Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive359

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Crash48

Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear and substantial consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.

To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).

Appealing user

Crash48 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Crash48 (talk) 11:00, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed

Topic ban from Ukrainian language, imposed at Special:PermanentLink/1192419798#Rsk6400

Administrator imposing the sanction

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

Notification of that administrator

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1198915963

Statement by Crash48

The reason for TBAN was as follows: Crash48's contributions to the mediation are filled with sections where they demonstrate a battleground mentality. For example Third statement and Fourth statement. <...> Both editors also engaged in (slow) edit warring at the Ukrainian language article. Callanecc further explained at his talk page that Engaging in discussion where you have a focus on 'winning' and instead of discussing content you focus on the conduct of other editors isn't compatitible with the collaborative nature of the project.

First of all, WP:DRNC#How to respond to a "no consensus" edit summary advises, upon not receiving any response on the talk page from the revertor within a few days, to reapply the change, prior to taking the dispute to other forums. This recommended course of action that I followed was nevertheless assessed by Callanecc to amount to "slow edit warring".

More importantly, one can clearly see that my contributions to the mediation, including the two statements selected by Callanecc as a "demonstration of a battleground mentality", were focussed on the disputed content and not on the conduct of other editors. In particular, during the mediation I wrote a draft for the section that the other party suggested creating but never contributed even a single edit to. At the same time, none of Rsk6400's contributions to the mediation related to the disputed content. Noting this, the moderator Robert McClenon warned him several times that failing the mediation is likely to result in TBAN(s). Contrary to Callanecc's assessment that I was "threatening" Rsk6400, the warnings about the possible sanctions for non-participation in a discussion of the content originated not from myself but from the moderator (and rightly so).

Rsk6400 ignored the moderator's warnings until his eleventh statement, when he wrote: You never accused me of anything specific that might merit a topic ban. In response to that, I specified the relevant accusations against Rsk6400, so as to explain why the prospect of sanctions is real, and urged him to avoid an ANI case by engaging in a discussion of the content. Contrary to Callanecc's assessment of this as "a focus on winning", one can clearly see that it was exactly the opposite: trying to avert an imminent mediation failure and follow-up sanctions on any of the participants.

Some background of the content dispute can be found at User talk:Robert McClenon#Ukrainian language where I asked him for advice on how to deal with Rsk6400's unwillingness to explain his opposition against my additions into the article. Robert McClenon's advice was to go to DRN and open a case request. When the other editors decline to participate, I can accept the case as a one-person request for an RFC. If anyone accepts the case, then we will have moderated discussion. While Callanecc is correct when he comments that Mediation isn't mandatory, editors can choose not to participate, Rsk6400 accepting a mediation as an alternative to an RFC, then refusing to participate in the moderated discussion of the content, was a clearly bad faith attempt to obstruct an RFC on the content dispute.

I posted the RFC immediately after the mediation failed, as advised by Robert McClenon; but the TBAN imposed on me precludes my participation in my own RFC. While Callanecc is correct when he comments that the other party also receieved a sanction for their conduct, the imposed TBAN effectively endorses Rsk6400's stonewalling of the content dispute, by suppressing discussion of the content that Rsk6400 didn't want to discuss in the first place.

@HandThatFeeds: @In actu: @Grandpallama: WP:GAB instructs to explain why the block reason is incorrect or not applicable to your conduct, and that's what I'm doing here. The entire statement above is focused on my own actions and their assessment by Callanecc; actions by others are mentioned only as context. I don't see how WP:NOTTHEM is relevant. --Crash48 (talk) 14:09, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@HandThatFeeds: It might help if you point to specific instruction(s) from GAB that you believe I'm ignoring. Multiple editors found fault with your behavior, which is what led to this TBAN is not true: the TBAN was imposed by Callanecc alone, without any input from other editors. --Crash48 (talk) 12:43, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Callanecc

I don't have much more to say than I did in the thread on my talk page. As I explained to them, Crash's editing in this topic area was problematic. To me, Crash's appeal continues to demonstrate that Crash doesn't understand the reasons that I imposed the ban and is instead continuing to try and push responsibility for their actions onto others. If anyone has any specific questions for me please feel free to ping me. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:04, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Robert McClenon (Crash48)

My involvement is that I tried to mediate the dispute about Ukrainian language between Crash48 and Rsk6400, and then failed the mediation, and said that the next forum could be Arbitration Enforcement. Crash48 went to Arbitration Enforcement, and both editors were topic-banned from Ukrainian language for one year.

In my opinion, both editors engaged in battleground editing about a topic which is subject to battleground editing because it is the bloodiest battleground of the twenty-first century. I thought that the conduct of Rsk6400 was worse, but I thought that topic-banning both editors was appropriate. I had warned both editors that they would be likely to be both topic-banned if the dispute went to Arbitration Enforcement. I thought that Rsk6400 was trying to game the system and to confuse the moderator (me), and was demanding that the article be rolled back to an earlier version, which I was not interested in doing. I thought that Crash48 was being confrontational, and was trying to impose a non-neutral anti-Russian point of view. I would have imposed a longer topic-ban on Rsk6400, but I would have imposed at least a three-month topic-ban on Crash48, and now they are here after one month, which seems to indicate that they don't understand that they were both out of line.

Maybe I was mistaken in thinking that the other editor's conduct was worse. In any case, this appeal is misguided. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:41, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

User:Rsk6400 - It appears that I made a mistake. I thought that you had asked to roll the article on Ukrainian language back to a stable version. You asked me to fail the moderated discussion, which is an entirely different matter. I am not sure why I made this mistake, but it is possible that another editor in another dispute that I was mediating made that request.

I am not changing my recommendation that the topic-bans to User:Crash48 and User:Rsk6400 be left as is.

Robert McClenon (talk) 05:05, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Rsk6400

@Crash48 and Robert McClenon: Since you are accusing me of several things, it's a bit sad that neither of you pinged me. Robert McClenon, you said above that I was demanding that the article be rolled back to an earlier version. I'm quite sure that I never demanded such a thing. Could you please provide a diff supporting your claim ? Rsk6400 (talk) 17:23, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Crash48

• This entire "appeal" is a WP:NOTTHEM screed, and should be rejected outright. Nothing in the user's commentary is an explanation that they understand what they did wrong, much less showing any resolve to avoid the conflict in the future. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:57, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Crash48: Yes, we understand you believe the block was incorrect. But you're cherry-picking one line from GAB, while ignoring the rest of that page's instructions. Your entire appeal is "It's Rsk's fault, I did everything right." Multiple editors found fault with your behavior, which is what led to this TBAN. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 12:55, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

• It may behoove Crash48 to closely review NOTTHEM and revise one's appeal accordingly --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 12:49, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
• Crash48, the template for appeals at AE is not suited for appeals here. The result of the appeal will be based on the consensus of uninvolved editors, not just administrators. You may want to search through the archives for examples of such appeals, or you may want to solicit the support of an experienced editor in reformatting (I'm not available to do it right now). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:13, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

  Crash48 is actually doing what it says in WP:CTOP. It's just that most appeals here ignore that rule, and as long as there's a distinction made between involved and uninvolved and the right appellate standard is used, no one ever cares. I've been meaning to file an WP:A/R/CA about this for ages but keep not getting around to it. Anyways, I'll remove the editors/admins distinction, since that's the main issue with using the template here. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 19:46, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

  Actually, you know what they say, if you can do it in 5 55 minutes, do it now. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment § Amendment request: CTOP AN appeals. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 20:44, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

• This is textbook WP:NOTTHEM and should be assessed as such (i.e., not just unsuitable for an appeal, but evidence for the need to maintain the ban). Grandpallama (talk) 02:06, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
• The appeal should be declined as Crash48 does not seem to understand the reason for the ban, and how their behaviour should change to fix the problems in future. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:38, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
• Per everyone else above, the appeal should be declined; the original sanction was well merited, particularly given the battleground approach and "not them," but mostly for failing to understand and properly apply Wikipedia's policies about primary sources and SYNTH. In reading the AE thread, two lines by Crash really jumped out at me: Rsk6400's condition that primary sources should not be used here[31] has no basis in Wikipedia policies or guidelines -- uh, yeah, actually, it really does, "secondary not primary" is all over our policies -- and indeed, about a half dozen editors alleged that my proposed additions are WP:SYNTH. Each one of these editors refused to substantiate their allegations. The multitude of stonewalling editors expressing baseless allegations should not be mistaken for a consensus. -- that's just a funny expression of NOTTHEM, and it continues in this appeal.

  I am surprised, though, that Rsk6400 hasn't appealed their TBAN. After reading the DRN and AE, I see absolutely nothing wrong in Rsk6400's comments there. As another editor said, kudos to Rsk for trying to go through the dispute resolution process with a battlegrounding editor SYNTHing primary sources, through an unhelpful DRN and then an AE at which they get TBANed. I totally get the voluntarily-walking-away, I've done it myself many times, but that DRN and AE was frustrating to read nevermind having to participate in it, after having to go through all that, I'm (pleasantly) surprised Rsk hasn't quit Wikipedia altogether. Maybe it's just me, but FWIW, I'd vote to overturn Rsk's TBAN should they ever decide to appeal it. Levivich (talk) 17:48, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

  Not getting better. Levivich (talk) 13:23, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

• I take no issue with utilizing primary sources, however, they must be utilized appropriately to state uncontrovertible facts like, "In Watcher: The Legacy, the title character, Charlie Tespin, states he is a werewolf in Chapter 5". Utilizing them to base conclusions is completely inappropriate. Given this editor's history and clear battleground mentality evidenced above, the ban should remain. I would advise the user to review his actions and take some time for self-reflection on his actions. Crash48, do not reply to my user talk page; continue the discussion here if you wish. Buffs (talk) 21:04, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Blank page

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

---

I was trying to create a the sandbox User:TonyTheTiger/sandbox/Sean Jackson and accidentally saved the wrong tab Sean Jackson (basketball). Can someone blank it so that tomorrow when I move the page, it shows it entered the main space on February 3.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:35, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

It seems that you already blanked the page but want it deleted; in this case I've tagged it for G7. Best, NotAGenious (talk) 14:38, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Now deleted (not by me). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:42, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Thx.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:07, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

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

List of current National Football League staffs

Please re-instate the page that was listed here the way it was.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_National_Football_League_staffs

As a writer for Blogging Dirty, but with connections to writers all around the league, national and otherwise, we use this page heavily every year to try and figure out how teams will build their staffs. It really helps us figure things out before we go. It's also been a page that's been built for like 15 years and wasn't anyone's issue until recently. The jobs listed on the page for each template does matter and the staff directory links are updated in here regularly. Please help us continue to have a guide that will save us hours for research. What used to take me 10-15 minutes to research on a regular basis, took me over 3 hours last night. CarasikS (talk) 21:00, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of current National Football League staffs. The list was deleted because it didn't meet Wikipedia notability criteria. Wikipedia is not a directory, and it would seem rather unreasonable to expect our contributors (all volunteers) to make an exception and maintain such a list just for your personal convenience. Furthermore, the information for individual teams appears to be in the relevant article anyway. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:18, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

It's not a personal convenience thing. It's a for the entire NFL writers industry thing. The people who use the reference deem it to be notable enough. If that doesn't matter for notability, then what's the purpose of notability criteria for wikipedia? If the experts in this field deem it notable, how is it not notable? CarasikS (talk) 21:38, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Experts in the field can deem something notable, but not WP:NOTABLE. On Wikipedia, "notable" means "meets the WP:Notability guideline." There are no experts on WP:Notability (or another way to say it, all editors are "experts" on WP:Notability). But it's not up to subject matter experts to deem things WP:Notable, it's up to Wikipedia editors who vote at WP:AFDs and such. Levivich (talk) 21:42, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2024 February 1 and discussion on BeanieFan11's Talk, the List is now at Wikipedia:WikiProject National Football League/List of current National Football League staffs Star Mississippi 23:52, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

It should be noted the article was merely 32 template transclusions of each team's personnel template (all of which continue to be updated unaffected); Category:National Football League staff templates and Category:National Football League roster templates should fulfill the purposes you need, Carasik, just not appearing on one page. Nate • (chatter) 22:52, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

It had been up for a good decade. Why was it just now deemed "not notable"? Please answer that for me. CarasikS (talk) 18:00, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Because someone (an experienced contributor, though that isn't directly relevant) saw it, thought that it didn't meet our notability guidelines, and started a discussion where it was agreed that it wasn't. Which is how we deal with such questions. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:55, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Caroline Overington

Hello, The article says: As of 2021, she was in a relationship with writer Gideon Haigh.

This isn't true. It hasn't been true for years. I know that people have tried to change it for Caroline, but Wikipedia editors keep changing it back, saying she has to "prove" that she's not in a relationship with him anymore by using "reliable sources"

That sounds like she has to become the subject of gossip before Wikipedia will change it. She shouldn't be forced to do that.

It's not on his page. It was, but he had it taken off years ago.

I see from her Instagram page, and her Facebook page, both of which are verified, that it's not true. See here: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0VZJaOBcbR/?hl=en for example.

Please help to have it taken off her page. It's bewildering to her partner, children and family that she can't seem to get it removed. If you have to include something about her personal life you can say: In 2021 she *was* in a relationship with Gideon Haigh" but isn't any longer but I don't see why everyone has to know that. Concern10987654890 (talk) 19:53, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

This article has had a long history of seemingly COI editing, so much so that an entire article in the Sidney Morning Herald was written about it back in 2021 [1]. That said, I don't object to the removal of this particular passage, but I wish that the various accounts that are likely closely associated with Overington (such as Madmondrian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) from September last year) who are trying to remove this passage were more honest with their assocation. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:03, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. However, it is indeed nonsensical that the subject should have to prove she isn't in a relationship any more, and even if it was true in 2021, it isn't any longer (per her Instagram, which is OK per SELF) so that passage which insinuates that it is still the case needs to go. I've watchlisted. Black Kite (talk) 20:17, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

No, Overington should not have to become the subject of gossip before Wikipedia will change it, particularly as this was in the article on the basis of what seems to be a fictionalised account of a murder written by her claimed former partner himself, which is no better than gossip. Wikipedia still seems to operate a double standard by which such content is expected for female subjects but not male ones. It would, of course, have been much easier to deal with this without the shenanigans described above. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:07, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

It's not gossip in any sense I would describe that term, it's pretty clearly stated in the 2021 SMH article I linked. It has also been discussed before, see Talk:Caroline_Overington#BLP edit war, but didn't seem to go anywhere. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Also, the information about her being in a relationship with Gideon Haigh was added back in 2020 by the SPA Blogstar2020 (talk · contribs) diff who in a separate edit removed a large amount of negative material relating to Overington, which like the SMH suggests to me that this was COI editing by someone close to Overington, so it's a bit ironic to both add material to an article and then complain when it isn't removed. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:20, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I participated on the previous discussion. As I remarked there, there are a few different issues here. One is that some of the earlier SPAs seemed to be implying the claim was never true.

But this was reported in the a fairly major newspaper in Australia. And it wasn't some sort of a gossip item about a relationship but instead a story where the claim was somewhat significant to the story. They're two people heavily involved in the media. If the claim was never true, it's hard to believe they don't know how to go about getting it corrected. Therefore, we should treat the claim as true at the time.

However, this doesn't mean we need to mention the claim in our article. If we don't mention the other details, I'm not sure it adds much to mention it.

A wider issue is even if we do mention it, how we handle claims which were true at one time, but which we are no longer the case. The point of the 'as of' is not to claim the statement is still true, but to emphasise that we only know this was the case as of that date. We have no idea of the current situation. But I'm not sure everyone understands this, although I'm also not sure if there's a wording which conveys it which isn't clunky.

Note that especially for marriages we often don't do this and instead simply say they are married to Z. We've actually had several complaints from people who are no longer married but for which there are no RS covering the divorce. The most famous of this is probably Talk:Emily St. John Mandel.

We don't have any real agreement on how to handle these cases. Some people are fine with using WP:ABOUTSELF for this but personally I'm not a fan of this since we're clearly making a statement about some other person/third party (whoever they allegedly divorced from).

While it's a fairly innocuous statement, and in many countries it doesn't really say anything about the other party (in that they don't have to even agree to the divorce), if it does turn out it's a lie for whatever reason, I can understand this other party being pissed that we spread a lie about them. I don't think coaxing it as a "person A said they divorced" really makes it that much better, there's a reason we don't allow aboutself for other statements about some third party even when it's written like this.

My view is that our best solution is generally just to remove the info. In most cases, the marriage isn't that important so just remove all mention of the marriage is fine, no matter if it's in RS. But some people are insistent it's very important info. I also think some of the subjects requesting mention of their divorce might not even be satisfied with this solution.

P.S. Of course it's also fairly annoying the way that editors with a CoI are often super desperate for us to add something about them until something changes and they're no longer so desperate. The worst of these is when want an article until they get into some trouble and then no longer want one.

Nil Einne (talk) 11:52, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

There's a meta problem here in that "as of" is commonly[2] understood mean "starting from and continuing". The phrase "as at" would be better to constraint the statement to a date. Bon courage (talk) 11:59, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Note also while the famous case of Mandel at least had some sort of social media presence IIRC and maybe even a blog and/or official website, there are also plenty of cases when the person has none. Even with identity verification, I definitely don't think we should be relying on people telling us directly to correct the info, and that's also not what aboutself is about, so in those cases even that doesn't work. Nil Einne (talk) 12:02, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

It would be good if, in addition to the other things mentioned above that the single-purpose accounts (which includes Concern10987654890 here) are getting wrong, they would get the noticeboard use right, too. Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard is the place for this and all things like this.

And yes we routinely there see the sort of lopsidedness that Phil Bridger mentions. The last that I myself noted on that noticeboard was the different content standards between Francine Diaz (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Kyle Echarri (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) for exactly the same things. Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive355#Francine Diaz.

Uncle G (talk) 09:03, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Crash48

Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear and substantial consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.

To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).

Appealing user

Crash48 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Crash48 (talk) 11:00, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed

Topic ban from Ukrainian language, imposed at Special:PermanentLink/1192419798#Rsk6400

Administrator imposing the sanction

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

Notification of that administrator

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1198915963

Statement by Crash48

The reason for TBAN was as follows: Crash48's contributions to the mediation are filled with sections where they demonstrate a battleground mentality. For example Third statement and Fourth statement. <...> Both editors also engaged in (slow) edit warring at the Ukrainian language article. Callanecc further explained at his talk page that Engaging in discussion where you have a focus on 'winning' and instead of discussing content you focus on the conduct of other editors isn't compatitible with the collaborative nature of the project.

First of all, WP:DRNC#How to respond to a "no consensus" edit summary advises, upon not receiving any response on the talk page from the revertor within a few days, to reapply the change, prior to taking the dispute to other forums. This recommended course of action that I followed was nevertheless assessed by Callanecc to amount to "slow edit warring".

More importantly, one can clearly see that my contributions to the mediation, including the two statements selected by Callanecc as a "demonstration of a battleground mentality", were focussed on the disputed content and not on the conduct of other editors. In particular, during the mediation I wrote a draft for the section that the other party suggested creating but never contributed even a single edit to. At the same time, none of Rsk6400's contributions to the mediation related to the disputed content. Noting this, the moderator Robert McClenon warned him several times that failing the mediation is likely to result in TBAN(s). Contrary to Callanecc's assessment that I was "threatening" Rsk6400, the warnings about the possible sanctions for non-participation in a discussion of the content originated not from myself but from the moderator (and rightly so).

Rsk6400 ignored the moderator's warnings until his eleventh statement, when he wrote: You never accused me of anything specific that might merit a topic ban. In response to that, I specified the relevant accusations against Rsk6400, so as to explain why the prospect of sanctions is real, and urged him to avoid an ANI case by engaging in a discussion of the content. Contrary to Callanecc's assessment of this as "a focus on winning", one can clearly see that it was exactly the opposite: trying to avert an imminent mediation failure and follow-up sanctions on any of the participants.

Some background of the content dispute can be found at User talk:Robert McClenon#Ukrainian language where I asked him for advice on how to deal with Rsk6400's unwillingness to explain his opposition against my additions into the article. Robert McClenon's advice was to go to DRN and open a case request. When the other editors decline to participate, I can accept the case as a one-person request for an RFC. If anyone accepts the case, then we will have moderated discussion. While Callanecc is correct when he comments that Mediation isn't mandatory, editors can choose not to participate, Rsk6400 accepting a mediation as an alternative to an RFC, then refusing to participate in the moderated discussion of the content, was a clearly bad faith attempt to obstruct an RFC on the content dispute.

I posted the RFC immediately after the mediation failed, as advised by Robert McClenon; but the TBAN imposed on me precludes my participation in my own RFC. While Callanecc is correct when he comments that the other party also receieved a sanction for their conduct, the imposed TBAN effectively endorses Rsk6400's stonewalling of the content dispute, by suppressing discussion of the content that Rsk6400 didn't want to discuss in the first place.

@HandThatFeeds: @In actu: @Grandpallama: WP:GAB instructs to explain why the block reason is incorrect or not applicable to your conduct, and that's what I'm doing here. The entire statement above is focused on my own actions and their assessment by Callanecc; actions by others are mentioned only as context. I don't see how WP:NOTTHEM is relevant. --Crash48 (talk) 14:09, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@HandThatFeeds: It might help if you point to specific instruction(s) from GAB that you believe I'm ignoring. Multiple editors found fault with your behavior, which is what led to this TBAN is not true: the TBAN was imposed by Callanecc alone, without any input from other editors. --Crash48 (talk) 12:43, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Callanecc

I don't have much more to say than I did in the thread on my talk page. As I explained to them, Crash's editing in this topic area was problematic. To me, Crash's appeal continues to demonstrate that Crash doesn't understand the reasons that I imposed the ban and is instead continuing to try and push responsibility for their actions onto others. If anyone has any specific questions for me please feel free to ping me. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:04, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Robert McClenon (Crash48)

My involvement is that I tried to mediate the dispute about Ukrainian language between Crash48 and Rsk6400, and then failed the mediation, and said that the next forum could be Arbitration Enforcement. Crash48 went to Arbitration Enforcement, and both editors were topic-banned from Ukrainian language for one year.

In my opinion, both editors engaged in battleground editing about a topic which is subject to battleground editing because it is the bloodiest battleground of the twenty-first century. I thought that the conduct of Rsk6400 was worse, but I thought that topic-banning both editors was appropriate. I had warned both editors that they would be likely to be both topic-banned if the dispute went to Arbitration Enforcement. I thought that Rsk6400 was trying to game the system and to confuse the moderator (me), and was demanding that the article be rolled back to an earlier version, which I was not interested in doing. I thought that Crash48 was being confrontational, and was trying to impose a non-neutral anti-Russian point of view. I would have imposed a longer topic-ban on Rsk6400, but I would have imposed at least a three-month topic-ban on Crash48, and now they are here after one month, which seems to indicate that they don't understand that they were both out of line.

Maybe I was mistaken in thinking that the other editor's conduct was worse. In any case, this appeal is misguided. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:41, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

User:Rsk6400 - It appears that I made a mistake. I thought that you had asked to roll the article on Ukrainian language back to a stable version. You asked me to fail the moderated discussion, which is an entirely different matter. I am not sure why I made this mistake, but it is possible that another editor in another dispute that I was mediating made that request.

I am not changing my recommendation that the topic-bans to User:Crash48 and User:Rsk6400 be left as is.

Robert McClenon (talk) 05:05, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Rsk6400

@Crash48 and Robert McClenon: Since you are accusing me of several things, it's a bit sad that neither of you pinged me. Robert McClenon, you said above that I was demanding that the article be rolled back to an earlier version. I'm quite sure that I never demanded such a thing. Could you please provide a diff supporting your claim ? Rsk6400 (talk) 17:23, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Crash48

• This entire "appeal" is a WP:NOTTHEM screed, and should be rejected outright. Nothing in the user's commentary is an explanation that they understand what they did wrong, much less showing any resolve to avoid the conflict in the future. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:57, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Crash48: Yes, we understand you believe the block was incorrect. But you're cherry-picking one line from GAB, while ignoring the rest of that page's instructions. Your entire appeal is "It's Rsk's fault, I did everything right." Multiple editors found fault with your behavior, which is what led to this TBAN. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 12:55, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

• It may behoove Crash48 to closely review NOTTHEM and revise one's appeal accordingly --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 12:49, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
• Crash48, the template for appeals at AE is not suited for appeals here. The result of the appeal will be based on the consensus of uninvolved editors, not just administrators. You may want to search through the archives for examples of such appeals, or you may want to solicit the support of an experienced editor in reformatting (I'm not available to do it right now). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:13, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

  Crash48 is actually doing what it says in WP:CTOP. It's just that most appeals here ignore that rule, and as long as there's a distinction made between involved and uninvolved and the right appellate standard is used, no one ever cares. I've been meaning to file an WP:A/R/CA about this for ages but keep not getting around to it. Anyways, I'll remove the editors/admins distinction, since that's the main issue with using the template here. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 19:46, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

  Actually, you know what they say, if you can do it in 5 55 minutes, do it now. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment § Amendment request: CTOP AN appeals. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 20:44, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

• This is textbook WP:NOTTHEM and should be assessed as such (i.e., not just unsuitable for an appeal, but evidence for the need to maintain the ban). Grandpallama (talk) 02:06, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
• The appeal should be declined as Crash48 does not seem to understand the reason for the ban, and how their behaviour should change to fix the problems in future. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:38, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
• Per everyone else above, the appeal should be declined; the original sanction was well merited, particularly given the battleground approach and "not them," but mostly for failing to understand and properly apply Wikipedia's policies about primary sources and SYNTH. In reading the AE thread, two lines by Crash really jumped out at me: Rsk6400's condition that primary sources should not be used here[31] has no basis in Wikipedia policies or guidelines -- uh, yeah, actually, it really does, "secondary not primary" is all over our policies -- and indeed, about a half dozen editors alleged that my proposed additions are WP:SYNTH. Each one of these editors refused to substantiate their allegations. The multitude of stonewalling editors expressing baseless allegations should not be mistaken for a consensus. -- that's just a funny expression of NOTTHEM, and it continues in this appeal.

  I am surprised, though, that Rsk6400 hasn't appealed their TBAN. After reading the DRN and AE, I see absolutely nothing wrong in Rsk6400's comments there. As another editor said, kudos to Rsk for trying to go through the dispute resolution process with a battlegrounding editor SYNTHing primary sources, through an unhelpful DRN and then an AE at which they get TBANed. I totally get the voluntarily-walking-away, I've done it myself many times, but that DRN and AE was frustrating to read nevermind having to participate in it, after having to go through all that, I'm (pleasantly) surprised Rsk hasn't quit Wikipedia altogether. Maybe it's just me, but FWIW, I'd vote to overturn Rsk's TBAN should they ever decide to appeal it. Levivich (talk) 17:48, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

  Not getting better. Levivich (talk) 13:23, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

• I take no issue with utilizing primary sources, however, they must be utilized appropriately to state uncontrovertible facts like, "In Watcher: The Legacy, the title character, Charlie Tespin, states he is a werewolf in Chapter 5". Utilizing them to base conclusions is completely inappropriate. Given this editor's history and clear battleground mentality evidenced above, the ban should remain. I would advise the user to review his actions and take some time for self-reflection on his actions. Crash48, do not reply to my user talk page; continue the discussion here if you wish. Buffs (talk) 21:04, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Blank page

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

---

I was trying to create a the sandbox User:TonyTheTiger/sandbox/Sean Jackson and accidentally saved the wrong tab Sean Jackson (basketball). Can someone blank it so that tomorrow when I move the page, it shows it entered the main space on February 3.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:35, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

It seems that you already blanked the page but want it deleted; in this case I've tagged it for G7. Best, NotAGenious (talk) 14:38, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Now deleted (not by me). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:42, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Thx.-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:07, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

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

List of current National Football League staffs

Please re-instate the page that was listed here the way it was.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_National_Football_League_staffs

As a writer for Blogging Dirty, but with connections to writers all around the league, national and otherwise, we use this page heavily every year to try and figure out how teams will build their staffs. It really helps us figure things out before we go. It's also been a page that's been built for like 15 years and wasn't anyone's issue until recently. The jobs listed on the page for each template does matter and the staff directory links are updated in here regularly. Please help us continue to have a guide that will save us hours for research. What used to take me 10-15 minutes to research on a regular basis, took me over 3 hours last night. CarasikS (talk) 21:00, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of current National Football League staffs. The list was deleted because it didn't meet Wikipedia notability criteria. Wikipedia is not a directory, and it would seem rather unreasonable to expect our contributors (all volunteers) to make an exception and maintain such a list just for your personal convenience. Furthermore, the information for individual teams appears to be in the relevant article anyway. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:18, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

It's not a personal convenience thing. It's a for the entire NFL writers industry thing. The people who use the reference deem it to be notable enough. If that doesn't matter for notability, then what's the purpose of notability criteria for wikipedia? If the experts in this field deem it notable, how is it not notable? CarasikS (talk) 21:38, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Experts in the field can deem something notable, but not WP:NOTABLE. On Wikipedia, "notable" means "meets the WP:Notability guideline." There are no experts on WP:Notability (or another way to say it, all editors are "experts" on WP:Notability). But it's not up to subject matter experts to deem things WP:Notable, it's up to Wikipedia editors who vote at WP:AFDs and such. Levivich (talk) 21:42, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2024 February 1 and discussion on BeanieFan11's Talk, the List is now at Wikipedia:WikiProject National Football League/List of current National Football League staffs Star Mississippi 23:52, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

It should be noted the article was merely 32 template transclusions of each team's personnel template (all of which continue to be updated unaffected); Category:National Football League staff templates and Category:National Football League roster templates should fulfill the purposes you need, Carasik, just not appearing on one page. Nate • (chatter) 22:52, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

It had been up for a good decade. Why was it just now deemed "not notable"? Please answer that for me. CarasikS (talk) 18:00, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Because someone (an experienced contributor, though that isn't directly relevant) saw it, thought that it didn't meet our notability guidelines, and started a discussion where it was agreed that it wasn't. Which is how we deal with such questions. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:55, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Can someone protect a few template/module pages for me?

• Template:Easy CSS image crop
• Module:ImageRatio
• Template:Easy CSS image crop/bSize

They're a calculation handler for {{CSS image crop}} that vastly, vastly simplifies using it. But if they get widespread... Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.8% of all FPs.} 02:30, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, we don't usually protect pages preemptively.. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 03:51, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I believe it's more common for templates. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.8% of all FPs.} 03:51, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I'd support protection, and I think it's justified by various parts of the protection policy (WP:PTPROT, the last part of WP:PPINDEF) and the guideline WP:HRT. If this ends up being controversial, ECP is also suggested as a compromise measure. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:04, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Aye. Plan to write about this in the next Signpost, and don't want to have a situation where the template gets wider use before the vandalism prevention. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.8% of all FPs.} 04:14, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

What level of protection would be wanted? Semi-protection (require logged-in user with 10 edits + 4 days) would be least controversial but if this request were at WP:RFPP the standard response would be not preemptive. I would support semi for this application. Johnuniq (talk) 04:22, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Semi sounds good, though template protection for Module:ImageRatio and Template:Easy CSS image crop/bSize, since they're unlikely to be watchlisted, might be reasonable. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.8% of all FPs.} 05:29, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Promotional account

I found this account while browsing WP:UAA. DQB flagged it for being a long name with no spaces, but that's the least of my concerns about this account.

They're using their userpage as a space for promotion, and I doubt this account will be used for anything else, so I think this account should just be banned.

P.S., I'm not sure if this is the correct venue, so feel free to move this discussion if you feel it's appropriate --QuickQuokka ^{[⁠talk • contribs]} 10:26, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Improper usernames should be reported to WP:UAA. Promotional editing to this degree can be reported to WP:AIV.(if both apply you only need one venue) I'll take care of this, though. 331dot (talk) 10:28, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

File:Waxworks, German release poster, 1924.jpg

Hi, This is in the public domain now. The source is dead, and I can't find a better image on the Net. So the earlier versions should be undeleted, and moved to Commons. Thanks, Yann (talk) 09:18, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

I have removed the revision-deletion from the old versions. There were two uploaded versions of the poster, each of which would have to be uploaded separately to the Commons. The source for the first upload was here. The second upload was from here (dead link) so the Commons will not want it unless a source can be found. If you could do the remaining steps that would be perfect. Thanks, — Diannaa (talk) 14:55, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Promotional account

I found this account while browsing WP:UAA. DQB flagged it for being a long name with no spaces, but that's the least of my concerns about this account.

They're using their userpage as a space for promotion, and I doubt this account will be used for anything else, so I think this account should just be banned.

P.S., I'm not sure if this is the correct venue, so feel free to move this discussion if you feel it's appropriate --QuickQuokka ^{[⁠talk • contribs]} 10:26, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Improper usernames should be reported to WP:UAA. Promotional editing to this degree can be reported to WP:AIV.(if both apply you only need one venue) I'll take care of this, though. 331dot (talk) 10:28, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

File:Waxworks, German release poster, 1924.jpg

Hi, This is in the public domain now. The source is dead, and I can't find a better image on the Net. So the earlier versions should be undeleted, and moved to Commons. Thanks, Yann (talk) 09:18, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

I have removed the revision-deletion from the old versions. There were two uploaded versions of the poster, each of which would have to be uploaded separately to the Commons. The source for the first upload was here. The second upload was from here (dead link) so the Commons will not want it unless a source can be found. If you could do the remaining steps that would be perfect. Thanks, — Diannaa (talk) 14:55, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Non admin closing categories for discussion as delete

I'm just checking if this is allowed for a non admin. As they don't have the power to delete the categories:

• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2024_January_27#Category:Togolese_expatriates_in_Mauritania
• Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2024_January_27#Category:Mauritanian_expatriate_sportspeople_in_Norway.

LibStar (talk) 04:40, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Non-admin closure of CfDs is common, and the maintenance of that page relies on the efforts of experienced non-admin closers. You can read more about the process by reading Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Administrator instructions#Non-admin closures or by watching how it works at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working and the associated talk page. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:45, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks LibStar (talk) 04:52, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

WP:NACD. You could have asked them first. Usedtobecool ☎️ 04:44, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Motions on amending the scope of appeals considered by the Arbitration Committee

Two motions are proposed to amend the scope of appeals considered by the Arbitration Committee at Arbitration/Requests/Motions. Community feedback is invited and welcomed. Maxim (talk) 16:45, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Motions on amending the scope of appeals considered by the Arbitration Committee

Information regarding User:CommanderWaterford

Hello,

As a global renamer I would like to inform you that a banned user of your community, CommanderWaterford, who just recently had an unsuccessful and almost unanimously opposed ban appeal on this page, has requested to rename their account (m:Steward requests/Username changes#CommanderWaterford). This was requested after discussions brought up on the German Wikipedia regarding their current username (see [3] and [4]), the same name as a controversial fictional character. Looking at these discussions, I have full understanding of dewiki wanting the username changed, but I would like to notify the administrators of this wiki to give an ability to voice opinions about this, before this request will be potentially placed on hold. Regards, EPIC (talk) 17:22, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's a problem, their userpage with the ban notice would be moved to their renamed account anyway, with the former page as a redirect, and they would remain blocked, so I don't think there's any risk of them getting an inadvertent clean start or anything deceptive like that. If you let us know if it's approved we can update our relevant logs here. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:56, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:25, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

This should be allowed to go through. I agree with the people at dewiki. It is one thing (among others) that caused their appeal to fail, and doing it this way should not get in the way of our policing of the ban. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:12, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I do not understand German, however I can absolutely understand why the community would have concern with CW's username showing up throughout their community and support this change Star Mississippi 00:05, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

For information: I have renamed them per their request, but declined their request for usurpation per opinions of other global renamers. EPIC (talk) 16:27, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

I happened to see this morning that they have been renamed, and as expected their user and talk pages have been moved to the new account name with the former name as a redirect. Since their ban was a community discussion and (I think) isn't logged separately, no more action is needed here. Thanks for letting us know anyway, EPIC. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:03, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Should we create and reblock the old CW account? Having it appear unblocked might be confusing for reading old discussions, if you're used to seeing the strikethrough on blocked users. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:43, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Recreating a renamed username which is not fulfilling the username policy doesnt makes sense to me, to be honest. It is only making it harder to understand that the account got renamed. TenWhile6 (talk | SWMT) 06:09, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Why? You'd still have it all redirect to the new name. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 06:29, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

if the account is existing, you cant redirect to another name. Technically yes, but In my opinion this wouldnt be okay. TenWhile6 (talk | SWMT) 06:39, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Of course you can. I registered User:PMC as a doppelganger in 2005 and it has redirected to my userpage for just shy of 20 years now. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 08:57, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

I personally thought it would be problematic, because then you get instantly redirected and can’t see the contributions of the User you clicked on. But I am not an admin here, do, what you want, if you think, it’s appropriate :D TenWhile6 (talk | SWMT) 08:59, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

No, I don't think it's necessary at all to recreate the former account. All references to it are now redirects to the renamed, and still blocked and banned, account. I do see what you mean about the strikethrough script but I think you shouldn't rely so much on it anyway, it doesn't strike globally locked accounts for example unless they're also blocked locally, and creating an account just to block it so that a highlighting script works feels like opening a can of unintended consequences. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 12:37, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Concur with Ivanvector. Primefac (talk) 12:51, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding Mzajac

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

Given Mzajac (talk · contribs)'s absence from editing, the Mzajac case will be suspended for a period of three months and Mzajac will be temporarily desysopped.

Should Mzajac return to active editing on the English Wikipedia during this time and request that this case be resumed, the Arbitration Committee shall unsuspend the case by motion and it will proceed through the normal arbitration process. Such a request may be made by email to arbcom-enwikimedia.org or at the clerks' noticeboard. Mzajac will remain temporarily desysopped for the duration of the case.

If such a request is not made within three months of this motion or if Mzajac resigns his administrative tools, this case shall be automatically closed, and Mzajac shall remain desysopped. If tools are resigned or removed, in the circumstances described above, Mzajac may regain the administrative tools at any time only via a successful request for adminship.

For the Arbitration Committee, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 20:31, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Arbitration motion regarding Mzajac

Caroline Overington

Hello, The article says: As of 2021, she was in a relationship with writer Gideon Haigh.

This isn't true. It hasn't been true for years. I know that people have tried to change it for Caroline, but Wikipedia editors keep changing it back, saying she has to "prove" that she's not in a relationship with him anymore by using "reliable sources"

That sounds like she has to become the subject of gossip before Wikipedia will change it. She shouldn't be forced to do that.

It's not on his page. It was, but he had it taken off years ago.

I see from her Instagram page, and her Facebook page, both of which are verified, that it's not true. See here: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0VZJaOBcbR/?hl=en for example.

Please help to have it taken off her page. It's bewildering to her partner, children and family that she can't seem to get it removed. If you have to include something about her personal life you can say: In 2021 she *was* in a relationship with Gideon Haigh" but isn't any longer but I don't see why everyone has to know that. Concern10987654890 (talk) 19:53, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

This article has had a long history of seemingly COI editing, so much so that an entire article in the Sidney Morning Herald was written about it back in 2021 [5]. That said, I don't object to the removal of this particular passage, but I wish that the various accounts that are likely closely associated with Overington (such as Madmondrian (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) from September last year) who are trying to remove this passage were more honest with their assocation. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:03, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. However, it is indeed nonsensical that the subject should have to prove she isn't in a relationship any more, and even if it was true in 2021, it isn't any longer (per her Instagram, which is OK per SELF) so that passage which insinuates that it is still the case needs to go. I've watchlisted. Black Kite (talk) 20:17, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

No, Overington should not have to become the subject of gossip before Wikipedia will change it, particularly as this was in the article on the basis of what seems to be a fictionalised account of a murder written by her claimed former partner himself, which is no better than gossip. Wikipedia still seems to operate a double standard by which such content is expected for female subjects but not male ones. It would, of course, have been much easier to deal with this without the shenanigans described above. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:07, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

It's not gossip in any sense I would describe that term, it's pretty clearly stated in the 2021 SMH article I linked. It has also been discussed before, see Talk:Caroline_Overington#BLP edit war, but didn't seem to go anywhere. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Also, the information about her being in a relationship with Gideon Haigh was added back in 2020 by the SPA Blogstar2020 (talk · contribs) diff who in a separate edit removed a large amount of negative material relating to Overington, which like the SMH suggests to me that this was COI editing by someone close to Overington, so it's a bit ironic to both add material to an article and then complain when it isn't removed. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:20, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I participated on the previous discussion. As I remarked there, there are a few different issues here. One is that some of the earlier SPAs seemed to be implying the claim was never true.

But this was reported in the a fairly major newspaper in Australia. And it wasn't some sort of a gossip item about a relationship but instead a story where the claim was somewhat significant to the story. They're two people heavily involved in the media. If the claim was never true, it's hard to believe they don't know how to go about getting it corrected. Therefore, we should treat the claim as true at the time.

However, this doesn't mean we need to mention the claim in our article. If we don't mention the other details, I'm not sure it adds much to mention it.

A wider issue is even if we do mention it, how we handle claims which were true at one time, but which we are no longer the case. The point of the 'as of' is not to claim the statement is still true, but to emphasise that we only know this was the case as of that date. We have no idea of the current situation. But I'm not sure everyone understands this, although I'm also not sure if there's a wording which conveys it which isn't clunky.

Note that especially for marriages we often don't do this and instead simply say they are married to Z. We've actually had several complaints from people who are no longer married but for which there are no RS covering the divorce. The most famous of this is probably Talk:Emily St. John Mandel.

We don't have any real agreement on how to handle these cases. Some people are fine with using WP:ABOUTSELF for this but personally I'm not a fan of this since we're clearly making a statement about some other person/third party (whoever they allegedly divorced from).

While it's a fairly innocuous statement, and in many countries it doesn't really say anything about the other party (in that they don't have to even agree to the divorce), if it does turn out it's a lie for whatever reason, I can understand this other party being pissed that we spread a lie about them. I don't think coaxing it as a "person A said they divorced" really makes it that much better, there's a reason we don't allow aboutself for other statements about some third party even when it's written like this.

My view is that our best solution is generally just to remove the info. In most cases, the marriage isn't that important so just remove all mention of the marriage is fine, no matter if it's in RS. But some people are insistent it's very important info. I also think some of the subjects requesting mention of their divorce might not even be satisfied with this solution.

P.S. Of course it's also fairly annoying the way that editors with a CoI are often super desperate for us to add something about them until something changes and they're no longer so desperate. The worst of these is when want an article until they get into some trouble and then no longer want one.

Nil Einne (talk) 11:52, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

There's a meta problem here in that "as of" is commonly[6] understood mean "starting from and continuing". The phrase "as at" would be better to constraint the statement to a date. Bon courage (talk) 11:59, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Note also while the famous case of Mandel at least had some sort of social media presence IIRC and maybe even a blog and/or official website, there are also plenty of cases when the person has none. Even with identity verification, I definitely don't think we should be relying on people telling us directly to correct the info, and that's also not what aboutself is about, so in those cases even that doesn't work. Nil Einne (talk) 12:02, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

It would be good if, in addition to the other things mentioned above that the single-purpose accounts (which includes Concern10987654890 here) are getting wrong, they would get the noticeboard use right, too. Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard is the place for this and all things like this.

And yes we routinely there see the sort of lopsidedness that Phil Bridger mentions. The last that I myself noted on that noticeboard was the different content standards between Francine Diaz (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Kyle Echarri (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) for exactly the same things. Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive355#Francine Diaz.

Uncle G (talk) 09:03, 1 February 2024 (UTC) Despite CoI problems at that page, the claim as it stands appears to be a WP:BLP violation and should be removed. We can't rely on a source that said a relationship existed at some point in the past to insist that it still continues today, especially when this is contradicted by multiple WP:ABOUTSELF sources.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:18, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Possible upcoming edits encouraged by Peter Thiel

Peter Thiel is backing up the "Enheanced Games", a sports "event" that openly encourages doping. While browsing his page, i saw this link and it suggests to edit certain Wikipedia articles to replace certain words related to doping with words and phrasing that are more in his view.

There are 26 articles involved,

https://enhanced.org/update-wikipedia/

Twixtxter (talk) 20:22, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

I had to laugh at the instruction to replace "cheating" with "demonstrations of science" and "cheated" becomes "Fought for science and bodily sovereignty"...kind of over the top. Schazjmd (talk) 20:30, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

The articles mentioned at the website:

• Anabolic steroid#Enhancing performance
• Athlete biological passport
• Category:Doping cases in athletics
• Cheating in sports
• Court of Arbitration for Sport
• Doping at the Olympic Games
• Doping at the World Athletics Championships
• Doping in sport
• Ergogenic use of anabolic steroids
• International Olympic Committee
• List of doping cases in athletics
• Natural bodybuilding
• Performance-enhancing substance
• Steroid use in American football
• Stimulant
• Transgender people in sports
• World Anti-Doping Agency
• Alistair Overeem
• Ben Johnson (Canadian sprinter)
• Duncan Atwood
• List of national anti-doping organizations
• List of world records in masters athletics
• Philosophy of sport
• Tim Montgomery
• United States Anti-Doping Agency
• List of strip

Presumably the last one is meant to link List of stripped Olympic medals. If anyone wants to check in on these without watchlisting, you can use the "Related changes" link at User:Firefangledfeathers/Enhanced.org watchlist. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:37, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Concerning, as one of Thiel's associates likes to say. We should be watching these articles for meatpuppetry. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:05, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

The with specific articles to target has been up for months. Very little of this is new; I don't anticipate a large wave suddenly coming until we get closer to the Enhanced games, though I do think there are some ways to track this going forward. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 22:07, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

@Red-tailed hawk You may well be right, but there is a bit of spike [7] atm, afaict because of the "We've got millions of dollars now!" reports. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:26, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

@Firefangledfeathers, Enhanced Games is not on the list but can also be considered "involved". Related discussion at Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2023_July_8#"Natural"_Records?. It's possible "they" decided to give up, at least for the time being. I'm off to fight for science and bodily sovereignty in poker. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:30, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Added, thanks! Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:57, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Crash48

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

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Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear and substantial consensus of uninvolved editors" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.

To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).

Appealing user

Crash48 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Crash48 (talk) 11:00, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed

Topic ban from Ukrainian language, imposed at Special:PermanentLink/1192419798#Rsk6400

Administrator imposing the sanction

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

Notification of that administrator

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1198915963

Statement by Crash48

The reason for TBAN was as follows: Crash48's contributions to the mediation are filled with sections where they demonstrate a battleground mentality. For example Third statement and Fourth statement. <...> Both editors also engaged in (slow) edit warring at the Ukrainian language article. Callanecc further explained at his talk page that Engaging in discussion where you have a focus on 'winning' and instead of discussing content you focus on the conduct of other editors isn't compatitible with the collaborative nature of the project.

First of all, WP:DRNC#How to respond to a "no consensus" edit summary advises, upon not receiving any response on the talk page from the revertor within a few days, to reapply the change, prior to taking the dispute to other forums. This recommended course of action that I followed was nevertheless assessed by Callanecc to amount to "slow edit warring".

More importantly, one can clearly see that my contributions to the mediation, including the two statements selected by Callanecc as a "demonstration of a battleground mentality", were focussed on the disputed content and not on the conduct of other editors. In particular, during the mediation I wrote a draft for the section that the other party suggested creating but never contributed even a single edit to. At the same time, none of Rsk6400's contributions to the mediation related to the disputed content. Noting this, the moderator Robert McClenon warned him several times that failing the mediation is likely to result in TBAN(s). Contrary to Callanecc's assessment that I was "threatening" Rsk6400, the warnings about the possible sanctions for non-participation in a discussion of the content originated not from myself but from the moderator (and rightly so).

Rsk6400 ignored the moderator's warnings until his eleventh statement, when he wrote: You never accused me of anything specific that might merit a topic ban. In response to that, I specified the relevant accusations against Rsk6400, so as to explain why the prospect of sanctions is real, and urged him to avoid an ANI case by engaging in a discussion of the content. Contrary to Callanecc's assessment of this as "a focus on winning", one can clearly see that it was exactly the opposite: trying to avert an imminent mediation failure and follow-up sanctions on any of the participants.

Some background of the content dispute can be found at User talk:Robert McClenon#Ukrainian language where I asked him for advice on how to deal with Rsk6400's unwillingness to explain his opposition against my additions into the article. Robert McClenon's advice was to go to DRN and open a case request. When the other editors decline to participate, I can accept the case as a one-person request for an RFC. If anyone accepts the case, then we will have moderated discussion. While Callanecc is correct when he comments that Mediation isn't mandatory, editors can choose not to participate, Rsk6400 accepting a mediation as an alternative to an RFC, then refusing to participate in the moderated discussion of the content, was a clearly bad faith attempt to obstruct an RFC on the content dispute.

I posted the RFC immediately after the mediation failed, as advised by Robert McClenon; but the TBAN imposed on me precludes my participation in my own RFC. While Callanecc is correct when he comments that the other party also receieved a sanction for their conduct, the imposed TBAN effectively endorses Rsk6400's stonewalling of the content dispute, by suppressing discussion of the content that Rsk6400 didn't want to discuss in the first place.

@HandThatFeeds: @In actu: @Grandpallama: WP:GAB instructs to explain why the block reason is incorrect or not applicable to your conduct, and that's what I'm doing here. The entire statement above is focused on my own actions and their assessment by Callanecc; actions by others are mentioned only as context. I don't see how WP:NOTTHEM is relevant. --Crash48 (talk) 14:09, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

@HandThatFeeds: It might help if you point to specific instruction(s) from GAB that you believe I'm ignoring. Multiple editors found fault with your behavior, which is what led to this TBAN is not true: the TBAN was imposed by Callanecc alone, without any input from other editors. --Crash48 (talk) 12:43, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Callanecc

I don't have much more to say than I did in the thread on my talk page. As I explained to them, Crash's editing in this topic area was problematic. To me, Crash's appeal continues to demonstrate that Crash doesn't understand the reasons that I imposed the ban and is instead continuing to try and push responsibility for their actions onto others. If anyone has any specific questions for me please feel free to ping me. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 01:04, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Robert McClenon (Crash48)

My involvement is that I tried to mediate the dispute about Ukrainian language between Crash48 and Rsk6400, and then failed the mediation, and said that the next forum could be Arbitration Enforcement. Crash48 went to Arbitration Enforcement, and both editors were topic-banned from Ukrainian language for one year.

In my opinion, both editors engaged in battleground editing about a topic which is subject to battleground editing because it is the bloodiest battleground of the twenty-first century. I thought that the conduct of Rsk6400 was worse, but I thought that topic-banning both editors was appropriate. I had warned both editors that they would be likely to be both topic-banned if the dispute went to Arbitration Enforcement. I thought that Rsk6400 was trying to game the system and to confuse the moderator (me), and was demanding that the article be rolled back to an earlier version, which I was not interested in doing. I thought that Crash48 was being confrontational, and was trying to impose a non-neutral anti-Russian point of view. I would have imposed a longer topic-ban on Rsk6400, but I would have imposed at least a three-month topic-ban on Crash48, and now they are here after one month, which seems to indicate that they don't understand that they were both out of line.

Maybe I was mistaken in thinking that the other editor's conduct was worse. In any case, this appeal is misguided. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:41, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

User:Rsk6400 - It appears that I made a mistake. I thought that you had asked to roll the article on Ukrainian language back to a stable version. You asked me to fail the moderated discussion, which is an entirely different matter. I am not sure why I made this mistake, but it is possible that another editor in another dispute that I was mediating made that request.

I am not changing my recommendation that the topic-bans to User:Crash48 and User:Rsk6400 be left as is.

Robert McClenon (talk) 05:05, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Rsk6400

@Crash48 and Robert McClenon: Since you are accusing me of several things, it's a bit sad that neither of you pinged me. Robert McClenon, you said above that I was demanding that the article be rolled back to an earlier version. I'm quite sure that I never demanded such a thing. Could you please provide a diff supporting your claim ? Rsk6400 (talk) 17:23, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Statement by (involved editor 2)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Crash48

• This entire "appeal" is a WP:NOTTHEM screed, and should be rejected outright. Nothing in the user's commentary is an explanation that they understand what they did wrong, much less showing any resolve to avoid the conflict in the future. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:57, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Crash48: Yes, we understand you believe the block was incorrect. But you're cherry-picking one line from GAB, while ignoring the rest of that page's instructions. Your entire appeal is "It's Rsk's fault, I did everything right." Multiple editors found fault with your behavior, which is what led to this TBAN. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 12:55, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

• It may behoove Crash48 to closely review NOTTHEM and revise one's appeal accordingly --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 12:49, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
• Crash48, the template for appeals at AE is not suited for appeals here. The result of the appeal will be based on the consensus of uninvolved editors, not just administrators. You may want to search through the archives for examples of such appeals, or you may want to solicit the support of an experienced editor in reformatting (I'm not available to do it right now). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:13, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

  Crash48 is actually doing what it says in WP:CTOP. It's just that most appeals here ignore that rule, and as long as there's a distinction made between involved and uninvolved and the right appellate standard is used, no one ever cares. I've been meaning to file an WP:A/R/CA about this for ages but keep not getting around to it. Anyways, I'll remove the editors/admins distinction, since that's the main issue with using the template here. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 19:46, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

  Actually, you know what they say, if you can do it in 5 55 minutes, do it now. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment § Amendment request: CTOP AN appeals. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 20:44, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

• This is textbook WP:NOTTHEM and should be assessed as such (i.e., not just unsuitable for an appeal, but evidence for the need to maintain the ban). Grandpallama (talk) 02:06, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
• The appeal should be declined as Crash48 does not seem to understand the reason for the ban, and how their behaviour should change to fix the problems in future. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:38, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
• Per everyone else above, the appeal should be declined; the original sanction was well merited, particularly given the battleground approach and "not them," but mostly for failing to understand and properly apply Wikipedia's policies about primary sources and SYNTH. In reading the AE thread, two lines by Crash really jumped out at me: Rsk6400's condition that primary sources should not be used here[31] has no basis in Wikipedia policies or guidelines -- uh, yeah, actually, it really does, "secondary not primary" is all over our policies -- and indeed, about a half dozen editors alleged that my proposed additions are WP:SYNTH. Each one of these editors refused to substantiate their allegations. The multitude of stonewalling editors expressing baseless allegations should not be mistaken for a consensus. -- that's just a funny expression of NOTTHEM, and it continues in this appeal.

  I am surprised, though, that Rsk6400 hasn't appealed their TBAN. After reading the DRN and AE, I see absolutely nothing wrong in Rsk6400's comments there. As another editor said, kudos to Rsk for trying to go through the dispute resolution process with a battlegrounding editor SYNTHing primary sources, through an unhelpful DRN and then an AE at which they get TBANed. I totally get the voluntarily-walking-away, I've done it myself many times, but that DRN and AE was frustrating to read nevermind having to participate in it, after having to go through all that, I'm (pleasantly) surprised Rsk hasn't quit Wikipedia altogether. Maybe it's just me, but FWIW, I'd vote to overturn Rsk's TBAN should they ever decide to appeal it. Levivich (talk) 17:48, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

  Not getting better. Levivich (talk) 13:23, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

• I take no issue with utilizing primary sources, however, they must be utilized appropriately to state uncontrovertible facts like, "In Watcher: The Legacy, the title character, Charlie Tespin, states he is a werewolf in Chapter 5". Utilizing them to base conclusions is completely inappropriate. Given this editor's history and clear battleground mentality evidenced above, the ban should remain. I would advise the user to review his actions and take some time for self-reflection on his actions. Crash48, do not reply to my user talk page; continue the discussion here if you wish. Buffs (talk) 21:04, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Please review my revdel

I just revdel'ed a bunch of revisions and edit summaries related to the accidental release of anonymous artist HorsegiirL's real name. You can find them in my deletion log for today. It's possible I over-reacted, but it's a WP:BLP thing, so being conservative seemed like the right thing to do. Noting it here for review; feel free to revert if I overstepped. RoySmith (talk) 12:03, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

• Sounds like something to ask WP:OS for a second opinion, which I've done. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:17, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Looking, it will either cease to exist or not. Primefac (talk) 12:42, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
• I don't think that you overstepped, but I find this biography now quite troubling and a matter for the project:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. Uncle G (talk) 18:42, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Template editor permission review request

• Neveselbert (t · th · c · del · cross-wiki · SUL · edit counter · pages created (xtools · sigma) · non-automated edits · BLP edits · undos · manual reverts · rollbacks · logs ^{(blocks · rights · moves)} · rfar · spi · cci) (assign permissions)^{(acc · ap · ev · fm · mms · npr · pm · pc · rb · te)}

I would like to request a review of Neveselbert's edits as they pertain to their template editor rights. After granting their rights in 2018 I didn't really notice anything until a discussion at {{marriage}} blew up (archive discussion) regarding major changes that weren't being properly sandboxed, and potentially rushed, which even after resolution managed to break things (archive discussion). I eventually un-watched that template because of how many edits they were making on a regular basis (~70 edits over a 3-month period).

I didn't take much notice of them afterward until I went to work on a recent TFD for {{Non-free use rationale}}; after I sandboxed and implemented the close as written (merging/turning Template:Non-free use rationale 2 into a redirect) Neveselbert converted the redirect back into a wrapper. When questioned on the matter (link to full thread) they proceeded to a) tell me a wrapper was "effectively the same thing", b) asked what to do about the documentation (which had yet to be updated), c) moved the second template to a subpage, d) edited the /sandbox sixty times, and yet still e) had to make 23 edits to the main template before being "done" (which was announced along with a veiled insinuation that no one else should be editing the template any more).

If I had been an uninvolved admin coming across the NFUR discussion I probably would have pulled TPER myself, but since I am involved in the situation (actually, both situations) I want to bring it here for further review. Others have also indicated instances of not-sandboxing (example, plus a half-dozen threads in their Archive 9) in the template space causing disruption. Primefac (talk) 16:20, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Can I just say that I deeply regret the issues caused by my edits and the way I handled the {{marriage}} and {{Non-free use rationale}} templates. In retrospect, my frequent edits to the {{marriage}} template, without proper sandboxing, were, albeit unintentionally, excessive and disruptive. Converting the redirect of {{Non-free use rationale 2}} back into a wrapper, and the subsequent numerous edits, were missteps on my part. I want to clarify that I do understand the importance of proper sandboxing and ensuring stability in template edits. I apologise for not consulting with the community adequately and for the complications my actions appear to have caused. Going forward, I promise to take greater care in my editing approach, ensuring more collaboration and community input to prevent similar issues. Again, I'm sorry for any disruption caused, which was never my intention. I have no plans to edit {{Non-free use rationale}} further, which is what I actually meant as opposed to no one else should be editing the template any more, with my point being that I had reflected on my actions and understood that I had gone too far. Going back to my edits to template space from years back, I would like to note that there were no further issues raised with my behaviour in relation to that particular template after I was warned, and that subsequently I worked constructively with Pedantical on improving the template through proper testing and sandboxing. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 16:34, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Support removal Edit warring on a template-protected page is not compatible with template editor rights. I found another example at Template:En dash range. I get that they're sorry for this, but given the pattern of other issues described here, I am not convinced. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:10, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

If by not convinced you mean my apology, please understand that I'm being completely sincere. I've only ever wanted to help improve these templates, but I accept I've fallen short in my actions, which I would reverse if I had the chance. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 20:29, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

I am involved as well, as is clear in the talk pages, so take this opinion in that light. This editor has done this three or four times now, at least. Every time, they rush through a ton of changes to the live template, making many errors along the way. When they are asked to stop, they typically do more edits and then apologize and promise to behave better in the future. Then they do it again. Without template editor rights, this editor will still be able to edit sandboxes, test case pages, and documentation without breaking live templates or causing watchlists to blow up. They can then submit edit requests. This should lead to the same outcomes, which have been legitimate template improvements, without the disruption and drama. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:44, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

When you say they typically do more edits and then apologize and promise to behave better in the future, for the most part, I have. Yes, I've stumbled along the way, which I'm not proud of, and I wish I sandboxed more and was less impulsive, but I've generally been able to take on board what others say and correct my mistakes. Full disclosure, I'm on the autism spectrum, and this is a problem I've been trying to work on through help in real life. I don't know if you're interested, Jonesey, but whichever way this goes, would you consider taking me on as a mentee? I've had a mentorship before with another user and it went rather well, and I'm greatly appreciative of all the work you do in trying to keep these templates in working order, and I think I could benefit from your guidance. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 22:18, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

If you lose the TE user right, which I think should be the outcome here given the admitted and evident impulse control issues, I'll be happy to guide you in editing of template sandboxes and test cases to a reasonable extent. If you keep the TE user right and commit to editing only sandboxes and test cases pages, not live templates, I will also commit to guiding you. To be clear, I am attempting to refer to the impulse control issues as neutrally as possible without placing any blame on your character, especially since the issues may be caused by forces not entirely in your control. I am sympathetic and assume good faith, but it is not good for Wikipedia to have this disruption continue. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:21, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I understand. If I keep the TE user right, I am prepared to commit to editing only sandboxes and testcases, not live protected templates, unless I've discussed it with you or other editors beforehand. I'm not sure if that will sway anyone here, but I would appreciate the opportunity to demonstrate that I can still be trusted. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 02:50, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't doubt that you're genuinely sorry - what I'm not convinced of is that you should retain your template editor rights, especially given Jonesey95's comment above. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:52, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

I've agreed with Jonesey95 on a way forward if I retain these rights. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 23:33, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

In the event you follow that commitment, what's the point of you having template editor rights and making the edit yourself as opposed to Jonesey95 or other editors doing so? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:23, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I would still be able to respond to edit requests, for example, I think. ‑‑Neveselbert (talk · contribs · email) 00:27, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

In light of the repeated issues, but assuming this is the first trip to a noticeboard and given their response to it here, warn rather than pulling the perm. Levivich (talk) 01:14, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

For my part, I would lean toward removal of the userright. Someone with the TE bit who is not careful can do a lot of wreckage in a short span of time. It requires considerable judgment, and we're seeing here a history of lack of its application.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:23, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by TheNewMinistry

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

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Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear and substantial consensus of uninvolved administrators" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.

To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).

Appealing user

TheNewMinistry (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – TheNewMinistry (talk) 11:17, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed

Topic ban from BLP topics, imposed at [8], logged at [9] -->

Administrator imposing the sanction

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

Notification of that administrator

[10]

Statement by TheNewMinistry

I'm here in good faith after User:Callanecc noticed I breached my BLP topic ban that was sanctioned in April 2022. Administrator User:Abecedare originally issued the ban, but does not appear to be active (hasn't logged in since 2023). I left proper notice on their talk page regardless, but I figured coming here would lead to a faster decision. In the time since my sanction, I have focused primarily on editing/creating/fleshing out sports-related pages. Some examples I'm proud of: Sahlen Field (my first good article!), Ric Flair's Last Match, Buffalo Sharks, Buffalo Stampede, Buffalo 716ers, Buffalo Blue Hawks, etc. And as an extension of the research I've been doing into the basketball teams, I started making/expanding pages for noteworthy basketball players such as Richard Jacob and Modie Cox. All the edits I made are properly sourced, and (in my opinion) objective and uncontroversial. My topic ban was issued after I got heated over some political topics - I definitely stay away from that these days. I'd like to apologize for my conduct two years ago, as I've tried to be better and move past it. Please consider my request, and thank you for your time. TheNewMinistry (talk) 11:17, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

@Callanecc: Yes, I definitely got carried away when working on sports articles. It's easy to get absorbed in niche research that (hopefully) someone cares about. Again, I apologize for not addressing the topic-ban sooner. TheNewMinistry (talk) 10:36, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Abecedare

From the notice that I had left at the time of imposing the topic-ban, I see that it was placed in April 2022 in response to BLP-violating POV-pushing (RGW-editing) related to the Covid pandemic. Temperatures, understandably, ran high(er) in that topic-area at that time. Given that TheNewMinistry seems to have moved on to editing other areas and the substance of their recent edits has been unproblematic (correct me if I am wrong on this), I am okay with the topic-ban being lifted.

I would have been more fully on board with rescinding the sanction, and would have perhaps done so on my own, if TheNewMinistry hadn't simply ignored the topic-ban and resumed editing BLPs extensively starting, afaict, Jul/Aug 2023. However, unless there are some other (especially BLP) issues with the content of their edits that I have missed, I wouldn't want the violation of the topic-band to be the sole reason for continuing the topic-ban.

PS: Though I am currently inactive, I will check in on this discussion at least once per day for any questions you may have. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 22:52, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Statement by (involved editor 1)

Statement by (involved editor 2)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by TheNewMinistry

I don't think I've ever interacted with the OP before, but I'm sure they're an all-round good egg. However, at first glance—and deeply aware of my ignorance of this particular sport—I'm finding it hard to align being Topic-banned from making BLP-related edits anywhere on wikipedia, and creating articles (not just edits) such as Ric Flair's Last Match, Richard Jacob and Modie Cox. I appreciate, as the OP suggests, that they are properly sourced, and... objective and uncontroversial, but by my understanding, the TB was from all BLPs, not solely those that were poorly sourced, partisan or controversial. Apologies again if I'm missing something obvious. ——Serial 15:18, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

My impression was that TheNewMinistry essentially forgot about the TBAN while they were editing sports-related topics so started editing BLPs essentially in error. @TheNewMinistry: might want to clarify that though? Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 10:05, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

• Based on the above discussion and since no new comments seem to be forthcoming, I plan to lift the BLP topic-ban that I had placed in about 24 hours unless there are any objections or alternate suggestions. Pinging @TheNewMinistry, Serial Number 54129, and Callanecc: in case they wish to add anything. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 21:56, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Reverting edits

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

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Hello, I’m a Wikipedian user and I edit articles with references but there are two moderators who revert my edits for no reason and they’re abusing their admin commands with the name of Shadow4dark and Pbritti RîzgarîKurdîstan (talk) 15:35, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Have you 1) spoken to them about your concerns and 2) notified them of this discussion as required? Neither one of them is an administrator. 331dot (talk) 15:44, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Are you sure? They have commands RîzgarîKurdîstan (talk) 15:52, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Can you please like just do something with them it’s not their first time it’s like the twice even in my draft RîzgarîKurdîstan (talk) 16:15, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

This is almost certainly a sockpuppet. Please see here. ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:44, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Enhanced.org

I'm not sure how long the webpage has been up, or whether there has been much of a response to it (I have seen one discussion), but I'll flag it up anyway: Enhanced.com, a campaign for the removal of restrictions on how athletes might seek to medically improve their performance, has a page[11] encouraging those who share their (deeply ill-advised) goals to edit pages to fit their idea of 'inclusive' language.

I'm not sure whether there have been many attempts to act on this, or what steps are necessary (A post on the talk pages for regular editors on those pages to be alert? Warnings on those pages about sanctions for those who try to do this?), so I leave that to discussion and higher authority, but I just wanted to make people aware of the campaign. Apologies if it has been raised before, or if this is not the appropriate place. Kevin McE (talk) 11:41, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Kevin McE thanks for this but it's already flagged see the section #Possible upcoming edits encouraged by Peter Thiel above. Nthep (talk) 12:07, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Appeal to edit "Draft:James Naleski" stub

I am reaching out to request an appeal for the block on James Naleski's page. My intention is to create pages for the Governor's Office Staff, including key positions such as Chief of Staff, Deputy Chief of Staff, Director of Digital, Art Director, and more. While developing these pages, I understand that I may have inadvertently included promotional content. I want to clarify that listing awards is unnecessary, as they are not relevant to include.

I would be grateful to receive a stub for the page and would like to link the photos from the CT State Library. Furthermore, I would like to request stubs for the Governor's State of the State addresses' writers.

For your convenience, here is the relevant link to my request: https://cslarchives.ctstatelibrary.org/agents/people/1199 JoeK2033 (talk) 21:16, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

One problem I see is a comment you have on your talk page, regarding articles on these people: "I ask that you please reconsider blocking me from this page as I am going to be interviewing them and would like to use some of the information that I gather and post. " If you are interviewing them, and wanting to publish your interview on Wikipedia, that clearly would run afoul of our policy on original research WP:OR. You don't seem to understand the purpose of an encyclopedia, or at least this one. We write articles that summarize articles that are already written by 2nd tier sources (newspapers, tv programs, major websites and news organizations). We also will include some material from PRIMARY SOURCES, ie: the people themselves, but only very carefully. This includes verifying birth days, political stands, etc, where it makes sense to take their word for it, but qualify that information in the article. We aren't here for original publication of interviews.

If you publish your interviews somewhere else instead, and let's say that publication meets our standard for reliable sources WP:RS, then you still shouldn't be the one to put that information in the article, as you have a conflict of interest. Your additons aren't unbiases, you are of course going to be biased to include your own interviews, even preferring them over other reliable sources. This violates the core principle that Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view. If you DO get them published in a reliable source, you CAN bring them up on a talk page and allow others to add them into the article. This is acceptable, as the final editorial decision isn't yours. But you can already do this, so unblocking you from editing this one article, and allowing you to create the other articles, isn't necessary. You shouldn't be doing it. With that in mind, I would decline unblocking you from editing that article, and remind you that if you create the others where there is a strong COI and bias, it will likely lead to more blocks.Dennis Brown 2¢ 05:47, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@JoeK2033, I'm afraid I see very little evidence that person is notable. Literally everything that comes up is a press release or interview or a crowdsourced directory listing, none of which help prove a claim to WP:Notability. Wikipedia isn't like other social media or directory sites. And the likelihood a governor's office staff or the writers of his State of the State address are notable is nil unless they're notable for something else already.

It sounds like you're trying to create articles about people who simply aren't notable. It's a waste of your time, and frankly it's a waste of other editors' time here, as someone has to deal with these creations. It's not unlikely the amount of work you are spending on trying to create articles for non-notable people is dwarfed by the amount of time others are spending dealing with this. Wikipedia volunteers' time is the project's most valuable resource, and we take it pretty seriously when someone is wasting other editors' time. Valereee (talk) 14:20, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Mass-rollback for LTA

This LTA has been socking profusely lately. Their last account (not yet blocked; see SPI) has racked up ~500 edits in little more than a week, including numerous disruptive page moves. As HistoryofIran also previously asked here, is it possible to perform a mass-rollback each time a new account is found?

Ideally I would like to be able to ask a CU who knows how to do this, since they could immediately also check the account first: this would allow the roll-back to be performed swifter, which is less disruptive. Who would be up for that? Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 15:38, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

The LTA sure is on a run. Thanks for reporting them, Apaugasma. HistoryofIran (talk) 23:00, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if there's a way to mass-rollback page moves, the tool I use doesn't do it. I'm also not sure how checkuser can help? Anyone with at least pagemover should be able to untangle these. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:12, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Within 4 days of account creation the newest sock starting making page moves. I'm surprised we don't have an edit filter set to log such incidences.-- Ponyo^{bons mots} 16:41, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

I feel like we do, but I couldn't tell you which one it is. I've been manually undoing their moves this morning but I have to run out to an appointment, so anyone else is welcome to take over. For admins: just move the title back to the original name and overwrite the redirect, they're trying to add dummy edits so that it can't be done automatically but we do not need to preserve that history. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 17:12, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for that! I've spent literally months of my life (manually) reverting this particular LTA, and I guess this is just me letting the community know that I won't be doing that anymore. I was thinking that if there were a highly active CU I could approach to both run a check and perform mass-rollback on each new account I run across, that might help things a little, but I might be a bit naive about what is possible here. Anything else that can be done, like specific edit filters to catch them more swiftly, would certainly be welcome! Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 18:10, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

HERitage Amplified edit-a-thon in Cyprus on en.wiki

Hi, this is only an announcement that on Saturday, 10^th of February, 2024, from 09:30 to 16:30 will be held an edit-a-thon by Wikimedia Community User Group Cyprus for the first time, and they are expecting a lot of new editors and many articles.

They (@AProdromou and @Magioladitis) would advise every new inexperienced editors to edit in their sandboxes, but still it may happen some new page to be published in the main namespace, so they request a patience, as they will check the articles after the event.

I hope this was the right place for this announcement. On the behalf of the organisers of this event, thanks in advance. --TRistovski-CEEhub (talk) 19:04, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

This seems as good as place as any. English Wikipedia doesn't let newly-created users create pages in mainspace, so you shouldn't really have much to worry about. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:51, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Croissant

Something strange is happening on wikipedia croissant page: two anonymous IP and an user who created his account this month started modifying the page removing Austria origin and the references. They also started an argument from a very biased POV to justify their edits 79.54.217.132 (talk) 08:56, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

For context, there was significant discussion on the article talk page involving a number of both logged-in and IP users, and quite a solid consensus emerged in favour of the page's current state. This user here has asserted at different times that either consensus has yet to be reached or that it exists in entirely in the opposite direction to justify restoring their preferred version of the article. AntiDionysius (talk) 13:26, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

The issue on the Croissant page probably hasn't escalated to the point of outright edit warring yet. However, the above user does now appear to be engaged in a similar kind of edit war on the Capuccino article (see history). AntiDionysius (talk) 13:33, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, the user AntiDyonysius is one of the many suspect accounts who first changed the article BEFORE a new consensus was reached and then tried to manipulate facts for his covenience 79.54.217.132 (talk) 17:34, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

This account was made in 2023 and i suspect he is a puppet account of Xiaomichael 79.54.217.132 (talk) 17:38, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I have semi protected the page for a week to encourage the IP to use the Talk page discussion. While we're not at 3RR, that's not required for it to be edit warring, which it is.IP 79, if you have proof, please file an SPI otherwise please do not make such accusations. Star Mississippi 17:55, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

You're right 79.54.217.132 (talk) 18:07, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Stewards Election and Confirmation

The Stewards Election and Confirmation is currently taking place until 27 February. Interested editors can participate in the election here and the confirmation here.

Currently, 11 editors are running to become stewards, and 27 stewards are running to be reconfirmed; I have attempted to provide a neutral summary of the process and the editors running to be elected or confirmed at the Village Pump. BilledMammal (talk) 15:51, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Heads up for new partial block categories

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T353496

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T280531

A couple of years ago, we got partial blocks. There's an update which will add additional possibilities: you'll be able to block users from uploading files, creating pages, moving pages, or sending thanks. See meta:Community health initiative/Partial blocks#Action blocks for more info. This has already been rolled out on some wikis and it's scheduled to get rolled out on enwiki at the end of this week. RoySmith (talk) 15:26, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

That's handy! There have ben a couple of times I've wished I could block someone from moving pages, and I can imagine Commons admins will find it very useful to be able to block people from uploading. I can't say partial blocks are something I use every day but it's always nice to have more options. The banhammer is a blunt instrument and it's nice to have something with a finer point sometimes. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:54, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

On Commons, I can't imagine why you would block someone from uploading rather than just full block them. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:11, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

The only case I could think of is someone who's an active cross-wiki antivandal patroller who simply can't grasp the licensing policy. But, yeah, if one can't upload pictures, one typically would be better off indef'd. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 21:54, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

There's more to Commons than uploading files, just as there's more to Wikipedia than writing articles. A lot of it is file maintenance and categorisation but I could see there being edge cases where an editor had something to add but needed to be stopped from uploading files. Or where somebody could be prevented from uploading more files until they clean up a mess they've made with their existing uplaods. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:40, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

I've used the upload parblock on Commons a few time. It's very useful for users who have been mass uploading (usually from Flickr) without doing the bare minimum work of adding useful filenames, descriptions, and categories, since it allows them to clean up their mess (and rebuild trust) without adding to the mess. Much easier than the previous method, where you had to manually edit an abuse filter. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:28, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Have any of those users actually cleaned up their messes, though? We've tried doing similar things many times here - mostly in the context of copyright infringement and too-close paraphrasing, but also in a few cases where someone was creating many articles from a source that turned out to be quite inaccurate - and I can't think of a single example when the user in question helped out enough to matter. —Cryptic 22:12, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I haven't had occasion to do so, but I always thought partial-blocking from the file namespace would prevent uploads. —Cryptic 23:25, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

@Cryptic p-blocking File: does stop uploads, but if someone is only having a problem with uploads, but not with editing file descriptions - you could pblock them from just uploads. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:36, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Hmmm, so it does. I blocked one of my socks and then tried to upload a file with that account. I got:

Upload failed: Your username or IP address is blocked from doing this. You may still be able to do other things on this site, such as editing certain pages. You can view the full block details at account contributions. The block was made by ‪RoySmith‬. The reason given is testing. *Start of block: 23:30, 6 February 2024 *Expiration of block: 23:30, 13 February 2024 *Intended blockee: ‪RoySmith-testing‬ *Block ID #24315984. RoySmith (talk) 23:39, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Oh, that's useful, thanks! I've really liked the p-block tool, like HJM I appreciate being able to do what's sufficient and no more, when dealing with otherwise useful editors.

Honestly I've been wondering if we should reconsider whether timed blocks of increasing lengths for edit-warring are still the appropriate strategy. Maybe it would be better to just indef p-block from the article in question, which both allows the editor to contribute everywhere else and also doesn't discourage any admin from considering an unblock, with or without conditions, instead of just letting editors wait out the block. Valereee (talk) 12:39, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I've started doing this for edit warring. It also gives a surprisingly good metric of how appropriate a full block would have been; on occasion someone just loses their shit over an edit-war p-block and end up indeffed anyway. Primefac (talk) 12:58, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Primefac, good to know someone is using this strategy. I'll give it a try next time, see if anyone objects. Valereee (talk) 13:00, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

I've also used p-blocks for this from time to time and it seems to do the trick and redirect people to the talk page. – Joe (talk) 08:16, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

If there's one thing I've learnt in 30k blocks, it's that some people lose their shit over fairly minor (to an outsider) things completely unexpectedly, and some people accept strong sanctions that you were sure they'd appeal with good grace. It's hard to predict which will be which. I've seen people talk themselves into an indef over a 24-hour block and I've seen people throw their hands up and accept long-term site bans. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:30, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

RFPP

I'm sorry if this seems pushy - from what I can see on this page there's a lot on the admins proverbial plate - but there is currently a backlog of around 38 requests at requests for page protection. If anyone here would like to take a crack at that when they can it would be appreciated. Deauthorized. ^(talk) 02:36, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Communication and User:Lades2222

Today I tried to resolve a MOS dispute with User:Lades2222 regarding the excessive use of <br> in visa related articles on their talk page because of the potential accessibility issue (rationale #1, #2, #3). I suggested that if they think the margins between paragraphs are too big, they should resort to userstyle first so it doesn't break the overall uniformity of article. Unfortunately it was proven a little bit difficult to talk to this editor. I tried very hard to explain to them that it's a like a personal setting, and no, I don't have permission to edit their userstyle and they need to do that themself, but they wouldn't budge, and asking me to "apply the CSS" for them despite my repeated explanations.

The editor called me "stubborn", teased me that 'well you don't know how to do that!', and said they felt "threatened" when I (or another editor who politely) quoted Wikipedia policy and MOS guideline to them, or even the mere act of leaving a message on their talk page. I mentioned that communication is vital in a collaborative project, which they don't really agree to. Their problem on collaborating also extends to accusing other editors of destroying their work and "fighting back until the end", "intentionally sabotaging" them (in edit summary) over content disagreement.

NM 10:15, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Why are you dragging me into the conflict? It will be resolved if the parties do not discuss further. I don't want any more arguments. Lades2222 (talk) 10:19, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Dear Administrator, This is my opinion.

I'm not yet familiar with editing beyond a beginner level. So I asked him to show me the solution to the problem. And I told him not to explain it in words. I could have gone to the problematic page and edited it myself, but I refused. After that I lost the will to talk. He was sincere in his ‘explanation’. However, if the other person does not understand, I think that true dialogue involves making the other person understand by directly showing the solution. Lades2222 (talk) 12:24, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

And I told him not to explain it in words.

I'm sorry, how do you expect someone to explain it without using words? We're not going to make a YouTube video documenting the steps. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:47, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I think that true dialogue involves making the other person understand by directly showing the solution.

I have already explained how to do it yourself multiple times (attempt #1 #2 #3). I have also explained the "I don't have permission to edit your userstyle" thing on multiple occasions (attempt #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6). You ignored all of my attempts of communicating. NM 17:54, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Sorry but I can't understand the solution just from your explanation and links (#1, #2..). Because I'm not an advanced editor yet. So I was hoping I could go to "that page" and see through the edits how you coded the 'CSS'. You can just edit the page as usual.

Then (after), I was thinking of looking at the 'history' of the page to see how the CSS was applied.

It's sad that people are accusing me of being a bad person by spreading a problem that only the two of us can handle publicly.

But now that it has come to this.. i hope that we will not have any more arguments.Lades2222 (talk) 23:01, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Everything laid out above is cited and sourced with a rev. The problem here is that you are hostile to communicating with other editors: calling them "stubborn", felt "threatened" whenever people bring up a Wikipedia MOS or guideline, referring to edit disputes as if they were a battleground, repeated failure of getting the point, etc, etc. Willingness to proper communicate is not optional on a collaborative wiki project. NM 07:57, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

I feel bad about the fact that you came into my room and 'pointed out' me in the first place. You react to the word 'threat' and accuse me. On the other hand, you don't think I'd feel bad for you, do you? Lades2222 (talk) 08:43, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

For now, there is one solution. All we can do here and now is to end everything, whether it's a dispute or a conversation. I am ready. And you? Lades2222 (talk) 08:55, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Reverting a rename

Hi, the page List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants has been renamed to List of communes in France with over 7,500 inhabitants and I wanted to return to the previous name. I'm afraid I've not done it correctly: may be an administrator can restore the "List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants" keeping the History? — M-le-mot-dit (T) 12:48, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

@Fram: @Drmies: Another ralphed-up page move by IbrahimMAKER (talk · contribs) here that likely needs action. Nate • (chatter) 01:42, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Long-term abuse

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

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• PETERNGUYENVANHUNG1958 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) harassment me, this is a long term abuse (LTA: Nipponese Dog Calvero).

Ayane ^話す! 01:53, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Arbitration enforcement action appeal by Rim sim

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

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Procedural notes: The rules governing arbitration enforcement appeals are found here. According to the procedures, a "clear and substantial consensus of uninvolved administrators" is required to overturn an arbitration enforcement action.

To help determine any such consensus, involved editors may make brief statements in separate sections but should not edit the section for discussion among uninvolved editors. Editors are normally considered involved if they are in a current dispute with the sanctioning or sanctioned editor, or have taken part in disputes (if any) related to the contested enforcement action. Administrators having taken administrative actions are not normally considered involved for this reason alone (see WP:UNINVOLVED).

Appealing user

Rim sim (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) – Rim sim (talk) 12:00, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Sanction being appealed

Topic ban from India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan related articles, imposed at [12], logged at [13]

Administrator imposing the sanction

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

Notification of that administrator

[14]

Statement by Rim sim

I was recently notified[15] by User:Vanamonde93 that a topic ban on my account, imposed by User:Callanecc on 11 April 2014 isn't lifted yet. I believe this topic ban, which was imposed within four months of starting my account, can be lifted now. The cause of this ban was my erratic editing and behaviour etiquette at that time-when I was really a novice. After making a few appeals then on talk pages, I was told to contribute positively in other topics by making proper edits and show that I learnt proper editing and behaviour etiquette, so that my ban can be lifted. I did so till the end of that year (2014) and then left Wikipedia altogether. After returning back seven years later (Dec 2021), I checked whether there are any blocks on my account, as there were none[16], I mistook it as being free of any bans, and started to edit. I have since made some positive contributions[17]. Taking into consideration these unique circumstances and the fact that I haven't been on any erring side, I hope this topic ban, which is now almost ten years old is lifted soon. Rim sim (talk) 12:00, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Statement by Callanecc

I am comfortable for this ban to be lifted but wanted community review, rather than doing so myself, given the large number of edits which have breached it. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:13, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Based on the community comments below I'll lift the ban in 24 hours or so assuming no one beats me to it or contrary comments aren't made. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 03:51, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Statement by (involved editor 1)

Statement by (involved editor 2)

Discussion among uninvolved editors about the appeal by Rim sim

• I think there's a good prima facie case for lifting the sanction. Yes, Rim sim violated the topic ban recently which led to this appeal. Ordinarily that's not something that lends itself to a successful appeal, but I find the explanation reasonable. 2014 was a long time ago, and confusing a block and ban is an easy mistake to make for a new editor given how they're the same thing on most websites. I did a quick spot check of recent contributions, especially ones to Hinduism and IPA topic areas that were technically violations. They seem like reasonable and uncontroversial improvements, no issues there. Unless anyone provides evidence to the contrary, I'd be willing to accept the appeal. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 17:02, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
• 10 years is a long time. I'd grant it just on age alone. And going further, Wikipedia is at the point (20+ years) where it probably makes sense to have a rule that all sanctions automatically expire after some period of inactivity, like 5 years or 10 years. It's not worth modern day editors taking time to look at stuff that happened 5-10+ years ago if nothing has happened in the interim. Auto-sunseting sanctions would save everyone time and the risks are very low. Levivich (talk) 17:32, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
• Ditto The Wordsmith, and a sunset clause is a good idea too; realistically, if someone still needs a tban after ten years, there's an odds-on chance that they probably shouldn't (and even more realistically, wouldn't) still be editing. ——Serial 17:49, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
• Lift the ban. This whole situation seems to be 100% in good faith. If he errs again, an admin can drop the ban hammer just as quickly. As for lifetime bans, I'd say there are some whose acts are so egregious that a true lifetime ban is warranted, but that is certainly the exception and not the rule. I think a board should review and adjudicate these on a regular basis (every 5 or 10 years). Learning from past mistakes is growth...we should encourage it. Buffs (talk) 00:21, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
• FYI I pulled this out of autoarchive. Levivich (talk) 02:26, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
• Ditto (am I using that word right?) above. It's been ten years; without any evidence to the contrary, I would support a WP:ROPE unban. The "violations" seem to be constructive and in good faith. ^Queenof_Hearts 05:53, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Closure review: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 423#RFC: Electronic Intifada

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

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Mach61 closed this RFC with a consensus to deprecate, however I do not think any reading of this discussion supports such a closure. The closing statement says as most all participants voted options 3 or 4, those who voted 4 strongly advocated their position, and few option 3 voters differentiated their position from those favoring deprecation, but that effectively makes it so that users who found no reason to deprecate considered as deprecate voters and the volume or passion of those supporting deprecation somehow being a factor. In the discussion at their user talk, they said The anti-deprecation side was just Iskandar (who held the minority option 2 position) and VR, but that again includes all the users who voted for generally unreliable but *not* deprecate considered as the deprecation side. And that is quite simply not true. I know that because I voted option 3, and I do not appreciate my vote not to deprecate being taken as a vote to deprecate. There is a super majority opposed to deprecation in that RFC, and I see no possible reading of it that supports a consensus to deprecate. The user has declined to engage at their talk page while continuing to edit, so I request review here. nableezy - 21:12, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Closer's response (EI)

I actually meant to reply to Nableezy but interceding events came in the way.

Anyhow, the gist of my closing logic was that the comments of several (but not all) option 3 !voters (for example, one who compared the site to Stormfront) seemed amenable to deprecation, which (per the guidance at WP:DEPS) does not mean "unique or uniquely unreliable", but rather relatively likely-to-be-cited and unusuable as a sole source of information except in an WP:ABOUTSELF fashion. I am aware that this is not applicable to every such !vote (Nableezy's argument, for example, is clearly incompatible with deprecation), but imo the very, very low general opinion of EI's factual credibility in that thread was enough for a close as "deprecate" to be within discretion. Cheers, Mach61 (talk) 21:46, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

The decision to deprecate shouldnt be "within discretion", it should be a clear consensus as the effect of that decision is so wide ranging and severe, effectively barring the usage of a source across the entire encyclopedia on the basis of some 9 votes. No such consensus exists in that discussion in my view. nableezy - 21:57, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Agree with nableezy. starship.paint (RUN) 01:27, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I want to add the very idea of discretion being used here doesn’t sit well with me. We as a community grant admins a certain amount of discretion in making decisions, but that isn’t the case in reading consensus, and certainly for a NAC. You aren’t making a decision, a closers role is to articulate what the participants have decided by consensus. That very word implies a super vote, that you are deciding something because you can, not that the discussion has consensus for it. That may just be unfortunate wording but nobody granted you any discretion to determine if a source should be deprecated. nableezy - 04:08, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

RfC Non-Participants (EI)

I didn't notice this RfC until after it was closed, but I also had the same impression as Nableezy regarding the closure. There is a world of difference in practice between "generally unreliable" and "deprecate" and it is simply wrong to count "generally unreliable" !votes as if they are "deprecate". People who !vote "generally unreliable" clearly have a low opinion of the source but their !vote should be taken to imply opposition to deprecation unless they indicate otherwise. Zero^talk 03:36, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Looking at the discussion, I'm seeing 9 editors in favor of Option 4, and ten in favor of Option 3. However, of those ten many made comments suggesting that they wouldn't oppose Option 4 or would support it:

1. Would also like to emphasize the latter bits of what Bob's written - the heavy reliance on already-deprecated sources such as Grayzone and Al-Mayadeen is worrying, and I could probably be convinced to vote for deprecation here as well.

2. Option 3 at least and probably Option 4.

3. They don't seem to do much original reporting. I give them 3 rather than 4 for the odd story that might serve as a useful justification for a statement, but I cannot see that happening very often. Most of their articles seem to be either one-sided reinterpretation of the news reported elsewhere or personal opinions.

4. Citing it in an article would be like citing Stormfront.

I'm certainly not seeing the super majority opposed to deprecation in that RFC that Nableezy suggests exists. BilledMammal (talk) 03:50, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

All the people who voted anything other than 4 >>> the people who voted for 4. nableezy - 03:53, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

As a general comment, it does seem a bit weird that the barrier to deprecate a source, particular sources with a pronounced bias, isn't set a lot higher given that

• Organized vote stacking exists, is difficult to detect and could have an impact when the number of participants is low.
• Discussions about sources with a pronounced bias are likely to attract a disproportionate number of biased editors rather than an unbiased sample of the editor community as a whole.
• Although it is presumably mostly a labor-saving device, deprecating a source does superficially seem a bit like thinking we can predict the future and know that there will never be any circumstances at all where a source would be reliable in that specific context, at least until you read Wikipedia:Deprecated sources.
• "generally unreliable" and "deprecate" do seem very far apart in a practical sense e.g. depreciated sources usually trigger edit filters even though Wikipedia:Deprecated sources does not rule out their usage. Sean.hoyland (talk) 07:30, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

To be explicit: My screen width is set to about 30 words. Corrections welcome:

♦Only three people who voted either 4 or "3 and probably 4" wrote more than one line, one of whom (Homethegreat) was soon banned by ArbCom. Two people wrote one full line and all the other people who voted 4 (one now banned by ArbCom) wrote only 5 words each on average.

♦Of those who voted 3, five wrote more than one line, one wrote a full line, and two wrote a few words.

♦Of those who voted 1, 2, or "3 and possibly 2", four wrote more than one line and one wrote a few words.

In summary, the vote was not only numerically opposed to option 4, but when the amount of argument is taken into account it was overwhelmingly opposed to option 4. I simply cannot reconcile this data with the closure. Zero^talk 07:40, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

• Having re-read the discussion I think the result could have been either unreliable or deprecate, which isn't a helpful analysis. It is a close result and I'd agree that some stating unreliable also showed a preference for deprecation or made comments similar to such. However given the limited participation I would be hesitant to deprecate, so this should probably have been closed as unreliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:58, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

  I am struggling with "some stating unreliable also showed a preference for deprecation or made comments similar to such." No, not really. If Option 3 can be taken into account as option 4, which I don't think can, then the RFC is basically awkward. --Mhhossein ^talk 21:50, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  I did not say anything like If Option 3 can be taken into account as option 4, as that would be false. However something like saying option 3 because the source is no better than another deprecated source, could be seen as also endorsing deprecation. RFC's are not a vote, the content of comments counts. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:21, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  However something like saying option 3 because the source is no better than another deprecated source, could be seen as also endorsing deprecation. No this is a terrible idea. "Generally unreliable: I think this is as bad as the Daily Mail" (or whatever) is also consistent with the person believing that both sources are unreliable and that neither one should be deprecated. If someone wanted to endorse deprecation, they would have endorsed deprecation. --JBL (talk) 17:57, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  Are you saying Stormfront should only be considered unreliable rather than deprecated? Because that particular comment didn't compare it to the Daily Mail.
  I just think the lack of participation is a bigger issue when taking the step of deprecation. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:58, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  I'm saying you are suggesting trying to read the mind of someone, rather than their words; but once you do that, there are lots of possible meanings you can twist something into. It's better to assume that people mean what they write. --JBL (talk) 00:58, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  So if I wrote "Option 1 obviously spreads lies, hoaxes, and deliberate misinformation" the closer should consider my comment as the source being reliable?
  I am not, nor have I at any point said that the closer should try and read minds. However the content of comments applies, RFCs are not a vote. The closer is meant to read the arguments presented, not just count the numbers on editors votes. There is no mind reading involved here, one editor said that option 3 but option 4 would be fine, while another compared it to a source that is blacklisted per WP:HATESPEECH. Of course the closer should not take it that all 'Option 3' comments are equally accepting of 'Option 4', but that isn't and hasn't been my point. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:28, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, some people made claims without any evidence whatsoever, and those should be given the weight they deserve. You also seem to be neglecting that three people also said option 2, and one said 3 or 2. There is no reading of this discussion that has a consensus for deprecate. The Stormfront line is particularly absurd, with the user saying that the fact that the title includes the Arabic word for uprising in its name makes it "clear"[ly] unreliable. Clearly a strong argument. nableezy - 17:36, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  Whatever the nature of the Stormfront comment I'm not interested in relitigation of the RFC. If you wish to discuss the comment ask the editor who made it. Just because I have not mentioned that three people also said option 2, and one said 3 or 2 doesn't mean I have ignored them, or if it does so is your own comment that opened this review as it doesn't mention them either.
  The review as you raised it is whether the weight of arguments back a close of deprecation, I don't think it does because of low participation (something I have brought up previously in close reviews of RFCs at RSN). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:23, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  If you !voted that way, and I was a closer, I'd probably just disregard your vote entirely. The idea that we should go only by the text and not by the bolded conclusion seems obviously ridiculous to me. The whole thing is part of one !vote that's intended to be read together; reading only part of it is pretty obviously silly. Loki (talk) 18:28, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  Im not relitigating the RFC, I am discussing the weighting of the votes and determining consensus, which is what a closure review is supposed to be about? nableezy - 19:20, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  Whether it's absurd or not is something that should have been discussed in the RFC (it's a opinion about the source). I'm not involved and don't want to be. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:33, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  ??? The substance of the RfC is about EI; questions about how particular votes should have been weighed are meta questions suitable for a closure review. People participating in an RfC can argue about whether other people's reasoning is any good, but that's not the purpose or substance of the RfC. --JBL (talk) 19:48, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  I've replied to this again below, I'm not replying in two places. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:50, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  👍 --JBL (talk) 19:59, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  So if I wrote "Option 1 obviously spreads lies, hoaxes, and deliberate misinformation" the closer should consider my comment as the source being reliable? I don't think we've been discussing what to do with nonsensical votes (the right answer is, discard them); rather whether it is reasonable to take a sensible argument for one position and count it as a vote in favor of a different (inconsistent) position. I agree with nableezy that that particular vote (which you brought up in this thread after I suggested a concrete hypothetical, and which doesn't fit the pattern of the broader hypothetical you raised option 3 because the source is no better than another deprecated source) is of poor quality and shouldn't be weighed significantly (for any position). --JBL (talk) 18:29, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  You right my exaggerated example was exaggerated, and again I have no interest in relighting the RFC so I won't be discussing any opinion on particular comments.
  I disagree that only the number of the option expressed in the comment should be taken into account, and not the arguments raised in comment, as that just sounds like making RFCs a vote. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:19, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  I disagree that only the number of the option expressed in the comment should be taken into account Well luckily no one has been arguing that. --JBL (talk) 19:39, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  And I am not, and have not argued the opposite, and yet here we are. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:41, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  ?? The place we are is that you suggested a principle that could be applied, when people objected to that general principle you were like "yes but what about this one particular !vote", and then when people try to discuss that one particular !vote you're like "I'm not here to relitigate the RfC". It is not clear at all you're trying to accomplish in this discussion. --JBL (talk) 19:44, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  I did not and I've been trying to point that out repeatedly. My point was that the arguements in comments should be taken into account, trying to explain this to persistent questioning has led to examples being taken as statements of fact. And my point being reposted as something I have not said.
  As to Nableezy's point whether the source is or is not as bad as Stormfront is an opinion about the source, that was the point of the RFC and not something I want to be involved in. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:50, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  Nableezy's point whether the source is or is not as bad as Stormfront That was not Nableezy's point.

  I find it hard to square your summary here ("My point was ...") with your original comment some stating unreliable also showed a preference for deprecation or made comments similar to such. Taking your more recent summary at face value, I think it's safe to say (as I did two posts above) that no one is arguing with this anodyne statement; I hope you will accept this as an offer to agree to agree about it. --JBL (talk) 19:59, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  The Stormfront line is particularly absurd are we reading the same mess of threads?
  Ok lets make this easier, should a closer take into account the arguments raised in an editors comments in an RFC regardless of what their exact voting option is, or should editors comments only count towards what option they voted for? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:04, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  If that's a yes, then editors making arguments that strengthen the comments for deprecation could be seen as giving those comments more weight. If it's a no, then I'm sorry we just have to agree to disagree as that just sounds like making RFCs a vote to me.
  I'm not "saying 3 + comment makes 4", I'm saying arguments raised by editors could strengthen options they didn't 'vote' for. If you 'vote' option 2 but your comment completely rebutts all arguments made by those arguing option 1, then option 1 should be given less weight. That in turn may mean the result is neither 2 or 1, as you where the only person 'voting' for option 2. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:12, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  In your hypothetical, a closer should absolutely not argue that the !vote in question showed "a preference for postition 3" because the person writing the !vote clearly and unambiguously stated that they believe that 2 applied, rather than 3. It is possible that, in the context of a discussion that is going to come down to 2 or 3, a !vote of the form "2. [lots of reasons 1 is wrong]" will not be very helpful to the closer in determining which of 2 and 3 achieved consensus, but to the extent it is weighed it obviously can only be weighed as favoring 2 over 3, or possibly discarded as nonsensical. --JBL (talk) 20:36, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  You're not engaging with my question. What if the views are at the maximum polar opposites, nearly every editor is ever option 1 or option 4 and the most compelling arguement against option 1 is in a comment that bolds for option 2. Should those arguments be ignored because the comment isn't for either option 1 or option 4? The comments are rational and are not rebutted in the RFC, so discarding them out of hand is not an option. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:58, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  When I was drafting my previous post, I deleted a sentence that roughly said, "No closer is ever going to be in the position of choosing between 1 and 3 and having to decide for the 2s which way to count them". Oh, well. --JBL (talk) 23:38, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  I'll switch it alround for you. Most editors either support option 2 or option 3. An editor bold comments option 1 and includes arguments in their comment that rebutt all the options 3 arguments. Should their arguments be ignored because the RFC is going to come down to either option 2 or option 3? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:53, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  No, of course that would be wrong -- and if you read the closure you'll see that this specific wrong manoeuvre seems to have been applied by the closer. The options 1, 2, 3, 4 form a linear order in which 1, 2, and 3 are all on the same side of 4. --JBL (talk) 00:36, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  Nableezy's comment discusses the (obviously ridiculous) logical structure of Chess's vote. The vote literally argues that EI must be unreliable because the name of the publication includes the word "Intifada". Anyone can see that this makes no sense, without having an opinion about whether EI is a good source or not. --JBL (talk) 20:20, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  It's an opinion about the source, I'm not going to comment. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:23, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  It literally has no content about the source. --JBL (talk) 20:38, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  I just wrote out a whole comment then scrapped it, as it just goes back other the arguments in the RFC and I'm sticking to not getting involved. There is no way to discuss opinions without doing so. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:54, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Don’t overturn After reading the discussion again, I understand the issue that Nableezy is having, but agree with the interpretation of Mach61 that most votes were either in favour of or comfortable with depreciation and therefore believe that a depreciation was appropriate. I disagree with the assessment that word count is in any way significant: quantity of arguments made is not a clear indication for or against the ‘value’ of the vote, and in many cases, you may need to write more if you have a minority opinion that is harder to argue for. FortunateSons (talk) 16:05, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

This is my first comment here, corrections regarding violations of form and policy are encouraged FortunateSons (talk) 16:06, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

It seems clear that the RfC should not have been deemed as a consensus to deprecate. I don't see how or why option 3 votes are being interpreted as "amenable to deprecation" or "comfortable with deprecation". There were also a few option 2 votes as well. It should also be said that there is concern in this topic area of users voting on ideological grounds and there are known to have been issues with canvassing directly involving two of the editors who voted in this RfC [18], so special care should be taken to weigh the quality of the votes rather than to simply count the quantity of the votes. (Although in this case even a simple counting of votes would not establish consensus to deprecate) IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 18:56, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn - I don't see how that discussion can reasonably be interpreted as consensus to deprecate. In addition to the numerical majority against deprecation, many of the votes for that option are simple assertions that the source is biased with little to no justification or evidence it has made serious, recurring factual errors. Hatman31 (talk) 19:30, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn per Zero, IOHANNVSVERVS and Hatman31. Deprecation is a serious matter, there should be a higher bar to meet regarding a clear consensus for it to be implemented. Votes for deprecation can easily be assumed to support general unreliability, but not the other way around, so numerically there is not enough support for deprecation. This, coupled with several weak votes for deprecation based on claims of bias without producing any evidence, as well as the recent ArbCom endorsed history of canvassing in the topic area, means we should err on the side of caution, and not deprecate. starship.paint (RUN) 01:26, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn. As Starship.paint states, deprecation is a serious matter and should only be carried out when a clear consensus exists, and the RfC simply doesn't demonstrate that. I would also concur with those pointing out that claims of bias - or even evidence of bias - aren't on their own legitimate (i.e. policy-based) grounds to deprecate. Wikipedia has never demanded that sources be unbiased (measured how, exactly?). Instead, it requires that articles be unbiased, through representation in due proportion of the differing views found in relevant sources. Given the subject matter concerned, trying to find sources with no bias of one form or another would seem a fools errand. Clearly, EI needs to be used with caution as a source, but we should be doing that with any source concerning such a sensitive topic, and not trying to apply simplistic binary biased/unbiased or always reliable/always unreliable classifications as a substitute for careful assessment of specific uses of a source. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:44, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn for the very simple reason that a vote that is comfortable with deprecation is not the same as a vote to deprecate. If everyone in that RFC voted Option 3 with a note saying they were comfortable with deprecation, it would be a clear consensus for "generally unreliable" and no consensus for deprecation. Given this, I don't think it's at all reasonable to read the RFC as a consensus to deprecate. As Nableezy says, the large majority of the votes were for options other than deprecate. I also note that there was a burst of terse Option 4 votes near the end including one editor known to have been canvassed: IMO all these should receive significantly lower weight both for not making an argument and for suspected canvassing. Loki (talk) 07:13, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn. There isn't a clear consensus for deprecation there, which one would probably expect for such a significant move. Secondly, a large number of the !votes for Option 4, especially those near the end of the discussion, are just assertions with no supporting evidence. Thirdly, though a minor issue, the Option 4 !vote by Dovidroth should be disregarded as that editor was proxying for a banned user. This should have been closed as Option 3. Black Kite (talk) 13:31, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
• Don't Overturn. There was a general consensus that EI's factual credibility is very low. That is enough to deprecate it as a reliable source for an encyclopedia. Noon (talk) 12:35, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
• Don’t overturn I agree with the interpretation of Mach61 and the reasoning of Billed Mammal. GidiD (talk) 13:15, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn per Blackkite, the consensus for deprecation doesn't exist, but is needed for such a significant move.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 07:12, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn and re-close as option 3 There is no way an opinion of "generally unreliable" should be construed as support for "deprecate". If anything, it should be the other way around. This should CLEARLY have been closed as option 3. Buffs (talk) 22:10, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
• Don't Overturn (or - if necessary for procedural purposes - overturn and re-close as option 3) Took a few days to digest the prior and current proceedings. Obviously, we have a technical count issue at hand, but the evidence is pretty clear the source is unreliable. Whether appropriate for the closure to stand on a clear inevitability, or an overturn is appropriate only so the appropriate closure grounds are formalized on option 3, there are no convincing grounds presented to restore EI to a RS. Mistamystery (talk) 00:36, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn. I don't see a consensus for deprecation. Deprecation is the strongest possible measure available (except for blacklisting), so I believe it needs a clear, affirmative consensus to do so. From my view, unless Option 3 voters explicitly (or a clear implicit statement) state that Option 4 is their close second choice, Option 3 votes should IMO be treated as against deprecation and not be treated as being comfortable towards deprecation. Accordingly, numerically Option 4 votes does not constitute a clear majority (i.e., >60%). Strength-wise, I think that the deprecation arguments are strong and well-reasoned, but Option 2/3 arguments are also fairly P&G based and I don't believe that deprecation/Option 4 votes are significantly stronger than Option 2/3 votes (though I think others would be bound to disagree on this point). Therefore, while there is overwhelming consensus that this source is clearly unreliable, I don't really see consensus for deprecation. Finally, I think that for such a lengthy and contentious discussion, I don't think that an one-sentence close is insufficient. VickKiang (talk) 01:00, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
• Don't overturn. "There was a general consensus that EI's factual credibility is very low" is correct, so if this is overturned and re-discussed, the result is going to end up the same anyway. Let's just skip the bureaucracy. While the closer's "certainty", if you will, is a bit firmer than mine would have been, I can't say that the closer clearly erred, so there is no basis on which to overturn the close.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:16, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  If it was overturned and re-discussed, it will very likely end up as Option 3, which is a different result. Loki (talk) 06:47, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn I find the analysis in the opening statement (and e.g. by VickKiang) compelling. --JBL (talk) 19:50, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn - basically what JBL said. I see more "3" votes than "4" votes in that RFC, and when you remove the votes by now-TBANed editors, it's even more heavily 3 than 4. I don't agree with the closer's reasoning; in fact, I think it's the opposite. Editors voting "3" (or 2) and not 4 had a very strong argument, which is that EI publishes scholars and is cited by scholars. So there is a reason to allow, e.g. WP:EXPERTSPS content published there to be used, even if we don't use any of their other content. Ilan Pappe is a listed contributor there, for example. So I don't see any reason for downweighing 3 votes or considering them to be votes for deprecation in any way. Levivich (talk) 20:03, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn - No consensus exists in support of deprecating the source. I am confident that the RFC's closure and the the closer's comment should be backed by guidelines like WP:DETCON. Apparently the closer relied on his own "discretion"[19], which I don't think aligns with consensus assessment. --Mhhossein ^talk 21:09, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn editors who did not !vote to deprecate should not have their !votes misrepresented by the closer. This was a close against consensus, and as such it should be swiftly overturned. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 00:29, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn - The reasoning behind the closure is incorrect; in fact, the consensus does not support deprecating the source. Ijon Tichy (talk) 23:58, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

RfC Participants (EI)

• Don't overturn. I agree with FortunateSons: Most votes were either in favor of or comfortable with deprecation, which is sufficient to establish consensus. Comfortable with deprecation means they accept this result. Marokwitz (talk) 14:48, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

  How many option 3 votes do you consider were "comfortable with deprecation" and which ones? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 18:59, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

  I completely concur with IOHANNVSVERVS. If you are going to make this claim, it is incumbent upon you to demonstrate how it applies. Buffs (talk) 18:51, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

• Don't overturn per Mach61, FortunateSons, Marokwitz, SMcCandish, BilledMammal, and ActivelyDisinterested. JM (talk) 00:06, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (EI)

All those involved agree this isn't contributing to the close review. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 03:58, 10 February 2024 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Just as general commentary, you posted the comment on their talk page at 18:14, 26 January 2024 (UTC), and then opened this at 21:13, 26 January 2024. Even if they are editing elsewhere, editors aren't expected to drop everything and respond to non-urgent matters; I think it would have been reasonable to give them 24 hours to respond. BilledMammal (talk) 03:50, 27 January 2024 (UTC) They continued editing, and the prior post on their page from that conversation was unanswered from 4 Jan. nableezy - 03:54, 27 January 2024 (UTC) I'm not mad at you for opening this, but trust me, I had the reply window open right before something forced me offline for a few hours, I wasn't ignoring you. No comment on the Jan 4 comment. Mach61 (talk) 03:56, 27 January 2024 (UTC) I believe you, but as your one response in that section to another user said If you still disagree, open a closure review at WP:AN I’m not sure why BilledMammal think I should not have opened such a review. Anyway, I don’t think this distraction has anything to do with the close review and would welcome it being hatted. nableezy - 04:49, 27 January 2024 (UTC) I raised it because I felt your comment in the appeal that The user has declined to engage at their talk page while continuing to edit, so I request review here was an unfair characterization; no objection to hatting or removing this section if you remove that sentence. BilledMammal (talk) 04:54, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Comment: I'm concerned about some of the votes here and it appears to be exemplary of a broader problem in the Arab-Israeli WP:CTOP, where certain editors are showing up in many different RfCs and discussions and simply agreeing with each other and voting together without sound arguments and seemingly on ideological/partisan grounds. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 03:33, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

WP:AE, WP:ANI, WP:ARBCOM. A close review is not the place for vague accusations. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 03:57, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

FAIT removals by FortunateSons

FortunateSons is continuing with their campaign of removing all citations to EI while this challenge is ongoing. I requested they stop so as to not add to the work of reverting hundreds of edits manually if the challenge results in the deprecation decision being overturned. They have declined to do so. Is it really appropriate for them to continue making these edits while the challenge is ongoing? If not can somebody else tell them to stop? nableezy - 15:01, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Regardless of whether the result is "Generally unreliable" or "deprecated", wouldn't most of them need to be removed anyway? BilledMammal (talk) 15:06, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Not necessarily. That’s something that should be looked at individually, not indiscriminately tossed out. nableezy - 15:19, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree, which is why I avoided some and just left talk page entries on others. However, most (or all) would also be covered by a 3, as the area where most articles by EI are is also the area where they are most unreliable, such as I/P, BDS and actions of BLP. FortunateSons (talk) 15:22, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for starting this as requested. While the longer discussion is on my talk page, the gist of it is:

1. FIAT does not cover cases where I am justified, as I am while this noticeboard is open. The beginning of my edits pre-dates the editing and was not designated to avoid this noticeboard.

2. I am generally careful when it comes to removing things, such as generally a) not removing subject matter experts, b) leaving talk page edits and c) reaching out to past editors where necessary. Most of my edits are in areas where the source is probably not or only minimally usable, such as I/P, BDS and BLP. Most or all of those would also be covered by a 3, including my interpretation of the vote by @Nableezy.

3. I believe that I am generally permitted to make those edits, and have complied in good faith with requests, such as suggesting dispute resolution and not making edits while this is ongoing. FortunateSons (talk) 15:17, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

What is meant by FAIT here? Edit: Found it - WP:FAIT IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:26, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

• I would suggest that FortunateSons, in a show of good faith, pause their removals of EI. Particularly because of their stress of the source being deprecated in edit summaries when this deprecation is being challenged. starship.paint (RUN) 00:02, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

  • I agree and already have (unless an admin or dispute resolution mechanism says that I am permitted), but would still like a decision to be made just so this doesn’t come up next time :).
  • Just to be clear, I include the depreciation as a shorthand, as I don’t really want to create a long list of issues to copy and paste from if it’s already discussed at length in the RfC.

  FortunateSons (talk) 12:44, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

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

Regarding Amy Klobuchar Document

I have written a paragraph detailing the issues with Amy Klobuchar, who was the Hennepin County Attorney at the time, based on accurate news sources. Although the first edit did not include citation footnotes, I have included them in the second and third updates. Despite this, MaterialsPsych and Muboshgu persistently delete it. Moreover, Muboshgu even threatens to restrict editing rights, accusing of vandalism.What exactly is being deemed as inaccurately sourced? The news pages I have quoted from are https://www.minnpost.com/public-safety/2023/12/hennepin-county-attorney-egregious-prosecution-of-marvin-haynes-in-minneapolis-murder-should-never-have-happened/ and https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/marvin-haynes-conviction-for-2004-minneapolis-flower-shop-murder-overturned/, which clearly reveal that Amy Klobuchar was the Hennepin County Attorney at the time, held responsibility for this prosecution, and yet, she has not offered a single apology. The misuse of such biased editing is clearly wrong. 68.160.217.181 (talk) 03:20, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

You wrote some incredibly biased text. Really the entire edit: [20]. Here's a few key biased quotes: Amy Klobuchar's tenure as Hennepin County Attorney has been marred by controversial cases ... Despite her role as lead prosecutor, evidence suggests that Klobuchar failed to ensure fair trials ... From the questionable tactics employed by her office to secure a conviction, to the failure to consider the validity of evidence, Klobuchar's handling of Haynes' case raises serious concerns about her commitment to justice. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:22, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Now I've blocked the IP for disruptive editing as they simply tried to edit war their biased edit back in. – Muboshgu (talk) 03:27, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

You did not notify me of this discussion on my talk page, as is required. Regardless, I will copy the reply I left to you on my talk page, which I think is sufficient: I reverted your edit the first time because you introduced potentially controversial information to a biography of a living person without providing a citation to a reliable source. However, I did not revert your edit the second time. Muboshgu has reverted them, presumably because they seem less than neutral. In addition to being reliably sourced, information should be presented from a neutral point of view and without any inappropriate synthesis. If you are able to present your information in a less accusatory tone, it may not be subject to removal. MaterialsPsych (talk) 03:29, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

In addition to what has been brought up above, DanCherek has revdeled the content that the IP was edit-warring to keep as a copyright violation. Good on catching that, I must have missed it. MaterialsPsych (talk) 03:56, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

It was also flagged by the copyvio bot as there was copying from [21] (and not just quotations). DanCherek (talk) 03:58, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Note that there is some block evasion going on under the IP 219.100.37.240 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log). —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 04:15, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I'll leave that to an uninvolved admin to handle. – Muboshgu (talk) 04:18, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Blocked for obvious block evasion, plus it's an open proxy. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:11, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Harassment

Hello dear administrators, there is a violation of the Harassment rules against me. I have already been punished Rosguill I have been in an eternal topic ban on the topic of the former USSR for exactly a year. But member @WikiEditor1234567123 doesn’t want to calm down. He wants me to be blocked forever. According to the last violation, it was unfounded; I did not violate any rules. I request you to solve this problem. I've practically stopped editing here anyway. I am also a living person, and I have rights. 1, 2. Sincerely. Товболатов (talk) 16:27, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

To be honest, your subsequent comments at User_talk:Товболатов#February_2024 following your block really push me towards the perspective that you are WP:NOTHERE, or else lack the requisite skills to edit contentious topics writ large. As I wrote there, The edits you made were specifically in relation to Beterbiev's identity as a Chechen, with you yourself arguing to include information about Beterbiev's Chechen origin. I find the suggestion that you don't understand this Canadian citizen's connection to the topic of ethnic minorities of the former Soviet Union to be utterly absurd. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:32, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Hello. When the topic ban includes "broadly construed" (also referred as "broadly interpreted") restriction, this restriction also covers attempting to "nibble around the edges" by not mentioning the topic directly, but editing or discussing in a way that can be interpreted as something to do with the topic. See Wikipedia:Broadly construed.

Until you have successfully appeal this topic ban, you must stay away from that topic anywhere on Wikipedia, with exceptions stated on WP:BANEX. After this answer to me, I admitted my mistake, but why is he writing to you again today? I didn’t break the rules there. Sincerely Товболатов (talk) 16:54, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Artur Beterbiev and it is clear that he did not participate in the discussion of the topic. But I told you right away, it means he’s watching me. I have created 105 articles on other topics altogether. Articles created Sincerely.--Товболатов (talk) 17:15, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

New page patrol backlog

I hope I'm not overstepping by posting here, but my train of thought is that the new page patroller perm is bundled with the sysop toolkit. If there any admins interested in giving it a go, we could use the extra help. :) There's currently a redirect backlog of more than 20,000 pages, which is quite substantial. There is also about 9,000 unreviewed articles as well. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 00:12, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

You're not overstepping at all @Clovermoss! We ask that articles be prioritized when reviewing but redirects are also more casual, easier, and still very much appreciated. We could also use more recruits if anyone is interested in giving it a go (WP:PERM/NPR). I'd recommend that folks check out WP:NPPSORT and focus on their area(s) of familiarity until they get comfortable with the process, then branch out if they have a desire to. Every bit is appreciated, so there's no pressure to do more than you want to. Hey man im josh (talk) 00:57, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Attribution / page history not referenced in page creation that appars to be translated from Portuguese Wikipedia

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

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Hi, Epicurus' paradox (00:26, 2023 December 12) was created with what appears to be a direct translation from the portuguese wikipedia without any attribution at all. pt.wikipedia - Paradoxo de Epicuro (version as of 00:26 2023 December 12)

Hopefully the attribution can be resolved or somehow referenced as per Wikipedia:Translation # License requirements. Shazback (talk) 02:20, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

I followed the procedure at WP:RIA. Victor Schmidt (talk) 07:53, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Arbitration motion regarding the scope of appeals considered by the Arbitration Committee

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

The Arbitration Committee resolves to amend the scope of block appeals it handles, thus updating the guidance from previous motion in 2015, as follows:

The Arbitration Committee hears appeals from editors who are (a) blocked for reasons that are unsuitable for public discussion, or (b) blocked or banned by Arbitration and Arbitration Enforcement decisions. Examples of reasons that are unsuitable for public discussion include blocks (i) marked as an Oversight block, or (ii) based on CheckUser evidence, and where there exists disagreement between checkusers as to the interpretation of the technical evidence. It is expected that blocks marked as a CheckUser block are by default appealed on-wiki; however, the Arbitration Committee may hear appeals of such blocks if there are compelling reasons to hear an appeal in private.

For the Arbitration Committee, Maxim (talk) 13:43, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § Arbitration motion regarding the scope of appeals considered by the Arbitration Committee

Discussion of general sanctions at the village pump

A discussion is taking place at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Community sanctions: rethinking civility enforcement at RfA that may be of interest :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 20:05, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

CTOPS/ARB-PIA question

Question stems from this !vote from a non-EC editor. The discussion is a merge proposal to merge Maersk Hangzhou (A ship article; not CTOPS) into Attacks on the MV Maersk Hangzhou (A CTOPS attack article part of an PIA conflict (Red Sea crisis). The merge discussion is on the non-CTOPS article. Can someone clarify if non-EC editors are able to comment in this type of discussion (i.e. a merge of a non-CTOPS article into a CTOPS-PIA article)? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 00:25, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

It would seem to me that the primary question is about the notability of the ship. It would also seem that the nominator also agrees, based on the location of the discussion. And the vote is very specific, only commenting on this question. So it would seem to me that the vote should be allowed to remain, as the ship is not CTOPS. Animal lover |666| 09:15, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Got it! I just wasn’t sure how that worked and that answered that. Discussions have to be on the CTOPS talk page for non-EC !votes to matter. Thanks for answering that. Cheers! The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 15:02, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Closure review request for the RfC on the "Airlines and destinations" tables in airport articles

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

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• RFC closure in question
• Discussion with closer

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

Notified: [22]

Reasoning: The issue the closer was to decide was whether Wikipedia should maintain complete, current lists of airlines and their destinations in articles about airports. In closing, they said the lists may only be included when reliable, independent, secondary sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE. They also said on their talk page that they believe WP:NOT makes it clear that the threshold for inclusion for content that would normally not be part of the encyclopedia is inclusion in independent secondary sources. However, while such sources are required to show that a topic deserves its own article (WP:GNG), the same requirement cannot be applied to the content of an article (WP:NNC). Therefore, in order to avoid creating a new standard for content inclusion that is not rooted in policy, I believe the closure should directly state that per the consensus, the lists should not be included because of WP:NOT.

In addition, ScottishFinnishRadish wrote that their closure was partly based on a common thread that they had identified in people's comments. I believe there is a similar, longer thread in the RFC that actually supports the following idea: Individual routes can be described if reliable sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE. Since my list of quotes from contributors to the RFC is somewhat long, here is a link to it in my sandbox.

In short, I think the first paragraph of the closure should be reworded as follows (my text in italics): "After reviewing the !votes and discussion, it is clear that there is consensus that airlines and destination tables should not be included in articles because of WP:NOT. Individual routes can be described if reliable sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE. There is not a consensus for wholesale removal of such tables". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sunnya343 (talk • contribs)

• Superseded by my !vote below. Sunnya343 (talk) 01:35, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

RFC non-participants (airlines and destinations RFC)

• Not a huge fan of this close either for the reasons you mentioned, but if it's overturned, it shouldn't be to a stronger consensus against inclusion; there's no such consensus present in the discussion. I find weighing the WP:NOT arguments so heavily in such a discussion unconvincing; we can choose what content we want to cover and WP:NOT wasn't handed down by god. Elli (talk | contribs) 04:22, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
• I'm confused. The primary close line "airlines and destination tables may only be included in articles when independent, reliable, secondary sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE." seems rather novel. WP:DUE is mainly focused on neutrality (the first word in the section) and majority/minority/fringe opinions or interpretations, not something like a schedule, which is a hard, cold fact. I'm struggling to understand exactly how WP:DUE plays into whether or not an exhaustive list should or shouldn't be included, which is an editorial decision, based on whether WP:NOT applies or doesn't. Maybe it is just me, but again, I'm confused. Dennis Brown 2¢ 04:54, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  I think that might have intended to be a reference to WP:BALASP? People often conflate WP:DUE and WP:BALASP - I’m not actually sure why they are distinct, it would make sense to me to merge them into one. BilledMammal (talk) 04:59, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  While that (on the surface) looks closer to the situation, I don't think that was the intent in creating that policy. The entire policy it falls under is called "Neutral point of view", so I can't see the policy applies in any way, shape, or form, to the (dis)allowing a list of all flights. That appears to fall directly into WP:NOT. I'm not commenting on the merits at this point, I'm just saying I think it is a mistake to use any part of WP:NPOV as guidance in the close. Neutrality isn't at issue, the only issue would seem to be "is this level of detail appropriate, or not?" which exactly what Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not was created to define. The closer should be taking all the votes based on WP:NOT and deciding if they are appropriate interpretations of the policy, not only as written, but in spirit as well. I can't fathom how you can weigh neutrality in the inclusion. There may be other policy considerations, but anything related to NPOV (ie: DUE or BALASP) isn't one of them. Dennis Brown 2¢ 05:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  I would disagree with that; in my opinion as written BALASP clearly applies to all aspects of the article, even when those aspects - in the view of editors - are impartial.

  Indeed, BALASP says as much; For example, a description of isolated events, quotes, criticisms, or news reports related to one subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic. BilledMammal (talk) 05:34, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  But that is very different from a table of schedules, be it train/air/bus, or say a sports teams schedule, or other "hard facts" that can't possibly be "Not neutral". Describing isolated events, or select news reports CAN make an article biased. Obviously adding quotes or criticisms can skew the article and make it violate NPOV. Adding a schedule can not, in any way, skew the bias for or against the airline. This is why schedules are specifically not listed in the policy on Neutrality. It simply does not apply here. I see WP:DUE misused in this context by editors somewhat regularly, but not in a close. It's an honest mistake, but it is a mistake. Dennis Brown 2¢ 05:50, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  What I see NPOV doing is telling editors to follow the sources, in all aspects - even when editors believe that a certain aspect has no bearing on neutrality.

  For example, a recent dispute came by dispute resolution where editors were arguing how much prominence to give John De Lancie’s role in My Little Pony compared to his role in Star Trek. Both of those roles are “hard facts” that can’t possibly not be neutral, but to decide how much weight to give either in his article is based entirely on NPOV - to interpret NPOV otherwise would effectively turn resolving such a dispute into “which aspect do Wikipedians think is more important” rather than “which aspect do reliable sources think is more important”

  The same is true of schedules.

  However, these aspects can have a direct bearing on an articles neutrality. For example, giving excessive weight to “hard facts” can result in giving improperly low weight to important controversies - indeed, this is a common tool of the better paid editors, who don’t remove controversies but instead bury them in verifiable facts. BilledMammal (talk) 06:16, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  I will just leave it for now. I don't think they are the same, and obviously I think this is stretching WP:DUE too far to use in this particular instance. The issue at hand is one of appropriateness, not bias. Again, I have no comment on the merits of the discussion itself. Dennis Brown 2¢ 06:20, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  DUE also mentions "aspects", but it's true that it focuses primarily on viewpoints. I would say that use of "DUE" as shorthand for "worth including in the article per the NPOV policy as a whole" is commonplace, and BALANCE is underused as a link, though one participant in the RfC did reference it specifically. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:27, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse. A major part of the objection rationale is a declaration that GNG doesn't apply to article content. This reads as a non-sequitur, since GNG was not mentioned in the close. The guidance to rely primarily on sources that are secondary and independent is not restricted to GNG. It appears, for example, in our NPOV and OR policies and the RS guideline. These were all cited in the RfC. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse. This seems pretty clear cut. If someone is arguing that content should be included without regard for its weight in reliable secondary sources, that's a fundamental misunderstanding about how content is managed on Wikipedia and such !votes are not going to be taken seriously. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:01, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse. The RfC asks whether airport articles should mention every single flight that the airport offers (no matter the way that the information is presented). The answer was very clearly "no" based on WP:NOT. I think the way the close was phrased is within closer discretion and that we should avoid micromanaging a close. That said, I read many of the !votes based on WP:NOT to be against inclusion of any tables at all, but that wasn't the question the RfC was asking. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:46, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  Clarification: the tables list every destination, not every flight. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 08:50, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse. The close is a reasonable summary of the consensus embodied by the RfC responses, and this is not a venue to re-litigate the arguments. Bon courage (talk) 05:18, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn based on Wikipedia policies. I was not involved in the RfC but I have studied it and discussed it since with several people.

The closer correctly noted the the Oppose/keep !voters were in the majority but made weak arguments. The closer then cited 3 policies in their decision to limit list items to those that are secondarily sourced. Lets look at what those 3 policies say:

1. WP:BURDEN: the lead sentences of WP:BURDEN, a section of WP:VERIFY, say

   • ”All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports[b] the contribution.”
   • WP:PRIMARY, a section of WP:NOR, allows the use of primary sources to satisfy verifiability subject to criteria. There are 6 requirements; these are the ones salient to this discussion:

   • "Primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.". These table's editors cite material directly from airlines and airports. Neither publishes fake destinations.
   • "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation." Destination information provided by airlines and airports consists of simple facts requiring no interpretation.
   • "A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source…"
   • "Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself…"
   • "Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them." Destination tables make up <10% of most airport articles' text.

2. WP:ONUS, a section of WP:VERIFY, says:

   • ”While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content."

   • The majority of the !voters at the RfC said the tables were valuable
   • At the one article where Sunnya343 deleted a destination table, opposition to deletion was unanimous on the article talk page. The opposers found the table valuable.

3. WP:NOT. An RfC was conducted to specifically amend WP:NOT to exclude all transportation destination tables (not just airports):

   • Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 141#RFC: Should Wikipedia have lists of transportation service destinations?

   • Outcome:"There is a clear consensus against the proposed addition to WP:NOTDIR."

   • WP:NOT does not exclude these tables.

As I see it, a majority supported inclusion and the closer misapplied the 3 policies they cited. Simple facts from reliable primary sources support simple facts in these accurate, very well-maintained tables. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 07:56, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

• I have a few gripes with some of these points:

  Primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. – Misuse in this context doesn't mean posting false information. It means drawing inappropriate conclusions based on the existence of primary sources. This would include the prominence of information in the article relative to its actual weight in reliable sources.

  Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself… – You cut off the second half of this sentence: instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Deciding that the content is important independently of its weight in reliable secondary sources is evaluation.

  Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them. – You're correct that it's not the "entire article", but you ignore the portion about "large passages", which is critical here. The point of having that expectation is because we don't want primary sources to determine what type of content goes into the article. When primary sources are used (which should be sparingly), they should be in conjunction with secondary sources, not in a section of the article dependent exclusively on primary sources.

  The majority of the !voters at the RfC said the tables were valuable – Consensus is not determined by head-count, and it's not fair to say that consensus to include was reached.

  opposition to deletion was unanimous on the article talk page. – This is a valid point until it was overruled by the RfC. Site-wide consensus overrules WP:LOCALCONSENSUS.

  WP:NOT does not exclude these tables. – That an RfC did not support a specific wording, in large part on procedural grounds, does not invalidate WP:NOTDIRECTORY, where the very first point disallows Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit.

  Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:53, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  I have a few gripes with some of those points:

  It means drawing inappropriate conclusions based on the existence of primary sources. This would include the prominence of information in the article relative to its actual weight in reliable sources. Every route announcement nowadays - and likely in the past as well - gets announced in the media somewhere. A mere mention in a table is probably exactly the amount of prominence the information needs to receive.

  Deciding that the content is important independently of its weight in reliable secondary sources is evaluation. We're getting really into the weeds here. Lots of factual information already on an airport article will already be sourced to primary sources, such as latitude and longitude, runway length, elevation... evaluation in this context does not mean inclusion.

  not in a section of the article dependent exclusively on primary sources. The assumption here is that every airline route article is primary, which is not the case.

  it's not fair to say that consensus to include was reached It's also not fair to say consensus to remove was reached. Furthermore, this discussion was about whether this information is encyclopaedic, and if it had advertised to the community which actively maintains the information a different consensus may have been reached, since many of us view it as encyclopedic.

  ...simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit. without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit - notwithstanding WP:NOTDIRECTORY does not apply here - we could deliver this information in prose, but it's far easier to understand and contextualise in a tabular format - this was rebutted in the RfC by the premise that destinations from shipping ports were routinely included in print encyclopedias, showing there is clearly encyclopedic merit to these tables. There are two valid arguments here: whether this is encyclopedic, and whether it is WP:NOT. SportingFlyer T·C 18:05, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  Finally, none of these are specifically about the close, but all get into a rehashing of the RfC. SportingFlyer T·C 18:05, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn per A. B., but also because the close was not supported by the discussion: out of over 50 participants, only a small number discussed sourcing, and fewer than five discussed sourcing to the level of detail to which the closer drew their conclusion. The easiest thing here would be to overturn to simple no consensus. (There are also a lot of users who gnome in this area who may not have been notified about the discussion, myself included.) SportingFlyer T·C 13:19, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse. I agree with Bon courage that the close is a reasonable summary of the discussion. JBL (talk) 21:09, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn A closer is supposed to summarize the discussion. This doesn't mean counting votes, but counting votes can be pretty illuminating for which direction the discussion is going. Reading the discussion, there's a small but pretty clear majority for keeping the tables. It's possible for a sufficient policy-based reasoning to overcome this, but despite what the closer said, I'm not seeing it. Both sides appear to be making policy-based arguments: the argument that a piece of information has encyclopedic value and therefore it should be kept is not merely WP:ILIKEIT, it's a perfectly reasonable argument against deleting a piece of content. A second reason I doubt either side was making non-policy compliant arguments is that there were several admins and lots of long-standing users on both sides of this argument, which implies that neither side was ignorant of policy. It feels to me like the closer made a WP:SUPERVOTE because the "no" arguments were more convincing to them personally rather than closing based on the actual discussion. Loki (talk) 08:28, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  Here are a few !votes from the slim majority to include the tables:

  • The tables are fine if they are based in secondary sources rather than original research using booking systems and the like. Secondary sources
  • Yes, the tables should stay – from a user standpoint, I've found them very helpful.
  • Yes. WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NPOV can cover relevant concerns.
  • Yes.

  The "common thread" quotes in my close were all from those supporting inclusion. This is why counting bolded votes is not illuminating in many cases. Additionally, some supporting inclusion cited WP:READERSFIRST, which is an essay, not a policy or guideline. WP:Closing discussions is pretty clear that arguments based on policies get more weight, and responses based on personal opinion only or that show no understanding of the matter of issue should be discarded. Arguments based in part on personal opinion or rebutted by policy based arguments should be weighed less than those with a strong policy basis. I covered this in the close, explaining why some responses were downweighted. The arguments based on encyclopedic value without any evidence are strongly rebutted by those citing NPOV/DUE while discussing using sources to establish weight states The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is irrelevant and should not be considered. So stating "it's encyclopedic and should be included" while not providing any rationale that rebuts the requirement that sources be provided to demonstrate something is DUE and meets NPOV is a weak argument. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:40, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  Only one user cited WP:DUE and only one user cited WP:NPOV, out of over 50 participants, without any substantive discussion of how either apply!! SportingFlyer T·C 16:52, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  1. demonstrating that they are not significant enough to merit inclusion in an article - link to NPOV/BALASP
  2. Yes, airport articles should include such tables when including a table would be due - invokes DUE
  3. Of course, all the usual guidelines relating to weight and reliable referencing (I'm thinking specifically of WP:BURDEN and WP:ONUS) should still be considered, - invokes DUE
  4. Also if no other sources are describing this information, beyond primary sources, then are they WP:DUE. links to DUE
  5. I cannot see how these lists/tables of the airlines/destinations serviced by an airport provide so much utility and encyclopedic value as to override our policies on indiscriminate info, NOTDB, BALANCE, NOTNEWS, and OR. WP:BALANCE is part of NPOV
  6. WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NPOV can cover relevant concerns links to NPOV
  7. So we get WP:NOTABILITY, WP:UNDUE, etc. weighing in too. links to UNDUE
  8. TMI is a WP:ESSAY, WP:NPOV is a WP:POLICY. link to NPOV

  These are some of the explicit mentions. There's also plenty of discussion that covers the same ground without explicitly invoking or linking. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:37, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  Whether or not arguments based on encyclopedic value are rebutted by other policies at all, let alone strongly, is a matter for the discussion. Encyclopedic value, while a somewhat vague idea, is definitely not any of the list of things WP:DISCARD says should be discarded. It's not a personal opinion nor does it show no understanding of the issue because it's clearly intended as a counterargument to the principle behind WP:NOT.

  Whether it's a strong counterargument to WP:NOT or not is a matter of how convincing that argument is to the participants in the discussion. It's your job as closer to represent the conclusion the discussion reached on that and not your own opinion. I can't see any way of reading that discussion that concludes that it reached the consensus you're drawing. Loki (talk) 19:08, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse, despite the problems In vague terms this tightens up the criteria a bit which IMO is the result of the RFC. And IMO such is the right decision based on a complex application of several policies and guidelines, one which would be too complex to put into or derive into a close. The "despite the problems" is because I agree there were many problems in the details of the close, as pointed out in this review. North8000 (talk) 02:17, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Overturn Reversed my earlier position. Establishing WP:Due as a criteria to decide what is either a wp:not or wp:notability question is just too big of a mess to leave this in. North8000 (talk) 18:12, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn and/or relist Numerous RFCs (as noted below have argued for inclusion. Furthermore, a sizable majority !voted to keep. Both sides have valid points. If the someone finds the minority opinion more valid than the majority opinion, that's fine. However, they shouldn't close a well-reasoned discussion as "The consensus is <the minority opinion>". If you have invalid opinions expressed as "Support/Oppose because the moon is cheese" or other such nonsense, it's reasonable to discount such opinions. But unless there are such opinions, a small minority opinion should never be listed as the "consensus". At best, this is a no consensus or keep as-is. Buffs (talk) 20:50, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  My count was roughly 6 not support or oppose, 26 oppose bolded, 33 support bolded, so not a sizable majority. An example of an unbolded response is The tables are fine if they are based in secondary sources rather than original research using booking systems and the like. Some excerpts from the supports include the examples I quoted in my close:

  1. articles should include such tables when including a table would be due
  2. all the usual guidelines relating to weight and reliable referencing (I'm thinking specifically of WP:BURDEN and WP:ONUS) should still be considered
  3. WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NPOV can cover relevant concerns

  This is why we don't close discussions with vote tallies. We have to read the full discussion to see that almost every vote wasn't a direct one or the other choice. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:07, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  So...by definition, if it was close, there wasn't a consensus (33 of 65 !votes is BARELY a majority and I think you're being a little generous to the support side), especially when you consider many other previous RFCs on the subject. If you found one side more convincing, you should have expressed your opinion and added it to the discussion. Perhaps you could have convinced others to change their opinion. Buffs (talk) 00:15, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  Responses with a strong basis in policy are weighed more heavily than those without. Responses without are down weighted, and responses that don't make pertinent arguments are discarded. Here's some examples from the RFC:

  • Yes - this is one of the key aspects of airports, namely what connections to other airports they have. If the info is only embedded in prose, the risk of outdated creep increases. was weighed down because it did not address those citing WP:DUE, The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is irrelevant and should not be considered and WP:NPOV, An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. Nothing was provided to demonstrate that this is a key aspect provided in sources.
  • With my reader hat on, definitely yes - these are surprisingly useful. With my editor hat on, there is an obvious "...assuming they can be sourced", but this should not be difficult in most cases. Their view as a reader is downweighted for the reasons of the earlier example. Although this falls into the slim majority of supports, it also calls for sourcing.
  • Yes. WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NPOV can cover relevant concerns. Making a blanket rule banning such information is unnecessary WP:CREEP. This is also included in the slim majority of supports, but invokes NPOV, so it is weighed heavily, but for requiring sourcing for inclusion.
  • Yes. That was the whole thing. Discarded per WP:Closing discussions.
  • Yes The routes for an airport are sensible content and, per WP:CREEP, what we don't need are petty rules to micro-manage the form of presentation. Downweighted as personal opinion on the content with no basis in policy.

  There are many more examples across the RFC of responses that made policy based arguments and were weighed more heavily, and that did not and were not.

  WP:Closing discussions says If the discussion shows that some people think one policy is controlling, and some another, the closer is expected to close by judging which view has the predominant number of responsible Wikipedians supporting it, If a large portion are making no argument from policy and a smaller portion are citing policy to support their position then we go with the controlling policy that has more support. The bolded !votes also don't represent a binary of blanket supporting inclusion or opposing inclusion.

  Lastly, I don't see an RFC from six years ago with less than half of the participation that was about the notability of list articles as controlling over this RFC. Additionally, WP:CCC. It's also worth noting that the issue 6 year old RFC wasn't raised at three RFC in question. As no one used it as a basis for their argument it should not be considered when closing. At this point it's introducing a new argument in the challenged RFC. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:40, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  Wow...with that expansion on your prior statement, I can see how you came to that conclusion, which I find to be inappropriate. People who cite specific policies you give extra weight = more weight? Those that don't cite it were downweighted? How would you treat a comment like "I agree with <user X>". Downweighted? They might be citing someone who made a valuable argument with policies, but you're dismissing them due to brevity. You openly admit that you downweighted based on someone citing WP:Creep which, while an opinion piece, summarizes both the logic AND applicable policies. It's common shorthand to prevent repetition and unnecessary walls of text. Just because someone used logic, but didn't cite a specific policy doesn't mean they are wrong or their opinion should be given less weight. Many were answering questions posed in the initial request.

  What part of Wikipedia:Closing discussions says to "downweight" !votes that are simplistic like "Yes"? or upgrade opinions that link to policies? Just because someone uses their own logic that IS well-rooted in policy/guidelines/prior consensus but doesn't mention the specific policy doesn't mean their opinion should be downgraded any more than someone with poor logic but links to a policy should be given more weight.

  How does citing Wikipedia:Closing discussions in your rationale bolster your argument? It's not a policy or guideline either.

  You've clearly downweighted !votes with valid, logical concerns and discarded at least 5 prior RfCs which came to a contrary conclusion.

  I strongly urge you to redo your analysis and/or reopen it. Buffs (talk) 18:20, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  What part of Wikipedia:Closing discussions says to "downweight" !votes that are simplistic like "Yes"? or upgrade opinions that link to policies? That would be the section WP:DISCARD, which reads in part The closer is there to judge the consensus of the community, after discarding irrelevant arguments: those that flatly contradict established policy, those based on personal opinion only, those that are logically fallacious, and those that show no understanding of the matter of issue. --JBL (talk) 19:06, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  Nothing in that list validates downgrading those who cite WP:CREEP:

  • those that flatly contradict established policy - Nothing in WP:CREEP contradicts policy
  • those based on personal opinion only - This is a logical argument, not merely opinion such as "I think it looks pretty" or a simplistic "this is better"
  • those that are logically fallacious - It isn't logically fallacious
  • and those that show no understanding of the matter of issue. - Clearly they understand the matter.

  Buffs (talk) 17:29, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  This kind of goal-post shifting is not endearing. You asked a question rhetorically, and it had a straightforward answer that disagrees with the point you were trying to make. Maybe you should have asked a different question, or maybe you shouldn't have asked a rhetorical question at all, but the civilized thing to do at this point is to admit the error, not throw a bunch of shouty bullet points and pretend you said something different. --JBL (talk) 18:18, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  JBL, if you are going to take organized thoughts as "shouting", perhaps you don't need to respond. Long streams of prose that don't apply (as I illustrated) were all from your post, not mine and waste time to dispel/address. If you don't want a response to them, don't respond. So let's go back through and summarize:

  • I very clearly stated "What part of Wikipedia:Closing discussions says to 'downweight' !votes that are simplistic like 'Yes'? or upgrade opinions that link to policies?" That was not rhetorical.
  • You gave a long quote from WP:DISCARD
  • I pointed out that the closer openly discarded opinions citing WP:CREEP (that would be the "like 'Yes'" I mentioned) and that nothing in what you stated justified such actions
  • You claim that this is "moving the goalposts" without justifying how...apparently in an attempt to waste time while at the same time throwing around personal accusations to imply I'm being uncivil. You already have a track record of tossing insults around. Let's not continue that. I asked for the opinion of the closer, so let's see what he has to say. Buffs (talk) 23:18, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  The problem is not the organization, it's the heavy-handed use of bold, widely recognized as one of the ways people shout on the internet: see WP:SHOUT.

  Here is what is missing in your response to me: You gave a long quote from WP:DISCARD [which unambiguously answered your question, demonstrating that WP:DISCARD does contain such advice]. I [completely ignored this and its impact on my argument, and instead changed the subject by talking about WP:CREEP, which was not part of the question you answered]. --JBL (talk) 23:46, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  I was surprised to read here that bolding was considered shouting, so I checked WP:SHOUT:

  • ”…ALL CAPS and enlarged fonts may be considered shouting and are rarely appropriate. Bolding may be used to highlight key words or phrases but should be used judiciously…”

  Looking at the rest of the text beyond this excerpt, excessive use of bolding and other, similar forms of emphasis (italics, etc.) is associated with reduced clarity, not shouting. —A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 03:48, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

  As AB clearly points out, what you cite does not claim what you say it claims in WP:SHOUT. I pointed out that what was stated in WP:DISCARD doesn't justify discarding an opinion just because it doesn't cite a policy directly (and I demonstratively showed that it definitely did so through that essay rather than a wall of text...which you've also complained about in the past).

  For some people, it seems they want a predetermined outcome, whatever their motivation. Bolded? Unnecessarily aggressive. List? shouty bullet points. Questioning the result? "Not endearing". Summarizing by referring to an argument someone has already made rather than a wall of text? Opinion dismissed because it isn't policy. Wall of text? Too wordy; opinion dismissed. I've made my points. Many generally concur. Buffs (talk) 16:49, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  @JayBeeEll and @Buffs: I'm trying to stay out of your dispute and not take sides; I just was clarifying WP:SHOUT with my note above.

  Regards, --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 19:14, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  WP:CONSENSUS, the policy at hand says In determining consensus, consider the quality of the arguments, the history of how they came about, the objections of those who disagree, and existing policies and guidelines. The quality of an argument is more important than whether it represents a minority or a majority view. The arguments "I just don't like it" and "I just like it" usually carry no weight whatsoever... any of these discussions will involve polls of one sort or another; but as consensus is determined by the quality of arguments (not by a simple counted majority), polls should be regarded as structured discussions rather than voting. Responses indicating individual explanations of positions using Wikipedia policies and guidelines are given the highest weight. It also says, Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale.

  All arguments should be weighed by the closer based on policies and guidelines. A discussion in the proper location with double the editors of an earlier discussion overrides that discussion. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:13, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  Gotcha, so now you're changing your standards to WP:CONSENSUS and not Wikipedia:Closing discussions after being challenged...that's fun/convenient. Fine, we'll discuss that...

  If your standard is "All arguments should be weighed by the closer based on policies and guidelines", that's not ALL you're supposed to do. You're also supposed to "consider the quality of the arguments..." You already said you downgraded those who cited WP:CREEP because it isn't a policy or guideline, but it CITES policy and guidelines in its argument. You've definitely and openly discounted multiple valid !votes. Buffs (talk) 17:44, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  This was a mess of an RfC. I appreciate ScottishFinnishRadish wading into it and trying to make sense of it, even if I disagree with his conclusion. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 17:53, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  Fair enough. I appreciate the effort for sure. My only question is the accuracy. Re-opening this would make the most sense. Buffs (talk) 23:19, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  I favor over-turning the RfC as “no consensus” and then just leaving the topic alone for 1-2 years to give people a break. No relisting.

  This particular RfC as written and then as subsequently understood by others had issues as noted in this discussion. It should not be relisted without rewriting. —A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 02:55, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

  I'd be good with that too Buffs (talk) 16:49, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  I think reopening this discussion would be the least desirable option. Either the closure should be endorsed, or it should be overturned and immediately reclosed. In any event I would endorse the recommendation to wait a while before asking a question along these lines again. If and when there is another discussion on this I would strongly encourage workshopping before going live with input explicitly sought from a cross-section of people who commented on this RFC especially those who didn't answer a straight yes or no) to avoid another confusing mess. Thryduulf (talk) 16:57, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

RFC participants (airlines and destinations RFC)

• There's been several discussions following the close, and although I don't agree with all of them the restriction on PRIMARY sources seems off to me. Before commenting at the RFC a check several tables and the sourcing for many of them was bad. Certainly such tables need proper sourcing (especially after they have been challenged), but I don't see why this can't be from a primary source (as long as it's a stable reliable source). Yes there's a separate discussion on whether they are due in the article if they are not mentioned in secondary sources, but that's separate from if they can be sourced from primary sources. That specific part of the close appears to merge those two separate points into one. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:35, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  This is what I was getting at. User:A.B. explained in dispute resolution that primary sources are acceptable for this type of information - Airline X flies from city A to city B - and I agree with their analysis. The close of this RFC is confusing because it makes it seem as though a piece of information requires independent secondary sourcing to show that it can be included in an article. This May, Condor will begin a flight from San Antonio to Frankfurt, San Antonio's first nonstop service to Europe. Naturally there are only WP:PRIMARYNEWS sources about this route currently. Does that mean this flight does not meet WP:DUE and should not be mentioned in the article on the San Antonio airport? Sunnya343 (talk) 21:59, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  Well once it is reported in a newspaper, rather than just an airline or airport website, then we get a secondary source. Once there is more than one of these, the close statement says it can be included. That is fair enough in my opinion, and I endorse the close. (even though my vote would have supported weaker inclusion criteria). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:46, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  A newspaper article is not always a secondary source. See WP:PRIMARYNEWS. Sunnya343 (talk) 00:06, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  Indeed newspaper content is most usually primary (and where it isn't, it's quite often not very reliable). WP:SECONDARY content is characterized by analysis, synthesis and commentary directed to primary material, and is not secondary simply by being an extra 'layer'. That is a very common misconception on Wikipedia. Bon courage (talk) 05:24, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  And it's a misconception that was pervasive in the RFC, which is why it was closed wrongly and why Sunny has been applying it inappropriately. There was consensus support for keeping the tables but adding more independent sources beyond the airlines' timetables (which prior discussions found to be acceptable), even if misstated by some in the RFC as secondary/primary. Reywas92^Talk 21:22, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

  Information in an article should be weighted by it's inclusion in secondary sources. So if no secondary sources has ever reported on such information it probably shouldn't be included. But this is a separate issue to referencing.
  To put it mote distinctly for this specific issue. Secondary sources are needed to show that there should be a table at all, but the entries in that table should be able to use primary sources for referencing. The former is a discussion on article content, the latter is to show the data is verifiable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:43, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  I see, thank you for the clarification. Though I have a question about Secondary sources are needed to show that there should be a table at all. Practically speaking, how do we apply this idea to the lists? Do you need to find a secondary source that mentions all or most current flights? Or do you need to cite a secondary source for each destination, over 50% of the destinations, etc.?

  Those questions made me think of something else as well. The objective of the tables is to list every airline and destination that an airport currently has. Isn't it paradoxical to talk about the need for secondary sources, which [provide] thought and reflection based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event, for a list that is only accurate as of today's date?

  I'm starting to feel like I have to do mental gymnastics to explain the relevance of WP:NPOV to this debate, whereas the WP:NOT argument is much more clear. Sunnya343 (talk) 02:14, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

  Secondary sources need to show that destination data is relevant. You don't necessarily need them for each exact detail, primary sources could be used for that. So no you don't need secondary sources to mention all flights and destinations.
  The objective of the article is to show what is relevant balanced by secondary sources, any objective of the table has to start from that. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:11, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

  I might still be misunderstanding you. Are you saying that it is OK to cite a primary source (like an airline timetable) for the individual destinations, but you need a secondary source to show that the entire table has encyclopedic significance? Would you mind explaining how, say, the Heathrow Airport table should be sourced based on what you said? I don't see where you would cite the secondary source if you are citing primary sources for all the destinations. (Sorry if it seems like I'm badgering you, but I believe clarity is needed here, or else I do not know how to implement the RFC close as written.) Sunnya343 (talk) 02:18, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  I think your misunderstanding comes from being unable to unlink the requirement for secondary sources from referencing. Referencing is there for the purpose of verification, and a primary source could be used for that.
  The secondary sources could be used for referencing, or they could be used in a talk page discussion on whether the table is due or not. They are required to show that the destination from Heathrow are something that people outside of Wikipedia care about, they shouldn't necessarily be required for the purposes of verification. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:32, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  Or a more simple explanation. The secondary sources are need for the "should it be in the article?" part (due), it should be allowable to use primary or secondary sources in the "is it verifiable?" part (referencing). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:37, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  Understood. What you're saying is that, for instance, secondary sources show that the first flight from Las Vegas to Asia is due ([23], [24]), but I can cite a primary source in the article to verify that fact ([25]). That makes sense.

  However, I still think this idea is difficult to apply to the tables of destinations. Secondary sources by their nature are published some time after events occur; they look back in time and draw on primary sources to comment on those events. They identify which details ended up being more significant than others in the long run. For example, our article on the war in Gaza is pretty much entirely based on primary sources. In 20 years, by which time numerous secondary sources on the war will be available, some of the facts in that article may be removed or given less weight based on their prominence in those secondary sources. Pardon me if I appear to be lecturing you.

  With regard to the subject of this RFC, it is unclear to me what sort of secondary source could be found to show that a particular list should be in an article. Maybe you can find a source that discusses the growth of Heathrow's air service during the 2010s or the development of the British Airways hub over the years. But is it possible to find a secondary source that contains analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of Heathrow's current destinations? I know I'm repeating myself, but that seems inherently impossible.

  ScottishFinnishRadish, I know we have bothered you enough regarding this RFC, but would you mind commenting on our debate about the bolded portion of the close? Since you as the closer wrote it, you would be able to tell us what exactly you meant and how we would apply it to a particular airport's table. Sunnya343 (talk) 15:53, 21 January 2024 (UTC) Revised 16:10, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  No sorry I'm obviously still explaining bit poorly. Secondary sources are needed to show that the table should exist in the article at all, this is completely independent of any particular flight or destination.
  My point is similar to the notability standards for a stand alone list article. You have to show that the list article is notable, and that requires secondary sourcing. But the entries on that list don't need secondary sourcing they just need to be verifiable.
  The secondary sources just needs to say that destinations from Heathrow are something of note, not reflect on current destinations from Heathrow.
  As to up to the minute content there is no requirement for Wikipedia to carry this, Wikipedia is meant to be a tertiary source. But that's a separate discussion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:55, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  In regard to WP:NLIST, this comparison wades into the territory of notability, which independent secondary sources are required to demonstrate. Here we are talking about content. More specifically, we are discussing the maintenance of current destination data, which I believe falls within the ambit of WP:NOT, not WP:NPOV.

  Even if we accept the idea that you just need secondary sources to say that Heathrow's destinations are significant, I would disagree. For any airport in the world, you will likely find a source that discusses the extent of its service (though still, at a particular moment in time). For Heathrow you may find one that says the airport has destinations on all six inhabited continents, etc. I don't think that's enough to justify the inclusion of a complete, constantly updated list of destinations. Maybe that is what you alluded to when you commented on up to the minute content. This is what the WP:NOT arguments address.

  Also, if we were to apply the above idea to the Heathrow list, you would be able to create a new article entitled "List of destinations from Heathrow". But I don't think any of our stand-alone list articles are constantly being revised, with editors adding and subtracting content to remain up-to-date (as you would when Virgin Atlantic begins flights to Bangalore or British Airways stops flying to Funchal from Heathrow). Even with List of presidents of the United States, you are just adding a person every four years.

  (By the way, my example of the first flight from Las Vegas to Asia applied to an event that I would describe in the history section of the article, not a data point in the Airlines and Destinations table.) Sunnya343 (talk) 17:53, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  That's why I used it as an example, it's not meant to be exactly what I'm saying. As to content in general it should be based on all significant views published by reliable sources. Policies are overlapping, so just because something falls under one policy doesn't mean it isn't also under another. Finally you are discussing maintenance of the tables, I am discussing both the maintenance and the requirement for having them. My statement of 'up to the minute' was in reply to you example of Wikipedia's war reporting, where editors take to using Telegram channels as sources so the absolute latest details can be included. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:58, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse I find the reasoning of this close review unconvincing. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:02, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  Agreed, the nominator has suggested banning the tables altogether, which would go against the consensus of the RFC, which was actually to maintain the tables but with more sources. Reywas92^Talk 21:04, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

• @Dennis Brown: I think you have a point. Let's say that a list meets the requirement for inclusion specified in the RFC close. That means you have appropriately referenced items on a list - e.g. British Airways flies from Heathrow to Aberdeen, Abuja, Accra, ... - as opposed to the description of a particular viewpoint on evolution, or a paragraph discussing John De Lancie's role in My Little Pony to take BilledMammal's example. Does WP:DUE truly apply to the inclusion of data points? Sunnya343 (talk) 02:06, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
• @Firefangledfeathers: What I was trying to say was that our policies do not require independent secondary sources for a fact to be included in an article. It appeared to me that the requirement for such sources in the close was similar to WP:GNG.

  I recently sought dispute resolution after facing opposition to my removal of one of these lists. Due to the wording of the close, the discussion at DRN boiled down not to whether the list violated WP:NOT, but to whether the [list was] attributed to reliable secondary sources. As I said, however, no policy requires content to be attributed to secondary sources. Sunnya343 (talk) 23:49, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

• Response to A.B.'s stance: What I do believe is accurate in the close is Addressing the arguments, the strongest and by far most common argument put forth by those opposed to the tables is WP:NOTALLSORTSOFSTUFF. I do not seek to rehash arguments, just to summarize what people specifically said regarding WP:NOT. We argued that airport articles should not provide a:
  • Directory of current airline services from an airport
  • News service that documents the launch and discontinuation of every flight in order to remain up-to-date
  • Database of all presently operational flights: Essentially an attempt to duplicate the content of a database like Flightradar24
  • Travel guide: Though this is probably not the intention of most editors, the lists can be viewed as travel guides due to the emphasis on providing readers with a list of every city currently accessible via nonstop or same-plane, one-stop flights, and which airlines operate those flights

The closer added that There were also no strong arguments against the interpretation of WP:NOT, other than disagreement that it should apply. Sunnya343 (talk) 01:36, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

To this I would respond:

• Salience: The fundamental measure of a commercial airport is the extent of its service (airlines and destinations) and passenger/cargo volume.

• London Heathrow Airport and Los Angeles International Airport are known for their large volume of travelers and their extensive number of passenger destinations.

• Not their: parking, history, appearances in popular culture or bicycle access.

• Memphis International Airport and Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport are two of the world's most important cargo airports because of their cargo volume, number of destinations and carriers.

• Experience shows these tables are maintained and diligently kept current by the editors who enjoy this sort of editing. Over many years, I've found this to be true of not just of major hubs but even tiny airports in truly remote places.

• I find them more reliable than most Wikipedia content. God bless our wikignomes.

• Other information in airport articles also relies on primary sources (passenger traffic, runway length, etc.) from the airports themselves or government air traffic control agencies.
• Secondary sources for airport passenger service -- mostly local news coverage -- are spotty and less reliable. They seldom exist at all for cargo service.
• These tables meet the notability requirements of WP:NLIST. Like many lists, they convey easily understood information in a compact manner.
• WP:NOT does not directly address transportation destinations. An RfC to add them was defeated by the Wikipedia community.

• An RfC like that one on a basic policy establishes a higher level of consensus (WP:CONLEVEL) than an RfC on a set of airport articles, just as an airport RfC trumps local consensus at an article.

• An RfC administrative review should be based on policy, not ILIKEIT or IDONTLIKEIT. The RfC closure misapplied our policies with regards to WP:PRIMARY

• These primary-sourced lists are consistent with the policies discussed here -- WP:NOT, WP:NLIST, WP:CONLEVEL, WP:PRIMARY, WP:ONUS, WP:DUE, WP:BURDEN.

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 03:34, 20 January 2024 (UTC) (and tweaked 04:01, 20 January 2024 (UTC))

This would have been a good response at the RFC. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 03:49, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

@ScottishFinnishRadish, I was unaware of the RfC so I didn't comment. I agree with your comment in the RfC that you were presented with weak policy arguments on the keep side. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 04:09, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

People wrote in the RFC that it is possible to discuss an airport's air service without supplying an exhaustive, constantly updated list of destinations. Indeed, the closer noted that There were also arguments that the tables provide an idea of how well served or active an airport is, but those arguments were weakened by pointing out that the context could be provided in prose.

The claim that WP:NOT does not directly address transportation destinations is rebutted by The examples under each section are not intended to be exhaustive. Naturally, a policy cannot be expected to address every possible circumstance. What people did in this RFC was apply the principles expressed in WP:NOT to this particular situation. Regarding the RFC on amending WP:NOTDIR, I concur with Thebiguglyalien's statement above.

I agree with you about other information in airport articles also relying on primary sources. This is the point I am trying to make: the RFC close implies that information requires secondary sourcing to be included, even though no policy says that. I see no problem with mentioning the length of an airport's runway or how many passengers it handled in 2023, and citing a primary source. However, that is very different from the subject of the RFC, which violates WP:NOT according to the consensus. Sunnya343 (talk) 15:56, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Putting the context in prose instead of tables means there is less information and the articles are less useful for the countless people who rely on them to see a well-presented list about the airport's core purpose. I agree that the RFC close requiring "secondary sources" is wrong and against policy, but that would be incorrect to say there was a consensus the tables violate NOT. Reywas92^Talk 20:40, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

This was not mentioned in the close, but several people in the RFC talked about the importance of taking a long-term, historical view on Wikipedia, which as an encyclopedia is a tertiary source. Therefore, in the context of a Wikipedia article, perhaps the history of an airport - rather than a snapshot of its current destinations - is its most important aspect. This includes the history of its air service, such as the establishment of hubs or the first international flight. Sunnya343 (talk) 01:50, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Sunnya343, you make a good point about the history of airports service although that doesn't have to come at the expense of current information.

• Articles can note major changes as you've noted above: first international flights, hub status, etc.
  • Many airports already do this
  • Granularity: I don't think we need to note some airline added a flight from Adelaide Airport to Wellington Airport and then cancelled it later that year.
• Wikisavvy readers and future historians can make use of our edit histories to capture a detailed list of an airport's destinations and airline service at a given points in time. The refs will help, too.

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 02:08, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn to no consensus or that destination tables should be included, not OP's request – would endorse the RFC close rather than accepting OP's proposal, as the close does not mean that the tables must be removed. There was in no way a consensus in the discussion to remove/restrict usage of destination tables broadly, with a clear majority preferring to keep the tables, nor to require non-primary/truly secondary sources to be used, which contradicts policy and the usage and intent on primary source guidelines. While there was some support for the use of independent sources beyond just those published by the airport (or the airlines, which are independent of the airport, the articles' subjects), there was no basis to restrict those in the broad category of WP:PRIMARY, which even includes independent news reporting of airline activities but falls short of "generalization, analysis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information", which is not really possible for such straightforward factual information. This closure (and the OP's application of it) twisted the reasons for avoiding primary sources, certain types of which may have the disadvantages of "propaganda...omit...overstate...prejudices...unaware". However, these cases – the simple facts of which airlines fly where – fall under WP:PRIMARYCARE: "Material based on primary sources can be valuable and appropriate additions to Wikipedia articles, but only in the form of straightforward descriptive statements that any educated person—with access to the source but without specialist knowledge—will be able to verify are directly supported by the source." Further, sources used in these tables (both airline statements and new reporting that incorporates them) comply with WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD: "authoritative, high-quality, accurate, fact-checked, expert-approved, subject to editorial control, and published by a reputable publisher". The closure's mandate on the type of sources to be used is simply inconsist with the relevant guidelines. The OP points to WP:DUE, which is about maintaining neutrality and not overemphasizing fringe viewpoints, and is not relevant here. However, there is plainly substantial independent media coverage of airline routes, particularly when new destinations are announced, providing enough attention and relevance to an airport's destinations as a whole. It is also eminently clear that WP:NOT does not prohibit listing flight destinations, something that has been supported in longstanding consensuses at VPP, Wikiproject Airports, and individual airport articles. These tables are not a directory, not a news service, not a database, and not a travel guide. Reywas92^Talk 18:23, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse. I saw SFR's close summary of the "DUE" arguments as a restatement of the NPOV--in particular BALASP--concerns raised by participants, to be used as a reminder that this info really should be sourced to secondary independent media rather than current destination lists on airport websites etc. Although not explicitly stated, this made sense to me as an obvious distinction between the basic, integral material for which we generally consider primary SELF-PUB sources acceptable (e.g. a lot of the stuff that goes in infoboxes gets sourced to the subject's own websites) and the material we don't consider so fundamental that it should be in every article on the topic without any individual indication of secondary independent attention. I think the NOT arguments were what actually designated this material as "non-essential", while the NPOV arguments simply emphasize what that means in this case: destination lists are not exempt from our standard policy of following that specific subtopic's treatment in IRS. If exhaustive, up-to-date lists of destinations are not considered salient enough to receive IRS coverage, then that presentation of the data should not be in the article. JoelleJay (talk) 18:46, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  Absolutely, independent sources should be incorporated, but please note the dicussion above regarding the misuse of "primary" and "secondary" in that just because a source is independent new coverage, it is not necessarily "analysis", but this is not the kind of source or facts that needs such special care to avoid disadvantages of propaganda, omission, or overstatement. Your original !vote cited Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them., but that's from Wikipedia:No original research which also says A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge., which is the case here, including independent sources that aren't truly secondary. Reywas92^Talk 22:55, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn, either to No Consensus, or to Relist.
  • I am involved, not because I participated in the RFC, which I did not, but because I started to mediate a dispute at DRN over the removal of airline and destination tables from Harry Reid International Airport. I determined that some of the editors were acting in accordance with the close of the RFC, and some of the editors disagreed with the close of the RFC. DRN is not a forum to dispute the close of an RFC, and the RFC had established a binding rough consensus. So I closed the DRN case, advising the editors either to accept the rough consensus or seek to overturn the RFC. So here we are. (See, or do not see, Job 38:35.)
  • I am seldom inclined to overturn a close, either at DRV or of an RFC, but I think that the close was not consistent with the discussion. The closer had a difficult job to do. By my count, there were 31 Yes !votes, 28 No !votes, and 6 statements of some intermediate view, and one of the intermediate statements said that the lists should only be included if they were derived from reliable secondary sources. Other intermediate statements said that the RFC was poorly stated , which is correct, and should be closed. That is No Consensus, which is always an unsatisfying result, and the closer was in good faith trying to tease a consensus out of it. However, although the conclusion to include the lists of airlines and destinations only when based on reliable secondary sources was based on policy, some of the Yes statements and most of the No statements were also based on policy. The closer reached a conclusion that amounted to a supervote because they were trying to find a consensus when there was none.
  • The close should be overturned either to No Consensus or to Relist. If the RFC is relisted, it should be reworded, and the closer's conclusion of including lists of airlines and destinations when based on reliable secondary sources may be added as an option. Including the lists of airlines and destinations based on reliable primary sources has been mentioned by User:A.B., and maybe should also be in the revised RFC.

Robert McClenon (talk) 23:22, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, could you explain why you think the RFC was poorly stated? /gen Sunnya343 (talk) 01:24, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

User:Sunnya343 - Some editors complained that it was not clear whether the RFC was asking if lists of airlines and destinations were allowed or required. On further review, I personally think that the RFC was asking whether they should be allowed. It should be clear that they will not be required, on the principle that stubs and other incomplete articles that can be expanded are generally allowed. I have crossed out one phrase. The question should be reworded because it was clear to some editors and unclear to others. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse - Solely because I have to reject the CR Review's proposal as raised the requestor Sunnya343 states as part of the reason to Overturn the closure: I think the first paragraph of the closure should be reworded as follows (my text in italics): "After reviewing the !votes and discussion, it is clear that there is consensus that airlines and destination tables should not be included in articles because of WP:NOT. In re-reading all of the RfC responses, I don't see support for this polarised revision, it is not supported in the RfC. Now could SFR's statement being improved? Always! (as an aside, could I also thank SFR for his efforts, hopefully this thread isn't reading as a persecution/criticism for your efforts). I am exceedingly interested in SportingFlyer & A._B.'s suggested revisions to the Closing Statement to help increase its value/definitiveness and their logical approach in this discussion is impressive. This explicit request for CR Review to be revised to include this phrase is a binary No in my view; the proposed revising would not be appropriate/supported at all. The other (excellent contributions by multiple well-experienced contributors) in this thread/discussion are all excellent, but many feel to me to be rehashing the RfC topic at hand, *not* the proposed CR Review as stated. To restate in simple terms: This request for reviewing & revising the RFC Closure is not supported by Sunnya343's statement of "[...] airlines and destination tables should not be included in articles because of WP:NOT". DigitalExpat (talk) 10:14, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

  Overturn (and by Overturn I mean nullify/relist as a new RFC) - Changing my vote as it was reacting to the lack of request for CR not following the wikipedia template (lack of neutrality/inserting suggested revisions in the reason section). I believe it was a (very) good faith misapplication of policies by the closer on a RfC that was imperfectly started (as highlighted by many respondents), the request for CR which was imperfectly crafted (non-neutral), and a topic that has been on the verge of WP:FORUMSHOP with previous RfC's being similarly ill-crafted (eg: RfC's are not to be multiple choice questions). I believe the RfC closure could have better applied WP:BURDEN, WP:ONUS, and WP:NOT instead of the way WP:PRIMARY was cited. I am definitely a biased participant in both the topic, the RfC, and now this closure. So I believe it would be the most prudent for me to suggest an Overturn based on my above points indicating a lack of strong WP:CON and suggest the root reason for lack of consensus be well considered by impartial 3rd parties (What is actually being challenged/asked for comment on here that is not WP:IDONTLIKEIT (please see my other comment) ahead of any additional formal action or RFC on the topic to be considered. A sincere thank you to all who have contributed in this/these threads! DigitalExpat (talk) 05:29, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

• Relist - per Robert McClenon. As the person who posted the RFC, I was admittedly unwilling to seriously entertain the concerns that people raised about it while it was taking place. The biggest problem seems to be how the RFC question was phrased. Trovatore, Horse Eye's Back, and others brought this up in the RFC. For example, it appears that some contributors thought the RFC was about how the destinations should be presented: table vs. prose. In the present closure review, I see that Voorts wrote that [they] read many of the !votes based on WP:NOT to be against inclusion of any tables at all, but that wasn't the question the RfC was asking, and A. B. said that the RFC question mentioned flights as opposed to destinations.

  For a controversial issue like this one that affects a large number of articles, it is important to have a discussion centered around a clearly worded question that everyone understands - so we know everyone is answering the same question. Therefore, I support relisting the RFC and working with A. B., SportingFlyer, and any other interested party to design a properly worded RFC on these tables. Sunnya343 (talk) 01:33, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

  I’m happy to help. I suggest any new RfC be listed at T:CENT if it wasn’t the last time. Despite your efforts, too many people didn’t know about the RfC. —A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 01:37, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

  On further thought, I recommend overturning and just leaving all this alone for a year or two to give the broader community a break.

  We've just had the RfC itself, a dispute resolution discussion, a trip to ANI and now this discussion. This follows 5 previous discussions between 2015 and 2022 (see list below). --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 19:56, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

  Such a postponement sounds reasonable. Sunnya343 (talk) 01:29, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn, relist, get more input, and close in a way that doesn't invent new policy. Generally agree with A. B.'s analysis, desite some quibbles by Thebigguyalien. Have to go to jury duty, so can't comment further until tonight.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:25, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  Back now. In more detail, "drawing inappropriate conclusions based on the existence of primary sources ... would include the prominence of information in the article relative to its actual weight in reliable sources" is not correct, and cannot be. The first idea is from WP:NOR and is about WP:SYNTH in particular, the second is from WP:NPOV and is about WP:WEIGHT in particular. Notions and phrases from them cannot be mixed and matched to invent new policies out of nowhere (talk about "original research"!). Presenting a table of sourced facts about flights is not "drawing ... conclusions" of any kind, and no due or undue weight is given either way, because there are not two sets of sources presenting conflicting claims that have to be weighed against each other. I suspect that Thebigguyalien was trying to make some sort of WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE argument, but that's the same section as WP:NOT#DB, and that's what the RfC was about; this is not the place to relitigate "this should be covered by WP:NOT#DB" arguments that were insufficiently persuasive in the RfC. The rest of Thebigguyalien's objections have been adequately addressed by SportingFlyer, so I won't regurgitate them.

  Honestly, I tend to lean toward the view that our articles should not have such tables and that NOT#DB should cover them, but did not notice the RfC in time to partipate, [Edit: I did, and forgot! Moved my comment to the involved section.] But the purpose of an AN review of a closure is not to re-argue the case, but only to determine whether the closer properly applied understanding of policy in assessing the discussion results, and in this close that was not the case, so it should be overturned and probably re-opened for additional discussion which might bring about a clearer result.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:08, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

• I will say that there are a number of us frustrated with the close of this RfC for the complete opposite grounds of the user initiating this review for several different reasons, and that this user may have initiated the RfC review in order to preempt us from doing so. My ground is that the closer reached a conclusion not supported by the discussion (few people talked about primary/secondary sources in the review, only one discussed WP:DUE) and I believe another argument is that the conclusion goes against WP:PRIMARY sourcing as WP:DUE does not discuss primary sources, but honestly that is not my argument to present, and we weren't quite ready. I don't know if this precludes us from opening a different RfC review now considering how odd this situation is. SportingFlyer T·C 12:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  Just to be clear, I would be advocating for the entire discussion to be overturned to a simple "no consensus," which is in reading with the discussion: about half of the participants think the information is not encyclopedic, while the other half think the information is encyclopedic. I am of the latter half - WP:NOT generally lists things that are included in things other than encyclopedias, but the tables in question do not fit into any of those categories (I am not convinced by the WP:NOTTRAVEL arguments because this is not information commonly found in your local bookseller's collection of travel guides, and Wikivoyage has specifically said they do not want to maintain this.) SportingFlyer T·C 12:23, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  About Wikivoyage:

  • Wikivoyage only has articles for the world's 91 largest airports; none include destination tables. See: v:Airport articles
  • Wikivoyage editors don't maintain those articles like we do. For example:

  • v:Beijing Capital International Airport -- 127 edits since the Wikivoyage article creation in 2013 (1 edit/month)
  • Beijing Capital International Airport -- 6,343 edits since the Wikipedia article creation in 2003 (26 edits/month)

  A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 08:47, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

• History:

There have been multiple discussions about airport destination lists over the years:

1. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Archive 15#Request for comments on the Airlines and destinations tables: "Should we get rid of the Airlines and destinations tables in airport articles?"
   • December 2016. Initiated by Sunnya343. Multiple options were offered. The preference was for "Option 3: Keep the tables, but something should be done with regards to references and complying with WP:VERIFY."
2. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Archive 17#RfC about references for the "Airlines and destinations" tables.
   • August 2017. Initiated by Sunnya343
   • Decision: "references must be provided, and 'searchable' websites are suitable for such references."
3. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 141#RFC: Should Wikipedia have lists of transportation service destinations?: "Should we update WP:NOTDIR to explicitly state that lists of transportation service destinations are outside the scope of Wikipedia?"
   • February 2018
   • RfC followed the community decision to delete dedicated articles listing airline destinations
   • RfC conclusion: "There is a clear consensus against the proposed addition to WP:NOTDIR."
4. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 167#Airport destination lists
   • Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 167#RfC: Ariport destination tables: "Should tabular listings of destinations in airport articles be removed and replaced with prose descriptions?"
     • June 2021
     • RfC withdrawn by nominator in the face of strong support for retaining lists
5. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Archive 19#RFC on Maps and Airline & Destination Tables "Should we consolidate mainline and regional carriers in 'Airline and Destination Tables'?"
   • Implicit acceptance of destination lists during this discussion of how to organize them.
   • April 2022
6. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 187#RfC on the "Airlines and destinations" tables in airport articles: "Should airport articles include tables that display all the airlines that serve the airport and the cities they fly to?"
   • October 2023. Initiated by Sunnya343.
   • By my count: 32 wanted to keep the lists, 21 to delete and 9 said something else (of these 9, more tilted negative than positive). I see this as a decent but not overwhelming majority to keep once you factor in the "something elses". (see User:A. B./Sandbox20 for tabulation)

   • I am not asserting a majority !vote should carry a discussion but it's also "not 'nothin"

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 23:08, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

• One issue I haven't seen properly addressed is why this information has to be on Wikipedia specifically. A write up on the history of World War II or biographies of current world leaders are valuable information, but people would be understandably irritated if you started posting them on a travel site. Likewise, if you start posting directories and travel guides on an encyclopedia, people are going to be understandably irritated. That's really what's at the crux of the WP:NOT issue here. This could all be resolved if the editors who want to maintain this information went to or started a travel site and maintained it there. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:52, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Thebiguglyalien, you wrote: "One issue I haven't seen properly addressed is why this information has to be on Wikipedia specifically."

• My answer: Salience. As I noted above, "The fundamental measure of a commercial airport is the extent of its service (airlines and destinations) and passenger/cargo volume."
• Just one table has been removed to my knowledge since the RfC. That sparked off a heated discussion at Talk:Harry Reid International Airport that went to the dispute resolution noticeboard and then WP:ANI.

• 1 editor deleted the content and argued for deletion on the talk page.

• • Sunnya343

• 12 editors and 2 IPs objected or reverted the deletions:

• Metropolitan90, SportingFlyer, Packerfan386, 68.117.131.84, 2600:1700:12f0:97b0:ad0c:bc3f:13a6:cfae, Rsimasek, Janj757, Zackrules90, Reywas92, Jakeh1, Rlrcoasterdude21, RobH2488, Ericm2031, VenFlyer98

• Only two were involved in the RfC (Sunnya343 and Reywas92). Nobody else had heard of it.

• "This could all be resolved if the editors who want to maintain this information went to or started a travel site and maintained it there."

• So, go away then?

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 22:16, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Just posting here since my name was brought up, the original reversion by me was before I was ever made aware of the RfC and as stated, I did not take part in it. This was mainly due to not even knowing the RfC existed at the time. I talked with Sunny and while I am against the decision to remove the tables, I left it alone after that. But yes, as stated I was not involved in the RfC. VenFlyer98 (talk) 23:27, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

The biggest assumption here from those opposing inclusion is that this is information that only helps people travel from point A to point B, which is not the case at all - I frequently use this data to see which places are connected to each other by direct flights for geopolitical reasons. SportingFlyer T·C 23:41, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I just want to note that I tried my best to advertise the RFC widely at the time, as I wrote below the introduction. Sunnya343 (talk) 23:54, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I make very few edits on Wikipedia and most relate to aviation, so I am not entirely familiar with the dispute resolution process. There is no valid reason to remove the Airlines and Destinations table, as I personally use it for my own knowledge to plan travel and learn about connectivity of certain airports. Although a lot of sources for the Airlines and Destinations table are primary and come from the airline itself, many of the secondary sources cite the airline as their source as that is the primary way to see what routes an airline flies or plans to start or stop service to. I just want to make it known that I am opposed to removing or replacing the Airlines and Destinations list for any commercial airport. Jake (talk) 00:03, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Sunnya343, you wrote "I just want to note that I tried my best to advertise the RFC widely at the time". I agree - you went to a lot of effort to advertise the discussion, diligently notifying people on both sides of previous disputes.

Nevertheless, 13 out of 15 people on the Las Vegas Airport talk page were surprised. That speaks more to the nature of things on Wikipedia than your exemplary efforts. Most editors aren't following everything everywhere all at once. 6+ million articles, 2 edits/second, 12,000 active editors, a plethora of discussion venues and ongoing discussions — it's a lot. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 00:21, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I did undo it the last time. Lucthedog2 (talk) 17:51, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I see that the subheadings of this review have been changed to RFC Participants and RFC Non-Participants. I made my statement above as an Involved party, but I did not participate directly in the RFC. Should my statement be moved, or left where it is? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:51, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

* On a lesser point to main topic at hand in this request - I'm trying to understand the last 8 years of this question being brought up repeatedly in different formats and audiences, inclusive of at least 3 times by the same user. While it should always be every wiki user's indelible right to productively challenge/improve the status quo, the frequency ratio of slightly-reworded-proposals to new-productive-justifications appears to be largely unproductive re-asking a question just because one didn't like the answer received (approaching Argumentum Ad Nauseam fallacy levels). The good faith patience of ActivelyDisinterested and A._B. in their explanations (and many others in re-reading all the historical responses) is impressive. For this matter, the fact that we are now in AN discussing about completely changing a closing statement to the point of changing/challenging the closure - all suggested by the same user, feels more a kin to a crusade (and not solely a quixotic one, but one that could be seen as aiming to tire other contributors with ignorance, feigned or otherwise).
Without sounding too pessimistic, my hope for the next such seemingly inevitable round of RFCs/debate on this topic is that we can have greater isolation of the question than this RFC had (is it the format, the subject, the proper citations? This had all three muddled into one); prevailing logos; and even greater awareness/participation. Cheers! DigitalExpat (talk) 10:23, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

• One more key observation that has been bugging me is I when reading this RfC and all the related ones (including the edits that sparked the Dispute Resolution), I believe are all either asking the wrong question, are framed in a fallacious way, or even worse - being presented as a false dilemma. In my reading, I think it clear that the question is:

  - Not about the article layout format (tables/lists) (which to @Sunnya343's credit he did clarify after the fact in his first edit to his RFC, unfortunately the question/title was not able to be changed),

  - Not about the subject (Aviation) - The same question was correctly pointed out in the RFC by @Reywas92 and others in the RfC, this type of information is similarly covered in other articles regarding train services, bus services etc...)

  I think the RfC's could all be better worded and more focused to reduce ambiguity, personal & subjective biases on what seems to be the topic at hand: Are the articles containing this type of information appropriately/sufficiently referenced & cited? (which ironically/appropriately is a core question for every Wikipedia article, no?). Which is just a longer way of stating some of the much more succinct points like @AirshipJungleman29 in the RFC, but I think these flawed RfC's (in particular ones that seek responses shaped into finite ternary choices like the 2016 and 2017 or binary choices like this latest 2023 one, are asking the wrong question/producing the wrong conversations from their outset (and resulting in what dangerously is then referred back to as precedent/justification for large changes to content. I would suggest that a better RFC topic would be something along the lines of "How can we better ensure articles list acceptably cited information when it comes to certain areas like transportation routes?" (or perhaps there's no RFC needed here at all as all content is bound by the same requirements to be accurate, properly referenced, and well-maintained?). DigitalExpat (talk) 09:37, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

• Let me add just a simple question. Are you seriously thinking that anyone involved in maintaining these tables will read all the stuff above in order to chime in and get the closure overturned? My position is to overturn it already and let us build and encyclopedia.--Jetstreamer ^Talk 16:12, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
• In light of the rather lively conversation between @Buffs and @ScottishFinnishRadish (and as we yet to reach a conclusion to this challenging of a conclusion) - I wanted to point out that I believe this 100+ strong thread is indicative of how complex this particular RFC is. I'd equate it to trying to land on a asteroid spinning on 3 axes:

• 1) A flawed/poorly worded RfC (By my count, at least 6 of the ~62 responding individuals explicitly cited this ( @oknazevad,@Horse Eye's Back, @Trovatore,@Thryduulf,@Senorangel,@DigitalExpat )

• 2) A sub-optimal framing of a question that has unfortunate previous multiple askings of it in different ways as well, that elicit different responses, resulting in pre-existing/citable concensuses that convolute the topic/question even more.

• 3) Unclear what is being challenged (tables? (no per Op), listing any destinations (no per Op), raising consensus above a WikiProject's WP:LOCALCON 2 RFCs (But asking a different question doesn't raise concensus?). Even (admittedly taken completely out of their context, the clarifying statements from the RFC creator read as contradictory/confusing: "The question is quite straightforward. Either you believe Wikipedia should maintain the current, complete lists of airlines and destinations found in all airport articles, or you do not.", (in response to @Epicgenius) [Did you think] "if you !vote "No", it means you believe that explicitly mentioning any current destinations should be forbidden? (Not asking sarcastically.) Because that's not what I meant."

Not intending/desiring to drive this Closure challenge conversation away from its conclusion but just wanting to opine that: 1) It was not a great RFC to begin with and 2) @ScottishFinnishRadish did a good faith genuine effort to make the stick the landing with the closure on this horribly messy 3-axes spinning target of an RFC. The fact that the closure was challenged by the RFC originator feels like a relitigation (and their proposed rewording of what the closure should say with a polar opposite outcome is....not following Closure Challenge procedures). This is all a mess, but it doesn't mean it can't be discussed properly and my opinion doesn't weigh in anymore than anyone else's but wanted to draw back the conversation to if this closure was achieved correctly. As we're past debate of the topic, hopefully an uninvolved 3rd party editor can help resolve this as per the request at the AN Board. Regardless of the outcome, I'd suggest that A._B. 's footnote linking this Closure Challenge (and its conversation) is tagged to the top of it to highlight the valuable points and merited discord in helping to gauge if the results of this RFC are deemed to be of any informative substance. DigitalExpat (talk) 08:52, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@DigitalExpat, @ScottishFinnishRadish: This is a great description of ScottishFinnishRadish's very challenging task and efforts. I'm asking the closure be overturned but that should not be taken at all as any sort of implicit criticism of The Radish. The root problem was with the RfC and many of the confusing comments. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 17:59, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Procedural question

• I and others including A. B. was planning on bringing this here for a completely different reason, but Sunnya343 filed/pre-empted this on completely opposite grounds after noticing our discussion on A. B.'s talk page here: [26]. Am I/are we allowed to write a separate, dissenting opening statement? I really don't think the close was correct, and I would be endorsing the decision on the grounds presented by the nominator, even though I think the close was grossly inaccurate. SportingFlyer T·C 01:53, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  pre-empted this on completely opposite grounds after noticing our discussion on A. B.'s talk page here

  I don't think your timeline is accurate:

  1. 02:13, 13 January 2024 - Sunnya343 questions the closure on the closers talk page
  2. 04:01, 15 January 2024 - You question the closure on the closers talk page in a new section
  3. 04:15, 15 January 2024 - You open a discussion about the closure on A. B.'s talk page
  4. 00:04, 17 January 2024 - The closer declines to adjust the close as requested by Sunnya343
  5. 04:07, 18 January 2024 - Sunnya343 opens the close review

  As far as I can tell, the first person to question this close was Sunnya343 - I don't think it's either accurate or appropriate to suggest that they only questioned it after seeing your discussion or to say that they did so to preempt you. BilledMammal (talk) 02:16, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  The fact they posted on A. B.'s talk page and were aware of our concerns still troubles me. SportingFlyer T·C 10:10, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  My request for closure review stems from my experience trying to defend my removal of this list based on the RFC close, dating back to November. In the ANI discussion that I linked on the article talk page, Robert McClenon listed three options for how to proceed with the dispute. The list was nevertheless restored without any changes, i.e. without [showing] that [it was] supported by secondary sources. I could have continued to advocate for the removal of the list, but I no longer believe the requirement for secondary sources is appropriate. In short, I have my own concerns about the close, for which I have requested closure review.

  I have known about A.B.'s intentions to challenge the close since 20 December. So I am well aware that you and others have a very different perspective on this RFC. You are fully entitled to that perspective, just as I am to mine. Once you have formulated your arguments, I see no reason why you should not be allowed to challenge the close on the basis of them. Sunnya343 (talk) 03:07, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

• Question - Maybe I am making the mistake of expecting editors to explain concisely what the issues are. I see that User:Sunnya343 is challenging the close. I have known since about 21 December 2023 that User:A.B. was planning to challenge the close, since I closed the DRN case. When I closed the DRN case, I said that editors should either accept the rough consensus established by the RFC closure by User:ScottishFinnishRadish or challenge the closure at WP:AN, which is now being done, only one month after the DRN dispute. I am puzzled as to how Sunnya343 and A.B. say that they have different close challenges. If the two of them have different ideas as to how the RFC should have been closed, maybe it might be helpful if they each stated what they think that the close should have said. That is, if one wants the close overturned, what should it be overturned to? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:11, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Robert McClenon, the closer stated "there is consensus that airlines and destination tables may only be included in articles when independent, reliable, secondary sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE". The closer cited 3 policies to reach this decision; my analysis above shows they misapplied the 3 policies to this situation.^diff For this reason, the RfC should be overturned to allow tables based on reliable primary sources. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 08:31, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Robert McClenon I second A. B.'s justification but also note the close is inconsistent with the discussion, similar to a supervote argument at DRV. A simple majority of users said yes, the yes votes are grounded in policy, out of 60 participants only one discussed WP:DUE at all, and only four participants distinctly discussed either primary sources or secondary sources in their response, only four or five participants discussed the reliability of sources. The idea there's a clear consensus on sourcing is technically a supervote based on the discussion, and should either be removed, or the discussion overturned to a simple no consensus. This argument is in addition to the misapplication of WP:DUE. SportingFlyer T·C 10:08, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Robert McClenon - I strongly third the above. After much much re-reading of multiple threads (including the very essential reading of the DR!). @SportingFlyer and @A. B. describe it perfectly above, I would say part of the reason it is so needed is this CR Review was opened and in the reasoning for the opening the audience is presented with an easy to miss syllogistic fallacy (paragraph 2 of the reasoning can be paraphrased as: "many RfC voters expressed opinions that valid sources need not be secondary", paragraph 3 then can be paraphrased as: "the closing statement should be reworded to say the flight information should be not be included in articles because its WP:NOT"). This is a flawed & invalid reasoning to request a CR be reviewed and is a contributor to the much confused conversation (that ends up being non-objective (CR Review) and trends to subjective posts/voting in this CR Review (re-discussing the subject of the RfC) as evidenced above I would suggest. I voted Endorse solely because the CR Review request to be voted on is crafted in a way that makes it an incorrect/false dilemma. DigitalExpat (talk) 09:07, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

• SportingFlyer, could you please move your comments out of the uninvolved section. You can present them in the involved section and make it clear who they are in response to. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 21:17, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  I wasn't involved in the RfC.

  SportingFlyer T·C 21:18, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  Sorry SF! Friday afternoon blindness. Sunnya343, could you please move your comments per the above. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 21:28, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  Will do. Sunnya343 (talk) 21:52, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

It's time to resolve this review

It's been three days since the last comment was posted. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 01:49, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I just posted a request for closure at WP:CR. Sunnya343 (talk) 02:01, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Bumping to hold off archiving. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:30, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

I've added a 30 day {{do not archive until}} template. Hopefully we'll have closure before then. Thryduulf (talk) 20:21, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Editor hopping IPs like a jack rabbit, creating chaos on pages of Karen Black and family members

Karen Black's page is not a priority for the admins, so they've done diddly to intervene despite my starting a discussion on her talk page four days ago.

80.136.196.48 (also editing as 2003:D3:FF12:1D52:B55E:EBB9:DBF7:EF2B and 2003:D3:FF12:1D52:B8A2:D7CA:55DA:3AEE) keeps making trouble on the Wiki pages of Black and her family members.

• Claims Black's daughter Celine is "non-notable" and blanks/deletes any mention of Celine on her mother's page.[27] (Celine acted alongside her mother on film and has been mentioned in the press countless times; this blanking is preposterous and bizarre.)
• Makes similar edits on the Wiki pages of Black's son Hunter Carson[28][29] and sister Gail Brown.[30][31]
• Puts "Conflict of Interest" tag on pages for absolutely no reason.[32][33][34] Claims in edit summary that content is "unreferenced", which is a complete lie and an obvious one at that.
• Deems entire family of Theodore McKeldin (whose daughter's widower is Black's brother) as "non-notable" and deletes/blanks properly sourced content, including the acknowledgment of a deceased grandson who twice ran for public office.[35]
• Removes licensed photos from article,[36] claiming that "family snaps are non-notable", which is rubbish as Gold Star articles like Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart display such photos.

This troublemaking editor is obsessed with blanking standard information and has been hopping IPs like a jack rabbit to do it. The pages were fine until the jackrabbit came along and made them incomprehensible. The "COI" (conflict of interest) tag that this editor has repeatedly added to the pages of Black and her family members is nothing but a frivolous attempt to create chaos and divert attention.

I'm posting at this noticeboard because the admins haven't said squat at Black's discussion page.[37] The solution is simple: Add protection to the pages of Karen Black, Gail Brown, Hunter Carson and Theodore McKeldin, and put watchdogs on the pages to make sure the jackrabbit doesn't continue to make disruptive edits. It's a no-brainer. Deep Purple 2013 (talk) 23:06, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

• Blocked per NOTHERE--the Deep Purple account, that is, for returning to an edit war right after coming off a block. And for all the rest, of course: the battleground, the false accusations, the refusal to take responsibility and to communicate. Drmies (talk) 23:32, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

  Are blocks going to be effective? Might temporary semi-protection be a better solution for the pages in question? Buffs (talk) 17:05, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

  That, and several of Deep Purple 2013's complaints appear valid. E.g., "notability" has nothing to do with picture licensing; politicians and actors covered in the mainstream press are public figures enough for WP:PUBLICFIGURE in BLP; "notability" has nothing to do with mention of someone in another article (only with whether they can have their own stand-alone article); and so on. It might be reasonable to suppress certain names of certain people for WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE reasons, to exclude other kinds of details for various reasons covered at WP:NOT, to remove a photo for WP:COPYVIO reasons or some other concern (encyclopedic quality, etc.) covered at WP:IMGPOL or MOS:IMAGES, and so on. But the reasons given by the IP-migrating anon appear to be uniformly invalid, and entirely geared to suppressing information about Karen Black and people connected to her for some reason, which is more "not here" than the issues raised by Deep Purple 2013 (at least in this proceeding; I've not gone diff-digging about their other behavior and don't raise an objection about the block; rather, I agree with Buffs about semi-protecting the page).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:38, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Behavior of editor User:Oz346

Disruptive editing that appear to be inline with WP:NAT. While an ongoing discussion in the talk page on his NPOV editing, is in progress, Oz346 has back my citied additions to the article stating "excess background information" and "definitely undue weight". Kindly request Admin intervention to defuse the situation. Cossde (talk) 14:52, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Your latest addition was definitely excessive background information for the topic, and is undue weight. The background information at present is suffice. The topic of the article is the pogrom. By flooding the background section with excess non summarised text with excess small details, it submerges the actual topic of the page.

@Cossde has also been engaging in nationalist editing, by repeatedly trying to remove mentions of reliably sourced content related to crimes committed by the Sri Lankan security forces. One example is here, where he disputes the reliability of reports published by established human rights sources, including the UN commission of human rights. Now in this latest dispute, he has been trying to remove the mentions by reliable sources of the initial police violence in the 1977 anti-Tamil pogrom from the introduction. Oz346 (talk) 15:10, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Neglected SPI

This SPI has been languishing for well over a month-[38], despite the user being an extremely notorious long term abuser who block evades on an almost daily basis. They frequently engage in harassment, intimidation and resort to frivolous reverts of legitimate users with the sole intention of bolstering and aggrandizing their own community. What is even more confounding about the lack of response from admins is that the user literally logged out edited on the SPI, similar to what they had done months prior-[39] and subsequently filed a retaliatory SPI against some other users-[40]. The behavioural evidence presented is irrefutably sockpuppetry, or at the very least meatpuppetry, so it would be helpful to get some sort of update on it. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 17:27, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Added my 2 cents at the SPI. I don't think you have conclusive enough evidence here. To reiterate, I'm not seeing any clear evidence of sockpuppetry/socking. While edit warring may indeed be a problem, that's not an issue for SPI. I advise EVERYONE involved to step away, cool down, and engage in a discussion on the talk page. In one instance the IP in question changed the number of troops at a battle hundreds of years ago from 60,000 to 20,000 and had multiple sources. Assuming both sources are right, couldn't we just say 20,000-60,000 and cite the various sources? Historians and editors can reasonably disagree and still produce good work. Buffs (talk) 06:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

User talk:Varials

Could an admin action this unblock request. It's languished for two weeks. Thanks -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 06:04, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I need one more for a tiebreaker. Thanks. (some reading required.) -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:40, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Commented on by Suthasianhistorian8 and actioned by OhanaUnited. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 07:20, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Abusive and threatening posts on Talk: Ivan Katchanovski

IP user 174.92.47.171 has made a series of recent posts on Talk: Ivan Katchanovski that need admin attention. This appears to be a single purpose account. The user purports to be the subject of the article and makes a variety of paranoid claims about the actions of certain editors who have contributed to the page. This is part of a continuing pattern of threatening behavior by anonymous accounts with links to Ivan Katchanovski. Nangaf (talk) 06:49, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

It would be best to try to engage with the IP. If I could remember the link I would advise them to make an account and verify their identity. I just scanned the two sections at the bottom of Talk:Ivan Katchanovski and they look like what would be written by an unhappy person with a typical level of understanding about Wikipedia's procedures. That is, they need guidance. If that were unsuccessful, admin action might be needed. If there are threatening words, please quote some so they can be found. Johnuniq (talk) 08:37, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I have tried to explain a few of the issues to IP-Katchanovski, as has @My very best wishes (courtesy ping), which is commendable given that Katchanovski doxxed him in one of his works. Limited success has been achieved as IP-Katchanovski has continued to dump walls of text and drop sources that are not always up to our standards and sometimes in foreign languages, suggesting nefarious reasons for their non-inclusion when there are simpler explanations such as sourcing policies and language barriers. I understand he wants his bio to look better, but there's a point where he seems to want it to puff him up, and he doesn't seem to take criticism well.

I do not know what direct admin action could improve the situation, but there are some things that might be worth looking at. As mentioned, Katchanovski published the identities of some Wikipedia editors in one of his articles. This personal data was then shared here by user Prohoshka (these contributions have since been revedelled), who at the time got away with a slap on the wrist. Now IP-Katchanovski seems to suggest Prohoshka is a sockpuppet of user Wise2. I do not think IP-Katchanovski knows how to open a report at SPI (or what SPI is), but if an administrator/checkuser wants to have a go at it, it might assuage IP-Katchanovski's concerns. I also think that someone might want to tell user Nangaf to take a step back from the article. I was less than thrilled with his attitude at AfD in the past and it hasn't gotten any better, which doesn't really help. Cheers. Ostalgia (talk) 10:15, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

@Ostalgia: You are welcome to your opinion. I would note that I did, by your own admission, step away from the page for several months, only for you to troll me on the talk page, as well as here: so perhaps you could take your own advice. Nangaf (talk) 18:07, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

An IP user claiming to be Katchanovski has now made accusations of libel on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ivan_Katchanovski_(3rd_nomination). This is unambiguous abuse. Nangaf (talk) 04:05, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

What's the desired outcome? You wrote to every single related forum that Ivan Katchanovsky spreads conspiracy theories. In the article itself (Special:Diff/1206207202, Special:Diff/1206659223, Special:Diff/1205974670), at the 3rd AfD, at Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Ivan_Katchanovski; this was said or implied at the article's talk page.

It does seem that references to support this statement, where provided, do not directly mention Ivan Katchanovsky or his publications. Accusations regarding a living person are seemingly based on editors' deductions don't make it look good. (And neither the IPs' walls of text on article's talk, and the past history of Ivan Katchanovsky vs Wikipedia editors mentioned by Ostalgia.)

I don't understand what are you trying to achieve writing about this conflict everywhere. To protect article's talk page from IP editors? Surely, there's a better suited venue to ask for that without making statements about a living person in five different places? PaulT2022 (talk) 17:57, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I request that an admin removes the abusive posts. On previous occasions when an IP user claiming to be Katchanovski has made legal threats against other editors, that is what has happened. [41] Nangaf (talk) 19:28, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Nangaf, you have a userbox on your user page stating that "This user may sometimes share an IP address with Ivan Katchanovski and his many sockpuppets.". Can you clarify (a) whether this is true, and (b) if it is, how you come to be sharing said IP address? I don't think that it is unreasonable to suspect that such circumstances might be indicative of some sort of conflict of interest, and an explanation would no doubt clarify the situation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:39, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

This discussion is moot. The Katchanovksi article and associated pages have been deleted. Nangaf (talk) 19:22, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Restoring a "deceased" editor

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

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I've come across something very strange. Frostly registered as a new member at 05:09 today but from the user page (which only contains "in memoriam") no longer appears to be active, ditto user talk. It seems to me this may be the result of the last user page edit by Frostly but we really don't know how to deal with it. I am unable to notify the user in question as the talk page is dead. See also User talk:Rosiestep where this has been discussed without progress.--Ipigott (talk) 13:34, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Maybe the problem will be resolved automatically. I've just posted a message on the talk page where I read "Frostly has recently suffered a significant loss and is grieving. Consequently, his ability to work on Wikipedia and his time available to do so may be affected. Your patience with delays in handling Wikipedia responsibilities and in responding to talk page messages or e-mails is appreciated, as is your compassion and understanding. Thank you."--Ipigott (talk) 13:56, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi Ipigott. There appears to be some confusion here. The "in memoriam" in the user's page is related to the recent passing of another member of the community. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 13:58, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Isabelle Belato: Yes, I realize this and have just found the above talk page explanation. What is strange is that the subject has been active since posting the in memoriam. Does this mean things will soon return to normal?--Ipigott (talk) 14:03, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what you mean. It is a tribute to another editor who is deceased. There is no implication that Frostly is deceased. Spicy (talk) 14:05, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Ipigott, There is no such function/feature on Wikipedia that sets a user to deceased, or inactivates their userpage or talk page or prevents the editor from editing while it is up. The user you are asking about is in mourning and has modified what their user and talk page displays. That does not make a difference as to how anything works. You can still contact them, they can still edit if they want to. They may make a few edits here and there and return fully later, or whatever else they feel like. Nothing over there affects anything. Your choice is between contacting them for the WIR onboarding right now or giving them a few days. There is nothing else to fix. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 14:17, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Inspection request

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

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In this poll, @Tehonk called me a paid editor and another time called me a sock (of course without reason!), I request the administrators to check my account first and block me if this is the case. But if this is not the case, please warn the user @Tehonk so that they don't accuse other users.

In addition, user @Tehonk deletes the articles I have written (1, 2) when nominated, without informing me (as the author of the article), they just label the written article. (How should I explain why I created the article when I am not informed that the article has been selected for removal nomination.) Meyboad (talk) 19:36, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

This complaint is without merit. The evidence regarding sockpuppetry has correctly been completed at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/BenYaamin and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ArmanAfifeh, which will be reviewed by the appropriate people in due course. Secondly, it is not mandatory to advise the article creator of an AfD, as per this section which states "Consider letting the authors know on their talk page by adding" (emphasis mine). Daniel (talk) 22:16, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Also, you have failed to notify the editor you have reported to AN, as per the red box at the top of this page, as well as the yellow box in the editnotice when you add a new topic. I have done so now to rectify this omission. Daniel (talk) 22:49, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Okay @Daniel, I'll wait for the experts' answer. It's just interesting here that I generally created the articles of famous Iranian people who had Persian Wikipedia or were considered famous according to the rules of Wikipedia, and I didn't know that this was against the rules and I didn't read about this anywhere.

And the next point is that people who have already had articles, when I was trying to create them, I would come across an article with this topic: if you want to create an article similar to the previous article, don't do it, and if you want to write a new article start.

1. I can't see the previously created article

2. When I started writing essays, I used to research again to find standard sources.

My explanation is only for you to know why I wrote the article.

  Anyway, I am waiting for the opinion of inspection experts. Thankful Meyboad (talk) 23:19, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Daniel, like you said it says "consider", so it's optional. Also, since I think he's a sock I don't really want to communicate with socks much per WP:DENY as well, plus I remember a bot was handling these things if it sees it necessary anyway (I see it did here already). And I did not call anyone sock "without reason", all the reasons were specified by me and as it appears also by another user in two case pages. Tehonk (talk) 04:51, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

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

2024 requests for adminship review

A discussion is taking place at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review. You are invited to discuss, contribute to, and propose ways to improve the requests for adminship process. Thank you :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 08:30, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Close request

We could use some volunteers to help close a few discussions at close request noticeboard. There's currently 10 requests past 50 day initiation date. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 13:36, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Any admins know Spanish?

There's an edit war at House of Romay that requires the attention of subject matter experts and admins. One side claims the whole article is a hoax and needs to be deleted and the other side claims that it is defamation to change the article to say that it is a hoax. No regulars on either side, just oodles of socks. No response from WT:SPAIN. — Usedtobecool ☎️ 14:14, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I looked through the sources and left a !vote. At the risk of self-aggrandizement, I think that the discussion is heading towards a clear outcome. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 14:37, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, Rosguill. I would have agreed after the !votes from you and Serial. Now, I don't know what to make of it. Most of the delete !voters having been blocked, it's more or less you and Serial against everyone else. Usedtobecool ☎️ 02:20, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I've created Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Elene13 listing the rabid deleters.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:01, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Bbb23! Apparently, it is UPE, according to new evidence added by Russ Woodroofe. So, I guess the nobles and/or pretend nobles are still fighting their little wars, now online. This new user, Benzeneshamus, that's showed back up after all opponents were cleared, I would have thought was a sock of or proxy for Diego de Romay. But the 2021 SPI at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Alibarzanjilo/Archive reached damn odd conclusions, blocking Diego de Romay and Kennet Zim as confirmed to each other, when the two were edit-warring against each other over at House of Romay. — Usedtobecool ☎️ 02:10, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

*sigh* I'll restore the semi-protection on the article. This has been going on now for at least three years. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 17:52, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Unblock/unban request from Mhdsuhail111 (2)

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

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• Mhdsuhail111 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Mhdsuhail111/Archive
• LINK TO FIRST UNBAN REQUEST
• WP:3X
• Cleared by checkuser

Carried over from most recent unblock request. --

I have appealed to remove my ban before 2 years and half years. The one who reviewed my appeal has told me to wait for more time and reapply. Kindly give me an apology for what I did and was not familiar with the Wikipedia rules. Now I have waited as much time as I can. From now onwards I will not focus on any movie sections directly but will give suggestions on the respective talk page. Now I have done my studies in finance and doing research in Fintech firms. For that, I need access to my Wikipedia account. So I can help my contributions to Wikipedia with what I have found with the relevant references. Kindly reconsider my appeal and please give me a proper resolution. Because of this ban, I am not able to create any other accounts also. Please help me out, guys. Mhdsuhail111 (talk)

) 7:54 am, 16 February 2024, last Friday (4 days ago) (UTC−5)

Carried over from unblock discussion--

"You will still need to request unblocking/unbanning at WP:AN. Are you still an employee of a marketing team? Please explain, "have waited as much time as I can." What's the hurry? Please explain why you need to edit Wikipedia, for "studies in finance and doing research in Fintech firms". Are you and your colleagues still editing Wikipedia for pay? Please describe concisely and clearly how your edits merited a block, what you would do differently, and what constructive edits you would make. Please read Wikipedia's Guide to appealing blocks for more information. Link to unban discussion. Courtesy ping @Jpgordon: -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 15:47, 16 February 2024 (UTC)}}

Checkuser finds no recent socking or other abuse on the IPs this account is using. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 15:49, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi Deepfriedokra, currently I am a social media marketer in a company handling social media platforms. So if I can become an editor I can add the company page and also I will mention on my user page that the edits as paid. No more edits will be there from this account. But I go through the template to be added to my user age. But for an employee of the company a template is not available. Did I need to use the paid template itself in my userpage.Mhdsuhail111 (talk) 12:28, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia is absolutely not a social media platform. Wikipedia isn't a place for companies to tell about themselves. 331dot (talk) 12:33, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

I can't see you being unblocked to conduct marketing on Wikipedia, regardless of any PAID declaration. Wikipedia is an [[encyclopedia[[ and not a marketing venue. .What 331dot said. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:27, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

I am not using the Wikipedia for any promotion of the company. As its a encyclopedia we can provide information about a valid thing to the public. Its known that we can't do any paid promotion in the Wikipedia. My main objective is to give an idea to the public what does the company do and what all are the useful features that offers. As far as I know Wikipedia helps the public to know about different topics that they wish to refer. As I am just creating an article about the company only. With an article what it means about marketing. Many company articles are there and is that articles where for marketing. I am just providing an article about the company and it is not for any marketing. Also, kindly note that I won't directly create an article. I will create an article and will send for a approval from the respective user/admin. From now on wards, no direct edits will be there from my side. Kindly give me a last chance and if I do any random edits without any source you can directly block me from the Wikipedia and I won't come again for a unblock request, if its a valid reason.Mhdsuhail111 (talk) 07:37, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

I will ask Materialscientist,. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:01, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Oh. This must go to the admin notice board. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

@331dot: Do you think this is sufficient to carry to WP:AN? I foresee carrying the Unblock discussion as a WP:BLOCKQUOTE perhaps. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:06, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Did I need to do anything from my side. Kindly mention.Mhdsuhail111 (talk) 10:31, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

I really don't know. I want to hear from 331dot first -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:43, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

It's probably enough to bring to AN but I think it might just waste time there; this won't be successful. They still want to promote their company("My main objective is to give an idea to the public what does the company do and what all are the useful features that offers"; " As its a encyclopedia we can provide information about a valid thing to the public", etc.) Might be worth getting a community decision here, though. 331dot (talk) 11:56, 20 February 2024 (UTC)""

Discussion of request for Mhdsuhail111 (2)

• If participants could check for responses that need to be carried over here, it would be grand-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 19:45, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Speedy decline That's as clear as day to me they want to resume promotional editing for their company. Nip this in the bud and move on, and let's not waste any more time than needed. RickinBaltimore (talk) 21:24, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose unblock: "My main objective is to give an idea to the public what does the company do and what all are the useful features that offers." Or what RickinBaltimore said. Schazjmd (talk) 21:33, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

  After reviewing the further comments by Mhdsuhail111 on their talk page, they finally accept that they can't write about their company and offer Anyway I am not going to create article on my company. I will create articles of new movies that announced. Will not include box office reports, only submit articles of new movies and also suggest in the talk pages of the movies and list regarding box office collection. I won't directly edit any box office reports directly from my side. I will provide the suggestion with reliable source in the respective talk page. I will give my 100% that I won't do any vandalism in Wikipedia like I did before. At that time I was not aware about the rules. Sorry for that. Kindly unblock me please.. I then reviewed the history of their talk page and saw that movie articles were where they'd also had issues. I'm affirming my oppose unblock as I don't see a benefit to the project. Schazjmd (talk) 17:44, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

• Decline All indications point to this user having reasons for editing Wikipedia that are fundamentally incompatible with our policies. No need to create another timesink for ourselves. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 21:59, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
• Speedy Decline no case made in the unblock for why they'd be a positive editor here. Star Mississippi 02:51, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

• There is further discussion further down on appellant's talk that may or not be germane.-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 15:47, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
• Decline I see no indication that this person has the potential to be a positive contributor. They are a marketer who cannot write in English with even the minimum level of fluency. Cullen328 (talk) 18:36, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose It's probably enough to bring to AN but I think it might just waste time there; this won't be successful. Yep. Grandpallama (talk) 18:53, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Paid/COI editor consistent vandalism, needs to be blocked fast

• Mamun Al Mahtab (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Sunan 213 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

I've posted this on the COI noticeboard, but it's been quite some time and I feel like this should be addressed here as well as the matter needs a faster response. This editor created this article in 2019, and clearly, they were either paid for it or are closely associated with the subject. They even uploaded various certificates' photos as references (unsure of the proper copyright management of those), indicating they have first-person access to the subject's personal belongings, they also added multiple pictures of the subject on commons, some of which were deleted. The article also has an overly promotional tone. Their account is one purpose, and they hibernated from 2019. Recently the subject of the article came under criticism, and the editor soon came back, and promptly removed those criticisms, including an Unpaid contribution template imposed by me early on. There are existing COI notices on their talk page. They should not be allowed to edit the page (or any pages, as it's a one-purpose promo account with some serious COI violations) any further as their intention is clear here.

Note: Since I posted in the COI noticeboard, the editor has reverted edits on that page multiple times despite multiple warnings, even from 2019. They continued to edit, and need to face consequences. X (talk) 19:51, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

You seem to be pretty keen on restoring material that is wholly negative to the subject, and which is based in part at least on some pretty dubious sources (deshrupantor.com, New Age (tagline, 'The Most Popular Outspoken English Daily in Bangladesh' (!!!))), material incidentally which you added yourself ([42],[43]). It may well be getting whitewashed by a COI editor who doesn't understand our processes, but they are also removing potential BLP violations. Policy dictates that contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion. This applies whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable, and more broadly, the WP:ONUS is on those who want the material to remain in the article to achieve a talk page consensus. The bottom line is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary sourcing. The latter, I don't see. I'm not saying your conclusions are wrong either; but the approach is. ——Serial 20:10, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129, I understand what you meant. And I'll make some more edits to that page trying to fix those. Btw New Age is a reliable source and I won't call it a dubious source. Also, I did not intentionally create a "wholly negative" seeming coverage of controversy on the subject. I added what the subject said about the allegations, and the sources did not mention much, they were filled with allegation details, with ending sentences such as "Dr. Mahtab denied the allegations". I added those, such as "he claimed, "there is no evidence of negligence on his part." I further added what the hospital authority had to say. I tried to cover all grounds and mention everyone's statements.

However, that user should not be able to edit any further as there are some serious COI violations. I hope someone also takes a deeper look into the photos as well they uploaded.

Thanks.

Update: I rewrote the controversy section and introduced many proper sources but the user has yet come again and reverted my edits. I'm not going to edit war with them as it's meaningless. They just ought to be blocked. I'm not sure why it's taking so long for them to be blocked despite vehement violations and vandalism, and multiple noticeboard entries. They have also been overlooked since 2019 despite apparent COI violations. It's unfortunate to think that if I hadn't brought it up they'd probably get away with such violations for a much longer period. X (talk) 20:35, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Histmerge and deletion of duplicated page needed

Moved to WP:REPAIR

Primefac (talk) 16:14, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Attention requested at Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2024 February#Pākehā settlers

The discussion so far has been dominated by involved editors; participation from additional uninvolved editors would be appreciated. BilledMammal (talk) 22:28, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

I find this notification really a bit odd - this has been up for nine days already, four uninvolved users including myself have already reviewed the move, which is a common number of editors for move review (or even large - the last move review closed with two editors pitching in), but three of the four so far have disagreed with your viewpoint, including myself. I don't really care about this one way or another - I enjoy reviewing decisions on appeal - but that move review was very contentious, and I'm not convinced this isn't a late attempt to WP:CANVASS to try to win the argument even though notifying administrators shouldn't normally be considered as such. SportingFlyer T·C 23:56, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Histmerge and deletion of duplicated page needed

Moved to WP:REPAIR

Primefac (talk) 16:14, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Attention requested at Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2024 February#Pākehā settlers

The discussion so far has been dominated by involved editors; participation from additional uninvolved editors would be appreciated. BilledMammal (talk) 22:28, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

I find this notification really a bit odd - this has been up for nine days already, four uninvolved users including myself have already reviewed the move, which is a common number of editors for move review (or even large - the last move review closed with two editors pitching in), but three of the four so far have disagreed with your viewpoint, including myself. I don't really care about this one way or another - I enjoy reviewing decisions on appeal - but that move review was very contentious, and I'm not convinced this isn't a late attempt to WP:CANVASS to try to win the argument even though notifying administrators shouldn't normally be considered as such. SportingFlyer T·C 23:56, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Seeking feedback on my own behavior and ensuring compliance with an editing restriction

Similarly to this thread, I am seeking some guidance on a series of edits I made to Drive-Away Dolls. I am under an editing restriction that does not allow me to revert anyone (i.e. 0-RR). When this was discussed there was clear consensus against standard rollbacks, undos, etc. and a clear consensus that I could in no way engage in edit-warring and must always seek consensus. Since then, I have not used these tools to undo anything, including clear vandalism and have instead reported it elsewhere and posted to talk pages to have it removed. I don't want to potentially accidentally break 0-RR, even including its explicit allowances.

At that prior thread, there was some ambiguity discussed about what exactly is edit-warring and removal (e.g. see the section on how my edits could via sheer happenstance trigger the "Undo" tag). I am trying to ensure compliance so in an abundance of caution, I posted to a relevant user's talk page, the article talk page, and here to see if my edits are acceptable to admins per the requirements of how I am obliged to edit. No one prompted this other than a review of my own edits and I hope that this is a good use of others' time to ensure compliance and that I can be a productive member of the community.

Another example of a kind of edit I have done is just removing some kind of content that I come across organically in the encyclopedia. There will be times that I see (e.g.) unsourced information on a biography of a living person, so I remove it per WP:BLP, WP:V, WP:OR, etc. but I am not directly engaged in removing anyone in particular's edits and under no circumstances have I edit-warred to take material back out, etc., if it's put back in. If I just happen across information that someone has added at some point, but I am not directly engaging to edit war with someone, I am allowed to remove that, correct? Or if I substantially rewrite existing content that effectively removes something that someone added along the way, that's not inappropriate, correct? (e.g. this)

If anything I've done above violates the spirit or letter of the restriction, please let me know, so I can ensure that I'm a productive editor who is not blocked. Thanks again for reading all this. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:52, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

For convenience: Koavf (talk · message · contribs · global contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · user creation · block user · block log · count · total · logs · summary · email | lu · rfas · rfb · arb · rfc · lta · checkuser · spi · socks | rfar · rfc · rfcu · ssp | current rights · rights log (local) · rights log (global/meta) | rights · renames · blocks · protects · deletions · rollback · admin · logs | UHx · AfD · UtHx · UtE) and Koavf (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:53, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

For reference, WP:NOT3RR cites several exemptions to the general policy against edit warring, one of which is "Removing contentious material that is libelous, biased, unsourced, or poorly sourced according to Wikipedia's biographies of living persons (BLP) policy. What counts as exempt under BLP can be controversial. Consider reporting to the BLP noticeboard instead of relying on this exemption." The other exemptions may be relevant to you. Now here's the thing -- those exemptions are *specifically* to the policy on edit-warring. There's some ambiguity as to whether those exemptions would apply or not if the source of your 0RR restriction comes from something else -- arbitration enforcement, community sanctions, etc. I do not know if we have any prior precedent about this, but my personal reading of the exemption policy (based on the specific decision to call them exemptions to the edit warring policy, and the existence of a separate 0RR section) would be that in those scenarios the exemptions likely would *not* apply (though arguably perhaps they should). As to your other question ("if I just happen across information..."), the term "revert" is defined as any edit that reverses or undoes the actions of other editors, in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material, and whether performed using undo, rollback, or done so completely manually. So yes, regardless of your lack of intent to edit war, those removals would constitute a revert. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 02:34, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Noted. I'll change my editing accordingly. Thanks. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:34, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Resolved

 – ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 13:34, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Behavior of editor User:MrOllie

Repeated deletions involving several pages, and in particular the redirection of page Sampling (computational modeling)

Evidence

This is my second dispute opened in relation to the operate of User:MrOllie, see Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_241#sensitivity_analysis for a record of the first. In this second I would like to look at what happened to other pages supervised by the same editor, as, in my opinion, a troubling pattern emerges. As previously noted User:MrOllie has removed my citations from several pages, in a rather 'deletionist' style, but the action of this person has been particularly inconsiderate in two specific pages, sensitivity analysis (see Talk:Sensitivity_analysis and sensitivity auditing, see Talk:Sensitivity_auditing. I hope that the adjective inconsiderate referred to the action of a person is not censored and is accepted as a criticism moved by an author to the operate of an editor. Plenty of material is available in Talk:Sensitivity_analysis to motivate the adjective inconsiderate - in brief, the works removed are the most cited in the discipline as attested by several authors. In the case of sensitivity auditing the issue is that the reference removed by User:MrOllie is the first reference introducing the method, quoted by all remaining references of the page, see Talk:Sensitivity_auditing. After the systematic deletions I made a public confession (see Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_241#sensitivity_analysis) of my sins - not notifying a conflict of interest while citing my own work. Having learned the lesson, I declared a possible conflict of interest in three talk pages: the two mentioned plus Quantitative storytelling, see Talk:Quantitative storytelling. I then opened three requests for edit under the edit COI template in Talk:Sensitivity_analysis, Talk:Sensitivity_auditing and in the page Talk:Post-normal science. These requests are in the pipeline. During all discussions so far, users User:MrOllie maintained a confrontational tone, although I always addressed this person with courtesy. Another clear inconsiderate deletion - that gives the occasion for this second dispute - took place once user (User_talk:Kozlova_Mariia - a person I know belonging to the community of sensitivity analysis practitioners) created a new page on sampling for numerical simulation Sampling (computational modeling). User:MrOllie eliminates the page with a redirect to the page Sampling (statistics). The talk page associated to this now redirected page explains while the adjective inconsiderate applies here. I copy the page in full below in blue as I find it self-explaining. Listening to reason: the talk page of Sampling (computational modeling) User:MrOllie I just undid your redirect of this page, (you eliminated the page created by User_talk:Kozlova_Mariia with a redirect to the page Sampling (statistics)). My motivation is the following: If one cares to read the two pages one will see that Sampling (statistics) is devoted to empirical experiments, either involving physical objects or individuals (humans) to be polled. This is about extracting entities from a population e.g. to set up an experiment in the laboratory or in a society as to ensure that several characteristics of the population are explored. Sampling in numerical experiments has to do with the exploration of multi-dimensional spaces to the effect of e.g. testing the output of a model, numerically integrating a function and so on. If anything, Sampling (computational modeling) is closer to Design of experiments (DOI) than it is to Sampling (statistics), though very few mathematical modellers use pure DOI but preferentially the methods in the newly created page. There is no conflict of interest in this page, neither mine not of the user creating it, and I consider that noticeably is ensured for this page. An incise, just to be clear: I know and appreciate the work of the user who created the page but the page does not contain self promotional material for either of us. A litmus test of the argument for the difference between Sampling (statistics) and Sampling (computational modeling) is that neither Sampling (statistics) nor Design of experiments contains Low-discrepancy sequences, also known as quasirandom sequences or quasi random numbers that are a best practice in computer simulation. Note the existence of a more specific and technical page on Quasi-Monte Carlo method. The newly created page is a useful bridge for users interested in numerical experiments. I suggest that before deleting this page again the opinion of other editors is polled. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 11:35, 12 February 2024 (UTC). The linked methods describe themselves as statistical methods and link to Sampling (statistics). This is clearly the same topic, just applied to a slightly different domain. We should not have two articles about the same topic, just as we don't have Samplling (medicine), Sampling (social science), etc. - MrOllie (talk) 12:28, 12 February 2024 (UTC) Sorry to contradict you User:MrOllie, but please note that Wikipedia has sampling (medicine) Wikipedia does not have sampling (social sciences) but has sampling (music) and sampling (signal processing) as well. Even sampling bias. As clearly noted above, in both sampling (medicine) and in the missing sampling (social sciences) that you take as an example one extracts samples from populations (of rats, drugs, chemicals, humans, treatments); bar discipline specific features, this can be covered in sampling (statistics). In sampling for numerical simulation or computational modeling one explores multidimensional space and this is not a slightly different domain. For example the concept of discrepancy - central to the field of sampling for numerical experiments - does not work for drugs and treatments. See the discussion of quasi-random sequences above. As I tried to explain, if redirecting (which I disagree with), this should be to design of experiments, not sampling (statistics). As I proposed, it would be useful to see what other editors think of this disagreement. Though I am not a great expert of Wikipedia procedures, a speedy deletion request from your side would have been preferable to a redirection, as this would have allowed a discussion with more editors. Hoping that you will consider my reasons, I remove again your redirect. Best regards.Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 11:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC) Those aren't repeating the same material about statistical methods, as this article is. Speedy deletion requests are resolved without any discussion, that is why they are speedy. MrOllie (talk) 13:38, 13 February 2024 (UTC) It is quite interesting how my arguments have been dismissed - User:MrOllie is categorical in his judgment, and a second pair of eyes is not needed. I did not continue the conversation seen its futility, but for whomever is reading this I would like to note that not one of the references of the removed page Sampling (computational modeling) appears in the page Sampling (statistics). Of the four methods described in suppressed Sampling (computational modeling): Simple random sampling Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) Quasi-random sampling (QRS) Full factorial design (FFD) Only the first, random sample, is mentioned in Sampling (statistics) - no LHS, QRS or FFD. Why did I not write this as a continuation of the exchange with User:MrOllie? In one looks at the text in blue above User:MrOllie is not receptive to the reasons put forwards and continues repeating rather mechanically that the two pages are repeating the same material about statistical methods. Is this about reason or about power? I hope I have demonstrated that the page cannot be redirected, and especially cannot be redirected to Sampling (statistics): I add that the decision should not be left to User:MrOllie alone. Behaviors such as those described here have been registered by other unhappy authors, even outside Wikipedia, as I move to discuss next. Outside Wikipedia Looking outside Wikipedia, one discovers that several authors - like me - have been unfavorably impressed by the deletionist style of User:MrOllie. One user asks if this entity is a bot or an extremely busy human. Another asks Who is MrOllie and points to the critique of Wikipedia by Tom Simonite. I agree with this author that Simonite's piece -- although old -- is still very much to the point. The loose collective running the site today, estimated to be 90 percent male, operates a crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere that deters newcomers who might increase participation in Wikipedia and broaden its coverage. Author laments these high-edit Wikipedia editors who can "undo" the work of those who do actually contribute. Another author repeats the message that this incessant deletion has the effect of scaring people off, possibly scaring off people who could give a good contribution. These people might find themselves in a rabbit hole trying to comply with the rules and grammar of Wikipedia in a possibly vain attempt to get redress against behaviors such as those flagged here in relation to User:MrOllie. Another wounded author writes: I just want to say: Mr.Ollie is a serious piece of work...Put in serious creditable sources from real authority sites, not some fake ass wannabes, and everything and he just...never mind leaving this thread before I start getting nightmares from him haunting me again.(Signed xReminisce) One more author, apparently a physicist, gives what seem valid reasons why the deletion of User:MrOllie were inconsiderate. Maybe all these authors - who have brought their complaints outside Wikipedia, were wrong or deluded, while User:MrOllie was consistently right. My direct experience of this editor is that in my specific case User:MrOllie was plainly wrong, and consistently aggressive and confrontational. The theme of impoliteness emerges very vividly in one looks inside Wikipedia. Inside Wikipedia User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_5#dealerbid An excerpt: Wikipedia is not here for you to help build your reputation as a writer, I'm afraid User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_18#Shawarma_Page Here a dispute with an author who calls MrOllie lazy for deleting things instead on engaging with the content. just say you're lazy and unwilling to fix a simple error. you only just noticed the link from the previous contributor on this topic, and used it as an excuse to delete the whole thing. I fixed it now, let's see what new reason you come up with to delete it. Plainonlycheese (talk) 18:43, 4 September 2023 (UTC) MrOllie responds that personal attacks are forbidden We also don't allow personal attacks. If you keep on like this you won't be successful on this site. MrOllie (talk) 19:05, 4 September 2023 (UTC) Was this a personal attack? So if an author complains of the behavior of an editor as I am doing in the present note this is a personal attack. While receiving complaints from academicians for his intervention in the Talk:Sensitivity_analysis page MrOllie accused me of 'canvassing'. In other words, MrOllie is always right. Elsewhere [[44]] one Author complains after a series of exchanges But you are not a cooperative person. Not kind either. Neotesla (talk) 02:45, 23 October 2022 (UTC) To which MrOllie replies No personal attacks is a policy here, too. Do not post on my talk page again, I've read enough insults. MrOllie (talk) 02:49, 23 October 2022 (UTC) Is being 'not kind' and 'non cooperative' an attack or a criticism? Interestingly, MrOllie wrote on my own talk page User_talk:Saltean#Managing_a_conflict_of_interest, in reply to a polite expression of my reasons, You've been writing about yourself and your work all over the encyclopaedia. That is obviously a conflict of interest as we define it here. MrOllie (talk) 16:50, 9 September 2023 (UTC) I would typify this characterization of my 17 y in Wikipedia as aggressive, but I would not make an issue of it, were not for the pattern that emerges from the present analysis. User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_18#False_statement_in_Epoch_Times_article Here an author is asked to apologize to User:MrOllie: Don't post on my talk page again unless you're showing up because you've finally read the whole article and are coming to apologize. MrOllie (talk) 23:04, 8 September 2023 (UTC) User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_17#Your_message_to_me_about_removals Too long to be cited but here an author appears as complying with a request of MrOllie and eventually giving up after MrOllie refuses to take notice User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_16#Removal_of_some_citations_and_the_improvement_of_existing_ones_from_the_articel_"Evolutionary_algorithms" Here one author has inserted a group of references including on of her/his own, and MrOllie removed all of them. ... Do you want to prohibit experts who have worked in the thematic field of an article from citing one or other of their own publications in addition to other sources, provided that it fits the facts? The publication in question deals in detail with the complexity of the task being worked on with an EA. In other words, exactly what was described in the article and for which evidence was sought. I am looking forward to your answer. Wilfried Jakob (talk) 10:47, 29 September 2022 (UTC) The reply of MrOllie Yes, I do want to prohibit that. Citing a few other sources is not tax you pay in exchange for putting your own name on Wikipedia. MrOllie (talk) 12:47, 29 September 2022 (UTC) In my opinion here MrOllie should not have removed the extra references but only that object of a COI, inviting the author to use the COI template if to cite her/his own. Conclusions Like the user in I think that 'rabbit hole' well captures the syndrome that might befall an author (academic or otherwise) that after mastering the grammar of Wikipedia and its (evolving) set of norms finds herself or himself confronted with actions such as those discussed here. Once upon a time I spent some energy to convince my fellow academic authors from all disciplines to work in Wikipedia. I was a Wikipedia enthusiast of (almost) the first hours. I wasn't extremely successful in this proselytizing, I must say. I am more cautious now. I have met editors that have helped me and in a sense nurtured my work in Wikipedia. Maybe Wikipedia after the infamous 2005 case involving journalist John Seigenthaler has evolved with time to become more and more intensely policed, so that today, in 2024, the Wikipedia ecosystem needs the deletions of MrOllie more than my entries. Yes policing should not come with a sense of omnipotence. Erring authors needs to be corrected, not humiliated, their work encouraged, not deleted; a moralizing tone should be banned; editors' abrasiveness should be kept in check. Pace MrOllie, Wikipedia should not be an over here, that User:MrOllie defends from an over there of erring authors whose content is cleared acritically. Sentences such as Wikipedia is not here for you to help build your reputation as a writer, I'm afraid are inappropriate and come to a price in terms of deterred contributors. References References

Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 07:39, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Holy WP:MWOT. Shouldn't reports like this be over at WP:ANI? And about 95% shorter? And (preferably) about 100% more comprehensible? Bon courage (talk) 07:46, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I've collapsed it for now. Primefac (talk) 08:20, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

User:Primefac Seen the dimension of this discussion could you now kindly un-collapse my text? Thanks. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 17:56, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

No. It's huge and there are only benefits to keeping it collapsed. People can still read it (i.e. it hasn't been removed). Primefac (talk) 18:01, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

No one is going to read all this, here or at ANI. It is an essay, not a report. Dennis Brown 2¢ 08:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I actually went through it, because I was eating a sandwich and couldn't type or do anything else productive at the same time. The gist is that Saltean has a conflict of interest in the subject area and was citing their own publications in at least one of the related articles; does not have a legitimate behavioral complaint to pursue againt MrOllie; is trying to tar him as being part of some alleged "cabal" problem that some off-site writers were venting about; but is probably correct that Sampling (computational modeling) could be a stand-alone article (just using material beyond what Saltean has published). In short, this is a typical content dispute. I would recommend using WP:AFC to create the article, since various reviewers will check it for self-promotion, for WP:GNG passage, for not being a WP:CONTENTFORK, for having WP:Neutral point of view, for lacking WP:Original research, for citing WP:Reliable sources, and so on.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:07, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I owe you a sandwich. Just glancing through, I kind of got that same feeling, but I lacked the patience that the sandwich gave to you, enough to read the whole thing. COIs are are such a tricky thing, and this seems to be an example why we recommend that people with COIs don't directly edit. I did read enough that your suggestion would be the best course of action, and for Saltean to be patient, as the average article reviewer may not be experienced enough to reviewing the article. I certainly wouldn't be. They can always ask for others here with the technical experience to review it after it is more or less complete, not just the regular article reviewers. Saltean, you need to understand that the default around here is to keep the status quo, unless it is clear that a change is needed or obviously beneficial, so when you try to do something large, it typically gets pushback until you develop a consensus for it. Developing the article outside of mainspace (per SMcCandlish's idea) is probably the best way to approach this. Writing walls of text isn't. Dennis Brown 2¢ 10:26, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

It's not just about self-citations. The reverts were factually wrong too. We have been trying to raise that over and over now. If you go look at the pages' discussions, many researchers have been trying to make this clear. And if you look at who these researchers are (because you can as we all publicly give our real names-my second name if you doubt that part as most do), you will see that we are the top researchers in the field. And sure you can argue that we know each other and have a conflict of interest, yes sorry the field is small and we go to the same conferences and are friends. My bad.

I guess my question is the following: are you then saying that, we, the most knowledgeable people on a topic should abstain to write about our own scientific contributions and methods? And then leave that up to people who are making mistakes? Because this is what is happening, people making mistake and we are trying to fix things. Tupui (talk) 19:21, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I am saying that people that have a conflict of interest need to edit carefully and still must get consensus for their changes, no matter how expert or brilliant they are. The policies at Wikipedia are the same for everyone. This is also why I agreed that a separate article should probably be started over to the side, so they can find tune it before submitting it. That is for their own benefit. Not so much to benefit everyone else. What you don't understand is we are flooded with people who are self-proclaimed experts, some real, some imagined. They still have to follow the same policies. Farmer Brown - 2¢ 00:15, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Damn, what was in that patience sandwich? El_C 07:03, 17 February 2024 (UTC) Thyme? Dennis Brown 2¢ 07:14, 17 February 2024 (UTC) It was certainly sage advice. Bon courage (talk) 07:19, 17 February 2024 (UTC) With a hint of spicy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC) I fuck with spicy mayo. El_C 08:09, 17 February 2024 (UTC) egg mayo? – robertsky (talk) 10:23, 17 February 2024 (UTC) You are all being quite disrespectful now. A serious matter is being raised and this tangent is showing a deep lack of consideration and inclusiveness. Tupui (talk) 10:25, 17 February 2024 (UTC) Yes, come on everyone, let's keep the humour at bay. Bon courage (talk) 10:39, 17 February 2024 (UTC) Believe it or not, I am actually going through your report while having a bowl of soup. I have nothing much to add to SMcCandlish's except to seek third opinions from another experienced editor for content disputes. The editor giving their analysis or feedback may not necessarily be an expert in the area of interest, but will suffice for determining/mediating the path forward. That being said, since it is here, do consider SMcCandlish's advices which are sound and come from experience. – robertsky (talk) 11:11, 17 February 2024 (UTC) I dunno, a bit hard to pars(l)e(y) :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 18:32, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

@Saltean and Tupui: I'll answer the original really excessive length with a bit of length of my own, in the interests of being clear and advisory instead of dismissive. The advice in this thread is sound. Use the WP:AFC procedure to create a new article, and this may be quite slow-going, and potentially rather frustrating. The central problem here is that Wikipedia is not a journal and does not publish cutting-edge primary research. A novel sub-field with few practitioners, who all know each other and are themselves defining the subject (which is a very important factor – see AEIS discussion below), does not generally make for an encyclopedia article, because it is too new, too much of a walled garden, and lacks in-depth coverage in reliable but independent and secondary sources. The onus is on you (collectively – everyone with an interest in creating such an article) to demonstrate that this field-specific meaning of "sampling" passes the general notability criterion with such secondary coverage, and to base the bulk of the draft on that coverage, not self-promotionally on your own primary-reserach publications. It is distinctly possible that Wikipedia cannot have an article on this subject for some time, even if it conceptually merits one, due to insufficient secondary material.

Actually provable outright error with regard to this subtopic that might be found in broader-topic articles should be corrected, of course. But that doesn't necessarily means you are the ones to do it. It again depends largely on citation to secondary-source material, not assertions from your own primary publications. For researchers whose careers are deeply involved in something this narrow, conflict of interest is likely, so such correction requests should be done with {{edit COI}} on the talk page of the relevant article; people are apt to revert your own changes based on your own material (or that of your friends) as improperly sourced and potentially self-promotional of a particular researcher-cum-Wikipedian's own work.

This not an invalid concern. While Saltean has a long history here, the bulk of their editing is within a topical sphere that seems to correlate strongly with their work life (and some of it is questionably encyclopedically constructive, including a lot of writing about rather random-looking academic edited volumes that clearly do not pass WP:GNG, or WP:NBOOK more narrowly, and are tagged as non-notable, so are probably going to WP:AFD at some point. Tupui does not have a long history here at all, with a very low input level, 100% of it focused on their professional interests.

Many if not most long-term and producive WP editors here learn to steer away from writing about their work subject(s), because it is very difficult to avoid conflicts of interest. E.g., professionally, I have been a civil-liberties activist, policy analyst, webmaster, and systems and network administrator, among other things, and I virtually never edit in topics that pertain to areas of my professional focus, because I am too close to them (and often to prominent individuals within those fields) and have strong opinions about virtually everything in those subject areas, which are difficult to discard; this general problem impairs the ability to treat the subjects with encyclopedic neutrality. Conflicts of interest in the broad sense can be subtle, including: selection bias with regard to sourcing; subtle viewpoint-pushing out of a conviction that one professional/academic faction has the facts more on their side even if a real-world consensus has not come to that conclusion; over-reliance on primary-research papers that have stood no test of time and are not subject to any academic secondary-source scrutiny (systematic and other literature reviews); even attempting to rely on such materials for analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis (AEIS), which is not allowed; and so on – instead of relying upon an as-neutral-as-possible due weight analysis across all the available modern reliable source material, with overwhelming dependence on secondary not primary sources. The AEIS issue in particular appears to be pertinent to this topic; it looks like AEIS of these individuals' primary work is the basis of the material that has been attempted at WP on the subject so far.

Finally, fixing errors (outright or of omission, especially omission of what one might feel is deserved attention/credit) can sometimes be frustrating and lengthy. In my case, our article on a topic of some public importance in Internet history in which I was deeply, formatively involved was for a long time miscrediting some obscure organization (who did exist and did have some minor involvement) as being originators of the topic in question, which was completely wrong. (Whether fair to me or not isn't the issue; it was grossly misleading to the reader, and acting as unabashed promotion of the other partty). I used edit-requests on the talk page to resolve this, and it actually took several years. And I still am not mentioned by name in the article content (due to lack of secondary sourcing that makes me an important part of the story), but the other group is no longer falsely credited with work they did not do. That result is actually okay. If secondary sources do not consider it a matter of keen public interest to name-drop me in that connection, then Wikipedia is not in a position to second-guess that "real-world consensus" on what is important about the subject. If you are here to ensure that your name and work are tied by name to this sampling subject, then you are here for the wrong reason. Note that's an if; I'm not saying that is the case (not being a mind-reader). But self-citation and an editorial focus on only that which pertains to your career focus can easily give that impression and raise red flags in the minds of other editors.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:16, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to all who kindly contributed to this exchange. A few thoughts:

• I am happy that with the complicity of a sandwich some of my text (pardon, my WP:MWOT) has been read. No, by all means, I do not fault User:MrOllie for belonging to a ‘cabal’, the opposite, I fault User:MrOllie for going alone on a page where User:MrOllie is clearly not at the top of his/her expertise. I also dislike his/her manners but I understand this issue has little currency here. It is only human that you close ranks around your fellow editor, but I hope that among yourselves you have at least a doubt that not all is well with this person – how many of you managed so many complaints as User:MrOllie? What if abusing authors the way User:MrOllie seems to do exceeds the specifications of his/her job?
• Thanks User:SMcCandlish for your kind and considerate advice. At present I am still testing what the Wikipedia own rules permit by way of COI. As I learned my lesson, I will no longer talk about my published work. Yet, since I am an author and not an editor, I prefer to write about things where I have an interest, as you can see at User:Saltean. I believe our roles are different. The present situation is a transient one, where we need to remedy some factual damage done by User:MrOllie. Of course, we could ask others to do reinsert the missing references – and this would be gaming the system, or wait patiently that someone does, but if you do not mind, I would like this to be done following Wikipedia own rules; for me, an interesting experiment.
• Going back to the page Sampling (computational modeling) (no COI) that is the main object of the dispute: I am still unsure of how to proceed: can I undo again User:MrOllie and simply add at the top of the page the WP:AFC label? Will he not redirect it again? Apologies for my ignorance of the mechanics of it. Your editors’ home may be an author’s rabbit hole. Thanks for your help and patience.

Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 11:26, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Replying to this in user-talk, since we're getting far afield of what WP:AN is for.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:40, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

• Further discussion: Talk:Sensitivity analysis. Softlavender (talk) 09:18, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
• Tupui, you would do good to lighten up a bit. Many of us have devoted a great deal of time to Wikipedia (For me, it's 69,000 edits over 17 years, and I'm not unusual or "special"), and take the principles of Wikipedia serious, but not ourselves. Humor is how we deal with issues like someone leaving a tomb for a report, which is very difficult to comb through. SMcCandlish has just provided you with a gold mine of information that should clear up some things for you, much better than I could have said it. We write articles, we don't save lives here, so best if we don't take ourselves too serious. Like it or not, we are all just equal drones here, none of us is special. Dennis Brown 2¢ 10:51, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  69,000 edits — nice. El_C 11:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  I have been deeply involved in a few open source communities for years and what you are doing right now would have been flagged as a Code of Conduct breach. Humour only works if everyone is indeed laughing.

  On the matter at hand, I do not understand your position. Now we are being told that our field might be too niche though Andrea is pointing out that the EU now has regulatory requirements with regards to sensitivity analysis. The field is also almost as old as the variance.

  My take away from all of that is that we experts are not welcomed to contribute our knowledge. Instead random folks, which clearly have no clue about a subject, are more welcomed to share their non existing knowledge. Tupui (talk) 11:29, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Those EU regulations might be a usable source. Bon courage (talk) 11:32, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Yes but then it’s again a citation for Andrea… That’s the thing which folks are missing here. The field is not small, there is an extensive literature around it and massive usage. Yet the researchers and professionals making new methods and driving the field are just a few individuals. And I would argue that it’s a chance for Wikipedia that we would be willing to spend time to share our knowledge. Tupui (talk) 11:37, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Wikipedia is not the place for "making new methods and driving the field", rather it's for a summary of accepted knowledge based on secondary, independent sources. Bon courage (talk) 12:42, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  As I tried to explain, these are not new methods, nor is the field. I am only saying that we are the researchers driving the field, not that we are trying to add our latest stuff to Wikipedia. Tupui (talk) 12:44, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Well if there are secondary independent sources there should be no problem. Anyway, there is no user behaviour case to answer here. The conflicted editors should declare themselves per WP:COI and the content issue(s) sorted out on article Talk pages. I suggest this is closed. Bon courage (talk) 12:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  And what if there are no secondary independent sources? Does that mean we could not write anything on a topic? Not saying that's necessarily the case here, just trying to understand the policy here. Tupui (talk) 12:50, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Still to me there is a behavioural issue. It should not be normal that an editor with a lack of expertise just remove hard work by the press of a button based on nothing but: "too much self citation", completely disregarding the actual edits and not trying to find a compromise with the citation issues. Tupui (talk) 12:52, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  If there are no independent secondary sources, then we don't publish it. It's that simple. Verification is more important than completeness, it's one of our core principles. We are a tertiary source, we only publish what is available in multiple, reliable secondary sources, and only allow primary sources under certain circumstances. An editor that reverts because some facts rely too much on primary sources is not a behavior issue, they are likely enforcing our policies on verification. See WP:BRD to understand how reverting works and what is expected from editors. Dennis Brown 2¢ 13:23, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Tupui, I have a detailed response to what you've said, which I hope will be helpful, but it's better put in user-talk, since I think the AN crowd is tiring of this thread entirely, and the material is rather detailed and analytical about process, sourcing, WP actual needs for and from experts, etc., none of which is really a WP:AN matter.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:40, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Your take-away is incorrect. A couple of times a year or so someone running afoul of our self-cite norms complains that Wikipedia is unwelcoming to experts. There are plenty of credentialed experts and published authors contributing to Wikipedia. But we don't cite ourselves (or not as much). Wikipedia is not for promoting your own work. Levivich (talk) 16:51, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't see anything to respond to here that has not already been covered by others. But I do want to note something: Saltean says above that they have no COI with regards to Sampling (computational modeling). Technically true, but it needs to be stated: that article (which just lists a few common statistical methods - it duplicates our existing article) was written by Kozlova Mariia (talk · contribs), who is a coauthor of Saltean's, and has been working on a draft about a book of Saltean's at Draft:Book on the politics of modelling. Between this and the several single purpose editors who appeared at Talk:Sensitivity_analysis to add testimonial type comments, I suspect there is some off-wiki coordination going on here. My question on that talk page was ignored, so I will put to Saltean again here: Did you contact people outside of Wikipedia and inform them about these discussions? - MrOllie (talk) 13:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Please don’t be insulted but here’s the challenge the rest of us face:

• On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog

In other words, we’re all just screen names to each other; we don’t really know for sure if the other person is who they claim to be. We’re flying blind which is why we have to give claimed expertise zero weight.

Since we have to assume nobody here is a legitimate expert, we require reliable sources. With a few narrow exceptions, these reliable sources also have to be secondary sources.

Even with reliable sources, we have to avoid overweighting certain points of view. Someone editing with a conflict of interest potentially hijacks that point of view, even if they’re very knowledgeable.

You’ve gotten advice to avoid topics in which you are knowledgeable because of COI concerns. I disagree with this; I suggest editing areas immediately adjacent to but just outside your narrow area of COI. You can help us a lot.

Thanks for caring and coming here to build out Wikipedia. Just stick within our rules. I know they sometimes seem gratuitously odd and even counterproductive. Nevertheless they represent 20 years of collective experience dealing with hundreds of thousands of anonymous editors including some cranks, self-promoters and imposters. —A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 15:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I entirely endorse that, BTW. Editing topics just outside your CoI but still within your expertise area is a fine way to contribute, perhaps the best for many editors, and something we need a lot more of.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:46, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks a lot User:A. B.. I accept this and please note that I am not an expert myself in the exploration of multi-dimensional spaces - I have papers that use methods (one out this week, coincidence, in a good journal) but I am not the one developing them. I would really like not to follow on User:MrOllie provocation to reach out to the wider community. This dispute must be solved here in Wikipedia possibly following Wikipedia existing rules. Authors and Editors can cooperate to do precisely this and do it now.

As I said before, User:MrOllie should stop deleting the page Sampling (computational modeling) because User:MrOllie is patently wrong on the subject matter and continues to repeat mechanically that it duplicate an existing page when (a) none of the references of Sampling (computational modeling) appears in Sampling (statistics) and (b) three of the the four methods in the new page are not covered in other one. Even for a non-expert, this should be a telling sign that User:MrOllie insists in neglecting. In my opinion the person with a conflict of interest is now User:MrOllie.

Why don't you User:MrOllie do the decent thing to let the page live and let other authors decide its fate? Incidentally, with time we can improve this page, and work is also needed in Sampling (statistics), Editors please check if what I say is true. Can some of the editors who kindly contributed to this discussion with their experience and histories volunteer to help with this simple process, so that we can all move on? Please don't make me open another procedure (third opinion?) on this matter when we have, I believe, all already extensively discussed it. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 15:49, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Saltean, MrOllie explained his redirecting of the article at Talk:Sampling (computational modeling). That is where discussions of that matter belong, not at AN. If you strongly feel that the article should be restored and stand alone, then create an WP:RFC on the subject by following the precise instructions at that link, keeping your question neutral and brief. You can add your extended arguments to that RFC via your vote (Support or Oppose) and rationale. Softlavender (talk) 01:51, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

User:Softlavender Thanks for your reply and for the suggestion of opening a separate WP:RFC but the exchange in the present page is sufficient. One of my fellow researchers has merged the page discussed here into Computer experiment and changed the redirection of User:MrOllie to this page. I discussed at length why User:MrOllie’s redirect was incorrect so I do not repeat it here. One last comment for User:MrOllie and his question about discussing outside Wikipedia. I consider this a question an attempt to distract from the subject matter, i.e. the operate of User:MrOllie. People discuss with friends and colleagues adventure and misadventures. The point I believe is if I set out to canvass in order to ‘win’ this dispute and the answer is a firm no. The administrators can check my social accounts – where I appear with my full name – for hints of canvassing. By way of canvassing I could do better than the FOUR faithful colleagues who have intervened in the page Talk:Sensitivity_analysis against the intervention of User:MrOllie. If User:MrOllie does not like these criticisms maybe he/she could try to be more considerate in intervening. Thanks to those who reached out to my talk page. You are all welcome to meet me there. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 17:54, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

By way of canvassing I could do better than the FOUR faithful colleagues who have intervened in the page Talk:Sensitivity_analysis against the intervention of User:MrOllie. If User:MrOllie does not like these criticisms maybe he/she could try to be more considerate in intervening. So, yes, there was canvassing. And there is an ongoing refusal to drop the stick about supposed misbehavior from an editor whose actions have now been repeatedly explained as entirely appropriate. I am all for making a concerted extra effort to be sure we keep academics and qualified experts engaged with WP (which I've seen numerous editors already do in this thread), and I completely understand how the policies and the byzantine rules of Wikipedia can frustrate and drive them away, but there is increasingly a behavioral issue here, and it's not with MrOllie. Grandpallama (talk) 03:51, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. @Saltean:, you need to step away from this area of editing for a while and learn Wikipedia's processes & rules first before coming back to it. If you persist in your current editing habits, it's likely going to result in your account being restricted. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:00, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

FC Internazionale Milano

I would like to ask if an administrator could kindly move the page, currently under the incorrect and unofficial name of Inter Milan, to the correct name FC Internazionale Milano. This can be done immediately as most Italian clubs are under the real official name (Juventus FC, AC Milan, AS Roma). Thank you very much and kind regards 14 novembre (talk) 17:53, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

 Not done, please see the long list of previous move requests at Talk:Inter Milan. Primefac (talk) 18:02, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@Primefac I don't see anything like that. There is only one (1) comment by an unregistered editor. There is no reason for keeping the incorrect name. Let me know as soon as possible. Kind regards 14 novembre (talk) 18:05, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Apologies to everyone else, but apparently this banner isn't obvious enough on the talk page.

There are 8 old move discussions; you are welcome to read them through at your leisure. Primefac (talk) 18:16, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

If you edit on a phone [45] the banner is less obvious. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:59, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, that is true, so my apologies for the snark in my reply above. Primefac (talk) 19:33, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@Primefac Well, in the two most recent discussione there was a majority in favor of the move. No idea why it has not been done yet. Please let me know what is the problem for moving. If there is one, I shall open a new talk. Kind regards 14 novembre (talk) 19:36, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@Primefac Also, for WP:TITLECON, we should use the official name, not the most common; this is what happens with almost all other clubs. Kind regards 14 novembre (talk) 19:38, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Just start a new WP:RM since this is obviously not uncontroversial. Lightoil (talk) 19:40, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Agreed; I declined the initial request because it is clearly not something that can be done unilaterally. Primefac (talk) 19:41, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@Lightoil @Primefac Thank you very much for your helpful suggestions. Kind regards. 14 novembre (talk) 19:42, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@14 novembre: FYI, while I haven't looked deeply at the previous RMs in question, consensus in discussions (or lack thereof) is based on the strength of the arguments, not on a head-count basis. (Also, arguments regarding whether or not the page should be moved would be better suited to a new RM, rather than the current noticeboard.) All the best, ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 19:42, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@A smart kitten Thanks. I actually was thinking that the arguments in favoir of the move to FC Internazionale Milano were stronger. Anyway I understand this is not the best place for such discussion. Kind regards 14 novembre (talk) 19:44, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

we should use the official name, not the most common That is incorrect, see WP:COMMONNAME. Pawnkingthree (talk) 15:37, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

(after many edit conflicts) The club is almost universally known in Britain, the major English-speaking country where football is widely played, as Inter Milan. This may not be "correct" but is the English name, which the English Wikipedia uses. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:44, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger I suggest replying in the article's talk page. Thank you very much 14 novembre (talk) 19:55, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1148#User:14_novembre from earlier this month is semi-related to the above. Daniel (talk) 21:19, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@Daniel Could you kindly explain how this is related with the subject? Thanks and kind regards 14 novembre (talk) 21:39, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Not the subject, but what I (and I assume others) would assess as some less-than-optimal editing behaviours that were again exhibited above. Daniel (talk) 21:46, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Is kindly asking a page move "less-than-optimal editing behaviour"? Could you explain better? Thanks 14 novembre (talk) 22:11, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@Daniel . 14 novembre (talk) 22:11, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

"This can be done immediately as most Italian clubs are under the real official name" - disingenuously doesn't mention the 8 prior move requests.

"I don't see anything like that. There is only one (1) comment by an unregistered editor. There is no reason for keeping the incorrect name." - see point one.

"Well, in the two most recent discussione there was a majority in favor of the move. No idea why it has not been done yet. Please let me know what is the problem for moving." - this shows a total lack of respect towards previously-established consensus and the consensus-building processes, as well as a lack of respect to the editors who closed the previous discussions.

I do not offer you the assumption of good faith regarding the above, given your previous issues earlier this month (hence why I linked it). I think you were trying to bludgeon through a change outside of process and against established consensus by forum-shopping to AN. I think you are a disruptive editor and I also believe if you continue to be disruptive and try and subvert Wikipedia processes, your track record (ie. repeated examples of less-than-optimal editing behaviours) will see you blocked. Daniel (talk) 23:24, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@Daniel Re points 1 and 2 - I don't want to get involved in this too much (especially as I'm not familiar with the previous ANI report), but the edit tags show that this AN section was added on mobile; which hides talk page banners by default. To me, it's plausible that 14 novembre genuinely didn't realise any previous RMs had occurred (and therefore intended this section as a technical request - albeit one that would have been better suited to WP:RM/TR). All the best, ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 23:31, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Understood, but my personal view is (as mentioned above) that the assumption of good faith is not offered by myself here given the previous issues from only earlier this month. Further to that, the editor requested this move earlier this month diff, but was rejected due to "Absolutely not uncontroversial. This article has a long RM history" - so they absolutely should have been aware of the RM history from that. The editor has a history of disruption which, in my opinion, far exceeds the amount you would expect from someone with less than 500 edits. Daniel (talk) 23:59, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@Daniel: Ah, I was not aware of the previous RMTR request. I no longer feel qualified enough to offer an opinion on this matter, but my comment above can be viewed in light of this - I apologise that it was made while I was lacking information. All the best, ‍—‍a smart kitten_[meow] 00:09, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Draftify

Could anyone draftify Megara (band)? It is clearly not ready for mainspace, and is promotional in tone. 94.44.97.18 (talk) 17:57, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

• Doesn't seem draft-appropriate to me. The only vaguely promotional part I see is "the band began rising in popularity". Schazjmd (talk) 18:07, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Or to me. This is a perfectly normal article on a band that will be performing at the Eurovision Song Contest this year. It doesn't particularly float my boat but there's nothing wrong with it. I note that the OP of this thread nominated the article for speedy deletion, and when that was turned down, for WP:PROD, at the same time as coming here. They also nominated a perfectly non-promotional article about a Formula One car (another of my least favourite topics) for speedy deletion as promotional. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:36, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
    • There has been a determined attempt by IPs from Budapest to create an (unsourced) article about a band from New Haven, CT, infamous for their vulgar lyrics apparently, also called Megara, e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, at that title. I assume this is more shenanigans. Malcolmxl5 (talk) 20:50, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
• Good grief! One PROD, three speedy deletion requests, several hi-jackings (of the initial redirect and the later article) completely blanking the original subject, a bogus edit filter request, and disruptive taggings. All within the past 24 hours from different IP addresses in the U.K. and Hungary. With apologies to the one good faith editor without an account who fixed a typo, 84.248.115.155 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), I've semi-protected for a time over which the sourcing for the recently selected (day before yesterday) Eurovision entrant should have settled down quite a bit, although the competition is a fair way off after that. If the disruption goes away or the good faith people without accounts outnumber the bad faith ones, feel free to unprotect before the time runs out. Alas, Special:Contributions/94.44.0.0/17 has too much collateral impact. Uncle G (talk) 04:54, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

  if you think that's bad, check out this. The 🏎 Corvette 🏍 ZR1^{(The Garage)} 16:38, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Being harassed on my talkpage

Hello. I'm currently being harassed on my talkpage by a mobile editor. Would an administrator ask the mobile editor to stop? GoodDay (talk) 17:28, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

I blocked the /64 for 72 hours. If they come back or start IP hopping, happy to temporarily apply semiprotection if you want. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 17:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks :) GoodDay (talk) 17:38, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Also, no big deal but just for future reference this request is probably better suited to WP:ANI. That board tends to move faster, especially for simple/urgent issues like that. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:41, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

@The Wordsmith: He's back. I think semi-protection for my talkpage & a range block, will be required. GoodDay (talk) 18:45, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

 Done on both counts. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:52, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

@The Wordsmith: I am currently not involved in this, but just wanted to point out that the same IP-hopping editor has harassed me and @StarScream1007: on our talk pages at times. – sbaio 19:18, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Copyright or non-copyright

I would like to upload the table shown in this LinkedIn post. It is part of a larger research by Times Higher Education shown on their website. I need your help on what Copyright options I should use when uploading the picture of the table (Can I in the first place?!). Thanks. Kazemita1 (talk) 10:10, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

I have my doubts. This seems like the kind of table that is assembled using a creative criterion and thus copyrightable. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:16, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

I think it depends on how the table information is being used here. If you are taking a picture of the table, that would likely be a copyright violation because you are copying not only the content but also the style of the table. On the other hand, if you are using just the data and using standard wikitable format, that would not be a copyright violation as data (as a standalone entity without context) cannot be copyrighted. Primefac (talk) 12:25, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

That particular table's value's are described in the LinkedIn post as "Drawing on the millions of data points on global higher education ... scientists have given each institution in the rankings a score by using three income metrics ... and comparing them with the scores for research, teaching and working with industry". That involves so many choices and so much processing that it arguably already has copyright under UK law. NebY (talk) 15:04, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

@NebY: The English Wikipedia only cares about US law. —Matrix(!) (a good person!)_{[Citation not needed at all; thank you very much]} 18:57, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

I know. As I only got the tee-shirt for UK copyright law, I deliberately qualified my comment. I believe US and UK law is aligned on whether content is creative or mere data. I think US law has at times been more onerous in requiring publishers to register copyright so I also avoided saying that the table would already be copyright under US law, but international agreements may mean that it is anyway and besides, our attitude is not simply one of adhering to the letter of US law and no more. NebY (talk) 19:30, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Wow how did enwiki achieve this? Levivich (talk) 19:45, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

By being hosted in the US and basically giving UK courts the finger. (/s) — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:11, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

An RfC in 2012. Schazjmd (talk) 19:20, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

@Primefac and Jo-Jo Eumerus: No that wouldn't, the threshold of originality of the US is high, and the creative merit of a simple table with no extra formatting is low. After all, this map which has complex shading and labelling was ruled to be below the threshold of originality. Data and simple words by themselves aren't copyrightable. By your definition, a map/table of all the Human Development Indexes of the countries of the world is technically copyrightable by the UN, which is absurd. Please see this page for more info. Also, I think this should be moved to MCQ. —Matrix(!) (a good person!)_{[Citation not needed at all; thank you very much]} 18:56, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

That's for the HDI which has a fairly simple computational procedure. It might not apply to a more complex system. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:04, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

(Non-administrator comment) A table showing THE's Bang for Bucks scores is probably covered by copyright. I wouldn't even upload the top ten. (We can't upload US News rank tables either.) I think in these cases we can say that school X received score Y but we shouldn't be giving away the compilation both for WP:NOTDIRECTORY/WP:DUE grounds and copyright grounds since the listing of scores is what the author is creating and selling. Levivich (talk) 16:56, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

The data is 100% copyrighted, as its data compiled by that organization by their own internal rules, and while the graphic of the table is simple enough to not be copyrighted, the replication of the copyrighted data would be a problem. What Levivich said is the better approach here. --Masem (t) 19:08, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree with previous comments that the "Bang for buck score" appears to be creative and copyrightable. The "three income metrics – institutional income, research income and industry income" (quoted from the LinkedIn post) may be facts if they were simply collected from the institutions' public filings, but they are inputs to THE's analysis. WP:TOP100 (shortcut to WP:Non-free content#Text 2, guideline) and WP:Copyright in lists (essay) are relevant. Flatscan (talk) 05:29, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style extended FAQ

I would like to bring to the attention of the community Wikipedia:Manual of Style extended FAQ and in particular a recent edit to the page made by SMcCandlish (talk · contribs). The edit in question [46] which is incredibly verbose basically boils down "we're right and you're wrong and you can't change it." I find this highly inappropriate for a Wikipedia page and attempted to remove it, only to be told "Go write your own essay if you disagree" a response that to me illustrates SMcCandlish realizes his addition is at best an essay purporting to be a guideline (or a supplement to one, I'm not sure of the exact terminology). I'm posting to AN because I can't help but feel this addition was an attempt to game the system in light of the threads like the close review above (he specifically said it was in response to "RM disputes" in the initial edit summary). Jessintime (talk) 19:19, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

• I'd just like to add that upon reading some of the other sections of this "FAQ" (all of which were apparently written by the same user) they seem problematic, just like the addition I initially flagged. For instance, it calls "Most proposed changes to MoS...poor ideas" and blames the "vast majority of style-related strife on Wikipedia" to "misguided individual or factional desires," accusing those who disagree with particular aspects of the MOS of gaming the system and tendentious editing (lol). Jessintime (talk) 19:31, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  I guess anyone can just go on the computer and type words into the posting box huh?? It really seems like a stretch for this page to be claiming itself as some sort of authoritative document (FAQ, supplement, etc). jp×g🗯️ 19:31, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

• Overall I don't like the tone of that page... It does read as more essay than FAQ for the MoS. I don't have much to say about the gaming allegations as I am not familiar with the background, I think that independent of that there is an issue here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:04, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  Userfy, it still has significant trappings of an actual FAQ page (which it is not) and if that plus the ownership is going to continue it needs to continue only in userspace if at all. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:14, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

• Shouldn't that be marked as an essay or something? It doesn't appear to be either policy, or an established guideline. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:08, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  Per WP:BOLD, or thereabouts, I've added a WikiProject style advice essay template: hopefully that should resolve the issue. If anyone wishes to make it policy/guideline, they are of course free to propose it as such. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:52, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  On reconsideration, that's the wrong template - I'll add the more general 'essay' one instead. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:55, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  It already had {{FAQ page}} (a type of essay, by definition, being neither policy nor guideline) and essay categorization, but whatever. Adding another essay template to it isn't going to break anything.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:37, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

• What I said in edit summary applies: If you disagree with it, go write your own essay. I wrote 99% of that one, and will just move it back to userspace if Jessintime wants to editwar over its content. Everything in it is demonstrably sound reasoning and factual observation, and advice based thereon. If Jessintime (or whoever) wants to quibble with some wording, it has a talk page for a reason. Jessintime's GAMING accusation is false aspersion-casting (GAMING being defined as a form of bad-faith editing) without any evidence. And how could there be any? An essay, with any kind of essay-class template on it, is just an essay and cannot be used to system-game anything. It's a nonsensical proposition. This kind of "style warrior" behavior of weaponizing bureaucracy, ad hominem, and argument to emotion against anyone who cares to actually follow our style and title guidelines and who is tired of ranty opposition to them from lone wolves who are not getting some style pecadillo that they want, really needs to stop. The entire point of that essay is that this kind of behavior is disruptive and corrosive to community good will, and this is a good proof of the point.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:37, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
• This can be handled thru our normal BRD processes. SMcC made a bold edit; Jess reverted; SMcC re-added it (but, oddly, accuses Jess of edit warring?). Since it is disputed, If SMcC wants to add that section, he can propose it on the talk page, and they can both abide by consensus. However, if SMcCandish is unwilling to allow others to participate in deciding the content of the page, then he should userfy the essay now. As a general rule, something purported to be a "FAQ" in main project space should rarely be 99% written by one person. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:14, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  I did not acuse anyone of editwarring. I posed an "if" hypothetical; please get your facts about other editors right, especially in this venue. Jessintime had every opportunity to raise a talk-page discussion (BRD's "D" part), but instead has abused AN process to try to WP:WIN in a content dispute, engaging in a great example of the disruptive behavior that the essay is about.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

• If this is just an essay where one editor has a certain amount of WP:OWNership over the content, it should not be linked from talk page templates like at WT:MOS or Talk:MF Doom. That gives the appearance of it having more "official" standing than it actually does. Probably should be userfied as well, or alternatively converted into an essay or information page that has wider community input. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 22:45, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  I agree; I've removed them. [47][48] Some1 (talk) 00:43, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

• While looking over the disputed text, I was a bit bemused by the following excerpt: If you are going around looking for potential exceptions to push against any MoS rule, please find something more productive to do. That seems needlessly adversarial for an FAQ page. Further examination of other sections of that page showed that the combative 'We're right, you're wrong' tone is pervasive throughout. This definitely needs to be userfied due to the undisguised OWN issues or rewritten. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:11, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  This isn't WP:MFD. There is no WP:AN matter at issue here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:57, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  You do bring up a good point, maybe it should be at MfD even if userfied. Hey man im josh (talk) 01:58, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  Good luck with that; there is literally a 0% chance MfD would delete this. Your desire to MfD it (in the deletion sense) has come off as trying misuse process AN to silence someone who disagreed with you on some trivial style matter. That would just demonstrates the spot-on correctness of the material in the essay.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC); revised per HMIJ's complaint.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:22, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

  I think 0% chance is underselling it given the misleading nature of the essay, but that's not really a debate I want to get into at the moment since there's clearly some bad faith assumptions from your end going on. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:06, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  I'm also not convinced that the essay would survive MfD. It certainly isn't serving any useful purpose in its present state as a polemic. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 19:42, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  You must not do MfD much. It will not delete anything if it's pertinent to editing or editing culture, isn't an attack piece, and isn't advocating something that is contrary to the WP:P&G. The fact that at present its a bit unnecessarily strident about following guidelines instead of trying to invent "exceptions" to evade them, and about using normal proposal process on talk pages to effectuate changes instead of engaging in WP:REICHSTAG defiance antics (all of which applies to the P&G in general, not just MoS pages), doesn't make it a polemic, but a pretty normal user essay. Which, yeah, doesn't really make it ideal as a FAQ piece. It could either be collaboratively retooled, or userspaced; the former would probably be more productive.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:57, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah, I doubt it would actually get deleted, especially now that this thread has unexpectedly turned in a positive direction. Much as we don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, I respect you for dialing it back and looking for a collaborative solution. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:14, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

  Even if there wasn't something there given the persistent personal attacks and bludgeoning on this page there's something there now. Characterizing people who disagree with you as censoring you and mocking them is a bit much given the context. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:42, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  I overreacted a bit, because of the bad-faith-assumptive nature of the opening accusation, and the aggressiveness of heading straight for AN after a revert. Jessintime's behavior was unconstructive, but my initial reaction was as well, I have to concede after a breather.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:57, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

• Why does the note at the top say Please feel free to change this material in light of new discussion. if the response to changes is "go write your own essay?" This reeks of WP:OWN RudolfRed (talk) 00:36, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  Yeah, except I was the one trying to expand it in light of newer discussions, and Jessintime simply tried to reflexively censor every word of that, with no substantive input about why even a single clause in it was incorrect (or badly worded, or anything). There is no evidence of any kind that the editor has an interest in making the material in the essay more accurate, better worded, or otherwise improved with regard to its subject and intent, which is what is expected of editing topical essays; there are zero posts by that editor to the essay talk page, to my talk page (other than an AN notice), or to the essay itself, other that reverting material with an edit summary meaninglessly claiming "inappropriateness" (which verges on another bad-faith aspersion) and striking some strange "be all and end all" pose that has nothing at all to do with any of the content (in the essay at all, not just that particular content). Jessintime has done nothing but attempt to suppress, only abused WP:AN process to make false accusations and try to get an admin corps to help them "win" a content dispute they refuse to substantively engage in resolving.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  On reflection, that's all a bit too butthurt. I really don't react well to dramaboard stuff. More moderately, I should have thought much more about what I was writing at the essay (or not written there at all until much more time had passed). Also should have taken the talk-page step myself. I do still object to Jessintime going to AN instead of the talk page, and I object to the bad-faith-assumptive nature of the accusations, but such finger-pointing is par for the course at AN[I], so I do not need to get bent out of shape about it. Everyone's tempers are perhaps running hot with regard to that RfC and anything even on the same continent as it, so I should have known better.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:57, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

• Userfy: The title of the page implies it's more official than it is, and SMC displaying ownership over it is not appropriate given the implication of the page title. If SMC wants to claim it as "their" page which no one else can edit then it shouldn't be in the namespace that it's in. It has issues, but this is the most apparent one. Hey man im josh (talk) 01:23, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  Repeat: This is not WP:MFD. If you want to forcibly userspace something, that would be the venue for it. For someone joining RK on his "process must be followed at all costs no matter what" crusade in trying to invalidate a community RfC in another thread here, you seem to inconsistently disregard process when it suits your position in our content dispute (i.e. the RfC under review above), which on this subject boil down, from my perspective, to defying clear guidelines and unmistakable sourcing facts to try to get a desired style pecadillo – the exact sort of unconstructive and style-related behavior that is the subject of the essay).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC); revised per complaint by HMIJ. 08:22, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

  @SMcCandlish: For someone joining RK on his "process must be followed at all costs no matter what" crusade in trying to invalidate a community RfC in another thread here... – What in the hell are you talking about? I haven't even voted in that discussion and I've been the one implementing most of the changes to downcase "Draft" to "draft". I've in no way tried to get that RfC overturned and it's ridiculous that you're dragging that conversation into this just because we're interacted. I'm noticing a pattern the more we interact, one where you create your own enemy to argue against and point to, cast aspersions, then act as if you're some kind of victim and we're silly for even discussing this. Focus on THIS discussion and drop the battleground mentality.

  You also said I'm joining in on some process must be followed thing and then you state this isn't WP:MFD. If I'm arguing for userfication, and this isn't the proper venue for such a suggestion, how can I really be joining in on this supposed crusade of forcing process to be followed?

  My main problem with this essay is that it's masquerading as if it's an official FAQ when it has misleading information, tone issues, and discourages users from questioning the MOS. FAQ pages should be community sourced and neutral in their wording, which this is not. Someone tried to revert changes that were made and YOU reverted it telling them to write their own essay. If that's not ownership, then I'm really not sure what is. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:27, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  Nah. It's had an essay-class tag on it the entire time, and essay catetgories (and no longer is linked from various places it was, so your "is" is meaningless). More to the point, it specifically advises, in great detail, the exact proper way to "question the MoS"; it's a short-form manual on how to do it. That said, "questioning the MoS" has seemed to me like rather battlegroundy wording, given all the "questioning the RfC legitmacy" and "questioning MoS's applicability" squabbling in the RfC; I can't read minds and be certain that was encouragement of more heel-digging, but it came off that way. No one would write "questioning the canvassing guideline" or "questioning the MEDRS guideline". This is not AnarchyPedia. We don't "question guidelines". We read, understand, and follow them as long-accepted community consensus. Iff we run into an interpretation or applicability question, a wording clarity problem, a concern that something has become out-of-step with current practice, an observation that something important is missing, a belief that something included should not be, or some other issue, then we take it to the guideline's talk page.

  Deciding to ignore that normal process and instead foment an anti-guideline micro-topical rebellion is the cause of virtually all style-related drama, and it needs to stop. This behavior would never be tolerated with regard to any other guideline (except maybe naming-conventions ones, which are largely just MoS as applied to titles). Imagine people engaging in these sorts of defy-until-I-die antics, complete with blatant canvassing at firehose levels, sourcing denial and falsification, a putsch to try to prevent the community being able to examine the underlying question via RfC, etc., etc., with regard to whether any other guidelines, such as WP:Notability, WP:Categorization, WP:Subpages, WP:Be bold, WP:Plagiarism, WP:Citing sources, WP:Non-free content, WP:Spam, WP:Conflict of interest, WP:Rollback, WP:Linking to external harassment, etc., etc., somehow should not apply to their pet topic. It would not be tolerated for a moment. WP just has a problem of addiction to style-related drama as a form of "debate for sport" or something, and it's a drag on community productivity and collegiality.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:33, 23 February 2024 (UTC); revised to address objection by HMIJ. 08:22, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

• Userfy, no prejudice against MfD. It suggests it's got more community backing than it has just by being in mainspace (in this case, very much a minority viewpoint). And if The questions addressed in this page are not in MOS:FAQ, or vice versa, then they are literally just personal opinions. Undoubtedly based on a good-faith application of experience, but still the equivalent of original research. ——Serial 12:50, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  It is not AN's role to decide to userspace things in response to content disputes. The material in the essay is not a minority viewpoint at all, or we would not have a style guideline and title policy (at least nothing like the ones we have), and they would not be followed by everyone except the tiny handful of editors who keep trying to defy them in particular topics. The central theme of the essay is that the latter behavior is generally counterproductive and often disruptive, and the community is tired of it (which is certainly true; these flare-ups are often labeled "battlegrounds", "disheartening", "demoralizing", etc.). WP:OR applies to factual claims in article content, and has nothing of any kind to do with editors recording their views about internal community processes in essays. Finally, if you think something in the content of the essay is wrong, it has a talk page. If you think something in the content of MoS is wrong, it also has a talk page. This is not the venue for grandstanding about having a bone to pick with MoS. Everyone has a bone to pick with MoS (and would with any other style guide) because it is the nature of style guides to advise a particular answer for the sake of consistency and dispute-avoidance, in a sphere in which actual usage varies wildly, which guarantees that any given person will disagree with at least one line-item in it, and no line-item in it will have agreement from everyone. As with all our other P&G and internal process, it is not possible for everyone to be 100% happy with everything in it; this is the nature of consensus compromise.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  RFCs are also not the standard place for move discussions, but sometimes the validity and content of a discussion outweighs the venue it's at. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:31, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  Go say that in the RFC related discussion above, then. Good for the goose, good for the gander.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:54, 22 February 2024 (UTC); revised 15:29, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

  @SMcCandlish: I'm not interested in participating in the close review above. Perhaps it would behoove you to focus on the current discussion instead of deflecting and focusing on whether this is the appropriate place for such a discussion. Frankly I can't understand why you've dug in so hard on making your personal essay the FAQ. Editors have expressed some very valid concerns and most reasonable folk would at least try to meet in the middle. Hey man im josh (talk) 22:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  The current discussion should simply close. There is no AN issue to address here. If someone wants to (instead of abusing AN) engage in what the normal process is, which is use the essay's talk page to suggest revisions, then they're welcome to do that. If someone's determined to mess with the central message of the essay (that engaging in anti-guideline battlegrounding is a disruptive waste of time and editorial goodwill and that the thing to do if you want to effectuate change in a guideline is propose that change on its talk page – all of which is obviously true), I'll happily userspace the essay, and they can go write their own counter-essay. If someone's determined on forcibly userspacing this just because they disagree with it or they have a bone to pick with me personally, but aren't going to mess with the message of it, they know where MfD is. This is the wrong venue for any of this. If this were any other subject, in the entire history of Wikipedia, this thread would have been closed immediately as wrong-venue and a misguided attempt to get the upper hand in a (brand new) content dispute, instead of engaging in normal discussion. But various people love to drag out any argument if style, titles, MoS, AT, or RM are involved in any way, for some damned reason.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:10, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

  @SMcCandlish: Once again, I urge you to focus on the topic of discussion instead of focusing on the venue and deflecting based on that. Do you not see an issue with the fact you reverted someone and told them to write their own essay? Do you really believe this doesn't come across as ownership of a page that's implied to be official?

  You're acting like talk page was an option when you told them to write their own essay. That's not working well with others and it was clearly implied that you weren't open to changes.

  Why didn't YOU propose the change on the ,tas you're saying they should have done, alk page instead of reverting someone to re-add wording that you were trying to inuce? The Hey man im josh (talk) 03:23, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, I should have just taken it to the talk page (WP:BRD does suggest that the one making the change should do so), and my temper was a little short in that moment for whatever reason. It's also completely normal for essays to have contra essays (WP:BLUE and WP:NOTBLUE and a bunch of other examples), but I didn't need to word it so dismissively, I'll confess. But that is hardly cause for an AN thread. We all get reverted (and counter-reverted) from time to time, but we do not manufacture a noticeboard drama about it, we just go open a talk page thread. WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY matters; there is no policy requirement that the one making the edit some else doesn't like must open the discussion. BRD is an essay, remember, not a policy or guideline, and following it is not mandatory, even if it's conventional. (It is actually rather at odds with both WP:Editing policy (especially WP:PRESERVE) and the WP:Be bold guideline. But also, when it comes to actual article content, more consistent with WP:BURDEN. The community isn't entirely of one mind on this.) Imagine if you will what would happen if everyone opened an AN thread every time someone counter-reverted after a vaguely justified and grandstanding revert? This page would consist of nothing but pointless brand new content-dispute kvetching that belongs somewhere else. AN[I] is a late-stage DR process, not the first step.

  I'm always open to changes; much of what I do outside of content improvement is brokering compromise on guideline changes, to a set of guidelines everyone and their dog wants to change (in completely conflicting ways and mostly to invent new rules we should not have). What I don't take kindly to is a finger-pointing mass-revert of well-thought-out content by someone angry about some style pecadillo (at an essay the theme of which is avoidance of pecadillo activism), which had no substantive justification. It came off as a bad-faith accusation (made more explicit here at AN, without evidence) and an attempt to control the content and thwart the intent of the essay. OWN feelings can run both ways; in this case, it had the feel somewhere between gatekeeping and a partisan takeover in furtherance of the viewpoint of those trying to overturn an RfC closure. PS: The content in question wasn't even about this damned NFL stuff (which was always just going to be a matter of whether "a substantial majority of independent reliable sources" capitalize "draft" in that context; cut and dry). It was mostly about a bad habit of assuming that something "should" be an exception by default instead of defaulting to being consistent, absent strong evidence that an exception applies, especially with titles of published works. I mean, just go read the material. Anyway, I'm sorry that being momentarily testy had me come off as uncivil. I argue forcefully sometimes, but try not to be flippant/dismissive.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:08, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

• Out of curiosity, is there a minimum number of times SMcCandlish has been instructed to post, or is it just good old WP:BLUDGEONing? I mean, this post... in nearly 5K bytes responded to 5 different editors simultaneously! ——Serial 16:58, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  Replying to every point with a wall of text reiterating the same thing in several locations couldn't possibly be bludgeoning! Hey man im josh (talk) 19:34, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  Why is this battleground/bludgeoning behavior over something as silly as proper nouns continued to be tolerated? If anything it's being encouraged. Nemov (talk) 13:35, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

  That's actually the concern the essay is trying to address in the first place. The entire community is tired of grandstanding about capitals, hyphens, italics, or whatever the pet peeve of the day is. But I guess I've managed to word it poorly. It's a simple matter to just go to the talk page of the guideline in question and propose a change, with sound reasoning and solid evidence behind it, and see if consensus agrees (and drop the stick if it doesn't). Instead, some editors seem to prefer using virtually any and all other means to attempt to impose some questionable style quirk in a particular topic and require all other editors to "obey" it, no matter what the guidelines and sources indicate. It too often turns disruptive. The very reason we have WP:CONLEVEL policy is to prevent this sort of thing, but it's been happing quite a bit lately for unclear reasons. The RfC at issue above is actually pretty typical in its underlying particulars, just not in the amount of heat it generated. We don't need a repeat of that heat level.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:05, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

• We should remove the rest of the trappings and wording that make it to appear to have more status than just an essay. (and yes, it still has some of that) Then just leave it alone as an essay. There is no strict criteria for existence as an essay. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:13, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  According to WP:POLICIES, Essays the author does not want others to edit, or that contradict widespread consensus, belong in the user namespace. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:11, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

• I don't really think we need to user-fy it, but if it's in mainspace, it's not SMC's essay no matter how much they contributed to it. Other than the WP:OWN issue, this appears to be a pretty normal dispute about the contents of an essay that should ultimately be resolved at its talk page. Loki (talk) 17:23, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
• Just to clarify a couple points, I'm copying my statement from the related thread at WP:AE. I would like to clarify my statement at AN in regards to "gaming." My belief upon seeing the edit summary used "New section based on various talk-page discussions (user talk, RfCs, RM disputes, etc.)" [49] and the actual content added (which almost everyone at AN has since taken issue with) was that SMcCandlish was effectively attempting to amend a purported part of the MOS amid an article title dispute currently being reviewed at AN. This seemed to run afoul of Wikipedia:FORCEDINTERPRET or "Attempting to force an untoward interpretation of policy, or impose your own novel view of 'standards to apply' rather than those of the community" by amending the MOS to suggest it is inviolable or/and discouraging other editors from questioning it. As for why I went straight to AN, I felt that any discussion at either the FAQ's talk page or the MOS talk page would have been met with the same bludgeoning that occurs regularly at WT:MOS (or has been seen in the ongoing title dispute). I also considered MFD but felt it would be WP:POINTY to nominate it myself given my prior revert. Jessintime (talk) 16:01, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

  @Jessintime: Thank you for clarifying. For my part, I apologize for the flippancy of my edit-summary response to you, and for taking an unnecessarily butthurt tone in this proceeding; I don't respond well to dramaboard stuff, and it's been a stressy week for unrelated reasons. Anyway, to address your points, I do lots of RMs; mentioning RM doesn't make it related to the RfC-related hooey above (which is long past RM, and MR, and RfC at this point – its own weird animal). The essay never purported to be part of MoS, though I guess some kind of confusion about that could happen. (WP has too many different page-top labeling templates, and should get rid of most except policy, guideline, and essay. All the "supplement", "information page", "FAQ page", etc. things are all essays, but not everyone's going to understand that.)

  It's not reasonably possible for an essay that in large part is a handbook on how to propose amendments to MoS and why and where, to be implying that MoS cannot be amended. That's the part of your reaction/interpretation that I still don't get. Even the new material suggested nothing of the sort, and was mostly about avoiding a default presumption that one's favorite topic is a "magical exception"; exceptions require strong evidence. Commenters here have taken issue with the recent material because of its tone, but the underlying points in it, about how process works and what doesn't, aren't at issue. Really, the same principles apply to all of our policies and guidelines (a point I've beleaguered above with examples like no one would say MEDRS or COI somehow don't apply to a topic they like to work on). In my short-tempered state at the time, my undies got in a bunch because you did a blanket (and accusatory) revert that didn't raise any specific-wording issues that could have been worked on. In a different week, I would not have reacted the way I did. Not an excuse; just saying it's not personal, nor my usual approach. I would have taken a talk-page discussion more seriously and calmly, though I can see why that might not have seemed evident.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:04, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you. I appreciate your apology. Jessintime (talk) 22:38, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

• Update: I just did a top-to-bottom tone cleanup on it [50], removing various opinional wording, unnecessary adjectives, statements that might come across as unreasonable dichotomy, most instances of "you" (except where giving direct procedural advice), and most instances of "rule" (except where particularly sensible in the context). It's still too long, but it's better.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:06, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
• I would strongly suggest voluntary userfication, since I don't think that the tone or focus of that essay really reflects Wikipedia practice or policy; it very much reads as written in a single person's voice. I take particular exception to the section What if I don't agree with something in MoS? and the subsection that it is not appropriate to campaign against site-wide guidelines - it absolutely is permissible to campaign against site-wide guidelines; I think that that basic right is guaranteed by WP:5P5 and is therefore non-negotiable. I understand that the way it was articulated comes from a place of genuine frustration, but the manual of style simply does not have the draconian, unquestionable level of force that this implies; parts of it are open to interpretation, parts of it lack clear interpretations or clearly have a variety of accepted interpretations, and not all parts of it necessarily enjoy the same levels of consensus (I would highly WP:WTW as a part whose implementation is highly controversial and lacks a single agreed interpretation on many key points.) Even beyond that, editors are entirely entitled to campaign against anything they wish provided they don't reach the point of WP:BLUDGEON or WP:DEADHORSE - the advisability of such a campaign is another matter, but it is not against the rules for an editor to be "in the wrong" or to hold a minority interpretation on something provided that they know when to stop pushing it and don't actively misrepresent the MoS or the consensus on interpreting it. --Aquillion (talk) 01:39, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

  Userspacing is fine, but you're engaging in equivocation to redefine "campaigning" on-the-fly to mean what you want it to mean (raising objections or proposals, airing disagreement, pointing out interpretation problems, seeking consensus and, as needed, changes; and "know when to stop pushing it and don't actively misrepresent" – all things that the essay actually advises doing and provides advice for doing well), instead of what the essay really clearly means by that term (in short, not knowing when to stop, actively misinterpreting, and/or trying to organize topic-specific defiance instead of consensus building and changes that consensus agrees should happen). Arguing against a fake version you made up, that means in your head various terrible things, instead of addressing the actual text and its meaning, is a straw man fallacy. I'll repeat what I said above: it's not possible for the essay to in large part be a guide on how to effectively change MoS, to simultaneously also be positing that MoS cannot be changed and is inviolable. That's just self-contradictory, and not a word of it suggests anything like the latter. The tone and wording of the essay has significantly changed recently anyway. If you have a specific issue to raise with something it says, it has its own talk page. I'll also repeat that no other guideline or policy on the entire system would be treated the way you seem to want to treat MoS. No one goes around arguing that they have a "right" to blockade the application of, say, WP:FRINGE or WP:SPAM to their topic of focus and to canvass for others to help them do it, rather than address whatever their concerns are at WT:FRINGE and WT:SPAM (or even WP:VPPOL if it seemed warranted).

  Anti-P&G campaigning, as defined in the essay, is against our rules. See WP:CONLEVEL policy and the WP:CANVASSING guideline for starters. To quote from WP:P&G: Use common sense in interpreting and applying policies and guidelines; rules have occasional exceptions. However, those who violate the spirit of a rule may be reprimanded or sanctioned even if they do not technically break the rule. Whether a policy or guideline is an accurate description of best practice is determined through consensus. Exceptions are established through consensus not through defiance and topic-specific walled garden antics. What often happens is that the first half of the "Implement" subsection at P&G is employed while ignoring or defying the caveat that is the rest of it (if there are no objections to the change and/or if a widespread consensus for your change or implementation is reached through discussion; instead, WP:FAITACCOMPLI is attempted too often). Material higher up in that policy is also frequently ignored: because policies and guidelines are sensitive and complex, users should take care over any edits, to be sure they are faithfully reflecting the community's view and to be sure they are not accidentally introducing new sources of error or confusion.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:03, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

I believe piece has been restored. Recommend this report be closed. GoodDay (talk) 21:58, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Edit warring by User:AlNahyan

This user consistently imposes unconstructive edits with vague/pretentious edit summaries ("Fixing grammar and format"/"Format fix"/etc.) [51] [52] [53] [54] And this user's track record involves edit warring behaviors at pop-music articles [55] [56] [57]. This user's main issue is WP:FALSETITLE, which I know is not an official MOS/guide whatsoever, but per WP:STATUSQUO articles that have implemented them before are being consistently messed up by this user without adequate explanations. Ippantekina (talk) 03:05, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

I find this entire situation quite funny as you seem to always be "reverting false titles" non-stop but when told its not an official policy, you ignore the fact and continue doing so.

In addition, "Fixing grammar" and "fixing format" is literally the correct edit summary and not vague because most (not all) of my edits with that summary also include general grammar fixes of the article in addition to removing your reverting of the "false title". Do you want me to write a whole essay on which edits I've done to an article or what?

Also I'm on my phone and having issues logging in, which is why I'm commenting via an IP address. Also editing warring hasn't occured as of yet, just so you know. x 2404:4401:9404:EB00:6829:2AB5:7D28:BD5B (talk) 03:49, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

@AlNahyan: The issue is WP:STATUSQUO. False title is not an official policy, but users who find them useful are free to implement it. The problem is that you disregard this and continue imposing your "MOS" to articles that are fine before. For example, at the article OMG (NewJeans song), which I'm nominating for GA, you jumped in and reverted my edits that disrupted the status quo prior (it has since been reverted by the GA Reviewer). Had you understood the issue I wouldn't have gone this far. Ippantekina (talk) 04:25, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

"your MOS" the MOS in question is Wikipedia's Manual of Style, not something which I just made up on the spot and shoved down your throat.

My issue with people like you who seem to be obsessed with "removing false titles" on every article is the fact that false titles and their existence in general are a subjective thing - many people (me included) believe that removing "false titles" simply don't improve the article in any major way and it makes the first sentence just look odd and incorrect even though it may not me.

Moreover, because false titles aren't actually an official policy, there's not a whole lot which you or anyone can do towards those (me included) who have an issue with removing "false titles".

But I'd like to apologise nonetheless for disregarding WP:STATUSQUO because that was definitely not the right thing to do in this situatio following reflection. @Ippantekina 2404:4401:9404:EB00:6829:2AB5:7D28:BD5B (talk) 07:16, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

(Again) WP:FALSETITLE is not an official policy but STATUSQUO should be respected. Furthermore, I also follow other essas (such as WP:ELEVAR, WP:RECEPTION, WP:PLAINENGLISH to name a few). These essays, alongside FALSETITLE, are not MOS but they are insightful w.r.t more encyclopedic writing. Thank you for your understanding. Ippantekina (talk) 08:04, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

What I see is a lot of groundless reversions on your part, and constructive editing on the part of AlNahyan. In fact, in almost all of those diffs you provided, his so-called "pretentious" edit summary is an accurate description of his edit, which fixed grammar and formatting issues that you and other users subsequently inexplicably undid. What I'm seeing is edit warring and serious ownership issues on your part, to the degree that a boomerang might be warranted. All of this is even before we address the fact that you're using an essay that has not been accepted by the community--in any way--as a justification for your behavior. Grandpallama (talk) 15:35, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your opinions. I really appreciate them :) 2404:4401:9404:EB00:99DC:9214:3496:E663 (talk) 05:28, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

• Sidenote: As User:Popcornfud/The problem with false titles is not a page in the Wikipedia: namespace, I've removed the WP:FALSETITLE shortcut from it. NebY (talk) 13:27, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for doing so. Grandpallama (talk) 15:35, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Close review of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Capitalization of NFL draft article titles

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Among uninvolved editors, there is a substantial consensus to endorse the closure. Among involved ones, there is no consensus. Between the two, the closure is endorsed. Many who argued to overturn the result seemed more to wish to relitigate the RfC, which is not what this process is for, rather than assert that it was closed improperly or against consensus, which would further go against any alteration of the close. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:48, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

---

To start, this has been one of many attempts by a set of users to get the title "Draft" lowercase, going back to at least 2013. The most recent RM on the subject "National Football League Draft" occurred a few months ago and closed against lowercase being the title. A month ago, User:Dicklyon decided that "the large number of football-fan editors compared to the editors who want to respect our style guidelines" at RM was too great – something demonstrably false as a number of football editors supported lowercase – and so he decided to open up this village pump RFC in violation of WP:RFCNOT and prior consensus (not that he can't try again after a time, but it feels like its been happening over and over again – feels like a WP:STICK). The discussion was plainly a disaster; one of the worst and most disorderly proposals I've ever seen. First, not nearly enough notifications were sent out – e.g. NO relevant pages had a notice at the top as required by RM; the NFL project page received a notice but not the also-very active college football project; after the close, one of the most prominent football editors asked "When and where did that consensus happen?" and later noted that it seems "pretty sneaky."
At the discussion, a number of users pointed out that it was an inappropriate RFC and WP:FORUMSHOPPING, which was split out into its own section; by my count 11/15 out of the users commenting there said it was an inappropriate discussion. As demonstrated by the later WT:NFL discussion, a number of interested editors were discouraged from commenting due to the belief that it was going to be rejected as inappropriate. Furthermore, others were discouraged by the EXTREME AMOUNT of WP:BLUDGEONING from several lowercase supporters; User:Hey man im josh noted that three users combined had 192 comments. There is simply no way to come about a consensus when such extreme bludgeoning occurs. The amount of the discussion which was actually editors !voting was about 1/6, a number of which of those were "procedural close" comments. Hey man im josh gave an accurate description of the chaos in this comment; among other points, he noted that:

The validity of the discussion wasn’t established early on. There were a number of users who thought it was an inappropriate forum ... I think as a result some people didn’t participate or comment as much ...
Wikilawyering and bludgeoning the conversation to death was a significant reason why the discussion ended the way it did and I wish MOS discussions were better moderated to avoid these types of outcomes. “These type” being ones that are won by sheer number of comments and wearing people down ...
NFL Draft is absolutely (and clearly) a proper name of an event (in relevant sports sources, aside from ESPN, who is looking into their style guide based on an email I sent) but bludgeoning and wikilawyering has prevailed ...
There are inconsistencies in sources because most sources don't have a style guide they must adhere to, but that doesn't mean that downcasing is actually the proper result ...
It’s sometimes downcased in sources because sources themselves, which often consist of dozens of different writers, are not necessarily aware that it’s a proper name. This is a common problem for events, drafts particularly, that have self descriptive names which are also nouns ...
Inconsistency in sources doesn't mean that something’s not actually a proper name, despite what some are screaming from the rooftops ...
Some people refused to even consider the possibility of a proper name once the ngrams, which are notorious for lacking meaningful context, came out and showed an inconsistency (again, context is key) ...
Several people reached out to me privately to say that the discussion was such a trainwreck and drama filled that they weren’t participating ...

TL;DR: This discussion was an absolute disaster of a discussion – one of the worst I've ever seen. A large number of the participants didn't understand the terms of the proposal, many didn't comment because they thought it was inappropriate and going to be declined, not even close to enough notifications, zero notices on affected pages as required, SO MUCH BLUDGEONING, etc. etc. I could go on and on. But this really was a disastrous discussion to the point that no consensus could possibly be found in my opinion – even one of the supporters (User:Amakuru) later commented that they realized "This was a rare case ... where the raw numbers from ngrams didn't tell the whole story, there was decent evidence that capping could have been appropriate which was amply presented in last year's discussion, and without casting any bad faith ... this decision to go behind the back of the RM participants is a poor one." Whichever way this goes, we are willing to abide by the result (Hey man im josh has actually implemented some of the changes), but in my opinion, this really should be Overturned to no consensus. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:55, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

BTW - Am I seeing double? Why are some individuals commenting in both the uninvolved & involved subsections? Ya can't be both uninvolved & involved. GoodDay (talk) 20:00, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

GoodDay, if one is "involved", is one only allowed to respond to comments by others who are involved? And the same for "uninvolved"? I get that endorsements and overturns are to be segregated, but all responding comments too? It should also be noted that when this discussion was first created on Feb 16, and when I first commented the same day, the sections had more generic titles: "involved" and "involved". These have been refactored into "RFC non-participant" and "RFC participant", which has had the effect of placing my initial comments in the "RFC participant" section even though I was quite clear about the nature of my participation on this issue: I'm not quite sure if I'm considered "involved" or not since I did not participate in this RFC, but I did participate in the 2023 RM and I am quoted above! I'll go with involved. Given that, AirshipJungleman29's admonishment toward me and several other editors (I think the WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour should be taken seriously as a separate issue; it's no wonder this topic is so heated if five vastly experienced editors (Hey man im josh, BeanieFan11, Jweiss11, Bagumba, and SMcCandlish), with almost 1.2 million edits between them, can't even respect a basic involved/uninvolved division.) comes off as rather Kafkaesque. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:44, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

When I made the sectioning I was more thinking to divide the overturn/endorse votes by those who were participants and those who were not; I didn't really see an issue in responding to comments in the other section. BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:43, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

RFC Non-participant comments

• Endorse close the various bad-faith and/or factually-inaccurate complaints about the forum should be discounted completely. An RFC can change policy, and the sheer volume of complaints about the forum prove that there was sufficient notification. Once the "how dare you propose this" complaints are discounted, there is consensus for the move. 217.180.228.138 (talk) 01:59, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse close. This has been a contentious point for years. The RfC sought to resolve the debate and was well attended with spirited discussion on both sides. Having read through the debate, I conclude (a) a community-wide RfC (with input from both American football and MoS editors) was a good way to resolve the issue one way or the other, and (b) the closure by User:The Wordsmith was reasonable.
  As for the concern with "bludgeoning", both sides were quite active in their comments. Compare User:Randy Kryn from the "upper case" camp (31 edits) with User:SMcCandlish from the "lower case" camp (42 edits). I don't see that as a basis for overturning the close. Cbl62 (talk) 02:25, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Bunch of extremely involved editors who should know better than to ignore sectioning ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:09, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

@Cbl62: I wasn't planning to join the discussion, but I think it's more useful to search for signatures as opposed to edits. The page was created part of the way through the discussion and some users replied to multiple comments in the same edit. I think that's a better reflection of someone's participation in the conversation as opposed to the edit count at that page. Hey man im josh (talk) 02:43, 16 February 2024 (UTC) Fair point, but a signature count ends up with roughly the same proportion: 41 for Kryn, 51 for McCandlish. And I didn't see anything that was particularly intimidating or "over the top" in the comments made. Cbl62 (talk) 02:56, 16 February 2024 (UTC) Though then there's also Dicklyon (72) and Bagumba (57); I for one was discouraged from commenting as much as I wanted due to seemingly every single supporter of uppercase receiving a barrage of opposition from one of those three (plus others), something that has continued at the related Talk:USFL Draft discussion. BeanieFan11 (talk) 03:23, 16 February 2024 (UTC) Are we really going to count number of edits/comments by editor here? I think the relevant questions on this matter are simply 1) was this RFC an appropriate substitute for an RM and 2) was there proper notice? Jweiss11 (talk) 04:15, 16 February 2024 (UTC) You labelled "capitalized" examples at Talk:USFL Draft § 2022, 2023 drafts that were almost half incorrect—either shown to be actually lowercase or without mention of the specific term "USFL Draft". The fact that it received responses is a reflection of the factual errors and failure to acknowledge the discrepancy in a timely fashion. Per WP:BATTLEGROUND: Editors in large disputes should work in good faith to find broad principles of agreement between different viewpoints. Discussions are not merely to tally votes without a policy and guideline-based discussion to understand opposing viewpoints. I'd welcome an uninvolved editor to assess the actual non sequiturs. MOS is under Wikipedia:Contentious topics, and the disruptive behaviour needs to be reeled in. —Bagumba (talk) 04:30, 16 February 2024 (UTC) Indeed. The last couple of months have actually shown repeated cases of what amounts to outright sourcing falsification in attempts to WP:WIN in tedious and trivial over-stylization disputes (especially in American in sports topics, e.g. here and here). This is turning into a WP:TE problem, a "let me capitalize stuff just to imply how important it is to fans, or else!" sort of thing. (That said, one assumes it is a product of presumption, selection bias, and inexperience at doing statistically meaningful usage examination, rather than being intentional sourcing distortion for PoV reasons. But the result is disruptive nonetheless.) To claim that editors who provide detailed refutation of such pseudo-sourcing are "bludgeoning" is just a hand-waving attempt to avoid scrutiny and to silence principled objections. In particular, Brandolini's law is highly applicable here: it almost always takes more effort and verbiage to refute provably false claims than to make them. The issue is exacerbated by the habit of many of those in favor of over-capitalizing things to simply repeat their "it's a proper name and must be capitalized!" claims in WP:IDHT fashion after it has already been proven that indy RS generally do not capitalize it as a proper name. Such proof by assertion attempts generate another round of refutation. The problem is further magnified when later arrivals do a "per X" !vote that cites the rationale of the provider of the bogus statements and so-called evidence. Most commenters do not read RfC, RM, and other discussions in any depth, and simply pop off with whatever best suits their predilections.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:58, 16 February 2024 (UTC) On Jweiss11's two questions: Yes, since consensus can form by any means the community chooses, WP not being a bureaucracy. And yes, at first, though the latter rapidly turned into repetitive and activistic canvassing (see extensive diffs in the RfC itself) by a particular pro-capitals party – basically, bludgeoning at a site-wide level. The idea that this discussion somehow had insufficient pro-capitalization input is a fantasy. And the input level really wouldn't make much difference, anyway, since the question was simple: is there sufficient capitalization in the independent RS to meet the MOS:CAPS (and WP:NCCAPS) standard? This was in a no way a question of what people might personally just like the look of better. Though several of them tried to turn it into effectively a referendum on whether editors focused on a particular topic can override WP:CONLEVEL policy to get a result they want, and the answer was of course "no", since the entire point of the policy is preventing editors involved in a particular topic from making up their own "counter-rules" and forcing other editors obey them in that category instead of following the actual WP:P&G and the sourcing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:58, 16 February 2024 (UTC) Despite what WP:BUREAU says, Wikipedia is indeed a bureaucracy. Only a bureaucracy would claim it wasn't one. :) Jweiss11 (talk) 22:13, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse close. It is reasonable to bring discussions that have not reached consensus on the pages involved to a wider audience, especially when they concern application of a global guideline. The evidence and policy-backing was overwhelmingly for lowercase, so even if every gridiron editor was properly notified it shouldn't have made a difference (unless they all invoked IAR, with impeccable reasoning). And as Bagumba noted, it doesn't seem like football editors were all that concerned about "proper procedure" back when the RM for the 2016 NFL draft page resulted in all the draft pages being moved to uppercase without notification or RM notices being placed. JoelleJay (talk) 04:55, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  To be clear, JoelleJay is referring to my comments at the RfC, not here. For convenience, here are links to said 2016 RM and its move review.—Bagumba (talk) 05:31, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn close A bizarre end run around the RM process, that used a separate, poorly advertised RFC instead of a move review, or a new RM. The stated idea for why we needed this novel approach was because this was meant to set some sort of precedent, and yet the ending we get only applies to the NFL. RFCNOT is clear, and this was not the way to go about it. The amount of bludgeoning in that discussion, and every single discussion related to it cannot be overstated: the statistic page for the RfC is unlike anything I've ever seen before. Already, one user (who posted ten times more text than anyone else at the RFC) has posted more text in the "Uninvolved users" section than any one uninvolved user. This is absurd, and something needs to be addressed if this is how MOS regulars are treating pages. Parabolist (talk) 01:13, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse per JoelleJay. Mach61 (talk) 00:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse close I don't see any convincing argument for why application of policy couldn't be discussed at an RfC, and the policy-based reasoning in the close was pretty impeccable. As an aside, I think the WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour should be taken seriously as a separate issue; it's no wonder this topic is so heated if five vastly experienced editors (Hey man im josh, BeanieFan11, Jweiss11, Bagumba, and SMcCandlish), with almost 1.2 million edits between them, can't even respect a basic involved/uninvolved division. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:27, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Hey man im josh, you could have commented in the involved section with a ping to Cbl62. I have no doubt that you have behaved with decorum in general in the aftermath of this RfC, but in this case I do not feel that you did. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
    • Hey man im josh, dividing a close review into involved and uninvolved sections is intended to prevent threaded replies rehashing the previous discussion from taking over the close review. I simply ask that you keep this in mind in the future. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:52, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
• Vacate RFC discussion, list at RM per WP:RFCNOT, which specifically includes Renaming pages. Carson Wentz (talk) 18:51, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse close. According to a excellent essay I recently had the pleasure of reading, its hard to argue with the fact that lots of people knew about the discussion, lots of people contributed and the right people knew it was going on. The venue / namespace itself may have been contrary to community norms, but WP:CONLEVEL is also policy and I can't see a reason to delegitimise the discussion purely for being in an atypical location. Scribolt (talk) 17:24, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse close—per SMcCandlish. Tony (talk) 03:27, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse The idea that a discussion of this size can be void due to insufficient participation is ridiculous. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:39, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  If the majority of comments were from unique commenters, the majority of commenters opined regarding the content question, and the majority of the commenters expressed valid opinions then you would be correct. The first two unarguably did not happen, the last one arguably did not. Thryduulf (talk) 04:19, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse, more or less. I'm not a fan of RfCs circumventing existing processes, and an RfC isn't the right procedure to come to a conclusion about a page move. However, it is a suitable procedure to determine how to apply the MOS, even if there are implied page moves as a result. I read the close as finding consensus for lowercase "draft" and clarifying that yes, that means pages should move, rather than finding consensus that pages should move. The closing statement recognizes various concerns and I tend to agree with e.g. that it was advertised widely enough. Tangentially, however, I'll also express support for more liberally handing out restrictions to people who routinely turn MOS disputes into battlegrounds (maybe even experimenting with a comments-per-discussion restriction if not a tban). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:48, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

  The close was, explicitly per the closer, NOT about applying the MoS broadly. It was ONLY about that specific instance of "Draft". Parabolist (talk) 22:17, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

RFC participant comments

• Overturn page moves per WP:RFCNOT. My view hasn't changed, concerning the matter. An RM should've been opened at the page-in-question, including related pages. IMHO, an RFC shouldn't be used as a substitute for an RM. GoodDay (talk) 01:14, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• I'm not quite sure if I'm considered "involved" or not since I did not participate in this RFC, but I did participate in the 2023 RM and I am quoted above! I'll go with involved. I concur with GoodDay that this change should be conducted via an RM. I'll also note that the "notice" of this RFC to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League was underwhelming: [58]. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:24, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  What exactly are you're expecting for an RfC notification...? That's neutral and includes a link with a self-descriptive title, with further context provided earlier; nothing more should be said in such a notice. JoelleJay (talk) 05:00, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  There was a repeat notification later at 18:31, 6 January, seen now at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League/Archive 23 § NFL Draft RFC at Village Pump.—Bagumba (talk) 05:27, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse close. I don't understand why GoodDay and Jweiss11 and Randy Kryn and BeanieFan11 and a few others want to see this discussed again at an RM. The same evidence and same guideline-based arguments would prevail. You can see an example of a "related" RM (that is, similar issue, different football league) at Talk:USFL Draft. BeanieFan11 is again there posting ridiculously wrong info and then complaining when editors point out the mistakes. His "evidence" make the opposite case of what he's arguing for. Ultimately, probably much more quickly in that case, we'll follow the guideline, as we've done with the NFL Draft RFC. Lawyering about the process slows it down, and wastes a lot of editor argument time, as here; I'd call it disruptive, but we have a long tradition of letting everyone have their "day in court", so that's where we are. I commend the closer of this long mess of an RFC for all did he, other than making us wait a full 30 days when the result was clear weeks earlier. Dicklyon (talk) 05:38, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse close. The purpose of a close review is to examine whether the closer erred, not to relitigate why people would have preferred one outcome or another. The closer did not err here, and despite the length of the discussion, the only actual questions to resolve were quite simple: does the sourcing show enough capitalization in indy RS to meet the MOS:CAPS standard? Clearly no. Is there some means by which the community can be prevented from addressing the question in an RfC (at VPPOL and later stand-alone)? Clearly no. Randy Kryn has been beating a drum that WP:RFCNOT somehow invalidates the RfC or makes it inoperable and just "an opinion poll", but this is a bad misunderstanding of policy. WP:Consensus can form anywhere by any means. RFCNOT (an "information page" essay) suggests, of course, that RfCs are not the usual process for effectuating page moves, which is true. However, this was not an RfC standing in for an RM, it was an RfC to resolve the problem that that a previous RM and a WP:MR after it failed to come to a consensus. That's a perfectly valid reason for an RfC, though it could also have been done via a followup RM. The RfC route netted broader input, so was the better choice, despite all the patently disruptive "shut it down!" handwaving by people unhappy with the predictable outcome (predictable because the WP:P&G on the original question are clear, as is the sourcing). In short, the closer did not err, the process was not broken (despite various parties trying hard to break it, and extensive pro-capitalization canvassing). The closer has stated in user talk that their intent was that the RfC result could just be used as a rationale to move the page in question, consensus already having been established. This is correct per WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY and WP:CONSENSUS. However, it's ultimately immaterial. It's clear that the pro-capitalization camp are going to insist on opening yet another RM about this anyway, so the pointless discussion is guaranteed to continue and waste more editorial community time. But that has no implication of any kind for whether the reasoning in the close is faulty, which it is not.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:09, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse close yeah I thought it was the wrong avenue, but I trust the judgment done on the forum. Plus it evolved into its own page, so I accept the outcome. Plus, I'm not overly bitter about it and I guess I know when the bludgeoning gets really toxic, I just ignore it. Conyo14 (talk) 07:56, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn page moves per WP:RFCNOT, the RfC itself was a good opinion poll but then the next step would not be moving pages but opening a Requested Move. Anything else is WP:IAR without the necessary reasoning of why unilaterally moving pages improves Wikipedia. Reversing the page moves is another topic and not related to this review, and should be addressed separately. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:51, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Weak endorse. I voted to keep "draft" capitalized and I stand by my opinion, but there did appear to be weak policy-based consensus to change it to a small "d." Sound, policy-based arguments were made on both sides but the closing admin got it right in the small "d" side having better support. While RM would have been the preferred way to handle this move, this RFC received significant participation from a wide range of users including consistent contributors to NFL-related articles and those who do not typically edit in this area; this RFC can be considered valid grounds for a page move. Frank Anchor 14:12, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  Changed to overturn after a more thorough reading of RFCNOT. It specifically mentions RM, and not RFC, as the correct venue for a page move. I maintain that the RFC received a large base of opinions from both NFL-regular contributors and people who rarely or never contribute in the area, but when the RFC process page says RFC can not be used for a page move, then RFC can not be used for a page move. Frank Anchor 14:21, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn the discussion on both sides devolved into an absolute mess. As I previously noted, I generally avoided the discussion after a few comments due to the tone. I will also note that the whole "wrong venue" discussion was a distraction for both sides. The original intent of going to RFC was to gather a larger audience. That was achieved but at the expense of a huge distracting discussion. I feel like both sides would be better served by having a cleaner discussion in the right venue (notifications can occur left and right to everyone) to mitigate any ancillary concerns. Seems bureaucratic, but it would seem that both sides would probably prefer to have a cleaner consensus to point to moving forward. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:29, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn. I'm not thrilled with the closer hand waving away the RFCNOT concerns raised in the RFC. I would also like to dispute the idea that the "Pro Caps Crowd" was somehow canvassing when the "lowercase crew" has an entire section of WT:MOS dedicated to canvassing. And of course the bludgeoning issue needs to be addressed. There is no need for any editor to make dozens of comments at an RFC, regardless of which side they are on. Jessintime (talk) 18:05, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  That section at the top of WT:MOS, of current and past style-related discussions, is kept neutral, central, and open to anyone interested, much like automatic and other notifications to Wikiprojects. Canvasing is something else entirely. Dicklyon (talk) 10:55, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse close The review rationale does not identify anything in the close that was unreasonable or against policies or guidelines. The close is detailed and accounted for the major counterarguments, even if it differs from those cherry-picked quotes or what some !voters like. The claim of a "disaster" or bludgeoning mandating a do-over are unconvincing, if not also insulting. Veteran admins are capable of separating the wheat from the chaff, perhaps moreso than some non-admin closers, who might "safely" close with an otherwise unexplained “obvious no consensus”, instead of investing time to filter and assess the valid points. The OP argues WP:RFCNOT, which is from an information page, while WP:NOTBURO and WP:CONSENSUS#Consensus-building are policies. The close gave more weight to policies:

  Analyzing the relative strength of the arguments, those who sided with RfC being a valid venue for this issue have significantly stronger policy-based arguments. ..there is no consensus that the RfC is invalid or inappropriate.

  Circling back to the the review rationale, it has factual errors. The most recent RM was closed as "no consensus" not "closed against lowercase being the title" (see WP:THREEOUTCOMES). The RfC was closed in line with P&Gs. The info page WP:CLOSECHALLENGE states:

  Closures will rarely be changed by either the closing editor or a closure review…if the poll was close or even favored an outcome opposite the closure, if the closure was made on the basis of policy. Policies and guidelines are usually followed in the absence of a compelling reason otherwise, or an overwhelming consensus otherwise, and can only be changed by amending the policy itself.

  WP:POINTY also has some applicable guidance:

  Practically speaking, it is impossible for Wikipedia to be 100 percent consistent, and its rules will therefore never be perfect. If consensus strongly disagrees with you even after you have made proper efforts, then respect the consensus…

  For all the fuss about appropriate venue, nobody has explained how the MOS was applied incorrectly (MOS:CAPS: Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.), or explained how a new RM would present any new arguments. NOTBURO indeed.—Bagumba (talk) 19:23, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Time to move on The RFC was a disaster from start to finish and I suspect there's zero chance that it is actually overturned because who has time to read through all of that debate about proper nouns? The lesson here is bludgeoning and badgering can work in certain situations. The endless wall of text comments certainly obfuscated the issue enough that a consensus was somehow pulled out of the wreckage. Congrats, I guess. It seems like there's more important matters to the project that interpretations of proper nouns. The English language isn't a math equation and treating it like one seems like a waste of time, but YMMV. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 19:50, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn while I generally agree with everything Nemov said, I'm loathe to reward the badgering and bludgeoning by tacitly agree with the close. I've no interest in wasting further energy on a mostly-pointless debate, but for the record I dislike the pompous and contemptuous tone that the MOS crowd takes toward content area specialists. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 19:36, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn per RFCNOT. As others have stated, a clever end-around when RMs weren't going their way, wrought with bludgeoning and simply overwhelming their opponents. The Kip 05:08, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: @AirshipJungleman29, I've stayed out of the conversation except to clarify something and now to reply to a comment directed at me, not to make an argument for either outcome. The page was split off at one point and the "top editors" of the split version does not include pre-split comments and some users replied to multiple comments in the same edit. Not sure it's fair to call that "disrespecting" an involved / uninvolved section or implying that contributes to a battleground mentality. I've spent a lot of time since this close trying to calm tensions and I don't appreciate the implication that I'm fanning the flames and making things worse. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:28, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  @AirshipJungleman29: I had zero expectation of it being an issue for me replying to Cbl62 the way that I did and, frankly, I still don't believe my reply was an issue. I also had no expectation that people would want to communicate as if this were a discussion at arb, where threaded discussions are discouraged between parties. There was no arguing on my behalf or any efforts to influence anybody, I didn't reply again after Cbl62 replied to me. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:46, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  @AirshipJungleman29: My intention was not to rehash the old argument, but I get your point. I also do not believe this is a productive way to communicate between sections and that a person closing a close review should be able to separate the chaff from the wheat if discussions got off topic in spots. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:57, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  @Scribolt: No comment on your endorsement of the close, but uh... According to a excellent essay I recently had the pleasure of reading... – That's a link to an essay you yourself wrote in your own user space that you edited just before replying to this discussion. Kind of strange to imply and link it as though it's another person's essay. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:16, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

  I find this revelation quite humorous. Maybe there's a good explanation? Nemov (talk) 18:41, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

  It sounds like someone loves to toot their own horn. Conyo14 (talk) 19:51, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

  So... you thought my masterplan was to try and mislead people into thinking that was someone else's essay, when it quite obviously wasn't, for the reasons you noted, and my edit summary included the phrase "shameless plug"? I can see I'm going to have to work harder at this subterfuge thing. I wrote it a while back and it expresses my thoughts on consensus, which is relevant to this situation and it expands on my vote here (which is why people link to essays). Scribolt (talk) 20:53, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

  @Scribolt: Well you did reply with "I read" instead of "I wrote". Read has a clear implication of not being something you wrote, which is why I found it comical. I didn't think of some master plan, I just thought it was odd. Keep in mind most people reading through a threaded discussion are not doing so while also looking at the edit history. It's fine to share your essay, but the phrasing really makes it sound like you're linking someone else's essay. Hey man im josh (talk) 23:18, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

• Closing Admin Comment Obviously I endorse my own closure, so I'm not going to make a bolded !vote here. I also hesitated to weigh in, since there isn't much to say that wasn't already explained in the close itself or at User talk:The Wordsmith#NFL Draft. I did expect it to end up here no matter which way I closed it, so I made sure to explain how I arrived at my assessment so that people at AN could understand clearly without my needing to re-summarize the same 4 deciEEng-long discussion here. Firstly, the Xtools page statistics are misleading especially for the amount of text contributed by each editor. The RfC began at the Village Pump and was copied into the separate page by SMcCandlish, skewing the ratios to the point they aren't very useful. Number of edits is a better proxy, but isn't perfectly accurate because some editors have a habit of copyediting their posts which results in multiple edits showing for one actual post. What I did see as clear WP:BLUDGEONING was where the same editor repeats their argument multiple times, with no indication that they took any of the counter-arguments into consideration. For example, the phrases "opinion poll" and "opinion survey" were used a combined 16 times in the RfC page, 14 of them by Randy Kryn to frame the RfC as illegitimate (the remaining two were SMcCandlish quoting Randy to rebut that idea). Randy has continued this framing[59], as well as making other false claims like the close "ignored" WP:RFCNOT when it was specifically mentioned in the close and explained further on my talkpage. I do think Hey man im josh's conduct has been exemplary; it isn't easy to enact a consensus that you disagree with, but he's taken steps to do that as well as tried to de-escalate the issue. Also noting that the practice of dividing comments in a close review into Involved and Uninvolved (I thought we recently settled on "RFC Participants" and "Non-Participants?) is a fairly new one, so it seems reasonable that there would be some confusion on that point.
  I welcome the review from uninvolved editors. Honestly, when I started the closure I expected to to be a complete lack of consensus. As I began filtering out the bludgeoning, writing down the editors and the arguments they made, I was surprised to see a clear consensus emerge based on the strength of the arguments. It took 4+ hours to sort through everything on the RfC and write up a close; I don't think any policy-based criticism reasoning have been raised. The idea that the information page WP:RFCNOT can be "violated" or "ignored" when it is weighted against the policies WP:CONSENSUS and WP:NOT is wildly incorrect and continuing to push it is rapidly veering into WP:IDHT. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 17:40, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  re-summarize the same 4 deciEEng-long discussion here. I approve of EEng's talk page becoming the unit for page length, though maybe a link to the pre-archiving version would be better. JoelleJay (talk) 18:18, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  I actually just put together a draft of User:The Wordsmith/EEngs. It takes a raw page size and compares it against the current length of EEng's talk, so the RfC length can be cited with the template as 0.39 EEngs. I'll update it to be called with a page name directly in the future. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:26, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  "a link to the pre-archiving version would be better" – Sure, if you want to crash people's browsers. LOL.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:24, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  It's laughable to single out RK for bludgeoning while ignoring users on the other side who commented much more in the discussion RK did. Their whole MO is to bludgeon every discussion to the point where people who disagree with them no longer feel like contributing to the discussions. Jessintime (talk) 19:41, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  That was just one clear example of repeating an identical argument over and over, which is why I wrote For example. Other users have already been mentioned here by other comments, including Dicklyon and SMcCandlish and I agree with that. Bagumba also made a lot of comments/replies, but they were fairly short and addressed several different points/asked different questions so I wouldn't characterize their contributions that way. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 20:02, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  Singling me out is fine, and I wish more editors here would read WP:RFCNOT and its use by the Dispute Resolution page as a defining description of what an RfC can and cannot do. It cannot, per RFCNOT, change the title of any page. That duty is assigned to WP:RM. I was convinced from the start that editors would use this RfC to change the casing of titles if a close went in their favor, so pointed out repeatedly, and do so again here, that the RfC was an opinion poll. According to RFCNOT it could not have been anything else. The results, of course, could be reported in a new RM, and the editors who commented at the RfC could be pinged to participate in the RM. But that route seems to have been closed off by editors using WP:IAR to move page titles to lowercase. My question is "How does moving the NFL Draft pages to lowercase improve or maintain the encyclopedia", the criteria for an IAR. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:59, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  As has already been pointed out, WP:RFCNOT is an information page and does not overrule policy. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 01:12, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

  The policy Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#Requested move defines the parameters and process of how a page title is changed. The policy Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#Requests for comment refers to article content, and links to WP:RFC for definition and direction. That page contains WP:RFCNOT, which instructs that RfCs cannot change page titles, and refers editors to Requested moves for that task. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:32, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

  This cherry-picking of line-items from policy that seem like they support RK's extremist bureaucratic viewpoint (that consensus formation is invalid if it doesn't follow an exact procedural course that he prefers) really needs to come to an end. As was already pointed out multiple times in the RfC itself (and I won't re-quote it all here), other elements of the exact same policy, and WP:CONSENSUS, and various others, specifically recommend VPPOL and RfC for resolving failures to reach consensus. The undeniable facts of the situation are that RM (and MR after it) were tried already, and just produced a "no consensus", so the obvious and policy-recommended solution is RfCing the matter, including at VPPOL in particular. There is no form of WP:IDHT and WP:WIKILAWYER (verging on WP:GAMING) handwaving in furtherance of his extremist pro-bureaucracy position that RK can engage in that is ever going to change this fact.

  An important side point is that RK's non-stop habit of re-re-re-repeating the same arguments endlessly no matter how many times they have been demonstrated to be wrong is why the RfC got mired in circular, repetitive argument (and why this AN thread is heading the same direction, as have so many RMs in which RK has been involved to tirelessly promote capitalization that doesn't fit the sourcing or the guidelines). Every time RK repeats the same nonsense, it needs to be dispelled again, which necessitates another post from me or Dicklyon or whoever. RK would not be the first to use this "drown it in noise" tactic to try to trainwreck MoS/AT-related discussions that aren't likely to go their way because of the sourcing and the P&G at issue. The other habitual abuser of this strategy was topic-banned from capitalization and eventually from all of MoS a long time ago.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:46, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  An important side point is that RK's non-stop habit of re-re-re-repeating the same arguments endlessly no matter how many times they have been demonstrated to be wrong pot, please meet kettle. Thryduulf (talk) 12:57, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  Another kettle, and another name calling rant against me by Mr. McCandlish, but where in it does he dispel with examples that titles per WP:RFCNOT means something other than titles are decided by an WP:RM process and not by an RFC? If consensus is not reached with an RM then another RM is called for, not an RfC. And I "drown it in noise?". After so many insults let me at least point out once, please, that walls-of-text are okay to write and preserve for a good record of topic analysis, but consider learning how to say things in just a few less words. Thanks. As for wanting to ban me from discussions to, I guess, make it easier to get your way, that should not be how Wikipedia works, and if someone tried to ban SMcCandlish for repetitive wall-of-texts I'd be the first to oppose it. Better to have a discussion about WP:RFCNOT though, which is the sticking point to where this RfC likely bit off too much and went in a direction of allowing massive title changes without going through the RM process. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:09, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  A bunch of argument to emotion hand-waving about "insults" is never, ever going to dispel the proven fact that you canvassed like mad in furtherance of both capitalization against the source evidence and guidelines and against the ability of the community to RfC the matter (I've diffed it from start to finish, as best I could track it, over the course of weeks). You should have been blocked shortly after that started, and topic-banned. But as usual, as long as style or titles are involved, the admin corps for whatever reason will tolerate unbelievable amounts of disruptive, battlegrounding, advocacy-pushing behavior that would result in action if any other topic of any kind were involved. I have no idea why there's this blind spot, but it's there, and so I'm sure you'll skate without even a administrative warning to never do that again. [sigh]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:29, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

  Another pot-kettle post. When you and others attempt to replace WP:RM with WP:RfC then I'd think that you'd expect some pushback and wouldn't mind it. As for "capitalization against the source evidence", that's for an RM to decide, not an RfC. Yes, it'd be much easier for you to push through things like this if you could choose which editors could comment and which are banned/silenced/sighworthy. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:52, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn based on the considerations discussed in my comments here. The search for perfect capitalization consistency is simply not worth the amount of dispute and demoralization that it has been creating for more than a decade. No criticism of the closer is intended. (I'm not sure whether I'm considered "involved" where I don't edit the underlying articles but I did participate in the discussion, but I've posted in the "involved" section to avoid any dispute.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:48, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  I've updated the section headers per recent practice, "Involved" is intended to mean RFC participants rather than WP:INVOLVED The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 20:06, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

• Comments
  1. The OP, referring to Talk:2024 NFL draft#Requested move 27 April 2023 states: ...closed against lowercase being the title. The RfC closed with "no consensus". The statement in the OP is inaccurate. BeanieFan11, please amend this to accurately the close of the RM.
  2. My observation of how messy a discussion (eg RfC or RM) becomes is directly proportional to the degree of participation. If the subject is contentious, this it is exponential. However, more participation, despite this down side, must be a good thing. The 2016 RM compared with the 2016 MR shows the pitfalls of poor participation.
  3. Kudos to The Wordsmith for wading through this and making sense of it.
  4. Appropriate notifications gather participation. Notification at each year article is unlikely to garner appreciably greater participation than a notification at the parent article, National Football League draft. My mother would say that one has no right to complain unless one is prepared to do something about it and come to the table with a solution. To those making such a complaint, the solution should have been self-evident - fix it. If complainants in the RfC chose to do nothing to remedy their cause for complaint, IMO they have no cause for complaint now.
  5. If editors are going to complain about notifications, was this discussion notified at the RfC page? No. Yet there was a notification at Talk:National Football League draft by BeanieFan11 with pings to selected editors. Perhaps an oversight by still evidence of WP:POTish behaviour.
  6. The 2016 RM resulted in the move of multiple pages without notification to those pages. One editor that specifically advocated this is perhaps the most vocal of those asserting the RfC is flawed for lack of notification. This strikes me as particularly WP:POTish.
  7. In the course of the RfC, WP:RFCNOT was cited once by a participant. WP:NOTBURO was cited among other reasons for conducting the discussion as an RfC. WP:NOTBURO is expressly linked to WP:IAR. The closer has assessed the arguments for RM v RFC including WP:RFCNOT. It has not been ignored. Citing WP:RFCNOT herein is not of itself a substantive reason for overturning the close. The prevailing P&G tells us it is not a trump card that beats all others.
  8. The purpose of a discussion is to elicit different views on a question and to debate those views. Both WP:RMCI and WP:CLOSE explicitly refer to discussions as a debate. A robust debate of an issue tests the validity of evidence and conclusions and, exposes the strengths or weaknesses in arguments. A metric such as number of edits or number of signatures to assert bludgeoning does not consider context: whether the edits reasonably contributed to the debate, whether they were replies to questions or other reasonable contributions. On the otherhand, The Wordsmith observes What I did see as clear WP:BLUDGEONING was where the same editor repeats their argument multiple times, with no indication that they took any of the counter-arguments into consideration, Given Randt Kryn's edits as a specific example (38 signatures in the RfC not including collapsed text). The responses to this edit by UCO2009bluejay really do prove their point.
  9. At their TP The Wordsmith would also refer to: aspersions and assumptions of bad faith,[60] which evidence WP:BATTLEGROUNDy behaviour, which is totally unproductive and should be of greater concern.
  10. Notwithstanding my observation immediately two above, if we are going to consider bludgeoning, then, apart from those already mentioned, we also need to consider GoodDay and (50 sigatures), Thryduulf (43 signatures) [in uncollapsed text].
  11. We have heard enough claims of "opinion poll" and "opinion survey" at the RfC. Repeating it again and again here doesn't make it so.

  Cinderella157 (talk) 02:50, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  No time to read all this, but in response to the ping, I was going by admin @Amakuru: stating that "the difference between 'no consensus' and 'consensus not to move' is largely cosmetic". BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:53, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  BeanieFan11, the distinction may be cosmetic in respect to the effect it has on an article but in a discussion such as this, there is a very distict difference between asserting "no consensus" (there is no clear result to favour either) and "consensus against" (there is consensus not to). Amakuru continues to say: ... our guidelines say that such cases default to the status quo, which is functionally the same as if there's a consensus not to move. The OP could be seen as a misrepresentation of fact, which, if intentional is unethical and inappropriate conduct. Having been made aware of this, the appropriate course is to amend an unintended misrepresentation else it would reasonably be seen as deliberate. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:34, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  Commenting only on the point where I was pinged, bludgeoning cannot be determined by signature count alone. One editor making 20 identical comments is more likely to be bludgeoning than another editor making 40 different comments. In this RFC I was not advocating for or against lowercasing, but arguing the RFC was an improper attempt to overturn the RM consensus, pointing out flaws in some commenters' arguments and/or methodology. Thryduulf (talk) 03:13, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  Thryduulf, where I pinged you, the sentence commences: Notwithstanding my observation immediately above ... [I will amend this] I am referring to point 8. Therein I make a point very similar to what you are saying. While number of comments is indicative of bludgeoning, context does matter. Concerns are being raised in this discussion regarding bludgeoning by certain editors based on their number of comments. I have observed that you should not be excluded from that group based on that metric and consequently, your edits should be subject to the same scrutiny to determine if bludeoning has occurred. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:58, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn. The disregard for all the valid concerns about venue, notices, canvassing, RFCNOT¸ etc. mean this was not an accurate summary of the discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 03:18, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  As I already demonstrated with a large diff pile, the only canvassing (and a whole hell of a lot of it, by Randy Kryn) was was on the pro-capitalization and concern-about-the-venue side (which are the same side, i.e. trying to use bogus venue/process bureaucracy to evade the fact that the sourcing and P&G on the matter were entirely clear and could only have one outcome).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:49, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  I asked you, multiple times, in the discussion to provide evidence for your aspersions against content editors. You did not do so then and you have not done so now. Thryduulf (talk) 12:56, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn. Fundamentally, RFC is not the venue for deciding move discussions, and that's particularly the case when a fairly recent RM discussion which attracted lots of participation was closed without a consensus for making the moves that have now been made. Whether RFCNOT is an essay / information page / whatever else isn't the point here. The point is that we have years and years of precedence for using RM as the venue for making these sorts of decision, and that's the way it's done on Wikipedia. For the closer to assert otherwise and decide they have the right to make the close anyway, and then even accuse experienced editors of WP:IDHT when they point this out, is baffling. The reasons for using RM rather than RFC for moves are several - firstly, it ensures a central listing at WP:RM for all discussions, meaning that they're almost always frequented by those with genuine expertise in article titling policy. Secondly, the bots that run the RM process make sure that the talk page of every article that might be affected is notified, something that didn't happen here. The process can also be used for more broad decisions affecting numerous articles, as we saw at Talk:1872 FA Cup final#Requested move 5 January 2023. So that's the procedural reason for overturning this. Now looking at the RFC more specifically, the discussion was hugely dominated by the procedural aspect of it. More than half the discussion was about whether it was legitimate rather than the question itself and many, including myself, did not really take the RFC to seriously or even cast a !vote because we didn't expect it to ever be binding. Hey man im josh, another RM-experienced admin who also questioned the venue of this discussion, actually introduced some of the most relevant information into the discussion, in the form of evidence that a very wide body of sources capitalise NFL Draft consistently. This evidence may or may not have been compelling, but it was lost amid the confusion around the decision to host the discussion in the wrong venue. Certainly I was forced to shift my view somewhat in response to that and it would have been very interesting to pursue it. In short, the RFC should be voided, and if people want to genuinely discuss this issue, a fresh RM discussion at NFL Draft or similar should be crafted, where we can focus solely on the evidence at hand and come to a hopefully final and correct decision.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:38, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  the bots that run the RM process make sure that the talk page of every article that might be affected is notified: That did not happen at the 2016 RM, when the system was gamed, only one notification was placed for 2016 NFL draft (not even the main draft page), no P&G arguments were made, but a non-admin closer anyways moved all "XXXX NFL draft" pages to capitalization. The last RM was non-admin closed, vote counting non-P&G votes to reach a "no consensus". This RfC was well-attended, and VPPOL arguably has more eyes—and neutral as well. Nobody has identified what new policy or guideline argument will result from yet another RM. —Bagumba (talk) 05:22, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse: Closer used accurate policy and accurately took into account the sides of the debate which was well publicized in the appropriate channels. We don't need forum shopping here when time is better spent improving the project elsewhere. Let'srun (talk) 20:34, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
  • How is this forum shopping? BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:45, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  How was this "well publicized in the appropriate channels" when it wasn't notified to all the articles affected (as is required for move discussions)? Thryduulf (talk) 21:06, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  @Let'srun: I won't argue against your endorsement of the close, but c'mon, forum shopping? Close reviews, and especially not this one, are not forum shopping. You need to do some reading on the definition before accusing others of such. Hey man im josh (talk) 00:08, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

  Excuse Let'srun if they are confused, when no uppercase proponents patrolled the misuse of "forum shopping" previously at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Capitalization of NFL draft article titles § Forum question. On their talk page, the closer, Wordsmith, diplomatically called it an interesting statistical anomaly that no uppercase supporters called the RfC a good forum.[61] —Bagumba (talk) 01:53, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

  Oops, it should have been The Wordsmith.—Bagumba (talk) 01:56, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse per my comments about how it was a good forum in the RfC itself (Ctrl+F). Apart from the forum question, there was a rough consensus to move.—Alalch E. 01:54, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Sporting CP versus Sporting Lisbon

This [62] short explanation was reverted without a valid reason by a SL Benfica advocate. I would ask the administrators to pay attention to the multiple abuses by this user, who has absurd prejudices towards Portuguese football and is against anything that is not in the interests of his SL Benfica. A. Landmesser (talk) 08:18, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

So you made a bold edit, that was already contentious years ago (Talk:Sporting CP#Sporting Lisbon), they reverted it and instead of discussing it, or any other form of Dispute resolution. You take them to the Administrators' noticeboard without notifying them? Nobody (talk) 12:59, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

No, we are not talking about the same thing. The issue with Sporting Lisbon they were taking about is in the top of the article at the very beginning of the text not in the section Crests and motto. My recent contribution was placed in the proper section and has a bunch of references about the topic. A. Landmesser (talk) 23:51, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Your accusations are absurd. On the subject: The section title is "Crest and motto", it has nothing to do with "Sporting Lisbon", that's why I removed that part. It's important to note that (if I'm not mistaken) edits to that article are subject to review because of the "Sporting Lisbon" dispute in the lead. SLBedit (talk) 19:36, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

The crest was changed in 2001 to raise awareness about the Sporting Lisbon error. Since then the crest has the words Sporting and Portugal to refrain people from calling the club Sporting Lisbon. A. Landmesser (talk) 21:57, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

It's not an error. Adding "Portugal" to the crest didn't change anything, as "Sporting Lisbon" is still used. SLBedit (talk) 22:02, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

That's what is said in the subsection Names. It is used colloquially in foreign countries but was banned from official, institutional contexts around the world because in those contexts it was a recklessly inaccurate designation for the sports club. A. Landmesser (talk) 11:11, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

User added the same advocacy to José Alvalade, and I've removed it per off-topic. SLBedit (talk) 20:02, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

The founders didn’t found Sporting Lisbon but Sporting Portugal. A. Landmesser (talk) 22:00, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

That's irrelevant. SLBedit (talk) 22:02, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

A number of small but frequent deletions take place.

A number of small but frequent deletions take place. Many are useful and can be considered cleansing. But not all of them are necessary and, unfortunately, sometimes completely useless. The users' contribution history sometimes suggests reinforcement of the suspicion. I hope someone looks into the matter a little more closely.Arbabi second (talk) 07:59, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Arbabi second, you have given zero context or information. Without anything more, we cannot look at anything. Primefac (talk) 07:59, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

@Primefac

This is widespread. It is enough to follow the latest changes for a while. Arbabi second (talk) 08:04, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

No, it isn't. Primefac (talk) 08:14, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Arbabi second, you say, "The users' contribution history...", but you don't say which user. In order for anyone to understand you need to identify the editor, and follow the instructions in the yellow box above by informing them. If you don't have a behavioural issue to raise about a particular editor then you are in the wrong place. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:11, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Phil Bridger, do you really see the box yellow?— Usedtobecool ☎️ 11:53, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes. It follows the pink box. It displays for me (using Firefox on Linux Mint on a desktop with no customised gubbins) as a darkish mustard yellow, but definitely yellow). Phil Bridger (talk) 12:09, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

I see what's happening now. When I go into "edit section" I get the colour I describe above, but when I look at the whole page without editing I get a pink box. This looks like a bug to me. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:17, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Phil Bridger, ah, I get it now. It's the edit notice that has the same message in what I would call a dark yellow box.— Usedtobecool ☎️ 12:21, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

@Phil Bridger@Primefac

I have had a very sad experience in the Farsi Wiki. In a slightly more serious similar case, when they asked me for something more concrete and I in good faith gave a name that I pinged myself at the same time, it started a absurd process and led to me being blocked for a week. As I have written, it is enough to look at the latest changes. Where we have many (eg: - 14, -46, - 18 ...) . Some of these are very good contributions. In some cases I have thanked for it. But other times these little deletions are just personal taste and sometimes don't taste good to everyone. When you look at the contributor's last active period, you see that there are no edits with a plus sign, but row after row of only small edits with a negative sign. Arbabi second (talk) 11:01, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

But how the [expletive deleted] are we supposed to look at the contributer's record when you won't say who it is? I feel like I'm being trolled here. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:07, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

اربابی دوم, are you talking about Nikkimaria? You don't have to be afraid to name names. We have a much better protection for editors like and you and me compared to the smaller wikis. You won't get blocked just for raising your concerns as long as you listen if people don't agree with you. Regards! — Usedtobecool ☎️ 11:12, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

I was guessing that they were talking about Nikkimaria too. I've reverted their last edit they made prior to opening this AN thread: [63] 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 11:20, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

@Usedtobecool Thanks. Arbabi second (talk) 11:23, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

اربابی دوم, about the edit you reverted, Wikipedia works on WP:CONSENSUS. There is a long-standing, high-level consensus against including the cause of death to the infobox when it does not significantly add value. WP:INFONAT applies about adding nationalities to infoboxes. Nikkimaria removed those details per consensus, using a helpful summary. You can disagree with that consensus but unless you can convince more than half of Wikipedia, you'll have to learn to live with it. Nikki's other edits are almost certainly similarly based on consensus. We can't just go assuming those are bad just because the bytechange is in the red. Now if you have specific edits to list that you think were unhelpful, you can do that. But in general, it's best to just look at the edit summary and try to understand why they made the edits they made. If that does not help, you can go to their talk page and ask them. If you remain unconvinced, you can seek a third opinion (WP:3O). And if you really have to go to a public board, it's best you go to the TEAHOUSE first. Admins only deal with specific reports about serious issues; they can't go investigating any of the thousands of users just because someone has a bad feeling. Best, — Usedtobecool ☎️ 12:07, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

@Usedtobecool

The explanations I have received now are good enough. But such concerns or misunderstandings may occur from time to time. Thank you for the comprehensive explanation. Arbabi second (talk) 12:26, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

اربابی دوم, glad to be of help. Indeed, misunderstandings are inevitable. The answer is always to try and talk with the editor in concern. If that does not go well, we're always happy to help clear things up or offer advice over at the WP:TEAHOUSE where you may find me or far more experienced hosts. Regards! — Usedtobecool ☎️ 12:32, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

@Usedtobecool 😊 Arbabi second (talk) 12:34, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Anze kopitar article

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

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Hello administratiors how is it going? I am Ethan Parker. On the Anze kopitar article in one of the headers it says “Later Career” and I changed it multiple times to “Selke Trophies and Start of captaincy” because I thought it flowed better since he got 2 Selke trophies within that time and was named captain in 2016 and I also tried to mention in my reasoning that Kopitar is still active in the nhl so the word “Later” didn’t make much sense to me. The main accounts that I got harassed by were sbaio, starscream1007, Goodday, 1995ho and Bbb23 especially sbaio. These individuals are completely selfish, narcissistic and manipulative where they would revert perfectly good edits for absolutely no reason. I know I am not the only one that has been through this. I have talked to other accounts in the last couple months who have had similar treatment. Point is, I am a well meaning guy who means no harm and was gaslit and ignored by these users when I tried to explain myself. Starscream1007 actually sounded like a cool guy at first and he even told me to keep fighting my case only to turn his back on me when I asked him to be a character witness for me to prove I mean well. Anyway, thanks for the consideration please look back at some of these articles if you want to see how these individuals are abusing their power and why they should be blocked while I (my account that got falsely blocked a few months ago (gymrat16) should be unblocked. I don’t wish to get other people in trouble but if they are going to behave this badly towards fellow users without reason I believe the consequences should be held on them. Thanks and hopefully I get some help finally to prove my case. 67.254.133.36 (talk) 19:08, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

I (my account that got falsely blocked a few months ago (gymrat16) should be unblocked

…You’ve just admitted to being a sock of a blocked account. The Kip 19:10, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

I was FALSELY blocked because they thought I was some user names Moka Mo. I told up above I desperately tried to tell them that I am a completely different person who had no idea what Moka Mo was and the similarities between me and that user but they never listened. I have tried to explain that multiple times but I keep getting ignored. I was told the next time I could try to appeal this was on February 27th and today is February 27th. 2600:1017:B82F:F1C6:EC8F:6F5C:46CE:761D (talk) 19:16, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

I tried to appeal on the citing system but it wasn’t letting me submit on the UTRS saying the ip address was banned like what else am I supposed to do? I would appreciate it if you helped me out because these accounts I listed are unbearably toxic and narcissistic and cruel people 2600:1017:B82F:F1C6:EC8F:6F5C:46CE:761D (talk) 19:18, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Evading an illegitimate block is equivalent to escaping prison for a crime you didn't commit. It's still going to destroy any chance you have of not being blocked/imprisoned when caught. And I am not interested in reading the same crap you've copypasta'd to three different fora, especially if it's from a patently-obvious block-evading IP who leaves insults in edit summaries and seems allergic to any sort of serious discussion, especially when, from what I can tell, the material keeps getting reverted off as unnecessary cruft. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{Source assessment notes} 19:23, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

But I was falsely blocked for life so I wouldn’t be able to argue my case they know I’m right they just don’t want to admit so and want to abuse their power instead. I had perfectly good edits and when I tried to explain myself I kept getting shut down. What else am I supposed to do to defend myself?! 174.204.140.172 (talk) 19:26, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Prince Edward, Duke of Kent

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

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In the ‘Military Service’ section of this page it states that in 1970, the Duke was a member of the NATO force on the divided island of Cyprus. But the Turks didn’t invade Cyprus until ?April, 1974! He may well have been posted there, but not in the guise quoted. 80.7.2.135 (talk) 07:31, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Invented dates of birth and death by Edgenut

Edgenut (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is doing mass edits to biographies of people from antiquity, inserting dates of death and birth and sometimes other information for which no sources appear to exist, and which seem to be Edgenut's own inventions or estimates presented as fact. Examples: Mucia Tertia, Hiempsal II, Cornelia Postuma (reverting dates back in).

They have been warned about that (User_talk:Edgenut#Bad edits, User_talk:Edgenut#Birth and death years generally), but have not stopped. This conduct is disruptive because it systematically degrades the quality of our articles.

I am asking for feedback whether a topic ban, a block and/or a mass rollback of their edits would be appropriate. In my view, a topic ban from biographies from antiquity is required.

I am pinging people who have interacted with Edgenut on their talk page about this and may have further input: Johnbod, StarTrekker, Ifly6, Merytat3n, P Aculeius. Sandstein 13:18, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Contributors who invent fictitious data should be blocked indefinitely, not just topic banned from specific subjects. Functionally, this is almost indistinguishable from vandalism. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:26, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Classical_Greece_and_Rome#Mass_changes_of_birth_and_death_dates for more detail. I see I was the first to complain to him, within 2 weeks of the account being registered. He doesn't seem to have got much better. Probably we need a topic ban on biographies from antiquity, and perhaps altering/adding dates completely. Johnbod (talk) 13:44, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

• Blocked. Going by the user's talkpage, their defense is "They [the dates] are not all made up" (in the sense that some of them are taken from wikis in other languages, which are of course not reliable sources). Not all made up? The warnings don't seem to be making any impression. I've indeffed. Bishonen | tålk 13:45, 27 February 2024 (UTC).

Thanks for this. It's been extremely time-consuming to revert, get un-reverted, explain, and keep track of all of these demonstrably erroneous changes over and over again, while also abiding by obligations under 3RR. Hopefully we can actually remove the damage to these articles now. Ifly6 (talk) 15:42, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

You have bigger problems with Cornelia Postuma and sources for dates. Volume 1 of Acta Classica is JSTOR i24589251; it is dated 1958 not 1960; there is only article by T. F. Carney in the entire issue, which has nothing to do with Cornelia; and page 74 is an article in Italian by Ettore Paratore about a different subject. Uncle G (talk) 17:16, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I used to run into this kind of vandalism quite a lot years ago and at the time, I thought it was the worst sort of vandalism that could be done. A bad page move or dirty words can be easily reverted but who is going to notice that some Chinese philosopher was stated to have died in 670 CE and it now says they died in 746 CE? These kind of changes take either the article creator or a subject matter expert to even notice, much less correct. If it hasn't been done yet, I do recommend a mass revert of any involved edits. Otherwise, I doubt that all of the changes made will ever be corrected. These kind of articles just don't get the kind of traffic from knowledgeable readers that articles on more contemporary subjects receive. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 08:04, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
  • It is not strictly vandalism. See Special:Diff/1195007658 as one of the contested edits. Everything there in that edit is clearly already in the article. The problem is that Edgenut is an infobox-warrior. And on some, but not all, of the infoboxes Edgenut was interpolating or just outright inventing extra information. As you can see from Special:Diff/1210497354/1210518632 Edgenut was apparently willing to stop inventing information in some of the infoboxes, as of yesterday, but the insistence on having infoboxes, when pretty much none of the information for an infobox is known for these people, remained. Uncle G (talk) 09:47, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Edit warring on D'Arcy Wentworth

The article on D'Arcy Wentworth is the subject of an ongoing edit war regarding unverified claims (from a self-published, unreliable source) that he had a long term affair with Jane Austen that ended when her family blocked it and the characters of Mr. Darcy and Col. Wentworth were named after him. Please could an uninvolved admin step in to adjudicate? 81.174.149.183 (talk) 19:10, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

The person who keeps introducing these unverified claims seems very keen on calling everyone else vandals. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:46, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

The author of the self-published book in question lives in the same area that the IPs geolocate to (and which use the same language in their edit summaries as the SPA that has now shown up to also revert). There's good reason to believe this is a COI situation. Grandpallama (talk) 18:54, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Seeing Special:Diff/1093334907 reveals that this back and forth has been going on since 2022. The disputed content was added to the article in 2020.

On the other side we have "Removed vandalism.", "Remove vandalism", "rm fiction". "The relationship between Austen and Wentworth is a hoax.", "Removed a section about Jane Austen that cited a fake book (false ISBN)", "removed libelous conspiracy theorist falsehoods from the article. Stop restoring this ridiculous crap. It is a terrible blight on wikipedia.", "Reverting con artist lie - and that search brings up a blank page. Jane Austen was thirteen at the time, by the way, and living in rural Hampshire. How exactly did they meet at a party?", and "Huge 100% hoax. The book doesn't exist - the ISBN isn’t real - and the website is highly unreliable.".

It is apparent from Special:Diff/950880377 that 1 person with a conflict of interest wrote not just the Austen stuff but the other problematic prose in the article also called out on its talk page. 1.144.105.121 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 1.129.108.254 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 1.145.112.185 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 1.145.62.39 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 1.144.105.166 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 1.145.52.39 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), and 1.144.105.166 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) all seem to be making this same edit in this slow-motion edit war.

The address range is 1.128.0.0/11, which is too large a range for a block it seems. And unfortunately it is several editors without accounts that are helping to combat the conflict-of-interest edits, and DetachedPeices (talk · contribs) appears to be the same person, and so semi-protection would probably harm more than it would help. This person is prepared to edit war about this for, so far, one and a third years (Special:Diff/1102820283), which potentially means the patience to wait out any full protection.

I'm not really sure what can usefully be done with administrator tools, here.

Uncle G (talk) 15:44, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

• It looks like Ponsonby100 reverted the material a few times, and may have the article watchlisted. An experienced user keeping an eye on the page plus long-term extended confirmed protection would prevent further Austen disruption. Grandpallama (talk) 16:11, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Yes, I have reverted it a number of times. I first became aware of it after reading the book 'Jane and D'Arcy'. To be frank, I don't really mind what the Wentworth page says as I have no interest in him, but it seems wrong to allow the persistent inclusion of material which has no scholarly basis. The editor who keeps inserting it has been unwilling to answer the very simple question - if all this material is properly sourced why isn't it on the Jane Austen page too? I have no doubt that if it was added there, it would be reverted by many more editors. Ponsonby100 (talk) 18:43, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
  • No, it would not. Semi-protection would subtract the contributions of 81.174.149.183 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 96.238.30.75 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), 2406:3003:206B:2E4E:0:0:0:0/64 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), and 24.76.103.169 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) who have been doing the "R" part of "BRD" for one and a third years whilst leaving DetachedPeices (talk · contribs) free to get extended confirmed and keep reinstating the "B" part over and over. Ironically, it would do the exact opposite of getting more people to be able to keep an eye on the problem. More eyes in itself wouldn't stop the slow-motion edit war, anyway, just add more participants to it. The idea is to stop it.

    The problem here is that MediaWiki doesn't let us see nor pageblock Special:Contributions/1.128.0.0/11 (the Telstra Australia range being employed here) but requires administrators to play whack-a-mole with pageblocking 32 sub-ranges just to get the "B" part to stop. The clearly one person doing the "B" part has already used 3 of the sub-ranges. A non-page block would catch too many other customers of the ISP, as one can see from just Special:Contributions/1.129.0.0/16 for starters.

    Uncle G (talk) 02:17, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

    • I suppose the reason it seems to me that my proposal would work is that the SPA is over 480 edits away from being extended confirmed, and since they do nothing but occasionally reinsert the same material, effectively ECP would bar them from the article. Right now, the article is free of the Austen material, so extending ECP would de facto end the slow edit warring. Is there something about that idea I'm not realizing? Grandpallama (talk) 02:46, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
      • Yes. Wikipedia:Protection policy#As escalation from semi-protection and the fact that this addresses the wrong people as I just explained. As Wikipedia:Rough guide to extended confirmed protection#General considerations explains, the right approach is appropriate blocks, and the appropriate block, at least as far as I can see, is a pageblock of the one person doing the "B" edits over and over since 2020, which MediaWiki doesn't let me (or any other administrator) do without starting a tedious whack-a-mole game involving Telstra's /11 range which we can only address as a load of /16s. Uncle G (talk) 03:03, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
        • I suppose this seems like an IAR situation to me, in which the rough guide can't be followed precisely, because it's incapable (as you point out with the difficulty of any potential blocking) of achieving the needed outcome, and a workaround would help; the general considerations even state If semi-protection proves too weak even in combination with blocks that are appropriate, extended confirmed protection can be deployed, which is not too far from the case here. In its current state, you don't need the various IPs who have been part of the R in the BRD cycle, because the article is currently "clean" of the problematic behavior. But I do understand that you feel like your hands are a bit tied as an admin, based upon the links you've pointed out. Grandpallama (talk) 04:01, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
          • When the next "Bold" inevitably comes around we will. Better to include those people without accounts who already have eyes on the article, because it distributes the editing effort to all of those non-administrators. The amount of cleanup needed of this one person's other writing in the article that has been mentioned on the article's talk page would mean that, in the case of extended-confirmed or full protection, that all of that cleanup would funnel through a very few people and tonnes of specific talk page edit requests. The ideal situation, in contrast, is the one "B" person — with the single purpose, conflict of interest, and self-published book — blocked from further edit warring and everyone else free to challenge, cleanup, and improve content. It's both policy constraints and the desire not to tie the hands of the people without accounts, and people with accounts who are not administrators, who clearly want to help. (There are also some people with accounts in that edit history who need to be reminded that just because an edit is made by someone without an account, blanking repeatedly challenged content, it isn't a bad-faith edit to be rolled back or undone as vandalism.) Uncle G (talk) 10:26, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
            • Well put. Grandpallama (talk) 18:08, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
• Sometimes whack-a-mole is the only game in town. I would encourage any good-faith editors reading this to add relevant articles to their watchlists. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:22, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
  • I already put a pointer on Talk:Jane Austen. Uncle G (talk) 10:26, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Israel–Hamas war#Requested move 23 January 2024

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

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This RM has now been open for more than a month. More than 100 !votes have been cast, and more than 30,000 words have been offered. The discussion has been relisted twice and listed at WP:CR, but given its length and contentious nature I am making a post here as well. It would be best if an experienced user, preferably an administrator or perhaps a panel of administrators, closed this discussion. Thanks. InfiniteNexus (talk) 20:15, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

I've had this one on my radar for some time – planning on making a close tonight (or maybe tomorrow), should no one else want to take it. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 23:43, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

 Done :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 20:59, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

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

IPBE request

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

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I am here to request an IPBE. I have been affected by an IP block that prevents me from editing, and the IP address apparently comes from a proxy. I use public WiFi connections a lot, so that might be a reason. I promise to not misuse this privilege and be responsible with it. — Davest3r08 >:) ^(talk) 18:04, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Please see WP:IPBE for instructions on requesting the flag, it generally involves sending an email to the right team depending on circumstances. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:55, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

The Wordsmith, thank you! — Davest3r08 >:) ^(talk) 18:57, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

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

User talk:𝓓𝓮𝓮𝓳𝓪𝔂 𝓚𝓮𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓷 𝓵 𝓮

User is vandalizing, but can't be issued warning because creation of her talk page is not allowed and restricted to administrators, page movers, and template editors because the page title matches an entry .*[^\0-\x{FFFF}].* <casesensitive> # Very few characters outside the [[Basic Multilingual Plane]] are useful in titles. Also the user is not notified of this issue here on ANI, because of the same. Regards, ExclusiveEditor _{Notify Me!} 18:04, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Blocked for self promotion, with a side of NOTHERE. They're welcome to make a compelling case for an unblock Star Mississippi 18:46, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

I created the page and issued a warning, I see the user has also been blocked. I'm pretty sure the username violates policy, but I'm not up-to-date on username policy so I'll leave that to others. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 18:48, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Absolutely breaks policy. Primefac (talk) 19:08, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

There were about five reasons the account could have been blocked, I went the route of less wikilawyering because they can file for a name change, but the conduct is still problematic. If someone feels a different reason is better, feel free to adjust it. Star Mississippi 19:14, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

The reason is perfectly valid. If they do make a good unblock request to deal with the disruptive edit, it would probably need to also be conditional on a name change. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 19:17, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Why was someone even able to create this username in the first place? Those characters should really be blacklisted, even if it was someone trying to be constructive the user would still have to undergo a username change. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:12, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

Someone has to add it to meta:Title blacklist. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:45, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Anyone with access want to do the honors? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:04, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Israel-Palestine conflict topic area indefinite block appeal

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

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I appeal for lifting the indefinite topic ban from the Israel-Palestine conflict topic area. I promise not to engage in heated debates and I will by myself exit any discussion that gets heated in this topic area. ☆SuperNinja2☆ 18:34, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Per the conditional unblock described at User_talk:Super_ninja2/Archive_4#Blocked, you are not yet allowed to appeal this topic-ban, as it has not been six months since the ban was applied; it hasn't even been six months since the indef-block preceding the conditional unblock. The conditional unblock also included an informal commitment to avoid CTOPS in general for 6 months, which this appeal appears to ignore. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:41, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Oh I'm sorry, I thought that the appeal should be within the six months not after. Okay thank you! ☆SuperNinja2☆ 18:48, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Unblock/unban request for Neel.arunabh

• Neel.arunabh (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log)
• Archived ANI discussion

Carried over from UTRS appeal #84399

Neel.arunabh 2024-02-03 00:34:39 I have done the following actions in January 2022, which have got me blocked: 1. Asking Wikipedia to fix facebook. 2. Using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_moves/Technical_requests to revert year-old moves 3. Canvassing random users in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion This is what I will do differently: 1. If there are technical issues with a site, then I will contact that support team and not Wikipedia. 2. If a year-old move must be reverted, then I will use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_moves only. 3. I will discuss my argument in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion without canvassing random users.

Deepfriedokra 2024-02-26 07:08:58 I see this is still unactioned. Please describe what constructive edits you would make. I cannot read Hindi, and I need to carry the request to WP:AN.

Neel.arunabh 2024-02-26 13:44:25 Improve the articles and update the content based on latest reliable sources.

Carried over -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 14:52, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Oppose I don't think this is a credible unblock request given the vast amount of disruption this editor caused. Their description of the disruption they caused seems to focus on three specific issues, rather than addressing the large overarching concerns with their editing. I find the description of the constructive edits they intend to make to be very lacking.

On their talk page they told the admins reviewing their unblock requests that they would be editing sandboxes on other projects while blocked, seemingly as evidence that they can be productive here? Looking at what they've been up to on other projects it seems that on the Italian and simple English wikipedias they have spent the last year making hundreds of edits producing pages of utter nonsense [64] [65]. I'm sorry, but if this is the stuff that they are drawing people's attention to while requesting unblocks it really does not inspire confidence that they now have the competence to be a productive editor here. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 15:44, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Oppose The original ban was for WP:CIR and disruptive editing, but from this appeal you would think they were banned for asking Wikipedia to fix Facebook, and some other technicalities. If the appeal doesn't address the reasons for the ban, then I can't support accepting it. Sagflaps (talk) 17:07, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Oppose - the sandboxes linked by the IP would be an excellent audition for the role of Jack Torrance. For being a productive editor, not so much. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:46, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

@Rosguill: But "all work and no play make Jack a dull boy." I'll see myself out. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:42, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. The issue here (which I remember quite well) was a lack of competence. That's a very difficult block reason to overcome, and the appeal doesn't give me any confidence that Neel.arunabh has done so (nor do the sandboxes...), basically per the 86 IP. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 20:46, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose The canned replies are unconvincing. I feel like they are saying what the manual says to say if you want to get unbanned, but that is it. I'm not at all convinced the CIR issues are resolved. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 04:49, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
• Reply carried over below

Deepfriedokra The current appeal at WP:AN does not convince anyone that I have resolved the CIR issues. So, I adding these comments to convince others now. Looking at the four bullet points at WP:CIR, I am listing every CIR issue that caused a block and what I will do instead. 1. English-language comprehension and copyright infringement: See Rosguill's comment in the ANI discussion: The issue here is copying other people's comments in English without understanding. Instead, I will understand every English-language statement without blindly copying them. 2. Reliable sources: The issue here is using unreliable sources the judge my claim. Instead, I will check the reliability of a website before submitting it to back my claim. 3. Consensus: The issue here is edit warring and bludgeoning the process when I do not agree with the community consensus and also using the sock puppet account OnlyThenDidI and logged out IP addresses to protest against the discussion. Instead, I will accept the community consensus and discuss the matter on the article's talk page and on the editor's talk page. 4. Other disruptive edits: A long list of disruptive edits including the three issues I have listed in the previous appeal. For another example, I first try to delete references to fix reference errors. After being blocked for edit warring, I next try to revert to old revisions to fix the errors. Instead, I will make only a relevant edit that fixes the error or leave it for other editors to fix. I hope this will resolve every CIR issue, and when I resume editing, I will make more productive edits. Neel.arunabh (talk) 07:19, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 12:28, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm not convinced and I still oppose an unblock. As Extraordinary Writ said above, a CIR block is a very difficult thing to overcome, and this reads more like writing out a list of things you think will get you unblocked, rather than showing actual understanding and growth.

One of the best things you can have in order to demonstrate improved competence is a history of trouble free editing on other projects, and I simply don't see that here. I already mentioned the sandboxes above, but let's look at what else you've been up to since the block here. You basically stopped contributing to Wiktionary after being told off by that project's admins for producing rubbish pages, not following the rules and not understanding how a dictionary should be written [66]. On the Portuguese wikipedia you made about 15 edits incorrectly adding pages into non-existent categories, and about 15 edits reverting yourself to clean up the mess you made [67]. On the Hindi wikipedia the largest contribution you have made is this article [68] which appears to be a translation (possibly by machine, based on the broken wiki mark up) of mug, but with all the images and formatting broken. You then proceeded to delete most of the references, because you couldn't get them to work [69]? On the Spanish Wikipedia you have been going the same thing, creating articles which are unattributed translations of English wikipedia pages, (e.g. [70] is a translation of Airline seat) then deleting the references and bits of the article when you couldn't get them to work [71], resulting in a talk page full of warnings about writing improperly sourced content [72]. This does not, in my opinion, show that you now have the skills to edit articles here properly, if anything it looks like you have just started being disruptive in other places. 86.23.109.101 (talk) 13:11, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

• Neel.arunabh sent me two emails in March 2023 following his 2022 CBAN asking me to proxy edit on his behalf. Here's the text. (Timestamps are possibly of Europe/Berlin)
  Dated Sun, 13 Mar 2022, 18:31, Sub: "Move war in Queen", Text: This film has been moved back and forth by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bovineboy2008 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Akandkur. Se the move history at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Queen_%282013_film%29&type=revision&diff=952873778&oldid=952796158, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?, title=Queen_%282013_film%29&type=revision&diff=980455737&oldid=979792462, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Queen_%282013_film%29&type=revision&diff=1031298468&oldid=1031298454, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Queen_%282013_film%29&type=revision&diff=1049822470&oldid=1049496585, and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Queen_%282013_film%29&type=revision&diff=1069835351&oldid=1065156097. And, I am getting unconvincing edit summaries from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bovineboy2008 saying "film premiered in 2013". This should be a "2014 film" since the film was released in 2014. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(films) says to disambiguate films by the year of release. I encourage you to start a discussion at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Queen_(2013_film).
  Following this email, I've reached out to ToBeFree for guidance (User talk:ToBeFree/A/4#Community banned users allowed to email?). The next day, Neel.arunabh sent me the second email.
  Dated Mon, 14 Mar 2022, 18:42, Sub: "Sources for Queen", Text: Courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:ToBeFree#Community_banned_users_allowed_to_email? Yesterday, you posted that the info in question was not sourced. So, today, I am mentioning the sources which say that the film was released in 2014. https://www.filmfare.com/interviews/i-have-faced-rejection-like-rani-in-queen-5549.html https://www.indiatoday.in/movies/reviews/story/queen-kangana-ranaut-vikas-bahl-rajkumar-rao-movie-review-183999-2014-03-07 https://www.rediff.com/movies/review/review-kangana-rules-in-queen/20140307.htm https://www.news18.com/news/india/masand-review-masands-verdict-135-672733.html https://www.filmibeat.com/bollywood/movies/queen/hashtag-tweets.html https://www.deccanchronicle.com/140307/entertainment-movie-review/article/movie-review-queen-film-%E2%80%98golgappa%E2%80%99-stuffed-culture https://www.indiatvnews.com/entertainment/bollywood/kangana-ranaut-queen-success-pics-12435.html I kindly request you to form a consensus at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Queen_(2013_film).
  I hope, this info would shed some light during this request. — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 17:35, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  Forgot to mention, he used WP:EMAIL to send me these mails. I hadn't responded and thus he's, I hope, unaware of my email. — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 17:41, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

• reply carried over

@Deepfriedokra: The diffs in Spanish and Hindi mentioned by the IP 86.23.109.101 are actions that I have performed last year in 2022, and it has been more than six months since those edits, and I have not made those same edits this year. We are interested in my behavior on other projects for the last six months. So, the edits in the last six months were just the self-reverted edits in Portuguese and the sandbox edits. So, I guess I will have to wait for another six months now. Neel.arunabh (talk) 18:05, 29 February 2024

-- Deepfriedokra (talk) 18:08, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Biased Neil Parrott page content added by a writer.

Moved to Talk:Neil Parrott § Biased Neil Parrott page content added by a writer.

Primefac (talk) 19:13, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

User Jalen Folf deleted a page that is clean with resources

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

---

Hi there, User Jalen Folf deleted article that I wrote and that is related to the page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_supermarket_chains_in_Serbia I noticed there that some of listed companies do not have corresponding pages and page that have linked company "Crafter" is linked to the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keirsey_Temperament_Sorter#Artisan with no reason. So I investigated that company and wrote informative page that user @JalenFolf removed. Article was informative with resources as other companies normally have. I require your attention and review. Thank you. Uli085 (talk) 21:38, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I would like to remind that an anonymous user has also opposed this user's edits as promotional material. (diff) This is very clearly a casting of WP:ASPERSIONS on the user's part, and administration should consider a possible WP:NOTHERE clause on the OP. Jalen Folf (talk) 21:42, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

But after you pointed out that the text resembles promotional material, I made the necessary changes to completely eliminate any suspicion that the article contains any interest. Additionally, my intention was to write articles for all the companies that are on that page. I'm sorry that this is a battle with someone who has been using Wikipedia for a longer time and does not allow the content of pages related to Serbia to be found in the public encyclopedia. Uli085 (talk) 21:48, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Good job Uli. You, as a very new editor who has no idea what they're doing, has driven a good editor to both madness and completely off this website. I hope you're happy! Jalen Folf (talk) 21:45, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't know what's going on right now, take as long of a break as you need and know that others are on the case; I hope your day improves. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 21:59, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

But after you pointed out that the text resembles promotional material, I made the necessary changes to completely eliminate any suspicion that the article contains any interest. Additionally, my intention was to write articles for all the companies that are on that page. I'm sorry that this is a battle with someone who has been using Wikipedia for a longer time and does not allow the content of pages related to Serbia to be found in the public encyclopedia. Uli085 (talk) 21:49, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I was going to call this a basic content dispute...but there's not even much back and forth in the page history. I'm struggling to understand why this was reported here, or why Jalen seems so stressed about this report...? Sergecross73 msg me 21:52, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Dear Jalen, instead of showing understanding towards a beginner on Wikipedia, I immediately received a deleted article even though I made the corrections you asked for, which are in accordance with the rules for editing articles. This public encyclopedia is meant for the exchange of knowledge, and that was my intention, not to make you nervous. However, I think it's not right that you persistently delete an article that is in its place. The article for the term "Crafter" was wrong, so I decided to try to write it. I'm sorry this upset you, but let's be realistic, the changes were made, I prepared and researched the text, spent my time only for you to delete it. I live in Serbia, in Belgrade, and I know what I'm writing and what is correct. I believe that my post, and the first one at that, is worth something.

@Sergecross73Sergecross73, I don't know what upset him so much, I wrote the text, Jalen asked for changes which I made, and then he sent a request to delete it even though it's in accordance with the rules. I'm writing here because I can no longer see the article and I don't know who to complain to. Uli085 (talk) 21:56, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

What article are we even talking about here? Sergecross73 msg me 21:58, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

This relates to Crafter, which has been repurposed into an article which both myself and an anonymous user have opposed for notability reasons. Jalen Folf (talk) 22:00, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

I created article on page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crafter as I noticed that on page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_supermarket_chains_in_Serbia "Crafter" is linked to the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keirsey_Temperament_Sorter. Uli085 (talk) 22:00, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Crafter. It used to be an article (different topic), then was merged and became a redirect to Keirsey Temperament Sorter#Artisan. Then Uli085 blanked the redirect and wrote an article on a Serbian company of that name. Schazjmd (talk) 22:01, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks @Schazjmd for clarify, but now I have no idea where are we now? Would you or anybody else be kind to explain. Thanks! Uli085 (talk) 22:04, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Clear content dispute, Jalen Folf hasn't deleted anything, I know a new user might not understand what that means but reasonable people can disagree over when to add red links or spinout articles, and the first step should have been a talk page discussion, again an easy mistake for a new user to make, but that's been clarified now. 184.152.68.190 (talk) 21:59, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

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

Eyes on AIV please

Hello,
Wikipedia:AIV is getting a little stale, could someone go through it, especially the bots section?  Thanks Geardona (talk to me?) 01:50, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

User keeps on making cosmetic, meatbot-style edits after having been asked to stop many, many times

Joe Vitale 5 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) has been discussed before at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive358#User_insists_on_making_hundreds_(thousands?)_of_cosmetic_edits,_refuses_to_stop_or_discuss and that conversation was cut short because he was engaging on his talk page. The behavior there that was disruptive or otherwise inappropriate per WP:MEATBOT has continued and his response to the most recent complaint was mainly about tone and he just kept on doing it, including on pages experiencing increased traffic, which would be particularly disruptive (e.g. Carl Weathers at his recent death). In spite of writing "I will from this point on only do those sort of edits if I’m focused on actually improving an article instead of purely cosmetic edits as you say" a month ago, here are some illustrative example edits out off dozens since then:

• capitalizing the first letter of a template
• capitalizing the first letter of a template
• shuffling around whitespace
• shuffling around whitespace
• adding line breaks that make no difference
• adding a DEFAULTSORT that is identical to the page title
• shuffling around whitespace
• shuffling around whitespace
• capitalizing the first letter of a template
• adding line breaks that make no difference

And lest you think that some of these spates of edits are just part of some larger meaningful changes to an article, this is the outcome of 11 edits and this is the outcome of 19 edits. Etc., etc. He has been asked by many users to stop on many occasions, said he would, and hasn't. As far as disruption goes, it's hardly the worst, but it is annoying to look at your watchlist (or, as I do, my email inbox and RSS feeds) and see what I think are actual edits and then have someone doing three dozen cosmetic edits to move around whitespace. If I'm wrong here, I'll just drop it, but I think this is actively unhelpful and disruptive editing, so I would like an admin to intervene, as nothing so far has been effective. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:58, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately, rather a large proportion of editors these days seem to do nothing much but this sort of stuff. They are manageable on mobile, where bigger edits perhaps are not. Johnbod (talk) 16:05, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Have they explained at all the why behind their edits? Is it an expression of obsessive-compulsive disorder, for instance? It does look like that this is the primary (maybe only) edit type that the editor is engaged in. -- User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:07, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

This is the rationale and this was some elaboration (note that I don't want to explicitly state anything and encouraged the user to ask for revdel in case he decided that he didn't want this publicly disclosed). ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:10, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

There is a known overlap between autism, and OCD. They can even be misdiagnosed for one another due to their similarities. It hurts me when things don’t look perfect to me (I especially love even numbers). Which makes my hairline deeply depressing, but perhaps the former is something I should look into.

Incidentally, I did improve the Poppy article which makes this scrutiny feel harsh, but don’t trust myself to make big edits as I often make mistakes. I even misspelt critical on it which is ironic, given things. But that would happen a heck of a lot more if I did large or even moderate edits. I fork up too much.

Thanks, Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 17:42, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

@Joe Vitale 5: My suggestion to you would be to add a spoonful of sugar to your editing. Something similarly menial, like filling out and fixing broken citations (there are a lot of 'em!), might be a better outlet for your energies than edits that other people might find irritating. (The more otherwise productive your editing is, the more people will let you get away with invisible standardization edits.) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 18:30, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Well, I am an autist myself, and there is no shortage of useful things to sperg about on here. Give Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss or WP:LINT a spin if you want. I'm also trying to fix a bunch of really old Signpost crap -- Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Technical/Index validation#2015 shows 85 articles that need to be tagged (using User:JPxG/SignpostTagger.js) which would be a huge help if somebody did. jp×g🗯️ 22:30, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

And 143 in 2016! jp×g🗯️ 22:30, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Spelling is not a strongpoint for me — hence why I try to update redirects, and stuff like that. There are a lot of old links to things that need changing. Like Edinburgh Fringe Festival to Edinburgh Festival Fringe. I do little stuff like this which I think helps as it is the real name of it. Also changing associated acts to either current/former member of or spinoff from etc. I did that today with the Libertines article then removed the whole associated acts thing as it doesn’t show. If there was a way for me to turn off people getting notifications for my extremely small edits then I wish there was an option for that as I’m not trying to ping everyone every time that I edit, and think that’s more disruptive than the edits themselves. Thanks, Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 13:36, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

putting this out there: Hundreds of articles have sources in another language. If you were to run the titles through Google Translate or Deep-L and add the results to the references (as a trans-title parameter in cite reference templates or in a parenthesis in references that don't use it) that would be very helpful for source verification, even if the results come out a bit stilted. Just a though. There are a lot of these kinds of changes that you could make even if you don't want to do content work. Just a suggestion. Elinruby (talk) 22:45, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

Off-topic

Jól vagyok és nagyon éhes vagyok. Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 09:26, 26 February 2024 (UTC) akkor egyél ;) Elinruby (talk) 13:18, 26 February 2024 (UTC) See, no one hates me here but Justin lol. Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 00:13, 27 February 2024 (UTC) Why do you write things like this? I don't hate you. You also explicitly ask others to assume good faith and then you write this. Why? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:31, 27 February 2024 (UTC) I don’t hate you either. I think that you’re a marvellous fellow. Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 00:37, 27 February 2024 (UTC) That doesn't answer my question. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:58, 27 February 2024 (UTC) Honestly, there’s no reason to feed this, Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 01:12, 27 February 2024 (UTC) That still doesn't answer my question. I would like it if you would retract your claim that I "hate" you. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:28, 27 February 2024 (UTC) We can’t retract anything on the internet. Best, Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 01:37, 27 February 2024 (UTC) You can, but you choose to not. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:38, 27 February 2024 (UTC) Joe Vitale 5, if your intention is to strike the "hate" comment, but a lack of technical know-how is stopping you, I'd be happy to assist. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:24, 27 February 2024 (UTC) It’s alright, I was being facetious . Not the best place for humour here really but I was again being facetious. Justin is obviously well-established on here, and I hope means well but I do wish I was what other people wanted me to be. Because I am a dunce. Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 05:58, 27 February 2024 (UTC) That wasn't funny. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:28, 27 February 2024 (UTC) Then may I please ask your forgiveness? Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 06:44, 27 February 2024 (UTC) Please stop. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:44, 27 February 2024 (UTC) I shall. Say, do you happen to like Marmite at all? Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 08:14, 27 February 2024 (UTC) Please stop. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:35, 27 February 2024 (UTC) We found the fellow that doesn’t like Marmite, Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 08:56, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

• I'm seeing enough evidence here for a final warning about cosmetic, or slightly harmful, edits. I plan to warn also about engaging with criticism without being facetious. Unless there are objections, I plan to close as such within the next 48 hours. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:38, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

  Why are they harmful? Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 19:42, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

  Joe, I'm trying to determine whether a warning is sufficient or if a block is needed. To ask a question like that, after all the explanations of other editors, is to suggest that a warning may not be enough. I am hopeful that you can re-read this discussion and the ones one your user talk page and come away with a plan for how to avoid disruptive edits in the future. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 00:04, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks Firefangledfeathers. I noticed the comments here some hours ago and thought they needed a response but was too lazy. Sealioning or good faith: it doesn't make any difference what the intention is, it has to stop. Johnuniq (talk) 00:39, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

  I tried to talk to him and he apologized to me which of course was not the point at all. I told him this was the place for that and he logged off. I get the impression of someone quite young, except he has been around for a while, which is confusing. I would suggest maybe waiting to see what he does when he comes back on. Or not. You've got experience with this stuff. But that's my thought, and Firefangledfeathers has beenso patient that I am still hoping it worked (?) But I agree, I totally see the problem and apologize for apparently triggering it. Elinruby (talk) 09:08, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not in a rush. I don't think you have anything to apologize for. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:56, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

  Sorry lads, I had drank too much, and was sending you all up. It was intended as my own idiosyncratic humour but obviously descended into chaos instead. I again wish to reiterate that how I edit is via ticking things off in a small way so that I can personally understand what I’m doing. Unfortunately, that seems to tick certain people off instead. I’m sorry that my editing style doesn’t fit in with what people would like but I am genuinely struggling to see how I can change this. Please don’t block me for this admittance, I just genuinely ruefully am struggling. Best wishes to you all, Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 13:47, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  I can appreciate how my “OCD behaviour” is irritating however, and no I don’t think that Justin hates me. It just feels like, at least to me that he has been on my back far too much but if I have been personally irritating to him then I have to accept that viewpoint, and I’m sorry, Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 13:50, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for the apologies and explanations, Joe. I'm not available to really process and respond, but I will be in about half a day. Interested in seeing how others respond. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:49, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  Hi Joe, thanks for speaking up here. I was worried about you. Hopefully the editing while drinking will stop? As you can see it is a bad idea. Meanwhile, a series of small construvtive edits can be irritating to other people {as I know) but if the edits are constructive then the issue is theirs. The constructive part might also be an issue according to Justin. I certainly would not have chided you on your talk page about 15 notifications for on-topic remarks. My offer to help you find things other than whitespace to edit does stand btw. Elinruby (talk) 18:13, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  May I thank you for being so magnanimous? I never edit whilst drunk but felt personally attacked which made me play up on here when I shouldn’t have, and obviously that was extremely poor behaviour. Hope that you’re well, Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 18:37, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  I mean obviously, the problem lies within myself, and that’s why I did indeed play up. I think that I’m an awful perfectionist, and saw how certain things were done on here, and tried to copy them. Hence the reason for so many I guess pointless edits. I just genuinely want every article that I edit to look the same way via those means, and again, I still appreciate how that pisses people off. Best, Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 18:56, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  That's an admirable goal, and I think (like others have suggested) there are ways that you can scratch that itch and improve the project without pissing anyone off. If I might throw my own suggestion in, converting bare links into proper citations, repairing dead links, and fixing citation template errors are small, routine changes that tickle the right parts of my brain. They're easy, don't require too much interpretation, and have a visible improvement on articles so editors are very supportive of them. I'd be happy to point you in the right direction if you're interested. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 19:14, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  Honestly mate, I don’t have the technical know how but may I also thank you for being magnanimous yourself? Best, Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 19:18, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  No technical know-how is required. We can give you a very short set of instructions for the particular task. But I will be quiet now and let other talk. So should you btw as somebody out there is probably wondering about impulse control. Elinruby (talk) 19:25, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks, Joe Vitale 5 (talk) 19:27, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  The great thing about it is you don't need much technical information. Most of it is finding articles in the maintenance category, opening the bare URL, and turning the bare link into a citation template (usually {{cite web}} or {{cite news}}) by filling in the title, author, date etc. There's plenty of information at Wikipedia:Bare URLs and I honestly think you might enjoy it. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 19:28, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for writing that. I definitely don't hate you. If you like making successive small edits, maybe you can copy and paste entire articles into User:Joe Vitale 5/sandbox and make as many itty-bitty edits there that you want and only if/until you make some non-cosmetic change, you can paste it into the original article (assuming that you aren't overwriting real edits made by others in the interim)? And maybe if you see that you have not made any actual substantive edit, you just don't paste it back in? ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:27, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

  Either that or use the preview button. --JBL (talk) 21:45, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Joe, I'm warning you that you need to stop making the following types of edits, all of which are solely cosmetic and do not affect the article as displayed to readers:

• Adding or removing whitespace or line breaks
• Changing the case of templates
• Adding DEFAULTSORT that matches the article name

I've pasted this list at your user talk page, with more specifics on what the warning does and does not cover. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:37, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2024

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2024).

Administrator changes

• Sdkb
• The Night Watch

• East718
• Isabelle Belato
• Mzajac
• Staecker
• Stan Shebs
• Sugarfish
• Tamzin

Bureaucrat changes

SilkTork

Guideline and policy news

• Phase I of the 2024 RfA review is now open for participation. Editors are invited to review, comment on, and propose improvements to the requests for adminship process.
• Following an RfC, the inactivity requirement for the removal of the interface administrator right increased from 6 months to 12 months.

Technical news

• The mobile site history pages now use the same HTML as the desktop history pages. (T353388)

Miscellaneous

• The 2024 appointees for the Ombuds commission are だ＊ぜ, AGK, Ameisenigel, Bennylin, Daniuu, Doǵu, Emufarmers, Faendalimas, MdsShakil, Minorax, Nehaoua, Renvoy and RoySmith as members, with Vermont serving as steward-observer.
• Following the 2024 Steward Elections, the following editors have been appointed as stewards: Ajraddatz, Albertoleoncio, EPIC, JJMC89, Johannnes89, Melos and Yahya.

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• Discuss this newsletter
• Subscribe
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Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 12:22, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Requesting a second opinion

A few years back I semi-protected the article Milli Vanilli, given my logged rational it appears that I intended this to be only for a few weeks. The block originated as part of a hammer and anvil maneuver brought about User:Jroccolv breached the NLT policy in attempting to navigate our COI guidelines with regards to her information which as you can see on both the history of the article and the user talk page did not go the way I think she was expecting. The other day I got a talk page message from a User:DaiMadAboutIt requesting a drop in protection. I don't have a good reason to maintain the protection on the article, so I dropped it, however I am suspicious about the latter account as its been here for less than a year and has only made 10 edits. I'm AGFing here, but in light of all of this I'd like to request a second opinion from the admin corps on whether this seems odd, off, or otherwise suspicious. I'll note for the records that the former account has not in any capacity I'm aware of requested unblock since the original failed request, but did post up on twitter to complain about the block, calling me out by username, which means I'm technically an involved editor here, but I'm still a little unsettled by that low these years later which is a factor in this request for a second opinion. (Noting that since I'm requesting a review of my action, I've left no messages with the other accounts as of this posting, however if need be I can double back to do so if they are judged to be needed.) TomStar81 (Talk) 19:59, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

I think unprotection makes sense. At a glance, if the new account gets into the same topic as the blocked one, it'll probably be pretty obvious. For the record, I don't think someone criticizing you on Twitter makes you involved. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:05, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

I think dropping protection in response to that request is fine. It appears DMAI made a protected edit request almost a month ago and it's been ignored, I can see why that would be frustrating. It seems like your request for a second opinion is based on your unease about this editor; if so, I don't think you can justify not notifying them of this thread. I don't see any reason to be suspicious, myself. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:08, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you very much for taking my request seriously. I'm new to editing on here, and not especially adept in coding or anything tech related. I was just researching something and fell down a hole. And when I found an odd line of text in the article it bugged me but I was going to ignore it. Until I opened another link from the main article and found the matching line of text by coincidence. I understand if you don't want to take the UnProtection request and open the article, but if you read my comments on the talk page you'll see I attempted to list the edit, and it's source materials there. (Badly and I could edit my comments or delete them, so it's a mess but shouldn't be difficult to figure out)

I don't know if I'll even be able to do the edit correctly, and I know I'll get called to fix something, but thank you for listening and considering my request. DaiMadAboutIt (talk) 20:35, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

User Loservilleas repeatedly ignoring guidelines

Moved to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents § User Loservilleas repeatedly ignoring guidelines

Primefac (talk) 13:08, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

User:20 upper rename request

Resolved

20 upper, who has a history of blocks and was unblocked two months ago under strict conditions, now wants to change their username to Wolverine XI. I’m here to check if the rename request complies with the unblock conditions or if there are any objections from the AN folks regarding this rename. This is just a global renamer inquiry, and 20 upper is aware of this message, so I haven’t left any notice informing them about this thread. If needed, please let me know, and I will be happy to leave them a message. Thanks. – DreamRimmer (talk) 05:51, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Informed 20 upper about this discussion. – DreamRimmer (talk) 05:56, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Does not violate unblock conditions The full discussion is here. The question is whether the renamers consider user as still "under a cloud" or trying to obfuscate. I don't think that they are. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 20:11, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to a rename but I would suggest that they disclose their previous username on their userpage. Spicy (talk) 20:13, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

I was rather sceptical about unblocking this editor but renaming the account doesn't affect any of my doubts, and there's nothing in the unblock conditions to preclude it. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:39, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

I concur with the above, and do strongly recommend the user notes their previous username on their user page. --Yamla (talk) 20:45, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

They said somewhere, my talk I think, they'd do so. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 22:27, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone for your responses. – DreamRimmer (talk) 12:12, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Rename request  Done Thanx to all. - FlightTime (open channel) 15:07, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Petition to amend ARBPOL making it clear they have jurisdiction over crats

Please see WP:VPP#Petition to amend ARBPOL making it clear they have jurisdiction over crats RoySmith (talk) 17:48, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Protection needed on Visegrád 24

Request already put in at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Increase, however, I am doing this post here as well given the subject of the article, Visegrád 24, posted on X to have people change the article ([73][74]) and a flood of new accounts have been editing the article, in spaces related to the Israel-Hamas war and Russia-Ukraine war and disinformation in those wars. Can an administrator protect the page, at least semi-protection given the COI editor flood. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 23:20, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done, an interesting one, half of the article is under one ECP area, and the other half is also in an ECP area. Don't think I've seen that before lol. Galobtter (talk) 23:47, 2 March 2024 (UTC)