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User:Stojo bruv indeffed for persistent edit warring and adding unsourced material by Cullen328. Ravenswing 12:02, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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User:Stojo bruv has been genre warring on the page In Flames persistently and hasn't provided any sources. He won't use the talk page either for a consensus to be reached. It is time for a blocking to be in order. FireCrystal 06:08, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It may go even further than that too. An ip range was just blocked for the same thing so could be one and the same. Possible IP socks. FireCrystal 08:21, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, FireCrystal. I looked at that editor's contributions and noticed that they have been edit warring. Then, I looked at your contributions and see that you have been editor warring too. I could block the other editor but I would have to block you too. Stop the edit warring and use legitimate forms of Dispute resolution instead. Cullen328 (talk) 17:33, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Both editors have now received warnings about edit warring. Cullen328 (talk) 17:37, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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Exclusive world records (and words to that effect)
There have been several attempts to create an article on a publication/platform called Exclusive World Record(s), using different variations of capitalisation and with singular and plural of 'record'. I'm aware of at least the following:
Would it be possible to protect (assuming it is felt this is warranted, of course) the whole name space so it catches all variants? I have a feeling we've not seen the end of this yet.
Also, I can't remember or see who the users were who created the already deleted copies; the latest ones were made by two (apparently) different users. Could be just a coincidence, of course, or could be ducky? (I've not taken this to SPI.) --DoubleGrazing (talk) 07:56, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's not possible. Unfortunately it's always hard to catch all spelling variants when a user is determined to get an article published. But of course it's disruptive to keep creating variants in such a way. Looking at the versions with my admin glasses on, I can see that three out of the four accounts have already been indeffed for advertising. I have blocked the fourth, User:Dhilloncharan, as a sock. There's no doubt in my mind that these accounts all represent one individual, likely an UPE. Thanks for reporting, DoubleGrazing. If you should see further variants, it may be expedient to take them straight to my page. Bishonen | tålk 08:27, 27 August 2022 (UTC).[reply]
@DoubleGrazing If you can come up with a reasonable regex you could ask for it to be added to the spam section of MediaWiki:Titleblacklist, but that's probably overkill at this point. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 09:05, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Casualdejekyll: I am not interested in filing an EFR myself I have not dealt with this UPE enough to tell whether one is justified; I'm mentioning it here as a potential solution that could be pursued by people who are. jp×g 13:23, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Disruptive editing and block evasion by various editors on children's TV series
RESOLVED
IP range blocked by Black Kite Nightenbelle (talk) 17:02, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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This has been going on for at least the last two months; their edits have always been reverted, they have been warned against vandalism, and many times one of these IPs has been blocked, only for another such IP to make similar edits a few days later. Given the nature of these edits, it seems clear that this is just one individual repeatedly evading IP blocks.
I'm not too well-versed with Wikipedia policies, but aside from whack-a-mole-blocking each such IP as it crops up, is there any other action that may be taken here?
P.S. The notice on the ANI edit page tells me that I need to notify the editor(s) on their talk pages, but I don't know how many IPs are involved here, so for now I'm only notifying the four IP editors who have made the edits I'm linking to. Edderiofer (talk) 11:00, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This is quite a wide range (2601:602:8705::/48) but looking at their contribs, pretty much every edit made this year from that range is clearly that person. Therefore, I have blocked the range for 3 months. Black Kite (talk) 11:15, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, well that's a relief that the collateral damage from blocking the entire range is so small. Thanks! Edderiofer (talk) 11:41, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
They appear to be back again on a different IP. See here. Maybe at this point we could consider semi-protecting a bunch of pages? (I unfortunately don't have a full list of which pages they're targeting, although perhaps you have a better idea of that if you can see all the edits that the 2601:602:8705::/48 range has made.) Edderiofer (talk) 11:29, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've blocked the 8702 /48 as well, as there's no other activity on it since 2021. If they carry on from another range, post on my talkpage and I'll see if we can go down another route. Black Kite (talk) 11:06, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, thanks, will do. Edderiofer (talk) 11:08, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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Persistent addition of unsourced content to children's films and cartoons
Just out of interest, did you ever ask them why, or did you immediately raise ANI? A b r v a g l (PingMe) 15:41, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted them several times two days ago, and left multiple warnings. I Googled and found no support for the alternate titles, but did find episode summaries that appeared to have been lifted from other wikis. When I saw the pattern of WP:OR titles continued yesterday, I went to AIV. There was no action taken there, so I opened this thread. You're welcome to ask them why--I was struck by the edit summaries stating they 'had to' add this or that bit of unsourced content. 2601:19E:4180:6D50:0:0:0:71F0 (talk) 15:55, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
OP anon IP range-blocked for one month by Ad Orientem for disruptive editing. Ravenswing 11:55, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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Ïvana(talk·contribs·count) is removing content from the Alberto Fernández article that I just posted. If I were wrong, I would accept it, but this is very SUSPECT, given the fact that she is Argentine and may have political or even economic affinity with the Fernandez regime. I'm putting sources that came out all over the international media and she's taking it down on the grounds of not complying with BLP, but it smells like censorship. If you want, feel free to adjust my text, but erasing it completely is trying to remove the information, which is very relevant in this guy's biography. 2804:14D:5C87:8C5D:F8C8:349D:F216:1C7E (talk) 17:42, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You found this page, how about finding the talk page to the article and discussing there? You might have a point, but a bunch of edits and then straight to ANI is not collaborative. As we have WP:NODEADLINE, we can take time to discuss and get it right. Slywriter (talk) 18:30, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That is highly contentious material added to a biography of a living person that needs consensus to be restored. The matter should be discussed at Talk:Alberto Fernández. In one of your edit summaries, you wrote Please ban this Argentine who works for Fernandez?. Never single out an editor for their nationality and accusing an editor of being paid without solid evidence is a personal attack which is not permitted. Cullen328 (talk) 19:24, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
After exactly four edits, all of them to the Fernandez article, we have considerably more reason that your editing pattern is suspect and that you have an agenda than we do for Ivana, who has been here four years and has 8,000 edits. Nor are accusations -- devoid of any evidence beyond that she doesn't like your edits -- such as "Please ban this Argentine who works for Fernandez?" remotely helpful. Ravenswing 19:30, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Are we to denounce any American because she "may have political or even economic affinity with the Biden regime" or any Brazilian because she "may have political or even economic affinity with the Bolsanaro regime"? Who is not very SUSPECT? Just drop the conspiracy theories and discuss what should be in the article on its talk page. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:37, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I edited a compromise and opened Talk:Alberto Fernández#Luciani comments. User:Ïvana sent me a thank you for the edits. 2804:14D:5C87:8C5D:F8C8:349D:F216:1C7E's edits were mixing fact and opinion. The opposition parties slammed the comment, but Wikipedia can't take one side. ---Lilach5 (לילך5) discuss 20:48, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I see the edit-warring continues. Please use the talk-page discussion rather than do so. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:12, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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User is changing Infobox formats on musical articles willy-nilly. No discussions, no consensus, just wants to I guess. - FlightTime (open channel) 20:35, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@FlightTime: are you going to provide any WP:DIFFS per the page notice and the big wall of text at the top of the page? Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 17:55, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Repeated accusations of POV and COI without evidence
Zefr accuses me regularly of Conflict of Interest as my opinion regarding a specific subject (Polyphenol) does not meet his approval. @Zefr is now threatening to report me to Administrators if I do not adhere to his requests - and I believe such a behaviour is not appropriate. Disagreements about content should be resolved in a discussion without accusations of inappropriate behaviour.
"There is a disclosure process at WP:DISCLOSE which you have not followed on your talk page under the COI section, and minor information, albeit with your admission of being "terribly biased" from your own research program on polyphenols, is on your user page. Specifically from the COI guide, "you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation." You attempted to create an article about the Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences, University of Reading, which publishes a bioactives guideline, indicating professional association you may have with this department and university where you are employed and compensated - this violates the COI policy. If you don't clear this up, I will report you to admin.
Wikipedia has hundreds of related articles you could be working on other than those related to polyphenols or bioactives where your "terribly biased" views would not raise questions about biased editing for unproven health effects - which you admit, rather than neutral editing, as I have emphasized. Zefr (talk) 20:44, 27 August 2022 (UTC)"Ggux (talk) 21:02, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This has been raised at the appropriate noticeboard without resolution:
By your own admission in that previous discussion, you have a POV and a COI, so I'm thinkin that is enough evidence to make the claim. You even spoke as to needing help determining what is encyclopedic and what isn't. To top it off, on your own user page, you describe yourself as "Terribly biased.". I appreciate that honesty, but it is what it is. On articles where you have a conflict of interest, you would be better off using the talk page if there is contention about the edits, and building a consensus, rather than editing directly. Most of us have COIs of one kind or another. Mine is in UV lamps and how they are used on animals (including humans) and horticulture. I've been in the field 30 years with a few inventions and innovations to my name. Last time I did a major rewrite on an article, there was someone there along side me, to keep me honest, SlimVirgin (who has since died, sadly). In the end, the article didn't look like I was hoping but it was factual and sourced, and I was wise enough to defer to outside opinions on what should belong and what shouldn't. The same would hold true for you. You aren't likely to convince everyone of every point you want to make. What is important to YOU, might not be what is the most important to the reader, as least as that is determined by a consensus of editors here. And we ARE a consensus community.
So yes, you are POV and COI. That doesn't mean you can't contribute, but it does mean you need to change how you contribute in areas where that POV and COI exist. This is true for all of us. You are not an exception. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 01:50, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you - I appreciate that I am biased, because everyone is. A good expert is not one who isn't biased, but one who realises the own bias. The discussions with @Zefr have been going on for some time: they included RfCs which went against their opinion but were ignored Talk:Catechin#RfC:Is historical overview appropriate? or which did no result in a decision Talk:Flavan-3-ol#Request for Comments (2). As far as I can see, the main disagreement is whether there are data to support any health effect of polyphenols and @Zefr by own admission was not aware of recent research (Talk:Polyphenol#In vivo biomarkers) - the claim "There is no reliable source used in the article for that measurement, which would be a significant breakthrough for assessing the fate of digested polyphenols." has been wrong for some time, probably at least a decade. Interpreting results through that lens, i.e. the state of science several years ago and a summary provided by one organisation, the Linus Pauling Institute, resulted in most of the disagreements.
I have no problem to have a scientific discussion on topics and adjust them based on consensus - this is how I understand the process works. But I don't think that accusations of COI or POV are very helpful. @Zefr has not engaged on the talk page with discussions about the content and largely ignored scientific arguments. One might disagree with the concept of bioactives, but this is an ongoing discussion for which I have provided references. And I believe threatening to report me to the administrator, as @Zefr has done, is one step too far. Ggux (talk) 06:19, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Ggux and Dennis Brown: I don't doubt that editors can have biases, but Ggux is right that there is behaviour of concern from Zefr. It's concerning to see the section Talk:Health effects of phenols and polyphenols#Removal of more recent literature reviews on health effects. It appears that slightly less than 3 years ago, the user Signimu tried to add a systemic review to the article on the potential benefits of polyphenols. [20] They were reverted by Zefr [21] (who said "cohort studies are unreliable primary research") and tried repeatedly to engage with Zefr on the talk page, saying that the source (which repeatedly described itself as a review) was not a primary source but a systemic review. Zefr dismissed these asking for the consensus of "3+ editors on the talk page"[22] and only replied on a talk page once Signimu started a thread on WT:WPMED. [23] When that thread began, Zefr changed their opinion, acknowledging that the dispute was over a systematic review, and switched to claiming that the included studies in the review were flawed. At no point on these discussion pages did Zefr provide sources for their claims (besides linking to the disputed review), and some of Zefr's points were at odds with reality. This isn't appropriate.
I'm including this because Zefr often doesn't seem to be engaging on a good-faith basis with editors on the talk page and their edits are interpretable as pushing POVs on phenols by taking creative interpretations of sources, so I disagree with the recommendation by Dennis Brown here. The current dispute appears to be following the same pattern as the last one. Ggux made an edit saying that "some polyphenols are considered to be bioactive compounds" + a point about with a reference to a source, and attempted to engage on the talk page. [24][25] Zefr replied [26] describing the word "bioactive" as a "buzzword" with no sources, makes the claim that Ggux is trying to "push a positive viewpoint". These are unhelpful and are possibly disruptive comments. Later on in this discussion, Zefr makes accusations of POV-pushing and ignores the underlying content dispute by repeatedly bringing up Ggux's conduct as a reason for why Zefr doesn't have to listen. This is not productive behaviour.
This occured on Talk:Flavan-3-ol as well (which is a polyphenol). [27] Ggux wanted to add in a study with 21 442 participants on the safety of this compound. Zefr was at odds with reality again, and falsely claimed that "The COSMOS study here had only 410 subjects taking the cocoa extract". [28] This is incorrect from reading the abstract, 410 people taking the extract had cardiovascular events, but there were many more people taking the extracts. [29] When called out on this, Zefr double downed and said "Because the primary outcome of the study was a possible effect of the cocoa extract on "cardiovascular events", it is only the group of 410 people that provide the results - no effect on the primary outcome." [30]
There's a pattern here with Zefr's behaviour on polyphenol related pages. Zefr uses terminological inexactitudes in talk page discussions on occasions when someone includes information that reflects favourably on polyphenols, and these facts derail discussion of the underlying content dispute. They're also derailing discussion by focusing on conduct problems or not engaging in talk page threads. While Zefr on the whole is a very productive editor and I'm not taking a position on whether these instances were intentional, they seem to have their own beliefs about polyphenols and it is impairing their judgement. I would recommend to @Ggux: to continue trying to seek outside opinions if they feel they have irreconcilable differences with another editor on a subject, and to consider using Template:UserboxCOI on their userpage as that is generally accepted as an appropriate COI disclosure. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 21:45, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you @Chess - I have added such a box; what I don't understand: @Zefr suggests that one should only edit pages where one has no COI - but at least following their interpretation, that would exclude every scientist contributing to pages where they have expertise in. In my case, my COI arises from the fact that I have worked with polyphenols for 20 years - one would assume that this is useful when editing and not detrimental. Ggux (talk) 07:43, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Chess isolated a few debates where I challenged edits/talk page comments. My judgment on the polyphenol literature and status for health claims is not impaired - I stand by my skepticism in those examples and have pressed against advocacy. By history on those articles and talk pages, the majority of other neutral editors abstained or agreed with me, and the articles retain the changes I made, indicating agreement. I added a summary on this topic today.
Ggux has been editing on this theme since May 2022, making some 300 total edits, nearly all of which are on a few related polyphenol articles, causing a WP:SPA concern. More than half of Ggux's edits are talk page disputes, particularly the persistent behavior at Talk:Flavan-3-ol, with no other editor engaging more than I did (also the case at Talk:Intermittent fasting with Signimu). A consensus opposing Ggux was established on the flavan-3-ol talk page, and article neutrality prevailed.
It's difficult to understand why Ggux doesn't avoid polyphenol editing for awhile and contribute expertise on unrelated articles. Diversifying interests is what most experienced volunteers do here. The field of polyphenol research on possible health or nutritional effects moves slowly, so there is no urgency for Wikipedia content changes on these topics.
Ggux's admissions of bias and COI at User:Ggux are sufficient to conclude this discussion. Zefr (talk) 02:44, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Zefr: I get that you are opposed to polyphenol advocacy, but Ggux is following WP:COI here by going to the talk page and seeking to establish consensus rather than directly editing the article. You have to engage with the underlying issues, not just make unfounded claims that imply there's promotional conduct or POV-pushing. If you believe that Ggux has a conflict of interest to the extent it's causing disruption, start another WP:COIN thread. The article talk page isn't a good place to discuss editor conduct. You've shown on other pages that you don't need to accuse others of POV-pushing to get people to agree with your stance in a content dispute, and you've also made insightful criticisms such as pointing out that the EFSA does not authorize health claims. Try doing more of that instead of threatening to report people to admins. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 04:40, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As suggested, I have opened a WP:COIN thread here:[[31]]. Ggux (talk) 05:50, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to take this opportunity to correct some of @Zefr's statements which are in my opinion incorrect. I would also like to point out that they are clearly not taking this process seriously, as indicated by "good luck with that" comment when notified of this discussion.
- It is not correct that "the majority of other neutral editors abstained or agreed with me" - there was generally little engagement with dispute resolution approaches and there was no clear consensus. One such discussion was whether or not to include a reasonably large RCT [[32]] in the Flavan-3-ol article. @Zefr objects because it is a primary source, I think it is noteworthy as per WP:MEDPRI as it is noteworthy for several reasons, in particular the fact that it is one of very few large RCTs in this field. There was no clear consensus, but @Zefr's comments showed a clear misunderstanding (as outlined by @Chess above regarding population size) which I have tried to address but were ignored. The disagreement on content between us has been going on for some time and responses by other editors are not as clear as stated here.
- I have been editing on various polyphenols at least since 2016 and at least since then had to defend myself against accusations of inappropriate behaviour by @Zefr. The latest thread of doxxing is only the latest in a long row. There is a reason why I edit mainly polyphenol-related articles: it is where my main expertise is and where I believe I can contribute.
- "A consensus opposing Ggux was established on the flavan-3-ol talk page, and article neutrality prevailed." - this is not correct, there was no consensus. The RfCs ended without a consensus being reached.
- Zefr's contribution to polyphenol related articles are sometimes factually wrong; e.g. claims that there are no health claims or that there are no information about metabolic fate. I do not see why I should not contribute to articles where I have knowledge. I am also more than happy to engage in a discussion of content - but I object to these discussion resulting in unfunded accusations.
- The absence of a COI statement does not mean absence of any COI or biases. It is for example noticeable that @Zefr regularly promotes sources by the Linus-Pauling-Institute, an institution that obtains income from work on polyphenols - but there are no COI declarations for @Zefr
It is difficult not to get the impression that @Zefr has - for whatever reason - decided that polyphenols must not have an effect on health and diligently deletes any contribution that contradicts this statement. For example, @Zefr opposed strongly a heading "Flavan-3-ols in nutrition" as this would imply that they were nutrients - a claim never made.
If the Administrators believe my COI/biases are sufficient that I should not contribute to these pages, I will obviously accept - if they however conclude that this is not the case, I would appreciate @Zefr to revert to a fact-based discussion. Ggux (talk) 04:42, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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IamNasirZaman (talk·contribs) seems to be a poor fit for the English-language Wikipedia, generally abusing the autoconfirmed right to post utter junk and plagiarised content into mainspace, as well as responding to any attempts to quarantine or push back against this with essentially a copy-pasted responce crossposted to a few venues and non-argument arguments (such as the all time classic hit "They're famous so they deserve an article"). Their talk page is populated by warnings and notices from other editors, but has never been touched by Iam themselves and they do not reply to rebuttals to their posts otherwise. I suspect they're a mercenary, but even then that does not justify the complete lack of engagement with the community, with the talk page and noticeboard posts they make being more a case of talking at someone rather than to them. —Jéské Courianov^_^va little blue Bori 21:44, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"Iam"? I think their name is Nasir and they just missed a capital A. I might be wrong. casualdejekyll 22:34, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As an addendum, they've just re-created the draftified Sikander Ghuman by (what looks to me) like copy-pasting the draft as it currently sits and changing the image. —Jéské Courianov^_^va little blue Bori 22:37, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
IamNasirZaman seems to not be here to constructively contribute to an encyclopedia. Despite multiple warnings they do not interact with others on their talk page or here. Instead they once again re-create a draftified article (this time Victory (punjabi song)).
It appears they are an undisclosed-paid editor, and potentially a sock given their strange question at Talk:Muqadas Farooq Awan#Wikipedia regarding deletion of articles created by socks. – NJD-DE (talk) 08:41, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's getting clearer with every move they make: they not only don't understand how Wikipedia works/what Wikipedia is, but also are completely unwilling to learn. Latest example is the removal of AfD-templates despite having received a warning specifically against that. – NJD-DE (talk) 11:51, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
They're now angry that a piece of information that was never in any live revision in a specific article was "removed". And they've attempted to remove AfD notices from same. Is it possible to block them from article space for now, so that they (1) can't create new unacceptable articles and (2) can't remove AfD notices? —Jéské Courianov^_^va little blue Bori 19:34, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If they are using machine translation it'd also explain why they've been plagiarising. They don't understand English well enough to actually write an article. —Jéské Courianov^_^va little blue Bori 21:15, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Last removal was three minutes before a level 4 warning was given. —C.Fred (talk) 18:43, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My favorite is when he declined all the AFDs, @C.FredI am just letting you know that I declined the deletion of Orkhan Muqadas Farooq Awan, a page you tagged for deletion, because of the following concern: This is just not spammy. It's a short bio which is encylopedic, and then a short career history. He may well not be notable, but there's credible indication as president of the AZ Futsal assoc. Needs to go toPICKLEDICAE🥒 18:49, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've blocked for 48 hours to prevent any further disruption. No views (at this stage) on wider issues. GiantSnowman 18:50, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
When he said remove the deletion notice as soon as possible, I was tempted to offer to close the AfDs early. Of course, the closes would have been snowball deletes.... —C.Fred (talk) 18:51, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My best guess is that they're confusing PROD for AfD, since removing a PROD notice is a legitimate way to contest it. But the overall lack of competence and obvious inability to read English stops them from putting up a coherent argument. I've noticed that their talk page posts are all the same copy-pasted text modified slightly for the subject (this is most obvious looking at Talk:Muqadas Farooq Awan and Talk:Sikander Ghuman), and that they're seemingly keywording on "deletion" and "sources" while failing to grasp everything else being said. —Jéské Courianov^_^va little blue Bori 19:22, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@C.Fred I mean...I don't think anyone who isn't this person/their sock will object to you still doing that. ;) PICKLEDICAE🥒 19:27, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There are currently 193 articles at AfD just for the football del sorting. I can't keep up, and I am not on that much. I don't know how others can keep up, plus I like to try and do research. So please, is it possible that we can have some kind of cap limit? Govvy (talk) 23:09, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Speed is surely less important than thoroughness. @Sportsfan 1234: many (most?) of these nominations are yours, slowing down the rate of nominations doesn't seem like an unreasonable ask. I see this was raised with you a few days ago: User talk:Sportsfan 1234#Footballer AFDs. Mackensen(talk) 23:23, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It has slowed down on my end. Maybe a cap of 3 per day/per editor until the load has come down significantly? Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 23:33, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would just stop now until the current queue has come down to like 10-20. The participation in the current AfDs is poor. How much WP:BEFORE work are you doing before you nominate? Mackensen(talk) 23:40, 27 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This has been a problem for a while - not just with Sportsfan 1234, but also @Avilich:, who nominated 44 AFDs in 71 minutes the other day. I have no huge issue with the quality of the nominations (most are fine, but some are bad), it's the quantity I find an issue. 2-3 per day per user is sufficient. I appreciate Sportsfan 1234 agreeing to slow down voluntarily.
Oh, one user whose quality is bad - @HeinzMaster: - previously blocked for it. If editors won't voluntarily make fewer, better nominations, then editing restrictions will have to be introduced. GiantSnowman 08:56, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@GiantSnowman and Giant: lol it was not because of the quality of the nominations that I was blocked, it was another issue that totally not related to that but is in the past. My nominations have been like 1% of the recent ones and of the ones I nominated 99% were voted delete, including many by you? HeinzMaster (talk) 14:05, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think a limit of 5 per day is reasonable, with the caveat that if there are less than 30 listed, you can nominate more. I also think after 120 have been listed, there should be no more noms until the current ones are wrapped up. Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 14:59, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The trouble is that there's no cap on the number of undersourced BLPs that people can start, so if we cap the number at AfD, the number of undersourced BLPs in the encyclopaedia just keeps on ballooning.—S MarshallT/C 17:23, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The problem identified by GiantSnowman is with articles on topics that would have had presumed notability under the old WP:NFOOTY but do not now following the recent changes to guidelines, not with new articles. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:13, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Broadly, this isn't really an ANI issue. There's a general problem of attracting good input at AfD. AfD is absolutely critical to Wikipedia; it's the ultimate arbiter of quality, and (depending on viewpoint) also a potentially dangerous black hole swallowing information at the whims of a handful of deletionists. It's often overly busy, editors who know about the subject might not log on during the critical week, or may not have watch-lists set up, and it suffers from drive-by people merely endorsing the viewpoint above. And it can get nearly as scary as ANI. Many AfD debates come down to a very small number of opinions, rather too few to reach a safe decision. AfC takes the attitude that it's better to reach the right decision than hurry, and doesn't mind if it takes 4 months; AfD sets itself a target of a week, albeit with the possibility of extension if the reviewer thinks it would be useful. Obviously quality is going to suffer if you combine time-constraints with a sudden influx of a large number of nominations. I suspect it's been discussed a lot, but it's still unsolved. I don't know how more people can be encouraged to get involved, and to do the job properly? It requires a particular disposition and skill-set that not every editor has. Elemimele (talk) 19:29, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
All this is why Arbcom has decided we're going to have two community-wide RfCs on these very issues. Those RfCs would be the best place to propose a cap on AfD use.—S MarshallT/C 20:36, 28 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the RfC would be the best place for a proposal, but it seems we need something in the interim, because we could delete hundreds of articles between now and whenever the RfC concludes, especially given that it hasn't even started yet.--Jahaza (talk) 04:06, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Or, y'know, there could've been caps on mass creations of such articles all along, without which there wouldn't be any sort of problem. When that's instituted, then caps on deletion might be reasonable. Ravenswing 08:41, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Why would that be a bad thing? Deleted content isn't gone forever. If its needed or wanted it can be restored or userfied for work. --WhoIs 127.0.0.1ping/loopback 13:03, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Realistically even if people come across deleted articles, how many are going to go to the effort of WP:REFUND? Content is much more likely to be improved if the article is already there. NemesisAT (talk) 13:53, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That, plus a lot of the content is useful as is and it's just a matter of sort of proving that usefulness! Anglo-Belgian Olympic footballer Eric Thornton got nominated for deletion yesterday, but it turns out that multiple Belgian newspapers ran obituaries when he died, but digging that info out of the Belgian archives takes time. In the meantime, the article was marginally useful as it stands, but it probably would've been deleted for notability based on the current sourcing, even though there aren't really verifiability concerns. Jahaza (talk) 05:22, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
the article was marginally useful as it stands; I disagree with that - the content it provided would be better suited to a list. In addition, I'm not convinced you have demonstrated notability with the sources you found, as the ones I reviewed, the original four/five you quoted, only contained passing mentions. BilledMammal (talk) 05:31, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If we had a proposed deletion system that actually worked, many of these could have been resolved via PROD. ––FormalDudetalk 04:29, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps an interim measure is a more generous relisting of sportspeople discussions, so there is more time for editors to cope with the recent influx. Based on my general observations of the Women's del-sort, what has typically been a list of under 100 noms has recently been as high as about 140 and is currently more than 120. A procedural fix to address the recent sports guideline change could be to automatically extend sportspeople AfDs from 7 to 14 days due to the anticipated influx of sportspeople AfDs, but that seems beyond the scope of the discussion here. Beccaynr (talk) 16:41, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This will just result in there being more open AFDs. GiantSnowman 20:18, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
But it may help address concerns about not enough time to review and research, while we wait for the RfCs. AfD handles what PROD cannot, as well as the consequences of the recent sports guideline change, so the AfD process may need some additional slack to allow editors sufficient time to keep up while alternative solutions are considered, due to the recent uptick in AfDs. Beccaynr (talk) 22:38, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well no, because older AFDs staying open does not help editors find time/sources when other editors are still opening 50+ new AFDs a day... GiantSnowman 14:36, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
From my read of this thread, it sounds like we need to wait to try to formally address the consequences of the change to sports guidelines, which appears to have resulted in a noticeable uptick in AfDs that is straining editor resources at AfD. As an interim measure, to address the current strain on volunteer labor, my suggestion is essentially a rule-book slowdown, asking admins who close AfDs to exercise their discretion and provide more time under these circumstances, so AfD can continue to adequately function while more comprehensive solutions are discussed. We do not appear to have an opportunity right now to directly address whether AfD nominations should be capped, and if so, under what circumstances, but in the meantime, there appears to be a need to do something to support editors and the integrity of the AfD process. Beccaynr (talk) 15:07, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
One thing that could really help, and simultaneously improve Wikipedia, is for a bunch of football-knowledgeable people to band together, and systematically go through tranches of these stubs (e.g., by year). They could establish notability, document it, and expand the stubs for those that are notable, and PROD those that are non-notable. Hopefully others seeing a PROD from this group would trust their judgment and let it go through. If de-PRODed, a group member could then nominate for deletion. This could proactively address some of the articles. — rsjaffe🗣️ 01:53, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hard to do when deletionists are taking 50+ a day to AFD (although it has slowed down a lot since this thread started). GiantSnowman 19:45, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It would be reasonable to encourage relisting instead of soft-deletion until the backlog is clear. This wouldn't hamper anyone's ability to nominate articles for deletion, and it would remove some of the pressure to go through the list !voting quickly. This might not be a perfect solution, but it's one that could be implemented quickly without sanctioning anyone and would address the concern about adequate assessment. –dlthewave☎ 13:01, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
, would it be better to suggest, that for topics like this, everything is drafted and approved first rather than created and then deleted? >>Lil-unique1(talk) — 19:49, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but these articles already exist. We're not talking about current mass creation of footballers.--Jahaza (talk) 05:15, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Draftifying does not prevent the admin headache of having to deal with the notability issues. GiantSnowman 06:49, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Now Plingen Plungen (talk·contribs) has appeared and is making the same edits, at the same article (Friedrich Karm), including referring to the Estonian SSR as a "scam government set up by the occupying Soviet Union. It was set up illegally and was not internationally recognized".
Plingen Plungen is edit warring to maintain their POV. Please can somebody review and intervene? GiantSnowman 10:18, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see any decision about changing Estonia to Estonian SSR at the biographies in the ANI. I'd say GiantSnowman (talk·contribs) is edit warring to insert their POV. Soviet name was re entered into the article only on 28 June, then when reverted back to original on 24 August GiantSnowman (talk·contribs) arrived to defend the recent change.
Quite. There are any number of polities in world history that were not universally, "officially" internationally recognized, but which had control of its area and a de facto government in charge. We do not huffily pretend that the Confederacy, or Biafra, or the Rif Republic, or the General Government, or the Mahdist State, or countless other such ultimately ephemeral entities were "scam governments," however much the de jure owners of those territories would've loved to push that POV had there been Wikipedia at the time.
Beyond any of that ... was the Soviet occupation of the Baltics "illegal?" I think so, sure. But quite aside from that POV was not universal (numerous countries did proffer de jure recognition), so what? This encyclopedia is in the business of publishing fact, not the amour propre of POV-pushing revisionists who wish devoutly to pretend that history didn't happen. I likewise concede that all the other states I mentioned above were "illegal" as well, but that doesn't mean they didn't actually exist. As someone with Lithuanian ancestry, the occupation of the Baltics was a terrible and shameful tragedy. It also happened. Ravenswing 12:43, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You are right, this is encyclopedia, that's why there are numerous articles about Soviet occupation being illegal (without quotes). It is also POV-pushing revisionism to deny that under international law Baltic states remained as internationally recognized states. The question here isn't denying that Estonian SSR existed, as it did, the question is which name should be used in the infoboxes, as stated per sources above the common name used at the time was Estonia, not Estonian SSR. Plingen Plungen (talk) 13:33, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If people said Poland between 1946 and 1989 they meant the Polish People's Republic, when they said Estonia the state that existed at that point was the Estonian SSR. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 13:39, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Poland is a different case than Baltic states. State continuity of the Baltic states. The legal position that sovereign title never passed to the Soviet Union, which implied that occupation sui generis lasted until re-independence in 1991.[5] Thus the Baltic states continued to exist as subjects of international law. Whatever government Soviets set up it was as illegitimate as are Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic.Plingen Plungen (talk) 13:51, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Robert Lewandowski, Place of birth Warsaw, Poland. Follow your words and go change it to Polish People's Republic.Plingen Plungen (talk) 14:00, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As I saif previously if someone says Poland, for a time period between those dates, the that is saying the Polish People's Republic. The two are the same, you are saying Estonia during the Soviet period is not the same as Estonia SSR, which is revisionist. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 15:31, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Place of birth Warsaw, Poland in 1987, because wikipedia uses common name. Common name was Poland. As said before about other examples all use common name. But somehow it makes people mad if they discover that it is also used for Baltic states because you are not allowed to insult the holy Soviet Union here.Plingen Plungen (talk) 20:58, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"...not allowed to insult the holy Soviet Union here"? Where have we read such type of observations before. GoodDay (talk) 21:04, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Relevant cases here would be other countries which fell under occupation such as Norway, Netherlands, France etc. Biographies of people from this era use the common name of the country not the name of the regime set up by the occupier. For Mette Newth the birth place at the infobox is Oslo, Norway, it is not written Oslo, Reichskommissariat Norwegen, Casper ten Boom died in Scheveningen Prison, Netherlands it is not written Reichskommissariat Niederlande. Per MOS:GEO, widely accepted historical English name should be used. As per sources given above the short Estonia.
You own link shows that the US withdraw backing to independent Estonian embassies in 1966. Anyway whether or not the US recognised the state of affairs, there was no denying the Soviets control of the territory. My grandfather was loyal to the Second Republic, whose government passed on it's responsibilities in 1990, but the Polish People's Republic existed and no amount of revisionism will change that. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 13:36, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would rebut your statements with logic, but the more I read your statements, the more confused I get. I feel like you're arguing in circles. Why do you keep bringing up the Baltic States when this discussion is about Estonia the Estonian SSR? Minkai (boop that talk button!-contribs-ANI Hall of Fame) 15:01, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) We've been over this multiple times. Using de jure arguments in Wikipedia is a dead end, because they have little if any bearing on real life events. A person that was born in the 1950s in the Estonian SSR and died in 1980s would have lived his/her entire life in the USSR. Not acknowledging this fact to push a nationalist POV is contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia. We have plenty of other cases were the de jure governance of a country is in dispute (for example People's Republic of Kampuchea vs Democratic Kampuchea, which has significant parallels to the Baltic case). -Soman (talk) 13:46, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Very nice. And as I posted above, the sources "bearing on real life". Commonly used name was Estonia. It is more than clear.Plingen Plungen (talk) 14:03, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So you'd be ok with "Estonia, Soviet Union" in infoboxes? --Soman (talk) 16:17, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's not how other Estonian biographies are. The thing is, that all Estonian related biographies follow same style. It has been discussed since 2008 as I can see, long debates leading nowhere. The edit consensus has been to use Estonia in all bios, except ice hockey players. If you don't want to talk about vandalism on this one article but about changing all this It should be also taken to WP:Estonia. Plingen Plungen (talk) 21:17, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Don’t edit war, that never ends well. Arrive at a consensus on the article talk page. Follow WP:Dispute resolution. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 14:04, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My comment on the article talk was ignored. They posted warning on my talk, reversed all edits and filed the report here. Plingen Plungen (talk) 21:02, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's a quite straight forward question. Did the Estonian SSR (and the Latvian, Lithuanian SSRs) exist? If so, then it shouldn't be deleted or hidden from the bios of those who were born or died there. Personally, I find using "Soviet Union" as the birth/death place, is the best way to go in these matters. GoodDay (talk) 15:26, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Plingen Plungen, please take into account that H2ppyme was banned over this topic. Klõps retired over it & Nug hasn't been active on Wikipedia, all since February 2022. GoodDay (talk) 15:34, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Furthermore, as some have directly or indirectly stated. Wikipedia is not the place to attempt to right the great wrongs. Attempts to replace "Estonian SSR, Latvian SSR & Lithuanian SSR" in bios, with "Estonia, Lativa & Lithuania"? could be construed as advocacy editing. GoodDay (talk) 15:47, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
H2ppyme was banned for the insulting comments. The article Estonia also has the Soviet era covered. About this case: none of the sources used in the article even mention Soviet Union, they say either Reval or Estonia. Wikilink or not, using "Estonia" is supported by the sources. Pelmeen10 (talk) 15:58, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Denial via edits in bios that the ESSR ever existed, can be seen as disruptive. GoodDay (talk) 16:06, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
IMO, "Estonia" should be used in bios and "Estonian SSR" in body text. Changing "Estonian SSR" to "Estonia" in body text is disruptive. Changing "Estonian SSR" to "Estonia" in infoboxes is not. I'm split on whether to list the Soviet Union as the place of birth/death, since its relationship to the Estonian SSR is purely political. Minkai (boop that talk button!-contribs-ANI Hall of Fame) 17:02, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes that's the way WP:Estonia editors have done. If the subject has done something that relates them to Soviet era, it is written in the article body. Adding Soviet Union to the articles about people who were born in the 1980s and had nothing to do with USSR is just clutter. Also for others like mr. Karm whose footballer career ended before the war. Plingen Plungen (talk) 20:51, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The content in question is about the place of death of a footballer. At the time of his death Estonia did not take part in international competitions, but people from there had Soviet citizenship and were eligible to be part of the Soviet Union team. We may not like that, but it is the very well referenced fact. I can see reason to give the place of death as either Estonian SSR (as a subdivision) or Soviet Union, but for such practical (not de jure) purposes it was not the country Estonia. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:09, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This hits the nail on the head for me. Estonia, after being invaded and absorbed by the USSR, didn’t exist as an independent country (despite mixed international recognition of the occupation) and to change the info box from the country that existed at the time to the country that didn’t is revisionism, at best. Estonian SSR was an administrative unit of the USSR, that is the country and “state”, not Estonia, no matter how illegitimate the occupation may have been in international eyes. FrederalBacon (talk) 23:35, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly - it was the historically accurate name, so should be used.
In other news, Plingen Plungen continues to edit war to restore the non-Soviet version... GiantSnowman 08:33, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I personally don't think this needs to go on any further. Edit warring with an ANI open about their conduct should be just about as much sign as any admin needs that they aren't here to build an encyclopedia. FrederalBacon (talk) 10:03, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, how about this, then? I propose that given his ongoing edit warring and disruption, Plingen Plungen receive an indefinite topic ban, broadly construed, from Baltic States articles, including biographical articles of Baltic State natives. Ravenswing 15:12, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I did a little research, and Estonia is indeed part of the Baltic States. Technially the Baltic States fall under DS on topics related to Eastern Europe (WP:ARBEE), but that net may be a bit too wide. Minkai (boop that talk button!-contribs-ANI Hall of Fame) 15:39, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support given ongoing disruption and battleground behaviour. GiantSnowman 18:17, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Edit warring during an ANI doesn't encourage belief that they are looking to work collaboratively in this topic. FrederalBacon (talk) 18:23, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support - The "...not allowed to insult the holy Soviet Union here" comment, is problematic. GoodDay (talk) 18:34, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
.Support - I was waiting to see if there would be anything further from Plingen Plunge, but they appear to have ANI flu. The history of atrocities committed by the Soviet Union doesn't excuse nationalist revisionism, and personal attacks are not the way to good editting. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 08:58, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There's no nationalist revisionism. These are historical facts. Whatever is said above I never denied that Estonian SSR existed contrary that being attributed to me above. It is also factually true, that Republic of Estonia remained internationally recognized throughout the occupation. But more over I provided sources, about the common name used at the time and that Regarding MOS:GEO the "widely accepted historical English name is used. Such as Robert Lewandowski birth place written Poland, Not Polish People Republic, Xi Jinping Beijing, China (not People's Republic of China), Mette Newth Oslo, Norway, not written Oslo, Reichskommissariat Norwegen. I have not done personal attacks, but have been attacked personally many times. the same accusation of being nationalist revisionist really unnice namecalling here. Already being tired of false accusations I overreacted a little with the not allowed to insult Soviet Union comment, for that I apologize.
Also note GiantSnowman dif and GoodDay dif as involved parties should not take part of any decision making here. Also people who have strong POV on the issue. GiantSnowman actions should be considered also – for starting the edit war, ignoring the discussion at the talk page and assuming bad faith with the title of this ANI and their comments here. Plingen Plungen (talk) 20:40, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Any member of the community is allowed to join the discussion here, you could added your opposition if you wanted. As to the content issue I have no wish to continue this discussion. You simply keep repeating the same points, even when multiple editors have spoken out against that interpretation. At some point you need to accept that you are in the minority and move on. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 20:58, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Riiiiight ... in short, people who disagree with you shouldn't have a say. We already understood that you're not really big on WP:CONSENSUS. Ravenswing 21:45, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Person who is part of the conflict is voting to punish the other side. He created the conflict - Have a look at Talk:Friedrich Karm how GiantSnowman avoided consensus there. Did not even came to talk, straight to ANI, ignored the result of the earlier discussion there as he ran out arguments to defend his position. This is just ridiculous. Ten years the article was as is standard with not only Estonia related articles, but all WP. 62.65.204.43 (talk) 23:35, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A signed out editor, making his first edit to 'this' discussion & about this topic. Interesting. GoodDay (talk) 23:38, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support The historical revisionism related to the Estonian SSR needs stamping out. Number57 14:07, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Persistent disruption and harassment by User:Skyring
User:Skyring has persistently followed users edits to revert them, ignored policy, attacked users as ‘political actors’, made inflammatory statements on talk pages, and refused to adhere to dispute resolution processes. If they have any issue with edits they do not make small changes but often revert huge amounts of well sourced content without leaving constructive feedback. This is a longstanding issue so collating every example of this behaviour would be quite difficult, but I’ve tried to include a fair bit.
Their disruption is focused on topics that involve Aboriginal Australians, where they continually revert and dispute content based on their point of view and do not add anything at all. They have not expressed any professional, academic, or personal understanding of First Nations topics – except that they happen to live in Australia. This is a problem because they persistently make inflammatory mistakes and then insist people must prove them wrong. They persistently attack users as not following NPOV, being biased political actors, being ‘woke’, and being single issue editors. This is despite them clearly having a political agenda to their edits – 'clearly' because they frequently express it. They have not stopped using this inflammatory language despite being asked repeatedly not to. This went as far as attacking me directly with a new section on the Australian Wikipedian’s noticeboard.
This has been ongoing for I’d say a year or so, including their persistent following and reversion of an Aboriginal Wikipedian’s (User:GadigalGuy) edits.
I have tried repeatedly to find compromise and resolve disputes with Skyring and I have no reason to believe that they are acting in good faith and will accept any edits that are not within their worldview. I have talked to them extremely extensively, and for the most part from a good faith and civil perspective, including on article discussions, talk pages, and their user page (which they reacted with hostility to). I have asked an admin for help rather than going to ANI, and I have created an RFC that took months. They have been persistently disruptive during and after these processes and have not sought to find compromise or consensus that is separate from their POV. I understand I myself have a perspective, but I am looking for ways to resolve disputes because I am willing to compromise so I do not spend years of my life arguing with someone on Wikipedia.
Skyring has not shown this good faith himself, a major example being the results of the RFC. A major editing dispute with Skyring is around using Aboriginal names in the lead sentence of articles. They would continue to make the same arguments again and again, so I started an RFC.
This RFC took months and a huge amount of user time, and is only one of the many extremely long discussions Skyring has been involved in or started. They quickly started disputing the legitimacy of the RFC for not being clear enough and having poor formatting. This is despite them praising me for starting the RFC on my own talk page. They then questioned the RFC as illegitimate on the request for closure page, as they said the formatting was poor. This is despite them formatting the RFC themselves shortly after it was posted. They also repeatedly falsely represented that the RFC was about ‘mandatory inclusion of names’, despite it being explained to them several times that this was not the case. After the closure which concluded consensus did not fit their point of view, they immediately started disputing the policy that supports inclusion of Indigenous names in the lead. This is a policy that they have repeatedly ignored in the past, and would not respond to when others had posted it, but they knew enough about it to start disputing it. They also said that the result of the RFC was that there was no consensus, which I said was not true and sought input from the closing editor. The closing editor (User: ScottishFinnishRadish) stated that the RFC did support the inclusion of Aboriginal names when well sourced. Skyring both ignored this, and continued to use every avenue they could think of to challenge these names – avenues that have many, many, times been discussed with them. They are now disputing clearly good sources (as they can do that forever), and questioning the intent of policy. Confusingly, their responses are erratic like when they have sometimes acknowledged the results of the RFC as a good result and then continue arguing against it.
Skyring’s behaviour is an example of the greater problem of systemic bias on Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation has been clear they want to diversify views and cut bias on Wikipedia, but it is not a welcoming space for the people it needs to include. While the Wikimedia Foundation has given funding to Australian researchers to promote First Nations content and research systemic bias, the only openly Aboriginal editor on Wikipedia that I know (User:GadigalGuy) has been persistently hounded and had their edits reverted to the point they quit editing until recently.
While I don’t think Skyring is consciously racist, they have said several deeply racist things on talk pages to support their edits and are openly hostile to Aboriginal content on Wikipedia. One example of this is Skyring repeatedly referring to Aboriginal people as people of British descent who are confecting a fake cultural identity. When called out on this behaviour Skyring feigns ignorance and insists they are absolutely happy to have Aboriginal content on Wikipedia, and then continues on with their behaviour.
Due to their persistent disruption and harassment, and their complete lack of compromise or contribution, at the least, Skyring should be banned from editing on topics involving First Nations peoples.
Thanks for your time. Users affected by Skyring's behaviour include, among others: User:GadigalGuyUser:RandwickedUser:HiLo48User:The Drover's WifeUser:The Logical Positivist.
Thanks for your time. Poketama (talk) 09:30, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No-one is going to action (or frankly even read) a long wall of text with zero diffs to show the issues you are claiming. Black Kite (talk) 09:16, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I was just going to say precisely the same thing. EEng 09:22, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry the diffs did not copy from my Word doc, I'm trying to fix that now. Poketama (talk) 09:29, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I thank Poketama for his effort in raising this issue. It is true that his efforts as a single-purpose editor have met some opposition from me but I have always looked to Wikipolicy as a guide for both of us - and indeed all editors.
My position on Indigenous placenames is quite clear as stated here in a draft essay to which I have consistently sought input. This is a topic we need to get right and playing political one-upmanship games is not the way forward. Currently I am seeking to have some wording in WP:PLACE clarified - see my request for help here. Poketama takes it to give broad authority for including Indigenous place names as co-titles in positions of Wikiprominence and I can't see that this is the intention of those who drafted the policy.
I am all in favour of giving Indigenous place names more inclusion, not less, but I think that we need better sources than town council and high school websites and the like, and that this information properly belongs in "History" and "Naming" sections, rather than dropped into the first sentence of the lede like ticking some box. It is a complex and sensitive issue with only a few regular participants and one in which perhaps more editors could usefully contribute. --Pete (talk) 11:09, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked through most of the diffs presented. While it is true that your arguments always refer to policy and I'm not seeing the level of disruption claimed, I do see some issues. For instance, in this diff you say We need reliable sources and I suggest that if we accept a modern source such as a city council or a heritage board or whatever, we need to look at what their sources are rather than say that these groups in themselves are knowledgeable in the relevant Indigenous languages, culture, and history. That's not how sourcing works; if a source is an RS then we accept what it says; if it isn't, we don't. We don't look at a reliable source but critique where they got their information from. If there is contradiction in the sources then we discuss the various points of view in the article and summarise them in the lead. When it comes to personal interactions, calling a culture someone identifies with illiterate and stone-age may well be technically accurate but it's hardly tactful or collegial. On the question of how to understand WP:PLACE, as far as I can tell you're flat out wrong. What else should we understand by the words used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place than people who were indigenous to that place?
Both sides of this need to tone it down a bit. Well-sourced material should be included (without a deep inquiry into the nature of otherwise-reliable sources) and material that can't be well-sourced shouldn't be included. In this particular case, the lack of written records in the indigenous culture does mean that there will be cases where sourcing something is hard; that's unfortunate but just the way it is. Both need to AGF and not see personal attacks where they are at best ambiguous, if not entirely absent (quite a few of the diffs presented seem to me to fall into this category). I can understand that frustration makes it easy to see attacks everywhere, but it's not the way to go about editing. GoldenRing (talk) 11:40, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I also think that the invocation of PLACE is misplaced, and I think Skyring's application of it means something like "old names still have to be meaningful", with the added notion that "Indigenous Australians have changed so much it doesn't matter anymore" (see [34]), or something like that. I'm paraphrasing, obviously. But if that is the idea, "it doesn't matter anymore", then this baffling edit supports that, and suggests an unseemly bias. And "some crusader [who] has to insert an Indigenous name regardless of wikipolicy", "Those pushing for a different name are pushing some political or cultural agenda", those certainly are personal attacks and violations of AGF--and note that in the latter case, edit warring over Melbourne (article was protected by MelanieN in April 2022), it wasn't "pushing for a different name"--it was adding the indigenous name, so even the very phrasing suggests bias. Yes, it's a long report, too long perhaps, but it's not without merit. Drmies (talk) 14:58, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A couple of points. I'm not sure that some names being put forward as authentic Indigenous names have the merit claimed. As I noted in discussion there, the name of "Naarm" for Melbourne is problematical. One feature of Aboriginal place names across Australia is that repetition is used to indicate importance or size or plurality. Hence Wagga Wagga. So if Port Phillip - a sizeable body of water - is "Naarm Naarm", then how was the random piece of land along the banks of the Yarra that became the village and later city of Melbourne named "Naarm"? The name indicates a more generic application. There is some concern that this is a modern back-formation. Most Indigenous names, I think, are well-founded, but some are problematical, especially names for cities which didn't exist before European settlement. This is why I want solid sourcing rather than something like this which quotes a tertiary source. The danger of persisting error is, I trust, obvious.
The wording in WP:PLACE - "…that is used by a group of people which used to inhabit this geographical place…" - is on the face of it referring to Indigenous names. The problem here is that this wording has been discussed extensively there and I can't find any mention of it being used for pre-existing Indigenous names. It's all about European cities occupied by different nations at different times and using different names. When the wording was introduced in mid 2009 there was no discussion of Indigenous, Aboriginal, or native usages. Normally these sorts of naming conventions are prime examples of nit-pickery by nit-pickers who know their topic well; the sort of community elders we all rely upon. If this wording was or wasn't intended to include Indigenous place names in the lede sentence, some clarification would be very useful.
My distrust of WP:SPA using Wikipedia to push a particular ideological or commercial barrow, leveraging our substantial page-rank, is well-known, I think. I'd like to see this topic treated carefully so that we can shine as a beacon of scholarship and integrity rather than using lightweight sources such as this one (diff here). --Pete (talk) 18:13, 30 August 2022 (UTC))[reply]
And so there, in your last paragraph, is that violation of AGF. "SPA"? I also have a single purpose: to improve this beautiful project. If including indigenous names is reduced to "pushing an ideological barrow", then you are actively working against our purpose, to make knowledge available for free, and the guise of combating ideology becomes its own ideological slant. I'm setting aside the concerns about sourcing: that is a different matter. You could have just said "they used bad sources", but that's not what you are doing. Drmies (talk) 01:20, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You are wrong, Drmies. I have no problem at all with including Indigenous names. I am all for it and doing a good job. I've mentioned my draft essay above; perhaps you haven't read it. Please do so. Apart from a few tweaks as per talk page discussion it is all my work and I stand by it. Indigenous placenames firmly belong in every Australian place article where we can source information about the First Australians before Europeans arrived and screwed them over.
A recent example is my contribution to consensus-building in discussion at Sydney. See my straw poll section here where I'm on record as supporting an expansion of the names and Indigenous territories in the body, summarising that in the lede, but not including a swag of marginally useful information in the first sentence.
If you think I am opposed to including Indigenous place names and information on Indigenous people in Australian articles, you are dead wrong; this is information we need in our articles because it enriches them, gives them a solid grounding in the human story of the land, and - if we do our job properly - helps to give good, reliable information on this important topic.
Where Poketama and I come in conflict is that I don't think we need write every Australian article from an Indigenous perspective. That would be giving WP:UNDUE prominence to a fringe perspective. Measure and balance is what Wikipedia seeks to provide.
Looking at WP:SPA I think you are interpreting the tag more widely than generally accepted, in fact to the point of losing all meaning:
A single-purpose account (SPA) is a user account or IP editor whose editing is limited to one very narrow area or set of articles, or whose edits to many articles appear to be for a common purpose. If you are in this situation and some editors directed you to this page, pointing out that you made "few or no other edits outside this topic", they are encouraging you to familiarize yourself with the Wikipedia guidelines about conflicts of interest and advocacy. This is because while many single-purpose accounts turn out to be well-intentioned editors with a niche interest, a significant number appear to edit for the purposes of promotion or showcasing their favored point of view, which is not allowed.
Thanks. --Pete (talk) 03:05, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Your analysis of Naarm / Melbourne is a good example of what I'm objecting to. Can the name be reliably sourced? If so, it goes in. If not, it doesn't go in. If the RS disagree, we explain that in the article. I don't care how the name relates to other nearby names. It's that simple. GoldenRing (talk) 09:43, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I had suggested here, when asked about my close, that disagreements be brought to RSN. If consensus there is that the source is reliable for the statement then it would certainly meet the threshold for inclusion, per the RFC I closed. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:18, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we can always get more eyes on a question. The example of Sydney is one where there was a lot of discussion before an excellent source was brought forward: Val Attenbrow's book Sydney's Aboriginal Past which is authoritative and well-researched.[35] The problem there was that the land now occupied by the greater city of Sydney - five million or so people now - was the territory of various different Indigenous groups. If you look in the appropriate part we have a table showing who lived where and what their names were, an excellent solution. The discussion on Melbourne is not quite so well-managed but progress is being made with some good sources being brought out. Some of these lightweight sources try to present a simplistic XXX = YYY equivalence, where the actual situation may be more nuanced. Modern Melbourne sits astride an ancient boundary between two different pre-European peoples each with a different language, so of course there are different names for various locations.
Discussion and consensus is always the first objective, with as many points of view as possible being brought in. RSN and RfC processes are available to resolve disagreements in the regular way. More experienced editors understand how these things work whereas someone with fewer edits under their belt puts forward a tertiary source from Google's first page and feels personally challenged when asked for something better, especially if they feel they have the definitive answer already within themselves. WP:RSN is an excellent way to find a definitive wikisolution, if only because it gets some fresh eyes on a question after the discussion starts to go around in circles with no end in sight. --Pete (talk) 12:04, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your advice ScottishFinnishRadish and I'll do that in the future, but with Skyring it's just so persistent I don't have time to deal with it. They will use this excuse for anything that they don't like to the point of absurdity. I don't have much time to find examples, but here is one of a solid government source they dismiss as worthless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_River_(New_South_Wales)
They also as they have said above keep asking for primary sources which is not really how Wikipedia works AFAIK. Poketama (talk) 14:23, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have much to add to this other than that this diff is concerning to say the least. Is the implication here that articles should only exist if they are related directly to the English-speaking world, or what? Perhaps I am misinterpreting but that seems to me to go against the core mission of Wikipedia itself, which is to spread free knowledge. An article isn't irrelevant on the English Wikipedia just because it doesn't have to do with English-speakers. Even more confusing is that the article is Australia related, Australia is part of the English-speaking world the last time I checked. TylerBurden (talk) 18:51, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Point taken, but "Czar" is an English word. It would be hard to find a dictionary that does not contain it. Even pretty basic texts. Not that we're a dictionary, just an encyclopaedia that happens to be written in English. I don't think Arweet is notable enough to need an article by itself; that's my point. --Pete (talk) 07:25, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
While not attacking, this talk page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Boonwurrung is an example of the kind of disruptive and frustrating behaviour that Skyring brings to the table. What am I supposed to do with this feedback and reverting? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Poketama (talk • contribs)
TBH I don't think either of you come out of that smelling of roses. GoldenRing (talk) 11:06, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I apologise I was curt, I didn't make any personal attacks. A huge amount of my work had again been deleted without any reason given except 'This article reads like an advert for some alternate system of sovereignty'. Can you look at the diffs and understand where I'm coming from? I feel there's a pretty big difference between me saying "Very helpful, why don't you improve the page" and them saying "It's biased and full of editorialising. We're not in the business of writing propaganda.". Poketama (talk) 11:13, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A fresh start
Drmies is a wise guy and he has made some good points with me. I have been regarding Poketama as a SPA - with good reason, I might add - and for that reason it's difficult to AGF and I have been a bit hasty on the revert button. Some of Drmies' criticism is valid and I'll accept it from a person of their experience and jovial wisdom.
Poketama, I see you as pushing a political barrow, one where Australia has some sort of parallel Indigenous administration and everything must be reframed according to that dogma. Indigenous place names have equal authority to those in common usage, ancestral tribal lands still exist and the power struggles in Aboriginal Land Councils are every bit as important as a cabinet reshuffle. Maybe I'm stirring the pot a little there but if you're honest with yourself there's a fair bit of truth in my assessment.
You won't agree with me on every point but I see Wikipedia as reflecting reality not ideals, at least in topics devoted to physical constructs such as geography and human communities. The modern day reality is that we live in a land where British law arrived with Governor Phillip, Aboriginal sovereignty was extinguished by conquest - as William the Bastard demonstrated to the English - and the descendants of those living here in past centuries and new arrivals from all over the world live together in a rich mélange of cultures and ethnicities. Just as we Australians share a land, and all must pay the taxes, obey the road rules, vote in the elections, so two must we as editors work together to build an encyclopaedia.
I have little love for political activists but I do like wikipolicy which enables people of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and desires to work together to build a free encyclopaedia which is perhaps the crowning achievement of the internet.
Is there some fresh start we can make where we coöperate to construct a better Wikipedia instead of throwing rocks at each other? --Pete (talk) 08:05, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate you trying to reach out. However, the things you've said are another example of what I'm talking about and why it's difficult to work with you. You made a whole bunch of huge reaching assumptions about me, went on a political diatribe of questionable truth, call me a SPA political activist, and then ask for us all to get along. I write about a few different topics, including Aboriginal cultures in Australia. I have not once professed any of the views that you have attributed to me, that I am someone seeking to change the country, the reality of history, or whatever you think I'm doing. The Boonwurrung article is a good example where I've significantly expanded an important article, written well-sourced content on things like how animals are hunted and you've reverted it instinctively because what; you think I want to overthrow the British Crown through Wikipedia? The way you're attributing personalities to editors, and ignoring them when they tell you otherwise, makes it very difficult to work with you. Poketama (talk) 11:03, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"…you think I want to overthrow the British Crown through Wikipedia…"
No, I don't think that at all. The High Court wasn't able to put an exact date on it but sovereignty passed from the Imperial Parliament into the hands of the Australian people a long time ago. I listened to the arguments in Sue v Hill and studied the judgement with keen interest. The effective point here is that with the passage of the Australia Act, the UK ceded the last vestiges of sovereignty here and cannot take them back. The monarch has no significant power here, despite what one may think on reading the Constitution, a creation of a very different world. We hold our destiny in our own hands, at least insofar as we can control the effects of the wider world on our shores.
But that's by the bye. It is the phrasing, the word choices, the language used which makes me consider you as a political actor, whether you see yourself as one or not. Words choices can be flags, signalling attitudes to those knowing the code. The people arriving unannounced on our shores can be refugees, asylum-seekers, or illegal immigrants, depending on what message the speaker wants to send. You'd be all too familiar with the notion of "dog-whistling" where messages are sent through apparently innocuous phrasing.
I was wrong on Boonwurrung. The language used in this version was of some concern, so I dropped a neutrality tag on it. Other editors made changes - see diff here and then you made a large addition with an edit summary - "Added back in information…" - that I took to be a revert to the previous version. I was wrong in my assumption and I should have examined your changes more carefully. You were wrong in removing the template without gaining consensus; discussion there would have saved a lot of trouble.
I am sorry I reverted your careful work. I feel bad about that, and I am grateful to Drmies who made me take a closer look. I'll take more care in future.
I'm afraid I've had too much contact with politicians and their supporters to take what they say at face value. They sing their tribal songs - as if they are cheering on their football team - and they admit no wrong and every fault belongs to others. Sometimes it seems as if they are talking entirely different languages, as we currently see with the supporters of the former US president and more rational beings.
So of course I view people playing a political game through eyes of doubt. That applies here in Wikipedia where people often do abuse the power given them to edit articles. I'll open my eyes a bit wider in future. --Pete (talk) 21:47, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, Pete, I think your fresh start needs a fresh start. Just an observation from the outside. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 18:32, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So...by way of attempting to bury the hatchet and in hopes of future collaboration, you openly accuse them of political bias, make a political statement of your own, make yourself appear the bigger person, and then say that you're willing to work with them, despite the political bias? FrederalBacon (talk) 21:55, 1 September 2022 (UTC) Withdrawn FrederalBacon (talk) 22:42, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds very judgey to me. Like a lot of people here, I'm a reasonable way along the spectrum, and I'm doing the best I can to fix a problem. --Pete (talk) 22:02, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No judgement, I have no dog in the fight, just an outside observation. A "fresh start" can't start with the assumption of political bias. FrederalBacon (talk) 22:06, 1 September 2022 (UTC)Withdrawn FrederalBacon (talk) 22:42, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Your comment is interesting to me, though probably not for the reasons you imageine. Care to elaborate, if you think that will help? --Pete (talk) 22:22, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. There is nothing to elaborate on. I don't believe I was unclear. FrederalBacon (talk) 22:24, 1 September 2022 (UTC) Withdrawn FrederalBacon (talk) 22:42, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You weren't unclear; I was merely interested in what impelled you to make such an extraordinary statement. Not to worry. --Pete (talk) 22:33, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's not even a statement, it was a question posed to you. FrederalBacon (talk) 22:37, 1 September 2022 (UTC) Withdrawn FrederalBacon (talk) 22:42, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
World Cup race podiums in Infobox of the alpine skiers
The speech is very simple. The medal count of the World Cup races (sum of the podiums of Downhill, Slalom, Super-G and so on) has always been reported in the skiers' infoboxes, although medals are not actually awarded in these competitions. After all, in the "medaltemplate" the possibility is given to specify what it is and "World Cup race podiums" is a perfect description. Marbe166 (talk·contribs), on the other hand, felt he had to remove this statistic from the infoboxes of only a few active athletes. And luckily it hasn't bothered to do it from the hundreds and hundreds of infoboxes of athletes in which this statistic has always been reported. Over time we tried to involve the various projects in a discussion, but with poor results. Very few have intervened, however it is believed that by asking for the simple confirmation of the status quo, if anything, it should be the other user who seeks a broad consensus and does not constantly revert. --Kasper2006 (talk) 16:59, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Forced to ANI after trying to discuss reverts with the user, the various projects (but with very little participation), the Teahouse, the "dispute resolution" and having opened the discussion in the talk of the skier Federica Brignone. --Kasper2006 (talk) 11:24, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Let's get one thing straight here. Those stats have never always been reported in all skiers' infoboxes. It has been added to SOME infoboxes of, mostly Italian skiers, and a few select others. It is using the medaltemplate, which, as is apparent by the name, is to be used for medals, and only medals, i.e. for World Championships, Junior World Championships and Olympics. Therefore, including WC podiums in the infoboxes is NOT status quo and is wrong. It clutters the infoboxes with too much information, the line must be drawn somewhere. However, it is interesting information, but it is better suited as a separate table in the body of the articles. I remove them when I see them, but I do have a life outside of Wikipedia, therefore I am not going through all the thousands of infoboxes of alpine skiers that there is. That would be an endless task. --Marbe166 (talk) 17:22, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, it is the inclusion in the infobox which is the anomaly. --Marbe166 (talk) 11:45, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that only you say this. We've been going on with this for months and reverts are never a good thing --Kasper2006 (talk) 16:49, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Likewise, you are the only one claiming your point. Marbe166 (talk) 09:49, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Fantastic!. So in this sixth attempt of mine to find out who between you and me is right someone will have to give us some answers. --Kasper2006 (talk) 11:53, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And now Kasper2006 has added the very content which is the subject of this dispute to the Mikaela Shiffrin page, diff. Excuse me, but how exactly is that respecting an ongoing ANI? --Marbe166 (talk) 06:13, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have a lot of respect for the ANI in progress, but after 10 days of silence on the part of the administrators I thought it appropriate to give a shock by explaining in a Wikipedia article what was happening (I add contents and the user disrespectfully continues to delete them) --Kasper2006 (talk) 06:26, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
2 days, you started the ANI 2 days ago. Marbe166 (talk) 06:29, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Mediated discussion here must be preceded by discussion on an article talk page. Perhaps discuss it on an article talk page, that's always the starting point. Or get a third opinion? Or start an request for comment? WP:Dispute resolution contains good advice. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 09:34, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Tell me what should I do? Over the months I have:
Attempted in user talk: no result;
Attempted in the infobox talk: no result;
Attempted in the talk of the two related projects: no results;
Attempted at the Teahouse: no result;
Attempted to dispute resolution: no result;
Attempted in the talk of the skier: no result;
Attempted ANI: no result --Kasper2006 (talk) 16:09, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen an array of relatively-mild disruptive editing from this IP range for several weeks. I noticed that 158.140.167.28(talk·contribs·WHOIS) is currently blocked as a P2P proxy.
But, that aside, the user switches back and forth between a handful of IPs in this range, sometimes from edit to edit mere minutes apart, which seems strange - and possibly an attempt to evade scrutiny. The past couple days it's been between x.62 and x.87. But based on that odd pattern of IP switching, if one IP in this range is a proxy, is that an indication that others in the range would be? Or perhaps the entire range? --Sable232 (talk) 21:25, 30 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It wouldn’t surprise me if the IPs in this range have been, or will be, used as proxies but this type of proxy is ephemeral. At a guess, I'd say this editing is normal activity rather than anonymous activity but disruptive editing is disruptive editing and can be reported in the usual places. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 18:21, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not entirely sure where this discussion is meant to go, but I think the WP:ARS needs to be dealt with as a constant source of WP:CANVAS at certain discussions. While the ARS purports to represent a WP:NPOV, the name itself of the project, and their representative participation in canvassing discussions such as Talk:Titus (dinosaur)#Merge proposal and Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Titus_(dinosaur) show that the ARS is drawing people with no significant input to mass !vote on merge and deletion discussions without contributing beyond rallying over a single point of guidelines that is subjective and not a rule. This group of editors is disrupting discussions that have been kept open for over two weeks without contrary opinions present, in a situation where administrative oversight is explicitly not required and now have begun an edit war to restore the article to its original status instead of arguing for why it should be kept, contradicting the initially established consensus of the situation.
Thanks. IJReid{{T - C - D - R}} 00:28, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Further note, my notification of WP:ARS of this ANI has also led further members to join the improperly re-opened merge discussion. See here, where a member followed the ANI notification on the talk page to find this discussion and from here went to the merge to cast their vote to keep.IJReid{{T - C - D - R}} 00:52, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't been involved in the ARS for years. But keep on trying to claim everyone opposed to the merge and the deletion is a part of "insert group here". SilverserenC 00:54, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Frankly its not up to me to care or decide. Regardless, you stated that you were brought into the discussion via the notification of the ARS which you also state you are not involved with. Forgive me if this seems counterintuitive. IJReid{{T - C - D - R}} 01:01, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I was brought into the discussion by you making this thread here. Not by any notification from the ARS. SilverserenC 01:02, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, very nice. Apologies for the misunderstanding, I have struck through the above comment. I thought "notified" was corresponding to my use of it on the ARS talk page notice. IJReid{{T - C - D - R}} 01:18, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'd propose maybe a topic ban for them in order to prevent them from participating in deletion discussions.Magnatyrannus (talk | contribs) 00:55, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's... counterintuitive. Participation in deletion discussions is literally why ARS exists. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 01:03, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's one person. Topic-banning the entire project is the equivalent of proposing that it be abolished. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 01:17, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Then why was this thread made in the first place? Is it because IJreid seeks to delete the entire group? Magnatyrannus (talk | contribs) 13:16, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I thought the stated goal was to "rescue" articles by improving them, not by voting at AfD, no? –dlthewave☎ 01:28, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Seconding this. The "rescuing" operations have only ended in the article's content being "uneditable", with an edit war nearly starting over whether to un-merge the article to its "stubbed" state just prior to the merge, or to the state at the end of the AFD before substantial improvements had been made. The ARS essentially made the article worse. IJReid{{T - C - D - R}} 01:35, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
How does the ARS make it worse? As stated up above, the ARS's goal is to "rescue" articles by improving them, not ruining them. Magnatyrannus (talk | contribs) 01:38, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but that cannot effectively happen when said improvement process is conducted without the involvement and contrary to the opinions of editors from relevant WikiProjects. From what I have seen, I feel that participation at AfD (even if not the stated goal) has been the crux of the ARS improvement efforts that I have come across to date. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 01:42, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I keep seeing this WP:OWN position about dinosaurs, that only members of certain Projects know best and the rest of the community should stand aside. I've seen it expressed at least 4 times now in various ways by multiple people in these discussions. -- GreenC 01:58, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am suggesting that the opposite is likewise not desirable, yet I felt that this was the tendency at this AfD with respect to discussions regarding sourcing. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 02:08, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a semi-active member of WP:ARS so I may have bias. But I've noticed a pattern of members improving articles, including the one we are talking about. I would encourage you to test your assumptions and look at the article history and you may see that ARS members are enthusiastic to improve articles. CT55555 (talk) 02:02, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I do not dispute that improvement of articles occurs. I dispute that the current process is as effective or constructive as it could be. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 02:11, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, "not sure where this discussion is meant to go"--you started this report, IJReid, so you should have some idea of where you want this discussion to go; the passive voice is not helpful here. And I am wondering what's wrong with the participants at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Titus (dinosaur)--seemed like a pretty lively discussion where people made sentences and arguments. Drmies (talk) 01:25, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In my experience, often the ARS "improvements" to articles at AfD constitute injecting unencyclopedic passing mentions, non-independent or primary material, and other UNDUE content to drive up byte size and referencing, which then forces other participants to rebut each addition so that !voters aren't misled by what superficially looks like a well-sourced article. Another issue is that members rarely have any background in the subject and so are not familiar with the type of media it generates; this means they don't recognize industry-specific "tells" of routine and promotional material that are rightfully disregarded by editors in the field. So I am not at all surprised the page got loaded up with like three refactored press releases and other exhibition hype once ARS got involved. JoelleJay (talk) 07:14, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Administrators are discussing (I forget where) ways, on how to deal with AfDs & AfCs. But, I can't remember where. GoodDay (talk) 01:42, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There is going to be a discussion coming out of the recent ARBCOM deliberations but I do not believe that it has started yet. Gusfriend (talk) 07:39, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm involved, and a semi-active member of ARS, but I'll try my best to provide what I hope is an impartial summary of events:
I was the first person to comment at the AfD and because the article was in such bad shape, I flagged it on the WP:ARS page as an article that could do with improvement. link As I hoped, that did motivate a bunch of people to improve the article. I improved it to and it was quickly B-class quality.
There was some concern that the article was PROMO in nature and after a healthy debate, the AfD closed no consensus. link on 14 July
On 17 August, despite the lack of consensus to merge at AfD, a conversation to merge was started. link
That felt like trying to re-do the AfD to me, I opposed. But I seemed to be in a minority of one. I considered making a fuss, but I have more important things to worry about, so I did not.
Within the past 24 hours, I got pinged as someone from the AfD noticed the merge was happening and the people who voted keep at AfD chimed in objecting to the merge.
In the meantime, there was an objection to a quote in the article. An IP address logged on and said they were the expert quoted in The Guardian and they did not make the quote. That was a sticky situation, as it seemed like a good faith objection, but unverifiable. WP:TRUTH is relevant, I think. Someone helpfully removed the quote and added another quote, I think a diplomatic solution.
Now it seems like there is a bit of an edit war happening with people reverting the redirect, people favouring different versions of article, and someone adding what seems to me like too many tags.
In my opinion questions to consider are: is there canvassing? Is it reasonable to propose banning an entire group based on individual members actions ? Is edit warring happening? Are people trying to re-do the AfD because they didn't like the result? I recommend we respect the AfD result of no consensus and people stop trying to merge this article, consensus wasn't reached at AfD to do so. CT55555 (talk) 01:53, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I see that. It's not a verified Twitter account, but I assume good faith in the IP edit and I hope I conveyed clearly above that I saw it as a good faith objection. It seems very likely to be by the author, although the quote was cited in a reliable source, and therefore WP:TRUTH explains why the quote could have been kept; to me that would be a very unpalatable outcome, so I commend the editor who found a better quote and gave them wikipedia love (a goat I think) to thank then for the diplomatic solution. :-) CT55555 (talk) 02:06, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
According to WP:MERGE, a merge discussion should notify interested parties, and there needs to be a merge template added to the top of the page. Neither One of these things were done [the tag]. As a result the initial discussion was 100% support with a few like-minded people. They attempted to quietly make this merge without notifying anyone who might oppose the merge, nor follow the merge procedures. After a proper notification is finally done, and the merge vote doesn't go his way, he blames ARS and seeks to delete the entire group. -- GreenC 01:54, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Those in the AFD for this were contacted, regardless of if they were in the ARS or not. This is what should've been done at the start. Those who failed to eliminate the article in AFD, are now the ones complaining that someone is keeping them from getting their way in the merge discussion. DreamFocus 02:36, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Contrary to your whining, there is no requirement that participants in an AfD be notified of a merge discussion. The discussion was appropriately brought up in the relevant WikiProjects, which is what policy calls for. It was left open for two weeks, consensus was achieved, and then someone threw a fit and got ARS to back them.
Is my assessment harsh? Yes, but the vote-stacking and empty arguments from people with no real intention of improving the article in question has more than gotten on my nerves. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 02:49, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
During the AFD a lot of work was done on the article by members of the Article Rescue Squadron. [37] So yes, we do like to improve articles, not just eliminate most of their content and keep a small amount of information in another article. DreamFocus 02:58, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Your "improved" version of the article is written like a promotional puff piece, not an encyclopedia article. SilverTiger12 (talk) 03:16, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, the extent of my own participation in the merge discussion is limited to my votes and comments. I do not have an agenda to exclude keep voters. I did not check whether relevant parties were notified, but I think the onus of doing so is on the initiator of the merge discussion and not the participants. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 02:51, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
According to WP:MERGE, all requirements for the discussion were met. The article was tagged, the project pages were tagged, and the people who were involved with discussing the article's status within the context of merging were also present. Many AFD votes were cast as simply !keep, without discussing or considering the party voting to !merge. An admin is not required or meant to close merge discussions. It was open for two weeks, after which there was a very clear consensus to redirect, which was done by a party who was allowed to per WP:MERGE. And those who were watchlisting the article would have been well aware of the substantial changes I made to it to demonstrate during the course of the merge discussion how the only argument presented to keep was frivolous. Whether the article was merged after the point of my edits or not was not my concern, but those who voted to !keep have *also* started edit wars contrary to the due process of overturning a merge discussion consensus. Instead of re-opening the discussion while the current revisions were allowed to stand, the discussion was re-opened by mass reversions back to the point several weeks prior to the discussion closing, undoing all edits that had been done since the AFD to improve the article from a piece of promotional fluff.
The article was created by a one-goal editor with no other edits to coincide with the promotional press tour of a new exhibit. It does not deserve to have been created, should not be maintained in its current outdated form, and requires the attention of editors who will do more than simple !vote. Only five editors improved the article during the course of the AFD, three of which voted to !delete. The ARS, beyond the efforts of CT, did not "rescue" the article. They only cast votes that match with their groups title to "rescue", while drawing the efforts and attention of those editors who are spending time to improve contents of the topic at hand off of improving the wiki and into these backend discussions that cannot be closed for months per site guidelines.
This ANI was created by me to source external input on what site policies say should be done. I am indeed blaming the ARS for bogging down the otherwise smooth continuation of progress improving the overall topics at hand, by arguing over bytes on a website. The pages edit history shows how its content was being continually reduced to remove WP:ADVERT details, all of which was undone by the improper and mis-motivated re-opening of a closed discussion. IJReid{{T - C - D - R}} 02:58, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I also wish to emphasise how the closing of the AfD *very clearly states* "any follow-up discussion should be a merger proposal on the article talk page". This was exactly what was followed. The AfD was not attempted to be "undone", it was followed up with in exactly what the closing admin suggested, to preserve article and edit history while allowing editors of the subject to evaluate if the content was deserving of its own article. Claims that the AfD result should have stood for time immemorial are argumentative and false. IJReid{{T - C - D - R}} 03:05, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The AFD ended on 14 July 2022. It seems like the merge discussion was delayed until far less people would notice who might disagree with you, then a notice played on a Wikiproject those who supported this in the AFD would see it but no one else. Just feels like someone is gaming the system here, trying to get only those who agree with them to notice what was going on, and upset when those they don't agree with find out and show up anyway. DreamFocus 03:11, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Claiming a merge discussion was delayed is definitely not assuming WP:GOOD FAITH. I did not even start the merge discussion. And talking about how notifying the only wikiproject the article is under is insufficient is not supported by any guidelines or policies. WP:ARS does not care about the quality of Dinosaur articles, nor should they. The quality of Dinosaur articles is under the content of WP:DINOS, which means they are the only group that needs to be notified about the articles under their umbrella. Notifying the other participants of the AfD would have been a nice courtesy, but see how very clearly this example shows that too many cooks are spoiling the broth. The article is in limbo, unable to be changed much by anyone without others reverting it in opposition. Administrators are not *meant* to be required in every discussion, but WP:ARS is forcing them to be.
And to be clear, I do not care what happens to WP:ARS, beyond how it is clear from editing histories and involvements in the discussions here, that a larger project presenting their !votes without any other considerations resulted in the group of a smaller project of active editors being overwhelmed and outnumbered, exactly what WP:CANVAS is supposed to help prevent. IJReid{{T - C - D - R}} 03:18, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Titus does have several other WikiProjects tagged (Museums, Montana, Nottinghamshire) which do not appear to have been notified, although this is moot since WP:MERGEPROP suggests that WP notifications are optional. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 03:21, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Administrators are not *meant* to be required in every discussion, but WP:ARS is forcing them. Your the one who started this ANI, trying to drag admins into a mess you and a few others created by not properly notifying everyone from the start. Your rationale that only WP:DINO should be notified is another example of WP:OWN and is the heart of the problem. You still don't recognize anyone but the DINO group as valid ("ARS does not care about the quality of Dinosaur articles", "DINOS.. are the only group that needs to be notified", "too many cooks are spoiling the broth"). You and some others have a OWN problem, it's why proper notification was not done, why you have such bad faith toward anyone that disagrees with you. -- GreenC 07:30, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Without administrative involvement, every subsequent discussion on the article will devolve into a !vote, where the editors of the project are simply outnumbered even if all of us wanted to !merge. And note, not all of us have cast votes. Not all of us have cast the same vote. Because we, unlike the Article Rescue Squadron, are not expected to want to !keep by definition of our project title. IJReid{{T - C - D - R}} 13:21, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. Looking at the talk page, there was a prior discussion involving 7&6 thirteen. It settled out fine there was no gang up. The problem I think is your trying to make drastic changes like deleting or merging the entire article. Why have you not tried to resolve the oldest exhibit question with a talk page discussion, or am I missing it? If you have quality evidence that directly contradicts the source, then you should have no problem resolving it, in some way. People are not unreasonable. But when you attack, blame, edit war, try to ban, claim expert exceptionalism, etc.. I don't know man, this is a life lesson. -- GreenC 17:18, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note the comment we should usually attempt to discreetly make merge notices on the article talkpage first, rather than take them to AfD, which usually attracts unwanted outside attention by Hemiauchenia at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dinosaurs. CT55555diff (talk) 13:38, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Whilst it is acceptable to say that an article requires the attention of editors who will do more than simple !vote, I am not sure that saying Unless you are going to contribute to making the supposedly deserved article a nice article, please don't vote spam. I do not want to spent 10 hours of my day working to make a nice article for content that you think deserved a nice article. This will be my only announcement (emphasis in original at [38]) raises the level of discourse. Wikipedia is about consensus and whilst having people improve the article is preferred, there is still value in getting views from those who do not. Gusfriend (talk) 07:51, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
* I've been on record for years now as not in any way, shape or form being a fan of ARS; I've long since believed that they were far readier to Thwart! Deletionists! by any means to hand than to do the work to rescue articles. More than one member (no one's forgetting AD, right?) has been tbanned over the more egregious of their antics.
But. It has been a universal practice for many years to notify people interested in deletion discussions. The Twinkle XfD templates even have an option to notify particular Wikiprojects of a filing. If you have evidence of edit warring or tendentious editing against individual members, report it on that basis. But little as I care for the attitudes and antics of a number of its members, ARS has as much right to be notified about a deletion discussion as any other Wikiproject. A "cure" for this complaint would be far worse than the disease. Ravenswing 10:32, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Ravenswing, is a merge proposal considered a "deletion discussion" (I genuinely don't know, I don't participate in that area)? Is it standard to notify each participant in every prior AfD whenever there are major developments to the page? JoelleJay (talk) 23:03, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've been compelled to take contested merges to AfD to confirm (or not) the merge, and in such cases, they follow all the standards of AfD. Beyond that, while I'm not the frequent AfD flyer I was ten years back, it was sometimes the case that someone filing a 2nd (3rd, 4th) nomination would ping the people involved in prior nominations, but it was never then a requirement. Ravenswing 00:51, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I meant is it expected that merge discussions ping all participants at prior AfDs on the subject. JoelleJay (talk) 22:36, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Whilst I've long been a critic of the ARS and their persistently irritating ITSNOTABLE and IFOUNDITONGOOGLE antics - some of which are apparent on the AfD - I do have to say that the sources, including a couple of heavyweight UK papers (and there are others) do IMO push this over the GNG line. One thing I would say, though - anyone reading this article would probably conclude that this is a complete T-Rex skeleton ("Titus is reportedly the first genuine Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton exhibited in England in over a century"), when only 20% of the actual bones are real ones. Somewhat misleading, that. Black Kite (talk) 10:51, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would second this, I read the article last night when this ANI popped up, I thought it was a good article and moved on. Going back now, it isn't explained anywhere that it isn't a "full" skele, it certainly does seem like it's a full skele (up until I read your comment, I thought it was), and the Guardian clearly says The fossil was around 20% complete once fully conserved, so although it is a ‘real’ skeleton, many of the bones are reconstructions made of black obsidian.FrederalBacon (talk) 11:27, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That is where probably my biggest gripe comes from. The article devolved into multiple edit wars over whether or not the content as is stands (which is from several weeks prior and before substantial revisions) is promotional and reads like an advertisement. Details such as not specifying most of the "mount" is just Stan (dinosaur), describing the display as the first in "over a century" (when there is an NHMUK specimen that has been on display since 1915), and weirdly describing the conservation and photogrammetry of the bones by saying how "Steven Dyer of ThinkSee3D" did it, all read like promotional details.
But those details are unable to be removed because whenever the article is "reduced to a stub" it is reverted. Despite an informational stub being much better than an article that is half advertisement. IJReid{{T - C - D - R}} 13:19, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're making the mistake of thinking that the ARS participants actually know anything about the subject of the article they're "saving". That has never been the case. Black Kite (talk) 13:41, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The talk page discussions on these issues are missing. Did they get archived somewhere? I'd like review what has been discussed. -- GreenC 17:08, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's just a list of complaints in a thread inside a merge discussion - what is anyone supposed to do with that? There has been no serious attempt to follow the content dispute resolution processes. A sincere attempt would look like a separate talk page discussion, for each issue, a paragraph neutrally explaining the problem, why your editing a certain way, then make the edit, wait for a BRD cycle if any, and discuss. None of that has happened. Except one time with 7&6 thirteen and it was easily and civilly resolved with no gang up.-- GreenC 17:47, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's because there was no content dispute until the merge discussion was reopened. The changes are a straightforward extension of the source reliability issues discussed with 7&6. None of this was an issue until editors decided that they wanted to vote on the version of the article immediately following AfD. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 17:56, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Special:Diff/1104706924/1104805537. This would best be resolved on the article talk page, one issue at a time, as you did with 7&6 thirteen. People can be reasonable, but that sneaky-looking merge really caused a trust problem and we see the result. The best way is show good faith working with people, not patronizing with WP:OWN comments DINO-knows-best and trying to force change with ANI attacks on ARS. -- GreenC 19:00, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I hope you realize that editors can be individualistic actors. I participated in the merge discussion as a matter of procedure, restating my opinions from the AfD, and I don't care and I shouldn't have to care about whatever the opener or closer of the merge did. I don't care for this ANI thread either, because I did not initiate it, I am not trying to shut down the ARS, and I am only here to provide statements of pertinent fact. I also didn't perform the edits in that diff, and it is not my responsibility to defend them. I am seeing a broad pattern of conflating the actions of different editors here and in the merge discussion, and I do not think that is constructive. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 20:30, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
People who were against merging(deleting 90%) of the article in the AFD, are also the same ones against doing it in a merge discussion later on. Knowing people would be against it, so waiting until they felt no one would notice, then doing it, then complaining when those who participated in the discussion before found out and were still against it, is just ridiculous. DreamFocus 16:54, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Merging is not deleting 90% of an article. Levivich 16:59, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Eliminating most of the article from public view, by replacing it with a redirect and a small amount of its original content found on another page. Of course you can claim hey, they can look at the history of the article and read the rest of the information there if they want, but whatever. DreamFocus 17:02, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What you're describing is not what merging is. Merging is placing the content where it best serves the reader. Levivich 17:07, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Did you not look at any of the places you linked to? A long article replaced with a redirect to a small amount of information already on the list page linked to. DreamFocus 17:15, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What you're describing did not actually happen. None of those merges actually happened because they were all opposed by ARS. A merge proposal is not a proposal to delete 90% of the article. It has nothing to do with the length of the content. And even if it did, it's not like it matter how long an article is: quality, not quantity. And hell, one of them was a split not even a merge: that would have led to multiple, longer articles: ARS still opposed. And of course I looked them, I even participated in those discussions, that's why I remember them. You guys don't care about content, you only care about winning arguments, it doesn't even matter what the argument is. You want to flatter yourselves as heroes, "defenders of the Wiki," which is why you swoop in, block vote, spam articles, then give each other barnstars.Levivich 17:22, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
When did anyone claim anything was merged? The way a merge proposal works is that you propose first, then merge. And, again, it's not about quantity of information, it's about quality. WP:NOTEVERYTHING, WP:DUE, etc. Levivich 17:25, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
WP:DUE is indeed exactly the issue here. ARS editors have added content to this article without consideration of due weight and neutrality befitting of the subject matter, because they are not subject area editors (as pointed out elsewhere in the discussion above). Multiple attempts to point out issues with neutrality by subject area editors have repeatedly been dismissed and not engaged with both at the AfD and at the current merge discussion. Only when one has spent time editing articles in a particular subject area and trying to gather appropriate sources to do so can one understand what sources are appropriate and what sources are not. This is not elitist, this is fact. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 17:35, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The current issue! [40] Someone posted (Merge complete), but only made minor changes to the other article [41], most of the valid content thus lost. DreamFocus 17:32, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That's not one of the links I posted, now is it? Did you not look at any of the places you linked to? is what I was responding to. Levivich 17:33, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
God I so regret not spending the 2 hours digging & writing up the evidence on DreamFocus for ArbCom :(. JBL (talk) 00:28, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would say that the previous case does not preclude another case in the same sphere, especially when the discussion was more-or-less narrowly scoped to the editing in that area by those editors who were ultimately named parties. Izno (talk) 01:38, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If enough editors have a problem with the existence of ARS? Then open an RFC (or whatever is required) at the appropriate place (likely a Village Pump), on seeking whether or not the WikiProject should be 'retired'. GoodDay (talk) 16:28, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Already been done multiple times already. Only people complaining are those that are upset a small number of people showed up somewhere and dared to disagree with them on something. DreamFocus 16:55, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a long-time critic of ARS – not the concept of salvaging articles that simply need to be improved, but as a place where there could potentially be canvassing concerns. However, the complaint here is a waste of time and should be closed. Partly as a result of some topic bans and partly as a result of genuine cooperation, there really is very little in the way of misleading other participants in AfD discussions. The key thing is that any deletion discussion that has been listed at ARS should be marked as such with Template:Rescue list. That way, it is transparent to everyone at the discussion that ARS has been notified, and experienced AfD closers understand how to take this into account. Occasionally, someone forgets to add the template, but in that case you can simply add it yourself (as I do from time to time), without any need for making a drama out of it. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:19, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmmm. I came to the discussion because I had participated in the AfD and was kindly pinged by someone. Luckily I came across ARS, a fine group of valuable editors, not too long ago, and since have witnessed many of its members topic banned. I take it there have been past attempts to close ARS, which I have no way to understand as that just seems so counter-Wikipedia improvement that the concept itself should be Wikibanned. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:33, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - FWIW, Titus isn't the only individual dinosaur, with its own page. GoodDay (talk) 18:13, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I like how so many here have to set up their comments and show their bonafides with statements like: I've been on record for years now as not in any way, shape or form being a fan of ARS. Regarding the article; over templating for what seems like revenge reasons and WP:OWN behavior are both not collegial but the dino people have been doing that to the article - and they have circled the wagons which is ironically what they accuse the ARS of doing. One only has to read the comment by the editor who started the merge and then closed the merge and then redirected the article to see it was sneaky shady behavior. CT55555 pointed to it above: we should usually attempt to discreetly make merge notices on the article talkpage first, rather than take them to AfD, which usually attracts unwanted outside attention. I remember that same editor being tendentious in another AfD about another Dino. And last night Hemiauchenia posted on several noticeboards lamenting the revert of the redirect and asking for help A user has decided that the Titus (dinosaur) discussion was improperly closed, and has now pinged all AfD participants. Feel free to vote if interested. It would be nice we could work together. We could also remind the dino group that they do not own the subject. And remind them that RS does not have to come from a professor to be RS. Hey, dinosaurs are supposed to be fun! Lightburst (talk) 23:45, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Whilst I've long been a critic of the ARS and their persistently irritating ITSNOTABLE and IFOUNDITONGOOGLE antics - some of which are apparent on the AfD - I do have to say that the sources, including a couple of heavyweight UK papers (and there are others) do IMO push this over the GNG line. One thing I would say, though - anyone reading this article would probably conclude that this is a complete T-Rex skeleton ("Titus is reportedly the first genuine Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton exhibited in England in over a century"), when only 20% of the actual bones are real ones. Somewhat misleading, that. Black Kite (talk) 10:51, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would second this, I read the article last night when this ANI popped up, I thought it was a good article and moved on. Going back now, it isn't explained anywhere that it isn't a "full" skele, it certainly does seem like it's a full skele (up until I read your comment, I thought it was), and the Guardian clearly says The fossil was around 20% complete once fully conserved, so although it is a ‘real’ skeleton, many of the bones are reconstructions made of black obsidian.FrederalBacon (talk) 11:27, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I like how so many here have to set up their comments and show their bonafides with statements like: I've been on record for years now as not in any way, shape or form being a fan of ARS. Regarding the article; over templating for what seems like revenge reasons and WP:OWN behavior are both not collegial but the dino people have been doing that to the article - and they have circled the wagons which is ironically what they accuse the ARS of doing. One only has to read the comment by the editor who started the merge and then closed the merge and then redirected the article to see it was sneaky shady behavior. CT55555 pointed to it above: we should usually attempt to discreetly make merge notices on the article talkpage first, rather than take them to AfD, which usually attracts unwanted outside attention. I remember that same editor being tendentious in another AfD about another Dino. And last night Hemiauchenia posted on several noticeboards lamenting the revert of the redirect and asking for help A user has decided that the Titus (dinosaur) discussion was improperly closed, and has now pinged all AfD participants. Feel free to vote if interested. It would be nice we could work together. We could also remind the dino group that they do not own the subject. And remind them that RS does not have to come from a professor to be RS. Hey, dinosaurs are supposed to be fun! Lightburst (talk) 23:45, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Yes JBL there is quite a tendency to overreact in one direction - for instance I once said someone was grinding an axe and an admin demanded a retraction as PA. People have said worse in my direction and it is fodder. Just in this discussion we can see the admin Black Kite bringing up their open bias. I am just here to edit and improve the project. I hope to read some of you four articles when I have time. It is helpful for us all to remember that we are building an encyclopedia - and we cannot do that with less editors participating. Lightburst (talk) 00:53, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I would not have such a bias if I still didn't see certain members of the ARS treating deletion discussions as battlegrounds and spending far more time commenting on AfDs than actually improving articles (this does not apply to all ARS participants, as I have said many times before). Black Kite (talk) 09:25, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Case in point of my comment above, another case of conflating separate editors involved in the process. It's very easy to see that User:YorkshireExpat was the one who closed the merge discussion. And claiming that the report is being rejected as RS on the basis of not "coming from a professor" is incredibly reductionist when there are clear neutrality issues. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 00:43, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You know, if you'd rather I withdrew my support in this matter, I believe I can bring myself to do so. Ravenswing 00:57, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No conflation. Hemiauchenia directed and steered and lobbied and merged and redirected. Lightburst (talk) 01:08, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As the opener of the original AfD, I object to the suggestion I was directed or steered. I was not lobbied to be part of the merge discussion. @Hemiauchenia may have redirected, but I did the actual merge work and I preferred to have my work reviewed by others so requested this on the merge discussion. YorkshireExpat (talk) 08:19, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Named T-rex skeletons probably do merit separate articles folks, even when incomplete (as basically all of them are, although I think we have about 90% of Sue). T-rex is one of the few dinos for which we have a near- complete half-skeleton, so we can reconstruct the missing bits from the other side. But whole dino skeletons are rarer than hens teeth.—S MarshallT/C 23:59, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think you need to look at the reasons for naming. Sue is a very complete specimen. Trix is notable for her age. Stan has an exceptionally preserved skull. All three are fairly complete. Titus, on the other hand, is 20% complete, and does not appear to have any other notable features. Also, the fact that it was found by a commercial paleontologist, suggests that the name may have been applied to increase market value. YorkshireExpat (talk) 08:05, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think your comments get to the heart of the tension here. I think some members of WP:DINO project don't want this article up, because they see that the skeleton's owners have some sort of profit/commercial motivation. I understand that sentiment. But wikipedia has lots of articles about commercial endeavours, it's not a database of social good or only academic and charitable things. I think some DINO project members want there to be a minimum criteria for articles that is something different from WP:GNG. But we create articles based on notability, not the completeness of skeletons or motivations of owners. With the BBC, The Guardian and the National Geographic writing about this, it's clearly notable. And the WP:GNG is what guides us, not any stricter criteria that the DINO project would like.CT55555 (talk) 16:58, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Does it pass GNG? Maybe, sure, I can accept that. But passing GNG does not mean that the subject warrants a standalone article (per the text of GNG), which is a far more nuanced consideration that is the subject of the current merge discussion. And this is where considerations of WP:DUE, WP:PROMO, etc. become relevant. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 17:40, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What a waste of time. This thread and the inclusionists vs. deletionists "debates" are a timesink. Imagine how better the encyclopedia will be if people just shut up and improve articles. We probably would have a lot more good and featured articles as a result. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 09:06, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I propose to archive this thread immediately. This thread hosts no productive conversation on improving the situation or Wikipedia as a whole. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 11:31, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This is exactly my problem with ARS: the entire group exists as a holdover from the "inclusionist vs. deletionist" days. They're an anachronism and clinging to this outmoded philosophy is detrimental to the encyclopedia. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:34, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In terms of "doing what Esperanza was supposed to do" I'd say you're looking for the WP:Teahouse. But in terms of disruption, yes. casualdejekyll 16:35, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really count myself as either a deletionist or an inclusionist (improving a nominated article to the point where it becomes kept makes me happier than deleting it, but I think I !vote delete more often than keep, because most deletion nominations are made in good faith for subjects that legitimately look like deletion candidates). That statement of neutrality out of the way, I am tired of seeing the continual wars here between some deletionists and some inclusionists who have such bad-faith assumptions about the people on the other side of the dispute that they would prefer to see them shut out of the process rather than having the open and honest discussions that we need. Both the people finding and nominating non-notable articles, and the people finding and improving articles on notable topics that are so badly-written as to appear non-notable, are performing constructive activities. We need both things to happen. The improvement to the encyclopedia made in both of these ways is more important than getting your way by shutting out all opposing opinions. Neither the existence of bad deletion nominations nor the existence of badly-done cleanup attempts (the recycled press release sources cited above) are evidence of wrongdoing, just of the human imperfection that we all suffer from. I am tempted to propose a WP:BOOMERANG block on IJReid for inflaming the struggle rather than trying to come to peace with the fact that not everyone is going to agree with them on every decision, but I suppose that won't help either. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:09, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal: ARS project members prevented from directly voting on articles listed on the rescue list, but are allowed to edit the articles.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I think that this has been proposed before, and I think this would ameliortate a lot of the canvassing issues inherent to the nature of the ARS. The whole idea of "rescuing articles" should about improving them. Allowing ARS members to improve the articles and then let independent editors assess the notability would be a significant improvement. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:49, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose How do you define a project member? I've been accused of being a member before and I have had the page in my watchlist before (can't remember if it is now), but have also come across and voted on AfDs without realising they were being discussed at ARS. NemesisAT (talk) 09:10, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose more revenge is not what is needed. Are you going to "let independent editors assess the notability" of paleontology articles? Also are you going to individually notify the hundreds of editors who signed up at the project? This smacks of, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the ...." Lightburst (talk) 10:57, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose (noting I am an ARS member) because I do not think it is necessary because I do not think it has been demonstrated that ARS members or as a group have done anything wrong, and imposing a new rule on hundreds of editors would be a strange move in such circumstances. CT55555 (talk) 11:04, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Quite aside from placing an unwarranted restriction on editors who've done nothing wrong, this would be comically easy to thwart: all it would take would be for members who didn't care for the sanction to "quit" the group. (Possibly to create a new project: Article Salvation Cadre, anyone? They might even decide that a good way to avoid persecution would be to organize off-Wiki, and who could blame them?) I'll say it again: if you believe that particular editors are being disruptive, report them and bring your evidence to the table. Otherwise, the easiest way to avoid accusations of a kneejerk witchhunt is not to have one. Ravenswing 11:18, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This is ridiculous as it was when previous brought up. Any member of any Wikiproject can edit articles and vote in AFDs for them. DreamFocus 11:38, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Anyone should be able to !vote in an AfD. The closer should weigh the !votes based on how policy based they are casualdejekyll 11:45, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Even if you believe that the primary purpose of the ARS is to be a canvassing tool, this wouldn't fix it; all it would do is to get people to stop admitting they're using the canvassing tool. —Cryptic 11:47, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per much of above. Cbl62 (talk) 11:53, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support ARS has been a lot less canvassy since several prominent members were banned, this will only improve things further. Mztourist (talk) 12:40, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Suppose I participate in 20 AfDs, then join ARS? Suppose I exit ARS, participate in 20 AfDs, and then quit? This will serve as a way to limit the membership of ARS, but it it's unenforceable, and it discriminates against every member of a group based on the actions of some. There's a lot of words I can think of describing that sort of action, and all of them are nasty. Jacona (talk) 13:17, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Banning an entire WikiProject membership, isn't a good precedent. Besides, one would need only to resign as a member of a banned WikiProject, to get around such a ban. GoodDay (talk) 13:25, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - There's the problem of defining a member, first of all. If it's the membership list, anyone can just remove themselves. If it's votes on articles listed there, well I'm sure lots of people active at AfD but not ARS would be caught, too. Probably the only way would be some number of edits to the rescue list? Regardless, it's messy. Still, maybe five years ago I argued for something similar: that ARS members should be allowed to !vote if they're actively involved with improving the article. Today, however, the urgency is gone. The relatively minor kerfuffle that led to this doesn't actually look that problematic, and we've actually been successful at sanctioning many of the most disruptive figures at AfD. — Rhododendritestalk \\ 13:31, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose for the same reasons as others oppose above. The way to fix the problems is to continue doing what we've been doing: hold individuals accountable for their individual actions. Levivich 16:04, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This user has been, since the beginning, changing every link related to Uyghurs -> Yugurs. Claiming Uyghurs are not descendants of the Uyghur Khaganate. While they're not fully, here [42] below it explains how Old Uyghurs are one of the people forming their ethnogenesis. It's not also true that Yugurs are "actual" descendants", since they're mixed with Mongolian ethnic groups.
So this user has been POV pushing since a while. Also has various edits against Turkish language as well. Removing relevant cognates in various topics. Haven't seem him putting once a sourced content, plus removing various stuff calling "fake information", etc.
I've added pagelinks and userlinks to the head of this report. There has also been some discussion with the editor at User talk:Tumen-il#ANI. EdJohnston (talk) 18:10, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I will point out that WP:GS/UYGHUR exists. Would it make sense to expand the scope of this GS to include the history of the Uyghur ethnicity, broadly construed? — Red-tailed hawk(nest) 14:29, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Red-tailed hawk: I'm not sure, but he has generally disruptive behaviour. I don't see him anywhere (sometimes he does copy paste from another article) putting a sourced content. Always removing and edit warring. Beshogur (talk) 22:31, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'd argue this might already be covered. Historical revisionism regarding a race subject to genocide is typically a key part of that genocide itself, it seems to me that editing to delegitimize the Uyghurs' ethic history would fall under that. FrederalBacon (talk) 22:47, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, historical revisionism relating to the genetic history of the Uyghurs could be linked to this, but I've generally not seen this sort of specific rhetoric in the context of Uyghur genocide (though there is some rhetoric about mixed bloodlines adopted by the Chinese state). That the modern Uyghurs are not the direct descendants of the ancient Uyghurs (i.e. there was mixture of ethnic groups in the area) is a position that major historians of Xinjiang such as James Millward (see this for more citations) have taken. And Millward is not actually someone who denies any of the abuses in the region (it's quite the opposite, actually). That being said, nobody reputable (as far as I know) claims that modern Uyghurs are not descended at least in part from the Old Uyghur people who lived in the Uyghur Khaganate.
That being said, the specific claim that the Yugurs are the direct descendants of the Old Uyghurs is not something I have ever seen advocated for by anybody serious. To be frank, I have no clue if this is something common among Yugur nationalists, but I don't think it's something that's related to Uyghur genocide, broadly construed. — Red-tailed hawk(nest) 16:11, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To be broadly construed and appealable in six months. Endorse as proposer.-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:51, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal to Expand GS/uyghur to include the Uyghurs more broadly
Currently, there is a general sanctions regime that places Uyghur genocide and articles related to it, broadly construed under general sanctions. In light of this issue, it appears that the disruption pertaining to Uyghur ethnic issues is not limited to modern times. As such, I propose that WP:GS/UYGHUR be modified to place edits related to Uyghurs, Uyghur genocide, and topics that are related to Uyghurs or Uyghur genocide, all broadly construed under general sanctions. — Red-tailed hawk(nest) 14:16, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion: Proposal to Expand GS/uyghur to include the Uyghurs more broadly
Support as proposer. I believe that this expansion would allow for administrators to better handle disruption relating to the topic of Uyghurs more broadly. I believe that the expansion of this regime will save our community time and will prove for a more coherent way to protect Wikipedia from future disruption in this area. — Red-tailed hawk(nest) 14:16, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support. It is only natural to expect that those causing disruption around this issue would not limit their revisionism to current-day affairs. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:45, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Seems a reasonable and measured approach. Gusfriend (talk) 02:42, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Makes a lot of sense to do so.— rsjaffe🗣️ 15:28, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
For almost a year, JimmyBasco keeps reverting my edits on DWJP-FM at least once a month. As per recent records from the NTC, the station still carries the call letters DWJP. Yet, he keeps insisting that it currently uses DZJA. I keep reminding him several times. I even advised him to follow the NTC records. Yet, he refuses to accept that fact. He even ignores the warning I left in his talk page.
I'm tired of reminding that hard-headed user. I suggest that the user should be blocked from editing the page. ASTIG️🙃(ICE-T • ICE CUBE) 13:03, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So it takes two to edit war. I don't see any conversation about this on the article talk page which should be the first point of call, not ANI. And I must say that your comment on their talk page isn't particularly friendly nor are your edit summaries. Additionally you haven't notified the user of this conversation as required. Canterbury Tailtalk 13:23, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I did see it, and as I said it wasn't particularly friendly or polite in any way. The talk page of the article is the place to discuss and get consensus or the user's talk page. 1 rather curt and not friendly message on their talk page isn't an attempt at discussing what is essentially a content dispute. I would also recommend that you point them to the policy or guideline that supports your view on the callsign. Threats and ultimatums in edit summaries are not communication. Canterbury Tailtalk 12:39, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Knowing the user's reputation for ignoring reminders, including the messages in his talk page, I highly doubt your advice will work. But, I'll see what I can do. ASTIG️🙃(ICE-T • ICE CUBE) 10:51, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This user been making unexplained and unsourced additions/changes for too long. They have been warned multiple times about it (as far as a year(!) ago) [57]). Though still keeps doing the same thing. I don't think I have ever seen this user write in the edit summary field, let alone in an actual talk page. As you can see here, even when reverted, they sometimes later come back to the very same article and makes a similar edit/restore their revision.
Maxwell14134 (talk·contribs) was first informed about how different national varieties of English are used on Wikipedia through a notice on their talk page in October of last year, and how you should not be needlessly changing the version used based on personal preference. Since then, they have recieved numerous more messages from different editors on their talk page about making the same unnecessary changes, but despite the notices getting more and more stern they have completely ignored every single one of them and instead continued to make the same edits.
Since MOS:RETAIN sensibly exists, these edits are irritating for other editors and the complete lack of communication despite also being asked to use edit summaries several times on their talk page also does not help matters. Editors are meant to collaborate and I'm not convinced Maxwell14134 is a net positive for the site when they constantly irritate other editors by inserting their personal preferences into articles and refuse to listen to anyone who attempts to communicate with them. TylerBurden (talk) 15:00, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
At least some of these seem to be de-mixing confused ENGVARS (recent example), or justified by MOS:TIES (lots of Hong Kong articles, which I presume should be essentially British English), but at the least he needs to develop his edit summaries & so on. Johnbod (talk) 15:15, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not saying all their edits are bad, but the issue is with the pure preference ones such as changing from American to British spelling on a Norwegian article like in diff 6 where there are no ties and MOS:RETAIN should apply. It's pretty clear they have a preference for British spelling and is needlessly making changes on articles where it is not needed based on this preference. TylerBurden (talk) 15:29, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Many of their edits are valid but they persist in a pattern of edits to eradicate -ize endings in favour of -ise. Per WP:ISE and MOS:IZE, both are acceptable in British English so WP:ENGVAR and MOS:TIES are no justification for their edits. Only an internal-consistency argument would hold and does not seem to pertain to the examples I have seen. What's more, at least some of the examples have no strong ties to either Britain or America. Their lack of response to the raising of these and related matters, over months, is not encouraging. Mutt Lunker (talk) 15:55, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A block of the editor will get his attention & invoke a response. GoodDay (talk) 16:06, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
More or less what I was thinking. The perfect outcome of this would be that they finally address the issues people have been raising to them, and stick to making productive edits thereafter since they have proven capable of doing so. But that isn't possible as long as they ignore any complaints about their more problematic edits and simply continue doing the same thing. TylerBurden (talk) 16:27, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
He has edited since my very clear warning about communication was put on his talk page. He's about 1mm away from a block to get his attention and force discussion. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 23:32, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Dennis Brown Forgive the ping, but there have been more edits since you posted this seen here. Again, the complete lack of communication is disruptive. TylerBurden (talk) 18:44, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So far the edits appear to be fully within the expectations we would have for changing engvar, so maybe they get it. I would leave this open and monitor a few days. Really, WP:Communication is required, but total compliance will work in the absence of communication. And it is fine to ping me when changes are noticed in a report, as I'm active on it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 19:14, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This edit may be worth considering and it's an odd one, in the sense that it is the reverse of their usual forcing of -ise over -ize, changing "privatisation" to "privatization" in this case. It seems just as arbitrary and unnecessary though as the edits that are of the usual direction and there is no edit summary to explain. I'd guess that, as a Commonwealth variety of English, as for British English there is no requirement for -ize over -ise (or vice versa) in Nigerian English and, with all the warnings they've had, they are aware they should be communicating about their edits. They clearly are still failing to pay heed. Short block and a(nother) reminder? Mutt Lunker (talk)
I'll make it short and blunt, Yenieian seems to be on a Turkish pov pushing mission. Pretty bold claims I know, let me show you some proof;
Obsessed with changing the result to 'Ottoman victory' in a GA(!) article Siege of Güns, completely disregarding its status and well sourced content. Initially, he outrighted altered (sourced) info and slammed his own personal commentary instead 27 June 2022, came back a month later and tried the same 15 July 202215 July 2022. Now another month has passed, what does he do? Removes/alters sourced info once again with no edit summary whatsoever regarding it, whilst slamming multiple random, cherrypicked and badly cited sources [58][59][60].
Indeed, I was actually suspecting the same thing. Moreover, Yeniseian has now suddenly stopped editing in the midst of all this (he might start it again now that I've said that it though). He is probably chilling in another sock account. Moreover, this EIA result of Kapgan Kağan/Yeniseian and Gokturklerrr is even more interesting [65]. The two have shown to be randomly hostile towards me as well [66][67], coincidence? As for the EIA between Gokturklerrr and Kabz15 [68]. Obviously these EIA results might not have been suspicious if they all weren't brand new users, but they are. --HistoryofIran (talk) 06:03, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
WMF account holder blocked for vandalism through sockpuppet accounts
This is being discussed fully at the village pump. Let's not have the same discussion twice. GoldenRing (talk)(non-admin closure) 10:57, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
@AndyTheGrump that is a very poor title. Firstly, it was one additional account. Secondly Firstly, I do not believe it/they would be considered a sock. Secondly, it's not vandalism because vandalism requires an intent to hurt the encyclopedia. This is badly designed testing. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:57, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
With apologies to ATG, was indeed multiple accounts - my double-check was for naught there Nosebagbear (talk) 20:20, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It was indistinguishable from vandalism, however. No prior notification, no edit summary notification that it was a test, no prior claim of the secondary/sock account on his user page. The only evidence that it wasn't was his word. He's probably being honest (which calls his judgement into question), but again, it was indistinguishable from run of the mill vandalism when it was published. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 20:31, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Only if you are viewing the single edit - which isn't how I judge any run of the mill vandalism (unless it's the only actual edit) - their edit history suggested a nature that would indicate tests, and that's even more so with the knowledge that's it's twinned with a WMF account even without the individual's word Nosebagbear (talk) 21:48, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What form of testing would require adding 'fuck shit' as the short description to a biography of a 19th century Irish landowner and judge? [69] I find it hard to believe that the WMF would have approved such a 'test', and even if they think it appropriate, I get the distinct impression that people here wouldn't. At minimum, ABorba needs to provide a clear, public, explanation of what was going on. And if the WMF approved of this 'testing', we need to be told why they consider it necessary. Given the technical control they have over Wikipedia data, they need to demonstrate that they can be trusted not to engage in unnecessary disruptive behaviour. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:10, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What form of testing would require adding 'fuck shit' as the short description... Um, the form of testing that tests for vandalism in short descriptions? Levivich 23:40, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Although for months he has tried to agree with good manners (I have even tried in six different ways) the user in question that his overbearing way of seeing the matter was wrong (I explained it well in the edit summary of my edit in Mikaela Shiffrin), he continues in his destructive work. Here the precedents. --Kasper2006 (talk) 06:21, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
After being given many warnings from multiple editors over the last eighteen months, Philipjennelle09 acknowledged the warnings, but saying that [t]he information is right, I know it. So there!, they immediately repeated the same behavior. While I do think they mean well, they are not willing to edit in a way that helps building an encyclopedia. I ask for a short block which will show them we mean business and that this will not be tolerated. Thanks. --Muhandes (talk) 06:24, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ask and ye shall receive. I agree, and blocked 31 hours to get their attention. Hopefully this will make them think about sourcing in the future and no further blocks will be needed. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 15:08, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Block requested for creep adding unnecessary naked photos of himself to several articles.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
User:Courtney312 has been reverted several times but has continued with even less appropriate images of himself, in particular this edit. Reywas92Talk 14:26, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be wrong to thank that user for sharing his shortcomings with all of us? JoJo Anthrax (talk) 14:59, 1 September 2022 (UTC) [reply]
Talk page access isn't revoked, but it's hilarious how they basically are asking for proof of their behavior and getting mad at random people. "I didn't misbehave when no one agreed with me, Wikipedia is not a democracy"... yeah, sure. Might need to keep an eye on the guy.
P.S. See their topics on WP:Teahouse, they clearly seem to be weird and self-defensive. I'm only putting this up in case their behavior gets worse and needs a revoke. WannurSyafiqah74 (talk) 15:47, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Issue
Said IP keeps changing sourced information. They've made a number of edits identical to their most recent one like this. Its a slow burn of unhelpful edits on 16 July, 17 July, 17 July diff 2, 22 July, 23 July, 25 July, 30 July. This stopped when the article was semi-protected, but has since resumed when the protect ran out here: 1 Sep diff 1 and 1 Sep diff 2. As you can see on the IP's talkpage, multiple warnings have been left and a source was added to the content in the lead to try and prevent this. Clear case of WP:NOTHERE. User contributions show no other target or contributions. Please consider blocking. >>Lil-unique1(talk) — 19:57, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've blocked it from editing that page. If disruption moves to another page let me know or ask at WP:AIV for someone to do a site-wide block. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 20:18, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think I made a mistake about two weeks ago in opening a moderated discussion at DRN. In any case, I would appreciate if one or two admins or other experienced editors would take a look at the RFC at Talk:Flag_of_Antarctica#RFC_on_main_flag_used_in_the_country_data_template and comment on whether there have been any irregularities. The RFC was initiated by User:Vanilla Wizard on 20 July. There was then a Third Opinion request by User:Federalwafer on 13 August, who also requested DRN on 13 August. The Third Opinion request was closed as stale on 19 August, and I opened the DRN. Legobot then removed the RFC ID, also on 19 August, which is what Legobot is supposed to do. Federalwafer then inserted new RFC IDs, apparently three times, and on 28 August User:Redrose64 fixed the RFC ID and said to stop churning the RFC. On 31 August, Federalwafer asked to pause the RFC while a sourcing issue was resolved at DRN. This sequence of events annoyed me because it seemed to me to be gaming of the system, so that I was no longer capable of being a neutral mediator. (I probably shouldn't have started the mediation, because I should have checked for an RFC, which takes precedence over other forms of dispute resolution.) So will someone else look at the dispute, please? Also, since the RFC has now been running for about six weeks, first, should it be deactivated, and, second, should formal closure be requested? Robert McClenon (talk) 20:18, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
For convenience, here is a link to the aforementioned DRN discussion: [70] Vanilla Wizard 💙 20:33, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, looking over the talk page and the DRN discussion, my takeaway is this (and please, correct me if I'm badly mistaken): (a) back in the 1990s, Some Guy from a UK outfit that's interested in flags (but, however, has no official or statutory authority) proposed a flag for Antarctica; (b) In 2002, an equally unofficial flag loving bloke took several of them on a trip to Antarctica, passed them around, and an unknown number of bases/installations displayed them; (c) this particular flag has never been officially adopted, largely because the article concedes in the lead that there's no statutory, unitary authority for Antarctica with the power to do so, yet (d) despite a solid consensus that Wikipedia should not use any flag icon templates to represent Antarctica, (e) there's edit warring and hot debate going on as to whether Some Guy's flag actually flew twenty years ago, and whether some sources saying so are reliable or not?
I honestly have to agree that it's petty. But just to clarity, the DRN discussion and the RFC are not about the same topic, or at least I don't think they are. The RFC is about the flag template, and the DRN discussion is about a single sentence in the article. Note that the sentence doesn't say anything important, it's 13 short words that mostly just add on to what the previous sentence said. What I find most bothersome isn't that Federalwafer disagreed over its sourcing, but rather that they seemingly viewed the dispute over the sentence as a trojan horse to make other, unrelated changes to the article. Either they believed in good faith that its inclusion or lack thereof truly had far-reaching implications for the rest of the article (a rather odd thing to believe), or they fixated on it as a bad faith justification to try to throw a wrench into an unrelated RFC by suggesting that editors were basing their !votes off of misinformation and that more editors would have !voted for their preferred option if only the words "several bases flew the flag" weren't in the article. Either way, this was too small of a content dispute to warrant being brought up at three different noticeboards. This has been much, much more exhausting than it needed to be. Vanilla Wizard 💙 04:14, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The RfC was started after many verified sources had been removed and continued after what I believe to be questionable claims had been added. To me it seems clear that the content of an article influences an RfC (both the claim you added, @Vanilla Wizard, and others that had been removed.) But if the consensus from this and the DRN discussion are that they don't and that the RfC should proceed, then I won't interfere. Federalwafer (talk) 13:56, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'll admit I've never done an RfC before and should've looked into the details before trying to re-add the ID. My only goal was to get it listed on the RfC noticeboard and didn't know it would send notifications. I did it twice is because Legobot immediately removed the first ID for an expired tag, so I tried again with the "don't auto-expire code" in, which is when I learned I should've kept the same ID from before. Federalwafer (talk) 13:46, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
User:Federalwafer - The RFC was started on 20 July, and then was automatically deactivated on 19 August. Why did you restart the RFC at the time? Also, now that it has been running for more than six weeks, after being extended, should it be turned off and formal closure requested? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:09, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I may need some eyes on this
Please see the top of my talk page. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:40, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Warning: You might go blind. EEng 02:46, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Bomb has been defused — blind, 'cause I have no idea what's happening. But my acting blind seemed like the right call. El_C 02:59, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Content was removed by El C, but please stop by anyway and get my recipe for microwaving corn (if you've never microwaved it). You'll thank me later. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:04, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
OMG cuteness overload! El_C 04:40, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have now seen it. I think that someone should have notified me that I was being impersonated. Anyone else who has been involved in the Founding Fathers disputes is possibly subject to impersonation also. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:44, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, can we look into blocking the user 'Plasticomp'.
Between the 14-16th July 2022. The user meet several edits to intentionally vandalise our page and put our companies legitimacy at risk by stating inaccurate falsities.
I've had a very quick look at this. Plasticomp is a new user and is editing quite boldly on a single topic, maybe a little too boldly for an inexperienced user. For example, they removed material referenced to articles behind paywalls for being "unverifiable", which is an understandable misunderstanding but still not correct. That said, I don't think it looks like intentional vandalism. I'd be much more concerned about Jack, who seems to have been editing as User:86.141.251.249 and maybe other IPs as well, despite an admitted COI. --DanielRigal (talk) 10:38, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There are problems throughout the article. On the one hand Plasticomp appears to have removed some unsubstantiated claims (though I've not looked into the individual sources to verify this), but on the other hand they've added unsourced and controversial statements, such as labelling a journal "potentially predatory". For the benefit of passing editors, here is a collection of the user's edits.
On the other hand, however, we have company employees might be trying to control the narrative of their business. To be safe I've reverted back to the last stable version before either side began editing. — Czello 10:42, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi to clarify I have added (factually accurate) information regarding our progress with adoption of our BSI Standard in several countries around the world - which is huge progression for our business. Please can we revert back to the edits I made.
The core to our business is R&D and the specifics behind our technology and how it works. I made updates on the page to reflect the true nature of our solution. So its important that the page reflects that as done so by my edits.
All sorts of problems here. @Jsieff: When you report a user here, you must notify that user on the user talk page. Also, if you are editing on behalf of your company, you must declare that, per the requirements at WP:COI. Also also, when you made a complaint about another user, you must provide evidence for your assertions in the form of diffs.
I do think there are clear problems with Plasticomp's editing, too, though I wouldn't call it vandalism. I'm seeing a lot of addition of weasel words (eg [71][72][73][74][75] and so on) in what seems quite a deliberate attempt to cast aspersions on this company. Also addition of unsourced, negative commentary, eg [76]. It's also worth noting that Polycomp is the name of a competing product Plasticomp is the name of a competitor - so COI may be a concern for both of these editors. GoldenRing (talk) 11:12, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note I've pushed Plasticomp in the direction of WP:UAA for being a promotional username. GoldenRing (talk) 11:20, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Also important to note that they are not competition (Plasticomp ) as they are an entirely different business. It is very likely that user Plasticomb is not related whatsoever.
I have done some personal digging.
We believe that Plasticomp is a “sockpuppet” (i.e.alias) account for a more experienced user. The fact that the user edited Polymateria’s Wikipedia page just minutes after it was created suggests the account was made for the sole purpose of editing the page. . Jsieff (talk) 11:31, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Those were my edits that I had made prior to creating an account. My bad. Have limited user experience on Wikipidea. Just trying to amend the damage done by another unidentified party. Jsieff (talk) 11:34, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Those were my edits that I had made prior to creating an account. My bad. Have limited user experience on Wikipidea. Just trying to amend the damage done by another unidentified party. Jsieff (talk) 11:34, 2 September 2022 Jsieff (talk) 11:36, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Please also read the information on paid editing. Note that if you were compensated for any publicity efforts related to Polymateria (that is, if your position at Polymateria includes marketing) you are deemed to be a paid editor, regardless of whether you were compensated specifically to edit Wikipedia. If you are not a paid editor, you still have a conflict of interest and should follow the advice at WP:COI. Thanks. — rsjaffe🗣️ 19:33, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies for causing a bit of a kerfuffle, to clarify, I'm not a particularly nefarious character or have a vested interest in this one article. To be honest I was looking for a new hobby and thought wiki editing could be good for burning the midnight oil. I had been wandering around looking for an article to begin on. I did create this account to edit this page hence the "plasti" "comp" came from too much time compiling text editors- not a competitor im afraid. I take your point on weaselwords coming off as vindictive and I too was of the opinion that id gone a bit far with the editing - I had a sense I'd crossed the line somewhere in my edits so I stopped in paralysis waiting for feedback rather than wanting to continue causing problems here/on another page. I just have an interest in digging a bit deeper into wiki pages and their references/claims. My aim with this edit session was to present things that are not 100% certain in a potentially ambiguous light in the interest of balance. I did it in chunks so that upon review, acceptable parts could stay, anything iffy could be kicked out. I would appreciate someone impartial taking the time to review my edits/this page with this in mind. I just see a lot of logical fallacies in this reverted page; e.g. why is a picture of Prince Charles relevant? I would feel better about someone else "neutral" reviewing because some edits are valid in my opinion but I dont want to drag this out into me adding the parts I think should stay then someone else reverting this. Especially perhaps as the company men will not be around until Monday? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Plasticomp (talk • contribs) 01:07, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If you have suggestions for improving the article, you can make them on the article talk page, which I assume is now being watched by a number of editors, and discuss them. -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 13:39, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Spafky
Indeffed by Tamzin, TPA later revoked by El_C. firefly ( t · c ) 20:42, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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If you think I actually plan to eat them with tomato sauce then I don't know what to tell you. Spafky (talk) 13:23, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's an odd choice to only give a response to one of those diffs. PhantomTech[talk] 13:26, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Spafky has been indefinitely blocked by Tamzin for threats and personal attacks. -- LuK3(Talk) 13:27, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Indeffed for physical threats. Zero tolerance; being ironic about what you will do once you find someone is still a threat to find someone. No comment (at the moment) as to whether the underlying userpage material did or did not violate policy; the unacceptable response to the removal is the basis for the block, not the content itself.-- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 13:28, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, this ANI thread was specifically in response to the conduct in the provided diffs. The WP:POLEMIC issue related to those diffs can be discussed here if anyone feels it needs to be, but it may have been resolved with discussion with the user had they not responded with threats and hostility. PhantomTech[talk] 13:39, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@User:PhantomTech I also have a problem with their response about userboxes regarding gay porn or diaper fetishism in this section: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Spafky#Threats . Considering they didn't actually link to anyone with those userboxes and just linked to userboxes anyone has about their sexuality, which is saying that all queer people are like that Stephanie921 (talk) 13:58, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Stephanie921 I'm inclined to assume that they chose to link to the sexuality userbox gallery because it was easier than linking to specific userboxes and that they decided against linking to a specific section on the page because they either didn't know how or because the userboxes they mentioned aren't in the same section. I'd also note that while a majority the userboxes in the gallery relate to queer people, not all do. All that said, if my assumption is wrong and their intent really was to say that all queer people have a specific fetish, certainly if it is meant negatively, that would be another issue. PhantomTech[talk] 14:37, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Tamzin. I was about to comment on their response. Good block. --ARoseWolf 13:32, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to also point out that I find Spafky saying "And to my dear Tamzin" in their original unblock request, coupled with the backhandedness, deeply uncomfortable :https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1108091113 and consistent with their pattern of behaviour exhibited here, in which they used an ableist slur and performatively apologised: User_talk:Spafky#Unblock request, and the racist, homophobic slurs here (TW for bestiality and necrophilia): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=824518338 . Both the bigotry and the vile, edgy jokes in this revision - down to the subject matter in one case - are consistent with Spafky's current behaviour, the latter being evidenced by Spafky's proud justification of it on his talk page earlier today, which is why I have reason to believe Spafky didn't unintentionally write something to make Tamsin upset. (TW: necrophilia, CSA): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1108116924Stephanie921 (talk) 20:03, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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User hasn't edited since June 2, 2022. Also, it is customary to provide evidence in the form of diffs when you complain about a user's conduct.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:18, 2 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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Hello, guys. i am here to discuss an situation. An admin (Oshwah) deleted my userpage. This was an userpage, not an new Wikipedia article. I am an new user, they must keep their own userpage. I need an admin to restore my userpage, please. I had an effort to volunteer to the Wikipedia web kindly, and I ask that you please, restore my userpage.
@Lobby And TheoTheoDerich: You have also failed to notify Oshwah of this discussion on his talk page, as the red notification on top of this page and when editing clearly require (and, no, your previous attempt to contact him on his own talk page before this filing does not count). I would seriously consider withdrawing this filing as there is clearly no policy violation at play, and is likely to end with you being sanctioned for you threatening Oshwah. Regards, User:TheDragonFire300. (Contact me | Contributions). 04:12, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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User:Footballrelated
Footballrelated (talk·contribs) - long history of adding unsourced content to BLPs, talk page is littered with warnings from multiple users, and I blocked them for this in August 2022 - but they continuetoadd unsourced info to BLPs... GiantSnowman 06:58, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Bizarre spam on my user page.
An anonymous user has placed two paragraphs of bizarre spam on my user page. Please block the IP-address. Leontrooper (talk) 09:16, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Leontrooper: The IP has made no further edits, please report them again if they continue to edit. Sam Walton (talk) 09:49, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
User:Jhofferman is their oldest account, but they, in past, never disclosed and always edited under socks. @Joe Roe: as they have been blocked under User_talk:Psycharpax for undisclosed PE, so technically they have to appeal there before creating more accounts. Their disclosed list is incomplete.
Considering FBOY Island seems to be their only interaction, I don't think it's totally out of the question that these are two different people with no knowledge of each other that an employer paid to create an article. DatGuyTalkContribs 09:50, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
given a response to it basically just calling the page editors "liberal maniacs" (WP:NPA)
added a long tangent accusing the editors of trying to "defame conservatives" and then going on some sort of unrelated, anti-trans tangent: BTW, there are only two genders, and women should not be able to murder their babies because they were promiscuous, got pregnant, and now don't feel like putting up with being uncomfortable for ninth months. And no, it is not there body. The baby has completely different DNA, and is another person.
added a similar comment to my talk page, again telling me to take my "radical leftist views somewhere else"
on another talk page, accused another well-established editor of "slander", accusing them of being "after people who lean to the right", "harrassing conservatives" and telling them to take their "bozo radical leftist views somewhere else", as well as adding in the same unrelated rant about abortion and genders. ser!(chat to me - see my edits) 10:38, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Kindly disregard all of the foregoing as it is make-believe, and please see the post immediately beneath this one. Thank you. Unauthoress 10:58, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Ser is attempting to have me blocked from Wikipedia simply for sharing my position on the way an article lead on that article's talk page, the exact appropriate space for that sort of discussion. Ser's improper post you can see immediately above this posting. Since my stance on the particular article differs from his, Ser feels it is appropriate to delete all of my talk page posts and refer me on here to get blocked, despite my being on Wikipedia for months and constructively editing, all of those edits clearly to improve Wikipedia and in good-faith. The article of Doug Mastriano is the article I expressed my views contrary to his in the Mastriano article talk page, which Ser deleted off his talk page and tried to get be banned for. Ser is also abusing this very page and blocks, and so he is gonna have to be blocked until the reviewing admins feel he does not a pose a risk to any good-faith editors by potentially falsely trying to get them blocked simply for sharing their views on talk pages that differ from his. Unauthoress 10:47, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Unauthoress: I'm going to give you exactly one warning here - if you can't edit Wikipedia without insulting other editors and inserting your personal opinions into articles and talk pages you will be blocked. It's clear that you have specific issues with the content of some articles, but you need to make your arguments on the talk page by citing reliable secondary sources (of which NYT is one and Fox News is not, for the record). Not by inserting your own personal views and throwing around aspersions. Sam Walton (talk) 10:59, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Samwalton9: Thanks for the note. Let the record reflect that I have not cast one aspersion in the direction of Ser!. Rather, I stated a contrary position regarding the way the Mastriano article should lead in that article's talk page where it belongs, and Ser's reply to that was not to respectfully respond and engage in a productive discourse, but to instead refer me on here for a block. I understand you find Fox News biased and not reliable but find the New York Times completely neutral and non-partisan, and I respect that. Nevertheless, I ask this ticket be closed and Ser's request to have me blocked be denied with prejudice. Unauthoress 11:04, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Unauthoress,Do you deny vandalizing Mastriano's article? I see no mention in your response about that edit. Slywriter (talk) 11:08, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Slywriter Touché. I did indeed write he had been knighted and it was immediately reverted. I did not engage in an edit war and revert the revert, and it ended there. The incident is over, and so a block is unnecessary, as blocks on Wikipedia cannot be for punitive purposes, only for preventative purposes. It is clear I am not continuing that knighted claim on his article so there is nothing to prevent at this point with the imposition of a block. Unauthoress 11:12, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Unauthoress For the record I think I've been lenient in giving you a warning here - you very clearly have been casting aspersions and creating a hostile editing atmosphere, and your edit to Doug Mastriano is indistinguishable from vandalism. But I'm willing to believe that if you have a read of WP:RS and WP:RSP and engage in discussions following the previous consensus on what constitutes a reliable source, we can avoid needing to resort to blocks. Sam Walton (talk) 11:10, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Samwalton9: Understood. Warning accepted and noted. Please now delete this ticket so this can be resolved. Unauthoress 11:16, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
ANI posts aren't deleted, but we can consider this resolved for the time being. Sam Walton (talk) 11:18, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
They've made multiple comments that conservatives are being "defamed" which teeters on WP:NLT territory. This ANI should be their final warning. ––FormalDude(talk) 11:25, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
At a minimum any further nonsense should likely result in an AP topic ban IMO. They've now received the necessary alert. If that becomes a defacto site ban because they don't edit anything else, so be it Nil Einne (talk) 14:04, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Unauthoress is clearly here to push their POV onto articles, see, for example, their edit to Derek Chauvin[78]. They should at the very least be topic banned from American politics, though I'd support an indefinite block as WP:NOTHERE. Isabelle🏳🌈 14:21, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I forgot to add this in my original post, but since the user's behaviour is again coming into question: they also accused another well-established editor of "slander" and told them to take their "bozo radical leftist views somewhere else", as well as adding in the same unrelated rant about abortion and genders. I'm adding it to the original post and posting this comment as thus. ser!(chat to me - see my edits) 15:14, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've indefinitely blocked the user for disruption, personal attacks, and pushing a political agenda.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:21, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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مهدي جزائري (talk·contribs) - football editor that has had repeated warnings, mostly from User:Robby.is.on, for adding unsourced content to BLPs. Has been on something of a spree today; they created two unsourced BLPs, which I sent to draft: Draft:Jamal Al Khatib, Draft:Awodh Hassan. Their response to this was to recreate these in mainspace with no improvement. See Jamal Al Khatib, Awodh Hassan. Then followed by continual edit warring at Moussa N'Daw which has been happening since March 2022 [79][80][81][82][83][84]. Even on the sixth occasion of adding this career stats table, they have not cited a source for the info. The Soccerway page doesn't even have any stats. Please can someone intervene? There could be a language barrier here but it could also be WP:CIR or WP:NOTLISTENING. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 12:32, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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Mass undiscussed changes at bios
Kyleung05(talk·contribs·count) keeps on making mass changes, without discussion, and has been asked not too. They have not replied or responded.
These often seem to be minor changes, that are mainly about moving this from the see also to the body (as see also's). The problem is it is 20 0r 30 changes a day, all of which have to be policed, and none of which seem to really be of any value. But it is mainly the refusal to engage. Slatersteven (talk) 15:43, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think a block would certainly get the editor's attention. I just hope this isn't a ban evading situation. GoodDay (talk) 15:49, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly suspect this editor of being a sock of Carmena Seoul, though a CU failed to confirm. But there’s enough here to justify a block even assuming I’m mistaken. Wallnot (talk) 16:10, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. The first 2 I looked at Sandra Bullock plus Steve someone (2 diffs each) were fine - adding info + refs & pics. "20 0r 30 changes a day" isn't that terrible, given many are to the same article. Moving "see also"s into text is actually a good thing. More damning diffs are needed to make a case here. Johnbod (talk) 16:26, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Slatersteven. It's likely that if it's a sock, the master wouldn't want to communicate with others, in order to lower the chances of being detected. GoodDay (talk) 16:48, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, he's resumed editing & is still showing no signs of acknowledging other editors, both 'here' & at his talkpage. GoodDay (talk) 23:20, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
They sure slowed down, since this ANI report. Purely coincidental, of course. GoodDay (talk) 02:27, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Plus, a logged in mobile app user should be getting notifications. The WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU bug is for IPs, or at least I thought so (and that table seems to confirm). This user clearly knows what’s going on and has chosen to ignore countless talk page messages. A block is the way to get their attention. Wallnot (talk) 03:06, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
They know they are being reverted. Slatersteven (talk) 09:37, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
User:Theworks84
Theworks84(talk·contribs·count) keeps on changing the uses of the dating format of pages from BCE/CE to BC/AD even when the BCE/CE format was the primarily used format on on the page (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) or when the format is already used consistently on the page (1).
Their arguments given for their changes also are inconsistent, since at one point they cite the fact that a page was initially written using BC/AD for their changes (here), but they disregard that another page had used the BCE/CE format from the beginning to change its format (here). Their only motive seems only to change the use of dates format in the pages to BC/AD rather than BCE/CE.
They also appear to be editing using their IP addresses as a form of sockpuppetry to carry out edit warring (1, 2). Antiquistik (talk) 17:10, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Actually diff #1 at Alexander Sarcophagus was a good edit - an American student had made an undiscussed conversion to BCE last December, contrary to WP:ERA. This happens very often. I haven't looked at the others, but it might be wrong to assume he is incorrect. Johnbod (talk) 03:17, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Johnbod: Looks like the fault is indeed mine. I apologise and will avoid repeating these mistakes in the future. Antiquistik (talk) 13:11, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I should also point out that Antiquistik has engaged in an edit war on the Iškuza page as well regarding the same issue. I have manually reverted these changes. I appreciate that Antiquistik has added much good content to many of these pages but that doesn't give them them right to change the style to fit their personal preference. Apology accepted, but please next time you disagree with some of my edits Antiquistik write on my talk page first so we can discuss the problem or disagreement rather than attempting to get me banned for no reason Theworks84 (talk) 15:48, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nonsense by 2001:8004:2790:FE5E:91F9:B296:B291:9278
See below.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:57, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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This IP address just added nonsense to the page Stingy can you block him for 9 years? Thank you. 174.27.3.169 (talk) 19:54, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
No. The IP address is already blocked and their last edit was from February. This report is pointless. --Yamla (talk) 19:56, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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Doug Coldwell has repeatedly engaged in promotional editing, seeking to promote himself in articles. He first did this at Preparation (principle), initially in 2020, before being reverted by another editor [85]. Last month, he added it again, and I removed it [86]. Three days later, he added the same promotional material about himself again [87], before promptly being reverted by User:Praxidicae. I gave him a formal warning on his talk page that these promotional edits were unacceptable on August 20th [88]. I had hoped Doug had learned his lesson and would stop doing this. Alas, on September 1st he did it AGAIN, this time on Michigan eLibrary[89]. Clearly, nothing any regular editor says to Doug will convince him to stop using mainspace to promote himself, so I am seeking sanctions against him, or even just a warning from an administrator to stop his self-promotional edits. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:08, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This seems like a rather flagrant violation of MOS:SELFREF and WP:TONE, but those aren't conduct issues, and I'm not sure I buy this as PROMO. What's he promoting? His existence as a Wikipedia editor? If there's anything for AN/I to address here, it's a failure to communicate / subtle edit-warring. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 01:14, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there's certainly him ignoring all attempts at communication, for starters, ignoring consensus that such edits are wholly inappropriate (as discussed at Talk:Preparation (principle)), and yes, editing promotionally about himself. I feel like it's pretty self-explanatory that adding photos and prose about yourself is not appropriate. Consider the following, which Doug added to Preparation (principle): A Wikipedian from the state of Michigan does this by visiting his local town library for reference books and searching through Google. He uses the interlibrary loan system to borrow books not at his local library. He says that with access to thousands of extra books this way it is like having the Library of Congress at his fingertips from where to borrow books. What is this cited to? Why, none other than an article in a local news organization about himself. And also adding the following photo and caption, which I am copying here verbatim. Wikipedia User Doug Coldwell prepares in creating a new article by surrounding himself with library reference books for research.The real reason we're at ANI, though, is that he has deliberately ignored any and all attempts at communication. Multiple editors including myself have communicated to him this behavior is unacceptable, and we're greeted with complete silence from Doug, while he continues editing elsewhere. This cannot continue. Communicating with other editors is not optional. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:33, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There's the prose, and there's the picture. For both, there's obviously a WP:COI. That isn't disqualifying, but certainly means that Doug should be extremely careful and not do things like, you know, repeatedly reinstate something when others challenge it before finding consensus for it. That's good practice regardless, but when you have a COI not doing so is a recipe for disaster. Doug's been around a while and is clearly "here", so I don't really have a problem with him adding this stuff [one time]. The prose is IMO a bit much indeed, but it and [more so] the photo have a bit of early/mid-00s DIY Wikipedia feel to them. It's not bonkers to add a photo of someone doing research at a library to an article about that library, for example, and a line about researching for Wikipedia may have a place somewhere. The main thing is, again, he just shouldn't have reinstated any of the edits (and should've been using the talk page more). — Rhododendritestalk \\ 02:08, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
He hasn't touched a single relevant talk page this entire time. Not once. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 03:11, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I am in agreement. Doug should be indefinitely blocked, to force him to communicate. He's actively editing as we speak while continuing to ignore all attempts at communication. He's either unable or unwilling to engage with other editors; either way, communication is not optional and at the point I believe a block is the only thing that he will respond to. If he then engages with the community and addresses the concerns here, the block can be lifted. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 19:07, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Going to make a comment here about something related. Doug has repeatedly sent up GAs that are just not up to standard. While I've been able to salvage two, they required me rewriting a lot of prose, such as Talk:Mail chute/GA1. At Cone Mills (the article that has had four GA nominations), he failed to address prior concerns about missing content. Talk:Joshua Lionel Cowen/GA1 was sent to GAN with significant typos (including one of the last name of the subject), images of strange provenance, and other issues. I made these comments, which feel representative:
With all due respect, I feel like I'm a judge on a cooking competition—and, more often than usual, your offerings are undercooked in ways that are peculiar to you.
Unfortunately, he has not substantively engaged the quality issue, either here at ANI or at other user talk pages, nor has he engaged the self-promotion issue. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 18:40, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't appear anything has changed since 2007. Another user summed it up nicely then too: This is the second article I have seen by Doug Coldwell in two days. They are both empty pieces of nonsense, formed about a small fact, and bolstered by irrelevant references. This editor is seriously disruptive. Septentrionalis PMAnderson. I think we can all agree that Doug is probably writing in good faith but we require more competence than he's been able to demonstrate...PICKLEDICAE🥒 20:40, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The most immediate problem here is the failure to engage with other editors in a meaningful way, which makes it impossible to solve the other issues. I am inclined to try with a shot across the bow, to see if we can get him to actually talk to others. As such, I am about to block him for three days. Salvio 21:12, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
User:82.23.69.143 (Dove Windsor)
I believe that 82.23.69.143(talk·contribs·count) is a person called Dove Windsor who is submitting false edits about themselves. These include edits to Jenny Ryan asserting themselves as her partner (I cannot find any sources for this), and several dozen edits to Ed Annunziata claiming to be the co-creator of Ecco the Dolphin (not a subject I'm familiar with but I think this is clearly false).
In response to a revert I made to Jenny Ryan expressing scepticism that Dove Windsor existed, they posted on my talk page linking to an external wiki article about them which states that they are from Leicestershire. The IP address they are posting under is also in Leicestershire. This has led me to the conclusion that they are Dove Windsor. JackWilfred (talk) 21:31, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Adding to this, they also seem to be vandalizing the page of a star system, claiming to be from there and changing the name from TOI-1452 b to "Honorem", with the accompanying star being renamed from TOI-1452 to "Solaris". Diffs: [90][91][92]Lamaredia (Kasper D.L) (talk) 17:44, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
1lib1ref #1AfLibWk
Can anyone direct me to the appropriate place/contact to express concerns about editors participating in this contest? S0091 (talk) 21:47, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Difficult without more detail. Can you give a link to the contest or some example diffs? Black Kite (talk) 21:58, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Black Kite, here is a diff and here is the 1lib1ref info on Meta but it says the contest ends in June so thinking there is a separate contest somewhere. S0091 (talk) 22:11, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Black Kite yes, that is who caught my attention but I am worried it might be broader than that as they are not the only one participating. See [93] on the same article. S0091 (talk) 22:16, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Right, I think I've fixed all the articles that Anyaegbumercy actually broke. The question is - are the citations that they're adding actually any good? Because if they aren't, they need to stop (or be stopped). And secondly, where can we find out if there is a separate contest somewhere? Black Kite (talk) 22:28, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Cherry pizza (talk·contribs) has been changing "programme" to "program" in various articles where British English naturally applies. They have used the edit summary "Incorrect. 'Programme' is not British spelling, it is a pretentious affectation". I have raised the edits on their talk page and their response was to say they will continue to make the edits, and to claim that the Oxford Dictionary prefers "program". I have checked the OED and it says " The forms programme and program have since become established as the standard British and U.S. spellings respectively, with the exception that program is usual everywhere in senses relating to computing". Taking all this into account I do not believe the user to be here to edit collaboratively or in good faith. DuncanHill (talk) 22:18, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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When I started editing Template:One Piece series overview a user named VillainofWiki reverted my edit and said "These are season names for the Japanese dvds"[94] and "I'm talking about the DVDs like Naruto Shippuden, not those the story arcs[95] in their edit summary, I got confused because the heading of column was "story arc" not season name then I changed it but user kept reverting my edits, I tried to solve this matter on user's talk page but they didn't listen when I gave them edit warning they abused me.[96]Yuu Haru Angelo (talk) 03:02, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Heraldrist is banned and has been blocked by the community
Heraldrist (talk) has been banned by the community as it seems it is a sockpuppet. So maybe, in Wikimedia Commons, Elcobbola blocked Heraldrist so maybe it is a sock of WikiLoverFan1007. In the English Wikipedia, Liz want to block the user, so it is can be a sockpuppet of the account. I see there is a HUGE accounts of Russavia, so Heraldrist is related to Russavia. Celbusro is maybe to be a sock in this way because in French Wikipedia, Celbusro will activated tomorrow. So in this way, Heraldrist is very similar to Russavia, while both Heraldrist and Russavia is interested in Russia and also the member of WikiProject Russia, WikiProject Airlines, and WikiProject Bhutan. Celbusro will blocked becuase he was inactive since September 5, 2020, and is reactivated in September 5, 2022, and was blocked in September 30, 2022. IndonesiaSquarepants (talk) 09:58, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
So you are asking for User:Heraldrist to be blocked as a sockpuppet of User:WikiLoverFan1007 because that is what has happened on Commons. And you are a self-confessed alternate account of Heraldrist? Does that sum it up? -- Malcolmxl5 (talk) 10:39, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I have blocked OP for WP:NOTHERE (putting a fake block notice on Heraldist page alone was enough for me). Will request a SPI to confirm this claim. RickinBaltimore (talk) 10:45, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Though, bizarrely, Heraldrist also put the banned sock notice on their own userpage ... [97]. Black Kite (talk) 10:49, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Noted that in the SPI I just filed. Not sure what is going on. (And it's way too early on a Sunday for me to be up to think about it). RickinBaltimore (talk) 10:52, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is a lame attempt at trolling, or Heraldrist's account has been hijacked. Either scenario warrants blocking both accounts. Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:23, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
User:Nightscream (a former administrator with a long record[98]) is still on a WP:POINTY roll (user history). If this was a legitimate cleanup campaign you would expect this user to participate in the cleanup they claim they want or let the Wikipedia process play out. But the users actions consist of continual WP:DE edit waring,[99][100][101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108] talk page WP:TEXTWALL/screeds/personal attacks[109][110], name calling (anyone with a contrary opinion is a "serial policy violator") [111][112][113], and modifying other editors talk to prove they were right/vindicated by admins
[114][115]. Several editors at reached a consensus at Talk:Radio (no sign of Nightscream with Nightscream chiming in once to point out how everybody else is wrong) and after a week of cleanup edits Nightscream came back without talk page comment and started reverting again[116][117][118]. Looks like a pattern of ramping up edit warring on the weekends when they know there is minimal administrative over-site. Its gotten to the point of WP:DAPE[119].
And it continues on, all other editors are "the violators", users of "shady tactics", to be ignored, and Nightscream has the blessing of admins re: "ANI already looked at my practices and ruled it "no violation""[120]. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 11:52, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the history of Radio, I see Nightscream removing large amounts of uncited material, and a number of editors - including yourself - simply putting it back without adding citations. WP:V is quite clear - "Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source." Meanwhile, there are claims that "talkpage consensus" overrides policy. No, it doesn't - sorry. So, why are you restoring huge swathes of uncited material? Black Kite (talk) 13:12, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Referring to other named experienced users as "serial policy violator"s in edit summaries is incivil. Ironically, this has even happened in response to an edit summary that already linked WP:ESDONTS. Nightscream, is there something unclear about the civility policy or can you agree not to do this again? ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:34, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)There appears to be some disagreement on this point even amongst administrators. This sort of behaviour has been brought here before and on previous occasions it is the material removers who have been blocked for being disruptive. The material in question is such that it is correct in what it says and can be found in almost any half decent book or encyclopaedia covering the subject (See WP:BLUE). I note that several of the editors in question are attempting to restore the material and cite it, but the position is being made difficult because Nightscream immediately deletes it again before the references can be added.
Nightscream regularly makes personal attacks on anyone who disagrees with him and will misrepresent complaints to bolster his position. As stated above, he claimed to have been taken to this board where his actions were vindicated (this is the first report AFAIK). This was patently false. He had been taken to WP:ANEW for edit warring where the result was no violation, which was only because he had not made more than three reverts (at the time of the report). 86.181.0.154 (talk) 13:36, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
You'll need to provide specific examples for supporting the "regularly" (and, strictly speaking, a huge amount of examples for the "anyone") in the second paragraph. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:38, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This list is not exhaustive, but I haven't got all day for this. 86.181.0.154 (talk) 13:57, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hm, they're all very recent. I had hoped for evidence for this being a long-term pattern, which your "regularly" seemed to imply. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:48, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
if it can easily be sourced to any reference book on the topic. add that book as a source before readding the content. Don't just restore with the lack of citation and then say you are working on sources, that's not the way it works on WP Masem (t) 13:39, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There are general references on the page that support material that was been removed. I agree that inline citations are best and required for quotes or content likely to be challenged, per WP:IC, but at least some of the material removed is practically WP:BLUE and not a matter of WP:OR. The existing citation needed tags were more helpful in flagging content concerns than the mass removal of content. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 15:06, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
if the general refs supported that, it would be trivial to add a named ref to fix it, but that does remain the onus of those wanting to retain the info particularly after it been flagged for some time. thats just being lazy to not fix. Masem (t) 15:16, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Which is part of the process that was happening when the latest wave of mass removal happened and something that the mass removal makes more difficult to fix. If there weren't active efforts going to address the issues, the claim of laziness might be valid, but there were editors working methodically to improve the sourcing when the latest wave of mass removal happened. That's not constructive. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 16:01, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot summon up much sympathy when those uncited paragraphs could easily be added back one at a time with a suitable citation, instead of a bunch of people blindly reverting them back and then not doing anything about the problem. This is not a difficult problem to solve - indeed, some users like LuckyLouie appear to be attempting to fix the issues by adding citations. Others seeingly can't be bothered to do anything but revert the uncited material back in, which is achieving nothing.Black Kite (talk) 13:47, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There is no deadline on this stuff and there were, at last count, three editors working on it. If you read the talk page we were all stepping on each others toes so I for one held back so other editors could finish their edits. Talk page consensus was to edit the live article to make cleanup way simpler, but then Nightscream's disruption started up again. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 14:16, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Again - consensus does not trump policy. WP:V is quite clear - don't add stuff back in without citations. If you can't be bothered to add the citations, don't add the material. This is basic Wikipedia 101 stuff. If there really were three editors "working" on those cn tags they would have been fixed in less than an hour. They've been there for months. Black Kite (talk) 16:54, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Please have a look at the talk page discussions (e.g. Talk:Radio#Sourcing_by_section, Talk:Phonograph_record#Uncited_material_in_need_of_citations) before making your less that an hour assessment of the situation. No matter how small the task is, it is made unnecessarily difficult by all the disruptive editing going on. If Nightscream's editing pattern is approved and widely applied, it would be an abrupt shift from WP:NODEADLINES to WP:NOW. We're likely going to achieve reduced engagement of some formerly productive editors. I have enough deadlines in the rest of my life and WP:NODEADLINES here is very attractive to me. If our work is unwelcome because we don't choose to spend significant pieces of our WP:VOLUNTEER time dragging out and formatting basic citations for uncontroversial material, please continue to support this editing pattern and we will leave you alone. ~Kvng (talk) 17:31, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If you haven't got time to add citations to uncontroversial material, I'm sure there will be someone else who has. I'm not particularly "approving" Nightscream's editing pattern, but I'm somewhat bemused that an article with large amounts of uncited material that could easily be cited is still uncited. Some people seem to have spent more time arguing with Nightscream that actually fixing the problems which would mean Nightscream no longer has anything to complain about. Black Kite (talk) 17:35, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In NODEADLINES I just can't find anything that suggest it's fine to reinstate large amounts of uncited material and just wait for the citations to be inserted later. This VOLUNTEER argument doesn't hold water: if our time is limited because we're volunteers but we can edit war over uncited material, have huge talk page discussions, and start ANI threads, then certainly we could have found the time to verify one section at a time and then reinstate it. If any of those sections had been reinserted with proper citations, we wouldn't be here, and Nightscream likely wouldn't have reverted. Drmies (talk) 17:39, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The issue here is not whether any one particular article might benefit from having more citations. Of course a great many articles would benefit.
Rather, the issue is Nightscream's behavior: the unwarranted fact-tagging activity taken up by Nightscream in the course of otherwise useful article improvements. For instance, at the radio article, Nightscream performed a series of edits in July, adding some good references and supported text, but also adding fact tags to the most basic stuff. Nightscream added a fact tag to the uncontroversial sentence "An omnidirectional antenna transmits or receives radio waves in all directions, while a directional antenna or high-gain antenna transmits radio waves in a beam in a particular direction, or receives waves from only one direction." Nobody at all questions whether this is true. The lowest level radio technician will know this.
"Nobody at all questions whether this is true. The lowest level radio technician will know this." See WP:NOTBLUE.
The issue is not whether anyone is questioning this. It is that policy from the highest levels on down has long been explicit and clear that sources need to be cited. (And by the way, most of humanity are not radio technicians). If that is so clear and uncontroversial then the Internet or any library should be overflowing with sources that could readily be cited.
In an age when a whole bunch of people can get together on the Internet to reinforce each other's convictions that the Earth is flat or that (closer to this topic) 5G signals can cause a global pandemic Wikipedians should be treating the sourcing requirement as if it were nothing less than brought down from the top of Mount Sinai, newly inscribed on stone tablets by the fiery hand of God. Daniel Case (talk) 19:14, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I get that we need to justify a statement that the sky is blue, but doesn't "omnidirectional" mean in all directions? Elemimele (talk) 20:51, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think it should be allowed to call those who persistently violate policies "serial policy violators." People here called me worse things and none of them were warned or blocked. The only mistake I can see here is to write a complaint for such petty issues.
Multiple warnings have been issued to an anonymous user 2600:1700:1161:CFC0:0:0:0:0/64 using multiple IP address from the same ISP/IP Block. This user was previously blocked in early May for adding vandalism and unsourced (false) content to articles. All edits seem to be focused on National Football League and World Wrestling Entertainment-related articles, deliberately adding a false information that is spelled incorrectly or not formatted appropriately.
I am reporting a series of conduct issues and WP:COMPETENCE concerns with Cmguy777. This editor and I have intersected with each other a few times because we both primarily edit articles about early United States history. I have observed a pattern of problematic behavior which I wish to bring to the community's attention.
Cmguy777 is the kind of editor to change "to" to "too" when "to" is correct. [131] This editor also adds "the" to sentences when it is totally unnecessary and will shorten paragraphs that are supposedly too long, and in the process leave a paragraph without a reference at the end. This was done to an article that this editor knew to be under featured article review. [132] Here is an example of them at the same article making tiny sections which contain content not covered in the section title. [133] Here he is adding random links an article when the links are already included in the text. [134] Cmguy777 is the most prominent recent editor of the Ulysses S. Grant article, a featured article. Cmguy777's continued addition of trivial content to the article is primarily responsible for the fact it now stands at a ridiculous 18,594 words. Search through the editing history from the last couple of years, and you will find him adding large amounts of content-more than any other editor-to an already long article. From a cursory glance, his excessive piling on of content seems to have more or less destroyed that article and made it a suitable candidate for featured article review.
On the Ulysses S. Grant talk page, Cmguy777 advocated removing mention of Grant being ranked poorly compared to other presidents from the article on the basis that historians who ranked him poorly were racist. [135] That appears to be an example of attempting to censor scholarly voices because of personal bias.
There is an ongoing content dispute at Andrew Jacksone. Cmguy777 has been heavily involved in the dispute, despite admitting (upon being asked), that a 20-page summary of Jackson's presidency by historian Richard B. Latner in a larger work about presidents, which he kept trying to promote both in the article and on the talk page, was the only scholarly source that he had read about Jackson. This editor's behavior there has been, from start to finish, atrocious. The issues at this article center around allegations made by some editors that the article is too favorable to Jackson. Cmguy777 added an unfavorable assessment of him to the Legacy section. However, what he chose did not come from a book. Instead, he dedicated a new paragraph to a single-sentence summary of a Vox article written by a non-scholar. [136] There were entire books on Jackson written by scholars that didn't receive that much attention. He also added a citation to the page in the Bibliography [137] even though the Bibliography is clearly only for monographs, not websites. After the source was removed from the Bibliography, Cmguy777 went on the talk page to shriek hysterically about censorship. [138] When told that the work should not be used because it was not written by a historical expert, he made an absurd comparison to Ken Burns' Civil War documentary, as if that and this random Vox article were of similar importance. [139] After this was removed, Cmguy777 added a critical assessment of Jackson from the Latner source. [140] Part of the content that he added was a sentence saying that Jackson was hostile to abolitionism. I told him that the sentence should be replaced because it did not say anything about Jackson's legacy but simply repeated a basic fact that was already mentioned earlier in the article. Instead, Cmguy accused me of having an issue with Latner. I tried to explain multiple times that my problem was not with Latner but with the sentence, but he wouldn't listen, and despite my protests, continually accused me of having a bias against the source, while also making broad statements about Jackson and slavery that had nothing to do with the conversation. [141][142][143][144] It's impossible to communicate with an editor who behaves like that.
An RfC was started on the talk page about whether to describe Jackson's Indian removal policies as "forced removal" or "ethnic cleansing." Cmguy777 disrupted it by posting off-topic and inaccurate statements about Jackson supposedly defying the Supreme Court by removing the Indians. However, the Supreme Court never ordered Jackson to do or not to do anything concerning Indian removal, so the statement was not correct. Not only that, but Cmguy posted these comments, which were not related to the subject in the RfC, in the section of the talk page devoted to the RfC, and did so in multiple different spaces, breaking the flow of comments. [145][146][147][148] An editor respectfully pointed out this problem on his talk page, [149] and he neither responded nor did anything to fix it. I went to Cmguy777's talk page to complain about these edits. Trying to justify his false claim that Jackson defied the Supreme Court, he said that our article on Jackson says that he did not enforce the Court's ruling. It was a misleading statement, because the article says, in reference to a Supreme Court ruling invalidating a Georgia law preventing whites from entering Native American lands, that Jackson did not enforce it because there was nothing to enforce. [150] I pointed this out, and he responded by accusing me of harassing him. [151]
Back on the Andrew Jackson talk page, Cmguy777 made a post seemingly accusing those disagreeing with his position on the article as being white supremacists. To his credit, he later struck this statement when an editor advised him to do so. Here is the diff: [152] In typical Cmguy777 fashion, the edit was placed beneath an unrelated comment rather than the comment to which he was responding, making it difficult to follow the conversation.
Cmguy777 has engaged in disruptive editing at the article by twice adding material that was being debated on the talk page to the article without consensus or prior discussion. [153][154] Most recently, I started a new section with a proposal to try to resolve issues with one of the sentences in the lead. [155] Cmguy777 posted a message in response which basically ignored the proposal and instead contained, in a typical manifestation of that editor's behavior, unfocused ramblings about various aspects of Jackson's life with no clear suggestion for improving the article. [156] I was trying to find a solution to disputed material in the article. Edits like these distract from such attempts and keep disputes active after they should have ended.
In sum, Cmguy777's edits to articles are disruptive and unhelpful. Talking to Cmguy777 is extremely painful because they either cannot or will not engage in rational discussion. I believe that this editor is either a troll or there is a COMPETENCE issue that simply makes them incapable of productive edits or reasonable discussion. Perhaps it is some combination. The scary part is that they have been here since 2009, so this isn't some new editor who is just figuring things out. Whatever the reason for their misbehavior is, they should not be allowed to continue disrupting Wikipedia like this. I propose a block from editing or at least a strong warning to desist against future disruptive behavior and to encourage constructive discussion on talk pages. Display name 99 (talk) 20:31, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
--Kasper2006 (talk) 16:49, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
User(s) blocked. 1 week. pending further discussion.-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 14:30, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
Blocked x 1 week for disruptive editing. -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:31, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
Warned user.. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:29, 4 September 2022 (UTC)