Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard
| Welcome – post issues of interest to administrators. |
|---|
When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough. Sections inactive for over three days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.(archives, search) |
 | This page has an administrative backlog that requires the attention of willing administrators. Please replace this notice with {{no admin backlog}} when the backlog is cleared. |
You may want to increment {{Archive basics}} to |counter= 38 as Wikipedia:Closure requests/Archive 37 is larger than the recommended 150Kb.
|
This page has archives. Sections older than 6 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 3 sections are present. |
Use the closure requests noticeboard to ask an uninvolved editor to assess, summarize, and formally close a Wikipedia discussion. Do so when consensus appears unclear, it is a contentious issue, or where there are wiki-wide implications (e.g. any change to our policies or guidelines).
Do not list discussions where consensus is clear. If you feel the need to close them, do it yourself.
Move on – do not wait for someone to state the obvious. In some cases, it is appropriate to close a discussion with a clear outcome early to save our time.
Do not post here to rush the closure. Also, only do so when the discussion has stabilised.
On the other hand, if the discussion has much activity and the outcome isn't very obvious, you should let it play out by itself. We want issues to be discussed well. Do not continue the discussion here.
There is no fixed length for a formal request for comment (RfC). Typically 7 days is a minimum, and after 30 days the discussion is ripe for closure. The best way to tell is when there is little or no activity in the discussion, or further activity is unlikely to change its result.
When the discussion is ready to be closed and the outcome is not obvious, you can submit a brief and neutrally worded request for closure.
Be sure to include a link to the discussion itself and the {{Initiated}} template at the beginning of the request. A helper script can make listing discussions easier.
Any uninvolved editor may close most discussions, so long as they are prepared to discuss and justify their closing rationale.
Closing discussions carries responsibility, doubly so if the area is contentious. You should be familiar with all policies and guidelines that could apply to the given discussion (consult your draft closure at the discussions for discussion page if unsure). Be prepared to fully answer questions about the closure or the underlying policies, and to provide advice about where to discuss any remaining concerns that editors may have.
Non-admins can close most discussions. Admins may not overturn your non-admin closures just because you are not an admin, and this should not normally be in itself a problem at closure reviews. Still, there are caveats. You may not close discussions as an unregistered user, or where implementing the closure would call to use tools or edit permissions you do not have access to. Articles for deletion and move discussion processes have more rules for non-admins to follow.
Technical instructions for closers
|
|---|
|
Please append |
If you want to formally challenge and appeal the closure, do not start the discussion here. Instead follow advice at WP:CLOSECHALLENGE.
Other areas tracking old discussions
- Wikipedia:Requested moves#Elapsed listings
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old
- Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion
- Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Awaiting closure
- Wikipedia:Templates for discussion#Old discussions
- Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion#Old business
- Wikipedia:Proposed mergers/Log
- Wikipedia:Proposed article splits
Administrative discussions
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#RfC closure review request at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 433#Closing (archived) RfC: Mondoweiss
(Initiated 22 days ago on 16 April 2024) - already the oldest thread on the page, and at the time of this comment, there has only been one comment in the past nine days. starship.paint (RUN) 03:15, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
Place new administrative discussions above this line using a level 3 heading
Requests for comment
Talk:Indo-Pakistani_war_of_1947–1948#RfC_on_what_result_is_to_be_entered_against_the_result_parameter_of_the_infobox
(Initiated 138 days ago on 22 December 2023) No new comments for over 45 days. Ratnahastin (talk) 07:24, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Awdal#RFC - Habr Awal/Isaaq clan
(Initiated 135 days ago on 24 December 2023) ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 21:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
Talk:International Churches of Christ#RfC on Singapore court case
(Initiated 118 days ago on 10 January 2024) RfC template expired on the 10th of February 2024. TarnishedPathtalk 13:15, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
RfC: Tasnim News Agency
(Initiated 85 days ago on 12 February 2024)
Closure request for this WP:RSN RfC initiated on February 12, with the last !vote occurring on March 18. It was bot-archived without closure on March 26 due to lack of recent activity. - Amigao (talk) 02:33, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
Talk: Interstate 90#RFC: Infobox junctions
(Initiated 68 days ago on 29 February 2024) Discussion is about to expire and will need closure. RoadFan294857 (talk) 15:37, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
Talk:2024 United States presidential election/Archive 7#RFC: What should the criteria of inclusion be for the infobox? (Question 1)
(Initiated 55 days ago on 14 March 2024) It's been about two weeks, since the RFC tag expired. GoodDay (talk) 14:07, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
- Archived. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 03:43, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
RfC: Change INFOBOXUSE to recommend the use of infoboxes?
(Initiated 53 days ago on 15 March 2024) Ready to be closed. Charcoal feather (talk) 17:02, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Russo-Ukrainian War#RFC on Listing of Belarus
(Initiated 53 days ago on 16 March 2024) Hello, this RFC was started on 16 March 2024 and as of now was active for more than a month (nearly 1,5 month to be exact). I think a month is enough for every interested user to express their opinion and to vote at RFC and the last vote at this RFC was made by user Mellk on 15 April 2024 (nearly two weeks ago and within a month since the start of this RFC). The question because of which this RFC was started previously resulted in quite strong disagreements between multiple users, but I think there already is a WP:CONS of 12 users who already voted at this RFC. Since the contentious topics procedure applies to page Russo-Ukrainian War, I think this RFC must be closed by uninvolved user/administrator to ensure a valid WP:CONS and to prevent further disputes/edit warring about this question in the future. -- Pofka (talk) 09:50, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
Will an experienced uninvolved editor please close this RFC. If there is a consensus that Belarus should be listed, but not as to how it should be listed, please close with the least strong choice, Robert McClenon (talk) 17:08, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
- I think it should not be closed with the "least strong choice", but instead with a choice which received the most votes (the strongest choice). The most users chose C variant (in total 6 users: My very best wishes, Pofka, Gödel2200, ManyAreasExpert, Licks-rocks, CVDX), while the second strongest choice was A variant (in total 5 users). So I think the WP:CONS of this RFC question is C variant. -- Pofka (talk) 18:33, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
Talk:SpaceX Starship#RfC on IFT-3
(Initiated 47 days ago on 21 March 2024) This is a contentious issue with accusations of tendentious editing, so the RfC would benefit from a formal closure. Redraiderengineer (talk) 14:48, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
- A note for the closing editor... an inexperienced editor attempted to close this discussion and didn't really address the arguments. There's been some edit warring over the close, but it should be resolved by an experienced, uninvolved editor. Nemov (talk) 19:28, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
- Another note for the closing editor: beware the related discussion at Talk:SpaceX Starship#Do not classify IFT-1, 2 and 3 as success or failure. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 00:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
- That discussion has only been going for two weeks and closing the RfC will not preclude editors from coming to a consensus on whether or not to remove the categorization entirely. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:28, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
- Another note for the closing editor: beware the related discussion at Talk:SpaceX Starship#Do not classify IFT-1, 2 and 3 as success or failure. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 00:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Libertarian Party (Australia)#Conservatism
(Initiated 39 days ago on 29 March 2024) RfC template expired. TarnishedPathtalk 01:22, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
Talk: Elissa Slotkin#Labor Positions and the 2023 UAW Strike
(Initiated 39 days ago on 30 March 2024) RfC expired, no clear consensus. andrew.robbins (talk) 04:05, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
WP:RSN#RFC:_The_Anti-Defamation_League
(Initiated 31 days ago on 7 April 2024) Three related RFCs in a trench coat. I personally think the consensus is fairly clear here, but it should definitely be an admin close. Loki (talk) 14:07, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Enforcing ECR for article creators
(Initiated 30 days ago on 8 April 2024) Discussion appears to have died down almost a month after this RfC opened. Would like to see a formal close of Q1 and Q2. Awesome Aasim 00:11, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Brothers of Italy#RfC on neo-fascism in info box 3 (Effectively option 4 from RfC2)
(Initiated 30 days ago on 8 April 2024) Clear consensus for change but not what to change to. I've handled this RfC very badly imo. User:Alexanderkowal — Preceding undated comment added 11:50, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
Place new discussions concerning RfCs above this line using a level 3 heading
Deletion discussions
| V | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CfD | 0 | 0 | 40 | 0 | 40 |
| TfD | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| MfD | 0 | 0 | 24 | 0 | 24 |
| FfD | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| RfD | 0 | 0 | 54 | 0 | 54 |
| AfD | 0 | 0 | 12 | 0 | 12 |
Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 8#Medical schools in the Caribbean
(Initiated 48 days ago on 21 March 2024) HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 20:38, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 8#Category:French forts in the United States
(Initiated 47 days ago on 22 March 2024) HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 20:38, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2024 April 24#Category:Asian American billionaires
(Initiated 14 days ago on 24 April 2024) HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 20:38, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
Place new discussions concerning XfDs above this line using a level 3 heading
Other types of closing requests
Talk:Killing of journalists in the Israel–Hamas war#Merge proposal (5 January 2024)
(Initiated 123 days ago on 5 January 2024) The discussion has been inactive for two weeks, with a preference against the merge proposal. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 19:39, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Eat_Bulaga!#Merger_of_Eat_Bulaga!_and_E.A.T.
(Initiated 123 days ago on 6 January 2024) The discussion wasn't inactive for 7 days. It seems there's no clear consensus on merging those two articles into one. 107.185.128.255 (talk) 18:16, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
- It's been over a month. So, it could be a good time to close that discussion. 107.185.128.255 (talk) 17:55, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Saleh al-Arouri#Merge proposal
(Initiated 117 days ago on 11 January 2024) Discussion has stalled since March with no new comments. It appears that there is no clear consensus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aviationwikiflight (talk • contribs) 11:06, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Frederik_IX_of_Denmark#Requested_move_15_January_2024
(Initiated 114 days ago on 15 January 2024) – Requested move open for 2 months, needs closure.98.228.137.44 (talk) 18:36, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
- Now has been open for three months. 170.76.231.175 (talk) 15:17, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Maersk Hangzhou#Second merge proposal
(Initiated 104 days ago on 24 January 2024) Merge discussion involving CTOPS that has been open for 2 weeks now. Needs closure. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 04:46, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- @WeatherWriter: I would give it a few days as the discussion is now active with new comments. GoldenBootWizard276 (talk) 00:00, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
- As nominator, I support a non consensus closure of this discussion so we can create an RFC to discuss how WP:ONEEVENT applies in this situation. GoldenBootWizard276 (talk) 21:56, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
Talk:1985_Pacific_hurricane_season#Proposed_merge_of_Hurricane_Ignacio_(1985)_into_1985_Pacific_hurricane_season
(Initiated 98 days ago on 30 January 2024) Listing multiple non-unanimous merge discussions from January that have run their course. Noah, AATalk 13:50, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
Talk:2003_Pacific_hurricane_season#Proposed_merge_of_Hurricane_Nora_(2003)_into_2003_Pacific_hurricane_season
(Initiated 98 days ago on 30 January 2024) Noah, AATalk 13:50, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
(Initiated 92 days ago on 6 February 2024) Requested move open for nearly 2 months. Natg 19 (talk) 17:46, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
Talk:12 February 2024 Rafah strikes#Merge proposal to Rafah offensive
(Initiated 85 days ago on 13 February 2024) The discussion has been inactive for over a month, with a clear preference against the merge proposal. CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 19:35, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Genital_modification_and_mutilation#Requested_move_26_February_2024
(Initiated 72 days ago on 26 February 2024) – Requested move open several months, needs closure. Natg 19 (talk) 22:29, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Afrophobia#Requested_move_4_March_2024
(Initiated 64 days ago on 4 March 2024) – Requested move open nearly 2 months, needs closure. Natg 19 (talk) 05:03, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Alexander,_Prince_of_Schaumburg-Lippe#Requested_move_10_March_2024
(Initiated 58 days ago on 10 March 2024) – Requested move open for nearly 2 months, needs closure. Natg 19 (talk) 04:55, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
Talk:List of generation VI Pokémon#Greninja Merge Discussion
(Initiated 34 days ago on 3 April 2024) – The discussion has been largely inactive for the past month, and though there are occasional comments, it has largely slowed. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 02:10, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
Talk:Rupert_Sheldrake#Talkpage_"This_article_has_been_mentioned_by_a_media_organization:"_BRD
(Initiated 21 days ago on 16 April 2024) - Discussion on a talkpage template, Last comment 6 days ago, 10 comments, 4 people in discussion. Not unanimous, but perhaps there is consensus-ish or strength of argument-ish closure possible. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
Place new discussions concerning other types of closing requests above this line using a level 3 heading
Pages recently put under extended-confirmed protection
Report
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
User_talk:Timathom/Archive_1
I attempted to break up the archive for User_talk:Timathom, but was unsuccessful in doing so. Can you please advise me on how to go about breaking up this archive, if I can not get the talk page deleted? Please {{ping}} me when you respond. --Jax 0677 (talk) 19:33, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
- I'm not certain what you're asking for. The current split, while irregular, seems fine. Killiondude (talk) 20:38, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
- Reply - @Killiondude:, ideally, the archives should be User talk:Timathom/Archive 1, "User talk:Timathom/Archive 2", "User talk:Timathom/Archive 3", etc. Someone refused to delete the page such that this could be done. Additionally, User talk:Timathom/Archive 1 is over 200 kB, and the bot is not splitting it properly. Please {{ping}} me when you respond. --Jax 0677 (talk) 14:18, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
- As far as I know it is up to the "owner" of a talk page to archive the page. Not somebody else. The Banner talk 14:29, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
- It does seem odd that Jax has now taken it upon himself to archive inactive user's talk pages without their permission and actively looking for user talk pages over 100K in size to do so. --StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 20:08, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
- Reply - @The Banner:, as it turns out, on behalf of the user, someone else already archived the page here without splitting it into multiple pages. I changed the archive period, which caused the talk archive to be further split. --Jax 0677 (talk) 17:06, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
- Bump - --Jax 0677 (talk) 13:32, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- Why do you "bump" your section when it seems that the requested split has already been done by Lowercase sigma bot and nothing needs to be done further, certainly nothing that especially needs admins? If you have a technical question, WP:VPT may be the better place for this. Fram (talk) 06:55, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Bump - --Jax 0677 (talk) 13:32, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
TenPoundHammer XfD Topic ban appeal
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Back in January, it was voted upon to indefinitely topic-ban me from XFD.
I admit that XFD has been a major sticking point for me over the years, and the above discussion wasn't my first go-round there. This one seems to have been instigated by my attempts to clean up Category:Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field. I clearly bit off more than I could chew there -- I was plowing through a ton of articles that seemed incredibly abandoned and non-notable on first glance, only to be proven wrong by one AFD too many. I was frustrated to no end by a constant barrage of !votes that seemed to me like WP:ATA and a lot of what I perceived as WP:SEP behavior. It was driving me to become far more angry and confrontational than I needed to be. I think it was clear that taking on such a huge task was only exacerbating my problems in previous XFDs. When this happened, I was told that it would be possible to appeal later on, so here I am. I went overboard and kept provoking myself instead of stepping back, and I think the topic-ban was justified since it cleared my head of the XFD process and frustrations thereof for a while.
Recently I was asked to take a look at Beader. This article seems like a surefire AFD candidate. No sources that I have found, including Merriam-Webster or Wiktionary, support the article as written. An AFD would be a good way to decide whether to delete it outright, redirect to beadwork, or rewrite it to be about something else. I also found Template:Angaleena Presley, a template that navigates only three articles and isn't even used on its parent article, thus failing WP:NENAN. Thirdly I found Real-time multimedia over ATM, a completely contextless essay that doesn't seem to have any reason to exist. And finally I found Sports Overnight America, a show that airs on a non-notable SiriusXM channel, and extensive Googling of which does not turn up anything but reposts of episodes. I would like to use these four as a trial basis for reverting my XFD topic-ban. Perhaps some sort of soft limitations can be placed to make sure I don't go overboard again (limit on number of XFDs per day/week, one-strike rule on bad XFD behavior, etc.). Whatever it is, I would like to acknowledge my reckless behavior and be given a chance to appeal my topic-ban. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 22:45, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
- Comment the TBAN placed approximately 6 months ago both prevented TenPoundHammer from nominating articles for deletion, and from commenting/!voting on other people's nominations. As this user has followed their TBAN and contributed constructively elsewhere, I'm inclined to support loosening the topic ban, with some restrictions for at least 6 more months. Based on the appeal statement, they seem more interested in being able to nominate articles than in voting, but it feels backwards to allow TPH to nominate articles for deletion but not to comment on other people's deletion proposals. A limit on the number of AFDs per day seems necessary as well. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:27, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Comment I find your topic ban appeal inadequate in several ways, TenPoundHammer. The severe behavioral problems that led to the topic ban go back well over a decade, and I expect you to acknowledge those disruptive behaviors and make specific pledges to avoid specific behaviors. Let's take for example your long-term behavior of profanely insulting and berating editors who provide links to reliable sources showing notabilty in AfD debates. I speak as an editor who lists about 100 examples on my user page where I saved articles from AfD by adding sources. You seem to believe that such editors are obligated to add those sources to the article, even though there is nothing whatsoever in policies or guidelines that requires that. I recommend that you have a specific editing restriction that obligates you to add properly formatted references to any article you nominated for deletion whenever any other editor finds a good source. You should also be restricted from using the "f-bomb" or any other profanity or personal insults in XfD discussions. You have failed to address your misleading edit summaries which seemed intended to deceive other editors. You must make a firm commitment to informative, truthful edit summaries. You have repeatedly admitted that your Google skills are inadequate to properly complete WP:BEFORE. Since this problem has persisted for well over a decade, I want to know which specific and concrete steps that you have taken to improve your Google search skills in the past six months. I have a very strong suspicion that lifting your topic ban without specific restrictions on your behavior, and specific ironclad behavioral commitments from you, will lead straight to further disruption, and further blocks or bans. So, convince me that your long years of repeated disruptive XfD behavior will never, ever happen again. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 01:16, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support with conditions. The conditions being: "No more than one nomination per day"; "Nominations must involve a comprehensive deletion rational particular to the page nominationed, not a rationale that can be applied generically to many pages"; and "No more than ten XfD posts per day, counting nominations, !votes, questions, answers, and comments". TPH was always valuable in XfD functions, but I think the problems all stemmed from attempting too much. If this works out, the conditions can be relaxed. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:36, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose. The blatant problems were so longterm, so intractable, and so devious there is no way I would support a removal of the TBan, and the fact that the editor is already chomping at the bit is a red flag. He should also not be fielding requests to "take a look at an article" to see if he agrees it should be deleted -- that in itself is a violation of the TBan in my opinion. The fact is, there was overwhelming support for an indefinite TBan, and some additional calls for a WP:NOTHERE block. Softlavender (talk) 04:12, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support- I see strong evidence that, since the ban, TPH has been improving his attitude and skills and has acknowledged the behaviour that led to the ban. I'd support loosening the ban to allow one nomination a day without commentary on other peoples' nominations, lasting three months or so, and we'll see how that goes. Reyk YO! 05:55, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose The fact that you already have pages in your sights means you haven't been thinking about other things, you've just been biding your time. This is a behavioral addiction for you it seems, and you haven't hit 'rock bottom' to start the recovery process. So yeah, that's a no from me. --Tarage (talk) 06:53, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- WP:ROPE. If lifting these sanctions goes poorly, then you literally have nothing to worry about. -FASTILY 07:45, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- WP:ROPE#When not to use: Banned users – users blocked by community discussion or ArbCom. Regards SoWhy 13:57, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oh, for goodness sake. WP:ROPE is an essay. Using it here a quick way of saying "OK, let's give this editor another chance, because hopefully they'll be careful knowing that if they screw up again, they won't get another one". Also, TPB isn't blocked or banned anyway. Black Kite (talk) 14:04, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- As the primary author of that essay, I can assure you that what I meant was full site bans, and have adjusted the language to reflect that. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:51, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support. Time served, lessons learned. I think a second chance is in order. -FASTILY 07:43, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support. While as Softlavender says, there was indeed overwhelming support for an indefinite topic ban, "indefinite" does not mean "eternal", it means until the issues are acknowledged, understood, and resolved. They have certainly been acknowledged, and presumably understood. We can only assume good faith and give TPH the opportunity to demonstrate that they've been resolved. I do think a throttle of some sort is sensible (one nomination and three comments total across all XFD discussions a day?), and TPH must surely appreciate this would be the last chance, with any incivility towards, belittling of, or ranting at other editors seeing the XFD ban re-implemented, likely for good. I would like him to acknowledge what Cullen says, as the "specific and ironclad behavioural commitments" Cullen mentions are a reasonable expectation before the ban is partially lifted. Fish+Karate 08:01, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- No, the issues have not been acknowledged or understood. TPH has only acknowledged the issue around his "attempts to clean up Category:Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field", not the numerous serious and longterm problems cited in the proposal thread: [1]. -- Softlavender (talk) 12:52, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose, not only what Softlavender, Cullen328 and Tarage pointed out, but the examples given in the appeal demonstrate clearly why it shouldn't be granted:
- Beader can, by his own admission, by fixed via WP:ATD without an AFD. Yet he believes it should be discussed there. Plus, it takes only a short while to find this entry in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles which shows our article is copied from this work without attribution (but since it's a US government work, it's likely PD).
- The only reason why TPH thinks Template:Angaleena Presley should be deleted is an essay he himself wrote (talk about circular reasoning!) and the fact that it's not used in the main article, which can easily be fixed.
- Real-time multimedia over ATM might be a mess but it only takes a short Google search to find that this is a notable topic that can easily be written about by someone knowledgeable, e.g. [2] [3] [4] [5]. This seems to be another one of those cases where TPH believes deletion is in order because he does not understand it.
- Sports Overnight America can easily be merged/redirected to Sports Byline USA without an AFD.
- Judging by those examples, they do not inspire any confidence that TPH has actually learned why this ban was instituted in the first place. As pointed out above, it does not appear that he really stepped back and reflected but merely waited out the ban to resume the same problematic behavior. Regards SoWhy 08:15, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- For, one I don't think RMOA ought be devoted an entire article.But, it can be easily devoted a paragraph and merged, without an AfD, which I'll take an attempt at, soon:).But, , I'm clueless about Beader, do you think all the 13,000 articles at DOT, deserves a standalone article? Agree as to the rest.∯WBGconverse 08:24, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- I'm wondering if Beader probably should be at AFD. I can't find a single reference to this job that isn't copied either from the DOT or our article. You would have thought, wouldn't you, that if a job appears there it would be referenced somewhere? I wonder if it has an alternative, better known name? Black Kite (talk) 08:42, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- For, one I don't think RMOA ought be devoted an entire article.But, it can be easily devoted a paragraph and merged, without an AfD, which I'll take an attempt at, soon:).But, , I'm clueless about Beader, do you think all the 13,000 articles at DOT, deserves a standalone article? Agree as to the rest.∯WBGconverse 08:24, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose on the current appeal rationale, which seems to be saying "sorry for my lack of self-control that time", and talking as if the ban is just down to that one episode (with a passing mention that "XFD has been a major sticking point for me over the years"). It is not. User:Cullen328 says it best, and there's one key point behind my current opposition. This has been a problem for the past decade, and it consists of TPH either not understanding or refusing to abide by what XFD is for and refusing to follow policy before making nominations. WP:BEFORE is key to it, and I believe TPH says he's been bad at it because he's no good at Google. Sorry, but I call bullshit on that. It's plain from AFDs discussed during the ban proposal that he made no attempt whatsoever - other people found sources within seconds from simple searches that a child could do. And in his article work, TPH actually seems to be very good at finding sources. None of this has been addressed in the current appeal. TPH should stick to what he's good at, which is article creation and improvement. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:49, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Agree. For some reason, TPH abandons everything he knows when editing articles as soon as he encounters articles he thinks should be deleted. I'm certainly no expert but based on this it seems Tarage might be right when they call it a "behavioral addiction". It's doubtful that this has changed or will change, so keeping the topic ban is actually in his best interest. Because the next time we have to discuss his behavior when (not if) he goes overboard with deletion again, we might well be forced to consider banning him from this project altogether and not just a small area. And I don't see how this benefits anyone. Regards SoWhy 09:24, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose per Boing! and Cullen328 and SoWhy. While a restriction is probably annoying, and possibly prevents some productive work this editor would enjoy, it does allow him to be active on the site, which is a real positive for the encyclopaedia; a removal and (possible/likely) following reinstatement or ban would be a net negative for us. Happy days, LindsayHello 12:31, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support - a net positive, and quite frankly, quite a few of the AFDs I've been participating in have been lately have been pretty low in participation. We need more people discussing in them. 6 months was plenty long, and if people aren't happy with it, it can always be re-applied. Sergecross73 msg me 12:52, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support per (a) WP:ROPE, and (b) I was never happy with the discussion that imposed an indef topic ban in the first place; quite apart from the Opposes, there were quite a number of people supporting a temporary topic ban, not to mention drive-by Supports. While I respect Ritchie333 a lot, I don't think that was one of his best closes ever. Black Kite (talk) 13:01, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Would allowing TPH to comment but disallowing nomination work? --Izno (talk) 13:25, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- I don't see any problem with allowing XFD discussion, as it does seem to be nomination that's the problem. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 13:47, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Comment / partial oppose I note that "to bead" ("to provide with beads or beading") includes "a narrow moulding" (Chambers), thus a "beader" would clearly be anyone who attaches such a narrow moulding. I concur that a limit of one XfD per day would be a rational point of entry. Collect (talk) 13:30, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose per Cullen and Boing!--Pawnkingthree (talk) 13:36, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support per WP:ROPE. I have no indication (this being the nature of topic bans) that anything underlying has changed. But he deserves the chance. I'd support proposals such as limiting this to discussions, not initiating, XfDs, or rate-limiting them. I'm unconvinced by the examples like beader - having found a couple of obvious targets for deletion demonstrates little about the less clear ones, or (far more importantly) the behavioural issues around them. Andy Dingley (talk) 13:52, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Comment. I'm uneasy with those WP:ROPE arguments. That essay (which explicitly does not apply to ban/unban discussions) is basically a WP:AGF supplement, i.e. "if you don't know whether they have learnt their lesson, unblock them and you will quickly see". Some people here though are pretty certain that we do kow that TPH has not learned his lessons (and might not be capable to learn them at all) but support unbanning anyway. But they know that if we give him the rope, he will hang himself which is not a desirable outcome. We should not want that because he does good work in other areas. Regards SoWhy 14:08, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, I was thinking pretty much the same thing, and you've put it very well. I'm concerned that a WP:ROPE unban could backfire and lead to more extreme restrictions at a later date. And I really don't want that - I don't want TPH to end up with a more extreme ban than he currently has, and I strongly prefer restricting him to what he is very good at. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:51, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- I have never before seen a tbanned editor's good work in another area actually damage their prospect of getting the ban lifted. Wow. Reyk YO! 15:43, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- I can understand how my comment might have come across, and it was perhaps poorly presented, so I'll try to explain further. I am not opposing TPH's unban because of his other good work. My opposition is because TPH has not attempted to address the actual chronic problems with his XFD contributions, as I explained above, and I really think we need to see that if the ban is to be lifted or reduced. WP:ROPE is, as User:SoWhy suggests, something of an "I don't know, so let's see how they go" thing. But with TPH, we do know, and I think we should insist on a convincing addressing of his actual problems before we consider an unban. I think a WP:ROPE unban without such a convincing appeal would be more to his harm than his good, and that is based on my respect for his long history of contributions which I do not want to lose. I hope that makes my thoughts clearer. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:23, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- I have never before seen a tbanned editor's good work in another area actually damage their prospect of getting the ban lifted. Wow. Reyk YO! 15:43, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, I was thinking pretty much the same thing, and you've put it very well. I'm concerned that a WP:ROPE unban could backfire and lead to more extreme restrictions at a later date. And I really don't want that - I don't want TPH to end up with a more extreme ban than he currently has, and I strongly prefer restricting him to what he is very good at. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:51, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- I agree - but I also see this risk as being a problem for TPH, not for anyone else. No-one is forcing him to behave in a particular way. If that's a way which gets him blocked in the future, that's no different to any other editor. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:23, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support - TPH is generally a deletionist, but not a crazy, Vogonesque one. Rather, he uses logic and reason and has the good of the encyclopedia in mind. We definitely disagree on where the line should be drawn at AfD on certain topics, but I respect him for the honesty of his opinions always — he's not irrational or unthinking, which is more than I can say for a couple of the AfD regulars, who remain unsanctioned. Carrite (talk) 18:37, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support: Ban was excessive and never should have been implemented in the first place. pbp 18:36, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
Suggestion
- OK, for the time being, how about this? TPH's topic ban from deletion discussions is vacated; however, he is not allowed to initiate any deletion process (CSD, PROD or XFD) for a period of 3 months. After that period, he may apply here for the topic ban to be vacated completely. Black Kite (talk) 14:09, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support- sounds reasonable. Reyk YO! 14:11, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support. Happy with that, and arguably TPH should not have been banned from contributing to XFD discussions that he did not start in the first place. It's his out-of-policy nominations that need to be stopped. As for appealing the ban on XFD nominations in three months, that's fine, but I'd say it would require him to properly address his actual problems, to which he has so far not come close. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:27, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support 3 month trial before application, and likely support full lifting at that time. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:46, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Given the disagreement above about the length of time served, 3 months seems short. Maybe 6 months to 1 year are more likely to gain consensus. (I personally have no objection to any particular number.) --Izno (talk) 17:21, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support and I will likely support allowing 1-3 XFD nominations per day in 3 months. power~enwiki (π, ν) 17:35, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support as reasonable. D4iNa4 (talk) 17:39, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Comment: If he is unable to nominate within policy, why should we assume he is able to !vote within policy? As I said above, I'm pretty sure keeping TPH from deletion altogether is the best course of action but I cannot fault the logic that the ban was placed because of his nominations and not his !voting, so I will abstain from this discussion. I highly recommend instituting a limit to the amount of !voting he is allowed to discourage the "brainless shotgun" approach and force him to carefully consider his !votes. Regards SoWhy 18:06, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Much of the disruption came from clearly spurious nominations (public-facing notices and excessive XFDs). This path allows TPH to show us that he has learned what community norms are without allowing that side of the disruption, which builds a track record which we can use later to say "Yes, you have figured it out", "No, you haven't figured it out yet", or "No, you have continued your disruption at XFD by the way in which you have commented there and therefore we will replace the ban on XFD" (or if we should for some reason think he is entirely a net negative outside of XFD, ban him entirely). --Izno (talk) 17:56, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support - Very reasonable suggestion. I'm okay with him coming back without preconditions, even. Carrite (talk) 18:34, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- I could support this, but I prefer a full lift now. pbp 18:43, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support as nominee. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 19:30, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Not sure you should be voting. --Tarage (talk) 19:39, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- It’s perfectly normal and permitted to comment on the merits fo a restriction that applies to oneself. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:46, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Indeed. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:48, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- It’s perfectly normal and permitted to comment on the merits fo a restriction that applies to oneself. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:46, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Not sure you should be voting. --Tarage (talk) 19:39, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support - but only as a backup plan, if there isn’t a consensus to fully repeal the restrictions. Sergecross73 msg me 20:07, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- support Andy Dingley (talk) 22:15, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support per B!sZ. The sanction should fit the problem. Miniapolis 22:31, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support Sounds like a reasonable first step.--S Philbrick(Talk) 23:10, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose Unless and until TenPoundHammer specifically addresses the behavioral concerns that I raised and that several other editors raised in the section above. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 00:15, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support I'd also support allowing 1-3 noms per day now, but this is a reasonable, if conservative, way to integrate TPH back into deletion processes. Tazerdadog (talk) 05:21, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support, as TPH is an useful member of the community, it is always better to have such members unrestricted. Like Cullen328, however, i would very much like to see him address the concerns raised above and six months ago. Happy days, LindsayHello 16:20, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support Let's have a progressive loosening of the restrictions. Ronhjones (Talk) 17:32, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support as a more tentative step than my suggested 1 nomination per day (plus 9 other XfD posts). NB. it is easier to be calm in someone else's nominated XfD because you don't feel to be seen to have put your credibility on the line. Contributing with civility will be hard when he makes his own nominations again. After Black Kite's three months, I suggest a second step of limited nominations per day, for some months at least, before the topic ban is to be vacated completely. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:13, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support TPH has been very much a mixed blessing around XfDs. I'm pretty far on the inclusionist side, but I think TPH does a really good job in places (music discussion as I recall). Just sometimes takes it all too personally (which can be easy to do). I like SmokeyJoe's suggestion for what to do after 3 months. Hobit (talk) 20:43, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- Neutral I am an uninvolved editor, however after seeing what has happened, this seems to be a great solution. However, I do agree with Cullen's comments, so I am neutral for now unless nom does respond to our concerns. Abequinn14 (talk) 03:50, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
Arbitrary break
So is there a consensus here of any kind? Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 23:53, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Unblock request by User:BukhariSaeed
BukhariSaeed (talk · contribs) put the following unblock request on their talk page and asked me to copy it here for a community review. There was a previous review in November 2017. Huon (talk) 10:57, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
During the past several months i have realised that i have committed mistakes and i will not repeat the same mistakes (i.e. sockpuppetry, violation of WP:BLOCK, bad behaviour) and i assure that no harmful or destructive activity will take place no sort of vandalism, no sort of sock puppetry or any type of rubbish stuff will be seen.— Bukhari (Talk!) 18:30, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose and I think we should consider a WP:SNOW close here. The user clearly knew about our policies around WP:SOCK and repeatedly violated them during 2017. Claiming they suddenly realised their mistakes "during the past several months" stretches credulity past the breaking point. There's nothing in this unblock request that convinces me they'd behave if unblocked. However, note that I am not aware of any block evasion over the past six months. --Yamla (talk) 11:36, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
- Comment there appears to have been primarily "sock-puppetry to create the illusion of consensus" here, though there was some block evasion noted in their appeal in November 2017. They managed to get blocked within 7 days of creating an account, and had a whole bunch of immature behavior in response. They've been fairly active on other wikis (such as Urdu) since then. I do have some language/competence concerns; will this user be able to understand and follow site policies? And if they do inadvertently violate a policy or guidelikne, will they learn from their mistake, or will they resort to vandalism and sock-puppetry? power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:16, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support I don't see any specific TBAN that will be of benefit in an unblock. I do specifically want to emphasize the need for references when adding content here. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:50, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support I am an admin and bureaucrat on Urdu Wikipedia. Bukhari is one of the most active user of urdu Wikipedia, I see him editing on daily basis and his edits are very constructive. He knows Wikipedia’s rules and policies very well and now he’s eliminator on Urdu Wikipedia. I request English Wikipedia admins to unblock him please.--Obaid Raza (talk) 14:48, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support with topic ban -- I administered the indef block for socking and understand Yamla's concern: User:BukhariSaeed began their editing career here with persistent conflicts, disruptive agenda-based editing and socking. In unblock requests, they swore on an "oath of god" that they would never sock again [6], [7], and yet were check-user confirmed to be creating socks at the same time. Similar misbehavior resulted in a separate indefinite block on Simple Wikipedia. Their Standard Offer request [in November 2017 determined they had still been socking again. But as power-enwiki states this appears to be a case of immature behavior -- as well as an overzealous agenda to promote religious figures. Since then this user has shown that they can contribute effectively at Urdu Wikipedia and Commons. My inclination is to unblock with a topic ban on Sufi and Christian Saints broadly construed so that they can first demonstrate the ability to adhere to policy. The topic ban can be reviewed after six months. — CactusWriter (talk) 18:30, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
- Strong oppose - Per WP:CIR. BukhariSaeed who couldn't understand WP:SOCK even after months of the block,[8] and he was asking other editors to proxy for him. It is clear that it is going to be very hard to teach him the policies and guidelines whenever he will do anything wrong. It is also apparent on Urdu Wikipedia that he is indulged in off-wiki canvassing there.[9] Above unblock request is too unconvincing because it doesn't show what he will do if he was unblocked. Raymond3023 (talk) 18:09, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- You are wrong about proxying. I told him today that he should ask for email to contact him personally. We, Urdu wikipedians, are very connected on other social channels. Muhammad Shuaib (talk) 19:21, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- He was asking other editors to make edits for him while while he was blocked.[10] Read WP:PROXYING. Raymond3023 (talk) 19:34, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- @Raymond3023:, i was not convassing him, i find his edits on اللو ارجن, thats why ask for his e-mail or phone, i want to add him on Urdu Wikipedia whatsapp group, and he gave me his email address. If you dont trust me you can confirm from any Urdu speaker. Thanks— Bukhari (Talk!) 18:31, 30 July 2018 (UTC) -- Since BukhariSaeed cannot reply here, I'm copying his comment from his user talk page. Huon (talk) 15:26, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- He was asking other editors to make edits for him while while he was blocked.[10] Read WP:PROXYING. Raymond3023 (talk) 19:34, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- You are wrong about proxying. I told him today that he should ask for email to contact him personally. We, Urdu wikipedians, are very connected on other social channels. Muhammad Shuaib (talk) 19:21, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support per WP:SO and WP:ROPE. Blocks are cheap, and it should be made clear that a quick re-block is coming his way if he screws up again. --Jayron32 18:15, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support per WP:ROPE. Despite having got into trouble and having been blocked ("until the end of time" according to Google Translate) on Urdu Wikipedia about a year ago, the user has 93k global edits and holds advanced permissions on several sister projects, and has an Urdu admin here vouching for them. It seems reasonable to assume the user has mended their ways, until there's some evidence here to the contrary. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:55, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support with topic ban: I agree with CactusWriter. --Muzammil (talk) 19:13, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- Strong Support: First of all I want to say that he's amazing person. We created together an International collabration called "Peace Spirits", to create some articles about India, Israel and Pakistan, BukhariSaeed did amazing work from his side in Urdu Wikipedia and I trust him to not break the rule again. Actually, I was suprised about his block, I couldn't belive that he opened a sock puppet. So I'm Supporting, I belive him. Ofek - Call me - In hebrew 19:47, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose No reason has been given how WP:ROPE applies here. Unblock request is poorly written and it doesn't show how he can benefit this encyclopedia. Onkuchia (talk) 19:31, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose "During the past several months i have realised that i have committed mistakes" that maybe sound for the first offense, not for repeated violations. Unless he could show significant contributions from English Wikipedia sister projects then only there would be some solid basis that why this account needs to be unblocked. BukhariSaeed has only 274 edits, of which nearly half of the edits were made on his own user talk page and mostly for requesting unblock. He has been blocked four times and I don't see how those numerous problems won't reoccur. Lorstaking (talk) 02:53, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose no indication that the potential good from unblocking outweighs the known potential for disruption. Unblocking is not in the best interest of Wikipedia because of that. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:07, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Support per CactusWriter. We have evidence they have improved on sister projects. WP:ROPE, etc. I do support the minimum 6-month topic ban. Hobit (talk) 12:51, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- The recent message from BukhariSaeed that "i was not convassing him" when he was asking other editor to make edits for him while he was blocked.[11] This shows BukhariSaeed's inability to understand policies on multiple accounts and blocks. It seems that 6 months reset[12] never helped him to understand the policy and thus we have no reason not to oppose this request. Oppose. Accesscrawl (talk) 15:46, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- A blocked editor is not allowed to ask others to make edits for him. I was also saying that BukhariSaeed had his block reset for another 6 months for such evasion but still he is not learning.
I should also note that BukhariSaeed is sending me emails to support unblock on him. Accesscrawl (talk) 18:09, 31 July 2018 (UTC) 
Comment: The user shared the screenshot of the message he sent for clarification. Please check this --Muzammil (talk) 18:33, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- A blocked editor is not allowed to ask others to make edits for him. I was also saying that BukhariSaeed had his block reset for another 6 months for such evasion but still he is not learning.
- (Non-administrator comment) Oppose - BukhariSaeed refers to his multiple socking and creation of inappropriate promotional pages as "mistakes". A look at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Hammadsaeed/Archive (note that the account was renamed - Hammadsaeed is his old user name) shows what these "mistakes" were: repeated recreation of promotional pages, sockpuppeteering to keep these pages, creating socks with user names impersonating users in good standing, and personal attacks. He referred to his socking as a "mistake" back then as well and promised to stop for instance here, which he didn't - there were a number of socks and IPsocks after that, as can be seen in the SPI, and as pointed out above. As Yamla mentions, it's not as if BukhariSaeed didn't know about the sock policies when he created all his socks, which means that his definition of "mistake" is a bit unusual - maybe a language barrier issue, but still. Now, this was a while ago and people can change (he has clearly done good work at other Wikipedia versions), but the unblock request says nothing about what he means to do at English Wikipedia if unblocked, so how can we know? If the block is lifted I very strongly support the suggested topic ban on topics related to saints. --bonadea contributions talk 15:38, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Strong Support: I know this user Bukhari is one of the most active user of urdu Wikipedia, Urdu wiktionary. and others wiki project I see him edit basis and his edits are very constructive. He knows Wikipedia’s rules and policies very well, If they are banned then the Urdu wiki community will be a big loss, J. Ansari Talk 05:05, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- English Wikipedia is not any extension of Urdu Wikipedia. Show us if he has contributed well in an actual English Wikipedia sister project like Simple Wiki or Wikivoyage or others. Accesscrawl (talk) 05:21, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Note: J ansari updated their post above after Accesscrawl's reply.
- J ansari, replying to your new phrasing here: I agree that his English Wiktionary work appears to be good, and that is a positive sign, but I am still wondering what kind of work he would be interested in doing on English Wikipedia. I have posted a question on his user talk page asking specifically about that. --bonadea contributions talk 09:43, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support with topic ban i worked with this user in my cultural exchange project and he is very active in collaboration in Urdu, Punjabi and Arabic. I found his behavior here very strange and unexpected from him but i think the topic ban for 6 mouths (reviewable after that period) will do the job and stop his behavior. Regards--مصعب (talk) 08:17, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- I disagree with this suggestion. Topic ban is for those who are disruptive for a specific subject. BukhariSaeed's problems have been more than just editing in a specific subject. That's why topic ban is not an alternative. Accesscrawl (talk) 10:17, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Comment: Dear friend, you are perfectly justified in holding a different view, which you've done while voting above (Just after Hobit). So is perhaps the case with مصعب. CactusWriter and some of the other users. IMHO, nobody's views should be downplayed because they are not inline with yours. We should respect each other. --Muzammil (talk) 16:05, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Problems are clearly bigger than misconduct in a specific subject. Sorry but topic ban cannot be used as a scapegoat for avoiding block for broader issues. Accesscrawl (talk) 16:33, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose: Per WP:CIR -- I don't see any indication that this editor has stopped canvassing or asking other editors to proxy for him in the light of above examples.[13] --1990'sguy (talk) 18:27, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support with topic ban: The topic ban can be reviewed after six months. --Ameen Akbar (talk) 19:48, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
60.246.161.253
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This user is gross misuse of the internet at it’s finest, he is adding a gross, inappropriate, offensive, and just plain awful image to a large number of pages. Please, someone needs to oversight that person’s edits. ~SML • TP 23:13, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
Whoops, wrong page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sixty Minute Limit (talk • contribs) 23:17, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
Something wrong with page Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as abandoned drafts or AfC submissions
- Page Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as abandoned drafts or AfC submissions is linked to from Category:Candidates for speedy deletion. In Category:Candidates for speedy deletion, Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as abandoned drafts or AfC submissions displays as "G13: Abandoned drafts or AfC submissions (314)", although Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as abandoned drafts or AfC submissions currently has no members, not 314 members. This mismatch between actual and reported number of members for Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as abandoned drafts or AfC submissions has been happening for a week or two now. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 17:28, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
- Maybe related to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T195397? Ronhjones (Talk) 18:52, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
See also #Fault in page Category:Candidates for speedy deletion or one of its subpages hereinabove. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:02, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
- Pinging Anomie who's been working on this: Any luck with the bugs? BlackcurrantTea (talk) 03:44, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
- phab:T195397 was fixed a while ago. Possibly this was due to phab:T199762, which is now fixed too. I manually triggered a recount of the category, let's see if it goes bad again. Anomie⚔ 20:26, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
- And again: Category:Candidates for speedy deletion says that 151 pages are in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as abandoned drafts or AfC submissions, but actually there is only one page in it. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:29, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- I have just called purge on Category:Candidates for speedy deletion, and the fault went away. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:33, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
Blocked KasparBot
I have blocked KasparBot, after several requests to adapt the code for operation on en.wikipedia. Consensus was reached that parameters in {{Authority control}} that were set to blank ('<param>='; no content) would be used to suppress display (Template_talk:Authority_control#Original_suppression_proposal; User:Tom.Reding implemented that feature).
Diffs:
- diff to suppress value by User:Nikkimaria
- diff KasparBot removing parameter again.
Remarks/'warnings':
- User_talk:T.seppelt#Empty_parameters_and_Kasparbot (Bot talkpage redirects to operator talkpage)
- de:Benutzer_Diskussion:T.seppelt#Kasparbot_on_en
Will place notices on talkpages. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:21, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- KasparBot (talk · contribs)
- As I mentioned during earlier discussion, relying on an empty parameter value (|MBA=) was not a good idea. It should have been |MBA=none, although I don't know what the bot would have done with that. Johnuniq (talk) 05:48, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- I don't know which solution is the best one (I foresee problems with all of them - 'MBA=none' would suggest that there is no MBA where editors would then correct it to the one they found; 'MBA=' will likely result in editors filling in the 'empty' parameter .. 'suppress=MBA' is going to be unhandleable). Anyway, this is tangential to the discussion here, I have left notices to T.seppelt over a month ago and 3 weeks ago, and the operator has not responded (or even edited on their home wiki). --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:41, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Deceased Wikipedian
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I've sadly found out that User:Markhurd passed away in September 2017. Could an administrator do the required actions? Thanks. Bidgee (talk) 12:22, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- Has been done - the user page is fully protected and user rights have been removed. Per WP:DWG that's it. Hut 8.5 18:25, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
- Sorry, I should have done this at the time. Guy (Help!) 13:36, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
Interface administrators
I have started a discussion about the new interface administrator user group at WP:VPM#RFC: Interface administrators and transition. Please take a moment to review and/or comment. --Izno (talk) 14:44, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Please also see Wikipedia talk:Interface administrators . Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:10, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Standard Offer appeal by User:Towns Hill
Unanimously opposed. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 12:31, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I am bringing forward, for community review, a Standard Offer appeal by User:Towns Hill. I have re-enabled their talk page for the sole purpose of answering community questions that may be asked during this review. The investigation page is at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Faizan/Archive. Checkuser @Ponyo: has been consulted and he has agreed to this review and has also checked the account.
The appellant says: "It has been a year now since I last used a sock [14]. I want to apply under WP:STANDARD OFFER. I believe I can yet be and prove myself a decent, respectable and productive editor who can improve this website?s output in both quality and output. Despite my editing history I had extensive readings into and citations to scholarly sources. Given this chance I believe I will improve the encyclopedia's faithfulness to scholarship.
I initially want to confine myself to subjects and articles related to Islam and Sufism such as Tawassul and Mawlid. Eventually I want to appeal my ARBIPA topic ban so I can one day return to editing the Kashmir articles."
The community will see, in the investigation report, several IPs that are marked as 'Suspected sockpuppets'. I queried this with Towns Hill who responded: "The last IP I used is this one. [15] I got it oversighted on May 8 this year. I think it was @Primefac: who sent me the confirmation email when the IP's contributions were oversighted. The rest of the IPs listed were not mine. If they were I would own up to them in my standard offer application since they are all from at least 6 months ago"
I have no position on this appeal. Just Chilling (talk) 01:08, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Strongly oppose See this. If this is the case, TH hacked an account, and that beyond a shadow of a doubt is a deal breaker for me. RickinBaltimore (talk) 01:16, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose when applying for the standard offer it is incumbent upon the person asking for it to convince the community that the unknown potential for good outweighs the known potential for disruption. I don’t see that here. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:46, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Strong oppose - Aren't you supposed to request unblock through your main account which was Faizan (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? We don't grant unblock requests to sock puppets. "I want to appeal my ARBIPA topic ban so I can one day return to editing the Kashmir articles", that would be a nightmare. As mentioned on this SPI, whoever reads this request should know of this recent incident because there is much suspicion that this account continues to make edits on Wikipedia through suspicious accounts and IP addresses, targeting same articles, restoring same edits because of which he was topic banned and later blocked for sock puppetry when he was restoring the same edits through confirmed sock puppets. I see no reason to grant unblock. This account had been a totally net negative from the beginning and even after being blocked for sockpuppetry he was engaging in off wiki canvassing to get his opponents blocked (User talk:Towns Hill#Re: Your email). Lorstaking (talk) 02:17, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- @Lorstaking: see RickinBaltimore's link. Faizan is deceased; Towns Hill hacked the account in 2017. ansh666 03:30, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- People say anything when they want to get unblocked. Why it took Faizan months to come up with such unconvincing theory? He had many warnings and general notifications on his talk page before he was blocked. It is doubtful that he would wake up only after he was notified about the block and come here to claim he was hacked. I sense there was significant account sharing, but that cannot be construed as "hacking" since "hacking" is operating other's account without consent. Lorstaking (talk) 03:42, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Considering he is dead now and there appears to be a living person behind the account making this appeal, I would say it’s fairly likely that they are not the same people (and please don’t respond to this if you are going to claim that other trusted Wikimedians are lying about his death.) TonyBallioni (talk) 04:50, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- At this moment, Towns Hill is tagged as a sock Faizan per user page[16] and socks are not unblocked per the policy (WP:SOCK#Blocking). There was no account hacking since "Faizan" account has edited from both countries, Pakisan and Australia,[17][18] during the same period. Towns Hill resides in Australia per his userpage[19] and per his admission that he used this IP. If there was any account "hacking" then the CU could identify it. This is a case of account sharing and Towns Hill should better spend some time proving how his account has no relation with Faizan before requesting unblock. The Faizan account tried enough to prove otherwise during those on-wiki unblock requests as well as UTRS appeals (that I can't see) but none of them were successful.[20] Lorstaking (talk) 05:25, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Not being unblocked has more to do with the fact that there was no way for them to verify their identity. Policy is to not unblock under any circumstances in that case, and has nothing to do with a presumption of guilt. There is no way without a CU to tell where someone is editing from, and the check resulting in the block didn't seem to find anything unusual (i.e. the edits in the time range probably all matched Towns Hill). I won't comment on the UTRS appeal except to say that it didn't include any useful information. ansh666 07:09, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose Clicking through the link provided by RickinBaltimore, I think we should turn this request down. The hack claim is extremely plausible (the timeline is troubling) and is, as RickinBaltimore says, a dealbreaker. --regentspark (comment) 02:55, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose per RickinBaltimore. That's not okay at all. ansh666 03:30, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- 'Above discussion shows concerns with the ownership of User:Faizan and much of discussion is about the alleged hacking and confirmed sock puppetry related to that account. None of the statements in unblock request have addressed it. Oppose. Accesscrawl (talk) 06:24, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Comment-What is TownHill's comment about Faizan account at the UTRS ticket?∯WBGconverse 07:48, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Comment by Towns Hill I realise that my past behaviour was not the best. I am not exactly proud of that. But I do have thousands of bytes worth of verifiable content to my name. The quality of my contributions were good. I realise that my behaviour of edit warring and socking was bad. I want to make a fresh start with my good side only this time. I understand some people doubt my application because of the Faizan incident. Faizan is now deceased and I don't want to dwell on his story too much out of respect for the deceased but his hacking claim was not the truth. I had been recruited (and rejected) at various times by Faizan, Kautilya3 and others for meat puppetry and in Faizan's case he told me to make edits from his own account. I can share these users' emails to me with admins in private if they wish to verify what I am saying. I will share this non-public information of other users only privately. Those days of allowing myself to be used as others' meat and using socks myself and edit warring were not exactly my best days. I am not proud of it. But I don't think this should be held against me forever. I do believe I should be given another chance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Towns Hill (talk • contribs) 18:04, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- As the blocking administrator, I am not happy that I wasn't even notified of this discussion or Ponyo's consent to it (Ponyo is a "she" btw). Beyond that, one of the things that disturbs me about this unblock request is TH's most recent comment above where they claim other users (some not named), including one existing editor, Kautilya3, "recruited" them. For that reason alone, I oppose.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:44, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose I don't see anything that would give me cause to trust this user again. The whole Faizan thing leaves a sour taste in the mouth; whether he was "invited" to use Faizan's account or not, that's a gross and knowing breach of Wikipedia's terms of use. Yunshui 雲水 13:54, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Comment My only involvement in this request was to respond to a CU request at UTRS where I noted that the IP used by Towns Hill to submit their appeal had not been used since January 2018 and that Just Chilling could bring the block here for a standard offer review if they chose to do so. I imagine not notifying the blocking admin of the request was just an oversight.--Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 15:58, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- @Ponyo: Ha! It was a deep dark nefarious conspiracy between you and Just Chilling.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:48, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- And we would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!--Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 16:57, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose. Per everyone above. Alex Shih (talk) 16:40, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose -TH needs to address the elephant in the room first, Like the above I don't trust this user at all. (I'll also add if the hacking thing is true then TH should pretty much be banned for life). –Davey2010Talk 16:51, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose--As Davey2010 told.∯WBGconverse 12:10, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- Also, the assertions of being
recruited-for-editing
is seriously bizarre and needs to be dealt with by the functionaries.Either TH is speaking the truth (which shall lead to a site-ban of both him and K3) or he is alone fabricating things, which shall again lead to a ban of his. - I would have trashed the claims, given that I personally hold K3 in high-repute.But, the entire Faizan-TownHill sockpuppetry is downright confusing and it's highly doubtful as to whom of the two (Faizan or TH) spoke the truth.∯WBGconverse 12:10, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- Also, the assertions of being
- The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Someone kindly delete this. I can't even load the page to add a speedy deletion tag. GMGtalk 14:27, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Also apparently 1,000,000_Digits_of_Pi. GMGtalk 14:28, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- And 100,000 Digits of Pi as well. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:29, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Could we have a slightly condensed version, say 33,000 Digits of Pi? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:34, 31 July 2018 (UTC) .... would probably still be a lot shorter than User talk:EEng.
- And 100,000 Digits of Pi as well. RickinBaltimore (talk) 14:29, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
...and might we consider blocking, or at least warning, User:TheProgrammerBoy (formerly WindoRant) who created both of them? --MelanieN (talk) 14:46, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- @MelanieN: I warned the user. ~ Abelmoschus Esculentus (talk to me) 14:51, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- I think if you're going to do that you could at least put in some more effort. That page was only about 20% longer than List of compositions by Franz Schubert. Hut 8.5 18:28, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Could we get create protection? The first two are just asking for trouble and the third was also an article in 2015. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:33, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Do not protect, please. A similar page (existing as a redirect) was kept at RFD, see Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2012 November 4#Longest Wikipedia Article. – Uanfala (talk) 18:42, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- I have redirected Longest Page in Wikipedia, but what do you think about the Pi articles? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:47, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- I have redirected them to Pi#Modern_quest_for_more_digits where there is information on when that many digits of pi were reached.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:55, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Though I thought this was a reference to the only page that can be seen from space. RickinBaltimore (talk) 19:00, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- These have tended to split opinions at RfD: a nomination in 2014 resulted in "keep", but the oucome of a similar discussion three years later was "delete". – Uanfala (talk) 19:05, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- I have redirected them to Pi#Modern_quest_for_more_digits where there is information on when that many digits of pi were reached.. Galobtter (pingó mió) 18:55, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- @Uanfala and Emir of Wikipedia: the only reason Longest Wikipedia Article was kept is that Special:Longpages used to be there for a short time in 2005, so it ostensibly protects against linkrot (a horrible reason, IMO, but it is what it is). There is no such history regarding Longest Page in Wikipedia, so I R2'd it. ansh666 00:42, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- This wasn't the only reason the redirect was kept at RfD. As for the one you've just speedied, I don't think it should have been speedied: there was a comment in the previous discussion that R2 doesn't apply to these redirects, but more substantially, this one is unlikely to gain consensus for deletion if nominated at RfD now. – Uanfala (talk) 07:21, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- I have redirected Longest Page in Wikipedia, but what do you think about the Pi articles? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:47, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Do not protect, please. A similar page (existing as a redirect) was kept at RFD, see Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2012 November 4#Longest Wikipedia Article. – Uanfala (talk) 18:42, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Can we just get a general system protection against the creation (or saving) of pages of that size? I can't see any legitimate reason for having any. bd2412 T 19:07, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- What about user talk pages that are so large, among other issues? Sir Joseph (talk) 19:09, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- There's something related in the 2 MB limit to the "post-expand include size" of a page, where any parts of the page beyond this limit don't get displayed. – Uanfala (talk) 19:13, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- (Non-administrator comment) There's a lot of pages on the Special:Longpages list that could use editing attention; I removed a bunch of unsourced "results" from Minuta slavy supposedly about 2019 and 2020 TV shows, and Forcade should probably be turned into a set-index article. power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:18, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- Could somebody do something about User talk:Arunram...with 675 threads and with a total size of 944.7kB(approximately) it should be awarded the prize for the Longest Talk Page on the planet. — FR + 10:50, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- Shall we ping them? @Arunram: --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:14, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- I think User_talk:EEng has him beat. Fish+Karate 11:06, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Fish and karate, in light of the discussion above, would you mind reverting your protection of Longest Page in Wikipedia? Thanks! – Uanfala (talk) 11:16, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- @Uanfala: Happy to if you can explain why it needs to be create-able. Fish+Karate 12:04, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Hmmm... salting is only for the cases where there is consensus against the creation, right? To recap what was said above, this redirect is very similar to a redirect that was kept at RfD, it was created by an established editor in good standing, and it was subsequently deleted using a speedy deletion criterion of contestible applicabilty. I personally have no opinion on whether the redirect should exist (the main issue for me is only the miscapitalisation), and I think if it were nominated at RfD, the most likely outcome would be "no consensus". I don't see how this could be the kind of redirect whose creation should be a privilige reserved for administrators. – Uanfala (talk) 12:14, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- I don't particularly agree, in that the similar redirect was retained for its historical reasons (in the old days, before the Special: namespace, Longest Wikipedia Article was where the longest pages were listed), but nor do I care that much, so have unprotected the redlink. In the unlikely event of its being recreated I'm sure it will be deleted, and then we can all go round in circles and have this discussion again. Fish+Karate 12:23, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Hmmm... salting is only for the cases where there is consensus against the creation, right? To recap what was said above, this redirect is very similar to a redirect that was kept at RfD, it was created by an established editor in good standing, and it was subsequently deleted using a speedy deletion criterion of contestible applicabilty. I personally have no opinion on whether the redirect should exist (the main issue for me is only the miscapitalisation), and I think if it were nominated at RfD, the most likely outcome would be "no consensus". I don't see how this could be the kind of redirect whose creation should be a privilige reserved for administrators. – Uanfala (talk) 12:14, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- @Uanfala: Happy to if you can explain why it needs to be create-able. Fish+Karate 12:04, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Fish and karate, in light of the discussion above, would you mind reverting your protection of Longest Page in Wikipedia? Thanks! – Uanfala (talk) 11:16, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- I think User_talk:EEng has him beat. Fish+Karate 11:06, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Shall we ping them? @Arunram: --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:14, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
A attempt to overrule our BLP policy with an RfC?
See discussion and links at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Musk part 2: can an An RfC overrule our BLP policy?
May I request that an administrator evaluate whether I am right about this being a BLP violation? --Guy Macon (talk) 19:56, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- The link is Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Musk_part_2:_can_an_An_RfC_overrule_our_BLP_policy?. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:58, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- You're wrong. I've said the same thing at BLPN. --NeilN talk to me 20:13, 31 July 2018 (UTC) @Guy Macon: I messed up the ping. --NeilN talk to me 20:15, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- I don't see anything resembling overruling our BLP policy. More than likely, this is a case of WP:CRYBLP. - MrX 🖋 20:17, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
"I do believe that associating an otherwise non notable individual with pedophilia, no matter how carefully you specify that the accusations are without merit, can be incredibly harmful. And I don't think that simply omitting the name does enough to protect him, given the ease of searching on 'musk pedo diver' --Guy Macon 06:57, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[21]
"Agreed, in fact the situation is astonishingly obvious.... if notable person A says non-notable person B is a pedophile (later withdrawn), repeating the slur throws mud at B, some of which would stick. It could be argued that the effect of this article would be negligible but that is no reason for us to do something bad. Also, this article will exist for many years when the name of B would be totally irrelevant and the current news reports will have been forgotten. If the wording is kept, this article would still cause some readers to think there just might be something behind the attack." ---Johnuniq 07:31, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[22]
"I've removed it as a blatant BLP violation. The BLP is written precisely to protect living individuals against this sort of smear. If someone wants to re-write it without including the diver's name, that would be at least compliant with the policy. However its tabloid gossip. WP:NOTNEWS. (Also no WWGB, I am under no obligation to re-write it myself to remove the offending material. It would need to be substantially re-written and I am not interested in enabling gossip. The onus is on those who wish to include the information to do the legwork to make it compliant with out policies.)" --Only in death does duty end 10:00, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[23][24]
"Its flatly impossible to cover this without Identifying either directly or indirectly through linking to the material. Since the diver is a non-notable non-public figure, I am not satisfied after looking at the various sources that it is possible to comply with the BLP and cover this while protecting the diver. BLP applies regardless of if the person is explicitly named if they can be easily identified. Now you need to gain consensus to include the material, do not replace it again." --Only in death does duty end 19:25, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[25]
"I previously reported it at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#False claims about the diver who got into a twitter fight with Elon Musk. The subsequent comments on that page made it clear that this is an unambiguous BLP violation to be removed on sight, and that the removals are exempt from our edit warring rules." Guy Macon 20:03, 30 July 2018[26]
Also see:
- Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#False claims about the diver who got into a twitter fight with Elon Musk
- Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Musk part 2: can an An RfC overrule our BLP policy?
--Guy Macon (talk) 20:46, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- Johnuniq hit it on the head with their RFC comment: "There is no reason for Wikipedia to name the person. It is fine to link to references which include all the details, if the material is found to satisfy WP:DUE as far as long-term significance for Musk is concerned." No one is explicitly arguing in the RFC that the other person's name appear in the article. Quite the opposite. --NeilN talk to me 20:56, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- That's what this is about? For crying out loud—leave the non-notable person's name out. Problem solved. Why the hysteria? This reminds me of the religion in infobox hysteria, which I recall also involved Guy Macon.- MrX 🖋 21:07, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- @MrX, you're missing the point; what's being argued is that even if the non-notable person isn't named, even mentioning the incident would be a BLP violation because it could potentially inspire someone to look him up. See also WP:ANI#Elon Musk. ‑ Iridescent 19:11, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- If someone learns about it, they might looks him up? That's ridiculous. By that reasoning, we shouldn't have an article on Elon Musk because someone could read about him and be inspired to look for more information. Natureium (talk) 19:48, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- Iridescent, I'm not missing the point; I simply don't agree with the novel interpretation that citing sources would ever be a WP:BLP violation. Specifically, I don't agree that that citing sources would harm the person who's name is already indelibly recorded in numerous sources. Also, WP:NOTCENSORED comes to mind.- MrX 🖋 23:34, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- I agree that "even if the non-notable person isn't named, even mentioning the incident would be a BLP violation because it could potentially inspire someone to look him up" goes much too far in interpreting the scope of BLP policy. Natureium's rejoinder is valid. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:38, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- @MrX, you're missing the point; what's being argued is that even if the non-notable person isn't named, even mentioning the incident would be a BLP violation because it could potentially inspire someone to look him up. See also WP:ANI#Elon Musk. ‑ Iridescent 19:11, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- That's what this is about? For crying out loud—leave the non-notable person's name out. Problem solved. Why the hysteria? This reminds me of the religion in infobox hysteria, which I recall also involved Guy Macon.- MrX 🖋 21:07, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
- I would hasten to point out that the credibility of the accusation in question is virtually nonexistent. It was basic name-calling by Musk, based on the concept of Sexual tourism and Thailand's lowered age of consent compared to Western countries. It had nothing to do with the argument between them, and it was the comment's sheer immaturity that made it newsworthy (in the same vein as all the coverage POTUS's twitter account gets). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:55, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- @MPants at work: On that, any ideas why Ages of consent in Asia#Thailand says the AoC is 18, whilst Age of consent#Age of consent by location reckons 15? —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 15:09, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Serial Number 54129 Either because it was changed on one article but not the other, or because the law in question applies different rules to different situations and people got confused. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:17, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)@Serial Number 54129: Sexual crimes are compounded if the victim is under 18, but the actual age of consent is 15. At least, according to legal blogs and other apparently reliable sources. Note the {{cn}} tags in Ages of consent in Asia#Thailand. I'm gonna try and dig up the best source I can and fix that. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:18, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- EDIT: I seem to recall there was some drama over this a few months back, maybe a year or so. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:19, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- That sounds phenonomally likely :) Thank you both, interesting. —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 15:36, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Exactly, calling it an "accusation" or a "claim" gives the wrong idea. It was more of a side remark rather than an accusation. If the wording is fixed I don't see how it would be an issue. ⠀TOMÁSTOMÁSTOMÁS⠀TALK⠀ 14:49, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- @MPants at work: On that, any ideas why Ages of consent in Asia#Thailand says the AoC is 18, whilst Age of consent#Age of consent by location reckons 15? —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 15:09, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- If we were talking about weak sources that were including the name, I'd fully agree with MPants here, we'd be talking about weak sourcing of a very serious BLP violation. But the fact that (with just a quick search) NYTimes and CNN both name the person, it seems impossible for us to hide with strong RSes are presenting. We can take care to not name names (the person was not a public figure), but we can't help the fact that the RSes we'd use for this name the person. That's out of our control. --Masem (t) 15:20, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
User:Tsma73
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Could somebody please take a look at the activities of User:Tsma73, in particular User talk:HelpUsStopSpam/Archive 1#HelpUsStopSpam creates vandalism and Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 August 1#DataMelt? I'm tempted to indef them for WP:NOTHERE, but it's possible they're the legitimate victims of some kind of wiki extortion attempt, so I'd like other admins to take a look. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:56, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- Tsma73 is a sock and other than being involved in the same AfD and slinging wild accusations at HelpUsStopSpam, the two users have nothing to do with each other. Not sure how HUSS is able to retain that username, but that's another issue.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:35, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- I just had a look at their website and found this. The mention of them receiving paid editing emails is concerning, although given all these accounts are clearly very closely connected to the subject they shouldn't have been involved with the article in the first place. BubbleEngineer (talk) 20:21, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- They brought up the abstract "blackmail" [27] [28] claim here on Wikipedia, too, but never gave any details - and as usual reporting in a vague third person "From what I've heard". Their conjecture is wrong that these offers relate to my edits. These emails will likely be the usual SEO spam as seen on Quora: https://www.quora.com/Where-can-I-find-an-expert-Wikipedia-content-writer-or-editor . Also, the entire idea of blackmailing to delete does not work for a very simple fact: only admins can delete articles. Users like me (or BubbleEngineer, who started the AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DataMelt) can only propose a deletion discussion, which will be reviewed. So any such "gang" or "troll farm" would need an admin member. So who is the dark lord?
- What brought Datamelt onto my radar were the obvious COI edits of Special:Contributions/104.55.212.99 in April, showing repeated self-cite book spam all the way back to 2016 in Jython (spamming the datamelt/scavis book into the Jython article); and this [29] clearly verified the COI ("jwork.org administrator") - so obviously I put a COI warning & lack of independent sources on the article. Actually it was not me who nominated the article for deletion... all the sockpuppeting, IP canvassing, personal attacks [30], now even off-wiki attacks etc. of course do not help either. And I am not sure I can trust their claims anyway: you can see them sockpuppeting even on their own site: [31] "P.S.: This article is submitted by a Wikipedia editor who asks not to disclose his identity." (most likely, this "editor" is User:Tsma73, and potentially a WP:COWORKER/WP:FAMILY "meatpuppet" sharing the same IP). LOL: pretending they are their own users, since they don't appear to have any... HelpUsStopSpam (talk) 23:45, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- I just had a look at their website and found this. The mention of them receiving paid editing emails is concerning, although given all these accounts are clearly very closely connected to the subject they shouldn't have been involved with the article in the first place. BubbleEngineer (talk) 20:21, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
Unblock requests claiming colocation, when IP is not blocked
I often patrol Category:Requests for unblock and over the past few days, I've noticed a number of unblock requests similar to the one posted at User talk:2A01:CB15:A7:B700:4C99:C6B2:BF3B:8C60, where the person claims there's a colocation web host block or perhaps a proxy/vpn block, only... the IP address is not blocked. Now, I understand the block can apply to the range instead of the single IP address, but that's not the case either. If it was an autoblock, they'd be using unblock-auto. User talk:27.63.93.0 is another example, as is User talk:69.181.189.249 and User talk:60.25.10.137. In several years of patrolling, I don't remember so many unblock requests for addresses which don't appear blocked, so I'm concerned there's a real problem. I haven't ruled out WP:CIR (on their part or mine) or trolling, though. --Yamla (talk) 20:25, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- My guess is that in a lot of occasions with the new template changes - the VPN/Proxy is being turned off prior to the request. I've been noticing these a lot too since the change. SQLQuery me! 20:37, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- Ah! Right, of course. That's plausible. They were on a VPN, they are blocked, they copy the block template, turn off the VPN, and post the request. On an IP that isn't blocked. --Yamla (talk) 21:09, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
- I agree that that is plausible. --TheSandDoctor Talk 08:40, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- If that's what's happening, could the editor be cookie-blocked? I don't know what kind of notifications editors get if that happens. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:08, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- I agree that that is plausible. --TheSandDoctor Talk 08:40, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Ah! Right, of course. That's plausible. They were on a VPN, they are blocked, they copy the block template, turn off the VPN, and post the request. On an IP that isn't blocked. --Yamla (talk) 21:09, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
Request to lift topic ban (Sharkslayer87)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I was topic banned on May 1,2018 for violating several wikipedia policies while editing a caste article. I was relatively new to wikipedia and was not familiar with the policies. I know that ignorance is not an excuse. I apologize for my rude behavior. Since then, I have been making good contributions in other areas without any complaints so far. I promise I will continue to abide by wiki rules and remain a good editor. I request to consider my appeal to lift the topic ban. I have appealed for a lift in the past but was turned down. I am requesting again. I am ready to address any concerns you have about me. Sharkslayer87 (talk) 00:33, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Previous decline --NeilN talk to me 00:38, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- I would recommend that this be declined. While Sharkslayer has mostly stayed free of conflict, their edits since the ban are minor in nature; dates, film cast members, etc. I would like to see some evidence that they can use sources properly in more difficult situations, before we let them return to the caste-related minefields. Vanamonde (talk) 04:16, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
Request to lift topic ban (Light show)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Please consider lifting this. I understand why I was banned, will do my best to avoid similar issues, and therefore don't foresee any more problems. My previous request was denied. It's been about a year since the ban was placed. Thanks. --Light show (talk) 00:37, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- "Light show is indefinitely topic banned from any edits relating to biographies of any kind, broadly construed. This community sanction may be appealed no earlier than six months after the date of this closure." .... This question is a clear cut violation of that topicban and as such NeilN's blocked LS for a month, No objections to this being reopened if an admin believes this was toosoon, –Davey2010Talk 23:01, 29 March 2018 (UTC) From Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive297#Request_for_guidelines_on_sexual_allegation_sections
That's not one year, that's four months ago --and it's a topic ban which explicitly states that you can't appeal it for at least six months. So that'sone false statement andone topic-ban violation already. --Calton | Talk 01:32, 2 August 2018 (UTC)- (edit conflict) Also, don't drown us in the details on what you learned, how you've changed, etc. Please, those are superfluous. byteflush Talk 01:39, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- No Light Show is in fact correct that the initial ban was placed nearly a year ago [32], what Calton’s link shows is that they were still trying to end-run it four months ago, which is enough for a hard no from me. I think the community would expect at least six months of no activity whatsoever related to this ban, and personally I would start that time only after this current discussion is closed. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:54, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- No - Personally I feel it would've been more wiser to have waited a year before returning ....No explanation has been given as to what they understand and what they wont do going forward, Either way I'm not seeing any valid reasons to lift this. –Davey2010Talk 02:16, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- No - Where's their "act of contrition" by stating what they understand about the reason for the ban? Where's the plan they should provide to show they won't revisit the same behavior? At Commons, LS had been blocked for years of multiple copyright violations on images, asked to be unblocked, it was granted, and then returned to the same behavior again while making excuses for the behavior - and not once admitting they were wrong. Needless to say, LS has been indeffed there. Their behavior there that didn't change - which is quite similar in attitude to their IDHT behavior here - why should we believe it will change in en.wp? Especially since they have no plan presented, no explanation of what it is they now understand about their block. I see nothing in this request that persuades. They could try to persuade if the request is done that shows some soul searching. I'd like to see some acknowledgement and promises from them first. After that, if the TB is lifted, I suppose it could be put into place again, but... does anyone want to go through that? -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 02:31, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- No - Problems with this editor have historically been endemic. There is nothing in this request that changes that. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:35, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- No - just saying "I understand why I was banned, will do my best to avoid similar issues, and therefore don't foresee any more problems." is not enough to address the whole host of issues that have historically happened with this editor. I would expect a bit more than this in order to consider removing the topic ban. Only a little over 100 edits since the last request to lift the topic ban does not show me that the behavioral issues have been addressed. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:28, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Reply: Since I linked to my previous appeal, I saw no reason to simply repeat my answers which I gave there to essentially the same questions. I even explained it again with a separate AN comment, where I said: "Basically, on more than four occasions where I've either complained or simply asked about apparent violations of policies or guidelines, it's resulted in me getting banned or blocked."
- And as we all know, I've never (seriously) been accused of violating guidelines about civility, being neutral, tag teaming, harassment, assuming good faith, using reliable sources, etc. In other words, following guidelines and editing properly are not and never have been an issue. And as far as I can recall, the only time I edit warred was when I tried to prevent an SPA editor from defaming Denis Avey, a British war hero. Go figure.
- The main issues have come from complaining about violations by others, and about which I offered a simple suggested compromise. In fact, now that two members of that 3-person team have resigned, that's another reason that problems aren't likely to reappear. I hope that addresses the "misbehavioral" issues you're concerned about.--Light show (talk) 17:15, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Since I linked to my previous appeal, I saw no reason to simply repeat my answers which I gave there to essentially the same questions.'
- You mean the reasons that were already rejected? Not a good start.
- And as we all know, I've never (seriously) been accused of violating guidelines...
- So, essentially, you did nothing wrong. Not helpful to your case.
- now that two members of that 3-person team have resigned, that's another reason that problems aren't likely to reappear...
- It's also just a plot against you. So I'll call that "strike three". --Calton | Talk 00:18, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Reply: The main reason it was rejected was because I supposedly violated the topic ban by relying on BANEX. So you're partly right, in that I "essentially did nothing wrong." --Light show (talk) 01:31, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- No - if one of the conditions of the ban was to wait 6 months before appeal and it's only been four, well, that in and of itself is more than enough to reject it. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is a complicated society, and rules are needed to regulate any complicated society. If you cannot follow the rules of your topic ban, how can we trust you'll follow the very important rules of BLP? John from Idegon (talk) 01:45, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- It was 8 months before I first appealed, not 4. --Light show (talk) 02:02, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Comment Light show, please follow the advice given by Winkelvi in regards to future appeals. --TheSandDoctor Talk 05:22, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Blocked from Saving Ryan Hampton (author)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hi, When I tried to save a stub I wrote about Bryan Hampton (author) the action was blocked with a message that said: "The page title or edit you have tried to create has been restricted to administrators at this time. It matches an entry on the local or global blacklists, which is usually used to prevent vandalism. If you receive this message when trying to edit, create or move an existing page, follow these instructions:
Any administrator can create or move this page for you. Please post a request at the Administrators' noticeboard. You may also contact any administrator on their talk page or by email. Be sure to specify the exact title (especially by linking it) of the page you are trying to create or edit, and if it might be misunderstood (for example, an article with an unusual name), consider explaining briefly what you want to do. If you wrote any text, save it temporarily on your computer until you can edit the page. Thank you."
I think this person should have a Wiki article, and I am not sure why it was blocked. I found the request for the article on the "Request for Articles" page, here. All I wanted to do was write a short article about Ryan Hampton. Thanks, Stregadellanonna (talk) 09:15, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Background info, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive296#Ryan Hampton (Author). ~ GB fan 09:25, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- @Stregadellanonna: I suggest you create a draft at User:Stregadellanonna/Bryan Hampton (I created the page there) and submit it to Wikipedia:Articles for creation. There are concerns about this author because some illegitimate users tried to create it before. Thanks! -- Luk talk 10:04, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Luk, I know the header and the first sentence says Bryan but the requested article that Stregadellanonna is mentioning is Ryan. ~ GB fan 10:23, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Oh yes, of course I meant Ryan. Sorry for the confusion. I'll try and create the article according to your suggestion. Thanks. Stregadellanonna (talk) 10:32, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- @GB fan: Oh, it makes more sense (a cursory web search for Bryan returned no meaningful result). I moved the page, thanks! -- Luk talk 10:35, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
TBAN for paid editor
I am requesting a topic ban of User:Danilo Two from Bank of New York Mellon. This person works for the firm, Buetler Ink.
Why?
While this person has disclosed and is putting things through the peer review, the proposals are not grounded in the mission of WP and the policies and guidelines, but rather are raw PR for the client. We have TBANed people in this situation before, for example this thread from April 2017.
The final straw for me is this RfC posted today, which is absolutely un-neutral.
Earlier, they had made a proposal here which as I noted here, was trying to turn the WP page into a proxy for BNY's website, reflecting its current business and status only, and not an encyclopedia article with information of enduring interest. I noted that problem at their talk page in this diff.
Subsequently here they wrote These graphs were not provided by BNY Mellon, but a third party.
. They offered no explanation as to why graphs that are independent are somehow "worse", here in Wikipedia. I pointed out that problem to them, on their talk page, here. I also noted at the article talk page that no policy based reason was given.
And now the RfC linked above. I called their attention to how un-neutral the RfC was at their talk page here. They responded by tweaking the RfC here. The RfC statement still makes their argument, instead of posing the question neutrally.
There is no sign that Danilo 2 intends to do anything other than represent what the bank wants. That is not what editing privileges are for, and is an endless time sink for the editing community. Paid editors need to be Wikipedians first, and if they won't be, then we should politely close the door. Jytdog (talk) 19:48, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Disagreeing with you is not grounds for a topic ban. Have you tried Wikipedia:Third opinion? Gamaliel (talk) 20:01, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Never request a Third Opinion with Beutler. If they don't get it, they will then go to DRN, and if necessary to WP:ANI (although with no real issue at ANI). Robert McClenon (talk) 01:11, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
- Never attempt to service an edit request for Beutler. If you try to help them, they treat you like an employee and think that they have the right to censure you for failure to do their job. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:11, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
- User:Gamaliel You have missed the point. Being here to represent the bank, without regard for WP's mission, policies, and guidelines, is not an acceptable use of editing privileges. This is not about the content dispute but rather Danilo 2's behavior. Jytdog (talk) 20:15, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- He's on the talk page starting an RFC, it looks like he has a lot of regard for WP's policies and guidelines to me. Gamaliel (talk) 20:21, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- He sort of knows how to work Wikipedia. I have not denied that. But the RfC itself is far from neutral, which is not valid DR. But thisis again not the point. Using the talk page and certain DR processes in order to advocate for what the bank wants, regardless of the content policies and guidelines, is not being here to build an encyclopedia, but rather to do PR. Jytdog (talk) 20:22, 2 August 2018 (UTC) (tweaked w/o redaction, since this has not been replied to Jytdog (talk) 20:27, 2 August 2018 (UTC))
- He's on the talk page starting an RFC, it looks like he has a lot of regard for WP's policies and guidelines to me. Gamaliel (talk) 20:21, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- As long as he's trying to build consensus on the talk page, not editing the page itself, and is fully disclosing his interest, I see no reason for a topic ban. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:24, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Following the paid policy and COI guideline is a minimum - necessary but not sufficient. As noted -- we have TBANed people in this situation before, for example this thread from April 2017. Jytdog (talk) 20:27, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose the editor appears to be diligently following the paid-editing/COI rules. The RFC seems to be worded neutrally-enough; while the argument about different corporate entities isn't terribly convincing, I don't think it's biased. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:32, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- User:power~enwiki on what planet is giving an argument to do X in an RfC about what to do, considered "neutral" in Wikipedia? Jytdog (talk) 22:52, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Earth, apparently. I haven't figured out how to get to any other planets yet. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:58, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, I don't follow. The wording
Should the three graphs covering data for 2000-2008 in the Historical data section of the BNY Mellon article be removed or kept?
seems fine to me; the original wording seems acceptable as well. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:58, 2 August 2018 (UTC)- User:power~enwiki everything above the signature is part of the RfC question. You correctly identify the actual question in the fist line as simple and neutral. But in both versions there is an additional paragraph giving the bank's/Danilo 2's argument. Everything above the signature is part of the "request". Neither version is even close to neutral.Jytdog (talk) 01:07, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Hi, I'd like to respond here to defend myself a little. I think a lot of the issues that Jytdog raises are misunderstandings and some come down to preferences on information to present.
First, the request that Jytdog says was aiming to turn the Wikipedia page into a proxy for the company website was aimed at updating the Operations section which typically represents and is framed as the current operations of a company. I am not trying to remove historical data entirely from the article, nor turn the whole page into a company profile, but offer some suggestions to streamline the information and bring it up-to-date. After Jytdog offered his feedback, I didn't push this request further and I've in fact collapsed it (earlier today) and noted that I'd refocus my suggestions based on that feedback.
Second, with regards to the graphs, I believe the way I worded my note has caused some confusion and I'm sorry for that. It was not my intention to say that third-party materials are not appropriate or that information from BNY is better; I was trying to respond to Jytdog's prior note that suggested it would be ideal to add new graphs showing a greater range of information, rather than delete the existing ones. The situation is that the existing graphs were provided by a third-party that owns the copyright; that third-party has produced more up-to-date graphs but they're copyrighted, so can't simply be added to the article due to that. I wanted to clarify that the graphs were produced by someone other than BNY Mellon, to explain that I didn't have access or ability to provide ones that were up-to-date and that keeping the graphs updated would be complicated.
Third, for the RfC, as Jytdog notes, I adjusted it to make it neutral and I'm open to editors' suggestions.
Finally, as Jytdog and others have noted, I'm keeping to the guidelines here and am not editing directly, and I'm responding constructively to feedback. Thanks, Danilo Two (talk) 20:44, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Giving your client's reason for removing the graphs in the statement is not neutral. That you are here arguing it is, is pretty much exactly what I am talking about. Jytdog (talk) 22:50, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- So Talk:Ogilvy_&_Mather#Edit_request:_Updates_Round_1 is another example of the kind of thing I am trying to articulate. The page has been almost entirely rewritten with reviewed content from Buetler folks - first Heatherer and now Danilo 2 is stepping in. People generally review proposals, and everybody being busy, what usually happens is that the foundation is kept and really just the copy is checked to remove puffery and to ensure the content is supported by the sources. But the aim and overall messaging remains. You will see this if you review the talk page.
- Now... Ogilvy & Mather, like most PR agencies today, has been struggling to adapt as more and more companies bring "creative" in-house and as the industry changed from emphasis on "creative" to buying ads in digital media (per this for example; likewise this)
- Our article doesn't provide that context (it should, briefly) but different companies have responded in different ways at different times.
- Ogilvy responded by profilerating divisions or subsidiaries to handle different aspects in different regions.
- Two years ago new management came in, and they have completely done over the company, consolidating most everything into one entity and creating new divisions within it to handle different things. There is an interesting business story there. something people could learn from.
- The proposal Talk:Ogilvy_&_Mather#Edit_request:_Updates_Round_1 would just erase the old structure and write in the new one. No context, no sense of history. Just turning the page into Ogilvy's website with a bunch of woo about "rebranding".
- There is nothing about building an encyclopedia there. I am sure the proposal will be duly reviewed and implemented and the page made over into Ogilvy's image.
- Like the intention at Bank of New York Mellon. Erase history, try to drive the page to express the Bank's messaging today. About today.
- Is that we want? I say no. I say that just disclosing and putting up (absolutely formulaic WP-content-looking edits that are actually just PR dreck) for review is not what we want. It is a time suck on the community, and even the best intentioned volunteers generally just polish the turd and don't ask paid editors to write encyclopedic copy (and if they won't, just saying "no thanks" or ignoring it) Leading to pages in WP becoming polished PR turds. Jytdog (talk) 01:01, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support but I don't see why we should bother with a TBAN. Indef and be done with it. All this account has been used for is PR; they are clearly not interested in helping us write an encyclopaedia. The paid editing guidelines are a minimum requirement to comply with the WMF's terms of use. They're not a license to ignore our core content policies and behavioural guidelines (WP:NOTPROMO, WP:COI, WP:DIS & WP:GAME, for example). – Joe (talk) 06:22, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- support indef-My primary impressions align with Joe.∯WBGconverse 06:34, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support - what Joe said. If you can get paid to write a good encyclopedia article, I've got no problem with that, as long as you are being open and honest about it. We have some paid editors that do just that. But if you are here to spin a Wikipedia article for your client, go away and don't come back. Y'all haven't forgotten Tony Ahn yet, have you. Stop the time sink now with an Indeff. He gets paid to promote his client. Working our system to do so will always end up in the paid efiedi getting what they want. They are earning their bread and butter by working the system. At some point, every legit editor will have to back away so he or she can go support their family. That's a glitch in our system that we absolutely cannot let paid editors exploit. John from Idegon (talk) 06:40, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support indef No one needs to query my stance on paid editing. Be gone Danilo Two and refund your customers. I don't like users profiting from my 1000s of hours and other volunteer hours protecting Wikipedia from monetary exploitation. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:38, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Oppose Nothing this editor has done is out of line with what other paid and COI editors have been allowed to do. We allow [Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-10-08/In_the_media political operatives] to edit articles about political opponents, so it's ridiculous to block a paid editor who is completely following policy. Gamaliel (talk) 13:39, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- I also oppose any sort of restriction at this time. The editor has worked to resolve issues from what I have read of the interactions on the talk page. Describing the RFC as non-neutral can be fixed simply by adding a signature to the first paragraph, which looks like a sufficiently neutral question to me. (I do not know if Jytdog is simply unaware that this is the fix to this issue.) The RFC starter is allowed to give his opinion first in an RFC. I am definitely not seeing any failures to meet our core content policies by the paid editor, nor any of the behavioral ones--and we don't topic ban users unless they do fail to meet the intent of those. --Izno (talk) 14:16, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- User:Izno to be clear, what I am saying is that they are violating WP:PROMO and WP:NPOV by working consistently to make pages simply reflect their client's current business and current messaging, with no regard for our mission to write encyclopedia articles. Wikipedia is not meant to be a proxy for organization websites. However much the content proposed by Danilo Two looks like normal Wikipedia content, it isn't. Jytdog (talk) 14:25, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support Topic-Ban - Beutler is in the business of systematically trying to game the system and is a threat to the integrity of the encyclopedia. (If there is a proposal for a block or ban, I haven't seen it.) Robert McClenon (talk) 01:11, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
Rollbacker status removed unfairly?
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Just over a year ago, xaosflux granted me rollbacker rights after I proved that I understood what constituted vandalism on Wikipedia, and in the time since I have only been questioned on my reverts a few times and been able to clear up those issues through talk page discussion. I have continued to use the standard procedure of reverting with edit summary and discussing at the talk page for any non-vandalism issues. Then, today, NeilN removed that status and the only explanation I was given was that I apparently misunderstand what vandalism is. My interpretation of vandalism has not changed since I was told it was correct last year, and from what I can see at WP:VAND, WP:NOTVAND, and WP:ROLLBACK my actions are still covered by those policies and guidelines and line-up with how I have been approaching the tool all this time. I would like to be given back the rollback tool, or at least be given an actual explanation for where I have been going wrong so that I can learn and earn the right back. NeilN is the one that directed me here. - adamstom97 (talk) 21:11, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Adamstom, please inform involved editors using talk page notifications. That is mandatory.
- For the benefit of other editors, here is the ANEW report against the user which led to all this. Lourdes 21:13, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- "Those are definitely all vandalism, from adding unsourced content to adding information on the post-credit scene (there is clear consensus not to add this)." Adamstom.97 was given a chance to step back from this. They did not. --NeilN talk to me 21:17, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- adamstom.97, you rolled back two edits (at least): [33], [34], which were clearly not vandalism. At the ANEW report, rather than realizing you made an error, you defended doing so: "Those are definitely all vandalism, from adding unsourced content to adding information on the post-credit scene (there is clear consensus not to add this).", and then defend being unwilling to discuss your reverts: "I think it is fair not to have to explain my reverts when the edit history contains dozens of examples of the same revert by multiple editors and the issue has already been discussed at the talk page." Given that, I agree with removal of your rollback permissions, as it is clear that you are unable to determine what is vandalism and what is not, and instead used rollback during a content dispute. No matter how right you think you are, you cannot do that. Seraphimblade Talk to me 21:21, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Firstly, I did send a talk page notification to NeilN who is the admin in question here. And secondly, those two edits are deliberate attempts to ignore discussion, are not covered by WP:NOTVAND, and are very clearly covered by points 1 and 5 of Wikipedia:Rollback#When to use rollback. I did not use rollback during a content dispute, I used it long after a content dispute to revert blatant attempts to ignore discussion and consensus by multiple misguided editors. If that is not allowed, then perhaps the instructions on how to use the tool need to be updated as this is all part of what I was told I could do when I first gained this status. I am also not impressed with the way I have been treated here - you could have said that I made a mistake, explained what that mistake was, and then left me to learn and earn the right back, but instead I had the right swiftly removed from with no explanation because I dared to defend myself! That is not the community spirit I have come to expect on Wikipedia. - adamstom97 (talk) 21:30, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- @Adamstom.97: - Regarding using the rollback tool to revert an edit inconsistent with consensus, see the very first point at WP:NOTVAND, as well as the third point. And you are correct, your very first edit after posting this was to inform. SQLQuery me! 21:38, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- I think it's a pretty big stretch to refer to these as "bold edits", and I don't think that sets a very good precedent, but I can also see that I'm not going to get anywhere with this either. Now I just want to know whether I am going to be able to request the rollback tool be reinstated moving forward, or if I am going to be prevented from doing that by the petty behaviour that was displayed at the ANEW report. - adamstom97 (talk) 21:41, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- @Adamstom.97: As I said at ANEW, you get rollback access after you demonstrate you know what is considered vandalism, not before or as you adjust. The fact that you're still considering the edits as vandalism is deeply problematic. Editing against consensus (if it exists) or ignoring the talk page is not vandalism or misguided. It's simply disagreeing with consensus or the existing content. --NeilN talk to me 21:42, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- @Adamstom.97: - Regarding using the rollback tool to revert an edit inconsistent with consensus, see the very first point at WP:NOTVAND, as well as the third point. And you are correct, your very first edit after posting this was to inform. SQLQuery me! 21:38, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Firstly, I did send a talk page notification to NeilN who is the admin in question here. And secondly, those two edits are deliberate attempts to ignore discussion, are not covered by WP:NOTVAND, and are very clearly covered by points 1 and 5 of Wikipedia:Rollback#When to use rollback. I did not use rollback during a content dispute, I used it long after a content dispute to revert blatant attempts to ignore discussion and consensus by multiple misguided editors. If that is not allowed, then perhaps the instructions on how to use the tool need to be updated as this is all part of what I was told I could do when I first gained this status. I am also not impressed with the way I have been treated here - you could have said that I made a mistake, explained what that mistake was, and then left me to learn and earn the right back, but instead I had the right swiftly removed from with no explanation because I dared to defend myself! That is not the community spirit I have come to expect on Wikipedia. - adamstom97 (talk) 21:30, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- I agree with Seraphimblade's analysis of the two given diffs: not vandalism-->rollback abuse. Drmies (talk) 21:43, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support removal (edit conflict × 4) - this editor evidently understands neither Wikipedia:What is vandalism? nor the requirement to be willing to discuss one's use of advanced permissions. The policy page says that rollback is to be used only when the reason for reverting is absolutely clear; in any instance where it may be necessary to explain why content is being reverted (such as enforcing the result of a talk page discussion) rollback is not to be used, and the reverting editor is advised to use a different method to undo the edit which allows entering an edit summary. More from the policy: "Administrators may revoke the rollback privilege or issue a block in response to a persistent failure to explain reverts, regardless of the means used." Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 21:44, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Look at it like this: If you're reverting because an edit is against longstanding consensus or because it's poorly sourced, it is particularly important for you to say so in an edit summary. Otherwise, the person you're reverting is likely to make the same mistakes elsewhere or even just repeat them on that page; they also won't have any idea what they need to do to address your objection (finding better sources or reaching a new consensus on talk, respectively.) Rollbacking vandalism is a thing because when something is clear, bad-faith vandalism, we can assume the editor understands what they're doing wrong, so there's no point in humoring them by explaining it to them. In all other situations (whenever an edit is in good faith), discussion is a vital part of the process. If you just revert with no explanation, you haven't fixed anything in the long term. --Aquillion (talk) 23:02, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
It's becoming very clear that there is a deep-seated holier-than-thou attitude here that is not conducive to discussion. However, my question has still not been answered, and I would like it to be before I move on from this discussion. Once again: will I be able to prove that I have learned from this experience and deserve to regain the rollbacker right, or will any attempt in the future to regain it be derailed by overzealous admins that do not believe a person can ever learn or change? - adamstom97 (talk) 21:49, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- @Adamstom.97: Your attitude isn't helping but yes, show that you've taken on board what you've been told here, and you should be able to get the right back in a few months. Conversely, continuing to call good-faith edits vandalism will result in a block. --NeilN talk to me 21:54, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)On behalf of overzealous power hungry abusive rogue admins everywhere, let me just say that we can be surprisingly forgiving if you do show a real ability to learn from your mistakes. So far you’ve not done so. Thanks for asking. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:56, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Nope Miniapolis 22:26, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Since I was invoked... yes, I added rollbacker following a fairly routine request at WP:PERM (see Special:PermaLink/788098447#User:Adamstom.97 ). RB bar to entry is low and this editor had been around a while and had a plausible request so I added, it wasn't so much of proving capability as AGF the access would be appropriately used. I have not reviewed any recent events. — xaosflux Talk 23:14, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse removal I'd recommend waiting 3-6 months to request re-instatement; you may want to try WP:TWINKLE in the meantime. (but please be careful) power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:27, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
- Adamstom.97: "
I am also not impressed with the way I have been treated here
" - You mean the part where NeilN opted to not give you the 24 hour block for edit-warring you clearly deserved, allowing you to instead volunteer to stay away from the page for a week? And of course, no block log entry, so your next edit offence will be treated as a first offence and you'll use that as an excuse for for a free pass. Nice way to thank the guy... - theWOLFchild 08:33, 3 August 2018 (UTC) - Endorse, I'm tired of seeing users mislabelling edits they don't agree with as vandalism to justify misuse of the rollback privilege. It happens a lot on RFPP too. Fish+Karate 08:40, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
INC sock?
see - Special:Diff/853180521 - another INC sock? I blocked it anyway as vandal only. Ronhjones (Talk) 00:03, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Significant WP:PERM/AWB backlog
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Wouldn't normally point out a backlog to AN, but the backlog for AutoWikiBrowser permissions is now 2 weeks, which seems really excessive. There's only 6 requests which should be pretty quick to deal with. Sorry to nag like this, but I've been waiting for 10 days to be able to start work on a template restructuring!--Newbiepedian (talk · C · X! · L) 01:02, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Also to add to this, the WT:AFCP backlog is growing in length too. Iffy★Chat -- 09:44, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Block review for Clockback
 | If you came here because someone asked you to, or you read a message on another website, please note that this is not a majority vote, but instead a discussion among Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia has policies and guidelines regarding the encyclopedia's content, and consensus (agreement) is gauged based on the merits of the arguments, not by counting votes.
However, you are invited to participate and your opinion is welcome. Remember to assume good faith on the part of others and to sign your posts on this page by adding ~~~~ at the end. Note: Comments by suspected single-purpose accounts or canvassed users may be tagged using:{{subst:spa|username}} or {{subst:canvassed|username}} |
Clockback (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Clockback is in real life, British journalist Peter Hitchens. He was recently indef-blocked by JzG. I will argue here that the block, while warranted, was too harsh and has outlived its purpose. The circumstances are as follows. The matter is a bit delicate, so please bear with me.
Clockback's block log is clean. The current dispute concerns George Bell (bishop), in particular, the section Child abuse allegations. Hitchens has written a lot about this matter in the British press. Clockback has sporadically edited the article in the past two-and-a-half years, largely without incident. They have also used the talk page thoroughly (I count 22 comments by them). This is by way of preamble, to stress that Blockback has been largely restrained and largely proper in their edits and discussion.
In late 2017, the Carlile report on the matter was published. Please see this BBC or this NYT article for an overview. Around the same time, there was a long discussion on how to re-organize the section in light of the report. Clockback participated in that discussion, again, largely properly. For various reasons, the editor who started the discussion didn't find the time for a rewrite (or perhaps it was a failure of WP:BOLD). So the matter rested there.
On 21 July Clockback made two edits to the article edit1, edit2. Both have edit summaries and seem like good-faith edits to me (I take no position on their correctness). They were also explained on the talkpage. Another editor Charlesdrakew reverted Clockback's edits with no explanation; Clockback reinstated the edits. On 28 July, Charlesdrakew reverted the edits again, simply saying that Clockback has a COI and should get consensus first, but no direct explanation of the revert. Clockback argued more on the talkpage, but no further discussion happened.
At this point I should mention that the two editors had butted heads in the past. Charledrakew had complained (about an earlier version) that the section gives too much space to "professional loudmouths" and that the section thus "looks like a whitewash". I take no position on whether these concerns were correct, and whether or not Charlesdrakew intended to address Mr. Hitchens. The important point is that Clockback took these comments as a personal affront (Hitchens is quoted in the section).
Things spiraled quickly after the events of 28 July. Clockback made this edit as a humourous (he says) rejoinder, which tried to express his frustration with a reductio ad absurdum. After he was reverted, he edit-warred to keep the text in. It was at this point that JzG blocked Clockback to stop the edit-warring.
I tried to mediate between the positions, and reorganized the section thoroughly. You can read my explanation here. Both Clockback and Charlesdrakew, while not entirely happy, seem to be satisfied with my rewrite.
Clockback's repeated unblock requests have been denied because the admins say that he has refused to acknowledge his improper editing. This charge is undoubtedly true, but I would ask people to read the excellent essay WP:Editors have pride. On the important matter -- namely the text of the article -- Clockback has already acceded to a reasonable consensus. One should not expect people to grovel. The block is now only punitive.
The punchline to the story is given in my !vote below. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 07:04, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Survey
- Endorse initial block but support unblocking now: The edit-warring obviously needed to be stopped, and a (short) block was entirely proper. I would, however, argue that matter has been resolved satisfactorily, so the block no longer serves a purpose. Clockback's edits were driven by a sense of frustration, and were not typical of his other edits to the page, which were largely restrained and largely made in good faith.
Also, please keep in mind that Wikipedia bureaucracy can be forbidding to a casual editor. Clockback tried to discuss his edits thoroughly, but he was not well-versed in the dispute resolution process on Wikipedia, which led to this downward spiral. For instance, he was not comfortable with starting an RfC. I promise to help Clockback on this point. (Incidentally, many other people have told me the same thing: RfCs are very confusing. I routinely see people screw up RfCs.) Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 07:04, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support unblocking, an immediate indefinite block for the first offense? No. Fish+Karate 08:38, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse block. The tone of Clockback's response to notification of this discussion, as well as that of previous unblock requests, suggests to me that this block is still necessary. I've yet to see any indication that Clockback understands the problems with his editing; the edits for which he was blocked are symptomatic of a longer-running issue, and until there's some suggestion that these editorial and COI edits won't recur, I'm in favour of retaining the block. Yunshui 雲水 08:46, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support unblocking, an indefinite block for the first offense is too harsh.Keith Johnston (talk) 10:34, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse my own block obviously. I mean, seriously? An editor with a COI, adding "Nor was there any reason for a complaint to be passed to the police since, as Bishop Bell was dead, he could not be prosecuted and they had no statutory role in the affair. A complaint might as well have been passed to the Fire Brigade or to Tesco", that fails WP:COI, WP:NPOV and WP:CIR, frankly.
- His other edits are to Christopher Hitchens (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (COI), Peter Hitchens (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (WP:AUTO, COI), Education Policy Institute (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (COI, long-standing off-wiki agenda there), A Brief History of Crime (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (WP:PROMO, COI), The Broken Compass (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (PROMO, COI) - you have to go back ten years for a single mainspace edit that's even arguably non-conflicted, and even then it's a likely conflict given his off-wiki comments on the subject matter added at Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Overall: WP:NOTHERE. Very definitely.
- This is also as clear an example of m:MPOV as you could wish for.
- If unblocked he needs to be TBANned from COI edits, which is, to a good first approximation, 100% of his editing to date. Guy (Help!) 08:58, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse block. Hitchens only edits in areas where he has a massive WP:COI. From his talk page it is clear he isn't going to change. -Roxy, the dog. barcus 09:16, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse block. As I stated on his talk page, I would need to see some evidence his behavior would change, and I haven't yet. 331dot (talk) 09:35, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse block. Clockback's edits...were not typical of his other edits to the page, which were largely restrained and largely made in good faith. - Kingsindian
- Really? "Nor was there any reason for a complaint to be passed to the police since, as Bishop Bell was dead, he could not be prosecuted and they had no statutory role in the affair. A complaint might as well have been passed to the Fire Brigade or to Tesco" was his addition to the ARTICLE. That prose wouldn't be acceptable in news reporting, let alone an encyclopedia. If he wants to promote himself and grind his axe, he's got The Mail on Sunday for that. --Calton | Talk 10:05, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- I do not expect everyone to agree with me, but I do expect people to read properly. My comment was explicitly NOT about this edit, but the edits PRIOR to this whole unfortunate mess. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 10:23, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Really? "Nor was there any reason for a complaint to be passed to the police since, as Bishop Bell was dead, he could not be prosecuted and they had no statutory role in the affair. A complaint might as well have been passed to the Fire Brigade or to Tesco" was his addition to the ARTICLE. That prose wouldn't be acceptable in news reporting, let alone an encyclopedia. If he wants to promote himself and grind his axe, he's got The Mail on Sunday for that. --Calton | Talk 10:05, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support unblocking The continuation of this block appears to be purely vindictive.Themunimentroom 13:11, 3 August 2018 (UTC) — Themunimentroom (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that editors have been canvassed to this discussion.
- Endorse per Yunshui, Roxy, and Calton. Gamaliel (talk) 13:13, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support unblocking - surely blocking is a last-resort measure for vandals and those who cannot be reasoned with, not people an editor has a conflict of opinion with. It can be argued the editorial reverting of changes was unwarranted, and needs explanation. Otherwise, the whole edifice of wikipedia (of people setting down facts) becomes under threat. PS, I read he has a COI with the page dedicated to his brother - if this is the measure of COI then practically nobody shoudl be allowed to edit anything, as they all have a COI with the topics they care to write about! User:gbjbaanb 14:17, 3 August 2018 (UTC) — gbjbaanb (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that editors have been canvassed to this discussion.
- Support unblocking - really believe that a temporary block is enough, this is in keeping with the spirit of openness that Wikipedia should be known for User:theheatwick 15:03, 3 August 2018 (UTC) — theheatwick (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that editors have been canvassed to this discussion.
- Endorse continued block, as unblock requests to date have pretty much consisted of i-didn't-do-that and you're-a-bunch-of-totalitarians. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:19, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Procedural close we don’t accept 3rd party unblock appeals. A sanctioned editor must appeal themselves and address the issue. Every admin who has reviewed the block until now has declined to unblock, and none of them felt the need to bring it here. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:41, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Also, notifications to @Yamla, 331dot, and MaxSem: as the admins who previously reviewed this block as they don’t appear to have been notified that it is now at AN for review. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:46, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- So, in a complaint about the heartless Wikipedia bureaucracy, your solution is ... more bureaucracy? No wonder Wikipedia is dying. Also relevant, in light of all the brouhaha about COI and so forth. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 14:57, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- 3rd party appeals aren’t usually allowed because they miss the point of the entire unblock process: discussion with the blocked editor. They also tend to waste a lot of energy for no reason and are dramafests that quickly become disruptive. There is nothing special about this case meriting AN review outside of the normal process at the request of someone other than the blocked editor. Their appeals will be considered on their talk page, and the advantage there for them is that they aren’t considered banned and don’t require future AN review if the unblock is declined. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:03, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- One of the purposes of WP:AN is to review blocks. Nothing substantial would change if I copy pasted Clockback's last unblock request above my own statement. It's pointless WP:BURO. And if you hadn't noticed, I have been copy-pasting Clockback's comments from the talkpage here. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 15:06, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- No, bringing it here on your own without the active appeal is the exercise in bureaucracy: we just don’t do that except in cases of unambiguous abuse, which this isn’t. There is now an appeal on their talk. This should be handled there by discussion with them instead of being made a spectacle. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:11, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- What the hell? There's a block review of an AE case just below this section. Blocks are reviewed here all the time. I am going to ignore this trolling now. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 15:22, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- AE blocks have to be brought either here or to AE. Unblocking without consensus leads to desysop in those cases. There is nothing special about this block. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:24, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- What the hell? There's a block review of an AE case just below this section. Blocks are reviewed here all the time. I am going to ignore this trolling now. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 15:22, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- No, bringing it here on your own without the active appeal is the exercise in bureaucracy: we just don’t do that except in cases of unambiguous abuse, which this isn’t. There is now an appeal on their talk. This should be handled there by discussion with them instead of being made a spectacle. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:11, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- One of the purposes of WP:AN is to review blocks. Nothing substantial would change if I copy pasted Clockback's last unblock request above my own statement. It's pointless WP:BURO. And if you hadn't noticed, I have been copy-pasting Clockback's comments from the talkpage here. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 15:06, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- 3rd party appeals aren’t usually allowed because they miss the point of the entire unblock process: discussion with the blocked editor. They also tend to waste a lot of energy for no reason and are dramafests that quickly become disruptive. There is nothing special about this case meriting AN review outside of the normal process at the request of someone other than the blocked editor. Their appeals will be considered on their talk page, and the advantage there for them is that they aren’t considered banned and don’t require future AN review if the unblock is declined. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:03, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- So, in a complaint about the heartless Wikipedia bureaucracy, your solution is ... more bureaucracy? No wonder Wikipedia is dying. Also relevant, in light of all the brouhaha about COI and so forth. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 14:57, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Non-admin comment The user is currently WP:CANVASSING support for his unblocking on Twitter here and here (feel free to move/remove this if I have commented in the wrong place). Endymion.12 (talk) 15:59, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse block, this editor doesn't seem to be prepared to participate constructively. Max Semenik (talk) 19:25, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Unblock Clockback please - having read the material, he is entitled to express those views, however controversial and unpalatable they may be for some. And he has made some grave points and should not have to beg for forgiveness for expressing his, founded, views. Ours is a plural society, please reflect the same on this platform for Mr Hitchens.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.192.69.53 (talk) 13:13, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Actually no he's not. He is entitled to express his views, founded or not, in accordance with the bounds of the law while writing for the paper, or on his own website or blog or anywhere else that welcomes it. However wikipedia is an encylopaedia written based on sources. Discussions here are intended to be about how we improve wikipedia. The views of random editors of stuff unrelated to that purpose aren't really welcome. Given our goals of building a community, there's some limited acceptance of editors express offtopic stuff like their views of subjectw within reason but this needs to be limited. Notably if several other editors feel that someone's specific expression of their views unrelated to how to improve wikipedia is harmful, it probably is since it's seemingly not improving community relations here but harming them. Note that I have not looked into the details of the case other than to know it doesn't appear to involve a living person since it's beside my point. Nil Einne (talk) 21:06, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support unblocking, an indefinite block for a first offence is way too much, Huldra (talk) 21:42, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse block - Guy's reasoning stands up. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:33, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- I will note that Hitchens has now made 4 unblock requests on his talk page, and all have been turned down (by 4 different admins) because they did not address the reason for their block. Filing multiple frivolous unblock requests generally leads to shutting off talk page access. In this case, Hitchens being a public figure may be working in his favor, as admins may be shying away from that course of action so as not to be named in the inevitable follow-up off-wiki commentary from Hitchens about Wikipedia's "autocracy" and "liberal bias" - but since that's going to happen anyway, no matter what happens now (even an unblock won't stop it), someone should just bite the bullet and shut him down. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:43, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse block - Canvassing one's twitter followers in order to get oneself unblocked certainly means that a user should never be allowed to return. Icarosaurvus (talk) 22:37, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse block. I am sympathetic to KingsIndian's position here, as I often am. But in this case I don't agree. We have just been through the Arbcom case of Philip Cross, where we had people involved in RW disputes editing about those disputes here in WP. This is not good for anybody. If you look at their edit count you will see that Clockback has pretty much only edited about himself, his family, his books, and things he pundits about in the real world.
- Back in 2015 I tried to explain COI management in WP] to him, and he replied:
I've tried it and it doesn't work. You'll just have to trust me. If I restrict myself, as I have for more than a decade, to correcting errors of fact, I can't see any problem. the temptation to rewrite the whole thing in better English is immensely strong, but I have resisted it all this time and will continue to do so. I really don't see why doing this, openly, is a difficulty.
That was after he had just been edit-warring completely inappropriate content into mainspace about some picture of himself. (diff, diff, diff). An unrestrained temper tantrum. His claim is also somewhat contradicted by his actual edits to the page about him, which includes things like this - At the Bell page, folks have cited the edits at Bell - the first part about
A complaint might as well have been passed to the Fire Brigade or to Tesco.
. Has anybody looked at the rest of that diff? It also includedThis was a ridiculous statement, as under English law any accused person is presumed innocent until proven guilty
. - Away back in 2007 he was all up into contesting the reality of ADD in his Mail column (e.g here. And sure enough he made around 30 edits to the ADD page including beauties like this.
- Clockback obviously feels quite entitled to use WP like he would a column or blog to express his opinion and have temper tantrums. Wikipedia is however not his column, and he has not given us reason to trust his self-restraint. His temper tantrum over the block, is quite in line with what I have seen of him here.
- KingsIndian I do get it that WP can be difficult to understand and navigate, but for as long as Clockback has been around, he hasn't really engaged with what we do here, how we do it, and why. There are many people drawn here to edit about themselves or some other external interest. Some of them take the time to "get it"; Clockback has shown little to no interest in WP's mission but a great deal of interest in using WP as yet another platform to express his opinions. It's just not what we do here. It is fundamentally a SOAP thing. Jytdog (talk) 02:00, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse block Indef block is suitable for such disruptive editors. So what if he's Christopher Hitchens' brother? Wikipedia is not his soapbox, and the editor hasn't recognized what they did wrong. I think, as a whole, we were way too lenient on them - seeing that they still have their TPA intact. byteflush Talk 03:59, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
Administrator note I tried to close this as "no consensus to unblock" before sufficient time had elapsed for this to be considered a "community block" (which is a block that ends up endorsed after "due consideration" by the community, thus becoming a de facto CBAN). I did this in an attempt to avert unnecessary drama, prevent the escalation of an unintended CBAN, and to let this user retain the normal options for unblocking. Both the OP here and the blocked user have objected to the closure as too quick, and while I thoroughly explained to them the much more serious consequences of a formal community-endorsed block that has been given "due consideration", the OP has strenuously insisted that they want a fair trial. So, if the consensus to endorse the block continues to hold for a reasonable amount of time, that is a risk that the blocked user was made aware of and decided to take. Swarm ♠ 10:32, 4 August 2018 (UTC)- Support unblock A week would be sufficient, some people seem keen to support the block because of who he is. User:Charlesdrakew seems to be one of them and that his attacks are ignored indicates we aren't treating this case fairly and neutrally, which is another reason to unblock. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 10:46, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support unblock as time served. If nothing else, they are clearly keen to discuss the matter, and they are equally clearly WP:HERE. I consider the block harsh for a first offence, and although Clockback does have a transparent COI, they apper to have been up front about it from the start, and with the exception of a couple of instances, adhered to our guidelines. Although of course WP:VOL says we do not, of course, have to do anything we don't want to do, I can't help but suspect that if they had received a litle more traction on the talk page, we might not be having this discussion. —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 11:02, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- On edit: I see Govindaharihari made an eminently sensible suggestion in the archived ANI thread which, personally, I think should certainly be revisted: A topic ban from George Bell and from editing his own biography, he can request edits to his biography on the talkpage. This would appear to address the issues at hand as well as inhibiting future reoccurance. —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap sh*t room 11:18, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- I would respectfully disagree with the assessment that Clockback is WP:HERE. To date, the overwhelming impression I have gotten from his edits to both articles and talkpages is that he is interested in making Wikipedia read and operate the way he would like it to read and operate, without regard for Wikipedia's community, policies or processes. I've seen no indication that he has any interest in working on the encylopedia outside of areas in which he has a conflict of interest, and there is a definite hint of righting great wrongs to many of his contributions. Yunshui 雲水 13:30, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support unblocking - having a valid opinion on an issue is not a "conflict of interest". Zacwill (talk) 13:38, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse block per Jzg and Jytdog. Really now, editor has continuously edited either with a direct COI or to support their own viewpoints contrary to npov etc. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:47, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse block At first I was hopeful that this might be resolved relatively quickly but it has become clear from Clockback’s umpteen unblock appeals that he has not taken any of the advice in WP:GAB and is incapable of admitting that he has done anything wrong, and is continuing to attack his “opponent.” He has given no indication that he would not do the same thing again. I cannot see how we can unblock here. Pawnkingthree (talk) 18:01, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse block I agree with TonyBallioni that a third-party block appeal misses the point. Discussion needs to take place with the blocked editor. Given the amount of discussion that already has taken place with them, I'm not convinced that the behavior leading to the block will not continue. The goal of a block is not punitive, but to protect the encyclopedia, which this block is doing. In addition, the behavior following the block (and relating to the block) is quite concerning to me, including the canvassing on Twitter and continued attempts at finding appeal proxies rather than handling the matter themselves per WP:APPEAL. The COI issues, editorializing, etc., don't have a place on Wikipedia and they don't seem to realize that we're here to build an encyclopedia, not a news outlet or blog. I think they should be given the standard offer and see where it leads in time once cooler heads prevail. Waggie (talk) 19:12, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse unblocking. I have for several years donated money to this organization with the understanding that it would be of good use for a non-profit organization such at this is in order to uphold this great informational website, available for all interested, had I known that this organization with its self proclaimed high values in the shadow uses censorship I would have never donated and will from now on never do it again until this unwrong is fixed. Quite amazing to see such a big ”trial” for what should be a small matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mhellstrom (talk • contribs) — Mhellstrom (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that editors have been canvassed to this discussion.
- So you've given lots of money, but never edited before today? 331dot (talk) 20:38, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, I am a frequent reader, not an editor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mhellstrom (talk • contribs)
- Your donations to WMF are irrelevant, and do not give your comment any more weight. If anything, what gives a comment additional weight is if it comes from a Wikipedian who has contributed significantly to the encyclopedia, of which they are examples on both sides of this issue. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:38, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse block. No remorse and the posts at User talk:Clockback fail to persuade me that the block is no longer necessary to prevent disruption. Indeed, they seem to confirm that disruption is going to continue[35]. DrKay (talk) 21:19, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse indefinite block until Clockback’s attitude changes. I initially assumed this was going to be a partisan dispute of right wing versus left wing editors voting and was open to idea of supporting an unblock, but examining the facts and carefully reviewing his unblock requests, it is clear that this editor is disruptive and is draining of people’s time (he is behaving like the world and Wikipedia should revolve around him and he has the right to drain people of their time so he can WP:SOAPBOX his opinions (so much so he had to have his talk page access removed), instead of just editing productively and being willing to admit to mistakes. Should his attitude change only then can I support an unblock request.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:43, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support unblock I think an indefinite block is excessive in this case. I have looked through some of Clockback's contributions. He appears to always state that he is Peter Hitchens when giving his view on talk pages, and the recent edits at George Bell seem to be uncharacteristic of his editing. Edits such as this, the canvassing on Twitter, and other similar behavior display an unfamiliarity with Wikipedia policy, but I believe his edits are fundamentally in good faith. Hrodvarsson (talk) 23:46, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse indef somewhat reluctantly, after reading the user talk page. I do not endorse a community-ban; perhaps once the situation has cooled down (and they've stopped trying to get randoms from Twitter to get them unblocked), they'll realize just how ridiculous contributions like [36] are, and that none of their excuses for it were believable. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:03, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
- Enorse block he writes: "I was blocked indefinitely, an absurd over-reaction to a legitimate bit of mild mischief entirely explained and justified by the appalling behaviour of the unpunished 'Charles'". Until he recognizes he has to follow community guidelines. -- 73.170.168.69 (talk) 01:32, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse block (Non-administrator comment) I've looked over the George Bell article edits and Talk page discussion, as well as the discussion on Clockback's Talk page. Clockback added inappropriate content to the article, edit-warred to keep it in, and declared that he would continue edit-warring. He calls the content "mild mischief" but to my mind, mild mischief is equivalent to mild vandalism. It is appropriate to indefinitely block someone who is edit-warring to preserve their mild vandalism no matter who they are or how long they've been here. Indefinite does not mean infinite and editors are blocked indefinitely all the time for first offenses (examples include vandalism, username issues, and legal threats). It would have been rather simple for Clockback to get unblocked but instead of doing that, he's said he can't guarantee he won't do this again and is blaming the other editor. Therefore, the block is preventing further disruption. I hope that we won't see any new appeals for at least six months; if that means that this block is converted into a community ban, I support that because he has shown himself through his editing (as detailed by JzG and Jytdog) to be NOTHERE. If Clockback is unblocked I support a topic ban on COI edits. Ca2james (talk) 04:00, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
Discussion
- Please see the discussion on Clockback's talk page. Further comments can be added below. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 07:04, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- I have suggested a topic ban as an alternative to a full block, but as Clockback is effectively a single issue editor he might not regard that as an improvement. Assuming this is Peter Hitchens, which I have no reason to doubt, he is too closely involved with the subject to edit without conflict of interest. Hitchens has long been a leading member of the Bishop Bell fan club and rants about it in his Mail blog.
- While Bell is long dead the women who complained is alive and deserves respect. I have modified Kingsindian's rewrite slightly so that it does not look as if the Carlisle review is a vindication of Bell. It is not, being entirely neutral and criticising the church's treatment of both the complainant and Bell's memory.Charles (talk) 08:32, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- The following reply by Clockback is copy-pasted from his talkpage. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 11:58, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
If 'Charles' cares to look, he will see that my personal link with the sign-on 'Clockback' has been confirmed by me according to Wikipedia protocols. There is no need to raise any question about the matter. My involvement in the Bell case is wholly disinterested. I have never met George Bell, am not related to him, I am not paid by him or his family. I took up this case because it seemed to me that an injustice had been done. I don't wish to boast, but merely offer this comparison for an example. Would Emile Zola have been disqualified from any role in the Wikipedia entry on the Dreyfus case, had there been a Wikipedia at the time, especially if he had intervened ( as I have done) cautiously and with referenced fact to back up my edits? ? Please note the hostile and pejorative use of the derisive term 'rants' to describe my writings about the subject. I also note his derisive use of the term 'George Bell fan club' to describe a group which includes Frank Field MP, Lord Lexden, several prominent churchmen and women, and a former editor of the Daily Telegraph, a distinguished QC and a retired judge. It has attracted support from both left and right, and from different wings of the C of E, including from the Very Revd Prof Martyn Percy, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and the Revd Giles Fraser. It is quite nonpartisan.
How 'Charles' can portray himself as a disinterested or impartial editor while behaving in this fashion (or how his claims to be such can be accepted ) I have no idea. I remain amused that this behaviour goes unnoticed and unrebuked, whereas my actions get me blocked *indefinitely* . This behaviour by'Charles' is of a piece with his abusive and ad hominem use of the term 'loudmouths' and his insulting use of the term 'whitewash' to describe efforts to clear the name of an unjustly pilloried person. I am not a single-issue editor, as it happens, but I do have a special and close interest in the Bell case, and ( as most of my fellow-campaigners for justice for Bishop Bell are even older and fustier and unskilled in the use of computers than I am), it has fallen to me to try to get the entry to try to reflect the considerable efforts of that campaign, and indeed its success, in overcoming the original mistaken and unjust presumption of guilt. I have always been very careful in doing so, because I understand that some people might think my intervention improper. I have only ever done so when it was clear to me that important changes needed to be made, and that nobody else would do them if I did not. I have explained myself fully on the Talk page and always been open to compromise.
'Charles' informs us: 'I have modified Kingsindian's rewrite slightly so that it does not look as if the Carlisle review is a vindication of Bell'. He then asserts:'It is not, being entirely neutral and criticising the church's treatment of both the complainant and Bell's memory'. This causes me to doubt if 'Charles' has read the Carlile report, or, as I have done, spoken to Lord Carlile about it. He cannot even spell its author's name correctly. It is a devastating rebuke to the church and the Sussex Police, and a demolition of the case against George Bell. It still amazes me that it forms such a small part of the Wikipedia entry, and that there was not, until I recently added it, even a direct link to it there. Lord Carlile said to me on the record at his press conference that he would not, were he a prosecutor in the case, have expected to secure a conviction of Bell on the evidence which he has seen (and he has seen it all). As Lord Carlile was specifically prevented, by his terms of reference, from ruling directly on the issue, this was as close as he could come to it. Charles says 'the women who complained is alive and deserves respect'. Why does he say this? I know of no occasion on which I have not shown respect to the claimant. I have never doubted that her accusation was sincere, and have never uttered a pejorative word about her, nor sought to insert anything uncomplimentary to her in the entry. Nor would I. Nor would any member of the group seeking justice for Bishop Bell. So what is the purpose of this sentence in this intervention by 'Charles'? This is about the Church, and the police, and those parts of the media which were beguiled by them, and always has been. Surely an alert and fair editor would be aware of this? Peter Hitchens, logged in as Clockback (talk) 09:26, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- I'll make a comment myself, because I find the situation more and more distasteful. I don't know whether to laugh or weep. See this section on the WP:ANI page, where Clockback appealed for impartial eyes on the matter. To remind people: at that point, the only talk page discussion was by Clockback, and he wasn't getting any feedback at all, except constant reverting.
- What he got instead was an indef block by JzG, who says that they didn't even know that he was Peter Hitchens. If he knew, perhaps he would have seen this edit not as "editorialising" or WP:NOTHERE, but rather as a little bit of self-deprecating humour. I thought the British specialized in such humour? Or maybe being a Wikipedia admin requires one to be a humourless pedant. It was definitely wrong to try this sort of thing in a medium like text where humour doesn't carry very well. But this kind of edit deserves an indef block?
- Have people completely forgotten how difficult and forbidding Wikipedia is to edit, especially for new and casual users? And when that user tries to complain or get some help, he is met with an indef, instead of someone probing beneath the surface and trying to help them out? The humourlessness, arrogance and officiousness displayed in this thread is truly distasteful.
- Finally, a word about COI. Clockback has publicly declared their identity. He was not blocked for COI, but for "editorializing" -- JzG doesn't mention COI once in their block rationale, because they didn't even know that Clockback was Peter Hitchens. Now to suddenly shift the justification (but to keep the punishment) smacks of "sentence first, verdict after". It is truly a looking-glass world here in Wikipedia.
- The justification doesn't even make any sense. People with a COI aren't absolutely disallowed from editing pages. I can give you tens of examples, including WMF board members and Wikipedia arbitrators who have engaged in "COI" editing in this sense. As I mentioned, Clockback waited for over half a year before making these edits -- the person who had proposed the reorganization didn't find the time to do it, so Clockback did it themselves. Anyone who has ever dealt with COI editing on Wikipedia knows that this happens all the time. I can give tens of examples (again). Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 12:29, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- You do know that the COI makes it worse, not better, right? Declared or not, it's over a decade since Clockback made a single mainspace edit that can be remotely plausibly argued not to be COI. So the harder you look at the problem the worse it looks. Guy (Help!) 13:38, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- So, even though COI had nothing to do with the block, one must keep the block, because COI? It seems to me that you have already decided on the sentence, and are looking for reasons to convict. If you apply Cromwell's rule for just 10 minutes, and cease your motivated reasoning, you might reach a different conclusion.
And, if the real reason for blocking is COI, why not unblock Clockback, and open a real discussion here (or elsewhere) about COI, where they can defend themselves? There's no imminent disruption here which requires a block. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 14:43, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- So, even though COI had nothing to do with the block, one must keep the block, because COI? It seems to me that you have already decided on the sentence, and are looking for reasons to convict. If you apply Cromwell's rule for just 10 minutes, and cease your motivated reasoning, you might reach a different conclusion.
- So that everyone here is aware, Hitchens has been tweeting about his block, and this block review (I won't link to every tweet he's sent, but these 2 are directly related: [37] [38]). Iffy★Chat -- 14:34, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Hmm, I'm not an expert in these things but I'm guess canvassing your Twitter followers to come to this thread and !vote here in support of unblocking will not be kindly looked upon....--Pawnkingthree (talk) 14:40, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- I think PH has come to realise what many of us have known for some time: that wikipedia is currently in the hands of an anonymous and somewhat oppressive autocratic elite who are accountable to absolutely no-one.
- Mr Hitchens is perfectly entitled to make this subject public. Telling others about this matter is not a crime!
- Those interested in "wikipolitics" might want to research the Philip Cross affair which has recently been the subject of numerous interesting discussions about the true nature of wikipedia.
- I can still remember the time when wikipedia was largely a bit of fun and it really was a platform on which anyone could edit. Those days are long gone. Some pages are jealously guarded and editing them is impossible. I for one now largely avoid it. John2o2o2o (talk) 14:49, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- You, for one, only have 211 edits in 6 years (at least under this account name) or which only 34 edits (i.e. 16%) are to articles. The bulk of your edits (167, 79%) are to talk pages. So, really, your opinion, as someone who has done little to nothing to improve the encyclopedia, is fairly negligible. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:08, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Copy pasted from Clockback's talkpage. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 15:00, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
I'd better respond to the various claims of 'conflict of interest' now being added on to the Kangaroo charges against me. I am probably the only living person in a position to know my father's actual function aboard HMS Jamaica in December 1943, and so perhaps nobody else could have removed the rather embarrassing claim (which my father and my brother would have hated) that my late father was in command of that fine cruiser at the time. As far as I can remember it was Captain Hughes-Hallett RN. The mistake arose from a misunderstanding of the Naval Rank 'Commander', which does not mean 'Commander of a Ship' (though some Commanders do command ships) . But if this is to be damned as 'conflict of interest', where are we? Nobody without such a 'COI' could have corrected this mistake. Should it then have been left uncorrected? Bizarre. I don't believe any such rule can be , or is consistently applied. As for my supposed crime in writing:' "Nor was there any reason for a complaint to be passed to the police since, as Bishop Bell was dead, he could not be prosecuted and they had no statutory role in the affair. A complaint might as well have been passed to the Fire Brigade or to Tesco', every word in it is absolutely true. But the qualification is only necessary because of the insistence by 'Charles' - who utterly refused to discuss the matter and who is emerging in this discussion as a thoroughly partisan and POV person on the subject of George Bell (would a topic ban be appropriate, do we think?), in retaining the pointless section on the non-calling of the police. One could likewise write, of this current dispute that the United Nations Security Council were not called in. But anyone who understood or knew anything about anything would not write that, and any editor of any sense would remove it. Peter Hitchens logged in as Clockback (talk) 14:09, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Another copy-pasted comment:
I feel it is now necessary to address the behaviour of 'Charles', and were I not blocked, I would do so. It is quite absurd that I should be muzzled while he faces no criticism at all. I have noted here 1: His refusal to engage with me on the Talk pages except to allege COI against me. 2. His repeated use of pejorative and hostile terminology directed at me and my associates ' loudmouth', 'whitewash', and now 'rant' and Bishop Bell fan club'. I think this amounts to a clear declaration of hostile bias on the subject under discussion. This is made worse, in my view, by the fact that (unlike me) his real identity is not declared and we cannot know what his interest in the issue may be, if any, whereas mine is quite open and undisguised.Those here who are so anxious to condemn me, mainly for mistakenly assuming they possessed senses of humour, are now aware of the behaviour of 'Charles' and cannot therefore ignore it. By *their own standards*, is this really acceptable in someone who boasts of a 'Platinum Star' for his editing? Peter Hitchens, logged in as Clockback (talk) 14:30, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- @Huldra: It isn't a "first offence", he has been blocked for a long-term tendentious editing, WP:COI editing, and edit-warring. Please review the details. Endymion.12 (talk) 21:53, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- @Endymion.12: what I meant, was that this was his first block. To go from zero blocks straight to indefinite seems excessive to me. (It can of course be warranted, but then you would have do have committed a "wikideadly sin", say Outing, or legal threat, etc. That is not the case here.), Huldra (talk) 22:33, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- @Huldra: Given that they apparently do not understand why they have been blocked, and have refused to acknowledge that they have done anything wrong, I would suggest this block is preventative. They have already filed four unblock requests, each of which has been turned down. Endymion.12 (talk) 23:41, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Another reply from Clockback -- on the COI issue. I am simply posting the diff here, because this section is already very long. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 18:30, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- What's with the freaking lines? There's no reason that Clockback's comments should be set off any differently than any other editor's. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:42, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
Report
This appears to be the investigative report mentioned above by Clockback that they seem to want to write about in Wikipedia. I have not read it all but it seems relevant here that it discusses "jounalist Peter Hitchens" on page 25, para. 110; and page 52, para. 204. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:12, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia:COISELF says "If you have a personal connection to a topic . . . you are advised to refrain from editing . . ." Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:24, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- He did refrain from editing. For more than half a year, in fact. The COI guideline does not absolutely disallow editing, but expects that you discuss things on the talkpage. Which he did. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 11:25, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- The COI guideline does not give editors with COI any authorization to go ahead and make policy violating edits under any circumstances, to the contrary, it prohibits it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:59, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Let me ask you something. You make a point about COI guideline saying that editors being advised to refrain from editing directly. I reply to this point. You don't even acknowledge what I said, and go on to make another point, one which I never disputed. Are we talking to the void or having a conversation? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 13:17, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- I thought I had replied to your point, but if it is unclear, your attempt to render null the community consensus in the guideline's various provisions advising/telling/asking/imploring/prohibiting the COI editor not to edit, is irrelevant wikilawyering. It is what should be done, it being a guideline, and that means a COI editor should do it, and 'I am not getting what I want' is not a valid reason for not doing what should be done by the COI editor.Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:36, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Let me ask you something. You make a point about COI guideline saying that editors being advised to refrain from editing directly. I reply to this point. You don't even acknowledge what I said, and go on to make another point, one which I never disputed. Are we talking to the void or having a conversation? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 13:17, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- The COI guideline does not give editors with COI any authorization to go ahead and make policy violating edits under any circumstances, to the contrary, it prohibits it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:59, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
COI stuff
Let me address the point about COI raised by several people, including the initial blocking admin JzG and Jytdog above:
- According to the WP:ANI thread which resulted in Clockback's indef block, JzG wasn't even aware of their identity when they blocked them -- within 15 minutes of their post at ANI -- indefinitely. This means that JzG never even looked at Clockback's userpage (where Clockback self-identifies). Does anyone feel that a summary "sentence" -- in which such basic material facts as the user's self-declared identity weren't considered -- might be a tiny bit problematic? We report, you decide.
| An obvious example of how identity is relevant |
|---|
| The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
In particular, if JzG was aware of Clockback's identity, they would not have fingered this edit (cited in their ANI response), as some kind of WP:NOTHERE or "unsourced" and "editorializing" edit. The source includes the quote by Hitchens |
- COI was not mentioned in the block rationale. Clockback made 5 unblock requests. None of the admins -- none -- mentioned COI while declining the block.
- Now, this new charge of COI has been added to the chargesheet. Why? Supposedly the conduct is so bad that it merits an indef block without any prior warning or discussion? Where is the disruption or imminent disruption?
I submit that this is a severe case of "bad block". If the COI issue is really important, the proper way to proceed would be to first dispose of this unrelated matter. Hopefully unblock Clockback, and then talk to them or discuss their actions at a noticeboard. See this discussion by Jytdog, for instance. I will only say here that the COI guideline does not directly disallow people from editing the articles. I said above that I can provide tens of examples of editors (including WMF board members, and sitting and past arbitrators) who have violated the COI guideline in this sense. Test me if you want. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 11:09, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks for your response. The general issue, and then the specific one.
- The general point on COI: COI guideline says that -- with a few exceptions -- conflicted editors are strongly discouraged from editing directly. I believe that this notion has fairly broad and deep consensus (there are very vocal dissenters, of course). There is good reason for this guidance and the consensus behind it. When conflicted editors edit directly, they tend to add bad content and tend to behave badly trying to retain it -- edit warring and making tendentious arguments to keep it. Accepting the restraints of the COI management system spares everybody that drama, grounded on an acknowledgement by everybody involved, that a conflict of interest is present, and needs management.
- As a last general matter: I acknowledge that there are cases of glaring COI editing. WP is shot through with garbage content along with good and like any human institution has flaws and hypocrisy in its administration along with good. But I am somewhat dismayed to see you, whom I respect, making an othershitexists argument.
- Now to the specifics: What I tried to emphasize in my vote, is that with Clockback we have someone who is a pundit in the real world who is a) treating WP pretty much like treat their real world platforms and not engaging with the mission of WP and the ways the community has developed to realize it and b) editing about themselves and the issues they punditize about in their RW platforms. The latter is where the formal COI is, but the former is the deeper problem, which the COI only exacerbates.
- The block log says
Tendentious and POV editing, including edit warring, inserting opinion as fact and heavily editorialising in articles related to controversial figures
.
- In my view that aptly summarizes Clockback's entire career here in WP. It summarizes a) above, and b) above helps explain why Clockback behaves this way. Many people have a hard time seeing the mission clearly and engaging with it and the ways we realize it; conflict of interest makes it yet harder yet for people to clearly see what we do here (and hard to not see WP as a soapbox/platform for promotion). Someone whose real world occupation is writing their opinions will have a very hard time. We should not unblock Clockback until he shows some glimmer of self-awareness about how incorrect his approach to WP has been. (and btw, expressing self-awareness is not "grovelling"; that is, sadly, how many tendentious, indefinitely blocked editors frame this essential part of the community reconciliation process.)
- I'll add that I trust Guy's instincts a great deal. Not perfectly, and I have been on the wrong end of him shooting from the hip. But he has a great sense of whether somebody is fundamentally here to build an encyclopedia or not, and understands that good faith is not a suicide pact. He indefs perhaps quicker than most admins. I have breathed a sigh of relief after many, many of his indefs.
- A question I will turn back to you:
- What evidence do you have that Clockback understands or even cares about a) our mission to create an encyclopedia with articles summarizing accepted knowledge, working in a community of pseudonymous editors, and b) the way the community realizes the mission -- namely by placing authority in reliable sources, not on the opinions or claimed expertise of any editor, and striving to summmarize those sources neutrally? Jytdog (talk) 14:24, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, but I can't help but notice that you didn't address a single point I raised. You say you sympathize with my points. I don't want your sympathy. And you can keep your faith in JzG. I have no interest in such things. Unless you address my points -- all directly relevant to the block -- I'm afraid, there's no use talking.
Here's a direct question: Does indef blocking a Wikipedia editor, who has been here since 2006, within 15 minutes, without taking into account their self-declared identity, without even checking their userpage, and making at least one demonstrably wrong assertion about their edits, indicate "due diligence" to you?
And what does COI have to do with anything? That's not what the block was for.
I promise that if you address my points, I'll address yours, even though I consider COI to be essentially a red herring. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 14:35, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Red herring? You named this section 'COI stuff' --- the account was blocked for non-policy compliant editing over years --- but that there is WP:COI, would be a probable explanation for such an editing pattern. Others think that enough talking with the editor about their problematic editing did occur before the block over those years. Indef does not mean infinite, it means address understanding (and/or formal restraints) for/of issues/pattern/policy, so that the disruption will not re-occur.-- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:14, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, but I can't help but notice that you didn't address a single point I raised. You say you sympathize with my points. I don't want your sympathy. And you can keep your faith in JzG. I have no interest in such things. Unless you address my points -- all directly relevant to the block -- I'm afraid, there's no use talking.
- COI was not the primary reason for blocking, but the edit that triggered the block absolutely was COI (along with many other tihngs) and more than a decade of nothing but COI edits in mainspace is a great reason for not unblocking IMO. Guy (Help!) 15:30, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Kingsindian I am sorry that you feel I didn't address your points. I feel I did. Let me walk it through:
- Your first sentence:
I submit that this is a severe case of "bad block".
- I addressed why I thought it was a good block per the block rationale, which in my view accurately summarized what Clockback has been doing in WP. I also discussed the particulars of Guy's blocking style and how this fits with that.
- Your second sentence:
If the COI issue is really important, the proper way to proceed would be to first dispose of this unrelated matter.
- I tried to explain that in this matter, COI helps explain Clockback's pattern of behavior, but I very explicitly said in (a) that the fundamental problem is Clockback's lack of engagement with the mission and how we realize it. I even used the little "a" and "b" to try to make the difference clear between the problem "a" and one cause of it "b". I also tried to explain (and I will elaborate here) that COI matters come to the community's attention because of the kind of content conflicted editors tend to generate, and because of how they tend to behave. There are content and behavior problems. These problems can be described without any reference to COI - violating NPOV, adding unsourced content, edit warring, tendentious arguments on talk, etc. These issues can also be addressed at ANI or by admins without any reference to COI. We bring COI into it, because if there is a COI and the person acknowledges it and how it creates problems in this particular environment, they will generally start to behave better and edit better -- the understanding by the conflicted person is essential. COI is a definable, well-understood thing. This can lead to better outcomes for everybody. I try to do the same thing when somebody edits as an advocate and creates bad content and behaves badly -- I try to help them become self-aware of their own passion, so they can self-manage it better. Advocacy is less well-defined in the real world, and much harder for everybody to think about and manage. But again, what calls attention, is the bad content and bad behavior -- the observable, diff-able things they do in WP. These are what were addressed in the block notice for Clockback.
- I directly addressed this and said that the block rationale was solid, and Clockback should not be unblocked until he shows self-awareness that he has been using his editing privileges incorrectly - namely as an extension of how he writes in his columns and blogs without regard for WP's mission and the methods by which we realize it. He seems to be unaware (and unconcerned) with what we do here and how we do it.
- Your fifth sentence:
I will only say here that the COI guideline does not directly disallow people from editing the articles.
- Your fifth sentence:
- I directly addressed this.
- Your sixth sentence:
I said above that I can provide tens of examples of editors (including WMF board members, and sitting and past arbitrators) who have violated the COI guideline in this sense. Test me if you want.
- Your sixth sentence:
- I directly addressed this.
@Jytdog: My points are numbered. There is a big chunk of text before the "first sentence". Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 15:55, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- I'm sorry let me directly address them as well.
- 1) you wrote:
According to the WP:ANI thread which resulted in Clockback's indef block, JzG wasn't even aware of their identity when they blocked them -- within 15 minutes of their post at ANI -- indefinitely. This means that JzG never even looked at Clockback's userpage (where Clockback self-identifies). Does anyone feel that a summary "sentence" -- in which such basic material facts as the user's self-declared identity weren't considered -- might be a tiny bit problematic? We report, you decide.
- As I noted, the problem was Clockback's pattern of observable behavior. Those who are in the "content not contributor" camp and oppose addressing COI matters much if ever, should be delighted that this was based solely on diff-able observable behavior without regard for who this person is. Unmanaged COI has been (as I have now said twice) a cause of the behavior, but the problem is a deeper lack of engagement with what we do and how we do it. See discussion above about what calls our attention to APPARENTCOI in the first place -- observable, diff-able behavior.
- 1a) You wrote "In particular, if JzG was aware of Clockback's identity, they would not have fingered this edit (cited in their ANI response), as some kind of WP:NOTHERE or "unsourced" and "editorializing" edit. The source includes the quote by Hitchens
"[I] made sure I would never get into Oxbridge. It was my own fault"
. To render this source as "sabotaging his own education" is a perfectly acceptable WP:summary style edit. And why would JzG tell Hitchens what he does or doesn't know about his own actions?"
- I really didn't want to respond to this (which is why I haven't so far) but now that that I am, I will say "Jesus fucking christ." Think about that last sentence. So you would give people who verify their identities more authority here in WP than other editors? Shall we also give company reps more authority? Shall we just hang up our hats and call this "PRopedia"? What the hell? (first question is real; last three are rhetorical)
- Calming down, and dealing with the ref and the edit -- did you look at what else he did in that diff? Look at the block of text that includes "as part of the group of reporters accompanying Margaret Thatcher After witnessing the collapse of the Communist regimes in Czechoslovakia and Romania". There is unsourced autobiographical writing. Not OK here.
- With regard to the bit that you pull about "sabotage", yes that does have some support in the source and Guy was incorrect about it being unsourced; that is a valid "gotcha". However, that phrase is something that should catch anybody's eye as "color" in a BLP article and does call for examination. Looking at the source -- there is an intentionality to "sabotage" that is not necessarily present in the quote. Fucking up in a way that turns out to have longterm consequences (as passionate young people often do), and owning the fuckup and its consequences, is not the same as intentional destruction i.e. "sabotage". A lot depends on what "Made sure I would never get into Oxbridge" actually meant in that conversation. To resolve which it is, would require discussion and looking at what other sources say about it.
- 2) you wrote:
COI was not mentioned in the block rationale. Clockback made 5 unblock requests. None of the admins -- none -- mentioned COI while declining the block.
- As I noted, the problem was Clockback's pattern of observable behavior. It is appropriate that COI was not discussed.
- 3) you wrote:
Now, this new charge of COI has been added to the chargesheet. Why? Supposedly the conduct is so bad that it merits an indef block without any prior warning or discussion? Where is the disruption or imminent disruption?
- As I already have written, it is not so much a "charge" as everybody going "yep that explains some of the behavior" and "yep unmanaged COI is a problem". I have consistently been trying to separate out the long term behavior and the underlying lack of engagement with the mission and how we realize it, from this cause of the behavior. I am starting to feel like I am repeating that too much. gah.
@Jytdog: I will go back-and-forth (once or twice max.) with your reply to my points (just to clarify the points). After that, as I promised, I will reply to your own points. Feel free to end the conversation any time, but let me know if you do.
Let me make a general point first. Perhaps I am unfair, but it seems to me that you're trying to find reasons as to why your position is the right one. That is not the correct way of evaluating hypotheses. So, if one is in a Bayesian model, one can have a prior (say, "JzG is usually right about COI or indef blocks, so this block is good with probability 90%."), but must be willing to update it. I don't see any updating at all here: you may concede a point here or there, but ultimately, you change no positions. None. That's not really an argument; that's just providing justifications -- what theologians call "apologetics". Sophisticated theologians can construct quite elaborate apologias.
Let's be specific now. When you say Those who are in the "content not contributor" camp and oppose addressing COI matters much if ever
who do you mean? Do you mean me? I never said or implied anything even remotely like this. So why construct this elaborate strawman? Could it be that you're trying to find reasons for justifying the block, and and not updating the probability of the hypothesis "the block was made improperly"? Again, I'm telling you how it looks to me. It looks like apologetics.
Let me make a simple assertion: The identity of Clockback was indeed relevant to his editing. Everyone in this discussion agrees with this assertion. Indeed, people are now insisting that his identity is hugely relevant to the matter, because "COI! COI! COI!". So how could it not have been relevant when he was blocked? It follows directly that a basic, material fact was disregarded before passing this summary "sentence" of indef block. As far as I can determine, you never challenge this simple point. This is evidence for the hypothesis "the block was made improperly". You seem to disregard this. Apologetics.
Let's look at the "diff-able" behavior. It is not me that "pulled the bit" about "sabotage"; it was JzG. You concede that I am largely correct about the matter. Ok: more evidence for the hypothesis "the block was made improperly". But you quickly move over this concession and try to find other evidence -- which JzG doesn't cite -- for the hypothesis "the block was made properly". Apologetics.
Lastly, you read my sentence: "none of the admins ever mention anything about COI while declining unblock". You read it, acknowledge it, and skip right over it. No updating anywhere. Apologetics.
Ok, you decide if I'm being fair. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 17:50, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks for your reply. I think smaller bites might be helpful.
- Is ~think~ you are perhaps asking "was the original indef valid?" and the answer you are hearing is "based on my evaluation of this person's behavior, the indef is fine".... and that is not answering your question. Is that correct? Jytdog (talk) 18:02, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- I made several points. My first point was about irregularities in the original block. And I was pointing out that because of the irregularities, COI was not and could not be a factor in the block. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 18:25, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
A simple question to Jytdog, JzG and others who claim that COI is the real issue here. There is a big schizophrenia in this thread. On the one hand, there are people (to pick Ca2james's comment as a random example, also every admin who responded to the unblock request, also Swarm), who claim that this whole drama could have been avoided if Clockback weren't so damn stubborn and unrepentant, and if only he acknowledged that their edit (about the Tesco and Fire brigade) was improper, he could have been unblocked. This is accompanied by the intonation: "indefinite is not infinite". On the other hand, you have JzG and Jytdog claiming (and people agreeing with them), that the "real problem" is the long COI record, and thus he shouldn't be unblocked because he has and will engage in COI.
I submit that the latter is simply rationalization after the fact (I have given proof of it above, and won't repeat it here). The former is wrong because Clockback has already accepted my rewrite; all he wanted from the start was impartial eyes on the article, because he was making no headway in the talkpage discussion. Instead, he got a kick in the face from JzG. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 05:14, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
Can somebody restore Clockback's user talkpage access?
I told Clockback that he can respond to the points raised here on his talkpage, and I'll transfer them here. It's somewhat tedious, but working. I have done this process before with other blocked users. For some reason admin Jpgordon has swooped in and removed talkpage access. They are not responding to messages, so I suspect they're offline. Can some admin restore Clockback's talkpage access? It hurts nobody and makes this process fairer. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 19:22, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse TPA removal. If jpgordon hadn't removed TPA, I would have. The discussion there was not productive and Clockback had taken to canvassing for support on the above discussion. They may use UTRS. 331dot (talk) 19:27, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- You want to remove talk page access in the middle of a block review? Why? What possible justification could it have? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 19:49, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- I'd say that the discussion above seems pretty clear in terms of a result and the reason for it. 331dot (talk) 19:55, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Who are you to prematurely close the discussion? Nobody died and made you king. Ridiculous. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 20:27, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- I'd say that the discussion above seems pretty clear in terms of a result and the reason for it. 331dot (talk) 19:55, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- You want to remove talk page access in the middle of a block review? Why? What possible justification could it have? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 19:49, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
I am flabbergasted, frankly at the amount of correspondence this issue has generated. The individual who has been blocked (from his own talkpage) has revealed his identity as Peter Hitchens. Mr Hitchens is, and has been for many years a well known and respected journalist in the British media.
The arrogance of anonymous admins such as "331dot" and "jpgordon" is frankly staggering. Have you people nothing better to do than bully other users? Mr Hitchens is perfectly entitled to talk to others about issues affecting his life and you have no right of any kind to prevent him from doing so. What are you people? Some sort of Orwellian thought police brigade?! What moral right do you have to dictate to other users of this platform? I disagree with you 331dot. Are you able to handle that? Can you bear to have others disagree with your position? (That is a rhetorical question).
This episode, to my mind highlights a very big flaw in the functioning of wikipedia. Namely, that certain users who have an elevated status: "admins" are able to act without impunity. I believe that in order for wikipedia to work effectively, these individuals must be subject to some sort of public accountability. Perhaps the elevation to admin status should be accompanied by a requirement for them to reveal their true identities (as Mr Hitchens has done) in order for others to hold them truly accountable. They should not be able to simply hide in a cowardly fashion behind their aliases and bully other users. John2o2o2o (talk) 20:13, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Jpgordon isn't anonymous. He's J P Gordon. DrKay (talk) 20:20, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- John2o2o2o You are certainly entitled to your views. I am perfectly capable of handling disagreement, that isn't the issue here. 331dot (talk) 20:26, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Who are you "331dot"? And thank you, but I don't need your permission to express a viewpoint.
- Mr Hitchens is also entitled to his views. You should immediately restore his access to his page and leave him alone. In my humble opinion. And the issue at hand here is the high handed actions of "admins".
- Furthermore, I have never heard of J P Gordon. Perhaps you would like to explain to me (and again this is a rhetorical question, not requiring an answer) in what area of public life J P Gordon (whoever he or she is) has any power or authority over Mr Hitchens? John2o2o2o (talk) 20:38, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Odd that you (213 edits in 6 years), of all people, should question the bon fides of 331dot (admin, 73,070 edits in 6 years) and jpgordon (admin, checkuser, 62,984 edits in 14 years). What the hell have you ever done in the service of Wikipedia? The most you've ever edited an article was 4 edits to Ancestry of Elizabeth II. It appears that all you really do is chat on talk pages (78.4% of your total), where you like to present your own opinions as an "professional genealogist" as being more reliable than reliable published sources, claiming you discovered facts before the first published mention of them, and failing to give your sources when asked to (i.e. [39], [40], [41], [42]) Other editors can make their own assessment of what that makes you, except, at the very least, it makes you someone who is not at all conversant with Wikipedia policy, and really has no place at the table for this discussion, because, frankly, you don't know what you're talking about. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:11, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
- I wasn't granting permission; my permission is irrelevant. 331dot (talk) 20:41, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- @John2o2o2o: See my reply to 185.192.69.53. People are allowed to think whatever they want. Outside of wikipedia, they are allowed to say whatever they want within the bounds of law and if wherever they are saying it allows it. On wikipedia, the primary purpose of discussion is to improve wikipedia. There is some limited tolerance of other discussion but it's inherently limited and any discussion which harms wikipedia is not welcome. Notably we consider that it's harmful to use your talkpage when blocked for anything other than requesting an unblock which includes responded to any unblock discussion but does not include canvassing others to help you get unblocked. In fact canvassing is a more harmful use of you talk page than a lot of other nonsense that goes on on blocked editor's talk pages. (Canvassing is harmful regardless of whether you're blocked.) Note that as I said below, I have no specific opinion on anything that went on here. Actually what I said to 185 still applies. I have not looked at the specifics and frankly probably won't be doing so. I am simply dealing with your apparent belief that wikipedia is a free for all where people can talk about whatever they want. It isn't. In the modern age, there are so many forums and social media, plus the easy ability to start a blog or website where people can do that stuff. And as I understand it, the subject is a journalist anyway likely giving them even more avenues. Nil Einne (talk) 21:45, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
Jpgordon removed talkpage access and immediately went offline, leaving no response to messages. What kind of WP:ADMINACCT is this? On these grounds alone, the action should be reversed. This whole matter is bringing out the absolute worst in Wikipedia. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 20:44, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Admins or any user are not required to be on Wikipedia 24/7. People have lives and are all volunteers here. 331dot (talk) 20:46, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Nobody asked them to be on 24/7. However, if they have to leave, they should at least have the decency to not take admin actions at the last moment, actions which directly impede an ongoing discussion. It's rather sad that I have to explain this to you. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 20:51, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- If we required admins to be online for several hours or more after their actions, we would surely have a lot of problems because things simply aren't being done. It's entirely reasonable for an admin to take non contentious actions just before they expect to go offline, and it surely happens many times every single day. I agree it can be problematic when an admin takes some contentious action and then is offline for a prolonged period although speaking generally, it's easy to see it's not always going to be obvious when an action is contentious. Nil Einne (talk) 21:10, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- They left less than 15 minutes after, not "several hours" after. And are you saying that removing talkpage access in the middle of a block review is an example of a "non-contentious action"? Meanwhile, here's what WP:ADMINACCT says:
Administrators are expected to respond promptly and civilly to queries about their Wikipedia-related conduct and administrator actions and to justify them when needed.
They could have posted in this thread to say that they're leaving, and maybe someone else could have handled it. A hundred things could have been done. I'm rather stunned that people are defending this behaviour. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 21:17, 4 August 2018 (UTC)- 15 minutes or a few hours is largely besides the point. Ultimately if someone is not online for a few hours, there's no guarantee they are going to be online to deal with any fall out. Even a few hours doesn't guarantee it although if it takes a few hours for anyone to notice there's a reasonable chance it's not that important that timely action results. Do you not understand what 'speaking generally' means? In case it's still unclear I have no specific comments on the specific actions here. They are completely besides my point. I was simply replying to obvious nonsense suggesting something which would be extremely harmful to wikipedia namely that admins should not take action unless they expect to be online to deal with any fallout. This is clearly utter nonsense and I can't believe anyone would actually say that. And let me repeat for the last time, I have no specific comments on what happened here. They are entirely besides my point. I only wished to deal with utter nonsense express on AN suggesting something which would be incredibly harmful to wikipedia. If a page clearly needs to be protecting because of persistent proxy vandalism, or a non proxy vandal is going on a vandalism spree or whatever other nonsense that clearly requires quick admin action, I should not have to waste my time finding an admin who is going to be online in 15 minutes or whatever the fuck time period someone thinks is necessary. And yes this is a big deal to me because I live in NZ and at certain times of editing, somewhat less in than in the past but it still happens, there are a lot fewer admins around. And I don't like wasting my time dicking around with IRC or whatever the fuck you think I should waste my time dicking around to find an admin to take action who is going to be around for however the fuck you think they should be to take action which anyone who has spent any time on wikipedia knows is needed and does not need someone to hang around for. Nil Einne (talk) 21:31, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- They left less than 15 minutes after, not "several hours" after. And are you saying that removing talkpage access in the middle of a block review is an example of a "non-contentious action"? Meanwhile, here's what WP:ADMINACCT says:
- If we required admins to be online for several hours or more after their actions, we would surely have a lot of problems because things simply aren't being done. It's entirely reasonable for an admin to take non contentious actions just before they expect to go offline, and it surely happens many times every single day. I agree it can be problematic when an admin takes some contentious action and then is offline for a prolonged period although speaking generally, it's easy to see it's not always going to be obvious when an action is contentious. Nil Einne (talk) 21:10, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Nobody asked them to be on 24/7. However, if they have to leave, they should at least have the decency to not take admin actions at the last moment, actions which directly impede an ongoing discussion. It's rather sad that I have to explain this to you. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 20:51, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Admins or any user are not required to be on Wikipedia 24/7. People have lives and are all volunteers here. 331dot (talk) 20:46, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Related: UTRS appeal #22275. SQLQuery me! 21:49, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- - Jpgordon removed talkpage access and immediately went offline - disgusting action - see Gordon s recent activity is total minimal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jpgordon - to jump on this is awful authority. This admin action and the block itself is embarrasing, see and read Wikipedia:Administrators#Accountability- Govindaharihari (talk) 22:14, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- "Disgusting" I do not think that word means what you think it means. Perhaps you meant "disgraceful", which would not be true either, but would at least be apt. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:16, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
- Any admin who wants to is welcome to restore the user page access. I know nothing whatsoever of this conflict other than what I was drawn to as a result of the request for unblock. Just like his unblock requests, the verbiage on his talk page did not seem to be addressing the reasons for his block, and did not seem to me to be going in a useful direction. As far as "who is jpgordon", well, I'm probably one of the least anonymous editors on Wikipedia; I've been entirely public in my networked life since the early days of usenet and BBSing. But that's meaningless here. The question is asked, "in what area of public life J P Gordon (whoever he or she is) has any power or authority over Mr Hitchens?" That's easy. I'm one of 1,211 administrators on Wikipedia, and, like each of us could, I exerted blocking authority regarding the Wikipedia user account identified as User:Clockback, with the intent of reducing disruption to Wikipedia. Obviously it has failed in this instance; the disruption instead increased. Oh well. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇 22:29, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Well you shouldn't have jumped in should you. No one cares if your anonomous or not or who you are you are a wikipedia admin and should adhere to standards for that. Your comments are exactly similar to the blocking admins claim , ow, I didnt know anything I just blocked , I just removed talkpage access - laughable that our admins are aware of so little what is going on and that they use tools we provide them and trust them with without checking what the full picture is. Sadly, I am fully aware that Gordon and Guy are both really smart fully aware experianced editors and know exactly what is going on and it would do them and us a service if they both admitted that. Govindaharihari (talk) 22:37, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- There is no "standard" or policy which requires admins to be available around the clock, regardless of what action they have taken. Please take a look at WP:ADMINACCT to see in what ways admins are accountable for their actions. Jpgordon removed Clockback's TPA at 14:15, 4 August 2018, posted about it on Clockback's talk page, and then went offline. Their very first edit once they returned online is the one you see a few comments above this one, explaining their action. That is the very definition of administrator accountability. Your complaints are totally without merit, as are Kingsindian's, and you both need to calm down and stop bloviating. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:23, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
- Support restoring talk page access: I think his talk page access should be restored. I understand his behaviour was disruptive but the community needs to be able to consider any further comments for evidence of remorse/regret and willingness to change.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 00:27, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
- He had ample opportunity to do that, and chose not to. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:36, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
- @Literaturegeek: Clockback appealed his talk page revocation via UTRS and I can confirm for you that there was absolutely zero hint of "remorse/regret and willingness to change". He flatly claimed that he was blocked out of spite. Swarm ♠ 00:47, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
- I don’t think allowing him temporary talk page access for one or two days while this unblock request is in process is a big drain on the community. My line of thinking is that talk page access is necessary, or at least helpful, in the hope he could reflect on himself and realise that needs to and will stop being a WP:DICK and be able to voice this to the community who are voting on whether to unblock him. I realise that it is bit of a long shot but he deserves that chance to prove himself to be a long-term benefit or negative editor.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 03:35, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse TPA removal - Clockback was using the talk page to file frivolous unblock requests which blamed other for his block, and did not address the reasons he was blocked. Further, he was also using it for WP:POLEMIC purposes. The primary -- if not only --- purpose of a talk page to a blocked editor is to deal with getting unblocked, but Clockback showed by his actions that he did not take that seriously. Hence the removal of TPA is appropriate and should be continued. Clockback can pursue an unblock via UTRS. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:34, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
- Endorse TPA removal - finally; I already mentioned above that I'm surprised that this hasn't happened sooner. If this editor was not related to the famous Christopher Hitchens, this would have been done a long time ago. They had enough time to violate WP:NOTTHEM multiple times, hadn't read a single policy, guideline or essay linked to them (WP:GAB, WP:COI, WP:FREESPEECH, WP:MEAT - those first came to mind, surely there are others), made several frivolous unblock requests and yet they were still pushing their PoV on the talk page, saying that the block was unfair. And - as the icing on the cake - some editors even supported their unblock request. It would be funny, if it weren't so sad. byteflush Talk 00:49, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
People are missing the entire point of why this talk page removal is bad. I told Clockback that he could respond to stuff written here on his talkpage, and I will transfer it over. I have been doing this, as I have done so for other block reviews for other blocked users I have carried out in the past. When Jpgordon says that he saw lots of "verbiage", this is what he saw. What possible disruption is so huge that it couldn't wait till this review is over? As for people claiming that he was disrupting by opening unblock requests, that is also false. The last request was when Jpgordon declined it, and Clockback opened no more unblock requests before this wholly unjustified action by Jpgordon. What is wrong with you people? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 04:47, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
- You realize that you telling an editor something does not in any way constrain an uninvolved admin's actions? --NeilN talk to me 05:15, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
AE block appeal
I have been blocked for a period of 72 hours for allegedly violating WP:1RR. Even though I haven't been blocked previously, I was handed a three day block while other users have recently been given lenient blocks of just 24 hours. Firstly, the user that reported me has been making reverts on the same Human rights abuses in Kashmir article himself, that too without engaging on the talk page and I am the one being blocked. The blocking admin didn't even wait to hear from me. The first diff reported was a revert from 28 July. The second diff reported was actually an edit that I made on 2 August and not a revert. The third diff reported is the ONLY revert that I made on 2 August that too when the reporting user had reverted me. Now if both me and the reporting user made a revert on 2 August, how does that violate WP:1RR and why I'm the only one being blocked? This was simply a content dispute where the reporting user never engaged in a discussion but the admin decides to block me without a violation of 1 revert per 24 hours even occuring. Son of Kolachi (talk) 14:13, 3 August 2018 (UTC) Copied from [43] --NeilN talk to me 14:23, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Revert 1, Revert 2. I typically block for 72 hours for first time violations when doing AE WP:1RR blocks. --NeilN talk to me 14:30, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Clearly edit warring over time, but I don't see that they were ever notified that there was a 1RR restriction in force. They attempted to discuss on talk, but weren't able to bring in enough people to establish a consensus in either direction. I'd support a reduction, or even time served. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:39, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Read this SPI: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Liborbital#21_July_2018. This account is clearly a sock of someone who is here for disruption and POV pushing. Accesscrawl (talk) 14:51, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- @SarekOfVulcan: They were notified of DS and the article has the proper edit notice. --NeilN talk to me 14:52, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Ah, I see the editnotice now, thanks, and their edits aren't tagged as mobile, so objection withdrawn. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:58, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Decline unblock Normally, I would grant an unblock request for two reasons 1) the block was genuinely in error or against policy or 2) the person in question cops to what they did, and convincingly argues they intend to play by the rules. The diffs above show the block was justified; 1RR was clearly violated. The person's response show no indication of culpability, it's all deflection onto the actions of others. For that reason, I cannot support an early unblock at this time. --Jayron32 18:25, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
- Decline both edits are reverts, the first one removes some text which was recently added to the article by someone else and the second is a reinstatement of the first edit. That there's discussion on the talk page is not an excuse for edit warring. I don't see any evidence anyone else has recently violated 1RR on this article (the "other user" mentioned only made one revert) and even if they had that would not be a reason to lift the block. Hut 8.5 19:46, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Probable merge
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
ResolvedHello administrators, it seems possible that articles Michael 'Nick' Nichols and Michael Nichols (photographer) are about the same person. Please have a look. Thanks--DDupard (talk) 15:58, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Procedural close needed
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Maggie Aiono needs to be closed due to quite serious procedural defects. Per INVOLVED I'm disqualified from doing it. Please could someone close it quite soon before the discussion of the problems get out of hand. Thanks Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:25, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- @Dodger67: I'm confused. It was reopened at your request and the discussion seems to proceeding normally. What are the "quite serious procedural defects"? – Joe (talk) 07:33, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Joe Roe and DrKay look at the discussion after the lastest "relisting" where Habst pointed out that proper notification of the reopening was not given at the places where the "original" AFD notices were posted, and also expresses concern that there appears to be an "an organized attempt to delete / redirect the article". That's why I believe closing this one and starting fresh is the best option. (BTW the instructions at WP:Deletion review say the first step is to discuss reopening with the closer, but is silent about what all needs to be done if the closer agrees to reopen, it just leaves it dangling.) Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:03, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- I see no evidence of an organized attempt or canvassing, and the discussion only seemed to be missing from two lists, to which I've re-added it. DrKay (talk) 08:16, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Yes I did read the whole discussion. I am not sure what the "proper places" that you are referring to are? The AfD was reopened and relisted, so it appears on the appropriate daily log and any delsort lists it was previously added to. As far as I know there is no requirement to list or notify anywhere else. Habst mentions that no notice was put on the article itself, but that's not true: a bot re-added the AfD template ten minutes after it was reopened.
- It's debateable whether Papaursa's notification of participants in a related AfD was canvassing. In any case, canvassing is not a "procedural" problem and AFAIK we don't usually close AfDs when it happens. It's been noted in the discussion and the closing admin can take it into account. Now that you've posted it here, it's certainly been brought to the attention of enough editors to ensure a thorough discussion, so I think the path-of-least-resistance is simply to leave this open for another five days and then let someone experienced close it.
- DRV does not mention what to do if the closer agrees to reopen because that's it... the close that was contested is reversed, and the AfD continues as if it didn't happen. There is nothing to do. – Joe (talk) 08:31, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks Joe Roe, I'm probably a bit over cautious as I'm not experienced at AFD closures. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:01, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
- Joe Roe and DrKay look at the discussion after the lastest "relisting" where Habst pointed out that proper notification of the reopening was not given at the places where the "original" AFD notices were posted, and also expresses concern that there appears to be an "an organized attempt to delete / redirect the article". That's why I believe closing this one and starting fresh is the best option. (BTW the instructions at WP:Deletion review say the first step is to discuss reopening with the closer, but is silent about what all needs to be done if the closer agrees to reopen, it just leaves it dangling.) Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:03, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter – August 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2018).
Administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- After a discussion at Meta, a new user group called "interface administrators" (formerly "technical administrator") has been created. Come the end of August, interface admins will be the only users able to edit site-wide JavaScript and CSS pages like MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Common.css, or edit other user's personal JavaScript and CSS. The intention is to improve security and privacy by reducing the number of accounts which could be used to compromise the site or another user's account through malicious code. The new user group can be assigned and revoked by bureaucrats. Discussion is ongoing to establish details for implementing the group on the English Wikipedia.
- Following a request for comment, the WP:SISTER style guideline now states that in the mainspace, interwiki links to Wikinews should only be made as per the external links guideline. This generally means that within the body of an article, you should not link to Wikinews about a particular event that is only a part of the larger topic. Wikinews links in "external links" sections can be used where helpful, but not automatically if an equivalent article from a reliable news outlet could be linked in the same manner.
Technical news
- The WMF Anti-Harassment Tools team is seeking input on the second set of wireframes for the Special:Block redesign that will introduce partial blocks. The new functionality will allow you to block a user from editing a specific set of pages, pages in a category, a namespace, and for specific actions such as moving pages and uploading files.