Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive979

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Content dispute, NPA, & AGF at Militia Act of 1903[edit]

I would like to inform of an editing situation relating to the article Militia Act of 1903. This involves Billmckern (talk · contribs), Springee (talk · contribs), Trekphiler (talk · contribs), myself, and IP editors since December 2015. Since December 2015, Billmckern has editing the article in an attempt to defend( 1, 2, 3, 4) content outside of the scope of the article but within the scope of the article Gun politics in the United States. In doing so he has personally attacked myself, and has not adhered to good faith. I believe the content is relevant to the gun politics article, but the content added to the Militia Act of 1903 article falls outside of its scope, and there has been a consensus built that shares my opinion, leaving a brief neutrally worded mention of its mention used in gun politic debates. Individual has come close to violating WP:3RR (1, 2) however, I have attempted to inform Billmckern when they get close to reaching violating 3RR, and had received rather cheeky response; additionally he has accused my multiple times of advocating for something when I haven't. If these editing falls within WP:ARBAP2, then the editing being done at the article in question might mean sanctions would be potentially issued, which I hope is not the case.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 05:55, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Read the article edits. Read the comment threads. I'm not the problem. RightCowLeftCoast is pushing an opinion that's at variance with facts, has resisted all efforts to find a compromise or consensus, and is not telling the truth about me. Billmckern (talk) 06:58, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
The edits made to the article today, as well as the response above - clearly show that a content dispute is (at least currently) ongoing. Therefore, I've applied full edit protection to the article so that all parties involved can discuss their concerns and issues on the article's talk page and come to a consensus. This is a better solution than chasing individuals and wagging fingers at them over edit wars - let's take this discussion to the article's talk page and work the problem out together, everyone :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 07:38, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Was this edit vandalism, and did it warrant the template issued?[edit]

As per heading.

O1lI0 reverted this edit with the summary of "Reverting vandalism or test edit", and placed a template warning on the IP editors talk page.

I maintain that both the edit was in good faith - as the edit summary stated it "Removed outdated statistic from 12 years ago" and so there was no need for the template issued, and I removed it from the talk page. O1lI0 disagreed and reinstated the template with the summary of "I said There are other better ways to change the data, like updating." - although I can find no evidence that he did this, and mentioned it to him on his talk page, which he subsequently removed with the summary of "See Re in your talk page." He then left a message on my talk page RE which doesn't really explain anything, apart from it seems to support that he still considers the original edit to be vandalism, or a test edit.

So, the question I'm asking is - was the removal of 12 year old information, accompanied by an edit summary that said exactly what it did, vandalism (or a test edit) and did it warrant the warning issued?

I've also informed Gilliam, because although not involved directly, it was their comment that made me look at the article in question. Chaheel Riens (talk) 11:02, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

If I want to add a note, I will say that the expired information can be treated as history and does not need to be deleted. What is needed is an update. When it is not necessary to deletie expired information is a kind of test edit in my knowledge.O1lI0 (talk) 11:12, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
That's not a test edit. It was clearly an intentional edit that accomplished the desired effect. It would have been been more appropriate to revert the edit and say, as you have here the expired information can be treated as history and does not need to be deleted. What is needed is an update. GMGtalk 16:34, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
I agree, and I feel there are serious competence issues with O1lI0. After reading their communication attempt with Chaheel Riens, I glanced at their edits and found this removal of a reliable source from the Goertek article, along with removal of text with an edit summary of removal of spam, for a company that is on Forbes Top 50 Asian companies list, and is regarded as a leading Chinese electronics company. And a block threat to User:Le Petit Chat based on an imagined editing as an IP with no supporting evidence. In fact that user's talk page is full of threats from O1lI0, including this warning for restoring a valid cite that O1lI0 had removed. SilkTork (talk) 18:33, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. As a new French user, I didn't know how to solve this problem. I had chosen to ignore User:O1lI0 warnings, since they were at least stupid (such as the accusation of using IP adresses I had no link with). May I remove O1lI0's threats from my userpage now ? -Le Petit Chat (talk) 19:16, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
Le Petit Chat, you may remove virtually anything from your own userpage. GMGtalk 19:51, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
  • O1lI0, I suppose I'll say this much, in the hopes that you are amenable to friendly advice, and that maybe this can be resolved in a way that doesn't need to escalate further. I've done a little editing in languages I don't speak fluently (or at all), and it's possible to do so and be productive, but when you do, you need to proceed very carefully. For example, I don't undo anyone who reverts me on a non-English project, even if I feel pretty sure they were wrong, and my edit was an improvement. When someone reverts you, or tries to correct you, its more likely that you've misunderstood some nuance, and that you should listen to their advice, because it's difficult to understand nuance when you're not speaking your native tongue.
If you have a disagreement, instead of arguing, it's better to admit they might be right, and if needed, ask for a second opinion. If you'd like, you can ping me in these instances and I'll be happy to help. The examples provided by User:SilkTork are problematic, and they're a trend we need to fix. You especially need to be careful of issuing warnings, because these can drive new editors away, and for long-time editors, can make things much worse, in a way that isn't necessary. Are you open to this guidance going forward? GMGtalk 00:47, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
After reviewing O1lI0's contributions going back a bit further I've just issued the user a competence warning against reverting other editors and issuing inappropriate threats. SilkTork (talk) 00:55, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
[1] and [2] feel more like WP:REVENGE than WP:INCOMPETENT for me since he suspected User:Le Petit Chat to be an IP user that he is in conflict with. (inb4 this IP address gets accused)--130.102.13.50 (talk) 06:53, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Ok, the vibe here seems to be that while there was nothing wrong with the reversion, per se, the subject of the reversion wasn't vandalism or a test edit, ergo the warning template was not applicable. I'm removing it again. Chaheel Riens (talk) 08:21, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Chaheel Riens, whether the warning stays or goes it probably a moot point by now. The IP is registered to AT&T, and mobile IPs change frequently, meaning if the person hasn't seen it by now, they likely never will. The real issue with the warning is that we don't want to confuse new editors by barking at them for what they believed was a good faith edit, when we should be explaining whatever the problem was so they can fix it. GMGtalk 13:27, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
True - but the editor who applied the warning template is still around and editing; he will see that as per the above discussion mistakes get corrected. Let's not lose sight of the fact that O1lI0 made no effort to explain what the problem was in their own eyes either - apart from their opinion that it was vandalism. Chaheel Riens (talk) 13:31, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
  • O1lI0 is a frequent editor on Chinese wikipedia [3]. At a glance, his/her Chinese is much better than his/her command of English (at any rate, vastly better than my Chinese). Of course, we don't want to discourage people from editing enwiki just because their English is less than flawless, but perhaps it explains the communication difficulties. Fiachra10003 (talk) 00:43, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Fiachra10003, according to Google Translate he was also blocked more than oncein Chinese wikipedia for "adding meaningless, non-modern Chinese characters" so I doubt he is good at Chinese. It's more like what he said were incomprehensible in general.--130.102.13.26 (talk) 09:39, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Apart from what you have mentioned above, I would also like to add that O1lI0 has been frequently abusing templates like {{expand language}} when the corresponding articles are really no better than the English ones. --117.136.36.250 (talk) 13:20, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
I noticed that. I wonder if he thinks the template is an Interlanguage link? Anyway, I have watchlisted his page, so if there are any future reported issues with his editing, I'll take a look and deal with it. SilkTork (talk) 14:54, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Long-term disruptive editing by LoveVanPersie[edit]

Hello. There's a serious problem with User:LoveVanPersie, who keeps adding incorrect IPA transcriptions to Wikipedia articles (there are about 50 wrong transcriptions that I've fixed in the last four months + some that I fixed back in August/September). He's been warned multiple times not to do that and he just ignores that. This is clearly an issue of WP:COMPETENCE and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. He used to tell me that he's 'truly grateful' for all the corrections I'd make (I know, I should've reported him weeks ago) and then go on making the same mistakes.

For previous reports/discussions, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Linguistics/Archive_12#Broad_IPA_Edits and Wikipedia_talk:Reference_desk/Archive_130#LoveVanPersie's_transcriptions. In the second discussion it becomes clear that he can't really read relevant literature to improve his knowledge of phonetics/phonology because his English is too poor. He's relying on other users to clean up after him (mostly me) and teach him phonetics/phonology for free (mostly me).

Bear in mind that this list is far from complete and it could be just the tip of the iceberg. I'm afraid that is precisely the case.

Spanish

[4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34]

  • Having serious problems with identifying stressed syllables and either incorrectly guessing them or mishearing them (12x);
    • In these edits the transcription is sourced but it's still wrong: [35], [36]
    • These edits ([37], [38]) are further evidence that he's unable to consistently identify stressed syllables. He added correct IPA and then made it incorrect by misplacing the stress mark.
  • Mistranscribing words with irregular/adopted foreign pronunciation (5x or more, I'm not sure how to count them);
  • Lack of awareness of phonotactics, which caused him to consider /st/ and similar syllable onsets permissible and to think that words can end with [m] in isolation just because the word-final consonant is spelled ⟨m⟩ (3x);
  • Mistaking ordinary Spanish letters for IPA symbols (3x);
  • Mistranscribing the velar nasal [ŋ] as if it were alveolar [n] (2x);
  • Typos (2x);
  • Guessing the IPA (1x);
  • Mistranscribing the tap [ɾ] as if it were trilled [r] (1x);
  • Mistranscribing the semivowel [w] as a full vowel [u] (1x);
  • Mistranscribing word-final [s] as [z], an allophone that can only ever occur immediately before voiced consonants (1x);
  • Mistranscribing words with regular pronunciation as if they had an irregular pronunciation (1x).
Slovak

[39] (this one was discussed on my talk page), [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45]

  • Not knowing the rhytmic rule, which says that no more than one long vowel can occur within one word (3x);
  • Guessing the IPA (2x);
  • Copying and pasting IPA from [46] to [47] without checking it's correctness (it was seriously incorrect as [r̝] occurs in Czech, not Slovak. In fact, the absence of that sound is one of the defining characteristics of most Slovak dialects.);
  • Changing [ɲ] to [n] just because he thought that it sounds more like the latter (even if it does, the correct transcription is still [ɲ]) (1x);
  • Mistranscribing words with irregular/adopted foreign pronunciation (1x).
Serbo-Croatian

[48], [49], [50], [51], [52], [53], [54], [55]

  • Writing [v] and [ʋ] in the same transcription and getting them wrong anyway (1x);
  • Labelling a latin spelling of a surname as an IPA transcription (1x);
  • Typos (3x);
  • Mistranscribing the syllabic trill [r̩] as if it were non-syllabic [r] (1x);
  • Mistranscribing the postalveolar [ʒ] as dental [z] (1x).
English

[56], [57]

  • Thinking that just because a surname is spelled one way it means that all people pronounce the same (and neither of those guys pronounce it /ɡuˈtʃiːoʊni/!) (2x);
  • Mistranscribing a surname (1x);
  • Changing a correct transcription to an incorrect one (1x).
Dutch

[58]

  • Mistaking a long unstressed vowel for a stressed one;
  • Mistranscribing a long [yː] as short [y], which is an impossible pronunciation before /r/.
French

[59]

  • Mistranscribing the open vowel [ɑ̃] as if it were mid *[ɔ̃]. He probably just copy-pasted that transcription from Florian (name) without checking it (it's wrong).
German

[60]

  • Changing the IPA from correct to completely incorrect. The transcription is so incorrect that you can wonder whether he posted it on purpose.
Polish

[61]

  • In this edit, he added the transcription of Kuba to the existing transcription of Jakub Błaszczykowski and didn't change the final consonant of Jakub from voiced to voiceless. This produced a seriously incorrect transcription that no native speaker would be able to read without making an effort and without sounding strange.
Slovene

[62]

  • Not an IPA issue, but he called Simonović a Slovene surname. It isn't - it's a foreign (Serbo-Croatian) surname used by some Slovenes. Native Slovene names use ⟨č⟩ instead of ⟨ć⟩, reflecting the fact that Standard Slovene has only one voiceless postalveolar affricate (/tʃ/).

To his defense, he does seem to be learning and he now knows that e.g. Spanish words can't begin with /s/ + stop or that Slovak words can't have more than one long vowel. But what good is that if he keeps making tons of other mistakes every month?

Also to his defense, most of his Serbo-Croatian transcriptions are spot-on.

Once again, I apologize for not reporting him sooner, which I should've done.

Pinging @Adam Bishop, Aeusoes1, Medeis, Nardog, Nihlus, and No such user: who might be interested in this. Mr KEBAB (talk) 02:09, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Sheesh, KEBAB.

@EEng: Can you elaborate? I know that this is a lot to analyze, but it needs to be resolved. I don't want to clean up after LVP anymore. Mr KEBAB (talk) 02:57, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Your post will take time to digest. OK, seriously, it does seem there's a problem here. However, I'm bound to say that I am seriously, seriously skeptical of the usefulness of IPA pronunciations anyway, since you could fit the people who understand them in a phonebooth. If anything, they should go in a footnote, not clutter up the first few words of each article. But that's not, of course, what this thread is about. EEng 03:07, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
EEng, our article Electrical engineering does not have any IPA in the lead. Perhaps we should make that a general policy, along with IAR. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:01, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
@Cullen328: See WP:PRON. Mr KEBAB (talk) 07:07, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Personally I find IPA transcriptions useful, at least for languages I already know...but anyway that's besides the point. We were speculating on the Reference Desk that LoveVanPersie is actually the banned Fête (talk · contribs), although maybe they are just coincidentally similar. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:43, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
ə foʊn buːθ. Apparently I could be fit in there.
I am astonished that User:EEng missed the opportunity to post this.
@EEng: You may as well argue that musical notation shouldn't be included in articles about music because most readers can't read music, or that the output of the various Template:Math templates shouldn't be used on mathematics articles because most readers can't understand the formulas used in, say, differential calculus. I sure as hell can't.
IPA is to linguistics as the periodic table is to chemistry.
That said, IPA transcriptions should be like any other entry, not just personal opinion but backed up by references from reliable sources, and I agree there is an ongoing issue here. --Shirt58 (talk) 11:10, 16 March 2018 (UTC)--Shirt58 (talk) 11:10, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
I fully support the use of IPA in linguistics articles, just as I support the use of math notation in math articles and chemical notation in chemistry articles. Outside of such articles, these specialized notations should be used with discretion, not plastered everywhere the way IPA is. For example, the article on Entecavir doesn't start out Entecavir (C12H15N5O3), sold under the brand name Baraclude... The chemical formula belongs in an infobox or footnote, not underfoot right at the start of the article, and the same principle should be applied to pronunciations. EEng 14:17, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Shirt58 that IPA transcriptions should be referenced. An ordinary editor who has often been confronted by unverifiable changes in them.SovalValtos (talk) 12:14, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

I notified LoveVanPersie of this incident. Jip Orlando (talk) 12:15, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

No harm in that but just to let people know, LVP was notified by Mr KEBAB, just not with a standard template or at the bottom [63] Nil Einne (talk) 17:12, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, Kebab, for being so patient while the community catches up to this issue. You've put in a lot of work in tracking LVP's disruption and cleaning up after him/her.
Quite a few of these look like LVP meant to put a correct transcription but transposed letters, like he/she couldn't be bothered to check before hitting submit. I don't get what LVP's endgame is here. If s/he truly wants to help the project, adding sloppy transcriptions is not helpful. I'm particularly troubled by the mistakes with Spanish transcriptions, since Spanish has a very transparent orthography and transcriptions should be obvious to someone, especially after months of practice and feedback from other editors. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 15:30, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Since he's aware of this discussion and continues to put IPA into the articles despite that (I've already caught him misidentifying stress in two words - see [64] and [65]), I think it's safe to assume that he just doesn't care. Wikipedia is a personal blog to him. Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:12, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Bump (more incorrect transcriptions: [66], [67], [68], [69]). Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:51, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

I have a slightly informed hypothesis (not saying it's likely, just that the likelihood is enough above zero that I'll mention it) that the purpose of LVP's project is to benefit various data mining operations that use Wikipedia as a knowledge corpus, and that someone is paying him to do this. The intended consumers don't care much about the error rate as long as the info is mostly right. They should really be working with Wikidata but apparently Wikidata's content policies are not to their liking. IMHO an encyclopedia is supposed to be a reference work made for use by humans, so I wouldn't tolerate this. I'd support an immediate stern warning, followed by a block if the problem continues. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 10:04, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Actually I better look into the contribs some more before giving much credence to the above. I can't do that now but will maybe try tomorrow. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 10:28, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

In reference to this discussion there is also another user who is adding unsourced IPA in football articles. It's blocked User:HankMoodyTZ, who is evading his block from multiple IP ranges Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/HankMoodyTZ. Example of his edits:[70]--Oleola (talk) 10:10, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

@Oleola: interesting that the IPs appear to be based in Bosnia, and a lot of LVP's edits are related to Serbia/Croatia etc. HankMoodyTZ was blocked in February 2018; LVP, while editing before then, certainly increased their edits that same month. I wonder if they are a sock/meat puppet... GiantSnowman 10:43, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
HankMoodyTZ noticed LoveVanPersie's edits and left him a message in February[71]. Then HankMoodyTZ started to change IPA's added by LoveVanPersie[72]. So I don't think that they are connected.--Oleola (talk) 11:00, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Topic ban proposal[edit]

Please see #Topic ban proposal - LoveVanPersie below. GiantSnowman 10:56, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

User:Mongolian Beef personal attack others[edit]

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In Special:diff/832032179, User:Mongolian Beef had a personal attack on me. He underestimate my English level, and deleted my warning given through Twinkle. Please help check if he had any violations at Wikipedia. — Sanmosa 06:53, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

I hope your English writing in articles is better than it looks here. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:57, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
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IP address issues[edit]

Despite me using WP:AIV to block IP addresses in the past for this in the past, I was referred here. So, the IP address 38.27.128.203 has been giving me a headache the last few days. They have been making edits to the Cincinnati Bengals roster template and newly acquired Cordy Glenn. While the edits on Cordy Glenn have stopped despite my warning on their talkpage, the edits on the template have not. They have repeatedly added a number for Cordy Glenn, despite him not having a number yet per the teams website their Twitter account (sometimes numbers are announced on social media) or even Cordy Glenn's twitter account. Meaning, no reliable source exists giving him a number. There's a couple other players they are doing it to as well. I honestly just want them blocked for a day or two since they are not heeding my warnings.--Rockchalk717 19:36, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

@Rockchalk717: - I've semi protected the template for a month. If there are any articles which would benefit, just shout. Mjroots (talk) 20:00, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
@Mjroots: Same issue from this editor at Template:New England Patriots roster ‎ and Brandon Bell (American football). We go through this every year, I don't understand what's behind people filling in made-up numbers (is there some advantage to a fantasy game in selecting published numbers?). It's evidently not a single person, it's geographically widespread. About the only thing I could suggest would be semi-protecting all the NFL roster templates until training camps start (July 16). Tarl N. (discuss) 20:44, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
I will do that. I appreciate it!--Rockchalk717 22:03, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
@Tarl N.: - I didn't get that ping for some reason. Have semi'd the template for a month. Might be worth starting a discussion at WP level about having these (and similar) templates permanently semi-protected if this is an annual issue. Mjroots (talk) 12:45, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
I disagree that the template should have been semi-protected. It has received a lot of edits by IPs, and most of them don't seem to be disruptive. If User:38.27.128.203 has been told several times that their edits are incorrect, but persists in making those edits, then that IP might need to be blocked, but I don't think semi-protecting the pages is the right solution. Calathan (talk) 21:25, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Per a request at my talk, I've unprotected the {{New England Patriots roster}}. That done, I will say that many IPs are not stable and blocking one IP might not have the effect of stopping the person behind that IP from editing. If there is a need to re-protect, then it can be done. I would still encourage discussion at WP level re either permanently semi-protecting these templates, or semi-protecting them each year at certain points on a recurring basis. Mjroots (talk) 16:03, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Category[edit]

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Hi, Could an admin move Category:Discount shops of the United Kingdom back to Category:Discount stores of the United Kingdom please as I'm unable to move it, It was moved by an editor who has a rather big issue with "shop" and "store" and is on a changing spree, Many thanks, –Davey2010Talk 13:40, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

"Shops" is the standard word in British English for what we call "stores" in American English. I've restored that circumstance. Beyond My Ken (talk) 16:29, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Stores and shops are the common termonogly and as explained to the editor they need to seek consensus before making all of these changes. –Davey2010Talk 16:40, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
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User Professor Asia[edit]

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There is Professor Asia (talk · contribs) using what seems to be a Special Purpose Account posting links to what seems to be his own papers (Vanderpal) in both blatant violation of WP:COI and scholarly values: his papers have practically no citation and are published in unreliable vanity journal [73]. I reverted and informed him of COI without an effect as he keeps reposting. Limit-theorem (talk) 12:39, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

To User: Limit-theorem Limit-theorem (talk · contribs)

You have not clearly shown a violation and you are not a subject matter expert in the area of finance or insurance. The articles submitted as references are directly related to the subject matter and are NOT published in unreliable vanity journals, that is rather insulting. The Journal of Accounting & Finance (Peer Reviewed) have many years of existence with ISSN registration and have respectable H scores (9) on Google Scholar and are included in Proquest, EBSCO, Cabells and many other databases.

Limit-theorem you have also violated the Wikipedia rules by mentioning my lastname. You have violated the Outing Guidelines of Wikipedia. I never gave permission to use my last name. "Avoid outing Further information: Wikipedia:Harassment § Posting of personal information, and Wikipedia:Wikimedia Foundation statement on paid editing and outing When investigating COI editing, the policy against harassment takes precedence. It requires that Wikipedians not reveal the identity of editors against their wishes. Instead, examine editors' behavior and refer if necessary to Wikipedia:Checkuser. Do not ask a user if they are somebody; instead one can ask if they have an undisclosed connection to that person. If revealing private information is needed to resolve COI editing, and if the issue is serious enough to warrant it, editors can seek the advice of functionaries or the arbitration committee by email." Source:<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Avoid_outing>

Regarding Wikipedia COI rules:

Citing yourself Shortcut WP:SELFCITE "Using material you have written or published is allowed within reason, but only if it is relevant, conforms to the content policies, including WP:SELFPUB, and is not excessive. Citations should be in the third person and should not place undue emphasis on your work. When in doubt, defer to the community's opinion: propose the edit on the article's talk page and allow others to review it." Source: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest>

I did not violate this rule and the rule allows for this to occur with in reason and I conformed to this guideline in the posts and citations. You have accused me of violating a policy that clearly allows for me to cite my own work if relevant and conforms to the content.

BTW, the H Score measure for the Journal of Accounting & Finance is 9 for 2017 and above the average H-score of all business journals average. The publication is peer reviewed, has an ISSN, and is listed and publications accepted for years on Google Scholar, Cabells, Proquest, EBSCO and other academic databases and is a recognized journal, see link. <http://www.na-businesspress.com/JAF/jafindexcitation.html> and <http://www.na-businesspress.com/jafopen.html>

The other article regarding Equity Index Annuities was written by 3 experts in the field often quoted in media, and yes I am one of the co-authors. That article was published in the Journal of Financial Planning, the foremost journal (Peer Reviewed) used by academics and industry practitioners and was the first study of its kind and is ground breaking. If you were a subject matter expert in that area I would not have to explain this. The article is relevant, important and does not violate the COI rules. In fact the co-authors are a prominent Wharton Professor of Insurance and a leading expert on Equity Indexed Annuities nationwide.

If we can not come to an amicable resolution then I suggest a independent third party through Wikipedia review the material and matter. You have violated Wikipedia Outing Guidelines and my privacy and that may require further action unless we can solve this matter.

Professor Asia (talk) 13:04, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

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Administrators alert[edit]

WP:DENY ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 05:54, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

following link confirms an editors disruptive edits...he reverted even admin edits.

administrator reopend the bad NAC. But desruptive editor reverted admin edit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Julio_Sadorra



(Jundiejj (talk) 04:56, 25 March 2018 (UTC))

I'm not going to revert this obviously bad faith editor again. It's already on ANI. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:12, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Its a disruptive edit...one administrator re opend the bad NAC ....A desruptive edtor closed the discussion...is it correct procedure?
I want un involved admin openion..the involved desruptive editor my be revert my complaint...

(Jundiejj (talk) 05:46, 25 March 2018 (UTC))

(Jundiejj (talk) 05:14, 25 March 2018 (UTC))

DuckyWhucky9[edit]

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DuckyWhucky9 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Their username quacks like a duck, and they've made multiple potentially-controversial edits to WP:ARBAPDS articles. I don't suspect them of being a sock of any specific editor (though there are several sock-puppeteers active in American Politics), but I do suspect this isn't their first rodeo. Can an uninvolved admin (or possibly a checksuer, if they feel it appropriate) assess the situation and act accordingly? power~enwiki (π, ν) 03:25, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

@Power~enwiki: Please don't call me a checksuer. --Bbb23 (talk) 14:11, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
I was thinking along the same lines myself: Athena from the head of Zeus. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:05, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
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Editors removing !votes at AFD on their own accord[edit]

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I've reverted all my edits pertaining to AfD votes just earlier. I had assumed, based on an earlier report at WP:AVI, that the edits came from a troll. I had no idea that the reporting user was using his Huggle tool to make decisions on which edits were vandalism. (Personally, I don't use Huggle to judge which edits are vandalism.) You can see the full context of the discussion on the IP's talk page, and at User talk:Thewinrat (another involved user). LightandDark2000 (talk) 11:07, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

(EC)I understand your frustration, but I see a few things happening here. I see LightandDark2000 making a mistake, and then in the first instance, correcting that mistake. Now granted they failed to do this in the second, but it can be chalked up to missing it. What I don't see is you trying to engage with either editor about these edits on their respective talk pages. It looks like you were mistakenly reported as a sockpuppet, but that you have since been cleared. I understand that this can be very frustrating, but IP's are volatile and sometimes editors jump first and look later. In the future, try talking to these editors rather than heading directly to ANI. I think you'll find you get a better response. In the meanwhile... I hope everyone can maintain civility and assume good faith, because it honestly does look like a mistake and nothing more. --Tarage (talk) 11:08, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

It could certainly be called a mistake, but not if you read my comments, which are all entirely valid !votes. If someone is not reading the comments/!votes, and just blindly deleting, then yes it is possible to make a mistake.104.163.147.121 (talk) 11:11, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
How is deleting the following a mistake? Obviously they were not reading what they were deleting. "*Delete the five sources come from two different sources. None of them are independent. A search turns up nothing but a healthy selection of republished autobiographies. Fails all notability tests."104.163.147.121 (talk) 11:13, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
I would recommend dialogue in future instances (if any). Usually, you never know whether or not a user is reasonable until you talk to them, and you won't find out their reasons if you don't ask. Personally, though, I've been treated much worse before, so I know how terrible it can feel when this happens. LightandDark2000 (talk) 11:23, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
I warned you, and the other editor) on your respective talk pages after the first instances I found. I cam here after I saw three of my edits struck by you. Obviously you did not read and evaluate my comments before striking them, but instead blindly deleted and struck. Anyway this can be closed. Have a nice evening.104.163.147.121 (talk) 11:30, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Indeed, dialogue. That goes both ways, and I suggest L&D2K hangs fire on striking AfD !votes until they have just a little more experience there. The danger with a situation such as this is that it can convey the (doubtless unintended) impression of judging edits by whether their editors have accounts or not. Having said that, this was not a sufficiently egregious offence, .121, to bring straight to AN/I without any previous dispute resolution. And I'm deliberately not going to draw anon's attention to dusty old WP:WCAA—presumably they know that tavern well enough by now :) —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap shit room 11:36, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
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G1f2d[edit]

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Can an admin please clean up the mess that this user G1f2d (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has created via multiple duplicate articles (among other things). Sakura CarteletTalk 02:36, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Given that content -- a vanity bio -- is duplicated at:

it's clearly an attempt to spam Wikipedia. --Calton | Talk 03:23, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Reported to WP:AIV. --QEDK () 05:59, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
The user page was deleted by Anthony Appleyard. I deleted the articles created in the wrong namespace (templates, Wikipedia project pages, etc). The mainspace article is tagged with a prod already. I'll leave a warning on G1f2d's talk page. I'm kind of surprised he hasn't been blocked yet. I think a warning might suffice for now. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 10:04, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Can you give an example of an editor whose first edits were to create a vanity bio who didn't end up indefinitely blocked? Let's save ourselves another ANI thread, OK? EEng 09:08, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Agree. Blocked indefinitely. Bishonen | talk 16:16, 25 March 2018 (UTC).
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Inappropriate reason for deletion (notability)[edit]

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Please help me with... the issue relating to one of the articles that I have created - Leoni Wiring Systems Southeast. The article is currently nominated for deletion (for the second time in last 7 days). However, I'm not able to find opinion from other users concerning article's notability. The nominator has agreed in a discussion that all references in the article are independent and coming from secondary sources, but that some/all of them are not intellectually independent (in his opinion). In my opinion, the nominator has a tendency to give misleading statements based on his subjective interpretations of references that are in the article. So far, I have tried to politely explain each of the issues he raised, and even to add additional references concerning article's topic (i.e. company) notability.

One key notice: Apparently, the nominator is trying to push for changes in WP:ORGIND criteria of WP:ORG, as shown here: Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(organizations_and_companies)#Intellectual_Independence. I think that this has been the main reason on why he was so persistent in his "non-notable statements" in nomination. In my opinion this is unacceptable behavior, where you discuss and nominate article due concerns over its notability, while at the same time you agree (in a discussion) that there are no violations of criteria for determining topic's notability (mainly in WP:ORGIND), except that the sources used in article are "not intellectually independent". Currently, nearly all references in the article are in line with WP:ORGCRITE and WP:ORGIND, and give clear indication of topic's notability as per WP:ORG. However, someone is trying to decide whether the topic of article is notable, based on subjective interpretations of references and personal nonadopted proposals of criteria changes in WP:ORG.

Please, write your opinion about it and give your opinion on whether is this good way of discussing where someone is referring to non-adopted proposals for criteria changes. And by the way, never explicitly pointing to it, thus way leaving a room for confusion in a discussion.--AirWolf talk 22:22, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

This reads like canvassing to me. Number 57 22:38, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
It certainly is not my intention. I am addressing particularly to use of nonadopted criteria (i.e. intellectual independence) in discussions in general when determining topic's notability.--AirWolf talk 22:51, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
A new version of the notability guidelines for organizations and companies were adopted today which has a detailed discussion of the meaning of independent source, complete with a truth table to check sources against. Jbh Talk 23:36, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Just noting here that the the first sentence of the OP's second paragraph is a bit of a misrepresentation. HighKing's "pushing" was a month ago, a number of other editors, notably Renata (talk · contribs), were "pushing" harder, and the change was finally implemented earlier today by TonyBallioni (talk · contribs) in accordance with a "strong consensus" in an RFC closed by Winged Blades of Godric (talk · contribs), in which HighKing was only the eleventh support !vote. I have no idea how the OP came across the month-old comments by HighKing specifically, apparently without reading the rest of the discussion, but this looks a bit like bad-faith hounding... Hijiri 88 (やや) 07:58, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, my bad. I have overseen the NCORP guideline discussion 3,4,5 and 6 sections. It will be great to see how these guidelines are going to be implemented in articles covering companies/organizations, especially in this era of media reporting where dependability and independence is questionable in 90% of news articles. But glad that this article is one of the first where the discussion started concerning intellectual independence of content created by journalists. --AirWolf talk 09:52, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Another hysterical over-reaction by AirWolf to any opinion other than his own about Leoni. Yawn! Cabayi (talk) 10:56, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
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Permanent topic ban[edit]

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For serial violations of WP:NPA, WP:CIVIL and WP:NOTTHERAPY, I would like that Special:Contributions/212.42.186.84 (FastNet International Ltd, Wokingham, UK) and Special:Contributions/209.93.13.37 (INFONET Services Corporation, Farnham, UK) receive a permanent topic ban from all articles concerning East Europe and its history.

Copy/paste from User talk:NeilN

209.93.13.37 has issued another personal attack ("jealous Hungarian"), he learned nothing from his two previous blocks for violating WP:NPA. Greetings, Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:10, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: You'll need to provide a diff but that's a pretty mild aspersion. --NeilN talk to me 02:29, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
It's [74], but if you consider it mild, no block is required. Tgeorgescu (talk) 14:32, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
The IP is a serial abuser: "undo your stupid changes" [75], "so dial down the pride, would you?" [76]. It seems like he has en enduring WP:CIVIL issue. Also "How dumb do you have to be? You're a no one. People way superior to you have written those things, yet you refuse to accept them, as does the other moron. Ooo, big deal, you're going to ban me for a month of something, who cares..." [77]. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:58, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
End copy/paste.

"then why don't you get off your lazy butt and put it in whatever order or format you like" [78], "If so, go slap yourself you clueless moron!" [79]. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:18, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

@Tgeorgescu: for future reference you can use the {{Talk quote inline}} and {{Talk quote}} templates to quote more effectively. Prince of Thieves (talk) 20:22, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Can you topicban an IP? --Tarage (talk) 20:22, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Their past IP: Special:Contributions/81.3.111.10 (Timico Limited, Farnham, UK). Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:37, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Not what I meant. If the IP changes constantly, I don't think you're going to be able to 'topic ban' an IP. It's not going to stick. --Tarage (talk) 20:46, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I just blocked the IP for one month. This is the 3rd block in 2018. They are also editing on the Romanian Wikipedia, but some other admin needs to look at that, if necessary. — Maile (talk) 20:46, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. Per WP:DUCK and geolocation Special:Contributions/212.42.186.84 is the same person. They edit the same article upon roughly the same subjects, at roughly the same time (differences are of several hours) from roughly the same location. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:04, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Both the article and its talk page have been semi-protected for one month. If the situation reoccurs after the protection is removed, you are welcome to either post here again, or at WP:RFPP for another protection. — Maile (talk) 21:08, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
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Constant OR/SYN at Battlestar (reimagining)[edit]

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Furious Buddha has been adding extremely lengthy swathes of original research and synthesis to the page Battlestar (reimagining); as well as off-topic material relating to the 1978 TV series. I've left several messages on their talk page asking them to stop, and tried to be as descriptive as possible in my edit summaries reverting it. But it does not seem to have helped. The edit history of that page is rather embarrassing to look at, tbh - perhaps I should have asked for help sooner. One problem is that this user's efforts began nearly a year ago, but I didn't notice the content until much later. I don't seem to be getting through. How should I handle this kind of thing better in the future? ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 15:51, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

User notified. ☯.ZenSwashbuckler.☠ 15:56, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Yikes, that entire article needs to be gutted. It's a ridiculous mass of OR and Synth as you state. Lines such as "The exact layout and size of Galactica's flight pods is unknown, but is clear from analysis of pictures they have a 1:6 (width:length) ratio.", "This would mean Galactica's flight decks are at least 200-feet, probably closer to 250–300 feet or so in width, roughly the same a Gerald Ford class aircraft carrier.", "Based on this evidence we can assume a flight pod is at least 500–600 feet in overall width, and 3,000–3,600 feet or so in length." Yes, most of the article is pure original research and has no place on Wikipedia. Furious Buddha should be given one last warning over this, and the article trimmed down to referenced material only. Canterbury Tail talk 17:24, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
User:Zenswashbuckler, you've no need to be be embarrassed. We appreciate both your valiant attempts to reason with the user and your alert here. You have spent a lot of time on this, so thank you. I have given Furious Buddha a final warning. Bishonen | talk 18:19, 21 March 2018 (UTC).
Yes Zen, you've done nothing wrong. You've tried and you've been patient with this user which is much appreciated, but it's quite clear they don't get what an encyclopaedia is or how Wikipedia works. I think they'd be better off in some fan wiki somewhere. Canterbury Tail talk 22:00, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Sinceprecisely none of the content of that ridiculous collection of fancruft belongs in an encyclopaedia, I suggest that the article be summarily deleted, and all of the 'contributors' be told to find some other location for their nitpicking obsessions. 86.131.45.175 (talk) 02:41, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
I had intended to argue against the deletion of the article, but upon going through the diffs... It's been a rather long time since the work itself, on that page, was encyclopedic. At the least, it needs heavy editing and cutting; a complete overhaul, really. Icarosaurvus (talk) 04:25, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
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Editor won't stop adding pointless links[edit]

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

As you can see from his talk page, I (and others) have tried to talk to AlchemTarun several times over the past several months about overlinking and adding useless or incorrect links to articles. This has included linking to words like science, prominent, potential and damage, where these links do not help to provide context to the article. He has also added links to incorrect articles, and was informed about this by another editor. He has also been adding pointless links inside citations, such as in [80], which another editor informed was inappropriate, but this was ignored. I don't see any edits he has made other than adding bad links. At this point, he has contributed nothing to the encyclopedia other than providing more work for others to do to undo these links. Natureium (talk) 14:16, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Looks like disruptive editing to me. I'd be prepared to give him a temporary block if he continues. Deb (talk) 11:26, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

AlchemTarun continues to make these edits, and has never edited a Talk: or User talk: page. I'd support an indef to force him to engage with the community. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:42, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

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Is it proper to include potentially inflamitory summaries of external articles in the "mentioned by media" section of a talk page?[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I'm not sure if this is the correct location for this question. Recently an article talking about the AR-15 and NRA pages came out in The Verge. A few other sources have since parroted the article. This material has been added to the article talk pages with commentary that I feel could be seen as inflammatory[[81]]. The article summaries seem arbitrary and the view of the person posting to the talk page. What talk page guidelines would apply? Is it reasonable to include notation that the articles are disputed or that most are repeats? I feel these have been added in a way that could suggest a moral high or low ground with respect to the views of the editors involved. What and how do talk page standards apply to such content, especially when specific editors are named in the articles? Thanks. Springee (talk) 01:51, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Let's at least copy it here, so everyone can see what we're talking about:
What about that is improper? Is it the qoutes to show their relevance. Note that this replaced a shorter version which also had quotes, so I just followed that example. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 03:11, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
I don't see a problem, although if the OP wants to propose using different quotes, that should be considered. I've only scratched the surface of being involved in gun-related articles following the Parkland shooting and it's quite obvious that there is a dedicated group of editors defending a particular POV. For example, there are four open RfCs at National Rifle Association in which our content policies and guidelines are being interpreted very differently by the same editors depending on whether the proposed material is laudatory or critical of the NRA. - MrX 🖋 12:50, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Then you should try to be more consistent :) . Kidding aside, we should be careful with claims of inconsistency. We all carry biases and should be careful about suggesting it's just the other editors least our own edits are subject to critical review. Regardless, thanks for the input. I think we should consider changing the quotes. Springee (talk) 14:04, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
The quotes... The first one is the same quote used in the previous version, placed there by a different editor. The second is not a quote, but a comment, without naming the editor. I could have named that editor, and named all the other editors in the others, but I didn't. I didn't think that would be right. Give me credit for that. That article is very different from the Verge article; it's ruthless, so I didn't even try to pick a quote. The quote from Newsweek is the very first sentence. The quote from Haaretz is from the second sentence. Those quotes are fair quotes which summarize the gist of the content and problem, a problem which I did not create. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 15:23, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
The Week and Haaretz should probably be removed since those are just parreting the Verge article. The edit summery is pretty problematic and bad faith "Added more articles. BTW, several editors are named and their edits discussed. Don't wear such mentions as badges of honor, because this whole affair has dishonored Wikipedia." while keeping a polemic list on their talk page titled "Wikipedia gun nuts in the news" and listing everyone involved and their perceived issues, going on about a cabal of some sort. The apparent attempt to shame specific editors with it was very inappropriate. PackMecEng (talk) 13:06, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
"Bad faith"? I suggest you keep "boomerang" in mind before you go further down that road. What I have on my own talk page/sandbox is my business, and there's nothing improper with it. Sheesh, it's hatted!
I did not create the problem, or get myself named in RS for violating policies here, so don't try to blame me for the situation. Those names are not in the Press template. That wouldn't be right. BTW, this isn't outing either. Editors who do things get named all the time here, but we still keep their real names private.
I don't see any point to escalating this, as that would just draw more attention to the situation and to those editors, whose usernames would then become known to a broader audience. Right now we are the ones who know, and few others. If your concern is to protect them, then silence is golden. If your real concern is to somehow get me in trouble for not doing anything wrong, then boomerang and Streisand effect kick in and any (feigned?) concern for protecting those editors from shaming will be revealed as a sham, because attacking me for YOUR problems will only reflect badly on you and them. I have no interest in pursuing this further, so don't push my buttons and get me started. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 15:23, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
@BullRangifer: Please read WP:POLEMIC especially point 3, but it ticks the boxes for basically all of them. PackMecEng (talk) 15:47, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks to all who have weighed in including BullRangifer for posting the contested material (and thus opening themselves up for potential criticism). Springee (talk) 14:04, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. As far as I'm concerned, we don't need to go further. I have enjoyed the conciliatory conversation on my talk page and we're good. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 15:23, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Mentioned the external sources talking about the page specifically is fine, I would just eliminate the quotes since that's one editor's take-away from the articles which is not necessarily right or wrong. Given the heated discussions on these articles, those invested should avoid adding anything that could be taken as spin, but it is factually true these external articls about WP's pages were published, and that's fine. (They're short enough and all about the pages; if it were to target a specific page or section, that may be where I'd use a quote only to aid in navigation). --Masem (t) 15:31, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
I do agree with that as well. There is nothing wrong with putting external sources about the article in those article. But presentation is important. PackMecEng (talk) 15:51, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Fine with me. Someone else is welcome to remove the quotes. I have to run now. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 16:04, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
 Done. Since no one else has done it yet, I went ahead and did it. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 03:57, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Looking at the bigger picture, I'd like to see the community step up and respond to the content of these critical articles. My approach would be to break them down point-by-point and discuss each of the issues which have been brought up. I think we'll find a mixture of misconceptions/inaccurate information, problems that have since been resolved and ongoing issues that still need to be addressed. This is an opportunity to self-reflect and educate the public/media about how Wikipedia works. This could take place on WikiProject Firearms where curious media folks are likely to come across it, or at a community-wide venue such as the NPOV noticeboard. –dlthewave 17:10, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

That is both an interesting and constructive angle. Would a discussion on the Firearms board be a violation of "not a forum"? I'm also not sure about NPOVN since we don't have a specific issue we are trying to address. I'm not trying to be obstructionist and I think such a discussion would be very productive since, if nothing else, I believe the articles cast things in an unfair light. Even if we don't agree on specific content I suspect we would agree on some of the things I think the article got wrong. I won't initiate it but I will happily contribute. Springee (talk) 17:27, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes, that would precisely be a violation of WP:NOTFORUM, very much so. Well put, Springee. It sounds like a discussion worth having, but please have it somewhere else, on an actual forum. There are other high-profile websites out there where curious media folks would equally, or even more so, be likely to come across it. Links to it at Wikiproject Firearms would be fine, AFAICS. I'm not well-acquainted with internet forums, so I'm shy of suggesting, but, uh, say, a Reddit thread? Or.. I'm sure some people have better ideas. Bishonen | talk 18:08, 20 March 2018 (UTC).
I brought it up at the Help desk as well. It's relevant to improving the project and addressing potential problems, but I'm not sure if there's an appropriate place to do it. –dlthewave 19:08, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
As far as a response to the articles goes, I think there's potential for an op-ed in The Signpost. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 02:47, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't think including quotes from the articles is necessary. I don't think most journalists appreciate that Wikipedia is striving to be an encyclopedia and how that is different from what the media does. Compare the Britannica article - it has no mention of media stories that ascribe a special importance to the AR15's role in mass shootings in the United States. Here is a book source from ABC CLIO that discusses the media's imprecise use of the term "assault rifle" and recent academic studies that have found that handguns were used in more mass shootings than ARs (including Virginia Tech). These are the types of "details" that journalists routinely ignore, but editors of an encylopedia take seriously, especially where academic sources are critical or dispute key parts of the media coverage.
  • If our editors truly believe that a particular type of gun makes future violence more likely, I respect their opinion, but I would point our that there are numerous scholarly sources that have discussed the role of the media itself and the influence it has on people who are already at risk for this type of behavior [82] [83] - I think we as editors have to recognize that the media coverage about this can't be considered neutral because they are self-limiting to actively minimize what has been called the "contagion effect" (by focusing on the gun, apparently) and that we should be aware of the difference between media sources and academic sources when discussing whether something is due for inclusion in an encyclopedia article. Seraphim System (talk) 14:50, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Edits at an article under Arab-Israeli conlict Arbitration Enforcement by a new user[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


New user Parttime711employee's third edit was to the article on Dershowitz—an article whose edit summary states it's under Arbitration Enforcement restrictions barring edits by users with fewer than 500 edits and less than 30 days experience. I restored the text, which the other user subsequently removed. This also appears to be a violation of the AE restrictions on the edit summary.

I have two concerns:

  1. Is there a technical issue with the protection at Alan Dershowitz, where the page should be protected against edits by users who don't meet the 500/30 criteria?
  2. Can an uninvolved editor review the situation, revert if appropriate, and take such actions or issue such guidance as are needed with this new editor?

Thank you for assistance and clarification with this. —C.Fred (talk) 22:16, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

@C.Fred: No admin actually applied ECP to the article. I have now and logged it. The new editor is now aware of 500/30 and discretionary sanctions so it's up to them to follow the restriction, even on articles that aren't on ECP yet. --NeilN talk to me 23:08, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Can Parttime711employee be blocked to stop further disruption and send a clear message that personal attacks and edit warring are not a way to begin your career here? Thank you, --Malerooster (talk) 21:04, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
Has been discussed user's talk page.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 07:29, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
For my part I'm not convinced they are beginning their career. Bishonen | talk 21:46, 19 March 2018 (UTC).
For my part I'm not convinced you are not making this personal. But everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt, and given your decided lack of evidence in support your 'opinion', I acknowledge that from time to time we all entitled to a harmless opinion about one another; that is, since you opened that door with yours. Thank you.Parttime711employee (talk) 23:39, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Why is the entire Dershowitz page under ECP? If anything, edits under ARBCOM should be restricted, but we shouldn't be in the business of locking up pages because a section or two is potentially an issue. Sir Joseph (talk) 18:10, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
    • WP:ARBPIA has always taken a very broad interpretation of what falls into these restrictions. Even a weak connection, like you seem to feel this is, is still under WP:ARBPIA restrictions. - GalatzTalk 18:17, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
      • That is usually kept on an edit level, not necessarily on the article. The goal should be to have as few as possible locked articles. If Dershowitz is a problem for ARBCOM, then we can proceed and lock it down, but one person editing doesn't usually mean there is a problem. And if you look at the edit in question, it has nothing to do with the IP Conflict. Sir Joseph (talk) 19:29, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
    • I tried to get Arbcom to change one word of the remedy ("feasible" to optimal") here to allow for these types of situations but didn't get anywhere. --NeilN talk to me 19:51, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Just my tencents, but IF THERE IS ANY POV, ambiguity, or even a protracted interest (same as POV), perhaps it would be better that interested wikipedians not become involved, i.e. cease and desist, there are LEGIONs of wikipedians to do the objective work; if you cannot remain objective, do not bother. Right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.37.45.134 (talk) 19:48, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I have sent many messages to this editor about creating incomplete and unreferenced articles like List of 1981–82 NBA season transactions, a list with no entries and no clear sources, just external links - there are many like these. I have been contacting the editor for months, but they continue to edit but not respond to my messages (see User talk:Kev519#Sources and communication). I have directed them towards WP:V, WP:BURDEN and WP:Communication is required, but they won't talk. In 18 months of editing, they have responded to no one and other editors have also raised concerns.

They have been at ANI before in Aug 2017, but I can't find the record. They have also been investigated and found to be using a sockpuppet at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Kev519/Archive. Boleyn (talk) 20:22, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

I do not know how to make the tables of other transactions because it is complicated. (talk) 20:24, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

  • The August 2017 ANI. Search for it because the braces make it difficult for me to get it to jump to the thread.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:02, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

This user has been adding empty tables and other similar edits to "XXXX in professional wrestling" year articles as well. He has been told to stop multiple times yet continues to add this unhelp information. - GalatzTalk 13:47, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Note: While this conversation is going on, the user is continuing to add empty tables despite clearly being told to stop multiple times. See [84] [85] [86] [87] [88] as well as many other years - GalatzTalk 13:11, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Also while this has been going on, Kev has continued to create articles like this List of 1988–89 NBA season transactions, incopmlete and with no clear references. Boleyn (talk) 19:53, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Yup, same terrible format. Just create something and tell people to go somewhere else to find what they are looking for. - GalatzTalk 21:27, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Now in addition to adding more sections with just mentions to go elsewhere, such as [89] [90] [91] he is also adding tags that say a section, that clearly isn't empty, is empty, such as [92] [93] - GalatzTalk 22:55, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

  • I renew my call for us to simply eliminate all coverage of professional "wrestling" since no one would miss it anyway. EEng 23:30, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Except in this case, for this user, you would need to eliminate all sports coverage, as this user is an equal opportunity offender. - GalatzTalk 00:53, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Is this website filling up maturity-challenged people? You should be ashamed of yourself for even writing something so insanely dumb. This is an ANI about a disruptive editor, no one gives a rats ass about your personal feelings on pro wrestling, contribute to the discussion at hand or kindly leave. You're kinda behaviour is exactly what causes "drama" that you seeminlgy hate.★Trekker (talk) 01:22, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I'd like to add, even if this is a joke, it's not contributing at all to the discussion, so please leave it out.★Trekker (talk) 01:29, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm serious. 1983_in_professional_wrestling isn't part of the sum of all human knowledge; it's a debit against human knowledge. EEng 04:22, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
What exactly is it debiting? - GalatzTalk 14:11, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Professional wrestling is one of those things with the property that each additional fact you learn about it actually makes you dumber. EEng 17:06, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Go away, no one wants you here and you contribute nothing of value. You should be the subject of an ANI yourself if you don't lay off. You're not funny and you disrupt.★Trekker (talk) 23:07, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Can we please get some sort of admin action here? I guess to match the empty tag he was putting on the non-empty sections earlier, he is now creating empty sections and putting the expand tag on it, across tons of articles, such as this [94]. - GalatzTalk 01:28, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes this guy is very insistent, it's rather bothersome and I don't know we he keeps getting to edit if he's been using dock puppets in the past.★Trekker (talk) 01:30, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I’d like to add that this user has created similar issues with video game lists, adding sources that are considered unreliable per WP:VG/RS. I left him a polite message after doing some reversions, but have heard nothing in response. Red Phoenix talk 04:02, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I left him a message directing him to respond to this complaint. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 15:41, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
@NinjaRobotPirate: Just an FYI, he is still editing currently, even after your message. See [95] and [96]. - GalatzTalk 15:54, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Are those edits wrong? They're unsourced, certainly, which is problematic on its own. But I really know so little about professional wrestling that I can't tell if some random edit is an obvious hoax or good-faith. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 16:07, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
@NinjaRobotPirate: I meant that he is ignoring your request to come here and respond. - GalatzTalk 16:08, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
My observation from 2017: "This editor has done some dubious stuff IMO and seems to find unusual ways to push the boundaries in the grey area between good faith and vandalism." 9 months later and on it goes.. -- GreenC 19:55, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Based on this (and my own experience at NPP with their uber-stub NBA transaction articles), I'd support a ban on this user creating or moving articles. Nothing beyond that seems necessary. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:31, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I have contacted this user seven times with no response, see User talk:DeAllenWeten, especially User talk:DeAllenWeten#Sources. The messages were about creating articles with big issues, mainly that they were unreferenced. Another editor also contacted them about adding unsourced content. They have only ever responded to one talk page message although they have been editing for a year.

I have directed them towards WP:Communication is required, WP:BURDEN and WP:V, but they won't respond or address the issues. Boleyn (talk) 20:58, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

DeAllenWeten is continuing to edit but not respond or comment here. Boleyn (talk) 17:45, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

It's been several days now, where DeAllenWeten is editing but won't engage. I think it's time to move to an indef block. Boleyn (talk) 06:49, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
I've had a look, and I understand your frustration at the lack of response, however, I'm not seeing a significant problem with their editing. The user has created several articles, most of which have been reviewed and accepted (only one page creation was not acceptable this year, compared to over 30 which have been accepted0. Errors seem minor and varied - sometimes the article is sourced, but doesn't have categories, or has a source, but it's not reliable - such as IMDB. Creating imperfect articles is not grounds for blocking - see WP:PERFECTION. While it is helpful if editors do as much as possible, simply adding content to articles is acceptable, even when the content is unsourced and involves a living person. We only immediately remove unsourced information about living people when that information is likely to be challenged - see WP:BLPSOURCE. Chris troutman's response here, where he cites the information that DeAllenWeten added is the way to go. If someone is finding a particular user's way of editing to be irksome, sometimes the best response is to ignore it, and concentrate on other ways to improve Wikipedia. The stress involved in trying to deal with it is often not worth it. I don't think we're at formal warning stage, however I'll leave a note for DeAllenWeten, stressing that when editors express concerns about someone's editing that we either expect to see an improvement, or an explanation. SilkTork (talk) 10:25, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

It's nothing to do with not being perfect. After being messaged several times about not adding references, the editor continued to create articles like 2018 PSAC Football Championship Game, with no references or external links, reliable or otherwise. Refusing to communicate with editors expressing concerns is grounds for a block also. Some of these concerning articles are also blps, with no clear references of any sort, just external links to unreliable sources like imdb. Making this error is fine, but refusing to discuss it and continuing to create similar articles is disruptive. Boleyn (talk) 19:51, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

I have just issued a level 4 warning to DeAllenWeten for not citing sources, as I had previously issued a level 3 warning for the same thing. I have received no communication from DeAllenWeten nor any indication that the warnings were understood or that editing patterns would change. I don't think any good comes from tolerating this behavior. I am not in the habit of repeatedly cleaning up after other editors. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:38, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
DeAllen Weten has had over a week, has continued editing and clearly doesn't intend to respond here or on their talk page. I think we need to decide what action is appropriate here. I agree with Chris' comments above, that no good comes from tolerating this behaviour, and warnings and several attempts at discussions have had no effect. An indef block (which is not necessarily forever) will force the editor to communicate or use their time elsewhere. Boleyn (talk) 09:55, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
  • While I wouldn't object to an indef-block to force them to engage on the talk page, based on their recent edit history I don't think it's necessary. It would be nice if @DeAllenWeten: commented here or on User talk:DeAllenWeten on this matter. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:26, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
It would be nice, but it's far more important than that. Communication is essential. I've pointed this editor, in vain, to WP:Communication is required, but talking things through is also at the heart of WP:CONDUCT and WP:DISPUTE is also clear: Talking to other parties is not a mere formality, but an integral part of writing the encyclopedia. I think when, after all this effort, an editor still won't communicate, it needs to be made clear to them that communication is required, not optional. Boleyn (talk) 07:06, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Editor repeatedly adding copyvio to article[edit]

At article Badagas, editor User:Badugagowda has been repeatedly pasting copyvio from this history blog page. Editor has been warned about this. It's possible that the editor has language issues, and it's a WP:CIR issue. Once it stops, I'll request revdel of copyvio. The Mighty Glen (talk) 07:44, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Editor indeffed, copyvios revdeleted. The article history is a travesty - ECP applied as an arbcom enforcement action. --NeilN talk to me 10:28, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

User:144.136.88.8[edit]

User:144.136.88.8 has on multiple occasions the last 2 years been involved in vandalism. Please see User_talk:144.136.88.8 for numerous warnings. Recently edited Road_signs_in_South_Africa and deleted all the annotations for the signs, see edit here.

Please also assist with reverting possible vandalism on all Road signs in *** pages by checking contributions here.

I think since this is a repeated offence with many warnings over 2 years it warrants a WP:BLOCK.

Thanks for your assistance, Waddie96 (talk) 14:52, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Was just checking out diffs, then noticed SilkTork had done the deed. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 22:24, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes, just blocked. Clearly a returning nuisance = they even announced their return. All the edits on this address are from the one user, so if they return next year and do the same thing, we may need to indef this address. SilkTork (talk) 22:35, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Jewberg Goldstein is a troll account[edit]

I spotted this user having added The Holocaust to the List of Hoaxes. It's a troll account. I'm not familiar with this process, sorry if I'm doing it wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jewberg_Goldstein.

190.236.205.143 (talk) 00:33, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Blocked. --NeilN talk to me 00:37, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Outstanding response speed, great work. 190.236.205.143 (talk) 00:42, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Administrators alert[edit]

WP:DENY ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 05:54, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

following link confirms an editors disruptive edits...he reverted even admin edits.

administrator reopend the bad NAC. But desruptive editor reverted admin edit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Julio_Sadorra



(Jundiejj (talk) 04:56, 25 March 2018 (UTC))

I'm not going to revert this obviously bad faith editor again. It's already on ANI. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:12, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Its a disruptive edit...one administrator re opend the bad NAC ....A desruptive edtor closed the discussion...is it correct procedure?
I want un involved admin openion..the involved desruptive editor my be revert my complaint...

(Jundiejj (talk) 05:46, 25 March 2018 (UTC))

(Jundiejj (talk) 05:14, 25 March 2018 (UTC))

Persistent IP edit warring at List of military occupations[edit]

Hi, an IP has been trying to edit war in Hong Kong’s 1997 accession to China without any sources at List of military occupations. This has been edit warred three times and the user is refusing to engage in discussion or provide sources. Onceinawhile (talk) 11:59, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected for one week. Perhaps try opening a talk page discussion yourself and see if the IP will engage there. ansh666 19:20, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Quick block needed[edit]

196.113.89.158 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) is the latest IP used by a w*cko in Morocco who for years has popped up regularly here, using different IPs each time, posting huge incoherent rants against a psychiatric hospital, doctors etc on random pages here. So would someone please block them? (reported at AIV, but that place is seriously backlogged right now...) - Tom | Thomas.W talk 10:52, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done by Amorymeltzer. BethNaught (talk) 11:22, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Some edits from IP address[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Dear Administrator, I want to draw your kind attention on the dits done from three IP addresses - Special:Contributions/2405:205:600E:4968:0:0:418:A0B0 , Special:Contributions/2405:205:620D:AF8D:0:0:1BB1:90AD and Special:Contributions/2405:205:612E:2055:0:0:1279:38A0. All edits are without references and maximum of the edits are probably wrong. I think same person are using those three IP addresses (I may be wrong). It is really tedious to find all those edits and check their reliability. (for reference see last two sections of my talk page). Could you kindly suggest what we should do? Thanking you, P.Shiladitya✍talk 09:59, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

  • Definitely looks like an IP hopper. I've blocked the current IP, please let me know if they pop up at a new address and I'll reblock ASAP. Or, you can make a new report here if that happens. Swarm 01:48, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I have repeatedly tried to communicate with this editor, as have others, but in over two years of editing they have ignored all messages. I have been mainly trying to communicate with them about creating unreferenced blps, with just an external link to imdb, which is an unreliable source. I have directed them to WP:Communication is required, WP:V and WP:BURDEN. They continue to edit, but not respond to my messages or address the issues. Boleyn (talk) 20:40, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

The editor is continuing to edit but not comment here. Boleyn (talk) 17:46, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
This was auto-archived, but the issue remains - Guilherme151097 is continuing to edit but not communicate or address these issues. Boleyn (talk) 13:16, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Authoritarian Removal of Important Corrective Edits in Articles Containing False Facts[edit]

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Yesterday I inserted corrective edits to "Single transferable vote" and a related correction to "President of India" on grounds of inherent (even unavoidably included in the original articles themselves) logical inconsistency/falseness, which I explained in short; I add a copy here for easy referral:

The single transferable vote (STV) is a voting system designed to primarily achieve close to >50% simple majority for the winning candidate through ranked voting in single- or multi-seat organizations or constituencies (electorates/voting districts) [...] The system provides an unreliable random approximation of proportional representation in multi-electorate elections, enables votes to be cast for individual candidates rather than for parties, and—compared to first-past-the-post voting—reduces "wasted" votes (votes on sure losers or sure winners) by transferring them to other candidates. Proportional STV party voting has until now not been used to enable substitution of invalid below-minimum-threshold-party votes with valid-party votes, because it makes nationwide vote counting very complicated.; [The bold type was added; Additional explanation: as the complicated STV-vote-counting is currently only used for candidate election (not party election) in single- or multi-electorate (national) elections, any appearance of nationwide proportionality is through a biased random effect favouring the 2 major parties and unproportionally disadvantaging the minor parties!!!]; and:

The unreliable degree of proportionality of STV election results depends on the district magnitude... [Added explanation: the more electorates/districts, the more proportionality effect for the 2 major parties due to statistical reduction of margin-of-random-error]; further:

The [Indian presidential] election is held in accordance to the system of Proportional representation by means of the Single transferable vote method. [I scratched the bold type on reason that an election of one person(president) cannot logically be proportional; the term "population-adjusted" would be more appropriate, esp. as individual voting-congress members can hold several votes due to lack of the congress's party-proportional constellation];

This authoritarian removal (without any explanation; I invited any objecting editor to discuss the background on my user page) of corrective edits are possibly politically motivated.

I cannot speedily use my e-mail address, therefore also not speedily access Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee in this very important matter that currently has a propaganda effect for not only India's insufficiently democratic "election" system (see Draft: Constitutional Democracy (Republic); Therefore I address this Administrators' Notice Board first. Greetings, --Fritz Fehling (talk) 23:02, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

@Fritz Fehling: You have been told by me and nearly a half dozen other editors that Wikipedia does not publish original thought and that it requires citation to reliable sources. In this edit you removed content with a polemical edit summary. In this one you added/changed a bunch of material without sources. Those edits were properly reverted. The next step is to open a thread on the respective articles' talk pages and say why you think the change you made should be in the article. Make sure that you are able to present reliable sources to back up the changes you want to make. Jbh Talk 23:15, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

I have blocked Fritz Fehling indefinitely. Being told Wikipedia does not host original research more than two weeks ago by multiple editors has not changed their goal here as they've continued in the same vein in draft, talk, article, and project admin space. They've had the same problem on Commons where their related contributions have been deleted as out of scope several times. --NeilN talk to me 23:48, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Should this Draft:Constitutional Democracy (Republic) be deleted or just left in this draft form? MarnetteD|Talk 00:46, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
It is nothing which could ever be an article. Jbh Talk 00:48, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
I would leave it at least until the block appeal(s) are dealt with. --NeilN talk to me 00:54, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
I would suggest deleting the draft. I agree with Jbhunley that it would never make an article, even with extensive re-vamping, but if FF is unblocked and wishes to try to make an article out of it, can he not get it back at WP:REFUND? If so, then there's no harm in deleting it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:01, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment: Purely by chance, I noticed that this AN/I notice had been added to my userpage (not talk page) by Fritz Fehling and then been subsequently removed by Bbb23. For the record, I reverted the edit to President of India with the edit summary 'Transferable vote, therefore PR, not first past the post'; and the edit to Single transferable vote with the edit summary 'Revert uncited PoV. Previous version is fine.' So there were indeed explanations. I am not in the habit of following users to their talk page to discuss issues with articles; that's what article talk pages are for. BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 15:14, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
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Is this an appropriate use of rollbacker?[edit]

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A list of bogus warnings by Gooseflesh12 is here. I believe they abused rollbacker with these edits [97][98][99]. They edit warred with rollbacker to retain BLP violation without discussion per WP:ONUS (and WP:BLPPRIMARY) to retain such information. They threatened blocks for vandalism even after being informed it was a BLP violation[100]. Please remove rollbacker rights for this editor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8800:1300:16e:293f:e377:8c63:4c78 (talk)

There are multiple issues here. I'm not sure why that specific paragraph is supposed to be a BLP violation while the rest of the section is OK. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:53, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Removing more is fine, restoring with rollbacker is not. Nor are the frivolous warnings. WP:ONUS is clear. If there are multiple issues, "vandalism" and "rollbacker" should not be claimed or used. I don't claim to be right, but engaging through rollbacker and threats of blocks for vandalism is clear abuse.
<<ec>>As it removed sourced content, it was probably acceptable to rollback. The not recognizing of a good faith edit during discussion is a bit trigger happy. Frankly I think removal needs discussion as the whole tawdry mess seems adequately cited.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 05:17, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
The allegations concern someone who died in 2001. How could this be a 'BLP violation'? 2A00:23C1:8250:6F01:57D:CE40:7616:9F1 (talk)
Mackenzie_Phillips died!? --Dlohcierekim (talk) 07:05, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Well, nobody seems to have told her :) On a serious note, it might be sourced material—but it's sourced to Oprah—is that really an RS?! —SerialNumber54129...speculates 07:28, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
I don't know. There was an Oprah interview. IMHO, that whole personal life section could go-- salacious scandal sheet material given too much weight here, but I guess I'm going of topic.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 07:57, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Imagine trying to remove more when a rollbacker edit wars to try and keep a 4th person account (daughter of some guy that thought it was true and told said daughter). Twice removed "witnesses" aren't useful as sources. My dad thought O.J was guilty, too, but neither his account, nor my statement of his account is in the article. --2600:8800:1300:16E:293F:E377:8C63:4C78 (talk) 10:17, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
These sources are a vast distance from being reliable: they're entertainment news reports, not secondary sources published by experts in the field. There's a reason we generally prohibit primary sources in biographies of living people. Nyttend (talk) 00:46, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Gooseflesh12 has a label on their userpage saying "Because of school, Gooseflesh12 will not be very active on weekdays, but should be back editing enthusiastically on weekends (except when doing homework or on vacation)." User:Gilliam granted the tool that has caused problems when used by a schoolchild in this instance, and may be able to offer an opinion on whether the tool should be retained, especially given that Gooseflesh12 has not responded here. MPS1992 (talk) 22:05, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Being in school, in American parlance, does not necessarily mean one is a child. Here, even graduate students can be referred to as being "In school", and the average age of such students trends towards the mid to late twenties. Icarosaurvus (talk) 13:09, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
His previous username, changed in the last week, is "Yexstorm2001." Even millenial math puts him at 16-17.
And the request stems from his edit warring to retain poorly sourced information in a BLP, using rollbacker to accomplish it as well as the misuse of warnings to make accusations of vandalism. Not once, but 3 times. Regardless of age, rollbacker is not working out for him.

Gilliam has made hundreds of edits since this ANI and notice to him was published. They don't appear to be opposed to removing the rollbacker bit or interested in defending its retention. 2600:8800:1300:16E:51A2:8569:F6FF:E0A4 (talk) 23:08, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

They went on holiday three hours later  :) —SerialNumberParanoia/cheap shit room 11:32, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
It was a nice notice but they have made hundreds of edits while on holiday including today. --2600:8800:1300:16E:954D:E239:2954:ADA6 (talk) 17:23, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes, nearly four hundred. Most odd. Hi Gilliam! —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap shit room 10:53, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Gooseflesh12 has stopped using rollbacker and is using twinkle. He no longer needs rollbacker. Please remove it.

Proposal[edit]

Support removal. Gooseflesh12 has only been editing a year and has only had rollbacker since January. He has not commented or defended his actions. He's obviously not ready and lacks the accountability necessary for having it. 08:26, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

  • Comment; As the admin who granted rollback rights to Gooseflesh12, I'm willing to let this discussion run its course.– Gilliam (talk) 17:45, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment I'd be more supportive of Gooseflesh12 if he had made a reasonable statement here, but I'm not willing to support removal based on a single incident as the result of a crusade by an IP editor. power~enwiki power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:40, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Conditional support If Gooseflesh12 does not have the courtesy and good sense to respond when their use of an advanced permission is questioned then they have no business having that permission. Jbh Talk 01:36, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Skylax30 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I have been targeted as anti-chistian and pro-muslim by Skylax30. [101]. Plus a hint that I use sock puppets or canvassing or I have a team backing me. [102]. I did answer [103] only to get back some irony [104]. I am not anti-christian and I do not know much about islam. I respect both religions equally even though I am neither Christian or Muslim. Τζερόνυμο (talk) 10:28, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Since I repeatedly return to that talk page over the last few days, I have to point that your description is slightly inaccurate. Skylax30 did not call you "anti-Christian", he/she called you "anti-religious".
I am not familiar with User:Skylax30. His/her edit history indicates that he/she has been editing Wikipedia since 2010, but he/she never created a User page. Dimadick (talk) 11:02, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you Dimadick for your comment. You are right, he did called me anti-religious, but having add the term "pro-muslim" after that, he implies that I am anti-christian. How can I be anti-religious if I am pro muslim after all? And further more, I am not anti-religious either, I respect all religions. Branding as anti-religious anyone who tries to dealwith religions in a non-mystifying manner, you are actually trying to prevent him from adding knowledge to our common project (Wikipedia or elsewhere) Τζερόνυμο (talk) 11:12, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
"How can I be anti-religious if I am pro muslim after all?" I noticed the contradiction as well, but I have no idea where Skylax30 is coming from. Have you had any previous interactions with him/her? Dimadick (talk) 11:23, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Can everyone please indent? Beyond My Ken (talk) 11:28, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes, a lot of interactions in greek Wikipedia (el.WP), in religion and history related topics. But this is the first in en.WP, which I recently started to contribute. Actually, it is the second, as I have just noticed this one [105], where Skylax30 tries to associate me with muslims. Christian Persecution Complex is my first article in here. Τζερόνυμο (talk) 11:37, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

I shouldn't transfer here the Greek "civil war", but Τζερόνυμο is not hiding that he is anti-religious. In his user page in greek language he boasts his contribution to articles about atheism, (he doesn't mention a failed attempt to create a WP portal for atheism) and claims that he is anarchist (but he constantly invokes the Arche (authority) of the admins, crying "personal attack" almost every week in the greek WP). After all, it is not bad to be anti-religious, and not an "attack" to call someone so, if he is. As for the "pro-muslim", since I cannot prove it here because it all happened in Greek (I just indicate his attempt to delete the reference to Middle East in Christian persecution complex), I recall that characterization. Just for the asking, is it bad, and therefore subject of "attack", to be "pro-some-religion" as a WP user? And, yes, you can be anti-religious and pro-muslim at the same time, but I wouldn't expand on that here.--Skylax30 (talk) 13:43, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

There is no greek civil war here. There is just your insult. Being Atheist doesn't make me anti-religious, it makes me irreligious. The rest are POV plus more personal attacks, trying to name anti-religious so to keep insulting me. I have nothing more to add. Τζερόνυμο (talk) 14:00, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

I am a Greek citizen as well, though I rarely use the Greek Wikipedia. May I remind you that Wikipedia:Civility is official policy? "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." Dimadick (talk) 19:44, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

I do my best Dimadick, but I politely wont accept the label of anti-christian or anti-religious. I consider it defamatory. Plus the insult that I use sock puppets or I work as a member of a team. Τζερόνυμο (talk) 05:58, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Skylax30 has been banned from greek WP (el.WP) for 7 days due to accusations of team work. [106]. It is obvious he is trying to export his fight in en.WP and maybe that explains his comments about team work. [107] Τζερόνυμο (talk) 11:59, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank Jeronymo, that was most elucidating. I will appreciate if you transfer the english discussion to the greek wp.--Skylax30 (talk) 17:27, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
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I note that the user in question, now blocked, never had a proper notification on his talk page about this discussion being underway. Mathglot (talk) 00:36, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
@Mathglot: You unarchived a discussion that the user participated in and therefore was aware of to note they weren't notified of the discussion? --NeilN talk to me 00:41, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
@NeilN: Yes; he obviously became aware later, but I'm talking about the invalid notification at User talk:Skylax30#noticeboard of discussion. Seems he didn't get a fair shake by being notified in a timely manner, and that deserves to be noted. I'm not disagreeing with the outcome, just that the notification procedures were not compliant. Now that it's been noted, I don't object to its being rearchived. Mathglot (talk) 00:48, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
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Repeated personal attacks from racist NOTHERE troll[edit]

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I warned KoreanSentry (talk · contribs) about repeated (racist) personal attacks and was met with this. Could someone block this editor (who has never contributed to the encyclopedia anyway, beyond edit-warring in contentious topic areas) per NOTHERE? Hijiri 88 (やや) 22:49, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

KoreanSentry should probably have been blocked 1 or 2 ANI reports back. Better late than never though. --Malerooster (talk) 23:50, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Yet, despite his racist attacks, he remains unblocked. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:44, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  •  Done. Swarm 02:52, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
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Manish2542 on Muhammad Iqbal[edit]

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There's been a slow-motion edit-war on Muhammad Iqbal involving Manish2542 for a bit. It's heated up with Manish2542 resorting to personal attacks in edit summaries and talk pages. See this and this edit summary. See this talk thread on the article page, which is basically Manish2542 ignoring anything they disagree with as nationalist. See this comment on my talk page in the same vein. It's neigh impossible to discuss something like this with someone who utterly refuses to talk. Prior involvment with them was trying to get them to actually source their claims to a real source, not a link to a French Wikipedia page, and then asking for a page number for a book to try and verify what they added and getting zero luck with that. Requesting admin involvement to review and block if needed. Ravensfire (talk) 19:24, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

On a completely separate topic, this "new user" has edited aggressively (even compared to me) at WP:ITNC and appears to not really be here to improve the project. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:29, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
From a response they just left on my talk page here, they are here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Requesting a topic back from at least this article. Ravensfire (talk) 19:31, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Looking at the history of that article, I see Manish2542 has been edit warring against several others over this content since December. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:34, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

The source is a Nobel Laureate winning writer. The link furnished is one to the paragraph quoted. How am I to discuss with two editors with large Pakistani flags on their profiles with the sole aim of maintaining the eulogy of their national poet?

I did accuse The Rambling Man of bias on ITNC, like many others... Manish2542 (talk) 19:37, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

You did, with no grace or foundation, unlike many others. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:04, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Manish's incompetent behavior on several occasions at ITNC has led me to conclude that we should just block him and be done with it. Lepricavark (talk) 19:44, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure why TRM thinks this is a new user; they appear to have edited irregularly since 2013. Their current behavior is unacceptable (and they're past 3RR after reverting me on Muhammad Iqbal). Some kind of action is necessary, most likely an indef with a possible conditional unblock. power~enwiki (π, ν) 19:50, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
    I would consider any user with fewer than 500 edits to be a new user, whether they started in 2001 or 2018. It's clear (to me) that this isn't someone with just a handful of edits. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:23, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Blocked 72 hours for edit warring and added a warning about future behavior. --NeilN talk to me 00:07, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

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Overlinking and lack of communication from JustJust51[edit]

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JustJust51 has been asked several times to stop adding unnecessary links (especially to simple terms) to articles. He has also been asked to use edit summaries to explain his actions. He has never responded, nor has he ceased this behavior. As Thewolfchild pointed out on JustJust51's talk page, of his 2,000+ edits, none of them has ever been on a user or article talk page. He simply does not communicate in any manner or in any forum. And, given that most of his edits are not helpful–he adds so many links at one time that it is difficult to sort out those that are useful, and it puts the burden on other editors to do so–some kind of intervention has to be made to get him to either stop and/or explain himself. He's been here long enough that he should know how the site works. Certainly, responding on his talk page would be simple enough and is not too much to ask. It's time for an admin. to intervene. ---The Old JacobiteThe '45 16:01, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Thewolfchild - last edit won't have pinged you, as it was a fix of a ping. Bellezzasolo Discuss 17:11, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for that, Bellezzasolo. ---The Old JacobiteThe '45 18:26, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping, TOJ is referring to an edit summary notice I placed on JJ51's talk page, (the 3rd one, see also #2 & #1), which pointed out that since the previous notice, he had made approx. 1000 edits without a single edit summary. I agree with TOJ, there are several issues here along with the refusal to communicate, discuss article content or even acknowledge behavioral issues, there is also WP:CIR and WP:NOTHERE.
Added note, since posting the 3rd edit summary notice, JJ51 has made another 60 edits, most, if not all, of which appear to be to add links like TOJ described, and still without a single edit summary. - theWOLFchild 19:06, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
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Article redirect[edit]

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2018 Sukma attack was created by an IP and accepted through Articles for creation by User:Ammarpad on 10:59, 14 March 2018‎ (diff). User:D4iNa4 makes a edit on 11:16, 16 March 2018‎ citing "Rv ban evading sock" as edit summary (diff). It was later redirected by User:D4iNa4 with the following edit summary: "small article created by a ban evading sock, redirecting" (diff).

The IP restored it (diff) but surprisingly User:MBlaze Lightning who hadn't made an edit in the 10 days b/w 9 - 19 March, redirects a newly-created article (where he had no previous edit) (diff). The IP restored it (diff) but User:MBlaze Lightning redirected it again (diff). After the IP makes a revert (diff) then comes User:Adamgerber80 and redirects it with the following edit summary: "Discuss on the talk page and gain conensus. this does not pass WP:GNG and was thus redirected." (diff)

User:Samee restored the article with the following edit summary: "Restoring the article passed thru AfC, for other concerns it may be AfDed" (diff). Now User:Capitals00 has redirected with the following edit summary: "Restore redirect, don't revert to sock and get consensus for non-notable subject first" (diff).

What sort of collusion is this b/w the different editors involved? --58.27.134.33 (talk) 10:17, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

  • I as a member of WikiProject AfC endorse the acceptance of the draft by Ammarpad. I also stand by my act of restoration of the article as claims about non-notability are implausible. If the subject is indeed non-notable as stated in the last sentence, then the approach should be the AfD.  samee  converse  10:30, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

None of the mentioned editors have been notified about this discussion as required. I have done so. At least one of them should be able to state who is the perceived sockmaster. --NeilN talk to me 11:15, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

  • Regardless of the sock issue, redirecting a newly created article then demanding consensus for its existance is way out of line. Thats not how AFC or even new article creation is done at all. It had 8 news sources which is more than sufficient to demonstrate significance, so if anyone wants to stealth delete it, it needs to go to AFD. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:21, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
  • @Only in death: If the article was indeed created in violation of a block or ban, it does not matter if AFC was involved. --NeilN talk to me 11:26, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Thats a G5 speedy deletion criteria. But once material has been restored by an editor in good standing they responsibility for it. As Samee did (thats covered under WP:EVADE) Also see WP:ATD-R which is clear on what happens when a redirect is disputed. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:29, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
  • If the article was indeed created by a sock, I would like to know if Samee explicitly taking responsibility for the sock's edits. --NeilN talk to me 11:35, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I mean this is the current state (non redirected version) which as far as I can see does not violate any policies and is more than adaquately sourced for an article on an (alleged) terrorist attack. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:39, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
  • And since the material has been removed by multiple editors for the subject being non-notable WP:NOTNEWS cruft given that all such articles have been redirected to the main Naxalite–Maoist insurgency, Samee should get consensus first or just drop the matter. In any case, the disruptive sock must not pop up and pretend to be a "editor in good standing". D4iNa4 (talk) 11:44, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Consensus is not required to prove an article is notable in order to exist. Consensus is required to demonstrate it is not notable in order to delete it. This is a basic process of article creation and deletion. That you are genuinely suggesting this is amazingy shocking coming from an administrator. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:54, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Since it's a creation of a disrupting block evading sock, it has to be removed on sight and if others want to take responsibility they can but they have to first outweigh the existing argument that article fails WP:NOTNEWS. D4iNa4 (talk) 12:36, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Its getting on to lecturing at this point, but no it does not 'have' to be removed on sight at all. It 'may' be removed. WP:EVADE says this explicitly "This does not mean that edits must be reverted just because they were made by a blocked editor". Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:01, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

In their attempted close of this discussion, D4iNa4 points to this as the master. --NeilN talk to me 7:42 am, Today (UTC−4)

@NeilN: Yes I tried to edit this section 7 times after that, all I am getting is "edit conflict". It's just disruptive socking of Mfarazbaig continues. Mfarazbaig happens to be a paid editing disruptive sock. Nothing to see here. D4iNa4 (talk) 11:52, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
You keep saying that, yet the actual result of the SPI was Mfarazbaig was 'Unrelated' to Liborbital. Its also clear from Mfarazbaig talk page that they were productive within a certain topic area, given the various ITN posts. All of which were the same topic as the article just redirected. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:54, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
He was a disruptive sock who couldn't really write articles per WP:NPOV. Interestingly he could've operated another sock named PAKHIGHWAY as per recent CU findings. Paid editing sock farms are based much on behavioral evidence. D4iNa4 (talk) 12:36, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'm curious as to why Mfarazbaig's socking is still documented at the SPI for Liborbital, when that page clearly refers to them as being unrelated to Liborbital. It's confusing, to say the least. Vanamonde (talk) 11:57, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
A lot of paid editing sock farms are based much on behavioral evidence. It seems that behavioral evidence was strong that's why no one thought of making a separate SPI, though a clerk can be informed about it. D4iNa4 (talk) 12:36, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Basically, if the IP was socking and if another editor wants to take explicit responsibility for their edits and if other editors still think the article should be deleted then it needs to go to AFD. --NeilN talk to me 12:08, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Samee[108] was not taking responsibility, he was just telling others to try AfD, but other editors decided to preserve a redirect instead. Although if someone wants to take responsibility then the concerns should be genuine, and then AfD would be applicable. Right now the article fails WP:NOTNEWS, I believe that it will take sometime to really understand if it should be allowed to stand or not. If it failed to gain notability in next few weeks then I will just request deletion of the redirect. D4iNa4 (talk) 12:36, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
My redirect was borne out of the reason that (a) the page was created by a SOCK and is thus liable for WP:CSD and (b) but the event is notable enough to make a mention on Naxalite–Maoist insurgency which I did in this edit [109]. I am happy to take this to a merge discussion since I feel the event is not notable enough to have a page of its own (rather than an AFD). And the reason I got to those edits is because I watch SPI pages of many of these editors and when a SPI was filed on Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Liborbital I could trace their edits. IMO, an editor currently evading their block (allegedly since SPI is still pending) has any grounds to blame other editors on "collusion". Thanks. Adamgerber80 (talk) 13:41, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment--As an editor who is quite familiar with the S.E.Asian scape, this is seriously disgusting behavior by a bevy of users and I will more-or-less echo whatever OID said.
    • @D4iNa4, MBlaze Lightning, Adamgerber80, and Capitals00:--AFAIK, neither of you three are checkusers and I am highly interested to know about how you managed to so confidently link up the IP with a sock, whose SPI case has been quite convoluted, even to experienced eyes, to say the least and so far, no IP-socking has been proved.
    • And, what vests in you the unilateral authority to overrule an AFC accept and a restoration by an editor in enough-good-standing, without going through the proper-deletion-route?!Also, I will put it in record that, I checked the entire article and there are no gross misrepresentation of facts etc.
    • Also, Adam and Capital00, per our rules, you and you alone need a consensus to delete an article.The onus is not on the IP, not on Ammarpad, not on Samee but on you.
    • And, for the sake of it, if this's taken to AFD, I would !vote delete on grounds of NOTNEWS.But, for the time-being, the article should be restored.~ Winged BladesGodric 13:29, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
You are wrong when you say that "so far no IP-socking has been proved", see, for example: [110] Furthermore, you don't need to be a CheckUser to recognize such blatant socks. —MBL talk 13:43, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Hmm..No IP-addresses were conclusively linked and they seldom are..Additionally, blatant socks is a pretty well-abused term in ARBIPA.~ Winged BladesGodric 14:07, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Winged Blades of Godric I understand your concern and agree that once an established editor had restored the page the correct route to take is an AfD and the page should be restored for now awaiting the decision of an AfD or a a merge discussion. Also, yes the content of the article of the page in general was sourced and verified thus prompting me to add the content in the main article. Having said this, I believe we do have a certain degree of disruption (mainly POV pushing) from editors who are either blocked in the past or editing without signing in. For example, take 39.57.180.181 (talk · contribs), or 39.48.42.250 (talk · contribs). At least to me these do not seem like newbies editing Wikipedia for the first time. Plus since they are IPs we cannot technically ask for a CU on them leading to a bigger issue. In the past, I have tried to engage them in a discussion on the talk page but that rarely happens. Adamgerber80 (talk) 14:03, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I've restored the article as the fully-protected redirection was disturbingly akin to an out of process deletion, and "don't restore sock" is not a valid reason for deletion or even reversion. We're allowed to restore socks, and if someone chooses to, you can't revert that on that basis alone. An article originally created by a sock can not be speedily deleted (or in this case, redirected) per CSD G5 over the endorsement of an established editor who is taking responsibility for the content. If Samee were to tell us they were not fully informed and they retract their endorsement of the content, then we can G5 it, but unless that happens, it's inappropriate to revert their restoration. If this were strictly a misunderstanding of how to handle socks, that would be reasonable, but it is absolutely unacceptable to attach any routine deletion concerns to a bad attempt at speedy deletion. If someone wants to nominate the article for deletion, they can copy their deletion rationale right here and I will nominate the article for them right this second with their statement. But the unilateral redirection needs to stop. It's been claimed by an established user, no more unilateral redirection. Swarm 02:34, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
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User Frasfras17/Viaros17[edit]

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Hi, could please an admin check the activity of Frasfras27 here ? I may be wrong, but this user reverted three users within 24 hours. Thanks a lot. Farawahar (talk) 15:30, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Which is complete OK within the the rules regarding edit revisions That page says "An editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page—whether involving the same or different material—within a 24-hour period". The key there is MORE than 3 revisions, which they haven't crossed yet. RickinBaltimore (talk) 15:33, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks a million for your quick answer, i was not sure of that, that’s why i asked here.Farawahar (talk) 15:39, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
RickinBaltimore Also, just to give you a perspective, I didn't revert their edits immediately, but went to the talk page first and asked for an explanation about the deletion of a sourced material based on some flawed logic. The involved user did not answer, and seemingly told his friends to come and revert my edit twice, so that I get involved in some sort of policy violation before notifying you. The three users are of the same nationality, and their reverts seem to be out of nationalistic motives.Frasfras17 (talk) 16:08, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Hopefully I have provided the tonic to stimulate the discussion.--Dlohcierekim (talk)
This is not the place for irrelevant dispute, but no “friend” asked me to revert, this is a personal attack, i reverted Frasfras because he provided no sources for his edit. As to my “nationalistic motives” just check my editing history and compare with Frafras17 ...

Farawahar (talk) 16:48, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

  • RickinBaltimore, yes it's only when you revert more than 3 times within 24 hours that you violate the bright-line 3RR rule, but I would never tell users it's completely OK to revert three times within 24 hours, especially not three different users. That's edit warring and it's not OK. Compare also the policy: "any edit warring may lead to sanctions". I'm sorry, I don't mean to be difficult, but I just don't want it to stand uncontradicted on ANI that reverting right up to the 3RR bright line is fine. Bishonen | talk 17:55, 22 March 2018 (UTC).
No worries Bish, thanks for the clarification on that. RickinBaltimore (talk) 17:57, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes, thanks for clarification.Farawahar (talk) 19:46, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I find it disconcerting that Frasfras17 along with edit warring, can make battleground comments concerning other editors nationality(The three users are of the same nationality..), and then on the Zakariya al-Qazwini talk page threaten to remove Persian categories from other articles! This does not appear to be editing conducive to creating an encyclopedia. --Kansas Bear (talk) 03:11, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Completely agree, this user uses Wikipedia as a battleground and is here to collect fans and win.Farawahar (talk) 06:10, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Kansas Bear, did you really read the talk page? He is the one who started edit warring with an absurd reasoning that basically says one's ethnicity changes based on his birth place! I did not threaten to remove those categories arbitrarily, but brought those examples to show this nationalistic user that his flawed logic could be applied to many articles which is absolutely ridiculous. Viaros17 (talk) 07:52, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
And this justifies your comment on other editors nationalities? Your threat to revenge edit?[111] Your misuse of SKYISBLUE to exclude your edits from needing sources?[112] Hardly sounds like an editor that is here to build an encyclopedia. I have seen editors like this before, most of them with nationalistic intent, they do not last long. --Kansas Bear (talk) 21:07, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Nobody said his ethnicity is based on his birth place, do not manipulate other users statements. I asked you to provide source for your claim, nothing else. And, another user said that to be of Arab (or Persian) origin does not mean to be Arab (or Persian), this is not flawed logic, this is a simple fact.Farawahar (talk) 19:28, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Lets see what we know so far about "new user" Frasfras17;
  • New user edit warring against numerous veteran users. CHECK!
  • New user using the race/ethnicity card against others. CHECK!
  • New user threatening he'll make more disruptive edits. CHECK!
  • New user blanket removing warnings/concerns from his page over and over. CHECK!
Not sure whats more laughable though; the WP:NOTHERE editorial pattern by itself, the usage of race/ethnicity cards against other users, or perhaps the extremely meager attempts to cover it all up? Before I forget; I'll just leave this here.[113] - LouisAragon (talk) 13:09, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
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"Team work" in WP. Is it bad?[edit]

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I ask your opinion on this, because certain users and admins in the Greek WP claim that suggestions such as "User A edits in coordination with Users B and C" is a "personal attack".

It is obvious that in certain articles, topics or discussions, a number of users have similar ideas and pattern of editions, and if needed (in debates, votes etc) they support each other. Is this bad? If you feel that several users are cooperating "against" one, and you complain about that, can any of them take it as an offence? Thanks for the answers.--Skylax30 (talk) 09:38, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Skylax30 - I believe that they were most likely referring to unfounded accusations against other editors for POV editing or POV pushing, single-purpose focus, or for sock or meat puppetry (or the collusion between accounts to cause bad-faith disruption) - and without any basis of proof or without evidence. They're most likely saying that accusing other editors of bad-faith behaviors or the collusion between them to coordinate and cause such behavior can be seen as a civility violation or a personal attack if such accusations are made without evidence or seems to have been made in frustration and spite toward them. As you said above: positive collaboration and teamwork between editors that are made in good faith is most certainly not a violation of policy; in fact, we greatly encourage it here. I think you were just confusing the difference between their description of what "bad-faith collusion and disruption" is vs "good faith teamwork and editing"... :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 09:46, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
As Oshwah said, being in agreement is not a problem but being in agreement due to bias is not okay (at all). --QEDK () 16:13, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you both. So, User:QEDK, you are suggesting that a group of users acting in agreement due to bias is not OK. Help me to clarify the "personal attack" issue with an example. Suppose that I post "In my opinion, User-A is biased". Is that a "personal attack" or within my right to freedom of speak and constructive dialogue? What about "Users A, B and C are editing in agreement and are biased, in my opinion"? Could they just answer "yes, we are editing as a team, but in good faith and we are not biased". Thanks again.--Skylax30 (talk) 17:40, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

@Skylax30: It is not a personal attack to call out editors, provided you do so after assuming good faith. You have said it like a accusation, so unless you're sure you should avoid saying things like that, also saying it on an impulse is equal to assuming bad faith when it might have been a genuine coincidence. Now, if a group of editors were to say they were editing as a team, outside the bounds of normal editing or so, such as skewing votes of policy, making controversial POV edits, etc. that is a conflict of interest, since the editors are inherently biased. But, let's say two or more editors are meeting on-wiki and agree with each other on a certain policy and viewpoint, they are obviously allowed to agree with each other and express their opinions (but again, canvassing with intent to skew discussions is not). --QEDK () 17:51, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks again. Good point that about "conflict of interest".--Skylax30 (talk) 18:40, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


User:Oleola entered a discussion with me about Ermedin Demirović's appearances in Alavés B. Even though I explained to him there was no way to completely adding the sources to the apps (per talk page), he still reverted me continuely and accused me of "personally attacking" him (also explained in the talk page). However, he is now hounding me and reverting all my edits without any proper explanation. This seems to me that he/she has taken it personally and can't verify anything that comes from me without reverting or trying to create a bunch of edit wars. MYS77 21:35, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

The disputed edits appear to be about maintenance tags on articles about football players, an area which both editors have contributed significantly before. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:47, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • @Power~enwiki: It's not about maintenance tags, it's about Oleola only reaching this very own website to use it as a battleground and start unnecessary edit wars because he thinks it's cool. MYS77 10:51, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
User MYS77 is not sourcing all information he is adding into the articles. I just quickly look at some of his recent contributions and added maintenance tags, mainly citation needed for unsourced data I noticed, also corrected some stats per what sources say. However it seems that MYS77 reverted all my recent edits. I don't know what he want to achieve, he was many times informed that all data should be sourced per WP:VER, most recently in this discussion Talk:Ermedin_Demirović but apparently, he don't want to follow Wikipedia core policy.--Oleola (talk) 22:05, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
@Oleola: Mate, I've explained every one of my edits to you, but you are still reverting me without any single explanation, just "not sourcing all". I don't know if you noticed, but 90% of this whole encyclopedia is feeded by some users who, even when they don't have a single source to prove it, they put time and effort to gather information and insert it here. If you're not understand this, then please show some respect to other people's hard work. Thank you. MYS77 02:56, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
The fact that many content on Wikipedia is unsourced doesn't mean that you are free to add further unsourced content and then personal attacking users who challenge them per WP:CHALLENGE. Simply start to provide sources, using inline references for all content you're adding.--Oleola (talk) 09:48, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I provided every damn source and explanation to you in all my edits. If this isn't enough then you should go ahead and do some research here. I found your edits very disrespectful to all my effort to gather information and I'm waiting to have some real input. @Quite A Character:, @GiantSnowman:, @Number 57:, @Mattythewhite: inputs please. MYS77 10:49, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Adding more input to the case: Oleola seems to be involved in a lot of incidents when it comes to 3RR or edit wars:
  1. Here he was the first offender, but was not reported somehow;
  2. Here, he couldn't stop on reverting the guy even after the other user gave up...
  3. Here the IP who reported him tried to establish a type of conversation, no replies, just some more reverts...
  4. Just check his recent edits (all of them reverting my work) on my creations Gustavo Dulanto, Álex Collado, Victor Yan and Alejandro Marqués... If this is not a clear HOUND I don't know what hound is then. MYS77 02:48, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I don't know what's your point in bringing these old closed cases here, but let's stick to the current. Your constat omitting of Wikipedia:Verifiability. I'm bringing here User:MYS77 recent edit[114] Firstly we see personal attacks in edit summary. I gave him final warning yesterday[115] Also I paid attention to his behavior here Talk:Ermedin Demirović. Earlier he also personal attacked user who asked him for source[116]. That's a first thing. Now let's see the content of this recent edit[[117]. MYS77 added stats for Brazil U17 and Brazil U20 national teams along with alleged years of play. However this link he posted in edit summary(he don't use an inline citation as he should per WP:VER) says only that Dodô "also served the U-17 and U-20 teams" there is nothing in espn.com.br article about number of appearances/goals for Brazil U17 and Brazil U20 and nothing about years in which he could play in these teams. So MYS77 added again an unsourced material, depite I gave him two warnings to stop such actions, including final one[118][119]. The same type of unreferenced content he added also in Guilherme Nunes[120] and Iago Maidana[121] --Oleola (talk) 09:06, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Seeing as I've been pinged even though I'm not been involved with this article previously - @MYS77: please can you provide a reliable source which confirms the player stats, and then @Oleola: please can you clearly state why the source is not sufficient? GiantSnowman 11:36, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
@GiantSnowman: I've explained to him that I accessed deportivoalaves.com and was counting the player's apps according to the club's match reports. It would be very unwise to add 12 references to the article only to prove that the stats are correct. I did this with Victor Yan, Guilherme Nunes, Iago Maidana and so on (as a lot of other users work here and get no complaints nor reverts), but I was blindly reverted and harrassed (see my talk page, this is his fourth "warning" within 24 hours or so). MYS77 12:09, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Plus, I've added some references in Victor Yan and Maidana to prove that I was not wrong in my approach. Oleola lacks WP:AGF and should be warned for using Wikipedia as a battleground. This is not the correct way to work within the project. MYS77 12:25, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
You did't directly add references in Yan[122] and Maidana[123], you just post links in edit comments. You must provide it as inline citation directly into the article per WP:BURDEN.--Oleola (talk) 12:43, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

@GiantSnowman, one questionable source seems to be in Gustavo Dulanto. MYS77 claims that whole youth career is covered by ref#1[124] I do not see any text there that would confirm it. Also I don't think that linkedin profile MYS77 posted in his edit comment is WP:RS[125]. And what is most important per WP:BURDEN he should use an inline citations, not just posting links in edit comment. I don't see also any source for alleged Guilherme Nunes 5 matches apps for Brazil U20, and MYS77 recently reinstaed this stats[126].--Oleola (talk) 12:29, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

@Oleola: You have to understand that Brazilian websites don't count appearances, you have to dig in to get correct data. I was doing it and you are reverting it, without proving it wrong. I'm showing a lot of ways to prove these stats right, with you simply ignoring them. I will wait to see if anyone has some external opinions here, there's no point in discussing when we have different approaches (even though both can be seen as correct). MYS77 14:31, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
For the hundredth time you must prove (by adding inline citations) that stats are correct per WP:BURDEN, not me that they are incorrect. I'm not saying that all stats you added were incorrect, they were unsourced. And you should provide inline citations for them, like for Guilherme Nunes U20 caps which are still unsourced[127]. And i don't think that you counted caps for Dodo in your recent edit[128], because I checked all U20 lineups from 2009 and he didn't play any match. It's very unlikly that he played in 2012, since target tournaments for players born in 1991 and 1992 ended in 2011.--Oleola (talk) 15:10, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
@Oleola: You checked all U20 official lineups, I assume he played on friendlies. I can't confirm it but I was assuming good faith because of the very same ref I provided you (this was not the only one who actually said that he played for both NT sides)... Anyway, taking a quick look at your own talkpage, you seem to be very punchy when it comes to youth NT caps, right? A few fights here and there related to some apps here and there...
Don't know what you're trying to achieve with these discussions, but if you show more teamwork I do assure you that editing in here would be more pleasant. And even if you don't want to work with others, I do recommend you to talk instead of simply reverting people here and there. People spend their time here to improve some things that you're simply "destroying". Cheers, MYS77 16:56, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I quickly flew through U20 squads from 2016 and it seems that it's unlikly that Guilherme Nunes played in 5 matches. And you says that you are counting stats and want to be trusted to put own WP:OR without a source. No, I rather stick to what reliable sources says. Instead of studying messages on my talk page, maybe you'll finally add an inline references to above mentioned articles. BTW Dodo didn't play in friendlies.--Oleola (talk) 07:24, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
@Oleola: Sources were already in the page regarding his U17 stats, he played five matches in a period of some months, while played three for the U20s in 2016 whithin a month. You seem to lack the ability to search for sources properly, then you throw all of your frustration back at other users... Anyway, I was not the one "threatening" other users in my talk page at first attempt, right? Aaaand you forgot to mention me in the conversation, again. Cheers, MYS77 13:24, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
You said that you counted stats and without a source was constantly adding 5 U20 caps for Nunes [129], and now it turns out that he in fact played only 3 matches. So stop going out with another personal teasing, because you seem to be frustrated, not me. About that ping thing, please don't mark me in your messages here, since they began to be more and more charged with personal comments towards me. Comment on content, not on the contributor WP:NPA. I don't need to be alterted, and answer to them immediately, since I use Wikipedia also for other purposes than editing and pulling endless discussions with user who don't want to adapt to main Wikipedia policy WP:VERIFY and make a big problem when it comes to add references for unsourced content. Now accusing me also of unfounded threatening which did not take place, just standard messages in the case of inappropriate behavior or disruptive editing. I'm posting a link so everybody can see your reactions to this messages[130] And at the end, you bring here your friend User:Quite A Character, he told you that you should add inline references to the articles instead of edit summary, which is required per WP:BURDEN. You're still ignoring it[131]. What's more to add here?--Oleola (talk) 16:06, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

My two cents: yes User:MYS77, it's preferable to add the sources to the body of article instead of in the edit summary. However, User:Oleola, don't you agree that in some cases we could/should embrace WP:BOLD (for example, the youth clubs of Carlitos (Spanish footballer) in which you removed the years)? About MYS changing the birth place he originally had added in Demirovic, nothing wrong with that I believe, he just found a better and more reliable source :)

You are both experienced users, I am sure a consensus can be reached. --Quite A Character (talk) 14:33, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

But MYS77 didn't change birth place in Demirovic, he just restored the whole edit made by sockpuppet of block evading user HankMoodyTZ. And birth place was one of unsourced change that HankMoodyTZ made in Demirovic in his edit. So no, MYS77 didn't find any better source.--Oleola (talk) 15:19, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I apologize User:Oleola, thread was too long and i must have confused myself along the reading. Speaking of sources, i found tons of them that only say he was brought through Hamburger's youth system, not that he was born there. Also, this one (https://www.vavel.com/es/futbol/2017/06/20/alaves/800141-demirovic-el-gol-viene-de-bosnia.html, i think Vavel is reliable) says he was born in Bosnia, without stating the place.

Sorry for any inconvenience --Quite A Character (talk) 16:01, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

The content dispute at Talk:Ermedin Demirović isn't relevant at this forum, and the general question on acceptable sourcing for statistics is probably better handled by WP:WikiProject Football. I don't see anything actionable; and suggest that both editors accept a WP:TROUT, try to leave each other alone, and move on without any other administrative action. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:19, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

@Power~enwiki: Mate, I never bothered Oleola at any point. Just tried to carry on editing even with the dispute on Demirović. He, in the other hand, started a hound and reverted me countless times in other pages that I was currently editing/creating. That's why I created this thread. Cheers, MYS77 04:06, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
I made appropriate edits in harmony with Wikipedia core policy WP:VERIFY by correcting data per current sources and placing ciation needed tags in the articles for the content which is not sourced. And I directly pointed by tag which data should be sourced. It was you MYS77 who reverted all my edits without adding a references, so don't say that I was reverting you.--Oleola (talk) 08:07, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

MYS77 certainly isn´t a vandal but a well-intentioned editor, however, stats must be sourced. The argument on how silly is to put 12 sources is actually invalid. When I made articles such as Otto Necas or Fritz Levitus I added all sources I had to acomplish having stats sourced. FkpCascais (talk) 14:44, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. WP:V is a core content policy, and it requires an inline citation "any material whose verifiability has been challenged". It's not unreasonable to ask for one, and it is unreasonable to fail to provide one if asked, and if one is unable to do so, the content can be removed. That being said, tag bombing a user's articles is not productive either, especially if the user is providing non-inline references. I agree that both users could do with a trout. Swarm 00:04, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I've brought this here rather than WP:EWN because this user's recent edits are problematic for a number of reasons. Besides the edit-warring, there is in my opinion a clear WP:COMPETENCE issue. This user is immune to my advice, so I'd like someone else to explain that his behaviour is inappropriate:

  • User:Kharon mistakenly argued that "free speech" was a basis for retaining some commentary he liked on the Mont Pelerin Society article on the 9th March. His reasons for supporting the inclusion of this material amounted to little more than his personal opinion of several people mentioned in the course of the article.
  • When I pointed out that Wikipedia has a policy on this (WP:NOTFREESPEECH), User:Kharon arrogantly responded that because he joined English Wikipedia in 2013, he has "stopped reading rules other wikipedians point [him] to", because he has apparently "read them all".
  • When I respond to this silliness (which perhaps I ought to have done on his user page), he repeatedly attempts to delete my comments from the article talk page, even when it is explained to him that he can't do this (WP:TPO): first occasion, second occasion, third occasion, fourth occasion, fifth occasion.
  • User:Kharon later makes a useful contribution to the article, but unfortunately encloses a reference to the Nobel Prize for Economics in inverted commas, explaining later in an edit summary that this is because: "its not really a true Nobel Prize" [sic]. And yes, I am familiar with the history of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, but that doesn't mean that Wikipedia should express an opinion on the validity of the award by referring to it in inverted commas. User:Kharon then inserts a reference to a book in which the Nobel Prize for Economics is also referred to in inverted commas, completely missing the point, as I clearly explain here.
  • User:Kharon then proceeds to edit war over the inclusion of the inverted commas:
  1. [132] 15:09 20 March
  2. [133] 15:53 20 March
  3. [134] 22:36 20 March
  4. [135] 00:56 21 March
I warned them here that they had violated 3RR, but they refused to self-revert. I didn't template them because they are obviously aware of WP:EW. In hindsight, I ought to have stopped reverting at 2R, but in my defense the situation was quite frustrating—and although I stopped at 3R—I will make a mental note not to join-in in future.
  • User:Kharon then proceeded to argue that WP:3RR doesn't apply to him, because he's removing a "form of Wikipedia:Vandalism", which he will "always try to fix, no matter how often"—which strongly implies that he will resume the edit-warring when he next logs in.

You can find the whole exchange here and here, for context. L.R. Wormwood (talk) 13:29, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

I am open to different opinions and always ready to correct my views and contributions but in this case i added first class sources and the contained critique about the so called "Nobel Prize" in Economic Sciences is simply correctly cited. I did not add anything! Its all 1:1 from the sources! I did combine 2 sources with the same critique by adding the quote marks as used in the second source. The critique seems to be revolting to some of my fellow wikipedians but it seems a needed correction of the pretension this Society likely hoped to gain by getting its "foot" into the Nobel Prize "brand". I honestly think it is a better article with this critical point of view added. I plan to add some more points soon. With very good sources of course. --Kharon (talk) 07:44, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
You just don’t get it. The criticism is fine, the inverted commas, and all the other behavioural problems/edit-warring are not. L.R. Wormwood (talk) 09:42, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I appreciate that this may not be very interesting, but someone should at least address the WP:EDIT-WARRING to avoid validating this behaviour. L.R. Wormwood (talk) 13:34, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I left a warning on User:Kharon's talk page. They may be blocked if they revert again at Mont Pelerin Society without getting a talk page consensus first. In my opinion, this warning is a sufficient action to allow this ANI thread to be closed, unless another admin wants to do more. EdJohnston (talk) 15:15, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Mediatech492: Personal attacks, bad revert, removal of warnings from own talk page, aggressive behavior[edit]

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This is a report about User:Mediatech492. It is my first report on this board and I hope that I'm doing this correctly.

Hi, I first reacted to this with a "trout" and a "smiley" template, because it clearly was an accident and I took this humorously. Another user previously involved in a heated discussion added a humorful comment to the section. The reaction made me raise an eyebrow: The whole section was removed from the talk page as if nothing ever happened, and the bad revert was undone without any comment.

That made me have a look at the talk page's history and the rest of the talk page. The user has personally attacked another editor by manipulating the heading of a discussion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mediatech492&diff=798930602&oldid=798921030&diffmode=source "(Undid revision 798921030 by MarnetteD (talk)Per: it's my own talk page and you can go fuck yourself)" (emphasis mine)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mediatech492&diff=798931007&oldid=798930821&diffmode=source

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mediatech492&diff=798961304&oldid=798943119&diffmode=source

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mediatech492&diff=799462575&oldid=799460478&diffmode=source

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mediatech492&action=history

I highly disapprove of this behavior, I would like to have my talk page comment restored and/or replaced by a warning, I don't want that warning to be removed and I don't know what to do here. The user has been banned twice, but just for "edit warring" and short time periods. Someone acting like this might need a stronger call to order. Especially one that does not get conveniently removed from the talk page. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:18, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

@ToBeFree: Editors can remove most things from their talk page per WP:BLANKING. They cannot, however, use headings to attack other editors (WP:TALKNEW). I've changed the wording and warned them not to restore. --NeilN talk to me 18:32, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
I appreciate TBF's vigilance, but at least as far as I am concerned the events described by those diffs are ancient history (being in September of last year); I hoped that Mediatech942 felt similarly. I concluded from their wordless removal of our good-natured trouts that they did not, but I was and am prepared to move on. Mediatech942 can remove anything they like (except a declined unblock notice) from their Talk page, and I personally see no reason to restore your/our comments; we know they were seen and, even if their intent was not understood, indirectly acknowledged. General Ization Talk 18:36, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
@NeilN: @General Ization: Thank you very much. Well, the personal attack report probably came too late - it bothers me that this does not seem to lead to any consequences. I hope that it will at least be remembered if the user continues to ignore rules pointed out to them by multiple different users. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:47, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
This is frivolous whining from an editor (User: General Ization) with a long history of childish behaviour. I have nothing further to say about it. Mediatech492 (talk) 19:32, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
@Mediatech492: Another personal attack. Keep it up, and you'll see yourself blocked.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:45, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
@Bbb23: I am the one under attack here, and I have the right to speak in my defence. Mediatech492 (talk) 20:29, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
You have the right, indeed, to distinguish attacks on personal attributes from attacks on editing behavior, but that only goes so far, here. It's best to walk away. If you can't walk away, that's an indication of where the issue is. MPS1992 (talk) 21:58, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
This started because I removed a frivolous edit from my talk page. I then "Walked away" at that point making no further issue of it. But now its been made an issue here, so now I am obliged to deal with this matter until it is resolved. Mediatech492 (talk) 17:17, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
@ToBeFree: I don't think you meant to cause offense with your trout, but some editors do not find trouts to be humorous. It's best to avoid giving someone a trout unless you have interacted with them in the past and are on friendly terms. I understand that you didn't appreciate Mediatech's removal of your comment, but you should have let it drop there. Lepricavark (talk) 22:20, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Hi :) Yes – it was the first and only time that I used the "trout" template; as the only reaction was a commentless removal, I'll use a simple kind text message with a winking smiley next time.
Just to clarify here: I didn't create this Administrator Noticeboard entry mainly because my talk page addition has been removed. I created it because of the personal attack I noticed when having a look at the rest of the page. Attempts to remove the attack had been answered by above-mentioned profanities, so I decided to report the user instead of attempting to do what multiple other users failed to do before. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 22:30, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
So not only do you admit to making pointless edits to my talk page, but you also have now made a frivolous report about an event that occurred many months ago which had nothing to do with you, and was considered a closed event by all involved at that time. May I suggest from now on you limit your efforts to matters that concern yourself. Mediatech492 (talk) 17:17, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
The "closed event" that occured "many months ago" was still, as of time of the report, being publicly advertised using a personal attack in a heading on your talk page. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:40, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Barbara (WVS)'s editing of medical and anatomy articles[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Let me start by stating that although Barbara (WVS) (talk · contribs) and I have a tempestuous history, as seen here, here and here, and she began editing medical and anatomy articles because of me (as that history shows), this report is not about that. This report is about about our health articles being some of our most important articles and Barbara (WVS) having repeatedly been a detriment to these articles. The fact that she is a part of WP:Visiting Scholar (although she's not a scholar) makes it even more essential that she not be a detriment to our health articles or topics (some of which she creates) because students are sometimes referred to her or look to her edits to learn. We cannot have editors learning and taking on this style of irresponsible and error-proned editing. Below are examples of Barbara (WVS)'s editing, from most serious to least serious, that really do show that more competence is required to edit in these areas. It also shows that even when challenged on errors, it is common for Barbara (WVS) to stick to her guns and insist that she is correct. Also keep in mind that our anatomy articles fall under "medical" as well.

Problematic editing by Barbara (WVS) at anatomy and medical articles.
  • As seen at Talk:Vulva/Archive 4, Barbara (WVS) added that the anus is a part of the vulva and stubbornly insisted that it is a part of vulva. She got defensive when others (me included) challenged her on that assertion. It took several editors pointing out that she was wrong just to get her to stop pushing content in this regard. She refused to accept or acknowledge that she was wrong.
  • At the List of vaginal tumors article, Barbara (WVS) heavily used a reference that was a book on domestic animals before being pointed to this error. The List of vaginal tumors article is mostly about humans. Simply paying better attention to the source she was using could have prevented this error.
  • As seen here, despite a number of reliable sources (and the literature at large) stating otherwise, Barbara (WVS) stubbornly insisted on having the Vagina article state that the vaginal epithelium is keratinized. She became defensive, stating, "All I can say is that the relatively recent review article I have states that the top epethelial layer is keratinized. [...]. I can't see how anyone else would even want to comment on this. This is not a hill to die on, at least not for me." I questioned whether or not Barbara (WVS) was misinterpreting the source, given that she had misinterpreted the vulva and anus matter, and other things. An editor eventually made it clear that she was misinterpreting the source.
  • As seen here, Barbara (WVS) removed "mucous membrane," stating, "The vaginal epithelium is not a mucous membrane. See Vaginal epithelium for references." By contrast, as that talk page section shows, many reliable sources state that the vagina is lined with a mucous membrane or they state "vaginal mucosa." Many, but not all, mucous membranes secrete mucus. Judging by Vaginal epithelium#Mucous, it was clear that Barbara (WVS) confused mucous membrane with mucous gland.
  • As seen here, Barbara (WVS) proposed to have the Persistent genital arousal disorder article deleted. She did this without doing a WP:BEFORE job. And she took a hatchet to the article despite what WP:Preserve makes clear. All it took was some looking on Google Books, and the article was significantly improved/saved.
  • As seen here, Barbara (WVS) recently proposed content for the Vagina article that had a host of problems. And this is not the first time she has proposed content for that article in this way. Because of the issues pointed out on the matter, editors considered having, or asked that, Barbara (WVS) step away from editing the article. Do see SilkTork's response in particular. He stated, in part, "some of the edits by Barbara that I see concern me as they may be either removing correct information or inserting dubious or incorrect material. While in the totally of Barbara's edits there is some positive, the time taken to examine her edits to check what she has done, and to correct her mistakes, and to discuss this with her, is disproportionate to the benefits she is able to bring. My feeling at this stage is that the article would progress better without her presence." Barbara (WVS) response was to state "this was a very 'crappy' draft to submit for consideration. I could give all sorts of excuses but will not." She then listed a bullet-point response.
  • As seen here, Barbara (WVS) removed valuable content from the Vaginoplasty article and did not replace it despite being pointed to the WP:Preserve policy. I noted to her that this material was important because those who get the surgery to construct a vagina, meaning to create an entire vagina, need to dilate the vagina. Solid sources in the section show this.
  • As seen here at Talk:Nipple, Barbara (WVS) stubbornly refused to listen on matters regarding purported orgasms from breast/nipple stimulation. She got defensive and ended up stating, "ok....umm wow. You spend too much time on talk pages. It takes me ten minutes to go through your essay. I'm not even going to read them any more. I find your edit summaries more useful. You have got to relax a bit. Both of us could probably bring this article to good status if you would like." Guidelines and sources were provided showing why there were issues with Barbara (WVS)'s edits.
  • As seen here at Talk:Endometriosis, Barbara (WVS) again neglected WP:Preserve and misapplied WP:MEDDATE, as she has a number of times before. References and content she removed was restored by another editor.
  • As seen here, Barbara (WVS) insisted that sourced material was unsourced.
  • As seen here, Barbara (WVS) insisted that we must use WP:PAYWALL sources because they are of higher quality, and because "the whole purpose of the Visiting Scholar program is to provide access to content that is not available through Google Books. Links to the University of Pittsburgh Library holdings would be useless in a reference." This was challenged by editors (me included) on the talk page and contradicted by a Wiki Education Foundation editor.

Now I understand that people make mistakes, but the mistakes by Barbara (WVS) are too often and sometimes too serious to reasonably allow her to continue to edit medical and anatomy articles. The above are just examples. There is also the fact that Barbara (WVS) has a tendency to defend her mistakes as correct. Again, these our health articles. So I ask that the community consider restricting editing her of these topics indefinitely. I am asking for an indefinite topic ban, broadly construed. She has recently banned herself from editing the Vagina article, but this is not enough since that is just one article and (as stated there) she does not see a pattern in her problematic editing and has plans to return to that article after six months. The same issues will be happening with other articles, and with that article once she returns to it. We should not continue to allow an editor with issues such as these to continue to edit in these fields simply because she is with the Visiting Scholar program and creates a lot of medical articles. How many of these articles have serious issues? Pinging Jytdog, Rivertorch, SilkTork, Tom (LT), Johnuniq and SandyGeorgia, who have all expressed concerns about Barbara (WVS) editing these areas. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:17, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Pinging Doc_James, as he might want to say something as well. Classicwiki (talk) 20:47, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Pinging Gandydancer who edits in similar areas. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:06, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

I manage the Visiting Scholars program for Wiki Education. As such, I have a COI with regards to Barbara's edits as a Visiting Scholar. Here are a few clarifying comments you can take as you will:

  • The Visiting Scholars program aims to support Wikipedians by providing access to academic resources through a university library. The comment that "she's not a scholar," presumably a comparison to the academic definition of 'scholar', misunderstands the purpose of the program. Participation in the program shouldn't affect editing habits except to equip editors with more research resources.
  • Regarding the last bulletpoint (use of paywalled sources), which refers to something I said: When the Visiting Scholars program began, many of the goals/responsibilities of the Scholars were left up to the institutional sponsors to decide. We had not yet developed our current best practices. Back then, part of the way the program was presented to sponsors was to talk about how it could increase traffic to their collections. That doesn't happen anymore. We changed the way we engage with sponsors around the same time Barbara was getting involved. Since then, this is the program in a nutshell: "a Wikipedian who wants to contribute to a particular topic area receives a university login and keeps track of the articles they improve along the way." I.e. editing as normal, with access to better sources, and no responsibility to use them or link to them in any particular way. So I would believe it if Barbara felt like she was supposed to do just that, and I apologize to her and to the community for not doing more to ensure the expectations of early program participants complied with community expectations and standards.
  • Regarding "students are sometimes referred to her" - This is untrue. We do not refer students to Visiting Scholars, as we have Wikipedians on staff who support students. Recently, I did connect a Wikipedia Fellow (an academic, not a student) interested in women's health topics to Barbara, but that is the only instance.
  • Moving on to more general comments about this proposal: First, pinging only people likely to agree with you in an ANI report strikes me as problematic. Given this the topic of this thread is about a topic ban rather than user conduct issues, it seems more appropriate to ping all editors active on those pages and/or WikiProject Women's Health.
  • Most to the point: The list above indeed includes some examples of when Barbara has been wrong. It gives an example like list of vaginal tumors, pointing to Barbara's overuse of a problematic reference. But anyone who doesn't click through to the page before judging on a topic ban wouldn't see that it was Barbara that created the page, with 33 references. The same is true for some others. Barbara has created and improved a huge number of medical articles. I would encourage any editor who intends to opine here to take a look through an Xtools report of her most edited articles to evaluate her general ability to contribute to the topic area in addition to looking at the list above. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:22, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
As Ryan suggested, I am pinging members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Women's Health. Doc James (already done), CFCF, Clayoquot, D.c.camero, FloNight, Fluffernutter, Foxtreetop, Hmlarson, Kaldari, Keilana, Little_pob, Michael_Goodyear, Mvolz, Netha Hussain, Thsmi002, and Whispyhistory. Classicwiki (talk) 22:09, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
I have only had minimal interactions with this editor. She offered to help with Women's health but stated she did not understand the citation style. I offered to help her, but heard nothing more. A blanket ban seems a bit drastic. Do we know what her qualifications are? Is there a role for mentoring? --Michael Goodyear (talk) 22:54, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Ryan (Wiki Ed), the reason that I noted that Barbara (WVS) is not a scholar is so that editors here would know that she is not one. It was not about confusion on my part. I pinged editors who know of Barbara (WVS)'s problematic editing. Her problematic editing is what is under scrutiny here. Most of the editors I pinged have worked with her and/or tried to work with her. Tom (LT) in particular, who is our top anatomy editor, was indifferent to her until assessing a proposal she made at Talk:Vagina. If I was aware of all of the editors who see Barbara (WVS)'s editing as a net positive, I would have pinged them. But I am not aware of many or even a few who do, except for you. Furthermore, here at WP:ANI, pinging every editor of WikiProject Women's Health and/or WP:Med is not required. It also skews the matter because what one can wind up with is editors opposing to restrict Barbara (WVS)'s editing simply because they think she's nice, like her, and/or because she edits a lot of medical topics. It's well known that Barbara (WVS) is often polite. But politeness and editing/creating a lot of medical articles does not equate to competence. Plus, there are people who are a part of WikiProjects who are not on an official WikiProject list. I am a part of WP:Med, but I am not on a list there. Like SilkTork, who was also indifferent to Barbara (WVS) until assessing her problematic editing, I do not see that whatever benefits exist regarding Barbara (WVS)'s editing outweigh the negatives. SandyGeorgia was also indifferent to Barbara (WVS)'s editing until seeing her in action after she (SandyGeorgia) posted this section at WP:Med. And I made it very clear that Barbara (WVS) churning out medical article after medical article (a number of which are not needed and end up merged and/or should be merged) does not mean that she should continue to be allowed to edit in, and create articles for, these areas. If you are willing to put the Wiki Education Foundation above the accuracy and quality of our health articles, then I must disagree with you. I would rather have no article than an article potentially full of errors and sloppy editing. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:55, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Flyer22 Reborn Can you succinctly provide a list of 1-5 links that you are labelling problematic editing? Hmlarson (talk) 23:04, 16 March 2018 (UTC) I've gone through the edits provided - and I'm not seeing many diffs - just your repeated talk page interactions with this editor, which seem fine and allow other editors to provide input to garner WP:CONCENSUS. Without knowing every detail of your previous interactions, I will say my first impressions with the way this is presented reads more like a smear campaign to me with very little stickiness. I agree with Michael Goodyear that a blanket ban is drastic. I also agree more attention needs to be paid to the fact that "Barbara has created and improved a huge number of medical articles" per Ryan (Wiki Ed). Hmlarson (talk) 23:20, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Hmlarson, is the list in the collapse box not enough? Do you think any of what I listed there is not problematic? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:09, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Hmlarson, no, not a smear campaign. Jytdog, Doc James and I have had to fix Barbara's errors and/or otherwise clean up after her a number of times. One article where Doc James has consistently corrected her is Cystocele (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Doc is more content than some of us when it comes to fixing Barbara's content. Barbara edits some of the same areas that I edit in, and began editing these articles after interacting with me. Any diff and/or linked discussion involving me is merely because of that. But enough of the issues I linked to do show egregious errors and editors (sometimes me included) trying to explain to her that these are errors. The diffs are there in the talk page discussions. I'm sure that others can provide more diffs showing issues. Often, Barbara's initial response is to be defensive rather than listen. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:26, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
  • It may be helpful to clarify that some of the problematic edits were made with Barbara's personal account (User:Bfpage), not her WVS account (User:Barbara (WVS)). Since part of the complaint is that she has set a bad example to those following her semi-official(?) work, it would be helpful to show diffs from mistakes made while using her WVS account, or explain why it does not make a difference which account she uses. Prince of Thieves (talk) 23:20, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Some of the examples definitely involve her Barbara (WVS) account. On her Barbara (WVS) user page, she notes the difference between the accounts. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:26, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the ping. I will weigh in with my own observations:

  1. Prior to this issue being raised, I had independently noticed some edits made to women's health articles by B that were of low quality, and this surprised me, enough so that I did briefly investigate B's user page and editing history because of this.
  2. I was also surprised to see "scholar" there, so the point about it being slightly misleading I also agree with. I'm not sure if there are any practical concerns with this however.
  3. Prior to this issue being raised, I had also independently noticed one of the initially pinged users egregiously attacking B for really no good reason at all in a talk page and found it a bit shocking.
  4. Pursuant to #3, I observed that B did not back down. In my opinion, because in this issue they were correct, I had considered this a good quality. However, in reading what you posted above, it appears that this is common behaviour and is done every time regardless of whether B is in the wrong.
  5. I concur with Ryan (Wiki Ed)'s observation that the addition of volumes of material is overall of a beneficial nature, because we have plenty of missing content in this project.

Although I agree that B sometimes demonstrates a lower level of competence in these areas than I would ideally like, on the other hand I believe that the community is still able to improve upon these new articles and that the addition of this content is overall, a benefit to our coverage. The key point is that these articles are fixable, and that they wouldn't exist without B. This would not be the case if the articles were not salvageable or if the articles' existence wasn't useful. Damaging articles that are already of high quality however is more worrisome, however, it seems like in these cases mentioned the issue was satisfactorily resolved (although this may be selection bias), albeit perhaps with more conflict than was necessary.

Since being notified of this, I have also looked at User:Barbara_(WVS)/articles_created and I was very excited to see what B had accomplished in a short amount of time. I especially liked seeing Template:Breastfeeding and Breastfeeding and medications as I had actually noticed that content in this area was not great a few years ago and never got around to doing it myself. I would be sad to see one of the very few editors adding needed content in these neglected areas be topic banned.

I agree that there are definitely some issues here, but I think a topic ban (on both accounts) is far too aggressive at this point in time. I fine with it if it was decided that B should edit with the Bfpage account on women's health topics instead of the Barabara (WVS) account. Mvolz (talk) 23:59, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Mvolz, in this discussion, it seems that some editors may be underestimating the effort and strain it puts on others to fix these kinds of errors, or to review Barabara (WVS)'s edits because of the errors they are likely to contain and to then have to fix and/or to discuss the matter unless we are to leave the errors in. If you have not yet done so, see what Tom (LT) and SilkTork recently stated. Part of the strain comes from Barabara (WVS) refusing to acknowledge that she is wrong. With Tom (LT), she recently acknowledged some faults, but that is not standard for her. As for creating new articles, there is no deadline. We don't need Barabara (WVS) to create all of these articles. And why should we allow errors to remain in an article even for a day? Are we saying that it's okay for Barabara (WVS) to edit with the lack of care she so often exhibits because the article will eventually be fixed? Errors can stay in articles for years. And as noted before, a lot of articles Barabara (WVS) creates are not needed and can fit in existing articles or be merged with them. See this discussion, where she notes that a number of her articles have been merged and that she "usually [...] can turn four sentences into a brand new article that has enough references to stand on its own." Thing is...she never takes WP:No page into consideration. I don't understand this "quantity over quality" viewpoint I am seeing right now. I could create a whole bunch of articles as well, but I actually care about the content I put out there. I'm not going to sloppily throw together an article with possible errors in them and hope that others fix/clean up the content for me. When I see Barbara (WVS) churning out these articles, I don't see that she actually cares about what she is adding. If she did, she would take the time to proofread all of it and ensure the accuracy of it. All I see is an editor more concerned about her article count (in order to look more prolific than she is) than someone who is actually passionate about any of this. How can an editor reasonably be passionate about content and not do their best to ensure the accuracy of the content? There's a reason that SilkTork, one of our most prolific reviewers, has been clear that although he is interested in working with Barbara (WVS), he does not want to work with her on a medical article because he does not trust her editing medical articles.
Also, regarding "noticed one of the initially pinged users egregiously attacking B for really no good reason at all in a talk page and found it a bit shocking," do you mean Jytdog? I ask because he is the only editor I pinged that has had a tempestuous history with Barbara (WVS). I haven't seen him attack her for no reason, though. If you mean me, I haven't attacked her for no reason either. Also, I would classify my interactions with her more as concerns than attacks. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:26, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
To be brief, the more I look into Barbara's edits, the more concerned I am. I am concerned that
  • Barbara has a lot of issues with verifiability, one of our core principles.
  • Barbara uses close paraphrasing, and in an attempt to avoid this, alters facts
  • A not insignificant portion of Barbara's edits are incorrect
  • A number of other editors share these views.
  • The time required to track and discuss Barbara's edits is great
Content addition is not an excuse, our information is reposted throughout the internet and our core mission is to be an encyclopedia, ie. give readers accurate an encyclopedic content that is verified. An editor that contributes lots of content has a higher burden to make sure that content is accurate. If it is not, it is just taking away the time of another content editor to track and fix said edits, or worse, disseminating wrong information. I would like to see:
  1. A mentor appointed, to help Barbara and also to have someone supervise and monitor her edits
  2. Barbara follow through with her commitment to check edits she has made over the last 6 months
  3. A commitment to slower editing of articles, with the understanding that mainspace is for finalised content additions --Tom (LT) (talk) 01:13, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Addit.
  • As an example, see the lead of List of vaginal tumors. This still contains close paraphrasing, and is so grossly incorrect that I think speaks to the gravity of this situation. "The terms mass and nodule are synonymous with tumor". "Vaginal cancers are malignant neoplasms that originate from vaginal epithelium,"; "Cancer that has spread from the colon, bladder, and stomach is far more common than cancer that originates in the vagina itself" (probably correct, included twice; but - not found in source??)
  • Vaginal epithelium: For the sake of demonstration,
  1. " Hafez ES, Kenemans P (2012-12-06). Atlas of Human Reproduction: By Scanning Electron Microscopy. Springer Science & Business Media. pp. 1–6. ISBN 9789401181402." not on page 1-6.
  2. USMLE Lecture notes is not a reliable source.
  3. "The cells of the vaginal epithelium retain an usually high level of glycogen compared to other epithelial tissue in the body" is not present on p154 of stated reference
  4. Where is anything related to "Vaginal epithelium forms transverse ridges or rugae that are most prominent in the lower third of the vagina. This structure of the epithelium results in an increased surface area that allows for stretching" in its supporting three references
  5. Where is the claim to uniqueness or permeability in the two references for "This layer of epithelium is protective and its uppermost "?
  6. Three references for "stratum spinosum is part of the parabasal layer". I can't find this in the first two references I can access?
  7. Where is this claim "Intermediate cells make abundant glycogen and store it" in this source: "5 minute clinical consult"?
  8. "Estrogen induces the intermediate and superficial cells to fill with glycogen" where is this in the sources? source 2 doesn't mention intermediate or superficial cells. Source 1 says estorgen stimulates cells to mature, which is characterised by filling with estrogen
I would like to ask some other medical editors to contribute here. These authoritative-looking sourced edits are not uncommonly both incorrect and incorrectly sourced. --Tom (LT) (talk) 04:07, 17 March 2018 (UTC):::I would like to begin to respond to Tom (LT)
  • Much of the content you use to demonstrate my problematic edits as being examples of close paraphrasing in the lead of the article List of vaginal tumors is in the public domain and published by the US govt with no copyright restrictions except for attribution.
  • The content is not grossly incorrect. The terms mass, tumor, neoplasm, and nodule are synonyms or at least have significant overlap according to the National Cancer Institute:
Tumor - An abnormal mass of tissue that results when cells divide more than they should or do not die when they should. Tumors may be benign (not cancer), or malignant (cancer). Also called neoplasm.” National Cancer Institute public domain content, no need to paraphrase.
Mass - In medicine, a lump in the body. It may be caused by the abnormal growth of cells, a cyst, hormonal changes, or an immune reaction. A mass may be benign (not cancer) or malignant (cancer).” National Cancer Institute public domain content, no need to paraphrase.
Nodule - A growth or lump that may be malignant (cancer) or benign (not cancer).” National Cancer Institute public domain content, no need to paraphrase
Neoplasm - An abnormal mass of tissue that results when cells divide more than they should or do not die when they should. Neoplasms may be benign (not cancer), or malignant (cancer). Also called tumor.” National Cancer Institute, public domain content, no need to paraphrase.
  • Vaginal cancers are malignant neoplasms that originate from vaginal epithelium.
“Carcinomas start in epithelial tissues.” Cancer Research UK
“About 70 of every 100 cases of vaginal cancer are squamous cell carcinomas. These cancers begin in the squamous cells that make up the epithelial lining of the vagina.” From the American Cancer Society
“Melanomas are tumors that arise from melanocytes or the pigment cells. A common form of melanoma [is foundin the]…lining of the urogenital tract, respiratory tract and the gastrointestinal tract. In 3% of healthy women, melanocytes can be found in the basal portion of the vaginal epidermis…”Primary Vaginal Melanoma, A Rare and Aggressive Entity. A Case Report and Review of the Literature
Barbara   11:57, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
After informing the editors on the talk page of the Vagina article that I was in the midst of some serious family and personal issues, which I would have preferred to communicate via email but was informed that was unacceptable, it may have been seen as an opportune time to appear here on ANI to level these 'charges'. This effectively removes me from significant participation in this discussion as the editors monitoring the talk page of the Vagina article have noted. I understand the reasoning behind initiating this discussion but question the timing. I'm not sure this figures into this discussion at all, but it might be possible to delay the closure of this discussion to accommodate the difficulties I am experiencing right not. If an administrator would like to contact me by email I would be happy to discuss this. Best Regards, Barbara   12:06, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Your real-life circumstances were not taken into account because this is something that needed addressing now instead of months from now, when the recent stuff regarding the Vagina article and other stuff would be considered old news. It's not something that should simply have been restricted to the Vagina talk page. I don't see that we needed to hold off on this because you said you've had a death in the family. We don't know what is going on in your personal life. And I'm not stating that you are being dishonest, but this wouldn't be the first time that an editor has said that they are dealing with personal issues (including a death in the family) after their editing has been highlighted as problematic. I am dealing with significant health issues. It's yet another reason that I've wanted to work with SilkTork again and go ahead and get the Vagina article where it needs to be. But I don't want sympathy, and so I keep my real-life issues to myself. I didn't even express this to him. I understand that telling fellow editors can simply be about ensuring that they are more understanding of what is going on with an editor, but it's still something I usually keep to myself. As you know, SandyGeorgia is also going through health issues regarding her husband, but she still took the time to weigh in here. And the reason we know about her husband's health issues is, in part, because she cares about what we put into our medical articles. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:28, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
My condolences, Barbara. You only disclosed this information after emailing users involved and after I had expressed my concerns. In addition you are still making large amounts of edits. If this is a difficult time, it may be best to take a short wikibreak so that the stress of Wikipedia isn't contributing to what must already be a difficult period. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:13, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
I share many of the concerns raised by Flyer22 Reborn, Tom (LT), and others. My experience with Barbara (WVS) stems entirely from my recent work to help prepare Vagina for GA review. I have noticed what appear to be competency issues, as well as behavioral issues, with her participation there. I am anything but an expert on the topic, so I don't feel comfortable commenting on the basic merit of her contributions, but I will say that more than a few of her edits have been hasty and poorly executed. If this happened only rarely, I'd be inclined to dismiss it as an aberration—everyone has off days, after all—but it has happened multiple times in the several weeks that I've been actively involved with the article.
When the problem edits have been brought to her attention, her responses have been less than ideal. While invariably remaining perfectly civil and often even friendly (for instance, she left an award on my talk page—a kind gesture), she tends to get quite defensive, insisting that she is acting in good faith even when no one has suggested anything to the contrary. She has also demonstrated a propensity for endorsing a consensus reached on the talk page but then making edits contrary to that consensus. And she has repeatedly alluded to more work needing to be done on the article and suggested that it will be a lengthy process, an approach which effectively puts any ideas of moving forward with the GA review in limbo; this seems quite unfair to editors such as Flyer who have shown enormous diligence in their work to improve the article and would clearly like to see it promoted and move on. Taken as a whole, such behaviors have caused considerable consternation among other editors and contributed to what has become an atmosphere on the talk page that for all its civility is best described as toxic. This needs to stop.
Most recently, at Talk:Vagina, Barbara (WVS) laid out two hypothetical scenarios about editors making errors. I'm not entirely sure what her point was, but I have to say that either scenario would indicate a major problem: whether an editor is making ten errors per month or only three, it's way too many, at least if we're talking about important articles about anatomical or medical topics. Such articles demand extra care, and on Vagina at least, Barbara hasn't shown that. Nobody expects perfection, but if one is repeatedly showing an inability or unwillingness to slow down and take great care before clicking on "Publish changes", then it would be better to avoid editing such articles entirely. I understand that she adds a lot of content on topics where our coverage may be skimpy, but I don't buy the argument that that somehow compensates for making careless mistakes; the seriousness of an error isn't mitigated by its relative infrequency or by any number of unproblematic edits made elsewhere. (Maybe the situation was different ten years ago, when WP was still something of a novelty and desperately lacking content, but now that we're invariably at the top of the search results and millions of readers are depending on us, accuracy must be prioritized over comprehensiveness.) Personally, if it were demonstrated that I was making repeated content or sourcing errors in a particular topic area—or indeed doing anything to needlessly cause serious concern among several of my fellow editors—I'd be inclined to back off and go do something else. I think it would be most helpful at this point if Barbara were to agree to desist from editing articles on medicine or anatomy. RivertorchFIREWATER 11:05, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Barbara pinged me about this discussion a few hours ago and I've just noticed it. I've been on a wikibreak for a little over a year but have now decided to step back into editing. I've never worked on content with Barbara but we do get on well and I'd be happy to take on mentorship if that would suit her and those above expressing concerns about her work. I'm well across Wikipedia's editing policies and guidelines and have a lot of experience in medical content. I was a founding board member of WikiProject Med Foundation, and I'm probably more concerned about the accuracy of our medical content than most. (I'm signing off for the night now and should be back online in about ten hours.) --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:01, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Anthony. When I proposed my mentorship on the talk page of the Vagina article I was hoping you would be agreeable. Thank you for your help. I certainly agree that I will be able to better see my errors, admit my mistakes and move forward with your sound advice. Best Regards, Barbara   23:18, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Since Anothonyhcole, a knowledgeable editor, has offered to mentor Barbara and because it does seem Barbara does produce good content alongside some bad judgements, I feel a topic ban is probably premature. I support mentorship under anthonyhcole and oppose, at this stage, a topic ban. If the mentorship does not resolve the problem then a topic ban could be revisited.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 12:45, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Not so fast! No one pinged Wikipedia:WikiProject Men's Health ... oops, never mind.

I was actually brought into this when this unnecessary and out-of-the-blue meanness occurred on my talk page. Seeing no context for that kind of post, it raised red flags, and I thought maybe it was being suggested that I needed to do some sock checking for You Know Who. After reviewing considerable edits from both of Barbara's accounts, the conclusion was no need for an SPI. There are behavioral and personality similarities, mostly that both are very thin-skinned and when they get defensive, talk discussion is derailed, but there are significant differences in editing style and competence.

I have been at a loss about what to do about this situation, because mentoring of the similar account never worked. I am also concerned about a double standard in restricting one medical editor, when equally dangerous and egregious editing has occurred in the last month on the prostate suite of articles by three male medical editors, who are generally held in high regard, and have not been called to task for a pattern of much-too-hurried and at times inaccurate editing. One editor reinstated outdated medical info after I replaced it with current information, with no explanation or discussion. I have pointed out these edits on article talk and my talk, and notice that we haven't heard from those editors in this discussion. I hope they are realizing that another medical editor is being called to task for exactly what they have done. Yes, Barbara deleted accurate text from prostate articles rather than tag text that needed better sourcing, but other editors have added worse text, outdated text, and left the articles with grammatical errors-- errors of the type that lead to more egregious inaccuracies in the articles than what Barbara did. Nonetheless, four wrongs don't make a right, and this situation needs a solution on its own merits.

I think Anthonyhcole would be an excellent mentor, and believe that to be a good route to go, but because we have been down the mentoring path (unsuccessfully) before with a similar editor, I suggest we impose a couple of conditions before jumping to a conclusion:

  1. Something outlining when the Bfpage vs the Barbara account is to be used.
  2. History of mentoring an editor with a similar behavioral profile shows that mentorship won't work without an acknowledgement from Barbara that her editing is a problem-- no excuses, no thin-skinned defense. She has to acknowledge the problem, and agree to go along with Anthonyhcole's mentorship.
  3. Something about how to allow Flyer (who edits with competence) to pursue GA or FA without interference from these accounts.
  4. Some way to address the unnecessary meanness aimed at Barbara I mentioned above should it occur agaiin-- that sort of behavior is spread all over medical editing, and Anthonyhcole is not an admin, so how will he be able to deal with that if it occurs?
With some conditions in place, I believe we can avoid losing an editor in an area where we have too few, and hopefully help Barbara edit well within her competency. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:24, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
PS, because @SilkTork: was a mentor to the other editor I mention, I defer to his judgment and suggestions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:58, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Replying here directly to Sandy's comments above. Mentoring Mattisse was very demanding, and there were several of us doing it. Mentoring in this case would work better if Barbara herself wanted it rather than merely accepted it as a condition to allow her to continue editing medical articles. I would be happy to work with Barbara on non-medical articles, but only if she gave up editing on medical articles voluntarily. I think Barbara is already an asset to the project, and would be an even greater one if she applied herself positively to areas where she can work without conflict. If she continued to edit medical articles, with or without a mentor, I fear there would be continuing strife and non-productive problem solving, and the de-motivation of at least one of our known good medical contributors. SilkTork (talk) 15:56, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
SandyGeorgia, I thought you meant that it was Barbara who made the grammatical mistakes. That's another aspect of her editing. Either way, I agree that Anthonyhcole, who I'm familiar with, could be a great mentor. I'm unconvinced that mentoring would work in this case since Barbara's behavior and style of editing is her own and is something unlikely to change. It's not just verifiability we are concerned about, after all. But if that is what editors want to give a shot first instead of a topic ban or some other type of editing restriction, there isn't anything I can do about that. I was going to leave the idea for what type of an editing restriction to go with for someone else to suggest. For example, a temporary editing restriction with conditions. I wondered if requesting an indefinite topic ban might seem heavy-handed to some, but I was/am that concerned. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:28, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
There were so many grammatical errors left on the prostate articles, that I stopped trying to figure out which of the editors had introduced which errors, although I am fairly certain it was not only Barbara. I posted about just a few on talk, asking other (not Barbara) editors to please slow down and take more care with their edits. Yes, I see the problems with Barbara relative to Verifiability, and I saw that she deleted accurate content that only needed better sourcing. I wish I could say she was the only editor who was not demonstrating sufficient care with a topic (prostate cancer and screening) that will affect one in six men, but unfortunately, I have seen at least four medical editors making serious errors in that suite of articles. Who knew that women's health issues were more important on Wikipedia than men's? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:42, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
  • This is a subtle and delicate situation. When Flyer asked me if I was interested in doing a GA review of Vagina she alerted me to the tension on that article between herself and Barbara. My response was that I welcomed editing tension between two strong editors on such a complex article, as it generally encourages robust editing when editors have to argue for and justify their edits, so I wasn't concerned. I was a little unclear on Barbara's use of two accounts, and the use of WVS in the name of her Barbara account; however, the usage is for record keeping, as explained here.
I kept at a distance, then Barbara asked me to take a look. I didn't like what I saw from either Flyer or Barbara, as edit warring had occurred. We prefer talked through solutions to editing disagreements, especially between experienced editors. However, in this instance it was clear that Barbara had initiated the conflict by inserting substantial text against the consensus arrived at on the article talkpage. It was a surprisingly unwise move to make in the circumstances. I glanced at some of Barbara's recent edits, and noted this and this, which didn't strike me as helpful, and seemed to be oddly "pointy" in that it seemed as though Barbara was keen to discover errors in the article - yet in doing so, she was altering acceptable content and either replacing it with dubious content, or none at all. In short, it appeared that she was making mistakes, and making mistakes based not on attempting to improve the article, but on attempting to score points (as suggested by her edit summaries). It seemed to me that she was editing on the Vagina article just a little beyond her skill set, and was not behaving collegiately.
I asked a few medical editors to look into her contributions, and everyone had the same conclusion. Barbara is an enthusiastic and hard working editor who has access to sources, and who can be an asset to Wikipedia, but she doesn't always understand the sources she reads, and is often unable to put what she reads into a wider context. It was proposed during discussions that the matter be brought here, but I advised against that as she is not doing anything against Wikipedia policy, and her editing and behaviour problems are low key, and can be corrected, and she was engaging in discussions. My feeling was that any approach made here would be met with: "she wants to help, she can help, she just needs to be guided: give her time and see how it works out - perhaps try mentoring". The name Mattisse came to mind. Not that I thought Barbara and Mattisse are the same person, but more that they share the same behaviour pattern, and cause the same problems. Both were enthusiastic and hard-working contributors who could offer so much to the project; but both created a lot of stress and time-consumption for other editors. I am very familiar with the Mattisse connection as I was one of Mattisse's mentors and I have the same empathy for Barbara as I did for Mattisse.
I pondered if asking Barbara to stop editing on Vagina, and offering to help her edit elsewhere would solve the issue. She has created some decent articles which could be brought to GA standard. But I decided not to interfere so strongly, hoping instead that matters would be resolved on Vagina, especially after another talkpage consensus on how to edit the article seemed to have everyone's agreement. But then she did this (removed sourced content with another pointy comment that needed substantiating), and I began to wonder if it was time to tempt her away. So I made my offer, which she refused. I still hold out hope that she will see sense herself, and stop editing in an area where she creates stress for herself and others. I am concerned that, like Mattisse, Barbara brings unnecessary toxicity to Wikipedia, and wears out editors who are doing good work. I have huge respect for Flyer, and I know she suffers under such editing conditions. I am unclear through all the months of struggle what positive contributions Barbara has brought to the Vagina article, but they have come at a disproportionate cost, and I fear we are wearing out a very good contributor in Flyer. My preference would be for Barbara to accept that she is creating more problems than solutions at Vagina, and quite possibly at other medical articles, and to edit in other areas where there is no conflict, and where she can do some good. SilkTork (talk) 15:47, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
This is all highly unfortunate for all. Anatomy should not really be that controversial. I approached this from a neutral point of view, and as one with training in conflict management. I took a look at the lead on List of vaginal tumors and was dismayed at the standard. I spent the morning trying to clean it up, but it requires far more than I have time for just now. So if that is representative, there is a problem. I still support mentoring but with feedback to the group as to whether it is showing any progress. Michael Goodyear (talk) 17:38, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Copyvio problems[edit]

In at least 5 times, spaced over a year, editors have picked up and reported to Barbara re. either copying or close paraphrasing. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:13, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tom (LT) (talkcontribs) 00:15, March 18, 2018 (UTC)

More data points[edit]

I have never had a direct conflict with Barbara, and I see a lot of goodness in what she does for Wikipedia. I think she really wants to improve articles on women’s health. However, and with sadness, I have to agree with the above sentiments that it would be better for her to direct her efforts elsewhere.

A few months ago while reading the Breastfeeding article, I came across a passage that contained significant errors. As this is a Featured Article former Featured Article, I wondered if the passage had been recently vandalized, so I searched through the article history to see when it had changed. I discovered that the errors were introduced in this edit by Barbara (she copied the passage from another article that she had written).

The errors in this edit include:

  • "About 2 to 3 days (72 to 96 hours) before the birth the breasts begin to produce the fore milk or colostrum.” This happens at mid-pregnancy, not 2-3 days before birth. Also, foremilk is not colostrum. Foremilk is the milk released in the beginning of every feed. Colostrum is the milk produced in the first days of breastfeeding.
  • “...This sometimes described as "the milk coming in”.” No. The term “milk coming in” refers to the increase in milk production that occurs after delivery, not before delivery.
  • "In about three days to five days the normal and expected milk forms.” The milk that is produced at days 0, 1, and 2, i.e. colostrum, is also perfectly normal and expected. This wording is not harmless — one of the reasons for low breastfeeding rates in some communities is the erroneous belief that colostrum is inadequate or bad food for babies.[137]
  • "Engorgement of the breast is a normal development at this time. The breast changes and can become red.” Redness is not a normal feature of engorgement. Redness is a possible sign of infection (mastitis) in the breast.

Barbara's edit summary said that the content she was replacing was “outdated”. OK, the refs in the older content were from 2005, but I can see nothing outdated in the facts in it. It was a well-written, factually accurate passage that she replaced by a passage with a lot of problems.

Yesterday, after being pinged into this thread, I spot-checked Barbara’s other edits to Breastfeeding and found another significantly problematic edit. In this edit, she removed good content that describes the process of latching on, and also removed the important fact that a good latch is needed for the baby to get enough milk. Overall her edit also made the section less clear, in my opinion.

Looking at the pattern that’s emerging, my fear is that Barbara’s past contributions to medical topics will need to be systematically re-verified by other editors who have expertise in these topics and access to her sources. I think we are all in agreement that Wikipedia is short of editors on women’s health topics. If we don’t have enough people volunteering to edit in this area, where are we going to find the people to check and fix Barbara’s work?

Barbara, I hope you will continue to be active in the Wikipedia community. I love your sense of humour and your dedication. Nobody is good at everything, and that’s OK. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 04:57, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

@Clayoquot:, just noting that breastfeeding is not a featured article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:18, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
Oh right. It's a former featured article. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:24, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Mentorship[edit]

I've followed all the links above, I think, and am seeing problems with

  • instances of poor prose - unclear expression, typo's, inadvertant repetition of ideas or text, etc. - all of which speak to a failure to double-check work before moving on;
  • insufficient care with verifiability - such as attributing claims to sources that do not make those claims;
  • some misreading;
  • some close paraphrasing;
  • some resistance when being challenged or corrected.

If I've missed some important areas of concern in my bullet list, please let me know.

Some of the examples cited in the evidence above are errors that all active medical editors make from time to time, and her talk page demeanour is better than that of several of Wikipedia's most active and appreciated medical editors. That said, however, I think an intervention is needed. I'd like to see Barbara taking more time with her editing, with particular focus on the above points: producing less text, perhaps, but producing much more polished and rigorous work.

What I'd like to do, if she's amenable, and others are agreeable, is actively mentor her: daily critiquing her performance in article- and talk-space. I'll be particularly checking that her sources support her interpretation (as well as a non-specialist can), but will also oversee expression, paraphrasing and talk page performance. We're 12 hours apart so she can ping me at the end of her day and I can review her work while she sleeps and have a critique ready for her when she's back online. I'd like to come back here with a progress report after a month and we can decide then if it's working and whether or not to continue.

If you can think of another, better approach, I'm all ears. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 08:10, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for that Anthony; I think that is a good offer. I think it is agreed that Barbara has much to offer Wikipedia in general, but that there are some problems with Barbara's editing of medical articles, and with her reluctance to accept advice, so your assistance might hopefully guide her towards improvement in those areas. Could I suggest that until the community sees that improvement that Barbara restricts herself to non-medical articles? Allow Barbara to build up her confidence and skills, and allow the community to regain some trust in her editing. If she continued to edit medical articles, even under your guidance, before she was ready, and she made a mistake, it would likely be picked up quite quickly, and an incident made out of it, which might bring us back here for another discussion. Of course this all depends on Barbara herself. Unless Barbara willingly accepts you as mentor, and listens carefully to you, there will be no improvement. So my feeling is that the mentoring solution needs Barbara's own willingness and commitment, and would need a period of say six months of (non-problematic) non-medical editing to ensure we don't rapidly return to ANI for minor mistakes. SilkTork (talk) 09:34, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
SilkTork, I agree Barbara should not be editing biology or medicine articles for the time being. Once I'm confident she's ready, I'll ask her to begin editing medical content in user- or draft-space and, only when I'm confident she's mastered the bullet-list issues in that very difficult and complex topic, I'll propose a lifting of the restriction here. I'd rather not impose an arbitrary time limit, and promise not to waste the community's time by bringing her back here prematurely. It's just that, if she's clearly mastered those bullet points, above, in a shorter timeframe than 6 months, arbitrarily extending it to the 6 months would seem punitive to me. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:04, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes, you're right. I agree. I also think that this should be dependent on Barbara herself, and that it would be better if we are not imposing formal limitations or conditions on her. This should be entirely at her choice, and on the understanding that this is being done to enable us to assist her in editing Wikipedia without stress and conflict so that we can continue benefiting from her enthusiasm and hard work. SilkTork (talk) 11:53, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
I just rang Barbara. She's got a lot on this morning but will respond later today or this evening. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:39, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
I should add she reached out to me for help with her work, yesterday, specifically citation style. I was amenable to this.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 14:15, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the proposed restrictions on my editing, and actually consider them valid and believe it or not I thank everyone for taking the time to respond. Some of this was hard to hear, admittedly. If it is okay, I would like to continue working on microbiology articles. There are gaps that I found that I can fill in with little 'trouble' or controversy.The only other thing I would like to do is have the opportunity to go back and correct the errors that where described in this ANI discussion. If I can do this, I will be able to clean up my 'messes' and make the content more accurate. I started doing this about two days ago, anyway and I am eager to keep doing it. I will add the phrase in my edit summary: "corrected previous error" and if Anthony doesn't think it was valid, it can be reverted by him (or anyone, really). Thank you to Michael Goodyear for helping with referencing. Thank you to Anthony for taking on this burden (!!) (While looking for references, I deleted this piece of vandalism in a medical article, this was not meant to 'test' my restrictions but is reflexive on my part. apologies) Best Regards, Barbara   18:45, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Anthonyhcole, per what SandyGeorgia, Clayoquot and I have stated above, there is also an issue of misunderstanding WP:MEDDATE (or viewing it differently) and neglecting WP:Preserve. In the collapse box, I already linked to this example. Here is an example of me trying to explain WP:MEDDATE. Similar about WP:MEDDATE was stated to an editor during the Cervix GA nomination. Anatomy or other medical material being supported by sources older than five years, or even significantly older than five years, does not mean that the material is outdated.

Thanks for taking this on. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:50, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Good catch, Flyer. I shall discuss MEDDATE and PRESERVE with Barbara until I'm comfortable she's got it, and until I see PRESERVE routinely demonstrated in non-med topics. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:49, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

I've proposed to Barbara that she drop translation, and avoid all health-related articles (psychology, medicine and biology, including microbiology.) We agree her rigor needs perfecting and she won't be coming back to medicine until her prose, formatting and grasp of her material are perfect. Barbara will immediately begin exercising rigor and AGF in any other knowledge domains she feels like embracing . She will work on article drafts covering any topic she chooses, including medicine. Can I get back to you when she and I think she's ready for medicine? I have no idea how long that will take. We haven't spoken about an interaction ban, but I support it and expect she will, too. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:05, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

I've just spoken to Barbara and, yes, she's fine with a one-way interaction ban. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:43, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for that Anthony. Given the sensitive nature of the health, sexuality and anatomy topic areas, and the evidence put forward in this discussion regarding Barbara's poor level of competence in those areas, combined with her long-term reluctance to accept that there was a problem, I would think it unlikely that the community would lift a topic ban without some extended and convincing evidence of improved competence. With your help she might be able to achieve that; though another option, and one that I think Barbara should give serious consideration to, is that Barbara decides that editing in health, sexuality and anatomy is too problematic for her and the project as a whole, and concentrates her energies on helping out on Wikipedia in other topic areas. I think Snowy Owl (Audubon), and Darlington Collection, show what she can do, and she helped out on referencing in Whiskey Rebellion during its successful GA review. There is so much positive she can do without venturing back into a area of known stress and difficulty. SilkTork (talk) 12:17, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment - I am not one of the involved editors here, but I will say that I thank User:Anthonyhcole for anything that can be done to improve this situation. I personally do not think that mentorship is promising for an experienced editor who doesn't seem to learn from her experience, but I would prefer to see efforts at solutions that minimize penalties. If not, not. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:45, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Some more data points[edit]

I have held off from commenting thus far, to ensure that the original semi-canvassing ping to me was well balanced by pinging others, and it has been. The problem of Barbara is a hard one. She has apparently been a very productive contributor to the translation task force. I cannot speak to how good her edits have been in Creole, but I have seen her praised for her work there. And she seems in some ways to be well-intentioned. She also has an ugly side, and when she lets that take her, she does disruptive and POINTy things.

  • Obstinate, sometimes vindictive behavior This is the most troubling behavioral thing. Her original conflict with Flyer back in 2015 came from Barbara editing in an anti-feminist and pro-men's rights fashion, and led Barbara to start HOUNDING Flyer and led Barbara give barnstars to editors who were wishing nasty things on Flyer - people who come here to promote men's rights or denigrate women or write creepy stuff about sex. She got a 6 month block that was later reduced. (see this ANI and this one. That behavior was just ugly as hell, and Barbara never acknowledged it. She was unblocked only because she promised to steer clear of Flyer in certain ways and for a limited time per these conditions); she never acknowledged following or the ugly barnstarring. (unblock request, discussion, and unblock)
This is the kind of ugly behavior that has cropped up from time to time. I tried to let Barbara know that this was not OK, and that led to her filing this ANI asking for an IBAN with me. Which got no traction. If you look at the diffs that she provided (!) you will see the kind of behaviors in which she was engaging, that I was trying to warn her away from. This sort of behavior has continued. We had an academic spam article created at Culinary coaching which we deleted via an AfD. Barbara decided this was a "women's issues" thing (which is pretty sexist but whatever) and she tried like crazy to save it as admins can see from the history of that page, using poor quality refs and academic spam refs. When she realized that the AfD remained solidly against her, she went and created Sexism in medicine (creating diff - this was very clear in her contribs from that time, but the diffs at "Culinary coaching" are gone due its being deleted, so it is not clear now to non-admins). Sexism in medicine is a fine article to have btw, but its creation was POINTY and...bizarre as there is nothing particularly "women's issues" about teaching people to cook food that is good for them. This sort of thing.
Barbara and I got into a conflict at Ketorolac in March 2017 where she was trying to force in content that violated WP:NOTHOWTO, which MEDMOS also specifically warns against. She was just not hearing it at the talk page, and I ended up filing at EWN case. Her response to the whole thing, btw, was ~apparently~ this, including the image posted here. This is the kind of thing I mean above about behavior. That is just ...twisted and actually disdainful. Kind of funny, yes. But disdainful.
Kind of related to that disdainful humor thing, see this mockery of the DS notice that she created in December 2016 after I gave her a real one. Please see the comments from guy just below the mock-DS notice.
(and this, User:SandyGeorgia, is what my remark at your talk page was about - Barbara is attracted to behavior like your hollering bias on the prostate stuff as "harming men" -- it brings out the worst in her and she encourages people in bad ways, like when she barnstarred Flyers' hounders).
  • Content and sourcing In terms of content, this is the most troubling thing. For some reason, Barbara has refused to engage with MEDRS (this is getting better but is not there yet), and keeps adding content about health based on non-MEDRS sources. The earliest direct discussion I could find with her about this was back in the summer of 2015, in this section and the one below it, where Doc James was trying to teach her. I had a clash with her on some microbiome stuff that i posted about here in June 2016. She claims it is "confusing" but after two years of people trying to teach her, this is either simply obstinate or incompetence. That is a blunt thing to say, I know.
    • See Pain management in children as it stood when she built it up in August 2017. One of the most cited sources is this page from Stanford. We have said over and over that university/hospital websites are not OK per MEDRS. But there it is cited 9 times. A ref from 1989, another from 1998, 2 refs from 2001, others from 2003, 2004, 2007... this is just hard to watch - new articles being built up with already-outdated sources.
See this mess from the PTSD article in October 2017, where Barbara was edit warring in content based on press releases and a university/hospital website.
  • COPYVIO - others have mentioned this, and this continues. this diff from 2 weeks ago, is a copy/paste from here, with the original inline citations left in place. That was at one of the prostate articles, which she ran right on over to in response to SandyGeorgia.
  • Other stuff. Last fall Barbara was working on miscarriage-related topics and created Miscarriage and grief and Miscarriage and mental illness (which remain a bit of a mess in relation to each other, and with respect to each one's sourcing, content, and structure) and in the course of that, was really working the line that abortion (induced miscarriage) causes PTSD, which is straight up anti-abortion activist crap, which in light of her original mens rights activism/anti-feminism editing when she first got here, was disturbing. I opened a section about the sourcing she was using at WT:MED here which Barbara brought up again here. (that was part of the conflict at PTSD I mentioned above, as she wanted add it there as well)
Old issue now not continuing, but the traces remain: For a while she was adding a tag to refs that she got through her relationship with Pitt, as in this diff, where she was including "Access provided by the University of Pittsburgh" to citations she added. This was very inappropriate in my view (relevant to her initial access, but not to anyone else's subsequently, and promotional for Pitt). She stopped doing it but there are still about 70 pages with that tag still present.

She does have a sense of humor which I am sure many people appreciate, like the "revert me why" thing above. She made an article about Squirrel-sponsored cyberterrorism (which was inappropriate humor in mainspace and was renamed and very much revised after an AfD... but was funny!) and she has been contributing humor to Signpost for a while now. But that humor can be ugly/disdainful and misplaced.

This is a hard thing. She can be a good contributor, but there is this obstinate and even nasty side of her as well. I see above the proposal to mentor, and I hope that goes well. To be honest when her name comes up on my watch list I groan, as the content is likely to be badly sourced and not accurately summarizing the sources, and I would have to deal with the obstinate stuff trying to get it fixed. Most times I just ignore it as I try to avoid her. Jytdog (talk) 22:54, 18 March 2018 (UTC) (tweaked a bit Jytdog (talk) 00:16, 19 March 2018 (UTC))

Thank you, @Jytdog:, for the context; it is helpful to be made aware of this, and if it is gender-based activism bologna, I am sorry I added to and furthered that behavior with my concern about a men's health topic that is affecting my life right now.

So, I now have three new concerns:

  • Creole translation. Since I speak fluent Spanish and often check DYKs, GAs and FAs for translation, I know that translation is almost always problematic even in the best of circumstances, as well as being a frequent source of copyvio. DYKs, GAs and FAs are often sailing through until I come in and can read the sources, and say ... whoa, there! Not in the sources, not what the sources say, not a reliable source, or copyvio via direct translation. So, here we have an editor who has already demonstrated weak knowledge of copyvio and close paraphrasing, along with a problem in competency in interpreting sources, along with difficulty in understanding the medical concepts she is writing about, and YET we have her translating medical content to a language that perhaps no one else is fluent in or can double-check? If we are concerned about her work in English, we should be triply concerned about having her translating medical content then. I believe she should not be translating. If we have bad editing, why should we allow bad editing in a language few can check? (This is a problem throughout translations on Wikipedia, and why I am against the headlong rush into it ... we have poor medical content across the English project, and we are going to use the precious few resources we have to spread our poor content to other languages, making it possibly even poorer in the process? <scratching my head>
  • Jytdog said: "She was unblocked only because she promised to steer clear of Flyer; she never acknowledged following or the ugly barnstarring. (unblock request, discussion, and unblock)". (emphasis mine) That is a long discussion; could one of you (Flyer or Jytdog) point out a specific diff where she "promised to steer clear of Flyer"? Because if we have that, and Barbara has indeed already gone back on that promise in her interaction with Flyer in this ANI, we have a good indication already that mentoring is not going to work. This is reading more and more like Mattisse Mentoring 101, and by allowing the Mattisse situation to go on for years, we just got more and more conflict, taking more and more time from good-faith editors who only wanted to help. If she has already broken a promise, we should see the diff (if possible), and call the game now.
  • COPYVIO. We see a DIDNTHEARTHAT problem with understanding of copyright. It seems that various editors have told Barbara over and over what she can and cannot do vis-a-vis copyright, yet she indicates above that she still thinks it's OK to just plop public domain text into articles. Again, this is sounding too familiar.
Seeing the whole picture now from multiple editors, I am quite concerned we are heading down the same path that did not work with Mattisse. We did it there for the same reason here-- we wanted to retain the value of sometimes good edits. It didn't work. Again, though, I defer to @SilkTork:-- he was the one who did the hard mentoring work. I'm remembering we also clobbered @Deathphoenix: by putting him into a difficult mentoring situation in 2007. If it is still decided to go with mentoring, much tighter parameters could be called for. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:43, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
User:SandyGeorgia the unblock conditions were more nuanced than what I wrote above, sorry. (have redacted). The unblock conditions were here and expired Dec 2015, I believe. Jytdog (talk) 00:16, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, struck my second point, then. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:23, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Visiting Corn Flakes Eater issue[edit]

Allowing an editor who is not a scholar to use an account named user:Barbara (WVS), i.e. Wikipedia Visiting Scholar is a shame by itself. The result is to give an undue weight to someone without a reasonable screening process... and to extend this undue weight to what could be written by this person. Now, some problems have appeared and we are searching for remedies. Since WE are at fault, WE should try the following remedy, called Rectification of names: the said user should use an account named user:Barbara (WVCFE) i.e. Wikipedia Visiting Corn Flakes Eater. With such a reminder of her duties, perhaps this user will find her way back to modesty and efficiency. Pldx1 (talk) 20:25, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Topic ban / IBAN[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


The unblock conditions are at User_talk:Bfpage/guidelines, and according to the conditions, they expired "December 1st, 2015 unless someone seeks and reaches community consensus that they are still needed". The conditions were all to do with Barbara's interactions with Flyer and Jytdog, and were not to do with her general editing competence. Despite being blocked for hounding and agreeing to those conditions, Barbara's unblock request was : "I would like to request that I be unblocked. I am not hounding anyone and I am only trying to improve the encyclopedia. You may want to consider the possibility that the other editor may be mistaken and that the perception of being hounded may not be valid." That past history, and the ongoing problems that Jytdog points out, make for sobering reading.
My personal feeling while noting Barbara's behaviour at the Vagina article, and the wording of her email to me declining my offer to assist her on editing non-medical articles, is that she had an issue with Flyer. Her bizarre pointy editing on that article, and her apparent crusade to personally improve sexuality articles on Wikipedia (ie - replace Flyer's content with her own), coupled with what Jytdog has just produced for us, which shows that this is an issue which appears to stretch back years, indicates that this is a situation we need to address more seriously than to leave it to Barbara's own good will and common sense, which is what I hoped we could do. Part of the problem is that Barbara is very reluctant to see that she is causing a problem.
In summary, I think everyone agrees that Barbara has something of value to contribute to Wikipedia, and everyone agrees that her editing of medical articles is problematic, and we have a history going back to 2015 of her problematic interactions with Flyer who is a known good contributor to medical articles. As Barbara is causing problems in medical articles, and is displaying some of the same behaviours in her interactions with Flyer that caused her to be banned in 2015, I think - reluctantly - we do need to impose a formal topic ban on Barbara from editing medical articles. This would not restrict her from editing elsewhere on Wikipedia, nor would it significantly interfere with Anthonyhcole's mentoring, except in that when Anthony felt Barbara was ready to return to editing medical articles, there would need to be a community agreement to do so, and to undo the topic ban. SilkTork (talk) 00:44, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support a formal topic ban on Barbara from editing medical articles, and also a one-way interaction ban with Flyer22, a highly productive editor that Barbara seems obsessed with. I have been observing Barbara's behavior with concern for several years, and that plus the evidence presented above makes it clear to me that her problematic behavior needs to be restrained. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 06:41, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support a topic ban on Barbara from editing medical articles, and a one-way interaction ban with Flyer22. Some of the articles concerned are on my watchlist and I have seen some of the never-ending good-faith-but-not-quite-right contributions. It has to stop. Johnuniq (talk) 08:50, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm going to read deeper into the background. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:58, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

I will defer to those who will or have taken on the mentoring burden (SilkTork and Anthonyhcole), with two caveats:
  • How will "medical articles" be defined?
  • I should disclose that I am a volunteer Spanish interpreter in a medical clinic, so I have to be up on the ethics and standards. I am concerned about the translation issue I mentioned above,[138] and would prefer to see the ban, if there is one, extended to translating. If we have someone we do not allow to edit medical articles in English, neither should they be translating them to another language. Good judgment, nuance, and knowing when to stop and explain an interpreting/translating bump to both parties present (patient, doctor) are of critical importance when interpreting. I am getting the picture that Barbara may not recognize the limits of her own medical knowledge enough to know when she needs to consult a medical professional before assigning a word in another language. It is not often straightforward. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:39, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
I noticed your comment about translation and I share not only your concern about Barbara's translation work - but also your attitude toward the general idea that we should foist translations of English Wikipedia medical articles on other language encyclopedias. We both know how bad Wikipedia medical articles can be.
I like and respect Barbara very muuch, and I think if she can slow down and apply rigor, she'll be a fine editor.
As for the anti-feminist and pro-life positions (if, indeed, these are her positions), I have no problem with those. She's entitled to her views.
The idea that she is stalking Flyer22 is concerning. It's that that I want to read into. Could someone please link me to the beginning of the discord between Bfpage and Flyer? Barbara, ring me any time, and chime in here if you want to. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 16:14, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
See the ANIs linked in the very first line of this whole thread where Flyer laid out the background very clearly. I linked to them near the top of my post as well. That level of non-reading is disturbing, as is your comment about views. Yes everybody has views - the problem is that Barbara has been pushing them into articles and this is not OK for anybody to do. And the key behavioral issue is not something that needs "slowing down" as much as it needs a fundamental change in orientation to others; her obstinacy (refusing to listen to others and even derisively dismissing them) has kept her from engaging with the basic guidelines like MEDRS and MEDMOS and has made conflicts over specific content a time sink. That is unfortunately a character thing (like bluntness is a character thing for me) that will be very hard to mentor away. Yes "slowing down" would help but a fundamental turn needs to take place. I am, bluntly, concerned about you mentoring her now. How can you mentor to address what you will not see, even after this long thread? (that is not a rhetorical question) Jytdog (talk) 18:02, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
I have followed all the links above, I think. I want to know whether there were any instances of discord between Bfpage and Flyer22, prior to this ANI thread, that did not bubble up onto a noticeboard.

As for Barbara's views, they, in themselves, are not the issue. The issue is whether her views cloud her ability to edit neutrally. I'm still reading, trying to get a bigger picture of her editing history beyond the links provided above. It seems to me, though, that some obvious problems are insufficient rigor generally, insufficient committment to core policies and guidelines, and a tendency toward snark.

It would help matters enormously if you would refrain from snark yourself and not bring false evidence to this discussion. The latter undermines my confidence in anything you say here and the former undermines my respect for you. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:25, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying that you were looking for stuff prior to the first ANI. That was not at all clear from your post. When Flyer comes to ANI it tends to be very thorough, and her first ANI starts out with "I first addressed Bfpage about WP:Harassment..." and that includes links from 20 Feb 2015. Here is the interaction analyzer for the period from 1 Dec 2014 to 8 March 2015 when Flyer filed that ANI. Looks to me like they first clashed at Sexism - see this part of its history on 19 Feb, the day before Flyer gave Barbara the harassment warning.
I am sorry you found my note snarky; i was reading your post (and others in this thread) at their face value. You had no where addressed the "dark side" - the hounding and the surface-friendly-but-actually-ugly grooming of the "enemies of my enemy" which was really bad, since Flyer deals with so many nasty characters... and led to the 6 month block. If you word search both ANIs for "barnstar" (they are here: first one and 2nd one) you will see diffs of that behavior.
Barbara has something like a rebel streak that can be dark sometimes like with the grooming; sometimes it comes out as a delayed derisive gesture; quite often she says something nice and then does something different that she wanted to do anyway; more rarely she is directly confrontational. "Snark" is not really the word for that passel of stuff, which is going to be your biggest challenge, behavior wise, in my view. Jytdog (talk) 06:05, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
  • For clarity, I am not making a offer to mentor Barbara. I suggested to her in an email that because there was stress and tension involved in her editing the Vagina article, I would be prepared to work with her to bring some non-medical articles she had created to GA level, in order to assist her to voluntarily move away from the Vagina article. I am keeping that offer open.
  • Though a medical topic ban should be enough, I support a one-way interaction ban with Flyer22 in order to reduce the possibility of friction down the line if Barbara decides to follow Flyer into non-medical areas.
  • If Barbara is doing poor translation for other projects, that is beyond our scope to remedy here on the English Wikipedia as we have no jurisdiction on other projects. A discussion would need to be set up on each of the projects for which she is doing the translation, or a global ban set up on WikiMedia. Approaching those projects for which she is doing translation would seem to be the best approach at this stage, and they would be able to investigate themselves. I doubt if a global ban would be acceptable without first consulting with the other projects involved and establishing that there is a problem. SilkTork (talk) 16:53, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support a topic ban on Barbara from editing medical articles, and a one-way interaction ban with Flyer22. IMO Barbara's edits can be a WP editor's worst nightmare. It's not easy to say that because criticism of another editor does not come easy to most of us. But in this case where we must weigh the hundreds of hours that Flyer and others have spent in correcting Barbara's edits, I could not be more sure that she should no longer be editing medical articles. Barbara's edits to articles related to sexuality have been especially problematic; for example she has said that she has a COI when it comes to rape and yet she has gone right ahead and edited the most delicate aspects of rape, for example deleting a section relating to the (rare) victim's experience of pleasure, calling it "nauseating" in her edit summary[139]. What this suggests to me is that perhaps Barbara's WP editing of medical articles may improve with mentoring but her COI regarding sexuality should bar her from editing in these areas. Gandydancer (talk) 17:34, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support topic ban on medical articles, broadly construed, and a one-way interaction ban with Flyer22 Reborn. The troubling behavior and substandard edits I've seen were apparently only the tip of the iceberg. As more information continues to come to light, it seems as if a considerable amount of checking will need to be done on her contributions. Perhaps knowing that her edits will be more closely scrutinized will lead her to slow down and be careful and also to rethink the way she interacts with some of her fellow editors. I wish her the best. RivertorchFIREWATER 03:20, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support a topic ban on Barbara from editing medical articles as there's a long history of problems from her in that subject area. I've experienced it more than once in the past.
and
  • Object to a one-way interaction ban. Never liked the idea as it's unfair - interaction issues between editors are rarely so one-sided that they would merit such a lopsided sanction. -- ψλ 03:31, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support a topic ban from medical articles and a one-way interaction ban with Flyer22. Flyer22 has suffered enough, and kept her cool amazingly well. W.r.t. competence, of the evidence presented above, the part that I find most persuasive was presented by Barbara herself, in which she defended "Vaginal cancers... originate from vaginal epithelium" as being a decent summary of sources that say most vaginal cancers originate from the vaginal epithelium. This shows that after slowing down and being asked to re-scrutinize her work, she still believes her summary is OK. So I doubt that the technical errors we've been seeing are simply the result of working too fast or prioritizing quantity over quality. In response to Barbara's question regarding whether we think it is OK for her to edit microbiology articles, I would also ask her to voluntarily refrain from further editing in technical areas such as microbiology unless the edit is really a no-brainer. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 04:21, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
  • It's late here and I haven't read this carefully enough to formally support a TBAN, but it sure sounds like the right idea from a distance. Why is she so determined to edit medical articles? I don't like how freaky the custodians of those articles sometimes get, but it's part of how things de facto work here. Can't she do something else for a while? I'm not bothered by occasional crappy prose and typos in articles but it's best that they be in places where they can't actually harm people. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 10:19, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support a formal topic ban and a 1-way i-ban. There have been far more than enough opportunities for improvement and yet we have seen none. Natureium (talk) 15:15, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Neutral. Bring this issue to ArbCom, and let them decide what to do. KMF (talk) 19:09, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
ArbCom would only take such a case if the community was unable to handle the matter at noticeboards such as this one, KATMAKROFAN. It looks to me like the community is handling it just fine right here. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 06:57, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment - In my opinion, the real question is one that isn't being considered. In my opinion, the real question is whether to impose a Site Ban for a combination of a long history of vindictive conduct by Barbara against Flyer and stubbornly bad edits after many many cautions about bad edits, or whether to impose lesser sanctions. Since a Site Ban isn't under consideration, the question is what lesser remedy to impose. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:22, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support a formal topic-ban, and a one-way interaction ban. We know that one-way interaction bans are extreme, but extreme action is needed in this case, and this is an alternative to a Site Ban. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:22, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment - We know that both one-way IBANS and two-way IBANS can be troublesome because of baiting when we have two editors who don't like each other, but here we have one editor who has a long history against another, for some reason that the rest of us don't know, and Flyer has done their best to avoid the mess. So this really is a case for a one-way IBAN. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:22, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support a site ban for Bfpage and her alt account Barbara (WVS) per "WWACD? (What Would ArbCom Do?)" lo prenu .katmakrofan. (talk) 17:01, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support after considering some of the other things editors have said, including the diffs that they have presented, I support a one way interaction ban and at least a (broadly construed) topic ban, including medicine, anatomy and sexuality articles. Flyer22 is a hardworking, diligent editor and doesn't deserve to be the subject of a user following them around and making either deliberately troublesome or incompetent edits. We need a topic ban at the very least to take stock and have a look at this editor's edits. Given the long, drawn out and fruitless discussions that have been had with this editor in the past, and rapid editing style, and the fact that we haven't had a discussion like this about this editor before and there seems to be quite a lot of different articles involved (and we have only had a look at a few here), I don't see how else we can proceed. --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:41, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Is It Time for a Close?[edit]

Is it time to close this thread with a conclusion, or should alternate proposals be considered? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:44, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

When closing, both of Barbara's accounts should be mentioned: User:Bfpage and User:Barbara (WVS). SilkTork (talk) 09:07, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I've made a mentorship proposal, above, and would appreciate feedback from those involved before this thread is closed. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:43, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I don't think mentorship is likely to solve the problem in this case. It's not that she doesn't know that she's doing something wrong. She's been informed many, many times. Natureium (talk) 15:56, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I really believe that she doesn't know that she is doing anything wrong. If someone has been informed as many times as she has, and doesn't change their behavior, then she really isn't receiving the message. It isn't a case of I didn't hear that; she really didn't hear that. I think that she has a different thought process than some of us do, or a different perceptual mode, and really can't process negative feedback. However, it is worth trying if it is understood that it might not work. My own guess is that it won't, and we will have to decide whether she is a net negative. There are a few editors where everyone really hopes they will change their conduct because they make significant positive contributions, but also make significant negative contributions, and sometimes there is no sorting the two out. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:00, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
It's very good of Anthony to offer mentorship. The arrangement that he and Barbara have worked out is as good as I can imagine. I too have doubts about the degree to which it will change things but it can't see how it would hurt. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:23, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Another thought for the close: It might be best to explicitly say that anatomy content is included in the topic ban from medical articles. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:46, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I have commented above on the mentorship offer. In summary, my thoughts are that it's worth trying, though it might be more beneficial for Barbara to concentrate on working in other areas of Wikipedia than on attempting to return to an area of known stress, conflict and difficulty, which the community might be unwilling to let her back into, even with some evidence of good work in the sandbox. @ Clayoquot - I think sexuality would also need to be included. Health, medicine, anatomy, and sexuality seem to be the areas of concern. Would Category:Health cover all those aspects? SilkTork (talk) 18:02, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I have faith in Anthonyhcole and believe it to be worth a try, but in the event mentorship fails, I hope we do not let this turn into a years-long protracted mess as did the Mattisse situation. Hope for success, but call it fast if it doesn't work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:16, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Category:Health actually covers very few of these things at the moment. I think your list, i.e. health, medicine, anatomy, and sexuality, better captures the scope we're looking for. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 04:05, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
I recommend that the word "sexuality" be included in any editing restriction. Flyer22 is, in my opinion, our best and most consistent long term editor in the essential topic area of sexuality. Barbara's problematic behavior is often related to articles about sexuality. I hope that the closing administrator will bring this particular disruption to an end. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 04:43, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Proposal for clarification of scope of topic ban[edit]

Following discussion with Sandstein regarding the scope of the topic ban (User_talk:Sandstein#What_the_topic_ban_covers), it is felt we need to add further wording. Therefore it is proposed that the wording of the topic ban is amended to read:

By consensus of the community, Barbara (WVS) (talk · contribs), also editing as Bfpage (talk · contribs), is topic-banned (WP:TBAN) from health and medical topics, including anatomy and sexuality, broadly construed, and is also banned from interacting with Flyer22 (talk · contribs) (WP:IBAN).

  • Support SilkTork (talk) 08:13, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Johnuniq (talk) 08:59, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Swarm 09:19, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:45, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Bishonen | talk 10:38, 26 March 2018 (UTC).
  • Support RivertorchFIREWATER 13:01, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support, appears to address the concerns above better. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:15, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Natureium (talk) 13:46, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Cullen328 Let's discuss it 15:06, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support --Iztwoz (talk) 15:18, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Reluctant support. I indicated in the discussion above that I deferred to SilkTork and Anthonyhcole on this matter. Bfpage was very helpful to me on the systemic problems I had with the Education Project (or whatever that particular debacle is calling itself these days), so I was reluctant to support the ban, even though I see the problems. I now lodge a reluctant support because of the incomplete closing of the discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:33, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • SupportDavey2010Talk 16:24, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:08, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support . Gandydancer (talk) 17:28, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support - clarifies well. D4iNa4 (talk) 17:51, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support/tugni lo prenu .katmakrofan. (talk) 18:05, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 23:02, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Q for clarification[edit]

I believe I understand the process and the request for this topic-ban. What is unclear to me at this point is if there a ban on contributing to the WikiProject Medicine talk page and the talk pages of medical, health and anatomy articles. For an example, I often post possible sources that help other editors on the talk page of articles, especially if they are new. Here are other example of my talk page posts:here and here, here That's all I need to know. Complying with the rest of the restrictions is acceptable at this time. Best Regards, Barbara   13:11, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Topic banned from topics, not just articles/pages, means don't post on the topic anywhere, including suggesting sources to other editors. If someone asks you for help, you'll have to say "I'm sorry, but I'm restricted from participating in that area", or something like that. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:40, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) User:Barbara (WVS), please do read WP:TBAN. If you do, you will see that what you are proposing is not OK. You should probably read WP:IBAN as well with regard to Flyer. Jytdog (talk) 13:45, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC and edit war at Useful idiot[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


My apologies for the complexity of this. In December, I started an RfC about using the Oxford English Dictionary at the Useful idiot article, the quotation in question being "The phrase does not seem to reflect any expression used within the Soviet Union". As you can see, SPECIFICO immediately said that the RfC might not resolve the issue. The RfC ensued. Apparently getting approval for my proposed sentence, I inserted it in the article. My very best wishes promptly removed it. After being requested by me, the closer Fish and karate clarified the closure. As you can see, SPECIFICO complained about the clarification and "My very best wishes" disputed the meaning of the closing statement. "My very best wishes" then moved the sentence in contention away from the section dealing with etymology and edited it to say that the OED "erroneously tells..." I subsequently moved it back to the appropriate paragraph. Some time later, "My very best wishes" removed it again. Thucydides411 restored it, while SPECIFICO undid his revision, with the edit summary "Remove edit-war against consensus". An edit war ensued, leading to the intervention of Drmies, with the apparent perverse result that we are blocked from carrying out the consensus of the RfC. The whole point of the RfC was to resolve edit warring and endless argument. Meanwhile, SPECIFICO has started a new section on the Talk page, Screw Saffire, suggesting that William Safire is not a reliable source. The cycle seems to be repeating. If I start an RfC, will I eventually be blocked for carrying out the consensus of the RfC???--Jack Upland (talk) 09:52, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

  • Huh? I warned General Goldwater about edit warring, so I don't know what I did to you. The reverts you linked to, the earlier ones, are clearly in line with the RfC. The Goldwater reverts are much broader than the RfC, and their behavior was clearly that of an edit warrior: there are no explanations and no contributions to the talk page, so I have no idea what you're complaining about. As for "perverse"--the only perversion here, besides this twisted complaint, is that ridiculously long talk page. Drmies (talk) 12:08, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • OK so I'm trying to catch up here. Drmies correctly reversed the edit-warrior Goldwater. Then Darouet came in and reverted Drmies and Darouet claims that Drmies said his intervention applies only when Goldwater makes the edit? Darouet's edit seems like a problem. SPECIFICO talk 00:59, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Christ, is the content on this page still in dispute? Is this a really contentious and disputed topic, or is there some time-wasting going on? talk to !dave 19:01, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
@My name is not dave: "Content dispute" would be a very charitable description. The phrase is demonstrated in academic sources to be another famous misquotation, but this runs against powerfully entrenched ideological prejudices. So most of the talk page is an effort to ignore real content and make it up with WP:OR. -Darouet (talk) 20:36, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
The latter: wasting time of other contributors. My very best wishes (talk) 04:36, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
The issue is not about Drmies's intervention, but about the editors who keep overriding the RfC. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear. I was not edit warring and I don't want to be edit warring. I just want the RfC to stand. I don't really understand the eruption of passion on the page, which has been quiet for years. However, at an attempt at DRN last year SPECIFICO and "My very best wishes" argued the issue was not about Communism, even though they had been arguing about Lenin for weeks. From the evidence on the Talk page, it seems they think the issue is about Donald Trump. However, I don't see how attacking the OED helps the cause. From the Talk page, many people are very fond of the idea that Lenin coined the phrase "useful idiot", even though this seems to be just a common misconception. In any case, there is a clear agenda to eliminate sources that dispute the Lenin origin...--Jack Upland (talk) 20:12, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • "Issue" really means "outcome", and I'm not even at a beginning in this dispute, but that's by the by. Jack Upland, kindly stop pinging me; I got nothing to do with this business, not until there's some blocking to be done, in which case I will do what I can to get that $5 check for an EW block. Drmies (talk) 17:05, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Issue doesn't mean outcome according to the Oxford Dictionary!--Jack Upland (talk) 09:02, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion of Lenin was simply about flawed and poorly-sourced article text -- tendentiously pushed by Jack, Thuc, and Darouet -- that claimed to declare in WP's voice that Lenin never used the term. It had nothing to do with communism any more than song lyrics by Lady Gaga have to do with feminism. SPECIFICO talk 13:19, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Another cryptic comment by SPECIFICO purporting to explain a five month campaign against an innocuous sentence! Perhaps some limited enlightenment can be gained from the statement on SPECIFICO's talk page: The problem with "useful idiot" has nothing to do with the Soviet Union. In my opinion it's that a diverse bunch of current-day folks are determined to avoid being seen as "useful idiots" of Russia, domestic American political activists, and other perceived oligarchies. That's the dog in the closet. The problem with this is that I don't understand what this is about. I don't accept that the reputation of the OED should be trashed and that an American catchphrase should be wrongly attributed to Lenin just because of some editor's perception (or fantasy) of a shadowy contemporary war against mysterious bogeymen. Wikipedia is a collaborative project, not a blank canvas for eccentric imaginings. This is a dog that doesn't bark.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:02, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
  • The problem is easily solved by redirecting to Donald Trump. EEng 21:14, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

My sense is that there's a linguistic battle between people who want to tie Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin and both to Soviet Russia, and people who want to avoid that tie at all costs. The actual etymology and historical usage of useful idiot (and also whataboutism) are merely a place for that argument. power~enwiki (π, ν) 21:36, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

I do not think so. The ties are very much real and described in a lot of other pages. My very best wishes (talk) 04:36, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
@Power~enwiki: Many people have been called "useful idiots," and Trump is undeniably one of them. I'm not against him being labeled so there as long as that label is balanced by other historically pertinent examples. My objection OR that is being spewed into the article by My very best wishes that is meant to prove that various scholars around the world — who have shown "Useful idiot" to be a misquotation — are wrong. -Darouet (talk) 20:45, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
@Power~enwiki: Strong words to call someone a Trump supporter! I really could not give a damn whether the article calls Trump a useful idiot or not (or a useless idiot). My sole issue is that I think very bad logic is being employed by people who think there is evidence that the term originated in the Soviet Union rather than the west, rather than that it has been traditionally attributed to Lenin without any good evidence. My very best wishes seems to think that an example from a Russian exile in the 80s trumps many prior references that use the term in English well before that, and the OED which contradicts his claims and is a very reputable source for etymology. Further, any source saying that the term was attributed to Lenin is not logically a statement that it actually came from Lenin. Also MVBW seems to have a great deal of trouble understanding what "reflects" means in English despite it being explained many times. —DIYeditor (talk) 03:00, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
I don't think that's quite accurate. I agree that the problems on the page stem from people trying to use quotes (and their etymologies) politically, but I think it's more one-sided than you depict. As far as I can tell, no editors have argued for removing all mention of Donald Trump. For example, I have no problem with the inclusion of Madeleine Albright and Michael Hayden's statements about Donald Trump being a "useful idiot." I've only argued against the inclusion of Michael Morell's quote, because he doesn't even use the term "useful idiot." The "battle" is between people who want to tie Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin and Soviet Russia, and people who don't want the article being used for political purposes. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:55, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Oh my God, you mean the page really does talk about Trump? I didn't even know. I guess great minds think alike. EEng 14:07, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
For me, the issue has never been about Trump and I don't see the relevance of Trump to the etymology issue. However, that does seem to be part of the motivation for some editors.--Jack Upland (talk) 19:28, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
@EEng: with or without Trump, a lot of linguistic and historical research is spent correcting pervasive misquotations. Wikipedia's mission is not to undo that work on behalf of the latest political fad. -Darouet (talk) 20:41, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Um, sure, yeah -- though I don't see what I said to prompt that particular principle being expounded at me. EEng 20:51, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
@EEng: I'm saying that while I enjoy your humor here [140][141] or elsewhere, the issue that Jack has raised here needs attention and has been annoying AF to deal with. -Darouet (talk) 21:08, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Definitely agree, and as you'll see on the TP I've offered to obtain obscure sources if that's part of the problem. EEng 21:34, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
@Jack Upland:You wrote For me, the issue has never been about Trump... This is odd. Because in the garbled DR last year, you said it was only about Trump and also you acknowledged that I said it's not about Communism. What has changed, Jack? SPECIFICO talk 13:29, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
I never said it was only about Trump! In fact, I think Trump should be irrelevant. I don't understand your point on "communism", but it wasn't a very helpful contribution to dispute resolution, as far as I can see.--Jack Upland (talk) 20:54, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Somebody want to explain why I and others didn't receive talk page notices of this mess? SPECIFICO talk 00:06, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

What's the justification for Darouet continuing to edit war this stuff after this ANI thread was opened? How could that possibly be constructive? And I went to @Drmies: and @My very best wishes: talk pages in stupefied disbelief at Darouet's revert -- not knowing about this thread. Looks like bad form to me. SPECIFICO talk 00:10, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Jack Upland pinged you in their original post here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:10, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
False. No ping. Try again. SPECIFICO talk 00:39, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
When you start a discussion about an editor, you must notify them on their user talk page.
The use of ping or the notification system is not sufficient for this purpose.
It's not false - you were pinged. Okay, you're unhappy that there wasn't a post left on your user talk page. Jack Upland will know to do that next time. Now you clearly know about the thread, so there's no problem. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:50, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Show me the ping? Are you claiming a software malfunction? Cut and paste the ping. SPECIFICO talk 00:52, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
[142]. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:55, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
1) You've been on WP a long time. That's not a ping, it's a link to my user page. 2) Many editors do not enable pings. 3) The instructions for this page clearly state that a ping is not OK and that talk page is notification is required. Your responses are an appalling example of your willingness to deny and deflect without any effort to check facts or to listen to the concerns of your fellow editors. SPECIFICO talk 01:31, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
I got a ping - that's what that template does. The rest of your post is just unbelievably hostile. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:36, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
That template is a link to User Page. Of course if you took my words seriously, you could easily have checked that by going to the documentation page Nice job ignoring points 2 and 3 and thanks for the personal smear in lieu of response. On a larger issue, you rushed back from your 3-month Russia TBAN to this Russia-related article with walls of POV and personal opinion on the talk page. The result is that all the progress the rest of us made in your absence has devolved into a multi-front edit war based on deflection and WP:IDHT. @My very best wishes: and others have done tons of careful research and clearly presented their results on the talk page. For the most part these findings have been accepted before you and your friend Darouet mushroomed the talk page into a WW1 battlefield. SPECIFICO talk 01:40, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
From the documentation you linked to: "This template is commonly used to ping a user to a discussion". Looking back at the original diff, it seems like Jack Upland misspelled your username, which is why you didn't get a ping. They corrected your username afterwards, but the template doesn't ping when you correct a username - it has to be correct on the first go. I'm sure Jack Upland will know next time (should there be a next time) to post on your user page, but since you know about the thread here now, everything should be okay. Again, I really don't understand your hostility towards me. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:36, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
For the third time that's all deflection, Thucydides411, because Ping is not acceptable notification and no user is required to activate ping. You didn't think my concern was software-related, did you? SPECIFICO talk 02:40, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Look, I give up. I feel sorry for the people who will try to read through this sub-thread. Have a nice day. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:47, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment: I'm not sure what state the article is in now concerning this subject, but in December 2017 I pointed out that The OED says "The phrase does not seem to reflect any expression used within the Soviet Union" and in the same entry quotes "described by the KGB as 'useful idiots'" -- a clear contradiction, one which is unexplained and unclarified, and thus confused and confusing. Moreover, the OED is not an authority on Russian or Russian usage or the USSR. It cannot be used as an authority on Wikipedia as such." [143] and We know for a fact that the term was used by the KGB (please consult the Shultz and Mitrokhin references I referred to earlier in this thread); the KGB was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its break-up in 1991; therefore the peculiar assertion that "The phrase does not seem to reflect any expression used within the Soviet Union" is incorrect. [144] I'm not sure why this is still an ongoing dispute. Softlavender (talk) 02:55, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Sorry Softlavender, "reflects" involves something occurring before that which reflects. 1954 (earliest possible date for use by the KGB) is after the use in English. And there is no harm in mentioning what a usually reliable source on etymology says - we are not stating it as a plain fact, just attributing it. To repeat, for the use in English to reflect a use in the Soviet Union we must have evidence that there was use before the use in English. —DIYeditor (talk) 03:07, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
      • No, "reflect" is simply a synonym for "be" or "denote"; it means "embody or represent (something) in a faithful or appropriate way". The Soviet Union began in 1922. There are numerous well-researched volumes which are analyses of Soviet Chekist operations and terminology which identify the term (I've listed some on the talkpage). Softlavender (talk) 03:28, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
        • "Reflect" is not a direct synonym for "mirror" or "correspond to". In the context of an etymology the question was where does the term originate. Reflects in this sense is equivalent to "comes from" or "originates in". The OED is not stating the term was never used in the Soviet Union. Maybe they could've chosen better wording but it seems clear to me what they intended to say - I could be wrong though. I have to this point not seen anyone provide evidence that it was definitely used in Russian before in English. I will look at your sources. But really are we here because some people are not honoring the results of an already closed RfC which said to include the OED quote. Even if it is false it is relevant to quote what the OED says. —DIYeditor (talk) 03:36, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
          • What dictionary are you using? Could you please provide a link to your definition of "reflect"? I quoted the dictionary verbatim. Softlavender (talk) 03:41, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
            • What you quoted seems to be saying what I'm saying. You don't embody or represent something that only exists after the embodiment or representation. —DIYeditor (talk) 03:54, 23 March 2018 (UTC) Edited 23:52, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
              • The Soviet Union began in 1920. So whatever you are trying to say, the OED is saying that the English phrase "useful idiot" does not seem to correspond to any Russian expression used 1920–1991 (i.e., in the Soviet Union) -- which, according to Chekist experts, is incorrect. Softlavender (talk) 04:06, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
                • No, I am sorry, the nuanced and logical meaning of "reflect" per the definition you quoted is not a synonym for correspond. If the use in English in the 1940s embodies or represents a use in the Soviet Union that must have occurred beforehand. Afterward is not relevant to the statement. —DIYeditor (talk) 04:16, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
The OED does not contradict itself at all. The OED gives a definition of the term, has a note about the etymology ("The phrase does not seem to reflect any expression used within the Soviet Union"), and then gives example usages of the term, drawn from the literature. The quote, "described by the KGB as 'useful idiots'" is an example usage drawn from a 1985 Washington Post article. The OED does not endorse the veracity of that line from the Washington Post - it's simply an example usage. In fact, not even the Washington Post endorses the veracity of that line. I tracked down the reference, and it turns out that the WaPo is actually mockingly quoting someone who's claiming the KGB calls various people "useful idiots."
I explained this on the talk page: Talk:Useful idiot#OED contradicting itself?. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:07, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
People are going out of their way to insist that the OED is infallible (a stance I find incomprehensible, since nothing is infallible, and the OED is frequently easily contradicted in the internet age and GoogleBooks), when the OED itself is tentative: it says "does not seem to reflect", not "is not", and provides a quote which contradicts itself. The OED is not an authority on Chekism and Chekist terminology. Only an authority on Chekism in my view would be the final authority on this, and I've listed several sources on the talkpage. Softlavender (talk) 03:38, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Even if the OED is contradicted by other sources 1) The RfC was already concluded on this to include it 2) It is relevant and interesting to the reader that a usually very reliable source says something on the topic 3) It seems like a form of original research to conclude that another source seems to say something different so the OED is wrong - you would need a source that directly says the OED is wrong, not to draw that conclusion yourself. Analyzing or filtering reliable sources is not the place of Wikipedia editors. If the OED says "does not seem to" it is entirely relevant to quote what it says. The reader can draw their own conclusions whether the source is making a weak statement or if the other sources are more reliable. We are not stating what the OED says as a fact. —DIYeditor (talk) 04:14, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
That's not how Wikipedia works. If a source, even a venerable one, is provably wrong, we don't use the source, we use the reliable correct source that has more thorough and accurate and better-researched and better-cited information. Softlavender (talk) 04:19, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
"If a source, even a venerable one, is provably wrong" I don't see anything new on Talk:Useful idiot that proves the OED is wrong in saying the use in English is not predated by any verifiable use in the Soviet Union. —DIYeditor (talk) 04:29, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
For the last time, please stop saying the OED is provably wrong. It's not. I explained this at Talk:Useful idiot#OED contradicting itself? -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:48, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
"and provides a quote which contradicts itself." No it does not. Please read what I wrote here: Talk:Useful idiot#OED contradicting itself?. You can't keep making this claim, after I've shown it to be false (complete with the relevant passage from the original Washington Post article that the OED got its snippet from). -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:17, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Apologies to everyone for not notifying them on their talk pages.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:19, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Request for close / suggestions of a more appropriate forum[edit]

Nobody at ANI has time for this, and apart from the procedural bickering of whether people were notified correctly, this appears to be entirely a content dispute. I request that the thread here be closed and a discussion be opened at the correct forum; presumably WP:DRN or possibly WP:MEDCOM. Assistance from community members who haven't edited the page significantly may be needed. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:22, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

I think it was brought here because people are ignoring an RfC which was already recently decided in favor of including the OED quote. That's disruptive editing. —DIYeditor (talk) 04:27, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
That's right. Unfortunately the point has quickly been lost. I think if this was closed, I (or someone else) would have to reintroduce it, and try to do it properly. I started the RfC to stop the endless arguments, but here and now the arguments are being rerun. We need to accept the decision and move on, not continue debating it.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:31, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Did you bother to read the close of the RfC? It does not require the disputed reference to be used. It simply limits the claims that can be attributed to it. This is what @My very best wishes: and others have followed. Meanwhile the editors who have edit-warred to misuse the source are misrepresenting the RfC close. SPECIFICO talk 13:33, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
@SPECIFICO: The RfC very much does require the OED to be cited. The RfC closer, Fish and Karate, clarified their closure of the RfC, making this explicit: "In closing, the consensus seemed to me to be that the reference to the OED should be included" ([145]). I know you're aware of this, because you expressed disappointment at Fish and Karate's clarification of the RfC closure: "But you had it right the first time..." ([146]).
This gets to the behavioral issue that Jack Upland and DIYeditor talk about above - the refusal to accept the outcome of the RfC. You've been claiming consensus favors your removal of the OED's statement on etymology ("Remove edit-war against consensus" - note that you remove the RfC-compliant OED statement), even though that removal goes against an RfC. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:46, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Using the talk page to point out editors' overreaching the close of the RfC to go beyond what its statement does not seem like any sort of "behavioral issue" worth mentioning here. Anyway, I'm in awe of your telepathic abilities that enable you to inform the internet concerning my awareness. The fact is that everyone can read the rest of the thread from which you plucked my words and see where the conversation has stood over the month since then. [147] SPECIFICO talk 17:24, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Are you saying that because I stopped arguing in that thread on 15 February that you had the consensus??? The whole point of the RfC was to decide the debate, not to launch a fresh — or rather stale — round of arguments about the meaning of the RfC. Especially as there were multiple other threads running on the page. I think this is disruptive editing.--Jack Upland (talk) 19:14, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Why no, I said nothing of the kind. Not sure where you're going with after the first sentence. SPECIFICO talk 19:31, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Let me put it simply. You are (apparently willfully) being obstinate and disruptive by ignoring a recently closed RfC. Please stop. —DIYeditor (talk) 21:19, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Could you explain why I address a question to Upland Jack about his statement and I get a quick reply from DIYeditor? Pleased to meet you, anyway. SPECIFICO talk 22:52, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
You didn't ask a question, the reply was 2 hours later, to my knowledge anyone is free to chime in on Wikipedia, and it seems like you are being deliberately difficult. Abide by the RfC or start another one. —DIYeditor (talk) 23:45, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Going back to Jack Upland's initial statement in this thread: It looks as if my initial assessment was correct. That RfC, (like this ANI btw) was poorly formed so that his vague and non-instrumental way of framing his question was unlikely to lead to the clear resolution he sought. And that's what happened. We have MVBW, whose view is apparently shared by 1/2 dozen editors, reading the close as supporting a certain article text. And then we have roughly the same number claiming that the RfC close does not support MVBW's way of framing the content. At any rate, you seem to be saying there are 1/2 dozen editors who share your view as to the meaning of the RfC close but wish to ignore or deny it to by inserting article text that contradicts it. But that's not the problem here. The problem is muddle-flagon language and upside-out narratives that are leading to two opposite versions of article text. SPECIFICO talk 00:26, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Well to be honest I haven't been closely tracking the bickering, I only noticed the OED citation be deleted then restored. —DIYeditor (talk) 03:40, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
There has been a LOT of bickering. Thucydides introduced the OED citation back in 2 November. SPECIFICO and MVBW immediately started arguing the point. Then on 10 December I launched the RfC, which was closed on 7 February, with the closure clarified on 12 February. I don't think anyone who was in the debate from the start could have any confusion about what the issue was. The same points have been dealt with multiple times. Though there have been communication problems, there has been ample opportunity for discussion and clarification. Five months on one sentence is ridiculous. Now SPECIFICO appears to be trying to pick a fight with me on the talk page, parallel to this discussion. We all need to abide by the RfC and move on.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:58, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Jack Upland, when you are asked for a diff to support your assertion on WP, it is not "picking a fight" -- Diffs are how we share information and keep things clear and try to sort out complicated issues. I asked you for the diff because, like others, I cannot figure out what this thread is about, why you came to ANI with content concerns, what you're asking for and who you think needs to be involved or to explain their views or behavior. To me, it looks like you're complaining about "edit-warring" when the culprit is an editor with whom you agree who resumed blind reverting. But then you have lots of aspersions about bad guys like me who happen to understand and accept MVBW's resoned and well-founded explaination of the text he wrote. So this thread, like your pointless vague RfC that remained unclear even after the close, is going nowhere. Too bad for you, I guess, but when you start making a mess and then blaming everyone else for it that's really no goodsky. SPECIFICO talk 12:32, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
The result of the RfC was very clear: the OED's statement on etymology should be referenced, with attribution, alongside other opinions. Fish and Karate clarified exactly what they meant: "I should have said 'WHEN the OED's discussion of the phrase is referenced within this article', not 'IF'" [148]. Throughout this thread, SPECIFICO has been denying the outcome of the RfC:
  • "Did you bother to read the close of the RfC? It does not require the disputed reference to be used. It simply limits the claims that can be attributed to it." [149] - this is just wrong.
  • I've pointed out this misrepresentation to SPECIFICO ([150]), but they continue to imply that the RfC came to a different conclusion than it did, as the next bullet point indicates.
  • "We have MVBW, whose view is apparently shared by 1/2 dozen editors, reading the close as supporting a certain article text." [151] - the article text that SPECIFICO is referencing here actually removes the OED discussion ([152]). That's not a possible reading of the RfC close.

This denial of the outcome of the RfC result is a real problem. If an editor is arguing so vociferously that an RfC turned out in the complete opposite way to how it actually turned out, imagine how difficult it is to deal with more complex issues in the article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:12, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

  • I am not sure why you guys started this thread in relation to the RfC. Is it a complaint about me? I can not tell for other contributors, but I do not mind including the reference to OED (as closing of the RfC suggest). I only think it should be in included in appropriate section, for example as I moved it in this edit. I event agree to soften the language [153]. If by any reason I temporarily removed this phrase later, along with other changes, that was unintentional. Sorry. Once again, I do not mind including this. There were other disagreements, but they were not related to the RfC.My very best wishes (talk) 23:36, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
It isn't an complaint about any particular editor. It is about the fact that, more than a month after the RfC, arguments and edit warring have continued to rage. I don't understand how you could not be aware of the issue as you have been arguing continuously about it since 2 November. After the RfC closed, I tried to insert the OED's statement into the article. You immediately reverted it, saying RfC closing does not tell it must be used on the page. It tells: "IF it is referenced within this article" - I do not think it should be used/referenced at all - as explained on talk page. I don't think that's unintentional. After the closer clarified the closing statement, you continued to argue, saying I do not think there was a consensus on the RfC to include that phrase. As recently as 17 March, you removed the OED's statement again. As I said, this is not about one editor. It is about the fact that we have had five months' debate about one sentence and that some editors have refused to accept the RfC and move on.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:46, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

This is still a content dispute that nobody at ANI has time for. power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:23, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

No, it's not. It's about editors not abiding by an RfC.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:47, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
An RfC about a content dispute. I appeal to the deafening silence of the void. power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:49, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
I asked at the Help Desk what to do if other editors didn't abide by an RfC and I was told to come here. Is that wrong? I thought RfCs were binding. We have already tried DRN and it failed dismally, so I don't think that's a particularly helpful suggestion.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:54, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Normally probably yes, but on a heated WP:ARBAPDS article no. You're best to either pray for the blessings of Divine Providence, contact a friendly admin directly, or attempt to invoke Discretionary Sanctions at WP:AE. Or, edit other parts of the project until the other editors lose interest (note: that will likely not happen while Donald Trump lives at the White House). This may also interest MEDCOM if it still functions. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:05, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
"When it is raining, you should wear galoshes" does not imply "it is raining" -- "When you use OED you should attribute its statement" does not mean "you should use OED". The cure for what ails you is to launch an RfC with a yes or no poll on explicit article text or other binary choice. You didn't get the close you were expecting or hoping for because the RfC (as I said at the outset) was malformed. Just like this ANI. Just like you didn't follow instructions on your notifications. It's rather extraordinary to post all this BS at ANI and basically nobody cares. Usually almost anything attracts a circular firing squad, marching band, and cavalry. figure out what your heart tells you is the appropriate article text and propose it on talk or in a new RfC. As MVBW says, that OED bit is the least of the problems. SPECIFICO talk 02:20, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
@SPECIFICO: "'When you use OED you should attribute its statement' does not mean 'you should use OED'". It's getting extremely difficult to continue assuming good faith here. You know that Fish and Karate explicitly said that the RfC result was that the OED should be included. I've linked to Fish and Karate's statement two times above: "In closing, the consensus seemed to me to be that the reference to the OED should be included. I should have said 'WHEN the OED's discussion of the phrase is referenced within this article', not 'IF'" [154]. You're deliberately misrepresenting the outcome of the RfC. We really need an admin in here to direct SPECIFICO to accept the RfC result and stop misrepresenting it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:54, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Please be nice. You are not being polite. The RfC didn't even say what the article text should be. MVBW has explained all this many times. Start a clear well-formed RfC and settle the issue. ANI is not the place to sort out your confusion about whatever content you would like see somewhere or other in the article. SPECIFICO talk 03:06, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
The RfC did present a "binary choice". Most people answered yes or no, including you. Please accept the RfC and move on.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:36, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
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Addressing the complaint[edit]

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  • There was a disagreement over whether to include this.
  • There was an RfC about it.
  • The RfC said that it should be included but should also note that other sources disagree.
  • Any confusion about what the RfC said was clarified on Feb 12. SPECIFICO disagreed with the reading of consensus.[155]
  • After the clarification was provided, Jack Upland correctly reinserted the disputed content.[156]
  • Neither SPECIFICO or MVBW removed it until March 16, when My very best wishes incorrectly removed it without explanation.
  • The removed content was restored, but in the context of reverting unrelated content.
  • A severe edit war broke out over unrelated content, and the small bit of content that was enacted via RfC was merely caught up in the revert-warring. No editor attempted to remove or reinstate Oxford outside of the unrelated edit war.
  • No reason was given for the original removal, and it should have been uncontroversially reinstated, separate from the ongoing content dispute.
  • Drmies intervention was obviously a check on the edit war over the unrelated content dispute. It only erroneously removed Oxford as a side effect, as all the other reverters had done, and cast no judgment on the RfC content.
  • Jack Upland incorrectly interpreted and accused Drmies's edit as attempting to override the decision of the RfC.
  • Jack Upland assigned a large deal of complexity to his report of this incident, when in reality it was merely caught up in unrelated conflict and could have been restored uncontroversially. This was never attempted. Every restoration of the content was done so in a controversial, edit warring manner.
  • Darouet restored the RfC content via unrelated revert. The restoration of the RfC content is correct, the rest of the revert is neither "right" or "wrong".
  • Regardless of how that dispute plays out, the RfC content should not be removed again short of a new formal consensus.
  • Fundamentally, this complaint was simple and has been resolved, with the RfC content restored back to the article. Users who remove that content, even unintentionally, will be warned for disruptive removal of content and blocked if necessary. Is there any reason for this thread to remain open? Swarm 23:10, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for trying to sort this out. I'm not sure that everything in this sequence is correct, but it's the best we have for now. My impression was that one source of confusion was that the putative RfC-ratified text was bundled with other POV text that needed to be removed and had not been decided by RfC. Also, isn't it the case that on your second-last bullet point above that Darouet not only reinstated the "RfC content" but also reinstated the controversial unrelated content that, as you say, should have been separated to avoid the trainwreck? SPECIFICO talk 23:46, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
@SPECIFICO: That is absolutely correct, and is indeed exactly what I meant by "unrelated revert" and "rest of the revert". I believe the fundamental points in my summary are correct, if heavily simplified. Swarm 01:31, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you User:Swarm. Drmies (talk) 01:20, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
So to wrap this up, if MVBW now wishes to propose what he believes is improved article text and location, would it be OK to start a new RfC concerning that specific proposal? I presume that nothing short of a new RfC would work at this point. SPECIFICO talk 01:55, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
I strongly reject that summary as false and unfair, but that's irrelevant. If the RfC is upheld, that's what I came here for. Except that summary minimises the fact that there has been an ongoing debate about that sentence since 2 November. It was not removed unintentionally as part of an unrelated revert. SPECIFICO's comment above indicates the intention of launching a fresh debate about the same sentence, attempting to move it out of the etymology section, as has been done and discussed before. How many more months do we have to debate the one sentence? So, please close this thread, but keep the article locked down too. Give everyone time to cool off and focus on something else.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:32, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
As far as I'm concerned, any debate prior to February 12 can go out the window. The dispute was settled at that point, and was uncontested until the recent edit warring, which was unrelated. There was quite literally no reasoning given for reverting the RfC content with the rest of the edit war. Perhaps it was especially convenient for those who wanted removal, but neither side behaved any different. Also, I don't know why you're defensive, I'm just pointing out that this whole thing is unnecessary. You could have just reinserted it by itself the whole time. Anyone could have. You presented it as some complex issue here, when in reality no one even noticed it. Not even the admin who intervened. No one was actually trying to overrule the consensus (apart from the original removal, which never could have actually stood). C'mon. You have a formal RfC consensus supporting the closure. It was you yourself who played in to the legitimacy of the RfC being challenged. It's been settled. They can't overrule a formal consensus. I assumed this was an honest mistake on your part, apparently influenced by what you felt was admin intervention for the wrong side. Why you would fail to reinsert the content uncontroversially otherwise would seem questionable. Swarm 10:44, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
@Swarm: It's not so simple as that: it probably wouldn't have been possible to simply reinstate the OED content. In the above thread, SPECIFICO has repeatedly denied that the result of the RfC was to include the OED content (see my posts above, and this quote from SPECIFICO: "Did you bother to read the close of the RfC? It does not require the disputed reference to be used. It simply limits the claims that can be attributed to it."). This revert prominently removes the OED content, despite my note in the previous revert that "it was decided earlier to include OED." The OED content wasn't just being removed by accident as part of a larger content dispute. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:14, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
It clearly was no accident. No one who had debated the issue since 2 November and heavily participated in the RfC and subsequent discussions could have forgotten about it. Clearly SPECIFICO and "My very best wishes" did not accept the clarification of the RfC on 12 February. In fact MVBW removed the sentence on the same day [157]. Earlier this month, SPECIFICO repeatedly removed the RfC content, along with related material, claiming "consensus". If you make your edits in the name of "consensus", you are saying that you are bearing in mind previous discussions and the contributions of other editors. Clearly, you would have to be mindful of a recent RfC. As we know, SPECIFICO had not forgotten the RfC at all. He simply took a different view of what the consensus was and made this abundantly clear.--Jack Upland (talk) 19:32, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
The purpose of my edit was to fix misinterpretation of the source by Safire - as explained in the edit summary. Leaving second phrase in place ("Similarly...") would then appear as a contradiction. It had to be replaced by "However...", or the phrase had to be moved elsewhere on the page, as I previously did this edit, [158]. Removing this phrase was a mistake on my part. It could be easily resolved by simply placing this specific phrase back to the page, instead of making edit war and reporting it on the ANI. Once again, I agree with including this phrase (in appropriate context!) - as follows from the closing of the RfC and my own previous edits on the page (diffs above). My very best wishes (talk) 14:09, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
I have found that MVBW has deeply researched understanding and careful adherence to WP policy and guidelines with respect to this article. I think he has proposed Verified and NPOV ways to cite the dicey OED source. As Swarm notes, this content dispute was settled prior to February, when Thucydides411's ANI/AE TBAN expired, and if he so chooses, MVBW can easily correct the article text once again. SPECIFICO talk 14:28, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
There's no "correction" required regarding Safire's article - it's accurately summarized in the current version of the article. The "correction" that MVBW and you have been pushing is based on a very simple misinterpretation of Safire's article. This is explained very clearly here. Please don't take this AN/I as giving justification for another unilateral "correction" of the Safire content. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:19, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
This thread had nothing to do with Safire. I've already stated "screw safire" on the article talk page. it's a pithy little vintage bit of nothing that, in WP terms, is WP:UNDUE. You may be able to push an OED-affiliated reference solely on the branding and pedigree of its publisher. Not so an daily press Op-Ed by Safire. SPECIFICO talk 17:31, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
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Stalking, or appropriate use of edit history?[edit]

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Soilentred is changing various software articles to indicate that a certain version of Windows is required, such as Windows 7, even for software that ran under other versions of Windows in earlier releases. I noticed this on Opera (web browser), and fixed it there, and proceeded to make the same revert for other software that I knew ran on earlier versions of Windows. Soilentred reverted me, with edit summaries such as Stop following me and reverting all my edits. I attempted to engage on their talkpage, but it wasn't very useful. So, what now? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:58, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

IMO: (1) Soilentred seems to be making obviously incorrect changes. In the examples I looked at, when the product was released the claimed minimum required version of Windows was not even available ; (2) if an editor makes a bad edit, of course you check whether or not it was an isolated case. I have notified the editor of this discussion. Dorsetonian (talk) 18:41, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Drat. Thanks very much for passing on the notification, I know I have to do that myself, and I thought about it while I was typing... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:44, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • (Non-administrator comment) If you notice a problem with another user's edits, it is a completely acceptable use of edit history to check if they've made the same mistake multiple times. See this statement by ArbCom, in particular DMM's additional comment. Moreover, if they tell you to "stop following them", that is an assumption of bad faith and is actually an inversion of the WP:HOUND policy, and Soilentred (talk · contribs) should be told unambiguously to (a) knock it off with the bad-faith hounding accusations and (b) stop making problematic content edits or risk a TBAN or block. Hijiri 88 (やや) 22:06, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Their snarkiness aside, but if a software article is stating that the current stable version is X.X.X which is only compatible from a particular version of Windows, or whatever OS, is that wrong? I think Soilentred has a point. In the Opera example, would the article really be correct in saying the current stable version, 51.0.2830.55, is compatible with pre-7 Windows? Blackmane (talk) 00:37, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't think it's intended to refer only to the current version, but I've raised the question at the Infobox Software talk page.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 00:56, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
I'd say that WP:NOTMANUAL, at the very least the earlier versions should be covered as well. Wikipedia is also supposed to have articles on fully defunct software that is no longer supported, some of which works on newer OSes by means of unofficial patches of questionable legality -- what would Soilentred's solution for those articles be? But it doesn't really matter, since even if Sarek was 100% wrong on the content, he clearly had reason to be wrong, so "Stop following me and reverting all my edits" was out-of-line.
It should also be noted that in the diffs about Soilentred appears to be directly admitting to engaging in OR by saying "I ran this software on several computers with different versions of Windows installed and found that Windows 7 or later worked"; Sarek did not misread that comment, as it looks exactly the same to me. If Soilent continues engaging in OR, they will need to be TBANned or blocked.
Hijiri 88 (やや) 05:43, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I see Soilent commented at WT:SOFTWARE and has not edited since. That's a good sign, perhaps. If he doesn't stick to discussion, though, "what now" is going to be a block. He's making contested edits, so he can either follow WP:BRD or accept some sort of editing restriction in exchange for a conditional unblock, IMO. Swarm 00:40, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
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Shenanigans at Daniele Bonaviri[edit]

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

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

These IPs are repeatedly removing the maintenance tags (notability, need for third party sources, and BLP sourcing) as well as Category:Living people from Daniele Bonaviri. The article is referenced solely to the subject's website. I've reverted twice, so won't touch it again, but had left a message on Talk:Daniele Bonaviri about it. Could an admin look at this?

The article has a very murky contribution history to say the least. It was rev-deleted for blatant copyvio yesterday. It's original creator (Rashtooiy) re-added the copyvio today as well as removing the maintenance tags and Category:Living people. It's been rev-deleted again. Another user (Designcore) had repeatedly created the now-salted Draft:Daniele Bonaviri with the same copyvio. The copyvio material was also created in User:Designcore/sandbox (now deleted). Oddly, Designcore's only other contribution was to submit the rejected Draft:Joel Vicent Joseph for AfC review [159] despite not appearing anywhere else in the contribution history. Designcore also appears to have registered two accounts [160]. The second account is named Vinart.promo (now blocked for spam user name). Their only edit here (I think) was to paste the copyvio into the community sandbox [161]. Vinart Promo is the company that built and maintains Bonaviri's website. It's based in Iran as are the IPs. The IPs have taken over after Designcore and Rashtooiy received warnings about their behaviour. Voceditenore (talk) 17:12, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks to CambridgeBayWeather who has now semi-protected the article. Fast service! :) Voceditenore (talk) 17:29, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I can't find any secondary sources by googling either. I've PRODded the article. It's not sticky PROD for BLPs, since there is a source, such as it is (the discography on the subjects own site), but ordinary PROD, so it will no doubt be removed as soon as the IP person gets autoconfirmed. (Cynical? Me?) Bishonen | talk 18:15, 22 March 2018 (UTC).
The irony of all this, Bish, is that he performs a lot in Italy and does appear the news there. It night even be capable of saving with a lot of work, but I'm certainly not going to do it after the shenanigans. Voceditenore (talk) 18:28, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
@Bishonen: I call blocking them when it happens! :P Swarm 00:53, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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There's a whole mess here that's getting ugly. It started with this revert of an item I posted. I don't agree but it was well-reasoned and clearly arguable, so I left it be. FreedomJoe, however, did not. An edit war has followed: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. There had been an earlier removal here inviting talk page contributions and revert here. Looking at the edit summaries accusations of socking and being "unverified IP addresses" have been flying back and forth, so I asked everybody to play nice and reminded IPs are editors like everyone else. Joe then brought attention to their user talk and it's grim. Examples of accusations flying back and forth are "just the latest sockpuppet of some banned user" and "bugger off to whatever hole you came from". Finally, also of note are these edits to an IP's talk page: one, two, three. After reflection, it seems best I post this here and let editors with much more experience than me try to diffuse the situation. Now... I have a bunch of notifications to send out. 89.240.132.177 (talk) 17:48, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Clarify. Were you a registered editor in the past? GoodDay (talk) 17:53, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Years ago, but I don't recall the name I used, just that it was something generic so it would be fairly low-profile and anonymous. I did more lurking than editing tbh. It's definitely coming back to me how things work here but I've a ways to go yet. 89.240.132.177 (talk) 17:57, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
My 12+ years on Wikipedia, makes me suspect that you're probably a banned editor, who's evading that ban, via multiple IP addresses. GoodDay (talk) 17:59, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Why, exactly? I'm not even involved in this dispute, and believe me, I don't want to be. 89.240.132.177 (talk) 18:02, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm also suspicious of who the unregistered Mobile editor is. Not interested in pursing any sock investigations, so I'll leave it up to others. GoodDay (talk) 18:06, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

FreedomJoe has elected to continue their edit war. Looks like I was right to come here, since the edit war seems like it's going to carry on. 89.240.132.177 (talk) 18:43, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Since my name is brought up, I would like to add a few things regarding this discussion. There are a couple of posts which I have made in regards to the Current Events section. Every time I make a post, there are a couple of editors who aggressively remove or edit the posts, some without reason or some with the flimsy excuses that these posts are not noteworthy/notable or the references are not reliable. For me I just reinstate the posts and add more references or new sources irregardless. Now I clearly am being ganged upon by 1 or 2 editors, which I suspect are the same person or a banned editor as you suggested. Always is a anon IP or mobile address - both making false accusations that I am biased or that I am a sockpuppet. I have challenged these individuals to post with a proper Wiki account. But these individuals seem to have their own agenda and refuse to do so. I am not going to sit still and take this lying down. FreedomJoe (talk) 18:47, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
It's not just IP editors. While I have disagreed with Wingwraith on certain issues in the past, both they and I seem to agree that this matter is not newsworthy. I can also confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that they and I are not the same person. While some of the IPs are most certainly out of line (with the 2600-whatnot IP being outright rude), Wikipedia is not about "Being right" or "righting great wrongs"; it's about consensus.
When several editors seem to feel that an edit made by a user is incorrect, it is not proper to simply revert again and again; instead, you should almost always try to hash things out on the talk page. In this case, I would argue this has not yet been done, as no strong argument has yet been made for its inclusion on the talk page. You stated you would fight for its inclusion, but the battle is being fought incorrectly. I'd recommend writing on the talk page about why you feel it is so noteworthy, rather than simply reverting. With a strong argument, you may find people agreeing with you; I've had my mind changed over inclusion of news items more than once. Reverting repeatedly, however, simply causes others to view one as disruptive. Icarosaurvus (talk) 20:57, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Aye, seems he's gone; I believe that means this can be closed. Icarosaurvus (talk) 04:29, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
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Incompetent en.wiki admin no good on Commons[edit]

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Apparently I don't know how to nominate vandalism for speedy deletion on Commons. Somebody take care of File:Addtext com MDIzMTU3MTA2NjQ.png, please? I've blocked the user on Wikipedia, for username vio + vandalism only; they might could best be blocked on Commons as well. Bishonen | talk 02:15, 26 March 2018 (UTC).

TonyBallioni, thank you for tagging it, but it's not so much a copyvio, since File:Bishop Angaelos, 26 April 2015.JPG exists. The vandal version was created and uploaded to Commons by User:DaddyBigDoinks and then added to the article Anba Angaelos, here. It would be better if the tampered-with version were clearly marked for deletion as vandalism. I tried to find Commons's speedy templates, and then I tried to use ours, and failed abjectly each time. Bishonen | talk 02:51, 26 March 2018 (UTC).
Bishonen, fixed. It wasn't tagged as a derivative, so since it was also vandalism and clearly wasn't own work, I used their automated tagging feature for copyvio with comments as it would likely get the fastest views and they could also see it is obvious vandalism. As it's a derivative work, I've changed it to their default speedy template. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:57, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • For reference, {{SD|G3}} would be the standardized template, without having to write out the rationale. Thanks for taking care of it though. Swarm 03:08, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
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New Legal Threat at Talk:Gary Null[edit]

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It's a long threat. Well I think its a threat. -Roxy, the dog. barcus 21:56, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but I get the feeling that Null's self-proclaimed attorney doesn't like the article.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:10, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Indeffed. Our editors can examine the article without dealing with someone who seems to get paid by the word. --NeilN talk to me 22:16, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Took all four paws to work it out, but a response time of twenty minutes is a bit tawdry, if I may say so. Could do better. -Roxy, the dog. barcus 22:27, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Falsely disparage, slander, and libel me and I'll su... hey, where'd my buttons go? --NeilN talk to me 22:33, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
^^^ THIS IS A JOKE. --NeilN talk to me 22:33, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
I directed them to Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Gary_Null and Wikipedia:Libel. If they wish to bluster, they can do so to the FOundation.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 22:38, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
It's definitely Null's lawyer, so I expect that they will complain to the WMF. Doug Weller talk 14:29, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
And the WMF will say, "editors determine the content of articles" which will put them in a really good frame of mind. --NeilN talk to me 15:03, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
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This user keeps spamming my talk page with information about their contact information and a company that apparently this user owns. Could you please ban BEAR1488 from editing my talk page or just temporarily block the user altogether? Thank you.--SkyGazer 512 talk / contributions / subpages 00:50, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Indeffed -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:55, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
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User:Spintendo and the {{request edit}} queue[edit]

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Since late 2017, Spintendo has become the most frequent answerer of COI requests generated by the {{request edit}} template, by far. This is a process encouraged by the community and endorsed by the WP:COI guideline (for those unfamiliar, the requests themselves can be found via AnomieBOT/EDITREQTable and also Category:Requested edits). At first this seemed a blessing, as a serious backlog had developed over time; within weeks, Spintendo had reduced it nearly to zero. Since then, they have continued responding so quickly as to become, in effect, the only volunteer editor working the queue. For others aware of this fact, I have to assume they've been grateful that someone else is handling this sometimes thankless task.

But the question of whether Spintendo is actually doing the community a favor is worthy of closer examination. In recent months, I have seen how Spintendo's monopolization of edit requests, unhelpful and sometimes hostile attitude, and idiosyncratic interpretation of policies and guidelines have harmed the process. Before getting too far into this, I want to be clear about what I am not saying: I am not saying Spintendo is always wrong to reject requests; indeed not all are worthy. Nor am I saying Spintendo rejects them 100% of the time: in fact Spintendo has implemented requests that I have made. Initially I viewed these conflicts as content disputes, as the cautious reader might. However, Spintendo's judgment has been repeatedly called into question at WP:3O, WP:DRN, WP:BLP/N, and via WP:RfC, and it is possible to demonstrate a pattern of conduct that I believe rises to the level of AN/I.

Regardless of one's opinion of paid editing or paid editors, I hope readers here would agree that the COI request process is an important one, a necessary supplement to the efforts at WP:AfC and WP:COI/N. My goal here is to make others aware of this issue, to bring some sanity to the COI request process, and perhaps even encourage other volunteers to pitch in more often. That said, in order to demonstrate that there is a problem, here are some recent examples of Spintendo's disagreeable reviewing style, citing matters both resolved and unresolved. I have limited my examples to those I have participated in or investigated and where I have confidence in the quality of the requests made:

I recently asked to include a noteworthy detail about Mr. Saylor's college education, cited to the Washington Post. Spintendo responded by casting doubt on the Post story, offering a puzzling rationale based on guesses about the college administration to justify this position. Soon, Drmies and Cullen328 joined the discussion to say the detail was germane and the source reliable, so Drmies made the edit, and Spintendo did not respond again.
I have suggested replacing a poorly referenced awards section with one I believe is better sourced. Spintendo declined the request within two hours, arguing variously that the recognition was based on "subjective metrics" and the source publications had "deep connections" to the industry. I explained why I thought these criticisms were misapplied, but upon subsequent reply Spintendo offered a different set of grounds for objection, also not based on content guidelines. As of this writing, I consider the matter unresolved.
A colleague, Danilo Two, has been offering suggested additions for this very short, multiply-tagged article, for several months now. In a discussion stretching back to late January, Spintendo has opposed the inclusion of a proposed "History" section, focusing exclusively on a single Forbes magazine article they claim is WP:OR. Due to the lack of input from other volunteers, and following Spintendo's suggestion, Danilo brought the matter to DRN, where it remains unresolved.
A very similar situation involves my colleague Inkian Jason proposing a "Products and services" section to this likewise underwritten article, where Spintendo has, since January, declined requests to add at least three different versions of seemingly uncomplicated and well-referenced information. After Jason made edits based on feedback, Spintendo would move the goalposts, sometimes agreeing to add the odd bullet point or two to the live article but offering inscrutable reasons to oppose the rest, meanwhile using an elaborate "reply quotebox" format which makes the conversation extremely difficult to follow. The matter is currently also at DRN, and so is unresolved.
Here, 16912 Rhiannon spent several months going back and forth with Spintendo, who insisted on including a section sourced only to a single report by a NJ state agency. (There are no other sources; it generated no news.) When she posted an RfC seeking others' input, Spintendo responded with a long and condescending "survey" that Rhiannon was expected to answer to demonstrate her understanding of "secondary" sources. After she withdrew and rephrased the RfC, Icewhiz showed up and removed the section, following which other editors commented in basic agreement. As of this writing, Spintendo has not responded.

My observations regarding patterns in Spintendo's interactions with COI editors; some of these examples necessarily make reference to content disagreements, but are focused on repetitions amounting to AN/I-worthy behavior:

  • Closes requests too quickly, not allowing time for any other editors who may also be watching the request edit queue. This is apparent on the Broadridge talk page, where Spintendo three times declined separate requests within a couple of hours each, effectively discouraging follow-up questions. Moreover, by acting in such haste, Spintendo makes snap judgments which other editors have sometimes had to address later. (For example, this happened to Rhiannon in December on the talk page for HubSpot, where Kvng and Keithbob eventually got involved.)
  • Repeatedly questions the validity of reliable secondary sources, and asks instead for primary sources contemporary with the events themselves. This is especially apparent on the Broadridge article where Spintendo rejected the Forbes piece while asking for "primary sources published at the time", and the Saylor article where they rejected the Washington Post and asked for substantiation by "someone in the registrars office" at MIT. See also Spintendo's extensive wikilawyering about what constitutes a "secondary source" in order to justify basing a whole section on a NJ state government report at New York Life.
  • Otherwise misinterprets rules to stymie COI requests, for example asserting the essay WP:NUMBER1, which is very clearly about AfD and Notability, applies to the inclusion of information within articles. In another circumstance, claiming passages are "insufficiently paraphrased" and therefore WP:COPYVIO even where the proposed language contained details not in the identified source passage (look for "ListHub" in this discussion on the article for Move (company)). From a MOS perspective, Spintendo sometimes replaces or substitutes prose paragraphs with lists, especially in "History" sections, currently at MicroStrategy and formerly at Realtor.com (a situation later resolved by SMcCandlish), although Wikipedia conventions and MOS:LISTBASICS specifically discourage this practice.
  • Opposes COI requests only until another volunteer editor takes action, and then disappears from the conversation, suggesting they care more about frustrating COI editors than the article content itself. See discussions abandoned at Michael J. Saylor, New York Life, and HubSpot once others intervened.

A case could be made that this amounts to targeted harassment of disclosed COI contributors and, for anyone who has experienced it, it certainly feels like gaslighting. But that judgment call need not be made to see there is a problem here. It's enough to observe that Spintendo has become a bottleneck for COI requests: this pattern of opposing well-intentioned and carefully-constructed content proposals with lengthy, confusing, argumentative objections based on novel interpretations of guidelines or expedient standards entirely of their own invention has become a major challenge for those of us who are trying to follow the rules and work through the {{request edit}} process. That is not just myself and my colleagues, but anyone following the advice to use this template as given at WP:COIEDIT.

Until such time as this changes, I cannot recommend to any company or organization that they use the {{request edit}} template. Meanwhile, I fear that the breakdown of this process will embolden others who would edit without disclosure. The queue needs other voices, and Spintendo must either follow the accepted guidelines in reviewing requests or cease doing so altogether. Community oversight, and some common sense, is badly needed here. Thanks for reading—I realize it's a lot to consider on a subject most are content to ignore—and I'll be happy to answer any questions that I can. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 18:45, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

The box that you claim to be extensive wikilawyering is a fine example of defining primary, secondary, and tertiary sourcing, as you would learn in any historiography course. I've never heard of Spintendo before, and I've not checked any of your other links, but if this is his style, we need him to keep going. [Update] I have checked Saylor, and he's absolutely right: the Washington Post is relying on faulty information, because like all other newspapers, it's an expert at publishing new stuff, not an expert at scholarly-level research. This is not speculation: it's exactly what you're expected to do in evaluating sources, and if you think that we can trust a source when its sources are faulty, you need to go to your local college and speak with the reference librarian. Nyttend (talk) 21:52, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
At New York Life, the source in dispute was a state government report, easily recognizable as a WP:PRIMARY source, later adjudicated to be so by editors participating in an RfC. Re: Saylor, the objection was entirely based on speculation. The Post is not in the habit of reporting things it believes to be false, and there was no reasonable cause to doubt it. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 22:03, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Hello, actual college librarian here. We instruct students that the Washington Post and newspapers of similar caliber are generally considered reliable sources appropriate for their use in assignments, just as they are appropriate for use in Wikipedia articles. Of course scholarly peer-reviewed resources are preferable, but they are generally unnecessary for basic, non-controversial biographical facts. We teach students to think critically about sources, but we do not teach them to engage in belligerent groundless nitpicking nor do we encourage them to present others with condescending quizzes. There's nothing here that I would consider consistent with an appropriate approach to critically evaluating sources, these examples are instead consistent with the actions of an wikilawyering ideologue determined to get their way regardless of the content of those sources. It is disappointing that you do not distinguish between the two in this case. Gamaliel (talk) 22:29, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I was just about to comment on this when you basically took the words out of my mouth. There is no way I'm going to look at all of the links provided, nor read through all of the above complaint. (TLDR) However, looking at the talk page and seeing the chart in question, that is definitely not describing primary, secondary, or tertiary sources. It's like saying, "A pilot writes information about flying a plane (primary source). A writer turns that information into a draft of a flight manual (secondary source). A publisher turns that into an actual flight manual for the public to read (tertiary source)." No, the flight manual is still a primary source. A primary source is one which is directly related or involved with to the issue or item discussed, and does the original research themselves. A secondary source is a source unaffiliated with the original source, but uses the primary sources for research, is qualified to interpret them, and is under editorial (and often peer reviewed) oversight. (ie: journalism) A tertiary source is one that relies on secondary sources (like Wikipedia does), does no original research of its own, and does not offer interpretations of primary sources. The PDF WWB Too listed above needs a lawyer to interpret it and is definitely a primary source. Zaereth (talk) 22:50, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

The community has done an excellent job of correcting me in the past where that has been needed, and I put my faith in that community now to do the same. The concerns which arise from this, most active group of COI editors is not too surprising, in that they submit a good amount of edit requests overall. And while the complaint about being served "too quickly" is perhaps a new one as far as COI edit requests go, it is nevertheless, understandable that declining these requests is something they find troubling. However, the belief that this is a targeted action of stonewalling or else incompetence, I don't agree with.

  1. In the case of Michael J Saylor, Drmies was quite right in asking why a grown man would pay to see to it that this detail ends up in his bio. It's a good question, but Drmies thought better of going round after round arguing the triviality of the claim, and ultimately decided, based on policy, to approve the addition. Drmies is a peacemaker, and I completely respect that.
  2. With respect to MicroStrategy, the inclusion of these awards which the editor desires to place there are examples of WP:PEACOCK. We all know that these awards, while indicating important aspects of the article's subject, are difficult to rank objectively,. Additionally these awards may be intended as information for the publication's audiences, and not Wikipedia's (my reasoning being that not everyone will know what it means to be ranked as overall number 1 in industry ontime accrual rating procedures.) My actions here declining these additions align with other editors actions and are not too revolutionary.
  3. Broadridge concerns actions which another legal entity - ADP - was responsible for. Broadridge was incorporated in 2007, which raised concerns in my mind over who rightfully owns a company's past actions. I believe that these claims belong in the ADP article. Because of mine and the COI' editor's tardiness in replying at a mediated dispute forum, the COI editor's dispute request was closed. The COI editor was told their appeal could take months. It was my urging of the case to be reopened that it continues now. This would appear to be an instance where I helped them to continue an action against myself. Why? For me, it just felt like the closing was my fault, and that they deserved a full chance to be heard.
  4. Iteris has been addressed at DRN. The words of Robert McClenon can speak for themselves in that case. 1., 2.
  5. Finally there is New York Life Insurance company, where the editor would like to remove information regarding a market response report prepared by the NJ Department of Banking and Insurance. These market reports are fairly regular (in that many banks and insurance companies in that state undergo them). They are begun in response to complaints from consumers. The report on NYLIC is significant because it is the only one in recent history that NJ DOBI has had to do for that company. The COI editor was concerned with how the report looked in the article. I reworded it by highlighting the investigation as a net gain for the company, in that it heralded customer improvements (which was stated in the report's opening paragraphs) I also made sure page numbers were ascribed where necessary. In response to an edit request, I placed the claim in the main body of text, and not its own section. The COI editor understandably now would like all of it removed, but as I understood the rules, removing bad information because it was bad was not a good idea. That process is still ongoing. Spintendo      23:05, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

For those wanting to know about the chart I got that from Wikipedia's party and person page located here, with slight modification as you can see, to the examples. The statement that "A secondary source is a source 1) unaffiliated with the original source, but 2) uses the primary sources for research, 3) is qualified to interpret them, and 4) is under editorial (and often peer reviewed) oversight." is just how I see it as well. I believe that NJDOBI falls under this rubric as:

  1. The NJDOBI is professionally unaffiliated with NYLIC, in that one entity is a government regulator specializing in government regulations and enforcement while NYLIC specializes in offering insurance.
  2. NJ DOBI made their examinations of primary source documents provided by NYLIC
  3. As attorneys, the officials at NJ DOBI were qualified to examine the documents and to interpret them.
  4. The editorial oversight of the NJ DOBI comes from the NJ State Legislature, which regulates ond oversees the DOBI

Spintendo      00:23, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

  • I've only looked at the Saylor saga, "Request to re-include mention graduation ranking". If I had been dealing with it (and everyone's lucky I didn't!) I wouldn't have gone anywhere near a discussion about whether the source was primary, or reliable, or erroneous, or anything else. I would have just have said, no, I don't feel like making this edit: it is not appropriate to a brief biography of someone's life and it does not improve the encyclopedia article. If anyone else had felt like making the edit I would have thought they were a bit misguided but I wouldn't have objected or reverted. Thincat (talk) 08:41, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Chiming in as I was mentioned vis-a-vis New York Life. While I think it was correct to remove the section, and I BOLDly did so (and indeed there is consensus at the RfC presently to do so), I do not think it was unreasonable for Spintendo to object. In my view this is a situation that many editors would remove after examining (and even more would remove given a reasoned short UNDUE arguement based on a single primary source) - but Spintendo's rejection of the edit request was within the norm of Wikipedia editors and was reasonable.Icewhiz (talk) 09:55, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
And I thank you for acting BOLDly. The frustrating thing about that darned claim was that I could not locate anything else mentioning it wherever I looked. I had to tell myself that at the end of the day, if it's that routine where the only people talking about it are the ones doing the investigating, then it probably should have been removed eventually. And while I still believe it to be a very problematic secondary source, I'm satisfied with the outcome. Spintendo      12:45, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Suggest That Policy Issue Be Taken to VPP[edit]

Well, well. This is really very much a case of biting the hand that feeds one. The request-edit queue is a means for paid editors to request that volunteer editors do them a service that they are not required to do. User:Spintendo is being reported here for not being a good enough clerk-typist in working off the queue of COI request edits. I have just responded to the two issues that are at the dispute resolution noticeboard, and in both cases it appears that the paid editor is requesting the services of a second volunteer editor because the first volunteer editor, Spintendo, isn't rewriting the articles as requested. My first thought is that if paid editors want Wikipedia articles rewritten to their specifications, they can rewrite the article themselves and host it on their corporate web site (either with full attribution, or with no attribution by completely rewriting it and putting it under corporate copyright).
I agree with the filing party, User:WWB Too, as to not recommending to companies that they use the request edit queue, but not as to blaming either Spintendo or the volunteer community.
I see a policy issue that needs to be addressed, which is that the request-edit queue has become an attractive nuisance and needs to be rethought.
However, this thread is a conduct complaint at WP:ANI. I certainly do not see any valid basis for a conduct complaint against User:Spintendo or any other volunteer editor. Can we close this and take it to Village pump? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:27, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Oppose. Clearly the behavior of Spintendo is at issue here, not just the queue. Gamaliel (talk) 22:30, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
User:Gamaliel - Yes, they have made it the issue here. It shouldn't be. My first argument is essentially that they have no right to make it into an issue, because Spintendo is providing a voluntary service, and they are complaining that the service isn't good enough. However, second, as a conduct issue, what do they want? The only remedy that we can provide here at WP:ANI would be to topic-ban Spintendo from working the queue. Is that what they want? Robert McClenon (talk) 23:11, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Certainly, I would like to find a solution short of a topic ban, and it's no accident that I did not ask for one. A preferable outcome would be greater participation in this process, so that when Spintendo offers a response that does not comply with content guidelines—which, as I have demonstrated, is too frequent an occurrence to be ignored—that others may weigh in short of having to seek redress at 3O or DRN. Additionally, I'm surprised at your suggestion that {{request edit}} is the problem here. It's a flawed tool, difficult to use and harder to find, but seeking to have it closed down would only drive more COI activity underground. It serves a purpose, but it's not working well. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 03:06, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
User:WWB Too - First, I know that you aren't asking for a topic-ban, because I know that you know that if you have User:Spintendo topic-banned, no one else will be working the queue. Second, I am not sure how likely you are to get greater participation in the process when you have made participation in the process unpleasant for Spintendo, and have shown other editors who might consider helping out that what they will get is buffets and spitting. Third, I wasn't suggesting that the request-edit tool be shut down, only that it be rethought, but by dragging the editor who provides you with assistance here, you are making a case that perhaps the tool should be shut down. It's a flawed tool, and it's not working well, partly because you paid editors are just using the tool to pile on increasingly burdensome and complex edit requests to rewrite Wikipedia articles to your own specifications. If you want articles that meet your specifications, you have your own web sites. Spintendo is voluntarily providing you with a service that neither he nor Wikipedia is required to provide you with, and you are making things unpleasant. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:54, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Robert McClenon, as I believe the diffs above verify, my colleagues and I have been unfailingly polite to Spintendo, and always aim to be concise and careful in our content proposals when using {{request edit}}. I never want to be at AN/I, but given the above I felt I had no other recourse. As Mary Gaulke states below, it is Spintendo who is frequently unpleasant, condescending, and resentful in tone. Likewise, as she observes, Spintendo's feedback is "dramatically different" from other volunteer respondents. This has been my experience, too.
Additionally: I am open to a re-imagining of the process; it so happens it's a topic I'd raised with Doc James, Harej, DGG, Smallbones, Fuzheado and others at Wikimania Montreal. I think a queue that is easier to read, with instructions for both requesting editors and moderators to make things easy to follow would be great. There's too much misunderstanding in this topic area, and I'd support anything that makes it run better. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 12:43, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm hesitant to respond here, precisely because of the "biting the hand that feeds" point that Robert McClenon made. I'm very grateful for Spintendo's work reducing the edit request backlog, and I've told them as much. And while I'm a fairly infrequent user of the process (Wikipedia is a pretty minor part of my job), I must note that some of the feedback I've received from Spintendo is dramatically different from my experience with other editors and my understanding of Wikipedia's guidelines. The ongoing discussions here are a fairly good representation of my two primary observations:
  1. Spintendo requests primary sources for information that isn't particularly biased and is well documented in secondary sources (in this case, the identity of the subject's alma mater). This isn't particularly cumbersome, but is a little peculiar.
  2. Spintendo seems to resent being asked, even implicitly, to address these requests at all. They do not appear to read very closely, and are dismissive of any moderately nuanced request. (In this case, I proposed moving some information from a very long lead into a new section in the body of the article for the sake of organization, and Spintendo interpreted this as adding completely new information. When I attempted to clarify, Spintendo replied with a somewhat condescending tone.) When Spintendo stopped replying to my clarifications, I proposed that I could re-open the edit request and give another editor a chance to review my requests, since it was clear they were tired of dealing with me. Spintendo interpreted this as me threatening to quit Wikipedia, a misreading which may or may not have been intentional. I'm grateful for all the volunteers who work on edit requests, and I understand that these requests are an imposition. But I'd rather wait out a longer edit request queue than bother someone who seems to dislike this work quite strongly.
I've been an active Wikipedia editor for about four years, but I'm aware I'm still not an expert on some of the finer points of the guidelines. It's possible none of this is unusual or out of bounds. But if nothing else I'd certainly appreciate clarification of where the goalposts are so I can make sure I'm providing straightforward, well-crafted edit requests. Mary Gaulke (talk) 04:38, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
  • It's unfortunate that Spintendo has ended up at the complaints board. Can someone check over Talk:Michael Izza to see if there are any wild interpretations of policy? Cheers. talk to !dave 07:30, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Since someone is asking, I'll bite: the responses in Note 1 and Note 3 are good examples of how, when asked to make a simple factual change with a reliable secondary source to support it, Spintendo then asks for additional detail that isn't strictly necessary. As demonstrated in my first post above, this happened at Talk:Iteris, and each time the draft was updated, Spintendo subsequently offered new reasons to object.
That said, this is also a good example of two problems I noted in my comment just a few minutes ago: a) the COI contributor clearly knows little about Wikipedia conventions, and so has written a request that is poorly organized and asks too much of the volunteer reviewer, while b) Spintendo's reply is difficult to parse and made all the worse for the terrible "quotebox" format. As a result, they are talking past each other, and the tools aren't helping. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 12:53, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
In response to Mary's post, I honestly have no resentful feelings for Mary. She is constantly mentioned by other editors as being an exemplar for COI editing, - kind, concise, and not wasting of time. I can say that I've definately seen the first two. But I have to admit Mary, that the particular request you mentioned was not worded by you very well at all. It did not state overall, that what you wanted was merely to move one thing from one location to another. I am a visual learner, which is a big reason why I use quoteboxes. In that way I can explain actions using shortcuts like color and placement to indicate to the requesting editors my decisions more easily. If Mary had marked the text that she wanted moved in a bright color, say Blue, and underneath it placed a bolded statement that said something like Text to be moved, she and others would see instantly what it is she wanted done and which text she wanted it done to. When I hear people talking about the problems with COI edit requests, Im not thinking of the requests themselves as the problem, I believe the problem is communicating in a more standardized way, using scripts that make use of color and position, that would go a long way towards streamlining requests.
But back to Mary. Her request was very poorly worded, and left me confused about what she wanted. And I do appreciate Mary's candor here, but Mary — you've forgotten to mention how you gave me, in that same request, a 14 page document with the instructions similar to "You find the page. I'm busy. Just look it up on Google." .... Mary — you actually said that last part to me — that I could find the reference for myself on google. How do you expect a person who is doing your paid work for you to respond to that type of behavior. Those words and those actions are not using honey to catch flies Mary, they're using vinegar. So when you said that "perhaps we needed some new eyes on this" but didnt specify whose eyes needed replacing, I mentioned how you would be missed and that I wished you'd reconsider. While the first part was in jest, the second part was not. Mary, I remember one of the first interactions I had with you, back in the not soo long days ago of the 100+ COI edit request queue. I remember you being worried and discussing your plight with editors....what had happened is for whatever reason you were bumped from your place at number 15 I believe, bumped down to number 134. You were concerned about being forgotten, as all that time you had waited patiently to get to number 15 and now here you were all the way back at 134. Would anyone remember you were there waiting? I remember thinking "Dont worry Mary, we're not going to forget about you. I'm not going to forget about you. And I told you as much. I've made a point on occassions to come back to check on your requests to make sure everything was ok and that you weren't alone or forgotten That is the COI edit request reviewer I am deep down inside, and I know you are that same COI edit requester deep down inside as well. I hope that we can both continue to work on COI things together. I know that we can see eye to eye and work out any communication difficulties along the way. Spintendo      13:33, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
As far as the Michael Izza request, those claims have Mr. Izza offering, lending, calling upon, encouraging, and being vocal about a great many things.... But not much doing of anything. Is it notable when one person encourages someone else? Is the simple fact of calling upon something now so importantly notable that it must be mentioned in every article where it occurs? I'm sorry, but this looks a lot like garden variety name-dropping to me. Spintendo      13:55, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I have neither the time nor the energy to read over all this and respond in detail (and so I will try to refrain from generalizing about the two editors), but I urge editors not to be too quickly in dismissing WWB's complaints. Those of you who know me know I have little patience with those who abuse Wikipedia for financial purposes (witness my response to the edit request mentioned in this thread), but WWB, for a COI editor, seems to play it straight--though I will admit that my experience with them is somewhat limited. I was also a bit disappointed in some of Spintendo's remarks pertaining to those articles and found them, hmm, exaggeratedly pointed. Casting doubt on RS is fine and acceptable but there is a time and a place for those things--article talk pages should feature (hate that word) such discussions if there are practical, applicable concerns about specific articles and bits of information; general questions and grievances should be brought up elsewhere. I found WWB to be reasonable and an asset, certainly in comparison to other COI editors. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm in a hotel lobby where a Lawrence Welk-type orchestra (is it Herb Alpert?) is heard playing "Blue Moon" over the stereo, so you understand I gots to get up and dance. Drmies (talk) 17:17, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

More Thoughts and Questions[edit]

I have a few thoughts and questions.

First, I have a two-part question for User:Spintendo, or for any other volunteer editor who has been working the queue. The first part of the question is: Have some of the edit requests been lengthy or complex? The second part is: Have the edit requests tended to become more lengthy and complex in the past few months? My ulterior motive for asking this is that I wonder whether Spintendo, by addressing simple requests ably, is essentially setting up high expectations that they can work wonders in carrying out complex requests.

Second, I wonder whether there is a cognitive disconnect between what the paid editors and their corporate managers want and what they can get and ask in a volunteer organization. Demands that someone do their job better in various ways (more quickly, more pleasantly, more proficiently, etc.) make sense in an employee content, because the manager has the ultimate option, which they would prefer not to use, to fire the employee, so that the employee really has an incentive to heed the advice to do a better job. However, volunteers are working the edit-request queue, and the corporate managers don’t really have an alternative, other than to put the articles up on the corporate web site. It isn’t realistic to expect that the use of a complaint mechanism such as WP:ANI will result in better volunteer service. As I said yesterday, the only real question is whether the paid editors would prefer to rely entirely on other volunteers without Spintendo. (Also, the fact that the paid editors are rewarding a service with buffets and spitting is a reason why other volunteer editors may prefer not to work the queue.) I am wondering whether the paid editors are using a thought process that is more appropriate to employment than to receiving a voluntary service.

Third, there seems to be agreement that the tool is flawed and can use improvement. Can the paid editors, who are the beneficiaries of the tool, assist in improving the tool to serve them better?

Fourth, and this may be minor but is a persistent subtheme, the paid editors keep saying that they do not want to demand a lot of time, but they are demanding a lot of time. For instance, there have been several requests filed by paid editors at the dispute resolution noticeboard (DRN) recently. Most recently two of them asked for additional voices or additional volunteer input or review. They wanted a neutral editor to review their requests based on policies and guidelines, that is, one more volunteer after Spintendo, and more time. That is a request for yet more volunteer time after a volunteer has already provided their time in working the edit request queue. They say that they don’t want to demand a lot of time, but they are demanding a lot of time.

Fifth, perhaps the request edit queue needs to be rethought in either of two ways, because it is becoming an unlimited demand for the time of volunteer editors. The first way, the more radical, might be to do away with the request edit queue and instead to allow them to edit the articles, with their edits declared as COI in edit summaries, subject to 1RR, and to impose very strict limits on their use of dispute resolution mechanisms. The second way, the less radical, might be simply to impose very strict, probably zero, limits on their use of dispute resolution mechanisms. That is, since they are requesting a voluntary service from the volunteer editors, stop re-litigating the requests.

Sixth, I come back to where I started, with a question for the paid editors. It is unrealistic to expect that Spintendo will be a different editor than Spintendo is, and it seems that is what they are asking. This noticeboard isn’t meant to sound out vague policy complaints; it is meant to request administrative action. The only administrative action that can be provided is some restriction on Spintendo working the edit queue. Is that really what the paid editors want? If so, I suggest that Spintendo simply leave the request edit queue, proudly, knowing that he has done his job as well as he could, and got buffets and spitting. If not, maybe the paid editors should thank Spintendo rather than complaining. — — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robert McClenon (talkcontribs) 23:23, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Isaiah 50:6. Read on Palm Sunday, which in Gregorian Year 2018 CE is 25 March. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:45, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
I don't know if they've been getting longer, I've only been editing COI edit requests since last year, so I can't say for sure. One thing I do know is a particular group tends to submit requests which can be described as challenging, and they require a bit more attention than others I've seen. Those requests are from Beutler editors. I think one edit request in particular encapsulates a common thread with Beutler requests, the one where they wanted a claim added to the Saylor page that the subject graduated at the top of his class. This claim is an easy one to deconstruct, because it is what it purports to be: Mr Saylor telling the world that he is number one. There isn't any other interpretation for this type of request. It is bold, and it is brash. This request thrust the conversation over the merits of including these types of claims to the forefront. Some of these reasons for inclusion were unique, such as Drmies: ("He was a professor at MIT" — which left me wondering, if he had been a professor at Provo Community College, would Drmies have felt differently). In the end, these discussions were informative and appreciated. But unfortunately not by everyone. Beutler's reaction to discovering that the world might not learn that Mr. Saylor was number one sparked a reaction. There soon became a necessary evil which Beutler needed to vanquish, and I guess that evil became me. It goes without saying that Beutler dislikes all my editing — except in cases where he does like it, and even seeks it out. When my edits are useful to Beutler, there is no problem. Beutler is indignant because I didn't think that the world had to know that Mr. Saylor was number one. Now I know Beutler would beg to differ, but I'm pretty sure that was its essence. I stood here and said No to Beutler, something they may not hear very well. A few of their claims were eventually approved in the well-worn process of consensus building, and no harm was done. If anything, those discussions over whether certain claims warranted inclusion in certain articles, as I said before, strengthened those articles. But for Beutler, that path took longer than the normal path. You could even say that we're here now because their path to Yes wasn't short enough, cause it's curious that these problem edits of mine all seem to be Beutler related. These are 4 different editors: Jason Inkian, Danilo, Rheannon, and WWB — but these individuals are all informed by, and follow in the footsteps of, one editing philosophy — Beutlers. Perhaps the common thread here is the type of information which Beutler is trying to add to the articles, information which sometimes leans in the direction of trivial, and with a lesser quality — a point which I tried making with Beutler just over a month ago. What I'm hearing from them now is that they would like to receive responses from a variety of editors, and less challenging input from me. No one likes to be force fed anything, I agree — so I think its a reasonable request. I certainly don't want them feeling uncomfortable making requests, because at the end of the day that would affect their business, and it's important that I consider that, and I will. Spintendo      13:58, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Maybe it would be useful if they did feel uncomfortable in making requests. At least, maybe it would useful if they did feel uncomfortable about thinking that they have a right to be tendentious about making their requests and about forumshopping to get their requests approved. That is just my opinion. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:49, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm happy to respond to all these questions above, and I have revised this reply to make it shorter… but alas it's still not short. One point to make first: I realize that bringing up this issue exposes me to criticism. No one ever wants to be at AN/I, me included. Still, I strongly dispute that this simply amounts to "buffets and spitting". I am trying to raise awareness of what I see as a real problem—for myself in the specifics, and for Wikipedia in general—so I consider it worth the negative feedback regardless. Anyway, the questions:
  1. Have requests become more complex? I don't think so; I do acknowledge that "Beutler editor" requests are more involved than the outside editor, but there's a tradeoff to consider: is it better for the PR consultant to ask for a few changes with links to sources, as some do, or to present finished prose with formatted citations and a clear explanation of how the material is intended to benefit the reader? The latter is our approach, and I think it actually saves time for volunteers, if the volunteers are receptive. (Related: if Spintendo believes I am "seeking out" their feedback, this is not so; once they have involved themselves on a given article, I generally feel obligated to cooperate with them, if possible. We're here because eventually I decided it was not.)
  1. Are there mismatched expectations from a corporate vs. volunteer perspective? Potentially yes, but it's not insurmountable. I spend a lot of time explaining Wikipedia's community expectations to people who work in corporate settings, because they both tend to have very different experiences. My efforts have always been about bridging this gap. In any case, Wikipedia is too important for brands to not care what is said about them here. But Wikipedia should also care about these articles being worthwhile overviews of companies deemed Notable for Wikipedia's own sake.
  1. Can the {{request edit}} tool be improved? Absolutely. It's difficult to find and use, even from a volunteer perspective. And once one has discovered it, there is scant advice to volunteers on how to consider requests, and how to respond. I am sure even Spintendo would agree they are making it up as they go along; where we differ is that I think the results have been wildly mixed, and eventually too problematic to ignore. Obviously, I think it would be better if more editors were involved. It's something I'd be happy to work on, if there might be community support for the undertaking.
  1. Are paid editors demanding too much time? Wikipedia guidelines instruct us to ask for volunteer time. We realize this is a precious resource, so in our edit requests we're careful in what we ask for and try to make it easy to agree with us. We also try not to present too much at once. All that any of us are asking for is fair adjudication; Danilo and Jason have asked for more volunteer time only because this has not happened. As demonstrated above, we believe Spintendo is making judgment calls based on personal preference that sometimes contravenes our understanding of accepted content guidelines.
  1. How might the process be changed? Limiting COI contributors' access to dispute resolution is a terrible idea: to do otherwise is to grant too much power to the first person who happens to reply. In theory I am not opposed to allowing direct editing with close oversight, but there is not and likely never will be support for this from the community. It's funny, though: this is pretty much how all the other Wikipedia language editions work. English is the outlier in this way.
That was a two-part brainstorm, and was made partly because I see the demands of the COI editors, which were already burdensome to the editors working the edit-request queue, also becoming burdensome to the dispute resolution process. I may be in a minority, especially among editors who very strongly oppose COI editing, in thinking that COI editors should be allowed to edit directly, subject to draconian restrictions, rather than being allowed only to request edits, and then having unlimited second-shot and third-short opportunities to continue demanding that volunteer editors dance to their music. I was suggesting that if COI editors were allowed to make the edits themselves and be reverted and then go to dispute resolution, they wouldn't be clogging the after-queues of dispute resolution. Oh well, I am in a minority, and I am inclined to guess that one subsequent step in this process is that the COI editors, who say that limiting their access to dispute resolution is a terrible idea, will start dragging the dispute resolution volunteers to WP:ANI. I would prefer direct editing with 0RR, and one shot at DR, but that is only my opinion. What we currently have is a process in which the COI editors have multiple stages of begging and claiming, and re-wikilawyering. Maybe that is the inevitable result of prohibiting the COI editors from doing the dirty work of editing, and maybe we should just be their slaves. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:08, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  1. What am I really asking for? I am not asking for a topic-ban. I would however ask Spintendo not to close out requests without allowing for a discussion to take place, and perhaps even to leave alone requests from my team. We have made effective use of this queue for several years prior to Spintendo's arrival, and it can work again if Spintendo does not make it their mission to keep it at "request zero" all the time. The backlog was a problem, yes, but so are the rapid-fire closeouts and rejections we see now.
Finally, to Spintendo's problems being Beutler-related: it so happens the Beutler editors are sophisticated enough to use the dispute resolution processes, including this one here. Most COI accounts are not longtime community members like some of us are. In my initial post, I had included links to other examples that I think bear closer scrutiny. Here they are again: [162][163][164][165] This issue is larger than just us, and I'll gladly accept the backlash if it starts to change how Wikipedia looks at this problem. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:33, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Again - Time to Close?[edit]

Again, since no one has suggested any sort of administrative action against Spintendo, and since the purpose of this noticeboard is for requests for administrative action, not for vague complaints with no real basis, and since, as Gamaliel said, this is about Spintendo, but there is no substantive conduct issue against Spintendo, I will suggest that it is time to close this thread. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:53, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

If any sort of administrative action is proposed, I will probably oppose it. Otherwise, the filing paid editors have said more than enough. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:53, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

I won't be suggesting any specific administrative actions. As a trial balloon, I think it has largely served its purpose. However, I would be interested in Spintendo's willingness to consider modifying their interactions with the queue as suggested (see #6) in my longer reply just now. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:35, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
User:WWB Too - What are you asking about User:Spintendo's interactions? For them to be a better servant? For them to stop servicing the queue? I don't see what this "trial balloon" has accomplished, except to establish that when COI editors are given some inches, they complain because they didn't get a mile. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:57, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Frankly, I feel the filing here was out of line. Spintendo has certainly been far more patient with the paid editors than most any editor I have ever met would have been, and I do not see any significant breach of Wikipedia policy. I would argue that the problem here is the COI editors; making an ANI request as a "trial balloon" feels dangerously WP:POINT-y to me. Icarosaurvus (talk) 23:16, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
What User:Icarosaurvus is saying is exactly what I said above. The filing here was, in my opinion, out of line. It appears to have been a "trial balloon" to see to what extent they could bully User:Spintendo and other editors. This "trial balloon" should be closed because any administrative action would be wrong and inappropriate. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:57, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm the big thread closer here, but I don't see any reason to rush to close this thread in particular. This is a legitimate place to raise this kind of complaint, and the user is inviting discussion and seeking a resolution, even if they don't want admin intervention specifically. I know paid editors are unpopular but I would echo the above sentiment not to rush into hostile action. We can at least wait for Spintendo to respond to the most recent messages. Let's save the meta-commentary for now. Swarm 01:39, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Well, I respectfully may partly agree and partly disagree with User:Swarm, who says, "This is a legitimate place to raise this kind of complaint". I consider this particular complaint, as being about being inadequately servile on a category of request that is begging for assistance, to be inherently less than legitimate. I don't think that it is fair to drag a volunteer editor here because they did a satisfactory job as a volunteer rather than a perfect job as a slave. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:54, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
The meta-commentary can also go here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Request-Edit_Queue_for_Paid_Editors_-_Policy_Issue Robert McClenon (talk) 03:13, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

As I mentioned earlier, what I hear from Mr. Beutler is that he would like a more variegated response to his proposals, and I'm more than willing to agree to that. I will go one step further and offer to implement requests from any one of his accounts which I come across and review as being approvable. I offer this because on some occassions I may be the quickest one to respond, and I don't think Beutler would disapprove of my implementing those he wished implemented. If any one of the Beutler account's requests involve claims which I wouldn't approve, or else involve a multi-part request where only some parts of it I would approve, I will leave the entire request untouched on the queue. Spintendo 06:20, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Spintendo, I appreciate your reply here and I am amenable to this. Thank you for participating here; while we may not always agree on the content guidelines, I respect your willingness to talk this through. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 12:27, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
While you may be amenable to this that is not how this process should work... If a non-conflicted Wikipedia editor feels the material should not be in the article then the material should not be in the article. Think of the edit request as the first step in the WP:BRD cycle. If it is declined as an edit request take it to talk. If no one is interested in the discussion and the editor who turned down the request can not be convinced, after a brief discussion, then you must accept that the content will not be added.
We are not here to support your business. You, and all paid editors, have a financial incentive to keep pushing. We, volunteers, can counter that by stating that no means no. If that does not work, there is another essay out there for dealing with overly pushy editors, they are simply ignored. I am all for that tactic should a paid editor or groups of editors forget that we are here to build an encyclopedia not service their needs and help them profit off the time we donate to the project. Servicing edit requests is a courtesy and a favor, not a requirement or duty. I strongly suggest that this group of paid editors shift their perspective from being frustrated with the requests which are declined to being thankful for the requests which are implemented. Jbh Talk 19:54, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
I completely agree with User:Jbhunley - We are not here to support your business, and we are not here to be pushed and pulled because your concept of fairness is not neutral. You complained above that all that you wanted was fair adjudication, and that you were only here because you did not get it. No, no, no. You are here because your concept of fair adjudication is not the same as the concept of fair adjudication of neutral editors, and neutral point of view is non-negotiable. The non-negotiability of neutral point of view is, by the way, I am proposing strict limits on access to dispute resolution by paid editors. Unrestricted access by paid editors to dispute resolution allows you to overtax the volunteers in order to tire them into acquiescing into sacrificing neutrality. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:15, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Well, I understand how you feel and I'm sorry we have to disagree here. As a longtime volunteer contributor myself, I am confident in my understanding of how Wikipedia should work. As a paid contributor, I spend a lot of time creating encyclopedic content that I believe is WP:NPOV, well-sourced, and even fairly conservative, so it's very frustrating when the answer is "no" even though Wikipedia's guidelines suggest the answer should be "yes". Hence my concern that all COI requests lately have been reviewed by just one editor, and I would be more concerned still if the guidelines were to state that any single editor's view must be taken as the final answer. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 20:49, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
I myself have worked in marketing and public relations, and, frankly, it feels like you are treating Spintendo as an employee doing an unsatisfactory job. I feel JBHunley's point is valid, and even strong. Spintendo is not your employee, and a financial incentive to push edits is completely against the idea of a free encyclopedia. Further, please note that one's interpretations of text may differ from someone else's. Indeed, I've had long, drawn out conversations with editors who, for example, interpreted the fact that something had been "Observed Twice" as meaning it had only "happened twice." Icarosaurvus (talk) 22:02, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
@WWB Too: The point you are missing is that you think the answer should be 'yes' based on your understanding and interpretation of policies and guidelines. Yet an editor without a financial incentive to publish the material feels it does not. If paid editors could be depended on not to read the guidelines in the best interest of accomplishing what they were paid for then we would not have WP:PAID and the ToU would not specifically require paid editors to disclose their edits.
You complain that only one editor spends their own time to allow you to make money??!!?? I put it to you that one of the options the community has is to call bullshit on that and each of us, independently and on our own initiative decide that if one is not good enough for you and your compatriots maybe it would be better for the project that no one answer those requests or maybe simply take two or three months to get to them like before that one editor started clearing things out.
Please remember that while you are motivated to get your edits in to make money the rest of us are strongly motivated to see that Wikipedia's core content policies are not subverted by commercial interests. Taking a voluntary service for granted and abusing goodwill is a great way to loose access to that service. Jbh Talk 22:30, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support closure: I don’t work the COI queue but my initial reaction was that the original request should have been brought up at WP:COIN or its Talk page, not ANI. ANI seemed inappropriate given that COI queue is a volunteer project. If the recipients are not satisfied with the “service” (WWB Too’s language) then it’s what it is. Singling out a particular editor seemed inappropriate as well. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:19, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

The stats[edit]

Robert McClenon asked whether edit requests have become lengthier and more complex. I cannot answer that question directly, but I can confirm that edit request filings have become much more numerous since Spintendo took on the thankless task of clearing the queue. PR departments keeping an eye on the backlog have realized that now is the time to file an edit request if they want an immediate response. By looking at the history of AnomieBOT's edit request queue and doing some offline spreadsheeting, I used AnomieBOT's edit summaries to roughly approximate how many edit requests were filed each month.

I can't get the x-axis labels to render correctly. But the large hump on the right side of the graph corresponds to the period November 2017 through March 2018 (five data points). Spintendo began clearing the backlog around December 1, 2017, and edit request filings have rapidly increased because Spintendo has responded much faster than prior editors.

Note that the edit request backlog has stayed clear thus far, most likely because of Spintendo. The following graph averages the number of edit requests outstanding in all of AnomieBOT's edit summaries for each calendar month, from the creation of EDITREQTable in July 2012 to the present.

The graph above shows that the edit request backlog currently sits at a low not seen since the edit request queue was created in July 2012. The backlog has a tendency to grow rapidly until an editor spends a few weeks clearing it out. But these editors typically do not return to keep the backlog small after they have drastically reduced the number of entries, probably because answering edit requests is exhausting; hence the backlog quickly returns to its original levels. January 2018 through March 2018 marks the first three month period in several years where the backlog has been cleared and has stayed cleared. I have no doubt this is due to Spintendo's efforts. Altamel (talk) 05:36, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

I rotated the x-axis labels. Johnuniq (talk) 00:56, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
This is amazing data and I thank you very much for posting it. I sense that the Beutler response would be, what good is it having the edit requests go out quicker if he's denying all of them? To counter that, we'd need to see a graph of every one of my edit requests, implemented versus declined, to see what the trend looked like, which is something I think would be worthwhile to see. Thank you again Altamel for compiling this! Spintendo      06:45, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
I agree this is all really interesting. I would also be curious how many of these are the "Beutler requests" over time, as myself and my colleagues have been regular users. My guess is we are fairly consistent, however it's certainly possible we may have been more active in recent months. And Spintendo is correct about my take: while it's generally a good thing that the queue is manageable, I think it is coming at the expense of decent outcomes. Unfortunately, no chart will be able to show that. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 12:24, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Assumptions of bad faith?[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I've not edited Wikipedia in... three or four years? Something like that. But today I started adding some content to the current events portal and, for my efforts, have had my edits summarily removed without explanation and received a threatening talk page message telling me "Please, consider making good faith edits before you indulge in vandalism. I wouldn't vandalize Wikipedia if I were you." If this is the welcome editors expect now, then WP:AGF and WP:BITE must have fallen by the wayside. 2.28.13.202 (talk) 01:47, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Can you provide diffs of what you added and what was subsequently removed? 2601:401:500:5D25:F8EE:FAB1:7C4D:FBA2 (talk) 01:53, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes. addition, revert without explanation, readdition, next item added, summary revert, and then an accusation of vandalism and the additional threat "I had to revert two of your edits (I would've reverted a third, but that was impossible)". I assume the third was the readdition of the previously removed material. 2.28.13.202 (talk) 01:57, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
You are dangerously close to violating 3RR 2601:401:500:5D25:F8EE:FAB1:7C4D:FBA2 (talk) 02:01, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Don't worry, I've been keeping count. In any event I don't intend any additional reverts now there are uninvolved eyes involved. Would much rather leave it up to experienced editors now to do (or not do) whatever they deem correct. 2.28.13.202 (talk) 02:04, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Call me when you get the chance is, however, quite out of bounds making unfounded accusations of vandalism for what appear to be clearly good faith additions. Jbh Talk 02:08, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm sorry, it won't happen again. Call me when you get the chance (We need to talk) 02:09, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Good. Few things irritate me (and many others) more than the unexplained reverts of IP edits and the subsequent warnings. And 2601:401:500:5D25:F8EE:FAB1:7C4D:FBA2, please don't fetishize 3R. If anyone was going to get blocked there, it wouldn't have been the IP--assuming the admin on call knew what they were doing. Drmies (talk) 02:45, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

This was so weird, and so obviously not vandalism, that I've started looking over this user's contributions and I've found this exchange which is troubling: "Your "trying to help out" was not what it seems. Please reconsider passing off vandalism as "un-vandalizing." If you wish to make more useful contributions, you should create an account. I think one account is enough for you as it is for me. Maybe you can come up with a catchy name instead of impersonating other Wikipedians[...] Now, please, stop trying to fake innocence when you are vandalizing the wiki, which could get you blocked for doing so, ya hear?" That was also targetted at an IP making good faith edits to the article. 2.28.13.202 (talk) 03:11, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

And a(n admittedly weak) personal attack here. 2.28.13.202 (talk) 03:15, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
And a weak PA here too. I'm gonna leave it there as I don't want the user to feel harassed and they obviously have passion. 2.28.13.202 (talk) 03:22, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) x2 They are a relatively new editor and I have not noticed that this issue has been addressed with them before. I have 'counseled' them on their talk page. If they go after an IP again I would support admin intervention (and I have no doubt Drmies would come down on them like a ton of bricks if they do it again) but, as things stand, they have apologized which is more than many do when they screw up. Jbh Talk 03:25, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
    I've just read your note and it seems very fair and reasonable. Like you said, 'fessing up to one's mistakes is a very positive character trait. 2.28.13.202 (talk) 03:28, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • It is now happening again. Is it now considered normal to wholesale delete contributions by newcomers without explanation? 2.28.13.202 (talk) 05:13, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • There is an unexplained wholesale deetion of sourced content here, another here, and a third here. I'm going to restore them all citing this thread. 92.10.184.187 (talk) 16:10, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Those were all good deletions, all trivial events. Beyond My Ken (talk) 15:55, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Our ethos and guidelines are that unregistered editors are treated the same. The reality is they are not. As an IP editor you have restricted use of the site, and certain personal details about you are revealed through your IP address (there should be more warning about this in the software, but there isn't). In addition, because the bulk of inappropriate edits are made by unregistered accounts, some users tend to be more dubious about contributions by IP editors than by registered users. See Wikipedia:Tutorial/Registration for more information; and for a smoother experience when editing Wikipedia, give some consideration to registering. SilkTork (talk) 11:36, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
A nice idea in theory; however years of experience have told me that IPs are sometimes editors who have retired and just want to dip their toe back into the place while also having their edits judged purely on their own merits (which I believe is the case here), or editors who left after harassment and don't want to be treated like crap (not that IPs don't get treated like crap already, as I can testify from personal experience). Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:13, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

If an IP has edited on Wikipedia before, as a registered account. Then he/she should reveal that old account or create a new account. I'm not a fan of mysteries. GoodDay (talk) 16:17, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

That flies in the face of policy and ethos on this site, surely? Can you please link me a policy to support your demands? 92.10.184.187 (talk) 16:22, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
So long as the IP is not editing in violation of WP:BADSOCK there is no requirement for an IP, or any account, to disclose. An IP user whose IP address changes should make it clear they are not different people ie there needs to be continuity of identity in situations where confusion could occur. SOCK does not quite go this far but rather says "Editors who are not logged in must not actively try to deceive other editors" (emp mine) Jbh Talk 16:44, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • This is a textbook example of how an ANI works. IP editor comes with valid complaint and proof. That gets warped into claims that they are socks or bad actors. Is Drmies the only rational editor here?104.163.147.121 (talk) 22:20, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes, Drmies is the only rational editor here ... except for all the others. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:20, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • But, actually, your explication of how AN/I works is missing some steps: IP editor comes with valid complaint, complaint is dealt with, IP editor continues to complain, IP's story starts to show inconsistencies, mention is made of socks and bad actors, IP is determined to be sock of blocked editor. That happens more times then would be expected by randomness. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:24, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry, exactly who are you accusing me of being a sock of? The last three days, on the IPs listed here, are my only contributions in years. So go ahead, show me your evidence I'm a "bad actor". 92.10.188.218 (talk) 17:36, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Maybe you should lose the chip on your shoulder, and ratchet up your reading comprehension a bit: no accusation was made against you, just a general statement about a scenario which happens at AN/I quite frequently. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:21, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
  • If your IP didn't keep jumping around, I think contributors would be more charitable. The initial reverts were questionable, but not to the point that I support administrative action; and the OP's additions appear to all be included on Portal:Current events/2018 March 20 at this time. I do suggest you register an account if you don't want further complaints to be ignored through bureaucratic inefficiency. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:48, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Well, how do I stop my IP from changing? It's not like I ask it to. I wake up and it's different each day. 92.10.177.190 (talk) 14:45, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
  • There is not much you can do to stop it. DHCP, a method of provisioning IP addresses, has a 'lease' time. If you are connected when it expires you will usually get the same IP back but if you are not someone else often will have been assigned the one you had and you will get another address. One thing I have seen other long term IP editors do is add something like --IP9210, --BobTheIP, or something similar before signing with ~~~~. Not as convenient as having an account but it gives some continuity of identity and many would see it as a nice gesture. Jbh Talk 16:41, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Anonymous IP editor to CBS Sports and NBC Sports[edit]

An anonymous IP address (50.101.89.176) has been making repeated and disruptive edits to several articles, including CBS Sports and NBC Sports. In particular, said IP address has been repeatedly claiming that both networks hold broadcast rights to the NBA, without any source (going as far as to copy and paste CBS's current college basketball coverage team into both articles and claiming it is their NBA broadcast team); CBS has not held NBA rights since 1990, and NBC hasn't had them since 2002. Version of CBS Sports without disruptive and false edits, Version of CBS Sports with disruptive and false edits... Version of NBC Sports without disruptive and false edits, Version of NBC Sports with disruptive and false edits. J. Myrle Fuller (talk) 18:03, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Stubborn edit-warrior and POV-pusher[edit]

I am fed-up of allways having to go trough edit-wars with Director. This is the last case: Yugoslav Air Force edit history. As anyone can clearly see at the article infobox Yugoslav Air Force, the amblem of the air force contains the insignia RV PVO (for Ratno vazduhoplovstvo Protivvazdušna odbrana). That was the official name of the Yugoslav Air Force and Air Defense in Serbo-Croatian. Now, the issue is that during Yugoslavia, Serbian version of Serbo-Croatian was prefered over Croatian one and used officially (like Russian was in USSR over other languages). However, Croatian user Director insists in deleting the Serbian version corresponding to the official name, and inseting the not used Croatian version which obviously doesnt match the initials (Ratno zrakoplovstvo i protuzračna obrana. As anyone can see, the official name was RV PVO and not RZ PZO. Director removed the official name and replaced it with a Croatian name version in a place where official name stands in the infobox with this ridiculous excuse: Rv. This is a TRANSLATION, FkpCascais. When I left his "translation" but reinserted the official name, he reverted me again. He is obviously using all excuses just to have the Croatian version as official, which is wrong and awfull nationalistic POV-pushing.

So, I am fed-up of this petty nationalistic POV-pushing, removing official name just because it is in another language that not in his one is a no-no. Then further edit-waring over it, this editor does this constantly, please condemn this negative nationalistic behaviour. FkpCascais (talk) 13:36, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree with you on this one. The Serbian language uses both latin and cyrilic script, while the Croatian language uses latin script only. Both are de facto post-war standardized varieties of of the Serbo-Croatian language. I have reverted his edit.--AirWolf talk 14:17, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
OK, that was the issue in the article, however, the issue here is really about Director´s behavior. He knows perfectly well that in Yugoslavia all national institutions were named in its official Serbian variant of Serbo-Croatian. As in USSR all were in Russian, and not Kyrgyz. Obviously that in countries with more than one official language, every other language had its corresponding name in that language for the institution, I agree that it should be mentioned as well, but this user is removing the official version of the name just because it doesnt correspond to his prefered one, and he does this often using all excuses he can and reverting agressivelly. This was just another exemple of his behavior, not even the clear initials from the official amblem served, he reverted with excuse of Croatian being "a translation" (if just a translation, does it even deserves a place in infobox then? And he want to put a translation as official name?). The point here is Direktors nationalistic POV-pushing where he does all he can to present the Croatian version as official and remove the Serbian one (OK, leaves the Cyrillic version, knowing 99% of en.wiki readers dont understands it, and ignores on purpose Serbian Latin version is official). FkpCascais (talk) 14:53, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
These reverts are not right and are bad-intentioned:
We should not face the stress of dealing with this behavior. Removing the official naming and replacing it by his prefered Croatian version is just low nationalistic POV-pushing which should not be tolerated here. FkpCascais (talk) 15:35, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Firstly, this is no place to discuss a content dispute. Secondly, the brackets in the lead have nothing to do with historical usage, but are modern-day translations in the relevant language(s). Thirdly "RV PVO" is just the acronym on the logo. You know full well that Serbo-Croatian in Yugoslavia had two variants... Serbian and Croatian... I can easily present sources indicating the contemporary (Yugoslav-era) use of the Croatian version ("Jugoslavensko ratno zrakoplovstvo"). If anyone is pushing a history-distorting Serbian-nationalist POV - it is precisely you. You are excluding the Croatian variant. And hardly for the first time, either...

You introduced edits, I reverted them as misinformed and inappropriate... I suppose trying to get me blocked is your best argument? or is it the inevitable edit-warring you will initiate once this angle fails...? -- Director (talk) 16:01, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

P.s. In an ideal world this shouldn't matter, but I will point out that AirWolf is another Serbian editor... a friend, perhaps? Either way they may be looking to edit-war their exclusion of the Croatian version into the article, by means of WP:GAMING the 3RR... Neither have as yet condescended to post a thread on the talkpage to discuss their (new, opposed) edit. -- Director (talk) 16:18, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Please, leave aside ad hominem attacks in discussions. I hope that both of you agree with the current state of "translations" on the article - [166]. It uses both language variants of Serbo-Croatian, in total two official scripts of the Serbian language and latin script in Croatian language. The relevant discussion if some of you do not agree, is placed at the article's TP - Talk:Yugoslav_Air_Force#Use_of_Serbo-Croatian_variants.--AirWolf talk 17:07, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Response to Direktors claims: It is me who actually DIDN´T exclude any variant (diff]) but Direktor who insisted in excluding twice (Revert 1 and Revert 2) the Serbian Latin variant (used officially by the institution) and replacing it by his prefered Croatian one. It is just silly nationalistic POV-pushing followed by regular stubborn edit-warring too much frequent in this editors behavior and as such becomes really disruptive. One should not have to deal with this disruption always when edits an article this user does as well and considers its own. FkpCascais (talk) 19:01, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

FkpCascais is a well known POV pusher who was reported many times and warned against such behavior. I personally had to open several RfCs because of his behavior. 141.136.192.69 (talk) 20:04, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Just a few days ago I had to revert his deeds again. You know, no one has time to watch over him. 141.136.192.69 (talk) 20:31, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Keep aside from ad hominem attacks, and in case you have a registered account, please log in. I don't see how in this case FkpCascais pushed his POV. He also insisted on both languages, and use of all three scripts.--AirWolf talk 20:43, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Sorry. I'm just sick of having to deal with this guy all the time. [167] is just from 2 days ago. And he constantly goes around Croatian articles inserting such POV. 141.136.192.69 (talk) 21:43, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
I am such an obstacle to nationalist POV-pushing, am I IP (most probable cmtsock)? FkpCascais (talk) 00:05, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Here he goes again [168]. I was participating in that discussion a year ago. He refused to discuss when I presented sources. Instead he waited and then he went to introduce his POV. I can't watch over him. This kind of behavior is disruptive. Here's the discussion from a year ago [2].141.136.219.182 (talk) 23:49, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Topic ban proposal - LoveVanPersie[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I have just blocked LoveVanPersie (talk · contribs) for repeatedly adding unsourced IPA pronunciations to articles. This seems to be an ongoing and long-term problem - see #Long-term disruptive editing by LoveVanPersie above (I'm starting a new discussion here so it doesn't get lost - feel free to move/merge if you deem it necessary). I therefore propose that LoveVanPersie is indefinitely topic banned from adding IPA pronunciations, even if they are sourced, to all articles. I would also propose a mass rollback of all of his edits related to IPA. GiantSnowman 10:56, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

No comment on the ban idea, but why would you rollback every edit by someone who's temporarily blocked? Or in other words, why wouldn't you propose a full siteban for someone if all his edits need to be rolled back? I can imagine either ("roll back everything" and "remove permanently") or ("temporary block" and "topic ban") making sense, but someone who needs to have all his edits removed isn't someone who ought to be contributing at all. Nyttend (talk) 11:47, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
@Nyttend: I've clarified that I meant rollback edits related to this topic. GiantSnowman 12:31, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
@Nyttend: I've reviewed this editor's edits in more detail, and am struggling to find anything that isn't IPA related - perhaps a site ban is justified, and a mass rollback is (IMHO) certainly is, given the concerns shared by multiple editors about this editor's editing and sourcing. GiantSnowman 13:53, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
Also no comment on the ban idea, but User:LoveVanPersie in the last edit provided references (and provided references increasingly, though arguably not sufficient in the first edits). I don't think it is a good idea to block an editor who you are reverting and who is trying to address your concerns - and I get the feeling from the above discussion that the concerns are controversial in the first place. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:53, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
@Beetstra: he's not trying to address any concerns, he is trying to add IPA based on some mis-belief that that a language's "standard" pronunciation applies to everyone, regardless of where they are from. Would you give someone from Texas a New York IPA? They repeatedly added the same material, first unsourced, then sourced to random Wikipedia articles, then sourced to a website which gives 38 (!!!) different pronunciations of the same word... GiantSnowman 12:31, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
@GiantSnowman: so you basically confirm that IPA is a controversial topic??? So I still think it is a bad idea to block an editor with whom you are editwarring over such a controversial subject, who is trying to address your concerns (but clearly not to your liking of addressing). —Dirk Beetstra T C 14:47, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
@Beetstra: no, I blocked an editor with a long history of adding un-sourced and poorly sourced content to BLPs (that happens to be IPA) and ignoring warnings. BTW if you want to accuse me of being WP:INVOLVED then just come out and say it...FWIW two admins (@Yamla and Yunshui:) have already reviewed the block. GiantSnowman 15:18, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
@GiantSnowman: I am not accusing you of being 8nvolved, because that is a too strong a word. I see an editor who is trying to improve (see also thread above), but gets reverted and reverted without an attempt to work together to solve the problem, and without a clear indication on how to use IPA (that is how I digest the above thread). Many throughout Wikipedia are unsourced, but apparently this editor is forced to properly source because other people, apparently, have said sources to show he is wrong. All I see is people stating LVP is wrong because LVP cannot source, without sources to show what is right. And yes, I know my WP:V and WP:RS. —Dirk Beetstra T C 04:09, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
@Beetstra: I'm not required to teach phonetics to him. WP:COMPETENCE is required to edit Wikipedia. I've already spent hours and hours helping him - see my talk page. Even if that weren't the case, I still feel that my message would be justified. Mr KEBAB (talk) 05:45, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
@Mr KEBAB: I know you are not required. But I still have the feeling that this whole bickering is about something that is not an editor problem per sé (as also noted in above thread), but a lack of guidance and direction (but that is not strange to Wikipedia - we tie things to the editor, not necessarily to the problem). This situation is very similar to what we once ran into at the chemicals/chemistry WikiProject, and it is in the grey area between '1 + 1 = 2' and '0.999999999... = 1' .. both are 'simple mathematics' (agreed, the latter controversial) - but where do you draw a line between the two, do you mention them with a SYNTHESIS-source, do you mention them without a source, or do you chose to omit them completely. And I have been, in that case, close to bringing the editor to ANI over it. Here it is the same - do we need a source on it in the first place (WP:MOS/Pronunciation does not mention it - David Aardsma .. originally Dutch surname from the same area in NL where I am from, I would not pronounce that a z as in zoom, but an s as in sun - it lacks a reference since it addition in 2010/2012), where nearly every source amounts to (a certain amount of) synthesis (the number of ways people pronounce my given name and my surname .. ), or should we not mention them at all? --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:45, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
@Beetstra: See [169] and User talk:LoveVanPersie#Miloslav Mečíř Jr. and judge for yourself whether LVP was guided properly.
The reason he's making so many mistakes in his transcriptions is that he's overvaluing his listening skills and because he doesn't read specialized literature, which he doesn't read because his English isn't good enough. In such situations you don't really guide people as much as you just do their job for them. We both know what tends to happen to people who do that in real world, don't we? :)
Transcriptions linking to Help:IPA/X guides generally should always follow said guides which always (well, nearly always) follow reputable sources. When you transcribe something into IPA it doesn't mean that every symbol has to be taken completely literally. I mean, look at Help:IPA/Danish and Danish phonology - most symbols for the unrounded front vowels are seriously wrong when taken literally. The name of Hans Jørgen Uldall isn't really pronounced [hans jɶɐ̯n̩ ˈuldæːˀl] but [hæns jœɒ̯n̩ ˈultɛːˀl] (or even [hɛns -]). There are levels of narrowness to IPA transcriptions. Phonemic transcriptions (those enclosed within slashes /.../) are almost always broad, but phonetic transcriptions (enclosed within square brackets [...]) may be narrow, broad, or anything in between ("semi-narrow"). Mr KEBAB (talk) 07:09, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
@Mr KEBAB: Sorry, I was slightly unclear. My 'guidance and direction' was more Wikipedia-wide, not to the people trying to guide/direct. The bickering is about the person, while Wikipedia does not have proper IPA guidance for the names of persons (where two Dirks in one street may have different pronounciations). It works for 'banana', it does not work for 'Dirk' (the given name). --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:00, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
His transcriptions have a rather high margin of error, especially when it comes to correctly identifying stressed syllables in Spanish. I don't think there's anything controversial in my original post. Maybe I should've omitted more trivial mistakes, but then again - he's making lots of them.
There also are French, Portuguese and Basque transcriptions of his that I'm unable to check. The issue could be even bigger than we think. Mr KEBAB (talk) 12:11, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
His edits are all either unsourced or poorly sourced, and all relate to IPA, particularly for BLPs. This is seriously concerning. GiantSnowman 14:08, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support Tban 6 months or indef for all IPAs, or just BLP IPAs, until they can demonstrate they know how to proerly add and source IPAs. L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 16:05, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support topic ban (disclaimer: I was pinged above, but I've only been in casual contact with LVP). I think it's fairly obvious action – when someone shows they're unable to get it despite repeated and kind appeals and error-pointing, forcefully stopping them seems to be the only answer.
    As a side issue, in practice we have rather lax requirements for sourcing of pronunciations: any native speaker in the know or a trained linguist can write them based on a sound record or regularity of orthography (so I don't think WP:CRYBLP is in order), but LVP has soundly demonstrated a lack of competence in the area and should be stopped for that reason only. No such user (talk) 16:19, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support TBan, 6 months or indef for all IPAs. This comment ("Every IPA I added has been confirmed on YouTube and Forvo.") combined with claiming Wikipedia articles count as reliable sources, indicates to me this user hasn't read or doesn't understand WP:RS. I tried pointing them to WP:RS, apparently at least the fourth time they've been pointed to that policy. But they don't appear to have noticed yet. --Yamla (talk) 19:11, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose (at least for now). Mainly per above thread and common practice. —Dirk Beetstra T C 04:10, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Support topic ban but oppose block rationale even though I don't mind the block itself. I defer to Mr KEBAB about whether LVP's IPA edits should be rolled back en masse.

    Blocking a disruptive SPA on competence grounds is fine. But unsourced? Give me a break, IPA is just a written transcription of how words are pronounced. LVP's IPA problem wasn't that his transcriptions were unsourced, it's that they were wrong.

    I trust Wikipedia editors to know how words in their native languages are pronounced (except in rare cases of genuine doubt) just like I trust them to be able to distinguish grammatical sentences in their native languages from ungrammatical ones, a task historically very difficult for grammarians to explicate precisely, and which is still beyond the reach of computers. And I trust our resident IPA weenies to be able to check transcriptions of spoken pronunciation into IPA orthography just like I trust our content contributors to spell words correctly (even if there's an occasional error).

    The last thing I want is Wikipedia's WP:RS goon squads tag bombing IPA transcriptions all over the project. Next we'll get a tag next to every sentence in every article asking for citations that that the sentence is grammatical, and a tag next to every word asking for a link to an external RS saying that the word is spelled correctly. Stop this, just stop it, IPA is (usually) part of the presentation and not part of the content, and as such it's something that we have to get right on our own.

    Also, Youtube is a perfectly good and useful RS for pronunciations. I've used it a few times to cite how people pronounce their own names: see Ronda Rousey as an example of this. The IPA in her biography lede links to a Youtube video of her introducing herself by name at the beginning of a TV show. We're in a mad bureaucracy if we think a video of her pronouncing her own name in a TV studio is unreliable. The subtlety that Dirk Beetstra ran into is about regional pronunciations: e.g., if we want an IPA transcription of a German word, we'd normally want Standard German (the dialect of Northern Germany) so we shouldn't transcribe it from a video of Arnold Schwarzenegger saying the word even though he has a cool accent, because his native dialect is Austrian. It's all contextual. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 06:10, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

  • Support indefinite topic ban. If LVP's past behavior is any indication, he/she won't learn from any of this and will continue making sloppy transcriptions the moment we lift a ban. I wouldn't be surprised if LVP ignores the topic ban and gets an indef block as a result. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 18:20, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Unless we find people who can check all the transcriptions he's put into WP articles, then rolling them back is the only alternative. LVP has proven not to care about quality but quantity.
I also mostly agree with the rest of your post, I just didn't say it because I didn't want to start an argument (and I'm not saying that's what you're doing). But I also understand when someone considers WP:RS to be more important. I don't find this an easy issue. Mr KEBAB (talk) 06:28, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm saying RS should be an issue iff there's real significant doubt, which is usually not the case. We should otherwise rely on our editors' linguistic competence, at least for their own languages. This particular incident was because of LVP trying to write IPA for languages in which he wasn't competent. Most editors aren't silly enough to attempt things like that, at least after they've been called on mistakes a few times. So this was unusual and we shouldn't go into an RS tizzy over it. I hope that makes sense. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 07:03, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
This is roughly what I mean above. IPA's seem to be poorly sourced, controversial, and often amount to synthesis. WP:MOS/Pronunciation is not mentioning sourcing requirements, WP:IPA does not mention sourcing requirements. Does this require sourcing in the first place, or does this amount to a high level of WP:SYNTHESIS by definition and therefor it should neither be sourced, nor mentioned unless there is a direct, independent source for the specific case (my name, Dirk, is pronounced in different ways depending on the mother tongue of the person pronouncing it (or even, 'mother dialect'), and there is no set pronunciation). It simply doesn't work, and there are hardly any proper references that do not amount to synthesis in most cases. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:21, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I can't remember other controversies/disputes like this one. There's nationalistic disputes like Kiev vs Kyiv (same name in two dialects), but there's no disagreement about how to pronounce either version. No US English speaker will have trouble figuring out "Donald Trump"'s pronunciation from its spelling (even if they'd never heard someone else pronounce it), so the idea that the IPA for it should have to be externally sourced is absurd. For a Dutch name like yours, I don't have reason to doubt (unless you say otherwise) that I can trust Dutch-speaking Wikipedians to either confidently get it right, or recognize that there is uncertainty and look for a source (like the contributors to Ronda Rousey's biography weren't sure if the s in her last name was voiced or unvoiced, thus the link to the youtube clip).

Omitting the pronunciation info altogether is terrible too. It damages the encyclopedia's usefulness for the sake of bureaucracy. It might not matter for Trump, but for articles like Zbigniew Brzezinski or Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy the pronunciation info is very helpful. Those articles have audio clips of Wikipedian speakers of the relevant languages saying the names. Are you telling me those audios are SYNTH, and if I made an audio pronouncing "Donald Trump" or "California" (the state where I live) it would similarly be SYNTH? If we rejected Wikipedian pronunciations of "California" and wanted genuine RS for it, where would we even look? How about an authority like the top leader of the state government? Oh whoops, until recently that would have been former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and (trust me) a clip from him would have been less encyclopedically sound than a clip from me (though it would have been badass).

In some hairsplitting philosophical sense the editor pronunciations might be SYNTH, but pursuing the SYNTH concept that far would be bureaucracy gone nuts. We're trying to write a practical encyclopedia and our sourcing practices are supposed to serve that goal, not give it hoops to jump through. So I always want there to be more of those audios (and IPA is just transcription of audio) and I'm glad when Wikipedians make them. If you were to do some Dutch ones I'd be delighted.

We should not be looking for more places to turn our bureaucracy loose. We should be looking for ways to stuff it back into the can. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 08:51, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

@173.228.123.121: The SYNTH argument is why we more-or-less dropped systematic naming in chemical compounds - it is mathematically straightforward .. and not. And this is more fragile than that, as I say above, my name is pronounced slightly different depending on the mother tongue of the pronouncer. I agree, for Donald that is not going to change too much, though even there the length of the o and a could change. Anyway, the first revert says 'unsourced'. That suggests that the original is controversial, and needs a proper WP:RS (or is it a my synth against your synth?). I would ask the same for the surname of David Aardsma - a clear North-Dutch-origin surname, where I would pronounce an 's' sound (as in sun), but the article puts a 'z' sound (as in zoom). There are a lot of cases there where I think the pronunciation is controversial. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:45, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
And I would argue that the revert based solely on sourcing grounds was a very WP:DICKish thing to do. It does not suggest that the original is controversial, but merely that the reverter is a member of, quote, WP:RS goon squads tag bombing IPA transcriptions all over the project. Bizarrely enough, that particular IPA by LVP seem to have been correct. But we're straying off-topic for ANI now, I would support anyone hatting this subthread. No such user (talk) 17:00, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
The IPA was correct. Mr KEBAB (talk) 12:58, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

He is currently spamming various talk pages with threads about IPA transcriptions and how they should be fixed. He already made two mistakes: [170], [171]. Should that be viewed as ignoring the topic ban? Mr KEBAB (talk) 18:51, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

The topic ban has not been formerly introduced - can an uninvolved admin please review and close? GiantSnowman 08:37, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
...that's true. My bad. Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:39, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Still needs closing... GiantSnowman 07:44, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Mass rollback[edit]

  • @Mr KEBAB: you're the editor who originally raised this IPA issue a week ago - what are your views on a mass rollback? GiantSnowman 08:39, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
    • @GiantSnowman:As I said above, Unless we find people who can check all the transcriptions he's put into WP articles, then rolling them back is the only alternative.
I'll also note that LVP said on his talk page that I corrected all of his transcriptions, which is obviously untrue. Mr KEBAB (talk) 09:18, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Irrevelant info at WISN-TV[edit]

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DaneGeld has added information to the WISN-TV article on how the station's website is geoblocked outside the U.S. I deleted the edit as irrevelant. [172] Now DaneGeld wants me to restore his edit, saying its "absolutely pertinent." [173] Should I? Mvcg66b3r (talk) 23:24, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

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EWD: Editing while drunk at Gender differences in suicide[edit]

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Please block. Person was disruptive and writing weird stuff today about "no bitcoin thx" (e.g. diff) and then wrote: I'm also drunk now thus stick to what it is worth that I did followed by this too drunk for blowjobs tonight

Please block. Jytdog (talk) 23:11, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I support Jytdog on this. I noted at the article's talk page that Jytdog, Doc James and myself have had to repeatedly revert this editor's edits on suicide matters because he so often engages in WP:Synthesis or outright POV-pushing, and that I am very likely to propose that the editor be topic banned from editing suicide articles. The editor won't listen to reason when it comes to WP:Synthesis, but sexist stuff like "too drunk for blowjobs tonight" just further shows a WP:NOTHERE attitude. And, yes, I'm sure that SuperSucker, who knows my sex/gender, was directing that comment at me. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:21, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
  • The edit warring has now expanded to Commons. Would anyone want to chime in there? Walter Görlitz (talk) 00:31, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
You'll need to report the issue over at Wikimedia Commons. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 01:26, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Twinkle doesn't work there, so I won't, which I mentioned it here. If someone wants to report it there, feel free to. Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:54, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I have contacted this editor six times about created unreferenced articles over the last 7 weeks, but they have ignored all of them. They have also received similar messages from other editors. I have directed them towards WP:Communication is required, WP:V and WP:BURDEN but can get no response (see User talk:Pro Regnum Siciliæ. They appear to have not responded to any communication in the two years they have been editing. Boleyn (talk) 20:40, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

  • Blocked for two weeks in an attempt to provoke reaction. Without prejudice to an early unblock if user responds positively. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:48, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
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User OllyDarcyRoblox states that their "account was hacked"[edit]

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Hi, I'm not sure if someone should have a closer look at this. It might be either a bad excuse or an (involuntarily?) shared account: Talk:Alexnewtron User:OllyDarcyRoblox ~ ToBeFree (talk) 12:19, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Per WP:GOTHACKED I've blocked the account. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:23, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm a white hat and network security expert. I can definitely help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kizznyc (talkcontribs) 14:45, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

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Jesse Waugh AfD[edit]

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The editor Jessewaugh has been disrupting the Afd of the same name with persistent personal attacks. "You’re just another bandwagon leftist [[User:Binksternet|Binksternet]] - when they’re finished with me who do you think they’re coming after? You’re the wrong gender, buddy - also the wrong race - so it’s only a matter of time before they purge you too." (diff) and also "Note to [[User:Theredproject|Theredproject]]: This whole kangaroo court we're suffering is you and your man-hating minions launching an ad-hominem attack against me for being a White male artist. You'll of course claim otherwise and try to gaslight me for stating the obvious, but we all know the truth: Your entire paradigm is failing, and like jackals, you feminazis gang up on any subject you perceive to have a weakness in your quest to purge Wikipedia of men. That and you're personally frustrated that your non-art gets exhibited but no recognition because it is meaningless, Michael Mandiberg. Let it be known that the previous sentence is no more a personal attack than is this whole Kafkaesque stoning of me." (diff) There are apparently others in the edit history. He was warned on his user page. So, personal attacks and also a blatant attempt to disrupt the AfD.104.163.147.121 (talk) 01:22, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I've issued a strongly worded Final Warning. If this continues ping me and I will drop the hammer. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:29, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
thanks.104.163.147.121 (talk) 01:30, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
His rants (some of which were directed at me) are definitely something that makes Wikipedia feel more unwelcoming and not an inclusive environment. – Jooojay (talk) 03:07, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
As noted above, he has been given a very firm final warning. Any further disruptive editing will result in a block. Let me know if this persists. -Ad Orientem (talk) 14:23, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
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Can someone please have a word with Nick845?[edit]

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Nick845 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I noticed this user after I was pinged on Talk:George H. W. Bush. The user in question is editwarring in several articles, such as Rex Tillerson, George H. W. Bush, James Comey. He's been warned twice (1, 2). His reaction to the last warning was "I suggest that you stop policing other people's pages, stop making empty threats, and start being smart." and he stuck with it. All in all he's well into WP:ARBAP territory. Although Nick845 seems to be here to contribute, he displays all the signs of habitual WP:IDHT and an apparent unwillingness to use talk pages or to seek and abide by consensus. Kleuske (talk) 21:55, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

  • Well, Tillerson is under 1RR, and anyone would be within their rights to pass out a short involuntary break during which they could... familiarize themselves with our policies, after having been given both the bureaucratically required notice as well as a follow up reminder. If they're amenable to some friendly but stern advice, we can probably chalk it up to inexperience, but their response on my talk gives me doubts that they're open to constructive criticism. For my own part, I figured I'd wait to see what they did next. The restored text at Tillerson is at least arguably a fair-ish summary, which before it was...something, but wasn't exactly that, and on a BLP that's getting an (admittedly highly skewed) ~23k page views per day (but honestly more around 4k). GMGtalk 22:11, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
You know what? GMG, I'm starting to like you. I take back my admittedly harsh and undue reaction. Instead, I'm going to transfer it to Kleuske. Nick845 (talk) 22:32, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Blocked 72 hours. --NeilN talk to me 23:09, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Would someone be so kind as to restore the James Comey article back to the consensus version after Nick845's 1RR violation? His slow edit warring on this content started back in February. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 23:23, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done Without prejudice to any other editor who disagrees. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:44, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
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70.91.221.157[edit]

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Would someone mind removing the crap from this IP's talk page and revoke their access to edit it? Thanks. 172.58.46.235 (talk) 17:16, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Looks as though it’s been cleaned up. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 17:33, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
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Elmidae is treating AfD as Notability tag[edit]

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I would like to raise a concern that Elmidae is treating AofD as Notability tag.

Elmidae flagged Wei Dai for AfD without going though the AofD policy in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#Before nominating: checks and alternatives required steps including

  1. C.2. If an article has issues try first raising your concerns on the article's talk page, with the main contributors, or an associated WikiProject, and/or adding a cleanup tag, such as {{notability}}, {{hoax}}, {{original research}}, or {{advert}}; this ensures readers are aware of the problem and may act to remedy it.
  2. D. Search for additional sources, if the main concern is notability
  3. 1. The minimum search expected is a normal Google search, a Google Books search, a Google News search, and a Google News archive search; Google Scholar is suggested for academic subjects.

And to my understanding Elmidae has not been actively contributing this topic area (cryptocurrency) to be qualified as an "Editor familiar with the field."

He said in the Wei Dai AofD:

 I'll readily own to being ignorant about the topic, and having no respect whatsoever for your idols. It's for you to show their notability to people like me by referencing sources that clearly demonstrate that assessment. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 07:05, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
 Suffice to say that it seems well understood in the NPP crowd that notability tagging in most cases is just equivalent to passing the buck to an empty place at the table - the related maintenance queues are vast and growing, and chances are that nothing will be done about any specific article any time soon. If a check of provided sources raises reasonable doubt about nthe notability(which I believe to be the case here), I prefer to call for a discussion and get decisive input. I don't buy any accusations about "forcing people to respond" - we are all volunteers that do as much as we want to; the final metric is article quality, not how much or how little work any editor was able to get away with; and if there is need for more expansive comments in an AfD, then the likelihood is that there was need for work on the article. - But let's not turn this into too much of a meta-discussion on notability tags vs AfD nominations, please. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:44, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

I am convinced that Elmidae is using AofD as Notability tag because he believes a Notability tag is not as effective(as he said ). I disagree with this approach. Instead of keeping flagging new article for AofD, I'd suggested him to take a different approach:

  1. Raise his concern if he believes the Notability tag is ineffective, and suggest the community to collaboratively make a decision to change the policy in his favored direction.
  2. Prioritize flag AofD the articles which have had Notability tag for a while.

I would like to raise awareness and start a discussion here.

Xinbenlv (talk) 16:23, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Xinbenlv, you need to notify Elmidae on their talk page that you are discussing them here. ~ GB fan 16:30, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
GB fan, sure. Xinbenlv (talk) 16:32, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • In general, when reviewing a page for notability one should make a good-faith search for source material and if you do not find sufficient material it should be kicked to one of the deletion processes. In some cases the reviewer will use their own judgement to say 'I can't find anything but someone more familiar with the subject probably can' – that is when it is appropriate to tag for notability. Elmidae is correct that most maintenance tagging is unlikely to result in the issue being addressed.
    Sometimes one gets it wrong and it becomes apparent at AfD. In that case the proper thing to do is Withdraw and, if there are no other Delete !votes close the AfD as Speedy Keep. Live and learn, figure out what you missed and work not to make the same kind of error again.
    What should never be done is for an editor who opposes the AfD to go off-site, gather a mob of brand new accounts and long dormant accounts and brigade the AfD to force the result. That, if shown to be true, is in my rather strong and inflexible opinion strong evidence that the responsible editor is a poor fit for Wikipedia. Jbh Talk 17:09, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm surprised this article was only recently created. While I've voted to keep it, there's nothing unreasonable about nominating it based on the state of the article (the refs are weak). Due to Wei Dai's generally private nature there's less readily-accessible information than would be expected. I don't think ANI needs to do anything here. power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:54, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Umm, just as a note, but a notability tag means I suspect this is non-notable, but I don't have time or access to verify at the moment. Here's a notice for someone else who does. It doesn't mean This subject is non-notable. Here's a note for someone to fix the notability of the subject. You can't "fix" notability like you can tone or the presence of original research. It either is or ain't notable. If someone has time and access and verifies the subject is non-notable, the correct step is to nominate for AfD (or another form of deletion if appropriate), not to tag for notability and move on, and there is no requirement to tag for notability first prior to going to AfD. GMGtalk 17:20, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't think there's anything wrong with nominating an article for deletion if you come across an article at NPP that doesn't seem to have any evidence of notability. Putting a notability tag on an article may be helpful (but probably still not) if you are unable to determine if a subject is notable, but if you do a couple of google searches and come up with nothing, there's no point in slapping on a notability tag when you are relatively confident that the article should be deleted. (And even if you aren't relatively confident, it's actually doing something, as opposed to tagging and hoping someday someone will do something about it.) Natureium (talk) 19:03, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment I'd need to see thet the user has a bad track record of AfDs which they don't [174]. Tagging is nearly pointless. This should be closed as baseless. Legacypac (talk) 19:12, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
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Not here to build an encyclopaedia[edit]

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Kizznyc (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been pushing OR and fringe theories, sourced to blogs etc, about Indian languages here, edits that have been reverted by multiple users (see their talk page), and obviously doesn't like being reverted, so they're now clogging up my talk page with incoherent rants, claiming that I'm a "British loon who wants to blur facts", trying to team up with other POV-pushers to get me banned ("Let's report Thomas to Wikipedia. We shall get him banned. Such a person who blurs or ignores facts cannot be reasoned with. United we can"), and threatening to resort to sockpuppetry to get their way ("As a white hat I can spool multiple accounts"). All of it showing that they're here only to push their own OR, not to work collaboratively with other editors to build an encyclopaedia. So how about giving him a forced time-out from WP? - Tom | Thomas.W talk 11:45, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Kizznyc here.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/Deccani-roots-truly-secular/articleshow/11562152.cms

I have given many valid sources time and again but he seems hell bent of impsoing his reality when facts are clear you can check his page for the information I have written in full I'm sure he must have deleted that also by now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kizznyc (talkcontribs) 11:55, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I have cleary given sources regarding the Deccan film industry before you revert atleast have some brains to do research and you'd have found other sources as well and could've added instead of destroying the work — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kizznyc (talkcontribs) 12:07, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

  • I've indeffed as NOTHERE. The user is also a troll.--Bbb23 (talk) 16:01, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) I've unblocked because I realized that minutes before I blocked, when I was reviewing Kizznyc's edits, I reverted on one article without thinking about the administrative consequences. That made me WP:INVOLVED before the block. That's the only basis for my unblock. I still believe the user should be blocked. Sorry for confusing things, though.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:03, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Someone should really indef him. He is indeed WP:NOTHERE.[175] My Lord (talk) 17:05, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
    Reblocked for WP:NOTHERE. Bbb23, I don't think anyone would have faulted you for your block originally to be honest. One revert, especially for unsourced editing, doesn't equal a situation to withdraw yourself. RickinBaltimore (talk) 17:14, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
I completely agree. The degree of INVOLVEMENT here is trivial and defending the project from disruption is one of the primary duties of an admin. That was a good block. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:37, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I concur with both blocks. One revert on an administrative matter does not make one involved. Just as well as we would not be able to block vandals. --John (talk) 17:45, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
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Talk page access should probably be yanked too. No clue at all there. John from Idegon (talk) 21:02, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

183.171.94.169[edit]

Not sure if this is a legitimate bot or just a run-of-the-mill troll. Can someone look into this? Thanks. 184.22.20.78 (talk) 05:28, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Seem to have stopped.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 07:16, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

User:7bench496 WP:OWNing an article[edit]

User:7bench496 has re-added uncited material to Tony Vaccaro, who he claims is his father. He has made bad faith allegations against me, including "Has a competitor to Mr. Vaccaro employed you to delete Mr. Vaccaro's achievements?" I am requesting assistance.--TM 01:43, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

@Namiba: Maybe point to our COI guidelines and why you think the material doesn't belong instead of making the very first post to their talk page a notice that they've been reported to an admin board? --NeilN talk to me 03:23, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Odd IP behaviour[edit]

We may want to keep an eye on 50.111.3.17. He's been leaving rather strange posts on Wikipedia, including my talkpage. I suspect an evade situation. GoodDay (talk) 12:21, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Maybe, but it doesn't ring any bells for me. Editing in article space looks fine, mostly good work, copyediting and sourcing. If he's someone who's been banned, I don't recognize him. --Jayron32 15:15, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

pls. block Thai editor user:Btsmrt12[edit]

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Moved from WP:AN. Primefac (talk) 15:23, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

pls. block Thai editor user:Btsmrt12 who like to spam the colors and articles on The Face T.V. show pages every season of all crountries, such as The Face Thailand, The Face Men Thailand, The Face Vietnam, US and UK every seasons. pls. check and block him to edit on Wikipedia.

and he is also a newest account of user:Golf-ben10 who blocked by Admin already because he spam like this very often before.

he also edit on Thai pop music, Thailand Youth League pages so much with no sources or reference articles.Itipisox (talk) 15:20, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Blocked as a confirmed sock puppet. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 01:28, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
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Removing deletion templates[edit]

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User Zouaoui16 created Template:Diplomatic missions in Palestine, which is basically all red links, so I nominated it for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 March 25#Template:Diplomatic missions in Palestine. The user has now removed the template about the nomination from the page here, here, here, here and here. This user has been warned against similar actions on 4 separate occasions before, such as User talk:Zouaoui16#February 2017 and User talk:Zouaoui16#February 2017 2. In the second link you can see they have been banned for this before. It is clear this user has their own agenda and has no regard for policies. - GalatzTalk 19:39, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Note, after notifying the user of this discussions, both by pinging above and writing on their talk page here, he continues to remove the template see [176]. - GalatzTalk 19:55, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Please see the user now came here and changed my completely change the point of my post rather than actually responding [177]. - GalatzTalk 20:11, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
They have also changed what I wrote on their page, to have me thank them for their contributions rather than the notification of the discussion [178]. - GalatzTalk 20:13, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
And now changing other people's comments on the deletion page [179]. - GalatzTalk 20:34, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm not sure the content Zouaoui16 is adding should be up for deletion, but this response to it seems wholly unacceptable. Dorsetonian (talk) 22:11, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
@Dorsetonian: At the time of the deletion nomination there was only one page that was not red. Today he has begun created a ton of pages, so the way it is today is very different than the nomination. - GalatzTalk 00:07, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
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Chandrashekar Ambala and its sock[edit]

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I don't know what they're doing, but lately they have been making nonsensical edits on their own talk pages. Chandrashekar Ambala registered first, then logged out and made another account, Hello MVC Hello SQl. This kind of behavior meets not being here to build an encyclopedia, and both should be blocked until they can explain themselves what they are doing with these kind of edits. theinstantmatrix (talk) 07:30, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Both users blocked per WP:NOTHERE. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 14:10, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
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Excessive chopping of verifiable content[edit]

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This user had chopped off so much useful info on this page saying that it wasn't necessary. To be logical, who is he to decide it? Moreover, I had cited each and every statement in that article. The soundtrack section contained release dates of the singles, which he removed being ignorant. In fact, my writing in those sections was inspired by the writing of these pages: Revival (Selena Gomez album), My Everything (Ariana Grande album), etc. Moreover, on this article. He removed, the reference of the official website owned by creator of that film. Also his edits are fast and disruptive. Chopping off this and that, here and there. Simply saying that it is unnecessary. His hasty edits increases typos. Harsh Rathod 11:36, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

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For more on this issue, please read this ongoing discussion at AN. Theylikenick is a new user who has hastily created stub articles. While that alone is no crime, consider that nearly every single article they have created is up for deletion, are often unsourced, and on sensitive subjects that include BLPs. I also strongly suspect, based on their userpage and edits, that this person has not fully mastered English. I believe we need to at the very least require this editor to go through AfC indefinitely until they demonstrate how to create a proper article. I would not take this lightly, considering the nature of some of these articles.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 23:50, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

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Incivil behaviour[edit]

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User Winged Blades of Godric used bad language while asking questions on talk page of Printed Rainbow. Harsh Rathod Poke me! 15:42, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Where was your attempt to raise this with the editor in question before coming here? And by this, I mean an admittedly silly use of "fuck", but not aimed at you or any other editor from what I can see... GiantSnowman 15:46, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Oh, and I've also notified the editor about this discussion... GiantSnowman 15:47, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
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Rangeblock request for 41.254.2.0/24[edit]

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This whole range appears to be an open proxy from Libya. Recently, it's been used to vandalize cartoon-related articles. Favonian placed a similar rangeblock on 41.254.8.0/24 on 17 March 2018 for 3 months. Based on the edits from that range, it is the same user. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:34, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

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Pro-burmese, nationalist, disruptive editing, copyvios and spam (I shouldn't have to repost this)[edit]

Special:Contributions/103.233.205.57 seems to be here to promote the country of Burma and its military, or various websites, removing human rights abuses in the country from an article [181], posting many copyvios that seem to be pure spam, or posting spammy external links. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 05:30, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

The last diff from that IP appears to be nearly 10 days old. A lot of their recent diffs are revdel-ed so I can't review them, but that's not a point in their defense. The diffs I can view aren't great, but I doubt they're enough for any action at this time. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:34, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Whatever happened to "assume good faith"? why do you think anyone who post facts concerning a country's military is here for promoting? How is it pure spam when it was facts and specification about locally manufactured assault rifles? Where does it include any reference to any type of spam? Spammy external links? Did you actually follow the links and looked at the photos? The link to photos are posted here as Wikipedia allow users to link externally hosted images, and the images are of military nature and related to the article. There's nothing spammy about these pictures. You need to stope being overzealous with your accusations as you are pushing away people who just want to contribute to wikipedia with your silly assertions without any solid proof.103.233.205.57 (talk) 09:23, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
The removal of content regarding human rights abuses in Burma tipped me off. I may have been wrong about spam, but what of the copyvios and revdel-ed revisions? Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 09:38, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Possible AFD or soapbox?[edit]

I recently came across an article that seemed very peculiar to me. One which I think may be WP:FRINGE, and would appreciate an admin to have a look.

Aleviler was created on April 2009 as a redirect to Alevism. However, on November 2013, edits began by an anonymous IP [182] that had created an article with nothing more than a list, a categorization of multiple sects and faiths. What is the purpose of it or the message the subject conveys? Who knows. I've just tagged it with a {context} template.

Another burst of edits was made on February 2014,[183] this time adding a "Further reading" section full of books to do with each of these religions (which all have their own articles, mind you). Then another burst on 3-7 March 2018, changing the list and adding more sects to it [184].

There are inline citations besides each line, but they are either inaccessible or the ones which are seem to have nothing to do with the topic itself (if there even is a topic, as the lede is vague). It'll reference an inline citation next to a sect name, and the link is mentioning the name of that sect, but what that's supposed to mean is unclear. It merely gives the appearance of a "well cited" article. DA1 (talk) 14:45, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Anonymous IP address user is an open proxy...[edit]

The anonymous IP address user User:192.169.226.73 has been traced back to an open proxy called alter-ip.com. They have been vandalizing the article Unknown Hinson on three occassions removing information from the discography section, see here, here and here. I made a report on Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism but the request to have their editing privileges revoked was declined by User:Amorymeltzer because "Wikipedia doesn't permanently ban vandals", I responded on their Userpage (see here) stating that maybe the case for vandals but for open proxies they are banned, as of this post I have not yet received a response from User:Amorymeltzer. I'd like to request that an Wikipedia Administrator look into this. Thank you. YborCityJohn (talk) 18:13, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

 Range blocked Special:Contributions/192.169.128.0/17 as a webhost. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 18:40, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
YborCityJohn, sorry for completely missing your message, it came in as we were heading to bed and got muddled in with the Legotbot RfC notification this morning. Just to clarify, I said "IPs", not "vandals;" I hesitated as, despite the two warnings you gave, it was last used for seemingly benign purposes. At any rate, thanks NRP for cleaning up. ~ Amory (utc) 18:51, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Need an edit summary deleted[edit]

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Would an admin kindly delete the edit summary associated with this edit, please? It reveals personal details that are easily available, but I'm still a little uncomfortable with it. Thank you. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:37, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done, FYI if you need something RevDel'd in the future, you might want to check to see who's around to help you a bit more privately. RickinBaltimore (talk) 12:42, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
@RickinBaltimore: Many thanks! -- Scjessey (talk) 12:46, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
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Gasket blown...[edit]

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Lptx (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has a dislike (and a selfproclaimed expertise) on Arabic numerals. I've explained (several times) that sources are required, explained how to voice his concerns, but that doesn't seem to leave a lasting impression. In an ironic twist, this user has nos accused me and another user of editwarring and sock puppetry and seems to have blown a gasket. I don't think we're in WP:CIR-territory, but the WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality is obvious. Can someone please have a serious word with this editor. Thanks. Kleuske (talk) 22:59, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Kleuske is involved in edit war on the page Arabic Numerals[edit]

Forum shopping and silly accusations. Alex Shih (talk) 02:10, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
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I have explained to Kleuske that my edit have been caused by a general concern on the talk page. This person is not understanding the POV concerns and is constantly involved in sock puppetry and edit war. Please take cognizance of the issue and help maintaining neutrality on Wikipedia.Lptx (talk) 23:04, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Sock puppetry[edit]

The below users are doing sock puppetry

1. User:Kleuske

2. User:Paul August

3. User:JohnBlackburne

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Lptx (talkcontribs) 23:22, 28 March 2018 (UTC) 
Lptx Edit Warring reports belong at WP:ANEW. Sock Puppetry allegations belong exclusively at WP:SPI. Make your case with diffs. Any allegations without proof and not reported in the right location is a personal attack and is a great way for your editing privileges to be suspended or revoked. Please remember Bold-Revert-Discuss is the the law of the land. You were bold, Kleuske reverted, and now EITHER of you should open the discussion while leaving the status quo ante (i.e. What it was before you made the action) in place pending a consensus. Hasteur (talk) 23:26, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
I just noticed this on Lptx’s talk page, having just independently reported them at WP:AN3. Apologies for this ending up at multiple venues, though this could have been avoided if I were properly notified of my mention here by Lptx.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 23:33, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
  • The above 3 users have over 170,000 edits over a cumulative 39 years. L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 02:08, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
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Wrong certifications vandal, looking for rangeblock[edit]

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Somebody using IPs from Palm Bay, Florida, has been falsely puffing up the certifications in a few band discographies, except for Nickleback where they're pushing the numbers down.[185] Below are the involved IPs. Perhaps a rangeblock or two can be configured to stop this disruption. Binksternet (talk) 01:30, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

 Checking...... ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 06:23, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Binksternet - Those IPs are both range blocked pretty good now ;-). Let me know if you run into any more and thanks for the message :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 06:29, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
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Music man214 is NOTHERE[edit]

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Just look through edit history. Seems to think Wikipedia is a place to debate "antagonists" about white supremacy. [186] [187] [188] [189] EvergreenFir (talk) 07:07, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Blocked. I don't think there's much to discuss in this case. Alex Shih (talk) 07:18, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
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Leoleo7495[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


On 29 January 2018, Acroterion blocked Leoleo7495 for using Wikipedia as a forum to argue about lions vs. tigers. After his block expired, Leoleo7495 continued to do the same thing as before he was even blocked, this time on Leo1pard's talk page, even though he said on his unblock request that "he'll not do it again". You can see the whole discussion after the block here, from 13:13, 16 March 2018‎ to right now, which also includes the IP 195.89.52.41, who is Leoleo7495 logged out.

Leoleo7495, you have been warned before by Acroterion that this above is unacceptable, and even warned you that repeating this behavior can result on an even longer block or indefinite. You have persisted to do so after this block, even though you have told on your unblock request that "you'll not do this again". Sorry to say this, but I'm going to request an indefinite block on you, given the above and the fact that most of your contributions so far to Wikipedia has been nothing but talking about animals. This is Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, not a forum where you can discuss about lions vs. tigers, etc.. If you want to be unblocked, you're going to have to do some hard convincing why you're doing this and what will you do instead. theinstantmatrix (talk) 11:58, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Sorry about the revert, I had a page-loading misclick. I'll take a look. Acroterion (talk) 12:05, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
I've followed through on my earlier warning and blocked Leoleo7495 indefinitely. Their only purpose on Wikipedia is to use it for forum-style arguments that lions are better than tigers, and they're harassing Leo1pard with all of those links to videos of big cat fights. I'll block the IP for a while too. Acroterion (talk) 12:14, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Darn, this could have been saved for April Fool's Day. lol, edit wars over Lions v. Tigers as to which is better. A recent quote from the block discussion: "...because I would tolerate neither pro-tiger extremism, nor pro-lion extremism". Never a dull moment. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:27, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Range block[edit]

Go ahead, block me! See if I care! I'm tired of this off-kilter kitchen anyway!

Would a range block be useful for this vandal? In the last month and a half, he has used about 53 IPv6 addresses from 2600:1001:b000: ... to 2600:1001:b128: ... He has also used 25 IPv4 addresses that unfortunately don't fit into ranges very well. Semi-protection has been tried on several members of Category:Cleveland Browns seasons and some unrelated articles like Indian and Homeschooling, but he moves on to other articles and anyway, nobody wants to protect the whole category. Art LaPella (talk) 23:39, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Blocking Special:Contributions/2600:1001:b000:0:0:0:0:0/39 would get all of the IP addresses, but that's probably wider than necessary. From poking around, it looks like JamesBWatson already range blocked Special:Contributions/2600:1001:b000:0:0:0:0:0/42. Special:Contributions/2600:1001:b100:0:0:0:0:0/42 seems to be where the the user is currently editing. I'll block that for two weeks. We can look at wider range blocks if these fail to stop the disruption. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 09:32, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. Whatever /39 and /42 may mean, there has been no more of that vandalism so far. Art LaPella (talk) 13:56, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
"Whatever /39 and /42 may mean..." High-tech voodoo. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:30, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Now he's back. Oh well, thanks for trying. Art LaPella (talk) 00:54, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
I did a couple more range blocks (Special:Contributions/64.134.120.0/21, Special:Contributions/64.134.196.0/23, and Special:Contributions/64.134.160.0/20), each for two weeks. I tried to keep the range blocks reasonable, but the disruption is spread out across this network. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 11:22, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
The vandalism has stopped again, since this. Art LaPella (talk) 13:55, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
Started again. Art LaPella (talk) 18:57, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
This person is really persistent. These IP addresses are spread out pretty wide, so I'm not sure if range blocks would accomplish much except inconveniencing innocent IP editors; more data (such as a list of IP addresses recently used) might be useful. If he keeps coming back on different IP ranges, page protection on a large scale might be the only way to really stop him. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 19:52, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
I think page protection should be considered at this point. Significant disruption over the last few days. Classicwiki (talk) If you reply here, please ping me. 03:09, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
And already protected over the last few days (Indian people and List of Family Guy episodes aren't protected yet.) OK, keep protecting, provided you realize that has been used for months; he just goes on to other pages. Wikipedia:Edit filter might help against some repeated memes like the Cleveland Show theme song. Art LaPella (talk) 04:06, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Osirisosiris and logical quotation[edit]

Osirisosiris is a fairly new editor who mainly works through articles fixing grammar and punctuation. Most of this work is correct and beneficial to Wikipedia, but unfortunately he is presistently removing logical quotation, as mandated by MOS:LQ. Here are just a few examples:

I have attempted to engage him on his talk page but he is not responding either there or via edit summaries. I don't think the editor is deliberately ignoring the talk page messages because there have been no reverts (a tell-tale sign that the editor knows somebody is challenging their edits). I believe this is simply a good faith editor not familiar with the house style, so has anyone got any ideas about how to approach this? Betty Logan (talk) 17:35, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

The editor continued with a pattern of mass edits that go against MOS:LQ in spite of warnings, so I have blocked for 24 hours. Since they never communicate, it's not obvious how to get their attention. They are creating work for others, since their changes may have to be checked individually to see if they need to be undone. EdJohnston (talk) 13:59, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

please block Thai editor user:Jsicavoravit[edit]

please block Thai editor user:Jsicavoravit who like to spam articles on The Face Thailand, The Face Men Thailand, Drag Race Thailand, MasterChef Thailand with no reasons, no sources or references many times.

and he also like to spam on older seasons of the Reality T.V. show of other countries such as , Big Brother, MasterChef, Asia's Next top model, The Face and more.

pls. check and block this Thai editor to edit on Wikipedia, thanks.Itipisox (talk) 16:09, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

User is a  Looks like a duck to me, please block (see thread above). --QEDK () 18:15, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
@Itipsox: Please use SPI for sockpuppets, not ANI. It helps to document known behaviour and accounts. --QEDK () 18:17, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Unlike the other thread, Itipsox didn't allege that Jsicavorit is a sock.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:37, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Definitely not, I was talking about the previous accounts as well, when I just asked. No pressure, ofc. --QEDK () 18:47, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Requesting an indefinite block of ShareMan 15[edit]

ShareMan 15 was blocked originally here temporarily due to bot issues but also spamming. He has repeatedly created content related to Lucky Afaratu across several wikis, including spamming en.wp. Originally the content was under Malik Makmur and his original account, Malik GME (Originally Malikmakmur before name change) was blocked in 2015. This was followed by temporary blocks of Xulturid, Malmu15 and an indefinite block of his last bot account, Shareobot whose soul purpose was to remove deletion tags placed on his spam creations and has now created Xulbot.

I'll note that under various names, the following articles have been created all about the same individual (the user in question):

There are also several dozen other related creations about their band, but not worth noting at this point given all of this

Fresh off a 2 week block, ShareMan 15 creates Afaratu in yet another attempt to spam himself under Lucky Afaratu.

Several other accounts attempted (unsuccessfully, thankfully) to add more spam about Malik Makmur:

I'll also note, their original account is also blocked on id wiki for socking as well as Kerimajh. There are several other accounts and incidents of socking, spamming and cross-wiki spamming but I think it's fairly obvious what is happening. I'm requesting their block be reinstated and they are indeffed as they clearly have no interest in doing anything other than spamming. I realize many of these accounts are older but I've brought them up as it's been nearly 3 years and the behavior continues. Notified user hereCHRISSYMAD ❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 16:39, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Probably worth noting the significant x-wiki abuse too: ru, id, id 2, tr, ms and this is only under the current names. CHRISSYMAD ❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 16:54, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
And it appears there was some meat puppetry/ip socking per this edit which is a SM characteristic as they like to rename Noah (band) to NOAH/Sahabat (see also their deleted contribs). CHRISSYMAD ❯❯❯¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 17:03, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
I have blocked him/her, plus another account picked up at UAA. --kelapstick(bainuu) 20:28, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Alright. Check is in the mail, K-stick. Drmies (talk) 20:29, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
You did tell me I had to block more Doc. --kelapstick(bainuu) 20:30, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
That is not entirely true, kelapstick: I made fun of you, but surely you're not an administrator just to make me happy. But you're doing good: keep it up! so I can retire. Drmies (talk) 20:41, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

I have been unsuccessful in trying to communicate with AC80 about the creation of unreferenced articles, see User talk:A Chris80, particularly User talk:A Chris80#Sources. After 7 messages from me on this issue, and similar messages from others, I got a response at User talk:Boleyn#Story of Lee Hee-beom. which indicates that they had added a reference to one article, but I couldn't understand most of the message. There is clearly a language barrier, but I would say that editors should only edit if fluent or nearly fluent in the language of that Wikipedia. Otherwise, they will be very useful editing in their mother tongue.

I have sent two more messages since then, ignored as the first 6 were. I have directed them towards WP:Communication is required, WP:BURDEN etc. and outlined exactly which unreferenced articles I'm referring to, but nothing. I have been messaging this user since September 2017 on this issue, and after six months it is unresolved. Boleyn (talk) 12:11, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Hazarding a guess based on some of their contribs, I left a message on their tp in Thai. All I got was a vague response on my tp - which due to the time stamp, suggests that they are in my time zone, but which covers a lot of SE Asia, including Korea articles they have edited. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:01, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

I am behind hounded and wikistalked by an IP[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


104.163.147.121 (talk · contribs) has been relentlessly hounding me ever since a dispute at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jesse Waugh (2nd nomination). My first interaction was noting his uncivil language accusing me of writing a "hype job" [196] and a "puff piece" [197]. It went downhill from there, where he accused me of being a sock [198], accused myself and another of bad faith [199], proceeded to gaslight me [200], accused me of COI connection to the subject of an article with no evidence [201], added a bad-faith COI template to an article I wrote [202], added me to a sockpuppet investigation of someone else (presumably the subject of Jesse Waugh) [203], then posted a deliberately misleading comment at another AfD of another of my articles w As far as I'm concerned, the SPI can move ahead. But this has turned into a witch hunt against me by this IP editor and it's ludicrous. I want him to leave me alone, but he can't seem to stop pinging me and hounding my edits. The Master ---)Vote Saxon(--- 04:17, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

And by the way, YES I wrote the Jesse Waugh article, the Nitin Shroff article and the Thomas Darnell (artist) article. Yes, I asked Darnell if he had press clippings I could use for sourcing his article, and he also provided some for the Shroff article. Asking people if they have sources isn't a conflict of interest. The Master ---)Vote Saxon(--- 04:21, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Yep, I do not think anything that you claim above is the case. I am still wondering why you miraculously produced a bunch of references on Thomas_Darnell's Archive.org account, and you happen to be the creator of the Thomas Darnell page. Now you explain you are friends. Oh and Thomas Darnell and Jesse Waugh are old pals. That's really the only question I had. You have just confirmed that you know them personally, so that is an undisclosed COI. So it's entirely reasonable that I would add you to the SPI and mark Darnell as COI. You created the articles, argued at AFD's, deleted votes at AFD, badgered those who disagreed with you, are friends with at least one of the subjects, and asked for Jesse Waugh to be unprotected so you could create the article... Do you see my thinking there? Strong sense of connectedness. Have a nice day. 104.163.147.121 (talk) 04:28, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Also, asking me if I have "skipped my medication" is just a good old personal attack. Could you stop that please.104.163.147.121 (talk) 04:33, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Alright both of you need to knock it off. There are accusations here of incivility (which I agree that this is uncivil), but I also see accusations of sock puppetry here, and accusations of undisclosed COI above here. I also see bickering by you both on the AFD discussion. Keep your messages and interactions between one another on-topic and about the content-related matter itself, and don't comment directly on each other and make accusations or point fingers at one another any more. Easy :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 04:45, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, I can live with that fine.104.163.147.121 (talk) 04:47, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
  • THIS IS NOT RESOLVED. The IP keeps reinserting a COI tag on the Darnell article [204], which is a deliberate smear of me. Once again, is e-mailing the subject of an article to ask if they have press clippings a conflict of interest? Will someone please make this stop? The Master ---)Vote Saxon(--- 11:34, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
I did that before OShwah's comment, as you have an undisclosed interest COI in that article.104.163.147.121 (talk) 16:53, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Having a communications channel with article subjects is something, I think, that is pretty irregular in terms of maintaining independence and objectivity. As it says at COIN, "A conflict of interest may occur when an editor has a close personal or business connections with article topics." That is why I tagged that, as the connection between article subject and editor had not been disclosed. The article therefore needs to be checked by someone entirely independent. It's a straightforward maintenance tag to improve the quality of the wiki. 104.163.147.121 (talk) 17:05, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
I agree with the IP completely. If you are getting direction on what sources to use from the subject of the article, you have an unequivocal COI. Period. By getting input from the article's subject on what sources to use, you are giving him some control over the content of the article. Any and every change you made or make to that article will need to be reviewed by independent editors to assure accuracy and neutrality. From now on out. By your own admission, The Master, you are creating extra work for the other volunteers here, and that in and of itself is disruptive. I'd suggest you stop protesting and start following best practices for COI editors. On a related matter, and input from an administrator familiar with policies on signatures is requested here, is the overtly political statement appended to The Master's signature within policy? I'd think it shouldn't be. John from Idegon (talk) 17:23, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Kafkaesque. My signature line is a Dr. Who reference, not a political statement, but nice try. I'll just stop writing articles altogether and save you all the trouble, please let the others know on IRC that they can call off the dogs. You can hat this thread or keep attacking me and assuming bad faith, however you choose. The Master ---)Vote Saxon(--- 18:00, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Alright, everyone - let's take it easy, now.... No need to get upset or resort to pointing fingers or driving other editors away from the project. The Master, I do agree that having communication with, and using references and citations at the direction and recommendation of the article subject compromises Wikipedia's principle of neutrality. While I don't agree that simply reaching out to the article subject and getting information from them makes the contributing editor a conflict of interest (where the editor has personal relationships and close ties to the article subject or matter), many issues and violations of guidelines and principles are introduced by taking recommendations and information from the subject and adding it to the article. This behavior will understandably cause major concerns by the community, and it's fair for those editors to question the user's ability to participate in editing the article. I think that the content in question should be heavily scrutinized and reviewed if not removed entirely due to these issues.
All this aside, if my findings are correct and this is all that The Master did and he doesn't have any close or personal motivations or ties with the subject, COI isn't violated and the content in question can be easily removed. Other than maybe giving The Master a big trout (lol), just remove the problematic content pending a discussion on the article's talk page, move on and focus on what lies next :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 18:47, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Removing the content would mean deleting the article, as The Master was the creator and main contributor. I think the COI tag suffices, and another editor has restored it.104.163.147.121 (talk) 18:59, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
It depends... did all of the content and references come from the interaction with the article subject? ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 21:35, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Notice of Wikihounding[edit]

The editor's recent comments have become problematic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Billy_Graham&curid=209028&diff=832693885&oldid=832693567 Commenting about my departure from the site, (and the one before where he claims I'm being controlling when I'm simply applying an accessibility rule).
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Jimmy_and_Carol_Owens&diff=832695114&oldid=515290927 "I'm keeping track of everything and one day they/he/you won't be on here anymore and the articles will be right." Clearly stating that he's planning on hounding and again, he's waiting for or hoping for my departure.

There are several other IPs in the range. See the history of the Jon Gibson (Christian musician)‎‎, List of Christian rock bands‎‎ articles and their associated talk pages for further examples. Any suggestions? Aside from promising wikihounding, the editor has show other examples of being WP:NOTHERE, and has been increasing less compliant to WP:CIVIL. Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:29, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Blocked for 36 hours for disruptive editing. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 01:27, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. But I suspect that the editor won't even know that they were blocked as the address reassigned fairly quickly. I'll wait to see if anything further transpires. Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:55, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
I’ve extended the block to the /64 subnet. /64 IPv6 subnets are typically allocated to a single user and it’s clearly the case here. I note that the /64 was blocked for 31 hours earlier this month. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 03:14, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
I usually wait until edits come from other IPs inside the /64 CIDR before blocking the range, but I trust that the past block is good. Either way is fine. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 03:18, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
I just looked at the contributions for the /64 CIDR, and I see numerous edits from another IP in the range that are similar to this user made yesterday, so good call :-) ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 03:19, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Though Malcolmxl5 already linked to the /64 range above, I'll mention it again so any other admins can see what we are up against: Special:Contributions/2600:1702:1690:E10:0:0:0:0/64. The person working this range seems not to have any good-faith objectives (just look at the edit summaries). If this were a registered account my guess is that some admins would be issuing a one-month block by this point. There does not appear to be much risk of collateral if the /64 is blocked for longer. Another option is to semiprotect a few articles. EdJohnston (talk) 03:43, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Calibrador[edit]

There is a past issue now coming alive again: Calibrador disruptively re-adding his own photos to articles. This has been discussed ad nauseum numerous times previously over the last few years. MelanieN brought it up at WP:AN a couple of years ago. EdJohnston warned him against "warring to promote your own photos over those taken by others" in May 2015. (see the following for the entire discussion [205]). When asked to not engage in this behavior, he replies that his edits are being "stalked" and he claims to be a victim of "hounding". Just a little while ago, he engaged in the same behavior he has been warned about numerous times over the last few years and changed out an image without any discussion or attempting to take part in the ongoing discussion at the article talk page [206]. At the John R. Bolton article, there is an RfC taking place regarding the infobox photo. Rather than take part in the RfC, Gage reverted the photo in question, claimed there was "no consensus" for the photo to be changed (although that's what we are working toward right now at the article talk page), and when asked to revert his change because there is an active RfC and discussion taking place re: the image, he refused, stating at the article talk page "Just wanted to add that Winkelvi will never support one of my photos being in an article, as they have a history of going around from article to article and removing them. They've been blocked for Wikihounding me once in the past. Because the image was changed by Winkelvi unilaterally, without any discussion, and then there was found to be equal support for both of the images in the above discussion (thus, no consensus), I restored it to the previous image that was in the article prior to Winkelvi's sudden interest in this article because Bolton is in the news. Since there is a discussion pending, gain consensus before changing the photo.".[207] This behavior is disruptive. In my opinion, it's a form of edit warring in that it's attempting to start an edit war, and it is neither helpful nor constructive. It is, as others have said in years past, a way to promote his own photographs over the photos of others in Wikipedia. This is problematic. -- ψλ 03:03, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

You don't change a photo and then get consensus on the talk page to support your change. You get consensus first. Calibrador (talk) 03:07, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
I haven't read the AN or dug too deep yet... If he's adding an image to an article where one wasn't there at all before, I don't see that as promoting his own photos - that's expanding the project and that's fine. However, if he's replacing perfectly fine images on articles with his own and without valid reasons when asked, and has been talked to and asked to stop before in numerous discussions, and continues after a noticeboard discussion and being told to stop there - then yes I agree that this is potentially problematic. It depends on whose replacing what, where these images are from and whose the uploader, and the result of past discussions. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 03:10, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
In this specific instance, I replaced my own photo with my own photo a month ago, when there was very little article activity. If there is a naming issue, regarding the image names, that is a Commons issue and there are no rules in place regarding credit in the name of an image. Winkelvi changed the photo during a time of high edit traffic. The discussion on the talk page has so far yielded no consensus. I simply restored the image that was present in the article for about a month without any objection, until it was clear that the talk page discussion had support for the new photo that Winkelvi was attempting to add. It is not about self-promotion. Calibrador (talk) 03:18, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Oshwah, he has been replacing perfectly good photos in infoboxes, taken by others, with his own images for years and with no explanation. Just look at his recent contribution history for numerous examples. -- ψλ 04:01, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Past discussion re: GageSkidmore/Calibrador on this page include: his 2015 filing here in which I and others raised concerns, his warning at AN in which Admin EdJohnston warned him, and his Talk page restrictions from AN, Part of a larger discussion. Looking at his last 500 edits, he seems in clear violation of his stated promise to use edit summaries. I have said before, he’s a good photographer but his relentless self-promotion is, in my view, disruptive. Jusdafax (talk) 04:47, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
I have to admit I forgot about the second part of the agreement I made regarding judging consensus. My intention was not to judge consensus, or lack thereof, but can see how it can be seen that way. If I should be blocked because of that, so be it. Calibrador (talk) 05:05, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

This is what I see:

I don't agree with Corky that Calibrador's original addition of that image was the bold edit in the sense of BRD. The one that was in the article for the longest time happens to be the lowest quality of the bunch. Regardless, it's hard to say there was ever a firm consensus for any one in particular -- just that a couple editors have disagreed, and neither is clearly in the right (although Calibrador deserves a wag of the finger/trout for the edit warring back in 2016 and for adding a lower quality image in 2017. Best practice would be to just let the RfC play out without further changes. More diffs of recent promotional activity/edit warring would be needed to make a case that action is needed re: Calibrador IMO (this is presuming we are not going to rehash the same examples from the previous ANI). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 05:10, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Calibrador again? Just for reference, Here was an earlier discussion at the 3RR board, May 2015, with the result that he was warned. ("In particular, any warring to promote your own photos over those taken by others can be sanctioned.")
Here was the AN referral I made in September 2016. That was an enormously long discussion, with talk of TBans and 1RR restrictions, but no sanctions were imposed and there was no closure or conclusion to the discussion. At one point he voluntarily agreed to this suggestion from me about talk page discussion: "Based on his documented activities at multiple articles, I propose the following where one of his own photos is involved: limit his discussion at the talk page to a single !vote, including commentary and disclosure, per discussion section or subsection; a ban on replying to or arguing with other discussants unless they directly addressed him; and a ban on attempting to assess or claim consensus, unless it is unanimous."
So here we are again. Looking to see what he has been up to lately: He mostly adds pictures to articles that don’t have them, and that’s fine and helpful to the ‘pedia. He also does a lot of replacing other people’s pictures with his own - [208] [209] [210] [211] [212] [213], and that could be dicey, but the recent replacements mostly do not seem to have become controversial. Restoring his own after someone removes it is maybe pushing the envelope [214], and he may have been premature in restoring his own version at John Bolton. So he is still very strongly promoting himself. But overall it looks to me as if he has mostly been doing it within the bounds of the previous warning and talk page agreement. --MelanieN (talk) 05:18, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

178.197.231.251 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 2A02:1206:4576:8CD1:1DC0:9EB:C182:F94D (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 2A02:1206:4576:8CD1:CC9D:F1D1:4970:55C9 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 2A02:1206:4576:8CD1:E1C7:FE75:70E3:3CAC (talk · contribs · WHOIS)

Bizarre invective in this edit summary in response to a warning about WP:EW on the Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal article. L.R. Wormwood (talk) 18:06, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

  • IP blocked for the personal attack, page reprotected for a couple months, as there seems to be a decent amount of disruptive IP editing in general. Swarm 18:50, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Much obliged. The other three addresses are almost certainly the same user (all Swiss IP addresses, same ISP, same edit). L.R. Wormwood (talk) 19:17, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Range block request[edit]

Hello. I was wondering whether it might be possible to apply a range block to cover the IPv6 addresses starting with 2A00:23C5:4690:7A00: (examples listed below, there are more).

Special:Contributions/2A00:23C5:4690:7A00:700F:E025:4DCF:20AD, Special:Contributions/2A00:23C5:4690:7A00:35BF:3F0F:D1C:7824, Special:Contributions/2A00:23C5:4690:7A00:7D3D:D8E5:40BF:6AAD, Special:Contributions/2A00:23C5:4690:7A00:4114:73C6:3274:7B6C, Special:Contributions/2A00:23C5:4690:7A00:EDEA:7249:1E81:7F1B, Special:Contributions/2A00:23C5:4690:7A00:703C:D855:6CA3:4A65

What they do is turn up, change the height of a few footballers, and go away again, several times a day. Because they usually include at least one well-watched article, the vandalism doesn't stay there very long, and it's nothing major anyway, but it's starting to get annoying. Thanks for listening, Struway2 (talk) 18:43, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

IPv6 range is blocked for one week. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 19:59, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. Struway2 (talk) 21:33, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

pls. block Thai editor user:Vbts12, the new account of user:Golf-ben10 and user:Btsmrt12[edit]

pls. check and block Thai editor user:Vbts12 he is the newest account of user:Golf-ben10 who blocked by Admin, and user:Btsmrt12 that just got blocked yesterday, Because he like to spam the colors and articles on The Face T.V. show pages every season of all countries, such as The Face Thailand, The Face Men Thailand, The Face Vietnam, US and UK every seasons. he also edit on Thai pop music, Thailand Youth League pages so much with no sources or reference for the articles.

and he just registered new account to spam on wikipedia again today. pls. check and block him to edit on Wikipedia, his profile is the same person with user:Btsmrt12 and user:Golf-ben10. thank you.Itipisox (talk) 21:13, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 21:27, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Can you please stop labeling editors by their nationality? It gives the impression that it's important to the report and that blocking them is somehow related to them being Thai, which is not true in the slightest. --Tarage (talk) 00:42, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Creating ever new accounts in order to evade scrutiny and blocks[edit]

Szerbey (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), Wollie JU (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Kerenski-Dubra (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) are per WP:DUCK the same person, creating a new account every time their old account has reached a level-4 warning for disruptive nationalistic editing (talk pages for Szerbey, Wollie JU). They have also engaged in edit-warring, and before starting to use named accounts they also edited very disruptively as 2600:1700:F1E0:97F0:71A3:2693:59EF:ED9D (talk · contribs · (/64) · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). See page history of List of Russian military bases abroad and page history of Branko Radičević for evidence, i.e. that each new account has immediately continued the edits of the latest discarded account, starting after each discarded account had received a level-4 (it's easier to see when looking at the page history than when looking at individual diffs...). There is in other words no overlap between the accounts, but using multiple accounts to evade scrutiny is also sockpuppetry, as clearly stated on WP:SOCKPUPPETRY ("Creating new accounts to avoid detection"). So could someone please wield the big hammer on all of them? There might also be accounts from before Szerbey and new accounts lying in waiting, so a CU-check might be in order. - Tom | Thomas.W talk 22:27, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

  • This can be closed now: Wollie JU and Kerenski-Dubra have been CU-blocked by Bbb23 along with a couple of accounts created after that, and neither Szerbey nor the IP has edited for a while. - Tom | Thomas.W talk 19:24, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Harry (singer), hoaxer from Nottingham[edit]

Indeffed User:Harry (singer) has been using IPs from Nottingham to create hoax articles for some years now. One IP, Special:Contributions/82.25.11.240, was blocked for three years in January. Another IP, Special:Contributions/194.61.223.53, was blocked for a year but quickly unblocked as a false positive – certainly a mistaken action. Below is a list of involved IPs and the recently recreated hoax articles. Can we delete and salt these hoaxes? Binksternet (talk) 15:13, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

FYI
IPs
Hoaxes
I've deleted all four drafts (but not SALTed); blocked the latest IP (194.61.223.64); and nuked contribs for both that IP and one of the older ones (194.61.223.53; it hasn't been used since November 2017 so I'm not blocking it). Let me know if anything pops back up. GiantSnowman 15:21, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Rangeblock request for 2601:400:C001:87D2::/64[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


For over many month now, this user has been adding unsourced info to cartoon pages (e.g., birth dates and heights). Example edits: [215], [216], [217], [218], [219], [220].

Requesting a rangeblock. EvergreenFir (talk) 04:04, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Two weeks. --NeilN talk to me 04:43, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you! EvergreenFir (talk) 05:22, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Editor violating NOTHERE, here to promote[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


New editor Peaksunsolution (talk) is clearly WP:NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia but rather to promote Peaksun, which the editor describes as "our company". First I tagged their article for speedy deletion, then gave the standard Username-COI and COI warnings, followed by further warnings when they persisted in removing COI and speedy delete tags. I'm not in the mood to get involved in an edit war over this, so will an admin take action? Thanks in advance.--SamHolt6 (talk) 03:42, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Note that Peaksunsolution is now warring [221] with another editor over the speedy deletion tags.--SamHolt6 (talk) 03:44, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes, mop needed please! Jytdog (talk) 03:50, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
There's lot of spam out there needing to be cleaned. Even UAA needs attention. –Ammarpad (talk) 03:52, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
The Peaksun article has been speedy deleted as A7 and Peaksunsolution (talk · contribs) is blocked for username. Admin User:Mfield has helped out at WP:UAA. This ANI can probably be closed. EdJohnston (talk) 13:49, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Colin and The Videos[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


In case anybody isn't aware User:Colin has gone on a campaign throughout Wikipedia, putatively about some videos.

The many sprawling discussions are at:

Less centralized discussions

Colin has edited sporadically for the past few years. Since he re-emerged in this burst on March 26, he has made about 175 edits constituting 57.7 MB kB, solely focused on these videos, which started with the 5 kB MB (!) posting at Jimbo's talk page at the top of the list, with its inflammatory header. That is the definition of WP:BLUDGEON.

I have been especially concerned about abuse of "COI concerns" used as a cudgel by both Colin and SandyGeorgia...

  • e.g. Colin diff bolding in the original For the YouTube generation, this is now Wikipedia: unsourced content brought to you by a billionaire's private foundation. and the inflammatory header, etc etc, and
  • Colin also made a similar "paid editing shill" attack on User:soupvector at talk Jimbo, to which soupvector responded here.
  • SandyGeorgia followed suit here with I am seeing it more broadly as a COI issue, in which Doc James is involved with furthering paid editing. That is gob-smacking.

I have been trying to figure out where this was coming from. (others too have noted the ferocity of the posts - Guy here Park your hysteria, please. and User:BallenaBlanca here The attacks on Doc James sadden me. ...

Colin and SandyGeorgia are apparently wikifriends from away back; the root of the original posting at jimbotalk by Colin was a clash between Doc James and SandyGeorgia at Dementia with Lewy bodies, and Colin and SandyGeorgia have been working this "video" issue cheek by jowl.

While there are some legitimate issues with the videos, the ferocity is not. Where this is probably coming from seems to arise from some interpersonal history of which I am not aware, but Colin wrote here, embedded in a long post: You are the reason I have not edited medical articles for years. You. And SandyGeorgia repeated that and stated her own past clashes with Doc James about bigger-picture issues in point #4 of this post, as well as elsewhere, in the midst of the discussions about the videos.

Whatever that history is, I don't really care.

What is going on now with these axes being ground is just disruptive. There are complex issues with respect to these videos that can likely be solved through careful discussion, but discussion is somewhere between impossible and very difficult with the swamping of the discussion and overwrought claims. The sprawl was noted for example by User:Beeblebrox here at the RfC.

My initial pushback (e.g for this sort of post) was harsh and User:Francis Schonken admonished me for being too harsh, but there is way too much ferocity, even now, in all this.

I had RW stuff for a couple of days and was dismayed to see this continuing apace with posts like this today.

I think Colin and perhaps also SandyGeorgia need a timeout from discussing these videos so that the rest of us can work things out. I don't know what to do with their anger over bigger picture issues. I guess we just live our way through to wherever that goes. Jytdog (talk) 20:06, 29 March 2018 (UTC) (redact kb not mb Jytdog (talk) 23:47, 29 March 2018 (UTC))

  • Of course, as Sandy notes on her Talk page, you don’t exactly come to ANI with clean hands. Since you bring this to ANI, I urge comments include a thorough look at your own edits in this matter, which you attempt to dismiss as merely “harsh” and your overall editing history. This filing of yours can easily be seen as an attempt at bullying and intimidation. Jusdafax (talk) 20:26, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  • This has been a heated discussion from both sides. I would hesitate to ask for a timeout for the people who disagree with you. Natureium (talk) 20:30, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
to be clear i agree with some of Colin’s objections on the content.
this filing is about behaviorJytdog (talk) 21:40, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  • The entire discussion about videos is a debacle, and probably will go from here to ArbCom. But yes, Colin definitely has been battle-groundy in his comments. (As for Jytdog and Jusdafax, this time I'm staying out of that discussion entirely.) I pretty much agree with what Natureium just said. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:32, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Justafax, I barely know Jytdog, I don't recall ever interacting directly with him on any talk page as he appeared on Wikipedia during a period when I was semi-retired. So, I believe I can provide a neutral opinion. Colin has been creating enemies, conflict and drama with people who disagree with him. He is far too emotional. Even with me look at this diff and you will see Colin falsely accused me of edit warring and associated my innocent good faithed actions with an abusive swear word beginning with 'F'. There are more examples from Colin towards me and countless between Colin and many others on this issue. He is very emotionally unhinged about this video dispute. Jytdog is not at all starting the problems but he is reacting to problems, perhaps sometimes overreacting, and these problems are most often started by Colin. If your impression that Colin is a victim or a pure victim of "bullying" that would be incorrect. Colin is interacting with people with negative toxic messages and some people including Jytdog are reacting negatively in response. Doc James is easy to get along with and has thick skin and has been getting an unfair battering by Colin who has created a toxic environment with him as well. Colin's approach should have been, okay we have a disagreement, let's have an RfC discussion about it. Even with that RfC discussion in place the toxicity persists.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:39, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  • The problem is is that the community, including Colin, are voting in an RfC on this issue and I don't think it would be fair to Colin to be excluded from voting in that process.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 20:47, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Colin has !voted until he is blue in face.... er fingers. I think everybody is very, very, very clear on What Colin Wants. Jytdog (talk) 23:50, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Well, we've kind of all had to vote til we are blue in the face, because it was not a very well designed RFC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:14, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Since you have replied to me, I will say that your very civil/pleasant posts here, in which you dodge any acknowledgement of what is going on with Colin, and try to nudge this back onto me, are in my view the most corrosive form of incivility and disruption in Wikipedia - namely the very civil playing of wikipolitics. I don't play those games and I don't respect them; everybody makes mistakes or acts badly sometimes, and sometimes people go seriously lost in some way. And yes I have heard your repeatedly stated hints here about coming after me. If you take these wikipolitics all the way through to long-term retaliation, well that is what you will choose to do. Jytdog (talk) 14:34, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Jyt, as I've told you before, you think so differently than I do. I have never gone after anyone, and you are no more special than the last guy. I am unlikely to spend my time in dispute resolution (especially not at ANI where anyone with a computer can enter a stupid opinion): I am likely to spend my time trying to continue to reach you, because we need your editing skills. (In the other case I mention, the fellow got a rather enormous boomerang and lost his bits on an arbcase launched ... by him ... and involving JzG and others. I merely presented evidence in a case I had nothing to do with.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:41, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
I have no concern about my "editing skills" being available for the work of building the encyclopedia; for some reason you keep bringing up the risk of me losing editing privileges, here in this thread about Colin. Which is what I mean. The "blink blink -- who, me?" response is par for the pseudo-civility game. I don't know why people who do this cannot see how obvious it is to everyone else. This is the kind of interference you have been running for Colin and why I mentioned you in the OP. Please stop doing this. Colin is behaving disruptively and your support of that (and effort to prevent the community from addressing it) is not good for Colin or the community. Jytdog (talk) 16:37, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
The problematic RFC is the responsibility of Doc James,[222] who chose not to wait to frame a neutral RFC: [223] [224] [225] [226] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:35, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Jytdog knows that Beeblebrox's comment above is aimed at Doc James launch of the RFC, nothing to do with Colin (who wanted a well-framed, collaborative RFC). As I have long been concerned about the level of discourse Jytdog gets away with, I hope it will be examined. I'll offer up my worst, right here, to save time, and encourage anyone interested to follow up on the interaction after that between Literaturegeek and myself. (She/He acknowledged not knowing the DSM requirement, and we both roundly apologized for the heated discussion-- see his talk and the RFC.) I doubt this will end up at ArbCom, because the community is handling the RFC just fine. If it does end up at ArbCom, I will be happy to dig up a long history of Jytdog attacks, as well as Doc James admin edit warring. I disagree with characterizations of Colin's behavior, and see Jytdog's habitual tone as contributory. As to the number of editors I go way back with on Wikipedia: comes with the territory of being FAC delegate. I go way back with everyone. Happy Spring, Passover or Easter to all. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:45, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I can't say if Colin has a point or not because he takes it waaaaay too personally, to the point that I find it impossible to tease out anything valid from his walls of polemic. He is also exceptionalyl rude and obnoxious even by my standards, and I generally don't give a monkey's about that. Guy (Help!) 20:47, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Diffs. I'll match you with those from others, who you don't seem to have done anything about, Guy. After Easter. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:49, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
You can list them, and if they have been brought here and I've been pinged in the discussion and they have previously been obnoxious to me and if I've ignored them anyway - i.e. if they are like for like comparable - then I will happily look at them. Guy (Help!) 22:47, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
I would not want to find myself in the position of doing that. ANI can be a 3-ring circus, and not the best place for working towards enticing good editors to have better behavior towards their colleagues. Too many people pile on in unproductive ways. And you, Guy, know up close and personal what it looks like when I give up on Pollyanna and take on editors with abusive behaviors. It's been, what, 10 years now, but that fellow was desysopped, and an arb told me it was my evidence that did it. I gave him ample opportunity to mend his ways, make peace. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:14, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Can't say I can call that one to mind, though I don't doubt it. For me the problem here is that Colin has gone straight from zero to illuminati in under six seconds. Guy (Help!) 13:39, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
I'll remind you sometime of a certain arbcom where I defended you, and another admin was desysopped for grossly abusive behavior reminiscent of what I have chosen not to diff here. After Easter. No, the deterioration that has been going on at WP:MED, of the type that led to this debacle, has lasted much longer than six seconds. For all the problems that were so obvious in this video debacle, it is astounding what it has taken to get participants there to listen, hear, learn. That is what is behind the frustration you see as 0 to 60. There has been an impenetrable walled garden at WP:MED. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:47, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Just my two cents here. (Glad you said something User:Jytdog, I saw this too, but didn't want to start this ) So, this project was , roughly on March 15, 2016 with of the scripts made available on the talk page itself, for anyone to peruse and critique. A place was made on that same page for commentgs , critiques, and criticisms. Interestingly enough, I see Soupvector commenting (and getting attacked ) but no comments or anything by Colin or Sandy Georgia. In fact this page we have Sandy Georgia arguing with Doc James, who really is a doctor in real life, that his information is wrong ?!?!? What ?!?!? That's a stretch! Further on that same page, we see Doc James responding patiently to what can only be described as constant nit-picking. Essentially, a lot of time was given to respond to the script, they didn't. They need to stop going after Doc James, in place after place, in post after post. The argument that keeps being made is the videos can't be edited, and that they're wrong. Once is fine, but this is being reposted to different places ad naseum. Either post it in one spot and let consensus decide or stop entirely, it's getting into WP:REHASH and WP:FORUMSHOP territory really quickly.  К Ф Ƽ Ħ  21:00, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

  • Appeal to authority. Again, should it come before ArbCom, I shall produce the diffs of Doc James removing correct information (in conjunction with Jytdog) and replacing it with incorrect information. It is not possible for a general practitioner to be up on every specialty, and Doc James is not. That I had to argue the new, 2017 consensus into the lead of the Lewy body article speaks for itself. That Doc James cannot know every area of medicine is not intended as a criticism, but your appeal to authority is problematic. Everyone is a dog on the internet, and I'm the Queen of Sheba. We discuss sources, not who someone is or is not in real life or what their profession may be. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:07, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
User:SandyGeorgia and you know better or more than he does ? By all means, kindly provide the name of the medical college you graduated from and what your specialty is. Yes, I know Wikipedia is the place anyone can edit in, true, but telling a doctor he's wrong about medical terminology and procedure and medication on a medical page ? Uh, unless you're a doctor, that's a pretty slipperY slope, and again, you have years to look over the script as well. Oh hey, since you're not please with the videos, and this is Wikipedia, why not create your own and we'll let consensus decide.  К Ф Ƽ Ħ  21:13, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
In this case, yes I did. You seem to have missed my point. You are welcome to read the sources in the article. Particularly the new 2017 Consensus Diagnostic Criteria. To wit, and to address Jytdog's implications, Doc James had already come around on the article issues and read the sources by the time the video matter appeared on Jimbo's talk page. You really should not expect a general practitioner to have read every specialist review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:18, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
You can tell a doctor they are wrong about medical content, but you best have sources and policies & guidelines on your side and consensus if needed.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 21:30, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
:) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:33, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Doc James is a (well read) ER general physician, not a general practitioner, a small but important difference.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 21:39, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. But to the original poster appeal to authority, I am still a cardiac surgeon with a degree from Harvard and practicing at Stanford. But only when they let me out of Sheba, and Trump lets me into the USA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:55, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Oh for heaven's sake. This ANI needs to stop. This is absurd, ridiculous. The community can and should handle this. Colin has said some things he shouldn't. He's frustrated. I'm aware of the background between him and Doc James. Jytdog is way our of line in the way he interacted multiple times with Sandy Georgia. Doc James in an editor and whatever his background is, he's not infallible which is an unfair burden to place on any editor. SG has remained remarkably calm throughout. There are issues surrounding the videos which Doc James has interjected into WP articles. These issues need to be dealt with by dealing with the issues themselves not sidestepping them. I will assume good faith and hope this was not an intentional diversion, but a massive Red Herring with capital letters is what this ANI is and by the way Jytdog's suggestion that Colin and SG be removed so he can get on with the work at hand is really astonishing. The work at hand will be better served with all of the editors involved who want to be involved in what we remember is a Collaborative Project.(Littleolive oil (talk) 21:32, 29 March 2018 (UTC))
      Jytdog presumes much :) The epilepsy article is more relevant to Colin's long-standing medical editing on Wikipedia than the dementia with Lewy bodies discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:52, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Sandy normally is calm. So is James. I have never seen Colin before. I am rather wishing that were still the case. Guy (Help!) 22:49, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Well, @JzG:, I can tell you a few things about Colin. First, we would not have MEDRS today were it not for his efforts. He honed in on the problems and issues, and in his incisive manner, helped put together what was needed, and helped make sure it could be promoted to guideline by staying within the parameters of RS.

Second, once there was some big argument at Raul's talk, and I lit into someone who was being just a monumental pain in the arse. Momentarily, I had a message from Colin calling me on my behavior (behavior that in today's Wikipedia would not raise an eyelash), and demanding that I apologize. I apologized. It was a weasly apology. Moments later, another message from Colin telling me, not good enough, apologies don't have "but" attached. A lesson I remember as often as I can. That's the Colin I know. I prefer on Wikipedia NOT to associate with cabalistic people who will defend me no matter what, but to associate with those who will hold me to standards.

The Medicine Project is not what it was in the days when we got MEDMOS and MEDRS up to guideline status. The way misguided newbies are attacked, in the name of MEDRS, is brutal. Do you remember the scholarly physicians like Encephalon, Knowledge Seeker, and JFW who used to populate the place? It is awful to see that at the same time that MEDRS is now used as a bludgeon against some editors, with an incredible level of incivility attached, it is at the same time disregarded and disrespected in this video situation. That's the view from the old-timers' seat. And, Colin identified issues with these videos that never occurred to, well, most of us. Certainly not me. Because he spends his time these days on Commons.

Well, sorry for taking so much space on musings, but I am hopeful that this video situation will not turn out as Tryptofish anticipates. I've been asking Jytdog for a very long time to curb his behaviors, but I'm not interested in laying out diffs at ANI, where we have things like argument to authority. I think Jytdog can be a very good editor, and I believe he can hear my message. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:14, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

And I trust your judgment, so perhaps you could use your influence with Colin to try to persuade him that he'd get a lot further by making the effort to at least appear to give a neutral summary of a dispute, rather than going in with full-on accusations that respected long-standing editors are colluding to promote paid editing. The assumption of good faith was strikingly absent right from the first statement of the case. Often these things drift over time, but when it starts with accusations of ill-intent, there's an implicit assumption that the complaining party also has a dog in the fight. Guy (Help!) 13:44, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
I don't need to "influence" Colin, who is a far better person than I; he is much more likely to simmer down in a dispute faster than I am, but there was a significant fanboy factor keeping this dispute alive. As I explained above, there has been a long history of WP:MED simply not listening. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:51, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
But I'll make a deal with you @JzG: you watch list Jytdog, follow his posts for a month, exercise your influence there, and I'll exercise mine with Colin. I think you'll be busier than I will :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:56, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
I wish I had time. I have talked on Skype with Jytdog, he is a bit of an energiser bunny, I am way too old and way too busy to keep on top of his edits, much as I would like to do this. Guy (Help!) 18:03, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
You know, if you're going to whinge about "appeal[ing] to authority", perhaps you shouldn't appeal to authority. --Calton | Talk 13:18, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Especially not at ANI! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:26, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Just pointing out that "Colin and the Videos" would be a good name for a band. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 13:27, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Or a cabal ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:29, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

.....So, Colin's objections are:
The content cannot be edited. [While theoretically, someone can take the CC BY SA video and make a derivative work, it is not realistic to do that as the narrator would be different and it would be very hard to achieve the same visual style].

True - Same is true for audio version of articles. Again, anyone can edit, if you don't like an audio or visual on an article, by all means, add a better one.

The content begins and ends with publicity for a third party.

And ? There's no policy / rule / procedure that says it can't.

The content is unsourced and therefore does not meet our editing policies.

Uh.. how can you exactly source a video, and the same argument can be made for an audio version of an article. Straw man argument.

Some content is outdated, and it is not possible to fix. For example the video uses the outdated term "complex partial seizure"

Yeah, speaking as a non-medical person ,however, I'm a cancer survivor and read a ton of medical books going through chemo and was told by physician after physician that the books are at least a 1/2 year out of date. That's to be expected of book published literature. It can be fixed by updates and addendums that appear in later reliable studies. Another strawman

The video does not fit with our style guide for medical articles, referring to "patients" rather than "people with epilepsy".

Which guide ? Our guides are all print or audio. To be sure there's no video guide on all of the Wikipedia, so while not quite a strawman, it points to something that could be setup but does not exist at the moment.

The video contains American English slang terms such as "spaced out" which would not appear in professional writing and may be unfamiliar to our international audience. Hmmm......I understand brit slang pretty well, and anything I don't understand, I can google. Another strawman.

Wikipedia is primarily an encyclopaedia, not a YouTube channel, nor a documentary. Videos should supplement the article text, providing information in ways that cannot be done by reading alone. Instead here, we have whole article topics in video format

Yes, that's your opinion, and certainly everyone's entitled to their opinion. It doesn't mean that it's right.

He also states:

"Videos have been released under a CC BY SA license and uploaded as part of a partnership between Osmosis.org and meta:Wiki Project Med Foundation. I can find no mention of Osmosis at meta:Wiki Project Med Foundation. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Osmosis page was created by Doc James "We are working with Osmosis to create medical videos under a CC BY SA license." That project page contains almost no discussion -- these videos are not in fact being reviewed by the project or community prior to being added to articles by Doc James. I must conclude that the "we" is Doc James, and not WP:MED nor the Wikipedia community.

Uh....actualy there is on this archive of WikiProject Medicine, it's also |mentioned on Meta too

Sandy Georgia's complaint over at[227] that the video on Lewy Bodies is inaccurate and engaged in a long discussion about it.

No problem - this is' Wikipedia and anyone can edit, so by all means , create a video and present it for consensus. This is just straight up forum shopping and it needs to stop. I'm just this close to requesting IBAN's for this , since I don't belive a TBAN would be the right way to correct this.  К Ф Ƽ Ħ  13:53, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

You have much reading to catch up on. (Could you work on better formatting of your posts, please?) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:59, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Actually, User:SandyGeorgia you might be surprised and how much I've read of this. For example |over here at Jimbo's page where Colin remarks that the videos were placed back in without consensus by Doc James, I actually agree. In both the mentioned pages, I see no consensus for the videos to be placed there in the first place. For all intents and purposes, it appears to be a WP:BOLD move on DocJames's part, and as always WP:BRD is how that's supposed to work, he did the Bold, colin did the remove, but the discussion was skipped. I'd actually ask User:DocJames to verify if consensus was established for their inclusion , obviously with a link included. Otherwise the contested videos need to be removed per BRD. Surprised ?  К Ф Ƽ Ħ  14:46, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Quite. The videos have already been removed.[228] Surprised? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:51, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
ANI threads are not about content; that Doc James is able to read the writing on the wall of the RfC (that he started and that you have disrupted and tried to undermine) and is removing the current versions of the videos, shows all the more starkly how disruptive Colin's campaigning and personal attacks were (not to mention unnecessary - such behavior is never necessary). We could have gotten to this result more swiftly without all this drama. We still need to figure out if/how the videos can/will be reposted in a modified form. That discussion is still ongoing. Jytdog (talk) 17:00, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Since you insist, here is a diff discussing your behaviors. As to the ongoing discussion, they have indeed turned quite interesting. As the concerns emerge, it appears that Colin was particularly accurate in the description "Osmosis: Wikipedia medical articles hijacked by paid editors working for private foundation". There are a number of issues well beyond en.Wikipedia, and well beyond ArbCom, that appear to need to be addressed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:10, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
You are least being more honest with respect to your intention to retaliate.
Again this thread is not about the content. Colin's behavior has not been OK on this; nor has yours.
My responses to you from here onward will be very brief and simply rebutting further efforts to derail this. Jytdog (talk) 17:19, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Once again, you think very differently than I do. My last sentence is an indication that this is probably a WMF matter. As far as I know, that has nothing to do with any part of Dispute Resolution. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:00, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • This diff (the 2nd comment in that diff), misrepresenting what is going on here, is an example of how SandyGeorgia is part of the problem. Jytdog (talk) 17:19, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
You're right, Jytog. Except for the title of Colin's post, everything else is inaccurate.  К Ф Ƽ Ħ  18:12, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I have asked you to explain this post, here. Actually talking to and answering questions asked by the person you have a disagreement with is the kind of dispute resolution I endorse. Please do. On your talk or mine, as you please. What did I misrepresent? I am always happy to strike when shown wrong. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:00, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Answering:
a) Colin is not "under attack" (the purpose of ANI is to stop disruption for the good of everyone involved)
b) the subject of the thread is not Colin's "quite accurately pointing out that "Osmosis: Wikipedia medical articles hijacked by paid editors working for private foundation"" - indeed that yet again repeats the disruptive use of COI as a cudgel.
What you are doing here is deploying well worn and tedious ANI tactics, continuing the set of behaviors described in the OP. Jytdog (talk) 18:09, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for answering. Please stop casting aspersions ("well worn and tedious ANI tactics"). a) OK, I will strike and replace the "under attack" wording in the original post; I can see your point there. b) Best I can tell, JzG is bothered by that specific language from Colin, so we disagree on point b. We also disagree that he is using "COI as a cudgel"; there are serious COI issues here, and yet it took a week for anyone to see what Colin saw from the outset (others only came around to seeing it mostly as a result of @SlimVirgin:'s work). I do not think it appropriate for Colin to be under fire (replace: taken to task by JzG) because he saw the seriousness of paid editors from an outside company having a COI and the videos being inserted, with edit warring, by Wikipedia editors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:23, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Struck and rewrote. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:28, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Update from Doc James (thank you, @Doc James:). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:47, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

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Rangeblock request for 2601:400:C001:87D2::/64[edit]

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For over many month now, this user has been adding unsourced info to cartoon pages (e.g., birth dates and heights). Example edits: [229], [230], [231], [232], [233], [234].

Requesting a rangeblock. EvergreenFir (talk) 04:04, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Two weeks. --NeilN talk to me 04:43, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you! EvergreenFir (talk) 05:22, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
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Afd OpenCOLA: invalid nom? Revert?[edit]

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Can this afd (Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Opencola (company)) be reverted into oblivion? I've stated my reasons for opposing Deletion in two separate posts, even though the nominator didn't even follow through with staying a Reason for the nomination! Lexein (talk) 07:12, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

  • Nobody removed the references section as you claimed at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Opencola (company), and I have explained there. And the nomination clearly does have a reason - at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Opencola (company) it says "Not a notable subsidiary, consider merging if there is any material that is notable though." If you want to contest the deletion, please do so at the AFD discussion and the consensus will be determined by an uninvolved third party. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:21, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Oh, and it is entirely unacceptable to attack someone making an AFD nomination as "deletionist scum" as you did here. If I see anything like that again, you will be blocked from editing. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:26, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
  • And I have just seen this. If I'd seen it before I responded to this report, you would already be blocked. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:30, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
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Hard to revert IP vandalism[edit]

Hi again - I'm unsure if this is the right place about this issue. Feel free to quickly close and hopefully give me a hint how to deal with this kind of situation accurately. :/

Special:Contributions/111.74.7.168

Quoting from the talk page of a colleague I informed about the problem:

Hi :) Maybe you could help me with this, as you stumbled across one of the edits yourself:

* Vandalism by IP: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=OECD_Better_Life_Index&diff=832678106&oldid=829362241&diffmode=source

* Accidental revert to not-obvious, hidden maliciously bad version: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=OECD_Better_Life_Index&type=revision&diff=832706562&oldid=829362241&diffmode=source

There is more of this, probably reverted by people like you and me. Let's clean the mess up together. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:44, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Summary: Persisting IP vandalism that does not get caught as such because the edits might be good-faith cleanup of outdated lists. The issue is spread across multiple articles and persists because following vandalism by other users is reverted to the last "clean" version, which contains deliberately wrong information. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 13:53, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Just to add my two cents, in this particular case I did actually review the malicious change and assume it to be vandalism, but on inspection of the reference I found no correlation between the source and the table, so I could not verify it. I personally always check the history of the page to ensure that I am not rolling back to a bad version, although I am aware that the ease of the rollback function may mean that not all rollbackers do this. I think my only unoriginal insight here is that pages should be simple and closely linked to sources in order to enable easy verification. AJ2265 (talk) 14:12, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Possible student meatpuppets putting hoaxes on Wikipedia[edit]

Wikipedia:Help desk#Hoax?

DDCS (talk · contribs)

User:DDCS/sandbox is a lengthy article about a TV show that doesn't exist. Elsewhere he said:

"I've noticed that you've marked my photos, as copyright. I can understand, so please let me explain. I am doing a project for my school, (I know) weird way of doing a project, and this is the way my professor asked me to do it. I must keep all the photos in, I've uploaded the photos through the public view thing on Wiki, and your the only thing stopping me from completing this project on time."

And the deleted photos were related to the bullshit article. So it looks like the professor is using their students as meatpuppets to get hoaxes on Wikipedia. Assuming I'm right, their classmates need to be tracked down.

As for DDCS, well I guess what I've done here already means DDCS has failed this class. Alexis Jazz (talk) 00:14, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

If the "professor" himself is not a hoax, he needs a good talking to. Any leads on what class this is or the name of the alleged prof? Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:38, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Look at Devereaux0772 (talk · contribs · count) and Jayydeeeen (talk · contribs · count). I seriously doubt there's a teacher. This is just run-of-the-mill school kid vandalism.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:40, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:DDCS/sandbox&oldid=798770754 shows a fake school. Edward M. Felegy does exist though so the article may give some hints anyway. seems to be based on College Park Academy Public Charter School.
It seems like a lot of work for run-of-the-mill vandalism. Alexis Jazz (talk) 00:48, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Serious blow to DeVos and her charter school claims.104.163.147.121 (talk) 01:55, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

This is getting really messy, take a look at User:Jayydeeeen/sandbox. Here's a list of editors that I've indentified (copied from help desk):

Bellezzasolo Discuss 13:50, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Can the pages about fictional entities be nominated for deletion? They are not notable and definitely unverifiable. Can the users be blocked as WP:NOTHERE? 35.1.210.88 (talk) 15:23, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello,

This is @DDCS.

I want to apologize to the entire Wikipedia community for my actions. I understand that this is a major thing here that shouldn't be tolerated and it never dawned on me that sandboxes, private pages, could be seen by others. I had only written that, as a project for an online class that I'm apart of. If I had known my consequences would be this harsh and rough, then I would have never done it in the first place.

I have these fantasies about things in my life that I would like to come true, and Wikipedia almost makes them come true. Growing up, my grandmother always told me, "if it's on Wiki, its legit". I always had this dream about designing my own school, I had this dream about creating my own TV series, and stuff like that. At the time of me doing it. Editing my own article, gave me the sense that it was real, and I liked how I edited it. It seemed so professional, and well constructed, that I thought that nothing would be in my path.

If you want, I do, give permission for you guys to delete my article(s). I realize now that its a serious offense in this community, and can promise, that this will never, never, happen again on this IP address. A link sent me a FANDOM page, and I will use that from now on.

I appreciate this very, very much. I hope we can let bygones be bygones, and move on from this situation.

Sincerely,

DDCS a.k.a (Devin Dandridge Christopher Simmons) — Preceding unsigned comment added by DDCS (talkcontribs) 22:06, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

@DDCS:, Look forward to seeing your future contributions to the project. 2601:401:500:5D25:74B8:A2DE:F79E:199D (talk) 23:23, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
@DDCS: I can understand what you're saying, but nothing on Wikipedia (or Commons) is private. There are all kinds of wikis out there for fiction. You had at least one administrator fooled who moved the page for the "Renaissance Multicultural Technology High School" to its own draft page. So this kind of thing can result in citogenesis. When you say "this will never, never, happen again on this IP address", that doesn't mean you're just getting another IP address.. does it? Alexis Jazz (talk) 16:06, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Block of obvious sock needed[edit]

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Per this report at WP:AIV (where nothing much happens right now), since I'm tired of reverting them:

  • Done. I semi-protected the page for a while as well. Black Kite (talk) 19:11, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
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CIR issue[edit]

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Not sure where to post this, but ANI is the closest thing to a community bulletin board that I can think of so here goes.

AdmiralNelson is an active editor with a very poor grasp of written English. When his(?) edits are decipherable at all they inevitably need to be rewritten. His very first edit set the pattern that has since continued. See User_talk:AdmiralNelson where others have mentioned his poor grasp of English and overall quality of edits. He has made no response to these concerns.

It's possible that the lack of English competence is a game but my impression is that AdmiralNelson means well. Given that, I'm neutral on whether a WP:CIR block is necessary at this time. My main reason for bringing this up is so that others can follow his edits and make the inevitable corrections, or weigh in as to whether other measures are needed. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:43, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

I just looked at his/her last three edits in article space:
  1. "On March, 2018, Cook Told journalist [[Chris Hayes]] Facebook should Regulations itself he said,“
  2. "Mark Zuckerberg that disavow on a Memo 2016 on profit, he said in statement."
  3. "US Special Forces brink victory to defeat ISIS in Syria, and Complete.. US Commander warns that Trump administration hurt it could be a wasted."
So yes, we should "regulations" this editor. I.e. block. One does need a basic command of English to be here, and in this case it is absent. 104.163.147.121 (talk) 22:32, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
It looks very much like mechanical translation from another language. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:36, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
Google translate does much better than that.104.163.147.121 (talk) 22:38, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
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I have been unsuccessful in trying to communicate with AC80 about the creation of unreferenced articles, see User talk:A Chris80, particularly User talk:A Chris80#Sources. After 7 messages from me on this issue, and similar messages from others, I got a response at User talk:Boleyn#Story of Lee Hee-beom. which indicates that they had added a reference to one article, but I couldn't understand most of the message. There is clearly a language barrier, but I would say that editors should only edit if fluent or nearly fluent in the language of that Wikipedia. Otherwise, they will be very useful editing in their mother tongue.

I have sent two more messages since then, ignored as the first 6 were. I have directed them towards WP:Communication is required, WP:BURDEN etc. and outlined exactly which unreferenced articles I'm referring to, but nothing. I have been messaging this user since September 2017 on this issue, and after six months it is unresolved. Boleyn (talk) 12:11, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Hazarding a guess based on some of their contribs, I left a message on their tp in Thai. All I got was a vague response on my tp - which due to the time stamp, suggests that they are in my time zone, but which covers a lot of SE Asia, including Korea articles they have edited. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:01, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Restoring auto-archived report - concerns are still there, can this please be resolved, A Chris80? Boleyn (talk) 13:53, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
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Boyar Debbarma block evasion as Bdeb66[edit]

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Hi,

I'm pretty sure by duck test that Bdeb66 is Boyar Debbarma avoiding his blockage (again): New username containing parts of the old one, same subject on User:Bdeb66/sandbox, and usage of medias previously uploaded by the other (commons:File:Boyar_Debbarma.jpg, Khumulwng logocollege.png).

(Should I post this to WP:Sockpuppet investigations?)

Best regards, --Lacrymocéphale 08:56, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Copied in WP:Sockpuppet investigations/BOYAR DEBBARMA. --Lacrymocéphale 09:35, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
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I have sent ten messages to this editor over the last 3 months, no response to any of it. I have explained that refusing to communicate when others raise concerns is disruptive editing, and laid out in the policies WP:DISPUTE and WP:CONDUCT and explained in detail in the essay WP:Communication is required. This editor has been editing for over 9 years but only seems to have edited their talk page to blank the page, and doesn't seem to have responded to the many concerns raised over the years, which have resulted in previous blocks, with no clear change in behaviour on their return (see User talk:Yimingbao). They never write edit summaries either, so I have no idea why they have made some unexpected edits. I had been contacting them about creating unreferenced articles. Boleyn (talk) 06:17, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

  • Blocked indef with insructions on what will be needed to continue editing. Swarm 13:49, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
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WP:EASTEREGG related complaint[edit]

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Title changed from "User:Beyond_My_Ken dislikes the WP:EASTEREGG formatting standard, keeps reverting edits without reason, and is making offensive personal remarks." to be more neutral. Legacypac (talk) 04:14, 31 March 2018 (UTC)


Hi there,

Would you guys be able to help out here? I've tried reasoning with this user, and I've told him that his edits detract from Wikipedia's readability; and I've also pointed out that personal insults aren't appropriate on Wikipedia. But he ignores everything, and even tried to cover up the disagreement by reverting my message on his talk page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Beyond_My_Ken&diff=833346595&oldid=833343325

Also, he's stated clearly on his userpage that he dislikes rules and guidelines, and he seems to revel in disregarding them.

I'm aware of the fact that rules and guidelines sometimes need to be bent or broken, but he's given no reason for it in this instance. It's wasting quite a lot of time. Here is a link to the page in question: Adolf Eichmann

Regards, InternetMeme (talk) 01:23, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello. Yes, Beyond My Ken can sometimes be difficult to deal with, and that is unfortunate. However, you are behaving wrongly yourself by restoring your comments on his talk page after he deleted them, as you did here. Please respect it if other editors remove your comments from their talk pages and accept that they have a right to do this. I'm also not clear what exactly you expect other editors, or administrators, to do about Beyond My Ken's behavior. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:29, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
This filed just after I filed Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:InternetMeme_reported_by_User:Legacypac_(Result:_) Legacypac (talk) 01:33, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
You are edit warring, InternetMeme. That is not allowed, even if you think that you are right. You have also failed to explain your EASTEREGG point at Talk:Adolf Eichmann. Your behavior has been very poor, as has BMK's. Stay off his talk page. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 01:36, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
(1) WP:EASTEREGG is not policy, it's part of a "how-to" guide, therefore not mandatory
(2) What InternetMeme was deleting was not an Easter egg
{3) InternetMeme apparently hasn't noticed that I re-wrote the disputed language to avoid the non-problem that he was edit warring over.
Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:38, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

InternetMeme failed to follow the advice of BMK who is an experienced editor or my advice or an Admin's advice on their talk. The sentance was perfectly fine before they started messing with it. Legacypac (talk) 01:40, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

I just got a "thanks" from InternetMeme for my rewrite on Adolf Eichmann. Does that mean that he's going to withdraw this silly report, or is he going to leave me out here, twisting, twisting in the wind? Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:46, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes, as soon as you apologize for calling me an idiot, which is a completely wrong thing to do. Also, it's fairly obtuse to complain about me filing a "silly" report while you simultaneously file a silly report of your own. InternetMeme (talk) 03:17, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
If your curtains still need wringing, this might help.
All your curtain are belong to us

Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:38, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

You see, this part of your problem. I didn't file the 3RR report, Legacypac did, but you went and made assumptions about it, just like you continued to revert on Adolf Eichmann without even noticing that the text had changed, or the number of bytes in the edit was different then it had been before. Now you file a report, and refuse to withdraw it even though the conditions you objected to are no longer applicable. You're simply not paying all that much attention to what you're doing - you were told on your talk page by an admin even before it became a dispute that your edit to Adolf Eichmann wasn't a good one, and yet you bulled ahead full steam anyway.
This is an encyclopedia, it is, or should be, a finely tuned assemblage of words which convey information to its readers. It's not a video game that you can just keep pushing the firing button until you win, or a collection of arcane rules that are enforced whether or not they help improve the text. Who the hell cares if something is an WP:EASTEREGG if it conveys the necessary information to the reader? Your approach is completely backwards: follow the rules, obey the rules, pay homage to the rules, who the heck cares if the text is screwed up or not? Well, a lot of editors do, and they don't suffer gladly the fools who do not. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:08, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
evidently not. I've suggested he withdraw this thread and agree to stop edit warring and I'll withdraw the 3RR report but he's not accepted that offer. Seriously - willing to risk a block over a piped link to Hitler oath? People should not edit without a clear head. Legacypac (talk) 02:44, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
@Legacypac: The edit warring has stopped and InternetMeme seems to accept the new wording, so my suggestion is that you withdraw the 3RR complaint, regardless of whether he withdraws this or not -- I really don't care what he does. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:32, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
Oops, I see he was blocked, my suggestion came too late. Oh well. Beyond My Ken (talk) 4:33, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
User_talk:InternetMeme#March_2018_2 Legacypac (talk) 04:35, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
toally irrelevant interjection-- Y'all, one of our pillars has gone missing. I fear it's wrung down the curtain.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 03:34, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

OP blocked 31 hours for edit warring on several pages over EASTEREGGs on Good Friday. Happy Easter everyone. We are done here I hope. Legacypac (talk) 04:30, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I blocked InternetMeme because they left this discussion and immediately started edit warring at another controversial article. Sorry for being slow to report back here. Dinner was ready and my wife is an excellent cook. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 04:46, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
@Legacypac: Section headers don't need to be neutral, just free from attacks; these are still essentially complaints and considering you've done so in the past, I just thought I'd say. No hard feelings, though. --QEDK () 06:21, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
It also helps if the header is not a lengthy sentence. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:26, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
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Spjayswal67: SPA since 2009 with many recent issues[edit]

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Spjayswal67 is a very problematic single-purpose account (created in 2009). His single purpose is to create Ambarish Srivastava, that he created 3 times (AfD (closed 2010-02-08, result delete), 2nd AfD (started 2018-03-27, currently open)). After my !vote to delete, Spjayswal67 greatly increased the size of the AfD with comments and arguments against deleting the article. All !votes at the AfD are delete, except Spjayswal67's !vote. Today, at 08:42 UTC, Spjayswal67 did a legal threat at the AfD. There is also serious suspicion of undisclosed paid editing (at the article and the Spjayswal67's talk page). Spjayswal67 needs to be indefinitely blocked as soon as possible. Luis150902 (talk | contribs) 12:59, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

@Winged Blades of Godric: Today at 14:01 UTC, Spjayswal67 was indefinitely blocked by NeilN for making legal threats. Luis150902 (talk | contribs) 14:10, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Spjayswal67 indefinitely blocked. I thought about G4'ing the article but the first AFD only had two participants so getting more opinions might be a better if we're going to delete and salt this time. --NeilN talk to me 14:15, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
@NeilN: There are 5 participants in the current AfD, not counting the SPA: Softlavender, Usernamekiran, SpacemanSpiff, Winged Blades of Godric, and Luis150902. Luis150902 (talk | contribs) 14:22, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
@Luis150902: And that can probably run for the usual seven days. --NeilN talk to me 14:26, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict)@NeilN: Can't G4 as the original AfD was appealed at DRV which permitted recreation and recommended a relist at AfD (something I didn't have the energy to do), given the amount of promo stuff that in local interest pieces was being passed on as genuine just because all of it was in Hindi, something that no one else could read and photographs of buildings as references! —SpacemanSpiff 14:27, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Ah, thanks for the info. --NeilN talk to me 14:30, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
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I've been contacting this editor since August 2017, leaving several messages. They haven't responded or addressed the issues: the creation of multiple unreferenced articles. They have continued to create unref articles since I first raised the issue. I have directed them to WP:Communication is required, WP:BURDEN and WP:V, but have had no response. This editor doesn't edit all the time, but has edited many times since messages were sent, and has edited for 6 years. They have never responded to a talk page message from anyone. Boleyn (talk) 08:11, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Looking at his contributions, at least some look like translations from other languages and some of the originals are a bit short on references as well. I'll drop them a note as well, but I don't hold out great hopes in view of your experiences. Deb (talk) 08:58, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Greetings. If I didn’t take time to respond, it’s because I’m clearly getting targeted for trivial reasons and I don’t mean to be involved in any admin bullying. Those articles are indeed mostly translations, but since I wasn’t able to find an equivalent to Modèle:Traduction/Référence on the English Wikipedia (On other Wikipedias, this is a tag that you put on top of a References section to essentially redirect to the References section of the same article in another language, which I believe to be better practice than copy-pasting sources from one Wikipedia to another), I just went ahead and placed the Template:Translated page in the talk pages (On some other articles I actually tried to recreate the tag that I wanted by leaving the note ‘’This article is based on the equivalent article of the xx Wikipedia (...)’’, but I figured that defaulting to the already-existing tag would be a better idea, even if it didn’t do what I really wanted). If those articles were about controversial politicians, I would have understood the concern, but in the case of two plain simple articles on train stations, I really don’t understand the matter. ThePierrasse (talk) 10:54, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
All articles should be referenced, not only those about "controversial politicians", and preferably with inline citations. What you appear to be doing when you translate articles is stripping out any inline references. DO NOT DO THIS - even a incorrectly formatted reference is better than nothing.Nigel Ish (talk) 11:11, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
ThePierrasse, responding to other editors' concerns is compulsory, as I pointed out to you by linking to WP:Communication is required. It is an essential part of Wikipedia policy, also outlined at WP:CONDUCT and WP:DISPUTE. Refusing to communicate or discuss concerns is disruptive. WP:V is essential to Wikipedia and not trivial, and accusations of bullying should not be used unless that is clearly the case, which it isn't here. Thank you for taking the time to communicate now, it's just a real shame it took seven months, numerous messages and an ANI to get to the point where you would respond. Do you understand that communication is a requirement on Wikipedia? Will you respond to concerns raised in future? Will you add reliable sources to articles when you create them? Best wishes, Boleyn (talk) 12:24, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

responding to other editors' concerns is compulsory, as I pointed out to you by linking to WP:Communication is required. It is an essential part of Wikipedia policy

Is it compulsory and part of Wikipedia policy? Because when I looked at WP:Communication is required, it had a huge notice at the top stating the following:

"This page is an essay on conduct policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not one of Wikipedia policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints."

124.106.139.19 (talk) 12:49, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't know if the above is a new editor or ThePierrasse, but, 'it is an essential part of Wikipedia policy, also outlined at WP:CONDUCT and WP:DISPUTE'. Those are policies which are outlined in further detail in the essay WP:Communication is required. Boleyn (talk) 14:11, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Could you point out exactly where it states that "responding to other editors' concerns is compulsory" and "communication is a requirement on Wikipedia? ", please?
Discussion is useful, especially when dealing with disputes - but it looks as if you're just getting annoyed and creating reports because someone doesn't want to talk to you. 124.106.139.19 (talk) 14:21, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
As editing here is voluntary, nothing is really compulsory. However repeated failure to respond to other editors is disruptive editing (WP:DISRUPTSIGNS #4) and therefore blockable. --NeilN talk to me 16:10, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
In response to 124.106.139.19 (talk · contribs · WHOIS): You'll find that Wikipedia:Dispute resolution #Discuss with the other party is policy and states:

Talking to other parties is not a mere formality, but an integral part of writing the encyclopedia. Discussing heatedly or poorly – or not at all – will make other editors less sympathetic to your position, and prevent you from effectively using later stages in dispute resolution. Sustained discussion between the parties, even if not immediately successful, demonstrates your good faith and shows you are trying to reach a consensus.

Note particularly the phrase "or not at all". Failing to engage at all with other editors' concerns frustrates a fundamental mechanism on Wikipedia for overcoming problems, and you will eventually fall foul of a charge of disruptive editing if you never respond. Hope that helps you understand. --RexxS (talk) 01:09, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
I shouldn't second guess your statement, as you're the one who is going to block them. But, I would say that if an editor does nothing wrong, then they have no obligation to respond to anything and shouldn't be blocked for not wanting to talk to people. Also, if an editor does something wrong, is messaged and changes their behavior without responding, then again no block is deserved.
The block should come when they do something wrong, don't respond and continue doing something wrong - and in that case the block is there for rule they broke, not their lack of response.
I'm sure there are lots of editors who have no desire to communicate and just make their edits without responding to anything.
What do you think, Nein - if an editor made decent edits and just refused to communicate with anyone, while making good edits and causing no disruption, would that still be considered disruptive? Obviously that's not the case in this situation, but I'm curious about the hypothetical situation. 124.106.139.19 (talk) 16:23, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
No they wouldn't be "repeatedly disregard[ing] other editors' questions or requests for explanations concerning edits or objections to edits" in that case so not disruptive. Boleyn has always made it clear in this and other reports that concerns were repeatedly being ignored. --NeilN talk to me 16:30, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying that. It was just curiosity, I don't think it applies to this situation or any situation I am likely to find myself in. 124.106.139.19 (talk) 16:48, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Wikilawyers who insist on the letter of policies and guidelines while violating their spirit ("Could you point out exactly where it states that "responding to other editors' concerns is compulsory" and "communication is a requirement on Wikipedia? ", please?") are likely to end up blocked. Also please log in to your account to post here, User:ThePierrasse / IP 124.106.139.19. You are currently contributing to this discussion in a way that implies the account and the IP are two different editors ("you're the one who is going to block them"). Please state upfront: are you one and the same? I admit I'd have trouble believing a "no", but we'll see. Bishonen | talk 16:59, 30 March 2018 (UTC).
Please state upfront: are you one and the same? I admit I'd have trouble believing a "no", but we'll see.
For what it's worth - no we are not one and the same.
I was just curious about the rule regarding compulsory communication, so I asked about it - nothing more sinister than that.
But as you said, you are unlikely to believe that answer.
124.106.139.19 (talk) 17:59, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) @Bishonen: The IP edits from the Philippines. ThePierreasse is fairly clearly French. Plus the IP has been involved in another ANI thread. Seems unlikely that the IP and ThePierreasse are the same.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:02, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes that isn’t me and I think the debate is slightly getting off-topic. If Boleyn had really cared about missing references, he would have been able to realize that there had been translation templates on the talk pages of both articles since day one. I do understand that this might not be enough of a reliable source on the English Wikipedia, but was that really enough to issue a report? Leaving a Template:unreferenced tag on top of the pages seemed to be the only right move. Plus I can’t stress enough that we’re talking about two railway stations articles with very few information written in them. What could have possibly been made-up about them? Their location? Date of opening? Don’t make me laugh. If there was really a problem with those articles, they should have been requested for deletion, but I don’t get the point of only going after the user who wrote them. I’m all for removing and challenging unsourced material, and I can only admire people who spend their time patrolling Wikipedia to make sure no bad content ends up on it, but I don’t think this was really the case here.ThePierrasse (talk) 19:41, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
You refused to respond to quite reasonable questions about sourcing on your talkpage and in your response above, you indicate that you consider referencing as optional. In your translation efforts you actually managed to remove references that were present in the French article and you did not provide adequate attribution to the article on which you appear to have based your translation (hiding a translated tag on the talk page is not enough). You should clear up the mess you have made rather than just shrugging your shoulders and attacking editors who complain about your poor behavior.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:00, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Users interested in blackface controversies[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Hello! I would like to report an ongoing incident. I think it requires the intervention of administrators.

Please look at what is happening on the article about a Japanese musical group called "Momoiro Clover Z". There are two editors, 124.106.139.19 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and Spacecowboy420, who are repeatedly adding information about a controversy regarding the group's planned performance at a Japanese TV show. And they aren't simply adding it (actually, the controversy has been mentioned in the article for a long time now), but they seem to want to make the incident to stand out as much as possible.

(What happened was that that Momoiro Clover Z planned to collaborate with a famous Japanese blackface band called Rats & Star. And they were going to wear blackface makeup too. And there was a picture of both groups together in blackface makeup posted on Twitter. The picture was noticed by some American media outlets, who criticized them, and the performance was cancelled. That's all.)

Now look what the editors in question repeatedly added to the Momoiro Clover Z article:

They added it to the lead section! I've tried to explain to the people (on the article's talk page and at WikiProject Japan) that it is false cause Momoiro Clover Z never performs in blackface, that the performance was planned but never aired, and that Rats & Star is a respected Japanese musical group, but the editors don't seem to care.

And again, this was also added to the lead section:

But there was no performance! Even if it was rehearsed or filmed, it wasn't aired. And I couldn't revert anymore cause I've already reverted 3 times. (Actually I thought that it could be reverted an infinite number of times as a blatant violation of WP:BLP, but I was afraid to revert...)

Then finally Curly Turkey came and deleted the paragraph:

But the IP has just come back and created a special section titled "Blackface controversy" (!!!)

I believe that what's happening is a blatant violation of WP:BLP, WP:WEIGHT, WP:BRD (cause I've reverted them and tried to talk to them on the talk page, but they continued). Can something be done about this please?

P. S. And please look at one more article, "Nita Negrita". The IP added a huge section named "Blackface controversy" to that article too: [237]. A user named Hotwiki reverted: [238]. But Spacecowboy420 came and reverted the section back in: [239].

Please do something. --Moscow Connection (talk) 08:07, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

I definitely saw a pattern about those editors in that certain subject, and I don't think their contribution regarding about the subject was helpful and needed to the articles mentioned. Also criticism doesn't automatically means controversy.TheVeryHotWikipedian (talk) 08:22, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
I must say I'm not really sure what Spacecowboy420's intentions are. He actually reverted the IP's edit to the Momoiro Clover Z article at first: [240]. But then he reverted it back in and wouldn't let me delete it. --Moscow Connection (talk) 08:56, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't know why some users insist on adding this nonsense. I am informing that the IP was blocked for his personal attacks and edit warring when he was bothering over this content.[241] Rzvas (talk) 08:31, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
This brief, three-year-old controversy is in the body of the article. It was an ill-informed blip in the group's history. There's no way it could possibly belong in the lead, and it was so brief and quickly dealt with that having a section header for it (and thus placing it in the Table of Contents) is simply way WP:UNDUE. "The four members of MCZ are known for their controversial use of blackface" is simply counterfactual, and a gross misrepresentation of both the band and the controversy—keep in mind that this is the opening sentence.
Of course, ANI is not the place for content disputes—the issue is the ceaseless behaviour, constantly re-adding these things against consensus. Yes, there is a Talkpage discussion, and these editors are agressively ignoring the consensus there. They should both be blocked and TBANned. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:52, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Okay, let me try to address these points one by one.
1. repeatedly adding information about a controversy regarding the group's planned performance at a Japanese TV show. And they aren't simply adding it (actually, the controversy has been mentioned in the article for a long time now), but they seem to want to make the incident to stand out as much as possible.
(What happened was that that Momoiro Clover Z planned to collaborate with a famous Japanese blackface band called Rats & Star. And they were going to wear blackface makeup too. And there was a picture of both groups together in blackface makeup posted on Twitter. The picture was noticed by some American media outlets, who criticized them, and the performance was cancelled. That's all.)
I initially added the content to the lede, as I saw a notable incident that was worthy of inclusion on the article.
It was removed by User:Spacecowboy420 with a comment saying "I reverted your edit because there was no source given. Please find a source if you want to restore that content."
After that Spacecowboy put the content back along with the source that it was missing.
2. User:Moscow Connection started remove this content and claimed on the relevant talk page that "They didn't wear it even once." despite there being lots of sources actually showing the photos of this group in blackface.
3. After having it pointed out that whether it was aired or not, they still wore blackface, Moscow Connection then started to claim that it was undue weight.
The response to this was that there were a lot of reliable and notable sources that showed is to not be a WEIGHT issue. It's not a fringe theory or an incident that was only picked up by one minor source.
Here are the sources that were given: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]
These sources include the Japan times, Vox, Vice, IBTimes, NY Times - with comments from a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist.
4. Then finally Curly Turkey came and deleted the paragraph But the IP has just come back and created a special section titled "Blackface controversy"
Yes, I did - because previously there was one line of content, hidden within a section on a collaboration with the band Kiss. That content had no place in a section with zero connection to the controversy, so it's just common sense to give it a heading so that people know what they are reading about.
5. They added it to the lead section! I've tried to explain to the people (on the article's talk page and at WikiProject Japan) that it is false cause Momoiro Clover Z never performs in blackface, that the performance was planned but never aired, and that Rats & Star is a respected Japanese musical group, but the editors don't seem to care.
I changed "performed" to "appeared" when it was pointed out that it might not actually be a performance and if the other group they appeared with is respected or not, doesn't have any relevance to anything that I can think of.
6. This brief, three-year-old controversy is in the body of the article. It was an ill-informed blip in the group's history. There's no way it could possibly belong in the lead, and it was so brief and quickly dealt with that having a section header for it (and thus placing it in the Table of Contents) is simply way WP:UNDUE. "The four members of MCZ are known for their controversial use of blackface" is simply counterfactual, and a gross misrepresentation of both the band and the controversy—keep in mind that this is the opening sentence.
This "ill-informed blip" was prominent enough to reach not only domestic but international media such as the USA Today, IBTimes and the New York Times, I think that shows that it isn't undue weight.
And yes, I did make a section header for it - prior to my edits it was in a section titled "2015: Collaboration with KISS" - I will assume good faith and assume that was a mistake to place it there and not an attempt to hide it from readers, but whatever the intention the effect was the same - it was hidden from readers.
7. ANI is not the place for content disputes
I agree. So stop hunting for blocks, when there are so many other options to resolve disputes. Get some uninvolved opinions and see what they think about the content. Not everything has to be a battleground.
124.106.139.19 (talk) 14:42, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

References


Cause it's hard to believe that a well-intentioned person can act this way, would put something like this into the lead section.
I'll cite WP:VANDAL: There, of course, exist more juvenile forms of vandalism, such as adding (...) crude humor to a page, (...) and inserting obvious nonsense into a page. --Moscow Connection (talk) 23:51, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Well-intentioned but singleminded people do strange things. This isn't vandalism, but POV-pushing, trying to make this one incident somehow 'definitional of the group, and willing to editwar over it. Momokuro are not "known for" their use of blackface—it was a single, ill-advised incident that was not even widely reported, as I demonstrated on the talk page:
"Momoiro Clover Z" -blackface (3,820 hits)
vs
"Momoiro Clover Z" blackface (19 hits)
So aside from lying, this editor does not edit in a collaborative or NPOV manner, and needs to be dealt with. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Curly Turkey (talkcontribs) 00:52, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
Momokuro are not "known for" their use of blackface—it was a single, ill-advised incident that was not even widely reported, as I demonstrated on the talk page
The fact that the incident was reported on major international media sources means that they are well known for that incident.
I'm sorry, but those misleading google hits don't show anything relevant. I can take content similar to "Momoiro Clover Z" blackface" from the article such as "Momoiro Clover Z" energetic performances" (which is an ideal comparison because it comes from the same sentence that you are mistakenly (more on that later) complaining about The four members of MCZ are known for energetic performances
"Momoiro Clover Z" energetic performances (21 hits)
There you go. 23 hits compared to 19. So, if you want to base how well known this group is, based on Google hits - they are about 80% as well known for blackface as they are for energetic performances. But you have voiced no objections to The four members of MCZ are known for energetic performances being in the same sentence as the references to blackface were, I guess 23 hits makes something highly suitable for the lede, while a mere 19 hits makes something highly unsuitable, the editor who added it a liar and deserving a block. Wow! The difference those 4 extra hits make is very important!
And now let's get back to "more on that later" - I think you're missing the point here.
Yes, initially I put that they were known for the use of blackface, for two reasons: 1. I considered it to be accurate. 2. It fitted in with the lede that listed a few things they were known for, it was easier for add them to that sentence than to make a new sentence.
But, while other editors were removing/restoring the "they are known for their controversial use of blackface" line from the lede, I placed that content in a different line that had no mention of them being "known for" blackface. Note this edit (there is one revision between those two edits that is not shown): [242] - so you're complaining about something you consider to be an issue, that I had reworded and rectified myself. 124.106.139.19 (talk) 05:59, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
You haven't convinced a single commenter in this discussion with your bullshit walls of text yet. Nothing has changed—you editawarred to push a POV against consensus and Wikipedia policy, and continue to push your bullshit here. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:54, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
I added content that was met notability standards and was supported by many reliable and verifiable sources.
I'm very sorry that you find my "walls of text" offensive, I will try to be a little more succinct in future.
On the subject of offensive, I think your use of profanity here (as well as edits like this [243] and this [244]) are demonstrating your combative attitude towards Wikipedia, so I'm not sure how productive continuing this discussion is. I think we've covered the relevant points, so unless there is a constructive reason for me to comment any further, I think I will step away from the drama and get back to editing articles. 124.106.139.19 (talk) 07:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
What's offensive is your persistent policy-violating POV-pushing attempts to define the band's entire career with one brief incident (breaching WP:WEIGHT, WP:BLP, WP:BRD, WP:CONSENSUS, etc), and the horseshit mind games you play when backing it up. You are disrupting Wikipedia and show every indication that you intend to continue doing so. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:25, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Another IP vandal: here by 108.18.165.72 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). Falls into a very similar pseudo-controversy pattern. 198.84.253.202 (talk) 17:06, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

  • (Non-administrator comment) It is OR to say that because the blackface incident was reported on in "major international media" (most of which are obviously obscure publications meant for anime fans, or Japanese media targeted at a tiny minority of English-speaking ex-pats) that means the group "is known for" the incident. Without a source that explicitly states as much, this is a BLP issue and the content must stay out. If the IP and Spacecowboy420 continue<s edit-warring, they should be blocked or the page semi-protected, or both. Hijiri 88 (やや) 02:01, 31 March 2018 (UTC) (edited 06:37, 31 March 2018 (UTC))
    It's not just the IP—in that list of four edits Moscow Connection gives, three of them were by Spacecowboy420. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:37, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
Hijiri 88 It is OR to say that because the blackface incident was reported on in "major international media" (most of which are obviously obscure publications meant for anime fans, or Japanese media targeted at a tiny minority of English-speaking ex-pats)
Do you consider sources from The New York Times (more than 130 million monthly readers) [Hijiri88 1], The International Business Times (40 million unique visitors each month) [Hijiri88 2], Vice Media (reaching 78 million unique visitors a month) [Hijiri88 3], USA today [Hijiri88 4] and Vox (54.1 million unique visitors) [Hijiri88 5] to be obviously obscure publications meant for anime fans, or Japanese media targeted at a tiny minority of English-speaking ex-pats?
Because I would consider them to be "major international media"
that means the group "is known for... - I moved the content from the "is known for" sentence (note: "is known for" was always in the lede) to a sentence of its own a long time before this ANI report was made, so your complaints about it seem to be rather stale, and complaining about an issue that I already addressed. 124.106.139.19 (talk) 10:58, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I've fully-protected the page to enforce WP:BRD. If there's no consensus in a week and the edit war continues, please notify me, or report at WP:ANEW. Swarm 12:41, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Blocked sock abusing talk page[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Ms Sarah Welch (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)

Can some admin revoke talk page access of this disruptive sock, Ms Sarah Welch, who is abusing talk page for claiming other editors in good standing to be engaging in sock puppetry? Talk page for a blocked sock is for requesting unblock, not for trolling and falsely accusing people of sock puppetry. Capitals00 (talk) 03:11, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

The only disruption here is Capitals00 trying to disrupt a legitimate unblock request with name calling and accusations. Ms Sarah Welch has the right to request to be unblocked and to provide evidence in her defense. First Light (talk) 14:46, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Why you edit ANI mostly when it concerns misconduct of Ms Sarah Welch?[245] That's not an unblock request. Starting battles is not a "defense", but harassment and rehashing false sock puppetry allegations is not going to contribute in an unblock request. Capitals00 (talk) 15:45, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
I probably have some few hundred edits at ANI among my 22,000 plus edits, but who's counting, and why is that suddenly your business? Sarah Welch has been an extremely productive editor in some of the areas that I edit, so I hope to see her back to editing soon. There is no evidence of her being disruptive, and no evidence that her alleged socking from a few years back is currently disruptive. Her unblock request is a legitimate one, and she has every right to provide evidence in her defense. It looks to be a complex case she is presenting. Let it proceed without drama and accusations, or simply have an admin unblock her. First Light (talk) 16:01, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Because you are defending Ms Sarah Welch's disruption. I have already made it evident how disruptive MSW is[246] and I dont have to do it again. MSW still restored his sock's edits before getting blocked, that's how the convicted sock puppetry is "currently disruptive". Since MSW is only abusing talk page, the access needs to be revoked. Can't agree with terms of sock, that's not how we do it here. Capitals00 (talk) 05:27, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I fail to see how throwing false accusations of socking against other established editors constitute "evidence in her defense". That's clear abuse of talk page editing privileges. —MBL talk 16:04, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Her "evidence" that others are socking is a reductio ad absurdum argument that similar evidence against herself is invalid. So that is evidence in her defense. Art LaPella (talk) 16:34, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Technically, the use of their talk page by blocked editors is for the posting of unblock requests, period. Any other usage is by the sufferance of the community, and does not include WP:Casting aspersions, even in the form of a reductio ad absurdum argument. If MSW doesn't stop, immediately, TPA should be revoked. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:31, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Update - Still rehashing same false allegations of sock puppetry against established editors while admitting that his frivolous revenge SPI discovered no sock puppetry but still he is claiming that "behavioral review has not been done".[247] This harassment is not stopping even after a warning.[248] Talk page access needs to be revoked now since this sock is only focusing on falsely alleging others to be socking instead of showing remorse for his own long term sock puppetry. Capitals00 (talk) 05:44, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
    • I will wait to see, if she resumes her behavior.If, in affirmative, we have to go down the path of revoking TPA but now is not the precise moment to do so, given that she has quasi-promised to not resume such activities.Best,~ Winged BladesGodric 08:53, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
      • He has been doing this since before he was blocked. Despite he is around for a long time enough that he must already know about the proper use of talk page as a blocked sock, we are still giving way too many ropes. Recent message came[249] after the warning[250] and since we are dealing with a disruptive sock, it makes no sense to allow more harassment. Capitals00 (talk) 09:17, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
        • A minor point, but why do you continue to refer to this editor as a he, when everyone else is using she? It does strike others as unnecessarily combative and rude...Ealdgyth - Talk 12:10, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
          • ApostleVonColorado was always referred as a "he".[251][[252][253] ApostleVonColorado is the main account, while Ms Sarah Welch is just another sock created after 2 other socks of this sockfarm. Capitals00 (talk) 15:00, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
I took a look out of curiosity and seeing things such as "([deleted by Winged Blades of Godric on March 25 2018], to be updated and submitted offline/off-wiki, to respect the privacy of those involved)" is troubling. This is less "I'm going to stop accusing other editors of socking" and more "I'm going to do it offline so the people I'm accusing don't even have a chance to see it or defend themselves". Are we done here? --Tarage (talk) 18:12, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
@Tarage: Yes this sock plans to waste time of people by emailing them, canvassing them offline about his false allegations that other users are socking. Capitals00 (talk) 07:09, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Still abusing talk page[254] for claiming other users to be socking and making up stories about them, despite SPI's admins have already told him that there is no sock puppetry. Socks are supposed to use talk page only for requesting unblock (which will either way never happen). It seems that he agrees that he will never get unblocked on his sock account for his sock puppetry, that's why he is trying to use his account now only for claiming others to be socking. Meaningless arguments like "I am blocked but why others are not!?!?!" is probably worst way to get yourself unblocked especially when you are only rehashing false and rejected allegations.
Talk page access needs to be revoked already for continued harassment. @Ben MacDui and Bbb23: are you both fine with increasing the AVC's block to indef now? I am aware that Bbb23 has made blocks for rehashing false sock puppetry allegations before. We know that AVC was given a very lenient block of only 48 hours for years of sock puppetry, yet he is still using his sock for causing disruption by rehashing same false allegations of socking while being completely aware of its consequences and even had multiple recent warnings[255] as well as this whole complaint but he refuses to give up this harassment. AVC is also engaging in WP:BATTLE throughout his sock's user talk page by engaging in hostility against other editors.[256][257] We are having a clear case of WP:NOTHERE and WP:CIR. Capitals00 (talk) 07:09, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
How is the sock master not blocked? Cripes. This is beyond stupid. Block, lock the page, come back in 6 months. --Tarage (talk) 07:38, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
Agreed. This is way over my head that the sock master was given only 48 hours block for prolonged sock puppetry when even new editors are given indef block for a single instance of sock puppetry. It is even more unbelievable that the user is still angry and vengeful over being caught socking instead of being thankful for leniency. Indef block should be instated on sock master for this continued disruption while talk page access of the sock (MSW) should be revoked. Capitals00 (talk) 08:35, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
If you care to read WP:SOCKTAG you will see that although policy is rather vague about block lengths for newly identified sock masters that they are generally not given long blocks, initially at least. It is the socking, subsidiary accounts that are given indef blocks from the outset. If you consider the matter further, firstly the ApostleVC account has not edited since 2012, so giving that account a longer block would probably serve little purpose in practice. Secondly, don't you think it would be interesting if that account were to commence editing again for some reason? Be all that as it may, the original purpose of this thread was to discuss whether or not the Ms Sarah Welch account is abusing talk page privileges. As I am "involved" I am not going to pass comment on that topic. Ben MacDui 17:18, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
"don't you think it would be interesting if that account were to commence editing again", that's why I didn't opposed the 48 hours block at first and assumed good faith but all that assumption of good faith has been largely thwarted by AVC with his own actions by continuing harassment with sock account. It is usual to see newly born sock masters getting indeffed for their first instance of socking,[258][259] and here we were having a sockmaster who deliberately violates the policy, and MSW continues to reject sock puppetry, despite having slipped a few times and revealed himself be a sock of AVC a number of times,[260][261] that's why an indef block was clearly warranted because the person is refusing to admit any mistake. Nonetheless, the indef block is still warranted given the recent abuse of editing privileges. Capitals00 (talk) 03:16, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Repeated reposting of mythology to support claims of fact at Jews[edit]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


After it had been removed by another editor, User:Debresser reposted[262] the assertion at Jews that "Modern Jews claim lineage from the southern Israelite Kingdom of Judah, namely the tribes of Judah and Benjamin since the ten northern tribes were lost following Assyrian captivity." When he did so, he restored a source (PBS) that plainly states that it is relating content from another source, which itself plainly states that it is a presentation of mythology. His edit summary reads "Restore information which is very relevant and important. If you think the source needs to be improved, use {{Better source}}." I'm pretty sure that guidance doesn't hold when the source provided is inappropriate altogether.

After I removed the assertion, which I understand to have no foundation in historical evidence, along with the source, Debresser reposted them[263] and added another source[264]—an Encyclopedia Britannica article on the scriptural tribe of Judah, which is readily observed to be recounting events (such as the existence of the Biblical characters Jacob, Leah, and Joshua, as well as Judah) from within the perspective of the Biblical narrative, not as historically established facts. He added this with the edit summary "Source added to obvious statement."

I commented on this on at Talk:Jews#Reliable Sources, saying I was at the least going to remove the two inappropriate sources, explaining exactly why, warning that Debresser that it is at the least disruptive to add cite myth to support factual claims, and then I did remove the sources, while tagging the claims with {{dubious-inline}} and {{citation needed}} tags. Debresser responded by restoring the two sources,[265] and adding a third[266] that isn't the slightest bit reliable, presenting no information from a historical perspective and only parroting the Biblical narrative. Furthermore, that source's content can be found verbatim on at least a dozen other websites. Who even knows where it comes from?

Does the restoration and addition of these references by Debresser amount to disruptive editing, after having had it pointed out to him that mythology doesn't qualify as reliable sourcing for assertions of real-world fact?

Is the assertion itself about the lineage of modern Jews and the tribes of Israel acceptable as a statement of fact, with or without valid footnotes attached? Largoplazo (talk) 05:01, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

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AFD deletion request[edit]

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Hi, Not sure how long deletion will take seeing as it's 1am here - Could someone delete Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Homosexuality please - It was created as an April Fools joke by some editor however I think this AFD oversteps that boundary, Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 00:26, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

 Done Cullen328 Let's discuss it 00:32, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
April Fool's Day jokes are lame and irritating. Just my opinion. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 00:33, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
Brilliant thanks Cullen328 - Meh I don't think they're bad if they're new ..... Kinda gets boring if it's the same shite repeated again and again, Anyway thanks for your help. –Davey2010Talk 00:36, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
CSD:G6 is the solution for future reference Legacypac (talk) 00:43, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
Legacypac - Sorry I had G6'd it however I wasn't sure how long it'd take for it to be deleted so figured I'd come here whilst leaving the CSD in place :), Cheers, –Davey2010Talk 00:54, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
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Possible AFD or soapbox?[edit]

I recently came across an article that seemed very peculiar to me. One which I think may be WP:FRINGE, and would appreciate an admin to have a look.

Aleviler was created on April 2009 as a redirect to Alevism. However, on November 2013, edits began by an anonymous IP [267] that had created an article with nothing more than a list, a categorization of multiple sects and faiths. What is the purpose of it or the message the subject conveys? Who knows. I've just tagged it with a {context} template.

Another burst of edits was made on February 2014,[268] this time adding a "Further reading" section full of books to do with each of these religions (which all have their own articles, mind you). Then another burst on 3-7 March 2018, changing the list and adding more sects to it [269].

There are inline citations besides each line, but they are either inaccessible or the ones which are seem to have nothing to do with the topic itself (if there even is a topic, as the lede is vague). It'll reference an inline citation next to a sect name, and the link is mentioning the name of that sect, but what that's supposed to mean is unclear. It merely gives the appearance of a "well cited" article. DA1 (talk) 14:45, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Hello! these sound like items to be discussed on the talk page of the article. Or you could edit the article, or tag the article or leave a message on the talk page of the person making objectionable edits. It does not look like a case for the administrators to intervene.104.163.147.121 (talk) 08:44, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
I could have done that, and it could have sat there without a response. The point of contacting an admin was to verify whether the article has encyclopedic value, and/or are some of my concerns valid at all. The entire article was written by several IPs. I've only just added an AFD template on it as well earlier today, I am open to discussing it on the article's talk page. DA1 (talk) 16:36, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • @DA1: The PROD has been contested so I sent it over to AfD. Feel free to argue your case further there if you feel like it, but an AfD should provide the clarification you're seeking. Swarm 12:59, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Passing of Alice Dacuba[edit]

Not sure where else to post this. Patriciamontazaah first appeared on my radar with a couple of unexplained page blankings here, here, here, and Special:Diff/833536742. That's just the immediate set that I could find.

After being warned by myself and other users, I noticed this message on the talk page. Assuming good faith, I, as well as General Ization (talk · contribs) and HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk · contribs) took the time to explain that a sizable amount of content was removed, and that it would be reverted barring a reasonable explanation for why the edit should remain. On User talk:Patriciamontazaah, HickoryOughtShirt?4 asked the user again to discuss edits on the talk page, where the conversation took a turn for the bizarre.

Judging from this user's bizarre behavior and unexplained repeated page blankings, I think it's pretty clear that they're not here to build an encyclopedia, and even if it isn't intentional vandalism, it's still disruptive nonetheless, despite the fact that numerous editors have tried to offer guidance. In any rate, WP:CIR comes to mind, and my interactions with this user are concerning, in that sense. Sierrak28 (talk) 06:32, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

I just notified them. I agree with the above. I am trying to assume good faith here since it appears they speak tagalog [270] but their edits are frustratingly lacking competence. HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 06:37, 1 April 2018 (UTC)


What is this all about? Okay fine I'm really really SORRY for what I've done to the administrators. I just want to impress my feelings to Orlando Bloom. Thanks to @HickoryOughtShirt?4 for helping me and talking to me on what I should do. Thank you for your kind consideration. ~~~~ Template:Unsigned -->— Preceding unsigned comment added by Patriciamontazaah (talkcontribs) 06:41, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

{ping|Patriciamontazaah}} Thank you for the comment. As I am sure you know now, Wikipedia isn't the place to express fondness for an actor. However, it doesn't explain odd edits like this [271] where you oddly changed the date of a source. I checked the URL and the date stated was right. HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 06:45, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
Oops, broke the ping, Patriciamontazaah. HickoryOughtShirt?4 (talk) 06:47, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Most likely an April Fool's troll. I would hope. Blocked indef. Swarm 19:44, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Repeated addition of mere rumours and speculation on a BLP (Dan Schneider (TV producer))[edit]

Could we have more eyes on that article, since I intend to go to bed soon. The article is PC-protected, but the rumours ("sourced" to Deadline Hollywood and Huffington Post...), are now being added by autoconfirmed users, including a user adding it back again after being reverted. And mere rumours and speculation (about why he and Nickelodeon parted ways), sourced to digital gossip rags, should IMO not be added to BLPs... - Tom | Thomas.W talk 22:31, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

The rate at which this user is "welcoming" new users is a bit concerning (WP:GAME may be involved here...?). Can an admin please look into this? Thanks. 83.53.215.247 (talk) 10:01, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

  • Everyone have right to welcome new user and i am welcoming individually and not any WP:GAME is involved here. MAXNP (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:04, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Why was MAXNP blocked? Thank you, --Malerooster (talk) 14:17, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
It was a check user block. Sock of Gaurav456. -Ad Orientem (talk) 14:32, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

Socking and WP:OWNERSHIP[edit]

User Bertrand:101 has been using numerous accounts and IP addresses to establish ownership of Hyori's Homestay, such as edit warring with many users and even leaving warnings on users' talk pages. This is a clear block evasion.
See: [272], [273], [274], [275] - user insists on adding specific content, and preventing other content from being added. Even to the extent of reverting vandalism control by a bot.
User leave "warning" messages on talk pages by other users who don't agree with his editing - [276], [277], [278], [279] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.253.212.227 (talk) 00:03, 3 April 2018 (UTC) Pinging @Kenny htv:, @Pooriyaa:

I assume you mean Bertrand101 (talk · contribs), who has long been banned? Nate (chatter) 00:34, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
Yes. ElopeGarry (talk · contribs) and 112.204.31.179 (talk · contribs) are his sockpuppets and have been banned.
The article should be semi-protected, to stop the IP from editing/reverting. GoodDay (talk) 00:40, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
Protected by Ad Orientem.--Dlohcierekim (talk) 09:36, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
  • If our notability criteria genuinely encompass that article, I am going to cry. Slightly famous for being slightly famous. Guy (Help!) 21:38, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I am literally being stalked on wiki by EdRivers56, Aquillion, and Davey2010[edit]

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This person is literally stalking my edits and undoing them, and also visiting several wikis and removing large areas that are located in the controversy section that are at least a few days old. This began all at once on March 31 in a matter of hours. I have already sent them a message on their talk pages as well as on some of the articles' talk pages, and yet I am randomly given a warning about 'edit warring' and being blocked by a 'third person' (Davey2010), however the other person (EdRivers56), was not warned. (Davey2010) is also visiting the other wiki articles that this person has undone that has removed entire sections of controversy, w/o any explanation, for example for the Daily Mail, and reverting all of their edits. EdRivers56, is claiming that the statements in the article do not identify the Daily Mail as the source of controversial information that was given out. Instead of only removing that section and discussing it, they remove entire sections that have nothing to do with it and that have reference links directly to the Daily Mail article where certain "controversial" things are located. There are also reference links to other news websites that also say that it was the Daily Mail who made those comments. Sock 3 Davey20010, is reverting all of EdRivers56 edits, without any explanation of the reverting. Aquillion has also deleted entire areas out of the controversy section for The New York Times. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kb217 (talkcontribs) 13:58, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

@Kb217: As the edit notice for this page says, "When you start a discussion about an editor, you must notify them on their user talk page. You may use {{subst:ANI-notice}} to do so." Please do so. Also, your sockpuppetry report was completely baseless, so I deleted it. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 14:11, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
DoRD, NeilN notified those users. Hhhhhkohhhhh (talk) 14:21, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I simply spotted an editor adding a hell of a lot of content (and then saw it being reverted), Upon investigating I came to the exact same conclusion as EdRivers56 hence my reversions .... I will add I've reported the editor at AN3, Anyway this whole "You're a sock who's stalking me!!!" is laughable at best, I would suggest blocking per CIR. –Davey2010Talk 14:16, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
@Kb217: You've now been reverted by four different editors with explanatory edit summaries and this causes you to make accusations of socking, stalking, and vandalism. Have I got this right? --NeilN talk to me 14:21, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
@Kb217: And in your edit summaries you're calling editors who disagree with you "vandals" and "idiots." Do you see a problem with this? Acroterion (talk) 14:25, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
If you don't, then I think we're looking at a block here. So Kb217, please read WP:BRD and WP:NOTVAND and explain how you're going to change your editing behavior. --NeilN talk to me 14:29, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
  • As far as I can tell, I've never even edited the BBC or Daily Mail articles (something that surprised me a bit given that they are within my interests, but they weren't even on my watchlist previously), and only reverted you once in a single series of edits, for the reasons I explained. I was completely unaware of any other disputes you were in and AFAIK we've never interacted before (although for what it's worth, if I had checked and noticed you were adding the same text to multiple related articles, I don't think that that would fall under stalking - WP:HOUND allows for following up on a user's edit history for the purpose of correcting related problems on multiple articles, and adding nearly-identical text on the same topic into multiple articles, as you seem to have been doing, certainly qualifies. But, again, I wasn't aware of that when I reverted you and did so solely because the addition seemed out-of-place in that article.) I can understand why it might make you feel put-upon when independent editors raised similar-but-separate objections to your actions on similar pages in a short timeframe, but the common thread here is you and your actions. And generally speaking, it's not unusual to encounter some pushback when adding a large amount of text to the controversy section of a very high-profile subject like these, since they're controversial topics that have had a huge amount written about them, meaning that there's inevitably going to be WP:DUE weight concerns and the like. --Aquillion (talk) 19:32, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
They're literally stalking your edits, Kb217? Is that as opposed to one figuratively stalking your edits? If your report here is indicative of how you write, your edits need to be "stalked". Writing in silly teenager vernacular is wholly inappropriate here. This is a formal document. Facebook is that way ==>. John from Idegon (talk) 05:48, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
Someone should right an essay about competence does not equate to socking?--Dlohcierekim (talk) 05:59, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
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97.94.163.47[edit]

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This IP user's talkpage access needs to be revoked, and their block length should probably be extended. Thanks. 126.25.161.126 (talk) 11:18, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Extended to two weeks and removed talk page privilages. TomStar81 (Talk) 12:15, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
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196.74.206.135[edit]

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This is an anonymous user who keeps adding erroneous information to Adele related articles, in particular 25 (Adele album) and Hello (Adele song). 105.149.3.178 was blocked a little earlier this evening, but the user has now returned as a different ip to continue the edits. As this is the third incarnation of this user then it's starting to border on the disruptive. This is Paul (talk) 19:47, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Protected both pages for a few days. Unfortunately the IP's look dynamic so blocking is likely going to be ineffective. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:09, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I removed material from the Train graveyard article,[280] written by User talk:Violetriga, on the grounds that the supposed burial of a Nazi gold train is not a "train graveyard" within the normal meaning of that expression. A train graveyard is a place where old trains and other rail equipment is put to rust and "die". The Nazi gold train -- if it ever existed, and if it was buried -- was buried in order to hide it. That's not the same thing at all, and while the located of the supposedly buried train could be called a train's "grave", it is not what is meant by a "train graveyard".

That's a content dispute, here's the behavioral issue: after I removed the material, requesting that the author provide a citation from a reliable source not to indicate that possible existence of the buried Nazi train, but to specifically call the burial place a "train graveyard", Violetriga, showing very strong WP:OWNership behavior, violated WP:Verifiability by repeatedly restoring the material without the requested citation.

It's all very silly. It started because Violetriga insisted on Wikilinking the Nazi gold trains burial site to Train graveyard. [281] When I went to her talk page to explain why I reverted,[282] they took offense and replied with sarcasm, Edit summary: "Oh, I didn't realise that I was talking to the authority on the subject." so I opened a thread on Talk:Nazi gold train, [283] and that lead to Train graveyard. At one point I added a link to train graveyard in the "See also" section of Nazi gold train, in the hope that this would settle the issue. [284] but the dispute continued at Talk:Train graveyard.

(While I was writing this, GreenC commented in the thread on Nazi gold train, agreeing that the burial of the Nazi gold train was not within the usual meaning of "train graveyard". [285])

Maybe I've behaved badly, I dunno. (I do know that my explanation on Violetriga's talk page was not meant sarcastically or meanly, which is apprently how they took it.) If someone wants to block me, I'll take my lumps, but I really can't countenance deceiving our readership by an innaccurate description of the burial of the Nazi gold train, and an inapproriate inclusion of material in the "train graeyard" article.

I am not asking for any sanctions here. I am asking that an admin explain to Violetriga that restoring material disputed on WP:V grounds without providing a citation from a reliable source is inappropriate, and that she should stop doing it, and for the meaterial to be removed again until such time as a citation is provided. I have said explicitly that I would withdraw my objection to the material in Train graveyard with the addition of such a source which calls the burial place of the Nazi gold train a "train graveyard", even though I would continue to disagree with that description. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:03, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I have notified Violetriga, and I have removed Nazi gold train from my watchlist. (Train graveyard was never on it.) I hope this issued can be settled by uninvolved editors without my further participation, as I believe I have made my position abundantly clear. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:07, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
I am awaiting your source to prove that your definition of "train graveyard" is correct. To me a place in which a train is possibly buried can legitimately be considered to potentially be a "train graveyard". We don't have to "deceive" users just give them a link to an article that is potentially relevant. The wording does not state that this is certainly a cemetery, but wikilinking to it gives people another avenue to explore. violet/riga [talk] 17:11, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
It appears to me that you are now simply being obstructionist for no reason. Your yourself wrote, in the article Train graveyard:

A train graveyard is where trains and rolling stock are abandoned while awaiting recycling or destruction. They are often left to decay and some locations are forgotten or secret

but if your own words are not sufficient for you, take a look at each and everyone of the results of this search, all of which are about places where old trains are put to rust and "die", and none of which talk about burying a train -- and that's because burying a train would be expensive and time-consuming, and no one wants to spend any more money on this old equipment than is necessary, so they're driven or hauled to a train graveyard and just left there. The Nazi gold train -- if it ever existed and isn't simply a bit of local folklore -- wasn't buried to die, it was buried to hide it. It's something that if it happened, rarely ever happens, and is certainly not what the term "train graveyard" was invented for. (Cf., for instance, Airplane graveyard).
But the real issue here isn't the content dispute between us -- AN/I doesn't deal with content disputes-- or even that you don't seem to understand the clear metaphorical meaning of the English expression "train graveyard", the issue is your restoring material after it's been removed on WP:V grounds without providing a citation from a WP:RS to support it, as is required by policy. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:25, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
Obviously I find your opinion and actions to be incorrect. The content that I included is totally verified in the article. It states that a train (or parts thereof) might be buried after being abandoned by the Nazis. If it were to prove true then I don't understand how it could not be called a "train graveyard", a term which you have still not actually provided a definition of. violet/riga [talk] 17:36, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I think that you are exactly correct: you do not understand the meaning of the expression "train graveyard" and somehow believe that the burial of a train, the way a dead body is buried in a human graveyard, must therefore make the location a "train graveyard". This is why I have been asking you if you understand what a metaphor is. "Train graveyard" is a metaphorical expression, and an idiomatic one at that, not a literal one. The metaphor is based on the fact that trains go there to "die" (another metaphor), just as (some) humans go to a human graveyard when they are dead. It has nothing whatsoever to do with burials. I'm clearly having great difficulty in making you see that your understanding of the expression is flawed. Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:47, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
Furthermore, the likelihood is that no such train exists and so your Googling is not going to come up with much. The articles make it abundantly clear. violet/riga [talk] 17:38, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
The Google search of Google Books was on the expression "train graveyard", so the fact that not a single result mentioned a burial is a strong indication that burying trains -- which is obviously a rare thing, if it ever actually occurs at all -- is not what the expression is about. If the Nazi gold train existed, and if it was buried, the site could be called the train's "grave" (again, metaphorically), but it would not make it a "train graveyard" because that is not what that expression means. Why is it so hard to make you see this? Beyond My Ken (talk) 17:47, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
You're the one insinuating that it has to be a burial. I'm saying that a train that has been abandoned and left to decay can count as a train graveyard. It has been left to die. Yet the whole thing is untrue so should we massively prune Nazi gold train because it's all so presumptuous? violet/riga [talk] 17:52, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Uncle. I give up. I'm clearly incapable of explaining to this editor why they're misinterpreting the generally accepted meaning of "train graveyard", or they're clearly not interested in actually listening to what I'm saying (WP:IDHT?), or both. Nor can i make this ex-admin see that when someone removes material from an article on the grounds of lack of verification (i.e. there is no source which says that the burial location of the Nazi gold train is a "train graveyard") one cannot simply restore it to the article without providing the required citation from a reliable source to verify it.
    Someone, please, put me out of my misery. Make me put down the computer, put sweet things in front of my and whip me if I stop eating them, force me to try to read Gravity's Rainbow for the fourth time, make me watch re-runs of I Love Lucy, anything but this torturous drip drip drip of hard-headedness and misunderstanding. "I'm coming, Elizabeth!". Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:13, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Comments made after the withdrawal by the initiator[edit]

  • Just came back to ask: should I be concerned that User:Violetriga just followed me to NoMad, Manhattan, an article they've never edited before, [286] but for which I am the primary author, [287] to edit [288] almost immediately after I did? [289] Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:46, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
    i'd say give it time. Nothing to woeey as of now. Also, are you sure Violetriga is a she? Girls never follow me, neither in real life nor in online life. usernamekiran(talk) 19:00, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
    Because of "Violet" my mental image was of a female, but I was trying not to assume that, and I changed a bunch of the automatic "she"s that I wrote to "they"s. Guess I must have missed one. {{gender|Violetriga}} returns a blank. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:30, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
  • I've started an RfC at Talk:Train_graveyard#RfC:_Nazi_gold_train, to resolve the content dispute for that article.-- GreenC 18:52, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
Violetriga, having seen the RFC go clearly against their opinions, decided to do a ridiculous and unjustified page move. (I done messed up when reverting it - can an admin remove the plural?) This is clearly a behavioral issue now. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 22:01, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
 Done put back to Train graveyard. — xaosflux Talk 22:06, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Okay seriously, someone please review User:Violetriga's behavior, because this is WELL beyond acceptable. Editing against consensus sure, but have you seen the things they have been putting on User:Beyond My Ken's talk page, especially AFTER being told they are not welcome to post there? [290] [291] [292]. If this isn't block worthy for editing against consensus, it sure as hell is for civility. Either way, User:Violetriga needs to go, now. --Tarage (talk) 22:39, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

All incivility started by Beyond My Ken, but I'm sure you were just about to report what he said... violet/riga [talk] 22:41, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
So that makes it okay to spam insults on his talk page? Insults he has made VERY CLEAR are not welcome? He has the patience of a saint to put up with you. How daft are you? --Tarage (talk) 22:42, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
I replied to him and quoted one of the sayings he seems to live by (the image). He wasn't welcome on my talk page either but that didn't stop him. violet/riga [talk] 22:44, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
Keep digging, I'm sure you'll reach that burred train with all the evidence of your innocence eventually... --Tarage (talk) 22:47, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
Thank you Tarage, but Violetriga is correct, she pushed me to the limit and over, and I gave her (on her talk page) as good as I got on my talk page, the difference being that I was never told not to post on her page (maybe she has by now, but I'm not going there), while I specifically told her not to post to mine, and she continued to do so. My general rule of thumb is that if I throw someone off my talk page I do not post to theirs, but I will admit that there have been a couple of times I've forgotten and slipped, especially after some time has passed.
In any case, despite what I view as Violetriga's bad behavior (a biased view, of course), I still don't want anyone sanctioned, I just want the Nazi gold train removed from Train graveyard -- which you did, and which seems to be sticking because of the RfC-- and for there to be no link in the body of the Nazi gold train article back to Train graveyard (which is how this whole thing started), although I myself added a link in the "See also" section, which I think is legitimate.
Today has been a really hard day. I've been editing for about 8 hours and have actually gotten almost nothing constructive done. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:14, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

[293] Please block this editor to prevent further disruption of Wikipedia. --Tarage (talk) 23:08, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Really? Even though the originator of this argument agrees with its inclusion? You really should find better things to do. violet/riga [talk] 23:12, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
And no swearing please. violet/riga [talk] 23:14, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'm afraid you're mistaken. I did not agree with the inclusion of the Nazi gold train information in Train graveyard, I voted "oppose". All I said was that I saw nothing wrong with a link in its "See also" section, which is not the same thing. I said the same about a link going the other way in the other article. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:20, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
That is exactly what I was referring to with that link. violet/riga [talk] 23:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
I don't frankly care what his argument is. You. Are. Editing. Against. Consensus. You. Are. Edit. Warring. You. Are. Not. Civil. You need to be blocked. I have never seen a former admin as stubborn as you are. It baffles me that you were able to even get the bit in the first place considering your continued behavior, but a look through the archives shows that this is not at all a new problem with you, but rather that when the going gets tough, you run away till everyone forgets about you. You need to be blocked before you damage this project any more. --Tarage (talk) 23:15, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
You know, I'm pretty sure that everyone has occasions where they disagree with things. Most people are able to discuss things though - shame that you can't because I'm impressed with the recent calmness of posts by Beyond My Ken. violet/riga [talk] 23:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
I deserve none of the credit for that: you forced me to take a pill. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:40, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

As far as I can see, both BMK and violetriga are at 5R on that article. I'd advise you to both cool it before someone decides you both need an enforced break. This is hardly life-and-death stuff. GoldenRing (talk) 02:28, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Your advice is good, of course, but I'd point out that neither of us has reverted the other in over 11 hours. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:04, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Likely there's no need for further comment here, but since both Tarage and Violet have come to my page, I'll say something. I'm kind of surprised anybody cares so much about this, and that BMK lets it interfere with his peace of mind. But on the matter of fact of the section which Violet has been insisting on in Train graveyard, and the link she has been insisting on in Nazi gold train, I say (and I think it's obvious): Violetriga, the RfC at Talk:Train graveyard has gone against you, so I'm sure you won't insert your preferred version in that article again, nor reinsert the link in Nazi gold train. I don't think you should have moved the article while the issue was so infected, but that is hopefully water under the bridge now. And, with all the respect I have for you and your record, and with our always pleasant relations, I also think you have been guilty of bludgeoning the various discussions, which is a pretty bad thing, and I hope it stops as of now. I agree with User:Miniapolis about the massive timesink,[294] and I hope you take it to heart.

Oh, and the other matter, Beyond My Ken, that you re-opened this thread for: Violet probably did edit NoMad, Manhattan because she saw it in your contributions list. But so what? I don't see that there was anything hostile, or anything involving you, in her edit; I think she just looked at the article and saw something she wanted to fix. Oh (sigh), and the third matter, of the user talkpage quarrelling: I'm fairly appalled by it, more by Violet than by Ken.[295][296] "I hope there aren't lots of other articles that you're ruining" — seriously? Also, AFAICS, you, Violet, were the one who started with the user talkpage aggression. Don't post on BMK's page again. Bishonen | talk 06:52, 3 April 2018 (UTC).

Bishonen: Thank you for your comments. It's the fact that, as you say, "I think it's obvious", which I find so debilitating to be having a dispute over, because it is obvious, and sane, rational people -- such as one would hope Wikipedia editors would be -- shouldn't be objecting so obstreperously and intransigently to things that are obvious.
For the record, I agree that there was nothing hostile in Violetriga's edit; it was the act of coming to that article, one written primarily by me, while we were in the midst of a dispute, that I found... well... unsettling. "Nice tanks you've got there, Colonel, it would be a shame if something were to happen to them." It's also worth mentioning that the edits were totally unnecessary, as double spaces after a period (full stop), a hangover from the days of typwriters, when it was necessary to make clear where the end of a sentence was, are now automatically reduced by the system to the equivalent of a single space following the period. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:02, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

The behavior here is particularly vexing because on March 30th, with this edit, violet/riga, on a page they created, gave the definition as a place trains and rolling stock are left to decay. By the editor's own definition, the purported Nazi gold train is excluded. Yet for days afterward, the editor single-handedly maintains a set of battles, across a bunch of page, to insist the Nazi gold train DOES fit into the definition. Pretty hard to ascribe good faith to this train of thought. The motive seems loco. David in DC (talk) 13:52, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Reflection[edit]

I could give some excuses but instead I offer apologies. I clearly have WP:OWN issues on articles that I have just created and my behaviour was not appropriate. I maintain my belief that there is relevance in at least linking to the article but have clearly not offered my opinion in a way that is convincing or acceptable. The consensus is clear and I will continue to reflect while I consider making an article about missing trains. violet/riga [talk] 21:11, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks on my part for what appears to me to be a sincere apology. As you know I have no problem with "See also" links between the articles, but other editors disagree. My opinion is that the subject matters are closely-related enough to justify linking via "See also" (only).
Thank you again for this, which I very much appreciate. I feel a lot better, and I hope you do too. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:40, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

IP address range block[edit]

A range block should be warranted to 2600:1001:b104:0:0:0:0:0/40 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) because of long term disruption and vandalism. I have reported one IP on AIV but there are multiple IPs from this range who are vandalising. Pkbwcgs (talk) 12:44, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Also, 69.113.132.231 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) is making the same edits as the other two IPs. Pkbwcgs (talk) 12:55, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
I was trying to avoid doing a gigantic range block, but I blocked Special:Contributions/2600:1001:B000:0:0:0:0:0/39 for a month. There shouldn't be much collateral damage, and the disruption seems to be spread throughout multiple subnets. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 15:29, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. Pkbwcgs (talk) 19:29, 3 April 2018 (UTC)