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Pages recently put under extended confirmed protection (21 out of 7765 total) () WATCH Page Protected Expiry Type Summary Admin Viraj Mithani 2024-05-21 03:01 indefinite create Repeatedly recreated JPxG Talk:Sexual and gender-based violence in the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel 2024-05-21 01:18 2024-05-28 01:18 edit,move Arbitration enforcement ScottishFinnishRadish Draft:Roopsha Dasguupta 2024-05-20 21:26 2029-05-20 21:26 create Repeatedly recreated Yamla Gaza floating pier 2024-05-20 17:36 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement ScottishFinnishRadish Science Bee 2024-05-20 15:26 2027-05-20 15:26 create Repeatedly recreated Rosguill Wikipedia:Golden Diamond Timeless Watch 2024-05-20 06:54 2024-05-23 06:54 create Repeatedly recreated Liz Screams Before Silence 2024-05-20 04:56 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Tyson Fury vs Oleksandr Usyk 2024-05-20 03:49 indefinite edit,move Persistent vandalism: per RFPP Daniel Case Atom Eve 2024-05-20 02:53 2024-08-20 02:53 edit,move Persistent sock puppetry NinjaRobotPirate Ebrahim Raisi 2024-05-19 22:02 indefinite edit,move Arbitration enforcement: WP:ARBIRP; upgrade to WP:ECP, 2024 Varzaqan helicopter crash-related; aiming for the short term (remind me) El C 2024 Varzaqan helicopter crash 2024-05-19 21:15 2024-06-19 21:15 edit Contentious topic restriction Ymblanter Koli rebellion and piracy 2024-05-19 21:08 indefinite edit,move Persistent sock puppetry Spicy Khirbet Zanuta 2024-05-19 12:15 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: WP:A/I/PIA ToBeFree Poppay Ki Wedding 2024-05-18 20:42 2025-05-18 20:42 create Repeatedly recreated: request at WP:RFPP Ymblanter Joseph Sam Williams 2024-05-18 11:59 2024-05-22 11:59 move Persistent sock puppetry; requested at WP:RfPP Robertsky 2024 University of Amsterdam pro-Palestinian campus occupation 2024-05-18 06:32 indefinite edit,move Contentious topic restriction: per RFPP and ARBPIA Daniel Case Edcel Greco Lagman 2024-05-18 03:31 2024-07-18 03:31 edit,move Persistent disruptive editing: Removal of sourced content, per a complaint at WP:ANI EdJohnston User:DatBot/Filter reporter/Run 2024-05-17 21:34 indefinite edit,move Persistent vandalism: request at WP:RFPP Ymblanter User talk:BabcocksRhodeIsland1700s 2024-05-17 16:17 2024-05-24 16:17 move Don't move your User talk page except by a Renamer Liz User:MayNard Keith Batiste, Jr 2024-05-17 15:29 2024-05-31 15:29 create Repeatedly recreated Liz Komail Anam 2024-05-17 13:36 2024-11-17 13:36 edit,move Edit warring / content dispute, per WP:Articles_for_deletion/Komail_Anam OwenX

Abusive and threatening posts on Talk: Ivan Katchanovski

IP user 174.92.47.171 has made a series of recent posts on Talk: Ivan Katchanovski that need admin attention. This appears to be a single purpose account. The user purports to be the subject of the article and makes a variety of paranoid claims about the actions of certain editors who have contributed to the page. This is part of a continuing pattern of threatening behavior by anonymous accounts with links to Ivan Katchanovski. Nangaf (talk) 06:49, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

It would be best to try to engage with the IP. If I could remember the link I would advise them to make an account and verify their identity. I just scanned the two sections at the bottom of Talk:Ivan Katchanovski and they look like what would be written by an unhappy person with a typical level of understanding about Wikipedia's procedures. That is, they need guidance. If that were unsuccessful, admin action might be needed. If there are threatening words, please quote some so they can be found. Johnuniq (talk) 08:37, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I have tried to explain a few of the issues to IP-Katchanovski, as has @My very best wishes (courtesy ping), which is commendable given that Katchanovski doxxed him in one of his works. Limited success has been achieved as IP-Katchanovski has continued to dump walls of text and drop sources that are not always up to our standards and sometimes in foreign languages, suggesting nefarious reasons for their non-inclusion when there are simpler explanations such as sourcing policies and language barriers. I understand he wants his bio to look better, but there's a point where he seems to want it to puff him up, and he doesn't seem to take criticism well.

I do not know what direct admin action could improve the situation, but there are some things that might be worth looking at. As mentioned, Katchanovski published the identities of some Wikipedia editors in one of his articles. This personal data was then shared here by user Prohoshka (these contributions have since been revedelled), who at the time got away with a slap on the wrist. Now IP-Katchanovski seems to suggest Prohoshka is a sockpuppet of user Wise2. I do not think IP-Katchanovski knows how to open a report at SPI (or what SPI is), but if an administrator/checkuser wants to have a go at it, it might assuage IP-Katchanovski's concerns. I also think that someone might want to tell user Nangaf to take a step back from the article. I was less than thrilled with his attitude at AfD in the past and it hasn't gotten any better, which doesn't really help. Cheers. Ostalgia (talk) 10:15, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

@Ostalgia: You are welcome to your opinion. I would note that I did, by your own admission, step away from the page for several months, only for you to troll me on the talk page, as well as here: so perhaps you could take your own advice. Nangaf (talk) 18:07, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

An IP user claiming to be Katchanovski has now made accusations of libel on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ivan_Katchanovski_(3rd_nomination). This is unambiguous abuse. Nangaf (talk) 04:05, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

What's the desired outcome? You wrote to every single related forum that Ivan Katchanovsky spreads conspiracy theories. In the article itself (Special:Diff/1206207202, Special:Diff/1206659223, Special:Diff/1205974670), at the 3rd AfD, at Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Ivan_Katchanovski; this was said or implied at the article's talk page.

It does seem that references to support this statement, where provided, do not directly mention Ivan Katchanovsky or his publications. Accusations regarding a living person are seemingly based on editors' deductions don't make it look good. (And neither the IPs' walls of text on article's talk, and the past history of Ivan Katchanovsky vs Wikipedia editors mentioned by Ostalgia.)

I don't understand what are you trying to achieve writing about this conflict everywhere. To protect article's talk page from IP editors? Surely, there's a better suited venue to ask for that without making statements about a living person in five different places? PaulT2022 (talk) 17:57, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I request that an admin removes the abusive posts. On previous occasions when an IP user claiming to be Katchanovski has made legal threats against other editors, that is what has happened. [1] Nangaf (talk) 19:28, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Nangaf, you have a userbox on your user page stating that "This user may sometimes share an IP address with Ivan Katchanovski and his many sockpuppets.". Can you clarify (a) whether this is true, and (b) if it is, how you come to be sharing said IP address? I don't think that it is unreasonable to suspect that such circumstances might be indicative of some sort of conflict of interest, and an explanation would no doubt clarify the situation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:39, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

This discussion is moot. The Katchanovksi article and associated pages have been deleted. Nangaf (talk) 19:22, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Close review of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Capitalization of NFL draft article titles

To start, this has been one of many attempts by a set of users to get the title "Draft" lowercase, going back to at least 2013. The most recent RM on the subject "National Football League Draft" occurred a few months ago and closed against lowercase being the title. A month ago, User:Dicklyon decided that "the large number of football-fan editors compared to the editors who want to respect our style guidelines" at RM was too great – something demonstrably false as a number of football editors supported lowercase – and so he decided to open up this village pump RFC in violation of WP:RFCNOT and prior consensus (not that he can't try again after a time, but it feels like its been happening over and over again – feels like a WP:STICK). The discussion was plainly a disaster; one of the worst and most disorderly proposals I've ever seen. First, not nearly enough notifications were sent out – e.g. NO relevant pages had a notice at the top as required by RM; the NFL project page received a notice but not the also-very active college football project; after the close, one of the most prominent football editors asked "When and where did that consensus happen?" and later noted that it seems "pretty sneaky."
At the discussion, a number of users pointed out that it was an inappropriate RFC and WP:FORUMSHOPPING, which was split out into its own section; by my count 11/15 out of the users commenting there said it was an inappropriate discussion. As demonstrated by the later WT:NFL discussion, a number of interested editors were discouraged from commenting due to the belief that it was going to be rejected as inappropriate. Furthermore, others were discouraged by the EXTREME AMOUNT of WP:BLUDGEONING from several lowercase supporters; User:Hey man im josh noted that three users combined had 192 comments. There is simply no way to come about a consensus when such extreme bludgeoning occurs. The amount of the discussion which was actually editors !voting was about 1/6, a number of which of those were "procedural close" comments. Hey man im josh gave an accurate description of the chaos in this comment; among other points, he noted that:

The validity of the discussion wasn’t established early on. There were a number of users who thought it was an inappropriate forum ... I think as a result some people didn’t participate or comment as much ...
Wikilawyering and bludgeoning the conversation to death was a significant reason why the discussion ended the way it did and I wish MOS discussions were better moderated to avoid these types of outcomes. “These type” being ones that are won by sheer number of comments and wearing people down ...
NFL Draft is absolutely (and clearly) a proper name of an event (in relevant sports sources, aside from ESPN, who is looking into their style guide based on an email I sent) but bludgeoning and wikilawyering has prevailed ...
There are inconsistencies in sources because most sources don't have a style guide they must adhere to, but that doesn't mean that downcasing is actually the proper result ...
It’s sometimes downcased in sources because sources themselves, which often consist of dozens of different writers, are not necessarily aware that it’s a proper name. This is a common problem for events, drafts particularly, that have self descriptive names which are also nouns ...
Inconsistency in sources doesn't mean that something’s not actually a proper name, despite what some are screaming from the rooftops ...
Some people refused to even consider the possibility of a proper name once the ngrams, which are notorious for lacking meaningful context, came out and showed an inconsistency (again, context is key) ...
Several people reached out to me privately to say that the discussion was such a trainwreck and drama filled that they weren’t participating ...

TL;DR: This discussion was an absolute disaster of a discussion – one of the worst I've ever seen. A large number of the participants didn't understand the terms of the proposal, many didn't comment because they thought it was inappropriate and going to be declined, not even close to enough notifications, zero notices on affected pages as required, SO MUCH BLUDGEONING, etc. etc. I could go on and on. But this really was a disastrous discussion to the point that no consensus could possibly be found in my opinion – even one of the supporters (User:Amakuru) later commented that they realized "This was a rare case ... where the raw numbers from ngrams didn't tell the whole story, there was decent evidence that capping could have been appropriate which was amply presented in last year's discussion, and without casting any bad faith ... this decision to go behind the back of the RM participants is a poor one." Whichever way this goes, we are willing to abide by the result (Hey man im josh has actually implemented some of the changes), but in my opinion, this really should be Overturned to no consensus. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:55, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

BTW - Am I seeing double? Why are some individuals commenting in both the uninvolved & involved subsections? Ya can't be both uninvolved & involved. GoodDay (talk) 20:00, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

RFC Non-participant comments

• Endorse close the various bad-faith and/or factually-inaccurate complaints about the forum should be discounted completely. An RFC can change policy, and the sheer volume of complaints about the forum prove that there was sufficient notification. Once the "how dare you propose this" complaints are discounted, there is consensus for the move. 217.180.228.138 (talk) 01:59, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse close. This has been a contentious point for years. The RfC sought to resolve the debate and was well attended with spirited discussion on both sides. Having read through the debate, I conclude (a) a community-wide RfC (with input from both American football and MoS editors) was a good way to resolve the issue one way or the other, and (b) the closure by User:The Wordsmith was reasonable.
  As for the concern with "bludgeoning", both sides were quite active in their comments. Compare User:Randy Kryn from the "upper case" camp (31 edits) with User:SMcCandlish from the "lower case" camp (42 edits). I don't see that as a basis for overturning the close. Cbl62 (talk) 02:25, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Bunch of extremely involved editors who should know better than to ignore sectioning ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:09, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

@Cbl62: I wasn't planning to join the discussion, but I think it's more useful to search for signatures as opposed to edits. The page was created part of the way through the discussion and some users replied to multiple comments in the same edit. I think that's a better reflection of someone's participation in the conversation as opposed to the edit count at that page. Hey man im josh (talk) 02:43, 16 February 2024 (UTC) Fair point, but a signature count ends up with roughly the same proportion: 41 for Kryn, 51 for McCandlish. And I didn't see anything that was particularly intimidating or "over the top" in the comments made. Cbl62 (talk) 02:56, 16 February 2024 (UTC) Though then there's also Dicklyon (72) and Bagumba (57); I for one was discouraged from commenting as much as I wanted due to seemingly every single supporter of uppercase receiving a barrage of opposition from one of those three (plus others), something that has continued at the related Talk:USFL Draft discussion. BeanieFan11 (talk) 03:23, 16 February 2024 (UTC) Are we really going to count number of edits/comments by editor here? I think the relevant questions on this matter are simply 1) was this RFC an appropriate substitute for an RM and 2) was there proper notice? Jweiss11 (talk) 04:15, 16 February 2024 (UTC) You labelled "capitalized" examples at Talk:USFL Draft § 2022, 2023 drafts that were almost half incorrect—either shown to be actually lowercase or without mention of the specific term "USFL Draft". The fact that it received responses is a reflection of the factual errors and failure to acknowledge the discrepancy in a timely fashion. Per WP:BATTLEGROUND: Editors in large disputes should work in good faith to find broad principles of agreement between different viewpoints. Discussions are not merely to tally votes without a policy and guideline-based discussion to understand opposing viewpoints. I'd welcome an uninvolved editor to assess the actual non sequiturs. MOS is under Wikipedia:Contentious topics, and the disruptive behaviour needs to be reeled in. —Bagumba (talk) 04:30, 16 February 2024 (UTC) Indeed. The last couple of months have actually shown repeated cases of what amounts to outright sourcing falsification in attempts to WP:WIN in tedious and trivial over-stylization disputes (especially in American in sports topics, e.g. here and here). This is turning into a WP:TE problem, a "let me capitalize stuff just to imply how important it is to fans, or else!" sort of thing. (That said, one assumes it is a product of presumption, selection bias, and inexperience at doing statistically meaningful usage examination, rather than being intentional sourcing distortion for PoV reasons. But the result is disruptive nonetheless.) To claim that editors who provide detailed refutation of such pseudo-sourcing are "bludgeoning" is just a hand-waving attempt to avoid scrutiny and to silence principled objections. In particular, Brandolini's law is highly applicable here: it almost always takes more effort and verbiage to refute provably false claims than to make them. The issue is exacerbated by the habit of many of those in favor of over-capitalizing things to simply repeat their "it's a proper name and must be capitalized!" claims in WP:IDHT fashion after it has already been proven that indy RS generally do not capitalize it as a proper name. Such proof by assertion attempts generate another round of refutation. The problem is further magnified when later arrivals do a "per X" !vote that cites the rationale of the provider of the bogus statements and so-called evidence. Most commenters do not read RfC, RM, and other discussions in any depth, and simply pop off with whatever best suits their predilections.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:58, 16 February 2024 (UTC) On Jweiss11's two questions: Yes, since consensus can form by any means the community chooses, WP not being a bureaucracy. And yes, at first, though the latter rapidly turned into repetitive and activistic canvassing (see extensive diffs in the RfC itself) by a particular pro-capitals party – basically, bludgeoning at a site-wide level. The idea that this discussion somehow had insufficient pro-capitalization input is a fantasy. And the input level really wouldn't make much difference, anyway, since the question was simple: is there sufficient capitalization in the independent RS to meet the MOS:CAPS (and WP:NCCAPS) standard? This was in a no way a question of what people might personally just like the look of better. Though several of them tried to turn it into effectively a referendum on whether editors focused on a particular topic can override WP:CONLEVEL policy to get a result they want, and the answer was of course "no", since the entire point of the policy is preventing editors involved in a particular topic from making up their own "counter-rules" and forcing other editors obey them in that category instead of following the actual WP:P&G and the sourcing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:58, 16 February 2024 (UTC) Despite what WP:BUREAU says, Wikipedia is indeed a bureaucracy. Only a bureaucracy would claim it wasn't one. :) Jweiss11 (talk) 22:13, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse close. It is reasonable to bring discussions that have not reached consensus on the pages involved to a wider audience, especially when they concern application of a global guideline. The evidence and policy-backing was overwhelmingly for lowercase, so even if every gridiron editor was properly notified it shouldn't have made a difference (unless they all invoked IAR, with impeccable reasoning). And as Bagumba noted, it doesn't seem like football editors were all that concerned about "proper procedure" back when the RM for the 2016 NFL draft page resulted in all the draft pages being moved to uppercase without notification or RM notices being placed. JoelleJay (talk) 04:55, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  To be clear, JoelleJay is referring to my comments at the RfC, not here. For convenience, here are links to said 2016 RM and its move review.—Bagumba (talk) 05:31, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn close A bizarre end run around the RM process, that used a separate, poorly advertised RFC instead of a move review, or a new RM. The stated idea for why we needed this novel approach was because this was meant to set some sort of precedent, and yet the ending we get only applies to the NFL. RFCNOT is clear, and this was not the way to go about it. The amount of bludgeoning in that discussion, and every single discussion related to it cannot be overstated: the statistic page for the RfC is unlike anything I've ever seen before. Already, one user (who posted ten times more text than anyone else at the RFC) has posted more text in the "Uninvolved users" section than any one uninvolved user. This is absurd, and something needs to be addressed if this is how MOS regulars are treating pages. Parabolist (talk) 01:13, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse per JoelleJay. Mach61 (talk) 00:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse close I don't see any convincing argument for why application of policy couldn't be discussed at an RfC, and the policy-based reasoning in the close was pretty impeccable. As an aside, I think the WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour should be taken seriously as a separate issue; it's no wonder this topic is so heated if five vastly experienced editors (Hey man im josh, BeanieFan11, Jweiss11, Bagumba, and SMcCandlish), with almost 1.2 million edits between them, can't even respect a basic involved/uninvolved division. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:27, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Hey man im josh, you could have commented in the involved section with a ping to Cbl62. I have no doubt that you have behaved with decorum in general in the aftermath of this RfC, but in this case I do not feel that you did. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
    • Hey man im josh, dividing a close review into involved and uninvolved sections is intended to prevent threaded replies rehashing the previous discussion from taking over the close review. I simply ask that you keep this in mind in the future. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:52, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
• Vacate RFC discussion, list at RM per WP:RFCNOT, which specifically includes Renaming pages. Carson Wentz (talk) 18:51, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse close. According to a excellent essay I recently had the pleasure of reading, its hard to argue with the fact that lots of people knew about the discussion, lots of people contributed and the right people knew it was going on. The venue / namespace itself may have been contrary to community norms, but WP:CONLEVEL is also policy and I can't see a reason to delegitimise the discussion purely for being in an atypical location. Scribolt (talk) 17:24, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

RFC participant comments

• Overturn page moves per WP:RFCNOT. My view hasn't changed, concerning the matter. An RM should've been opened at the page-in-question, including related pages. IMHO, an RFC shouldn't be used as a substitute for an RM. GoodDay (talk) 01:14, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• I'm not quite sure if I'm considered "involved" or not since I did not participate in this RFC, but I did participate in the 2023 RM and I am quoted above! I'll go with involved. I concur with GoodDay that this change should be conducted via an RM. I'll also note that the "notice" of this RFC to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League was underwhelming: [2]. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:24, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

What exactly are you're expecting for an RfC notification...? That's neutral and includes a link with a self-descriptive title, with further context provided earlier; nothing more should be said in such a notice. JoelleJay (talk) 05:00, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

There was a repeat notification later at 18:31, 6 January, seen now at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League/Archive 23 § NFL Draft RFC at Village Pump.—Bagumba (talk) 05:27, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse close. I don't understand why GoodDay and Jweiss11 and Randy Kryn and BeanieFan11 and a few others want to see this discussed again at an RM. The same evidence and same guideline-based arguments would prevail. You can see an example of a "related" RM (that is, similar issue, different football league) at Talk:USFL Draft. BeanieFan11 is again there posting ridiculously wrong info and then complaining when editors point out the mistakes. His "evidence" make the opposite case of what he's arguing for. Ultimately, probably much more quickly in that case, we'll follow the guideline, as we've done with the NFL Draft RFC. Lawyering about the process slows it down, and wastes a lot of editor argument time, as here; I'd call it disruptive, but we have a long tradition of letting everyone have their "day in court", so that's where we are. I commend the closer of this long mess of an RFC for all did he, other than making us wait a full 30 days when the result was clear weeks earlier. Dicklyon (talk) 05:38, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse close. The purpose of a close review is to examine whether the closer erred, not to relitigate why people would have preferred one outcome or another. The closer did not err here, and despite the length of the discussion, the only actual questions to resolve were quite simple: does the sourcing show enough capitalization in indy RS to meet the MOS:CAPS standard? Clearly no. Is there some means by which the community can be prevented from addressing the question in an RfC (at VPPOL and later stand-alone)? Clearly no. Randy Kryn has been beating a drum that WP:RFCNOT somehow invalidates the RfC or makes it inoperable and just "an opinion poll", but this is a bad misunderstanding of policy. WP:Consensus can form anywhere by any means. RFCNOT (an "information page" essay) suggests, of course, that RfCs are not the usual process for effectuating page moves, which is true. However, this was not an RfC standing in for an RM, it was an RfC to resolve the problem that that a previous RM and a WP:MR after it failed to come to a consensus. That's a perfectly valid reason for an RfC, though it could also have been done via a followup RM. The RfC route netted broader input, so was the better choice, despite all the patently disruptive "shut it down!" handwaving by people unhappy with the predictable outcome (predictable because the WP:P&G on the original question are clear, as is the sourcing). In short, the closer did not err, the process was not broken (despite various parties trying hard to break it, and extensive pro-capitalization canvassing). The closer has stated in user talk that their intent was that the RfC result could just be used as a rationale to move the page in question, consensus already having been established. This is correct per WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY and WP:CONSENSUS. However, it's ultimately immaterial. It's clear that the pro-capitalization camp are going to insist on opening yet another RM about this anyway, so the pointless discussion is guaranteed to continue and waste more editorial community time. But that has no implication of any kind for whether the reasoning in the close is faulty, which it is not.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:09, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse close yeah I thought it was the wrong avenue, but I trust the judgment done on the forum. Plus it evolved into its own page, so I accept the outcome. Plus, I'm not overly bitter about it and I guess I know when the bludgeoning gets really toxic, I just ignore it. Conyo14 (talk) 07:56, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn page moves per WP:RFCNOT, the RfC itself was a good opinion poll but then the next step would not be moving pages but opening a Requested Move. Anything else is WP:IAR without the necessary reasoning of why unilaterally moving pages improves Wikipedia. Reversing the page moves is another topic and not related to this review, and should be addressed separately. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:51, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Weak endorse. I voted to keep "draft" capitalized and I stand by my opinion, but there did appear to be weak policy-based consensus to change it to a small "d." Sound, policy-based arguments were made on both sides but the closing admin got it right in the small "d" side having better support. While RM would have been the preferred way to handle this move, this RFC received significant participation from a wide range of users including consistent contributors to NFL-related articles and those who do not typically edit in this area; this RFC can be considered valid grounds for a page move. Frank Anchor 14:12, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Changed to overturn after a more thorough reading of RFCNOT. It specifically mentions RM, and not RFC, as the correct venue for a page move. I maintain that the RFC received a large base of opinions from both NFL-regular contributors and people who rarely or never contribute in the area, but when the RFC process page says RFC can not be used for a page move, then RFC can not be used for a page move. Frank Anchor 14:21, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn the discussion on both sides devolved into an absolute mess. As I previously noted, I generally avoided the discussion after a few comments due to the tone. I will also note that the whole "wrong venue" discussion was a distraction for both sides. The original intent of going to RFC was to gather a larger audience. That was achieved but at the expense of a huge distracting discussion. I feel like both sides would be better served by having a cleaner discussion in the right venue (notifications can occur left and right to everyone) to mitigate any ancillary concerns. Seems bureaucratic, but it would seem that both sides would probably prefer to have a cleaner consensus to point to moving forward. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:29, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn. I'm not thrilled with the closer hand waving away the RFCNOT concerns raised in the RFC. I would also like to dispute the idea that the "Pro Caps Crowd" was somehow canvassing when the "lowercase crew" has an entire section of WT:MOS dedicated to canvassing. And of course the bludgeoning issue needs to be addressed. There is no need for any editor to make dozens of comments at an RFC, regardless of which side they are on. Jessintime (talk) 18:05, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  That section at the top of WT:MOS, of current and past style-related discussions, is kept neutral, central, and open to anyone interested, much like automatic and other notifications to Wikiprojects. Canvasing is something else entirely. Dicklyon (talk) 10:55, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse close The review rationale does not identify anything in the close that was unreasonable or against policies or guidelines. The close is detailed and accounted for the major counterarguments, even if it differs from those cherry-picked quotes or what some !voters like. The claim of a "disaster" or bludgeoning mandating a do-over are unconvincing, if not also insulting. Veteran admins are capable of separating the wheat from the chaff, perhaps moreso than some non-admin closers, who might "safely" close with an otherwise unexplained “obvious no consensus”, instead of investing time to filter and assess the valid points. The OP argues WP:RFCNOT, which is from an information page, while WP:NOTBURO and WP:CONSENSUS#Consensus-building are policies. The close gave more weight to policies:

  Analyzing the relative strength of the arguments, those who sided with RfC being a valid venue for this issue have significantly stronger policy-based arguments. ..there is no consensus that the RfC is invalid or inappropriate.

  Circling back to the the review rationale, it has factual errors. The most recent RM was closed as "no consensus" not "closed against lowercase being the title" (see WP:THREEOUTCOMES). The RfC was closed in line with P&Gs. The info page WP:CLOSECHALLENGE states:

  Closures will rarely be changed by either the closing editor or a closure review…if the poll was close or even favored an outcome opposite the closure, if the closure was made on the basis of policy. Policies and guidelines are usually followed in the absence of a compelling reason otherwise, or an overwhelming consensus otherwise, and can only be changed by amending the policy itself.

  WP:POINTY also has some applicable guidance:

  Practically speaking, it is impossible for Wikipedia to be 100 percent consistent, and its rules will therefore never be perfect. If consensus strongly disagrees with you even after you have made proper efforts, then respect the consensus…

  For all the fuss about appropriate venue, nobody has explained how the MOS was applied incorrectly (MOS:CAPS: Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.), or explained how a new RM would present any new arguments. NOTBURO indeed.—Bagumba (talk) 19:23, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Time to move on The RFC was a disaster from start to finish and I suspect there's zero chance that it is actually overturned because who has time to read through all of that debate about proper nouns? The lesson here is bludgeoning and badgering can work in certain situations. The endless wall of text comments certainly obfuscated the issue enough that a consensus was somehow pulled out of the wreckage. Congrats, I guess. It seems like there's more important matters to the project that interpretations of proper nouns. The English language isn't a math equation and treating it like one seems like a waste of time, but YMMV. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 19:50, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn while I generally agree with everything Nemov said, I'm loathe to reward the badgering and bludgeoning by tacitly agree with the close. I've no interest in wasting further energy on a mostly-pointless debate, but for the record I dislike the pompous and contemptuous tone that the MOS crowd takes toward content area specialists. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 19:36, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn per RFCNOT. As others have stated, a clever end-around when RMs weren't going their way, wrought with bludgeoning and simply overwhelming their opponents. The Kip 05:08, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: @AirshipJungleman29, I've stayed out of the conversation except to clarify something and now to reply to a comment directed at me, not to make an argument for either outcome. The page was split off at one point and the "top editors" of the split version does not include pre-split comments and some users replied to multiple comments in the same edit. Not sure it's fair to call that "disrespecting" an involved / uninvolved section or implying that contributes to a battleground mentality. I've spent a lot of time since this close trying to calm tensions and I don't appreciate the implication that I'm fanning the flames and making things worse. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:28, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  @AirshipJungleman29: I had zero expectation of it being an issue for me replying to Cbl62 the way that I did and, frankly, I still don't believe my reply was an issue. I also had no expectation that people would want to communicate as if this were a discussion at arb, where threaded discussions are discouraged between parties. There was no arguing on my behalf or any efforts to influence anybody, I didn't reply again after Cbl62 replied to me. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:46, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  @AirshipJungleman29: My intention was not to rehash the old argument, but I get your point. I also do not believe this is a productive way to communicate between sections and that a person closing a close review should be able to separate the chaff from the wheat if discussions got off topic in spots. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:57, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

• Closing Admin Comment Obviously I endorse my own closure, so I'm not going to make a bolded !vote here. I also hesitated to weigh in, since there isn't much to say that wasn't already explained in the close itself or at User talk:The Wordsmith#NFL Draft. I did expect it to end up here no matter which way I closed it, so I made sure to explain how I arrived at my assessment so that people at AN could understand clearly without my needing to re-summarize the same 4 deciEEng-long discussion here. Firstly, the Xtools page statistics are misleading especially for the amount of text contributed by each editor. The RfC began at the Village Pump and was copied into the separate page by SMcCandlish, skewing the ratios to the point they aren't very useful. Number of edits is a better proxy, but isn't perfectly accurate because some editors have a habit of copyediting their posts which results in multiple edits showing for one actual post. What I did see as clear WP:BLUDGEONING was where the same editor repeats their argument multiple times, with no indication that they took any of the counter-arguments into consideration. For example, the phrases "opinion poll" and "opinion survey" were used a combined 16 times in the RfC page, 14 of them by Randy Kryn to frame the RfC as illegitimate (the remaining two were SMcCandlish quoting Randy to rebut that idea). Randy has continued this framing[3], as well as making other false claims like the close "ignored" WP:RFCNOT when it was specifically mentioned in the close and explained further on my talkpage. I do think Hey man im josh's conduct has been exemplary; it isn't easy to enact a consensus that you disagree with, but he's taken steps to do that as well as tried to de-escalate the issue. Also noting that the practice of dividing comments in a close review into Involved and Uninvolved (I thought we recently settled on "RFC Participants" and "Non-Participants?) is a fairly new one, so it seems reasonable that there would be some confusion on that point.

I welcome the review from uninvolved editors. Honestly, when I started the closure I expected to to be a complete lack of consensus. As I began filtering out the bludgeoning, writing down the editors and the arguments they made, I was surprised to see a clear consensus emerge based on the strength of the arguments. It took 4+ hours to sort through everything on the RfC and write up a close; I don't think any policy-based criticism reasoning have been raised. The idea that the information page WP:RFCNOT can be "violated" or "ignored" when it is weighted against the policies WP:CONSENSUS and WP:NOT is wildly incorrect and continuing to push it is rapidly veering into WP:IDHT. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 17:40, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

re-summarize the same 4 deciEEng-long discussion here. I approve of EEng's talk page becoming the unit for page length, though maybe a link to the pre-archiving version would be better. JoelleJay (talk) 18:18, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

I actually just put together a draft of User:The Wordsmith/EEngs. It takes a raw page size and compares it against the current length of EEng's talk, so the RfC length can be cited with the template as 0.39 EEngs. I'll update it to be called with a page name directly in the future. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:26, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

"a link to the pre-archiving version would be better" – Sure, if you want to crash people's browsers. LOL.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:24, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

It's laughable to single out RK for bludgeoning while ignoring users on the other side who commented much more in the discussion RK did. Their whole MO is to bludgeon every discussion to the point where people who disagree with them no longer feel like contributing to the discussions. Jessintime (talk) 19:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

That was just one clear example of repeating an identical argument over and over, which is why I wrote For example. Other users have already been mentioned here by other comments, including Dicklyon and SMcCandlish and I agree with that. Bagumba also made a lot of comments/replies, but they were fairly short and addressed several different points/asked different questions so I wouldn't characterize their contributions that way. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 20:02, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Singling me out is fine, and I wish more editors here would read WP:RFCNOT and its use by the Dispute Resolution page as a defining description of what an RfC can and cannot do. It cannot, per RFCNOT, change the title of any page. That duty is assigned to WP:RM. I was convinced from the start that editors would use this RfC to change the casing of titles if a close went in their favor, so pointed out repeatedly, and do so again here, that the RfC was an opinion poll. According to RFCNOT it could not have been anything else. The results, of course, could be reported in a new RM, and the editors who commented at the RfC could be pinged to participate in the RM. But that route seems to have been closed off by editors using WP:IAR to move page titles to lowercase. My question is "How does moving the NFL Draft pages to lowercase improve or maintain the encyclopedia", the criteria for an IAR. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:59, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

As has already been pointed out, WP:RFCNOT is an information page and does not overrule policy. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 01:12, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

The policy Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#Requested move defines the parameters and process of how a page title is changed. The policy Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#Requests for comment refers to article content, and links to WP:RFC for definition and direction. That page contains WP:RFCNOT, which instructs that RfCs cannot change page titles, and refers editors to Requested moves for that task. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:32, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn based on the considerations discussed in my comments here. The search for perfect capitalization consistency is simply not worth the amount of dispute and demoralization that it has been creating for more than a decade. No criticism of the closer is intended. (I'm not sure whether I'm considered "involved" where I don't edit the underlying articles but I did participate in the discussion, but I've posted in the "involved" section to avoid any dispute.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:48, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  I've updated the section headers per recent practice, "Involved" is intended to mean RFC participants rather than WP:INVOLVED The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 20:06, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Behavior of editor User:MrOllie

Repeated deletions involving several pages, and in particular the redirection of page Sampling (computational modeling)

Evidence

This is my second dispute opened in relation to the operate of User:MrOllie, see Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_241#sensitivity_analysis for a record of the first. In this second I would like to look at what happened to other pages supervised by the same editor, as, in my opinion, a troubling pattern emerges. As previously noted User:MrOllie has removed my citations from several pages, in a rather 'deletionist' style, but the action of this person has been particularly inconsiderate in two specific pages, sensitivity analysis (see Talk:Sensitivity_analysis and sensitivity auditing, see Talk:Sensitivity_auditing. I hope that the adjective inconsiderate referred to the action of a person is not censored and is accepted as a criticism moved by an author to the operate of an editor. Plenty of material is available in Talk:Sensitivity_analysis to motivate the adjective inconsiderate - in brief, the works removed are the most cited in the discipline as attested by several authors. In the case of sensitivity auditing the issue is that the reference removed by User:MrOllie is the first reference introducing the method, quoted by all remaining references of the page, see Talk:Sensitivity_auditing. After the systematic deletions I made a public confession (see Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_241#sensitivity_analysis) of my sins - not notifying a conflict of interest while citing my own work. Having learned the lesson, I declared a possible conflict of interest in three talk pages: the two mentioned plus Quantitative storytelling, see Talk:Quantitative storytelling. I then opened three requests for edit under the edit COI template in Talk:Sensitivity_analysis, Talk:Sensitivity_auditing and in the page Talk:Post-normal science. These requests are in the pipeline. During all discussions so far, users User:MrOllie maintained a confrontational tone, although I always addressed this person with courtesy. Another clear inconsiderate deletion - that gives the occasion for this second dispute - took place once user (User_talk:Kozlova_Mariia - a person I know belonging to the community of sensitivity analysis practitioners) created a new page on sampling for numerical simulation Sampling (computational modeling). User:MrOllie eliminates the page with a redirect to the page Sampling (statistics). The talk page associated to this now redirected page explains while the adjective inconsiderate applies here. I copy the page in full below in blue as I find it self-explaining. Listening to reason: the talk page of Sampling (computational modeling) User:MrOllie I just undid your redirect of this page, (you eliminated the page created by User_talk:Kozlova_Mariia with a redirect to the page Sampling (statistics)). My motivation is the following: If one cares to read the two pages one will see that Sampling (statistics) is devoted to empirical experiments, either involving physical objects or individuals (humans) to be polled. This is about extracting entities from a population e.g. to set up an experiment in the laboratory or in a society as to ensure that several characteristics of the population are explored. Sampling in numerical experiments has to do with the exploration of multi-dimensional spaces to the effect of e.g. testing the output of a model, numerically integrating a function and so on. If anything, Sampling (computational modeling) is closer to Design of experiments (DOI) than it is to Sampling (statistics), though very few mathematical modellers use pure DOI but preferentially the methods in the newly created page. There is no conflict of interest in this page, neither mine not of the user creating it, and I consider that noticeably is ensured for this page. An incise, just to be clear: I know and appreciate the work of the user who created the page but the page does not contain self promotional material for either of us. A litmus test of the argument for the difference between Sampling (statistics) and Sampling (computational modeling) is that neither Sampling (statistics) nor Design of experiments contains Low-discrepancy sequences, also known as quasirandom sequences or quasi random numbers that are a best practice in computer simulation. Note the existence of a more specific and technical page on Quasi-Monte Carlo method. The newly created page is a useful bridge for users interested in numerical experiments. I suggest that before deleting this page again the opinion of other editors is polled. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 11:35, 12 February 2024 (UTC). The linked methods describe themselves as statistical methods and link to Sampling (statistics). This is clearly the same topic, just applied to a slightly different domain. We should not have two articles about the same topic, just as we don't have Samplling (medicine), Sampling (social science), etc. - MrOllie (talk) 12:28, 12 February 2024 (UTC) Sorry to contradict you User:MrOllie, but please note that Wikipedia has sampling (medicine) Wikipedia does not have sampling (social sciences) but has sampling (music) and sampling (signal processing) as well. Even sampling bias. As clearly noted above, in both sampling (medicine) and in the missing sampling (social sciences) that you take as an example one extracts samples from populations (of rats, drugs, chemicals, humans, treatments); bar discipline specific features, this can be covered in sampling (statistics). In sampling for numerical simulation or computational modeling one explores multidimensional space and this is not a slightly different domain. For example the concept of discrepancy - central to the field of sampling for numerical experiments - does not work for drugs and treatments. See the discussion of quasi-random sequences above. As I tried to explain, if redirecting (which I disagree with), this should be to design of experiments, not sampling (statistics). As I proposed, it would be useful to see what other editors think of this disagreement. Though I am not a great expert of Wikipedia procedures, a speedy deletion request from your side would have been preferable to a redirection, as this would have allowed a discussion with more editors. Hoping that you will consider my reasons, I remove again your redirect. Best regards.Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 11:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC) Those aren't repeating the same material about statistical methods, as this article is. Speedy deletion requests are resolved without any discussion, that is why they are speedy. MrOllie (talk) 13:38, 13 February 2024 (UTC) It is quite interesting how my arguments have been dismissed - User:MrOllie is categorical in his judgment, and a second pair of eyes is not needed. I did not continue the conversation seen its futility, but for whomever is reading this I would like to note that not one of the references of the removed page Sampling (computational modeling) appears in the page Sampling (statistics). Of the four methods described in suppressed Sampling (computational modeling): Simple random sampling Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) Quasi-random sampling (QRS) Full factorial design (FFD) Only the first, random sample, is mentioned in Sampling (statistics) - no LHS, QRS or FFD. Why did I not write this as a continuation of the exchange with User:MrOllie? In one looks at the text in blue above User:MrOllie is not receptive to the reasons put forwards and continues repeating rather mechanically that the two pages are repeating the same material about statistical methods. Is this about reason or about power? I hope I have demonstrated that the page cannot be redirected, and especially cannot be redirected to Sampling (statistics): I add that the decision should not be left to User:MrOllie alone. Behaviors such as those described here have been registered by other unhappy authors, even outside Wikipedia, as I move to discuss next. Outside Wikipedia Looking outside Wikipedia, one discovers that several authors - like me - have been unfavorably impressed by the deletionist style of User:MrOllie. One user asks if this entity is a bot or an extremely busy human. Another asks Who is MrOllie and points to the critique of Wikipedia by Tom Simonite. I agree with this author that Simonite's piece -- although old -- is still very much to the point. The loose collective running the site today, estimated to be 90 percent male, operates a crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere that deters newcomers who might increase participation in Wikipedia and broaden its coverage. Author laments these high-edit Wikipedia editors who can "undo" the work of those who do actually contribute. Another author repeats the message that this incessant deletion has the effect of scaring people off, possibly scaring off people who could give a good contribution. These people might find themselves in a rabbit hole trying to comply with the rules and grammar of Wikipedia in a possibly vain attempt to get redress against behaviors such as those flagged here in relation to User:MrOllie. Another wounded author writes: I just want to say: Mr.Ollie is a serious piece of work...Put in serious creditable sources from real authority sites, not some fake ass wannabes, and everything and he just...never mind leaving this thread before I start getting nightmares from him haunting me again.(Signed xReminisce) One more author, apparently a physicist, gives what seem valid reasons why the deletion of User:MrOllie were inconsiderate. Maybe all these authors - who have brought their complaints outside Wikipedia, were wrong or deluded, while User:MrOllie was consistently right. My direct experience of this editor is that in my specific case User:MrOllie was plainly wrong, and consistently aggressive and confrontational. The theme of impoliteness emerges very vividly in one looks inside Wikipedia. Inside Wikipedia User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_5#dealerbid An excerpt: Wikipedia is not here for you to help build your reputation as a writer, I'm afraid User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_18#Shawarma_Page Here a dispute with an author who calls MrOllie lazy for deleting things instead on engaging with the content. just say you're lazy and unwilling to fix a simple error. you only just noticed the link from the previous contributor on this topic, and used it as an excuse to delete the whole thing. I fixed it now, let's see what new reason you come up with to delete it. Plainonlycheese (talk) 18:43, 4 September 2023 (UTC) MrOllie responds that personal attacks are forbidden We also don't allow personal attacks. If you keep on like this you won't be successful on this site. MrOllie (talk) 19:05, 4 September 2023 (UTC) Was this a personal attack? So if an author complains of the behavior of an editor as I am doing in the present note this is a personal attack. While receiving complaints from academicians for his intervention in the Talk:Sensitivity_analysis page MrOllie accused me of 'canvassing'. In other words, MrOllie is always right. Elsewhere [[4]] one Author complains after a series of exchanges But you are not a cooperative person. Not kind either. Neotesla (talk) 02:45, 23 October 2022 (UTC) To which MrOllie replies No personal attacks is a policy here, too. Do not post on my talk page again, I've read enough insults. MrOllie (talk) 02:49, 23 October 2022 (UTC) Is being 'not kind' and 'non cooperative' an attack or a criticism? Interestingly, MrOllie wrote on my own talk page User_talk:Saltean#Managing_a_conflict_of_interest, in reply to a polite expression of my reasons, You've been writing about yourself and your work all over the encyclopaedia. That is obviously a conflict of interest as we define it here. MrOllie (talk) 16:50, 9 September 2023 (UTC) I would typify this characterization of my 17 y in Wikipedia as aggressive, but I would not make an issue of it, were not for the pattern that emerges from the present analysis. User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_18#False_statement_in_Epoch_Times_article Here an author is asked to apologize to User:MrOllie: Don't post on my talk page again unless you're showing up because you've finally read the whole article and are coming to apologize. MrOllie (talk) 23:04, 8 September 2023 (UTC) User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_17#Your_message_to_me_about_removals Too long to be cited but here an author appears as complying with a request of MrOllie and eventually giving up after MrOllie refuses to take notice User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_16#Removal_of_some_citations_and_the_improvement_of_existing_ones_from_the_articel_"Evolutionary_algorithms" Here one author has inserted a group of references including on of her/his own, and MrOllie removed all of them. ... Do you want to prohibit experts who have worked in the thematic field of an article from citing one or other of their own publications in addition to other sources, provided that it fits the facts? The publication in question deals in detail with the complexity of the task being worked on with an EA. In other words, exactly what was described in the article and for which evidence was sought. I am looking forward to your answer. Wilfried Jakob (talk) 10:47, 29 September 2022 (UTC) The reply of MrOllie Yes, I do want to prohibit that. Citing a few other sources is not tax you pay in exchange for putting your own name on Wikipedia. MrOllie (talk) 12:47, 29 September 2022 (UTC) In my opinion here MrOllie should not have removed the extra references but only that object of a COI, inviting the author to use the COI template if to cite her/his own. Conclusions Like the user in I think that 'rabbit hole' well captures the syndrome that might befall an author (academic or otherwise) that after mastering the grammar of Wikipedia and its (evolving) set of norms finds herself or himself confronted with actions such as those discussed here. Once upon a time I spent some energy to convince my fellow academic authors from all disciplines to work in Wikipedia. I was a Wikipedia enthusiast of (almost) the first hours. I wasn't extremely successful in this proselytizing, I must say. I am more cautious now. I have met editors that have helped me and in a sense nurtured my work in Wikipedia. Maybe Wikipedia after the infamous 2005 case involving journalist John Seigenthaler has evolved with time to become more and more intensely policed, so that today, in 2024, the Wikipedia ecosystem needs the deletions of MrOllie more than my entries. Yes policing should not come with a sense of omnipotence. Erring authors needs to be corrected, not humiliated, their work encouraged, not deleted; a moralizing tone should be banned; editors' abrasiveness should be kept in check. Pace MrOllie, Wikipedia should not be an over here, that User:MrOllie defends from an over there of erring authors whose content is cleared acritically. Sentences such as Wikipedia is not here for you to help build your reputation as a writer, I'm afraid are inappropriate and come to a price in terms of deterred contributors. References References

Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 07:39, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Holy WP:MWOT. Shouldn't reports like this be over at WP:ANI? And about 95% shorter? And (preferably) about 100% more comprehensible? Bon courage (talk) 07:46, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I've collapsed it for now. Primefac (talk) 08:20, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

No one is going to read all this, here or at ANI. It is an essay, not a report. Dennis Brown 2¢ 08:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I actually went through it, because I was eating a sandwich and couldn't type or do anything else productive at the same time. The gist is that Saltean has a conflict of interest in the subject area and was citing their own publications in at least one of the related articles; does not have a legitimate behavioral complaint to pursue againt MrOllie; is trying to tar him as being part of some alleged "cabal" problem that some off-site writers were venting about; but is probably correct that Sampling (computational modeling) could be a stand-alone article (just using material beyond what Saltean has published). In short, this is a typical content dispute. I would recommend using WP:AFC to create the article, since various reviewers will check it for self-promotion, for WP:GNG passage, for not being a WP:CONTENTFORK, for having WP:Neutral point of view, for lacking WP:Original research, for citing WP:Reliable sources, and so on.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:07, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I owe you a sandwich. Just glancing through, I kind of got that same feeling, but I lacked the patience that the sandwich gave to you, enough to read the whole thing. COIs are are such a tricky thing, and this seems to be an example why we recommend that people with COIs don't directly edit. I did read enough that your suggestion would be the best course of action, and for Saltean to be patient, as the average article reviewer may not be experienced enough to reviewing the article. I certainly wouldn't be. They can always ask for others here with the technical experience to review it after it is more or less complete, not just the regular article reviewers. Saltean, you need to understand that the default around here is to keep the status quo, unless it is clear that a change is needed or obviously beneficial, so when you try to do something large, it typically gets pushback until you develop a consensus for it. Developing the article outside of mainspace (per SMcCandlish's idea) is probably the best way to approach this. Writing walls of text isn't. Dennis Brown 2¢ 10:26, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

It's not just about self-citations. The reverts were factually wrong too. We have been trying to raise that over and over now. If you go look at the pages' discussions, many researchers have been trying to make this clear. And if you look at who these researchers are (because you can as we all publicly give our real names-my second name if you doubt that part as most do), you will see that we are the top researchers in the field. And sure you can argue that we know each other and have a conflict of interest, yes sorry the field is small and we go to the same conferences and are friends. My bad.

I guess my question is the following: are you then saying that, we, the most knowledgeable people on a topic should abstain to write about our own scientific contributions and methods? And then leave that up to people who are making mistakes? Because this is what is happening, people making mistake and we are trying to fix things. Tupui (talk) 19:21, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I am saying that people that have a conflict of interest need to edit carefully and still must get consensus for their changes, no matter how expert or brilliant they are. The policies at Wikipedia are the same for everyone. This is also why I agreed that a separate article should probably be started over to the side, so they can find tune it before submitting it. That is for their own benefit. Not so much to benefit everyone else. What you don't understand is we are flooded with people who are self-proclaimed experts, some real, some imagined. They still have to follow the same policies. Farmer Brown - 2¢ 00:15, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Damn, what was in that patience sandwich? El_C 07:03, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Thyme? Dennis Brown 2¢ 07:14, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

It was certainly sage advice. Bon courage (talk) 07:19, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

With a hint of spicy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I fuck with spicy mayo. El_C 08:09, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

egg mayo? – robertsky (talk) 10:23, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

You are all being quite disrespectful now. A serious matter is being raised and this tangent is showing a deep lack of consideration and inclusiveness. Tupui (talk) 10:25, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, come on everyone, let's keep the humour at bay. Bon courage (talk) 10:39, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Believe it or not, I am actually going through your report while having a bowl of soup. I have nothing much to add to SMcCandlish's except to seek third opinions from another experienced editor for content disputes. The editor giving their analysis or feedback may not necessarily be an expert in the area of interest, but will suffice for determining/mediating the path forward. That being said, since it is here, do consider SMcCandlish's advices which are sound and come from experience. – robertsky (talk) 11:11, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

@Saltean and Tupui: I'll answer the original really excessive length with a bit of length of my own, in the interests of being clear and advisory instead of dismissive. The advice in this thread is sound. Use the WP:AFC procedure to create a new article, and this may be quite slow-going, and potentially rather frustrating. The central problem here is that Wikipedia is not a journal and does not publish cutting-edge primary research. A novel sub-field with few practitioners, who all know each other and are themselves defining the subject (which is a very important factor – see AEIS discussion below), does not generally make for an encyclopedia article, because it is too new, too much of a walled garden, and lacks in-depth coverage in reliable but independent and secondary sources. The onus is on you (collectively – everyone with an interest in creating such an article) to demonstrate that this field-specific meaning of "sampling" passes the general notability criterion with such secondary coverage, and to base the bulk of the draft on that coverage, not self-promotionally on your own primary-reserach publications. It is distinctly possible that Wikipedia cannot have an article on this subject for some time, even if it conceptually merits one, due to insufficient secondary material.

Actually provable outright error with regard to this subtopic that might be found in broader-topic articles should be corrected, of course. But that doesn't necessarily means you are the ones to do it. It again depends largely on citation to secondary-source material, not assertions from your own primary publications. For researchers whose careers are deeply involved in something this narrow, conflict of interest is likely, so such correction requests should be done with {{edit COI}} on the talk page of the relevant article; people are apt to revert your own changes based on your own material (or that of your friends) as improperly sourced and potentially self-promotional of a particular researcher-cum-Wikipedian's own work.

This not an invalid concern. While Saltean has a long history here, the bulk of their editing is within a topical sphere that seems to correlate strongly with their work life (and some of it is questionably encyclopedically constructive, including a lot of writing about rather random-looking academic edited volumes that clearly do not pass WP:GNG, or WP:NBOOK more narrowly, and are tagged as non-notable, so are probably going to WP:AFD at some point. Tupui does not have a long history here at all, with a very low input level, 100% of it focused on their professional interests.

Many if not most long-term and producive WP editors here learn to steer away from writing about their work subject(s), because it is very difficult to avoid conflicts of interest. E.g., professionally, I have been a civil-liberties activist, policy analyst, webmaster, and systems and network administrator, among other things, and I virtually never edit in topics that pertain to areas of my professional focus, because I am too close to them (and often to prominent individuals within those fields) and have strong opinions about virtually everything in those subject areas, which are difficult to discard; this general problem impairs the ability to treat the subjects with encyclopedic neutrality. Conflicts of interest in the broad sense can be subtle, including: selection bias with regard to sourcing; subtle viewpoint-pushing out of a conviction that one professional/academic faction has the facts more on their side even if a real-world consensus has not come to that conclusion; over-reliance on primary-research papers that have stood no test of time and are not subject to any academic secondary-source scrutiny (systematic and other literature reviews); even attempting to rely on such materials for analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis (AEIS), which is not allowed; and so on – instead of relying upon an as-neutral-as-possible due weight analysis across all the available modern reliable source material, with overwhelming dependence on secondary not primary sources. The AEIS issue in particular appears to be pertinent to this topic; it looks like AEIS of these individuals' primary work is the basis of the material that has been attempted at WP on the subject so far.

Finally, fixing errors (outright or of omission, especially omission of what one might feel is deserved attention/credit) can sometimes be frustrating and lengthy. In my case, our article on a topic of some public importance in Internet history in which I was deeply, formatively involved was for a long time miscrediting some obscure organization (who did exist and did have some minor involvement) as being originators of the topic in question, which was completely wrong. (Whether fair to me or not isn't the issue; it was grossly misleading to the reader, and acting as unabashed promotion of the other partty). I used edit-requests on the talk page to resolve this, and it actually took several years. And I still am not mentioned by name in the article content (due to lack of secondary sourcing that makes me an important part of the story), but the other group is no longer falsely credited with work they did not do. That result is actually okay. If secondary sources do not consider it a matter of keen public interest to name-drop me in that connection, then Wikipedia is not in a position to second-guess that "real-world consensus" on what is important about the subject. If you are here to ensure that your name and work are tied by name to this sampling subject, then you are here for the wrong reason. Note that's an if; I'm not saying that is the case (not being a mind-reader). But self-citation and an editorial focus on only that which pertains to your career focus can easily give that impression and raise red flags in the minds of other editors.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:16, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to all who kindly contributed to this exchange. A few thoughts:

• I am happy that with the complicity of a sandwich some of my text (pardon, my WP:MWOT) has been read. No, by all means, I do not fault User:MrOllie for belonging to a ‘cabal’, the opposite, I fault User:MrOllie for going alone on a page where User:MrOllie is clearly not at the top of his/her expertise. I also dislike his/her manners but I understand this issue has little currency here. It is only human that you close ranks around your fellow editor, but I hope that among yourselves you have at least a doubt that not all is well with this person – how many of you managed so many complaints as User:MrOllie? What if abusing authors the way User:MrOllie seems to do exceeds the specifications of his/her job?
• Thanks User:SMcCandlish for your kind and considerate advice. At present I am still testing what the Wikipedia own rules permit by way of COI. As I learned my lesson, I will no longer talk about my published work. Yet, since I am an author and not an editor, I prefer to write about things where I have an interest, as you can see at User:Saltean. I believe our roles are different. The present situation is a transient one, where we need to remedy some factual damage done by User:MrOllie. Of course, we could ask others to do reinsert the missing references – and this would be gaming the system, or wait patiently that someone does, but if you do not mind, I would like this to be done following Wikipedia own rules; for me, an interesting experiment.
• Going back to the page Sampling (computational modeling) (no COI) that is the main object of the dispute: I am still unsure of how to proceed: can I undo again User:MrOllie and simply add at the top of the page the WP:AFC label? Will he not redirect it again? Apologies for my ignorance of the mechanics of it. Your editors’ home may be an author’s rabbit hole. Thanks for your help and patience.

Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 11:26, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Replying to this in user-talk, since we're getting far afield of what WP:AN is for.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:40, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

• Further discussion: Talk:Sensitivity analysis. Softlavender (talk) 09:18, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
• Tupui, you would do good to lighten up a bit. Many of us have devoted a great deal of time to Wikipedia (For me, it's 69,000 edits over 17 years, and I'm not unusual or "special"), and take the principles of Wikipedia serious, but not ourselves. Humor is how we deal with issues like someone leaving a tomb for a report, which is very difficult to comb through. SMcCandlish has just provided you with a gold mine of information that should clear up some things for you, much better than I could have said it. We write articles, we don't save lives here, so best if we don't take ourselves too serious. Like it or not, we are all just equal drones here, none of us is special. Dennis Brown 2¢ 10:51, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  69,000 edits — nice. El_C 11:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  I have been deeply involved in a few open source communities for years and what you are doing right now would have been flagged as a Code of Conduct breach. Humour only works if everyone is indeed laughing.

  On the matter at hand, I do not understand your position. Now we are being told that our field might be too niche though Andrea is pointing out that the EU now has regulatory requirements with regards to sensitivity analysis. The field is also almost as old as the variance.

  My take away from all of that is that we experts are not welcomed to contribute our knowledge. Instead random folks, which clearly have no clue about a subject, are more welcomed to share their non existing knowledge. Tupui (talk) 11:29, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Those EU regulations might be a usable source. Bon courage (talk) 11:32, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Yes but then it’s again a citation for Andrea… That’s the thing which folks are missing here. The field is not small, there is an extensive literature around it and massive usage. Yet the researchers and professionals making new methods and driving the field are just a few individuals. And I would argue that it’s a chance for Wikipedia that we would be willing to spend time to share our knowledge. Tupui (talk) 11:37, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Wikipedia is not the place for "making new methods and driving the field", rather it's for a summary of accepted knowledge based on secondary, independent sources. Bon courage (talk) 12:42, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  As I tried to explain, these are not new methods, nor is the field. I am only saying that we are the researchers driving the field, not that we are trying to add our latest stuff to Wikipedia. Tupui (talk) 12:44, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Well if there are secondary independent sources there should be no problem. Anyway, there is no user behaviour case to answer here. The conflicted editors should declare themselves per WP:COI and the content issue(s) sorted out on article Talk pages. I suggest this is closed. Bon courage (talk) 12:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  And what if there are no secondary independent sources? Does that mean we could not write anything on a topic? Not saying that's necessarily the case here, just trying to understand the policy here. Tupui (talk) 12:50, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Still to me there is a behavioural issue. It should not be normal that an editor with a lack of expertise just remove hard work by the press of a button based on nothing but: "too much self citation", completely disregarding the actual edits and not trying to find a compromise with the citation issues. Tupui (talk) 12:52, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  If there are no independent secondary sources, then we don't publish it. It's that simple. Verification is more important than completeness, it's one of our core principles. We are a tertiary source, we only publish what is available in multiple, reliable secondary sources, and only allow primary sources under certain circumstances. An editor that reverts because some facts rely too much on primary sources is not a behavior issue, they are likely enforcing our policies on verification. See WP:BRD to understand how reverting works and what is expected from editors. Dennis Brown 2¢ 13:23, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Tupui, I have a detailed response to what you've said, which I hope will be helpful, but it's better put in user-talk, since I think the AN crowd is tiring of this thread entirely, and the material is rather detailed and analytical about process, sourcing, WP actual needs for and from experts, etc., none of which is really a WP:AN matter.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:40, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Your take-away is incorrect. A couple of times a year or so someone running afoul of our self-cite norms complains that Wikipedia is unwelcoming to experts. There are plenty of credentialed experts and published authors contributing to Wikipedia. But we don't cite ourselves (or not as much). Wikipedia is not for promoting your own work. Levivich (talk) 16:51, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't see anything to respond to here that has not already been covered by others. But I do want to note something: Saltean says above that they have no COI with regards to Sampling (computational modeling). Technically true, but it needs to be stated: that article (which just lists a few common statistical methods - it duplicates our existing article) was written by Kozlova Mariia (talk · contribs), who is a coauthor of Saltean's, and has been working on a draft about a book of Saltean's at Draft:Book on the politics of modelling. Between this and the several single purpose editors who appeared at Talk:Sensitivity_analysis to add testimonial type comments, I suspect there is some off-wiki coordination going on here. My question on that talk page was ignored, so I will put to Saltean again here: Did you contact people outside of Wikipedia and inform them about these discussions? - MrOllie (talk) 13:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Please don’t be insulted but here’s the challenge the rest of us face:

• On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog

In other words, we’re all just screen names to each other; we don’t really know for sure if the other person is who they claim to be. We’re flying blind which is why we have to give claimed expertise zero weight.

Since we have to assume nobody here is a legitimate expert, we require reliable sources. With a few narrow exceptions, these reliable sources also have to be secondary sources.

Even with reliable sources, we have to avoid overweighting certain points of view. Someone editing with a conflict of interest potentially hijacks that point of view, even if they’re very knowledgeable.

You’ve gotten advice to avoid topics in which you are knowledgeable because of COI concerns. I disagree with this; I suggest editing areas immediately adjacent to but just outside your narrow area of COI. You can help us a lot.

Thanks for caring and coming here to build out Wikipedia. Just stick within our rules. I know they sometimes seem gratuitously odd and even counterproductive. Nevertheless they represent 20 years of collective experience dealing with hundreds of thousands of anonymous editors including some cranks, self-promoters and imposters. —A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 15:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I entirely endorse that, BTW. Editing topics just outside your CoI but still within your expertise area is a fine way to contribute, perhaps the best for many editors, and something we need a lot more of.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:46, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks a lot User:A. B.. I accept this and please note that I am not an expert myself in the exploration of multi-dimensional spaces - I have papers that use methods (one out this week, coincidence, in a good journal) but I am not the one developing them. I would really like not to follow on User:MrOllie provocation to reach out to the wider community. This dispute must be solved here in Wikipedia possibly following Wikipedia existing rules. Authors and Editors can cooperate to do precisely this and do it now.

As I said before, User:MrOllie should stop deleting the page Sampling (computational modeling) because User:MrOllie is patently wrong on the subject matter and continues to repeat mechanically that it duplicate an existing page when (a) none of the references of Sampling (computational modeling) appears in Sampling (statistics) and (b) three of the the four methods in the new page are not covered in other one. Even for a non-expert, this should be a telling sign that User:MrOllie insists in neglecting. In my opinion the person with a conflict of interest is now User:MrOllie.

Why don't you User:MrOllie do the decent thing to let the page live and let other authors decide its fate? Incidentally, with time we can improve this page, and work is also needed in Sampling (statistics), Editors please check if what I say is true. Can some of the editors who kindly contributed to this discussion with their experience and histories volunteer to help with this simple process, so that we can all move on? Please don't make me open another procedure (third opinion?) on this matter when we have, I believe, all already extensively discussed it. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 15:49, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Saltean, MrOllie explained his redirecting of the article at Talk:Sampling (computational modeling). That is where discussions of that matter belong, not at AN. If you strongly feel that the article should be restored and stand alone, then create an WP:RFC on the subject by following the precise instructions at that link, keeping your question neutral and brief. You can add your extended arguments to that RFC via your vote (Support or Oppose) and rationale. Softlavender (talk) 01:51, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Restoring a "deceased" editor

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

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I've come across something very strange. Frostly registered as a new member at 05:09 today but from the user page (which only contains "in memoriam") no longer appears to be active, ditto user talk. It seems to me this may be the result of the last user page edit by Frostly but we really don't know how to deal with it. I am unable to notify the user in question as the talk page is dead. See also User talk:Rosiestep where this has been discussed without progress.--Ipigott (talk) 13:34, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Maybe the problem will be resolved automatically. I've just posted a message on the talk page where I read "Frostly has recently suffered a significant loss and is grieving. Consequently, his ability to work on Wikipedia and his time available to do so may be affected. Your patience with delays in handling Wikipedia responsibilities and in responding to talk page messages or e-mails is appreciated, as is your compassion and understanding. Thank you."--Ipigott (talk) 13:56, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi Ipigott. There appears to be some confusion here. The "in memoriam" in the user's page is related to the recent passing of another member of the community. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 13:58, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Isabelle Belato: Yes, I realize this and have just found the above talk page explanation. What is strange is that the subject has been active since posting the in memoriam. Does this mean things will soon return to normal?--Ipigott (talk) 14:03, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what you mean. It is a tribute to another editor who is deceased. There is no implication that Frostly is deceased. Spicy (talk) 14:05, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Ipigott, There is no such function/feature on Wikipedia that sets a user to deceased, or inactivates their userpage or talk page or prevents the editor from editing while it is up. The user you are asking about is in mourning and has modified what their user and talk page displays. That does not make a difference as to how anything works. You can still contact them, they can still edit if they want to. They may make a few edits here and there and return fully later, or whatever else they feel like. Nothing over there affects anything. Your choice is between contacting them for the WIR onboarding right now or giving them a few days. There is nothing else to fix. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 14:17, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Inspection request

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

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In this poll, @Tehonk called me a paid editor and another time called me a sock (of course without reason!), I request the administrators to check my account first and block me if this is the case. But if this is not the case, please warn the user @Tehonk so that they don't accuse other users.

In addition, user @Tehonk deletes the articles I have written (1, 2) when nominated, without informing me (as the author of the article), they just label the written article. (How should I explain why I created the article when I am not informed that the article has been selected for removal nomination.) Meyboad (talk) 19:36, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

This complaint is without merit. The evidence regarding sockpuppetry has correctly been completed at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/BenYaamin and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ArmanAfifeh, which will be reviewed by the appropriate people in due course. Secondly, it is not mandatory to advise the article creator of an AfD, as per this section which states "Consider letting the authors know on their talk page by adding" (emphasis mine). Daniel (talk) 22:16, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Also, you have failed to notify the editor you have reported to AN, as per the red box at the top of this page, as well as the yellow box in the editnotice when you add a new topic. I have done so now to rectify this omission. Daniel (talk) 22:49, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Okay @Daniel, I'll wait for the experts' answer. It's just interesting here that I generally created the articles of famous Iranian people who had Persian Wikipedia or were considered famous according to the rules of Wikipedia, and I didn't know that this was against the rules and I didn't read about this anywhere.

And the next point is that people who have already had articles, when I was trying to create them, I would come across an article with this topic: if you want to create an article similar to the previous article, don't do it, and if you want to write a new article start.

1. I can't see the previously created article

2. When I started writing essays, I used to research again to find standard sources.

My explanation is only for you to know why I wrote the article.

  Anyway, I am waiting for the opinion of inspection experts. Thankful Meyboad (talk) 23:19, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Daniel, like you said it says "consider", so it's optional. Also, since I think he's a sock I don't really want to communicate with socks much per WP:DENY as well, plus I remember a bot was handling these things if it sees it necessary anyway (I see it did here already). And I did not call anyone sock "without reason", all the reasons were specified by me and as it appears also by another user in two case pages. Tehonk (talk) 04:51, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

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

2024 requests for adminship review

A discussion is taking place at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review. You are invited to discuss, contribute to, and propose ways to improve the requests for adminship process. Thank you :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 08:30, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Close request

We could use some volunteers to help close a few discussions at close request noticeboard. There's currently 10 requests past 50 day initiation date. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 13:36, 20 February 2024 (UTC)