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Movement Charter Drafting Committee

Looking over the current list of people applying to serve on the Movement Drafting Committee, I see that there isn't anyone yet whose home wiki is English Wikipedia applying. There's still plenty of time to apply - the deadline is September 1. In my opinion this work is one of the most important things that has ever happened in the Wikimedia movement. We don't just need good people, we need fantastic people serving on this committee because I think it's going to pretty substantially change how individual projects work and how projects interact with the Foundation. So this is my plea for the many fantastic people we have on this project to put their names forward. Wikipedia and Wikimedia needs you. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:06, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

What exactly does this stuff mean? Maybe it's just me but a lot of the pages read really opaque. Is there a TLDR (Simple English-wiki style and no marketing speak) of the whole Movement Charter / Global Council / Drafting Groups / Interim Committees / Movement Strategy / etc stuff? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:14, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: this is an excellent point and one I have raised, several times, with the foundation. There is so much going on confusion is bound to happen. Let me try to do my simple explanation in the collapsed box below. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:08, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Movement strategy 101

There was a multi-year process of strategic planning which lead to the creation of the Movement strategy (sometimes called the 2030 Movement Strategy which reflects the end of this strategic plan). In 10 general areas there were 45 recommendations made. Earlier this year there was a process which narrowed those 45 to 8 that were going to happen first. You can see those 8 on the strategy page. One of those 8 prioritized initiatives is to have a Movement Charter. I think of this as our constitution (or at minimum our Magna Carta). The group that is accepting applications now are the ones that will write that movement charter. So this is where we are in the process. In an earlier version this group had been called the Interim Global Council. That's because we know from Movement strategy that there will be a Global Council, which will be a global structure that responds to the needs of our Movement as a whole and represents communities in an equitable way. It is expected that the Movement Charter will describe that body, including how it is composed and what "powers" and responsibilities it will have. On a different track from this FRAM happened. Following that the Board mandated some changes one of which is the Universale Code of Conduct (UCoC). The text of the UCoC has been approved. Currently a committee, which I am a part of, is working on drafting language for how the UCoC will be enforced. I hope that helps explain the many different terms that you've mentioned. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:08, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Barkeep49, this is helpful. I know it's not written yet, but as an example what kinds of things will be in this Magna Carta (separate from the enforcement portion of the UCoC)? At least to the extent that it will affect English Wikipedia. The meta page makes gives me ideas on how it might affect affiliates etc, but not much about what it would mean for this project. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:37, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

It is very open at this point. In any case, the charter must be drafted before the Global Council elections because it will specify what the authority of the Global Council is. It is difficult to predict how this is going to affect the individual project, UCoC may be or may not be part of it (my guess is that probably not), and I do not think it can specify anything which communities typically decide now on the global level (certainly not policies etc).--Ymblanter (talk) 09:48, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Kevin touches on some of how this could impact English Wikipedia below but I suspect we'll be told that we need to go through the global council for things like editors using the apps being unable to get notifications. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:43, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Oh I see. It sounds quite important then. Certainly I'd like to see the problems experienced by editors have more representation in technical decision-making and resource prioritisation beyond the current "make a phab request" and/or "use the annual community wishlist". Ditto for grant-making. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:02, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

One thing is that the requirements might be somewhat troublesome for some people who are thinking of applying. " Not be under active sanctions by any Wikimedia project or the Wikimedia Foundation, including events ban. "If that wording is taken literally, it would disqualify anyone under any sort of restriction, including interaction bans.( I have no clue what events ban means) Candidates also have to submit proof of real life identity. I hope that at least one non-admin community member and at least one well respected admin and/or functionary applies, so that ENWP gets representation on the committee. ( Note that if there are 20 or more applicants, there will be a popular election for 7 spots with no more than two members elected from each project.)Jackattack1597 (talk) 17:58, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Before the recent disaster, I considered applying (especially since I invested quite some time and effort to get this happened), but figured out that one of the requirements was being active in the governance of some sort of non-profit organization, and I decided not to bother.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:04, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

@Ymblanter (and others) the only requirements are listed here. I think you're referencing the Candidate Profile which has a "no one can be all of these things" statement. I can say from my application to the UCoC enforcement committee there was a similar statement, I didn't meet all the profile statements and still got chosen. I would not let the non-profit governance statement deter you. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:47, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Now I will not apply anyway, I have not yet fully recovered from the medical emergency. May be by the end of August I will be feeling better.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:49, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

I want to +1 this – we absolutely need the best possible people we can find for this role. The Movement Charter probably has the most long-term importance out of all the strategy work that is happening now and is expected to do most or all of the following:

1. define community-WMF relations, and what the Wikimedia movement is (who it comprises)
2. decide how a Global Council should be composed and selected: e.g. election, appointment by WMF, affiliate selection, etc.
3. define the powers of the Global Council, which could likely include global policymaking authority, ability to represent the community to the WMF, some substantial budget (for staffing the Council and/or for grantmaking), appointment or advisory power over other committees or community bodies, and similar "community representative" functions.

Given that WMF is requiring the global community to adopt a Movement Charter, we really need to get it right. If you're reading this and thinking "ugh, I'd be good at that but I wish someone else does this instead", I hate to break it to you – you are exactly the kind of person we need on this committee. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 23:20, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

If anyone believes that the WMF will really take into consideration whatever this committee decides that could be disagreeing with what the WMF actually wants, then by all means apply. Judging from recent events (from the branding fiasco, passing by what they did with the input about the UCOC, to the current situation with the utter disrespect given to the community questions at the elections (first the community input was completely disregarded, then after much protest the community questions were appended to the bottom of the documentation, far removed from the WMF-approved questions), not to mention things like the IP masking situation), the presence of community members will only be used to claim that whatever they decide is "community-proposed" or "community-supported" and that no further discussion will be possible. Fram (talk) 10:08, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

As I understand it the election committee is responsible for that question debacle and that's a group of volunteers. And the UCoC text was written by a committee largely composed of volunteers. And I share your concern about how the global council could be used. Which is one reason I think it so important to get right. If the best people sit it out based on some sense of fatalism it definitely won't happen. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 13:40, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

At least the move to the bottom of documentation was done by a WMF staffer, not by a volunteer. To be precise, the "Movement Strategy & Governance Facilitator", who I guess will be involved with the Movement Charter draft. Fram (talk) 14:08, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Drafting is always done by the WMF staff, just because it can not be done by volunteers. (For example, it has to be approved by the legal). However, in the drafting I participated in we (volunteers) provided original ideas and then commented on the draft. The result was typically good. I guess Barkeep49 has more experience with the UCoC, but their experience are probably similar to mine. This is in a stark difference with the example the rebranding where volunteers were not asked to give input in any way (either as a selected organized team, or as a community), and this is why rebranding was such a disaster.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:53, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

In some previous rounds of the Movement Strategy discussions the drafting genuinely was done by committee members. But otherwise I agree with Ymblanter, the situation with the strategy process (and I believe the UCoC, though I wasn't involved in that myself) is very different to that with e.g. the branding debacle. (Disclaimer: I am now a candidate for the charter drafting group). The Land (talk) 16:46, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it's a full picture to say the Election Committee is a group of volunteers. I mean it's true, and they're likely excellent volunteers, but it's an appointed body. Apologies for the slightly disrespectful analogy, but it's a bit like a dictator inhabiting the White House claiming to represent the American people because he's also an American... If a person isn't selected by the community, then he doesn't represent the community and isn't accountable to it. Compare the WMF ElectCom fiasco with English Wikipedia's Election Committee who are elected - I'd be very surprised if any of them ignored a serious question for seven weeks (and it appears the WMF ElectCom do not intend to answer it at all). Indeed, I remember our ElectCom being highly responsive in 2020, eg with this mess. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:10, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

This was a big deal of a discussion between many parties leading to this decision. I personally supported an concept of an appointed body, just because it will produce the charter faster, probably of the same quality, and the diversity can be adjusted. The only purpose of the body is to draft the chapter, not to make any decisions, and I do not think it has to be elected. There are different opinions of course, quite of few of us participated in the discussions.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:57, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

[Firstly, disclosure: I am a MCDC candidate] - As Ymblanter says, there was a significant disagreement on the makeup of the MCDC. Because framing is important, despite as aggressive a ratification method as I can get (whether in the MCDC or not), I was one of those on the opposite side of the "pure appointed" route - I wrote the most elected-heavy proposal for the drafting committee. Pharos wrote a more compromise one, and Quim (WMF) wrote the appointed one. He also wrote, the compromise solution that is very similar to the final form, and then a few tweaks were incorporated from feedback from others with an interest. I felt it was a good compromise - it was a huge shift from the WMF's original form, and so I backed it. I am also appalled with ElectCom's complete disregard to communicate - they need to be both elected, and there needs to be a community method to bring them to task for woeful and ongoing failures to communicate. As you say, en-wiki ARBCOM election commission is a less crucial, temporary, body, and is still more responsive. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:44, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

@Fram: Can you please elaborate on "passing by what they did with the input about the UCOC"? I'm having trouble parsing it. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 01:22, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I mean "ignoring", "not even mentioning" what they did. Probably some idiom I translated into English but which doesn't work in that language :-) "Don't get me started on what they did with..." would have been better I suppose. Fram (talk) 10:24, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

One of the problems with participating in drafting a Movement Charter is that one has to believe that there should be a Movement Charter and that this is a "movement." I'm one of those editors who is here to "build an encyclopedia," not to participate in a "free knowledge movement" or any other kind of "movement." Further, I think calling what we do a "movement," or calling any organized activity of people a "movement," equates it with real movements like the civil rights movement or women's rights movement, which is highly inappropriate (and frankly the kind of thing only a very white, very male group of people would do). So I hope anyone representing us on the Movement Charter Drafting Committee would raise the issue of "stop calling it a movement," but I think I'm in the minority when it comes to this viewpoint. Levivich 16:00, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Much as it may pain me to utter these words, I must say that I am in full agreement with Levivich here. This is an encyclopedia whose content is owned by its writers, not a "movement" owned by the WMF, which only exists to support the projects that have chosen to be hosted by it. This is just one more example of how Foundation employees seem to think that they own the encyclopedia. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:48, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm still not entirely sure what the Charter is going to govern. Will it have an impact on editorial decisions? Sourcing guidelines? Will it govern the creation of new projects? Is it going to advise the WMF on how best to grow the project in regions and languages where the encyclopedia is lacking in content? We already have a separate new "code of conduct" group, so I assume it's not doing that. And it certainly is not going to be filled with lawyers who would be wanting to comment on WMF legal recommendations. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 17:43, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

The charter is supposed to describe relations between different groups, such as the WMF, the affiliates, and the projects. It is not going to impact things like sourcing guidelines.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:56, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

If this charter is a "who we are, why we are here and what we are doing" document, I wish I could be part of the discussion, but it sounds like this is for foundation people?

Also, does Global Council = over-arching arbcom for all of wikimedia? - jc37 18:03, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

ArbCom is not a policy making body. The Global Council will (almost certainly) be a policy making body, though more at the level Ymblanter describes above in response to power. A global ArbCom is a possible outcome of the UCoC enforcement work. There will soon be a chance to give feedback on that very idea and if you have thoughts on whether there should or shouldn't be a global ArbCom I hope you participate in that process. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:31, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I know I'm one of those darned meta people, but to me this legitimately looks like an attempt by the WMF to involve the community more in issues of global governance. They could full well just continue to handle movement-wide issues on their end or with affiliates, but instead they're taking a committee of (elected) volunteer community members to write up a charter to handle global community issues. And, at the very least, the WMF has lately given a significant degree of freedom to the volunteers involved in these sort of committees. I don't really see sufficient reason for the end-of-the-world type ideas expressed in this section, and though the worst case scenario can definitely be quite bad for community independence, that seems quite unlikely considering the current documentation available on Meta-Wiki. Though perhaps I am too quick to assume good faith with the WMF. Best, Vermont (talk) 00:44, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Contingency plans

• I've been thinking this for a while, and maybe it's time to stick my head over the parapet and say it: We need an exit strategy. I mean, of course we all hope that the WMF's (many) new directions and initiatives are going to be inspiring and brilliant, but historically they haven't always been, and some of the more controlling aspects of their behaviour are starting to worry me (and others). I think it's only prudent for our community to have a backup plan. Which, to my poorly-IT-literate brain, probably means a fork?—S Marshall T/C 16:10, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  For reasons I discuss at my essay, Death of Wikipedia, I think a fork, even a really organized one that gets a lot of us that are most active, is doomed to fail. This new fork would have to operate for quite some time before it might start regularly appearing above Wikipedia in Google results or AI assisted searches. It would take a while for our readers to figure out that Wikipedia's quality has diminished. And, if I'm being particularly cynical or maybe just realistic, it's possible some of the readers would never figure out that the information they're getting isn't what it once was. I suspect that if there was a foundation based schism some people would just stop volunteering their time for encyclopedic work, while most of the people who kept volunteering their time would end up returning to Wikipedia. We need Wikipedia more than Wikipedia needs us. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:29, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  Even from the early aughts, WikiTheorists recognized that forking Wikipedia would be a non-trivial and likely futile task compared to other wikis and FOSS projects. See the discussion at meatball:WikiPediaIsNotTypical from around 2003 (dated by references to the rename of Phase III to MediaWiki which occurred in 2003) — Wug·a·po·des​ 17:25, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

• The exit strategy isn't "fork," it's "revolution." Vote in the trustee elections for trustees who share your views. The community needs to maintain control over whomever owns the servers. If we find new server-operators to replace the WMF, we'll still need to control them, so there's not much point in doing it. Just exercise the control we already have (by voting for trustees who share our views). Levivich 17:19, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  We don't have that control over the WMF and never will. If the WMF serves us up a shit sandwich, our choices are to eat it and smile, to abandon encyclopaedia writing, or to fork.—S Marshall T/C 17:29, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  How do you reconcile that conclusion with the fact that we elect a majority of trustees? If the WMF serves up a shit sandwich, one choice we have is to put in different trustees who will serve us a better tasting sandwich. Levivich 17:44, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  The rebranding was an example of a shit sandwich, and I do not think we have eaten it.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:58, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  If they served up a particularly bad sandwich, we could just choose not to eat it and play chicken (game) with the WMF. Yes, they have the servers, but I image we've got the technical ability in the community to attempt some work-arounds with the software. Will WMF sink their flagship? I'm not so sure ... Hog Farm _Talk 18:00, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  North8000 (talk) 19:42, 6 August 2021 (UTC) That's putting it mildly. Wikipedia is more than WMF's flagship, it's the sole ship which supports them, their ivory tower, and all of their other hobbies.North8000 (talk) 11:55, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

  I agree with this in theory. In reality the recent questions debacle shows the difficulties of even being able to figure out which trustees share views on issues we consider dealbreakers when it comes to voting. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:26, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  ...which, I say, is our fault and not the WMF's. It's a bit of an indictment of the health of community governance that the candidates themselves can't communicate their own positions to us effectively. Or that we don't have enough candidates who can. Fundamentally, we're not communicating well with our own representatives. There's very little participation in the process. But we have a deep well of potential trustee candidates, in my opinion. I would vote for literally every single editor in this thread to be trustee if they ran. But almost no one wants to run (including me). That's the fundamental problem. More heresy from Levivich: We should pay trustees; that will increase the candidate pool. Levivich 18:37, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  I'm concerned that only 5 (out of a total of 20) candidates decided to answer at least one community question. I have two possible explanations: 1) they either didn't know about them; or 2) they decided it wasn't important. Both, to me as a voter, indicate a serious communication concern incompatible with the position of community-elected trustee. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:53, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  I noticed some of the candidates addressed concerns raised in the community questions in their answers to the WMF-selected questions. Levivich 19:19, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  Levivich isn't wrong about this. There is a figure for which I'd do that job, but it is not zero.—S Marshall T/C 18:55, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

A strategy for Wikipedia to fire WMF might make WMF improve. Including changing the ridiculous by-laws which make the elections a "talk to the hand" situation. Imagine if the US Senate had supreme power over the US. And with a 51% vote they could rewrite the US constitution any way that they wanted. And they already decided that a big portion of the Senate is self-appointed by them, and they decide the election rules for joining their club. And with a 51% vote that coudl expell any Senator that they didn't like. Believe it or not, that is the fundamentally flawed structure of the WMF bylaws.North8000 (talk) 19:32, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

A thought

I look at this bureaucracy-building at the WMF level, and I'm trying to step back and see "why".

I could presume all sorts of wheel spinning, wool gathering, and people just doing "something" for "feel-good" reasons, or even just to say that they did "something".

But I think that this could possible be more than that. I think the universal CoC is the key to figuring this out.

I am not a lawyer, but I think, if we look undermeath, this may well be about fear of types of liability, legal or even really merely just perceived.

Things like the 230 debates, or that certain social media companies are adding commitees to review content and/or user interaction, in order to buffer against corporate liability, and so on.

But if so, in my opinion we already have oversighters and ombudsmen. Do we really need all this?

We are an encyclopedia project. It's starting to feel like someone out there thinks that we need to become the Federation of Planets. Jimbo Wales is not Hari Seldon, and we are not Terminus, starting the next Galactic Empire.

So what's going on? And is this what we want, much less need? I know I am just one small voice out in the wilderness, but where are we really going from here? - jc37 19:39, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I think that what is going on is that many people employed by the WMF think that they own a social media site, and are acting accordingly, rather than realise the reality that their job is to provide support to an encyclopedia that is owned by its writers. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:55, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

They do own a social media site. They're hosts for user-submitted content so they're subject to the same legal pressures as facebook et al.—S Marshall T/C 19:59, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

They are employees, not owners. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:16, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Who owns what is a really key point in all this. I will probably expand on this later but we lose sight of who owns the platform (the WMF), who owns the content (everyone), and who owns the distribution system that delivers the content from the platform to the readers (Google, Apple, Amazon, etc.). Each is a separate and distinct role in the knowledge ecosystem (now I sound like I work for the WMF). Levivich 20:24, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Somehow I distrust any organization that raises the banner: a global structure that responds to the needs of our Movement rather than, say, the users or the needers—or peoples. – Neonorange (talk to Phil) (he, him) 15:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

At least in terms of the UCOC, the staffers involved are very much well aware of their role, especially given that many were volunteers prior to becoming employees. Vermont (talk) 00:33, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

If you're looking at the Movement Charter and Global Council and wondering 'what is the point of these', allow me to summarise - as one of the people who wrote the recommendations that led to these.

Basically, the relationships between all different parts of Wikimedia are something of a mess. The WMF and project communities, including ours, have very different expectations about who is supposed to do what. Even where there is a shared understanding, it's rarely written down anywhere and is easily forgotten on one side or another. These conflicting expectations cause friction, arguments, and lack of trust. There are also not that many channels of communication between different parts of the movement. If the English Wikipedia and the WMF need to have a conversation, how does that conversation happen? Not very effectively at the moment. And this is just the English Wikipedia and the WMF! When you add the hundreds of other projects and dozens of other Wikimedia organisations, the levels of confusion, unclarity and mistrust grow even higher.

Hence the idea of a Movement Charter to document the constitution of the Wikimedia movement (so to speak), and a Global Council to provide a forum for structured discussions and accountability all round. I hope that helps... The Land (talk) 11:15, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia heirarchy differentiation

I believe Wikipedia will eventually surpass The Bible as the most-copied English-language text, both in frequency and duration. (4021 CE: Scholars confirm Levivich was right.) In thinking about how to preserve and sustain Wikipedia in the long term, it's important to understand the difference between the content, the platform, and the distribution. Like Wikipedia, the content of the Bible was written by many different people, copied onto many different platforms (papyrus, parchment, paper, hard drives), and distributed by different organizations and people (book stores, churches). With Wikipedia:

• The content of Wikipedia is the text that the reader reads, and it is what is copied by Wikipedia mirrors.
• The platform is MediaWiki, hosted on web servers controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation. In our case, MediaWiki is essentially the same platform that stores the "official copy" (the Wikipedia database), that we use to edit that official copy (editing user interfaces like Visual Editor), that we use to communicate with each other about changes to the official copy (talk pages), and that readers use to read the content (the website user interfaces). All of our wikitext, templates, modules, scripts, style sheets, etc., are part of the platform, not the content.
• The distribution – how readers access the content – is mostly via other entities such as Google, Apple (Siri), Amazon (Amazon Alexa), and other tech companies. (A minority of readers access the content via the platform directly, e.g. by visiting the main page at en.wikipedia.org and searching from there.)
• The content community of people who write the content is a self-governing, leaderless, autonomous collective that operates by consensus. This is the part that no one thought would actually work, but somehow it does.
• The content community puts the development, operation, and maintenance of the platform into the hands to the WMF, with results that many (most?) in the community are not satisfied with. The WMF also regulates how the content can be distributed from the platform by distributors like tech companies (e.g., m:Wikimedia Enterprise).
• When the WMF tries to govern the community, the community objects, because the community believes the WMF should serve the community, and that the community governs itself.

"Forking" means finding a new platform for the official copy of the content. And the key to that isn't the WMF or the trademark Wikipedia or the domain wikipedia.org or the servers or MediaWiki software, it's the distribution. The fork needs to work with Google, etc., in order for readers to be able to access the fork content. That is, the distributors need to know that the fork is the "official" copy. If Google switches from using wikipedia.org to using wikipedia-fork.org, then the fork will succeed. If not, then a fork will fail. One thing I think we should do for our long-term success is to split up the following, so it's not all under one organization's (the WMF) control: (1) control of donations, (2) control of the database that holds the official copy and regulates access to that official copy (e.g., dealing with distributors), (3) development and maintenance of user interfaces for reading/editing/communication, and (4) representing/supporting/growing the content community. Levivich 21:36, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

I think you're largely right. But I also see no big incentive for Google to swap. I suppose Google would swap over to a fork if it turned out en.wikipedia.org had reliability issues to the point of making all those "This information is fetched from Wikipedia" boxes filled with inaccuracies, and if the vandal/legitimate edits ratio became > 1. There's also the widespread branding of the "Wikipedia" trademark, which itself draws contributions, and that would be hard to replace.

It's not exactly the same thing but see Wikitravel vis-a-vis Wikivoyage. It seems it takes a lot of time and energy to sink a ship even when the operator decides to run it into a rock. (that is, dissatisfaction related to long-standing discontent at poor hosting, poor site updates, and excessive monetization and advertising, and eventually, interference by Internet Brands in the community's activities in breach of prior agreements and understandings.) With Wikitravel, I believe the community migrated to Wikivoyage 9 years ago (not before some contributors were sued for "civil conspiracy") and now it's about even in Alexa pagerank. Wikitravel still has better ranking for keywords, especially for the more competitive ones.

Realistically, for a sustainable community-based fork to appear, the WMF would need to do a series of catastrophic failures in every department that led to a situation so awful that the silent majority of the community had no choice but to migrate. And then there would be a test of how long that energy (on a fork) can be retained. At any point a minor concession by the WMF would be likely to draw editors back. Still, the most realistic idea for a fork I saw was at User_talk:Iridescent/Archive_43#How_to_kill_a_wiki. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:21, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

LibreOffice managed this transition successfully when it forked off OpenOffice. The tech journalists reported the fork, because it was a big deal and it mattered, and the users soon cottoned on and adapted to the new name. And we have the tools to inform our readers of the switch.—S Marshall T/C 22:48, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Huh, I still know it as OpenOffice, I'd search for OpenOffice and I'd head to https://www.openoffice.org and use OpenOffice. The Audacity fork on the other hand.. ~TNT (she/her • talk) 22:55, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

An alternative arrangement might be to have a "Wikipedia Trust" that receives, maintains (invests), and spends donations, under legally-enforceable restrictions spelled out in its trust instrument. For example, the first XXX dollars might be earmarked for web hosting (cf. m:Wikimedia Endowment), and any surplus funds spent only by direction of a separate Editors Union that represents the interests of the content-creating community. The Union can have Working Groups that prepare Resolutions and present them for a vote of the Union membership. For example, Resolutions might authorize the Trust to spend money on short-term projects (like hosting a Wikimania) or long-term projects (establishment of a "Wikipedia Labs" that develops software). Under this structure, money would be spent on discrete projects with clear and finite budgets, and only after the community (via the Editors Union) approves it. Levivich 02:43, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

• Out of curiosity, Levivich, how does your suggested "Editors Union" differ from the proposed Global Council? And do you really think that there's any real chance that a union membership of somewhere around 100,000 people is really an efficient or effective way of distributing funds? Will not the largest blocs of editors (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian projects) not wind up showing a degree of self-interest that pretty much replicates the inequities of the current process? Do you think that the vast majority of editors cares about most of this stuff? I mean...we have a hard enough time finding sufficient good candidates for Arbcom amongst 30,000 regular editors on this project, do you think we're going to be getting a lot of people "voting" on whether or not to invest in (for example) editor development in Kenya, or purchasing licenses to upgrade the Mailman system, or outreach to GLAM institutions in Southern India? Risker (talk) 06:01, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

  I'm not sure why it matters if the Union is exactly like the Council or not at all similar or something in between. I doubt the Union would reach 100k voting members (we've never had that many people vote on anything), but there are international unions with 100 million members and they still function so I think we'll be able to manage enrollment. I don't think the vast majority of editors care to get involved in the details of this stuff, and I don't see the majority doing any of the specific things you list, but I do see ~10 editors who would want to join Working Groups that draft Resolutions to have the Trust fund a Kenya Project, a Mailman Project, and a GLAM Project, and I see ~1,000 editors who would want to vote on whether to ratify those Resolutions. Levivich 06:46, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

  So a bit like a Cooperative? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:05, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

• Another aspect of forking is of course that there is a good reason why WMF exist. Even if the project gets forked, none of the users want to go to jail or be exposed to huge legal expenses, and this is why one needs legal. And then one figures out that legal costs money, and one suddenly needs a financial department and a funding department, and then soon we have the WMF 2.0. Even assuming most people who want to fork only want to fork the English Wikipedia, if we can not really built reasonable relations with the WMF 1.0 at the times which were favorable for creation of non-profits, why does anybody think the forked project will build thye WMF 2.0 more successfully? I have seen indeed some ideas how it could be done, but I do not think any of those I have seen was in any way realistic.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:52, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

• My two cents:

1. It's natural for organizations to want to grow and expand based on whatever platforms they have, and that often leads them in unexpected directions. There are well known examples in both the OSS and the commercial worlds (Eclipse, Apache, Mozilla; and Nokia, AT&T and Samsung, respectively). Whether they turn into a bureaucracy or not depends mostly on how lean they keep their administration; indeed, a common metric for the efficiency of NGOs is how much they spend on administration and fundraising vs. on services and donations.
2. I may not relate to this expansion myself - I'd rather the WMF spent some time modernizing MW instead - but I do think it needs its mandate a redefined, given how "spread out" it has become and the potential conflicts it might have because of it.
3. Forking is not a viable option at the foreseeable future. Several initiatives have gone this route, and none is even close to replacing Wikipedia. The main hurdles are upkeep and traffic, and both translate to a huge initial investment (probably in the tens of millions of USD, but I'm no expert). Perhaps it would be a viable option in the future, but at the moment it isn't.
4. If you want to affect change in the WMF you indeed need to organized: contact the leadership of other wikipedias, define a common set of values and goals, then put people on the board (or committee, or whatever) that can affect it. You want those people to have managerial experience; being accomplished wikipedians is all swell, but lawyers, accountants, and experts in public administration are the ones who'll know how to turn your ideas into something actionable.

Cheers. François Robere (talk) 16:19, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Questions About Movement Charter Drafting Committee

I came in a few days late because I am not always following this noticeboard, and am more interested in keeping the maintenance of the encyclopedia orderly than in something that calls itself a movement. (The International Olympic Committee is the organization that coordinates the Olympic Movement. We have varying opinions about the IOC and the games that are designated by the year when they were not played.) I have a few comments and questions that I hope are not considered stupid questions. They may have already been answered, but I have been trying to review drafts and mediate content disputes. I see that User:ProcrastinatingReader has also asked for a plain-language overview, so I am not alone.

First, User:Barkeep49 says that: "We don't just need good people; we need fantastic people serving on this committee". I hope that Barkeep49 can explain what they want in a realistic way, because one definition of fantastic people is people in fantasy literature, such as superheroes, and we won't get the people. So what will this committee do in the real world that does not require superpowers or the pretense of superpowers? Will the committee actually change the business processes of building the encyclopedias (in multiple languages) including the English encyclopedia, as opposed to rubber-stamping the grandiose plans of the WMF, or giving wise advice to the WMF that is ignored? (The latter would be better than nothing, but hardly seems to call for superheroes.)

Second, perhaps this question is a distraction, but there is mention of a rebranding debacle or rebranding scandal. I may have been too busy trying to mediate a content dispute or reviewing drafts, so I wasn't reading the newspaper, and don't know what this failure was. Who tried to rebrand what? Is this documented somewhere that I can read?

Third, the committee will only affect the English Wikipedia to the extent that it will change the relationship between the WMF and the encyclopedia. That relationship has mostly been one of providing and administering an infrastructure of servers and software, watching and sharing in credit, with behind-the-scenes almost-invisible dirty work of banning rogues, and occasional stupid forays into the arbitrary exercise of power such as the User:Fram episode. The underlying legal basis is that the WMF owns the servers, and the encyclopedia has a copyleft, and any community that has access to servers is able to host the encyclopedia. What evidence is there that the WMF actually wants to evolve?

Fourth, what is or will be the purpose of this movement?

I think those are my late questions for now. Why do we think that an advisory committee may have or use superpowers? What exactly will the advisory committee do that doesn't involve superpowers? Robert McClenon (talk) 16:06, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Robert, I was using the "excellent, superlative" definition of the word fantastic. In terms of your other questions, a lot of of it has been covered above but will highlight Kevin's reply from 23:20, 5 August 2021 and my reply from 13:43, 6 August 2021 as possible starting points. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:09, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Recent proxy blocks

As some folks may have noticed, there has been a major uptick in short open proxy blocks by ST47ProxyBot lately. Now that the block infrastructure is in place, it's time for some explanation. We have had a lot of issues lately with a type of proxy called a "peer-to-peer" or "residential" proxy. In short, unlike normal VPNs (where your internet traffic goes into a datacenter somewhere and is forwarded from there to its destination), peer-to-peer proxies route traffic through normal peoples' internet connections. Some of these are known to the person doing the proxying (for example, some services route traffic through all of their users) while others might not be (compromised devices or shady smartphone apps can turn you into an exit point). Since these exit points are mostly on residential networks, they tend to have rather dynamic IPs, so we can't always perform long blocks on them. A small group of editors has recently been given access to a data feed from Spur ([spur.us]) that identifies IPs belonging to some peer-to-peer proxy services, and this data feed is being used to hardblock these proxies both on enwiki and globally. What you need to know:

• These proxies have been a huge issue. I don't want to go into too much detail here per WP:BEANS (though I'm happy to email trusted editors with additional details), but we have had a lot of issues with very nasty folks using these proxies. I have personally dealt with some of them editing as IPs, and I believe the checkuser team can confirm that they have seen abusive accounts using these services. Until now, we've always been reacting - blocking an IP after the fact. Now, we are able to block these IPs before they are abused.
• It's hard to identify these proxies. A lot of existing proxy detection tools won't be able to identify these endpoints as belonging to peer-to-peer proxy services. If you think that one of these blocks was made by mistake, contact a CheckUser or make a request at WP:WPOP (checkusers and several WPOP members have access to a service that can identify them), but we are very confident in our data source here.
• We trust the data. Some proxy-detection services are well-known at WP:WPOP for being questionably reliable. In this case, we have worked directly with Spur to develop a detection method and have spot-checked results ourselves.
• There will be teething issues. This has been a quick turnaround effort to deal with a major uptick in abuse. We've done a lot of monitoring and sanity checks, but nothing is perfect the first go-round. We will be actively keeping an eye on everything and fixing issues as they come up.
• There will be a lot of churn in these blocks. The nature of residential proxies means that devices will move around and dynamic IPs will be dynamic IPs. This means that the blocks will necessarily be short (though the bot can do escalating block durations when it sees proxies pop up on the same IP multiple times) and that something that was marked as a proxy one day might not be a proxy a couple days later.
• There will be some collateral damage. It's unfortunate, but it's true. Some people may not be aware they have one of these proxies running on their internet connection. Some Internet Service Providers use Carrier-grade_NAT (basically, multiple customers behind one IP), so if one customer on a given IP is running a peer-to-peer proxy, a block will affect everyone on that IP. This is nothing new - that's how blocks normally work - but given the scale of the blocks here, there will be an uptick in legitimate editors impacted by this. Editors who are trying to make accounts but are affected by this should be directed to WP:ACC, and existing editors who are affected should request WP:IPBE from the checkuser team (and probably m:GIPBE from the steward team). This will be the source of most "false positives".

Finally, I'd like to give out a lot of kudos. In no particular order: thanks to Blablubbs and MarioGom for getting this effort moving and getting us the data feed, ST47 for quickly integrating the data feed into their proxy-blocking bot, Tks4Fish for getting these blocks applied at the global level, and L235 and TheresNoTime for interfacing with the CheckUser team as we figure this out. I would also like to extend a heartfelt thank-you to the folks at Spur - we've worked closely with them throughout this process and they have provided amazing support. GeneralNotability (talk) 00:10, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

• This is cool! I look forward to seeing how the partnership develops and thank everyone for their work on this. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:59, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• A wholehearted thank you to everyone involved in this mitigation process. Mz7 (talk) 04:37, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Many thanks all around! I was indeed wondering why there were suddenly proxy-blocks on so many IPs that have not been actively editing. DMacks (talk) 07:21, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Awesome work! These proxies have indeed been a huge issue, and I wholeheartedly look forward to seeing how this goes. Enterprisey (talk!) 09:21, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• I've spoken about residential proxies a bunch and if this works that's quite incredible, since residential proxies are usually considered a problem that can't really be dealt with. Nice work. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:45, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• There are times when I'm amazed to see what my colleagues are getting up to in the background. This is one of those times. This looks like it has taken a great deal of patient work by the people involved, and represents an important contribution to keeping this a safe space for our contributors. Thanks very much to everyone involved. Girth Summit _(blether) 10:12, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Good work everybody. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 10:40, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Sensational work, thanks to all those involved. Dealing with rubbish eventually wears out content creators and preventing abuse is very important. Johnuniq (talk) 10:54, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Good work Jeepday (talk) 11:45, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Kudos to all --S Philbrick(Talk) 11:46, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
• Thanks a lot. I have a technical question though I see that the bot blocked today 86.52.135.60 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), presumably one of the pool. I have this IP on my watchlist, because I had to protect in January Talk:Tbilisi against their disruptive edits. I see, however, that this IP was editing the same page previously, on the same day, as 77.213.98.123 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 47.37.142.213 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 86.52.171.194 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), and 79.114.104.220 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). None of them is blocked. Does this mean that the same person was using in the same editing session an open proxy and a normal IP? I thought this is impossible.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:03, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

• No, they were probably on proxies, although it is often very easy to switch between proxy and non-proxy. These particular types of proxy usually have a very short lifespan, sometimes just hours. You've just spotted one that is more persistent or recurrent than most. I think a lot of us are seeing these. The others will no longer be active. Also thanks everyone involved. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:18, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  I see, thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:22, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  I don't know the technical details of how the Proxy Whose Name We're Not Supposed To Utter does things, but switching IPs is, in general, pretty easy. I just made two edits to User:RoySmith/sandbox using different IPs. In my case, I just switched between using my cable modem WiFi and my phone hotspot. Just a couple of clicks in a control panel. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:33, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks. But five IPs would mean five wifi/cables, which seems to me a bit 2 much. However, if we do not need to block these Ips I am perfectly fine.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:38, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

• Question: Are the block messages and templates clear enough about how a prospective or existing editor suffering from collateral damage can apply for an unblock or IPBE? Can you link to an example? Deryck C. 15:56, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

  These blocks use {{Blocked p2p proxy}}. MarioGom (talk) 20:55, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

• Several Questions - Why are we using a third-party closed-source service instead of using the free tiers of residential VPNs and proxies to create our own published open data set? I did a quick search for residential VPN reviews and see that there are at least a dozen recommended by apparently neutral third parties, advertising ten to hundreds of millions of residential IPs (presumably their customers? Or contractors paid to run their proxy servers?) each. Apparently most of this use is to avoid geographic restrictions on video streaming services, but they also are used to avoid political repression, far more than block evasion as far as I can tell. I have no doubt that they are used for abuse, but I would like to know more about the extent of the "recent uptick" and again, I question using a closed-data vendor instead of the free (i.e., non streaming-level bandwidth, presumably) options to automatically scan the exit addresses for an open data set. Spur claims to track "over 25 proxy services," but what proportions of the hundreds of millions of exit addresses do they actually report? I have a hard time believing that this effort isn't just the latest round in an arms race aligning Wikipedia with the worst oppressive regimes. Are we paying Spur? If so how much and for how much coverage proportionally? Has a professional ethicist been consulted? If we actually attempt to block hundreds of millions of individual IP addresses, many of which are not going to be static, what is the load on the database? 107.242.121.39 (talk) 00:16, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Hello. Do you have any connection to Nrcprm2026/James Salsman? They have quite the history of logged-out socking on the (relatively narrow) range you're on, both here and on meta. In any case: Replies, with some questions bundled and in no particular order:
    • Obtaining data ourselves is very resource-intensive for technical reasons and would require a significant infrastructure investment because of the way these services function. The option has been explored, and proven to be infeasible. Shodan-esque bulk fingerprinting does not enable us to identify end nodes.
    • The extent of the recent uptick is large, and there are number of logged-in LTAs using these services as well.
    • It's true that people are using these services for legitimate purposes, but that also applies to things like TOR and non-P2P VPN services, which we also block. People with legitimate reasons for using anonymisers can apply for proxy IP block exemption.
    • We are not blocking hundreds of millions of addresses, we are blocking a tiny fraction of that – we are targeting specific services with an established history of severe abuse. The numbers are in the ten thousands.
    • I struggle to understand how any of this puts us in line with oppressive regimes, or why anyone would have to hire an ethicist; m:NOP and WP:NOP have been policy for a long time. The services we're blocking are functioning as open proxies.
    • There is internal agreement among the people working on the implementation that divulging the exact details of feed coverage and operation is counterproductive; this is in line with our handling of existing proxy-blocking mechanisms, such as the conventional open proxy blocks performed by ST47ProxyBot. The coverage is good enough to have made a noticeable difference since we've started this, and it will get better over time.
    • Our exact arrangement with Spur is currently being worked out. --Blablubbs (talk) 12:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

    I know Salsman, and recommend WP:DENY. I disagree with your opinion on the reasonableness of consulting an ethicist on these and larger issues, but I am relieved by the smaller magnitude of the problem. 107.242.121.31 (talk) 02:53, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

    For what it's worth: if someone is using a P2P proxy service in a country with significant repression associated to online surveillance, please, stop doing it right now. A P2P proxy service will inevitably convert your device into an exit node used for cybercrime, and that can put you at risk. Please, be safe, and use battle-tested solutions, be it shadowsocks, wireguard VPNs, Tor with private bridges, or whatever is considered a safer choice nowadays. MarioGom (talk) 12:21, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Creating the "Chris Chan" article

Just drop it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 13:53, 9 August 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I have created the article on Chris Chan at User:Veverve/ChristineWC. I would like to move it to Chris Chan, but this space is blocked since 2009, and Christine Weston Chandler is blocked since 2019. The surname Chris Chan being the most common name given to Christine (like for Maddox (writer)) as can be seen by the titles of the articles, I would like my article to be moved to the main space at Chris Chan. Veverve (talk) 14:04, 8 August 2021 (UTC) Already a consensus at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1074#Chris_Chan. Veverve (talk) 14:16, 8 August 2021 (UTC) Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1074#Chris_Chan ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:07, 8 August 2021 (UTC) Strong oppose per WP:BLP, WP:IAR, and the last thread. There is no article on this subject that could be worth the antipathy it would generate. Vaticidalprophet 14:09, 8 August 2021 (UTC) I've removed the BLP violation. Whether this is worthy of an article, and whether we can trust to article to remain BLP-vio free in mainspace, is another question, but the main issue has been fixed. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:14, 8 August 2021 (UTC) Sorry, I did not know there had already been a consensus on this as @ProcrastinatingReader: showed me. Veverve (talk) 14:16, 8 August 2021 (UTC) Unclosing this. GorillaWarfare, you previously deleted a draft about this individual, with all revisions oversighted. I did not view the content of that draft, and I don't know anything about the subject matter, but I see that Veverve has created a userspace draft on the same subject at User:Veverve/ChristineWC, which I can only imagine has similar content and sourcing. Please can you comment on whether that also requires deletion and oversight? Girth Summit (blether) 11:25, 9 August 2021 (UTC) First thing I notice is it uses their deadname, despite their not having been notable under it. I'm pretty sure we only use the deadname in an article if they were notable with it. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:34, 9 August 2021 (UTC) I used her former name, because I saw it in some articles which I cited. Your comment made me do some research, and I found MOS:DEADNAME which I did not know existed. Veverve (talk) 12:02, 9 August 2021 (UTC) Is there any reason to think this person is notable outside of 1 recent event? That one event is an alleged crime so per BLPCRIME that content should stay out if/until there is a conviction. Can we actually assume this BLP could exist without violating the do no harm aspect of BLPs? Springee (talk) 12:54, 9 August 2021 (UTC) No it can't. As in the previous thread about Chris Chan, this article will become an immediate target for internet trolls and attacks. There was a consensus earlier that the subject is not notable, and that it would become a timesink for protection. RickinBaltimore (talk) 13:08, 9 August 2021 (UTC) This entire discourse makes me wish we could nuke it from orbit, just to be sure. And by "it," I mean "the entirety of human civilization." Cheers, and happy Monday. Dumuzid (talk) 13:48, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Addendum: so User:Veverve/ChristineWC is all right, even if relies upon pretty much the same crappy sources as listed at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1074#Chris_Chan? --Calton | Talk 14:16, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

I've deleted the page. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 14:19, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

Jimi isn't dead, God just asked for guitar lessons. El_C 11:20, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I'll keep all y'all posted if additional drafts come through AfC. This is like the fourth since they were arrested. Bkissin (talk) 19:17, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Can monitor log of 1159 ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:21, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, I did check the log of that filter and it stopped an edit about Chris Chandler who is an article subject on Wikipedia. Maybe the filter can be tweaked as there are legitimate edits for someone with a similar name. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:10, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

while efforts could be made to decrease FPs, they may also miss legitimate cases. Since the filter is log only and likely temporary, it’s not really worth the effort IMO. Most entries caught by the filter were the subject (but are now removed from the log, either due to individual revdel or OS of the log entry). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:48, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Also note that the filter is logging-only. The "Chris Chandler" false positive did go through just fine. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 15:52, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

• It's pretty obvious that the only conceivable reason for creating an article about this subject is to further the trolling that has been ongoing for the last 14 years and made their life a misery, so why are those who wish do do so still able to edit Wikipedia? If anyone should be blocked or banned it is those people, and I only use the word "people" because to give them their true name would be a personal attack. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

• I made this point on GorillaWarfare's talk page by pointing out that if I still had the tools, I would be treating this the same way any other admin would treat sustained harassment attempts - with blocks. We need to start doing this. If harassment isn't reason enough to block, then the egregious BLP issues are. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Jéské Couriano} 22:30, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm ready to block as necessary (not that this is the most sympathetic subject ever), I've only become aware of this last week and it's somehow lowered my already depressed outlook on humanity all around. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:35, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Add me to that list of admins who will block first, ask questions later if I see more drafts on her. Enough is enough. RickinBaltimore (talk) 22:41, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Would it be acceptable to mark any article or draft we see about her for speedy as an attack page? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:44, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Considering the aim of any such page is harassment, I don't see why not. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Jéské Couriano} 22:46, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, please do. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 00:44, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

For the sake of spreading awareness, since it may well be the case some people haven't read the original ANI, can an admin unsalt Chris Chan (salted since 2009 with a non-helpful summary) and resalt it with links to the ANIs in the log message? Likely someone trying to create this will see the log message on that page, at least. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:33, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure that article specifically was about CWC, but rather someone legitimately named "Chris Chan". (The "Chan" here is a Japanese honorific and is correctly spelt hyphenated, i.e. "Chris-Chan".) —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{Jéské Couriano} 00:37, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

One was some random person, and the other was the subject in question here. I'll take care of it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:39, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Uh, no. "Chan" is an abbreviation of "Chandler," not a Japanese honorific. All I have to say on this topic is that many far less notable e-personalities have articles on them, and that the intense hostility that springs up whenever this is discussed suggests that "there will be no Chris Chan article" is something of an unwritten rule among power users. Zacwill (talk) 03:07, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Once again, everyone should just drop it.User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 04:40, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Why can't we have a draft, but without the harassment? Even if only to collect sources for if notability is reached as more are published. Benjamin (talk) 02:38, 13 August 2021 (UTC) No no no no no. This is not what Wikipedia does. Take it elsewhere, or even better yet, don't. Have a nice evening. Dumuzid (talk) 02:51, 13 August 2021 (UTC) This is impossible, as the entire point of the article is to harass her by its existence. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Jéské Couriano 02:54, 13 August 2021 (UTC) Why does it necessarily have to be that way? Benjamin (talk) 03:00, 13 August 2021 (UTC) Benjamin, how familiar are you with this entire saga? —A little blue Bori v^_^v Jéské Couriano 03:05, 13 August 2021 (UTC) I realize that the subject has attracted attention, if that's what you're asking. Benjamin (talk) 03:27, 13 August 2021 (UTC) There's been a 14+-year-long effort to create an article on her as part of a (still ongoing) harassment campaign against her. I'm not at liberty to explain the whys of it but suffice it to say that a key aspect of the harassment is basically creating a Wikipedia article to further these ends because of how well-known Wikipedia is and how high search engines rank us in their search results. This is one case where the WP:BLP issue has nothing to do with sourcing or the claims themselves; the person in question is (and always has been) at best a WP:BLP1E case and so the harassment would be solely due to the article even existing. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Jéské Couriano 03:40, 13 August 2021 (UTC) I'm not saying there should be an article if notability is indeed not reached, but we should be able to discuss the sourcing and notability in the first place without harassing. Benjamin (talk) 03:56, 13 August 2021 (UTC) That's already been done, even for the most recent incarnations of the article, and the consensus is that the sourcing still doesn't demonstrate notability and this is at best a WP:BLP1E situation. See the collapsible above, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1074#Chris Chan, and User talk:GorillaWarfare#Chris Chan Draft. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Jéské Couriano 04:02, 13 August 2021 (UTC) (Link added 04:04, 13 August 2021 (UTC)) We can't even see what sources were in the most recent version. Benjamin (talk) 04:28, 13 August 2021 (UTC) You are totally free to do a draft on some other website. However, after the explanations given above, pushing further here look like a lack of competence or a lack of care. Is this an experiment to see how far it is possible to encourage harassment before sanctions occur? Johnuniq (talk) 04:37, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

• Noting for the record that I've semi'd Texas Tech University for one month (diff) due to unspeakable horror. Admins: I urge you to not look at the revdel'd edits. Let me take the hit for you. That said, though I'm wary of speculating, the chances that this angle will end up blowing up so as to be covered by beyond-local mainstream sources seems considerable, probably more so than the CC matter in isolation (I wouldn't even bother writing this otherwise). That's as much as I'm prepared to speak about this at this time. Bleak times. El_C 01:59, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

• You have my sympathy. I've heard some of the TTU related things and it's pretty soul crushing, to say the least. Other articles that may end up getting hit may be Ruckersville, Virginia, Rob Bell (Virginia politician), and Charlottesville, Virginia. Two out of the three have protections on the page already, but it's a semi-protection. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 02:12, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

• Only as a comment, I think there is potential, pre-current events around Chan based on past sources, to have a neutral/BLP compliant article that would not be an attack article, but no way, no how would I be inclined to create it now or any time in the next two or three years, and if it were created, we'd need to have it under immediate full protection and talk page semi protection. The current actions above to seek and destroy any drafts created right now is 100% the right way to go simply because that article will be a honeypot for trolls that are looking at every angle to slander Chan and anyone associated with them while there's still new coverage based on the arrest. --Masem (t) 16:11, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
• This is not the first time that an article's creation protection (aka WP:SALTing) has been challenged, and there exists global consensus on Wikipedia about how to handle such challenges, which is documented at the WP:SALT section of the WP:PROTECT policy: Contributors wishing to re-create a salted title with appropriate content should either contact an administrator (preferably the protecting administrator), file a request at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection#Current requests for reduction in protection level, or use the deletion review process. To make a convincing case for re-creation, it is helpful to show a draft version of the intended article when filing a request.
  In this case, administrators have been contacted (via RFPP and several AN/ANI reports), and there is a clear and strong consensus of administrators to leave in place the creation-protection based on our WP:BLP and WP:NOT policies, and WP:N guideline. There is also a consensus of administrators to leave in place the creation-protection of drafts per WP:BLP. According to WP:SALT, anyone wanting to appeal that consensus has only one remaining avenue, and it's deletion review (WP:DRV). (I'd have closed this thread with this statement but I'm not an admin.) Levivich 16:39, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Reinstate full editing benefits

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

Good afternoon. Last October my editing priviledges were limited on Wikipedia. The parameters of my priviledges were that I could only edit or create pages on subjects who were deceased or business or entities that were defunct. I have adhered to these guidelines since then and was hoping that I could now get my full priviledges to edit all Wikipeda subjects. I believe the original accusations may have been misguided, but I learned from the experience about possible COI and am ready to move forward in an unbiased manner. I love Wikipedia writing and would love to do more. Please let me know if this is possible.EllenZoe (talk) 20:34, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

The restriction in place against EllenZoe is a prohibition on editing about any attention seeking entity - no BLPs, no companies, products, bands, non-profits, etc unless defunct. This was imposed as an unblock condition following a block for covert advertising. The administrator imposing the condition at the time stated that Because of this, the conditions of the conditional unblock have to be indefinite; you may be able to appeal at some point in the future, but only after demonstrating significant positive contributions within the parameters of the conditional unblock. Since then, they have written a few articles from scratch - I'm not sure I would classify it as "significant", but it doesn't seem to be UPE. Pinging @MER-C: and @Rosguill: as the administrators involved in the original block. ST47 (talk) 21:10, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

• This is a slightly odd combo - only 150 edits or so since the imposition, but 4 decent start-class articles. Hmm. Nosebagbear (talk) 00:15, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
• Previous appeal: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive332#My block removed, please. Too soon since then in terms of contributions. MER-C 08:22, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

• Note - EllenZoe pinged admin Rosguill (who I won't ping again) here and they politely responded saying they didn't have on-WP time enough to review it themselves. They suggested coming here. But they were able to comment in the last thread linked to above. St★lwart¹¹¹ 11:06, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
• Maybe WP:ROPE is appropriate with a warning that anything that appears to be recidivism is unlikely to be AGF'd. —valereee (talk) 12:52, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Proposed text for Civility restriction

Over the many years that Wikipedia has been around, one thing we seem to have difficulty with is how to address experienced editors with civility issues.

Battleground mentality, harrassment, insults, various aggression, etc.

I don't think I need to list explicit examples here.

So I've been mulling over arbcom cases, AN/I threads and the like.

And it seems to me that what we are really talking about is the classic "wearing out the community's patience".

So if that's the case, the question becomes then what specifically are we talking about, and how can it be addressed.

Here on Wikipedia, while we do have Civility policies and guidelines, we tend to give editors rather broad leeway, with the idea that open, collegiate discussion, and even debate, is better for the development of this volunteer-created encyclopedia project.

We also have many dispute resolution fora available for editors: both content-related and behaviour-related.

When trying civility restrictions in the past, they have had varying degrees of success. For one thing, even with the exception listed at WP:BAN, often the restricted editor feels as if the application of the restriction (whether they are going to get blocked) is very subjective. (I've seem it expressed as 'living in fear'.) And other editors may try to use the restriction as a weapon to use against the restricted editor, and depending on the wording of the restriction, the restricted editor may have little or no recourse.

Now any civility restriction is going to be subjective. ("We know it when we see it".) But there seems a general want from the community for "something" to be done besides outright banning of otherwise good editors.

So here's what I suggest: We tighten the rules - reducing that amount of "leeway" that we usually give. So the restricted editor in question needs to go seek dispute resolution.

Yes, this will seem like in school - going to the teacher everytime someone says or does something that the restricted editor thinks needs to be addressed.

That's by design. after all, the reason that they are restricted is the community feels that they are not addressing such things civilly, themselves.

And I want to reiterate that this should be reserved only for experienced editors. people who know their way around Wikipedia, and should easily be able to find the alternate venues in question.

And we should try to keep the duration as short as possible, to allow for a "mending of their ways". If they get used to posittively following dispute resolution, maybe it will help towards a shift in behaviour. And I think we would agree that the goal is to give people every opportunity.

So anyway, I've been trying to think of how to phrase this, and assistance on phrasing would be most welcome, but anyway, here goes - jc37 15:44, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

---

Civility restriction for experienced editors

Per WP:CIVIL - "Editors are expected to be reasonably cooperative, to refrain from making personal attacks, to work within the scope of policies, and to be responsive to good-faith questions."

"An uncivil remark can escalate spirited discussion into a personal argument that no longer focuses objectively on the problem at hand. Such exchanges waste our efforts and undermine a positive, productive working environment."

An experienced editor with a civility restriction no longer may talk about any other editor's behaviour except when posting to a Wikipedia dispute resolution venue for third party assessment. ("Discuss the content, not the contributor".)

Also, during the restriction, conduct policies such as WP:CIVIL, WP:NPA, and WP:HARRASS will more strictly enforced for the civility restricted experienced editor. At an admin's discretion they may receive 1 warning or no warning before being sanctioned. ("Preventative, not punitive".) An editor under this restriction may be blocked for violating this restriction in excalating time frames, per the normal blocking policy.

This editing restriction is considered a type of WP:BAN, and falls under all the applicable rules and restrictions thereof.

This restriction may be applied in escalating durations of 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, or indefinite. A restricted editor may appeal this restriction just as they might any ban.

---

The above restriction may be placed by community consensus or by Arbcom, with the restriction logged at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions.

---

Thoughts welcome. - jc37 15:44, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Added the addendum above. - jc37 19:52, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Discussion (editing restriction)

I think something like this could be very useful. I completely support this. Paul August ☎ 16:10, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I like the spirit of this. We can play around with the wording over time, but in general I support a more explicit civility policy. --Jayron32 16:13, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

The idea and the text look good, but the elephant of the room is how this restriction is going to be applied. If any administrator can apply it, we have a huge difference in perception of incivility. If it should be applied by consensus similar to how community bans are issued on ANI - this could be even worse, typically the incivility champions have a huge support crowd, and the incivility can be provoked.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:16, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

I understand. I didn't write it above (and maybe I should have), but I was thinking that this would be just like the way we trust admins to apply discretionary sanctions - it's an already applied restriction, that the admin is just enforcing, and all such enforcements should be logged, just like ban violations are. I think that that transparency should "help" against overly subjective sanction. What do you think? - jc37 16:23, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Actually, with some help of ArbCom we could make it a discretionary sanction and then the AC/DS noticeboard would be the place to impose/remove the restriction. This does not removed the crowd problem - one of my favorite examples is when a statement (approximately) "I have never seen such an idiotic reasoning as yours" was tried at ANI and the conclusion was it is perfectly civil. However, it is better than nothing. Absent of the ArbCom decision, we can adopt community sanctions - then we do not have AC/DS, but we probably need this mechanism anyway, also for other sanctions.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:37, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Because of the restrictive-ness of this restriction, I'm not sure, but I don't think it should be something that a single editor can apply to another editor. Though I do understand your comments/concerns about an incivil editor's "supporters". But yes, I think this could be an option that the community or Arbcom could use. - jc37 16:43, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that the community discussion is better than unilateral imposition of such restrictions.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:45, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Ah, civility warriors. What would we do without them eh? -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 16:52, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

• It wasn't going to be my first note, but having read the above, this must not be something implacable by any individual admin, whether by default or part of a DS/GS equivalent (except, perhaps, as part of an unblock condition). It should be more like a TBAN. However, more generally, while I know this is trying to actually reduce the issue of unblockables, I would note it actually risks excabating it - in effect it will offer a mario-life for users who otherwise would receive indefs. In some cases that will be a positive and a feature, but in others it could be a negative. My third thought is that this is functionally specifically backing a different standard for experienced editors, which is a negative to me. Finally, given it's non-final form condition, this should be at WP:VPI, not AN. Nosebagbear (talk) 18:57, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

  I chose to ask for thoughts and suggestion here because those who would be the most likely to enforce this are (in my estimation) more likely to watch and contribute here, than elsewhere. This is the admin noticeboard, after all. - jc37 19:05, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

  Jc37, Nosebagbear, since you both brought this up: I don't think you need to worry overmuch about the relationship between this and GS/DS. Admins are already given wide latitude by DS: if I wanted to, I could certainly impose this as a sanction today, although it would presumably have to be limited to behavior in a given topic. Focusing on the formulation is useful, however, as it will likely be used in this way. Vanamonde (Talk) 05:17, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

• If we had a rule that no one could accuse anyone else of intentional misconduct outside of a conduct report (ani, ae), and anyone doing so must retract (and go file a report if they want) or be indef blocked, that would probably end half of incivility episodes. And it'd be easy to enforce objectively. A "report it or keep quiet" rule for accusations of intentional misconduct. Levivich 20:21, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

  I can't imagine a faster way to never hear any reports about any wrong doing, ever. Punishing the victim for failure to follow some aggressive, zero-strikes procedure is a terrible plan and will solve exactly zero problems. Jorm (talk) 20:29, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

"An experienced editor with a civility restriction..." I know this is nit-picking, but is there a definition of an "experienced editor"? Is it time-based or edit based? Or indeed, both? Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 07:56, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

This has been discussed in wiki research by me and others with our research hat on. There's no agreed upon definition, and we might as well chose something. How about an editor who can edit in the 30/500 areae? IIRC that's any account with 500+ edits and 30+ days. Synergy with 500/30 gives it bonus points for consistency. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• Support, badly needed and reasonably worded. On a semi-relavant note: WP:PAIN. I could never understand why it failed (old wiki history from 2005-2007). Could it be revived? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:10, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
• I appreciate the sentiment, and I encourage further thinking along this line, but I don't think I can get behind this as policy. Similar to what GeneralNotability in an earlier thread, what the community needs is to move away from treating experienced editors as a superior class: everyone has rights. This policy implies that our fourth pillar does not apply to power users. While that may functionally be the case due to our collective failure, enshrining that failure into policy is counter productive. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:05, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  @Wugapodes But realistically, we have power users (heck, there is even academic research about this: [1]). In the ideal world, we wouldn't, but as we are human beings, there will be power differences between people, and even the most flat structure will develop a hierarchy and some people will be given more power and sometimes, abuse it or unduly benefit from it (see the iron law of oligarchy, for example). Everyone has rights, but some people's rights are more respected than others for various reasons, and we need to deal with this problem. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:02, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

  I don't need a 12-year-old study to tell me that power users exist, and I'm not huge on early 1900s German political theory given how that played out for the world. How you can read my comment and think I don't believe we need to deal with this is beyond me, but to reiterate, obviously we need to do something. The solution is not to tell power users that they get to be assholes until we place this civility restriction on them. The solution is to consistently enforce the rules which already apply to everyone, not create a new rule that will be exploited by the same community dynamics that already make consistent and equitable enforcement of our policies impossible. — Wug·a·po·des​ 16:42, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

  To me this isn't "Yes, even experienced users need to be civil and we hereby confirm they should be subject to enforcement of policy." I'm interpreting it more as, "Experienced users, being expected to have had plenty of opportunity to learn what our civility policies are, should be given very little wiggle room. Once someone has X edits over a period of Y years, incivility is no longer excusable for reasons of ignorance, and those users who haven't internalized it will receive an editing restriction that forces them to adhere very, very closely to policy." That means you can't call someone a troll or a liar, period. It means the 'sometimes telling someone to fuck off is okay' decision no longer applies to you. It means provocation does not excuse incivility. It means "they started it" is no longer an excuse. It's not treating experienced users as a superior class. It's requiring higher standards of behavior from them than we might let slide when users are new. —valereee (talk) 16:31, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

  It's actually simpler than that - I don't think this should be applied to newbies (trying to avoid biting them) because they might get lost trying to find Wikipedia's back-of-the-house processes. This has nothing to do with treating editors differently (We're all Wikipedians here), it's merely understanding that some editors have more experience with Wikipedia processes, and so that allows for a sanction option that might not be as possible to newbies. And this isn't about making a "policy", it's about adding a standardized tool to the toolbox - If you look at Editing restrictions, you may see all sorts of specialized "tools" created for various situations. - jc37 19:20, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

  @Jc37, was that a reply to me? I think we're saying basically the same thing, aren't we? —valereee (talk) 13:02, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  Somewhat. I was more just further clarifying my intent after reading this thread of the discussion. - jc37 20:59, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

• I agree that the upper class of editors getting a free pass to intimidate and bully newer users who may not know the system yet is a problem. However, Wugapodes has a point in that without dismantling the power structures that got us here, an extra rule will not be effective and simply be exploited in the same way existing rules are currently. I would instead support a system where the lower class of users is empowered to patrol, document, and report the conduct of power users in the same way that Wikipedia:Recent changes patrol has made Wikipedia robust against vandalism despite the common sense notion that it couldn't be done. MarshallKe (talk) 17:06, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose Firstly, it is unclear what a Wikipedia dispute resolution venue for third party assessment is, and sounds more like WP:DR than WP:ANI. Secondly, it is similar to a restriction against Pasdecomplot (talk · contribs) imposed at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1051#Pasdecomplot that was ineffective, culminating in an indefinite block 3 months into the intended 6-month term. Finally, experienced editor is problematic in its own right due to its vague and privilege-imposing nature, and this rule does not resolve excessive lenience toward "experienced editors" as pointed out above. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 06:12, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

  Somehow, I don't think bringing up an example of an editor who started in 2020 is useful here. Besides I mentioned above that the past has had varying results. - jc37 21:07, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

• Enforce existing policy WP:CONDUCTDISPUTE There's already a policy on commenting on user conduct: If the issue is a conduct dispute (i.e., editor behavior) the first step is to talk with the other editor at their user talk page in a polite, simple, and direct way. Try to avoid discussing conduct issues on article Talk pages ... In all cases, and even in the face of serious misconduct, please try to act in a professional and polite manner. Turn the other cheek. As as some have stated, it's just never been successfully enforced on veterans on a consistent basis, perhaps because of WP:UNBLOCKABLE backlash and inevitable unblocks claiming WP:NOTPUNITIVE.—Bagumba (talk) 06:00, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  @Bagumba, yep. We just had an admin lift a block that, if it had been placed on anyone but a highly experienced editor with a ton of friends and enemies who all wanted to comment on the ANI, would have been considered a completely reasonable block of someone who had received multiple complaints of incivility.

  Most admins don't wait for a complaint at ANI to be "closed" before they decide a block is needed -- or at least, they don't for anyone with 2k edits instead of 200k. Do we really think any admin would have unilaterally unblocked in that case? —valereee (talk) 13:19, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - concerning the topic WP:CIVIL? I'm quite willing to allow an editor to be uncivil in discussions, as long as they aren't vandalising articles or edit-warring or creating sock puppets. I'd rather have an editor throwing F-bombs at me in a content dispute, then an editor politely telling me he/she will report me to ANI or Arbcom because I won't come to agreement with them in a content dispute. GoodDay (talk) 06:10, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  I think the cases we are concerned with are personal attacks about a person's alleged bad faith or incompetence, not merely the use of profanity.—Bagumba (talk) 07:11, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  In the past, I've been called a Fascist (on my own talkpage), a Unionist, psychologically unfit, etc etc. & other interesting names. Guess, I've grown a thick hide, these last 15+ years. GoodDay (talk) 07:18, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

• Comment - I'm doubtful as to how you will define "experienced". I'm also concerned about the impression it may give that it's acceptable for a newcomer to post abuse. Deb (talk) 09:39, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  This is merely a tool for possible sanction/usage. Not a licence. And "experienced" is left as undefined as "incivility" - "We know it when we see it." - jc37 21:07, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

• As usual people are getting excited about civility without addressing the root causes of the problem. With very rare exceptions, no long-term experienced editor gets a kick out of being uncivil. What happens is that they face clueless opposition from an ice-cold and non-engaging brick wall (another long-term experienced editor who just happens to also be emotionless and who simply repeats their objection without engaging in a discussion). I don't know the solution but no one else here does either. The trick is to minimize the disruption without damaging the project. Frankly, some disputes need something like an editorial committee to make a ruling (tossing a coin would do), then very gently sanction people who push against the ruling. Johnuniq (talk) 03:37, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

  People have made rulings in the form of blocks, that get reverted. Perhaps WP:WHEEL needs tweaking, or do we need an Arbcom threat every time to come up with an edit restriction that says, "you cowboy admins reeeeeally shouldn't revert this one".—Bagumba (talk) 07:23, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

  Is there an example? What I've seen is that an admin gets emotionally charged and issues a disproportionate block that is seen by uninvolved onlookers to be over-the-top because a 12-hour block would have been effective and less dictatorial. Then an admin unblocks because they can see that the block was inappropriate. The cure is to (a) work out how to also sanction the cause of the problem, and (b) issue a short block. Johnuniq (talk) 10:38, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Dealing with mobile editors who appear to be ignoring warnings/refusing to discuss

I'm seeing more and more complaints at ANI involving editors who are editing strictly via mobile and have never edited a talk page including their own. I suspect most of these editors don't know talk pages exist. These people look like they're simply ignoring warnings on their user talk and refusing to discuss, but most of them may be very well-intentioned and just have so far had zero opportunity to learn policy because they don't even know it's there. Notifying them of a discussion about them at ANI is pretty useless when they haven't even realized they've got a user talk.

But I'm thinking we need to come up with strategies for trying to get their attention when they're brought to AN/I.

• Obviously if they've got email enabled, consider emailing them a link to their user talk/the ANI section if you feel comfortable doing that.
• If they're using edit summaries, recommend the complainant open a discussion section at article talk and put a link to it in the edit summary when reverting a mobile editor.
• Try p-blocking from article space? I've been doing this when it's a mobile-only editor who has never edited a talk or their own user talk. No idea if it's been at all effective in helping them discover talk pages, I should start keeping track.

Extraneous

I don't know if any of the following are possible, but maybe they need discussion somewhere: Is there any way we could automatically email a notification (with a link to the section, not just the page) without someone having to email them themselves? Could that be developed? Come up with some way to strongly encourage mobile users to enable email when they register. Come up with some way to strongly encourage mobile users to enable notifications when they register. Come up with some way to require mobile users to create their user talk when they register, and automatically explain what's going to be happening there and why they should keep an eye on it.

I just feel like this is an issue that is only going to increase in frequency. —valereee (talk) 12:39, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

I've come across this recently; apparently mobile users don't get a notification saying they have a talk page message. A few years ago there was a discussion about introducing a 'soft block' forcing an editor to review their talk page; another option would be more technical, changing the code so that mobile editors receive the same 'you have a new message' notification as those on desktop. GiantSnowman 12:47, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman, a soft block helps them discover their talk? Or do you mean the same way a p-block from article space would -- by encouraging them to try to find help somewhere? —valereee (talk) 13:03, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, let me clarify - IIRC there was a proposal a few years ago to introduce a new type of block/blocking mechanism which basically forced editors to review their talk page before they were unblocked. Does that make sense? GiantSnowman 13:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it makes sense -- but it doesn't actually help them find it if they don't even know it exists? —valereee (talk) 17:37, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

@Valereee See Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)#What we've got here is failure to communicate (some mobile editors you just can't reach). Nthep (talk) 12:52, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Nthep, I'll just collapse the extraneous stuff here, probably shouldn't have even brought it up. I really just more wanted to discuss what we should do here at ANI when these come up. —valereee (talk) 12:56, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• Does anyone know if a blocked mobile editor will see the block log message? That could be a way to communicate: we create something like {{Blocked proxy}} that tells them about talk pages. – Joe (talk) 13:25, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

In my experience, mentioning the talk page in the edit summary is the most efficient way to deal with the situation.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:31, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• I wrote an edit filter to communicate with iOS app users. See 1139. It 'exploits' a bug in the iOS app that allows edit filter disallow message pagenames to be visible to the end user. I believe a similar approach with Android app users is now possible but I haven't gotten around to testing it yet (mainly because I've lost my Android device I used for testing). Articlespace blocks do not help, because the editors cannot see the block log messages (they will see "You have been blocked from editing" if on iOS; or "You have been blocked for vandalism ..." on Android, regardless of the block reason). As of the time I wrote the edit filter, that was the only possible way to deliver a message to the app users onwiki; that may have changed since, as I believe the WMF is working on some of the WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU bugs. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:14, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  Let me try putting it a bit less technical... The effect of the filter is that, to a named editor, they will see this whenever they try to edit outside user talk. If there's a willing Android user we can test whether this concept works on Android, too. In theory a similar approach should since phab:T276139 is resolved. If both these work, admins should have an interim solution to communicate with app editors while the WMF works on proper fixes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:54, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  @ProcrastinatingReader: lets follow up at WP:EFN - but 1139 has bad ideas for production use. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:58, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  ProcrastinatingReader, "They will see ... "You have been blocked for vandalism ..." on Android, regardless of the block reason" - WTF? Obviously an app can't violate policy (in this case, calling good faith edits vandalism without evidence is a personal attack) but that's completely unacceptable. I have already commented at the WMF village pump, and fully endorse Cullen328's view that the standard desktop site is perfectly usable on a smartphone or tablet and there is no requirement for these broken apps to exist. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 17:31, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  It is possible there's been a fix recently (phab:T276139 and phab:T276147 are now marked as "Resolved") but I'm not sure if the version has been deployed to the Play Store yet. But the Wikipedia app has been in the iOS app store for 3 years now, and in the Android one for much longer. So probably this has went on undetected for years. God knows why the app team thought these were good assumptions to make, and it is one example of where better communication between development teams and community members would've led to better results. Perhaps these Movement Charter initiatives will be a step in that direction? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:43, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  Ugh, I've been using article space blocks, hoping it would at least make them more likely to investigate. Damn. —valereee (talk) 17:44, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• I have & always will be hardcore when it comes to editors not having or refusing to create an account. As for mobile editors? IMHO they should be barred from editing Wikipedia, until the create an account. GoodDay (talk) 16:06, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

  @GoodDay: this is not about unregistered editors; it's about registered editors using the mobile app, not getting notifications for new talk page messages. –FlyingAce^✈hello 18:43, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• I say if technically possible that we block clients that don't get talk page notifications from editing with an apology(Sorry your client is not supported for editing on Wikipedia, you are welcome to edit using a browser). Talk page usage is mandatory. The devs of these clients need a wake up call that this is core and mandatory functionality, not an optional feature. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 02:16, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

  This idea makes a lot of sense - if it can be done. Nick Moyes (talk) 00:05, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

  There is an edit filter to tag edits as "mobile", and edit filters can block editing. So I think it is possible to have edit filters react to useragents. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 00:12, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

• Something similar to what GiantSnowman mentioned above already exists for AWB bots. Whenever the talk page of an actively running AWB bot is edited, it automatically shutsdown the bot. The operator then has to login from the bot account and visit the talk page, only then can the bot be run again. This does not add anything to the block log. Perhaps something similar can be done for mobile users? Like whenever there is a new message in their talk page, an edit filter prevents them from making any edits until they have seen it. The table at WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU shows custom edit filter message is the better communication medium available for now. Users can then be directed to the desktop site to view messages and continue editing. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 10:42, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

• If technically feasible then that would be a superior solution to my idea. HighInBC ^{Need help? Just ask.} 11:02, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I've had issues with/warned (multiple times) a user with this exact ongoing problem- AFAIK, nothing concrete was decided, other than that the user wouldn't be blocked as they don't receive any warnings/messages. Seems a bit dumb to me personally, as the use is still continuing with their minor edits and is persistently adding unsourced content/information. But basically, due to this issue, it seems like they won't be sanctioned/blocked from their disruptive minor edits/unsourced edits.

Either way, I'm mainly mentioning this because one of the threads regarding this user, this particular discussion from February/March 2021, might have some useful information regarding the issue. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1061#Editor refuses to communicate, adds unverifiable information, falsely marks all edits as minor. Magitroopa (talk) 03:14, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Kailash29792 doing bizarre things with sock-drafts

I've tried to get a reasonable explanation from Kailash29792 for their actions regarding a bunch of sock-created drafts (see User talk:RoySmith#Deleted soundtracks and WP:Sockpuppet investigations/Satish Raman Nair) but they keep avoiding giving any useful answers. Reluctantly I now bring the case here where they will have a greater incentive to explain what they're doing. Kailash29792 has an exceptionally long editing history, so I'm willing to extend a fair bit of AGF to them, but there are limits. The gist is, they:

• Asked me on my talk page to restore a bunch of drafts I had G5'd, which I declined
• Found two more drafts which they claim (quite possibly correctly) were created by the same sock
• Copy-pasted the drafts to mainspace
• Nominated the drafts for deletion at MfD with the argument that they are block evasion
• After I deleted their mainspace copies, withdrew their nominations
• Proceeded to edit the drafts, arguing that this makes them G5-proof
• Made requests to investigate other editors as socks

I honestly don't think they're a sock, but what they're doing is bizarre and contrary to multiple policies. Despite repeated attempts by Robert McClenon, SmokeyJoe and myself to get them to slow down and explain what's going on, they just keep charging ahead in a befuddling case of WP:IDHT. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:36, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Maybe what they are trying to do is to be credited as the creator of the sock drafts. Would some sort of partial block, such as a block from any use of draft space, protect against mischief? Robert McClenon (talk) 14:29, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

No. Perhaps the only thing I can do is walk away from this. I don't want anything anymore except for the drafts to be accepted into the mainspace, especially Draft:Nadhigalile Neeradum Suriyan. I do not even want to be credited as the creator of those drafts; let Satish be. And whether you finally expose his latest IP is of least concern to me. Though Satish resorting to socking irks me like it does for many, he's a brilliant editor. And I was helping him all the while without knowing he was using a sock. But I apologise for everything that happened; all I wanted was to not get caught for abetting Satish without realising his socking, and became frightened when Roy deleted those other soundtrack articles because Satish created them. Kailash29792 (talk) 15:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

• I won't lie I'd done things in the past here which I thought were okay and then turned out not to be so I can sort of sympathise with Kailash.... I don't believe they're a sock either and I don't believe they were trying to do anything maliciously here - just maybe wanted to preserve and rewrite the articles but just went about it the completely wrong way. The SPI tho IMHO was OTT. –Davey2010^Talk 15:52, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
• I think that Kailash29792 was just trying to save the sock-created content like Draft:Nadhigalile Neeradum Suriyan because its too good to be discarded. The process of copy-pasting from the draft was definitely bizzare. As Kailash apologized for it, perhaps a promise can be taken from them not to repeat it again. -- Ab207 (talk) 18:09, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you both for understanding me. Now I want nothing to do with Satish creating new articles via sock IPs. But if the draft he creates is too great, I cannot help but develop it further. Since Nadhigalile Neeradum Suriyan was retitled Vendhu Thanindhadhu Kaadu, I have moved it to that title (still in the draftspace), I hope it is accepted without taking into account that a sock created it, but because I substantially edited it. --Kailash29792 (talk) 03:58, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

User Cheezypeaz is vandalising the page; 'Welsh Not'

Cheezypeaz keeps removing large portions of the page Welsh Not, claiming that the contents are 'conspiracy theories', Iv'e asked the person to stop, but I hope someone may aid with the issue.

All the contents of the page is thoroughly researched, using credible sources, no part of the page has been manipulated nor distorted and there is no cause to mislead the readers.

The topic is a sore subject for Welsh culture so it may be targeted for multiple reasons, they may deny that such actions happened, they may have a political bias to hide that Westminster was involved, trolling or they have a personal vendetta.. either way, this needs to be looked at and addressed.

Preferably, it would be good if the page was given protection to curb future wrongful edits from occurring again..

Thank you for your time!. Hogyncymru (talk) 12:00, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I've re-added the above section because it was archived by the bot the instant it was added - seems there might be a bot bug that needs addressing? How does the bot handle edit conflicts? 192.76.8.91 (talk) 13:32, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

It seems that Cheezypeaz has a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, thus a content dispute. There is discussion at the talk page, which Cheezypeaz has participated in. If the disruption continues then a PBLOCK may be in order, but hopefully it won't come to that. Mjroots (talk) 17:00, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I have deleted 2 entries one is clearly factually incorrect the other is original research and Hogyncymru has clearly admitted it to be. I documented my reasons for the deletion on the talk page. I haven’t participated in any discussion. I’m surprised at the reply by Mjroots Cheezypeaz (talk) 17:19, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Cheezypeaz - you started talk:Welsh Not#Church of Wales conspiracy theory, that counts as participating. Suggest you see what WP:CONSENSUS develops there. I'm hopeful that no further action will need to be taken. Mjroots (talk) 17:24, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

It seems that Mjroots is quick to disparage fellow editors without bothering to understand what the issues are. I too am hopeful no further action will be needed. Cheezypeaz (talk) 17:36, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

If you're going to make comments like that, you'll very quickly find yourself blocked from editing. Consider this an only warning. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps The Blade of the Northern Lights could review my edits and provide critical feedback? Or any other admin? Cheezypeaz (talk) 11:21, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

• This is most assuredly not WP:VANDALISM: they removed dubious content, while leaving an explanatory note on the article's talk page. I think that Cheezypeaz could have taken a slightly different tone in their comments here, but their concerns over the content question appear to be well-founded. Girth Summit _(blether) 11:34, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Cheezypeaz was.. at first compliant in keeping his opinions in the talk page.. but he couldn't help himself, he just deleted large portions of the site once again... this user must be restricted from vandalising any more pages!Hogyncymru (talk) 17:59, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Hogyncymru Keeps complaining on this page and the result is that the admins instinctively assume that Hogyncymru is telling the truth and threaten me. Drmies this time. There is a consensus for the old changes I have re-made the new changes are backed up by actual historians rather than random edits (vandalism) made since 2018 with no sources. Look at the talk page! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheezypeaz (talk • contribs) 18:35, August 16, 2021 (UTC)

Drmies please reverse your revertCheezypeaz (talk) 19:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I would like to request a block on Cymrogogoch & Hogyncymru for posting unsourced & very crude Welsh nationalist propaganda on the page Welsh Not (examine the edit history from the start of 2018). I thought you would recognise it! I have to say I'm disappointed at the threats from some of the admins.Cheezypeaz (talk) 19:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm rather enjoying the "fools rush in" aspect of this :)Cheezypeaz (talk) 19:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Drmies Hows it going? :) You've reverted a number of lies back into the article against the consensus. What's that about? Perhaps you can tell me why I am wrong and Hogyncymruwith his fake sources is correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheezypeaz (talk • contribs) 20:32, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Drmies I've reverted you revert. Have to say that I'm surprised at the quality of admins on Wikipedia. You should investigate before reverting or threatening editors. Why revert my edits rather than Hogyncymru? The assumption here is that the original complainant is correct. Very little investigation done before threatening to block people who are trying to improve the encyclopaedia. I'm appalled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cheezypeaz (talk • contribs) 22:28, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

• Cut it out, both of you. Hogyncymru, stop accusing Cheezypeaz of vandalism, that is a personal attack. Cheezypeaz, stop describing content added by another user as lies, that is also a personal attack. Discuss concerns on talk in a civil manner, and if you can't come to agreement then use WP:DR channels. Blocks will likely be forthcoming if the insults and edit warring don't stop now. Girth Summit _(blether) 20:41, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  I'd be happy to stop, I don't want to be pulled into this issue over and over, I want talk to be the 1st option and removal of some parts later (after there has been a resolution), having someone come along and use pages as a playground is ridiculous, and the claims of conspiracies need to stop.. this'll be my last edition here, if there are any further issues, I hope they are addressed within the page's talk page, not here.. and I hope it remains civil. Hogyncymru (talk) 20:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Cheezypeaz: You have; claimed there's a 'conspiracy theory going on, deleted almost half of the page (repeatedly without the other editors agreeing to anything), you've alluded to the idea that other users are 'in on it' together, you've continuously gone against warnings (even though they have been lenient on you) and then you have the gall to request others to place a block on them from editing when they are following wiki rules and who are not going into edit wars (whereas you have), I'm glad you see the enjoyment in this charade with your I'm rather enjoying the "fools rush in" aspect of this comment.. but others try and run this site to help others by learning about facts rather than one person's vendetta against any criticism of the church and state, I'd be very careful how you proceed.. as others may not find your actions as helpful, but a hindrance. Hogyncymru (talk) 20:40, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Request review of own IPBE

A while back, I was given IPBE rights as the internet security my work was using on our computers caused my traffic to be routed through various blocked IP addresses. We have since switched to a new security system for web browsing, so I don't know if the IPBE is necessary anymore. I also could find no explanation on WP:IPBE on how a user who already has IPBE can request a review of whether that permission will continue to be necessary, which would need to be done by a checkuser who can see what IP addresses I am editing from and whether they are blocked. I found how I can request IPBE in the first place, but that is not what I am trying to do. I would assume I should do something if I become aware the IPBE may no longer be necessary (and it might not be, but I honestly don't know, I'd need a CU to check) but it isn't entirely clear what. So I'm posting here, first, so that check can be done, and second, so the process can be clarified for the future. Thanks. Smartyllama (talk) 17:41, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

@Smartyllama: well you don't have IPBE now - so if you can edit without issue on the networks you usually use, you should be fine. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:46, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Gosh, has it been that long? I know it was granted for a year. My how time flies. But yeah, looks like you're right and it expired July 20, right after we switched to the new system. Timing worked out well I guess. Smartyllama (talk) 17:49, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Problem editing pattern by Kevin McE: part 2

A topic ban got imposed on User:Kevin McE (Let's start with a weird topic ban: Kevin McE, you are not to comment on anything related to Alica Schmidt or the editors whom you have chastised pertaining to that matter. That includes User:Schwede66, User:Maile66, and User:Joseph2302, and any other involved user, with or without numbers. In addition, it is clear that editors here are troubled by your tone, which (I agree) seems to betray a battleground attitude, and that may, if it continues, lead to a block. Thank you. Drmies) followed by a 60-hour block shortly thereafter. We wanted to leave the discussion open to see what happens when the block expires but it got archived. Well, the block has expired and Kevin McE is at it again. So it seems we need to continue with this discussion. Schwede66 21:30, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

And I might as well voice my opinion on the matter. The diff shows a clear breach of the topic ban and the appropriate response is an indef block. Given that, I see no need to also analyse the various accusations and poor conduct contained in that post. Schwede66 21:37, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure yet whether the TBan was enacted properly - I could easily have missed something, and have asked Drmies about it, but if it wasn't properly enacted then any breach isn't actionable. That's a bit of a side issue however, because the main issue is Kevin McE's uncollaborative battleground approach, which he seems unwilling to accept is an issue even after a block. I would support an indefinite block for threatening to repeat behaviour that is hostile, corrosive to the community, and ultimately disruptive. An alternative might be a TBan from main page related content, since that seems (at least in this instance) to be what he has got so angry about. Girth Summit _(blether) 21:52, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Paperwork or not, Girth Summit, this repetitive anger is too much. BTW, the paperwork isn't all that simple. There was broad agreement on the topic ban that I suggested (OK, imposed), but ANI threads tend to get archived, not closed. Anyway, "actionable" or not, the hits keep on coming. BTW, for anyone who hasn't looked at all the details, Kevin McE got blocked for a simple harassing edit, this one. Drmies (talk) 22:04, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Drmies, don't get me wrong - I think your block was necessary, and that another one probably is since he intends to keep right on doing the same stuff. I'm just saying that we should act on the underlying problem, not a breach of a ban that hasn't been logged. Girth Summit _(blether) 22:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

No, I know, GS, I got you--I just wish we weren't dealing with an editor who makes it necessary to jump through all these hoops. I mean, apparently STOP IT isn't enough. Personally, I think the ongoing battleground problems and incivilities are enough for in indef block. Oh, Mackensen agreed with that, on my talk page, so we're at four now. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 22:16, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

• Indef block - he still doesn't get it. We need to consider our vast and varied editing base. We have school children editing Wikipedia. We have university students who are taking it as a course - and not always getting everything perfect. Our encyclopedia is open to everybody in every part of the world, every age group, every learning step on how to do this, every demographic. On the talk page of Drmies, KevinE wrote, "I will not be tolerant of people trying to contribute to Wikipedia beyond their competence, and when they persist in erroneous and unencyclopaedic 'contributions', that can only be to the detriment of the project, I will not pussyfoot around telling them so: encouraging poor editors by kindness is not going to make Wikipedia better than it is, and taking fools lightly only make Wikipedia appear foolish." Based on Talk:Kalākaua coinage, I guess he means me and Wehwalt. And both of us admins, who went through a public assessment and vote by way of the required Request for Adminship. And may I say that nobody - absolutely nobody - has produced as many Featured articles as Wehwalt. That makes Wehwalt pick of the litter. Yet, KevinMcE couldn't even "tolerate" him. Kevin McE has been on Wikipedia 15 years. If he hasn't learned tolerance of other editors in that time, when will he? — Maile (talk) 01:01, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
• Pending - the editor in question edits later in the UTC day, but I would like them to provide their views on both the TBAN and why they shouldn't be indefinitely blocked for recurring negative behaviour. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:53, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I see that they're still throwing accusations at me and trying to discredit my edits on the page they're topic banned from. And mislabelling the sources there to do so (the source [2] says she was selected for the relay, and is listed in the "FRAUEN"= women section, so clearly not saying she was ever in the mixed relay team), so the article was originally correct). I will not be tolerant of people trying to contribute to Wikipedia beyond their competence doesn't sound like someone who wants to work collaboratively on here, making accusations about editors who've had hundreds of articles on the front page. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:11, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

• I'm happy for people (including native German speakers) to review Alica Schmidt and tell me if the sources don't match text (although I was given the source for that from a German speaker, and I believe from translation that it's all good). And if the user will actually adhere to the interaction/topic-ban, then I don't have a problem with them continuing to edit. But if they're going to continue to grind this axe about this article, then they're clearly not here to contribute positively. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:24, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I hope that comments here will not be taken as comprising a breach of topic ban: I am at a loss as to how I am considered to be given a chance to explain myself if I cannot refer to the things that might need explaining. And yet it seems that Drmies responded to my comments intended to be specifically to him not by responding to me, or making the correction I requested in article space, but by inviting a bunch of people to consider themselves offended by me.

I would have thought that trying to get articles to accurately represent the truth is precisely what all of us are here to do for the benefit of the encyclopaedia, and that seeking accuracy in article space should not be described as "grinding an axe". The Google translation of the article does not specify whether Schmidt was being considered for the women's relay or the mixed event, and unless you (Joseph) are confident that your ability to translate German is better than that of that software, then both your initial presumption that it was the women's 4x400 that she was selected for, and your reversion of my edit to the article, were, to your knowledge at least, unsourced. The source referred to by Joseph in this discussion is about selection for the European indoor championships that took place in Poland in March, and so is a total red herring as far as this discussion is concerned (Maybe Joseph will be willing to apologise for accusing me of mislabelling sources in that regard, and will apologise for introducing erroneous argument to this discussion).

I do not believe that I will ever consider it reasonable behaviour to make an accusation against someone without being willing to either defend that accusation or to retract it. I would hope that Wikipedia would want to hold its contributors to at least that standard of behaviour.

I would be intrigued to read how anyone considers Wikipedia to be improved by editors acting in areas that are beyond their competence, which seems to be defended here. I have certainly tried to ensure that I am informed as best I can be (in limited time) before I make any change to article space: I would hope and trust that all those involved in this discussion would want to say the same of themselves. Kevin McE (talk) 15:29, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Unless you (Joseph) are confident that your ability to translate German is better than that of that software Considering I was given the source by a German speaker, I trust it more than you or I using a translation tool. editors acting in areas that are beyond their competence this is the second time you've said this, with no evidence. This won't help your case. I'm happy for a native German speaker to review this source and tell me if I'm actually wrong, but I don't believe I am. And I'm certainly not "editing above my competency", whatever that means. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:46, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Now that you are aware that you referred to selection for the European Indoors as evidence of her selection for the Olympics, you may wish to reconsider that last statement. Kevin McE (talk) 15:51, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

No I didn't. They're two different competitions with two different sources, I never equated the two together- just because the 2 things were in the same paragraph, that doesn't mean they that one implies the other, this is the permlink that proves this. Your insistence on throwing shade on people rather than actually doing anything useful for the encyclopedia is tiresome. Joseph2302 (talk) 15:55, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I really cannot follow the reasoning of your last comment. As to your request that a competent German speaker review the source, I have asked @Gerda Arendt:, a Main Page stalwart who I presume is known to you, to look at the source in question.

In the meantime, do you have any evidence that at the time of your accusation (diff provided above) I had accused you of anything? Kevin McE (talk) 16:11, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Although Gerda has not yet replied, Jo-Jo Eumerus, who self identifies as a native German speaker, is active on MP discussions and is a sysop with nearly 80,000 edits has done so:"I don't see a clear indication on that page on whether it was mixed 4x400m or women's 4x400m. It says she qualified for the sprint, nothing about whether she would participate or not." Kevin McE (talk) 16:41, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I was the user who originally found that RBB24 source for Joseph2302. It says "the 400m runner Alica Schmidt qualified for the relay". The next sentence confirms that it was planned that she should run, because it says about someone else "she only participates as a substitute". There is no explicit clarification of which relay, other than that it is one involving 400m, but the standard assumption a German reader would make is that this is the 4x400m women's relay. —Kusma (talk) 16:51, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Is there any reason why a German reader would assume that it refers to being in the women's relay rather than one of the two women (plus a substitute) in the mixed relay? Kevin McE (talk) 17:04, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

It says "the relay", which defaults to the known relay event, not the new mixed one. Nothing specifically German about that, I admit. —Kusma (talk) 17:18, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I would have to consider that to be supposition rather than sourced. The contention that there is a source that says that she was due to compete in the women's relay seems unproven. Kevin McE (talk) 17:26, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't quite see why this matters so much. —Kusma (talk) 17:39, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Talk:Alica Schmidt should explain it. Does German lack a distinction between selection and qualification, because in the context of relay teams in Olympic athletics, nations qualify, and the national federation selects the runners. The idea that an athlete qualifies for a relay makes no sense, and (unless the language lacks the distinction) points to at best a lack of precision in that source. Kevin McE (talk) 18:01, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Nope. Hook that was reasonably correct was approved, got changed through the DYK process into something that was wrong. Happens all the time. Worst that happened to one of my hooks was that Lao She was presented as female after a good faith copyedit. It's a bit embarrassing, but the thing to do is make a quick correction via WP:ERRORS. Then the matter can be closed. —Kusma (talk) 18:30, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, the reply feature quietly edit-conflicted. "Nope" was my answer to "Talk:Alica Schmidt should explain it". As to the rest of your comment, I think "she qualified for the relay" can mean "she made the cut for the national selection". In German and in English. —Kusma (talk) 18:33, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Please allow me to provide some clarifications:

1. Kevin McE, you hoped that "comments here will not be taken as comprising a breach of topic ban". No, you are absolutely safe on that front. You are being discussed here and you need the ability to comment, respond, and put your case forward.
2. This ANI case is not about whether homepage content was wrong or whose responsibility it should have been to prevent this. The discussion on German sources and what it says in them is off-topic.
3. This ANI case is firstly about whether there was a topic and interaction ban in place (and from the brief discussion in the thread above, there appears to be consensus that this was not the case).
4. This ANI case is secondly about how Kevin McE's interacts with fellow editors.

I hope this will focus the discussion on the topics that are of relevance. Schwede66 18:48, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

OK, but Joseph said that he would engage with me here about his accusation against me, and so far, despite specific invitation to do so, he has not. I believe that somebody who has been accused should have the right to demand that the accuser presents themselves as accountable for that.

Also, I had raised the matter of Drmies bringing others into the conversation rather than making the requested change to the Schmidt article, and not being permitted to discuss the necessary correction to that article anywhere else, I believe I have proved that the alterations are necessary for accuracy in the only place open to me to do so.

But with the proviso that somebody corrects the erroneous article and that Joseph either retracts or justifies his accusation, I am happy to move on. Kevin McE (talk) 19:02, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Comment I don't think that's the point. Accusing another editor of incompetence is a big deal. We've all met editors that fail WP:CIR, but they're usually newbies, people with language issues or persistent POV-warriors. Not experienced Wikipedians with thousands of positive contributions. Yet you did it originally in the lead up to your block (amongst other things), you then did it again on Drmies' talkpage, and you've done it again in this very thread. What on earth are you thinking? Black Kite (talk) 19:18, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Citing an article on selection for the European Indoor Championships as proof that an athlete was selected for a particular event in the Olympics 4 months later does not indicate... what shall I call it then? Adequate understanding of the subject matter? Does somebody disagree with that, or that that is what happened in this thread? Kevin McE (talk) 21:02, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

(EC) Maybe you don't appreciate the gravity of the situation, Kevin McE. You may as well move on from your content dispute. What we are all waiting for is some response on the underlying behavioural pattern variously described as "harassment", "intolerant", "recurring negative behaviour", "attacking", "abusive tone", "galling ... behavior", "hounding". In case this hasn't quite got through to you yet – there is an expectation by your fellow editors that your conduct is such that you could not possibly be described by those phrases. So you better give some clear commitment that you will change your behaviour for the better or failing that, I predict that "moving on from here" will happen in the form of an indef block. Schwede66 19:28, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

So I will repeat what I have already said:

That I consider those who have positioned themselves to edit the Main Page, the most visible portal of the project that is directly linked from every page, should be help responsible for the highest standards, concomitant with the mutual congratulations which they lavish upon each other;

That unresearched changes from an agreed main page text (a hook in this case) is not responsible use of the authority given to somebody operating at that stage of such a high profile project;

That edits made without an understanding of the subject matter (or of the English language, or of encyclopaedic form and tone) are not helpful and that there is little to be gained from acting as though they are;

That when an editorial sub-community closes ranks, they can become very aggressive, even if unintentionally so, to somebody challenging them to see the style of their processes from the point of view of an outsider;

That people who lack the humility to acknowledge an error has been made are not helpful for as long as they persist in that attitude.

And in relation to that last,yes, I was intemperate in my language, and regret that, but I had been frustrated several times in the preceding few days, in several issues, and in seeking to find out what had happened in this case, over the Main Page, which I occasionally visit and am frequently very disappointed at the content of. Kevin McE (talk) 21:02, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Citing an article on selection for the European Indoor Championships as proof that an athlete was selected for a particular event in the Olympics 4 months later does not indicate For the second time in this thread (and I think the fourth time in all discussions): I didn't use the European Indoor Championships source to assume anything. I used one source for that Championship, and one source for the Olympics. Cut the crap creating lies about me. Even if you were correct about the one thing you've spent hours arguing (the issue seems inconclusive on that though), the harassment of multiple users on their talkpages and multiple other threads is not acceptable. And using this AN thread to re-argue with me over one line of text, instead of actually reflecting on your own aggressive attitude just proves to me that you're not here to collaborate. Joseph2302 (talk) 00:14, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Kevin McE's lengthy comment here only strengthens me in my opinion. They filled up paragraphs and paragraphs about some translation matter (and unfortunately got Joseph2302 to respond, and got others dragged in as well), but none of that matters here. In fact, I hope some uninvolved admin will come along and hat all those comments. What's key here is this: "And yet it seems that Drmies responded to my comments intended to be specifically to him not by responding to me, or making the correction I requested in article space, but by inviting a bunch of people to consider themselves offended by me." The first part is, in a way, correct; I was not interested in Kevin McE responding to my request for others to weigh in, also because (and this thread proves it) they have a tendency to dig deeper when they're in a hole. But it was never about some "correction" someone requested, and saying that I invited others "to consider themselves offended" by him is just a ruse: I pinged a few admins who, perhaps in varying degrees, saw serious problems with McE's behavior. And it seems that they haven't changed their minds. Drmies (talk) 20:20, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

So if I am aware of an error in an article, and I am not permitted to edit that article, is it not the responsible thing to use the page I can edit to seek improvement of Wikipedia? It is not my fault if others appear more determined to defend what is there than to concede the fats of the matter. And Joseph had specifically identified this page as the one where he would engage with me, so why should I not take him up on that invitation? (even if he has not taken me up on mine). Kevin McE (talk) 21:15, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I find it worrying that the person who assumes the right to call judgement on an issue is "not interested" in the person being judged having any say over the matter. If I were accused of murder I would be more clearly invited to respond.

Looking again, I see that the "inviting others to consider themselves offended" was inappropriate, but I cannot believe that the inclusion of Schwede in that set of pings was a search for a disinterested party for an objective opinion. I should not have extended that to the rest of the pings, and for that I apologise. I do believe though that responding to me would be the appropriate response to my post to your page. Kevin McE (talk) 21:15, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Kevin McE, I haven't looked at any of the sourcing, and I don't speak German, but I'm going to do you the courtesy of assuming that you are 100% correct in everything you have said about the content and sourcing, and that everyone else was 100% wrong. Based on that assumption, it is nevertheless my view that your actions were completely out of line: you were condescending and arrogant, and accused your colleagues of either incompetence or a disregard for the quality of our content. That is unacceptable. Being collegiate =/= pussyfooting around. Being polite =/= suffering fools gladly.

This project is in dire need of good editors, but you seem to think either that insulting people will make them better editors, or that if you drive them away from a particular part of the project, they will be replaced by a ready supply of better editors. They won't: it will just leave fewer people working in that space, who will probably make more mistakes because of the increased workload. If you care about the quality of our content, you need to nurture people; give them constructive feedback in a positive way. That doesn't mean ignore their mistakes, it means bring problems to their attention, talk to them politely about how they could have acted differently, and encourage a positive environment that people might actually want to work in.

At this point, if you were to acknowledge some shortcomings in your conduct and convincingly commit to do better, I could see myself opposing sanctions: I respect the body of work you've done here, and I wouldn't throw that away lightly. However, if you're not able to see that there is a problem in the way that you approach people who you think have made a mistake, I genuinely think that a collaborative project like this is the wrong fit for you. Please reflect on that. Girth Summit _(blether) 23:00, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

If the user accepts actually following the topic and interaction ban, I would be willing to accept something less than an indef block for them. And that is despite their repeated personal attacks both previously and through lying about me multiple times on this thread. Joseph2302 (talk) 00:14, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Although considering that for the last week, all this editor has done is argue about this one sentence of text, I don't see how they're here to positively contribute to the encylopedia. In that time, despite my alleged inability to edit anything, I've managed to create 3 articles, despite this harassment. Really says something about which of us is a useful editor, and which of us is just grinding an axe..... Joseph2302 (talk) 00:17, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for crossing out what would have been another false accusation about me. As to my "lying about you several times", I will withdraw myself from Wikipedia and request a permablock if you can provide proof of my doing so, if, and only if, at the same time you can provide evidence of where, prior to your accusing me of doing so, I blamed you for the MP error. But if you cannot, I would consider this another false accusation against me, and I would ask you, as I have before, to retract it and apologise. Kevin McE (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

• Girth Summit has it absolutely right. Kevin's been told he was bloody rude, and his response has essentially been "well, I was correct on the substance of the issue" which is a complete non-sequitur. A very large part of content work is reviewing stuff someone else has written; and most of us manage to provide such feedback on a regular basis without offending half a dozen people. If he's not willing to undertake to be more collegial, a block and/or a main-page TBAN might be indicated. Vanamonde (Talk) 08:13, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

I hope I had made clear above, I accept that I responded intemperately, and I have recognised and apologised for my response to Drmies' pings (although I don't think he will persuade me that his response was the best one). I do believe that there is a problem with scrutiny of MP content: not that there are not several structures, but that there is a small group of editors there who are too willing to take each other's work on trust and permit changes outside of the system of checks and balances that does exist; I also believe that there is a culture there of piling on to anyone who is somewhat outside that trusted group suggesting that there is a problem there.

I do not accept that it is acceptable to make accusations and then refuse to back up said accusation.

And yes, I need to dial it back and not get affronted by errors in Wikipedia, however they were introduced, and so I need to moderate my form of addressing those who introduce errors. I just think that this project could be so much better than it is, and suspect that that would be the case if WP:CIR were given a lot more prominence than WP:Anyone can edit. Kevin McE (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, that goes some way to addressing my concerns. I do not think I can support a block at this point. That said, I strongly suggest you stop making any reference to WP:CIR with respect to errors on the main page. It's bloody offensive. Aside from the fact that it's in no way a policy, CIR discusses editors who tend to be a net negative to the encyclopedia, despite good faith efforts to help. It isn't at all helpful with respect to occasional errors, or choices that were debatably errors, made by users with years of dedicated and helpful contributions. The WP:Anyone can edit philosophy might fairly be blamed for our neverending school-IP vandalism problem; it has nothing to do with who curates main-page content. Vanamonde (Talk) 09:52, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

But Vanamonde93, "I just think that this project could be so much better than it is, and suspect that that would be the case if WP:CIR were given a lot more prominence than WP:Anyone can edit"--doesn't that suggest that Kevin McE's counterpart in that discussion was incompetent? It still spells "I was right". Drmies (talk) 16:11, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

I have expressed an opinion about the overall operation of Wikipedia. I did not have any individual in mind in that comment. It is possible to attribute ill-will to almost any opinion that anyone ever expresses: I hope that such projection is not going to be a principle on which conclusions are to be reached here. Kevin McE (talk) 23:54, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Drmies, It does indeed, but that was sort of the point of my post; Kevin needs to stop referring to competence altogether. Vanamonde (Talk) 05:41, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

• @Drmies: and others, the issue here is lack of basic civility towards other editors, regardless of the competence of other editors. That, and the unmitigated hubris of any editor who had led themself to believe that the end justifies the means. Wikipedia:Arbcom exists as a necessity because abusive editors who are technically correct on one thing or another, were overlooked on behavior until ... well, about where this is right now. Editors who mistreat others, who can't get through a discussion without laying aside civility, should not be excused. Eventually, that editor ends up at Arbcom, several times often. Once it starts to be Arbcom level, the offending editors are often ones who have been around long enough to have a sort of fan club of other editors who make excuses for that behavior. Once you start making excuses for behavior - because, after all, they were technically correct - where does it end? Nobody likes to be a doormat. And if this mistreatment of others is not resolved here, I can see this making it up to ARBCOM in one form or another, where it will drag on and on. Nip this behavior now, please.— Maile (talk) 17:06, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

"Eventually, that editor ends up at Arbcom, several times often. Once it starts to be Arbcom level, the offending editors are often ones who have been around long enough to have a sort of fan club of other editors who make excuses for that behavior." That is not the case with me. I hope that whatever conclusions are drawn here are to be drawn on the basis of what I have said and done, not some unspecified precedent that someone thinks I am following. Kevin McE (talk) 23:54, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

That is exactly the case with you. Are you still missing the point, that this whole long discussion of you is about how you treat other editors? Snippy posts, and treating other editors as if they were your subordinates in knowledge and skill. You come across as having no tolerance for others, and are very combative. Many, if not most, of the cases at Arbcom are about an editor's conduct towards other editors. This whole long thread here, is about how you treat other editors. That, and the fact that you're absolutely sure you're right, when you're not. This is about your treatment of other editors. — Maile (talk) 02:09, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

The opening comment says the editor had a topic ban imposed on them, followed by a 60 hour block (presumably for violating that ban). However, they don't appear to be subject to any bans at Wikipedia:Editing restrictions and the ANI discussion didn't have any closure, it seems? Is the editor actually subject to a TBAN or was that Drmies' advice/proposal because they seem to have issues in the area discussed? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:08, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Ah, I was still mostly at part 1 and Drmies' talk. I see Girth raised this above. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:11, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Several of the comments are condescending and belittling towards other editors. It doesn't really matter whether you're right or wrong on the underlying content issue. And TBH, when you attack another editor's competence you generally put them on the defensive, which makes it harder to get anything done. For all the time sinking and animosity generated, if Kevin just pinged a German speaking editor in the first place to get clarification (even if he was certain), or just came across a bit less presumptuous perhaps (probably?) the events would've went differently. Similar for the other issues. It's plainly obvious here too, for example. You don't have to attack someone else's (editing) ability to get content changed, or to get them to agree to your proposal. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:33, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Assuming the interaction ban was valid, they also violated it in Special:Diff/1038487517 (by editing the same part of an article that I'd edited, which isn't allowed in a 1-way interaction ban). Joseph2302 (talk) 17:45, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

I had no knowledge that you had edited there. As can clearly be seen in my contributions history, cycling is one of my main interests, and Podmore has been a huge recent story in the cycling community. Am I to check the edit history of every page I look at? Kevin McE (talk) 20:52, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

• Indef block – I've mulled this over for a while and have come to the conclusion that removal of edit privileges is the only sensible way forward. Several editors have tried to get Kevin McE to see that his interactions with other editors need to fundamentally change. I see no evidence that he has taken that on board. To the contrary, this very thread contains inappropriate conduct from two days ago: I just think that this project could be so much better than it is, and suspect that that would be the case if WP:CIR were given a lot more prominence than WP:Anyone can edit. Maile66 has summed it up well and I agree that the issue will not go away. Our choices are to let it linger (for ANI or ARBCOM having to resolve it later) or to deal with it now. Yes, the editor has a longstanding history with this project and has produced good content. But their conduct pushes other editors out. Overall, that's a net negative and we should put a stop to this. The poor behaviour is not topic-specific; it's often triggered by MP content but extends into other areas. Therefore, a TBAN can't deal with it and a block is the way to resolve this. Schwede66 01:55, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, reiterating what I have said to Kevin McE above, if he doesn't change his pattern of interaction with other actors, this is a sure path to Arbcom. His response was, "That is not the case with me. I hope that whatever conclusions are drawn here are to be drawn on the basis of what I have said and done ... " What he's said and done is precisely the issue. — Maile (talk) 10:25, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

This doesn't seem like ArbCom material to me, or even on that trajectory. The community is entirely able to handle this problem, and could, but it doesn't seem like a bygone that Kevin can remedy his own approach. All the incidents also seem related so a well-defined topic ban is also possible, if that fails. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:31, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

He's been with Wikipedia for 15 years, and has been the same type of editor for 15 years. This is not something that just came up, and is not isolated to one topic. Everybody else is stupid and incompetent but him. Do we wait for his 20-year anniversary before we act? — Maile (talk) 10:47, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

The evidence is largely entirely limited to some recent events (i.e. this month). If you have evidence this has went on for 15 years, now would be a good time to present. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:57, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

This thread has bounced around, from ANI to the talk page of here, to being moved to an individual talk page, to here. But the above is how this started. And if you want other evidence, run it down yourself by looking at his editing history. He treats everybody with disrespect. He didn't just wake up one morning and change his approach. — Maile (talk)

You're asking for an indef here, and the suggestion of ArbCom suggests you're not happy with the action/response being taken. If, as you claim, this is a problem that has occurred for 15 years, it's really on you to gather the evidence and make the complaint. It's not really reasonable to expect others to trawl through the history of an editor with 41,000 edits. ArbCom, too, says isn't in the investigation business. As for his talk page archives, they are shallow so I did look into them, but it's not too helpful that several comments don't link to the preceding incident and/or diffs. The warnings do indicate the problem may be a long-time one, but what you're asking be done is tantamount to railroading IMO. A proper discussion needs to be had to implement appropriate conduct remedies, and that starts with the proper presentation of evidence that supports the claims made. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:34, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

We could start by going through Kevin McE's contributions to WP:ERRORS, which include personal attacks [3], [4] edit warring [5], [6], [7], preposterous nitpicking [8][[9], and insults over apostrophes [10].-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 18:50, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

This was the original complaint before a bot archived it while the case was still open. Original post Let's see if this archived link works. After this got archived, we took it over to the talk page of Drmies who moved it to this page (I think). It isn't that I didn't provide the evidence. It's just it kept being moved all over the place, possibly losing part of it (or not). It's getting a little hard to keep track of the evidence, but it's there. If this link opens as it should, there is at least one of the listed incidents that goes back to 2006, not just something that came up recently. Please take note of a quote where he has accused an editor of "the height of irresponsibility, inconsistency and cowardice" ProcrastinatingReader if the harrassment of Schwede66 were a one-time incident, it would never have made it to ANI, or much of anyplace else. A first-time offense usually gets a warning, maybe a temporary block slap on the wrist. Look at all the posts above. People are not commenting here without a background history on this pattern. — Maile (talk) 21:57, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Maile66: I had already read that ANI, the 4 linked discussions from this month (although not the 5th, from 2018), and the one at Drmies' talk. People are not commenting here without a background history on this pattern. If you want a block by WP:CBAN (ie, via a consensus of editors who are not involved in the underlying dispute), you should provide the background history of an apparent 15 year pattern. If you just want an uninvolved admin already familiar with the issues to indef, then I dunno what we're doing here? An admin can/should just indef per their own research and, if they deem it appropriate, notify AN? But that's now largely moot, as I think Pawnkingthree's provided evidence shows a pattern. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:50, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

• Indef block Continued WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality, this time unsolicited and days after block expired: I will not be tolerant of people trying to contribute to Wikipedia beyond their competence, and when they persist in erroneous and unencyclopaedic 'contributions', that can only be to the detriment of the project, I will not pussyfoot around telling them so: encouraging poor editors by kindness is not going to make Wikipedia better than it is, and taking fools lightly only make Wikipedia appear foolish.[11] Persistent WP:INCIVILITY, absence of WP:?, and refusal to WP:DROPTHESTICK. The nuances of the TBAN are, frankly, immaterial at this point. (Grievance in a nutshell: A DYK hook by Joseph2302 was changed by someone else post-approval to include a MOS:DATED statement about a future event, which ultimately didn't happen. Kevin McE blames Joseph2302 for not following the DYK hook cradle to grave. Kevin McE hunts anyone in that DYK's chain for not catching what Kevin McE reported at the eleventh hour.)—Bagumba (talk) 04:51, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I am really at a loss as to how I can explain myself, and defend myself if I am then going to be accused of refusal to drop an issue. If you have specific questions to ask me or commitments to ask of me, then I shall answer them, but otherwise I shall be an observer. Kevin McE (talk) 10:41, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Maybe you can't explain yourself. You could stop pretending you're an observer when you keep commenting here, trying to turn a thread about your behavior into some content discussion about something. What you could do is accept from other editors that they have serious problems with your editing style and your personal attacks. You could accept, for instance, that the comments that have been highlighted here are personal attacks (because they are). Or that community members don't appreciate your promise to continue treating editors you think did something wrong will be denigrated and attacked. You could, you know, apologize to Joseph 2302, whom you seemed to have pushed into despair. But you just keep on keeping on, believing that you are right. So again, that's enough for me to say, again, indef. Drmies (talk) 22:53, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Can I again ask Joseph, or you on his behalf, to explain what I need to apologise to him for, with diffs, because I can only find false accusations from him against me, which he has failed to substantiate. If he has genuine grounds for a grievance against me, I would of course. Kevin McE (talk) 08:05, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Not sure if this is the place Drmies, but it's probably a good idea to mention that the short block you imposed was the second one he'd received. He was blocked April 14, 2013, by (now retired) John for BLP violations, and unblocked a few hours later by Orlady with the edit summary "On expectation that Kevin McE and John will discuss their differences on article talk page, rather than warring." Block Log, so we know this issue has been going on since 2013, documented in his block log. So, he's been at this edit warring for at least eight years. Even more reason for an Indef. — Maile (talk) 00:57, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Well ... competence: noun "the ability to do something successfully or efficiently." Not understanding what is acceptable in a situation, and what is not demonstrates a lack of competence. Kevin has time and again demonstrated that he's inefficient at editing, and unsuccessful at collaborating with others. My conclusion would be that a WP:CIR indef block would be the best path forward for our project. If and when Kevin's situational awareness expands to the point where they understand how they failed at proper behavior, and is then willing to commit to improving said behavior in the future, then an unblock could be arranged. — Ched (talk) 01:56, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

• We're a collaborative project, and this is someone we're struggling to collaborate with. When brought to AN, the right reaction for him would have been to reassure the community about why and how he's easy to work with. Quibbling is the wrong reaction: it shows someone who puts a low value on social skills and who doesn't see any problem with their approach or any reason to change. Some people you can't work with.—S Marshall T/C 16:41, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

"[Mark this page as patrolled]"

Has anyone noticed that the "[Mark this page as patrolled]" link is now bigger in size and is now left-justified at the bottom of an unpatrolled page instead of right-justified? It looks like this change just happened. What got modified and where? Why? I liked where the link was before... ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 21:39, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

You appear to have got off lightly - I had my entire skin replaced. It's WP:THURSDAY and mw:MediaWiki_1.37/wmf.18. Strange things usually happen on Thursdays, not all of which is planned or permanent. You might want to look into some CSS. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:51, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Zzuuzz - Yeah... I figured that might be the case... Wait, you had your entire skin replaced? What skin are you using? ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 22:01, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

It seems to depend on the day. No worries it was probably just a temporary thing. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:22, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I would like to have my skin replaced, too, this one's all wrinkly. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 22:05, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

zzuuzz, is this some Kdaptist thing? Drmies (talk) 22:06, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Some of the stuff we have content about, and that people even know about, never ceases to amaze. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 22:22, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I learned from the best. Drmies (talk) 01:08, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Larry Niven is so awesome that other awesome writers give his works a satire homage. And he's cool about it. Just re-read a Hebrew translation of Lucifer's Hammer last month. Had a great time (again). El_C 16:19, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Oshwah, I've noticed when going to a page, in this case, user talk pages, that haven't been created yet, there is a graphic in the lower right-hand corner and a statement welcoming me to edit. Not sure when that element started but it's not like WMF give a head's up when they make changes.

I also noticed the left-justified "Mark this page as patrolled" on User pages and that the message still appears on pages even after several editors have edited it. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:57, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

And I thought someone had modified our local CSS. Hm.
Regarding your observation, Liz, I think as far as the creator of the page was not autopatrolled, the resulting page will remain unpatrolled until someone manually clicks that link. I've been doing so for years, but I'm afraid the benefit of patrolling user talk pages, sockpuppetry investigations and deletion discussions is low. The main result is a permanent view tracking log... Not sure if that's a good thing. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 11:24, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Heh, I do the same thing! Also, some patrolling there is actually useful - particularly with template-space and standalone project-space (if only subpages could be excluded easily). Elli (talk | contribs) 01:23, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Cewbot

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

---

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

Could an admin please block this bot? It has gone berserk. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 10:17, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I blocked the bot and reported the problem on the operator talk page; everybody may unblock once the problem is fixed or if it turns out that the bot was doing something I was not able to appreciate.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:27, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Much appreciated. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 10:29, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

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

FYI hijacked sites and citation bot

Just to let people know that numbers of sites that we have used for years, eg. leighrayment.com, have been taken over by gambling sites. Then user:citation bot has gone through and updated all the refs to contain the spam text. I have left a message with the bot owner about possible means to avoid this, though we are still going to have a whole lot of stuff to clean up. I have lodged a request to have the ref links nullified. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:08, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

I know the site isn't considered a totally reliable source and had been dormant since Mr Rayment's death in 2019 but it does appear that the pages have been archived at http://ukelections.info/leigh_rayment/index.html. Nthep (talk) 13:13, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

FWIW a search of what we face https://global-search.toolforge.org/?q=%22Slots+Online%22 — billinghurst sDrewth 13:22, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Someone has blacklisted the domains. I'm sure this was done in good intention, but it's a bad idea for a couple reasons, and not how we normally handle hijacked domains. Because of the blacklist, my bot is unable to edit the articles to add |archive-url= and |url-status=usurped. This is how it's normally done. I'm ready to usurpify the domains, but the blacklist would need to be lifted. Ping if/when ready. -- GreenC 14:58, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

@GreenC: This domain not blacklisted; temporarily whitelisted the other. The other needed to be blacklisted globally as the spambots were trying to add it, and was done prior to the greater exploration. leighrayment was found when exploring the situation. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:12, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Will follow up at WP:URLREQ. -- GreenC 03:20, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Tyler Breezy's contributions to Wikipedia

User Tyler Breezy has created several short, promotional articles which all have been marked for speedy deletion. The user has also recreated their promotional userpage after it was deleted. The user is clearly not here to build an encyclopedia, and I think admins should take a look at this user. WaddlesJP13 (talk | contributions) 01:46, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

It would seem that normal processes of the community can manage this, or at least attempted for a few days. Blocking at this stage seems like too much stick. — billinghurst sDrewth 03:17, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

I disagree. This is a combination of blatant self-promotion exacerbated by incompetence. He has 2 live edits, and 20 deleted edits, and he has been promoting himself since 2020 (his userpage having been twice speedy deleted). His only attempt at communication was to attempt to save his userpage from being deleted.--Bbb23 (talk) 12:40, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

BTW, this should have been posted at ANI.--Bbb23 (talk) 12:42, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

User's indeffed for promotion. Hopefully this will not last long and this is a wake up call to them to understand Wikipedia's not to be used to promote their music. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:56, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

@RickinBaltimore: Maybe you slept even less than I did last night. :-) You deleted the user's Talk page per G11, which I don't think you intended to do, and failed to block the user.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:10, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

I've fixed it. Secretlondon (talk) 13:12, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

@Secretlondon: As long as you're fixing things (thanks), how about adding a block notice to the user's Talk page?--Bbb23 (talk) 13:24, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I'm rusty. Fixed that bit too. Secretlondon (talk) 13:37, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Coffee, THEN Wikipedia. Thanks all. RickinBaltimore (talk) 13:32, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Behavior of Adamdaniel864 again

There was an earlier ANI, now in Incidents archive #1074. The persistent issue is competence is required. Adamdaniel864 has repeatedly been creating articles that do not meet GNG and are often without references. This results in his output being draftified or Speedy deleted or AfD'd. Most recent is an AfD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ai Tingting, where the comment from Adamdaniel864 was "Maybe in fact, I like to create hundreds of new pages about different people from different webs, to include together in the Wikipedia. Maybe to connect together between Wikipedia and other pages.." From User page and various Talk comments, this output appears to be a young person's enthusiasm, but there has been no evidence of developing competence. David notMD (talk) 12:20, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, this is becoming a bit of an issue. I feel bad about it because Adamdaniel864 shows every sign of being a good-faith editor, but it is very hard to get him to understand how Wikipedia works. One problem is the language barrier. He is from Malaysia (per his user page), and I don't know what his native language(s) is/are but it is not English. He professes to be a language enthusiast, and claims that he is in the process of learning a number of different languages from different language families. Unfortunately, he jumps off the deep end of the pool by editing and creating articles in languages he does not have a very good command of. He had a previous account blocked at Croatian Wikipedia – I'm not sure exactly what the problem was, but there are warnings about adding autotranslated text to articles at that hr.wiki user talk page. He had a conversation in English at uk.wiki, to one of their admins who was very helpful and patient, but it looks like he has run into the same kind of issues over there as well, now (per this TH thread). I'm getting a sense that Adamdaniel1864 is an enthusiastic young guy without any deeper understanding of how languages work, a little similar to the kid who created all those pages over at sco.wiki. --bonadea contributions talk 16:37, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Agreed it is a good faith, but Wikipedia:Competence is required issue.

Proposal

A possible remedy would be to revoke his ability to draft new articles until he gains some more experience. Some more practice in contributing to existing articles may help, though I cannot say it will solve all of the issues, but is worth trying. Shushugah (he/him • talk) 17:15, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

• I've indefinitely blocked both Adamdaniel864 and his other account Слов'янська. After a thorough look through both's contributions, the CIR issues are deeper than age or a language barrier, and I do not see how a topic ban is going to work given the complete lack of response to multiple warnings across multiple projects so far. – Joe (talk) 18:11, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

My Conduct Thus Far

Following an ANI discussion wherein a user reported me for not keeping off their talk page, I took responsibility and decided not to post on their Usertalk anymore. The report against me resulted in a boomerang , but I promised to stand by my word and I have respected my promise to both myself and the community to not post on their TP anymore, Today I was in the process of leaving them a template(not a personal message) when i realized I didn’t know how Templates and voluntary IBANs work, I guess my question is; do templates violate the “voluntary” IBAN ? Especially if it’s a very imperative warning. Celestina007 (talk) 20:21, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Your questions is fairly confusing. Being asked to stay off someone's talk page is not the same thing as a voluntary iban. If someone asks you to stay off their talk page you should respect that without being dragged to ANI, but it only affects the talk page. A voluntary iban affects all interactions throughout Wikipedia. That said, in either case, the only reasonable exception to posting on the editor's talk page, is posting a mandatory notification when you are bringing them to one of the noticeboards. Even then, it may be better to simply note when you open the thread that you won't be giving the notification given the ban/request and ask for someone else to do so. There is no such thing as an imperative warning, especially not one that only you can give. If no one else notices the problem and feels the need to warn the editor, then you should just let it be. If you've simply been asked to stay away from the editor's talk page then if the editor's behaviour requires administrative action or discussion somewhere, you are free to open a thread wherever relevant like you normally would and explain why you didn't talk to them first. But if you have a iban, you shouldn't be looking at the editor's edits unless they directly affected you, and you shouldn't be complaining about their behaviour which doesn't directly relate to their iban (assuming it's a 2 way). Nil Einne (talk) 20:47, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

@Nil Einne, no, I have no IBAN, that’s a lexical error on my part I only promise myself to respect their wishes and not post on tp anymore. As for the “imperative warning” I used it because it contained “information censorship” I have no IBAN none whatsoever sorry for the misunderstanding. Celestina007 (talk) 21:38, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

@Celestina007: well without an iban if you feel the removal of some information from an article or page was inappropriate, I'm not sure I see a reason why this would belong on the editor's talk page. Just bring it up on the article talk page and wait for the editor to respond, concentrating of course on why you feel the information shouldn't have been removed rather than any alleged wrongdoing of the editor in doing so which is IMO generally the right course of action anyway. If they don't, then either ping them (assuming they didn't ask you not to) or revert their edit mentioning the talk page discussion. If the editor persistently refuses to join the discussion on the talk page but keeps reverting your attempts to add back the removed info, bring them up on a notice board mentioning your attempts to discuss on the page talk page and that you couldn't approach the editor directly to ask them to join the talk page discussion given the request. If the editor is edit warring requiring a block, I think any editor who can think of asking someone to stay away from their talk page probably knows enough that they can't reasonably claim to be unaware of our edit warring requirements if you explain why you couldn't give a warning. But anyway, even if an admin feels that despite your dilemma, the editor still needs a warning first and so gives them one as a result of your AN/EW thread, this doesn't seem to be major harm to me. If it's a DS case then okay yes until someone gives them the necessary notification or they're otherwise aware, then no action can be taken but if it's reached the level where you feel action under DS would be justified, you can surely open an AN or ANI thread about the editor mentioning it's a DS area but there's been no notification yet because you couldn't give one. Technically this could result in action outside the DS process, more likely it'll just be someone giving the required notification. In this case, I can understand why it's frustrating. Still it seems respecting the request is still the right thing to do even without an ANI and that sort of situation can arise in a lot of cases even without a request getting in the way of notification. Nil Einne (talk) 02:51, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Nil Einne, thanks for painstakingly clarifying things for me. I appreciate it. Celestina007 (talk) 03:15, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Celestina007, best to just link to who it is and explain the reason for the intended warning. I, for one, am totally lost. El_C 21:18, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

@El_C don’t be “lost” it’s too early for that lol, however myself and the third party have reached a compromise. Celestina007 (talk) 21:38, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

Celestina007 done go night night? El_C 21:53, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

🙃 Celestina007 (talk) 03:13, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Nazi Party flag instead of articles

As I write, the article Joe Biden displays nothing but a swastika. It's a vandalism on one of the templates, I cut out the first few sections of the article, and that displays correctly. If anyone can spot the template vandalism faster, go for it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 13:52, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I am seeing a huge Nazi Party flag instead of the article about Robert De Niro and I suspect that is not intended. Surtsicna (talk) 13:52, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

That was vandalism in Template:Wbr (which I just reverted). --Hoo man (talk) 13:54, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Strange template. You can't make it into a 'redirect' or edit it, at all. GoodDay (talk) 13:57, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Hoo man, I am still seeing it at Robert De Niro. Surtsicna (talk) 13:58, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

You can't even revert it. Perhaps, it's a potential virus. Heck, ya can't find out 'who' created & put it there. GoodDay (talk) 14:00, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Changes to templates this will take some time to propagate to all articles that use them. If needed, this can be forced by purging the pages in question (see mw:Manual:Purge). Cheers, Hoo man (talk) 14:02, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Now it's been reverted & the article's history doesn't show it's being reverted or who reverted it. VERY STRANGE indeed. GoodDay (talk) 14:02, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

GoodDay, It won't do, because the article hasn't changed. The template has. Look at the history of Template:Wbr now. I've template-protected the template and blocked the vandal. This is not some fly-by vandal, the template was already semi-protected, which requires making a few good faith edits and waiting a while before doing the "payload". Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:06, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I see. Thank goodness the vandalising editor has been caught & banned. GoodDay (talk) 14:07, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

And I was wondering why the heck are there so many people reporting about swastikas in #wikipedia-en-help. I thought it was a troll effort at first, since I only looked at the affected articles after the template vandalism was reverted... pandakekok9 (talk) 14:06, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: you can use the "Related Changes" link in the sidebar to pull all the changes for that page and templates used on that page. It's generally the fastest way to discover which template was vandalised. stwalkerster (sock | talk) 14:08, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

The other approach is to go to recent changes and set it to the template namespace.©Geni (talk) 14:09, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Weird, @Xylophonist: was doing alright, his first day on Wikipedia (August 10) & then suddenly, after a six-day break, he goes off the rails. GoodDay (talk) 14:13, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I mean, they did exactly 10 edits and then waited a few days so that they would get autoconfirmed. Standard sock behavior AFAICT. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:14, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

They were doing also very gnomish edits (adding a short description and likely using some list/category that lists articles w/o short descriptions, alphabetically) to get there. That's the same type of abuse some editors were doing around the time of Gamergate and the 500 edits/30 day restrictions (doing 500 gnomish edits). Unfortuntely the 10 edits thing seems to be a server-based thing and not something we can easily change ourselves w/o WMF tech help. We should expect more of these types of "sleeper attacks" on semi-protected areas. --Masem (t) 14:17, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Yup. Hang around long enough on NPP or CAT:CSD and you'll spot some one of these creating spam. We need all high-profile templates to be TEMPLATE EDITOR protected, not semi. MusikAnimal, your bot is very helpful, but could it be changed to do this? I think what you'd need is to count the total number of page views on all transclusions, rather than just the number of transclusions full stop. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:19, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@Ritchie333 It only protects unprotected templates. This was partly due to the fact there was no clear consensus to elevate protection levels. I had intended to bring this back up for discussion at some point, just never got around to it. I assume this instance is enough to show this functionality is both desirable and needed, so I'll get to coding… — MusikAnimal ^talk 15:54, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

As an aside, I've template editor protected Template:Soft hyphen, which is linked to the above template. It's already been vandalised in the same manner, and was duly protected due to identical vandalism to this, but reverted some time later with the comment "Template does not have high number of transclusions, and there is not a high risk of vandalism.", which I think most editors reading this thread might disagree with. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 14:40, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

A template that has at least 1000 transclusions must be template-protected at least. We can't afford yet another incident like this. There are already "journalists" who wrote articles that Wikipedia got "hacked". Heck, one of them even tried to contact the WMF! pandakekok9 (talk) 15:00, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

• Hours after I protected Swastika Dutta — tin foil hat mode activate! El_C 15:34, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
• I didn't realize templates used on tens of thousands of pages weren't template-protected as a matter of course. Something that can vandalize 53,000 pages at once seems like a big gap in security. —valereee (talk) 16:29, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  The vast majority of such templates are, I have no idea how this one slipped through. Far more risky are template redirects, which still can have hundreds of transclusions without being protected (and have no reason to not be protected as well, there's not really much editing to do on a redirect is there). Elli (talk | contribs) 16:35, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

  • I just tprotected two WP:HRTs, one with 13,000 (Template:Trim brackets) and another with 168,000 (Template:Str letter) transclusions, by way of RfPP. Maybe a more systemic way to identify these HRTs exists or can be invented...? El_C 17:24, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

    It's a pretty hard problem to solve. There are certain situations (I've compiled a whole list here) where MediaWiki can't adequately keep track of how heavily transcluded a template is—or, importantly, how heavily transcluded it could become with just a few subtle changes to unprotected pages. If we want to 100% avoid this kind of thing, we'd need an adminbot that can do some pretty sophisticated analysis of the logic in templates to find these weaknesses. There's also a lot of ways that a clever attacker could basically build in a "ticking time bomb" where the payload, when delivered, wouldn't show up in RelatedChanges or RecentChanges. That would also require an adminbot to get around, in this case one that would make it impossible to deploy those payloads. (Any admin can email me for a full threat analysis. This is something I've been thinking about for a while now.) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 17:55, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Like. El_C 18:05, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

This brought back memories of Ed Miliband in 2015.[12] As I said at the time, autoconfirmed isn't good enough for high profile templates.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:49, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

This seems like as good a time as any to say: Fuck you, Hitler! El_C 22:04, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Hitler Has Only Got One Ball should be a TFA. Levivich 23:20, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@El C @Tamzin Later tonight I'm going to push out an update to my bot that should prevent this from happening moving forward. Before I didn't think the queries my bot uses would have been efficient enough to do what we want, but I believe they are now, following the 2020 replicas redesign. There also wasn't clear consensus for this functionality, but I am safely assuming there is now :) Long story short, don't sweat it. We can and will prevent this kind of vandalism from happening again. A native MediaWiki solution is tracked at phab:T237814. See also Special:AbuseFilter/600 (intentionally log-only), which has been tweaked in response to today's events. — MusikAnimal ^talk 19:27, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

There's a couple edge cases I've got in mind; I'll email you. :) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 20:01, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Simply clicking Edit on Joe Biden and searching the bottom of the page for "semi-protected" shows twenty eight template pages and lua module pages that (as I understand it) could allow this to happen again. Checking usage counts with this seems to indicate that each of those templates is only used a few thousand times. But that's still a lot. Leijurv (talk) 01:11, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

• So it seems there's pretty clear consensus here to TPE protect all templates above a certain number of transclusions, and I'd assume there's probably also a lower threshold over which we'd want to semi-protect all templates. Does anyone want to throw out specific numbers that we might agree on? (MusikAnimal, particularly interested to hear from you on this, as it sounds like you're the one working on this from the technical end. The Wikipedia:High-risk templates page states a bot automatically template-protects pages with over 5000 transclusions and semi-protects pages with over 500 transclusions, and that a 2018 RfC identified rough consensus to permanently semiprotect templates with at least around 200-250 transclusions. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:43, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

  @Sdkb Let's discuss below (sorry for fragmenting). I'd like to see ECP in the picture, which I think @Johnuniq is hinting at as well. The 2018 RfC predates the bot, so what we decided on in the January 2019 bot proposal might have precedence, but I'm certainly fine with changing the config to 250 for semi. — MusikAnimal ^talk 04:07, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

• Perhaps the protection policy should be revisited? WP:TPROT says that template-editor protection should be used only on Wikipedia:High-risk templates templates and modules and WP:ECP has similar weasle-wording. Wikipedia:High-risk templates#Relevant discussions points to decisions in Feb 2018 and Dec 2016. In the past I have handled some requests for protection and hated the fact that WP:TPROT gives pathetic guidance and WP:ECP pretty well rules out using ECP for a template unless ongoing vandalism is occurring. Johnuniq (talk) 03:55, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Oops, see #TemplateProtector bot updated; Should we use ECP on templates? below. Johnuniq (talk) 03:57, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

FWIW coverage of this [13], [14]. --Masem (t) 04:23, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

@MusikAnimal: I notice you've globally locked the vandal account, which seems reasonable. As a checkuser, do you think it's worth forwarding the IP and other checkuser information to WMF Legal / Trust and Safety, because I think they may want to consider legal action against the operator. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:15, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Actually, reading the Gizmodo article, it seems they already know and are considering legal recourse. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:12, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Spencer Grammer

The page for actress Spencer Grammar has been hacked. It now just shows a swastika.

See above discussion, template on that article was vandalised. Joseph2302 (talk) 14:07, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@El C@Joseph2302 A Wikipedia:Null edit may help, due to caching; which isn't guaranteed to invalidate at same time for everyone. "There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things" ~ Martin Fowler Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:18, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I hear that. Personally, I've never been a huge fan of https://counterstrike.fandom.com/wiki/Cache either, Shushugah. I just find some of the bottlenecks in that map to be a bit much. And don't get me started on that damn vent! El_C 22:24, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

@El C What do you have against cash? It's not like it's ever been used for harm... Shushugah (he/him • talk) 22:50, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I mean, I perform decently enough in it (like I do all maps — flex!), but I just find its flow to be a bit stunted. Almost feels like a suckier version of Nuke, if that makes sense. Anyway. El_C 22:58, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

"And no one's gettin' fat except Mama Cache" -- RoySmith (talk) 14:40, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Stealth songspam, I respect that. El_C 16:20, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Mass CSD tagging

Stefan2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Stefan2 has tagged probably ~200 files just today for CSD F5 (orphaned) or CSD F6 (no fair use rationale). Many taggings seem correct, but especially among the CSD F6 tagged files it's often just a matter of not having the de facto default fair use template as an album cover for an article about said album is generally accepted to fall within the scope of fair use on Wikipedia.

Because of the sheer number it's difficult to check everything here. Some of the images tagged CSD F5 might be caused by a broken template, typo or vandal. The CSD F6 images that could be fixed by adding a fair use template should just be fixed, not deleted, but the volume and deadline are a problem. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 14:28, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

I discovered that the bot which tags files for F5 deletion for some reason didn't tag files with redirects. I happened to have some free time today, so I tagged those. If some of the files weren't supposed to be orphaned, then presumably the uploader sees this and adds it back to the article. The earlier the file is tagged, the earlier someone is likely to spot the error. I think that orphaned files usually are orphaned because they are supposed to be orphaned. The bot seems to tag maybe 500 files per week so an extra 100 or so manually tagged files probably doesn't make a big difference.

Category:Wikipedia files with no non-free use rationale as of 16 August 2021 only contains 32 files and there is a week left. If it is such a big burden to check 32 files in a week, then I don't mind if someone edits the template to extend the deadline by a week or two. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:51, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Stefan2, if the uploader isn't around anymore, on vacation or just not checking their watchlist regularly they won't notice. When the bot tags something it's usually immediately after some change, so somewhat more likely to be noticed. I'll try to fix some of the descriptions. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 00:48, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Just going to make a couple of comments on this.

1. Non-free content use and fair use aren't really the same thing when it comes to Wikipedia as explained in WP:NFC#Background and it's probably best to avoid mixing up the two terms when discussing the this type of image use on Wikipedia; in other words, there isn't really a scope of fair use on Wikipedia since pretty much any image could be used without any real restrictions on Wikipedia if relevant policy was identical to fair use.
2. There are also really no "de-facto" types of non-free content use when in comes to Wikipedia. There are types of uses that are generally considered acceptable per WP:NFCI, but even these aren't necessarily automatically considered WP:NFCC compliant. A non-free file needs to meet all ten of the WP:NFCCP and failing even one means the file can be removed. One of the requirements (or, more specifically, one part of one of the requirements) is WP:NFCC#10c which states that a separate specific non-free use rationale needs to be provided for each use of a non-free file. So, if a file is missing such a rationale, then the particular use isn't policy compliant.
3. It's the responsibility of the editor adding a non-free file to an article to add a corresponding non-free use rationale for said use to the file's page as explained in WP:NFCCE. For sure, lots of well-meaning editors just add non-free files without rationales to articles for whatever reason (many probably just assume all images are the same and aren't aware of the NFCC), but the responsibility is still theirs. If another editor comes across such a file and notices it's missing a non-free use rationale, then they can for sure add the rationale if they feel the use is justified. They can, however, also tag the file with {{nrd}} or {{di-missing article links}} to give someone else the opportunity to do so if they're not so sure, or they can simply remove the file if they feel the particular use is pretty much impossible to justify. Each human editor is different and some may spend more time looking a particular file than others, but bots (unlike humans) are pretty much all the same and are just going to tag and remove files and then leave only a boilerplate notification template on the uploader's user talk page when they do. Since files can only be deleted by administrators, one can hope that the reviewing administrator will take more than a casual look at the file before deleting it and prehaps catch any obvious mistakes. Once again though, it's not the administrator's responsibility to provide a missing rationale; so, if the reviewing administrator feels the use can't be justified, then they will delete the file. FWIW, both F5 and F6 deletion have a seven-day window from when a file is tagged to when it's eligible for deletion and both should end up with the uploader being notified on their user talk page. If, however, the uploader is not around for some reason and they don't see the notification, then Wikipedia isn't going to stop and wait for them.
4. WP:F5 and WP:F6 deletions are pretty common and mostly considered non-controversial WP:SOFTDELETEs. In most cases, files deleted for such reasons can be quickly restored without much fuss via WP:REFUND or by contacting the deleting admininistrator. So, if the uploader or another editor wants a file deleted for F5 of F6 reasons restored, all they bascially need to do is ask and address the reason for deletion. It's still, however, the responsibility of that person to justify the non-free use and provide the required rationale (if missing) for that use.

-- Marchjuly (talk) 04:54, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

If a file is tagged with WP:F5 and no one notices, then no one will add it back to an article (if it was supposed to be added back). However, no one would notice if it wasn't tagged, so it's not going to be added back faster if it's not tagged. If someone discovers that the image is missing from an article in a month or a year, this person could either go to WP:REFUND or re-upload the image. That said, most images are probably unused because they are supposed to be unused.

If a file is deleted for having no fair use rationale but the file satisfies the other criteria, then anyone could write a FUR and request undeletion at WP:REFUND or re-upload the file. However, the file should not be used in the article while the FUR is missing as that's not compatible with policy.

Both F5 and F6 give people a week to fix any problems which can be fixed, so files aren't instantly deleted. --Stefan2 (talk) 09:36, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

WatanWatan2020

• WatanWatan2020 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

A previous complaint was opened by Oshwah in January 2021.

The discussion was archived without being closed or resolved. Unfortunately, WatanWatan2020 continues to add unreferenced content (and to remove referenced content), for instance in Levantine Arabic.

As Oshwah wrote in January: "I feel like a discussion should be started regarding the issues relating to WatanWatan2020's edits to these articles, as well as this user's overall conduct. Are this user's edits to these articles substandard as pointed out many times on his/her user talk page? Is this user becoming disruptive to the point where actions or sanctions are necessary?" A455bcd9 (talk) 16:09, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing the matter here. Here, we will show exactly what I have inputted which is universally known information, whether sourced or unsourced. Along with this, it will also be shown per the recorded edits you made that show you intentionally have been putting false information in such as listing Israel as an Arab country and removing the fact that Levantine Arabic is the native language of the Arab people in the Levant. This sort of information is well known, although you have continued to make it otherwise. I am referring to A455bcd9.All records are available. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WatanWatan2020 (talk • contribs) 16:25, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

WatanWatan2020 Please understand that universally known is not a valid criteria for adding material to Wikipedia. Everything added to Wikipedia must be verifiable from reliable spources. This is one of the core policies of Wikipedia. Please read the essay at Wikipedia:Common knowledge for a discussion why relying on "common knowledge", or in your words, what is "universally known", is a bad idea, and not compatible with editing Wikipedia. - Donald Albury 18:59, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi Donald Albury, you exactly identified the problem. It seems that WatanWatan2020 does not understand the importance of reliable sources. I've already had this discussion with WatanWatan2020 on my talk page. But when I mentioned "Wikipedia:Reliable sources" and asked the user to "please provide reliable sources for every single sentence you want to add.", WatanWatan2020 answered:

• "This is common logic that does not require a source, as the information itself is a source."
• "everything that is added accurate and undeniable information, whether sourced or unsourced. this is because the information is universally known as well. For you to say "add a source for every sentence you want to add" that would mean Wikipedia articles would have a source listed at the end of each sentence throughout articles. this has never happened and frankly seems it will never happen. It is not viable."

This is the first time I file such a complaint, what are the next steps? A455bcd9 (talk) 09:07, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

A455bcd9, I just looked at WatanWatan2020's contributions, and saw that the two of you engaged in a edit war yesterday in the article Levantine Arabic, in which the two of you reverted each other nine times in less than 24 hours. I almost decided to block both of you for edit warring, but decided instead, since neither of you had edited the article since yesterday, and neither had been recently warned about edit warring, to issue warnings to both of you. Note that if you revert one of WatanWatan2020's edits again, you may be blocked from editing without further warning.

As for your question, you need to separate any content dispute you have with WatanWatan2020 from any cases where you believe the user is systematically violating policies and quidelines. Be very careful about labeling edits as vandalism. Please read the policy at Wikipedia:Vandalism. You may open a complaint about another editor's conduct (but not about the content of their editing) at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents, but be sure to include links to page differences that clearly show how their conduct violates policy and quidelines, or is otherwise detrimental to Wikipedia. - Donald Albury 15:26, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I answered your message here (mentioning this for other potential readers of this complaint).

Separating this content dispute from potential systematic violation of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines isn't obvious to me. Indeed, if Wikipedia:Vandalism is "The malicious removal of encyclopedic content [...] without any regard to our core content policies of [...] verifiability [...] is a deliberate attempt to damage Wikipedia." then a systematic additions of unreferenced content and removals of referenced content is vandalism (which is the reason why a previous complaint was opened in January, and why I opened this complaint), even though a single occurrence of such an edit may be done in good faith and therefore, not considered vandalism. A455bcd9 (talk) 16:52, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Confusing/contradictory split discussions

Hi admins, there are currently two split discussions taking place concurrently:

• Split Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan into a new, separate article titled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001). ➡️ Link to discussion.
• Split portions of Taliban into Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. ➡️ Link to discussion.

Both these proposal have been made boldly by inexperienced editors, so it's not exactly clear how they interact with one another or what would happen if both closed with support. I have no idea what is the proper way to handle this, so I figured I would bring it to the attention of this noticeboard. Thanks. JBchrch talk 21:43, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Just for the record, I proposed closing the second discussion and reopening it after the first one closes Talk:Taliban. JBchrch talk 22:04, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Any thoughts? Both discussion are on high-visibility pages so they are getting quite a lot of !votes. JBchrch talk 08:41, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents should not be brought for pure content disputes, as complex as this one may be. They're both highly watched pages, and other than continuing the discussion (which I have), I don't think anything needs to be discussed here, though I know this was brought in good faith of anticipated clusterfuckery. Shushugah (he/him • talk) 10:33, 17 August 2021 (UTC) (Moved comment further down)

The fact these discussions happened at the same time created confusion over how close we are to consensus, but the two discussions are very similar in nature. I have an idea as to move forward with things.

• We have nearly reached a consensus in favor of the merge in "Split portions of Taliban into Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" ➡️ Link to discussion
• There is significant opposition to "Split Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan into a new, separate article titled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001)" ➡️ Link to discussion based on the precedent set by how the Islamic State of Afghanistan is structured since it is the closest parallel to the situation we have now, as well as many other arguments.

• I propose the support for the merge in the near consensus be considered as opposition to the other discussion since that decision being fulfilled is contingent on the split being denied. --The Gentle Sleep (talk) 10:32, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents should not be used for pure content disputes, as complex as these may be. They're both highly watched pages, and other than continuing the discussion (which I have), I don't think anything needs to be discussed here, though I know this was brought in good faith of anticipated clusterfuckery. I propose closing this discussion and continuing on the respective talk pages. Shushugah (he/him • talk) 10:33, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

• @Shushugah: This is WP:AN, not WP:ANI. JBchrch talk 10:50, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Redacted, sorry for creating confusion! Shushugah (he/him • talk) 10:56, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

CfD backlog

There are currently 150 old CfD discussions awaiting closure or relisting. The oldest 10 are as follows:

1. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_3#Category:COVID-19_conspiracy_theorists
2. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_6#Category:Flemish_geographers
3. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_10#Category:Political_party_colour_templates (this one is double-counted in {{XFD backlog}})
4. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_10#Category:German_former_Hindus
5. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_12#Category:Victims_of_the_2012_Aurora_shooting
6. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_12#Category:NaCl_structure
7. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_12#Category:Zincblende_crystal_structure
8. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_12#Category:DYK/Pages/Soft_redirects
9. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_12#Category:Islamic_studies_scholars_by_nationality
10. Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2021_July_13#Category:LGBT_Roman_Catholic_bishops

Some of these have already been relisted at least once before. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 23:37, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

TemplateProtector bot updated; Should we use ECP on templates?

Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Should we use ECP on templates?

 – — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:46, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

User Ethiopian Expressway's contributions

User:Ethiopian Expressway (talk) is repeatedly attempting to recreate the promotional article Ethiopian Toll Roads Enterprise which I have speedy deleted twice. The article currently sits in draftspace at Draft:Ethiopian Toll Roads Enterprise. This account is clearly not here to build an encyclopedia, and is trying to promote a company, as proven by the username and recent contributions. WaddlesJP13 (talk | contributions) 04:28, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

• You're probably right, but I'm erring on the side of caution. I've placed a {{uw-paid}} warning on their talk page. They made one edit after that, but it may have caught the editor in passing. They've not edited since. I deleted their latest attempt to get an article on Ethiopian Toll Roads Enterprise, and will salt it if they try again. It appears that they have stopped editing for now. The name "Ethiopian Expressway" could conceivably just be a person who is interested in the project, and not a paid representative of the companies related to Ethiopian expressways. Yes, it's a small chance. But, let's see. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:16, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
• And another administrator blocked them. --Hammersoft (talk) 16:03, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

User:Georgewelles2021's vandalism

User:Georgewelles2021 won't stop mass-deleting/edit warring/vandalizing content on several articles (When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, Don't Smile at Me, Nicole da Silva etc.) despite several warnings; you can take a look into their user talk page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BawinV (talk • contribs) 10:45, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Not actually vandalism, but the user has never discussed their changes, so I think a WP:ICANTHEARYOU block is warranted, which I've done. For future reference, reports like this should be on WP:ANI. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:49, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Close review please

Hi, sysops. I need your help: please tell me whether I've got this wrong.

On 2nd August, I closed this rather technical discussion as "no consensus". It attracted more participation post-closure, and I asked the community for advice about how to deal with that here; when all was said and done, I still couldn't see a consensus. It's common ground between all the participants that there was no consensus in the discussion and the status quo ante should be restored.

However, a fresh dispute now exists about what the status quo ante actually is. My understanding is that we should read "no consensus" as meaning that no change should be made to the template; but other users feel that "no consensus" means that the template should be edited to bring it into compliance with a wider consensus (at WP:HIDDENCAT) which, they feel, applies. They're expressing some frustration and disappointment in me. There's extended discussion about this at Template talk:Fiction-based redirects to list entries category handler#How to interpret closure?

I'm very conscious that I'm not infallible, so I've opened this close review on my own motion. I would welcome your wisdom.—S Marshall T/C 14:16, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

• Gonnym has posted on my talk page objecting to my framing of the issue. He feels that it isn't a matter of consensus vs guideline, but of guideline vs guideline. His position is that WP:SUBTOPICCAT and WP:LISTRCAT support his view.—S Marshall T/C 15:12, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

From what I can see, you've done a great job with this. The initial closure looks to be correct, and while it's fine for discussion to continue after that closure, that doesn't mean the original RfC has to be formally reopened. Regarding which version of the template remains following a no-consensus closure - again my view is you're correct, that no change should be made to the template. No consensus means no change.

As others have pointed out, that doesn't mean that a consensus cannot be achieved in the continuing discussion - and if it is, and a change is subsequently agreed upon, then that's all good. But that is independent of the RfC and your closure, and I see no justification for criticising your judgement on that closure - it doesn't help to move the following discussion on. WaggersTALK 15:49, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I realise your queries keep being directed to sysops, but sysops do not have super authority on RfC closure reviews. Anyway, I largely agree with Waggers, but I would add two points for you to consider. Firstly, I think it it would have been better to specifically point out that discussion can continue in the closure statement. What is vexing about this is that the wider consensus cited by one on other templates is disputed by another in the case of this template. In other words, my second point is that your closure is missing is whether you found there is an applicable wider consensus (to hide redirect categories) or if you did not find such wider consensus applies as alleged. A wider consensus might be reflected in a policy, guideline or discussion. Presuming you cannot find a wider consensus, the last sentence of your closure remains correct. If you found there is a wider consensus for hiding redirect categories, then even so, your closure might stand because exceptions might exist for a wider consensus too, or it might not apply to this template for some other reason - though in the absence of a reason or exception, the 'no consensus' outcome might actually mean categories should be hidden. While a closure review does provide an opportunity for us to opine on whether we would find that a wider consensus exists or not, or if it is applicable or not, I personally haven't had a chance to look into that - and frankly, think that is something that would fall on you as a closer to reflect on first, unless for example you are unable to decide and can outline why you are torn as such. I hope this is helpful in any event. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:02, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

• I don't see much of a consensus there either. Apart from Paine Ellsworth and Gonnym, who obviously care a lot about this, everybody else either didn't understand what was being discussed or didn't care. Perhaps the best way forward is to start a new RfC with a clear description of the question and limit Paine Ellsworth and Gonnym to one comment each. Hut 8.5 17:52, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Articles that are in influx status

I believe administrative eyes are required on Afghanistan related articles, for the forth coming days, until the dust settles. GoodDay (talk) 17:50, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement draft available for comment

As you might know I have been serving on a committee that has been writing how the Universal Code will be enforced There is now a draft of the enforcement guidelines. While a lot of work has been done, there is a lot of work to be done, and crucial questions remain open. I am hoping that we can get a wide range of English Wikipedians contributing feedback and offering answers to the open questions from the committee. Notably many of the details around what can/will be enforced on a local basis and what can/will be enforced by a global body remain undecided. This has historically been something many on English Wikipedia have strong opinions about, from many perspectives, and I hope that those many perspectives are represented in the feedback process. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:43, 17 August 2021 (UTC)