Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems. Before posting: Take a look at these tips for dealing with incivility If the issue concerns a specific user, try discussing it with them on their talk page Try dispute resolution Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly. Be brief and include diffs demonstrating the problem Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead go to Requests for oversight. When starting a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page; pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:ANI-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. Closed discussions are usually not archived for at least 24 hours. Routine matters might be archived more quickly; complex or controversial matters should remain longer. Sections inactive for 72 hours are archived automatically by Lowercase sigmabot III. Editors unable to edit here are sent to the /Non-autoconfirmed posts subpage. (archives, search)
Start a new discussion

Jason Drummond vandalism

• Jason Drummond (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• I read the news today (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

The page for Jason Drummond continues to be vandalised by user I read the news today. I have previously asked for the page to be protected, which was done, the user then returned. It is seemingly only this user who wants to make Drummond look bad and if you look at the user's contributions Special:Contributions/I_read_the_news_today, you will see that he focuses solely on adjusting Drummond's page to his liking. I have suggested on Drummond's talk page that he is possibly the same vexatious litigant who is mentioned in the article for having brought a private prosecution against Drummond in August 2019 using forged evidence, however I have no proof that it is this same person, it just seems like a logical conclusion, given that the user previously submitted an edit where he referenced a campaign that was started by the same individual mentioned in the private prosecution (or at least one with the same name - seems like an improbably coincidence). The same campaign had no contributors, no followers and no publicity, so only this person could have known about it. I have made multiple 'undo' changes to Drummond's BLP and reverted it multiple times to a cleaner and more preferred version but the user continues to vandalise and post links that either don't work or have no relevance to BLP. I previously reported this user on the vandalism admin page and the request was seemingly ignored - I did not receive a response so I am now posting it here for discussion. JulianParge (talk) 16:20, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Whatever is going on at that page, what that editor is doing isn't vandalism, questionable yes, with a touch of BLP violations and poor sourcing. There's clearly some long-term COI editing going on from other editors, and reasonable deduction would have me think Jason7477 (talk · contribs) is the subject of the article. Some other accounts there are no less suspicious. There's enough going on at that page to warrant further examination at WP:COIN regardless of the outcome in regards to that user. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:51, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

I dispute that I am vandalising the page Jason Drummond . I am seeking to add sourced and relevant material. Whether that makes the subject look good or bad does not concern me - just that it is sourced and accurate. I am more than happy to see all relevant and sourced material posted about the subject. User JulianParge has gone the opposite way and has sought repeatedly to revert to a "Wiki Lite" treatment of the subject as he and others have effectively systematically removed a number of relevant and neutral postings over time. The latest revision by user JulianParge again removes on a wholesale basis a number of perfectly relevant and well sourced postings. These could and should have been left on the page through more precise and targeted editing rather than a wholesale removal. I have removed virtually nothing posted by previous posters, unless those postings are unverifiable, but have sought to add only relevant verifiable material. Through his actions JulianParge seeks to continually suppress and conceal neutral and sourced material. In a free society this is wholly unacceptable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by I read the news today (talk • contribs) 09:59, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not exist for you to exercise your freedom of speech in a way that could be damaging to other individuals. You have ignored almost all of the fundamentals of BLP in your edits. Every single one of your sources were primary sources and a number of them didn't work because you don't seem to know what you're doing. This is further supported by looking at your historic edits - the very first contribution you made to Wikipedia to Coventry_City_F.C., was reverted. Further, you fail to sign your comments properly. On Jason Drummond, you were providing cached links to Companies House submissions which didn't work properly, as well as public company announcement archives which required registration to view. Arguably, the content you were submitting was also irrelevant: if the media hasn't written about, it's probably not important enough to go into the page. As I said in Talk:Jason Drummond, no other BLP contains a complete index of Companies House historic data on every single company of which the subject of that page has been a director. It is simply too much information and it is not relevant to BLP. I also continue to question your focus on the standing of companies with which Drummond is no longer involved. The only person who could care about that kind of information is the vexatious litigant (and any associated parties), who started a private prosecution against Drummond in August 2019 using forged evidence, because they are clearly on some kind of harassment campaign. Further to that point, one wonders why the only page you've edited is Jason Drummond? I propose you leave that page alone and spend some more time on Wikipedia, getting to learn and understand how it works and what is and is not acceptable. In any event, your historic contributions to the BLP of Jason Drummond have not been helpful or purposeful. They seem to have been intended only to frame Drummond in the way in which you want others to see him, and I think this is what is 'wholly unacceptable'. Please stop vandalising the page. JulianParge (talk) 10:14, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

I read the news today is now resorting to using primary sources to deliberately mislead the article and criticise Drummond. He has continued to ignore the fundamental principals of BLP (namely tone, balance and misuse of primary sources). This user is obviously very desperate to have Drummond's article edited to his own liking to present Drummond in a negative light. It is not unreasonable to assume that this user is the same person as the one who started the vexatious prosecution against Drummond in August 2019. He has provided no grounds for reasonable doubt against this assumption, despite that I have raised the point several times, and if it is that same person, then why is he free to continue vandalising the page? The case was dropped because he was relying on forged evidence, so he cannot be trusted to edit this page. It should also not come down to other Wikipedians to keep removing this person's edits. The user should be blocked from the page or banned entirely. This user's only purpose seems to be aimed at editing Drummond's page which only indicates that he has a very unhealthy obsession with Drummond. JulianParge (talk) 19:43, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I read the news today is still making unnecessary and harmful edits to the page. JulianParge^talk 15:27, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Now seeing spam-related edits from India - Special:Contributions/43.251.93.252, whether this is related is not clear. What is the origin country for the IP of I read the news today? JulianParge^talk 12:08, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

JulianParge, please could you stop using the word vandalism in this context. What I read the news today has been doing is not vandalism. There might be other issues with it, but it's not vandalism. This revert in particular confuses me - the assertion is neutrally phrased, and is sourced to an article in The Guardian which appears to support the assertion. One could have a discussion about whether it's DUE, but vandalism? Can I ask whether you have any connection to Drummond? I ask because the majority of your recent editing concerns him, and your comments above seem to contain some knowledge about his private life (the private prosecution stuff). GirthSummit _(blether) 13:02, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Drummond is an investor at a company that I have done some work for (as a contractor). I don't know know him personally but I have been following his career since I met him and I like his story. I find him quite inspiring and interesting. That being said, I've barely spoken to him and so I don't think that this can constitute as a "close" connection. Everything I've referred to about the private prosecution is public knowledge and can be found on the news article about it. I am not sure I agree about your vandalism perspective, given the clarity in the lack of a neutral point of view, as well as that Wikipedia is neither a newspaper, directory nor a source of documents, and because I read the news today has repeatedly violated all of these principals in his historic edits to the page. Even if his most recent edits were in line with Wikipedia policies, his ultimate intention seems to be to misrepresent Drummond. You can clearly see that his sole purpose on Wikipedia seems to be to edit Drummond's article to his own liking, as he has not made any other edits (which haven't been reverted), and his larger historic contributions to Drummond's BLP have been along the lines of vandalism. If you look at the historic edits to the page by this user, you can see that there are a number of really questionable sources, including the one from 'crowd justice' started by the same individual who is mentioned on that news article as having brought the private prosecution against Drummond. It strikes me as incredibly coincidental, particularly since that 'source' had no followers and no activity - how would anyone else have known about it beyond this user? It's not an unreasonable conclusion that this is the same person and that he's now here trying to make Drummond look bad because he couldn't get his way in court. My edits and reverts were intended to keep the page clean and clear from this user's perspective. I've been contributing to Wikipedia since 2006, and this user has been here for less than a few months and all he's doing is editing Drummond's article... if anything, it's probably easier to assume that this user may be a close connection to Drummond, if not the vexatious litigant from the aforementioned private prosecution? I think I read the news today should really state their case here in any event and state both their connection to Drummond and whether or not they are the same individual from the private prosecution. JulianParge^talk 13:54, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

JulianParge, wow - please try to be concise! So, you say that you've been contributing since 2006, which is technically true, but in all that time you've made roughly 20 edits that weren't about Drummond, so I think it's probably fair to describe you both as single purpose accounts. I'll repeat what I said previously - editing with a POV is not vandalism, and since you confess that you find him inspiring and interesting, it would be fair to say that you have your own POV. Now, we absolutely will not allow someone to turn any article into an attack page based on primary sources; then again, we also don't permit whitewashing by removing negative information which is sourced to secondary sources. What we have here is a content dispute between two SPAs who have different perspectives. You need to work it out on the talk page. GirthSummit _(blether) 15:19, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

There is nothing to work out, this person CLEARLY has it in for Drummond and you've ignored every previous edit of his that I've reverted or changed - he already DID attack Drummond using primary sources, so you're talking absolute nonsense by saying you don't allow this - you did allow it, hello?? His only purpose for the 2 month old account is to contribute the most negative things he can find on Drummond (see latest contribs). In addition, I'd say it's relatively certain that he's the same person from the private prosecution - a person who has submitted forged evidence against Drummond, and now he's here on Wikipedia, continuing to attack Drummond. What I find most frustrating however, is that in this situation, where I've spotted and raised the matter to the most senior people on Wikipedia, rather than being helpful and investigating properly, your first reaction is to criticise me and incorrectly label me as an SPA. You can see why I've only made 20 edits in the last 14 years, it's because this platform and its community is completely backwards. I'm so sick of this website, it's such an infuriating and phenomenal waste of time and effort. JulianParge^talk 19:52, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

JulianParge, hi, sorry I just saw this. When I said 'We won't allow...', I meant that we would support anyone removing content like that, if they were to persist on adding negative stuff based on primary sources we would prevent them from doing so. They now seem to have stopped doing so, and are making factual assertions based on secondary reliable sources - on the face of it, that's OK. I have no view on their private identity, and it's inappropriate to comment on it here based on personal suspicions. I'm sorry if you were offended by my description of your account as an SPA - it wasn't intended as an accusation of bad faith, but I think it was an accurate observation based on your contribution history.

The long and short of this is that any editor without a WP:COI is welcome to work on the article, provided they do so within our guidelines. Let us know if anyone persists in editing in contravention of our guidelines and we will intervene. GirthSummit _(blether) 19:01, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

1292simon

1292simon is following me around on pages through my contributions and either restoring disruptive edits by users, removing my edits or badmouthing about me to users. Recent examples are here, here and here. Instance of the above mentioned badmouthing can be found here. The only reason I can see is of personal hatred and grevience against me. I attempted to discuss this with him over his talk page but he removed the discussions. I've had enough with this user's petty behaviour and therefore request the administration to take proper action against this user.U¹ _quattro TALK 04:36, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

There may or may not be an issue with MOS:OL, however, I think one would be hard pressed to make a case of WP:HOUNDING as it appears most of these articles 1292simon was already at when U1 arrived, at least according to the interaction analyzer [1]. Chetsford (talk) 04:47, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Chetsford 1292simon never edited at any of the articles I mentioned according to the analyser and the only way he is going there as I suspect is through my contributions. It got worse at Toyota HiAce when he bad mouthed about me to the user whose edits I reverted.U¹ _quattro TALK 06:24, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Now the same thing happened at Lamborghini Centenario, 1292simon wasn't at this article in its entire history and he went there just to restore a disruptive edit made by an ipv6 IP and is continuously citing WP:BRD while he has not read it himself and continues to violate WP:HOUNDING. This behaviour needs to stop.U¹ _quattro TALK 12:04, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Content disputes of this nature are best handled on the Talk pages of the relevant articles, not in back and forth comments in edit summaries as you two seem to be doing. I think if there were some — any — attempt to discuss the difference you two have over specific edits at the article Talk pages we'd be able to conduct a more lucid evaluation of the merits of the claims. ANI really should be more of a last resort for editor disputes, not the first point of contact. In my opinion, a HOUNDING case would be better made if (a) there were more than three lifetime examples of the other editor coming to a page you'd edited, having no prior history at that page, specifically to undo your edits, and, (b) this was widely occurring on a number of articles you've recently edited rather than what appears to be a minority that could be explained by the singular interest you both seem to have in automotive related articles. Chetsford (talk) 16:54, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Chetsford this is definitely a hounding case. This user is following me around for unknown reasons and undoing my edits and it has been going on for a few days now. I just mentioned some articles but now it seems that everywhere I edit, this user is there to revert it so simply because he doesn't like my edits. He hasn't read the policies but continues to use them in his defence. In a more recent incident at Ferrari 360 this user specially came there to undo my edit because it was not vandalism in his opinion while the reality was opposite as this user didn't care to read the source, he preferred to just revert my edits and be done with it. In the pages I mentioned in my original post, this user has no editing history and the analyser shows that. I had attempted to discuss this matter at this user's talk page but he is more interested in removing my posts rather than responding. I edit here as a hobby, not be hounded by some user who seemingly hates me because I do not agree with him. Wiki could do better without this non sense. In accordance with WP:HOUNDING Many users track other users' edits, although usually for collegial or administrative purposes. This should always be done carefully, and with good cause, to avoid raising the suspicion that an editor's contributions are being followed to cause them distress, or out of revenge for a perceived slight. this user is indeed causing me distress due to some personal vandetta he seems to have against me.U¹ _quattro TALK 17:54, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Also, this user badmouthing about me at Ominae's talk page is something beyond a content dispute.U¹ _quattro TALK 18:02, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

There is no hounding here, and nothing else that merits administrator intervention, but just a common interest in cars, which seems to be one of those subject areas where editors are unable to discuss things like adult humans on the article talk pages. Just stop reverting each other and talk about what should be in the articles. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:21, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

How is there no hounding Phil Bridger? This user literally follows me around to specifically undo my edits on pages where he has never been before and saying bad things about me to users whose edits I revert. I don't think any wiki policy instructs users to follow each other on articles and cause disruption there which this user has been doing as of late. This definitely demands administrative action. I want this user off my tail so I can edit here peacefully.U¹ _quattro TALK 18:57, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Now this hounding continues and is going at an unbearable level. The constant silence from the admins is questionable. This user is clearly violating WP:HOUNDING and the case is being dismissed as a content dispute. There is a content dispute but it arises after this user follows me to an article where he has never been before. I request the admins to take action.U¹ _quattro TALK 13:09, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Is this about cars? Maybe you should go edit on some calmer subject matter, like professional wrestling. --JBL (talk) 14:34, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Or maybe this user should be sanctioned about his actions so I can edit with a peace of mind. About professional wrestling, lol. It is hardly a calmer subject matter. A discussion below about it will explain better.U¹ _quattro TALK 16:34, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

U1Quattro, have we not been here before with you and cars, and you inability to get along?Slatersteven (talk) 18:27, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Slatersteven this is something I can't get along with. A user follows me around for no reason on pages while bad mouthing about me and you put all the blame on me over that.U¹ _quattro TALK 18:29, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

How was He following YOU if he was there first? Multiple edds have told you it was not following you. This is following the same pattern as the last few times you have either been reported or reported someone else. Always to do with cars.Slatersteven (talk) 18:32, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Not to mention Slatersteven he is more interested in removing my posts on his talk page rather than responding to them.U¹ _quattro TALK 18:31, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Has he been on Lamborghini Aventador before? No. Lamborghini Centenario? No. Ferrari Portofino? No. See the edit pattern. He came on these pages just to undo my edits. Who bought him there? I can't see any other way than my contribs. He hasn't been on any of the pages I mentioned in my post. If you would look at the analyser, you'd find it out yourself Slatersteven.U¹ _quattro TALK 18:37, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

No I accept he has not, and that is three articles. I can see form his edit history a lot of edits to car articles, I can see from yours articles you have edited he has not (tellingly not in his area of interest). Its hard to see this as anything other then a user interested in cars fetching up at articles about cars.Slatersteven (talk) 19:28, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

There are others too, like Aston Martin Virage, Toyota Land Cruiser (J70) and a lot more. He is clearly not fetching up anything in the articles I mentioned other than undoing my edits. What would you call this here Slatersteven? Fetching up information? Editing articles of interest? Also, at Talk:Toyota Land Cruiser (J70), he demands me to apologise to an IP because he think that the IP was right. What is this about?U¹ _quattro TALK 19:47, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

It looks, pretty obviously, like it's about thinking that the unregistered editor was right and you were wrong. I have no idea who was really right, because I have no interest in getting involved with content disputes about cars, but I do know that the fact that you have registered and the other editor has not doesn't make you automaticaly right. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:34, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Phil Bridger the unregistered editor added content without source, I reverted him. Then this user chimed in out of no where claiming that the edit was correct because it was factual without even adding a source. It was only at the talk page where a source was found and then the edit was restored. I don't think this makes the IP right either.U¹ _quattro TALK 20:40, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Maybe there is some lesson that can be drawn from the fact that no one is jumping in to agree with you? --JBL (talk) 20:57, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

There is no lesson to be learnt. I'm here to report a user who is violating a policy and unwilling to discuss his actions. Which is the purpose of the ANI in the first place.U¹ _quattro TALK 04:19, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

This is going the same way every other damn ANI involving U1Quattro has gone. An utter refusal to listen and just not dropping the stick after they have been told nothing to see. Can we close this rather then go down another "I am right and everyone else is wrong" hole?Slatersteven (talk) 09:08, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: If you have a concern with ANI's made by Quattro then do you want to consider proposing TBAN on him regarding this? I have User456541 in my mind as a precedent. SMB​99​thx Email! 09:30, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

What warrants a TBAN? I've been saying that the other user is in the wrong, not that I'm right. There has been an utter refusal to listen that he is in the wrong. If a user is violating a policy at wiki and not bothering to participate in a talk page discussion, which forum should I go to? This is extreme one sidedness towards the other user because he is being perceived like he has done nothing wrong.U¹ _quattro TALK 09:41, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Hold on...Yes you are saying you are right, you are saying he did wrong and that you are right about that and we are all wrong. I think I said the last time you were here an ban would be need to stop this kind of time wasting WP:IDIDNTHEARTHATism. So yes, a result of some of the cheesiest wiklawyering I have yet seen, I think its now time for a TBAN.Slatersteven (talk) 09:47, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

No, I did not said any of you were wrong. However, you were wrong in saying that I should coexist with some user who refuses to provide an explanation about his editing behaviour. I don't think such advice applies here.U¹ _quattro TALK 09:51, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

And if a TBAN is all you've got as an answer to this situation, then I'd leave this site. Because I don't think this one sided ban is the right suggestion or treatment. I reported an incident which was causing me distress according to WP:HOUNDING and the other user still comes off clean like he has done nothing wrong?U¹ _quattro TALK 09:54, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

And you were told (by more than one user) it was not hounding, and you refuse to accept that "verdict". That is what my issue is, wp:dropthestick.Slatersteven (talk) 09:58, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

By the way this [[2]] is what brought me here, and more users are telling you your behaviour leaves a lot to be desired.Slatersteven (talk) 10:02, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I never said my behaviour was perfect, I'm pointing towards the other user's refusal to discuss things on his talk page about what he is doing when I'm being told to do that by the other users here. His edit at Lamborghini Aventador proved that he was wrong, yet he cited WP:BRD in his reference.U¹ _quattro TALK 10:09, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

The only place you are supposed to discus article improvements is the articles talk page. He is not requited to discus anything at all on his talk page.Slatersteven (talk) 10:16, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

He is required to explain why is he following me on pages he has never been on and why is he leaving sympathy related notices on the IP talk pages or the user talk pages whose edits I revert because they are not constructive while bad mouthing about me in the process.U¹ _quattro TALK 10:22, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

No he is not, as you have been told he is not following you. I am bowing out now, I think it is clear from this (and other ANI's) that you have a far too think a skin, and that you take everything far to personally. I think we will keep on having these disputes raised here regularly as you are not always going to get your way. You have a wp:battleground mentality that see's even minor content disputes as personal affronts.Slatersteven (talk) 10:30, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Proposal

I'm suggesting that both U1Quattro and 1292simon should be interaction banned.

• Support. I came to this conclusion based on Quattro's (recent) ANI history are mostly about 1292simon. Most of Quattro's grievances are towards this person. I sympathize with the fact that Quattro is bothered, may quit Wikipedia if we TBAN Quattro and feels that we are at the one side all against Quattro. For that reason, i think IBAN will be for the good of U1Quattro. This will be the second time i made a proposal on ANI, and on the same day. SMB​99​thx Email! 10:43, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

  @SMB99thx: The user is called 1292simon. --JBL (talk) 12:46, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

  Fixed. Thank you! SMB​99​thx Email! 12:53, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support but it will be another IBAn for him. Nor do I agree his main anti issues have been with 1292simon, well until recently, after he was IBANed with another user.Slatersteven (talk) 10:51, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support but also the behavior by U1Quattro is long-term and has involved multiple other editors, so I support additional sanctions as well to stop the disruption (see my comments in the next subsection for details). --JBL (talk) 11:08, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support - Given the continued issues with these two an IBAN should be implemented, It would stop the reverts, stop the hounding (if there is or was any) and it would most certainly stop these back and fourth threads. –Davey2010^Talk 14:10, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
• Comment from 1292simon - Sorry I’m late to this party, I didn’t realise there was another report here.
  I realise that I’m partly to blame here and apologise that sometimes my frustrations led me to cross the line into edit warring territory. If people can suggest another approaches for content disagreements involving U1Quattro, I am keen to follow Wiki policy.
  It is very frustrating to see my changes insta-reverted, as if U1Quattro is somehow the gatekeeper for all these articles. However I realise this is no excuse for my part in the edit warring and will be careful to avoid this in future. Cheers, 1292simon (talk) 08:34, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Additional/alternative proposal

In light of the above, and this at RSN, and basically every other time U1Quattro has come to a noticeboard: U1Quattro is admonished for their combative approach to editing, and is banned from making any* noticeboard reports for a period of 3 months. (*: I am open to amendments for reasonable narrow exceptions if there's some reason a blanket ban is problematic.)

• Support because really. --JBL (talk) 11:08, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support As the forum shopping and general taking it personally is getting tiresome.Slatersteven (talk) 11:12, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose for now - U1 could have a valid concern (inregards to sock, legal threat, vandal etc etc) so on that basis I have to oppose, If after the IBAN U1 returns with reporting someone else for a bullshit reason then sure next step would be banning them from here but for the time being I see it as a premature action. –Davey2010^Talk 14:15, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

  @Davey2010: U1quattro has had i-bans with at least two other editors (1, 2), has now moved on to feuding with a third (in addition to the two I've linked above there's 1, 2, 3) and also has plenty of other garbage noticeboard reports (e.g. this). If you want to suggest a friendly amendment, please go ahead, but this is way past "premature". --JBL (talk) 15:19, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Comment: Actually it was a single editor and not two editors as you'd like to mention. Now if this IBAN goes to place it would be two and I have no problem with it. Atleast it would get the other user off my tail.U¹ _quattro TALK 17:09, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

And was blocked at least once for violation of one of those.Slatersteven (talk) 15:23, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Well hopefully he's finally learnt his lesson here and hopefully he won't make further ANI reports on people (unless it's vandalism, legal threats). Hopefully he understands his reports are getting him nowhere and that he'd be better off not filing reports here and instead going to WP:30 or WP:DRN if issues arise. Hopefully he'll prove everyone wrong, A lot of hoping here but people can and do change. –Davey2010^Talk 17:07, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Their continuing comments on this thread are QED as far as I am concerned; actually I am beginning to think a long block would be more appropriate. --JBL (talk) 17:12, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

To be fair he was pointin out you made an error (you did).Slatersteven (talk) 17:15, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Actually I'm beginning to think leaving would be more appropriate since you have done nothing but use peculiar language about me Joel B. Lewis and suggesting longer blocks for no reason.U¹ _quattro TALK 17:16, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

You have been given a chance, but that chance requires you to shut up now and stop fighting your corner. You are making Joel_B._Lewis's point for him.Slatersteven (talk) 17:21, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Note the latest IBAN violation above.Slatersteven (talk) 17:45, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Slatersteven so any IP claiming that they are Ybsone comes out here and you brand that as an IBAN violation? To be fair an admin can better asses if an edit is IBAN violation or not and that user was told on their talkpage by an admin that since they are not involved in editing anymore, it is not an IBAN violation.U¹ _quattro TALK 20:06, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Potentially yes, if they are who they claim to be you replied to them (an interaction), if they were not you still seemed to refer back to previous interactions with Ybsone (an interaction)/ Nor did you seem to challenge it was Ybsone.Slatersteven (talk) 10:19, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Because they were referring back to a previous interaction Slatersteven and an admin has already given their input whether that instance was an IBAN violation or not. The IP is more likely a sock since the contributions are only to this thread.U¹ _quattro TALK 12:02, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

An IBAN means you do not get to talk about someone even if someone else does. But If have had may say, I think this is just another demonstration of how your battleground mentality.Slatersteven (talk) 12:06, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

There is no battleground mentality here. An admin mentioned that instance was not an IBAN violation and that is enough assessment. But then, this report is not about that instance now is it?U¹ _quattro TALK 12:26, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

There's also a new feud involving U1Quattro that seems to be relevant: see ANEW report (bottom of the section) and User Talk page. And U1Quattro has twice violated this warning about the Infobox wording for turbochargers: diff, diff. 1292simon (talk) 23:38, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Actually 1292simon that "feud" was resolved and it was mentioned by the admin that the user being reported was more at fault than any others. Show the latest version of that thread which can be found here, instead of your "preferred" version so that users are not misguided. You have violated the warning as well since you were told by the admin to get consensus about your preferred changes too.U¹ _quattro TALK 04:51, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

• I'm going to chime in here and say there was no "feud" and in fact that report is completely irrelevant here - The "reported" was ignoring BRD and edit warring again ... If you're going to complain about that report and U1 then you may aswell create a whole new section on us both as it involved us both, Mistakes were made and lessons were learnt, Like I said that report is irrelevant and should be ignored, No comment on the turbocharging stuff. –Davey2010^Talk 12:52, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Davey2010 don't know who gave him the authority to brand every unrelated matter as a feud. The fact that he linked an old revision of the report is a proof that he wants users to see only one side of the picture.U¹ _quattro TALK 13:18, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, I'm collpasing this as it's not really relevant (and collapsing to save drama). –Davey2010^Talk 13:27, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

• Davey, please don't hide my comments, I believe they are relevant to JBL's concerns at the top of this section. U1Quattro, could you please post the diffs for your claims? 1292simon (talk) 04:41, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I posted the diff already. Don't waste everyone's time by posting things which only you think are violations. Two people have already told you that it wasn't what you think it was. I also did not post that noticeboard listing. As far as violating warning goes, you're also violating it by making edits like these.U¹ _quattro TALK 05:27, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• Could you please leave my earlier comment visible, so that my opinions aren't excluded from the discussion. "Two people have already told you..." actually just means you and your buddy Davey2010 (who you go to for help getting people you disagree with kicked off Wikipedia- link).
  Lastly, I don't believe that my BMW Z3 edit (which you have already reverted anyway) is related to the warning we both received for turbochargers (a warning that you have twice broken, as per the diffs above). 1292simon (talk) 08:31, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Your comments are not relatable to this ANI dispute. This is a feud which Davey2010 was involved in. I participated as a third party. About the talk page link you posted, yes I went to him because the said user had also mentioned Davey on the talk page. The edit is related not to a warning about turbochargers but this summarising bug which you have and about which you were warned about.U¹ _quattro TALK 08:48, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support The frequent forum shopping has not really helped his case. He should really take some rest from reporting any further. Accesscrawl (talk) 11:04, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support. Not just for interaction ban, but also he needs to be admonished for his behavior. This time i'm serious - while i first would have opposed this proposal because i still cared about his concerns, i realized that U1Quattro's habit of getting into feuds (while i want to acknowledge that every user U1Quattro feuded may be in the wrong, the records suggest that U1Quattro failed to fend them off (or getting them blocked) each time) needs to be stopped. SMB​99​thx Email! 02:56, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. I have always taken the view that being here really ought to be an all or nothing proposal. Legitimate topic bans serve a useful purpose, but that's not what this proposal is, really. If a user cannot responsibly use a noticeboard, then the user simply cannot and should not edit Wikipedia. So block U1Quattro or not, but I oppose making various project pages into "topics" to be banned. Moreover, the circumstances here make this proposal even more silly. U1Quattro made a report here, it looks like it actually will result in some action (right now, there seems to be a plurality for an interaction ban), and yet we're simultaneously saying the report was frivolous and U1Quattro should be banned from future use of the noticeboard? Doesn't make any sense. --Bsherr (talk) 05:14, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

  Comment: I'll count this !oppose as !support the block for U1Quattro. I agree that U1Quattro should be blocked. SMB​99​thx Email! 08:50, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Short block for edit warring

Applied to both users as they both appear to be engaged in slow edit wars reverting each other.Slatersteven (talk) 14:14, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose - If they're both edit warring then the correct venue would be WP:AN3. –Davey2010^Talk 14:17, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

True, but generally we do not have both ANI's and AN3's rather all behaviour is taken into account.Slatersteven (talk) 14:21, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Sure, but I see it as being pointless !voting on something that is never tolerated full stop if that makes sense, I ofcourse support blocking either for edit warring but just feel it'd be better off handled at AN3 than here. –Davey2010^Talk 14:23, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

• Ever see The Defiant Ones with Tony Curtiss and Sidney Poitier? Maybe partial block them both till they reach an accommodation on the talk page. (though I doubt Curtiss or Poitier really looked like that poster) --Deepfriedokra (talk) 14:39, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
• Bowing out now, this is pointless, and will see you all in a month or so when the next flare up occurs.Slatersteven (talk) 12:46, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
• I support the block of U1Quattro, whose battleground behavior continues everywhere they go. --JBL (talk) 12:35, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
• I'm leaning towards U1Quattro being blocked at least one month to three months. and his autopatrolled previleges revoked (in order to avoid more feuds with users, i'm afraid). I'm sorry, but this should be a right move for him to take a step back and see what he had done to himself. Once he returns, if he wants to report users for violating Wikipedia rules i'm hoping he could do it in a more appropriate way. I think this will be a right move for him to learn what he is doing if he wants to report uses for being wrong. Once he returns, i hope he's not showing battleground behavior leading to probably his first three-month block. SMB​99​thx Email! 03:02, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

• @SMB99thx: Autopatrol privileges allow users to create articles and other pages that are automatically marked as "patrolled", so they do not appear on new pages patrol or undergo curation. Has nothing to do with WP:BATTLE. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 03:27, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

• @CaradhrasAiguo: Oh, thank you so much! I did not know about that! SMB​99​thx Email! 03:38, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Admin Bearcat protection review

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

---

• Bearcat (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Nurse.Fighter.Boy (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Per a request at WP:RFPP, I reviewed the protection set on this article. Approximately two weeks ago, a new account appeared on this film's article and removed all negative reviews, in a way which suggests a connection to the film's studio. Bearcat, who is also the article's creator and primary contributor, reverted with fairly neutral advice on balance. A couple days later the editor returned and made the same edits, and in response Bearcat fully protected the page indefinitely (that was 29 June). A few other editors tried to reason with Bearcat on the film's talk page but were getting nowhere, and that discussion died off on 2 July. After the RFPP request today I reset the protection, noting in the protection log that it was "grossly inappropriate", the most civil words that came to mind in that instant.

In the talk page discussion, they made this comment, which I have some issues with. For one: "the autoconfirmed level of protection is [...] virtually useless when attempting to stop a registered username — it takes a registered username less than one minute to perform the number of edits needed to defeat autoconfirmed protection even if they're starting from zero, so autoconfirmed simply isn't effective in actual practice if you're actually dealing with a named account." - Uh, wrong. It's 10 edits and 4 days for autoconfirmed. Even if what they wrote was accurate, it does not warrant dropping indefinite full protection as a first resort. Per other comments in that discussion they also seem to think that full protection is preferable to extended-confirmed, which is just baffling.

That's just a sidebar, though. What I really want to talk about here is this: "because the system does not have any very convenient or easy way for administrators to keep any special track of pages they've placed any level of protection on, pages can very easily slip through the cracks and get forgotten about. I don't have a responsibility to work my way through 15 years worth of protection logs to see whether every page I've ever protected is still in a state of protection or not." This was in response to being informed about KHMP-LD, a page Bearcat semiprotected in 2011 in response to one instance of really very minor disruption by an IP, and left it until this month. Indefinite semi is not such a big deal, even though this does look like another overreaction. What I believe needs admin attention is Bearcat's apparent record of really quite overzealous protection actions they have no intent of following up on, and if they have left a trail of fully or just inappropriately protected pages, then is it possible to tabulate their block log and/or pull a database report to check for any blocks which should be reviewed? Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 21:09, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Without any chance to look at the situation (I am going to bed right now) let me remark that a few weeks ago I checked how many pages in the article namespace are fully protected indefinitely. The answer I came up with was zero. Currently this one is probably the only one.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:15, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

The editor in question already had four days — so the fact that I didn't specifically mention "four days" in my comment doesn't mean that what I said was wrong, because the editor had already passed that.

As to the substance of the matter, firstly, administrators are not prevented from acting to shut down clearly disruptive editing, such as vandalism or other unequivocal violations of policy just because they've edited the article before. The edits in question were a clear attempt to turn the article into a promotional advertisement for the film in defiance of our WP:NOTADVERT rules by removing properly sourced content that didn't fit their clearly promotional agenda, which even crossed the line into introducing a verifiably false claim that it had set the all-time record for Genie Award nominations when in reality it wasn't even the most-nominated film in its own year, and an administrator does not lose the right to shut that kind of clearly unacceptable editing down just because they had prior "involvement" in the article. There is a big difference between legitimate differences of opinion and unequivocally clear violations of our rules, and administrators do not lose the right to act on the latter just because they've edited the article before. And I'll note that even the people who attacked me for editprotecting the page agreed with me that the edits in question were problematic — literally nobody thought they were perfectly reasonable and neutral edits that should have been left to stand, so it clearly wasn't just a personal difference of opinion to which the "involved" rule would apply.

Secondly, the behaviour in question did not rise to the level of meriting a full editblock on Sahil — they had other unproblematic edits to other articles under their belt, so they could not have been blocked as a "vandalism-only account", but there are no other blocking criteria under which a block would have been possible at all. So that wasn't available as a solution, and page protection options were the only choice left. Editblocking him for this would have been a much more problematic response for which I would have deserved to be called on the carpet.

Thirdly, the "autoconfirmed" level of page protection is literally useless at blocking edits by a registered username, because it's incredibly easy to surpass. Autoconfirmed is literally only effective at stopping IP disruption, and is completely useless at stopping virtually anything by a registered user. But 500-edit "extended confirmed" is not the second step — it's the last resort step, permitted for use only if and when all other attempts to contain disruption have already failed. So as soon as 10-edit autoconfirmed isn't an option, the only immediate option left is "full protection until I'm satisfied that the issue has been resolved", not anything short of that — if the problem still recurs after a period in full protection has already been applied, that's when the 500-edit level of autoconfirmed protection is allowed to kick in.

And finally, it's not my responsibility to just meekly obey the orders of any Karen who comes screaming at me for any of it. I explained what my reasons were for acting as I did, and why they were in proper accordance with standard rules and procedures — and then people even brought in other examples that completely misrepresented my actions in unrelated cases, such as falsely characterizing unequivocal examples of vandalism as something other than what they were. If I'm being approached in that kind of tone, then I don't have any responsibility to meekly acquiesce to it and put on a hairshirt — I'm entitled to stand my ground, and not take any action at all until I'm approached in a respectful manner about it. That is, I'm entitled to hold out for "I get it, it's fine, and I'll have your back if the problem returns" before I take any action at all, and to refuse to comply with anybody who's throwing undeserved shade at me. Bearcat (talk) 21:37, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Bearcat, you should not have protected at all for a single disruptive user, you should have blocked. And I apply ECP all the time as the first option when there's already disruption by confirmed accounts. Don't follow the letter of the law, follow its spirit. El_C 21:47, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

You can't editblock a person for just one instance of disruption, if they have other non-disruptive edits in their history. Disruption has to rise to a much higher level than anything Sahil did before editblocking the user is an appropriate response. Bearcat (talk) 21:50, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

You can block them from that specific page if they are edit warring and not responding to requests to discuss the issue. I think the real issue here is that their user talk page is still red: there has been no attempt at discussion with the editor specifically. Woody (talk) 21:54, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

There's a way to block one editor from editing one specific page without using either editblocking or some level of page protection? News to me. Bearcat (talk) 21:57, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Bearcat, yes, see WP:PB. Otherwise, I don't know what you mean, both protection and blocks are used to curtail acute disruption, otherwise there's discussion and warnings. Protection is usually used when there's disruption from multiple users. I must be missing something here. El_C 21:59, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

• @Bearcat: you also, despite two requests, failed to ever discuss this issue with me, despite raising it on your talk page. Over-protectioning is a concern but less so than the egregious INVOLVED issue, coupled with a non-communication issue. I assume you don't consider my queries to be particularly "disrespectful"? Nosebagbear (talk) 22:20, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Acting to shut down clearly disruptive editing does not fall under "involved". As I said both above and in the talk page discussion, administrators are not banned from acting to shut down vandalism, or persistent attemots to convert our article into an advertorialized PR page in defiance of our WP:NPOV rules, or the introduction of verifiably false claims, just because they've edited the article before — "involved" does not apply if the "dispute" is between one version that's clearly compliant with our rules and one version that clearly isn't. An administrator does not lose the right to act on problematic edits that are very clearly improper and non-compliant with policy just because it isn't their first time ever touching the article, and the edits were not simply a "valid difference of opinion".

And since I clearly did communicate about the issue on the talk page, there isn't a "non-communication" issue here either. I'm allowed to have a life outside of Wikipedia, and not be on here 24/7 — so the fact that I wasn't at your beck and call to immediately respond to every post you made doesn't constitute a non-communication issue if I obviously communicated. Bearcat (talk) 22:33, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

I would never say anyone is obligated to response at "beck and call". However, as that was 11 days ago with well over 500 edits by you since then, communication, including specific individual response to a query is desirable. I also dispute that full long-term protection without passing to another, or seeking review, based off the fairly limited actions, was an appropriate action. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:42, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)This is very strange. Yes, preferring full protection to extended-confirmed in such an instance is baffling, as Ivanvector says. Nor can I understand what Bearcat means when they say above that Sahil had other unproblematic edits to other articles under their belt, so they could not have been blocked as a "vandalism-only account", but there are no other blocking criteria under which a block would have been possible at all. So that wasn't available as a solution, and page protection options were the only choice left. No, not at all. If Sahil needed to be prevented from editing Nurse.Fighter.Boy but should be left able to edit the rest of the encyclopedia, the obvious choice is a partial block from just that article — very much preferable to indefinite full protection. I realise now, looking above, that partial blocks are news to Bearcat. That's a pity, as this is the kind of problem partial blocks were designed to deal with — but, like protection and all admin actions, they should preferably be placed by an uninvolved admin. I'm also concerned by the tone of the last paragraph of your long post above, Bearcat. I honestly don't see any "Karen who comes screaming at [you]" on the article talkpage. It seems to be Tbhotch that you're referring to in that way. There, now I've pinged him, which is surely the fair thing to do when you're talking about somebody like that. I don't know how to say this without sounding condescending, Bearcat, but perhaps you want to take some deep breaths/a few hours' break before you continue discussing this? Bishonen | tålk 22:25, 13 July 2020 (UTC).

  PS: Or, going by your post here, where you say "I wasn't at your beck and call to immediately respond to every post you made" — referring to posts on your page on 2 July, bumped on 8 July, and never answered — maybe it was Nosebagbear who was the screaming Karen in your opinion? Nm, I still think it was a good idea to ping Tbhotch. And whoever you meant, one person or several, you shouldn't talk about any fellow editors like that. To be frank, it's disgraceful. Bishonen | tålk 22:55, 13 July 2020 (UTC).

"Partial block" is a brand new thing which was brought in only within the past six months, which I did not already know about — and considering that it wasn't all that well-advertised, and even at the PB page it still isn't particularly well-documented as to how to actually use it, my failure to already know about it isn't evidence that I'm being negligent. I'll consider learning about and using it in the future, obviously, but not already knowing about a brand new thing that's only existed for a few months doesn't make me a bad editor. Bearcat (talk) 22:38, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Serious question - what would it have taken to be well advertised? No shame for having missed it but it was mentioned in the Administrators newsletter twice (RfC & after passing), the RfC was posted at CENT, and at AN four times (1, 2, 3, 4). The Signpost only gave it a minor passing so that piece could have been better. But other than that what would have qualified for you as being well advertised? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:49, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

• Whether intentional or not, Bearcat has been misusing the protection button for years now with dozens of involved or otherwise questionable protections. I was wondering when he'd end up here. He also overreacts to spam and vandalism to the point of ridiculousness; often he'll fully protect an article after only one or two instances of vandalism, not lifting the protection until sometimes months later. Just look at his protection logs. Take the page history of Doug Robb, for example, where Bearcat elects to indef fully protect the page to his preferred version (a redirect) instead of taking it to AFD. Or take the history of Pierre Kwenders, an article he created, making him clearly involved, where he reverted the page back to his preferred version before fully protecting it for two months. My favorite example is this one, where he fully protects a page after participating in the revert war! My point is, even if he doesn't have bad intentions (more likely he's just clueless), this admin is still abusing his tools, and unfortunately, there are plenty more admins like him. I want to emphasize that not all, but it sure seems like a lot of the "legacy" admins who got their tools 15+ years ago are not up to date on current policy, which is okay if you aren't going to be pressing block, delete, or protect, but some of them still are. Sro23 (talk) 22:28, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Again, administrators do not lose the right to shut down disruptive edits that are in very clear violation of Wikipedia's rules, such as clear vandalism or clear attempts to convert an existing article into an advertorialized PR profile, just because they've had some involvement in the article before. I had and still have no "preferred" version of Pierre Kwenders at all — I was and still am perfectly happy to see other people improve the article with properly sourced and neutral content that complies with our rules. But that's not what the edits in question were: they were almost completely unsourced and highly advertorialized, and unequivocally violated our WP:NPOV and WP:NOTADVERT rules (as well as WP:COI, because the advertorial version was coming from Kwenders' own manager.) So that wasn't a difference of opinion between two potentially valid versions where I needed to solicit outside action: it was a very clear violation of our rules, which our rules explicitly allow me to act on by myself regardless of whether I had ever touched the article before or not.

CUDA was not an "involved" matter either: one user, who would simply keep coming back under a new username every time he was editblocked (and thus wasn't being stopped by the editblocks), and was refusing to engage any discussion about the issue, was repeatedly trying to convert it into a personal opinion essay about how stupid people are for thinking that the verifiably documented meaning of "CUDA" was the real meaning of "CUDA". I had never even heard of CUDA before that editwar started, and had no "preferred" version of that article at all, and acted in no capacity to enforce anything other than our rules — and as the talk page history very clearly documents, I then dropped the protection back down to pending changes the very next day, as soon as the editor in question was editblocked by somebody else. Again, administrators do not lose the right to shut down unequivocal vandalism just because they had previously been one of the several reverters of it. It had nothing to do with "my" preferred version of the article at all: there was a reversion war being engaged in by other people, in which I had no personal interest above and beyond Wikipedia's rules.

Doug Robb, I have no recollection of at all, and will need to review it to see what did or didn't happen. But I won't brook being accused of acting improperly in the case of either Kwenders, where the other version was clearly a violation of our NOTADVERT rules rather than a legitimate version that I simply "didn't like" for some reason, or CUDA, where the other version was clear and unequivocal vandalism. Reverting vandalism does not take away an administrator's right to shut down the vandalism if it recurs, reverting NPOV-violating advertorialism does not take away an administrator's right to shut down the advertorialism if it recurs, and on and so forth — reverting improper edits that are clearly in violation of our rules does not make an administrator "involved" for the purposes of the INVOLVED rule limiting their range of future action. I approach ANI or other noticeboards all the time in cases that aren't as clearly violating our rules as the Kwenders or CUDA situations. Bearcat (talk) 23:00, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

And after having reviewed Doug Robb, I can now confirm that there had previously been a reversion war, between several different editors who were never previously me, over whether he warranted a redirect or a poorly sourced article that failed to demonstrate that he passed our WP:NMUSIC rules for the standalone notability of band members. So, again, nothing to do with my personal preferences: I was simply shutting down an edit war, and was not personally "involved" in any way that would limit my right to shut down an edit war. But regardless, I've now removed that protection anyway. Bearcat (talk) 23:23, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand. If you want to keep articles free from vandalism and advertising, then why not just block the user for vandalism/advertising? Why instead protect the articles from anyone else editing if in each case it was only ONE person who was causing the problem? Have you looked at the protection policy recently? Sro23 (talk) 23:17, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Because the bar to justifying an editblock is a lot higher than that. There has to be a sustained pattern of repeatedly violating our rules across numerous articles, not just a temporary issue on one article, before editblocking the user is appropriate or justifiable. I'd have been called on the carpet a lot sooner than this if I had used editblocking in any of the named situations, because none of them rose to the level necessary to justify editblocking a user. Bearcat (talk) 23:23, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

That's not how it works nowadays. Accounts that have only edited one page are blocked all the time. But either way, if you come across a singular editor who is inserting vandalism/spam that for some reason you cannot block them for it, wouldn't the common sense, appropriate thing to do be revert the disruptive edit, start a discussion with the user, and if that goes nowhere, create a thread here or elsewhere, rather than immediately indef fully protecting the article? Sro23 (talk) 23:44, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't know, Sro23--you're talking about "nowadays" but CUDA is five years ago. In that case, I do believe Bearcat should have done something different: they should have been less nice and just blocked Pateljay43 after their first week, rather than simply reverting and protecting (for one day!) two weeks after Pateljay started, by which time Pateljay was just totally vandalizing and yelling at people. In other words, Bearcat was really being too friendly for my taste, but there is no abuse of protection powers, and Bearcat in no way made an INVOLVED edit there. I wonder if you checked the protection log? Drmies (talk) 01:47, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

The problem is that Bearcat seems to be suffering from the misapprehension that sitewide blocks require a greater threshold then protections. Which is not the case. But now that they know about partial blocks, hopefully, this unusual proclivity toward premature protections, especially full-protections, will be a thing of the past. El_C 01:59, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Fine, then maybe that's not such a good example, so I picked another one of his protections at random, this one more recent: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tina_Keeper&action=history. Indef fully protecting an article for half a year because ONE COI editor made a COI edit? If that isn't abuse of the tool, it's wildly inappropriate and highly questionable. Sro23 (talk) 02:03, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Because one COI editor repeatedly made the same COI edits numerous times over the space of at least three years, with several reverters before I ever came along? Not the same thing as how you characterized it. Bearcat (talk) 03:13, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

So then block them for undisclosed COI, or report them to the COI noticeboard and let another admin deal with it! Which would cause less disruption to Wikipedia, blocking the offending account, or protecting the article so that no one can edit it because one person was being disruptive? Sro23 (talk) 03:38, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

• I approach ECP with reluctance and trepidation. Because it generates a report at AN, it feels like being sent to the principal's office. Having said that, partial blocking is a wonderful new tool that reduces disruption with minimal impact. In situations where it is warranted, I heartily recommend it. Bearcat should have neither protected nor blocked as they are involved. Their best options were to request protection at RfPP with a note stating their involvement or raising their concerns about the other editor on one of our many boards. Adding full protection in these circumstances feels like the ultimate WP:OWN behavior. When one is het up, it's easy to lose perspective and misuse the tools. When we do, we need to acknowledge it and take steps to avoid it. Bearcat needs to reflect on all of this and reassure the community that they have adequate understanding of protection tools, blocking tools, and WP:INVOLVED. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:56, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  I would also add from personal experience that if one has had a fever, cough, or other COVID-19 symptoms, and may be noticing some changes in their critical thinking, they should probably see their physician. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:59, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

  Is that the case here? If so, yes, probably immediately. Personally, I have no qualms about applying ECP, when it's needed. The need for explaining that well in the protection log has been made in the last year, which I've attempted my best to address. But when there are multiple confirmed accounts involved in the disruption, then going straight to ECP is fine. If the policy does not account for that it probably should. El_C 23:54, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

• An SQL query for Bearcat's recentish full-protections (post-2018) is here. Three highlights (which may have been mentioned above?) are Canadian Film Centre (sysop-protecting an article that Bearcat was a significant contributor to and !voted at AfD to keep), Tina Keeper (sysop-protecting an article after their own edits were (likely erroneously) reverted by a non-extended-confirmed editor), and Johnny Ma (sysop-protecting an article that Bearcat created and was the primary contributor to due to a content dispute). Thoughts? --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 00:11, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

As the editor who requested the unprotection over at WP:RFPP at the very least Bearcat should have probably consulted with another admin or referred to the appropriate venues (AIV or RFPP) given their involvement in the articles. Protecting your own articles isn't really a good look in most instances, especially if it was due to something content related. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 00:58, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Mdaniels5757, thank you for those cases. Turns out that I nominated that Canadian Film Centre for deletion, and yes, Bearcat saved it. There is an awful lot of COI editing, under a number of different accounts, in that history, and Bearcat's very positive contribution consists primarily of countering those edits (and the very fluffy language that was added a number of times). Yes, they helped rescue it from deletion, but much of their work was restoration rather recreation. In other words, I don't want to overplay the INVOLVED part here. I agree that they should not have applied indef-protection--but as with the other example I analyzed earlier tonight, Bearcat revoked that after a week or so and replaced it with PC. So again we have what I think we all consider not a great move, to put it mildly, but they undid it themselves. So as with the other example, I just don't want to throw the book at them for it. At least not the folio volume, with the metal clasps. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 03:21, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 03:24, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

• Comment as I was pinged and I find funny to be described as a Karen—I will assume it was me because he might have believed I was giving orders, but it was the opposite, I was trying to warn him about this "because at some point in the future someone will consider you are abusing the protection tools to win discussions rather than to avoid disruption". This discussion came sooner than I expected, I must admit. I also have to admit that being considered a Karen came out of the blue, at least in my old concept of what a Karen is—those middle-aged women that require to speak to the manager when their expired Burger King coupon is rejected at McDonald's—I didn't request a third-party review, I directly spoke with him; I didn't go ranting and demanding an unprotection, as a matter of fact I never said the word unprotect, I merely pointed out how inappropriate the situation was handled from an uninvolved point of view. I stopped watching Talk:Nurse.Fighter.Boy after my last comment because I knew Bearcat would leave it indefinitely protected and there was no use in continue trying to dialogue. Personally, I didn't want this to escalate to an ANI discussion, that's why I didn't go Karening elsewhere, as Bearcat wants to suggest.

First of all, and sorry for the upcoming looong comment on this, I don't think there's a competence issue here. Bearcat has been an admin since only he knows when (his user logs don't say when he became an admin). I think the problem is that as he has been an admin for so long, he's so used to being one and he has forgotten that being an admin is a privilege and that admins need to be kept updated about their tools. As I said here it was common to see admins indefinitely protecting pages to later unprotect them weeks later, but since I joined in 2009 not a single admin does that, that's why there's the option to put expiry dates.

Some of you might have seen my name, I am generally the one that adds {{pp}} templates where admins forget to add them and when the bot that adds them is not working. I used to do that back in 2010-2013, then I stopped editing and now I am at it at that (well, not now because the bot is working). I know some admins that will never add those templates as it is not mandatory, Bearcat is one of those, and every time I saw his name I knew that a) the page lacked a pp, b) the page was most likely indef protected, and c) the page was most likely overprotected, KHMP-LD is one of those examples. I randomly choose KHMP, I merely wrote a random date and that was the first page that appeared. Anyone can do this and will find the same I just did: Kincardine, Ontario, protected against a single user that eventually became autoconfirmed and continued editing the page a weeks later; Gwen Benaway, indef full-protected to avoid the removal of information that has since been removed by consensus; Moncton City Council, protected against one IP user that was not vandalizing, but lacked of competence; The Pursuit, protected because one account spammed; R v Martineau, protected because of one IP user; Guðmundur frá Miðdal, protected because of one IP, etc. And the problem I am seeing, and that's why I objected to the indef protection of non-popular pages like Kiki and Nurse.Fighter.Boy, is that all these pages—as well as others that I didn't mention because protection was justified like in Salcedo, Ecuador or La Paz, Honduras—is that they are either stubs or they are outdated, mainly because of their indef protection. And I'm just citing non-BLP pages, but I'm sure this applies to those as well.

I personally think the worst part was that a) Bearcat has never denied being involved at Nurse.Fighter.Boy for both, the article being created and updated by him and being in the middle of a dispute in that article. He justified it, yes, but it does not fall within those valid reasons to act as an admin; and b) that he never said why he never attempted a dispute resolution, he merely protected the page, left a message at the talk page and that was it. Personally I think that if Bearcat doesn't want to "have a responsibility to work [his] way through 15 years worth of protection logs to see whether every page [he's] ever protected is still in a state of protection or not", other admins should feel free to do it because these protections aren't helping the project and are merely are blocking articles from being updated. © Tbhotch^™ (en-3). 01:26, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Tbhotch, for the comprehensive (if lengthy) account. Bearcat, it doesn't look like you are living up to administrative norms, especially with regards to protections and involvement. Please update and correct. El_C 01:40, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

As I've said before, an administrator does not lose the right to shut down edits that are in very clear violation of our content policies just because they happen to have edited the article before. A content dispute between two potentially valid versions of an article would obviously be an inappropriate time for an administrator to use page protection or edit blocking tools — but if one version of the article unequivocally violates content policies such as WP:NOTADVERT or WP:VANDALISM or WP:NPOV, while the other is neutral and properly referenced and entirely unproblematic, then an administrator is not barred from taking steps to deal with the problem just because they had edited the article before.

An administrator is not barred from acting to shut down attempts to convert an encyclopedia article about a person into an improperly formatted résumé, just because they happened to have been "involved" in reverting the improper content. When it comes to Tina Keeper, for example, I had never once edited any of the article's substantive body content at all until the edit war came to my attention, and had instead been "involved" only in maintenance editing around adding or refining categories, minor grammar or spelling corrections and adding references to unreferenced statements which had been added by other people. I then added a lot of sources and formatting to get the article up to our actual standards, but did not fundamentally change any of its content from what was already there before, and then Kitchikeesik came back again and re-reverted, for about the fifth or sixth time in three years, back to the advertorialized version again. It was not a one-time thing, but a thing that had been happening for several years, by an editor who was already well past autoconfirmed status by the time I was ever aware of the issue at all. And while Kitchikeesik claimed in their edit summary that "the information was not accurate", none of the facts actually changed between her version and the existing one — her edit was entirely a question of the tone in which the same facts were presented, namely advertorially and résumé-like instead of neutral and encyclopedic. So that's not a "content dispute" where there are two equally valid versions, because the actual facts weren't in dispute at all — it's simply disruption, because the only difference between the two versions was the advertorialism. Again, I had and have no "preferred" version of the article — as long as it's neutral, properly referenced and properly formatted (Kitchikeesik was also actively breaking formatting and removing references), I really don't care what else people want to add — my only interest in the article was that it has to follow our rules, and I do not lose the right to act to stop disruption just because I happened to be one of several prior reverters of said disruption.

An administrator is not barred from acting to shut down attempts to convert an encyclopedia article about a film into an advertorial that reads like it was written by the film's own public relations agent, as at Nurse.Fighter.Boy. An administrator is not barred from acting to stop a film's article from being rewritten in a tendentious way that isn't in line with what the sources actually say about it, as at Kiki.

An administrator is not barred from acting to stop a person's article from being smeared with unsourced WP:BLP violations just because they happen to have touched the article before — regardless of whether it's true or not, any claim that Gwen Benaway was or is misrepresenting her indigenous identity had and still has exactly no business being anywhere near our article about her without proper reliable sourcing for it. I don't have any "preferred" version of her article at all — except for the fact that she won notable literary awards that got her over WP:AUTHOR, I literally don't know a damn thing else about her and have no vested interest in the article content (virtually none of which was remotely "my" work anymore) except for the fact that a claim like that is an extreme BLP violation, of the type that our BLP policies require us to remove immediately, if it isn't properly sourced. The fact that I happened to revert the BLP violation does not make me "involved" in the sense that would take away my right to deal with the BLP violation if it comes back again.

Moncton City Council? That actually was vandalism: it wasn't the real website of the real city council, but a non-NPOV blog attacking the city council at a spoofed domain name, which had already been reverted and unreverted by several other people before I ever came along. And once again, I do not lose the right to escalate a vandalism issue just because I happened to be one of the reverters of the vandalism.

Guðmundur frá Miðdal? Again, advertorialism, already reverted and unreverted several times by other editors before I ever came along. R v Martineau, unsourced NPOV violations already reverted and unreverted several times by other editors before I ever came along. And on, and so forth.

Administrators do not lose the right to take steps to shut down vandalism just because they happen to have been one of the reverters of the vandalism. Administrators do not lose the right to take steps to stop NOTADVERT violations, or BLP violations, just because they happen to have been one of the reverters of the violation, or just because they happen to also have edited a category declaration five years earlier. Vandalism and NOTADVERT and BLP violations are not the same thing as legitimate content disputes, and an administrator is not "involved" in the sense that would eliminate their right to act on the violation just because they happen to have been one of the reverters of the violation. It is not the least bit difficult to find cases where I have brought something to ANI, or to a Wikiproject noticeboard, for outside attention because it fell short of being clearcut vandalism, or because I was much more clearly "involved" in the content — but simply having reverted content that was in clear violation of one or more of Wikipedia's content policies does not take away an administrator's right to escalate to higher steps if the policy violations come back again repeatedly. In exactly zero of the cases you've named was I "enforcing" or "protecting" my own position in a legitimate content dispute with two valid sides — every single one of them involved an actual, unequivocal policy violation of some kind, such as BLP or NOTADVERT or vandalism, that had almost always recurred more than just once and had already been addressed by other editors before me too. Bearcat (talk) 02:52, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

An editor asks, Bearcat, why did you enact full protection on a BLP you created and have been actively editing, rather than asking an uninvolved admin to do it? ... Bearcat responds, Firstly, I'm going to note the fact that I had to peruse your edit history to figure out what article you were talking about, since you didn't see fit to tell me ... If you've full-protected so many of your own creations that you didn't know which one was being referred to, then you're full-protecting too many of your own creations. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 03:54, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

@Bearcat: Perhaps you should log out for a while and clear your mind a little bit, because all of your answers have been defensive and diverge from the main issues here:

a) the lack of communication between you and the people you consider are "disrupting";

b) the unnecessarily long protections on things that could have been solved by a simple discussion, report to a forum or even a block because those were merely 1 person with no evidence of upcoming sockpuppetry;

c) that you seem to continue skipping to click WP:INVOLVED to learn when it is not valid to use your admin tools. © Tbhotch^™ (en-3). 14:41, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Bearcat, All that is true, but I think you're missing the point. This is non-trivial editorial involvement on the article, and while we're not a bureaucracy, an admin action to stop an emergency on an article where you're involved should be accompanied by a post for review at WP:AN or similar. Guy (help!) 10:09, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

My thoughts:

• Indefinite full protection is very rarely the correct protection level to apply and should pretty much always be downgraded or removed if challenged. I see that that has been done in some cases, but not all. I also note that from a look at Category:Wikipedia fully protected pages, almost none are live articles. There are a lot of redirects on the list (as far as I can tell, them being fully-protected is basically the equivalent of salting the titles where there's an appropriate redirect), but I did not see any indef FPs for actual articles.
• Bearcat's actions in protecting articles that they significantly contributed to, while technically okay per WP:INVOLVED (one could argue that protecting the articles is something any administrator would have done, let's set aside the FP issue for the moment), aren't great. I note that INVOLVED says Although there are exceptions to the prohibition on involved editors taking administrative action, it is still the best practice, in cases where an administrator may be seen to be involved, to pass the matter to another administrator via the relevant noticeboards. I doubt that these issues were so pressing that Bearcat couldn't have posted at RfPP or COIN for a second opinion.
• I would be satisfied with Bearcat acknowledging these issues and saying that they are willing to look at other options than indef-full and to bring INVOLVED protections to RfPP.

As a complete aside: WP:PP needs some work to match consensus. It suggests that the normal options are "semi" and "full" (ECP is authorized for use between the two, as we've discussed here) and bizarrely puts "content disputes" and "vandalism" under the FP section (imply that FP should be used for those). GeneralNotability (talk) 16:42, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Oh, also: the fact that seven-ish administrators have expressed concern over this to varying degrees is a pretty clear sign to me that something needs to change. GeneralNotability (talk) 16:45, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

• Bearcat says he was unaware of (the new) partial block being available. I had reason to use it recently, but had to ask at WP:AN how to do so. Maybe it is time to add in some admin instructions on how to actually set a partial block at WP:PB? Mjroots (talk) 18:14, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
• Comment: I find Bearcat to be one of the most competent editors/administrators. The fact that Bearcat did not block the editor for one occurance...I say Yes! blocks are overused by admins and they give editors a big scarlet letter. Bearcat protected the article. I see the problem as stated by Ivanvector as well. I trust Bearcat, even though I am often on the other side of their positions at AfDs. Lightburst (talk) 21:22, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
• WP:INVOLVED states that obvious admin actions against disruption are permissible, even when involvement exists. That is what Bearcat says in his defense, and the statement is not wrong. However, Bearcat did not take an obvious admin action. We do not semi protect articles in response to a single user's disruption. Being aware or unaware of partial blocking does not, has never, and will never have any relevance. Even a semiprotection would not have been an appropriate, much less obvious, admin action. People are talking about ECP, but not even ECP is indicated here. WP:ECP dictates that ECP is indicated when semi-protection is or would be ineffective. The user was not (and STILL is not) even autoconfirmed by right of having made a measly 10 damn edits. Indef full protection is obviously not remotely indicated by a single non-confirmed user's disruptive editing. Much less on an article one is involved in. Much less on an article on is involved in, full protects indefinitely, and then continues to make involved content edits through one's own full protection. Protection policy states "the protection level should be set to the lowest restriction needed in order to stop the disruption while still allowing productive editors to make changes". This is about as obvious as admin abuse can possibly get. To most of us, this type of behavior in one incident would never be undertaken, as it would likely be met with a desysop. If there are any other instances of arbitrary, abusive use of the tools like this, a report should be forwarded along to arbcom for an uncontentious desysop. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 01:04, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

• @Swarm: - "Protection should be set at the lowest restriction possible". Should be, not must be. Bearcat made an error. That's OK, because we all make mistakes (even you). There was no malicious intent involved or misuse of the tools. ARBCOM do not need to be bothered re this matter. They have more than enough to do as it is. Mjroots (talk) 10:00, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

• Mjroots Man, will you stop at nothing to make excuses here? This is hilarious! You suggest the policy wording of "should be" is not binding, and may be ignored because it doesn't say "must be". Yet you simultaneously concede that "Bearcat made an error". If Bearcat did not violate a policy, due to the fact that it said "should", and you retort with "must", then where is the error? If Bearcat did wrong, and you're making half-cocked attempts to cover for him, then you're a pathetic disappointment of an "old-guard" admin who is making excuses for blatant violation of policy and should resign the tools in shame. There is no middle ground. You either make excuses for abuse out of loyalty or you stand against it. If you do the former, you're no member of this community. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 06:03, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

• @Swarm: - For the record, I haven't had any interaction with Bearcat as far as I can recall. I'm not trying to "cover for him" as you put it, but merely stating the situation as I see it, without any partiality towards either him or you. I accept that Bearcat did not know about partial blocks at the time. Had he known of them, and how to apply a partial block, maybe that would have been the course of action taken. Mjroots (talk) 06:27, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
• Swarm, this is the second time today that I'm asking you to please tone down the rhetoric. It's a bit much. El_C 06:30, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

• El_C I'll "tone it down" when admins quit making excuses and turning a blind eye to obvious, blatant, arbitrary and willful abuse coming from "power users". Until then, I'd ask you to please refrain from tone-policing me. I find it trifling and condescending. Particularly multiple times in one day. If I'm involved and letting emotions get to me, by all means, remind me to take a step back, but when I review a situation as an uninvolved admin and find it so egregious that I'm choosing to invoke strong rhetoric, I think it's more problematic that you find a problem with my tone than the behavior that has me so outraged to begin with. Both Bearcat's backhanded response and the editors eating it up and saying "he made a mistake" is nothing short of pathetic. There is not a single person in this crowd who isn't actually aware of the fact that Bearcat, after 1.1 million edits from 2003, knows about our norms, our policies, our standard practices, and knows exactly what he is doing. If I sound outraged, it's because this is an outrage. I make my fair share of mistakes and I'm not one to throw the book at a "mistake", but that's not what this is. This narrative that people are trying to run away with, that "admins make mistakes", when this was nothing short of egregious abuse of the tools, and people are quite straightforwardly turning a blind eye and bending over backwards to make excuses, it's a serious problem. It's a problem that has existed since I was dabbling in this project as an IP over a decade ago. We all know about it. It's even what led to FRAMGATE, but how quickly we've forgotten those lessons. It's absolutely insane to me that you're worried about my tone while rubberstamping Bearcat's statement. This is just another abusive "power user" who's unwilling to do the bare minimum in terms of accountability, and yet you're fine with that. What "boxes did he check" for you, El_C? He did not admit to wrongdoing beyond 'maybe going a bit too far even though he was right', which is a misrepresentation of the situation. He did not offer any resolution going forward, he simply says 'I will take comments under advisement' (oh, how magnanimous). He has given no indication that he actually misunderstood anything that he was supposed to understand, nor that he has learned anything that he needed to learn. To me, his response checks no boxes; if it were an unblock request, even you would decline it. It's an empty statement, a vapid placeholder whose only purpose is to give people an "out" to justify excusing and defending the incident without any prolonged drama. If your focus is on diffusing my rhetoric and closing this thread, then you're part of the problem. I like you, El_C, you know that, but don't come at me while excusing this user's abuse. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 01:20, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• • Yes we all make mistakes, but an admin believing that preventing every user on the project from editing a page is preferable to blocking a single user, under the mistaken impression that there has to be a sustained pattern of repeatedly violating our rules across numerous articles, not just a temporary issue on one article, before editblocking the user is appropriate or justifiable is a serious issue. That and admins are supposed to be up-to-date with current policy - that Bearcat had never even heard of partial blocks until this thread is extraordinary.-- P-K3 (talk) 13:57, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

If this goes before the Arbitration Committee, I predict at the very least an admonishment, if not an outright desysop. But if Bearcat is able to recognize the problem and commit to correction, perhaps that can be avoided. Such an commitment ought to be brief in nature and should happen soon. El_C 14:09, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

• If you block one new account that is censoring an article of negative things to try to promote it, then they'll just create another new one and keep at it. Best to just block all new and unregistered users. He did the right thing. Single purpose accounts that are obviously there because they have a financial reason to edit something they are connected to, must be kept from doing so. Dream Focus 16:21, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

• I can't tell if you're being serious or not, so I'm going to assume you are. That would be contrary to the purpose of Wikipedia. We do not preemptively protect pages. If you look at WP:RFPP, requests like that are declined routinely. Also, it's not just new/unregistered users that are being prevented, it's autoconfirmed and even extended confirmed users like you that are being prevented from editing the articles he fully protects. Sro23 (talk) 16:58, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

• Whoops! He should've only blocked new and unregistered users. It was wrong of him to block everyone. Did he click the wrong button by accident? Dream Focus 17:35, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Dream Focus Have you read the discussion that you're commenting on? That would probably be a good place to start given Bearcat's extensive comments here.-- Jezebel's Ponyo^{bons mots} 17:38, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

• OK, read it. What I suggested doesn't work, so they need another option. Warning the person not to vandalize the page by removing content like that, would've been the best solution. Mistakes were made. No sense blowing this out of proportion. He didn't see any other way to stop the person at the time, didn't think of this other option. Dream Focus 17:55, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

• Even granting your premise that protection is better than blocking I do not think Bearcat did the right thing in choosing indefinite full protection. Arguably the facts on display here suggest neither indefinite protection nor full protection let alone both. And that's before considering whether they were INVOLVED owing to their content contributions. I agree with El C that an acknowledgement from Bearcat about these issues and a pledge to act differently in the future is all that is necessary here and hope it will be forthcoming soon. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:07, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Bearcat protected the content. The protection was removed by another admin. The job of an administrator is to protect creators and content. It is hyperbole to suggest this rises to the level of being desysopped. Bearcat used a level of protection that is too high. This is not particularly egregious and simply does not rise to that level IMO. Lightburst (talk) 17:19, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Did you mean to reply to me or were you talking about taking him to ArbCom? Because I think Bearcat did not protect content or editors - this action prevented content from being added and prevented editors from doing work. I do think it rises to the level of Bearcat acknowledging mistakes were made and pledging to act differently in the future. This, in my estimation, is a pretty low level. If that happens I would see absolutely no reason for an ArbCom case. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:28, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I did mean to reply to you Barkeep49. And no I would never take the editor to Arbcom. There are 6,122,617 article on WP and Bearcat prevented content from just one article. An article with not many eyes on it-until now: and an article I never would have visited without this ani. The protection was in place for 14 days. Was the editor involved? Yes, so probably should not have protected the article with such a restrictive level of protection. Ivanvector removed protection with a detailed edit summary Grossly inappropriate action by involved admin. Ivanvector then could have discussed with Bearcat on their talk page and we could have avoided ANI. Not sure why this rises to the levels of hysteria and apology demands articulated above. Maybe if I this was an article that I intended to edit I would feel different...but I would just approach an admin and have the protection changed, which is what seems to have happened here. I know Ivanvector to be an excellent administrator and I see that the right thing has happened in removing protection. Lightburst (talk) 23:05, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

User_talk:Bearcat#Nurse.Fighter.Boy_again is exactly what you're asking for except it was Nosebagbear and not Ivan who posted it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:20, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Let me actually respond at a bit more length. Overprotecting an article by either raising the protection level too high or making the length of protection too long is something that I think all sysops have done at times. This on its own isn't an issue. Raising the protection level to the highest degree and having the length of protection being indefinite is an issue. So that's issue one. Issue two is doing this at an article they're INVOLVED with. That's issue two. I think that INVOLVEMENT is what led to what I presume, based on the good work I know Bearcat has done, to be a lapse of judgement. I don't think, after a quiet word failed, this is making the level too much. I will also note that there are people, sysops even, throwing around ideas like "likely desysop". My original post was in response to Dreamy - who later admitted to not having read this carefully - and to that general sentiment which I think is too extreme a reaction here. Best,Barkeep49 (talk) 23:25, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for that clarification about Nosebagbear's talk page message on Bearcat's talk page, I did not see it. WP:INVOLVED is indeed maddening and I have come across it from several admins - nobody ramped it up to this level. I am clearly in the minority here in thinking that this should close with no action. We can assume from the double pings by Nosebagbear, and the revert by Ivan, and the subsequent ANI here that Bearcat gets it. If the behavior is repeated we should revisit. JMHO Lightburst (talk) 23:49, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

• Fully protecting a page they created themselves after a single editor added what they didn't like is totally wrong and uncalled for from a long time admin who should know better. If Bearcat could easily accept their mistake and promise to be more careful in the future, perhaps this could be settled here without involving or disturbing ArbCom. —Nnadigoodluck🇳🇬 00:41, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't know what you base that assumption on, Lightburst, it seems to be uninformed guesswork. There's not a jot or pixel from Bearcat in this discussion (or anywhere else that I have seen) to indicate that he does get it. Several admins have asked for it. Bishonen | tålk 00:53, 16 July 2020 (UTC).

Bearcat gets it. And I am giving them the benefit of the doubt. 2 years after Wikipedia was created, October 3, 2003 Bearcat's made their first edit. 17 years ago. I will not ask that editor grovel and beg forgiveness at ANI. We can see if it happens again, and if so there are avenues for you to get justice. I say this should close with no action. Lightburst (talk) 01:53, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Except, like Bishonen said, he has given no indication he gets it, all he's done is be overly defensive. I'm not looking to drag anyone to arbcom, all I want is some kind of acknowledgment of understanding from Bearcat. You seem to be under the impression this is a one-time, one-article thing, and if it was, then I would agree with you, but it's not. There's a pattern of misuse here. Over the years, Bearcat has made dozens and dozens of inappropriate or questionable protections. He made up some excuses and people came to his defense. This thread might languish for a few more days before being closed with no action and nothing productive will have come out of it. Well, I object to this thread being closed with no action, but that's why I generally stay off ANI. Sro23 (talk) 02:38, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

There needs to be a place to drive routine admin course corrections. Phrasing it as a dicotomy between big smackdown or arbcom case and no action at all is not good. Somebody should draft some findings and advice for BearCat and then close this on that basis. North8000 (talk) 02:14, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for Beacat to say I hear you all. I'll try to do better. And that would be that. A close can be nominal after that. El_C 02:23, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I greatly prefer this outcome to the proposal below. I would also just accept him saying in response to Lightburst's comment above "I do get it". Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:04, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

• Listen. I am taking all of this into consideration, and I am considering how I can improve in the future, and not once in this entire discussion have I ever implied otherwise. But given that literally every single thing I've said up to this point has simply gotten me accused of being defensive, I'm allowed to take some time to collect my thoughts rather than simply responding in the heat of the moment and probably just making things worse. It's not automatically "being defensive" just because I try to explain my reasoning behind an action, for starters: it's standard due process to which anybody accused of anything is always entitled — I'm allowed to explain myself when I feel that my reasons for taking an action are being misunderstood, and simply explaining my side of the story isn't automatically "being defensive".
  I'm more than willing to keep in mind that sometimes I may tend to react more harshly than a situation actually warrants — the only thing that I reject is the idea that I've ever acted "to further my own preferred position in a content dispute", rather than "in defense of standard Wikipedia policies around vandalism, advertorialism and WP:BLP". Did I react with a bigger sledgehammer than other administrators might have felt was warranted? Absolutely, I can accept that I have a tendency to be a little too blunt sometimes, and I can absolutely think about that and make an effort to change it, and I am doing those things. But that doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to explain myself if I'm being misunderstood or misrepresented.
  One thing I'd ask people to keep in mind is that administrator responses to situations have to take multiple factors into account. For example, if vandalism is coming from an unregistered IP, then just editblocking the IP isn't going to work: we're not allowed to permanently editblock IPs, but only to apply short-term blocks for periods of a few hours or days at most. But then the IP can just wait out the hour, or immediately reset their modem if they're on a dynamic IP, or run their VPN to switch IP servers, and then just come right back to keep making the same problematic edit that's been getting reverted — which means editblocking the IP is ineffective, and some level of temporary or longer-term page protection is the only thing that can actually stop an IP. And similarly, if somebody is really determined to vandalize Wikipedia, then partial-blocking them from the article has very high potential to just goad them into sockpuppetry rather than actually stopping the problem. So it can't always just be a one-size-fits-all answer: there has to be some consideration given to the specific nature of what's happening and who's doing it, and some attention paid to the edit history to determine whether the problematic edits were a one-time thing or a longer-term editwar.
  So, to summarize: I am listening, I am hearing what's being said, I am taking it under advisement, and I am considering what I can do to change. I fully admit that sometimes I've reacted more bluntly than I needed to, and I am taking this on board — but I'm not copping to ever having acted the way I did for illegitimate reasons that ever had anything to do with personal bias, that's all. Bearcat (talk) 00:41, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

  I appreciate that Bearcat is willing to reconsider a way of operating that was done with good faith and has had value to the encyclopedia in the past. This acknowledgement of learning different ways of operating is more than sufficient for me and I hope we can close this thread soon. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:51, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

  I'm also fine with closing at this time. This response checks enough boxes for me. I am confident that Bearcat will operate closer to administrative norms from now on. El_C 00:58, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

  Bearcat Thank you for listening. I am very sorry for the stress this whole situation has caused you, but often with the admin bundle comes extra stress. I hope this thread may be closed promptly too. However, there's one more thing I need for you to understand. Administrators may not preemptively protect pages in most cases. If you don't believe me, go read the protection policy again, it's in there. The first line of defense is blocking disruptive users. If the IP or users simply wait out their blocks, then you need to hand out progressively longer blocks in order to limit disruption. I don't know where you're getting the idea that we can't block IP's longer than a few days, some especially static IP's are blocked for years. After blocking, if the users start socking or the vandalism is coming from too many separate editors, then you may protect the page. But we can't protect pages just because there's a possiblity the user may start socking. Sro23 (talk) 01:05, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

  I'd be content with this thread being closed with no further action based on the statement above. GirthSummit _(blether) 08:51, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

  Closing looks okay to me too at this time. —Nnadigoodluck🇳🇬 10:26, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

• Move to close. Thank you Bearcat for your response --Deepfriedokra (talk) 02:31, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Proposal-- Bearcat asked to avoid violating WP:INVOLVED or giving the appearance thereof

Bearcat is asked to please refrain from using admin tools on articles he has contributed to as an editor, even if he does not think he is involved. Bearcat is asked instead to request admin action at approiate notice boards. When questioned concerning an admin action, Bearcat is asked to please patiently explain his rationale. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 03:04, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

• Proposer support --Deepfriedokra (talk) 03:04, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support this seems like the most reasonable solution. My preference would have been for Bearcat to acknowledge their, let's say, overzealous use of the tools and to have volunteered this themselves, but as that hasn't happened here we are. Glen 03:30, 16 July 2020 (UTC) Seems per Bearcat's statement above that this has occurred voluntarily which as stated was my preference. Glen 04:14, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support but instead of being phrased as a request, I'd prefer that it be phrased as a clear and straightforward warning: "Bearcat is warned that any further INVOLVED PP will involve Arbcom." Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 03:31, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Bearcat has already been asked to do those things - take you pick of being asked via our policies and guidelines or in the discussion above. Either he voluntarily comes to this kind of conclusion (my overwhelming preference) or we need to formally warn him as a community against misusing page protection especially when involved. This is the wrong outcome for this thread either way. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:12, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - There is no reason to "go easy on" Bearcat as is proposed here. Bearcat has given us no reason to. This is a laughably-lenient proposal, not the correct remediation going forward. We need an Arbcom case and a desysop. Not games or excuses. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 08:46, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
• Comment It seems to me that this has already happened - Bearcat has been asked to do a number of things, including not protecting pages where they are involved, already. I agree with Barkeep49 that the best outcome would be for Bearcat to say that he understands what people are saying, that he recognises that his ideas about protection are not in-line with the community's interpretation of policy. No need for grovelling, or even an apology - just an indication that he hears the concerns and will act differently in future. I have enormous regard for Bearcat and the work they have done here over many years, and do not want this to go any further, but I don't see how this proposal really moves this forward. GirthSummit _(blether) 08:57, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
• Support BearCat may have agreed to stop violating WP:INVOLVED, but there probably needs to be a more formal and binding resolution to enforce that if BearCat ever decides to dismiss the agreement.--JOJ ^Hutton 15:23, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

  Jojhutton, Bearcat hasn't agreed to stop violating INVOLVED; indeed, he hasn't agreed that the actions he took do violate it. When I said that this has already happened, I meant that he has already been asked to stop it. This proposal - that we merely ask him to stop - will not create a more binding resolution, in my view. GirthSummit _(blether) 16:47, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

• OPPOSE Involved or not, if someone is clearly doing something they shouldn't you need to stop them from doing it. This isn't edit warring for a content dispute, this is a single purpose account whitewashing an article of something they are connected to. Dream Focus 17:05, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

  There are lots of ways an admin can stop an SPA from whitewashing an article. The discussion here is about whether unilaterally applying indefinite full protection, to an article that admin has written themselves, is the option they should choose... GirthSummit _(blether) 17:26, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

  I have no doubt Bearcat thought something needed doing. The best approach would have been to ask someone else to look and see if they agreed. ANyone can make a mistake at any time. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 17:45, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

  It's never the mistakes, it's always the refusal to acknowledge/correct the mistakes that is the problem. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:52, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

  "Whitewashing" is subjective. What I call whitewashing you might call setting the record straight. It is an edit conflict. ANother opinion would have been a good idea. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 17:48, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose Merely editing an article does not make an admin involved. WP:INVOLVED states "editors should not act as administrators in disputes in which they have been involved" and editing an article is not per se a dispute. it's time we stopped pillorying admins who act in good faith to revert problematic contributors and then feel obliged to place the article under an appropriate degree of protection. As the number of articles goes up and the number of admins go down, the problems of finding another admin to make an obvious protection action will only increase. --RexxS (talk) 18:06, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Are you trying to argue that they did not meet the criteria for involved? PackMecEng (talk) 18:17, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
    • Read the proposal and see if you can figure it out. --RexxS (talk) 18:21, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
      • I was just making sure since it makes no sense and ignores the basic community understanding of what involved is. Also a lot of people above admin and editor seem to disagree as well. To the point that I did not even think it was up for debate, so you can understand my confusion. Thanks for the clarification. PackMecEng (talk) 18:24, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
        • The proposal asks Bearcat not to use admin tools on any article he has edited. Editing in itself does not create involvement, and the purpose of WP:INVOLVED is to prevent admins from having an unfair advantage in an editorial dispute, not to act as a shield for UPEs and vandals. That should be clear to anyone who reads the policy. Had the proposal asked Bearcat to avoid using admin tools in situations where he is involved in a genuine content dispute, it would naturally have had my support. --RexxS (talk) 18:47, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

  Whether or not he's INVOLVED (and I admittedly think he is) I think it's also true that full protecting an article indefinitely in these facts isn't great on its own but also isn't a big thing. Frankly none of this should be a big thing. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:59, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

  I don't think whether he's INVOLVED or not in a particular case is relevant to this proposal, which goes a long way beyond that. Are we really asking Bearcat to never use admin tools on any article he's ever edited? Nobody that I've seen has suggested that indef FP is a good idea in any situation, and I expect that BC now appreciates the value of partial blocking (almost certainly the best solution to his dilemma). I'm not sure just what constructive outcomes folks are looking for here. --RexxS (talk) 19:16, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

  Does Bearcat appreciate the value of partial blocking? Does he appreciate not indef full protecting articles? I am missing evidence for that. The closest I can come is through a form of synthesis in reading I'll consider learning about and using it in the future, obviously. This is why the constructive outcome I've asked for, multiple times, is a simple acknowledgement that he's read and considered the concerns in the thread. El C's I hear you all. I'll try to do better or my suggested response of I do get it to a point made by Lightburst above or even you here. This does not feel like it's asking someone to swallow their pride or be unfairly meek which I know we sometimes veer into in these situations and no editor, let alone one who has done so much good like Bearcat, deserves. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:03, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

  If you want the answers to your questions, you need to ask them of Bearcat, not me. I see no evidence on his talk page that you've done so. He is under no obligation to appear here, and frankly if I were in his position and reading this entire section, my sole response would be "get your knee off my neck". If you want the constructive outcome of getting Bearcat to appreciate the value of partial blocking and the folly of indefinite FP, I suggest that posting at this noticeboard is precisely the wrong way to go about it. People respond much better to friendly and collegial discussion than to the adversarial atmosphere prevalent at ANI, and I think that if someone he trusts has a quiet chat with him, they would be far more likely to get the constructive outcome. Threats of ArbCom and de-sysopping are almost guaranteed to entrench his position and make him defensive. I'm sure you understand all of that and hopefully you're prepared to wait perhaps a day or two for feelings of hurt to subside and for BC to tell us he has "got it" now. --RexxS (talk) 22:34, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

  RexxS, I did make just such a request today. They have not edited since so I do not know if they've seen it or not. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:03, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose, although I support in principle that this could have been solved by Bearcat compromising to do better, Bearcat has replied 11 times and in none of those replies acknowledges his mistakes, he justifies them. Out of all the articles listed as problematic, he has merely unprotected Doug Robb, a redirect, and still think he did no wrong, even though it's hard to agree on these protections. Arbcom is needed. © Tbhotch^™ (en-3). 18:15, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
• Mu - I read this as "let's ask Bearcat to do better", which is in and of itself a do-nothing proposal. On the merits of any sanctions coming out of this, I oppose. Admins need some latitude to make mistakes in good faith, which I'm sure this was, and I would like to apologize for having turned a probable misstep into a public flogging. However, admins also have a responsibility to hear community concerns and self-correct, which Bearcat seems dedicated to not doing. That's regrettable, and something we can't do much about as a community. My concern was that we would need to follow up and review a history of pages left frozen in Bearcat's wake, which I am satisfied to learn is not the case. Bearcat has been around long enough to know that there's not much room for admins between "I made a few mistakes" and "I got desysopped by Arbcom", especially for those who repeatedly insist that their mistakes were not mistakes. But we needn't go there over this. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 18:36, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose pure notification Ivanvector's summary is a good one - almost no-one involved in the discussions would have felt it was so egregious an error that even with helpful engagement, sanctions would have been necessary. It's the rejection of a fairly strident (though non-unianimous, I fully understand) set of community concerns that's actually more problematic. Community's can give formal warnings, though they obviously don't have any specific force now or in the future, but perhaps that would be the best summary here. Despite their lack of engagement, I don't think this is a desysop action, and Ivan is likely right that, even if he disagrees with us, Bearcat will probably (hopefully?) be more careful in the future. That hasn't always been in the case with other admins, but given what ultimately occurred in those cases, hopefully they act as a cautionary tale. Nosebagbear (talk) 18:49, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose This would probably be sufficient if Bearcat showed any self-knowledge or an acknowledgement of the concerns raised here. But, as Bishonen notes, that's been deafening by its absence. And per Levivich who argues cogently that It's never the mistakes, it's always the refusal to acknowledge/correct the mistakes that is the problem. And that, dear colleagues, could be the epitaph of this board. It literally sums up every filing against every long-term productive editor that ever got anywhere. That's a tragedy, but each threadcan't be ignored because it's a tragedy. —— § erial 19:11, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

  The above two comments summarize my point well. Nobody expects admins to be perfect, but admins have a duty (not compelled by the letter of policy, but certainly by precedent) to learn from such incidents and align themselves with recent best practice when challenged. There's a very long list of former admins who did not. Jackhammering the point has never helped anyone, in either direction. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:22, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose this does not go far enough. We need to see some kind of indication that Bearcat understands why their approach is problematic, but so far all we've seen is defensiveness. I appreciate that it's unpleasant to be called on the carpet at ANI, but this kind of scrutiny comes with the job. Bearcat needs to adjust their approach to page protection and, based on what we've seen so far, a polite request will be insufficient to produce that outcome. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:13, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
• Like I said before, I'm not looking to drag anyone to arbcom. All I'm asking for is some sort of indication that Bearcat understands why his actions were inappropriate and a pledge to do better in the future. Doing better in the future looks like this: Instead of jumping the gun and the protecting pages at the first sign of disruption, he will block the relevant disruptive users (using his discretion, partially or sitewide) and only protect pages as a last resort (i.e. excessive vandalism or sockpuppetry from numerous accounts/IPs). If he is involved on the page (involved meaning he created it or changed it significantly) he is strongly encouraged to post his actions on an admin noticeboard for review. Simple, really. Also, since Bearcat seems unwilling, it looks like it's going to be up to us as a community to review all the sysop-protected redirects and titles he SALTED up till now. Sro23 (talk) 23:48, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Someone made a mistake. That mistake has now been brought to their attention (and that of the community). If it happens again, then come back here or ArbCom. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 18:30, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Admins are allowed to make mistakes. As long as they are learnt from there is no need for major drama, such as this. Mjroots (talk) 06:30, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

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

Persistent disruption at High Speed 2

Over the past few months, an anonymous editor has been disruptively editing High Speed 2, including original research, NPOV insertions, and tendentious editing against talk page consensus. The editor is restricted to the 2A01:4B00:881D:3700/64 block; is it possible to block the range from editing the page? Sceptre (talk) 18:21, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

An editor, Mujinga, adds referenced text. This Sceptre deletes with no reason. I saw no reason to delete. I reverted. He does the same again, I reinstated. If deleting text a reason must be given. None has been. Totally unacceptable in wikipedia. If Sceptre continues measure must be in place to stop this sort of behaviour. 2A01:4B00:881D:3700:5903:D07:49EC:BEAE (talk) 18:42, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Oh please, pull the other one, it's got bells on it. You've been disruptively editing the HS2 article for months and are using Mujinga's edits as an excuse to continue your disruption; all I did was tidy up the article and add the paragraphs about Chris Packham's case against the HS2 project to part of the article. Me and Mujinga got caught up in an WP:EDITCONFLICT, and there was no bad intentions there; where Mujinga added information that I didn't, I tried to leave that be in the edit conflict. The only "referenced text" I've "deleted" was your POV-pushing which you've been warned about for months. Sceptre (talk) 18:53, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Comment: You're right that the IP editor has a track record as a disruptive editor, and his edit-warring is true to form. However, I would suggest that this looks like a content dispute, and it would be best for Sceptre and Mujinga to iron out any disputed points, or clarify the changes in the article talk page. The edit history looks a bit too complex to comment on what's being argued over, but an adult discussion is what's needed. Try to ignore the IP editor, he only serves to cause confusion. Cnbrb (talk) 19:41, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

There's no edit dispute with Mujinga; the IP is using an WP:EDITCONFLICT (a technical thing) to push his POV through the back-door. Sceptre (talk) 20:35, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Apologies if I misunderstood. As I said, the edit history got a bit too complex to comment on the content, so I may have got a bit confused. And yes, I agree, the IP has a history of very problematic behaviour. Let's see how it works out. Cnbrb (talk) 23:47, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

By bringing a fresh pair of eyes to the article yesterday, I seem to have entered into a long-running dispute between editors including Sceptre and 2A01:4B00:881D:3700:5903:D07:49EC:BEAE. I don't want to take sides here, I want to improve the article. What 2A01:4B00:881D:3700:5903:D07:49EC:BEAE said on my talkpage wasn't really accurate, but Sceptre saying above we are not in an edit conflict is also not 100% true, since they have taken my referenced additions and moved them to a place which seems inappropriate to me. Without wanting to enflame the situation, I do want to work on the HS2 article because in my opinion it's in quite a bad state, so I'll carry on with that. I don't think I have much more to add here since I'm not aware of the history of the dispute. Mujinga (talk) 10:23, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm confident that the content issues mentioned above will be ironed out. However, the IP editor's recent contributions give cause for concern. We had trouble with the same IP range a couple of months back with disruptive editing and all-round WP:INCIVILITY - see March 2020 and May 2020. I would be prepared to let this lie, but today we have evidence of more disruptive behaviour ahead:

• This talk page message looks to me like the IP is WP:CANVASSING another (innocent) editor to participate in retaliatory edit warring
• In this article talk post the IP editor has ignored previous warnings and has started to accuse other editors of being "pro HS2 fanatics", having "vested interests" and being "astroturfers"

This is persistent, intractable behaviour. Cnbrb (talk) 17:33, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Today, once again, I have just been accused of being an "astroturfer" in a public forum. Is anyone going to block this IP editor, or are libellous comments now tolerated? I await an admin intervention with interest. Cnbrb (talk) 12:46, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

12 hours have passed and no response from Admins, so I am going to re-post. Cnbrb (talk) 12:09, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

IP on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mezzo Secolo Di Ritornelli

151.52.254.197 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) copied and pasted this message [3] that they'd left on my user talk page (minus my reply, but with a couple of the others) to the closed AfD discussion that they were angry about, with a shouty comment about the Mafia [4]. They then reinstated (but without the Mafia bit) after I removed it [5]. Any chance of a block? YorkshireLad  ✿  ^(talk) 19:54, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, it was IP user 151.38.94.117 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) that posted the comment of 151.52.254.197 to the AfD page. I can only assume the same person is behind both; in the message they note that they are the same person as 151.74.138.45 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) (but deny being the same IP as other ones on that AfD). I'll notify all three of the IPs about this discussion. YorkshireLad  ✿  ^(talk) 19:58, 15 July 2020 (UTC) Strikethroughs added; I'm prepared to accept that the other two IPs are unrelated, and withdraw that portion of this report. YorkshireLad  ✿  ^(talk) 10:05, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

As well as adding the copy-paste back to the AfD page a couple more times [6], [7], the IP ending in 117 also left a couple of cryptic messages on my user talk page [8], [9]. I think they think I'm Merynancy, but it's hard to tell (I'm definitely not). YorkshireLad  ✿  ^(talk) 21:16, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

They were referring to people supporting the page's deletion as a "mafia", it seems like a sort of persecutory delusion to me (they also assumed I had something personally against the book's author when, in fact, I had never crossed him before his pages were SALTed on it.wiki for persistent spamming and I noticed they'd been rewritten on here). Nothing serious imo, they're just pressed "their" page got deleted. ×°˜`°×ηαη¢у×°˜`°× 21:56, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

• I cleared the AFD earlier. If their IP changes that often, a block is meaningless. If they keep trying to change the AFD page, I will just semi-protect it for a few days. Kind of off the beaten path to do that, but it works. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:42, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

• Very funny that I wrote a message to User:YorkshireLad in his talk page about how his accusions of me being some other IPs were wrong and his response is a complain about me being 151.38.94.117 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and disrupting closed AfD pages...I have nothing to do with 151.38.94.117 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), never talked about mafia, never edited a closed AfD, never changed IP from my message I left to him in his talk page. I'm just guilty of having voted a "WEAK keep" in an AfD with another IP which had some COI as well as some disruptive behaviour as to become myself automatically a COI accomplice. Really a lot of paranoia out there. --151.52.254.197 (talk) 21:52, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

P.S. btw, as I wrote in YorkshireLad's talk page, it would be enough to read the arguments and the style of mine and of the other IPs to easily understand we are different persons. Bye. --151.52.254.197 (talk) 21:55, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Posting the wrong user at the start of this thread was an honest mistake which I corrected as soon as I noticed. If you really are a different person, I apologise, but I couldn't for the life of me think why someone who had never edited before would want to copy-and-paste your comment somewhere else, unless they were indeed the same person—especially when, as you accepted yourself, your IP address had already changed once [10], so it seemed entirely possible that it would change again.

My initial response to your message in the previous diff, incidentally, was not to report you here; it was in this diff [11] in which I said: I'll also point out that following me to my talk page simply to express your irritation with me, and not to make any actual request of me, is bordering on wikihounding (as you should know if you've been here for ten years), and I'd request that you stop. (The ten years bit is, as you'll know but others reading this may not, a reference to your comment about how you'd been here for years.)

Frankly, I felt a little unsafe when the Mafia got brought up, however much I knew the actual Mafia were unlikely to be involved in a deletion discussion about a book of singles. That, plus the fact that I'd already had a pestering message on my talk page (btw, I should thank Roxy the dog and Merynancy for replying to that before I got chance to), was what drove me here. I'm not after any sort of retribution; I just wanted the hounding to stop. YorkshireLad  ✿  ^(talk) 22:26, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

No wikihounding, at least from me: I left a single message in your t.p. to reply and clarify my position about the accusations of COI, this is what personal talk pages are meant for, my message was very polite and civil, and I think Roxy the dog and Merynancy understood my points perfectly. As long as you insist, let me say I am frankly APPALLED from so much bad faith: you need to read Wikipedia:IPs are human too (and note the plural). I cannot respond of other IPs' bad behaviour. As for me, I took part to many others AfDs, I was probably decisive in keeping some articles like in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eva Robin's, and never met anyone accusing me of all this nonsense. After some time my IP changes (not by choice) but if you check the geolocation the area is always the same, and its very far from the other IP. For sure I am not that schizophrenic as to leave a message like this one [12] and shortly later writing nonsense [13], going full rant, not even knowing how to sign messages and then going on to disrupt a closed AfD. I think it's obvious the other IP (the one with COI) noted my message and tried to exploit it to re-open the AfD discussion, obviously knowing nothing of Wikipedia rules. But if you prefer to think I am so seriously bipolar go to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations and ask for further investigations, I have nothing to hide. 151.52.254.197 (talk) 23:09, 18 July 2020 (UTC) P.S. On a sidenote, please read more carefully WP:WIKIHOUNDING as it has nothing to do to what you pretend it means. --151.52.254.197 (talk) 23:18, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

As it happens, I've previously been told that WP:SPI is not for reports that solely concern IPs. But anyway, look, I have no wish to cause you any harm; I just wanted to be left alone. Perhaps I have failed in WP:AGF in lumping you in with the others, for which I can only apologise; your message on my talk page would not have been cause to report you here, and I'm happy to withdraw the portion of this report that relates to you. In mitigation, please do accept that my own actions were in good faith; as I have said, I was feeling threatened, and in the heat of the moment one IP looks a lot like another. YorkshireLad  ✿  ^(talk) 10:01, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Fine, given your words above the incident is closed for me too. About the other IPs from Milan area, I think they arrived in your talk page following Merynancy (as they have a grudge against her for having nominated for deletion their walled garden of articles) and you (and I) were just caught in the middle. I would not take them seriously, btw. Bye. 151.52.254.197 (talk) 11:06, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Hounding

Since this report I filed in May, Dicklyon (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has engaged in increasing levels of hounding, disruptive and controversial page moves and capitalization changes, and other seemingly retaliatory behavior against myself and Qwirkle (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). This behavior has included:

• In just the last two days, he quickly followed my edits on Boston University Central station, edit-warred with Qwirkle and I there, made a personal attack, made the same disputed edits on Central station (MBTA) shortly after I made unrelated edits there, pinged me despite my explicit instructions not to, and followed me to an article he's never edited before just an hour after my edit. Despite me telling him Do not ever post on my talk page or ping me again unless you are explicitly required to - which I know he saw - he again posted on my user talk page a few days ago.
• This following behaior has gone on for months, with him making either capitalization changes that he's well aware I disagree with, or trivial changes to commas or dashes. Typical examples include Nubian station (not even two minutes after my edit), J Church, and Park Street station (three times, all lagging my edits by a few days). The majority of these are on articles related to the MBTA (and New England transportation generally) or Muni Metro. I have contributed heavily for years on both subjects, and on almost every of these articles I have made significant expansions prior to his involvement. He has made only style edits in these topic areas, with a notable increase within the past three months. I have warned him of both the following and the disruptive nature of his edits, so he is well aware that I believe he is following me.
• He commented multiple times at two ANI threads posted on my talk page (neither remotely related to him): to defend an editor who insulted me, and to offer advice to a sockpuppet angry that I brought them to SPI. He also followed Qwirkle to a completely unrelated ANEW report, and complained about both of us there.
• Immediately after I reverted his decapitalizations of "Central Subway", he created what I consider to be a blatant POV fork (completely duplicating existing information on the Green Line and Tremont Street subway articles) to legitimize his decapitalization. It's the only content addition whatsoever that he's done in MBTA-related articles.
• Less than 15 minutes after I converted that article into a redirect, he made undiscussed moves of Canal Street incline and Pleasant Street incline. (Making undiscussed controversial moves is a behavior that he has engaged in for years, despite multiple ANI threads about it.) This is part of a pattern of using moves as retaliation: he also opened an RM of an article I'd just created immediately after I filed that May ANI, and requested a technical move of MBTA bus hours after we clashed about capitalization on Green Line E branch and other articles. These disruptive moves are also based on his preferred lowercase style rather than actual research: he didn't do even a basic search before that RM, and his recent requested technical move of MBTA boat (which he claimed was based on sources) indicates that he didn't look at the sources, which overwhelmingly use "ferry" and not "boat".
• Twelve hours after I majorly expanded an article and nominated it for GA, he moved it. This article is completely outside my usual subject areas, an article that he'd never edited before, and the only such move (along with a second river of the same name) he made that day; I can't imagine him finding it other than by following my contributions.
• Two hours after I completed my initial version of Ipswich Street line and nominated it for GA, he made a cosmetic edit with an atypical edit summary. (He doesn't seem to have used "'n'" as a word separator in any other summaries). While he'd edited the article with a semi-automated tool while it was under construction, it seems a bit unlikely that he would have watchlisted it, and the unusual edit summary seems to imply 'I'm watching you'.
• On Commons, he casually mentioned checking the timestamps of my photos to see how close he was to encountering me in person.

I believe both a one-way I-ban and a topic ban from MBTA articles are necessary to stop this months-long pattern of harassment and disruptive editing, which has made me feel targeted and anxious, and constantly interferes with my editing. Given that his sole content addition in that topic area is a single stub article – every other one of hundreds of edits is a cosmetic tweak or disputed capitalization change – such a topic ban would not be interfering with actual content additions. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 03:12, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Dunno one way or the other what the best remedy is, but the description of behavior seems fairly accurate. Qwirkle (talk) 03:41, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Do not ever post on my talk page or ping me again unless you are explicitly required to

Is banning users from your talk page a thing here? While I would agree that if it gets disruptive (which becomes far more likely if someone has been told they're not welcome), I don't think banning another user from a talk page is an option. (unless an IBAN has been issued) Though you can certainly tell anyone they're not welcome.

While he'd edited the article with a semi-automated tool while it was under construction, it seems a bit unlikely that he would have watchlisted it, and the unusual edit summary seems to imply 'I'm watching you'.

This seems maybe a bit far-fetched. I have accidentally watchlisted thousands of pages because of tools. I don't see "case'n'space'n'dash" as a threat. Maybe Dicklyon's semi-automated tool wasn't working well for the article so he made a less automated edit and entered a jolly edit summary. Be careful not to read threats in edits that really aren't threats.

He commented multiple times at two ANI threads posted on my talk page (neither remotely related to him): to defend an editor who insulted me, and to offer advice to a sockpuppet angry that I brought them to SPI. He also followed Qwirkle to a completely unrelated ANEW report, and complained about both of us there.

I see absolutely nothing objectionable in the content of the first two links and little more than some annoyance in the third, which isn't actionable unless it's 1984.

On Commons, he casually mentioned checking the timestamps of my photos to see how close he was to encountering me in person.

15 July 2020 Krd deleted page File talk:Berryessa station artwork LIFE!.jpg (Ophaned talk page)

Besides being on Commons which makes it utterly irrelevant here unless it's part of a pattern that involves enwiki, which I'm not convinced of: the comment in question can't even be read, so unless you or another Commons admin undeletes the page, we can do nothing but assume good faith.

Dicklyon is quite an active editor, so it's likely inevitable that you'll cross paths here and there. Besides, if one sees a familiar username pop up in Special:Recentchanges or their watchlist, they are more likely to get involved. As an example, I have this page watchlisted because I edit it sometimes. I saw BorkNein's edit on my watchlist with "New section: Guy Macon". I've heard of Guy Macon, so I took a look. And right above that report was this report, which is why I'm now here. - Alexis Jazz 05:08, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Alexis Jazz, per WP:NOBAN, If an editor asks you not to edit their user pages, such requests should, within reason, be respected. The community has generally accepted that as the ability to ban users from your talkpage, and posting on someone's talkpage after such a request (in the absence of placing a required notification) is usually deemed disruptive and inappropriate. Grandpallama (talk) 13:43, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@Grandpallama: Thanks. Though the next line in that guideline is However, editors should not make such requests lightly, especially concerning their talk pages, as doing so can impede the ordinary communication which is important for the improvement and smooth running of the project. I think in general it is like I said: you can't ban anyone from your talk page, but if you signal that someone is not welcome, anything they do post on your user talk is much more likely to be considered disruptive. - Alexis Jazz 14:16, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

There are editors who share your view about the wording of the policy, but in practice, the community has consistently endorsed an interpretation that you are allowed to ban someone from your talkpage. Doing so repeatedly to numerous editors, to avoid criticism or over basic reminders/warnings, though, has also consistently resulted in smacks on the nose. Grandpallama (talk) 14:55, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

When I posted this on Pi's talk page, I had forgotten about his request to never post there or ping him unless required to. I was thinking it would be better to talk than to try to argue it out in revert edit summaries, which is where he was. I'd say if he doesn't want to hear from me, he should not say nonsense to me that needs a response. Dicklyon (talk) 18:17, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I've done my best to be civil with Pi and Qwirkle, over-capitalizers who like to revert my edits that conform with MOS:CAPS and other style items. I'm sorry Pi finds my style edits and moves to be trivial. On Stony Brook (Charles River tributary, Boston), he may not be aware that I have moved over 1000 river articles after working with Wikiproject Rivers on the river naming conventions. Nothing about him on that one. Most of the other articles were found by searches, and the MBTA articles were where most of the over-capitalizations of "subway" and "branch" and "tunnel" were found; others were at SF Muni, another set of articles he edits. And yes we happened to visit a new BART station on the same day, as I noticed when Pi replaced my photo with his and had another of my photos deleted. For our most recent disagreements, see the discussion I've got going at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Capping_of_bus_stops_at_rail_stations. I'm very surprised these guys want to talk about it at AN/I when they're so reluctant to talk at talk pages. I'm happy to have my edits and behavior examined, and will take feedback if found wanting. Dicklyon (talk) 06:48, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I, for one, have no problem discussing something on an article’s talk page. Why Dicklyon instead prefers to put himself on a user’s talk page I will leave as an exercise for the reader. Qwirkle (talk) 13:13, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

On the downcasing of "incline" and "portal", I think I had zero pushback from anybody on those, before or after the 2 page moves he mentions. So why is that coming up now? If I do something that's wrong, tell me. But sources say these ones are not wrong. Same with MBTA bus; nobody has suggested that maybe it should be MBTA Bus, which if we used it would be a WP-created proper name never seen in sources. Changes that nobody pushes back on are not generally thought of as "controversial", so bringing them up as such at AN/I represents some kind of pent-up need for over-capitalization, I guess. What's controversial is Pi's capping of "Station" contrary to the convention of WP:USSTATION, via obscure template/module hacking, and then repeatedly reverting my attempts to fix that, backed up by Qwirkle. Dicklyon (talk) 06:59, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

While on these things, I downcased "Tunnel" in State Route 99 tunnel. An editor objected and reverted, so we had an RM discussion; with no editors objecting there, it passed, and no problems remain. In MBTA articles, even after reaching consensus in RM discussions on "branch" and some other things, I continued to get a fight from Pi and Qwirkle in implementing the changes. I've also moved about a hundred other rail and station articles in the last month or so, mostly in India, Sweden, UK, and Vietnam, very few related to Pi, and with essentially zero pushback since the reasons for the moves are generally accepted and uncontroversial. It's what I do. That and rivers, and uploading and placing photos, where I also get mostly zero pushback. I think I've actually made a lot of great contributions recently; even a few new articles; only in the MBTA space am I running into strange pushback against implementing consensus style. Dicklyon (talk) 07:38, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Generally public works above a certain scale tend to be named, not merely desribed, with the name of the thing capitalized like any other proper-named thing. It isn’t Brooklyn bridge, or Pennsylvania station, not even on Wiki. Qwirkle (talk) 14:41, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Generally, that's not WP's approach, per MOS:CAPS. Yes, some tunnels have proper names; the State Route 99 tunnel is a big public work that does not; maybe some day they'll name it. Dicklyon (talk) 16:50, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Pi's a friend and I want to say something about hounding, having experienced it myself (not from Dicklyon). The issue here isn't the correctness of the edits, or where we all stand on NCCAPS as applied to bus stations. I think the point, and it's a reasonable one, is that every time Pi looks over his shoulder on this project (and Commons) he sees Dicklyon, and that makes him uncomfortable. He's been clear about that, and the point of WP:HOUNDING is that such behavior isn't okay, regardless of the edits themselves. Let's talk for a moment about Stony Brook (Charles River tributary, Boston). Dicklyon says he's worked on the naming convention for rivers, so no coincidence. Fine. That said, he was reverting a move that had occurred six months ago. Now, there's no deadline on Wikipedia, but reverting a six month old undiscussed move the same day Pi undertook a major expansion is the sort of thing that makes a user paranoid. It's possible to be making nothing but good-faith edits but still making another editor uncomfortable, and that's why we have a policy about hounding. The present dynamic here is unhealthy, it's affecting two good and productive editors, and something needs to change. Mackensen (talk) 11:03, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I've just reread WP:HOUNDING to see if anything I've been doing could be what it describes there. I don't see it. The only place my edits interfere with Pi or his enjoyment is where he's fighting for over-capitalization. The fact that I edited a few other articles that he edited should not have much affect on him, especially if they are edits that are unrelated to his, and that he has no objection to. If he's paranoid, it's not I who made him so. The dynamic that needs to be fixed is his sneaky way of working around case conventions by burying over-capitalization deep in template/module data, and running to AN/I instead of engaging sensibly in discussion about the disagreement. Dicklyon (talk) 16:50, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I particularly seek more input at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Capping_of_bus_stops_at_rail_stations. It is my intention to continue to fix the overcapitalization of bus route descriptions from Pi's June 26 and 27 edits, across many MBTA station articles. If someone sees a reason to not fix those, speak up. Dicklyon (talk) 18:39, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Reviewing Pi's opening complaint, I'm bewildered also about these claims:

• disruptive and controversial page moves and capitalization changes – where? which move might be considered disruptive? or controversial? what cap changes might be considered disruptive? or controversial even?
• other seemingly retaliatory behavior against myself and Qwirkle – what? I have nothing to retaliate for. I even had an extensive good collaboration with Qwirkle at Artillery wheel during this period. And I thought I had a friendly interaction with Pi when noticing the we both visited the new BART station on opening day to take pictures. I do wish they'd stop defending over-capitalization, but that's nothing that would provoke retaliation of any sort. Dicklyon (talk) 19:16, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
  • ”O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us....” Qwirkle (talk) 22:55, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

On sins of omission, guilty as charged. Probably I should have noticed that MBTA ferry would be a better title than MBTA boat, instead of just fixing the over-capitalization there. Maybe I should have sought a better title for MBTA bus, too, instead of just the case fix. Dicklyon (talk) 21:15, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

There in a nutshell is the crux of of the problem. Got a dispute that has gotten this far, but is unable to see any possibilities except that others are wrong. Qwirkle (talk) 22:13, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

And completely refuses to acknowledge, much less apologize for, the hounding that I described in my original post. That harassment is why we are here. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 04:48, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

You simply assume bad faith. As usual. - Alexis Jazz 11:26, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I ran some quick numbers, but without more reference points they are not very meaningful. 2% of the pages that Dicklyon has edited in the past three months have also been edited by Pi. 3% of the pages Mjdestroyerofworlds (otherwise unrelated, I was just trying out some users with possible overlapping interests) has edited have also been edited by Pi. So in conclusion Mjdestroyerofworlds is 50% more likely to be hounding Pi than Dicklyon. Lies, damned lies, and statistics of course, but maybe patterns will emerge if I try more users. Any suggestions for other users with similar interests? - Alexis Jazz 00:43, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Shockingly, users with common interests edit the same articles! The problem is not editing the same articles; Mj and I get along just fine, with our edits building off each others'. The problem is that Dicklyon follows my editing across multiple subjects in a manner that cannot be coincidental, moves articles as retaliation for disagreeing, makes repetitive edits that he's aware I consider unconstructive as the majority of his edits in my usual subject areas, and pretends to be unaware that all of this would bother any reasonable editor. That's harassment, and it's unacceptable, regardless of your previous grudge against me. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 04:48, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

The human brain is really good at seeing connections, even where there are none. With the edit volumes of the both of you, combined with common interests, you are bound to run into each other. Dicklyon's edit volume is considerably higher than yours, but your edits are, on the face of it, more substantial (I notice some copy pasting though, but that doesn't matter for the subject at hand) where Dicklyon does more small fixes. Neither is better or worse, but this guarantees that Dicklyon will often edit an article after you did. (or any other editor who adds substantial amounts of text) Because those substantial edits both cause the article to appear in searches for articles that could be improved as well as recent changes. The OP may just be a case of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, fallacy of the single cause and jumping to conclusions.

regardless of your previous grudge against me.

Is that where we are? You threatened me, falsely accused me of "treating anyone you disagree with as an adversary" and called Tuválkin, a respected editor, a "perpetual mess-maker". You said that I "antagonize anyone with a mop", so tell me, how come there are half a dozen admins (not to mention other users) who have been willing to make edits in my place without me even asking? Never mind your accusation that I "advocate for the worst blocked users" (which is false anyway), because some opinions must be suppressed, in particular those you don't agree with.

It is you who is holding a grudge. More than one, in fact. Which raises the question if Dicklyon could be one of them. - Alexis Jazz 11:26, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

non-admin comment To show hounding, try making a table, listing locations with a history link, sample timestamp of your edits, then time stamp of the claimed "following" by the other party. Also would help to have a fourth column showing all contribs of the other party at that location. Then anyone interested could quickly review the evidence for you complaint of hounding, without having to wade through the saga and do all that thinking and analysis for you. I did look at the diff for the claimed personal attack in the first bulleted point in the opening post, and that does seem excessively snarky at best and intentionally insulting at worst. If you can show (visually) the pattern of following by organizing the complain this way, you may have better luck generating an appropriate response.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:14, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

non-admin comment I commend NewsandEventsGuy for his suggestion on presentation—one likely to produce light rather than heat. I'd like to add a comment on crusading for Capitalization conformity. If a particular editor evinces strong disagreementwit your edit, there are thousands of Capitalized words on Wikipedia that may or my not require rectification. My suggestion to Dicklyon is to chose articles that Pi.1415926535 is not revising. This, to me, seems to have a great advantage for you, Dicklyon. Your work will more quickly advance and can win over editors who might agree with you. Engaging those who strongly disagree is perhaps not the best approach. When an editor begins to ready an article for GA review is not the best time for making minor changes which could best wait for the actual review. Being sensitive to other editors—e.g. discussion on article pages—oils the waters, so to speak, for very little effort. — Neonorange (Phil) 18:51, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I take them where I find them, and the rail space has long been a source of full employment for me. The MBTA corner of WP is a rich lode of over-capitalization, spaced hyphens, missing commas, and other common easy-to-fix non-controversial gnoming work to do. Pi doesn't object to most of my edits, it seems, but does love his caps in a few places. We've got "Bus" capped inappropriately in at least 100 articles still, so I'm working on that. He does not appear to object (how could he?). Should I avoid those just because MBTA is his turf? Dicklyon (talk) 23:34, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

My two cents...... in your heart of hearts, you know whether you're doing gnome work as it comes along, or whether you follow someone else to bugger them. If you're just doing good faith work as it comes along then carry on. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:47, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

So, here you are, once again at ANI over something, and you are still convinced it’s “uncontroversial”. Kewl. Qwirkle (talk) 01:39, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

If any of the edits under discussion were controversial, in your opinion, say which ones. Or revert and we can discuss, as I've been trying to do on the "Station" downcasing that you and Pi reverted in a few places, but you keep avoiding the discussions after you revert. Pretty much all of what Pi is complaining about here are uncontroversial edits, are they not? Dicklyon (talk) 05:50, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Any of those reverted are obviously controversial. Any made at a bot-like rate, where the possibility that any actual research was done behind it is low are controversial.

avoiding the discussions after you revert.Nonsense. The fact that people find you unwelcome on their talk pages doesn’t mean they are avoiding discussion, it means you are attempting it in the wrong place, twice over. Qwirkle (talk) 14:35, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

The discussion about recent reverts is still open at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Capping_of_bus_stops_at_rail_stations. The only thing you've said there is that you're not refusing to discuss. Pi has declined to respond to the ping there (and I recalled later he had asked me never to ping him, so he basically declined in advance to discuss). Dicklyon (talk) 18:02, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

So far the “discussion”, if it can be dignified as such, appears to be mere assertion.

That aside, the simple fact of disagreement makes something controversial, despite your belief -right, wrong, or debatable- that is should not be. Qwirkle (talk) 13:57, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Finding no reasonable objections, I'm going ahead and fixing case and dashes in the hundred or so articles that link to MBTA Bus. I'm trying JWB again, and finding it much more usable now that I have a big monitor instead of just a laptop. Please look and see if anything I'm doing there is controversial. Dicklyon (talk) 18:02, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

I find it very uncomfortable to be expected to respond in numerous places to someone who I feel is harassing me. Do not take a lack of immediate response for assent, especially given that I have repeatedly objected to this and other capitalization changes that I believe are incorrect. You have not produced any evidence that the capitalized names are not the official names (ie proper names). But that is merely a distraction from the real issue of your behavior. Responding to an ANI thread about hounding and repeated disputed edits by substantially increasing the rate of those disputed edits (including making additional un-discussed controversial moves) is incredibly hostile and un-collaborative behavior. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 02:16, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that reporting someone based on your gut feeling, not responding to replies from multiple editors who suggest you should come up with something better and not withdrawing the request either, that's a textbook example of non-hostile and collaborative behavior? - Alexis Jazz 09:08, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Pi, the caps discussion is the one I've linked for you in a few places. Re "additional un-discussed controversial moves", there's no such thing. The only recent move I made in your space was Friday, lowercasing carhouse in North Cambridge carhouse since it's not capped in sources (your favorite specialist fan book by Bradley Clarke shows up there without a preview; looking at page 119 I find "North Cambridge caryard" and "a former carhouse"; that's all). Are you suggesting that this one constitutes "additional un-discussed controversial moves"? I can't see how it's controversial to lowercase things seldom capped in sources, but I acknowledge that you do often argue for that, even when there's no credible case for capping, as here. Dicklyon (talk) 17:08, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

This seems like a pretty clear case of hounding to me, based on the evidence Pi has presented. Whether or not the MBTA-related articles ought to be lowercased is a somewhat tangential discussion, and is probably one that ought to be discussed more formally than just between Dicklyon/Pi/Qwirkle. I would suggest Dicklyon avoid making these changes to MBTA articles until such a discussion concludes, and to stop following Pi's editing. GorillaWarfare (talk) 14:30, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

The discussion is at the more general place WT:MOSCAPS – where still no input from Pi. And yes I did stop when someone reverted me, and I invited that other editor to that discussion. Previously, discussion there had stopped with nobody objecting, so I had restarted. And his is not related to following Pi around, though he was involved in some of that overcapping enforced by template back in June, as discussed there before his hounding accusation. Dicklyon (talk) 16:25, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare, I'm undecided if this is hounding or a case of Pi.1415926535 making edits contrary to MOS, that Dicklyon is correcting. Nobody likes having their edits reverted and Iit can feel like harrassment sometimes. However a neutral venue like Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Capping_of_bus_stops_at_rail_stations, a thread which Dicklyon started and others are watching, is a good opportunity to reach consensus on capitalization. I encourage Pi.1415926535 to participate.—Bagumba (talk) 16:56, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

@Dicklyon and Bagumba: That's great that there's a discussion open, and I too would recommend Pi engage there, though I think the best outcome will be if third parties (outside of Dicklyon, Pi, Qwirkle, and anyone else who's been involved in these ongoing conflicts over MBTA-related de/capitalization) join that discussion so it is not primarily those who have clearly not agreed on the subject in the past. It is also clear from Pi's comments above that he would rather avoid a continued direct conflict with Dicklyon over this, and so third party mediators/commentators might help that. I am not active in maintaining the MoS or in public transit editing so I don't have much to suggest, but perhaps this discussion will help bring more eyes to it. A formal RfC or similar might also get more uninvolved parties to weigh in.

I would also encourage Dicklyon to avoid making changes to Pi's work (which does appear to be targeted specifically towards Pi—whether because Dicklyon believes he is merely reverting a serial MoS-violator or for other reasons) until discussion has resolved.

I would also encourage Dicklyon to be considerably more patient—I see over at WT:MOSCAPS he has suggested With Pi not responding to ping here, and Qwirkle declining to discuss, maybe we can just get back to following MOS:CAPS over their objections. after only 24 hours had elapsed in that discussion, a period during which Pi had not been actively editing. A similar statement was made above (Finding no reasonable objections, I'm going ahead and fixing case and dashes in the hundred or so articles that link to MBTA Bus.), after this conversation had only been open a few days. It would be best to allow these conversations to run their course and to allow outside parties to weigh in before continuing the changes that are clearly not agreed upon between Dicklyon and Pi, and clearly upsetting to Pi. Not everyone edits round-the-clock, or even daily, especially if they are feeling frustrated or anxious because of ongoing conflict. The wiki is not going to go up in flames even if pages are incorrectly capitalized for a little bit. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:10, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm holding off pending comments on the discussion. I did about a hundred edits in other areas today. And yes, I do get impatient when an editor that needs to be discussing tells me not to talk to him or ping him. And with Qwirkle, who tends to make elliptic and cryptic comments instead of explaining his points in English. Dicklyon (talk) 07:14, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

The idea that Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style is a neutral venue beggars description. Qwirkle (talk) 18:33, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Qwirkle, there many people against the MOS status quo there as well. WP:AGF. At any rate, feel free to offer better alternatives.—Bagumba (talk) 01:39, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

That does not make it neutral ground, but, rather, a battleground. In fact, there as elsewhere, the loyal opposition sometimes throws one of their own under the juggernaut to gain points for later. Qwirkle (talk) 01:58, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Is there a place you think might be less of a battleground? An article talk page seems like a poor choice since this would affect multiple articles, but maybe some other discussion board that everyone could agree on? GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:42, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

WP:VPP is a good central place for getting a broad cross-section of people who care about policies and guidelines. Dicklyon (talk) 03:46, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Qwirkle, offer a better venue. Please consider an WP:RFC or other dispute resolution channels.—Bagumba (talk) 03:49, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Machinexa

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

Despite several warnings and guidances by me and other editors, Machinexa persists in adding content to articles about health effects while using citations that do not comply with WP:MEDRS. Latest is Berberine. See also Nicotine. This results in a very high revert percentage. David notMD (talk) 13:26, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Machinexa is a problem editor who, despite numerous warnings about adding unreliable sources and poorly composed content - and even admitting inadequate knowledge or competence on topics (mostly in WP:MED articles) - continues unabated, causing other editors to clean up a mess. MED topic-ban recommended. Zefr (talk) 13:58, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

• Topic ban from medical articles, broadly construed, for their failure to understand WP:MEDRS. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:51, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@Amkgp: I have undone your close, as admins cannot unilaterally impose topic bans in this area. It must instead be a community sanction. My statement was a !vote for a topic ban, not saying that I had imposed one. Admins may only unilaterally apply discretionary topic bans in certain areas. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:19, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I second the suggestion of a topic ban. I have also interacted with Machinexa. They seem in general to be acting in good faith but cannot or will not follow WP:MEDRS. They make significant numbers of edits everyday that require review and policing for quality and conformity to sourcing and citation rules. Wallnot (talk) 21:15, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

• Topic ban per above ~ HAL333 21:18, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

IP block

Hi, Could someone range-block 2.218.85.153 as they keep adding redundant categories and don't ever listen, The last discussion was at User_talk:TKOIII#Ford_Fiesta where the same IP chimes in there, Blocking alone never achieves anything as they simply return whereas rangeblocking sort of does a better job, Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 18:05, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Davey2010, Can you point out some of the other IP addresses so I can put an appropriate rangeblock together? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:46, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Hey CaptainEek, 2.123.32.0/20, 2.125.184.101, 2.127.78.222, 90.195.58.193 and 90.195.51.28 are the most recent I know of, Apologies for not mentioning these earlier, Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 19:21, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I've blocked the originally reported IP, but the 2.12/././ IP range is too big to rangeblock. If they edit again, let me know their IP so we can narrow down their current range. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:35, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Okay will do CaptainEek, Many thanks for your help here, It's much appreciated, Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 19:42, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

The other ranges have been blocked; it looks like this range is 2.218.84.0/22. Peter James (talk) 15:32, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

User:Raval77

I am bit concerned about the amount of new page content that Raval77 is creating regarding World Games, every new creation might have one single citation entry. But this seems like mass creation without regards for true GNG. Govvy (talk) 22:39, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

• Eh, that's not good. I've warned the editor not to create any more whilst this is discussed. None of these articles, as far as I can see, are viable - they're only sourced to primary source, and are about sports events from a minor meeting, comprising mostly non-notable athletes (I mean - Lifesaving at the 2017 World Games - Women's 50m Manikin Carry - really?). My temptation is to just nuke the lot of them, but that's very IAR (they don't conform to any CSD catergory), and alternatively I really hate bundled AfDs. And in this case there are around 460 articles. Just PRODding them all (quite apart from the effort involved) will of course attract one of the usual suspects who just remove the PRODs for no reason, meaning we'll end up at AFD anyway. So - ideas? Black Kite (talk) 00:21, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Wasn't sure if we get a response from Raval or not, but every time I see one of these articles I might start PRODing them. Govvy (talk) 14:06, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Problematic editing by Za-ari-masen

Za-ari-masen has been relentlessly pushing Bangladeshi nationalism on large number of South Asia-related articles. He has violated WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:EW, and WP:Civility. I’ll share examples of these, in brief.

In languages related to South Asia: Za-ari-masen has been changing shared the Bengali and Assamese script to the Bengali script only. In Bengali–Assamese script, he moved a shared Bengali and Assamese script to Bengali script.[14] He was warned by Amakuru not to do so ("please stop moving this page without consensus") even though their previous attempt to POV push on the page failed.[15]. Without discussion, using a random claims, which was challenged in Bengali–Assamese script, he changed Bengali-Assamese script on mass to Bengali Script, this can be seen here for Rangpuri language, here and here for Hajong language, here for Chittagonian language, here for Sylheti language, here for Chakma language.

To provide some background, the Bengal region is shared between the countries of India and Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan, which was created through the partition of India in 1947 along communal lines). In South Asian cuisine, he has been changing many articles to Bangladeshi only, even though it is a shared South Asian dish that both the Bengali people of India and Bangladesh consume. It would be neutral to list the origin as the Bengal region of South Asia or medieval India or of Bangladesh and India, but not Bangladesh alone as they have been doing. In chomchom, the Banglapedia source he used, only stated it was a favorite in Tangail, but used that to put the origin of chomchom of Bangladesh, however, this was reverted by admin Utcursch with the following: "The source doesn't support what you're stating". This again after edit warring with Gotitbro here. At the same time, in Bangladesh Liberation War, he removed all mention of "India" on the infobox.[16] This has been a trend by him in many articles, he removed all mention of "India" from the infobox on many South Asian cuisine and unilateral modifications involving "Bengali" to "Bangladeshi" and removing any mention of India or Indian cuisine from the infobox as they have done here on Misti doi, here on Bakarkhani, here on Mughai paratha, here on jhalmuri. Even after on shorshe ilish from May 2015 it was decided that Bengal will be given "dish clearly predates the division of Bengal", he removed any mention of "India" and changed it to Bangladesh only as seen here. His edit warring on edit warring on Bakarkhani resulted in two blocks [17], he has started a new edit warring in Mishti doi, as seen here, here, and here, again a blatant violation of WP:EW, multiple refs were provided to him that misti doi was a shared dish as seen here, here, and here, still he decided to stonewall and wikilawyer.

In Bengali and East Indian history: he changed in Gauda (city) the entire lead and infobox to put Bangladesh in prominence, even though the majority of the city falls in Malda district of India. [18] When he was confronted by Gotitbro, "sources are pretty clear that the Gauda falls in Malda, rvt POV alphabetic arrangement and coords" instead of engaging in dialog in the talk page, Za-ari-masen moved to edit war.here and here. Pala Empire, he inserted "Bangladeshi art and Sculpture of Bangladesh" in there. Bangladesh was founded in 1971, long after the Pala Empire. The Palas spoke proto-Bengali, not even modern Bengali[19]. NavjotSR explained this on the talk page of Bakarkhani.

Za-ari-Masen consistently conflates Bengali ethnicity with Bangladeshi nationality, though once again, the Bengal region is shared between India and what is now Bangladesh. He then went to engage in an edit war with Soug, redirecting Bengali American to Bangladeshi American. As mentioned, the user has a consistent habit of conflating Bengali with Bangladeshi, even though there are 100 million Bengalis in India. The edit war with User:Soug clearly violated WP:EW as seen here, here, here, here, and here. Five total reverts over the same subject on the same article with two editors.

I tried to discuss the issue with the editor in question on his talk page but nothing worked out. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 04:47, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the alleged civility problems; As for EWing maybe there's an issue, I don't know. I find the story telling format hard to follow. YOu might get ideas for presenting the EWing problem by reviewing other cases at the edit warring board WP:3RRN. (Comment by nonadmin) NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 08:55, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Response by Za-ari-masen: Suppose the article Gumbo is unsourced and shows North America as its place of origin. Now some editor added a citation from a WP:RS and changed the place of origin to Louisiana, United States, would you call him an American nationalist POV pusher? :)

This is pretty much the summary of the whole dispute in different articles mentioned by Aman.kumar.goel. The dispute started with Bakarkhani where all the uninvolved editors agreed with my edit that the bread originated in or primarily associated with Dhaka, Bangladesh.[20], [21], [22], [23]. This failure to push the unsourced Indian nationalist POV on Bakarkhani made him to follow my edits, compile them and eventually leave messages on my user talkpage[24], [25] in extreme bad faith, along with sending inappropriate notifications by pinging users who share his POV in that discussion.

These cuisine/history related articles have also been regularly disrupted by the now indefinitely blocked (and earlier topic-banned) User:Highpeaks35 and his sock IPs to push the Indian nationalist POV, as discussed and proven here and a lot of my reverts went to undo the sanction evasions by this user. I have also been targeted by Highpeaks35 and his IPs as he left messages on different pages attacking me as well as tagging editors who share his POV, Aman.kumar.goel is one of them.

If I was really pushing plain nationalism in different articles, I wouldn't be starting discussions or taking initiatives to solve the dispute as I did on Bakarkhani[26] and Talk:Mishti doi[27]. Without even participating in the discussions in a civil manner, Aman.kumar.goel directly reported me here which shows his intentions basically lies in getting his ideological opponents blocked/banned than having the disputes resolved. This is also validated by a comment made by an admin earlier on Aman.kumar.goel's grudges against his opponents, [28]. Also, notice, Aman.kumar.goel has a habit of misrepresenting diffs as he did in this discussion by falsely claiming some diffs as my edit warring. Earlier another editor has also claimed the same about Aman.kumar.goel's behaviour.[29]

Aman.kumar.goel has also been previously blocked [30] for edit warring, yet he has continued to edit war and revert my edits, [31], [32] as well as other editors in different articles, particularly on Bangladesh Liberation War, [33], [34], [35], [36].

I have explained my edits in each of these articles below, a lot of which have been copy-pasted from my user talkpage where I've already explained these things.

Extended content

Mishti doi: after Utcurch expressed his concern, I added few more sources and again, made changes according to the sources. [37], [38], [39]. All these edits were reverted by Gotitbro, claiming Utcursch endorsed his revert.[40] The claim was proven false when I asked Utcursch if he really endorsed that revert[41], which he denied saying "I have not made any similar edits, so I'm not sure why my name is being used. I don't endorse those edits."[42] Gotitbro again removed those sourced content, claiming The Daily Star (Bangladesh) is a "problematic ref".[43]. I opened a discussion at the talk page requesting to explain there before removing the sources.[44] It had been 13 days and no response had been given. The references provided here by Aman.kumar.goel don't even contradict my sourced edit in the article about the origin of the dish, rather just mention the dish as Bengali dessert. My edits did include the mention that Mishto doi is also popular in India, so I'm not sure what nationalism Aman.kumar.goel is talking about. Mughlai Paratha: had also been affected by sock IPs of Highpeaks35. I checked the sources and there were plenty of source misrepresentations which I removed (my edit summaries there already explain this). I went through the history of the article and restored the better sourced version. Same story with Jhalmuri and Chotpoti, I added sources and made changes per the sources. Shorshe Ilish, Pala Empire, Gauḍa (city), Chomchom were all disrupted by evasions of Highpeaks35. On the language scripts, sources for all these languages say they use Bengali script as the writing system and I changed the infobox accordingly. Bangladesh Liberation War, a small glance over the history of this article can show Aman.kumar.goel has been practicing WP:OWN to push his Indian nationalist POV on the article and has been reverting and edit warring with every editor who edit this article. Bengali American has been put into AFD twice, 1, 2 and in both times, the consensus was to convert it into a disambiguation page which I tried to restore but they were reverted by the article creator and Gotitbro who was simply reverting all my edits at that time as I was having a dispute with him on Bakarkhani.

Za-ari-masen (talk) 01:59, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

---

Aman.kumar.goel, Za-ari-masen, your respective reports are too dense. Try limiting yourself to a few summaries with diffs attached rather than all this prose. We are all volunteers here. El_C 02:04, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

I've shortened my statement a bit but I'm not sure which part to remove further and would like to wait for Aman.kumar.goel's shortened report, to make appropriate response. Till then, my collapsed extended content could be ignored if that helps. Apologies for the troubles. Za-ari-masen (talk) 02:32, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

• The small version of my report would be: Za-ari-masen, who even calls things a "hoax"[45] without any basis, is still engaging in WP:OR,[46][47][48] (revert with twinkle rollback), [49][50] even after having been clearly told about it[51][52][53][54] and continues to edit war over the content. Fact that he does not see any problem with his edits is really concerning. His justification for such POV pushing as seen on the talk page that "Modern Bangladesh was formed in 1971 that doesn't mean cuisine that originated here should avoid being called Bangladeshi. Also take a look at the featured article Gumbo that shows United States as the place of origin even when the origin of the soup predates the foundation of the United States. Same with Maple Syrup."(from 14 July) just shows that he lacks any idea about how WP:RS and WP:OR works. Since he prefers keeping his preferred but problematic version while the dispute runs and in violation of WP:EDITWAR and WP:OWN this is why the user has become a time sink. Aman Kumar Goel ^(Talk) 05:19, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

• All my edits are adequately sourced from reliable sources and can be easily verified in the diffs, so I'm not sure where WP:OR is coming from, rather the versions before my edits were largely unsourced. When the accusation of nationalist POV was not enough to challenge my edit, he began questioning The Daily Star (Bangladesh) as a WP:RS, which has been widely cited on Wikipedia including on featured articles, an example of his WP:Gaming the system. The example of Gumbo was brought to show the convention on related featured articles over the infobox, when he nationalistically pushed for removing any mention of Bangladesh from these articles, despite being already refuted on the discussion in Bakarkhani. WP:OWN rather applies to Aman.kumar.goel himself as he has quite zealously kept his preferred version on Bangladesh Liberation War, reverting all other editors who disagrees, in violation of WP:EW, [55], [56], [57], [58]. He has made similar reverts in content disputes on Ayurveda [59], Nathu La and Cho La clashes[60] and on countless other articles. Notice, the editor YuukiHirohiko who he has a dispute with, has also been reported by him at WP:ARE, a continuation of his WP:BATTLEGROUND approach. Why I called the term "Eastern Nagari" as hoax and what came of the move discussion of the article, can easily be found in the talkpage's archive so I'm not prolonging my statement by adding unnecessary details. Za-ari-masen (talk) 10:44, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Saurab Mani Rimal

• Saurab Mani Rimal (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• User talk:Nuwakot, Nuwakot (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)
• Nuwakot, Bagmati (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Nuwakot, Nuwakot (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Doing some WP:WCW work and happened upon Nuwakot, Bagmati and Nuwakot, Nuwakot being redirects to a user talk page. On investigating, the editor appears to have blanked the page then moved it to a User talk page for a user that doesn't exist. Jerod Lycett (talk) 09:04, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Jerod Lycett. I have reverted the page move and blanking, and I shall check the editor's history to see whether what is needed is a friendly message about why those steps were mistakes, or something more serious. JBW (talk) 13:32, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

A request for help with a sockpuppeteer

A sockpuppeteer is being highly disruptive: see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Dunnt717. New socks are coming up and editing so rapidly that it is impossible to keep up with all the blocking and reverting that is needed. Several editors have been helping with reverting, but none of us can keep on doing so for ever, and I am having to leave soon, after working on this one case non-stop for about half an hour. Any help from any editor in reverting, and in spotting new socks, and any help from administrators in blocking, will be very welcome. JBW (talk) 10:31, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Obviously protecting pages that have been attacked by more than one sock could be possible, but I am afraid that might just lead to the sockpuppeteer moving on to other pages that we don't know about, making it harder to spot. I am in two minds as to whether it's worth a try. JBW (talk) 10:36, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I have been reverting on his latest sock User:Magi717 - they appear to be putting a tag on that gets removed by a bot, which removes the ability to rollback?   Kadzi   (talk) 11:34, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

That's crafty - if they're all editing from the same IP, it may be worthwhile to implement a block to the IP and account creation Ed6767 talk! 11:51, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

The editor has edited from an IP address without using an account. It's an IPv6 address, which makes it possible that the editor has been easily able to switch to new IP addresses within a /64 range, thus evading autoblocks each time a new account is blocked. If that is so, then blocking the /64 range with logged-in editing blocked should put a stop to the shenanigans, so I've done that. Whether it works remains to be seen, but if that is indeed the case then doing IP editing was a gift to us. JBW (talk) 12:44, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

See notes at the SPI. We've put some blocks in place to slow them down but I expect they'll be back. But generally yes, if you're blocking an IPv6 address you can safely default to blocking the /64 range. See mw:Help:Range blocks/IPv6 for a technical explanation, but generally you can assume that a /64 is one end-user. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:40, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, but don't do hard blocks on Verizon Wireless. That's just going to cause endless collateral damage without accomplishing much of anything useful. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 15:02, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Barakah The Prince

Hello,

Barakah The Prince had been drafted by user @Jikaoli Kol: and I think it's not the right thing to do.

1. Barakah is quite popular in East Africa and has been involved in quite a number of awards, mostly African and has 1.5 million followers on Instagram.
2. Instead of imposing a draft on it, it should have a reference stub.
3. Some of the info there, I was given directly by the management of the artist, and I cannot post that as evidence well because of privacy issues.

Please resolve this issue in the most amicable way possible--RazorTheDJ (talk) 21:21, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Given that the only source cited in that article which isn't a broken link would fail WP:RS, I'd say that draftifying the article was about as 'amicable' as could reasonably be expected. You should probably familiarise yourself with WP:RS and WP:N, and quite possibly with WP:COI too. 109.159.88.21 (talk) 21:29, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

So there are there broken links in the article?--RazorTheDJ (talk) 21:41, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes. Only the first two links work. They are both to the same page, which is written by the article subject, and as such no use whatsoever in establishing notability. 109.159.88.21 (talk) 21:49, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Note: RazorTheDJ has now moved the article to Barakah Da Prince (note 'Da' not 'The'). I sincerely doubt that the independent sources cited establish notability according to Wikipedia criteria, and the claims made which might possibly establish notability lack sourcing. And the name change looks to me to be questionable, to say the least. 109.159.88.21 (talk) 23:32, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Gulshanravilahore

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

---

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

The user has a ton of warnings, including at least one fourth level warning, on their page for their disruptive editing. I actually went to their page to mention their removal of a maintenance tag for an article needing copy-edits (Muhammad Junaid Journalist). That's when I noticed the many warnings and the fact that they had the same version of the article moved into draft-space before creating it at its current name (Draft:Muhammad Junaid). They were also already blocked once for some of their actions, and have been warned about their actions five times since returning. Jerod Lycett (talk) 23:13, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Jerodlycett, I have blocked the user from article space due to failure to WP:ENGAGE. Guy (help!) 22:18, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

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

User:Samurai_Kung_fu_Cowboy

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

---

A user named Samurai_Kung_fu_Cowboy seems to have a bone to pick with me after he was sanctioned for behavioural issues last year. In 2019 he was issued a long-term block for edit-warring, and since his recent return he has been regularly contacting me because he feels that I'm responsible for his block, rather than his own behaviour. It was made very clear to him by the blocking Admin that upon returning from the block, he should consider himself on a short leash [61], while that same Admin also noted that he was likely making efforts to evade the block [62].

At any rate, his most recent tangent began after two of his edits were reverted (this one [63] and this one [64] for failing to source and for contravening the MOS) and the reasons for both reverts were explained to him via the edit summaries. He didn't react well, and he first left 4 separate irate messages on my talk page making various accusations such as acting in bad faith, stalking him, and bullying him [65], none of which I responded to, before he made it clear that he forbids me from initiating conversation with him [66], before he followed up with multiple additional messages [67]. There were then two additional messages left on his own talk page [68] which are just more random accusations.

Finally, it looks like he sorted through my edit history and found another editor who I was involved in a dispute with at some point, and he actually canvassed that editor to join with him and "do something about" me [69]. I'm sure some line must have been crossed by now. SolarFlash^Discussion 00:04, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

I notice that the two reverts you mention (but neglect to take credit for) were also your first ever edits to those pages. It's a bit funny that that's not part of your story here. Also the part where you called them "paranoid" twice. Maybe you should come in again. --JBL (talk) 00:55, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

This place is for dispute resolution, not dispute creation. Your reply seems in bad faith. Yes, both reverts were mine and anyone can see that, so I don't need to take credit for them. Go instigate confrontations somewhere else. SolarFlash^Discussion 01:20, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

---

The best thing to do right now is probably deescalate by not interacting with or commenting on one another for the immediate future. Does that work for both of you, SolarFlash and Samurai Kung fu Cowboy? El_C 01:31, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

That works beautifully for me but clearly it's easier said than done. He honestly believes he's being stalked [70]; sooner or later our paths will no doubt cross and I have a hunch he'll take that same tone again and we'll all be back here for another round. So as long as you're fine with that, the matter's out of my hands. As it stands right now, today, that particular user has edits that need to be fixed or reverted but I know damn well I can't go anywhere near them because he'll start screaming that he's being bullied and harassed, so clearly I'm already doing my best to de-escalate. SolarFlash^Discussion 01:50, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Can you or another Admin at least ask him to strike out or self-revert [71] the edit in which he openly solicits another editor to join up with him to "do something" about me? I'd have to look through the guidelines but that type of behaviour has to be against one of them. SolarFlash^Discussion 02:02, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done. If Samurai Kung fu Cowboy does not respond to this report soon, I'll just warn them on their own talk page. El_C 02:08, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Obliged. SolarFlash^Discussion 02:18, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

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

POV user persistently adding unreliable sources

Ninos2576 (talk · contribs)

I tried to fix him in one page and warn him about using unreliable sources. But I saw lots of things to fix by taking a look at this user's edits and there were warnings about unreliable sources at his talk page already. For this reason, I am bringing it here for admins' and community's attention. 217.131.85.124 (talk) 06:23, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

My apologies in advance my response on this page is not formatted correctly, since this is my first time responding on a noticeboard page.

I do not recall ever receiving a warning about the reliability of my sources from anyone. Perhaps a few months ago when I was still new to Wikipedia I may have gotten one that I didn't notice. But the only warning about sources on my talk page is referring to an edit that I made where I didn't include a source at all, not one where I included an unreliable source. And I quickly fixed the non-sourced edit that is referred to on my page.

In terms of my other edits with unreliable sources, the report has not made it clear at all which sources I have ever used that were unreliable. If I had some more specificity, I would be happy to go back and revise those as well. But I currently don't have that.

Lastly, I believe that the assumption that I am a "POV user" simply because I am an ethnic Assyrian who has edited pages that pertain to Assyrians is very problematic. The argument essentially comes down to the idea that I cannot be objective when writing about my own ethnicity.

This last argument is not only somewhat racially insensitive, but also ignores the fact that I attach reliable sources to every edit that I have made in recent times, even when they are about a group of people that I am a part of. The only notice I have ever received on my talk page is about a time when I didn't include a source on an edit I made, (not about including an unreliable one). And I quickly fixed the issue as soon as I was made aware of it. I will be happy to go back and look at/fix/get rid of the sources that I have used that are considered unreliable once I actually know what those sources are. But since a notice hasn't been left on my talk page and I do not have any prior memory of being told about it before, I don't how what sources are being discussed here.

I am happy to look at them if a message is left on my talk page about what sources are specifically being mentioned. Ninos2576 (talk) 07:24, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

The OP has failed to substantiate their case (by submitting evidence in the form of diffs), so their complaint risks casting aspersions. El_C 07:31, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

EL C I agree. I should have provided diffs but there are lots of things to link and I have just started fixing his latest edits on a page and I will leave his other edits on other pages to others. They were warned by other editors for not being careful about neutrality and reliable sources. I invited one of them to the discussion. In addition, civil pov-pushing is still pov-pushing and still diminishes the reliability and reputability of Wikipedia. 217.131.85.124 (talk) 07:50, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

IP, you are still making complaints which lack diffs. That's not good. Please be accountable to participants — attribute any respective claim about other editors with diff-evidence, so that the information could be verified. El_C 08:24, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Long-term Belarus vandal ranges

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

---

Since December 2019, nothing but vandalism has come from the Belarus IP range Special:Contributions/178.120.255.0/21. They have also been vandalizing Russian language Wikipedia. The same stuff is coming from the Belarus range Special:Contributions/37.214.240.0/21, starting earlier, in October 2019.[72] Can we get two rangeblocks? Binksternet (talk) 07:54, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Both editors blocked – for a period of one year. El_C 07:57, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

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

New editor adding articles en masse to parent category, possibly politically driven

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

---

D.S. Morgenbesser (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appeared today and has been adding numerous article to Category:Conservatism despite the articles already being in appropriate sub-categories. Dimadick reverted them at Pat Buchanan, D.S. Morgenbesser restored himself with the edit summary "It is reasonable to suggest that a stronger overview of conservatism can be acquired by Wikipedia's readers if notable adherents of it are categorized by both their subcategory in it, and their being found on the main category. This might be perceived as redundant if not for the need to carefully, thoroughly map political alignment, minus excess of technicality. I respectfully dispute reversion." The behaviour is extremely suspect, and I believe should be reverted on sight. Thoughts? Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 10:28, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

I have mass-reverted the mass-additions. I also cautioned D.S. Morgenbesser that their approach is problematic. Hopefully, they will move on from this to edits which are otherwise uncontested. El_C 10:51, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

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

Intractable behaviour from IP editor 2A01:4B00:881D:3700:5903:D07:49EC:BEAE

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

---

I'm posting this again because earlier complaints on this page have been ignored by admins.

An anonymous IP editor at 2A01:4B00:881D:3700:5903:D07:49EC:BEAE with a history of disruptive editing and WP:INCIVILITY has returned after a period of quiet to post unfounded accusations at other editors of being paid to edit Wikipedia on the High Speed 2 article. Previous attempts at addressing his/her content concerns have only been met with insults and slanderous comments. This is persistent, intractable behaviour.

Previous incident reports concerning this IP range can be seen here:

• March 2020
• May 2020.

These only resulted in temporary bans for the IP range. The editor simply waited for the ban to expire before returning to behave disruptively.

I was prepared to let all this lie now, but just this week, the IP has reawakened to start causing more trouble.

• This talk page message looks to me like the IP is WP:CANVASSING another (innocent) editor to participate in retaliatory edit warring to get revenge on User:Sceptre for an earlier disagreement.
• In this article talk post the IP editor has ignored previous warnings and has started to accuse other editors of being "pro HS2 fanatics", having "vested interests" and being "astroturfers".
• Yesterday I was once again accused of being an "astroturfer" in a public forum. The IP has been explicitly warned not to call people "astroturfer" - a warning that the IP has blatantly ignored.

It is extraordinary that nothing is being done to deal with this. Why is this persistently abusive IP being treated so leniently? A permanent ban please - we're all fed up with this. Cnbrb (talk) 12:09, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

• 2A01:4B00:881D:3700::/64 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)) blocked for one year. Indefinite bans of IP addresses are more or less forbidden by policy, but a year ought to give them time to find something else to do. They are the only user on this IP range. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 14:45, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

At last, thank you so much. This was dragging on for way too long and a number of editors were getting very frustrated. Cnbrb (talk) 16:20, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

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

WP:CIR issue on Vehicle registration plates of Wisconsin

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

---

For two weeks now - including on each of the last three days - an anonymous user at the range 2603:6000:8D40:77F:0:0:0:0/64 has been making a series of edits to Vehicle registration plates of Wisconsin that, with the very greatest of respect in the world, do not demonstrate competence.

Their edits have included changing serial and date ranges...

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin&diff=965983967&oldid=965980919
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin&diff=966013310&oldid=966011122
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin&diff=966035642&oldid=966022389

...changing stated dates to ones in the future...

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin&diff=966014547&oldid=966013431 (to "July 7" on July 4)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin&diff=968229621&oldid=968220012 (to "July 20" on July 18)

...and adding trivia that is not only unnecessary, but also poorly worded.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin&diff=966035976&oldid=966035642
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin&diff=966036430&oldid=966035976
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin&diff=966037337&oldid=966036673
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin&diff=966038048&oldid=966037337

And the edit summary field has been left blank for each and every one of these edits.

As ever, it's not for me to comment on this individual's state of mind, background, or English literacy skills. But I will say that, having reported them previously, I am disappointed that they have continued to make these edits, to the extent that I have felt compelled to report them for a second time. I don't really like reporting other users, but sadly this is one of those situations where I feel I don't have much choice. Klondike53226 (talk) 18:21, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

I've put a partial block on editing Vehicle registration plates of Wisconsin by that range; I agree that these are broadly good-faith edits that are just generally sloppy and incompetent, and they haven't communicated with others. There's been a level of unhelpful contribution on other pages too, but intermittent and minor - if they go off somewhere else and start failing to help, let me know and it can be made a full block if needed. ~ mazca ^talk 19:36, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Mazca. :) Klondike53226 (talk) 22:28, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

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

Slow-motion edit war?

• 86.168.29.222 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Turnabout (game show) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hello people! I appear to be in a slow-motion edit war with a user who is hopping IP addresses. Diffs: [73] [74] [75]

The IP is also making other wrong or wishful-thinking unsourced edits elsewhere, several of which I've reverted, as have others. But this one subject, Turnabout (game show) of all things, is where they are most obsessed.

What are my next options here, given that the IP keeps changing? And am I at risk of making trouble for myself if I keep reverting them (3RR?) over this minor, but annoying, problem?

I've not contacted the IP editor on their talk page (about the edits or about this ANI post) because the IP keeps changing and I don't think I'll catch the current user if I do - I always seem to log-on a few hours or days after they've last edited; they are however reading my edit notes as far as I can tell. ◦ Trey Maturin 18:55, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Trey Maturin, FYI they are all Doncaster IP from the ISP BT. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:30, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

What about a vandal block on the single IP, and a semiprotection of Turnabout (game show). EdJohnston (talk) 22:53, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

User: Krimuk 2.0

So I started a discussion at Alia Bhatt who has been getting a lot of backlash from public and media publications for her behavior within the film industry. This incident has been widely covered by the media and I was surprised to see that there was no mention of it in this article. Hence, I opened a discussion but surprisingly was reverted by User:Krimuk2.0 and in the summary he made a CONSPIRACY THEORY AND ACCUSATORY remark that This is not twitter; stick to sending rape and death threats to people like Bhatt and me on social media. This is a serious false accusation. NOTE: I have not interacted with this editor outside of Wikipedia talk pages since last four years and have NEVER interacted with him on any social media. So this false accusation should be taken seriously as it is a very serious violations of our "assume good faith" (AGF) guideline and "no personal attacks" (NPA) policy.Krish | Talk To Me 18:57, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Regardless of any other concerns, and regardless of whether Krimuk's response was appropriate, WP:BLP policy applies to article talk pages. I suggest that if you wish to discuss changes to content, you cite sources. And don't state allegations as fact. 109.159.88.21 (talk) 19:14, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

User:Emir of Wikipedia (moved from WP:AN)

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

---

I am concerned with two sets of recent edits by User:Emir of Wikipedia. Firstly he edited my sandbox which I find totally inappropriate and unhelpful. He then edited Towera Vinkhumbo which I recently updated. He archived a load of links which I don't believe needed archiving. Am I missing something ? Is this some new procedure I'm unaware of ? I have never come across this before in over ten years as an editor. To me it smack or vandalism and spam editing. Djln Djln (talk) 19:46, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Djln, getting rid of BLP violations is not vandalism or spam editing. Maybe reinstating them is. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:49, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

This has also been brought to Wikipedia:Requests for page protection#Towera Vinkhumbo too. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:52, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Exhibit A and Exhibit B of you attacking me. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:18, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Moved from AN to ANI. – Frood (talk) 20:22, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Frood, thanks for putting this in the right place. I think it is kind of ironic that Djln is trying to bring up the fact that have over 10 years of experience here, and then trying to act like they are an expert on vandalism and spam editing despite doing that. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:28, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Frood Can you are anybody people explain the actions of Emir of Wikipedia. I don't understand what he is playing at. I'm at a loss. Is he a legitimate editor or some sort of hacker or vandal. None of the edits he made to my sandbox or Towera Vinkhumbo come across as legitimate. I am a long established editor of nearly 15 years and I've never come across anything like. I've had disputes with other editors but nothing like this. WTF is going on. Djln Djln (talk) 20:32, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Please note that I did make these comments on their talkpage which their removed with this edit. --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:43, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

I am confused. You’re mad he edited your sandbox and an article you also edited? Can you provide specific diffs of the problem? Praxidicae (talk) 20:48, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Seriously? Both of you need to grow up. @Djln: Archiving links is literally the entire purpose of InternetArchiveBot. To prevent link rot. (That seems a bit unnecessary on a draft that you're working on, though.) You're reverting Emir of Wikipedia's edits that are removing content that violates the BLP policy for being unreferenced, and then personally attack them.

@Emir of Wikipedia: why did you feel the need to tag Djln's sandbox for deletion four times after he undid your edit? Yes, the BLP policy applies to userspace, but it specifically says Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced and not related to making content choices should be removed, deleted, or oversighted, as appropriate. I don't think I'd consider this person's birthday to be "contentious", especially when it's a draft. There are certainly some people whose birthdays are controversial, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. – Frood (talk) 20:50, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)Providing some relevant diffs to see if I can summarize the situation. Emir made several helpful edits to Djln's sandbox, some of which remained in place before the sandbox was blanked. This does make it rather hard to buy Djln's line that editing his sandbox was totally inappropriate and unhelpful. That said, it's generally expected that if a user asks you to stop editing a page within their userspace, you should stop. That said, Djln's request was not fucking reasonable in the slightest. This does not excuse Emir continuing to edit after receiving the message. Emir technically has a point about BLP here but over such a trivial matter as a birthdate it comes across as WP:POINTy. That does not excuse Djln following Emir to unrelated articles to disruptively revert him there out of almost admitted revenge.
  TL;DR: @Djln and Emir of Wikipedia: Both of y'all are acting inappropriately, both of y'all are provoking each other, stop it. @Djln: If I was going to take action here, it'd be on you because someone who has been here 15 years should damn well know that this is not how you ask someone to stop editing in your user space, this is how you ask to get blocked. @Emir of Wikipedia: The reason I'm not taking any action against Djln is that you were pretty clearly goading him, too.
  Again, both of you, knock it off. Ian.thomson (talk) 20:55, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
• Frood, Ian.thomson. With the greatest of respect. I was the one the whose contributions were attacked for no justifiable reason. I was minding my own business, bothering nobody when Emir of Wikipedia edited my sandbox. This is just bad manners, invasive and totally annouing. Why is the ArchiveBot archiving original links that are still live. I've never seen this done before, especially in the middle of preparing an article, is this something new. If so it's incredibly annoying. I hope it's not going to be a regular thing because it really spoils editing. After tonight I'm not sure I can be bother anymore. Djln Djln (talk) 21:06, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

@Djln: No, adding Internet Archive links wasn't vandalism, it wasn't an attack, you are being overly dramatic and spiteful. Get over it or don't let the door hit you on the way out. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:10, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

@Ian.thomson: Not a very helpful or useful response. In fact it is totally unhelpful. Djln Djln (talk) 21:16, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

@Djln: No, listen, your attitude is the core problem here and every uninvolved editor here will tell you that. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:22, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

@Djln: Could you explain how this clear civility violation and personal attack is a "helpful or useful response"? If not, I suggest you follow the advice of Ian.thomson, drop the stick, and apologise for breaching WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL. Not doing so may not come off in your favour. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 21:31, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

@Ian.thomson: Really ? WTF. Did I edit another editors sandbox, no. Did I go vandalising other editors contributions with pedantic nonsense, again no. Guilty of over–reacting, probably but totally justified given the provocation, goading and hounding. If the Emir of Wikipedia wanted to be helpful he should stop acting like a vandal and a bully. None of this would have happened if he hadn't edited my sandbox to begin with. Djln Djln (talk) 21:37, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

@Djln: it might be a good idea to take the dog for a walk, otherwise I suspect you might end up being hit with a boomerang. And yes, archiving links is completely normal. IABot has several million edits alone. If that ruins editing for you, that's your own problem. – Frood (talk) 21:38, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

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

Discussion re: archive links

• Question: I've noticed Emir several times lately adding a massive amount of text to articles to rescue zero deadlinks. My understanding is that IAbot automatically archives links used as references, but does not automatically add them to the articles because, you know, it can massively increase the size of the page without any actual benefit until those links are dead. And along the same lines, my understanding is that it's not a good use of IABot to manually go in and add those tens of thousands of bytes of text when they don't actually help until the link dies (in which case, IABot has already done its job and it can be added). But looking at Emir's history, nearly all of the instnaces of using IABot are in fact when it's not needed. Happy to take my answer to this question elsewhere, as it doesn't really rise to ANI. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:05, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• Actually, I take it back. It may be relevant to ANI. I looked at Emir's recent contribs not realizing how prolific he's been lately. There are literally hundreds of instances of adding huge amounts of text to articles to rescue zero deadlinks. This should probably be addressed in some form. I also have reservations about Emir's interpretation of BLP, deciding that someone's birthday being unsourced is good enough reason to go full blown edit war over (none of this excuses that beyond the pale diff of Djln's of course). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:11, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

  On a sandbox draft in progress, no less. And when the editor objected (uncivilly) to Emir editing in their sandbox. Emir proceeded to do more, basically unnecessary edits. WP:USERSUBPAGE says All of these pages are your user pages or user space. While you do not "own" them, by custom you may manage them as you wish, so long as you do so reasonably and within these guidelines. I sympathize with Djln's annoyance (though not their language). Emir should leave others' sandboxes and userspace drafts alone, except for required actions like deactivating categories. Schazjmd (talk) 00:28, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

While Emir continuing to edit after being asked (in whatever manner) to stop was completely inappropriate, Djln seems to have only retroactively taken annoyance with the first several edits (since he left some of them in place up until blanking the page). Ian.thomson (talk) 00:44, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• Not saying you're wrong or anything maybe we need a subthread for this to clearly distinguish that trend from the above (though connected) drama. (Ignoring its connection to the above drama), my only complaint about preemptively adding archive links for live sites is that we want to keep pages under a certain size for mobile readers (especially in poorer countries). Otherwise, WP:NOTPAPER applies. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:44, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• I broke off this into a subthread and closed the OP. Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 17:30, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• What am I missing? If we wait until after the link is dead, it will be too late to archive the site? Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 01:12, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

  @Levivich: As I understand it, IABot maintains a database of links used and their archive urls. If none exists, it creates one. It does this without actually editing the Wikipedia page. It then responds to dead link tags and also scans links to see if they're dead and, in either case, adds an archive url. Additionally, it can be triggered manually like the way Emir is doing so. It intentionally doesn't just add archive urls to the article text in every instance. If that's desired, it should be a bot task, not Emir doing it to hundreds of pages manually. Cyberpower678 can correct me if I'm wrong about how this works, perhaps. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:32, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

  Rhododendrites, pretty much got it right. —CYBERPOWER (Message) 02:36, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The only real problem with doing it ahead of time is that it can sometimes considerably and perhaps unnecessarily increase the size of pages. Otherwise, archiving while the site's still live just saves someone else the trouble of doing it if the source goes down. I'd even say that if the archive links added nothing to the page size (say, if we moved references to a separate tab to cut down on loading times), then archiving early could only be welcome (though not required). Ian.thomson (talk) 01:40, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Ian.thomson, Rhododendrites I do a great deal of gnome work on articles by filling in bare urls, and repairing dead links, etc. At some point, years ago, someone explained to me that archiving all the links in a "large" article would increase the "download"? size , so that it would difficult for readers to access. I was advised, then, to archive all the links, and then "undo" my edit. This way the ref archives would still be "out there", archived and available, if the link went dead. However, the archives would not be present on WP, increasing the article size. I am probably not explaining this very well, but I hope you understand my meaning.

I am not a tech savy person and do not understand what you are saying about AIBot. Since you are more knowledgable, can you tell me if my method is (currently) appropriate to use, and helpful? Or has it been superseded, since I learned about it? Sorry if I am not posting correctly here, per indents, etc. Thanks, Tribe of Tiger ^{Let's Purrfect!} 01:57, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• Pre-emptively adding the archive URL should be a bot task yes, because it should be done. On each citation using a Cite XXX format it adds |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/YYYYMMDDHHMMSS/$URL%7Carchive-date=YYYY-MM-DD%7Curl-status=live (at least I'm pretty sure it uses that date format). On the read version it adds "Archived from the original on Month/Day YYYY." The purpose is that should the website go down you can click on that Archived link to see the version they have. Otherwise it would be a dead link until the bot gets run on it again. If this wasn't an intended feature then there would be no url-status parameter. Jerod Lycett (talk) 01:45, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

  Jerodlycett, I have no objection to doing that. Enabling that is literally a switch on IABot that any sysop here can access. But you would need an RFC, well advertised, and gain consensus to have the bot do such a thing. —CYBERPOWER (Message) 02:35, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• Providing archive links to live URLs is absolutely useful — if the source Web site is down/broken/blocked, or for convenience to get to older versions of it quickly. At least for me they're not just useful, but very useful — I nearly always open Web citations through the Internet Archive, and it's easier if there's a link than having to right click and copy. (I only whitelist a few Web sites on my computer, since I like to avoid the commercial mess of the Web, and reading through IA at least slightly reduces other Web sites' access to my computer and network use metadata.) —{{u|Goldenshimmer}} (they/them)｜Talk｜Contributions 04:11, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

IP repeatedly violating WP:NPA

• 86.142.79.147 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 86.188.36.227 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 86.146.209.237 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

• Edit summary
• Purposeful misgendering
• Talk page 1
• Talk page 2

This editor has under those three IPs repeatedly made personal attacks against me as shown. We have a disagreement over whether something has to simply exist or if it has to meaningfully exist to be covered in present tense under MOS:TENSE. They do not like my interpretation of that word. I feel that their actions are not in line. Jerod Lycett (talk) 01:10, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

First let's address the issue of 'purposeful misgendering'. That is a false allegation and Jerod's link shows that he is well aware of that (yes, I am avoiding pronouns now). I shall repeat the response to save everyone the trouble.

[In response to Darkwind's statement at WP:ANEW that I should pick a pronoun (he or she) and stick with it - and I am assuming that Jerod read it as he doesn't appear to read responses anywhere else.] "There was no deliberate intent to mis gender Jerod in my posts. I had not looked at, nor did I have any reason to look at, Jerod's user page. Per your own suggestion in your first paragraph, I very deliberately 'picked' pronouns through an educated analysis of Jerod's name. 'Jerod', an alternate spelling of 'Gerald', is generally considered a male name in English and therefore a fairly safe bet. I have not knowingly used any other gender (and certainly not above [at ANEW where the allegation applied]."

Second, Jerod has repeatedly provided claims of what MOS:TENSE requires when the link says no such thing. He has repeatedly and deliberately misrepresented examples and policies to support his argument.

He has claimed that MOS:TENSE requires that a brand has to no longer meaningfully exist. The word 'brand' does not appear at MOS:TENSE anywhere. But he goes on to state that the brand can be considered to meaningfully exist if it is still supported. I responded by pointing out that the brand is both still supported and products are still manufactured under the brand name. My response includes a link to a Google search showing that parts are still being produced under the Philishave brand. That makes the brand unquestionably a current brand.

Jerod has nevertheless continued to insist that the brand does not exist raising suspicions that he does not read or cannot comprehend (or more likely) does not want to comprehend what is being said to him.

Jerod then claimed that user:Steelbeard1 had agreed with him. In reality Steelbeard1 has never responded to nor agreed with Jerod. So even more deception.

Jerod then confirmed that Philishave is both a brand and the subject of the article, but it is otherwise unclear what point was being made.

Jerod then claimed that MOS:TENSE requires the brand name to feature in popular culture for it to be considered 'meaningfully exists'. MOS:TENSE does not mention popular culture anywhere so this was yet another blatant and unambiguous attempt to misrepresent the MOS to support his argument.

Jerod then points to Ford Model A (1927–31) as an example of past tense use. The article says "The Ford Model A ... was the Ford Motor Company's second market success". But this is obviously incorrect tense because the Ford Model A still is the Ford motor company's second market success, Ford being unable to go back in time and slip another success in. In any case the brand (Ford) is still current.

Jerod then drags up five further examples to support his preferred past tense. Again, all five examples are deliberate attempts at misrepresentation as three of the articles (Saab Automobile; Mercury (automobile) and Compaq) are about companies that really longer exist and thus (correctly) use the past tense. The remaing two (Compaq Presario and Windows phone) are brands, but the misrepresentation comes about because both use the present tense and not the past as claimed (and neither has recently been changed).

In spite of the fact that Jerod should be aware of the misrepresentation, once again he has not read it or not comprehended it or decided not to comprehend it because he repeats the examples when he states he has already linked to half a dozen examples that support his claim that Philishave should be past tense when, in reality, none of the examples do so.

This is persistent deliberate and blatant misrepresentation. Jerod's word cannot be accepted for anything (which is the dictionary definition of a liar). 86.142.79.147 (talk) 12:59, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Jerod has now deliberately misrepresented articles yet again.

Jerod has once again claimed that the articles Saab Automobile, Mercury (automobile) and Compaq are about the brands and not the companies. Marque is just another word for brand and I suspect a deliberate attempt to confuse. From the opening lines of the articles respectively (my emphasis in each case):

Saab Automobile: "Saab Automobile was a manufacturer … "

Mercury (automobile): "Mercury is a defunct division of the American automobile manufacturer Ford Motor Company …"

Compaq: "Compaq … was a company …"

All three articles really are about the company so Jerod is quite wrong to continually claim that the is's or was's in the opening sentence are referring to a brand. 86.130.28.51 (talk) 16:14, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

You'll find that what @Darkwind: stated was: Starting with your behavior on this page, you are deliberately misgendering Jerodlycett, as is clear from your attempt at subtle (but actually quite blatant) emphasis on pronouns in your last paragraph. That is rude at best, and it really colors the rest of your behavior in context. If one doesn't know the pronouns one should use to refer to a fellow editor, one can use standard generic gender-neutral language such as they/them, refer to the editor by username only, or, for heaven's sake, look at their userpage where zie makes it pretty clear what pronouns to use. Failing all that, in a worst case, you could have even picked a set of pronouns like he or she and stuck with it (personally, I try to avoid using "he" as a default, but I slip up sometimes), but don't express your uncertainty with either questioning punctuation or italics/bold, much less both, as it really looks like you're just trying to ridicule. At least a default assumption isn't deliberately insulting. Further, at that point you were told what my pronouns are, what you have done here is absolutely, and without question, misgender me. Jerod Lycett (talk) 01:08, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Hounding (MOS:TENSE)

Since this is ANI, the OP's behaviour should also be under scrutiny, Jerod is guilty of WP:HOUNDING. Our first encounter was at 5.56×45mm NATO where a bulleted list caused most browsers to render the page incorrectly. Jerrod was determined that he was right as he made three reverts to a version of the page that rendered incorrectly refusing to accept that it rendered incorrectly. Another user changed back to an unbulleted list and confirmed on the talk page that there was indeed a problem (and helpfully included a screen grab) though Jerod persisted for a further two posts that this was not the case.

It was from here that Jerod followed me to Philishave and started reverting me against MOS:TENSE. Jerod's history shows that he had never previously edited Philishave.

He then followed me to Pontiac and started reverting me there. Again an article that he had never previously edited. 86.188.36.189 (talk) 13:48, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, in an attempt to fight disruptive editing I did the normal thing and checked out a disruptive editor's other contributions. From there I saw the editor's other disruptive behavior, which at first I had assumed was due to a good faith misinterpretation of the MOS. I saw that, even though it was on the anonymous editor's part to do, the user that had reverted in the WP:BRD cycle started the discussion and supported said user's interpretation. The anonymous user keeps trying to throw a different argument at me every time I show that they are wrong about one of them, and I am finding myself unable to continue to assume good faith on their part. Jerod Lycett (talk) 01:08, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Afshaarn, block evasion, bad redirects

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

---

• Afshaarn (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Zeshan Mahmood

Take your pick, either a sock (above SPI case was opened by Yamla, who declined to block immediately out of caution, which I certainly appreciate, but given the ongoing damage, I didn't want to wait for the SPI to get looked at; the behavioral similarity is fairly striking looking at the archive...), or continuing to create a lot of bad redirects (hundreds and counting, see contribs, they're basically all like this) despite being asked to stop. Someone comfortable with using WP:NUKE would be welcome here, with the caveat that I noticed that they actually moved a couple existing redirect pages, so watching out for those few might be prudent. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 01:14, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I firmly support Deacon Vorbis's statement that these hundreds of redirects are bad. Whether or not this account was created to evade a block on Zeshan Mahmood (I believe so, but am not certain in this case), we are probably well past the point where they need to be stopped and nuked. But, well, I'm going to bed now, so hopefully someone else can clean up. :( --Yamla (talk) 01:20, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

All these redirects should be deleted but with the precaution suggested by User:Deacon Vorbis, above. I hope someone who knows how to use Special:Nuke will volunteer for this tricky task. EdJohnston (talk) 04:32, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

National Church of Great Britain -> Liverpool Cathedral - really??? Narky Blert (talk) 07:24, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Afshaarn is now blocked by NinjaRobotPirate as a likely sockpuppet of Zeshan Mahmood. Remaining work: someone who is good with Special:Nuke to nuke everything from orbit. --Yamla (talk) 10:12, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done -- Tavix ^(talk) 20:24, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

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

User:Jorm removing talk page discussion

• Jorm (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Hello, I have been thoroughly frustrated with the conduct of Jorm on the talk page of the Black Lives Matter article. They deleted discussion that did not violate any talk page guidelines, simply claiming that it contained "white supremacist talking points" and "conspiracy theories". All of the comments that were removed by Jorm were entirely civil and respectful in my opinion; they were simply arguing that racial disparities in reported crime rates should be taken into account when discussing statistics showing racial disparities in police officer-involved fatalities.

Whether or not you agree with that argument, it seems clear that it's a fair and reasonable argument to make, and deserves to be debated and discussed in the context of how best to convey the statistics included in the article. This manner of simply dismissing opposing arguments — no matter how civil and respectful and well-intentioned they may be — as "white supremacist" and deleting them from the talk page strikes me as a dangerous form of censorship. I understand that race is a sensitive subject, but that does not mean any arguments contrary to the prevailing narrative should be censored, even if they may be offensive to some editors (WP:CENSOR).

I followed up on their talk page [76] but just got more of the same — accusations of white supremacy and being a Nazi.

My understanding is that Wikipedia is a place for civil debate, not censorship, and I don't see how Jorm's behavior can be tolerated in this light.

Diffs

• deleted first comment
• deleted follow-up discussion

PS: I'm still fairly new to Wikipedia, so I hope this is the right place to file my complaint and I apologize for any formatting errors. Stonkaments (talk) 03:13, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Stonkaments (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Talk:Black Lives Matter (edit | article | history | links | watch | logs)

As can be seen on Jorm's user page, I've explained how the IP's claims are deceptively dead wrong, and multiple users have explained that the IP's claims were talking points used by white supremacists. Binksternet also removed the talking points (as would I have), so I don't know why Stonkaments is pointing to just Jorm. Neither Jorm nor anyone else has accused Stonkaments of being a white supremacist, and Jorm has not called the IP one either. Indeed, I'm the only user I'm aware of who has used "white supremacist" as a noun instead of an adjective, and in reference to white supremacists in general or hypothetical individuals. In hindsight, one of my comments could be read as suggesting the IP is one, but it's curious how Stonkaments mischaracterizes anyone using the words "white supremacist" as if they were accusations toward him.

So what we have is a user who edit warred to restore a talk page post that multiple experienced users identified as white supremacist disruption, who isn't listening when everyone gives an explanation why it should be removed, who is now mischaracterizing people explaining to him that white supremacism is a bad thing as personal attacks, who seriously argued that authors of a study requesting their work be retracted is meaningfully distinct from their work actually being retracted because that study supported the questions he just wants discussed, who has a history of misrepresenting sources to portray BLM in a negative light ([77], [78]), censoring the right-wing nature of criticism of BLM, and edit warring to downplay the legitimacy of studies that support BLM claims. Hm, does that sound like someone who should be editing that article? Ian.thomson (talk) 03:55, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I have my biases of course, as we all do. Ian.thomson has Black Lives Matter at the top of their user page, so I'd question their bias as well. And they've been asking other editors to "pile on" here, for what it's worth.[79] As far as I know, all of my edits have ended up with positive contributions to the article.

It seems clear from Jorm's most recent response on their talk page [80] that they were calling me a Nazi and said I was promoting "white supremacist talking points".

Censorship of the talk page is a much larger issue in my opinion. One of the core principles of Wikipedia is civil debate, is it not? If an editor can simply delete a reasonable, respectful, well-sourced argument because it goes against their preferred narrative, then what sort of civil debate is that? If an opposing argument can't be expressed on the talk page, even when it has at least two peer-reviewed studies supporting that line of reasoning, then what sort of disagreement is allowed? If this type of censorship is condoned, then what does Wikipedia even stand for? Stonkaments (talk) 04:56, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Do black lives not matter?
If Jorm had called you a Nazi, he would have written "a Nazi" instead of "nazis" plural. He was not calling you one. You are continuing to mischaracte-- No, you're straight up gaslighting about the situation.
At this point, if I wasn't involved, I'd've blocked as WP:NOTHERE since this video series is proving all too relevant. Ian.thomson (talk) 05:02, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

@Ian.thomson: Are you claiming that the OP is a secret alt-righter or are you just soapboxing that Youtube series? --Pudeo (talk) 10:12, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Are those my only options? I don't have the option to suggest that OP has unwittingly fallen for alt-right talking points but hasn't been consciously radicalized? Or that they are operating in good faith but with the problematic assumption that neutrality is achieved through always playing devil's advocate? Or that they're just truly ignorant of white supremacism and stubborn to fix that, only accidentally and coincidentally fitting a pattern of behavior common to the alt-right? Or any mixture thereof? Possibilities that still assume some degree of good faith, make no attack about his person, but still highlight the problematic behavior? Must I be stuck with the False dilemma of bad-faith choices you're leaving me to pick from? Ian.thomson (talk) 10:28, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Also, there's a difference between everyone having their own biases and WP:CIVILPOV-pushing to defend a drive-by attempt at crusading for a debunked white supremacist mantra. Ian.thomson (talk) 05:06, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• It might be best for all concerned if Stonkaments did not edit in areas concerned with post-1932 US politics. Just a first impression. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 04:02, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
• I got nothing on this beyond what Ian.thomson said above, except to add that the simple idea of "having a debate" about white supremacist talking points is a pretty common tactic to attempt to normalize white supremacist rhetoric. It is left as an exercise to the reader to ponder that.--Jorm (talk) 04:36, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

  Censorship my hind foot. OP is saying all the right things-- for me to consider them WP:Nothere, to consider them WP:Pointy and to concur with blocking. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 05:07, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

  And Jorm is correct. We've seen all of this before. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 05:09, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I think there is fault all around here. The new editor is walking into a highly political topic and with a POV that doesn't align with some of the active, experienced editors. That's a bad combination. The discussion of the study and it's retraction seems like a legitimate talk page topic so long as the discussion focuses on use in the article and doesn't violate WP:FORUM. I think Jorms retraction here[[81]] is heavy handed and probably a violation of talk page guidelines regarding the deletion of other editor's posts (WP:TPO). The study and it's retraction have been covered by several mainstream sources [[82]], [[83]], [[84]]. It certainly would have been more CIVIL to discuss the issues with the study and (I presume) why the study or what ever BLM article edit, was not DUE/RSed/etc. There is certainly a level of WP:BITE in the way this was handled though Stonkaments needs to know that only the first edit to the article is BOLD. After that it's WP:RECKLESS. Springee (talk) 05:09, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

If you "don't know what was said on the BLM page", then you really shouldn't be commenting on the matter, now should you? Someone making edits like these really shouldn't go defending someone who edit warred ([85][86][87][88]) to restore a drive-by white supremacist trope to a talk page. (Nobody should need an explanation to understand what's racist about 'black people get killed by police more because they commit more crimes'). If you hadn't gotten involved here, I'd conclude your edits fall under "everyone's got their biases but we try to operate in good-faith." With a history like yours, blindly stumbling in to defend someone by accusing other editors of politically motivated behavior is a huge risk if you ever get caught up in Arbitration. Ian.thomson (talk) 10:03, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

So rather than discuss the merits of my concerns you have created a bad faith strawman to attack the messenger. This is not the sort of behavior admins should engage in. Springee (talk) 12:04, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Hardly a "strawman" when the biases of the CPOV-pushing editor in question are so blatant, and dispositive of the fact that their mask of reasonableness and neutrality is just that, a total sham. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:37, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry you think actually following policies is a bad thing. It does explain some of our previous negative interactions. Springee (talk) 03:11, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, do you have a reading disorder of some sort? Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:30, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

• Stonkaments tried to use statistics to disprove the anti-racism basis of BLM,[89] bringing in a June 2020 opinion piece by an anti-BLM ideologue, Heather Mac Donald, who was citing a paper that was already being seriously questioned[90] and that the authors have since retracted.[91] When this was reverted, Stonkaments doubled down and made a more aggressive attempt to disprove the basis of BLM by adding a section called "False narratives".[92] The talk page removals were correct, as they were a violation of WP:NOTAFORUM, with Stonkaments trying to argue numbers to undermine BLM. Stonkaments shows a very strong wish to fight against anti-racism. Binksternet (talk) 06:54, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
  • @Binksternet: In the deleted discussion you claimed that the article was retracted because of faulty methodology, but the OP actually quoted the authors from the link you posted which contradicts that: Although our data and statistical approach were valid to estimate the question we actually tested (the race of civilians fatally shot by police), given continued misuse of the article (e.g., MacDonald, 2020) we felt the right decision was to retract the article rather than publish further corrections.. The Black Lives Matter article discusses police statistics and mentioned that particular study, so it seems completely appropriate to discuss the section and the study on the article talkpage. It seems like quite a stretch to claim, just based on own reasoning, that these need to be removed because they are "white supremacist talking points". --Pudeo (talk) 10:12, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
• Jorm's actions were appropriate and beneficial as explained by Ian.thomson and Binksternet. WP:NOTHERE IPs dropping far-right garbage onto multiple talk pages is a problem that has become progressively worse since 2015. Jorm also helped keep this at bay after Stoneman Douglas High School shooting when dozens of IPs and disposable accounts posted numerous falsehoods and far-right conspiracy theories onto a dozen or more articles. Wikipedia is not a free speech zone, a debate club, or a place to prove fringe ideas. - MrX 🖋 11:23, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Removing IP from such discussions may be appropriate but should be done with caution. I recall some of Jorm's actions with respect to the SDHS shooting and related articles. In fact I recall Jorm outright ignoring policy to restore obvious synthesis in an article. Stonkaments is a new editor but in good standing. The material in question is hardly some alt-right article. Discussion of the retracted research paper certainly isn't something that should be censored from the article talk page given it's coverage in mainstream media. Stonkaments may be wrong in what they want to add to the article but to delete the discussion (which leaves the door open for others to try to discuss the same material) is against talk page guidelines. Springee (talk) 12:04, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm, not aware of Jorm having "ignor[ed] policy to restore obvious synthesis" and I was very active in that topic area. Of course, it has no relevance to this discussion anyway. Also, I didn't say alt-right, I said far-right. Talk pages are for discussing specific edits, not for advancing fringe theories. If Stonkaments wanted to propose an edit, they didn't need to wait for a drive by IP to open the door for them. - MrX 🖋 12:25, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

IP was discussing a specific edit though: "If the disparity of police involved fatalities of black people is included and compared against white people then the crime rate differences should also be included, other wise it comes across as omitting information in order to push a narrative."

I wasn't waiting for IP to open the door on anything. I simply saw what appeared to be an overzealous removal of talk page discussion, just because it challenged one of the "sacred" beliefs of BLM, which struck me as a dangerous form of censorship stifling civil debate. I think it's important that Wikipedia as a whole, as well as specific articles, not become a one-sided echo chamber.[93] That is my main POV, if you can call it that: in favor of civil and open discussion in pursuit of articles that accurately portray reality; against echo chambers that stifle debate and deeper understanding. Note the other article I've focused on editing is Tesla, Inc., which often has a similar echo chamnber dynamic. WP:POVFIGHTER: "If you see it as your mission to protect article content from any edits that are against Wikipedia policy, you are a good Wikipedia editor."

I'll admit I was unaware of what sounds to be a pervasive problem of IPs spewing falsehoods and far-right conspiracy theories — I can understand now why someone would be quick to delete any comment that smacks of that. And I understand there's a dilemma between wanting to support civil debate, while not wanting to give voice to bad actors just looking to promote fringe racist or conspiratorial theories. But the situation at hand seems so far removed from that — the argument being advanced was well-sourced, and in good faith, seeking a more accurate portrayal of relevant statistics — that it feels unconscionable to allow someone to prevent that discussion from even happening. Stonkaments (talk) 15:49, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Any sort of sanction against Stonkaments is uncalled for. At worst they didn't understand the minefield they walked into and they got bit. They are understandably frustrated given they likely feel they were acting in good faith. That should be the end of it. Springee (talk) 12:04, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• Newbie mistake - doesn't understand the ins and outs - perhaps he could be mentored? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 12:39, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• Yeah, I'll count on the two of you to show up and forgive the next editor who takes similar actions but isn't a right-winger. I'm sure that you'll both be arguing for no sanctions when a liberal or socialist or BLMer or antifa-ist is involved. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:41, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

• Whatever you want to say about the merits of the suggestion itself, the comment removed here [94] is very obviously an attempt to discuss the article and what material should be included. It doesn't violate any talk page guidelines and should not have been removed. Just because you disagree or think it's wrong isn't a reason to remove the discussion from the talk page. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 00:10, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Discussing a controversial minority view is one thing. Arguing in support of a viewpoint held by ideological extremists, based on a source which has been disavowed by its own authors, who have requested that it be struck from the academic record, using the argument that "it has not been retracted, the authors only asked for it to be retracted"... Hmmm. Hard to find any good faith academic motivation in that. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 03:35, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Then just write a comment explaining that. Or alternatively, just ignore it. There's no reason in WP:TPO for removing it, and absolutely no reason to edit war over it. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 05:34, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

How many editors were involved in this edit war at the talk page? It does not sound like Jorm and Stonkaments were the only editors involved. Should the page be locked for a few days to avoid further edit wars? Dimadick (talk) 09:19, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

User:Brycenn

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

---

User:Brycenn is a "new" user whose initial edits involved creation of three football rivalry articles. These articles bear a strong resemblance to articles created by blocked user User:CalebHughes and a long series of sockpuppets. Brycenn has responded to my inquiries with personal attacks and by removing my comments from third-party talk pages. Diffs as follows:

• Personal attack: here.
• Striking my comments from third-party pages: here, here, here, here, here, here.

I would appreciate an uninvolved admin looking into this. Cbl62 (talk) 06:14, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

He's been vandalizing the page Nick Saban. User3749, 06:16, 19 July 2020

As referenced in the above unsigned comment, Brycenn is vandalizing the Nick Saban page by repeatedly changing the subject's name to "Satan". See diff]. Cbl62 (talk) 06:20, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• @Brycenn:'s response, particularly the edit summary, is not encouraging. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 06:21, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
• Indeffed by Materialscientist --Deepfriedokra (talk) 06:22, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• I would like to thank Materialscientist, and you too, Deepfriedokra, for dealing with this blasphemer. I remember CalebHughes as a vandal, but who knew there would be more to it than this--no doubt this is a deep conspiracy paid for with orange and blue money, originating from that "quaint little ******* on the Plains". Envy is a terrible sin, and I call upon Volunteer Marek and User:AuburnPilot, who have made no secret of their affiliation with that Ag school, to repudiate these terrible lies. No one, no one should be allowed to impugn the character of the second-most divine coach in the history of college football. I am glad this was handled before I saw the report: I've been told I might have a weak heart. Drmies (talk) 17:07, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

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

User:2.140.93.244 - Personal attack

User 2.140.93.244 sent personal attack message at Talk:UFC Fight Night: Figueiredo vs. Benavidez 2 - see here. Warning message sent at user talk page - see here. Thank you. Cassiopeia^(talk) 07:27, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

It looks like he might have realised his error as he deleted his own comment about 30 mins later. — Czello 07:40, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Indeed. The abusive message was sent at 06:33 and self-reverted at 07:07. The warning was issued at 07:21, i.e. 14 minutes after the IP self-reverted the message, and there hasn't been any further disruption from that IP address since. Furthermore, it looks like the feedback from the IP's message was implemented by none other than Cassiopeia him/herself so it apparently wasn't just an attack but also an actually good, if inappropriately expressed, idea on how to improve the article. What exactly is this ANI thread supposed to achieve? Iaritmioawp (talk) 07:51, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Pls note that I was the one put back the correct info. No sure the editor has mistaken; the language used is not civil and rude for sure which violate one of the Wikipedia pillars. Cassiopeia^(talk) 08:59, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

A comment here. If I put into my edit summaries what I thought for some of the pages I cleanup with WPCleaner I would rightly be banned. Constructive editing and disruptive behavior aren't necessarily connected. That and redacted rant on certain types of articles. Jerod Lycett (talk) 09:09, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Iaritmioawp To improve an article or seeking for assistance can be asked in a civil manner and not using the four letter words -two different things here. Cassiopeia^(talk) 09:14, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

No, this is pretty bad. It is good if they self reverted though. Hopefully, we can go on productively from here. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 09:36, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

@Deepfriedokra and Iaritmioawp: Agreed Deep. "FUCK OFF WITH THEIR FUCKING NAZI IDEAS" to me is not seeking collaboration /assistance / discussion " an actually good, if inappropriately expressed, idea on how to improve the article." put it. Cassiopeia^(talk) 09:56, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

You did change the number like the IP suggested though, didn't you? At any rate, we're talking about a one-off, self-reverted—without being prompted to—instance of an uncivil talk page message from an IP. Since a "last chance" warning has been issued, I strongly oppose any sanctions unless further disruption occurs. Iaritmioawp (talk) 10:45, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Yash Chandrashekhar Shetty

Yash Chandrashekhar Shetty (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Persistent disruptive editing by this user—WP:BLP, WP:V (e.g. [95]) and WP:NPOV (e.g. [96]) violation, making broken edits (e.g. [97]), using misleading edit summaries (e.g. [98]), marking major edits as minor (e.g. [99]) and edit warring in the Siddharth Nigam article. The user keeps adding unsourced information to articles, ignoring all requests to stop. There is also an obvious WP:CIR issue—the user is incapable of understanding what a source means on Wikipedia, or even the fact that they are obliged to add a source, as evidenced by the post on their talk page. The user has been repeatedly and clearly asked to provide a reliable source, for example on the Siddharth Nigam talk page ([100]). But the user just keeps ignoring these requests, in a typical WP:ICANTHEARYOU fashion. There is no point in warning the user anymore, as they have already received (and ignored) a final warning.—J. M. (talk) 11:03, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Kautilya3 filibustering and status quo stonewalling

Tl;dr someone please tell Kautilya3 that they're being disruptive for stonewalling changes purely for maintaining the status quo that he created.

---

Kautilya3 has reverted and PROD-ed my implementation of a proposal by GenQuest given in the close of Talk:Demchok#Proposed merger and discussed at User talk:GenQuest#Suggestion at Demchok? purely on the basis of preserving the status quo.

After a back-and-forth at Talk:Demchok#Undiscussed change of scope where Kautilya3 mistakenly thought that I unilaterally decided to change the article and where I pointed out that his reasoning to reverting the change is disruptive stonewalling purely to preserve the status quo, Kautilya3 admitted that his only reason for reverting and PROD-ing something that multiple editors agree on is to preserve the status quo and a supposed non-consensus for change without giving a reason based on policy, guideline, or common sense. I've told Kautilya3 to stop stonewalling and that he doesn’t own articles before, but he won’t budge until a formal discussion is opened.

This isn’t the first time Kautilya3 has filibustered on issues related to this article either. He previously slapped this disruptive editing warning on my talk page for this implementation of a "undiscussed" merge that I proposed in a discussion with him where he replied 7 times after I reminded him about the proposal which also resulted in an unopposed proposal at Talk:Charding Nullah#Splitting proposal. This resulted in another example of Kautilya3 demanding a formal discussion without ever providing a reason for opposing the changes besides I never said I agreed with those ideas, did I?

This is even more egregious coming from an editor who

1. felt the need to send me two notices about standard discretionary sanctions on India-Pakistan articles in the span of two weeks (including a bad warning about WP:FILIBUSTER);
2. was sanctioned under ARBIPA for gaming the system and casting aspersions (AE enforcement log);
3. largely edits articles relating to India-Pakistan, India-China, and India-Nepal conflicts,
4. gaslighted me while... accusing me of gaslighting?

I don’t care about Kautilya3's slapping warnings and duplicate ARBIPA notices on my talk page, he can do that all he wants. When he actually has a reason to oppose changes, I am always willing to discuss on the talk page. But his continued reverts purely to preserve the status quo and demands for formal RfC/PM/RM discussions without providing a reason for contesting changes is absolutely disruptive to the continued development of articles (particularly these at Demchok, Demchok sector, Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture, and Draft:Demchok, Ladakh). I think that editors should open formal centralized discussions for moves that are contested on the basis of policies or guidelines, but editors should not be blocking changes and attempting to force others to open formal discussions if they refuse to give any reason besides status quo. — MarkH₂₁^talk 15:23, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Follow-up: Kautilya3 still doesn’t believe that opposing changes for the sake of status quo is stonewalling, when that’s literally the definition given at WP:SQS. The given SQS examples of

• "Opposing a proposal based only on asserting that it's not supported by consensus"
• "Reverting or opposing on procedural grounds"

march up with Kautilya3's reasonings of "Undiscussed" and "The scope of an article cannot be changed without CONSENSUS." almost perfectly.

Here's another diff to show Kautilya's attitude of do whatever you want to other articles but don't change this one because it started this way (which it didn’t but whatever), even if other editors agree that the changes makes sense. — MarkH₂₁^talk 15:38, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• I am afraid this is getting quite ridiculous. WP:SCOPE says, "Article scope, in terms of what exactly the subject and its scope is, is an editorial choice determined by consensus". This is something everybody implicitly knows and understands. Why I have to spell it out to this user again and again is beyond me.
  • To give some context here, there is village called Demchok in Ladakh and another village with the same name in Tibet (but spelt slightly differently due to transliterations). The two places got split across the two countries 400 years ago. We have had two separate pages on the two villages for several years and they haven't bothered anybody. Why there is this sudden surge of interest on reengineering these pages into something else based on pretty sketchy and weak sources is not comprehensible to me.
  • The OP started messing with the Demchok page in May it seems, which was reverted. After some to-ing and fro-ing, the OP was advised to make a Merge Proposal, which he did and the result was no consensus. The closer clearly recommended having three pages. That would imply keeping the two existing pages as they were, and creating a new page on a supposed historical village that existed despite being split across two countries for 400 years. In any case, the closer did not recommend changing the existing pages.
  • But that is exactly what the OP started doing, making 39 edits to the Demchok page in a span of a few hours and creating a new page on the Ladakhi village by copying content from the original page. WP:MOVE says right in the lead section: Do not move or rename a page by copying/pasting its content, because doing so fragments the edit history. Instead, please follow the instructions given below.
  • I believe the OP is clever enough and experienced enough to know these basic things. But for some reason, he is getting blinded by some kind of obsession to see even the basic norms. I have been patiently putting up with his antics for several months now. If this continues any longer, I intend to seek sanctions against him. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 16:12, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
    • Consensus is based on arguments. If two editors concur that certain changes would improve the article, while a third opposes purely because the status quo, then there is consensus for the changes. Status quo stonewalling is disruptive regardless if the change is content addition, content removal, a move, a merge, a split, etc.
    • Your attempt to bring your personal interpretation of the content dispute here now doesn’t work. Especially when it’s based on your personal opinion and directly contradicts the fact that every historical description of the village from the 1800s to 1962 described it as one village divided by the stream that now separates the modern villages, contradicts the fact that the the transcription difference was created in 1982, and contradicts the multiple sources describe it being split in the 1962 war:
      • Puri, Luv (2 August 2005). "Ladakhis await re-opening of historic Tibet route". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 24 December 2013. Retrieved 19 July 2020. The village itself was divided into two parts one held by India and the other by China after the 1962 Sino-Indian war, though there is not a single divided family.
      • Arpi, Claude (19 May 2017). "The Case of Demchok". Indian Defence Review. Retrieved 19 July 2020. The talks were held in Beijing between Zhang Hanfu, China's Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, N. Raghavan, the Indian Ambassador to China and T.N. Kaul, his Chargé d'Affaires and Chen Chai-Kang, a Director. They lasted from December 1953 till end of April 1954. [...] Kaul objected, Demchok was in India, he told Chen who answered that India's border was further on the West of the Indus. On Kaul's insistence Chen said "There can be no doubt about actual physical possession which can be verified on spot but to avoid any dispute we may omit mention of Demchok". [...] In October 1962, the Demchok sub-sector was held by the 7 J&K Militia. The PLA launched an attack on October 22. [...] The PLA eventually withdrew, but occupied the southern part of Demchok.
      But this isn’t the place for that discussion.
    • I don’t know what you’re talking about, because my first edits to Demchok had nothing to do with any proposed merge and came from a discussion at another page that you participated in. The closer also clearly recommends changing the existing articles:

      treat the historic town in one article (Demchok), and the now split town with articles for each division (Demchok, Ladakh; Dêmqog, Ngari Prefecture) each treated as any other separate entity would be. They would each have almost the same history up to a point, and the historic town article would be a "See Also" tag in the history section of both, thus: {{See also|Demchok}} placed under the "History" sub-header, with each having its own unique history following the divergent point explained.

      But GenQuest can tell you themselves that there was no recommendation against changing the two existing articles.
    • It wasn’t a page move. It was a split, which involves copying content with a descriptive edit summary as I did when I created Draft:Demchok, Ladakh: create article for Indian-administered village, see the suggestion from [{Talk:Demchok#Proposed merger]] and User talk:GenQuest#Suggestion at Demchok? (with admittedly a failed link and lacking an explicit link to Demchok).
    • The demonstrated stonewalling, ownership, and immediate assumptions of bad-faith (just peruse the diffs at User talk:Kautilya3/Archives/Archive 15#May 2020) have been incredibly clear from Kautilya3, and they still just don’t get it. — MarkH₂₁^talk 16:36, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, you are dealing with a contested border region which is part of an international dispute with an extremely complicated history. You are expected to proceed cautiously and ensure that you have consensus for the changes you are trying to make. Please don't attempt to trivialise the large-scale tricky changes you are trying to make. And, no newspaper op-eds and the Indian Defence Review are not strong enough sources to decide contentious historical matters. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 17:04, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

You still need to provide a reason for contesting an edit. Protesting on the sole basis of status quo is gaming the system and dangerously tendentious given that it’s an WP:ARBIPA-covered topic.

While you're back on the content issue, you still haven’t provided a single reason for how you know that the article from The Hindu is an op-ed when it doesn’t say that anywhere on the page or how Claude Arpi here is somehow less reliable than the dozen or so times you previously cited him yourself or less reliable than your tendentious original research. — MarkH₂₁^talk 17:13, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

It’s fascinating trying to discuss WP:ARBIPA topics with a sanctioned editor who dismisses a British historian as racist from his personal interpretation of the historian's books, Indian commentators as not knowing facts because he "started investigating [maps] recently", and a French historian for not being a strong enough as a source, but relies on what he "discovered that map after map showed" (cf. the recent NOR/N thread). And this same editor cites these exact sources for countless additions in ARBIPA topics when they support his personal interpretations of old maps! — MarkH₂₁^talk 17:23, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• Did I have to really have to read this whole thing? User:Kautilya3, it really looks like you are preventing article improvement for the sake of process (or because you just don't like it, or you just don't like Mark) without argument. I appreciate your edits on India articles but this is looks like the warnings from Wikipedia:Status quo stonewalling. As User:El_C says, "reverting due solely to "no consensus" is generally ill-advised". < Atom (Anomalies) 11:08, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Block review User:mr. Storm Eagle

Can someone review this block I’m getting nowhere with {{unblock}} — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.150.99.215 (talk) 17:35, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

(Redacted)

This is being investigated by Arbcom

That is why you will get blocked, and I wonder if it was why you were blocked in the first place (yes it was, your IP was used to make a dodgy edit).Slatersteven (talk) 10:54, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Interaction ban request

User:Horse Eye Jack and User:CaradhrasAiguo do NOT get along. They've been feuding on and off for a while (that's my take; to be fair, I think they would both disagree with the characterization of feuding). ANI denizens will likely recall several previous threads, and if I have time later today I'll go diff hunting (or, I'll be in the debt of someone who does that before I get back). I blocked both for two weeks in late June, and then unblocked both with a i-ban as a condition for unblock that expired at the end of the 2 week period. It is my understanding I'm not allowed to impose an indef i-ban by myself (the stupidity of that rule would be a good topic for discussion elsewhere); otherwise I'd have done that long ago. So there is no i-ban in effect now. HEJ just complained at my talk page that CA mostly reverted an edit of theirs.

I do not have time to research who is more at fault in this case, whether this is a case of hounding or a case of baiting or a case of being too sensitive or a case of being not sensitive enough, so I'm reluctantly dropping this in ANI's lap.

Can the community please at the very least impose an i-ban? Also, since they overlap in editing interests a lot, it's going to be hard for them to avoid violating it. Both have already edited many of the articles in their topic of interest, so it isn't a matter of "avoid articles the other has edited". I imagine at some point we'll be back here deciding which one to topic or site ban. A neutral editor in the subject area has told me that both are productive and useful when not actually interacting with each other, so that would be a shame. So if anyone has any suggestions for how to make this more likely to work, that would be great. I was sort of toying with the idea that, starting now, they can't edit an article where the other person was the last to edit it. Not sure if that's genius or stupid.

If anyone has questions for me, I'll try to circle back to this tonight. I'm sorry, there aren't a lot of diffs to back this up, but I've little time for this stuff right now. Hopefully since I'm not trying to take sides, and their feuding seems fairly self-evident, I can be forgiven for the lack of backup info now. --Floquenbeam (talk) 18:07, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I don’t mind CA coming along and changing some language I wrote a long time ago (there is little chance they would even know its mine). Thats not what my issue is, the problem is the semi-reversion [101] *two minutes later* with no edit summary save “ce” (seems slightly inadequate) which erased the subject’s Taiwanese nationality from the intro (this is a recurring issue, CA thinks Taiwan is a part of China and regularly denigrates those who disagree, see Talk:List of Chinese administrative divisions by highest point#Inclusion of Taiwan, [102], [103], [104], [105], and [106]). That feels targeted, I just want to be left alone. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:18, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Since you have mentioned me by my initials, I feel no compunction, on a point of order, against responding to the above. I edited the latest article in question in Jun 2018 via AWB, and, if my understanding of the "first-mover advantage" is correct, I hold said advantage in this case. My Jun 2018 added around 50 bytes, whereas HEJ's edits were each around 30 bytes each. As to the edit contents, 1) I honored HEJ's change from dissident to political commentator 2) On a strictly stylistic point, writing Taiwanese __ born in China, followed by Born in Beijing in the next sentence is redundant. It is revealing that the less contentious solutions Taiwanese __ born in mainland China or Taiwanese __ born in Beijing were not considered. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 18:29, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

@CaradhrasAiguo: Since you have mentioned me by my initials, I feel no compunction, on a point of order, against responding to the above. What bullshit WP:POINTy nonsense. No, I think you don't want to respond to the above because you don't feel like it. Just say that instead of trying to wikilawyer. -Indy beetle (talk) 22:42, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

@Indy beetle: No, I was refuting the basis for the report, which was that my edit at Wu'erkaixi was somehow disruptive enough to warrant a full-fledged thread here. So, yes I did respond to the above, and no, no one on this thread is wiki-lawyering. If this were any other venue (e.g. WP:RSN or Talk:Falun Gong) and/or the topic were anything other than the proposed interaction ban, then I would not want to respond to HEJ in discussion at all. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 00:54, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I don’t think that such a first mover advantage exists but if it does you would unquestionable have it in this case. Those small edits were on June 10 2018 and I didn't create my account until June 26 2018. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:38, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

1) Several WP:UNINVOLVED admins noted the "first mover" principle. 2) If you agreed that I held this "advantage", why raise a "tempest in a teacup", given the fact you, myself, Floq, et al. view this noticeboard as a time sink? 2B) Interestingly enough, I edited Karakax County thrice in Jun 2018, before your account registration, though, admittedly, your Feb 2020 edit actually added content (+382 bytes), and wasn't mere copy-editing.CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 18:45, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Re-read that first sentence, I don’t agree that it exists (at least not in a form that would apply here). There is an argument to be made in cases where someone has made major edits to a page or are the page’s creator but that doesn't appear to be the case here, both of our edits were small. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:54, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• Floquenbeam: It's probably a little late for this now, but WP:CONDUNBLOCK does allow for unblock conditions of up to a year in duration for blocks that were less than a year. – bradv🍁 18:27, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I tried to codify a "first mover advantage" in the interaction ban between SashiRolls and Tryptofish as a discretionary sanction. But that was soundly rejected at AE as too arcane of a restriction. That leads me to think that if an IBAN is imposed, that facet should probably remain informal. By being limited to the extent of guiding the two editors to be respectful, to be wary about modifying the other's contributions, even if accidents may happen. That is probably the way to go about this at this time. El_C 19:39, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

• Having been the one to suggest the initial I-Ban, though sad to see this at ANI, I agree that an I-Ban is probably the best solution. The parties have long fueded and been unable to get along, and a variety of escalating measures have not worked. I hesitate to make it an indefinite I ban, perhaps 1 or 2 years would be appropriate? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 23:26, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I’m sorry to see it here too. I’ve avoided them entirely since the block (even when tempted by their edits appearing on my watchlist), if there is going to be an I-Ban it should be indefinite... CA has shown no willingness to stop before, I don’t see why they would feel differently in the future. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 23:45, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Disruptive overlinking

Drag net

Net drag

Zlobnik Urac (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has persistently added links discouraged by MOS:OVERLINK to articles. [107][108][109] They were blocked in April for 36 hours over the same issue, and have been not acknowledged multiple further warnings on their talk page about overlinking since the block. It appears to be a single-purpose overlinking account. Hrodvarsson (talk) 21:03, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

@Hrodvarsson: A "single-purpose overlinking account" is a pretty mind-boggling concept, but I have looked at a significant number of the editor's edits, and you appear to be right. 2,340 edits, every single one of which, to judge from what I have seen, consists of making inappropriate links of one kind or another, and never any response whatever to messages. Even if this were someone making good-faith but misguided edits, they would sometimes make good links; 100% bad links looks very much like deliberate vandalism. However, whether it's vandalism, incompetence, stubborn refusal to accept consensus, or whatever else, when an editor has done this much disruptive editing and no constructive editing at all, will not communicate at all, and is undeterred by a limited block, it's time for an indefinite one. I'm on my way to the block button. JBW (talk) 21:34, 19 July 2020 (UTC) L

Thanks for block the account, which was a net drag on the wiki. Binksternet (talk) 22:35, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Ranting bad faith accusations/forum discussion

Hi, myself and others have been the subject of this ranting personal attack and forum discussion. Editor Dvaderv2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) does not discuss any sources or suggest any changes, just rants about how we are biased leftists of this sort or the other. I've removed the rant, but I think this personal attack should be addressed in some manner by a third party...they do seem to be an otherwise constructive contributor, so maybe a warning?. I don't want to go there myself, as I assume I'll just cop another rant about being a bias lefty scumbag or some such. Bacondrum (talk) 22:03, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Well, aren't we all biased leftists? I mean, we insist that the encyclopedia relate to reality and not to ideological preconceptions, right? Isn't that socialism or liberalism or one of those evil "isms"? Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:13, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Dunno if this is a BLP violation, or simple bragging...

...but don’t think it really matters much either way. Cleanup on aisle [Silver Ghost]. Qwirkle (talk) 23:36, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Qwirkle, gone, borderline IMO but better safe than sorry. GeneralNotability (talk) 23:56, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

@Qwirkle and GeneralNotability: The revdel was good, but we should probably keep an eye on the user who made the edit. I actually recognise the name (which is similar to the username) from a weird incident I had on here years ago ... see User talk:Graham87/Archive 22#Michael Jungura, where he/a family member tried to insert the same/similar name into several articles about Aboriginal rights, without a source; also see these contribs. I didn't block the user then and I don't feel a block is needed for the latest editor right now, but it may be needed in the future. Graham87 06:43, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Graham87, looking at those diffs from 2012; Bungarra as a surname is not common, however it is the name for the Sand Goanna in some of the languages from the Pilbara region (Western Australia). The 'pidgin' English appears entirely unbelievable; it just isn't what is normally seen. Overall, it appears to be some joker doing a poor imitation of an Aboriginal person, and if the diffs which have been revdelled are anything similar; I'd take the claims with a grain of salt... Happy to discuss further if there are any queries; just ping me or flick me an email. Jack Frost (talk) 08:59, 20 July 2020 (UTC)