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WP:NPOV, WP:OWN, and copyright violations at Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed

Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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

User:AmirahBreen has been tendentiously editing the article on Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed for at least several months, resulting in an article that read like a laundry list of criticisms and complaints against the subject. There have been numerous copyright violations as well, mostly sentences lifted directly from sources or closely-worded paragraphs; a few have merited revdel.

AmirahBreen created a BLP/N thread stating, "I am concerned for this article because I feel there are attempts being made by a group of people to control the content of the article and the admin who is contacting them and asking them to do so is at the center of it." AmirahBreen disputed that they were editing in a slanted fashion, and spent a fair amount of time disparaging other editors, at one point referring to them as "a pack of hounds" while saying they were supporters of the article subject trying to whitewash the article. Attempts to remove the negative POV are met with reversions and stonewalling/talk page bludgeoning. Diffs from mid December 2020 - mid March 2021 are unavailable due to copyright revdels, and some of the other diffs provided may end up revdel'd due to other copyright concerns. This list below is not exhaustive, but I'm trying to balance TLDR with other editors' time.

[1] Large BLP/N thread.

WP:NPOV

[2] Restores negative content to lead that was not fully supported by cited sources, and re-adds NPOV "refuses to leave" language. [3] Argues to keep NPOV text about renouncing American citizenship. [4] My removal, as the addition is revdel'd. Added a negative quote from an analyst not mentioned in either source cited. [5] Again my removal, addition is revdel'd. Sources cited do not support the language. "opposition candidates were again targeted by government forces, while taking part in a protest in Mogadishu over the election delay, when shells fired at them landed inside Mogadishu Airport." The chaos at the protests came just hours after an intense exchange of gunfire erupted in Mogadishu in the early hours of Friday morning...said in a statement that “armed militias” had attacked military posts with the intention of taking over government buildings... he said.Mr. Khaire later said in a news conference that shells fired against opposition protesters had landed inside the city’s international airport. Source is clearly not stating government attacks on protesters or government shelling of the international airport as fact. [6] Added "The Lower House attempted a motion on 12 April 2021 to extend Mohamed's term by two years with no elections taking place, which the Upper House declared unconstitutional." Source says Somalia’s lower house of parliament voted overwhelmingly to extend by two years the term for the government of President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo... The special session saw 149 MPs vote in favor of the extension, with only three opposed. [7] Added negative content about conditions and food ration cuts in a UN funded refugee camp in Kenya. [8] Removed supportive text from Italian undersecretary of foreign affairs. Was sourced. [9] Adds a negative quote from the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations committee responding the the Lower House's vote. This is WP:DUE while the Italian undersecretary's support should be removed? [10] Removing tags with majority of editors supporting the tag. [11] "The prime minister apologized for the attacks pointing out that peaceful demonstrations are a democratic right.The prime minister apologized for the attacks pointing out that peaceful demonstrations are a democratic right." The prime minister did not apologize for the attacks, and the wording that was removed from the response also contributes to the POV. Source states the prime minister was "sorry this happened" and "peaceful demonstrations are a constitutional right but armed ones are not." [12] Placing blame on article subject directly, source actually says the administration is not ready. Picked the negative information out of the source, as the source also says “There are several reasons which caused this fiasco," Abdulfatah said. "Lack of good will is one of them because both sides were engaged on defeating each other instead of focusing on the gist of the issue. Secondly, there is a degree of recklessness among the Somali politicians because, all the Somali people were waiting the results from the talks but yesterday both sides were delivering wealth of information and started demonizing each other.” [13] Adds "an estimated 20 people were killed." Sources cited say "A protest leader said “some have died” after the clashes." "“Some have died and others were wounded,” he said, without giving details." "The United States Embassy in Somalia said that “as many as 20 people may have been killed or injured” in the morning clashes in the capital"

Close paraphrasing, copyright infringement

"some view this election impasse as a new stumbling block for Somalia's road to democratisation." There are those who view this election impasse as a new stumbling block for Somalia’s road to democratisation source - removal - addition revdel'd "The United Arab Emerates expressed "grave concern" over the deteriorating situation in Somalia, calling upon the interim government of Mohamed and all parties, "to demonstrate the highest levels of restraint in order to achieve Somalia's aspirations to build a secure and stable future for all", and expressed its hope that stability would prevail in Somalia, "in a way that preserves its national sovereignty and fulfills the aspirations of its brotherly people"." UAE expresses grave concern over deteriorating situation in Somalia... called upon the interim government and all parties to demonstrate the highest levels of restraint in order to achieve Somalia's aspirations to build a secure and stable future for all... The UAE expressed its hope that stability would prevail in Somalia in a way that preserves its national sovereignty and fulfills the aspirations of its brotherly people.source - removal - addition revdel'd In November 2020 the First Deputy Speaker of the Upper House of Parliament, Abshir Mohamed Bukhari, said that Mohamed had proven unreliable in overseeing the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections in the country First Deputy Speaker of the Upper House of Parliament, Abshir Mohamed Bukhari, has said that President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo has proved unreliable in overseeing the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections in the country. source - removal - addition revdel'd Mohamed was accused of wanting to subvert Somali nationhood to consolidate power. And there are those who suspect incumbent President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed ‘Farmajo’ of wanting to subvert Somali nationhood to consolidate power. source - removal - addition opposition party leaders wrote to the Turkish ambassador in Somalia urging the Turkish government not to send the shipment, for fear that Mohamed would use it to 'hijack' the upcoming elections. Somalia’s opposition says it has written to Turkey urging it not to send a planned shipment of weapons to a special police unit that they fear incumbent President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed could use to “hijack” forthcoming elections. After hearing that Turkey planned to send a shipment of weapons and ammunition, including 1,000 G3 assault rifles and 150,000 bullets to Harma’ad, a special unit in Somalia's police, between Dec. 16 and Dec. 18 opposition candidates said they had learned Turkey was planning to deliver 1,000 G3 assault rifle and 150,000 bullets to Harma’ad, a special unit in Somalia’s police, between Dec. 16 and Dec. 18.source - removal - addition Council of Presidential Candidates announced that they no longer recognise Mohamed as the President of Somalia since his term expired without any agreement on the path toward elections to replace him opposition leaders say they no longer recognise President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed after his term expired without a political agreement on a path towards elections to replace him. source - removal - addition revdel'd the electoral implementation tensions had been compounded by questions over the legitimacy of Mohamed’s mandate following the expiry of his constitutional term in office on 8 February And electoral implementation tensions have been compounded by questions over the legitimacy of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed’s mandate following the expiry of his constitutional term in office, on 8 February. source - removal - addition revdel'd to overcome Al Shabaab, to provide national security sufficient to organise universal suffrage and to ensure a complete constitutional review of Somalia's supreme law. promised to tame Al-Shabaab, provide national security sufficient to organize universal suffrage, and ensure a complete constitutional review for the country's supreme law. source - removal - addition Abdi Hashi, was not invited to this week’s meeting despite being from Somaliland, and he has argued that he, not the president’s people, should select Somaliland’s commission members. Abdi Hashi, was not invited to this week’s meeting despite being from Somaliland, and he has argued that he, not the president’s people, should select Somaliland’s commission members. source - addition - removal

Article talk page bludgeoning
AmirahBreen · 141 (64.7%) Ohnoitsjamie · 28 (12.8%) ScottishFinnishRadish · 14 (6.4%) Removing huge amounts of own commentary from article talk page: [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]

ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:32, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

This feels like a perfect candidate for WP:3 rather than ANI 2001:4898:80E8:3:C18B:6B0C:568:318C (talk) 21:31, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that applies due to the BLP thread, other users discussing during the RFC and other users editing. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:14, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

The talk page from March 13th onward is just a series of conversations between you two with next to no outside edits aside from two from User:Ohnoitsjamie. This is why I suggest a 3rd party, because it's clear you two disagree, and that otherwise it looks like a content dispute. Would you consider trying WP:3? 2001:4898:80E8:3:C18B:6B0C:568:318C (talk) 23:29, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

I suggest you read the BLPN thread linked above to see why I don't think that's a worthwhile use of time. See [19] for an example. Anyone who disagrees with them is a bad actor who is part of a group acting in concert against them. I was a neutral, uninvolved editor when I started editing the article and since I agreed the article was slanted I was just someone Ohnoitsjamie summoned to do his bidding. A third opinion also won't address the significant copyright violations. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:54, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

I have been following this page for awhile due to me answering an edit request on the article. If anything, ScottishFinnishRadish is the third opinion when there was a dispute between AmirahBreen and Ohnoitsjamie earlier. I had remained silent on this matter as I don't have the capacity to wade through 93 sources in another nation's leader's article, but tracking the edit history thus far indicates that AmirahBreen exhibits signs of WP:OWN and WP:NPOV in this article while ScottishFinnishRadish has been trying to neutralise the tone on the article only to be reverted by AmirahBreen. SFR has accurately summarised AmriahBreen's behaviour on the article and her behaviour is worthy of attention here rather than WP:3 as I feel that no number of third party opinions will cause AmirahBreen to take a step back. – robertsky (talk) 03:53, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

I think I first came across this article as a result of an WP:RFPP awhile back. As I've noted in past threads including the original WP:BLPN thread I created to try to get more eyes on the article, the article reads like a running tally of all things critical about the subject without much regard for quality of source, and most of it had been written by AmirahBreen. I applaud ScottishFinnishRadish's efforts to reign in the negative POV slant of the article, and I've tried to pitch in along the way, but I believe we're beyond WP:3 here. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 13:40, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if anyone who has a bit of time to spare could take a look at this and offer input. Thanks. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:12, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

I was also involved with this article and this editor earlier at Talk:Mohamed_Abdullahi_Mohamed/Archive 1#Neutrality and observed the same problematic behavior that ScottishFinnishRadish has documented. For instance, in a series of edits she removed a huge amount of well-sourced content with canned and inaccurate edit summaries like Immediate removal of unsourced contentious material about a living person according to Wikipedia guidelines (credit to Ohnoitsjamie for originally providing that diff on the talk page). It took me a lot of time to restore the material that was improperly deleted. She also has a penchant for deleting warnings from her talk page while keeping positive comments, and a tendency towards combativeness. Over the course of our talk-page discussion in December 2020 I had felt that her attitude was improving somewhat so I'm disappointed to see that the problems have continued. Rublov (talk) 20:19, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

I also came into conflict with this editor about four months ago, where I made a large edit containing what I felt were intuitive NPOV and MOS changes; however, I made the mistake of bunching everything up into one edit and not explaining it adequately, which caused the editor to revert the whole thing and post on my talk page. Most of what they said was fair criticism, but they also made some pretty bad faith accusations of me "doing nothing to improve Wikipedia by making other editors feel undervalued and unimportant when you run roughshod over their work". I was kind of taken aback by this and felt discouraged to edit the article further, though I managed to de-escalate the situation and they've seemed to have calmed down a bit since then. Nonetheless I do think this behaviour is a sign of WP:OWN and would be problematic if it continues to affect the article and its editors. Yeeno (talk) 🍁 00:34, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

The behavior continues at the page, now accusing me of WP:NPOV and WP:WEASEL for well sourced content. The issue is with Mohamed, who was seen as the anti-corruption candidate, won the presidency in the second round of voting which has direct sourcing from both NPR and Politico.

They first added a citation needed template after that sentence [20], then added the weasel words tag to the entire article [21], then removed the sentence with the edit summary NPOV Weasel Words,and also unclear which of the five sources given at the end of the paragraph they are from [22]. They clearly did not read the sources, and just disagreed with that statement. I restored the text with a direct quote from the NPR source [23] which they then reverted again. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:37, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Your edits to the article have been fair and accurate as far as I can see Yeeno. As you can see in this discussion above, 'bunching everything up into one edit and not explaining it adequately' is something I have done myself too in the past, and as other editors complained about this, I have not continued to do so. It is also the only occasion I have come across when you have done it. My words to you above were quite harsh, but I do not assume that you did so deliberately or in bad faith, I was only trying to express how I felt about it. I am sorry if I put you off editing the article by my reaction on that occasion, I did not mean to.

I have learnt too while editing this article. Yes, I have made mistakes and when I have understood that something I have done is wrong, I have corrected it or ceased to do it, just as you did. But these other editors will not let an issue drop, even if it was done some time ago and hasn't happened since. Take their case about copyright violations for example. I have been told of two copyright violations which I made some time ago. Since I was told, as far as I was concerned I did not make any more. But recently, ScottishFinnishRadish has become very pedantic over using even a few words from an article. At the same time Ohnoitsjamie has become pedantic claiming that it was not said in the article when I re-word anything. Between the two of them they have made me feel that I am not able to edit the article at all.

When I first started editing the article there was nothing at all in it about the current term in office, of which there was very little positive press coverage about too and still is. After I started updating this section, they started accusing me of writing a 'laundry list'. I maintain that their own edits are NPOV as it appears to me that they are trying to whitewash (for want of a better word) the article themselves. That is an on-going content dispute. When someone is insulting to you, responding in kind is not usually the best way, but my comments when I asked them how they would feel about being called a 'pack of hounds' on another noticeboard were trying to get across to them that I found being accused of doing a 'hitjob' insulting. They were telling me that it wasn't insulting because it was not meant literally and I asked them how they would feel if somebody used derogatory language against them in a figurative manner, 'pack of hounds' as an example. If they couldn't understand that I was upset at being likened to an assassin, then how can they now be saying that they were offended at me asking them, well wouldn't you be offended if you were likened to a dog?

I also consider the term 'laundry list' insulting, and have said this from the time it was first used. As far as I am aware I am the only woman working on the article and it is like telling me that all I am fit for is doing the laundry. On top of this, my edits to the article have not been dirty. It would be dirty to deliberately put something in the article which is not properly referenced by reliable sources, for example, but I have not done so. Referring to all my edits collectively as a 'laundry list' is quite sexist, on top of which it is unfair and untrue. Amirah talk 12:26, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

ScottishFinnishRadish your comments above about anti corruption-cadidate are a content dispute. The source says ' "And even though the process was rife with corruption from all sides, a vote for Farmajo is seen as a vote against corruption," as NPR's Eyder Peralta reports from Nairobi, Kenya. ' You selected the words 'Mohamed was seen as the anti-corruption candidate' ignoring the first part of the sentence which clearly states that corruption was on all sides (including Mohamed's side). I consider this to be NPOV. Also I consider it to be weasel words as you have not said who he was seen by as being the anti-corruption candidate. This could have referred to anybody. It was in the article in quotes because it was an opinion of the person who said it. Yes, there were five sources given at the end of the paragraph, but I asked you to put the source you got this from beside what you were quoting as a fact, which was not necessarily in all five sources. Amirah talk 12:51, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

It was not the opinion of the person who said it, it was the reporting of a correspondent with NPR, who the NPR article was quoting. There is also sourcing for this in the Politico source. The entire paragraph uses all five sources, so putting cites after each single sentence we'll end up with four cites after every sentence, which isn't necessary. A quick perusal of the sources would have provided the information. It was cited and you removed it anyway. The entire paragraph before goes into detail that the whole process was corrupt. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:58, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I am not asking you to put citations after every sentence, only this one where you have claimed a contentious fact leaving out part of what was said which would have balanced the contention behind it. Only two sources would have been required here, not all five. The paragraph before does go into detail about the corruption, but does not say it was coming from 'all sides' as the NPR article claims. You have left this vital piece of information out, making out that Mohamed's campaign was squeaky clean. What the campaign was 'seen as' by some is different to what it actually was, according to the source. And still, there is no indication as to who saw it as such. You are also now saying that it is also in the Politico article, well I am not sure that the Politico article is neutral at all. Amirah talk 13:17, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

What do you mean by a neutral source? Sources have to be reliable. We have to be neutral in how we handle them. DeCausa (talk) 13:26, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I mean that I am not sure if it is reliable. Amirah talk 13:41, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

What’s not reliable about it? DeCausa (talk) 13:45, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

This is the type of stonewalling and insulting editing I wrote about above. She has already called Ohnoitsjamie sexist for using the term "laundry list," and now she's admitted to removing something as POV and weasel wording without having read the cited sources, and now she's not sure if a source is neutral/reliable to further rationalize removing neutral, cited prose. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:59, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

ScottishFinnishRadish it is you who is saying that I had not read the sources, just because I asked you to make it clearer which sources you were citing, does not mean that I had not read them myself. The text in the Politico article reads 'There are those who say that Mohamed, 54, who ran for president on an anti-corruption platform, bought his way to victory. Those same people say it’s the ironic but inevitable cost of doing business in a still desperately unstable country.' I don't know if that's reliable because I don't think every single person who says Mohamed 'bought his way to victory' also says that it is the 'inevitable cost of doing business . . . . . '. I don't think it is possible to ask every single person who has said that. Again it doesn't make clear who those people are, and ScottishFinnishRadish has picked out only the words which look good on him. Amirah talk 14:08, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Politico But what really won Mohamed the love of the people was his reputed distaste for corruption... But the reports of a corrupt election have not dimmed public enthusiasm for the civil servant who ran on the platform to clean up the Mogadishu swamp. Celebrations in the streets revealed a populace that was ecstatic to have a president who won their affection years ago—not a blatantly corrupt consensus choice of the clan elders. You've left out the quotes I've already put on the talk page of the article. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:13, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Now you are just selecting more quotes which are good about him and continuing to ignore the negative side of it. Amirah talk 14:22, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

This is turning into a continuation of a content dispute, for which AN/I is not the place. A lot of different tangled issues are covered above. The article history shows a very rapid editing rate, and the talk page show a large number of simultaneous sections. In a situation where there is an overarching content dispute neither of these are very helpful to editing through consensus, so it may be advisable for all parties involved to slow down a bit. Reading through the talk page and the BLP/N thread, discussions do tend to spin out and lose their focus quite quickly. This may be a good situation for a Wikipedia:Mediation process, perhaps through the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard. All editors seem to be editing in good faith, so better structured discussions may lead to a depersonalisation of the issues involved, and clearer outcomes. As a final point, I must say it's a net benefit to the project that Somalia articles are getting more eyes, even if it is causing content disputes. CMD (talk) 14:30, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

The issue is that at least four users other than myself have had the same issues with her on this article. Even in this thread she has accused someone of sexism. Everyone that has recently tried to repair the NPOV issues with the article has the same issues. That's why I brought it here, rather than for more dispute resolution. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:38, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with ScottishFinnishRadish. I do not have much confidence that dispute resolution would address the underlying issues here. Rublov (talk) 14:46, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I understand the issues raised. My hope is that a structured discussion system may ease communications (and make the page feel less like a time sink), without having to bring in any sanctions. CMD (talk) 14:52, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I'd ask you to look at where she said Take their case about copyright violations for example. I have been told of two copyright violations which I made some time ago. Since I was told, as far as I was concerned I did not make any more. But recently, ScottishFinnishRadish has become very pedantic over using even a few words from an article. then look at this diff. It's a direct copy/paste of an entire sentence from the source. He added that “this is just like the craziest political gamble”, in a country already wrestling with humanitarian crises driven by instability and the changing climate. This is after a discussion and warning about copyright and copying from sources. This is in addition to the ten examples above. We've already lost the article history from December into March due to copyright revdels, and she sees this as an issue with my editing, not her copyright violations. What help will mediation have on this? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:10, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, this isn’t just a content dispute. Looking at the page history (and the response here) there’s some real behavioural issues around, NPOV, sourcing and BATTLE with what AmirahBreen has been doing. I think other editors getting involved in the page will flush it out. DeCausa (talk) 16:09, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I too would be pleased if more editors would become involved, editors like Yeeno who has always edited the article in a neutral manner, but I am not going to waste any more of good people's time here, as the discussion does not belong on this noticeboard. Amirah talk 16:31, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)A mediated structure might help in providing a simple way for a third party to check eg. whether something is a copyvio without a back and forth. It would of course only work with support, so if that is not forthcoming, perhaps as DeCausa suggests the involvement of more editors would work even without structure. On other possible actions, I don't think anyone above has noted that this region is under WP:ARBHORN discretionary sanctions. This report has languished here for a week without action. If it closes without action, I would recommend future reports go to WP:AE, which has the benefit of a structure that limits reports devolving back into content disputes as they did above. CMD (talk) 16:51, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I think we're actually past those sanctions, since it was a three month trial. After March 1, 2021 (or sooner if there is good reason), any editor may ask that this request be reopened for the purpose of evaluating whether the discretionary sanctions have been effective and should be made permanent or if a full case should be accepted to consider different or additional remedies. I don't think that this single issue is enough to evaluate if the sanctions were effective, nor am I familiar enough with the topic area to get that deeply involved. I do appreciate that you're looking for solutions though. Thanks for that.

I think that AmirahBreen's most recent reply [24] does an excellent job of illustrating the core issue. Half a dozen editors, including uninvolved editors, have expressed that they see an issue with the behavior and she does not seem to accept that there is an issue, and says that the discussion does not belong on this noticeboard. How much more discussion and time of how many more editors should be invested in this if each new opinion is casually discarded?

ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:02, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

This behavior is clearly continuing, and it appears they've taken nothing from this thread. Some of those "more editors" talked about above would be much appreciated. Thanks. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:47, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

User:Yappy2bhere

I've been here for about 2-3 months now, so admittedly I'm new. Every edit I've made has been paricularly music based given that I am a musician. Every time I make an edit, however, Yappy2bhere (talk · contribs) is quick to revoke my edit and accuse me of "vandalism" despite me citing virtually every source. Like editing incorrect information on both the Static Major and Bad and Boujee pages.

Even though I may or may not have made editing mistakes, this person will also go out of their way to personally attack users for supposedly making mistakes or something, and from what I've seen this person has been reported in the past but still continues to aggravate incidents.

--SHUTUPGOODLORD (talk) 12:58, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

• You need to source your work when making dramatic changes to articles. Claiming different keys is certainly not small. DÅRTHBØTTØ _(T•C) 13:22, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

  I apologize for that mistake, but could this user please stop claiming every other edit I (and other users) make is vandalism? It was more than just that one edit. It's seems fairly unproductive if you ask me... --SHUTUPGOODLORD (talk) 14:51, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

  Admittedly, I can see some warming template abuse on the part of Yappy2bhere, as they certainly piled them on high within a matter of minutes on the 19th, when they could have simply addressed things with a single message. Regardless, you are technically engaged in an edit war on the page Static Major, with you adding the same information repeatedly. I'd ask that you desist with that behavior. DÅRTHBØTTØ _(T•C) 15:16, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

  I wouldn't say your behavior rises to the level of vandalism, but it's not absurd for Yappy2bhere to think it might be. You should probably read WP:MINOR. Some vandals will mark major edits as minor to hide from scrutiny. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:19, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

  Understable, I apologize and will stop. --SHUTUPGOODLORD (talk) 15:24, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

  For what it's worth, I'm looking at [this edit, for which OP received a lvl3 warning, and the OP is correct. The source does not say it is in G-flat Major. It doesn't state a key. It shows six flats. That could be either G-flat major, or E-flat minor (ignoring the possibility of other rarely-used church modes). The music starts with an e-flat minor chord, which is highly indicative of a key signature of e-flat minor. Therefore OP corrected the article according to the source. SHUTUPGOODLORD, it would be really helpful if you stated as much in your edit summary. Yappy2bhere, did you check the source before accusing ShutUp of vandalism? For what it's worth, OP's user name (I'm presuming meant to be humorous, but simlarly names accounts are often WP:NOTHERE) and newness to project, doesn't engender confidence. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 15:30, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

  As a learned musician a quick glance at the score reveals what is obvious; and the OP is indeed right. Now the username might be problematic; but that doesn't excuse the WP:BITE and lack of WP:AGF from somebody who's been here since 2009, apparently. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:15, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

  Don't wiki-moralize. In OP's second edit to the article [25] he deleted the source that contradicted the change he wished to make and replaced it with a "source" that said nothing at all about the key, tagging it as "minor" of course. That wasn't inexperience, that was a bad-faith edit. Still believe the first was a misunderstanding? WP:AGF, but don't ignore bad behavior. No idea why you're obsessed with the username. Let it be. Yappy2bhere (talk) 05:54, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

  I did check the source. It's entitled Migos feat. Lil Uzi Vert \"Bad and Boujee\" Sheet Music in Gb Major - Download & Print - SKU: MN0171443, as you would have discovered had you checked it yourself. You don't have to be a learned musician to notice the "E-flat minor" chord notations on the first page, but unless you're prescient you can't say that the song doesn't start in the minor then shift into the major. The edit was reverted because "as a learned musician" isn't a WP:RS, it's WP:OR. I'm sympathetic, but not swayed. You may "know" that the cited source misinterpreted the key signature, but you still need a source to make the change wiki-credible. (Right, RandomCanadian [26]?) This is Wikipedia. It's not what you know, it's what you can prove. Yappy2bhere (talk) 05:31, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

• I'm not going to claim to be a "learned musician", but I understand the notation that musicnotes.com uses. I have a question. What makes musicnotes.com a reliable source?—S Marshall T/C 23:59, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Robert Joffred claims E♭ minor, but also claims to be a musician and know what the Phrygian mode is. Xe does not play Bass, though. Uncle G (talk) 11:41, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure I'm overwhelmed with Robert Joffred's reliability either. Conventional music theory is excellent for analyzing European and European-style symphonies and concertoes and opera, and useful for understanding quite a lot of pop, but it's less ideal for analyzing music from other cultures, particularly something like rap which is richer in its lyrics and rhythms than its melodies and chord structures. I wonder whether the best option might be to remove all claims about which key it's in.—S Marshall T/C 09:36, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
      • I've done so independently of your comment here; though I guess that won't stop this editor's behaviour elsewhere. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:05, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Accusations of sockpuppetry by the above

I'm not sure if [27] counts as accusing sockpuppetry, but if it does, then he really needs to work on assuming good faith. Accusing others of sockpuppetry just isn't right. --Cutlass^Ciera 16:47, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Just reading through here, Yappy2bhere seems to be quite combative, BITE-y, and generally just acting rude toward other editors, new or otherwise.

I would encourage them to soften their tone down, AGF, and be civil.

On a less guidelines/policy related note, and more just a recommendation to them: I also noticed they remove content per WP:UNSOURCED, but I could not find any instances of them searching for a source and adding it. "If you think the material is verifiable, you are encouraged to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it." — WP:UNSOURCED.

This isn't by any means a requirement, but it's encouraged, and I encourage them to do so. —moonythedwarf 19:00, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

So far as the content dispute is concerned, Yappy2bhere has sound reasoning. Though, it appears that they have a lengthy history of incivility, personal attacks and a general lack of collaborative inclinations. Hopefully, they can be less dismissive and get a grip on themselves, so they don't suffer blocks for their behavior down the line. So far as the main topic of this thread is concerned, I believe it has been addressed. DÅRTHBØTTØ _(T•C) 20:07, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the matter this thread was started for is otherwise settled. —moonythedwarf 23:30, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Gravedancing, personal attacks, aspersions, and more

Yappy2bhere has, within the last few days, insinuated RandomCanadian and Cutlass are sockpuppets, gravedanced on half a dozen different editors, insinuated I am hounding them, and has failed to hold a civil conversation since they joined the site, WP:BITEing many new editors (which is what this AN/I thread was originally started for) and failing to behave in a way conductive to a collaborative editing space. This behavior is absolutely unacceptable, and I personally think this editor needs an immediate wake-up call for their conduct. —moonythedwarf 14:37, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

1. I made no accusation, I asked whether the two accounts represented two users. It's a reasonable question; you for example use more than one account. I assume you're aware that there are both acceptable and unacceptable ways to use multiple accounts; you should assume that I do too.
2. "Gravedancing" does sound awful, but WP:GRAVEDANCING is not a WP policy, it is an essay. In any case the edits you've linked don't resemble any of the Examples of gravedancing given in the essay. Your characterization of them is inaccurate and your accusation unfair.
3. "Hounding" is "joining discussions on multiple pages or topics [or] debates" where I contribute with the "apparent aim of creating irritation, annoyance, or distress." Yes, you've been hounding me; please stop.
4. I've "failed to hold a civil conversation since [I] joined the site"? Nonsense; obviously something provoked the greeting cards. Certainly you haven't read my entire edit history, so how did you arrive at this sweeping conclusion. Ouija board?
5. Can you produce a list of the "many new editors" I've bitten, and how? Of course not; they don't exist.

Yappy2bhere (talk) 11:00, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• As if that wasn't enough; now there's this monstrosity. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:58, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

"Monstrous" how, exactly? It's a reply to Moony's unfounded accusations. Yappy2bhere (talk) 08:43, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Proposal: Yappy2bhere blocked for (at least 1 month) persistent incivility

Given the persistent history of this editor (as evidenced by the copious amount of warnings they have gotten - dating back to at least 2009); given their WP:ABF accusations; given their refusal to back down; given their apparent WP:HOUNDING of a new editor; and given they're not interested in changing their behaviour; I propose the above remedy as a final wake-up call. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:58, 27 April 2021 (UTC) Edited RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:44, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support as proposed. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:58, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Withdrawn for now. The situation seems to have changed for the better. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:03, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

  I do not assume bad faith, but I don't ignore bad faith either.

  For example, on April 22 you made an unsourced change to the key of Bad and Boujee, "improving" the source by removing mention of the key from its original title [28]. Bowdlerizing a cited source is not a good-faith error.

  I reverted the change, but at 2:37 today you restored it with the same "improved" source citation and a belittling edit summary [29]. As support you cited WP:CALC and a new, definitive source which you didn't add to the article. WP:CALC can't support the change--two keys correspond to the key signature. A "learned musician" would know that (note user:78.26's comment above); not a good-faith error.

  Your new "source" doesn't mention the key at all, so that too is an error. user:SHUTUPGOODLORD earlier misrepresented source content in the same way for the same reason, and you were advised of it [30]; not a good-faith error.

  In this one instance you've adulterated a cited source [31], misrepresented the content of a another [32], justified an unsourced change by citing a policy that you knew could not apply [33], and of course added WP:OR into an article despite knowing it was nothing more than that [34]. For what? So you could thumb your nose at another editor ("so in addition to not knowing music theory your research was not extensive enough" [35])?

  Withdraw your WP:NOTVOTE and recuse yourself from this discussion. You've lost your perspective.

  Yappy2bhere (talk) 08:38, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

  No point arguing since you're still quite too combative. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:44, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Don't fiddle the sources. They're all that holds WP together. Yappy2bhere (talk) 19:11, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

*Support - shorter: This editor's behavior has long since been out-of-line with their personal attacks, but three months is rather extreme for the first measures taken. As a third party, twenty-four hours to one week seems far more appropriate. DÅRTHBØTTØ _(T•C) 03:31, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Support one-month block: Rather than constructively discuss or apologize for personal attacks, Yappy2bhere seems to be focusing on coming up with witty comebacks for their amateur hour routine - like they have been doing for the past twelve years on their talk page that is stuffed full of people responding to personal attacks. For clarification, Wikipedia:No personal attacks is not an essay. DÅRTHBØTTØ _(T•C) 20:41, 27 April 2021 (UTC) Also, they appear to be indeed hounding 4TheLuvOfFax now. DÅRTHBØTTØ _(T•C) 20:42, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Withdraw: Yappy2bhere has apologized, so I'm withdrawing my vote. We need to talk things out more and keep civil, if not purely kind. Good luck, Yappy2bhere and 4TheLuvOfFax. DÅRTHBØTTØ _(T•C) 21:54, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support - shorter: A one week block seems appropriate to me, as per DarthBotto. If behavior continues, then it can be extended, but 3 months is hasty. —moonythedwarf 13:18, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

  @Moonythedwarf and DarthBotto: I don't think one week will do anything, especially given the long term nature of this (even this thread has been ongoing for five days, and yet they don't appear to have learned the lesson or heeded any advice). But if you think 3 months is too much, 1 might do. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:40, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: Prodding for uninvolved editors to review the situation. I honestly can't bother to read Yappy2bhere's walls of text anymore, and am going to withdraw from the conversation as I'm otherwise busy at the moment (and shouldn't be on wikipedia  Self-trout). —moonythedwarf 13:26, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

You shouldn't withdraw before at least illustrating your several accusations with examples, per WP policy. It's only fair. Yappy2bhere (talk) 19:07, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• WP:PROVOKE#Examples of poking #17: "Dismissing a user's considered thoughts out-of-hand by calling them "a wall of text" (or equivalently: "too long; didn't read")." Yappy2bhere (talk) 19:47, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• Here you go, an uninvolved editor: I agree with DarthBotto, three months is perhaps a bit long but, based on the behaviour exhibited in the diffs and (dear me, a bit silly) within this very report, anything less than a week would probably be too short. I support a block to stop the user and give thinking time: Yappy2bhere, really, please take on board the issues which have been raised here and modify your style a bit; happy days, Lindsay^Hello 16:04, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

OK, but I'll miss the refreshments be sorry to go. Yappy2bhere (talk) 19:49, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I apologize if I offended you or your fellow editors with that response, user:LindsayH; it wasn't my intent. I do believe you answered honestly and without bias, and that your advice was well-meant and offered solely for my welfare. I simply wanted to acknowledge that, while disappointed that you support a block, I don't doubt that you were trying to be both fair and helpful. Yappy2bhere (talk) 21:43, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

No worries. I'm sure no offence was intended; certainly none was taken. I agree with Ched, below and on the talk page: The behaviour has been apologised for, and sanctions are less good than self-regulation and productivity. In view of that i have struck my support; happy days, Lindsay^Hello 05:08, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support As one of the involved editors, I support a month long block. --Cutlass^Ciera 16:15, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• Withdraw User has apologized. --Cutlass^Ciera 16:27, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose for now. Both editors seem to be open to adjusting their approach, and I'd rather see this resolved without trying enforce sanctions on people who are generally here to improve the project. — Ched (talk) 21:49, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Request for closure: Most of the votes for disciplinary action have been voluntarily stricken, consensus appears to have been reached and now there is an understanding with Yappy2bhere. DÅRTHBØTTØ _(T•C) 06:28, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Overtly anti-Semitic edit at The Culture of Critique series once again

• 2405:6e00:3162:b301:49c0:f6da:6144:d918 (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)

This article seems to be a perennial target for overtly anti-Semitic attacks by IPs. Here is the most recent one: [36]

For context, see e.g. the last one I reported here: [37] and before that here: [38]

The recent edit includes the anti-Semitic trope of putting triple parentheses around the names of Jewish or purportedly Jewish individuals and groups. This is considered highly threatening behavior as it is intended to single people out as targets for harassment.

The IP has been warned but I'm not sure that goes far enough for this type of behavior. I'd suggest that this might be a case for RevDel too.

Thanks, Generalrelative (talk) 00:56, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

I feel that there should be an edit filter that automatically blocks anyone that uses the edit summary "Clarification on the jews." ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:02, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

There should be an edit filter that automatically blocks anyone using triple parentheses. RolandR (talk) 02:17, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

@RolandR: Filter 766 (hist · log) warns. Surprisingly, most hits do not seem antisemitic, but most are not high-quality edits either. Some people just use triple parentheses as decoration, apparently. Not immediately opposed to switching it to disallow, though. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 03:12, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Looking at that log, I would say that, once the obvious childish vandalism is eliminated, the majority of the edits caught are indeed antisemitic. RolandR (talk) 18:29, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

I blocked the /64, if this keeps coming up ask for semiprotection. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:54, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that, The Blade of the Northern Lights. The triple-parenthases alone is beyond unacceptable. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:35, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

<sigh> Last time I reported a triple-parentheses-tagger (yes it was antisemitic, given the context) to AIV, the report was declined, because the user hadn't been warned first. Now we're giving this twit oxygen with at ANI, because an "only warning" isn't enough apparently. So can we all get the same page here? People doing this can be blocked without warning, and without discussion, yes? Because WP:PACT? The purpose of a warning is to communicate that the user has done something wrong. I do not see the purpose of attempting any sort of communication (even a template) with a person who thinks that this sort of behavior is acceptable. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 03:12, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Suffusion of Yellow - I agree. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 03:37, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

(ec) I understand your frustration with the mixed messages, Suffusion of Yellow. In my case I was lucky enough to receive this unambiguous reply from Ivanvector last November: you did the right thing by reporting this. There is no need at all to warn editors not to post racist slurs on this website, that's a thing you're expected to know, and we're not here to coddle racists. [39] So that's what I was going on. Generalrelative (talk) 03:44, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

I stand by this comment and endorse this block. There's something to be said for engaging an inexperienced editor who makes an innocently insensitive edit or remark, we assume good faith and can maybe assume that they just don't understand why it's offensive or why it's not okay to write such things on this website, or maybe they come from a different background and hold different beliefs. Someone who comes here on an anonymous connection and specifically alleges a Jewish conspiracy against whites and starts triple-bracketing names and subjects isn't here to build an encyclopedia, they're here to get a reaction, and the only reaction we should give them is WP:RBI. I have semiprotected the page for one year. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 12:42, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Wholeheartedly concur with that action and reasoning behind it. El_C 12:50, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, my guess would be that the editor did not manually add the triple parentheses, but rather that they have a browser extension that does it for them (like the Trump -> Drumpf thing that came up from time to time). Still a good block, of course. --JBL (talk) 15:25, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

The block is too short IMO, The Blade of the Northern Lights. 36 hours for that, when we don't actually want them "editing" here at all (surely)..? Is the block short because it's assumed the troll is merely flitting by the range in question? Bishonen | tålk 16:00, 25 April 2021 (UTC).

Agree with Bishonen. Blocks of at least 3 months, and if repeated, permabanning, at needed for editors who make this kind of edit.Nishidani (talk) 16:05, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Generally we don't do long blocks for IPs unless it is shown to be static and long term abuse. Seeing as the other examples are IP4 while this is the first IP6 I cannot see a reasonable argument for a long range block on IP6. Good block but probably does not need to be several months at this point. PackMecEng (talk) 16:13, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the length of this particular block is too important at this stage - that edit was the only one to have ever been made from that range, so probably just flitting through, but if any more edits of that type appear I'd be comfortable with a longer term one. Agree with me learnèd colleagues above that blocks without warning for that type of shit are justified and necessary. GirthSummit _(blether) 16:24, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Obviously if it was an account it'd be an indef, and if there was evidence it was a static IP I'd go at least 3 months depending on the history, but IPv6s are a lot less stable. I never object to anyone modifying a block of mine, though, so if people more familiar than me with the workings of IPs ever want to extend/shorten a block I make it doesn't bother me. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:54, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Re. "So can we all get the same page here? People doing this can be blocked without warning, and without discussion, yes?" above by SoY: absolutely, WP:NONAZIS is pretty clear if you ask me. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:24, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

COVID: SYNTH, BLUDGEON and MEDRS (moved from AE)

Original AE statement

Sanction or remedy to be enforced Wikipedia:General sanctions/COVID-19 Diffs of edits that violate this sanction or remedy, and an explanation how these edits violate it WP:MEDRS 18:09, 16 April 2021 - arguing based on "circumstantial evidence" (from a MEDPOP source about a Twitter group of, unsurprisingly, non-experts...) [combined with copious amounts of personal opinion and inferences] 07:09, 9 April 2021 - making a very prominent "Note to closer" (well after the discussion was stalled) based on unreliable and MEDPOP sources. 12:44, 24 April 2021 12:52, 24 April 2021 - proposing two long UNDUE sections to bring FALSEBALANCE about a FRINGE position, despite being told in the immediately preceding that even one sentence might be too much (on what is the main topic article); despite being suggested alternatives, and supposedly ignoring such objections. 15:14, 22 April 2021; - favouring MEDPOP sources (newspapers) over MEDRS (what is cited in WP:NOLABLEAK) - see also the subsequent explanations about this, including the clarification from Guy Macon WP:OR and WP:SYNTH 16:03, 19 April 2021 - attempting WP:SYNTH based on interpretations of twitter posts and MEDPOP sources (the other examples, particularly in the MEDRS section, also show plenty such SYNTH. WP:BLUDGEON and WP:IDHT 10:10, 17 April 2021 - making one long report, based entirely on the popular press, arguing mostly based on WP:SYNTH and even misinterpreting some statements which are in the sources they cite. 15:34, 24 April 2021 - after being warned about MEDRS, they repeat a comment based on substantially the same sources, which again argues pretty much the same things, and is based on WP:OR. Here, in addition, we see a clear attempt at WP:CANVASSING by selectively pinging a few editors sympathetic to their viewpoints. One long section at Talk:COVID-19_misinformation - re-arguing points raised in the previous RfC, despite being told that theirs was a misinterpretation and despite being repeatedly asked for MEDRS and providing none. 15:46, 19 April 2021 - claiming, despite the multiple MEDRS presented, that the WHO report is not scientific consensus ([[User:Novem_Linguae/Essays/There_was_no_lab_leak#Top_quality,_WP:MEDRS_sources|this section of the NOLABLEAK essay clearly shows that it is; and despite me making a long, researched comment quoting from multiple MEDRS just after this... 16:46, 19 April 2021 - ...they repeated a very similar comment just one hour later. 16:32, 22 April 2021 - This (with the two previous diffs) shows that, after being repeatedly warned about their misuse and misinterpretation of a specific statement, sticking to the same point (which they had already expressed a month prior, 02:15, 17 March 2021; here. If discretionary sanctions are requested, supply evidence that the user is aware of them (see WP:AC/DS#Awareness and alerts) 06:50, 18 March 2021 Additional comments by editor filing complaint So, CutePeach has been here for about 1 month, supposedly here after they saw a post on Twitter, saying saw: "[a] conversation on Twitter and I am not impressed with your [Wikipedia's] brinkmanship on this topic". 08:19, 18 March 2021. Per their own admission, this kind of thing is still being off-wiki canvassed(16:22, 24 April 2021; It would be better understood in the context of this ANI [40], which was all over Twitter.). Edits such as one of their very first ones (08:09, 18 March 2021) also already show a knowledge of prior events (along with further accusations of brinkmanship, obfuscation and censorship) very suspicious for a new account, which shows again the extant of the off-wiki canvassing. Due to the fact the articles are ECP'ed (after previous socking and disruptive editing in the area, and under the GS allowed for COVID), most of their contributions which show evidence of a problem are concentrated on two talk pages: Talk:COVID-19 pandemic; and Talk:COVID-19 misinformation. So far, about a quarter of their total edits have been to these two pages. These have been solely to advocate for the plausibility of the "lab leak" hypothesis; and, apparently, attempts at discrediting the WHO and the whole of the scientific community (because they, unsurprisingly, show the same skepticism about unfounded and unsubstantiated hypotheses, despite their popularity in the popular press...) - going as far as adding a tendentious header about "disregarding the WHO" when the post below it makes exactly the point that we shouldn't disregard it and that even if we did, it would change strictly nothing about the MEDRS consensus. They have, unsurprisingly, been repeatedly appraised of our policies, including WP:UNDUE; WP:NOR; and, most importantly, WP:MEDRS. And yet, despite all of this, they have yet to cite a single such source, preferring the company of the popular press and of twitter posts... Given the repeated, persistent requests and warnings made to them about our content policies, and their failure to abide by them, their behaviour is nothing short of "perpetuating disputes by sticking to an allegation or viewpoint long after the consensus of the community has decided that moving on to other topics would be more productive". I'm heavily involved in this, but at some point editors which keep arguing the same FRINGE points are just disruptive time sinks, and they need to either accept the point and move on to something else (for ex., they've been repeatedly suggesting things which could go into Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 or COVID-19 misinformation by the United States, and yet their involvement in both of those pages is nearly non-existent), or be more formally topic banned from the area. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:55, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

The AE thread was closed (wrong venue?). So bringing this over here. The issues are as in the header: some editors are seemingly inclined on advocating for the hypothesis of a lab leak (despite statements from the WHO in their report deeming it "extremely unlikely" and multiple other reports in MEDRS such as Conspiracy theories about a possible accidental leak from either of these laboratories known to be experimenting with bats and bat CoVs that has shown some structural similarity to human SARS-CoV-2 has been suggested, but largely dismissed by most authorities. source: "SARS-CoV-2 and the pandemic of COVID-19". Postgraduate Medical Journal. 97 (1144): 110–116. doi:10.1136/postgradmedj-2020-138386 and Despite these massive online speculations, scientific evidence does not support this accusation of laboratory release theory. Yet, it is difficult and time‐consuming to rule out the laboratories as the original source completely. It is highly unlikely that SARS‐CoV‐2 was accidentally released from a laboratory since no direct ancestral virus is identified in the current database. source: "SARS-CoV-2, Covid-19, and the debunking of conspiracy theories". Reviews in Medical Virology: e2222. doi:10.1002/rmv.2222), based on WP:SYNTH from twitter comments and WP:MEDPOP sources. This has been going on for about a year and is again reaching levels of WP:BLUDGEON proportions; and despite multiple topic bans and blocks for socking (ScrupulousScribe) and off-wiki harassment (Billybostickson), the situation is not abating, and in fact there is distinct evidence off-wiki canvassing is still ongoing (see for example the admission of WP:MEAT at the SPI, here). I request the community consider a couple of things:

• What needs to be done in regards the enforcement of the general sanctions in the COVID area (can we make AE an acceptable venue for this?)
• Whether any additional clarification in regards to the applicability of WP:BESTSOURCES and WP:MEDRS in the COVID area are necessary
• Whether any sanctions are necessary (topic bans, ...)
• Whether this is still the wrong venue and we need to go to ArbCom

Thanks, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:56, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

• Courtesy pings (in addition to the regular templates): @PaleoNeonate, Jtbobwaysf, JzG, Nsk92, ToBeFree, and CutePeach: RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:56, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

I had topic-banned Billybostickson a while ago, and Empiricus-sextus recently, for their disruptive behavior in the COVID-19 area. It is extremely difficult to apply WP:GS/COVID19 sanctions for conduct in this area, as all discussions about conduct are mixed with endless content debates that are simply continued during noticeboard evaluations. The most recent example was the ANI discussion leading to Empiricus-sextus's ban. It is also extremely difficult to draw a line between repeated iteration of valid arguments and WP:IDHT behavior, especially when there are legitimate reasons for supporting one's argumentation with walls of text. The usual reaction from editors in RandomCanadian's position would be giving up to argue with IDHT editors; I have no idea how they manage to invest this amount of time into dealing with such cases. They're not without blame either, calling a discussion opponent "overly naive" (Special:Diff/1018401000) and describing their behavior as "trolling" (Special:Diff/1018404449). ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:40, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

I'll say the same thing here as at the other AN/I thread created by RC earlier this week, about the same subject, and spawned from the same talk page argument:

Over the course of the last several months, it seems like every few weeks another extremely verbose thread about the COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis has come to spew bile over a different noticeboard. Frankly, it's hard for me to understand how anyone can sustain caring about this for so long, in either direction; how extremely online can we get? But, moreover, it's hard for me to empathize with the argument that letting "Those Guys" have "Their Article" is inherently evil, or that "having an article about some stupid crap that was in the news" is going to somehow get people killed (note that we have articles about Strategery and planking). I've said this same thing at probably a dozen noticeboard discussions at this point -- it seems like a content dispute. This, to me, is evidenced by the fact that every noticeboard thread about it devolves into a prolonged argument about content. The fact of the "other side" being unreasonable is probably related to it being brought up dozens of times, to the point where any reasonable person would become exhausted and find something else to do.

I hope I can be forgiven for saying basically the same thing again, since this seems to be basically the same thread with basically the same content. jp×g 19:48, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

One major difference is that I do not think that Strategery or Planking have killed 500,000 Americans and millions around the world. Further, there is very real concern that the so-called "lab leak" hypothesis is primarily political in nature. But the biggest issue is that Wikipedia has some very firm rules about what we write about on medical topics, how we write about it, and what sources are allowed. In this regard, WikiProject Medicine is rather different than most Wikipedia topics. See WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDMOS. Hyperion35 (talk) 20:00, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Well, you are right that they didn't kill 500,000 Americans. However, the term "strategery" was mostly used in reference to the foreign policy of George W. Bush, including starting a series of wars which our article cites as having been responsible for upwards of 800,000 deaths (not Americans though). This may seem like a pedantic point to make, but I don't think that a bunch of people dying should significantly change our general editorial standards (if they are bad, we should change them for all articles, and if they are good, then they should work fine even for serious topics). jp×g 20:16, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Look, my personal views on the GWB administration are both unprintable and irrelevant to this discussion. But as I said above, the most important aspect here is WP:MEDRS. However, I think that there is a valid public health aspect here as well, since disease transmission involves everyone in a way that a war does not. Hyperion35 (talk) 20:43, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

• I think that a mix of topic-banning egregious offenders, and continuing to stress the importance of MEDRS in all COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 articles is probably the best path forward. Editors who flat out refuse to adhere to MEDRS and repeatedly attempt to insert non-MEDRS articles after being warned would be good candidates for TBans. Ultimately, however, this involves one of Wikipedia's weak spots, in that experts have limited time and low tolerance of added stress, while trolls, True Believers, cranks etc are very highly motivated and often have an abundance of free time. Additionally, experts may have very real fears of dealing with some of this stuff if it becomes high-drama, I certainly wouldn't want to become "Twitter famous" and have some unstable extremists trying to dox me or bring my agency into their sights, for example.

  But in the end, MEDRS is probably one of Wikipedia's true bright spots, it's an exceptionally well-written policy for sourcing medical information. Following MEDRS means that the "lab leak" hypotheses are barely more than speculation, "unlikely, but we can't rule it out" means "we can ignore this unless truly exceptional evidence shows up". Still, given how much effort I remember it took to keep Scientologist propaganda out of psychiatry articles back in the day, it won't be easy. Hyperion35 (talk) 19:55, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

JPxG, this article is the perfect storm of militant stupidity, anti-vax, racism and batshit insane conspiracism. It's being policed by a handful of diligent people who are approaching burnout. Cut them some slack, eh? Guy (help! - typo?) 21:51, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

@Hyperion35: While I agree that persistent insistence on using non-MEDRS sourcing is a problem, I disagree with taking that so far as to say "we can ignore this". Coupled with WP:FRINGE, we have an authoritative source that says how unlikely the theory is, and it's up to us to determine if it can be placed into context on a given page that makes it WP:DUE. I've assisted in making multiple sticky edits to pages that I feel have placed this hypothesis both in proper context and with due weight. I invite you to review them and see if you concur that they meet policy, and if so to revise your above statement accordingly. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:17, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

It might be worth noting that, if you go to the talk page for COVID misinformation, you will see not one, but two talk page discussions that were non-admin closed by RC (an INVOLVED editor who was actively participating in those discussions), seemingly in the middle of a conversation, with borderline-WP:PA summary language like "This proposal was dead on arrival; no need to waste time further and entertain the newest SPA" and "Despite all the hot air from political quacks and Trump syncophants, this will not get anywhere closer to being accepted by mainstream MEDRS". Regardless of whether they are correct about the political issues, this strikes me as lacking in collegiality. jp×g 20:09, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

• I was probably unnecessarily rude in these comments; but I note that in each case it was just repeated discussions of topics already raised and resolved otherwise on the talk page, sometimes in the immediately preceding section...; with the same issues about MEDRS and SYNTH as the previous discussions. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:17, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

• I am not happy about being mentioned by name in an ANI case without being notified on my talk page. I only noticed this because "the other Guy" was notified. I would also note this: "...including the clarification from {{noping|Guy Macon}}". Not only was I not notified with the standard template, but RandomCanadian went out of their way to make sure I wasn't pinged. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:44, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

  That was copied from the original AE post (where I was not sure you would want to join in). Feel free to add you 2cents here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:52, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

• As I've said before, we need to have an RFC on whether a disease's origins fall under Wikipedia:Biomedical information, and, if they do, clearly add it to the list on that page so there's no room for doubt. While I think the conspiracy theories are obviously WP:FRINGE, I have seen experienced editors stridently and unequovocially say both that it clearly does and clearly doesn't. It's going to come up again and again - we need to make sure the guidelines are completely clear. --Aquillion (talk) 22:23, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
  • What would be the proper forum for such an RfC; are you thinking that this is something to be held on the talk page of WP:MEDRS, or would there be a better venue? — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:31, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
    • I think the talk page of WP:MEDRS is fine - we might want to advertise it a bit broadly because it touches on something that is currently a big deal and which people will want to know about, but it's not actually a sweeping change or anything. --Aquillion (talk) 21:41, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

      I agree that the talkpage of MEDRS is fine. I also agree that this isn't going to be a sweeping change - because from my experience, dealing with dozens of experienced editors, is that the consensus is pretty clear among Wikipedia editors that MEDRS applies to epidemiological information that isn't purely historical (i.e. wouldn't apply to smallpox, for example) - but if it needs to be clearly added to the list then that's the right page to discuss it on. Maybe having it clearly added to the list would enable more GS enforcement against editors who are being clearly disruptive trying to claim it doesn't apply - or at a minimum it'd make it easier to say "here's a link to the guidance, consensus is that it applies" in response to people trying to claim over and over that it doesn't. I spent some time looking at this last night when I couldn't sleep and trying to think of whether a broader discussion over different pieces of information would be useful... but I think this is at least a good start. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 21:47, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

      I think it will be difficult to write a functional RFC question about that. Consider statements such as "Paul Politician claimed that that <condition> is caused by <something>" or "<Medical condition> was first described by Alice Expert in <country>". Would those require an ideal MEDRS source? Or only a statement that says "<condition> is caused by <something>" or "<condition> originated in <country>"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:45, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

  • While I agree that a more robust decision on the topic would be beneficial, I think the concern is a bit broader and more complex than just whether the origins are biomed. Common topics of conversation have included the boundary between the scientific, political, and conspiratorial; the category particular overlapping claims fit within; which COVID-19 articles require strict MEDRS throughout, which only for particular claims that are biomedical in nature; etc. I suppose we eat an elephant one bite at a time, but the level of disagreement is broad and deep. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:02, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
• Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), {{FAQ}} isn't visible to mobile users, but might a FAQ section on the talk page help? See Talk:Moon landing conspiracy theories for an example. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 01:36, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

  I'm generally for FAQs as they help good faith editors. It's unlikely to stop propagandists, though. —PaleoNeonate – 04:36, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

  AFAIK there's no FAQ at any of the COVID pages under consideration (there's a current consensus section at the main pandemic article, but other than that nothing). Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:08, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• I'd like to voice a brief concern that we ensure we don't drift too far into allowing POV to the contrary to drive sanctions and policy enforcement. I worry there's a tendency to drift dangerously close to WP:GAMING while arguing against certain edits, rather than aiming for WP:CONACHIEVE. I bring this up particularly because I have had good success with several of the named 'problem users' by being civil, referring to policy, and recognizing when they make a case for something they aren't able to put into policy terms to find that common ground to build off of. While there are truly disruptive users, I would like this to be a call to the other editors on the topic to take the time to truly improve the encyclopedia, even if it means being clearheaded and finding ways to accommodate or work with requests we don't personally agree with but which abide by policy when viewed through a neutral lens. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:29, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
• I disagree with Aquillion and Berchanhimez that the talk page of MEDRS is appropriate place to discuss "whether a disease's origins fall under Wikipedia:Biomedical information" or similar yes/no, problem solved, job done type of approach. The talk page of a guideline is for discussions about how to improve that guideline, and specific content disputes (plural) are only relevant in so far as they are relevant to modifying the guideline text. The Wikipedia:Biomedical information referred to, is an essay, and this issue has been discussed in January on that essay's talk page. It has also been been discussed at WT:MED, which is a more typical venue. I think WhatamIdoing had a good point on the essay talk page discussion: the origin of COVID, vs the origin of any other disease, is uniquely a source of conflict on Wikipedia. I've said before that I find when editors are determined to argue about whether nor not MEDRS applies, the problem they have can generally be examined by citing other guidelines and policy instead. Given the political nature of some hypotheses, it is likely some editors will remain determined regardless what guidelines say.

I don't think this is much different to aspects of global warming or the Armenian genocide, say. It is a controversy where politics mixes against experts of varying authority. I don't really see why it matters if those experts are medical, environmental or historians in terms of Wikipedia policy or guideline. I am opposed to trying to resolve this by RFC, especially one that tries to put X in or out of MEDRS, because it is clearly a multi-faceted topic. There is an IDHT behavioural problem fed by external politics, which will eventually diminish. -- Colin°^Talk 14:33, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Proposal: Extended-confirmed protect Talk:COVID-19 misinformation indefinitely

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

It was requested by the initiator of this remedy that I close this proposal — a community discussion, but also a critical WP:GS/COVID19 General sanctions matter. One key thing about this discussion surprises me. Unlike several other COVID talk pages, this page has never been semi'd even once. So, going straight-to-WP:ECP seems drastic and worthy of more in-depth discussion which is specifically focused on that question. Yet, few have really touched on this key aspect too substantively (with the notable exception of Mikehawk10).

I mean, for WP:DRRs, dormant accounts may be tagged with {{canvassed}}, and new ones with {{spa}}, but a wholesale revocation of their access to the talk page... I don't think it's in question that this would be an extreme step. Personally, I don't know of another talk page (of any kind) on the project that's long-term ECP'd. Therefore, this makes the leaping straight-to-ECP nature of this request doubly-problematic — due to it being a drastic remedy and due to the absence of an in-depth discussion about that. I'm not saying that the reasons for why ECP should supersede a testing-the-waters semi (again, for a page whose protection log is currently blank) isn't touched on below by participants (aside form Mikehawk10), just that that discussion seems unfocused, and, not to be harsh to the collective of participants, too superficial.

So, looking at the strength of the arguments, that's a major fail on participants' part. Echoing the OP's almost aside opening of "it's not generally done" without much further comment, I think weakens this already-tenuous argument. As for the discussion about whether we should put a clock on this protection (of whatever level) or indef it till... review — personally, I'm on the indef side, but more importantly, it seems a bit tangential. Certainly when compared to what I view as the crux of the matter (which, to state again): why we're going straight-to-ECP instead of trying semi first and escalating as needed.

In the final analysis, I think starting with a semi is reasonable outcome. A cautious one by virtue of being incremental and providing for a better inspection procedure wrt enforcement action. A WP:CLOSECHALLENGE to this decision for being WP:SUPERVOTE'y would be fair (more so than for most of my closes), but I stand by it nonetheless. Regardless, I am getting the ball rolling by implementing a one year semi, with a further wait-and-see approach (i.e. favouring an escalated response). El_C 13:07, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

---

It's not generally done, but I propose to make an exception and apply extended-confirmed protection, indefinitely, to Talk:COVID-19 misinformation. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:14, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

• I see a lot of people editing Talk:COVID-19 misinformation who should have taken at least a month and 500 edits to demonstrate an actual interest in building an encyclopedia instead of jumping into this dispute. The proposed measure would have prevented Billybostickson, Empiricus-sextus and CutePeach from editing the page. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:14, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

• I could see a case for going a step further and deleting the "COVID-19 Misinformation" article and merging what little material actually meets MEDRS, UNDUE, NPOV, etc into a single paragraph in the main COVID-19 article. This is why we have (rarely enforced) rules about content forking, because we already have too many "<Scientific Topic> Controversy" pages that seem to exist solely as a repository for rejected hypotheses and conspiracy theories that would never be allowed on the main page. Hyperion35 (talk) 20:24, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

  There's plenty of content on COVID-19 misinformation; and it is a notable topic. It just so happens to be a Twitter-canvassing magnet and well I must concede arguing MEDRS and UNDUE time and time again to every new account that pops up because of these off-wiki shenanigans is getting more and more irritating. Deleting the article (and I don't think that's quite necessary or helpful: despite it being a disruption magnet, there is plenty of verifiable content about misinformation which couldn't possibly be included in the main article due to WP:UNDUE and WP:SUMMARY concerns) would just move all of this to other talk pages (Talk:COVID-19 pandemic; ...) RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 20:32, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

  Yes it's notable enough for official sites to have released reports and educational material about it, —PaleoNeonate – 04:36, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose: It's already not possible to edit the article unless you're ECP, so it's not obvious how a bunch of people being silly on the talk page would actually affect content. Meanwhile, it seems like a pretty dramatic restriction to make, for not much benefit, and with quite a few drawbacks: primarily, people who complain that their criticism is being suppressed will gain a lot of credibility if their criticism is actually being suppressed. jp×g 20:54, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
  • I would think it makes more sense, not less. After all, someone who cannot edit the article is unlikely to comtribute to the talk page. Additionally, having people repeatedly ignoring MEDRS to advocate for adding non-MEDRS material that doesn't belong in the article becomes disruptive and makes it more difficult to use the talk page as it is intended. Hyperion35 (talk) 21:00, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
    • The problem is that there's a problem, but no solution, or at least no elegant one. How are we to solve the issue of new Twitter-canvassed editors trying to push their POV with poor, non MEDRS sources? Or are we better off just ignoring them - which seems even more condescending and suppressive to me than the proposal. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:03, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support for up to one year - yes it's an unusual step but it can be very helpful for the super-unstable articles. My only caveat is it shouldn't be indefinite. Levivich ^harass/_hound 21:17, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support, to prevent time-sinks like this. Let people learn their craft in less contentious articles. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:49, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support. Worth a try. The lab leak articles have been dealing with bludgeoners and sealions for months, usually new users, some of whom have been recruited by an off-wiki Twitter campaign. These folks do not follow wiki-etiquette. They do not read the room and they do not reduce their intensity when they sense there is a consensus against them. They just keep posting full steam ahead. It's a big timesink. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:52, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support per Guy. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:46, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
• Unsure Weak support, regretfully. I am sure that someone's going to be confused as to why I'm not one of the most adamant supporters of this proposal, but there have been anonymous or non-extended editors on the COVID misinformation talk page who haven't been disruptive. Even those that originally come to discuss the "lab leak" tend to get the memo when it's pointed out to them - and sometimes good edits get made based on those discussions. As I've said for the time I've been watching the page, I think the problem primarily stems from two things: the lack of clarity on the subject of this article (versus the origin investigation article), and the long time it takes to get COVID-19 GS applied to disruptive editors. The lack of clarity is something I'd love to address, but when it takes time to continue responding to this disruption it's hard to have discussions about improving the article(s) to be more clear that the misinformation article is solely about the misinformation surrounding the "lab leak" and not about the investigation into the lab leak - which should be covered in depth (the history of the investigation) at Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 - while the theory that it leaked from a lab is a fringe theory at this point, it may turn out that it wasn't always one and that article would be where to cover it. All in all, and back to the conduct part of it, I think this is a harsh solution that would only move the problem of the WP:IDHT and WP:Bludgeoning to other talk pages - there's probably a dozen pages where the "lab leak" could fit in - be it as a legitimate part of the content, as a notable fringe theory that should at least be mentioned (as one), or discussing those who've proposed/advocated for that hypothesis - and all of them are going to be vulnerable to the same disruption if this one page is blocked for them. I think it may be a good idea to flesh out a "lab leak explanation" to be pinned to the top of the talk page or included in an edit notice for the talk page (or both), and to allow as a general sanction the removal of any talk page post that is not in line with improving the article. Alternatively (or preferably in addition), it'd help if there were some admins who watched the pages and more quickly impose lighter general sanctions so we don't need to get to the point of ANI. When IDHT or bludgeoning is observed, if within a day or two (and after one or two warnings) an admin imposes a sanction against discussing the "lab leak" only on editors, but not the rest of COVID, it may solve the problem without something this harsh. I'm just not sure this is necessary quite yet, nor that it will be the best solution. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 01:05, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
  • After seeing ProcrastinatingReader's explanation of what would potentially be doable if disruption spreads, and under the perhaps optimistic assumption that this has given me that this is being looked at and watched by many more editors now, I support ECP for this talkpage with the understanding that perhaps a topic prohibition may be necessary in the future. I didn't want it to get here but I can't see anything else that's going to make it to where myself and others can stop spending massive amounts of time and effort trying to fight off-wiki canvassing of new editors here to push a POV. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 21:51, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose ECP, support one-year semi-protection. I don't think that an indefinite protection of the talk makes sense, though I certainly understand the reasons for protecting the page for a good period of time. If our concern is new, twitter-canvassed editors, then ECP isn't required to weed them out; semi-protection would likely serve as enough of a barrier to do so. These sorts of protections should be narrowly-tailored towards the end of prevention. I have some concerns regarding the potential for future RfCs on the page to not truly reflect community consensus if we exclude (auto-)confirmed editors; the most recent RfC relating to the lab-leak hypothesis had substantial positive contributions from editors that did not have extended-confirmed permissions. It should also be noted that there's currently no consensus on whether the lab-leak hypothesis is a conspiracy theory or if it is a minority, but scientific viewpoint. I would caution against putting specific sanctions on the page against discussing the lab-leak hypothesis, in light of the lack of a current consensus on the issue. In particular, if an RfC is hosted on the article's talk page, I would have strong issues with excluding autoconfirmed and confirmed users from such future discussions. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:28, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support - For 3 months or more, —PaleoNeonate – 04:36, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support with regular "sunset clauses". I don't edit these pages often though I once did so see them on my watchlist. They're always magnets for dubious and determined editors who sail close to the wind. Let's do something about their sails. doktorb _words^deeds 05:33, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support per Guy. --Jorm (talk) 05:45, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose This discussion is not above the misinformation article, it was about a different article. What is being proposed here? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:27, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, this isn't the only talk page edited by CutePeach, and if CutePeach's behavior was the only issue, a ban would be the solution. However, this is one of many threads about disruption that significantly involved Talk:COVID-19 misinformation. That talk page is a central honeypot for conspiracy theorists and IDHT behavior. Contrary to COVID-19 pandemic, the article COVID-19 misinformation is dedicated towards misinformation, and this a) causes an imbalance of many POV-pushing editors against a minority of those who uphold policies, and b) makes it much harder to argue for proper weighting and reliable sourcing. People read about the discussion on Twitter and use this specific page to jump into using Wikipedia for pushing their theories. I'd like to prevent this from happening again and again every week, leading to repetitive ANI threads and individual topic bans after long discussions, exhausting the patience of the larger community. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:30, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support (with regular "until it is no longer necessary" limitation), after taking some time to think this through. I'm not sure SP would be enough against what appear to be highly motivated editors. It might, per MH10, cause some amount of collateral damage: so, what is the cost/benefit of this? Judging from the vast majority of edits to that talk page, the cost would be minimal, and the benefit would be a much higher barrier to the off-wiki canvassing, which is a perpetual timesink, and is causing more disruption than a few genuine new editors not being able to participate (per Guy, better if they learn their craft in easier areas). Concerned that this might only move the disruption to other pages, but if that happens, we'll have precedent here. Agree with @Hyperion35: that better and less reluctant enforcement of the general sanctions (already authorised by the community, and which explicitly include mentions about MEDRS and other issues) would be a good way to proceed, but seeing that few admins are willing to get involved in this area, this seems a reasonable step. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:02, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support Time is a valuable resource, and too much has been wasted already. I think RandomCanadian's take on the cost-benefit balance more or less agrees with my own, and I also agree that semi-protection isn't likely to be stringent enough. (non-admin comment) XOR'easter (talk) 18:16, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support too much of a timesink and a drain on fleeting volunteer resources. Must be pragmatic here. If this remedy doesn't improve the issue, or it spreads to other talk pages, an ARBPIA-like general sanction limiting discussion on the origins of COVID to ECP editors may be a next step. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:45, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

  This argument to me is acceptable, even if I'm sad to see that it might be necessary. I'd rather not see an entire topic blocked for all new/anonymous editors if it can be avoided, but this would actually help in seeing whether the disruption spreads or if it's miraculously confined to this one article, and then can go from there. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 21:49, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support, if this works well it would be another tool in the belt for managing close to unmanageable major ongoing current events pages. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:44, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support. The Talk pages of these articles have been massive timesinks practically since the actual origin of the virus. JoelleJay (talk) 01:33, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose indefinite Other than some templates nothing on Wikipedia should be protected indefinitely, and I know that it does not mean infinite. A finite period should be used. One year and it can be revisited after that. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 18:53, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose There was a high volume of controversy on the talk page, but I disagree on calling it disruptive and umproductive and calling the pro lab leak side a lost cause proved wrong. A fair assesment, in my opinion, was that most of the volume in edits responded to genuine dynamics of discussion on the internet and popular media about the virus origin. Once the final report came out, things stabilized quickly. If people still come to the talk page to edit responds in part to a genuine dissatisfaction with the general representation of the information portrayed in the entry, not solely to wiki-canvassing. Defensive measures should include allowing plurality of opinions and editors to raise their voice, otherwise it will set a precedent for ugly behavior when the same problem arises in other areas and the power is in wrong hands.Forich (talk) 21:39, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

  The final report led to a lot of this disruption - people began saying "well the WHO didn't say the words 'it's false' and as such it's not false it's true!" This is disruptive because people are using the wording of "extremely unlikely" in the report (the lowest out of four possibilities) to say that it should be considered on the same footing as the most likely possibility at this time - when in reality the only reason the WHO didn't say "it's false" is because they can't say that's false until they prove the actual origin - which takes a lot of data and peer review. How long do we need to allow people who are obviously here to right great wrongs and/or advocate for their POV "raise their voice" and make good-faith editors not want to even look at the article before we start implementing sanctions? Sooner or later, you end up with medical articles that are full of POV-pushing, quackery, and flat out falsehoods because people like myself finally got tired of dealing with it with no admin help. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:53, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support The disruption related to the lab leak conspiracy theory has gone on for over a year at this point. Enough is enough. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:12, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose The article itself is already protected, protecting the talk page indefinitely seems extreme.Jackattack1597 (talk) 11:23, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

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

Dilemma for closing admin

According to Alexbrn, Wikipedians disagreeing with his POV on the COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis and his interpretation of WP:PAGs on the topic are "miscreants" who should be dragged to WP:AIN and sanctioned by the "uninvolved community" [41]. Except that the majority of editors here voting to protect the page also voted in a recent RFC to label the lab leak hypothesis a "conspiracy theory", and did not change their vote even after the March 30 report from the WHO confirming it as a plausible hypothesis [42]. So much for Jimbo’s "open community" here. Tinybubi (talk) 08:11, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't really have a POV on this stuff, other than it's a bleeding nuisance taking up too much time (which is why I've largely ignored these pages in recent weeks). Wikipedia is not decided by "a majority" who "vote". And yes, we've had plenty of miscreants: puppets, attack dogs, trolls and WP:PROFRINGE obsessives, who have needed to be blocked or banned. What's doubly incredible is that the article does not even just say that the lab leak stuff is "conspiracy theory": it's more nuanced than that. Not paying attention to evidence is a hallmark of the advocates' approach here. Note that Tinybubi is another WP:SPA banging this particular drum. Alexbrn (talk) 08:27, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Just saying, Jimbo hasn't really been relevant on Wikipedia for years. And the few times he does step into a debate, he makes things worse. So an appeal to Jimbo isn't going to mean much. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:02, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that the RFC you reference happened specifically in the talk for COVID-19 misinformation, and there's a reasonable argument to be made that the answers given on that page might differ significantly in the context of other pages. Most notably, both Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and Investigations into the origin of COVID-19 discuss the topic as a WP:FRINGE alternative theoretical formulation as is appropriate for the context. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:37, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Ignoring the drum banging, "extremely unlikely" (what the WHO report says) does not sound like "plausible" theory" to me. That, in addition to the other MEDRS cited and ignored ad nauseum... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:20, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with this perspective, as I've mentioned previously. This seems to clearly fit the WP:FRINGE definition of an 'alternative theoretical formulation', not pseudoscience. I'd go so far as to suggest that interpreting a WHO study into the hypothesis makes the hypothesis 'implausible' could be interpreted as a similar level of POV-pushing as the interpretation that the investigation into the lab leak hypothesis was uniquely flawed. Complete dismissal as implausible doesn't seem to match the guidelines in FRINGE, and would potentially prove Tinybubi right if there were content decisions being made on POV rather than policy. Bakkster Man (talk) 13:05, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

The lab leak story is not pseudoscience. Pseudoscience pretends to be science but isn't science at all. This story could be bad science. It could be wrong, just like many other ideas in science that were duly investigated and dutifully discarded when the ugly facts didn't align with the beautiful theory (see, e.g., most experimental drugs, the use of bone marrow transplants to treat breast cancer, arthroscopic knee surgery for arthritis, etc.). It currently is "extremely unlikely" to have actually happened that way, and there is significant evidence that it did not happen that way, but saying that it was possible for a virus to escape from a lab that contained that virus is not technically pseudoscience.

[NOTE: There is no evidence that any lab, much less the specific one usually named in this story, actually contained any copy of SARS-CoV-2 before the outbreak started. I'm only saying that it's not pseudoscience to say that that it's physically possible for any given portable object, "A", to be ported from one place, "B", to a different place, "C".] WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I've been using string theory as a useful analogue for how to handle a fringe theory. Both have adherents that see either an element of existing theories that doesn't yet have a satisfying explanation, or are attempting to explain a seeming inconsistency with mainstream theories. But like string theory, the lab hypothesis lacks firm data in its support that can't be explained through the other theories, and struggles to make satisfying predictions with which further research can be based. So, just like with string theory, it should be referenced only when necessary to adequately explain a topic (the electron article doesn't include a string theory representation, supersymmetry does include discussion of string theory as it is the problem the theory is intended to explain problems with). And, to point this out again since it seems to get talked about as if this content isn't present anywhere but the misinformation article, this had led to the addition of references to the lab theory (particularly the WHO evaluation) across multiple COVID articles. Bakkster Man (talk) 18:45, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't think we should be comparing string theory, something of legitimate scientific inquiry but that is largely unfalsiable, with a fringe hypothesis primarily advocated by people with no scientific expertise on social media and used as a geopolitical football. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:09, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

If you have a more relevant analogue to suggest, I'm open to hearing it. Perhaps climate change, regarding the political football nature. But I will disagree that the lab hypothesis has no 'legitimate scientific inquiry'; if that were the case the WHO report would not have evaluated it. The challenge is, of course, separating those with scientific expertise and strong scientific sources regarding it (in this case, "extremely unlikely"), from those advocating for tangential pseudoscience they hoped to sneak under the umbrella. I'd argue throwing the baby out with the bath water is nearly as bad as allowing the pseudoscience to sneak in. Bakkster Man (talk) 19:29, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

None of the people on twitter advocating for the "lab leak" suppostion are virologists, and the virologists I've seen have been vocally against the theory. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:56, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

"The people arguing for it on Twitter aren't virologists" is a straw man argument.

Robert R. Redfield is cited in the Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 as a virologist who is a proponent of the theory (although he doesn't appear to have a personal Twitter account, he can let the mainstream press do the heavy lifting). I had meant to add microbiologist and immunologist David Relman to the section as well, so thank you for reminding me. Relman's published opinion on the topic for reference. The names Nikolai Petrovsky and Alina Chan also come up,[43] though I probably wouldn't consider them prominent enough to include in the text of an article. So that's four serious professionals within the field advocating for at least the consideration of the hypothesis to some extent, which the WHO did. IMO this is evidence it is a legitimate scientific hypothesis being researched seriously by legitimate scientists, just an "extremely unlikely" hypothesis right now. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:44, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

per The New York Times it's pretty thoroughly discounted at this point. If it is supposedly an "extremely unlikely" hypothesis, why do you continue to argue that undue weight be lent to it? Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:01, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

An per NPR it has "taken on new life" since the WHO report was published. I'm writing a reply on the SARS-CoV-2 talk page to cover that content specifically. But I'm curious why you characterize my comments as arguing in favor of undue weight? I very much do not want undue weight, and that applies as much to dismissing it offhand as a 'social media geopolitical football' as it does to giving it a place of prominence on a primary COVID article. Bakkster Man (talk) 21:08, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

As WAID notes, the lab leak theory isn't pseudoscience, though it has other issues. There is a parallel that I don't know if it has been considered wrt Wikipedia editing behaviour. In 1978 there was an outbreak of smallpox in the UK. In that case, the accepted version of events, after a public enquiry, was that the virus did leak out of the lab, through air ducts, and infected someone in the same building, who then died horribly. An alternative version, suggested by some, including Mark Pallen in the book The Last Days of Smallpox, is that this person visited the laboratory, possibly against the rules, and got infected while there. Scientifically, this and the lab leak hypothesis of covid are very similar. I don't see anyone edit warring about this on our smallpox articles. I note that Pallen's book is "independently published", an attribute I think would cause many people here fighting covid wars to snort their tea out of their noses. The book got glowing reviews in some infection-disease journals. In the smallpox case I think reasonable people come to different conclusions, can agree to disagree, and accept we may never know. Nobody, after all that time, is going to re-open the enquiry.

I hope you can see why I'm uncomfortable trying to create a huge hurdle for any "origin of disease outbreak". There are loads of diseases where people are trying to investigate the origin, and publish their findings and speculation in literature of varying authority. The difference between the two outbreaks here is politics, and the kind of politics where the truth is not important. Any solution to this problem has to address that, and I don't think MEDRS is the tool you want to use. -- Colin°^Talk 10:06, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, I think we have some editors making this distinction (eg yourself & WAID), some who are trying to use policies and the carefully worded comments of the former group for the purpose of promoting this stuff in an undue fashion, and then you have some who take hardline positions to avoid giving anything to wikilawyer with. If I remember correctly, a few SPAs quoted and took out of context some of WAID's earlier comments to try argue their content into articles. Since (unfortunately) Wikipedia's processes often favour hardline positions and argumentation via strict textual analysis of policy, it seems more understandable why some might not wish to give any way to (mostly) SPAs with possibly questionable intentions (given their offwiki commentary). That would probably include the MEDRS application issue. This then also seems to blur the distinction between those engaging in neutral editing vs political POV pushing. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:34, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Note that in my comment which seems to have sparked this, I explicitly did not use the term "pseudoscience" but FRINGE - which does not alter the recommended course of action whether the subject is pseudoscience or speculation which is theoretically possible but not supported by the vast majority of qualifying sources. That, and my first hand looks at the posts of the Twitter SPAs which obviously doesn't bring any confidence about the methodology or motivations of these editors. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:58, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Continuing discussion

With the above proposal now closed, that still leaves two out of my original bullet points (which were pretty much ignored, except for some discussion about which venue would be most appropriate for the second point):

• What needs to be done in regards the enforcement of the general sanctions in the COVID area (can we make AE an acceptable venue for this?)
• Whether any additional clarification in regards to the applicability of WP:BESTSOURCES and WP:MEDRS in the COVID area are necessary?

Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:58, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Jefferson Starship content disputes

Some time back, I attempted to settle a dispute on the Dispute resolution board between AbleGus (talk · contribs) and Cheryl Fullerton (talk · contribs) over Jefferson Starship. To cut a long story short, the two editors just don't seem to able to agree on anything, and the article's talk page is full of lengthy disagreements. I rewrote the lead based on a compromise between the two parties, and I've tried to explain the issues as best as I can both on the article's talk page and my own, but I keep getting dragged into the conversation both on and off-wiki, and I don't think I'm the only one. I really feel I have given all that I can to settling this dispute, and I think somebody else needs to look at it. I'm loathe to come down like a ton of bricks and suggest bans on two relatively inexperienced editors, but I think they need to hear from somebody else that less is more and the excessive verbiage on the talk page is now putting people off. Your thoughts, please. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:26, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

(skimming) For two editors who seem to disagree so much, at least they seem to be focusing on content (for the most part)? If so, that seems to be promising. A voluntary word count limit per series of responses, strictly enforced by a mediator trimming excess text, might be a decent idea. I think when one ends up with a wall of text it's often because they don't proofread/spend time eliminating redundant points/go OTT to hammer their point home (speaking from experience). It seems like they need to split their disagreements up into chunks and work on those. If they can lower the verbosity, involvement from a relevant WikiProject might be viable. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:31, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Posted a request. I'm not actually sure either @AbleGus or @Cheryl Fullerton will understand the reasoning, but if they continue to post walls of text I think it's totally reasonable for anyone at that talk to just treat their posts as a refusal to discuss. —valereee (talk) 21:37, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

• I haven't viewed all the details, and just going on Ritchie's summary of the situation (which I trust), it would seem that some kind of highly targeted sanction is worth trying, to both equally. Either 1RR on that article, or just block both of them from editing that one article, for say 60 to 90 days. That would seem to create an incentive to get along once they get to edit it again, and they get some experience editing other things between now and then. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:26, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

The C of E and Dial Square

'Dial Square' is the original name of Arsenal F.C.; some fans of the club have founded a new breakaway club under that name. We have an article on that new club, currently located at Dial Square Football Club, created on 19 April. The C of E (talk · contribs) created a separate article at Dial Square F.C. on 20 April 2021, overwriting the pre-existing redirect to the Arsenal article. I restored the redirect on the basis that an article on the topic already existed. The C of E has repeatedly restored 'their' article at Dial Square F.C. (including again today, after I told them that if they did I would come to ANI), refused to engage with me on the topic until I threatened ANI (see my talk page posts here which were ignored), and redirected the existing article to 'their' version, despite the existing article being under discussion at AFD (NB - I !voted 'delete' at the AFD before The C of E created 'their' version, and also created the original redirect).

My concerns about The C of E'd discussion? OWNership, edit warring, refusing to discuss, refusing to follow what I believe to be the correct process (rename via RM, and improve, the existing article, rather than creating two versions of the same topic). Bringing it here for wider consideration. GiantSnowman 10:34, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

• Unless I'm missing something (which is always possible) I can't see why the newer article doesn't simply qualify for WP:CSD#A10. Black Kite (talk) 12:00, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Although, to be honest, the duplicate article is better, so it might be best to history merge them first. Black Kite (talk) 12:09, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
    • I explained I did not know about the previous article because it was not following the standard MOS for FOOTY club articles. I invited Snowman to talk on the page about it and I did as he suggested in merging the articles, which he then undid. The reason I did not put the content of the article I created in there was because the AFD was already in full swing and since it is due to be closed today (with delete being the fairly obvious outcome), I feel it would be more prudent and COMMONSENSE to wait until that is done because then it becomes a moot point (there is only 1 day in it and the original is very WP:PROMO and I don't think there is much to salvage by merging histories). Also I do feel that comment to bring me here from Snowman was a little unfair because he made it while I restored it (so I did not see it by the time I had done) and invited him to chat on the talk page. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 12:40, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
      • I think you're going to struggle to illustrate the notability of any club that plays in the Guildford and Woking Alliance League Division 1 North regardless of how good the article is. I'm pretty sure they're not getting the publicity that FCU Manchester or AFC Wimbledon did when they were formed. Black Kite (talk) 13:49, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
      • The C of E - you only started talking about this matter after I threatened ANI and restored your preferred version regardless. I have already suggested how you deal with the AFD issue (improve the existing article; ping all participants who have !voted; and leave a message for any reviewing admin) and you...ignored me. GiantSnowman 15:19, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
        • Not quite, I suggested we talk as you were writing the ANI threat. I clicked revert to follow WP:BRD probably around the same time that you had written the note. As I explained, I did not see that comment before I restored it. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 15:25, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
          • You fundamentally misunderstand how BRD operates. You created the article by overwriting an established redirect (B), I reverted (R) and then posted o your talk page (D). You should have replied and discussed further - instead you reverted a further two times and also failed to respond to my subsequent talk page posts. GiantSnowman 15:28, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
            • I responded in the comments. You made the revert, I restored it stating the MOS and that I wasn't aware of a previous article. You reverted suggesting a merge, I restored and agreed and did the merge. You seemed to have accepted it as you left it for 2 days before coming back with the revert, which I restored to bring in the discussion. So, no I did not ignore you. Please, I don't want this to get heated. I do think it is best if we wait for the AFD to run its course, and move from there. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 15:33, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
              • So now you recognise that my initial action was the R of BRD, and yet you continued to revert? Why? Edit summaries are not a substitute for talk page discussion - so why did you fail to respond there? Why didn't you follow the advice of improving the existing article rather than trying to replace it at a different location? As Black Kite says you are lucky that your article wasn't speedied... GiantSnowman 15:38, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
                • I already explained on the talk page, the reason why I didn't was because the other one was already under AFD and there was already a series of clear delete !votes. I felt that that one had already been tainted and condemned by the sheer weight of the delete !votes without a single keep one. So even if I did transfer it over, the closing admin would overlook the vast improvements that had been made. If a fresh one is needed then maybe. But I think at the stage we are currently at, it seems more suitable to let that one be closed and AFD take its course and then we can move on to the next step from there. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 15:50, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
                  • The fact you have made ZERO attempt to comment at the AFD is damning. "Oh well it was going to be deleted anyway, nothing I could do to stop that" is, I am sorry to say, absolute nonsense, as is the "tainted" comment. GiantSnowman 17:15, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
                    • I didn't comment because I didn't see the point. One "keep", "merge" or "Wait, let's redo this" wasn't going to make a difference and often would have been ignored based on my experience. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 17:29, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
• If/when the original article is deleted, the newer one should be immediately draftified, as it would be completely illogical to delete an article when there are two articles on the same subject, yet retain the other one in mainspace. The quality of the article is irrelevant, it's the notability of the subject that is relevant to AfD. Black Kite (talk) 18:10, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Agreed. GiantSnowman 18:30, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
  • It has been deleted. A rewrite in place, with a note about the rewrite in the discussion, and a re-listing for people to change their minds, would have caused less kerfuffle than this. It happens regularly without such incident. Uncle G (talk) 08:29, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
    • @Black Kite and Uncle G: something I suggested to The C of E multiple times, but they ignored me. Please can you move the mainspace article to draft? I don't want to be seen to be involved. GiantSnowman 17:15, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
      • You suggested merging, something I did to the correct title for the article. The point is fairly moot and WP:STALE now the AFD has concluded. It was an unfortunate clash of opinions here and I hope we can respectfully move on from it. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 17:18, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Stop lying. I'm sorry but that's the only way I can describe it. I clearly suggested to you that "Improve the existing article; ping all participants at the AFD to reconsider (including me); and I'll leave a note for the reviewing admin to consider re-listing the AFD given the improvements". You did not even try. GiantSnowman 17:22, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Oh and I think there should be a HISTMERGE with the deleted article. GiantSnowman 17:24, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Was this not a suggestion to merge the two? I apologise if I did misinterpret your wishes. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 17:25, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

No. That was clearly a request to improve the existing article, and then seek to move the existing article to a different location. You did not no that, nor did you merge the article. In effect what you have done is a form of C&P move here. Ludicrous. Own up to your mistakes. GiantSnowman 17:32, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Look what happens when you improve an article listed at AFD - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nurul Amin (athlete) - people change their mind and its gets kept! None of this "tainted" nonsense. GiantSnowman 11:28, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• Can this be closed? It looks resolved, with trouting of the C of E. It feels like they’re being pummelled. Uncomfortable. DeCausa (talk) 11:38, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
  • They have yet to acknowledge their poor conduct, and the Dial Square F.C. article remains, despite the 'sister' article having been deleted at AFD...but I am happy for this to be closed and us all to move on subject to the Dial Square F.C. article being draftified/deleted per @Black Kite and Uncle G:'s suggestions. If nobody does that I'll sort it myself, on the basis that nobody has concerns re:INVOLVED with me doing such actions. GiantSnowman 08:59, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Indiscriminate removal of deprecated sources

I believe that David Gerard's indiscriminate removal of deprecated sources constitutes disruptive editing. The WP:DEPRECATED guideline says "[c]itations to deprecated sources should not be removed indiscriminately, and each case should be reviewed separately." When a user does 4-5 such edits per minute is it obvious that it's indiscriminate removal.

The first example is here. The information was removed wholesale. It took me about a minute to find the same information in the Guardian. I've notified the editor about this.

Here's the second example. Even assuming that Russia Today is not reliable for the official position of Russian government, it's not that hard to find Medvedev's words elsewhere or simply put or tag.

I should probably add in general I agree that the less Russia Today is used the better for Wikipedia (with some rare exceptions) and have removed links to it and to other unreliable sources myself. Alaexis_¿question? 17:22, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

If it's so easy to replace the information in the rare cases where it can be replaced, what's the problem? (Also, WP:DEPRECATED isn't even a guideline.) WP:RSP notes, Many editors describe RT as a mouthpiece of the Russian government that engages in propaganda and disinformation. I'd say that the work of careful review has already been done; in any given case of an RT citation, the burden lies on the side of showing that it should be included. XOR'easter (talk) 18:04, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

XOR I think it's more the speed that it's done at as well as the fact a huge chunk of information is sometimes removed.I don't see why it has to be done almost instantly and why it cannot be tagged-- 5 albert square (talk) 18:59, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Because we've had hundreds or thousands of citations to a state propaganda organization polluting our encyclopedia? The presumption has to be that (a) the citation needs to go, and (b) any material supported by it is unreliable. (Even in the rare cases where one might guess them to be factually accurate — say, quoting the words of a state official — if all we have is a propaganda outlet, then we have no grounds to include that quotation. NPOV means basing inclusion on representation in reliable sources.) We need more and faster removals of RT, not the opposite. XOR'easter (talk) 19:02, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Deprecated does not equal "banned" and perhaps the only source that has any type of outright ban on use from the community is Daily Mail with relation to BLP. Deprecated sources should be removed but with care not to disrupt the encyclopedia, and the presumption that material presented only sourced to deprecated sources is tainted and thus must also be removed is a bad fallacy (as proven by OP post). --Masem (t) 19:12, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

An example where the material could be restored with a better source doesn't prove that material from an absolutely unreliable source should be kept by default. In the first cited example, not all of the removed content was restored. And in the second, a Google News search for Medvedev's quote ("We are categorically against drawing parallels between the Balkan events and the events in the Caucasus") finds no hits, while a DDG search returns only Russia Today and Wikipedia mirrors. So, we have no WP:RS indicating that the exact quote is worthy of inclusion. The disruption to the encyclopedia was the inclusion of propaganda as "sources" in the first place, not its removal. XOR'easter (talk) 19:23, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

A similar discussion was held at WP:RS/N and I don't think we ever got a definitive answer about the immediate removal of deprecated sources from articles that aren't BLPs. I think it would be better if the sources were marked with like Alaexis suggests, giving editors the chance to find and replace the source. I found David Gerard's removal of the information attributed to a deprecated source more disruptive than just the removal of the source. There are now articles out there with gaps and paragraphs that no longer make sense. I think I'd prefer a tag added instead of that situation. Least if a source cannot be found, the information can be removed by someone who is familiar with the topic and can rewrite the article around it. - JuneGloom07 Talk 19:27, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

I was looking just now for examples to discuss specifics, and it appears that David Gerard has taken to replacing RT citations with {{citation needed}} rather than removing the associated text in cases where the article flow would be significantly broken [44][45][46][47]. XOR'easter (talk) 19:44, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

I should say "has been", rather than "has taken to", since he didn't just start today [48][49][50][51]. Also for Sputnik, e.g., [52]. XOR'easter (talk) 20:35, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

At least as I see it the answer we got was that both removing the sourced information plus the text, just replacing the citation with a Cn tag, and doing an in-depth search to try and source at least part of the text where appropriate and up to editorial discretion but that in BLP circumstances there simply is no option and both *must* be removed or properly sourced (admittedly that is kind of a non-answer). I think we should be willing to accept whatever level of work an editor is willing to do that improves the encyclopedia, removing deprecated sources almost always improves wikipedia. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:06, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

See the WP:V policy, specifically WP:BURDEN: Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. ... When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source and the material therefore may not be verifiable. + Some editors object to others' making chronic, frequent, and large-scale deletions of unsourced information, especially if unaccompanied by other efforts to improve the material. Also check to see whether the material is sourced to a citation elsewhere on the page. A lot of these articles don't have lots of watchers and are only infrequently materially changed. Content removed may be lost for a long time or permanently. Indiscriminate mass removal of unreliable sources without spending at least 1 min to Google or check nearby sources in the article probably isn't in line with policy. If that is usually done but these were irregular omissions then that's a different thing. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:12, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

I'd say that the articles not having lots of watchers and being only infrequently materially changed is part of the problem. If they're wallowing in obscurity, then replacing bad citations with {{cn}} tags isn't going to help very much: the content drawn from those bad citations will just sit there, being propagandistic, without anyone coming along to fix it. If more dramatic removals are what it takes to get the pages fixed, then so much the better for dramatic removals. Moreover, we're not just dealing with material that lacks an inline citation to a reliable source; we're facing material based on a manifestly unreliable source. The cost-benefit calculus of removal is different when the source is actively misleading. XOR'easter (talk) 20:26, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

One can go a step further than just tagging by just Googling the fact and seeing if a source pops up, then replacing with a different cite. It takes about a minute for many facts. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:37, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

The issue is that, even if sourcing a claim takes "about a minute" (which I consider to be an extremely short estimate), he is removing them far quicker than that. For example, on April 26 we see a whole four diffs in the space of less than one minute. This isn't something that one person can realistically deal with. jp×g 20:47, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

None of those damaged the articles in question by making their prose disjointed (and the fourth was a swap-with-{{cn}} edit). Also, there are something like 1,500 RT citations yet remaining. That is a problem that no one person can realistically deal with. (At a minute a pop, it would still be 25 hours of work.) Making a dent by cutting redundant citations, removing lengthy quotes from state officials, excising RT from "External links", and swapping out the occasional maybe-salvagable entry with a {{cn}} is a good way to start. And in all that I've seen reading back through Special:Contributions/David_Gerard so far, that pretty much characterizes them. What, exactly, has been broken here? Because I'm not seeing it yet. XOR'easter (talk) 20:57, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

• Wikipedia content is supposed to have a reliable source. In my (not inconsiderable) experience, people will demand, with equal coinfidence, that deprecated sources may not be removed until the person removing has found another source (wrong: it's the job of the person including content to source it reliably), that the source should be removed and replaced with {{cn}} (wrong: only the most uncontroversial information may be left unsourced), and that the content must be removed entirely. David has a long history of being anything but indiscriminate in how he handles this choice. Also: RT is 100% unreliable. It's Russian state media and as trustworthy as Pravda ever was. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:40, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

I recall having read in a page history a dispute between David Gerard and an FA writer over whether it was acceptable to use the Daily Mail to cite "the Daily Mail said this". After a bit of poking, I found it here. For BLPs, I'm inclined to go "yeah, mass-removing is at worst a bit quick and at best necessary", but I can't see that action as being anything but indiscriminate. Vaticidalprophet 20:42, 26 April 2021 (UTC) Screw this, this is exactly the wrong time for me to get into conversations on ANI. Please no one ping me here for, like, a month. Vaticidalprophet 21:10, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Vaticidalprophet, "$UnreliableSource X said Y, source, $UnreliableSource X saying Y" is exactly the kind of shit we should be removing. Reliable, independent, secondary. It's a trifecta, not a "pick one". Guy (help! - typo?) 21:05, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

On top of that, the claim in question was BLP material, even though the article was about a painting. The first line of WP:BLP says that it applies to any Wikipedia page. XOR'easter (talk) 21:07, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

I remember the example at Talk:Hugh_Walpole#Removal_of_deprecated_source and history popping up on my watchlist some months ago wrt MoS, I'm not even sure that removal was in line with policy (specifically WP:RSEDITORIAL, if not WP:EW). Other edits remove historical usages of the source or sourcing uncontroversial facts, both explicitly permitted by the RfCs, eg Some editors suggested that the previous RfC needed to be overturned because there were non-controversial facts which were reported in the Daily Mail and nowhere else. We note that the use of the Daily Mail as a source in such instances, in addition to being allowed explicitly by the previous RfC, would be covered by WP:IAR in any case. It's hard to say this is anything but indiscriminate and IMO DG's interpretation of policy/consensus is broader than the actual consensus. This is not necessarily an issue, or at least not necessarily a remediable one, but I think it wouldn't hurt to at least make a token effort to find another source when making removals, even if it slows down DG's rate slightly. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:27, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

• Although the majority of edits to remove deprecated sources by this editor are valid, a substantial minority are disruptive and remove pertinent information where a reliable source could be found easily. This results in a substantial amount of damage to the project, which outweighs the benefits of cleaning up the sources in my opinion. This is a long-standing problem (and not the only area of controversy this edit is embroiled in) and furthermore any attempt to challenge these bad edits results in hostile and uncalled for responses by this editor (and a number of allied editors). I feel that sanctions are required. Shritwod (talk) 21:15, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

In my experience, the fans of deprecated sources consider any removal "indiscriminate", and often treat their favoured deprecated source as somehow worthy of greater consideration than merely bad sources that anyone would remove on sight. They will go to tremendous lengths to find excuses why bad sources are good, actually.

The appropriate policy is WP:V, which explicitly refers to the strong guideline WP:RS as the way to proceed.

WP:RS says: Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources.

WP:RS is a guideline, but it's included by explicit reference in the first sentence of WP:V, which is policy: On Wikipedia, verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. The words "reliable source" link further down the page to #What_counts_as_a_reliable_source, which is headed with Further information: Wikipedia:Reliable sources.

Verifiability - which is policy - requires the use of reliable sources. Deprecated sources are those that have been found, by strong consensus, to be generally unreliable. Sputnik and RT are deprecated sources. This means they have been found, by broad general consensus, to be all but unusable on Wikipedia.

The deprecation RFC for Sputnik says: Sputnik is an unreliable source that publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated as in the 2017 RfC of the Daily Mail. A significant proportion of editors describe Sputnik as a propaganda outlet for the Russian government. The deprecation RFC for RT says: There is general consensus that RT is an unreliable source for Wikipedia content, and that it publishes false or fabricated information and should be deprecated along the lines of the Daily Mail.

The referenced 2017 deprecation RFC for the Daily Mail says that it is generally unreliable, and its use as a reference is to be generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist. As a result, the Daily Mail should not be used for determining notability, nor should it be used as a source in articles.

(Note that a lot of the arguments above are the same arguments that Daily Mail and Sun partisans use, including Daily Mail partisans who are still unwilling to accept two broad general RFCs deprecating the Daily Mail.)

WP:BURDEN - which is policy - states: Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source.

As such, removing links to Sputnik and RT is almost always the correct thing to do, as it is a source that has been found generally unreliable. It is not mandatory - but it is almost always correct.

WP:BURDEN - which is policy - also states: The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. So the burden of proof for addition or restoration of deprecated sources is entirely on the person doing so, and not on the person removing the deprecated sources.

So if you want material from these sources - which have been found, by a broad general RFC consensus, to be fabricated propaganda sources - then the onus is surely, by policy, 100% on you to find an RS to keep the material in. If you think I have this wrong, please explain why I have the policy above incorrect - David Gerard (talk) 21:13, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

I would also like to hear from the people who don't want me to remove their favourite deprecated sources, detailing what they're doing about our backlog of deprecated sourcing - David Gerard (talk) 21:18, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Please stop acting like a stuck record and address the issues. Shritwod (talk) 21:16, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

I literally just did, thanks. But I look forward to why you think my understanding of policy is incorrect - David Gerard (talk) 21:18, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

You are using your personal interpretation of policies to justify lazy editing. Yes, these are not reliable sources but in many cases reliable sources exist. You just don't bother to find them. That is vandalism in my opinion, and your continued refusal to alter your behaviour should be sanctioned. Shritwod (talk) 21:22, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

According to the relevant policy, On Wikipedia, vandalism has a very specific meaning: editing (or other behavior) deliberately intended to obstruct or defeat the project's purpose, which is to create a free encyclopedia, in a variety of languages, presenting the sum of all human knowledge. Moreover, Even if misguided, willfully against consensus, or disruptive, any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia is not vandalism. There is no way that DG's actions qualify as vandalism. XOR'easter (talk) 21:28, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

• Removing improperly sourced material is a legitimate maintenance task. You might wish that the person doing so find a source, but they are not obligated to do so and "lazy editing" is not something any admin is going to sanction for. Your opinion that it is vandalism is not in alignment with well-established site policies. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:30, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

break

The close doesn't make sense. It's not even the thread OP who used the "vandalism" word, it was another uninvolved editor commenting, and they probably meant "disruptive editing". The section was closed within 4 hours based on semantics, really? This seems to be a valid concern, with several admins and editors listed at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations (ie presumably they understand sourcing policy) disagreeing with DG's interpretation of policy/RfC over the past year in the linked discussions, and the issue has had at least one run at ANI before. Whatever happened to "it's why admins invite users who have disagreements with them to raise the issues at AN" ? (incidentally, above we have a non-admin editor being crucified for 'lazy AfDing')

Obviously DG shouldn't be sanctioned for removing unreliable sources, which is thankless work. But it isn't unreasonable to request at least a token effort be made to find other sources[53] (has journal sources with a 10sec Google search) or at least not remove statements still acceptable per the RfC[54]. Policy is also clear that editors do not sacrifice quality in the pursuit of speed or quantity and WP:BURDEN indicates indiscriminate mass-removal is not ideal. If the issue (as claimed above) is that there's so many unreliable sources being used that if DG slowed down then the backlog would never be eliminated, then it needs more editors to help out, not more speed.And yes, I'm aware I'm wasting my time writing this response, as someone will probably tap the Archive button within 12 hours. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:11, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Except there's no point in this kind of thing continuing around here on the dramaboard - legitimate issues with their editing can and should be raised on their talk page; where I see only a short discussion has taken place. If the issue is with the objection to the removal of content sourced to poor sources and it not being replaced with better sources, that's one about (legitimate, I'd say) interpretation of policy (seems to be an issue between enforcing WP:V and encouraging editors to apply the WP:FIXIT to problems they encounter) and dramaboard isn't really the best place for that either. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:13, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Wow, that's quite a lot of action following my post here (I had to go offline and couldn't follow it). I see that there are other editors who have expressed similar concerns, so I don't think that a closure is justified. I have not accused the editor of vandalism. Alaexis_¿question? 07:00, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Many editors have express concerns (see DG's talk page) and they have mostly been dismissed in the same way with a failure to engage on the actual points of the dispute. As for "vandalism"... well, that's my subjective point of view. I don't believe that these are all good faith edits though - this editor's over-riding aim seems to be to remove these deprecated sources at any cost, even if that means removing pertinent information from the article. Bear in mind that this editor is also under a topic ban on certain topics and there was a whole bizarre indicent around the Susie Boniface article where this editor again applied a unique interpretation of policy and the privileges of his admin rights. Shritwod (talk) 09:16, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and boldly undone the close per the discussion below. SkyWarrior 19:15, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

---

What I would like is that users removing deprecated sources should exercise judgement per WP:BURDEN ("Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. ... When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source and the material therefore may not be verifiable.") and WP:DEPRECATED guideline which says "[c]itations to deprecated sources should not be removed indiscriminately, and each case should be reviewed separately." Thanks to JuneGloom07, 5_albert_square, Masem, JPxG, Shritwod, ProcrastinatingReader thanks for the input, I've tried to incorporate it. This is what I would propose

• If there are slightest suspicions about the information being referenced to a deprecated source, or it's used for BLP, remove the information together with the source
• If such information is not controversial (e.g., that a certain tennis player won a tournament) then replace the reference with {{fact}} tag
• If the source is probably good enough for the claim (e.g. RT for the official position of Russian government), add {{better source needed}} tag.

The editors of course can go above and beyond and find reliable sources and replace the removed ones, but I recognise that this takes much more time. Alaexis_¿question? 07:52, 27 April 2021 (UTC) Also, this thread is not about the reliability of RT or Daily Mail or random youtube channels. 99.9% of such sources should be removed or replaced and I have been doing my part of it. Please keep the discussion focused. Alaexis_¿question? 07:58, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

While I don't think Mr Gerard's zealous application of WP:V is sanctionable, I do think he could work on his attitude, having had the unpleasant experience of disagreeing with him several times over removal of material in articles on my watchlist because of sourcing concerns. Any suggestion that he apply the policies with a little more care (and deal with the sourcing rather than the content, which is often entirely uncontroversial but, like the proverbial baby, goes out with the bathwater) is met with an accusation that one is a defender of the source being objected to. I appreciate that being questioned is tiresome, but I do think Mr Gerard needs to work on WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL. Witness the above response: "the fans of deprecated sources", "Daily Mail and Sun partisans", "their favourite deprecated sources". This seems to be Mr Gerard's default response, and I don't find that attitude helpful or appropriate, particularly from an admin. Dave.Dunford (talk) 07:55, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• I will note that if the effort spent by everyone above complaining about DG removing deprecated sources was used by those same people to add good sources to the articles in place of the deprecated sources, it would have actually been easier than holding this discussion. --Jayron32 12:48, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
  • ...and I will note that on several occasions I've done exactly that. It's not the removal of sources that I have a problem with, it's the removal of valid information purely because it is referenced by a deprecated source, to the detriment of the articles affected. Dave.Dunford (talk) 12:54, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
    • How would I, as a reader, know that the information is valid? --Jayron32 14:05, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
  • I did replace a few RT links with RS yesterday actually. But that isn't a good argument anyway. Firstly, because it's like saying when someone WP:MASSCREATEs bad articles other editors shouldn't complain but should just improve the article themselves. Nobody exercising human judgement can compete with the speed of indiscriminate actions (see WP:MEATBOT), and nobody should have to WP:HOUND DG's contribs checking his removals and reinstating the bad removals. Secondly, because in some cases the source is reporting uncontroversial info on a niche issue and so no other sources can be found; WP:DAILYMAIL2 explicitly carved out an exception for this, but DG removes those too and tends to argue against reinstating, often to result in WP:NOCON outcomes with low participation and thus reverting to his newly established "status quo" (not really, but understandably editors don't want to edit war with an admin). This, in effect, nullifies what the actual close says and its underlying consensus. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:02, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
  • When an individual user undertakes a mass action on their own which they may believe they have consensus for and/or policy/guideline fully supports, but without seeking a consensus to take those mass actions, they are still at onus for responsibility for those actions to make sure they meet community standards. DG has well stated that removal of these deprecated sources is in line with WP:V which is true, but as has been pointed out, other consensus and guidelines like DEPRECATED do not support the mass removals in these fashions, and this issue has come up multiple times before. DG nor others have asked the community to set a timeline for removal of deprecated sources, which makes the rush to remove them in mass action unnecessary save for the few cases where they are terribly bad (DM on BLP), and just continuing to point back to WP:V to say that supports completing these actions in haste when others continue to find them disruptive is not helpful.
  • There would be no issue if DG announced at VPP or similar some plan in the future (eg 6 months) of mass pruning deprecated sources and then taking the same types of actions they are doing now (which includes content removal along with sources), sorta like a bot approval process. Now you give editors pre-warning to clear out deprecated sources so that when DG goes through and clears them, the last thing we can call this is "disruption". That clears the issue on the onus related to mass actions (the same problem we had recently with mass-stub creation). Heck, if DG wants to do a more targetted one-deprecated-source-at-a-time, a 1-2 month notice for each would be fair enough assuming we're talking in the ballpark of ~1000 current uses or less. Editors would more likely work collaborative if they weren't responding to an aggressive action to correct matters. --Masem (t) 13:39, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

    Masem, David's project of manually and carefully removing deprecated sources has been underway for at least three years. And for that entire time, he has been harassed by people who don't believe in deprecation, and told, with equal certainty, that he must approach his work in one of a handful of mutually exclusive ways.

    In the end, these are deprecated sources. Wikipedia should not be citing Russia Today. It's a propaganda organ for Putin's oligarchy, used to undermine democracy and further his geopolitical goals. But no maintenance tags ever get fixed, so in the end someone (and it's often, but not always David), does the needful. We should thank him, not constantly hound him. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:29, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

    • This. --Jayron32 17:45, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
      • I concur with Guy as well. Maybe rapid-fire removals are less than ideal, but hundreds of citations to a propaganda machine for an authoritarian oligarchy is pretty far from ideal, too. As for the complaints about excessive speed, I've yet to see an example where DG actually made an article harder to read or excised information that would be called vital if properly referenced. For that matter, I will cheerfully dispute the idea that RT is even suitable for official positions of the Russian government. If the only statement of a government's position is in propaganda, then NPOV forbids its inclusion: NPOV means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. No RS = No coverage. Russia Today was deprecated 11 months ago today. That has been more than long enough for anyone with a serious interest in preserving the text originally sourced to them to find replacements. By now, removing those "citations" is overdue. XOR'easter (talk) 18:16, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

    I have seen no editor state they don't believe in deprecation, nor arguing that these sources must be kept for proper sourcing. They all agree that in time we should remove these sources and not doubting their issue of being too close to propaganda or misinformation or whatever you want to catalog them. They state what deprecation means as used on WP as well as in standard computer language - it is a source no longer supported and should be removed in time, but nothing in policy or in any of the deprecation RFCs on these sources set a deadline or a need for timely removal, which is the issue. The concern has always been loss of information without any apparent attempt to seek replacement or leave behind maintenance templates that help editors know what has been taken out to be fixed. Preventing disruption of the work is a policy matter and that's the concern here, and DG's been doing this on their own without checking with the community of how they should be approaching the work while minimizing community disruption. If DG or others wanted these removed in a timely matter, it could have been proposed to the community, set a timetable to give editors a chance to recover what info they can, and then go for it after that timetable is up - that's how you minimize disruption normally for any type of mass edit issue. Its great that DG wants to do this, but all that was needed was to make sure that the process was through a manner agreed to by consensus, otherwise DG's trending on onus territory that they have to be able to stand up to. This is less about the issues of "oh no, we have Daily Fail and RT links that we need to excise" and more about trying to make sure singular editors do not jump to conclusions on their own to do mass edits, create conflicts, and continue on their own believing they are right; we've outlined numerous times in the past for many other types of mass edit systems unrelated to deprecated sourcing that there's certain processes that should be followed to minimize disruption, and DG seems not to want to engage in that at all. --Masem (t) 19:02, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

    This, actually. Pelirojopajaro (talk) 19:19, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

    Masem, the issue is that "in time" is always defined as "some time probably at least a week before the heat death of the universe" and in the mean time these same people make pretty much no effort to fix the rpoblem themselves.

    And that is how it always goes. People who don't want (or perhaps can't be arsed) to fix the problem, objecting to the methods of someone who can be arsed. Someone with an extremely long history of valued contributions to the project, so his commitment is in no doubt. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:06, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

    And I'm saying is that DG could say on VPP/RSN "I planning on sweeping through to remove all Daily Fail and RT links on July 1, 2021. If you want to repair content to use other RSes, you have two months to try to fix them." (though not so tersely), and do nothing else before that day. Boom, deadline set, VPP is considered central enough to alert people to the action, and then when DG goes to do that on July 1, now they can use a sledgehammer rather than a chisel because they have given fair warning. If people can't be arsed to fix the problem in two months after being given that warning, that's their fault now. The problem right now is that no one has given them any warning: being put on the deprecation does not set a deadline because that's not the expectation set by the RFCs or the principle of deprecation. --Masem (t) 20:14, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

    It's true that the deprecation RfC's didn't fix a deadline. But they didn't set a minimum waiting time, either, or specify a venue where a notice should be nailed up before taking action. Without an explicit consensus to that effect, we can't say that the community opinion is against acting sooner rather than later. XOR'easter (talk) 06:00, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

    And regardless, WP:V is completely clear that any statement that lacks a reliable source can be removed on sight. It has some cautions and suggestions about how to go about it (which I feel generally reflect how DG has gone about it regardless), but even then, those are worded as mere cautions and suggestions; and every effort to make them more strict or give them more teeth has failed (often, I should point out, failed attempts to change that have been led by the very people now pushing to sanction DG, so they are well aware that their position has failed to obtain a consensus.) This discussion should be closed because it seems to effectively be a begging-the-question effort to rewrite existing policy by going after individual editors who are editing in compliance with it. --Aquillion (talk) 20:58, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

    There's nothing careful about the process, in his own talk page he he explains the process as essentially just searching for the deprecated sources and ignoring the top results. This has led to many perfectly valid uses of these sources being removed because this technique does not scale. And it's hardly the case that time is spent on most of these edits - typically not even a minute. This is not editing, this is a human-driven bot that is not in the end adding value, in my opinion. And note that I am not alone in this opinion. Shritwod (talk) 18:58, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

    That doesn't read to me like his explanation of the process. DG points to a search query and notes, about the top 20 or so there have plausibly reasonable cause, and would need very careful attention to be properly replaced. That's not running a search and ignoring the top results; it's exercising exactly the kind of caution that has been asked for here. XOR'easter (talk) 20:25, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• Seeing as this is ANI, I'm wondering what administrative action is being requested here. ANI is where you go when you want an admin to act to resolve your grievance. At this time I don't see anyone even suggesting what they want an admin to do here. It might help anyone making such a proposal to clearly explain what site policies are being violated as well. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:08, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Someone, please close this again. The discussion post-close is unimpeachable evidence that the close was appropriate. Very knowledgeable and experienced editors stand on both sides of a nuanced policy debate. No consensus is even close to emerging on any possible sanction. If ProcrastinatingReader's desired outcome is not sanction but to "request at least a token effort be made" then that request has been clearly stated and we can be done. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 19:17, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

    I'm not the thread OP. BTW, the thread hasn't even been open for 24 hours (if you subtract the time it was closed, 4 hours after creation). ANIs usually don't start with proposals of sanctions, as people wait to see where the thread goes. But it does seem like there's a hurry to get this one archived... Aside: I think Masem, above, describes other reasoning issues. So I trust we can now draw a line under the idea that any possible criticism of a subset of DG's editing is equivalent to support for overturning the RfCs and promoting the use of deprecated sources or the spread of Russian propaganda.

    The underlying criticism is that in the pursuit of speed to meet some artificial WP:DEADLINE there are bad edits that (probably) wouldn't have happened if more care was taken. Five separate policies/consensus decisions apply to various sample edits, described above. Most importantly for me is that there's a lot of good, factually accurate content written in disparate topic areas by various editors (many now departed) written over 20 years. Much of this content, if removed, will never be re-added due to that fact. Content such as this event was important in the context of the article and adds value for readers (I've just reinstated it with two journal sources). So I think this is a problem. If the community wanted to authorise a search and destroy mission I'm sure it would've said so. But the close said the opposite, and there is no deadline to get the job done with the least amount of loss and disruption. It might take a bit longer, but a noble goal doesn't seem to have justified high-speed editing at the cost of quality in the past (see WP:MEATBOT). It's also erroneous to think that we're misleading readers if the "Special:LinkSearch displaying 0" part takes longer too. If the aim is content accuracy/reliability even at the lowest time whilst not even make a cursory Google search, one could focus their efforts on statements that sound suspicious, rather than hitting everything going down the list no matter how uncontroversial. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:39, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

    I don't think we can say that content sourced to a state propaganda organ is fine just because it doesn't instantly sound suspicious. Part of misinformation is mixing the deceptive in with the accurate, so that the latter lends credibility to the former. A half-truth can work better than a lie, precisely because it doesn't set off the reader's alarm bells. XOR'easter (talk) 21:58, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

    Yes, but when that logic (which is sound in theory) is applied to some of the removal diffs above it not only turned out not to be the case (evidenced by other sources), but also just thinking about the statement one wouldn't've expected it to be false. I'm sure many, probably most, of DG's edits remove crappy statements. I'm just saying a lot completely remove relevant, factually accurate, uncontroversial and highly plausible statements. Some such removals also don't recognise the 'uncontroversial content not elsewhere available' exemption of deprecation, from WP:DAILYMAIL2. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:09, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

    If no reliable source exists, then the content is surely WP:UNDUE even if it is uncontroversial. Now, I can think of exceptions in principle to this. For example, we generally like to have the locations of births and deaths filled in, even if RS'es don't make a big deal of them, so including the city where someone died could make sense, and that datum is not likely to be contested. But I've been reviewing many, many DG edits over the past two days and have not found any where I'd say an exemption of that sort would apply. XOR'easter (talk) 22:24, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

    A reasonable argument can certainly be made both ways in this regard. I agree it would be, relatively speaking, rare, as usage of deprecated source is generally prohibited. In at least the specific examples on this point I linked above, I'd personally argue those were uncontroversial, but I suppose reasonable people could take a different interpretation of what the closers were getting at on that point. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:43, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

    Yes, there are apt to be differences of opinion. (If there weren't, how dull this project would be!) The preponderance of RT removals I've checked have been about living people, as one would expect for a "news" source, so the "don't use the Daily Mail or anything on its level for BLP's" advice would apply. XOR'easter (talk) 06:00, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

    Other than the removal issues and the uncontroversial issues, what exactly is the point of replacing <ref>[deprecated cite]</ref> with {{cn}} anyway? I mean, the sources are deprecated because they make up stuff sometimes, right, not due to some backlinks problem? So surely when WP:DAILYMAIL1 said There are multiple thousands of existing citations to the Daily Mail. Volunteers are encouraged to review them, and remove/replace them as appropriate. it meant that editors actually need to review the statement preceding the <ref>, check if it's factually correct, if so replace it with another source to verify the statement, and if not then remove it. But just keeping the content and replacing the ref tag with {{cn}} just moves it from a tracking cat of 1,500 instances into one with 500,000 instances, so at best doesn't seem to improve content for the reader and at worst makes it harder for a volunteer who actually wants to review the content to do so. If that's what the community wanted, it would've authorised a bot to do the job. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:49, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

  • Given the number of time the problem has occurred and the failure of this editor to engage I would suggest a moratorium on bulk removal of sources for six months. Part of the problem is the bot-like activity of these mass removals. Shritwod (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 12:58, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Given the number of times this user, who is doing the correct thing in their removals, has been dragged unfairly and without cause to the drama boreds, there should be a moratorium on complaining about their work for six months, giving them time to do this necessary and thankless job. --Jayron32 14:00, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
    • Oh come on. Unfairly? This user was tbanned last time they were here, as I recall. This page is for discussion of chronic, intractable problems, it says so right at the top. Mass removal of deprecated links is absolutely one of those problems. It's not the first time this has come up, everyone reading this knows that. We can tolerate this thread being open for more than a few hours. So let's stop circling wagons. And please may I remind you that no one here is doing any kind of necessary job. We are all enjoying a hobby, or trying to. The issue here is that the way one user is enjoying their hobby is interfering with the way other users enjoy their hobby. I'm sure we can find a middle ground that makes everyone happy. Dividing editors into saints and sinners and claiming a hobby is a job is not helpful. Levivich ^harass/_hound 14:34, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
      • I agree with Jayron. Whether you want to call it a "job" or not is besides the point. References to deprecated sources need to go, they damage the encyclopaedia's reputation. David Gerard is doing necessary work. If other think it should be done in a better way, nobody is stopping them. Robby.is.on (talk) 14:53, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
        • DG is stopping them, by removing content along with the deprecated link. That's the point of this thread. Whether deprecated links "need to go", and exactly how soon, and exactly how they go, are the issues under discussion here. It's not helpful to act as if there is only one valid position and anyone who disagrees is somehow getting in the way. This is what I meant about dividing us into saints (those who are mass removing deprecated links) and sinners (those who think it should be done a better way). Levivich ^harass/_hound 15:03, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
          • What is the minimum time limit for keeping incorrect information at Wikipedia? If something is not correct, but still written there in Wikipedia, how long must we falsely tell readers it is right before we are allowed to remove it?--Jayron32 15:16, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
            • It depends on the content. But we have this tag called citation needed... Levivich ^harass/_hound 15:35, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
              • Which David Gerard makes liberal use of in his removals. He also sometimes adds a new source. He also sometimes removes the text entirely, especially when the text is contentious, controversial, or may otherwise be harmful in the context of things like BLPs. --Jayron32 15:48, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

                Sometimes he accidentally comments out half of an article and no one notices for six weeks. Pelirojopajaro (talk) 16:02, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

                • I'm sure that, if I carefully combed through every single article space edit you've ever made, I could find one mistake. You could do the same for me as well. Perfection is not required, if it were, none of us would be allowed to be Wikipedia editors. --Jayron32 16:08, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
                  • Can we start a wall-of-text drama thread about the practice of commenting out whole paragraphs? Because I don't think any good has ever come out of commenting out whole paragraphs. It makes the text harder to read when editing in source mode, it invites much less discussion than just cutting text and announcing it on the talk page, and it invites accidents like that one. Lengthy HTML comments in Wikipedia articles: considered harmful. XOR'easter (talk) 16:40, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

                    XOR'easter, I think this is an excellent idea. The wall-of-text drama, that is, not commenting out paragraphs. I looked in on the servers recently and they don't seem busy at all. They need the work. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:49, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

          • David Gerard and very few others have removed and replaced thousands of unreliable sources. I can't say I have seen those who "think it should be done a better way" do it. I think it's unreasonable to make these demands on those who are willing to tackle the problem if one isn't prepared to do the work. Robby.is.on (talk) 15:20, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
            • You're still referring to a hobby as "work" and dividing editors into good (those doing "the work") and bad (those who think this problem should be handled in another way). You should respect your colleagues and their differences of opinion. People who disagree with DG's approach do not need to have engaged in DG's approach (what you call "the work") prior to suggesting a different approach. Express your opinion, sure, but don't villainize our colleagues who disagree. People who think DG should be doing something different are not being disruptive or obstructive by voicing their opinion. They're not "making demands". Levivich ^harass/_hound 15:35, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
              • So, why then are you trying to get DG to stop doing his hobby? If his hobby is carefully reading articles, finding deprecated sources, removing the links and dealing thoughtfully with each article after removing said links and treating each situation in the way he feels most appropriately meets Wikipedia's standards and policies and guidelines, why have you spent so much energy in this thread trying to make him stop doing that? --Jayron32 15:53, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
                • Um, I'm not doing any of that stuff? I haven't even commented in this thread prior to this, and I have no opinion on DG's edits. I have an opinion about attempts to stop discussion of DG's edits. I think our colleagues should be given the space to have that discussion. Levivich ^harass/_hound 16:23, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

                  Levivich, but we already have. Repeatedly. And yet the same people keep looking for other parents to ask. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:50, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

              • I'm not villainising, just describing what I am seeing. Of course it's disruptive to repeatedly drag people to AN/I for contributions that are effectively net positive. Time would be better spent by leading by example and removing deprecated in "a better way". Robby.is.on (talk) 16:02, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
                • When one person is removing content and another person wants that person to stop removing the content, leading by example doesn't resolve the dispute. The question under discussion is whether the contributions are net positive. Again, you're welcome to the opinion that they are, but you should be tolerant of our colleagues who hold the opinion that they're not. At best, we'd be open minded, but at least tolerant. Levivich ^harass/_hound 16:23, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
                  • In any case it is long past clear that no consensus is ever going to emerge to sanction (or even criticize) anyone for this. People have objected before to the removal of depreciated or unreliable sources and none of those objections have ever come anywhere close to obtaining a consensus to even slow the process down or to add even the slightest bit of red tape that might interfere with it - all previous discussions I'm aware of have reached the conclusion that the sort of edits DG is making are an entirely valid and much-needed implementation of the consensus reached in depreciation RFCs, generally with a majority lauding the precise sorts of removals that a few people in this discussion find so objectionable. You're welcome to try and start such discussions again, but unless you have some indicator that things have changed, it seems like a near-certainty that they will go nowhere. As I see it, the work that people like DG is doing in this regard is time-consuming, necessary, and generally thankless maintenance, and while, yes, you're free to personally grumble or feel otherwise, you have to recognize at this point that your position is too much of a minority to make it a constructive use of time to pursue him in ANI; constantly pursuing someone at ANI for an entirely legitimate series of edits that you object to, knowing the community has repeatedly found them to be legitimate, is a waste of everyone's time. This discussion should be closed with prejudice. --Aquillion (talk) 16:52, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

                    Legitimate? I see some of them contradicting several policies and the RfC closes. Now, it may be difficult to discuss the issues because as soon as one questions any edits there's the 'you must be a Daily Mail/RT fanatic and a harasser who is trying to relitigate the RfCs' argument waved around (see above), without any attempt to actually engage on the issues. Thus preventing any serious discussion taking place. It seems somewhat like a cult mentality. But that doesn't mean there are no edits violating any policy or just basic logic. If only we could actually have a discussion on this without appeals to emotion and personalisations of the issues. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:23, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

                    You will have to point to which RFC closes you mean; as far as I know, this has come up repeatedly on WP:RSN and WP:RSP, and while a minority has continued to object (usually a minority consisting of people who objected to depreciation in the first place) the consensus has always been to continue such removals. See [55][56] (note that Alaexis, who has been vocal above, tried and failed to get consensus making the removal of deprecation more difficult; no matter how much they may personally object to it, at this point they are well aware that the behavior they are trying to censor DG for is endorsed by the community.) As far as policies go, WP:V seems extremely clear-cut to me; The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution. If a source is unreliable, that burden is unsatisfied, and... Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. --Aquillion (talk) 20:34, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• Alaexis, as I noted above, you previously tried and failed to get the community to agree to restrictions on the removal of depreciated sources here; as you can see in that discussion, while there was disagreement, it is clear that opposition was intense and that your position failed to obtain a consensus. I don't understand why you think you can then turn around and bring DG to ANI for the exact behavior you failed to form a consensus against before - having failed to get consensus to slow the removal of depreciated sources in a more appropriate venue, do you expect a different outcome here? The fact that you dislike those removals and disagree with the fact that WP:V currently allows (and even encourages) them is well-established, but that does not allow you to drag an editor to ANI simply because you dislike their edits. If you believe you can obtain consensus to stop or slow the removal of depreciated sources this time around (which, I assure you, you cannot), start a discussion in the proper place again. But - as I pointed out last time - WP:V is a core policy and its basic principles are not subject to consensus in any case; while there is certainly room to discuss the ideal way to handle such changes and to refine the guidelines for them, ultimately it will always be acceptable to remove things that lack reliable sources, and you will never be able to obtain sanctions against someone for legitimately enforcing that policy. My advice is to WP:DROPTHESTICK on this. You have been hounding DG over these edits by, to my count, around half a year if not more, and have achieved nothing the entire time - certainly nothing comparable to the, broadly, laudable and necessary improvements he has made to our sourcing over that interval. EDIT: I'll also point out that in the middle of a section supposedly devoted to DG, Alaexis dropped a 'suggestion' for a fairly sweeping and still extremely poorly-considered policy change that more or less reflects their failed proposal from the link above. Trying to create new policy by going after individual editors on WP:ANI is entirely inappropriate. --Aquillion (talk) 20:52, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
  • First, there are three separate possible concerns raised: 1) the complete removal of factually accurate content, evidently without even a cursory Google search; 2) the removal of uncontroversial usages of content; 3) the replacement of refs with just {{cn}}. It doesn't help to conflate these. Second, if I may ask, how much of the above discussion did you read before commenting? Because there is some discussion on the arguments you've just made, such as the partial quote of WP:BURDEN or the effectiveness of these {{cn}} replacements, and repeating arguments would be detrimental to discussion. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:55, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
    • Regarding point (3), it seems like people have disagreed with DG's actions in two opposite ways. On the one hand, the suggestion was made that if the information is not controversial, the citation should be replaced with {{citation needed}} to preserve the useful text. On the other hand, replacing a deprecated source with {{citation needed}} might let it get lost in the noise of all the other {{citation needed}}s that weren't born out of propaganda. I know that one can't please everyone all of the time, but it sounds like here, nobody can please everyone any of the time. XOR'easter (talk) 00:49, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
      • If it's actually uncontroversial, per WP:DAILYMAIL2 it should be kept with {{bsn}}, but most probably aren't eligible. Obviously the ideal standard is to actually review the cites. In 99% of cases the action should be remove the statement or replace the source. If DG couldn't find a source after a quick Google for some reasonable keywords I don't think anyone would whine if he removed the statement entirely. It's not like people are expecting editors to go to a local library and look in some obscure book before they take action. A quick search is not an undue burden. Shifting the maintenance categories to a broader one is just make-work though, like it doesn't even achieve the goal of removing 'half-truths' content. Actually, it's possibly actively harmful because we lose the tracking, the count of cites then becomes meaningless, and others who actually want to review the usages can't. Regardless of whatever solution editors find appropriate, this can't possibly be it, because it doesn't make sense. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:42, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
        • For mass removals, it sounds like a special {{bsn}} for deprecated sources (like maybe a {{bsn-dm}} for Daily Mail) might be useful. Levivich ^harass/_hound 02:00, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

          Levivich, years of experience dealing with predatory journals, fake news sites and the like, indicates that {{bsn}} is functionally equivalent to {{please ignore this tag}}. The only thing that reliably - and in most cases ever - results in better sourcing, is removing the content. And while people constantly insist that the onus is on whoever removes content supported by a bad source, to first try and find a good source for it (something, incidentally, that David routinely does), actual policy does not support that view.

          Content drawn from deprecated sources is presumptively unreliable. If poeople want to go round before David gets to them and replace these deprecated sources with better ones, there is absolutely nothing stopping them. But what heppens is that people who don't accept the concept of deprecation, or don't care enough to fix the problem, devote enormous amounts of energy to creating drama around the few people who can be arsed to fix it. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:45, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

        • A quick search is not an undue burden. And anyone who wants to retain or restore the content is free to do so (in fact, required to do so); it is not, however, a burden that falls on the person removing the content - an encouragement is not a requirement, whereas removing uncited material is a requirement. They may choose to do such a search but are never required to do so; policy is completely unequivocal on this point, to the point where you weaken your argument every time you express a desire for it. --Aquillion (talk) 04:12, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
    • First, there are three separate possible concerns raised: 1) the complete removal of factually accurate content, evidently without even a cursory Google search; 2) the removal of uncontroversial usages of content; 3) the replacement of refs with just {{cn}}. The first concern is entirely baseless per WP:V: The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution. It is completely unacceptable to try and push that responsibility onto the editor challenging or removing the claim. There is no responsibility - none, none whatsoever - to do even the most cursory search before removing a claim that lacks a reliable source. Some editors may choose to do so, but the idea that anyone could be sanctioned by not searching for sources for an unsupported claim added by someone else directly contradicts WP:V and can therefore be dismissed out of hand. "Uncontroversiality" (which is, obviously, subjective) is not a defense; WP:V plainly states that Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. And replacing a source with a CN tag is the recommended solution for editors who choose to be cautious with their removals - ie. it is itself optional - the alternative presented in WP:V is immediate removal of the uncited content: In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step. This consider is, again, as opposed to simple immediate removal, which is the default. Nor does it discourage mass-removal at all; the parts you are trying to hang your case on are very cautiously-worded presentations of options, not core, project-central mandates the way the sentences I quoted are. All of these policies are well-established, and are well-known to anyone who has spent any significant time discussing the cleanup of depreciated sources; if you believe you can reach a consensus to change WP:V to reflect your reading, you can try. But as things stand nobody has raised any legitimate concerns or anything remotely resembling misconduct outside of, perhaps, the continued hounding of DG for something that, while many editors plainly disagree with, is clearly and unequivocally supported by policy - something that is nearing the point of requiring a WP:BOOMERANG given that, again, it has been going on for over six months, completely unproductively, without achieving anything at all. I read the discussions above and am aware, yes, that you have an idiosyncratic interpretation of WP:V, but the wording is completely clear - at a certain point (certainly, again, six months in), it is necessary to WP:DROPTHESTICK and recognize that you haven't convinced enough people to sanction anyone over that interpretation. --Aquillion (talk) 04:01, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

arbitrary break 2

• It appears that we are at an impasse yet again. Let me put this a different way: several editors on multiple occasions have made complaints to DG about disruptive evidence, but he refuses to acknowledge this or engage with the complaints - instead citing WP:THIS and WP:THAT rather than acknowledging the issue or altering his behaviour. This is not an issue about the reliability of the sources, this is an issue about editor behaviour where I believe that any non-admin user would have been sanctioned. Therefore perhaps this is time to take this to arbitration, however this may result in more severe sanctions on the editor in question (who it should be noted is already under a topic ban). Or does anyone else have another solution to this long-running dispute? Shritwod (talk) 20:38, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

  Shritwod, merely saying that something is disruptive doesn't make it so. You do not address the core facts: first, this is a deprecated source, because it is monstrously unreliable; and second, that any attempt to remove deprecated sources, however bad they are, always ends up in a chorus of demands that you must instead do it in one of a handful of different, but mutually contradictory, ways.

  The correct solution is for more people to remove crap sources. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:38, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

  The core facts are disruptive editing, the fact that there is an group of editors here with pitchforks is pretty good evidence of disruption. It isn't about reliable sources, but what we do have is an editor spending typically less than one minute on a page removing them. If this was an acceptable way of doing it, why don't we simply create a bot to remove the citations? Shritwod (talk) 08:01, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  A bot, which cannot understand natural language, cannot identify the text associated with a given source and so cannot be employed to remove it. And I don't see how disruptive editing can be called a core fact of the situation when there has yet to be established a consensus that DG's editing is disruptive. Some think so, some don't. It's possible that a consensus simply will not form on the topic. (More than once, the ambient hostility I have sensed during this discussion has strongly tempted me to abandon it and possibly take a good long wiki-break.) XOR'easter (talk) 15:05, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  DG calls the editors raising concerns here "fans of deprecated sources". That's hostility. Levivich ^harass/_hound 15:14, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  I don't want to say that anyone is blameless, regardless of what position they have taken. But I also don't want to leap to reading anything in the worst way I can, as doing so would make me contribute to the problem (and I know I can be quite nasty when I feel like it). DG wrote, In my experience, the fans of deprecated sources consider any removal "indiscriminate". I do not think that a general summary of one's previous experience, which makes no mention of any particular editor, is hostile. Jaded, perhaps, and maybe even ungenerous, but not confrontational. And I am not sure how else to express what seems to me a valid point. I myself have dealt with fringe science more than with political extremism, but people do complain about "indiscriminate removal" and the like when they don't get their way. XOR'easter (talk) 15:53, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  • @Shritwod: The community does not appear to be able to make progress on the issue, as consensus seems to be breaking down. Reading the discussions Aquillion links above, many editors raised concerns and/or found steps to move forward (eg [57][58][59][60]) but most appear to have been forced to withdraw (eg) after the usual reasons. Same stuff above. If we actually look at unique editors across all these discussions it seems probable this approach does not have consensus, and is possibly a WP:FAITACCOMPLI. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:55, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
• I would have no particular objection to creating a modified {{citation needed}} tag that said something like, "The original source for this content has been deprecated". I am not sure how much good it would do (tags can last a long, long time without getting attention), but it might at least alleviate the problem of these instances getting lost amid all the other statements needing citations. XOR'easter (talk) 15:53, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Potential povpushing at 2021 NYC mayoral election pages

Hi all, I wish to bring to the community an issue that I'm only tangentially involved with, and as an infrequent editor don't really have the time and energy to deal with myself, but should probably be addressed given its contentious nature (ongoing U.S. election). User:Shoestringnomad seems to be engaged in aggressive WP:POVPUSHing at the Eric Adams (politician) and Andrew Yang pages (to the uninitiated these two are the frontrunners in the 2021 New York City mayoral election). The concern is less about the edits themselves and more about the trend where their entire contributions to those two pages are to push pro-Adams and anti-Yang content. For example:

• Adding a controversial statement made by Yang
• Despite removing a similar situation involving Adams right before
• Similar removal
• Similar removal

Like I said the diffs themselves don't tell the whole story, the problem is the trend - all of their edits to this topic are to make the content of the articles more favourable to Adams, and less favourable to Yang. A lot of it is subtle changing of wording done alongside legitimate cleanup, but it still makes me very wary that this is editing with an agenda. Uninvolved editors should take a look at the context of their edit history as a whole.

On the other end of the scale, we have User:Oyveyistmir which appears to be a WP:SPA with almost all of their edits being to attack Adams or to add negative information (though admittedly sourced) into the page. They haven't made any substantive edits to any other topics, potentially WP:NOTHERE.

Again, I don't have a dog in this race, but these edits raised a red flag for me so I would appreciate if uninvolved editors can have a look and action as necessary.. Cheers Satellizer el Bridget ^(Talk) 01:22, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for raising your concerns, Satellizer (talk · contribs). I don't have a dog in this race either, aside from course-correcting an article that had become heavily biased. The irony is that Satellizer (talk · contribs)'s removal of the only critical piece in Andrew Yang's article (which was later reverted by another editor) motivated my own efforts to edit pieces of Eric Adams (politician)' article. I found large parts of the subject's article in violation of WP:NPOV when I became aware of it in February. I was alarmed and frustrated by the unbalanced take on the subject, and I started or commented on sections in the subject's Talk page to rectify the issues. There was a strong tendency by two users to add inflammatory language in violation of WP:NPOV or simply that was given WP:UNDUE weight. Please review the article from February and judge for yourselves just how negative a slant the article had.

Frankly, I'm happy that User:Satellizer has brought this issue to light. If I have overcorrected, I would gladly stand back knowing that the article would remain balanced, as it is not my intention to push my POV but rather push back against a particularly negative POV that has pervaded the article for some time. Shoestringnomad (talk) 02:06, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

As a random third party - Satellizer's removal of that material was entirely correct, and I'm surprised it was restored to the article. Newsweek is no longer a reliable source and neither are random Forbes bloggy contributors. I looked at the NYT article that mentioned Yang's comment about raising kids during COVID ( https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/nyregion/andrew-yang-mayor-nyc.html ) and it's only one short part of a fairly long article, with little reason to think it was the main takeaway. Surely, surely there is something more substantive - even in the realm of criticism / missteps - to bring up from the article rather than that one quirk. Literally anything. Hell, the Twitter bodega video or something. SnowFire (talk) 07:43, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I am also happy User:Satellizer added this notice. I have raised a noticeboard issue previously for several users removing anything negative about Eric Adams. Look at the edit history and you'll see that a handful of users edit away any negative info and claim that it not sourced or not important enough to remain on the page. Oyveyistmir (talk) 05:04, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

User:Đông Minh personal attack

Requesting a permanent ban for User:Đông Minh for this: [61] regards Mztourist (talk) 03:22, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Clearly unacceptable edits reverted + warned. I think a block may be necessary until they can apologise and refrain from further such behaviour. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:31, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

While I appreciate your prompt action, the User's attack is far beyond anything acceptable on this project. It comes on top of this earlier personal attack: [62] which translates as "I have no interest in talking to puppets. An old puppet. And I left the English wiki and never come back, I don't care right and wrong anything here. Don't tag my name again, thank you very much." Mztourist (talk) 04:11, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

The user has been warned - let's leave it at that for now. If they make any further personal attacks after the warning has been left, they can be blocked from editing for non-compliance of Wikipedia's civility policy. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 07:10, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Seriously? This is not mere incivility, its overt abuse, so a block is clearly justified. Mztourist (talk) 07:36, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Blocks are supposed to be preventive; so unless we have reason to think they'll continue or unless you can provide evidence this is a long-term pattern, there's no reason to block yet - especially given they haven't edited since yesterday evening. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:42, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

That's a strongly offensive personal attack and in my view inaction cannot be an option. It does merit a preventive block until the user demonstrates an understanding that it's not OK to behave like that.—S Marshall T/C 17:08, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

On the face of it, and given that this user is only very sporadically active over here, you might have a point. Also, looking at their talk page on the vietnamese wiki (you don't even need google translate - it is in plain English): [63] this isn't a unique phenomenon. @Nguyentrongphu:: you might be able to clarify that discussion for us? Thanks! (Google translate seems to mess up the verb tenses and I can't quite follow although I seem to get the gist of it). Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 18:22, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Irrespective of anything else, I highly doubt this user possesses adequate English skills to be editing here. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:00, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Seeing their answers on their talk page (which are barely comprehensible), that might likely be the case. They seem to have "retired" on vietnamese wiki, don't know about here. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:02, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

That discussion is irrelevant to the matter here. Nguyentrongphu (talk) 07:04, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• Dong Minh has retired from Vi Wikipedia and probably from En Wikipedia too. He barely ever shows up anymore. I can't defend his incivility, but a block is not necessary anymore at this point. It's not preventive of anything. Nguyentrongphu (talk) 07:02, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Obviously not retired from en.w given his last post here was 7 hours ago. DeCausa (talk) 07:07, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Our continued inaction on this shows our contempt and disregard for his target.—S Marshall T/C 15:42, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Their response shows a failure to apologise and that they are holding a grudge against the target of their abuse. A block is appropriate. Fences&Windows 18:02, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

User:Abrilando232

Abrilando232 seems to be specializing almost entirely on articles focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 vaccines. I first encountered their edits here: [64], after I had reverted a new table added to the page, and then quickly removed here: [65] with some bizarre messaging on the edit summary. I can't say all of the edits made by this user are completely off the rails but some are truly out of left field with no explanation. They have added multiple tables about vaccines in trial stages to multiple pages about COVID-19 vaccines by country without any context to what those vaccines have to do with the country in question in the article for example here: [66], here [67] and here [68]. As myself and other editors have tried to contact the user on their talk page, the questions go unanswered and the talk page blanked like here: [69]. So anyway, I admire their enthusiasm for the COVID-19 projects, however there seems to be a lot of shoddy work with no explanation going on here. Thank you. CaffeinAddict (talk) 03:46, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I need anyone who answer this question on what did I add the vaccine trial stage, but I can't answer from my talk page before blocked from my account. Abrilando232 (talk) 05:59, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Abrilando232 - You're not being blocked. :-) Just don't edit those articles any further until we've sorted things out here. We just want to know why you're making these kinds of edits to these articles, and what the tables have anything to do with the article subject. Can you explain what you're trying to do with your edits? ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 07:13, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

I think it's already a good sign to finally communicate (WP:ENGAGE, WP:DISCUSSFAIL, etc). I also have the impression of a possible language barrier? Communication is important for the WP:CONSENSUS process, —PaleoNeonate – 10:40, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Absolutely Abrilando232, there's no action here being made, just an attempt to communicate here :). Pinging other editors who had tried to discuss with you on your talk page. Longchess, Tol, Discospinster, Primefac and Mcmatter. CaffeinAddict (talk) 00:13, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

(responding to ping) I only alerted him or her about COVID-19 general sanctions. After reviewing edits, I believe that his or her edits are good-faith but need more discussion. Abrilando232: It would be very helpful if you could respond to the comments left on your talk page; if somebody reverts your edit, you could discuss with that person before making similar edits to other pages. Tol | Talk | Contribs 03:03, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

User:80.121.97.28

The anonymous user has been editing in an extremely disruptive manner, engaging in vandalism and incivility and showing battleground behaviour. Most of his edits are in articles falling within the scope of Wikipedia:ARBAA2.

• The user resorts to vulgar language when editing, putting kes lan and kes lan oç in his edit summaries, which is Turkish for "shut up" and "shut up, you s. o. b." respectively: [70] [71] [72].
• Samuel Weems. The user has been adding unsourced content to a biographical article suggesting that the person was "fascist" and "far-right": [73] [74] [75]
• Ordubad. The user has been adding unsourced or dubiously sourced foreign-language names to the consensus version of an article about a city: [76] [77] [78]
• Instances of battleground behaviour: [79] [80]
• In general, the vast majority of the user's edits since the day they started editing last week are reverts: [81]. Other users have tried reaching out to them on their talkpage but to no avail [82] [83]. Parishan (talk) 18:02, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
  • They only seem to want to push a POV and their personal attacks in edit summaries are also unacceptable. Very clearly WP:NOTHERE as far as I'm concerned. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:09, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• There's... not a lot to like in this person contribs. Blocked for 36 hours. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:19, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Saving Page

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

---

Hi, I am trying to improve an article but my improvements are being reverted. How can I save the page of a notable guy who has secured $80 Million+ in profit. He has coverage in notable publications like https://beyond8figures.com/podcast_episode/80m-exit-michael-coles-great-american-cookie-company/, https://www.mprnews.org/story/2007/11/13/caribouceo. This is more than enough to make him eligible for a Wikipedia page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thedangeroz (talk • contribs) 18:16, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

@Thedangeroz: This is an issue that does not require administrator action. You have been removing an AfD tag before the discussion there has concluded. Please refrain from doing that. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 18:24, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

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

• When a new account shows up, comments in several AFD discussions, and then asks how to deal with an AFD nomination, things seem a little suspect, especially when the comments were copies of whatever the rationale of the previous discussion participant was. Uncle G (talk) 18:55, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
  • @Uncle G: It is an issue, but one for our good friend @Drmies: and his CU comrades at SPI (Thedangeroz = Thedeadlyman1? I'd guess), not one for ANI, right? Also quite possibly a COI issue, but I wasn't in the mood for throwing boomerangs. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 19:14, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
    • Look, the guy is mentioned in a podcast. I don't see the problem. Just write him up, as juicy as possible. And the other answer is no, I got nothing for you, I'm afraid. Drmies (talk) 20:22, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
    • I was just going to watch what the account did for a little bit. The sockpuppetry is fairly blatant. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Leanne/Archive#Report date April 23 2009, 05:37 (UTC) for why copying and pasting a previous rationale makes me remember sockpuppetry. Uncle G (talk) 08:02, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Innican Soufou

• Innican Soufou (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• 2021 storming of the United States Capitol (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

At talk:2021 storming of the United States Capitol, Innican Soufou is giving us the benefit of their 49 edits' experience to advocate that we portray Ashli Babbitt as the sole - and indeed innocent - victim of the insurrection. I suspect that this user, who was notified of the DS in February, might be better advised to learn their craft in a less contentious area. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:21, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• I've not seen any conduct issues by Innican Soufou on that talk page. I have, however, seen JzG take issue with two words used by IS and use them to go into a rant about his personal opinion unrelated to the topic at hand in the section in which he commented. If anything, I think this just be closed as a premature reporting of no conduct issue whatsoever - and allow the content discussion to continue on the talkpage. Perhaps a warning to JzG to focus on the topic at hand and not allow his personal opinions to go into rants about the events would be merited, as before he commented recently, the discussion was progressing decently, in my opinion. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:27, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
• I think the reporting editor needs to take a breather and try not to let their emotions get the better of them. I don't care to make a big deal of this, but outright lying in an ani report is not very useful, as everyone involved can read what I actually said. God bless. Innican Soufou (talk) 22:43, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
• This does not seem at all "ripe" for ANI. I'd suggest WP:DR of some sort to help resolve the dispute. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:06, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
  • The dispute was progressing fine on the talk page, and is continuing to do so - JzG's behavior in the thread, which has contributed nothing other than FORUM-like comments, is the only thing that could derail it. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:39, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
• I've been disrupted by Guy's repeated non sequiturs, too, suggest a week off. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:09, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
• He's responding to requests to stop ranting with longer and less helpful rants now, accusing anyone who wants to compromise of bending to the will of a "fantasy world of patriots". One of those seeking compromise is me, a Canadian who doesn't watch TV and doesn't condone rioting, theft or burglary. Not cool. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:40, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
• "I'm proposing that we separate the one murder that took place (of the unarmed civilian by police) and the other suicides/medical issues that people who may have been involved in the protests died from, days later." and "Well we do know that only one person died during the protest. That was an unarmed protestor. The rest of the people that passed away did so at a later date by either suicide or natural causes do seem to match JzG's description above. Uncle G (talk) 11:11, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
• I appreciate this is a DS area but is there some evidence of recent disruption I'm missing? I went to the talk page expecting to see long discussions started by the editor in question but all I saw was one silly comment followed by a reply or two in response to stuff Guy and others said. While I mostly agree with Guy's comments, IMO they were more disruptive than Innican Soufou recently. Although I have a tendency to do it myself, I do agree it's not necessary to challenge an editor everytime they say something stupid, especially when realistically no one is going to be influenced or misled by the comment. It would have been better for Guy to either just ignore the comment, or concentrate on the article and policy i.e. say something like "No we continue to follow sources, not editor's personal opinions". While they moved back towards this afterwards, their first reply IMO unnecessarily lead the discussion off-topic into editor's personal opinions, and as always "they/other editor started it" is not an excuse. Nil Einne (talk) 11:58, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
• Move to close. There seems to be an increasing tendency to bring people to AN/I for expressing the "wrong opinion" on a talk page. Unless there is a clear breach of policy or terms of service demonstrable using diffs, talk page differences of opinion are not a matter for administrators and there are other avenues for dispute resolution. Close this and Guy deserves a trouting. Fences&Windows 16:46, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
• People sure do get mad online about politics, huh? jp×g 19:15, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

  Not so hot at Canadian, Australian, British or New Zealand politics, to be fair to people..."They" started it! InedibleHulk (talk) 05:21, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

• I'm with Uncle G here - those diffs, particularly this one are problematic. This isn't about having "the wrong opinion": describing the killing as a murder, which is a criminal offense, when the authorities are not describing it as such seems like a BLP violation to me. You can't call it a murder without implying that the police officer who fired the shot is guilty of a criminal offense. The comment was made a while ago now, but that kind of stuff on talk pages is not OK. GirthSummit _(blether) 07:18, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

  It's only a BLP violation if the target of an accusation has a name, a rough pseudonymous persona or is awaiting a murder trial, none of which apply to federal police, who can only possibly face charges of violating civil rights after killing people. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:31, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

  InedibleHulk, I'm not sure I understand your comment. The target of the accusation is presumably the officer who fired the fatal shot - that person has a name, although I guess what you're saying is that the name hasn't been released? Nevertheless, I can think of no good reason why someone would be calling it a murder on a talk page if it has not been so described by the authorities - to call a killing or a shooting would be neutral and accurate, but to call it a murder seems obviously to be pushing a particular POV. GirthSummit _(blether) 17:46, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

In a way, I agree, calling any generic cop a murderer sounds bad. Calling a soldier named Ashli Babbitt an attempted murderer, attempted murder conspirator, conspiracy theorist, insurgent, rogue, mindless drone, lyncher or bitch who got what she deserved sounds bad. Accusing the President of Treason sounds bad. But that's AP. Innican didn't go "above or beyond" the existing "climate of mud" here. InedibleHulk (talk) 09:48, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

InedibleHulk I've just seen this comment. Just to be clear, has anyone referred to Babbitt as a 'bitch who got what she deserved' on a talk page, or are we talking more generally here? GirthSummit _(blether) 14:45, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Girth Summit, exactly. Babbitt was engaged in trying to storm the doors into the speaker's lobby, as part of a mob calling for the execution of the speaker and Vice President as "traitors". She was shot by an armed police officer defending the building and the people in it. To describe this as "murder" of an "unarmed civilian" is at the very least tendentious. Taken as a whole, it is clear to me that Innican Soufou adheres to a conservative media bubble counterfactual, where the mob were a minor counterpoint to the real threat to America - BLM and Antifa - and where Babbitt was the only true victim. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:34, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Is it normal for reporting editors to completely invent things that were never said, cast aspersions about another editor, and outright lie about the person they are reporting? Furthermore, does it usually go unpunished? JzG is straight up lying about me and accusing me of all sorts of things that aren't true and it's extremely toxic and unhelpful. Innican Soufou (talk) 23:03, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

yes Pelirojopajaro (talk) 13:57, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

• In everyday speech, "murder" and "homicide" and "person killing another person" all are used interchangeably. It is not WP:AGF to assume that the reason they said murder was because they were trying to imply criminality - it's just simply less wordy than "person killing another person" and may have been the first word that came to mind. I don't think you'd find a lawyer who would take a defamation suit over someone saying "murder" as opposed to "killed" - the difference is so subtle and both are used interchangeably in colloquial speech. Maybe that's the implication you (and others here) see into it - but that's because we are an encyclopedia where the minute difference between words matters - and in real life, even politicians get it wrong and say "murder" when it's not criminal in nature sometimes. JzG replied to this thread with even more ABFing, and went into his opinions instead of admitting that his problem is with the choice of words - which is not tendentious or disruptive if the choice of words is an honest mistake. Taken as a whole, it is clear to me that JzG adheres to a specific viewpoint and wants Wikipedia to be used only to further his viewpoint, and tries to derail any discussion by ABFing against anyone who wants us to be neutral instead of his viewpoint. He also goes into talking about BLM and Antifa when Innican Soufou has not brought those organizations up as a whole - more and more assumptions. I don't think it's productive for JzG to continue commenting when the majority of his comments (in this instance and overall) are making massive assumptions and rarely bring any actual discussion value - others are doing just fine discussing with IS and others on the talk page about this, and they will continue to do so (and likely improve the encyclopedia) if JzG doesn't comment further. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:15, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

  • • We do not need experts or lawyers, words have definitions

      Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought.

      The is clear difference between a criminal act of murder and the lawful defence of the Capital by an armed police officer doing their duty defending the building and the people in it. It is simply absurd to suggest that the terms murder and justifiable homicide can be used interchangeably. This just an example of the kind of arguments that Guy has been correctly challenging in the talk page of the article in question, he has not been ranting, but has trying hard to maintain the articles NPOV. I strongly believe the article in question needs more active oversight by many editors. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 00:09, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

      They can be in colloquial speech - assuming that every single new user who uses the terms incorrectly is here to push a POV is WP:ABF. An appropriate response would've been to say "murder has to be convicted, so the correct term is X". Instead, JzG chose to rant about his personal opinions, which inflamed the situation, and then he brought someone to ANI for violating no rules other than the use of a technically incorrect word that could've been clarified instead of this. He did rant - he not once said what you just said - he instead chose to voice his personal opinion as to the "justification" for the shooting - which while I agree with, is not appropriate for a talk page - where we should be explaining Wikipedia rationale for things, not our personal opinions. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 04:27, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

      @Berchanhimez: Is there a link somewhere above to justify "JzG chose to rant about his personal opinions"? If not, you need to add the link now, or strike the comment. That needs to occur before continuing with other edits because leaving an WP:ASPERSION on a noticeboard is not acceptable and will lead to sanctions. Johnuniq (talk) 04:58, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

      @Johnuniq: does this also include the WP:ASPERSIONS that JzG left about me, or do those not count? Innican Soufou (talk) 05:39, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

      Not everyone has the time or patience to examine walls of text. I noticed the last comment in this section because it was last, and had the current date. I don't know what comment you are talking about. Johnuniq (talk) 07:22, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

      Johnuniq, there is no link, because at the time I said that it was his two most recent edits (aside from this report), and they can still be easily found in his contributions or the page history. Here's the links to the two diffs: he rants about the choice of two words, and this didn't add anything to the discussion of value because that's not what was being discussed, and then this - still discussing something other than what the section was about and ending with a snarky "insurrections have consequences" comment. Those are both not only woefully off topic responses, but they are snarky and don't add anything to the discussion other than attempting to prove that he's "right" and the other editor's "wrong" on a choice of words. You may wish to peruse the section on the talkpage in its entirety - the discussion was progressing fine and towards a amicable agreement among editors, until JzG came in and injected his opinion on the one issue that everyone agreed on that was unnecessary, rudely worded/toned, and not helpful. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 13:45, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

      @Berchanhimez: In everyday speech, "murder" and "homicide" and "person killing another person" all are used interchangeably feels very 'citation needed' to me. Murder is a word loaded with shock value and negative connotations. When the Smiths released Meat is Murder, the use of that word was for rhetorical effect, and if politicians misuse it I expect they're doing it for similar reasons. When people use that word, they do it for a reason, I don't accept that people don't know what it actually means. Anyway, even if that were true, the standards we are expected to uphold here are rather higher than 'how people speak colloquially'. Nowhere in our BLP policy does it say 'so long as you won't get sued for defamation, you can say it'. Nowhere does WP:TPG say 'if you'd say it in normal conversation, you're fine to put it on a talk page'. If users start throwing words like that around carelessly in discussions about exceedingly contentious issues, they need to be warned that it's not acceptable. Maybe I've missed it, but I haven't seen Innican Soufou say that they accept that such language is inappropriate - I'd welcome such a statement from them now. GirthSummit _(blether) 05:50, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  Berchanhimez, in everyday speech, murder means illegal killing. Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. Murder does not mean shooting someone who is charging armed police opfficers as part of a lynch mob. Guy (help! - typo?) 07:48, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  Oddly enough, the very first word in the first section of that Floyd talk page was "Murder". It was about prejudging a named living person as a murderer. That word was used about two hundred times on that page by a few dozen editors between then and the predetermined verdict, and guess how many of them got blocked or this seriously scolded for it? InedibleHulk (talk) 10:58, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  No, it doesn't always mean "illegal killing" in colloquial speech. While that is the primary definition in dictionaries, Oxford lists the first definition only as "The action or an act of killing" followed by a sub-definition of "The action of killing or causing destruction of life, regarded as wicked and morally reprehensible irrespective of its legality". You can see similar secondary definitions in every major English language dictionary. They are not labelled as "archaic" or any other label to suggest that people don't use the word that way in real life. In fact, you can see this in real life just by turning on the news to any time someone is interviewed after a police shooting - the term "murder" is commonly used by the people being interviewed to describe the act - even though there's no way they can know if it was legal or not at that time. Furthermore, "homicide" is listed as a synonym in the OED's thesaurus for that definition. Regardless, a quick check of the OED shows that you're wrong that it's only used for "unlawful" killings. Pinging @Girth Summit: also because as a Brit (as he said below) he may want to see this definition for himself. I understand that on Wikipedia we tread carefully in using "murder" because it usually implies an illegality about it, but it is improper and assuming bad faith to think that every new editor will have that distinction given that it's used commonly enough regardless of legality to be listed in dictionaries as a secondary definition. If you had an issue with saying "murder", you also should've started with that - instead of your snarky opinionated comments regarding "insurrections have consequences". -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 13:52, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  Berchanhimez, was that last comment directed at me? I have not said anything about 'insurrections have consequences', and while I have expressed opinions here with regard to language and its acceptability, I don't think I have made any snarky comments.

  The 'secondary definition in the dictionary' argument seems exceedingly tenuous. As the definition you have quoted makes clear, even when it is not intended to imply technical illegality, it always implies that the killing is "wicked or morally reprehensible". In the context of that talk page discussion, its use was at the very least obvious and inflammatory POV pushing, and it's not acceptable. I'm not saying that the user needs to be blocked or TBanned for that single instance, but they need to be made aware that they need to be much more careful in how they use language. GirthSummit _(blether) 14:34, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  Girth Summit, no, I just pinged you in the middle of the discussion then went back to talking about JzG without making that clear. Sorry. And no, it's not "obvious" POV pushing - that's a massive assumption of bad faith. Assuming good faith would mean calmly explaining why the term "murder" is not accurate or should not be used - not what JzG did which is inflame the situation more. I'm also not saying that anyone needs a block or a topic ban, but I think that talk page (and likely the topic as a whole) would benefit from JzG taking a step back and being a little more calm in his editing so he stays on topic. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 14:37, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  Berchanhimez thanks for clarifying, no problem. However, I'm afraid that I strongly disagree with you, both in your interpretation of what is, and is not, POV pushing, and in your assertion that I am assuming bad faith. I genuinely put a lot of store in AGF, and signed up to WP:OFWV years ago. I've tried hard, squinting at it through the old rose-tinted spectacles, but I cannot see the use of that word in that context as anything but POV-pushing. I have invited Innican Soufou to make a statement to the effect that they understand that the word is inappropriate, but they have so far not made any comment on the matter. Perhaps they will do so now, in light of this discussion. GirthSummit _(blether) 14:51, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  That's why I brought up the use in colloquial speech, with dictionaries to back it up, that it isn't always illegal killing. Assuming good faith here would be that this user may come from a location where homicide and murder are both used to describe killings regardless of legality. By calling it "POV-pushing" you are assuming the user is intentionally using an incorrect word to push their POV - when there's a perfectly logical explanation for why they may have felt that "murder" was an acceptable word to use. Regardless, I think the bigger issue here is that instead of JzG explaining why he took issue with that word, he went on a rant that inflamed the situation and didn't explain why on Wikipedia "murder" is used carefully and only when it meets the legal definition of murder. That's all that needed to be done - but instead he posted two ranting comments, and then went straight to ANI - not acceptable behavior and to me that shows that he may need to take a step back from this topic area as the discussion was proceeding fine without him (and has been since he last commented). -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 14:59, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

  Berchanhimez, we will have to agree to differ on that I'm afraid. I can't accept your argument about colloquial speech: while I accept that the intent may not have been to imply illegality, I can't see any reading where it does not imply the worst kind of impropriety on behalf of the officer who fired the shot, and I do interpret that as inflammatory POV-pushing. By extension, I also reject your conclusion that JzG is the bigger problem here. GirthSummit _(blether) 15:25, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

@JzG: Lynching is murder. You should be more careful with your language. Sweet6970 (talk) 13:40, 30 April 2021 (UTC)  

• InedibleHulk, oddly enough, the account that started the thread you refer to was CU blocked as a sock within 24 hours of doing so. Now, being a Brit who doesn't follow American current affairs closely, I don't know much about either case, but I believe that in the Floyd case, lots of reliable sources were saying that it was possibly murder, and the police officer in question was charged with, and eventually convicted of, murder. In such circumstances, a discussion about whether we should call it one seems reasonable - although the obvious answer would be 'not until authorities call it that, by way of a conviction, inquest or whatever'. Have any reliable sources talked about the case we're talking about here in such terms? GirthSummit _(blether) 12:15, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Sweet6970 they had a gallows. They were shouting "hang Mike Pence". They were looking for Nancy Pelosi. They had flexicuffs. I don't think any accuracy is sacrificed by describing this as a lynch mob. But the irony is not lost on me: Republicans have spent decades trying to prevent passage of a Federal anti-lynching law. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:54, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Socking on Radha Sterling

CatJon1 has personally attacked editors [84] and made disruptive edits to Radha Stirling. They have already been dragged to SPI. --Firestar464 (talk) 06:50, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

[85] Further WP:ASPERSIONS. Firestar464 (talk) 07:07, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Came here from SPI. I don't think CatJon is related to the group filed there; I do however think that they're linked to Tradeze1 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki). Also noting that everyone involved is now well past 3RR. Blablubbs|talk 07:13, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Fixed here. --Firestar464 (talk) 07:15, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

There is an IP on the talk page which seems to be saying stuff very similar to CatJon. I think this may have simply been a mistake rather than attempt to hide their identity but who knows. Nil Einne (talk) 11:59, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I have opened a SPI for User:Tradeze1, User:CatJon1, and User:212.63.119.106. Sungodtemple a tcg fan!!1!11!! (talk) 12:19, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I am Tradeze1. I am making reasonable edits with citations that add value to a page that has requests to add value. Someone didn't like the style of some of the new edits in the categories (excessive detail), so I changed that and added other points but one of the editors just keeps reverting back to original, rather than only cancelling the edits they don't like. There is no reason for example, to cancel an inclusion of reference that she has founded a podcast. Why not edit the added content, rather than erasing everything? I don't have a connection to this other user CatJon1 but note they have reverted a lot of my edits. I am just trying to help. Why can't you let me add content? It's as though the editors don't want anything more added even though the alerts say wikipedia does? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tradeze1 (talk • contribs) 07:24, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Tradeze1, you did add citations, but you also added a bunch of things that are not good for the article. Also, your behavior is very similar to User:CatJon1's behavior, especially with the edit history; you both said 'added citations', or 'added cited content'. Also, your usernames are similar. It seems suspicious on my end, so I opened an WP:SPI. You can comment on the investigation here. Sungodtemple a tcg fan!!1!11!! (talk) 15:17, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Seth Andrew

Over the past year, there have been numerous edits to the Seth Andrew article which appear to be by those with a conflict of interest. Single purpose accounts are editing the article again, as Andrew was arrested yesterday on some serious criminal charges. I ask that any admins help keep disruptive editing from occurring. Thank you, Thriley (talk) 09:04, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• Looking at the history of this BLP, I decided to add 30 days of semi-protection. Lot of issues with claims and sourcing. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 11:02, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
  • You downgraded it, then. Lots of the editing here over the past year has been autoconfirmed users putting poorly-sourced BLP content, sourced to medium articles self-published by the protagonists, back in. One of many examples: Special:Diff/968333781. Uncle G (talk) 11:19, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
    • Dennis Brown, you missed that Uncle G had just fully protected the page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Seth_Andrew&type=protect. Would Extended Confirmed protection or Pending Changes be a suitable compromise? Fences&Windows 16:59, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
      • Fences and windows, it would appear that Dennis Brown was correcting the error made by Uncle G. There is no way an article should be fully protected indefinitely. Any edit warring editors should have been blocked as required. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 18:41, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
• If someone thinks a different protection is needed, by all means. I just applied the minimum because I thought that would solve the problem, but again, if you feel it needs more, I won't object. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:19, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
  • I agree with your protection. It's the full indefinite that's a problem. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 20:04, 28 April 2021 (UTC)
    • Full protection is there for when it is the autoconfirmed accounts introducing the BLP violations. This is explicitly laid out in policy. Uncle G (talk) 00:49, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
      • Ignoring this misinterpretation of policy, semi hasn't seemed to have stopped the disruption. @Dennis Brown: I've increased your protection to ECP but kept the same duration. Anarchyte (talk • work) 08:57, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

        I'm assuming this should be logged at [86] the usual place since it is covered by Arb authority. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 10:45, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

      • There is nothing wrong with indefinite full protection. It is there for a purpose - to put a stop to whatever disruptive editing is going on and force discussion of the issues at talk page. Indefinite ≠ permanent and can be lifted at any time. If there was such a thing as "permanent full protection", that suggests it can never be lifted. Mjroots (talk) 16:19, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I understand the difference between indefinite and infinite. However, articles protected indefinitely get forgotten about and stay that way for years. Also based on comments I've seen the response time to {{Edit fully protected}} is slow. EC seems to be working and blocks can be handed out. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 18:31, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Democratic Unionist Party

Some extra eyes, assessments of page protection and more pending changes reviewers would all be very welcome at Democratic Unionist Party right at this moment. ◦ Trey Maturin 16:06, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• (non-admin comment) The DUP has a reputation in UK for being - shall I say - somewhat reactionary, and its leader Arlene Foster has just resigned. This pending diff needs attention. Narky Blert (talk) 16:20, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

There is one instance of vandalism so far - blocked and revdelled. Pending changes seems sufficient unless vandalism increases a lot. Fences&Windows 17:10, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I try to stay away from the actual NI political parties, despite being in the rest of the NI space administratatively, but since I now watch Sinn Fein I may as well do both sides. Canterbury Tail talk 17:23, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

User:Ricco Baroni

This user has committed WP:Personal attack in two occasions to different users over at Tajmuraz Salkazanov. To put things in context, Salkazanov is a naturalized Slovak freestyle wrestler of Russian origins who represents Slovakia. This could be explained on many different ways in the main description section (such as ... is a Russian–born Slovak... or ...is a Russian–Slovak freestyle wrestler who represents Slovakia...), however, I think this is the best way to put it as it solves the question "why is he Slovak?", because it's evident that he earned the citizenship of the country he represents via naturalization. This could have perfectly been civilly discussed, however, User Baroni opted to insult anyone who didn't think like he did. He thought the article should be described as an 100% Russian wrestler who represents Slovakia, but is not Slovak, just Russian. In another article of the same conditions (Achsarbek Gulajev), he even wrote the stub template as a "Russian wrestler stub" instead of Slovak, in my opinion, clearly because of bias towards Russia.

The first time he reverted the edits thats showed Salkazanov as Slovak, he just wrote why you deleted his natialisty? he's a Russian and have never refused his natinality even though I never deleted his past in Russia, I wrote "Slovak ... of Russian origins", same as in Yasmani Acosta for example. Now going back to the personal attacks, the first one came towards other user (User:Martimix) who had reverted Baroni's edit to mine, saying are you dumb?? he has a Russian citizenship, he is not slovak heritage. He is still Russian even though once again, nobody said he was not Russian. I was simply not going to argue against that because it wasn't an argument or anything worth it, so while adding more info, I reinstalled the previous version. Baroni then, without argument once again, reverted for the second time, to which I also reverted his for the second time. In response, Baroni commits his second offense while not really changing anything, just insulting me by saying chilean kunt, which is obviously directed towards me because I am a native Chilean citizen as seen in my user page.

I decided not to engage in any kind of discussion with someone who just insults instead of reasoning, and I notified User:Cassiopeia, an administrator who has been extremely helpful to me in a lot of stuff. He informed me of details of edit warring, explained what Baroni had done in terms of Wikipedia's policy and also informed me of the possibility of reporting this in this page as he had already notified Baroni of his behaviour. I then pretty much thanked him and explained my point of view, to which Cassiopeia told me to let him know if I was going to report. Thanks. PabloLikesToWrestle (talk) 16:40, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: User Baroni has been a long time editor and should know such comments - "dumb" and "chilean kunt" which the later clearly pointed toward User:PabloLikesToWrestle as the editor is from Chile (see editor user page) are not acceptable at all and against Wikipedia personal attack guidelines by (1) using defamatory or derogatory phrase and editor nationality "chilean kunt" and (2) Insulting the editor by commenting the editor "dumb" instead of discussing the issues in hand. Cassiopeia^(talk) 06:45, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Draft:Deelee Dube and User_talk:Dangelvoice

There have been ongoing issues with copyvio and edit warring on this draft throughout the month. While a partial block from this page would solve the issue, it's too complicated a request for Page Protection and I'm without a doubt involved. The user does not appear to understand how talk pages work, although we attempted to determine if there was a better way and they did engage for a brief window at User_talk:Star_Mississippi#Draft:Deelee_Dube. Overall, there's no way to communicate with them at all and the draft is not going to get to a place where it can exist in mainspace. The artist/subject is probably notable, but there is a lack of understanding on reliable sources and copyvio, with the latter of course being the major concern. When they're asked not to edit war, an IP joins in asking for nothing to be removed, and there are now rev-del'ed edits from Special:Contributions/Platinumbirch. Suggestions on how to proceed? Courtesy @Justlettersandnumbers, Nick Moyes, Robert McClenon, and Nathan2055: who have also been a part of this conversation. I'll notify the editor as soon as this post creates a direct link as I think that would be the easiest for her to use. Thanks all StarM 16:49, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

There was a discussion at the Teahouse about a week ago about how to try to deal with this editor. The discussion was inconclusive, but some of us thought that this editor is using a stupid mobile app that either doesn't support a user talk page or makes it difficult for an editor to find their talk page. Since all efforts to communicate have failed and the editor is continuing to edit-war, I think that a block for 36 or so hours is unfortunately in order. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:55, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Robert_McClenon. I think they have some ability to see communications as they react to changes (the IP saying don't edit), but I'm not positive. StarM 18:29, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

They can see our communications to them, but they don't or won't communicate back to us or engage in dialog. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:01, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

They did briefly respond to Star Mississippi and to me about a week ago. It didn't really help. And edit-warring is not allowed. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:07, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I feel that a short attention-grabbing block would be in order if a user isn't willing to properly engage with the many editors trying to help them write this clearly autobiographical article. They still haven't made a Conflict of Interest declaration on their userpage, and this overtly promotional article (of a probably notable person) is fast becoming a time-sink. I suggest we give them 24 hours from the start of this thread to begin engaging with us before an initial and temporary 36 hour editing block is given. Should they edit the article and continue edit warring over content or add more copyright violation content from what I presume is their own website before engaging, then the block should be applied sooner. My view is that if numerous attempts have been made to get this person to engage with us and accept our guidance, but have so clearly failed, then they will have put themselves in a position whereby they have forfeited their right to edit an article about themselves or anyone else. If that turns out to be the case, then that means an indefinite editing block would then be appropriate. Nick Moyes (talk) 20:59, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, Star Mississippi. I too am involved here, I think. I'm in two minds: the repeated additions of copyvio material cannot be allowed to continue (I'll remove some more in a moment), and nor can the edit-warring; but I'm reluctant to recommend or endorse a block of an editor who is apparently oblivious to our attempts to communicate. However, sooner or later this will have moved into WP:ENGAGE territory; a brief partial block might then be a good interim measure. For what it's worth, unlike Star Mississippi I'm not convinced that this person is notable – she has sung with a saxophonist of fairly questionable notability and won an award in a competition that isn't even mentioned in our page on the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:49, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Oh interesting. I think we should have an article on the Sarah Vaughan competition, but that could also be my performing arts bias. It's the only thing that might bring her to WP:Notable, the rest is a lot of fluff. The Teahouse conversation made me realize that we need a better means of conveying WP:THREE for new editors. There are major COI issues here, of course, but I think she's trying to edit in good faith and it isn't necessarily clear to new editors that overkill doesn't bring them closer to notability. I'm unfortunately not sure what the answer is here. StarM 00:38, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Ninenine99 back again

Ninenine99 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is becoming more persistent in response to their IP ranges being blocked ([87], [88]). 2603:8000:B02:E142:3DDF:C477:487D:F927 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and 2603:8000:B02:E142:4868:B32B:5575:F6A5 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) have turned up so far making the same kinds edits ranging from questionable to clearly disruptive.

The persistence suggests an extended spate of disruption; is AN/I the best venue for this going forward or is it better off taken to SPI or elsewhere? --Sable232 (talk) 21:23, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

• /64 blocked again, for what it's worth. Black Kite (talk) 21:25, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Sidian Jones and promotional / COI editing

Sidianmsjones (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has a history of promotional and COI editing on WP. He has a deleted autobio: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sidian M.S. Jones, and most of his editing has consisted of adding mentions of himself, or his books about his grandfather, Rolling Thunder (person), to articles. His grandfather was a very controversial figure, so there's a lot in the article Mr. Jones does not like. Periodically Jones, or accounts and IPs that quack, show up to remove the material. Today he is doing it again.

• I warned him about his COI
• he admitted his COI, and made a personal attack: "yes I am John Pope's grandson. Yes I recognize the potential conflict of interest." "User CorbieVreccan blatantly lying and distorting facts on this page"
• I reminded him that Bishonen had answered his points the last time this came up, and reminded him that he has admitted COI
• He seems to have stated an intent to ignore his COI and keep editing: "I will continue to pursue the issue until the facts are stated instead of these dramatizations."

• He is now back to editing the article:[89], [90]

I am shocked that he seems to have paused on the article, and now shifted back to long rants on talk, but his pattern is to resume after a pause. Or the quacking accounts do. I wasn't around the last time they did or I think he'd be indeffed by now. Probably those accounts are stale. This article disruption and using WP for self-promotion is longstanding and tendentious. I could use additional admin intervention on this. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 00:36, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Sidianmsjones appears to be a borderline single-purpose account, with little to be said beyond his work and the legacy of his ancestor. He has absolutely no business creating or editing articles pertaining to himself or Rolling Thunder. I propose that he either desists now or else face an indefinite block. He appears to be knowledgeable in other areas, so his expertise could be useful - so long as he not utilize it for self-promotion. DÅRTHBØTTØ _(T•C) 02:39, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

• I have partially blocked Sidianmsjones from editing Rolling Thunder (person indefinitely; they may still suggest changes oin the talkpage. If the ducks return, the article should be protected as well. Black Kite (talk) 13:57, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Legal threats

2601:153:801:1C70:A955:F937:933C:9716 (talk · contribs) is making legal threats on his talk page - block likely needed here. lavender|^{(formerly HMSSolent)}|lambast 06:41, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Blocked now by Ymblanter. lavender|^{(formerly HMSSolent)}|lambast 06:43, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

A Difficult User I am Concerned About

Greetings. I am here today to request an administrative opinion on the user named ZaniGiovanni. In summary, I personally have the impression that the user is WP:NOTHERE to build a Wikipedia. I have come to this judgment based on the user's recent actions, his tone when editing, his actual history of edits, his threats, and his apparent unwillingness to cooperate. I had left a long message on ZaniGiovanni's Talk page detailing exactly what my concerns are with his behavior (a message which was reverted by ZaniGiovanni), but I will post the message here anyway. I apologize that I am posting the message itself, however, I think the message describes my concerns quite well and I didn't think it would be productive to re-arrange everything and try to turn it into a new message. I have included links to examples of his edits in the message as well. Prior to coming here, I also checked together with an experienced user who seems to agree there are "baseless claims" coming from the user. The message: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

ZaniGiovanni, you are a user whose entire edit history [91] is seemingly composed of only two things: 1) removing Azerbaijani names from villages in Armenia, and adding Armenian names to villages in Azerbaijan. 2) engaging in lengthy arguments with other users over trivial matters where you continuously resort to personal attacks, which even got you banned for a week at one point [92]. During the entire span of the time you have been editing, you have established a pattern of deleting information rather than adding it. You seem to have no issues with leaving Azerbaijani translations of village names when a highly experienced user reverts your edits [93] [94] [95] [96], however, you seem to apply a completely different standard to more regular users like me.

During the full span of time I have interacted with you, I have offered to you on multiple occasions to resolve our disagreements via Talk and compormise [97] [98] [99] [100] [101] [102]. I have invited you to discuss things on your talk page to settle things in a civil manner. Not only have you ignored this offer multiple times, but you have seemingly made no effort to come to a compromise either, engaging in overzealous deletion of material WP:ZEAL, all the while sending me threats of you "reporting" me [103] [104] on the ground that you personally suspect me of sockpuppetry (although you've yet to provide any proof of that).

You have tried to implicate me in some sort of a scheme involving a banned user CuriousGolden on the talk page of another user [105] without having ever approached me with your concerns, and without having ever even spoken to me previously on any talk page about anything.

You have used a highly condescending, commanding tone during every interaction I have had with you. You have accused me of "edit-warring" and of "disruptive behavior" even though I have been open to talk with you and to compromise with you. You have used phrases like "Last warning, ..." [106] and "bogus POV information" [107] and "You will be notified if an investigation is opened on you" and "I would've already opened an investigation on you" [108] in reference to me.

Frankly ZaniGiovanni, I have no idea how to even approach you as a user. I personally feel you are making the editing environment unnecessarily toxic and making it impossible for us to have a regular conversation and I am thinking of requesting administrator attention WP:RAA, because I personally feel that you are not here to build a Wikipedia, particularly because I believe the following WP:NOTHERE descriptors are attributable to you:

1) "General pattern of disruptive behavior."

2) "Little or no interest in working collaboratively."

3) "Long-term agenda inconsistent with building an encyclopedia."

4) "Having a long-term or "extreme" history that suggests a marked lack of value for the project's actual aims and methods."

I will now seek to find an experienced user and ask them what they think of your behavior since I am very tired of you antagonizing me, threatening me, and everything else that I have mentioned above, because it seems I just can't reach out to you. - Creffel (talk) 06:44, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I am open to all suggestions that you may propose and I am open to engage in further conversation. Also, I'm not sure if this is an important detail but for the sake of transparency: the user in question has just about 30 minutes ago opened a sockpuppet investigation against me. Not sure what the implications of this are but I will be patiently waiting for the final verdict.

Edit: The sockpuppet investigation has just been closed, turns out I am not a sockpuppet.

In the meantime, thank you for reading and considering my concerns. - Creffel (talk) 09:22, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Similar accusations by other user were addressed to me in this same noticeboard 1, which I already replied. There is an ongoing sockpuppet investigation about you 2. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 09:29, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Just noting that I've closed the SPI and deferred it to the CU OTRS queue since there is apparently off-wiki evidence involved. From what I can see on-wiki my take is that yes, these two users know each other and share a POV, but there isn't sufficient evidence to indicate that Golden is sitting behind Creffel's keyboard. Since Creffel joined before Golden's block and the explanation that they watchlisted the pages in anticipation of a coordinated raid is at least somewhat credible (and would indicate an independent reason for reinstatement), I don't feel comfortable actioning the socking side of this based on the on-wiki evidence alone. Blablubbs|talk 11:35, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the further information. Where exactly to reinstate the off wiki connection, and his mentions of reddit posts abt CuriousGolden / supposed raids? I'm still new to opening reports on wiki, apologies for too many questions. Regards, ZaniGiovanni (talk) 11:57, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Answered here. Blablubbs|talk 12:58, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

JsfasdF252 creating unhelpful pages, attempting to make subpages of articles

JsfasdF252 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

JsfasdF252 is consistently creating unhelpful pages, mostly related to templates and modules. They have also repeatedly attempted to make subpages of articles by moving single-use templates or unilaterally splitting off sections. Here's a rundown of the warnings on their user talk page:

Extended content

Category:Wikipedia editcopies: Tagged for speedy deletion per C1, then unilaterally redirected to Category:Wikipedia article sandboxes by JsfasdF252. Template:Sandbox heading/Talk/doc: Useless documentation deleted by TfD (Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2020_November_25#Template:Sandbox_heading/Talk/doc) after a contested G2. Template:Fake red link: Brought to TfD (Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2020_November_24#Template:Fake_red_link), then moved to userspace by JsfasdF252 after a nomination per G4. Template:Many images: A tag warning about a large number of images possibly slowing loading the page; redirected to Template:Too many photos after a TfD (Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2020_November_27#Template:Many_images). An edit on Talk:Main Page where JsfasdF252 changed all the links to {{Direct link}}. They also made a similar change at Atom. Template:Direct link: It is unclear what this did, but it was deleted per G7 at TfD at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2020_December_18#Template:Direct_link. I think the aim of this template was to replace internal links with external links so as to prevent the existence of red links, or something along those lines. JsfasdF252 applied it very indiscriminately, see Special:Diff/994814036/994875306. User:GKFXtalk 16:51, 30 April 2021 (UTC) SP:Random: A non-standard shortcut to Special:Random; deleted at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 December 28#SP:Random. A complaint about an RfD for COVID-19 Pandemic because searches are not case-sensitive, which violated precedent. MOS:N: A shortcut to Wikipedia:Notability, which is not in the Manual of Style. Deleted at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2021_January_2#MOS:N. A notification about creating pseudo-namespace redirects. Annoyingsville: Speedy deleted per G3. Warning about misuse of {{only}} in articles, such as in this edit at Greenland. Warning about inappropriate deletion tagging, though misidentifed as CSD tagging, such as Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User talk:142.127.189.75. No such action: Speedy deleted per G2. Warning about an unapproved change of font to <code> in {{DISPLAYTITLE}}, regarding this edit at Cmd.exe and this edit at CONFIG.SYS. Relation (OpenStreetMap): Origianlly a soft redirect to an external site, osmwiki:Relation; retargeted to OpenStreetMap#Data format following Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2021_February_12#Relation_(OpenStreetMap). Baraque: An ambiguous misspelling that redirected to Baroque; deleted at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2021_February_5#Baraque. Template:Oppo and Template:Supp: Templates intended for adding "support" and "oppose" comments in discussions, which is common in other wikis but against consensus here. Speedy deleted per G4. A warning about splitting a large section in COVID-19 pandemic in the United States to an attempted subpage COVID-19 pandemic in the United States/Responses. This edit was made twice, by the way. Template:/Subdivisions: An attempt to implement support for subpages of articles; deleted at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2021_February_10#Template:/Subdivisions. Americas/Subdivisions: An attempt at a subpage of Americas, which was moved from Template:Subdivisions of the Americas. It was moved back, and this page was speedy deleted per R3. COVID-19 pandemic/Epidemiology: Presumably an attempt at a subpage at COVID-19 pandemic; speedy deleted per R3. A complaint about moving Table of keyboard shortcuts to Keyboard/shortcuts. The move was reverted, and the new title was speedy deleted per R3. NCAA Cheerleading Competition/row: Yet another attempted article subpage (of NCAA Cheerleading Competition); moved from Template:NCAA ClC/row and then speedy deleted per R3 after revert. StarKid Productions/Cast: Moved from Template:StarKid Productions Cast. Template:/row: Another attempt at adding support for subpages of articles; deleted at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2021_February_16#Template:/row. Template:Uw-split: A user warning that did not comply with WP:SPLIT; retooled during a TfD at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2021_February_24#Template:Uw-split. Jews-non-Aryans: An ambiguous redirect to Final Solution with poor syntax; deleted at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2021_February_17#Jews-non-Aryans. Brutality-killing: An ambiguous redirect to Violence with poor syntax; deleted at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2021_February_20#Brutality-killing. New Jersey–New York relations: A misleading and inaccurate redirect to Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; deleted at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2021_February_26#New_Jersey–New_York_relations. Australasian relations: A redirect to Australia–New Zealand relations. Kept at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2021_March_5#Australasian_relations, despite concerns about being overly broad. A warning about an ANI report for breaking things by moving templates to subpages of articles, such as Template:Infobox actinium isotopes to Isotopes of actinium/infobox. The report is archived at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1061#Bad_move_by_JsfasdF252, which was closed after the page in question was moved back. U.S. state (disambiguation): Speedy deleted per G14. List of ISU World Standings and Season's World Ranking statistics/Season-end No. 1 skaters: Attempted subpage of List of ISU World Standings and Season's World Ranking statistics; speedy deleted per A10. Warning about unilateral article splits, such as Special:Diff/1015135242 at List of ISU World Standings and Season's World Ranking statistics. Template:Hong Kong: One of six "hybrid templates" that displayed as a navbox on articles or a WikiProject banner on talk pages. Deleted at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2021_March_31#Template:Hong_Kong. A warning about archiving old April Fools' nominations. Didn't find a diff about this one. Module:Delimited tag: Redundant to native Lua functions and Module:Separated entries; deleted at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2021_April_3#Module:Delimited_tag. Brilliant brown: Redirect to Orange (colour) from an implausible synonym; deleted at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2021_April_17#Brilliant_brown. Template:IN: Sole purpose was to add "in country X" to articles, which was unnecessary beyond what was already in {{CountryPrefixThe}}. Deleted at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2021_April_6#Template:IN. Category:Hybrid templates: Probably intended to hold templates that combine different functionalities in different namespaces, which is confusing and against consensus in the Hong Kong TfD. Nominated for speedy deleted per C1, then de-tagged after it became populated. Blue trucks: Speedy deleted per R3; used as an intentional red link in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Template:Software: A "hybrid template" that produced an infobox in articles or a WikiProject banner on talk pages. Deleted at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2021_April_12#Template:Software. Module:Delimited tag: Speedy deleted per G4. Template:A: Ambiguous redirect to Template:Pagetype. Deleted at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2021_April_17#Template:A. Category:Bilateral relations of U.S. states: Inaccurate categories nominated at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_April_18#Category:Bilateral_relations_of_U.S._states. Bilateral relations are only between sovereign states, and most of the items in these categories would never be considered bilateral relations. Another speedy nomination Category:Hybrid templates per C1, which was successful this time. Wikipedia:WikiProject Afar translation: A soft redirect to the incubator wiki for a dead Wikipedia in the Afar language; nominated at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2021_April_24#Wikipedia:WikiProject_Afar_translation. Template:Back: Yet another attempt to provide support for subpages of articles; nominated at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2021_April_24#Template:Back. A {{uw-disruptive2}} warning that warns JsfasdF252 to stop editing in the template and module namespaces. Template:Tc:: Ambiguous redirect to Template:Title case; nominated at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2021_April_26#Template:Tc:. Template:Filename: Misleading redirect to Template:Samp; nominated at Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2021_April_26#Template:Filename. A warning about this ANI report.

–LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 13:07, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

There are other serious issues with this editor's contributions that aren't mentioned in the list above, e.g. Retargeting decade old redirects with hundreds of backlinks with no discussion or explanation ([109] [110] [111]) some completely bizarre retargeting of redirects ([112]), Hijacking templates to add weird and useless functionality ([113] [114]) mucking around in other people's pages and archives for no real reason other than to use whatever templates they've just created ([115] [116] [117] [118]) and converting dab pages into plain redirects ([119]). Most of this seems to be motivated by some kind of belief that we need to make the wikicode size of pages as small as possible through templates and splitting ([120] [121]) but their contributions are disruptive, and I think a WP:CIR block is required. 192.76.8.91 (talk) 14:12, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

• JsfasdF252 doesn't seem keen to listen to advice or consensus; after Direct link was deleted, they recreated it (Template:Direct link) as a redirect to a template that could be used for the same purpose and created another redirect to it this week (Template:Static link). I'm tempted to say that both of those should be WP:G4 given the unanimous and firm requests for deletion shown at the original TfD. That would not be their only G4. Another of their so-called "hybrid" templates was at Template:Only (the user warning template) which they tried to make into a {{fix}}-based template displaying like ""; they self-reverted that but only after the warning mentioned above about inserting it into pages. I would agree with a block; it all just wastes time. User:GKFX^talk 16:51, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

New user/BADNAC issues

User @JTZegers:, has a great deal of enthusiasm, but has in the last few days acted without knowledge of appropriate policies, particularly in the field of closing AfDs that they have participated in.

A summary of several of these issues can be found on their Talk Page, especially here.

The user had accepted this and I had hoped it was just one of those learning lessons. However, they would immediately manage to erroneously tag an article for speedy deletion, and again were warned and accepted the caution. However, today, we've had another keep close of a controversial AfD which they had nommed !voted Keep, but with multiple additional delete !votes cast.

I would like to propose an indefinite TBAN on closing AfDs at all, reviewable in 3 months, and a time-limited 1 month TBAN on using Twinkle as its "small-a" adminstrative options appear to be causing problems. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:12, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Edit notice: another editor has helpfully pointed out that they !voted Keep, and were not the nominator. Apologies to both user and all for that, but I believe the underlying concern remains otherwise unchanged Nosebagbear (talk) 13:20, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear: Clarify that JTZ did not nominate that AfD he just closed, that was HumanxAnthro. JTZ had just !voted, tho. ——Serial 13:22, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

The problem WAS Twinkle, now it's XfD closer.JTZegers^Speak
_Aura 13:30, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Editors take responsibility for the edits they ake with semi-automated tools. The problem, I'm afraid, in this instance is not with the tools, but with the workman complaining about them. ——Serial 13:33, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

They have every right to do that. And I am part of the problem. That's why I'm being impeached. I try very hard to improve Wikipedia, however, every time I close an AfD nowadays, we have a problem. What is the problem?JTZegers^Speak
_Aura 13:36, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @JTZegers: You can't blame the software for the mistakes. I remember blaming the STiki interface for a bad revert I made a few years ago; that excuse went down like a lead balloon. See WP:TWINKLE and WP:XFDCloser. They both note that you're responsible for any edits made while using the tool. I suggest sticking to regular non-automated editing for a little while or you could find yourself the victim of a blanket ban from using automated tools rather than just Twinkle. Anarchyte (talk • work) 13:41, 30 April 2021‎ (UTC)

Might I remind you this is not the first time I heard that. I'm just trying not to put myself in a bigger hole, but just like that it happens. I'll be more careful.JTZegers^Speak
_Aura 13:43, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

It's great that you want to help Wikipedia, but it's hard to do the stuff you're doing without more experience. The typical recommendation is to spend [more] time editing articles directly first and simply participating in more discussions before using semi-automated tools to manage those discussions. As an aside, it looks like your signature messes with line heights; please ensure you're only taking up the normal amount of space. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:49, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites:Is this better?User:JTZegersSpeak*Aura 14:00, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Coincidence that JTZ has colored his sig the same as an admin's?

yes, thanks. there are ways to do something like what you had before (the stacked links) without altering the line height, but I'm not sure what the CSS secret is to making it work. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:02, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support AfD / automated tools T-ban: The AfD t-ban is a no-brainer, they're causing far too much trouble and time-wasting for other editors, whether they mean to or not. But the issue of (mis)use of automated tools, as I pointed out on JTZs talk, has been an issue for nearly a year. Enough is enough is enough. Let them learn their trade manually, in article space, and demonstrate both the need for the tools and the competence to use them after a passage of time.
  Incidentally, are we being trolled? JTZ's comment above (every time I close an AfD nowadays, we have a problem. What is the problem?): they've been told not to close AfDs, yet they continued to do so; they've been told that the problem is very specifically them, but still have to ask. ——Serial 13:53, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
  • There may be a case for a broader automated tools ban. I didn't want to carve off all the minor (in scope) ones, though since I'm supporting a time-limited one that would perhaps not be so problematic. At a minimum, RedWarn should probably be looped in
• Screw this. I'm sure the level of (on-going) disruption is sufficient to call in  Checkuser needed. Are we really expected to believe that, on being told to change their sig, they accidentally happened to choose a color that emulates an admin to those using the admin highlighter script...? ——Serial 14:20, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
• Sigh. Yes please. I stopped exerting myself on their talk page because I didn't want to be a big ol' newbie biter, but this is one very advice-resistant strain of the Blunders. After being told to get some experience of basic editing practices before dealing with meta stuff, they go to town with deletion nominations; after collecting a dozen comments telling them to slow down, they waltz into OAP on the strength of it. Disruption through over-enthusiasm is still disruption. Maybe removing the temptations of Twinkle will be enough of a brake to allow them to get the curve. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:56, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Support tban on (edit conflict comment: all) use of [semi-]automated tools as necessary to stop disruption. I might be inclined to have that be the "indef, reviewable in 3 months" option, considering how dangerous such tools are with misuse and how chronic misuse of them seems to be amongst even theoretically reformed misusers. I continue to have significant qualms about the practice of tbanning non-admins from closing AfDs; due to the controversy involved in AfD NACs, I find it hard to imagine those tbans ever being reversed, which is pretty much a hard limit on ever being able to get into closing other discussions or getting a number of advanced rights (even if someone is genuinely improved and has gained the ability to reasonably judge consensus, the concept of AfD NACs is something a nontrivial proportion of the userbase just isn't going to support "let me do these again", ever). As deletion discussions suck to close without XFDCloser, I'm cautiously optimistic that yanking the tools would be a de facto topic ban without the rehabilitation issues. If he decides to perform a bunch of botched manual closures after the community makes it very clear they don't want him to, well, my principled objections only last so long. I also might be inclined to support a tban from every part of AfD without prejudice to specific bits of it, if his conduct is judged to require such. Vaticidalprophet 14:12, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129:Do you want me to change the color of the signature back? I actually wasn't using the admin highlighter script, that was just a coincidence.User:JTZegersSpeak*Aura 14:22, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support t-ban — basically what Serial Number 54129 already stated. Anybody who has been warned about editing in any given area for that long and still refuses to adhere or still isn't competent enough really gives the community no other option but this. Celestina007 (talk) 15:04, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
• Since JTZegers just now messed up the closure of a discussion, which they've been involved in, and where several people disagreed with him and have reverted him previously, because no one responded to him within an hour of his previous comment - all while this discussion about his errors in closing discussions is ongoing - I've blocked him indefinitely. I'm not 100% convinced this is hopeless, but I think something a lot bigger than a normal-sized cluestick is needed here. At least a block prevents further disruption until people who are willing to help can craft some kind of restriction. I'll leave this open in case a more narrowly tailored topic ban gains consensus here. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:26, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
• Amended position - given their actions, followed by but they [editors helping JTZ] keep getting me in trouble, strongly support that "regular cluebat is insufficient" position. I'd be inclined towards something along the lines of "indefinite restriction to manual editing and talk page discussions" - no closing, no auto-tools, and no participation in project space except for things like help pages etc Nosebagbear (talk) 15:45, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
• Support T-ban for any "non-content" provisions, maybe even an indefinite sitewide ban given his issues. I've told him many times that he needs to knock off the admin dreams for a long time, but he hasn't been listening. Not only that, but he's edited his own signature to look like he's already an admin (with the aqua highlighter), which might be disruptive on its own.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:23, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Also CheckUser per SerialNumber. To his credit, he has never had the admin-highlighter script in his common.js, so there is a non-zero chance of his having just chosen the wrong color as a signature. That said, this is far too fishy and ducky for my liking (cue the Among Us memes), so if JTZegers is in any way an honest user he'll have no trouble being checked to see if he is a sock.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 16:30, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
• Sigh Good block. I tried to help them yesterday, but it apparently didn't work. The user certainly looks like they are trying to help, but appears unable to stop making bad non-content edits. I'll support an unblock if somebody else thinks they can get this editor to focus narrowly on content until they learn the ropes. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 16:28, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
• Rather than the rest of us spending our time trying fashion some bespoke sanction, I support just leaving the indefinite block until such time that the editor reads GAB, takes on board the feedback they've received here and elsewhere, and writes an unblock request. A tban can be a condition of the unblock in the discretion of the unblocking admin. Levivich ^harass/_hound 16:38, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

User AFGFactChecker once more engaged in edit warring and general disruptiveness

User AFGFactChecker, despite a previous ban and a consensus having been reached against this manner of edits, is back to previous antics on the Ahmad Zahir page. Please see most recent article history for a demonstration of this behaviour. Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 14:09, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

I have not done anything except trying to make sure the page adheres to the previous consensus that was reached on the talk page history which was to leave out mention of ethnicity because of a dispute over sources. Please see the full talk page history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AFGFactChecker (talk • contribs) 14:21, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

AFGFactChecker - is already blocked from two different articles about people called Zahir for edit warring; looking at the history of that page, they are obviously edit warring again there, and I don't believe that another partial block is going to be effective, they may just move onto edit warring at another article about someone else called Zahir - I'm therefore applying a one-week site-wide block. GirthSummit _(blether) 15:13, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

@Girth Summit: We edit conflicted; I was about to ask if it's time to move on to a site block. —C.Fred (talk) 15:16, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Mention of "legal channels"

Please could an univolved administrator check this edit made on 6 April 2021 which includes the statement "... I recommend leaving the discussion now. I will pursue legal channels on this now. ...", and if neccessary follow it up. -- PBS (talk) 14:30, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Racist AfD vote on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cannibalism in China

I've removed this[122] racist AfD vote from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cannibalism in China. I assume that is the correct thing to do? SailingInABathTub (talk) 15:11, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Yup, that certainly was. RickinBaltimore (talk) 15:28, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, per WP:NONAZIS. We don't do that here.--Jayron32 15:33, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Ah yes, the foreign queasine trope. Should the revision be RD2'd as well? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 16:10, 30 April 2021 (UTC)