are about 420 that were script-assisted but manually edited, and several of those also included other improvements (e.g. [2], [3]). Before starting with the short descriptions they made other minor improvements, improved the tone and NPOV of several articles on a variety of topics, and de-spammed a few (e.g. [4], [5], [6]). In that time they also ventured into ARBPIA particularly at the current events portal, but besides technically breaking ARBECR their edits were not problematic. Of their subsequent 156 (as of now) edits, 13 are short descriptions and many more are the same variety of gnomish edits. They started the Wikipedia Adventure on their 509th edit and at an age of 48 days, if my math is correct. The first EC-protected page they edited was Axis of Resistance, their 519th edit and with an age of 62 days. If this were intentional permission gaming I would expect to see editing a protected page much closer to 500 edits and 30 days, but FoodforLLMs continued gnoming for a whole month after passing the threshold. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:05, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

• I say that we have spent a significant amount of time on a single user here that it has stopped making sense. Why can't we just regrant EC and do stuff when actual disruption has occurred? (and the meta discussion about PGAME and ARBECR stuff can continue elsewhere) 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 13:11, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• @Ingenuity: pinging since it's been a few days and you might not be checking here, and also since it seems that FoodforLLMs didn't notify you. Whatever way you read the discussion above there is either rough consensus that your removal of FoodforLLMs' extendedconfirmed permission was not appropriate, or no consensus that it was. Will you restore the permission? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:44, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  I've restored the permission now. Thanks for the notice. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 14:54, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Closure request for "Inside Voices / Outside Voices"

I posted this before, but it got archived. Per my inquiry at WP:HD, I am requesting a procedural close or snowball close for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Inside Voices / Outside Voices (2nd nomination). --Jax 0677 (talk) 22:56, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

@Jax 0677 I have SNOW closed it, if anybody has problems with my close feel free to revert and we can discuss. Thanks, Seawolf35 ^T--C 07:37, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed gained largely through ECR violations

Chavmen (talk · contribs) recently gained extended-confirmed permissions, but looking through their history it appears that a large portion of their earlier edits were ECR violations. I don't have the time right now to handle this, so I'm leaving a note here. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:06, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi @ScottishFinnishRadish, what's an ECR violation? And which earlier edits? I'm not really sure what this is about so if anyone can explain that would be great. Chavmen (talk) 14:44, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) I'm surprised you're asking what an WP:ECR violation is because you seem to have understood it on Nov 30 and also on Dec 26? Also a question for admins: why didn't this creation trigger edit filter 1276? Levivich (talk) 15:47, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

It looks like the filter was using the "page_id" variable to check if the article was just created, which according to the documentation is unreliable. I've switched it so it uses the "page_age" variable instead, which should hopefully fix it. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 15:54, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

More likely that the page was created in userspace and then moved to mainspace, while the filter only checks for new creations in the mainspace. DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 17:05, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh yeah, that would make sense. I've edited the filter so it should match pages moved into mainspace as well. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 17:30, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately there's no way to access the wikitext during a page move. I've modified the filter to check the new title, which is the best we can do. (Also, there's nothing wrong with page_id anymore; WP:EFD is just really out of date.) Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:11, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with all the Wiki lingo, so you mean EC protected?

When I knew the page was EC protected I always put in edit requests? Isn't that how things are done? I didn't think this was unreasonable or against any rules.

The edits mentioned above, I was involved in prior to any EC protection on the page and when I noticed the protection was placed on the page I left the page and didn't edit it further. You can see that looking back at when the tag was placed.

I also created a page about an organisation to do with Israel which I didn't think controversial. I've edited several other organisations in the same area that weren't EC protected - NGOs etc.

I also requested EC protection on several pages (Bassem Eid, UN Women for example) that were previously vandalised and then I did not edit them.

This feels like a technicality that isn't very clear and I can't see how my edits were negative in anyway or controversial. Chavmen (talk) 23:03, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorting this, stand by. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 22:51, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi Tamzin,

Just to clarify, if a page doesn't have the EC protection tag but still falls under an Israel/Arab/Palestinian topic I shouldn't have edited it?

For instance, pages like LGBT rights in Israel, notable people pages Israeli Arab etc, NGOs, history pages.

Because majority of my edits were in non-EC protected pages.

The claim is that the majority of my edits were in EC pages which I don't see how that's possible since I had stayed away from them or put in edit requests.

Shall I count them manually to demonstrate? Chavmen (talk) 23:27, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, not all pages that fall under the ARBECR are extended-confirmed protected on a technical level. Non-extendedconfirmed editors are expected to abide by the ARBECR on all pages. As I've written in your user rights log, when you hit 1,000 edits you may re-apply for extendedconfirmed to me or at WP:PERM/EC. It seems you're interested in LGBTQ topics, so if you're looking for things to edit not about the Arab-Israeli conflict, there's no shortage of LGBTQ articles to work on. I started a vague outline of Draft:Judaism and LGBT topics a while ago, if you're interested.

Also, since Indigenous Coalition for Israel has been PRODded and de-PRODded, but hasn't been substantively edited by EC editors, I won't ECR-delete it, but I'll split the difference by draftifying and EC-move-protecting it. Any EC editor willing to take responsibility for its contents can move it back. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 23:48, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi Tamzin,

I do feel like this is an unfair sanction placed on me for editing in good faith, with constructive edits and with as much neutrality as possible - given everyone has their own opinions (which I openly admit) and try to keep them out of Wikipedia and use sources correctly and justly.

I have had a long think about this and took the time to go through my 555 edits and make some pertinent notes in order to appeal the sanction, or at the very least have it reduced to a fair number seeing as over 400 edits were on non-EC protected pages and I received no warning from any editors regarding my edits on these pages.

I know time is precious so I will try to keep this simple and to the point.

1) There are a minimum of 100 edits which are all newcomer tasks and me getting used to the platform. I created my account on 18 October and started editing on 1 November after taking time to read WP:MOS and standards.

2) I also initially edited articles on Thermobaric Weapon and Bearing Witness (film). On the page Thermobaric Weapon, I took various issues to the Talk page with another non-EC editor and one EC editor, and was not told that this was not allowed due to restrictions. Both pages were NOT EC protected when I was editing it - hence my understanding that if the page is NOT tagged with EC protection, any editor can edit it (including IP users which I have seen done).

3) After this I made edits on civil marriage in Israel, Maghrebi Jews, Toshavim, Austerity in Israel, The Jerusalem Post, Negev Bedouin, LGBT rights in Israel, Pride House Beersheba and made translations for pages on Israel (I am working on Haya Shenhav) and was never told specifically that I needed to be EC for any of these edits. Further, no edit was controversial or flagged for any reason. I also expanded this non-EC protected stub [7] with no comment from any EC editors that I couldn't.

4) I edited pages on Bassem Eid, Yoseph Hadadd, Sima Sami Bahous, Sara Jama and UN Women and improved the pages by adding neutrality and sources as they were coming up in the news a lot. In fact, I recall making 20-30 edits on one page purely based on an editor misquoting and misrepresenting sources, and I then asked to have the page EC protected and didn't edit it anymore [8]. This demonstrates my understanding that if the EC protection is NOT on the page, I am free to edit.

The UN Women page was particularly vulnerable to a POV IP user which I spent several days correcting the poor sources used and making the criticism section more neutral than it was to start, see here [9] [10]. The user also accused me of being a "sockpuppet" even when I am obviously not and the user was making the page heavily POV.

5) I also expanded this article [11] with again no editor commenting that I couldn't. I also think the article is better for it as are the various articles I edited in the area. I also asked for EC protection on this page and then didn't edit it.

6) Whenever I did encounter a page that was EC protected and needed an edit that I thought valid, I followed procedure and did a non-EC edit request. When the conversation was going in circles I followed WP:LETITGO and left the page and actually didn't return when I hit the 501 edits.

7) Even here, another example of a non-EC protected page where I queried an edit in the Talk page and was not told I shouldn't. I also think it shows an example of taking things to talk first, before editing because I know these areas can be sensitive.

8) Final point, I created an article and several editors questioned the notability but none mentioned anything about an EC violation (re the ICFI article).

TLDR: My edits are constructive, thoughtful, and non-combative. I was unaware of what is referred to as an ECR violation and was not warned as such over the last three months in any of my edits. Hence, why I find it a shame now that I am being reprimanded for this without a warning first.

I wanted to keep my opinions to myself, but I am allowing myself one, I am not here to break rules but if these technical rules were not mentioned to me at any point by more senior editors - then shouldn't a warning be issued first? I do feel like this process will drive away good editors (which I consider myself to be, in my free time, between work and kids). So I appeal to your good faith and of the other admins here.

Best, Chavmen.

P.S. I would love to work on the page you drafted. Thanks for the invite. Chavmen (talk) 03:29, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• I must admit that until relatively recently, I didn't understand that editing a page that isn't formally locked is still a violation. This is not at all obvious.
• The sanction of resetting the counter to 0 and imposing a 1000-edit goal, as if the user has done nothing and needs to start from scratch, despite the significant constructive work demonstrated by Chavmen, appears punitive, excessive, and demotivating. @Tamzin, I urge you to reconsider this. The rationale for EC protection is to deter edit-warriors and sockpuppets, which Chavmen does not seem to be, based on their edit history.
• I would like also to point to different treatment of @IOHANNVSVERVS, who continues to edit with no sanction, and @DMH43, who had EC rights revoked (for gaming) but then restored after 576 mainspace edits, without resetting the counter to 0. Marokwitz (talk) 07:11, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  My rough count, based on a read through contribs and XTools, was 40ish non-ECR-violating comments, which I rounded up to 53 to allow for an even 1,000 edit count as a target. Looking again at XTools, I think I undercounted non-mainspace. Let's call 900 the target. Still rounding up a bit on the number of non-violations, I think, but I like round numbers. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 07:41, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  • I think this is inaccurate, I looked at XTools now and personally counted 151 non-violating edits in the article space alone, not including talk and other spaces. The number of EC-related edits broadly construed was 261, so I propse that Chavmen should do another 261 edits to regain EC, for a total of 761 - for your consideration. Marokwitz (talk) 12:42, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

    Okay, let's see. Pride House, sure. Some aspects of Negev Bedouin don't fall under PIA, but these all do. Ditto these edits to Maghrebi Jews. Jay Ruderman is a mixed bag; I guess one could count the 4 edits on the 7th and 8th as non-PIA but at this point we're really nitpicking. Shenhav, sure. Alfred Ngaro, 7 out of 9 are fine. LGBT rights in Israel are heavily politicized within the Arab–Israeli conflict, as I'm sure you know, and Chavmen's edits largely concern that politicization. And I'm going to stop here because there's no way the remaining pages are going to get us to 139, and non-mainspace edits aren't going to bridge the gap either. I stand by 900 as a target. And look, that's not a binding admin determination. That's my recommendation as removing admin. This isn't an AE action; any other admin is welcome to restore EC before 900 edits if they feel Chavmen has done the necessary work. (And, conversely, an admin could decline restoring at 900 if they feel she hasn't.) But for me at least, consider this a final answer. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 18:39, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Violating mainspace edits, broadly construed - total 261

Edit Count	Page Title
39	Indigenous Coalition for Israel
27	Bassem Eid
20	UN Women
18	Yoseph Haddad
16	Nili (unit)
15	2023 Israel–Hamas war
11	Bearing Witness (2023 film)
10	Within Our Lifetime
10	Thermobaric weapon
9	Sima Sami Bahous
8	Nuclear program of Iran
8	Road to Recovery (charity) - borderline
7	Sarah Jama
6	Battles of Latrun (1948)
4	Use of human shields by Hamas
3	Ma'na an-Nakba
3	Haim Hanegbi - borderline
2	2023 Israel–Hamas war hostage crisis

Non-Violating Edits

Edit Count	Page Title
14	The Pride House in Beersheba
11	Negev Bedouin
10	Maghrebi Jews
10	Jay Ruderman
9	Haya Shenhav
9	Alfred Ngaro
7	LGBT rights in Israel
7	Ozzy Zoltak
6	Tamasi
5	Toshavim
5	Austerity in Israel
5	Bandli Wildlife Sanctuary
5	Bauhinia Party
4	Rashi School
4	Recognition of civil marriage in Israel
4	Udi Ashash
3	Hubbard Foods
3	Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies, Rangsit University
3	Warren Mundine
3	Radio Dum Dum
2	Kenmore State High School
2	Visy
2	Qatawi family
2	CrowdJustice
2	Israelites
2	Yehuda Karni
2	Ipswich, Queensland
2	Trinità dei Monti (think tank)
2	Jumping position
2	The Jerusalem Post
2	Mater Group
2	NRMA

Consistent response to gaining ECP through ECR violations

It seems how to respond to this various considerably; some editors, like IOHANNVSVERVS and Osps7 (who I raised a few years ago), are allowed to keep ECP, while others like DMH43 and Chavmen have it removed.

I think it would both be possible and beneficial to determine a consistent response to this; when an editor is otherwise believed to be acting in good faith should ECP be revoked or allowed to stand?

This would both ensure equity in a case where equity is possible, and it would let editors know whether they should or should not bring these incidents to admins attention - I note that I've seen several other examples, on both sides, that I haven't raised because I assumed it was seen as a non-issue and fait accompli. BilledMammal (talk) 07:48, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Related to this, I went through editors who have edited 2023 Israel-Hamas war and have less than 1000 edits, and found the following:

1. FoodforLLMs - Possibly gaming. 653 edits, first 500 are primarily rapid-fire adding short descriptions.
2. Onesgje9g334 - Gaming. 663 edits, first 500 are primarily adding and removing one letter from sentences in an article in the draft space. I think the purpose was to be able to edit articles related to the Russian-Ukrainian war rather than the Israel-Hamas war, but the result is the same.
3. Ghsuturi - Possibly gaming. 664 edits, first 500 are primarily rapid-fire adding categories.
4. M3ATH - 256 edits. Hasn't earned ECP yet, but well on their way with edits to articles that should be under ECR.

I didn't find any that were both not banned and had earned ECP through editing ECR pages, but I felt these still warranted mentioning somewhere. BilledMammal (talk) 09:04, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Reviewing other pages, I found:

1. President Loki - Possibly gaming. 599 edits, first 500 edits are primarily rapid-fire adding wikilinks, as well as a few edits to pages that should be under ECR.
2. Ronash - Possibly gaming. 599 edits, first 500 edits are primarily rapid-fire adding short descriptions, as well as a few edits to pages that should be under ECR.

BilledMammal (talk) 09:11, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

User:Bishonen removed ECP from President Loki on the 21st, no edits since. Ronash stopped editing in October, I've removed ECP just in case. Both were obvious. I'm wondering if both just abandoned their accounts and, who knows? Doug Weller talk 13:32, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, there should be a consistent response. Remove it and have them do 500 normal edits. That will hopefully learn how to edit and it is no big deal to have to do 500 more edits elsewhere. Doug Weller talk 13:34, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The goal of ECP is to limit articles to users who have reasonably familiarized themselves with Wikipedia's norms, and who have put in enough effort on the current account that it's much less likely for a sock to have done so. My standard for removing EC is

1. where the user's course of edits does not show that level of effort and familiarization and
2. where it appears that this is due to a deliberate pursuit of EC status

The latter can be inferred by speed and by whether they dive right into ECP'd/ECR'd areas. There might be a new user who just loves copy-editing or updating box office figures, and hits 30/500 without learning much of how to edit. But they typically won't have done that in one rapid series of edits, and typically won't start arguing about body counts in Gaza on edit #501. Conversely, if a user's intent is clearly to edit about ECP/ECR areas, but they put in their time and make 500 meaningful edits (or, well, 500 edits of which a reasonable proportion are meaningful; everyone makes some number of typo fixes and vandal reverts), they should not have ECP revoked. They may be at risk of being declared tendentious, but they haven't gamed anything.

As to restoration, we should probably settle on what I've done above (crediting a rough estimate of the number of non-violating edits, subtracting that from 500, and saying "talk to me/PERM after that many edits"), or just making it a flat 500. I have a slight preference for the former, but only a slight one. Although there should be leeway for some discretion in either direction, e.g. someone who hits the magic number but has also been blocked for an ECRvio in that time might still be denied, and someone might get an early grant if they showed exemplary behavior and did some really high-quality content work. (In a non-ECR context, we had one editor recently get a GA before hitting EC, so anything is possible.) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 18:57, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Just a comment regarding @Levivich's comments above RE: not knowing about EC violations. The two examples brought up here [12] and here [13] actually show that I didn't know I was doing anything wrong:

In 1) I asked for a non-EC edit request on a protected page and in 2) I had started my comments before the page was actually placed under protection and then noticed several comments later and left. These examples prove my point that I didn't know I was doing anything wrong in editing pages with non-EC protection because as soon as they became EC protected, I closed the talk and left or asked for an edit request (this also occurred on the Thermobaric Weapon page BTW).

I also want to point out here, on a talk page with several (I counted 6 so far) non-EC editors, none are told that they can't comment when the page is protected and related to ARBPIA. In fact, @Levivich didn't mention it then and is involved in this talk.

So the rules are not being made clear and this is a shame, because it seems that this is only placed on me now because I hit EC but other editors such as in this talk page are not warned.

As I worked hard and in good faith, it is disappointing seeing as it just seems like different rules apply at different times.

Thanks @Tamzin for collating that list - beyond my tech skills - some of those edits were made after 500 - Battle of Latrun, Use of human shields by Hamas, 2023 Israel-Hamas War hostage crisis totaling 12 edits which I would have had no idea violated anything seeing as I was EC at the time. I also didn't "jump" to these articles and believe I edited the Road to Recovery page (8 edits) first which you have placed as borderline. Anyway, that would be a total of 20 edits after EC status in this area reducing the 261 so-called "violating" edits to 241.

Again though, it's not the number I care about to be perfectly honest, it's the fact these rules seem to apply now that I have made EC, with no warning, and still as per my example, in countless other articles and talk pages non-EC editors are not warned or reprimanded. Chavmen (talk) 00:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

P.S. Thanks for everyone's input, it has been fun to learn about these things nevertheless :) Chavmen (talk) 00:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Just to clarify - The tables are not signed , but I posted them, not Tamzin... Sorry for being unclear Marokwitz (talk) 06:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• The consistent response should be a topic ban from whatever protected topic they tried to game the system to edit. Such a topic ban should of course be open to negotiation in the future when the editor becomes genuinely established. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:26, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  Hi @Horse Eye's Back, is this comment pertaining to me? Or to other user comments?

  As I stated, there was no "gaming" on my part. As far as I was aware I wasn't violating any rules with my edits and no editor nor admin told me otherwise for a full two months of editing. There were no EC restriction tags on pages I edited when I was under 500 edits. I made two non-EC edit requests in total before this time as per the rules.

  I still don't see how this qualifies for violating any rules when this page here has several non-EC editors not being reprimanded for being involved in discussions on ARBPIA topics (several senior editors are involved in these discussions - User:Levivich and User:Dimadick).

  Also here, this user made changes to an ARBPIA related section (which was not EC protected at the time) with no warning or reprimand after. I had been watching this page previously and commented on the Talk at 11:10, 18 December 2023 (UTC) that several users shouldn't edit-war here and to discuss instead. This then brought the eyes of other senior editors who then EC protected the page at 20:27, 18 December 2023 (UTC) and I subsequently left the discussion when I noticed.

  Even when I created an article on an Israel related organization, no editor warned or reprimanded me, see talk, and as far as I was aware the articles that were EC protected were the only ones out of bounds. Hence if you look at this table by Markowitz (thanks) you can see that only 3 of the articles are EC protected and I edited them after I reached 500 edits as per the rules.

  To illustrate the double standard a little more, just see this section above. User:DMH43 edited ARBPIA related articles that were not EC protected for the majority of their edits pre EC status, then when they hit their 500 edits solely edited ARBPIA topics. DMH43 appealed, regained their EC status, and continues to edit, yet I am reprimanded far harsher and have not made controversial edits nor been in edit wars.

  To me, it seems that the rules pertain sometimes but not all the time and not to everyone.

  I can't say that I am not disappointed. The rules are either blanket rules for everyone and are told to everyone all the time, or there are no rules. Chavmen (talk) 10:51, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  It was a response to BilledMammal and I would only support it going forwards, I would not expect it to be retroactively applied to you or any other account. IMO if the effect is the same as gaming we should treat it the same. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 11:04, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• I do think that it's also worth noting the extensive canvassing in the topic area (and I'm sure that the one reported there isn't the only incident, just the only one we've gotten proof for.) The 500/30 restriction is an important backstop against that - in fact, my recollection is that that was one of the main things it was originally created for - and is likely the main reason that that hasn't been worse. That doesn't mean every editor who gamed the system was canvassed, of course, but it's a serious enough problem that I'm of the opinion that it should be enforced rigorously. I do like the idea of a topic ban from the area they seemed to have wanted to game the system to get access to, if it's obvious - I think it's reasonable to interpret 500/30 gaming as a sign that an editor is at a high risk for WP:TEND issues, especially if they immediately become a WP:SPA after they have access to the desired area (which the ones who get reported generally do.) After all, a major sign of tendentious editing is a willingness to game the system; if an editor games the system to gain access to a particular topic area and has a clearly discernible POV (which, in my experience, has been true for basically every editor where this has come up), I think it's reasonable to presume that they'll continue to game the system in other ways in the service of that POV once they start editing, which amounts to a tendentious intent. To me, the easiest way to resolve that concern isn't "do X edits elsewhere", it's "spend a while editing meaningfully enough in other topic areas that we can be sure they're not just going to leap straight into a 500/30 WP:CTOP area and start gaming policy in the service of a POV the same way they gamed the 500/30 restriction." The really big problem with gaming the 500/30 restriction ultimately isn't that it undermines the 500/30 restriction (though that's bad), the real problem is that someone who games this restriction is almost always, by definition, an SPA with strong feelings about a particular topic area, who has also devoted most of their first edits to demonstrating their willingness to game policy. --Aquillion (talk) 11:31, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Implementing a consistent response

It appears there is a desire for a consistent response; while it isn't clear what form that should take going forwards, going backwards it seems agreed that it should involve removing ECP from editors. I see that most of the editors I listed have been addressed, leaving only Onesgje9g334, IOHANNVSVERVS, and Osps7; see below for an assessment of their current edits.

For IOHANNVSVERVS and Osps7, I would support removing their ECP, with it not to be restored before they reach 900 and 1200 edits respectively. For Onesgje9g334, I would support an indefinite block that may be lifted by any administrator; their gaming is far too blatant and of no benefit to the encyclopedia (for example, deleting the word "military" letter by letter; removing "y", removing "r", removing "a", etc), and so I feel they should have to explain that gaming before they are allowed to continue editing.

Violations for each of the named editors
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
List of violations by Onesgje9g334; note that I haven't reviewed articles where they only made one edit. Article Number of Edits (Total: 546) Draft:Hv6zfzuvu 469 2023_Israel–Hamas_war 32 Yonatan_Steinberg 11 Operation_Prosperity_Guardian 7 Template:Israeli-Palestinian_conflict_detailed_map 6 Artsakh_Defence_Army 4 List_of_equipment_of_the_Russian_Ground_Forces 4 List_of_active_Russian_Navy_ships 3 Andriivka,_Bakhmut_Raion,_Donetsk_Oblast 2 Klishchiivka 2 AS-90 2 110th_Mechanized_Brigade_(Ukraine) 2 List_of_Russian_generals_killed_during_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine 2 List of violations by IOHANNVSVERVS; note that I haven't reviewed articles where they only made one edit; instead, I've extrapolated from the articles where they made more than one edit to produce the figure above. Article Number of Edits (Total: 257) Al-Maghazi_refugee_camp_airstrikes 19 Kamal_Adwan_Hospital_siege 16 Deir_Yassin_massacre 13 Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre 12 Battle_of_Haifa_(1948) 11 State-sponsored_terrorism 11 Gaza_Health_Ministry 11 Indonesia_Hospital 11 Al-Shifa_ambulance_airstrike 10 1948_Arab–Israeli_War 9 Yigal_Allon 9 2023_Israel–Hamas_war 7 Ongoing_Nakba 7 Nakba_denial 7 Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Motions 6 List_of_hospitals_in_Indonesia 5 Yosef_Weitz 5 Israel_and_state-sponsored_terrorism 5 Israel 5 Al_Jazeera_Arabic 4 2023_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel 4 Zionism_as_settler_colonialism 4 Haifa 4 The_Holocaust_and_the_Nakba 4 Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents 3 2023_Israel–Hamas_war_protests_in_the_United_States 3 Israel_Defense_Forces 3 Shimon_Tzabar 3 Rachel 3 Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard 3 Nakba 3 Media_coverage_of_the_Arab–Israeli_conflict 3 Francesca_Albanese 2 Use_of_human_shields_by_Hamas 2 Killings_and_massacres_during_the_1948_Palestine_war 2 User:Homerethegreat 2 Indonesian_hospital 2 Tally_Gotliv 2 Jaffa 2 Giora_Eiland 2 Qibya_massacre 2 Negation_of_the_Diaspora 2 Itamar_Ben-Gvir 2 Khaybar_Khaybar_ya_yahud 2 Israeli_war_crimes 2 Hamas 2 Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement 2 List_of_mass_evacuations 2 War_crimes_in_the_2023_Israel–Hamas_war 2 List of violations by Osps7; note that I haven't reviewed articles where they only made one edit; instead, I've extrapolated from the articles where they made more than one edit to produce the figure above. Article Number of Edits (Total: 574) Palestinian_Child's_Day 36 October_2023_Tulkarm_raid 25 Hajji_Tower_airstrike 23 Fadwa_Barghouti 21 Bab_al-Rahma_Cemetery 20 Al-Yassin_105 19 Abu_Hussein_School_airstrike 19 Karim_Younis 19 Bilal_Abu_Samaan 17 2023_Israel–Hamas_war 17 Palestine_Emergency_Law 17 Sanaa_Alsarghali 16 Russian_Consulate_General_in_Jerusalem 16 Bab_al-Sahira_Cemetery 15 Farah_Hisham_Omar 15 Wehda_Street_airstrikes 14 Bab_al-Asbat_Cemetery 14 Al-Falah_School_airstrike 14 Palestinian_Anti-Corruption_Commission 14 Batn_al-Hawa 14 Mount_Sabih 13 Abd_al-Sattar_Qasim 13 Meiss_Ej_Jabal_Hospital 13 Haifa_School_airstrike 13 Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital 11 Samer_Abu_Daqqa 11 Arab_Islamic_extraordinary_summit_2023 9 Nizar_Banat 9 Intisar_Abu_Amara 9 Ma'an_school_airstrike 9 Shihab_family_killing 8 Shireen_Abu_Akleh 7 Jabalia_refugee_camp_airstrikes_(2023–2024) 7 British_Consulate_General_in_Jerusalem 7 Kfar_Aza_massacre 5 Inspector's_Gate 5 2023_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel 5 Al-Buraq_school_airstrike 5 Murder_of_Shireen_Abu_Akleh 4 Qadri_Abu_Bakr 4 Colonization_and_Wall_Resistance_Commission_(Palestine) 4 Wu'ayra_Castle 4 Mohamed_Abou_Gabal 4 Cotton_Merchants'_Gate 4 Killing_of_Paramedics_in_Gaza_(October_2023) 3 Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosion 3 Lions'_Den_(militant_group) 3 Huwara_rampage 3 Euro-Mediterranean_Human_Rights_Monitor 3 Chain_Gate_(Jerusalem) 3 Template:Campaignbox_2023_Israel–Hamas_war 2 Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Abd_al-Sattar_Qasim 2 Casualties_of_Israeli_attacks_on_the_Gaza_Strip 2 Osama_bin_Zaid_school_airstrike 2

BilledMammal (talk) 05:05, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Question about ARBPIA sanctions

Can somebody clarify this for me? Honestly I still do not understand it. The ARBPIA policy this page states:

The following set of sanctions will be considered the "ARBPIA General Sanctions"... Extended confirmed restriction: The extended confirmed restriction is imposed on the area of conflict.

and:

The presence of the templates is required before the General Sanctions can be enforced on primary articles.

and:

If there is confusion about which content is considered related, the content in question may be marked in the wiki source with an invisible comment. The presence of the templates is required before the General Sanctions can be enforced on related content.

and:

Editors should apply the ARBPIA General Sanctions templates to related content only when disruption creates a need for additional administrative tools.

What is the basis for enforcing EC sanctions on pages lacking a template?Marokwitz (talk) 06:19, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

The instructions say ask at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Clerks if you aren't clear. Doug Weller talk 15:33, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, done. Marokwitz (talk) 20:11, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

This is probably in the wrong subsection

I had been planning this morning to open a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Gaming the system regarding the wording of WP:PGAME, but now that I see this thread, I'm wondering if it might be better suited to WP:VPP. However in the course of background compilation, I found what I think might be all the discussions at AN and ANI on this topic since the um problem:

• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1141 § Is this a WP:GAME violation?
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1141 § EC permissions gaming
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1142 § 500/30 EC gaming?
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1142 § Extended confirmed gaming (not directly related)
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1143 § Apparent WP:NOTHERE gaming for WP:ECP
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1144 § 500/30 gaming for ARBPIA editing
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1144 § EC gaming/WP:ARBPIA
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1144 § User:President Loki
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive357 § Appeal of the removal of EC membership for User:DMH43 (involved)
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard § Appeal of the removal of EC permissions for User:FoodForLLMs (live, above)
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard § Extended-confirmed gained largely through ECR violations (this thread; circular link)

Related discussion at Wikipedia talk:Gaming the system § This should acknowledge the far more common and less serious instances of gaming. Haven't looked at AE. Folly Mox (talk) 16:25, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Koavf unblocked

It will probably be of interest to a number of admins that I have recently unblocked Koavf (talk · contribs), and as a condition of this, they have agreed to an indefinite one revert restriction. As Koavf is a long-standing editor with an extensive block log for edit-warring, including several indefinite blocks, I think this unblock is worth reviewing to see if there is a solid consensus for it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:01, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

If looking at that CVS receipt of a block log is correct this is the FIFTH time they were indef'd. At what point do we say as a community "it's not worth our time"? I should add I do not approve of the unblock at all. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:33, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

As I've mentioned to Koavf on his talk page, if the 1RR doesn't work, the next thing that I will probably propose is a site ban. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:10, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I was wondering about that myself, and also why the unblock was with a one revert restriction when Koavf's proposal and the entire discussion of their unblock was around a zero revert restriction. Also, by my count this is the ninth time they've been unblocked from an edit-warring block after promising not to do it again. How many times do we have to keep doing this? As far as I can tell the edit warring policy does not say "unless you are Koavf" anywhere. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:15, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I guess to keep it on topic: bad unblock. There's no way that an editor with this long of a block log with so many blocks, many of them indefinite, for the same thing that they are currently blocked for, should have been unblocked without a clear consensus at a community discussion board. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:17, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Just would like to note that I blocked Koavf indefinitely and yet Ritchie did not consult with me before unblocking. Not surprising, at least not to me.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:25, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

My reading of that discussion is that they agreed to a WP:0RR sanction. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 14:22, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

To be clear to you and to others (e.g. User:Number 57), I am restricting myself to no reverts/undos/etc. for at least a year, no matter the editing restrictions that Ritchie or the community place upon me that are less restrictive. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:36, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• (Non-administrator comment) Personally, I would be tempted to propose a site ban today. Indeed, it's odd that it hasn't happened yet. But this unblock is bizarre. Ritchie333 tells Koavf that they're in the "last-chance saloon"; I'd like clarification on where this saloon is located—on the 31st or 32nd block? Also, the lack of discussion with the blocking admin is disturbing and pretty clearly against the spirit of WP:UNBLOCK (where ...the agreement of the blocking admin is something of a mantra). Bad unblock. ——Serial 14:42, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

A few points:

• Koavf's unblock request talks about 1RR. As it was not obvious whether 0RR or 1RR was being agreed to, I deferred to the least restrictive option given.
• A number of longstanding editors, including Boing! said Zebedee, Thinker78 and Valereee, suggested an editing restriction would be a suitable way forward.

• I took Bbb23's silence on the talk page as an indication they had no strong opinions on what happened next.
• In general, I find unblock requests tend to stagnate and take weeks to get any action - bringing them here for review gets a faster result.
• If there is no consensus to unblock Koavf, then I have no objection to them being reblocked indefinitely. Or, if there is a consensus to site ban Koavf, I won't object to that either. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:34, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

As Koavf has agreed to a voluntary 0RR, I think a formal 1RR is a wise choice. It gives him a little leeway (but only a little) for an occasional 1RR mistake without being instantly blocked. He should, of course, endeavour to stick to 0RR. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:57, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

My view is that the overriding thing that matters is whether unblocking an editor will be a net positive to the project, and in this case I think that's a big yes. In fact, as I suggested at Koavf's talk page, I think we'd still have a significant net positive if we just blocked him for a fixed period (1 month?) every time he gets into an edit war (providing it's not too frequently). In the past, I've favoured "wasting community time" as a reason to keep someone blocked. But these days I realise that if I think someone is wasting my time, they can't be - because I'm the only one who can do that. So if anyone thinks Koavf is wasting their time, they can surely just ignore him - and if enough people don't think so, we're fine, aren't we? (TLDR: Good unblock, thanks Ritchie.) Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Why even bother with a one month block? There's always someone around who will unblock Koavf: nine times now he's been unblocked, and many of those blocks were timed blocks that were undone before they expired. If not wasting time is our goal, we should just add # You are [[User:Koavf]]. to the bottom of the WP:3RRNO list. As for being a net positive: I'd also like to know how one achieves this designation, so that I too can repeatedly disregard policies that I find inconvenient or difficult to follow. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:26, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, you have my thoughts on how I think we should look at unblocks - more holistically rather than by strict rule-following. But if you don't like my opinion, others are available :-) Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:30, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ay, per IV, and it's been repeatedly established in the past at both ANI and Arbcom that neither the number nor the quality of one's edits exempts an editor from the rules everyone else has to follow. And frankly, if we're to effectively guarantee that they'll never receive a block longer than, e.g. a month, then that's hardly a deterrent, more of an encouragement. ——Serial 15:35, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

{ec}:Yes. Koavf has had almost 30 blocks in his editing career. Do we really just say "Well, he's a good editor" (I'm not sure what the criteria people using is who say this). So can he have an unlimited number of one month blocks? I don't see in the unblock any suggestion that he should be at any point indefinitely blocked. I think this was a bad unblock. Doug Weller talk 15:44, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

So we are to "just ignore him" if he continues to edit war? How in the world is that a "net positive"? The project is better off without him editing. RickinBaltimore (talk) 15:52, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't feel strongly about this, but I saw the dispute that triggered the current round, and I have been wondering whether it would be possible to set a bot or Special:AbuseFilter to auto-block him if he makes edits that earn relevant Special:Tags (e.g., Undo or Manual revert, or more than one on the same page per day). This would trigger even for blatant vandalism, so he wouldn't be able to do that, but he won't be able to do that if we siteban him, either.

There is a theory of punishment that says that the best approach to changing someone's behavior is a punishment that is prompt, expected, and small enough that an appeal isn't especially pointful. An instant block for a few days upon infraction might be more effective than ongoing discussions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:15, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I like this idea as a technical solution, and I generally agree with the underlying principle, but I recoil at the thought of writing a piece of software just to deal with one editor. We already have an effective tool for dealing with people who refuse to follow policies and conventions – we apparently just lack the will to use it consistently. – bradv 16:35, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This isn't a productive approach either: most of the blocks in Koavf's very long block log are for 48 hours or less, including one that was successfully appealed after just 42 minutes. Koavf always says they've learned their lesson and won't do it again, somebody always unblocks him, and he always does it again. Occasionally there's a long interlude but he always ends up blocked again. We've tried short blocks, we've tried long blocks, Arbcom even tried 1RR parole which he was blocked for violating five times within a year. He doesn't improve - we've repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn't need to, and some of us are saying that in plain English in this thread. Our choices here are to implement a technical restriction that prevents him from reverting for any reason (if an edit filter can do that), or siteban him; anything else is a formal acknowledgement that Koavf is functionally exempt from the edit warring policy. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

This also seems like a good place to note that Koavf has had rollback rights since 2010. I realize that removing it is kind of pointless (since we have many tools that can perform the same function without needing userrights) but I struggle to think of a better example of justification for its removal. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:53, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The edit filter can't AFAIK filter based on tags, but it can filter based on edit summary which is probably good enough. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:46, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Building abusefilter entries to sanction single users is bad use of resources, individual users being disruptive should be managed with blocks. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:58, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I suspect there's a number of indeffed editors out there (if they're looking in), who aren't going to be too happy. GoodDay (talk) 16:17, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• +1 to this being a bad unblock. At the very least, I would have expected a 0RR restriction being imposed. Number 57 16:51, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• (Non-administrator comment) One word – pathetic. If Koavf can get away with it (despite making promises not to edit war in the past) then every other blocked editor/IP/sockpuppet/etc should also be unblocked. There must be no room for "special treatment" like with this particular editor. – sbaio 17:29, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• I don't approve of this decision and I hope it's promptly reversed.—S Marshall T/C 18:54, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Agree - bad unblock, this should have been discussed with the community before. GiantSnowman 19:48, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  Actually, that's a good point; in the past I have gone to AN to get an unblock request reviewed (IIRC I did this with Winkelvi at least twice) and I'm actually puzzled I didn't do it this time. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:36, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  I also think it's a bad unblock. The unblock especially without community discussion is rewarding recidivism behaviour. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 08:43, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Just a minor point of order, I didn't consider the unblock "unilateral"; rather I took it as the consensus of those who had commented at Koavf's talk page. If the wider consensus is Koavf shouldn't be editing Wikipedia at all, then that's fine. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:27, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• The unspoken issue here is that Koavf is borderline WP:UNBLOCKABLE due to them being the fifth most prolific editor of all time. Of course, the second most prolific editor of all time is BrownHairedGirl, and we all know how that ended (though ArbCom had to be the one to ultimately ban her, because of the UNBLOCKABLE issue). But we still keep coming back here because edit warring is mild on the spectrum of misbehavior, and editors keep weighing Koavfs 2.2 million edits against that. Really, this whole thing is just tragic. I think we've all been hoping that Koavf would see sense after so many blocks. Like, how could you continue to not get it after making 2.2 million edits? But maybe that's exactly the point. Koavf has repeatedly proved that he is set in his ways and unwilling or unable to change. Still, Koavf's positive contributions to Wikipedia weight very heavily on the side of an unblock, so its hard to say that Ritchie's unblock was inherently bad. It is up to individual admins to decide unblocks, and Ritchie extended a ROPE. Now, one could argue Koavf has been given enough rope to open a macrame business, but given Koavf's unusual situation, I'm not sure that was inherently a bad thing. I think we're sometimes too quick to chase away our best editors. Plus, Koavf came up with a rather good unblock plan: ORR for a year, followed by indefinite 1RR. If anything, I think Ritchie's failing here was not accepting Koavf's 0RR plan. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:40, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  To the extent that anyone's motivated to, please codify an indefinite 0RR. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:44, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  Yep, I think the Captain sums up the dilemma well. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:26, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: I would like some clarification on the process leading to this decision because it seems to have been reached on the narrowest forum possible, without a strong consensus, and without consulting the blocking administrator. Unblocking someone with a history of 28 blocks (give or take), including 18 for edit warring, shouldn't have been done with such casual ease. The debate between 1RR and 0RR is a distraction and it completely ignores that they have a history of repeatedly violating 1RR parole conditions. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 22:53, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Bad unblock. I'm unimpressed by Ritchie's argument here that several longstanding editors (giving three examples) suggested an editing restriction, as Ritchie of course knows that a not-on-the-face-of-it-very-well-watched user talkpage is an obscure place to come to a pretty momentous consensus. I should think there may be plenty of longstanding editors who deliberately avoid watching such an unpleasant place as Koavf's page, for the improvement of their Wikipedia experience. I'm an example myself, having unwatched the page after Doug Weller and I were comprehensively attacked by Koavf in the Antifa section in November 2023 (if you're interested at all, don't miss the tucked-away subsection "Weird aside" at the end, collapsed and marked "Resolved" [sic] by Koavf). As for Ritchie taking Bbb23's silence as giving consent, that's unusual, not in a good way. Bbb23 should at a minimum have been asked to comment. I will support either reblocking or replacing the block with Ivan Vector's "Proposal: No reverts restriction" below. Bishonen | tålk 10:36, 4 January 2024 (UTC).

I will also note that the failure to use any of the much more visible collapsing templates is a bit odd on Koavf's part, unless the presumption is made that it is done to hide the section from scrutiny, which then ends up making far more sense. For example, Template:Collapse, I would argue, would have been much more visible than the inline "Weird aside" which I actually scrolled past without realizing until I searched the page with Ctrl + F and found it. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 07:36, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

I just used the first template I found. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:50, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

• I have no opinion on Koavf but I do think it was a bad idea to identify consensus based on a talk page discussion and think that doing so is against WP:LOCALCON; I have boldly made an edit to that policy to clarify this. BilledMammal (talk) 09:45, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Just a quick note, the blocking admin was pinged twice here and here, and it was the lack of response there, and the comments by an admin and a retired admin (in good standing) about having an editing restriction instead of a block, that persuaded me to not decline the unblock request, which I probably would have done if there had been no third parties. I then immediately started the thread here, sceptical that the conversation really did amount to a full consensus. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: 0RR with no unilateral unblocks

There seems to be pretty broad consensus above that unblocking with a 1RR was an insufficient remedy, but it's not clear to me that a motion to siteban would pass either. Since Koavf has indicated that he will hold himself to a 0RR regardless of the 1RR's leeway, and since a key concern raised above is the tendency of admins to unblock Koavf, I would like to propose the following community sanction:

Koavf is subject to an indefinite zero-revert restriction. If an administrator blocks Koavf for violating this restriction, he may not be unblocked without a consensus at the administrators' noticeboard. This restriction may appealed after one year, and every six months after an unsuccessful appeal.

I'll be honest, I'm not hugely opposed to a siteban either, but I'd like to see how this would go (and any block under the restriction would have the same effect as a siteban regardless). -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 19:50, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Support, although this feels somewhat like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. GiantSnowman 19:51, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Comment - I believe the better question to ask the community would be - Should Koavf be site-banned. GoodDay (talk) 19:54, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to !vote that here, if that's your preference. Just change the heading to "Proposed sanctions" or something. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 19:58, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Inappropriate. Tamzin, as you know, this thread is not about redefining Koavf's remedy but whether Ritchie333's unilateral unblock had consensus. The above thread clearly shows that there is a consensus it was an inappropriate block. The result is, therefore, that Koavf should be reblocked; that is, the previous blocking administrator's judgment stands. The siteban was only mentioned in passing by a couple of us: it's pretty much a strawman to suggest that that was the main issue under discussion. The overall consensus to the question that Ritchie brought to the table—"was my unblock a good one?"—has received a resounding answer: No. So it gets overturned. There was also a pretty strong consensus that unblocking would just be kicking the can down road; this proposal enables the behavior further. ——Serial 20:01, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  There is not a meaningful difference between restoring the indef and sitebanning. An admin who unilaterally unblocked after a reblock would be going against consensus at best and wheel-warring at worst, so in either case an unblock request would have to come through AN. But like I said, I don't have a strong preference here. I just thought I'd give a middle-ground option. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 20:14, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Tamzin: I fully accept your reasonable and considered proposal and subsequent response. My issue is rather that, so much middle ground has been covered in the past, that it's now a no man's land; and unfortunately, it's no longer Christmas day. ——Serial 20:50, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support This seems to be a reasonable solution to the issue I identify above; i.e. that Ritchie's failing here was not accepting Koavf's 0RR suggestion. Plus, Koavf himself has requested it in this discussion, so that's all the more reason to formalize it. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 20:46, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support as a second choice; I'm going to write in a slightly different proposal below. I don't think that Koavf should be reblocked at this point: I agree with Ritchie that there was consensus to unblock in the talk page discussion that did occur. I still think Ritchie took liberties in the imposed restriction that were beyond reasonable license, but there's no preventive purpose to reblocking Koavf because of that, and I don't see the value in pursuing anything else in that regard - admins make mistakes. This restriction puts into writing that future unblocks must be with the broad consensus of the community, not just short discussions among Koavf's supporters. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• I think 1RR is sufficient, but I can support this too. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:30, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• I too think that 1RR is sufficient, but if the others think that 0RR is necessary, then I will support their choice. M.Bitton (talk) 23:36, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support per Tamzin's comments above and below. Ajpolino (talk) 02:28, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support. I think 0RR might be easier to understand than 1RR. Espresso Addict (talk) 10:08, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support This seems a reasonable solution. ORR should have been the minimum when Koavf was unblocked but better late never.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:01, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support as a last chance. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:27, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support - But that ice is getting mighty thin. 0RR solves one issue. This is obviously a prolific, historic Wikipedia editor, but the off-putting rhetorical style and long block log are serious concerns, and the Talk page hatted “Weird” section inappropriately marked “Resolved” is disturbing, even if on their own Talk page. Suggest avoiding edgy topics and editors, and walking away from anything rightly or wrongly perceived as WP:BAIT. And the unilateral unblock deserves at least a trout, but it was then brought here by the admin for review, so, well… Jusdafax (talk) 21:40, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support. This should be seen as an absolute final chance, and any additional edit warring should result in a site ban. SkyWarrior 02:17, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support (non-admin). Bbb23 should have been notified before unblocking but what is done is done. This is their absolute last chance. Polyamorph (talk) 12:24, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support although I would like to see the proposal go further and state Koafv must be blocked if they breach 0RR, rather than giving any leeway on this. Number 57 15:38, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support only if Site ban or reinstatement of indef do not pass. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:22, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• Weak support, third choice to the below tweak or a siteban. ^Queenof_Hearts 04:56, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support only if siteban/indef do not pass. Bishonen | tålk 09:05, 7 January 2024 (UTC).

Proposal: site ban, second choice restore indefinite block

Per a number of statements above this should be put forward as an alternative to an editing restriction. Doug Weller talk 20:05, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support The advantage of a site ban—which, of course, needn't be of any fixed duration—is that it prevents any unblocks without community input, unlike what caused the above shenanigans. And the second choice indef block is not so much a second choice as, well, a pretty clear reading of the consensus above. FTR, I do not consider 2.2 million edits to weigh anything against repeatedly pissing off the community for years and being enabled to do so. Mileage may, of course vary, as ever. ——Serial 20:10, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support To me all the 0RR restriction about is kicking the can down the road. It's not if it happens again but when. The message this sends is, at least to me, "You can do what you want if you edit enough". If this was an editor with a fraction of the edits, and specifically this block log, we aren't having this discussion right now. RickinBaltimore (talk) 20:54, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose - this is definitely trying to shut the stable door! GiantSnowman 21:15, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• It's ridiculous that we have to do this to get a block to stick, but it looks like this is what we have to do to get a block to stick.—S Marshall T/C 21:22, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support: Checking his shopping list of a block log is enough to me oppose once again unblocking him, which would give him the status as an WP:UNBLOCKABLE. Some people have suggested giving him 1RR or 0RR as a countermeasure, but he seems to been known to violate these 'restrictions'. For example:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&logid=9287453

ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 22:57, 3 January 2024 (UTC)— ASmallMapleLeaf (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. .--Bbb23 (talk) 02:29, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

That so-called shopping list is a by-product of using a single account to make over 2 million edits. M.Bitton (talk) 23:36, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Koavf is #5 on WP:MOSTEDITS. The #1 editor on that list has never been blocked intentionally. #3 spent 92 minutes blocked for edit-warring in 2007. #4 was blocked for 1 minute in 2009 to get their attention. Then there's #2 on that list, BrownHairedGirl, who is now ArbComBanned, but even her block log is much shorter than Koavf's, and only goes back to 2019. So I don't buy a long block log as an occupational hazard of making lots of edits. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 00:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Several of these prolific editors are/were admins, which does affect block probability. Espresso Addict (talk) 10:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@Bbb23 I am also a newer user (hence the low edit count) but I have spectated ANI for a long time as a pastime (sometimes when flying and wheb there is no internet) ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 09:35, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

^thats not to say I like editting ANI more than other articles, though. ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 11:30, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose because it would be a net negative for the encyclopedia. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:29, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• I am not opposed to this but slightly prefer my proposal above. Koavf has been given very ample notice about the existence of the edit-warring policy, so I couldn't really feel bad for him if he's run out of the community's patience here, and can't justify opposing this. But I guess I take a WP:ROPE attitude toward his offer of 0RR, made enforceable by my proposal; if he can't keep that 0RR, we'll know soon enough. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 00:14, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose - it would be a significant loss to Wikipedia if we can't find a way for Koavf to be able to continue editing, and we ought to keep trying to find a solution that works. struck; see below But a thought occurred to me in this: have you noticed that we only use terms like "net positive" and "net loss" when discussing editors who have behaved so badly that they're facing expulsion from the site? Maybe those terms don't mean what we think they do in Wikipedia jargon. If you have to be defended as a "net positive", maybe you just aren't. I'm not directing that at anyone in particular, just food for thought. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:54, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support siteban - I can image what currently site-banned editors are thinking right now. Jeepers, I was site-banned for a whole year (2012–13) for arguably less disruptive behavior. We shouldn't be seen as giving preferential treatment to any editor. PS - I did look over their block-log & WP:UNBLOCKABLES did cross my mind. GoodDay (talk) 15:01, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support (non-admin comment) - We shouldn't have any WP:UNBLOCKABLES, and having such a prolific edit history is not an excuse for this amount of behavior issues. Edit count alone doesn't make someone a "net positive", and I agree with Ivanvector's thoughts above. ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 15:20, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• I somewhat reluctantly support this. Reluctantly, because Justin has been here for a long time and is indeed prolific--but from that record we need to subtract the amount of disruption and busy-ness caused by edit warring and blocks and discussions. The "no reverts" promise is something, but this--they didn't even take it back. Drmies (talk) 15:51, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  Maybe I'm missing something, but that actually seems like a reasonable question. It wasn't immediately clear what Doug Weller was trying to accomplish by posting that comment. Without context, it did rather smack of gravedancing. Perhaps I'm bending over too far backwards trying to be gracious to Justin, but I think we need to be especially careful to be fair to an editor when we are talking about banning him. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:18, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  I also thought Doug's comments were gravedancing, although coming from the same frustration being expressed in this discussion and so maybe fair comment. I thought about saying something at the time but I really thought that nobody would unblock Justin again and it would be better to let it blow over. Anyway I think Justin's response was a reasonable reaction. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:14, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  Ivanvector, I thought you'd know Doug a bit better than that. No editor whose career is on the line should respond in that way. Drmies (talk) 21:11, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  I think I know Doug just well enough to believe he intended to "describ[e] factually, solely for the information of other editors, disruptive activities that resulted in a block" (the last bullet under "what is not gravedancing"), but a reasonable reading of Doug's words sounds more like "you deserve to stay blocked this time", particularly with Doug's later reply that he could see why Justin wouldn't want him to highlight his 28 or 29 previous blocks, and that tips the scale pretty far in the other direction. By "frustration" I mean that when I saw Koavf's username struck through in my watchlist I thought something like "fucking Christ, again?!" and so maybe I crossed Doug's words with my own emotion. But whatever it is, if Doug's comments were fair then so were Justin's replies. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 21:45, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Ivanvector@Lepricavark I've been wondering if I should reply, but I've decided I should. Did you see User:Bishonen's comment above? Bishonen blocked Koafv from Antifa after I asked Koafv a question about an edit he made to the article which I reverted and the discussion on his talk page spiralled rapidly downwards. Among other uncivil comments, "Doug left semi-literate edit summaries that made no sense to me: that's a fact. He even comes here and writes half-formed sentences and writes responses to himself asking himself questions:" I didn't know anything about this editor at that time so far I can recall but I was left with the impression of a very uncollaborative and unpleasant editor. At the time I hadn't realised he had a long block history. When I discovered it during an earlier exchange I was gobsmacked - there aren't that many editors with such a long history of blocks. My opinion then and now is that we don't want editors like him, 2 million edits notwithstanding. Obviously other editors I respect disagree with me on that. Also please see User:Ritchie's response to my last post on Koafv's talk page. In retrospect it would probable a better idea for my section heading to have simply suggested to any Admin considering an unblock to look at their block log.

  Maybe also take a look at Kofav's response to User:Fram's mild comment about his not using reliable sources. Koafv accuses Fram of harassing several times there (it seems to be one of Koafv's favorite words) and lying. Doug Weller talk 08:45, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

• (Fixing Doug Weller's ping of User:Fram. Bishonen | tålk 09:00, 6 January 2024 (UTC).)

Yes, I did see Justin's incivility toward you and I am sorry that you were subjected to that. (Obviously, Justin is the one who should be saying sorry, but that seems unlikely to happen.) I don't believe that your intent in leaving those comments was to gravedance, but if I was in Justin's shoes I probably would have perceived them that way. If I was in Justin's shoes, I'd also like to believe that I wouldn't edit-war so much or attack the literacy of clearly literate editors. That sort of thing is why he finds himself on the thinnest of ice, with even supporters such as myself ready to withdraw our support if he doesn't behave angelically moving forward. But my concern is that when an editor is on the verge of being banned, it is easy to begin seeing everything they do as further evidence that they should be banned. I can't fault Justin's response to your comments about his block log, and I don't think it is fair to use them against him. But again, just to be clear, I do not think you were in fact gravedancing. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 14:04, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, much appreciated. But I have to note it's not just me he's been uncivil to. Which makes me wonder whether if he is unblocked civility should be a condition. Doug Weller talk 15:28, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: apologies for suggesting you were engaging in gravedancing; I meant to describe how your comments could be interpreted that way by someone not familiar with the situation, and I see that I made a poor job of it. In fact I was not aware of those other issues: I largely ignore Koavf's user talk and didn't look beyond the unblock request when all this happened, so I guess it's me that's "not familiar with the situation". Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:03, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Ivanvector don't worry about it. Happens to us all and in fact I missed his attacks on Fram and had forgotten about the attacks on Bish and me even though I think he's the only person who's ever called me illiterate! Otherwise I would have mentioned them earlier. Doug Weller talk 13:41, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support (Non-administrator comment) per what others already said. Having some kind of "celebrity" status does not make it acceptable to keep breaking the rules and getting away with it. Every editor must be treated equally and "2 million edits" is not a justification (along with extensive block log, which just shows that this is a problematic editor). – sbaio 18:56, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose he's offered us 0RR. Let's give it one last shot. If he fails to adhere to this promise, I will support a ban. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:15, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support. According to his block log, he's been blocked in the past for violating a 1RR restriction. I see no reason - and certainly not his contribution numbers - to do this again. It feels like a broken record.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:02, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per my reasoning in the section just above. Jusdafax (talk) 21:43, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• I do not necessarily object to a site ban at this time, however I am willing to give a 0RR restriction a chance. SkyWarrior 02:17, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose In the spirit of WP:ROPE. Curbon7 (talk) 08:17, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

  • Comment: Have you checked Koavfs block log? I think he has ran out of rope by now

  ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 09:57, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support per Bbb23. Enough, really. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:15, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support, first preference, regrettably. Enough is enough. We've given him plenty of rope, and he has hung himself, as the metaphor goes. ^Queenof_Hearts 04:56, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support, first preference. I thank Koavf for the effort he has put into the encyclopedia, but the block log and the recent incident with Bishonen/Doug Weller are too damning. I have no reason to believe that any restriction imposed on editing will in the end be adhered to. It is likely a future block or sanction will be needed, even if it takes awhile, and this discussion will most likely happen again regardless of any restrictions which may be imposed. Not a good use of community time. I think we need a strongly enforced and decently long separation from Koavf before we consider granting WP:ROPE again; he's had more than enough until this point. —Sirdog (talk) 07:44, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support I am not convinced that he will comply with any editing restriction. Scorpions1325 (talk) 08:02, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support per WP:RECIDIVISM. Every single block leading up to this point are all because of edit warring. This isn't a mixture of vandalism, edit warring, sockpuppeting, legal threat blocks all piled together and inflated the block log. He has already been indef'ed twice. Why are we awarding rule-breaking behaviour? And if he didn't get the message after having indef block lifted the first time, why do we think his behaviour will improve second time around? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 08:40, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support While the contributions of Koavf are appreciated, they cannot be allowed to outweigh the user's numerous violations of the rules, including sixteen blocks for edit warring and five ArbCom revert restriction violations. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 08:53, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support. Having re-read Koavf's talkpage including the Fram business, this is where I land. Bishonen | tålk 09:05, 7 January 2024 (UTC).
• Not opposed - after some discussion I can't remain opposed to sitebanning, but I'm wary of supporting. Many of the comments here refer to WP:UNBLOCKABLES, and I fear that some of them are supporting this action not because Koavf's behaviour warrants a siteban on its own merit but just to make an example of very prolific users, or as retribution for less-prolific editors who were banned for less. We have not ever and should not now start blocking users to make a point of demonstrating their infallibility, and I hope that anyone who has already commented in that vein with reflect on their comments before this closes. That said, the years-long issues with edit warring coupled with a growing pattern of unpleasant interpersonal conflict suggests that Koavf's tenure on this project is rapidly approaching its end. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:15, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support. We're past warning in this case, which is truly a tragedy for Wikipedia. Like others have mentioned, Koavf doesn't seem to restrain themselves even when they are aware they are acting disruptively. If this proposal fails, I'd be okay with Tamzin's 0RR compromise. BusterD (talk) 13:26, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose - This isn't a case of harassment, abuse of power, sock puppetry, personal attacks, or some other severe issue -- it's edit warring. It's frustrating, and at some point enough is definitely enough, but it's a narrow behavioral problem with clear options for remedies which should be tried first -- and we have possible interventions available which are meant for this very purpose. When making so many edits it'll be nigh impossible to avoid accidentally or unthinkingly reverting something, so I don't know how long it will last, but it's worth trying. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:51, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose Koavf has been blocked only a few times in the 13 years despite making over 2,000,000 edits. The few makes he has made have been: minor, did nott feature any canvassing, crude language, sockpupptry, or any other disruptive editing other than reverts themselves. Koavf has not been shown to be generally uncooperative or disruptive and these incidents have been the exception, not the norm. We can't keep losing big editors to minor incidents like this. See further reasoning in my section. Ovsk (talk) 06:27, 8 January 2024 (UTC) WP:SOCKSTRIKE.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 15:37, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

  I note that this user has made nine edits, six to this page and the other three in their user space. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:28, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

• Support as first and only option At some point, enough is enough. I don't care if a net positive is removed for the sake of bringing in twice as much negative. He has no restraint, it's already been proven before. — Moe Epsilon 12:42, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose site ban. Excessive. BD2412 T 17:36, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per Rhododendrites. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:04, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: No reverts restriction

Making this separate from Tamzin's very similar restriction because of what I expect to be a controversial caveat.

Koavf is subject to an indefinite "no reverts" restriction: Koavf may not revert any edit for any reason, including the usual exemptions in the edit warring policy. For clarity: any edit that is flagged with the mw-undo, mw-rollback, or mw-manual-revert tags is a violation of this restriction, excepting only self-reverts. Additionally, Koavf's rollback permission is revoked, and he may not hold the permission while this restriction remains in force. If an administrator blocks Koavf for violating this restriction, he may not be unblocked without a consensus at the administrators' noticeboard. This restriction may appealed at the same noticeboard after one year, and every six months after an unsuccessful appeal.

• Support as proposer. Many of Koavf's past blocks have been over good-faith misinterpretations of what is considered an exempt revert. This restriction removes the confusion: no reverts, period. Yes it's a bit draconian but nothing else has worked, and admins still have discretion to warn instead of rushing for the block button. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 21:09, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• I will support this if you can incorporate Tamzin's 'no unilateral unblock' wording. GiantSnowman 21:15, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  The part starting with "If an administrator blocks..." is copied directly from Tamzin's proposal, except I added that appeals must be at this noticeboard as well. Did you mean something else? That was certainly my intent. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 22:23, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for clarifying. GiantSnowman 19:19, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• I'd like to support this, but slightly hesitate over the inclusion of mw-manual-revert. According to Special:Tags, that covers "Edits that manually restore the page source to an exact previous state". Per mw:Manual:Reverts § Manual revert, MediaWiki by default looks at the last 15 revisions to determine that. I can't find what it's set to on enwiki, but my recollection it's either the default 15 or 10. I'm not sure that, in all cases, leaving the page look like it did 10 or 15 edits ago will lead to something that a human would perceive as a revert. Like, suppose User A makes 7 edits adding incoherent nonsense to a page. On edit 8, User B, a newbie who doesn't know how to restore old edits, manually reverts most of that, but makes a small spelling error in the process. Six months later, Koavf stumbles upon the article, notices the spelling error, and fixes it, thereby returning the page to its state before User A touched it (edit 0). No reasonable admin would call that a revert, but MediaWiki would, as I understand it. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|she) 22:35, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• Same as Tamzin, I don't think this should be based on MediaWiki tags, but on human judgment of whether an edit is a revert. Still, saying that, I'd prefer this option to a site ban or indef block. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:41, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
• (Without studying the merits of the case), shouldn't the admin who blocks Koavf be able to rescind the block? Suggest "he may not be unblocked" becomes "he may not be unblocked by another administrator". Zero^talk 02:06, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• No, I don't think so. If this passes, and I hope it doesn't, we want to give the unblocking decision to the community, not to the first sysop to get to the block button.—S Marshall T/C 14:47, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  But being able to undo your own actions is SOP for admin actions, so we should be aware this is a pretty big departure from standard procedure. Courcelles (talk) 15:56, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• That seems like a lot of pressure to put on the blocking admin, also a measure of power inordinate to their office (it would essentially give Admins individual ownership of blocked users). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:51, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• This is just proposal #2 with a delay on it. If Koavf was capable of changing his behaviour, he would long since have changed it.—S Marshall T/C 14:47, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Responding to the points above, I've struck the "clarity" part about relying on software tags. I was looking for a very black-and-white solution to avoid misjudgements and disagreements, but the tags themselves are also subject to error, and I can't say I disagree with any of the other points made. As for unblocking by the blocking administrator: I don't agree, with the possible exception of obviously erroneous blocks, but even in that case I think it would be preferable to review at AN (such a review ought to be pretty quick anyway). Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support as (I think) strictest potential restriction short of another block or ban. GiantSnowman 19:23, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: As a purely technical issue, I sometimes make edits (often to templates or stylesheets) that end up with the mw-manual-revert tag because there happens to be an old revision somewhere in the history of the page with the same source code, despite these not actually being reverts (i.e. having the same code as a revision from several years ago where there's been dozens of subsequent modifications). jp×g🗯️ 00:43, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support and I don't have a strong preference between this and Tamzin's. This gives Koavf the .0000001 % chance he'll actually this time for real no backsies change, and we maintain his positive contributions to the project. I don't want to see him site banned, but that's not really our call. I mean it is, but I share the hesitation that it would pass. If he ends up indeffed again, and that's not our fault, it's his. No one is forcing him to make these edits that he knows are a problem/ Star Mississippi 01:43, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose in favor of Tamzin's proposal. SkyWarrior 02:17, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support, 2nd preference to siteban. As said above, most of Koavf's issues have been misinterpreting 3RRNOT, so if something does it without banning 'em, this is it. ^Queenof_Hearts 04:56, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposal: No punitive blocks

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

---

Wikipedia's blocking policy states Blocks should be preventative, not punitive and Blocks should not be used [...] if there is no current conduct issue of concern. Given that edit warring only lasts for a short while, why was Koavf blocked indefinitely? Well, the answer usually given is that it's indicative of wider conduct or behavior. While this is an important exemption, I do not believe that applies here. While an editor who is extremely disruptive and does lots of problematic behavior and is generally disruptive should be blocked indefinitely, Koavf is not that. Koavf's conflicts aren't any more than should expected for how much he has contributed.

Editors are human, and humans aren't perfect and we recognize this, that's why we allow formerly disruptive editors and even vandals to get second chances. Inevitably, conflicts will arise and out-of-conduct editing will occur for everyone, however, that should not be seen as indicative of wider issues with an editor. Wikipedia's current blocking system is, unfortunately, like a fuse for long-term content editors. Once the fuse is lit, it starts burning; and once someone makes enough mistakes (which will happen inevitably), they get permanently banned. This has happened to far too many of our most productive editors and it has to stop. We (as a community) need to get better at differentiating between inevitable minor conflicts and actual behavioral issues.

Therefore, I propose:

Koavf may not be blocked for edit warring for more than 72 hours at a time unless there is consensus at AN or ANI

• Support as proposer. Ovsk (talk) 06:27, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

You created an account today and all of your edits are to this proposal. Yet you sound as though you've had a lot of experience of Wikipedia. Doug Weller talk 08:36, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Apologies, 2 of them were to your user space. Doug Weller talk 08:39, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: I came here from Wikipediocracy. I am rnu there. Ovsk (talk) 09:15, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Oppose Such an arbitrary and severe restriction on normal admimistrative discretion is unwarranted and unwise. If an administrator believes that a 96 hour or one week block is justified by the specific circumstances, I fail to see why their hands should be tied in this fashion. Cullen328 (talk) 09:18, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@Cullen328: Ok, I can see how "72 hours" may seem too arbitrary. Would you prefer if it said Koavf may not be blocked for edit warring indefinitely unless there is consensus at AN or ANI instead? Ovsk (talk) 09:21, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Frankly, Ovsk, I see no reason to restrict an administrator's power to block an editor who has 29 previous blocks. A few may have been bad blocks but most were legitimate. It is not at all uncommon for me or other administrators to indefintely block disruptive editors without consensus at ANI or AN. Why should Koavf have a carve-out exempting this one editor from normal enforcement procedures by administrators? Cullen328 (talk) 09:35, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@Cullen328:

> It is not at all uncommon for me or other administrators to indefintely block disruptive editors without consensus at ANI or AN. Why should Koavf have a carve-out exempting this one editor from normal enforcement procedures by administrators?

As I stated before, edit wars are temporary. And since blocks are preventative, indefinite blocks for edit warring should only be given out to user's whose behavior is fundamentally uncooperative and disruptive. I already stated why I don't think Koavf is that. Ovsk (talk) 09:43, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Edit wars are temporary only because edit warring is contrary to policy and edit warriors get blocked by administrators. Your personal opinion, expressed in good faith I assume, about the severity of Koavf's misconduct to date should not be a pretext for tying the hands of administrators dealing with future misconduct. That's my view of your proposal, at least. Cullen328 (talk) 09:52, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

@Cullen328: My proposal is not about theoretical future major violations, it's me expressing that minor breeches of policy shouldn't slowly "burn the candle" to the point where major content editors get blocked. Ovsk (talk) 09:59, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Ovsk makes a good point there - I agree. Even if repeated (at fairly lengthy intervals), these are minor (and relatively harmless) offences. Babies, bathwater, and all that. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:56, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

It's not theoretical here, this user has 29 previous blocks. To quote Dr. Phil, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. By your own comment, someone who "does lots of problematic behavior and is generally disruptive should be blocked indefinitely"- if 29 blocks is not an indication of "generally disruptive", what is? Do they need to be locked up and the key thrown away? No. Good contributions are certainly a factor here, but I am very skeptical that admins' hands should be tied for this specific user. 331dot (talk) 11:14, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Indefinite is not permanent, and (if such a block were issued) if it is felt that an indef block of this user was improper, that can certainly be discussed. That's the safeguard here. 331dot (talk) 11:16, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

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

OP blocked as a sock so striking through their comments. Doug Weller talk 15:31, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Request for batch revert

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

I'd like to request that the edits done by permanently blocked editor Daxtonlab with "created references section" in the summary (1639 edits) be reverted. These edits create empty References sections in all those articles. Note, these edits can also be selected by a date range.

If the tools can't do this, all of this editor's edits (4107 edits) should be reverted. His other (all well intentioned) edits aren't as bad, but none of them are improvements. They mostly make meaningless changes to "website=" parameters or add incorrect "journal=" parameters to citations, or introduce WP:OL in text. Dan Bloch (talk) 00:47, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• Bbb23, thank you for blocking that editor. User:Danbloch, the incompetence was quite overwhelming. Drmies (talk) 02:53, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@Danbloch. All done, I think, (the revert of "created references section") except for those where there had been a subsequent edit, I spied the use of WPCleaner on some and a redirect. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 02:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Dan Bloch (talk) 03:26, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• No comment on the reversion, just a note that I've seen several editors advocating adding blank references sections to unsourced articles in VP, the idea being that it encourages the addition of sources. Espresso Addict (talk) 10:00, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
  • I've been giving that tip since 2005 in User:Uncle G/Wikipedia triage#Requesting sources. Are we blocking people for adding

    == References ==
    <references/>
    

    to {{unreferenced}}-tagged articles and mass-reverting that, now? (Example mass-reverted random edit Special:Diff/1190018596 seems to do exactly that.) You've lost the plot, people. The overlinking and citation parameter twiddlings are one thing, but adding a references section is quite another. It is a positive edit and is a step in the right direction for the article. Whereas taking it out is a step backwards. This request was wrong to make and wrong to fulfil. Uncle G (talk) 14:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

    (Non-administrator comment) I think that it would have been better to have waited for a consensus to emerge before the edits were rolled back (no opinion on the block). In general, I think my opinion is: the larger the number of edits to make and/or reverse at once, the more important to gain consensus beforehand. All the best, ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 17:13, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

    Yeah, what?? I do that all the time -- every time I make a draft article I start with a empty ref section and I'd think formatting one for an unreferenced article would be a constructive change (at the very least it reduces the amount of work for a later editor who adds refs). jp×g🗯️ 21:38, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

  • Uncle G, between you and me, I don't see the point of removing that empty section--my note on the editor's incompetence was related to the edits of theirs that I objected to. Drmies (talk) 17:19, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• (Non-administrator comment) Indefinite block plus reverting every single edit of a well-intentioned user for this (creating references sections and not following MOS:OVERLINK) is a bit overkill, especially compared to the discussion above where a user with 30 blocks is still given a "second chance". There's absolutely a double standard between regular editors and WP:UNBLOCKABLES and it should honestly be addressed before it becomes too entrenched as a standard. I don't think removing all of these edits was a "net positive" for the encyclopedia. ChaotıċEnby(t · c) 21:49, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• Like Drmies and Uncle G, I don't quite get the point of removing the blank References sections. I also don't see the point of adding them in bulk like that, but it would seem to do slightly more good than bad to do so to individual articles that need references. I agree it might spur someone to add something. A very minor thing, and this seems like an overreaction to the situation. I can't support keeping someone blocked if the primary reason is they added Reference sections. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:12, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• Looking into this in a little more detail, it looks like Daxtonlab's main problem was with overlinking, with the edits that I examined being tagged as a newcomer task. We might need to make sure that the newcomer task instructions are better, as the instructions on meta suggest linking "planet" (which I would consider on the boundary with useless) under good examples. There also seems to be a dispute over whether it is necessary/acceptable to relink in the infobox; some of the edits Drmies is objecting to appear to fall mainly into that category. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:40, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• No comment on this particular block as I haven't reviewed the situation. I share Dennis Brown's concern generally with blocking a user for adding reference sections, but we also advise against mass-editing that makes no visible change or only minor cosmetic changes to articles, which I think this falls under. But I had a thought: can we make the relevant code automatically produce a tag similar to {{unreferenced}} if the references section is empty? That would make adding empty references sections pretty useful. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:12, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jeffrey Epstein's associates list

This discussion is heading for a SNOW delete, if someone wants to look in at some point. BLP/crime issues too, possibly amounting to G10. ——Serial 20:47, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

• Speedy deleted as a potential WP:BLP violation. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 20:51, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
• I get the feeling that the haste of this deletion process, even if the article really was a turd, is not going to go over so well among the general public. It's always a timesink hassle to have AfDs for breaking-news articles, and it's also a timesink hassle to have to see all kinds of breaking-news articles -- but I guess it is a chicken-and-egg issue. Oh well. I wish there were some way to just make everything hold off for a week. jp×g🗯️ 06:16, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
  • If news of the AFD "gets out" to people who don't understand Wikipedia processes, yeah it probably wouldn't look good. At the same time, the article was a massive BLP violation in its entirety, WP:BLPDEL unquestionably applied, and the speedy was the correct decision by our own policies. If I had seen it before the AFD opened, I would have resorted to summary deletion right off the bat. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 06:44, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
    • This is an unpopular opinion but Wikipedia is not a newspaper and shouldn't cover breaking news at all. Breaking news reports are inherently unreliable as the focus is on being the first to report, not on being correct. It takes days, sometimes much much longer, for rational critique and neutral discussion to evolve for any topic, and Wikipedia should wait. We won't, of course, but it would be better if we did. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:27, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  While this has a whole bunch of BLP atop it that weighs easily in favor of deletion, we have a generally broad problem that editors want to create articles on any news-breaking event, which is against NOT#NEWS and NEVENT. We are to summarize news, and the release of these lists should only be a few lines in the associated trial article, until something more comes of them. We need more editors to be thinking about that for events that have existing reasonable targets. Masem (t) 14:51, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  Basing a decision-making process around the ways that clueless or bad-faith actors will respond to your actions is simply substituting the values of those actors for our own; it should not be a consideration. --JBL (talk) 19:34, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• Several people in the AFD discussion seem to be unaware of Ghislaine Maxwell#2024 release of court documents. Uncle G (talk) 10:47, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
  • I'm sure most editors in that discussion knew, if they needed to, that a near-5000 word article devoted less than 30 words to a similar topic and managed to do so without naming "associates" or committing any other gross BLP violations. ——Serial 15:28, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi everyone! I leave notes at WP:AN! :D

• • • The ones who pointed at the wrong article for the "couple of sentences" did not. Uncle G (talk) 16:49, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

DYK needs admins

WP:DYK is facing one of its periodic crises. We need more admins to help with the queue management process. Most of DYK runs on non-admin labor, but the final step of promoting a hook set to the final main page queue requires an mop. The process is semi-automated, but it does require that you run checks on the hooks being promoted to ensure they satisfy the DYK rules. While not strictly required, it'll be really helpful if you have some prior experience submitting DYKs so you understand how it all works. RoySmith (talk) 14:20, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I think I've done it right - (prep area / queue 7). Trying to actually find the prep areas and working out what I had to do was a bit tricky! WaggersTALK 14:49, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I've upgraded one prep to queue. Note, I've only briefly spot checked the articles to check they are adequately sourced and seem to verify everything. If I've missed anything, we have WP:ERRORS. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:24, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

...which is too late of course. Back to the bad old days of DYK in and around 2014 or so with that attitude. You are putting things on the main page, you should do a thorough check, not a spot check. For example, you promoted "... that a Connecticut radio station left the air for good after it was out of service for a week and only one person wrote a letter to complain?" In reality, they stopped broadcasting on the FM band but continued on AM. Oh, and did you know "... that the first Jewish newspaper was established in 1686 in Amsterdam?"? The "Gazeta de Amsterdam" would like to have a word[14][15]. That's after, er, spot-checking the first 4 of 8 hooks, and 2 of them are at least dubious. Fram (talk) 15:39, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I have reverted queue and prep 1 and will also not respond to any more requests to clear the DYK queues. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:42, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

The checking activity (and what to do about things that do not obviously pass) can be somewhat crowdsourced: several DYK admins tend to promote prep to queue, then post on WT:DYK with a list of queries and potential issues, hopefully with enough time to spare to fix them or pull the hook(s) before the queue hits the Main Page. One general problem is that it is easy to get things wrong and then to get yelled at, which isn't everyone's cup of tea. Might be a reason why we sometimes run out of admins. —Kusma (talk) 15:59, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I generally assume somebody has already checked the fidgety stuff like character count, age, QPQ, etc. I'm looking to see if I can trace the hook fact back to a statement in the article which cites a WP:RS and I run earwig. Sometimes I'll dig into the source to make sure the statement in the article is indeed supported by the source, but only if I have some reason to suspect it might not be.

And, yeah, when I have doubts, WP:DYK is my friend. But things get dicey when the queue gets nearly empty. It got down to zero today which means any questions raised on WT:DYK had less than 24 hours to get resolved. The goal is to make sure we catch all the problems before we hit the main page. If things get reported at WP:ERRORS, that means we failed in our reviewing. RoySmith (talk) 17:10, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

There are two queues that can be discussed at WP:ERRORS before they hit the Main Page, so we should attempt to always have them filled for the benefit of diligent folks at ERRORS. I think it is sometimes unavoidable that we miss something, especially when reviewers, queue builders and admins are all from the same part of the globe and overlook that the hook is problematic for people from other countries. —Kusma (talk) 21:17, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I wish I was around enough to help, I just don't have the bandwidth for DYK at the moment :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 17:30, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

CAT:UNBLOCK is quite backlogged

• Not to pile on requests but quite frankly we could use help on reviewing unblock requests; there's been well north of 100 open requests for some time. I've reviewed most of them at least once so I'm technically not supposed to again, but I have closed some very clear, obvious ones. 331dot (talk) 14:23, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  In case any admins don't usually deal with these and want to help - just hop over to Category:Requests for unblock for the backlog. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:46, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  I am abstaining from reviewing any unblock requests after the consensus against unblocking Koavf. Sorry. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 15:32, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  Uh, the point is that a given blocking admin should be notified prior to an unblock action. If only as a courtesy. El_C 18:29, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

  And as noted in WP:BLOCK: If the blocking administrator is not available, or if the administrators cannot come to an agreement, then a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard is recommended. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 20:47, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

• I looked at this category yesterday, and just felt overwhelmed by how difficult the judgement call is on a lot of the RFU's. You try and balance assuming good faith with not being naïve, the various parties that may need to comment (blocking admin etc.), and it just wasn't something that can be done easily. Not to mention second-guessing your own judgement. Make no mistake, I think this category is one of the hardest for an administrator to work in, and anyone who does do regularly or resolves the more complex ones deserves to be commended. I'll try chip in and do a small handful of the easier ones, but where I feel out of my depth I might just drop a comment or suggestion and leave another admin to actually make the final decision, as I feel a bit shaky in this space. Daniel (talk) 20:50, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, but occasionally you get to unblock someone and they become constructive editors. It doesn't happen often but it's pretty rewarding when it does. --Yamla (talk) 20:54, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Maybe we need to review some as a team and bring some of them here. Coördination of effort and team work might make it better. I always feel overwhelmed there. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 01:27, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Given how many there are in that category, maybe just paste all the unblock appeals that aren't clear-cut declines or accepts into a mass section on here (maybe divided by headings for each user) and have the community either endorse or overturn the blocks. Might be a good strategy for the future if the category gets backlogged as well, and it's certainly easier than having block appeals lingering for two to three months. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 08:13, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

+1 -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 08:21, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: Wut? -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 08:24, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Gah. I had forgotten the mind-numbing tedium and futility of working this area. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 09:35, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

+1 also. I thought something similar a couple of days ago, but good to hear it from another voice! Maybe a subpage given it'll be a heck of a lot of content? Daniel (talk) 10:19, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 11:58, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Consulting on difficult unblock appeals is a very attractive idea, but isn't that liable to turn blocks into community sanctions, bans per WP:CBAN "Editors who ... remain indefinitely blocked after due consideration by the community, are considered "banned by the Wikipedia community"."? I have seen blocked editors warned that asking for an appeal to be copied to WP:AN has that risk, and I guess that would apply to WP:AN subpages too. NebY (talk) 13:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Not if we carry it here on our own. And not if we stipulate it does not. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 13:58, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Looks like I need to prioritize CAT:UNBLOCK over UTRS. Having said that, if any admin wants to carry an unblock/unban request from WP:3X banned and globally locked Michaelshea2004 from UTRS appeal #83145 to AN, it would be a good thing. Thanks. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 14:01, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Deepfriedokra, I have a better idea. I'm inclined to unblock this person per ROPE and per MAYBE THEYRE NOT A CHILD ANYMORE--I'll just restore talk page access and see if they can actually behave, OK? Drmies (talk) 02:05, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Drmies: Sorry, they are globally locked and 3x banned. Someone, probably me, needs to schlep their appeal to here. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 02:12, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Also, you would make Yamla very unhappy. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 02:13, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Deepfriedokra: they're not banned as far as I can see, and they're only blocked here--what am I missing? Yamla, am I out of line here? What I see is someone who a year and a half ago was acting like a total ass, but I don't see that in their latest UTRS appeal--it seems to me that they grew out of it, maybe. Drmies (talk) 02:19, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for trying, but User:Michaelshea2004 and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Michaelshea2004/Archive -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 02:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I expect to carry Michael to AN tomorrow. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 02:47, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Deepfriedokra, @Drmies, so as not to waste any more of your time on this, please see Special:CentralAuth/Michaelshea04. There you'll also find the de and it unblocks, both of which were self-requested. – bradv 02:52, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Just brought Drmies up to speed. Need my beauty sleep for all this schlepping -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 02:56, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I always saw that rule as more of a "if the community has to actually take the time to review your unblock request, and they endorse it, then it stays". In this case, I'd see unblock requests that just happen to have some attention on AN to give an opinion from non-admins as not being community endorsements, necessarily. The sticking point would presumably be that even if the block appeals were copied here, an uninvolved administrator would still just be considering comments as if they had been made on a blocked editor's talk page, not as if they were a formal community sanction. EggRoll97 ^(talk) 21:54, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

That analogy makes sense - thanks for taking the time to lay it out. NebY (talk) 14:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Damn these take up a lot of time. Drmies (talk) 22:42, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Indeed -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 23:55, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Ha, thanks for your help on the one, User:Deepfriedokra--and sometimes they're actually interesting. I think I've handled half a dozen and it feels like I spent two days on it, haha. Drmies (talk) 01:59, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

My pleasure. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 02:06, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

• Sadly, there's not a lot non-admins can do here. I'll occasionally take a look at CAT:UNBLOCK just to see if there's anyone worth unblocking. A lot of them tend to be edge cases no one wants to decline (an observation I believe I am borrowing from the late Nosebagbear ). I always feel bad for those folks. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 03:23, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah I do feel bad about the long backlog there, but generally the unblocks sitting at the back of the queue are the nth one by the same user and are borderline - the people with good unblock requests generally do get unblocked pretty quick I feel like. Galobtter (talk) 03:50, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I have been blocked on it wiki in an irregular way

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

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Dear Administrators, months ago, I have incorrectly been given an indefinite block on the Italian Wikipedia against the guidelines. Considering the inappropriateness of the block, I created several multiple accounts, with which I contributed constructively, however, they have all been blocked. I tried to ask several times to Italian Wikipedia Administrators if I could be unblocked, but my requests were almost immediately removed and ignored. What can I do to get unblocked? If you would like major details about my situation, you are free to ask me. Thank you and Kind regards 14 novembre (talk) 15:57, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

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

Arbitration motion regarding GiantSnowman

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

Remedy 1.2 of the GiantSnowman case ("GiantSnowman admonished and placed under review") is amended to read as follows:

1.2) GiantSnowman is admonished for overuse of the rollback and blocking functions, and reminded to "lead by example" and "strive to model appropriate standards of courtesy"; to "respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrative actions and to justify them when needed"; to not use admin tools in "cases in which they have been involved" including "conflicts with an editor" and "disputes on topics"; to "treat newcomers with kindness and patience"; and to apply these principles in all interactions with all editors.

With the exception of obvious vandalism or obvious violations of the policy on biographies of living persons:

• GiantSnowman is prohibited from reverting another editor's contribution without providing an explanation in the edit summary. Default edit summaries provided by MediaWiki or user scripts are not sufficient for the purpose of this restriction. For the avoidance of doubt, use of MediaWiki rollback with an edit summary via a user script such as this one, or via massRollback.js, is permitted.
• GiantSnowman is prohibited from blocking an editor who has not been recently warned for the conduct in question. For the purposes of this restriction, "recently" is assumed to be within 7 days.

Violations may be reported by any editor to the Arbitration Enforcement noticeboard. GiantSnowman may appeal these restrictions directly to the Arbitration Committee at any time.

For the Arbitration Committee, firefly ( t · c ) 19:05, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Arbitration motion regarding GiantSnowman

Looking for admins for ARBPIA related Signpost interview

I am drafting next WP:SIGNPOST WikiProject report about Israel and Palestine, and specifically looking for admins to answer last few questions, seen on Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/WikiProject report draft. Given niche sensitivity of ARBPIA, I am posting it here. Any/other feedback welcome of course ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 23:48, 7 January 2024 (UTC)