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A question regarding possible good faith overprodding and over AFD related similar project articles over and over and how to improve them.
Sorry for the excessive title but as it implies I have a question if there is such a guideline for so many prodding and AFDing that is going on. There has been around four editors that I can think of that have been baiting comic book related fictional character articles that always vote delete and / or nominate them or prod the article almost all in one day. While there is nothing wrong with it I keep wanting to rescue these articles but it is in vain since they are picking them all in once. Again I assume good faith. Nothing to block someone over obviously. But at the same time I feel helpless on improving or helping Wikipedia. See here, here, here, here, here, here and here are just some of many examples. It’s been going on for a while now. Jhenderson 777 15:25, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
- I'm not seeing an issue with any of those; all the deletion nominations have explained what the issue is. Wikipedia isn't a directory of everything; for something to have a Wikipedia article, it needs to demonstrate significant coverage in multiple, independent, reliable sources and the onus is on the people who want to keep the article to provide that. It might be annoying to have multiple related articles nominated at once, but if they all share the same issue it's not unusual for them all to come to light at once. Provided you can demonstrate the significant coverage in reliable sources, there's nothing to worry about and they'll all be closed as keep; if you can't demonstrate it, then the editors are acting correctly in nominating them for deletion. ‑ Iridescent 15:32, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
- I already said that. Though I feel that that there needs to be a guideline is to stop overnuking related articles on the same day if that makes sense. Definitely when they hop on the same bandwagon vote over and over. You know they are going to vote delete no matter if we add more sources etc that talk about it. Also how does one have time to improve more than one article anyway. Jhenderson 777 16:58, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
- Comments- firstly, why weren't @Piotrus: and @Onel5969: informed of this discussion, which primarily concerns them? Secondly, it's interesting that people have infinite time to write unsourced crufty articles and regard sources as optional until someone raises an objection, but not too many objections because that's too much work. Reyk YO! 19:41, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
- Jhenderson777 could really use a mentor-type situation to go over Wikipedia guidelines and policies because I believe they have a very fundamental misunderstanding on the scope of this site. This is not meant to be an insult, but they have a very Fandom-like mentality when it comes to these articles. Their anger seems to come from the idea that these are being unfairly deleted simply because they personally lack the manpower to save them rather than the simple fact that most do not actually reasonably pass WP:GNG. TTN (talk) 19:51, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
- Comment, first thanks for the ping Reyk. Second, I do a bit of work over at NPP, particularly at what we call "the back end of the queue". Many of those articles are redirects for months/years, and then someone turns them into an article. I'd say of the ones which are legitimate (not someone simply removing a redirect, or blanking a page, or putting ###### on the page) probably 60-75% of them get "reviewed" without problem. Another 10% or so get reverted, and then get improved, and restored. The rest are simply poorly cited articles which don't show the notability of the subject. These either get reverted, or sent to AfD for discussion if an editor simply continually reverts the redirect (or asks for an AfD discussion), without making any attempt to improve the sourcing to show notability. If a valid attempt is made, and I am unsure about the notability, I usually let another reviewer take a crack at it. If they're "nuked" on the same day, that's simply when they came up in the queue. I tend to think of WP as an encyclopedia, and not a fan magazine, but attempt to adhere strictly both WP:GNG and SN guidelines. Regardless, just thought I'd explain my process. Take care. Onel5969 TT me 20:25, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
- @Reyk: To ping them was a ridiculous way to boil the pot and very unnecessary and I knew it would cause editors like User: TTN to say crap like this when this was just a civil question where I assumed good faith on and I didn’t say names in the first place. I guess @TTN: isn’t aware that I created at least four good articles and B-class articles or I am well aware of how the guidelines and essays are. What I see you are unaware of @TTN: is of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Comics and I see how you dislike their rules on its way of handling it. Instead of deleting articles maybe you can discuss the way comic book character articles are in that particular page. Since you are not liking the way they were written all the time. I thank One15969 for being civil after the ping but I don’t really have a beef with him compared to the three other editors. He handled it better and more civilly while I can’t say the same with TTN. Jhenderson 777 22:47, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
- First, I don't think TTN was pinged? Second, the Manual of Style deals with style, while this section, the AfDs, and TTNs comments deal with notability. It doesn't matter how well-written and well-structured an article is, when the subject isn't notable it still should be deleted or redirected. Fram (talk) 08:18, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- @Reyk: To ping them was a ridiculous way to boil the pot and very unnecessary and I knew it would cause editors like User: TTN to say crap like this when this was just a civil question where I assumed good faith on and I didn’t say names in the first place. I guess @TTN: isn’t aware that I created at least four good articles and B-class articles or I am well aware of how the guidelines and essays are. What I see you are unaware of @TTN: is of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Comics and I see how you dislike their rules on its way of handling it. Instead of deleting articles maybe you can discuss the way comic book character articles are in that particular page. Since you are not liking the way they were written all the time. I thank One15969 for being civil after the ping but I don’t really have a beef with him compared to the three other editors. He handled it better and more civilly while I can’t say the same with TTN. Jhenderson 777 22:47, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
- Well, I for one have found the comments by Onel, TTN, and Piotrus in this section to be helpful and rationally thought out, and have added useful input into the discussion. Excluding them from a discussion started about their actions would have just been a one-sided airing of grievances. Reyk YO! 11:57, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- Jhenderson777, you know that enormous "When you start a discussion about an editor, you must notify them on their user talk page" banner you saw when you started this thread? It means what it says; Reyk is doing you a favour by correcting your negligence and notifying the editors involved. ‑ Iridescent 14:15, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- Well, I for one have found the comments by Onel, TTN, and Piotrus in this section to be helpful and rationally thought out, and have added useful input into the discussion. Excluding them from a discussion started about their actions would have just been a one-sided airing of grievances. Reyk YO! 11:57, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
Well thanks for him then. But I never complained in my first paragraph and I couldn’t remember names to ping at the time period. Also to mention I am busy in real life with things and I am on a mobile device editing which is tougher to edit on. Regarding the ping, I feel the topic is an irrelevant off topic banter and we should move on and move on from it. Jhenderson 777 15:52, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- (Thanks for the ping). This boils down to the mostly understandable fact that one can get frustrated, not having enough time to research and rescue content they consider useful. Tough - but Wikipedia cannot wait for one person. At best, I can recommend that Jhenderson777 asks for userfication/draftication of the article they want to work on. And there is nothing stopping them from reaching out to members of WikiProject Comics and related, creating a list of such articles, and working on them collaboratively in the future. What is more problematic is when one loses one's cool and starts making personal attacks against those they disagree with: "stick a fork in it for once... You are getting on my nerves." - as far as I can tell, TTN is always polite, unlike Jh777, and it is ironic Jh777 starts to complain about this about this, while in the very same post they say "editors like User: TTN to say crap like this". Then there is the smaller issue of not following the best practices (from the same diff: "It has cultural impact. I promise you that. Regardless if I found it or not." - which goes against wP:THEREMUSTBESOURCES which Jhenderson777 is well familiar with). Additionally, while WP:DEPROD does allow one to deprod things based on the weakest or none rationale, it does suggest adding a good one is best practices, and "Stop prodding AND AFDing so many related content simultaneously. Nobody can improve content with this kind of persistence to delete everything" is not it. I strongly urge Jhenderson777 to respect WP:AGF, WP:CIV, WP:NPA and like, and not to let whatever frustration they feel affect their edits. The only constructive thing here is to issue a civility warning and move on. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:45, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- That was just one time where I got frustrated, Piotr, and I admit my wrongness and to cool off. Also I do recall User: TTN being ugly to someone who voted keep one time. I wish I could find where it was at. But I think you know and refuse to acknowledge it because you warned him about it. Jhenderson 777 12:43, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- The PROD process is not appropriate for the topics in question because it is only for "uncontroversial deletion" and "must only be used if no opposition to the deletion is expected" Such nominators clearly expect and get opposition but they persist regardless. Note that TTN's use of deletion processes was restricted by arbcom in a similar case. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:33, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- What's the timeline here? Were the nominations made in one batch, or are they ongoing? Were PRODs continued after it became clear that at least one person (Jhenderson777) was likely to object to them, and therefore can't be considered uncontroversial? – Joe (talk) 12:34, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- I have a little too much stuff going on in real life (despite being a wikiholic sometimes) to go through all that. There shouldn’t be controversy anyway. Since I called it good faith it not really that controversial. Jhenderson 777 12:53, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- I think these basic facts need to be established if you are expecting any administrator intervention as a result of this thread. If the nominations caused bad feelings but are finished, there's nothing to be done. If, as you claim in your original post, there was an overuse of PROD and/or AfD, we could address it – if it's continuing. Otherwise, what kind of resolution do you foresee? – Joe (talk) 13:11, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- There is just so many. I linked two articles that are prodded. Maybe someone like @Darkknight2149: can link all the prods and AFD going on. Apparently he reported this issue before. Jhenderson 777 13:33, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- Here is every article currently proposed for deletion, and at a quick skim I'm not seeing anything comic book related in there. If you're going to raise a complaint, the onus is on you to provide some evidence for it, not just make an allegation and expect us to take your word for it. As Joe says, what administrative action are you actually asking for here? ‑ Iridescent 14:15, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- There are several comic book characters with prod tags currently. For example: Zeiss (comics), who is a Batman villain. There are obvious alternatives to deletion in such a case. Either the article might be improved by reference to its stated source of The Essential Batman Encyclopedia or other sources such as this. Failing that, it should be merged into a page like List of Batman family enemies, along with all the rest. Andrew🐉(talk) 15:00, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- @Joe, reading your comment, I just got an idea. How about I declare all articles to be important to me? Then we could scrap the entire PROD system, as every single PROD could then be established controversial.. Look, I've been reading about the PROD system and to me, it seems to be full of loopholes. "Likely to object"? That's purely random. If I love cats and object to prod on cats and then declare I consider all cats notable, so this reasoning line would make all articles on cats resistant to this deletion method. Am I getting it right? - GizzyCatBella🍁 05:01, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
- There are several comic book characters with prod tags currently. For example: Zeiss (comics), who is a Batman villain. There are obvious alternatives to deletion in such a case. Either the article might be improved by reference to its stated source of The Essential Batman Encyclopedia or other sources such as this. Failing that, it should be merged into a page like List of Batman family enemies, along with all the rest. Andrew🐉(talk) 15:00, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- Here is every article currently proposed for deletion, and at a quick skim I'm not seeing anything comic book related in there. If you're going to raise a complaint, the onus is on you to provide some evidence for it, not just make an allegation and expect us to take your word for it. As Joe says, what administrative action are you actually asking for here? ‑ Iridescent 14:15, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- There is just so many. I linked two articles that are prodded. Maybe someone like @Darkknight2149: can link all the prods and AFD going on. Apparently he reported this issue before. Jhenderson 777 13:33, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- I think these basic facts need to be established if you are expecting any administrator intervention as a result of this thread. If the nominations caused bad feelings but are finished, there's nothing to be done. If, as you claim in your original post, there was an overuse of PROD and/or AfD, we could address it – if it's continuing. Otherwise, what kind of resolution do you foresee? – Joe (talk) 13:11, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- This stuff has been going on for a long time. The arbcom case I linked to was in 2008. TTN has since been inactive on and off for years at a time but has been especially active in the last year. Piotrus has likewise been especially active in this field in the last year. For example, here's a complaint about their prodding in February:
Just in the last six weeks, I've "rescued" Tom Hughes and Margo Montgomery, Teacup in a Storm, Bluntman and Chronic, Breathless Mahoney, Tara King, Mike Gambit, Captain Battle, Cathy Gale, Dharma Initiative, Fanny Zilch, Knock-off Nigel, Mother (the Avengers), Oceanic Airlines, Persephone (The Matrix), Ethan Hunt, Purdey (The New Avengers), Scott Robinson and Charlene Mitchell, Steve Andropoulos and Betsy Stewart, Teacup in a Storm, Newton T. Bass, Batarang, Power Sword, Day of the Figurines, Nibbles (Tom and Jerry), Royal Flush Gang, Spike and Tyke (characters), Steve Johnson and Kayla Brady, Stormbringer, Sumuru (character) and Terrible Trio. The only thing that I "rescued" them from was Piotrus' inability to use Google Books and Internet Archive. Piotrus: it is time to step away from Prod and AfD. You are not good at it.
- I have a little too much stuff going on in real life (despite being a wikiholic sometimes) to go through all that. There shouldn’t be controversy anyway. Since I called it good faith it not really that controversial. Jhenderson 777 12:53, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- In the following discussion, there was a telling response
... I don't mid deprods or people disagreeing with me at AfD. All I do is to raise possible issues with notability and such for review. Sometimes the review ends up with deletion of content, sometimes with merger, sometimes with retaining it. This is just routine version of WP:BRD. We are here to improve Wikipedia, which sometimes involves discussions about what may need to be deleted. That's all. Please keep up the good job of saving articles, and if I ever do not reply to a good keep argument at AfD or such, please don't hesitate to ping me to re-review the situation. A rescued article is always better than a deleted one. It is just that sometimes someone has to clean our wiki house a little bit.
- This indicates that Piotrus uses PROD as a form of bold cleanup – that he will prod an article with some issues as a way of getting it fixed or deleted. It seems clear that he expects that there may be reviews, rescues and other alternatives to deletion. This is not uncontroversial deletion and so the prod process should not be used. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:36, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- I very rarely agree with Andrew about anything related to page deletion, and everyone knows I'm not a fan of having articles about things like minor comic book characters, but I really think Andrew hits the nail on the head here. PROD shouldn't be used as a way to test if someone opposes deletion. That's maybe what a {{notability}} tag should be used for. PROD is for when you are quite sure that no one will oppose the deletion.That said, whether there is a problem or not seems susceptible to mathematics: what % of an editor's PRODs are deleted? If it's 50%, that's a problem. If it's 90%, it's not. Whether it's "overprodding" or not depends on the percentage. Lev¡vich 18:19, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- I could likewise post a list of many articles Andrew deprodded and that he never even bothered to vote on when they went to AfD and that were unanimous deletes. Also, some comic articles do get deleted through the PROD system. It is illogical to claim that because sometimes someone objects to deletion in topic area x, then PROD is no longer applicable. While there are obvious cases on the keep side, it is impossible to guess which article will get deprodded. I've seen Andrew deprod articles that had zero references, zero reception, and where nobody, including him, was able to find a shred of helpful sourcing. I have also seen similar articles, or ones that are "slightly" better, get successfully deleted through PROD. Unless we rule that comic-topics are immune to PRODs, arguing that someone is making errors proding because some of their prods get challenged is a joke. All prods can be challenged, and unless someone is prodding stuff that habitually is kept, this is pointless. All prods are ALWAYS A TEST, since you never know criteria the reviewer is using. Plus there is the issue that if the reviewer uses bad criteria (like believing everything in a given topic area is notable because they are fond of it), does it reflect bad on the prodder, deprodded or the prod procedure itself? Anyway, as I am pretty certain most of my prods are deleted one way or another, I don't feel I am doing anything wrong - but let's look at the statistics, given that Andrew's problematic deprods and copy-paste keep votes in AfDs have been discussed here and in similar foras much more often than my actions. While I don't think there is any good way to get prod statistics (since edit summary search tools don't deal well with deleted edit summaries, AFAIK) ere's some data from AfD stats: for me Number of AfD's where vote matched result 79.5%, and for Andrew, 53.0%. 53% - that's about as good of a ratio as flipping a coin! It's pure noise, from the information sciences perspective, no value added. So one person here is much more often in-line with the community view than the other. Andrew said just above: "Piotrus: it is time to step away from Prod and AfD. You are not good at it." Right, Andrew, right... WP:BOOMERANG, anyone? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:51, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
- Yeah, I've suspected for a long time that the point is for deprods to reflect badly on the person who placed it, no matter how silly the deprod rationale. But as I keep saying, as long as it's possible to deprod for dumb reasons like disliking the PROdding editor, or disliking the PROD process, mere whimsy, or just to be annoying, it isn't possible to infer a "controversy" that the other person should have been able to predict beforehand. Reyk YO! 11:57, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
- I could likewise post a list of many articles Andrew deprodded and that he never even bothered to vote on when they went to AfD and that were unanimous deletes. Also, some comic articles do get deleted through the PROD system. It is illogical to claim that because sometimes someone objects to deletion in topic area x, then PROD is no longer applicable. While there are obvious cases on the keep side, it is impossible to guess which article will get deprodded. I've seen Andrew deprod articles that had zero references, zero reception, and where nobody, including him, was able to find a shred of helpful sourcing. I have also seen similar articles, or ones that are "slightly" better, get successfully deleted through PROD. Unless we rule that comic-topics are immune to PRODs, arguing that someone is making errors proding because some of their prods get challenged is a joke. All prods can be challenged, and unless someone is prodding stuff that habitually is kept, this is pointless. All prods are ALWAYS A TEST, since you never know criteria the reviewer is using. Plus there is the issue that if the reviewer uses bad criteria (like believing everything in a given topic area is notable because they are fond of it), does it reflect bad on the prodder, deprodded or the prod procedure itself? Anyway, as I am pretty certain most of my prods are deleted one way or another, I don't feel I am doing anything wrong - but let's look at the statistics, given that Andrew's problematic deprods and copy-paste keep votes in AfDs have been discussed here and in similar foras much more often than my actions. While I don't think there is any good way to get prod statistics (since edit summary search tools don't deal well with deleted edit summaries, AFAIK) ere's some data from AfD stats: for me Number of AfD's where vote matched result 79.5%, and for Andrew, 53.0%. 53% - that's about as good of a ratio as flipping a coin! It's pure noise, from the information sciences perspective, no value added. So one person here is much more often in-line with the community view than the other. Andrew said just above: "Piotrus: it is time to step away from Prod and AfD. You are not good at it." Right, Andrew, right... WP:BOOMERANG, anyone? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:51, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
- I very rarely agree with Andrew about anything related to page deletion, and everyone knows I'm not a fan of having articles about things like minor comic book characters, but I really think Andrew hits the nail on the head here. PROD shouldn't be used as a way to test if someone opposes deletion. That's maybe what a {{notability}} tag should be used for. PROD is for when you are quite sure that no one will oppose the deletion.That said, whether there is a problem or not seems susceptible to mathematics: what % of an editor's PRODs are deleted? If it's 50%, that's a problem. If it's 90%, it's not. Whether it's "overprodding" or not depends on the percentage. Lev¡vich 18:19, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- In the following discussion, there was a telling response
- I'm no admin and a relatively new NPP editor but have to note firstly that User:onel5969 does exceptional work at what is ultimately a relatively mucky job. It's
sometimesoften hard to make the calls about what to keep, what to tag, what to delete. As a novice, I've found that process pretty difficult at times - and sometimes it involves terrible decisions (the autistic kid whose non-notable bio of himself you have to nix, dashing his clear hopes is one that I'll remember for a long time) and sometimes it's crystal clear. Most often, it's borderline and you have to take the call - and the opprobrium if you get it wrong. You also get the messages on your talk, the AfD arguments and all the rest. Do you deserve getting dragged to AN when the decisions regarding notability have clearly involved a number of editors and consensus? Not really. I'm not saying anyone's above scrutiny, but as far as I can see, the process has actually been working fine here. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 16:07, 19 November 2020 (UTC)- I harbor no hard feelings for him compared to three other editors off the top of my head who like to do Order 66 with most articles. All I got to say He kind of says and does the same thing predictably and I got to work harder sometimes when I wasn’t even finished. For example: Scribbly the Boy Cartoonist had to be improved tremendously and he jumped the gun on redirecting the baby article because it wasn’t proven yet. Then I boldly merged it and it got improved more so I am no better sometimes. Jhenderson 777 16:37, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- So work in draftspace. Works, no? Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 17:05, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- Alexandermcnabb: I have to disagree with your comments about User:Onel5969's track record. It is nice that he is putting time and energy into doing NPP work, so A for effort. But one look at feedback from other users towards Onel5969's NPP actions on their recent talk pages from the last 2 months might call your comments about his supposedly exceptional work in question. Haleth (talk) 15:13, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
- He was voted as number four contributor to NPP [1], a vote that was endorsed roundly by other NPP reviewers. With over 17,000 reviews in the past year. From my own experience, that's going to throw up some negatives - and I have personally found getting it right is by no means a walk in the park. A little breakage is inevitable - and he has broken, proportionately, a great deal less than I have so far. Like I say, NPP is a mucky job... Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 15:55, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
- That is not actually a vote, but a statistics tally of the quantity of reviews by each NPP member over the past year, not a vote of confidence on how consistently well each individual exercised their competence and judgment when reviewing flagged articles. Also, the endorsements I can see were for John B123 as reviewer of the year as put forward by the nominator. But I digress. Haleth (talk) 17:07, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
- He was voted as number four contributor to NPP [1], a vote that was endorsed roundly by other NPP reviewers. With over 17,000 reviews in the past year. From my own experience, that's going to throw up some negatives - and I have personally found getting it right is by no means a walk in the park. A little breakage is inevitable - and he has broken, proportionately, a great deal less than I have so far. Like I say, NPP is a mucky job... Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 15:55, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
- Alexandermcnabb: I have to disagree with your comments about User:Onel5969's track record. It is nice that he is putting time and energy into doing NPP work, so A for effort. But one look at feedback from other users towards Onel5969's NPP actions on their recent talk pages from the last 2 months might call your comments about his supposedly exceptional work in question. Haleth (talk) 15:13, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
- So work in draftspace. Works, no? Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 17:05, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- I harbor no hard feelings for him compared to three other editors off the top of my head who like to do Order 66 with most articles. All I got to say He kind of says and does the same thing predictably and I got to work harder sometimes when I wasn’t even finished. For example: Scribbly the Boy Cartoonist had to be improved tremendously and he jumped the gun on redirecting the baby article because it wasn’t proven yet. Then I boldly merged it and it got improved more so I am no better sometimes. Jhenderson 777 16:37, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- If an editor regularly is working in comic books they should know that the deletion of comic book character articles is controversial and so PROD is inappropriate. I see no evidence that AfD is being used inappropriately in this area. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:16, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- I agree with assessments by Barkeep49 and Lev¡vich of the situation. I don't think the persistent, recurring use of PROD by Piotrus as an appropriate "test" of a subject article's notability because he is unable to discern the other user's rationale to be appropriate. Pretty sure that is what an AfD is for since we are all supposed to work by consensus. Haleth (talk) 15:13, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
- Here's a fresh example, from my daily patrol of today's AfD log. It's a character called Rocket. This was prodded by Piotrus in the usual drive-by way, with no discussion or specifics – just a generic, cookie-cutter nomination. The prod was declined by Iridescent, "I'm not comfortable considering uncontroversial the deletion of a page that's been live for 15 years and has that much of a history. ...". Piotrus then nominates the topic at AfD, where I find it.
- I am not familiar with this character and so start searching. I immediately start finding hits: DC: 10 Things Fans Should Know About Rocket. This is a listicle but it's at CBR, which is usually accepted at AfD, and the fact they wrote solely about the character is a promising start. Focussing on Google Books, I immediately find some meat: The Blacker the Ink -- Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art where there's some detailed analysis of the controversy about the character's decision whether to have an abortion. This already seems adequate but I press on. I then immediately find another book: Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans. This is from a university press and has plenty to say about the subject, as she was a breakout character in the series and effectively became its main protagonist.
- I only searched for a minute or two, just looking at the first page of hits, and have stopped searching now as it is already apparent that the subject is quite notable. The character is not just a routine superhero, but is literally iconic in their representation of contemporary black culture. To nominate such a character for deletion in these times of BLM seems remarkably crass. To do so as "uncontroversial" using the PROD process demonstrates a considerable lack of competence and clue.
- Andrew🐉(talk) 10:49, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
For the editor who keeps persisting I need to show a link. How about this?. Does this summarize enough regarding the AFD's. Again I assume good faith again...it’s just that I am one editor and can’t rescue so many articles at once if I tried and could. Jhenderson 777 13:36, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
- I just did a quick skim and I'm seeing pretty normal AfDs. I don't see any signs of disruptive behavior. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:56, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
- I didn’t say anything about disruptive and (as I said before) I am assuming good faith on them. I just think they are too persistent if anything. Jhenderson 777 17:33, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
- Too persistent isn't really a thing. Either someone's actions are disruptive at AfD such as by doing too many nominations in too short a time or doing too many poorly conceived nominations in which case the community can take action or their actions are not disruptive and no community action is needed. My assessment is tha the concern you've raised about AfD is not disruptive or otherwise a problem. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 06:16, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
- "Either someone's actions are disruptive at AfD such as by doing too many nominations in too short a time or doing too many poorly conceived nominations" That's exactly the issue. Darkknight2149 07:34, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
- I understand that's the alleged issue. And it is why I have, with the evidence at hand so far, not seen enough to say that there actually is a problem. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:13, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
- "Either someone's actions are disruptive at AfD such as by doing too many nominations in too short a time or doing too many poorly conceived nominations" That's exactly the issue. Darkknight2149 07:34, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
- Too persistent isn't really a thing. Either someone's actions are disruptive at AfD such as by doing too many nominations in too short a time or doing too many poorly conceived nominations in which case the community can take action or their actions are not disruptive and no community action is needed. My assessment is tha the concern you've raised about AfD is not disruptive or otherwise a problem. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 06:16, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
- I didn’t say anything about disruptive and (as I said before) I am assuming good faith on them. I just think they are too persistent if anything. Jhenderson 777 17:33, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
- I'm not sure why I was tagged here. If you're wanting my observations, I have already been vocal about it in the past. Fiction-related content has been an easy target for overzealous deletion. Part of it is that a lot of crufty material does fly under the radar in these areas, part of it is the aforementioned overzealousness, and part of it is a lack of familiarity (either with the subject itself or with deletion criteria). I don't see anything wrong in the examples that Jhenderson777 picked out above, but I have been continuously amazed at the lack of quality control at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Fictional elements. For the past year or so, there has been an influx of low-effort nominations and votes (often from recurring nominators), many of which fail to cite a policy-based reason for deletion at all or fall under WP:IGNORINGATD. Common ones include "The article fails to establish notability" (not how it works), "The quality of the article/sourcing isn't good!" with no further rationale (not how it works), "It's just a minor character in a book" (this actually happened a couple of times in a row; not how it works), "When you combine a bunch of not notable characters into a list, you get a not notable list" (not how it works), "Current revision fails WAF and/or the manual of style" (not how it works), as well as recurring mischaracterisations of WP:GNG, subjective declarations of unimportance, assuming every article of a type isn't notable just because one wasn't, and barebones rationales.
- There has also been a few recurring users (who double as nominators) who have been voting "delete" on every single nomination no matter what (usually with the same cookie cutter rationales), including on ones where significant coverage has been provided and there is a consensus for keep. At least one of them doesn't seem to have ever voted "keep" on anything, despite having been active on Wikipedia for years. That's not to say this doesn't ever happen in the other direction (Rtkat3 often votes "keep" without citing any policy besides "C'mon, let the article stay" and Andrew Davidson's input is hit-and-miss), but these are fewer and dismissed more often than the "delete" ones.
- Aside from disruption, there is also a number of good faith nominations where a source check is performed, but the coverage is dismissed by the nom because they have a ridiculously high standard for "significant coverage" that outweighs the community's (Example1, Example2, among several others).
- Overall, this is an AfD category that could use a lot more scrutiny and administrator eyeballs than it currently gets. Personally, the time I spend having to check and see if nominations there actually fail WP:GNG or a WP:DELREASON could honestly be better spent working on my other projects (this in particular is a current priority that has a lot of work to go) and my real life schedule can be sporadic. I did finish an ArbCom case related to this a few months back, but given the passage of time, haven't decided what to do with it quite yet. Darkknight2149 07:34, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
- I too have experienced this type of thing for pages that might have potential and support the claims of @Jhenderson777: and @Andrew Davidson:. Another example of this is the List of New Gods which I mentioned that most of the characters who no longer have their pages currently redirect there and who knows what would happen to them if that page is deleted like what I had to do with the page for "Titan (New Gods)". On a related note for the proposed deletion, I had to redirect Ned Creegan to List of minor DC Comics characters when it was threatened with deletion. TTN once tried to put up the Longbow Hunters page that I created in light of their appearance of Arrow for a proposed deletion which got removed by @Toughpigs: who left his reasons in the edit summary. I'm also listing some examples of Jhenderson777's claim here. --Rtkat3 (talk) 16:43, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
- The most important and effective thing to do is to add good sources to articles. There are lots of secondary sources in books and magazines about comics, cartoons and fiction in general. They're available on Google Books, Internet Archive, on Kindle, and in libraries and bookstores. The Wikipedia Library offers free access to Newspapers.com, JSTOR and ProQuest. People who want to save fiction-related articles should be improving articles with good-quality sources — and not just for articles that are prodded or up for deletion. Get a good nonfiction book about comics history and go through it page by page, adding a reference for everything discussed in the book. TwoMorrows Publishing is especially good for significant, independent coverage of comics history. For example, there was a little run a few months ago of people nominating articles related to Jack Kirby's work. Kirby has been extensively studied and discussed for years, including a long-running journal devoted just to his work. Many people added information and references to the articles, and we saved almost all of them from deletion, plus now they're better quality articles. — Toughpigs (talk) 17:29, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
- The onus is on nominators to cite a policy-based reason for deletion, per WP:ATD, WP:NEXIST, WP:ARTN, WP:PRESERVE, and WP:NOTCLEANUP. Not the other way around. Any user who is nominating a bunch of articles on the sole basis of them being poorly-written or poorly sourced is doing something wrong. What if we didn't do that, and still made the effort to clean-up/cite these articles? Because WP:NOEFFORT is no excuse. (And to be clear, I'm not talking about the number of legitimate nominations that have been filed, which goes without saying) Darkknight2149 19:38, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
- Worrying about who the onus is on is not the point. I've wasted time criticizing nominators in the past — the quote above criticizing Piotrus is mine, and I wish I hadn't written it, because it didn't make any difference. If you want articles not to be deleted, then the most effective way to do that is to find good sources, and add sourced information to the article. — Toughpigs (talk) 22:25, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
- I tend to believe that policy and procedure exists for a reason. Darkknight2149 23:15, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
- Worrying about who the onus is on is not the point. I've wasted time criticizing nominators in the past — the quote above criticizing Piotrus is mine, and I wish I hadn't written it, because it didn't make any difference. If you want articles not to be deleted, then the most effective way to do that is to find good sources, and add sourced information to the article. — Toughpigs (talk) 22:25, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
- Agree to disagree, ToughPigs. They want the character to be Mickey Mouse level apparently. Look at all the improvements Nightscream and I made at Umar (Marvel Comics). That article still didn’t change the deletionists mind. Especially TTN's mind which he called it "smoke and mirrors" on being notable. I mean the group deleted the Injustice League without my knowledge. A primary Justice League arch villain group. I and another editor cite dumped Cain and Abel just recently. But it still is “plot dump” outside of having brief publication history. Nothing is pleasing these editors mind due to Wp:GNG which doesn’t sound as strict as they make it out to be and also so many link of WP:NOTPLOT going on that you would think sock puppetry is almost going on. Jhenderson 777 23:31, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
- Toughpigs, I agree with what you said and that is consistently the best approach when dealing with subject topics where notability is called into question. I think the crux of this discussion, and why Jhenderson777 got so worked up in starting this discussion in the first place, is whether Piotrus's conduct demonstrates that he adheres to this website's fundamental approach of assuming good faith from an objective point of view. I have not formed a view, though in some of his previous comments which have been highlighted by other users, he indicated that he does not know the rationales of other users and relies on his stance of presumed suspicion as a basis for his repeated (Jhenderson would argue that it is indiscriminate) use of PROD when questioned, even in cases where it may not be an uncontroversial deletion from a reasonable point of view. Perhaps both editors could reassess the objectivity of their approach when handling the issue of contentious deletion topics? Haleth (talk) 09:41, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
- If you really think socking is going on, SPI is thataway. Otherwise it just seems like you're throwing shade on people just for agreeing with each other and not with you. Reyk YO! 11:09, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
- Agree to disagree, ToughPigs. They want the character to be Mickey Mouse level apparently. Look at all the improvements Nightscream and I made at Umar (Marvel Comics). That article still didn’t change the deletionists mind. Especially TTN's mind which he called it "smoke and mirrors" on being notable. I mean the group deleted the Injustice League without my knowledge. A primary Justice League arch villain group. I and another editor cite dumped Cain and Abel just recently. But it still is “plot dump” outside of having brief publication history. Nothing is pleasing these editors mind due to Wp:GNG which doesn’t sound as strict as they make it out to be and also so many link of WP:NOTPLOT going on that you would think sock puppetry is almost going on. Jhenderson 777 23:31, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
- I said "almost" as in almost seems like it. It’s obvious my discussion here wasn’t originally about that. Yikes man! I am well aware of where to go to. There isn’t enough substantial evidence and again I assume good faith that it isn’t sock puppetry. Sounds like you are throwing shade at me and you really need assume good faith as well. Geez! Your comments seem kind of random and baity IMO LOL. Jhenderson 777 12:44, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
- Yes Haleth. People are reading too much of what I say. If you look at the title it even says “good faith”. Yet Piotrus pointed out that guideline like I am not adhering to it. Like what? Are you not reading my comments or are they not clear. Being on the spectrum it wouldn’t surprise me if I am not clear. But in good faith just let me know then. Also I assume good faith..and I do believe some articles should be deleted/redirected while some shouldn’t. Those I normally did not vote on because I knew the AFD would do its thing so I was a silent majority. So I am not always an inclusionist and disagreeing with the deletionists. The most bad faith thing I could think of to say is I do feel like these AFD's are being treated like cleanup which is a no-no. Also just advising to slow down the process because inclusionists MIGHT want to help save the articles but too many to save would be stressing for them. Jhenderson 777 14:19, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
- It is kind of weird that nobody even pretends to follow WP:BEFORE these days, and that faliure to meet GNG is just taken as read when nominating and making delete votes. Artw (talk) 03:03, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
Here's an example of comic-related content that gets habitually deproded by Andrew: Tara Fremont. Two paragraphs, all plot-summary, no references. All is well, eh? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:13, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Tara Freemont is quite similar to Garganta – another member of Femforce. Garganta was prodded by Piotrus on 18 Nov and that prod was then removed on 23 Nov. Too Tall Tara was then prodded by Piotrus on 25 Nov even though it was clear that that opposition was expected. The nomination even anticipates the opposition by stating "There is also an option of WP:ATD in the form of redirecting this to Femforce..." which makes it clear that the nomination was a violation of WP:POINT. Piotrus is wasting everyone's time by using the PROD process when it is clear, even to them, that there is a more sensible alternative. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:12, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Sounds like a bold merge seems like a more healthy alternative than prodding since prodding seems a bit controversial. If the article is a stub like that I don’t think anyone would mind. Jhenderson 777 14:51, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- @Jhenderson777 -->But isn't merging totally unreferenced content a violation of WP:V? What significance does this content add, given WP:ALLPLOT anyway? - GizzyCatBella🍁 13:27, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- @Andrew Davidson -->Are you saying that redirecting is the best option here? If yes, then why haven't you done so? Aren't you wasting everyone's time by making us move to AfD? After a prod is challenged (which suggested redirect as an alternative), redirecting does not seem uncontroversial, and indeed, it would be "a violation of WP:POINT I believe. - GizzyCatBella🍁 13:37, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- I would probably just Boldly redirect that one. Not necessarily merge which I am used to saying. Jhenderson 777 15:58, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- The Tara Freemont article is not "totally unreferenced" and so GizzyCatBella is commenting without having read it. WP:ALLPLOT, which they cite, is an essay and so is mere unofficial opinion. GizzyCatBella is wasting time by presenting unsupported and erroneous opinions. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:59, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
- Or of course GizzyCatBella is doing nothing of the sort, responding to a discussion about "merging as an alternative to prodding", relating to the article at the time it was prodded, when it was totally unsourced. Merging it then is what their comments are clearly about. WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL aren't essays. You could have asked "what do you mean, the article is no longer unsourced?", instead of attacking the editor and jumping to incorrect conclusions like "is commenting without having read it". Fram (talk) 09:56, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- Andrew, look, when I viewed it first, it was unreferenced; then you added very weak references, which is technically an improvement, but please don't mislead people into believing this article was referenced before. The added references are also relatively weak, as can be seen in the ongoing AfD in which you have not even bothered to participate in (where there is not a single keep vote). - GizzyCatBella🍁 05:46, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- Or of course GizzyCatBella is doing nothing of the sort, responding to a discussion about "merging as an alternative to prodding", relating to the article at the time it was prodded, when it was totally unsourced. Merging it then is what their comments are clearly about. WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL aren't essays. You could have asked "what do you mean, the article is no longer unsourced?", instead of attacking the editor and jumping to incorrect conclusions like "is commenting without having read it". Fram (talk) 09:56, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- @Andrew Davidson -->Are you saying that redirecting is the best option here? If yes, then why haven't you done so? Aren't you wasting everyone's time by making us move to AfD? After a prod is challenged (which suggested redirect as an alternative), redirecting does not seem uncontroversial, and indeed, it would be "a violation of WP:POINT I believe. - GizzyCatBella🍁 13:37, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- @Jhenderson777 -->But isn't merging totally unreferenced content a violation of WP:V? What significance does this content add, given WP:ALLPLOT anyway? - GizzyCatBella🍁 13:27, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Sounds like a bold merge seems like a more healthy alternative than prodding since prodding seems a bit controversial. If the article is a stub like that I don’t think anyone would mind. Jhenderson 777 14:51, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Is it fair to conclude from this discussion that PROD shouldn't be used, at least for now, for comic book characters? It seems likely most will be disputed. And we have fairly solid evidence that some PRODs have been really bogus, showing no actual research, just looking at the state of the article. And some dePRODs also look pretty questionable. So let's just put a moratorium on the involved parties PRODing these articles for a bit. It's not helping, probably violating policy, and I think that more than a few are surviving AfD. Hobit (talk) 19:59, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Wikieditor19920
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Wikieditor19920 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) was already under a partial block from the closely-related Andy Ngo (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (whose major target is Antifa), and continues to conduct debate via edit summaries not on Talk, and has been engaging in apparently tendentious editing at Antifa (United States) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) so I have added Antifa to he pageblock and extended it. This is in lieu of requesting an AP2 TBAN, which I think is defensible based on the lack of introspection displayed at user talk:Wikieditor19920 in response to the original pageblock, and noted by several well respected and calm editors, but I think we should be engaging in minimally aggressive controls right now due to the US political situation and associated elevated emotions. I encourage review and discussion of this, and this is without prejudice to action against the OP, Bacondrum (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who is absolutely not blameless here. I noted this at WP:ANEW where the original complaint is lodged. I suspect Bacondrum may also need some kind of restriction here - it's getting silly. Guy (help! - typo?) 00:33, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- I made a few sets of bold changes to the lead at Antifa (United States), and contributions to the talk page with detailed explanations of my edits. There was disagreement and these edits were reverted - but some edits of my suggestions, such as removing overcitations and pointing out where sources did not in fact support the provided language -- caught on and were later restored. Each of my edit summaries have been as detailed as my contributions on the talk page have been, and while they have not been met with unanimous agreement, they have resulted in minor changes to the lead that seem to be an improvement, including the removal of those overcites as well as small pieces of other redundant information. This is how WP:BRD works, and none of this is tendentious. I will note that my changes were intended only to make the lead more concise and did not involve the addition of any controversial information.
- @JzG:, who had repeatedly used terms like "fash," "neofascist apologist," and "grifter" to describe the subject of the page Andy Ngo, something I asked them to tone down because of the obviously inappropriate and unproductive nature of these remarks,[2] has now banned me from that page until 2021. When I brought this up with JzG, they accused me of some sort of anti-Muslim animus for my edits at Linda Sarsour over a year ago, which helped elevate the page to GA status. If this doesn't show an obvious bias by this admin at the subject in question (specifically their language in describing the subject of a BLP), I don't know what does, and I can't think of a clearer case for admin abuse than here. I'm not even surprised, I'm just disappointed. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 00:45, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- As for the other user mentioned here, this is an editor who I've avoided and who has repeatedly sought me ought, for some inexplicable reason to either snipe at me at the talk page by calling my edits "blatantly POV" or to violate 1RR. An admin claimed that they "couldn't find the violation," despite my report showing two distinct reverts within 24 hours. The user went on to open an ANI. So that's how it goes. When you are on the "right" side, 1RR violations are ignored. When you are on the "wrong" side, as apparently JzG disagrees with my edits, both at Antifa and the "grifter's" page, then violations are contrived and used as a reason to limit your access to those pages. I stand by each and every one of my edits at those pages -- I never engaged in an edit war where I directly reverted someone's removal of my changes, I always did partial reverts and attempted to account for objections, and indeed, some of my edits ultimately remained in the article.
- This latest accusation of a violation was for merging two sentences about the group's protest activity to note non-violent activity as well as violent (both were already in the article before I made any changes, just in two separate sentences) Because, in merging the two sentences, I removed "against those who they identify as the far right," apparently it was tendentious, but JzG does not realize that this language was objected to by another editor in the talk page, Aquillion, and my removing it was a partial acknowledgement of their objection. Of course, actually reviewing my edits and their compliance with WP:BRD and giving me the benefit of the doubt is much more difficult than simply swinging the admin hammer and throwing around phrases like "tendentious." Wikieditor19920 (talk) 00:56, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Wikieditor19920, you made several "bold changes" all of which appear to have been reverted, by more than one editor. You did this in the context of an existing pageblock on Andy Ngo. Did you not pause at any point to reflect on the wisdom of this, or whether you should first seek consensus for changes to long-standing text? I look forward to seeing you contribute to a consensus building process on Talk (of both articles). Guy (help! - typo?) 01:01, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- @JzG: No, they were not all reverted, as I just explained. My removal of citations was initially objected to, and then, coincidentally, agreed with by Bacondrum, who partially restored my changes. My last change was to merge two sentences and, as a show of good faith, remove language objected specifically to by Aquillion here, which was to qualify their protests against the far-right with "those that they identify." He called that language "weak." I disagreed, but I removed it nonetheless in my subsequent edits to the page -- I thought the sentences about their protest tactics went better together, and, in the process, I incorporated a specific request by another user who had previously taken issue with at least some of my edits. Only in an alternate reality is this tendentious editing, but, per usual, when you don't have the benefit of the doubt by admins who substantively disagree, then everything is cast in a negative light and used to justify extraordinarily stringent bans that aren't even issued for actual, severe violations (such as 1RR). Wikieditor19920 (talk) 01:05, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Wikieditor19920, so you won't have a problem with achieving consensus on Talk then, and demonstrating that you are in fact the good guy, despite past history. Great. That will be a decent result all round. I do recommend RfCs as a good way to settle intractable disputes. Guy (help! - typo?) 01:06, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- @JzG: I don't need to demonstrate that I'm a "good guy" to you. My work speaks for itself. You have misconstrued my contributions at this page in justifying this poorly explained ban, and forgive me if I have a problem with that. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 01:11, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- I think you misunderstand. Nobody needs to demonstrate anything to me, personally - I'm just zis Guy, you know? - but my advice to you, as an editor whom I respect regardless of personal differences, is to make it really easy for admins to see who's here to improve the encyclopaedia and who's here to right great wrongs. With that I will duck out, as long experience indicates that therse disputes go better when people are prepared to step back and wait for the dust to settle. Guy (help! - typo?) 01:54, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- @JzG: I don't need to demonstrate that I'm a "good guy" to you. My work speaks for itself. You have misconstrued my contributions at this page in justifying this poorly explained ban, and forgive me if I have a problem with that. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 01:11, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Wikieditor19920, so you won't have a problem with achieving consensus on Talk then, and demonstrating that you are in fact the good guy, despite past history. Great. That will be a decent result all round. I do recommend RfCs as a good way to settle intractable disputes. Guy (help! - typo?) 01:06, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- @JzG: No, they were not all reverted, as I just explained. My removal of citations was initially objected to, and then, coincidentally, agreed with by Bacondrum, who partially restored my changes. My last change was to merge two sentences and, as a show of good faith, remove language objected specifically to by Aquillion here, which was to qualify their protests against the far-right with "those that they identify." He called that language "weak." I disagreed, but I removed it nonetheless in my subsequent edits to the page -- I thought the sentences about their protest tactics went better together, and, in the process, I incorporated a specific request by another user who had previously taken issue with at least some of my edits. Only in an alternate reality is this tendentious editing, but, per usual, when you don't have the benefit of the doubt by admins who substantively disagree, then everything is cast in a negative light and used to justify extraordinarily stringent bans that aren't even issued for actual, severe violations (such as 1RR). Wikieditor19920 (talk) 01:05, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Wikieditor19920, you made several "bold changes" all of which appear to have been reverted, by more than one editor. You did this in the context of an existing pageblock on Andy Ngo. Did you not pause at any point to reflect on the wisdom of this, or whether you should first seek consensus for changes to long-standing text? I look forward to seeing you contribute to a consensus building process on Talk (of both articles). Guy (help! - typo?) 01:01, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Wikieditor19920 rightly points out that Bacondrum is also under the same pageblock, it seems to me that equity might best be served by applying the same revised pageblock to both parties. What do others think? Guy (help! - typo?) 01:54, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- I did not go past 1RR so I respectfully contest the idea that I should also be sanctioned. If I am to be sanctioned I request the diffs demonstrating that I have crossed the line...failing that I want to know exactly what I have done wrong, otherwise this is completely unfair. I'll be being sanctioned for having been targeted by a disruptive editor. Bacondrum (talk) 02:22, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Diffs showing the editor violated 1rr: First revert, Second revert, both in 24 hours. Here are the reports for the past three times in the last year and a half the user has the done same exact thing: 1, 2, 3. That's just to substantiate what I said when I pointed out the user was disregarding 1RR, something I very politely broached with them on their talk page (and which had absolutely no effect -- they continued making changes after claiming to have self reverted).
- When I filed a report, Bacondrum, consistent with prior reports, offered a mix of faux apologies and crying wolf about being "harassed" claiming to be blameless, and that apparently worked; Inexplicably, this was closed without any action. For good measure, JzG, an admin who clearly agrees with this user about the page in question — I referenced above that JzG used the term "fash" and "neo-fascist apologist" to describe the subject Andy Ngo, and for the record, Bacondrum has used similar language at Talk:Andy Ngo -- unilaterally imposed a two-month ban, claiming I should have had notice about not editing at Antifa (United States) because of a page block at Andy Ngo. Apparently the same did not apply to Bacondrum, who violated 1RR at that page while under the same block, which seemingly is fine, but I should have known not to make any bold edits at that page or ones that other editors might possibly disagree with, no matter how minor. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 02:34, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Wikieditor19920, you won't win much sympathy here with your continued attacks against JzG here. You made your point that you disagree with how they have handled this dispute but you continue making personal attacks that can result in a sanction in itself. Diffs are more convincing that sharp language. Liz Read! Talk! 03:51, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- @Liz:, Not one aspect of what I wrote is a personal attack, I am referencing specific comments by JzG and my issues with their action here. But thank you for the reminder that any criticism of an administrator is liable to be misconstrued or just misrepresented.
- Wikieditor19920, you won't win much sympathy here with your continued attacks against JzG here. You made your point that you disagree with how they have handled this dispute but you continue making personal attacks that can result in a sanction in itself. Diffs are more convincing that sharp language. Liz Read! Talk! 03:51, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
Springee, well, yes, because without it nobody would know or care who Ngo is. His popularity among the fash is entirely down to his crusade against Antifa and his apologia for neo-Nazis. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:15, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Andy_Ngo&diff=prev&oldid=984654558&diffmode=source DiffWikieditor19920, which I did, but the RfC is specifically designed to discuss a single word, whereas most of the sources I have seen (and all the recent ones) either don't use it, or qualify it. Because, you know, he's a grifter. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:36, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
Diff
And the other user involved mirrored those same comments in kind:
Ngo is the very definition of a Hack writer - nothing more, nothing less. This is a ridiculous argument. Bacondrum (talk) 21:05, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
Apparently, my mistake was suggesting that maybe we shouldn't use such language. My life would be a lot easier if I hopped on the boat and bashed the subject. But because I don't, I'm treated like an enemy by admins like JzG, and the burden is on me to prove I'm a "good guy" or on the "right side." Absolutely ridiculous. And in the meantime, when you happen to agree editorially with the admins about this kind of stuff, magically 1RR violations are written off or ignored. This type of behavior and misuse of admin tools does harm to the credibility of the site as a whole. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 04:22, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- And let's just be clear about what exactly JzG has presented as the basis to justify a 3-month topic ban on two pages. I changed this:
Antifa political activists are anti-racists who engage in protest tactics, seeking to combat fascists and racists such as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other far-right extremists. This may involve digital activism, harassment, physical violence, and property damage against those whom they identify as belonging to the far right. Much antifa activism is nonviolent, such as poster and flyer campaigns, delivering speeches, marching in protest, and community organizing.
To this:
Antifa political activists are anti-racists who engage in protest tactics, seeking to combat fascists and racists such as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other far-right extremists. This may involve digital activism, harassment, physical violence, and property damage, and nonviolent activities such as poster and flyer campaigns, delivering speeches, marching in protest, and community organizing.
There is absolutely nothing ban-worthy about this edit. I had not made any similar or partial reverts in the past 24 or 48 hours and it was a limited change. And yet, for a 1RR violation, he happily accepts false denials from Bacondrum that he did nothing wrong regarding 1RR and is technically correct, despite diffs obviously showing otherwise and the fact that this user has repeated the same conduct thrice before. This was an abusive block stemming from an editorial disagreement over a bold edit. This is exemplified by the unjustifiably lenient and chummy treatment towards an editor engaging in actual violations of DS but who happens to be on the "right side" of the disagreement. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 05:41, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- That is disingenuous. The history of the article shows a pattern of non-trivial edits by you, which are then speedily reverted by others. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:40, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
Question:User:JzG Maybe I miss something but aren't you WP:INVOLVED in AP? --ְְShrike (talk) 07:10, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Shrike, Not in this article, to my knowledge, but that is why I brought it here for review by other admins. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:40, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- JzG, I think the best course of action is too ask a sanction here or at WP:AE and then impose it by uninvolved admin if it justified --Shrike (talk) 08:47, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- I don't see why that'd be necessary, or how Guy is too involved to enact a sanction themselves?
- As far as the sanction itself goes, am I correct in thinking that there are no individually problematic diffs here, rather the issue is persistent large-scale bold additions to controversial parts (eg the lead), which are quickly reverted for being bold, and a lack of awareness that their approach may not be best for this particular article? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:36, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- JzG, I think the best course of action is too ask a sanction here or at WP:AE and then impose it by uninvolved admin if it justified --Shrike (talk) 08:47, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Shrike, Not in this article, to my knowledge, but that is why I brought it here for review by other admins. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:40, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
Because they involved in the same topic and have opposite POVs --Shrike (talk) 10:03, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- JzG, why don't you point to these "non-trivial edits." Was it where I removed a total of about 12 words from the lead? Or where I removed sources citing WP:CITEOVERKILL, and was reverted by a user before the exact same change was re-added by Bacondrum? Because you have not provided a single diff either here or on my talk page, but you seem to rely on false representations by Bacondrum that 1) his making two reverts within 24h isn't "technically" edit warring, and that my making changes to same page over the course of a week is? @ProcrastinatingReader: And can you point to any of these "persistent, large-scale" additionals to controversial parts, or are you aware that my largest edit merely removed 15 words? As with JzG, who is 100% WP:INVOLVED, you did not read the diffs.
- Shrike You are exactly correct. Not only do JzG and I apparently have different points of view about the article, I'm insufficiently committed to his points of view about the subjects themselves. And as for AE, What's the point? It's an obviously unjustified ban, but when I reported Bacondrum for his persistent edit warring, another admin, Black Kite, just closed it without explanation or action and suggested there was "no violation" despite diffs. Totally incomprehensible. And yet, JzG presents innocuous a completely contrived violation here -- rehashing baseless arguments by Bacondrum -- and boom, three-month ban. If we can find an admin to ignore Bacondrum's obvious edit-warring and JzG can use admin tools with impunity against editors whose views he considers incorrect, whose to say another admin won't just come in and rubber stamp whatever he does? That's pretty much how it works around here. I also find it hilarious when JzG claims he "respects me personally," yet accuses me of anti-Muslim bias for editing Linda Sarsour (which I got to GA status), when I called him out on his outrageous comments at Andy Ngo. This is a WP:INVOLVED admin using their tools granted by the community to punish an opposing editor for a frivolous, contrived violation, even as they ignore open violations of discretionary sanctions by others. And he's not the only one. But I'm afraid the likely outcome is another admin will come in, draw some artificial distinction to justify it. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 11:07, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- I'm not accusing you of anything - I'm trying to clarify the TLDR of the reason for the ban in the view of the sanctioning admin.
- However,
And can you point to any of these "persistent, large-scale" additionals to controversial parts, or are you aware that my largest edit merely removed 15 words?
seems quite inaccurate. I just looked at the history at a skim which shows sets of major changes to the lead from you (eg Special:Diff/988739848/988769763, Special:Diff/989452230/989455729, Special:Diff/990109873/990137392, or Special:Diff/990687183), and each being swiftly reverted, by 3 different editors. - And, as some advice, the walls of text above are not helping, and such format may be more suited for WP:AE. Take the appeal there, or if you'd rather the conversation happen here, could you please actually let other people converse? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:19, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: That's fine. But just realize that all of those "major" changes are removal of citations and minor changes to wording, which were reverted as a knee-jerk reaction by one user until the talk page realized that my suggestion might have some merit and accepted the same changes from another user. My edits were fully within WP:BRD, and each set of changes I made sought to account for points articulated at the talk page by others, which, contrary to what JzG represented, I was an active and regular participant in. And the kicker here is that the other user in fact violated 1RR but has been allowed a pass for it by two admins now. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 11:27, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- I think it's better for everyone to be on the same page first before anyone starts trying to make an argument which may not even match with Guy's reasoning for the sanction. Somehow, 4 diffs has been turned into all of the text above, which is somewhat hard to navigate. You're also kinda repeating the same points and trying to turn this into something that is, in my view, irrelevant to the matter of whether you or anyone else should be blocked or unblocked here.
- As far as 1RR on the other editor goes, I presume you're referring to Special:Diff/989462509/990109873? If so, whilst that rewording is perhaps technically within the scope of the definition of a "revert" if taken very literally, from a quick glance it appears it did not revert your actions (which were wholly reverted in Special:Diff/989462509 by another editor) or anyone else's in recent time. Unless I'm mistaken there, and I have only quickly glanced, I don't particularly believe in sanctioning someone for technical violations which show no intent to edit war. You link to User_talk:Bacondrum#Antifa above, and the editor seemingly tried to communicate with you and seems confused, and you did not respond? Seemingly the editor tried to resolve your concern in Special:Diff/990139380 but had no clue what you were talking about. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:58, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Ugh. I have just found Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:Bacondrum_reported_by_User:Wikieditor19920_(Result:_Closed), and now I'm mildly frustrated at my time being wasted here. This seems quite disingenuous to me, and trying to get another editor sanctioned under a legalese, technical definition of revert (aka, a copyedit), after it has already been resolved, is quite inappropriate. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:07, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: You should either follow accurately what's going on or stay out of it. You claim you don't believe in a
technical violations which show no intent to edit war
. 1RR is not a technical violation, it's edit warring. I filed a report only after asking the user to stop, politely. They said they would, then continued to edit war, and lied about it on the AN3 page. This editor is not confused in the least -- they acknowledged the 1RR violation, continued it, and then denied it after being reported. This is their third time being blocked or warned for the same violation, as I linked above, and yet editors like you still give them the benefit of the doubt based on an unconvincing set of claims of ignorance. Of course, when I make changes to language, it isn't written off as a copy edit, but when this user does so outside the limits of 1RR, it's copy editing. So you hate "legalese," but apply it for me and not this other editor? These are exactly the phony distinctions that I was talking about earlier. You're right about one thing: I'm not going to keep re-explaining myself to editors who arbitrarily pre-judge a situation without even looking at what transpired, or selectively choose to ignore facts. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 13:48, 26 November 2020 (UTC)- Three uninvolved administrators have rejected that report there, and one further administrator has criticised your approach here. Your tripling down is greatly unfortunate. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:58, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- And they are wrong. I'll provide the diffs again. First revert., Second revert. Two distinct reverts interrupted by another user's edits within a 24 hour period. But when you're just looking for a post hoc justification to nail someone you don't like or disagree with, what do facts matter? Wikieditor19920 (talk) 14:03, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- I don't know you or the other editor, and I couldn't care less for the Antifa article. So perhaps a good start here is to acknowledge that every admin and editor who says your assertions are false aren't all conspiring against you. The first edit is not an obvious revert, as multiple uninvolved admins at ANEW have told you. I still don't have a view on your original block, but I take a very dim view of this persistent, meritless attempt to pull down another editor, at least on this "1RR" charge. It is unacceptable, and you should stop. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:10, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: I'm not going to continue arguing about this with you. You have no idea about the situation and are another jumping on the bandwagon. But just so we're actually dealing in reality, the first edit is a direct revert of this previous edit.Wikieditor19920 (talk) 14:25, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- I don't know you or the other editor, and I couldn't care less for the Antifa article. So perhaps a good start here is to acknowledge that every admin and editor who says your assertions are false aren't all conspiring against you. The first edit is not an obvious revert, as multiple uninvolved admins at ANEW have told you. I still don't have a view on your original block, but I take a very dim view of this persistent, meritless attempt to pull down another editor, at least on this "1RR" charge. It is unacceptable, and you should stop. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:10, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- And they are wrong. I'll provide the diffs again. First revert., Second revert. Two distinct reverts interrupted by another user's edits within a 24 hour period. But when you're just looking for a post hoc justification to nail someone you don't like or disagree with, what do facts matter? Wikieditor19920 (talk) 14:03, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Three uninvolved administrators have rejected that report there, and one further administrator has criticised your approach here. Your tripling down is greatly unfortunate. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:58, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: You should either follow accurately what's going on or stay out of it. You claim you don't believe in a
- @ProcrastinatingReader: That's fine. But just realize that all of those "major" changes are removal of citations and minor changes to wording, which were reverted as a knee-jerk reaction by one user until the talk page realized that my suggestion might have some merit and accepted the same changes from another user. My edits were fully within WP:BRD, and each set of changes I made sought to account for points articulated at the talk page by others, which, contrary to what JzG represented, I was an active and regular participant in. And the kicker here is that the other user in fact violated 1RR but has been allowed a pass for it by two admins now. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 11:27, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Comment - Administrators might want to look at their conduct at the Pit bull article, including edits like this and their numerous talk page edits where much of the same behavior is demonstrated - discussing bold edits through edit summaries, removal of sourced content, introduction of NPOV language, etc. PearlSt82 (talk) 16:23, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
discussing bold edits through edit summaries
. Do you mean in addition to discussing my changes on the talk page? It's really interesting where a detailed edit summary is contrived as a violation. See this RfC on sources, where I directly discussed concerns at that page with arguments/content presented by PearlSt82, which I was only briefly involved in, and where other users agreed with my points. Shame on you for misrepresenting that, PearlSt82. "Introducing NPOV language" and "removing sourced" material" is a one-sided way of presenting editorial disagreements as if they somehow show wrongdoing. I'm also presuming you meant to say "POV language," which is just false; my changes in fact added what I saw as genuinely NPOV language, which is precisely what we should be doing. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 17:05, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
Further examples of bias and inappropriate commentary between JzG and Bacondrum at Talk:Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory
So that it's clear I'm not the only one who's encountered this problem: At another page, these two users exchange barbs over a discussion of sources that went well beyond the line.
Davide King, cultural marxism moved into the media mainstream the same way that climate change denial did: through motivated reasoning by grifters. Being part of the mainstream doesn't stop it being bullshit. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:15, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
JzG Hit the nail on the head. Spot on. I think the issue is that some people are rightly embarrassed to find out they have been regurgitating a Nazi era antisemitic conspiracy, so they get upset about it and make up excuses. Bacondrum (talk) 21:44, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
Without delving into the complexities here, both editors apparently use hostile, aggressive language in reference to editorial disagreements between editors and vitriolic accusations are thrown about casually in the same manner I pointed out at the Andy Ngo article, from these same two editors.
- In another thread, in response to another disagreement, Bacondrum replies to the opposing editor in the dispute:
Oh my. What a tantrum. Oh well, bye...WP:NOTCOMPULSORY That thread makes me want to quit, what a bunch of whinging bullshit. Bacondrum (talk) 20:52, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
It is laughable how some commenters here are trying to pin the blame on me for "pulling down a good editor" for calling out Bacondrum's edit warring. This editor calls names and attacks others the moment any kind of disagreement arises, in a brutal and personal way. Despite seemingly distancing himself from this behavior from Bacondrum at the start of this thread, JzG either participates in the conduct or gives a symbolic wag of the finger and a wink for what should be a patent violation of WP:CIVIL and grounds to ask the user to take a break from the page. If this isn't either incompetence or bias by an administrator, I don't know what is, and JzG's actions against me are just one part of that pattern. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 17:34, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- You're pretty clear about your take on JzG, but, reading the above, I don't see a single editor who agrees with you. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:28, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- The evidence is posted above says all there is to say. But knocks like yours, Beyond My Ken, have absolutely nothing to do with substance and everything to do with making someone feel isolated, regardless of whether or not they bring up a valid point. I'm surprised that's the only thing you have to say, given your past issues with Bacondrum mirroring mine, but everyone's entitled to their opinion. (And yet, Shrike seems to understand exactly what I'm saying, so your observation is also not correct.) Wikieditor19920 (talk) 19:38, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Actually, you should read Shrike's comments again, because they have little to do with your complaint, and are more general in nature. Not every possible criticism of JzG means that the person agrees with you. Nor do my past disagreements with Bacondrum -- we're now on good terms, BTW -- have anything whatsoever to do with this case -- but I guess you're just grasping at straws and striking out at anyone who comes here to comment because your complaints are not getting the least bit of traction. That possibly also accounts for your WP:BLUDGEONing this discussion with repetitive WP:BATTLEGROUNDy walls of text.I suggest that the Law of holes applies here. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:56, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- @Beyond My Ken: Call it whatever you want. I stand by what I've said about the severe and arbitrary nature of this block by JzG and the evidence I presented. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 20:42, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Fine. Could you please learn how to properly indent discussion comments? Thanks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 21:10, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- @Beyond My Ken: Call it whatever you want. I stand by what I've said about the severe and arbitrary nature of this block by JzG and the evidence I presented. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 20:42, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader: suggests my documenting a 1RR violation is "harassment," yet did not even look at the diffs or my attempts to broach the issue with the editor beforehand, and proposes a ridiculous and punitive ban. They claim that I have a "track record of personal attacks," yet provides no such example. That's because I do not attack editors. You will not find one comment by me calling an editor "whinging" or calling their argument "bullshit" as in the diffs above, but yet again, this behavior is of no concern, nor is the fact that a clearly WP:INVOLVED admin imposed an excessive and arbitrary restriction on a page we've both been working on. This "circle the wagons" and "death by a thousand cuts" to anyone who dares question authority or the house point of view is what drives editors away.
It's easy to dig diffs, talk page notices, or disputes from the past four years and claim whatever you want and ignore my contribtuions, but the fact is any editor involved in AmPol has butted heads with others and engaged in passionate debates. When you are on the "wrong" side of those debates, it always seems to attract "warnings" and other sort of attention. The way that editors pull years-old threads out of context is just silly. @Bishonen: cites a thread where I asked another editor, who repeatedly appeared at pages I was editing to revert me, to not WP:STALK my edits if they were doing so, as "illustrative." The user got hostile and filed an ANI, which was ignored and archived. Other users who had followed the situation at that thread noted that I did absolutely nothing wrong, but Bishonen presents it here as damning evidence of I don't know what. This is one-sided and misleading.
If I had used the phrase "grifter" or "(insert negative association)-apologist" to describe any mainstream, popular subject, without providing a source, I would have been indeffed without question, as would any regular user. And that would be the right decision against any editor coming into AmPol with that kind of attitude. But again, you would never find one such example of any statement by me. But if I criticize those expressions coming from an admin -- especially one who just banned me from a page we've both been involved in -- then apparently that is a "personal attack" or "battlegrounding." I never claimed perfection, despite the accusations that I've never shown introspection, but apparently it's much easier to simply resort to punitive and extreme ban proposals and avoid an uncomfortable discussion about why the conduct I highlighted above is either tolerated or encouraged by admins freely and what kind of problem that creates for a productive atmosphere. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 22:06, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
You can dig up diffs or disputes from the past four years
Anything you'd like to disclose? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:18, 26 November 2020 (UTC)- @ProcrastinatingReader: Sorry, are you asking for something specific or just every time I've had a disagreement, made an edit that was reverted, or objected to something in an article? Wikieditor19920 (talk) 22:27, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- You know what, there is. Bishonen outrageously accuses me of "POV" without a shred of evidence, even as I've presented multiple examples of here, in the specific conduct I took issue with, of admins and users actively deriding and expressing negative opinions about the subject of a BLP. This ridiculous double-standard reminds me of a comment raised by a user at the thread Bishonen provided:
@Bishonen: One of the complainants here has told another editor in an American politics related MfD: [309] How about you and your whole busybody crew fuck right off!! Back when that happened, it was mentioned at AE etc. and nothing was thought of it. Now you are warning Wikieditor19992 for far, far less. It seems that there are two sets of standards at play. Different rules are applied for different editors depending on whether they follow the house POV.
Wikieditor19920 (talk) 22:47, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- I meant that your account is from 2018, but you say four years, so I'm just curious what you were editing on beforehand? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:07, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: None, that is my rough guess about how long I've been editing Wikipedia for (i.e. been using this single and only account). It's not something I keep track of, and it may be 3 or 2.5. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 23:11, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- So, you're saying that your "rough guess" about how long your tenure on Wikipedia has been (2 years and 8 months) is 4 years or 3 or 2.5? That's believable. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:39, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- That's right. I just checked the diff again, it was September 2018. Congratulations. It's not something I sit around and think about or keep track of, but I would figure you to assume bad faith or infer something nefarious. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 23:47, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- As with much of your editing, it probably wouldn't hurt you to think a little more about what you're doing before you do it. Perhaps then you might realize that there's no reason for the 14th repetitive wall-of-text argument because the previous 13 pretty much said what you wanted to say, and you're only creating a bad impression by saying it again. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:14, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- That's right. I just checked the diff again, it was September 2018. Congratulations. It's not something I sit around and think about or keep track of, but I would figure you to assume bad faith or infer something nefarious. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 23:47, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- So, you're saying that your "rough guess" about how long your tenure on Wikipedia has been (2 years and 8 months) is 4 years or 3 or 2.5? That's believable. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:39, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: None, that is my rough guess about how long I've been editing Wikipedia for (i.e. been using this single and only account). It's not something I keep track of, and it may be 3 or 2.5. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 23:11, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
Beyond My Ken That was obviously an honest mistake. Nonetheless, clearly you have a point, since my communications are being pretty quickly disregarded. Regardless, I think I brought up a few legitimate issues:
- Use of admin tools by a WP:INVOLVED admin to impose a three-month ban for an extremely minor edit
- Concerning expressions used about a BLP
- Seemingly arbitrary standards applied in resolving an editorial dispute with sanctions
Could I have expressed myself better? Sure. But the proposed WP:PUNITIVE block addresses nothing, and it feels like retribution for my having criticized an admin who subsequently requested a desysop. I don't know if it's related, but the fact that this administrator did so immediately afterward raises an obvious question about the propriety of the intial block. And rather than addressing this point, ProcrastinatingReader brings up talk page notices from 2018 to aggressively lobby to have me blocked for bringing it up. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 01:43, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Hi, @Slywriter:, just to clarify, are you referring to me when you describe American politically conservative editors? If so, I'm going to ask you to strike that, because you are a) mischaracterizing my views and b) you really don't have any information to characterize my views, party registration, or personal beliefs in the first place. My concerns about disparaging a BLP extend to all pages regardless of any ideological spectrum they fall on, as I already indicated. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 02:00, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks, @Slywriter:. Agree that that kind of material is frustrating, disagree that I went lower by bringing it up, but appreciate the feedback. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 02:11, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- May not be my finest use of the english language but my point is if you keep finding yourself dragged onto the drama boards by other editors/admins then you should take a step back and ask why and how can I avoid it going forward. Now unfortunately, the community may force that upon you but I do think it would be a net negative to Wikipedia for that ban to be a complete one that drives you away from the project Slywriter (talk) 02:38, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Appreciate it! We'll see what happens. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 02:40, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- For those who seem to suggest my only positive contributions have been outside AmPol, this is untrue. I helped bring Linda Sarsour to GA status as well, one at the intersection of AmPol and PIA. It's far more difficult to make those kinds of changes on a page where every edit is challenged and argued about, as opposed to that of a small college or little known academic, but I accomplished it, why? Because my edits were neutral and well thought out (as were those of the others who I was working with). So it's simply wrong to dismiss my work in that area of the encyclopedia based on a few unfortunate encounters. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 12:07, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- May not be my finest use of the english language but my point is if you keep finding yourself dragged onto the drama boards by other editors/admins then you should take a step back and ask why and how can I avoid it going forward. Now unfortunately, the community may force that upon you but I do think it would be a net negative to Wikipedia for that ban to be a complete one that drives you away from the project Slywriter (talk) 02:38, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
Comment
I appreciate the overall message and tone of Wugapodes's comments, while I disagree with the suggested remedy. Even so, I'm seeing several editors attributing to me supposedly persistent battle-grounding, personal attacks, and everything in the book. While I don't think anyone who's edited AP-32 (including myself) can say they never once said something that they wish they had phrased differently, I resent the rush to judgement on topic bans and indeffs, severe and punitive remedies, without a single diff showing me disrespecting another editor, attacking another editor, or making an unfounded accusation. ProcrastinatingReader accused me of "parading attacks" against the user Bacondrum and filing a "frivolous report" at WP:AN3. I disagree but accepted the outcome. The response by Bacondrum was to:
- File a report against me titled "Using noticeboards to get revenge"
- Post a long comment criticizing me on the Talk:Antifa (United States)
This is not me "attacking" the user, this is what happend. It was then that JzG decided they would unilaterally, and without warning or notice, ban me for three months at two pages where they have been WP:INVOLVED, while letting Bacondrum off with a mere warning for the 1RR matter and their follow-up comments about me on multiple talk pages. Even the edit by me that JzG supposedly premised this on was exceedingly minor: I merged two sentences, removing a phrase objected to by another editor, and removed sources, something that others including Bacondrum agreed with on the talk page. This is not the kind of conduct that should lead to a T-ban. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 23:46, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
Block proposed
- Indef for ongoing attacks and frivolous litigation against Bacondrum, a few steps removed from harassment, here and at ANEW; plus their track record of incivility and personal attacks from a skim of ANI & their talk page history; plus battleground behaviour; persistent bludgeoning -- all of which are on display above. That includes [3][4][5][6] (warned by Bishonen), multiple warnings for such conduct [7][8][9], prior sanctions [10][11] by @TonyBallioni and Black Kite. Regular throughout their tenure [12][13][14], gaining the attention of no less than a dozen totally different admins. Too many issues, regardless of any content merits. @Liz and Swarm: gave advice for
self-reflection on your approach to collaborative editing on Wikipedia and ask yourself whether this is an environment you can work in
one month ago, andat the heart of this dispute is not reverts but battleground behavior across several forums [...] if this dispute between you and Bacondrum continues [...] you will face a more serious sanction
; this advice apparently hasn't worked. This kind of conduct drives editors away, which we are already in short supply of, and wastes the time of others, whilst deteroriating the editing atmosphere, and hence should not entertained for this long. Unfortunately, I feel another AP2 TBAN (their previous, 3mo forbattleground behaviour
, expired) will be insufficient, especially given thelack of introspection
above, plus narrow editing interest and the broadness of the issues. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:28, 26 November 2020 (UTC) - Support indef. ProcrastinatingReader offers an impressive/depressing collection of diffs and links, including noticeboard threads illustrating the way people are worn down by Wikieditor19920's wordy and untiring POV-pushing. As I'm always saying, the time and patience of constructive editors is Wikipedia's foremost resource, and this editor is depleting that resource. This thread, which slid into the archives without a close, may be the most illustrative of all. And the warnings and sanctions, such as a three-month Am Pol T-ban, seem to have had very little effect on the user's style and attitude. If the proposal for an indefinite block doesn't gain traction, I suggest another T-ban from American politics, but this time not time-limited but indefinite. That does not mean forever, but it does mean there has to be constructive and useful editing in other areas, probably for at least six months, followed by a convincing unban request. I actually think it's time for an indefinite block, though. Bishonen | tålk 21:44, 26 November 2020 (UTC).
- Support indef After reading PR's diffs and especially, Bishonen's pointer to the January thread, I think an indef block is well-deserved to protect Wikipedia from WE19220's disruptive and harassing behaviors. Like Bishonen, I also support an indef AP2 Tban if there is no consensus for an indef block. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:01, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- Support AP2 TBAN; Oppose CBAN An indefinite block after a community discussion is essentially a community ban, and I don't think we're at that point yet. I think there's enough disruption to warrant a broad topic ban from the more contentious parts of the encyclopedia though, and a TBAN let's us see if WE19220 can contribute positively or whether a CBAN should follow. — Wug·a·po·des 00:12, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- FTR, the issues extend to PIA also (see many of the links), so a ban would also have to cover that topic area imo if going TBAN route. But didn't you tell me these discussions are hard to do again? ;p That discussion blocked that editor for far less issues. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:10, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Sure throw in PIA too. An indef TBAN (like this) is different from a time-limited one (like in the example you give). A time-limited TBAN means that even if there's still problems we have to have a whole new conversation which--in that specific case--was unlikely to happen since the original thread had to be resurrected from the archive just to get sanctions in the first place. Meanwhile, any admin can indef WE19220 if they continue to be disruptive--we don't need a community discussion for that--and especially if they violate the TBAN. WE19220 seems to be productive outside these areas--they've started articles on academics and alumni and brought Goucher College up to GA. Jumping straight to an indef CBAN is a lot when they can clearly behave just fine outside these areas. That's what TBANs are for. — Wug·a·po·des 03:04, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- I'm usually the one who supports lesser sanctions, but for this kind of behaviour, which is a cancer to any collaborative environment, I genuinely do not see why anyone wants to allow this. You see one GA, I see the GAs that didn't happen because the editors were driven away. The editor says above the discussions I linked are from 2018, when most of them are from 2020, some not even a month ago. They think every uninvolved admin was against them. They do not get it; can you honestly say this conduct is rehabilitatable?
- Sorry, I cannot get behind your idea that any admin would indef themselves: nobody did so to date, instead opting for slaps on the wrist. Neither whilst this editor paraded their attacks on Bacondrum above - the very thing they were warned against doing - on the administrators noticeboard, one of the most watchlisted pages on this site. That a community discussion is now required is an administrative failure. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:14, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Our blocks aren't punitive, they are preventative, and since the disruption seems limited to defined topic areas, we can prevent disruption by banning WE19220 from those topics. I'd support a CBAN if those were the only areas to which WE19220 contributed, but it's not. I can come up with tons of hypothetical GAs that might have been written, but it doesn't change the fact that WE19220 actually wrote some and a CBAN won't magically make those hypothetical GAs or editors suddenly appear. The GAs and creations by WE19220 aren't even in the area of conflict; I'm not going to support a CBAN because someone thinks WE19220 will be disruptive outside of the TBAN areas since we have clear evidence that WE19220 can contribute fine outside of this topic area.People can change, even between topic areas, and we have many editors--even some admins--who started their careers with indef vandalism blocks or successfully appealed CBANs. In fact, I make it a personal goal to welcome back every contributor who successfully appeals a CBAN (e.g., Mar 2020, Nov 2020) per meatball:WelcomeNewcomer and meatball:ForgiveAndForget. So to your question
can you honestly say this conduct is rehabilitatable?
Yes, because I've seen it multiple times. It is far better to try and retain and reform editors where we can rather than kicking out people we don't like and hoping others magically appear. It is hard to get people to contribute, I say having run edit-a-thons and doing outreach with academics. You can wax philosophic about editor recruitment and retention, but kicking WE19220 out won't magically solve our problems and it is unfair to make them a scapegoat of a problem they're barely even part of. We have tons of editors who simply cannot contribute well in certian areas--Beyond My Ken, who is supporting a CBAN, is under an editing restriction himself. The Rambling Man has a topic ban and multiple interaction bans. We literally have TBANs for this exact reason and we should use them before resorting to more drastic measures like complete removal from the community.Finally, speaking as an admin, slapping an indef on someone in the middle of a community discussion is usually frowned upon per WP:SUPERVOTE. The ban discussion you started is why admins are hesitant to dole out sanctions because it could be seen as circumventing community discussion. Is that right or good? I don't know, but it's certainly strange to fault all admins for not taking action sooner on something we found out about literally a couple hours ago and which is actively being discussed by the community. Could the admins in the past done more? Sure. But they didn't and I'm not going to punish WE19220 now just because other admins were too kind. I'll certainly look at the blocks to find out where disruption is likely to continue to occur and take action to prevent that disruption, which is why I oppose a CBAN and prefer a TBAN: WE19220 seems fine outside of politically contentious areas. — Wug·a·po·des 22:44, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Our blocks aren't punitive, they are preventative, and since the disruption seems limited to defined topic areas, we can prevent disruption by banning WE19220 from those topics. I'd support a CBAN if those were the only areas to which WE19220 contributed, but it's not. I can come up with tons of hypothetical GAs that might have been written, but it doesn't change the fact that WE19220 actually wrote some and a CBAN won't magically make those hypothetical GAs or editors suddenly appear. The GAs and creations by WE19220 aren't even in the area of conflict; I'm not going to support a CBAN because someone thinks WE19220 will be disruptive outside of the TBAN areas since we have clear evidence that WE19220 can contribute fine outside of this topic area.People can change, even between topic areas, and we have many editors--even some admins--who started their careers with indef vandalism blocks or successfully appealed CBANs. In fact, I make it a personal goal to welcome back every contributor who successfully appeals a CBAN (e.g., Mar 2020, Nov 2020) per meatball:WelcomeNewcomer and meatball:ForgiveAndForget. So to your question
- Sure throw in PIA too. An indef TBAN (like this) is different from a time-limited one (like in the example you give). A time-limited TBAN means that even if there's still problems we have to have a whole new conversation which--in that specific case--was unlikely to happen since the original thread had to be resurrected from the archive just to get sanctions in the first place. Meanwhile, any admin can indef WE19220 if they continue to be disruptive--we don't need a community discussion for that--and especially if they violate the TBAN. WE19220 seems to be productive outside these areas--they've started articles on academics and alumni and brought Goucher College up to GA. Jumping straight to an indef CBAN is a lot when they can clearly behave just fine outside these areas. That's what TBANs are for. — Wug·a·po·des 03:04, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- FTR, the issues extend to PIA also (see many of the links), so a ban would also have to cover that topic area imo if going TBAN route. But didn't you tell me these discussions are hard to do again? ;p That discussion blocked that editor for far less issues. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:10, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Oppose CBAN / Support TBAN (Broadly) The leeway given to certain editors in how poorly they treat subjects of articles on talk pages can be frustrating for
american politically conservativeeditors (Though I stand by the original statement, Wikieditor is right that I lack the information to apply said statement to his specific circumstances). It even gets to the point where you believe that they are out to getconservativeseditors that disagree with them. However, when they go low, you go lower is not the wikipedia way and Wikieditor needs a break from AP2 for everyone's sanity and so that they can understand wikipedia is ultimately not a battleground for supremacy of ideology. Reliable Sources, rationale debate and avoiding personal attacks is a much better way to improve articles. Slywriter (talk) 01:55, 27 November 2020 (UTC) - Support indef I haven't seen this editor before, but reading through this thread and linked discussions I can see a history of battleground editing which many warnings, noticeboard discussions, topic bans and blocks haven't been able to stop. The editors we actually want to retain on these articles are the ones who don't engage in battleground editing, and we're not doing them a service by tolerating this. I suppose a topic ban from modern US politics would take care of the immediate problem, but these are issues which are likely to crop up elsewhere. If we have to impose multiple topic bans, as suggested above, then that's definitely a situation where we should be looking at an indefinite block. Hut 8.5 08:46, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Oppose JzG's descriptions of Ngo as a "grifter" and Ngo's actions as "apologia for neo-Nazis" are inappropriate. Wikieditor19920 has been right to scrutinize such BLP treatment, and I think it would be dangerous BLP-wise to remove editors who make sure that stuff like this doesn't get a free pass. Sadly, too often discussion in the AP32- topic area is hostile, and certainly Wikieditor19920 could do his part and improve. But it seems biased to ignore JzG's track record or consider criticism of Bacondrum as "frivolous litigation" when he has multiple blocks for edit-warring and battleground attitude. At that point it becomes sniping for POV. --Pudeo (talk) 08:56, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Support TBAN / Oppose CBAN. Pretty much per Wugapodes; it appears that 19220 can contribute positively to the encylopedia in areas that aren't contentious; it would seem a shame to lose that. Black Kite (talk) 11:09, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Support indef as first choice per Hut8.5, second choice TBANs from AP and ARBPIA - indefinite with appeal possible after 6 months. This is based on what I've seen of his edits over time and nothing to do with NGO or JzG. --Doug Weller talk 11:58, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Oppose We have to see the full context here yes I think user should take a step back but admins shouldn't take actions in discretionary area that there are WP:INVOLVED even if they didn't edit certain article there are proper procedures for this --20:27, 27 November 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shrike (talk • contribs) .
- (1) It's far from clear that Guy was "involved" as defined by WP:INVOLVED. (2) People should actually read WP:INVOLVED once in a while, especially the part that says: "...the community has historically endorsed the obvious action of any administrator – even if involved – on the basis that any reasonable administrator would have probably come to the same conclusion." (3) Guy brought his action here for consideration as to its appropriateness. The fact that we're now !voting about a possible sanction for Wikieditor19920, in which a number of admins have endorsed a sanction stricter than Guy put in place, and a reading of the section above indicates that the community's consensus as well as the consensus of admins is behind Guy. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:08, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
- Oppose - Not seeing enough for a indef. Most of the examples above are overlaps and links to the same thing over and over. I am concerned with the same people showing up over and over with warnings and threats. That gets less and less productive every time it happens. PackMecEng (talk) 22:34, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- That cuts both ways. The same people show up to defend... Just sayin'. --Valjean (talk) 23:33, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Not so much actually if you look at the overall people involved. Sure there are a few that show up defending them, but the vast majority are on the other end. Your comment reads more like WP:FALSEBALANCE. PackMecEng (talk) 00:13, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
- That cuts both ways. The same people show up to defend... Just sayin'. --Valjean (talk) 23:33, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Support CBAN, with TBAN second choice Time is precious here, and I don't have much patience with editors who are timesinks. Miniapolis 23:30, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Support TBan (AP2) per Black Kite and Doug Weller. -- Valjean (talk) 23:33, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
- Support CBAN first; broad TBAN second per Doug Weller.--Jorm (talk) 01:07, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
- Oppose, Wikieditor19920 should be more succinct, but other than that he is a constructive editor. 11Fox11 (talk) 06:57, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
- Support CBAN as first choice. PR's links above show sufficient disruption that I believe this editor to be a net negative. Support INDEF TBAN from AP2 & PIA as second choice. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:34, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
- Support indef as first choice, with TBAN as second choice per the concerns raised by Miniapolis and Doug Weller. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 20:35, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
- Support indef and AP2/ARBPIA topic bans. Whereas I don't see any knock-out diffs that alone would warrant an indef, persistent arguing-to-death is very corrosive in a collaborative community and that is worse than a knock-out incident. Johnuniq (talk) 01:11, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
- Oppose CBAN Personally, I find myself disagreeing with Wikieditor19920 frequently. I think his problem is with WP:BLUDGEONing the process, WP:IDHT and Wikilawyering which I don't think at this point warrant a community ban. If they could just take some of these criticisms on board and drop the persecution complex, they could continue to make worthwhile contributions. But I think their persistence here and refusal to drop the stick will result in some sanctions. Their complaints about a relatively limited page block (two articles?) might result in a topic ban or community ban. Not a smart move to take it this far. Liz Read! Talk! 05:27, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
- Support ONLY AP2 TBAN, oppose indefinite ban, I think that a lot of this editor's contributions are really good. He just needs to refrain from bludgeoning discussions where he is too passionate. At this point, we should try a limited TBAN. Kate Riley2019 (talk) 03:29, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- Support AP2 Ban Same reasons as above. Danielyng (talk) 14:19, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Request for closure
The request for sanctions has been open for 10 days, and the last posted comments is now 5 days old. Could an admin please evaluate the discussion and determine if a sanction is in order or not? Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:11, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
- Just want to point out that 20 editors !voted in this discussion, 8 of them admins, so it deserves a formal close and shouldn't just scroll off. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:15, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Unblock request for Truth gatekeeper
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Truth gatekeeper was originally blocked on March 20, 2019 by @Bishonen: for "persistent tendentious editing, misuse of sources, and BLP violations". The next day, @Doug Weller: check user blocked per Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Truth gatekeeper. They lost TPA and have requested unblocking via UTRS appeal #37213. Check user by @Ponyo: showed no recent socking/blockevasion. The unblock request is fairly detailed and hopefully addresses each of the reasons for their block. It is carried over below. I have restored TPA so they may respond to concerns there.
Dear Sir/Madam, I made an appeal with the key:- (Redacted) However, the appeal was DECLINED. I'm appealing again after improvements based on the last feedback I got. Here are some of my own mistakes and how I will address them, in eight sections (I - VIII):
I). Edit-war and tedious edits:- I will not break the three-revert rule which was one of the things that got me blocked. If by some chance I get a comment to fix something, I will carefully do so, instead of getting into an edit-war and reverting. I will also avoid any tedious edits from now on. Surely I will avoid edit-war from now on, after being blocked for almost two years.
II). My wrong assumption about block:- Two years ago, I thought a block was not serious and that I could always create a new account and bi-pass it, so I was careless in my edits. Now I have seen that the Wikipedia block evasion detection system is quite robust, so I will be extremely careful not to break any of the Wikipedia policies so as not to get blocked again. I have not blocked evaded for over a year and a half now and I will never do so. I have also matured, and I will be careful not to break any of Wikipedia policies.
III). Sources/reference:- I have learned that I must only use very reliable sources. Even on my WP:EVADE a year and a half ago, I have started only using reliable sources. I will even be more careful from now on, and use sources that are very reliable and easily verifiable. I have also for example learned to include the exact quote from the source/reference, I'm using the quote attribute of the "ref" tag ( that is, <ref |quote= EXACT TEXT... ). I started using this in my WP:EVADE a year and a half ago, to make the reference verification easy for the overseeing Admin and for the readers.
IV). Violations of WP:SOCK and WP:EVADE :- I have not done WP:EVADE for over a year and a half now. If I get unblocked now I will of course not do WP:EVADE. As for the WP:SOCK, I only engaged in WP:SOCK after I got blocked, mainly as a block evasion. However, I never engaged in WP:SOCK before I was blocked, so I will of course not engage in WP:SOCK if my block is lifted. I never at a time had more than one account and WP:SOCKed, before I was first blocked. I started to WP:SOCK so hide my WP:EVADE. I have understood that I have SOCKed while trying to EVADE, and that it was extremely wrong of me. But I never SOCKed before I was blocked, and I will not do so if I get unblocked. I will neither EVADE nor SOCK anymore, and I have not done so for the last year and a half.
V). POV issues:- I will be very careful not to do any POV anymore. And I will only use very reliable sources that don't have POV issues like Reuters and British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and state things as exactly they are.
VI). Wikipedia policy violations (like NPOV & BLP):- I have gone through the policies, I promise to be very careful from now on. I will follow all of the Wikipedia policies carefully. I will not use sources that have NPOV issues. I will even be extra careful if I edit a Biographies of living persons (BLP), since I have understood that it is a very sensitive thing. I even started making little improvements on this on my WP:EVADE edits a year and a half ago, I will even be extra more careful from now on. And like I said above, I never did WP:EVADE for over a year and a half now, and I will never do it again.
VII). Though I made many more mistakes, few of them are from the Editors. For example, I correctly changed "almost a million have been displaced" by with the correct figure "1.5 million", but I was wrongly accused of distorting the figure ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Truth_gatekeeper/Archive#18_April_2019 ). But even the current Abiy Ahmed Wikipedia-page version says "1.5 million" (like me) backed with many reliable references; furthermore, here is also another source link from a speech quote of Abiy Ahmed himself on the legitimate AfricaNews media that quote him say "After I came, an additional 1.5 million people were displaced." ( https://www.africanews.com/2019/03/29/one-million-displaced-ethiopians-return-home-abiy-meets-press/ ).
VIII). I have a wide range of IP addresses as you saw on your Sockpuppetry-investationgs back then, so I couldn't be blocked by IP-address. I abstained from block evasion for the last year & a half since I personally want to follow Wikipedia's policies and make contributions in the right way. This also shows that the current block is not necessary, because if I wanted to disrupt I can do so even from the computer I'm now writing you this from (since my computer's IP address is not blocked). This shows that I do NOT have the intention to make a disruption, since there isn't any IP block currently stopping me even now if I had the intention to disrupt. Kind regards,Truth gatekeeper.
Thanks, --Deepfriedokra (talk) 08:41, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- Weak Support everyone deserves a second chance and this is a well written appeal. However, WP: WALLOFTEXT. --HurricaneTracker495 (talk) 18:53, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- Barring CU evidence to the contrary, i support unblocking on the basis of the good appeal above. I do, however, have two suggestions: First, what appears to be the special area of interest/conflict ~ Ethiopia and the Tigray Region ~ is obviously at the moment even more appealing to those of one side or the other, so i suggest Truth gatekeeper stay away from that area consistently and carefully, at least until a better track record is established in contributions; second, i highly recommend a name change, as editing with the perspective that name suggests is like editing as User:World's Greatest Wiki-editor ~ just setting one's self up for a fall; happy days, LindsayHello 19:59, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- Oppose - An editor who chooses "Truth gatekeeper" for their screenname is not going to change their stripes, no matter what they say in their appeal. I am not in favor of returning PoV editors to the fold without some sort of safeguard, such as a topic ban. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:38, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- Comment You're saying that CU by User:Ponyo showed no recent socking. May I ask on what grounds the check was performed? I'm asking because our policy explicitly prohibits checks to "prove innocence." Iaritmioawp (talk) 21:43, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- Requests by individual editors to have a check run on their account to prove themselves innocent of a sockpupptry charge are declined. Checking an account with a history of socking as part of an unblock appeal is absolutely permitted by policy (and is often expected).-- Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 21:48, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Users who are blocked for sockpuppetry are routinely checked for ongoing block evasion when they make unblock requests. This is nothing new, and the usual unblock request template includes a link to checkuser which pre-fills the reason "User talk:Username, unblock request" (we have to give a reason for all checks). The prohibition on checks to "prove innocence" relates to checking users when no reasonable suspicion of sockpuppetry has been established. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 21:51, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- Because I could not have proceeded with an unblock appeal w/o checking with a check user first. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:03, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- Without first consulting a CheckUser, administrators must not undo or alter any block that is specifically identified as a "checkuser" block, such as through the use of the {{{checkuserblock}}} or {{{checkuserblock-account}}} templates in the action summary.[7] If an administrator believes that a checkuser block has been made in error, the administrator should first discuss the matter with the CheckUser in question, and if a satisfactory resolution is not reached, should e-mail the Arbitration Committee. A reversal or alteration of such a block without prior consultation may result in removal of permissions. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:12, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- I have no opinion that I wish to express on whether this person should be allowed to edit here, but I agree with others above that the use of this user name can only end in tears. If the appeal is allowed a change of user name should be a condition of returning. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:07, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- I must confess that when I saw that user name I was skeptical. Perhaps appellant can address this issue. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:12, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- Support unblock. It's been a year and a half, they understood what they did wrong, and they've refrained from socking all this time. Let's not second-guess future behavior based on a username. If they want a new username, that's cool, but making it a condition of unblocking seems just plain silly. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:22, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- Support unblock – per Roy. The username accords with WP:U policy and I don't think my personal opinion about the username should affect whether or not the user can edit. Otherwise I see no reason not to unblock per the principles of WP:SO and WP:ROPE. Levivich harass/hound 03:55, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Support unblock per RoySmith and ROPE. Truth gatekeeper: I think you should strongly consider changing your username to something unambiguously innocent if you are unblocked; think of it as a new name for a (hopefully) clean start. Your current name will only lead people to be skeptical of your intentions and motivations. Best wishes from Los Angeles, // Timothy :: talk 04:28, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Support unblock per above. starship.paint (talk) 05:52, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Oppose unblock this addition is one of few medium/large additions, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tsegede&diff=prev&oldid=884471780 and they all appear to be uncited cut and copy and the few actual content additions they have actually made all appear to be copy paste from the www. I can't see that there will be usefull contributions from the user and so whatever username they edit under I do not support unblock. Govindaharihari (talk) 18:27, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
- Support Unblock Well written appeal. As you mentioned, you say you have matured over the period that you were blocked; and I can see that from your appeal. Danielyng (talk) 14:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- Support Unblock per RoySmith and ROPE. Reading their unblock request they appear to have matured and are now fully aware of what got them blocked and what not to do in future. –Davey2010Talk 19:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
replies from Truth gatekeeper
I). About my user-name ("Truth gatekeeper"), I have already tried to clarify this on my answer on 20 March 2019 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Truth_gatekeeper#Timesink ). I meant the "Truth gatekeeper" user-name the other way round; meaning that I only want the truth to be written on Wikipedia, and that I want to expose or remove false (and un-referenced) information that has been written on Wikipedia. I meant it like a guard, who only lets "truth" come-in. I obviously did not mean it the other way round, (as most of you seem to interpreter it). However, I have decided to change my name once (or if) I get unblocked, to another not confusing/misinterpretable user-name (like Loves_VirginiaWoolf1882, or something even more simple).
Anyhow, I'm very sorry for creating a confusion with the "Truth gatekeeper", but my desired meaning for the user-name is being misunderstood.
II). Sorry for the WP: WALLOFTEXT on my appeal, it was due to lack of awareness, and from improving & reusing of text from my previous appeal; (but it was not intentional). Truth gatekeeper (talk) 23:20, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
- Carried over by me --Deepfriedokra (talk) 00:04, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- {u|Truth gatekeeper}} There is no "confusion" over your username, what you describe as your motivation is precisely what we don't want on Wikipedia. We do not add or delete things on the basis that they conform to our personal definitions of "truth", we do so on the basis of whether they are verifiable and supported by citations from reliable sources. Those things we take as being "facts". Facts are mutable, they can change as more information or evidence becomes available about them. "Truth" is immutable, it is what it is to the beholder.We really don't need or want a "Truth gatekeeper", what we want is an editor who will follow our policies and improve articles by the addition of verifiable information and the removal of unverified information. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:22, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Truth gatekeeper Re-ping. See my last comment. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:23, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- My "I am not here to promote a POV" t-shirt .... --JBL (talk) 12:07, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- To be fair (and disagreeing with BMK, something i do with reluctance), in the real world the word "truth" is often used in exactly the way that Truth gatekeeper seems to be using it ~ for what BMK is describing as "fact". For that reason i'll reaffirm my support for an unblock, nothing in either one of Tg's replies makes me change it; happy days, LindsayHello 06:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- My "I am not here to promote a POV" t-shirt .... --JBL (talk) 12:07, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Truth gatekeeper Re-ping. See my last comment. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:23, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- {u|Truth gatekeeper}} There is no "confusion" over your username, what you describe as your motivation is precisely what we don't want on Wikipedia. We do not add or delete things on the basis that they conform to our personal definitions of "truth", we do so on the basis of whether they are verifiable and supported by citations from reliable sources. Those things we take as being "facts". Facts are mutable, they can change as more information or evidence becomes available about them. "Truth" is immutable, it is what it is to the beholder.We really don't need or want a "Truth gatekeeper", what we want is an editor who will follow our policies and improve articles by the addition of verifiable information and the removal of unverified information. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:22, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Carried over by me --Deepfriedokra (talk) 00:04, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
Truth gatekeeper Reply #2
Hi everyone (@Deepfriedokra:, @LindsayH:, @HurricaneTracker495:, @RoySmith:, @Ponyo:, @Phil Bridger:, @Beyond My Ken:, @Levivich:, @Starship.paint:, @TimothyBlue: and the rest),
Thank you all for your support and for reviewing my appeal. @Beyond My Ken:, I saw your last comment and yes I understand, and I made those same points on my appeal text (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard#Unblock_request_for_Truth_gatekeeper). Furthermore, what I meant by "un-referenced" is "unverified" (i.e. follow Wikipedia's policies and improve articles by the addition of verifiable information and the removal of unverified information).
Truth gatekeeper (talk) 09:41, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
Carried over by me --Deepfriedokra (talk) 12:47, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
Request to close
- Been open more than a week. Last edit was four(?) days ago. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 17:27, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
- {{checkuser needed}} to close this. To note I see consensus for an unblock per WP:ROPE, but as I am not a checkuser I cannot undo checkuser blocks. Therefore, the closing admin for this should be a checkuser, so they can perform the unblock if they see consensus. Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 17:55, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
- Check was already completed; see above. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:25, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- {{checkuser needed}} to close this. To note I see consensus for an unblock per WP:ROPE, but as I am not a checkuser I cannot undo checkuser blocks. Therefore, the closing admin for this should be a checkuser, so they can perform the unblock if they see consensus. Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 17:55, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
- Just to make sure I'm crystal-clear: Ponyo's findings/this discussion qualify as consulting a checkuser first, and Deepfriedokra you don't object to an unblock but don't feel you can finish the UTRS by unblocking yourself? —valereee (talk) 15:12, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Ponyo: just to confirm, but I agree with Ivanvector. @Valereee: I'm not neutral, really. (I'm for unblocking). It would be better if someone objective who has not dealt with this request close the thread. Thanks for your time. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 17:07, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- Deepfriedokra, I'm happy to handle as long as no one's going to take me to ANI for unblocking a CU block! :D I'm completely neutral on it. I'll likely make it conditional on a rename per concerns, but TG seems quite open to that. Ponyo's not edited in two days and Doug Weller hasn't expressed any opposition, so I'm just crossing my fingers. —valereee (talk) 17:41, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Doug Weller: Yea or nay? --Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:35, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- Deepfriedokra, ok, with a name change (and the old name made clear on their userpage. Doug Weller talk 19:35, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Doug Weller: Yea or nay? --Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:35, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- Deepfriedokra, I'm happy to handle as long as no one's going to take me to ANI for unblocking a CU block! :D I'm completely neutral on it. I'll likely make it conditional on a rename per concerns, but TG seems quite open to that. Ponyo's not edited in two days and Doug Weller hasn't expressed any opposition, so I'm just crossing my fingers. —valereee (talk) 17:41, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Ponyo: just to confirm, but I agree with Ivanvector. @Valereee: I'm not neutral, really. (I'm for unblocking). It would be better if someone objective who has not dealt with this request close the thread. Thanks for your time. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 17:07, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Administrators' newsletter – December 2020
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2020).
Administrator changes
Andrwsc • Anetode • GoldenRing • JzG • LinguistAtLarge • Nehrams2020
Interface administrator changes
Guideline and policy news
- There is a request for comment in progress to either remove T3 (duplicated and hardcoded instances) as a speedy deletion criterion or eliminate its seven-day waiting period.
Technical news
- Voting for proposals in the 2021 Community Wishlist Survey, which determines what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year, will take place from 8 December through 21 December. In particular, there are sections regarding administrators and anti-harassment.
Arbitration
- Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 7 December 2020 UTC. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.
- No idea who is responsible for the above, but any way; I have no interest in editing meta.wikimedia.org, but I hope some standards are upheld there? I followed the link to the survey, and I notice banned editor Slowking4 there posting "anti-social users that harm the project, i.e. Fram, and his enablers."[15], and this kind of rather extreme personal attack (on a discussion about how to deal with harassment!) is left alone for 4 days now. If the WMF can't even keep their own pages harassment-free, then perhaps they shouldn't try to impose a UCOC or to deal with supposed harassers based on secret evidence and so on? Fram (talk) 08:31, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- The discussion has now been archived by a WMFer working on the anti-harassment team, without removing or addressing the offending comment. If they can't even patrol and act upon personal attacks and harassment on their own pages about the very subject, they have no business lecturing or supervising other sites. It won't stop them of course, it never does. Fram (talk) 08:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Fram: meh I regularly see worse on these boards with zero action including removal, and that's even been from you, so it seems lame to make a big deal over that one comment. Especially since it's on meta, which is a community site, rather than a WMF site, even if it was their survey and so I assume they retained the right to override the meta community if they desired. Nil Einne (talk) 12:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- It's a discussion started by WMF, closed by WMF, about actions to be taken by the WMF. Actions specifically directed against harassment, by an organisation which tries to create an image as if they care about harassment (in general, not just against their own) and is giving the strong impression that they will impose such rules and regulations (like the UCOC). I improved my approach after the whole framban thing, even though the WMF way of handling things was disastrous. I'm not trying to make a big deal about this statement directed against me (I've seen worse this week on enwiki), but to highlight the blatant hypocrisy of the WMF acting as our saviours against big bad editors, whenthey can't even keep discussions they started attack-free. It's not even part of a heated discussion, where people cross a line in a back-and-forth (not acceptable, but much more understandable), but an out-of-the-blue comment by an editor banned here (and elsewhere) since many, many years, who feels the need to insert a jab against someone not in the discussion, not even on the same site for that matter. Fram (talk) 13:19, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Fram: meh I regularly see worse on these boards with zero action including removal, and that's even been from you, so it seems lame to make a big deal over that one comment. Especially since it's on meta, which is a community site, rather than a WMF site, even if it was their survey and so I assume they retained the right to override the meta community if they desired. Nil Einne (talk) 12:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- The discussion has now been archived by a WMFer working on the anti-harassment team, without removing or addressing the offending comment. If they can't even patrol and act upon personal attacks and harassment on their own pages about the very subject, they have no business lecturing or supervising other sites. It won't stop them of course, it never does. Fram (talk) 08:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
From an uninvolved perspective, I see you as a minor martyr in the Big-Brother-action by W?F. Unfortunately, once your username becomes a shortcut for the whole situation, you seem to lose control of it. You are no longer User:Fram, but are now WP:FRAM. Once you become part of the language, part of the culture, it's hard to censor its usage. I don't see it generally as someone poking you, but instead poking the situation; however, in this case they appear to be poking you, but you've become a "public figure" so I guess no one considered it personal. IDK, once a username becomes synonymous with something on WP, like ESjay of RicKK, maybe it's best to drop the moniker alltogether? Rgrds. --Bison X (talk) 01:26, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
- For the amusement of my esteemed fellow editors, I will mention that it has come to my attention that I – yes, Yours Truly – was mentioned in a similarly vague-wavish unflattering way ("serial harasser") in the course of a discussion on meta regarding this charming projected Universal Code of Conduct thingamajig which our WMF overlords have been cooking up [16]. Interestingly, the two complainants in that discussion are now indeffed or community banned (on multiple projects, in at least one case) for – wait for it! – outing and harassment! Huh. EEng 18:28, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- Colour me shocked! Fram (talk) 08:52, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Who woulda thunk it!!! --Deepfriedokra (talk) 11:57, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Fat people, depending on where they land. Primefac (talk) 13:02, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Every morning, I wake up and ask myself if I want to go on providing WMF with a living via the fruits of my labor. Every morning, I say, "I'm not doing this for them, but for the Community of volunteers that build and curate this encyclopedia." --Deepfriedokra (talk) 17:13, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- Fat people, depending on where they land. Primefac (talk) 13:02, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Who woulda thunk it!!! --Deepfriedokra (talk) 11:57, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Colour me shocked! Fram (talk) 08:52, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Spitballing - autoprotect bot
There were a few of us discussing this the other night on IRC, and I just saw there was a similar proposal at the meta wishlist, so I thought I'd bring it up here. Background: we got hit by a vandal the other night, and for whatever reason we ended up with over 110 edits and reverts in the span of an hour before the page was locked down (and yes, it was reported to RFPP, just not seen quickly enough). While we don't really want vandalism sitting about until an admin can appear (i.e. "I've already reverted them five times, I guess I'll wait for a sixth"), we also don't want to be clogging up edit histories with this level of back-and-forth. Hence, the thought for an autoprotection bot.
Since we have the "Revert" tag now, our thought was that if a page experienced more than 5-10 "Reverted"-tagged edits in a span of say 10-20 minutes, an adminbot automatically protects the page for an hour or two (whether semi- or fully-protected is up for debate, since the warring might be between two AC users). This would give us mere mortals a chance to investigate the issue and hand out any blocks or extended protections as necessary, without the messy result of potentially dozens of edits to clean up.
I know this is a bit more of a BOTREQ, but since the bot would be an AdminBot (and on that subject, I think it should be a dedicated bot for this specific task) it would need to be discussed here first anyway. Primefac (talk) 13:57, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- As an idea I think this is great, but I would like to see some constraints on the admin bot before I would give my support. I would want to see that self reversions be excluded from the count, especially if this applies to more than just mainspace pages. Some questions:
- The reverted tag does not detect all reversions, as there is a limit as to how far the mediawiki software goes back to find out if a edit is a reversion. I think this limit is 10 previous revisions. It is possible, but unlikely due to the 10-20 minute timeline, that some reversions might go untagged if the edit rate is very high. Would the bot also check for reversions which were not detected by the software? If so, when would be the bot be prompted to do this on a page?
- What namespaces will this bot monitor? I would argue that there is a case for all namespaces to be monitored and protectable, but only if self reversions are not included.
- Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 14:29, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- As near as I can tell every vandal edit linked above was tagged, so I'm not too concerned about the system "missing" something; either way they were up to almost 20 reverts (and 40 edits!) in the first ten minutes, so if an edit or two gets skipped it's unlikely to matter. I don't see any reason why it couldn't monitor all namespaces, but obviously article space is the reader-facing space that would need it the most. Also, if someone is self-reverting that quickly (especially in the articles space), they should be CIR- or DE-blocked for being disruptive. Primefac (talk) 14:47, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- As a technical note (I'll probably raise this at BRFA, but in case I forget) maybe it should maybe check for undo/rollback/manual revert rather than reverted: N number of consecutive edits that are reverted once will have N many "Reverted" tags, even though it's just one revert. Alternatively, some logic to count a consecutive set of "reverted" tagged edits as a single revert, to ensure the reverted edits were recent and also check what kind of editor made them. Makes sense to only do it for IPs/non-autoconfirmed and to semi-prot I think, and then perhaps the bot reporting protections in the last day to WP:RFPP in a separate sub-section.For the record, Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Automatically_report_highly_reverted_pages_for_page_protection is also slightly related. Worth adding that 249 usually catches these, and User:DatBot usually reports them to WP:AIV already, but some timezones have more admins active at AIV than others. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:56, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- As near as I can tell every vandal edit linked above was tagged, so I'm not too concerned about the system "missing" something; either way they were up to almost 20 reverts (and 40 edits!) in the first ten minutes, so if an edit or two gets skipped it's unlikely to matter. I don't see any reason why it couldn't monitor all namespaces, but obviously article space is the reader-facing space that would need it the most. Also, if someone is self-reverting that quickly (especially in the articles space), they should be CIR- or DE-blocked for being disruptive. Primefac (talk) 14:47, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- I support this, but I'm concerned that someone who knows what they're doing could game the bot into locking an article with a gross BLP violation visible. I'd like to make sure that if the bot is going to protect a page, it first reverts to the latest non-reverted revision. It might also be useful if the bot would list any pages it protects this way in a new subsection at RFPP so that there's a central place for admins to review. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:21, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Pretty sure if we've got a bot locking pages, it'll be posting it somewhere for review. I do also see the potential for gaming
, and that's a pretty good solution.but if it's being reviewed faster due to a post from the bot, it will likely be fixed faster (WRONGVERSION and all that). Primefac (talk) 15:24, 1 December 2020 (UTC) struck and added to following PR's comment below 15:34, 1 December 2020 (UTC) it first reverts to the latest non-reverted revision
What's the best way to determine that, though? See [17] for example. The first set of reverted edits aren't actually tagged. One could assume the editor with rollback has reverted correctly and that revision can be trusted, but perhaps they haven't reverted far back enough, so someone else comes along and reverts further. How would the bot know which one to go with? Also a tricky assumption to just go for the earliest revision before that single editor edited, in case it's a case of multiple IPs/accounts causing issues. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:29, 1 December 2020 (UTC)- And we need to consider the following scenario: a user prepares, in advance, 3 different accounts. Account #1 inserts vandalism or BLP violation. Accounts #2 and #3 immediately edit war over a different part of the page. The bot kicks in. Yes, a simple CheckUser would expose this, but it probably wouldn't be done immediately. 147.161.14.35 (talk) 16:38, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- We could have a second bot do an automatic checkuser. Then a third bot would come in behind to ... EEng 15:04, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- And we need to consider the following scenario: a user prepares, in advance, 3 different accounts. Account #1 inserts vandalism or BLP violation. Accounts #2 and #3 immediately edit war over a different part of the page. The bot kicks in. Yes, a simple CheckUser would expose this, but it probably wouldn't be done immediately. 147.161.14.35 (talk) 16:38, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- (non-admin)
but I'm concerned that someone who knows what they're doing could game the bot into locking an article with a gross BLP violation visible
couldn't this be solved quite easily by just having the bot use either extened-confirmed or semi protection? Usually these kind of vandalism wars are done by either IP's or new users Asartea Talk Contributions 17:31, 1 December 2020 (UTC)- (responding to all the points above) I interpreted the proposal as intended to address this problem: an article is generally stable with incremental edits when Editor A comes and makes a bad edit (in good faith, vandalism, BLP vio, just debatable, whatever) and is reverted by Editor B; instead of WP:BRD discussion Editor A hammers the undo button, Editor C reverts again, Editor A restores, etcetera. Yes, reverting to the most recent non-reverted revision is a weak solution, but it would work in this scenario (which in my experience is the vast majority of simple RFPP requests) and it's better than nothing in any more complicated instance anyway. There will always be very dedicated POV pushers and other disruptive editors, we will never program an automatic solution to that problem, and we should stop throwing out good proposals because they don't solve those very complicated issues. For this run-of-the-mill edit warring (which is a very widespread problem but tends to be low-impact) this is a good solution. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:50, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Also, just a thought about that phenomenon: when your edit is reverted, you get a notification that reads "Your edit on [page] was reverted." When you click on the notification, you're taken to a diff of the reversion, which displays the undo button right at the top of the page; if you have rollback there's a second option for reverting, and if you use Twinkle there are three more revert buttons. But there is no "discuss" link anywhere on that page, which perhaps could take you to the talk page editing a new section titled "revert of revision [xxxxxxxxx]" or something. Maybe we should address that. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:57, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- The issue is, I think, that it is quite hard for the bot to determine what revision to revert to. In your case, assuming everything is tagged and whatnot and only includes one account reverting it may be simple, but there are still various other cases that can happen (such as the cases above) and the bot needs to know either what to do in them, or at least know not to do anything (which is somewhat a corollary of the first). This distinction seems quite hard to technically make, and could very easily false positive in restoring a bad revision which needs to be cleaned up by hand anyway. So I think it's a lot of effort for what is probably going to fail much of the time anyway. imo it's better for such a bot to just protect, then let the reverter do a final cleanup edit by hand. Since there's reverting going on most likely there's human eyes on it anyway, so I don't think the bot should second guess them. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:58, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- See, I think you're overthinking it. It's obviously not going to be perfect, but if the trigger (as I understood the proposal) is for some number of revert-tagged revisions, the bot simply walks back from the current revision when it arrives to the next one that isn't flagged as a revert, restores that one, and protects the page. It doesn't need to review that revision or do any thinking at all to determine if it should ignore that revision and keep walking back. All that is is the revision prior to the chain of events that triggered the bot in the first place. If the bot protects that revision it's at least reasonably predictable that it will be a "safe" revision, whereas if the bot just protects on arrival the odds are close to 50/50 (and weighted in favour of the editor who clicks the revert button fastest) that the protected version will be harmful. If the bot is just going to blindly protect then I'm against the proposal; in that case I'd rather the bot just detect revert warring and report it for admin attention. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:10, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Hmm. See, for example, link I sent originally, [18], for some reason (I don't know why) the original edits Materialscientist reverted didn't get the "Reverted" tag (even though RB was used). If I understand you right, and it walks down the tree and picks up the first one which isn't "Reverted" at some point when this was going on, the first revision meeting that criteria would be "15:00, 1 December 2020 Metaveroo", which is exactly the revision which shouldn't be restored? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:16, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Personally, I think everyone's overthinking it. Not many people watch RFPP, but loads of people (as evidenced by this discussion) watch AN, and there are dozens of folks on IRC that have custom notifications that trigger based on specific bots, users, and/or filters (within five minutes of the IRC crew finding out about Fishburne's page, everything was locked, blocked, and RD'd). I don't necessarily see the point of this bot to hide the vandalism itself, but to stop the vandalism. If the WRONGVERSION is on the page for five minutes until someone at AN/IRC/RC sees the edit and reverts, that's not the end of the world (even if it is something like one particular LTA who likes to call famous men paedophiles). there are OS-able edits that are on pages for hours (if not days) at a time, so this idea that a few extra minutes of vandalism is a tragedy seems somewhat silly (to me).
- Now don't get me wrong, I have no issue with wanting to make a bot that can revert to the (hopefully) last-good version of the page (ideally pre-vandalism), but at the very least I would think that such a bot protecting the page to prevent similar 100-edit-vandlism-sprees from happening would be a good thing (and, as evidenced by this discussion, finding that last-good edit can be problematic). Primefac (talk) 18:35, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Hmm. See, for example, link I sent originally, [18], for some reason (I don't know why) the original edits Materialscientist reverted didn't get the "Reverted" tag (even though RB was used). If I understand you right, and it walks down the tree and picks up the first one which isn't "Reverted" at some point when this was going on, the first revision meeting that criteria would be "15:00, 1 December 2020 Metaveroo", which is exactly the revision which shouldn't be restored? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:16, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- See, I think you're overthinking it. It's obviously not going to be perfect, but if the trigger (as I understood the proposal) is for some number of revert-tagged revisions, the bot simply walks back from the current revision when it arrives to the next one that isn't flagged as a revert, restores that one, and protects the page. It doesn't need to review that revision or do any thinking at all to determine if it should ignore that revision and keep walking back. All that is is the revision prior to the chain of events that triggered the bot in the first place. If the bot protects that revision it's at least reasonably predictable that it will be a "safe" revision, whereas if the bot just protects on arrival the odds are close to 50/50 (and weighted in favour of the editor who clicks the revert button fastest) that the protected version will be harmful. If the bot is just going to blindly protect then I'm against the proposal; in that case I'd rather the bot just detect revert warring and report it for admin attention. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:10, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- (responding to all the points above) I interpreted the proposal as intended to address this problem: an article is generally stable with incremental edits when Editor A comes and makes a bad edit (in good faith, vandalism, BLP vio, just debatable, whatever) and is reverted by Editor B; instead of WP:BRD discussion Editor A hammers the undo button, Editor C reverts again, Editor A restores, etcetera. Yes, reverting to the most recent non-reverted revision is a weak solution, but it would work in this scenario (which in my experience is the vast majority of simple RFPP requests) and it's better than nothing in any more complicated instance anyway. There will always be very dedicated POV pushers and other disruptive editors, we will never program an automatic solution to that problem, and we should stop throwing out good proposals because they don't solve those very complicated issues. For this run-of-the-mill edit warring (which is a very widespread problem but tends to be low-impact) this is a good solution. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:50, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Pretty sure if we've got a bot locking pages, it'll be posting it somewhere for review. I do also see the potential for gaming
- I'd certainly back the listed articles being on RFPP - I wouldn't want it on a dedicated page, for example. I'm sure the normal process will bring it up, but if this is trialled, could we get that dropped on AN as well, so those of us not normally deep in the bot creation could see how it's going? Especially since people reviewing the bot's actions normally will be mostly standard RFPP admins, not bot-focused admins? In terms of the general concept - I'd say I'm very cautiously interested, but would need good answers for all of the issues and cases above. An edge case where it doesn't trigger is fine, but false positives could be really problematic. Nosebagbear (talk) 16:41, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Interesting idea worth pursuing. I share the "gaming" concerns (protection-on-demand-via-bot) but I think countermeasures could be developed to reduce that concern. Maybe start with a trial period with the bot posting to RFPP instead of protecting. I'd be curious to see how often the bot was triggered and in what circumstances. Levivich harass/hound 16:54, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- From a "gaming" perspective, I don't think it would work too well. The bot would lock down the page, make one (or more) notification(s) to highly-trafficked pages (and likely trigger various notifications at places like IRC or even the OS queue at OTRS), and the vandalism reverted (I would guess) within 10 minutes. The protection would also likely be short-term, maybe an hour or two, and could be extended if necessary (for actual gaming or repeat offences) or allowed to lapse once the relevant parties are blocked. Primefac (talk) 18:39, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Sign me up for the red team :-) Levivich harass/hound 19:24, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- From a "gaming" perspective, I don't think it would work too well. The bot would lock down the page, make one (or more) notification(s) to highly-trafficked pages (and likely trigger various notifications at places like IRC or even the OS queue at OTRS), and the vandalism reverted (I would guess) within 10 minutes. The protection would also likely be short-term, maybe an hour or two, and could be extended if necessary (for actual gaming or repeat offences) or allowed to lapse once the relevant parties are blocked. Primefac (talk) 18:39, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Interesting idea. I'd also cautiously support - maybe throw together a proof-of-concept that just posts "here's a page where I detected edit-warring and here's what I would have done" to a userspace page so that we can start hashing out the detection and WRONGVERSION issues. GeneralNotability (talk) 16:55, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Sounds potentially promising for semiprotection in response to vandalism or other obvious disruption. Maybe it only protects if X edits by new/unregistered users are reverted by at least 2 experienced editors in a certain period of time (to stop one person from gaming it). Applying full protection sounds a lot more dangerous. I can just see one autoconfirmed user removing a BLP violation, another autoconfirmed user reverting them, and the page ends up fully protected with the BLP violation on it. Getting the bot to revert to a "stable" revision wouldn't necessarily help with this. Hut 8.5 18:14, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- The Data, with > 5 reverts since midnight earlier today, for something to look at. Obviously would be tighter than 5 reverts in a day for a bot, but seems there's no ongoing edit wars of >5 reverts (with the exception of Liga MX Femenil, I guess). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:14, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Some onwiki list following the same logic at User:ProcBot/EW. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:52, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- One thing to keep in mind is the principal that bots are just alt-accounts of their operator, so the admin running such a bot would need to be personally responsible for all the protections that they apply to ensure they are aligned with the protection policy. That being said, protection vs blocking is meant to be nuanced and a page should not be protected for example if 2 users are in a revert cycle with eachother - likely those users should be blocked. I'd like to hear from whatever admin would want to take ownership of this situation and hear what parameters they are thinking about using for their automated actions. Also keep in mind that bots should never be relied upon to make a future edit or action - so if this is the type of situation that would be better handled with the edit filter, that is worth exploring as well. — xaosflux Talk 19:33, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: are edit filters actually able to deal with this, beyond what 249 can do? Not sure if it's beans-y to say, but given that they can't see context or change tags, the method they deal with it is a bit easy to beat, plus they can only target the vandal. the bots can instead target the rollbacker, which seems better since the person reverting won't actively be trying to take steps to avoid being tagged, so they'll flag pretty much every case I'd think? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:14, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- @ProcrastinatingReader: right, EF can't "see tags" on an in-process edit, it's a bit of a chicken/egg problem but has been requested at phab:T206490. — xaosflux Talk 23:24, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: are edit filters actually able to deal with this, beyond what 249 can do? Not sure if it's beans-y to say, but given that they can't see context or change tags, the method they deal with it is a bit easy to beat, plus they can only target the vandal. the bots can instead target the rollbacker, which seems better since the person reverting won't actively be trying to take steps to avoid being tagged, so they'll flag pretty much every case I'd think? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:14, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- I'm cautiously optimistic about the bot, but share xaosflux's concerns. It might be better to set up an edit filter instead. I remember seeing a "non-autoconfirmed user rapidly reverting edits" tag which if defined by an edit filter would probably be a good place to start. Part of the problem too is that a number of admins who frequent RFPP (including me) haven't been very active these last few weeks so things are slower than usual. But if this gets off the ground, I'd like the bot to make reports at RFPP rather than a dedicated page. — Wug·a·po·des 23:04, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Re: a dedicated page: people keep saying that, but when I made the post I had no thoughts that it would post on a new board, and I don't think it should be on its own page. Primefac (talk) 23:08, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Primefac: "why not both?" ala WP:AIV/TB2 on WP:AIV....? — xaosflux Talk 23:29, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Sure, I can think of a half-dozen good places to post, which is why I've been somewhat confused as to why people seem to assume we'd be starting a new board for it. Primefac (talk) 23:32, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Primefac: Sorry if this has already been thought of, but should there be a specified limit on the rate at which pages are locked? Like X-amount of pages per hour, removing the potential for the bot to be gamed into spamming whichever board it populates. The limit could be based on the number of requests received during busy times at RFPP, thereby only functioning as a safeguard rather than throttling the bot. Regards, Zindor (talk) 20:03, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- Actually, ignore that. I can see now that would create a way to completely stop the bot working. Perhaps it could be throttled over a certain rate. Zindor (talk) 20:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- Sure, I can think of a half-dozen good places to post, which is why I've been somewhat confused as to why people seem to assume we'd be starting a new board for it. Primefac (talk) 23:32, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Primefac: "why not both?" ala WP:AIV/TB2 on WP:AIV....? — xaosflux Talk 23:29, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Re: a dedicated page: people keep saying that, but when I made the post I had no thoughts that it would post on a new board, and I don't think it should be on its own page. Primefac (talk) 23:08, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
- Those who can see private filters may want to look at filter 1102 (hist · log) ("Rapid disruption"). It's loosely related to what's being proposed here, and I plan on proposing that it be set to disallow once I finish fiddling with the parameters. I'd rather not say exactly how it works, per the concern raised by Ivanvector; someone might try to game it into locking in the WP:WRONGVERSION. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 02:11, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- Suffusion of Yellow, this is a work of art. – bradv🍁 18:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- A bot/edit filter for this is a good idea. I thought having a user trigger the protection manually (i.e. making some users able to protect the page for a limited period of time) might also be worth discussing, so I opened WP:VPIL#Unbundling for the millionth time. (I'm told there was a recent proposal along the same lines, but I haven't been able to find it; would be happy to close my discussion and bring it up in a while if that proposal was recent enough.) Enterprisey (talk!) 10:08, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
- Enterprisey, I like that idea a lot. But does it need a user group? It complements the policy that edit warring to revert actual vandalism is a 3RR exemption. Using it to trump in an edit war would be...well, edit-warring. —valereee (talk) 11:35, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
- Wouldn't a better solution be to appoint a few more admins? Aside from protection requests, actual new admins would also be able to block vandals, delete attack pages and much more. ϢereSpielChequers 17:10, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
- WereSpielChequers, a few more admins wouldn't likely have prevented the problem that opened this thread. Giving many editors a tool likely would have, if even one of the multiple editors whose time was wasted during that had had such a tool. —valereee (talk) 19:20, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Cosmetic bot day close review
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- To avoid splitting discussion any further, I've left notes at the above discussions and a standard notice template on S Marshall's talk page. — Wug·a·po·des 22:02, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- Closer: I do think I was clear, in that closing statement, about differentiating my assessment of community consensus from my personal suggestions about how to implement it. The hypothetical cosmetic bots would still need to be BAG approved and I didn't say otherwise. What I've been asked to do is re-close to say that the community approves a trial and delegates all the details to the BAG. I don't think that's what the community has decided.—S Marshall T/C 22:11, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- If you will be offering novel opinions, you should participate in the discussion, not add your opinions at the top and discourage any further discussion. Doing otherwise does not make it clear that your opinions are unsupported. It's also not clear at all how leaving implementation details to BAG and requiring bots to go through BAG functionally differ--in both cases the details are ultimately up to the BAG. — Wug·a·po·des 22:19, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- While the closure seems to be out of step with the discussion, the wider community having more control over bots than the traditional "let the BAG do what it wants" is something the bot community needs to deal with. --Guerillero Parlez Moi 22:30, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- ... which is relevant how to this thread? If you believe the BAG is regularly overstepping its remit, {{rfc}} and/or WP:BOTPOL and/or any of a bunch of other places have space for you to raise it. --Izno (talk) 23:20, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- How is it out of step, though? To my mind, that discussion admits of two closes: "Consensus for a limited trial" (which absolutely must not flood people's watchlists or cause BLP issues), or "No consensus for a trial". You can't get to "Consensus for an unrestricted trial" from there.—S Marshall T/C 23:30, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- @S Marshall and Izno: There are a number of BAG members in these resulting discussions that come across as absolutely incredulous that the wider community could even approach making decisions about bots --Guerillero Parlez Moi 14:30, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- "There are a number of BAG members in these resulting discussions that come across as absolutely incredulous that the wider community could even approach making decisions about bot" I'm going to put a big fat [citation needed] on that. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:33, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- Not that anyone asked, but for the sake of transparency, I'm not a member of BAG. I pointed out concerns of BAG members since they'd be most affected by the outcome and generally know bot policy, but my concerns about the close are my own as a community member and participant in the discussion. If you follow the links I gave in the OP, 4 non-BAG members (not including me) raised concerns about the close. While there may or may not be issues with how BAG members responded to the close, they are far from the only people who took issue with it. — Wug·a·po·des 20:43, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- "There are a number of BAG members in these resulting discussions that come across as absolutely incredulous that the wider community could even approach making decisions about bot" I'm going to put a big fat [citation needed] on that. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:33, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- @S Marshall and Izno: There are a number of BAG members in these resulting discussions that come across as absolutely incredulous that the wider community could even approach making decisions about bots --Guerillero Parlez Moi 14:30, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- How is it out of step, though? To my mind, that discussion admits of two closes: "Consensus for a limited trial" (which absolutely must not flood people's watchlists or cause BLP issues), or "No consensus for a trial". You can't get to "Consensus for an unrestricted trial" from there.—S Marshall T/C 23:30, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- ... which is relevant how to this thread? If you believe the BAG is regularly overstepping its remit, {{rfc}} and/or WP:BOTPOL and/or any of a bunch of other places have space for you to raise it. --Izno (talk) 23:20, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
- the wider community having more control over bots than the traditional "let the BAG do what it wants" is something the bot community needs to deal with. Says who. We're not 'doing what we want'. There is zero-community mandate to have bot trials that somehow avoid editing vital articles or BLP articles (and a cosmetic bot by definition cannot cause any BLP issues). Those are things S Marshall made up out of thin air from someone that closed an RFC that isn't an admin (see WP:NONADMINCLOSURE), or have any bot-related experience. Let BAG do its job and oversee the trials, if someone is even interested in coding such bots. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:38, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Headbomb: I agree with you that those are inappropriate supervotes. But, at the same time, I agree with Fram below. You
and a number of you colleaguescome across as dismissive of the fact that the community could possibly decide on restrictions on the place, manner, and timing of bot edits. --Guerillero Parlez Moi 14:35, 3 December 2020 (UTC)- Struck after it was brought to my attention that I was overstating the level of input by BAG members in these discussions --Guerillero Parlez Moi 15:20, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- The community could very well decide that there are restrictions on bot edits. It already has decided such (see the pretty much the entirety of WP:BOTPOL). What the RFC didn't do is put new restrictions on such bot edits (in fact there is a support for lessening those restrictions), or overturn the current policy of requiring BRFAs before bots are approved. The community could certainly choose these things in the future, but it didn't in that RFC. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:38, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- tbh that comment is equivalent to there being an RfC on the blocking policy, a non-admin closing it in a disputed way. Then when admins (who are expected to understand the blocking policy the best) complain that the close is (a) not an accurate summary and (b) infeasible when it comes to how they do blocks, others commenting "but that's just you overstating your role in blocking / dismissive of the fact that the community can change the blocking policy!" ignoring that the point is not who gets to block, but that the close is problematic. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:26, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- Struck after it was brought to my attention that I was overstating the level of input by BAG members in these discussions --Guerillero Parlez Moi 15:20, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Headbomb: I agree with you that those are inappropriate supervotes. But, at the same time, I agree with Fram below. You
- Overturn close, personally, I think that several of these points do not represent the consensus in the discussion. Point 3 is not mentioned anywhere in the discussion, apart from the closing statement. The point about one edit per article was mentioned in several comments, but I don't see consensus for this personally. The close does also suggest some level of supervote. Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 00:49, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- Overturn it to what? No consensus?—S Marshall T/C 02:04, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- Overturn to nothing, and let someone else close it, or overturn to there's consensus to explore a trial, and let BAG do its job. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:26, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- I would prefer that it be overturned so that the discussion re-opens. Therefore, someone else can come along to close it. Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 14:40, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- Overturn it to what? No consensus?—S Marshall T/C 02:04, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- (involved, voted support) Overturn and re-close — Normally I wouldn't engage in a line-by-line response to a closing statement but I see SM asking for specifics about the problems with the closing statement, so here goes:
Details
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- Every sentence in the closing statement up to "I propose..." has "I" as the subject: a sign of a closer who is sharing their thoughts, as opposed to summarizing the thoughts of other editors. There is only one clause of one sentence in the closing statement that describes what editors actually agreed to (it's the part in bold). We need a closing statement that spends more time describing what was agreed and less time describing the closer's opinion about how we should proceed. S Marshall has some good ideas; he should have !voted. It's that classic adage: if you have an opinion, don't close, vote. I don't know if my understanding has consensus – I'll leave it to an uninvolved editor to decide – but my understanding was that my support !vote meant I was supporting allowing BAG to approve cosmetic tasks if those tasks were run on a "Cosmetic Bot Day". I did not understand my !vote to be supporting any specific restrictions, or supporting not having BAG involved. The proposal quite clearly was:
This proposal is to have 1 day a month or year etc.. that is exempt ie. "Cosmetic Bot Day". Any such bot would require approval though WP:BRFA as normal ...
The "trial run" issue is a red herring: the first Cosmetic Bot Day is, by definition, the trial run. If it goes horribly, there won't be a second Cosmetic Bot Day. Levivich harass/hound 03:51, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
BAG (or the representatives here) seem to misunderstand / overestimate their role. While no bot may run without BAG approval, it is perfectly acceptable for non-BAG community processes to impose restrictions or otherwise define tasks a bot may or may not do, or days a bot may or may not run, or people who may or may not run bots. RfCs or similar discussions can't approve a bot to run, but BAG may not approve a bot which goes against an RfC conclusion. This is separate from whether the closure of this RfC correctly represents the actual discussion; that can of course be challenged. But not because it intrudes on BAG territory, because it doesn't. If the community decides that only one bot may do cosmetic edits, then BAG may not approve two such bots (they can of course approve none at all). BAG may refuse to approve any bots under some RfC conditions, they may point out that some RfC conditions are not feasible, ... but there ends their role, their power. Fram (talk) 08:41, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- That is correct, and no BAG member is saying otherwise afaics. The issue here is not that the community is prohibited from deciding by consensus which bot tasks it will and will not tolerate (ensuring consensus exists for a given task has always been part of the BRFA process). But there's a difference between ensuring tasks have consensus, and requiring (effectively, due to the infeasibility of exhaustive lists of restrictions, and per SM's talk page clarification) tasks with novel restriction or scope (compared to a previous CBOT task) be individually submitted to community for RfC, reducing BAG to an advisory role, a concept which has already been rejected (eg here). Consensus could have required that cosmetic tasks go through RfC in batches, but I don't think any participant was trying to vote for that, and it's unacceptable that a close create an outcome which no participant (other than the closer) envisioned. For all practical purposes, this proposal was closed with "consensus against". ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 08:57, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- Again, I'm not defending the actual close. But the general tone of some comments (yes, that's rather subjective), and actual comments like "There is zero-community mandate to have bot trials that somehow avoid editing vital articles or BLP articles [...] Let BAG do its job and oversee the trials" give a strong impression that at least some BAG members feel that such restrictions would be unacceptable and should only be decided by BAG, which is incorrect. If the community would e.g. want that, for some specific bot task, the bot again needs community approval after the trial, then the BAG can not decide that this is not necessary. The opposition from some bag members here is not simply "the closure is not representing community consensus" (which is a good reason to protest of course), but "you are invading our turf", which is false. BAG has an important role, and while an RfC can in general not overrule that role, it may go above and beyond BAG to impose additional or exceptional restrictions. Fram (talk) 09:15, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- I think this is just miscommunication. As a BAG member too, albeit a newer one, that's not my interpretation of BAG's role and I don't think Headbomb is saying otherwise. BAG does not decide consensus, it interprets it, and it is already required to ensure any task (cosmetic or not) be in compliance with consensus. If consensus supports some type of edit, it usually falls within BAG's remit (indeed, much of its point) to ensure a bot task's specification is in line with that consensus, applying restrictions where either its specification or its technical design may cause problems which could exceed the bounds of consensus (and it regularly does so, eg Cewbot 6). Consensus here did not explicitly support any cosmetic only limitations (such as "do not edit BLPs"), thus the default is BAG, after deciding if the task itself has consensus, decides whether a given function or technical implementation is such that it would be problematic if it operates on BLP articles (and, if so, it would impose an operating restriction in the BRFA). Community consensus can, yes, always override that particular, by stating "X edit can be performed but not on BLP articles", but it did not do so here; the misrepresentation of the discussion is the crux of this issue, everything else is merely an aside when analysing the practical effects of this close. Which is @ SM's talk, and pretty much says that each CBOT task needs to go to RfC individually or in batches, and thus BAG reduced to an advisory role (and that is contrary to consensus). I think that's what Headbomb is saying here.
- As an aside, the close is effectively forcing the community to further limit the usage of cosmetic bots, even when consensus didn't state its desire to do such; SM's close seems to outline his concerns of cosmetic bots, not of the community's. Heck, I just did a CMD+F for "BLP" and the word was only mentioned once in the discussion, and the concern was promptly refuted with "configure your watchlist differently". ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:46, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks, then I think we're all on the same page here. Fram (talk) 13:27, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- Again, I'm not defending the actual close. But the general tone of some comments (yes, that's rather subjective), and actual comments like "There is zero-community mandate to have bot trials that somehow avoid editing vital articles or BLP articles [...] Let BAG do its job and oversee the trials" give a strong impression that at least some BAG members feel that such restrictions would be unacceptable and should only be decided by BAG, which is incorrect. If the community would e.g. want that, for some specific bot task, the bot again needs community approval after the trial, then the BAG can not decide that this is not necessary. The opposition from some bag members here is not simply "the closure is not representing community consensus" (which is a good reason to protest of course), but "you are invading our turf", which is false. BAG has an important role, and while an RfC can in general not overrule that role, it may go above and beyond BAG to impose additional or exceptional restrictions. Fram (talk) 09:15, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- Regarding feasibility concerns; as someone who suggested tight restrictions, a couple of comments. Regarding one edit per article, perhaps bots could be rewritten to take in article text on stdin and write the new text on stdout (maybe taking the title before that), so that we could chain a bunch of them together for one edit. (I'm sure other solutions exist.) Regarding timeframe, as GreenC correctly pointed out, 12 edits per minute only gives 17,280 edits per day. Maybe bump it up to 30 edits per minute and run it for a week; that gets us to 302,400 edits, which is enough to do every article after ten of those. And of course the bot might not even have an edit to make some fraction of the time; assume half (I dunno, maybe a frequent AWB user could correct me on that), and you're down to only five weeks, or 2.5 years if you do one week every six months. Distributing the articles for each week evenly throughout the alphabet might be one rough way to make sure nobody's watchlist gets particularly hammered; we could also distribute by category tree or topic area (WikiProject). The vital articles restriction also kind of makes sense to me, although given the reaction (or just the fact that it didn't come up in the discussion) we probably want further debate. Generally, I recognize minimizing disruption is the first priority; it's on bot operators to work around the restrictions that come from that, and not to push the envelope on watchlist/page history impact. I'm neutral on the rest of the close. Enterprisey (talk!) 10:03, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- Overturn - SM's close isn't really a close .... It's a "I propose X, Y and Z" - I sort of see his "close" more as a !vote than anything so IMHO it should be reclosed. –Davey2010Talk 10:15, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- Generally (responding to a number of contributors including Davy2010, Dreamy Jazz, Levivich et. al.): If you've considered the debate and decided my close was wrong, then shouldn't you be able to articulate which close would be right?—S Marshall T/C 16:08, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- No, not at all; that's incorrect logic. A person can identify a problem even if they don't know or can't effectuate the solution. For example, I don't have to know how to land a plane to know when someone did it wrong. But if I were to sum up the result it would be: There is consensus to have 1 day a month ("Cosmetic Bot Day") where bot tasks are exempt from the Cosmetic regulation, assuming there is otherwise consensus for the bot task. Any such bot task would require approval though WP:BRFA as normal. Levivich harass/hound 17:46, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- I had been reading along with this discussion with an eye to being a possible closer. If this review is closed such that the original discussion would need to be reclosed (as opposed to a more directed overturning to no consensus or consensus against or to the original close being endorsed) I am prepared to serve as a closer. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:21, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
- Re-close Levivich hits the nail on the head. This closure is a gross misrepresentation what the !voters said. The closer's suggestions (which shouldn't have been put into the closing statement in the first place) were not discussed and don't even make sense. There's no reason to exclude vital articles or BLPs from a trial – bots cannot introduce BLP violations (only humans are capable of doing that).
- Regarding the concerns raised here by Fram/Guerrillo of the BAG's role,
leave the details to BAG
is just a shorter way of saying "leave the details to be chalked out per the normal process – which is WP:BRFA". Anyone can participate in BRFAs, you don't even have to be in BAG. Having to get an RfC consensus for every technical detail of the bot operation (which is what S Marshall recommends on his talk page) would be a really really inefficient process, that likely leads to the same outcome. – SD0001 (talk) 03:47, 4 December 2020 (UTC)- That's not how I read it (close + responses though). Even the aspect that after the "trial" (the one day of cosbot runs), another RfC would happen to evaluate the trial and decide on a definitive consensus for future runs, was opposed, because trial evaluation should be handled by BAG. That's not "every technical detail", that's a major aspect of this idea which would be evaluated by an RfC instead of BAG alone (of course, one could have an RfC at BAG, but that's not really usual). It's the opposition to eve ntaspects like this which gave the impression of an overly protective attitude from (some members of) BAG. Of course, this was a reaction to an overly broad or problematic RfC close, but one doesn't correct an error by posting counter-errors. Discussion above clarified that this wasn't intended, and that everyone agrees that the community can place additional rules, restrictions, controls, on any bot operation or operator; but making this clear was important. Fram (talk) 08:27, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
- Ignore "I propose" The actual close seems fine. Rough consensus for allowing a trial and no consensus on the various restrictions seems a clear and defensible close. The warning that quite a few contributors have important concerns also seems fair to add to the close as it should guide the trial. The proposal can just be ignored for trial purposes as it is clear that it is personal opinion and not a reading of consensus. I persaonally have no issue with closers adding advice for a future RFC, but if one is not oppened and closed with consensus then all it is is a failed proposal.AlmostFrancis (talk) 16:41, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
- The problem with that approach is on SM's talk page, he wrote:
I definitely do not think the community decided to have CBD but leave it to the BAG to decide the technical details. In the circumstances you should probably decide what's technically feasible and then set up a second RFC with each option listed for community approval or rejection.
(emphasis in original) andI do not think that at that discussion, the community approved the use of cosmetic bots and delegated the hows and whys to the BAG, and I will not re-close the discussion to say that. Would you like me to begin an RfC close review on the AN?
It seems to me that the closer's interpretation of their own close requires a second RFC. It would be weird to interpret a closer's close to mean, more or less, the opposite of what the closer says it means. Levivich harass/hound 16:52, 4 December 2020 (UTC)- Sorry I don't think I was clear as I dropped a word, "guide the trial" should have been "guide the trial RFC". When I said ignore the the closers proposal I didn't mean there didn't need to be some proposal passed to run the trial. The restrictions will need consensus before the trial is run so a second RFC should be necessary. I just don't see any reason to follow the closers proposal or believe it should have the strength of consensus behind it. I don't want to bag on the RFC originator, since I think just getting consensus for having a cosmetic bot day is a pretty good win, but to change a long time consensus against these bot edits I think you need a tigher proposal.AlmostFrancis (talk) 17:26, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
- The problem with that approach is on SM's talk page, he wrote:
- Well, AlmostFrancis is exactly right. My close does separate the community consensus from my personal suggestions, and those suggestions are absolutely up for discussion and amendment. What I've declined to do is self-overturn to "consensus for a trial limited only by the BAG approval process"; and after this discussion I still won't do that. The objections were too numerous, and in some cases (such as the concern about watchlist flooding concealing BLP violations which was expressed by people who had actually experienced it), too weighty, for me to find a simple "Yes, let the BAG handle it" consensus. I tried to put myself in the place of the oppose voter and think of the restrictions that would allay the concerns they expressed. So yes, all the business after "I propose" is up for discussion on my talk page or elsewhere, but if you want me to remove it entirely, then I won't do that without a formal overturn on this page. Because it's not what the community decided.—S Marshall T/C 00:31, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
- "Let the BAG handle it" is policy, and there is no consensus in that RFC to overturn that policy. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:11, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
- It doesn't overturn policy. Nothing in policy prevents the community from imposing additional requirements over and above BAG oversight.—S Marshall T/C 11:32, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
- And nothing in that RFC imposed additional requirements. You made that up, not the community. What was proposed and supported was "a periodic (monthly) 1-day (24hr GMT) relaxing of WP:COSMETICBOT assuming there is otherwise consensus for the bot at WP:BRFA", with some debate about what the exact period should be. So let BAG does its job and oversee the trials. There is zero mandate vital articles or BLPs to be excluded from the trials. There is zero mandate for having only one edit per article. In fact one of the point of the trial is to gauge how common multiple edits per articles are, if some tasks could be merged together to minimize multiple edits, and if bots edit war over each other and so on. It is a terrible close, and should be overturned to one that reflects the actual RFC. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:28, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
- If you can read that discussion and think it would be right for a trial to "gauge how common multiple edits per articles are", then I don't think you've understood the opposers at all; and you certainly haven't given sufficient weight to the gravity of their concerns.—S Marshall T/C 21:50, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
- Which just shows how inappropriate your close was that you are still pushing for your supervoted opinion to be in the close. Let the BAG do it's job. People supported a trial for cosmetic day so let's have a trial. People can then have the full set of actual facts before deciding what constraints, if any, are appropriate, for cosmetic day. 20 multiple edits out of 30,000 is a very different thing 2500 multiple edits out of 30,000. And, depending on what exactly is done, it may not even matter if what's done is considered useful enough. These things are the things that seen through trials. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:16, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
- If you can read that discussion and think it would be right for a trial to "gauge how common multiple edits per articles are", then I don't think you've understood the opposers at all; and you certainly haven't given sufficient weight to the gravity of their concerns.—S Marshall T/C 21:50, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
- And nothing in that RFC imposed additional requirements. You made that up, not the community. What was proposed and supported was "a periodic (monthly) 1-day (24hr GMT) relaxing of WP:COSMETICBOT assuming there is otherwise consensus for the bot at WP:BRFA", with some debate about what the exact period should be. So let BAG does its job and oversee the trials. There is zero mandate vital articles or BLPs to be excluded from the trials. There is zero mandate for having only one edit per article. In fact one of the point of the trial is to gauge how common multiple edits per articles are, if some tasks could be merged together to minimize multiple edits, and if bots edit war over each other and so on. It is a terrible close, and should be overturned to one that reflects the actual RFC. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:28, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
- It doesn't overturn policy. Nothing in policy prevents the community from imposing additional requirements over and above BAG oversight.—S Marshall T/C 11:32, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
- "Let the BAG handle it" is policy, and there is no consensus in that RFC to overturn that policy. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:11, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
- I have read over the discussion here and the original close, having not taken part in it on any level. I believe that the "I propose" section is indeed unfortunate wording. Proposals should not be made in an RfC close. Based on this and the fact that it has proven controversial, this close should be overturned (and closed by an administrator) per the guidance at WP:NACD that "Close calls and controversial decisions are better left to admins.". It is also of note that it was not tagged as an NAC close, which is required for non-admin closures of discussions. --TheSandDoctor Talk 23:12, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
- I've made 152 RfC closes since 2014, many of which have been reviewed by the community. In all that time and all those reviews, you are literally the first editor ever to say that RfC closes should be tagged with the NAC red letter. Last relevant discussion about RfCs that I know of was here, and whether I personally am required to use the NAC red letter was discussed (in a slightly different context) here.—S Marshall T/C 23:54, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
- Personally I only tag deletion discussion closes with {{nac}} (WP:NACD is about deletion discussions), which are an administrative matter. RFCs are not an administrative matter, so admin status should be irrelevant to their closure imo. Still, any potential closer should be suited for the close they make:
Editors who close discussions concerning highly technical subject matter should have the necessary background to effectively evaluate the evidence and arguments presented.
- the most logical and feasible close would've came from a non-involved editor who has technical experience of bot operations on the encyclopaedia and BOTPOL. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:14, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- Personally I only tag deletion discussion closes with {{nac}} (WP:NACD is about deletion discussions), which are an administrative matter. RFCs are not an administrative matter, so admin status should be irrelevant to their closure imo. Still, any potential closer should be suited for the close they make:
- I've made 152 RfC closes since 2014, many of which have been reviewed by the community. In all that time and all those reviews, you are literally the first editor ever to say that RfC closes should be tagged with the NAC red letter. Last relevant discussion about RfCs that I know of was here, and whether I personally am required to use the NAC red letter was discussed (in a slightly different context) here.—S Marshall T/C 23:54, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
- Overturn and re-close Some points in the close don't seem to reflect the discussion, not to mention the close reads as a !supervote to me. The job of a closer is to close with a consensus of the discussion. If there are missing gaps in the implementation, then those gaps are supplemented by existing policy, and lacking those, judgement of applicable editors. Unless there is a critical oversight where said gap prevents the successful implementation of said proposal, I cannot see any justification of adding points to a close that does not reflect the discussion. I don't see such a critical oversight in this case.—CYBERPOWER (Merry Christmas) 23:19, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Requesting RfC be re-opened
An RfC recently asked how to summarize a section at People's Mujahedin of Iran. Stefka Bulgaria (SB) and I (VR) offered competing versions. @Chetsford: closed as consensus for SB's version, but graciously encouraged me to seek review here; I'm asking the RfC be re-opened.
- The RfC was closed Nov 29. Yet there was active discussion on November 27-28 on whether the proposals violated WP:DUE([19][20]) or MOS:WEASEL ([21]). But wikipedia has no WP:DEADLINE.
- Secondly, the SB proposal mass removes longstanding content. Major divergences from the status quo require a strong consensus (as pointed out by El_C). Although the RfC was closed as "seven editors support the summary proposal while three are opposed", I count 10 supports for SB and 7 for VR. The closer felt the opposition to SB's version was ambiguous; I disagree and have provided the exact comments (see below "Vote counts"). Given this, the policy considerations below and closer finding both sides' arguments "equally compelling", the result leans to "no consensus". Re-opening the RfC might change that. Also, there is recent indication that RfCs on that page are voted on without being read, so result should be based on policy not votes.
- Lastly, there were serious policy issues with SB proposal that no one responded to. This version's weasel wording ("various sources...while other sources...") implies a WP:FALSEBALANCE. Academic sources overwhelming say that MEK is a cult (list of sources provided here and here). Even SB acknowledged that no source actually dismisses the cult claims. Yet SB's version balances the opinion of peer-reviewed books and journal articles against those in newspaper op-eds. The argument that high-quality RS can't be counterbalanced with low quality ones was made repeatedly ([22][23]) but never got a response.
- It was pointed out (but never responded to) that SB's version inaccurately implies that MEK barring children from a military camp was the only or main reason for the cult designation, but the sources instead give different, multiple reasons for the cult designation. This is worded as a strawman and misrepresents what one of the sources SB cited says (see below "What the BBC source says").
- By contrast, most objections against VR proposal aren't policy-based. This policy-based objection was promptly corrected ([24][25]). I repeatedly asked for clarification of objections ([26][27]) but no one responded except Bahar1397 (and our discussion was cutoff by the closure).
Vote counts
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Stefka Bulgaria's proposal was supported by MA Javadi, Idealigic, Adoring nanny, Nika2020, Bahar1397, Alex-h, Ypatch, Barca and HistoryofIran (only said "Yes per Stefka.") Vice regent's proposal was supported by Mhhossein, Pahlevun, Sa.vakilian, Ali Ahwazi, Jushyosaha604 and Ameen Akbar. The closer felt opposition to SB's proposal was ambiguous, but I disagree and providing the statements below.
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What the BBC source says
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SB's version says
The source also mentions that "no children rule" as being only one of many reasons (mandatory divorce, members not allowed to leave) for MEK's cultishness. |
VR talk 15:51, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
- The RfC was opened on 2 October 2020, and there had been absence of new participation towards the time Chetsford closed it. As Chetsford explained to VR, the RfC process
"is a finite discursive arena designed to achieve a specific purpose and not an infinite chat room for open-ended dialog."
Also involved editor Mhhossein requested for the RfC to be closed by an experienced admin, and that's what happened here. After the close, VR was advised to continue discussion on either the article Talk page or personal Talk pages, but both Mhhossein and VR have a tendency to instead complain each time a RfC in this article doesn't close in their favor, making it exhausting for everyone involved. The RfC was opened for two months, and was closed by an experienced admin who gave a thorough and policy-based rational for their close. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 16:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
- That RFC ran for way too long. VR constantly commented on votes that didn't support his proposal, so when he says "there was active discussion", that's basically him disagreeing with opposite votes. Secondly, the consensus was not to mass remove longstanding content, but to condense a lot of POV. Chestford's vote count was accurate and his closing remarks carefully followed guidelines. Stefka's proposal was more neutral, that's why it won consensus. Lastly, there weren't any "serious policy issues with Stefka's proposal that no one responded to." VR and Mhhossein have been arguing WP:FALSEBALANCE to keep in the article multiple quotes repeating "Democratic Iranian opposition political party = cult" while Mhhossein is removing multiple sources about a misinformation campaign that the Iran’s theocratic regim is running to characterize this political party a cult. Alex-h (talk) 18:09, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
- Endorse. Clearly the correct close.—S Marshall T/C 00:58, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
- The closer said he has counted the votes. There are 9 supports and 7 opposes which use policies in their comments. Moreover, this page is under CONSENSUS REQUIRED restriction, and the admin who himself has proposed Wikipedia:Consensus required and has the most experience regarding page said earlier this restriction should be taken into account, given the fact that "key longstanding text" is condensed by ~60%. Such a mass change requires a strong consensus. Not to mention that VR has raised quite fair concerns which are not responded to. --Mhhossein talk 18:09, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- Actually, this is what the closing admin said in their closing comment:
"By head counting, seven editors support the summary proposal while three are opposed. Looking more closely at the arguments there was an unambiguous consensus that the text in question needs to be shortened, which is consistent with past discussions. Insofar as to whether or not the proposed alternative text should be the text used to shorten the article, "yes" !votes argued the current text was WP:UNDUE and the proposal accurately and duely represented all content in a more succinct and readable form. The "no" !votes stated that the sources used to support the current weighting of perspectives were not entirely drawn from WP:RS and that the proposed alternative text was, therefore, not DUE. The "no" !votes also stated that, while "cult" was a contentious label, there was an abundance of RS that used this term to refer to the Mujahedin. In rebuttal, "yes" !voters said that the word "cult" remained in the article but was reduced in redundancy by the proposal which was not inconsistent with the closing decision in a previous RfC on this topic, or the policy aspect of the objection raised by the "no" !votes. Arguments advanced by both "yes" and "no" editors were equally compelling and virtually every comment cited a relevant policy and made a logical argument as to why policy supported their position. In these cases, our SOP (as described in WP:NHC) requires the closer "to close by judging which view has the predominant number of responsible Wikipedians supporting it". There is a consensus to adopt both the shortening proposal, and the specific text advanced in that proposal by Stefka Bulgaria. An alternate proposal by VK did not achieve a consensus, however, a number of persons who registered a "yes" opinion in that proposal did not express any opinion at all in the original proposal. Given that, it would be okay to open a new and more focused discussion as to whether or not the just-adopted shortened form should be modified in the way suggested by VK, however, keeping this entire RfC open for that reason alone isn't justified and would be unnecessarily confusing."
- And here is the conversation that followed on the closer's talk page after this close. All concerns were addressed (in the RfC process and after by the closing admin). Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 18:39, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- Don't bludgeon the process, please. Thanks.--Mhhossein talk 05:39, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Mhhossein, I added the closing admins' evaluation (which was needed after your comment). Please do not edit my comments. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 15:23, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Don't bludgeon the process, please. Thanks.--Mhhossein talk 05:39, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Not sure what the specific disagreement is about as I haven't followed the discussion too closely, but I'd be happy to clarify and add more details to my comments in case the RFC was reopened. Apologies for the ambiguity. Jushyosaha604 (talk) 20:06, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- Neutral as Closer (but no fundamental objection to reopening): I closed the RfC in question and addressed some of the concerns the OP (and others) raised above at my Talk page here. However, as I said there, I think this was an exceptionally close decision. The OP is an outstanding editor who makes strong points in favor of reopening that are based on a GF interpretation of policy. While I don't agree with them and didn't, therefore, believe I could unilaterally reopen the RfC I would have no objection if the community decided to reopen it. Chetsford (talk) 21:11, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
User page of John Simmit
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Can some admin delete the userpage of John Simmit, as it just reads “E”. –Cupper52Discuss! 15:46, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- So what? A user can put whatever they like on their talk page, as long as it's not disruptive. I hardly think "E" is disruptive. Primefac (talk) 15:48, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- I've gone above my pay grade and removed the E. I hope John, who is blocked indef' for disruption, doesn't mind. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 16:58, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- Dunno, I half expect the OP to now request a G7. Primefac (talk) 17:03, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- What a pity this editor has behaved in such a way as to get blocked. It took 14 days from account creation to get one letter on the user page, so in a few months we might have got a word, and in a few years even a sentence. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:27, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E--S-H-O-U-L-D--R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R--T-O--D-R-I-N-K--T-H-E-I-R--O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E. --Khajidha (talk) 18:35, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- You'd be surprised how many folks attempting to game ECP do that, actually. Primefac (talk) 18:52, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- Primefac, I'm tempted to register User:Horta, just so I can put N-O-K-I-L-L-I on my user page. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:56, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- You'd be surprised how many folks attempting to game ECP do that, actually. Primefac (talk) 18:52, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E--S-H-O-U-L-D--R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R--T-O--D-R-I-N-K--T-H-E-I-R--O-V-A-L-T-I-N-E. --Khajidha (talk) 18:35, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
- I've gone above my pay grade and removed the E. I hope John, who is blocked indef' for disruption, doesn't mind. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 16:58, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Reporting User:Tizen03 for personal ethnic attacks
The User:Tizen03 has only been editing for sometime but has racked up multiple warnings on their Talk page, engaged in edit wars with multiple users, adds original researches, copyvios, but edit wars even when reasons are explained. Has some sort of agenda against a specific community living in Assam [28], [29] and even used WP:PERSONALATTACKS against me at the same time displayed WP:OWN. They have been called for their WP:CIR behaviour before [30]. They either need to take time off Wikipedia or remove themselves from the WP:ARBIPA space. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 13:09, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Blocked one week for NPA. Any admin should feel free to modify or unblock w/o prior discussion. A ping would be nice. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 13:58, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- My block of the user should in no way be taken as a total remedy. The community may wish to explore this user's edits further. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 14:00, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- They should be tbanned under ARBIPA for going around calling everyone a "Bengali nationalist", if not just sitebanned. From looking at the history of blocked users editing Assam, the page this account had its first significant edits to, seems they may be related to The Black Truth. Or any number of sockpuppetry cases that have been active on that article. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:39, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Whilst I can support a topic ban wholeheartedly, I have no tolerance for racial/religious/ethnic epithets. If they are not indeffed at this juncture, they should be given to understand that the next such would result in an indefinite WP:CBAN. @Tizen03:, if you can do so civilly, feel free to participate via your talk page. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 19:02, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- I so no indication of them receiving a DS alert. Seemed petty of me to give them one after I blocked them. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 19:04, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- It's not the reason we are here, but they also have a problem with copyright. --Deepfriedokra (talk) 19:07, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Ivanvector and Deepfriedokra: I did file an SPI, the diffs posted in it looked very similar along with the style and ORs. Some more that I found. Also note the interaction. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 08:19, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
500/30 protection on People's Mujahedin of Iran
Can we implement the 500/30 protection to WP:GS/IRANPOL articles? (or more specifically to the article People's Mujahedin of Iran?) We are suddenly getting several new editors with a keen interest in voting on the RfCs there. Thanks. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 15:35, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Participating in discussions over contentious material is what we want new users to do, and I doubt you'd find an admin willing to EC-protect a talk page. There is an RfC that has gone on far longer than it should have, but I don't see any evidence of disruption. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:53, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Instead of applying protection to talk, we should be sure that any editors who seem to be new to Wikipedia are alerted using
{{subst:Gs/alert|irp}}. Maybe the filer's concern is about the large RfC running at Talk:People's Mujahedin of Iran#RfC about removing contentious content from the lede. But I haven't noticed any influx there of people with fewer than 500 edits. EdJohnston (talk) 18:14, 7 December 2020 (UTC)- Here is one, and here is another. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 18:47, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks for tracking this down. The people whose edits you are mentioning are Maqdisi117 (talk · contribs) and Shiasun (talk · contribs). I'll let them know that their edits are being referred to in this thread. EdJohnston (talk) 19:57, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- I am not a new user. I have a history of many edits in Persian Wikipedia. I even have some Good and Featured articles in Persian Wikipedia. But the other point is that I talked to the source there and just did not leave an empty comment.
- Since I work mostly on Persian Wikipedia, please let me know by notification if you are talking about me. Shiasun (talk) 20:29, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks for tracking this down. The people whose edits you are mentioning are Maqdisi117 (talk · contribs) and Shiasun (talk · contribs). I'll let them know that their edits are being referred to in this thread. EdJohnston (talk) 19:57, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Here is one, and here is another. Stefka Bulgaria (talk) 18:47, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- Instead of applying protection to talk, we should be sure that any editors who seem to be new to Wikipedia are alerted using
- The two comments Stefka refers contain more substance than what some other users have been giving in that RfC. Shiasun, for example, actually presents a WP:RS to back up their point.VR talk 21:33, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Editathon centered on scientist biographies 08.12.2020, 1PM-6PM UTC
Hello,
I am an employee of Wikimedia CH. Tomorrow, Tuesday December 8th, we are organizing with the EPFL a small editathon centered on scientist biographies, from 1PM to 6PM UTC. The work list is visible here on meta. We will first be teaching participants contribution and then move on to supporting them as they edit. We have 9 participants registered so far, 8 of which are complete beginners, so there should not be a huge influx of new articles, but there should still be a few. I wondered if anyone with admin rights is interested in checking their work and publishing the articles that respond to Wikipedia's criteria during the workshop. If so, please let me know.--Flor WMCH (talk) 15:58, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Assistance regarding a friend and some Wikipedia troll
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.--Anomic111 (talk) 17:51, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Hello i have had some issues today with a friend of mine accusing me of changing our schools wiki to his name and he has stated that the police are being involved [Not sure if he actually is] Anyway i am here to try contact a staff member to help me prove that i am not editing the wikepedia what so ever there's been a grifer who has been multiple times changing the wiki page of our school named Greenwood Academy [Located in Scotland, irvine] Whenever something happens he starts to blame me and now he has blocked me and if someone can please help me on who is doing it i don't need their information and such but at most if you can respond stating that it isn't me you could find out by most likely looking at my ip and the dude who changed it today to find a difference to maybe prove that it's not me since i don't want to lose a friend i can also provide proof of him saying police etc are getting involved and such— Preceding unsigned comment added by Anomic111 (talk • contribs)
- Anomic111 Wikipedia does not have a staff. There are no edits associated with your account so it is difficult to know what situation you are referencing. If the problem involves the use of Wikipedia on your end, that is a matter for whomever is in control of your computer usage or network. 331dot (talk) 17:56, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- The article in question is Greenwood Academy, Dreghorn, where there's been some fairly standard juvenile school vandalism recently which has already been reverted. The account Anomic111 (talk · contribs) has not edited it, but we're not in a position to confirm or deny who's done what - the history of the article shows it's been edited by a few different accounts. It's very unlikely the police are going to do anything via Wikipedia, if there's been abuse on the school's network then that will be their issue. ~ mazca talk 18:01, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- I've gone ahead and added pending changes protection to that page; I think that's generally a good idea for school pages that are attracting juvenile vandalism. That should prevent such vandalism from being visible to the general public. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 18:07, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
- "the police are getting involved" - if the person in question is on Wikipedia wouldn't that fall under NLT? - The Bushranger One ping only 02:22, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
- If it were an actual editor stating that to them, then it would indeed be a No Legal Threats violation. However, if it's someone off-wiki saying it, then that wouldn't be relevant. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:00, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
- "the police are getting involved" - if the person in question is on Wikipedia wouldn't that fall under NLT? - The Bushranger One ping only 02:22, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
- I've gone ahead and added pending changes protection to that page; I think that's generally a good idea for school pages that are attracting juvenile vandalism. That should prevent such vandalism from being visible to the general public. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 18:07, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Backlog at WP:UAA
There are 25 usernames from up to several hours ago at the time of writing. funplussmart (talk) 22:20, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Harsher copyvio blocks needed, and request for help at CCI
Given recent incidents involving two users that led to the backlog at Contributor copyright investigations getting much larger and the massive flood of cases we've seen there over the last few months, I'm asking other admins to get much tougher with copyright blocks- they shouldn't be anything other than indefinite, should happen within 3 or so violations, and appealing them should be much, much more difficult.
I also ask the community to help out at CCI- the situation is getting urgent, as the backlog has grown to over 100k articles over the last few months, the overall cases is now close to 200, and only about 3 users other than me are regular editors there. You don't need to be someone deep in the scene to help, I've written a guide (User:Moneytrees/Money's guide to CCI) and have sorted the CCIs by where they copy from (User:Moneytrees/CCI Sort). Since 54 cases have under 100 articles to check, the backlog can be decreased, but a lot more attention will be required. Thanks to those who will help out and feel free at ask any questions. Moneytrees🏝️Talk🌴Help out at CCI! 18:54, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Template:Whois question
I asked a question at Template_talk:Whois#Wording_of_the_template regarding the wording of this template. Since it is administratively-related (and that template barely watched) I thought a cross-post would be appropriate. Please give your thoughts there. Primefac (talk) 22:14, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Concern about an admin
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Anthony Appleyard (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log · edit summaries)
I kept hoping I didn't have to write this thread, hoping it was just me being overly picky, but I'm getting tired of seeing the same things week after week posted by other users as well, and today was the final straw.
Anthony Appleyard is without a doubt one of our most prolific and well-known admins involved in the realms of technical move requests and histmerges, to the point where often people will just ask for histmerges on his talk page. However, in the last year or so I've seen an alarming trend of him not giving the proper due diligence to his actions. For every request or "thanks" on his talk page, there is a concern about one of his moves; at his current talk page there are threads about RM/TRs that went against consensus (Sections 8, 42, 66, 70, 88), moves that broke things (Sections 53, 69, 76), and quite a few where extra cleanup was required (Sections 26, 28, 43, 47, 52, 59). There's also an unreplied query about multiple declines I made at WP:RFHM (which for the record he practically owns) which was subsequently ignored when a user put a {{histmerge}} on the article. There are also multiple instances (most archived) of histmerges that were performed because someone asked rather than there being any actual need (occasionally I stepped in to stop it).
Basically, this is me being frustrated with Anthony Appleyard not taking the time necessary to properly evaluate requests before performing technical moves and history merges. Multiple users have asked him multiple times to do better, and he either gives nonsensical, non-committal, or non-existent replies. I'm not sure what should be done here. Primefac (talk) 23:42, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Primefac: Please list in detail these incidents, so that I can see what went wrong. Thanks. I will try to be more careful in future. Thanks for pointing this out. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 00:13, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- This is me genuinely curious, do you want me to provide direct links to the sections I mentioned above in the permalink of your current talk page? Primefac (talk) 00:15, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Primefac: Yes please, or tell me how to access these sections while only knowing the numbers that you list above. I do check up on requests that I get :: that can be seen by the amount of history merge requests that Ihave rejected as seen in Wikipedia:Requests for history merge#Rejected requests. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 00:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Anthony Appleyard: You can find the sections through the TOC. Here are the links, though: 8, 42, 66, 70, 88: [31] [32] [33] [34] [35]. 53, 69, 76: [36] [37] [38]. 26, 28, 43, 47, 52, 59: [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44]. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:27, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- Thanks Kevin. Primefac (talk) 00:31, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Anthony Appleyard: You can find the sections through the TOC. Here are the links, though: 8, 42, 66, 70, 88: [31] [32] [33] [34] [35]. 53, 69, 76: [36] [37] [38]. 26, 28, 43, 47, 52, 59: [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44]. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 00:27, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Primefac: Yes please, or tell me how to access these sections while only knowing the numbers that you list above. I do check up on requests that I get :: that can be seen by the amount of history merge requests that Ihave rejected as seen in Wikipedia:Requests for history merge#Rejected requests. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 00:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- This is me genuinely curious, do you want me to provide direct links to the sections I mentioned above in the permalink of your current talk page? Primefac (talk) 00:15, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- @Primefac and KevinL: Thanks. I see that they are:
- [45] a requested move for Cal State Northridge Matadors
- [46] request to move Asynchronous transfer mode to an acronym.
- [47] Sunoco to Sunoco LP :: I felt that adding " LP" was needed to disambiguate
- [48] Walk off the Earth to Walk Off the Earth
- [49]. Manipur (princely state)
- [50] Template:Infobox Switzerland municipality :: I realized my mistake and I reverted it as soon as I could.
- [51] AFC : a template.
- [52]. About saffron : as User:TheAafi says, I realized my mistake quickly and I corrected it.
- [53] Move Talk:Ziaur Rahman to an archive :: afterwards, GeoffreyT2000 told me in more detail what to do, and I obeyed him.
- [54] Move to Climate change : I corrected my mistake quickly, and User:Certes admitted that it was a complicated job.
- [55] About a diacritic on Diego Brandão's name.
- [56] Merely that I forgot to remove a "{{histmerge}}" after a job. Sorry.
- [57] About archiiving Wikipedia:Requests for history merge by page move
- [58]. About that I did not remove the "{{NZ politician draft}}" template call.
- @Primefac and KevinL: Bear in mind that I have many times down the years found an uncontroversial-type move that I felt to be queryable, and I turned it into a "move?" discussion, and the verdict showed that I had noticed something significant. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 01:13, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- As I said in my opening statement, you're one of the old guard that is well-known for working in this area, and with good reason. I'm not talking about years ago, though, I'm talking about this year. You've done a ton of great work in the past, but I'm concerned that you're starting to go on cruise control with some of these requests. Primefac (talk) 01:17, 9 December 2020 (UTC) As a minor point, I do watch AN so I don't need a ping on this thread.
- Thanks for listing my mistakes, to remind me, to keep me alert. Thanks. Sorry. I realise that any horse on a haulage job may need a jab with the spurs sometimes, even me. I know, I have ridden a horse once a week for a while. I better go to bed :: it is 1.25 a.m. here by British time.Anthony Appleyard (talk) 01:24, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- I was going to be WP:BOLD and close this thread, but instead I'll be meek and just suggest it be closed. Anthony Appleyard has acknowledged the errors and stated their intention to be more careful in the future. I'm not sure what more we need to do here. -- RoySmith (talk) 02:50, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
- Before closing, maybe this is a good opportunity to ask other admins to step up and help out WP:RM/TR and WP:HISTMERGE occasionally. I know I was just asked to do a history merge and because I've never done one, I referred the editor to another admin. But I think it doesn't help the project when there are just one or two editors/admins basically running a particular area. It's great that people develop expertise in doing certain procedures and we can refer inquiries to them but it's even better when there is a larger pool of people that regularly check in on different admin areas and help out when they can. Liz Read! Talk! 03:06, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.