Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
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Problematic behavior by User:Medeis at the reference desk

(NOTE: Diffs giving more examples of this behavior are provided in the collapsible box below - it seems some people missed them before.) -Elmer Clark (talk) 06:35, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

First of all, apologies if this is in the wrong place, and feel free to move it.

Several days ago, an anonymous user asked this question on the Reference Desk. After some brief discussion, User:Medeis suggested it be closed due to the questioner asking for opinions, something discouraged on the Reference Desk. Myself and User:JackofOz did not agree that he had done so or that it should be closed, and stated our reasons why. One user, User:Baseball_Bugs, did agree that it should be closed, but for a reason quite separate from Medeis's, and one that is not a valid reason to close a RD question at all (the questioner not having responded for 18 hours). At this point, with two in favor and two opposed, otherwise-uninvolved User:Ian.thomson closed the thread for a third reason - an anonymous IP was vandalizing it. I opened this discussion, Ian Thomson explained his reasoning, an administrator banned the problem IP, and some other users expressed support for keeping the question open and concern at Medeis's general excessive tendency toward closing people's questions and ignoring consensus on the reference desks. No one posted in support of the closing, and Medeis didn't offer any new reasoning beyond what (s)he'd already said. I unhatted the question since the vandal issue was now dealt with and there was clearly no consensus to close, and figured that would be the end of it.

However, Medeis promptly hatted it again. I reverted this second hatting, and asked Medeis to explain him/herself in the talk page discussion. Without doing so or in fact saying anything further at all, (s)he simply hatted it yet again, with no explanation beyond "not this again." At this point I'm bringing it here out of 3RR concerns and because Medeis is clearly uninterested in the consensus on the talk page.

I find this situation quite troubling and am not sure what should be done about it. This is far from the first time issues of this nature has arisen around Medeis. (S)he is extremely active on the Reference Desk, possibly the most active user there, and the majority of his/her contributions are helpful. However, a quite substantial minority are not. Medeis received a six-month topic ban from the Reference Desk in 2014, although it was later rescinded when another admin decided there wasn't consensus. This had no effect on his/her behavior. A perusal through the Reference Desk talk page archives, or Medeis's own talk page, will find many other instances where Medeis's application of his/her own ideas about what the Reference Desk's rules should be has caused friction with other editors. (S)he seems to view the Reference Desk as his/her personal fief, and if the general rules and guidelines of Wikipedia/the RD or the community consensus disagree with his/her personal views, (s)he simply ignores them.

I am really not sure what to do about a user like this. Personally, I think a topic ban would be warranted - I don't think Medeis's positive contributions to the Reference Desk outweigh the combative and haughty attitude with which (s)he interacts with others there. But (s)he is far from a pure vandal, so I'm not sure that would be appropriate under Wikipedia's procedures. Warnings and discussions in which consensus sharply disagree with him/her seem to have no effect whatsoever though, and if an admin simply unhats this question again and takes no other action, we're just going to be running into these issues again, and again, and again. Any thoughts would be appreciated. -Elmer Clark (talk) 20:26, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

ADDENDUM IN RESPONSE TO User:MarnetteD'S QUITE REASONABLE REQUEST FOR MORE EXAMPLES:

Ten more examples of (IMO) inappropriate closures by Medeis, all within the last month. Especially troubling is that she simply removed a couple of them, making it impossible for anyone else to even realize it was ever there.

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Medeis hats a question on the grounds of it being "far too broad to be worth the cognitive effort," even though it had already received a well-referenced answer that the user said he appreciated (if it's not worth the cognitive effort to YOU, you don't have to answer...) [1] Medeis closes someone's questions related to a sci-fi story they were writing on the grounds that "the RD doesn't do homework for you" (no indication was given that this was homework, the question implies otherwise if anything), after a half dozen others had already given relevant responses [2] Medeis closes a question that had already received several relevant responses because "we cannot comment on unspecified material," weird to begin with and an extremely narrow and unreasonable interpretation of what the person was asking [3] Medeis hats a question because "WP:BLP does not allow speculation about the motives of living figures--provide relevant sources" when the user specifically asked for references, not speculation - apparently Medeis sees simply having asked this question as a BLP violation, which is ridiculous [4] Medeis removes a two perfectly neutral and reasonable questions from the same user because she assumes he's a known troll from the past simply because, I guess, his questions relate to racist regimes of the past, and this known troll was a racist (none of the contributions from the actual questioner's IP were problematic). A definite WP:AGF violation if nothing else. [5] and [6] Medeis removes a question as "a request for personal judgments" when an equally reasonable interpretation would be that the questioner was asking about standard procedure [7] Medeis removes an innocuous questioner because the questioner had been banned for causing unrelated problems elsewhere [8] Medeis hats a question, where, admittedly, another user had expressed concern that the question was too vague as stated, but he was actively talking with that user to clarify that he was specifically looking for references, not debate, and asking for help on how to reword his question better [9] Medeis removes a question saying "we don't make judgments here," even though it was blatantly obvious the questioner was asking about prevailing Victorian attitudes and not RD users' personal views [10]

I have also thought of a specific sanction I think would be appropriate - can we simply ban Medeis from closing reference desk threads? If they genuinely need to be closed for legitimate reasons, someone else will. But these constant closures of people's perfectly reasonable questions do serious harm to the Reference Desk - I cannot think of a better way to scare people off. -Elmer Clark (talk) 23:35, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• Moved this thread from AN to AN/I as AN/I is the more appropriate forum for discussion of editor behaviour. Mr rnddude (talk) 20:39, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• Notifications left for both involved editors; Medeis' notification and Elmer Clark's notification. Mr rnddude (talk) 20:42, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• I don't see it noted that it was not I, but user @Ian.thomson: who hatted that discussion after I and @Baseball Bugs: suggested that it should be. I see no mention of the fact that @WaltCip: enforced the hatting and semiprotected the page, given an IP user he identified as a sockpuppet had been editting disruptively and refactoring my edits. I do see Elmer Clarks revival of the thread, when even the original OP had lost interest in it, after two days as a deliberate provocation, hence my reversion of the pointy reopening and my "not this again" comment. To summarize, there's no need for me to discuss reverting refactorings of my own comments, I am not the one who hatted the thread, an admin protected the page and closed the thread, and a reversion of a pointy re-opening two days later does not count as edit warring. μηδείς (talk) 20:53, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
  • • I just wanted to point out for the record I am not an admin and I do not have the authority to semi-protect pages. I'm not sure where Medeis is getting this idea.--WaltCip (talk) 12:15, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

I did in fact note that it was Ian Thomson and not you the first time (but not the second or third). And I think it's a little ridiculous to say I "revived this as deliberate provocation" after the "OP had lost interest" when that OP expressly asked for it to be re-opened and wondered what was going on in the talk page section. Your description of the admin's actions are also very misleading - the only admin action taken was specifically in response to the vandalism issue, it was certainly no endorsement of the thread being closed on your supposed grounds, which, in fact, everyone else roundly disagreed with on the talk page. -Elmer Clark (talk) 21:42, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

I was pinged by Elmer Clark and because I only have time right now for Wikipedia in at least the the next 24 hours but probably longer, let me give my opinion. I have made it clear many times that the fundamental problem with the Ref Desk is that it is not so prominent, there is an unhealthy low ratio of people asking questions to people answering questions, this then invites disputes about administering the site. Basically, it's the "too many captains on a small ship problem", which then probably leads to negative feedback on any would be question askers; they are not going to bother to come to our ref desks. Medeis is our de-facto alpha woman who has taken it upon herself to hat questions that she thinks are not appropriate. Most of the time her actions are appropriate, the problem really is about the way she goes about this which is going to lead to friction when her actions are judged to be wrong by others. Even if that happens just in one out of 50 cases, that's then still going to be a problem.

The way forward is for everyone but especially Medeis to get a sense of perspective here. The Ref Desks has been surpassed a long time ago by StackExchange, this is why I spend a lot more time there than here, see my questions and answers there, clearly the set-up there invites a lot more high quality contributions. As I've also said w.r.t. to the other hot button issues regarding legal and medical advice: It's besides the point as no one ever comes here to get any sort of meaningful advice anyway. We're pretending to be a university when in reality we're just bunch of toddlers making a lot of noise in Kindergarten. Imposing your rule here is then like fighting to get your way as the mayor of PhinDeli Town Buford, Wyoming, a total waste of time. What may be more worthwhile is to try to make the Ref Desk to become more prominent. Count Iblis (talk) 21:04, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

First the OP has noted one specific situation (for which they have some of the particulars wrong) and then expanded that to make broad statements about behavior by Medies for which not a shred of evidence to back up is provided. Next, what admin action does the OP want - they make a vague reference to a topic ban and then act like it is up to somebody else to enact it. Lastly, I have to wonder how someone with who averages less than 100 edits a year since 2010 has any idea of what goes on at the ref desks on a daily basis. The free-for-all that the RD's have become could use "centralized discussion" but until that happens this thread is not going to accomplish anything. BTW M is nowhere close to the most active editor on the RD's. MarnetteD|Talk 21:23, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

I do not believe I have any of the particulars wrong - see my response to Medeis. And while I rarely edit these days (largely because of how toxic my favorite part of Wikipedia, the Reference Desk, has become) I still read it almost daily, so I don't think it's inappropriate for me to comment on general trends there. Your other point is fair and well taken though - give me a couple of hours and I'll post some more specific examples of recent problem behavior. -Elmer Clark (talk) 21:42, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

And as to not suggesting any specific course of action, I simply don't know what would be appropriate in a case like this (I've never encountered anything similar here) and was hoping more experienced editors might offer up a reasonable solution. If you're only supposed to post here to petition for a specific course of action then I apologize. -Elmer Clark (talk) 21:44, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

I have started threads before asking the community what action they think is appropriate but those threads showed a long-term trend with minimal commentary (maybe a paragraph of context and a list of WP:DIFFs with short summaries). Show, don't tell. Also, in those instances, the most obvious course of action was a block (topic bans generally being a last chance). Ian.thomson (talk) 23:11, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• I don't want a part of this drama but I would like to clarify something: My explicit reason for hatting the thread was not vandalism, it was that it seemed the shortest and simplest way to stop an edit war since the thread had gone quite off-topic. I did not consider it an administrative action since that's probably what would've happened without the tools. Since other users disagreed and someone blocked one of the users involved in the edit war, I didn't see any point in continued action from me.
  The RD is problematic, there does need to be centralized discussion for changes (probably at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)), and I'd be interested if that happens. Otherwise, that's really all I've got to say. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:11, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

If the OP has read the ref desks "daily" for nearly seven years (and they have changed quite a bit in that time) they would know that there have been numerous editors (including myself) who have closed threads. Some have agreed with those closes and others haven't, yet you have only brought one editor to ANI. That is troubling to say the least. MarnetteD|Talk 23:22, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

I certainly don't have any blanket objection to closing questions ever, I simply believe Medeis in particular frequently does it when not warranted, to the detriment of the desk. -Elmer Clark (talk) 23:37, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

There are three classes of editors who close questions on the refdesks (with a fair amount of overlap). First, there are those who make uncontroversial closes, and the only reaction they get from other refdesk editors is an occasional thank you. Second, there are those who make some dodgy closes, but as soon as several other editors star pushing back they back off, usually with an apology. Third, there are those who do a lot of dodgy closes, and dig in their heels when they encounter pushback from the other regulars. Medeis/μηδείς is in the third group. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:08, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't think Medeis hats discussions all that frequently nowadays. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:46, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Did you see my list of examples? Do you not think ten hattings in a month is a lot? Or do you think all/most of those examples were in fact justified? -Elmer Clark (talk) 01:56, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Close this thread

• Support There is no admin action requested. So the only reason for the thread it to smear Medeis. As far as I am concerned this needs to be closed before it delves any further into WP:HOUND territory. MarnetteD|Talk 23:22, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Please hold off, I am adding further references and requesting a specific course of action as we speak -Elmer Clark (talk) 23:30, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Ok, I've now added ten more examples in the collapsible box and suggested a specific sanction I believe would solve the problem without sacrificing Medeis's positive RD contributions. Please let me know if I need to take any further action to allay your concerns. -Elmer Clark (talk) 23:36, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks MarnetteD. If admins are interested, here's yet another pointless provocation by OP 2600 on my talk page, the same IP who was reverting other's actions and refactoring my comment on the thread that is the "basis" for this "complaint". (I'll be asking for a permanent semi-protect there as soon as I post this). μηδείς (talk) 00:45, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Just to be clear, this IP has nothing to do with this complaint at all. It's totally irrelevant, a confounding factor actually that muddies the waters of the real issue. The issue is you closing questions, or advocating closing them, when there is no reason to do so, and persisting even when consensus is clearly against you. You originally wanted to close the question because it was asking for opinions, before this IP even showed up. Later, you DID close it twice, even though this IP had been banned by then. -Elmer Clark (talk) 01:01, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Also, this IP was NOT the OP! -Elmer Clark (talk) 01:02, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Just to be clear, if you are going to add new evidence, you should give actual edit summaries or edit qutes with diffs on the open forum, not hidden under a hat inside your original complaint. You make numerous errors which I would call factual errors. My deletion of User:Neptunekh's edits requires no sanction. She's a banned user, one who has threatened self-harm, and who is subject to summary deletion as such. The 2600 IP6 range has not been banned, IP ranges are not banned, but User:WaltCip has indeed identified them as disruptive sockpuppets, and again, no further sanction is necessary to revert their edits. You will find that all the so-called hattings you have attributed in this case are mere reversions to the prior state established by Ian.thomson. I agree with him that his hatting does not mean he agrees with me.

Nevertheless, I agree with him that unnecessary edit warring over moot non-requests for references is not a good idea.

Finally, you repeat this nonsense that I am responsible here for an unjustified hatting. Again, after Bugs and I suggested it, Ian did it, and Walt enforced it. Yet you attack me. Who are you, I wonder? You go from accusing me of hatting a thread of dubious value in most people's eyes to "advocating" the hatting of such a thread. Looking at your "contributions", they are almost entirely against me. Is rhat why you registered an account? Is advocating the closure of a thread, without closing it, now to be forbidden?

The rest of the "evidence" you hide above shows that when opposed, I don't edit war regarding closings, such as the case where I thought the Boer War OP might be the user called the Nazi troll. Another user reverted me, and said he didn't think it was actually the same troll, and that was it.

Yes, I have restored edits of mine that were refactored. But no edit warring on my part. No childish stalking or pointy attacks. (For example, Count Iblis and I frequently disagree, but also contribute civilly without seeking to ban each other.) In the meantime I have provided plenty of actual contributions to the project. Hours worth of work on the African nation question, and the Eastern Slavic question.

What have you done? I think I have said enough. μηδείς (talk) 03:12, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

This post is a good example of the same kind of problematic behavior you display at the reference desk. Excessive focus on procedural issues and minutiae while largely not addressing the larger issue at all, paranoid and unfounded accusations regarding people's motives (I have thousands of edits and have been registered since 2005...so no, I did not create this account to harass you, and I made my added evidence here as clear as possible, with a boldface header and located right at the top), and a complete disinterest in the fact that many people see fundamental issues with the way you approach things. Even among your supporters here, no one has argued that these closings, and a general mindset toward closings that is as broad is yours, is a good thing. And I acknowledged many times that you also make many unambiguously good contributions, and specifically tried to find a solution that wouldn't jeopardize that - and I think I did. Unfortunately no one here has even responded to it. I don't suppose you'd be open to voluntarily leaving hatting questions to others who follow less controversial criteria... -Elmer Clark (talk) 20:55, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Who wrote the unsigned comment above, I was wandering... Only to find out it was Medeis. What's up with that bit of indent confusion, Medeis? El_C 09:15, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it was simply one post with a formatting error, not an unsigned post which I immediately responded to. And my apologies to WaltCip, my confusion was to look at the last in a series of edits and to assume they all belonged to the same editor. μηδείς (talk) 14:43, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Also I'm still struggling to see where I apparently identified a sockpuppet and enforced an unjustified hatting... Did I pass an RFA in my sleep last night?--WaltCip (talk) 12:30, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Fairly sure Medeis is referring to User:Berean Hunter who did hard block the trolling IP range (not the IP who started the question) and protect the page. Special:Log/Berean Hunter. As for the indent, it's unfortunate and confusing but seems sa simple mistake so although I may be the master at making a big deal out of things at times, I don't see it's likely to be productive here. Nil Einne (talk) 12:47, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Affirmative...except the "...enforced an unjustified hatting" interpretation further up. I removed the trolling IP's last edit per DENY but this should not be taken as an endorsement either for or against the hatting. I left that as a matter for the editors there to decide.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 13:21, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• I think This link provides some necessary additional evidence people need to decide what to do about this situation. --Jayron32 10:48, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Concur with that. Even if you think some sort of action against Medeis is warranted, it's unlikely it'll be achieved here. A simple read of this thread, and the connection with the disputed post on RD/L is enough to tell you that. BTW this also means I'd support closing of this thread. Nil Einne (talk) 12:49, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• Yesterday, I read some of the discourse between editors on that ref desk talk page and I would say that it would put off both established editors as well as newcomers. Clearly, it is an unhealthy environment. I believe this ANI post may have been an attempt to remedy that based on the filer's interpretation of Guy's advice. ANI was one of the options listed. Probably time to try one of the other options...
   — Berean Hunter (talk) 13:56, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
• Honestly the ref desks would be a nicer place if more people *would* close down discussions promptly. Its the Mos Eisley of wikipedia. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:20, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
• Support closing this much-ado-about-not-much discussion, as the question's poster (as noted below) has provided clarification that could take the inherent guesswork out of it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:08, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Return of the OP

The OP has returned and clarified his question, so I have reopened the thread, leaving the side-discussion closed as moot. μηδείς (talk) 20:58, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

This discussion isn't about one incident. It is about a long-term pattern of behavior. As I have said elsewhere, I have serious reservations about singling you out for your inappropriate hatting and deletion when [A] others are doing the same thing, and [B] a literal reading of the special rules ("reference desk guidelines") that only apply to the refdesks allows the disruptive behavior. Given those two mitigating facts, I do not think that administrative sanctions against you are justified. That being said, your behavior (and the behavior of several others) on the refdesks has been disruptive, you have shown yourself to be unwilling to stop despite severe pushback from the other refdesk regulars, and undoing the closing after someone reported you at ANI for it in no way makes your ongoing disruptive behavior moot. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:49, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Guy Macon's Advice

I choose not to express an opinion about whether the behavior of Medeis/μηδείς requires any sort of administrative action at this time. Others have weighed in on this, and I support whatever the consensus is.

That being said, in my opinion the following is glaringly obvious:

1. The reference desks -- all of them -- are toxic and have been toxic for a while.
2. The help desk and the village pumps are not toxic.
3. Something some of the refdesk regulars are doing at the reference desks that few people are doing at the village pump or help desk is the cause of this. I believe that this something involves non-administrators attempting to control the behavior of other editors without going to dispute resolution or asking for an uninvolved administrator to intervene.
4. This is not a "one editor is causing all of the trouble" sort of problem. There are multiple editors who attempt to control the behavior of other editors, a much larger group that keeps asking them to stop doing that, and a few who egg them on and call for even more self-appointed refdesk policemen.
5. We also have troll problems on the refdesks, yet the help desk and the village pumps have far fewer problems in this area. Something some of the refdesk regulars are doing at the ref desks that few people are doing at the village pump or help desk is the cause of this. I believe that this something is troll feeding, which includes attempting to control the behavior of other editors as well as the traditional refusing to ignore the trolls.

I have, what I believe to be a solution.

I have asked, repeatedly, that we at the refdesks try my solution as a limited time (30 days or so) experiment.

The experiment never gets done because those who attempt to control the behavior of other editors on the refdesks refuse to stop, even temporarily.

Here is my proposed solution to this problem:

• Get rid of the special rules ("reference desk guidelines") that only apply to the refdesks and which the admins (rightly) refuse to enforce. Turn it into an essay that makes it clear that it is advice, not a policy or guideline.
• Apply the standard rules that apply to all pages on Wikipedia. In particular, apply WP:DDE and especially WP:TPOC.
• Stop complaining about other editors on the refdesk or the refdesk talk pages. Instead, complain on the user's talk page, and if that doesn't work, file a report at WP:ANI or try some other form of dispute resolution, starting with WP:DRR.
• Let Wikipedia's existing mechanisms for dealing with disruptive behavior do their job. This includes full use of WP:DRR and WP:ANI and includes administrators blocking anyone who violates WP:TPOC or persists in complaining about other editors on the refdesk or the refdesk talk pages after being warned not to do that again.

What we are doing is not working. And before anyone asks, no I will not post an RfC with the above solution. I refuse to post RfCs where I am 100% convinced that the proposal will not pass. Feel free to post it yourself and get shot down if you think I am wrong on this. I suggest Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) as an appropriate place to post the RfC.

Finally, I really don't see anything that ANI can do to fix this. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:15, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Can we just send the refdesk to MfD and have a straight up or down on the whole thing? Seems easier. TimothyJosephWood 15:21, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

<shows up here straight from the refdesk> Delete and salt, then nuke the site from orbit. (I'm not serious, but I really believe Guy is on to something with his proposal.) ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:27, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

I find it interesting that [A] there is strong resistance to trying it for 30 days. [B] those who loudly object are, for the most part, the same few editors who insist on controlling the behavior of others. [C] who loudly object are, for the most part, the same few editors who keep being criticized for inappropriate hatting and deleting, yet vow to continue doing it anyway. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:57, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

I refuse to post RfCs where I am 100% convinced that the proposal will not pass. That is a truly remarkable statement. You are pushing strongly for changes that, according to you, stand no chance of community consensus. One thing is certain, such changes will not be passed on this page. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:26, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

I fail to see why you would find this to be remarkable. I have proposed what is, in my opinion and the opinion of several other refdesk regulars, a good solution. I acknowledge that the consensus so far is against even trying my proposed solution as a limited-time experiment. I agree to abide by the consensus even though I disagree with it. I presented my solution in the hope that I may some day persuade enough people to change the consensus. What would you have me do? Pretend that the consensus is right when I think it is wrong? Refuse to abide by the consensus just because I think it is wrong? Post an RfC that I believe will be a waste of effort? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:51, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

To be fair, Guy, the sentence he quoted does carry an implication that you're engaged in WP:ADVOCACY because it says you want to accomplish something without going through the normal channels. I don't see it as a problem, however, because it's advocacy for a change in WP policy, it's a change that is obviously intended to improve the project and it comes from an editor who is obviously here to contribute to the project. It's just an "it sounds bad" kind of thing, IMHO. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:56, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• This has been proposed before, but the problem is that there aren't any special refdesk rules, just a brief summary of general policy at the top of the page. So WP:DISCLAIMER, WP:BLP, WP:CRYSTAL, WP:NOTAFORUM, WP:NOTHOWTO, etc., would still apply. And frankly, we are a lot more lenient in regards to those policies than anywhere else in the rest of the project. I am not sure how anarchy will help any supposed toxicity. μηδείς (talk) 20:37, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• What part of "This page documents an English Wikipedia editing guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow"[11] are you having trouble understanding? If, as you claim, standard Wikipedia policies apply, then it seems to me that you should be held accountable for multiple violations of WP:WP:DDE and especially WP:TPOC. The reason that I wrote the words at the very top of this section were because I assumed that you had a good-faith belief that what you have been doing is allowed under the "reference desk guidelines" (specifically, the part that says "It should be noted that the Wikipedia talk page guidelines apply to the reference desk, both for posting questions and for responding to questions, unless these guidelines clarify that they do not apply"). If this isn't the case, please explain your ongoing disruptive behavior. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:37, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

I drafted a response to Medeis saying "Guy Macon drew attention to special refdesk rules in his post of 05:02 Thursday", but before I had a chance to save it he himself drew attention to them in a rather aggressive manner. 5.150.74.242 (talk) 10:45, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

WP:DISRUPT isn't going to apply because it refers to "improving an article or building the encyclopedia". WP:TPOC doesn't mention hatting. 5.150.74.242 (talk) 10:56, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

What part of

" If a discussion goes off-topic (per the above subsection § How to use article talk pages), editors may hide it using the templates {{collapse top}} and {{collapse bottom}} or similar templates—these templates should not be used by involved parties to end a discussion over the objections of other editors"

are you having trouble understanding?

BTW, Further guidance about hatting is specifically covered in Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines#Closing discussions.

Wikipedia:Disruptive editing applies to any page anywhere on Wikipedia. The correct quote is "disrupts progress toward improving an article or building the encyclopedia". The purpose of the reference desks is to help build the encyclopedia, plus refdesk discussions often lead directly to improvements in specific articles. Disrupting the refdesks is definitely against the rules. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:26, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree 100% with what Guy said directly above me, and was about to say the same exact thing until I saw he beat me to it. The refdesk is part of the encyclopedia. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:00, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

One Editor’s View of the Problem

I will comment briefly, mostly to agree with User:Guy Macon. It isn’t entirely clear whether the original poster actually wants to impose a restriction on User:Medeis or simply wants to discuss. (A major problem here, at WP:ANI, is editors who want to discuss, typically in a hostile fashion, rather than requesting actual administrative action. In this respect, WP:ANI is like the Reference Desks, in being toxic, but is unlike the Reference Desks in having sanctions.) I have sometimes been active at the Reference Desks, and sometimes have ignored them for periods of weeks.

In my opinion, the real problem at the Reference Desks is editors who take the Reference Desks far too seriously, and who therefore think that things need to be done about them. Taking the Reference Desks too seriously is a self-fulfilling prophecy; insisting that there is a problem, either one particular post, or in general, is the problem. Also, as User:Guy Macon says, the Reference Desks have their own trolls. The trolls are fed by the tendency of some Reference Desk posters to get into a blather about the trolls. The trolls, of course, mostly come in from IP addresses, and occasionally from throw-away accounts. The usual response, which is the usual and appropriate response on Wikipedia talk pages, is to semi-protect the page or pages. However, a few regular editors, whom I refer to as RD “idealists”, think that this is the wrong answer, and that the Reference Desks are special, a special outreach of Wikipedia to unregistered editors, and that locking out the unregistered editors is the wrong answer. This results in heated discussion, which probably feeds the trolls. All of this is just one more example of how RD regular editors cause a problem by insisting that there is a problem that must be solved.

In any case, insisting that there is a problem that needs to be solved, whether it is threads that need hatting, or User:Medeis, is what causes the problem, and is why the Reference Desks are toxic.

I agree with User:Guy Macon that a real answer would be for the RD regulars to stop trying to control the behavior of other editors, and would add that they should also stop worrying so much about how to fix the Reference Desk problem. The discussion of how to fix the Reference Desks is the Reference Desk problem. As to the original topic, User:Medeis, she should stop hatting and deleting threads, where her actions do more harm than good, but the original poster should just leave her alone. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:21, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I think most of it is quite correct. However, I disagree about how significant what Medeis is doing is. Do you not agree that closing a new questioner's question is likely to chase him off from using the Reference Desk (and potentially Wikipedia in general) again? And that that is fundamentally antithetical to the RD's purpose, and diminishes its value as a resource? At ten (again, IMO) unjustified closings a months, we're potentially talking about hundreds of people affected here. I find it hard to believe that taking administrative actions while simply brazenly ignoring established procedure and consensus in a way that affected this many people would be tolerated in any other area of Wikipedia.

And I'm not sure this is relevant to your point in the first paragraph, but I originally posted this at WP:AN, not AN/I, and it was moved here. And this is the first time I've ever personally brought an issue to either place. There may be a more appropriate place for this discussion, but I don't think it's the Reference Desk talk pages for exactly the reason you pointed out - the reference desk isn't special, and whether a type of behavior is acceptable there should be decided by the community at large based on general Wikipedia guidelines and principles, not just by the reference desk regulars among themselves based on their own self-imposed rules of RD conduct. Also I did originally bring this up there, and consensus was unanimously against Medeis, but (s)he still re-hatted it twice anyway. I don't know where to turn at that point besides to admins. -Elmer Clark (talk) 21:08, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

pinging User:Robert McClenon so you know I replied to this since it's been 24 hours plus and I'm not sure you're still following this -Elmer Clark (talk) 21:27, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

User:Elmer Clark - It appears that I was just pinged because I failed to comment on a response. Apparently the OP thinks that it is important to discussions here that back-and-forth continue at length. I will respond shortly, but pinging me because I failed to get into an argument seems like an effort to continue an argument. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:49, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Maybe I missed something, but I didn't see a specific administrative action asked by the OP (nor a general administrative request such as for administrative attention). What does the OP want, other than for me to say something (and this thread isn't my thread, but the OP's and Medeis's and the community's). Robert McClenon (talk) 21:49, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Very sorry if my pinging was inappropriate, I thought it was standard procedure to do so when you were replying to someone and there was a good chance they might not see your reply (in this case, because I replied to you so long after your comment). You're certainly free not to involve yourself any more. To be clear, the specific administrative action I am requesting comes at the end of my addendum to the original post - Medeis being banned from closing reference desk discussions. -Elmer Clark (talk) 01:59, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

(Ah, I realize now my wording was ambiguous and could be taken to mean I pinged you because you were taking too long to reply. It wasn't that, it was because my own reply came so late you might not have seen it.) -Elmer Clark (talk) 02:20, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I understand that this is not the best place for this discussion, but I just wanted to pipe up to say that as a long time Refdesk user (Mostly under my old username:APL) I agree strongly with Guy Macon's analysis above.

There's a huge set of written and unwritten rules that dictate proper behavior and God help any question-asker that violates them. Deletion and hatting is the most visible aspect of it, but you can also more subtly browbeat newbies too. (Did the question-asker ask an obviously US-centric question without actually specifying the USA? Let's all lecture them about it!) Add to all that a pervasive suspicion of IP editors, and it feels like there's a real hostility towards new users.

Of course, the existence of this hostile attitude makes it a rich and entertaining target for actual trolls, so the problem is self-reinforcing.

Whether Guy Macon's proposed fixes would fix it, I'm uncertain.

ApLundell (talk) 19:08, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

We could, you know, try it for 30 days and see whether it works. I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:20, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Everyone needs to stick to 0RR 1RR w.r.t. non-vandalism edits on the Ref Desk

Editing the Ref Desk is not similar to editing a Wiki article, there is far less need to revert outside of vandalism. There is a need to hat questions that are not appropriate, and it's these sorts of actions that can get reverted. So, I propose that we all stick to 0RR 1RR when it comes to editing the Ref Desk as far as non-vandalism edits are concerned. We stick to 1RR 2RR w.r.t. dealing with the edits of the OP of a question. So, if you hat a question but the OP reverts you then you can revert to your hatting (even if the OP is a regular, the idea is that an OP will typically be less objective than others). Note that the OP would already be in the wrong when reverting the hatting, as he/she would need to stick to 0RR 1RR, but most questions are asked by non-regular IPs who won't know about these rules. If most regular sticks to these rules, then all inappropriate questions will end up being hatted without creating much drama. Count Iblis (talk) 19:59, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Note: as pointed out in the comments below the original proposal invoking 0RR was wrong, so I corrected the text by changing X RR to (X+1) RR. Count Iblis (talk) 20:11, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

I question your statement: There is a need to hat questions that are not appropriate.

Why do we need to hat anything? I know I've done a little bit of it myself, but on reflection I think hatting is not only unnecessary but counterproductive. Firstly, it actually highlights that which is purported to be hidden, so that's a complete wank. Secondly, nothing is gained by hatting. Thirdly, it's an open invitation for reversion and edit warring.

So someone asks an "inappropriate" question. So what? Best to just leave it alone, or explain to the OP why it's not appropriate, and then just move on. Consider a RL ref desk: Someone rocks up and asks a question that is beyond the remit of the desk. What does the librarian do? Turn back time and pretend the client had never existed? Throw a shroud over the client to hide them from view? No. They just say that they can't answer that question, and maybe suggest where would be a better place to ask. Then on to the next client. Simples.

Now, sometimes answers can get somewhat off-track, and there may be a case for hatting a section of a thread that is really not useful to the OP or anyone else. But as for hatting questions - no way. I'd rather delete a seriously offensively inappropriate question outright, than hat it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:31, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Hmmm, I think you make a good point here. But apart from the hatting issue, whatever we do on the Ref Desk, unless it's reverting vandalism, one should be able to stick to 0RR. Count Iblis (talk) 22:44, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

The ref desk rules say that certain types of questions, though not inherently vandalism, are inappropriate for the ref desk and are subject to deletion. Would you prefer that approach to hatting? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:39, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes. Deletion means removal, not just pretending to hide it behind a hat. There should be a high threshold for removal, but some questions would undoubtedly surpass it. Merely hatting a question actually highlights the question rather than downplaying it, human nature being what it is. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:02, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

My main point is to stick to 0RR, not whether hatting or deletion is better. Suppose the issue of what to do with a problem post would arise then under 0RR it would tend to be sorted out in the best way possible with the least amount of friction anyway. Count Iblis (talk) 02:44, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Are you saying that once someone hats something, it should stay hatted? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:09, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

No, because you can then remove the hat and decide to do something else (if anything) with that post. But when you do that the editor who hatted the question cannot revert back to the previous version, as that would violate 0RR. So, for an edit war to go on and on would requite more and more different editors to step in and undo each other's edit, but there are only a handful of regulars at the Ref Desk, so that's not going to happen. Count Iblis (talk) 08:07, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

That's not 0RR then, it's 1RR. And consider this: user A hats or deletes. User B unhats or undeletes. Why does user B get to "win"? What's special about user B that his opinion overrides user A's opinion? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:50, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

What's special is the fact that user B just demonstrated that the close was not an uncontroversial or uncontentious close. It is the exact same principle used at WP:BRD. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:57, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

So it should then be taken to the talk page. However, if you want to literally use 0RR, then no one can be allowed to unhat or undelete until it's been decided on the talk page. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:26, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Count Iblis, could you please edit your comments and the section title to reflect the fact that you are proposing 1RR and not 0RR? --Guy Macon (talk) 09:57, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Where was this decided?

Re: "The ref desk rules say that certain types of questions, though not inherently vandalism, are inappropriate for the ref desk and are subject to deletion",[12] Where was this decided? Could someone please post a link to the RfC or other discussion where the Wikipedia community (not just the refdesk regulars) decided that this was OK?

WP:CONLIMITED is quite clear on this:

"Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope. WikiProject advice pages, information pages and template documentation pages written by a single individual or several participants who have not formally been approved by the community through the policy and guideline proposal process have no more status than an essay."

Whenever I bring this up, someone replies accusing me of saying that no removals are allowed. I have always been clear that removals on the refdesks are allowed in cases specified by existing policies and guidelines, particularly WP:DISRUPT and WP:TPOC. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:38, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm talking about the long-standing rules against giving professional advice and about not asking questions whose purpose is to invite debate. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:24, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this thread has strayed from its origins. The OP was trying to WP:HOUND a specific editor. Everything after that is misplaced. ANI is not the place to decide what is going to happen to the ref desks. As a couple of us have suggested a Wikipedia:Centralized discussion should be started. Then notices can be placed in various places to generate as full of a discussion as possible. An alternative is a RFC but, IMO, this has gone on so long that a CD is preferable. We can continue to spin our wheels here but, eventually, these threads will archived with nothing having been finalized. As with my request about the original thread I suggest this be closed. Then the discussion can be resumed at the appropriate spot. MarnetteD|Talk 16:25, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Close it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:48, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

I really don't appreciate your repeated accusations about my motives. I think I've given you a very good explanation for why I've brought this up here, and accusing me of "trying to hound someone" nonetheless is a clear violation of WP:AGF. It's also absurd on its face given that, as you've pointed out, I'm much too inactive here to be involved in any ongoing personal disputes with other editors. I believe I've only interacted with Medeis once before ever, and it was about (essentially) this same issue. -Elmer Clark (talk) 21:11, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

And if this is the wrong place for this - perfectly possible, as I pointed out in the very first sentence of my post - wouldn't the correct solution be to move it rather than to close it? I think consensus from the comments here is that there definitely is an issue with Medeis's behavior, but I didn't go about addressing it properly. I would hope more experienced editors would work with me on that instead of just closing it - it's not a good thing if the avenues for addressing problems on Wikipedia are de facto only available to experienced users because anyone making procedural mistakes simply gets their issue tossed out regardless of the merits. -Elmer Clark (talk) 21:15, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

I would suggest that if you're after a topic ban (say), you should just check the Banning policy where it says that you should make you proposal at WP:AN (preferably), or WP:ANI. So, in summary, this is a legitimate place for this discussion, but perhaps you need to start afresh with a direct proposal rather than just a general discussion. Providing diffs of disruptive (or perceived disruptive) behaviour would be essential, I can help with that, so please, if you feel dissuaded by the bureaucracy here, don't let that stop you. There are many here willing to help you. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:24, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Elmer, the suggestion to ban Medeis from hatting/closing or deleting any Ref Desk Q's is a good one, as she has shown a complete lack of judgement in when to do so. You should make that into a formal request, and I will support it. As for the accusation of you acting improperly in bringing the issue up here, I completely disagree. StuRat (talk) 01:16, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. I'm concerned about bringing this up again in a new post though because at least one user (User:MarnetteD) already seems convinced that I'm hounding Medeis, and I'm afraid starting a whole new discussion somewhere else would just reinforce that. Also I did provide diffs in the collapsible box in my "addendum" above, you may have missed that Rambling Man (is there a better/more prominent way I can format that? Medeis seems to think it wasn't prominent enough as well). -Elmer Clark (talk) 02:04, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

The outcome I really don't want is for this discussion to be closed because of my procedural errors/confusing and bad formatting/the perception that I'm hounding Medeis/etc without any ruling being made based on the merits, and then Medeis forever being able to cite this discussion as "proof" that this issue has already been looked at and addressed if anyone ever brings this up again. Advice on how to avoid that would be greatly appreciated... -Elmer Clark (talk) 02:25, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I believe diffs are included right at the start of the discussion, in most cases. But there is a certain irony if this thread is closed because it wasn't worded properly, when Medeis closes threads for that reason, too. StuRat (talk) 04:17, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Support a topic ban banning Medeis/μηδείς from closing or deleting any Ref Desk Q, with the option of later doing the same to other editors if it is determined that their closing/deleting is becoming disruptive. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:22, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

You're inviting the Nazi ref desk troll and/or the Vote(X) troll to raise holy hell anytime their garbage gets deleted - and to punish Medeis if that's the user doing the deleting. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:22, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

How do you figure? There's still literally every other Reference Desk user available to close obviously disruptive threads. And Medeis can easily avoid being "punished" by simply...obeying the sanction. -Elmer Clark (talk) 06:33, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Obviously disruptive threads need to be closed fast, and it doesn't really matter who does it. Why, oh why is this discussion even happening when the community - agreed procedure for dealing with this problem has not been tried first? See this comment:

Pardon my ignorance, but isn't the reason why what we are doing isn't working is that we are not following the existing community - agreed guidelines, which are:

• Whenever you remove a post report on the talk page that you have done this or (if you are removing a troll post from Soft Skin which includes mention of any or all of gas chambers, Hitler, the Holocaust, Jews and National Socialism) identify it in your edit summary. 86.173.152.150 (talk) 10:53, 18 May 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.151.100.217 (talk)

• • "Not working" - compared to what? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:14, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
    • It works great for you because of your phobia against giving "professional advice"; a site that looks extremely unprofessional is the ideal site for you because you then know that no one is going to construe anything from such a site as being "professional advice" (not that you are in the habit of giving professional advice but the mere thought that you may have inadvertently given professional advice may keep you awake at night) :) Count Iblis (talk) 03:27, 24 May 2017 (UTC) .
      • It's not a phobia, it's a rule, and I had nothing to do with its establishment. If you don't like that rule, take it up with the Foundation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:15, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
        • One thing doesn't exclude the other. As a doctor you know that you need to adhere to very rigorous hygiene rules when engaging in certain medical procedures. But if you then get obsessed by sticking to such rules even when it's not necessary and tend to argue on nebulous grounds why such rules still apply, you may be suffering from OCD. Count Iblis (talk) 08:29, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
          • What has that got to do with not allowing professional advice on Wikipedia? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:36, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
            • There are in principle valid reasons why you would not want professional advice to be given on some website. However, these reasons come with certain assumptions that have to do with there being a real problem. The way the Ref Desks operate in practice makes them quite unlikely places for anyone to ever get any serious advice like legal advice or medical advice from. It's like pretending that a Kindergarten in an academic institution and then fighting about how to stick to proper academic standards when there is little more to it than brawling Kindergartners. Count Iblis (talk) 20:37, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
              • I do not buy that argument. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:12, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
                • Nor do I, and it does not accord with the intent of the WMF policy. In fact, it subverts it entirely. No professional advice, period. Anything that violates that rule should be closed down, by any editor, whether or not some critics see them as "self-appointed moderators", and re-opening such a closed thread is behavior suitable to be brought to ANI for sanctioning. There is no possible way to enforce the WMF policy without actually enforcing the policy, and that is not a task that can only be done by admins -- like enforcing BLP or copyvios, any editor can enforce it. Some in this discussion appear to want the WMF "no professional advice" policy to be magically enforced by fairy dust and good will, in the face of a documented history of trolling, but that hasn't worked, and won't work. If the community is not going to allow the RefDesk to be self-policed by those who spend their time there, then it should be shut down entirely. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:20, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
                  • A fundamentalist interpretation devoid of the real issues is always going to cause problems. We've seen in the past how giving editors carte blanche to enforce BLP led to disaster. The reason was that you could now invoke BLP in an entirely unreasonable way to get your way in an editing dispute that had nothing to do with BLP. That problem was only sorted out later when the BLP noticeboard was created. But in the meantime what happened was that a few editors appeared on the scene who were more interested in playing the cop, they did rack up a huge block list but they who also tended to be unblocked quite fast by Admins siding with them. We've had very polarized discussions here on AN/I about these editors the blocks and the unblockings. Count Iblis (talk) 18:41, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
                    • It sounds like you're describing Betacommand. The core problem with a guy like Betacommand is a lack of clear direction from the WMF about what the rules really are, and more importantly, why they are. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:54, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Arbitration proposal

Proposal. The behaviours at the ref desks have been out of control for a long time now. It was a mistake that Arbcom did not look into it as a result of previous cases, including TRM's. They should do so now. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 12:34, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

• You don't need to propose. If you want to go to ARBCOM, go to ARBCOM and make a case. They'll either accept or reject it.--WaltCip (talk) 13:24, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

• It is perfectly legitimate to first discuss a proposal before filing an arbcom case. If a bunch of people say that you have no chance, you might not want to file. If a bunch of people say that it looks like a good idea, you might decide to file based upon that. Also, the exact wording of your filing is important, and should be happerd out before filing. For that, I suggest writing up a a draft in userspace and inviting comments. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:05, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

• Comment - I will Support the filing and opening of an ArbCom case concerning behavior at the Reference Desks. This should have been taken up previously, but still should be taken up. The scope of the case does need to be stated properly. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:30, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
• Two kinds of disruption occur at the refdesks—pushback from the liberty crowd when discussions are sensibly closed, and pushback from the liberty crowd when trolls are reverted. Arbcom cannot provide a solution that is not based on a community decision about what is acceptable, so nothing productive will occur until a massive RfC establishes the purpose of the refdesks and whether any limits apply. Johnuniq (talk) 04:02, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
  • This could also be stated that "disruptions occur on the ref-desk when a small group of users aggressively misinterpret the rules to remove or shut down legitimate questions." depending on who you think is in the right. Getting clarification on such issues, or determining a way to make them them no longer an issue, might just be a service arb-com could provide.

However, I think we'd need to all be prepared for the possibility that they'd decide that the RefDesk has outlived its usefulness. ApLundell (talk) 16:40, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

This sounds fine to me (and I think it's clear that someone other than me should be making the proposal). However, I would hope that it would not turn into a vague discussion of the "general culture" of the reference desk during which Medeis's specific behavior isn't addressed, which IMO goes above and beyond the broader problems plaguing the reference desk as a whole, and is a problem that can be tackled with much simpler measures than fixing everything wrong with the entire RD. -Elmer Clark (talk) 01:26, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

• Question particularly for User:Dweller: Would standard discretionary sanctions applied to the ref desks help? Is been a long time since I've looked at them and I was never very involved (and one doesn't like to second-guess the committee too much) but if the problems described above are described accurately then DS seems a fairly likely part of the outcome of a full case. Would that help? Or would it just create an environment where new editors' Wikipedia experience starts at AE? GoldenRing (talk) 02:13, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

  Possibly/probably. Arbcom could also usefully help determine whether the RefDesks really are exempt from usual policies or guidelines. And, strongly, the problem editing isn't coming from newbies. It's RefDesk regulars sniping at each other and at questioners and disagreeing about 'the rules'. Longstanding editors and administrators who ought to know better behaving like mastodons. It's like a bloody playground, has been for ages and ages and ages, has spilled into ArbCom's turf on several occasions and each time it's not been addressed. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 08:40, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

• I hope this doesn't happen. The refdesks are usually a saner place than the rest of Wikipedia. Medeis is a knowledgeable refdesk contributor whose presence makes the place smarter, so I want for her to keep participating. And I'd rather that the broader Wikipedia dispute resolution bureaucracy simply stay away from a part of the project whose dysfunction is less severe than the part that's being proposed to fix it. I remember another one of these discussions where Medeis made some points about WP policy interpretation which I thought were philosophically at odds with how the project works at its best, and that her recurring conflicts with other contributors might follow from that. So I've thought that informal discussion or mediation might bring out better understanding and maybe compromise about those issues. I'd like to help with that if possible, though my editing opportunities are very limited these days. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 06:57, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

What questions would you specifically request the arb-com look into? I'd like to suggest the following : - Does the reference desk still serve a purpose proportional to the effort put into it? - Do the Ref Desk guidelines hold any weight, and should they be enforced? - What should be done about questions that do not strictly contravene the rules, but about which there is disagreement on whether they are legitimate questions or trolls? ApLundell (talk) 18:40, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration#Scope of arbitration explains that Arbcom will not decide what should happen at the refdesks. The policies and guidelines I am aware of focus on the encyclopedia and Arbcom will rule on whether editor behavior aligns with those procedures. I am not aware of any rules regarding the refdesks so Arbcom cannot help. However, I can answer your last question. Participants should understand that pursuing freedom or personal enjoyment is not the purpose of this website, and should already know that there have been many cases of trolling or otherwise inappropriate commentary. Therefore, the correct procedure is to accept any close or removal that could be construed as good faith. Only revert when it is believed the close was itself trolling or a blatantly misguided me-too action from a new participant. Even then, a close should be reversed only when pursuing the discussion would be beneficial—do not revert a close merely becauses like or freedom. Johnuniq (talk) 23:36, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

So individuals can make up arbitrary rules ("Questions about sexuality are self-evident trolling.") and then enforce them as long as they might be doing it in "good faith"? That can't possibly be right. ApLundell (talk) 13:52, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I doubt very much whether any editor has carte blanche to misbehave just because it's on the Reference desk rather than the encyclopedia. ArbCom can and does deal with misbehaviour on talk pages as well. The correct procedure is to follow the community - approved "Reference desk guidelines" (see section above). I don't think good faith should be the criterion because it raises the potential for argument ("Sorry, guv, I didn't know it was against the rules, I did it in good faith.") 81.151.101.13 (talk) 15:24, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

The above claim is factually incorrect. The special rules ("reference desk guidelines") that only apply to the refdesks and which the admins (rightly) refuse to enforce were never approved by the community. They were written and are being enforced by a small group of editors who never asked the community to approve what they are doing or to appont them as the refdsk police. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:32, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

These guidelines were adopted when the Reference desk was reconstituted in 2006. Prior to adoption there was discussion on the talk page, as can be seen from the discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Reference desk/rules. Any proposal which is adopted after being discussed on a talk page is regarded as having community consensus. 81.151.101.13 (talk) 19:15, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

It's a bit similar to how "not truth" was for a long time the de-facto "consensus" on verifiability here on Wikipedia. There was actually never a consensus about it, just the claim that it was so and then you got many editors who would support the status quo due to a lack of a good alternative. Or take the issue of gay marriage in the real world. The opponents have cited the many thousands of year's old consensus that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. But did that consensus ever get established based on a detailed analysis of gay relationships? Of course not, such relationships were taboo until just a few decades ago. Count Iblis (talk) 19:44, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Once again, 81.151.101.13's claims are factually incorrect. Wikipedia:Reference desk/guideline (later renamed to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines leaving a redirect) was created on 8 December 2006‎. Shortly after that, Wikipedia:Reference desk/rules was created as a content fork of Wikipedia:Reference desk/guideline, then nominated for deletion in the MfD that 81.151.101.13 linked to above. The "discussion on the talk page" (the MfD) was a discussion about the seperate, content fork page, not about Wikipedia:Reference desk/guideline(s). Futhermore, 81.151.101.13's claim that "Any proposal which is adopted after being discussed on a talk page is regarded as having community consensus" is also factually wrong. See WP:LOCALCON.

Given the apparent familiarity with Wikipedia policy, the ability to search for ancient MfDs,. the apparently deliberate multiple factually wrong claims, and the edit history (2 edits total), WP:DUCK tells me that 81.151.101.13 is a sockpuppet. The question is, is he a sockpuppet of one of the refdesk regulars who have taken on the role of self-appointed moderators, or is he a sockpuppet of one of our IP-hopping refdesk trolls? My money is on the latter. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:18, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Guy isn't telling the whole story. The result of the Mfd was to merge Wikipedia:Reference desk/rules and Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guideline. I do know the difference between a talkpage and an Mfd. There followed a comprehensive discussion of the proposals on both pages. The policy Guy links to actually says

Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale.

You can see the scale of the discussion here: Special:Permalink/94890911. 81.151.101.13 (talk) 11:36, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

I hear quacking... The 11-year-old discussion 81.151.101.13 linked to above was among a handful of refdesk regulars who unanimously !voted to allow everything and did not discuss removing or collapsing comments at all. Again, zero evidence that the wider community ever approved the creation of self-appointed refdesk cops. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:14, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Whatever the original problem at the Reference Desks is or was, it is compounded by a few editors who are so determined to solve the problem that they create a problem in the source of solving it. This noticeboard certainly isn't the place to solve the problem. (However, this noticeboard does not effectively solve any problem that polarizes and divides the community.) An argument can be made and has been made that Medeis should be topic-banned from closing threads at the Reference Desk, but that doesn't appear to have consensus, and besides that would only address one part of whatever the problem is. If there is no consensus to take action here, either file an arbitration request and close this thread, or close this thread. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:43, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

SteveBaker's opinions

SteveBaker was a Ref Desk regular who made a large number of contribution. He has just left a note on the talk page to explain why he left a year ago, see here. On his talk page we can find a few comments from a year ago, like this one that make it clear that the problem is with self-appointed moderators. Now, I don't agree with SteveBaker on everything here, I don't think banning Medeis would be a good idea, but his the broader perspective on the problems is spot on; self appointed moderators imposing their rules is asking for problems. Count Iblis (talk) 23:38, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

If an editor is supporting and applying consensus policy, then they are not a "self-appointed moderator", they are an editor supporting and applying consensus policy. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:06, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

That would be fine and good if you could provide a link to the discussion where the Wikipedia community agreed to the special rules ("reference desk guidelines") that only apply to the refdesks and which the admins (rightly) refuse to enforce and a link to where the Wikipedia community further agreed that ordinary editors can perform deletions and hatting that would otherwise no be allowed under WP:TPOC or WP:DDE. Do you have such links? Because unless someone provides links RfCs or other discussions that I am not aware of, the special rules and especially the whole idea self appointed moderators imposing those rules looks like a classic case of WP:LOCALCON to me. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:56, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

There doesn't need to be an RfC, and it's not an instance of LOCALCON, since there is a specific WMF policy against giving out professional advice which can be enforced by any editor, not just admins, just as the BLP and copyvio policies can be. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:24, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

The fundamental problem is that the Ref-Desk are doing something totally different than the rest of Wikipedia, but policy is shaped by what goes on in the rest of Wikipedia. The ban on professional advice and how to act against violations cannot be interpreted precisely like we do when editing articles, so one ends up with some ad hoc agreements on how to go about these things. You'll then get people who'll act more aggressively against problems and sometimes they'll see a problem when others don't see a problem. Discussions can then escalate when questions and answers are hatted by one editor while other editors don't see a problem with the question and now see that their answers have been hatted. A very strict zero tolerance approach is good for editing articles, but it's not good for the Ref-Desk with the exception of removing obvious problem questions (which then wouldn't be controversial to do). Count Iblis (talk) 05:46, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I strongly disagree. If anything -- because it's completely ancillary to the primary mission of Wikipedia -- the RefDesk needs to be even more strictly patrolled then articlespace does. In fact, with all due respect to the fine editors who labor there, Wikipedia would not be harmed in any way if the RefDesk was closed down entirely. Given that, extremely strict zero tolerance for violations of the "no professional advice" policy seems to me to be an obvious necessity, and I have absolutely no problem with editors enforcing the policy in that manner. Obviously, some disagree, but ArbCom is that way, and no one's filed a case request yet. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:15, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

...not to mention pro­fes­sion­als doing things you never would have imagined. EEng

You have to consider here that no real professional advice is typically given there (in the rare cases where there is such an issue it's going to be removed) the problem is usually purely formal. So, someone asks a question that is not meant as professional advice but it can be construed that way; the closing of such questions leads to tensions. I do agree that it's better to have clear cut guidelines that can be strictly enforced to the letter, but the way things are done now will always lead to ambiguities it's a recipe to get the sort of conflicts we see there. Professional advice has to be invoked in a well defined but reasonable way, otherwise virtually anything can in principle be construed as professional advice as today you have professionals doing virtually anything you can imagine. Count Iblis (talk) 22:33, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Please don't allow this to be archived without an administrator making a decision

This issue has come to ANI at least a dozen times already, and if allowed to time out and archive will come back a dozen more times, with the more problematic editors emboldened by the lack of action. The Wikipedia community is pleading with you for help. Either help us or tell us that further requests for help will be ignored so we can go elsewhere. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:43, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

No single admin is going to make the kind of decision that is being requested. It will likely take a well-written RfC because this matter must be put to the community for consensus. Even if it ends up at ArbCom eventually, it will still likely need to go the path of allowing the community to make the attempted decision(s) first. Admins and ArbCom do not make policies...the community does.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 00:52, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

User:Xx236's disruptive editing and advocacy on Vladimir Lenin and other Soviet themed articles

The short version: Over the past month, Xx236 has been editing disruptively on various Soviet-themed articles, most notably Vladimir Lenin and Talk:Vladimir Lenin. They are engaged in WP:Advocacy to push a staunchly anti-Soviet and anti-Lenin view that is far more extreme than those found in the WP:Reliable sources. They have been warned about this on multiple occasions and clearly are not listening. The only way to deal with the situation now is to ban them from editing Soviet-themed articles and their Talk Pages. Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:16, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

The long version: Since 19 April 2017 (a month ago today), User:Xx236 has begun twenty-three different sections at Talk:Vladimir Lenin, each containing a different complaint about the FA-rated article. They have also added unreferenced and poorly referenced trivia about the Polish anti-communist movement into the Lenin article itself ([13], [14], [15], etc) and argued that unreferenced additions should not be removed so long as they are "obvious facts" (?) ([16]). They have similarly bombarded other Marxism and Soviet-themed Talk Pages with section after section in quick succession (fourteen over at Talk:Joseph Stalin, five at Talk:Main Currents of Marxism, four at Talk:Red Army, six at Talk:Soviet Union, six at Talk:Anti-Katyn, six at Talk:Soviet Union in World War II, two at Talk:Socialist state etc). This is just getting silly and needs to stop. It clearly comes under the definition of WP:Disruptive editing.

If their complaints actually had merit then it would be a different kettle of fish, but they don't. Rather, XX236 is just making poorly worded and highly idiosyncratic claims: stating that Lenin was not a Marxist ([17]), that Christopher Hill cannot be a legitimate historian because he was a Marxist ([18], [19]), and that the Soviet Union was not a socialist state ([20]). Other comments are totally incomprehensible ([21]) or are criticisms of statements made in reliable sources ([22]). They reject various WP:Reliable sources produced by academics and scholars as unsuitable on the most spurious of grounds: Louis Fischer's work because he was a leftist writing in the 1960s ([23], [24]), Mark Sandle's because it had the word Socialism in the title ([25]), and Robert Service's because several Amazon reviews and a random Trotskyite website don't like it ([26]; [27]; [28]). At the same time they are repeatedly claiming that the Lenin article is biased in favour of its central subject and the Soviets ([29]; [30]; [31]; [32]; [33] etc) and that it does not deserve to be a Featured Article ([34]; [35]; [36]); this is despite the fact that it has been heavily scrutinised by many different editors during GAN, PR, and FAC only last year, none of whom thought it had a pro-Soviet bias.

Xx236 is engaged in WP:Advocacy. They make it abundantly apparent that they hold passionately anti-Lenin and anti-Soviet views ([37]), in part perhaps because they claim to have had Polish relatives killed by the Soviets [38] and grew up in the Soviet-backed Polish People's Republic ([39]). Clearly, they are seeking to use Wikipedia to spread the 'truth' of their POV, and are very concerned that anyone might develop views about a "good Lenin" ([40]). To this end, their proposed changes to the article consistently downplay or seek to delete anything that might possibly contribute to a favourable or at least not entirely hostile view of Lenin. At the same time, they are trying to add undue emphasis on anything 'bad' that Lenin and his government did, foregrounding these at the expense of the more balanced view that we get in the Reliable Sources. For them, the article is 'biased' because it does not promulgate their own view that Lenin was a terrible human being whose every thought and deed oozed nefariousness and malice ([41]; [42]) and who should be held responsible for everything that the Soviet Union ever did during the 20th century ([43]; [44]). Those who disagree with their proposed edits are dismissed as Soviet sympathisers ([45]) or generally treated un-civilly ([46]) (update: after initiating this ANI request they even labelled me "immoral and disgusting" [47]!) They are not here to build an encyclopaedia in accordance with Wikipedia's guidelines and policies; they are here to 'Right Great Wrongs'. This has been pointed out to them repeatedly, but they are refusing the get the point, and claiming that any accusation of advocacy is a "personal attack" ([48]; [49]).

Their constant posting has proved time consuming for myself and others — among them User:Jack Upland, User:Amakuru, User:John, User:Jimfbleak, User:Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi, User:Crossswords, User:Ian.thomson, and User:Britmax — to deal with. That their edits are disruptive has been pointed out to them by both myself ([50]) and Jack ([51]) but that has not stopped them. On 17 May, I raised the issue once more on the Lenin Talk Page, asking them to stop ([52]); several other editors chimed in to support me on this, and both Ian.thomson and Fortuna suggested taking the issue to ANI ([53]; [54]). Xx236 has taken no notice, accused his/her critics of trying to do "their revolutionary duty" ([55]), and continued posting new complaints at the Talk Page ([56]). At this stage it is abundantly apparent that Xx234 has absolutely no intention of desisting from their advocacy and disruptive editing. The only option left is for a ban to be introduced preventing them from editing Soviet- and Marxist-themed articles and their Talk Pages, which is what I propose. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:20, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Update as of 28 May: It has just been brought to my attention that in 2009, Xx236 was given a topic ban for POV-pushing on other Central and Eastern European themed articles ([57]) and was subsequently given a temporary block for trying to evade that ban. ([58]) Their current advocacy and disruptive editing is clearly part of a broader problem and that—by this point—they should be well aware of what they are doing. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:02, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks for the ping. This assessment is wholly correct. I can't improve on Midnightblueowl's gloss, but I would emphasise that the main issues to me are the lack of communication and the poor quality of the edits; if either of thse factors was a positive one, it might cancel out the other. But they don't. And combined with the amount of energy other editors have spent- and fair play to them, that's far more than me- and wasted on Xx236, I have to support the proposed Tban. This should last until such a time that they can persuade the community that they are capable of neutrally editing the subject without mounting a soapbox. — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 13:23, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
• Totally support topic-ban from the topic of the USSR, broadly construed to include not just the Soviet leadership but people who lived there, military campaigns involving the Red Army etc, and any topic ban to explicitly involve talkpages as well as articles themselves. I've seen this going on in the background since Vladimir Lenin found its way onto my watchlist during its FA review, and endorse ever word Midnightblueowl says above. Whether or not Xx236 (aka Xx234~enwiki) is acting in good faith is irrelevant; it's clear that they have an ultra-fringe POV that because Communist regimes committed atrocities, anyone who has anything positive to say about any aspect of anyone or anything connected to a Communist government is automatically an unreliable source and consequently no Wikipedia article can mention anything positive about any aspect of the USSR. (This isn't a standard we apply to any other topic; Nazi Germany, Harrying of the North, Genghis Khan, Cultural Revolution etc faithfully document what positives there are, and give due weight to the views of historians who feel that insert name of atrocity was exaggerated or justified.)

  On the specific topic of communism, it's sometimes easy to forget that significant parts of the world still have Communist governments and even many non-communist countries still have significant communist movements—"when you add up the positives and negatives the Communist Party was overall a force for good" is still a significant school of thought, not a fringe opinion like "Hitler was right" that's only held by a handful of cranks, and Wikipedia is obliged to give due weight to this school of thought. Despite the many, many times this has been explained, Xx236 appears incapable of understanding the difference of "my point of view" and "neutral point of view". ‑ Iridescent 13:44, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• Oh dear, I've just read most of Xx236's contributions at Talk:Vladimir Lenin and I've checked a good few of Midnightblueowl's links, and the tendentious POV-pushing and bulldozing IDHT are overwhelming. We clearly have someone here who has a visceral hatred for Lenin, Soviet Communism and anything related to the USSR - and their life's experience might well justify that. But we certainly can't have our Wikipedia articles turned into hate pieces, and I really cannot see any way this might be someone who can be brought round to the Wikipedia way of doing things. So that's a Strong Support for a topic ban from all pages associated with the USSR, broadly construed (especially as this appears to have been going on for a long time). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:14, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

  Oh, and @Midnightblueowl: You did a pretty good job of keeping the long version so short! Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:27, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• Likewise. From the linked discussions its clear they are totally incapable of editing neutrally in the area. Even if they are right about Lenin not being a Marxist ;) Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:30, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

"Nobody is born a Marxist, not even Marx" :) — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 12:26, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• Support I would even block if this continues. — JJBers 14:58, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• Agreed. Hopefully a ban will deal with the problem at hand and that will be the end of it. However, if Xx236 attempts to evade a ban or goes and edits disruptively on other topics then I think that a total block will be inevitable. Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:26, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• Support Tban of this WP:TEND editing. There are other websites where this editor can grind their axe. MarnetteD|Talk 16:23, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
• Support. I've been watching this happen and I think Midnightblueowl's summary is excellent. For completeness, I am also pinging Gravuritas, who has been making somewhat similar points, though with a better understanding of how Wikipedia works, and who has expressed support for Xx236 at least once or twice. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:07, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. Thanks for the ping. Sorry, don't think MBO has given a fair summary of the situation. To someone with some knowledge of the history of Eastern Europe, the article is biased in Lenin's favour. To take a simple example, the article emphasises Lenin's anti-imperilist pronouncements and glosses over his many imperialist actions. Small edts, e.g by me, to begin to correct this slant are met by a snowstorm of resistance, in particular by MBO and JU. Xx236 appears to me to often be correct in his analysis, even if his way of working is somewhat grasshopper-like. JU has greeted him with scorn for his English, and MBO has been obstructive: e.g. describing one of Xx236's suggested edits as having 'multiple grammarical errors' when it only needed two 'the's to correct it. I wish Xx236 worked more slowly, and concentrated on one or two edits at a time, and I have previously suggested such on his user page, but I understand his frustration. The risk in banning him is that the current cosy cartel of editors who enthusiastically study Lenin and Soviet history, but ignore other external sources, will be left to govern this article. I, using somewhat different RS, will be continually outvoted and will accordingly give up. I would suggest a rap on the knuckles for Xx236, and another rap on the knuckles for those editors who have stifled him when he makes fair, constructive points.

Gravuritas (talk) 20:53, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Gravuritas' statement that I criticised one of Xx236's additions because it contained "multiple grammatical errors" is untrue. That was actually a concern that I expressed about User:Staberinde's contribution [59], and (as the link shows) it was far from being my only concern about that addition. Myself and Staberinde subsequently cordially discussed the issue at the Talk Page and came to a compromise that we could all live with. It had nothing to do with Xx236 at all. Therefore, aside from the fact that Gravuritas' claim here is just totally false, it is also an issue that is totally irrelevant to this discussion. Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:50, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Correction accepted. Sorry, have no time to check timeline.

Gravuritas (talk) 22:19, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

And, for what it's worth, I never "greeted him with scorn for his English" or "mocked" him as Gravuritas has claimed previously. In any case, this is a red herring, because language issues have been a minor factor, as anyone who looks at the Talk page can see.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:29, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Moreover, while I appreciate that this section is not designed as a discussion of Gravuritas' edits, Gravuritas has made the claim that their own edits have been met by a "snowstorm of resistance" and that I am "obstructive" and a member of a "cosy cartel of editors" who deserve a "rap on the knuckles" for our opposition to Xx236's edits. For this reason I think it important to give some clarification. It is true that I, and other editors, have opposed many of Gravuritas' edits and suggestions, just as we have opposed Xx236's. But this is because Gravuritas has also been engaging in many of the same disruptive behaviours as Xx236, albeit in a more articulate manner. Gravuritas began their activity on the Lenin article on 20 April 2017 (only a day after Xx236 reappeared) and clearly shares Xx236's fiercely emotional anti-Soviet perspective ([60]; [61]; [62] etc) and I believe that to be the reason that they regard "the article [as being] biased in Lenin's favour". Like Xx236, they have made additions to the FA-rated Vladimir Lenin article that are simply un-referenced ([63]), and have removed academically referenced information with which they happen to disagree because it could potentially cast Lenin in a slightly positive light ([64]). They have also repeatedly engaged in edit warring to make (often) idiosyncratic alterations to the article without consensus ([65]; [66]; [67]; [68]; [69]; [70]; [71] etc). In doing so they have made multiple false claims to bolster their position: claiming that a Talk Page discussion has backed them when it has not even taken place ([72]), making inaccurate statements about the history of the article ([73]; [74]) etc.

Rather than seeing their critics as people trying to keep a balance and uphold Wikipedia rules and regulations, they have repeatedly accused those who criticise or oppose their actions of being Lenin sympathisers ([75]), "apologist[s]" ([76]), "deniers of [Stalin's murders]", ([77]) and defenders "of the indefensible" ([78]), even going so far as to call on their critics to apologise to "Stalin's millions of victims" ([79]). Clearly, they do not care much for WP:Civility, and editors who disagree with them (for a variety of reasons) have been accused of being an "ignoramus" ([80]), a promoter of "biased garbage" ([81]), and "scum" ([82]; [83]). When confronted on this, Gravuritas' response has been to state that the Civility policy doesn’t count in certain scenarios and that they will not abide by it ([84]). This behaviour is evidently nothing new; they have been repeatedly censured for breaches of civility ([85]; [86]; [87]; [88]; [89]) and their behaviour has been brought to ANI twice before, in July 2016 [90] and again in September 2016, when User:Spike Wilbury told them to clean up their act and behave in a civil manner ([91]) – clearly they have not done so. It is perhaps due to their general outlook and their similar patterns of disruptive editing that Gravuritas has developed some sympathy for Xx236 and has defended them when no-one else has. Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:50, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• Support topic ban. Everyking (talk) 21:11, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
• Support topic ban. In fairness to Xx236, I think that many of this user's edits are good faith attempts to improve articles, unfortunately, Midnightblueowl makes a convincing case that the total pattern of behavior is disruptive. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:59, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, I don't doubt the sincerity of Xx236's actions. I believe that they are motivated by a genuine desire to tell readers 'the truth', rather than any impish love of mischief. Unfortunately, that does not stop their edits from being any less disruptive. Midnightblueowl (talk) 23:07, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Well, it isn't just a matter of good intentions; some (a few) of Xx236's edits do really seem to be helpful, but that does not prevent the user's overall behavior from having undesirable consequences. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 05:22, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• Support everything what Midnightblueowl said. Its not only about these topics but his whole attitude in communicating to other people, which he has a dissagreement with. There were 2 instances where he called my edits (adding articles into the See Also category) trash and other hostile choosing of words when trying to make an argument. English skills are no excuse here, he knows what he is writing.--Crossswords (talk) 12:05, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
• Support topic ban for Xx236. And for Gravuritas. Being moderately more articulate and civil doesn't make his unacceptable edits any less of a cas of POV pushing. Bit of them need to be told to walk away and tlstol trying to use Wikipedia to promote their POV. oknazevad (talk) 18:20, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. I can not check everything above, but I looked at editing by Xx236 on the pages Lenin and Stalin, because that was allegedly the problem. Here are all his recent series of edits on pages Lenin [92], [93],[94] and Stalin [95]. I do not see anything even remotely problematic here, anything which would justify his topic ban. His talk page comments are indeed questionable, however I do not think they warrant a topic ban. I am looking at the diffs by the filer of this complaint, For example this comment - yes, he is right, the role of Lenin in creating the Soviet system can be well documented. Or this - yes, he is right, the expertise of R.Service on the subject was challenged by at least one serious historian. And so it goes (can't check everything). His only problem: he does not provide any sources to support his statements on article talk pages (but I think he provides acceptable sources while editing articles themselves). If this is indeed so seriously problematic, please bring it to WP:AE (the subject is under discretionary sanctions), but please provide at least 5-6 clear-cut diffs that are immediately problematic after looking at them. My very best wishes (talk) 22:41, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

• I feel that you may be being a little generous with your assessment, there. You state that you see nothing wrong with Xx236's additions to the Lenin article, but they were adding unreferenced and poorly referenced material to an FA-rated article without trying to gain any consensus for its addition first. The material itself was more about anti-communist groups in Poland than it was about Lenin himself; it counts as WP:Trivia. That's clearly disruptive. As for your statements about Xx236's Talk Page comments, again I think you are being over-generous. You cite this comment and state that "yes, he is right, the role of Lenin in creating the Soviet system can be well documented", but that isn't actually what Xx236 said. Xx236 stated that Lenin was involved in constructing Stalinism, not the "Soviet system". The two things are different (and it's not even as if the article ever denied that Lenin constructed the Soviet system of governance - indeed it talks about how Lenin did this at various points). Further, that particular link was not originally selected by me to demonstrate that Xx236 was making dubious claims (that Stalinism owed a fair bit to Lenin is hardly a controversial point); rather, it was selected because it demonstrates Xx236's view that the article was biased.
• You then state that "yes, he is right, the expertise of R.Service on the subject was challenged by at least one serious historian". Aside from the fact that virtually every historian of modern Russian history has been challenged on various points by their peers (such is the nature of academic scholarship), Xx236 was not actually stating that Service's work had been challenged by a professional historian; rather, they were suggesting that it was bad because they found a Trotskyite website that gave it a poor review and because it had a couple of poor reviews on Amazon. That wasn't helping anyone; it was just an attempt to undermine the (academically referenced) content of the page (presumably so that Xx236 could then step in and start changing things). Their whole approach to interacting with others at the Talk Page has fallen well within the definition of WP:Disruptive editing and they have ignored every previous attempt to deal with the problem. A topic ban really is the last resort here. Midnightblueowl (talk) 00:28, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
• PS: Apologies for being a nitpicker about some of your comments. I—like several others—have been dealing with Xx236's incessant disruptive editing for several weeks now and I really do think that something needs to be done about it. Midnightblueowl (talk) 00:30, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

• I can see what had happen. There is another contributor on talk pages who repeatedly makes totally ridiculous comments like this: "There is no real evidence that the Moscow trials were "rigged" or that the saboteurs were not actually working to overthrow the Soviet leadership". That provokes Xx236 to became engaged in WP:SOAP-like discussions and make talk page comments that are now brought on this page as a proof of his misbehavior. My very best wishes (talk) 23:26, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

• I would agree that User:Claíomh Solais also makes some dubious Talk Page comments; they are clearly coming from a strongly pro-Stalin POV that is (in its own way) contrary to the WP:Reliable Sources. However, they have only been active recently on Talk:Joseph Stalin, not Talk:Vladimir Lenin. There has been virtually no interaction between Claíomh Solais and Xx236 (I can only find two Talk Page discussions where they have both contributed), and certainly no instances where Xx236 has directly responded to Claíomh Solais' comments (bar perhaps this confusing comment from 26 April). Thus, I think it somewhat misleading to state that Claíomh Solais' comments have "prokove[d]" Xx236 to edit disruptively. There is barely any connection between the two at all. Even if there were, the fact that there is one editor posting comments from a pro-Stalin perspective over at Talk:Joseph Stalin really would not excuse Xx236's disruptive editing to push an anti-Soviet POV on a whole host of articles. Midnightblueowl (talk) 23:52, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

• Here is the problem. I am looking at first three diffs ([384], [385], [386]) you provided as evidence of misbehavior by Xx236 on page Lenin. Here is first of them: [96]. Yes, that looks disruptive. However, one must look at the whole series of edits by Xx236 [97]. Is it really problematic? Yes, I would not make such edit, but this is hardly a reason for a topic ban. I can mostly see WP:SOAP like discussions on the part of Xx236 and several other users. A strong warning about it? Yes, sure. Topic ban? I am not convinced. My very best wishes (talk) 00:22, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

• The addition of poorly referenced WP:Trivia into an FA-rated article is problematic, but I would agree with you that that alone would clearly not warrant a topic ban. Rather, the reason why Xx236 warrants such a ban is because for the last month they have been engaged in a relentless programme of WP:Advocacy and WP:Disruptive editing across a wide range of Soviet-themed articles. Their comments, as you note yourself, are problematic. That they have been repeatedly asked to stop and have flatly refused means that there is no other option left but a topic ban. The addition of the poorly referenced trivia in the Lenin article was just one, very small, part of this wider pattern of disruption. Midnightblueowl (talk) 00:38, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I quickly checked his comments on several talk pages and even responded. I do not see his comments as something really disruptive. But he is definitely frustrated and needs a wikibreak. My very best wishes (talk) 02:24, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

• Support -- I reviewed the discussion at Talk:Vladimir_Lenin#Xx236_-_Please_stop_with_the_disruptive_editing, plus others, and I have to say I agree with the proposal. Sample comment: "If I'm in a wrong place to discuss such subjects, so please do you revolutionary duty". What does this even mean?

Add to that the additions of editorialising to articles (sample), as well as the belief that the country has been teeming with street children up to the 1990s (diff of article move), and this seems to be a case of WP:CIR / clouded judgement. K.e.coffman (talk) 06:29, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

My crime is Soviet/Russian historiography studies mostly the Great Patriotic War, forgetting the period 1939-41. Why don't you ask for citations but prefer to attack me here? The statement is obvious, there are hundreds of Soviet/Russian texts about the Great Patriotic War and much less about the WWII. Xx236 (talk) 07:43, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

This not the place to discuss the page Orphans in the Soviet Union, but you have started so I'm responding. The page is about the street children and about orphans: Major contributors to the population of orphans and otherwise homeless children.... The majority of the text is about street children. Homeless children was a more general notion, it included orphans and non-orphans. The Russian article is about homeless children. Xx236 (talk) 07:24, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

• This Wikipedia needs a basic discussion of Soviet subjects to remove possible bias and omissions. Such serious discussion is being replaced by a hunt on me. This Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a Marxist-Leninist circle or a highschool in which students are bullied becaus ethey belong to an another culture.

This Wikipedia needs a feministic review of biographies of white male leaders eg. Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin.

Midnightblueowl is a much better editor than me, but Wikipedia needs not only editing but also knolwdge and my knowledge is at least comparable. Midnightblueowl doesn't accept my critics, even if I'm right. As far no my opponents has declared knowledge of Russian language or of the whole subject - Soviet history. People who edit pages about everything, aren't able to be very competent in every field.

I have been accused to be pro-Polish, but the accusation failed. I have been accused several times to be wrong, but several of my opinions were right. I'm not going to discuss these absurd accusations. Learn and return.

Please remeber that all of your biased and false accusations will be preserved for ever. In 100 years a doctor thesis will be written - leftist censorship in English Wikipedia.

I'm 90% right so if you decide to topic-ban me, I'm leaving for the period of the ban.

What about the editors who have attacked me ad personam, eg. my language? Xx236 (talk) 07:03, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

My edits of Vladimir Lenin haven't been disruptiive, they are still there. Please change the misinforming name of the thread. What you do is immoral and disgusting.Xx236 (talk) 10:10, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Lplease punish my recent anti-Soviet crime in Moomin.Xx236 (talk) 10:14, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

• I do not think that anyone accused you of being "pro-Polish per se, Xx236, nor did they "bully" you because you "belong to another culture". Nevertheless, you have added WP:trivia about Polish anti-communists into the Lenin article, mentioned Poland in the Talk Pages, and made your anger regarding the Soviet treatment of Poland quite clear. Your experiences as a Pole have clearly influenced your view of the Soviet Union; and that's fine, but you can't let that interfere with the rules and regulations of Wikipedia, as you have done. Your grasp of the English language is not perfect, granted, and while that has made some of your comments difficult to understand, the main problem is the general rambling structure and bizarre content of your comments, which has nothing to do with being a native English speaker or not ("Lplease punish my recent anti-Soviet crime in Moomin" being a classic example).
• Your above comment also demonstrates your tendency to view all your critics as ideologically motivated ("a Marxist-Leninist circle... leftist censorship in English Wikipedia") rather than as people seeking a neutral presentation of the information present in WP:Reliable sources. I have no doubt that there are editors on Wikipedia with a Marxist-Leninist or otherwise far left POV (I cited Claíomh Solais above) but unless all of the editors who scrutinised the article at GAN, PR, and FAC are secret communists eager to promote the image of the 'good Lenin', then I do not see how a highly biased article has been produced (as you claim). Ironically, while you accuse me of constructing a pro-Lenin article, others ([98]) have accused me of having crafted an anti-Lenin article and being part of a bourgeois disinformation campaign. I've made it quite clear that I am not a Leninist nor do I think that Lenin's rise to power was a good thing—the man was clearly an ideologically driven zealot quite happy to see thousands killed—and yet you repeatedly paint me and others as some sort of communist cabal simply for opposing your disruptive editing. It's rather frustrating. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:37, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

• Once again, K.e.Koffman provides a single diff ("sample") by Xx236 instead of looking at the whole series of his edits on the page. So, the thing was sourced. Was it an adequate sourcing? I do not think so, but the statement was true and could be very easily sourced to something much better. My very best wishes (talk) 14:01, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

• Just because a statement might be true does not necessarily make it relevant or worthy of addition to an article (especially a Featured Article). One of the (many) problems with Xx236's additions to the Lenin article was that they were effectively WP:Trivia. Lenin was one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. A significant portion (perhaps a majority) of the international communist movement look to him as a central ideological figurehead; there are thus statues and street names dedicated to him all over the world. In becoming a communist icon, he has also become a symbol that everything anti-communists despise, and they have reacted against him and his influence. Accordingly, there must be literally hundreds of thousands of potential facts about Lenin and his legacy that could be added to the article. That does not mean that we actually have to start adding them. Xx236 had simply cherry-picked a few random facts from Polish history and added them (without any attempt to gain any sort of consensus first); this sort of editing is disruptive. So on this particular issue, the problem is not that Xx236 merely added poorly sourced material; it is that they added said material to the article in the first place.Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:40, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Here is edit by Xx under discussion. Some of their changes are minor and non-controversial (that shows the user wants to improve the page), others are debatable. I think the Philosophers' ships absolutely must be included on the page, but the statement must be significantly rephrased and elaborated. As about the "legacy" insert, I agree it should not be included in this way, however this is just a minor content dispute, in my opinion. My very best wishes (talk) 16:21, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Again, I think that you are trimming the issue down too much. The issue is not just about the addition of poorly referenced material into an article. It's about a huge campaign of disruptive editing spanning many different articles, and in particular their Talk Pages. The addition of poorly referenced material is just one small part of that broader disruptive pattern. In and of itself, that one small issue would not warrant a topic ban; but the broader pattern clearly does. Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:30, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Well, I checked his mainspace/article editing (4 pages) and his comments on 6 talk pages. I think he obviously has a POV (just like many others), but he wants to improve these pages, his talk page comments are frequently very much reasonable (I responded to some of them), and most important, he actually improves these pages, together with others. My very best wishes (talk) 16:46, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose on the same basis as has been outlined by My very best wishes and Gravuritas. The majority of the editors !voting here have had little in the way of contact with the user and are basing this ban on a select number of edits which don't even begin to reflect the many years of constructive gnoming Xx236 has put in. I'm not even going to claim that I haven't had a few content clashes with him, because I certainly have. This is a knee-jerk reaction to behaviour he ends up sorting out himself by cooling his heels off his own bat, and the purported rationale of bans of any form are not supposed to be punitive. Xx236's eye for detail and finding problems with content and reliable sources for improving articles make him an asset, not a liability. Eastern European subject area articles are rampant with POV pushers of all ilk. The number of seriously POV editors who have managed to avoid any form of ban is (almost) laughable. Punishing one predominantly constructive editor who has moments of flipping out is ludicrous in the face of the plethora of extremist civil POV pushers is ludicrous. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:40, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

• I'm sorry but I don't buy the argument that Xx236 should be given free reign to edit disruptively just because there are also other POV pushers out there. I also disagree with the statement that this is a "knee-jerk reaction". Xx236 has been asked repeatedly to stop their disruptive editing behaviours by several editors (including myself). They completely and utterly ignored that request. If the request for a topic ban is turned down then they will just keep on and on with this disruptive behaviour in the knowledge that they basically have immunity. That means that there will be lots more disruptive editing that myself and other editors have to spend time and energy dealing with. The whole thing is really rather damaging to Wikipedia. Midnightblueowl (talk) 23:11, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

• I beg to differ, but I am not promoting any form of 'free reign'. A TBAN applying to this and 'related topics' broadly construed means a ban for Xx236 from involving himself from literally hundreds of articles on the Soviet Union, post-Soviet nation-states, etc... which most certainly does make such a proposal a knee-jerk reaction. These are articles where the user does his best gnoming using the talk page to point out contradictions, missing information, etc. He is not confident with his English and seldom actually edits the articles themselves, but leaves succinct missives on the talk page knowing that there are a number of editors who have the more obscure articles on their watchlists who will look into his observations and make appropriate changes. There are actually very few instances of his observations being unconstructive, and he is certainly made aware of this by other editors when consensus is against him. Issue a stern warning, or have the user temporarily blocked from the article in question, but don't conflate sporadic incidents of the occasional silly piece of WP:DE with WP:NOTHERE, WP:COMPETENCE with the objective leading inevitably to the elimination of a productive editor. Again, I would reiterate that I have great respect for the majority of editors commenting here, but I also know that they have virtually no knowledge or contact with Xx236 outside of a limited range of articles. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:58, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, Xx236 made more than 30,000 edits in this very wide subject area. His edits are usually very "gnomish", I saw his edits many times. He edited a lot of different pages for years, and no one objected. However, for someone with his interests, such wide topic ban is equal to a side ban. Ban him from pages Lenin and Stalin if he is such a problem for you. My very best wishes (talk) 04:34, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

• Support topic ban. Ealdgyth - Talk 11:55, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
• Support. I am not related to the edits in the mentioned pages, but this user has a history of similar edits in Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vilnius or other Lithuania-related pages where he tends to push pro-Polish POV without backing it up with reliable sources. In addition, he was already topic-banned in the past for similar behavior. – Sabbatino (talk) 13:38, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

• Thank you for bringing that to our attention, Sabbatino. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:02, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Persistent disruptive editing of Dear John (U.S. TV series)

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Alpha123321 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
72.226.0.42 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
Dear John (U.S. TV series) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

On 12 April 2017, Alpha123321 removed the protected page template that Kelapstick had set on 31 March. The page protection was a response to a series of unconstructive edits by 72.226.0.42. Alpha123321 has reverted every change made by another editor since 3 May.

• 8 May: Asked the user to voice their rationale
• 14 May: Warning posted
• 21 May: Most recent incident

—Ringbang (talk) 01:30, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

My one comment on this is that User:Alpha123321's do not appear to be constructive (and the removal of the {{ubl}} templates is indicative of some disruptive editing that is seen more generally in TV series articles...). --IJBall (contribs • talk) 02:03, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

User:Alpha123321 has now clearly edit-warred at Dear John (U.S. TV series) – I would suggest a block is in order, esp. if Alpha123321 reverts even one more time. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 05:24, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

I've temporarily blocked Alpha123321 for blatant edit warring at that article. I have to wonder if their history of disruption might justify escalating to an indefinite WP:NOTHERE block. clpo13_(talk) 06:04, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm suspicious that IpswichFan and Alpha123321 might be the same person. See this edit that occurred right in he middle of the disruption caused by Alpha123321 - why would he do this? And what's the probability that this is a coincidence? My gut says that it's low. ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 10:10, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Has anyone done a checkuser? —Ringbang (talk) 23:47, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

They're  Unrelated. PhilKnight (talk) 00:19, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

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

Continued uploading of copyvio's

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Seems MonkeyKingdom (talk · contribs) is not getting/heeding copyvio warnings. I came across some files they uploaded the other day as some were tagged with {{OTRS pending}} only to find no permissions and other permission issues in the OTRS system. Obviously the vio warnings are not working. - Mlpearc (open channel) 14:44, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

• Block from uploading files. — JJBers 17:13, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
• Can't block someone only from uploading. I see that MonkeyKingdom has explained themselves on Mlpearc's user talk. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:03, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
• I suggest we wait for the proposed deletions to expire, since they assert that the permission has been given. -- Luk ^talk 19:06, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Works for me. - Mlpearc (open channel) 21:37, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I'd delete them all now. You're not telling me that badly cropped and shopped images like File:Henry Musasizi Official.jpg are genuinely works of a government? Black Kite (talk) 22:51, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

@Black Kite: I stumbled across these images when I was doing my patrolling and I just asked another admin (Oshwah) to delete them all under F9 and they agreed to do so. I had no knowledge of this thread going on when I asked them to take action. When it is clear that the person just stole the image from a random site and uploaded it using F11 is not an option and it never should be. As for the images claimed to be by the Ugandan government are copyrighted. Period. Leaving them here for 7 days is nonviable when it comes to copyright. If they upload them again, they should be indef'ed. --Majora (talk) 02:47, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

@Luk, Black Kite, and Oshwah: The files have been deleted and MonkeyKingdom has upladed more at Commons. - Mlpearc (open channel) 22:24, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I can't speak to the deleted files, because I haven't seen them, but the [files uploaded to Commons do not appear to be a copyright violation. They appear to be simple snapshots, taken by someone close to the subject (or the subject themself). There is no evidence that the files have been published elsewhere, so we should assume good faith in this instance that the uploader is, indeed, the creator of the image. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 21:07, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

@Luk, Black Kite, Oshwah, JJBers, Jo-Jo Eumerus, and Majora: Those files on Commons are under discussion at Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by MonkeyKingdom. Messing with OTRS shows bad faith.   — Jeff G. ツ (talk) 20:42, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

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Topic ban requested for LABcrabs (and True Tech Talk Time) on BarlowGirl related topics

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

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• BarlowGirl (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• LABcrabs (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• True Tech Talk Time (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I have been concerned about the attempt at pushing a specific WP:POV on the BarlowGirl article by LABcrabs, who also uses the alternate account, True Tech Talk Time. A summary of the editor's argument in short is

• members of the band, an all-female (all sisters of the same family), Christian rock band made a "purity pledge" (a vow not to have sex until marriage) and took that further to not even date when they were in their teens,
• the band rose to fame with making the proclamation,
• this proclamation was part of their "image",
• members of the band have made comments that either favour or support non-Christian musicians, some of whom may be considered inappropriate in the eyes or Christians at best (the Beatles for one), and antithetical to their previously stated position at worst (Lady Gaga for one)
• therefore the band are hypocrites and this hypocrisy must be commented on in the article. Several editors have commented about this on the article's talk page indicating that the use of primary sources involves WP:SYNTH or WP:OR. This has been an ongoing discussion since November 10, 2016 (when a discussion was started on the article's talk page titled "BarlowGirl's hypocrisy". The editor has taken long breaks from pushing this content and since I'm a frequent editor and a watcher of the article, I am the one who usually reverts the content. Sometimes my reverts are complete, other times I revert only the OR and SYNTH. The talk page has seen five editors come out against LABcrabs and each time LABcrabs backs off, for a while. The thread can be see on the talk page and there are several statements by LABCrabs there that give me reason for concern.

A few hours ago, I asked LABcrabs to take a voluntary topic ban. This was based on the editor's addition at 2017-05-21T16:03:43, which I reverted six hours later, and promptly discussed with the editor. The editor refused, stating "I am absolutely unwilling to have people dictate to me which topics I should discuss and for how long". I am requesting a topic ban for LABcrabs (and the alternate account, True Tech Talk Time) in relation to BarlowGirl. With comments like "I confronted Lauren Barlow on her Lady Gaga idolatry multiple times, which resulted in blocking and a refusal to comment. If the motive is pure, or even if it's something like wanting to 'grow up', why not simply tell fans?" and the additional commentary that follows, it's clear that this has become a personal goal (if not vendetta) related to the subject and that there is little hope that there will be any neutrality when discussing it.

The real problem I have is that LABcrabs has added some good content to this article and others by the subject, but seems incapable of objectively approaching this fringe subject. I am not pleased with having to request a complete topic ban on anything to do with BarlowGirl, but think it's best. If someone has a better suggestion, please offer it, otherwise the request for the topic ban stands. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:50, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

What Walter fails to mention is that the original user that reverted the additions (Lady Gaga and others, but I now only keep Lady Gaga on the list) on November 2, 2016 was an IP address associated with a paid BarlowGirl (BG) staff member. The IP only made two edits edits on Wikipedia, both regarding BarlowGirl. The first edit removed artists, with the editor leaving this comment: "Removed misleading information that was given out of context." Instead of explaining why BG endorsed said artists, even if there is indeed a pure or harmless reason, the content was simply removed. The second edit is even more alarming: "Removed Purity section, It doesn't reflect band member's [sic] current views". This is original research by this friend/staff, but I believe it is very true that BG departed from its purity teachings. I have previously asked this staff member why BG was yoked up with such secular artists like Bruno Mars, who go against the purity teachings, and the reply was that I cannot judge because I didn't know the Barlow sisters' hearts. A few months later, the staff refused to discuss the topic, yet continues to imply to other fans that everything is okay.

I am not willing to reveal that IP editor's identify at this time. I would like to quote WP:PAID here: "If you are being paid for your contributions to Wikipedia, you must disclose who is paying you, who the client is, and any other relevant role or relationship." The IP contributer clearly failed to make any disclosure whatsoever, and I believe that BarlowGirl has an ulterior motive in paying staff members to edit its Wikipedia page.

Walter's suggestion also sets a terrible precedent in banning me from other topics simply because I disagree with them. I have edited True Love Waits, which I changed after edits on BarlowGirl's page removed artists like Bruno and Beyoncé. On that page, I also talk about a similar band, the Jonas Brothers, where only one of the three members fulfilled the purity pledge. I talk about the brothers' involvement with Victoria's Secret Pink and even edited Pink's page: I have done my best to add photos and properly source content, despite disagreeing strongly with the company. This and my contributions to BarlowGirl's Home for Christmas article stand as strong examples of how I can contribute to Wikipedia without slandering a brand.

I would like the discussion to better provide a solution in light of BarlowGirl's involvement with the article and my involvement with the article. If someone wishes to ask Lauren Barlow why she supports Lady Gaga, that's their call. (To her credit, she let one user comment about how "some of her video's [sic] have been disrespectful towards [C]hristians".) The topics of purity and staying separate from the world are discussed amply in the Christian community, whether or not BG is mentioned. I am asking for a balanced perspective with this. --LABcrabs (talk) 16:04, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

The issue is not the anon editor's involvement LABcrabs, its yours. The anon editor did not make statements that make it clear that they are trying to make a point, yours did. I also noted that you have made good edits to articles and would have preferred you take voluntary leave, but you don't want that, yet you also want to make your point. Do you see the problem that I see and what I hope to achieve? Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:04, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

And then this with a lot of OR. I do not see this getting better. Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:16, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

I am willing to take a temporary voluntary leave on my terms. This would include June, July and August of this year, plus the remainder of May. My concerns with the paid "anonymous" user still stand, and you are incorrect: this "anonymous" user clearly has no problems with these secular artists and BG's change in purity beliefs. My concerns with Lauren Barlow's recent moral changes still stand. I encourage you and any other person interested in the topic to ask Lauren, if you wish, on Twitter and/or on Instagram why she believes what she believes. I would like this incident closed if we can agree on my voluntary break from the topic of BarlowGirl, and only the topic of BarlowGirl, for that period of time.

"a lot of OR." Yeah, right. --LABcrabs (talk) 17:18, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Again, the issue is not the anonymous editor. If you want to open a complaint against this editor, do so elsewhere. The issue here is your refusal to see that SYNTH and OR are not acceptable ways of adding information to BLPs. You taking a vacation is not acceptable which is why I opened this discussion. Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:31, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

BarlowGirl paid. I have since taken my edit and personally removed much of the content (Bruno Mars, Beyoncé, etc.) that isn't recently relevant (2017) to BarlowGirl. That leaves us with Lady Gaga, which Lauren Barlow portrayed positively in 2016 and 2017. Per your request, I found a secondary source (Tommy2) that is actively used on Wikipedia, yet you refuse it on the grounds that Superchic[k] covered Lady Gaga, not BarlowGirl. I say again that the BarlowGirl and Superchick live tour has two artists partnering together for one main event. Again, BarlowGirl put its name on an event where songs from the Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga and the Beatles were performed. If it had any issue that covering such artists would go against Jesus Christ, it would have been brought up, but it was allowed to pass instead. This is how it started, subtly and in a small manner, before growing to what it is today. I will not keep repeating myself. The fact that you want me banned permanently, and not temporarily on a longer period of time than ever before, speaks volumes about you. I wonder if you are a fan boy and/or part of the paid deal. The original edit I made was on August 7, 2016. It was not disputed until the paid contributor intervened on November 2, 2016. I refuse a permanent ban because it is an undue burden that will not only censor my ability to talk about BarlowGirl, but also risk growing into further censorship and instead give priority to paid contributors funded by the subject of this article. --LABcrabs (talk) 18:52, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

In addition to my three-month break from the topic, I also suggest that someone would educate me on the matter of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, if need be. I'm reading Synth and I notice that my edits now show little to no Synth. The examples shown seem to blame the UN for the 160 wars and push that Jones is not a plagiarist. What my edit presents is that a) some Christians, but not all, agree with Lauren and b) the indisputable fact that Lauren Barlow's modesty standards have changed over time. It was women like Lady Gaga that Lauren Barlow referred to as immodestly dressed. There is no dispute about that. There is also no dispute about the "mixed reception" Gaga has among those who profess Christ. If someone wants to discuss with me on separate pages like Talk pages, that's fine with me. --LABcrabs (talk) 19:14, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

You have not been following on that band's talk page. I and the other four editors do dispute your claims and most have stated SYNTH. I'm not sure how you can't understand that what you're doing is combining "material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources". That's the basis of synth. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:57, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

I am willing to take a leave for the rest of this year (2017) on English Wikipedia as far as editing the BarlowGirl article, the band's albums, its singles and tours. I have no obligation to take a leave, but I volunteer to do so for the stated time. I am not open to any other proposals that concern a topic ban. If my proposal is rejected, it is cancelled. --LABcrabs (talk) 14:14, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Not enough and not until you recognize how your edits are not appropriate based on SYNTH. Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:49, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

• Support a topic ban. Whether you're open to it or not isn't the issue. Until you are willing to edit the article within Wikipedia policy, you should not be able to edit the article (or the talk page). 204.148.13.62 (talk) 17:19, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment: As stated, I now withdraw any and all temporary break proposals. Further, I suspect foul play on Walter and others seeking to ban me. Show me the exact policy on Wikipedia that prevents me from sharing the fact that BarlowGirl (BG) endorses Lady Gaga. All of this "Wikipedia policy" excuse seems like nothing more than BarlowGirl's PR department trying to do damage control. Walter Görlitz is a biased pro-BG editor, and so is Royalbroil. I've contributed lots to Wikipedia, including many edits to BG's Home for Christmas. I will be making an unlisted video soon on this page because none of you seem to be concerned about the situation. My understanding is that Walter, Royalbroil, the paid IP (68.108.83.5) and others are mocking and gaslighting this situation, acting as if BG did not change and being ignorant of the facts. I've messaged the individual behind the paid IP outside of Wikipedia, by the way, long before those two edits on November 2, 2016. Though I hesitate, I can present messages if need be. I believe that this situation as a whole needs to be examined. To simply impose a ban on me is to be ignorant of this situation. --LABcrabs (talk) 20:22, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
    • WP:NOR is the policy you're looking for. For one musician to comment favourably about another singer does not in any way imply "endorsing" that singer. What you mean by "endorsing" is that you mean that they believe that that person's lifestyle and opinions coincide with the other person's. As for your crusade, make all the videos you want. If you think I'm doing what I'm doing because I am pro BarlowGirl, you're mistaken. I am pro-Wikipedia and we have rules that govern what can be said on the project. I think it's time an admin actually comments on this. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:53, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
• I've blocked True Tech Talk Time as an illegitimate alternative account.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:50, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Thank you Bbb23. Are there any admins who are concerned about LABcrabs' use of sources and whether it meets the criteria of SYNTH? Walter Görlitz (talk) 22:11, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I've given User:LABcrabs an alert of the discretionary sanctions under WP:BLPSE. This means that LABcrabs could be topic banned by any admin if they make edits of BarlowGirl that are inappropriate under the WP:BLP policy. Since the editor has made no edits at all of BarlowGirl since they were alerted on the 25th, there is not yet a reason for enforcement. EdJohnston (talk) 19:45, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you. I am satisfied with the state of this. Feel free to close the request. I will raise it again should the issue arise again. Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:26, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

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

Module talk:Webarchive

This Lua module is used in over 160k articles. Reverts and changes have significant impact on the backlink databases etc.. a user wants to make a change but that change does not have consensus. I've repeatedly asked this user to get consensus before they make the change but they are edit warring. I need help/intervention. Can we please: 1. Restore the template to its original state before the edit war began and 2. Ask this user to get consensus before they make any further changes to the Module. I'm asking ANI for help due to the impact this edit war is having across 160k articles. It's also a case of template editor right abuse, "avoid making unilateral decisions, and instead propose the change on the template's talk page, and then make the change if there are no objections". Thank you. -- GreenC 14:31, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

No time to dig into this in detail, but one thing jumps out: I think we treat the template-editor right more like an admin wheel warring, and less like an editor edit warring, don't we? i.e. reverting again is taken much more seriously, and BRD is more tightly observed than in normal editing, and consequences are more severe. So thanks, GreenC, for not reverting back, and @Codename Lisa:, you need to revert yourself and discuss further, or you're likely to have the template editor right taken away.

That said, as NYB likes to say, this minor question about wording (using "the" or not, and "on" vs. "at"), is probably not on the list of top 200 issues currently affecting Wikipedia, so let's all try to not get too snarky and annoyed. Just be patient, spend the extra 5 minutes discussing, and resolve it like peers, instead of opponents. Unless there is some previous history between you two, which I do not need to know about... --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:38, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Well, hello, everyone.

Isn't the pot calling kettle black? I myself intended to report Green Cardamom here for Template Editor right abuse, but considered it too hostile.

Basically, he was not allowed to revert me in the first place, because this revert is a violation of the reverting policy: He seems to have no objection to contribution itself; as such it is a disruptive edit. His only ground for reversion is:

"a user wants to make a change but that change does not have consensus."

Untrue. As we all know, Manual of Style and other guidelines are considered community-wide consensus. When I told him that, he replied that "it's not hard policy". Alright. That's true. I am enforcing a not-hard-policy. Is my contribution a violation of something stronger than not-hard-policy?

"It's also a case of template editor right abuse." Right back at you. According to Wikipedia:Template editor § No discussion, I can perform this specific change without discussing it first. But Template Editors are specifically forbidden from taking advantage of their editing privilege to subvert the community consensus just because they like it! (That's what GC is doing.)

Look here, people. When I came to Wikipedia, I made it my top priority to clearly communicate my dispute concern on the first message, and if the mistake was my assessment of the situation, give up. To err is human. But the way I see it, GC wrongly assessed the situation (mistook a consensus requirement for a discussion requirement) but is now refusing to admit to that mistake.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 08:36, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Just wanted to give everyone a notice: A self-revert has been effected. Well, I still think I am right, but since two administrators asked, I think I must oblige them. No, it was not a direct order, but failing to oblige two admins, no less, needs to an extremely good reason. (No, I am not flattering. Example of a good reason is: When an admin edits an article and adds an incorrect unreferenced sentence when the correct well-referenced version is two sentences further down the paragraph.) —Codename Lisa (talk) 09:22, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

• This should be handled on the talk page. For the record, I agree with Floq that warring via templates is a much higher issue than simple edit warring and closer to when admin are guilty of wheel warring, as TE is indeed an advanced bit. That means we are quick to strip the template editor bit from someone who wars without a long discussion. I don't know who is right or wrong, don't really care since that is for the talk page, but you both need to be careful to keep the bit. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:05, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

• Floquenbeam and Dennis Brown both mentioned wheel-warring, but only one side of it. Wheel-warring is a two-edged sword that cuts both ways: An admin never counter-acts another admin's action without talking to him first. (Dennis Brown specially observed this proviso in regard to me in 2012.) In this context, not only the counter-revert by Codename Lisa was wrong, the initial revert by Green Cardamom was also wrong. The correct procedure for editing high-use template is either Discuss→Edit or Edit→Discuss→Decide. Both involved parties here must take care that: (1) Wrong does not justify another wrong. (2) Any actor is responsible (at least partly) for the repercussions of his/her own actions, including provokation or entrapment. FleetCommand (Speak your mind!) 17:39, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
  • That's a valid comparison. With higher privilege bits comes the higher expectations of conduct and accountability. Hopefully we won't have to revisit this. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:44, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
    • It is my hope. I've attempted to reboot the communication to focus only on the contribution as opposed to the contributors. Let's see what happens. —Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 18:38, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
      • You hear that, Green Cardamom? To sum things up, both of you misused the tool, but Codename Lisa has taken steps to remedy her misconduct. You are expected to do the same. Also, you may not consider her self-revert as a sign of your revert being justified or a nod to future wheel-warring with other TEs. You TEs must behave much better than stubborn school children. FleetCommand (Speak your mind!) 23:52, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
        • The funniest thing has happened: Ever since I rebooted the discussion, accepting the burden of being wrong in process, promising a compromise and a discussion only on the contribution, Green Cardamom has stopped appearing in the discussion altogether. The reboot took place on 26 May 2017 13:51 UTC. Right now, it is 28 May 2017 10:39 UTC. Three hours and twelve minutes from now, it will be forty-eight hours. How am I supposed to interpret this? —Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 10:43, 28 May 2017 (UTC)
          • That's easy: His contribution log has not logged any changes since that date either. But of course, unless you haven't heard of the word "weekend", you mustn't be surprised. Wait until 30 May 2017 13:00 UTC, when we can be sure that the weekend is over, or until his contribution log shows a significant number of additional contributions, whichever came sooner. If nothing happened, come here. FleetCommand (Speak your mind!) 11:05, 28 May 2017 (UTC)
          • Without revealing personal details it will be another day. -- GreenC 14:58, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
• @Dennis Brown and Floquenbeam: WP:WHEEL is referenced in the last sentence of WP:Template editor#Editing disputes. It could probably be more prominent and more direct: "Edit warring on a template-edit-protected page constitutes a wheel war, which may result in immediate removal of the template editor user right". WP:TPEREVOKE says similar (why are there two sections on the same material?). I might start a discussion there or possibly make a bold edit. --Izno (talk) 19:06, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Sounds good. Both editors here seem to be good editors, but yes, it might be good if that was bolded a bit more. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:12, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
    • @Izno: Why do you think this is a discrepancy? To me, it seems a deliberate act of excluding wheel-warring from grounds for revocation. Sure, people in this discussion seem to think strongly about it, but the rest of the community might not. FleetCommand (Speak your mind!) 23:44, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
      • @FleetCommand: I'm not sure what you mean you ask Why do you think this is a discrepancy?, since I did not say I thought it to be a discrepancy. It is clear to me the intent of the one section is mirrored in the other, in fact, so much so that they should probably be in the same section rather than in different sections. --Izno (talk) 18:20, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
        • @Izno: In that case, ignore my first sentence and read the rest. —FleetCommand (Speak your mind!) 11:33, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
          • @FleetCommand: I did (do not assume I did not) and find it irrelevant to this thread (or simply a wrong opinion), so I see no reason to comment. --Izno (talk) 11:38, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Editor doesn't care about the purpose of the footnotes

Recently, User:Rebelrick123 added in the "Championships and accomplishments" in some wrestlers biographies the accurate name of the title (specifically the WWE Championship) they held. For example, Triple H has held the championship 9 times, but his fifth and ninth reign were as Undisputed WWF Champion and WWE World Heavyweight Champion, as it is pointed out in the footnotes. From his POV, notes are not necessary if we inform what they were, and due to this he puts all the title names that wrestlers hold them in those times in parenthesis; so in this case he was Undisputed WWF/WWE World Heavyweight Champion for 9 times? Nickag989^talk 09:35, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't think this requires any admin intervention at this time since it isn't about editor behavior or sourcing, etc. This seems best handled by consensus at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Professional wrestling from the looks of it. Regrds. --64.85.216.193 (talk) 13:42, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

• I renew my call that Wikipedia simply drop all coverage of professional wrestling, footy players, music genres, beauty pageants, and anything Ru Paul–related as just not worth the drama. EEng 14:57, 26 May 2017 (UTC) And no, I'm not actually serious about this. At least not entirely.

It's a nice thought. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:37, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Seconded, Boing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:53, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Will take my rest here, nice to meet ya, fellas. --QEDK (愛) 18:39, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

• "Professional Wrestling" championships are Kayfabe. If a detail is controversial, either the version provided by WWE is canonical, or it's probably a too-specifc detail of a fictional universe and not worth including. Power~enwiki (talk) 00:13, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Weird threats against Widefox

I can't quite tell what this is all about, but it looks threatening. Maybe it should be oversighted? Bri (talk) 18:12, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Got it. El_C 18:17, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

The personal information is available on Widefox's userpage. Good block/delete regardless. -- John Reaves 18:20, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

This is User:Styron111 who has been been globally banned by the Wikimedia Foundation from editing Wikimedia sites[99]. The SPI is here [100]. Yes, block and delete on sight. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 00:20, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Excessive nominations of Pakistani schools for AfD from User:Greenbörg

There are approximately 75 schools in Pakistan nominated for AfD today by User:Greenbörg, for example Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Army Public College Kakul Campus. This clogs the AfD process and is in direct opposition to WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, which says "Editors should not flood AFD with indiscriminate or excessive nominations."

I'm not necessarily opposed to deleting these articles, I am opposed to having this many show up on the same day in the AfD process. Power~enwiki (talk) 18:53, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

• Ouch. Yeah, that's clearly very excessive. High schools and colleges are generally considered to be notable, and while that's not a rule, it is, obviously, a reason not to overwhelm AfD with indiscriminate and excessive nominations of high schools and colleges with a copied and pasted generic statement. @Greenbörg:—care to offer any explanation for this? Swarm ♠ 19:03, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
• Also, the speed at which they're creating AfDs makes it clear that they're not actually attempting to find out whether an institution is notable, the nominations are being rapidly done via Twinkle and really are indiscriminate. Swarm ♠ 19:05, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
  • There was clearly no attention paid to WP:BEFORE here. A couple of the subjects probably do warrant deletion. Several are demonstrably and clearly notable with a cursory search, and many (as might be expected) are going to require some examination of sources that aren't immediately evident. But regardless of the individual merits, this is a mess. I wouldn't be sad if an admin opted to procedural-close the lot of them, although I imagine someone would grumble that the 7 day timer is sacred... Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 20:18, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I just noticed these and this is very excessive. It seems like WP:BEFORE isn't being followed and that the editor is trying to make a point. SL93 (talk) 21:48, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

• A few things here: the schools RFC had other points beyond adding SCHOOLOUTCOMES to ATA. One of the points in the nutshell was to avoid flooding AfD. Another argument that the close mentioned was particularly strong for those arguing "support" was the systemic bias point (because if we're honest, most schools brought to AfD are from South Asia.) Finally, as was brought up by editors in the discussion WP:FAIT would seem to prevent actions like sending 75 Pakistani educational institutions to AfD. I'm fine with having discussions about secondary schools on a case-by-case basis, and even though I almost always end up as keep, I do consider the option for deletion in each case. Going through 75 AfDs to do this would be next to impossible and overwhelms the community's ability to process similar AfD nominations. These should be procedurally closed. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:59, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
• These should be procedurally closed and the nominator admonished. A nomination spree like this would be inappropriate for any subject, but the close of the "schools" RFC specifically forbade excessive nominations and instructed those bringing articles about schools to AfD to go above and beyond BEFORE. Also, in circumstances where related articles are nominated for deletion with similar or identical rationales, the nominations should be bundled (see WP:MULTIAFD). Rebbing 23:12, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
• Unfortunately, this is not their first such incident. Last year they randomly moved a host of Pakistan cricket articles against convention and consensus, they were warned many times (on their talk page and at WT:CRIC) . I left a final warning on their talk page after which they stopped. But given this repetition of "mass action" behavior with alarming regularity, some sort of sanction of limiting any such activity to not more than 1-3 articles per day with a cap of 5-6 per week or something similar is needed. —SpacemanSpiff 09:58, 27 May 2017 (UTC)
• Not only excessive AfD nominations, sometimes more than one per minute, but clearly false statements about the subject institutions by claiming they are "running illegally." Quick search found at least one has Higher Education Commission of Pakistan recognition. Zero attention to WP:BEFORE, quite the opposite with demonstrably baseless misinformation. Jack N. Stock (talk) 22:15, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

• Not only excessive AfD nominations, but Greenbörg has moved over 500 articles in the last 12 months, sometimes at a speed of up to 10 a minute - and this appears to be basically all they do on Wikipedia. A large number (I haven't checked them all), while not illegitimate, are completely unnecessary. I think this editor has a predilection for rapid, unnecessary editing. Greenbörg was grandfathered into the New Page Reviewer group; I have removed the account from that group. I will leave it to other participants in this discussion to decide what other action, if any, should be taken. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:19, 28 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Kudpung, that was the reason I'd given a final warning in May 2016 as regards moves (in addition to the many he received prior to that), but it appears to have had no effect at all on this person's behavior. This is all nothing more than "well meaning disruption", it's still disruption and we're probably better off just preventing him from doing the same action on more than one article per week or some such thing. —SpacemanSpiff 03:24, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

That's why I said I'll leave the decision to the rest of the participants. Meanwhile, I've started cleaning up but to do it properly and even using the admin script, this will take two to three hours. We need help. The closing rationale I'm using for most of them is The result was keep. Procedural Keep: excessive nominations of colleges/high schools contrary to consensus. . Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:27, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Could access be removed to Twinkle and any other tools that are facilitating the rapid, disruptive edits? Jack N. Stock (talk) 03:29, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't think there are any ways access to Twinkle, or even moving pages can be technically limited. It could be easily possible to make the AfD and other deletion tags only accessible to accredited New Page Reviewers, but the community's insistence in October that all newbies and inexperienced users continue to be allowed access to some of the most intellectually demanding maintenance features of the site prevented any improvement. We got consensus to create a special user group to operate the New Pages Feed and its Curation Tools but of course it had no overall effect on the poor quality of New Page Patrolling by others through Twinkle. This is a classic example of why stricter controls are now required - authorised New Page Reviewers are far less likely to make errors but even the 400+ of them can't keep the backlog down. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:26, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

@SpacemanSpiff:I knew, I have done many disruptive moves violating the established policies which I was not aware of at that time. After 2 years I am a better editor than I was 2 years back. Now, I am going to remain abstain from moving pages again. I will never move a page again without discussion. Please also point out other blunders I'm doing. Greenbörg (talk) 04:44, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

• There is a very apologetic message on my talk page to which I have replied:

Thank you for your candid message Greenbörg. However, I think you should stay well away from all moves and deletion process and anything that concerns the processing of new articles. I recommend you concentrate on finding sources for articles and perhaps reviewing Recent Changes and helping to combat vandalism. If you don't stop what you have been doing, there is a very strong chance that the community will take measures to limit your editing or even stop you editing altogether.

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:35, 28 May 2017 (UTC).

Incivility - *Treker

I've been debating with this user about the inclusion of a semi-related product in a media franchise's navbox. (There was no violation of 3RR on the part of either user.) We discussed it on the talk page, but ultimately came no closer to a conclusion. The first time I suggested filing for 3rd-party dispute resolution, he actually said it was "a bad idea" (later removed). When I continued discussions on the talk page, it reached a point where he got overly angry, even declaring in regards to arbitration "sure, they might side with you, not the first time bad decition has been made instead of following guidlines and logic", and choosing to ignore what he deemed "moronic and mind numbing discussions". When I notified him that I was filing for dispute resolution since we weren't getting anywhere on our own, he refused to participate, invalidating the process and leaving the situation unresolved. 68.32.218.140 (talk) 06:11, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

I presume you're use the term arbitration loselyloosely since this doesn't sound like the sort of dispute which is even close to needing that. Anyway I have no comment inon the incivility, however if you an editor isn't engaging in the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution process, you could always choose some form which doesn't require their engagement. Ultimately if they don't engage and the community agrees with you, then it doesn't matter what they've said. Nil Einne (talk) 06:33, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

So because he refused to participate in the dispute resolution, which he can do as it's voluntary, you filed an ANI? This seems like WP: Boomerang to me. Chris "WarMachineWildThing" ^{Talk to me} 07:02, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Exactly, User:WarMachineWildThing - The unregistered editor complained at DRN that the notice of the dispute had been deleted, and that the subject editor was becoming uncivil. I said that DRN is voluntary, and that incivility can be reported at WP:ANI, but first read the boomerang essay. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:28, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree that there seems little need for this to be at ANI, but WP:Boomerang would be a little severe in this instance, surely? Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:03, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Admittedly, this is more about the use of harsh language and attitude in my other examples; the refusal was for context. I was told to report the incivility here on the dispute resolution entry. I'm aware of WP:Boomerang and understand it, but I genuinely don't appreciate being yelled at and repeatedly called a moron by another user, so I was willing to accept the risk of self-incrimination. 68.32.218.140 (talk) 12:18, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

I looked a bit about the actual stuff you are complaining about and while I don't think a boomerang is necessary I really have no idea what you're complaining about. Firstly no one seems to have called you a moron. The closests thing is "moronic and mind numbing discussions" which seems to be referring to the discussion not you, and while it may not be the most civil comment but is never going to warrant sanction if that's the only comment. I mean heck even taken together with other comments, it's not likely to count for much. As for these comments [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template_talk:The_Powerpuff_Girls&diff=782439948&oldid=782438851, I'd be very hesitant to call personal view that "bad decition has been made instead of following guidlines and logic" as incivil. Saying youyou don't know what navboxes are for is slightly uncivil, but again not likely to count for much, especially if there's some evidence it's true (I'm not saying there is). So yes, I have no idea why this thread is here at ANI. It's not ready for a BOOMERANG although if you keep complaining you do risk it becoming one. Nil Einne (talk) 10:29, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Corrected some mistakes in my post. Nil Einne (talk) 12:08, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Here's everyhting I have to say before I go on ignoring this again.

NO, my "that's a bad thing" not "that's a bad idea" (like you said) comment was a knee jerk reaction to reading that some project allow crossover games like these on navboxes, had nothing to do with opposing third opinion. I removed it becuse I realized it would be missinterpreted, (which it was, of course) and I didn't have the energy to explain it at the time.

I'm sorry that I got angry and was uncivil but I don't regret most of what I expressed.

Navbox discussions are always mind-numbing and moronic (I didn't call you moronic or a moron) because this website has some of the most vague rules about it. I've been told repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly by other editors on this website that crossover games like that don't belong on navboxes but apperantly that's not something that everyone likes to follow. There's a really great essay that makes a lot of sense that most people seem to go by, but apperently you don't need to follow it even thought it seems to be the only logic based guideline for these damn things.

Which makes every single discussion on the subject a giant "other stuff exists" debate of annoyance that goes nowhere. On my entire time on wikipedia, NEVER has a navbox debate been seteled with anything that resembeled logic that can be followed by every other project. I still think adding the LEGO game makes no sense becuse it only mentions the franchise once in the entire article, which makes the navbox at the bottom unneeded. But you know what I don't care anymore, add it back for all I care, it's doesn't matter anymore since I've already wanted to leave the debate.

This wouldn't have happend if wikipedia had better guidlines and strickter enforcement. I've had so many of these debates recently that I feel like I'm about to be driven insane with frustration. Several time have I started up discussions and not even recived a response after I've let the other editors version be left alone. It's a "my way, my way" preference driven piece of nonsense that I'm guilty of participating in too.

By god, I just want consistency.★Trekker (talk) 16:22, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

I too just wanted consistency, which is why I posed the question and wanted more insight in the first place. With you saying one thing and me seeing another, it's hard to know whose interpretation is right. I just want a definitive answer in writing so that in future instances where this debate arises, we have something to point to that will prevent the issue from becoming a whole to-do again. 68.32.218.140 (talk) 17:01, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

It's unlikely you will ever get a definite answer since that's simply not how wikipedia works. A lot of times we don't have better guidelines simply because we don't want them, take a read of WP:NOT especially WP:BURO. Maybe also Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines if you have time. You should especially be aware you are not going to get someone who will rule on your dispute. Simply put policies and guidelines are supposed to reflect WP:Consensus. But it's ultimately up to the community to determine what the consensus is, and it can change anyway. Which means you should give up on expecting definitive answer for many disputes (including content ones like style and inclusion issues). Especially when you're trying to have some wide ranging intepretation which will apply to many different pages in one way or the other. While we do aim for consistency where we can, for various reasons it doesn't always happen and more significantly, there will often be disagreement about whether something is inconsistent. For example, just because it's okay to include something in one template doesn't mean it will always be okay to include it in another template even if the circumstances seem the same to you. (And for better or worse, people don't generally have to explain why they feel these two cases are different. Instead they just need a policy and guideline support explaination of why this should happen in case 1, and the other thing should happen in case 2 whenever it comes up in each individual case.) This doesn't mean there are no definitive cases. For example, if someone tries to call someone a paedophile based on flimsy evidence, that will be a definite no. Nil Einne (talk) 10:29, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Legal threats by Jdm7dv

Jdm7dv (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) created Jonathan Moore (engineer) and was nominated for speedy deletion. After repeated removals and warnings, Jdm7dv posted here: "Onel5969 I ham a historical figure and my editor needs to make edits to my article this is not self promotion. One more threat and the police will be notified." I redacted the threat and warned him about legal threats, but he restored the threat. —MRD2014 📞 contribs 19:46, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Bears continued watching.

Tigers stopped watching. EEng

Jdm7dv was blocked, per legal threat, and unblocked by me, when it was removed. Bears continued watching.--S Philbrick(Talk) 23:59, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Botched History merge (by me)

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

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Fixed

Pamela Clemit needs to be created with its complete history, please see [101] and [102]. Help! I shouldn't try to do these things. Bishonen | talk 21:07, 27 May 2017 (UTC).

Done. —Cryptic 21:19, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Thank you very much, Cryptic. Bishonen | talk 21:20, 27 May 2017 (UTC).

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

Newimpartial

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

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Would someone mind imposing a WP:CIR block on User:Newimpartial? This user's repeatedly declining userspace spam tags (see User:Bubba1987/Kyle Irion, User:BucaFan3/Shy Kidx, and User:Rabbithatch/Gina Phillips), getting past the point of WP:STICK, and complaining at my talk that these aren't spam when I delete them (see [103] and [104]), and when I gave a final warning, he conveniently decided to file a DRV for Shy Kidx, which means that I can't block him. Comments by other users at his talk demonstrate that he doesn't understand how we apply multiple speedy deletion criteria. Nyttend (talk) 05:40, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

I have only declined userspace spam tags on articles which were not unambiguous spam, which is the SD policy as I understand it. Userspace deletions which are ambiguous are supposed to be discussed at MfD, but a couple of users (Legacypac, who I observe has a history in this area, and DGG) have been applying SD tags over-generously to User-space and Draft articles. MY DRV was not in any way a WP:GAME - it came from my legitimate frustration at having userspace articles SDed while they are being discussed either in their Talk pages or on MfD. The editors/admins who have had issues with my behaviour all seem not to accept the WP:CONSENSUS expressed in WP:STALE about when, and how, User- and Draft- space articles are to be deleted.Newimpartial (talk) 05:50, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

For the record, only administrators can decline speedy deletion requests. Amaury (talk | contribs) 05:56, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Decline, sure, but there isn't a policy against non-administrators removing the tags, is there? The tag itself only says that the creator/editor of the article can't remove it, not that it can only be touched by administrators. But I am here to learn. Newimpartial (talk) 06:26, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

That ties in with declining and falls under the same thing. Amaury (talk | contribs) 06:29, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Anyone apart from the article creator can decline a speedy deletion nomination by removing the tag, not just admins. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:58, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

• I noticed the user at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Alternative addicts and while I have not examined the situation sufficiently to know if a block is needed, the misguided attempts to impede spam removal are disruptive and a final warning should be issued. Posting Who is "we", white man? :) at the link I gave indicates either trolling or an inability to know when flippancy is appropriate. Johnuniq (talk) 05:52, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, Johnuniq. I was not trolling; that was a misguided attempt to lighten the mood.

By the way, this <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Annejacqueline/Yasmine_modestine&curid=54155836&diff=782640813&oldid=782635737> is another example of the "we" I was querying with my joke. I really don't know who that "we" is.Newimpartial (talk) 06:57, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

My good-faith understanding of WP:STALE is that there is WP:CONSENSUS not to delete userspace and draft-space drafts for WP:N or for being old; the users whose "spam removal" I have "impeded" seem not to agree with that WP:CONSENSUS. If people think I am out of line in my response to some SD requests, then I am willing to learn, but it really looks to me as though Legacypac and DGG are outsdide of WP:CONSENSUS on the matter of userspace deletions. Newimpartial (talk) 05:57, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Along with all the Admins who are outside consensus when they deleted all the crap I speedied over the last few hours? 22:14 (Deletion log)‎ . . [Onel5969‎; JamesBWatson‎; DGG‎; 1a16‎; Zzuuzz‎ (2×); Iridescent‎ (2×);Anthony Bradbury‎ (2×); Dlohcierekim‎ (3×); CactusWriter‎ (9×); Jimfbleak‎ (11×); Fastily‎ (15×);Nyttend‎ (21×); Athaenara‎ (23×); RHaworth‎ (33×)] Now he posting undelete requests and starting DRVs on the deletions.

Sorry but I've had enough of this editor running around fighting legit spam fighting. He lacks a WP:CLUE. Topic Ban him already. Legacypac (talk) 06:03, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

I stalk Primefac's talk page and ran into this editor over deletion of an article that was mostly copyvio. They objected to the G12 tag, but are now apparently upset that it was deleted as G11 instead. I caught a glance at the article before it was deleted and it was horribly promo and clear copyvio. This makes me very concerned about this editor's ability to determine what is and isn't appropriate content for an encyclopedia. They've had numerous editors trying to work with them (some less polite than others), and just don't seem to be getting the message. I hesitate to support it, but perhaps a topic ban until they understand policies and guidelines better might be the best option? Waggie (talk) 06:41, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

No understanding of prohibited user names [105] Legacypac (talk) 06:45, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Look, I can do a voluntary (or involuntary) ban on Deletion discussions until I get to 1,000 unreverted mainspace edits, or something.

What I understood, though, is that "what is and isn't appropriate content for an encyclopedia" wasn't supposed to be the criterion for deletion of userspace and draftspace entries - I had understood that per WP:CONSENSUS, draftspace and userspace were supposed to be more permissive, as in the criteria set out in WP:STALE which seem to be widely ignored when admins approve CSD nominations.

Anyway, I can sit this one out if that's the will of the room. There was certainly nothing but good faith on my part in my MfD participation. Newimpartial (talk) 06:49, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Per what consensus, and where (with links), does it say we're supposed to keep blatantly promo and copyvio drafts or force them into the already over-burdened MfD process? The "G" criteria of CSD can apply to any page on Wikipedia, regardless of namespace. The "A" criteria is the criteria that is specific to mainspace. WP:STALE is for drafts that have simply been abandoned, aren't likely to ever be articles, and that don't have any other major problems - it was created to avoid overburdening MfD for no good reason. Yes, my respectful advice would be to avoid participating in deletion for now, learn more about the policies and guidelines, and when you do get involved again please consider more carefully what others are putting on your talk page. Waggie (talk) 07:01, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

But that's not what I'm saying, though. If it's copyvio, WP:COPYVIO says to carve out the copyvio bits if that's not the whole thing; it doesn't say to speedy delete a mix of copyvio and legit draft. And some editors and admins seem to think that promo covers anything they don't think "belongs in an encyclopedia" - including things whose only fault is being non-notable - which is exactly what the WP:CONSENSUS decision here <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PermanentLink/721040983> says is NOT supposed to happen. The point of WP:STALE, as I read it, is that draft and userspace articles are only to be deleted with reason; in my participation at MfD I have supported deletion where there was a good reason, and opposed it where there wasn't, which is how I thought the system was supposed to work. Newimpartial (talk) 07:11, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

This user lacks understanding of how WP defines promotional aka SPAM. When I find a page that has not been touched in 5 years with obvious copyvio and a bunch of promotional stuff about a non-N subject, I don't sift out the 2 sentences that I can't find with a Google search and carefully set that material aside for future use. We all delete unsuitable material all over the project in the normal course. Misunderstands copyvio - if I find a paragraph of copyvio in a long mainspace article, I remove it. If it's 70% easily provable copyvio in some stale draft with no obvious use to the project, I seek to delete it all. Legacypac (talk) 07:18, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Actually, Legacypac, I have never objected when you've flagged or nominated for deletion an article that has been dormant for 5 years; that's the (subjective, personal) threshold where I feel that time itself has passed enough that I no longer see its relevance. But when people have created and abandoned drafts within the last 5 years, and they aren't all copyvio or unambiguous spam, then I think they should go to MfD for a proper trial and execution. Is that really so wrong?

I know you "seek to delete it all", but that isn't WP:CONSENSUS which is why it should go to MfD to be adjudicated by case.

And I have frequently seen you invoke WP:N against user- and draft- space drafts, which is a clear violation of WP:CONSENSUS as expressed in WP:STALE. Haven't you also submitted drafts to AfC just to get them rejected as grounds for deletion? Newimpartial (talk) 07:29, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

First, stop with the BS accusations about my editing. I only occasionally use AfC to get another set of eyes and comments. I don't need AfC to justify a deletion move.

Then what was this <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Legacypac&diff=782622707&oldid=782622643> . I must have misunderstood what was happening there, particularly when you wrote "100% agree" in the edit summary where you deleted the AfC decline for the article you "submitted" Newimpartial (talk) 08:09, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Or how about this situation here <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Vulcan1812/Bagley,_Alabama&action=history>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Legacypac&curid=26467366&diff=782648198&oldid=782647878>

WP:STALE does not trump the Pillers. It is fine to ask "does this meet N?" because that is part of the process of deciding if there is a reason to salvage and promote or take some sort of delete action.

But this statement here is exactly where you disagree with WP:CONSENSUS, where you got in trouble before, and where I have objected to some of your nominations. The criterion you want to use is specifically disallowed by the consensus expressed here:<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PermanentLink/721040983> Newimpartial (talk) 08:09, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

It is inappropriate to flood MfD with pages that fall under a CSD, but that is what your inappropriate interference in CSD to force more MfDs is doing. Than at MfD you have posted numerous "procedural closes" to try and derail the MfD process. There are hundreds of thousands of page you could go improve, and hundreds of thousands more you could go fight spam on, so why spend your time forcing spam fighters and admins to redo their work, educate you, and justify every action while you insult us? Even while at ANi you continue to question and argue across various pages, whixh is an awful start to sitting out for a while. Legacypac (talk) 07:46, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Except that they don't unambigiously fall under a CSD, which is the requirement. Where they do so unambiguously fall under WP:SPAM or WP:COPYVIO, I have never reverted, objected, or opposed. My "procedural" votes are simply that - where an MfD nomination was either explicitly or implicitly based on WP:N (such as your WP:YAMB-based nominations) I procedurally opposed. Which is part of due process, and not an insult to anyone.

And since I received notice of this ANI, I have not voted in any XfD discussions whatsoever - which, since I haven't heard from anyone except Waggie that wasn't involved in the CSD disputes, shows some good faith on my part, I think. I have carried on a discussion about what the WP:CREATIVE criteria actually mean, which is a substantive dispute in which the other poster is, I believe, misconstruing the criteria as both written and applied, but that is clearly good faith on both our parts and anyway is over now. And it certainly has nothing to do with the "war on spam", which seems - unaccountably, to me - to be what you feel this ANI is about.

• Based on how Newimpartial has responded here I support closing this with a final warning that a block will occur the next time they continue their campaign. Johnuniq (talk) 07:56, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Would it be possible to hear from an admin who was not part of the userspace CSD disputes? Otherwise, I am in agreement. Newimpartial (talk) 08:09, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Like continuing their campaign with these three posts [106] questioning my clean up efforts and methods, including commenting on actions I took after the final warning? Legacypac (talk) 08:25, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

No final warning has been issued, Legacypac , and this discussion has not yet been closed, though either way I have stopped voting and participating in XfD. I was "commenting on your actions" only to clarify what I had said earlier, and to give you an opportunity to clarify for me how those diffs were not an attempt to clear up Draft-space contra WP:STALE.Newimpartial (talk) 08:29, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm not the person brought here with a block request to stop the activity you continue to engage in right in this thread. Perhaps a new hobby - instead of questioning everyone else's actions try working on this backlog [107] Legacypac (talk) 08:38, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Why are stale userspace drafts a bigger problem than premature content deletion and violation of WP:STALE? I am puzzled.Newimpartial (talk) 08:40, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

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

User Murph9000 reverted the same wiki article for too many times without providing adquete reasons!

See also: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Janagewen

Wiki article, Comparison of instruction set architectures, has been reverted by user Murph9000 and some others for too many times, without providing adequate reasons! I feel that it is quite unfair for anonymous editors who did really contribute. I wish such thing could be mediated in proper way! And that wiki article also needs further corrections and improves. Those people bring too many troubles!— Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.53.114.7 (talk • contribs)

From a quick investigation, it looks like you did not bother to notify Murph9000 (talk · contribs) (I will do so) and it looks to me like there's a claim you are an indefinitely blocked user called Aaron (this is not WP:OUTING, this is what I see from the edit histories on that page). I'm not sure which specific user you are, though. If you do have an account indefinitely blocked, you are not permitted to edit at all, until that account is unblocked. The multiple other editors who are reverting you are acting appropriately. If you do not have an account which is blocked, you are in violation of WP:3RR and should be blocked on that basis, but then so should other editors. I'm not sure which situation we are in, though, so I am personally taking no action. --Yamla (talk) 11:37, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Also notified Jeh (talk · contribs), Guy Harris (talk · contribs), Vincent Lefèvre (talk · contribs), all of whom have also been reverting the edits. Which tends to lend credence to the reporter indeed being someone engaging in block evasion, I suppose. --Yamla (talk) 11:40, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

I have already created an SPI report regarding the numerous IPs with which I believe the reporter here has been evading his block (although it does not yet include the most recent IPs used today. (n.b.: As clear a case of WP:DUCK as I've ever reported.) The backlog at SPI is, sadly, severe at the moment and this is preventing timely action on my and many other reports, but perhaps, with these 3RR issues at stake they can be paid additional attention. Note that blocking "the IP" will have little effect because he seems to have two different /19 IP blocks (at least) at his disposal and it is apparently very easy for him to change within them; he has used at least half a dozen different IPs just in the last 24 hours. The only recourse to protect the encyclopedia is to continue reverting and trust that SPI will come to the right decision in a timely manner. Jeh (talk) 11:47, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Both users, the motivations why Jeh and Guy Harris guard their mistakes on related articles are very suspicious. They deny the things which almost all the software vendors recognise. Those software vendors differentiate x86-64 from x86, but they both treat them as one. So I guess they might earn money from Intel, so they prevent such modifications to related wiki articles! 119.53.114.7 (talk) 12:00, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

"Those software vendors differentiate x86-64 from x86..." Yes, but the context on this page is different. Depending on the context, two things may be regarded as different or part of the same group. This is no different from the other architectures on the same page. Vincent Lefèvre (talk) 12:08, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

At least some of those software vendors also differentiate 32-bit XXX from 64-bit XXX for values of XXX other than x86, because, for example, you need different compiler options to generate code for 64-bit XXX, and you need a 64-bit processor running an OS that supports 64-bit code to run software for 64-bit XXX. Nothing special about x86 here. Guy Harris (talk) 16:30, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

•  Sounds like a duck quacking into a megaphone to me, as stated by multiple users, and extremely obvious from even a brief glance at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Janagewen. Reverts are per WP:EVASION, which has been made quite clear to this IP hopping LTA case before my first revert, and which I made quite clear in one of my subsequent reverts. This ANI case is just another example of extreme bad faith from this globally-locked user who is indeffed from EN-WP and 5 other WMF wikis. Murph9000 (talk) 11:55, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Oh. Wow. Block evasion and sockpuppetry dating back to September of 2015 and edit warring, personal attacks, and disruptive editing dating back a year further. It's clearly the same user, and you are being much too nice. I'd suggest removing any comments they post on article talk pages, either. I endorse the actions taken by Murph9000 and by the other named editors in this thread and will block the IP address and protect the page. To the person who opened this thread, you are not permitted to edit any Wikipedia article until your original account is unblocked. You, the person who opened this thread, are the one being abusive. Massively abusive. --Yamla (talk) 12:02, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Yamla. I've replied to a couple of WP:FORUMSHOPPING type messages this particular IP left on some user talk pages, because I was named in them. I pretty much WP:DGAF about the messages that were left there, but I give my explicit permission to remove my replies if an admin feels the need or desire to EVASION-revert the messages. Murph9000 (talk) 12:13, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Yamla. It is gratifying that the SP reports (of which I contributed not a small fraction, especially recently) provided enough info to allow you to hear the quacking, as it were. It is also good to be told that blanket reverting, even of the LTA's talk page "contributions" (I use the term loosely), is the right thing.

Of course, when we revert, the LTA will simply re-revert. As you have already seen. (I was hoping that this particular EW would lead to the currently-attacked page being semi-protected rather before this.) SPI reports have been ineffective due to the LTA's IP-hopping and also due to the many-days backlog at SPI.

The only way I can see to get the point across is protecting the pages, but RFP is not being acted upon particularly quickly either. I'd had a request up to SP that page - it was finally acted upon after almost 12 hours.

I feel that if this LTA's abuses are consistently, swiftly reverted and then blocked via protection, we'll get a better result, per WP:DFTT and WP:DENY. And even if we don't it's more effective at protecting the encyclopedia than edit wars. Is there a reporting venue or some such that would get faster action on RFPs? Would an entry at LTA help? Jeh (talk) 13:07, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

A LTA report would probably help. I'm also monitoring Comparison of instruction set architectures for any further violations. And yeap, swiftly reverting, blocking, and semi-protecting the pages this vandal is targeting will help, though that requires an admin actually notice what's going on. Others may have better ideas, too. --Yamla (talk) 20:31, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Legal threat at Philip Day (businessman)

Resolved

 – Tinkerbellmademedoit indef blocked until they respond to the conditions of the block. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:42, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Tinkerbellmademedoit (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has made a legal threat in his edit summary at Philip Day (businessman) (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). I have restored the previous version, as the information is cited in a reliable source, The Guardian. I have left them a message and based on their editing history, a COI warning. I will notify them of this discussion. Edwardx (talk) 12:51, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

User false accused me of threatening a real person.

Champion falsely accused me of supposedly threatening Donald Trump only because I joked about how similar oir names are, the user then decided to speedily delete my user page, report my user name (without consulting me, and claimed it was/is a "threatening" name), and seems bent on blocking me yet never asked me anything or why I use my name. This seems like an obvious abuse of privileges bestowed upon the user to speedily delete a harmless user page where I talked about myself and made a single joke. Donald Trung (talk) 15:20, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

@Donald Trung:---Well, Sjb72 was the deleting administrator and Champion is hardly the one to fault.You may contact Sjb for further queries.Further, we don't like sarcasms etc. esp. coming from brand-new users.And you are better with changing the username.Cheers!Winged Blades ^Godric 15:41, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

IMO you should just ask for a rename. The fact that the username is by your own admission a nickname derived from but not your real name, and reference to Donald Trump mean it's always going to be problematic. The fact that this nickname is old doesn't really help things much. Ultimately as a clear reference to another living person who isn't your friend or relative, and a notable one at that (which he would be long before he was politically active, in fact probably was from when you the nickname arose hence why you knew of him in Australia), even if it isn't intended to mock said individual; means any of your actions could be as associated with them. I'm not commenting on whether this meets the standard for a forced username block, but there's nothing stopping you voluntarily requesting a rename. Also I can't see what was deleted but the fact it was deleted makes me think it did raise concerns. Nil Einne (talk) 15:42, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

OP is currently posting nonsense 'speedy keep' rationales on various AfD's; I think we're being lead on by a daft troll. Can we rush a block on this and save a bunch of time and pain? I strike that; there's more of a competence issue that I'm seeing rather than malicious intent. Nate • (chatter) 16:56, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

I was the deleting administrator of Donald Trung's original User page. The content was short, and from the content could be described as an attempt at humour at best, and at worst , a hoax or an attack page. I did consider changing the deletion reason, but decided to leave it as per the original CSD tag. Donald Trung, I strongly recommend changing your username; if you keep it as it is, you are going to be facing a lot of scrutiny from other editors. I would imagine that you will end up having discussions on this page repeatedly, and it really isn't worth the hassle. I expect you came to Wikipedia to help improve it (as did the rest of us), but at the moment you are getting a lot of drama, which if left unchecked, will probably cause you to leave. Stephen! ^Coming... 06:58, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

41.138.78.50

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

I have no idea what this IP is babbling about, but I know that it doesn't belong on Wikipedia Could we please have a short block? Many times, when a vandal sees the message saying that he is blocked he goes away forever, not knowing that (unlike pretty much every other site on the internet) our blocks are often temporary. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:07, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

No comment on 'babbling' but User:Bbb23 has issued a checkuser block of 41.138.78.0/24 (block range · block log (global) · WHOIS (partial)) which includes this IP address. EdJohnston (talk) 19:26, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Pages are constantly hijacked by edits from IP Addresses and Users

IPs

• 39.46.149.198
• 39.46.83.185

and User

• Torrentz4

are constantly spamming on ExtraTorrent, Torrentz and KickassTorrents. Kindly look into the matter asap.— Preceding unsigned comment added by BeLucky (talk • contribs) 16:36, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

{{Uw-spam3}} applied to each of the editors' talk pages. Let me know if it continues. I'll either block the editors or semi-protect the articles. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 06:06, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

User:NinjaRobotPirate It is still happening. Kindly block the IPs/Users or semi-protect the articles for best.— Preceding unsigned comment added by BeLucky (talk • contribs) 13:47, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

I semi-protected all three articles for a week. It looks like there are various disputes over successor websites, and the spammy external links aren't helping matters. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 16:20, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

• @BeLucky: Yes you were (lucky)! Yesterday you hit WP:15RR on ExtraTorrent, and I'm not sure that what you were reverting would have come under WP:NOT3RR. This is not a criticism, just a suggestion to be mindful, and reach for RFPP or here, a bit sooner, eh? Thus avoiding any noticeboard entanglements, to paraphrase :) — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 17:03, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Proposed Block on Newimpartial

After the close a few sections above which said no more warnings, Newimpartial has continued his efforts to obstruct spam cleanup and processing stale userspace drafts here [108] by dragging in an editor with similar views to him on protecting spam pages which lead to this by his new proxy [109] He is still questioning my activity with admins here [110] and here [111]. He's still casting aspirations against me still based on wrong assumptions and a lack of understanding of deletion process and policy while digging deep in my extensive editing history to find justification for his little obstructionist project. Legacypac (talk) 17:16, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose for now - this whole thing kicked off about 15 hours ago, and as near as I can tell in the fifteen threads started since that time (on 12 different pages) Newimpartial is simply trying to figure out what's going on. They're new, they got excited about something, and they're trying to figure out why the guidelines say one thing while (multiple) editors are doing something seemingly contradictory. I do agree, however, that they're being less-than-civil with regard to their tone regarding Legacypac, but to say that Godsy is a meatpuppet purely because they became interested in the case is a bit problematic in and of itself. I think both sides need to chill out. Primefac (talk) 17:29, 28 May 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose Give him a chance. He's stopped the disruptive tagging, and it is reasonable to ask questions. WP is not all that simple to understand: the policies and guidelines interact in complicated ways. And, Legacypac, you need to AGF about the other editor, not call them a "proxy". DGG ( talk ) 17:56, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

I am not going to mount a "defense" except to note the mass of MfDs and CSDs here <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions/Legacypac&offset=&limit=500&target=Legacypac> and the uncivil exchanges on the part of Legacypac here <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Lasersharp/Taipei_Interactive_English_Club> and here <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/User:Andwats/Don_Fex> Legacypac also referred to my removal as CSD tags as "vandalism", which is not very WP:CIVIL to say about a WP:GOOD FAITH edit. I apologize for being opinionated beyond my experience, and I have withdrawn in participation in MfD or deletion nominations, but there was certainly no bad faith in my part. I do feel that WP:BITE has not been followed in this case so far, present company excepted :).Newimpartial (talk) 18:00, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

And I never was "obstructionist"; I only wanted the process outlined in WP:STALE to be followed as I understood it. But I have let that go. Newimpartial (talk) 18:02, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

I never used the term meatpuppet but I provided a diff where he asked another editor to do what he was being told not to do. I AGF but CIR. mass targeting my CSD tags to protect spam is vandalism just like inserting spam yourself. Legacypac (talk) 19:44, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Can you not tell the difference between "protecting spam" and WP:GOOD FAITH due process, Legacypac? Because that is literally what this whole thing hinges on. I was never "protecting spam".

Nor was I "mass targeting". I was looking at each case on the merits - maybe not correctly, but thoughtfully - which is why I was annoyed and wanted to see the pages that were deleted so quickly that I didn't get a chance to look at what you were labelling. And there were definitely errors in your CSD tags; I think everyone can agree about that, even the admins who deleted.Newimpartial (talk) 20:54, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

• I first noticed Newimpartial due to their participation at miscellany for deletion which I frequent. I noticed the first an/i thread through my watchlist which lead me to become interested in the related drv. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 21:06, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

No it hinges on WO:CIR and unwillingness to listen to experienced editors who are trying to educate you. When you start accusing me all over the site of plots and misdeeds while systematically undoing my spam clean up work, you exhast my WP:AGF toward you. Legacypac (talk) 22:12, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

But at no time was I "systematically undoing". First I was reviewing MfDs on their merits - not especially yours, and not always voting "keep" - and then I was reviewing CSDs on their merits - not just yours, and not always "undoing" or objecting. You can say I wasn't applying the criteria used by the group currently engaged in patrolling the userspace drafts, and you would be right as it turns out, but I was certainly not "systematically undoing" anything, and I only referred to what I understood as your attempts to get around WP:CONSENSUS on a few of the pages in which the actual deletions were being discussed, until I "made it" to ANI. Then I stopped participating in XfD discussions, pretty much immediately, and only then - and because you had not made any response to the issues that I had raised about WP:STALE policy - I mentioned it to a couple of other editors and admin. That isn't "accusing you all over the site", by any stretch of the imagination, and I'd stand by my record of remaining relatively WP:CIVIL; I certainly didn't resort to threats, as you did. Your WP:AGF was over pretty much before it started, as I think the diffs I posted above demonstrate.Newimpartial (talk) 22:31, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. THis is another example of how Wikipedia fails disaterously to properly inform new users about what they can and can't do when they sign up. Not everyone is as intuitive as us old-age pensioners who never even grew up in a computer environent. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:06, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
• Newimpartial's comments are very condescending with bullshit blue links and redundant advice. It might not be trolling but either it is intentionally provocative in the hope that Legacypac will explode or go away, or Newimpartial's comments indicate WP:CIR problems. If someone has a point to make, just make it. Newimpartial has recently been involved in a lot of "discussion" on numerous pages (including my talk)—has there been a commensurate benefit to the encyclopedia? Johnuniq (talk) 04:09, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
• Wait and see. If there's one thing more loathsome than a spammer, it's a spam enabler. What I see here is a new user off to a very very bad start, and compounding the situation by refusing to listen to advice, being argumentative, etc. I don't think it quite raises to the level of an indefinite block just yet, and I've seen new editors recover from worse, but if Newimpartial continues along their current path their time on Wikipedia will be short indeed. At this point, the ball's in their court: they can take some advice from Legacypac and others and help us improve wikipedia, or continue their current trajectory until they've spent so much time on the naughty list that a block is inevitable. I'd like to hope it's the former, but we shall see. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 18:27, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
• I see an allegation by Newimpartial of "Legacypac, who has a terrible record with Speedy Delete nominations" as justification for CSD detagging. This is a serious allegation. I ask User:Legacypac to enable User:Legacypac/CSD log, to turn it on using the preferences panel, for transparency. A quick random check of contributions reveals a lot of tagging and some bad tagging [112][113][114][115] (NB this search is biased as it can only find CSD taggings on undeleted pages). I suspect Legacypac may be slightly deletionist with respect to random useless stuff, but not deserving of anything beyond a polite discussion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:44, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Well, Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as blatant NOTWEBHOST violations is currently chock-full of mistagged article drafts. I'd go through and decline just about all of them (maybe one in twenty so far have been bad enough to speedy as a G11), but I already know the ensuing discussion wouldn't be polite. —Cryptic 04:55, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
    • I checked the As. Mostly the tag is good. The rest, U5 is a stretch, with a stretched overlap with G11, and none will ever make mainspace. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:44, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Surely there is some spam fighting or New Page Patrol or something more productive for SmokeyJoe to do then searching my CSD tags especially since every tag is already directly reviewed by an Admin. As best I can tell my CSD acceptance rate is over 99%. Occasionally Admins don't see something I spotted (could not spot the hoax in one case today) or disagree. I've analysed SmokeyJoe's 4 diffs here [116] I feel it quite unfair to call any of those 4 (out of 1000s generated fighting spam) to be bad tags.

The last couple days made some progress on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Stale_userspace_drafts but WOW there is a lot of accumulated spam/copyvio/hoaxes etc in there. @Cryptic I've observed your understanding of WP:U5 differs from that of many other Admins. For me if you combine unsuitable material for wikipedia plus no or few mainspace contributions (usually zero outside a single user page) that = U5 and I apply U5 in line with how I've observed other Admins use it. There are often other reasons to delete the page but I tend to pick the one that is easiest for the reviewing Admin to confirm (like U5). Copyvio and hoaxes take longer to confirm for example. Legacypac (talk) 05:36, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

If by "other Admins" you mean User:RHaworth, who'll delete almost anything that's tagged on the basis of whether he thinks it's a viable article rather than looking at what the criteria say, and who ended up deleting every one of those, then I suppose you're right - no other admin was willing to touch them in the intervening seven hours. (It neither surprises nor disappoints me that nobody declined any of them; I couldn't see any of them ever surviving a move to mainspace either.) U5 specifically excludes pages that are plausibly intended to be drafts, though, and every one of those was, and most were explicitly marked as such: if you look at the discussion enacting U5, you'll find that allowing drafts was unanimously opposed. It's largely because of stretching the criteria like this that we haven't been able to pass speedy criteria that cover these hopeless drafts, whether by removing the AFC requirement for G13, by introducing modified versions of the A* series, or by anything else that's been proposed. —Cryptic 16:12, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

If someone else adding a "User Space Draft" box turns drive by editor dumps into drafts that can't be deleted we should change the wording on that box asap to say something like "this is a page in userspace that may have never been reviewed by anyone other than its creator and may be subject to deletion according to Wikipedia policy (link UPNOT). Legacypac (talk) 16:26, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Prolific and long-term editor refusing to reference, or reference inline, or respond to any messages

• Neddyseagoon (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki)

I am opening this in the hope of starting a discussion with an editor who has contributed well in many ways to Wikipedia, by editing for more than a decade, including being a prolific article creator - according to WP:MOSTARTICLES (which is, I believe, very out of date so numbers will be higher) - Neddyseagoon is the 72nd most prolific article creator on English Wikipedia and many above him are bots. My concern is that there are serious referencing issues with every one of the many I'm coming across on New Page Patrol. Mainly, there are no inline citations, but there is an 'External links' section or similar, which may have been (although it's unclear) used as the sources. I feel after creating so many articles and editing for so long, the basic sourcing should be done correctly. A lack of inline citations is extremely difficult for any other editor to fix, as they don't know which sources were used for which bit of information, particularly difficult when the sources are not easy to get hold of (which is the case for most of them). These often end up unclear and blotted by a tag for many years, but could easily be rectified with little extra work at the start. The WP:BURDEN to make sources clear is on the creator. There are many messages on Neddyseagoon's talk page about this issue, over a long period of time, but from what I can see, in over ten years, Neddyseagoon has not responded to a single message on his/her talk page.

I would like to commend Neddyseagoon for his/her work over such a long period of time, and politely request that he/she responds to messages and creates inline sources in future. I'm only opening this after failing to manage to engage Neddyseagoon in conversation on the issue. I do think this type of editing creates real problems that other editors are spending a lot of time trying to solve, but that it is extremely difficult for them to solve, but easy for Neddyseagoon to do correctly from the start. Examples are: [117], [118] others are completely unreferenced like [119]. Articles this editor has created have been repeatedly tagged for deletion since 2012 (from looking at Talk page messages) for sourcing issues and lacking content. There are regular specific comments from New Page Patrollers and others about a lack of sources since 2013, and a message asking Neddy to stop linking dates from April 2013 (he/she still links dates in 2017). I'm not judging - I pigheadedly made mistakes with sources myself years ago - but would like Neddyseagoon to consider how this affects other editors and to please respond to messages and make citations clear and inline. Thanks, Boleyn (talk) 19:16, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

That massive talkpage needs to be cleared for starters. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 19:38, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Yep, that's another issue that editors have left messages about but have not been responded to. Boleyn (talk) 20:11, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Convenience links to Neddyseagoon's userpage and talk pages, since they're not given above. I'm rather surprised that I've never heard of him, seeing how prolific he is. No comment on the issues raised here. Nyttend (talk) 20:52, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

• I wondered what area Neddyseagoon was creating articles in, so I clicked on a couple of the links above and found a further problem. Grigory Alexandrovich Demidov was not inter-wikied, but Italian and Russian articles exist (I have now linked them). There was a bit of untranslated Italian in the list of issue, and the text resembles content in the Russian article. I have accordingly added Translated article templates to the talk page attributing both as sources. There is a firm requirement under our licence to attribute when copying within Wikipedia, including when translating from Wikipedia in another language, no matter how loosely. Preferably the first edit summary should state this, in addition to the talk page templates. It looks as though Neddyseagoon has also been committing a form of copyvio by not doing this. (I also found a source on the Russian Wikipedia, but my ability to read Russian is insufficient to use it for footnotes, so I made it an external link). Yngvadottir (talk) 20:56, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

• User:Ymblanter, could you help with your language skills? Nyttend (talk) 21:01, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

  I will have a look tomorrow.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:04, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

  Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 21:20, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

• He developed a habit of blanking/moving his talk page as a matter of archiving, I believe. That is probably why you didn't see any of his responses but he does have them. See this. He appears to have gotten less communicative with "Please now stop telling me this...." when Kudpung raised concerns in 2011. Last comment was "I'm making stubs out from Template:rembrandt" in 2013 which was unsigned. Since he has this which mentions Ealdgyth, perhaps he would talk to him.
   — Berean Hunter (talk) 01:59, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

SHE might when she wakes up in the morning. I can't remember ever actually interacting with Neddy, however. Not sure, given the editing stats, it'd make much difference, to me it looks like someone who went mostly inactive for a long time and hasn't figured out things have changed from 2007. Ealdgyth - Talk 03:06, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Neddyseagoon has edited since this discussion was started, including creating articles with the same issues [120]. I'm unsure if she reads her messages at all (I suspect she doesn't, or not regularly). She obviously has not commented here or on her Talk page thus far. I'm not sure where we go from here if Neddyseagoon is not willing to interact. Perhaps she will comment soon. Boleyn (talk) 18:56, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

He hasn't made a user talk comment of any kind for four years; while he obviously knows what user talk is for as he's made comments in the past, this appears to be someone who's flat-out refusing to engage. It seems like a real shame, given that this is obviously a long-term contributor who's trying to help, but if he continues to edit problematically and refuses to engage either on his talk or here, this may be a case where "indefinite block until you promise to stop" will be the only option. ‑ Iridescent 19:43, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

• When I first looked at this thread I figured this was a disagreement over reference format (inline is only one method, a list of footnotes/references at the end of the article is equally acceptable) but it seems there are other editing issues requiring a response from the user. I dislike attention-getting blocks but this is a collaborative project, and when editors want to contact you to discuss editorial issues and you don't ever respond, you are being disruptive, plain and simple. She hasn't edited any page in user talk: space at all since she last edited her own talk page in 2013; she's clearly not paying attention to it. I'm about to be away from the computer for several hours so I won't block myself but another admin who can pay attention for a bit really shouldn't hesitate. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:01, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Ivanvector, why in the world would you block yourself? EEng 20:22, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

I also just went to try to email her in case she's missing notifications from her talk page or something, but she doesn't have email enabled. It is entirely possible she has simply stopped looking at her talk page and isn't getting any of the messages left for her, but in that case (and without knowing) we really have no choice but to block to get her attention. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:11, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Where is all this "her" coming from? He has a big "this user is male" userbox. ‑ Iridescent 20:13, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Ah, so he does. I was going by Ealdgyth and Boleyn's comments above, editors who I trust to get that right. I wouldn't call that box big, really. Apologies, anyway. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:24, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Ealdgyth was referring to herself above and not Neddy. See this.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 21:40, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

• Notwithstanding the proposal below which seems to have come up while I was mulling over a block rationale in another tab, I have blocked Neddyseagoon (and not myself, thanks EEng) for failing to respond to messages from other editors at all for nearly four years (or maybe six, depending on how reliable their archives are). More followup on their talk page. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 20:31, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Block proposal

Much as I dislike it, I'll get the ball rolling with a formal proposal:

Now that he's been made aware of this thread, if Neddyseagoon continues to create unreferenced articles or unattributed cut-and-paste articles, and does not respond to concerns either here or on his own talkpage, he will be indefinitely blocked from editing until he agrees to comply with Wikipedia's policies on sourcing, verification and copyright violation.

• Support as proposer. ‑ Iridescent 20:10, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
• Support This is not the first editor (named and IP) that I have seen who uses the "as along as I don't respond to talk page messages I can edit in amy manner that I want I want" strategy. If this causes them to discuss things then a block will have served its purpose. Otherwise it will stop the disruptive editing. MarnetteD|Talk 20:28, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
• Support C'mon Neddy. What we really want is for you to start communicating per WP:ENGAGE. Start working with your fellow editors. Don't let it come to this...pipe up.
   — Berean Hunter (talk) 21:47, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
• Support. I'm truly sorry, but this is already long overdue. As noted above, there've been continuing problems with attribution of copied or translated material (the numerous talk-page notices from CorenSearchBot mostly relate to that), but there's also been more serious outright copyright violation, as for example at Violet Manners, Duchess of Rutland. The complete lack of any response to the many messages left about this means that we have no idea whether the user even understands that there is a problem. I hope that Ivanvector's block will be converted to indef, as proposed here – and that the user will quickly be persuaded to communicate. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:40, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Legal threat on Chloe Khan...again!

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

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There has been another legal threat made on the above article, this time someone purporting to be the subject. It can be found here. Cassianto^Talk 23:37, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Blocked for legal threats. The problem here is that the claims are well-sourced with reliable sources, as far as I can see, and the user, under a different guise, has previously been warned about legal threats. The claim can (and should) be removed if there's a reliable source indicating the claim was actually false, but as far as I know, none has been presented. That said, I had never heard of Chloe Khan until these issues cropped up. --Yamla (talk) 00:05, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Yamla. Have also left them a message about their options, including if they really do wish to pursue legal action. -- Euryalus (talk) 01:08, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Not every little incident with the authorities is necessarily notable. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:51, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

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

Agenda pushing by User:Wakebrew on paranormal-related articles

Wakebrew has a history of making POV edits at paranormal related articles. The articles affected are the following:

• Pyrokinesis
• Psychic
• Mediumship
• Paranormal
• Scrying
• Witchcraft

If you look at the recent history of these articles (i.e. Wakebrew's edits of the last couple of weeks) you will see the problem, and you will also see he has been reverted by multiple editors. He has recieved warnings from multiple editors regarding his non-neutral edits and was blocked for a week. Now the block has lapsed he seems to have picked up where he left off. This editor is virtually a SPA.

This report is not a defence of the current wording installed at these articles. Generally I think there are some improvements that could be made, and I had an attempt at Mediumship. It is my contention that Wikipedia's coverage of paranormal phenomena should be firmly presented in terms of beliefs and scientific evidence (rather than factual statements) and I have raised the issue about terminology at Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Mediumship.

However, whatever the current failings of the articles I don't think Wakebrew is having a moderating impact on these articles so I am hoping we can discuss imposing a topic ban in this area. Betty Logan (talk) 02:09, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

• Given that this is a continuation of a behavioral problem which has already led to a fairly substantial block, I've blocked the user indefinitely. This isn't intended to be permanent, but it's clear that they're refusing to listen to anyone and they can't continue to edit like this. As far as I'm concerned, they can be unblocked whenever they adequately address our concerns, but if unable to do so there's not much room to work with them. Swarm ♠ 05:09, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Does OTRS accept telepathic unblock requests? EEng 14:47, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

My crystal ball says... no. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:07, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Problematic edits

24.178.29.47 (talk · contribs) There is this IP who is making inaccurate changes in hip-hop related articles. I been keeping an eye on this IP edits for awhile now, and the edits don't generally helping the articles at all, they don't seem to have any concept of proper grammar or the Manual of Style. The IP make very awkward grammatically incorrect edits in album pages and have been warned by several other editors about these edits, but continue to making questionable edits without explaining why. I left a comment try to explain why I have a problem with the edits, but didn't get a response. I have try again, but still didn't a reply, this editor has ignored warnings and continue making these unnecessary changes to articles. After the edits has been reverted, they returned to the article and restore the same changes.

Here are the edits in the past few months:

• Lil Boat - [121] [122] [123]
• True to Self - [124] [125] [126]
• Teenage Emotions - [127] [128] [129] [130]
• Woptober - [131] [132]
• Trapsoul - [133] [134]
• Long. Live. ASAP - [135]
• Hurricane Chris (rapper) - [136] [137] [138] [139] [140] [141]
• These Things Happen (G-Eazy album) - [142] [143]

These are the best evidence I can find from these diffs. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 03:31, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

• Noting PaleoNeonate's message that they must communicate, I'll wait to see if they do. If they resume editing without responding, ping me. I actually think this is someone that has been blocked for disruptive editing before as an IP and evading but if they finally decide to communicate then I'm willing to be patient. If not, I'll block them for failing to engage and disruptive editing.
   — Berean Hunter (talk) 13:09, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

@Berean Hunter: The editor is still not responding, they are still editing and doing the same thing, here's the recent edits [144] [145], it's clearly they are ignoring the warnings. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 11:05, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Blocked three months.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 16:52, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. Sometimes this is what's needed for editors to realize and finally react... — PaleoNeonate — 17:06, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

@Berean Hunter: Thanks. The editor has been problematic since March, I try to be civil with this editor by explain why the edits are disruptive, but they keep ignoring my warnings. If I see this editor using another IP address and editing as before, I let you know. TheAmazingPeanuts (talk) 12:26, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

South Korea

There is currently an edit war at the article South Korea (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) about whether or not Korea was a tributary state of China, with users accusing each other of being sockpuppets, of nationalist POV pushing, and the like. - Mike Rosoft (talk) 05:09, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry for engaging in an edit war, which is against the rules, and also misusing warnings. I got carried away.

"Yearly tributes" is not found in the sources. Also, Goguryeo's tributes are not as simple as that to make such a misleading blanket statement. Please see Talk:Goguryeo where there is a discussion going on about it.

Regardless, I think it would be better for me to just simply stop. No excuses for my aggressive behavior. I'll stop now, and accept the changes. Sorry for causing trouble. Maco8 (talk) 06:16, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

@Maco8: Serious question here – have you ever edited Wikipedia before under a different account? --IJBall (contribs • talk) 06:54, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

I blocked Maco8 as a sock puppet of Massyparcer (talk · contribs), who also used Burgershots (talk · contribs) to make similar edits, complete with accusations of Chinese nationalist POV-pushing. Should I semi-protect the article, too? From glancing at the article history, it looks like Massyparcer socks hit it fairly often. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 15:55, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

I'd say that semi-protection would be a good idea, since politically- and ethnically-motivated socking is particularly hard to control. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:06, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

I've noticed that there was a dynamic IP also make against of Chinese nationalist POV-pushing at Materialscientist talk page and this diff, not just the sockpuppet User:Burgershots, so the semi-protection as disruptive editing maybe would be an good idea on that. SA 13 Bro (talk) 02:12, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

The length may be a bit too conservative, but I semi-protected it for a month. The recent protections have been relatively short, so I didn't want to jump to a really long protection despite the long protection log. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:20, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Paris1127 twists the History of various countries.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Paris1127 This user twists the history of sri lanka by using false information in wikipedia for example, in here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_involving_the_United_Kingdom the first kandyan war was won by the kandyan kingdom not british, yet he changed it to british won the war, which is not true, and I even posted a reference to my claim. so please check this, and also I request to go through his submissions made in wikipedia to check the validity of his posts, and take necessary actions against him. thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ceylonpedia (talk • contribs) 07:12, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

@Ceylonpedia:

1. This is a content dispute, not an administrative matter. If you disagree with another editor then explain civilly to her or him why, and be prepared to discuss the issues with a view to trying to reach consensus. The other editor has Answered your point on the article talk page: respond there if you have any answer to give.
2. The "reference" that you posted was a link to the Wikipedia article in question. Both the circularity of the reference and the fact that Wikipedia is not a reliable source make this of no value at all as a reference.
3. When you edited this page there was a large orange notice at the top which said, in large bold print, "When you start a discussion about an editor, you must notify them on their user talk page." Please make sure that if you ever start a discussion here again you heed that instruction. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:39, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

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

User:Majanikolic1 violating WP:NPOV

@Majanikolic1: is a WP:SPA that only edits Maja Nikolić and is clearly unable to edit neutrally. User been deleting sourced content because it could reflect negatively on Maja Nikolić from the article. (1 2 3 4 5 6), while also adding unsourced content in the article (1, 2).

User was warned about COI editing at talk page (User talk:Majanikolic1) but persisted with their agenda-pushing edits. I started a discussion at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 114#Maja Nikolic on 2 May, but nothing came out of it other than a comment about the poor state of the article, which I agree with and made an attempt to add more references. The user in question stopped editing for awhile, so this was forgotten about. However, said user is back and still clearly WP:NOTHERE. Bennv3771 (talk) 18:21, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Semiprotected the page for a month, with the advise for them to take their concerns about their biography to the talk page. El_C 18:25, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

86.141.32.128

Please can someone block this account.[146]--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 20:38, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

They were given a final warning, and haven't edited since.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:58, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Difficult rangeblock challenge for the Teenage Fairtytale Dropouts vandal

We could use another pair of rangeblocks on the Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Teenage Fairytale Dropouts vandal, one for the 2001:8003:208F:F00... group and another for the 49.195... group. Here are the past four ANI reports about this LTA case:

• September 2016 – Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive935#Two rangeblocks (or more) for Teenage Fairytale Dropouts vandal. No action taken.
• October 2016 – Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive936#Rangeblocks needed for LTA. Various solutions discussed including rangeblocks and Special:AbuseFilter/802 from Samtar.
• January 2017 – Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive944#Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Teenage Fairytale Dropouts vandal. Includes range calculations from Cameron11598.
• February 2017 – Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive945#Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Teenage Fairytale Dropouts vandal redux. Asking about a possible higher-up action from WMF.

The frequently stated problem is that taking this LTA out of action would also remove a large range of good faith IP users. If someone can figure out a way to stop this guy without high collateral damage then that would be fantastic. Binksternet (talk) 21:45, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Is it possible to create a fairly tight abuse filter and apply it only to a specific IP range or group of ranges? Sorry if that's a "duhh, no". I don't know much about the abuse filter, and I only have the right because I've occasionally needed to view private filters; I don't remember ever editing one. Nyttend (talk) 23:43, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't know the answer to that, but I agree it would be very useful to apply a filter to one or more ranges of IPs. Binksternet (talk) 05:53, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

49.195.0.0/16 blocked anon-only for two weeks...that took a very long time to evaluate. The collateral damage isn't all that much when one actually starts assessing them. Let's see if that helps throttle him. Also, blocked 2001:8003:208F:F00::/64 for two weeks...he seems to have persistence for about a week on the IPv6 addresses. Let's see if that helps here.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 01:44, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Problematic developments of genocide articles

We've been experiencing a lot of 'development' of articles on genocide topics over the past year in particular. The latest spate of unexplained changes are coming from a new user, Thisiswhyeventsunnerveme (talk · contribs). I don't have the time to thoroughly investigate these changes to content and, most particularly, WP:TITLE, but have noticed that accounts have been cropping up once a previous account has stopped making changes, all following the same behavioural pattern of making very confident moves, and all not communicating with any other editors in any shape or form. Whether we're talking sockpuppetry or meat is of little consequence, but the issue is that of trying to keep up with these articles and moves. There are no reliable sources for the titles alone, so we've broken out in a plague of WP:OR genocide articles. It seems that 'genocide' has become flavour of the month... --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:31, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Apologies, but in my haste to log out for the day, I forgot to notify the relevant user of this thread. I've now done so here. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:26, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

 Checkuser needed. Is there any way we can compare to Accopulocrat (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) using CU logs? I am seeing some real similarities, including page overlaps, moves, subject interests, etc. GAB^gab 01:37, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

@GeneralizationsAreBad: Only the actual content changes. There are certainly similarities in the subject matter, but this editor is avoiding anything else (edit summaries; any communications) that may indicate who they are. I smell WP:EVADE, but there's more than one banned editor dealing with this subject matter out there. The annoying thing about checkuser is having to establish who you're dealing with before action is taken. In the meantime, the editor has made a mess of redirects and will leave the grunt work for others to clean up. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:46, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Unable to contribute to Spacetime article

I don't feel like edits to the spacetime article have been even-handed. I've bent over backwards trying to have a discussion with disagreeing editors, but there has been a steadfast refusal to engage in discussion, and there has been a lot of name calling and what I perceive to be bullying and railroading. I spent a great deal of time thinking through my edits, and fear that it will all be simply reverted. I would like another set of eyes on this. 47.32.217.164 (talk) 22:32, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't know what to do at this point; I feel like I've done all I can. The article has been reverted to an earlier state that I fundamentally disagree with. The only discussion was a single editor's opinions, and what discussion there has been has been to attempt to demonize me. A revert was entirely uncalled for, and all of my attempts at discussion have been ignored or dismissed. This seems to primarily be the work of one editor, however, as I had noted on the talk page, there seems to be discussion going on outside of the talk page. One editor seems to be successfully waging a campaign to deny discussion of improvement. 47.32.217.164 (talk) 00:23, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

This noticeboard is not the proper place to resolve content disputes. We have a variety of dispute resolution procedures available for that. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:30, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

When I read WP:BULLY, it says to report here, so I did. I'm seeing at least 4 of the behaviors mentioned there, perhaps more. 47.32.217.164 (talk) 06:54, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

A second look says 6 problem behaviors.

I agree with Cullen328, this looks like a content dispute and should be resolved at an appropriate venue. I would say WP:DRN. On a side note, I'm of opinion that the entire article is too long in either case, and in fact could be shrunk to a few paragraphs. Time dilation, Galilean transformations, spacetime intervals, etc - all these should be in an article on SR and GR, not spacetime. Banedon (talk) 06:36, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Glad you agree. I'm not really interested in spending my time wikilawyering, but I'm tired of the abuse and reversionism directed at good faith edits. It has been a recurring theme, and yet people who are openly claiming to own articles are somehow allowed to get away with it? 47.32.217.164 (talk) 06:54, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Strangely, after having reported this issue here, I'm starting to get a response on the talk page. I am however still concerned about the bullying and the conflict of interest of off-page railroading. 47.32.217.164 (talk) 08:16, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

I give up. I no longer care. The rest of the gang has showed up and decided that "peer pressure" should be the yardstick, not article quality. Consensus has been claimed. The bullies have won. Let this be a lesson to all those that would edit boldly, and stand up for their edits. You will be circumvented. You are not wanted. Not invented here. 47.32.217.164 (talk) 18:25, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

The IP editor has a "my way or the highway" attitude, and the other editors should be using the Draft space for much of their work. This is clearly a topic for dispute resolution. Power~enwiki (talk) 21:08, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

189.216.25.162

189.216.25.162 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) has been adding unsourced and questionable info to articles, including articles about living people, and has continued after repeated warnings. Trivialist (talk) 23:18, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

One of the IP 2601:1C0:4401:F360:C5A8:2998:F0D7:6896 have been reported at WP:AIV, this IP 189.216.25.162 maybe was a long-term abuser, I'm not sure User:Sro23 knew about this sock or not. SA 13 Bro (talk) 23:29, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

I've checked the block log, this IP was possible sockpuppet of User:WinnieThePoohFan2004. SA 13 Bro (talk) 23:45, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

I thought that IP editor's contribs looked familiar. Yeah, I blocked it before as a possible sock. The problem was that WinnieThePoohFan2004 didn't leave behind much of a trail. It made trying to connect the accounts difficult. I'll block the IP editor again. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:17, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the reblocked, I patrolled the IP and didn't check the block log at first while another IP editor have described an long-term disruptive editing on the diff at WP:AIV. SA 13 Bro (talk) 19:00, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

User:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz and Mary Bell

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User:Hullaballoo Wolfowitz in his one man vigilante campaign against non-free photos in BLP articles removed the photo from Mary Bell even though it is explained that Mary Bell lives under anonymity and will not pose for a free photo. Please reprimand him. Paul Benjamin Austin (talk) 00:10, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

It might not be that the removal is based on non-free, WP:MUG - Mlpearc (open channel) 00:23, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

It's a mugshot of a child, so I've deleted it as a BLP violation. SarahSV ^(talk) 00:54, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: Thank you. - Mlpearc (open channel) 00:57, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Even if there was no BLP issue, we simply do not use non-free photos of living people, even of those who refuse to pose for photos. Including photos in articles is by no means mandatory. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:26, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't give a whit about this particular article, but can you point me to where it says we don't use non-free photos of living people? Just for my education. EEng 07:36, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

WP:NFCC#1 is generally applied in that way. JoJo Eumerus mobile (talk) 08:49, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

To add to the above: It does not explicitly state that, but it is generally applied in that way because with a living person there is always the chance they will change their mind and make a photo available. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:54, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

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Ban evasion by RXX-7979Ⅲ

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RXX-7979Ⅲ was banned a couple of weeks ago from making any edit relating to Japan history and Japanese war crimes. His first edit following the ban notification was a non-neutral change to the comfort women article, misrepresenting a source from IWG and using an unreliable Facebook reference to greatly diminish the Japanese comfort women issue. Binksternet (talk) 05:49, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

I've blocked for a week for the obvious topic ban. And yes, I too can find nothing remotely similar to the alleged quote in the cited document. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:17, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

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another fuck off from MjolnirPants

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Well with this edit that make two fuck offs over the same matter (though this one was asking him to strike the first) [147] [148]

Allow me to analyse the first fuck off.

"*Template:Poing Two things: I'm getting pretty sick of seeing you pop up to tell me what you think I'm doing wrong. "

A mild PA, in which he comments on me not the subject. Also had to see how I was hounding him, not only did I post first in this thread but I never directly replied to him in that threads, or even mention him. At worst I reply to another user underneath his reply to that user.Slatersteven (talk) 09:17, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

"It got old a long time ago, so why don't you just fuck off and bother someone else, kay?"

Do I need to say more?

"Second, Linking other editors to a photo and essentially telling them to draw their own conclusions is pretty much the most OR type of OR that ever ORed and the fact that you would argue with this does not speak highly of you."W

Well not only do I not say this, but in fact agree with MjolnirPants that OR is not acceptable.[149], this by the way ds the post I mention above, as can be seen it is not indented as a reply to MjolnirPants. In addition he continues with the snide snipping.

All of this in response to me (as far as I can tell) asking "users" to treat new users with respect and not not mock them.

I asked him to strike the post [150]. which provoked the second fuck off. Slatersteven (talk) 09:17, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

If we started blocking people because they told their colleagues to fuck off- particularly in their own userspace, where much more latitude applies- we'd have a much smaller workplace with much fewer articles! — O Fortuna ^{semper crescis, aut decrescis} 09:28, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

He did not just do it in his user space. The second (I linked to, the first he said) was in the Fringe theory notice board.Slatersteven (talk) 09:36, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

If anyone wants the backstory click here. The fringe theory issue ran like this:

• Editor A advocates Original research over pineapples in Rome (sadly not a joke)
• MPants says 'Have you read or heard of OR?' linking to it.
• Slatersteven replies to MPants with (as is usual for SS) a half-baked understanding of policy/guidelines. This is an ongoing issue.
• MPants loses his rag as this is not the first time they have had to deal with this.

Frankly SlaterSteven, you would be told to fuck off less if you would stop hectoring vastly more experienced editors than yourself, repeatedly showing a limited understanding of the various policies. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:57, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

How did I deserve this latest attack, how the hell was I hectoring him? Also as far as I know there is no justification under policy for telling another user to fuck off, not matter what (there was not this time) the provocation. I did not respond to him at all in that thread. Post the link where I did? What I did was to agree with him about OR, and then ask all users to refrain from being disrespectful (he had not been disrespectful up to that point) So I fail to see how or why he launched his attack on me. Nor can I see how you (or otehrs) seem to think I was hectoring him, when he had not done what I was asking people not to do.Slatersteven (talk) 10:18, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Nor have I asked for a block, but I am not sure that even agreeing to not interact with each other (as I did not interact with him here) would help.Slatersteven (talk) 10:25, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

(ec) (Non-administrator comment) Here you go. If that wasn't in response to MP's comment just above, it's a pretty good imitation and it fooled me. Kleuske (talk) 10:28, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

It is indented as a reply to N591real (at least according to how I understand indentation in Wikipedia) Wikipedia:Indentation. Also (as I said) as this in no way comments on anything he (Pants) did how can I be responding to him?Slatersteven (talk) 10:35, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

I think Mr. Pants has adopted the correct behavioural response to Mr. Steven. -Roxy the dog. bark 10:38, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Indents aren't that reliable as an indicator, off-by-one errors are quite common. Moreover, N591real did not reference OR, MP did. Berating N591 to be kind to noobs does not make sense from any perspective. As I said, if it wasn't in response to MP, you fooled me (and MP, by the looks of it). In short: I don't believe you. Kleuske (talk) 11:07, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Likewise. The comment actually makes no sense in context if it was in reply to N591real. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:19, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

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<slow clap> ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:12, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Content Dispute re Piggate

Resolved

 – Content issues do not belong at WP:ANI as admin don't decide content. WP:BLPN is likely what you are looking for. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:15, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

I have a dispute about the inclusion of the following content in the article Piggate:

"In November 2015, solicitor Myles Jackman, an expert on sexual liberties and obscenity law, said that performing a sexual act with a dead animal would not be illegal under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. (He did not address the laws at the time the event was said to have occurred.) He noted that possessing a photograph of such an act would be illegal under the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 if it was produced for pornographic purposes, but not if the purpose was "satire, political commentary or simple grossness".

My argument against it can be seen at the article's talk page:

"I do not see how the legality of the alleged act is relevant. Let us be clear with what we are dealing with here: this is a piece of hearsay passed on (without the assertion that it was true) by a political enemy of Cameron in an unauthorised biography. No evidence of this allegation has been produced and no formal allegation has been made. Therefore to have a discussion of the legality of such hypothetical act seems not just unnecessary but actually a violation of WP:BLP as it is insinuating that this act took place or that there is some credible evidence to suggest that it did. I have brought this to the talk as suggested by Andy Dingley but there does not seem to have been a talk consensus for adding this in the first place. Reaganomics88 (talk) 22:21, 18 January 2017 (UTC)"

However, the only response to this was by Andy Dingley

"I don't much care what you think - even your username makes this much obvious, let alone your repeated blanking of large sections here. But the consensus of other editors has been that it's a section worth keeping. The legal notion that the combination of two illegal acts becomes not illegal, rather than doubly illegal, is a somewhat surprising one. A surprise that RS, including broadsheet newspapers, have seen fit to cover. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:02, 19 January 2017 (UTC)"

There does not seem to be a consensus for this content's inclusion in the article nor a legitimate reason for its inclusion. Reaganomics88 (talk) 10:59, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

• This is a content dispute - even the headline says so - and there's nothing admins can do about that. Please go discuss it on the article talk page, and if you can't get consensus, please follow the dispute resolution steps outlined at WP:DR. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:04, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

I was aiming for WP:DRR/3 and WP:RFC. Reaganomics88 (talk) 11:07, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

There's nothing to stop you opening an RFC on the wording. However, if you believe the wording you want to remove is a BLP issue, I'd suggest that WP:BLP/N would be a far better venue to seek advice from. Black Kite (talk) 11:11, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Go for one of those then, if you wish, but ANI is not the place for either as it is not an admin issue. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:15, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Legal threat?

Slai2972 (talk · contribs) has just posted this at the article Norton House Education (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) where they have been edit warring. It may not be a full NLT violation but it does need checking. MarnetteD|Talk 14:22, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Editor notified here. MarnetteD|Talk 14:26, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

• Mop applied. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:31, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
• There may be reason they're a bit worried. It is being claimed in the article that Norton House is a new name for Senate House, which had a document able scandal around child molestation. But there's no documentation about Senate House being renamed Norton House that I can see (granted, language barrier and this is a quick search hitting a lot of false positives due to the commonality of "senate house" wording in world news). That's not sourced one iota that I can tell and thus, if it is not true, I can understand why Slai2972 has posted as they have. --MASEM (t) 14:36, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

• I have removed that info temporarily as after some searching I could not find evidence they are explicitly linked. However a mandarin/cantonese speaker will want to take a look too. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:07, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Being a Cantonese speaker, I've read through the article that was used as a source. The source says nothing about Norton House being involved, nor about it being renamed. It merely reports that an employee of Senate House has been arrested on these charges. However, some digging around does find that Norton House and Senate House have the same physical address and phone contact details. Also, a link to the Senate house website redirects to the Norton House website, which is indicative of a name change. Despite this, I would say that unless a source explicitly says that Senate House went through a business name change to Norton House as a result of this case, there is no way this source should be used in an article on Norton House. Blackmane (talk) 01:09, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Extra comment A revdel may be appropriate in this case. Blackmane (talk) 01:12, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Harassment

I have a Twitter impersonator, as was called to my attention here, which is now buried in the archives of my Talk page.

Another editor, User:Let99, and I got into a content dispute over the past couple of days.

Let99 did some opposition research and just wrote:

• this on their user Talk page: It also appears that you advertise for and take payment to edit Wikipedia, so I think that it's more likely that you will be blocked. The Wikipedia rules are very clear about that.
• this on the article Talk page: My link has been reverted twice by jytdog without a good reason. If it's this same jytdog, it's someone who takes payment to edit Wikipedia, so the motivation for there is suspect.

This is a clear violation of the spirit and letter of WP:HA. I do not find this acceptable. Jytdog (talk) 21:59, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

No, that is not what is happening. There are statements on the Paleo Diet that have claims that don't have references. I added a reference. Like many of the existing references on that page, it doesn't specifically mention the Paleo Diet, but it does specifically address the claim made in the article. Jytdog is reverting my edits without discussion claiming that it doesn't belong there, because it doesn't have the words "Paleo Diet" in the source. (That is irrelevant, because it does perfectly address the claim in the article.) Because the Paleo Diet is a high controversy topic where some people are making a fortune, I did a quick search in Google to see if this user was affiliated with entities that make money from the Paleo Diet. The Twitter link offering paid Wikipedia editing was there, so I mentioned it. That is not harassment, just due diligence. The relevant talk section is here. Jytdog should have started a discussion there before starting the edit war. Jytdog is one of those Wikipedia users who uses heavy hands and Wikipedia gobbledygook to try to to force through edits and silence opposing opinions. That kind of behavior is why Wikipedia has a reputation for toxic editor culture. What should have happened, is that Jytdog should have started with a comment on the talk page instead of reverting my edits over and over. (They weren't the same edits. I changed it to make it even more relevant after the first revert.) By Jytdog's argument, any reference on Wikipedia that doesn't specifically mention the name of the Wikipedia article should be removed. It is not a convincing argument. Let99 (talk) 22:16, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Because Jytdog is repeatedly reverting my edits without any discussion, I've added a "citation needed" tag to the unreferenced claim in the article and proposed three possible references on the talk page. We should be having a civilized discussion about how to edit a page, rather than this knee-jerk reverting and threats. No single editor owns the content on these pages, so, in general, it should be discussion first, with reversion only as a last resort. I'm the one who is being harassed here. Let99 (talk) 22:32, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

No, that's not "due diligence", it's a crystal-clear policy violation. (Editors are warned, however, that the community has rejected the idea that editors should "investigate" each other. Posting such information on Wikipedia violates this policy. if you want chapter and verse from policy.) Stop it now. ‑ Iridescent 22:40, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. How would you suggest dealing with toxic editors, who prefer conflict over cooperation, where there is a high suspicion of paid editing? Where should that be reported? Who would actually look into it? Paid editing is not a small problem on Wikipedia, and there are few tools other than a quick search of the username. Most discussions of editor behavior happens on third party sites. (Non-public information is obviously completely different.) Let99 (talk) 23:06, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

@Let99: Please review Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure. - Mlpearc (open channel) 23:10, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

That page says that people should disclose their payments, but obviously most don't. It's a big industry. Sources: [151][152][153]. A quick Google search will turn up links that offer that services. The paid users who have trusted accounts and who know how to do effective wikilawyering to silence the opposition with obscure rules and calls to the admins surely charge the highest prices. If admins are not willing to look into those situations, then how do you suggest regular editors should defend themselves? Let99 (talk) 23:21, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment)This is not the location to discuss suggestions for changes to paid editing policy, particularly since it actually has nothing to do with this situation. The essay you previously claimed represented Wikipedia policy on that ("Wikipedia rules are very clear about that") is actually a failed policy proposal, as it says on the page, so it's not the rules. The action that Jytdog took in reverting edits he thought were improper is actually standard Wikipedia process. If you read up on the Bold/Revert/Discuss cycle, you'll see that a revert is the proper response to a problematic addition, and that it is then on you to start a discussion to overcome the objection. To arrange it otherwise, no reversion until after a discussion, would do more to keep bad edits in than to promote good edits. So, may I suggest that rather than continuing to contest Wikipedia standards in this inappropriate location that you apologize to Jytdog for your inaccurate and inappropriate treatment, strike through the accusation on the article talk page, and then move forward with a discussion of the edits focused on the edits, rather than on the editors? --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:42, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

It was not a problematic addition though. The given reason for reverting was that the source does not mention the words "Paleo Diet"--but neither do many of the sources on that page (or on the entire Wiki). I wonder if you all realize that this is exactly the toxic wikipedia editor culture that so many people talk about. There are more civilized, rational ways to deal with these disagreements. You think that the first response to the addition of a credible, relevant link that you disagree with should be reverting? That's what makes Wikipedia such a bad experience for many editors. Let99 (talk) 01:17, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Nat Gertler - the paid editing policy actually is very relevant. I'm asking what a user should do when paid editing is suspected. Should I just do nothing and let articles be overrun by extremely aggressive, toxic editors? I did not know the answer, so all I did was a quick search of Google for the user's username. It turns out that, buried in Wikipedia's extensive, cryptic rules system is a caution that editors are "warned" against doing any research on other users. So, sorry for doing that, but I think that my question is very relevant: what is the proper alternative action that I should have taken? I did not post any secret, personally identifiable information. Let99 (talk) 01:34, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

• I don't often express my emotion here at ANI but I find this behavior disgusting, with respect to a) the sloppy arrogance in presenting my impersonator's claim that I do paid editing as a "fact" b) the dragging of off-wiki garbage into WP; c) their ham-fisted effort to "win" the content dispute by presenting this at the article Talk page where the content dispute is happening (truly crass behavior that taints all efforts to effectively manage COI in WP); and d) their repeating here at ANI that they feel that this is perfectly appropriate behavior. I am seeking a block and a stiff one; what they have done, are doing, and intend to keep doing is unacceptable. Jytdog (talk) 23:41, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

If someone is impersonating you on Twitter, you can get it removed. (File a support ticket.) I did not present paid editing as a fact. You seem quite intent on getting me banned at all costs though, even though my behavior is several times more calm and rational. The policy says that "editor are warned..." I have taken my warning. It would be really bad community management to ban a user for some obscure rule that no casual user could possibly have seen, unless they spend all of their time on this site. I've been editing this site for years and have never seen that. Let99 (talk) 01:17, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

• Ummm, this is a half-assed attempt at WP:OUT outing. The fact that it's false information doesn't really change that someone decided to post personally identifiable info on Jytgod to WP in an attempt to win an argument. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 00:07, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

There was no non-public personally-identifiable information posted. You should address my points above: how should one respond when paid editing is suspected? Where exactly should that be discussed, because it's a serious problem with Wikipedia in general. I've even encountered "professional" wiki editors here who seem to work in groups in order to shut down any possible hint of dissent with their opinions. Let99 (talk) 01:17, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

If this has been addressed already elsewhere, I apologise. If off-wiki evidence leads you to suspect someone is beeaking Wikipedia's rules, begin by emailing an administrator and asking for advice. There's a long and ugly history of on-wiki discussions involving off-wiki behaviour turning into doxing so we're (probably over-) sensitive about that. (That is a fake Twitter account - Jytdog is just too smart to do that.)

The reason we don't usually cite sources that don't address the main topic is to avoid WP:SYNTH. In the example above, the unsourced statement is supporting a bigger claim about the main topic so we need to find a reliable source that also adduces the unsourced claim in support of the bigger claim - otherwise Wikipedia is constructing arguments de novo. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:38, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. I'm aware of WP:SYNTH. Before judging me too harshly, you should see what Jytdog is up to. This is the sentence that I was providing a reference for: "Although little is known about the diet of Paleolithic humans, it is very likely that they did consume wild grains and legumes." It needed a citation, so I linked to this article, which directly addresses and backs up that statement. Jytdog did not want to discuss it, but instead, acting as if he owns the article, just started reverting. I tried rewording it once, but it got reverted again without discussion. I then added a citation tag to the sentence and proposed three links on the Talk page: this, this, and this--all very relevant. So then Jytdog deletes the entire sentence from the wiki article. I've been entirely calm and rational the entire time, encouraging discussion on the talk page rather than continuing the edit war that Jytdog started. He is doing everything he can to try and crush anyone who disagrees with him. I'm the one who is being harassed here. Sorry for looking up the user's name in Google -- please give me an alternative solution as to what I should do when paid editing is suspected. It's a chronic problem on Wikipedia. I'm not saying that Jytdog is a paid editor, but only asking how else one should research that when it's suspected. There doesn't seem to be any way for regular editors like myself to defend against these kinds of attacks from editors who are more familiar with the intricacies of Wikipedia's cryptic policy system. We have no way of defending ourselves against things like this, and the final result is that many articles (especially controversial ones) have terribly wrong information on them. Let99 (talk) 01:58, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Chloe Khan revdel request

• Chloe Khan (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Can I get a revdel of these two edits [154] [155] and some kind of block to prevent the material from re-appearing? I believe this material violates BLP as it states that the subject of the article works in a particular industry, and we have no RS to support this. I believe it is contentious because it is a somewhat controversial industry. Kendall-K1 (talk) 00:05, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

I raised concerns about the article. I mentioned things that are part of the article and the overall information about Khan. I also raised the concern that we can not be sure that it was Khan that contacted Wikipedia until we get it confirmed through her social media or agent. Just like I had to contact Jasmine Kara a few weeks back to confirm that she was the one who had edited her own article. Kendall-K1 wants to do censorship and blank parts of my comments, and I reverted it back to my original comment. May I also remind Kendall K1 that Khan has admitted to having a career as a webcam girl, and a career as a Playboy covergirl, lets not get lost with the fact that she is or has been part of the porn industry. That it should be a controversial industry seems POV and there are thousands of articles on Wikipedia covering the subject and the stars of the industry. --BabbaQ (talk) 00:10, 31 May 2017 (UTC)