Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

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

Afghan.Records

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

---

Afghan.Records (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

This is the second time I'm reporting Afghan.Records here (the last being this one with lots of diffs [1], which I ended up closing after Afghan.Records got blocked for edit warring after getting reported by another user [2]).

This is the short version of the previous report; Afghan.Records engages in source misrepresentation, pov pushing and using poor sources.

The first edit in an article after their block for edit warring expired was literally another revert which changed a lot more than their edit summary indicated [3]. And now they're continuing the source misrepresentation [4], pov pushing [5] and use of poor sources.

Afghan.Records has no issue with removing poorly sourced information that clashes with their opinion [6], but apparently it's okay for them to add poor sources themselves [7] (citations from 1873 and 1747.. not the first time they've done this with the same poor sources, see the afromentioned ANI report). And despite all this, they still seem to believe that their edits were right all along, as seen in this comment they just made where they also randomly accused me of "propaganda" and "false information" without even pinging me, [8].

Also, their talk page is full of warnings by me and other users. --HistoryofIran (talk) 17:23, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd say Afghan.Records is WP:NOTHERE. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:04, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

• Let's wait for the response from Afghan.Records. I am in support of a WP:NOTHERE block. Lorstaking (talk) 07:55, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

  Unfortunately it seems like Afghan.Records is going to ignore this ANI report too. HistoryofIran (talk) 01:58, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I came across this edit earlier while going through recent changes. I'm neither interested in nor knowledgeable enough regarding the subject to get into reverting edits adding sources there. Notwithstanding, their history of not responding to their own talk page messages, behavior at article talk pages (and this lovely topic), plus their lack of civility when interacting with other editors (not just HistoryofIran) are enough for me to say they're WP:NOTHERE at all. Schrödinger's jellyfish ✉ 06:48, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

From looking at the entire summary of their edits:

• They've been blocked twice - once in 2023 for a battleground mentality (1 week), and a more recent AE block for edit warring (1 month)
• They've made two edits to the user talk namespace - EVER. Out of 172 edits, only 2 have been to edit their talk page (removing some notices), which tells me that they are aware their behavior is in some way problematic
• While ~25% of their edits are to the talk namespace, most of these have been to argue with other editors about how their sources are correct and any other source is incorrect (the truth of which I can't verify, but judging by the amount of pushback they've gotten from multiple editors, it's not looking fantastic). See this mess of a discussion.

It looks like they may reply, though, judging by this comment. They've been informed of the ANI thread on their talk page and now at the article's talk page. At this point it may be a case of WP:IDHT & WP:NOTHERE. Schrödinger's jellyfish ✉ 22:32, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I normally would say "they're on mobile, everyone knows communication can be buggy", but the fact that they've removed messages on their talk page prior tells me that they know it's there, and they've definitely seen more than just those removed messages there. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Schrödinger's jellyfish ✉ 22:34, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

No, they're definitely aware of this thread. I've engaged with them at Talk:Khalji dynasty about it here. Note their responses when I challenged them about not responding here: Nothing more than accusation. I provided direct links for what I was accused of “miss representing” but they couldn’t defend their end. I did. and How do I reply to it? And what am I being accused of specifically? The gaps in knowledge between me and other editors make it look like I am wrong but they don’t know any better. It sounds like they've reckoned it's best for them not to engage. Looking at that and their edits, they seem to be clearly POV WP:NOTHERE. DeCausa (talk) 23:03, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Yep. Blocks, talk page messages, and even the ANI prior made no difference. Phönedinger's jellyfish II (talk) 01:32, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Its been 3 days, they are still editing and choose not to respond here. As an uninvolved editor- I have to wonder why? Nightenbelle (talk) 21:11, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Textbook WP:CIR, WP:NOTHERE, and nationalistic POV-pushing. His behavior proves he is not interested in collaboration. I support indef block. --Mann Mann (talk) 08:35, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, should be blocked as WP:NOTHERE.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 15:43, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Still editing and not responding. Should be NOTHERE blocked. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:36, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

An example. Take a look at Bactria: Revision history. Just restored his edits[9], ignored other editors' concerns, and started edit warring again. His behavior on Bactria was one of the reasons he got blocked in January (I guess). Someone better reviews his edits since 18 February. --Mann Mann (talk) 04:50, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

As a quick reply to this main thread: is Special:Diff/1213185936 in reference to an edit they made themselves, or is it potentially some socking? Phönedinger's jellyfish II (talk) 17:23, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Pardon me, this wasn't the clearest and editing an individual message in source is near impossible on my phone.

Is this in reference to an edit he made, that the other editor is attempting to change? Phönedinger's jellyfish II (talk) 17:31, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I asked myself the same question about socking when I replied to Afghan.Records.---Wikaviani ^{(talk) (contribs)} 18:53, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Judging by the comment they made just now, Afghan.Records clearly doesn't care about this report. They probably wrote this due to their conversation with DeCausa; Please don’t tell me “your API report says this”. "API" is no doubt a misspelling of ANI. Afghan.Records is indeed WP:NOTHERE. --HistoryofIran (talk) 23:39, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Since Afghan.Records is clearly avoiding ANI, I don't think there's any point in delaying further. User is WP:NOTHERE and should be blocked. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:14, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I never really comment here, but I have to wonder why this is still open? Seems like a textbook case of NOTHERE, but no action has been taken after 9 days at ANI with pretty clear support for some kind of sanction. Support indef block, for the record. sawyer * he/they * talk 21:47, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Attention needed

Hi Wikipedia admins. It's been more than a week since this thread was opened, as said by another editor above, yet Afghan.Records hasn't responded to this thread, and to this day still makes disruptive edits described like in the original post above (e.g. diff from 17:52, 13 Mar UTC, diff from 04:24 15 Mar UTC, diff from 19:29, 15 Mar UTC). Dispute resolution and ANI invitation have been attempted several times, e.g. here and here. Consensus is clear above that this editor is WP:NOTHERE. So I am formally requesting that an admin take a look at and respond to this. — AP 499D25 (talk) 00:57, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I think I count 10 editors supporting a WP:NOTHERE block in this thread + one querying why the user hasn't posted here. I don't see anyone speaking against a NOTHERE block. This thread has been open for 10 days and has risen to the top of the page unactioned. I guess it will be archived shortly. There's obviously something missing from this thread that would prompt admin action. It's not obvious to me what that is - although there must be something. It would be useful if an admin could indicate what the problem with this thread is. DeCausa (talk) 22:00, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

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

Personal attack report

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

---

Hello, I would like to report the user @M.Bitton because of a personal attack. I brought up a topic in the Hamas talk about whether Algeria should be a "state alliance". Since Algeria is public for Hamas. They also deny Israel's right to exist. He then removed my entry and says that I'm doing propaganda. My second concern is that @M.Bitton gave me an edit warning because I removed a paragraph from Morocco. I mislabeled it as spam. But @M.bitton has now started a talk by saying he is willing to remove the paragraph. Does the edit warning still apply or no longer? I see that it has already been removed by another user. I thank you in advance. Vogelman29 (talk) 22:21, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

You didn't just mislabel it as spam, you said "I couldn't find the source or the person mentioned." despite both the source, Precarious Modernities, and the author, Cristiana Strava, being easy to find. Sean.hoyland (talk) 05:19, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I just saw that he is the same person who suggested something like that to me. Even though I asked politely and nicely in the talk, he gave me an answer like this. Vogelman29 (talk) 22:32, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

You must notify the editor(s) involved when posting to ani, I will do this for you for this post, but please keep this in mind for the future. GrayStorm^{(Talk|Contributions)} 22:39, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Okey thank you very much. Vogelman29 (talk) 22:59, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Vogelman29 where is the personal attack? Riad Salih (talk) 22:49, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Riad Salih In this edit he said to me: "disruptive single purpose account who's using wp a vehicle for propaganda" he specifically accuses me of carrying out propaganda. According to Wikipedia NPA, this is a personal attack. Vogelman29 (talk) 22:58, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

This is not intended as a personal attack in any way. It is more appropriate to discuss such matters on personal talk pages. By checking your edits, it is noticeable that the ideology you hold align closely with that of POV pushers. Regards Riad Salih (talk) 23:08, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes. So actually that's what happened now that I registered a topic with Hamas. He removed it and accused me of doing propaganda. He should have explained his point of view under my talk. But simply removing it... and accusing me of doing propaganda is definitely a personal attack. I never said anything bad or edited anything where one might suspect it.... I didn't say anything wrong either, it's common knowledge that Algeria supports Hamas. I've now looked at the Wikipedia history of Hamas and seen that Algeria was an "allied state" for a very long time until @M.Bitton removed it... but as I said, you can discuss it but you can't just remove my talk and say that I do propaganda. So why do I do propaganda? Or POV? Vogelman29 (talk) 23:56, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

You should read WP:ARBECR and WP:MAKINGEREQ and comply with them. Maybe have a look at section 3.3 – Content vandalism and abuse of the projects of the Wikimedia Foundation Universal Code of Conduct, specifically the part that prohibits "Systematically manipulating content to favour specific interpretations of facts or points of view" and bear that in mind when you work on your Draft:Polisario's connection to terrorist organizations, text that strongly resembles propaganda to me. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:28, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

That's not a personal attack and as noted below, your unsorced essay in the draft namespace is total propaganda. Whether or not you are here to seriously contribute is an open question. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:13, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

• Draft:Polisario's connection to terrorist organizations absolutely is a problem, and a likely WP:MfD candidate, as it is indistinguishable from propaganda. While drafts are allowed to be incomplete or lacking in many areas, if they are obviously coatracks, make wild and unsourced claims, or are simply political essays, they don't belong. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 06:42, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

  Hello. Yes, it is actually still incomplete. I actually wanted to add sources for this. Unfortunately I don't always have time for that. I wanted to add links between the Polisario and terrorist groups as I believe they exist. Likewise between connections between Algeria and Hamas. That's not propaganda. I actually only have 2 important questions. Can I remove my edit warning on my talk without having any problems, since my edit was apparently carried out later by another user. And can I discuss in a talk whether Algeria has connections to Hamas without getting into problems. Vogelman29 (talk) 10:11, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

  I mean this edit, which was later confirmed. Vogelman29 (talk) 10:18, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

This report is about M.Bitton, you filed it, there seems to be an indication that his comments were curt, but not a personal attack. I noticed your Draft, which someone has sent to MFD. You can't just make articles up that push a particular point of view, PARTICULARLY if you have no sources, whether they are a draft or article. Wikipedia is NOT the place you go to push your ideas. It is a neutral ground for documenting what the sources have said. I don't think you really understand that, and your time at Wikipedia is going to be short if you don't quickly learn this. As far as I'm concerned, the matter at hand is already handled. I'm not up for mentoring you, but you definitely need to pull back and learn a bit about what Wikipedia is before you jump in further. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 10:37, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

yes, but my article is incomplete. I wanted to change a lot of things and also provide sources; if I had more time I would do it faster. So if the draft means about Polisario. I find it a personal attack to accuse myself of propaganda. I've now looked at @M.Bitton Wikipedia history and it seems he was already banned but then unblocked. Because of this comment here. This is actually a similar one. He said:,,replying to the nationalist single purpose account". He was banned for that. Now he says:,, disruptive single purpose account who's using wp a vehicle for propaganda. That's actually the same statement, just worded differently. But if you say now that it wasn't a personal attack, then that's just how it is. Then the issue was settled. I would just like to remove my edit warning, can I do that? Vogelman29 (talk) 13:24, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

because removing this sentence apparently wasn't wrong. just the motives. I thought it was spam Vogelman29 (talk) 13:28, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

While the block you cited was at commons, not English Wikipedia, you certainly are able to remove warnings from your talk page, per WP:NOTWALLOFSHAME. EducatedRedneck (talk) 11:03, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

• @Dennis Brown, Riad Salih, and Koavf: (also pinging Doug Weller since they have left a comment on their talk page) please note that despite the CT warning on the OP's talk page and the reminder by Sean.hoyland to read WP:ARBECR and WP:MAKINGEREQ, they still went ahead and created a POV fork in which they violated PIA multiple times. Needless to say that, yet again, they made zero attempt at writing something that actually informs, going as far as to misrepresent the sources to support their favourite narrative. M.Bitton (talk) 16:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Vogelman29: I would hope that you would please take the example above of these POV forks and recognize that these are problematic. If nothing else, just the optics and the politics of making an article about "Criminality and [people group]" or "[Undesirable trait] in [place]" is going to be the sort of topic that is (rightfully) contentious and until/unless you have a very clear reason why these kinds of possible crankery, possible propaganda, deep dives into how a certain demographic is associated with something repugnant is important to this encyclopedia, I'd recommend against making more of these. I'm not even saying that in principle these kind of articles can't be written, but you should probably have a lot more judiciousness about posting them here and probably familiarize yourself with existing articles where there are or may be some implication of a people group with a negative attribute. E.g. race and intelligence is a really contentious issue that has a lot of heated history and discussion. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  As I said, there are definitely connections between the Polisario and other terrorist groups. There are also anti-Semitic people in Algeria. which is actually very strong and pronounced. But since no one wants to know about it, I try to avoid conflicts and join the Wikipedia team. If the team says it's inappropriate then so be it. Vogelman29 (talk) 18:29, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  Well, it seems like you are German, so maybe this example won't translate as well, but for instance, in my homeland of America, we have a strong segment of the population who have some very grotesque views about white supremacism and so even if you are just quoting some statistics which are true about black-on-black crime, that is a proxy and dog whistle for some really nasty right-wing subtext. (e.g.). So when you write an article about how Arabs are anti-Semites, that can be a problem not necessarily because you are writing any specifically untrue thing, but because you may be using Wikipedia as a soapbox for some kind of nasty agenda. To be clear, I'm not alleging you are: I don't know you. I'm just saying that these ostensibly factual articles give off strong hitpiece POV vibes that are inappropriate. Have you read WP:NPOV and WP:NOT before? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:04, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  What is objectionable about the article? Anti-Semitic is a big problem in North Africa and I have pointed it out with sources. The article is intended to educate and nothing else. I also wanted to tell you that I have nothing to do with the editor...

  But okay, I have the feeling that you are more concerned with the position of Algeria, as I can see from my article. At least you just paraphrased it as “anti-Semitic in Algeria”. Okey, I will never comment on Algeria again. Vogelman29 (talk) 18:26, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

• I have indef blocked Vogelman29 as a standard admin action (Not AE/CT related) for WP:DE as a result of WP:CIR. They appear to lack the awareness to understand how their actions violate policy, so it wouldn't matter what area they edited in, this would be an ongoing issue. I deleted the last article under CSD:G7. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:19, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Please delete Draft:Antisemitism in Bulgaria and Draft:Sex tourism in Algiers (good gravy). ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:32, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Relevant sockpuppet investigation request

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/EthicalAugur. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:25, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

•  Note: the OP has now been confirmed as a sock of Izmir18. What a surprise. M.Bitton (talk) 22:33, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

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

Using unreliable sources

dear admins the username @اَشکَش is using unreliable repetitive sources for example at noohani, and removing the sourced contents on many pages like jadgal, med and The Sindhis of Balochistan kindly look into it. AngelicDevil29 (talk) 13:45, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Respected admins, i have edited with many sources, you can check that for yourself. I even wrote on his talk page. He only has one source and that too in Sindhi language with no clear context, he is using it to edit Noohani Page,

He is using unreliable sources on other pages " Jadgal", "Med" and "The Sindhis of Balochistan" and at times he is using sources which donot even mention what he uses them for. You can have a loo at these pages. اَشکَش (talk) 13:49, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Seems like your canvasing. That guy who plays games (talk) 13:56, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any discussion at Talk:Noohani or Talk:Jadgal (I haven't looked at others). This indicates that you have not attempted to address this content dispute, and should not have brought it to ANI at this point. Please read and understand WP:BRD and WP:DR. ColinFine (talk) 19:11, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

i wrote at his talk page but he removed it اَشکَش (talk) 19:17, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia saves page histories. [10] ~Politicdude (About me, talk, contribs) 01:38, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

1 this source only mentions a person named umar khan nuhani, 2 this source mentions a tribe that is extinct now. 3 4 mentions them to be nahmardis which are indeed origin tribe, and the 3rd source is used double times. While other sources are bare urls, which are difficult to verify.

And the username mostly uses the source which barely mentions the word only.

5 6, sources clearly mentions noohani to be a Sindhi tribe from Sindh. 7 in Sindhi mentions them to be Sammat. AngelicDevil29 (talk) 00:49, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

umer khan noohani in details is mentioned as baloch from noohani tribe, no they don't mention extinct tribes , the extinct one is a british colonial era supposition. Noohanis are clearly a Baloch tribe. The ones you are calling bare urls also mention it as a baloch tribe. Noohanis of Sindh especially Dadu are clearly a Baloch tribe and so do they identify, and this is what the sources say. اَشکَش (talk) 01:40, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

An individual can not be used for whole tribe, it does mention about a nuhani tribe which is disappeared. Read again, noohanis have Sindhi origins in your sources most of them call it noohani as Nohmardi plus mine sources also mention them to be Sindhi origins. AngelicDevil29 (talk) 08:14, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Your other bare urls sources mentions few jadgal tribes as baloch, how can those sources be reliable? AngelicDevil29 (talk) 08:17, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

@اَشکَش and AngelicDevil29: Please discuss content disputes on either the appropriate article talk page (such as Talk:Noohani, Talk:Jadgal people, Talk:Med people and Talk:The Sindhis of Balochistan) or on each others talk pages. As written above on this page, "This page is for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems", which isn't clear at this time. I recommend that you both review how to resolve content disputes and how to seek help from other users. A third opinion has been helpful with disputes I have had in the past. If you two create a good faith discussion on a talk page, I have no problem with trying to help by providing a third opinion.--WMrapids (talk) 07:05, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

thanks, but as of now the dispute has been resolved. AngelicDevil29 (talk) 23:36, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

NoonIcarus and "Failed verification"

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

Apologies in advance for the wall of text, but this is mainly due to having to outline and explain a list of concerning edits. NoonIcarus has inaccurately cited "failed verification" in an apparent effort to remove information from the project. This was addressed before by Mbinebri in the 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt article talk page, who said "In your recent edits, you removed info again, claiming failed verification because you couldn't access the two cited articles. I think this was inappropriate". More recently, I have noticed NoonIcarus performing this similar edit (and engaging in an edit war) to remove information about leftists being tortured during a former Venezuelan government, arguing that this was not presented in sources. Well, this information is from the New York Amsterdam News article cited, where the paper writes "Posada worked as an official in Venezuela's DISIP ... where he participated in the torture of left-wing activists". So, instead of NoonIcarus actually not having access to information to "verify" source content, it appears that they are intentionally ignoring source content in order to maintain a particular POV on the project.

After noticing this repetitive behavior, I reviewed NoonIcarus' similar "failed verification" edits, recognizing inconsistencies:

• Carlos Vecchio: NoonIcarus removes information about Vecchio working for ExxonMobil, saying it "failed verification." However, on page 38 of Libres: el nacimiento de una nueva Venezuela, Vecchio writes "Trabajo entonces en Mobil de Venezuela, la empresa petrolera, estaba ganando seis veces más de lo que ganada en PDVSA," ("I then worked at Mobil de Venezuela, the oil company, I was earning six times more than what I earned at PDVSA", showing that he clearly worked for ExxonMobil. This may be an attempt to hide that a high-level Venezuelan opposition leader previously worked for an American company, which is controversial in Venezuelan politics.
• 2007 Venezuelan constitutional referendum: NoonIcarus removes information about the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies working with the Venezuelan opposition during the election, citing "Failed verification, dead links". Strangely, these Stratfor articles were taken down after I added them to the election article, however they are still present in Google searches (as of now, though I took screenshots if necessary) and the article in particular can be seen mostly intact in this random 2007 forum. And here. Edit: Links should work now. Thanks!--WMrapids (talk) 10:51, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
• Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies: NoonIcarus tags "CANVAS is funded by primarily American organizations" as "Failed verification". However, if you look at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung article about the Venezuelan opposition's links to CANVAS, it says "Canvas wird wesentlich von amerikanischen Organisationen finanziert" ("Canvas is largely funded by American organizations"), showing that this can be verified.
• Venezuelan opposition: NoonIcarus removed information about CANVAS training members of the Venezuelan opposition, saying "Failed verification. This information comes from a 2012 WikiLeaks piece". This is entirely inaccurate and a falsehood as this information is sourced from Stratfor, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Le Monde diplomatique, with these sources not citing Wikileaks at all.
• Guarimba: NoonIcarus tagged the sentence "Oxford Analytica wrote that half of the protest deaths resulted at barricades" as "Failed verification". In the cited article, it clearly states "an estimated half of those killed losing their lives at opposition barricades".
• Guarimba 2: NoonIcarus says "Failed verification" about the sentence "Many families were confined to their homes as a result of guarimbas and in turn, children were prevented from attending school and individuals were unable to receive medical care." The source, the notable Venezuelan historian Margarita López Maya writes "Las protestas, conocidas como el «guarimbazo», ... [resultaron con el] confinamiento de centenares de familias a sus hogares por los cierres de vía que impidieron llevar a los niños a las escuelas, acudir al trabajo, o llegar a centros de salud." ("The protests, known as the 'guarimbazo', ... [resulted with the] confinement of hundreds of families to their homes due to road closures that prevented them from taking children to schools, going to work, or reaching health centers."
• Guarimba 3: With the sentence "At some guarimbas, protesters rob individuals who criticize the method", NoonIcarus said "Failed verification. Nowhere to be seen in article". The cited article by The Atlantic says "more radical elements of the party take to what’s called guarimba ... MUD supporters have stationed themselves at these ... shaking down people who don’t support the shutdown".
• Protests against Nicolás Maduro: A sentence about opposition protesters attacking a government facility said "President Maduro said the attack forced the evacuation of workers and about 89 children", with NoonIcarus saying that this had "Failed verification, no mention of children". The archived story, however, says "había 89 niños dentro de la sede, de los cuales 3 necesitaron asistencia con oxígeno" ("there were 89 children inside the headquarters, of which 3 needed assistance with oxygen"). One could excuse a potential lack of knowledge about web archiving, but NoonIcarus is very knowledgeable about web archiving when they want to be.

This is just a small review of the last four months of editing by NoonIcarus, so again (see here about the previous inappropriate use of "stable version"), who knows how much they have removed using the "failed verification" method this time. Overall, NoonIcarus' editing behavior makes it clear that they are removing information not based on "failed verification", but for other reasons; most likely related to seeing this information as a bad POV about the Venezuelan opposition. This is further evidence to add to the previous concerns about NoonIcarus not being here to build an encyclopedia. WMrapids (talk) 06:32, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Wow. These "failed verification" lies (which is what these are) are so pervasive that unless NoonIcarus has a very good explanation for all of these, I'd go ahead with a site ban. ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 07:09, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

All of these edits are recent or recent-ish (2024), and it's apparent from his userpage that NoonIcarus speaks Spanish. NoonIcarus isn't an inexperienced editor. I do find NoonIcarus' position defensible on the 2007 Venezuelan constitutional referendum; I could imagine that if I saw commentary I found suspicious that was sourced to a dead link, I might tag it with {{fv}}. I also think he's got an arguable case on Guarimba 3 because "shaking down" doesn't necessarily mean "robbing". On the other matters I fully side with WMrapids.—S Marshall T/C 09:25, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

@S Marshall: There was a URL issue,[11][12] though as I said, the articles were still easily accessible on Google. WMrapids (talk) 10:53, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I can see your side of it. I just think it's only fair to note that it was a contentious claim sourced to a dead link.—S Marshall T/C 14:57, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

IMO the correct solution is to use {{dead link}} for the link not working, and also {{Verify source}} if you have doubts and cannot check the source due to the dead link. Failed verification implies that you checked the source and could not find the claim rather than you could not view the source. Note that the documentation for the failed verification template specifically says you should use dead link instead when the website is unreachable. Nil Einne (talk) 16:00, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

While I didn't see anything in the documentation that I saw that says it's okay to use both the dead link and verify source template, I'd argue it's perfectly fine since they describe two related but separate issues. One is that the link is dead, so someone needs to either fix it in some way. E.g. they could find an archival link. Or alternatively replace it with a working source. Or in some cases if the source doesn't need a link ensure that there is sufficient info in the citation and possibly remove the link. The second issue is that an editor has doubts over the content but couldn't access the source to confirm it one way or the other. So wants someone who does have access to the source to verify it, perhaps providing a quote on the talk page to help or something. This isn't so different from a book or journal the editor doesn't have access to or a paywalled website, except here the problem is a dead link so fixing the dead link and confirming it verifies should be enough. If for whatever reason e.g. an editor gnoming a lot of related dead links doesn't have time to check, they're perfectly fine fixing the dead link, removing the dead link template and leaving the verify source for someone else to deal with perhaps even the editor who added it in the first place when they find the link was fixed. Nil Einne (talk) 16:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Using {{dead link}} is the correct option, but Template:Failed verification/doc only mentioned that in the body. I've made a slight change to reflect that in the lede of the documentation. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 16:19, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

The main issue with said sources is that their format ([13]) did not show how they were accessed in the first place. There weren't archive links, archive dates or quotes, and if they had been truly accessed just a few days ago they should have been available when I did. I want to leave clear that I oppose removing links for being dead as the only reason, and I have rescued several of these references when I have found the archives. I was unaware about {{Verify source}}, and it looks like an useful tag that I will probably use in the future. Kind regards, --NoonIcarus (talk) 15:59, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

It should be noted that {{Verify source}} should only be used only after you have made a good faith attempt to verify the information yourself if you are unable to find it, and still have doubts about its authenticity. You might also be interested in WP:IABOT, which can often repair dead links. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 16:18, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@The Wordsmith: Not trying to bludgeon here, but "good faith" tagging has been a consistent issue for NoonIcarus as well.(1,2,3) @Boynamedsue: even said "All of the in text tags here lacked justification. I am very concerned about Noonicarus… This is the diametric opposite of our actual policy". Just wanted to share this to provide more context. WMrapids (talk) 19:53, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Sure thing. Thank you kindly, --NoonIcarus (talk) 01:53, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Re Carlos Vecchio: The cited book says "Mobil de Venezuela" and in the previous paragraph it suggests that the date was July 1998. Wikipedia's ExxonMobil article says Exxon merged with Mobil to form ExxonMobil in November 1999. So I think NoonIcarus was correct, the Wikipedia claim that BLP subject Carlos Vecchio worked for ExxonMobil was poorly sourced. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:07, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

This is splitting hairs. Looking at History of ExxonMobil, we do not simply say "Mobil" when discussing the company historically. If we want to be super specific, "Mobil de Venezuela" could have been edited as a redirect (like Mobil de Venezuela), but this still doesn't warrant NoonIcarus' removal of the information entirely. WMrapids (talk) 14:59, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

In fact Mr Vecchio did work for ExxonMobil a few years later, I was thrown off by your quoting of a passage that is not about that. Although I think the citing could have been more specific I was wrong to say it's poorly sourced. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:26, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

@Nil Einne, The Wordsmith, and Peter Gulutzan: I'm appreciative of you all clarifying the appropriate usage of templates and the source content regarding Mobil (ExxonMobil). But, Mbinebri already warned NoonIcarus about inappropriately using "failed verification", S Marshall notes that NoonIcarus has the experience to have known better and JCW555 suggests a "site ban" since the user appears to be a deliberately removing unwanted information. We have been dealing with NoonIcarus' inappropriate edits for some time now (block deletions and canvassing, edit warring against consensus, activist/battleground edits). So, do any of you have suggestions on how to remedy NoonIcarus' gaming behavior that has continued (especially on Venezuelan topics) for years now? I previously suggested a topic ban, which is less severe than a full "site ban".--WMrapids (talk) 18:58, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

• Such suggestions should wait until NoonIcarus has had some time to respond, I think. We normally give users a while to answer.—S Marshall T/C 19:04, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Pre-emptively, I would definitely support a TBAN, because I have watched NoonIcarus's behaviour for a long time, and it is absolutely unacceptable. To be honest, I am suprised they haven't recieved a ban or block of any sort regarding this issue. I fear that they might be one of the unblockables, and that would be a great shame. JML1148 ^{(talk | contribs)} 05:37, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

@JML1148 The reason this issue is getting little attention from admins is because of how verbose all of the participants are and how this dispute is outside of the knowledge of most people in the west, which is the English Wikipedia's main editor base. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 17:24, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I totally get the the thing regarding the conduct of the participants. I don't really think the issue is with it being outside the knowledge of most editors, though - there's been a few RfCs with widespread participation including the dispute between NoonIcarus and WMRapids. I definitely think a large number of administrators know about the dispute and the poor conduct involved, but aren't getting involved. JML1148 ^{(talk | contribs)} 06:34, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I didn't remember where we knew each other from, until I found the request for comment RfC: VENRS, which WMrapids started. If your understanding about my experience as an editor comes mostly from WMrapids, I kindly ask if you have a chance to take a look at the ANI own complaints against WMrapids below. Best wishes, --NoonIcarus (talk) 15:48, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Currently writing a response to the accusations. --NoonIcarus (talk) 09:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

If I understand this correctly, the allegation is that a user should be blocked for adding "failed verification" tags where other tags are appropriate? Isn't that a sledgehammer/nut response? As people have already shown the first two e examples aren't straightforward, I'm looking at the third example, the Frankfurter Zeitung source on Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies. The tagged reference is as follows: {{Cite news |date=1 April 2019 |title=Generation 2007 |work=Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung} There is no link, so impossible for someone to verify without finding the 1 April 2019 edition of FAZ, something I couldn't manage to do easily. It looks like the complainant here has access to the text, as they quote it on this page, so why not just add a hyperlink, or at least give the full quotation and maybe a page number, and remove the tag? Maybe "failed verification" is the wrong tag, but surely the ref doesn't meet our standards of verification and therefore Noonicarus was correct to tag it? BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:30, 15 March 2024 (UTC) Now I'm looking at the fourth example, Venezuelan opposition. Here the sources were removed rather than tagged. All of the removed sources are problematic from a verification point of view: the same FAZ ref without a link, a Monde Diplo article that is paywalled but which in another edit Noonicarus says doesn't mention Venezuela, and Stratfor links which are dead. So it would have been right to tag it. The removal was part of what seems to be quite a lot of back and forth editing with the complainant here inserting very POV material and Noonicarus hastily removing it. Would have been better for both editors to slow down and talk it out, but this is not an example of one user deviously using "failed verification" as framed in the complaint. The fifth example, Guarimba, is a bit like the third: the citation to Oxford Analytica doesn't have a hyperlink so is impossible to verify. The quote is too short to confirm it supports the text. Noonicarus tags it instead of removing it. It should be tagged in some way as it does indeed need more to verify it. BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:50, 15 March 2024 (UTC) With the sixth example, also from Guarimba, I agree with WMrapids that on the face of it this should not have been removed. Noonicarus' edit summary is "Failed verification. Care should be also be taken, since unreliable government sources are frequently used, such as Venezolana de Televisión and Correo del Orinoco. It's clear that this is not the best source" which doesn't seem to match the content removed, suggesting it may have been a mistake, and WMRapids was right to revert it. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:01, 15 March 2024 (UTC) The seventh example, same WP article, was also a bad edit. Possibly Noonicarus searched the source without noticing the paywall half way down but the full article[14] does include the "shakedown" passage. I'd say the removed content was a rather POV rendering of the material, so this may have provoked this excessive response. So far I agree with WMRapids in two out of seven examples. There doesn't seem to be the malignant pattern the complaint implies. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:09, 15 March 2024 (UTC) Last one, on the protests. It's true the second source, a dead link, contained text about children, so flagging as need verification or checking the archive would have been better than removal. However, the actual claim in the WP article text doesn't correspond to the sources as comments attributed to Maduro (including about children) weren't made by Maduro. Again, there was bad POV material to which Noonicarus overreacted. So three out of eight edits raised here are problematic, but not in a way that suggests a need to sanctions. Is there an 1RR rule on Venezuela articles? That might be a better solution, to calm down the editing in general. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:20, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: I think you might be missing some of the context here. Although whether or not this specific incident warrants sanctions is debatable, according to your analysis, NoonIcarus has a history of POV pushing, incivility and assuming ownership of articles. There is a very long and detailed comment that WMRapids left on a previous ANI incident, found here. JML1148 ^{(talk | contribs)} 08:36, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

As I explained in my own response to the comment, the problem is that there hasn't been much pushing from my part, but rather from WMrapids. They have aggresively introduced POV in several articles for months now: National_Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services, Venezuelan opposition, Guarimba, 2007 Venezuelan constitutional referendum, 2019 Venezuelan blackouts, 2015 Venezuelan parliamentary election, 2013 Venezuelan municipal elections. Most, if not all, of the recent disputes with WMrapids have resulted from me challenging the POV content and WMrapids' reluctance to change it. As of article ownership, it's enough to point out to articles such as Operation Gideon (2020), Rupununi uprising and Guarimba to show how difficult it has been to make any changes different from the editor's preferred version. --NoonIcarus (talk) 02:38, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: As I said in the opening of this discussion, Mbinebri already warned NoonIcarus that a "failed verification" tag is inappropriate if the user didn't have access to the source. A source does not need a link to be included. Failed verification means that someone had read the source and the content did not match the source. So, no, many of the tags and edit summaries were not "correct" as you suggest and NoonIcarus was deliberately removing information without properly verifying it.

I know that you two have worked pretty closely together on removing some info from United States involvement in regime change. This is where NoonIcarus and I have had a conflict (their frequent removals), but I reached out to them in an effort to avoid edit warring, suggesting that we add to articles and discuss instead of constant removals. This worked for but a moment until they reverted back to edit warring. It crossed the line when they inappropriately began removing information citing "failed verification", and now we are here. WMrapids (talk) 14:57, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

1RR is a solution that has been proposed previously and I have tried to abide by. It wouldn't solve all of the current issues, but it is not currently implemented and it probably would be a good first step. --NoonIcarus (talk) 12:51, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

How long are admins going to let this go? It has been obvious for some time that Noonicarus can not edit competently on Latin American political articles and they need to be topic-banned at the very least.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Another few days. The OP has had time to write a thorough and well-formatted complaint. We give their target the same courtesy.—S Marshall T/C 08:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

WMrapids and source misinterpretation

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

TL;DR: WMrapids accuses me of "ignoring source content" but omits that I access said content and try to help with verifiability, such as by asking for quotes, which the editor never provided until now. WMrapids has a history of source misinterpretation that needs to be checked.

I was hoping that with this exchange and more interaction in talk pages there would be less conflict but alas, we find ourselves here again. I have already made several complaints about WMrapids' poor behavior in the past, including but not limited to edit warring, blanking and hounding (ANI#User:WMrapids and WP:ASPERSIONS, ANI#User:WMrapids (blanking), ANI#Filibustering and hounding by WMrapids). For the sake of brevity I will focus in the recent issues.

WMrapids has a history of reference misinterpretation, original research and poor sourcing, sometimes leading to BLP violations (eg: WP:NPOV/N#Nelson Bocaranda and Talk:Sanctions during the Venezuelan crisis#Lancet editorial misrepresented), not to mention lack of attribution or personal interpretation, as with the "shaking down" examplec. Controversial or fringe claims such as a congressman leading an auto theft gang, the CIA infiltration of Venezuelan intelligence services or the opposition involvement in the 2019 blackouts don't help either. The editor continues accusing me of bias, but with them casting doubts about Venezuelan torture victims testimonies [15][16][17][18][19][20] and own removal of content[21][22][23] shows that the editor does not hold all of the information to the same standard depending on its point of view. Another example of this is how they question the Organization of American States as a source in the Guarimba article ([24]), but doesn't have to have an issue with using it at the Ayacucho and Juliaca massacres articles (1, 2). To this date no explanation has been provided for this.

When I say "failed verification" it doesn't mean that I wasn't able to access the source or that I was too lazy to try to. God knows I have. Web Archive, Google Books, JSTOR, all the possible means available online if I don't happen to have an offline method to verify. Threads that include Talk:Thor Halvorssen (businessman)#CIA informant accusation, Talk:DISIP#Luis Posada Carriles, Talk:Venezuelan opposition#Foreign affairs and Talk:Tren de Aragua#Xenophobia show that I have accessed the references and that I am familiar with their content, if I had already not said it at the edit summaries.

WMrapids often doesn't include URLs, pages, quotes or other means to help with verifiability for bibliographical sources, even when they are easily accesible (just as BobFromBrockley as noted above), and have continued to do so even when other users that asked for them to be included. The responsability to ensure the verifiability of the information lies on the user that adds it, but the user shifts this burden onto other editors, best exemplified by one of the last responses to the source requests: "Google"[25]. Talk pages such as Talk:2007 Venezuelan constitutional referendum#Stratfor are witness that I have tried asking about the original quotes or learning more about the content in question, even when I haven't found it after accessing the source, and I often choose rewording or fixing the references instead of removal when I have the opportunity: [26][27][28][29][30].

I am very dissapointed that this is the first time that any of these quotes are brought up: not in its references, not in the talk pages, but to make a case against me, as they have with other editors that have challenged their edits, for requesting them in the first place. I don't want to speak on behalf of Mbinebri, but I believe that our exchange was a lot more open and amicable at Talk:2002 Venezuelan coup attempt#Recent edits... with more to go(?) than the ones that I've had with WMrapids when I have challenged the content.

Responses to WMrapids accusations

The text's original source about Luis Posada Carriles (Bardach, Ann Louise (2002). Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana. Random House. pp. 184–186. ISBN 978-0-375-50489-1.), which describes the group saying [he] immediately went to war against the leftist guerrilla movements supported by Castro in Venezuela. It directly contradicts the description of he participated in the torture of left-wing activists. Searching "Exxon" in Google Books gives back page 56, whose preview doesn't mention anything about Qatar or Vecchio being a tax manager. Looking online, the main websites that have this information are outlets with a heinous reliability record, such as  The Grayzone (RSP entry) [31] and  Telesur (RSP entry) [32], as well as Venezuelan state outlets. This was added to the article just months after these articles were published:[33]. Modifying the URL solves this issue. See Talk:2007 Venezuelan constitutional referendum#Stratfor for the CANVAS content. The provided links were broken, Web Archive [34][35] didn't throw any results, and I asked for the specific quote. Nothing misleading here, the provided reference did not reflect the added content. I'm glad this has been fixed now. The information about the alleged relations between the Venezuelan opposition, Otpor! and CANVAS comes from Wikileaks' "Global Intelligence Files". This is even mentioned by a source that WMrapids provided:Wikileaks Docs Expose Famed Serbian Activist’s Ties to ‘Shadow CIA’. Stratfor links were broken (see above) and Le Monde diplomatique didn't mention Venezuela, something I also asked at Talk:Venezuelan opposition#Foreign affairs.  WikiLeaks (RSP entry) is an unreliable source per WP:RS/PS. See S Marshall's comment regarding "shaking down". I'm not the only person that does not think that "extortion" is the same as "robbing" If I recall correctly, I removed the information about children because the sentence talked specifically about evacuation. Yahoo's source was also dead, but can be accessed through Archive and says: Several people, including a young girl, have been rescued from Venezuela's Housing Ministry after it was set on fire by anti-government protesters.[36] If I had removed content simply because the links are dead and I didn't bother trying accessing them, as WMrapids claims, I would have deleted the whole statement, which is clearly not the case. The only exceptions that I can see are Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's and Oxford Analytica's sources; in both cases I tagged the sentences accordingly and did not remove the content. I'm finding out about {{verify source}} due to this thread, and I will probably use in the future in this context. As of López Maya's source, I simply did not find the original source. It is a 25 pages document and WMrapids usually doesn't provide quotes for the references, as I mentioned above.

I cannot stress how exhausted I am of this. It will be almost a year since this pattern has started since WMrapids started editing in Venezuelan topics. I don't know what to ask anymore besides for the community to make up their position based on this information and to propose a solution. --NoonIcarus (talk) 15:36, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Given that you are attempting to boomerang this back onto me, as @JML1148: mentioned this "unblockable" behavior, I will try to provide a short response.

Yes, I may forget to include specific quotes and page numbers on occasion, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that you inaccurately designated content as "failed verification" and removed it inappropriately.

You also failed to justify any removal based on "failed verification":

1. The Posada information was based on the newspaper article, not the book.
2. You're attempting to deflect the information on Vecchio to Grayzone (who you personally and understandably have a beef with) instead of actually verifying the source itself.
3. We can understand that this was an accident, yet this could have been easily verifiable doing an internet search for the article title.
4. Regarding CANVAS, you inappropriately said the information was from Wikileaks when this was not the case.
5. The "shakedown" appears up for debate, though looking at extortion, it seems like protesters forcing disapproving people to give them belongs seems like a robbery to me.
6. The information about children was removed, period. You could have looked at the archived link to El Universal.
7. Finally, you use the excuse of not being knowledgeable of "verify source", which seems like a cop out for a ten-year Wikipedia user.

So, it still is clear to me that you are deflecting blame and making excuses for your inappropriate behavior on the Project instead of listening to the years of warnings from other users. I admit to not being a perfect user and you yourself have clarified things for me, but I never went as far as being dishonesty. WMrapids (talk) 17:53, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I wrote a response towards your accusations. Nothing more, nothing less. You're accusing me of deliberately ignoring the content in the references, and the diffs I provide show this is clearly false. Your lack of URLs, pages and quotes has been the norm, not the exception.

If we want to talk about dishonesty, it's probably best to ask: if for weeks I had asked for quotes or on what the changes were based (Talk:Thor Halvorssen (businessman)#CIA informant accusation, Talk:National Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services#Luis Posada Carriles, Talk:Venezuelan opposition#Foreign affairs, Talk:Tren de Aragua#Xenophobia and Talk:2007 Venezuelan constitutional referendum#Stratfor), why is it only now that you're providing them for the first time? You once said it is becoming exhausting that we are arguing over the definition of a shake down now[37]. Do you find these questions annoying? That is something different and that you can say, but saying that I'm ignored source content is deceptive.

By providing the sources only now, it shows how easily and accessible it is for you, but here it looks not as an attempt to help with the content verifiability or address my behavior, but rather to sanction me. --NoonIcarus (talk) 01:01, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

And talking about the {{verify source}} tag, it has nothing to do with the issue at hand. One thing is tagging, another thing is contesting and removing. I only said that I'll be looking using it more in the future. --NoonIcarus (talk) 01:01, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Topic ban from Latin American political articles

Support topic ban: After reviewing the response from NoonIcarus, it appears that they will continue to deflect their misbehavior onto others and have not learned from the years of warnings they have encountered. Again, while I am admittedly not a perfect user myself, it does not justify their dishonest editing, frequent edit warring and their battleground behavior in apparent acts of activism.--WMrapids (talk) 18:00, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• No. Proposals are needed here but it's best if they come from uninvolved people.—S Marshall T/C 18:07, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  Ah, agreed then. I was following the proposals already shared above, so no bad intentions here. Thanks for keeping this discussion in line! WMrapids (talk) 18:48, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• [Later] This is complicated and hard to resolve. There have been previous reports by both parties and they've often been archived without result. That shouldn't happen again this time, and I've used {{DNAU}} to make sure it doesn't.
  Aside from the conflict of views about Venezuela, there's an ongoing issue that reduces to citing sources with sufficient precision. NoonIcarus expects citations to be rather precise, and he tags citations he sees as vague. WMrapids' citations are less precise, and he objects to NoonIcarus' insistence. From WMrapids' point of view, NoonIcarus looks like he's griefing; while from NoonIcarus' point of view, WMrapids is adding material that isn't properly sourced. WMrapids expects NoonIcarus to fix imprecise citations when he finds them; while NoonIcarus wants to tag them for someone else to fix.
  I think part of what we need to do here is to define good sourcing practice and set expectations about how to deal with citations that have poor precision.—S Marshall T/C 18:52, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  Well, I want to clear this up now. My point of view is that others shouldn't have to clean up after citations. Now, I get it, my citations weren't exactly the most detailed, but this is something that I can and will improve upon (this also could have all been solved on my talk page if there was actually a sincere concern). The issue I and others have is that NoonIcarus disingenuously marked content as "failed verification" and removed it, with most of this content being controversial towards the Venezuelan opposition. This is a clear behavioral pattern that NoonIcarus has continuously participated in, which is the true issue before us. WMrapids (talk) 19:34, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  I have asked you countless times for content and sources when in doubt, and both SandyGeorgia and I have asked you to add links in your references previously. This is not a new issue. --NoonIcarus (talk) 02:47, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  I want to clarify that I don't mind fixing the references if I have the opportunity, it is something that I have done in the past: [38][39][40][41] I just think this should not be the norm, or at least that the editor can help improving the format if possible. Too much precision probably isn't needed either. Just an URL should work in most cases, as it usually does, but if one isn't available, at least a quote and page. --NoonIcarus (talk) 01:52, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

@S Marshall: Many thanks for the mediation, by the way. --NoonIcarus (talk) 01:55, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support topic ban on Latin American politics -- a wider TB to include politics in general might protect us from possible similar behavior in U.S. politics--especially those that might tangentially overlap with the interest this editor has in Latin American politics. I do think this ban should be extended to Spanish Wikipedia and WikiMedia files, but my understanding is that other languaged Wikipedia have their own judicial proceedings.

I don't think a site ban is necessary, as I don't think the editor has shown much interest in anything else, and maybe if s/he works on other subject matter might eventually understand just how problematic the behavior has been.

I agree with other editors that TL;DR is a real problem in this subject area. I think the reason for that has a lot to do with the fact that mainstream RS that is critical of United States involvement in regime change has been blacklisted on Wikipedia, by citing the mainstream U.S. sources that tend to parrot the U.S. State Department perspective (as I explain at WP:RS/N, here).

I remember NoonIcarus's behavior under the former name Jamez42. In January 2020, s/he received a 1-year editing restriction for behavior like the above. After the editing restriction expired, at some point the behavior returned. I warned him/her on 2/9/24 about repeated reverts of the same material, and s/he immediately deleted it without archiving with the edit summary "A single revert does not warrant this warning. Stop this harassment." --David Tornheim (talk) 20:37, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

•  Comment: Linking this February thread between the filer and you, for context for the participants: User talk:WMrapids#Allegations against NoonIcarus.

I think it would also be helpful if you could specific which critical mainstream RS sources you're referring to. In  The Grayzone's (RSP entry) request for comment, you supported that it be categorized either under option 1 or 2, and I supported its deprecation (a decision I wholy stand by, by the way). Grayzone's rant about the decision and their attack against editors, including myself, was one of the reasons why I requested a change for my username. The RfC was also opened three weeks before you filed your own ANI against me four years ago. I really hope this decision of mine is not part of the reason why you're supporting a topic ban. Best wishes. --NoonIcarus (talk) 23:04, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

No. It's not because of a difference of opinion at a single RfC. It's the POV editing which has gone on for years, which I and numerous other editors have observed and expounded upon here and elsewhere: [42],[43], and [44]. If the warnings were heeded, we would not be here, and I would not be advocating for a topic ban.

To give an example of this POV-editing, and what prompted this warning: NoonIcarus kept reverting to his/her preferred claim that the Presidency of Venezuela was disputed. This was no longer tenable after 30 December 2022, because "Venezuela's opposition national assembly voted...to remove interim President Juan Guaido [and] dissolve his government..." [45]

When at least four editors (one me) tried to remove the claim that the Presidency was still disputed (after 30 December 2022), NoonIcarus reverted, and kept citing an obsolete RfC from 10 September 2021 and also despite this RfC closed 3 December 2021 that determined "There is a clear consensus that Juan Guaidó isn’t the interim president of Venezuela." (In the 3 December 2021 RfC, of the twelve !votes, NoonIcarus was one of only two editors claiming Guaido was still "interim president".) It wasn't until I filed this RfC on 9 February 2024 that the matter was settled. It is not surprising that of the eight !votes, NoonIcarus was alone in claiming the Presidency is disputed. I don't consider that cooperative editing and the ability to judge the WP:RS with WP:NPOV. It's more like ownership and advocacy for the opposition. --David Tornheim (talk) 08:46, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

A RfC that I suggested myself, about a change that had been disputed by at least two other editors: [46][47][48]. It's simply not as you're painting it. As I said in the RfC itself, if the community is clear on the position, I don't have any issues with the outcome.

I asked before you have been inactive for nearly four years, until WMrapids left a message in your talk page (User talk:David Tornheim#Operation Gideon (2020)). The actions you're describing are from 2020 and before (already dealt before in the specific ANI) and from this year, not a pattern that has continued over four years.

With that being said, I wonder once again why WP:RS/N was mentioned here to begin with. Regards, --NoonIcarus (talk) 12:39, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support topic ban on Latin American politics Noonicarus' editing is, in large part, political activism. Noonicarus' is here purely to ensure that articles on Latin American topics have an anti-socialist bias in general, and an anti-Venezuelan-regime bias in particular. While these opinions are perfectly acceptable, in my view, their editing on this topic runs foul of WP:NOTHERE. All editors, including myself, have political biases, but I am 100% sure that Noonicarus views their contribution to wikipedia as part of the struggle against the Venezuelan regime.

They have explicitly declared that they believe "mainstream news sources" to be superior to academic scholarship, which is the opposite to our actual policy. For example, they recently spent a long time arguing against the inclusion in the text of the term "massacre" (used by many academic sources) to describe the killing of thousands of civilians by Venezuelan security forces in 1989. Their justification was that some Venezuelan news sources do not use the term. They have also dedicated a massive amount of time to attempting to enforce WP:VENRS, which is an attempt to exclude any news sources from Venezuela which do not have a pro-opposition bias. Boynamedsue (talk) 20:24, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree with all of your observations. Since resuming editing on 2/6/24, I have seen this troubling behavior in the articles you mention while it was happening (as well as back in 2019-2020), even if I did not comment on it.--David Tornheim (talk) 20:46, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Context here Talk:Caracazo#POV tag and here Talk:Caracazo#Sources. --NoonIcarus (talk) 23:09, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support topic ban I have many South American election articles on my watchlist and I have regularly seen NoonIcarus making POV edits over a period of several years, mostly to Venezuelan articles, but occasionally to other articles where there is a prominent leftist candidate/party. This has often involved selectively removing information that is inconvenient to their POV with somewhat dubious reasons (which is the original complaint here). Frankly I'm amazed they have lasted this long on Wikipedia given their long history of POV-pushing. Number 57 00:46, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support TBAN per my previous comments. It's very clear NoonIcarus needs something to restrain their blatant NPOV editing. JML1148 ^{(talk | contribs)} 05:41, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

User:Aecws - repeated copyvios, and constantly submitting AfC requests under someone else's name

Aecws (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has had two copyright violations against their account, both on Draft:Canadian Pacific 2860, the second time when they restored copyrighted content immediately after it had been reverted and they had been warned.

They have also repeatedly submitted AfC requests as User:Mr Mines Engine ([49], [50], [51], [52], [53], new page at Draft:Southern Pacific 982) and re-submitted them without bothering to set themselves as the submitter ([54], [55], [56]). They have been warned on their talk page about this behaviour ([57]), but have continued to do so, with the latest submission being today. Mr Mines Engine is receiving the constant AfC decline notifications on their talk page, despite having nothing to do with anything here (as evidenced by this comment [58]). Surely impersonation such as this should be strongly frowned upon? Danners430 (talk) 14:57, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Using another editor to submit their AfCs is completely unacceptable. The 🏎 Corvette 🏍 ZR1^{(The Garage)} 15:17, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for standing up for me, tho i actually did submitted Southern Pacific 982. I don’t like being used as bait by him. Mr Mines Engine (talk) 16:25, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

It was Aecws that created the page initially, and the very first edit submitted it to AfC under your name Danners430 (talk) 16:35, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I know he made the page but i was the one to submit it Mr Mines Engine (talk) 16:48, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

oh I see what you mean - that’s a mistake on my part, apologies Danners430 (talk) 17:09, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I’ve just reverted a move that they carried out on Draft:Canadian Pacific 2860 - they moved the article to mainspace after the AfC was declined… Danners430 (talk) 22:00, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

In fact, they’ve moved a bunch of draft articles to main space - at least two, Draft:Great Western 51 and Draft:Southern Pacific 1233, had declined AFCs… Danners430 (talk) 22:19, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I might be wrong, but my understanding is that AfC is not a mandatory process, nor is a declined draft not allowed to leave draftspace. I believe the proper procedure is to take the articles to AfD rather than send them back to draftspace. JML1148 ^{(talk | contribs)} 06:54, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Ah OK - I don’t know much about AfC either, I simply saw what looked rather suspiciously like the user trying to circumvent process so reverted the changes - more than happy to accept a trouting for this! Danners430 (talk) 07:49, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Impersonation of any kind is absolutely unacceptable on Wikipedia for obvious reasons. It's very obvious that they should be indef blocked as soon as possible for WP:NOTHERE. JML1148 ^{(talk | contribs)} 06:57, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

A further note… the user has created two new articles in main space in the last day, both of which had no sources and were draftified… they’ve also had two other articles created in main space draftified for the same reason. Danners430 (talk) 07:46, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

I've been involved with reverting their nonsense multiple times - this is an open and shut indef block for CIR and refusal to communicate. This individual is fundamentally unable to participate constructively in Wikipedia. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:41, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I just checked two of their most recent creations - both included wholesale copying and pasting from online sources. I implore any available admins to indef this user before they create more copyright violations we have to clean up. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:46, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

• Indeffed. No response to anyone's comments at talk page, no response here in over 4 days, and repeat ongoing issues. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 04:32, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Follow up from VPM

Topic ban proposal for Rachel Helps

Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

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

Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#A personal analysis and proposal

Per the evidence I outlined at this VPM discussion (permanent diff), Rachel Helps, the Wikipedian-in-Residence at Brigham Young University and operator of the above two accounts, has for years engaged in extensive undisclosed WP:COI editing on Wikipedia in collaboration with her employees and professional colleagues. This misconduct falls well short of what is expected of any editor, let alone a paid Wikipedian-in-Residence, and as I have been informed that en.wp has no ability to revoke said position, I propose that Rachel Helps be topic-banned from LDS Church-related topics, broadly construed, which should achieve the same result. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:18, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Don't know if this is of any importance, but this sandbox page showed up just recently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GlomorrIDTech/sandbox Seems to have something to do with BYU, not sure if it's important vghfr (✉ Talk) (✏ Contribs) 21:10, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Original page deleted, archive here vghfr (✉ Talk) (✏ Contribs) 23:28, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Pinging editors who participated in the prior discussions per WP:APPNOTE: @ජපස, WhatamIdoing, Horse Eye's Back, Rosguill, JoelleJay, Bon courage, Aquillion, P-Makoto, BilledMammal, FyzixFighter, Levivich, Primefac, Vghfr, David Fuchs, Pigsonthewing, BoyNamedTzu, Fram, Certes, Naraht, Guerillero, and Awilley:

• How anyone can read Rachel Helps (BYU)'s user page (even before recent edits) and say her CoI is "undisclosed " beggars belief. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:26, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
  • Please take the time to reread the above post and the linked discussion. If you feel that everything outlined in that analysis is perfectly above-board, may I ask if you have performed comparable edits while a WiR? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:28, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
  • For example, taking this recent diff into consideration, have you ever created a page for a friend while a WiR, and subsequently edited it after you had co-authored an article together and/or one of you had begun to supervise the other's education programme? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:45, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
    • Now try addressing what I said, rather than some other imagining. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
    • And don't edit my comments. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:04, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
      • My sincerest apologies, I think that was an edit conflict (you added it in a separate edit presumably while I was replying to you). ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:34, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
        • NP, I've also just had an EC with no notification. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:50, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support. There seems to be some idea (such as advanced by Andy above) that merely disclosing a COI absolves you of any possible infractions; that is not the case, as the evidence at the VPM discussion amply demonstrates. There's apparent evidence of off-wiki coordination that obfuscates COI editing. I see the concern that there are much worse offenders here, and Helps' self-identification makes picking out the COI edits that much easier... but that doesn't materially change the problem, discussed at length in the wider VPM thread, that Helps and similar editors have materially distorted and overemphasized coverage of LDS topics in ways that are not keeping with due weight. This is probably an issue with a lot of GLAM/WIR stuff, so I'm not surprised Andy is circling the wagons, but this is a pretty egregious example. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 16:40, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
  • First you misattribute a view I do not hold to me, then you impugn my integrity. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:57, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
• Overwhelming Support. WP:COI editing is bad enough, but considering that WiR is involved and that the COI violations are related to religion (which is already a subject that requires great care to maintain NPOV), Helps should absolutely be topic banned from LDS articles. vghfr (✉ Talk) (✏ Contribs) 16:48, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  • And to further comment on this, these violations seem to be contrary to the purpose of WiR, which is for an existing editor to "accept a placement with an institution to facilitate Wikipedia entries related to that institution," not to have an person with existing ties to the institution to "facilitate" Wikipedia articles on their institution

  vghfr (✉ Talk) (✏ Contribs) 16:55, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support, the disregard and disrespect this paid editor has for our COI expectations is staggering. The attitude is not that they should follow best practices, its that anything not explicitly prohibited is permitted and permitted in infinite quantities. An example of this attitude: "Also, if something is "strongly discouraged," it sounds like it's actually still allowed. A rule that can't be enforced is not really a rule."[59] So lets do what we have to do and enforce our community expectations, otherwise people will continue to ignore and disrespect "A rule that can't be enforced" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:52, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
• Comment I do see violations of COI policies but they are not an end in themselves and exist to protect the reliability of our content. So, can I get some examples of shoddy content being injected into our articles by Rachel Helps? Thanks, TrangaBellam (talk) 16:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  jps wrote in the linked discussion,

  I continue to find poor writing, sourcing, and editorial approaches on page after page dedicated. The cleanup that will be required to recover from this is tremendous ...

  Some diffs are in order? TrangaBellam (talk) 17:01, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  I listed diffs in that thread. Happy to list them again, but it may be a bit repetitive. Also, you can check my article space edit history from today as I’ve begun the long process of dealing with the fallout and that history may be illustrative. jps (talk) 18:46, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Apparently Airship was posting this while I was posting my disagreement with the evidence presented in the other thread. Yes, she seems to have written an article about an (apparently notable) co-author. More than half the evidence presented is about other editors (how dare she help newbies?). There have been previous discussions about her editing, and they've agreed that Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#Wikipedians in residence, reward board applies. She has confirmed that her employer does not choose her topics or pressure her to write certain things. More generally, I think that much of this is based on fear of religious editors. For example: She is accused of – over the course of 18 years and nearly 10,000 edits – writing two (2) articles that some editors (including me) think she might be too close to the subject to do so independently, and that it would have been more appropriate to send through WP:AFC. That's 4% of her article creations. Banning someone for a procedural error in 4% of contributions is not a proportional response. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:06, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

You know it should be 100% through AfC right? "you should put new articles through the Articles for Creation (AfC) process instead of creating them directly;" Thats incredibly damning. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:09, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

No, I don't agree that articles she needed to send articles such as Stretch Armstrong (ska band) and List of inmates of Topaz War Relocation Center and Anarchism and Esperanto and Hidden Figures (picture book) through AFC. Can you think of any reason why, e.g., she should consider herself to have a conflict of interest with a Japanese interment camp that was closed before she was born, then do please explain that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:32, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Because she was paid to make them. Thats a direct financial COI. I didn't say she needed to send the articles to AfC, I said she should have sent the articles to AfC. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:56, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, a couple of things: the co-author is also a Master's thesis supervisor, which isn't great; as there is precisely one "newbie" named in my analysis (the others being employees, editors with extensive COI history, and a bureaucraat currently at ArbCom for a CoI issue), I would ask you to consider your words more carefully. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

(Redacted). ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:53, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

A large proportion of our articles on universities and their staff are probably heavily edited by external relations offices and staff of the organisation, but they generally do it very professionally, under the radar. If we nobble this editor, we need, in fairness, to do the same to all those others too. But the articles are often accurate and well-written (because they've been written by someone who actually knows what they're talking about). Apply COI rules with caution lest you end up with an encyclopaedia written entirely by clueless people using out-of-date sources. Remember, most academic/institutional COI editing won't be reported because the person who knows (a) that the University of Somewhere's article is edited mostly by JSomeone, and (b) that the public relations officer happens to be called John Someone, can't actually do anything about it without outing themselves as another staff-member, and DOXing Dr Someone. Elemimele (talk) 18:12, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Isn't this argument the equivalent of saying "If the cops don't have the knowledge and resources to give every single speeder a speeding ticket then nobody should get a speeding ticket"? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:19, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

No, it's like saying that if absolutely everyone is speeding down a particular bit of road, then maybe something's wrong with the speed-limit (or the overall approach to its enforcement) and issuing one ticket won't solve the problem. Our COI policy is wildly naive, and particularly good at punishing those who admit their COI rather than those who just deny everything. Elemimele (talk) 20:05, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

But your argument isn't that everyone is speeding, your argument is that most roads have been sped on. Do you really think that "absolutely everyone" is doing egregious undisclosed COI editing? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:12, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

If you happen to see any other paid contributors, grandly titled "Wikipedians-in-Residence" and promoted by the WMF as an example of Wikimedia-public relations, who undermine COI to this extent, give me a ping and I'll certainly !vote to "nobble" them. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:23, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Nobble is actually a word, huh. Also, another day, another Primefac LDSuppression — when will it end? El_C 19:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

In fairness he's also been taking action to resolve these COI issues off-wiki, see discussion on his talk page. Levivich (talk) 21:01, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

She has confirmed that her employer does not choose her topics or pressure her to write certain things.

Contrast this with her COI declarations:

However, curators and other librarians sometimes request that I work on certain pages. ...
One of my students created the page for James Goldberg at the request of a curator, in conjunction with the library acquiring his personal papers. I assigned this to one of my students rather than myself because I know James personally. ...
When I wrote the page for Steven L. Peck and his bibliography at the request of our 21st-century manuscripts curator for my work, I was a fan of his work. When I wrote the page for Steven L. Peck and his bibliography at the request of our 21st-century manuscripts curator for my work, I was a fan of his work. ...
At the request of one of my curator colleagues, I improved the page for Glen Nelson. ...

I am a current patron of the ARCH-HIVE on Patreon. I participate in this community of Mormon artists. Their shows have featured work by artists whose pages I have worked on for work, for example, Matt Page (artist), whose page I created when our 21st-century curator requested that I work on his page after acquiring some of his personal papers. JoelleJay (talk) 19:57, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

People make suggestions for topics; sometimes she agrees. So? People ask me to make edits, too; sometimes I grant their requests, too. I'd bet that if people in your life know you edit Wikipedia, that you also get such requests. That's not a conflict of interest.

I'd also like you to think about what I am a current patron of the ARCH-HIVE on Patreon means. It means she gives money to them, not the other way around. Shall we ban Wikipedia editors who donate to the WMF or one of the affiliates from editing anything in Category:Wikipedia? Shall we tell editors that if they buy Girl Scout cookies, they can't edit Girl Scouts of the USA? Kick all the devs out of the open-source articles? Merely being a minor donor or a minor customer is not automatically a conflict of interest. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:28, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Are you just...willfully ignoring all context now? Because this is starting to look like bikesheddy obstructionist nitpicking for the sake of...who knows?

Here we have an employer requesting Helps write WP articles on specific topics chosen for their relevance to that employer, because Helps is officially employed in a WP liaison capacity with that employer. Helps says she fulfills some of these requests. All of this is above-board PAID (but not necessarily COI) editing and is utterly different from your hypothetical of some random person suggesting you write about some topic neither of you has a COI with. It also happens to contradict your claim that Helps says BYU doesn't choose topics for her to write about, which wouldn't actually even be a problem if those topics weren't connected to her or BYU (and I'm not alleging they are!).

Your second paragraph is somehow even more of a strawman. Nowhere in the comment above did I allege Helps has a COI with any of those examples of employer-requested editing, and certainly nowhere did I suggest editors can't edit on things they've ever spent any amount of money on. It's almost like you are replying to some synthesis of my comments in this thread, but I know that can't be true because if you had actually read my one other substantive comment in this ANI discussion you wouldn't have made that ridiculous comparison to Girl Scout Cookies in the first place when it's abundantly clear Helps' COI with ARCH-HIVE goes way beyond simply donating to them on Patreon. JoelleJay (talk) 22:06, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

JoelleJay my editing experience with WhatamIdoing has been — their Wikipedia editing style comes across as inexplicably argumentative or contrarian on most any topic. I don't recall if they eventually come around or change their mind, such as after somehow ferreting out a truth during a particular confrontation or argument. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 21:53, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Here we have an employer requesting Helps write WP articles on specific topics chosen for their relevance to that employer:

No, we don't. Here we have colleagues with no authority over her whatsoever, often from unrelated departments, who think they've identified a cool subject for Wikipedia, chosen for their relevance to the colleagues' own interests and activities, and an employer who thinks Wikipedia is cool enough that they let her spend part of her work time making that information freely available to the world. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:01, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Are you really suggesting someone whose position is "Coordinator of Wikipedia Initiatives at the Harold B. Lee Library" is being paid to edit in whatever topic areas they want with no expectation from the university that this work ever ought to benefit the university or further the interests of its owner? Or that a BYU employee requesting an article on a former BYU professor after the employee helped procure some of that professor's own works for BYU's collection, might be making this request on behalf of BYU as part of their job?

Do you think, in the above example, that someone serving in an official, Wikipedia-supported expert editing instructor position would believe COI from their extensive personal relationship with the subject is eliminated by assigning that article creation request to their own BYU employees? JoelleJay (talk) 00:15, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• Comment in response to ping: frankly, I haven't read the mountain of evidence in enough detail to !vote, but I don't think this problem is limited to a single editor. We may need to take a more holistic approach rather than hoping that removing one person will make everything right. Certes (talk) 17:12, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support and agree with Certes above that this is only part of the problem. I became aware of the BYU walled garden of sources, awards, and editors through the Nihonjoe ANI discussion and subsequent Arbcom case. Looking at their edits, I first noticed the problematic editing and undisclosed COI of User:Thmazing, who will warrant an ANI section on their own. But other names which kept popping up where User:P-Makoto, who keeps denying the obvious COI issues, and Rachel Helps (and her other account) and her large number of paid BYU students (who list her as their employer).

When I look at an article like Second Nephi, completely rewritten by these editors over the last few months[60] (apart from P-Makoto and Rachel Helps, I count 3 other paid BYU editors there): the page is expanded, but hardly improved. Claims like "J.N. Washburn, an independent scholar, cites that 199 of 433 verses from Isaiah appear with the same wording and proposes that Joseph Smith used the King James Bible version whenever it was close enough to the original meaning of the plates he was said to be translating and used the new translation when meaning differed" not only treat the "he find some old plates he translated" as truth, but try to claim that "independent" scholars support this, even though Jesse Nile Washburn was a LDS missionary who had studied at BYU before he published his books on Mormonism, so no idea what's "independent" about him. The whole article, just like most articles rewritten by Rachel Helps and her employees, are written from a distinctly in-universe, uncritical perspective.

For some reason she is very reluctant to note her COI on the talk page of these articles, insisting that the declaration on her user page is sufficient. She also takes it upon herself to remove critical tags from the pages, e.g. here or here, or to remove correct[61][62] but unsourced info and revert to equally unsourced info for unclear reasons[63]. A typical edit is something like this, supposedy "more detail for the naturalistic explanation section" but in reality removing two of the four sources and changing the more general claim about the non-religious origin of some Mormon belief to a much more LDS-friendly version. Just some examples from her 100 most recent mainspace edits... Fram (talk) 18:32, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support per Fram's evidence and others. I should note the above mentioned Second Nephi refers to another "independent scholar" (Matthew Nickerson) and then cites an article that appeared in a journal published by BYU. I would also hope that if a ban is enacted, it explicitly covers the Association for Mormon Letters and related topics, including fellow members, per the information provided in the Village Pump thread. Jessintime (talk) 18:47, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Support, not because Rachel Helps has undisclosed COI (she discloses BYU and AML on her userpage), but because she helped other editors with undisclosed COI (e.g. BYU, AML) make undisclosed COI edits, and did things like nominate their articles to DYK, or move their articles to mainspace. The diffs are at WP:VPM. I also agree with Certes that this problem is broader and includes the editors who have/had undisclosed COIs, but that doesn't absolve Ms. Helps of her role in what now seems to be an actual conspiracy of AML people to use Wikipedia to promote themselves, their work, and by extension their religion, by using a combination of undisclosed accounts and paid BYU editors. The unfortunate thing is that if everybody affiliated with AML had just disclosed it, there wouldn't really have been a problem... except they would have had to wait for editors without COI to do things like approve drafts, but I don't get why that would have been a problem. Undisclosed COI editing is a problem even if it's good undisclosed COI editing because it undermines trust. It's really quite dangerous to the mission of an encyclopedia anyone can edit: the whole venture rests on the belief that editors will follow "the honor system" and either avoid or be transparent about their COIs. Finally, a note to anyone commenting: If you have or had any connection with AML or BYU, please disclose it. Levivich (talk) 18:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

One of the reasons I still support a full TBAN and not a lesser sanction is that Rachel Helps has been editing longer than I have. And unlike me, she was paid to do it. If she cannot learn in eight years of paid editing what I learned in five years of volunteer editing in my spare time, then I'm not sure there is much hope here. She's not new at this, and this isn't the first time these problems have come up. I'd have more sympathy if she had less experience or if this wasn't a repeat issue. Levivich (talk) 15:40, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Support with regret. I really wish this could be done differently, but I think things have come to a head now and there may be no way to fix it without this kind of drastic approach. I tried to have a conversation yesterday with Rachel about improving her sourcing guideline, and I think that she is likely trying her best to act in good faith, but she is well past being able to collaborate with those who are going to question the WP:FRINGE nature of the claims that many apologists for the Mormon religion continue to make about their holy books. I could handle that (indeed, we see that sort of issue a lot here) if it was not also coupled with institutional support from Wikipedia as well as BYU in a way that I think was never done properly. If we are going to pay students to edit Wikipedia, they ought to be allowed to edit it freely. BYU students are at a risk in being active here. If I saw one of them make an edit that looked like apostasy, I could report them to their stake or bishop or the school itself and they could be found in violation of the strict honor code and expelled. I don't think we have thought clearly about what that means given the openness of this website and the unusual closed-ness of the BYU system. For the benefit of all involved, it is probably best that this partnership be ended with a clean break. jps (talk) 19:08, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support. Rachel Helps has now disclosed a massive amount of COI on her user page. Given how extensive and egregious it is, as well as her repeated emphasizing that she uses her personal account to publish articles she feels would be in violation of PAID if published from her BYU account, I get the impression that she still does not understand what it means to have a COI and how that should impact her editing. Initially this put her actions in a slightly better light to me, since it seemed many of these violations were done in mostly good faith and simply weren't recognized by her to be COI (or at least not that big of a COI, which is more of an institutional problem), rather than intentional concealment of edits she knew weren't kosher. I would have been satisfied with a promise to avoid editing or directing others to edit articles where there is even a whiff of apparent COI and an agreement to limit LDS-universe sourcing. However, reading this dissembling exchange she had on her personal account talkpage with an NPPer regarding COI and blatant PROMO for ARCH-HIVE, I have a hard time believing no deceit has occurred:

  Hi Celestina007, first you said that you draftified it because of sourcing issues and notability issues, but now because of promo and possible COI? A little consistency would be nice. I thought about what you said about the page having too much promotional language, and I removed most of the background section. I have an interest in the page (otherwise I wouldn't have written it), but I don't think it's a COI. I don't make any money from the ARCH-HIVE's success, and I have not been paid to write the page.

  This was in Feb 2022, well after she had started writing blog posts and participating in exhibitions for the group, and well after she served on an AML judging committee the same year ARCH-HIVE won an award. This led me to look into some other potential COI edits involving authors she has reviewed for the AML: Dean Hughes, whose wiki page has been edited extensively by Helps' student Skyes(BYU) (66 major edits, 8000+ bytes added, including bibliography entry for the book Helps reviewed); D. J. Butler, to whose bibliography Helps added the book she judged, sourced to an AML announcement by her colleague, and to which Skyes(BYU) added 11 major edits; and Steven L. Peck, 85% of whose page was written by Helps between 2017 and 2023. I'm sure I could go on. Incidentally, pretty much all of these pages have also been edited by Thmazing (AML president) and NihonJoe (ArbCom case)...
  All of this goes well beyond what we could reasonably expect even a novice editor to understand are COI edits, let alone someone in a paid position of authority who is mentoring other paid employees of BYU on how to edit wikipedia articles! Honestly I think ArbCom might be the next place to go given the amount of promotion of minor Mormon contemporary authors by what seems to be a heavily interconnected group of BYU-associated editors with un- or under-declared COIs. JoelleJay (talk) 19:46, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
• Comment I will concede that I had undisclosed COI for editing on my personal account. I believe that NPOV is more important than an undisclosed COI. The more we punish undisclosed and disclosed COI editing, the more we drive COI editing underground. This will happen as long as anonymous editing is allowed on Wikipedia. But what I think is far more important for determining a possible topic ban for myself and my team is the quality of my edits in the topics the ban is aimed at covering. I believe an underlying assumption is that since I work for the BYU Library, I wouldn't say bad things about Mormonism (broadly construed), the LDS Church, or BYU. I have edited on many pages in these topics and many have changed the way I think about the LDS Church and BYU, and not in a good way. Some examples are Battle at Fort Utah, a page I expanded about a one-sided attack on Timpanogos families supported by Brigham Young that lies at the heart of the city of Provo's founding. What about Seventh East Press, a page for an independent student newspaper at BYU, which was banned from being sold on BYU campus primarily because of an interview with Sterling McMurrin where he said that he didn't believe the Book of Mormon to be literally true (which I promoted on DYK)? The fact that Lucinda Lee Dalton requested her sealing to her husband be cancelled and it was revoked posthumously? Ernest L. Wilkinson's spy ring controversy? Dallin H. Oaks's negative evaluation of Nothing Very Important and Other Stories? My own students have said things like "I've summarized stuff I disagree with" (and they have published it as part of their job). Some people have expressed shock that as a professional writer, I'm messing up all the time. Guess what. There's no degree in Wikipedia editing! If you examine my considerable edit history, you are going to find errors! But I believe that on the whole, the work I and my students have done has improved Wikipedia. We have added so much accurate information, cited in-line, to reliable sources. We have helped to make more sources discoverable by summarizing and citing them. Is it that surprising that my years of editing Wikipedia in Mormon Studies have led me to gain some expertise in my field and made me want to study Mormon literature professionally? I've attempted to list all the possible COIs I could think of on my user page, and I stand by the NPOV of all of my edits. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 22:00, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
• Comment. Yes, I'm a paid student editor who works on LDS topics. But that doesn't mean that I have been out to present a construed vision of Mormonism. When people have pointed out a lack of neutral point of view (which was wholly unintentional on my part and consisted of a few words) I have made an effort to fix it and invited them to help me. Other than that, I'm not seeing where there is a lack of this neutral point of view. Is summarizing what other people say about Mormon topics considered a violation of NPOV? Because I didn't think it was. If you're worried about the Mormon authors, keep in mind I have also used sources from Elizabeth Fenton (not a Mormon), John Christopher Thomas (a man who follows the Pentecostal tradition), and Fatimah Salleh (a reverend). Heidi Pusey BYU (talk) 22:26, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Getting a bit off-topic. ජපස seems OK with hatting this. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:02, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The concern here is you are putting yourself at risk by contributing here. You may feel that you run no risk of falling out of favor with your bishop, but if that happened because of your attempt to include content that was critical of your church, ‘’you could be expelled’’. This is what your school says in its policies. Now, maybe they don’t enforce those policies anymore, but I can only go by what I read of BYU’s rules. And according to those rules, it’s not really safe for you to try to accommodate the radically open ideology of this website as you work for and are enrolled in a school which has an entirely different ideological commitment. jps (talk) 22:45, 13 March 2024 (UTC) Have you seen anything in my edits that is harmful to the LDS Church or to anyone else? Heidi Pusey BYU (talk) 22:50, 13 March 2024 (UTC) You don’t seem to be understanding my point. It doesn’t matter what I have or haven’t seen in your edits. You are free at this website inasmuch it is an Open Culture Movement website to explore, edit, study, and expand your horizons to whatever extent you would like. We encourage that on principle. Normally, I would welcome such engagement. But here is the thing: you are employed by BYU to write here. You are also a student. My commitment to radical openness then is now necessarily tempered by my greater concern for your well-being as a student and student worker because, frankly, that is far more important than the openness of this website. And if your school had a commitment to academic freedom, free speech, and so forth, there would be no tension there. But the fact remains that BYU has really strict policies. To be clear: You aren’t doing anything wrong! But we can’t stop your school from mistreating you on the basis of what I would considered normal activity at this website. If you came out tomorrow as a promiscuous anti-Mormon atheist (and I’m not saying you will… just go with the hypothetical) then while we would welcome you, suddenly you find yourself without support from the institution you rely on. And so we’re stuck. I think we can’t operate according to our own community rules because doing so puts you at risk and we need to figure out how to fix that. Having you contribute to article space is almost certainly not the right answer. If you had a sandbox where you could offer quotes from sources or apologetics or what have you that would help maintain your ecclesiastical endorsement, then there would be less of a problem. But you are duty bound to maintain a fealty to your church and your faith which this website should not be challenging because it can cause you problems. jps (talk) 23:46, 13 March 2024 (UTC) Acknowledging my disclosed past connection to BYU, I can't help but think it's a little disingenuous, howsoever inadvertently, to frame this as humanitarian concern for Heidi Pusey (BYU) and kind of paternalistic to insist that she can't assess for herself what her situation at BYU is like and whether there's any risk of falling out of favor with your bishop, to use your words. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 00:06, 14 March 2024 (UTC) The concern is not whether she made the correct or incorrect assessment. I trust that she knows what she is doing. I'm assessing the entirety of the situation for myself as a member of this community. My goal generally (it has nothing to do with this user specifically) is to make sure that all people are taken care of as best they can be. I see the following situation: (1) BYU has rules (2) this website has rules (3) those rules are by my reading at fundamental odds. I think that the best thing we can do given that, as a website community, and given that I have absolutely zero sway over BYU, is to prevent a situation where students acting as compelled editors (that's part of what getting paid to edit does, as fun as I find it to be since I do it for free) edit content that is directly relevant to those rules. It's that simple. Because let's say there is no risk of her running afoul of such. Then that is equally a problem in my mind. This stamps out the very radical openness we are trying to promote and makes me worried that the BYU student who is in the closet about their scholarship that identifies problems with the Book of Mormon would not and should not take this job. This can of worms is ugly and it gets worse the more you look at it. jps (talk) 00:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC) 1. I am not in the closet about my scholarship and do not appreciate such an assumption. 2. I do not appreciate you attacking my identity and saying I could hypothetically become a "promiscuous anti-Mormon atheist." Such an assumption is unfounded and unacceptable. I will not tolerate it. 3. I will no longer reply in this thread. Heidi Pusey BYU (talk) 00:27, 14 March 2024 (UTC) Y'all don't see the problem here? This is an editor who can't follow a hypothetical and she's being paid to write about Mormon exegesis. jps (talk) 00:51, 14 March 2024 (UTC) The concern here is you are putting yourself at risk by contributing here. I do not think it is our place to try to sanction or remove adult editors from our community because we as a third party judge they are taking on too much risk by editing here. I think this argument is very weak. This is an ANI thread about sanctions. We should stick to discussing and sanctioning actual, demonstrable misconduct. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:35, 14 March 2024 (UTC) They are at a risk because of our toleration of the situation of paid editing through this program. Shut the program down and it is no longer a risk. The misconduct was done by her boss. I support sanctioning the boss. I'm not sure what to do about the student, so sure, close this whole commentary as off-topic. jps (talk) 00:51, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support The evidence seems to be quite clear. scope_creep^Talk 22:54, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support based on Rachel Helps' own defense above. The more we punish undisclosed and disclosed COI editing, the more we drive COI editing underground is not a good reason to allow blatant COI editing. I'm okay with driving it even further underground. Toughpigs (talk) 02:00, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: The COI editing stuff was not my main concern (I'm far more worried about the paid editing junket), but I just thought I'd let the watchers here know that I tagged an article [64] just now. It's a puff-piece pure and simple and the evidence for COI is pretty straightforward if y'all have been paying attention to these posts. I agree, this needs to be stopped. I'm pretty close to striking my "with regret" which gives me regret. jps (talk) 02:15, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Honestly, this entire situation shows that we need to take a step back and take a look at possibly changing policy to prevent this from happening again. vghfr (✉ Talk) (✏ Contribs) 02:30, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

This may need to be kicked to Arbcom. It involves at my last count at least 5 editors not even counting the students. Oh dear. jps (talk) 02:56, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: I worry we're conflating separate issues.

1) Rachel Helps' involvement with articles about AML, ARCH-HIVE, and Michael Austin strikes me as a clear COI issue and a breach of community trust.

2) There's a broader question around how to interpret COI when it comes to BYU and the LDS church. I think the COI argument here is plausible, but much less clear cut than #1. I do worry about creating a chilling effect for e.g. an Oxford professor citing a colleague who was published by Oxford University Press, or a math teacher at a Catholic school editing a page on the Trinity. If we do need to consider this COI, I think we should take our time and define the problem narrowly and precisely.

3) There are NPOV and sourcing concerns around some Book of Mormon articles. I'm skeptical that a topic ban will improve this, or that the articles are worse for BYU editors' involvement. Second Nephi and Ammonihah are in much better shape than, say, Jason, a vital article mostly sourced to Euripides and Ovid. The BYU team seems to take these concerns seriously and make good faith efforts to include non-LDS sources. If individual articles aren't notable, we can delete them.

4) Finally, there's a concern about implicitly endorsing BYU policies and potential risks to BYU's editors. I agree with P-Makoto that this feels paternalistic, and I don't think this standard is workable. Even if we assume the worst of BYU, should we shut down any attempts to engage editors in China, in case someone writes something that upsets the CCP?

I would support a sanction that's more narrowly tailored, e.g. blocking Rachel Helps from edits around AML and BYU faculty, while still letting her write about scripture and history. It seems excessive to block her from absolutely anything LDS related (e.g. Battle at Fort Utah) or to shut the program down.

(In case there are any concerns: I've never met any of the editors involved, I've never attended, worked for, or even visited BYU, I learned what AML was earlier this afternoon, and I've never been a member of the church). Ghosts of Europa (talk) 03:06, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy Break (1)

• Oppose Topic bans should not be punitive and are reserved for editors that engage in disruptive behavior within that topic area. I just don't see the hallmarks of disruptive editing that I've encountered in other situations, particularly in physics-related topics, that did result in topic bans. I do see very poor judgement when editing with both disclosed and undisclosed COI and operating with the gray zone caused by inconsistence guidance in the COI guidelines (Gray zone example, in one part COI editor should identify in all three places, in another it says that editors may due it in one of three places - an editor who tried to push the former with regards to Rachel was told by multiple admins that their interpretation was more expansive the intended COI guideline). I do find her response to HEB regarding this gray zone very troubling, but not disruptive. This should have been raised at COIN, prior to being elevated to ANI. I would note that Rachel editing and her WiR function have been brought up there before which did not end with sanctions, so it seems like bringing the dispute here has the appearance of forum shopping - might not be given new information since that discussion. I also disagree with the insinuation that because her COI is with BYU, she is incapable of editing in an NPOV manner when it comes to the LDS Church under some kind of threat, spoken or unspoken, from the religious leaders and therefore inherently disruptive if she edits in that topic. BYU teaches evolution in its biology classes, teaches the standard 4.5 billion year age for the earth in its geology classes, teaches a human history/prehistory that does not kowtow to Biblical or Book of Mormon teachings in its anthropology and archaeology classes, and so on - so the argument that the BYU employment means she has to edit inline with church doctrine is based on faulty assumptions and extrapolations. --FyzixFighter (talk) 03:30, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  If Microsoft hired people to create articles about its products, and these editors disclosed they were paid editors but in some cases promoted some of these products while working with other Microsoft employees who edited with undisclosed COI, Wikipedia would siteban all of them with little discussion. It doesn't matter if Microsoft doesn't tell the editors exactly what to edit, or tells them explicitly to edit in accordance with Wikipedia policies. It doesn't matter if the articles about Microsoft products are totally NPOV and policy-compliant. Advertisement is advertisement, and this is advertisement. It doesn't matter if it's the LDS Church or Microsoft, it doesn't matter if it's articles about characters in the Book of Mormon or articles about characters in Microsoft video games. In both cases, it's just paying people to raise the profile of their products and their brand on Wikipedia. A TBAN from promoting the product seems actually lenient to me, like the minimum preventative measure Wikipedia should take in this situation, not punitive at all. Levivich (talk) 04:46, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  It doesn't matter if the articles about Microsoft products are totally NPOV and policy-compliant. Sounds like you're saying that it doesn't matter the quality of the edits, if the motivation for making the edits is wrong. Is this correct? Some might disagree with that statement, preferring to accept high quality edits regardless of motivation. Although maybe we should discuss this more at WT:COI rather than here. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  No, not the motivation for making the edits, and no, this is the right place, this is about whether this proposed TBAN is preventative or not. I'm saying "it doesn't matter" in several different ways, but the motivation of the editor isn't one of them, who knows or cares about people's motivations, since we have no way of determining an editor's motivations.

  If an edit violates one rule, it doesn't matter that it doesn't violate another rule. If an edit violates COI or PAID, it doesn't matter that it doesn't violate V or NPOV. If an edit violates NPOV, it doesn't matter that it doesn't violate V or COI or PAID. If V or NPOV editing excused COI or PAID editing then we can just mark those pages historical, what's the point of even reading them?

  It also doesn't matter because a policy-compliant, high-quality Wikipedia article is good advertising. A TFA is the highest-quality level of article that Wikipedia offers, and also the highest-quality advertising placement. If someone is trying to promote themselves or something on Wikipedia, a high-quality article is going to be better than a low-quality one, and while a puffery article might be the best, an NPOV article is still better than no article. Companies/people/churches/other orgs will pay to have policy-compliant articles created about themselves or their products because it's good advertising, it's good for their reputation, which is good for business and the bottom line. It's about $$$.

  And just to belabor that point a little bit, think about it: how much are they paying per article? Hundreds of dollars? A thousand or a few thousand? Where else can you get guaranteed top-of-Google SEO placement for any search term for that cheap? And it's a one-time cost when they pay a paid editor to put it on Wikipedia, whereas ordinarily SEO of that quality is a monthly payment not a one-time. I think paid editors are like 90% cheaper than traditional SEO. Damn, I should advertise :-P

  But if you step back, by piggybacking on volunteer labor, organizations can use paid editing to save themselves a ton of money on internet advertising while breaking no Wikipedia rules (if done properly). If we were smart we'd bypass paid editing and the WMF and just set up an actual job board on Wikipedia and have some kind of group Patreon account. Instead of making donations to the WMF, buyers could just pay for articles about whatever they want, and editors can get paid for writing articles, like $50 for a stub, maybe $500 for a GA, $1000 for an FA. Channel it all into an official channel and kinda kill two birds with one stone, I say. (And I'd be happy to administer it all for a reasonable management fee.)

  So anyone who wants to invest their marketing $ in paid editing is actually free to do that, as long as the editors disclose and otherwise abide by the rules. But in this case, we have undisclosed COI and PAID editing by a number of people, and in the situation where an organization's marketing $'s are going not just to policy-compliant editing, but also to non-policy-compliant editing, then it seems like barring the non-policy-compliant editors from editing about the organization, broadly construed, is appropriate.

  As an aside, it also bothers me that paid undergraduates are involved. Teaching the wrong lesson here. Levivich (talk) 05:50, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Do you have these concerns about GLAM in general? Suppose the British Museum pays me to write about obscure parts of their collection. This will be great SEO and may encourage people to visit, and even though the museum is free, many visitors will probably make a donation. If I use the best available scholarship and teach millions of people for free, and the museum gets donations, would you object? Ghosts of Europa (talk) 07:15, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  GLAM walks a fine line, no question. That's why it's extra important that people who participate in that sort of program as leaders be extra careful to keep their noses clean and think very carefully about the implications of their actions and activities, as far as I'm concerned. The alternative can easily devolve into this mess. jps (talk) 11:09, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Ghosts of Europa: I don't know much about GLAM, but yes, same concerns, no reason to treat galleries, libraries, archives, and museums, as any different from other organizations (companies, non-profits, churches). In your hypothetical, you'd still be hired to promote the museum's product (their collection), no different from Microsoft paying someone to promote one of their products. Levivich (talk) 16:26, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  The problem with COI-tainted editing is that it given us an encyclopedia (and community) different to what we would have with if unconflicted editors were at work. It skews the process. It is "dirt in the gauge" as WP:COI used to mention. In practical terms we seem to have ended up with Wikipedia giving disproportionate/undue and often credulous coverage to this religion. The argument that "COI doesn't matter if the edits are good" would justify lifting restrictions on WP:PAID editing (and is often delpoyed by paid editors). Bon courage (talk) 05:57, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  If it truly is a prescriptive ban, intended to enforce adherence to COI guidelines, then the TBAN should be narrowly applied to where she has actual COI, as defined by those COI guidelines. In this case, the COI is BYU and AML. I am not convinced that it extends to the LDS Church or LDS topics generally. She is a BYU employee, not an LDS Church employee. BYU employees can and do say things that contradicts the church, and the same is true for Rachel - some examples that immediately come to mind are her edits that do make look the church look good (see her list above) and even her use of "LDS Church", which indicate the arguments that her terms of employment affect LDS-related topics generally are easily disproven. --FyzixFighter (talk) 12:49, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  That's like saying an Altria employee only has a narrow COI to the company, and is free to write about the Health effects of tobacco! If you're paid to write a load of stuff about Mormons, the COI problem resides in doing just that. Bon courage (talk) 13:12, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  She is a BYU employee, not an LDS Church employee. BYU employees can and do say things that contradicts the church

  This is completely false, as BYU is owned by the LDS Church and its honor code (literally the Church Education System Honor Code, sponsored by the LDS Church) expressly prohibits actions that go against church doctrine:

  As faculty, administration, staff, and students voluntarily commit to conduct their lives in accordance with the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ, they strive to maintain the highest standards in their personal conduct regarding honor, integrity, morality, and consideration of others. By accepting appointment, continuing in employment, being admitted, or continuing enrollment, each member of the campus communities personally commits to observe the CES Honor Code approved by the Board of Trustees:
  Maintain an Ecclesiastical Endorsement, including striving to deepen faith and maintain gospel standards

  Multiple BYU professors have been fired for supporting--off-campus and strictly in a personal, sometimes even private, capacity--things the LDS church considers against-doctrine[65][66][67][68][69], so there is absolutely reason to believe they would fire a mere student employee for expressing such opinions. JoelleJay (talk) 13:23, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  It is an extrapolation beyond the stated honor code that you quoted to say "principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ" equals "church doctrine". If that were true then all members of the faculty and employees would have to be members of the LDS Church (they aren't), not teach evolution (they do), not teach the big bang (they do), not teach a completely non-theistic abiogenesis and creation of the earth (they do), not teach that human civilization extends way past 4000BC with no mention of Nephites, Lamanites, or Noah's ark (they do), or not use "LDS Church" (they do). Again, it's demonstrably false the claimed level of control over BYU employees in general and specifically in this case. --FyzixFighter (talk) 13:44, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Please read the original thread, this is discussed in great detail. vghfr (✉ Talk) (✏ Contribs) 13:47, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  You are conflating the acceptability of BYU profs lecturing on what is the mainstream, secular perspective on those topics, outside the context of the church, and BYU profs opining on what is "true" about those topics in relation to church doctrine. The former is endorsed by BYU, the latter can lead to threat of excommunication.[70] (A professor at a Washington State community college who expected to be excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over an article he wrote regarding the Book of Mormon has had his disciplinary hearing postponed indefinitely.
  Thomas W. Murphy, chairman of the anthropology department at Edmonds Community College, in Lynnwood, came under scrutiny for an article he wrote for American Apocrypha, an anthology published in 2002 by Signature Books. In the article, he reviews genetic data to refute the Mormon assertion that American Indians are descended from ancient Israelites. ...) [71][72] (An Australian author who wrote that DNA evidence fails to support the ancestral claims outlined in the Book of Mormon has been excommunicated by The Church of Jesus of Christ of Latter-day Saints.) This is also blatantly obvious from the examples I gave above of BYU lecturers' personal opinions on homosexuality and feminism directly leading to their termination of employment. JoelleJay (talk) 14:35, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  All BYU employees are directly employed by the LDS Church, there is no separation between the two. I'm surprised that someone who primarily edits in the LDS topic area wouldn't know that. Its also a bit odd that you're holding up evolution, age of the earth, Big Bang etc up as ways in which BYU contradicts church teachings when the LDS Church doesn't take a position on evolution and doesn't take a position on the age of the earth or how it/the universe was created beyond a rather wishy washy one. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:29, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Note: a query to FyzixFighter about any potential COI elicited this strange response.[73] Bon courage (talk) 13:22, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  Thats not terribly surprising, at this point it looks like all of the editors besides FyzixFighter who were harassing anyone who question Rachel Helps (BYU) have disclosed COIs. Its a shame they have chosen to retire rather than face the music but thats their choice. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:30, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support If you aren't allowed to be neutral on this topic per terms of employment, you shouldn't be able to edit. Wikipedia has a lot of stuff not related to this to edit. Big Money Threepwood (talk) 04:08, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose broad topic ban Oh no, don't ban my second-favorite wiki-gnome! Seriously, though, it saddens me to see someone who is so clearly a net-positive getting hauled off to AN/I like this. Though I don't recall collaborating directly with Rachel Helps, we've crossed paths many times over the past several years, and I've always been impressed by her approach to editing and interacting with others here. I've found her to be polite, intelligent, and honest, if perhaps a bit naive. I remember being confused the first time she crossed my watchlist...my knee-jerk reaction was "why is an official BYU employee/representative editing articles about Mormonism"? Then I looked at the substance of her edits...adding sources here, reverting vandalism there, removing copyvios, expanding articles about Mormon women, and refusing to take a stance on controversial issues where she thought she might be influenced by bias. Whenever there was a consensus on something, she would follow that consensus. If she wasn't sure about something, she would ask. I think I remember seeing her report herself to a noticeboard somewhere when another editor continued challenging her on something where she thought she was right but wanted to make sure the broader community thought so too. Look at her response to this. She's not digging in—she's trying to understand and comply with the community's expectations. If you look at her recent edits to User:Rachel Helps (BYU)#Conflict of Interest statements you'll see that she's gone waaay overboard on trying to declare every possible conflict of interest. She's openly admitting fault where she was wrong, and is clearly committed to doing better. I hope the people !voting here and the closing admin will take that into consideration. Oh, and in case it wasn't clear, I'm commenting here as an involved editor. ~Awilley (talk) 04:52, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  I don't get the impression she is trying to understand me or anyone else who is concerned about the sum total of the mess that is Book of Mormon articles. There is absolutely no engagement with the issues at hand and when I tried to explain WP:FRINGE sourcing, the answer came back "yes, we disagree." That's fine, but one of us is being paid to be here and has a ready paid group of students who look to her for editorial guidance, right? You haven't been in conflict with her. If you end up in conflict, do you think the wider context would be a problem? jps (talk) 11:17, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  I don't know that I'd call it "conflict" but I can recall instances where I've disagreed with edits I saw her making. In each case, she immediately stopped what she was doing and listened to my objections. If she wasn't convinced by my argument, she sought a wider consensus. I've never seen her edit against a consensus.

  A few years ago there was a big influx of newbie editors trying to scrub the words "Mormon" and "Mormonism" from the encyclopedia because of recent remarks from the correct LDS president/prophet saying that use of the term was offensive to God and a victory for Satan. (The LDS church has had a long on-again-off-again relationship with the word.) I personally thought it was best to continue using the word on Wikipedia, both to be true to how reliable sources talk about Mormonism, and to be accessible to readers who are only familiar with the common name. But I suddenly found myself in the minority in opposing the changes. I suspect that personally Rachel Helps wanted to follow the command of the LDS president and that her colleagues and possibly employers at BYU were hoping that she could make Wikipedia comply with the church's new style guide. But she didn't. She participated in some discussions about the disagreement, but she didn't push hard for any particular outcome, and she (afaict) has continued to this day to respect and enforce Wikipedia's own style guide that still explicitly allows calling people Mormons, probably to the chagrin of church leadership.

  Anyway, my point is that as far as disagreements go, Rachel Helps is one of the more pleasant people I've ever disagreed with. I wish more Wikipedians were like her in that respect. ~Awilley (talk) 15:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think pleasantness is an issue. There is a common misconception on Wikipedia that COIs are inherently somehow "bad", but in reality the more you do in life the more COIs you accrue. It's only people who sit in their basement all day who don't have any COIs. Bon courage (talk) 15:29, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  You didn't really answer my question. Here's where I am as of two days ago. This user has stated point blank that she disagrees with my suggestion that explicitly religious/apologetics sources should not be used as source material for Wikipedia if the only sources that have noticed them are likewise religious sources. In the last two days, after going through hundreds of edits at dozens of articles I notice that this is the primary kind of sourcing that her students are inserting into articlespace and they are still active. I get the distinct impression that she will not be directing her students to re-evaluate their sourcing guidelines or engage with me in discussion about this topic. Now, if I had a bunch of students I could employ to check up on all this, maybe that would be an equal footing dispute. But I don't think the idea here is to start a paid editing arms race, is it? jps (talk) 15:32, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Sorry, I definitely wasn't trying to dodge a question. I guess my point is that I think Rachel Helps is the kind of person who would voluntarily direct her students to follow whatever policy, guideline, or consensus you pointed her to. I think she could also be convinced by logic alone, but I can't say for sure...people like that seem to be rare these days. I wouldn't be surprised if, to comply with a consensus, she asked her students to nominate their own articles for deletion. That said, I am not really clear on what you mean by religious sources that have been noticed by other religious sources. Are you talking in general about religious academic sources citing each other, or specifically about Mormon academics citing other Mormon academics but without getting cited by non-Mormon religious scholars? (There are probably better forums than AN/I for that discussion.) ~Awilley (talk) 16:54, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  If you're interested, this discussion that ground to a halt is still on her user talkpage. Feel free to check it out. jps (talk) 17:08, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  So this whole long thing arose out of a dispute over whether religious sources could be reliable? She wouldn't agree that reliable religious sources needed to be validated by reliable secular sources, or that verifiable information should be omitted entirely when nobody could find a reliable secular source on the subject, so you started a COI discussion at VPM and now we have a topic ban proposal?

  Why didn't you start an RFC over whether information only available in religious sources should be excluded wholesale from all of Wikipedia, instead of trying to get rid of one editor who disagreed with you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:09, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  That is not what this arose out of. That dispute arose because I asked if she would consider hitting pause on her program and she came back with a set of sourcing guidelines that I found problematic. I asked her to hit pause on the program because I saw widespread issues that I am still working my way through and then noticed that all these students were being organized by one coordinator with what essentially amounted to the blessings of the GLAM/WIR system. jps (talk) 22:44, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  I want to offer an addendum that since I wrote this comment, Rachel Helps has begun engaging with me on her talkpage. I find this encouraging. I still think on the balance having her and her students move away from LDS topics is a good idea, but there is discussion happening and as long as that is happening there is hope. jps (talk) 23:08, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Awilley: did you see Levivich's request "If you have or had any connection with AML or BYU, please disclose it."? We know you're involved and not a neutral admin, but do you have any conflicts of interest you should be disclosing? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:57, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  That's kind of a weird litmus test for participating in an AN/I thread. I'd like to think that people should be judged based on the strength of their arguments rather than assumptions about their motivation. But if you insist, I attended BYU from about 2006-2012. I would have no idea what AML was if I hadn't just read the thread on village pump. To my knowledge I don't know and have never met any of the people in this or the other thread IRL, though it's possible we crossed paths without my realizing it. ~Awilley (talk) 15:58, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Its not weird if its an AN/I thread about undisclosed BYU related editing... Ok, I'm planning to open a new subsection about canvassing in a minute. Specifically regarding you and BoyNamedTzu. Is there anything you can tell me which would suggest that I should only open a discussion about BoyNamedTzu? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:35, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Eh, what? I don't know who BoyNamedTzu is. I logged in yesterday after getting a ping to the VP thread because I had participated in an older thread about you and Rachel Helps. Then I got another ping here because I had participated in the thread yesterday. I don't know what you're looking for, but since I've got your attention, I'd appreciate it if you could clue me in on what the invisible game of baseball is you mentioned on the VP thread. Because your response here seems a bit disproportionate. ~Awilley (talk) 17:15, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, it is your sudden and inexplicable participation in that older thread about Rachel Helps and I which forms the basis for the canvassing concerns. I believe I said it was a game of inside baseball with an invisible ball... Unfortunately I can't provide any of that information due to WP:OUTING concerns, but it has been provided to ARBCON. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:22, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose broad topic ban. If we banned people who had any formal association with a Christian church or worship group from editing articles about Christianity, and the same for all religions and sects, we would have nobody left to edit the articles about those important topics, except maybe culture warriors from opposing beliefs, and who wants that? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:16, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  I think you have misunderstood Rachel Helps relationship; it goes beyond a "formal association" - she is an employee, and one who is paid to edit. BilledMammal (talk) 08:28, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Do you think it's ok for a BYU employee, who is paid and pays others to edit Wikipedia, to publish a puffy article about a Mormon organization she was actively writing pieces for; whose citations toward notability are an interview with one sentence of secondary independent coverage of the org, a piece on an exhibition organized by/featuring org members that also has only one sentence of secondary coverage of the org, and an award from another Mormon company for which this employee served as an awards judge the same year? Is it ok for this employee to initially deny COI with the claim she's merely "interested in the page"? And then, even after concerns about COI have been raised and seemingly acknowledged by her, and after the article was first draftified and then declined at AfC, to still recreate it?

  Is it ok for her to direct her employees to write articles on subjects because she can't write them herself due to COI"? JoelleJay (talk) 12:29, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support, per above. I also believe we should be considering topic bans for the other involved BYU editors. BilledMammal (talk) 08:28, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose such a ban. Rachel has for for a long time shown a COI declaration on her user page, for example January 2023[74] at a location allowed by WP:DISCLOSE. In brief, WP:COI says "There are forms of paid editing that the Wikimedia community regards as acceptable. These include Wikipedians in residence (WiRs) — Wikipedians who may be paid to collaborate with mission-aligned organizations ..." (Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#Wikipedians in residence, reward board) though there is considerable further nuance which requires careful consideration. Different people may legitimately have different understandings. The status of Wikipedians in Residence has for long been a contentious matter and the problems should not be visited on particular individuals. My own experience of her editing has been entirely in non-BYU contexts and has been extremely positive. Thincat (talk) 12:12, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
  • What has your "experience of her editing has been entirely in non-BYU contexts and has been extremely positive." to do with a proposal to ban her specifically from BYU editing where evidence shows that it is not "extremely positive" as in neutral, but has too often a clear pro-BYU stance, reducing the emphasis on scientific positions and increasing the emphasis on non-scientific, partisan positions? Fram (talk) 12:19, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: I just added COI tags on tentwelve more articles that are connected directly to the COI campaign to promote the Association of Mormon Letters. Friends, this is really gigantic problem. It's been going on for years. jps (talk) 13:16, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support: Not being paid by Microsoft is not an excuse for being paid by another lobby group while acting against our trustworthiness guidelines. Pldx1 (talk) 13:44, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy Break (2)

• Question - Is this a situation that could be resolved with some careful voluntary commitments? The primary issue, it seems to me, is about COI/PAID and not otherwise about competency or a pattern of violating NPOV (I understand there are side conversations about NPOV/RS, but it doesn't seem to be the primacy concern). A topic ban from LDS would not, then, address COI matters to do with any other topic and would prevent her from working on articles with no COI (unless we say belonging to a religion means you have a COI for articles about that religion and anyone else who happens to belong).
  What about a voluntary commitment to (a) maintain a list on her userpage of articles edited with a conflict of interest, erring on the side of inclusion; (b) adding a notice to the talk page of any article edited in connection with her job (there's another parallel discussion about templates/categories which could accomplish this); (c) specifically noting if an edit is made at the request of an employer? That, combined with the knowledge that her edits will receive additional scrutiny due to this thread, seems like it would resolve this without a topic ban, no? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:59, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Can you explain how it would be possible for a paid edit not to come with a COI? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:39, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't think I understand your question. If an edit falls under WP:PE, there is a COI. The trouble in this case, I think, is in the line between how we generally regard Wikimedians in Residence and paid editors. That's a big, messy question. Ditto the relationship between Mormon subjects broadly, BYU, LDS, etc. (not whether there is one, but how we should think about COI). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:30, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Wikimedian in Residence is a type of paid editor, there is no line between the two. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:32, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what point you're making, but for clarity I will edit my words above: line between how we generally regard Wikimedians in Residence and ^how we treat other^ paid editors. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:42, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

So if every edit that falls under PE has a COI... And every edit made by a wikipedian in residence falls under PE... How can a wikipedian in residence work on an article with which they don't have a COI? Any article they work on is one they have a COI with. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:51, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

This has not generally been how the community chooses to interact with Wikimedians in Residence. We expect them to take a "warts and all" approach to editing, and to be cautious, but we also do not expect or AFAICT want them to spam {{edit COI}} on most of their contributions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:16, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

And the Wikimedian in Residence in question here has met neither of those expectations. They have not taken a "warts and all" approach to editing and have been about as far away from cautious as its possible to be. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:03, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

I would like to understand how this would prevent, for example, the coordinated editing from the Church of Scientology that we banned. We don't enforce disciplinary measures against people on the basis of their religious adherence. But here we have a group is being paid by an institution which is directly involved in the promulgation of said religion. When that happened with the Church of Scientology, we blocked the associated IP addresses on the argument that there basically was no way they could contribute to the encyclopedia at all. And to be sure, a lot of those accounts did good work other than being part of that coordinated effort. How is this different at all? jps (talk) 15:08, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

The Scientology case began with extensive NPOV violations achieved through sock/meatpuppetry/coordination. We didn't ban them because they were scientologists writing about scientology; we banned them because they were scientologists writing about scientology contrary to our policies. Such evidence hasn't been presented here as far as I've seen. Some level of coordination, yes, which should be disclosed, but not to game the system. That's a fundamental difference that makes the scientology comparison misleading. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:39, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Did you read the VPM thread? I document a few of the diffs there and it's basically a litany of the same. Here we have a group of editors who are adding prose that basically takes the Book of Mormon on its own terms as a text. When called out on it, the ringleader declared that she fundamentally disagrees with people who object to that behavior. It's exactly the same kind of thing the scientologists were doing. And, I mean, I was there for that one and saw it happening. Do me a favor and look at any of the articles about individual passages, people events, settings, etc. in the Book of Mormon. Check the sourcing. See whether it was added by this group. Or look at all the pages I just tagged with COI and see how many of them were connected to Rachel. This is a complete clusterfuck. jps (talk) 16:00, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Scanned it, but apparently I have more to look at. Will check it out before !voting here. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:04, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I could use a pointer to the evidence you're referring to. I see diffs about COI, but not diffs of edits made my Rachel which violate our policies. The content-related diffs I do see (e.g. in your 17:06, 12 March 2024 comment) were made by others, who aren't the subject of this section. Do me a favor and look at any of the articles about individual passages, people events, settings, etc. in the Book of Mormon. Check the sourcing. See whether it was added by this group. Is this an argument about over-coverage (in which case I'd rather see evidence of lots of deleted pages created by Rachel rather than focused efforts to cover a subject -- I'd argue we have overcoverage of a lot of religious subjects, including Mormonism, and a whole lot of editors focus on specific subjects), or is it an argument about use of inappropriate sources? Regardless, this isn't a topic ban for a group, it's a topic ban for one person so we'd need evidence that Rachel is editing in a non-neutral or otherwise problematic way (not just COI, which seems like something that can be resolved with transparency/assurances). It seems to me there's a bigger conversation that needs to happen regarding use of sources published in connection to a religion and/or by members of that religion. I don't think I peruse religious articles as much as you or many others, but it seems to me like most of them rely on such "in-universe" sources. I don't think that's ideal, but I'm wary of singling one out. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:13, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Hmm... are you saying that you don't think that she should be accountable for the edits that she paid her students to make? I can give you some examples of edits that she made if that's more to your liking, but I'm somewhat surprised that you are so dismissive of student edits which she has later defended on talkpages (but it's possible you aren't looking at larger context due to time). jps (talk) 18:17, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

How does a tban for RH prevent her students from doing anything at all? How would it prevent anything that happens off-wiki? As with any student program, if a student is persistently making bad edits, sanction them like you would any other user. If an instructor displays a pattern of disregard for our policies such that their students are a consistent net negative, that's a different kind of sanction (and I don't think there's enough evidence for that here, either, though that doesn't mean there haven't been problems). What I would expect for a tban on an individual is a pattern of harmful edits made to that topic area. That case hasn't been made sufficiently. The case that has been made, insofar as I've seen, is that there have been some clear COI problems and a difference of opinion when it comes to sourcing religious topics. On the latter, I think you and I are probably on the same page, but I don't see it as an entirely resolved policy issue. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 18:52, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Wouldn't a TBAN mean paying her students for making any particular edits in that area would be sanctionable for both her and the students? So any edit made in LDS topics by the (BYU) student accounts would be a TBAN violation, but they would be free to edit in that area on their personal accounts. JoelleJay (talk) 19:08, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

The students would be stopped by WP:MEAT because they receive assignments from RH. jps (talk) 13:35, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

The relationships are a little confusing to me. We're talking, I think, about effectively interns/research assistant/student workers on one hand and students being students on the other hand. If RH were to be tbanned, that would make any students hired/directed to make specific edits by RH fall somewhere between MEAT and PROXYING, yes, which is a bad place to be. I don't think a general instruction to "edit Wikipedia" would be prevented, though. Nor would students hired by someone else and merely supported by RH. And a tban wouldn't prevent RH from what I suspect is the more common scenario: helping students, faculty, staff, and others to edit according to their own interests (i.e. not directed but supported). And that's IMO a good thing, not just because that attempts to reach too far off-wiki with on-wiki sanctions, but also because while the COI stuff should definitely be avoided, RH is better equipped than a typical student (or even faculty) editor to provide best practices/instruction, etc. I'd say that's probably more rather than less true after this thread. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:16, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

The way RH has set up the projects is that she guides the students very carefully in what they do. This is actually one positive thing she does that does not happen with other similar programs I have seen, so good on her for that. The upshot is that I would not want this kind of guidance on her part to end if this paid editing program continues, so her students would effectively be TBanned as well. If we started to see lots of edits the way they have been editing, that would, in my mind, constitute a topic ban violation. I cannot speak for RH, but I suspect that she would have them move away from Mormonism topics if she were TBanned which would be the best possible outcome, as far as I'm concerned.

And, no, I am not convinced that things are going to get better just because of this discussion. There seems to have been an enculturation over the last few years which has provoked a kind of perfect storm of bad editing practices that I have been digging into over the last few days and it is not going to be easy to figure out what to do about all this. There seems to be an over-focus on treating the Book of Mormon as literature which is the main thrust behind RH's favored approach and that of others conflicted with the Association of Mormon Letters. Right now, we have lots of articles on weird little topics within the book of Mormon which treat the thing as though it were literature like Tolkien or Dickens I guess as a way to sidestep questions related to the religious beliefs that surround these things. The students she has coached seem to have adopted this approach in part while also maintaining delightfully matter-of-fact retellings of the mythology as though it were fact. It's a mess.

But the students aren't really to blame here. They're being led by a much-lauded (by enablers you can see in this very thread) Wiki[p|m]edian in Residence who has been scrupulously trying to follow the rules and no one bothered to tell her that maybe editing about a religion as controversial as Mormonism (to which she belongs and is employed by the religious authorities of that religion through their in-house institution of higher education with strict rules on what she can and cannot do vis-a-vis that religion) maybe is not going to sit well with some in the Wikipedia community that takes things like WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE seriously.

So here we are. Your idea to get her to clean things up means unlearning years of training that she invented without input from the community. I look forward to seeing what kind of program you might be able to invent that could address that. jps (talk) 15:15, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Voluntary commitments, really? No I wouldn't support that because a number of the editors involved have previously lied about not having COIs when asked. Also because this is years of undisclosed COI editing happening here. So, no, it'd be crazy of us to trust any voluntary commitments from people who have actively deceived us for such a long time and up until so recently. Levivich (talk) 16:31, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support per Toughpigs, and similar action against other COI editors should be considered, per BilledMammal. This is an area where WP should take a hardline stance. Grandpallama (talk) 14:26, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support per User:Vghfr, User:Fram and others. But I think we have a wider issue with LSD-related articles here that a few topic bans will not solve it. I agree with User:JoelleJay's comment in the other discussion about the lack of NPOV in "topics that are only discussed in publications by LDS members and thus exclusively reflect LDS-endorsed teaching on the topic". We have a massive walled garden of hundreds if not thousands of these obscure, otherwise NN topics sourced only to LSD-related publications which could pass the surface of GNG and easily game the notability rules. --Cavarrone 16:38, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Our articles on Catholicism mostly reflect Catholic sources. Our articles on Judaism mostly reflect Jewish sources. That is natural and only to be expected. Why is it suddenly a problem when the same thing occurs in our articles on LDS? The people one would expect to be interested in and write about LDS are...LDS people. That is the nature of the sources. It is not a conflict of interest to use the mainstream sources that are available. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:05, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  While WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, that has not been my experience as I edited those topics. In fact, many of our Catholic articles have sources which are explicitly critical of the Catholic Church nearly to the point of vitriol. By contrast, Judaism is so irreverent and delightfully self-critical that I am at a loss for why you think the comparison to those pages is at all apt. jps (talk) 18:59, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Yes – if and when those other sources exist, are reliable, are relevant, etc.

  But from your comment above that she disagrees with my suggestion that explicitly religious/apologetics sources should not be used as source material for Wikipedia if the only sources that have noticed them are likewise religious sources, it sounds like the complaint you have here is that some content is being added from LDS-related sources when no non-religious source has ever disagreed with the LDS-related source.

  I have not seen any disputes in which someone adds information about a Catholic or Jewish religious idea, from a reliable source written by a religious organization, and someone else demands that the reliable source be removed on the grounds that non-religious sources haven't published anything on that subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Then you haven't been looking at disputes over the Shroud of Turin. jps (talk) 22:46, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Why would we even need specific examples from Catholic or Jewish editors when we had a whole arbcom case surrounding exactly this behavior from Scientology adherents? JoelleJay (talk) 23:01, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Because a new religious group with something on the order of 10 thousand members is not the same as a 200-year religion with 17 million members. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:10, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  LDS is a new religious movement the same as Scientology. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:13, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  What does the number of years a religion has been around or number of members of a religion have to do with anything? The only thing I can think of is that there are probably more sources if there is more time and people involved, which is true. But on the substance these things are the same. I mean, Mormonism and Scientology are actually very comparable. There are a great many excellent sources which show that. In fact, that was at one time one of the articles on my list of articles to write. The funny thing is that neither the Mormons nor the Scientologists like the comparison. jps (talk) 23:16, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Older religions also have a much greater likelihood that their scriptures reference things that actually might have happened and so are of interest to secular historians, enough primary interpretations of scripture to engage dozens of generations of academics, and far broader and more significant impact on human culture in general, permitting even more opportunities for interdisciplinary scholarship. We should not be treating every religious movement as if they're each equally likely to have the depth and independence of sourcing needed to support pages on minor aspects of their faith. JoelleJay (talk) 23:31, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Well, some new religions too. For example, the foundational sacred texts of the Nation of Islam has some fascinating description of what life was like in the African American community of Detroit in the 1930s. jps (talk) 23:43, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Re "Older religions also have a much greater likelihood that their scriptures reference things that actually might have happened": this reads as straight-up prejudice to me (and I have zero connection with LDS). You might just as well say have a much greater likelihood that those older religions' texts contain fabulations, misreadings, and other material we wouldn't want to take as literally true, simply because they've had so much longer to accumulate that sort of material. But we are not basing our content on the content of the Book of Mormon; we are basing it on the accounts of their historians. I would tend to imagine that, while biased, those accounts are maybe more likely to be accurate, because they are from a more recent time with better records, while the writings of the early Christian church historians have the same tendency to their own bias. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:54, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, the older religions generally do have much more fabulist text, as well as a lot more material that has taken on mythical aspects or been reported by apologists (e.g. miracles) over hundreds or thousands of years. But that's irrelevant to what I am saying, which is that it's far more likely texts recounting religious narratives that we can accurately date to c. 300 AD will also have some bits of real history and info on life at the time that can't be found anywhere else, and would thus be of intense interest to modern scholars in many fields, than scripture written more recently (as contemporaneous writings become more numerous, the preciousness of any single one as a major primary source across multiple disciplines outside religion decreases) or scripture that wholly fabricates ancient history and is virtually useless to anyone actually studying its purported time period.

  There are extensive secondary analyses of secondary analyses etc. of scholarship on Jewish or Catholic scriptural and metaphysical questions, and new external sources or theories on the cultural/geopolitical/philosophical climate of a time continue to be discovered and incorporated into what we know about a spiritual topic beyond exegesis of scripture. We don't need to rely on unreliable primary or old secondary sources to do this because we generally have plenty of modern secondary sources, often in multiple nonsecular fields, to use in writing a comprehensive and neutral article on a subject. We don't have this for LDS topics because the furthest back historians can go from BoM et al scripture is 200 years ago. But LDS historians are still analyzing their scriptures in the sincere belief that they recount actual events from thousands of years ago, making the same kinds of extrapolations and interpolations from their holy books to reconstruct that past that any other historian would do with genuine ancient text, except none of it corresponds to real history. No questions in anthropology or archaeology or history are being answered in any way that is meaningful outside of LDS faith, and so no secular researchers in those disciplines have any reason to publish academic commentary on the LDS scholars' theories. The result is that we have hundreds of pages on minor characters and events from BoM where the only sources are from adherents collaboratively building what amounts to a fictional literary universe (or, perhaps as a more fitting analogy, a new, Hardy-hard branch of pure math), except it's dressed up in the same historiographic structure as we'd have on a topic with thousands of years of history. JoelleJay (talk) 02:59, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  It's my view, not necessarely agreeable, but if an LSD topic has no sources outside LSD sources it is likely unnotable, and writing a balanced article about it is impossible. Also, I am not necessarely referring to strictly religious topics, eg., we have obscure, semi-amateur and poorly released films only sourced from Journal of Religion and Film, byu.edu and similar, same with books and other products. Cavarrone 19:30, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  I think this is a sensible rule. However, I worry about defining "LDS source" too broadly. Mormonism: A Very Short Introduction is written by a Mormon, but it's published by Oxford University Press and targeted at a non-LDS audience. Oxford also publishes an annotated Book of Mormon. I think we need to narrowly define what falls into this category, and have that conversation in a less heated atmosphere than ANI. Ghosts of Europa (talk) 19:52, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  I agree with Cavarrone about notability, but I think the solution there is not to announce that only a secular source could possibly be acceptable for explaining the symbolism of the story, and that if no secular source ever wrote about the symbolism, then symbolism can't be mentioned in Wikipedia, but to take the article to AFD.

  When we're talking about a notable subject, though, I think our usual rules work perfectly well for this subject. We don't require independent sources for everything that gets mentioned in an article, and that's true whether you're writing about how many employees Microsoft has, or what the symbolism of the story is, or why the artist chose to put a colorful blanket behind the cow's skull. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:28, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Let me give a concrete example to help focus the conversation. On multiple articles I found years given for events described in the Book of Mormon. Some of those years were laughably specific. Some of those years are repeated by many, many Mormon sources. Now, I would love for there to be an article in Wikipedia about Ascribing dates to the stories in the Book of Mormon or something like that to explain exactly the weird calculus that Mormon apologists go through in arriving at these dates and why certain dates are more popular with certain Mormons than others, but the fact of the matter is that this has been so little noticed by independent sources that in many cases it has not even occurred to the authors of our own articles that putting in years might be a problem. The easiest solution I think is to excise them, but sure, it's not the only possible solution. But the solution cannot be, "let's just put those dates in the articles and call it a day." which was, as far as I can tell, the standard operating procedure. jps (talk) 22:57, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  No, but the solution could be "Let's put the dates in with WP:INTEXT attribution".

  The main point of this sub-thread, though, is to talk about whether we're treating all religions equally. Have you seen a similar thing in, say, Catholic articles, in which someone adds some papal pronouncement, and other editors say, "Oh, no, you can't add that unless you have a secular source, too"? I haven't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:03, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Absolutely! As I pointed out above, when there are clear fabrications (as in, for example, the case of Marian apparitions), we do the same thing. jps (talk) 23:13, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  By the way, these students got the memo about WP:INTEXT. The problem is that that often goes like this, "According to [PERSON'S NAME THAT IS UNMENTIONED EXCEPT FOR RIGHT HERE], this story is all about..." Or, worse, "According to historian [HISTORIAN]..." and you research the historian and come to find that they are a professor of history at BYU who wrote the book, "How I KNOW the Book of Mormon is true" or whatever. So, no, WP:INTEXT isn't cure-all. jps (talk) 23:21, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• NeutralYes, things are not okay. But I have serious trouble with the fact that a topic ban can cost her her job. The Banner talk 18:28, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. Rachel Helps has been a consistent positive contributor to an essential area of religious discourse. She is professionally talented, responsive to community, an active participant on multiple open networks of movement organizers, and an ambitious trainer and supervisor for others. There's is nothing that says WIRs can't work in areas where there is controversy, or even have a point of view, as long as their work is disclosed and aims to improve the encyclopedia in a rigorous fashion. There are plenty of COI battles to fight; this isn't one of them. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 19:56, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  To clarify, are you opposing the topic ban for Thmazing (not Rachel Helps)? Ghosts of Europa (talk) 20:00, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  I've moved it to the correct section. Apologies and thanks for the tip! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 20:27, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  • Ocaasi, you appear to have a) !voted in the wrong section and b) failed to read anything more than the section heading, as then you would know that the issue is that their work has not been "disclosed" or "rigorous" on subjects they were professionally connected to. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:08, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think "aiming to improve the encyclopedia in a rigorous fashion" is necessarily good enough. Otherwise WP:CIR bans/blocks wouldn't be a thing. Now, maybe you oppose those bans/blocks too, but I am deep in the weeds right now of seeing how Rachel Helps's students were treating material relevant to their religion and... hooboy... even if their hearts were in the right place they are doing us no favors in articlespace. I am very, very happy she has finally told her students to work in sandboxes which, if that had been happening all along I probably wouldn't be involved in this, but the conversation I'm having with her right now is one the "Open Networks of Movement Organizers" should have had with her years ago about her programming. Y'all did her dirty and I'm actually angrier at her enablers than I am at her. She honestly did not know this was coming and by running defense this whole time after multiple people have sounded alarms (just look through her usertalkpage archive), you did not give her the support she would have needed to actually make something like this work (or choose to not do it at all in case, as I suspect, it would be impossible to make this stuff work). jps (talk) 20:49, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Point of order: she knew this was coming for the last four years at least[75]. Thats what makes the refusal to improve and meet the standards/practices outlined by the community so bad. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:37, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for bringing that up. You neglrct to mention that there was no administrative acton resulting from that discussion, and no community admonishment or sancation. Indeed, even the person raising the issue noted "They're writing good, well-researched articles which appear again from a quick check to be neutrally-written and -sourced. I think the work they're doing is valuable." and, later, "I want to clarify that I don't think anyone has broken any rules or deserves any sanctions." Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:00, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  Well yeah, that discussion got mobbed by people we now know had major undisclosed COIs. You're selectively cherrypicking in a way that seems misleading at best, especially considering the things you say in that discussion. We have the same thing happening there as here, Rachel Helps is informed about best practices and rejects them saying for example "In my opinion, best practices should be defined by the people doing the job." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:09, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  They're writing good, well-researched articles which appear again from a quick check to be neutrally-written and -sourced. I think the work they're doing is valuable. I don't really have time to go back into the history of four years ago to check if that was true then, but it is absolutely not the case right now. I have been going through dozens of Book of Mormon articles that were being edited by this crew and with very few exceptions they are not NPOV nor well-sourced -- many are either WP:PROFRINGE or written in something like WP:INUNIVERSE with bizarre assumptions, turns of phrase, etc. I am finding all kinds of sources being used that have 0 citations according to Google Scholar! Rachel Helps (BYU) is defending this practice of keeping such shoddy sources in these articles much to my disappointment. jps (talk) 16:36, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Ocaasi: Are you also an active participant in those open networks of movement organizers? Any conflicts you should be disclosing? Pardon the question but we seem to be having an issue with undisclosed COIs on a number of levels in this discussion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:34, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• Strong support per Rachel Helps: "I will concede that I had undisclosed COI for editing on my personal account. I believe that NPOV is more important than an undisclosed COI." I am unable to trust this user in this topic area any longer. starship.paint (RUN) 01:58, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
  • I believe the above admission I highlighted contrasts with several opposers' rationale, and I quote from each of them: (1) How anyone can ... say her CoI is "undisclosed" (2) Banning someone for a procedural error, (3) Rachel has for for a long time shown a COI declaration on her user page, (4) There's is nothing that says WIRs can't work in areas where there is controversy, or even have a point of view, as long as their work is disclosed. starship.paint (RUN) 02:06, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
    • Please don't quote me (and others) out of context; even if you do neglect to give attrbution when doing so. What I wrote and what I was replying to when I did so is avaialble for anyone to see, at the top of this thread. What you quote Rachel saying does not negate my comment. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:55, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
      • @Pigsonthewing: - you defended Rachel indicating that she disclosed COI on the (BYU) account. But, she admitted undisclosed COI on the other, personal account. The same person is behind both accounts, so I am afraid she didn’t handle COI properly. starship.paint (RUN) 00:06, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

• Hesitant oppose, because I'm a little worried we're conflating some related but separate issues here. It is quite clear that Rachel Helps did a poor job of disclosing her COIs, and lost perspective when editing some topics on which she had a COI. It is clear that many BYU-affiliated editors have been writing poor content. And it is clear that many pages related to Mormonism have too much material from uncritical sources (but this isn't limited to Mormonism by any means). But I don't see this topic-ban addressing any of those issues, and indeed I think it might worsen them, because Rachel is better placed than many editors to help fix these issues. I do think her students need to be moved away from LDS-related topics: whether because they're being paid, or the rules of BYU, or their upbringing, or some combination thereof, there seems to be a recurring pattern of poor content that others need to fix. But at this moment I don't see how this TBAN would achieve much besides being a punishment. It wouldn't even fix the COI issue, because as best as I can tell religion is sort of incidental to those COI issues; it's just Rachel editing about things she's involved with in RL, which is a problem to be sure, but isn't limited to Mormonism. It seems to me Rachel is taking the concerns expressed here seriously, and we'd do better to focus on the problematic content other editors, including her students, may have introduced. For the record, I consider myself quite firmly in favor of avoiding apologetic sources and in-universe sources for religious subjects, and have argued for this position in numerous cases involving most major religions. Vanamonde93 (talk) 03:17, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  Okay, this is a convincing (to me) oppose. Only reason I stay supporting the ban is that I see a topic ban from LDS would probably encourage a lot of the best-case scenario stuff to happen anyway and it might get accomplished and probably more quickly. Yes, she is well-placed to fix issues and I'm sure she wants to fix them, but maybe it would be better if she and her students focused on other things that could be done at that library. The flora and fauna of the Great Basin, for example. jps (talk) 05:35, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  I fully agree that her students - and possibly Rachel herself - should stay away from Mormon doctrine, and from minor LDS-affiliated organizations in the future (minor, because major ones receive editorial scrutiny and attention from critical sources; it's the ones that don't that seem to be the focus of the problem). Vanamonde93 (talk) 15:35, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  In that case, why not topic ban just to make it clear? jps (talk) 16:39, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  Because there's a big difference between "shouldn't add substantive content to these pages going forward" and "isn't permitted to discuss these topics in any way shape or form". I stand by what I said above that Rachel herself is best placed to help us clean up some of this mess. Not to mention that TBANNing her when she still has active students would be quite silly; those would then be completely unsupervised. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:31, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  Why would that be silly? We're all completely unsupervised and these are adult in college, not children in middle or high school. They should be entirely capable of editing wikipedia on their own, we all do. Also note that while these are student employees they are not her students in the sense that they are enrolled in a class where she is their instructor. She is an employer/manager not a teacher or professor to these editors. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:42, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  So you're describing a TBAN from articlespace? I agree that this is where most of the damage is happening--discussion spaces are much less problematic. As for your "unsupervised active student" argument, I don't understand it even a little bit. You already said "I fully agree that her students - and possibly Rachel herself - should stay away from Mormon doctrine, and from minor LDS-affiliated organizations in the future." RH would still be able to supervise them to edit articles on the flora and fauna of the Great Basin. jps (talk) 17:46, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support Even though the COI is greater than Mormonism this would at least serve as a warning that Helps' COI editing is causing concern. Lavalizard101 (talk) 12:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
  • "serve as a warning " You think this thread doesn't do that? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:55, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

    Some warnings may need to be more forcefully made than others. I sympathize with the idea that Rachel Helps (BYU) probably thought everything was fine and that the complaints that had been leveled against her over the years were nothingburgers. Unfortunately, those complaints were serving as warnings that obviously went unheeded. And, to be frank, I think people like you are to blame for enabling her and not being honest with her that this was coming. Now, maybe you didn't know this was coming, but someone in your group of WMF/GLAM/WIR in-person conference/wiknic attendees should have noticed and taken her aside and given her the advice that right now is coming down like a pile of bricks. But it didn't happen. Years went by and here we are. That's right, I am much angrier at you (and the position you are representing right now) than I am at her. jps (talk) 16:46, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per Vanamonde93. While there are some issues, they don't amount to the kind of egregious problem that would warrant such dracionian action; and there is no previous sanction, let alone one wilfuly disregarded. I might suport some lesser remedy, such as mentiorship. or a probationary period after which we can reviist the matter if issues persist. But I believe Rachel's work has been shown to be - and wil contnue to be - a net benefit to this project. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:45, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Pigsonthewing: I see this isn't your first rodeo[76]. Can I ask how opinion has changed since the first time you commented on this issue four years ago? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:45, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  Maybe we should start asking the harder question whether involvement in WMF-sponsored programs like GLAM/Edit-a-thons/Wikipedia-in-Residence constitutes a conflict of interest. Because I see wagon circling. jps (talk) 15:32, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  There's no question it does, the only question is whether its enough of a COI to be an issue (signs point to yes BTW given the wagon circling). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:11, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  WMF-sponsored programs like GLAM/Edit-a-thons/Wikipedia-in-Residence constitutes a conflict of interest - Does WMF fund this WiR? Most WiR positions these days (AFAIK) are funded by the hiring institutions. I would be shocked if the WMF were funding this one just based on the fact that it involves on-wiki editing, which has been a line for the WMF, historically. Likewise most GLAM projects have nothing to do with the WMF. If you go to a museum and say "can I tell you about Wikipedia" or "want to upload some photos to Commons" or "want to host an edit-a-thon" then you're involved with a GLAM project, regardless of who funds it or whether it involves any funding at all. The extent to which the WMF is involved with most edit-a-thons is to fund an affiliate, who then e.g. buys a couple pizzas for attendees. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:32, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think that sponsored and funded are synonyms there... Anything under the banner or that is allowed to use the branding is sponsored even if there is no funding provided. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:35, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  Agreed. While more-or-less radically open to anyone, someone (the community) ultimately does have to agree that GLAM is appropriately attached to something so that it can be called that. This is usually pro forma, but it still ends up supported. If "sponsored" is the troubling word, choose another synonym that means the same without necessarily monetary support. jps (talk) 17:21, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose - I started typing this yesterday, and find that Vanamonde has articulated some similar reasons, so partially "per Vanamonde". I see evidence of insufficiently disclosed COIs, evidence that RH is working to address those problems, evidence of years of good faith engagement with the Wikimedia/Wikipedia community, evidence of problematic edits made by other people, a big thorny question about independence of sourcing in religious articles that's better addressed elsewhere, and not nearly enough diffs showing violations of our content policies by RH to justify a tban.
  That said, I would strongly urge RH to set some boundaries in the WiR role and to articulate those boundaries on their user page. Our COI guideline is messy and applied inconsistently, and often with a rhetorical flourish that tries to combine the negative connotations with close COIs and the technical definition of COI that includes distant COIs we don't actually view as a problem. All of this makes things challenging for anyone who does any editing with a close or [moderate?, for lack of a better word] COI, since you have to be able to judge how much COI is going to be too much, and be prepared for that scale to slide based on other factors (as in this case, the role of money and the role of other affiliated editors). Being transparent goes a long way, but my own $0.02 is that you should absolutely abstain from editing or assigning anyone to edit an article on any subject you've received money from, that you're on the board for, that you have a nontrivial personal relationship with, etc. That's what {{Edit COI}} is for. The COI guideline doesn't require you stay away, but editing those articles while being paid is a recipe for disaster. I worry that it erodes the thin line between "the kind of paid editing we like" and "the kind of paid editing we don't like" such that the life of future WiRs will be more difficult. Enwiki's view of COI seems like it will only become more volatile.
  All in all, I think having a highly experienced Wikipedian on staff is very much a good thing. RH has the ability to translate the complicated and ever-evolving PAGs (and their interpretations) for a large community. As long as most of the problematic content edits are other people's, it would be good to have RH available to help. Besides, as I started off saying, the evidence just isn't here to justify a tban. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:29, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  Mostly I agree with you, however I do assign greater accountability to RH for what you're calling "other people's" edits. In these cases she is both acting as the supervisor of, and paying, these other people to make those problematic edits, which I think elevates her responsibility quite a bit. Especially given several of the articles she assigned to students were assigned because she felt she had too much of a COI to write them herself... JoelleJay (talk) 18:57, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, if you have a COI and assign/pay someone to edit it, that doesn't negate the COI. It just creates another level of PAID and/or a WP:MEAT/proxy-based COI, which is probably going to be regarded as worse insofar as it obscures the COI. Along the lines of voluntary commitments and clear articulations of boundaries that I've been talking about, I'd hope something acknowledging as much would be in there, if she hasn't addressed it already. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:07, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  The best I can say is that she is asking her students to sandbox. That's the full extent of it that I've seen. She will be stepping away for a few days, but maybe you could ask her when she gets back to implement something that would make you comfortable? I'm kinda of the opinion that the more ways we try to solve this the better. jps (talk) 21:36, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy Break (3)

• Support Oppose per Awilley, Rhododendrites, Vanamonde93, FyzixFighter [I admit that the comment pointed out by Starship.paint is troubling.], but at minimum a strong warning and possibly some edit-restrictions and proposals like agreements by Rhododendrites. I did not see evidence of a strong warning for the behavior when it was discovered followed by a recalcitrant refusal to comply and/or apology with repeating the behavior. (If that was the case, I would reconsider.It was per Levivich (thank you for providing this link: WP:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 166#Brigham Young University), and I have hence changed my !vote) It appears her editing is not so much a problem as the failure to disclose the COI and paid-editing, e.g. Awilley’s comments. As for her students' editing as described by Vanamonde93, that is another matter. I explain my position on that below in response to jps and Grandpallama--I'm not sure how best to handle that. I'm not in favor of a topic ban for all of them--but consquences for those that have problematic behavior, were warned, and continued. Would support this done on case-by-case basis. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the two examples kindly provided below to see if such mass action is best.

As much as I am opposed to paid editing, unfortunately, we allow it, so--unless I have misunderstood WP:PAID (and WP:PEW)--our greatest concern by allowing compensation for edit (or COI) is on their ability to follow WP:NPOV. If they can’t follow WP:NPOV, then the COI and paid-editing are aggravating factors favoring restriction or prohibition of editing in that area. And although non-disclosure is certainly a problem and must have consequences and accountability, it’s not clear to me there was an intent to deceive or other behavior so severe that we can’t seek an alternative accountability measures than a topic-ban.

I don’t know what typically happens when a failed disclosure is revealed. Has it *always* been the case that such discovery resulted in a topic ban from the subject area, site ban, or similar? Is it true as Levivich opined If Microsoft hired people to create articles about its products, and these editors disclosed they were paid editors but in some cases promoted some of these products while working with other Microsoft employees who edited with undisclosed COI, Wikipedia would siteban all of them with little discussion. Are there such examples?

I believe we warn the editor, give them another chance with a short leash, and bring them right back here if it continues. --David Tornheim (talk) 23:07, 15 March 2024 (UTC) [revised 05:40, 18 March 2024 (UTC)]

Scientology is the obvious example. jps (talk) 01:39, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Editing around Falun Gong has also had similar problems. Grandpallama (talk) 17:26, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

@ජපස and Grandpallama: Thank you for the examples. Would you mind giving me a link or two for the mass action?

I do ultimately think what is done with the students might best be adjudicated separately with evidence for each student involved--if that was done sufficiently already here and I glossed over it, my apologies. I was focussed on the incorrect assumption that Rachel Helps had not been warned. That really changes everthing about my thinking about both her and how it impacted the students behavior.

Any that we know conclusively were paid and didn't disclose it, I would support a topic or site ban. I don't care if she said it was okay not to disclose.

For any that are unpaid, it is likely she misled and incorrectly advised them about proper behavior here. So, the key question, did WE advise them about proper behavior -and- did we warn them when they crossed a line? Any student who crossed the line after OUR sufficient warning--regardless of what she might have told them to the contrary--I would support an indefinite TB for students falling into that case. Those students might realize they were duped, apologize, and come clean. I do see this as a "teachable moment", and I would hope we can retain some of the students who really are interested in following the rules and helping to build an encyclopedia that is NPOV. They may actually gain respect for us for holding her accountable.

Any in this second category that are allowed to stay here, I'd say we give each an immediate stern warning about the result of what happened to her and why, about COI and POV-editing and the consequences for their instructor for such inappropriate behavior. Let them know they will be under scrutiny moving forward and that they are on a short leash in that topic area.--David Tornheim (talk) 05:30, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I guess let Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/COFS and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Scientology be your light reading today. There is a lot here and I'm not sure I can help wade through it all. RH and her students have disclosed that they were paid. I am not sure there are any unpaid volunteers or not, but that would be good to clarify. The warnings about COI were thwarted in the past through certain COIN discussions that were closed with "no action". This was definitely unfortunate because here we are back today. jps (talk) 10:35, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

• 2020 COIN - WP:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 166#Brigham Young University - just want to make sure everyone is aware of the time this issue was discussed in 2020. Among the people claiming there was no COI editing at that time was Nihonjoe. We now know that the concerns raised then were real, some of the people defending it had undisclosed COI, and the discussion did not lead to improvement in how COI was handled by Rachel Helps. Levivich (talk) 14:51, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  Oh dear. From that thread: Hi, I disagree with the idea that all pages I edit are COI. My job doesn't depend on showing people in a positive light. What she fails to say that if she started showing certain people in a negative light, she absolutely runs the risk of running afoul with her employer. I had a discussion with her about this on her talkpage and she said that she was worried about that when she started and her supervisor assured her that her students could write whatever as long as it was attributed to sources. So if a student wrote, "The Book of Mormon contains anachronisms" as a statement of fact without attribution, I am not sure they would be protected by that. But more to the point, the BYU authorities themselves are not bound by this agreement. The social control that is exerted over people who are in the employ of BYU is absolutely real. There is a reason that only a mere 5% of faculty at that college are not members of the LDS church. Y'all, there are lots of reliable sources that identify Mormonism's cult-like behaviors. It is on display here loud and clear. jps (talk) 15:26, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support, since just asking nicely in 2020 (COIN) did not have any positive effect. MarioGom (talk) 15:59, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  It is worth noting that, per WP:PROXY, this topic ban would effectively ban any student/employee to edit under the supervision of Helps in any way that bypasses the terms of the main topic ban. So it might make sense to formally extend the sanction to any and all BYU programs. MarioGom (talk) 19:24, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

• For Detective Levivich of the COI Bureau: While I have never had any affiliation with BYU, the LDS movement, or anything adjacent, I know more people who go/went to BYU than I can count on two hands. Which means that I know not to click on soaking in the LDS template footer, I already knew that the second item in the Church Educational System Honor Code is "be honest", and I can see the irony in the editors of Second Nephi engaging in small deceptions (28:8, c'mon!). On-wiki, I spent a great deal of time about five years ago in grinding arguments at AfD over articles about non-notable LDS subjects sourced mostly to official LDS sources, church-owned media, and LDS-focused blogs. So I also have a sense of how much valuable editor time can be burned up bringing that sort of content back in line with English Wikipedia policies/guidelines.
  Rachel Helps has breached community trust while modeling behavior for students under her supervision. And it looks like we've got some content issues around assuming that stuff that's important within the LDS movement is important outside of it as well. Both of those things are bad. But a lot of the edits are good. So for us here at English Wikipedia, I think it's a matter of finding a way to rebuild trust while keeping the good parts of the BYU WiR project going.
  I support a topic ban on the WiR and all student workers, because it will clarify an important difference between 1) the BYU WiR project's main goal is to improve this encyclopedia, and 2) the BYU WiR project's main goal is to legitimize/normalize the LDS movement and institutions, and to spread its doctrines and lore by getting as much LDS-related content as possible into the highest-visibility website that still allows people to sign in and add stuff. Sometimes those goals align, but clearly there have been some problems when they don't. So for me a topic ban is not punishment, but rather a chance to recalibrate the relationship and rebuild trust. If BYU will still pay the WiR and (BYU) editors to contribute to English Wikipedia on the approximately millions of other topics, and they do that, great, let's have another conversation about lifting the topic ban once that trust is regained. Indignant Flamingo (talk) 18:27, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  *chomping cigar* All right, boys, this one checks out, let 'em through. Levivich (talk) 18:40, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  I appreciate your rational approach here. I'm not the expert, but I think the role of the BYU WiR is quite a bit more narrow than just 1) improving the encyclopedia and sideways from 2) legitimizing and spreading Mormonism. Rachel would be a better person to clarify, but I understood her role more along the lines of facilitating access to and improving content related to some of the more unique collections owned by the BYU library. Most of those collections will probably have some connection to Mormonism.

  One of the things I've appreciated most about Rachel's editing is the nitty gritty source work that she does. For example: many editors are somewhat sloppy with sources... They'll take a sourced statement and modify it a bit without changing the meaning too much and move the source somewhere, maybe to the end of a sentence or clause or paragraph. Then someone else will come along a year later and do something similar. Eventually you end up with sources that are completely disconnected from the statement they were meant to support, or that original statement may be gone altogether. I've seen Rachel fixing long term problems like that, as well as immediately cleaning up after other editors when they move soures around in a sloppy way. I've also seen her cleaning up copyvios, circular references, wrong page numbers, random templates, and other tedious gnomish work that so many of us avoid, ignore, or take for granted. I would love to see her be able to continue this kind of work in the topic area where she has expertise.

  I think it's clear from the above that the community agrees that Rachel fell short in disclosing COI when editing and creating articles about people and organizations close to her. I personally think those shortcomings were exacerbated by scope creep, unclarity, and even contradictions in our own guidelines and expectations, but let's set that aside. There are also a lot of people who see problems in the work of her student editors, which I'm not familiar with myself, so I'll take that at face value. That suggests a lack of training, supervision, etc. on Rachel's part. I have not, though, seen significant criticisms of Rachel's own edits.

  So my question to you is: would you support some kind of narrower sanction that directly addresses the above problems but still allows Rachel to do her job as WiR and make the kind of helpful edits I mentioned above? That might include a ban on directly creating articles and a ban on editing articles where she has a (well-defined) COI. Or maybe even a ban on editing articles outside of citation management. And likely more strict restrictions on her students. I don't know what would work best, and some workshopping with Rachel would probably be helpful when she comes back from break. Thoughts? ~Awilley (talk) 21:59, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Rhododendrites: Okay, I'm not going to let this excuse that "it was all her students" slide anymore. RH has made some absolutely atrocious edits over the last few months. Fram, above, documented the result in the actual article of Second Nephi, but here they are the diffs from her:

  • [77]
  • [78]
  • [79]
  • [80]
  • [81]

  These diffs are all inclusive of an extreme amount of unduly weighted apologetics content from obscure Mormon Theologians. This also, infruriatingly, includes apologias for the abject and abhorrent racism in the text. That’s right, RH is trying to apologia away the racism in her faith’s scripture. Lest that not be enough evidence for you:

  • [82] Here she is whitewashing away the fact that Joseph Smith instituted racist dogma.

  I'm sure she saw nothing wrong with that. It's the frog in the boiling pot of water. In the LDS Church, this kind of game-playing is what happens as a matter of course. We are not the LDS church. We have a standard that is not apologetics. jps (talk) 22:44, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

  @jps: The first 5 diffs you cite are not apologetics, they're analyzing how different themes/ideas in the Book of Mormon "Second Nephi" have been interpreted and have influenced LDS thought and belief over time. As far as I can tell her citations are to secondary reliable sources from reputable publishers. In the 6th diff she is reverting a blatantly POV IP edit and attempting to make a clarification along the way. The original sentence, before the IP's edit, incorrectly stated/implied that Smith taught that dark skin was a curse for "premortal unrighteousness". That's false, and you can verify that by scrolling down to the body of the article and doing a Ctrl+F for "1844". Apparently Rachel had missed that the sentence could be read in a different way: that Smith had taught it was a curse, and that LDS leaders after Smith had taught that the curse was for "premortal unrighteousness". Fortunately 2 days later, editor Pastelitodepapa (the article's original author) came along and removed all ambiguity. [83] This is a normal interaction on Wikipedia. People write ambiguous sentences. People misinterpret those sentences and make mistakes. People fix the mistakes. ~Awilley (talk) 06:07, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Awilley They absolutely are apologetics. What they are doing is trying to recast/reframe a discussion of this book in a way to encourage understanding the text as though it really happened and offer apologia for the ways in which it clearly runs into anachronism and error. Reliability is always contextual and the context here is that these sources are being used to support preaching and proselytization (that's their raison d'etre). The claim that the IP edit was "blatantly POV" as absurd. The IP edit is correct. Joseph Smith supported the racism of the Mormon church as you even show was confirmed later on. RH reverting that edit was acting in accordance with her faith and not in accordance with the facts. Whether intentional or not, the whole point is that this is a paid editor gatekeeping at Book of Mormon articles, paid by a Mormon faith-based institution to edit our encyclopedia. She needs to be held to a higher standard. This is faith-based POV pushing. WP:Civil POV-pushing, but POV pushing all the same. jps (talk) 12:41, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  @jps, You've got it backwards. Take a closer look at the IP edit. It most certainly is incorrect and POV. Read the edit summary. Note the phrase "...in the church we believe..." Rachel was not the one trying to whitewash in that interaction, she was reverting a Mormon IP who was erasing a big part of the racist history (premortal sin theory) and pushing the modern LDS POV. Feel free to hat this as "extended discussion" so it doesn't bog down the AN/I. ~Awilley (talk) 21:51, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  AH! You are right that the IP edit was bad... but now RH's edit is even worse. She removed the mention of Joseph Smith, I guess in deference to the sensibilities. This is also a misleading edit summary. This is not just a revert. This is an introduction of a whitewash of RH's own making! And you're still defending her? jps (talk) 22:01, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  No, she most likely read the sentence as "...Joseph Smith taught that dark skin was a sign of God's curse for premortal unrighteousness" and tried to correct that. Joseph Smith never taught that. It was after Smith's death that people came up with the "premortal unrighteousness" garbage. ~Awilley (talk) 22:19, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  No, Smith did it too: [84]. I know it's popular to give him a pass. The LDS apologetic line. But, again, Wikipedia is not for apologetics. jps (talk) 23:13, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  The earliest mention I can find of that rationale is from Orson Hyde in 1844 or 1845. I just looked up the reference in the paper you linked. The reference was to Brodie's No Man Knows My History page 173-4, which I happen to have on my shelf. Brodie does indeed suggest that the idea originated with Smith, but she doesn't provide any evidence to back that up. Her only citation for that is to a 1845 speech/pamphlet by Orson Hyde. This may be part of why Brodie now has a reputation for going beyond what the actual evidence supports, and why her book is listed as "additional considerations" on the project page instead of "generally reliable". Or maybe I'm missing something. Either way, Rachel Help's edit summary said she was summarizing the article, and that is indeed what the article says. If you think the article is incorrect, a discussion on the talk page would be the logical next step. ~Awilley (talk) 23:50, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  Are you really unable to see the issue here? "Oh, the person who claims that Smith taught about this curse doesn't back it up because it was only found in a pamphlet by Orson Hyde." Forget it. At this point, you're running interference. jps (talk) 23:56, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support topic-ban - This smacks to me of the same type of COI editing that led to the creation of WP:GS/CRYPTO and the SCI contentious topic, and I get the sense that the scope of this will lead to COI including a CTOP of some sort. The long-term deception and obvious lack of clue as to what best-practices for a COI entails are both extremely problematic, and either on their own would have justified a topic-ban with or without a CTOP designation. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Source assessment notes} 18:47, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. I am an atheist with a long-time interest in world religions who wrote a Good Article about the Laie Hawaii Temple in 2008. In the intervening years, I have never once encountered a problem from other LDS members on Wikipedia, only my fellow non-theists and atheists, one of which, Horse Eye's Black, destroyed my work and has now made it eligible for delisting.[85] Viriditas (talk) 00:48, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  ?? That diff shows HEB removed the citations to one dubiously-reliable apologist source, he didn't even remove any content; saying he "destroyed" your work is a pretty groundless aspersion. JoelleJay (talk) 03:01, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  He removed a reference to an older version of the material because he failed to look at the date of the source, thereby making it unsourced and eligible for delisting. Furthermore, he removed links that others had added, non-controversial links to BYU computer scientist Rick Satterfield, who had spent years collecting and formulating a database for LDS. Viriditas (talk) 04:27, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  It doesn't matter what version of the material was being cited when the underlying source for all versions is unreliable. Even if the author was a "BYU computer scientist", which he obviously isn't, that would be irrelevant since exemptions to SPS require recognized academic subject-matter expertise. JoelleJay (talk) 05:29, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  I disagree. In 2004, when user Gerald Farinas originally added the external link to the article,[86] it was in wide use in LDS articles. When I arrived to the article in 2007 and tagged the source as unreliable (at the time referred to synonymously as "verify credibility", whose history has beeen now lost)[87], another user started a discussion on the talk page in response to my tagging. They assured me that the source was reliable. I looked at it, and found that the "about page" said that Rick Satterfield created the site as a project for his computer science classes before getting his computer science degree in 2001. In the ensuing years it had become a go-to hobbyist site for statistics about LDS architecture, which is exactly how it was used in the article. It was not used to make religious claims, it was not used to make political claims, it was used only to make factual statements about architecture. In this regard, and per the discussion, I acknowledged that it met the exemption (this was 2007) and compromised by removing the tag, a tag that I originally added. So, to recap, I was the one who originally questioned the reliability, I was the one who discussed it on the talk page with another user who argued for its use, and I was the one who engaged in the art of compromise to allow the source to be used in a specific, narrow way. I was not, however, a drive-by editor like HEB, who just arrived to the article one day and removed the source and the content on a whim because I didn't like the words in the URL. Keep in mind, in the ensuing years at some point, long after I had left the article, the URL had changed from the neutral-titled "ldschurchtemples.com" to "churchofjesuschristtemples.org". And I continue to maintain that the underlying source for all versions was not unreliable. And it's not irrelevant that Satterfield collected the data for his computer science classes. BYU has numerous, front-facing student sites today that are and continue to be reliable sources for Wikipedia. Like ldschurchtemples.com, which provided a unique resource in the past for obscure archeological data, I continue to draw upon research from Brigham Young University for articles I write. For example, I recently wrote Flathead Lake Biological Station, which cites writer Abbey Buckham of Northern Arizona University, who wrote the most comprehensive history of the station that is currently online. Her work was published by the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies which is part of BYU Research Institutes. So no, I don't agree with you, and I will continue to draw upon BYU students, graduates, and their research for my articles. Viriditas (talk) 18:56, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  You seem to be ignoring my entreaties on your usertalkpage, so maybe I have to respond here.

  I think, as others are trying to explain to you, you are making a strawman argument. There is sincere and strong evidence that this group has been skewing dozens of pages on the Book of Mormon in a very particular way that is going to take a lot of work to clean up.

  This proposal for a TBAN is not an attempt to ban everything coming out of BYU. We aren't even asking to end the WiR/GLAM/Paid Editing program. In fact, what you ask at the end about Flathead Lake Biological Station is exactly the sort of thing I would hope that RH's students would have been working on instead of the sloppy and over-detailed exegesis they've been focusing on for the last months. Not everything that comes out of BYU is about LDS.

  Yeah, with a TBAN you're not going to get RH or her students to help you write about LDS temples. Sorry. But given the streams of awful I've been wading through in the past few days trying to make sense of what is going on at Book of Mormon pages, I think that this sort of collateral damage is likely more than worth it, sorry to say. Your happy editing on one article does not excuse the 100s of articles that are absolute messes. That said, this TBAN would make it more likely that you could benefit from BYU student editors on articles like Flathead Lake Biological Station. This is likely to be a win for you since those are far and away the more common articles I see you working on than the LDS temples. jps (talk) 20:43, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  @ජපස: If RH and the students were TBanned, would the students really be more likely to edit in other topic areas?

  User:Heidi Pusey BYU's conflict of interest statement on her user page currently reads (emphases added):

  I am employed and paid by the Harold B. Lee Library to edit Wikipedia pages about the Book of Mormon on behalf of Brigham Young University. I am a student employee of Rachel Helps (BYU) and I specialize in research for early Book of Mormon studies as well as literary studies of the book. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I am extensively familiar with the Book of Mormon but seek to edit with a neutral viewpoint.

  Heidi's employment appears to be specific to Book of Mormon pages. It is on behalf of BYU, which makes me wonder about the academic freedom questions raised elsewhere. Isn't this declaration inconsistent with Wikipedia goals like NPOV writing without an agenda? Further, if Heidi's specialty is in this topic area, would she be interested in paid non-Book of Mormon editing... and would BYU be interested in paying for it?

  I wonder whether a TBAN will actually produce the outcome you describe? 1.141.198.161 (talk) 00:36, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  From what I understand in brief discussion with RH, this was set by her in discussion with RH. This topic focus could be changed. But good to confirm with RH that this really is the case, for sure. jps (talk) 10:23, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  Satterfield does not have subject matter expertise as recognized by strong citations by academics in academic publications. Therefore his SPS is not reliable. Everything else you've said is irrelevant, though I'll note that student projects simply hosted by the university are also never reliable as published academic work and I would hope you haven't been adding them as sources. JoelleJay (talk) 04:53, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  Just because you've never encountered any issues before doesn't mean Helps is innocent. Have you read anything in this thread and the corresponding thread?? vghfr (✉ Talk) (✏ Contribs) 03:05, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  What does that have anything to do with the sanction being proposed here or the user it's being proposed against? I see virtually nothing in that !vote rationale that actually addresses such matters; the only thing that might come anywhere close is the vague anecdotal claim I have never once encountered a problem from other LDS members on Wikipedia. Left guide (talk) 03:18, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  First of all how do you know that I am a "fellow non-theists and atheists"? Second that source may look legitimate but its actually a non-expert self published source unaffiliated with the LDS Church, the LDS editors actually agreed that it was a source that should be removed/improved. I didn't destroy anything or change its eligibility, looking at other articles you've significantly authored (for example Claude AnShin Thomas) it looks like the issue may be with your sourcing practices and not mine. I apologize for causing you distress but I also have no idea what that would do with your vote unless you're voting in an AN/I discussion based solely on spiting another editor. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:55, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  You're mistaken again. My sourcing is entirely reliable, and is accurately reflected in the final GA review.[88] As can be seen in that link, the sources you removed[89] were not the versions of the sources I originally added,[90] however both sources support the same, accurate information. You neglected to actually read the article you edited, because if you had you would have noticed that the citation you removed said "Retrieved 2007-07-17", which refers only to this version supporting the material. You removed the newer version instead, which had been revised. You then left a citation needed tag in its place. As of today, there is a more current database listing on the revised site.[91] You couldn't be bothered with any of this, of course. One wonders if your poor judgment here is reflective of your other baseless criticism, such as that over at Claude AnShin Thomas, which has no known problems either. One wonders how much this kind of bias infects the rest of this discussion. Viriditas (talk) 04:24, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  But churchofjesuschristtemples.com/churchofjesuschristtemples.org is a non-expert self published source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:33, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  Opinions differ, and policies and guidelines dynamically change over time. When the article was written, those sources were acceptable, and the author was a computer scientist at BYU who had created the only site on the internet that collected and maintained statistical data about the temples. Viriditas (talk) 04:45, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think they ever were a computer scientist at BYU... I see a bachelor's degree in computer science from BYU but no teaching or research position. Today that source is not acceptable and I don't think that it was when the article was written either. Looking at the talk page it looks like the reliability was actually challenged all the way back in 2007 (Talk:Laie Hawaii Temple/Archive 1#Credibility of source). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:50, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, questioned by me. Did you read the discussion? Viriditas (talk) 05:22, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  I did... Didn't see a consensus that the source was reliable. I'm actually confused as to how that source remained in the article after that discussion. I also double checked and he was never a computer scientist at BYU (and even if he was I don't see how that would contribute to him being a subject matter expert in this context). And again none of this explains your vote here, even if everything you say is completely true your vote makes no sense. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:52, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, you are confused. I am the one who questioned the source in the first place and originally tagged it. As that discussion indicates, another editor arrived to discuss it, and I removed the tag. Should I have disagreed with myself? That seems to be what you are saying here. Viriditas (talk) 18:19, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  I must be confused, because this none of this substantiates "destroyed my work and has now made it eligible for delisting" nor does it substantiate that the author was a a computer scientist at BYU nor does it explain what any of this has to do with the larger discussion (besides possibly the author's BYU connection?). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:35, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  You are free to see my new comments up above that address your confusion. Viriditas (talk) 18:59, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  Ignoratio elenchi. vghfr (✉ Talk) (✏ Contribs) 17:17, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  Saying that every problem you've encountered on Wikipedia has come from non-theists and atheists is quite a remarkable statement. How are you able to determine the religious affiliation of your fellow editors? And even in the unlikely event that it is true, what relevance does it have for this issue? The question at hand is about one particular editor, not all LDS members or all atheists. CodeTalker (talk) 05:09, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Viriditas: woah, I just noticed that you're referring to me as "Horse Eye's Black" in both of the original comments here. What is that supposed to mean? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:41, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  It means my keyboard is broken Viriditas (talk) 18:14, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  How does a broken keyboard result in Horse Eye's Black? Its not a misspelling, its a pipe. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:32, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  Looks like a copy and paste from a typo. Viriditas (talk) 19:00, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  Ok sure. Thank you. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:15, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  You probably need to take a step back from this discussion if you're looking this hard for implied slights. Parabolist (talk) 21:42, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support I would have suggested a warning, but in light of the extensive COIN discussion from 2020 that appears to have not resolved this issue, I think we'd just be back here sooner or later for another rodeo.CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 05:03, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Exactly, its not a new phenomena. They were warned in 2020, clearly warned by admin. scope_creep^Talk 13:40, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Generally concur with the comments by Awilley, Ocaasi, Pigsonthewing, Vanamonde93, and FyzixFighter. I do not see anything presented that rises to the level of requiring a topic ban, and I see plenty of evidence of the positive contributions this editor has made to Wikipedia. Gamaliel (talk) 13:24, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support - I find the general oppose reasonings to be particularly uncompelling and that it does not adequately address the evidence presented in this and the prior discussion. The attempt to present this discussion as a referendum on theist vs. non-theist editors completely misses the point of the evidence provided. The only oppose rationale thus far that strikes me as valid at all is Vanamond93's comment, but I ultimately agree more with jps's rejoinder to Vanamonde93's perspective. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:26, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support However much good faith (no pun intended) can be ascribed, this a situation which needs to be addressed directly. Treating this as a generalised COI issue to be addressed via a review of policy/guidelines elsewhere will not address the specific instutional arrangement which is engendering systemic failures with regard to core tenets - neutrality, due, fringe and reliable, independent sourcing. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 04:14, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Topic ban for Thmazing

On the basis of this discussion, I think we need to topic ban User:Thmazing from pages related to Association of Mormon Letters broadly construed. jps (talk) 13:33, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Editors may also consider a wider topic ban on Mormonism. Note the time of this post, editors commenting before 04:13, 15 March 2024 will not have seen this post. starship.paint (RUN) 04:13, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support This user has a large number of COIs, and refuses to discuss them. They are still editing, but will no longer engage in questions regarding editing about themself and their friends. Big Money Threepwood (talk) 15:10, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support. As he is a former president of AML and current Managing Editor of its journal Irreantum, I see Thmazing as the "highest-ranking" editor in this COI group (that I know of), and thus the most culpable. Far more culpable than Rachel Helps, who is listed as AML's Discord Admin (and I believe is a current or past board member). Thmazing should have been the one to disclose, require the disclosure, or otherwise reign in, all this undisclosed COI editing coming from AML board members, staff, and other associated editors. A TBAN from AML is really too little IMO, I would at least TBAN from all of Mormonism (same scope as Rachel Helps) for the same reasons: prevent him from not only editing about AML but also about its "product," which is Mormon literature, and thus by extension, Mormonism itself. Heck, due to his high ranking nature and his particularly obstructive involvement in this entire fiasco, I'd also just support a straight site ban. But support as certainly better than nothing. Levivich (talk) 16:24, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  This is phrased a little confusingly... until the end of that paragraph, I thought that you had declared yourself the current managing editor of Irreantum.--Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:47, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  That would have been a real plot twist! 😂 Thanks for pointing it out, I added a couple words to clarify. Levivich (talk) 21:19, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support per sound analysis above. I looked at his last article Draft:Mike Pekovich, originally created in the mainspace: it is blatantly promotional ("His work on woodcraft [...] has influenced thousands of woodworkers over decades") as much as badly sourced (two non-independent primary sources). Cavarrone 16:38, 14 March 2024 (UTC) ADDENDUM: I also support a wider topic ban from Mormonism, broadly construed, per Levivich, starship.paint and Steve Quinn. Also based on my striked content I suspect there could be other COIs in the mix (in addition to some obvious WP:CIR issues). --Cavarrone 12:30, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• • The draft you link to is problematic, but I don't see how it relates to the AML. Jessintime (talk) 16:58, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
    • You're right, I had taken for granted that the subject was an LSD member. I've strikken the side comment, which is btw telling of this user's way of editing. --Cavarrone 17:21, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
      • If anything that speaks to a broader issue, perhaps include a ban on article creation? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:49, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support maybe they will miraculously recover from the unfortunate illness which prevents their typing, but hopefully they take their "breathing" time to learn how to not (Personal attack removed). In this particular case, however, Thmazing's obstructionist behaviour annoyed me enough to begin investigating in the first place, so perhaps we should thank him. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:53, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  @AirshipJungleman29: I've removed the personal attack. Please remain civil when describing behaviour from other editors. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:18, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Femke: That's bollocks, mate colleague. We had our own page called that very thing which still directs to a page on meta. So AsJm29 should have called Thamazing a jerk, I guess. ——Serial Number 54129 20:17, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  And there is a reason the meta page is no longer has that title. More people considered this a personal attack. Neither words are conducive to resolving issues of COI editing and civility on Thmazing's part. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:32, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support per the above comments. Jessintime (talk) 16:58, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support, but per Levivich, would easily support more, as this is ridiculously lenient. Grandpallama (talk) 22:57, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
• I agree that the past president of Association of Mormon Letters shouldn't be editing articles about that group, but I'd like to have all such conflicted editors able to make suggestions and {{edit COI}} requests on the talk page. With niche subjects in particular, we need to balance our need for an accurate article against our desire to have the independent editors making the decisions about what to include. It's not ultimately helpful to the main goal if we TBAN anyone who actually knows anything about the subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  If they are the only people who know the things about a subject, that subject may not be worthy of encyclopedic coverage. It may have not gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and may not be suitable encyclopedic matter. —Alalch E. 23:30, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Strong support lack of candor and accountability, repeatedly citing their own off-wiki blog posts, even this topic ban is too lenient, it should be a topic ban from Mormonism at least. starship.paint (RUN) 02:10, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support the topic ban described above per all the comments about COI and lack of candor. I also support a broader ban to include all LDS/Mormon topics per Starship.paint. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 02:42, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support the subject obviously has skin in the game regarding AML and they fail to adhere to COI policy. I agree that the ban should include all LDS/Mormon topics. They do not understand how to edit according to policies and guidelines. Also, I am looking for evidence that they actually cited content in articles with their own blogposts. If this is true then that is totally unacceptable as one of the primary no-no's on Wikipedia. Anyone have any diffs about them citing article content with their blog posts? I read about it in the linked conversation but was unable to discern on which article(s) this happened. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 03:04, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
  • @Steve Quinn: - perhaps you can look at the articles Elias: An Epic of the Ages (most obvious, look here first), Adam and Eve in Mormonism, and Brad Teare. starship.paint (RUN) 03:38, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@Starship.paint: - So yes, it is true. Thmazing has been citing content with their blogposts. This is disconcerting. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 16:16, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support; Thmazing appears to be both more culpable and less able to recognize and fix problems with their editing. Vanamonde93 (talk) 04:32, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support topic ban from Mormonism, broadly construed. As User talk:Thmazing § Conflict of interest (permalink) shows, the editor repeatedly cited their self-published blog posts (from Substack, Blogspot, and at least one personal website) in Mormonism-related articles, including articles not directly related to the Association for Mormon Letters. These are clear violations of the policy against promotion and the guideline against citation spam. New editors who do this are indefinitely blocked from Wikipedia as a routine matter; see the reports on the username noticeboard for examples. The editor's use of deflection when asked about their promotional edits and conflict of interest (e.g. "I know you just got out of arbitration yourself and so I can understand why you'd want to share the love, but I feel like the conversation we've had has already solved this problem.") is highly concerning and shows that they are not an appropriate fit for this topic area. — Newslinger talk 04:45, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support, per extensive discussion above and elsewhere. JoelleJay (talk) 05:21, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support, per evidence presented by others. Lavalizard101 (talk) 12:01, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support site ban for high conflict-of-interest, topic-ban as second choice - Refer to my comments in re the Rachel Helps topic-ban above; they apply equally here, with the caveat that we have community banned editors for editing blatantly to further their organisation's goals on the grounds of irreconciliable conflict-of-interest. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Source assessment notes} 18:52, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. Generally concur with the comments by Awilley, Ocaasi, Pigsonthewing, Vanamonde93, and FyzixFighter. I do not see anything presented that rises to the level of requiring a topic ban, and I see plenty of evidence of the positive contributions this editor has made to Wikipedia. Gamaliel (talk) 22:45, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

@Gamaliel: @Oliveleaf4: I think you may have voted in the wrong section? This section is for a topic ban on different user named Thmazing. If that's the case, @Viriditas: might want to re-evaluate the "per Gamaliel" vote. ~Awilley (talk) 06:13, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

@Gamaliel: @Oliveleaf4: I also think you may have voted in the wrong section! This section is for a topic ban on different user named Thmazing. If that's the case, @Viriditas: might want to re-evaluate the "per Gamaliel" vote. ---06:42, 17 March 2024 (UTC)Steve Quinn (talk)

@Awilley: @Steve Quinn: Thank you! You are correct, and I've moved my !vote accordingly. Gamaliel (talk) 13:27, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per Gamaliel. Viriditas (talk) 00:54, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose as per Gamaliel also. Telling the BYU Wikimedian in Residence not to edit on Mormonism? We don't want to go there, folks. If we need to work with them on some aspects of wiki policy, let's not harangue them online, let's arrange for an experienced person to meet up with them. I might have a chance to go out to Utah next year, and I'd be happy to sit down with them and edit. Oliveleaf4 (talk) 04:07, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  Why don't we want to "go there"? What are you implying? The community has been trying to "work with them" on aspects of policy for years. It hasn't worked. Why are you so confident your in-person visit is going to be successful? Do you have a track record of success with such things? jps (talk) 11:18, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  It is creepy to offer to meet in real life with editors you don't know to help them avoid a potential topic ban. Big Money Threepwood (talk) 19:03, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

  +1 Goldsztajn (talk) 04:29, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  Fwiw this is a WiR at a university whom anyone can walk up to and not some editor editing off their couch at home so if anything the suggestion raises the opposite sort of sussiness. Anyway… RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 05:28, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  One word: safeguarding. One wants to interact with another Wikipedian one does so on Wikipedia or at an event where Wikipedians have *themselves* *chosen* to attend. We should not be treating casual contact amongst editors in RL with anything other than the most serious concern for unintended consequences. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 05:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support The evidence is clear here as well. Currently this editor is a net-negative to Wikipedia and cost us time and energy. I cannot under this continual impulse to let folk get away with bad behaviour and breaking policy that are clearly understood and followed by the majority of editors. That was a long conversation that was held in 2020 by administration, it was very clearly stated. Combined with the analysis done recently, makes it clear as day. scope_creep^Talk 13:43, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support - Same general rationale as my !vote regarding Rachel Helps, but with Thmazing there appears to be even less mitigating circumstances as they have not engaged with this discussion in a remotely satisfactory fashion, whereas RH has at least attempted to make amends. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:26, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support topic ban from Mormonism, per above. BilledMammal (talk) 04:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support I'm here particularly because of the refusal to acknowledge the problem. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 04:27, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Support I haven’t yet decided what I think about the proposal for Rachel Helps, but given the level of incivility and defensiveness Thmazing shows on their user talk, combined with their substantive behavior with content and CoI, I think a topic ban might be warranted. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 07:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Canvassing concerns

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

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

I am concerned that there has been canvassing involved in discussions related to Rachel Helps (BYU). In January 2024 there was a case here at AN/I involving myself and Rachel Helps (BYU). Both BoyNamedTzu and Awilley broke long no-edit stretches (21 November 2023-8 January 2024 and 9 December 2023-7 January 2024 respectively) to take positions strongly in support of Rachel Helps (BYU). Neither disclosed a conflict of interest. The same thing happened again with this VP/M-AN/I thread, both broke long no-edit stretches (8 January 2024-12 March 2024 and 17 February 2024-13 March 2024) to take positions strongly in support of Rachel Helps (BYU). BoyNamedTzu did not disclosed a COI, Awilley only disclosed after being asked. In between 8 January 2024 and 13 March 2024 BoyNamedTzu made no edits and Awilley made only four. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:36, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, I was alerted to the existence of these threads by pings or mentions because I had participated in a previous discussion about you and Rachel Helps.

• January 9th AN/I thread: That thread was actually about topic banning or admonishing you for hounding Helps. You say I took a strong position, but I didn't even !vote. Here's the only comment I made in that thread (replying inline to another user to gently correct what I saw as a misrepresentation). Here's the comment that mentioned me in that discussion.
• February-March VP/M thread: I got what looks like a more deliberate ping to that thread in this comment. You will undoubtedly find that suspicious because it was the same user who pinged me to the earlier thread. In any case, there seemed to be a lot of misunderstandings and accusations flying around, so I made a similarly meandering comment trying to clear up a few issues and replied to one user. Unfortunately I can't provide diffs to my two posts because they were caught up in an oversight, but if you scroll up from [92] you'll find it.
• March 13 AN/I: I got pinged to the above thread by its creator in this diff. You can see my response above where I wrote, "in case it wasn't clear, I'm commenting here as an involved editor." I try to say something like that whenever I !vote on AN/I threads related to religion because I've recused myself from taking admin actions in that topic area.

I didn't get any emails or off-wiki communication about these threads, and I'm not on any email lists or text threads or discord servers related to Wikipedia. From a search of my inbox, the last Wikipedia related email I received was in September 2023 from a user asking for details on how I created a certain .gif animation. As for why I chose to comment in the above threads: I have a soft spot when it comes to seeing gnomes getting attacked and sucked into wiki-drama.

Speaking of pings and notifications, it looks like the "userlinks" templates you used above do not automatically generate pings, so I got no notification that you had opened this thread. You might want to consider officially notifying @BoyNamedTzu:. ~Awilley (talk) 19:12, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

The community appears to have now endorsed my concerns around Help. I am disturbed that you are only now disclosing your BYU COI despite participating in a number of discussions about the BYU wikipedia editing program. Also, given what we now know clearly not a gnome and never was. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:25, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I would also note that since pinging you to that first discussion P-Makoto has disclosed a series of COIs. In hindsight that appears to be on-wiki canvassing. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:48, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Then the canvassing issue you have is with P-Makoto, for the first two discussions, not Awilley. starship.paint (RUN) 02:17, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't agree with that. I was just writing that I'm disappointed in Awilley. In the Jan 9th thread, that's one BYU alum pinging another BYU alum for backup in a thread involving BYU's WiR, and none of the three of them disclosed it. In the VPM, again a BYU alum pings another BYU alum, again accusing HEB of "hounding" the BYU WiR, and again, neither of the BYU alums disclose their connection. This is all in an effort to shut down HEB when HEB was right all along about the COI, in fact it's a much bigger and broader COI issue, we now know, than just involving the BYU WiR. This was super deceitful. I understod when I read "I'm commenting here as an involved editor," and I thought, ah ha, that's why. This is very not kosher, you should all know better than to participate in discussions about COI by your alma mater without disclosing that it's your alma mater. In hindsight, we now know, that almost all of the people defending the BYU WiR from COI allegations were also BYU people (or AML people, or both). This was all highly deceptive, which is extra disappoint when it all comes from a Christian church (yeah I said it). Levivich (talk) 02:22, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I would say that this is an issue of lack of disclosure of Awilley's part, which is, the more I think about it, pretty disturbing, for the reasons you mentioned. starship.paint (RUN) 02:34, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

You're right, with that fact pattern laid out Awilley's conduct looks like harassment. They selectively participated in discussions about topics they had a COI with at a time in which they were not generally active on wikipedia in order to confront or inhibit the work of another editor (me). That would be unbecoming of any editor, from an admin it really begs the question of whether they should remain an admin. It is par for the course for disruptive editors to cry "Harassment!" while engaging in harassment, but I rarely see an admin do it and never without consequences. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:38, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

you should all know better than to participate in discussions about COI by your alma mater without disclosing that it's your alma mater. We talked thoroughly on my userpage why the conflict of interest policy left me with the impression that it asked about current relationships and not terminated ones, and I apologized for that, both to you personally and in the Village Pump thread. This thread is the first that I learned Awilley had any connection to BYU. I pinged Awilley, along with Drmies and Mackensen, because they had participated in a past ANI thread about HEB and I was of the impression HEB's behavior was veering into incivility again. There are ways of communicating about COI other than by violating the harassment and privacy policies. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:40, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

If you pinged people because of their past interactions with me and not their past interactions with Rachel on a discussion purely about Rachel's conduct that is not appropriate. Especially if you did it because "I was of the impression HEB's behavior was veering into incivility again" that would be canvassing with a specific goal in mind, all three are admins, were you trying to get me blocked? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:43, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I get that at the time, you didn't know Awilley was a BYU alum. But Awilley knew. I now count at least half a dozen editors who have some affiliation with BYU/AML -- almost all of them current or former employees -- who engaged in discussions about undisclosed BYU/AML COI editing without disclosing their affiliation. If all of them were part of one single conspiracy, that would be bad. But if they all each independently decided to surreptitiously influence the COI investigation without disclosing their own COI, that's even worse. That's like: what the heck are they teaching at BYU, that there are so many BYU folks who don't seem to grasp basic ethics -- and not a matter of the wording of Wikipedia policies, or even ethics tied to any religion or culture, but cross-cultural basic ethics, like that if you are going to act as a "judge," "juror," or "witness," you'd better disclose your connection to the "defendant." That's so basic. Everyone involved in these discussions about BYU/AML COI who has any connection past or present with BYU or AML should disclose that, or else stay out of these discussions. And it seems like every day I'm learning of someone else who has been involved, has the connection, but didn't disclose. Levivich (talk) 02:55, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich, up until today I didn't know that P-Makoto was a BYU alumnus. And frankly knowing it now doesn't really change anything for me. She's just an editor with whom I cross paths with occasionally. There's only one Wikipedia editor I've ever knowingly met in real life. We went to lunch together and had a nice talk. Maybe he was a BYU alumnus too; I don't actually know. And it doesn't matter. Editors on Wikipedia should be judged by their words and actions, not the religion they were born into, the culture they were brought up in, or even the schools they attended. ~Awilley (talk) 05:27, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, judged for actions like choosing to participate in multiple discussions about undisclosed COI by your alma mater without disclosing that it was your alma mater (though I appreciate that you finally did). Levivich (talk) 05:39, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Nobody is being judged by the religion they were born into, the culture they were brought up in, or even the schools they attended... They are being judged by their words and actions *alone*. Throwing out these red herrings and insinuations of bigotry against good faith editors is not constructive. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:15, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

I will happily acknowledge that Rachel is my friend and the person who recruited me to Wikipedia and taught me how to edit. When I have seen her being relentlessly bullied by other editors, I have defended her. She has never asked me to do this. She has never reuqested that i participate, in any way, in any discussion about her work. She has never canvassed me or anybody else that I know about in order to solicit responses or participation. But the grenades that you and others have thrown her way have a real life impact on an actual human being that I care about, and that often propels me to action. I am conversant enough with Wikipedia conventions to find my way here without being canvassed.

I will soon be deactivating my account and leaving Wikipedia for good. I have no desire to continue to edit, and I will pledge to make no more edits to any pages. BoyNamedTzu (talk) 19:52, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

And did you see it on the discord? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:25, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

No. I did not see it on the Discord, which I have not participated in for months. I saw it in my real-life interactions with my friend. BoyNamedTzu (talk) 20:34, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

For what its worth I hope you stick around, in the future please either avoid such crossovers between your personal life and wikipedia or disclose them. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:50, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Further canvassing and meatpuppetry concerns

Luke Olson (BYU) (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) created an account for the purpose of !voting against a topic ban. In a discussion on their talk page, they revealed there is a discord channel where BYU editors are discussing and are opposed to this topic ban - I am concerned that other !votes may have been canvassed by that channel.

In particular, I'm concerned about Oliveleaf4 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who returned after a two month hiatus and after a few hours of editing elsewhere arrived to vote against this proposal - their first ever participation at ANI.

I note Awilley has already been raised above, but I'm also concerned about them; they deny being a member of this discord channel, but there is clearly some connection as Luke Olson pinged them when restoring their !vote, saying I'm going to ping User:Awilley so he sees if someone deletes my message again.

In general, I think this is evidence that stronger and broader action is required, perhaps similar to what was used against the Church of Scientology. BilledMammal (talk) 04:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't around for any Scientology saga, but I think if broader action is required, it would likely be geared towards reducing time wasted by college students with the most poriferous opsec I've ever seen, rather than what I presume was a real operation by serious people. Remsense诉 04:12, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

what did end up happening with scientology anyways? vghfr (✉ Talk) (✏ Contribs) 04:17, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, there was this, @Vghfr. 57.140.16.57 (talk) 13:33, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Diff of the quote BilledMammal is referring to, for convenience. Left guide (talk) 04:24, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't know why Luke Olson singled me out. I've asked here on their talk page. ~Awilley (talk) 04:38, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Most likely because you're a member of WikiProject LDS. I guess he thought that you'd back him up because you had involvement in LDS related topics vghfr (✉ Talk) (✏ Contribs) 04:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

• If any more single purpose/meatpuppet accounts show up, just tag with {{spa}} directly after their sig. The closer should be an admin, and they should be able to properly weight any SPA comments. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 04:43, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I added the "not a ballot" notice to the top. jps (talk) 12:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Inappropriate removal of NPOV tag by JayBeeEll

@S Marshall: closed a controversial RFC today at Talk:Tim Hunt, see Talk:Tim Hunt#RfC: 2015 remarks. Whilst acknowledging there appeared to be a consensus, he reminded editors that consensus can't over-rule founding principles, the second pillar, and core content policy and quoting the amplification on his talk page these cannot be overruled by any talk page consensus however strong. He later emphasised this on his own talk page [93] in response to a query [94].

Judging by that query, it appears that the key point in the closure was being ignored; namely WP:PROPORTION. Shortly thereafter, and before any reply, an edit was made to Tim Hunt which appeared to ignore the closure[95]. Noting the history of edit warring at the article, I chose to add a {{npov}} tag and start a talk page discussion. I felt that any revert of a bold edit would result in an edit war and had no intention to revert war.

My tag was removed by JayBeeEll [96] with the edit summary "Don't be silly", I restored the tag and it was once again removed by JayBeeEll [97] with the edit summary "Yes sure let's see how this turns out", which appears to be an intention to revert war. The comment in the talk page [98] in response to my concerns and the unnecessary 3RR warning on my talk page appears to confirm [99] that.

On the face of it, it appears that the closure is being ignored to impose a local consensus that conflicts with core policies. As such I would suggest that the tag should remain until the closure is fully addressed. On a side note, I remain concerned about the toxic nature of any discussion in that talk page presently. Reluctantly bringing it here for further review. Please note I will not be available for a couple of days due to personal commitments. WCM_email 17:57, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

The behavior displayed by WCM is very similar to the behavior that led to this only one month ago; it is disappointing that he has not been able to accommodate himself to the fact that his view is a minority, both relative to WP editors and to the views represented in reliable sources. At least he stopped after a single round of edit-warring about the ridiculous tagging. As with Thomas B, my hope is that this can be settled by a change of behavior, without the need for any sanctions. --JBL (talk) 18:35, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I've no wish to comment on this ridiculous tag edit war, and I'd prefer to limit my involvement with the page to closing that one RfC, but I do want to say tempers are extremely frayed in this topic area and there's definitely scope for an uninvolved sysop to step in and restore order. Please.—S Marshall T/C 18:51, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

It would be a ridiculous edit war, were it not for the fact I refused to edit war over this. The fact remains that removing the tags in the way JayBeeEll did is counter to accepted policy. I would acknowledge @S Marshall:'s comment that this situation desperately needs input from an uninvolved Sysop to restore order. I have been asking for that for weeks, the reference to the removal of Thomas Basboll, is exactly the point I wish to make. If editors are convinced they're right and there are enough of them make a fuss, they can remove what they see as an obstruction by lobbying loudly here. The edit war that editor attempted to start, and its clear that was his intention, was a repeat of the same tactics used previously. I have made no attempt to filibuster I simply tried to bring external opinion but that's pretty unlikely given the toxic nature of editing at present. WCM_email 18:04, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

The editing situation got much less toxic when you stopped participating for a few days; maybe you should try that again? Certainly it would be good for an uninvolved admin to tell you the same thing everyone else on this thread has said. --JBL (talk) 19:25, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Point to anything I've said that contributes to a toxic atmosphere. As for comments contributing to a toxic atmosphere[100] "Don't be silly [101] "Yes sure let's see how this turns out" whilst edit warring to remove tags that encourage outside input. WCM_email 08:00, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

On the face of it, it appears that the closure is being ignored to impose a local consensus that conflicts with core policies.

That's an extremely uncharitable reading of the closure, apparently because you just don't like the results. The close was finding that the RfC consensus narrowly found for inclusion, with a warning to follow guiding principles of the Wiki while doing so. That's it. The rest of it is you projecting onto the closure and making vague, hand-wavy assertions that the close is against policy.

Since you won't be available for a couple days anyway, I suggest you wait and see what proposed edits come from the RfC before making any further comments. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 22:20, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I at no point said the close was against policy, I actually think given the toxic atmosphere he was entering @S Marshall: made a very good closure of that malformed RFC. The reminder that local consensus can't trump core policy seems to have fallen on deaf ears it seems. WCM_email 08:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

WP:CON has by definition got to be aligned with the WP:PAGs since it embodies "a process of compromise while following Wikipedia's policies and guidelines". So if @S Marshall's close is "very good", it follows it must have correctly divined consensus, which you now need to accept. If however, you think the close has arrived at a problematic WP:LOCALCON you need to initiate a close review. Shit or get off the pot. Bon courage (talk) 11:39, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

If you aren't available for the next couple of days, why the hell are you opening an ANI thread? "Reluctantly bringing it here" yeah right. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:57, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• WCM's editing regarding the Tim Hunt article has been as tendentious as Basboll's in staunchly refusing to get the point regarding the fact that their viewpoint is a minority and continuing to beat a dead horse and engage in WP:WIKILAWYERING in an attempt to fillibuster discussions regarding the issue, rather than just moving on. I would support a topic or page ban from Tim Hunt if WCM does not desist with his aggressive rejection of the talkpage consensus. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:13, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
• support topic ban due the editor's apparent unwillingness to drop the stick and refusal to get the point of the RfC. I commented at the ANI thread where Thomas B was topic banned. Given the RfC I moved on and have not touched the article or the RfC. The level of name-calling on display at that article over an ancient ten-day kerfuffle in the bro-sphere easily matched the most acrimonious mutual accusations of genocide I have witnessed on Wikipedia. EE squared. I had never heard of Tim Hunt. He seems nice? But if the episode in question is included in the article -- and there seems no question that RS has covered it in immense detail - then the article should dispassionately state that Tim Hunt said what he said. This editor's contention that it should not (because the poor man nearly committed suicide over this) utterly lacks a grounding in policy, and no evidence was ever presented of this assertion either. It betrays an emotional investment in this incident that baffles me, frankly. I would hesitate to participate on the talk page due to this editor's past level of vitriol, and the time sink it again likely would become. I am not following this thread. If anyone has questions about what I just said, please ping me. Elinruby (talk) 12:12, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

[102] I haven't gone down a rabbit hole over this because to me, he's just another misogynist who claims to be misunderstood. Most do. in your on words your motives are to expose another misogynist. I am quite astounded that you'd openly mock someone driven near to suicide. WCM_email 18:09, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

• I check back at this article after taking a break from it and find the RfC has been closed, consensus established and the article fixed accordingly. Great: the journey is over, the plane has landed, and the engines are turned off .... But oddly the whining sound continues as there's one editor who seemingly can't move on. If this continues sanctions may be appropriate. Bon courage (talk) 08:45, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Edit warring over orgins of a topic

Need help to find the best way to proceed. Placing this here as am not sure if its really edit warring, or dispute resolution category. The topic of Eternal return although revived by Nietzsche has contested origins primarily because its fundamentally the very generic idea that history repeats. I've been adding citations to support a WP:NPOV that the idea can be traced beyond the Hellenistic period to ancient Buddhist/Hindu/Egyption thought; multiple scholars agree that there are striking similarities, and that there could have been cross-pollination or diffusion of ideas from theology. It also helps the reader better understand the idea of Eternal Return, also attested by scholars. While other editors are engaging in discussion (although refusing to read cited sources and accept an alternative viewpoint), there are editors such as William M. Connolley who are repeatedly deleting this content (along with other non-contested improvements) without engaging in any discussion on the articles talk page. Soothsayer79 (talk) 22:24, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Feels a bit retaliatory, and part of ongoing refusal to accept consensus, or to recognize what constitutes original research. This recent filing is relevant. Grandpallama (talk) 00:18, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Soothsayer79, this is a content dispute. This noticeboard does not adjudicate content disputes. Please accept consensus and move on. Cullen328 (talk) 04:04, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I am not sure if there is consensus here among 3 editors. Additional citations were requested, and provided before inclusion. One editor with clear WP:OWN attitudes started having a collaborative discussion, decided that irrespective of having reliable citations, he/she did not support a particular viewpoint (that the idea existing before the Greeks). Another editor came in reverting everyones updates occassionally, and refuses to talk or discuss the matter at all. Please remove this discussion from here if this is not the place to adjudicate content disputes of this nature, and I can post it where it belongs which is WP:DRN I'm guessing Soothsayer79 (talk) 14:42, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

This came up last week, see the ANI archive. Things do not seem to have improved since then.

Essentially, Soothsayer has looked at Nietzsche's revival of the concept (influenced by Eastern sources in addition to the classical Greek ones), and extrapolated the conclusion that those Eastern sources are the same as the concept outlined in Greek sources. You're working backwards from Nietzsche to claim the Eastern concepts are therefore the same concept as the Greek one.

Soothsayer, what I'm seeing is that people are disagreeing with your assertion, while you are just flatly refusing to WP:AGF and accept that they have valid reasons for disagreement. The WP:3O went against you, but you're still stonewalling. That is a problem. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:31, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Apologies, I'm not asserting anything beyond citing sources that mention that the notion of eternal return existed in ancient cultures before and outside the Greeks. That is all. It would be great if a reviewer actually read these citations, and concluded that I was either misrepresenting them or misquoting them out of context or the sources themselves were unreliable. I do not see that happening here.

Here is a test for you The Hand That Feeds You: compare the cited sources for Greek origins versus the sources for Eastern Theologiocal origins, then determine if either of them are talking about Nietzshe's Eternl Return - they are all saying the concepts are similar, nothing more. Based on that, can one origin be chosen for inclusion over another? Soothsayer79 (talk) 21:20, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

How many times now have you been told that the place to resolve content disputes is on the talkpage of the relevant article? Continuing to push this at ANI, a venue for urgent incidents or chronic, intractable behavioral problems is disruptive in itself, and is demonstrating to uninvolved editors that you are not listening. Please read the essay WP:1AM and follow the very good and relevant advice there about actual steps you can take, including considering whether the fact that consensus is clearly against means you need to move on to other topics. Grandpallama (talk) 17:22, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, but this is incredibly useless advice. If you cared to go into any detail, you will notice I've already asked that this topic to be archived so that it can be discussed at the appropriate place. Soothsayer79 (talk) 00:53, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

this is incredibly useless advice As of today, you are still edit warring against consensus. You probably need a partial block from editing the article. Grandpallama (talk) 01:10, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Grandpallama is right, and the fact you find their advice useless is quite telling. If you persist in trying to push your particular view in these articles, we may have to consider a topic ban. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 12:09, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Automated edits by रोहित साव27

Can someone look at रोहित_साव27 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and get them to pause their automated edits with Wikipedia:SWViewer? My edits were made over the course of several hours and got reverted in a flash for alleged promotion to Peter Brown (historian). I know I'm only an IP, but they are reverting indiscriminately and not responding to talk page messages. 73.37.211.177 (talk) 08:24, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree with 73.37.211.177; it is concerning that for the rapid rate at which रोहित साव27 reverts others, they are disproportionately unresponsive to the many ongoing good-faith complaints and queries lodged at their talk page. Left guide (talk) 11:13, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I just thought to check, and found out that they were also editing and reverting in multiple Wikis at once [103](note that that tool only shows the most recent 20 edits per wiki).

That's... how good at multi tasking must you be to be able to do that? – 2804:F14:80C6:A301:CF7:6618:2E02:A732 (talk) 11:23, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the reversions of IP edits are out of control. I can see the article is in many ways promotional but that was not a remotely satisfactory reason for reverting your edits. I can't make out what SWViewer can do. Could it be assessing an article as a whole and then reverting recent IP edits? It's really sad to see thoughtful IP editors assuming the reversions have some proper basis and enquiring about the rationales. Is SWViewer ever of any benefit? Thincat (talk) 11:36, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Hello. First of all I would like to apologize for the mistakes I made. I am new to English Wikipedia and am not well aware of the rules here. I apologize and accept my mistake for your troubles.--रोहित^Talk_with_me 12:24, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@रोहित साव27: This was your first ever edit on English Wikipedia: that's hardly "new". Bazza 7 (talk) 14:02, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@Bazza 7: Yes, you are right but I have done most of the work on Hindi Wikipedia and just a few days ago I have started working actively on English Wikipedia.--रोहित^Talk_with_me 15:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

So why are you reverting so rapidly? — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:40, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I think they are using toolforge Maestrofin (talk) 03:09, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Repeated accusations of 'bias'

Liberland (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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

As those who have been following the topic will no doubt be aware, Wikipedia content on 'micronations' can often be contentious, and it isn't unusual for discussions to get fairly heated. The Liberland article in particular has often been troublesome, with occasional sockpuppetry and undeclared CoI editing added to the mix. Much of the too-and-fro of such debate is probably par for the course with such topics, and the questionable civility might best be ignored. I would however have to suggest that there are limits to this, and thus draw peoples' attention to recent comment being made by User: MicroSupporter on Talk:Liberland. For background, a contributor, new to the topic, and fairly new to Wikipedia in general, indicated a few weeks ago that they intended to do a substantive rewrite of the article (see the Talk:Liberland#Sursum capita thread). Given their inexperience, and the contested nature of the article, I then suggested that it might be wiser to create a draft proposal, rather than editing the article live. This was done, and comments regarding the draft were asked for. Though participation was fairly limited, since there seemed to be clear support for replacing the existing article with the new material, I suggested that the article be updated. At this point (the article not yet being updated), MicroSupporter finally chose to give their opinion in the thread (they were clearly aware of it, since they'd made a couple of edits to the draft, both reverted). I wasn't particularly surprised to see MicroSupporter opposing the update, but what I do find problematic is their repeated and unsubstantiated accusations of 'bias', directed at me (see [104][105][106]), and later at all who supported the draft content: Also, the only people in support of this revision are you, and 3 other people who seem to have a problem with not just Liberland but all others micronations. [107]

It should be noted that such accusations of 'bias' from MicroSupporter are not new: see e.g. [108], and seem to be symptomatic of an ongoing problem: an inability to accept that Wikipedia isn't a platform for the promotion of 'micronations', the single focus of MicroSupporter's entire contribution history. A history which sees repeated efforts to promote non-notable topics (e.g. the inappropriate creation of an article on the entirely non-notable Liberland Press, their attempts via Draft:Verdis (micronation) to create an article on another non-notable micronation etc), and to paint the 'micronations' in the best possible light - often with complete disregard for appropriate sourcing etc. As talk-page accusations go, 'bias' is generally-speaking a pretty tame one, but when it is not just repeated, but used as a substitute for substantive discussion of issues, and used to pre-emptively dismiss the opinions of multiple contributors, I think it crosses the line, and it may be time to consider whether action is needed to discourage such behaviour in a contributor so clearly at odds with broader community consensus in multiple regards. Flinging essentially evidence-free 'bias' accusations around willy-nilly is in my opinion disruptive, and sanctionable if repeated often enough. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:02, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

You seem to be very offended on the fact I called you biased against micronations. Your problem with micronations was not only mentioned just by me but also @Thryduulf on WP:VPP, and ThecentreCZ on my talk page. Just because I made an article about a micronation does not mean it is a way of promotion. It is just more knowledge to Wikipedia. It's stupid to throw around a word like that to the point it is meaningless. By your meaning of promotion, articles about the United Kingdom or The Telegraph are promotional too. It is not a crime to have an interest in micronations and unrecognised states, and to contribute to the encyclopedia by writing more about that, as long as they are notable, which I considered both Liberland Press and Verdis to be. I have followed the creation guides and made sure they are not biased. I have gone through AfC requests too.

I have never declined my interest in micronations (hence even my name) and have always particularly found both European micronations and unrecognised European states a big interest, but it doesn't mean I will place biased information on there. I have always made sure to write two sides of the story, regardless of what I think, and you can view that in my contributions.

Also, I am not 'fairly new'. I have been on Wikipedia for over a year but I am not as committed as I initially planned to be as I have a job and a family to look after. I find it funny that the moment someone disagrees with you, you take them to ANI like a child. Good day. MicroSupporter (talk) 16:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Also, I made attempts to participate to the new article by trying to make it neutral, but my attempts were reverted. I also tried to discuss my issue with the lack of neutrality about the newly proposed article. I may be personally more in support of the idea of these micronations (although not part of), but that doesn't mean that I support everything about them, or even some of their legalities. I do however support the neutral writing of articles making sure that both views are taken into account. I do not support the removal of necessary information like infoboxes until the discussion at WP:VPP is complete. Removing it while all other micronational pages have it is silly, and the discussion at WP:VPP is far from over as even those supporting the new infoboxes do not entirely agree with them and have a lot of suggested chances as it removes a lot of necessary information. MicroSupporter (talk) 16:22, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion with User:ThecentreCZ on MicroSuporter's talk page [109] may very well be relevant here. Anyone wishing to do so might well take it into consideration as further evidence of the problems I illustrated above. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:47, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I haven't got time now to more than skim-read the above. I don't know whether MicroSupporter is or is not biased towards micronations, but it seems evident from the VPP discussion that AndyTheGrump is biased against them (iirc I'm not the only person to have mentioned this in that discussion). I'm not involved with articles about any individual micronations, but removing or changing the type of infobox (if that's what's happening) on any such articles while the discussion at VPP is ongoing is definitely not something that should be going on (regardless of what type of change is being made). Thryduulf (talk) 16:27, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Thryduulf, I'd really prefer that we stay on topic here, and not go off at a tangent, but I will note here that if you really wish to make accusations of 'bias' regarding the WP:VPP thread, I may have more to say on the subject, and that the evidence may not reflect particularly well on you. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:53, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

It is perfectly acceptable to remove infoboxes on micronation articles during the VPP discussion, which is centered exclusively on which parameters should be available in the infobox template, not whether articles should have them in the first place. That said, infoboxes are only a minor component of the discussion above and it's a distraction to focus on it when the real problem is exchanges like this:

ThecentreCZ 00:54, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Hello, why did you allowed purging article of Liberland by some random crowd editors who just came there? As a person who supervise article Liberland you should have had been more vigilant. Liberland is most known micronation in the world and they are trying to purge it from cognizance, why the hell all other 50 micronations have infobox remained and they remove just the most known one? Thats not possible.

MicroSupporter 11:50, 13 March 2024 (UTC) @ThecentreCZ I have been trying to keep the infobox and the Liberland article. The bias is coming from other users who keep calling Liberland a 'scam' or a 'fake'.

ThecentreCZ 13:47, 13 March 2024 (UTC) Yes, you must fight more and call for help.

MicroSupporter 13:55, 13 March 2024 (UTC) @ThecentreCZ Can you help me fight this? I am not a frequent contributor.

AndyTheGrump 14:33, 13 March 2024 (UTC) I would strongly advise you both to read WP:OWN and WP:CANVASS.

: ThecentreCZ 14:46, 13 March 2024 (UTC) Who asked? How did you even get here? You are stating on your page that you are: taking a break permanently, why are you then editing Wikipedia right now and misleading readers thinking that you are not active editor?

MicroSupporter 14:54, 13 March 2024 (UTC) @ThecentreCZ He is a troll who has a very personal problem with micronations. It has been addressed on WP:VPP. He is often called into ANI for insulting other users too judging by his talk page. lol

ThecentreCZ 15:12, 13 March 2024 (UTC) Thank you. Why the hell they removed the box even when RfC request on WP:VPP is still open? Until the end of RfC it should have remained in there. I've looked to the RfC discussion, there are many old acquaintances there like horrible editor leader Number 57. Their disurptive crowd is massive, they are exatly that people founder of Wikipedia Larry Sanger is talking about in his speeches, how Wikipedia is beeing ruined.

MicroSupporter 15:14, 13 March 2024 (UTC) Their behaviour is horrid. I struggle to enjoy editing on Wikipedia because of these people. Andy just threatened me to WP:ANI for merely calling him biased. Something he tends to do every time he doesn't get his way.

MicroSupporter 15:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC) @ThecentreCZ sorry I forgot to tag

and the discussions leading up to this. JoelleJay (talk) 16:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Thryduulf, so by your own admissions, you do not know what the discussion is about, do not know the particulars of the user who is the source of the complaint, and do not know what changes to the article are actually being discussed. but you do know enough about the filer to lodge an accusation of bias because they hold an opinion contrary to your own. what was the purpose of your post, and what do you feel you have brought to the discussion? ValarianB (talk) 16:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I do know what this discussion is about, offer no comment about matters I don't I know about but do offer relevant commentary about the aspects that I do know about. Which is exactly what one is supposed to do when a dispute is brought to these boards. Yes, AndyTheGrump holds an opinion contrary to my own in the VPP discussion, but so do multiple other users. The significant majority of those whom I disagree with in that discussion do not seem to be arguing from a position of bias, AndyTheGrump does and that is important context for their complaints about MicroSupporter. Thryduulf (talk) 18:25, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I will freely admit to being biased. I am biased against using infoboxes to mislead readers as to the status of 'micronations' that are at best deeply contentious, and frequently outright fantasies. I am biased against using infoboxes to present the self-promoting claims of promotors of 'micronations' as fact. I am biased in favour of only using infoboxes for their intended purpose: summarising non-controversial factual information. Such bias is implicit in core Wikipedia policy. Feel free to propose an amendment to said policy if you disagree with it... AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:16, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

As has been explained multiple times in the VPP discussion, that's not the impression your proposals are giving. However let's keep that discussion in one place. Thryduulf (talk) 19:46, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

It would have been a darned sight easier to keep it in one place if you didn't insist on repeatedly using this thread to go on about it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:19, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Comment: I think the drastic changes to the Liberland article are going to need a RFC and not a local talk page consensus. If I heard that the infobox was being removed, or that the article was being substantially revamped, I would have been against a Infobox removal. ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 16:32, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

It is entirely possible that an RfC will ultimately be needed. Starting one, however, generally requires prior discussion of issues with content that need resolution, not unsubstantiated accusations of 'bias'. As I made clear above, I have done everything a could to encourage such discussion, suggesting a draft, and doing nothing to preempt it. I was a little disappointed at the lack of participation, but per WP:BRD it seemed reasonable to at least see how the update was received. As for the infobox issue, clearly the outcome of the WP:VPP discussion will be relevant, but regardless of which way it goes, it need not be a blocker with regard to updating the article as a whole. I would have hoped that any experienced contributor would have looked at the draft in that regard, rather than as another venue for a dispute over a single aspect of it that is already being discussed elsewhere. Quite obviously I'm not suggesting that updating the article to the draft is any sort of 'final version', and I'm quite sure there will be other issues to resolve. Such issues are however content-related, and of no direct concern here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:47, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

It should also be noted that at the time the draft was being written, the Liberland article did not contain an infobox. It had been removed on 6th February, since talk-page discussion seemed to indicate support for doing so. In that regard, the draft was following the existing article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:01, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

FYI, there is a WP:EDITWAR on removing the infobox right now. It should be kept until the RfC discussion is closed. I agree with @ASmallMapleLeaf MicroSupporter (talk) 12:41, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

A) The Liberland article had consensus to remove the infobox before the RfC started
B) There is still consensus to remove the infobox
C) The last stable version of the article does not have an infobox so even if t/p consensus was less clear that is the version it must be kept at
D) The RfC explicitly does not address the question of whether micronation articles should have an infobox (Where articles on micronations use an infobox, should they use..., workshopped out of a discussion where consensus was to specifically avoid asking whether micronations should have infoboxes), so its closure should have no effect on whether Liberland has an infobox
E) ASML, AFAICT, very narrowly escaped a TBAN from ANI as part of their unblock conditions from @Newyorkbrad and @Deepfriedokra so their heavy participation at ANI (27 edits in the last 3 weeks, a full 8% of their total edits) right now perhaps deserves its own scrutiny (as does their trouting of an editor who recently removed her support for ASML's desired micronation infobox format at the RfC). JoelleJay (talk) 13:13, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Il just note when on ANI I have not tried to 'pick sides' and rather tried to help users or diffuse disputes. You also state I 'trouted' an editor at the RFC because they withdrew there vote, that is not good faith in the slightest and was due to them mistakeningly striking another users vote. I have already stated il back consensus, I just think WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is a bad path here. As for my editing on Liberland, I missed the discussion on the 'unrecognised' tag, and do not intend to add it back again if removed.

I don't care about the outcome of this ANI discussion, but I will care if someone such as yourself accuses me of being in the wrong for having a high edit count since my ban appeal on ANI (Mainly reverting Hamish Ross). ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 13:32, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

You are right about the trouting, I've struck that part. LOCALCON is irrelevant when the topic itself is just a local content dispute and does not go against global P&Gs (and the P&Gs for infoboxes specifically state The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article. Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article., so this is exactly where such a discussion should take place). JoelleJay (talk) 13:41, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

it is rather plain to see that a user named "microsupporter" is here to advance a personal opinion about micronations, rather than to contribute to the articles in the spirit of an encyclopedia. especially when they attack editors they disagree with. ValarianB (talk) 16:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

As I have repeated, I may have my personal stance on topics, but I want to re-affirm it doesn't change that I do my best to make sure that the content I write on here is non-biased. Written not in support or against whatever topic it is. I just want to contribute to Wikipedia in a non-biased, neutral perspective. I admit I shouldn't have used some words towards other editors, but I have been frustrated by Andy, and he has made personal attacks towards me in the past. It doesn't make it right for me to do the same back though. MicroSupporter (talk) 18:03, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree that some of the stubs like Liberland Press are not notable enough to have own article, but your behaviour is not convenient even more. I tend to agree that bias as a label this user used is adequate description, but there is no way to prove it other than some inquiry about all of the actions you made by some college of Wikipedians, which is not realistic to happen. Thereof I see using bias-description as just a normal opinion of a Wikipedian about your edits which is fine. As we see that you are person who is opposing traditional micronation infobox on Wikipedia used for years and MicroSupporer supports it, you both shouldn't be involved in this dispute and leave it for impartial editors. It is perfectly okay to have a concern about your purge of the infoboxes you are involved in. People should be concerned with ongoing village pump RfC about this topic, which is participated by well-known company of editors, thats true. People should invite impartial Wikipedians to there, because most of them didn't even noticed it and it is again discussed only by certain kind of users. --ThecentreCZ (talk) 17:12, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support ban/indef-block for MicroSupporer. NOTHERE/SPA. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:33, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  I find this rather saddening for me as I have done nothing but tried to contribute to Wikipedia. I do not believe I am SPA or NOTHERE as I have made contributions to numerous categories per my contributions. However, I am most knowledgable in micronations (Molossia, Liberland, Verdis, Sealand) and unrecognised states (South Ossetia, Artsakh, Abkhazia). We are here to build an encyclopedia aren't we? You are welcome to look through my edits and see I have created nothing but non-biased information (or at least in my eyes). Regardless of my personal support for certain topics just like any other editor on Wikipedia, I have always made sure to make sure it is non-biased (or at least to my knowledge non-biased). MicroSupporter (talk) 18:00, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  @TrangaBellam you're going to need to present evidence of either no significant contributions in and/or disruption to other areas for anything more than a topic ban to be a serious consideration. A quick look at their recent contributions does suggests that while micronations are the single largest topic area they edit in regards, it is not the only one and there is nothing apparently disruptive about their contributions to other topic areas (I'm offering no opinion at this time about this contributions to the micronation topic area, I haven't looked at enough of them in context). Thryduulf (talk) 18:29, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Thryduulf One can start with MicroSupporter's citation of disinformation-media like Parlamentní listy. Or his writing skills by which he managed to write such a long article on a "microstate" — mostly sourced to non-RS, as Andy noted — without mentioning its central aim, which is, to be a tax-free haven. Or ... In any case, civil-POV pushers are the worst and I won't really be wasting my time trying to put a long-list-of-policy-violations. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:42, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  If you want to ban someone you presenting evidence of policy violations is not optional. Thryduulf (talk) 18:43, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  I support report of TrangaBellam to the noticeboard and then subsequent 14-day block for unconstructive behavior. He purges 12 980 bytes of information in article of Liberland, with no intention of revork of the content and leaving the article almost a stub-article. MicroSupporter contibuted also to other topic-articles other than micronations. Support of ban of a new user who in goodwill trying to inprove Wikipedia is disgusting. ThecentreCZ (talk) 18:30, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  Just a check, who do you call "a new user"? The Banner talk 19:46, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  I support this the report of @TrangaBellam He removed a large amount of the Liberland article, a lot of content removed has been on there for years, and well-cited too. MicroSupporter (talk) 20:20, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  Info that you put back into the article. The Banner talk 20:32, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  I reverted his WP:VANDALISM. MicroSupporter (talk) 20:37, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  A content disagreement is not the same as vandalism. The Banner talk 20:56, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  Do not accuse someone of vandalism when it is not. Vandalism has a specific definition here, and false accusations can be considered a personal attack. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:14, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: WP:NCR.ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 18:52, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
• MicroSupporter says I do however support the neutral writing of articles making sure that both views are taken into account. No, we do not balance mainstream views against fringe views like this. The mainstream simply ignores such silliness rather than debunking it, but we don't let that lead us into reporting only the fringe views. I note that that editor, both here and on the talk page, has compared his opponents to children. Most of us grew out of views such as treating micronations as legitimate before we reached puberty. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:20, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. And Thryduulf, I really don't understand what you're trying to accomplish here, but it is an odd hill. El_C 19:32, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Here? A fair examination of the editing of all involved parties. At the VPP discussion, micronations being treated in accordance with NPOV not the negative POV of some editors. Thryduulf (talk) 19:45, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, here. Seemingly disregarding the pro-WP:FRINGE advocacy due to... reasons? El_C 19:56, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

@El C, I think the reasons should be evident from his participation in the micronation infobox RfC... JoelleJay (talk) 20:06, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Where I have been consistently advocating for an NPOV approach, not a pro or anti anything approach. Thryduulf (talk) 20:07, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not disregarding anything - I have no opinion about MicroSupporter's edits because I haven't looked at the evidence sufficiently to have an informed opinion. And I've said that explicitly twice. Whether MS is or is not inappropriately advocating FRINGE has no bearing on whether Andy is editing in accordance with policies. Thryduulf (talk) 20:06, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

So far, you have presented precisely zero evidence of me 'editing against policies'. Disagreeing with your relentless badgering at WP:VPN isn't against policy. Disagreeing with the misuse of infoboxes to present the fringe promotional claims of 'micronation' supporters isn't against policy. Raising attention to the behavioural issues with a single-purpose contributor at ANI isn't against policy. On the other hand, if repeatedly posting in an ANI thread to drag the thread off-topic, while repeatedly failing to even take the time look into the substance of what the thread is actually about isn't against policy, it probably should be. And making repeated claims about policy violations without backing them up with evidence certainly is. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:30, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I am not a single-purpose contributer thanks. I also can't believe I have to repeat this again but just because you don't like something being written about doesn't automatically mean it is 'promotional'. I don't agree with what a lot of micronations do, and I haven't called any of them legitimate (or fake) in my edits either. I have maintained WP:NPOV. MicroSupporter (talk) 20:35, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I call em like I see em, Thryduulf. JoelleJay, what, no link? El_C 20:11, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Here you go. JoelleJay (talk) 20:13, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

In which case you are seeing things in a manner that is contrary to multiple explicit statements, so either present evidence I'm editing in bad faith or withdraw the accusations. Thryduulf (talk) 20:20, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, JoelleJay. Two problems come to mind: AndyTheGrump needs to better condense (here and at the RfC), and Thryduulf is letting issues they have with AndyTheGrump unduly influence their approach here. For example, witness the exchange that JoelleJay cited above, but Thryduulf still only sees AndyTheGrump as the problem, even with that disconcerting conversation in full display! El_C 20:33, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I have explicitly said, at least three times now, that I don't only see AndyTheGrup as the problem, please stop making such incorrect accusations. I have said that I think AndyTheGrump is biased, and that I don't know whether MicroSupporter is or is not biased. I'm not sure how much clearer I can make things. Thryduulf (talk) 20:37, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I've tried my best to maintain WP:NPOV. I do have a personal liking for micronations and unrecognised states, but it doesn't mean I find them legitimate (or fake), more just of interest. If any of my edits show otherwise, I'd appreciate guidance from anyone on how I can make my edits more WP:NPOV and Wikipedia friendly. MicroSupporter (talk) 20:39, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, it still isn't aligning for me, Thryduulf. Yes, you said that, but it isn't reflected in your emphases throughout this complaint, so it seems skewed to me. El_C 20:45, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

How is my talking about things I know and not talking about things I don't know evidence of my endorsing the latter? Why does my explicitly saying I'm neither endorsing or not endorsing things I've not commented on imply that I have any opinion (good or bad) about things such things? Thryduulf (talk) 22:04, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Because the outcome is one-sided, irrespective of one's declared opinion or lack thereof, when items critical of one party are emphasized but not so much the other. Again, I used the example of the exchange that JoelleJay cited above, but this is becoming circular. El_C 22:22, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

If my opinion were the only one expressed then you might have a point, but my only substantive comments here have been to say that Andy has not come here as an innocent bystander and their behaviour needs examining as well. Not instead of MicroSupporter. Not defending, downplaying, exonerating, supporting or anything else towards MicroSupporter. Everything else has been defending myself against unsubstantiated accusations of bias for not expressing an uninformed opinion. Thryduulf (talk) 23:19, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Regarding 'unsubstantiated accusations', are you going to provide any actual evidence (i.e. diffs) to back up your claims that I am 'biased' in a manner contrary to Wikipedia policy, or are we just expected to take your word for it? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:29, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't intending to do more than just do what I did - point people to the entirety of the VPP discussion - because I didn't think that anybody would make anywhere near such a big deal about it. I won't have time to hunt out specific diffs until (probably) tomorrow afternoon or evening UTC though. Thryduulf (talk) 23:34, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

You seem to be making very selective use of your time here. You can't find the time to look into the actual issues behind this thread (which had nothing to do with infoboxes, given that MicroSupporter was entirely wrong in suggesting that the draft was going to remove the infobox - it wasn't in the exiting article either), but you can find the time to drag the thread off-topic to gripe about a WP:VPP thread where you seemingly aren't getting your way. And now, after more griping about 'unsubstantiated accusations', you suddenly run out of time again when asked for substance. So here's a suggestion for you. Make the best use of your time by dropping out of this conversation entirely, and leave your diffs (if you can find any) for a new ANI thread, where we can discuss who exactly is 'biased', who is actually supporting Wikipedia policy om neutrality and due emphasis, and then discuss appropriate behaviour in village pump threads (and on ANI for that matter - I'll no doubt have something to say about dragging threads off-topic, even if you won't). AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:47, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't intending to do more than just do what I did - point people to the entirety of the VPP discussion

Then you're making accusations of bias without evidence, which is personal attack. I suggest you step away from this discussion entirely. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:17, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I have never referred to micronations as legitimate in any of my edits. I always include the term 'micronation' instead of 'country' to make sure the difference is known. If you look at how I edit, you'd see that I have (at least I believe) maintained WP:NPOV, and if I haven't, criticism is welcome. MicroSupporter (talk) 20:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Ban proposal

Question. Are we going to actually do anything about MicroSupporter's behaviour regarding 'micronation' topics? Even putting aside the repeated and entirely unsubstantiated throwing around of accusations of 'bias', we have time and time again seen evidence that MicroSupporter is either incapable of understanding Wikipedia policies, or unwilling to comply with them. MicroSupporter seems entirely incapable of understanding what WP:NPOV is actually about (i.e. due balance, not some imaginary absolute 'neutrality'), seems incapable of distinguishing a reliable source from an unreliable one, repeatedly misrepresents what sources say, (see discussions of a Chicago School of Law article on Talk:Liberland for an example of that) and then lays claim to expertise while failing to provide the slightest evidence for it. Add this to the battleground behaviour and utterly misguided attempts to weaponise Wikipedia terminology to prevent normal editing practice (see e.g. above, describing TrangaBellam's edits to the Liberland article as WP:VANDALISM) and it is difficult to see how MicroSupporter can be of net benefit to the project. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:26, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Removing a large amount of an article without RFC is not normal editing practice. He removed vital information that was on there for years. Also, you have admitted to your WP:BIAS earlier on this ANI. I understand what WP:NPOV is, and I believe I have followed the correct guidelines for edits. If you look at the edits I have made on Liberland and other articles, I have maintained due balance. Your edits do not. You also claim that infoboxes on micronation articles are not appropriate, yet it has the micronation markings and it provides quick access to useful information, which is what a lot of people use the encyclopedia for. MicroSupporter (talk) 12:53, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Removing a large amount of an article without RFC is not normal editing practice. Wrong. you have admitted to your WP:BIAS earlier on this ANI What the fuck are you referring to? Provide a direct quote, NOW. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:58, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I'd ask that you remain WP:CIVIL and mind your language please. You said "I will freely admit to being biased. I am biased against using infoboxes to mislead readers as to the status of 'micronations' that are at best deeply contentious, and frequently outright fantasies.". Also, I will repeat again that I am not the only one accusing you of bias against micronations. MicroSupporter (talk) 13:03, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Also I forgot to type: Infoboxes provide quick access to vital information. It is not 'misleading' and the infobox shows at the top that it is a micronation. MicroSupporter (talk) 13:06, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Given the above response, I formally request that MicroSupporter be blocked indefinitely on grounds of incompetence to edit Wikipedia.. The full post of the material MicroSupporter quotes is as follows: I will freely admit to being biased. I am biased against using infoboxes to mislead readers as to the status of 'micronations' that are at best deeply contentious, and frequently outright fantasies. I am biased against using infoboxes to present the self-promoting claims of promotors of 'micronations' as fact. I am biased in favour of only using infoboxes for their intended purpose: summarising non-controversial factual information. Such bias is implicit in core Wikipedia policy. Feel free to propose an amendment to said policy if you disagree with it... AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:16, 13 March 2024 (UTC). As anyone with even a modicum of common sense will see, I am stating that I am biased in favour of applying Wikipedia policies. And MicroSupporter somehow presents this as evidence against me? This is utterly absurd. If it isn't wilful misinterpretation, it is cluelessness almost beyond comprehension. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:16, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh stop. Everyone knows your bias against micronations. You fail to WP:NPOV. MicroSupporter (talk) 13:41, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Yet more evidence re WP:CIR. Combines battleground mentality with incompetence, and when called out on it, resorts to handing out orders... AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:29, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Not really... and once again, you're one to talk considering your lack of WP:CIVILity and curse words. MicroSupporter (talk) 15:03, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

@MicroSupporter: I think you might want to read WP:YESBIAS, that is:

NPOV means neutral editing, not neutral content. It means "neutrally reflecting what the sources say. It does not mean that the article has to be 'neutral'." We do not document "neutral facts or opinions". Instead, we write about all facts and referenced opinions (that aren't solely based on primary sources) neutrally, even when those facts and opinions present bias.

The sources referred to here are those that meet our WP:SOURCE criteria, one of which is that sources must be independent. YouTube videos like this and the Liberland Foreign Minister [110] clearly do not meet those criteria.

Also, misrepresenting the words of others as you seem to have done above is a violation of WP:TPNO. Please do not do it again. — Kaalakaa ^(talk) 18:59, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support ban. MicroSupporter is very clearly WP:NOTHERE to write an encyclopedia. He is aggressively pushing a POV, to the point of edit warring on behalf of the inclusion of patent original research, unacceptably shitty self-published primary sources, and known conspiracist disinformation blogs. He has responded to WP:CANVASSING on his talk page by agreeing to be part (or remain part) of a coordinated bias-pushing brigade. When called out, he explodes into bursts of ad hominems and ad populums. He has a long and colourful history of being unwilling to learn. I was willing to remain on the sidelines until ten minutes ago but his demonstrable untruths here in this thread and his most recent dumb edit war have pushed me, to slightly mix metaphors, off the fence. GR Kraml (talk) 13:35, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Self published primary sources? The information on the infobox shows nothing but the size of the claimed area, the flag and the coat of arms, all of which is in your newly proposed article anyway. An infobox shows information already visible in the article but just makes it easier to access. I do not understand why you and @AndyTheGrump are so upset over the existence of an infobox and don't just wait for WP:VPP to be resolved. What self published sources did I ever add to the infobox by the way? This is misleading. MicroSupporter (talk) 13:39, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose ban. As a editor who has been editing on Wikipedia just for 2 years, MicroSupporter doesn't need to know every possible rule as on here and he is acting in accordance with good will editing. I would like to say that using cursing words here are not something I would approve so I would like to ask @AndyTheGrump who is cursing in the discussion to immediately apologize for saying vulgar words or I will be requiring ban for him. Thank you. --ThecentreCZ (talk) 15:13, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  Aren't you the person who started the canvassing we're discussing here? GR Kraml (talk) 15:25, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  I don't see how he was canvassing? I was already involved in the discussions on Talk:Liberland. MicroSupporter (talk) 15:37, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Yes, you must fight more and call for help. [111] Canvassing to engage in battleground behaviour. A call which was clearly responded to as requested. ThecentreCZ would probably be well-advised to avoid drawing further attention to their abject disregard for Wikipedia policy in that thread, before someone decides it is block-worthy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:52, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  I was already fighting and I did not call for any help. MicroSupporter (talk) 16:00, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• I was already fighting... Indeed. Hence my suggestion that battleground behaviour be included in the many reasons why you shouldn't be contributing to Wikipedia. As for whether ThecentreCZ's suggestion that you 'fight more' influenced you, or your subsequent escalation was purely your own choice, it doesn't really matter. Canvassing is still canvassing, even if it doesn't actually have any concrete results. It's the intent that counts. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:31, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Request for @AndyTheGrump, @GR Kraml to be blocked from editing on Wikipedia indefinitely. While I may not be perfect in my responses or editing (no Wikipedia editor is), I at least owned up to my mistakes such as my personal attacks. I apologised and made sure to understand that we are all here to build an encyclopedia. I was going to consider adding @The Banner to this, but I can only find him to have WP:BIAS. I cannot find any foul language.

Unfortunately, @AndyTheGrump has used personal attacks on users countless times. I can't even count the amount of times he has been mentioned in ANI or been warned for personal attacks. Yet he is still roaming around completely scot-free. Look at his talk page for some of his warnings.. He fails WP:CIVIL (foul language, REPEATED personal attacks), WP:NPOV (yes I know I'm not perfect too, allegedly) and WP:BIAS. Whether or not he has admitted to his bias against micronations, but it looks pretty obvious to me judging by his wording on Talk:Liberland, WP:VPP and WP:ANI.

@GR Kraml is quite close to being WP:SPA. Immediately after his account was created he basically just started making a Liberland article. He has also acted in WP:BIAS on his recent Liberland article proposal instead of WP:NPOV. Go check it out for yourself.

MicroSupporter (talk) 15:56, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

This should be fun... AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:04, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Immediately after his account was created he basically just started making a Liberland article The draft article MicroSupporter references is here. I'm fairly proud of it. It's a comprehensive but still reasonably succinct encyclopedia article on the Liberland project, well supported by reliable sources. It's a clear and drastic improvement over the unstructured jumble of trivia, bullshit cited to self-published primary sources, and random original research that was the live article at the time. GR Kraml (talk) 16:22, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

So you want everybody blocked who does not agree with your opinion, MicroSupporter? The Banner talk 16:25, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

No. I did not request for you to be blocked or any of the others in the discussions such as Donald Albury. Only the two users I have listed above. But please, change the narrative as you like it. MicroSupporter (talk) 16:35, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Support block but not a ban At this moment it is clear that @MicroSupporter is not here to build a neutral encyclopedia. This is evidently by his attempt to get everybody blocked who disagrees with him. The Banner talk 16:25, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Ok look at my contributions and tell me they are not neutral. Please show me. MicroSupporter (talk) 16:33, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

The edit war over the infobox? The Banner talk 17:07, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

What's that got to do with neutrality of information? All the infobox does is simplify the information that is already in the paragraphs of the article. MicroSupporter (talk) 17:21, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Liberland#Proposal to remove the infobox. Here you start with the bias story. The Banner talk 17:52, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Please quote the bias. All I see is trying to keep the info box because it contains information that is further down the page in paragraphs anyway. And me saying people living there is a fact, not an opinion. There are people sleeping there. I don’t see how that’s bias. For the record, I am not even a Liberlander and while I do find the project interesting, it doesn’t mean I support it or am against it. MicroSupporter (talk) 18:04, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Your edit here. The Banner talk 18:18, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, where is the bias? I said it has notability, and it does. I’d the BBC, Radio Free Europe, CNN, Al Jazeera and VICE aren’t reliable sources, I don’t know what are. All I did was provide information about Liberland’s history in that message. All of which is easy to reference. I’m not saying “I support Liberland and for that reason it should be there” MicroSupporter (talk) 18:24, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

You are unable to read your own edit??? Or did you never look at that edit? The Banner talk 19:10, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Support ban, due to repeated WP:NPAs in this discussion, failure to listen to others, and unwillingness to abide by WP:DUE in micronation article content. If a full ban does not have support, then I propose a topic ban from the subject of micronations (which is effectively a ban anyway given the users focus). — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:35, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support ban due to clearly being an WP:SPA here to edit tendentiously about micronations; a topic-ban from micronations broadly construed might be worth considering as an alternative, but since they're an SPA who shows no hint of contrition or recognition of what they've done wrong, there's little point, since there's not much hope they'd edit constructively elsewhere. I'd say what they're doing is WP:CIVILPOV but the WP:ASPERSIONS above accusing basically everyone who disagrees with them of bias (when they named themselves MicroSupporter!) can hardly be called civil. --Aquillion (talk) 19:13, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support block/ban MS clearly lacks the decorum needed to engage in collaborative discussions regarding editing. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:14, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, I have decided to leave English Wikipedia for good. There are too many users who cunningly act like Number 57 by removing infoboxes for literally no reason. It's sad that this started all over an infobox which provided basic information that was already well-cited further down in the article in paragraphs, and still is. There was no reason to remove the infobox regardless of people's views on if Liberland was 'legitimate' or 'fake'. Infoboxes are there to provide quick information that is already in the article, and the infobox I argued to keep had been there since 2015. I have been called out for WP:BIAS because I have an interest in micronations (Sealand, Liberland, etc) and unrecognised states (Transnistria, Somaliland, Ambazonia, etc) and have made by views clear in talk pages just like everyone else who has participated in this discussion, but my edits on live articles have not shown any bias and until someone can show me that I made any edits outside of talk pages with WP:BIAS, I will continue to keep this view. I kept WP:CIVIL (aside from one or two personal attacks, but no curse words). People want micronations removed because they are 'fake'. I don't disagree that they are fake countries, and I don't disagree that they aren't. You are forgetting the insane coverage micronations (like Liberland) have had, and its content should remain on Wikipedia due to its notability, not removed because of your personal views and because you think its a scam. Back the points up with sources but make sure to keep WP:NPOV.

Wikipedia has become a load of trash ran by admins and users who think that changing information on Wikipedia changes the entire narrative of a subject worldwide, and gatekeep anything they disagree with regardless of its notability. An excuse can be found anywhere. The removal of infoboxes is a childish way of getting these arguments started, and blatantly calling something promotion is just another excuse to get rid of something, even if an article has WP:RS.

So with that, I bid farewell, and I truly hope for a downfall of Wikipedia and the growth of a new, unbiased encyclopedia in the future. You know, one that hasn't fallen into the hands of admins that even the founder hates. Stop re-writing articles to fit to your own narratives. I know I'm going to get some last-minute childish responses to this but do as you please. Just proves my point. Goodbye. MicroSupporter (talk) 20:19, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Note: I said something like this on my talk page when I got blocked in a more disputable circumstances (minus the bad site bit). I came back a week later. Honestly, I urge you just cool off, come back fresh soon. I also hope you consider my own perspective on the debate: I do think that the infobox on Liberland should be kept in some way. However, a key lesson to learn on Wikipedia is that in regards to debates such as this, in which there appears to be a consensus against you, is ultimately there is no shame in admitting others disagree with you for there own reasons, and that you won't be able to prevent a change. Even if I were (hypothetically, I never have been) absolutely against a suggestion from someone, like you are, and it passed, why not just say "what gives?". Because if Wikipedia is indeed 'biased', at least you, from your standpoint , didn't cause it. Your probably going to be blocked here, but if you do come back, I'd be keen to see your appeal to it. Again, cool off, reread this thread in a few weeks, and learn from what others have told you. Because ultimately, you don't have to agree with other editors - you just need to acknowledge them as an equal, and someone with a much intent in improving wikipedia as much as you do. Ciao. ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 20:53, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support for the above comment alone. Dramatic threats to leave are tendentious editing behavior. You are not irreplaceable. Most editors occasionally wonder why they're investing so much blood, sweat, and tears into Wikipedia. However, it is inappropriate to use threats of leaving as emotional blackmail, in order to try to win in a dispute. Doing so demands an excessive amount of emotional labor from other editors, and is never a valid rationale for consensus in a dispute. Emotional outbursts, especially when habitual, are a poor substitute for reasoned and collaborative discussion. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 18:02, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support a WP:CIR block for wanting to play a big role in a clearly problematic area of the encyclopedia while facing an inability to handle disputes and having a POV-pushing attitude with a propensity for casting aspersions and wikilawyering, as exemplified in their comment starting with Request for @AndyTheGrump, @GR Kraml to be blocked from editing on Wikipedia indefinitely (a banal self-preservation tactic of moving the Overton window, and asking for more to settle for less) and seen in their lack of understanding of the editorial process expressed in Removing a large amount of an article without RFC is not normal editing practice and other comments. Not opposed to a ban of any kind, but this kind of basic disruption is more block-worthy than ban-worthy I feel.—Alalch E. 22:56, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support indef block due to the repeated battleground behavior. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 04:41, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  We might also need to consider whether the same sanction might be appropriate for ThecentreCZ. This edit sets off the battleground alarm bells. Also, the cognitive dissonance of demanding that Andy apologize for using profanity less than a day after ThecentreCZ posted this message suggests an amusing lack of self-awareness. That latter diff also contains an undisguised personal attack against Number57, who was similarly attacked above by MicroSupporter. If ThecentreCZ isn't prepared to convince us that this behavior will not be repeated, a second block proposal may be in order. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 04:58, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  I'd be on board with this. ThecentreCZ has shown the same agenda as MicroSupporter, the same willingness to brigade articles and broadly the same lack of introspection. Looking at their talk page, they are now also showing the same aggressive unwillingness to familiarise themselves with guidelines and conventions. GR Kraml (talk) 10:55, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support MS's battleground behaviour is a blockable offence itself. I also agree with a possible proposal to tban/block ThecentreCZ. Lavalizard101 (talk) 12:05, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support some kind of action. After a consensus on a talk page to remove an infobox, they responded to canvassing to restore the infobox against that consensus. Consensus can change but discussion not battle ground behaviour is required in doing so. That and the continued aspersions shown in this discussion show something needs to be done. A block with a topic ban from the area if they return is probably the best idea. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:11, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  Thats not true. There was no official opened RfC at the Liberland page. I haven't even participated in editing of Liberland page. Only thing I argued about is that I refused to revert and remove parts of the article before official closure of the RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), where I support consensus. As I see it there RfC wasn't officially closed there. ThecentreCZ (talk) 17:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  That's correct, there was no RfC. RfCs have never been a requirement to come to a consensus. Consensus isn't even a requirement to make an edit - see e.g. WP:BRD. The infobox was removed before the WP:VPP RFC started, and its removal had not been contested. This is tendentious Wikilawyering, coming from someone who clearly doesn't even understand normal Wikipedia practice. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:55, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  Thats not true, yes it is a simple reading of the talk page showed that it was.
  There was no official opened RfC at the Liberland page, RFCs are not required to form a consensus. They are one way of doing so if the more normal methods of 'consensus by editing' or 'consensus by discussion' have already failed.
  Only thing I argued about is that I refused to revert and remove parts of the article before official closure of the RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) that RFC didn't start to a while after the concensus at the articles talk page had been reached. As I said consensus can change, but that should happen through discussion not canvassing and editing against the current consensus because you don't like it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:55, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support block/ban for both MicroSupporter and The centreCZ. NOTHERE. JoelleJay (talk) 17:47, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

  According to what? WP:NOTHERE means: Here to build an encyclopedia. I've been helping building Wikipedia for 10 years. I've supported the new user to be involved in the discussion RfD regarding the infoboxes, because there was absolute majority of editors who supports removal of INFOBOX, which was on articles of Micronations from 10 YEARS, and in 2015 it was exactly opposite as the most of the editors supported INFOBOXES to the Liberland page and others. I just supported this custom. I always supports consensus results of RfC, but this one was not closed yet. Nobody even said to participate in edit war, I didn't support anything like that by the new user. ThecentreCZ (talk) 18:16, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Note: ThecentreCZ has been blocked. Per the 2nd discussion below on unconnected aspects of ThecentreCZ's behaviour, [112] Drmies has blocked ThecentreCZ for a month, with a comment that "A next block might as well be an indef-block". AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:29, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I have indefinitely blocked MicroSupporter for disruptive editing, due to the consensus in this discussion and their declared intent to leave Wikipedia. Cullen328 (talk) 19:10, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

ThecentreCZ - Personal Attacks and Sourcing

I would like to report @ThecentreCZ: for personal attacks and their persistent refusal to provide sourcing despite multiple users requesting it.

Below are personal attacks I have found from just their talk page:

1. 1 Referring to me as the "ruiner of information" for requesting sourcing.
2. 2 Insulting somebody in Czech "protože jsi otravný trudeauovec" (because you're an annoying Trudeau) and then trying to say that it was not an insult [113].
3. 3 They were previously informed of their civility against User:Buidhe back in July 2020.

ThecentreCZ's sourcing problems have been a years long dispute that has involved multiple editors.

1. 1 User:Buidhe informed them of their poor sourcing and informed them that they could be sanctioned for it. ThecentreCZ's response was "Lol you are such a admin".
2. 2 ThecentreCZ was told to not add unsourced materials to List of suicides.
3. 3 A conversation between User:Number 57 and ThecentreCZ regarding sourcing on the page Progressive Liberal Party (Bulgaria). ThecentreCZ stated that "On foundation date verifiability doesn't apply" and "this radical sourcing purges are nonsense".
4. 4 A conversation between me and ThecentreCZ about the sourcing for List of banned political parties in which he claims that lists do not need sourcing. Two other users have also brought up his actions in regard to this post. User:Lepricavark and User:GR Kraml

Jon698 (talk) 14:57, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

It should be noted that administrative action against ThecentreCZ is also being discussed separately above in this section. Canterbury Tail talk 15:02, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

This should probably be combined under the above thread as a new subsection. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 16:26, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

This narcissistic comment on MicroSupporter's Talk Page sounds like a Star Wars Villain berating one of his subordinates, not a good faith Wikipedia user. As someone involved in the discussion at Liberland, I consider him to be the weakest link in the discussion there. Support sanctions as I cannot under any circumstances support his current behaviour. ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 16:27, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

1. [114] In 2021, without any evidence, he declared my edits “absolutely horrible.” He stated that I "should stop editing Wikipedia as soon as possible". I don't consider this to be appropriate behavior.

2. [115] In 2022, he accused me of something I didn't do, saying I was "vandalizing" Wikipedia. He urged me to stop editing Wikipedia, saying that I allegedly did not know the rules. I don't consider this to be appropriate behavior.

3. I didn't include his inappropriate behavior in the Wikimedia Commons discussions (like "Sometimes you can help Wikipedia by not doing anything"), but if so, you might want to look at it - [116].

This his behavior is global and does not differ in all wiki projects, so I Support the sanctions. PLATEL (talk) 16:54, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

ThecentreCZ has now doubled down by commenting at the OP's talk page here with a ridiculous 'other stuff exists' question. They do not seem to grasp that their ability to edit here is hanging in the balance. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 17:04, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

My response: This looks like a rally of people, who doesn't like my edits regardles if their edits was right or false. Looks like they pull out old edits when I even wasn't of legal age and didn't had any experience with editing Wikipedia. I would like to gradually comment on all points:

• 1) Its not true that I don't support sourcing, truth is that in this dispute I opposed him that he didn't added template:source? to the inputs and firstly didn't removed all the non-proper information. Just randomly reverted information added.
• 2) This was concerning random revert of SOURCED information added on the page of Orders, decorations, and medals of Slovakia by Revirvlkodlaku, who is stating their official political affiliations on his profile. Your translation is not quite right, its not any personal attack at all, there is not inproper wording in it. This editing conflict was won by me. He probably agreed he was not right and left it. Material I added to the page still remains there because its right and he was wrong.
• 3) and 4) This is 5 YEARS old dispute, I was not of legal age and I was occasional editor on Wikipedia. When I was in school even made jokes on Wikipedia, which has nothing to do with today. BOTH 2019–2020.
• 5) In this edit I made a mistake that was no dispute at all, I added information about suicide of Jan Masaryk. In 2023 was discovered by official authorities, that Minister of Foreign Affairs Jan Masaryk (death in 1948) was probably killed by diplomat Jan Bydžovský. It was not known in 2022.
• 6) Normal dispute about material on the article of Progressive Liberal Party. Information I added is as of today published there after sourcing was solved by discussion and afterwards of adding proper references. I don't know any editors who never bumped of to some disputes.
• 7) List of banned political parties – user Jon698 started editing dispute about my added information, which is sourced in the articles. Only after my responds to him, he changed his view and later removed more information from the page which he before left in there. This dispute is still ongoing and is not resolved – Jon698 probably got angry and therefore started this noticeboard. It was proper discussion and I don't see anything bad on it.

• 8) User PLATEL is a political editor, who previously made later removed pro-Russian edits. He uploaded tens of unsourced, copyrighted and other images on Wikimedia Commons, which I helped to categorize and also nominated some of the for DELETION, where they was later removed. I am active editor on Wikimedia Commons. He is probably not happy that I legally removed some of his files in good will editing. Thank you. --ThecentreCZ (talk) 17:34, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Notably, you have failed to elaborate on your edit(s) at @MicroSupporter talk page. Which are not acceptable by any metric. ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 17:39, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

In case of dispute in Liberland article, I was just saying to the newbie editor to participate in the discussion regarding the changes in the article. As now we see that he probably left editing for good, although he made some SOURCED contributions for the Good of Wikipedia. I doesn't see anything wrong with helping new editors, as I wasn't even participated on the editing of the article. Only thing I was supporting there was consensus on the Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) after the RfC there is closed. There was ongoing edit war at the Liberland article. Thank you. - ThecentreCZ (talk) 17:47, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

'Helping new editors' Well thats an excellent non response to gaslighting, manipulating and guilt tripping a vulnerable user on a subject they cared about, before egging them on from the sidelines into doing things they might not have done previously. Your 'good cop, bad cop' edit contrast between me and PLATEL has not gone unnoticed as well. I am disgusted with you and your actions. ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 18:02, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

(8) I don't know what you mean when you say "pro-Russian edits". I would like you to give an example of such edits. I think your attempt to transfer this conflict into the political field is inadequate. Yes, I am a political editor, but not in the sense of my political bias (everyone has a bias, let's be honest), but in the sense of the fact that I edit and create articles on political topics.

In 2021 I actually uploaded copyrighted images to Wikimedia Commons and I did it out of ignorance and soon stopped doing it after realizing how it works. Thank you for deleting my images that were uploaded due to my inexperience and ignorance, but I do not accept your behavior saying that I should not touch Wikipedia. I'm reporting you not because I'm offended by you because you deleted these images, but because you behaved inappropriately and rudely. PLATEL (talk) 17:45, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• "Its not true that I don't support sourcing" You have repeatedly refused to add sourcing to your claims and claimed non-existent rules about why you don't need to add sourcing. As for List of banned political parties "which is sourced in the articles" is irrelevant. You must bring those sources over with the information. I specifically asked you to do so and you outright refused. Jon698 (talk) 17:48, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• Those years old incidents are included because this is about your persistent rude behavior and sourcing problem. Also your behavior to User:PLATEL in this thread is even more evidence of that. You are randomly accusing an editor of being pro-Russia with no evidence. Jon698 (talk) 17:51, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

You state on your page that you support Neo-Stalinism and you were editing political parties, where some information was deleted. I still agree that your edits in the past were in many cases unsourced or wrongly added. I am not aware of any inappropriate editing regarding you, right now there is some of my ongoing deletion requests of files uploaded by you at Commons. Most of your wrong uploaded files were already solved. It is good that you now mostly upload adequate files. Thank you ThecentreCZ (talk) 17:55, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I can include information on my page that does not violate Wikipedia rules. I don’t see that Neo-Stalinism is something forbidden on Wikipedia. And I don’t understand what you mean by the phrase “you were editing political parties, where some information was deleted”. I asked you to give a specific example of my “pro-Russian edits,” which you did not do, but you pointed out my ideological position. I consider this disrespectful behavior and a low level of discussion. PLATEL (talk) 18:09, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@Jon698: You right now removed my question I asked you in your talk page discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jon698&diff=prev&oldid=1213873089 I am not aware that this is allowed. You REFUSE TO DISCUSS disputes and you claiming that I does not support sourcing, which is not true. --ThecentreCZ (talk) 18:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• It is an irrelevant question. The existence of a poorly sourced page does not give permission for you to add unsourced content. I challenge you to go through Wikipedia:Featured lists and find a single page with no sourcing. Jon698 (talk) 18:10, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

If after ten years of editing you are not aware that editors are allowed to remove questions from their own talk pages, then you should stop claiming to know anything about Wikipedia rules and protocol. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 18:20, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

The editor has a fairly long history of disruptive editing--meaning, specifically, edit warring and harassment/personal attacks, and on top of that it seems clear that they are also forgetting about one of the basic tenets: proper sourcing. This ANI thread makes clear that previous behaviors are still being repeated. I've blocked for a month. A next block might as well be an indef-block. Drmies (talk) 18:22, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I was gonna block indef, Drmies, because in this instance, I believe there needs to be considerable assurances made on their part before editing privileges are to be reinstated (I already expressed some concerns in the earlier thread Lepricavark had linked which were based on just one piece of evidence) — but you beat me to it. Oh well. El_C 18:46, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Noting also that I've now merged the two threads. El_C 19:18, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Just want to add that this is not the first time ThecentreCZ has been disrespectful and failed to provide any sources for their additions. Back in 2022, a discussion on WikiProject Politics was opened regarding the addition of "flags" to articles of Dutch political parties that were uploaded by ThecentreCZ. The flags were ultimately removed but more importantly, ThecentreCZ failed to provide evidence that these flags actually exist (except CDA). A year later, I found out that ThecentreCZ did the same thing for Danish parties, I submitted the uploads for deletion considering that they contained no sources that would confirm that these flags exist. ThecentreCZ ended up opening a long discussion on my Commons talk page in which they refused to provide any evidence for their uploads and called me a "toxic autist Serb" for challenging his unsourced uploads. This eventually was moved to the Administrators' noticeboard (second AN discussion) where ThecentreCZ continued to refuse to provide any sources and only apologised for the "Serb" part in the "toxic autist Serb" comment they left me on my talk page. I've also spotted them logging out of Wikipedia to revert an edit and call another editor an "autist" on the Freedom and Direct Democracy article. There was a more productive discussion on WikiProject Politics regarding these uploads but it was ultimately decided that the flags ThecentreCZ uploaded should be removed. --Vacant0 (talk) 18:24, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, they've also called me an "autist",[117] and a retard, as well as making clearly uncollaborative edit summaries like "not your business" when restoring unsourced information (I think this was around the same time they claimed WP:V did not apply to infoboxes). Number 57 00:31, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Remarkable. Let's make this a permaban and be done with it. Captain Edgelord is multiple years away from the maturity necessary to collaborate here, and by the time he gets there he will by definition have lost interest in his old account. GR Kraml (talk) 08:09, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Support indef: One does not simply cry 'autist' and return in 30 days a reformed person. ASmallMapleLeaf (talk) 09:35, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

I second this. Vacant0 (talk) 11:58, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

You have my support too. PLATEL (talk) 13:59, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. ThecentreCZ is temperamentally unsuited for this project. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 14:08, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Upgrading to indef seems reasonable. —Alalch E. 15:04, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Some insults are totally unacceptable, and "autist" and "retard" are two of them. Narky Blert (talk) 16:32, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Ping Drmies, who placed the original one-month block for unrelated behavioural issues - thoughts on increasing to indefinite? I tend to agree with the above half-a-dozen editors that those two discriminatory slurs in particular are totally unacceptable here. Daniel (talk) 20:59, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

More than 10,000 edits and 10 years of tenure, and @ThecenterCZ still doesn't seem to quite get WP:V [118]; this is very worrying. Even more so after seeing how aggressively they reacted when asked for the sources of their additions. Not to mention the use of the very unfortunate disease, autism, as an insult. This is very disrespectful to people with the condition, their families, and the editors the word is intended to offend. I don't see a problem if @EI_C or any other admin wants to raise the block to indef. — Kaalakaa ^(talk) 16:34, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Please note, autism is NOT a disease. It is a neurological condition, and autistic people are neither unhealthier nor healthier than neurotypical people. And of course, use of the term to demean or discredit others is totally unacceptable, and should automatically lead to a block. RolandR (talk) 18:34, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I see that there is plenty of agreement for an indef-block for User:ThecentreCZ; so ordered. Drmies (talk) 21:29, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

User:Baregill demanding real-life info of another editor

Whatever this may be referencing, it appears to be a demand breaching WP:LEGAL. AllyD (talk) 21:47, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I reverted their edit in the meantime. – 2804:F14:80C6:A301:7882:1084:83FD:9EF (talk) 21:59, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Indefinitely blocked. Daniel (talk) 22:06, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Copyright is not a legal threat. Q ^{T C} 22:08, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

From WP:LEGAL: "A legal threat, in this context, is a threat to engage in an off-wiki ("real life") legal or other governmental process that would target other editors or Wikipedia itself."

That is literally what that was. – 2804:F14:80C6:A301:7882:1084:83FD:9EF (talk) 22:10, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Saying legal notice will be sent to your email id is an unambiguous legal threat. — Czello ^(music) 22:13, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Per the two above, and "sheeeeesh". Daniel (talk) 22:15, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Just per WP:DOLT, I had a quick look at Special:ListFiles/Jackjack786110 but don't see anything to be worried about. The only two remaining image uploads are just logos used under WP:NFCC. Jackjack786110 has no contributions on Commons [119]. Considering the blocked editor's other contribution is [120] and this discussion Talk:Dnyaneshwar Vidyapeeth#Foreign credential evaluation refers to the same things (copyright complaints and Vinod Tawde), I'm fairly sure this is about File:Dnyaneshwar Vidyapeeth (logo).jpg but that's a logo for a educational institution used on that educational institutions page so is not likely a copyright concern in the US, nor a policy one. Nil Einne (talk) 02:39, 16 March 2024 (UTC) Edit: Sorry I linked to the wrong thing earlier. I meant Talk:Dnyaneshwar Vidyapeeth#wrong information uploaded against BJP as well as use copy righted image Nil Einne (talk) 11:57, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

OTOH, I do wonder what's going on with User:Baba9, User:Vinode Tawde BJP and the blocked editor. Are they coming here due to some sort of off-site attention, or are they WP:SOCKS? Nil Einne (talk) 02:54, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be a user name violation, since it implicitly claims to be the account of Vinod Tawde? It appears to be some off-wiki coordination, elections are due in the next few weeks and Wikipedia is likely treated similar to Facebook/Insta/Twitter by these campaigns! —SpacemanSpiff 07:41, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Ok, to give a little clarity what is happening on those talk pages. In English orthography, "<a>" usually represents orange vowels (bare, base), red vowels (bat, father), muddy grey vowels (above, heard), and occasionally yellow vowels (quay, bead) . In a non-official, internet Latin alphabet orthography of Hindi (which I think is being used there) "<a>" only represents the candy apple red "father" vowel or the French grey vowel schwa. Mostly the red vowel, but as often as not the grey one. Umm, *everyone* sees vowels as having colours, right?--Shirt58 (talk) 🦘 09:35, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Possibly, I did find the mention if that politician a bit odd. OTOH, some of the demands seem to be more about trying to make the institution sound better. Perhaps this is just so that people searching for info on politicians who got qualification from it don't find out about it. But despite our article implying it's dead, I'm fairly sure it's not so I'm wondering if it's just a typical PR or student trying to make the institution sound better than it is. Nil Einne (talk) 12:38, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I took some time and figured out what's going on. These are all linked accounts (sock or meat, I can't say) that likely belong to the political campaign. My Marathi is poor and I can only get a high level understanding of what they've written, any nuances are lost on me. The accounts are unhappy that this reference is used in the article and the associated sentence. "Image" that they are referring to is not a picture but the person's reputation which they feel is being ruined by this sentence. The accounts are saying (not everything related to just this article but I guess it's a coordination spot for them):

1. BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party) has a good name and Wikipedia is defaming a person to play dirty politics
2. Wikipedia is using the wrong map of India
3. The news is wrong, so remove it; there is no report against Vinod Tawde, remove his name
4. The article defames Indian universities such as Nalanda etc; a linked English statement says Oxford and Harvard (misspelled) don't require certificates from UGC, so this one doesn't either (UGC (University Grants Commission (India) -- the accreditation board in India that allows institutions to award degrees)

As for reality, there's a lot of news articles around the "non-accreditation" of this particular place (e.g.1, 2). I've got a headache now, so if someone else wants to deal with this, please go ahead! —SpacemanSpiff 12:43, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm not totally convinced they just mean person's reputation by image/picture. It's a little strange they'd think they can sue someone over violating copyright because they used the person's reputation (image) without their permission. More significantly, Jackjack786110 seems an odd person to target if it is not the logo which also concerns them since as far I can tell, their edits were if anything promotional [121] [122]. Still the basics of what you say seems perfectly plausible, their key concern is that it's giving some politicians a bad name rather than anything else so if that's your read of the situation then I have no reason to doubt it. (The copyright thing is I guess just them trying to find whatever they can to complain about the article.) Nil Einne (talk) 15:40, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

User:AndyFielding

Longterm disruptive removals of birth place/date from Early life sections (examples: 1, 2, 3, 4). User never responds to talk page warnings (or any talk page comments at all) --FMSky (talk) 15:12, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

This editor began editing in 2007, has made ~17k edits, the vast majority of which are almost certainly good, and has never been blocked. Since the start of his editing he has been using talk pages and has around 1300 edits in talk spaces. On 3 April 2018 he wrote on his user page: If you disagree with any of my changes, or have questions about them, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Very disappointingly, on 15 July 2020, he changed this to I'm afraid I don't have time to engage in debates about my changes. If you disagree with some, undo them if you must— ... Since then, he has not stopped being communicative, and has, for example, made more edits to talk pages in 2022 then in all of the previous years combined.

So this editor definitely talks in general, but consciously refuses to engage when editors inform him that some of his edits are wrong. Which is not collaborative. AndyFielding should commit to engage in consensus building, and that he understands that receiving feedback from other editors and participating in ocassional disputes does not have to be a "debate" every time. —Alalch E. 16:33, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

See also this announcement on the editor's talk page:

Attention to reversals, feedback, etc.

I'm sorry I don't have more time to attend to this page. If you feel compelled to undo any of my edits, it's your prerogative—although for the most part, only factual oversights should need correction, as my primary focus is on simpler language. (In reference works, “less is more”.)
As a career writer and copy editor, I'm reasonably confident my contributions benefit WP's readers. Thus I'll continue to follow founder Jimmy Wales's injunction to be bold. As he said: “If you don't find one of your edits being reverted now and then, perhaps you're not being bold enough.”
Cheers, A.
— User:AndyFielding 01:50, 9 January 2019

—Alalch E. 16:45, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

The core issue here seems to be a content issue. Have they been reverting at all to enforce their preferred version? A quick look at the diffs above shows several constructive changes mixed in with the clearly controversial birth date removals, which they're saying is based on redundancy grounds. Is he just doing step one of WP:BRD, and then simply conceding any subsequent discussion? They do have several edits to article talk pages recently, but at first glance nearly all of those appear to be WP:FORUM discussions rather than anything editing related. So clearly they have time to be engaging in consensus building and simply choose not to, which ain't great even if it's unclear whether that's actually disrupting anything. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 18:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

On 29 November 2022, FMSky writes the following to AndyFielding (diff, emphasis added):

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reese_Witherspoon&diff=next&oldid=1109721746
stop making these kinds of idiotic edits. the point of having the full name/birth date there is that you can put a source behind it --FMSky (talk) 09:51, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Prior to that, FMSky's added an inappropriate {{uw-vandalism2}} warning issued on 3 October 2022, with an added STOP REMOVING BIRTH NAMES/BIRTH DATES okay?? (diff), but I now see that it all started on Sept 24, with an identical message as the Nov one, except supplant idiotic with "nonsensical" and a different url cited (diff). And now, here we are: March 2024.

What I don't understand, so maybe FMSky can explain this, is the problem with removing the full birth date and names from the body when that info is already mentioned in the lead (AndyFielding's 'redundancy,' 'simplicity,' etc.)? What makes these disruptive removals? Because a reference could be added to a lead, especially as a single footnote as opposed to a normal ref (i.e. so as to prevent the littering the lead with refs). But as much as I disapprove of how FMSky conducted themselves here, AndyFielding stonewalling the issue and continuing to do so for additional pages, even if not reverting anything, might not be ideal. But how intensive and extensive is it? Who knows. And it's not like there's a rule, for or against, such removals. El_C 08:09, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Maybe read what other users have posted on his talk page instead of analysing a post by me made 2 years ago. The better question is why do you think its fine to have a sentence that reads "Poulter was born". Also tagging @Soetermans: who also left a number of talk page messages on the user's page FMSky (talk) 11:30, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

FMSky, I will analyze and review what I see fit and in the manner and pace I see fit. And I find your own misconduct is pertinent. El_C 11:54, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for feedback on my behaviour 2 years. Now, whats actually relevant: Why do you think its fine to have a sentence that reads "Poulter was born" and what do you think about the comments by other users on his page? --FMSky (talk) 11:58, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

FMSky, I have no opinion on that, but you need to take it down a notch, or I will block you from this noticeboard. El_C 12:07, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes my bad, I wont post in this thread any further. I feel uncomfortable being on this page anyway (that was originally the reason why I didnt made a report earlier) --FMSky (talk) 12:14, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

That might be best for now. Your reports generally tend to be subpar (lacking context and depth), I'm sorry to say. And same for the history of your interactions with the user whom you've reported. Certainly room for improvement. El_C 12:22, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi El_C, perhaps other people disagree about repeating a date of birth and that's fine. This is a collaborative effort and we try to find a consensus. But as I read WP:LEAD, it is the summation of the article. Any information there should be in the article as well. We try to keep references out of the lead too (WP:REFLEAD). So it makes perfect sense to mention a date of birth in the lead and mention it in an early life section, if there is one. AndyFielding has been asked repeatedly to stop and hasn't communicated a bit about the issue. But after so many talk page messages and formal warnings, you can't feign ignorance and leave edit summaries like:

• "Suggestions for simplicity, WP style (surname except to avoid ambiguity), omitting redundant detail (birth date in lede)"
• "Suggestions for simplicity (birth date in lede)
• "I don't know what it is about celebrity articles that induces so many WP writers to redundantly repeat these details from the lede. Fan overenthusiasm, I'm guessing. (Also, "redundantly repeat" is probably itself redundant—so let's face it, you can't win.) Anyone with reference experience would agree, though: It's sloppy. I just wish we didn't have to fix it one article at a time. 🤷‍♂️" from three days ago. Fan enthusiasm, really?
• "I don't know why people do this so often in celebrity bios, but it's redundant and, frankly, seems like fawning. 🤷‍♂️", from two days ago. First fan enthusiasm, now it's 'fawning' to mention a date of birth?

So in my eyes, AndyFielding isn't just not aware of consensus, but willfully ignores it, with subtle jabs in their edit summaries. No replies on talk pages, but still going on little rants? That, combined with not communicating, sounds like disruptive behaviour to me. soetermans. ^{↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK} 12:16, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't consider all aspects of the MOS to be mandatory, including this, but from your evidence, it does increasingly appear as a WP:POINT exercize. El_C 12:27, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Bit off topic, I was checking their edits if they've done the same. They recently made some smart-assed comments on talk pages. To an honest question, asked nearly seven years ago, they responded with "Yes, tricky isn't it? Personally, I won't post videogame records unless they've been verified by space aliens." Kinda uncivil, unnecessary regardless. In a 10 year old discussion they replied "Gee! I'll have some of whatever you were having", an inappropriate response.

The last reply on their own talk page was in November 2019. They won't to communicate there or here - but years old discussions not a problem? soetermans. ^{↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK} 21:24, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi El_C, did you see my previous message? To be clear, those were after FMSky's note on their talk page. soetermans. ^{↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK} 11:58, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Legal threat by IP user

Noticed in an edit summary Special:Diff/1214049707 a threat of legal action. Funnyfarmofdoom (talk to me) 17:29, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done Blocked for 1 week (given that they're an IP, indef wouldn't be appropriate) for NLT. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 17:55, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Swatjester, since the same person has been using the same IP for at least six months, a longer block would have been justified in my opinion. But if they resume legal threats in a week, the block can be extended. Cullen328 (talk) 21:19, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

I've got no objection if you'd like to lengthen it. Just trying to limit any potential collateral damage. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 23:21, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

• Looking at the IP's contributions, I see repeated requests for removal, including statements that they have contacted WMF legal with that demand and this post at BLPN, which clearly asks for deletion of the entire article. In one edit summary they appear to be saying they are the article subject. They've placed themself at a disadvantage by not registering an account (and that's why I'm not naming the article here; they may not be who they claim in that one edit summary) and by assuming WMF Legal are the ones to ask for an article deletion, but the article is tagged for bordeline notability; there may be a case under WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE. At BLPN, JFHJr referred them to AfD. I note the biographical details in the infobox are unsourced. But I don't think we have enough proof of the editor's identity to start a procedural AfD, so I haven't attempted the necessary research. Yngvadottir (talk) 23:57, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

For clarification, I would have AfDd the article if I felt I could have won. Unfortunately, marginal cases still pass GNG although the subject loses control and demands deletion. See the now-deleted Davina Reichman talk page. I think we are stuck with this article and living subject. That said, I'd like to get a ping or something if you do AfD it. I'd really like to agree. Even Davina eventually got deleted. Cheers. JFHJr (㊟) 06:18, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

User:79.245.112.78 continuing to make mass indiscriminate edits

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

Previously reported IP is still making mass arbitrary edits to various articles with misleading/unhelpful edit summaries like "section structure" (e.g. [123], [124], [125], [126]). This has been going on for weeks at least; they were previously reported at ANI here, and it's likely that they were previously editing as 93.218.55.200, reported here. That IP was previously warned and then blocked, right before this IP became active (see user talk page).

Their edits involve some superficial changes and removal of unsourced content (though rather indiscriminately), but also a lot of unexplainable deletions in sourced paragraphs, deletions of templates or template content, unexplained modifications to text, section blanking without discussion, etc. If they are attempting to do some general clean-up, they're doing more harm than good and, after multiple warnings ([127], [128], [129]) and reverts, they are continuing to do so (e.g. [130]) with no attempt at communicating with editors. R Prazeres (talk) 17:37, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy ping to Moxy, who wrote the previous reports mentioned above, in case they have comments. R Prazeres (talk) 17:39, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Editors is simply not here. Time sink for all involved. Has never replied to concerns raised. Moxy🍁 18:22, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Please ban Fabrickator from interacting with me.

I'm not the only user that thinks Fabricator should be banned from interacting with me. In fact, I got the idea from this comment by Asparagusus on my talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Polar_Apposite&diff=prev&oldid=1204671092

Also, Graham Beards implied that Fabrickator and I should stop interacting with each other, which I agreed with, and Fabrickator did not agree with. Here's the diff for Graham Beards' kind comment on his talk page (this part of his talk page has been archived): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Graham_Beards&diff=prev&oldid=1197633758

I believe Fabrickator has been guilty of hounding me on Wikipedia, and has been incivil about it. Here he sarcastically referred to an edit of mine that he disapproved of as "brilliant". Here's the diff: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Polar_Apposite&diff=prev&oldid=1196740157 Something went wrong with the formatting (I think Fabrickator caused this somehow, but I'm not sure), but who said what and when is still fairly clear, I think.

Fabrickator has persisted in communicating with me despite my requests that he leave me alone, and has also repeatedly ignored my questions about why he so interested in me, and in one case, cryptically said, "I'm not going to directly respond to your question." when I politely asked, yet again, why he was so interested in me. Here's the diff: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Polar_Apposite&diff=prev&oldid=1204670096

Fabrickator has reverted several good edits of mine, seemingly after following me to an article. Here is just one such reversion, here's the diff: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pathology&diff=prev&oldid=1182405204 It is notable, because firstly, it was re-reverted by Graham Beards, and secondly, Fabrickator did his reversion quietly. He did not tell me what he had done, which is remarkable, given how much irrelevant material he has posted on my talk page . I only found out he had done it much later, after Graham Beards had unreverted it. Thirdly, it is *clearly* a remarkably incompetent and fairly harmful reversion.

So Fabrickator has not just been wasting *my* time, and a few other editors who have kindly taken some interest in this matter, such as Graham Beards and Asparagusus, but, more importantly, has directly harmed Wikipedia and Wikipedia's readers.

I think Fabrickator should be banned from interacting with me, while I am not banned from interacting with him. Having said that, I would be content (delighted, in fact) with a two-way ban, if it is permanent. Polar Apposite (talk) 20:04, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

A few points here. If you want someone to stop posting on your talk page, you should make a clear request. This also means do not ask the editor any questions or otherwise talk about them on your talk page. Such a request should be respected with the exception of essential notices etc per WP:USERTALKSTOP. If User:Fabrickator had continued to continued to post on your talk page despite you asked them to stop, I think we would now be at the stage where they received a final warning before an indefinite block. I think your requests were a lot less clear than they should have been. Still I'll warn them. As for your iban proposal, that is a lot more involved and we'd need to see evidence of something more than simply posting on your talk page when you asked them to stop. If they're indefinitely blocked there's no need for an iban. A single reversion of one of your edits is IMO not enough. Nil Einne (talk) 22:08, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

In User_talk:Polar_Apposite#sigmoid_colon_redux, I offered to abide by an informal 60-day interaction ban. That was on February 8. I asked him to clarify whether he accepted that, he did not "formally" respond to that, but he did acknowledge it, and stated that he was interested in either a temporary or permanent ban. I did not ask for further clarification (the intent being to avoid interaction). So for about the last 35 days, I have refrained from any interaction with Polar (obviously, aside from this interaction, which I presume that I am obliged to respond to).

I viewed this informal approach as having certain advantages:

• Save administrators from having to become involved in adjudicating the dispute.
• Also save them the trouble of officially tracking the ban, assuming it were to have been granted.

If I were to have violated that ban, the voluntary ban would likely be viewed as a "confession of fault".

• There is neither an official determination of fault, nor an admission of fault'
• Upon successful completion of this voluntary ban, future requests for a ban should not be based on events that happened prior to the voluntary ban.

For the last 35 days, I have avoided any interaction with Polar. OTOH, in spite of Polar's seemingly implied commitment to avoid any interaction with me and 35 days without any interaction, he now submits this IBAN request. I request that it be denied, on the basis of this informal interaction ban.

We should be very careful about the restriction of mere communication between users, recognizing in particular that the imposition of a ban places the banned party at a greatly heightened risk as well as creating what can be a problematic situation if (by some coincidence) they both happen to be "participating" in editing or commenting on the same article.

Respectfully, Fabrickator (talk) 22:19, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Why do you want to communicate with me when I have made it clear that I do not want to communicate with you? Polar Apposite (talk) 22:28, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

In point of fact, I had avoided communicating with you for 35 days. FWIW, though, you cannot reasonably avoid criticism by insisting that criticism of you (by myself and/or by somebody else) is not permitted. In any case, the appropriate place for such a discussion would be on one of the participant's own talk pages. Fabrickator (talk) 23:03, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

If you avoided communicating with me for 35 days, and didn't revert any good edits of mine during that time, I thank you for that. But I want to *never* hear from you again, and *know* that I will never hear from you again, The only way that is possible is with a permanent interaction ban. In my opinion you should be blocked indefinitely (from Wikipedia), but I won't ask for that. You should be very grateful to if you only get a permanent one-way interaction ban. As I see it, you have nearly always wasted my time with your comments, and your reverts of my good edits is even worse, especially since you quietly followed me around Wikipedia reverting good edits of mine without even telling me. And in my humble opinion you have been uncivil while at it. It discouraged me from editing Wikipedia.

And you have, yet again, avoided answering my very reasonable and polite question. So I will repeat it. Why do you want to communicate with me when I have made it clear that I do not want to communicate with you? Polar Apposite (talk) 02:54, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

@Polar Apposite, this is very stale. The most recent diff you provide is over a month old.

An admin should close this. TarnishedPath^talk 02:27, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm glad you've brought this up. I've been busy with some things in real life for the last month or so, that's all. As you can see, I have almost no edits to Wikipedia during the last month. I have in a sense, been away from Wikipedia, to some extent, for the last month.

I don't think there's any reason to believe that the situation has changed during the last month. Whether it's "stale" is not a real issue. In fact, the fact that I have been away actually reduces the significance of the fact that Fabricator has not posted on my user page during the last month or so. I don't know whether he has quietly reverted some more good edits of mine. Polar Apposite (talk) 02:38, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

@Polar Apposite we're supposed to WP:AGF, not WP:ABF. If you had evidence of them reverted good edits of yours recently then you ought to provide evidence not state that you don't evidence that they haven't done it. The fact that you haven't provided any recent evidence of anything speaks very heavily to this being stale. TarnishedPath^talk 07:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I think this is stale as well, but if the consensus is that this is not he the case, I think any interaction ban, if necessary, ought to be two-way. Fabrickator has done a poor job reading the tea leaves and should have backed off even if the request to stay off the talk was not explicit, but Polar Apposite's behavior has hardly been stellar, either. The latter has a history of bludgeoning conversations (see flooding the Teahouse and the discussion in Barack Obama) and taking reverts and edits extremely personally. They also take every opportunity to take little passive-aggressive digs at Fabrickator, such as pointedly announcing that they are thankful they're not friends on multiple occasions and throwing in words like "harmful" and "incompetent" needlessly in conversations.

In any case, I think this ought to be closed, with a light slap of the trout to Fabrickator to remind them that Polar Apposite's request to stay off their use page should now to be taken as explicit and to Polar Apposite to remind them that every reversion or criticism doesn't amount to a blood feud. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 04:48, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. I really can't see this going anywhere. TarnishedPath^talk 07:03, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Well I would ask that the implicit agreement of the "voluntary iban" (which was effectively "completed" by virtue of this incident being opened) should be abided by, i.e. that there shouldn't be an iban. It's not that I anticipate a desire to interact with Polar, but it will be counter-productive to have to think about this every time I edit an article or participate in some discussion. Fabrickator (talk) 07:53, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Harrassment one-shot sockpuppet

Just got this. I don't know who this is and what is their problem (nor am I interested in any way) but the account was clearly created for harrassment, even if it's a pretty lame one. You may want to checkuser it, or just ban it, or ignore it, at your convenience. Thank you. (Not notifying the account since it's pretty pointless, considering its full history.) -- grin ✎ 20:56, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Indeffed. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 20:59, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

User:TheCreatorOne continuing to engage in harassment - WP:HARASS

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

This is a second incident report made against TheCreatorOne. I first raised an incident report against TheCreatorOne after they personally attacked me on my talk page[131], leading to a 72 hour ban. Unfortunately, TheCreatorOne is back on my talk page engaging in obsessive behavior that falls under harrasment. TheCreatorOne states that I should be reported and definitely removed from the moderator position...you and other members here are spreading is false history of course. And nationalistic nonsense that is not supported by any historical sources. I am not sure why they believe I am a moderator as I am clearly not one nor have stated that I am. I am also not sure who they have reported me too. The content TheCreatorOne is referring to is content they were trying to push on a 1RR page through edit warring, leading to a page protection request that was granted. That was over a month ago yet TheCreatorOne is still fixated on that content. Help would be most appreciated in this case as it is getting out of control and makes me very uncomfortable. ElderZamzam (talk) 22:28, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

User:CF vfvr24sd continuing to use accounts to remove speedy tags off Ali Esfandiyari

CF vfvr24sd (talk · contribs)

Basically the tags were added by User:Bulklana because of WP:A1, WP:A7, and WP:G4. They are using an IP, User:2a01:5ec0:581c:b5ed:1:0:f072:e1a3 and another user, User:Susj298woz and this is continuing to trigger the edit filter, with tag such as (speedy deletion template removed) in any edit they make. I warned them about taking off tags, but they seem to do the same thing. TheGreatestLuvofAll (talk) 00:28, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

They did the same with User:Siewp39a TheGreatestLuvofAll (talk) 00:33, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I’m not an administrator, but I feel like this is a sock puppet considering the account joined around three hours ago Maestrofin (talk) 02:09, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I did warn then about sockpuppetry TheGreatestLuvofAll (talk) 02:16, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

The speedy template removal pattern is fairly ridiculous:

• CF vfvr24sd was created 22:52, 16 March, 28 minutes after Ali Esfandiyari was first tagged for speedy deletion, and immediately removed the speedy template.
• Susj298woz was created 23:20, 16 March and three minutes later removed the speedy template.
• Siewp39a was created 00:26, 17 March and immediately removed the speedy template.

None of those accounts have done anything other than edit Ali Esfandiyari, adding categories and especially edit warring to remove the speedy template; nor has the IPv6 IP mentioned above.

Both the sport Wushu and the Persian language are exotic to me, so it's difficult for me to be sure that there aren't any reliable sources in amongst the panoply of them (18 references!). Just from the way the history looks, with all the edit warring socks, I'm tempted to speedy the article per the modified speedy tag C.Fred placed here, but I'd better not; it's so to speak not necessarily Esfandiyari's fault that he has that disruptive fan. I do not hesitate, however, to block the obvious sock drawer and semi the article. Done. With some hesitation, I've left the creator of the article, Sohramgin, at large. Is there an admin or experienced user out there who feels confident assessing the sources? And/or a CU who can check whether Sohramgin is the master here? Bishonen | tålk 10:46, 17 March 2024 (UTC).

CF vfvr24sd, Susj298woz, Siewp39a and Sohramgin are all  Highly likely to each other and to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Amin balochstani. Spicy (talk) 11:26, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks guys. TheGreatestLuvofAll (talk) 11:53, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Great. Thanks, Spicy. Bishonen | tålk 13:39, 17 March 2024 (UTC).

WP:NOTHERE Promotional advocacy regarding Nancy D. Erbe

Surance (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) An account wholly dedicated to promoting anything related to Nancy D. Erbe, a professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and adding her minor visits and other activities as subsections on multiple articles. Since this editor created Erbe's article in 2014, they've turned it into a puff-filled résumé: a repository of awards, accomplishments, and dozens of miscellaneous images (which the editor all took themself). Despite these additions being reverted by multiple editors since 2021, editor continues to make these promotional additions.

Additions of blatantly promotional subsections on university pages titled "Noted scholar visit" that give a puff-filled description of some time Erbe made a visit to the school. Most of them are the same promotional message copy and pasted to different pages:

• Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (A World-renowned scholar of Negotiation, Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding and Dr. Nancy D. Erbe visited the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil twice when...)
• University of Nicosia
• Bethlehem Bible College
• Vardham Mahaveer Open University
• Central University of Punjab

Additions of images/unsourced descriptions of Erbe to "notable faculty/alumni", etc. pages despite Erbe not being major enough to be included (these have been reverted multiple times):

• Pepperdine University
• UC Berkeley
• University of Denver
• UC Berkeley, again
• University of Oslo (Removing the link to an actually important scholar due to be included)
• UC Berkeley, again x2
• Cornell Law School
• Central University of Punjab
• Jawaharlal Nehru University
• Indian Institute of Advanced Study
• Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
• Eastern Mediterranean University
• Metropolitan State University of Denver

Many more I haven't listed that can be seen on their edit log. I've reverted the image repository at Erbe but editor just reverts it back with no edit summary everytime. Other editors have reverted these additions too, but they haven't got the message. WP:NOTHERE behavior dedicated to promotional advocacy. GuardianH (talk) 02:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Not commenting on everything, but I opened Nancy D. Erbe, and surely that image in the preview/top of the article is not properly licensed? I mean the source is also "Template:Csudh", whatever that's supposed to mean, but even if it wasn't it's a screenshot of an image in a website, there's even a tooltip in it...

Ironically, about other images they've uploaded like :File:Nancy_Erbe-UFRRJ-Rio.JPG, if their claim of it being their own work is accurate then that would clearly show a real life connection with the subject.

– 2804:F14:809E:DF01:307C:AF3C:87B6:EFA0 (talk) 02:28, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

In 29 April 2023 they created a different account (Mardi1123), they used that account (as can be seen from their talk page) to write a draft on "Swaranjit Singh (author)" something that if you look in their logs(link) they previously tried to create with their Surance account.

Looking into this edit filter log by the Mardi1123 account, it says, among other things: "He has co-authored and co-edited these books with World-renowned Professor Nancy D. Erbe.".

– 2804:F14:809E:DF01:307C:AF3C:87B6:EFA0 (talk) 02:45, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, sockpuppet case there too. GuardianH (talk) 02:53, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Just an observation, I only now noticed it: Surance had been trying to reach you in your talk page, by responding to 2023 conversations (diff1, diff2). – 2804:F1...B6:EFA0 (talk) 04:51, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Primarily on Wikipedia to launder neo-nazi cartoonist

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

StoneToss (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Twice deleted under Stonetoss (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

This user has created a new version of this article that appears to be designed to give additional visibility to claims that attempt to contradict the information from the doxxing of StoneToss, which connects StoneToss to the neo-nazi cartoon RedPanels, and I strongly suspect that they are on Wikipedia for this very reason.

References

—Alalch E. 02:46, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

You mean you're telling me right-wingers are trying to obfuscate the fact that this one guy is StoneToss/RedPanels? LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 02:52, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Trying to promote a counternarrative. Edit: to be more clear: in this instance, using the high-profile platform that is Wikipedia to promote the counternarrative by feebly attempting to subvert the BLP policy. —Alalch E. 02:55, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

...can I even say the name on Wikipedia? I really want to, but I feel like it would still be a BLP violation. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 03:00, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand why we can't wait for more news agencies to confirm or deny a claim that could egregiously defame an individual. It's a strawman to state that I want it removed. CoolidgeCalvin (talk) 03:20, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Special:Diff/1214121740.—Alalch E. 03:25, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

The sentence was removed because the citation linked together StoneToss and RedPanels. For now, there's no irrefutable proof that they're the same people, and we should be cautious against claiming that people are white supremacists or neo-Nazis, particularly if their personal names are listed. I'm not sure why this is controversial. CoolidgeCalvin (talk) 03:40, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Now in the article: The Anti-Defamation League describes him as a far-right illustrator and a political scientist in a reputable journal describes him as an "extreme rightwing cartoonist known for his bigoted work". The reference which you removed in the above diff (it is not one of the two mentioned, it's a third one) has the following words: "In the memesphere, the American webcomic StoneToss has attracted controversy for its Holocaust-denial dog whistlesand other semi-coded references to white supremacist, homophobic, and misogynist thinking." It does not mention RedPanels, and only describes Stonetoss as Stonetoss. You see RedPanels in it despite no mention of RedPanels because that aligns with your goals on Wikipedia, and guided by them you want to remove such information, as you have done in the above diff. —Alalch E. 05:15, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

The problem with that argument is that the Anti-Defamation League has accused almost any critic of Israel and almost any criticism of circumcision as antisemitic. The other source could possibly be included but the article's far too short to only include that opinion. Donald Trump and the Republican Party in general has also been defined by some as "far-right" but it would be unneutral to state that. If StoneToss is confirmed to be Red Panels I'll immediately change my opinion on the matter. CoolidgeCalvin (talk) 06:37, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

You're making some bold accusations against someone who simply suggested that we should wait for more evidence. Anyone who reads the edit history can see that I kept the controversy in the page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=StoneToss&action=history

Nazism is fucking disgusting. The fact that you're attempting to drag my name in the mud is despicable. I politely asked for a response on the talk page and was completely ignored.

Then you immediately started this. CoolidgeCalvin (talk) 03:03, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

This is a complete mischaracterization of what I did. (And anyone here can read the edit history for themselves.)

The citation mentions that: "Others, however, poked holes in the Anonymous Comrades Collective’s investigation and said the group was only able to identify RedPanels, the retired cartoonist who the group said is also StoneToss."

The linkage to RedPanels and StoneToss is mentioned. We should not however state that they're irrefutably the same people or that the identitied individual is without a doubt RedPanels or StoneToss.

These are strong accusations and it would be better if we waited until more news organizations write on the matter. CoolidgeCalvin (talk) 02:54, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

WP:DAILYDOT —Alalch E. 03:00, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

"There is no consensus regarding the general reliability of The Daily Dot, though it is considered fine for citing non-contentious claims of fact. Some editors have objected to its tone or consider it to be biased or opinionated." CoolidgeCalvin (talk) 03:33, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

i don't think "significant 'holes' were identified in the doxxing effort, mainly that the individual identified has ties to Red Panels but may not be the same artist behind StoneToss" is a non-contentious claim of fact ? ‍  Elias 🪐  (dreaming of Saturn; talk here) 04:38, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

The initial version created by the above user also promotes the subject in general, which should be telling: special:permalink/1214118239: He is a top influencer on Twitter ...—Alalch E. 03:04, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Being a top influencer isn't always a good thing.

It just means that people interact with your posts. CoolidgeCalvin (talk) 03:06, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I knew you'd say that. My response to that is: You amplified the promotion to leading political influencer on Twitter (Special:Diff/1214119705) —Alalch E. 03:09, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

The actual last edit I made before anyone interacted with it was here. You can see that the RedPanels connection is mentioned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=StoneToss&oldid=1214118693 CoolidgeCalvin (talk) 03:10, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

"Leading political influencer on Twitter" is true. Do you think influential individuals can't be horrendous people? You could have just addressed the concerns that I had raised on the page. CoolidgeCalvin (talk) 03:13, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Mentioned yes, as a spin about how the subject is being harassed, and the source (however crappy of a source) does not include the word harassment in that context. —Alalch E. 03:15, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Doxxing is a form of harassment. CoolidgeCalvin (talk) 03:17, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Sure, but you must understand that when you create a piece about how a top leading political influencer on Twitter is being harassed but it's a doxxed neo-nazi, and no one but you says he's a leading anything or that he is harassed, and your history of edits shows that you are primarily interested in promoting this perspective, there's a bit of an issue. —Alalch E. 03:22, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Attempted doxxing is a form of harassment. By definition. Considering that the accused individual has had their extended family's addresses also posted, and they have views that are different to him, even if confirmed, then of course those type of activities are immoral.

His extended family (at the very least) is not responsible for him possibly being evil and a Nazi. Twitter's trust and safety team has described it as harassment. CoolidgeCalvin (talk) 03:31, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Because we all know Twitter is reasonable under Elon Musk. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 03:32, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Doxxing the family members of bad people is still harassment. Is the brother of Kim Jung Un responsible for his actions? Of course not. CoolidgeCalvin (talk) 03:36, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Probably not the best example. Sean.hoyland (talk) 09:23, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Twitter's trust and safety team has described it as harassment. They have, which is odd cause their policy surrounding harassment does not consider sharing the name of a person to be doxxing, and as Boing Boing noted Twitter have not taken action in other instances of doxxing on the platform, some of which were endorsed by Elon. Sideswipe9th (talk) 04:10, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Elon considers sharing the (public) coordinates of his plane to be doxxing. Do we really think Twitter still has a consistent definition for this? Chaotıċ Enby (talk · contribs) 04:15, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Even if StoneToss is confirmed to be a neo-Nazi, posting the home addresses and phone numbers of his family members is clearly doxxing and harassment. What's being disputed here?

Even bad people don't deserve that. If they're misidentified, someone's life could be severely damaged based upon the whims of a mob, so I'm uncertain why several here want to possibly do so. CoolidgeCalvin (talk) 06:41, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I've just read the doxxing document from the collective, and while his name, photo and date of birth is in it, as well as a roughly 25 square mile census-designated place, I'm not seeing any evidence of his home address or phone numbers nor the home addresses and phone numbers of any other individuals. Even his email addresses were redacted. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:38, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

totally unrelated: their username is a WP:MISLEADNAME, although it's perhaps not the worst given that Coolidge has been dead forever and is very well-known. Queen of Hearts ^she/_they^talk/_stalk 04:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I would like to bring attention to the account WalletLantern (talk · contribs), which was created and began editing CoolidgeCalvin's StoneToss article a few minutes after CoolidgeCalvin's final comment here, with the first edit being to remove the speedy deletion template. 203.211.79.73 (talk) 08:40, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Obviously, that (WL) account was intended as a provocation, so blocked indef. Also deleted the bio entry, because that was already decided, twice: once in 2023 and, prior to that, in 2021. So if there is something new that warrants another recreation, it'll have to be presented in WP:DRAFT format, so that the fine folks at WP:AFC can determine what's what — because I am WP:SALT'ing it. El_C 10:07, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Apparently, Draft:Stonetoss was created by Trainrobber66 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) in Jan 2024. It reads: Stonetoss is a satirical comics artist, and that's it. El_C 10:15, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Should we rewrite the article? trainrobber >be me 10:17, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Those who are interested, can do so at that draft. If that draft succeeds in passing the WP:AFC process, then the article can be recreated (go live again). El_C 10:21, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Link to the draft can be here trainrobber >be me 15:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

In addition to Draft:Stonetoss there's also Draft:StoneToss. The later is about half a year older, and has slightly more content to it. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:33, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Continual personal attacks

CatTheMeow (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) I have observed a recurring pattern of behavior from a user, particularly concerning their interaction with others and their contributions. Despite the well-cited nature of an article, it proposed for deletion by them twice, just by some weasel words without any evidences[132] [133].Backed by reliable sources WP:RS, the proposal tag was removed [134]. Upon posting a notice on their talk page, it became evident that they engage in such actions regularly. This includes labeling others' accounts as unreliable, accusing individuals of being "Supremacist" for substituting unreliable images with reliable ones, and alleging "regional Chauvinism," among other things [135].

Subsequent discussions on their talk page revealed a trend of personal attacks, with derogatory terms such as "Chauvinist" and "Supremacists" being included [136] [137] [138]. Furthermore, they have displayed hostility towards good-faith editors, accusing them of "propagating and creating your own history,"[139] "Playing innocent victim card," exhibiting "language Chauvinism," [140] and labeling their edits as "Vandalism," even going so far as to request their block [141].

Moreover, during discussions related to the nomination of one of their pages for deletion AFD, they resorted to attacking the nominators' background, making inflammatory remarks such as "seems like your side rulers were never able to touch this type of glorious victory, your user profile itself explains that what is your agenda that which you're running in Wikipedia" [142].

Most concerning is a recent instance where they made an anti-Islamic comment on the page "Bahmani Vijayanagar War." This behavior persists without any sign of change [143].--Imperial^[AFCND] 06:31, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Recently, an IP user restored the Anti-Islamic comment here [144]. It would be better to take an action asap. Imperial^[AFCND] 09:45, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

WP:NOTHERE block needed. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:21, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

A WP:TBAN from WP:CT/IPA at minimum is definitely in order. DarmaniLink (talk) 15:14, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Blocked indefinitely as NOTHERE. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 15:56, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Continual disruptive editing of Economy of Poland article, in-article personal attacks

UsernameBrian22 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

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

For the last week, the user has been making disruptive edits to the Economy of Poland article, including adding unsourced content and removing sourced content [145].

The edits included in-article personal attacks against other users, for instance "Developed since 2000s read up on in smartass", as a response to a revert [146].

The user has been warned multiple times on their Talk pages [147] [148], but has continued to make the same disruptive edits [149]. Fiszu2001 (talk) 12:15, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Blocked – for a period of 2 weeks (p-block): User talk:UsernameBrian22#Partial block. Also, two continualseses in a row ^{(diff, diff)}, Phil Bridger — what are the odds? El_C 12:01, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Possible legal threat?

Would warning of whatever punitive damages may be available be considered a legal threat? That is what Booyeahoo (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has said in their attempts to justify their edits to KFXM-LP (Lancaster, California) (they appear to have a COI with a new version of KFXM-LP in Cherry Valley, California, which is well away from Lancaster, as they refer to We are fully licensed and our station). They insist that We have done and complied with the terms., but given everything else that seems questionable. (And unrelated to any of that, they are under the impression that Wikipedia is presented in real time blog style, which is news to me and probably most other editors.) While they have finally taken to draftspace to attempt give their station an article, editors that make legal threats (or anything along those lines) aren't supposed to be making any further edits until they are retracted. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 21:33, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

The possible legal threat in question (it wasn't that clear, to me, from your post):

"[..]
I intend to see this through. That will include a complaint to Wikipedia and whatever punitive damages may be available if you continue on your path.
Wikiledia authors are not protected under the law for creative content because it is presented in real time blog style. Underscore real time. There are no creative protections for original content. It is not proprietary content, nor can you legally charge or request money to do so
[..]"
– Special:Diff/1214256088

– 2804:F14:809E:DF01:C4FF:6678:7DF0:C904 (talk) 21:44, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

NLT blocked. Doug Weller talk 21:46, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Why do some people have such a strange idea of the law? Anyway, I hope Booyeahoo doesn't waste too much money finding out what it actually is. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:51, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

It would be interesting to know how often Wikipedia is sued because someone objects to the content of an article. Because these threats are delivered all of the time but I imagine few are followed through on. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:21, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I think in the vast majority of cases people believe that if they threaten legal action we will adjust the content, not realizing that if they do threaten that action we reply by expelling them from the site. I’ve had a few I’ve blocked like this, and it seems once they got hit with the block and the expulsion they very rapidly changed their tunes 2600:1011:B18B:F:8A6:99B2:A133:D74A (talk) 04:13, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

College president residence in infobox

There is a residence field in Template:Infobox officeholder which the documentation notes 'where this person lives', which I generally take as their city of residence or a known landmark for your obvious public figures who you know live at a place like 10 Downing Street, but isn't to really be used to detail where an otherwise private figure lives, either by article or full address disclosure. This is the issue I've found in Ellen Granberg, the president of George Washington University; I do not generally see this field used at all for college leaders for obvious privacy reasons even when there's devoted leader housing, so I reverted an edit adding it by 73.134.81.186 (talk · contribs) as 'creepy' (pre-apologies for my wording), but they persisted by saying it 'is common when a University has a residence for the president', and I reverted again stating the field was intended for a public figure or their residential city only; they have reverted one more time. Notwithstanding that the noting of their residence is not sourced at all and we don't even know if Prof. Granberg does live there, I don't want to breach 3RR and I fail to see how listing someone's exact residence is helpful to anyone researching GWU or Prof. Granberg and is a breach of their privacy. I should also note I warned them previously in the week for refusing to use edit summaries in another matter, or only using them for items where talk page discussion is preferred instead. Also pinging @Redraiderengineer:, as they warned 73. for 3RR, but I'm not sure if it was on this issue or something else. Nate • (chatter) 21:59, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

It seems like it's public info, actually. It's also mentioned in *F Street House(where the link is from) and George Washington University#21st century.

Please seek help from WP:OVERSIGHT(Requests for oversight) if you see possible privacy breaches/private info, don't bring attention to it. – 2804:F1...F0:C904 (talk) 22:24, 17 March 2024 (UTC) *edited 22:30, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

This isn't an oversight issue at all, this is using a field as it's not intended to be for a figure who is otherwise private; yes, there's a building set aside for them to live on campus, but it certainly is not their permanent residence and they likely have their own home elsewhere, but I also hold concerns about a residence being listed considering what has occurred this fall and winter; again I repeat, I do not usually see a residence listed for a college official, be it public or private. That is where I'm working from. Nate • (chatter) 23:14, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Well sure, but you wrote "obvious privacy reasons" and "is a breach of their privacy", so it seemed like that is what you were thinking it was, after all, if it was unsourced, how would you know?

I make no comment on the rest of this, I just felt like pointing out how to report private material and that you're not supposed to bring it up in public was appropriate (after I confirmed it wasn't actually private info), seeing the terms you used. – 2804:F1...F0:C904 (talk) 23:30, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Go Hippos! --JBL (talk) 00:20, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't think a street address is ever warranted, even for an official residence which can be termed something like "Governor's House" or "President's Residence". Wikipedia is not a phone book or an internet Yellow Page service. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:17, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Agree with above. Privacy is important. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:36, 18 March 2024 (UTC).

Except for cases where the address itself has become notable and synonymous with the resident, such as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the aforementioned 10 Downing St., I'd agree. Zaathras (talk) 02:44, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that it's categorically never warranted. I went to undergrad at Florida State University (a public, state school). The University president maintains their actual residence at the FSU President's House, for which we have an article. That article lists the address (1000 West Tennessee St.) The article also links to the official website for the President's House which literally has a Google Map and "Directions" section to it. For that particular article, there's really no conceivable privacy argument to be made for *not* putting the address, especially given the non-trivial coverage of the building's significance in other reliable sources, for instance. And while the article for the President's House (University of Florida) needs a ton of work (as much as the 'Nole in me would love to dunk on the Gators), it should be noted that UF President Ben Sasse lives there for his official residence, again, something that the University itself publicly advertises, and that we reflect on our article. I've seen no evidence to suggest that this isn't common across other public universities in the U.S. either. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 03:32, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

User Remsense deleting everything I say

User:Remsense said I wasn't a wiki editor and then deleted all of my contributions. The Harold B Lee library can't be canceled by one critic. Luke Olson (BYU) (talk) 02:46, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

For the record, I said they were either a non-editor or a sockpuppet, which is indisputable. Remsense诉 02:49, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I just clicked edit and submitted something. I am here, now, editing. I'm an editor. Philo 101 is down the hall if you want to debate the non-thingness of a thing Luke Olson (BYU) (talk) 02:51, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Generally we are more concerned with the usefulness or otherwise of a contributor. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:53, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm pretty upset that this is how I get my ANI cherry popped. Remsense诉 02:55, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

• Luke Olson (BYU), which of your accounts had it's edits deleted? Dennis Brown - 2¢ 02:50, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  What? Luke Olson (BYU) (talk) 02:52, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Dennis Brown I think they were referring to these two edits: diff 1 and diff 2, which were soon reverted by Remsense here and here respectively. — AP 499D25 (talk) 02:56, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  I know. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 02:58, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  If you know why did you ask? Luke Olson (BYU) (talk) 03:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  The real question is: Why are you here? How did you magically find that discussion? When your behavior is highly suspicious, it is reasonable to question it. Any answers for us? Dennis Brown - 2¢ 03:19, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  The answers are on Luke Olson's talk page. There's a Discord group somewhere where people are talking about the BYU library thread above. Luke probably won't be able to respond here anymore as he's been blocked. ~Awilley (talk) 03:33, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  If you are only talking about this edit [150], which strongly looks like a meatpuppet or sockpuppet edit, then it is hard to blame them for removing it, although I might have just tagged it with the {{spa}} tag myself. But your first edit to the encyclopedia was to oppose a ban on someone from (obviously) you have an affiliation with outside of here, which is suspicious enough. And the whole "I donate here" thing is laughably irrelevant to editors and admins here, we don't get the money, so it just makes you look really bad when you say things like that in a summary. Most people who say that are lying, and we know that. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 02:58, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  It was miscalculation on my part to think removing would be net less disruptive than tagging, I apologize for that much. Remsense诉 03:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

  Most of the time, it wouldn't be an issue, as it is pretty obvious there is some kind of puppetry going on. How they answer some pretty basic questions will determine where we go from here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 03:20, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

• Indef blocked for WP:NOTHERE by Bbb23. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 03:34, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Meatpuppetry/Slotkin article

Wanted to flag the meatpuppetry going on once again on Talk:Elissa Slotkin#Labor Positions and the 2023 UAW strike. It has been admitted to here on Twitter. We have prior examples of issues with sockpuppets and meatpuppetry on this article including Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Thespeedoflightneverchanges and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1135#Thespeedoflightneverchanges. Dcpoliticaljunkie (talk) 05:15, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Tagging @Muboshgu @Cullen328 @Drmies @ScottishFinnishRadish as admins who've previously resolved issues on this article and @Cpotisch who previously has been canvassed by this banned user. Dcpoliticaljunkie (talk) 05:16, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Adding a bit more detail before I start the workweek and probably won't have a lot of time for finding difs and the such.

I've now notified them so I will directly mention @Andrew.robbins and @Seamusfleming92 as the editors of concern. @OrcaLord is agreeing with them but has more history on Wikipedia (including a previous 3-month ban from Elissa Slotkin) -- while there's likely off-Wiki coordination going on (they follow each other on Twitter) I don't think Orca falls fully within the definition of a meatpuppet.

Both editors recently resurrected their old accounts specifically with a seeming single-minded goal of getting content that was previously removed reinstated into the Elissa Slotkin article. The content was previously advocated for by Thespeedoflightneverchanges or their socks after they were indef banned. This user has previously been identified as this Slotkin-obsessed handle on Twitter which is "urgently" recruiting "experienced wikipedia editor" to continue their anti-Slotkin agenda.

The four articles used by @Andrew.robbins to advocate for their preferred language on talk page are exactly the four articles that the previously-banned editor was using when spamming editors on Twitter for assistance to change this article (see screenshot in this Tweet). Meanwhile, @Seamusfleming92's account seems to have largely been used for blatant vandalism when it was first created back in 2022. Now all it's done is advocate for the previously-banned editor's preferred content on the Slotkin article.

As previously flagged by @Muboshgu and then by @Cpotisch, there is a cohort of editors coordinating offwiki/on Twitter "who all hate Slotkin" attempting to influence this article and this appears to be their latest POV pushing attempt. This article is already ECP and OrcaLord was previously 3-month banned from it for attempting to edit war for his POV. This now seems to their latest attempt to create an artificial consensus on the talk page for their POV edits. Dcpoliticaljunkie (talk) 13:37, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Come on. I was involved with the Slotkin page beforehand for the purpose of copyediting. Its kind of hard for me to be recruited when I was already involved with the page. I am curious how you intend to justify painting me with the twitter-coordination smear without so much as an associated twitter account. And yes, the four articles linked were the exact same as the deleted ones. I was up-front about that and mentioned it in the same talk post for the sake of ease of reference. I simply thought it merited discussion. I think its worthy of note that Dcpoliticaljunkie immediately accused Seamusfleming92 of being a sockpuppet upon first edit of the page. It was closed for utter lack of evidence here. I have serious concerns about violations of WP:NEUTRALEDITOR here. andrew.robbins (talk) 14:01, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I flagged Seamusfleming92 because it looked DUCK-like to me when they started advocating for exactly what the previously-banned editor previously advocated for. I now realize that it's likely meatpuppetry (as evidenced by recruitment on the banned editor's Twitter). Worth noting that another account I reported was blocked as likely sock.

And it's true: you did resurrect an old account to make copy edits and then 1 week later began doing exactly what the banned editor has publicly posted about recruiting editors to do. That's where my suspicion comes from. Dcpoliticaljunkie (talk) 14:10, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

I think its dishonest to classify an account that made sporadic edits every few months going back to March of 2023 (or even July 2022) increasing its activity as "resurrection of an old account". andrew.robbins (talk) 14:12, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Disruptive edits on Leia Zhu

I noticed that User:WikiWizard88 has been actively adding unsourced and redundant information to Zhu's article, many of which violates WP:BLP policies (as seen in these edits here [151] [152] [153]). User:BobbieCarynBevis has twice reverted these edits and provided a rationale in their edit summary (as seen here [154] [155]) and on Zhu's talk page here, but the first revert reverted by the user in this edit [156]. I explained on the user's talk page here about why their edits were contrary to Wikipedia's policies, and reverted them here, but the user proceeded to undo my revert here without providing any explanation while insulting me. I want to assume good faith from the user's intentions, but find it difficult to do so, based on their interactions with other editors and single-purpose accounts such as User:Yan Beyong editing Zhu's article. I don't know if their WP:SPA behavior is due to WP:COI or WP:PAID, but it seems like this editor is unwilling to collaborate and is WP:NOTHERE. — Angryjoe1111 (talk) 11:04, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

To avoid a block User:WikiWizard88 needs to stop reverting and start collaborating on the article talk page. Past experience tells me that that is unlikely. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:33, 18 March 2024 (UTC)