Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard

Welcome — post issues of interest to administrators.

For urgent incidents and chronic, intractable behavioral problems, use Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. If you are new, try the Teahouse instead. Do not report breaches of personal information on this highly visible page – instead, follow the instructions on Wikipedia:Requests for oversight. For administrative backlogs add {{Admin backlog}} to the backlogged page; post here only if urgent. Do not post requests for page protection, deletion requests, or block requests here. Just want an admin? Contact a recently active admin directly. If you want to challenge the closure of a request for comment, use {{RfC closure review}} When you start a discussion about an editor, you must leave a notice on their talk page. Pinging is not enough. You may use {{subst:AN-notice}} ~~~~ to do so. Sections inactive for over seven days are archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.(archives, search) Start a new discussion

Open tasks

XFD backlog

V	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Total
CfD	0	0	0	6	6
TfD	0	0	0	7	7
MfD	0	0	3	3	6
FfD	0	0	1	6	7
RfD	0	0	24	23	47
AfD	0	0	0	0	0

• 0 bot-reported usernames for administrator attention
• 1 user-reported username for administrator attention
• 2 bot-generated requests for intervention against vandalism
• 0 user-generated requests for intervention against vandalism
• 25 sockpuppet investigations
• 36 Candidates for speedy deletion
• 1 Fully protected edit requests
• 0 Candidates for history merging
• 1 requests for RD1 redaction
• 27 elapsed requested moves
• 3 Pages at move review
• 21 requested closures
• 75 requests for unblock
• 0 Wikipedians looking for help from administrators
• 11 Copyright problems

Most active administrators

Just to remark that in the list of most active administrators of all times we now only have three four current human administrators, and one of those three has not edited for four months. No action yet required at this point, just FYI, since this is, well, Administrators' noticeboard. Ymblanter (talk) 09:10, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

• Sorry, I see now that I did not express correctly what I wanted. Out of 10 most active administrators, 4 are humans who are currently administrators, one of these 4 is inactive.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:30, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

• And Fastily has just resigned, so the backlogs will be piling up there as well soon. Black Kite (talk) 09:19, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

  Indeed, the four (I have now corrected myself) current human admins in the top ten are Explicit, Liz, Materialscientist, NawlinWiki, the latter one being inactive. We should be watching backlogs in speedy deletion.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:31, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Fastily contributed a lot to reviewing PERM requests and FFD. We could honestly use quite a few more admins who were comfortable reviewing files and answering questions about their copyright status. I can only think of a handful of admins who work in this area of the project. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 09:37, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Way back when I did some work in this area. I might return to it, but a way to watchlist the WP:FFD subpages as they are made would be helpful. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:30, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

FFD pages are per day, one would need to wacthlist once per day, but I would not know how to automatize this. Ymblanter (talk) 10:36, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

For anyone interested, Fastily handled most of the requests for rollback at WP:PERM/Rollback. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:27, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

For a long time, Fastily handled PERMS virtually by himself. Recently, a few more admin bods have assisted with requests. I'm assuming it is a time consuming task as it requires looking at edits and assessing their merits and asking applicants questions. He did such a good job with PERMS and obviously had a good routine. He was polite but firm about asking applicants to do more work towards PERMS.

Hopefully someone will step into the void. Knitsey (talk) 17:14, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

FastilyBot did a load of work too, hopefully someone else will take on some of its tasks. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 18:02, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Seems prudent to direct anyone interested in this to WP:BOTR#Replacing FastilyBot. WindTempos _they ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:11, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Maybe I'm just overly optimistic, but the CSD queue cratered since we got the admin election admins and hasn't gone up since. Seems fine, at least for now. -- asilvering (talk) 02:33, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

It would be a good idea for admins to go through a list of all the non-admins who are likely to pass an RfA and offer to nominate them (something admins should probably be doing anyway). That would be the most efficient way to address these admin backlogs. And apparently it needs to be clearer that requesting adminship means agreeing to WP:ADMINACCT; hopefully making that clear will limit the number of times that admins make appalling decisions, refuse to acknowledge them, get way too many chances, and then get recalled (current count: 2). Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:01, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Absolutely not, especially since these requests would tend to fall on deaf ears. (mine especially.) You have a fair number of people who would meet those requirements but are not interested in a Hell Week. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{threads critiques} 17:21, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

The recent admin election results, where only 1/3 of candidates were elected and only one had more than 80% support, seems to indicate there are a not-insignificant number of editors that outright do not want there to be more admins. Whether they simply have standards that don't match the actual pool of eligible candidates, or actually want fewer people with the mop, is not clear. We're going to have to have some kind of cultural change - either convincing those editors, or reaching consensus to overrule them - in order to have a larger and more sustainable number of admins.

(For the record, I voted about 60% support / 30% abstain / 10% oppose, and was estimating I would be on the more cynical side. The actual totals were 37% / 37% / 26%, for an average percentage of 58%.) Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:13, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the data could be analyzed in other ways. For instance, if I'm counting right, every candidate who had a nominator succeeded. That compares favorably to RfA. Valereee (talk) 19:39, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I think that it was harder to have the confidence to vote "support" under the time limitations that come from reviewing 30+ candidates simultaneously. But still a good idea to let folks run in a group.North8000 (talk) 19:47, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we have enough data on which to base firm conclusion about the admin elections. If the experiment were re-done with some of the teething problems fixed, we would be on sturdier ground. I think the large candidate pool, while encouraging in some ways, made things more difficult but I think a re-run would have a naturally smaller pool, especially if it becomes a regular thing. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:20, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I absolutely believe some of the reason for the high number of candidates was pent-up demand. People who for the last five or ten years might have been interested, but not via RfA. Valereee (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I mentioned this on the election talk page at the time: I opposed a large number of candidates who I (probably) wouldn't have opposed in a normal RfA because I was concerned about the lack of scrutiny being applied in that election. Nobody else admitted it, but given how more than 600 people voted, I would be surprised if I was the only person. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:20, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the election ended up having 600 voters, so I think it would have been safe to "abstain" instead of "oppose" on candidates when unsure or not having time to do a detailed background check. 600 is enough voters that someone who did have the time to do the detailed background check would pick up the slack. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:45, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

The best candidates at both Ace and aelect only had 80% support. To me, this says that there is a -20% support penalty when using secret voting. I don't think the reason is particularly important. I think we should just work around this by lowering the pass threshold. The aelect candidates in the 60 to 70 range were good, and we should make it so that they can pass in the future. An RFC for this is in the pipeline. Stay tuned. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:34, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

What I suspect is more likely that if an RfA is at 95%+ Support, people don't bother to oppose, because (a) they know it's not going to make any difference, and (b) they'll probably get harangued for it by supporters. Black Kite (talk) 09:33, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

There were candidates I opposed in the election that I wouldn't have opposed in an RFA for this exact reason. If you look at the voting trends it is abstains that trend down as support goes up, not opposes. That points to voters abstaining on candidates they didn't know or have time to check. There is no grounds for lower the pass mark. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:37, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

• It's only going to get worse with RECALL in place. GiantSnowman 19:20, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean, "Human administrators"? Aren't all administrators human? GoodDay (talk) 19:56, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

@GoodDay No, there are also a load of adminbots. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 19:59, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

The two all-time most active administrators are actually bots. Ymblanter (talk) 20:10, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Some of them might also be dogs. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 20:26, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

User:Radiant!/Classification of admins * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 06:41, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Or dogbots! RoySmith-Mobile (talk) 14:26, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

• @Ymblanter: can you link to where you got that stats please? :) Also, just noting that quantity is not the same as quality. Many admin actions are very easy, especially deletions (hence admin bots, hence the ability of several admins to rack up six-figure log counts) but I agree the bus factor is concerning, even accounting for the long tail. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:33, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
  • The awful scoreboard. —Cryptic 20:35, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

  The one I am using is User:JamesR/AdminStats, there is a big table at the end which I sort by the total number of actions and count the position manually. Ymblanter (talk) 20:44, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

  And, yes, sure, all metrics are imperfect, but usually they still provide some useful information. Ymblanter (talk) 20:53, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

  Oh, I knew about ADMINSTATS. I just don't tend to look at the table at the bottom because it takes too long to load on my computer! And yes, you're correct, there is still something useful we can glean from statistics but they should be taken with a pinch of salt. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:46, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Admin stats only counts the times you did something, not the times you refused to block someone, delete a page that wasn't a problem etc. We're not robots. If anything saying no is more important. Secretlondon (talk) 22:54, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Admin actions aren't everything and it's difficult to quantify a number of tasks that some great admins work at. For example, the number of unblock requests that someone like 331dot declines or replies to prior to unblocking, or ARBCOM time spent writing significant text or analyzing long conversations and evidence, or the admins working at WP:CFDS to process category renaming requests. Never the less, there is some value in admin actions, it's just not the only way to evaluate someone's contributions and we should be mindful of that. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:38, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree, too, Josh. I think of the time some admins spend talking to new editors or blocked editors, trying to explain Wikipedia's processes to them, and I think those are invaluable activities. But personal conversations, one-on-one discussions, are not quantified and don't have a "leaderboard". Or time spend on noticeboards or DRN or the Teahouse, working to resolve and deescalate disputes. Of course, many of these discussions are also done by editors, too, but I know some admins who will spend their time trying to guide confused or frustrated editors into being productive contributors and I think those actions are some of the most important that admins can take on because they can lead to more constructive editors. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:31, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Admin stats are a good way of determining how many (and which) admins are doing the high-volume, tedious, repetitive stuff. It takes a special workhorse of a person to do that stuff day-in and day-out for years. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 03:12, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Ffd

• Wikipedia:Files for discussion

I tried to catch up with Ffd, but the backlog (which was zero at the day I posted the above) is steadily growing. Despite being a commons admin, I can not handle all nominations, some give me pause. I am by far not the only one working there, but I still see that almost every day one or two nominations stay open.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:07, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Elections, recall, and backlogs

With some more time passed, I'd like to bring up a question that grows out of the discussions above. We've had two admins (Graham and Fastily) stop being admins as a result of the new recall process, and we've gotten a bunch of new admins via the trial of the election process. Do they in any way balance each other out? In other words, where are there backlogs now developing in the specific areas where Graham or Fastily used to work? And have any of the admins who were promoted in the recent election been taking over in those areas, to reduce the backlog? I'm asking this because editors are having a lot of discussions about whether or not the two new processes have been a good thing, and it would be good to base those discussions on actual data rather than feelings. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:05, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

These questions have no relevance for the discussion though. We don't promote admins for specific backlogs, we promote admins because we believe they can be trusted with the tools and will probably do some useful stuff with them of their own choosing. Whether these admins (or admins elected through regular RfA) have taken over any tasks previously done by Fastily or Graham is of absolutely zero importance for a review of the process. As for the recall process, the same applies. We should never treat admins (or editors) differently based on some irreplaceable characteristic. We don't do this when admins are brought in front of ArbCom, and there is no reason to do this for recall. "Oh, if you were just a rank-and-file admin blocking socks and vandals and you did X and Y, we would desysop you, but since you are the admin doing task Z, we will not desysop you"? Fram (talk) 09:28, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree we shouldn't expect that the next editor receiving administrative privileges must replace the most recent editor leaving the admin corps. I also agree that the election or recall processes shouldn't be modified to incorporate backlog management (for example, limiting election candidates to those with specific interests). (Participants in the votes or discussions can, of course, consider whatever factors they feel are relevant when making their decisions.) I do think, though, that the community should take stock of the tasks that can use more admins, and recruit appropriate candidates. They aren't being selected solely to reduce specific backlogs, but it would improve resilience to have more admins with the appropriate skills and desire to deal with certain task queues where there is a shortage of volunteer admins. isaacl (talk) 16:21, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Of course, if you e.g. have a non-admin doing consistently good work at CCI, approaching them to become an admin because we need more admins in that area of work is a good idea, nothing wrong with that. Fram (talk) 16:27, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I think those replies are, frankly, silly, and I hope they don't discourage anyone from responding in a serious manner. I've seen arguments that the recall process works just fine because we can easily replace lost admins, and it's easy to slip from that to an argument that the advent of lots of new admins getting elected is a great way to replace those who are recalled, which may be sloppy reasoning, not backed up by data. If anyone thinks that nobody has raised concerns about backlogs happening after the two recalls, well, they haven't read the discussion just above. As of a few weeks ago, lots of people were saying above that they were worried about those backlogs. With a bit more time passing, I want to see if the problems are self-correcting. Apparently, they aren't. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:21, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to call my response silly and imply I'm not serious just because I have a different viewpoint on how to address the problem of backlogs. Anyone participating in a recall petition, a re-request for adminship, or an administrator election is free to take backlog concerns into account. I just think the recruitment aspect needs to be improved, regardless. Once upon a time I suggested having an open house week where people involved with the various initiatives and queues could make sales pitches to editors seeking to volunteer. I don't know if this specific format would work or not (and it only got one reply), but the general idea is that we need to find editors interested in taking on support tasks and match them to the available work items. If there just aren't enough people to do the work in question, we need to figure out how to change the workflow so it can actually get done. For work that needs special user rights, we need to recruit suitable candidates, and put a corresponding pitch right on the appropriate request/nomination form ("Users who can help out with X, Y, and Z are really needed!"). isaacl (talk) 23:10, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea - I'd even consider running if there was an area of the project which needs help but requires admin tools to properly use. For instance, I've thought about running before to be able to close AfDs, but I haven't had the time of late and still believe AfDs need participants more than closers... SportingFlyer T·C 23:16, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

My responses were 100% serious. You are arguing that the recall process is bad because the admins it removes are especially needed for some backlogs. That is a perverse reasoning. The recall process would be bad if it routinely required RRFAs for admins which turn out to be generally supported. So far, we have had one RRFA which supported the recall, and one admin who didn't want to have a RRFA. Not a single recall has been shown to be incorrect. The people voting in the two RFAs weren't socks, disruptive editors, editors with an obvious grudge, ... That the removal of these two admins has bad consequences for some backlogs doesn't show an issue with the recall process, but an issue with the fragility of some processes which rely on too few people. Fram (talk) 09:23, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

They both seems pretty serious and on point. PackMecEng (talk) 00:35, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Rather than getting into a back-and-forth with editors who are unhappy with this discussion, I'd prefer to get back to what I asked at the top. I'm not saying that we should refrain from removing misbehaving admins based on any possible backlogs that might result, and I'm not saying that we should select new admins simply to fill existing backlogs or require them to work on things that don't interest them. I'm noticing that a lot of other editors, not just me, have said above that they are worried about backlogs, and I'm noticing that some of the arguments being made on other pages around the project are that there is a positive synergy between recall and elections because the latter solve issues that come up with the former. And I think that I can conclude at this point that we still have the backlogs that are pointed out above, and that we should not look upon admin elections as a targeted way to clear any backlogs resulting from recall. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:07, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that elections are a targeted way to clear specific backlogs. I do think there is a general feeling that having more admins will increase the probability of finding someone who can address the various backlogs, and that elections might help with selecting more admins. That being said, it's no guarantee for any specific area, and some areas are either sufficiently arcane or uninteresting to most that I think targeted recruitment is needed to significantly raise that probability. isaacl (talk) 23:04, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I can agree with that. I think this comes down to a matter of elections not being a valid reason to dismiss concerns about recall, because that's not what elections are designed for; each process should be justified in its own right. And of course the concerns raised at the top of these discussions, about admin backlogs, remain as concerns. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:30, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Unnamed anon Topic Ban appeal

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

---

Six months ago (in May), I was topic banned from GENSEX topics due to WP:TENDENTIOUS editing and WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior surrounding said contentious topic. The closing admin was theleekycauldron (who has offered to "see me on the other side"), and the discussion to Tban me was here. As for how I have been editing since being topic banned, and how I plan on editing when my topic ban is lifted:

• Since being topic banned, I have made about 600-700 edits surrounding a large variety of topics, though the most common I think was media (tv, books, movies, games). In the very few content disputes I have been in since the topic ban (which were all very innocuous, with no disputes related to sourcing; only to minor things like phrasing), I have made sure to resolve the discussion collegially, rather than snapping back or adding the proposed edit to the page with minimal discussion (an old tendency to use one talk page comment as a cue to add an edit was cited as a problem with my editing, which I have fixed). If an edit was reverted, I made sure to discuss with the other party. I've mostly made sure to make my comments as concise as possible, though inevitably a few were long so as to properly address multiple points. Said discussions always ended both amicably and calmly, usually with both me and the other party thanking each other. I think this properly shows that I won't return to any sort of BATTLEGROUND behavior.

• I have also made a decent amount of edits into the events leading to and after the 2024 US presidential election, such as the multiple assassination attempts against Trump, Biden's withdrawal, Harris becoming the Democratic candidate, and Trump's victory. I've been very productive in this area with little no problems. Post-1992 American politics is a separate contentious topic. I believe my problem-free edits about major recent events regarding American politics can show that I will not act in a tendentious manner assuming I do return to a different contentious topic such as GENSEX.

• Once my topic ban is lifted, I will continue following the WP:NEGOTIATE guidelines whenever I get into a content dispute, including anything related to GENSEX (which I have no immediate plans to return to, but would like to fully remove the topic ban from it so I don't have to second guess if a page is related to the topic or not). I will work with other editors for compromises, will refrain from POV pushing, and make sure a contested edit has an actual consensus before putting it through. Thanks, Unnamed anon (talk) 22:38, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Since my lack of immediate plans to return to GENSEX seems to be a major point against lifting it, I should explain that I mean that I'm only talking about pages fully dedicated to the topic. But I would like to no longer have to avoid pages that tangentially mention anything queer-related, as it has legitimately stopped me from continuing productive edits that I had made across related pages that don't mention anything GENSEX related. I was also reading through what I need to do to get back in the community's good graces, and here the late NosebagBear told an appellant do you plan on editing in the area after removal (not a trick, TBAN removal could be warranted either way) and if so, what types of editing would you be doing that are currently prohibited? See my reply to Cullen below for the specific examples where my Tban has stopped me from making legitimately productive edits to pages I was unsure would breach the Tban.Unnamed anon (talk) 08:54, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I figure I should paste some of my most important commitments up here so they don't get lost. The full one is down in the "involved editors" section where I reply to Simonm223 (here for convenience), but to summarize the most important commitments up at the top:

1. I will refrain from using a single talk page comment as a cue to add an edit.
2. In a WP:COMPLICATEDTALK situation, or in other words I lack the full knowledge of a situation (such as when I wrongly thought 7 year olds were getting genital surgeries), I will stay out of the situation, or, if I am asked to reply back, will acknowledge my lack of knowledge.
3. If I even suspect that any comment (or thought) of mine (including ones that are not actually written nor submitted) has a chilling effect on queer users or is otherwise disruptive, I will immediately stop, and likely strike the comment.
4. I will not introduce any less-than neutral language into GENSEX articles. If I suspect that an edit is less than neutral, I will stop, and likely revert or directly ask somebody else if my edit was non-neutral, or in some cases both.
5. I will no longer assume any lgbt editor of a conflict of interest in any situation.
6. In discussions, I will refrain from replying on every single reply that holds a different opinion. I'll acknowledge this is an exception right now because I want to prove that my views have changed and I won't repeat my alarming statements. But in normal discussions, I have learned that replying to every single opposing comment is disruptive and WP:BLUDGEON.

Obviously there's more commitments below, but for the sake of TLDR these are just the ones addressing my biggest past problems. I'd like to make it clear way up at the top that I know why I was in the wrong, and how I won't repeat my old disruption. Thanks, Unnamed anon (talk) 07:48, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Comments by uninvolved editors (Unnamed anon)

Per WP:CTOP, this appeal will succeed if "a clear consensus of uninvolved editors" supports it.

• Support - The only way to know for sure if you're able to edit in this topic area? Is to give you that chance to prove that you're able to do so. GoodDay (talk) 14:50, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
• Support relaxation to 1RR. Per Simonm223 and the commitments made there, and because I am satisfied the risk is limited. As for lifting it after 6 months to a year, I understand there's not much of a procedure for this but I'd be OK with deferring to the judgement of an individual admin, either the closer of this appeal or any uninvolved admin, instead of having another community appeal. Alpha3031 (t • c) 00:28, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

  At AE we've previously granted reductions that could be fully lifted by any uninvolved admin after a certain period of time. See for instance the case of 3Kingdoms. (No opinion on this case; just saying there's precedent.) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 19:08, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

  I was also thinking of the Princess of Ara case, where her topic ban was replaced by a 6 month 1RR restriction on the same subject. In my case, I'm fine with anywhere between 6 months to a year for my 1RR restriction; I just do not want to waste mine or anybody else's time on a second appeal. Unnamed anon (talk) 19:24, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

  And I am aware that most contentious topics, including GENSEX, have a topic-wide 1RR, which I will abide by even after my own 1RR restriction expires. And I realize my past disruption is worth some extra caution for some extra time. But at a certain point, I'd like to no longer be under the extra scrutiny, and don't want to waste mine or anyone's time getting my name fully off of Wikipedia:Editing restrictions/Placed by the Wikipedia community. Unnamed anon (talk) 19:50, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

• Cautiously support - I'd like to give you the chance to prove you can edit non-disruptively. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:04, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
• I'm extremely sympathetic to the idea that someone would want a GENSEX TBAN lifted so they can go about their normal life not editing GENSEX articles. It's so hard to avoid this topic area completely, unlike many other types of TBAN, because of how ubiquitous the subject is. I know this runs the risk of being too bespoke to be useful, but could we perhaps consider a remedy in line with the actual request? Something easy and unambiguous to follow? Like "TBAN on all articles tagged for WP:LGBTQ" or something. Sure, there are various ways a bad-faith actor could game a TBAN like this, but we're not considering TBANning someone here, we're considering releasing the TBAN. If we're at that stage, we're already operating on a higher level of trust than someone we're imposing a new TBAN on. -- asilvering (talk) 18:08, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
• Support relaxation to 1RR as well. "Broadly construed" IMHO is a bridge too far in too many of our ArbCom decisions. I can come up with a tangential link to just about anything for a topic ban that is "broadly construed". 1RR is an appropriate median step. Buffs (talk) 19:44, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
• Support asilvering's narrowing proposal (but not removal or reduction to 1RR). I don't believe that a TBAN for seriously problematic behavior that had gone on for years should be removed or reduced because of stuff Unnamed Anon has done in only the past six months. He was topic banned and not banned in general because his behavior in only that one topic area was problematic. As such, our only assurance that he won't be a problem in the future is that he hasn't violated the topic ban. But after only six months that's not a very strong signal.

However, I believe in general that GENSEX is too broad to constitute only one topic area and that it should be broken up. Given that, and given that Unnamed Anon's behavior was only problematic in a clearly defined subset of GENSEX, I'm fine with reducing the topic ban to that one area. Loki (talk) 03:30, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

@LokiTheLiar: Thank you for supporting narrowing my TBAN down, though sadly Asilvering's proposal of "all pages tagged LGBTQ" may be a bit broad, and ultimately might not actually narrow anything at all (in fact it may actually make the TBAN more strict). Looking at Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBTQ+ studies/Showcase, many of the good or featured articles tagged as LGBTQ are still only tangentially related. For example, some of the tangentially-related pages listed as LGBTQ related good articles include Undertale, Borderlands 2, Tracer (Overwatch), It's About Time! (Phineas and Ferb), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Keelin Winters, and Ben Daniels. I am interested in better documenting gameplay, plot, or acting/sports careers, of course without disrupting anything regarding sexuality of the characters and BLPs.

Under Asilverrings' proposal (and by the way, thank you for your sympathy for my situation; I really do appreciate it), I'm worried I would be barred from those types of pages now since some people might consider those as "tagged as LGBTQ". As such, unless there's another suggestion, I still think GENSEX 1RR would have the least gray area on what would count as a violation. That way, I no longer have to question which pages are off-limits for copyediting and gnoming, while 1RR would ultimately still serve any sort of TBAN's purpose of preventing edit warring, disruption, or any type of problematic behavior since then I can't revert back to my version if it's contested. Unnamed anon (talk) 04:47, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Also, to alleviate your concerns (which are completely understandable due to my years of past disruption that, in the past six months, I have realized how and I was in the wrong), and as additional assurance that I will not cause any more problems, you can read my comments on Talk:Attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania and Attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Florida. Since I'm editing and behaving according to Wikipedia policies (in particular BRD, consensus, and civility) on a separate contentious topic (AMPOL), I hope that that's a stronger signal for you that I have finally figured out how to no longer disrupt contentious topics. Unnamed anon (talk) 07:33, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

• Support relaxation to 1RR per ROPE. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:01, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
• Support relaxation to 1RR. The proposal by asilvering is interesting, but I think a lift to 1RR is a lot simpler and cleaner enforcement-wise. It also offers a more clear path back to good standing, should the user avoid disruption and edit warring for the next 6 months. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 16:50, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose Support relaxation to 1RR Per their commitment and response to my initial response. . I really don't see a point in relaxing their situation to 1RR when if the CTOP has 1RR to begin with. If that is the case, then you might as well fully support lifting the TBAN because at that point they're literally just being told to follow the rules as they stand. As for my general opposition, it hinges mostly upon If I even suspect that any comment of mine has a chilling effect on queer users or is otherwise disruptive, I will immediately stop, and likely strike the comment. I do not really think that "if I suspect I've had a chilling effect, I'll stop and strike it" is really a firm commitment to not do this thing. In effect, you're just saying that if you decide by your own judgment your comment has had a chilling effect, you will strike the comment, but there is nothing proactive about this. You aren't committing yourself to not making such comments, you're just committing to striking through them after they've already potentially done damage. Given as blocks are preventative, I see the continued TBAN as preventative given your lack of a firm commitment to simply not make chilling comments. --Brocade River Poems (She/They) 00:04, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

  @BrocadeRiverPoems: The difference between me being under GENSEX 1RR and general CTOP 1RR is that if I break 1RR, that's grounds for an immediate block, whereas a user in good standing would likely just get a warning. As for your concerns about chilling effect statements, I was referring to any potential future comments that I may think of but don't actually write, not just from edits that get submitted. To ease your worries, that is a proactive and firm commitment from me to no longer make any chilling statements at all, hence the "I will immediately stop" part. The "strike it" part comes from if I believe I had made a mistake in a comment that others already replied to, even if nobody else believes the comment is potentially damaging, I will strike it. I am still proactively firmly committing to not making chilling statements at all; the "strike it" is just a failsafe to react for if I make any mistake, but I will make sure no mistakes do show up. Unnamed anon (talk) 01:18, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose Frankly, the egregious nature of UAs behavior leading up to the topic ban leaves me feeling that this user cannot be trusted around GENSEX at all. I cannot support revoking this TB. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:16, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

  @HandThatFeeds: The point of this appeal is that I am pledging not to repeat the egregious behavior that led to the tban. Please read the commitments I have made towards Simonm223 (who also noted that my old behavior shouldn't be entirely what guides us now), where I noted which of my behaviors were egregious and specifically how I will not repeat it; I have copied some of the commitments to the top as well. Additionally, the restrictions would not yet be fully lifted; I would still be under 1RR in this topic area, and am liable for a block if I break 1RR. Unnamed anon (talk) 20:29, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

  I have read your statements, and simply cannot trust that you will abide by them. You were that far over the line to earn the TBAN in the first place. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 12:38, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  Genuinely, is there anything that would allow trust that I will abide by my commitments? Because I am fully aware that I was far over the line before, hence why it was appropriate to give me the topic ban in the first place. But in the past six months, I have reflected on how and why I was in the wrong, including discussing my topic ban with LGBTQ-supporting friends in real life and learning from them why specific statements were offensive. Per WP:ROPE, as well as per GoodDay and SarekofVulcan, the only way to know if I can be trusted in this space and prove I won't edit disruptively is to remove the topic ban or reduce it to 1RR, and it serves as a litmus test of my sincerity. Indefinite is not infinite, and sanctions are meant to be preventative rather than punitive, so I no longer think the topic ban is preventative if I have learned how to behave properly in the GENSEX space. Unnamed anon (talk) 15:44, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  I'm just going to be blunt, and then stop responding further: 6 months is far to short a period of time to realistically believe you've changed your ways, given the severity of your previous behavior. Give it a few years, and I might believe it. This is not punitive, it's absolutely a preventative measure. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:24, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  Waiting years for the community to trust me after misbehavior I have already pledged not to repeat is far too long, and needing to actively edit for years with such a major restriction would be a huge timesink for me. Regardless of whether you think 6 months (the WP:STANDARD offer timeframe) is too short, I legitimately have changed my ways and learned to be respectful regarding LGBTQ topics. Frankly, I learned how to be respectful regarding this topic 3 months ago after talking to people irl, but waited the full 6 months, both to let the new knowledge sink in and because I knew I'd have a better chance of a successful appeal if I waited for the full standard offer time. Unnamed anon (talk) 18:45, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  Just to add a relevant quote from WP:STANDARD, If an editor shows unusually good insight into the circumstances that led to the block and sets out a credible proposal for how they will deal with those issues in future, then a return might be considered sooner. Not only do I fully understand why I got the topic ban in the first place and am setting proposals on how I will deal with the issues in the future, I still waited for six months, even after having some sense talked into me in real life well before the six months. Unnamed anon (talk) 21:55, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

• Support relaxation to 1RR. Lord Ruffy98 (talk) 00:17, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Comments by involved editors (Unnamed anon)

• Oppose - This thread on your talk page from just over a month ago appears to indicate that you are still engaged in disruptive editing and not actually engaging in consensus building with other editors - "I'm sorry to have to say that your edits - even if made in good faith - are consistently poor and have become increasingly disruptive. You have been asked to make edits one by one, for discussion, but you have ignored that request, and the vast majority of your contributions are having to be reverted or re-written by other editors." by @MichaelMaggs. Comments such as these that appear in a non-contentious topic area, do not bode well for what may happen in more contentious areas. As you said yourself, you don't actually plan to return to the topic banned WP:GENSEX area and the block for it appeared to have happened exactly 6 months ago, so maybe some more time is needed to show you are editing without disruption outside of contentious (or non-contentious as above) topics for 6 months and then come back and we can revisit this again. Almost 10% of your edits appear to have been reverted, many of which were after the CTOP ban from GENSEX in May, including some in the AMPOL area. Raladic (talk) 02:16, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  @Raladic: Please read further down in the thread, because I actually am participating in consensus building. I can see how you made that mistake from the first comment, but I really am trying to work on building consensuses with other users. MichaelMaggs replies Thank you for responding here. Following the suggestion of the IP editor, let's continue to work from where we are. Also read his talk page, where he gives further advice, he gives his reasoning, and I actually accept his reasoning and apply it to edits on another page. Thank you for letting me know what would be good practice in this situation. I noticed that the plot summary of Inside Out (2015 film) needed some cleanup, and although that page doesn't seem like it's under collaborative development, and decided to heed your advice by making multiple but more incremental edits. What had happened what that I misunderstood "one by one" as one edit total until another user comes in, rather than one change per edit, which I fixed after the latter discussion. Also, please read the second bullet point about my participation in events surrounding the election, which is a separate contentious topic where I have not been in any major disputes in. Unnamed anon (talk) 02:28, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  Your thanks and apologies happened after the user deemed it was necessary to come to your talk page and alert you to your disruption. When assessing a topic ban lift, we are looking at general conduct including disruption that is not recognized by the user in question by themself ahead of time. That's why I mentioned above, the best course of action is probably to come back in another several months of time where no user had to come to alert you to disruptive editing, since that was also part of the reason for the GENSEX ban. Raladic (talk) 02:36, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

About that And Then There Were None discussion, a third person reverted it back to a similar version to mine here. Reverts are simply a natural part of WP:BRD, and as I said in this very appeal, the discussion ended amicably and calmly. In fact, I specifically kept the discussion on my talk page as an example of me learning to work collegially, so it's disappointing to see only the negativity focused on. As for some of the other reverts, some were reverted back to my version by a third user, with this one I properly set up a discussion rather than edit warring, and many of the others were self-reverts (including to my own talk page) because I quickly realized I made a mistake. Unnamed anon (talk) 02:45, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@Raladic: If you're focusing on one discussion that started negatively (but still ended positively), I'd like to highlight the discussions where my contributions were positive pretty much the whole way through. See my comments on Talk:Darkstalkers, Talk:Attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Florida, Talk:Attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, and Talk:2024 United States presidential election. I would also be willing to lift the Tban and replace it with a 1RR restriction on GENSEX topics. Preferably one that expires in anywhere between six months to a year (that way I wouldn't need to ask again to be removed from the partial blacklist on the wikipedia:Editing_restrictions#Active_editing_restrictions list, as my username being there gives me a lot of stress), but if my appeal can only pass if it is replaced by an indefinite 1RR restriction specifically on GENSEX topics, so be it. Unnamed anon (talk) 03:20, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Unnamed anon, only one editor has weighed in yet on the prospect of lifting your topic ban. Wait until more admins have commented before offering counter-proposals. You need to be patient. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:16, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Follow-up based on the ongoing discussions that happened since my initial vote above.

I appreciate UA's willingness to want to learn and if they truly have learnt the way to be respectful in this space, then that would be nice, but the fact that they are arguing here with long texts on every opposition still indicates a little bit of WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior, even if it's trying to come from a good place.

So if there is a relaxation of the TBAN, I would like it to not just be in article space of 1RR, but also to extend somehow to the talk page space, given that the initial TBAN as well was also in large parts based on their arguing in talk - not sure how to practically impose that, but something along the lines of "discussions that appear to be WP:TENDENTIOUS or WP:BATTLEGROUND in the WP:GENSEX space will result in an immediate resumption of the tban", this can give them some WP:ROPE, but make it clear that this contentious space is hot enough, and we do not need resumption of such behavior in talk. Raladic (talk) 17:54, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. I am disclosing that I was the blocking adminstrator during the incident that ultimately led to the topic ban. In general, I oppose lifting topic bans when an editor asks for a topic ban to be lifted while simultaneously saying that they have no interest in or plans to edit in that topic area. In my opinion, such requests come off as disingenuous and are a waste of time of other editors who need to spend valuable volunteer time evaluating the appeal. Which brings to mind a comment I made on May 21, 2024 on the editor's talk page: The one thing that I will say now is that I am very concerned about this editor's tendency to waste other editors time. I feel the same today. Cullen328 (talk) 08:20, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  @Cullen328: I guess I do owe an explanation for why I'm even asking for the Tban to be lifted (or loosened to 1RR). Like I said, I don't want to have to second-guess if any edit to certain pages would be a breach of my topic ban, even if said edit is entirely unrelated to anything GENSEX. To mind currently, four events led to this realization.

  1. I was adding redirects of full names for characters from Overwatch for those who were missing such redirects (i.e. I added the missing Brigitte Lindholm redirect for Brigitte (Overwatch)). One of the characters with a missing redirect, Zarya (Overwatch) (missing redirect Aleksandra Zaryanova), has the lede say Despite her sexuality not being explicitly discussed by Blizzard, many Western fans have viewed her as a lesbian, and said content takes up quite a bit of the reception section. I have no idea of creating the real name redirect on such a page would have been a breach of my topic ban, and in the long term it would save everyone's time, including my own, to just get the Tban lifted instead of needing to ask or second-guess if a minor edit is okay.
  2. The other was on Talk:Twitter, where a user invited others to Talk:StoneToss#Twitter or X regarding whether to call the site Twitter or X. I could productively contribute to the discussion there about what to call Twitter/X, as I had been doing on the main Twitter page, but StoneToss's article's lede mentions it including transphobic and homophobic views. I have no idea whether contributing to the Stonetoss talk page about Twitter, even if I wasn't going to comment about related to Stonetoss or their content at all, would be a breach of the Topic Ban.
  3. Liko (Pokémon) says that She has also been highlighted for her status as the series' first female main character, which is only partially true (there were plenty of previous female main characters), and I was considering changing "main character" to "protagonist". The page is completely unrelated to anything queer-related, but WP:GENSEX says that discretionary sanctions apply to any discussion regarding systemic bias faced by female editors or article subjects, so even though misogyny was never something I have been on the hot seat for, I didn't want to risk breaking any terms of the Tban.
  4. In June, I was considering !voting keep on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Morrigan Aensland. However, at the time, said character had categories saying she was bisexual (which were recently removed by another user as unsourced), so I didn't know if commenting on that AfD would breach my topic ban. Even without that, part of the character's notability comes from fan-made pornography and sex appeal, so again, I didn't want to risk breaching my Topic Ban if non-queer sexualization applied to GENSEX.

  Unnamed anon (talk) 08:42, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

• On the fence I remember the furor over the queerphobia essay and some of the statements Unnamed anon made at that time were alarming, to say the least. However bans are supposed to be preventative and not punative. With that in mind, as much as I was personally appalled by what they said then, this shouldn't be entirely what guides us now. I would like to know how they intend to respond if they find themselves in a similar situation in the future should their tban be ended. Simonm223 (talk) 20:51, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
  • @Simonm223: Thank you for giving me a chance. If I find myself in a similar situation in the future, I will refrain from the following:

  1. grouping or stereotyping editors by their sexuality in a debate. Under no circumstances was that okay of me to do that.
  2. offensive statements such as sexual deviancy (which I had already disavowed back in May and still disavow). If I suspect a statement is offensive, I will stop, and either strike or ask if it's offensive.
  3. using a single talk page comment as a cue to add an edit. If you look at most discussions I have been a part of since the Tban, I have refrained from adding the edit to the page until there was a clear consensus.
  4. In a WP:COMPLICATEDTALK situation, or in other words I lack the full knowledge of a situation (such as when I wrongly thought 7 year olds were getting genital surgeries), i will stay out of the situation, or, if I am asked to reply back, will acknowledge my lack of knowledge.
  5. If I even suspect that any comment of mine has a chilling effect on queer users or is otherwise disruptive, I will immediately stop, and likely strike the comment.
  6. I will no longer assume any lgbt editor of a conflict of interest in any situation.
  7. To prevent any sort of WP:BATTLEGROUND coming up again, I will always assume good faith, and if another user's comment feels out-of-line, I will not snap back at all, and simply reply calmly
  8. I will not introduce any less-than neutral language into GENSEX articles. If I suspect that an edit is less than neutral, I will stop, and likely revert or directly ask somebody else if my edit was non-neutral, or in some cases both.
  9. If a gender or sexuality is under dispute for a BLP or a fictional character and I am somehow involved, I will not bring my own personal views into the discussion; I will simply look at the sources about the BLP/character and whatever comment I make will be based entirely off of said sources.
  10. In contexts of a trans character/BLP pre-transition using current pronouns/names, I will no longer state nor imply that it is history revisionism. Per MOS:GENDERID, these pages must use current names/pronouns aside from a single mention if notable.
  11. In discussions, I will refrain from replying on every single reply that holds a different opinion. I'll acknowledge this is an exception right now because I want to prove that my views have changed and I won't repeat my alarming statements. But in normal discussions, I have learned that replying to every single opposing comment is disruptive and WP:BLUDGEON. You can look at my comments on Talk:Attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania and Talk: Attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Florida as examples of me being productive in discussions.

  I hope I explained thoroughly how I have changed and will not repeat the mistakes, disruption, and chilling effect statements that led to my topic ban. If you have or anybody else have any more questions, feel free to ask. Unnamed anon (talk) 21:59, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

  In light of the above commitment I would Support a relaxation of thd t-ban to a 1RR restriction. Simonm223 (talk) 22:18, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

• Support relaxing the t-ban to a 1RR. While I see some comments from Unnamed anon that tread a little close to WP:TEXTWALL and WP:BLUDGEONING, I'm not seeing the attitude that caused me to support the t-ban back in May. Based on this response, I think UA gets what led to the t-ban, and has a good understanding of how to avoid repeating their mistakes. CambrianCrab (talk) 00:54, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
• Support. Unnamed anon is probably thoroughly aware of my views on their approach, etc., a couple of years ago. but while it's a bit soon to lifting the restriction completely, a reduction to 1RR should stop edit-warring, and I don't see the belligerence or battleground behavior that was so prevalent back then. I think they've been working away diligently and avoiding major pitfalls. What more can we ask for—or expect? SerialNumber54129 13:55, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose - I went looking for a comment I made a while back about unsafe people in this topic area and it turns out I was talking about Unnamed anon in their TBAN discussion, so I'll just repeat the important bits here: "An unsafe person (in context of discussions about marginalized communities) is not a bad person necessarily, but they are a person whose behaviour around queer spaces and topics raises doubts as to whether that person can be trusted not to do harm, whether through well-meaning ignorance or through intentional malice; we have seen examples of both from Unnamed anon." The incident from six months ago was not isolated, it was the final straw in a pattern of harmfully queerphobic POV editing going back several years (see the TBAN discussion for examples). The message we send when we keep letting demonstrably unsafe editors back around these sensitive topics is that marginalized editors should expect the same abuse here as they get on Twitter, and they won't: they'll just leave. Back to my earlier comment: "Unsafe persons have a chilling effect on queer persons and queer spaces; the minor benefit of one editor gnoming and copyediting BLPs in this space is very greatly outweighed by the potential for a known unsafe person to drive marginalized editors away from a sensitive topic." A person who had to have it explained to them that seven year old children are not getting gender reassignment surgery should not be anywhere near this topic on Wikipedia. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:21, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

  @Ivanvector: Please read my commitment to not repeat the mistakes I made and to stop being an unsafe person. Specifically the WP:COMPLICATEDTALK part, where I promise that if I lack the full knowledge of a situation (such as when I wrongly thought 7 year olds were getting genital surgeries), I will stay out of the situation, or, if I am asked to reply back, will acknowledge my lack of knowledge. Per Simonm223, my past disruption shouldn't be entirely what guides us now (I'm disavowing all of my past queerphobic statements), and as both CambrianCrab and Serial Number 54129 have noted, I fully understand why I got the TBAN in the first place and know how to not repeat said mistakes. As mentioned earlier, I'm entirely open to my topic ban being reduced to blockable 1RR. I'd like to get back to copyediting without wasting time worrying if any edit breaches the Tban, and I will not make chilling effect nor malicious statements anymore. (Also, just FYI, the sections are split into involved and uninvolved users, so I'd like to recommend moving your comment under involved since you did participate in my Tban discussion, thanks). Unnamed anon (talk) 17:56, 27 November 2024 (UTC) (for context, this !vote and its subsequent replies were initially under the "uninvolved users" section).

  I agree that Ivanvector should be considered an involved party. SerialNumber54129 14:01, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

  As far as I can tell (by checking editor interaction and the same for my alt) the only significant interaction I've ever had with Unnamed anon was a description I gave of checkuser after they inquired about false positives ([1]) in context of the previous tban discussion, in which I also commented. If having commented in a sanction discussion at a community noticeboard makes one involved, then it follows everyone who has commented here is involved, and then what's the point of making the distinction? Either of you can feel free to move my comment and the subsequent replies if you feel strongly about it. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:52, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

  @Ivanvector: Sorry to be a dog with a bone. But re. ...in which I also commented; to clarify, I believe that when one calls an editor " a known unsafe person" and supports their topic banning; then they are very much involved in a discussion to remove that same topic ban. Also regarding, everyone who has commented here is involved, that's not wholly accurate. In fact, not one editor who has commented in this "Uninvolved editors" section also commented at Unnamed anon's TB discussion, let alone supported it. HTH! SerialNumber54129 10:46, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

  @Serial Number 54129: so am I involved by virtue of having commented, or is it the specific nature of my comment that makes me involved? Just trying to follow your logic, I comment on a lot of ban discussions and don't want to cross lines. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:36, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

  Serial Number 54129 explained it perfectly (thank you Serial; I appreciate you for helping me explain this): the people who commented anything substantial (including !votes) on my original topic ban proposal are involved. For example, I have never directly spoken with CambrianCrab (and btw, thanks for supporting relaxation to 1RR), but I think their comment being under involved is appropriate due to them !voting in my Tban. On the flipside, I think I have run into some of the people in the uninvolved users section on unrelated pages, but them being in the uninvolved section is appropriate because they had nothing to do with my Tban discussion. I hope both of us have explained it clearly enough. Unnamed anon (talk) 17:32, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

• Support I have no good reason to believe that Unnamed anon won't follow through on the commitments he made above. I also agree with GoodDay's comment; how else would we know if Unnamed anon legitimately [has] changed [his] ways and learned to be respectful regarding LGBTQ topics if we don't give him the chance to prove it. Some1 (talk) 02:06, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Request for a decision (Unnamed anon)

Though I want to acknowledge that being an admin is voluntary and there is a lot to read for this discussion, would any uninvolved administrator like to review the votes and determine the consensus? It has been two weeks (which seems to be the maximum time appeal discussions tend to last before being possibly archived by the bot) since I opened my appeal, with 17 !votes currently. I feel like there's not much more to add to the discussion that hasn't already been said, especially since the rate of votes has slowed down significantly (the first week saw 14 votes while the second week only saw 3 votes), so I think a consensus can be determined by an uninvolved administrator at this point. Thanks, Unnamed anon (talk) 00:17, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

• I support this request. It seems odd that it has been allowed to rest so long, but. CTOPS criteria is pretty clear on the requirements. SerialNumber54129^{A New Face in Hell} 00:44, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I've added the request at WP:RFCLOSE. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 00:58, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I should've marked this as  Doing... ten minutes ago when I started reading it. I should have a closing statement momentarily. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 01:04, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

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

New seemingly-related group of good-faith but deleterious West African copyeditors

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

---

Sorry if this is a bit hasty, but I've noticed a group of new editors that seem to have a good-faith interest in improving the site; unfortunately, almost all of their edits need to be reverted, and they do not respond to talk page communications. They seem to have registered around the same time and edit the same pages (e.g. Education in Africa, African art, Victor Ochei, Relationship Quality) making many of the same errors. One of them—Ekipnse1.0 (talk · contribs)—has already been blocked for disruptive editing, and their reply shows no understanding of why but does seemingly reveal they're working IRL with others in some manner.

This is a bit overwhelming to deal with, and I don't want to overreach in the clean-up here, but I need some help at bare minimum. Here are all the accounts I'm pretty sure are members, though there are likely more if there is indeed such a group:

• Akujobi Chimezie Blessed (talk · contribs): blocked 27 November (31 hours)
• Alexjos1858 (talk · contribs): 3 of their latest 4 edits reverted
• Breesamne (talk · contribs): p-blocked 27 November (1 week)
• Brown Stella (talk · contribs): blocked 26 November (1 week)
• Chrysolite123 (talk · contribs)
• Danielehisaiguokhian (talk · contribs): 6 of their latest 10 edits reverted
• Edifyhub (talk · contribs): warned for excessive linking yesterday
• Ekipnse1.0 (talk · contribs): blocked 24 November (31 hours)
• Egelan Solomon Lokidongoi (talk · contribs): only one edit, reverted
• Esther Adedoyin (talk · contribs) (not so sure, they registered earlier in February): blocked 28 November (1 month)
• Eyo Edem (talk · contribs): blocked 28 November (31 hours)
• FavourErusiac18 (talk · contribs): blocked 27 November (31 hours)
• Giddy001 (talk · contribs)
• Nnamdi Kinghenry (talk · contribs): blocked indef, reduced 29 November to 1 week
• Ogar peter Unimke (talk · contribs)
• OguikeRejoice21 (talk · contribs): latest 5 edits have been reverted
• Ojemba24 (talk · contribs): p-blocked 27 November (1 week)
• Olamide Sharon (talk · contribs): blocked 27 November (31 hours)
• Victoriautin2 (talk · contribs): 9 of their 10 latest edits reverted

Remsense ‥ 论 06:20, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

• (Comments after the names added by Fram (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2024 (UTC) )

@Remsense, you might want to notify WP:EDUN, in case this is related to some kind of class project. -- asilvering (talk) 06:28, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Done. Remsense ‥ 论 06:34, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

According to UTRS appeal #97183, it's an Edit-a-thon. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 07:19, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, this is a group focusing on improving wikipedia articles from Nigeria. Our major area of edit is copyedit. Nnamdi Kinghenry (talk) 07:20, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I do not know how to say this in the most polite way since I know everyone is trying to improve the site, but I have needed to revert almost all of the edits made by members of this group. Almost all of them are introducing errors of some kind. If I am being honest, I have to state plainly that this is not helping the site, but is in fact creating much more clean-up work for editors to do. I do not feel like I have the right to tell an edit-a-thon to stop, but it seems like this would be the ideal result for the wiki as it stands. Apologies. Remsense ‥ 论 07:22, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I second this. While some edits are a matter of English variety, many others just plain violate the WP:MOS, MOS:LINK, and other elements of the MOS, which must be fixed. I documented a few at User_talk:FavourErusiac18#November_2024, but anyone taking a look at the contributions of involved editors can see a clear pattern. Editor outreach is important, but the output has to at least be a net positive. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 07:31, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Also, if these are mobile editors than WP:ICANTHEARYOU might apply to get them to engage with these concerns. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 07:33, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@Nnamdi Kinghenry: Wikipedia exists in many languages, including Hausa (link), Igbo (link), and Yoruba (link). If the people in your group lack the proficiency to copy-edit in English (which there is no shame in! I speak fluent French but can't easily copy-edit in it), perhaps they would be able to help more on one of those Wikipedias, which, besides, are in much greater need of new editors. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 07:48, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I perfectly understand your point. My group and I have discussed and we've realized where we went wrong. Some of the team members failed to consult our instructors (team leads) before publishing edits. Trust me, we are going to work to ensure this mistake is not repeated. Nnamdi Kinghenry (talk) 08:00, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

The last thing I want to do is discourage editors whose inclusion would make our community more diverse, so I hope my concerns are being taken in good faith here. Cheers. Remsense ‥ 论 08:03, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

We truly appreciate your corrections, and we take your concerns to heart. Please accept our sincere apologies, and thank you very much for your understanding. Nnamdi Kinghenry (talk) 08:15, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

What I would also suggest is participants always reference our WP:Manual of Style, which is pretty easily searchable as well. Thank you for being receptive. Remsense ‥ 论 08:18, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@Nnamdi Kinghenry, if you are in a organizing position in this edit-a-thon, I must confess that seeing edits like this one makes me suspect the supervisors are themselves not adequately well-versed in English grammar and style to be able to contribute constructively. Remsense ‥ 论 09:44, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

What worries me is that they intend continuing to create problems until 2 December [2] - I really think this should be shut down now. - Arjayay (talk) 11:34, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. I've just spent time correcting egregious editing mistakes made by one of these editors, who is clearly not competent to be editing English WP. Their project here should be shut down immediately. Carlstak (talk) 14:43, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your observation. As I mentioned earlier, my team and I are strictly adhering to Wiki's guidelines to ensure that all edits we make are error-free. I can also assure you that all the editors on the team are proficient in the English language.

In regards to this, I humbly request that you explain some of the errors you have seen in our work/edits. This will also help us stay on the right track and prevent further complications.

Thank you so much for your concern and understanding. Nnamdi Kinghenry (talk) 16:31, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

The edit linked by Remsense adds "who is", which is unnecessary, and "way", also unnecessary and less formal. Changing "and" to "that is" shifted the subject of the later text in a way that changed the meaning of the sentence. CMD (talk) 16:43, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Can you please just stop the unwanted edit-a-thon and save us all a lot of work? Apparently you have a team, but we don't see that team reverting the poor edits made by many people in this edit-a-thon, instead placing this burden on other editors here. The few improvements made through this project don't justify the large costs, and your assurances sound very hollow. Fram (talk) 16:46, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I hope you don't need us to "explain some of the errors" you produced here, they should be rather obvious. Fram (talk) 16:57, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Apologies, but while I know you intend to adhere to our guidelines, you simply are not doing so in practice. While the edits have gotten better, more are still errors for others to undo or clean up than are actual improvements. I really dislike the idea of dictating terms, but perhaps whatever group this is can call off the edit-a-thon for now, spend a bit of time studying our Manual of Style, and then maybe try again once all the participants feel they have a solid grasp of it. There are too many errors of diverse kinds for this endeavor to be viable, please understand that. Most of the participants' time is being wasted as well, since most of their edits have been reverted.Remsense ‥ 论 16:58, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@Nnamdi Kinghenry: I believe you that everyone is proficient in English. But proficiency is not the same thing as competence to copy-edit. Like I said, I am proficient in French—to the extent that you could drop me in the middle of France and forbid me from ever speaking English again, and I would be able to communicate perfectly... And yet, on the very rare occasions that I copy-edit the French Wikipedia, I do so very very cautiously, repeatedly checking their style guide, because I understand that my day-to-day proficiency doesn't make me a good copy-editor. Your participants are writing things like "In 1940s, the educational history started in Abeokuta". That is not proficient English. It's close enough to proficient English that, if it were a first draft of an article, it might not be an issue, but it's an issue when that's a change away from the previous "The 1940s were the start of educational history in Abeokuta" (which is problematic for other reasons, but at least better in relative terms). Please understand, this isn't purely an issue with English as a learned language, or a matter of any particular dialect of English. As someone who occasionally freelances as a copy-editor in English, I can tell you, I'd be out of work if not for the many native English speakers who don't know how to use commas, tenses, capital letters, etc. Still, I'll reiterate my suggestion that your participants may be better at copy-editing in other languages. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 18:09, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I came here to say that I have also had to manually revert several good-faith-but-disruptive edits by some of these editors, and that I think something should be done to stop this group. Also: I suspect — in fact, I would even say that I am fairly confident about this — that some of the edits I reverted might have been AI suggestions.

@Nnamdi Kinghenry: look at the contributions of a user such as @Olamide Sharon. They are all good-faith, but pretty much all of them have had to be reverted (this is not immediately apparent from this user's list of contributions, because some of their edits have had to be reverted manually; but even then, looking at the proportion of "reverted" tags should tell you there is a problem). This is wasting everyone's time. Please make it stop. Malparti (talk) 15:40, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Do admins at least have the full list of users that are participating? I've collected like 30 more usernames here, all of which have checkered edit histories at best already. I can't even really post it here so people can patrol though, argh! What are we meant to do here, really? We're not an outfit set up to launder emotional labor to the ultimate benefit of Guinness World Records. Remsense ‥ 论 13:02, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Why not post the list of users, @Remsense? Seems like the easiest way to see if this effort is still damaging the encyclopaedia. qcne (talk) 13:57, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I quote you, "I have collected about 30 more usernames, all of which have checkered edit histories at best already." We are not even up to the number you just mentioned in my team. Now that you are saying you've spotted about 30 more usernames who have edit histories at their best already, it only explains the fact that anyone can make mistakes, especially on a platform like Wikipedia where there are strict guidelines that every editor must adhere to when making edits, no matter how small.

Sincerely, I feel really privileged to be part of this community. It's unfortunate that I've made mistakes that didn't go down well with other editors. But the thing is, I really think we should balance the energy when criticizing mistakes in an editor's edit and applauding them when they make outstanding edits.

I believe there are hundreds, if not thousands, of amateur editors here who make wrong edits daily. I don't totally frown upon this because learning comes with mistakes; these amateur editors won't learn how to make good edits without first making mistakes and being corrected with love and accordingly.

With all of that being said, I will continue to plead that my mistakes be pardoned. I have followed your comments here these past days and I have learned a lot, enough to make me do better in my edits. Nnamdi Kinghenry (talk) 14:13, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

"I will continue to plead that my mistakes be pardoned." Nnamdi Kinghenry, you keep begging for understanding and tolerance, yet you are not acknowledging the burden you and your editathon crew have imposed on other editors. This is selfish, to put it bluntly. Striving to win a place in the Guinness book of records is not in keeping with the requirement for editors to work on building an encyclopedia. Your egregious mistakes and those of your partners in your misguided project are a detriment to that goal. Enough is enough. Carlstak (talk) 15:00, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I believe there are hundreds, if not thousands, of amateur editors here who make wrong edits daily Yes. I don't want to guess at numbers, but if we look only at copyediting carried out as a "newcomer task", a pretty large proportion of those edits are problematic. As others have pointed out above, copyediting is hard, and the errors added by poor copyediting are not just minor grammar problems, but often involve changes in meaning – many of which probably go undetected. Many editors spend a lot of their time tracking and cleaning up such errors, and it is a frustrating task. Thus, seeing a large group of new, good-faith and enthusiastic editors committed to make lots of quick edits to get into the Guinness Book of Records, in a way that almost guarantees that the encyclopedia acquires a lot of errors, is very frustrating. Surely you can understand why people are pleading with you to advise the users you coordinate to stop copyediting? --bonadea contributions talk 15:55, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

@Nnamdi Kinghenry, you say you have learned a lot, but I have yet to see a single editor from this editathon who has taken my advice and done literally anything other than copy editing. Whatever you have learned, it isn't the thing we're all trying so desperately to teach you. -- asilvering (talk) 17:02, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

@Nnamdi Kinghenry, you raise the idea of applauding them when they make outstanding edits, and I think that suggestion in this context illuminates the frustration happening on both sides right now: single copy-edits are never outstanding edits that get applauded. That is just one reason to stop copy-editing. On Wikipedia, an "edit" is the name for any kind of change that happens to an article: edit-a-thons usually focus on "editing" in the sense of creating and improving articles, not editing in the sense of copy-editing. The Guinness World Record holding edit-a-thon that you are trying to beat added almost 300 new articles to the Polish Wikipedia.

I have several times checked the contributions of this edit-a-thon because I want to give a barnstar award to those who make meaningful contributions. However, I continue to see only wasted potential. Please, Wikipedia is desperate for editors who know Nigerian languages and Nigerian history to add new information to our articles on these topics. Yakubu Itua is rated "high importance" by WikiProject Nigeria but it is a stub that cites no sources. If you found newspapers or textbooks that discussed him, especially some not written in English, and used that information to fact-check and expand this article, I at least would applaud. That kind of work really would expand the world's access to free knowledge, and build a better encyclopedia. It would be so much more worthwhile than dealing with random punctuation. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 19:13, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

The Guinness World Record holding edit-a-thon that you are trying to beat added almost 300 new articles to the Polish Wikipedia. Phew. What a contrast. -- asilvering (talk) 20:17, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

@Remsense, please do post the list of users. -- asilvering (talk) 17:01, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

@Remsense: @Asilvering: I can't find the comment that I was tagged in from my notifications now, as it dissapeared while I was typing this up, but can someone please explain why I was added to this list on the comment? I am from the east coast of the United States, have not edited any of the pages mentioned (I've only been editing the suggested pages that pop up), have not received any talk page communications that I'm aware of, am not aware of making any editing errors, and am most certainly not part of any West African groups of editors. Yes, I'm new to editing on Wikipedia but I was not aware that I was doing so poorly to be included in this. I'm sorry, I'm just a little confused and this is my first foray in to trying to contribute to Wikipedia. What do I need to do from here?

Thesaltydispatcher (talk) 20:25, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

@Thesaltydispatcher, you don't need to do anything, it's fine. Feel free to ignore this whole thread. I'll swing by your talk page. -- asilvering (talk) 20:28, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate the reply!

Thesaltydispatcher (talk) 20:32, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

If it helps, the Edit-a-thon has now ended, according to the Facebook posts from members of the team. qcne (talk) 17:29, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Can we make sure Asilvering, Fram, and a few others get their name on the Guinness World Record? Remsense ‥ 论 23:26, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

The Guiness website doesn't say what the criteria are, but if it turns out you can beat this record by making really not very many edits, all minor, the majority of which are reverted, we ought to send them a strongly worded letter. -- asilvering (talk) 03:36, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

What exactly qualifies as an edit-a-thon anyway? Does it have to have editors working 24 hours a day?

Also, User:Johnny Au submitted his Wikipedia:Longest streak of 6,233 days with at least one edit to Guinness, but they declined it even though that is a way bigger accomplishment than these edit-a-thons. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 03:46, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the shout-out! Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 04:39, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

By the way, the reason why my record was rejected by Guinness is because it is deemed "non-competitive" given that a bot can theoretically hold this record. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 01:15, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

List of new users, mostly probably innocent of anything, use with caution

I want to apologize, because I made the previous claim while collating. I've slept, read the replies, and gone back through it. Since I'm only working with account age, pages edited, and character of edits made, I decided I needed to filter out some names that either had too few edits, or otherwise were not likely enough. I'm only going to post 16 of my aforementioned 30, and I take full responsibility for dropping that higher figure on too preliminary a basis. Sorry. User:Avklion User:Enodgom User:GeorgeGeorge1984 User:HauberTheEditor User:JerryBeever User:Jfirebrace User:KeenEye4Detail User:Klingklang3 User:LaylaCares User:Lisagrace778 User:Mira Deamer User:MuhammedMustafaThePedian User:Ogar peter Unimke User:Palak11122 User:Sfbrtukggg User:Thesaltydispatcher Remsense ‥ 论 19:46, 28 November 2024 (UTC) Most of these look like normal newbies to me - do you mind if I hat this list? -- asilvering (talk) 19:57, 28 November 2024 (UTC) Please do. Like I said, making that claim before was far too preliminary, and I apologize. Remsense ‥ 论 19:58, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

Looking at things like this from today, I agree that this is yet another problematic Nigerian editing project and that it would be best if it was shut down and some of the editors warned and if necessary blocked per WP:CIR. Fram (talk) 15:30, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

If any of the above accounts have been warned and continue to edit disruptively, let us know - I am happy to block to prevent further disruption. GiantSnowman 16:45, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@Nnamdi Kinghenry: You asked above for an explanation of some of the errors in your group's edits, so that you can improve them. The edit at Bangladeshi English literature by Edifyhub linked above by Fram begins with a change from is also now referred to to is referrers' to, a gross syntax error. The change from He is more remembered for his social reforms, but also contributed to to He was remembered for his social reforms, also contributed to breaks the syntax less seriously—"contributed" is left without a subject by breakage of the parallel structure—but reduces the meaning by removing "more" and changes it by implying he is no longer remembered. Not a matter of grammar or meaning but of protocol in quotation, the removal of the brackets from [h]e at the start of a quotation misrepresents the quote as not having been the start of a new sentence in the original. This copyedit degraded rather than improved the article. Furthermore, Fram could usefully have linked to the previous edit, by Alexjos1858. That edit began by confusing the syntax of the opening sentence, changing refers to the body of literary work written in the English language in Bangladesh and the Bangladeshi diaspora to refers to the body of literary works written in English language, Bangladesh and Bangladeshi diaspora, where the omission of "the" is an error and the new comma is required to do altogether too much work; the change from "work" to "works" mentioned in the edit summary is more a matter of taste, but "body of work" is a fixed phrase so better left that way. The change from is a writer, translator and academic to is a writer, translator and an academic breaks grammatical parallelism. Most seriously, the edit introduced numerous subject–verb agreement errors: Early prominent Bengali writers in English includes; Modern writers of the Bangladeshi diaspora includes; The following lists shows; Notable works includes; ecstasies and frustrations engulfs; His works includes, Her pangs of separation adds; The contemporary Bangladeshi English writers ... who represents; diaspora generations who are living abroad and feels; the first-generation Bangladeshi immigrants who feels (the last one produced by pluralisation of the subject rather than sticking an -s on the verb, 2 instances of which the editor listed in their edit summary as if they thought it required for plural subjects). Overall, that was a very bad edit. (It did, however, fix one agreement error, changing the narrative of the stories entangle to the narrative of the stories entangles, add the missing indefinite article to still virgin, and remove an erroneous space between full stop/period and reference. Both editors missed 2 instances of Hindu college.) Both edits degraded the article and have now been reverted by Remsense; editors who introduce those kinds of errors, especially the agreement errors, should not be copyediting in English. In addition, Alexjos1858's edit is tagged "Newcomer task" and "Newcomer task: copyedit", but the only maintenance tag I see on the article relates to its referencing. Is this task force/editathon misinterpreting inclusion in the suggested tasks list as meaning the article needs copyediting? There's a specific category for that. "Copyediting" articles that haven't been flagged as needing it—and usually have been looked over by several editors with native or near-native English competency—is at best a wasted effort, and finding so many things to change in an article like that should have been a signal that maybe your group is doing copyediting wrong. This effort should be scrapped and rethought. Yngvadottir (talk) 03:39, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

And this is the latest edit from the person leading this editathon. Little added value, and at least two clear errors (changing "In" to "n" and changing "the operation and the other" to "the operation, while and the other"). Enough already. Fram (talk) 09:46, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think copyediting is working here. We undeniably need more material on west African topics, perhaps focus on that rather than English corrections as people are not understanding the tone and are making things worse. Secretlondon (talk) 09:53, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Example: yesterday, 3 editors from this project descended on one article, resulting in an article which was clearly worse in many respects: [3]. This comes after all assurances that things would get stopped, improved, checked, ... Fram (talk) 09:59, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

For some reason (to avoid scrutiny?) they have now switched from the newcomer tasks to editing other articles in the same vein. I already gave the example below of Kinghenry editing a featured article, but Akujobi Chimezie Blessed, Alexjos1858, FavourErusiac18, Giddy001, Ojemba24 and Olamide Sharon have all suddenly today started editing outside the newcomer tasks. I doubt it is an improvement to let these editors loose on articles like Literature, Guinness World Records or Jeff Bezos... Fram (talk) 16:45, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Mainspace block for Nnamdi Kinghenry

Can someone please mainspace block User:Nnamdi Kinghenry? After all the above, they now changed "The company also engages in the manufacturing, installation, wholesale, and retail of various types of electrical and mechanical equipment" into "The company also manufactures, installs, wholesales and retails, and wide range of electrical and mechanical equipment"[4]. Coupled with the copyvio warnings from Diannaa, and the problematic results when they try anything more than just copy-editing (e.g. this from yesterday), and we are left with a net negative. With a mainspace block, they can perhaps finally start with the projectspace edits to coordinate and improve this project they are leading. Fram (talk) 15:36, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

@Fram Also: to me, the edit summary "The text was refined for clarity, conciseness, and consistency. "Established" was replaced with "founded" for a more direct tone, and operations were described as "globally expanded" with an 8% market share for brevity. "Representing" was adjusted to "accounting for" to enhance flow. The second paragraph was streamlined by replacing "various types of" with "a wide range of" and improving specificity by changing "telecommunication equipment" to "telecommunication devices."" screams ChatGPT (or some other LLM)... Malparti (talk) 16:33, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Please @Asilvering, Is it wrong to use AI in writing edit summary? Once or twice, i think i have used AI to refine my edit summaries to make sure they are well constructed and readable for other editors.

I feel like there is nothing wrong with that. @Asilvering Nnamdi Kinghenry (talk) 20:51, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Using AI in edit summaries is discouraged as it might not know why you made specific changes, and doesn't always have a good grasp of Wikipedia policies and of the Manual of Style. Using wording like "globally expanded" can sometimes add a promotional tone and isn't necessarily recommended, while switching "various types of" to "a wide range of" doesn't really "streamline" anything and only replaces an expression by a mildly more promotional synonym. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:00, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

@Nnamdi Kinghenry, there's nothing about using AI to write an edit summary that is against the rules - to be honest, this is probably one of the least bad ways to use generative AI on Wikipedia. But along with what Chaotic Enby has said, the problem with using AI is that it makes you look incompetent. When other editors are already raising concerns about your ability to do copy-editing work, using AI is a really bad look. -- asilvering (talk) 00:21, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I'll also add, now that I'm looking at everyone else's contributions to figure out if everyone involved needs a time out, these AI-generated summaries are really annoying. -- asilvering (talk) 01:10, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@Nnamdi Kinghenry Using AI to improve phrasing / correct spelling mistakes in edit summaries is fine, although completely unnecessary: no one cares how beautifully edit summaries are written as long as they are clear. Moreover, I would assume that when you decide to change something in an article, you know exactly why and are be able to explain it without the need for an AI (which can only give a factual description of the changes and a guess as to what they try to achieve — something other editors could also come-up with simply by looking at the diff).

The problem is that, in the case of your group (where many of edits were "change for the sake of change" — or, as ChatGPT would put it "rewording of for clarity, conciseness, and structural consistency"), it also suggests that some of the edits themselves were done using AI. As, as a matter of fact, I'm convinced I came across a few instances where the editor simply pasted a paragraph in ChatGPT, asking it to correct mistakes and improve it; and then copied the output in Wikipedia.

Also: "Once or twice, i think i have used AI to refine my edit summaries" → I believe you are lying and that a few hours prior to writing this you had been using some AI to write way more more than two edit summaries; and same thing the day before that. So, unless I am mistaken, "Yes, I have used AI to refine my edit summaries several times" would have been a more honest reply. Being dishonest is not helping your cause. Malparti (talk) 12:40, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Pblocked. Sheesh. -- asilvering (talk) 16:56, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Noting that he's responded on his talk page, but I've encouraged him to participate in this thread and address the concerns of editors here. I have no objection to any other admin lifting this block if it's judged to no longer be necessary. -- asilvering (talk) 19:47, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Fram. I understand your concern in ensuring all edits made on this space follows the standards. But i humbly do not see reasons why you made a reference on the edit i made on this article. Comparing the initial article to what i edited it to, one can see that there is nothing wrong with the edit. What i did there was simply copy editing.

Correct me if I'm wrong; "Copy editing encompasses a wide range of tasks. Copy editors not only correct spelling and grammar errors but also improve sentence structure, eliminate jargon, and ensure consistency in style and tone. They verify facts, conduct research to fill any knowledge gaps, and suggest changes to enhance clarity and impact". What i did in that article was carefully improving the sentence structure, ensuring consistency of the style and tone.

I feel it's rather too personal that you suggested my account to be mainspace blocked; all editors cannot have the same understanding about an article. I think is rather more ethical that you simply call my attention when you don't agree with my edits while we put heads together to come up with something better. We all have just one aim here; to contribute to improving wikipedia community

I humbly seek that you see reasons with me...

Thank you so much. Nnamdi Kinghenry (talk) 20:44, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

You changed a sentence to this: The company also manufactures, installs, wholesales and retails, and wide range of electrical and mechanical equipment, including telecommunication devices and home appliances. That is not grammatically correct English. It's one thing to make an error once in a while, everyone does. But if you do not understand what is wrong with that even after someone points out the edit as a problem, you should not be copy editing. MrOllie (talk) 20:49, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much @MrOllie. I think i understand now the mistake.

Thank you. Nnamdi Kinghenry (talk) 20:55, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

MrOllie beat me to it: You are wrong. If you can't see what's wrong with: "The company also manufactures, installs, wholesales and retails, and wide range of electrical and mechanical equipment, including...", you should not be "copyediting" anything. You and your crew are messing up articles. Please cease and desist. Carlstak (talk) 20:53, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

For some reason, they today tried their copy-editing skills with the featured article(!) Michael Jordan: this changed e.g. "Citing physical and mental exhaustion from basketball and superstardom, Jordan abruptly retired from basketball before the 1993–94 NBA season" to "In [[1993 NBA Finals|1993,]] citing physical and mental exhaustion from basketball and superstardom, Jordan retired before 1993–94 NBA season" (nowiki added by me to show the easter egg piping, including the comma within the link, linking to the final for no good reason at all as that was not when this happened: note also the missing "the" near the end). Fram (talk) 15:46, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

@Nnamdi Kinghenry: If you have to use ChatGPT or something to ensure your edit summary is clear—when all it is is a summary of what you did—that in itself indicates you should not be copyediting articles for clarity. I wrote a lengthy comment above, laying out the English errors in two edits by different participants in your editathon. I see you continuing to thank people for explaining, here and on your talk page, but you have not said you understand that the grammar and syntax in the edits by the group are not good enough, and are not improvements but make the articles worse. I made the point that if an article is not tagged as needing copyedit, it probably doesn't need a copyedit anyway, and the fact that editors in your group—including you—see a need to make copyediting changes is a sign that your judgement of what is and is not good and clear English is poor. Since the disruption has continued and indeed has spread to articles recognised as among our best, the whole group should be p-blocked from article space, not just you. It's a pity, because en.wiki badly needs more articles on Nigerian topics, and more references to reliable sources in those we have. (Indeed both of those are needs not just in Nigerian topics.) But it does not need copyedits from people whose English is not up to the task.

I'm also disturbed by the middle paragraph of the passage at the top of User talk:Alexjos1858 (added by the editor on 29 October to start the page): I am always open to collaborate with you reading this. I will be breaking a Guinness World Record which is the longest Edit-a-thon Nigeria, next month. I'm going to work a lot for those days of marathon editing. Is that the reason for this editathon, attempting to break a Guinness World Record? If so, I object to en.wiki being disrupted as a quasi-sport. P-block the whole group, please. (In any case, Nnamdi Kinghenry has at least been engaging with us, albeit apparently via an LLM.) Yngvadottir (talk) 22:06, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Ah, so the "Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 1239 § Longest Edit-a-thon official Guinness World Record attempt on Wikipedia" question comes from the same group. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 01:17, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I've tried to engage in good faith so far, but if that's the real aim here that is an incredibly egregious waste of our time and that of the editors. Remsense ‥ 论 01:18, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm working my way through the list blocking the worst offenders. So far I've observed that not all of them have been equally warned, so in some cases I'll just be leaving a final warning for now. -- asilvering (talk) 01:31, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@Asilvering, I leave it to you if you think Danielehisaiguokhian (OP of the above Teahouse post) should be part of the list. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 02:08, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@Rotideypoc41352, thanks for the reminder. I've added them to the list and left a note on their talk page. -- asilvering (talk) 02:26, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@Asilvering why was Nnamdi Kinghenry indef blocked from article space for some grammar mistakes? The only example given was the sentence The company also manufactures, installs, wholesales and retails, and wide range of electrical and mechanical equipment, including telecommunication devices and home appliances. which becomes correct if you remove an extra "and" or two. It doesn't look like these editors are being treated fairly. CyberIdris (talk) 00:04, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Have you considered reading any of the thread, rather than stuffing "some grammar mistakes" into Asilvering's mouth as the reason? Remsense ‥ 论 00:09, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Have you considered not being civil? I've read it. Why would an indef block ever be used toward a new editor acting in good faith? Nnamdi Kinghenry is demonstrating a desire to rectify any issues so it seems purely punitive.

It also looks like not everyone was blocked, and for those who were most of the blocks were temporary and narrowly scoped to pages, so I'm wondering why there's such a large discrepancy here. CyberIdris (talk) 00:26, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

@CyberIdris, "indefinite" means "until you can convince an admin the block is no longer necessary". I stated as soon as I set it that I have no objection to any other admin lifting this block if it's judged to no longer be necessary. Honestly, I was expecting to be able to lift it myself within 24 hours or so, and left that message so that if I happened to be away or sleeping at the time, any other admin would feel able to end the block without waiting for a response from me. Instead, however, the whole rest of this thread happened, and editors are continuing to make disruptive edits. Since it no longer looks like it will be resolved quickly, I'll adjust the block from indefinite to a week instead, so that it will end automatically without need for an appeal. -- asilvering (talk) 00:55, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

That sentence does not become correct by removing ands. CMD (talk) 00:16, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

It does.

The company also manufactures, installs, wholesales, and retails a wide range of electrical and mechanical equipment, including telecommunication devices and home appliances. CyberIdris (talk) 00:27, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Wholesales and retails with the senses they have here are not acceptable verbs to use in formal English, but I have a feeling you already knew that and are being egregiously WP:POINTy if not trolling outright. Remsense ‥ 论 00:29, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Things editathon participants can do that aren't copyediting

Okay. So you're blocked from editing or worried about being blocked from editing and you still want to take part in this editathon. If this describes you, I'm honestly pretty impressed with your persistence and I'd like you to keep editing. But I really, really do not want you to keep making copyedits that drive everyone else crazy. Here are some other things you can do:

• Edit a different language edition of Wikipedia. For example, we have Igbo Wikipedia, Hausa Wikipedia, and Yoruba Wikipedia.
• Expand some stubs. These are very short articles that could use some more information. Almost anything you add will be an improvement, so long as you remember to use reliable sources. There are over 7000 stub articles about Nigerian topics.
• Integrate articles on Nigerian topics into the rest of the encyclopedia. There are over 400 articles in this list because no other articles on Wikipedia link to them. Find an article that ought to link to one of these articles, and make a wikilink.
• Find citations for articles that don't have any. There are 165 articles on Nigerian topics that have no sources at all.
• Find citations for information that is lacking citations. There are over 1600 articles on Nigerian topics that need sources (click the link and scroll down a bit).

I'm sure other editors can give other suggestions, too. Just lay off the copy edits, please. -- asilvering (talk) 02:45, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

If you're blocked for 31 hours, please spend the time you'd have spent editing reading guides like WP:V and WP:RS. If you're blocked from mainspace, you can still engage on article talk pages and elsewhere in the project. -- asilvering (talk) 02:50, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your message. The notifications shows that we're both in same thought to improve articles on Wikipedia. But I'd like to draw your attention to something important. The idea of discouraging "good-faith editors" from the platform is alarming. I've hardly seen where editors are praised for contributing well. Its been from one criticism to another when they mistakenly do something wrong. I think editors at all levels need to be encouraged to do better as most experts were once there.

This is my observation honestly. We can do better. Danielehisaiguokhian (talk) 04:23, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

We have offered plenty of constructive advice and guidance to editors attempting to improve the encyclopedia here. Frankly, your criticism is totally unwarranted. The edit-a-thon has produced a sizable mess, and we've been very patient so far. It should've been stopped or reconsidered earlier, and these are merely the minimum necessary measures we need to take to prevent disruption to the encyclopedia. That is the only reason why blocks are given, which you would know if you've consulted any of the links posted so far.

Given repeated warnings were given to editors beforehand and the competitive nature of why they are editing, it is totally expected that continued disruption would earn a temporary block, regardless of whether they were editing in good faith. Remsense ‥ 论 04:50, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your patience. I understand your point. So, what's the way forward now? Danielehisaiguokhian (talk) 04:55, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

There have been many points of advice already offered to editors in this thread. Remsense ‥ 论 04:57, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

It's okay. We'll work with it. Danielehisaiguokhian (talk) 05:04, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Great, yet another one states "my team are currently working on our mistakes" (and the previous message, "we made a few mistakes"), but is now threatening Remsense in a rather over the top fashion: "It was Remsense that defamed us and that is sacrilegious." and "If other experienced editors from those countries mentioned above sees this, Remsense won't find it funny again." This from an editor who has had countless of his recent edits reverted (not just the ones tagged as reverted, but also things like this or this or this dreadful one, changing "wire fence" to "wired fence" "because the tone there is a past tense."). This feels more and more like an elaborate group trolling us, instead of an actual effort to improve Wikipedia. Fram (talk) 13:47, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

That feels pretty bad to read, and if there's any way I could've gone about this as not to offer even a modicum of possibility for people to interpret my statements this way, I wish I had done that. It was pretty clear the group was at least mainly Nigerian when I originally posted, but given it was possible some editors could've been from elsewhere I chose not to be specific out of ignorance, but I see how that was taken the wrong way. The last thing I would want to do is make a group of editors from an egregiously underrepresented region onwiki feel like they shouldn't be contributing. Remsense ‥ 论 17:21, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@Remsense for what it's worth: I think you've been handling all of this remarkably well. I understand how you feel about risking discouraging editors from underrepresented regions on wiki to contribute, but here we are talking about a group of people whose main motivation seems to be using Wikipedia to break a Guinness World Record — so you have to put in balance {the possibility that some of these editors are going to stick around once they have obtained their medal} vs {the mess they created and the time they made everyone else waste to get this medal}. You've been extremely polite and helpful with these editors. If they get offended or put off contributing to Wikipedia, there was really nothing you could do about it. Cheers, Malparti (talk) 19:01, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

I just feel everyone is just angry or there's a misunderstanding which is normal when dealing with humans. What I feel is, instead of just going about telling new editors or blocking them when they go against the rules right away, there should be a better way to address it. Because, majority of new editors are really genuine and becoming perfect at something, one has to make mistakes. I think experienced editors should serve as a guide and not threats to new editors. This way, new editors would feel at home and really contribute to this community.

They may read the Manual of style several times and not understand it. But when they put to work the little they've learnt and are corrected or guided, they'll get it better. We all learn things differently.

This is what I feel.

Please, let's make Wikipedia a better place. Danielehisaiguokhian (talk) 17:51, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Again, we have warned the editors repeatedly, but the issue is they are all at once continuing to make disruptive edits. Temporary blocks are the only way to prevent further disruption to the encyclopedia in circumstances such as these. When there is an edit-a-thon, the incentive is to make edits quickly, which is the root of this entire problem. Remsense ‥ 论 17:56, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's why I declined to block all of you, like participants in this thread were asking for. Please do understand that the established editors who have raised the alarm here are feeling upset and harried, like I'm sure editathon participants have. Please, pick something other than copy editing - this isn't a task that English Wikipedia really needs done, to be perfectly honest - and try out the list of tasks I suggested at the top of this subheading. There are all kinds of things you can do here that we would really quite sincerely appreciate. -- asilvering (talk) 17:56, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

You have been "corrected or guided" countless times, but you don't "get it better". Just like from your colleagues in this discussion, we always get assurances of improvements, changes, learning, ... but everything continues as before. When you announced this edit-a-thon a month ago[5] you were "corrected and guided" by multiple editors: "Perhaps it would be wise to have the understanding first before attempting your task." "180 hours worth of edits like these will be a nightmare for other editors to put right!", "I would strongly suggest you forget about the Edit-a-thon and get a few thousand edits under your belt first." and "Please don't. Your contributions to date show a lack of understanding of Wikipedia guidelines". You replied "I'm really grateful to editors here, for helping me. Your suggestions are great and are helpful.", did nothing with any of the advice, and continued just like you wanted, with the disastrous results that were predicted. You are not interested in learning or taking advice. Fram (talk) 18:15, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

A major problem here, I think, is that guidelines can be learned relatively quickly, but the problem here is in large part one of English grammar competency. That takes years and years. The only advice that will work in this regard is to avoid trying to make copy edits. -- asilvering (talk) 18:22, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Hand-on-heart time. You guys have not got the English skills to write at this level. However there are Wikipedias in Nigerian languages that would love your help. Or, as suggested above, you could do things like add wikilinks which don't require this standard of English. Secretlondon (talk) 19:33, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Just to add that since (it seems) we live in the same city, I would be willing to visit this place and give them some guidance, if they are willing. Best, Reading Beans, Duke of Rivia 20:32, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@Reading Beans, they've been posting on Facebook ([6]), if you want to contact them there. -- asilvering (talk) 23:28, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Not on social media but this is a starting point. Thank Asilvering. Best, Reading Beans, Duke of Rivia 01:20, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

I've added some indications of the widespread scale of the ongoing issues at the list of users at the start of this section. Fram (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Guinness World Record

This was already noted above

It looks like this distruptive editing is connected to this ongoing Guinness World Record attempt. May we begin to ask why this was not disclosed here, given that this discussion has been ongoing for quite some time? Shoerack (talk) 22:41, 27 November 2024 (UTC) It was mentioned above by Yngvadottir.-- Ponyobons mots 22:44, 27 November 2024 (UTC) Oh... Thank you. I didn’t see that. Shoerack (talk) 22:46, 27 November 2024 (UTC) Thanks. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 01:13, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

They're still at it - what do we do?

See e.g. this and other edits by the same editor. They took a break for a few days and now continue their nonsense. GiantSnowman 16:40, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I may be really dense today, but the diff you've cited seems a good edit to me (except for the editor's forgetting to delete "was" before his change of "involved" to "appeared"), and I don't see why you felt compelled to revert it instead of fixing that one boo-boo. Deor (talk) 17:13, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

There's only so much patience that can be extended to people so thoroughly warned and encouraged to do literally anything else. -- asilvering (talk) 18:24, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Some of the wording was worse, some was the same - none was better. GiantSnowman 13:05, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Specifically, it's a matter of scale as well. When an editor is expressly campaigning to effect changes across many different articles, it becomes reasonable to treat what would be individual JUSTFIXIT cases in this way, as the burden for correction is almost immediately multiplied past the threshold one can reasonably expect of others who want to prevent programmatic damage to the encyclopedia. Remsense ‥ 论 19:29, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

In this broad case, I think "damage to the encyclopedia" is a bit strong for the kind of edits involved. Most of them fall on a spectrum from "crap" to "meh", with some others that extend the spectrum to "fine", but there are vanishingly few actually "good" edits (see @LEvalyn's doomed attempt to award barnstars upthread). The issue is more in terms of opportunity cost (other editors feeling compelled to spend their time fixing the edits) and scale/intent.

At this point, the editathon is over, and the editors we'd already found appear to have moved on. If we come across someone whose name wasn't already on the list who is making the same kinds of edits, I think we ought to treat them with the maximum benefit of the doubt, as though they're an unrelated new editor, though now we have all this discussion here to point them to for the purpose of explaining why we think they should edit differently. If we end up with another editathon-sized swarm, I'd reconsider. -- asilvering (talk) 19:55, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I understand why "damage" is seen as a bit strong, but I suppose I'm using it in its broadest sense. This isn't mass hoaxing, copyvio, or POV pushing, but it is reproducing the same species of errors across many articles. Remsense ‥ 论 19:58, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

If the editathon is over, these should be handled on a case-by-case basis as any other new editors. If we can get them to do better, we've gained new actual editors who aren't just here to help win a prize. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 21:42, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Sure. What I said refers in the most general sense to any high-volume editor. Remsense ‥ 论 21:44, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I've dropped a welcome template. If they are continuing as individual editors without the external factor of group editing for a record, it seems they may be genuinely interested in contributing. Given the flow of edits outside an editathon should be slower, there should be space to handle things a bit more delicately. CMD (talk) 12:56, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Are we sure the editathon has stopped? GiantSnowman 15:49, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes. They've declared victory in a FB post I won't share because it comes from a personal account. I was surprised to see it, since I thought the editathon was scheduled to go until Dec 2 (the post predates that), and they'd gone so quiet I'd thought they might have given up. -- asilvering (talk) 15:52, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

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

Editor possibly gaming the system

Can an admin have a look at this user's edits? With this account over 30 days old I suspect they may be deliberately trying to get to 500 edits with their low effort contributions, though I'm not what their intentions will be once they "achieve" that target. A^♭m ^(Ring!) _(Notes) 08:39, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

User:Abminor, you have to notify the editor of this discussion. There are notices everywhere on this page and on the edit notice. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 09:16, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Ah, sorry. I've done that now. A^♭m ^(Ring!) _(Notes) 09:44, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Assembly theory is EC protected. Maybe that is their destination. Sean.hoyland (talk) 09:51, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Looking at their contributions, they are clearly gaming the system. Just a series of 1 byte edits. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:44, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

They are at 411 edits. I've let them know that extended confirmed status will be removed if they continue with these meaningless edits. In fact, even if they get to 500 edits soon, we should consider removing this status until they achieved 500 meaningful edits to the project. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:49, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Assembly theory is a mess - two sets of competing sock accounts, one with WP:COI in favor and the other connected to a paid editing farm boosting blog posts by critics. I cleaned up the worst of the blog stuff from the article and got called a vandal by JulioISalazarG for my trouble. Article could certainly use more watchlisting. MrOllie (talk) 05:12, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Vandal? Rude. They could have said you chose the wrong path in the assembly space of the article. A kinder, but much more confusing personal attack. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:58, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1153#Sock/meat-puppetry and COI concerns regarding User:Guswen and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Guswen for some of the past drama concerning this article. JulioISalazarG was listed (but judged not a sockpuppet of Guswen) at that SPI. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:41, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

They have now hit a little over 500 edits and, predictably, started editing assembly theory. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:52, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

After the warning, they switched from the 1 byte edits to what looks like semi-automated grammar checker edits. Still not substantive stuff. MrOllie (talk) 17:32, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I have checked three of their edits where they added references. I have had to revert three edits [7][8][9]. I suspect that they are throwing words into a search engine and grabbing papers that sound relevant without reading them. XOR'easter (talk) 21:44, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Make that four edits. XOR'easter (talk) 01:43, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

No, five. This is beyond just gaming the system for EC status; it's disruptive editing. XOR'easter (talk) 01:49, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I have looked at several of these edits now and undone most of the ones I looked at. Their choice of references to add appears haphazard at best, and totally irrelevant in some cases. It does not give me confidence that they understood the topics that they were editing and actually read the references they were adding. Regardless of the separate issue of gaming the system to gain EC status, this bad referencing needs to stop. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:39, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I've evaluated seven edits now, and they've all been bad. There are ... forty I have yet to look at. This is giving me Doug Coldwell flashbacks. I would support presumptively reverting all of their "citation" additions. XOR'easter (talk) 04:04, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi, quick comment to add that I've come across them on newcomer CE tasks & saw that they've been changing correct, direct links to disambiguation pages. I'm trying to repair any that haven't been fixed by others, luckily I think it's just the one I came across originally. I've got to go to work shortly, but I'll take another look later on if no-one else has the chance to. I've also not added a warning since they're already on here & I don't want to accidentally pile-on. Blue-Sonnet (talk) 07:53, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I removed extended-confirmed status from this user. I have yet another concern with their edits: in Special:Diff/1261277848, they appear to have moved on from bad referencing to using AI tools to generate more-promotionally-worded variants of article text. It would be helpful if they could explain their edits here rather than remaining silent. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Special:Diff/1261654993 has a similar feel, taking a bland stub and turning it into a travel brochure.

Can we just roll back all of their mainspace edits since Special:Diff/1260713600? I don't like having to suggest that, but with three different kinds of problematic/disruptive editing going on, I don't know what else would be feasible. XOR'easter (talk) 00:31, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Most of the edits I've looked at have been masked by subsequent edits by other editors that make undo or rollback impossible and manual editing necessary instead. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:22, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, I stopped after checking the first fifty since they've been mostly fixed by subsequent newcomer CE editors & it was getting pretty complicated. I've also left the citations alone since I'm nowhere near experienced enough in that area - for now I'm off back to gnoming & will leave this in your capable hands! Blue-Sonnet (talk) 15:20, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

I've been going through many more of these edits and finding very little worth saving. Along with the other problematic editing patterns listed above, we can add one more: falsified edit summaries (in Special:Diff/1260730531 the changes are not spelling corrections). —David Eppstein (talk) 06:31, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Assembly Theory isn't covered by contentious topics (unless I missed it?) so there's no instaban available here, but we can certainly pursue community consensus for some sort of ban. I wouldn't be opposed to a site ban but at the least I think we should impose an article ban for JulioISalazarG on the Assembly theory article. WaggersTALK 15:40, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

I was somewhat confused this evening to discover that user JulioISalazarG no longer exists. Instead their many edits are now credited to DrBorgI (talk · contribs). I do not know under what process that may have happened, and there are still no new edits since December 6, but on the assumption that this name change means a likely resumption of edits, DrBorgI is invited to explain their behavior here. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:15, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Account was globally renamed on December 12. Risker (talk) 06:28, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

It's still Dec 11 here, but ok. I will note that m:Global rename policy requires the old name to be visibly linked to the new one and that renames are not allowed when they are intended "to conceal or obfuscate bad conduct". —David Eppstein (talk) 06:31, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I stumbled on this discussion while looking at User:JulioISalazarG's edits on Liaden universe, and wanted to point out similar editing behavior on the part of User:Vikiemoney. Could someone please take a look? · rodii · 18:21, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

That editor became extended confirmed a couple of years ago. Have they edited any page for which they need that right? Phil Bridger (talk) 18:46, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

You didn't post a message to that editor's talk page. I have done so for you. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:53, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks I guess? I'm not accusing that editor of anything specifically, just hoping to get someone more experienced with this issue to take a look. Very possibly it's completely innocent. · rodii · 22:56, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I think they should be told not to make useless edits that clog up other editors' watchlists, but because they are already EC there is no larger issue to be concerned about and I don't think any greater sanction is warranted. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:40, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

ZebulonMorn

Hi, ZebulonMorn (talk · contribs) has ignored continual warnings on a range of topics (manual of style in military icons, minor edit purpose, citing sources, and more recently has ignored consensus on a NPOV on a BLP article). Request admin intervention. --Engineerchange (talk) 21:01, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

@Engineerchange: can you provide the community with examples linked with WP:DIF's? Thanks. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 03:50, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

@Deepfriedokra: Some examples:

- Manual of style on military icons: [10], [11], [12], [13] (each of these edits are after the last warning on their talk page on Nov 29)

- Minor edit tag: [14], [15], [16], [17] (each from the last couple days)

- NPOV about BLP: [18], [19], [20] (user ignored feedback on their talk page and the page's talk page and has continued edit warring)

- not citing sources or adding info w/o support: [21], [22], [23], [24]

Hope this helps, --Engineerchange (talk) 05:29, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

• I've made several changes to the articles ZM's added to. I would concur that this is POV pushing and it appears he opposes this Sheriff. I have no strong opinions on this individual, but at least some of the claims that he's made are not supported by WP:RS and are in violation of that policy as well as WP:BLP. If it continues, a block to get the point across would be appropriate. Buffs (talk) 01:01, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

  ZM has continued to add negative/defamatory material about this individual against the general consensus of the editors involved. At this point, ZM, you need to use the talk page to come to a consensus. Otherwise, I support WP:PARTIALBLOCK as suggested by Deepfriedokra for further edits on this page. In addition, ZM has uploaded a CLEARLY copyrighted image straight from twitter and released it under a false license. At this point, ZM's attempt seems to be to besmirch the sheriff (no idea on the motive here). In Any case, a full block would be acceptable as well under WP:NOTHERE. Buffs (talk) 23:22, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  @Buffs: I obviously don't know ZM's personal motivations, but for a history of the threats and attacks made against Chitwood during his tenure, please see [25][26][27]. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 15:42, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

• My inclination is a WP:PARTIALBLOCK from article space that can be unblocked if they answer here.-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 09:32, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

  Hey! I'm getting in touch with you about a notice. Editing pages is pretty easy, but I'm still figuring out how to navigate the rest, so I'm sorry I put it in the talk page first. I've seen notices and some complaints, so first I should say nothing is intentionally nefarious. As far as the military edits go, I've figured that out, based on MOS:ICONDECORATION and MOS:FLAGCRUFT, so I've since ceased. I'm originally from Volusia and still technically have my residency there, so I do feel responsible and knowledgeable about the topics, however, after overwhelming pushback, I was clearly wrong. I don't work for any politicians nor am I associated with any, but there are people I find interesting and think have made an impact locally and should be included, but I get that requires a certain threshold and I was turned down. I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble or get myself blocked. Ignore all rules was the tongue-in-cheek philosophy until the past few days or so and I haven't had any serious issues that I'm aware of since. I've made many edits since and most have been checked by Eyer. Happy to answer anything else if needed! ZebulonMorn (talk) 02:22, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

• Two questions for ZebulonMorn: 1) Do you have any personal connection to John Flemm (who you wrote a draft about which you then blanked and for some reason moved to Draft:John) or any other politicians in Volusia County, Florida? 2) Is there a reason that your userpage largely copies Eyer's, including the userbox saying how long you've been an editor? (This isn't an accusation of anything against Eyer, to be clear.) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 18:35, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  Something about mimicry and flattery, I guess? I'm curious to hear @ZebulonMorn's answer, too. —Eyer (he/him) If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message. 18:55, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  Noting I have declined G7 on the draft because it is relevant to ongoing discussion here. No objection to G7 once discussion concludes. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 18:58, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  Not an admin, but I was involved in previous discussions on the person's talk page, so is it acceptable for me to comment?

  The user in question has now deleted all past discussions on their talk page. I agree with above complaints that the user should at least be subjected to a partial block from editing articles about any Central Florida government officials. While Chitwood is the most egregious case, this user's entire edit history involves similar types of edits using unreliable sources in order to commit violations of WP:LP. The Chitwood article is not the only problem here, with this same user pushing a POV in the following edit [28] (a "minor" edit?) which had already been removed and reverted [29]. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 02:46, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

  I would concur. Buffs (talk) 21:08, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

My issues with ZM have been his lack of edit summaries and the unwillingness to engage in discussion with multiple editors who warned him on his talk page, which recently appeared as this until he scrubbed the content without responding. Just today, he made this "minor edit"[30] under his own self-stated rationale that "Ignore all rules was the tongue-in-cheek philosophy" that he was editing, under, supposedly "until the past few days" but it never should have come this far.

@ZebulonMorn has made a lot of messes for other editors to clean up, which he is unwilling even to talk about, let alone go back and fix, even after being asked multiple times to fix his mistakes. A Full Block is warranted. BBQboffin^{grill me} 03:47, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry I was unclear on the use of "minor edit', I really didn't think it was too far, but I know better know. As far as that edit is concerned, was any of the information improperly sourced or unimportant? It hasn't been edited other than de-capitalization. I thought it was a good contribution that was similar other information under different offices. I'm really not trying to create "a lot of messes", I'm genuinely trying to contribute. As far as the engaging, that's my bad. I was still learning to figure out how to navigate wiki, but I've gotten better now. I'm not "unwilling" to talk though, I was trying to respond on talk pages for a couple days before I figured out this was the correct location, again my bad. I think a full block seems extreme, but that's not for me to decide. ZebulonMorn (talk) 04:08, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

And, as I posted on your talk page before you ignored my comment and deleted it, please review our policies such as WP:OVERLINK. In this edit[31] for example, capitalizing words like "marketing", "full-time", "landscaping", "lifeguard", etc. are unnecessary. Cleaning up your messes like this and this takes time and effort. When another editor cites a rule that you broke, please read the rule and learn it, instead of joking about "ignore all rules" and making the same violation a dozen more times. BBQboffin^{grill me} 16:39, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Capitalization errors are clearly non-malicious edits and ignore all the rules, while tongue-in-cheek, is still official wiki policy. I've made over 1,000 edits, most of which remain unedited. If this is really the standard for a "full block", there's no point in anyone new genuinely attempting to edit wiki if they're blocked for capitalization mistakes.

Again, I apologize for not understanding what the discussion pages were and the lack of communication. Obviously, that's not the case anymore. ZebulonMorn (talk) 18:13, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

ZebulonMorn, can you respond to Tamzin's questions above? Spicy (talk) 21:44, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Hello! My response to Deefriedokra was kind of an amalgamation response to a few of the questions from people. I believe it was answered there, but if there is anything more specific I'm happy to answer. ZebulonMorn (talk) 21:50, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

"Ignore all rules", in full, says; If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. It does not mean that you can just do whatever you like. If other editors do not agree that your edit improved Wikipedia, or was necessary for maintenance, then it is not protected by "Ignore all rules." It does not excuse careless editing or flouting of policies and guidelines. Donald Albury 01:57, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

It's been a week. Could an admin be so kind as to weigh in here? Regardless of your conclusion ZM doesn't deserve to have this hanging over his head indefinitely. Buffs (talk) 15:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Invitation to a bit of RCP

This has been announced elsewhere, but a rate-limited Newcomer Task for adding wikilinks based on machine learning suggestions has begun phased rollout following an RFC (involved as proposer; subsequently forgot).

Page watchers here may be interested in occasional checkins on Special:RecentChanges as filtered for the applicable tag (link kindly provided by asilvering at here). Manual assessment of the added links will help the community determine appropriate levels of reassurance / alarm. Folly Mox (talk) 13:05, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

When I checked these early on, they were universally good or at least "yeah sure, whatever" levels, but then we discovered that it had given the task out to 2% of all people with the homepage, not 2% of all new signups. So my conclusions based on that are 1) wow, experienced users use the newcomer homepage a lot more than I would have expected, and 2) it's probably pretty close to the right level of specificity. I've checked in a couple of times since then, but much less systematically, and found a few bad links. Newbies make bad links pretty often so I'm not sure that's cause for alarm, but if it's a systematic problem, we can tell the algo to get less creative.

So far it looks like new users really like this task! I'm stoked. -- asilvering (talk) 16:42, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

@Asilvering -- Do we know how much established users utilize the tool? I vaguely remember fiddling with it for a few minutes several months ago, and I'd guess others have done the same. JayCubby 01:17, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

@JayCubby, what tool do you mean? This one has only just arrived on en-wiki, though you might have played with it elsewhere? It's available to everyone on simple-wiki I think. If you just mean the newcomer homepage... no idea. You'd have to come up with a specific stat you were interested in and ask Growth if they log those numbers. -- asilvering (talk) 02:56, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

You're right, I muddled the two. JayCubby 12:49, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I just took my own advice and had another look at the RecentChanges tag, clicking through to sixteen diffs comprising 36 added wikilinks. Most actually made sense, although the proportion of "sure i guess" is a little bit higher than optimal. I reverted two links, both linking country names in the middle of sequences of multiple country names, which in addition to violating MOS:OL also makes them stylistically awkward (which I'm experiencing a lot of trouble believing is spelt correctly).

Somehow, I do remember warning about potential OL violations in an earlier conversation at Wikipedia talk:Growth Team features/Archive 7 § Usefulness of "Add links" task? (October 2023), but no exclusion list seems to have been implemented. Maybe we can try to convince Growth to add one before the rollout is expanded much further? Folly Mox (talk) 11:48, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

@Folly Mox, what do you have in mind as an "exclusion list"? Something like a list of country names, which we'd then prevent the task from suggesting to users? -- asilvering (talk) 15:42, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I should add that I think if we tell the algo to get less creative, it's my expectation that we would get more of this kind of linking happening, since I assume the outcome would be to aim it to more common words. But I have no idea what's actually behind that number, eg, is it "links that tend to get reverted less often" (great! nevermind!) or is it "links that exist on the encyclopedia in higher numbers" (probably terrible! my expectation). -- asilvering (talk) 15:45, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

The list I suggested last year was the one already in use at User:Ohconfucius/script/Common Terms.js, which is rather unfortunately formatted as hundreds of regex function calls, but fully compliant with MOS:OL. (I happen to feel that removing links to all subnational political divisions and major international cities is overzealous as applied by the user script here, but I think not suggesting them is wholly acceptable.)

I do feel like I remember seeing somewhere that years and units of measurement were programmed never to be suggested. As a minimum shippable prototype I'd begin with a list of all UN member states. Presumably the algorithm is trained not to suggest linking basic ass vocabulary like human and forest.

Having forgotten even of the existence of a "creativity" parameter, I'll have to do some reading to form an opinion about it, but on the off chance that turning it up increases slightly inaccurate niche suggestions and decreases boring VA1, first two months of language learning vocab style topics, I'd be in favour. Folly Mox (talk) 16:43, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Before you confuse any WMF staff with my unclear wording, I went to the community config to check what it's actually called: "Minimum required link score". The only documentation there is Minimum confidence threshold for link suggestions. This field requires a percentage in its decimal form, so the number should be between 0 and 1. If you increase the number, the suggestions presented to the end user will have a higher likelihood of being good suggestions, however fewer suggestions will be available. If you decrease the number, there will be more suggestions available but some will have a lower likelihood of being good quality suggestions. I haven't gone digging to see if there's anything more illuminating available elsewhere. -- asilvering (talk) 18:39, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I think English Wikipedia would most benefit from a value at the higher end of the scale here. We have tons of articles, including very specific topics. There should always be both of: good suggestions and articles that the algorithm can add to the task pool. That is, we have no shortage of either articles to link to or link from, probably to a greater degree than any other project in the ecosystem other than Wiktionaries. Folly Mox (talk) 13:44, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

@Folly Mox that's assuming that "good suggestions" means "what en-wiki editors think are good suggestions", and I don't know that that's true. Worth fooling around with once we have a higher % of editors on the test though, for sure. -- asilvering (talk) 00:28, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out that assumption, which I hadn't really noticed myself assuming.

I found some more documentation linked from :mw:Growth/Personalized first day/Structured tasks/Add a link § Engineering. It looks like the variable we're discussing affects precision and recall – Pattern-recognition performance metrics. There's a more detailed writeup at meta:Research:Link recommendation model for add-a-link structured task, and a white paper on the model at Gerlach, Martin; Miller, Marshall; Ho, Rita; Harlan, Kosta; Difallah, Djellel. (2021) "A Multilingual Entity Linking System for Wikipedia with a Machine-in-the-Loop Approach". arXiv: 2105.15110 The most relevant sections are 5.2–5.4.

I do still think that, given this software is designed to scale across all language Wikipedias, the largest Wikipedia should be able to afford a very high Minimum required link score. Folly Mox (talk) 12:07, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Although if this works like I imagine it does, we might be a good test case for a very low precision parameter. In some cases we may want lower confidence links. If the algorithm decides to link something in the string "Nigerian politician", it might be dead certain on "[[Nigeria|Nigerian]] politician" and "Nigerian [[politician]]", both clear MOS:OL violations, and less confident about "[[Politics of Nigeria|Nigerian politician]]", which would be overwhelmingly preferable to everyone here if a link were to be added. Folly Mox (talk) 17:18, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

To reply to myself yet again, the rollout and rate limit are strict enough that all edits of this kind can be reasonably reviewed by one or two editors. I checked all of these since my previous look, reverting one link and retargetting another. In both of these cases, the (very new) editors should have rejected the suggestion; I don't really blame the algorithm for suggesting them.

One extremely promising phenomenon I noted is that in two cases, editors who added suggested links subse­quently made unprompted copyedits to the article (although the second case wasn't really an improvement, it does support the hypothesis that accepting link sugge­stions can act as a gateway drug).

The single instance of poor model behaviour I saw this batch is reflected at Special:Diff/1261717277, where it makes the suggestion (accepted by the newcomer) to append a third consecutive wikilink to an existing pair of consecutive wikilinks in violation of MOS:SOB. The target is fine and linking it is reasonable, but the placement should not have been suggested.

Something this model seems to do really well is choose articles to add outlinks into. I wish we could use that bit of it for the copyedit task as well: a lot of our articles are underdeveloped and unmaintained, and would benefit from additional review, even by newcomers unfamiliar with our guidelines. But the cleanup templates we throw onto articles (which add the articles to the task pool) typically signify experienced editors having given up on addressing the problem noted, and usually outmatch the skillsets and knowhow of fresh newcomers. Just pointing them at the articles I'm seeing targetted by the Suggested Links algorithm might make for a better introduction to editing (exceptions noted). Folly Mox (talk) 11:23, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Agree with the above. -- asilvering (talk) 14:04, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Honestly the problem with that "poor model behavior" diff isn't the model, it's that the article has three technical terms in a row and needs recasting to remove that. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 18:01, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

RfC closure review request at Talk:Rajiv Dixit#RFC can we say he peddaled false hoods in the lede

Rajiv Dixit (talk|edit|history|logs|links|cache|watch) (RfC closure in question) (Discussion with closer)

Closer: Compassionate727 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Notified: [32]

Reasoning: This topic is about Rajiv Dixit, who was noted for spreading disinformation and was a conspiracy theorist. He claimed that 9/11 was an inside job, promoted Ayurveda, recommended cow urine, just to name a few.

The RfC happened over the inclusion of the sentence which noted the nature of him making such false claims. The vote count was split but the opposers were entirely problematic.

1 oppose was outright meaningless,[33] claiming that the subject is a WP:BLP despite it has been more than 14 years that the subject is dead. 2 of the opposers only demanded more context[34] [35](further explanation) which was provided with this edit. The remaining 2 opposes[36][37] only falsely claimed that the cited sources are unreliable without providing any evidence of unreliability, nor did they refute the information supported by these reliable sources.

The RSN discussion where nobody agreed if the concerning sources are unreliable. If the discussion had to be initiated today, then still nobody would seriously agree if the cited sources are unreliable.

Compassionate727 has failed to address any of these issues with their problematic closure. This closure should be overturned. - Ratnahastin (talk) 17:44, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Non-participants(Rajiv Dixit)

• Endorse Frankly, this challenge is very, very, very weak. It should be withdrawn immediately. Good close. Nemov (talk) 19:51, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse closer correctly identified the arguments that had worth and discarded those that did not. No-one seriously refuted Hipal's penetrating argument. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:36, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn - The RfC was not the right place for disputing the 2 highly cited sources[38][39] as unreliable. We have WP:RSN for it. Given the RSN thread failed to prove the sources as unreliable, the RfC had to be focused on the authenticity or the weight of the information. The closer had to close in favor of the inclusion since nobody disputed the authenticity or the importance of the information. ArvindPalaskar (talk) 02:33, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  The RSN thread only received participation from three people, all of whom also participated in this discussion, and it discussed the sources less thoroughly than this discussion did. There is no policy anywhere saying that the reliability of sources may only be discussed at RSN. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 00:39, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

  What are you talking about? Everyone knows you can only discuss BLPs at WP:BLPN, original research only at WP:NORN, neutrality only at WP:NPOVN, the MOS only at WT:MOS! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 03:43, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

  @Compassionate727 When the sources have been widely used throughout Wikipedia and there is not a single valid reason to term them as unreliable then you must use only WP:RSN for discussion. Your supervote on the RfC contradicts this practice. ArvindPalaskar (talk) 15:38, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

  @Compassionate727 When the sources have been widely used throughout Wikipedia and there is not a single valid reason to term them as unreliable then you must use only WP:RSN for discussion. Your supervote on the RfC contradicts this practice. ArvindPalaskar (talk) 15:43, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

  I can't comment on how the source is being used elsewhere, and this discussion wasn't about that. It was about, in the part that proved most salient, whether the two sources were sufficiently reliable for a particular claim in a particular article. A source may be sufficiently reliable for some claims and not for others, so it is perfectly reasonable to discuss a source's reliability in the context of particular claims, and the relevant article's talk page is a perfectly reasonable forum for such a discussion.

  Arguments that the cited sources were not sufficiently reliable for a claim that Dixit "is known for spreading disinformation" were discussed extensively. I pointed to them on my talk page, and they have been cited by participants here. Your and others' continued insistence that there is not a single valid reason to doubt their reliability, without any attempt to address why the reasons that were given aren't compelling, strikes as WP:IDHT behavior. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 18:11, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse, reasonable close based on evaluating participation. As additional commentary, it doesn't seem the most useful RfC. The lead is only 58 words, adding something vague is not going to help it much. A more developed lead may be able to present the information at hand in context. CMD (talk) 03:18, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn and reopen. The consensus claimed by the closer does not appear to reflect the overall sense of the discussion. No opinions on the actual merits. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:19, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn - It was inappropriate to smear the reliable sources as unreliable when they are only reporting about the examples of fake news promoted by the conspiracy theorist in question. Even more inappropriate was the closure who endorsed such an invalid view without looking into the contrary views that easily outweighed the former. No issue with reopening. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 10:31, 6 December 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse Upon reviewing the discussions, I observe multiple missed opportunities to provide substantial arguments to justify the inclusion of the sources in question. Whether in the lead, the body (or both), if the sources are not reliable, the content cannot be incorporated into the article. Case closed. LeónGonsalvesofGoa (talk) 04:09, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn and reopen per David Eppstein ArvindPalaskar. The closure does seem to be a supervote and has failed to analyze the consensus which was absolutely not in favor of exclusion. Dympies (talk) 14:53, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn and reopen - A one-sided closure mostly based on problematic/debunked opinions cannot be a valid closure. Lorstaking (talk) 02:47, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Participants(Rajiv Dixit)

• Overturn - The closure was nothing more than a brief WP:SUPERVOTE. Capitals00 (talk) 17:50, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse, I agree with Nemov in that this is a very weak challenge. Ratnahastin just wants to re-litigate and re-argue the RfC, that's not what challenges are for. Good close. Isaidnoway (talk) 03:50, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Discussion(Rajiv Dixit)

• I'm very puzzled. A lead is an introduction to an article and a summary of its most important contents. The sentence addressed in the RfC He was also noted for spreading false claims is not reflective of anything in the body of the article. Why even debate that for the lead without discussing whether something should be in the body about the claims? — rsjaffe 🗣️ 03:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  @Rsjaffe: See this section at that time of the RfC. It did have enough details about Rajiv Dixit pioneering the trend of fake news in India and the article also cited the examples where he spread disinformation. - Ratnahastin (talk) 04:16, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  What I'm getting at is the RfC asked the wrong question. The arguments were not about the suitability of the lede, but about the suitability of stating anywhere in the article that Dixit spread false claims. The current version of the article reflects that. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 04:26, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  No. It was about the lead as clearly described by Slatersteven by saying "Simple enough can we say "He was also noted for spreading false claims." in the lede or words to that effect?"[40] - Ratnahastin (talk) 05:20, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  That's rsjaffe's point: the phrasing of the RFC, focusing on the lede, was a mistake. It's clear that there's still arguments whether such a statement should be in the article at all, and that needs to be resolved before we can do anything about the lede. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:32, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

  I agree with @Rsjaffe & @HandThatFeeds, RfC should have focused on the content, not the lead. Regardless, the conclusion remains the same - these sources in question do not merit inclusion in the article. LeónGonsalvesofGoa (talk) 04:13, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

  It makes no sense to question the RfC which was focused on lead over the sentence which was completely in line with MOS:LEAD. Nobody did that when the RfC was opened for months. Capitals00 (talk) 15:28, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

  Curious. My understanding of reopening this matter here is to gain fresh perspectives, so the fact that nobody questioned the RfC while it was active seems irrelevant. What’s more telling is that the original arguments raised against the inclusion of the content have yet to be addressed as pointed out by @Compassionate727 [41]. LeónGonsalvesofGoa (talk) 05:50, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

  The purpose of this thread is to discuss the closure of the RfC and it makes no sense to discuss the irrelevant. That response by Compassionate727 reads nothing more than a lame attempt to have the last word that's why nobody can take it any seriously. There was no concern over the cited sources. Capitals00 (talk) 03:55, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Orange Mike and the block button....again

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

---

Orangemike (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

We were here about this a few months ago: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive363#Block review User:Jamiesonandy I'm fairly certain there are a few older threads about basically this same issue as well, I've found this one from twelve years ago:Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive235#Orange_Mike, and I recall speaking to Mike on his talk page in the past about why he seems to block users hours after other admins clearly decided not do so, I'll see if I can't dig those up.

Here's one: Me bringing up another super agressive block thirteen years ago. Me questiong why he was rapidly overtuning my admin decisions fourteen years ago, to which he did not reply.

And from last month, Mike accusing a new user of socking when they were soft blocked and explicitly told it was ok to just make a new account. The help desk recent edit history is quite a mess but I distinctly recall he he referred to them as a "smelly sock" in his edit summary.

Basically, the issue is that Mike will come very late into a situation that has already been addressed by another admin, the user has made no edits in the meantime, and Mike will just show up and issue and indef block anyway. It seems like Mike likes to substitute his own harsh judgement of new users over the judgement of other admins, and this has been an issue for a very long time. I don't think Mike is acting in bad faith, rather he hastily assumes it in others, based on very little evidence, in this case one single now-deleted edit made eighteen hours earlier. Mike issued an indef NOTHERE block for that. The edit was bad, the creation of a very spammy talk page, but I deleted it last night and left a notice on the user's talk pages, and they had not edited again.

I am not asking for a review of this specific block as I have already overturned it, but these concerns have brought to Mike's attention by myself and others and it seems like what we get every time is some version of "if there's a consensus I'm wrong I guess will accept that, even though I'm totally not wrong." I'm also notifying @Floquenbeam: as they have tried to intervene/mitigate this issue in the past incidents above. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 19:44, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Re edit summary: It was "I smell socksweat". SerialNumber54129 20:37, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

For those sane enough to have avoided adminship, the deleted userpage read if you are have problem such subpoena on highcourt of state call me ,Emergency Call Center and then a phone number. I wouldn't object if an admin blocked for that in the first instance, but also think that an admin's decision not to block for something should generally be respected. (I was just talking with JBW about this on my talk, about how there's no explicit protection for the inverse of WP:RAAA. I think we both agreed that, written policy or not, the standard for blocking notwithstanding a no-block ought to be something along the lines of "no-block was a serious error in judgment".) So I agree that Orangemike should not have blocked here, especially given past threads on the matter. That's also colored by my experience with Aryanoboi two years ago. Orangemike blocked that account half an hour after I declined a UAA report on the basis that "Aryan" isn't always a Nazi thing and there's at least one person named "Aryan Oboi"; I posted to Orangemike's talk about this but got no response.

Given the multiple threads on this, I can't help but think: We just had someone who's a great guy and was a generally good administrator get desysopped because he only offered to step away from blocking when it was too little, too late. Orangemike does lots of good work here, both as a content editor and in other administrative capacities. Maybe now would be a good time for Mike to recognize that username blocks, or maybe blocks of new editors in general, just aren't his strong suit. I had the same realization a few years ago myself regarding complex edit wars, and it turned out to be a great decision to just not deal with those. And the nice thing about voluntarily stepping away from an administrative area is that there doesn't need to be a bright line like with a TBAN. You can use some common sense here and there. But recognizing one's strengths and weaknesses is an important part of being a good admin. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 20:56, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

To kind of summarize my long opening post, I think the issue here is assuming new users are acting in bad faith as opposed to simple lack of understanding what Wikipedia is and is not. And as you say, very much like what we've seen in recent events that I would've hoped other admins had learned from as well.

It's also frankly just rude to have someone occasionally basically saying "my judgement is better than yours, your decision is therefore overruled" for nearly fifteen years. I'm pretty over it. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 22:13, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I've not seen problems with SPAMU blocks. Did I just miss them? Anyway, there are plenty of things admins can do apart from blocking. WP:PERMS comes to mind. Perhaps venture into those areas? I've needed to redefine myself a couple of times as the needs of Wikipedia have changed. This may be an opportunity for growth. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 13:37, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

It's been clear to me for some time that I have a more severe attitude towards accounts which seem to me to be obvious spammers and NOTHERE than some other admins and editors. If my colleagues (and I respect many of the participants in this thread) really feel it's becoming problematical, I will take the username page off my watch list and only respond when asked to by other editors. Far be it for a Quaker like myself to go against what seems to be a consensus. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:54, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I have done so. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I think that's for the best. Part of what I have tried to express to you over the many years that this has been going on is that at a certain point it starts to feel personally insulting to have another admin repeatedly come in and basically dismiss your decisions and substitute their own. So, it isn't just bad blocks, which is bad enough, but also disrespecting your colleagues and their ability to make decisions. Becoming problematical is a heck of an understatement for something that's being brought up repeatedly for over a decade, but if you're willing to back away from these type of blocks that should finally resolve it. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 19:08, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, @Orangemike. Hold the newcomers in the Light. The spammers and sockpuppets can't help themselves and will trip on their own feet eventually. -- asilvering (talk) 19:09, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

No comment on the issue itself, but when someone expresses a concern, taking a step back to consider is a really good response. Valereee (talk) 19:10, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

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

Appeal of my topic ban

TL;DR: on (roughly) the 20th anniversary of joining en.wiki, I'm appealing my years-long topic ban from BLPs.

After creating thousands of biographies (mainly of New Zealanders and/or academics) over more than a decade, on 25 Sept 2021 I created or expanded Kendall Clements, Garth Cooper, Michael Corballis, Doug Elliffe, Robert Nola, Elizabeth Rata, and John Werry with material on a then-current race controversy. I then continued editing as normal. Several months later (April '22) an editor raised issues with my edits of that day and I escalated to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1096#Drama_at_Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard. After much discussion I received an indefinite topic ban from BLPs:

Stuartyeates is indefinitely topic banned from the subject area of biographies of living persons, broadly construed. (see Wikipedia:Editing restrictions/Placed by the Wikipedia community).

Since the topic ban I've done some editing of en.wiki (>2,000 edits, some patrols and some barnstars), but I've been mainly active on wikidata (>60,000 edits, no barnstars).

I accidentally broke the topic ban a couple of times as exemplified by my recent edits to John Dennison: I noticed a mistake on wikidata that was sourced to en.wiki; I fixed wikidata and then en.wiki before realising I wasn't allowed to make that edit and self-reverted (still not fixed on en.wiki at the time of writing). The first time this happened I reported it to the closing admin who indicated that if I caught myself and reverted it wasn't a problem (see User_talk:Swarm/Archive_21).

I'll readily admit that I went harder than I should have on 25 Sept 2021. I a non-BLP for the controversy was the right option. Mouthing off on twitter was the wrong option. I feel that I've done my time for what was clearly a one-off. If the topic ban is removed I'll not repeat that.

Full disclosure: I was involved in Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Department of Corrections (New Zealand) and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Stuartyeates/Archive. I have previous appealled this topic ban at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive347#Appeal_my_topic_ban_from_BLPs. The discussion at User_talk:"Fish_&_Chip"_flavoured_ice_cream#block_appeal may also be relevant.

It is my intention to notify Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board of this appeal, since all this is New Zealand-related and I have a long history with those folks. I'll also be notifying the closing admin. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:39, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Comments by uninvolved editors

Support unbanning. A single accidental mistake on a different wiki wouldn't violate topic ban on the ENWP slightly. Making BLPs is a risky task, I just made some BLPs which are a translation from RUWP, but one of them is nominated for deletion. Just be careful of the text and use sources carefully. Ahri Boy (talk) 11:10, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Comment @Stuartyeates: You've glossed over having deliberately violated WP:BLP as part of a disagreement with others. (Per @Jayron32 and Cullen328:'s opposes in last appeal.)-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 13:18, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

• I would want to hear from the other involved editors before endorsing a complete lifting of the restriction, but I will suggest limiting the restriction to "race/ethnicity topics involving living people"; that should ensure that Wikidata-related edits do not inadvertently violate a ban. Walsh90210 (talk) 20:51, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
• Support lifting the ban or limiting it to the restriction suggested above, per my comments at the previous appeal. The ban seemed overbroad to me in the first place: yes, the conduct was egregious, but the remedy was not tailored. As I wrote two years ago, I've read Stuartyeates' statements then and now, and my honest take on the matter is that they know what they did wrong. I don't need to see further paragraphs of repenting in sackcloth and ashes to be convinced of that. XOR'easter (talk) 21:25, 7 December 2024 (UTC) (Non-admin comment. I was visiting this page to check on another discussion and happened to see this thread.)
• Deeply concerned about the sheer number of alt accounts. It took some digging but I found this comment at an afd related to Donald Trump, which makes this a BLP issue. Another alt created a talk page for a blp. Perhaps not a huge deal in and of itself but technically a violation nonetheless. And Another afd comment by another sock, concerning a list of people, some of whom are alive. Creation of a redirect to a blp by another sock earlier this year. With so many other accounts, who knows what other violations may exist? I couldn't possibly support this without an ironclad one-account restriction. Actually I don't support this unless and until Stuart restricts himself to one account for at least six months. It's not feasible to monitor fifty+ alts for violations. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 20:26, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

• I concede that these are breaches of my topic ban, I'll take that on the chin. I'm sorry I made those edits, I shouldn't have. In my defense (a) They're 100% accidental (b) None of these appears to be related to the issues that led to the topic ban or contentious in any way (c) There are four of them, over the same time I count seven barnstar or barnstar-like awards on my talk archives, so they don't reflect the body of my work over that time. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:44, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

  Those are four that I found, my point stands that it is almost impossible to know how many more there may be considering the absurd number of alts you have. Barnstars don't change any of that. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 01:32, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

  I also find it hard to believe that you accidentally commented on Donald Trump. He's famously totally alive. Just Step Sideways ^{from this world ..... today} 05:02, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

• I was prepared to advocate on your behalf... but I'm also concerned based on the number of accounts and what's gone on with them. I'm also looking through your talk page archives (#25 and #26) and noticing that the barnstars and related awards I'm seeing were actually mostly given by me. Archive 25 has 6 awards given by me as as the result of your participation in backlog drives, one for your participation / contributions for the year (end of year NPP award, given by Dr vulpes), and an AfC backlog drive award (from Robertsky). #26 has an NPP backlog drive award as well (also given by me). I do appreciate your contributions to NPP, but there is a bit of a difference in people going out of their way to give barnstars for great work and receiving them as the result of participation in backlog drives.

Anyways though, back to the key issue for me, your use of multiple accounts. JSS said "I couldn't possibly support this without an ironclad one-account restriction.", is this something you're willing to commit to @Stuartyeates? I personally don't understand your usage of, and the large amount of alts that you have. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:41, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Why I use alts

About 15 years ago during a round of the eternal "should all newcomers be welcomed (by a bot)?" discussion, some HCI person wrote a blog post on a long-defunct uni blog site. They said experienced editors are underestimating (a) how many new users are being welcomed (we only see the problems) and (b) the retention bonus of real human interaction. They challenged us to create a new user account and try editing using it for a while. Some of us did. Some of us found that editing with a clean account removed distractions (no watchlists to watch, no alerts to check, no !votes to vote in because we weren't allowed, no tools to use, no noticeboards like this to update, etc) and that we enjoyed focusing on the barebones editing, usually wikignoming. Discussion about the welcoming issue were less clear cut, but led to a bit of a game, where you see how many edits you can go without getting a user talk page. The game got harder when some wikis introduced auto-welcoming and clicking on an interwiki link lost you the game.

Most of my 'game' edits were tidying up backlogs so minor / obscure they're not even tracked as backlogs. So https://quarry.wmcloud.org/';%20drop%20database%20prod; is a series of queries finding old articles without a talk page (and thus not assigned to wikiproject) so I can add them to wikiprojects. The username is taken from the cartoon at https://xkcd.com/327/ . For the last decade, me 'game' editing was en.wiki editing I've actually really enjoyed.

Some of my edits are work related. See wikidata:Wikidata:ExLibris-Primo for information on what kind of thing that is. There may or may not be a new class of en.wiki editors: librarians who want to fix facts which have flowed from en.wiki to wikidata to the librarians' library catalogs; whether we'll notice them in the deluge of other random users remains to be seen.

One of my alts was created to test for a bug which is now fixed in the upcoming IP Account thingie.

Several times I've created a new account to be sure that something works the way I remember it, in order to help someone else or to take a screenshot (for socials or a blog). WMF improvements have been focused on the onboarding process and branding so there have been a lot of changes over the last 20 years. If you haven't created an alt on en.wiki in the last decade, I doubt it will be as you remember it. Trying to 'reset' an old account has some interesting effects too, but that's another story.

Some of my alts have a humourous intent, User:Not your siblings' deletionist is my most longstanding one, and I was setting up several alts for a christmas joke when the issue at User_talk:"Fish_&_Chip"_flavoured_ice_cream#block_appeal blew up. I've had positive feedback on my joke alts, most was off-wiki, but see for example User_talk:Stuartyeates/Archive_1#I_like_your_username.

As far as I can tell there are no en.wiki policies against how I use alts [with the exception of some that could be considered trolling, but I stopped when that was pointed out]. As far as I can tell there are no WMF policies against how I use alts. I'm aware that a number of people appear to be deeply opposed to it, but I've always been unclear why, maybe you'd like to try and explain it?

As far as I can tell, my use of alts is independent on the issues which earned me my topic ban. They were all done on my main account which is also my real name and the one I use on my socials. Stuartyeates (talk) 01:14, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

User:Marginataen

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

---

Marginataen is indef blocked on the Danish language Wikipedia for disruptive editing and sockpuppetry. He was indef blocked here from December 2023 until about a week ago. Even in the short time since his unblock, he has managed to get himself blocked again for disruptive editing (but only for a week). It is extremely likely that Marginataen will end up indef'd again, but that is not what I am here to ask about.

Marginataen was topic banned from editing the page of right-wing nationalist Danish politician Mikkel Bjørn because of an undeclared conflict of interest. Marginataen created that article and has made the majority of edits to it. It is obvious from their editing history that they have a strong interest in far right and nationalist figures, both historical and current.

Almost as soon as he was unblocked, Marginataen added or suggested adding photo collages to pages (here, here and here. Each of those collages contains images of Adolph Hitler. As you can see in Marginataen's uploads to Wikimedia Commons, he added half a dozen Hitler images as recently as February. Marginataen has made 30 edits to Adolph Hitler. It is in his top ten edited articles. So it would not be an exaggeration to say that Marginataen has a strong interest in Hitler.

My question is this - how much of a Nazi does one need to be before WP:NONAZIS applies? HappyBeachDreams (talk) 03:43, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Enough to be indeffed. Ahri Boy (talk) 13:23, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

User was blocked for short period due to disruptive editing. Block ends tomorrow. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 00:35, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I strongly condemn all forms of authoritarian and totalitarian ideologies, and I find this accusation utterly preposterous. The collages referenced by HappyBeachDreams are from the years 1935 and 1938, with nothing surprising in thoese years containing an image of Hitler in their collages. Intrest does not equate support. There is nothing supportive of Hitler's regime in any of my edits. Again, this is ludicrous. The issue regarding the politician you are refering to has been dealt with. Marginataen (talk) 21:51, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Merely posting some pictures of Hitler is not evidence of WP:NONAZIS. I don't know if there is some other evidence for it, but it has not been shown above. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:26, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

@Marginataen If you are so strongly against authoritarian and totalitarian ideologies, can you explain why you feel the need to add images of Adolph Hitler to Wikipedia and Commons?

Using your sockpuppet Zeitgeistu, you uploaded an "AI enhanced" portrait of Hitler to Commons. You could have chosen almost anyone, but you chose Hitler. That account also uploaded this picture of Hitler. In another case, you uploaded an "AI enhanced" image of Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Those actions don't seem to align with your words. HappyBeachDreams (talk) 04:41, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Hey, HappyBeachDreams, you have been an editor for ONE WEEK. You have 17 edits. You have no other global contributions with this account. Can I ask how you happened to come to WP:AN and know so much about Marginataen and his block history and supposed sockpuppets? What are your previous accounts that you have used on the English Wikipedia and other projects? You must disclose these accounts on your User page. You are obviously an experienced editor, not the newbie that you would appear to be with this account. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:18, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Liz Liz, I understand your concern, but please consider that I am also concerned for my own well-being. Marginataen is someone who is known in Denmark for their nationalist and Islamaphobic views. I do not wish to become a target of them or their followers.

You can ask Økonom about Marginataen's sockpuppetry. They are familiar with the history on danish Wikipedia.

Liz, I suggest you go through Marginataen's Commons uploads. Aside from the images of Hitler and the images of right wing Danish politicians (recall Marginataen's conflict of interest), you will find he uploaded images of Thorvald Stauning. His sockpuppet Zeitgeistu uploaded many more. Knowing his apparent strong interest in Stauning, see this edit of his to the lede of that article. Go through his many edits prettifying and adding images to the Adolp Hitler article, such as this one where he adds wikilinks to the phrase "Aryan Jesus" or this one where he does it again, months later.

If I didn't think there was cause for concern, I would not have started this discussion. Again, how much of a Nazi does one have to be before WP:NONAZIS applies? HappyBeachDreams (talk) 17:54, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

You have not addressed Liz's questions regarding your tenure on Wikipedia. Please do so. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 23:51, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

I have said all I am going to say about that, but thank you for jumping in. HappyBeachDreams (talk) 05:03, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

HappyBeachDreams, you should identify your previous accounts on your User page or one might think you are a block-evading editor or a sockpuppet. This is not a request for your real-life identity (that would never happen), it's just to connect this account with your past editing history. It's best to be forthcoming with questions like these. If you continue to edit with this account, these questions will not disappear. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:42, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Paging @Tamzin, who investigated their previous unblock request and set their TBAN, in case there's anything to be said here. I unblocked most recently, but that was a sock block, not one for disruptive editing. -- asilvering (talk) 21:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Asilvering: I can't say I'm thrilled to see that they've been blocked twice since that unblock, but @HappyBeachDreams is making a substantial leap from "is conservative and interested in Nazis as an encyclopedic topic" to "is a neo-Nazi". I think the answer to HBD's question is: Mu, because NONAZIS isn't a policy. One of the reasons I wrote Wikipedia:Hate is disruptive (also not a policy, but an interpretation of the disruptive editing guideline) was to firmly root hate-based blocking in actual disruption, not in speculation about what ideology someone does or doesn't have. Is Marginataen doing something to promote Nazism, or saying they are a Nazi, or self-doxxing as a person who does either of those things off-wiki, or otherwise giving people good reason (fact-based, not vibes-based) that it is not safe to edit alongside them? Point me in the right direction, and I'll make the block. If no such evidence can be provided, though, we are in WP:ASPERSIONS territory. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 21:44, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for that offer, but I don't have that evidence at the moment. I will let you know if I unearth anything that you are likely to find conclusive. HappyBeachDreams (talk) 04:59, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

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

RfC closure review request at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#RfC:_Extended_confirmed_pending_changes_(PCECP)

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

---

(RfC closure in question) (Discussion with closer)

Closer: Walsh90210 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Notified: User_talk:Walsh90210#Close review opened

Reasoning: I am opening this closure review request, although I am involved heavily both in creation and in discussion, because I believe there are significant procedural errors in the closure.

First, with question 1. The vote tally for PCECP (pending-changes extended-confirmed) is 19-19, with two additional !votes opposing Pending Changes more broadly. We are weighting arguments, not "votes". Also, The primary argument in favor is that PCECP is better than the current ECP protection; the primary argument against is that PCECP is not better than the current ECP protection. is confusing and vague, and does not address any of the policy arguments for or against PCECP. Additionally, the technical concerns have not been clearly addressed the proposal notes that it is assumed that it is possible to have this level of pending changes.

With Q2, I don't know if the arguments and counterarguments were appropriately weighted in making the determination that there was clear opposition to this proposal as the strength of arguments determines consensus, not the number of votes. There might be a similar argument for Q3, but Q3 might actually be moot and have no effect without WP:ARCA clarifying otherwise.

And as for Q4 (which I added on as OP to try to address the problems mentioned with PC), I think it was closed too early. It should have been left open for longer to attempt to gauge more opinion, rather than closed all at once. While there is some theoretical support, there is not a specific-enough proposal here to find consensus for any change. Um, there is a specific-enough proposal. That opinion might have better been shared in the discussion for that proposal and then the proposal could have been withdrawn and then sent over to VPIL to workship. This summary sounds more like a WP:SUPERVOTE; closes need to be objective rather than subjective.

I do hope that these considerations are taken into account when determining whether to uphold or overturn the close. Awesome Aasim 04:52, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Closer (PCECP)

Non-participants (PCECP)

• Endorse - looks extremely non-consensual. Why waste any more time by continuing it? Move on, I see no reason to relitigate it. If Pppery's comment is correct, all that will do is get you topic-banned (I haven't looked beyond this RfC). Nfitz (talk) 10:24, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Participants (PCECP)

• Endorse

  Q1: The primary argument in favor is that PCECP is better than the current ECP protection; the primary argument against is that PCECP is not better than the current ECP protection. is not at all "confusing and vague" - certain people, including myself, think pending changes is a better way of doing edit requests for various reasons, and other people, for various equally convincing IMO reasons, think it isn't with no clear advantage either numerically or by strength of argument I can see.

  Q2: No, this isn't a vote, but if 3X as many people are opposed to something as support it the minority needs to have a really good argument to carry the day. And they just simply don't. The dispute is "preemptive protection is bad" versus "having rules and willfully choosing not to enforce them the logical way is bad". And while I'm in the latter camp neither of these dogmas is so strongly dominant over the other one to generate a consensus with numbers that biased.

  Q3: Basically the same arguments as Q2 except the numbers are even more lopsided.

  Q4: Perhaps the closing summary was worded poorly here, but my comment there says basically all that needs to be said - there's no point in discussing grandiose new proposals unless there is some non-minuscule chance that it will actually get done - let's cross the bridge when we get to it. Enough support was provided to show the idea has some merit, what it needs next is a coder and a WMF team to support it, so unless that happens there's no point.

Finally, you really need to desist with making new proposals for things. You've made a very large number of them, and they've all failed. I'm seriously tempted to propose a topic ban. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 07:35, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I will step back from the new proposals and ideas for a bit. I do have a lot of ideas and whatnot, after all. If these are being perceived as starting to edge on disruptive, it probably means I should take a break from them. Awesome Aasim 15:53, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

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

Discussion (PCECP)

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

---

Voluntary TBAN by OP for OP

In good faith and because I do not want the problematic behavior described by Pppery to cause more disruption, I am willing to agree to the following:

• Awesome Aasim (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is limited to making one proposal not directly related to encyclopedia content within a three month timeframe, from the moment the interaction ban takes effectremoved 01:13, 9 December 2024 (UTC), broadly construedadded 01:13, 9 December 2024 (UTC), including but not limited to (1) technical proposals, (2) policy and guideline proposals, (3) XfDs and move requests involving templates, files, categories (particularly maintenance and project categories), system messages, project pages, user pages, etc. not directly relevant to articles, (4) controversial edit requests involving the items mentioned in 3 (if it goes beyond copyediting it should be assumed to be controversial), (5) edits involving the items mentioned in 3 which have been reverted, etc. In addition, Aasim is prohibited from making any proposals not directly related to encyclopedia content for the first three months of this restriction. An idea lab workshop that does not lead to an actual proposal shall also count as one proposal for the purpose of this restriction. Should he violate this restriction, any administrator may impose escalating blocks, up to and including indefinite. If disruptive proposals continue, any uninvolved administrator may adjust the timeline of this restriction up to one proposal within one year, or zero proposals at all during the restriction periodremoved 01:13, 9 December 2024 (UTC)between one proposal within three months and one proposal within one year, or impose a further topic ban from all proposals not directly related to encyclopedia contentadded 01:13, 9 December 2024 (UTC).

From the past year and a half I have appeared to make over 195 new section posts and only a few have actually resulted in any action. If indeed such an action in a proposal is genuinely needed someone else will suggest it first. I do want a compilation of what has failed. Of course, this can be amended further by the community. Pppery please feel free to give more input into this. Awesome Aasim 16:38, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry but this is absolute nonsense. No, there doesn't need to be a paragraph in the manner of a federal law for your voluntary involuntary edit restriction. Use common sense. DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 17:09, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

If you can suggest something better I would be open to feedback. Awesome Aasim 17:55, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Aasim may not make more than one policy/guideline or technical proposal within three months.

Aaron Liu (talk) 23:24, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

• Is a formal editing restriction really necessary? If you recognize that your conduct has become problematic, can't you just… not do it? —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 19:08, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

  I was pointed out that my conduct may be a bit problematic. WP:Editing restrictions/Voluntary That is why we are having this discussion. If they are not necessary, then I don't think Pppery would be tempted to propose a TBAN. Awesome Aasim 20:15, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

• User is told that they are proposing too many things and might get a TBAN for making proposals. User immediately creates a proposal for how they should be TBANned from making proposals. Top-tier trolling, this. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:58, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

  It's pretty specialist stuff to be honest. SerialNumber54129 23:01, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

  Should be noted a lot of the "new sections" I dug up out of my contributions are not proposals, but some of them are, but even if they were that gets a liberal estimate of one proposal every week. But to include edit requests would address the other complaint I am getting from Pppery and others regarding edit requests that need consensus. As it stands at this point if there is genuinely a need for such an implementation someone with more experience, maybe an administrator, will do it. I do find it ironic I was coaching a new editor on some outlandish proposal only to later end up going a similar rabbit hole with a bunch of mediocre proposals that have very little chance of passing.

  Please log the above in WP:Editing restrictions/Voluntary, or a more tailored version at WP:EDRC. Looking at this a second time, I am also willing to agree to a "no proposals of the category I described for three months or the next 500 edits, whichever is later". This can be loosened if my behavior with the proposals are constructive (as determined by you not me).

  Recognizing I do need to take a step back from this at this time also will let me focus in the areas that I am actually constructive to Wikipedia, namely antivandalism work and work on templates that actually need to be used in articles for one reason or another. It's not a problem that I have a technical interest in Wikipedia. What is a problem is when this technical interest wastes my time and wastes the community's time and patience.

  Under this voluntary restriction I am still welcome to comment on existing proposals and ideas covered by this restriction in a constructive way, as long as I am ultimately not the one to propose it. And by definition, if I were to raise something in the idea lab in a new section, that is intent to propose it, which is why new ideas also count there. Awesome Aasim 00:34, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

  One more clarifying thing: I would also mention the timeline can be adjusted to any point between one proposal every three months and one proposal every year, or a complete topic ban on proposals covered by the voluntary restriction. Awesome Aasim 00:52, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

  Actually I went ahead and added the necessary clarifications and changes to what I was suggesting, because some of it does look a bit confusing coming back a few hours later. Spirit still more important. I'm getting out of this discussion for now, leave the rest to the community. Awesome Aasim 01:13, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

  I believe I'm entirely uninvolved here, or at least sufficiently to pass on this advice @Awesome Aasim, just stop. Editors know how to implement a restriction if one is implemented. You're not helping your cause at all and your editing here is bordering on disruptive. Please step away for a while. Star Mississippi 01:01, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

  I myself am starting to wonder if I am getting too much into the weeds as well. It is the community to decide, not me. I'm stepping back from this page for now, and I want the issues raised by the community to be addressed as well, so I can continue to be productive. Awesome Aasim 01:13, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

  You are overcomplicating this. All of this falls under the single, short sentence I've suggested above, plus a "broadly construed" if you may. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:44, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

  top-tier trolling more like a recognition of my own incompetence at this time. Awesome Aasim 00:41, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

• It's a crazy restriction, and I get the comments above—but if it makes the problem go away, I'm all for it. Sometimes you have to meet people where they are. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:19, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
• I'm with Compassionate727 here. This detailed proposal is over-the-top and is putting the burden on other editors and admins to police such a complicated restriction. Just exercise self-control and don't make any proposals, let's say for a year. That is just a suggestion, do not write that into your voluntary restriction. Take the Village Pump off your Watchlist. But this is not an admin issue that should be discussed on AN. If you want some system of accountability, approach an individual administrator (I'm not volunteering) and ask them to keep you accountable. But this isn't a restriction that needs to be logged in anywhere. You're an experienced editor, I think you change your own behavior without having a formal restriction. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:34, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

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

Request

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

---

I am currently not creating new articles, so I don't need the autopatrolled right. I will definitely create new articles in the future, but I would prefer that NPRs review my creations. Therefore, please remove my autopatrolled right. – DreamRimmer (talk) 08:18, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Done, @DreamRimmer. And to add on a personal note, I consider that a very above-board request. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 08:26, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! – DreamRimmer (talk) 08:31, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

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

Off-wiki misconduct in Palestine–Israel topic area

As previously announced, the Arbitration Committee received private evidence appearing to reflect off-wiki misconduct related to several editors in the Palestine–Israel topic area. The Committee sent a copy of the evidence to the users in question via email, notified them on their talk pages, and gave them an opportunity to respond. Based on the evidence and the responses, the matter has been resolved as follows:

For making edits in the Palestine–Israel topic area after off-wiki canvassing requests, and encouraging other users to game the extended confirmed restriction and engage in disruptive editing, Ïvana (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is indefinitely banned from Wikipedia. This ban may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.

Support: Aoidh, CaptainEek, Guerillero, HJ Mitchell, Moneytrees, Primefac, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720

Oppose:

Abstain:

For making edits in the Palestine–Israel topic area after off-wiki canvassing requests, and encouraging other users to game the extended confirmed restriction and engage in disruptive editing, Ïvana (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is topic banned from the Palestine–Israel topic area, broadly construed. This restriction may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.

Support: Aoidh, CaptainEek, Guerillero, HJ Mitchell, Moneytrees, Primefac, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720

Oppose:

Abstain:

Based on private evidence, the existing topic ban of Salmoonlight (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) may now be appealed only to the Committee. The other provisions of the topic ban remain the same.

Support: Aoidh, CaptainEek, Guerillero, HJ Mitchell, Primefac, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720

Oppose:

Abstain: Moneytrees

For making edits in the PIA topic area after off-wiki canvassing requests, and violating the extended confirmed restriction in the Palestine–Israel topic area, Samisawtak (talk · contribs) is topic banned from the Palestine–Israel topic area, broadly construed. This restriction may be appealed twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter.

Support: Aoidh, CaptainEek, Guerillero, HJ Mitchell, Moneytrees, Primefac, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720

Oppose:

Abstain:

For gaming the extended confirmed restriction, the extended confirmed permission of CoolAndUniqueUsername (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is revoked. An administrator may, at their discretion, restore it following a request at PERM at which CoolAndUniqueUsername shows that they have made 500 substantive edits.

Support: Aoidh, CaptainEek, Guerillero, Moneytrees, Primefac, Sdrqaz, ToBeFree, Z1720

Oppose: HJ Mitchell

Abstain:

For gaming the extended confirmed restriction, the extended confirmed permission of Tashmetu (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is revoked. An administrator may, at their discretion, restore it following a request at PERM at which Tashmetu shows that they have made 500 substantive edits.

Support: Aoidh, CaptainEek, Guerillero, Moneytrees, Primefac, ToBeFree, Z1720

Oppose: HJ Mitchell

Abstain: Sdrqaz

For the Arbitration Committee, Aoidh (talk) 17:57, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Off-wiki misconduct in Palestine–Israel topic area

Disruptive IP returns

This IP sockpuppet was blocked for a week and has immediately returned to their same disruptive editing pattern against multiple users' reversions, including recreating and edit warring over 2027 Formula One World Championship, which was AfD'd. MB2437 19:05, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

File:JarJarInk's Dogs 2.jpg

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

---

Can an admin take a look at File:JarJarInk's Dogs 2.jpg? The uploader seems to be requesting speedy deletion per WP:G7, but used the {{Proposed deletion}} template instead by mistake. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:07, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

 Done File deleted. Actually, among new editors, it's not uncommon for them to PROD a page for deletion instead of using CSD G7 or U1. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:17, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Liz. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:24, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

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

User:HabsMTL

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

---

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

This user has repeatedly removed large chunks of information from articles without adequately explaining why, as well as removing others' messages on their talk page, both of which strictly go against Wikipedia policies. They have been warned before, so now I feel it is appropriate for this user to be blocked. 2601:5CC:4000:74E0:100:578F:1E63:EFE2 (talk) 07:37, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Actually, we are allowed to remove our talk page messages. Did you notify them of this thread? -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 08:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

At a sleepy, bleary-eyed glance, looks like a content dispute. WP:DR might be the way to go. YMMV. I leave this now for those with functioning brain cells. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 08:41, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Alas, "functioning brain cells" rules me out (only on my 2nd cup of coffee!), but content dispute was my first take on it also, FWIW. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 08:47, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that was my take also. To be honest, unless there are issues like copyright violation, it's difficult to care who is in the right when editors are arguing about which completely unsourced plot summary is the best version. Black Kite (talk) 12:16, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

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

User:Asparagusstar is edit warring asserting their opinion is consensus

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

---

In Artificial intelligence art the user claims their view that Artificial intelligence does not include nonvisual forms of art like music is consensus and edit wars to remove content to the contrary such as a recent edit by Rayhan Noufal Arayilakath. I already discussed with the user on the talk page. For context, here is relevant information for why this article is also about nonvisual art:

1. In the title it says "art", not "visual art" and the contents & scope of a Wikipedia article should match its title.
2. There is no reason why what the user claims would be consensus would be consensus. That is false and the article title, the article contents, good-quality sources, the article category, and the former article lead all suggest to the contrary.
   • Per WP:BRD Carefully consider whether "policy", "consensus", or "procedure" are valid reasons for the revert
3. Linked Wikipedia articles in other languages like de:KI Kunst are also in part about nonvisual art and EN WP is a global project
4. An editor (Elspea756) changed Artificial intelligence art is any artwork, particularly images and musical compositions, created through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) programs, such as text-to-image models and musical generators in the lead to Artificial intelligence art is any visual artwork created through the use of artificial intelligence (AI) programs on 2 August 2023 and specified in the edit summary the rationale Removing "music" from the lead. The rest of the article is all about visual art, and the lead should summarize the rest of the article so this was changed merely because the article had no content on music not because the article scope in principle is different
   • That time in 2023 no good-quality AI music did exist so all notable AI art there was visual art which was the reason why it was mostly about visual art as the user even clarified in the edit summary; real somewhat autonomous AI music is a thing that only came to be in 2024.
   • Both the former lead and the edit summary just make clear how the scope already was also about nonvisual art in principle.
   • A section about music was added so this was changed anyway.
5. The article already for over a years contains a section with content about non-visual art so that part of the lead should have been changed earlier already. It had content on AI-generated literature, video game components, and cooking robot research since ca August 2023.
6. The WP:RS clearly show it's not just about visual art but also other forms of art.
   • Here are some of the sources: This includes visual art, music, literature,
   • I don't think one user's opinion weighs more than such sources and even if that was the case it's not only me who wished to add information about nonvisual art but also other editors of the article.
   • From e.g. here: Artificial intelligence art (AI art) is any form of art that has been created or enhanced with AI tools. Although commonly associated with visual art, such as images or videos, the term AI art also applies to music, writing and other creative forms.
7. This article is about the general broad genre/type not some very specific thing and this type of art is made across several media from text to visual ones. The subject is quite similar to article Computer art which also includes "sound" and performance art as well as New media art which also includes various nonvisual artforms.
8. Me and the other user (no other participants) had discussed on the talk page but the user chose to ignore my points and insist on their view.
9. The article Music and artificial intelligence as well as several other music-specific articles are contained in Category:Artificial intelligence art of which the discussed article is the main article (and none removed them despite me asking about it). Music and artificial intelligence is also about other uses of AI in music such as track transitions and track selection, not just AI-generated music. The article Generative artificial intelligence is also about things other than art and much broader. Text-to-image generation is specific to visual art, not the Artificial intelligence art article. That is the article that is about visual art only.

References

Prototyperspective (talk) 17:37, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Garden variety content dispute between two editors, as I mentioned on the article talk page shortly before this was filed. MrOllie (talk) 17:46, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't have another place to ask. People did not participate in the discussion. So it's just two people discussing where the other user ignored all my points. I don't think editors should be able to remove content they don't like by just claiming with thin air that it's consensus to not include it, requiring the user to gather consensus first despite of the reliable sources and all the other things I mentioned above. I do think article title, article content and reliable sources are important and not much less important than one random user's opinion. I did not read it before filing this and if it's garden variety then it should be easy to solve so that sounds good I guess. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:55, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Prototyperspective, check out the possible steps to take at WP:Dispute resolution. Schazjmd (talk) 18:03, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Will do. I do wonder now though if I can just take any well-backed up content out of an article and claim that these are not consensus and ask for consensus to be established first for it to be readded, especially when it comes to controversial issues where many have opinions that differ from what reliable sources say and/or little-watched pages and/or wellsourced relevant things people don't think is worth their time to discuss to readd. Anyway, it has time. Prototyperspective (talk) 22:41, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't see how this is in any way a controversial issue. It is simply a matter of how our content should be organised. There is no right or wrong way. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:53, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Sorry if I was unclear, I was not saying it's anything of the examples I listed after especially, these were just examples that I thought would help explain my concern that I mentioned there. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:05, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Just briefly to be clear, I do think there is a right and wrong way here and that this isn't just about how our content should be organised for the same reason that Effects of climate change also contains information on Effects of climate change on human health.
The reader expects the info to be in the article and there is no source supporting that it's only about visual art while there are many that show it's also including not-to-be-marginalized other forms of art like music which the bottom section of the article was about for over a year. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:43, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

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

Hide these racist edits

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

---

Hide these edit summaries due to racism and serious BLP violations.

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specjalna:Wkład/220.136.55.180

https://pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meksykanie&oldid=58640129

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specjalna:Wkład/Gypsy_44444

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specjalna:Wkład/Palmdale_CA_palmdale

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specjalna:Wkład/Palmdale_CA_palmdale

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specjalna:Wkład/85.203.22.145 110.13.26.194 (talk) 02:27, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

We cannot help you with issues on other language Wikipedias, which are separate projects. You need to contact administrators there. 331dot (talk) 02:29, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Hide these racist edits.

Hide these racist edit summaries.

https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialus:Indėlis/Gypsy_person_in_Cali

https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialus:Indėlis/85.203.22.145

https://lt.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Meksikiečiai&oldid=5603901

https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/220.136.55.180

https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Gypsy_1987

https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Gypsy_44444 220.118.210.102 (talk) 02:38, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia; I'm not sure the admins here can help you with issues on other language Wikipedias and recommend you contact admins at those projects for assistance. DonIago (talk) 02:41, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

We cannot -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 03:38, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Noting OP is proxy blocked x 2 -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 03:39, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

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

Concern over edits made by Leoshuo

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

---

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

Leoshuo is a relatively new editor and in the past 2-3 weeks seems to have been mostly editing navboxes relating to national diaspora. However, these edits seem to consist mostly of just butchering established navboxes and embedding other navboxes inside them. Requests to seek consensus and follow WP:BRD process are falling on deaf ears. My attempts to revert are being criticised as vandalism. See this discussion. Not really wanting to impose sanctions on an inexperienced editor, I would prefer them to revert and discuss, but I am concerned there is a WP:COMPETENCE or WP:NOTHERE issue. --woodensuperman 11:06, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

While I agree that embedding navboxes inside other navboxes doesn't aesthetically look pleasing, I think you are being WP:BITEy by saying stuff like Please STOP embedding navboxes within other navboxes. This is inappropriate and you are just making a horrendous mess.. This is a content dispute and should go through standard WP:dispute resolution process, not here. Ca ^{talk to me!} 13:07, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

• Further to the below, editor is now just reverting any edit I make willy-nilly, citing vandalism! [42][43][44], etc., etc. Clearly they have no intention of following the WP:BRD process. --woodensuperman 16:37, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

And they're still revertin, calling every revert vandalism, despite user warnings against this on their talk page. Definitely WP:NOTHERE. --woodensuperman 16:47, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

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

Vandalism from @Woodensuperman

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

---

Hi Administrator, I am very concerned with the vandalisms made by @Woodensuperman in the following pages: Template:Ethnic groups in Japan Template:Singaporeans Template:Hongkongers Template:Ethnic groups of Korea (Created by me) clearly not following WP:BRD and making huge WP:NOTVANDALISM. I don't have 27/7 to maintain those pages, so please mediate.

Regards Leoshuo (talk) 16:58, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

This seems to be a retaliatory filing, see #Concern over edits made by Leoshuo. Schazjmd (talk) 17:17, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

It's not vandalism but a content dispute. You and woodensuperman should be discussing this on one of the templates talk pages rather than reverting each other. Communicating by edit summary doesn't work. CambridgeBayWeather (solidly non-human), Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 17:24, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I've tried to discuss on their talk page. They have no interest in following the WP:BRD process. They've made some incredibly bold and inappropriate changes and will not allow the reverts of their bold edits to allow the process to take place. See my filing above. --woodensuperman 17:28, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

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

Disruptive edits on al-Sistani page, POV-pushing

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

---

@Taha Danesh has made a number of disruptive edits on Ali al-Sistani without providing RS in an attempt to “Iranify” the said personality. He removes properly sourced information, as well as the Arabic name of al-Sistani, adds “Iranian” as his nationality and makes claims like “Sistani does not have Iraqi citizenship”, “Sistani only speaks Persian”. I removed his edits a number of times and told him to provide reliable sources for his claims but he does not seem to comprehend what is being asked and reverts the edits continuously. I have also attempted to find middle ground before resorting to ANI by adding “Iranian-born Iraqi-based” to no avail as Taha is adamant on pushing his POV on the person in question being Iranian and only Iranian. Montblamc1 (talk) 13:29, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Hello and greetings. I have added at least six reliable sources and links to the page to substantiate my argument, including his own official site. His official site in English is sistani.org, not al-sistani.org. In the biography section of his official site, which I have cited as a resource, it states:

"Grand Ayatullah Sayyid Ali Husaini Sistani was born on 9th Rabi Al-Awwal 1349 A.H. in the holy city of Mashhad." (Source)

Additionally, even in his introduction on CNN, he is referred to as Sistani, with his birthplace and native name clearly mentioned:

Personal Birth date: August 4, 1930 Birth place: Mashhad, Iran Birth name: Sayyid Ali Husaini Sistani (Source)

These sources confirm that Sistani was born in Mashhad, Iran, and that his native language is Persian. The name "Sistani" itself means "from Sistan," further reinforcing this.

I have also referenced instances of his speeches and public recordings, in which he has only spoken Persian, providing links in his page to verify this. This supports the claim that his native language is Persian.

Regarding his citizenship, it is a well-established fact that Sistani holds Iranian citizenship by virtue of being born in Iran. The onus is not on me to prove he does not have Iraqi citizenship, as the principle in logic dictates that the existence of something must be proven, not its absence. Therefore, the claim that he holds Iraqi citizenship requires reliable sources, which have not been provided.

I have not attempted to "Iranify" Sistani but to reflect what is supported by verified and reliable sources. I believe adding “Iranian-born” is accurate and substantiated by the evidence I provided. The suggestion of labeling him “Iranian-born Iraqi-based” could be considered if sources reliably confirm his Iraqi citizenship, but such proof has yet to be presented.

Unless you provide sources supporting one of the following two points, I consider any future disruptive edits to be unjustified:

1. That Sistani was not born in Iran. (If he was, his native name would logically be Persian, especially since "Sistani" means "from Sistan.")
2. That he holds Iraqi citizenship, which would make him Iranian-born and Iranian-Iraqi in nationality.

To reiterate, I have added six reliable sources and links to substantiate my claims. These sources are properly cited in his page, and I expect any challenges to be backed by equally reliable references. Taha Danesh (talk) 15:15, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

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

Creation of a protected article

I wanted to notify the administrators about an article which was deleted several years ago, and my wish to restore it and create a new one with greater percisive information.

Article reffering to the "Azerbaijan-South Korea relations", was deleted and blocked by an administrator due to the fact that it was a created by a user who was blocked/banned earlier.

If it is possible, please consider opening the page up for creation to let someone else contribute and publish an article reffering to the said topic.

Thank you! Nuritae331 (talk) 16:53, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

You may use the article wizard to create and submit a draft. Why do you wish to create an article that has been a target of a blocked user? 331dot (talk) 16:57, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

I initially planned on making one for quite a while, but it turned out that someone else already published article of the same name a while ago, about 10 years ago or so, which was later removed.

It was pretty surprising, and I was very disappointed due to the fact that out of all the pages, the one that I desired to make ended up already getting deleted.

If you have any doubts or suspicions over my truthfulness, I can reassure you that my intentions are very clear and I do not wish to break rules or cause harm to the wikipedia community and its staff. Please make sure to look into my already submitted article draft which is under review, or look into my earlier edits.

Thank you so much for the feedback! Nuritae331 (talk) 17:07, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

In case anyone else struggles to find this deleted article, it was at Azerbaijan–South Korea relations (the key is using the en dash, not a hyphen... I think). No? Just me? -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 17:14, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, you're right. Can't find the article if you type it without the en dash.. Nuritae331 (talk) 17:17, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Sudden spate of userspace school essays with AI art

Patrolling recent uploads at Commons, I noticed that Socialpsych22 (User:Socialpsych22/sandbox), ChloeWisheart (User:ChloeWisheart), and AlicerWang (User:AlicerWang/sandbox) all uploaded AI images and put them in what look to be school essays within a short period of time. It looks like someone might be teaching a class and using Wikipedia as part of it, without teaching them how Wikipedia article are structured or about WP:NOT. Figured I'd brink it to folks' attention here. Cheers, The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 23:05, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) Even though none of the three accounts seem to be students in a WP:WEP affiliate course, you could still try asking about them at WP:ENB on the oft chance that one of the Wiki ED advisors that typically help students remembers a username. Otherwise, I don't think there's much to do if there are no serious copyright (images or text) or other policy violations. Generally, users are given a bit of leeway to work on things in their userspace and it's possible these could be good-faith drafts, i.e. not really eligible for speedy deletion per WP:U5. I guess the "draft" that's not already in a user sandbox could be moved to one just to avoid it mistakenly being tagged for speedy deletion per U5, and perhaps welcome templates added each user's user talk page, but (at least at first glance) I'm not seeing a reason why any of these would need to be deleted. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:45, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) I've moved the userspace one to draftspace and left a message on that editor's talk page asking if it's for school work, so hopefully they'll be able to give more information. StartGrammarTime (talk) 03:48, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Another one just appeared at User:Northsoutheastwestt/sandbox. The Squirrel Conspiracy (talk) 15:57, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

The good news is that the few references I checked were real, not LLM hallucinations. Hoping the AI is only used for images, not text. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 16:34, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Is there any kind of guideline about including AI artwork in articles on here or is it just based on people's feelings in the moment at this point? --Adamant1 (talk) 14:05, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

2025 Arbitration Committee

The Arbitration Committee welcomes the following new and returning members following their election by the community. Their two-year terms formally begin on 1 January 2025:

• CaptainEek (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Daniel (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Elli (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• KrakatoaKatie (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Liz (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• ScottishFinnishRadish (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Theleekycauldron (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Worm That Turned (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

The one-year terms of these members also begin on 1 January 2025:

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

Upon meeting the Wikimedia Foundation's criteria for access to non-public personal data and signing its corresponding confidentiality agreement, all incoming members will be subscribed to all Committee-managed email lists, assigned the CheckUser and Oversight permissions for use in office, and given access to the CheckUser and Oversight queues on the VRT system.

We also thank our outgoing colleagues, whose terms end on 31 December 2024:

• Firefly (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Guerillero (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• L235 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Moneytrees (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Outgoing members are eligible to retain the CheckUser and Oversight permissions, to remain active on cases accepted before their term ended, and to remain subscribed to the functionaries' and arbitration clerks' mailing lists following their terms on the Arbitration Committee. To that effect:

• Stewards are requested to remove the permission(s) noted from the following outgoing members, who have not chosen to retain them, after 31 December 2024:

  CheckUser: Firefly, L235

  Oversight: Firefly, Guerillero, L235, Moneytrees

• Outgoing members are eligible to remain active on cases opened before their term ended if they wish. That will be noted on the proposed decision talk page of affected case(s).
• All outgoing members will remain subscribed to the functionaries' mailing list.
• All outgoing members will be unsubscribed from the clerks-l mailing list, with the exception of Firefly, Guerillero, and Moneytrees, who have chosen to remain subscribed.

On behalf of the Committee, Sdrqaz (talk) 02:44, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § 2025 Arbitration Committee

வேத கணிதம்

வேத கணிதம் I wrote article, i am not sure why it is blocked and please help me to solve Lalithasudhakar (talk) 04:02, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi Lalithasudhakar. Welcome to Wikipedia. Your requested article was reverted. This was most likely due to the draft you were working on was not in English. This is the English language Wikipedia and all articles and edits are expected to be in English. Please see the template I left on your talk page for further tips. If you require additional assistance or have questions, you can ask at the WP:TEAHOUSE. You may also wish to try adding your content at the Tamil language Wikipedia. Best regards... -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:13, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Close challenge for Talk:1948 Arab–Israeli War#RFC for Jewish exodus

User:Compassionate727 closed the RFC at Talk:1948 Arab–Israeli War#RFC for Jewish exodus as no consensus, arguing in the close that there seems to be a consensus among scholars that hostile pressures from the war were a contributing factor to Jewish emigration from Arab countries; many sources were provided here that expressed that position, and only one that cast doubt on it. Whether the war's contribution to that emigration is an important enough aspect of the conflict to mention in the lead is the subject of no consensus; some editors consider a mention in the lead proportional to scholars' treatment of the topic, others don't. On their talk page, they said I read the sources provided, both there and in the linked discussions, and that was the sense of them as I understood it. It was a tentative claim (hence I wrote "seems to be"), and if you can explain why I misunderstood them or provide other sources, please do so and I'll revise my closure.
As for the numbers, consensus is not a vote. Several editors' arguments were based on original research (e.g., the exodus wasn't an aspect of the war because it happened afterward, or wasn't caused by the war because it was caused by something else) or other arguments not rooted in the relevant policies, namely due weight in sources and summarizing the important parts of the body. When I discarded the junk, I found two policy-based arguments: a mention should be included because (most of?) the relevant scholarship discusses the issue, and a mention should be excluded because those sources don't devote enough attention to the issue to make it due weight in the lead. That is to me a pretty straightforward admission of both a supervote and of having not read the policies they claim support their close. WP:OR is about article content, not about talk page arguments. And it says exactly that in the lead of WP:OR: This policy does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards. The bit on I read the sources provided, both there and in the linked discussions, and that was the sense of them as I understood it is explicitly saying that they decided a position was correct. Beyond that, it isn't true. Snippets of sources out of their context are used to argue against sources that straight up say otherwise. and those snippets dont even support whats claimed. I dont want to get too deep into the weeds here, but for example Schindler says that the war exacerbated the situation, but a. he goes through a number of other things directly responsible, and he doesnt even cover it as part of his coverage of the war, it's in an entirely different chapter. All in all this close ignores the substantial majority of respondent's arguments, improperly throws a number of them out as "junk" despite the fact that the justification for considering them junk explicitly refutes that claim, and makes claims about the sources that are not true in an attempt to justify a basically admitted to supervote. nableezy - 17:11, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

In response to You could have presented that evidence on my talk page, I dont think arguing with a closer about the sources is an appropriate thing to do, no one user here has the power to decide how to represent the sources. That is a matter for consensus, and your task was to determine the consensus of the discussion, not decide what the sources say and impose that decision on to the article. nableezy - 21:48, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Closer (Jewish Exodus)

"Original research" was perhaps a poor choice of words given that it's jargon here, but there was a reason I didn't wikilink it as policy citation, unlike most of the others I mentioned on my talk page. My point, and I think this was comprehensible in context, was that several people made arguments trying to disconnect the exodus from the war based on various factual considerations, which is not a compelling argument in the face of reliable sources that say they are connected. You keep claiming that the sources don't make that connection, but the quotes making those connections are there in the discussion for all to see, I did my reasonable due diligence to verify them, and no compelling evidence that those sources didn't actually mean those things (e.g., because they said something different elsewhere) or that other sources disagreed was presented in the discussion. You could have presented that evidence on my talk page, and I would have reverted my closure, but instead you are here claiming I made a mistake by weighing the arguments according to their strength, when that's literally a closer's job. And as I explained on my talk page, once the strength of the arguments is accounted for, I don't see a consensus to exclude (or include); arguments that the sources frequently discuss the two as connected weren't refuted, arguments that they don't discuss them together in enough depth to constitute due weight were reasonable but not broadly convincing to participants, and when one side has somewhat more voters but the other side presents the more persuasive arguments, that puts us in no consensus territory IMO. Reasonable minds may disagree, I suppose. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 17:55, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Non-participants (Jewish Exodus)

• I would have closed as "the consensus is no".—S Marshall T/C 21:15, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
• I would have not closed it because this discussion was, sorry, completely toxic. You're quibbling whether to mention the Jewish exodus from Arab countries in the lede? That's what this was about? This is why WP:ARBPIA5 is now a blue-link.

On the close, I think was, just barely, within the ambit of the closer to weight the arguments heavily towards more policy-based ones and away from ones that are essentially based on independent reasoning, but they shouldn't have closed it. FOARP (talk) 00:39, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn to No - The closure lacked any understanding of the RfC and the closing note reads like a supervote. Capitals00 (talk) 03:57, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
• I understand why there is disagreement over this issue, it is a framing question that relates to issues of DUE. That said, the close clearly contains elements of a supervote. On the basis of the discussion *itself*, I would read consensus as "no" (although had I participated, FWIW, I would have contributed otherwise). Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 08:21, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Participants (Jewish Exodus)

• Endorse (involved) within discretion and aligns with my read of the relative strength of arguments being roughly equivalent. Andre🚐 22:03, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
• overturn Saying that A -> B implies that we should write B -> A? I simply don't understand this form of logic, Huldra (talk) 22:29, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (Jewish Exodus)

FOARP is there something inherently toxic about discussing if something belongs in an article that I’m missing here that you can spell out? nableezy - 01:26, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

A wall-of-text discussion of people talking past each other, whose votes I know without even looking at the discussion, about a single sentence in the lead section, is toxic. FOARP (talk) 08:59, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

That still has no explanation, just assertion. That was clearly a good faith discussion focused on the sources, and the idea that because it is about a single sentence in the lead means something is one that’s going to need some actual explanation. nableezy - 14:04, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Judging by your evidence at the PIA case, I think you are letting things there influence your views here, not really appropriate, methinks. Selfstudier (talk) 14:07, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

HabsMTL

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

---

Plagiarism and personal attacks on talk pages 2600:1003:B137:DB08:586D:F686:F203:F9FE (talk) 21:30, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Diffs are required.--Bbb23 (talk) 21:42, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, and if you are alleging plagiarism or copyright violation (which are not the same as each other) you need to say where the content was copied from. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:50, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

This seems like a continuation of this complaint: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#User:HabsMTL. The intractable dispute over episode summaries at Blue Bloods season 14. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:29, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

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

Chicdat ban appeal

Three years ago, in November of 2021, I was topic-banned from the project namespace following a community discussion. Six months later, I appealed the ban, but the proposal was unanimously opposed and archived without closure. Through the rest of 2022, my editing gradually decreased in frequency, and I was basically semi-retired for over a year due to real-life stuff. Lately I've become more active again. In the past few months I've !voted on many RMs, almost all of which have been closed accordingly. An RM that I recently nominated is heading towards consensus to move to a shorter title, a marked departure from some of the proposals I made in 2021, most of which got almost no support and had already been perennially discussed.

Back in 2022 when I appealed my ban, and I had to explain why I was banned, I gave a reason that looked very good, but was really just parroting what other people had told me. What it really all boils down to was: I thought I knew what I didn't know. I thought I was always right. I constantly deluded myself about my experience. When I commented on or opened a discussion, I either gave a half-baked rationale that had no basis in policy, or cited something that had nothing to do with the comment. Often I went above commenting, botching many closes, and tried to do things myself, often moving pages in such a manner. I just didn't understand these things. I made many edits like that. My second-ever edit was one of those. The last one was moving a page when I should have opened an RM. That was a year and a half ago.

During my long semi-wikibreak, I learned something. Before, when I envisioned having my ban lifted, I envisioned doing everything I had done before the ban, but non-disruptively. That was really stupid of me. If the ban is lifted, I will stick to doing things I understand. This isn't any kind of voluntary restriction like I had beforehand, it's just common sense. If I don't understand something, I won't get involved in it. Even admins do this: there are hundreds of admins who don't have a clue how to perform a histmerge, so they, understandably, don't perform them. Back then, if I had been in that situation, I would have jumped right in, and totally screwed it up. Now, I would stay away, and let the people who know what they're doing do the work. I know not to try to do things, or participate in discussions and areas that I don't understand.

Things have changed. Apart from RMs, one example is at Talk:Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi. This is the kind of thing that would have led to an edit war back in the bad old days: a disagreement over what an article should say and include. Instead, in AGF and BRD, another editor and I, after a short discussion, collaborated to create a compromise revision between mine and theirs. As an aside, while participating in an Israel-Palestine RM and after making a comment about needless bickering between ideologies, Chess, a user who supported my ban in 2021, pointed me to contribute at a draft MOS guideline (something well within the scope of the ban).

So what will I do? For the most part, the same kind of thing I'm doing right now: getting my magnum opus, List of Atlantic tropical storms, on the road to FL, working on my two new sandboxes of the same sort, participating in RMs that interest me, the occasional burst of recent-changes patrolling, little assorted gnoming fixes... but there are a few more things that I understand that I want to get into doing. Before my ban, I was a pending changes reviewer, one of the few things with which I didn't run into incidents, but voluntarily had it removed. So if unbanned, I'll go over to PERM (not RfP) and ask to have the right back. If there's a discussion about an area in which I have experience, such as my home WikiProject Tropical cyclones, that happens to be in projectspace (like an AFD for a hurricane), I'll add my 2¢. If there's a discussion at MR that is a supervote, I'll !vote accordingly (but won't nominate anything, since I don't trust myself to do so yet).

And finally, some assorted appendices. First of all, to the community, thank you for banning me. The IP who opened the discussion is sadly no longer active, but thank you to Cabayi, Levivich, Thryduulf, and ProcrastinatingReader, who supported the ban; and to the closing admin, Daniel. You saw what I did not: I needed a few years away from that area of Wikipedia to come back with a more experienced eye. Bans are preventative, not punitive, and this one was a textbook case. All of you prevented a great deal of further disruption. Finally, only tangentially related, but while reverting vandalism the other day, I came across (based on the brainrot username) a bored teenager who was vandalizing. When giving a level 2 warning, I tried to personalize it a bit by adding that vandalism isn't very sigma. To my surprise, the user replied, apologizing for vandalizing. An absolute gem.

Thank you for considering my request.

🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 13:32, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't know (or remember) the background to this, but that strikes me as such an earnest and insightful reflection, that I'm sure I'd be happy to support this. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 13:46, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm particularly impressed with the examples of corroborative editing, especially in such a potentially heated (and officially controversial) topic as the Arab–Israeli conflict. And per DoubleGrazing, that's a seriously introspective display of self-knowledge. SerialNumber54129^{A New Face in Hell} 14:08, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I read through the initial ANI that led to the ban and the unsuccessful ban-appeal discussion. Chicdat's tone and self-reflection in this appeal is a stark contrast to the obfuscation and deflection in those earlier discussions, and displays a noticeable change in editor maturity. I support lifting the projectspace ban. Schazjmd (talk) 14:54, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Support unban per above. I too am impressed by the insightfullness.-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 15:30, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm surprised that conversation ended in a t-ban from projectspace (I don't recall supporting or opposing the ban, and didn't follow the discussion to the end), and I apologize for inciting you to try to get around your ban.

This is a scenario in which I'd support an unban, though. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 16:24, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

@Chess: No problem. If this passes, by the way, I'd be happy to help work on that MOS proposal. 🐔 Chicdat  ^{Bawk to me!} 16:27, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

• Support unban. I've been in occasional contact with Chicdat over the years, and didn't even know about the topic ban until the user reached out to be about their appeal. Having seen impressive editor growth, I think Chicdat is more than ready to be a productive contributor. I also apprecate the creative take with dealing with that vandal. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 20:25, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Should I collapse, delete, or leave alone, some WP:ARBECR-breaking additions?

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

---

Hi,

I just received two different responses (and an unwelcome addition to my own talk page, which I promptly removed per WP:UOWN) from the IP address 2600:480A:3091:3000:695F:6F7D:2112:812D; the comments I made, introduced before I was more familiar with CTOP or Wikipedia guidelines in general, were obviously made in contravention to WP:CT/A-I as I was not extended-confirmed; the responses by the IP contravene that restriction as well.

The question I have here is, should I just collapse these past "illegal" comments of mine, and their replies, to avoid more rule-breaking responses in the future? Or merely revert the additions by the IP here? Or just avoiding touching it at all? I've not given the IP an ECR alert, because I'm not entirely sure what the template is for that.

I'm just attempting to avoid running afoul of CTOP as best I can, which is why I'm bringing this to the attention of administrators. But I'm not really sure what the policy is on this, or even if this is the right place to ask. Is there a help desk specifically for contentious topics? Should I just have asked at the help desk?

Thanks for any help. NewBorders (talk) 17:14, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

a) Don't alter archived material and b) Per WP:ARBECR, the only thing you can do on AI/IP articles is make edit requests. Selfstudier (talk) 17:21, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Okay gotcha, I'll just ignore these comments and not touch anything then, and will keep doing so in the future.

Thanks for the prompt reply. This can be closed if people have nothing more to add. NewBorders (talk) 17:25, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

• I've blocked Special:contributions/2600:480a:3091:3000::/64 for 3 months for disruption (they've been blocked before...by me...for one month).--Bbb23 (talk) 17:25, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

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

RM on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Weather

The script I was using to fulfill this RM malfunctioned (it thought that the page being moved was Wikipedia:WikiProject Weather instead of List of tornadoes in the tornado outbreak sequence of May 7–11, 2008), so it moved the WikiProject and all of its subpages to variations on List of tornadoes in the outbreak sequence of May 7–11, 2008 instead. I have reversed all of the moves in question. I am here to request the closure of the RM because I do not want to intervene in this request whatsoever after this incident. I have also disabled Move+ to prevent this from happening in the future. JJP_Master (she/they) 04:05, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Done. For what it's worth, the other RM script nearly did the same thing—cc. BilledMammal and TheTVExpert in case there's an easy way to code this situation (an RM proposed on a WikiProject talk page) in. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 04:18, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Help to Unblock

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

---

I'm Farsi wiki editor and My user globally locked and blocked with no previous notice. I explained a lot everywhere and now I would mention that I have a brother and he was fan of Farsad (rapper) and sometimes vote in AFD and make some edition in Farsi Wikipedia and we mostly use same PC. And explained to that moderator who blocked me but he didn't do anything! I didn't any mistake anytime and I if I did unwanted I apologize. 2A02:4540:A1:72E0:1:0:1436:39A4 (talk) 13:33, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

1. We cannot help with issues on other wikis.
2. See WP:BROTHER.
3. You have admitted to evading your lock. That means that your IP is eligible to be globally blocked, and I have thus reported it. Instead of doing this, please email stewardswikimedia.org. JJP_Master (she/they) 14:17, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

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